Vice

"I knew you were a cop," the man said the moment Beckett came down for him. She'd managed to change into jeans and a dark, longe-sleeved sweater, but he was bouncing on his toes, his arms through the bars, his cheeks and chin scattered with stubble.

"You paid me," she said with a sigh.

"I totally made you," he crowed, his eyes bright and blue and-

Shit. Richard freaking Castle. How the hell did she have the bad luck of running into this guy twice in the last week? And not just run into him, but have to arrest the stupid idiot?

"If I were you, Mr. Castle, I'd shut my mouth," she grumbled, gesturing for him to back away as she put the key in the lock. He was in the zoo, but a fierce glare at the motorcycle gang member that hulked nearby was enough to keep the peace.

Richard Castle stepped out and was on her like a puppy dog, but with sex appeal. "Why? I'm stoked. You're a cop! Do you know how awesome this is?"

"What I do know is that bribing an officer of the law is illegal and will get you infinitely more jail time-"

"Oh, ho - hold up. Wait a second. I wasn't bribing you-"

"What was the twenty for?" she hissed, shoving him forward to keep their conversation from being overheard by the rest of them. "You're like a big kid-"

"I'm the kid?" he laughed. "You can't be more than twenty. What-"

"I'm twenty-three," she grit out, glaring at him as she led him up the stairs. "And what-"

"This is so cool. I needed a little inspiration and you're just - wow. I mean, one night you're pretending to be an escort at a charity party and then the next day you're standing on the street? What kind of crazy-amazing life-"

"My life is not amazing," she said, her voice flat. "And you've made bail."

She hated the long, intense look he leveled on her. "How's that?"

"What do you mean?" she said derisively, leading him back towards the desk sergeant.

"I made bail? Who bailed me out?"

"The charges were dropped," she clarified. "You're free to go."

"Who dropped the charges?"

"God, you are relentless," she groaned, and nodded to Sergeant Harkins sitting at grand central. "Hey, Sarge. Got a release. He needs his stuff."

"Ah, you're the john," Harkins said, glancing up only briefly from the tall desk he sat behind.

Richard Castle looked like he was going to split his face with that grin. Beckett sighed and grabbed the release forms from Sarge, shoved them into Castle's hands.

"Sign these."

"I'm a john! This is amazing."

"You're not a john," she growled. "You made the stupid mistake of trying to pay me for directions, you big idiot."

He grinned wider and wriggled an eyebrow. "Was it good for you?"

"No," she said flatly. "You cost me paperwork."

"Oh, I bet even your paperwork is awesome. Filled with your accounts of sleasy take-downs and slutty-"

"Watch your mouth," Sarge barked.

Beckett gave the older man a startled glare, confused by his paternal instincts. Yeah, he was her father's age, but-

"Oh shit," she muttered, rubbed her forehead. "Sarge - I think I left - is my dad still here?"

"Your dad?" Castle asked, still all bouncy and sexy next to her. His arm brushed hers and he handed her back the release forms. "He a cop too? Does it run in the family? How many generations are we talking here?"

Beckett rifled through the pages as Sarge looked up her father's name in the system.

"Still here, Beckett."

"Damn." She spotted a few missed signatures and handed Castle the sheets. "Sign these. Pay attention."

Harkins grunted from the desk. "Want me to call him up?"

"Yeah, I need to get him out."

"Your dad is in jail?" Castle gaped.

She shot him a fierce, potent scowl, everything in her rising up to defend her father. "You-"

"No. Hey." He was clutching the pages and shaking his head at her, something horror-struck on his face that made her guts twist. "Hey, I'm not - this won't - you have nothing to worry about. I've got family - I know how it is."

"You have an acoholic father who can't manage to keep it together?" she bit out, and immediately regretted it.

"I have an ex-wife, and I have a mother who operates better if she's not sober. Do they count?"

She turned her eyes back to him and swallowed hard, but words didn't come.

"Beckett. They're bringing your dad up from the drunk tank now."

Castle looked firmly planted, his eyes never left hers.

She sighed and turned back to the desk. "Thanks, Sarge."

He refused to sign his release papers until her father came up. He wanted to see. She looked ready to kill him; she even tried that slutty come-on stuff - granted, in a low voice, her back to the guy at the desk - but nope, not-uh. Nothing doing.

