Night Vale loves Carlos.

Carlos is not certain he returns the feeling.

Night Vale loves Carlos with the kind of saccharine flattery that makes Carlos suspect he is an ant being led up a trail of sweet honey, soon to be dropped into a pit and eaten alive by a carnivorous plant.

Possibly literally. The pet store has a wide range of carnivorous plants. They are locked in steel cages and kept far away from the animals, and there are signs warning you not to put your fingers near the bars.

Night Vale's community radio program also loves Carlos, and he hasn't yet decided if that's a coincidence. The radio announcer's deep, soothing voice only serves to makes his skin crawl when it talks about Carlos. The voice of Night Vale, it seems, likes Carlos' hair.

He tried cutting it off, but it only made matters worse. He still feels guilty about that.

Carlos can't bring himself to stop listening to the radio, but he does his best to avoid spending time around the man behind the microphone. Cecil loves Night Vale back with a blinding passion that makes Carlos nervous. There is nothing about this city that could endear that kind of affection. Nothing.

He almost left after his attempt to raise the alarm regarding Night Vale's very loose grasp on the linear progression of time (and its accompanying lack of functional clocks) led to nothing more than an awkward coffee date with Cecil. But somehow it just never felt like the right time to pack up and go. There was always something else to investigate.

Apparently invisibility is a thing that exists in Night Vale. Carlos won't make that mistake again.

In that sense, Night Vale is the perfect temptation. Inexplicable phenomena oozes from it, practically begging for a rationally-minded scientist to explore its mysteries.

Carlos is feeling a lot less rational these days. The university stopped answering his calls after three months. After six, his editor suggested that perhaps popular science isn't the place for his new book - perhaps he should be talking to their horror fiction editor instead.

Somehow the checks keep coming. It seems that Night Vale wants Carlos to stay.

--

If it didn't seem so much like giving up part of his self identity, he would be proud of the day he finally admits that not everything in Night Vale has a rational scientific explanation - or, indeed, even makes sense.

As he lies bleeding by the miniature city, his life flashes before his eyes. Not his early life, not his family or friends, nor his university days, all of which is hazy and distant in his memory now. No. His life in Night Vale flashes before his eyes, only this time he is standing apart from it; merely an observer.

It's not that Night Vale suddenly seems less terrifying. But certain things come into sharp clarity, and he begins to wonder.

Maybe Night Vale doesn't want to devour him alive and make him a part of it. (The same cannot be said of the forest, at least according to the radio.) Maybe the constant threats on his life are just as random as those on any other resident of this godforsaken town.

Not literally, he thinks, a little hysterical, if Old Woman Josie is to be believed. And maybe she is!

Maybe he's been looking at everything all wrong. Even if it can't be explained by conventional science, surely, surely it isn't all just random. There must be rules, he just hasn't figured them out yet. Maybe Cecil knows.

And maybe Cecil really does just... like Carlos. (And Carlos' hair, and teeth, and voice.) Maybe there has been nothing more sinister going on than a case of love-at-first-sight.

With this new clarity of vision, he looks back at every encounter he has had with Cecil and feels something akin to shame. He'd never wanted to lead anybody on. He'd never intended to be That Guy.

His fingers start to key in Cecil's number before he really thinks about what he's doing.

Cecil is very careful with him now. He asks about science, not Carlos' dinner plans, and it makes Carlos' heart twist. So he tells Cecil everything.

It's nice. For the first time since coming here he feels relaxed, and the lights in the sky above the Arby's don't frighten him.

--

Night Vale loves Carlos, and Carlos... is growing to like it back.