Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or anything from the series.
All credit for the style of fic goes to the amazingly talented bexiboo900, who is being so kind as to let me try my take on her fic concept, "Three Armed Cops and a Writer." This fic is not meant to be an imitation of hers; rather, mine was simply inspired by hers.
Thoughts are in italics. Any mistakes are mine as this is un-beta'd.
Kate Beckett was having a bad day. She and the boys had gotten a call about a body dropping earlier that evening, and it was just her luck that it was one of those "freaky ones." She usually enjoyed those cases because of the puzzles her team had to solve before they could close the case. However, the one they'd seen that night hit a little closer to home. The crime scene resembled that from one of her favourite novels, "Flowers For Her Grave" by the infamous playboy Richard Castle. And whether it was a warped coincidence or a sign from the universe, Castle was having a book launch party downtown, and Kate had been ordered to crash it and bring him back to the precinct for questioning.
The venue was packed with fans and bigwigs from the publishing industry. Women in tight dresses and towering heels were everywhere, and the bar was packed like wild animals at a watering hole. Music blared from the overhead speakers, and Kate wished for the tenth time that she didn't have to be there. She was a fan –a big fan- of Castle's writing, but his public persona irked her. Kate had little patience for people who thought the world revolved around them.
Down at the end of the bar, she could see Castle talking to an older woman and a young girl with fiery red hair. His mother and daughter most likely. As she watched from afar, the woman picked up her purse and made her way over to an older gentleman partway across the room. Castle and the girl were left to converse in her wake, and from what she could see, Richard Castle didn't look too happy about something. A bunch of partygoers moved away from the bar at that moment, and Kate decided that that moment was as good a time as any. Making her way over to where they were seated, she pulled out her badge.
"...Just once, I'd like someone to come up to me and say something new," Kate heard as she approached the duo.
"Mr. Castle?" She asked.
"Where would you like it?" He said playfully as he spun around with a sharpie in his hand, and Kate cringed inside. Apparently the rumours she had heard about his charm regarding women hadn't been exaggerated.
Kate ignored him. "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. We need to ask you a few questions about a murder that took place earlier tonight."
"That's new," His daughter said as she popped her head over his shoulder and took the pen from his hands, although Castle didn't appear to notice. He looked rather dazed, Kate thought to herself in amusement. Good. It was about time someone knocked him off his game.
. . . . .
When Kate arrived at the precinct, she escorted him to one of the interrogation rooms before leaving him alone to sweat for a few minutes while she grabbed the case file and debriefed quickly with Ryan and Esposito. When she could delay no longer, she took a deep breath and entered.
"Mr. Castle. You've got quite a rap sheet for a best-selling author," she mused, flipping through his file, which she had also pulled while she was organizing that night's case file. "Disorderly conduct, uh, resisting arrest?"
Castle shrugged his shoulders, looking very much like a child who was trying to weasel his way out of trouble. "Boys will be boys."
Kate smirked at him, determined to resist his charisma. "It says here that you stole a police horse?"
"Borrowed," Castle corrected quickly.
Kate looked back down in the file, not overly surprised at what she read next. "Ah. And you were nude at the time."
"It was spring."
"And every time, the charges were dropped," Kate said in annoyance as she let his file fall to the table with a smack.
"What can I say? The mayor's a fan, but if it makes you feel any better, I'd be happy to let you spank me," Castle said with a lustful look on his face. Kate tried to squelch her inner fangirl, but part of her couldn't deny that if their current situation was different, she might be tempted to take him up on his offer.
Instead she leaned in close. She was only going to explain this once, and she was damn well going to beat it into his thick skull if she had to. "Mr. Castle, this whole 'bad boy charm' thing you've got going might work for bimbettes and celebutantes. Me, I work for a living. So that makes you one of two things in my world – either the guy who makes my life easier, or the guy who makes my life harder. And trust me, you do not want to be the guy who makes my life harder."
