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DEAR CASTLE FANDOM:
THIS IS RELEVANT TO YOUR INTERESTS.
It contains such gems as:
I just. I JUST. HOW IS THIS SHOW REAL?
It contains such gems as:
So tonight Espo and I headed out to a swank party on the Upper East Side that our new bouncer friends are working at. Far more nicely dressed than we were the other day and no Crown Vic. (Not that Esposito ever lets me behind the wheel anyhow – he's no fan of my driving. A consequence of growing up in the Bronx, getting my license late in life, and a little incident in the Village a year ago... neutral and reverse look similar, okay?)
I just. I JUST. HOW IS THIS SHOW REAL?
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&them;
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ALL OF IT. EVER.
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This:
I mean, it's fair to say Espo and I have our moments of craziness. That night he attempted to win the karaoke competition by singing Rush's "Tom Sawyer," the week I tried to bring sweater vests back...oh, and the fact that our job is hunting down killers on a daily basis. But hey, hurtling our bodies down the manic streets of Manhattan for minimum wage? I'd say that we're a little more stable than that. No, I didn't say boring, I said stable! Stable is not boring, okay?
*facepalm*
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like this?
"Hey!" Ryan did indignant pretty well for a guy wearing the world's most hideous sweater vest, Esposito thought.
Beckett rolled her eyes. "Stop quoting The Princess Bride, Castle," she said wearily.
"I'm bringing sweater vests back," Ryan explained. "There's a lot more where this came from!"
Castle looked pained. He had just opened his mouth to say something (which, Esposito prayed, would convince his partner to never wear a sweater vest again -- maybe "It's like a yarn factory exploded, and then had ugly little babies with some Silly String," or similar), when Beckett cut him off, corralling Castle toward the door. "Work to do, Castle, let's go," she said. Castle couldn't seem to tear his eyes from the disaster on Ryan's chest, craning his neck back to stare all the way to the elevator.
Esposito, on the other hand, couldn't even look at Ryan. This was not okay with him -- looking at Ryan was one of his favorite things to do. Especially when he was saying dumb shit, like he was now.
"Come on, partner, back me up here. Sweater vests! I don't know why they ever went out of fashion. This one's really soft, too. Come on, feel how soft this is."
"Honestly, man? The only good thing about that sweater vest is going to be when you take it off," Esposito said. There was a pause. Esposito still didn't look up, mindlessly shuffling files around his desk.
"You volunteering?" Ryan finally asked. That got his attention. He wasn't sure what Ryan's sly tone meant, exactly, so he risked a glance up.
Ryan's narrow-eyed gaze from where he slouched back in the chair, hand fiddling with the cloth stretched over his stomach (Esposito wasn't looking, he wasn't, except he was) made heat curl low in Esposito's belly.
He considered his next words, eyes locked with Ryan's. (They were really blue, he thought stupidly. That damn sweater vest didn't do a thing for them.)
"Well," he said finally, "If you can't dress yourself, you probably need a hand undressing, too. Right?"
"You know, I think you're onto something there," said Ryan, and smiled.
Re: like this?
But of course they have the whole work day ahead of them, one long day of teasing and pretending not to stare at each other. It gets to the point where everybody else notices something's weird—not just Castle and Beckett ("You know, you two—" "Castle, if you value your manhood you won't finish that sentence." "Detective Beckett, I'm touched! I never realized you spent much time thinking about my manhood."), but the Chief, the beat cops, the freaking UPS delivery guy.
(The "package" joke he makes is too terrifying to remember, which is why Esposito doesn't.)
And then there are the witnesses—two guys arguing over a hot dog, a nine year old with a radio-controlled plane, and the perp. And then there's the victim's ex-wife, who turns out to be the PERP's ex-wife, or possibly his sister.
(And then over the course of about twenty minutes, they find a key candy wrapper or two and discover that Mrs. Eleanor Wang is:
a) the perp,
b) not in custody,
c) the proud owner of a really impressive collection of climbing equipment, and also a gun,
d) freaking wiggly.)
It's a long day, made even longer by the fact that every time he looks up, he catches sight of the monstrosity on Ryan's chest, which leads to thoughts of Ryan's chest more generally, which leads to thoughts that he generally tries to avoid thinking while at the precinct.
But finally they leave, Mrs. Eleanor Wang safely in custody and somebody else's responsibility, and if Beckett and Castle are laughing at them, well, that's fine, because on balance Esposito would rather be dealing with an ugly (but removable) sweater vest than with twenty tons of awkwardness and snide comments.
He beats Ryan to the precinct the next morning, by virtue of having lured Ryan back to his place, and also because Ryan's apparently a fussy little twerp who wants to wear his own ugly clothes.
"Whatever, fine," Esposito says. "But I'm keeping this," he adds, holding up the sweatervest. "Going to burn it."
Ryan glares, but nods—and then rolls up to the precinct exactly fifteen minutes after Esposito, wearing a different, but equally hideous, sweatervest.
"Oh, come on," Esposito says, but he's grinning, and Ryan's grinning back, even while he—completely incorrectly—defends the rights of the sweatervest to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Castle makes faces, but Beckett just looks between the two of them, smirking. And later, when Castle drags Ryan off to bribe him with espresso into making better fashion choices, Esposito looks at her, and smirks back, just a little.