Who throws away the fruit cake?Â
Itâs just that, the Cake has been sitting on the same shelf in their refrigerator for months. Centered in the white expanse of a ceramic dish that seems appallingly normal for Night Vale, ringed by delicately painted flowers and eyes and with the same three pieces missing from it. It has a thin, crinkled layer of cling wrap over it. Thick crumbs lie in the wedge that has been taken out of it, crumbs which had once been moist and succulent and cinnamon-y and are now small and hard and vaguely ominous.
 Itâs just that... none of them have touched it. For months.
 Itâs also just that, it hadnât been that good in the first place. When Carlos had come home to it baking, mild and innocuous in the oven, the house had been perfused with the cakeâs sweet, cloying scent. His mouth had even watered. It was like melting, browning sugar in the air, thick with the seeping sap of natural fruits. Heâd found Earl in the kitchen, eyes glazed over as though the Glow Cloud was overhead or, as was more often the case, Earl had found a particularly virulent recipe.
 There was flour on the red headâs cheeks and a butcherâs knife clenched in one trembling, white knuckled hand. Carlos had tried to coax him into a response until the microwaveâs jarring timer went off â a sound that he was assured was different to all that heard it, and only sounded to Carlos like his mother weeping and asking why he never called â upon which Earl shuddered violently and dry-heaved over the sink, and then calmly turned off the timer and the oven and told Carlos the Cake would have to sit in the ambient heat of the oven for a few minutes before it was ready.
 Keeps your hands off, you eager beaver! Cute and lame, much like the former scoutmaster himself, except for the butcher knife and the splatters of a red substance across the white of his apron. Which, to be fair, were also much like the former scoutmaster, as despite what experience and Cecilâs assurances told him, Carlos always felt an ambiguous sort of menace radiating from the man. Not even the kind of menace that would ring bells here in Night Vale; nothing more than the remnants of his base instincts, numbed and useless and reminding him at the worst of times that Earl had a least thirty different Scout badges that translated directly into ways to murder other humans and hide their bodies.
 (It was even worse to think of Cecil - dear, sweet, sinister Cecil - holding those same badges, or helping Earl earn his. Also, some of the ones heâd spied on Cecilâs own sash had the most implicative names.)
 The Cake had smelled delicious, and had sat cooling on the stove until the last of Cecilâs broadcast had curled into the air between them, and then had sat forgotten once Cecil himself came home. Cecil, who looked as awe-struck as ever to find their cramped kitchen and limited counter space filled up with Carlos and Earl and their respective messes. Beakers holding colorful, congealing liquids that Carlos still hadnât given up on quite yet and the bloodied pieces and residue of the various fruits Earl had (maybe literally) sacrificed for tonightâs dinner.
 Carlos always found it fascinating to watch Earl and Cecil, his own private sociological microcosm to study and observe. Cecil shot him a glance, amused and long-suffering and at least a hundred other things that Carlos couldnât quantify properly, but which all together sent a slow flood of warmth through his chest. He watched Cecil step close to the chef, two long-fingered hands sweeping over Earlâs cheeks to brush the flour off. A shudder quaked the red headâs frame, and Carlos watched tension he hadnât even noticed melt out of Earlâs stance.
 They tilted their foreheads together. They leant in towards one another. Cecilâs hands cupped the sides of Earlâs face and slid down the sloping lines of his neck. Earlâs hands hooked onto Cecilâs hips, and Carlos could see his fingers kneading into his flesh. It was such a quiet, tender moment. And then Cecil pulled away, and within the span of a few strides had his arms around Carlosâ shoulders, murmuring sweet nothings and asking about his day.
 At some point after that the three of them had had dinner and drinks and had exhausted most of the major points of their day â a piece of Carlosâ lab equipment had blown up after printing out a 62-page suicide note, one of Earlâs assistants had suffered a macaron-induced fit of hysteria, and Cecil had celebrated Intern Janineâs two month anniversary (an event that ended in tragedy; our hearts go out to the friends and family of Intern Janine) â and they were arrayed in a rough scatterplot about the kitchen table. Earlâs knee was bumping against his own, and one of Cecilâs hands kept creeping onto his thigh.
