[ Road Trip ]

[mmkaternater]

[ Set about a week after this. ]

A white SUV with a ski rack rattling with gear makes a sudden, unsignaled turn into their lane. Castle checks the license plate, then glances excitedly at the paperwork in his lap, even as Beckett struggles to keep their squad car between the yellow lines.

"One-oh-five," he declares, "that's the prefix for Montauk. All right!" He scratches something in the margins of the paper propped up on his knee. "I don't have an 'M' yet. Doesn't matter that Montauk is already in New York, right? Oh well. I'm counting it anyway." This is the second hour of license plate Bingo and, either Castle's doing it wrong, or the cars on the freeway aren't cooperating with the spirit of the game.

It's been a week since he and Beckett found themselves living out a literal reenactment of the contents of Chapter Ten of Heat Wave; seven days since they took separate cabs to work; one hundred and sixty-eight hours since he and Beckett even recognized the fact that they'd seen each other at their worst and, after a couple of minutes of fumbling around between Beckett's sheets, at their best. It hadn't even been a matter of avoidance -- the opportunity to sit down and have a real talk just hadn't presented itself. Less than six hours after Castle left her apartment, Beckett got a new case and the two of them had spent the last week tracking down leads.

Esposito always liked to say that Beckett had a taste for the "freaky ones," and this case was no different. A wealthy patron of the New York City Ballet had been found dead in his apartment, his body covered by a pelt of tropical fire ants. It had taken CSU a couple of hours to remove the body (after several calls to Animal Control proved fruitless -- "We don't really...deal...with insects") and the amount of tissue deterioration had given Lanie a hell of a tough time determining time of death.

Now they're on the road to Philadelphia, bound for Drexel University, where the world's pre-eminent expert on the 280 different species of fire ants is their last-ditch hope for a solid lead.

Castle has taken advantage of the three-hour plus drive by starting several games of license plate Bingo, none of which have so far engaged his companion's interest.

He cranes a look out the window.

"Hey! Palm Beach!" He marks off another square on his sheet. "As in 'Florida', as in fourmis de feu -- the French term for fire ants. I swear, after this case, I'm never going to look at the menu at Le Cirque the same way again."

Comments

[fanofthegenre]

It's not that Beckett's been avoiding Castle. There just hasn't been a good opportunity for them to sit down for an extended period of time and discuss something that isn't related to this case. By the time Lanie had managed to give them all the relevant pre- and post-mortem information, most of their leads had either dried up or fizzled out, and this trip is riding high on Beckett's list of last resorts.

It's less than an hour into the trip and they've already made it out of the city, rocketing down the interstate. They'd left early enough to beat most of the morning traffic rush, but every now and then are still stumbling across someone else who fails to observe the rules of the road. It's all Beckett can do not to swerve too dramatically when the SUV pulls out in front, muttering something indecipherable and likely nasty under her breath.

Castle's persistent need to play car ride games isn't helping to curb her urge to hit something - although his recent comment momentarily tears her eyes away from the road.

"What do they serve at Le Cirque? I wouldn't know, I don't have your connections," she teases.

One hand reaches for the travel mug in the cupholder near her elbow. The amount of coffee inside is starting to wane, she notes after taking a sip, and another stop may be necessary if Castle is going to keep this up for the remaining two hours.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"How is it possible for you to have lived in New York City and never been to Le Cirque? I always thought that was part of the driver's license requirements, right after organ donation and 'Class A' handicaps." He watches a Benz zoom past the passenger side and has a moment of hope before he recognizes a New York plate and falls into a contemplative gloom.

"You want me to get you a table?" he asks. "You'll have to wear something slinky."

[fanofthegenre]

"You'd be surprised what I still haven't done," Beckett admits, her eyes occasionally flicking to the rearview mirror and then back towards the road in front of them. She turns on the radio, sets the volume dial on a lower setting as the faint strains of slow jazz come through the speakers.

"And if I don't own anything in the way of slinky, what? You'll send me another dress?"

She doesn't glance over, but the smirk is clear.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He slides the papers from his lap and onto the dashboard, hunched over his elbow to lean closer to her side of the car. "Come on. I know that you're dying to know how I figured out your size."

[fanofthegenre]

"Let me guess: you shadowed a fashion designer for a while. No, wait. You took a crash course in women's clothing."

Her eyes move to the rearview mirror again.

"Am I getting warm?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"That's between me and Donatella Versace," he finally resolves, cranking his seat up to alignment with her own. He flicks her a innocent smirk -- betraying nothing of his motives or knowledge of her bust size -- and settles back against the seat rest, his expensive loafers flicking at the chuffing heat.

"You looked good in that dress. I think you could have moved around in that world if you'd wanted."