Castle shut up. "Okay," he said simply. Kate hoped maybe he was finally grasping how serious the situation was. She was asking for his help, not his flirtations.
Reaching into the case file, she pulled out an enlarged photograph. "Alison Tisdale, daughter of real-estate mogul Jonathan Tisdale."
"She's cute."
"She's dead," Kate shot back. "Did you ever meet her? Book signing? Charity event?"
Castle sat up a little straighter. "It's possible. She's not in my little black book, if that's what you're asking."
Kate shook her head slightly, refusing to take the bait. Damn him. He was sitting in the middle of an interrogation room with a New York detective and he was still trying to hit on her.
"What about this guy?" She pulled another photo out from the file folder. "Marvin Fisk, small claims lawyer."
"Most of my claims to be on the, um, large side," Castle teased, and Kate rolled her eyes. "So what's this got to do with me?"
"Fisk was found murdered in his office two weeks ago," Kate explained. "I didn't put it together until we saw the Tisdale crime scene tonight." She pulled out another photo, this one of Alison Tisdale's body.
The metaphorical lightbulb went off over Castle's head. "Flowers For Your Grave."
Kate removed the last photo, tossing it on top of the previous one. "And this is how we found Marvin Fisk, right out of 'Hell Hath No Fury.'"
Castle continued to ponder over the crime scene photos. "Looks like I have a fan," he said.
"Yeah, a really deranged fan."
"Oh, you don't look deranged to me," Castle teased, and Kate found herself caught off guard.
"What?"
"'Hell Hath No Fury.' 'Angry Wiccans Out For Blood.' Come on. Only hardcore Castle groupies read that one."
Kate flushed as she realized she had completely stepped in it, revealing a side of her that she hadn't meant to show to him. In fact he was the last person she'd want to know about her love for his books. How had he gotten her caught up in his words so easily?
"Do any of these groupies ever write you letters?" She cursed mentally as she caught herself stammering slightly.
Castle nodded.
"Disturbing letters?" Kate continued.
"Oh all my fanmail's disturbing. It's an occupational hazard."
"Because sometimes in cases like this, we find that the killer attempts to-"
"Contact the subject of his obsession," Castle cut her off. When she looked surprised at his knowledge about sociopaths, he clarified for her. "I'm also pretty well-versed in psychopathic methodologies. Another occupational hazard."
If she didn't know better, Kate almost would've guessed that the best-selling author sitting across the table from her was trying to impress her with his knowledge about murderers. She didn't dare let on that she was in fact impressed. The man was smarter than he looked; she had to give him credit for that.
"And do you know you have gorgeous eyes?" Castle's smooth voice brought her out of her thoughts. Kate was speechless for a few moments, unable to wrap her mind around the compliment. Richard Castle thought she had pretty eyes. What was wrong with the world today?
"So I take it that you won't have any objection to use going through your mail?" Kate said rather peevishly to mask her embarrassment as she shoved the pictures back in the case file folder.
"Knock yourself out," was the author's reply. As Kate stood up to leave, he asked, "Can I get copies of those?"
"Copies?" Kate knew what he was referring to, but wasn't sure why he'd want them. Or need them, for that matter.
"I have this poker game. It's mostly other writers – Patterson, Canell. You know, best-sellers. You have no idea how jealous this would make them."
"Jealous?"
"That I have a copycat. Oh my gosh, in my world that's the red badge of honour. That's the criminal Cooper's Town."
A streak of anger flashed through Kate. How dare he take this so lightly? People were dead, families were destroyed. She dropped her hands down on the desk, making sure she stared him straight into his eyes as she voiced her disgust. "People are dead, Mr. Castle."
"I'm not asking for the bodies, just the pictures." He bit his lip as he looked up at her, and damn if it didn't tug on her heartstrings despite her best efforts to resist him. However just because he was a famous author did not mean that he got to play by special rules.
"I think we're done here." She spun on her heel and left the room, not seeing how the author watched her leave, nor the smile which played upon his lips.
Richard Castle wanted her. And he always got what he wanted.
