thecapitol | [closed]

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Who| Cecil and Carlos
What| Short version: A horrible misunderstanding about bidding that ends not so horribly.
Longer version: Cecil "bids" on Tributes -- as in, he uses the bidding system to get their time for a few hours to interview them. Carlos only heard that Cecil bids, and has been distant ever since. Obviously, the solution is for Cecil to get Carlos in for an interview Carlos can't run away from, and which Carlos jumps to the worst conclusion about.
Where| From the Tribute center to Cecil's apartment
When| The weekend after the crowning.
Warnings/Notes| Discussion of sexual assault, but no actual sexual assault. Also, anyone is free to see Carlos being marched out of the tower by peacekeepers.

It was Saturday morning when Carlos was told he had an appointment that evening. What kind of appointment? he had asked.

You've been bid on.

Carlos would be lying if he said it had been a surprise; he had been expecting -- no, dreading this since he had found out that it was done at all. Apparently, cutting his hair and being dressed as an unflattering caricature of a scientist had not been enough to discourage someone in the Capitol. Carlos could stomach a lot from the Capitol -- the surveillance, the tyrannical laws, even the death matches -- but this infringement on his own autonomy, this violation of his right to make decisions, made him angry. And it made him want to crawl out of his skin, like Laura Fisher from the PTA had that one time. It had looked painful, and bloody, and extremely unsanitary, but Carlos still found himself wishing he could do it.

It was in quiet anger that he let himself be washed and dressed; at least they let him keep his lab coat. It was a small mercy, but it helped Carlos keep his head high as he was marched down the street by two uniformed Peacekeepers. Even if he wasn't being treated like one -- even if he felt uncomfortable in his own skin and anxious enough that his stomach was spinning sickly -- he was a scientist.

He was escorted to the door of an unfamiliar apartment, one clearly belonging to a Capitol citizen. "Excuse me," he said in a tight voice to one of the Peacekeepers. "Who lives here?"

"Cecil Palmer," the Peacekeeper replied, and Carlos felt his stomach drop. The sullen anger felt different now -- it felt like betrayal.

But he was composed, when the door opened: Carlos's shoulders were squared, his hands steady, his gaze level. He fixed Cecil Palmer with a resolute look, one that was strong enough to hide the disgust he felt. Carlos would do this -- he had no choice. But he wouldn't play along. He wouldn't pretend to be happy about it.

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Relaxing was getting easier. Small talk, it seemed, was the best way to get through this awkward and frankly horrible misunderstanding. If they could keep up this level of not-awkward, Carlos was pretty confident he could get through the evening.

"Has this Khoshekh ever had kittens?" Carlos asked, twirling his fork around his salad. His manner was completely casual, as if he'd said something that didn't violate one commonly accepted law of nature.

"Nnnnot. That I know of." Cecil gave this matter a moment's serious consideration, while he swallowed another forkful of salad. "Nope," he concluded. "Khoshekh has never had kittens! I mean, I'm not ruling out the possibility, as he was already an adult cat before I found him-- but I think it's pretty unlikely!"

"Given," he explained, as this was clearly a situation that required further explanation, "That he is a male cat."

"Don't discount the possibility. After all, he has been genetically modified. And the Khoshekh I knew definitely had a litter."

Munch munch. Just casual dinner conversation, nothing out of the ordinary to see here.

Cecil's feelings about the possibility of Khoshekh having kittens were not quite so casual as Carlos' - but that didn't mean they were negative. His eyebrows went up, and a slow grin spread across his face.

"Did he," he said, in tones of great interest. "Wow. Wouldn't that be adorable-- a litter of tiny Khoshekhs! Oh my god!"

A moment's pause. "...Though the fact of his procreating would seem to imply the existence of a second, sufficiently Khoshekh-like cat in Night Vale - and I'm honestly not sure that anything else like him exists in the Capitol!"

There was a slight note of pride there. His Khoshekh. So unique.

"I don't know," Carlos admitted, looking down pensively. "I'm not sure another cat could have gotten to him. He was four feet up in the air. He might have been pregnant when he first appeared, or he may be capable of reproducing asexually. There's really no way to tell at this point."

He looked back up at Cecil. "Can he be photographed?" Carlos asked this question with more worry than was normal; he had heard about what had happened to some of the people who had tried to photograph Khoshekh.

Carlos' question drove the mental image of a pile of tiny glowing-eyed kittens straight out of Cecil's head.

"Can he be photographed," he said, and his grin stretched into something between proud and conspiratorial. He set his fork down and stretched backward, reaching for his communicator where it lay on the counter. As he thumbed in the code to unlock it, he repeated again: "Can he be photographed!"

And he turned the screen toward Carlos, holding it out so that it filled as much of his line of vision as possible. It was, of course, Khoshekh-- curled up asleep on his back, in a box slightly too small for him. His mouth was open and his fangs appeared to be slightly phosphorescent.

