Chapter Five: In Which Attempts at Recrimination Turn Into Self-Incrimination

Javier Esposito sat at his home computer, his posture oddly rigid. He was trying to keep from fidgeting. That wasn't normally something that was a problem, but right now he was tense and agitated. And with his finger resting on the mouse and the cursor hovering over "send" God forbid some stupid muscle-spasm betray him if he weren't one-hundred-percent totally sure about what he was about to do.

He knew he was ten completely different kinds of idiot, and had cursed himself out mentally for each one—five times in English, four in Spanish, and once in Russian he'd picked up from Beckett—but he still hadn't decided who was to blame for this.

A case could be made for Castle, for hanging them out there for the wolves, but that was flimsy at best. A better case might be made for this unknown author. If he ever ran across "4n6goddess" out in the world, Javier was certain the outcome would be interesting to say the least, but for now he was forced to let that one slide. Part of him wanted to blame Ryan. For reading Castle's book, for finding the fan story, and ultimately for being Ryan. That one might have been the thinnest case of all. The evidence would easily be torn apart in cross-exam, and then he'd end up having to plead the Fifth, because it was the only thing that would save him from self-incrimination.

But for all he was an imbecile, a tarado, a durák and a moron, he still wasn't stupid enough to believe a verdict of "not guilty" could be reached at this point.

Esposito would have liked nothing better than to forget the whole damned thing. He had succeeded in that, almost without trying, for nearly a week before fate had decided to work against him. Fate and Beckett. She was a big girl and could shoulder a little of the blame, because Javier was certain the story would have faded from his memory entirely if she hadn't needed their eyes on that warehouse in Brighton Beach.

He remembered watching a movie once where scientists talked about boiling a frog to death. If you dropped a frog in boiling water, of course, it would realize the danger and try to escape. However, if you dropped that frog in cold water and slowly heated it to a boil it wouldn't notice that it was slowly being cooked alive. Whether that bit of Hollywood science were true or not, Javier thought it made a suitable analogy for what had happened.

They had parked close, hugging the shade at the back wall of the warehouse. In daylight, with workers coming and going and the sounds of traffic reaching them from the other side of the building, the spot couldn't have looked less like the lonely alley that Esposito had managed to put out of his mind. But as day wore down into evening, as business tapered off and the workers began to filter home, the atmosphere of the place was slowly transformed. Javier would never be able to pinpoint when the comparison first entered his mind, but once it had the memory of that stupid story had lingered in his subconscious like a subtle itch. He'd done his best to ignore it, turning down the radio slightly to distract himself by joking with Ryan about Castle's latest blunder with Beckett.

So, really, he was just fine. Until it started raining.

The weather had been close and muggy all day, but there had been no hint of clouds. They must have crept in some time after dark, because neither of them had noticed. They had noticed the first tic-tic of droplets on the hood of the car, and the sound had brought their conversation stumbling to a halt. As the light shower picked up in momentum, the noise drove every thought out of Javier's mind but one. Judging by the tense set of his partner's shoulders, he didn't think Ryan had missed the significance either. They sat, mute, trapped in an unreal silence. For long, lagging minutes that felt like hours, neither of them could look at the other.

The situation was thankfully arrested when they spotted their guy leaving through the back exit of the warehouse. In short order they had arrested him as well. The creep hadn't put up much of a fight, though there was the minor complication of searching the nearby lot to retrieve the firearm he'd ditched in the chase. They returned to the station soaked and filthy but triumphant. If they were lucky they would have their murder weapon, the case could be closed, and as far as Javier was concerned, this awkward night could be written into the report and promptly forgotten.

Or so he deluded himself.

He was forced to reassess that conviction later, in the locker room. Forced to look it dead in the face when Ryan stripped out of his wet shirt and Javier found himself staring at the lean, pale musculature of his partner's naked back. He knew better than to attribute the sudden warmth to the weather or the goosebumps on his arms to the dampness of his clothes.

Bobo .. But not stupid enough to believe he wasn't attracted to Ryan, and not nearly stupid enough to believe it would end there.

The idea hadn't disturbed him as much as he might have imagined. More than anything he was simply surprised. Being with another man wasn't something he had even remotely considered before. Javier half hoped it was just shock, that he would come to his senses and be properly freaked out later. After all, if he was going to be okay with the idea, it would only make it that much harder to file in his mental "can't happen" folder.

And he didn't have a single doubt that was where that idea belonged. For one, Javier was pretty sure that Ryan wasn't bi or whatever this attraction made him. Two, they were partners. Three, they were friends, and who hadn't managed to screw that one up at least once? Four, the righteous smack his Mama would give him right before he was forgiven. Five, the guys at the precinct if it ever got out. Six, Lord only knew what Castle would put in his next book... He eventually stopped counting. It was all bad. All bad. And that was without even considering Jenny, which was basically "full stop".

That cold practicality didn't leave him with much.

It left him home alone in front of his computer like a complete loser looking at a story based on a book he had once said he'd rather be waterboarded than read. Wishing it was about him. Discarding the fact that—in a twisted way—it technically was, Javier was faced with the sad certainty that he had reached the ultimate rock-bottom of pathetic that even in junior high he had failed to achieve.

It was totally messed up, but the more he read the easier it was for Esposito to see his life in the story. Gabrielle's issues with Ochoa's job reminded him a lot of Jenny. At first he hadn't known what to make of the woman. Between the tie and her frequent calls to "check up" on Ryan, well...once she'd knocked that off he'd grudgingly upgraded his opinion of "bitch is crazy" from "bitch is seriously crazy". Not that she wasn't a sweet girl, she was just so wrong for his partner. It was easy to mistrust that opinion in hind sight, but Javier still thought it was true. She was needy, and Ryan was just dorky enough to dig that a little bit, but it was a bad trait in someone dating a cop.

Javier was neither blind to, nor amused by, the irony that he was apparently playing Raley's part in this bizarre melodrama.

When he looked back at the screen the character's he'd entered hadn't changed, and the mouse arrow still waited patiently to finalize them. Once he did the words would be out there on the internet forever. The odds of them ever being traced back to him were miniscule, but that wasn't what was at stake. He would know they were there, and he would always remember what he had meant when he wrote them. Giving himself a rough mental shake at being such a girl about the whole thing, Javier clicked the button, the page refreshing to display those words on the screen.

fab54th: It could never happen.

Four words, hardly a review 4n6goddess would appreciate, but they weren't for her. By saying it couldn't happen he was admitting to himself that he wanted it to, and the same four words reminded him that, even wanting, it was still impossible.

Esposito turned off his computer with a sigh, letting his forehead fall to the desk with a grunt. He seriously wasn't looking forward to Friday, even with the promise of beer and pizza and Ryan all to himself. Not that he could even consider canceling, if for no other reason because Ryan would immediately know something was wrong. And if Kev asked him, Javier wasn't sure he could actually lie about it. He didn't want something like that between them. But answering would make things all kind of awkward. He couldn't do that to his bro.

He had no choice but to muscle through it and try to survive.