A/N: This story is purely about fun. The prompt I gave myself basically ran like this: Castle is arrested for riding a police horse naked through Central Park and the rookie cop who shows up to book him is none other than Officer Kate Beckett.
The action is set early-2003, when Kate Beckett is around 23 years old.
Hope you enjoy. Chapter 2 is mostly written, so update shouldn't take long. Hope everyone is having a good weekend. Happy Super Bowl Sunday!
"You were a risk, a mystery, and the most certain thing I'd ever known."
- Beau Taplin
Chapter 1: The Dismount
"So, what'll it be? Pierogi or a slice?" asks Officer Jan Jurkowski, badgering his partner about food for the third time in the last half hour.
"We had pizza our last two tours. How about sushi for a change?" suggests Officer Kate Beckett.
Jurkowski turns to stare a Kate. "You want me to eat raw fish? In the middle of a shift?"
"Raw fish is a problem for you? But you're more than happy to eat steamed beef tongue?"
"At least it's cooked."
"Cooking ozór wołowy doesn't magically transform it into something else, you know. It's still a big, fat, hairy cow's tongue."
"Sushi's for sissies anyhow," he grumbles.
"Yeah, well, this sissy drank you under the table the other night, and she wants sushi. You owe me, Jan."
The radio crackles and the dispatcher breaks in, interrupting the cops' pointless argument.
"Units in the vicinity of 5th and East 72th Street. We have reports of a…of a…10-20 in progress. Several civilians describe seeing a naked man riding a horse close to the 72nd Street entrance to Central Park." Even the dispatcher sounds incredulous.
Kate's eyes widen and her partner snatches for the car radio.
"We are so taking this one," he declares, thoughts of dinner suddenly put on hold.
Before he can respond, the dispatcher cuts back in. "Make that a naked guy on a police horse. 10-13: officer assistance required. All patrol cars in the vicinity of Terrace Avenue, please respond."
"Dispatch, this is 12-Charlie responding. On our way."
"What'd you think? Light her up?" asks Jurkowski, his fat finger hovered over the bank of siren buttons.
"Be my guest," nods Kate, flicking on her turn signal before pulling out into traffic.
They speed up Madison Avenue from East 66th Street, only six or so blocks for their target address. The siren cycles through it's various sound effects as they go - the wail, the yelp, the hi-lo, and a fast stutter that always grates on Kate's last nerve. But the flashing cherry bar and wall of sound parts the slow-moving traffic up ahead like the Red Sea. Finally, she signals left and they turn onto East 72nd Street, bouncing straight over the rising swell of 5th Avenue on a green signal to reach the entrance to the Park in less than four minutes.
Kate's a little way along Terrace Avenue, Central Park extending left and right of them into the darkness of night-swaddled foliage, when she spies a number of people gathered up ahead in a scattered, but growing group.
"Looks like our exhibitionist drew quite a crowd," comments Jurkowski, as he reaches for the radio. "Dispatch, 10-84: 12-Charlie arriving on scene."
Kate unbuckles her seatbelt, assessing the incident and the conditions they're set to encounter through the windshield as she does so. "You wrangle the crowd, okay? I'll call dispatch for an ETA on mounted. We'll need someone to take control of the horse once we get this idiot down from there. God knows where its rider's gone. Also, can you check if we still have that old blanket in the trunk."
"Why me?"
"What?"
"Why do I have to cover the naked guy?"
"Eh…because he's naked? And you're a guy."
"Kinda sexist, don't you think?"
"You have much experience with horses, Jan? Be my guest. But that 1800lbs of muscle and sinew over there looks about ready to bolt. So—" She shrugs, crossing her arms and arching one eyebrow.
"You ride?"
Kate nods.
"I'll get the blanket," says Jurkowski, at the exact same moment Kate says, "Just get the blanket and cover him up."
She points in the direction of the tall-looking naked guy. How she knows that he is tall she has no idea, because he's still sitting on the back of the horse…facing the wrong way. But somehow she just does.
His skin looks smooth as silk, pale and blemish-free even beneath the jaundiced street lighting at the edge of the park, his back broad and muscled. She shakes her head to physically dispel the errant thoughts that are threatening to distract her the longer she regards this fine-looking, naked torso.
"Look, just cover him up for me and I'll let you have first pick of food for a week," she throws over her shoulder at her sidekick.
She approaches the crowd quietly at first, assessing the situation: looking for any problems or potential threats. The man doesn't appear overtly drunk or high at first sight. In fact, he looks as if he's quite enjoying himself, soaking up the attention of the gathering crowd, maybe even playing up to it.
"Sir," she says loudly and clearly enough for him to hear without spooking the horse. "I'm with the NYPD. Please stay right where you are. Keep your hands where I can see them. And don't move until I tell you to."
