(Untitled)

[needthepractice]

There's a select group of people scattered throughout the Compound today, any of which someone might happen to run into, but only if they know where to look.

In the IPD Office, there's a tall woman with long brown hair sitting behind one of the auxiliary desks and filling out some long-neglected paperwork. She's been putting off her patrol

Comments

[stormweathered]

Castle hoped that Beckett was bound to look up soon or the looming cup of coffee above her head was going to turn into a dangerous situation in which someone got scalded and someone else got told to sleep in another bed -- and he had a suspicion he knew just who that would be. "Coffee for the overworked?" he piped up.

[stormweathered]

"But!" he began his protest, a heated hint in his voice as he looked desperately at her. "Come on, you have a partner and he probably needs the practice. Right? He doesn't know protocol, so, really, you're just hurting him by not letting him get some more time in," he pointed out, nudging her lightly. "Huh? Hey?"

[needthepractice]

"You're really asking me to shift my responsibility off onto Alistair's shoulders?" Beckett responded, her expression mildly disbelieving as she rose to stand in front of him, arms still crossed. "You know, if he asks, I'm going to be forced to tell him that this was your brilliant idea," she added, voice low and implicative.

[stormweathered]

"He loves me, I'm teaching him poker," Castle said dismissively in the way that he always spoke of the men that he accumulated in his life who were both willing to do him favors and be his bros. They were the best of them, he liked to think.

[needthepractice]

"I knew I never should've allowed you two to meet," Beckett muttered, pretending to be annoyed by the whole thing. In all honesty, she was encouraged by the fact that the two of them were becoming good friends. It made her working relationship with Alistair that much better, knowing that Castle wasn't threatened in any way.

[stormweathered]

"Darling dearest," Castle informed her as he slid his way around the desk to wind his arm around her back, hooking it under her shoulder and tugging her close. He brushed a kiss to her temple with a fond smile. "You could never have stopped me. I have an inexplicable fondness for befriending your male partners."

[needthepractice]

Slowly, she leaned back into him, her hand gently coming up to clasp his wrist, eyes falling shut for a beat or two as she allowed herself to relax in the familiarity of his embrace, his arm slung underneath her shoulder. "No? Well, you do have a knack for winning people over even without my help," she added, grinning slowly.

[stormweathered]

"I wonder how I honed said ability. Maybe I had a challenging person to perfect it on! I don't know, say, the Pope?" he floated the idea with a teasing smile on his face. "I was told this person had lots of onion layers, though, so it could possibly just be the homeless guy on 6th who keeps telling me he has a great queso dip."

[needthepractice]

"Yeah? I think I've heard that guy a time or two before," Beckett murmured, lingering in his space for a minute, her hand stroking along his arm to pull back before she finally rose from her chair, leaning over him. "Why do I get the feeling that this won't exactly end with just looking over potential real estate options?" she added, whispering against his mouth.

[stormweathered]

"Now, you're just muddling my intentions, ma'am," he drawled in the best Western gunslinger accent he could muster. "I only want to look at houses, you're twisting my words into something positively lascivious. How dare you, Miss Beckett?"