Cecil walked through the emptied halls, alone and silent, similar to his feelings following the meeting that he had just had with Professor Dubois in regards to the school's radio station. Hands sunk deeper into his pockets as he tried and failed yet again to deliver a plausible solution to raise enough money to keep the station running. His shoe scuffed the floor, his eyes followed the lights down the halls, his legs made the unconscious left turn out the door to the English hall. The walk to his dorm was, in reality, a mere five minutes away—a god-send when compared to most university campuses—but, for Cecil, felt like he was walking far, far away from Night Vale. Maybe he was, if it meant that he could find someone that could help him with the problem he was now facing.
Dana, the radio station's president and manager, sped out of the meeting right as soon as it was over, calling over her shoulder that she may have an idea that could help, but Cecil knew that it wouldn't. None of the ideas that either of them had come up with had helped thus far; they only prolonged the inevitable shutting down of the station.
Defeated and tired, Cecil finally returned to his dorm and set his mood back to a more cheerful spectrum as he opened the door and was greeted by the sight of Carlos doing some homework on their small coffee table in their small den area. His laptop was hooked up to the television, the Netflix home-screen waiting patiently. Cecil knowingly looked to his left in the doorway and saw an unpopped bag of popcorn in the microwave and leaned over to start the machine that would very quickly produce his only dinner for the night.
He walked over to the small couch and leaned onto the armrest in order to peck Carlos's cheek. This caused his boyfriend to look over with a smile and pull out his earbuds, casually tossing them next to his iPod on the corner of the coffee table.
"Hey," he greeted, making Cecil genuinely smile after the long day that he had just had.
"Hey," Cecil returned as he slid over the armrest to plop right next to his boyfriend. "Is it my pick tonight?"
"Uh huh," Carlos told him as he stashed his pencil in the center of his textbook, placed his notebook inside, and shut the whole thing as much as possible with the extra paper being stored inside. Cecil got up and moved over to the laptop stand, which was really just one of their dining table chairs, and began scrolling through his queue.
After another minute, the microwave beeped and Carlos stood to grab the snack for them. Cecil pressed play on the movie that he had queued up about a week ago whilst Carlos sat down on the couch, leaving the popcorn on the coffee table for Cecil to grab once he was snuggled up close to Carlos's side. One arm wrapped around Cecil's shoulder and the other dived into the bowl for its golden food.
Carlos noticed that it didn't take Cecil very long to fall asleep, thus missing the second half of their movie. Although, he didn't care because he knew that Cecil was having a difficult time lately with the radio station on campus.
Suddenly, Cecil's phone chimed in his pocket. Carlos carefully reached over and slid it out so as not to wake his sleeping boyfriend. He clicked it into vibrate before looking at the message.
It was from Dana, a mutual friend of theirs. She was asking if Cecil had any last minute ideas for funding since hers didn't pan out.
Carlos felt extremely bad for Cecil and for Dana as well. The radio station was well-loved by many in Night Vale but, with the university losing money quickly recently due to unrelated issues, they had to start cutting costs. Unfortunately, one cost that they could easily cut was the station's broadcasting. Unless the team could raise the money needed to put on the shows, the station would be no more in a couple of months.
Looking at the text one more time, Carlos came to think about various fundraisers that he has come to known throughout his years of high school and college. Of course there were the classics like the car washes and bake sales, both of which the Radio Team have attempted already. The bake sale of course always worked pretty well due to college students' popular demand for good food, dissimilar to the car wash since no one had cars here except professors and off-campus students. Raffles, cake walks, carnation deliveries, and even donation boxes around campus all came and went without very much profit. Without making more than $50 each fundraiser, the team won't be able to reach the cost at the deadline.
Whenever Carlos asked about how the team was doing, Cecil always gave him a brave smile and assured him that everything was going well. However, Dana was not as optimistic as the host and became depressed at the question.
All of Cecil's ideas had been great: bachelor(ette) auction, hosted dinner dance, poetry slam, darts tournament, trivia night, doggie de-stress day. The only problem was that not many people were willing to come out one night with class, homework, and jobs that weigh down on university students' shoulders.
If only there could be one night where everyone wanted to get out together and help the station, Carlos thought as he looked at Dana's text once again. What if… he trailed off.
Quickly, Carlos unlocked Cecil's phone and typed out his idea to Dana. He read it once through for mistakes. Have the team ask the student union to co-host the End-of-Term Festival … set up tons of different areas just for the station … fulfill some of the ideas that they've already tried to do or couldn't do … use the money earned everywhere to pay off expenses and hopefully make profit!