[fanofthegenre]

"Oh, right. Me rubbing elbows with wealthy donors and members of Manhattan's upper-class? It's all well-and-good if I need to follow a lead, but that's your world, Castle. Not mine."

She reaches for her travel mug again, partly as a distracting move.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Right. Carnivorous insects. 'Much more your thing."

The case file sits in the console between them. Every once in a while, for lack of anything better to do with his hands, Castle opens it up and flicks through the grisly details. Marvin Cavendish, of Cavendish Textiles Inc. and Cavendish International, had been found on the floor of his study by his wife, his body swarming with insects. No indication of forced entry and no evidence of whoever it was that'd laid the picnic. They'd spent the week tracking down pursuant angles, but had come up with nothing.

The entomologist at Drexel is a stretch, and they both know it.

"What makes a person get into bugs, anyway?" he asks, rattling the small evidence bag with a couple of fire ant exoskeletons inside. "I mean, do you wake up one morning and say 'Hey, the New Orleans Hornets had a crap season this year, but that's no reason for me to be down on the entire phylum." He secures the evidence bag to the inside of the folder with a paperclip.

"You ever think about doing anything other than be a cop?"

[fanofthegenre]

All Beckett keeps dwelling on is the fact that most of the fire ants' bites hadn't been post-mortem. It's an agonizing thought, to consider the fact that Cavendish wasn't completely dead when his body had become fire ant food. Beckett's spent most of the day resisting the urge to scratch those invisible itches that creep up the back of her spine or down her arm.

The fact that Castle had actually run feather-light fingertips over her back when they'd been staring down at the corpse itself had only made the urge worse.

She tries not to display any signs of flinching when he shakes the bag around.

"It's his passion, bugs. Just like your passion is for writing and mine is being a detective. Everyone's got something they enjoy doing that wouldn't necessarily suit someone else the same way." His question, though, is one she knows she can't dodge for very long, and her hands tighten a fraction of an inch around the steering wheel.

"There was a time I thought things were going to be different. But maybe it's all happened the way it has because I was meant to do this, and nothing else."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"My passion is understanding why people do what they do," he says. "Just like you. Writing and being a detective just happen to be the ways we get paid for it."

He flips to Lanie's post-mortem report and feels his stomach turn when he looks at the wound pattern. It's like the guy's body exploded with a constellation of small, red dots. And each one of those dots had a little poison in it, and that little bit of poison made Cavendish's skin...well, Esposito had said it best when he compared the guy to a balloon in the Thanksgiving Day parade.

The content of the file and the jostle of the car make him a little queasy; he closes the file and puts it back into the console, flicking his sunglasses back down over his eyes.

"What else did you think about doing?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Well, then I guess you could say the same for the entomologist. Only, instead of people, he tries to understand why fire ants do what they do. Or maybe why someone would want to pour a bucket's worth on this guy."

She doesn't respond to his other question right away, though a part of her knew it was going to follow up the first.

"I thought maybe I could do what my mom did, you know, for a while. Be that lawyer. Find those air-tight arguments that would put someone away for whatever they've done wrong. But now, I - "

Her eyes watch the needle sway back and forth over the speedometer.

"I think it's important to make the case rock-solid from the beginning, so there's no possible way it could fall apart in the courtroom, on the stand. I don't know, I guess I wanted to make it easy for people who do what my mom used to."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

She probably would have been good on that side of the law. Castle can't see her mucking around in a penthouse law firm or anything, but she would have found a cause and stuck with it. It's hard to see Beckett as anything other than she is; chasing down bad guys and, yeah, sweating through the requisite paperwork, they all make up the person she's become.

"I probably wouldn't be writing a character after you if you'd become a lawyer," he admits. "Grisham's got the market cornered on that genre."

[fanofthegenre]

"Then it worked out for you too," she says, her attention momentarily drawn by a road sign announcing a rest stop up ahead. It's a chance to stretch her legs, a chance to get more coffee. It's also a chance to turn the topic of conversation away from herself.

"I'm going to stop at the Starbucks," Beckett adds as they arrive, pulling into a parking space. "You want anything?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's antennae go up as they bump into the parking lot. He turns his nose toward the window to see the familiar green and white logo, like a sailor looking for signs of a lighthouse. "Sweet, caffeinated salvation." He unbuckles his belt. "Wouldn't mind a little extra energy for the rest of the drive."

He gets out of the car and adjusts his scarf, waiting for her before he opens the door to let her pass through. Warm, solid smells in here and the ubiquitous jazz soundtrack over the speakers. It's a Friday morning and the clientele is thick. Castle joins the end of the queue and peers up at the menu board, trying to decide on something that has enough caffeine to jump-start a racehorse.

"Buy you breakfast?" he offers. "We're probably not gonna' want to eat after we get done with the doc."

