Disc 2:
Tanning
"Ow!"
"Shh, Cecil, shh," Carlos soothed. "It'll help. I promise."
Burns. Pink, flaky burns. All over Cecil's normally porcelain shoulders, back, chest, face - everywhere, really. Save for his marvelously purple tattoos, the voice of Night Vale was, for the most part, a painful shade of lobster red.
The whole thing had started off normally; it was a slow news day, so Cecil was able to sign off early, leaving his listeners to the sound of nights that have never happened nor ever will. Instead of spending the rest of the day alone in his small apartment (the faceless old woman had been acting up lately), he'd decided to drive over to Carlos' house, to see how his current research was coming along.
Cecil let himself into his boyfriend's house. "Carlos?"
No response. Cecil weaved through the scientist's unruly living and dining rooms and into his even more disorganized kitchen.
"Carlos?" The radio personality asked again, louder. He received a response this time.
"Out here, Cecil!"
Following the sound of his perfect Carlos' voice, Cecil opened the nearby screen door and walked out into a sun-bathed backyard, which was, in fact, covered in grass, despite their city being in the middle of the desert.
To the platinum blonde broadcaster's surprised delight, Carlos was sprawled out, face down, on an old blanket, wearing only a white pair of boxers.
"Hi there," The mostly-naked scientist smiled drowsily. "Off air early?"
"Um, yeah," Cecil nodded slowly, eye brows wrinkled and third eye squinting. "So, uh... what're you doing?"
"Tanning," Carlos answered, voice muffled by the blanket.
"Tanning..?"
"Yeah," Carlos propped himself up on his elbows, tilting his head at his favorite radio announcer. His black curls, along with their premature, stress-induced silver strands, fell into his eyes. "Tanning."
Cecil loved those strands. They made the twenty-six-year-old researcher look smart and sophisticated. "I'm afraid I don't know what tanning is," Cecil shrugged, hands buried deep inside the pockets of his black dress pants, which the weather was far too hot for. "Is it a science-y thing?"
Carlos chuckled. "I guess it's a sort of scientific process, yes." He rolled over onto his back. "Really, it's just lying in the sun. You know, so your skin gets darker."
Nodding absently, Cecil let his eyes wander around his boyfriend's already bronzed body. Carlos was from some place he called 'Brazil', in a land called 'South America'. Did he really need to do this thing he so affectionately referred to as 'tanning'?
Cecil, pushing up the sleeve of his shirt, examined his arm. Compared to Carlos, he was so... white. He'd always been that way, despite living in the heat for his whole life. Old Woman Josie once told him that his ghostly pallor matched that of the non-existent angels' robes.
"Can I do it, too?" Cecil asked, feeling a sudden urge to be any shade but marble white.
Carlos opened one brown eye questioningly. "Cecil, you... I'm not sure the sun would be so kind to you."
"Nonsense," the pale radio host scoffed, loosening his purple tie and tossing it to the ground. He started working on the buttons of his gray vest.
"I-I don't think this is a good idea," Carlos warned, shaking his head. "The UV rays could damage your skin, you know." He sat up and stared warily at Cecil. "And I like your skin the way it is."
Cecil smiled, discarding his white shirt and revealing the purple swirls of his torso to the sun's rays. "But I'm so dead-looking," he whined, stepping out of his slacks. "And you're so... not. Move over."
Defeated, Carlos sighed and made room for his boyfriend next to him on his blanket. "Bad idea, Cecil. Bad idea."
"Shush," Cecil hit the scientist's arm.
The two had remained quiet and, eventually, they drifted off to sleep. Carlos was awoken by Cecil's estranged cry as he realized that tanning was, just as Carlos had said, a bad idea.
Carlos pulled his burnt partner by the hand into his kitchen and sat him down in the only empty chair. He then disappeared into his bedroom, digging around in unpacked boxes until he finally found an unopened bottle of aloe. And, according to Cecil, the aloe stung.
It took some time, but the scientist managed to calm Cecil down enough to medicate his burns.
"I warned you," Carlos reminded his boyfriend, massaging the cool gel into Cecil's shoulder.
"Barely!" Cecil rolled his violet eyes. "You could have knocked me unconscious and dragged me in here. Idiot."
"Well, what did you expect?" Carlos, grinning, dabbed some aloe onto Cecil's cheeks. "You were in your underwear. I was powerless."
Cecil snorted. The noise made Carlos chuckle. Being careful not to irritate Cecil's skin, he wrapped his arms around his reddened neck and knelt down so the two were face-to-face.
"There. Done," Carlos told him. "You'll be back to normal in a week or so."
Cecil stared, watching himself in Carlos' eyes. "Stupid, perfect you with your stupid, beautiful tan."
The scientist pressed his lips to the radio host's. "Stupid you with your perfect, pale skin and your stupid habit of not listening to your obviously smart boyfriend."
"Night Vale is so hearing about this tomorrow."
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