He was staying right here.

He'd found his muse.

Good-bye Clara Strike.

Hello, Beckett.

"Wait, what's your first name?"

She shot him a startled look, her hands in fists. "If I tell you my name, will you leave?"

"No. I can find out."

She growled again and advanced on him, and wow, shit-wow. She was gorgeous. Hot as hell, her body tight and thrumming.

"You make a great hooker, you know? An even better Dominatrix. But-"

"What the hell?" she hissed, shoving on his shoulder.

"My mouth sometimes opens without my permission," he said, not at all apologetic. "Your life is-"

"You have no right to my life. Why can't you just leave?"

"You're fascinating," he shrugged. "And I'm a writer. I've been looking-"

"I know you're a writer. But you don't get to just decide-"

"You know I'm a writer?" he asked, watching her face as it flushed, deep and angry to cover her initial embarassment. He stepped in closer, felt the heat of her long body near his. "You a fan, Beckett?"

She didn't step back; she narrowed her eyes and the hollow of her neck was pulsing with the irregular beat of her nervous heart. But she didn't step back. She stepped up.

Wow.

"How big a fan are you, Beckett?"

"She's your biggest fan," a voice came from behind him.

In an instant, he saw her eyes close in abject misery, but he was already turning around to meet the man. Her father.

"She is?" he asked, assessing the older man with the prominent nose, strong jaw, but wiry frame. He looked disheveled, a little worse for wear, hair shot through with grey, but he held himself with dignity and steel. "Mr. Beckett? I'm Rick Castle."

"Jim Beckett. And I know who you are. My daughter has your books. My wife-" Here his eyes went dark, hooded, his adam's apple bobbed. "-loved them."

Loved. Past tense. Oh, damn.

Castle turned his head to look at Beckett; she had her eyes closed, both hands in fists, her chest rapid. Like she was counting slowly to ten. He studied her wardrobe - the designer jeans, the styled haircut, the cashmere sweater. Straight teeth, nose entirely too perfect to be real (though it could be), and that air of self-possession. She didn't belong here.

"So that's your story," he murmured, mostly to himself, but her eyes snapped open and she stared straight at him.

He felt cleaved in two at that look, wanted only to have never said it. To take it back. Her eyes were swimming, but she grit her teeth and turned her gaze to her father.

"Dad."

"Why'd you leave me in there so long?" he said back.

"I got called out. Calm down. It was only a couple hours."

Castle swiveled his head back to her father and realized he should never have stayed.

This woman wasn't like the others.

She was going to cry and that was just - so not acceptable. Not in front of him. Not in front of either of them - her father or her favorite author.

This was turning into one of the (many) worst days of her life.

"Dad," she said again and shoved past Castle to get to her father. She grabbed him by the elbow and turned him towards the doors, felt the looseness of his body, the sway in his balance that told her the past few hours in the drunk tank hadn't sobered him completely.

Oh God. I need help.

"Get off me," her father growled. "I don't need you interfering in my life-"

"That's what she said to me," Castle piped up, coming along beside her with that entirely too interested look on his face. "Like father, like daughter."

"Shut up," she spat at him, then turned her back on the man who just wouldn't leave her in peace to deal with the man who just wouldn't-

Wouldn't find any peace either. They made quite a trio.

"Dad. I'm putting you in a cab."

"Who's the parent here?" he said, tugging his elbow out of her grip. He was a steady drunk, a good drunk; he was always so sweet and conciliatory when he was drunk. It was only when he was sober that he got that soulsick tone to his voice, the bitterness in his eyes.

So he was more sober than she'd realized.

"Dad," she started, but couldn't finish, couldn't say what she wanted to say with Richard Castle standing over her and probably mentally recording everything she said to be used later in some damn novel. She'd be the helpless victim that Clara Strike and Derrick Storm came to rescue, her own words in the mouth of some ridiculous bimbo in hooker gear.

She couldn't stand it. Couldn't stand him.

She turned to glare at Castle. "Would you-"

"Of course," he said immediately, and her hope flared so brightly, so acutely, that it was nearly painful. And then he continued. "We can share a cab. I'll make sure he gets-"

Her mouth dropped at his audacity. "No."

"No?"

