Four Winds: Double Vision

A Castle Fantasy AU

By Laura Picken

This story is in the continuing series of Castle fan fiction based on my fantasy alternate universe story "Four Winds". If you want to read the story, click on my author page, otherwise, here's a quick summary: Castle, Beckett, Lanie, Esposito and Ryan are struck by ball lighting in the loft on a dark and stormy poker night and wind up with superpowers: Ryan's a powerful telepath, Esposito can get your entire life story by shaking your hand, Beckett has five super-heightened senses and can speak to the dead, Lanie can heal the living by touch, and Castle's a wizard. There's other scattered abilities here and there, but that's the basic gist of it. Not freaked out by the concept yet? Then read on and enjoy :-).

For very loose timeline purposes, Castle fans can place this somewhere in the post-"Always" future: Castle and Beckett are a firmly established couple, Beckett's back on the force and Ryan has fought his way out of the doghouse. There will be various minor spoilers to the US season five (everything past "After the Storm").

DISCLAIMER: Castle, Beckett, et al. are property of Andrew W. Marlowe and ABC. The legends described herein are inventions of my own twisted imagination and should not be taken to reflect the traditions of any particular group. All non-English language phrases are courtesy of Google Translate, so please forgive me if I get anything unintentionally wrong.

One last thing: This fic is going to be *dark*. Scary, angsty, whatever you want to call it. The first half of this story, in particular, will be the darkest of the series. This will skirt the closest I'll ever get to the line between T and M - let's just call it a really hard T. So you'll need to know two things: 1) this story will be graphically violent and 2) I don't do major character death. I may get some of them roaringly close to death, but I promise you they *will* survive.

Okay, enough business, let the adventure begin!

He was pacing the kitchen anxiously, waiting for her to get home. It wasn't a breathless, lust-filled anticipation, although he was incredibly aroused at the moment. That kind of anticipation should only be found in romance novels and terrible, sappy 'chick flicks'. No, this was far more exciting than that.

This was strategy.

This was planning.

This was preparation moved to action.

This was the thunderous crescendo of a well-crafted symphony.

This...this was a *climax*.

He took deep, calming breaths through his nose, trying to slow down the pounding of his racing heartbeat. His heart stopped, though, as he heard the fumbling of keys outside the front door, the smooth click of the right key bypassing all the tumblers and turning the lock open, then the quiet creak as the door opened, allowing the key's owner to enter the apartment. He ducked behind the kitchen island, buying himself a few more precious moments to build up his adrenaline for when he would soon be springing into action. He heard the soft plop of mail dropping on an end table and the gentle thud of bare feet hitting the floor as those feet were removed from high-heeled shoes with a weary groan of relief.

Finally, the moment arrived. He saw the flash of bottle blond hair before the woman wheeled around to open the refrigerator and peer in. He pulled her into a deadly embrace, holding the woman just below his chest and using his well-muscled arms to cover her nose and mouth. She struggled, to be sure, but the feel of being able to control such an squirmy, active little thing with his touch was just *glorious*.

It was over far too quickly, though, as the woman fell limp in his arms. Now, he thought, what should we do together? Looking around the room, he considered his options. Posing her on the floor, or in the bed? Nah. He'd done that so often it was starting to feel cliché, even to him. He looked up at the ceiling with a mixture of fondness and fury, for while the kill had gone as planned, the resulting game hadn't been nearly as much fun to play as he had thought it would be.

That left...the bathroom. He smiled. It was perfect. While cuts were a wonderfully effective medium to send messages, it was so...messy. And absolute murder to clean up properly afterwards. But in the bathtub, placed properly...all the cleanup was done for him. And he did so very much love to be creative, clean *and* efficient. Plus, wasn't there some religion somewhere that talked about some combination of water and blood setting you free? How very, very appropriate...

He lifted up his cooling, tiny bundle, cradling her in his strong arms as he walked through the studio apartment to her bathroom. He stripped the woman of her clothes, taking time to appreciate the woman's delicate features and wisp-thin physique before placing her gently in the tub and piling her clothes next to the nearby toilet. Taking out his trusty original Swiss Army knife, he carefully cut a pattern, first into her right wrist and then into her left, moving his gloved hands with practiced speed to avoid getting blood on them. He then started to fill the tub with warm water when he spotted a bottle of bubble bath near the tub. Thrilled to be able to add the extra detail, he opened the jar, sniffed the lavender fragrance appreciatively, and poured the liquid into the tub as it filled, foaming up around his lovely plaything.

The woman let out a small groan as the warm water rose to the level of her waist. No, no, no, he thought, this won't do at all... He carved a necklace of blood into the woman's neck, which gurgled with air bubbles as the windpipe opened up beneath his carving work. The woman slipped slowly underneath the bubble-filled bathtub, and he couldn't help but smile as he watched the water continue to flow...

Kevin Ryan woke up with a start, gasping for air with gulping, panicked breaths. He shook his head, trying to calm his oddly swirling emotions even as he was swiftly losing his grasp of why he was having those emotions in the first place. Must have been one hell of a nightmare, he thought, noticing the imprint of sweat that his entire body seemed to have left on the sheets around him. It only took one long intake of breath, though, before he realized that that imprint had been left by more than just sweat. Cursing his body's failings, he made a mental note to apologize to Jenny in the morning as he got up to go to the bathroom and make sure his bladder would *not* betray him again.

It was then that he noticed his legs weren't holding up his body weight like they should have been. In fact, his whole body seemed to be shaking. What the hell? was all he could think. He forced himself to a standing position, then carefully shuffled the few feet to the adjoining bathroom. Not trusting himself to continue standing, he sat down to use the toilet and calm his racing heartbeat.