[fanofthegenre]

Part of the reason she'd stopped was to walk around a little, stretch out the muscles that had tensed up while driving. Coffee is just a very nice bonus. It's early, so the lines aren't too long, but Beckett can already tell things will go from milling to packed once the lunch hour hits. She glances over at Castle, her gaze following the lines of his distinguished profile as he reads over the menu.

There's the occasional person who stops to stare in their direction, or does a double-take and whispers to whoever they're with before moving on. Beckett shakes her head slowly. Sometimes it's easy for her to forget that Castle's readership extends outside city limits.

"We're making good time," she concedes, crossing her arms over her chest while her own eyes return to the same place his are scanning. "I don't think breakfast would set us back too far."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Excellent," he says with a grin, as if he's just won some great contest of wills. The breakfast menu at Starbuck's isn't spectacular, but they've got enough to make you go away happy. Castle orders a coffee and a breakfast panini and produces his credit card to pay after she makes up her mind.

There's a clean table by the window, nestled between two faux-leather boothbacks. Castle sheds his coat and drops onto one side, dressing his coffee with a cream and two sugars. He taps his fingers against the sides of the sugar packets, watching Beckett thread her way through the tables. The mid-morning sun picks up some of the shine in her hair. She looks tired but composed. He wonders how much sleep she's been getting. Probably not a lot.

"I think I always knew I was going to be a writer," he says, picking up his side of the conversation from where they left off in the car. "I was good at it as a kid; people kept telling me I had a gift. But, man, the feeling of validation I got when I sold my first manuscript? Incredible. Didn't hurt that it sold well, either. And then I guess I realized I was never going to be the typical '9-to-5' guy anyway and that this whole authorship thing could be fun." He grins. "And it is fun."

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett settles on coffee and a bagel, the former of which she leaves untouched, other than removing the lid so it cools enough to be drinkable, while the latter receives a minimal spread of cream cheese, her plastic knife scraping over the toasted interior. She's always tired (when is she not?) but the caffeine will be a marvelous deception in tricking her body into thinking it's received more sleep than it has - until she can head back to the apartment for the real thing, of course.

She remembers to shed her coat then, leaving her scarf on as she shrugs her shoulders back to let it drop over the chair, and then picks up half of the bagel in one hand, prying off bite-sized pieces to eat a little at a time. The last thing she wants right now is cream cheese in her teeth.

"How many people did you follow around while you were writing Derek Storm?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Are you asking me if I've always had this charming knack for 'life interference'?" He bundles a napkin in his fist and dabs the corner of his mouth, tucking into the breakfast sandwich. Steam curls over the back of his hand.

"A few," he finally concedes. "A lot of it was just interviews and consultations. I spent a couple of weeks following Powell around for the jewel heist angle, 'almost got my head knocked off by a member of the Irish mob when I was doing Storm Rising. After a while it became tedious. You know, more like a job than anything exciting. I was glad when it ended."

He appraises her over the rim of his coffee cup. "Now I've got Nikki Heat. And she's always surprising."

[fanofthegenre]

She tears off another piece of her bagel, making sure to catch a glob of rogue cream cheese before it falls off onto her thumb. A pause, and then she washes it down with a slow sip of still-hot coffee.

"So you wouldn't call this - shadowing me, I mean - a job in any way."

She's always figured he enjoys following her around, having a say in cases, developing leads and looking into them with her. But maybe it's still a surprise to her when he admits how much he doesn't mind it. She tilts her chin down to blow across the surface of her coffee, keeping her eyes on his face.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Are you kidding me? People spend their entire lives wanting to be the hero. Now I'm shadowing the hero and sometimes I even get to work the siren. I'm living the dream."

What ostensibly started off as research (and, yeah, a way to push her buttons) has developed into a partnership, formal and informal. She massages his writer's block and occasionally he offers a nugget of insight that helps catch the bad guy.

More than that, he just likes being around her.

[fanofthegenre]

"Yeah, don't push your luck with that siren. My generosity does have its limits."

He's got the kind of personality that would take a one-time agreement about the siren and find a way to use it as an excuse for him to turn it on during the most inopportune times - times when it pays to be inconspicuous.

Or times when he just wants to annoy her.

Beckett realizes she's forgotten napkins and briefly excuses herself to grab some.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He must've been hungrier than he thought: the panini's three-quarters gone by the time she gets up. He hasn't exactly been eating or sleeping well lately; most nights he gets home after eleven and, by then, deadlines are crouched in the corners waiting for him. He's spent the last couple of days running on a few hours' sleep between work-work and Beckett-work. The coffee's a godsend at this point. He watches Beckett out of the corner of his eye as she waits for her turn at the condiment stand, her smile stretched and polite while the guy ahead of her layers the cinnamon onto his coffee like he's trying to create a mini version of the Gobi in his cup.

"Oh my god, are you Richard Castle?"

