(no subject)

[mmkaternater]

The NYPD doesn't have an official gym. Not anymore, anyway. Not since the basement in the bottom of the 12th had been found to contain "unusually high levels of asbestos" and not since everybody agreed that it was probably not a good idea for New York's Finest to run on treadmills located underneath five hundred pounds of the stuff. For the last five years, the District Attorney and the mayor had been trying to talk their constituents into springing for a new facility, but response was as sluggish as the blood flow through a diabetic's arteries. In the interim, the New York City branch of the FBI has offered use of their gym to any officer who wants to come in and burn off a few blue calories.

And that's where Castle is today.

Or, would be, more accurately, if he could get past the security cartel in the lobby. Despite the fact that Beckett had finally gotten around to getting him his own sent of presentable credentials, the G at the security desk isn't buying the whole "authorial ride-along" shtick, and Castle has had to sweat through three inter-departmental phone calls, a background check, and a number of pissed-off-looking agents who have filed in behind him, already looking like they just need an excuse to knock a guy's block off.

"I'm with Detective Kate Beckett," he tries again, hoisting his gym bag along his shoulder. "B-E-C-K-E-T-T. Badge number...hell, I don't know her badge number. Page her. She's expecting me."

The badge behind the desk cups his large hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. He looks like the kind of guy who uproots tree stumps in his spare time. "I don't have a record of you on the books, Mr. Castle. You're certain she was meeting you today?"

"Yeah, today. She's got to get re-certified in hand-to-hand combat next week. We were going to practice a few moves."

Stony silence. Castle hears a couple of Gs chuckle in line behind him.

"What?"

"No offense, Mr. Castle, but unless you're gonna' take dictation during her re-certification, she's probably gonna' do better on her own."

Castle casts a glance down to his top-of-the-line sneakers and never-been-sweated-in NYU t-shirt. "You think I don't have what it takes? I'll have you know, I can be pretty intimidating when I want to be. I made a waiter cry once."

The badge chuckles into his collar and returns to his phone call. Castle scans the lobby, touching his stomach with the tips of his fingers, looking dejected. A few seconds later the guy hangs up, gives Castle a tight smirk, and says, "All right, man. She's on her way down to collect you. 'Careful you don't knock her in the head with those forearms of yours."

"Watch it. I can take a maître d' out in two seconds flat."

Comments

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett arrives at the gym a little earlier than the time she and Castle are scheduled to meet. It's a habit, really, especially because she enjoys the opportunity to use the FBI's gym equipment - top-of-the-line stuff, too, not the asbestos-ridden basement the NYPD had been working out of all too long. (There'd definitely been some kind of internal investigation after it had eventually closed for good.)

She's changed and on the mat in five, wrapping her knuckles in order to go a few rounds with one of the punching bags in the corner, doing her best to get her blood pumping while the bag winds up on the receiving end of increasingly sharp jabs and a few roundhouse kicks that grow in intensity. She establishes a rhythm for each quickly enough, eventually losing herself in the warm-up process - and ultimately, winds up tapped on the shoulder.

"There's a call for you downstairs," says one of the agents, intimidation in gray sweats. Beckett nods, brushing a few stray strands of hair out of her face, and crosses the floor to take the call. After only a few seconds of listening to the guard on the other line (and presumably Castle's insistent protests in the background), Beckett's waiting at the elevator, her arms folded over her front, looking somewhere between amusement and annoyance - a combination she finds herself experiencing more and more these days.

"What did you do this time?" she asks, seconds after the doors have dinged open.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Seven pairs of eyes turn to mark the detective's arrival. Only Castle seems more annoyed than interested. "Nothing. Although I'm starting to get the turf war between you guys," he says as she approaches, squeezing between the wall of bodies even as Agent Desk moves to intercept. The badge looks skeptical -- How'd a guy like this end up with a woman like her? -- but he sits back down off Beckett's glance. This guy's okay.

Castle hikes his gym bag and follows her through the chrome and glass foyer toward the elevators. As he goes, he turns a look over his shoulder. "I swear, those guys are musk oxen masquerading as government agents. Did you see the arms on some of them? I've seen hams hanging in deli windows that're smaller than that."

