Castle vs Premium Cable.
Disclaimers: I own nothing.
A/N: To Quote Dante: Abandon all reality, ye who enter here (that's what he said, right?) An irrational sequel to 'Batman Never Had it So Hard.'
Chapter 1: Castle vs. The Fabulous Baker Boys
Kate stands at the foot of the hospital bed watching as the Physician's Assistant tends to Castle. She's exhausted and coming down off of the adrenaline rush of the earlier part of the evening. Now she just wants sleep.
When Kate's phone rings, the PA gives her a nasty look, so Kate retreats to the hallway to answer it.
It's 3am. The call can only be one thing.
"Hey, Boss."
"Body dropped?"
"Not exactly," Esposito says on the other end of the line, "a ... something... dropped."
"A something?"
"Don't make me explain it. Washed up from the Hudson," he says, gives her an address. "Call Castle too, this is definitely Castle-Flavored."
"Well... um, we can't make it for awhile."
"We? You off with Castle somewhere now?"
She ignores this. When she first returned to the precinct three weeks ago, everyone acted like it was business as usual. However, in the last few days, the innuendos and inquiries have started to come fast and furious. So far they've managed to keep their new relationship hidden from everyone but Martha, but nothing seems to be slowing down the questions.
"We're at the hospital. He broke a bone in his hand, needed someone to take him in to get it set."
"How'd he break his hand?"
For a moment, she's tempted to tell the truth. However, if she's going to utter the phrase 'the extremely acrobatic sex we were attempting on top of Castle's piano got out of hand' to Esposito, she wants to do it face to face, just to see the reaction. Esposito turns a lovely shade of blustery when the wind has been taken of his sails.
"He fell. He won't tell me the details, so I'm assuming it's embarrassing," she says instead. Since her boyfriend is a professional storyteller, she figures she'll leave the elaborate lies to him.
"Well, okay. We're skimming the around the area, and river patrol's on it's way over, so we'll be here another few hours. I can get them to hold it a bit longer if you need."
"Thanks."
"But I want the real story," he says, and hangs up before she can comment further. She shakes her head. She and Rick have been together for just a little over five weeks, and while the last month should have been hell - her reinstatement, the return of the dragon, getting shot at, trying to hide a new relationship from friends and family - she's actually so giddily stupidily happy that she repeatedly finds herself agreeing to Castle's odder ideas. Even ones that result in broken bones and 1 AM ER visits.
But the inconvenience of hiding is starting to trump the fun. Alexis gets back from her Orientation at Columbia in another day, and Kate has grown to enjoy sleeping in at the loft, curled into a set of high-thread count ("that's infinite thread count, Kate") sheets on Castle's gloriously comfortable bed. Maybe it's time to start talking to Castle about taking things public. But not at 3am in a hospital. She goes back into the room.
"But the piano is sladip.. slivdiver ... slapadoodle ... slippery! So we fell and went boom and then ouch."
"Rick!" she exclaims. She doesn't need him explaining their activities to strangers.
"Sorry... I said something bad, didn't I? I does... do... that a lot."
The Physician's Assistant turns to her, "Piano?"
"My boyfriend apparently has a Michelle Pfiefer fetish," Kate says, because really, what else can she say?
"Fiver Footrest! Flooper Festive! Pfiefer Fetish... yeah, say that fives rhymes past," Rick interjects.
"The Fabulous Baker Boys? Yeah, I like that movie too," The PA says.
"How much longer is he going to be like ... this?" Kate nods towards Rick.
"I'll be done with the cast in another few minutes. The painkillers should wear off in another half hour. I'm surprised they didn't just give him a local though."
"That was my idea. He doesn't handle pain well."
"Thank goodness that men don't have to handle childbirth, eh?"
"Hey! I could totally be pregnant," Castle says.
The PA shakes her head. "Maybe it will take more than thirty minutes.".
"Actually, he's sort of like this all the time, so we'll see."
"Well, I'm done," The PA says, sealing off the last of the casting material around his hand. "So the nurse will be here in a few minutes with your discharge papers and care sheet. You staying with him?"
"Yes."
"Broken a bone before?"
"Yep, in a cast for three months."
"Okay, so you know the drill..." she stops for a second when Castle starts making whirring noises. "Anyway... standard stuff - don't get it wet ..."