The crowd begins to press closer, excited by the arrival of cops on scene, anticipating the theater of a good drama to come. A couple of people start filming on video cameras, while others take still photographs from their ringside seats. As interest in the action she's about to take grows, Kate realizes that she might have to go about this a different way.
"Jurkowski, hand me the blanket," she says, reaching back for the grey wool rug her colleague has just fished out of the trunk.
"I thought you wanted me to—"
"Change of plan. Need you to take charge of crowd control. Get them to move further back in case the horse decides to take off."
"But I still get to choose lunch, right?"
Kate sighs. "Sure. Whatever. Just pass me the blanket and start moving people away…slowly, quietly, over towards the sidewalk."
While Officer Jurkowski wrangles the public, Kate takes steady steps towards the horse, maintaining a discreet distance. Once she's alongside, having kept a good ten or fifteen feet between herself and the fidgeting animal, she stops, pausing quietly, her gaze leveled straight ahead. She stands still for several long seconds, ignoring the horse entirely.
The signs of agitation the police horse is exhibiting – stamping feet, occasionally pawing the ground, nodding and tossing its head, the flattened ears and flared nostrils, snorting now and again with an impatience that indicates he's probably eager to get moving again – are all indications that she needs to proceed with caution. Kate has to get the naked civilian safely off the horse's back, before he decides to take off across the park into the dark of night with this naked stranger hanging on for dear life.
Kate knows that police horses are trained to be around crowds, to operate in a focused, controlled manner in the midst of baying mobs where anything can happen – fireworks, brass bands, civilians running here and there all around them, yelling, carrying banners and placards, flashes of light, sirens, speeding vehicles – these horses are trained to be bomb proof where their riders' safety is concerned. But the circumstances surrounding tonight's events are unknown to Kate, as is this animal. The horse could be injured, traumatized, unwell, and so there's a chance it could suddenly regress to type: looking for predators in every unfamiliar sight or sound, expecting lions to leap out from behind every tree. She needs to take this carefully for the sake of the naked idiot on its back, as much as for her own personal safety and that of the crowd.
After pausing to let the horse get used to her presence and understand that she doesn't represent any threat, she begins to move closer, her body still turned half away from the horse. She stops moving once more when the horse gradually turns its head in her direction, exhibiting some general curiosity, and then slowly the great beast begins walking towards her, his head lowered.
Kate begins to hum, maintaining the soothing sound as she waits for the horse to reach her. Once alongside, she starts talking quietly to the horse in a calming tone of voice, and as soon as she's fairly certain that the animal seems comfortable with her, she carefully lifts her hand, allowing the horse to sniff her open palm.
"Cover yourself up, please," she instructs the now silent, totally captivated, yet no less naked man still sitting astride the police horse, looking down at her.
She carefully hands him the folded blanket from the trunk of her patrol car so as not to alarm the animal. She manages this without ever looking at him directly, completely ignoring his nude state, lest his exhibitionist predilections are stoked by her presence. Perish the thought.
"Slow movements, please. Don't fling the blanket around."
Kate makes long, smooth, strokes on the horses neck with the flat of her hand, and then she moves on to caress the horse's muzzle, resuming her earlier quiet murmurings while she watches the naked civilian wrap himself in the rough, grey wool rug from beneath her lowered lashes.
Once the man is covered, she slips the fingers of her right hand around the cheek piece of the bridle, holding the horse's head steady while she reaches down for the reins, which are trailing low in front of the horse. Once she has the reins secured in her right hand, she turns to address the stranger up on the horse, his back turned to her since he's still facing the animal's rear.
"Sir? Sir, can you hear me?" she asks, only vaguely aware of the curious crowd, which her colleague has thankfully managed to remove to a safe distance with the help of two cops from the second patrol unit to arrive on scene.
"Loud and clear."
"Do you think you can get down off the horse for me if I hold him steady?"
"I'll give it a good try."
"No. No, don't try," Kate instructs, her tone clipped and authoritative. "You got yourself up there and now you're going to get back down. I want you to concentrate. You're going to carefully lift your left leg over its flank and then slide to the ground. Preferably without breaking anything. Or losing that blanket. No one wants to see your bare ass swaying in the moonlight tonight. Least of all me."
The stranger isn't for going quietly or without having his say. "I don't know, officer. Did you ask the crowd, because seems to me—"
Kate carries on talking as if the man hasn't even spoken. "Don't forget to bend your knees when you land. This horse must be somewhere north of 17 hands," warns Kate, patting the horse's neck. "And that's a heck of a long way to fall."
The man twists round to look at her over his shoulder. "Wow! Are you always this bossy? That's quite a list. Got any more instructions before I leap?" he asks.
Kate grits her teeth, attempting to ignore the careless display of humor and self-confidence this clown still thinks is acceptable given the circumstances.
