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Series: Life
Fandoms: Castle
Rating: NC-17
Genre: Horror, Angst, Romance (and Hurt/Comfort...I guess?)
Warnings: Jesus, where do I even begin with this fic? Slash, AU, genre!crack, unbetad (all par, for me). OCs. Dark-ish. Horror elements that may squick some people. Themes allegorical of disability, prejudice, terminal illness, and mental illness.
Also, porn lives here when it very probably shouldn't given the subject matter. It's probably more disturbing than it is hot... Some vore in there. Kinda. A little bit. Okay, a lot. If you know what that is good for you, if not I direct you back to the warnings about horror and squick. Very mild BDSM (totally on accident, but it happened).
Characters/Pairings: Javier Esposito/Kevin Ryan, Kevin/Jenny, Richard Castle, Kate Beckett.
Wordcount: 14,592
Summary: He didn't always sleep, but that night he did. He even managed to dream. He dreamt sick, guilty dreams about his partner's horrified face, and how Jenny's long blonde hair would be the most perfect handhold to keep her still as he tore the flesh from her pretty cheek.
Details: There's...really no excusing this fic. I really shouldn't be allowed to write fanfiction when this is what I do with it. I'm aware I have issues. This fic displays most of them. So, here's a screwed up little AU fic for you...
Part One / Part Two
"The hard part is learning how to talk about these things," Reggie told him. Had told him a dozen times since the onset behaviors first began. "The biggest challenge to recovery won't be the impulses themselves, it will be the isolation you feel because of them. Being able to speak about it honestly is the first step in learning to live with them."
Coming out of the madness had been like surfacing through deep water, layers of distortion falling away. There was no lifesaving breath at the end as the metaphor would seem to imply, however, and sometimes Javier still felt like he was drowning.
Reggie was Javier's post-vital counselor. They had spoken several times since the beginning, just after his fever ended. Reggie had done his best to warn him about what he'd had to look forward to. What he had been told had been utterly insufficient, but then Reggie had warned him about that too. While Javier sincerely doubted that the urges he still felt were something he'd ever honestly learn to "live with", Reggie was an okay guy. Javier just wished there was an alternative to his approach to impulse-management. Javier had always kind of sucked at the sharing thing.
"Your instincts aren't something you will ever be able to defeat entirely, but by training an understanding of them, you will be able to bring them under your control. It's a struggle—"
Reggie cut off mid-sentence, looking toward the door. Listening, Javier heard the footsteps as well. He even recognized the tread. Despite that, seeing Kevin again still managed to catch Javier slightly off guard. He hesitated in the doorway, seeming uncertain, nervous. Given their last conversation, Javier found that understandable. Then again, it might have been Reggie Kevin was unsure of. While Kevin knew most of the doctors and nurses in the ward, Javier didn't think he and Reggie had actually met.
Silenced by his surprise at Kevin's sudden return, Javier watched the meeting with a layered feeling of nervousness he couldn't even hope to dissect. As they shook hands, he noticed Kevin's eyes dip briefly to the hand he was holding. Javier knew the double-take was on account of its coldness. In return, Reggie's eyes took in Kevin with a calculating wariness.
Reggie Simpson was a tall, lanky man with a sharp nose and a ridiculous bush of greying beard—Javier though he looked more than a little bit like Jim Henson. Physical aging was significantly slower in post-vital individuals, with evidence suggesting that in some cases it stopped completely. Reggie appeared to be in his late forties, but he was actually closer to twice that, having contracted IHN in 1964—only three years after the first outbreak, when the difficult questions about IHN were only beginning to be asked. Back then the term "post-vital" had yet to be developed to distinguish survivors from the dead, and even New York had regarded "disposal of remains" as the proper and humane course of action. It was one of the reasons Javier even bothered listening to Reggie. Despite his affable, easy personality and hippie throwback appearance, the man had an iron core to have survived what he had for as long he had.
His understandable defensiveness relaxed as Ryan offered his name, however, as though he'd heard it before. Knowing the nurses who staffed this ward, Javier wouldn't be surprised if he had. There was a slow blink as Kevin introduced himself as Javier's partner, after which Reggie's reception of him quickly warmed.
"Good for you." Reggie said slapping Kevin's shoulder gently, "That's good. Too many couples let IHN tear them apart."
Javier might have expected shock, but the desolate expression that crossed Kevin's face oh so briefly made no sense to him at all. It was covered up quickly, though, and he lost the chance to examine it further. A reply choked in Kevin's throat, finally forcing Javier to speak up.
"We worked together," he corrected, neutrally.
Kevin's shoulders shrunk slightly at the words. Reggie seemed to pick up on the odd atmosphere between them.
"I've got another patient to see," he told Javier, taking his jacket from the chair by the door. "I'll swing by later and see if there was anything else you needed to discuss."
Once Reggie had left, Javier had difficulty meeting Kevin's eye. A long period passed in which neither of them spoke. This time, it was Kevin who dragged up the courage to break the silence.
"I talked to Montgomery," he said without preamble. His tone was wary, forcing Javier to look up and confirm the nervousness in his eyes. "I know I should have talked to you first, but I guess if you're already talking about me in the past tense, maybe it's not as premature as I thought."
That got Javier's attention, though he forced himself to run the statement over again in his head to make sure before he let himself reply.
"What did he say?" He asked, trying to keep the apprehension from his voice.
"He's getting the paperwork ready," Kevin answered, "Pending a clear eval, you're good for coming back."
