Chapter 4

Kate "Stupid-Butt" Beckett

So far, everything was going just as Brad and Sean had planned. In all honesty, locking Beckett in the closet wasn't something premeditated, but it had afforded them the opportunity they'd needed to make sure the scales were tipped in their favor. Pranking a babysitter was a new concept to them; the boys considered themselves nice when all was said and done, and before now, they hadn't come across a babysitter who they felt deserved such treatment. But seeing Beckett rummaging around in their parents' safe had set something off in Brad and Sean, and that was a desire to not only protect their home, but also to make their parents proud by subduing the criminal they had unknowingly been left with. And Brad and Sean were willing to do whatever it took to accomplish that.

Brad and Sean had to admit, though, that brainstorming pranks had required a bit of time and consideration on their part. But in dealing with someone like Beckett, the boys had decided the best options were the more extreme options. Slipping just the right amount of sleeping medicine into Beckett's drink had been no easy task, but fortunately, it had proven successful. If taking a photo of Beckett's rear end and shooting the same body part with BB pellets before locking her in the closet had been Phase One, then mildly drugging her had only been the start of Phase Two. Now all that was left was to make sure the remainder of Phase Two went off without a hitch.

And, as they spotted Beckett running out onto the back patio in hot pursuit of them with her clothes back in place, it appeared that it was. There was a moment, however, when their confidence and excitement faltered slightly as they saw Beckett run back inside the house, but seconds later they noticed it was just so she could retrieve her phone, which she returned with in hand. Not that her having that would matter, anyway. In fact, it only contributed to the fun.

"Okay, get ready," Brad told his brother from their hiding place.

Sean grinned back at him and nodded.

Beckett was still fuming from the underwear incident, naturally, when she first set foot on the back patio. She was a cop, more importantly a Detective, so how could she have let herself make such an egregious error like falling asleep around boys who had already played tricks on her? As much as she was cursing herself for that, Beckett was puzzling over how someone as clever as her could be fooled by kids so easily. Getting shot in the butt with BB pellets was one thing, not to mention considerably more humiliating than getting shot by actual bullets. But it was nowhere near as humiliating as not only getting locked in a closet, but also waking up and discovering your underwear completely out in the open. And on the job, no less.

"No more pranks!" she growled to herself.

She was about to walk down the patio steps when she remembered that she left her phone in the living room. Still not wanting to be without it, Beckett hurriedly raced back inside, scooped it up and was back outside in under ten seconds. Now she was all set to go after Brad and Sean, those little brats. But there was just one problem.

As Beckett scanned the enclosed backyard, she could see no sign of the pranksters. To add to things, it was eerily quiet as well. This made Beckett's cop instincts kick in, as she had found herself in similar situations before with suspects in hiding, so she reacted as she always did and moved her hand to her hip. But this time, her palm touched only empty air rather than her gun which was usually secured in its holster.

Beckett obviously wasn't cruel enough to want to have a live weapon as her only line of defense against a couple of mischief-minded children, but she still couldn't help but resent the irony of her being unarmed in general at a time when she could've used something, anything.

"Come on, Kate," she muttered, trying to steel herself. "They're just kids. You can get control over just two kids."

And with that, Beckett descended the three steps leading into the backyard. As she set foot on the concrete walkway that stretched from the patio to the gate in the fence, she indeed couldn't help but be reminded of the many times she'd gone through empty rooms and alleyways, just waiting for a suspect to jump out. Just like in those cases, her eyes were trained firmly on the surroundings as she slowly walked down the pathway.

There were two big trees on the perimeter, one ahead of Beckett and the other against the far right corner. Lining the rest of the fence's perimeter were thick bushes and along with the trees, Beckett deemed those as the most opportune hiding spots for troublemaking little kids. It was just a matter of where exactly. In the yard itself and just along the walkway a few steps down sat a rather large blue kiddie pool, which looked big enough to fit five or six children in at once. From her point of view, though, Beckett couldn't tell if it was empty or not. Why would it be full? she reasoned with herself. It's not even summer.

The fact that there was a kiddie pool in the yard at all seemed even more redundant due to there being a full-sized one not that far away. And just like the smaller one, the exact contents of this pool remained a mystery given her angle to it.

But why wouldn't there be water in it?

Suddenly, there was the sound of movement from somewhere behind her and Beckett whirled around to see what it was ... but there was nothing behind her, only greenery and a small pile of toys. Beckett stayed where she was for a few moments more, eyes narrowed suspiciously, and finally turned back around. Her phone was still dangling in her right hand by her leg. But when she turned, Beckett was met with a new and discouraging sight.

