007 » can’t i find love without it being so sensational

[receptacles]

fanart by ta_mozuki.
for luocha at casketeer.

Comments

[receptacles]

[ Just don't get yourself into trouble, Welt said, all those days ago.

What stings the most about the whole situation, Caelus thinks, is that he couldn't even do that.

He should have known that he wouldn't be able to have a bit of fun without it coming back to bite him in the end. He should have known not to do things that he knew were bad, too, but then he's really only been alive for so long, and he swears to the best of his knowledge that he hasn't done any other bad things. There's a way in which he feels that it's slightly unfair — that toeing the line of impropriety shouldn't have come crashing down around his ears in such spectacularly damning fashion. It's not fair. It's really not fair.

The problem with that is that the obvious counterpoint is that life's just not very fair, and the universe is particularly unfair, in that bad things happen to good people all the time — and Caelus can't honestly say that he was a good person in his time on the Xianzhou Luofu, anyway.

It breaks down like this:

One day, he wakes up to find that everyone has gathered in the parlor car because a judge of the Ten-Lords Commission has called the Astral Express.

Oh, cool, Caelus thinks, because he figures it's Huohuo or Xueyi or Hanya or someone else he knows, but then it turns out that it isn't any of them on the line. The woman whose hologram is being projected into the parlor car wears a mask like a Wraith Warden's with red hair down to her shoulders, and what he doesn't like, instinctively, is that she smiles when she sees him.

"Caelus," she purrs, which is a bad sign, really bad sign. Hot women aren't ever this excited to see him for any good reason. "Just the man I was hoping to see."

"...Caelus," Welt says in greeting, but there's a slight pause before he says it that makes Caelus understand that he's in trouble, and the unfortunate thing is that he already thinks he knows what he's in trouble for.

The explanation comes in bits and pieces, and then all at once. We have arrested the traveling merchant, Luocha... on account of identity fraud and smuggling... the Stellaron into the Ambrosial Ardor... with reason to believe that the Trailblazer Caelus of the Astral Express acted as his accomplice...

"Now you wait just a second!" March interrupts, hands on her hips in the way that she does when she feels a need to defend the members of her 'family.' "There's no way that Caelus had anything to do with smuggling the Stellaron into the Luofu. We found out about the Stellaron after it started wreaking havoc! You can check the logs to see when we docked in the harbor!"

We have already checked the records in question and discovered that you received help from the Stellaron Hunters in falsifying your acceptance documents.

"But that's because the spaceport was closed at the time! We requested permission to dock normally and we couldn't get in —"

So you don't deny it?

March claps a hand over her mouth. Dan Heng shoots her an unimpressed glare.

It's better to let Himeko handle these things, because it's always better to let Himeko handle these things. "What proof do you have that Caelus was involved with Luocha, Madam Judge?"

I think Caelus can answer that question. Can't he?

Caelus remains silent.

The woman pressures him, with a slight edge of impatience in her tone. Officers with the Realm-Keeping Commission have already identified you as an associate of our suspect's and supplemented their testimony with the footage we have from our security systems.

There's no point in trying to deny it, then. Caelus rips the bandage off, even though he hates the idea of saying it out loud.

"We had sex," he says quietly, with a trace of guilt at the back of his throat. "But it was just sex. Then he said he wouldn't be able to see me anymore. I didn't have anything to do with Luocha after that."

He can't help but feel like Dan Heng is staring at him with a strange mixture of horror and disbelief and betrayal. He's not sure he wants to turn to see the look on March's face.

Just sex, both times?

Did she really have to say both times? "Like Himeko said," Caelus replies, still quietly, with guilt curdling in the pit of his stomach, "General Jing Yuan and Lieutenant Yanqing can attest to my character."

The character of a man who associates intimately with interastrally renowned criminals.

"Whatever Caelus may have done, Madam Judge," Himeko intervenes, "I don't believe it is relevant to the Stellaron case."

The woman smiles again beneath her eerie mask. We will see.



For now, at least, Caelus doesn't have a choice. Not unless he wants to put the Express's status within the Xianzhou in jeopardy. He has to report back to the Xianzhou Luofu, first and foremost. He has to make sure that the charges against him are completely dropped before they move on.

(He can't help but feel like Welt and Dan Heng don't seem to want to look at him in the aftermath, like he's dirty, like they didn't know he could be that kind of person. Maybe he's wrong, though. Maybe it's all in his head.

March sends him a text, one that half makes him laugh and half makes him feel like the worst person on the planet, in the way that only she ever makes him feel. Um, so on the bright side... I would have said he was totally out of your league! Handsome guy like that? Congratulations?)

For a while, people that aren't him argue over what to do with him, which is the way of things, when it comes to criminal justice. Always better to have a lawyer than try to win the case yourself. Himeko and Jing Yuan lobby together to have the suspicion on him cleared, or at least twisted around. His friends in the Ten-Lords Commission help him out too, at least as much as they are able.

His life's a blur for a little. Go there, say this, do that, come back. For a while, it's like he's a prisoner, too. Himeko tells him that he mustn't talk to anyone not relevant to the case, which means he can't even text Qingque to ask her how her Celestial Jade rounds are going. He doesn't talk to the other members of the Express because he doesn't know what to say, or how to apologize for putting them in this predicament — and all because he was thinking with his dick for a hot minute.

So much trouble, for something so stupid, and all because he thought the mysterious merchant was pretty.

Finally, at last, Huohuo texts him with the coordinates to where he has to go, and says:

Sorry to bother you, Caelus... you'll want to head here. An officer will pick you up and show you to the Shackling Prison. To make a long story short, you're almost there, it's been a pretty hard-fought legal battle... General Jing Yuan managed to get you appointed as an interrogator in the case against Luocha instead of charged as his accomplice. Um, I know that sounds weird. It's this thing with a long-standing history on the Luofu — we used to call it "judgment by the judged"... It might sound like you're in the clear, but the truth is, your behavior is being watched and analyzed. Think of this as a trial.

Your goal isn't really to get information out of Luocha. Better interrogators than you have already tried and failed. What you have to do is prove that you aren't his accomplice. It might sound barbaric, but if you can... please be as cruel to Luocha as possible. If you can't bring yourself to do that... we'll do our best to protect you, but please don't give the judgemasters reason to think that you two know each other beyond the story you gave us.

This isn't the kind of message that he ever expected to receive from Huohuo. As cruel as possible?

Xueyi said that. But... Hanya said it too.

I don't know if I can.

You have to try.

He heads to a tavern and orders a tall shot of baijiu that smells absolutely disgusting and goes down even worse. It burns down his throat and through his system and makes him feel a little stupid, which is exactly what he needs right now. He goes to the Shackling Prison; a Wraith Warden escorts him inward. They check him for implements; he doesn't have any, not even his bat, but he's not sure why it matters if they expect him to torture Luocha. They let him in.

They move through the dark. Doors open and close.

Caelus doesn't step forward. Not at first. He hangs by the door, pressing his weight against it, as if to test if it will move with his own power. But the doors don't open. He's locked in. ]

...Hey, Luocha.

[ Such a bizarrely incongruous greeting. Not one that's doing the job of proving that he doesn't have anything to do with Luocha.

Caelus lifts his eyes to gaze at the man with golden hair, bound in his seat in his cell. ]

You know, despite everything, you still look good.