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Title: Evidence to the Contrary
Fandom: Castle
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Romance, Angst
Characters/Pairing: Javier Esposito/Kevin Ryan, Castle, Beckett, Montgomery.
Warnings: Slash, adult content, genre!crack (mild horror), themes touching on mental illness and consent issues, unbetad.
Word Count: 3,695
Summary: "Ah, Kev, I expect this crap from Castle, like when he got bit by our 'vampire'," Esposito favored him with full air quotes, "Or when he was convinced he got cursed by a mummy, but c'mon, you're smarter than that."
Details: Written for this prompt on![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
castlekink.
Chapter One/Chapter Two/Chapter Three/Chapter Four/Chapter Five/Epilogue
He was aware of the chill long before waking. There was a soft warmth beside him, and his sleeping mind just wanted to burrow against it, bury his face in its safe, familiar scent and try to forget the world. Forget the dozens of other smells, all crowding in to drag him from sleep. Coffee, concrete, sweat, urine, bleach, others he couldn't name, and a sour, stale stink that underlay everything and stirred a twist of anxiety in his gut. It was confusing and overwhelming, and almost more than he could begin to make sense of, but it was his half-conscious recognition of the warm body by his side that drew him fully awake.
Javier opened his eyes, slowly, and confirmed that he was curled tightly around his partner, face pressed against the back of Kevin's neck.
They were lying naked on a rumpled blanket, one that was doing a miserable job of either padding or warming the cold concrete beneath them. His joints felt loose and his limbs heavy, clumsy. His skin burned faintly and an abused ache warmed his muscles, but both sensations were slowly fading. With them another, peculiar feeling began to ebb, one that he hadn't noticed until it began to recede. A feeling of bones that were too long, and skin two sizes too small, stretched over a frame that didn't fit it anymore. An overwhelming feeling of wrongness with his own body that departed far, far too slowly leaving him shaken and confused and, for a few moments, afraid to even think. Afraid that the thoughts might not really be his.
Even more afraid that, if they weren't, he might not know the difference.
Once his stomach had settled down, as much as it was going to, Javier managed to identify his surroundings. It shouldn't have been difficult to recognize the holding cells at the 12th, even if he never had seen them from exactly this angle. The room looked very different with the thick blankets hung up against the bars—a visual his mind associated with mating season at the zoo, and Javier would have done anything disown his subconscious at this point. Even though his view of the hallway was blocked he knew they were not alone. Their jailer's presence was betrayed by both sound and scent. Though perhaps "babysitter" was a better word. He refused to think about when his memory might have cataloged the scent, but Javier knew to a certainty without having to see that the man in the hall was Castle.
Javier briefly considered waking his partner. If there were some existing etiquette for this kind of situation, he was painfully unaware of it. There were a number of situations life simply could not adequately prepare you for. This was clearly one of them. After a few uncertain moments, Javier decided it was kindest to let him sleep a little longer. He rose slowly, tucking his side of the blanket carefully over his partner. Kevin, thankfully, did not wake.
There was clothing sitting on the bench inside the cell. Javier recognized a few of the items as the spares he kept at the station. The others were also somewhat familiar, and if he had to guess they had either been retrieved from Kevin's apartment or a locker here at the 12th. As he pulled on his jeans, Javier briefly wondered what had become of the clothes he'd been wearing before, but quickly decided it was a question to which he didn't particularly want an answer.
He drew the makeshift curtains open carefully. Castle, engrossed in his phone, didn't notice. An absurd and horrifying thought crossed Javier's mind. If any of this wound up on Twitter, he swore, he fucking would murder Castle. And he'd write that damned obituary himself. Javier cleared his throat softly.
He was only appropriately amused when Castle jumped in his chair. Honest.
The writer turned to face him very quickly, the expression on his face caught somewhere between relief and apprehension. And curiosity, too. Always curiosity with Castle. An immature stab of fear jolted in his gut. Castle would have all these questions...
Javier held up a finger just as Castle opened his mouth. Whatever he'd been about to say halted in the writer's throat.
"Choose your next words very carefully, Castle." Javier warned flatly. He barely managed not to react to the surprisingly low, hoarse crackle of his own voice. "Also, one of those coffees better be mine or I'll slap the shit out of you and not even feel bad about it."
