Tumblr prompt: Could you do a castle fic where it's Beckett's Bachelorette party/Bridal shower and Lanie & her other friends' inappropriate gifts embarrass her?
A/N: I'm rating this as an M just to be safe.
Thank you Meg, for being awesome in helping me get this done!
Disclaimer: Castle and its characters belong to Andrew and Co. and to ABC.
"Oh, God, Lanie. Are you serious?" Kate exclaims in horror as she walks into the Old Haunt, where Maddie is getting well acquainted with not only Hastings and Karpowski, but Jenny and her old friend, Carly - who also happened to be the only other people in the entire bar other than the bartender. "You told me this was going to be girls night!" she hisses as her friend drags her over to the group.
"And do you see any guys in sight? Look, even the bartender is a girl." Lanie retorts with a roll of her eyes that could rival Kate's. "Besides, you knocked down my Bachelorette party idea, you didn't say anything about a Bridal shower!"
"I didn't think I had to!" Kate protests, but at this point they have reached the table and her argument is shoved to the side.
Maddie is first on her feet to greet them with a huge grin on her face. "I was just getting done telling them about that case you worked with me and how you had to interrogate me and that I just knew you had a thing for Castle!" Kate's face goes bright red as she gapes at Maddie. But before she can react, Hastings and Karpowski are jumping in. "And we were just telling Maddie here how everybody at the precinct knew for years that you tow had a thing going on and that there was a precinct bet for when you two would finally break." She tries to turn to Jenny, who Lanie has just scooted next to but she just gives her a grin and a shrug of her shoulders.
Kate groans and takes a long swig of the whisky that the bartender had brought over without her notice.
An hour and a few drinks later, Kate finds that she actually is enjoying herself. And after a long week of trying to finalize wedding plans and a grueling case, a girls' night out is exactly what she needs. Not to mention that she is secretly thrilled that her colleagues and her friends get along so well.
But that relief disappears the second her friends pull out those tiny wrapped packages. She tries to calm herself by saying that they are just trying to show their happiness about her engagement, but she knows her friends, especially Lanie and Maddie, enough to know that these are not innocent gifts and she can see the knowing smirk on Lanie's face as she slides hers over to her. She gives a wan smile as she tentatively reaches out at takes the small package. She tears at the paper slowly as if it will change whatever is inside. She finally removes all of the wrappings and pulls out its contents and she can feel the warmth rising into her cheeks.
"C'mon Kate, show us what it is!" Maddie demands excitedly, reaching over for the box before she can even have a chance to reply. Her friends burst into squeals of laughter as she lifts up the cherry flavored, edible underwear from the box. She already wishes that a whole would open up and swallow her whole.
She knows she's being ridiculous in hoping that the rest of the gifts would be any better. But as she opens up the rest of the gifts, her fears are confirmed.
Lingerie, a skimpy cop outfit with some fluffy handcuffs, glow in the dark condoms, and - oh god, is that a whip? - all made it out of the box, her friends squealing and laughing at her mortified look as she pulled out each one in turn.
She can feel the blood flaming in her cheeks as she stuffs the sex swing back into the box and under the table. These were her co-workers how the hell was she supposed to face them at work again after this? Hell, she didn't even know where they got the idea that they even did this kind of stuff. Was her love life really that predictable?
"Oh, c'mon, Kate, we know you guys like this stuff, I mean, who doesn't? I do it with my husband all the time!" Carly laughs.
"Yeah, I mean, even Kevin and I break out the handcuffs every now and then." Jenny adds with a smirk.
Okay, ew. That-that she didn't need to know.
She has to physically keep herself from bolting.
But it must show in her face because Lanie grabs her arm to keep her there, giving her an oddly sincere look as she pulls out one final gift from under the table, this one much bigger than the others. She hesitates before taking it, but her friends' smiles are genuine this time.
She peels back the paper slowly and lifts up the lid carefully. She finds herself speechless as she lifts up the large, leather bound book and sets it on the table in front of her. It's about a foot tall and a foot and a half wide, bound in beautiful brown leather that's equal parts simple and elegant. There is a space in the cover where a title card is placed that has the words Castle and Beckett: Partners in Crime written out in a beautiful script of white letters on a cerulean blue background.
She opens the cover of the book to a candid picture of her and Castle, taken sometime at the beginning of their partnership(,) that depicts her and Castle standing in front of the murder board theorizing about one of their cases. She is surprised and almost ashamed at how intrigued she looked at the time. Almost. She knows that she was done for by their second case.
Below this image is another picture from earlier this year of the two of them kissing in the precinct. She smiles as she realizes one of her co-workers must have taken it the day she got her job back at the precinct. Both pictures are framed in white paper on a blue background that was the same shade as the front.
She flips through the book and finds the rest of the pages to be very similar. They're filled with images of her and Castle over the past 7 years of their partnership. Some were candid moments like the first two, like the two of them at Kyra's wedding after she caught the bouquet, or the two of them sitting in the loft listening to Martha's one-woman-show, her hand tightly grasping his, a broad smile on her face as she laughs. And then there are some other pictures as well, like the two of them squished together in this very booth of the Old Haunt with his arm around her as they smile at the camera and a picture of when they attended the charity gala for one of their very first cases that Martha had insisted they take before they left.
And to top it off, each page is adorned with little decorations such as the ticket stubs from when they went to forbidden planet together or little pictures of guns, handcuffs and fountain pens creatively placed together. As she flips through each page, she realizes that it must have been a huge team effort and that Martha and Alexis must have been involved as well. As she turns to the last couple of pages she finds it filled with small notes, well wishes, and even jokes from what it looks like, not only her friends and family, but over half the precinct as well. Even Captain Gates had added a small note.
She doesn't realize that she's crying until she looks up through blurred eyes as at her friends, a watery smile gracing her lips. "Did literally everybody see it before we did?" she jokes quietly, eliciting a round of laughter from the group. "Seriously, though, thank you, this means so much."
"Well, we're not that mean," Maddie teases giving her a playful nudge.
"And for the record," adds Karpowski, "We all knew the very first day."
They manage to stay away from any more awkward conversations surrounding her and Castle's love life-until the man himself ambles in around an hour later and wraps his arms around her, giving himself a good view of the gifts shoved under the table.
"Oh my god, we are gonna have so much fun on our honeymoon!" he exclaims with childlike excitement.
And one look at her friends' gleeful faces tell her that the teasing is far from over.
Thoughts?
Tumblr: lord-of-the-song
Twitter: thebazilelord
