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Over the course of the past… year? Year and a half? He never keeps track anymore, but no matter. Over the course of however long it has been, Carlos has come to find that there are two distinct temperatures in Night Vale, and they are Hot and Blazing Inferno. Today it seems to be the latter. He had gone to Big Rico’s to bribe one of the workers in the kitchen to give him a bag of ice in exchange for a handful of pickled scorpions that had mysteriously manifested in his lab coat pocket overnight. The pizza place is a mere hundred feet from the lab, from his apartment, from his glorious air conditioning unit, but by the time he gets to the door, the ice has already melted and the plastic is melting in his hands.
Normally this would call for extensive tests, for long, laborious hours crouching over a steaming microscope, racing to get a glimpse at a drop of sweat before it evaporates and the salt catches fire. It’s a wonder that his insides aren’t boiling. It’s a wonder that he hasn’t quite literally melted himself, but Carlos is far past questioning the strange physics that inhabit this otherworldly town. Besides, Cecil had told him that he was being quite rude to physics for studying it so intensely and that he should go apologize. To physics.
Honestly, half of the attraction he feels towards the radio host lies in the fact that he is a full year’s lab experiment on legs. He is beautiful and he is strange and Carlos aches to dissect, to open, to slice, to peer inside and see what this inhuman man is composed of. But no, he resists for personal reasons, which have something to do with heart palpitations and the urge to swoon each time that low, sonorous voice greets him on the radio with ‘Welcome to Night Vale’.
Carlos collapses in a folding chair set in the center of his lab, directly under the ceiling fan (the plastic blades have bowed downwards as they start to melt in the heat) and right in front of a large desk fan which is blowing air from the air conditioning right onto his sweat-slicked body. Panting, he fans himself, trying desperately to get comfortable. His colleagues have left long ago, the funding for this scientific endeavor cut off long before his one-year mark in this community. But, of course, he has things tying him here.
Cecil’s radio show comes on and Carlos groans, letting himself relax into the sound of his boyfriend(?)’s voice. Delirious with the heat, he responds to Cecil’s rhetorical questions, laughs at his dark and grim humor, and smiles with every mention of ‘beautiful, perfect Carlos’. When it’s time for the weather, the song has something to do with heat. He’s pretty sure it’s that song from the Pussycat Dolls but it’s got to be a mistake because the Pussycat Dolls were banned from Night Vale months ago after something involving an inter-dimensional vortex and undead pop sensations. He quickly finds, however, that he is hallucinating, because his radio has been melting for the past five minutes and is now making static noises as it becomes a blob on his table.
It is at that moment that Cecil calls. Somehow, Carlos’s phone is still working even though it’s a hunk of melted plastic at this point. He flips his phone open and answers with a noncommittal, half-dead grunt.
“Oh dear. Have the electricity sprites possessed my phone again?”
“No. It’s me,” Carlos says shortly. Talking makes his teeth sweat.
“Oh! Hello, Carlos. Do you need something?”
It takes a long time for Cecil to remember that he was the one who called first.
“Ah! Of course! I was calling to ask if you would like to go out tonight. Just you and I. Oh, and I am calling for personal reasons, of course, but when am I ever not calling for personal reasons am I right? Ohoho-”
“Cecil, not tonight,” Carlos groans. Silence.
“Oh.”
“It’s too hot! In fact, I’m concerned for you; I hope you are protecting yourself from the heat.”
“Why yes, of course! I am wearing my white slacks today, and a light, casual, summer sweater.”
“…And I suppose you are accustomed to heat that melts concrete.”
“It’s quite nice, really. Why, are you hot?”
“My phone is quite literally melting on my cheek, Cecil.”
“Oh, my. Perhaps today’s temperature is localized to certain individuals again. Last time I had to get a foot amputated due to hypothermia, apparently? Anyway, the clinic was very kind about it and gave me a fine dosage of Secret Police approved growing serum and-”
Cecil cuts out into static at that moment as Carlos’s phone liquefies in his hands and slides down to his lap in a bubbling heap of molten plastic. Yelping, Carlos jumps up and rips off his slacks, leaving himself in his t-shirt and boxers. Without a second thought, he rips off his shirt as well, looking in despair at all of the dripping sweat running down his torso.
