black_sluggard | (Fic) Sui Generis

Title: Sui Generis
Fandoms: Castle
Rating: PG-13
Genre: Horror, Sci-fi, Romance.
Warnings: Possible squick, non-sexual content skirting dub-con
Reverse Warnings: Whatever certain scenes or warnings might lead one to believe, this fic contains neither mpreg nor naughty tentacles. I promise.
Details: Pre-slash, AU, genre!crack, angst, body horror, mood whiplash, insanity (not the characters', mine), starfish aliens, unbetad.
Characters/Pairings: Castle―pre-Javier Esposito/Kevin Ryan, Kevin/Jenny, Richard Castle.
Wordcount: 2,396
Summary: Javier confessed never expecting Kevin to believe him. Kevin didn't, but somehow, things still wound up spiraling frighteningly out of control...

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 5.5 - 6 - 7

Chapter One

"Okay, wait, what?"

"You heard me, Kev," Javier answered defensively, as though he had expected Kevin to act like he'd merely offered his opinion on the latest summer blockbuster and not at all like he'd said—what he just had.

Despite the dense ruckus of the Old Haunt's patrons, Javier was right, Kevin didn't think he'd misheard, exactly. It was just difficult for him to make any sense of it otherwise...

"Look," Kevin said, still trying to process, though between his partner's tone and the way certain parts of the statement had parsed through his subconscious, he was already a little annoyed, "I know you don't really like her, but you could have just said 'no'. You don't have to make up some ridiculous, exaggerated comment like that."

"I'm not exaggerating," Javier said, taking a drink of his beer. Though the gesture seemed exaggeratedly casual, like he very much wanted Kevin to forget he'd said anything.

"Seriously, what kind of insane ass thing is that to say?"

"You asked," Javier replied, a note of irritation in his voice as well, which where did he even get off...?

"I asked," Kevin allowed, voice raising slightly, "but I expected an answer that made some kind of sense."

"I gave you an honest answer," Javier defended quietly, his expression guarded and unaccountably hurt.

"How is that—"

"You asked me if I wanted to be the best man at your wedding," Javier cut in fiercely, recapping with a strained frustration ringing in his voice that Kevin really didn't understand, "I told you that, no, I don't think it's a good idea. You were the one who insisted I explain why. And if you can't accept the answer, that's not my problem."

When the tirade ended, Kevin was left at a loss for words. And he was still grasping fruitlessly for a response when his partner threw his cash down on the counter for his drinks and walked away, leaving Kevin painfully confused. He wasn't sure how long he stood there before Castle finally approached, sidling up with an expectant smile.

"So, how'd it go?"

"I don't even know," Kevin answered honestly, dazed. "He said no."

"He said no?" For his part, Castle seemed almost as baffled as Kevin was. "Did he say why?"

Kevin hesitated, running the conversation over again in his head. When the memory failed to resolve itself into anything more sane, he reluctantly repeated what Javier had just told him, still completely unbelieving that his partner had said it.

"He said...because he's an alien, and if he shows up at the wedding, he'll be forced to eat my fiance."

It took a little planning, but the next morning, Kevin was able to corner his partner in the break room during a lull that would provide them a moment alone.

"Okay, were you high last night? Because seriously―"

Javier let out a sigh, but didn't look up from filling his mug.

"Are we going to have this conversation again?" Javier asked, tiredly. "I said no, Kevin. Let it go."

"I can not let it go, bro," Kevin said, incredulously. "You say something insane like that to me, how the hell am I supposed to let that go?"

Javier just shook his head dismissively and pushed past him—like Kevin was the one who was acting insane. Following after, Kevin fully intended to continue the argument, but Gates called out across the bullpen.

It was a hot case and a hard one, and for a while Kevin completely forgot about Javier's messed up joke.

Two days later, they were both left haunted by the ghosts of greed and a grieving mother and a kid that would never get the chance to grow up. Neither of them felt like being alone, and it wasn't the sort of thing Kevin was comfortable bringing home to Jenny. By unspoken agreement they met at Javier's that night, Kevin bringing the liquor while his partner ordered a pizza they both knew neither of them would touch.

Buzzed early on an empty stomach, Kevin was desperate to find something to distract them both. Their weird exchange earlier in the week came almost immediately to mind. At the time, the conversation had been almost too surreal to process, but on reflection he found it bothered him more than it probably should have. Besides the fact that his best friend had refused to be involved in the biggest day of his life, Javier wasn't the kind of person to make up off the wall shit like that.