Javier hadn't realized until that moment how worried he'd been about that. He'd spent the past two months unable to imagine his life could possibly be put back together into anything recognizable. But maybe... The hope he felt at the thought of returning to his job was so sharp it hurt.
"Look, I—" Javier's voice was trembling as he spoke up, and he stopped to get a grip on what he was feeling. "What I said to you—"
"Don't apologize." Kevin insisted. "It wasn't you. You didn't mean it."
Javier looked away. When he'd said it, he had meant every literal word. But Kevin wasn't wrong, either. It hadn't really been him. Not entirely.
"The wedding didn't happen," Kevin blurted out suddenly. Javier's eyes returned to his partner's face, finding a startled expression, as though Kevin hadn't meant to say it. "I—that is— Jenny and I broke up last month."
"Oh." Javier honestly didn't know what to say. "Sorry, bro, I didn't know."
"I know you didn't." Kevin said, "You had plenty on your plate without worrying about—"
He cut himself off and shook his head.
"It doesn't matter," Kevin finished, sounding tired. "I'm fine. We just turned out to have a lot less in common than we thought."
Javier found himself remembering the argument—the one he now realized he'd never told Kevin he'd overheard. He felt a stab in his gut as his partner's reaction to Reggie's words suddenly made sense. He felt like an idiot, even though there was no way he could possibly have known.
Before he could find the words to take responsibility for that, Kevin spoke up again.
"So how much longer with the...?" He asked lightly, trailing off with a small gesture at the restraints on Javier's arms.
"Maybe another week, just 'til they're sure." He answered easily. The idea might have bothered him once, but now being so close inspired an odd little flicker of pride. "They've been letting me out on supervised walks to let me get my strength back, though."
Javier saw his partner smile. It was a little wounded, but the hope he'd held in safe keeping for Javier still burned brightly.
"It's a start."
---
Kevin's visits became regular again, after that. As often as he could, he arranged them to coincide with the times they let Javier leave his room. Sometimes they even had lunch together in the cafeteria. He found his partner's assurance that the food really was that terrible impossibly encouraging. From a few comments he overheard between his partner and a few of the nurses, Javier was beginning to believe Kevin's absence might have been intended for his benefit. Apparently, while Javier hadn't seen much of his partner after his outburst, Ryan had still kept close tabs on his progress, his persistence elevating him to a position of some notoriety among the IHN staff.
Now that he was on his way toward recovery, others had started coming by as well.
Beckett came by with some paperwork Montgomery had sent for him to review. Even without the necessary psychiatric evaluations he had to look forward to, he had still been out of work for nearly three months with a serious, debilitating illness. It would probably take months still to get him back there, so the sooner each step was achieved, the better. Since Ryan came by practically every day, though, Javier knew the paperwork was mostly an excuse. He and Kate were a lot alike in some ways. They both kept their emotions close to the vest, and hated to show weakness. It was something they each understood about the other, and Javier thought that understanding was probably the reason why she hadn't come by before now. He respected that. It hadn't been something he'd wanted anyone to see.
And he knew that she knew that Ryan— Well his partner was different and always had been. Even in the thickest of hells, nothing Kevin had seen had ever made him feel weak.
Ike showed up a couple times. He and Carol had only told Tim that Javier was sick, and he was worried about his Uncle Javi. They hadn't known what else to tell him. Since he was due to be cleared of the restraints very soon, they made a date for all three of them to come by the next visit. Castle came by often. He knew from his partner's updates that Castle had asked nearly every day if he should visit. He owed Kevin so much already, but keeping the writer at bay until Javier was ready to handle him shot straight to the top of the list. Then again, he had finally given Castle the green-light. Javier thought maybe the two canceled each other out.
His mother began visiting him again as well.
Javier knew he had Kevin to blame—thank—for that, too. Once he'd pulled through the worst of it, he'd been too afraid to call her himself. Their last conversation had felt too much like he was saying goodbye. And he was so different now from the last time she'd seen him. The man she'd left behind had still had a beating heart and red blood in his veins. That man had never imagined, or said, or wanted—still wanted—the things he had. With all of that on his conscience it was hard for Javier to feel like he was still her son. He had been terrified she wouldn't want him back.
He felt like an idiot for those doubts later, arms wrapped tight around her, not even a bit ashamed that he was crying. She had laid a warm kiss against the cold skin of his forehead, burning like a brand so he'd never forget.
And, of course, Kevin had told her about the food they served at the hospital, so she'd brought him onion soup and a sandwich like she used to do when he got sick as a kid. Javier was relieved to find that it tasted exactly the way he remembered it.
---
After they did away with the restraints Javier was in the hospital for another two weeks before he finally got to leave.
The evaluation process was harsh and thorough, and possibly the single most dehumanizing thing he'd experienced outside of the two months he had spent losing his mind. Eight sessions over those final two weeks, meant to test him for the "emotional and cognitive deficits" that were the signs of an incomplete recovery from onset. Which was a tidy clinical way of saying they needed to know if he'd survived his illness and the ordeal that followed, only to wind up a sociopath. The psychologist who handled him was a short, abrasive little woman. Dr. Waters had little patience, less tact, and no bedside manner to speak of, feeling the need to remind him multiple times that her job wasn't to coddle him and protect him from the world. It was to protect the world from him. After the third time she'd used words to that effect, Javier had managed not to rise to the bait. He had a feeling she was doing it on purpose, working out his limits through her toxic attitude in ways stupid questions about tortoises trapped on their backs would never reveal.