"Do you know how much trouble you're in? Do you? Just get off the horse in one piece and then don't move another muscle until I tell you. Understood?" she snaps, frustration finally getting the better of her.
"Officer, if I didn't know any better, I'd say it sounds suspiciously like you care," crows the blanket swaddled stranger, attempting to get further under her skin. "In fact, I think I'd go so far as to say you might be sweet on me," he preens.
Cocky son of a bitch, thinks Kate, barking, "Sir, I said—"
The horse takes this unguarded moment during their back and forth to stamp its feet with impatience and then suddenly lurch a few steps forward. Kate tightens her grip on its halter and pats its flank to calm him down. "Whoa, now," she soothes, holding the horse steady. "Whoa. We'll have him off your back in a minute," she quietly assures the horse, as if this is their secret.
"Sir, it's time. Get off the horse," she instructs in a firm clipped tone, breathing a sigh of relief when the man finally listens to her and begins to dismount.
Once the inebriated stranger is safely on the ground (wobbling legs aside), to cheers and applause from the crowd, Officer Jurkowski approaches with a bundle of clothing and a pair of expensive looking loafers.
"We found these in a heap near that bench over there, along with a half-empty bottle of Jameson's," he tells Kate. "Looks like he used the bench to mount the horse. Although how he ended up facing backwards is beyond me."
Kate turns to address the blanket wrapped man standing stalk still a few yards away in his bare feet. "Are these your clothes, sir?"
The pleased look in the man's eyes and the nod her gives her reassures her that these are indeed the man's belongings.
"You understand that what you were doing in the park tonight is illegal and we're going to have to take you in."
"Are you arresting me?"
There's a tone of wonder and something close to glee in the man's voice when he asks this. Kate has heard this exact question uttered so many times in the line of duty, but never has she heard it asked in such a tone before, and certainly not from someone with wealth enough to own a pair of $900, Italian leather, Ferragamo loafers.
"Get into the police car quietly, get dressed without a fuss, and I'll refrain from cuffing you. However, give me the slightest provocation and—"
"The cuffs go on," completes the man, with a grin and a glint in his eye.
Jurkowski hands the horse's reins back to Kate the second she returns from installing the drunk man securely inside their RMP car. He looked nervous at being left in charge of a police horse - a reaction which both satisfied and amused Kate no end. That'll teach him to diss my sushi, she thinks.
"What about the horse's…eh, human partner? Any sign?" asks Kate, giving the horse a reflexive pat.
"Jerry Talbot's with him now. Witnesses found him passed out beneath a tree about 100 yards that way. EMS are on their way," explains Jurkowski, pointing further into the darkness of the park.
"Foul play?"
"Doesn't look that way. Uniform was intact. Still has his sidearm. No signs of injury or trauma. Witness said he found him lying on his side. Talbot says uniform's a bit muddy, but other than that…"
"Took unwell? Maybe thrown from his horse?" surmises Kate.
"Possible. What's your guy saying?
"Far too much for my liking," admits Kate, looking over her shoulder at the locked patrol car where the naked horseman is currently getting dressed.
"He singing like a canary?" grins Jurkowski. "Just wait til the press gets a hold of this one," he chuckles, twirling his cap in his hand.
Kate shakes her head. "No, I meant he's a chatterbox. Just stupid stuff he said when I was putting him in the car. He's still pretty intoxicated. Insists he found the horse wandering by itself just off the pathway. Said he thought it looked lonely."
"What?" snorts Jurkowski, slapping his thigh. "So he just stripped off all his clothes and climbed aboard?"
Kate laughs. "Yeah. Doesn't sound too good when you put it like that. What'd you mean about the press?"
"You know. When they find out their Page 6 darling, and best selling mystery novelist, pulled a Lady Godiva in Central Park, riding butt naked on the back of a stolen police horse."
Kate frowns. "Mystery novelist? Wait—"
"Yeah, didn't I tell ya? According to his wallet, the guy in the back of our RMP is none other than millionaire author—"
"Richard freaking Castle," finishes Kate, removing her hat and slapping a hand to her forehead in a sudden burst of recognition.
When she whips her head around, turning shocked eyes on the back of the patrol car to confirm what she already knows to be true, she finds the man himself watching her through the streaked glass of the rear windshield. She spent so much time trying not to ogle the guy's pretty ripped body, when he was sitting several feet above her on the back of the horse, that she more of less neglected to look at his face.
Rookie error, Katie!
"Hope the guys from horse transportation get here soon, cos I'm starving," the other cop grumbles, oblivious to Kate's shock at uncovering the identity of their naked joyrider.
"Finally! Here comes the cavalry now," exclaims Jurkowski, walking away to direct the arriving NYPD horse box past the dwindling crowd of spectators, leaving Kate staring at the back of her patrol car with a churning feeling in her gut.
TBC...