Now Castle...

"I give up," he said finally, butting in on the heavy silence with a puzzled frown. "Is the alien thing something you and Castle came up with together? Because..."

Javier glanced over at him from his loose sprawl on his couch. Initially wary, he seemed to consider the question a while before giving a faint snort.

"Dude, if I wanted to punk you, I'd just do it," he finally said. "I wouldn't get Castle involved. That shit's not cool."

Kevin frowned at his partner's evasive response, which wasn't even remotely the kind of answer he had been looking for.

"What's not cool is this...I don't even know what it is," Kevin said, throwing his partner a hurt glare. "Explain this to me one more time."

Javier sat still for a moment, looking into his glass silently before he seemed to come to a decision. He took a full swallow, emptying it before he turned sort of sideways on the couch so he could look Kevin in the eye. Even then, several moments slid past silently before he managed to speak.

"I'm an alien," Javier said slowly, enunciating with a care Kevin thought was only half because of the alcohol, "as in not from this planet. If I come to your wedding, I..."

He hesitated, appearing to consider his words very carefully.

"If I did, I don't think I could stop myself from fighting Jenny over you," he continued more steadily, dropping into a 'just facts' voice that only made the confession that much more surreal. "And I wouldn't want to kill her, but I might not be able to help myself—and trust me, neither of us want to see that happen."

And just like the other night in the bar, his partner was straight faced and almost painfully serious. At a loss for a response to that kind of insanity—and, okay, perhaps the alcohol was a factor—Kevin finally just decided to play along.

"Alright, I'll humor you," he said, sitting forward to refill his glass, "but you're very human looking for an alien."

A very faint smile ticked at one corner of Javier's mouth. Letting out a soft breath that was almost a snort he shook his head.

"I am now," he said quietly, and held out his own glass expectantly.

Kevin poured with a faint sigh.

"Fine, I'll bite," Kevin said after they both drank. "What do you really look like? Are we talking grays, Klingon, Avatar?"

Javier frowned into his drink.

"This is what I really look like," he answered moments later, a little sadly. "Originally, though?"

Javier's eyes went a little distant as he appeared to think about it.

"Try a little more... John Carpenter," he finally said.

Kevin blinked, unable to hold in a short giggle.

"The Thing, They Live, or Starman?"

Javier choked around his next swallow. It seemed to surprise even him when it turned into a laugh.

"Okay, seriously bro, who even thinks of Starman?"

Kevin gave his arm a shove, some of his irritation returning.

"Seriously, dude, who even has this conversation?" Kevin said, mind still distantly boggled. "You're the one trying to tell me you're some kind of alien shapeshifter."

"I'm not a shapeshifter," Javier argued, seeming suddenly defensive—and just a little bit unsettled by the idea.

"Then what?" Kevin asked stubbornly, perhaps misjudging the depths of his partner's discomfort. "If—supposedly, because this is totally insane—you are some kind of non-human thing that can somehow look human, what is that if not shapeshifting?"

Javier paused, eyes closing briefly as though concentrating on his answer

"I'm...just a configuration of cells," Javier answered awkwardly, distantly after a short moment. "One that can be rearranged to match another configuration of cells."

A few seconds ticked past and Kevin's mouth hung open in dull surprise. Honestly, he had never imagined Javier could be this creative—while drunk—not when the man always ribbed him for his own overactive imagination.

"Again," Kevin prodded lightly, once the moment had past, "how is that not shapeshifting?"

"It's not shapeshifting because it changes more than just my shape," Javier answered, shortly and with an odd certainty, "it changes how I function."

He seemed a little off balance and paused, considering.

"When I configure myself after a human, I have a brain that's like a human's," he explained slowly, like it was something he knew but had never been forced to put into words. "I think like a human. In almost every way that counts I am human. I'm Javier Esposito.

"Until I'm not," he finished faintly, sadly, and with a frown.

Somewhere in his explanation, the odd humor from before had slipped out of Javier's tone entirely. Those last words sounded almost maudlin. If he hadn't been drunk, even with a conversation as bizarre and ridiculous as theirs, Kevin thought he might have let it go.

"Until you're not," Kevin repeated blankly. "Right. Or until you decide you want to eat my fiance. Which, again, huh?"

Javier looked at him quizzically, seeming even a little startled. More than confusion at the question, it was almost as though he had forgotten Kevin was there.

"You've met Jenny like...a dozen times," Kevin clarified helpfully.