It didn't help his confidence that, often, his honest answers to her questions weren't what he thought they should be.
Waters' comments on the release paperwork claimed that Javier's reactions to sensitive stimuli were "within the norm for his stage of recovery" but that further work might be needed to curb "socially unacceptable deviance". Fortunately, his control and awareness of his impulses were deemed "well within the range to allow his safe release back into the public".
He found it bitterly ironic that reading the sentence that would ultimately set him free made him feel so much like a prisoner...
Apparently, Castle had wanted to throw some ridiculous party when he was released from the hospital. Javier was thankful—more than thankful—that Kate was able to talk him down.
A few friends at the Old Haunt was about as much as he could handle, just yet. It was one thing to be confident of his control when he was stuck in a room by himself, but having that kind of confidence out in the world was another thing entirely. Surrounded by family and close friends, all crowding together in a close press eager to welcome him back, for a crazy moment Javier almost missed the restraints. Not that he felt he was a danger to them—it was nothing that urgent. Just a tiny sliver of fear that he might say or do something to embarrass himself. He hated the thought of having those friends he still held onto think any less of him.
The extra assurance might have been comforting.
---
Javier was out of the hospital for less than a week when he came home to find notice taped to the door of his apartment.
"We've got kids living here," was the argument his super had leveled when Javier confronted him.
The sick frustration Javier felt at the man's implication was almost enough to boil over and push him into something ugly. Back when he was warm, Javier would probably have lost it and let the man know exactly what he thought of him. He couldn't afford that kind of explosion anymore—and any degree of honesty regarding what he'd really have liked to do to the guy would only seem to prove him right. He had swallowed his rage quietly, though his fists were clenched so tight that they shook.
He had two weeks to find another place. That would be harder than it sounded, he knew. Technically, he wasn't required to disclose his post-vital status to prospective landlords. The unfortunate reality, however, was that most interviews would reveal the fact with a simple handshake. Combined with the blow to his savings when his insurance had only paid for half of his hospitalization, and Javier found his options were pretty limited.
Kevin caught him apartment hunting when he came over a few days later. Once he had managed to wheedle the story out of him, Kevin had needed to be stopped from searching out the super and flipping his shit on Javier's behalf.
After a week and a half of mutual effort—and complete failure to find anything within his means that was even remotely acceptable—Javier was getting ready to give up. God, but he didn't want to wind up in one of those depressing halfway-houses. He was getting so sick of being made to feel like a criminal.
Fortunately, that kind of a concession turned out not to be necessary.
When Kevin offered to let him stay at his place, Javier was a little reluctant. To start with, he hadn't wanted to cause any trouble for his partner. More than that, though, Javier had to question whether he could trust himself. Sharing close quarters with Kevin like that would be different than anything he'd had to deal with so far. He wasn't worried about the daytime—much—but he still had waking dreams sometimes. Not often, but they happened. Never during the day anymore, but at night during the hours that before his illness he would have spent sleeping, sometimes he would find himself locked in the grip of visions that weren't really happening. However, while during onset they had been a danger, now when they happened Javier usually knew them for what they were. And while he couldn't always interrupt them, he normally managed not to act on whatever he was seeing.
When it came down to it, though, Javier knew Kevin would be disappointed if he refused.
"Alright," he said, looking his partner in the eye. "But I'm keeping my couch."
His fears turned out mostly to have been unfounded.
Living—cohabitating—with Kevin had been strange getting used to, but it wasn't as difficult as he'd thought it might be. And oddly, it never seemed to be for the reasons he had expected. He'd noticed early on how sensitive his skin was to temperature now that he had almost no body heat of his own. Sometimes when he touched an object like a door handle, or a rail, he could still feel the ghost of heat left by whoever had touched it last. Staying with his partner he got that almost constantly, little echoes of Kevin's movements left all around the apartment. And sometimes, when Kevin went to bed leaving him to stay up alone, Javier found himself running his hand over the upholstery of the couch, feeling the lingering outline of his partner's warmth.
---
Javier had been staying with Kevin for more than a week when he started hearing the chewing noises in the kitchen at night. There was a rat living under the stove. When he was in the kitchen sometimes he could even smell it. Between the insomnia caused by his illness and his worry about the upcoming evaluation to qualify him for reinstatement it was hard enough for him to sleep already. Hearing that all night definitely wasn't helping. He mentioned it to Kevin the next morning, and his partner promised to buy some traps.
It was past 3 am, two days later, when Javier woke up suddenly. He wasn't sure what had woken him at first. Then he heard the agonized squeaks coming in from the kitchen. Every muscle in his body locked up, and for a moment he was unable to move. He didn't want to go in there and see, he really didn't, knew he should stay right where he was. And he tried. He tried, but putting the pillow over his head didn't help, and the thing was still making those noises...
Of course Kevin noticed the trap in the trash the next morning. The trap, but no rat.
"Next time get poison," Javier told him, pushing the scrambled eggs around on his plate. He couldn't bring himself to look his partner in the face.
Breakfast went into the trash too, a short time later. Javier really wasn't hungry.
It took Javier another two days to work up the courage to talk to Reggie about it. His hands trembled a little as he remembered licking the blood off his fingers, remembered warm flesh and the crunch of bone. The phrase "socially unacceptable deviance" had been running through his mind almost non-stop ever since it happened, and he was terrified what the man might have to say about it. What it might mean. Reggie listened sympathetically, though fortunately he hadn't seemed very concerned.