. . . . .
Despite their tense confrontation from earlier, Kate could see that not much had changed by the time she was waiting with Esposito and Castle in the precinct to hear whether prints had been found off the letter. The playboy was still a playboy, and it galled her to watch him chatting up her partner like they'd been best buds for years.
When the phone finally rang, Kate snatched it up eagerly, keeping her fingers crossed that the news was positive. It was. "Lab's got lifts off the letter," she announced to the guys as she replaced the phone in its cradle.
"Whose?" Castle asked.
"The system's backlogged. It'll take a week to run a match." Kate hated this part of the process, even if it couldn't be helped.
"A week?" Castle asked in disbelief.
"Welcome to reality, superstar," Kate deadpanned.
"Well, I never did much like reality," Castle said as he pulled his phone out from his pocket and hit his a number on his speed dial.
"Mayor's office," came a voice from the phone.
"Hi Denise, it's Rick Castle," The writer said with a grin.
"Hi," chirped the perky female voice. Kate wanted to say something snotty, but decided against it.
"Yeah, is he in?" Castle asked the receptionist.
"Hold on," she said, and Castle voiced his thanks. "Like I said, the mayor's a fan," he whispered to Kate, one hand over the mouthpiece.
Moments later the mayor was on the line. "Rick!"
"Yo Big Cheese, it's Ricky!" Castle greeted the city's head honcho.
"You doing ok?"
"Yeah, of course."
"What's up?" The mayor asked. Kate couldn't believe what she was hearing. The mayor was in cahoots with Richard Castle? What was the world coming to?
"Well I don't know where you went. We looked all over for you. You took off with that girl." Castle got up with his phone, deciding maybe it was better to have this conversation in private. Kate watched him go.
Esposito also watched him walk off, then turned to face Kate. "The man's got the mayor on speed dial. The rich really are different," he observed.
"You want him? He's yours," Kate offered, seizing on whatever chance she could to offload the cocky writer onto another detective. Let him be somebody else's problem.
No such luck. "A control freak like you with something you can't control? No no, that's going to be more fun than shark week." Esposito grinned at her, and she made a face at him. Partner or not, Kate wanted to smack the man sometimes.
Castle chose that moment to return. "Okay, you will have your prints in an hour," he said as he sat back in the chair next to Kate's desk.
"Mr. Castle," she said tersely, and he pulled his chair closer. "Half of the guys here are waiting for prints. You don't just jump the line."
Castle pulled a mock-scared face. "Oh, I think somebody feels threatened."
"I am not threatened."
"No no, I get it," Castle rushed to assure her. "I can call the mayor and you can't."
Bingo, he was right again. Damn him! "We have procedure, protocol."
Castle wasn't fooled. "Yeah, and you always come to a complete stop at a red light and you never fudge your taxes."
Kate did both of those things, but since he was mentioning it like that, she guessed that he did neither. Big surprise there.
"Tell me something. Do you ever have any fun?" He asked her. She bit her lip, debating whether to join this line of conversation or just keep quiet. "You know, let your hair down? Drop your top? A little 'Cops Gone Wild'?"
She gave him her best 'I am not amused' look. "You do know I'm wearing a gun?" Castle made a 'That is SO hot' expression, and Kate thought it was one of the sexiest things she'd ever seen. Why did he have to be so attractive?
"Beckett, midtown. They just found another one," interrupted John, one of Kate's fellow officers. Perfect grabbed her jacket and followed John out, with Castle close on her heels.
. . . . .
Castle was sitting at Kate's desk, sifting through the case files when she ran up to him, clearly flustered that he was committing such a blatant breach of protocol. "What are you doing?" She demanded as she snatched the files back.
"It's a novelist's habit – poking through other people's mail, checking their medicine cabinets," he said with a smile, clearly not bothered in the least by what he had done.
"Why are you still here?" Kate asked, exasperated. She did not need to deal with him right now. Her life was stressful enough as it was.