It sounded perfect and Carlos sent it through to Dana. Minutes droned on and on after Carlos sent the text even though Dana only sent it a few minutes ago. He began to get worried that it wouldn't work or that Dana wouldn't be able to convince the student union.
Carlos drifted off to sleep, Cecil still snoring softly against his side.
Knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock, knock.
The banging on the door persisted and slowly woke Cecil up from his slumber on Carlos's chest. Well, that and Earl, one of his roommates, yelling, "Will somebody please get the door?!"
As he rolled off of the couch, Cecil rubbed his eyes and pushed his hair back off his forehead. The knocking continued on and Cecil grabbed the knob, throwing open the door. Before he had time to address who was at the door and gust of wind shot by him and started talking to him.
"Cecil! You are an absolute genius! This is going to work and we're gonna make enough money to keep the station!"
"Wha?" Was Cecil's intelligent response and was eerily similar in tone to Carlos's sleepy "Wha's goin' on?"
The guest, as Cecil's vision came into view as he finally adjusted his glasses correctly on his nose, was Dana and she was extremely excited, but about what Cecil didn't know.
"You have today off right? It is Friday right? Yeah, it's Friday. Okay, so since you're off, we're gonna scout today. That means student union, getting together ideas to put on, gathering supplies—volunteers! See if any other people will volunteer to run the areas. Shouldn't you probably write this down? Oh! I'll type it all up and print it out for everyone on the team! Where's your computer?"
Dana looked pointedly to Cecil. Cecil looked blankly at Dana. Carlos watched on from the sofa. Earl had gone back to bed and was humming softly to drown out the noise in the living room.
"I," Cecil said and stopped. "What's going on?"
"You're idea about the Festival," Dana told him slowly. "I wouldn't have come over so early but you never answered your phone last night after you texted me."
"I didn't text you last night," Cecil said.
At this point in time, Carlos stood up and addressed Dana.
"Oh, that was me from Cecil's phone," he told her. "But I fell asleep afterwards and didn't hear it vibrate."
"Wait, what did you text her about?" Cecil interrupted, looking exasperated.
"I'll tell you on the way!" Dana told him. "Carlos you have class right?"
At Carlos's nod, Dana continued.
"Okay, then it's just us today. First stop is the student union. They open in 20 minutes and we're going to be their first appointment."
With that, Dana and Cecil were out the door.
Canvassing for supplies and volunteers did not take long and finally the End-of-Year Festival was underway.
Dana had laid out schedules for each of the radio team members and the volunteers at each of the booths throughout the day. She was especially kind enough to schedule Cecil and Carlos' breaks simultaneously for some much needed alone time together. Although, before the final schedule had come out, Carlos asked Dana for a favour.
Which is what Carlos was on his way to execute now.
Carlos walked along the North Hall lawn towards the area dedicated to various booths of classic carnival games, including the one that Cecil was manning for the next half-hour.
As he approached, Carlos saw that the line was fairly long. People were crowding around in order to watch and laugh at each kiss that Cecil gave out in the Kissing Booth. Carlos saw Dana walking over to stand next to the booth, but not before she winked at Carlos. Suspicious, he pulled out his schedule and looked at Dana's times for manning booths, which was mostly all day, except for the same half-hour as Carlos' break right now. He rolled his eyes and he folded the sheet back up and stuffed it in his pocket.
The line was quickly becoming shorter, but Cecil hadn't yet noticed Carlos. Once he was second in line after a girl who he didn't recognize, Carlos leaned out from behind her and gave Cecil a wink and a wave. Cecil's face donned a huge smile as he turned to take the dollar from the next client. After the kiss, the girl left the line and Carlos stepped forwards.
"Carlos," Cecil said as he put the girl's dollar in the cash box. "What are you doing here?"
"I wanted a kiss."
At this Cecil huffed playfully and rolled his eyes. "I give you free kisses all of the time."
Carlos just smirked, pulled a dollar out of his pocket, and placed it on the counter. Cecil again rolled his eyes. They leaned forward and kissed for a couple of seconds.
After they pulled apart, Cecil playfully said, "Alright, next customer."
Without a goodbye, Carlos left the queue only to return to the end of it again. He waited for the line in front of him to dissipate until he was once again standing in front of his boyfriend, holding a dollar.
"Carlos?" Was all Cecil could think to ask.
"Looks like I'm the next customer," he told him.
"You dummkopf," Cecil said as he leaned in to kiss Carlos yet again.
Cecil was taking German this semester, and Carlos recognized the word meaning "idiot", making him smile into the kiss.
After separating, Carlos yet again left the queue and re-entered it. He did this a few more times eliciting responses from Cecil, such as "Seriously?", "Don't you have something better to do?", and "Where did you get all these ones? Have you been stripping without me?"
