Chapter Text
1.
June 11, 2012
"Night Vale?" Lucinda sputtered, spitting a mouthful of dry cappuccino back into her Starbucks cup. "What do you mean, Night Vale? When did you even apply for that grant? And why on earth would you want to go there? I mean—“ She laughs a little, looking uncomfortable, "I know people who swear it's not even real."
"It's real." Carlos tugged open the top drawer of his tiny desk and dumped its contents into the cardboard box on the floor. A purple highlighter, a half-empty box of paperclips, and one of those "motivational" desk calendars (a birthday present from a more than usually clueless junior lab assistant) missed the box and scattered to various corners of the room. Carlos dived for the purple highlighter, then dropped it. It would be useless where he was going.
"I've got weather reports, geological specimens," he continued explaining to his (now former) Ph.D. supervisor. "Not to mention, they have a website.”
"From what year?" Lucinda demanded. "And what geological samples did you…?” She froze. “Oh god, not those. Steuben didn't let you handle them without gloves, did he?"
In all honesty, Carlos hadn't even tried to handle them. The specimens had the consistency of rock candy crystals and glowed blue. He’d just want to drink the sight of them in for awhile.
"I know how this must look," he said, trying not to sound out of breath. He hadn't slept for 36 hours, and he'd scarcely stopped moving in all that period of time. "And I appreciate your concern. But this, this trip to Night Vale is vital to my research."
"What research?" Lucinda sounded nearly frantic. "I just talked to Robert yesterday, he didn't say a word about any changes in your project.”
"Yes. Yes, that's another thing. I'm not working with Robert anymore."
Lucinda greeted this cool announcement of the dissolution of his working relationship with his research partner of three years with a blank, gaping expression which clearly indicated that she'd run out of exclamation points.
Carlos avoided her eyes and began stuffing papers into a duffle bag. His brief case was locked in the trunk of his car, along with every other item of value he possessed. There was a depressing amount of room left over. Carlos expected to be able to fit the duffle back there as well.
"Look, I'm not just running out on my projects.” This was a lie. His samples were in ruins, his readings illegible. It scarcely mattered if he ran out on them; there was nothing to save. That’s what months of trying to do science in a state of complete distraction got you.
"Robert and I have talked." That part was true, according to the strictest possible interpretation of the English.
"We've both agreed that we're, we’re moving in opposite directions." That statement was neither true nor untrue. It was simply a fact, like gravity, or something far less reassuring, like baryogenesis.
Lucinda’s expression shifted to something like concern. She was a clever woman, mature enough to be a stable and useful advisor during his doctoral work, and young enough to see right through any bullshit excuses her students attempted to fob off on her. Carlos wouldn’t say they were friends—he didn’t really have many friends—but she knew him better than just about anyone else in the department.
"Look, I wouldn’t pry, but is this about Robert’s…” Lucinda spread her hands, a vague, encompassing gesture. “Thing?"
Carlos had just turned his back to examine the tottering bookshelf in the corner, and he was profoundly grateful not to have to meet her eyes. He hadn’t had the faintest idea that Lucinda knew about the thing.
"Believe me, I appreciate the awkwardness of having to deal with a colleague who—“ Her mouth tightens. “I appreciate the awkwardness of dealing with colleagues. But surely we can figure out a way to make the situation less uncomfortable without you moving yourself and your mountain of sticky notes all the way to—where is Night Vale, anyway?”
"My best calculations make it about 500 miles west of Albuquerque. I might be off, it might be a little more to the north."
”You see, you can’t even find it on a map. That is not acceptable, Carlos.” Lucinda put a hand on Carlos’s shoulder, and the light touch made him spin to face her. She lowered her voice when they made eye contact, almost as if she could see…something that made her think he needed not to be yelled at anymore. “Listen, no one is supposed to know this, but the university has lost people at research outposts in Night Vale before.”
Carlos glanced from her face to the clock. It was two forty-five already.
“I wasn’t aware.”
“It was in the fifties. I checked, believe me. You think you’re the first bright young scientist to hear the rumors about that town and get a hair up his ass?”
”You’ve got this completely the wrong way around,” he told her. Yes, he’d heard the rumors—the dangers, the mystery, the once-in-a-lifetime anomalies that occurred on a routine basis.
He isn’t going to Night Vale now because he finds them suddenly irresistible. He’s going for other reasons.
“And in any case, it’s past the point where debating will do any good. I signed the contract already. I’m leaving tonight.”
Robert's office was only two doors down from his. His office hours started in fifteen minutes. Carlos hadn’t meant to cut it so fine, but he’d had to stop at the post office and put a hold on his mail. There had been a line.
