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It was always the best and the worst part of vacationing; the hotels. Sure, it was always nice to flop down on a freshly-made bedspread after a long day of traveling and just relax without having to worry about any chores or other things one would have to deal with at home. But, it was also that unfamiliar nature that proved to be troublesome. Many hours could tick away while tossing and turning beneath the scratchy wool blanket provided to guests, any visitors unable to sleep in such a strange location unless they were completely tuckered out.
Despite those drawbacks that all travelers dreaded, Cecil Palmer seemed to love hotels.
Carlos supposed he couldn’t blame him, it was certainly better than backpacking and staying in whatever hostel happened to be closest. Though, he did not expect Cecil to get all dewy-eyed in that childlike way of wonder he tended to have when Carlos told him about the world outside Night Vale as they pulled up to and entered the hotel.
They had been traveling for hours at that point and evening was just beginning to settle over the lands. If they had been back home in Night Vale, Cecil’s show would have just been starting right about now, but they were not, so it was not. Or, if Station Management wasn’t being too fickle, an intern was leading into the show with an announcement about how Cecil would be gone for a few days. Either way, it didn’t matter to him. What did matter was that he had finally persuaded his dear boyfriend to take a bit of a trip with him outside Night Vale, just to let him see what it was like out here and how it wasn’t just full of wheat-loving, margarita glass-using miscreants.
Hell, maybe he could finally persuade him that snow and mountains were actual things too while he was at it!
First thing was first, though, and that first thing was showing Cecil all the various amenities a hotel had to offer, including one of his personal favorites, the pool.
Carlos had given the both of them a few hours to settle in properly—relax, have a light dinner consisting of food from the nearest restaurant, those sorts of things—before went to check to see if the pool was even open that late at night. No sense in hyping Cecil up about it only to find it closed, after all. Luckily for him, it was open and, even luckier, entirely empty. Upon finding that out, he rushed back to their room where he found Cecil on his hands and knees on the floor, peeking beneath their bed.
“Hey Cece,” He started as he approached his seemingly-busy partner, still not quite used to all of his odd practices, including this one, “what’re you doing?”
Jerking his head up, said reporter grinned up at him sheepishly, having not noticed him enter the room until he began to speak. “Why, I’m just looking for the complimentary corpse that’s left under the mattress by the previous guests, of course.” He said as though it would be the only reasonable explanation for him to be hunting around beneath their bed. “Oh, that reminds me, if you see any wild animals nearby or rude people—especially if said people happen to be rude to you in particular—do let me know. It’s only fair to keep this train of kindness rolling.”
Oh boy, this was going to be a looong discussion. But, it could always be saved for later, though preferably before Cecil snatches some poor fool off the streets for mocking his hairstyle.
Sighing, Carlos pushed his glasses up with his hand to rub at his face, wondering just how many times Cecil is going to say something Night Valian during the course of their trip. “Cecil, honey,” It was a sentence fragment that Carlos has found himself saying far, far more often than he would like to, a gentle way of talking his boyfriend down from whatever happened to be the most recent mad idea that’s wormed its way into his brain, “there is so much wrong with what you just said that I’m not quite sure where to start. So I won’t. Later though, you better believe I’m going to take what you said apart and prove that it’s wrong out here. Scientifically, if need be. Anyway,” He said, hurriedly changing the subject before Cecil had the chance to protest how killing something and shoving its dead body beneath some poor stranger’s soon-to-be mattress was right, “that’s not what I want to talk about right now. What I do want is for you to get your swim trunks unpacked and on so we can go swimming. I know you never get to swim in Night Vale what with the whole ‘lack of water’ thing, so I figured this could be a nice change for you.”
Now that definitely got him distracted from his nonexistent corpse hunt. Straightening himself back up, Cecil settled back on his rear, looking worriedly at Carlos, who had begun rooting through his own belongings for his swim trunks. “A-are you sure about this?” He inquired as he rubbed at his arm nervously. Just with the short amount of time that they’ve been outside Night Vale today, he found that the outside world was far, far too different than what he was used to for his liking. Everyone around them in the restaurant was eating some form of wheat or its by-products, which, by itself wasn’t too surprising. There were still rebels even in Night Vale, after all. But no, the really strange thing about it was that none of it was transforming into poisonous snakes or spirits or anything of the like. Not only that, but the waitresses weren’t bobbing their heads to unheard music, whispering a request for a check into the drinking glass did nothing, and there were no semaphore flag-bearing officers by the streets.
It was all so strange to him, too strange, in fact.
“I mean, won’t there be other people there, people who’ll stare at us?”
Cecil’s worry was certainly something that wasn’t lost on Carlos. Out here, out in the normal world, their relationship was still considered taboo in most places, something that should never be allowed out in the eyes of the public. And, when it came to someone as odd as Cecil, someone who would attract the eyes of any nearby observers with his sheer bizarreness, there was pretty much no way they would avoid gaining attention were they to go out together. Finally finding his pair of swim trunks—a dorky thing covered in test tubes and atomic models—he made his way over to Cecil, putting a comforting hand on his shoulder. “Don’t worry, Cece, I already went down to check and there was no one down there. We’ll be all alone there and won’t have anyone watching us. Let me just go in the bathroom to change and we’ll head right down, alright?”