Brad was now standing right in front of her, seemingly coming out of nowhere. On his face was a huge and evil grin, and in his hands ... was an even bigger water gun. "Hi, Kate!" he greeted quite cheerfully.

Beckett took a quick moment to assess the situation, like she always did in the field, and realized things weren't looking good for her. But that didn't stop her from trying to negotiate.

"Brad ..." she began hesitantly, "... please put down the water gun." Beckett even went so far as to hold her hands out in front of her like a cop would for a criminal who had a gun to a hostage's head. "Remember what I said about not playing with guns?"

"You want me to keep holding the water gun? Okay, well, if you say so!" Brad stayed true to his mock-question and held onto his multicolored weapon, and even aimed it at Beckett. The grin never left his face.

Beckett's stomach dropped; she did not want to get wet! "Brad, listen," she still kept her calm and agreeable tone of voice, just like all her training had taught her to do. "You and Sean are already in enough trouble after what you two just did to me inside. Do you really want to add on to that? Your mother will be very, very upset."

Brad chuckled. "No, she won't. I think she'll be proud of us!"

Beckett raised an eyebrow in confusion. "Why exactly would she be proud? What are you talking about?"

"Don't play dumb! We know who you are!" In one impressively quick motion, Brad cocked the water gun, getting that much closer to spraying Beckett.

His words made Beckett freeze in shock. Had she heard him correctly? "What ... what are you talking about? My name really is Kate Beckett!" She paused, trying to give Brad a convincing smile. "Why would you think I'm not being honest?"

"Oh, I don't know ..." Brad sneered, his voice dripping with sarcasm, "... it could be because Sean and I saw you earlier nosing around in Mom and Dad's secret safe! Isn't that right, Sean?"

"That's right!"

The voice came from behind Beckett, and she quickly noticed that young Sean had apparently followed in his brother's footsteps and appeared out of thin air. He was armed with his own large water gun, and just at Brad, he had it leveled directly at her.

Beckett darted her gaze back and forth between Brad and Sean, her face taking on genuine worry. "Now, boys ... I can explain. If you think I'm a robber or anything, I -"

"That's exactly what a robber would say!" interrupted Sean. "You can't trick us, Stupid-Butt!"

Beckett cringed slightly at the re-use of the "nickname" from just a few minutes ago. Was that going to be her official new designation for the rest of the day? "I'm not trying to trick you," she said, even though in her head she was thinking, That's not entirely true, "I'm just saying ... you don't ... have all the facts." She had to be careful how she chose her words.

"Then tell us," Brad said simply.

"I ... can't," Beckett sighed after a long pause. As much as she wanted to reveal the truth in order to free herself from more prank possibilities, Beckett was both a professional and a woman of her word, and she'd promised Captain Gates she'd keep her cop identity a secret. "But don't you dare spray me!"

Brad grinned again. "What's that? You want us to spray you?"

"No, I don't! So, don't even think -"

"Yes, she does!" exclaimed Sean jovially. "Stupid-Butt wants us to spray her!"

Beckett gnarled her teeth. "Stop calling me that!"

"Stupid-Butt! Stupid-Butt! She has a big butt!" Sean chanted in a sing-song voice before sticking his tongue out at Beckett.

The juvenile humor, especially set to a tune, was finally too much for Beckett. "Alright, that's it!" She turned fully towards Sean and started advancing, but Sean had been ready for this.

He pulled the trigger on his water gun and a jet of liquid burst forth from it, heading directly for Beckett. She braced herself for a second by putting her arms up in front of her, but that turned out to be the wrong move. Instead of spraying her in the chest region, Sean had been aiming considerably lower. Specifically, at the area which would have males especially flinching. And Beckett's reaction really wasn't any less shocked.

The stream of water impacted against her crotch region and started soaking through within seconds. Beckett had to stop in her tracks, both out of surprise and because it felt weird. With both hands in the air, she gazed down at her pants, which were getting very wet very fast. She was about to yell at Sean to stop when out of nowhere, came a similar sensation from behind.

This jet of water - of course - targeted her butt, and was no doubt courtesy of Brad as he took up the same task as his little brother, only from the opposite angle. The laughter from both boys rang through the air.

It took what felt like just over a minute, but Brad and Sean eventually succeeded in emptying the entire contents of their water guns onto both sides of Beckett's jeans. By the time they were done, the shell-shocked NYPD Detective was just standing there, pants darkened by the water and she was breathing heavily. It was out of a combination of the coldness of the water and her boiling feelings of anger.