Carlos attempted to smile at Lucinda, but she wasn’t having it. There was exasperation in her expression, and a tincture of something even less lovely—regret, maybe, that she’d invested so many years’ worth of her professional energy in someone as erratic as Carlos had turned out to be. Carlos felt a bit sick. It wasn’t the kind of look you wanted to see on the face of a woman whose respect had always been important to you.
"I'll call," Carlos told Lucinda. “Let you know I’m there safely, that I settled in.” He wasn’t certain if he was lying or not.
Carlos shouldered his duffle bag and hefted the cardboard box. “One last favor,” he said.”
”Favor?” Lucinda arched an eyebrow.
"Don't tell Robert where I'm going.”
It was melodramatic. It was, on the surface, positively juvenile. Lucinda’s face was making a lot of expressions all at once, and Carlos didn’t have the energy or the time to stand here and unravel them all.
He nodded his farewell, not trusting his voice to speak, and walked out the door and down the hall, his footsteps echoing after him like the fading, disregarded tones of his own regrets.
The last thing he did before leaving his department’s wing of the building was check his pigeonhole one last time. Just as he had been told (warned?) there lay a manila envelope stuffed inside. It was adorned with a mysterious, acid green blob of sealing wax which smelled of camphor, and evoked the peal of dying bells in Carlos's head.
He took the stairs down to the parking lot. Robert always took the elevator. The box, and his duffle bag, went into his trunk. He had a buyer for the car lined up already; he couldn’t take it to Night Vale. Carlos drove away, watching the last three years of his life shrink to nothingness in the rearview. He kept waiting to feel relieved about this.
*
June 10, 2012
There weren't as many professional opportunities for a newly-minted Ph.D. like Carlos as a person might think. His field of study was…eclectic. His options were really rather narrow. Lucinda knew that, but of course, she’d expected him to stay on at the university. She’d thought he was doing valuable work, bless her.
The Night Vale post had been a tantalizing possibility at the back of Carlos’s mind even before “leave the state ASAP” moved to the top of his list of job criteria. Everyone knew about Night Vale. Generous funding and unheard-of project autonomy went with the position. Fascinatingly contradictory rumors about the place abounded.
The mortality rate put most people off in the end, but not Carlos. It was the isolation—a four person research outpost working with strangers had sounded lonely, and while it wasn’t as if Carlos wasn’t used to being alone, he’d actually been hoping to change that about himself, now he was no longer a student. He wasn’t hoping for romance, but he would have liked to make some new friends.
His research partner of three years turning up at his apartment waving a gun around had somewhat altered Carlos’s perspective on prospects like “making new friends with strangers”, however.
Robert had come pounding on the door of his apartment just before midnight. They were still both on student sleeping schedules, so that wasn’t strange in itself. But glimpsing Robert’s bleary eyes through the peephole made Carlos’s stomach twist uncomfortably. He was pretty sure he knew what the visit was about.
No time was really a good time for yet another conversation about what Robert wanted from him, but Carlos opened the door anyway. That was a good example of why Carlos needed more friends—he ended up letting the few he did have push his boundaries to an unpleasant degree.
Robert didn’t speak at first. He pushed past Carlos, pacing and fidgeting on the far side of the room. His coat was slung over his left arm. Once or twice, Carlos started to ask if he could take his coat, offer him some kind of nice, hot, non-caffeinated beverage. But Robert hadn’t looked as if he was in the right kind of mood to appreciate Carlos's collection of locally grown and blended herbal teas. So Carlos had waited, concealing his impatience as best he could.
And then Robert had tossed the coat aside, and the gesture had drawn attention to what he was holding in his right hand. Carlos saw the gun and almost vomited on the spot. He didn’t experience a single moment of comforting denial. The gun made sense, in a way he could barely explain. It made sense that Robert would have one, and that he would feel he had a right to bring it here.
Carlos said nothing. He was frozen, inside and out—even his thoughts were slow. Robert didn’t look to see if Carlos was reacting to the gun, but he knew how quickly Carlos noticed things, so it was all the same. He collapsed in an armchair near the window and heaved a weary sigh. The gun rested on his knee.
"I was going to just shoot myself.” Robert’s handsome, almost immature features crumpled to match the broken tones of his voice. "Write you an email, then...you know. But I wanted to say goodbye to you first, so I tried writing an email. I couldn’t do it, I had to, you know, I just, I had to see you.”
Carlos's mouth was so dry that he didn't think he could form words, but a choked, "God," forced itself out of his mouth anyway.
”But what am I supposed to say now?” Robert laughed. "I mean, saying goodbye, it’s not easy. And words are hard, I mean, I'm a scientist, not a, a lit major."