"I just came by to give you this. It's a little something to... memorialize our brief partnership." When Kate didn't appear convinced, he pressed on. "Don't look so suspicious. Go on. Open it." He handed her the floral-wrapped box.
Kate tugged the cover off, wanting to get this over with as quickly as possible so Castle would just go and get out of her hair for good. She wasn't, however, expecting to see what she saw inside. A brand new copy of Storm Fall stared up at her from inside the tissue paper. She was stunned, though her inner fangirl was running laps inside her head in excitement.
"I got you an advanced copy. I even signed it to you. Not that you're a fan." Kate was too busy reading what he had wrote to her to really pay attention to his words. She still couldn't wrap her head around the fact that she, Kate Beckett, was holding an advanced copy of his newest book.
"Thanks. That's actually kind of... sweet," she managed to say.
Castle picked up his bag and slung it over his shoulder. "Well."
"Well."
Castle smiled at her. "It was nice to have met you, Detective Beckett." With that he leaned in and kissed her cheek. Kate froze. Castle looked at her for a moment longer, then breezed past her and walked out of the precinct.
Kate's jaw dropped. What in holy hell had just happened? Richard Castle actually kissed me! She turned around and saw him turn the corner at the end of the hallway. Still not completely comprehending what had just happened, she put the book on her desk and sat down. Maybe he wasn't the womanizer she'd built him up to be in her mind. Maybe he was a decent person after all.
Then it hit her. "He didn't." She frantically opened the case files on her desk and found that they were indeed missing vital pieces of evidence. "Oh! He did!" She made a quick phone call and then gathered three officers. Together their quartet headed to the legal library in the building, located just below the precinct.
When she threw the doors open to the common area, her anger only intensified. What gave him the right to steal evidence, to think he could do anything he wanted and get away with it?
"Richard Castle! You are under arrest for felony theft and obstruction of justice!" She thundered as they stalked across the room towards him.
"You forgot making you look bad," he added with a coy smile. Oh, so he thought he could play her, try to downplay the seriousness of the situation?
She got right down on his level. "You know, for a minute there, you actually made me believe that you were human."
Castle's smile faded. Wow, she was really pissed. Maybe he'd underestimated how seriously she took her job after all.
Kate straightened up, her eyes still on his. "Cuff him," she barked.
"Ooh, bondage. My safe word is 'apples,'" Castle said as his wrists were pulled behind his back and shackled together.
"Oh there's no need to be gentle," Kate assured the other officers as the cuffs were closed tight around his wrists.
"How'd you find me anyway?"
"I'm a detective. That's what I do," she replied easily.
Castle sneered at her. "My mother told you, didn't she?" Kate said nothing as he was pulled away.
"By the way, the rose petals in the Tisdale murder? They're 'grandiflora,' not 'hybrid teas,'" Castle called back over his shoulder as he was being led away.
"I'll make a note of it," Kate said sarcastically as she cleaned up the paperwork he'd left on the table.
"Yeah you probably should, since it means Kyle Cabot is innocent."
Kate looked back just in time to see him be led away around the corner.
What is he talking about?
. . . . .
But Castle had been right. They had had the wrong person after all. The murderer had been Alison's own brother Harrison, who killed her out of a jealousy born out of their father's preferential treatment of Alison. Years of envy and disappointment had eaten away at him, and their father's refusal to help him with his business proved to be the young man's breaking point. He killed his sister as a twisted stab at their father before he died of his illness.
Castle had had his own close call with the accused, getting himself held at gunpoint until he was able to smash him in the face. Kate had been ready to kill him in the heat of the moment, but in retrospect, she was grateful for the role he'd played. Although his life had been at risk, without Castle grabbing him there was a good chance that Harrison Tisdale would've run off, and then who knows if they would've been able to find him again.
So there she was, watching Harrison wait to be shoved into the back of one of the police cars blocking the end of the alley. Lights were still spinning and there was at least one siren blaring, but all Kate felt was relief. They got their guy. He wasn't going to get away with his crimes. She could feel satisfied for doing another job well done.
