Going Under, Chapter 3: A post-5x11 (Under the Influence) Castle Three-Shot
Title: Going Under, Chapter 3
WC: ~3700 this chapter, ~13K total
Rating: T.
Spoilers: Under the Influence, I suppose . . .
A/N: So. Remember when this was a one-shot? Good times. Good times.
This is jadedromantic13's fault. I have a job, you know. YOU ALL HAVE TO STOP MAKING THE PRETTY PEOPLE TALK IN MY HEAD. No, seriously. Thank you everyone for the nice reviews.
I suppose this also comes of a desire to redeem both canon Ryan for his 48-month record cockblocking streak AND to give disturbing sex-den-dwelling Ryan from Silent Night, Ferret Night a shot at redemption, too.
If you don't know the cartoon, you can find it here
So cute!
It was supposed to be funny. It still is funny to Esposito, apparently. He's making money hand over fist on oddball bets today, but Ryan feels bad for them. They have their good days and their bad days and then their days like these when they're out of step with each other. Days when the air around them crackles and everyone else has a sudden desire for popcorn and a ringside seat.
He wishes everyone-almost everyone (hopefully only almost everyone)-didn't know. It was different when it was all speculation. Will they, won't they, are they already, when the hell would they finally and so on. That was fun. Like solving a case, but without someone having to die.
Well . . . probably without someone having to die. Sometimes Castle reminds him of the kitten prancing around a construction site in the old cartoons while the bulldog babysitter chases along behind, saving him from one disaster after another.
It's all less fun now. Now that he definitely knows and almost everyone else probably knows and Gates definitely can't know (unless she already knows and is pretending she doesn't know) . . . anyway, it's less fun now. Now he feels like the bulldog babysitter.
He feels like the bulldog babysitter and that scarf is an I-Beam dangling from a crane and they're about to blindly crawl off the end of it and plummet to disaster. Plummet.
It's not just him. However much the guys like to give him grief about being in touch with his feminine side, it's not just him. It's a nice scarf. Good with her coloring and goes with the sweater, but it's not fooling anyone. Everybody knows what's under the scarf, and it's days like this that he wishes he didn't know any of it.
He's happy for them. Of course he's happy for them. But it's nerve wracking to be one of the few who knows officially.
He's no gossip, but he still comes in for a lot of hedging and not a little bald-faced lying when someone asks point blank. That's been happening a lot lately. They're slipping. After eight months, you'd think it would level off a little, but apparently not. They're slipping.
And it's not just things like the scarf itself-and by the way, he'd kept his mouth shut about that: It was Esposito who'd called hickey first-it's things like Beckett missing the trash can when she tossed the price tag. He'd caught it before anyone else could find it (and it was blind luck that it was LT who caught him flushing it; LT doesn't ask questions; Ryan wishes everyone could be like LT), but what if he hadn't? There's only one thing in the bullpen today that could possibly have that kind of price tag.
And even if they didn't already know? Well, that "whispered" argument sealed it for a bunch of people.
So probably almost everyone knows, but they don't need to know the kind of money Castle can drop on spur-of-the-moment things like that scarf. Beckett doesn't need that kind of talk about why she's with Castle. She doesn't deserve that. Neither does Castle.
So he lies for them when it comes to that. Because it's no one's business. Because they're his family. Because the stakes are higher than he thinks most of the gawkers, even Esposito, realize. He lies for them, but he doesn't like it.
Sometimes he wishes he didn't know.
She's not wrong. Beckett isn't wrong about the . . . features of this particular interrogation room. He and Jenny have made good use of it more than once on her "teacher institute" days. Lots of people have. But he and Jenny are old hat and Beckett and Castle aren't lots of people.
He also has reason to suspect that maybe he and Jenny haven't fully explored quite all the room's features. He really wishes he didn't have recent, pretty compelling evidence leading him to suspect that. He really, really wishes he didn't. But he makes the best of it and files the suspicion away for future reference.
In the mean time, he stands guard.
The problem is that people know about Castle and Beckett, but they don't know and they hate that. They hate not knowing for sure, and that makes them do crazy things. Crazy things like follow Beckett down this particular hallway when they know full well that she can and would kill any one of them without remorse for prying into her personal life. And Lanie would cheerfully and truthfully list cause of death as suicide.
So he stands guard.
It's a good thing that Javier is all over this case. Castle can't take his eyes off Beckett. Specific areas of Beckett. And she clearly has no attention to spare, either. So Ryan is camped out at this end of the hall for the foreseeable future, running interference with the nosier and more death-wish-prone members of Homicide and a few from Robbery. What the hell are the Robbery guys even doing up here? Anyway, he's running interference, Castle and Beckett are either fighting or making up or both, so it's good that Esposito has this one.
