Layers - Chapter 1
After screwing up his first life, it was a miracle how much of a success his new one was. Once Captain Hammer had finished crying himself through therapy all those years ago, he finally decided to fix himself up. He erased every record of Captain Hammer ever existing and returned to addressing himself by his birth name. Richard Castle.
He wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to achieve this but he remembered his arch nemesis Dr Horrible mentioning he owned a memory loss ray.
So one night, he snuck into Dr Horrible's old abandoned lair and proceeded to pinch anything that he pleased, including the memory loss ray and a packet of potato chips. Once obtaining the memory loss ray, which he was surprised to discover actually worked, he stood in front of his computer screen and zapped away any and every last trace of Captain Hammer he could find. The fansite, the youtube videos of him beating up Dr Horrible, all the disturbing fanart of him and Dr Horrible, even Sing-Along Blog all perished.
He could finally begin his new life as Richard Castle.
He moved to the Big Apple and wrote his bestselling debut mystery novel, In a Hail of Bullets, which hit the New York Times Best Seller list big time.
He met a girl, got her pregnant and ended up with a daughter who still dazzled him every day. He wrote, wrote, and wrote some more, each book selling better than the last. Eventually he came to the NYPD and fell head over heels in love with a badass detective, but he was still working on making that relationship happen. His life was a rollercoaster but he loved every moment of it – except today, as he stood over the body of what could be none other than Dr Horrible's secret twin brother, he knew that before long the life he had so carefully constructed was soon to come crashing down around him.
He stood frozen in place, barely gripping onto the two polystyrene coffee mugs he bought that morning.
"Thanks," said Kate as she took the second one out of his hands. "Are you alright?"
No, he was not alright! He's arch nemesis' twin – who was presumably evil too – was lying dead into front of him and he just knew then and there that he was in for it. He may as well just pack up his bags now and move to some other place in the United States. Or maybe Antarctica. But he couldn't leave because he was too hopelessly in love with the woman standing next to him. So glared at her in response.
"What?"
"Nothing. At all. I'm fine." He cleared his throat and forced himself to glance back at the body. "So, what've we got here, Beckett?"
Kate sniffed and crouched down by the body to search for ID, finding the man's wallet. She flipped it open. "Name's Barney Stinson. 42 years old."
That was odd. Castle had never heard of anyone by that name, so this Barney fellow had obviously never been associated with his twin. Maybe he wasn't evil at all. Maybe he was just some guy who had the misfortune of resembling so closely the looks of his evil brother. His thoughts were interrupted by a hard clap on the back.
"Sup Castle," Esposito joked as he strolled over with Ryan. The two younger man glanced down at the body lying in front of them and did a double take. "Holy shit!"
Beckett whipped around to face them. "You know this guy?"
"Well, you could put it that way," scoffed Ryan. "Either the evil mastermind has finally been killed or this guy looks a helluva lot like Dr Horrible."
"Who's Dr Horrible?" Kate asked quizzically.
"You don't know who Dr Horrible is?" cried out Esposito. "He's just about the most villainous villain of all the villains in America."
"In the world," Ryan interjected.
"In the universe!" Esposito added.
"In the … He's just really great."
"What makes him so special?" Kate inquired.
"Well, you see, we can't really remember," said Ryan.
"What do you mean you can't remember?"
"Well we forgot, didn't we?" said Esposito.
"Just like an evil criminal mastermind would want you to," said Castle. He decided to throw in a typical geeky rant to remove any suspicion."My theory is this: what if this Dr Horrible fella had an evil doppelganger just like in that movie where everyone had an evil twin they never knew they had, and they were actually aliens from a parallel universe trying to take over the planet. And then they erased everyone's memories and they were turned into their slaves. "
"There is no such thing as aliens!" Kate exclaimed.
"You've told me that before, and guess what."
"They weren't aliens."
"But it was close enough."
The tension between the two of them was so thick that it was making Ryan feel uncomfortable and he felt the need to say something about it. "I agree with Castle."
Kate sighed. "Right. Well, if you guys are so convinced this guy is a twin of your superhero, villain guy, then feel free to investigate that angle. I'm gonna work on actually catching the killer."
Ryan almost bounced and he turned to Esposito. "Man, this is gonna be the best investigation ever!"
Castle wiped his sweaty palms on his jacket and took a deep breath. He knew this team was good. He'd been working with them for a long time now. Unfortunately for him, he was sure that these two would be able to uncover something that exposed him for who he used to be. Once Beckett found out... he didn't want to think about that. If anything would screw up his chance with her, then this would be it.
Thanks for reading and let us know what you think. Reviews are very much appreciated. :)
~ aurorstorm and TheBlackTower'sCurse