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Cecil spends the entire drive to Big Rico's debating whether or not to ask what he wants to ask. It's taken him three weeks to work up the nerve, and all the while the question has been preying on his mind like a radioactive mantis. He's ninety-nine percent sure it's unfounded paranoia, but that last one percent is enough to keep him awake at night, and what with his upstairs neighbors and their one a.m. Satanic rituals, it's not like he needs anything else to disturb his sleep.
Best to just ask and be done with it, Cecil decides as he pulls into a parking space. If the worst-case scenario proves to be true, he'd rather know as soon as possible than carry on the charade.
Carlos greets him with a radiant smile and a kiss on the cheek, and Cecil feels an uncomfortable twist of guilt in his stomach for what he's about to do.
He does it anyway. As soon as they're settled in a corner booth with their gluten-free slices, he blurts out, "Am I an experiment?"
Carlos blinks, nonplussed. "Cecil, I've known I was gay since I was twelve."
"Not that kind of experiment. I mean, you know. Science."
"I don't follow you."
Cecil sighs. "I guess what I'm trying to say is...am I just a part of your studies? Are you feigning romantic interest in order to get close to me for the purpose of observation? Are you attempting to gain further knowledge of the inner workings of Night Vale by dating its best-known radio personality?"
Carlos is silent for a long moment. As his expression shifts from perplexed to hurt, Cecil wishes he'd kept his big mouth shut. Or that he could press some sort of cosmic rewind button. Or that the earth would open and swallow him whole, like it did to Intern Dominic this past Tuesday.
Finally, Carlos asks softly, "Do you really think I would do that to you?"
"I didn't think, exactly," Cecil says wretchedly. "More...wondered. Speculated. Hypothesized. You know what, forget I said anything."
"No," Carlos says. "If you're having doubts, we should address them."
"I'm not having doubts. I'm having ridiculous, paranoid flights of fancy, and it's probably just a side effect of whatever drugs they're putting in the water supply this week, and can we please, please change the subject?"
"No."
"Fine." Cecil slumps forward and rests his forehead on the table. "Address away."
Carlos begins to count off on his fingers. "First of all, such an experiment would be in flagrant violation of at least half a dozen ethical tenets, let alone basic human decency. Second, this is me we're talking about. I'm, like, the worst liar ever, remember? I can't even smuggle outside snacks into a movie theater without looking shifty."
Cecil lifts his head from the table and nods. He remembers their last attempted movie date, when they'd not only had their Fritos confiscated but also been banned for life from the Night Vale Cineplex. They'd wound up going back to Cecil's apartment, watching TV, and sixty-nining on the sofa, which they'd agreed was much more fun than a movie anyway.
"And third...." Carlos sighs, running a hand through his perfect hair. "I'd hoped to wait until a more romantic moment to say this, but--I love you, okay? I am massively, stupidly in love with you. Of all the mysteries in this town, the biggest is why someone as--as handsome and charismatic as you could possibly be interested in an awkward dork like me. You're all I think about, you're all I dream about, and you really, really need to shut me up before I make an even bigger ass of myself than I already have."
As soon as Cecil regains control of his voluntary motor functions, he lunges across the table, grabs Carlos by the lapels of his lab coat, and kisses him long and deep.
"I love you too," Cecil says after they break apart, flushed and panting and, in Cecil's case, literally glowing. He tries to rein in his bioluminescence a bit; people are beginning to stare. "I mean, in case that's not blatantly obvious."
"It sort of is," Carlos says, ducking his head and looking up through his eyelashes with a bashful half-smile that causes Cecil's heart to melt and re-solidify and melt again. "But I like to hear you say it."