The relief won out after a quick blink and Castle handed him a cup from the cardboard tray by his chair. Javier offered a soft grunt of thanks and took a drink, grimacing. The coffee was over-bitter and burnt tasting as he should have guessed it would be. Castle watched in silence. Perhaps taking Javier's advice, or possibly just giving the caffeine a chance to do it's job before he risked his life via conversation. Javier wasn't about to help him out. A speechless Richard Castle wasn't a sight life granted him often. It seemed it was one of the very few up-sides to the indignity he'd just suffered, and Javier was going to let himself enjoy it.
"So," Castle said finally, breaking the long, half-awkward silence between them. "Werewolf. That must suck."
Now Javier was at a loss. Leave it to Castle to sum up the whole thing almost perfectly in just four words.
"Yeah," he agreed finally, trying to keep a steel grip on the panic that was beginning to cut through now that his disorientation was waning and he was being forced to look his situation in the eye. "So far there's not a lot to recommend it."
Castle, it turned out, did have his uses. As Javier struggled through the rest of his coffee, the writer did his best to fill him in on just what had happened the night before. Starting with the unbelievably fortunate discovery that the wolf—the wolf that was Javier—wasn't aggressive. Not toward the two of them, at least.
"Kate figured that maybe that meant you were still in there, somewhere," Castle explained. "And when you lit out of the bullpen, you were trying to get to Ryan. So maybe you—er, the wolf—still had the same goal in mind."
According to Castle, Beckett had managed to talk him into the cell, with coaxing and threats and by promising to bring Kevin to him. Which sounded incredibly far fetched, except that it rang a bell—distantly.
Prodding at the recollection, Javier unearthed a sense of the night's events that was there, if distorted. The memory was non-visual, non-verbal for the most part, though there were a few brief flashes of imagery. Vague, overall, like trying to recall the plot of a movie he'd seen years ago, and it was difficult finding context. But he did remember, now that Castle mentioned it. Remembered following Beckett, the familiar halls of the precinct painted with alien new detail, remembered growing restless and ill at ease when he was left alone with only that sour smell to keep him company.
That scent which even now had him wanting to pace out of his skin.
Javier decided right away that he wouldn't ask Beckett for her own version of events. That way he could pick and choose which parts of Castle's—undoubtedly much-embellished—account he wanted to believe. Though of course, as if what he'd been told had somehow not been disturbing or descriptive enough, Castle had to show him the pictures.
"I turned into a damned monster and your first thought was to take pictures with your phone?" It really was unsettling how obsessed the writer was with that thing. "Castle, that is messed up."
The lighting in the cells wasn't the best, and most of the pictures were over-dark and grainy, the creature captured as little more than an indistinct, dark blur or streak of reflected light. Only a few were of sufficient quality to show the wolf in any reliable detail. The base color of the coat was a light grey, much like he'd seen on Kevin, but the markings themselves were a darker rich brown that was almost black. Javier was somewhat surprised by the lack of impact, certain the pictures should have inspired some greater reaction. He wasn't sure what he could possibly have expected, but if it had been recognition there wasn't any to be had. It was impossible to look at those pictures and see himself anywhere in them.
But "unsettling" and "messed up" were both entirely inadequate to cover the sheer, sick surreality he felt when Castle played the video.
The howl that echoed through the room was made tinny and high pitched by the phone's small speakers, yet it brought the hair standing on the back of his neck, igniting a wordless sense of wrong in his mind. There was a stubborn part of his brain still frantically arguing "not me not me not me", but just the same another entirely different part understood that searching tone. That part knew exactly how that note should have sounded, knew exactly what it had been saying. And who it had been searching for.
And apparently, so did Kevin, because it was then that the other man finally began to stir.
Javier went to his side and almost immediately knew something was wrong. Kevin had opened his eyes but the lids were heavy and stubbornly refused to stay that way. His gaze was bleary and unfocused. He wasn't moving much, and when he did the motion was sluggish. Javier heard the cell door squeal as he helped his partner to sit upright. He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked up to find Castle looking at him almost sheepishly.
"Beckett had to dart him," the writer offered, hesitantly.
"Beckett what."
Though his mind was having trouble processing the idea as reality, it wasn't really a question. Not exactly.
"When we tried to bring him back to the station he kind of panicked and..." Javier would have thought he was long past the point of being able to muster any sort of outrage, but Castle wilted guiltily under his gaze.
Javier tried to dismissed the anger he felt on his partner's behalf. He had more important things to worry about. He slid an arm around Kevin's back and one under his knees lifting him onto one of the benches. It took some effort, but Javier eventually managed to get his partner sitting up, blanket still wrapped around him. Step two was getting some caffeine into his system. Watching his sleepy partner turn his head away from the cup like a sick kid refusing to take his medicine might almost have been cute under different circumstances.