Ryan makes a mental note that interrogation four is pretty soundproof, but not as soundproof as one might hope. He makes a mental note and tries to think of other things. Quieter, other things that won't keep him up nights.
He's never been big on psychology. He thinks it's just a lot of fancy talk to state the obvious. But that whole Primal Scene thing? Yeah, Freud might've been on to something there.
All he can really do is scowl. He's tried ignoring the comments. He's tried redirecting. With the cases they're all theoretically working. With other precinct gossip. But every single one of them is like a dog with a bone, so all he can do is scowl.
It's kind of pointless, his scowl. Beckett has her glare fully deployed and they just keep coming at her anyway. He wonders when knowing about her and Castle became something worth dying over to these people. If she does snap and kill someone it's not on him. He can't bulldog babysit the whole precinct.
Castle really isn't helping. He's still having staring issues, but now he's getting in on the glare action, too. It's just as pointless as Ryan's own scowl. Neither of them has it when it comes to being menacing, but Castle's giving it the old college try.
It gets worse with every comment. Ryan doesn't blame him. The comments are pretty ridiculous and they just keep coming, but Castle's version of the glare has no effect at all. He looks like he's doing a bad Esposito impression, and Ryan has a terrible feeling he's about to do something stupid like try to defend Beckett's honor.
That would be bad. Really bad for Castle, who'd be dead, but also bad for Beckett, who'd feel guilty. Eventually she'd feel guilty. Even if Lanie still ruled it a suicide.
Castle's sad imitation glare gets really alarming around the time the word "lubricant" comes up. Ryan thinks about shooting himself in the foot to escape the whole situation, but Castle is a friend, and friends don't let friends attempt suicide by cop. Especially not suicide by girlfriend cop.
So he does the only thing he can think of: He casually mentions that one end of Robbery is practically a ghost town, thanks to the remodeling. Beckett's glare takes a different turn entirely. It's her sexy glare.
Oh, God. She has a sexy glare. He recognizes his boss's sexy glare and now he'll never be able to unrecognize it. Recognizing his boss's sexy glare has almost certainly become part of his daily life.
But at least Beckett is getting out of there. She's stalking off toward the elevator. Maybe when she goes, he'll be able to put it out of his mind at least. The sexy glare and everything.
Nope. There it is. Sexy glare.
He wonders if it's too late to pursue a lower stress career like fire jumping.
The janitorial staff knows. The janitorial staff is in on a number of the stranger bets and now their money is burning a hole in Ryan's pocket until he can hand it off to Esposito. He does not want to think about what insider knowledge might have led to them placing those bets, but the fact that they're in on the least secret secret in all of New York works in Ryan's favor right now. Because he needs to borrow a "Closed for Cleaning" cone and Frank is motivated to lend it to him.
He thinks the cone might be enough-that he might actually be able to get some work done if there's any to do-but he's three steps from the men's room door when it starts. The muttering. Castle's a pretty observant guy, but apparently he hasn't noticed that muttering really carries in a public rest room.
Ryan can't quite make out the words. He doesn't want to make out the words. But he also doesn't want anyone else to make out the words. He would like there to be a lot less making out in his work life in general. He doesn't want anyone else to know that Castle has locked himself in a bathroom stall for the last 25 minutes. It just . . . looks bad. Even if the muttering sounds like nonspecific annoyance.
Nonspecific annoyance. No details of any kind. That's Ryan's story and he's sticking to it.
He leans against the wall a few feet away from the bathroom door and listens. Listens for approaching footsteps. He is not listening to Castle's definitely nonspecific, annoyed mutterings. A few guys approach and he pretends like he was about to use the men's room and only just saw the cone.
He makes small talk to cover the muttering and suddenly finds himself trapped in a conversation about Beckett's hair. Beckett's "sex hair" as Sadowski keeps calling it. Sadowski is apparently oblivious to Ryan's scowl. He makes a note to ask Javi for some scowling pointers.
What feels like 100 years later, Sadowski's bladder finally ends the conversation. Ryan adds "saved by Sadowski's bladder" to the list of things he doesn't want to think about and cocks a hopeful ear toward the bathroom door. But Castle is still muttering. It's been half an hour and he is still muttering.
Ryan wonders if Frank is going to want his cone back at some point. Doesn't he have some bathrooms he really should be cleaning? Isn't anyone working?