"A lot more post-vital people occasionally indulge in raw feeding—or even live feeding—than like to admit." Reggie told him. "It's like drinking. It only becomes a problem if it starts damaging personal or professional relationships. If you think it poses a risk to impulse management, let me know, but otherwise I wouldn't worry about it."
A week later, Castle was finally given license to go all-out when they celebrated Javier's reinstatement to the NYPD.
Afterward, he and Kevin held a small celebration of their own. For dinner that night, Javier shelled out for steaks. He cooked one for Kevin, heating the other carefully in a bag submerged in a pot of hot water well below boiling. Kevin's eyebrows had lifted slightly as he took in the sight of the meat on Javier's plate, warm, red and bloody. Javier met the look of faint surprise in his partner's eyes with the uncertainty in his own. Moments slid past and Javier didn't breathe, not until his partner hitched a small shrug, digging in to his potatoes.
"So, next Monday, right?" Kevin asked, his easy smile dismissing the tension in Javier's stomach. "It's about damned time."
---
Impulse-awareness was a crucial skill in post onset recovery. It was important to recognize the aberrant thoughts and desires so that they could be handled before they became a problem.
Javier had been doing well. He'd been doing really well. There were hard days, especially when he was stressed, but most of the time an entire week could go by where he didn't feel threatened by the instinct to tear into someone. He'd thought that being back at work could only make things better. In a way it did, because the job wasn't really the problem. The problem was that now that he was spending his days at the station again, Kevin was by his side almost 24/7. At first he was terrified that he was regressing, troubled by the new wave of intrusive thoughts and images into his daily life. He was taught to be aware of his urges, however, and he knew that these were different. Not normal, but they lacked the violence he had become used to. Still, that knowledge wouldn't help him if he couldn't understand what the problem was.
And when Ryan rolled up his shirtsleeves one warm afternoon, it didn't stop the fantasies Javier had of pressing a bite into the skin, just hard enough to bruise.
It was another fantasy entirely that finally clued him in to the underlying issue, and when the realization was made Javier felt like he'd been hit by a bus. Because as twisted as it was, the impulse to sink his teeth into someone's flesh was something he'd been forced to live with, but the desire to touch—to press every part of his skin that he could to Kevin's and let himself drink in his partner's living warmth—that was foreign and new and as startling in it's own way as any other urge he'd ever felt.
Not as bad, not by a long shot, but very unexpected.
Javier had been warned early on that only a small percentage of post-vital individuals still experienced sexual attraction—and that even then it was in a profoundly altered fashion. It had thrown him completely to realize that was what it was. Not only was it shocking to suddenly find himself feeling that about another man—about his best friend—it also felt very different than it had used to. None of the mechanisms functioned anymore that would have given him the usual signs. The feeling was there, the want, but no sudden sweats or flashes of heat.
He had no pulse to quicken.
And then there was the silence on other fronts which he'd found so distressing in the beginning. He had learned quickly enough that touching himself barely managed to get him half-hard. Even that had taken so much attention that after a few frustrating attempts he'd finally decided it wasn't even worth the effort. The ease with which he'd abandoned the idea of sex had bothered him more than the problem itself, but even that blow to his identity as a man had seemed such a small thing amid everything else he had been going through.
Now, his attraction to Kevin felt like a cruel joke being played on him. As if his body had determined to betray him once again by ruining one of the few good things from his old life that hadn't fallen apart.
Javier tried his best to ignore it. Unfortunately his best was pretty pathetic. Mostly he was just quiet and twitchy, and he knew it probably looked a whole lot like those first weeks of onset when he had constantly monitored his thoughts, hoping not to let anything show. And he knew that was probably the reason for the faint glimmer of worry he always saw in his partner's eyes anymore. He knew Kevin would never ask. If he hadn't asked when Javier was in the hospital, he wouldn't ask now, but Kevin would still worry about him. He hated doing that to his partner, but he was at a complete loss for how else to handle things.
He could suffer in silence, he'd thought. He had certainly done plenty of it.
Of course he should have known it would never be that simple. For starters, the base problem still existed of he and Kevin being joined at the hip. It was difficult keeping his focus on the job with his partner dangled in front of him like an indifferently metaphorical piece of meat. People—people who weren't Ryan—were starting to notice. Mostly Castle and Beckett, but once he'd spaced out talking to Karpowski, and she'd had to snap her fingers in front of his face to catch his attention. That really wasn't good. Zone outs like that made people nervous, and the last thing he needed was for anyone on the force to think he wasn't watching their back.
Or even worse, think they needed to watch their own backs around him.
---
One night, he snapped out of one of his waking dreams and found himself standing over Kevin's bed.
He couldn't remember the dream once it had faded, and thinking about what he might have been about to do scared him so badly he left the apartment, not even remembering to grab his coat on the way. He didn't stop until he reached the sidewalk below, and then only to shiver a little as the cold air robbed him of what little warmth he had. More comfortable once his temperature had dropped to match the early autumn night around him, Javier struck off blindly, with no particular destination in mind.