As the fog withdrew from his eyes, Javier saw it replaced with a desperate terror as Kevin became aware of where he was, that he was naked, and quickly coming to a full realization of the situation.
"Oh God... Did— Did I...?" Kevin's fumbling fingers closed weakly around Javier's wrist, commanding his focus like no stronger grip could have. His voice was small at first, his words slurring softly, though panic was starting to burn through the effects of the narcotics. "Javi, did I hurt someone? I don't— I can't remember this time. Why—"
"Nah, you were a puppy," Castle reassured him...in his own tactless way. Perhaps because he knew he could get away with it with Kevin. From the faint, skeptical raise to his eyebrows at the writer's joke, maybe it even helped. "Esposito's the one who made a rookie piss himself."
And shit if Javier didn't remember that now.
It was difficult to connect the scent-memory which came unwanted with his own knowledge of the station, but he thought it might have been Officer Mercurio from Robbery. That oh so fond recollection brought with it another helpfully unhelpful piece of information, finally serving to identify the sour-stale odor that permeated the room. Because fear did have a smell, just like Kevin had said. Javier realized now that the holding cell was saturated with it, years of suspects passing through had painted its walls thickly with the harried scent of captive prey...
Fortunately or not, Javier didn't have long to dwell on that definition.
"Javi?"
Kevin was staring at him, eyes wide and searching. There was no mistaking the question that he saw there, and nothing to gain from lying. Javier gave a very slight nod, and felt the fingers on his wrist tighten before they let go entirely, the hand falling into his partner's lap.
"Oh my God, Javi, I—" His voice was tight and low, just above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...I—"
Javier knelt down in front of his partner, laying a hand on his knee. He squeezed, a little more tightly than he'd meant to but it got Kevin's attention, bringing his apologies to a halt.
"Don't," he said, looking into Kevin's eyes. "Don't. You didn't mean it. I know you didn't mean to. So just...don't worry about it."
His partner's eyes cut away from his, mouth opening as though he meant to argue. Wrapped up in the blanket, shame visible on his face, Kevin made for a rather pathetic picture. Javier didn't think he'd ever seen him—seen anyone—look so vulnerable. He wanted desperately to find some way to wipe that expression away. Some way to tell him it was okay. Things weren't okay, not by a god damned long-shot, but... Javier wasn't angry. He didn't blame Kevin, and he just wished there was some way to make the man believe it. Words seemed so useless. He needed to show him.
Castle's cough startled him away from his thoughts. For a moment, Javier had all but forgotten the writer was there. Brought back to himself so abruptly, Javier realized how close in he'd gotten to his partner, his face only inches away. He didn't remember leaning in. And his hand was still on Kevin's knee. He removed it with a slow breath and stood, stretching out his hand to his partner
"C'mon," he told Kevin quietly, "lets get you dressed and get the hell out of here."
The halls were sparsely populated as they followed Castle out of holding. It was still very early in the morning, so that wasn't unexpected. Still, Javier noticed that most of the eyes that were present refused to meet his directly. Through the first few encounters, Javier tried to reassure himself that they couldn't possibly know. Then he remembered the howl, the one that Castle had captured on his phone. That sound had to have carried through the entire floor at least—if not half the building. It dawned on him with a sick suddenness that it would be practically impossible for them not to know. Know something. Or suspect, even subconsciously. Suddenly, the whole thing shifted in his perception, feeling like some kind of twisted walk of shame. And that—curiosity, fear, revulsion, he wasn't sure what—that he was seeing in people's eyes as he walked past...he didn't know how to meet that.
Shit. Was there any way to salvage his dignity when soon the entire precinct was going to know he'd spent the night on four legs?
It was difficult for him to stay focused on it though. Castle insisted on keeping them occupied with absurd chatter and questions almost the whole way. While Javier ignored almost half of what the author said, he was ridiculously grateful, if only for the familiarity. And, as Kevin was slowly coaxed out of the drop-shouldered, kicked-dog posture of guilt he recognized from the month before, Javier realized that Castle was being an ass on purpose.
"Anyway, I think I'm due an 'I told you so'."
"What?" Kevin said, vaguely offended by the writer's words. Backtracking the conversation he'd spaced out on, Javier was right there with him.
"No, Castle, there is no 'I told you so' here."
"Hey, c'mon. You two always made fun of me for believing in stuff like this."
"Yeah," Javier allowed, "only you weren't bitten by a vampire and you weren't cursed by a mummy."