Working on work work. Castle's working hard at something and whether he likes it or not, Ryan is making out some of the muttering now. Every third mutter is a pained Ow and something small keeps clattering to the floor. He's sewing buttons. Castle is sewing buttons and there's another thing that Ryan can't un-know.
He tries to make his mind go blank, but there's another clatter and clunk as Castle roots around the floor for a button and he distinctly hears something about "hair pins." Ryan tells himself he's not thinking about sex hair or sex glare or the fact that hair and glare rhyme. He's just not.
He's just not.
He's sweating through his shirt, and that gel Jenny bought him does not deliver on the hold it promised. He's a mess and no one has said anything. He doesn't know if it's a guy thing or a married thing. He doesn't know if he should be flattered or offended.
He drops into his desk chair for and settles for relieved. They're out of the way.
It was a mad scramble when Frank showed up wanting his cone back just when Sadowski reared his ugly head for the second time. Sadowski should really have his prostate checked. Of course, Sadowski's probably thinking the same thing about him. If he's lucky that's what's Sadowski's thinking.
If he's not lucky some really strange bets are about to start showing up. He wonders what a reputation as a swinger will do for his street cred and quickly adds it to the giant list of things he wants not to have to wonder about. Along with Sadowski's prostate.
Lucky or not, chasing off Sadowski had been the easy part. Relatively easy once Frank decided to pick up on his pleading look and join in the effort. His detailed description of what, exactly, spewed out of the "broken sewer pipe" might have been overkill, but it got the job done, but Frank is apparently in it to win it. Sadowski had headed for the other men's room looking a little desperate.
But Frank really did need the cone, and that meant Castle needed not to be muttering and sewing and whatever. But he also needed not to be in the bullpen, because the bulldog babysitter needed a break. They all needed a break.
Ryan had almost forgotten about the machine room. Apparently so had everyone else. The trick to the lock still worked and it was still empty other than a dark electrical switching station and a couple of inches of dust. And it's out of the way-way out of the way-and the scuttlebutt from Frank is that Castle and Beckett are not picky about ambiance.
It's a miracle no one had caught him surreptitiously banging on the ductwork. That no one even wondered about what had to be really weird sounds working their way through the ductwork. Apparently no one around her wondered about anything that wasn't Castle-and-Beckett related.
Except Castle. But of course, he was wondering for Castle-and-Beckett related reasons. And he'd almost gotten lost. Ryan had had to double back around and now Hickey thinks he's training for a half marathon and that guy will never shut up about the benefits of barefoot running and those really gross toe shoes.
But mission accomplished: They're out of the way.
For now, they're out of the way.
He might just let them kill each other.
Jenny would be sad to lose her friends. He might eventually be sad to lose them. But right now, letting them kill each other seems pretty reasonable because Beckett is not wearing a bra.
And it's not like he knows this because he spends a lot of time staring at his boss's chest. He knows this because (a) Castle spends a lot of time staring at his boss's chest and right now he is walking into things because he can't stare at anything else, and (b) Beckett is wriggling her shoulders and not-at-all-stealthily rubbing her back and her front against the murder board, the bulletin board, the edge of the height-appropriate stair, and so on.
Beckett is not wearing a bra and the two of them could not be more obvious and he can probably make Jenny understand why he had to let them kill each other.
The problem is that Beckett will take Castle out in a matter of minutes and then they're back to dead Castle, eventually guilty Beckett, and probably a lot of paperwork if it happens in the precinct. And braless Beckett being interrogated. Even if he armed Castle to give him a fighting chance . . .
He's rifling through Beckett's desk. Castle is. He keeps holding things up, looking hopeful. And Beckett keeps shooting him down. Not literally. Not yet.
Which isn't to say that Ryan's hand wasn't on his own weapon when Castle asked about chafing in something he seemed to think was a whisper. But Beckett never even went for her own piece. She must really love him.
Damn. He can't let them kill each other, can he?
He pokes the bear. He doesn't feel good about it, but something's got to give here. So he pokes the bear.
He waits for the perfect accomplice to present himself. It has to be a guy, but it has to be the right guy. LT's no good. Castle knows him. Knows LT isn't the type, and he won't take the bait. Sadowski is too . . . ew. Esposito and "Monster" pass by, probably on yet another soda run; he briefly considers the kid and rejects the idea.
Weaver steps out of the elevator and Ryan quickly scans his memory for everything he knows about the Robbery Detective. He's new. Young and generally a nice guy from what Ryan remembers. And he likes Beckett's elephants. Literal elephants. Desk elephants. He'd asked about them earlier.
