Any resemblance to other, previously written fics, is purely coincidental and should be taken as a compliment that you nailed the trope. However, if you think there's any chance of underhanded copy-pasting, please contact me by PM and we'll discuss it.


Prompt 2: pretending to be married / fake dating

"Castle, what the hell's gotten into you today?" His eyes closed briefly in response, panic in his loud exhale.

"I could well ask the same of you, Beckett, what did the captain want this morning?" She growled under her breath and he didn't miss the anger that flashed in her eyes.

"We... we have to go undercover," she gritted out. "On a date."

He, for once, remained silent.

"I've shared, Castle, now it's your turn. Spill." Her eyes bored into him as he shrank down in his chair. He cleared his throat.

"I, uh..." He coughed again. "I spoke to Paula this morning. She might've, um, mentioned something about that."

Her jaw drops open. "And when were you planning on telling me?!" He had great trouble meeting her eye. "Ugh, Castle! I cannot believe you knew!"

He scratched a tiny freckle on his hand, inspecting his thumb's progress across the back of his hand minutely. She almost missed his reply, the sotto voce almost certainly not as his mother had taught him, "You could always say no, Beckett."

She swallowed her retort at the glimpse behind the playboy mask and reached over to stop his worrying fingers, startling his attention back to her face. "I'm not happy that you didn't tell me, and I'm not happy that this is our first undercover assignment, but all things considered, it could be a lot worse."

"Hey guys, I think I got something in th-..." Ryan pulls up short by Beckett's desk as she and Castle's hands fly apart and the two of them try to put as much distance between them as they physically can within four tenths of a second. "Sorry, am I interrupting something?" He grinned back and forth at them, not caring that the identical glares aimed at him could freeze the Hudson. "Practising for this evening, perhaps?"

The pen that hit him square on the forehead did not diminish his grin.