"I'm a Gremlin," yells Rick.
"... don't let him stick stuff in there, et cetera. Only thing extra to pay attention to - when the metacarpal broke, it dislocated away from the joint. That's where all his pain came from, setting it back into place. But you can't let him bump or hit his fingers too hard, or it could move again. Then we'd have to set it with a pin."
"Hear that, Castle? Do what I tell you or this nice woman will have a reason to hurt you."
"Ooohh... kinky."
She's playing a dangerous game. Rick is sitting in the passenger seat as she drives to the crime scene. Normally she loves driving his Ferrari, but showing up at a crime scene at nearly four in the morning in the red sports car is only half a step below 'having sex with Castle on her precinct desk' on the scale of painfully obvious things to do. But she doesn't have time to turn around, and she didn't want to leave the car at the hospital.
"Where're we headed?" Castle asks after a few minutes. She had wondered if he'd fallen asleep.
"Oh, you're back. Feeling better?"
"Little achy, but not bad. That was some nice stuff they gave me. What was it?"
"Aspirin."
He smiles, "Sorry about tonight. I just figured we needed to do something big to commemorate our hundredth."
"Our hundredth?" Kate asks, before something clicks. "Our hundredth time? You keep a running count of the times we've had sex?"
"I didn't really set out to," he says, sheepishly, "I just sorta ... found myself keeping track."
She shakes her head, lets her retort die in her throat, because really, it is sort of impressive. In the midst of thirty-two days of utter chaos, they've still managed to have sex three times a day. What is surprising to her, though, is not the number, but the fact that the number has done absolutely nothing to take the edge off of her need for him. She still finds herself ready to jump him when he so much as smiles.
"We're going to a crime scene," she says instead, because she needs to remind herself why they can't just pull by the side of the road and christen the damned car. She doesn't have a bucket list, but if she did, a roadside quicky with Rick in the Ferrari would be on it. A few weeks ago, she took him on a long drive upstate on the Harley, and the resulting sex in the apple orchard they found had... well... if he has a Michelle Pfiefer fetish, she can have a vehicular one.
"Ooh... fun," he says, and she wonders if he's picked up on her train of thought. He does that, far more than is comfortable. Or maybe it's just because there aren't a lot of different trains on that particular track these days.
She looks at him, but doesn't respond, instead pulls the car off the Hudson and parks a block from Riverside Drive.
"Body dropped here? I don't see anyone."
"No, but I didn't want to pull up in your Ferrari, so we're going to walk."
"Yeah, that would be a tad obvious."
She locks the car, pockets the keys. She leads them around the corner and down the block towards the river, entering into the taped off area.
"So, Castle," Esposito says by way of hello, "How'd you break the hand?"
Crap, she thinks, she forgot to warn him, give him time to come up with a story.
"Oh, we were swapping out a keg at the bar, but it slipped off its rack, and I tried to catch it. Squished my hand instead."
She wonders if it's really that good a thing that her boyfriend is such a skilled liar.
"And so luckily Kate was there waiting for her date who stood her up and so she was willing to drive me otherwise I would have had to have Ocho drive me, he's one of my bartenders, and he's a lousy driver, in fact I'm not entirely sure he has a ..."
"Whadda we got?" she asks, interrupting Castle, remembering that a lying Castle is also a babbling one. The man is lousy with tells she can read a mile away. She can't figure out why she can read him so well and still loses at poker to him though. Probably because they always play the strip variety, and it's usually a race to see who can lose fastest.
"Body part washed up on the shore. Homeless guy found it a few hours ago. The river guys have been hunting for the rest of the body for us since then, but nothing's turned up thus far."
"Okay, so let's see this body part, then."
Espo cocks his head to the side, and they follow his lead. Lanie is crouched over by a tarp that sits right next to the waterline. On the tarp sits the largest foot and shin Kate has ever seen.
"Holy ... Shaquille O'Neal washed up on shore!"
"Shaq's black, dude," Esposito says, and Kate has to nod. The foot and shin are white.
"Plus, Shaq might be underselling this guy," Lanie says, standing up. "Shin and foot are both fully intact. Based on the tibia length, I'd put this guy at seven foot eight inches. Also, I suspect he's Asian."