Beckett's just sliding back behind her desk and Castle's leaning in and the timing is perfect. Ryan grabs Weaver by the elbow and kicks his own wastebasket. The clang does its job. Castle and Beckett do a synchronized swivel toward the noise.
Weaver looks startled as Ryan shakes his head urgently. He leans in.
"Don't ask about the elephants," Ryan hisses.
Weaver's eyes dart toward Beckett's desk and it looks for all the world like he's staring at her chest.
Castle's eyes narrow and he starts to rise from his chair. Beckett yanks on his wrist and he sits back down. Hard.
Weaver gives Ryan a panicked look and heads right back to the elevator.
Beckett says about five words to Castle and he skulks off toward the break room. She makes a phone call. It's quick, but she looks relieved. Still annoyed. Still in sexy glare mode, but relieved. She has a plan. She has a plan that doesn't involve him and Ryan thinks it's about damned time.
Castle comes back, but he's subdued. Beckett dials her glare back a little and Ryan thinks they might all live to see another day.
Sometimes you just have to poke the bear.
Maybe he shouldn't have poked the bear. Maybe she should have involved him in her plan. She should have involved someone. Like Castle, maybe. Not that he's trying to place blame, but one of them should or shouldn't have done something and Ryan hopes it's not him.
Whoever should or shouldn't have done something, it's game over. After that scene, there isn't cop in the precinct who doesn't know know that they're together.
Esposito has payouts to make. Lots and lots of payouts. He sends Joey on an errand to Robbery's vending machine for Funyuns, with a very confused and timid Weaver escorting. At least Javier recognizes that making book on his friends' private lives doesn't fall under the heading of setting a good example.
Beckett looks worried. No more sexy glare. Just worried. She should be. Because everyone knows now. Except maybe Gates. Hopefully not Gates.
But that's not what Beckett's worried about. She's worried about Castle, so why doesn't she just execute her plan, whatever it is? Have one last hurrah somewhere without dust and suspect funk and damaged clothing. Somewhere without the vultures circling overhead. Because it's over.
Sadowski raises his hands in an over-the-top gesture of surrender as Ryan storms by him on his way through the door. It looks like the man with the probable prostate trouble is Esposito's last customer.
"How can you do it, Javi?" Ryan's voice is quiet and it catches his partner's attention quicker than yelling ever could. "This is it. Don't you get that? Everyone knows now. Castle's gone. Who knows what'll happen to Beckett. Two disciplinary actions in one year? She's probably gone, too."
Esposito's face darkens, but he doesn't say anything. Not right away. Ryan's seen that look once before, but he stands his ground.
Esposito stands his for minute, then blinks. "You done?"
"For now," Ryan shoots back.
"So I can say something, then. Because you're done."
"Yeah," he says simply. "I think I'm done."
"Ok then. So you wanna tell me if you're mad about them breaking up or mad because you didn't put money on it like all those lucky winners did?"
Esposito gestures to the bullpen. A dozen guys or more are milling around, some of the sulking, some of them not-so-subtly fanning out their cash.
"Break up?" Ryan looks from the bullpen to his partner and back again. "They broke up. They broke up!"
"How can you do it Javi?" Esposito mimics, pitching his voice high and nasal. He shakes his head. "The hell's wrong with you?"
Ryan drops into a chair, weak with relief. The bulldog babysitter is officially off duty.
A sudden silence has them both sitting up. The knots of winners and losers break up and guiltily drift away as Beckett strides through the bullpen, oblivious.
"Hey, boys."
Ryan thinks that maybe the bulldog babysitter can't knock off just yet. She's anxious and they don't want anyone thinking she's running after Castle to kiss and make up.
She gives them both a strange look. Like she knows something's off but she doesn't care. "Where are we with everything?"
Ryan looks to Esposito who gives the slightest shake of his head. One of them is going to have to have a talk with the two of them about clandestine nookie in the workplace. Ryan thinks it'll probably be him. He and Jenny may not have taken full advantage of interrogation four, but they've also never been caught. Old hat or not, it's more than anyone else on the team can say.
Esposito spins in his chair. "Under control, Beckett."
At that very moment, every single thing Ryan wishes he didn't know pops into his head and the set up is almost irresistible. Almost. Because that is not Beckett's sexy glare and Lanie will rule it a suicide. He clears his throat.
"Good," she says and it's close to normal. That's good. Close to normal will be good to work with when they have their clandestine nookie talk. "Good. I'm gonna head out of here for the night then. Enjoy your sleepover, Javi."
"You too, Beckett," Esposito calls over his shoulder.