Dana stayed throughout Cecil's entire shift, which featured Carlos a grand total of twenty times. She kept to herself, though, only giggling at Cecil's perplexed expressions. He once looked over at her and asked why she was still here since her shift at this booth didn't start for 15 minutes. She shrugged and told him that it was her break.
By the end of his shift, Cecil already formulating a plan to get back at Carlos for his Kissing Booth fiasco. And it was a perfect plan.
At 6pm sharp, Cecil and Carlos were scheduled to appear in a bachelor(ette) auction, so Cecil stopped by his dorm room beforehand, telling Carlos that he would meet him at the auditorium.
The minutes were counting down. Carlos watched as Dana paced from one end of the back of the stage to the other, looking over everyone's shoulders, making sure that everyone had the right tuxedos on, and that everything was set for the big auction and dinner. And, currently, the only thing that was not all set for the start of the auction in less than five minutes was Cecil himself.
"Where is he?" Dana asked Carlos for the nth time in the last half-hour. "We're starting in a couple minutes and he needs to get dressed, get makeup, and get his ass on stage!"
Carlos looked out the center fold of the curtain at the crowd all gathered in tables and chatting with each other. They had to start the auction on time because they still had to serve the dinner and they had a huge dessert planned for afterwards.
"I don't know," he answered Dana's question. "He said that he would meet me here almost an hour ago."
Dana was livid. "Well this is our big festival moneymaker, so he better get his moneymaker up on this stage in 5 minutes!" she almost yelled.
Suddenly, Carlos and Dana turned their heads towards the curtain, from behind which they heard the crowd at the tables cheering, applauding, and whistling in excitement. They curiously peeked out the curtain again, only to see Cecil, fully dressed and made up, weaving through the tables and up to the stage. His face was beet red, but he was smiling and waving at the audience as he ducked behind the curtain.
"Oh, you are so lucky that you're dressed already," Dana fumed as she strode over to the latecomer. Carlos chuckled as Cecil froze like a deer in headlights, causing Cecil to shoot him an angry look as Dana walked past him to go out on stage and introduce the show.
Carlos meandered over to his boyfriend, who looked pretty frazzled, and started adjusting his bowtie and flattening his windblown hair.
"Where on Earth have you been for the last hour?" Carlos asked out of curiosity.
Cecil merely smirked. "You'll see soon enough."
At this, Carlos gave his boyfriend a sideways glance before hearing Dana call Cecil onstage.
"That's my cue!" Cecil said before planting a kiss on Carlos's lips and sweeping through the curtain.
Carlos watched from the side of the curtains as Cecil took center stage and started waving to the crowd.
"Night Vale's very own radio host!" Dana introduced. "Come on over here, Cecil, and remind the audience of that voice that we heard and morning."
Coming up to the microphone, Cecil paused for dramatic effect before saying in a deep and slow voice, "Hello, listeners."
The crowd went wild in almost literal terms. Everyone was cheering and applauding; even Cecil and Carlos's roommates—Earl Harlan, Steve Carlsberg, Michael Sandero, and Marcus Vanston—were giving loud wolf-whistles and trying to be generally obnoxious. It was all in good fun, though.
"Why don't we start the bidding at $100 for the lovely radio host?" Dana encouraged and got a bid in the way back of the room.
Down in the front, Marcus—being the richest kid on campus and always flaunting it—called out, "$150!"
"Alright, we've got $150, can I hear $200?" Dana pressed on. After a couple of calls from more bidders (and Marcus a couple of times just to pull Cecil's leg), the bidding was up to $600.
"We've got $600, can we get $650?" Dana announced. "Anybody for $650?"
"Here!" came a cry from the front in usion with a cry from the side.
"$700!" the person from the side countered.
"$800!" the front cried again. This went back and forth a couple of times, before the person on the side won the bid at $950.
"Going once! Going twice! Sold for $950!" Dana had shouted. "Come on up, you lucky bastard."
Once the person was on stage, Cecil could finally see them without the lights for the stage blinding him. It was Simone Rigadeau. She had been Cecil's study partner and good friend in their second year Modified Sumerian class.
"I've got my Sumerian final next week, so you're gonna be holed up in the library for a while," she said into his ear over the loud cheering of the audience.
Cecil laughed and told her, "We'll see how much I remember. I only took it one semester for my language credit. And that was almost two years ago."
Simone laughed and patted his chest as they hooked arms and began to walk off the stage towards Simone's table. "You better remember! I spent $950 on making sure I ace this final," she joked.
"Alright!" Dana called the audience back to attention. "Let's bring out the next bachelorette. Maureen! Get out here!"