"This is awesome," Castle says, clapping his hands. "It's Yao Ming!"
"Yao Ming is only seven six," Esposito says.
"And Lanie's only estimating," Castle replies. Kate ignores both of them, goes to look more closely at the foot, when a smell catches in her nose. She breaks stride and takes three long steps to Lanie's right instead, heads for the trash.
She grabs the sides of the can, bends over, throws up.
"Oh man," she hears Castle say, "I hope that can didn't have any evidence."
She sits up, thinks she has her stomach under control. She doesn't.
When she throws up a second time, Castle is beside her in an instant, rubbing her back. She tries to brush him off, since a) they aren't to the seeing each other puking phase in their relationship yet, and b) solicitious mature supportive Castle tends to bring out horny cuddly Kate, and really neither are appropriate when her stomach is doing flip flops and they are at a crime scene.
She stands up a second time, gets her head clear and gives Castle a subtle wave-off.
"Okay," she says, taking deep breaths from her nose, "We have the shin and foot of an ... extremely tall... possibly Asian ... man. And why do we think this is murder instead of suicide or something else?"
Lanie looks over at her, "You okay to take a closer look?"
Kate nods.
"Okay, so see here..." Lanie says, pointing at the top of the tibia. "This here is a cut, not a tear or bite. Done with a surgical saw most likely, not natural causes. Whoever got to this guy, they cut him into a lot of little pieces before throwing him in the river."
"Dexter," Castle says behind her.
"Castle?"
"Dexter. You know, that cable show. He always cuts up his victims, throws them in the bay..."
"Well, considering he is a fictional character on a TV show, I doubt he's going to make our suspect list."
"So? Zombies, Little Grey Men, and the Men In Black are all supposedly fictional and they've all been on our murder board at one time or another."
She nods, turns to Esposito. "Go ahead and put out an APB for Dexter. I want to talk to this guy, see what he knows."
"Seriously, Boss?"
"No, not seriously," she says, shaking her head as Castle's face falls. She'd expect Ryan to fall for that, not Esposito. "If patrol hasn't found any more of this guy by now, they aren't going to. Have them keep an eye out on regular patrols, but for now, let's assume a foot is all we have to work with."
"Tell them to head south, go to 79th Street Boat Basin, look there," Castle says to Esposito.
"Why would they do that?"
"Natural eddies form around the North Side of the Yacht Club docks. If the body was floating on this side of the river, that's the most likely place for it to get stuck."
"How do you know that, Castle?"
"I just do."
"Research?"
"Ummm... No?"
"No? Was that a question?"
"Um, no?"
"Castle."
"I have a boat. Not a big boat. Little boat."
She shakes her head. She'd forgotten about the boat. Her family, both her mother's and her father's, was pretty well off, but Castle's wealth still hits her, every so often. It might be an issue, at some point, but she was going to continue to ignore it for today.
"Anything else for us?" she asks Lanie.
"No, it's just..."
Kate nods.
"...something's weird about this foot."
"You mean, besides the size? Or the fact that it's been cut off? Or that it was floating in the Hudson River?"
"Yeah, besides that," Lanie says. "I can't say what, exactly, but I'll take a look when we get it back to the lab. You sure you okay, girl?"
"Sorry, Lanie, just tired. I was helping Castle with his hand."
Lanie looks over at where Castle is staring at the water. "Saw the cast. What happened?"
"Broke his second metacarpal under a beer keg."
"Hmmm... you know, most people don't break that bone by crushing it. Usually they break it trying to catch themselves in a fall."
"Yeah, well, you know Castle. When does he ever do anything normally?"
"Mmmm hmmm..." Lanie says, but doesn't push it further. Kate goes to retrieve Castle just as Esposito wanders over again.
"I called Patrol, told 'em Castle's thing," Esposito says, then turns to Castle, "So you crushed it under a beer keg?"
"Yep."
"Hmmm... that's funny, Beckett said you fell."
"Well, I did. That's how my hand got underneath it. I reached out, tripped, it fell onto me."
"Hey man, whatever you say. But, piece of advice," Esposito says as he starts to walk off to his car, "Always get your story straight before you talk to the cops."
A/N: This one might bring a tad less funny, since I decided it had to have a 'plot.' Bad author! Bad author!