"Hey, you guys didn't exactly help with that last one—"
"Or abducted by aliens," Kevin reminded sharply.
"And the psychic was fake," Javier added, and his partner pointed at him to emphasize his point.
It was the closest to normal as Javier had experienced in more than two months, and it was almost impossible to fight a smile. Castle did have his uses.
Once they'd been brought to Montgomery's office the Captain had demanded an explanation, of course. Kevin began with the dog attack and supplied everything up to his retaliatory assault on their suspect—which in light of his normal disposition had never been adequately explained. Javier picked up after that, describing his confrontation with Kevin in a way that neatly edited just about everything that happened in between. It was already by far the most bizarre report Javier had ever had to make to a superior in his life, it didn't have to become the most awkward one as well. He filled in the rest of the story up until moonrise—
And after that, what was there left to say?
"How much do you both remember?" Montgomery asked then, with only the faintest bit of caution.
"The elevator." Javier answered quickly. "I got out of the elevator. Then nothing."
It was a bald lie; by now, Javier was sure he remembered almost all of it. It was simply a problem of accepting those memories as belonging to him, and he just wasn't ready to do that. It was a problem Kevin apparently didn't have.
"It'll come to you," Kevin said to him quietly.
Too quietly, he realized slowly, for the others to have caught it. Javier didn't know if it was meant as a reassurance or a warning. He honestly wasn't sure which he would prefer at this point.
Then Javier listened uncomfortably as his partner described his own memories of that night for the others—what few memories there were. Things became hazy leading up to when Beckett had drugged him, but the rest was still as clear as day. How at moonrise he'd been talking to Javier when he changed, and that after the change had been distressed not to be able to find him. In that state, the video on his computer hadn't registered as being real; it hadn't smelled or sounded like Javier. And then he'd spent the next few minutes searching for him in the apartment before becoming frustrated and deciding to wait. The very last thing Kevin concretely remembered was catching Kate's scent under the door...
It was disturbing to hear Kevin put it that way. What he had done, what he had experienced, recounting the inhuman thoughts of this animal as though the wolf and Kevin weren't separate creatures at all.
After that, the Captain had dismissed them, his mind on damage control. Word was already being passed around discreetly that this incident would not leave the station. As softly as Montgomery was known for walking when it came to running his ship, it was understood that in this instance any breach would be met with the stick. Javier wasn't optimistic about how long that silence could possibly last, but sincerely wished him luck.
Speaking of damage control, Javier's first order of business was his laptop.
Ignoring a stab of reluctance as he left Kevin to Castle's uncertain mercies, Javier returned to the side office. Forgotten in all the excitement, the computer still sat undisturbed just where he'd left it. In his absence, the program had recorded for more than three hours before the computer on the other end had disconnected. He deleted the video without viewing it, but Javier was unable to keep it from replaying in his mind. The transformation it had captured. The creature. The wolf.
Kevin.
Sitting in front of the computer, Javier stared at the screen and felt strangely numb. That video had been meant as proof. It was meant to reinforce an understanding of reality that, until last night had never betrayed him; an understanding that the world might not always make sense, but that there were rules that it followed all the same.
It was supposed to bring Kevin back to him.
Whatever rules the world followed they obviously weren't the ones he had believed. His only bitter consolation was that, having failed to save his partner from the strange new reality that had claimed him, Javier had been helpless to save himself from being pulled in after. Whatever else he might have lost, Kevin was still with him. Still his.
That thought probably shouldn't have been as reassuring as it was
When Javier was finished, he returned to the main office, and quickly noticed a bundle sitting on his desk. His wallet, keys, and watch had been left for him, wrapped in the shirt he'd been wearing the night before. It was more or less intact, though a seam in the left shoulder had been stretched loose. His stomach gave a queasy flutter at the sight of the short, coarse hairs embedded in the fabric, and he dropped the thing into the wastebasket. If he'd had a lighter handy he might have set it on fire.
He was still staring down at it when Beckett found him.
"The Captain's sending us all home. It's been...a rough night. You should get some sleep."
"Kevin—" He couldn't be sure the needy tone that crept into his voice was actually there. He was exhausted, after all.
"Already left. Castle was nice enough to pay for a cab, since Ryan didn't have his wallet."
Maybe it was nice of Castle, but it was damned inconvenient to Javier at that moment. There was a conversation between him and Kevin that still needed to take place, though it wasn't one he looked forward to. And as incredible as it was to believe, there was still room for this fucked up day to get so much worse...
Chapter Five
Bonus: A bedtime story...