"Robert, tell me you’re not serious,” Carlos rasped.
He instantly regretted speaking. Robert looked at him for the first time, and a hard glint entered his eye. “Why can't I be serious?” he demanded. “You think this is easy to live with? You don’t know what it’s like, Carlos. You don’t know anything about this kind of pain.”
Images and memories that Carlos associated with the word pain flash through his mind. He thought of the uncle who'd babysat him for a week while his abuela was out of town, who’d pulled him down out of a tree by his ankle; Carlos had broken his leg in the fall. He thought of his sister’s funeral, and his mother, who he hadn’t seen in months, turning up just long enough to scream at everyone and vanish again, this time for good. He remembered his first day at the GT high school where he'd been the only non-white student, how big and cold and empty the hallways had been before and after school.
The one time he believed he’d fallen in love it had ended with his boyfriend calling him a freak and making sure that everyone else at Pride club had known he was a freak too. Antonio was right, probably, but Robert was wrong. Carlos knew perfectly well how much love hurt.
But all he said was, “I don't want you to die," because Robert obviously wasn’t the least bit interested in anyone’s feelings but his own.
"Who cares what you want? You're the reason I'm like this." Robert's voice cracked. "You changed everything for me. And now it's all just—over. We're not students anymore. You'll find another job. You won't even care whether it's anywhere near me. You expect me to just go on living, not knowing where you are—or who who you're with. It isn't even the sex, you know? Not completely. It’s was just…being near you. How warm you are, the way your hair falls over the collar of your lab coat. The way you hum when you're working out equations." Robert gave a despairing laugh. "How am I supposed to live without that, now that I've had it?"
If only Robert would put the damn gun away, then maybe Carlos could think, maybe he could find the right words to say. But his eyes were trained on it helplessly. Robert seemed to sense that the gun was the only thing capable of holding Carlos's complete attention, and he wrapped his fingers around the grip. Carlos made a faint, miserable sound low in his throat.
"I think," Robert said slowly, "You should do it. You should be the one to kill me. It makes sense. There's symmetry to it."
"Jesus fuck, Robert!" Carlos bolted backwards, tripping over a stack of books he’d left next to the table. He scrambled against the wall for balance. "I'm not going to shoot you!"
Robert looked calmer than a moment before, almost satisfied, like Carlos had finally given him part of what he'd come looking for.
”You should do it. You might regret it if you don’t.” Smoothly, he picked up the gun and leveled it at Carlos. “I think…that if you don't kill me…I might kill you."
"Robert."
"Not tonight, of course." Robert looked around vaguely, and Carlos's knees nearly gave way. "I didn't really prepare…and there wouldn't be much point, if I just got caught afterwards. I mean, dying's one thing. I couldn't go to prison." He huffed out a little laugh. "They wouldn't give me lab access in prison."
Carlos’s chest was rising and falling at an accelerated rate, but he wasn’t taking in enough oxygen. Stars burst before his eyes and he felt pins and needles in his face.
”Please, don't shoot me. Don't shoot yourself. Just…" Carlos took a deep breath. "Look, this was an experiment, right?"
Robert blinked.
"Coming here tonight, saying you wanted to die, the gun…it was all to prove the hypothesis that that I would be strongly affected by the prospect of you dying. And now you know, right? You know that I don't want you to die. Please, Robert. You've got a bright future.” Carlos heard his voice break. He had no idea if it would help to save his life or end it all the faster. "If you kill me, or yourself, you'll just be throwing yourself away. I'm not worth that.”
"Oh, Carlos."
Robert was frowning at him. For practically the first time since Carlos had met him, he looked sad for someone other than himself.
He stood up, the gun in his hand, and walked across the room toward Carlos, whose back hit the wall. Robert pressed their bodies together, and Carlos felt the cold metal of the gun pressed against his side.
"You've got no idea what you're worth," Robert whispered. "No idea. No one ever made you see how good you are. How beautiful, how perfect." There were one or two fat tears rolling down Robert's face.
He reached for Carlos so fast that Carlos couldn't stop himself crying out in fear. For the first time, he wondered if the price of getting Robert out of his apartment was going to be giving him sex. The idea made him want to throw up, but he also felt relieved—if it worked, then it would be worth it. Wouldn't it?
Robert used his free hand to cup the side of Carlos's face. His breath smelled of bourbon. He mashed his mouth against Carlos's mouth, and Carlos parted his lips, because he was terrified and because he knew that was what Robert wanted. He tasted the sour tang of Robert's breath and saliva. He felt the slimy mash of their tongues, the awkward click of their teeth and bump of their noses.