 Three small plates sat before them, adorned with three towering slices of darkly brown cake. It smelled wonderful. Earl and Cecil had their free hands resting on the table, their fingers casually interlocked. It was cute. It inspired thoughts like what of Cecilâs is touching my thigh right now. Carlos picked up his own fork, surprised at how⌠sturdy the cake was. Thick. Dense. It felt like wet concrete in his mouth, fast on its way to drying, and it tasted like a rum-soaked cacophony of fruits and savory root vegetables that were never meant to be in the same room as one another, let alone occupying the same dish.
 Carlos swallowed his bite down, and he could feel it crawl all the way down his esophagus. It settled into his stomach like a dying star. He snuck a glance at Earl and Cecil. Cecil was chatting away, eating the cake without issue. Earl was poking at his own slice, apparently laboring under the impression that tearing it down to its base components would disguise the fact that he hadnât actually consumed any of it. This cake clung to his insides, apparently suction-cupped to the hollow, wriggly walls of his stomach, and Carlos had never felt so full, so fast.
 The night ended, eventually, as all nights must, even when time is broken and the sun sometimes hiccups on its way below the horizon. And none of them â not even Cecil, who had eaten his entire slice (how?) and some of Earlâs (why?) â had broached the subject of the Cake since. It had been shoved to a back corner of the refrigerator, and before it had accumulated various left-overs and half-finished cartons of milk and a juice that was orange, but did not taste like oranges. A fourth of Cecilâs cucumber-gravy-sawdust sandwich, that the radio host kept insisting he would finish, sat mild and festering before the Cake. Carlos shoved it out of the way, deliberately. Deliberately, he grabbed the fine edges of the china. With deliberate determination, he pulled the Cake free from its resting place and held it aloft in the empty kitchen.
 It seemed wasteful. Carlos stalked over to the garbage can. It felt a little unappreciative. He rested his foot on the pedal at the bottom, the lid sliding open. None of them wanted it, he reminded himself. Carlos had to physically push the Cake off, from where its sickly-sweet secretions had nearly glued it to the plate. He washed the plate and set it to drying in the rack, and as he sat at the table, reviewing his notes for the day and comparing them to past results, he felt his gaze being drawn again and again to the plate. As if it were a murder weapon. As if it sitting there, innocuous, was condemning him.
 Cecil came home first. It was 42 minutes before he caught sight of the incriminating dish, eyes widening in a dramatic caricature of shock, but the radio host said nothing. He merely pursed his lips for a moment and quirked up an eyebrow, and a few moments later, gave Carlos a rather vigorous kiss.
 âWe could put the dishes away,â Cecil whispered. He was close enough that his lips caught against Carlosâ with each syllable.
 âNo,â Carlos answered, and then they were distracted for a while.
 Earl noticed the moment he stepped into the kitchen. A cocked eyebrow â very different, somehow, from a quirked one â and he turned to Cecil, who shrugged, and then to Carlos. Carlos had convinced himself he would stay firm, but under Earlâs strangely intense gaze he found himself fidgeting, carding a hand through his hair self-consciously (even distracted, he couldnât miss the swoon this action caused Cecil).
 It wasnât like he was afraid of Earl, it was just that he didnât know Earl like he knew Cecil. Cecil wore his heart on his sleeve, as well as every other item of clothing he possessed. Earl kept his cards clutched closer to his chest. Where Cecil was a landslide, sudden and uprooting and overwhelming, Earl was the steady grinding of a continent. A mountain climbing higher and higher over decades, moving so carefully and slowing that, if one was not watching on a timescale of centuries, one would see no movement at all.
 Carlos couldnât find the will to twitch, or even to look away as Earl came closer. The red head tugged his hand down from where it had been roughly twining in his own thick dark hair. Then, the chef smiled, and touched only the tips of his fingers to Carlosâ jawline, and guided him forward into a lingering kiss. Earl licked over his lips as they pulled apart.
 âIt wasnât very good, was it?â
 âWell, uh, scientifically speaking- that is, when considering the objectivity of taste and the chemistry of-â
 Earl silenced him with another kiss.
 âThank you, Carlos.â
 Carlos flushed, and grimaced, and fidgeted.
âUh, right, yeah. Youâre- Youâre welcome.â
