Hemingway's Whiskey
Spoilers: Final Nail, Knockdown, Last Call
Disclaimer: Don't own them, just borrowing them for a little fun. I also don't have any claim to Hemingway's Whiskey by Kenny Chesney, or anything written by E. Hemingway.
Notes: I've toyed with this idea for a few weeks now. With Castle's purchase of the Old Haunt and Beckett as his muse... (even if the books don't matter anymore) this song by Kenney Chesney hit me hard as a Castle fic and didn't let up until I put it down. I just love this song.
As always, no beta. Mistakes are mine.
Hemingway's Whiskey
I didn't like to drink. Alcohol and other drugs with harsher reputations had never been my thing. So many of those wrapped in fame fall into that lifestyle. Perhaps it was because of Alexis. Perhaps it was the things I had witnessed backstage during my mother's career. Maybe it was this, that and a variety of other things. I'd lived the majority of my life completely sober, a few special occasions mostly sober and a handful of times I'd teetered on the fine line between sober and over-indulged. This of course didn't mean I never tasted the stuff. There was something to be said for a fine wine. A artistically crafted beer. A perfectly blended Long Island during the summer. Or an exceptionally old bottle of St. Miriam Scotch Whiskey among friends. Perhaps that occasion we all teetered on the wrong side of the line after solving a case with the most expensive murder weapon to date. The thought of us all brings a smile to my face briefly.
Standing there with Beckett just outside my bar, on Valentines Day seems fitting. My Old Haunt, the place where a great book had taken it's first breath into life. Spurring on my career, the career that would not have begun without the friend I had to say goodbye too. The friend, I quite clearly never knew as well as I'd thought.
Beckett quietly follows me in, I nod at my new bartender. "Two Hemingway's." I tell him curtly, nodding towards my booth in the back. A reserved sign is sandwiched between a wooden table and its glass top. It's not the same booth I'd written in, however it gives me a view of the bar while set far enough back I'm afforded privacy whenever I come in. I wordlessly take her trench, hanging it on the peg beside the deep framed wooden booth. Mine slips off and hooks over the opposite side. A waitress arrives promptly, despite the busy night. It might be a Monday, but it's still February 14th.
Wordlessly I nudge one of the glasses towards Beckett. Straight up, neat whiskey. The weight of the glass is a comfort in my hand. I sigh, before taking a hearty swig of the smooth amber liquid. Despite the smoothness of the perfectly aged and blended liquor, it's burn is simultaneously warm and mean.
Our conversation had died quickly on the way here. She'd laughed and called me a liar when I'd told her I was fine. I wondered, what exactly they taught in the academy that allowed her to read me deeper than anyone, even my mother could.
"How do you do it?" I asked putting a voice to the question in my head.
"Do what Castle?"
"Know exactly when I'm lying."
"You have your tells." Short, simple and to the point. Kate Beckett to every degree. She gives me a once over, before something in her eyes changes. She surprises us both by continuing. "It's the details. Like when someone writes a great story. Knowing which details to simply let go, which ones to allude towards and which ones to snatch up and use to their fullest."
"Perfect." I tell her with a nod as we each nurse the drink.
"Close." She smiles down into her drink. "This has to cost a fortune."
"Who else would I spend it on?"
"Your two lovely redheads?"
"They got some love." I tell her. "This," I indicate to our glasses, "is something personal I keep here."
"So it's personal." She inquired.
"There's more to life than whiskey."
"Hemingway must have lost that message in the end."
"Perhaps." The silence stretches between us. And the waitress brings us both a second round without request as we watch the couples around us. I have to smile as a man offers his girlfriend a shinny bangle in a pale blue box.
I'm startled by Beckett's voice. "Do you think they're in love?"
"Maybe. It's hard to judge a relationship from the outside."
"So many do." She tells me, her voice warmed by the whiskey. She absently flips her phone open, before tucking back into the corner of the table. I don't need to look, I know he hasn't called.
"A good muse is hard to find." I confess, pouring every ounce of feeling I can afford onto the table before her with my eyes and a short stack of words.
"Is that what I am? Your muse to Hemingway's whiskey?" Her voice has taken on a hint of chill, rather that the slow languid warmth I'd heard creep in only moments before. The opportunity to declare changing my need for her stares at me, but I'm afraid, despite the glass of courage pumping through my stomach and veins, inspired by the writer himself.
"It started that way. I've got enough for dozens of books." Her eyes find mine, despite the alcohol, they're alert and clear. This is about all I can muster in my current state of mostly sober. Maybe if I was mostly intoxicated it wouldn't feel so cramped and stuffy in my booth.
"So we're just one word, one line at a time?" She asks, implying our lack of permanence.
"I'm not sure either of us is ready for more than that." I tell her, downing my drink and rising from the booth. I stand at the entrance to her seat. Blocking her in, I can see the Detective in her tense momentarily, before letting go into personal comfort that's been created over time with trust.
"Maybe we aren't." She says, looking up at me. That's all the invitation I need before I slid into her side of the booth.
"Maybe we are?" I whisper, afraid of ruining what we have. Afraid to loose the person who's become my best friend.
"Josh and I don't work." She tells me, slipping her hand next to mine. The tops of our hands brush, as our wrists sit vertically side by side. The smallest, most innocent points of physical contact. She's the one to break the contact, lifting her glass to her lips, finishing the last of the smooth, clean drink. She pushes the glass towards my empty across the table.
"Sometimes, when I'm writing, no matter what I do I can't make a section shine." I tell her. "It means something is missing. I can usually fix it with a trip to the 12th. Ten minutes in the bullpen and I'm reminded of what I need, of what I want."
"What do you find?" Her body, has somehow become tucked gently beside mine. I slip my hand over hers. She stares down at them, fitted together so perfectly.
"It's always you." I tell her with a squeeze.
"And I'm real." She utters under her breath.
"Yes." I tell her. I tilt her head to look at me more fully with my free hand. "No pretending." I tell her quietly. For a moment, I'm not sure she's heard me. But then her breath intakes sharply with realization about what I'm going to do. Her hand releases mine from the table and find its way into my hair as I close the distance between our lips. As our lips communicate in a language of their own caresses, the hints of reality we'd caught in the alley weeks earlier are suddenly crystal clear. This is us, warm, smooth and anything but neat.
There will be more for us out there, and it will certainly shine.
More Notes: I used to hate song fic. Now I've got one from The XF's and one from Castle. I still won't read it, so if you've come this far, I thank you for giving it a chance. Means a lot to a SongFic Hater (aka... me!).
Hemingway's Whiskey by Kenny Chesney
Hemingway's whiskey, warm and smooth and mean
Even when it burns, it'll always finish clean
He didn't like it watered down, he took it straight up and neat
If it was bad enough for him, you know it's bad enough for me
Hemingway's whiskey
Ah, it's tough out there, a good muse is hard to find
Living one word to the next, one line at a time
There's more to life than whiskey, there's more to words than rhyme
Sometimes nothing works, sometimes nothing shines
Like Hemingway's whiskey
Sail away, sail away, three sheets to the wind
Live hard, die hard, this one's for him
Hemingway's whiskey, warm and smooth and mean
Even when it burns, it'll always finish clean
He didn't like it watered down, he took it straight up and neat
If it was bad enough for him, you know it's bad enough for me
Hemingway's whiskey
Hemingway's whiskey
Hemingway's whiskey