He had often done this in the weeks between his release and his return to work, usually while Ryan was at the station but other times to fill the hours of the nights when his brain stubbornly refused to switch off. The less he felt like sleeping, the less likely he was to wind up in a dream before he did, so those nights were usually safe. Tonight...wasn't, apparently. He knew it was a bad idea for him to be out on a night where his mind might wander places without him, but he also knew that if he'd stayed anywhere close to where his partner lay—sleeping and helpless—he would have driven himself crazy long before sunrise. And it hurt more than anything he could imagine to think it, but with his other impulses held in check the rest of the world was safe from him in a way that Kevin plainly wasn't.
Normally when Javier let himself be lead he eventually found himself on the subway. Whether that was something in his new instincts putting him where the prey was or else a desire to feel like part of the world again, Javier had never looked at it closely enough to know. Tonight, however, whatever part of his subconscious had chosen to steer him hadn't wanted the distraction of the subway as much as it had wanted guidance.
It was dark-thirty in the morning when Javier slid into an empty booth in the coffee shop down the street from Reggie's building, prepared to wait until morning. Not that Reggie wasn't probably still awake himself, but it was as good an excuse as any to put off that conversation just a little longer.
The last thing he wanted was to talk to anyone about what was going on in his head right now, but it was becoming clear this wasn't something he could handle on his own. If there was even the remotest chance he might become a danger to his partner, he knew he had to swallow his embarrassment and his shame and man the fuck up. Still, even once he'd resolved to do it, drawing up the courage had taken some time.
It was past 4 am when he finally managed to call Reggie and tell him where he was. Once he ended that call, he sent a text to Kevin's phone. His partner would be waking up in another half an hour to start the coffee maker, and he was sure to notice Javier was missing from the couch. He told Kevin that he'd taken a walk, but he didn't mention Reggie. His partner knew how uneasy the older man sometimes made him, and that they rarely spoke unless he was having difficulties. Javier didn't want him to worry more than he already was.
Explaining this situation to Reggie was infinitely more painful than it had been with the damned rat.
Javier kept his eyes on the table the entire time he spoke, or on his fingers curled around his coffee. He could imagine how fiercely his face would burn if his heart were still a functioning part of him. Despite the fact that he had been the way he was for almost six months, for a moment it suddenly seemed so impossible that he could actually be there, having a conversation with this man about the twisted lust he felt for his partner's body and flesh.
"Most IHN survivors who still feel attraction have reported experiencing attraction outside of their prior orientation," Reggie told him, carefully, as if he were afraid that was an issue here. It was, a little, but it was so far down on Javier's list right now... "Doctors are split on whether the changes in the brain alter orientation directly, or if our experiences just break us of some of our old boundaries, or if perhaps sexual desire is just too closely tied to the feeding impulse for gender to really matter—"
"Look," Javier interrupted, dragging his eyes up to meet Reggie's hoping to stall the man from carrying on his speech. He gave exactly two shits what the medical reasons were, though he thought the last rang distressingly true. "I don't care why I feel like this. I just want to know how to stop."
Reggie heaved a sigh.
"Javier, you know things like this don't just stop," he said quietly, "There's no pause or rewind. We have to deal with them as they happen in real time. Why would this be any different?"
He knew it wasn't, not really. An impulse was an impulse, and there were only two ways to handle them. You either learned to resist or you removed the temptation. Only, in this case, Javier didn't think he could survive either one.
"Because it's Kevin." He'd finally managed, a little hoarsely. And that was really the answer to the question Reggie had asked, wishful and hopeless as it was. "He's my best friend and I owe him too much. He doesn't deserve this from me."
Reggie sat back in the booth, examining Javier with a silent frown. Javier shifted in his seat under the attention. The only thing worse than Reggie reciting from his mental pamphlets was Reggie when he was quiet. It usually meant he'd figured out something going on in your head even you didn't know about.
"I know you care about him," Reggie said, softly, "He was there for you all the way through your recovery in a way very few people ever are."
"I'm not an expert, Javier, not with this. I've never felt what you're feeling—I haven't been involved with anyone since before you were even born—but this doesn't sound like lust to me. Or not just that." He looked Javier in the eye, making sure of his attention as he continued. "Pretend this was like any other desire you've been taught to deal with. Focus on it, let yourself understand it. And you don't have to tell me the answer, but I want you to be honest with yourself."
"Do you think it's possible that you're in love with him?"
---
Javier barely remembered the trip back to the apartment.
Kevin was already awake and dressed by the time he got there, and Javier's eyes were quick enough to catch him sliding the cell phone back into his pocket. He could see the worn concern in his partner's eye, and the question that hid behind it as Kevin took in the details. Javier was still wearing the clothes he'd worn yesterday, and he could imagine he probably looked pretty rough. A quick glance at the clock told him nothing good—he'd be late for work no matter what if he wanted to go in anywhere approaching presentable. He considered telling Kevin to go on ahead without him, but he knew from the look in his partner's eye he was better off not even making that offer.
They were subdued when they waltzed into the station, both of them more than fifteen minutes late. He knew Beckett took immediate notice. The worried look that flitted briefly between her and his partner made Javier wonder if he had done a worse job than he thought at managing his behavior. He hated doing it to himself, but for a terrified moment it crossed his mind that maybe they were looking for him to snap. Javier would have loved to ease their concerns, but he couldn't even begin to imagine what he should say. There was a time and a place for that conversation—that was, if the panic that threatened any time the thought surfaced allowed it to happen at all.
And despite his efforts to stay focused on the job, it was all Javier could think about.
Once asked, there had been no doubt in his mind about the answer to Reggie's question. It was a question he realized he had avoided asking himself. Because if what he was feeling were just another aberration forced on him by his condition, he could have tried to beat it, to put it out of mind the way he had to with everything else. But if it was more than some new indignity sprung on him by the disease, more than just lust, if it was something that was really him...