They board and Castle has a chance to note her appearance: fitted tanktop and aerobic pants, both conspicuously absent of an NYPD logo. She doesn't want to call attention to herself, Castle guesses. 'Just wants to look like one of the guys. She could have gone the way of the Bureau, he thinks, and imagines her heading up a team of young agents, playing with the tropes of government, maybe wining and dining in the clubs in Georgetown. Fast-track to the big leagues. Beckett as one of the brass? Maybe. He works his feet in his shoes.

"You're all sweaty," he observes, somewhat unhelpfully.

[fanofthegenre]

It's only after Beckett makes eye contact with the agent at the desk that the risk of Castle losing an eye or a limb - or even both - disappears, though she can still hear the comments and the occasional chuckle following them through the glass doors and onto the elevator itself. She jabs the right button with a thumb, watching it illuminate, and then steps back, idly pulling one arm behind her back in a brief stretch. "Which is probably why you shouldn't have pissed them off. Five minutes later and I would've been coming down to the beaten pulp formerly known as Castle."

She almost prefers to blend in here. The war of jurisdiction is on-going, and even though her working relationship with the agents she knows is mostly positive, she doesn't want any negative associations tacked on to her when all she wants to do is get through the exercising part of her day. Her gaze turns upward to the digital numbers that change every few seconds, signaling their ascent, and then switches to Castle as he refers to her current condition.

"That's usually what happens when you do enough to work up a sweat," Beckett answers, as the doors finally open and she steps through, past rows of workout equipment and weights to the mat, bordered by punching bags. She bends into another stretch, leaning forward until her fingertips make contact with her toes, and casts a glance back around her hip.

"You should stretch first."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

The great room is as organized as a Bureau filing cabinet: the aerobic equipment has its place, sectioned off from the weights, which are in turn cordoned off from the open floor mats. Castle passes a piece of equipment that would not be out of place in some of the clubs he'd been to during his last Miami press tour. Beckett's smooth sarcasm rolls off his back like sweat off...well, any of the objects in here.

He drops his bag beside the wall and bounces a little on his heels. The mats've got a big of spring to them. This would be fun, especially if it was extracurricular.

"Oh, I should be okay." He waves off her suggestion. "Sprinted to the head of the line at Starbucks this morning. I'm already pretty limber."

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett straightens and winds her arms behind her back, fingers lacing together. There might be a small crack or two, but small pops are good here and there as long as it's not dislocating; they mean the spine is readjusting itself. She swings her arms down, rolls her head from side-to-side, but the smirk isn't exactly part of her normal stretching repetoire.

"Uh huh." She's almost tempted to start a bet that he'll be icing a pulled something-or-other by this time tomorrow, but she doesn't comment out loud, resting her hands on her hips.

"Want to try out a bag, Castle, or do you think you can take on a moving target?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Oh, I'm ready for the big leagues," he intones, a prize fighter egging on his competition. "Hope you like gravity, Detective, because you're about to get dropped."

Now, he's aware that she's got several advantages that he doesn't -- training, speed, and youth among them -- and that the only physical activity he gets these days is either an on-foot pursuit or, more commonly, the effort it takes to walk from his laptop to the kitchen for another beer. None of that matters now. It's a matter of pride.

He steps onto the mat, taking exaggerated steps, stretching his calves. "Don't go easy on me," he says, turning to face her and square his stance. "Whatever you dish out, I can take it."

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett's chortle of a laugh suggests that his threat couldn't be any less threatening as she moves to face him, squaring her shoulders and positioning herself on the balls of her feet.

He doesn't want her to go easy on him. She can respect that, the fact that he really is trying to square off against her as something resembling an equal opponent. At the same time, everything she's got against everything he's got would likely land him in the hospital, and she'd feel pretty guilty if she was the cause of any major injuries. She doesn't want to hurt him, but at the same time, she's seen him take a pretty heavy punch or two without so much as a small bruise blossoming on his jaw. So maybe she's curious to see how much he can handle.

And maybe curiosity trumps potential guilt right now.

But she starts off slow, with a few jabs that he can block with relative ease.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's not completely up a creek: he's got his fencing chops and he championed Alexis through two years of Taekwondo, watching her advance from geup to first dan. Of course, fencing is a gentleman's sport and Castle had divided his time between watching Alexis and watching the mothers of the other exemplary children, so he might have missed out on the whole 'avoid getting your ass kicked by a girl' prerogative.

Even so, he's tense as a piano wire when she comes at him, throwing his elbows up to protect himself from her fists. It will take them both a minute or two to feel each other out.

"I'm sorry. Were we sparring or blowing the puff off dandelions?"