At the minute nod Cecil gave him in response, he smiled gently before heading over to the bathroom to change, figuring Cecil would find his own outfit and change within the time he was gone. After a few minutes, just to make sure Cecil had enough time to change, Carlos emerged from the bathroom, a towel tucked under his arm, and grinned at his partner, who had a towel of his own draped over himself. After a few encouraging coos and pecks, he managed to shepherd Cecil down to where the pool room lay, making sure to grab their room card on the way out.
“See? Just like I told you, empty as the void of space.” Carlos said once they arrived, dropping his towel near the pool’s edge before easing himself right in, not bothering to use the stairs at the shallow end. A quick dip made the acclimation to the sudden chill of the water easier.
“The void at least still has stars lurking within its depths.” Cecil countered, hesitantly padding along after him, though pausing where he had slid in, still clutching his towel to his skin. “This is just plain emptiness.”
“Then we can be its stars, our own little binary star system away from any prying eyes that wish to study us. How’s that sound?” Managing to get his body to stop shivering in protest from the cold water around it, he finally jerked his head up at his partner, finding it odd how he still had the towel tucked around himself. “You gonna hop in, Cece?”
The latter question cut off his answer to the one right before it, causing him to metaphorically swallow his tongue in a heavy gulp right when he was about to set it wagging. “U-um, I will, just… no laughing, alright?” Upon receiving both a confused look and a nod as an answer, he finally allowed the towel covering up most of his body to drop to the floor.
And Carlos immediately drew in a sharp breath in surprise.
Sure, there were those hideous red-and-black plaid trunks he had on. With those, it was really no wonder how Cecil didn’t want to be seen by anyone else. Surely, he had to have some sense of what was right and wrong in the fashion world and, surely, plaid swim trunks like that had to fall in the second category.
But no, that wasn’t what really took his breath away.
Despite dating for several months now, the two of them have had yet to see one another wearing anything less than the clothes they chose to work in. Carlos figured coaxing Cecil into a pool would be a good way for them to get a bit more familiar with each other, though in a far less intimate way than sex which, quite frankly, he thought would make Cecil damn near faint at this point.
He wasn’t expecting Cecil’s chest, and presumably back, to be covered in tattoos, however.
All over his skin, there were tendrils inked into countless numbers of cells, as pitch black as the void they were just discussing, offering a pleasant visual contrast to the creamy skin around them. Some had suckers running down one side of them, others were smooth and featureless, but all were frozen in the act of coiling or curling or flailing in an act of thrashing. Pearls or gems or some other sort of precious treasure lay in the grips of some, tentacles clutching to their possessions with the aggressiveness of any beast trying to protect its hoard.
The man was a walking piece of artwork, one he couldn’t believe had been hidden away all this time right under his nose.
With all his open-mouthed ogling, he didn’t notice Cecil clutch at his bare arms, fingers searching for the comforting cotton that was there only seconds before. “…It’s bad, isn’t it?”
That managed to jolt Carlos back to his senses and he quickly shook his head, his whole body, in some effort to make Cecil see that he really did enjoy his appearance. “Of course it isn’t! Cecil… Cece, come here.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Cecil eased himself into the water along with Carlos, instantly swimming towards his outstretched arms and snuggling close against him, body trembling violently. “C-C-Carlos, you didn’t warn me it was going to b-be this c-c-cold!”
Drawing his partner close to him, Carlos guided them over to the edge of the pool, letting them have something to lean against while Cecil’s body got accustomed to the cold it was no doubt unused to. His hands made their way to Cecil’s back to rub against it as his partner’s tangled in the thick, but sparse, hairs partially covering his upper chest. “Come on, Cece, it’s not that ba-“
For the second time that day, Carlos found himself rendered speechless by Cecil’s abnormalities.
Now, with contact to water, the gems and orbs flickered to life, glimmering with some sort of bioluminescent light he had only seen on creatures native to the deepest, darkest reaches of the sea. They even rivaled the lights set in the bottom of the pool, radiating shimmering waves of light that had just the slightest tinge of purple to them.
Glancing down at this biological anomaly, Carlos found it difficult not to kick into scientist mode then and there, to ask a million and more questions to Cecil about the origins and makeup of this ‘tattoos’. But then, he remembered that he was on vacation, a vacation dedicated to the very boyfriend he was about to turn into a guinea pig, no less.
That was enough to rein himself in.
Instead of inquiring about them, he simply chalked it up to another of Night Vale’s oddities for the moment, a little reminder of home when they were so far from it. He pulled Cecil in closer to him, pressing a gentle kiss against his forehead.
“Looks like you really are a star placed so delicately within the void after all, Cece.”