By the time the end of his shift rolled around, Adam was very thankful he'd started his morning with shower-sex with his almost-bride, because it had swiftly turned into the high-point of his day. There had been the tedium of paperwork until nine-thirty, when they were waiting for Nicky Tomasi to arrive, felt a bit like being in court waiting for the verdict to be delivered. Of course juries usually took more time than a teenage boy to arrive and when he'd finally arrived there was very little new that he'd been able to add. It had put him and Beckett both in foul moods to be faced with the possibility that a killer at a school could possibly get away with it.

Of course, that had been until they'd gotten word back from CSU, more specifically Jackie their hero in the print lab and CSU's resident new daddy Riley Fontina. Beckett had sent him to the lab to find out if they had anything yet, and he'd been doubly reward - Jackie had been able to pull a partial thumbprint in peanut oil from the professor's go-cup of coffee; though there was no match on file it was more than enough to get them a Monday-morning warrant for sure. Then Adam had gone across the hallway to the new Papa Cheese Whiz to find that Riley despite his first-time daddy rosy outlook had been able to pull some very interesting data off of the in-room laptop from Professor Hill's room. Nicky Tomasi had been logged in but the time-stamps on the computer were not jibing at all with the time-line he'd given at all which meant he was going to be back for another official chat on Monday. Since it was Friday afternoon, there was no way in hell they were going to be able to get a judge to sign off on a warrant but that was neither here nor there - Adam just wanted to wrap this case up.

It was extremely rare for him to feel like he wanted the job over and done with this strongly; he was grateful for every day back he had on the job now since he'd once had it taken away from him. But given this particular case was falling in the days before his wedding, he just wanted it done and over with. He wanted to go home and tell Lindsay it was done and wrapped so they could go on their honey-moon without him having that one-percent nagging feeling like he'd seen Beckett have the entire night before at dinner.

'Yo, lover boy!'

Adam looked up from his desk where he was finishing signing off on the day's paperwork and tidying up his notes from the other interviews conducted that day. A quick glance at his watch told him it was already end of shift, and that meant it was time for his bachelor party weekend to start, beginning with the two-headed Ry-Sposito monster descending on him as he barely completed the thought. He finished shutting down his computer, grabbed his suit-jacket off the back of his chair just as they stopped by his desk.

'Alright, what are you two going to do to me?' Adam looked over to Beckett. 'Kate, what are they going to do to me?'

Beckett held up her hands. 'Don't look at me, this is strictly boy territory.'

'Be gentle, gentlemen.'

'Oh ye of little faith,' Esposito scoffed with his usual cocky grin. 'Don't worry you'll get to keep your five-year chip, bro.'

'While that did force us to be a little more creative, that doesn't mean this is going to be some PC bullshit affair,' Ryan added with a smile and held out his hand. 'Gimme your cellphone.'

'Fuck you,' Adam replied on a laugh as they headed for the elevator; he knew he wouldn't get any trouble for it since they were all officially off the clock. 'You can have the battery, but I'm keeping my phone.'

'Why, you got naked pictures of Lindsay on there you don't want me seeing?'

'Amongst other things.'

'Fine, you keep the battery I keep the phone.' Ryan stepped into the elevator, hit the button for the main level of the garage. He waited for three seconds before turning to his friend and asking, 'Are they the ones from the Vanity Fair shoot or are they ones you took?'

'Seriously, Ryan, fuck off,' Adam laughed. 'Oh, this is gonna be a long weekend with no booze to hide behind.'

'Ah, correction, none of us will be doing that.'

'What?'

'It's true bro,' Esposito agreed, 'If the man of the hour isn't drinking, none of us are.'

'You don't have to do that,' Adam protested.

'You don't get a say on this one dude. And it's like those damn PSAs you don't need booze to have a good time, and that's double for us. So.'

The elevator came to a stop; the doors slid open and Esposito clapped Adam on the shoulder. 'This is going to be a weekend you won't forget.'

The groom could only stare at the sleek stretch limousine with its glossy midnight blue paint job and sparkling chrome. Adam lifted a finger like a man in a trance. 'For us? That's for us?'

'Yep, sure is bro.' Ryan smiled, snapped a picture on his phone camera. 'Come on, don't' wanna keep them waiting.'

Adam tried to not feel like a little boy seeing Willy Wonka for the first time, and forced himself to walk quickly instead of sprinting to the limousine. He threw open the door, climbed in to great cheers - Shane, Dave, Daniel and Castle were all there; Castle had the cigars, Shane and Daniel the cameras and Dave a crystal decanter of something electric green with six shot glasses on a small silver tray.

'Hey there's our man,' Shane crowed, snapping the first of many pictures of the weekend. 'You ready to party, bro?'

'Again, how exactly is this going to be a bachelor party if the traditional drink-till-we-puke part is missing?'

'Would you listen to him?' Dave sighed, waited until Esposito and Ryan were in the limo and had shut the door before he passed out the shot glasses and poured out the electric green from the decanter. 'No faith.'

'That's what I said, bro,' Esposito agreed.

'What is this stuff,' Adam asked, taking a cautious sniff. It wasn't booze, he knew that much, but it had a sweet and tangy scent, almost like liquid Sour Patch Kids.

'I went to a party store called Like a Virgin, it's all party supplies and drink mixes for people who don't drink for whatever reason, and got about a hundred bucks worth of stuff for us to have,' Daniel said. 'This one is the green apple War-Heads mix, just like the sour candy.'

'We decided since we didn't want you to break your twelve-step program, we'd get you jacked on sugar instead,' Castle said with a simple shrug, and Adam knew from the easiness of his conviction that these men were not patting him on the head for his short-comings - they wanted him to stay strong and were making sure they didn't jeopardize that newly acquired five-year chip.

'And besides, I think Lindsay will do enough damage for you both,' Shane added with a wink. 'You shoulda seen the mess Alexis was when she had her morning after from her bachelorette weekend.'

'So what's the plan?'

'Ah-ah-ah!' Daniel held up his finger, raised his shot-glass. 'To Adam, a man who has been through hell and finally found his angel.'

'To Adam,' the others chorused and they clinked glasses before tossing back their shots. The hissing and whistling was just as reactionary as if they'd done rail shots of cheap tequila.

'Holy fuck,' Castle winced, made a face at his glass. 'Are all the mixes like that, Shane?'

'No, just figured that one would loosen us all up,' he laughed, 'plus it makes taking my Valium more palatable.'

The word 'Valium' had Adam's ears perking up as he recalled the conversation from the start of his day with Beckett. 'Are we flying somewhere? Kevin? Javi? Castle?'

'Actually it was my idea,' Daniel said proudly as the limousine turned south-east. 'We are flying to San Diego. We've all gotten our scuba certification, so we are going to SeaWorld to do some diving with the aquarium life.'

'So does that mean I get mermaid strippers?' Adam asked with a completely straight face, and the rest of them cracked up laughing.

'I'll take s'more of that shit, Dave. See?' Esposito held out his glass for Dave to refill it, winked at Adam. 'Told you.'