"Ha ha!" Sean pointed at Beckett. "Stupid-Butt wet her pants!"

"Awww, that's a shame!" mocked Brad.

Sean dropped his water gun into the grass and ran past Beckett, intentionally knocking into her and making her stumble. "Come and get us!" he said on the way.

Brad let his own water gun fall to the ground and joined his brother in running away from Beckett and towards the large tree. Beckett had to spend a moment recomposing herself before she finally was able to take off after them. But with her pants being so wet, she was a bit slower than usual.

"I'M GOING TO WRING YOUR NECKS!" she threatened at the top of her lungs.

Beckett kept to the walkway during her pursuit, which in hindsight, wasn't a good idea. She had her eyes trained solely ahead of her on the tree, and nothing else around her mattered. If Beckett had taken the time to mind her surroundings, then she would have noticed the large "X" written in white chalk on one of the stone squares of the walkway in front of her.

Brad and Sean, however, were paying attention to Beckett's progress and the moment her feet touched down on the square in question, they sprung their next prank in action. Brad motioned for Sean to run across the backyard, which he did and passed Beckett in the process. Beckett stopped on top of the "X" square so she could briefly track Sean, but her attention was soon diverted by something else.

"Hey!" Brad yelled out, which made Beckett look his way.

In the time Beckett had been distracted by Sean, Brad had gone over to where a big homemade slingshot had been erected by the boys earlier in the day and had loaded it with his "special ammunition", with the slingshot already pulled back into a firing position.

"Heads up!" Brad announced as he let go of the slingshot's contents and launched it into the air.

While he watched the action with the biggest smile, Beckett watched it with a grimace. But he soon abandoned observing so he could take up his next post.

What had been lobbed into the air was a balloon, and as it plummeted down towards her, Beckett could tell that it had been filled with something ... however, whatever it was, it definitely wasn't water. In futility, and just a bit of fear, Beckett let her phone fall into the grass and angled up her hands in front of her in an attempt to catch the balloon, but by this point, there was no stopping its impact. It exploded against Beckett seconds later, making her squint in disgust as a burst of baked beans slammed against her upper half and turned her tan shirt into a chest-plate of icky brown slop. A good portion also splattered on her face and got into her hair.

At first, Beckett merely sighed in exasperation but as she wiped some of the brown, drippy mess from her eyes, the sigh turned into a guttural grunt. There she was, her pants completely soaked through with water and her face and most of her shirt slathered with baked beans. Obviously, she must have looked quite ridiculous, because Brad and Sean's taunting laughter filled her ears, followed by camera clicks as the boys snapped their newest embarrassing pictures of Beckett.

"I'm going to KI-"

"Hey, Stupid-Butt! Look out!"

Sean's outcry caused Beckett to glance back in his direction, but then another sound filled her ears. It sounded like ... plastic wheels rolling on stone. Sure enough, a skateboard was advancing very fast down the walkway towards her, forcing Beckett to take a step back in order to avoid it. However, that step back was just her latest in the series of bad decisions over the last couple of minutes.

Because directly behind her legs, Beckett discovered there was a length of water hose that had been pulled tight, tight enough so that when Beckett stepped back to avoid the skateboard, it made her trip and lose her balance. She twisted fully around as she fell, and in her path of trajectory was the giant kiddie pool, and in the kiddie pool was the largest collection of baked beans that Beckett had ever seen. Most of her body fit into the pool with ease, due to the size, so Beckett ended up being mostly submerged in the slop she had gotten a "taste" of just a few seconds before. She didn't even bother wondering how Brad and Sean managed to fill an entire kiddie pool with baked beans, she just sank further down into the mess in exhaustion.

Brad and Sean wasted no time in rushing up to the scene of the crime, camera phones held firmly in hand, as they laughed and snapped away.

"What do you know?" Brad remarked in triumph. "It worked! Just like in Cheaper By The Dozen!" He high-fived Sean.

"Stupid-Butt really does look like a swamp monster, doesn't she?" asked Sean in utter delight.

Beckett didn't even care about yelling at them. Right now, all she cared about was washing off in the shower. She attempted to lift herself up out of the pool, but slipped on the sides and fell back in, which made the boys laugh even harder.

"Oh, look at what I found!" said Brad. He had picked up Beckett's phone from the grass and was holding it up in the air.

That jolted Beckett out of her stupor. "Give that back!"

"You'll have to come and get it, Stupid-Butt!" Sean chuckled before taking off with Brad.

