A/N: Inspired by a prompt from a list of ideas I saw floating around on tumblr, probably thanks to the castlefanficprompts page:
You're scared of haunted houses and halloween attractions and i don't even know you but your friends left you behind (what dicks) so i'm gonna hold your hand and get you through this, alright?
Kate clenches her hand into a fist when a man with a chainsaw jumps out at her, laughing maniacally and waving the prop around in a fit of insanity, and glares at the actor as she walks past. Hardly frightening, but the guy behind her apparently thinks the opposite.
Her head whips over her shoulder at the high-pitched shriek, just in time to see a grown man jerk back, away from the man with the chainsaw and a full face of gruesome makeup.
"Becks, will you come on," Maddie groans from up ahead in the eerie hallway, hanging on her new beau, Batman's arm and motioning for her to catch up, but Kate still drags her feet.
She hadn't wanted to come to the Halloween festival, or traipse through the infamous haunted pier set up every year near the Hudson, in the first place, but Maddie had played the guilt card on her, reminding her how Kate's job took up so much of her time, how they were never able to hang out anymore because of it. Working to become the youngest officer to make detective in her division did take up all of her time, the spare moments spent treading water, ensuring she won't slip back under the depths of grief lapping at her chest.
It's especially difficult this time of year, when all of the holidays are beginning to roll in, reminding her of happier years, when her mother was around and how they used to decorate the apartment together with her dad, trick-or-treating until Kate proclaimed she was too old.
What she wouldn't give to trick-or-treat with her parents like a kid again.
Maddie huffs at her, allows Batman to lead her deeper into the seemingly endless 'Maze of Horror', and she does feel bad for being such a killjoy, but not too guilty. Maddie is hardly hurt by Kate's lack of company when she has a buff superhero at her side.
"Shit!"
Kate turns back once more to see the man a few feet behind, tangled up in a fake spiderweb, and she sighs, takes pity on the guy who looks as if he would rather be anywhere but here.
"Hey, are you okay?" Beckett asks, plucking the screen of cobwebs from the man's face and - and that's Richard Castle.
"Thank you," he breathes, stepping to the side, away from the web she releases and glancing around the haunted hallway, but they seem to be standing in an intermission spot, no hiding place for menacing ghouls or psychotic killer to pop out of. "I'm just - not a huge fan of this. The genre? Sure. The interaction? Not so much."
Kate chuckles, but her favorite author appears genuinely rattled, his chest heaving beneath his… cowboy costume? Not what she would have expected, but-
"Oh, space cowboy," he answers her unspoken question with a grin when he notices her eyes sweeping his suspends with a creased brow.
"Very… original," Beckett decides, adjusting the witch's hat Maddie had thrown at her when she had shown up at her friend's apartment without a costume. Incredibly unoriginal. "But if you're not a fan of Halloween attractions, what are you doing in here…?"
"Rick," he supplies immediately, extending his hand to her and encasing her slender fingers in the warmth of his large palm. "And this is going to sound completely idiotic, but well, my daughter is spending her first Halloween at a friend's party. They're all seven year olds and it's supervised, so I know she's safe, but it's one of our favorite holidays to celebrate and we always spend Halloween together, so sitting at home on my own was a bit depressing."
He shrugs, and she had been vaguely aware that Richard Castle had a daughter, but she never would have pinned him as the loving father, spending fun holidays like Halloween with his daughter instead of out on the town, attending parties and making public appearances like she's certain most celebrities his age are, especially those who project a 'millionaire playboy' persona.
"Some frien- some people I knew, people who manage to encourage me into doing stupid things, like stealing police horses," he corrects, the last part muttered under his breath and piquing her curiosity. Stealing a police horse? She wonders if they have that on file at the Twelfth… "Had invited me to come to this Halloween fest on the pier and my publicist thought it would be great idea to have me out in an adult setting for once, but they ditched me about halfway into this thing and I honestly just want to get out of here."
Kate catches his arm before he slumps against the nearest wall, nodding to the fresh fake blood painted there. "Your friends sound like assholes."