Even measured against the screwed up shit he'd been forced to deal with over the last half year that was still a difficult thing to face.
For all that he had been the one to open the floodgates, after the painful epiphany Reggie...really hadn't helped. His efforts to assure Javier that he was still deserving to give love, and to be loved had met with a withering glare that previously only Castle had ever brought out of him. Whether he believed it or not, he seriously wasn't in the mood for that bullshit. Reggie's only other advice before they parted ways were to tell Kevin how he felt. Given the level of devotion his partner had shown during Javier's illness, he believed the worst that could possibly happen was that Kevin would want to stay friends.
In his heart—or what passed for it—Javier believed that was true, but there were still the nagging doubts. The what ifs. What if it made things awkward between them? What if it spoiled their friendship completely? If things went sour, would they still be able to work together? The situation held the frightening potential for him to lose nearly everything he had left. On top of losing Kevin he could find himself without a home, without a job... And then there was the worst of those what ifs: the scenario where he and Kevin could have had something deeper together, but never would be because the complications of his illness were just too much.
Haunted, Javier found himself sleepwalking through most of the day.
Their drive home was as silent as their trip to work that morning, the air in the car thick with questions unasked, answers not offered. Every now and then Javier would feel his partner's eyes watching him, though he never looked back to catch him out. That silence followed them home into the apartment, and though they were often in the same room it felt like they were miles apart. Javier thought they were like two fragile things, packed in cotton out of the fear of one breaking the other. They'd wordlessly raided a dinner of leftovers, watching the news with what each knew was feeble interest at best.
It was Kevin who finally broke that painful tension, speaking softly.
"Think I'll turn in early."
There wasn't any one point at which Javier decided to act, he just couldn't let those be the only words spoken that night.
The move was practically involuntary. As Kevin walked past him, Javier reached out and grabbed his arm—tightly, stopping him in his tracks. Both of them stood frozen, watching the other carefully. Kevin didn't seem startled, though the expression in his eyes was so wary that it hurt. Aware of the squeeze he still held on his partner's upper arm, Javier loosened his grip a little. He could feel the heat of the other man's skin burning against his palm through the fabric of his sleeve. When, after a few breaths, Kevin didn't pull away from his grasp, Javier let his hand slide down, encircling his partner's wrist gently. His fingertips pressed against Kevin's pulse, and Javier's eyes fluttered closed briefly at the strange-familiar sensation. God, but it seemed so long since he had felt that...
Javier noticed the pace of Kevin's heart speed up beneath his fingers, and hoped—frantically, desperately hoped—that it wasn't from fear.
"Look, I don't—" He began roughly, bringing his eyes back up to Kevin's face as he sought out the words he needed. "I know it's kind of...messed up, and you probably don't feel—"
Javier had been watching his partner's eyes closely, so he saw the moment the apprehensive spark there turned into something else. Something Javier didn't have time to interpret before Kevin's hand twisted out of his, reaching up around the back of his neck and bringing their lips together in a rough kiss.
The heat of his partner's mouth was almost shocking, and the tongue that slipped in after felt like a flame. A deep noise shook his chest that he didn't even have a name for as he pressed in, a quick nip tugging at Kevin's lower lip. Kevin sucked in a gasp, and then it was Javier's turn to invade his mouth, tongue sliding along the inside of his lip and finding the hot, thin thread of his pulse squirming there as well. Meanwhile, his hands had found their way to his partner's hips, pulling him close until their bodies were almost flush, the thin layers of their clothing all that separated him from the furnace of Kevin's warmth. The kiss dragged on with a fierce, desperate momentum that probably could have gone on for hours.
As it was, the only thing that stopped them was Kevin's need for air.
"I was so afraid I was losing you again," Kevin whispered softly when they finally pulled back, face hiding in the crook of Javier's shoulder. His hands clutched tightly at Javier's back, as though still worried he might disappear. "Is this— This is it, right? This is why you've been acting so screwy these past few weeks. Please say it's this."
"It's this." Javier managed quietly, sounding breathless himself, though he was honestly just stunned.
"Idiot." The word was almost a laugh, though there was a faint anger in it. "You idiot... Jesus, Javi...I've been kind of hopeless over you since we first started working together."
Javier had never realized.
With that knowledge, the effort his partner had put into holding the shattered pieces of his life together might have made slightly more sense. Or, still, perhaps that was just who Kevin was. Javier didn't know, and he didn't have words just then to address it, so he just pressed his face into his partner's hair, letting himself drink in the scents that he'd spent so long not letting himself notice. His flesh and blood smelled almost sweet, though there was another, exciting element slowly creeping in beneath it. It pulled Javier in helplessly. Dropping his head he ran his tongue over the skin of Kevin's throat, tasting salt and the chemical tang of his cologne, and finding his pulse point mouthed it gently.
His hands were shaking where they clutched at Kevin's waist as he wrestled with a savage need he barely understood—not hunger or lust, but something that fell frighteningly in between.
His partner seemed unaware of the tension stringing its way through his body, and when Kevin's questing hand palmed him through his slacks Javier barely managed not to flinch. His motions slowed and he drew back to look Javier in the eye, and for for a moment, he thought maybe Kevin had noticed. But as the touch lingered, Javier realized it was something else entirely that had stopped him.