He can't. He just can't resist. Not after the day he's had.
"Yeah, you too," he echoes.
WC: ~3700 this chapter, ~13K total
Rating: T.
Spoilers: Under the Influence, I suppose . . .
A/N: So. Remember when this was a one-shot? Good times. Good times.
This is jadedromantic13's fault. I have a job, you know. YOU ALL HAVE TO STOP MAKING THE PRETTY PEOPLE TALK IN MY HEAD. No, seriously. Thank you everyone for the nice reviews.
I suppose this also comes of a desire to redeem both canon Ryan for his 48-month record cockblocking streak AND to give disturbing sex-den-dwelling Ryan from Silent Night, Ferret Night a shot at redemption, too.
If you don't know the cartoon, you can find it here
So cute!
It was supposed to be funny. It still is funny to Esposito, apparently. He's making money hand over fist on oddball bets today, but Ryan feels bad for them. They have their good days and their bad days and then their days like these when they're out of step with each other. Days when the air around them crackles and everyone else has a sudden desire for popcorn and a ringside seat.
He wishes everyone-almost everyone (hopefully only almost everyone)-didn't know. It was different when it was all speculation. Will they, won't they, are they already, when the hell would they finally and so on. That was fun. Like solving a case, but without someone having to die.
Well . . . probably without someone having to die. Sometimes Castle reminds him of the kitten prancing around a construction site in the old cartoons while the bulldog babysitter chases along behind, saving him from one disaster after another.
It's all less fun now. Now that he definitely knows and almost everyone else probably knows and Gates definitely can't know (unless she already knows and is pretending she doesn't know) . . . anyway, it's less fun now. Now he feels like the bulldog babysitter.
He feels like the bulldog babysitter and that scarf is an I-Beam dangling from a crane and they're about to blindly crawl off the end of it and plummet to disaster. Plummet.
It's not just him. However much the guys like to give him grief about being in touch with his feminine side, it's not just him. It's a nice scarf. Good with her coloring and goes with the sweater, but it's not fooling anyone. Everybody knows what's under the scarf, and it's days like this that he wishes he didn't know any of it.
He's happy for them. Of course he's happy for them. But it's nerve wracking to be one of the few who knows officially.
He's no gossip, but he still comes in for a lot of hedging and not a little bald-faced lying when someone asks point blank. That's been happening a lot lately. They're slipping. After eight months, you'd think it would level off a little, but apparently not. They're slipping.
And it's not just things like the scarf itself-and by the way, he'd kept his mouth shut about that: It was Esposito who'd called hickey first-it's things like Beckett missing the trash can when she tossed the price tag. He'd caught it before anyone else could find it (and it was blind luck that it was LT who caught him flushing it; LT doesn't ask questions; Ryan wishes everyone could be like LT), but what if he hadn't? There's only one thing in the bullpen today that could possibly have that kind of price tag.
And even if they didn't already know? Well, that "whispered" argument sealed it for a bunch of people.
So probably almost everyone knows, but they don't need to know the kind of money Castle can drop on spur-of-the-moment things like that scarf. Beckett doesn't need that kind of talk about why she's with Castle. She doesn't deserve that. Neither does Castle.
So he lies for them when it comes to that. Because it's no one's business. Because they're his family. Because the stakes are higher than he thinks most of the gawkers, even Esposito, realize. He lies for them, but he doesn't like it.
Sometimes he wishes he didn't know.
She's not wrong. Beckett isn't wrong about the . . . features of this particular interrogation room. He and Jenny have made good use of it more than once on her "teacher institute" days. Lots of people have. But he and Jenny are old hat and Beckett and Castle aren't lots of people.
He also has reason to suspect that maybe he and Jenny haven't fully explored quite all the room's features. He really wishes he didn't have recent, pretty compelling evidence leading him to suspect that. He really, really wishes he didn't. But he makes the best of it and files the suspicion away for future reference.
In the mean time, he stands guard.
The problem is that people know about Castle and Beckett, but they don't know and they hate that. They hate not knowing for sure, and that makes them do crazy things. Crazy things like follow Beckett down this particular hallway when they know full well that she can and would kill any one of them without remorse for prying into her personal life. And Lanie would cheerfully and truthfully list cause of death as suicide.
So he stands guard.
It's a good thing that Javier is all over this case. Castle can't take his eyes off Beckett. Specific areas of Beckett. And she clearly has no attention to spare, either. So Ryan is camped out at this end of the hall for the foreseeable future, running interference with the nosier and more death-wish-prone members of Homicide and a few from Robbery. What the hell are the Robbery guys even doing up here? Anyway, he's running interference, Castle and Beckett are either fighting or making up or both, so it's good that Esposito has this one.