He turns around her in a tight circle, trying to keep himself as light as possible.

[fanofthegenre]

Usually, she's accustomed to sparring with a trainer, someone who's practiced and taught others for years on end, someone she knows she can go all out with without fear of potential injury or bruised ego. Here, with Castle, there's an on-going risk of both.

Beckett quickly eases back into a defensive position, watching him closely for any signs he'll go in at her while her guard is lowered. Right now, it's a matter of matching up, like trying to figure out where to put your hands on the person you're dancing with. She fakes another hit to his left cheek and follows it up with a none-too gentle jab along his unprotected right side.

"Them's fighting words," she challenges. "Hope you can back them up."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle bobs his shoulder away from the fake-out blow, making the fatal mistake of exposing his right side to her fist. The jab lands just beneath his ribcage and gets an "oof out of him. She's stepping up her game. Not merely playing with him anymore, but still holding something back. Not that Castle's keen to get his ribs (or his ego) bruised too badly, but he doesn't want this to be a waste of time for her, either.

"Words are what I do."

He steps forward with his left foot, briging his elbow up underneath her raised hands, striking her laterally along her ribcage.

[fanofthegenre]

"You're gonna need a lot more than words to take me down, Castle," Beckett taunts.

The blow to her side is enough to cause a stumble, a break in her rhythm, but not hard enough to bruise, though her face doesn't reflect her surprise in the unexpected while she recovers. She spins, using her forearm to catch him in the shoulder, but exposes her back to him in the process. It's a risky move, but sometimes risks are necessary when it comes to this kind of thing. Besides, she's hardly anticipating that he'll know how to turn the move against her. Right?

Right.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Bright pop of almost-pain in his shoulder and Castle is already in his freezer looking for a bag of snow peas. He's going to hurt tomorrow. Doesn't matter, because he feels her attention shift for a moment and it's that moment he goes for -- 'slides his arm around her waist and pulls her backward, off her feet, against his chest.

[fanofthegenre]

"Castle - "

Her arm is pinned against her side in this reverse bear-hug he's pulled her into, toes barely touching the mat. She has one of two options: give up, or fight back. All she has to do is figure out how to pull her arm out, get free.

They've got an audience by this point - a few agents standing at the edge of the mat. Beckett's pretty sure they're making bets.

She uses all the weight she can muster to swing herself forward, jamming the heel of her foot down against his instep, and then continues to roll in that motion with the intent of flipping him over her shoulder. Her leg gets twisted between the both of his and she trips over his heel, sending them both sprawling out over the mat with Castle crushing her.

"Ow," she mutters.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

The top of Castle's foot gets jammed with painful signals and it's enough for him to lose his balance, his arms curling protectively around Beckett's middle, the mat heading for their foreheads at an unsettling speed.

One of the sideline agents calls out -- "Alley-oop!" -- and Castle jams the point of his elbow down in front of him to avoid dropping all of his weight onto Beckett at once. He breathes hard against her shoulder blade.

"I think I busted my --" he slides his hand over his hip, brushing her ribs on the way "-- you okay?"

[fanofthegenre]

"M'fine," she insists, though it's hard for her words to maintain any credibility with her cheek smashed up against one side of the mat the way it is right now. She rolls over onto her side, then her back, her forearm unconsciously splayed across Castle's hipbone.

Wolf whistles and catcalls reach her ears, and she ignores the momentary stab of something low in her gut, working quickly to extricate her limbs from his. When she rises to her feet, there's a certain favoring of the leg that hadn't gotten tangled between his - at worst, a twisted ankle, which she can handle.

She reaches down, putting her weight on her non-wrenched foot, to offer him a hand.

"Y'alright?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle rolls onto his back and counts ceiling tiles for a few seconds, testing his toes at the bottom of his feet. He skids his palm behind him and accepts her helpful hand, levering himself off the mat. "Yeah. Okay, so, for future reference? 'Never sneak up behind you while you're raiding the fridge in the middle of the night."

His shoulder's tight and sore. He puts his fingers in the joint between his arm and neck and tries to push out the kink. 'Gives Beckett an appreciative look. "That was pretty impressive. The way you --" he pantomimes heaving something forward over his shoulder "-- gotta' find a way to turn that into a narrative."

[fanofthegenre]

"Yeah," she agrees - she's not out-of-breath, per se, but the upset of her equilibrium is enough to leave her relatively dazed for a moment or two, and reflexively, she reaches up to re-do her ponytail, a good number of pieces having fallen out in their attempt at a scuffle.