Fandom: Castle
Rating: R
Genre: Horror, Romance, Angst
Characters/Pairing: Javier Esposito/Kevin Ryan, Castle, Beckett, Montgomery.
Warnings: Slash, adult content, genre!crack (mild horror), themes touching on mental illness and consent issues, unbetad.
Word Count: 3,695
Summary: "Ah, Kev, I expect this crap from Castle, like when he got bit by our 'vampire'," Esposito favored him with full air quotes, "Or when he was convinced he got cursed by a mummy, but c'mon, you're smarter than that."
Details: Written for this prompt on
castlekink.Chapter One/Chapter Two/Chapter Three/Chapter Four/Chapter Five/Epilogue
He was aware of the chill long before waking. There was a soft warmth beside him, and his sleeping mind just wanted to burrow against it, bury his face in its safe, familiar scent and try to forget the world. Forget the dozens of other smells, all crowding in to drag him from sleep. Coffee, concrete, sweat, urine, bleach, others he couldn't name, and a sour, stale stink that underlay everything and stirred a twist of anxiety in his gut. It was confusing and overwhelming, and almost more than he could begin to make sense of, but it was his half-conscious recognition of the warm body by his side that drew him fully awake.
Javier opened his eyes, slowly, and confirmed that he was curled tightly around his partner, face pressed against the back of Kevin's neck.
They were lying naked on a rumpled blanket, one that was doing a miserable job of either padding or warming the cold concrete beneath them. His joints felt loose and his limbs heavy, clumsy. His skin burned faintly and an abused ache warmed his muscles, but both sensations were slowly fading. With them another, peculiar feeling began to ebb, one that he hadn't noticed until it began to recede. A feeling of bones that were too long, and skin two sizes too small, stretched over a frame that didn't fit it anymore. An overwhelming feeling of wrongness with his own body that departed far, far too slowly leaving him shaken and confused and, for a few moments, afraid to even think. Afraid that the thoughts might not really be his.
Even more afraid that, if they weren't, he might not know the difference.
Once his stomach had settled down, as much as it was going to, Javier managed to identify his surroundings. It shouldn't have been difficult to recognize the holding cells at the 12th, even if he never had seen them from exactly this angle. The room looked very different with the thick blankets hung up against the bars—a visual his mind associated with mating season at the zoo, and Javier would have done anything disown his subconscious at this point. Even though his view of the hallway was blocked he knew they were not alone. Their jailer's presence was betrayed by both sound and scent. Though perhaps "babysitter" was a better word. He refused to think about when his memory might have cataloged the scent, but Javier knew to a certainty without having to see that the man in the hall was Castle.
Javier briefly considered waking his partner. If there were some existing etiquette for this kind of situation, he was painfully unaware of it. There were a number of situations life simply could not adequately prepare you for. This was clearly one of them. After a few uncertain moments, Javier decided it was kindest to let him sleep a little longer. He rose slowly, tucking his side of the blanket carefully over his partner. Kevin, thankfully, did not wake.
There was clothing sitting on the bench inside the cell. Javier recognized a few of the items as the spares he kept at the station. The others were also somewhat familiar, and if he had to guess they had either been retrieved from Kevin's apartment or a locker here at the 12th. As he pulled on his jeans, Javier briefly wondered what had become of the clothes he'd been wearing before, but quickly decided it was a question to which he didn't particularly want an answer.
He drew the makeshift curtains open carefully. Castle, engrossed in his phone, didn't notice. An absurd and horrifying thought crossed Javier's mind. If any of this wound up on Twitter, he swore, he fucking would murder Castle. And he'd write that damned obituary himself. Javier cleared his throat softly.
He was only appropriately amused when Castle jumped in his chair. Honest.
The writer turned to face him very quickly, the expression on his face caught somewhere between relief and apprehension. And curiosity, too. Always curiosity with Castle. An immature stab of fear jolted in his gut. Castle would have all these questions...
Javier held up a finger just as Castle opened his mouth. Whatever he'd been about to say halted in the writer's throat.
"Choose your next words very carefully, Castle." Javier warned flatly. He barely managed not to react to the surprisingly low, hoarse crackle of his own voice. "Also, one of those coffees better be mine or I'll slap the shit out of you and not even feel bad about it."
The relief won out after a quick blink and Castle handed him a cup from the cardboard tray by his chair. Javier offered a soft grunt of thanks and took a drink, grimacing. The coffee was over-bitter and burnt tasting as he should have guessed it would be. Castle watched in silence. Perhaps taking Javier's advice, or possibly just giving the caffeine a chance to do it's job before he risked his life via conversation. Javier wasn't about to help him out. A speechless Richard Castle wasn't a sight life granted him often. It seemed it was one of the very few up-sides to the indignity he'd just suffered, and Javier was going to let himself enjoy it.
