Cool dawn light filtered between the shades hanging over the bedroom window. Ghostly and pale in its ethereal glow, it dappled the carpeted floor of the room, picking out the discarded clothes of the bed’s occupants. Unbuckled belts and unbuttoned shirts lay strewn around, having been so carelessly hurled from their bodies as the need for physical intimacy became too strong for their wearers to resist a minute longer.

Dust motes drifted around softly, bobbing in and out of the dawn light and twinkling like stars in the night sky. The light was hued purple, as was most things in Night Vale. The ceiling was black, speckled with tiny constellations that glimmered silvery white in the approaching daytime. Even though the sun was rising and bathing the tiny town in its rays, the stars still shone as bright as ever, watching over the two figures lying curled up in the bed.

Like the discarded clothing littering the bedroom floor, the bed’s sheets were crumpled and twisting around their interlocked bodies. One of these bodies, with its caramel brown skin and smattering of dark hair on its chest and arms and legs, was curled inward, basking in the warmth provided by the other.