"It's all about using the other person's weight against them," Beckett admits, her hands falling to her sides. By this point, their audience seems to have dwindled, though not without a brief exchange of bills. Beckett pointedly ignores them and steps in, towards Castle.

"Want me to show you how?" Her grin shows up in her gaze before it appears on her lips. "Or are you done?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Show me," he says immediately, almost trampling her question altogether. A beat, during which he realizes she could misconstrue his intentions, then, "For the sake of an accurate narrative."

Accurate narrative.

Bull.

[fanofthegenre]

"Okay."

She rolls her shoulders again, trying to prevent herself from tensing up. The last thing they need is for either of them to get too stiff. Her hands find his, guiding them to her shoulders, while hers mirror the position on his, arms resting outside his.

"The trick to the move is more of a hip-throw than a shoulder-flip, because it puts less strain on your back," Beckett explains. "But it's good to start facing your opponent, because you usually go from there. Now, what you want to do is step away from me and turn around, but grab one of my arms and pull it over your shoulder, hard, so I lose my balance."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Lift with your legs, not with your back," he remembers dutifully. "Unless you're lawn-darting a member of the Italian mafia. Then you lift with whatever you can to avoid a nap with the fishes."

He listens to her instructions, registers her consent with his eyes, then tries the move in slow motion: step, turn, twist, pull. He feels her body drape against his spine. He might pretend to be hard of hearing for her next set of instructions.

[fanofthegenre]

"Less talk, more pull," Beckett mutters, until she's forced forward onto her tiptoes by the angle that has her pressing against his back, her hips flush against his rear. She blows a rebellious strand of hair out of her face and nods her approval, slipping her wrist from his grasp and backing up to start over from the first step.

"Okay, good. This time, when you pull me forward, bend your knees to sort of hoist my weight up onto you, and then flip me over your hip - " Her hand moves to the correct placement on him. " - right here.

"The idea is to let the ground knock the wind out of your opponent, and since they're falling from hip level, they hit the ground faster, which makes it harder for them to recover. If you tried to flip me over your shoulder, it'd be easier for me to land on my feet, you know?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"That makes sense." He should be taking notes. His thumb slides beneath the shallow dip in her elbow where all of the nerves come together, the rest of his fingers rounding out around the curve of her forearm.

"I didn't know that being one of the Blue came with a physics lesson."

[fanofthegenre]

"Even spontaneity can have some kind of logic to it," she says, moving with him as he turns and winding up in the position, her back curved as she covers him.

"Try to flip me," she adds, her breath hovering next to his ear as she shifts to give the illusion of a struggling opponent.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle pushes his nose over his shoulder, angling a grin in her direction. "Let me think about it." Her breath in his ear and her body over his back are a pair of pretty interesting distractions. 'Hard not to think about what one shift of his hand might do -- except, of course, to attract the attention of the half dozen Gs who're trying (and failing) not to look interested in the match.

He pushes his thumb into her palm and squeezes her knuckles, tipping her off that he's going to go for it. It's slow at first, Castle getting his bearings and his gravity, but he gets the idea and she bends over his back. He feels her arm brace itself against the pull. 'Remembers a moment later to bend at the knees so she won't have far to fall. It's not graceful and she ends up sliding to the floor rather than going over in a heap, but that's because Castle is simultaneously trying to spare her body and his back.

His fingers are still wound 'round her wrist.

"You okay?"

He's panting a little.

[fanofthegenre]

She doesn't want to offer him any help in the movement, but at the same time, she wants to make this easy on both of them, a practice run-through and enough for him to get the basic idea rather than something sloppy that will hurt both of them again. She doesn't resist when he pulls, and performs somewhat of a sideways roll off of his hip as he moves forward to bring her there. At the last second, her free hand slaps the mat to spare her body the force of friction, and she finds she's not nearly as breathless when her back hits the ground. If this were the real thing, the wind would quite effectively be knocked out of her.

"Yeah," she murmurs, her brow furrowed with effort as she squints up at him.

That quickly gives way to a grin of encouragement, and her fingers wind around his hand, using her hold to pull herself back to her feet. Furtively, her eyes check him for any signs that he's hurting, but there doesn't seem to be any unbearable pain.

"That was good," Beckett adds, her hand lingering in his for another moment until she remembers to let go.