"They are," he sighs, but his lips are curling upwards as he stares back at her. "I didn't catch your name."
"Kate," she murmurs, stepping to the side of the slim hallway with him when a werewolf and a clan of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bustle past them. "Kate Beckett."
"Kate Beckett," he echoes, her name spilling rich and enticing from his mouth. "Strong name, I like it."
"Good to know," she chuckles, redirecting her attention to the dark, creepily decorated hallway that lies ahead. Maddie and her Batman companion have likely traveled through the haunted maze of horrors by now, and this isn't exactly how she had imagined her evening going, not even close, but Kate extends her hand to Richard Castle. "You think you can make it through this?"
Rick accepts her hand in a heartbeat, sending unwelcome flutters through her stomach, unexpected sparks of electricity up the veins of her arm, and sucks in a deep breath.
"Yeah," he exhales, trailing after her when she begins to walk forward. "I trust you to keep me safe, Kate Beckett."
She rolls her eyes, tugs him along the purposely creaky floorboards at their feet. "I did pledge to protect the citizens of the city."
"Wait, you… does this mean you're a cop?" he questions, his chest brushing one of her shoulder blades. "Oh, please tell me you're a cop."
"Hopefully going to be a detective by next year," she nods, assessing the scene in front of them, already sensing the presence of another person in the asylum styled room they're working their way through.
"You are officially one of the coolest people I know."
She smirks just as a screaming woman jumps out from the shadows, the dull lighting beginning to flicker rapidly in time to screeching alarm bells, and Castle stumbles back, nearly falls into a gurney covered in more fake blood. Kate hooks her arm around his waist before he can take the prop down and collapse into the wall, guiding him towards the exit and narrowly avoiding the wailing woman lunging at them.
"How do people enjoy these things?" he gets out, reclaiming her hand once her arm drops from his waist, sporadically brushing his thumb back and forth over one of her knuckles. "And how are you so calm?"
Well, at least her facade of indifference is working, at least he can't hear the frantic pound of her heart in her chest. She deals with enough horror on a daily basis, witnesses sights and situations far worse than this, and the last way she would have chosen to spend her night off was having actors trained to be living nightmares evoking her repressed paranoia.
She didn't blame Castle for hating it; this wasn't her idea of fun either.
"Not much scares me anymore," she mumbles, leaving out the fact that real life is far more terrifying than any haunted house.
"Hey, hold on," Castle murmurs, digging into the deep pockets of his corduroy pants, withdrawing a slim notebook. He doesn't release her hand, but brings their tangled fingers up to support the back of the book as he flips it open to a blank page, jots something down in the near darkness of the next room. Circus themed, great.
Rick manages to slide the pen back into the spiral rings of the notebook one handed, shoves it back into his pocket just in time for a psychotic clown to emerge from the billowing, candy cane colored tent of a wall.
He curses, jerks when another performer on a unicycle rides past them, and Kate hastens their pace. She may not be afraid of them, but she still hates clowns.
"What were you writing?" she inquires, seeing the shimmer of the city lights in the near distance, a literal light at the end of a tunnel.
"Oh, what you said," he answers, but his attention is still on their surroundings, his body tensed beside hers, ready to jump and run for the exit at any given moment. And drag her along with him if the tightening clutch of his hand is any indication. "Great line."
"Line? As in dialogue?"
"Yeah, for a character," Castle murmurs, twining his fingers through hers, and his palm is a little sweaty, but she's surprised to learn that otherwise, holding hands with Richard Castle is quite pleasant. "I'm a writer."
"I know," she chuckles, and they're so close to the end, just about to step out when another actor jumps out from an invisible sliding door in the wall of the final corridor, grabbing them both by the shoulders.
Beckett thrusts her elbow back out of reflex, hears the hiss of contact when the jut of her bone lands a hit to the solar plexus of a goblin with bright purple contacts.
"Goddammit, lady," he wheezes, disappearing back behind the sliding door drenched in blood spatter.