"So," Castle said finally, breaking the long, half-awkward silence between them. "Werewolf. That must suck."
Now Javier was at a loss. Leave it to Castle to sum up the whole thing almost perfectly in just four words.
"Yeah," he agreed finally, trying to keep a steel grip on the panic that was beginning to cut through now that his disorientation was waning and he was being forced to look his situation in the eye. "So far there's not a lot to recommend it."
Castle, it turned out, did have his uses. As Javier struggled through the rest of his coffee, the writer did his best to fill him in on just what had happened the night before. Starting with the unbelievably fortunate discovery that the wolf—the wolf that was Javier—wasn't aggressive. Not toward the two of them, at least.
"Kate figured that maybe that meant you were still in there, somewhere," Castle explained. "And when you lit out of the bullpen, you were trying to get to Ryan. So maybe you—er, the wolf—still had the same goal in mind."
According to Castle, Beckett had managed to talk him into the cell, with coaxing and threats and by promising to bring Kevin to him. Which sounded incredibly far fetched, except that it rang a bell—distantly.
Prodding at the recollection, Javier unearthed a sense of the night's events that was there, if distorted. The memory was non-visual, non-verbal for the most part, though there were a few brief flashes of imagery. Vague, overall, like trying to recall the plot of a movie he'd seen years ago, and it was difficult finding context. But he did remember, now that Castle mentioned it. Remembered following Beckett, the familiar halls of the precinct painted with alien new detail, remembered growing restless and ill at ease when he was left alone with only that sour smell to keep him company.
That scent which even now had him wanting to pace out of his skin.
Javier decided right away that he wouldn't ask Beckett for her own version of events. That way he could pick and choose which parts of Castle's—undoubtedly much-embellished—account he wanted to believe. Though of course, as if what he'd been told had somehow not been disturbing or descriptive enough, Castle had to show him the pictures.
"I turned into a damned monster and your first thought was to take pictures with your phone?" It really was unsettling how obsessed the writer was with that thing. "Castle, that is messed up."
The lighting in the cells wasn't the best, and most of the pictures were over-dark and grainy, the creature captured as little more than an indistinct, dark blur or streak of reflected light. Only a few were of sufficient quality to show the wolf in any reliable detail. The base color of the coat was a light grey, much like he'd seen on Kevin, but the markings themselves were a darker rich brown that was almost black. Javier was somewhat surprised by the lack of impact, certain the pictures should have inspired some greater reaction. He wasn't sure what he could possibly have expected, but if it had been recognition there wasn't any to be had. It was impossible to look at those pictures and see himself anywhere in them.
But "unsettling" and "messed up" were both entirely inadequate to cover the sheer, sick surreality he felt when Castle played the video.
The howl that echoed through the room was made tinny and high pitched by the phone's small speakers, yet it brought the hair standing on the back of his neck, igniting a wordless sense of wrong in his mind. There was a stubborn part of his brain still frantically arguing "not me not me not me", but just the same another entirely different part understood that searching tone. That part knew exactly how that note should have sounded, knew exactly what it had been saying. And who it had been searching for.
And apparently, so did Kevin, because it was then that the other man finally began to stir.
Javier went to his side and almost immediately knew something was wrong. Kevin had opened his eyes but the lids were heavy and stubbornly refused to stay that way. His gaze was bleary and unfocused. He wasn't moving much, and when he did the motion was sluggish. Javier heard the cell door squeal as he helped his partner to sit upright. He felt a tug on his sleeve and looked up to find Castle looking at him almost sheepishly.
"Beckett had to dart him," the writer offered, hesitantly.
"Beckett what."
Though his mind was having trouble processing the idea as reality, it wasn't really a question. Not exactly.
"When we tried to bring him back to the station he kind of panicked and..." Javier would have thought he was long past the point of being able to muster any sort of outrage, but Castle wilted guiltily under his gaze.
Javier tried to dismissed the anger he felt on his partner's behalf. He had more important things to worry about. He slid an arm around Kevin's back and one under his knees lifting him onto one of the benches. It took some effort, but Javier eventually managed to get his partner sitting up, blanket still wrapped around him. Step two was getting some caffeine into his system. Watching his sleepy partner turn his head away from the cup like a sick kid refusing to take his medicine might almost have been cute under different circumstances.
