There were, quite surprisingly, not that many bars in Night Vale, especially considering that "drink to forget" was the favorite municipally-sanctioned coping mechanism for the terror of living in this forsaken city.

Carlos normally didn't take that bit of advice but…it had been an exceptionally weird day.

Carlos hadn't killed his double – but he hadn't liked him either. He'd opened the door of his lab that morning and found the man standing there, in the center of the room, taking down notes on a pocket notepad, with a pen.

His other self had looked up at him, and stared. His double was identical to him, except for his expression – he seemed to Carlos to be sneering. Distainful. Unimpressed.

"Well…" this other him had said, casting his eyes about the room and clicking his retractable pen. "I'm assuming this is your lab. But I have no idea where I am. Theories?"

"The sandstorm," Carlos had said, carefully, not moving. He felt an overwhelming urge to throttle this other man, but he was fighting it down. He needed to figure out what was going on first. "It's causing some sort of disturbance, potentially a thinning between alternate universes, or some form of very rapid biological regeneration. Obviously we haven't had much time to collect evidence." He raised an eyebrow, "I'm Carlos. This is my lab. You're in Night Vale."

"Your explanation isn't entirely satisfactory, but…Night Vale. That would make sense." He cast his eyes over to Carlos's homegrown electron microscope. "You wouldn't find anything quite so…folksy at the Strex Corp labs."

Carlos was surprised to find that the implied insult to Night Vale rankled him as much as the obvious insult to his equipment.

"I don't suppose you'd care to propose a course of action, then?" Carlos asked, through gritted teeth, working to keep his tone neutral.

The man stared back at him. "We're both reasonable people." He said. "At least I assume we are, as you appear to be some alternate version of myself. I doubt collaboration between two versions of the same mind will result in any substantial synergies, but I suggest we attempt to gather the facts, first." He smirked. "That is, if you'd be willing to share your….lab space…with me."

And they had. And it had been awful.

In the end they'd been able to tap into some kind of dark, swirling vortex, and the other version of Carlos had walked into it, giving him a Breakfast Club style wave over his shoulder without looking back, and the vortex had closed after him.

The whole event had left Carlos feeling – dirty. Tainted. Unsure. As if he'd been forced to look face to face with the person he'd spent years making sure he didn't become. So here he was, sitting on the grimy leather barstool of the transient bar that could only be reached by a literal hole in the wall in the back of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner, staring into his fourth Moscow mule and wondering if he should just give up and order the vodka straight.

"Hey there Cecil," Carlos heard the bartender's gravelly voice across the room, "Another intern?"

Carlos looked up. Cecil had entered the bar without his notice, and seemingly without noticing him. He was looking uncharacteristically disheveled, his pant legs were soaked with something Carlos knew better than to pretend was something other than blood, and he was leaving little red smears where he'd come in the door*.

"Um…I'm actually not sure this time." Carlos's stomach clenched. Cecil sounded like shit. "But…I don't think so. I think it's still Dana." Carlos risked a glance and saw him giving the bartender a small smile. "Small blessings, right?"

The bartender made a non-commital grunt, and poured Cecil a small glass of something very dark and opalescent.

Carlos watched as Cecil accepted the glass with a "thanks," and stared into the contents for a long moment, before drinking down about half of it in one go. Carlos watched his throat move as he swallowed, saw his adam's apple shift as he drank – gulped - the dark liquid. Mental faculties inhibited as they were, Carlos didn't realize he was staring until a split second after Cecil had put the glass down, looked around the room, and caught his eye.

There was a moment of recognition, and Cecil's face lit up the way it always did when he saw Carlos, with a mixture of relief and joy and admiration, and maybe it was the vodka or the shit day he'd just had but Carlos couldn't even manage to be made uncomfortable by it. Then there was a moment of hesitation, and Carlos watched Cecil was anxiously trying to decifer whether it would be ok if he came over or not. It was painful to watch. Screw it, Carlos decided - and he jerked his head, indicating that Cecil should join him.

"May I?" Cecil asked unnecessarily, pulling out the barstool nearest to him.

"Only on the condition that you don't tell your radio listeners about it" he said, and then blanched – that was a bit strong, he should really be thinking more before he spoke "I mean – you know." He indicated his drink. "Wouldn't want to tarnish my reputation with the scientific community." He added.

Cecil grinned wryly, "Well, I'd have to admit to being here myself so…you're probably safe. Call my silence a professional courtesy."

"Cheers," Carlos said, lifting his glass.

They drank in silence for a few moments.

"Glad to see you made it back." Carlos said after a moment. "I heard the broadcast."

"Oh…yes, thanks!" Cecil said, looking pleased. "Thanks, I'm happy to be home." He looked suddenly alarmed, "Oh my gosh, but I didn't even ask, did you…?"

Carlos put up a hand. "No casualties at the lab today. We opened some kind of vortex; I think my double's back where he came from. I hope so, at least." he said, then cocked an eyebrow "Unless you were asking if I'd been replaced?"

"Of course not, honestly." Cecil scoffed, as if Carlos were being ridiculous. "You're obviously still you."

Carlos wanted to say that there was no way Cecil could possibly know that, but he didn't have the heart. And…well, he wasn't sure. Maybe Cecil could tell.

Carlos looked over at Cecil, who was quietly stirring his viscous drink with a cocktail straw and avoiding Carlos's eye, and tried to remember why exactly he'd been avoiding the guy. That first night at the radio station, it had been…weird. There was definitely something hidden about him, something strange and potentially dark that Carlos didn't understand, that perhaps, he was beginning to suspect, Cecil himself wasn't totally aware of. But the fact that Carlos didn't or couldn't understand it didn't NECESSARILY make it malicious. He had seen stranger things in Night Vale. And he'd had many supposedly "safe" things he thought he did understand try to kill him – like wheat, or librarians, or his own toothbrush. "Safe" didn't really mean much here.