Castle releases a breath of laughter. "Wow, you really are good protection."
They reach the exit, finally, and she listens to Castle exhale in relief, but as they're strolling out of the maze, her eye catches on the final vestiges of the display, a dead man with a gunshot to the head and a woman slumped against the doorway, moaning in pain, the blood seeping from the knife in her abdomen.
"Kate?"
It's fake. It's just an actress, just another Halloween trick on display to unsettle people, to scare them, but - god, her mother, it was too close to how her mom had looked in the crime scene photos and she couldn't-
"Kate, hey, look at me. Breathe, Kate."
She's vaguely aware of Castle drawing her away from the attraction, away from the woman with a stab wound, and easing her down onto a bench on the pier. The screams and screeching from the haunted maze fade away and Kate follows his instruction, forces air into her lungs while Castle holds to her shoulders, steadying her as the panic fades from her vision, allowing her to see him clearly again.
"Sorry," she gets out, automatically reaching for the chain at her neck, assuring herself of its presence, but refraining from easing the ring out from beneath her sweater.
She likes Richard Castle, far more than she ever thought she would after he had seemingly let her down through the media's portrayal of him, but he was a writer, a man who paid close attention to detail, and she knows if she were to extract the ring dangling from the end of the chain from its hiding place between her breast, he would make it his mission to find out what it means.
She's lucky she can discuss all of this with her therapist every two weeks, no way is she laying out her tragic backstory for Rick Castle too.
"Are you okay?" Rick inquires with concern blooming bright blue in his wide eyes as they assess her face, his thumbs gliding back and forth over her shoulders, soothing. "What got to you?"
"I - nothing," she lies, scraping a hand through her hair and knocking the pointed black hat from her head. Castle catches it for her and she accepts it with a sigh, holding it in her lap. "The woman with the knife in her, when we were already walking through the exit."
He cranes his neck sideways, scanning the end of the haunted maze they just escaped from, but it was such an unimportant part of the attraction, such a minor detail that hardly deserved a second glance, she knows he won't find the woman whose broken body had resembled her mother's from five years ago.
"I'm sorry." Kate meets his eyes and shit, he looks as if he's completely figured her out, as if he somehow understands even though there's no way he could have any idea. "I don't know, but I - I'm sorry."
She swallows, surprised by the burst of sincerity in his gaze, the accompanying simmer of warmth in her chest. Where is the arrogant jackass she had caught glimpses of in the Ledger, on late night talk shows? He hadn't made an appearance once tonight and she's beginning to question if that side of him is nothing more than a mask worn for the public.
"Do you want to get out of here? We could grab dinner," he suggests, a hopeful gleam shimmering through his eyes, and Kate finds herself accepting the offer before she can think better of it, accepting his hand for what had to be the third, maybe even the fourth time that night.
"What time does your daughter's party end?" she inquires as they drift away from the horrors of Halloween, off of the Hudson Pier and towards the sidewalk, meandering through the crowd until they're walking down West 54th and Castle is hailing a cab.
She retrieves her phone from the pocket of her jeans before the taxi can brake to a stop in front of them, sending Maddie a text message letting her know she had gone home early, but at the lack of reply, she assumes her friend hasn't even taken notice of her absence. And for once, that doesn't bother her.
"Oh, it's a slumber party," he sighs, a little crestfallen over it, and her lips quirk into an involuntary smile.
"Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be able to go trick-or-treating again next year," she muses, leaning forward to give the cabbie an address before Rick can, and he grins at her for it. Fan of a woman taking charge, is he?
"You don't understand the depths of my devastation, Kate. Alexis and I always have the best Halloween candy haul and now? Nothing."
"Something tells me that the last thing you need is sugar, Castle," she chuckles, but his fingers tighten in hers, wiggling to fit in the spaces between once more.
"Castle?"
"Ah, habit," she shrugs, flicking her eyes between the intrigue spreading across his and the knot of their hands on his knee. "Surnames are the norm at the precinct."
"That's so cool," he says with such relish it has her shaking her head to dispel the laughter bubbling in her throat. "What division do you work? Homicide?"
