Author's Note: Written for
comment_fic's "Castle, Castle/Beckett, They discover the Nikki Heat fandom...and keep coming back
WARNING: Contains references to squicky badfic.
Given all the weird things that they had seen at any number of crime scenes -- the dead guy in the tree, the woman stuffed into the safe, the nanny in the clothes drier --, and given the weird things that Castle came up with to explain a motive for a crime or a possible suspect (which sometimes seemed to have a kernel of truth), Beckett thought he’d developed a high weirdness tolerance. But it turned out there were still some things that left him wibbling.
She walked into the cafe where they were supposed to meet for a just friends cup of coffee, and found him already there, already sitting at a table with his laptop. But for once, he wasn’t tapping away at the keyboard. Instead, he sat staring at the screen, his eyes bugging out and slightly glazed.
"Did you write something that shocked you, Castle?" she asked, pulling a chair away from the table and sitting on it.
He turned the laptop around for her to see. The screen showed a webpage called AdultFanFiction.Net.
"Nikki Heat fan fiction," he explained.
"Fan Fiction?" she asked.
"Original stories, written by fans. Usually it's fairly mild, but this is crazy," he said. "Squicky, even."
She clicked the first link she came to, which lead to a story featuring Nikki Heat and Rook in a situation that made their sex scene in "Heat Wave" seem tame, but the author was clearly a virgin: the human body wasn't even capable of doing, unless the partners involved were trained contortionists.
The second link lead to a fic featuring Nikki and Rook having sex, again, only this time it involved sex aids that made Beckett cringe and cross her legs.
"They put what in where?" she said,
"That's not as bad as the one where they used blood as a lubricant," Castle said, saying the words delicately.
"Isn't there some way you can claim copyright violation? They're using your characters in a way that offends you," Beckett said.
"Some authors have: Diana Gabaldon and Anne Rice have been nasty about it, but it's the last thing I'd want to do to my readers," Castle said. "I got started writing Mickey Spillaine fan fiction."
"You started by writing fan fiction?" she asked.
"It worked for Ray Bradbury and Jim Butcher," Castle said.
Beckett eyed the screen. "I hope you didn't write stuff like this."
Castle closed the lid of the laptop. "Let's say I wrote embarrassingly bad stuff, but not *THIS* brand of embarrassing. I just ended sentences with really awkward prepositions and I frequently didn't let the facts get in the way of a good story."
"Castle, you still do that," Beckett replied, giving him a Look.
***
She'd almost forgotten about Castle's disturbing discovery, when a few nights later, while she was checking her email before turning in, the video chat pinged. She opened the window, and found a squicked Castle on the other end.
"Beckett, we've got a problem," Castle said.
"Horror movie keeping you awake, Castle?" Beckett asked.
"Worse: my mother has found that badfic I showed you," Castle said.
"And?" she asked.
"She thought it was a riot," he replied, completely grossed out. "Want me to send you the link?"
"Hit me," she said.
Castle shifted as he copy-pasted something, then a text box popped up, with several links.
The fics included a gender-swapped between Nikki and Rook -- and the writer clearly didn't realize that women are more then men with different plumbing, some sick thing involving a bicycle pump and another involving Nikki having a gunshot wound and Rook doing things with it that weren't even hygienic.
"Ugh, I can't not know those," Beckett said, clearing the history of the computer to get rid of that stuff. "I hope your mother didn't think that last one was funny, or you might want to consider getting power of attorney."
"Nope, she didn't see that one, at least, but she saw the first two," Castle said.
"Well, they could have been worse."
"I suppose, but right now I want to crawl under a rock."
"I don't blame you."