crack_van | tentacles in fortunate places, by novembersmith (R)

Fandom: WELCOME TO NIGHT VALE
Pairing: Cecil/Carlos
Length: currently 2 chapters, combined wordcount 8,993
Author on LJ:

novembersmith
Author Website: on Tumblr; works on AO3
Warnings: fluff, semi-public sex, frottage, handjobs, oral sex, embarrassment, tentacles, non-human genitalia, spermatophores
Notes: spoilers for “First Date” (ep. 27), written before “Cassette” (ep. 33)
Why this must be read:

Yep, it’s another incomplete series, though as usual each chapter can be read on its own. These are very funny, very sexy stories in which a virginal Carlos repeatedly finds himself at a loss when dealing with Cecil. The typical anxieties that any socially awkward, sexually inexperienced person might face when dating are compounded by the peculiarities of life in Night Vale. First, there’s what Carlos finds in Cecil’s trousers in chapter one, “(nothing) could be better”:

Cecil’s pants, instead of containing a erect penis similar to Carlos’s own, as Carlos had fervently hoped, gave with bizarre ease, like gelatin or hot wax. The whole area caved in and then, there was no other word for it, started writhing.

Carlos flailed backwards, yelping, and, then, to add insult to injury, had somehow honked the car horn in his shocked retreat.

Now denizens of the drive-in movie theater are all glaring at their car, Carlos and Cecil are in their separate respective seats, and Cecil is miserably eating popcorn and refusing to make eye contact.

Even when things start going right, they still go wrong:

...there’s a hard rap at the window.

Cecil, because he is apparently evil incarnate, leans over and rolls the window down and beams out at the interloper. Carlos, his eyes rolled back in his head, respiratory functions offline, motor skills non-existent, elects to respond to this new stimulus by hiding his face in Cecil’s neck and panting. He thinks he should be embarrassed, but it’s hard to think, let alone worry that Cecil thinks less of him for coming in his pants like a teenager, or about anyone else altogether.

“Excuse me,” says a dried, bored voice. “You need a permit for PDA in this place of business, and there’s there’s been complaints about bio-light—” The voice cuts off.

“Oh my god, oh my god,” the member of the Sheriff’s Secret Police says, flashlight waving around wildly. “Oh my god, Mr. Baldwin, Mr. Scientist, I am so sorry.”

The fun continues in the second chapter, “all the requisite parts,” as Carlos tries to figure out what constitutes appropriate Day After behavior and whose advice he can trust:

Colony #12 of sand spiders had finished reading through their copy of 'String Theory for Dummies,' and were waiting to hear all about his date. They had all agreed Cecil really was the most thoughtful significant other, and thought it was very kind of him not to have bitten off Carlos’s head and laid eggs in his quivering corpse.

“So romantic,” Colony #12 had vibrated encouragingly together, atonal but somehow harmonic. “Bring him meat, bind him, bind him!”

Happily, between Cecil’s patience, Carlos’s doggedness, and their mutual infatuation (“You just look so lovely, all flushed and emanating pheromones”; “Cecil, Carlos reflects, makes him feel like maybe there’s a point to poetry”), their prospects are good.

tentacles in fortunate places on AO3 (link to series page; podfic version of “(nothing) could be better” linked in that chapter’s notes)