Her father tugged away from her. "I don't need a baby-sitter, Katie. Let me-"

"Katie?" Castle breathed, and his eyes filled with something that hollowed her out.

She turned away from him, blinking hard. "Kate. It's Kate. Dad. I need you to go home; I don't care how you get there, so long as you don't drive."

"I don't have my car keys. You stole them."

"I did," she confirmed. This morning when I found you crying on the couch, three bottles gone. She didn't really have the grounds to arrest him, but she'd dumped him in here with the help of Sarge. She hadn't meant for him to stay quite so long, but the vice squad needed her to wear the gear and stand on the corner and damn it - now here was Richard Castle-

"Kate," the writer said quietly. But it wasn't a question, it was like he was trying it out. Her name.

Ignore him. "Dad."

"Katie. I'm fine. I can take care of myself. My choice." He shook her off and headed for the elevators; she let him leave, her heart like stone in her chest.

A hand at her elbow made her stiffen, but his voice, when it came, was quiet. "You can't change his life for him."

Fuck.

"You need to leave."

And she walked away from him, back up the stairs to Vice, where he couldn't get to her.

Castle found her unexpectedly in a police cruiser, hands cradling the wheel, eyes narrowed as she stared down the entrance to one of his favorite bars. He slowed to a stop and leaned in the window of her car, passenger side, then watched her head turn to him with a fierce and burning anger.

She was glorious in her righteous indignation. Even more sexy because of that navy uniform, the turtleneck with NYPD at her throat, her hair in a messy and spiky display just past her ears. He could see the holster, the badge shining on the front of her coat, the radio clipped on her shoulder. She was official and on duty and damn hot.

"You lost?" he said, grinning at her. "I can do some finding, if you want."

"Shut up, Castle."

"What're you doing here, Beckett?" He wriggled both eyebrows and tried the door handle of the cruiser.

Ha! Unlocked. He slid in the passenger seat and squirmed, fascinated by the many gadgets, the CB, the - was that like a computer? Or something. "The seat's warm. You have a partner?"

"I hate you," she groaned.

"No partner? Why is the seat-"

"No partner, Castle. My training officer stopped by."

"Oh, are you still a rookie, Beckett? Aw, that's-"

Suddenly she had twisted his arm behind his back, painfully, and her face was a mere inches from his nose. "Shut the hell up. I'm in the middle of something. You need to get out of my car and go home, Castle."

She said his name like a caress. Did she not hear that? Even threatening, she took her time over the syllables-

"You know, your name rhymes with asshole?" she mused, lifting an eyebrow.

He glared back, jerking away from her and freeing his arm - probably only because she let him. But he didn't get out of the squad car; he scanned the street instead, getting it under control. "So original, Beckett. I never heard that one before."

When he looked back at her, something like repentance was in her face, even though it was still hard and carved from granite. "Get out of my unit."

"What're you doing at the Old Haunt? You spying on me, Beckett? Cause you have to know I come here-"

"What?" she said, and the amount of surprise in her voice meant that she hadn't been waiting for him. Darn. "You come here?"

"My favorite bar. I write in one of the booths. They took my picture-"

"You haven't written here in years," she scoffed, giving him a roll of her eyes. "I'd have known."

"Oh really?" he purred, leaning in closer, but unsure where to prop his elbow amid all the gadgets.

She was blushing again - but it was that sickened kind, the kind where she was not just mortified at what she'd let slip, but also nauseated by the thought of him knowing. Not exactly the reaction he was going for.

"How do you know I don't write here anymore?" he murmured, leaning in closer, wondering what she might do if he kissed that flushed jaw, nudged the turtleneck down with his nose, sucked on the hard-pounding of her pulse.

"How do I - I just do." She made a growling noise in the back of her throat that only made him want to touch his tongue to her skin, but the sudden stiffness in her body, the movement of her hand for the door made him pause.

She jumped out, tugging on her holster as she moved swiftly to the sidewalk. He watched through the window, realized that she was more than sexy in that uniform - she was every fantasy he had and some he hadn't even considered - and then he saw who she was intercepting.

Her father had just walked right out of the bar, slow but not imbalanced, and Beckett met him at the sidewalk. In a second, she was putting handcuffs on him and leading him back to her squad car, an open bottle confiscated out of his hands.

Oh shit. Castle had walked in on her arresting her father.