He stared at Cecil, and then he remembered, and somewhere between the ethanol in his veins and his naturally shoddy understanding of what made acceptable social conversation, Carlos found his mouth plunging ahead where his mind, if it were fully present, wouldn't have allowed him to go.

"So, I've been meaning to ask you." He heard himself say.

Cecil looked over, his expression obscenely hopeful.

"The thing with Telly…"

Cecil's expression darkened immediately. It was alarming how fast that happened, like a veil dropping over him and obscuring him with this other…thing. It made Carlos want to wave a hand over his face, but he resisted the urge.

"What about…TELLY."

"I kindof want to know why you felt he deserved what he got. Seemingly for cutting my hair. Which, I should point out, was his JOB, and what I went there for."

"For TAKING your hair." Cecil said. "I stand by what I said before, Carlos. I'm not sorry for what befell Telly the Barber." His voice was getting deeper. "Telly's fate was sealed before you stepped foot in this town, Carlos. Telly had a history. We had all turned a blind eye, but Telly knew…"

"Nope, don't give me that." Carlos said abruptly, shaking his head and waving a hand at him, "Don't answer me in that ominous 'I'm hinting at obscured truths that we all understand' radio voice. Not when you know I don't. Understand them, I mean."

Cecil stared at him, wide eyed. He sighed.

"I'm serious Cecil, you…you RUINED his LIFE. I know there's a lot of weird shit here I still don't understand but – you kindof made me responsible for that. And I can't condemn some random barber because he did a shitty job when he cut my HAIR."

"Carlos," Cecil said, and the look on his face said that he was being as honest as he possibly could. It was almost pleading, "Carlos, he TOOK your hair. He HAD your hair. You were so new in town, you couldn't have realized, but – we barely made it in time!"

Carlos stared into Cecil's wide, pleading eyes and….well, wait, that was odd wasn't it? Telly had kept his hair. He'd even had it with him out in the sand wastes. Why would a barber be keeping people's hair…keeping Carlos's hair….

There were two types of technology that work in Night Vale. The old, and the very, very old.

Voodoo, Carlos thought, probably qualified as very, very old.

The realization must have shown on Carlos's face, because Cecil sighed, sat back, put a hand over his eyes. "If you had just asked, I could have shown you the proper process, the rituals to dispose of it safely, but I never thought…," and here he removed his hand to look chastisingly down at Carlos, "I never thought you would actually CUT it, Carlos…it was so…so…"

"I know, I know," Carlos cut him off, "Perfect."

"Yes," Cecil said, his expression softening, his eyes misty.

"Wait," Carlos continued, "but he still had it, that first time he showed up, out in the sand wastes. He still had my hair. You said so, on the show." Carlos said, feeling suddenly a bit concerned.

Cecil looked embarrassed. "Yes, well…I might have made a quick run out there, just to finish up…" he put his hands up in a display of innocence "Just to make sure it was taken care of, I didn't touch Telly, cross my heart! Actually, I felt really awkward about the whole thing – it seemed so presumptuous, being in possession of another person's hair – of your hair, Carlos, of all people's. I would much rather have had you there and just shown you the proper rituals but….well, it didn't seem like we were on the best terms at that point…I wasn't sure what else to do…" He was twisting his hands together.

"No, I …" Carlos cleared his throat. "I really appreciate it. Thank you."

Cecil's was beaming at Carlos again. Carlos wanted to laugh – this guy was so transparent it was ridiculous.

"Sure," he said.

Carlos ordered them another round.

"I've been here nearly a year, you know." He said.

"Yes, I know!" said Cecil. "2 weeks from this Thursday!"

Carlos snorted into his drink. Of course Cecil knew. "You know, a year in this town- I've rebuilt half my lab from scratch, figured out how to track data without pens, I don't even flinch when I hear the sunrise. I actually LIKE the invisible pie." He put the heels of his hands over his eyes. "I deserve some sort of an award for making it this far."
Cecil's brow was furrowed, as if he were giving it considerable thought.

"The worst part is, I don't even know if I'm making progress towards figuring out how to fix it. I don't even know if I WANT to fix it. I mean, I want to keep the citizens safe obviously but…" he sighed. "I think this town is giving me Stockholm's syndrome."

"What, the whole town?" Cecil asked, as though disbelieving. There was a hint of amusement in his voice, and his nose was slightly pink, and Carlos wondered if he was feeling the – whatever it was he was drinking. "Not just – like, the secret police or something? All of Night Vale?"

"Yup" Carlos said, popping the "p" and taking another deep draught of whatever it was the bartender had brought him.

"So….," Cecil said slowly, "you like it here, then?"

Carlos buried his face in his arms, moaning something meant to sound like a denial.

"You DO don't you?" he said, his voice filling with amusement and affection. "We're not just scientifically interesting, you kind of like it here."

Carlos raised his head just enough to meet Cecil's eye "I like it BECAUSE it's scientifically interesting."

Cecil "hmmmed" and nodded a bit theatrically, in a universal gesture of "I don't believe even a tiny bit of what you just said" and Carlos made a disgusted sound and turned away in a gesture that was decidedly not pouting – because he was a grown-ass scientist.

Cecil laughed, and Carlos liked the sound of it so much he caught himself smiling into the crook of his arm. He made a mental note of that - and, he thought defiantly, he wasn't going to add any warning labels to it this time.

A scientist, he thought later, as walked out of the bar and onto the sand-blasted streets that led back to his lab, shouldn't jump to conclusions.

...

*Not that they were distinguishable from any of the bloodstains anyone ELSE's shoes had left when they'd come in the door. It was kind of part of the unique local ambiance for Night Vale bars.