Ryan makes a mental note that interrogation four is pretty soundproof, but not as soundproof as one might hope. He makes a mental note and tries to think of other things. Quieter, other things that won't keep him up nights.
He's never been big on psychology. He thinks it's just a lot of fancy talk to state the obvious. But that whole Primal Scene thing? Yeah, Freud might've been on to something there.
All he can really do is scowl. He's tried ignoring the comments. He's tried redirecting. With the cases they're all theoretically working. With other precinct gossip. But every single one of them is like a dog with a bone, so all he can do is scowl.
It's kind of pointless, his scowl. Beckett has her glare fully deployed and they just keep coming at her anyway. He wonders when knowing about her and Castle became something worth dying over to these people. If she does snap and kill someone it's not on him. He can't bulldog babysit the whole precinct.
Castle really isn't helping. He's still having staring issues, but now he's getting in on the glare action, too. It's just as pointless as Ryan's own scowl. Neither of them has it when it comes to being menacing, but Castle's giving it the old college try.
It gets worse with every comment. Ryan doesn't blame him. The comments are pretty ridiculous and they just keep coming, but Castle's version of the glare has no effect at all. He looks like he's doing a bad Esposito impression, and Ryan has a terrible feeling he's about to do something stupid like try to defend Beckett's honor.
That would be bad. Really bad for Castle, who'd be dead, but also bad for Beckett, who'd feel guilty. Eventually she'd feel guilty. Even if Lanie still ruled it a suicide.
Castle's sad imitation glare gets really alarming around the time the word "lubricant" comes up. Ryan thinks about shooting himself in the foot to escape the whole situation, but Castle is a friend, and friends don't let friends attempt suicide by cop. Especially not suicide by girlfriend cop.
So he does the only thing he can think of: He casually mentions that one end of Robbery is practically a ghost town, thanks to the remodeling. Beckett's glare takes a different turn entirely. It's her sexy glare.
Oh, God. She has a sexy glare. He recognizes his boss's sexy glare and now he'll never be able to unrecognize it. Recognizing his boss's sexy glare has almost certainly become part of his daily life.
But at least Beckett is getting out of there. She's stalking off toward the elevator. Maybe when she goes, he'll be able to put it out of his mind at least. The sexy glare and everything.
Nope. There it is. Sexy glare.
He wonders if it's too late to pursue a lower stress career like fire jumping.
The janitorial staff knows. The janitorial staff is in on a number of the stranger bets and now their money is burning a hole in Ryan's pocket until he can hand it off to Esposito. He does not want to think about what insider knowledge might have led to them placing those bets, but the fact that they're in on the least secret secret in all of New York works in Ryan's favor right now. Because he needs to borrow a "Closed for Cleaning" cone and Frank is motivated to lend it to him.
He thinks the cone might be enough-that he might actually be able to get some work done if there's any to do-but he's three steps from the men's room door when it starts. The muttering. Castle's a pretty observant guy, but apparently he hasn't noticed that muttering really carries in a public rest room.
Ryan can't quite make out the words. He doesn't want to make out the words. But he also doesn't want anyone else to make out the words. He would like there to be a lot less making out in his work life in general. He doesn't want anyone else to know that Castle has locked himself in a bathroom stall for the last 25 minutes. It just . . . looks bad. Even if the muttering sounds like nonspecific annoyance.
Nonspecific annoyance. No details of any kind. That's Ryan's story and he's sticking to it.
He leans against the wall a few feet away from the bathroom door and listens. Listens for approaching footsteps. He is not listening to Castle's definitely nonspecific, annoyed mutterings. A few guys approach and he pretends like he was about to use the men's room and only just saw the cone.
He makes small talk to cover the muttering and suddenly finds himself trapped in a conversation about Beckett's hair. Beckett's "sex hair" as Sadowski keeps calling it. Sadowski is apparently oblivious to Ryan's scowl. He makes a note to ask Javi for some scowling pointers.
What feels like 100 years later, Sadowski's bladder finally ends the conversation. Ryan adds "saved by Sadowski's bladder" to the list of things he doesn't want to think about and cocks a hopeful ear toward the bathroom door. But Castle is still muttering. It's been half an hour and he is still muttering.
Ryan wonders if Frank is going to want his cone back at some point. Doesn't he have some bathrooms he really should be cleaning? Isn't anyone working?