As the fog withdrew from his eyes, Javier saw it replaced with a desperate terror as Kevin became aware of where he was, that he was naked, and quickly coming to a full realization of the situation.
"Oh God... Did— Did I...?" Kevin's fumbling fingers closed weakly around Javier's wrist, commanding his focus like no stronger grip could have. His voice was small at first, his words slurring softly, though panic was starting to burn through the effects of the narcotics. "Javi, did I hurt someone? I don't— I can't remember this time. Why—"
"Nah, you were a puppy," Castle reassured him...in his own tactless way. Perhaps because he knew he could get away with it with Kevin. From the faint, skeptical raise to his eyebrows at the writer's joke, maybe it even helped. "Esposito's the one who made a rookie piss himself."
And shit if Javier didn't remember that now.
It was difficult to connect the scent-memory which came unwanted with his own knowledge of the station, but he thought it might have been Officer Mercurio from Robbery. That oh so fond recollection brought with it another helpfully unhelpful piece of information, finally serving to identify the sour-stale odor that permeated the room. Because fear did have a smell, just like Kevin had said. Javier realized now that the holding cell was saturated with it, years of suspects passing through had painted its walls thickly with the harried scent of captive prey...
Fortunately or not, Javier didn't have long to dwell on that definition.
"Javi?"
Kevin was staring at him, eyes wide and searching. There was no mistaking the question that he saw there, and nothing to gain from lying. Javier gave a very slight nod, and felt the fingers on his wrist tighten before they let go entirely, the hand falling into his partner's lap.
"Oh my God, Javi, I—" His voice was tight and low, just above a whisper. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry...I—"
Javier knelt down in front of his partner, laying a hand on his knee. He squeezed, a little more tightly than he'd meant to but it got Kevin's attention, bringing his apologies to a halt.
"Don't," he said, looking into Kevin's eyes. "Don't. You didn't mean it. I know you didn't mean to. So just...don't worry about it."
His partner's eyes cut away from his, mouth opening as though he meant to argue. Wrapped up in the blanket, shame visible on his face, Kevin made for a rather pathetic picture. Javier didn't think he'd ever seen him—seen anyone—look so vulnerable. He wanted desperately to find some way to wipe that expression away. Some way to tell him it was okay. Things weren't okay, not by a god damned long-shot, but... Javier wasn't angry. He didn't blame Kevin, and he just wished there was some way to make the man believe it. Words seemed so useless. He needed to show him.
Castle's cough startled him away from his thoughts. For a moment, Javier had all but forgotten the writer was there. Brought back to himself so abruptly, Javier realized how close in he'd gotten to his partner, his face only inches away. He didn't remember leaning in. And his hand was still on Kevin's knee. He removed it with a slow breath and stood, stretching out his hand to his partner
"C'mon," he told Kevin quietly, "lets get you dressed and get the hell out of here."
The halls were sparsely populated as they followed Castle out of holding. It was still very early in the morning, so that wasn't unexpected. Still, Javier noticed that most of the eyes that were present refused to meet his directly. Through the first few encounters, Javier tried to reassure himself that they couldn't possibly know. Then he remembered the howl, the one that Castle had captured on his phone. That sound had to have carried through the entire floor at least—if not half the building. It dawned on him with a sick suddenness that it would be practically impossible for them not to know. Know something. Or suspect, even subconsciously. Suddenly, the whole thing shifted in his perception, feeling like some kind of twisted walk of shame. And that—curiosity, fear, revulsion, he wasn't sure what—that he was seeing in people's eyes as he walked past...he didn't know how to meet that.
Shit. Was there any way to salvage his dignity when soon the entire precinct was going to know he'd spent the night on four legs?
It was difficult for him to stay focused on it though. Castle insisted on keeping them occupied with absurd chatter and questions almost the whole way. While Javier ignored almost half of what the author said, he was ridiculously grateful, if only for the familiarity. And, as Kevin was slowly coaxed out of the drop-shouldered, kicked-dog posture of guilt he recognized from the month before, Javier realized that Castle was being an ass on purpose.
"Anyway, I think I'm due an 'I told you so'."
"What?" Kevin said, vaguely offended by the writer's words. Backtracking the conversation he'd spaced out on, Javier was right there with him.
"No, Castle, there is no 'I told you so' here."
"Hey, c'mon. You two always made fun of me for believing in stuff like this."
"Yeah," Javier allowed, "only you weren't bitten by a vampire and you weren't cursed by a mummy."
