"They are what?" Detective Kevin Ryan yelped, both his eyebrows shooting up towards his hairline.
"I know, bro," Esposito mumbled, "They started fighting again - no idea what about, they were doing their freaky telepathic-communication-slash-sentence-finishing thing - so I left them alone for all of two seconds and when I got back, they were making out against th-"
"Okay, okay, that's enough, I don't really need to know what Mom and Dad get up to when we're not around to chaperone..."
"It's alright for you to say, you don't have that particular image burned into your retinas forever!"
Both detectives shuddered a little, sliding further down the wall where Esposito had yanked Ryan as he rounded the corner and nearly walked in on the.. action, although luckily neither had been spotted by Beckett or Castle. Esposito had come to the realization that they couldn't get up and leave without having to walk past them, and he wasn't going there. Nope. No way.
So there they were, attempting not to look in any way suspicious.
(It didn't work as well as they'd thought it did.)
"Oh." Ryan mumbled, his face paling further.
Espo cocked his head in confusion and motioned for his partner to explain.
"Oh. Gates is going to be here in a few minutes and-"
"Shit. Maybe we could just-"
"...Or we could..."
"Damn, that's not going to work."
"Yeah, I know."
Both briefly considered their options; go and interrupt them and face Castle's smug satisfaction and Beckett's possibly-limb-endangering rage? Try and stall Gates and face the gaze of fury? Leave it alone and watch as Beckett floundered?
The last option was vastly better.
"If we leave them, we should be fine..." Ryan murmured.
"But then we risk the possibilty of clothes being ripped off and flying through the bullpen while-"
"ENOUGH. But, oh God, if Beckett finds out we knew and didn't do anything..."
"Goodbye, fully functioning limbs and hello full-body cast."
"Exactly. Maybe we could call Lanie...?"
"Something tells me she'd be too amused to really do anything about our situation. And she'd take pictures."
"Jesus." Ryan huffed out a breath of air, his cheeks almost glowing in the harsh precinct light, flustered with the steady flow of bad mental images corrupting his innocence.
Esposito couldn't agree with that sentiment more. He leaned his head back against the wall and groaned at the sheer unfairness of his life, when-
"GATES!"
Esposito's expression mirrored that of a man who had just been informed that his scary demon of a captain was now standing at the far end of the precinct talking to Karpowski, just a few minutes away from walking in on Castle and Beckett who were quite possibly now on the verge of making pretty Castle babies together. Possibly because he was, and she was, and she would, and they were.
"Where?- oh. There. Shitshitshit..."
"God, have they stopped yet? Wait-" Esposito crawled halfway to his feet, bent at the waist and pressed against the wall, to rise just high enough to catch a glance of- oh. "No. No, they have not. They're mostly clothed though. Thank god."
"That's - ohsweetbabyjesus she's walking over here! Espo!"
"Bro, we have to do the right thing here. Even if Beckett rips certain parts of our anatomy off and ties them around our-"
"NOW IS NOT THE TIME! Let's just get in there, and-"
"-right!-"
"Hurryhurryhurry..."
Ryan slid across the floor with a squeaking of over-shined shoes as Esposito scrambled completely upright, grabbing his partner by the elbow as they rounded the corner. He noticed that Ryan's eyes were squeezed half shut as if to block out any unfortunate images.
Gates strode closer, she would nearly be able to-
"Gogogogogo!"
At the sound of Ryan's slightly un-manly distress, Castle and Beckett broke apart but were only given a few seconds to gasp for air before Esposito shoved them both to the ground behind a desk, Ryan following suit.
"Espo, what the hell are you-" Beckett choked out before Ryan frantically began wiping smeared lipstick from her face.
"Gates is coming!" Ryan hissed, attempting to smooth Castle's hair back into place while pretending it was a normal thing to do. Castle himself fumbled to get the top buttons of his shirt done up.
"We just need to-"
"SHE'S NEARLY HERE! hurryyyy-"
"Not so loud!"
"Sorry, man... oh shit, Castle, you've got lipstick on your-"
"Wait, I've nearly got it, just a little bit-"
"How did you get it there, anyway?"
"Don't ask!"
"...Sorry."
"Esposito, I am going to kill you!"
"Becks, we were just trying to-"
"Gates was going to-"
"Shut up!"
"Get in the chair!" Beckett hissed, shoving blindly at Ryan and Esposito as she scrambled towards her desk, pulling Castle with her.
"No, no, we can't both-"
"Get in the chair!" she growled, pulling herself into her own chair and kicking the backs of Castle's knees so he fell into his.
"I don't think we-"
"SHE'S NEARLY HERE!"
"I ca-"
"look casual..." Castle hissed.
"What is going on here, Beckett?"
The voice of Victoria Gates rang out through the precinct as she stood in the doorway, looking upon the scene that lay before her.
A slightly flushed looking Beckett with unusually messy hair sitting and spinning in a slow circle with a glazed look in her eyes.
Richard Castle with an equally glazed look in his eyes and an unusually Bieber-esque hairstyle seated next to her.
And Javier Esposito, sprawled sideways in a chair with Kevin Ryan sitting in his lap trying to look natural.
"Um. Gates. We're just-"
"-Chillin'."
"You know..."
"As you do."
"Like normal."
"Nothing out of the usual here."
"Just doin' our jobs."
"You know. Together."
"Collectively."
Ryan mentally debated whether or not getting out of Espo's lap would make them look any more suspicious than they already did.
Esposito decided that he was going to quit this job and become a potter or possibly a priest.
There was a lengthy pause in which all four decided that their breathing sounded far too loud.
"Okay. Fine. But I'm going to check back on you in a couple of minutes, and if any of you are-"
"Yes, sir."
"Right."
"Absolutely!"
As the click of Gates' shoes echoed away, the room itself seemed to heave a sigh of relief. Castle slumped over in his chair.
"Oh. Thank god." he groaned, catching Beckett's eye and trying to stifle a grin at the expression on her face.
"Actually, you just need to thank us," Ryan said with a smirk, "Thank us for stopping you before you gave us cause to arrest you for indecent exposure."
Beckett huffed, a lingering flush on her cheeks. "Fine. Can we just pretend that this-"
"Didn't happen? Yep. We'll pretend... for now. But the next time you don't make us coffee-"
"-Or make innapropriate jokes about my choice of tie-"
"This whole situation can be re-lived over... and over... and over... and ove-"
"Understood."
The group lapsed into thoughtful silence as Beckett pulled out a pile of paperwork and a pen and Castle re-crossed his legs, staring dreamily into space whilst no doubt re-living almost every second of the last half an hour.
"... Ryan?"
"Yes?"
"You can get off my knee now."
fin.