"Can you—"
The gaze wavered a little but didn't fall away as his partner swallowed the question, faint uncertainty creasing his forehead. Kevin never asked those kinds of questions, he hadn't from the beginning. That he almost had...wasn't something Javier was going to let himself think about.
"I don't know." Javier admitted, sounding strangely calm despite the panicked voice in the back of his head screaming that this was where it all fell apart. "I don't even know what I'm doing. I've never..."
He trailed off, embarrassed at how his brain jumped skittishly past the idea like a freaking virgin.
"I've never...with a guy." He finished lamely.
Nothing should ever be so absurdly reassuring as the tender smile his partner flashed just then.
"Okay," Kevin whispered, lifting his hand to slide it under Javier's shirt, so warm as it caressed the cool flesh of his stomach that it drew a faint hiss. "We'll find out. Just...tell me what you need."
With an invitation like that, Javier found his shyness slipping away abruptly. Suddenly he knew exactly what he wanted. He might not know what he could do, but he was fairly sure he knew what Kevin could do, and if he needed a way to keep him, then maybe...
"Fuck me." Javier was surprised at the words coming out of his own mouth. So much for impulse-awareness. "I want you to fuck me."
From the way Kevin stood gaping at him, those words—or the low, grinding rasp of the voice that spoke them—surprised him as well.
"Are you sure?"
Thinking about the warmth of Kevin's hands, his lips, his mouth, Javier was more than sure. Just the idea of having that kind of heat inside him—his legs felt a little like jelly. His voice escaped him at first, but he managed a soft "mhm" that would have been a whimper if not for the coarse whisper of a growl carried underneath.
"I'm sure."
Kevin stared at him for the space of a few more seconds, his eyes lust-dark and dazed, before pushing him toward the bedroom.
Their mouths found each other again as they stripped one another's shirts, Javier carefully pacing his control of himself through the deliberate task of undoing one button after the other. Still, the sight of Kevin's bare skin once he found it almost unraveled him. The only thing that saved him was that he wasn't sure where to start first, whether he wanted to feel the pale ridge of Kevin's collarbone between his teeth or bite a dark bruise into the vulnerable skin of his naked belly.
If, on their next kiss, Kevin noticed the saliva filling Javier's mouth he said nothing.
"Have you ever—" Javier asked to cover his hesitation, but found he couldn't quite complete the question.
"I— Yeah." Kevin answered, understanding him nonetheless. "It's...been a while."
The blush that brightened his already flushed face was absolutely gorgeous. Javier leaned forward, nuzzling the heated flesh of his partner's cheek, letting the warmth ground him against the frantic, dangerous, confusing feeling beating itself bloody inside of him. Warm fingers worked at the opening of his slacks and Javier fell sitting as his legs were backed up against the edge of Kevin's bed.
In light of revealed feelings, there was the temptation to wonder whether his partner pursued the ghost of who he used to be, but no one knew him better than Kevin. That had been true for a long time, but since his recovery it was even more so. Living together, his partner was privy to many of the ways he'd changed as well as the ways in which he was still the same. Eye-level with it now, he could see how badly his partner wanted him, but it was the look in his eyes that finally made Javier believe it.
Believe that Kevin really could want him as he was now: cold flesh and deviant hunger.
Kevin tugged the pants off him slowly and Javier threw an arm around his shoulders to keep from tilting backward. The contact of his arm against the warm skin of Kevin's back was vibrant, electric, delicious. It seemed truly shameful for him to be this naked when Kevin wasn't, and Javier drew him closer, reaching for the buckle of his partner's belt as he brought their mouths together for another burning kiss.
He was occupied with learning Kevin's taste—careful, gentle bites down the side of his partner's neck, barely letting himself tug at the skin—when he felt the light warmth of fingers brush his cock. The flesh under his partner's hand was unresponsive, but the heat and the friction still felt good, and Javier's hips pushed forward into his touch. Face pressed tightly against his partner's throat, suddenly the impulse to dig his teeth into the warm flesh in front of him was almost overwhelming. Javier stilled.
"Wait," he ground out, his voice rough and broken sounding as he shoved his partner away.
Kevin stared back at him, looking confused, concerned and more than a little hurt. There was a defensiveness to that hurt, as though part of him wanted to bolt—not to escape him, Javier thought, but whatever had caused him to push Kevin away. Given the fragility of his control right now, Javier almost wished he'd try.
"Do you—" He struggled for coherency, fighting both the fierce want coiled up inside him and the shame he felt for what he was asking. For needing to ask. "Do you have your cuffs?"
Kevin's hurt expression turned soft and a little shocked—his partner hurting for him now rather than himself.
"Javi..."
Javier looked away. He didn't think he could afford to listen to any assurance or argument his partner might make, and he knew if he looked Kevin in the eye he might change his mind.
"Please?" He asked. "I don't know what this is going to be like, and if I— I don't want to—"
There was no way of completing the thought that wouldn't destroy him completely.
Javier flinched slightly as the feel of warm fingers on his jaw pulled him back from the brink of his thoughts. Kevin turned his face back toward him and kissed him softly, long and warm, before drawing back to look him in the eye, running a thumb over Javier's lips.
"Okay," Kevin said softly.
Javier didn't breathe or move the entire time Kevin was gone to get them.