Her heart skips in an entirely unpleasant way.
"How'd you know that?"
"Just a guess," he assures her, giving her hand another squeeze. "Vice was a close second."
"Mm, you wouldn't have been too far off with that guess either," she hums, digging in her pocket for her credit card once the cab comes to a stop at her favorite diner in East Village, but Rick is already swiping his, nudging her out the door.
"You'll get the next one," he waves her off, but next one? How many cab rides does he think they'll be sharing? "I'm assuming you come here often?"
Beckett huffs and leads him through Remy's entrance, nodding to the waitress she recognizes from lunch last Tuesday. "Yeah, it's not far from the station and the food is delicious."
He's in full agreement with her fifteen minutes later, when he's groaning with satisfaction around the first bite of his cheeseburger.
Rick asks about her job while they eat, seemingly fascinated with her work and often pausing in the middle of his meal to withdraw that pen and notepad again, scribbling notes, writing down dialogue she can see by the frequent use of quotation marks. In turn, she learns just as much about his life, the real life that he doesn't share with the paparazzi or interviewers. She falls in love with the way he talks about his daughter, Alexis, the adoration pouring from his eyes at the mere mention of her, and hangs on every word he speaks about his writing, about Derrick.
"I'm getting a little bored with him," he confesses, absentmindedly swirling a french fry through the dollop of ketchup on his plate. "I know I could churn out a few more books, but I'm already dying to write a new character's story."
His gaze slides up to meet hers at that and – oh no, no way.
"Wait, is that… is that why you're taking notes on me?" she hisses, making a grab for his notepad, but Rick snatches it from the table first, holds it protectively to his chest.
"Maybe."
"Castle, you cannot base a character on me," she protests, all of the reasons why it would be such a bad idea swelling in her chest, pushing all of the air from her lungs and crowding all of the space left within the cage of her ribs. "You don't even know me, you don't know-"
"That could change," he points out, releasing a shallow breath and lowering his writing tools to his lap. "I realize it's only been a few hours, but I've really enjoyed getting to know you, Kate. I'd like to know more and not just for the sake of a book."
"Castle," she murmurs, diverting her eyes to her fidgeting fingers resting atop the table. He has no idea how damaged she is, how broken and burdened she's become since her mother's death. It isn't as bad as it had been in the beginning, her grief still raw with ragged edges, but she had stopped throwing salt in them, crawled her way out of the rabbit hole and placed all of her focus into becoming a detective.
She isn't sure she has room for anything else.
Rick's hand covers one of hers and she forces her eyes up, feels herself cracking at the hope and reassurance in his. He's right, they barely know each other, not yet, but something tells her he could be good for her.
"It's still early, want to come over and carve a pumpkin?"
A surprised snort of laughter slips past her lips.
"I'm not kidding, Kate," he whines. "I have a Star Wars themed pumpkin that I promised Alexis I would have done by the time she comes home tomorrow."
"I hardly know you and you want me to come into your home and assist you in carving a pumpkin for your kid?"
"Yep. We can also have a Halloween movie marathon while we work."
Kate cuts her eyes to him, her lips already curling into a smile that gives away an answer that could be her biggest mistake.
"You have coffee?"
"Am I a functioning human being? Of course, I have coffee," he scoffs, popping the last fry from his basket into his mouth and sliding from his side of the booth.
Under normal circumstances, she'd like to believe that she wouldn't give in so easily, surely wouldn't go a man's apartment on the first date (not that this had been a date), but part of her wants to trust him, half of her already does after curling up with his books for so many years now. Kind of hard not to trust the man who had helped her rise above the trenches of her grief without even knowing it.
"Fine." Beckett decides, easing from the booth, and fitting her hand back into his. They're not a perfect fit, her hand is small, swallowed by his palm, but when their fingers interlock, it shifts a sense of security she thought she had lost forever back into place, warms that hollow place in her chest and threatens to tug another smile from her lips. "Let's go carve a pumpkin, Castle."