A throat being cleared made her turn around. It was Castle, of course. The man seemed to always be right behind her no matter where she went.
"Well, I guess this is it," she said.
"Well it doesn't have to be. We could, uh, go to dinner, debrief each other," Castle said somewhat seriously.
Kate was floored. This best-selling author was asking her out to dinner. And he was serious! Her inner fan screamed at her to accept his offer, that it would be a wonderful night and she would enjoy herself.
"Why, Castle? So I can be another one of your conquests?" Kate couldn't resist flirting with the writer, just a little bit.
"Or I could be one of yours," he flirted right back.
Kate smiled. The sexual tension was so thick she could've cut it with a knife, and as much as she knew she'd enjoy her escapade with the famous writer, in her heart she knew it couldn't work. He was probably just looking for a fling, plus he came with his own baggage. Paparazzi, newspaper articles and rumours would follow them –follow her- if they were seen together, and then that'd be it. She was a cop, not a fashion model or a soap star. Kate couldn't handle having her face plastered all over the gossip rags and talked about on the entertainment shows. She had a job to do, and she couldn't do it properly if people were focusing on her relationship with Richard Castle.
Biting her lip as she thought her words over, Kate tried to let him down as gently as she could. Offering her hand, she said, "It was nice to meet you Castle."
He shook her hand. "It's too bad. It would've been great," he said with a smile.
An idea struck her out of nowhere. It was cruel, yes, but she couldn't help herself. She'd most likely never get to flirt with anyone this famous again, and she wanted to have no regrets when she parted ways with Castle. So learning in close, Kate whispered into his ear, "You have no idea." Then she pulled back just far enough to gauge his reaction before she turned on her high heels and walked away, making sure to add an extra little sway in her step just for him.
. . . . .
The next morning at work, Montgomery called her into his office. Kate wondered what it could be about. Maybe they had a new case?
She knocked on the doorframe and stuck her head into his office. "You wanted to see me, sir?"
"Yeah. I just got a call from the mayor's office," Montgomery said as Kate approached him at his desk. "Apparently, you have a fan."
Distant warning bells rang in Kate's head, but their reason lay just out of reach. "A fan, sir?"
"Rick Castle. Seems he's found the main character for his next set of novels – a tough but savvy female detective."
Kate took a moment to absorb that idea. Castle wants to base his next book on me? "I'm flattered?" She said.
"Don't be. He says he has to do research."
Shit. Now Kate knew what the warning bells were for. "Oh no."
"Oh yes."
"No way," Kate fired back.
"Beckett listen-"
"Sir, he's like a nine year old on a sugar rush. Totally incapable of taking anything seriously." Kate was damned if she was going to continue working with him, if one could even call it that. Having Castle afoot was almost the same as babysitting him.
"But he did help solve this case."
Kate scoffed at that idea. If by throwing himself at the suspect and almost getting himself killed counted as 'helping,' then yes. Maybe.
"And when the mayor's happy, the Commissioner's happy," Montgomery continued. "And when the Commissioner's happy, I'm happy." He grinned at his lead detective, hoping she understood
"How long, sir?"
Montgomery's eyes moved to a point behind her, and Kate wondered what he was looking at until he said, "Well that's up to him." Eyes widening, she spun around to confront whoever was standing there, and to her vast annoyance it was Richard Castle once again. He cocked an eyebrow at her, and she was at a loss for words. It looked like her shadow was back once again, but Kate hoped it wouldn't be for any longer than necessary.
A/N: So there you have it. I think this is a neat concept for a story because it lets writers fill in the blanks for the dialogue and the body language from the episodes. Another big thank you goes to bexiboo900 for letting me do this – I hope I haven't screwed it up too badly. All credit for the original fic concept goes to her. If you've read this to the end, thank you very much!
I won't be doing every single episode, just my favourites from throughout the seasons. Once I hit season 4 I might start doing every episode, but I haven't decided yet for sure.