black_sluggard | (Fic) Fools Rush In

Title: Fools Rush In
Series: Quis Custodiet
Fandom: Castle, Supernatural (no canon knowledge necessary).
Genre: Angst, Supernatural, Pre-slash
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: Cliffhanger.
Details: Slash, genre!crack, crossover, AU, blasphemy, spoilers.
Characters/Pairings: Castle―pre-Kevin Ryan/Javier Esposito, mentions of Kevin/Jenny and Javier/Lanie. Kate Beckett, Richard Castle. Supernatural―Bobby Singer, Claire Novak, Amelia Novak, mentions of others.
Wordcount: 1,475
Summary: When Javier Esposito went missing and the body of an unidentified woman was found in his apartment, Detective Kevin Ryan refused to believe the worst of his partner. Now, with the case threatening to go cold, he has embarked on his own investigation, determined to uncover the truth.
Notes: Early season 4 for Castle, and AU for season 6 of Supernatural, so spoilers up to there. Part of the "Quis Custodiet" AU crossover 'verse. Takes place a couple months after "'Aloha' Doesn't Mean 'Goodbye'" (SupernaturalxHawaii Five-0), but stands alone. In fact, I think this story is much better if read first.
Written for the July Ficathon on

ryanandesposito.

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Epilogue

Chapter One

As he entered the apartment―quietly, so quietly―Kevin Ryan couldn't help but feel like he was sneaking into his own home.

His mother had always told him he had an honest face. Which was a polite way in her terms of saying that he sucked at lying. He'd learned early on that nine times out of ten he was better off not even trying. Which wasn't to say he was entirely hopeless. He had a good devious mind, he just needed an accomplice to distract from the anxiety that inevitably shone through―"like a deer in traffic" one ex had told him. Growing up, that role had normally fallen to one sister or the other. In high school, his best friend Matthew Sullivan had displayed a dazzling talent as a decoy.

In his time with the NYPD, Kevin had had a number of partners, each with varying degrees of suitability to the job they were unwittingly taking on with the assignment. While a few of them had been spectacular, though, none had ever come close to Javier Esposito.

Javier always projected this tough, no-nonsense exterior that even Kevin had taken a few months to see through. It contrasted well with his own dorky and unassuming image. When Kevin ventured a falsehood, no matter how ridiculous, Javier could manage a marvelous deadpan; a face that eloquently read "I'm buying this, why won't you?" With sufficient preparation, the combination was nearly bulletproof, and those talents had been sorely missed in the undertaking Kevin had made earlier that day.

Of course, if Javier had been available for the job, Kevin wouldn't have been stealing case files from the station in the first place.

Kevin locked the door behind him, waiting several moments before his subconscious caught up to what his rational mind understood about the supreme unlikelihood that his activities had been noticed, let alone that he had been followed. Regardless, he'd rested his forehead against the door, breathing slowly, and feeling a little foolish at the racing pace of his heart.

Once that had settled Kevin forced himself, slowly, deliberately through the task of shucking off his jacket, of loosening his tie. He draped both over the back of a chair at the kitchen table, setting the folder down on the table in front of it. He took out a beer, opened it, and tilted back a long swallow before he allowed himself to sit down and start paging through the file.

Kate would be so pissed at him if she ever found out. The last thing she wanted was to lose another member of her team. Kevin had already been warned to stay away from it four times, with the threat of suspension should a fifth incident occur. He knew that if Gates ever learned about this, it would almost certainly mean the end of his career. Really, he had tried. It hadn't been easy, but he had tried. And after a while he thought he had been handling things just fine...

But now the case was threatening to turn cold. That had turned out to be his breaking point. Now, he wasn't handling it at all. At least, not the way Kate or Gates or Jenny wanted to see him handling it. There just was no way he was going to let Javier's disappearance get put away in some box to collecting dust on a shelf somewhere.

No way in Hell.

Three months ago, Kevin had showed up at Javier's to watch a game. They'd made plans earlier in the week, and he had called just minutes before to say he was coming. When he had knocked on the door, though, there had been no answer. Thinking Javier was just occupied with something, Kevin had opened the door with his spare key.

