When Carlos meets Thor's eyes, his face is full of uncertainty and worry. By the time Thor finishes, a whole lot of it is gone. Carlos doesn't know how Thor does it, and he almost wonders if it has something to do with the alien race Thor belongs to, but talking to Thor has a remarkably calming effect on him.

"Right, right," he says, "because humans used to worship you as a god." Carlos breaks a smile -- a small one -- and on his next breath out, he finds himself feeling more okay than he has in days. It's probably an alien thing. Maybe one day he'll study it. "You're right. I have to focus. It won't do any good worrying things I can't do anything about."

He pulls in a deep breath, and sighs it out.

"I used to be really good at that. Not worrying about things I couldn't help, I mean. It happened a lot in Night Vale. I used to see people pulled into dimensional vortexes, carried off by the sheriff's secret police, vaporized in malfunctioning bloodstone circles, slowly turned inside out starting with their mouths..." He doesn't sound particularly horrified. Just a little sad. "And as I looked at them, while they were screaming or crying or just kind of eerily quiet, I knew there wasn't anything I could do about it. Night Vale was just a place where those things happened. I was sorry to see them go, but it didn't -- bother me. Not like this." He looks down, frowning. He doesn't look worried anymore -- just tired, and sad.

"It's different when you can understand it," Carlos says after a beat, looking up at Thor again. "If you don't know how to stop it, you can accept it. Like pyramids broadcasting telepathic messages, or always losing one sock in the wash but never both."

He looks down again.

"Or maybe it's different because it's him."