"None of those times were your wedding," Javier answered, a little self-conscious in his delivery.

"How is that—"

"Right now, you're just Kevin Ryan," Javier interrupted, his attention turning strangely intense. "Right now, you belong to yourself. After the wedding, you'll belong to her. But when you get up in front of the altar—"

He paused, his expression crossing with a fierce confusion.

"The priest is going to ask for anyone's objections, and..." Javier trailed off, shaking his head. "It would be my last chance. And...I don't think I'd be able to stop myself from trying to claim you."

Kevin stared at him blankly. After a moment, Javier's shoulders shifted uncomfortably, and he leaned forward for the bottle. Javier filled his glass, a blank beat passing before he drank.

"Claim me," Kevin said, slowly, trying out the words his mind was failing to really grasp. "Claim me as what?"

Because in the middle of this insane conversation, Javier really couldn't be saying what he was saying, could he?

"As mine," Javier answered hoarsely.

"I know we're not..." Javier trailed off with a tilt of his head, letting the gesture say all sorts of things that he apparently couldn't, "but that would be the right time to make my move, if we were, don't you think?"

"Did I have an aneurism or something?" Kevin finally said, their talk having hit a critical mass of crazy his sodden brain couldn't handle. "This conversation is just freaking impossible."

Javier's head dropped slightly. He tipped the bottle to his glass again, only to find it empty. With a weak sigh, he dropped it onto the table in front of him.

"Look, Kev," he said wearily, "don't worry about it. Go have your wedding. The world's not going to end if I'm not there."

But there was something in Javier's tone that almost made it sound like, for him, it just might.

And suddenly, it had turned into the kind of serious conversation that two people should absolutely not have while drunk. Though, paradoxically, a part of him felt like more drinking had to happen to even begin to deal with it. Another part wondered if the best course of action might not be to just go home. In the end, though, it was a separate part of himself that won out. The part he couldn't be a detective without, that had to pick, and keep picking until the threads pulled easily in his hands.

The idea that this whole thing might be Javier's way of clothing a homosexual attraction in some kind of bizarre dissociation was weirder than average for even that night's conversation. Only, now that he was certain Javier wasn't trying to mess with his head, it was the only answer that made actual sense. Kevin could barely wrap his head around it, but he had to try and understand.

"When you say yours, you mean, like, what?" Kevin asked, finally taking what care he still could with his words. "Like...like your mate or something?"

"There isn't really a word," Javier answered reluctantly, unsure of Kevin's definition. "I guess it'd work. I mean...don't get me wrong, sex is a lot of fun—and I can't say I haven't thought about it. It's just..."

"It's not enough," Javier said finally, overturning his uncertainty to look Kevin in the eye again. "Not intimate enough."

"If I claimed you, what would happen between us would be closer than sex. Close on a cellular level. We'd be inside each other. Connected..." Javier seemed to struggle for the words he needed, shaking his head as he continued with a note of defeat. "Connected in a way it would be impossible for you to even imagine. And we'd belong to each other in a way no ring could ever make real."

Beneath the weight of drink, the whole thing seemed impossibly surreal. Dreamlike. There was a strange, guarded passion and sorrow buried deep beneath the words, deep within his partner's eyes. A bitter sense of loneliness—isolation—with a sharp, hopeless edge. While it was difficult to comprehend where any of it was coming from, just seeing that desperate pain hurt Kevin deeply. He didn't know if there was anything he could do to answer his partner's need for connection—not in the way he wanted—but at that moment the prospect of being connected to someone the way Javier described seemed impossibly attractive. Which was the only explanation Kevin could think of to answer the question of why he said what he did.

"I'd like that."

Javier looked at him, then, and while none of it quite felt real, the expression in his partner's eyes—intense, unnameable, yet somehow oddly hopeful—still produced a shiver.

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Author's Note: So, this is the fic idea teased at the end of "Quality of Life". The weirder one. It might not seem comparatively weird here, but trust me it gets...odd. I don't know when I'm going to get around to posting more of this story, since I already have Life and Zeitgeist to finish (not to mention school). I just wanted to establish a few of the fics before The Big Day comes and dashes all our dreams. (Or at least the ones that don't require a more violent approach to having Jenny exit stage left...) Because for all I can write werewolves, superpowered Nazis and time travel, zombies, and now aliens into an otherwise normal setting, for some reason I feel the need to be absurdly anal about other aspects of canon. :(