There was a sudden and intense rush of relief when the cuffs snapped shut around his wrists, anchoring him half-sitting to the head of Kevin's bed. Relief he couldn't help but feel guilty for. After spending more than two months tied down in a hospital bed he felt this was the last thing he should have wanted. But the fact was that he felt safe in a way he hadn't for months. Safe, because right now he wasn't a threat to anyone.
Though he was no longer helpless against his instincts as he had been in the beginning, every moment of every day was spent on guard against them. If not for the immediate safety of others then for the need to conform, to avoid people's second glances and their speculation. Even on the days when that was easy, there was always the quiet doubt about what tomorrow would bring. Javier hadn't fully realized how much pressure the need for that kind of control put him under. Now, he had effectively handed that responsibility over to Kevin, and the momentary release from it left him blinking back tears.
Ironically, at that moment it was Kevin who seemed the more vulnerable, scared and more than a little helpless. Javier knew that being asked to restrain him like this hurt Kevin just a little. He felt like apologizing, but at the same time he felt like thanking him so in the end he said nothing. Instead he looked Kevin in the eye, wanting him to understand that this was okay. He had put himself in his partner's hands, but he did that every day, and Javier trusted Kevin.
He trusted Kevin more than he trusted himself.
Whatever he saw in Javier's eyes must have been what he needed to see, because that injured look slowly bled away. Kevin leaned in, capturing Javier's mouth fiercely before he moved lower, trailing warm, light touches and wet, hot kisses across the cold plane of his chest. Freed of the need to restrain himself Javier was able to narrow his focus, aware of every point where Kevin's body touched his own.
And when the first finger, slick and warm, pressed into him carefully, his partner had his complete and undivided attention.
Javier hadn't known what to expect, but the slide was something else, and when Kevin repeated the motion the noise he made was low and dirty. It was a strange feeling, but so was waking up to a dead heart, and that had been far less pleasant. Javier found himself wishing he could have done this when he was still warm, just once so that he had something to compare it to. Then the finger was joined by a second, and Kevin did this something—something that sent lightning shooting up his spine.
The next time their mouths met there were far too many teeth involved to call it a kiss, and when Kevin leaned out of his reach Javier felt his fingers curl with the strong desire to drag him back. His jaws opened reflexively, aching to taste copper.
The heat and attention of the fingers working him open had been intense, but they left him utterly unprepared for what followed. As Kevin slid inside Javier breathed a noise—odd, soft and stuttering, somewhere between a sigh and a death rattle. He could feel his partner's pulse dance inside him, strong and unbelievably rapid, burning with the impossible high heat of his blood. Mind and body stalled as he processed the sensation; unexpected, bizarre, and excruciatingly intimate.
"You good?"
Javier hadn't realized his eyes were closed until he heard Kevin's voice. The meaning of the words barely reached him, but it was a ridiculous question anyway. He opened his eyes to find his partner staring down at him. His partner, usually so neat, now with his face all flushed and damp with perspiration, hair coming slightly askew. Kevin looked positively edible in a way that was, for once, completely innocent. Javier couldn't speak. Couldn't be bothered to breathe, he just nodded.
And then, with a smile so lewd Javier never would have suspected him capable, Kevin started to move.
The response of his body as Kevin thrust into him was enthusiastic, almost alarmingly so. Raw heat contacted some molten thing inside him and he jerked, the metal edge of the cuffs biting the skin of his wrist. Javier could feel the clear serum that filled his veins beginning to well, thin and sluggish down the length of his forearm. Strangely even that small, sharp sting of pain felt good to him.
Things built, sharpening to an intensity that was nearly unpleasant before it fell. Instead of passing, however, the feeling unexpectedly began to rise again. There was a pleasant flash of warmth that might have been Kevin finishing inside him, but Javier was too locked within his own experience to know for sure. That odd wave of spiking sensation hit twice more, and it felt like he was being shaken apart. Things turned muddy, distant and unreal. It wasn't until he felt skin part under his teeth that whatever was keeping him trapped in that overwhelming loop finally broke.
Breathing was an effort abandoned long before and without air in his lungs he came silently, shaking.
Awareness drifted back to him in pieces. There was a click as the cuffs were undone, Kevin's hand on his face as his partner pressed a loose kiss against his mouth. His fingers were numb and prickling where the sensation was coming back into them, a detail that made immediate sense, though the presence of that same feeling in his feet confused things a little.
Kevin was sprawled out bonelessly across his chest. Above his deltoid, where neck met shoulder, a small bite had broken the skin. His senses were still scattered, and despite the guilt the damage inspired Javier couldn't stop himself from lapping gently at the blood which seeped there. Kevin turned his head, looking at him, but his only response was a soft, sleepy smile.
Javier remained still beneath his partner as Kevin's breathing evened out into sleep. He wouldn't manage to follow for a few hours yet, but he was content to lie their anyway. He closed his eyes, shutting out everything but the lulling rhythm of Kevin's heart beating slow and strong against his sternum.
For the first time in half a year, Javier felt like he was alive.
Ende
Author's Note: So yeah. The Sluggard wrote zombie porn of Castle. My closest friends would be shocked at this...not at all. Gay zombie cops struggling not to cannibalize their boyfriends pretty much hits every significant kink I have. Though this is probably going to be the last legitimately smutty fic I ever do, 'cause that shit's friggin' hard to write.
And just in case I haven't already alienated the entire fandom, I have ideas weirder than this. Because apparently I'm that writer now. The one who writes screwed up dark!fic for fandoms it makes almost no sense for. I remember avoiding that writer back when I first started reading fic. When did I become that writer?