Intern Maureen stepped out onto the stage shyly. She was definitely blushing and wasn't quite sure of what to do with her hands or where to look.
"How about we start the bidding at $100 for the sweet and talented Maureen?" Dana announced.
"$100!" came a call from the front and then the sound of jeering laughter. Dana squinted towards the table and saw former Intern Chad and his other buddies laughing and mocking the auction of Maureen.
Dana was pretty good friends with Maureen and knew that her and Chad had broken up rather suddenly after dating for almost a year. Maureen had never confirmed it to Dana, but she was almost completely assured that Chad had abused Maureen. After they had broken up, Chad dropped out of the internship program and insisted on spreading awful rumours about Maureen.
"Okay," Dana said quickly. "That's a no to the bid from Chad Bowinger. Is there a bid from anyone better?"
Maureen failed to stifle a laugh and Chad slumped back down into his seat as his friends continued to laugh, but now at him.
A couple of other people bid until the auction came drawing to a close at $300.
"Awesome!" Dana exclaimed. "That is $300 for Intern Maureen. Come on up to the stage."
Maureen turned very red at the sight of Michelle Nguyen striding up the stairs, walking across the stage to put her arm around the small of Maureen's back, and waved at the crowd before leading Maureen to her table.
"What a cute couple," Dana cooed, causing Maureen to look back at her with a glare. Dana merely laughed.
The night passed with all of the studio interns being auctioned off and then finally coming down to Carlos, since he wasn't technically a part of the radio station, but he was there all of the time, and he especially didn't want it to close, for Cecil's sake.
"Alright, alright!" Dana said over the cheering crowd. "Last, but certainly not least, is the radio station's resident scientist! Carlos, get your butt out here!"
Carlos stepped out onto the stage, taking deep breaths as he went. He blushed slightly and waved at the crowd. He could hear his Chemistry lab buddies—mainly just Rachelle and Dave, who are exceptionally loud, but but also Nilanjana and Stan as well—cheering and shouting science-y things, like "Do you have 11 protons? 'Cause you're Sodium fine!" (from Nils) and "Are you made of Nickel, Cerium, Arsenic and Sulfur? Because you've got a NiCe AsS!" (courtesy of Rachelle).
"Okay, calm down there science nerds," Dana called out cheerfully. "Let's begin the bids at a hundred bucks, even though Carlos looks like a million in that tux!"
Once the bids started rolling, Carlos was shocked at the price. He didn't really expect more than $200, maybe $300, but he was to almost $600.
"600? Let's hear 600!" Dana pressed.
"$650!" a voice from the side called out. It seemed strangely familiar and Carlos assumed that it was going to be one of his friends or somebody from class.
A couple more bids against the person on the side didn't deter them, though, as the price went up to $750 and Dana called it.
"$750 going once! $750 going twice!" she said slowly. "Alright! It goes to the high bidder of $750! Get on up here!"
Carlos rolled his eyes so far that they could have become stuck facing the wrong direction when he saw Cecil bounding up the steps with a shit-eating grin on his face.
"Oh ho ho!" Dana laughed. "It seems that everyone's favourite radio host has purchased the scientist! Now, you two better not do anything risqué tonight! I've got my ion you! Get it Carlos? Ion?"
Carlos meant to laugh but he was looking right at Cecil, who raised his eyebrow at him. Cecil quickly pecked Carlos's lips and waved to the crowd, who was cheering exuberantly, and walked as far as left stage.
"What a fun night!" Dana exclaimed. "Sadly, everything has an end—"
"That's true, Dana," Cecil said right as he grabbed the microphone from her hand. "Everything does have an end, but tonight's is not now, as we have one final auction to sell! Everyone, give it up for the radio station's manager and former intern, as well as your M.C. tonight—Dana Cardinal!"
The audience cheered and clapped as Dana said, "You jerk" only loud enough for Cecil to hear. The remark rewarded a smile from the new host.
"Let's hear $200 for the host," Cecil told them. "It's a little pricey to start off, but trust me, folks, she is worth it!"
The bids skyrocketed to over $1,000 quickly enough and soon Dana's auction came to an end for the highest bid of the night.
"Wow, what an auction this is!" Cecil exclaimed. "Going once! Going twice! Sold for $1,250 to—is that Tamika Flynn? Yeah it is! Get up here Tamika!"
Dana laughed out loud as she met Tamika on stage and they hugged. Both girls turned towards the crowd and waved as Dana took back the microphone and said into it: "That's all, folks! Enjoy the dinner hosted by your very own Student Union!"
Imagine one half of your OTP manning a kissing booth and the other half keep getting in line to kiss them over and over again.