Working on work work. Castle's working hard at something and whether he likes it or not, Ryan is making out some of the muttering now. Every third mutter is a pained Ow and something small keeps clattering to the floor. He's sewing buttons. Castle is sewing buttons and there's another thing that Ryan can't un-know.
He tries to make his mind go blank, but there's another clatter and clunk as Castle roots around the floor for a button and he distinctly hears something about "hair pins." Ryan tells himself he's not thinking about sex hair or sex glare or the fact that hair and glare rhyme. He's just not.
He's just not.
He's sweating through his shirt, and that gel Jenny bought him does not deliver on the hold it promised. He's a mess and no one has said anything. He doesn't know if it's a guy thing or a married thing. He doesn't know if he should be flattered or offended.
He drops into his desk chair for and settles for relieved. They're out of the way.
It was a mad scramble when Frank showed up wanting his cone back just when Sadowski reared his ugly head for the second time. Sadowski should really have his prostate checked. Of course, Sadowski's probably thinking the same thing about him. If he's lucky that's what's Sadowski's thinking.
If he's not lucky some really strange bets are about to start showing up. He wonders what a reputation as a swinger will do for his street cred and quickly adds it to the giant list of things he wants not to have to wonder about. Along with Sadowski's prostate.
Lucky or not, chasing off Sadowski had been the easy part. Relatively easy once Frank decided to pick up on his pleading look and join in the effort. His detailed description of what, exactly, spewed out of the "broken sewer pipe" might have been overkill, but it got the job done, but Frank is apparently in it to win it. Sadowski had headed for the other men's room looking a little desperate.
But Frank really did need the cone, and that meant Castle needed not to be muttering and sewing and whatever. But he also needed not to be in the bullpen, because the bulldog babysitter needed a break. They all needed a break.
Ryan had almost forgotten about the machine room. Apparently so had everyone else. The trick to the lock still worked and it was still empty other than a dark electrical switching station and a couple of inches of dust. And it's out of the way-way out of the way-and the scuttlebutt from Frank is that Castle and Beckett are not picky about ambiance.
It's a miracle no one had caught him surreptitiously banging on the ductwork. That no one even wondered about what had to be really weird sounds working their way through the ductwork. Apparently no one around her wondered about anything that wasn't Castle-and-Beckett related.
Except Castle. But of course, he was wondering for Castle-and-Beckett related reasons. And he'd almost gotten lost. Ryan had had to double back around and now Hickey thinks he's training for a half marathon and that guy will never shut up about the benefits of barefoot running and those really gross toe shoes.
But mission accomplished: They're out of the way.
For now, they're out of the way.
He might just let them kill each other.
Jenny would be sad to lose her friends. He might eventually be sad to lose them. But right now, letting them kill each other seems pretty reasonable because Beckett is not wearing a bra.
And it's not like he knows this because he spends a lot of time staring at his boss's chest. He knows this because (a) Castle spends a lot of time staring at his boss's chest and right now he is walking into things because he can't stare at anything else, and (b) Beckett is wriggling her shoulders and not-at-all-stealthily rubbing her back and her front against the murder board, the bulletin board, the edge of the height-appropriate stair, and so on.
Beckett is not wearing a bra and the two of them could not be more obvious and he can probably make Jenny understand why he had to let them kill each other.
The problem is that Beckett will take Castle out in a matter of minutes and then they're back to dead Castle, eventually guilty Beckett, and probably a lot of paperwork if it happens in the precinct. And braless Beckett being interrogated. Even if he armed Castle to give him a fighting chance . . .
He's rifling through Beckett's desk. Castle is. He keeps holding things up, looking hopeful. And Beckett keeps shooting him down. Not literally. Not yet.
Which isn't to say that Ryan's hand wasn't on his own weapon when Castle asked about chafing in something he seemed to think was a whisper. But Beckett never even went for her own piece. She must really love him.
Damn. He can't let them kill each other, can he?
He pokes the bear. He doesn't feel good about it, but something's got to give here. So he pokes the bear.
He waits for the perfect accomplice to present himself. It has to be a guy, but it has to be the right guy. LT's no good. Castle knows him. Knows LT isn't the type, and he won't take the bait. Sadowski is too . . . ew. Esposito and "Monster" pass by, probably on yet another soda run; he briefly considers the kid and rejects the idea.
Weaver steps out of the elevator and Ryan quickly scans his memory for everything he knows about the Robbery Detective. He's new. Young and generally a nice guy from what Ryan remembers. And he likes Beckett's elephants. Literal elephants. Desk elephants. He'd asked about them earlier.