"Adorable, right? It makes me miss him less when I'm at work," Cecil added fondly.

When Cecil reached for his tablet, Carlos's reaction was reflexive. He half-stood out of his chair, reaching forward, opening his mouth to say no, don't test it--!

....and then Cecil showed him a cat picture. A perfectly normal cat picture. Carlos slowly closed his mouth, slowly sank back into his chair, and warily looked at the photograph out of the corner of his eye.

Give him a second to regain his composure -- and pick his fork up off the table.

"...Uh."

Cecil slowly pulled the communicator back, looking at the picture with a frown, and then back at Carlos, clearly mystified. Of course, he didn't want to rule out the possibility that there was a perfectly rational explanation for Carlos' reaction - maybe he really, really hated cat pictures! Maybe he had some kind of... cat picture allergy. Maybe allergies worked like that in Night Vale. He had no way of knowing, and he didn't want to be culturally insensitive.

...But still. "Sorry," he said, in the tone of one who wasn't actually sure what he was apologizing for. "I... didn't mean to startle you, Carlos."

"No, it's okay, it's just -- I thought you were going to try it." There was a beat of awkward silence. Carlos realized he was going to have to explain further.

"Whenever anyone photographed Khoshekh in Night Vale," he said, "something horrible would happen to them a few days later. Photographing cats can be really dangerous."

Cecil looked back down at his communicator, with its picture of Khoshekh, and tapped a few buttons. "Oh, believe me-- I know! One time I photographed Khoshekh, and found myself several days later without a communicator at all - though really, that was my fault, as I left it on the counter when I went to work, and I couldn't really expect Khoshekh not to pull it down and dismember it wire by wire, leaving only a tangle of parts, twisted and sparking, for me to find when I came home!" Aaaah, fond-and-slightly-rueful memories.

Cecil turned his communicator back around - it was scrolling slowly through photographs of Khoshekh. Dozens of them. Hundreds of them. Khoshekh in boxes and in chairs and under the couch and in the sink. Khoshekh snarling viciously at a series of common household objects. Khoshekh looking inches from murder in Cecil's arms. "...But honestly, if something horrible hasn't happened yet, then-- while of course I will not rule out the possibility of something horrible happening-- ...Oh! That one's my favorite!-- I think I'll be fine."

"...Although," he added, with a slight frown, "It's unfortunate that you come from a place where it is dangerous to photograph cats, Carlos. For your sake, I mean."

...for a moment, Carlos had to take a step back and look at the situation. He was in the house of a multiversal double of Cecil Palmer, being shown pictures of his terrifying monster cat. Carlos didn't know what this said about his life, but it was almost more telling that this was one of the more normal things that had happened to him.

"So," he said, deciding to change the subject before more cat pictures came out, "what else did you want to know?"

...Oh. Right. This was an interview, technically. Well, not so much anymore - Cecil, personally, did not count as a real interview anything that did not happen in front of a functioning microphone - but that was how it had started out, anyway. He set down his communicator, and spoke over the distant thumps that were Khoshekh expressing his displeasure at being separated from their visitor.

"Okay, so-- stop me if this is too personal." Cecil was regaining his composure, but he was still hyper-aware of how close he had come to ruining everything between them not even an hour before. "But, like... what did you do in Night Vale? I mean, I know you are a scientist, of course. And I have an idea, based on my own limited experience with scientists in my own world, of what scientists do. However, I also get the feeling that sometimes, when you and I speak about concepts for which we have the same words, we are talking about very... different things." Words like time, and dog park, and even cat. This was somewhat to be expected, interacting with people from other worlds, but it did still put something of a barrier on communication.

"So, like... were you there to study the dog park, orrr...?"

"I was there to study everything," Carlos answered, and the last of the awkward hesitation faded from his voice. "It was the most scientifically interesting community I'd ever seen. I wasn't allowed near the dog park, but there were all kinds of other phenomena to study. For example--"

And here, Carlos launched into an explanation: of the strange materials in Cecil Palmer's radio studio, of the Shape in Grove Park, of the feral dogs, of the incident with the wheat (and wheat by-products), the time traveler, Radon Canyon, the glow cloud...

If he was allowed, he would talk all through dinner: through the salad, through the alligator steaks, through the wine, through dessert. He would answer questions as best he could, but there was always another story, always another weird thing about the tiny town in the desert.

And Cecil would listen. Interrupting periodically, of course, but mostly listening with rapt attention, trying to picture the strange and beautiful and impossible things that Carlos was describing.

The time allotted for the bid would come and go; Cecil would remind Carlos, when the time was up, that his obligation was ended, and it would be understood that there would never be a similar obligation again. Cecil would be relieved. He would close the door behind Carlos, and go and let Khoshekh out of the bedroom, and flop onto the sofa while the cat paced the apartment and yowled his disappointment that Carlos was gone.

They would meet again for lunch the week following. And it would be just fine.

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