The voice comes from a trim blonde who's wandered over to their table. She has a tiny, pert mouth and an equally tight pair of sweats on, which Castle takes a moment to appreciate before slipping into full-on 'celeb mode'.

"Why, yes I am," he says smoothly, hooking his arm over the back of the banquette. "And who are you?"

The blonde steps closer, thrusting out her hand. "Toni. Oh my god, I can't believe it's you. I saw you at the counter and I was like, 'that is totally Richard Castle.' I have all your books. I can't believe you just come in here and have coffee like the rest of us. You should be, like, drinking from golden cups or something."

Castle takes her hand and presses it warmly. "Well, ordinarily I have them break out the good china, but I thought they deserved a day off."

She laughs and throws a sheath of hair over her shoulder. "Oh my god, you're hysterical! And I so never do this. I never go up to celebrities like this, but I just couldn't help myself." She pushes a smile through the gap between her front teeth. "Would you be, like, totally annoyed if I asked you to sign something for me? No pressure at all, but I don't think anybody will believe me when I tell them I met Derek Storm!"

Castle ratchets his smile up another degree. "Technically I'm not Storm. I'm just his vessel. You got a pen?"

[fanofthegenre]

The woman's near-shriek is plainly audible from where Beckett's standing; she glances back to look while the man in front of her weighs his options between a stirrer and a real straw. She's tiny, blonde - probably from a bottle, Beckett notes with a small scoff - exactly the stereotypical Richard Castle fan, right down to the sweats that look like they're practically melded to her skin. She says something else, equally high-pitched, and Beckett watches for the moment when he'll turn on that expression he reserves for the public, that smarmy smile, and the voice he uses, smooth and melodical.

"Are you done?" she snaps, perhaps a little more sharply than she intends to, at the man in front of her, and with a flurry of apologies and a near-flinch, he snatches up a handful of stirrers, bending a couple in half in his haste to hustle away from her. Beckett sighs, pressing a hand to her forehead, and then reaches to tug a few napkins out of the dispenser - hard - ripping almost all of them.

Those same napkins wind up balled up in her fist as she walks back toward their table, delaying the speed of her steps in the hopes that by the time she returns, Castle's "number one fan" will have gotten an autograph or a picture or whatever she approached him for and moved on.

No such luck.

She plasters a smile on her face and slides into her original seat, discreetly hiding the now-ruined napkins under the edge of her paper plate. Rather than subject herself to any mandatory introduction right off the bat, she goes for her coffee instead, wrapping both hands around the cup and taking more than a sip.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

The blonde is searching her handbag for a pen, talking away even as Beckett slides into the booth. "-- And it's just got this fabulous view of the city. You can totally see Central Park from the hot tub on the roof. Oh, damn, I can't find anything in this bag. Hang on a sec --"

She drops to her knees in front of the table and upends the contents of her purse onto the floor, sorting through the rubble like a prospector panning for gold.

Castle gives Beckett an apologetic look over the top of the blonde's head and mouths the word CRAZY before dipping right back into that pool of charm. "Detective Beckett, allow me to introduce Toni. She's an aspiring novelist."

Toni looks up from her place on the floor and drags her focus between Castle and Beckett, a single dimple appearing between her overplucked eyebrows. "Hi." She looks back down at the floor. "Totally aspiring. I mean, I could never be as good as you. Maybe you could give me some pointers and, oh, thank god --" she produces a Bic from the purse detritus "-- I would have totally killed myself if I couldn't find a pen."

Castle lofts an eyebrow. "I hope a barista or two would have intervened before it came to that."

The blonde puffs her hair out of her eyes and uses the edge of the table for leverage, pulling herself to her feet. She hands the pen to Castle, who begins to scrawl a message and signature on the back of a napkin, and gives Beckett a suspicious look.

"So you're a detective?"

She does not sound impressed.

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett's expression appears equally unamused, though you wouldn't guess it - in the time it takes Toni-with-an-i to glance between them, the smile is back at its painfully politest, only to disappear behind the rim of her coffee cup when the blonde woman literally turns out the entire contents of her purse over the floor, lipsticks scattering and rolling over the tile to bump into the unsuspecting feet of other patrons, both walking and seated. She seems oblivious to it, though, hell-bent on receiving a signature from her favorite author.

Beckett wonders, briefly, if her manuscript is laden with exclamation points and overuse of the word 'totally'.

She waves politely when she's acknowledged, a small waggle of fingers and a half-turning up of her mouth meant to signify some kind of a smile, and leans back in her chair, coffee in hand, when a pen is finally procured and Castle sets to signing the napkin - along with some kind of message specifically made out to her. She shifts her weight, however, when she finds herself on the receiving end of an unimpressed look.

"Uh, yes," she says. "I am."

As if the badge at her hip wasn't plainly visible or anything.