Beckett's just sliding back behind her desk and Castle's leaning in and the timing is perfect. Ryan grabs Weaver by the elbow and kicks his own wastebasket. The clang does its job. Castle and Beckett do a synchronized swivel toward the noise.
Weaver looks startled as Ryan shakes his head urgently. He leans in.
"Don't ask about the elephants," Ryan hisses.
Weaver's eyes dart toward Beckett's desk and it looks for all the world like he's staring at her chest.
Castle's eyes narrow and he starts to rise from his chair. Beckett yanks on his wrist and he sits back down. Hard.
Weaver gives Ryan a panicked look and heads right back to the elevator.
Beckett says about five words to Castle and he skulks off toward the break room. She makes a phone call. It's quick, but she looks relieved. Still annoyed. Still in sexy glare mode, but relieved. She has a plan. She has a plan that doesn't involve him and Ryan thinks it's about damned time.
Castle comes back, but he's subdued. Beckett dials her glare back a little and Ryan thinks they might all live to see another day.
Sometimes you just have to poke the bear.
Maybe he shouldn't have poked the bear. Maybe she should have involved him in her plan. She should have involved someone. Like Castle, maybe. Not that he's trying to place blame, but one of them should or shouldn't have done something and Ryan hopes it's not him.
Whoever should or shouldn't have done something, it's game over. After that scene, there isn't cop in the precinct who doesn't know know that they're together.
Esposito has payouts to make. Lots and lots of payouts. He sends Joey on an errand to Robbery's vending machine for Funyuns, with a very confused and timid Weaver escorting. At least Javier recognizes that making book on his friends' private lives doesn't fall under the heading of setting a good example.
Beckett looks worried. No more sexy glare. Just worried. She should be. Because everyone knows now. Except maybe Gates. Hopefully not Gates.
But that's not what Beckett's worried about. She's worried about Castle, so why doesn't she just execute her plan, whatever it is? Have one last hurrah somewhere without dust and suspect funk and damaged clothing. Somewhere without the vultures circling overhead. Because it's over.
Sadowski raises his hands in an over-the-top gesture of surrender as Ryan storms by him on his way through the door. It looks like the man with the probable prostate trouble is Esposito's last customer.
"How can you do it, Javi?" Ryan's voice is quiet and it catches his partner's attention quicker than yelling ever could. "This is it. Don't you get that? Everyone knows now. Castle's gone. Who knows what'll happen to Beckett. Two disciplinary actions in one year? She's probably gone, too."
Esposito's face darkens, but he doesn't say anything. Not right away. Ryan's seen that look once before, but he stands his ground.
Esposito stands his for minute, then blinks. "You done?"
"For now," Ryan shoots back.
"So I can say something, then. Because you're done."
"Yeah," he says simply. "I think I'm done."
"Ok then. So you wanna tell me if you're mad about them breaking up or mad because you didn't put money on it like all those lucky winners did?"
Esposito gestures to the bullpen. A dozen guys or more are milling around, some of the sulking, some of them not-so-subtly fanning out their cash.
"Break up?" Ryan looks from the bullpen to his partner and back again. "They broke up. They broke up!"
"How can you do it Javi?" Esposito mimics, pitching his voice high and nasal. He shakes his head. "The hell's wrong with you?"
Ryan drops into a chair, weak with relief. The bulldog babysitter is officially off duty.
A sudden silence has them both sitting up. The knots of winners and losers break up and guiltily drift away as Beckett strides through the bullpen, oblivious.
"Hey, boys."
Ryan thinks that maybe the bulldog babysitter can't knock off just yet. She's anxious and they don't want anyone thinking she's running after Castle to kiss and make up.
She gives them both a strange look. Like she knows something's off but she doesn't care. "Where are we with everything?"
Ryan looks to Esposito who gives the slightest shake of his head. One of them is going to have to have a talk with the two of them about clandestine nookie in the workplace. Ryan thinks it'll probably be him. He and Jenny may not have taken full advantage of interrogation four, but they've also never been caught. Old hat or not, it's more than anyone else on the team can say.
Esposito spins in his chair. "Under control, Beckett."
At that very moment, every single thing Ryan wishes he didn't know pops into his head and the set up is almost irresistible. Almost. Because that is not Beckett's sexy glare and Lanie will rule it a suicide. He clears his throat.
"Good," she says and it's close to normal. That's good. Close to normal will be good to work with when they have their clandestine nookie talk. "Good. I'm gonna head out of here for the night then. Enjoy your sleepover, Javi."
"You too, Beckett," Esposito calls over his shoulder.
He can't. He just can't resist. Not after the day he's had.
"Yeah, you too," he echoes.