The time it took for his pulse to return to normal seemed like an eternity, but finally, Ryan felt like he would be able to stand once again. He finished with the toilet and washed his hands, deciding at the last minute to splash some cold water on his face to further 'collect himself'.

So it was only then, with his hands and face dripping wet, that he saw it. Looking up into the mirror, he saw a face that was most definitely not his own. A little more oval, brown eyes that definitely were *not* his own, a little younger, a little more, well, crazy...

But there was no doubt in Ryan's mind that the face of Jerry Tyson was staring back at him. Ryan stared at the reflection in disbelief, his pulse racing in horror as he watched Tyson's hand touch its dripping wet face at the same time he was touching his own...

And in a flash, it was over. Tyson's face was gone, replaced with his own pale, wet, shaking, shocked image. He reached up a hand to touch his face again, gasping when the reflection matched his activity...but almost relieved when the pinching of the cheek he saw in the reflection did, indeed, cause *him* pain.

The shrill ring of his cell startled Ryan out of his odd musings. Not wanting to wake his wife, he stumbled back to his side of the bed and quickly picked up his phone from the end table. At this time of night, it could only be about one thing. He whispered into the receiver, "Ryan."

"Detective Ryan? We have received a call about a body discovered at 413 West 29th street..."

Detective Javier Esposito studied his partner's expression with brotherly concern as he handed the man a large steaming black coffee. "Dude," he declared, "you look *awful*..." A concerned thought shot through him. "It's not Jenny and my niece-to-be, is it? Are they okay?"

Ryan shook his head. "No, man, everyone's fine. I just had a bad dream, that's all." He took a sip of his coffee, using the heat, bitterness and resulting jolt of caffeine to anchor himself in his current reality. "What do we have?"

Esposito started reading from his notes as they walked through the building. "Name's Madeline Strimp, age 27. FDNY got reports of a smoke condition in the building earlier tonight..."

Ryan's nostrils flared as he recognized the potent aroma. "So that's what that was..."

"Yep," agreed Esposito. "Apparently someone fell asleep making a beef stew. Anyway, when the ladder crew was going door-to-door to evacuate the building, Ms. Strimp's door was open. One of the firemen found her..."

Ryan lost track of his partner's voice as a wave of déjà vu swept over him. "This is the vic's apartment, right?" he asked his partner.

"Yeah..." Esposito replied, confused as to his partner's train of thought.

Ryan's pulse started to quicken as he entered the small studio apartment...a feeling which only confused him further. Why is this bugging me so much? he wondered, Especially when I haven't seen...his pulse jumped another gear when he realized he hadn't seen the body yet. "Bro," Ryan asked, his voice starting to shake just slightly, "where did they find the body?"

"I...was just about to show you," Esposito responded warily, noticing his partner's increasingly nervous response. "The fire jockeys found her in the bathroom, submerged in her tub..."

As Ryan stood in the door to the bathroom, a wave of memories hit him with the force of a Mack truck. His pulse racing off the charts, Ryan turned and ran out of the room at full human speed, barreling through any poor technician that had the nerve to stand between the detective and his return to the cold, fresh air.

Esposito caught up to his partner as a wave of nausea hit the younger man full force. Ryan staggered out to the sidewalk, kneeling down and throwing up the coffee that he had been drinking moments earlier. Esposito watched his partner with a fiercely protective level of worry. This was his partner, his brother and a man who had seen a hell of a lot worse than a body in a bathtub. So why was he losing it *now*? "Bro..." he began quietly and cautiously, "what the hell is going on here? And don't tell me you're fine. We wouldn't be out here kneeling on the sidewalk next to your puke if you were just 'fine'."

Ryan took a couple of deep breaths to try and calm his queasy stomach and ragged nerves long enough to speak. "I told you earlier, I had a bad dream."

Esposito's eyes widened, unable to believe what he was hearing. "Let me see this dream," he suggested. When Ryan nodded his consent, Esposito reached into his partner's mind, pulling out the information he was looking for.

The results sent him reeling. "Jesus..." was all he could gasp out, not knowing if the word was a swear or a prayer, and figuring, under the circumstances, that it was probably both.

Ryan's first response was a wordless nod. "Now you see why I ran out of there..." Esposito nodded.

The two men jumped up when their boss and her boyfriend-'partner' turned the corner, entering the far edge of their crime scene. Esposito turned to his best friend, quietly barking out orders to the man. "Kev, you need to get out of here. Go get a drink, get cleaned up, hug your wife, whatever you need to do to calm the hell down. I'll talk to Beckett and Castle and get them to help us. You meet us at the precinct."

Ryan nodded wordlessly and started to head for home. His partner stopped him, though, with one final encouragement. "Bro, listen to me: I don't give a damn what your head is telling you right now. You did *not* kill that girl. The evidence in there will prove it."

"There's more to the story than the evidence," Ryan countered sadly. "You know that as well as I do."

"Yeah, well the evidence *can* prove you aren't a part of the story," Esposito insisted. "Either way, you're no help to any investigation in the state you're in right now. Go!"

Ryan took off without another word just as Beckett and Castle made it over to them. While both of the Guardians were confused by their friend's behavior, Castle was the first to find the words to ask about it. "What's up with Ryan? Is he okay?"

"Short version?" Esposito replied, turning to Beckett. "We got a body in there. My partner thinks he killed her. And I need you to prove beyond any shadow of a doubt that he didn't."