Robert drew a deep breath, and just as Carlos thought it was over Robert dived in deeper. Carlos was suffocating, the cold gunmetal pressed to his side, the six inches of height Robert had on him pinning him to the wall. He was choking on spit, on alien organs protruding into his body, and he wished, for an instant, that Robert would just shoot him, so long as he did it quickly.
Finally, Robert pulled away. Carlos's face was damp with tears. He couldn't tell if they were Robert's or his own.
"I know you," said Robert, and Carlos could barely hear him over the chant of "please go away, go away, go away" beating like drums in his head. "One day, you'll meet someone and you'll love them. You might not want them, but you'll give yourself to them, and you'll make them so happy.” Robert sucked in a deep breath, “And I'll hate them. Wherever you go, wherever you are, I'll feel it, I'll know, and I'll hate them, because they aren't me. And I’m so afraid, Carlos. I'm afraid I might hate you too." Robert shook his head. "I don't ever want to hate you, Carlos."
"I don't want you to hate me either," Carlos whispered.
They stood like that for a long time, or a short time—time had lost all meaning to Carlos by that point. Then Robert sighed, slipped his coat back on, and tucked the gun away.
"I'm sorry," he said, in a strange, dissociated tone. He sounded very calm. “I shouldn't have come over. I'm a little drunk."
Carlos blinked at him, stunned. When he realized Robert was waiting for a reaction, he nodded vigorously, hoping like hell that was the right reaction.
"Probably better not to mention to anyone that I was here tonight," Robert continued. "It would just be…embarrassing. For both of us."
"No," Carlos agreed automatically. "You're right. No point mentioning it at all."
For just a moment, there was a gleam in Robert's eyes, and Carlos wasn't sure if he was more afraid of Robert kissing him or producing the gun again.
Instead of doing either of those things, Robert turned, opened the front door, and left. Carlos stayed where he was, listening to Robert's heavy footsteps as they descended the wooden stairs leading down from his door. He didn’t move for a long time.
*
Carlos spent the night in a closet with his laptop, filling out the electronic application for the Night Vale position. He expected to wait at least a month before hearing back. What he would do with himself in those four weeks, he didn't know.
He got an email about half an hour after he’d affixed his digital signature and hit send. He assumed it was an auto-receipt, but he opened it anyway. The email addressed him as “Doctor [Scientist]” and informed him that he’d been awarded the job, that all his terms were agreed to, and the only condition was that he remain on site in Night Vale the full two years of the project. He was to leave the next morning. The papers would be sent to his office address by messenger.
It made no sense. It was suspicious as hell, and it quite possibly beat even Robert’s shoving a gun into his side for the weirdest thing that had happened to him that day. Carlos lay down in the nest of pillows he’d made in the closet and laugh-cried hysterically until he fell asleep around dawn.
He told no one where he was going, or even that he was going, except for Lucinda. There was no one else to tell; he’d lost the last of his family years ago. He would hardly be missed.
*
At three a.m. the next morning he took a cab to a deserted bus station platform, carrying only his duffle bag and his cardboard box. The bus driver—a nondescript man in a tan jacket—seemed to be waiting for him.
Carlos handed his ticket over to the driver. The ticket was a peel from an orange segment, on which the word “INVEIGH” had been spelled out in colored rhinestones. The driver tore it in half, ate part of it, and handed Carlos the stub, now spelling “IGH”. He inclined his head to indicate that Carlos shoulder have a seat. Carlos had his pick of seats. He was the only passenger.
Carlos didn't expect to sleep during the trip, but "Don't Fear the Reaper" by Blue Oyster Cult was playing over the speakers on infinite loop, and eventually his head drooped. When he woke up—with no sense at all of how many hours might have passed, or how far he'd traveled—it was daylight outside, and the bus was pulling to a halt. He'd arrived.
"Welcome to Night Vale," said the bus driver in the tan jacket, opening the doors for him with an air of ritual.
Carlos blinked the sleep out of his eyes. He hefted his bag and clutched at his box, stumbling down onto the platform into the translucent light of the desert dawn.
On the sidewalk, a few yards from the bus platform, there stood a tall, skinny man with dark, mostly vertical hair, and incongruous sleeve tattoos that ran up his arms before disappearing under his shirt. He was clutching a tall paper cup of a hot liquid that gave off a noxious looking yellow vapor.
Carlos did not look at this man, or wonder why he had stopped dead in the middle of the sidewalk. He trudged sleepily into the light of the rising sun, hoping a lot there would be coffee in his immediate future, and hoping a little that there would be a peaceful, moderately pleasant forty to fifty years of existence in store for him after that.