"Hey, you guys didn't exactly help with that last one—"
"Or abducted by aliens," Kevin reminded sharply.
"And the psychic was fake," Javier added, and his partner pointed at him to emphasize his point.
It was the closest to normal as Javier had experienced in more than two months, and it was almost impossible to fight a smile. Castle did have his uses.
Once they'd been brought to Montgomery's office the Captain had demanded an explanation, of course. Kevin began with the dog attack and supplied everything up to his retaliatory assault on their suspect—which in light of his normal disposition had never been adequately explained. Javier picked up after that, describing his confrontation with Kevin in a way that neatly edited just about everything that happened in between. It was already by far the most bizarre report Javier had ever had to make to a superior in his life, it didn't have to become the most awkward one as well. He filled in the rest of the story up until moonrise—
And after that, what was there left to say?
"How much do you both remember?" Montgomery asked then, with only the faintest bit of caution.
"The elevator." Javier answered quickly. "I got out of the elevator. Then nothing."
It was a bald lie; by now, Javier was sure he remembered almost all of it. It was simply a problem of accepting those memories as belonging to him, and he just wasn't ready to do that. It was a problem Kevin apparently didn't have.
"It'll come to you," Kevin said to him quietly.
Too quietly, he realized slowly, for the others to have caught it. Javier didn't know if it was meant as a reassurance or a warning. He honestly wasn't sure which he would prefer at this point.
Then Javier listened uncomfortably as his partner described his own memories of that night for the others—what few memories there were. Things became hazy leading up to when Beckett had drugged him, but the rest was still as clear as day. How at moonrise he'd been talking to Javier when he changed, and that after the change had been distressed not to be able to find him. In that state, the video on his computer hadn't registered as being real; it hadn't smelled or sounded like Javier. And then he'd spent the next few minutes searching for him in the apartment before becoming frustrated and deciding to wait. The very last thing Kevin concretely remembered was catching Kate's scent under the door...
It was disturbing to hear Kevin put it that way. What he had done, what he had experienced, recounting the inhuman thoughts of this animal as though the wolf and Kevin weren't separate creatures at all.
After that, the Captain had dismissed them, his mind on damage control. Word was already being passed around discreetly that this incident would not leave the station. As softly as Montgomery was known for walking when it came to running his ship, it was understood that in this instance any breach would be met with the stick. Javier wasn't optimistic about how long that silence could possibly last, but sincerely wished him luck.
Speaking of damage control, Javier's first order of business was his laptop.
Ignoring a stab of reluctance as he left Kevin to Castle's uncertain mercies, Javier returned to the side office. Forgotten in all the excitement, the computer still sat undisturbed just where he'd left it. In his absence, the program had recorded for more than three hours before the computer on the other end had disconnected. He deleted the video without viewing it, but Javier was unable to keep it from replaying in his mind. The transformation it had captured. The creature. The wolf.
Kevin.
Sitting in front of the computer, Javier stared at the screen and felt strangely numb. That video had been meant as proof. It was meant to reinforce an understanding of reality that, until last night had never betrayed him; an understanding that the world might not always make sense, but that there were rules that it followed all the same.
It was supposed to bring Kevin back to him.
Whatever rules the world followed they obviously weren't the ones he had believed. His only bitter consolation was that, having failed to save his partner from the strange new reality that had claimed him, Javier had been helpless to save himself from being pulled in after. Whatever else he might have lost, Kevin was still with him. Still his.
That thought probably shouldn't have been as reassuring as it was
When Javier was finished, he returned to the main office, and quickly noticed a bundle sitting on his desk. His wallet, keys, and watch had been left for him, wrapped in the shirt he'd been wearing the night before. It was more or less intact, though a seam in the left shoulder had been stretched loose. His stomach gave a queasy flutter at the sight of the short, coarse hairs embedded in the fabric, and he dropped the thing into the wastebasket. If he'd had a lighter handy he might have set it on fire.
He was still staring down at it when Beckett found him.
"The Captain's sending us all home. It's been...a rough night. You should get some sleep."
"Kevin—" He couldn't be sure the needy tone that crept into his voice was actually there. He was exhausted, after all.
"Already left. Castle was nice enough to pay for a cab, since Ryan didn't have his wallet."
Maybe it was nice of Castle, but it was damned inconvenient to Javier at that moment. There was a conversation between him and Kevin that still needed to take place, though it wasn't one he looked forward to. And as incredible as it was to believe, there was still room for this fucked up day to get so much worse...
Chapter Five
Bonus: A bedtime story...