Hours later, Carlos lies on the floor groaning in agony and wishing that he hadn’t used his ten minutes of municipally approved shower time for the day already. Then again, all that had come out of the shower head this morning had been sand and salt.
The only thing that rouses him from his heat-induced state is a light rapping on his door. He lets out a grunt, then lets out a louder grunt when the knocking continues. Finally, the door creaks as it swings open.
“Goodness, do you always keep it this chilly in here? Why aren’t you wearing pants? Or a shirt?”
Carlos looks up with an expression similar to the one Cecil used when he had found out Carlos had gotten his haircut. However, that expression is quickly replaced with adoration as he sees the kiddie pool tucked under Cecil’s arm and a box of popsicles gripped in his other hand. He smiles up at him dazedly.
“Will you marry me?”
Cecil’s third eye bursts open and glows wildly as his normal set of eyes immediately turn to static and a strange buzzing-slash-screeching noise emits from his throat, where a tiny vortex is beginning to form on his adam’s apple.
“Cecil. It’s a figure of speech.”
The reaction is instantaneous; his eyes return to normal, the vortex sinks back into his throat, and a dazzling smile lights up his features.
“What a lovely figure of speech.”
“How are we going to fill that pool, though?”
Cecil looks down at the kiddie pool and shrugs.
“I’m not sure. I was hoping I would have come up with an idea before I got here.”
“…And are those popsicles melted?”
“What? Of course not!” Cecil says. He lifts the box and Carlos watches as tiny ice designs spread out on the cardboard from Cecil’s fingertips. “I kept them frozen the whole way here. Goodness gracious, Carlos, is your interior blood thermostat malfunctioning or something?”
He laughs like it’s something Carlos has definitely heard of before. When Carlos gives him a blank stare, Cecil frowns.
“Oh dear.”
That’s when Carlos notices the tips of the man’s black and white hair are frozen solid, sticking up in strange angles. His lips, usually pale pink, are a subtle shade of blue. The tip of his nose is bright red.
Curious now, Carlos hauls himself to his feet, groaning with the effort and dragging his sluggish body over to the slighter man, reaching out to put his hands on his shoulders.
Both of them wince and flinch away from each other as Carlos quite literally burns Cecil.
“Oh my goodness!” Cecil squeals. “You don’t mean to say-”
He runs his fingertip down Carlos’s arm and a trail of steam follows in its wake. Carlos groans at the rush of cold that creeps up his arm.
“Mmmn, Cecil?”
“Yes?”
“Can we have that date, after all?”
“O-Oh, of course! I mean, I don’t wish to sound so eager, but-”
Carlos cuts him off with a kiss to the lips. Steam instantly fills his nostrils and, for a split second, his lips actually stick to Cecil’s as if his mouth was a frozen pole in the dead of winter. When he pulls away, he caresses Cecil’s frozen neck. The radio show host, on the other hand, looks as if he’s about to faint.
“You’re very, very… very hot,” Cecil breathes. Carlos just laughs and kisses him again. The sweat is slowly drying on his body and his body temperature rapidly lowers as he allows himself to be slowly enveloped in Cecil’s unbelievably cool body. The steam becomes thinner and thinner until there’s none at all, when their body temperature reaches equilibrium.
Now Carlos’s teeth are chattering and he’s quaking in Cecil’s arms, which makes the other chuckle.
“Do you still want a popsicle?” he asks against Carlos’s lips. Carlos just grunts, knocks the popsicles out of his boyfriend’s (yes, definitely boyfriend) hand. “Goodness. It’s going to be impossible keep this temperature of yours stable during this heat wave…”
“Maybe we ought to experiment… see how long we can keep our body temperatures in a set bracket of degrees-”
“I’ll get the thermometer!”