"I told you ..." Beckett grumbled, "stop calling me that!" Summoning all the strength that she could, Beckett jumped up and out of the pool and tore after her tormentors.

If she thought her wet pants had weighed her down earlier, then that was nothing compared to how heavy the layer of baked beans felt as Beckett ran all over the yard while chasing after Brad and Sean. She was mainly still in shock that she had fallen into a kiddie pool of baked beans in the first place; despite the food being all over her, it still felt like a weird fantasy. But Beckett was covered in baked beans, and she had a sneaking suspicion that this wasn't going to be the worst of it for today.

By now, Brad and Sean were leading Beckett in circles, and she was starting to get worn out when she usually was just getting started. She chalked that up to the after-effects of being pranked three times in a row. But she didn't give up; she pressed on.

"What's the matter, Stupid-Butt?" Sean asked from his and Brad's current position in front of the kiddie pool. "Too slow?" Now he was the one waving Beckett's phone tauntingly.

"How's this for too slow?" Beckett snarled as she lunged for them.

She did so without hesitation, but mostly without thinking. If Beckett had taken the time to briefly assess the situation, then maybe she would have anticipated Brad and Sean sticking their legs out at the last minute. But because she didn't, that meant Beckett couldn't avoid tripping over their legs and thus go plummeting back, face-first, into the pool of baked beans with a sizeable splash.

How did I fall for that? she accused herself as she lifted her head up from the mess.

It seemed like Brad and Sean were thinking the same thing, too. "Wow, she must be a Stupid-Butt if she fell for one of the oldest tricks in the book!" concluded Brad with a hearty laugh.

Maybe I am, Beckett thought in humiliation. Maybe that's me, Kate "Stupid-Butt" Beckett. What the hell am I doing babysitting? She raised her head out of the baked beans to see Brad standing in front of her, taking the latest round of pictures.

"Hold it right there, that's perfect!" he said with the enthusiasm of a professional photographer. Brad lowered his phone and looked behind his bedraggled babysitter. "Sean's getting a good angle, too!"

Beckett knew she didn't need to glance around behind her to see what he meant, but just the same, she did and discovered the younger of the two devils snapping photos of what was no doubt now his favorite body part of hers, making her sigh.

When he was done, Sean walked by the pool and gave Beckett the type of butt pat that football players usually gave each other. "Tough luck. Oh by the way, here you go." He dropped Beckett's phone by the pool and accompanied Brad back into the house.

And it was at that moment Beckett's phone started ringing. After carefully extricating herself from the baked beans, she picked it up and checked to see who was calling. Of course, it was Castle.

Beckett sighed heavily and answered. "Castle," she said rather forcefully.

"Um, no, I believe that's my line," Castle quipped. "Soooo ... is this a bad time?"

"Yeah, you could say that." Without any more preamble, Beckett launched into a direct explanation of everything that happened to her since his last call.

"So, let me get this straight," said Castle once Beckett had finished. "At this very moment, you're talking to me while covered from head to toe in baked beans? Man, why can't I be there for the good stuff? Maybe we could experiment a little with stuff like that in the bedroom -"

"I didn't realize my pain was your pleasure!" Beckett cut in sharply.

"I'm joking, Kate. Listen, do you still want those tips from me?"

"Castle, I'm covered in baked beans, what do you think?" Beckett looked ahead at the patio doors, behind which stood Brad and Sean, each of whom were making faces at her through the glass. "You know what? Why don't we have this conversation at a time when I don't feel like The Creature From the Brown Lagoon? I'll call you back when I look, and feel, like myself again."

"Hang in there!" Castle managed to say before Beckett disconnected the call.

After taking a moment to absorb her current appearance, Beckett stomped towards the patio with every intention of booking the boys for unlawful conduct.

I hope you enjoyed Chapter 4! It sure was a lot of fun to write!

Speaking of that fun, I'm enjoying writing this story so much that recently, the idea of writing ANOTHER prank story with Beckett occurred to me. As of now, I have a few possible ideas for a new one: A. A possible sequel to this story, B. An AU fic where Beckett is engaged to Castle and finally spends some "quality time" with Alexis, who's much younger for story purposes and doesn't like the idea of getting a new stepmom or C. Another AU fic where Beckett is hired as a nanny to the troublemaking young Alexis.

So, those are the ideas I have at the moment, but I just wanted to gauge interest and see if any one of you reading this story would want to read another like it. If you do, say what idea you like the best - or any idea you might think up yourself - and I'll see which one seems to have the most interest. I'll be appreciative if you do. :) Thanks.