The file in front of him stated that the apartment had born signs of a struggle―a painful understatement if Kevin ever heard one. The place had been a complete wreck. Practically every piece of furniture had been knocked over, thrown against the walls, or smashed entirely. Items had been flung off of shelves, picture frames knocked from the walls. Every window, every piece of glass in the apartment, was broken, and the TV almost looked like it had exploded. Scent stuck firm in memory, and as he read the description, Kevin could remember vividly the smell of ozone that had hit him when he'd opened the door...

And then, of course, there had been the body.

There was still no luck in identifying the young Asian woman whose corpse had been discovered, spread out on Javier's floor. The ME's report listed probable COD as the single stab-wound to the chest where a long, thin blade had pierced the heart cleanly. Odd scorch marks had been present on the floor beneath her, though CSU had never determined what might have caused the fire. Not chemical, they were sure.

Looking at the photographs, Kevin was distantly relieved that it was more than just a trick of his memory the way those burn marks resembled wings...

Since the door had still been locked when "the witness" arrived, one possibility listed was that whoever was responsible might have broken the windows to gain entrance. While it was an improvement on the popular theory―that Javier had locked up on his way out―Kevin frowned at that. The detectives working the case had apparently missed how the traces of glass on the fire escape and sidewalk suggested that the windows had broken outward.

Despite his misgivings about that lapse in deduction, Kevin was glad to see the processing of the scene had been thorough. Most of the prints they had found made sense: Javier's, his, Lanie's, Jenny's from the rare times she'd visited. Other people his partner knew and that could be explained...

Only a single set of prints had stood out.

Those prints belonged to a James Novak, who had been reported missing three years before in Pontiac, Illinois. The detectives covering the murder (because it was a murder investigation, not a missing persons, and Javier was still a person of interest, to Kevin's frustration) had talked to the man's wife. Unfortunately, she maintained that she hadn't seen her husband since she first reported him missing.

With no new leads on Javier, Novak, or their Jane Doe, the investigation appeared to have reached a dead end.

It was past two a.m. when Kevin pushed the file away, rubbing his eyes tiredly. He had read it through in its entirety four times. He barely managed to talk himself out of a fifth. So far, there wasn't much he could think of that he might accomplish that the detectives assigned to the case hadn't already done. It didn't matter. He'd do whatever he had to, no matter how small, pursue any possibility no matter how remote.

The only thing he wouldn't do was give up. Not while Javier might still be alive.

Kevin booked a flight to Chicago the next morning. Reading the report, the one thing he was convinced of was that he had to talk to Mrs. Novak himself, and it had to be face to face.

Kevin felt guilty about ditching Kate, running off and leaving her with only the writer as backup. He would have given advanced warning, but he knew she would have just tried to talk him out of it.

It had been disheartening to learn that not everyone had the same faith that he did in his partner's innocence. Not that he really thought Kate believed Javier was guilty, but so far she had done the diplomatic thing and hadn't come out to say she felt he was innocent, either. Between Montgomery and Mike Royce, Kevin thought he understood a little, and tried hard not to resent it. Hearing the same from Lanie, however, had been a lot harder to forgive. Only a week and a half before his theft from the file room, Kevin and Lanie had gotten into an argument about it. It had escalated quickly into shouting, finally ending with his accusation that if she honestly believed Javier could murder someone, then she shouldn't have fucked him.

He didn't think he'd ever forget the shocked look on Castle's face as the writer had helped Kate drag him out of autopsy.

Kevin knew that kind of behavior wasn't like him, but he felt like he was deconstructing. He had already put off the wedding. Indefinitely. He loved Jenny, but he just couldn't focus on something that trivial when he didn't even know what had happened to his best friend. She understood that much, he was sure, but once the third month since the disappearance had begun to slide past, she had started to bring it up again. Those conversations always turned strained, and most of the time Kevin tried to avoid them entirely.

And it wasn't until the plane was getting ready to take off, flight attendants instructing passengers to shut off their phones, that Kevin realized that he'd forgotten to tell Jenny that he was leaving.

Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Epilogue