The day after the Strex Corp. take over he had gone into work to find the orange prescription pill bottle setting on the desk amongst the usual equipment, underneath the pill bottle sat a piece of yellow paper with orange print.

'DO YOU HAVE PROBLEMS? DO YOU WANT TO BE HAPPY? TAKE TWO A DAY AND WATCH ALL OF YOUR PROBLEMS BE RESOLVED. NOTHING LEFT BUT HAPPINESS. BELIEVE IN A SMILING GOD. STREX CORP.'

When he had seen the note, the bottle filled almost to the brim with circular yellow pills he had been disgusted and a bit afraid. They were giving him drugs, they wanted him to take this and God knows what would happen to him physically or mentally. He didn't trust Strex, he knew enough about them to be scared of them and weary of them. Nothing could make him take their drugs, especially with such an odd message.

'problems and happiness'

Why did they think he wasn't happy, that he had problems that he would resort to their pills to resolve?

That night after work he sent yet another text to Carlos, asking him where he was; he had promised to pick Cecil up from work and they would go out for dinner. He sat out in the empty parking lot and waited, nearly two hours later he sent another message, and then finally just called.

"Hello?" A tired and mildly annoyed voice asked on the other end of the line.

"Where are you?"

"Oh hey Cecil, I'm at work."

He let out a heavy sigh, he ran his fingers back through his messy brown hair giving it a slight frustrated tug.

"You were supposed to pick me up from work, we had a date. Remember?"

A pause, he heard the clicking sound of fingers on a keyboard.

"Carlos"

"Huh oh right, I'm sorry Cec just...I really need to get this done tonight, you have a way home...Right?"

"Yeah of course"

He looked around the empty lot and reminded himself he could walk back home, it'd only take half an hour granted that nothing attacked him.

"Okay, I'm sorry about canceling like that...Maybe some other time, yeah?"

"Yeah, right...I'll talk to you later then."

"Great, bye Cecil"

He ended the call, shoved his phone back into his jeans pocket, and began to head towards the car park exit. He tried to remember the last time they had even gone out or the last time that Carlos even had the time to remember that Cecil even existed. At first things had been marvelous, every little fantasy he had filled his own mind with; Carlos had taken him out to dinner, watched badly made horror and scifi films with him, and even given him a watch on their one month anniversary...Just out of nowhere things sort of went, he didn't want to say bad, but things just weren't as great. It was almost like back before they had started dating, back when he just longed for the other man while Carlos ignored his existence to the point that Cecil had begun questioning that possibly Carlos hated him. Now they were dating, but minus much of the dating; at first it had been alright, sometimes people didn't call and that was okay. Sometimes people forgot dates or to pick you up or meet you somewhere and that was okay too, but it had gotten so frustrating. So then he pestered him, a lot; to the point that it felt like too much work and almost like a chore for Carlos to cook for him, to pay attention to him. So now he just had gone back to hoping Carlos would remember their dates, remember him. He was getting tired of it. Especially after the day Strex had taken over, he had expected Carlos to be there for him, but it took until one in the morning to even get the other man on the phone. He had needed him, Josie was still missing, a dangerous corporation had bought out his safe haven, and he was reasonably scared by all of this. Yet Carlos didn't...He cared, but he just seemed so wrapped up in the lab and his experiments and the funding grant from California that...He didn't have enough time to really notice the yellow helicopters or how tense and scared Cecil had gotten when two Strex employees dressed in black suits had come into the station and held guns to his head ready to kill him if he didn't promote them.

That had hurt him, he'd been scared, and he'd needed his boyfriend there for him. He'd needed somebody, because Dana was possibly dead and Josie too. Yet he had gone home alone, cried himself to sleep and talked himself into going in the next day.

Now here he was walking through the darkened and dangerous streets of Night Vale alone.