A Momentary Lapse Of Reason

Orange Grove

Summary: Carlos takes a day off, the team investigate the House That Doesn't Exist and Ellie, with Dave's help, becomes even more of a pyromaniac.

"Dave have you seen my lighter?" Ellie casually remarked as she looked up from some powder analysis results.

"You smoke?" The tall man asked in surprise.

"Oh, no. No-one does. I just need to set this on fire and my Bunsen burner has gone missing. It's probably the Faceless Old Woman, so it'll turn up eventually."

"When you say NEED..." Dave said skeptically. He'd only known the curly-haired biochemist a month but he had decided that she was dangerous around fire even by Night Vale standards. During this short time, he had witnessed her set fire to three plants, four test tubes full of power (only one of which was intentional), her own hair and Natalia's labcoat. She was one of those people who ended up unintentionally being a pyromaniac.

"I didn't mean to start that fire!" She'd said not a week earlier. "Like 90% of fires that are me related are unintentional! It's not like I mean to start fires...they just sort of....HAPPEN."

The woman was a menace, Dave concluded. And given that he specialised in explosives, he almost felt like he should hide some of his work from her. But her bright apologies always made up for any damage she made.

He was surprised that she was even awake enough to set anything on fire in the first place. The scientists, plus Cecil, had had a late night celebrating New Year's. Cecil had gone to the radio station early, but Carlos had groggily had to accept the fact that he was too hungover and averted to light to do anything properly productive. Dave smirked as he looked across at Ellie. She must have been to some pretty wild parties before because she seemed mostly fine this morning, despite not six hours ago she had gotten up on a table, smashed out of her mind and danced around to 'Walking On Sunshine' before passing out next to Rochelle; both women had been looked after begrudgingly by Natalia, who, of course, did not drink.

"Have you heard from t'other's yet?" Dave asked.

"Not yet. Natalia said she'd call when her, Hower and Jeffries reach the House That Doesn't Exist."

"Rochelle can go out in sunlight without getting a migraine this morning?"

"She's in the same state as Carlos, but she said she'd go anyway."

"Ah. Is he still here?"

"I think he's back at his and Cecil's place. He was curled up with his laptop last I saw him."

"Fair enough."

"Ah, here it is." She cut off, picking up her lighter from the sideboard. "Right, here we go. Three, two, one!" She grinned deviously holding a light up to the powder. It lit alight slightly before fizzling out anti-climatically.

"Aw, what?" Ellie pouted in disappointment. "I was sure I had the formul-" A large flash bang interrupted her and clouds of purple smoke began pouring around the lab. Dave quickly held his breath and ran out of the room with Ellie in tow. The lab sprinklers began going off and tiny burgundy flames could be seen from the sideboard.

"Now THAT was more the reaction I was hoping for!" She clapped her hands together and shook purple dust from her blonde hair as Dave coughed in shock next to her.

"Scary..." He muttered.

~

"Ughhhhhhhh...." Carlos groaned, as he noticed the lack of painkillers in his bathroom cabinet. Cecil was part of the proportion of Night Vale that had very few or no pain receptors, so he often forgot to buy pain killers. He'd managed to boot up his laptop sufficiently (despite the fact that there were very few people he could email or connect to via computers due to Night Vale's strange stance on computers) so he sat back down, nestling himself into the duvet covers. He rested his head on Cecil's pillows. They smelt like him and were comforting in contrast with his pounding headache.