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[fanofthegenre]

There's a Beckett in the bar.

Only thing is, this one isn't carrying a gun - or a badge. In fact, she's not even going by the title of Detective yet, and as far as names go? You can just call her Kate.

This Beckett (Katherine, Kate - hell, even Katie at times) has never been in the bar.

And it shows.

" - whoa."


[ ooc: yes, we are dealing with a bb!Beckett. tag if you wish; open until her next. ]


[ tiny young!tag: rick castle ]

Comments

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

'Figures his agent would get lost going from the taxi to the bar. And on the most important night of Rick Castle's life, too. Not ten hours since he'd heard that his first manuscript, In a Hail of Bullets, got picked up by a real, live publisher and the twenty-two-year-old authorial ingenue is looking for a place to sow his wild verbs.

Cue, Milliways Bar.

"Somebody buy me a drink!" he crows, swaggering inside. "I'm about to be famous!"

[fanofthegenre]

Kate's just about to start asking someone questions - like where she is, exactly, because this sure as hell isn't her apartment. Now if only she could locate a bartender. One seems to be suspiciously absent.

Another door, different than the one she came in through, opens to give some guy a pretty loud entrance.

Kate lifts an eyebrow from down the bar.

"Famous?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Filthy, stinking famous," he confirms. 'Dodges a look around the hanging glasses and brown bottles to identify the owner of the voice. Pretty. Petite. Brunette. Castle's antennae go up.

He smiles.

"We're talking 'sliding down piles of gold and krugerrands' famous. You ever know anybody that famous? Congratulations --" a hand extended "-- now you have."

[fanofthegenre]

"Um," she falters, just for a minute, mostly 'cause this guy's still going on about something that'll make him lots of money - meanwhile, she's trying to wrap her head around the concept that this isn't the place she was planning on walking into and there's now a hand being thrust towards her.

Kate clasps it out of reflex more than the obedience of any social convention.

"Thanks? I guess. So why're you suddenly so famous, anyway?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Suddenly, suddenly --" he screws up his top lip and makes a face "-- not suddenly. Talent was there all along, it just needed the right vehicle. In this case? Paperback rights and a six-figure advance for the sequel. I am going to light a fire under the Times Book Review."

The space in front of her is conspicuously empty. Castle taps it with the tip of his finger.

"Let me buy you a drink to celebrate. You can tell your friends 'you knew me when'."

[fanofthegenre]

"You're a writer."

For some reason, that's the last answer she expected him to give, but to each his own. She's not about to knock someone's successes, especially since he seems all too proud of himself at the moment. Kate places her foot on one of the lower rungs of the barstool in front of her, resting her forearms on the bar itself.

"Can't tell them anything if I don't have a name to go on," she points out.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Wait a minute --" Castle gives her the shrewd effect of a lowered eyebrow "-- just how old are you, anyway?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Nineteen."

She's all legs, tanned and freckled from lots of sun exposure, her hair gathered up off the back of her neck - though still falling down in some places.

Katie Beckett, pre-NYPD.

"What does that have to do with your name?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Everything," he says. "If I'm buying an underaged girl a beer, 'better if she doesn't know my name." He leans in, dangerously in her personal space. 'Smile that sings in eight different keys. "I don't want to attract the wrong kind of attention, y'know?"

[fanofthegenre]

Kate lifts an eyebrow.

"I think you managed to do that by the way you came in here," she answers. "And who said it was a beer you had to buy me?

"Are you going to tell me your name, or am I going to have to make one up for you?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He hunkers his elbows on the bar, swinging close to her. "The reveal takes all the mystery out of it." As if he's confiding to her a great secret. "You never show your hand too early, or you'll lose your audience."

[fanofthegenre]

At this point, she can't decide if he's intriguing or just really, really annoying.

Unconsciously, she reaches up to twirl a loose strand of dark hair around her index finger.

"I guess you would know, mister writer."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"So how 'bout that drink? Beer or not, I'm feeling in a generous kinda' mood." Castle raises an eyebrow. "'Fact, if you want to do body shots, that's fine with me."

[onceareaper.livejournal.com]

The door opens again, or rather, slides open.

Someone on the other side is babbling. Babbling with great intent, even.

"... So you see, whether the paisley or the blue, this will quite definitely accent your eyes, and quite possibly your... well yes, that as well, and let me see if I can find my assistant, he can take all this to your home, no charge, no charge at all, I will just step through here..."

One lanky blond in wooden sandals and a bucket hat dives around the door and shuts it, emphatically.

"Accent your eyes. Certainly. They will bring out that manic gleam nicely."

[fanofthegenre]

Kate is torn between fascination and utter confusion - truthfully, it's probably bordering very strongly on the latter of the two, especially given the fact that she still has no idea where she is and how this bar showed up in place of her apartment.

"Lindsey's going to kill me," she audibly groans, as thoughts of her apartment automatically turn her to thoughts of her roommate - an all-too cheerful physical therapy major who's sort of expecting her to be the one who cooks dinner tonight.

[onceareaper.livejournal.com]

He looks up, quick and sharp and with a sunny, easy-going smile that does not quite translate when it reaches his eyes.

"That would be quite inconvenient. For you. Or so I would imagine."

[fanofthegenre]

"Hmm?"

Kate doesn't even realize she's spoken out loud.

"Oh."

Cue sheepish grin.

"Yeah, I guess so? Especially seeing as how I don't really remember having a bar installed in the apartment."

[onceareaper.livejournal.com]

"Or inviting so many people over, I would assume." Urahara notes off-handedly, with a demonstrative flick of his hand. "What will the cleaning lady say?"

[fanofthegenre]

Kate nearly groans again.

"What is this place, exactly?"

[onceareaper.livejournal.com]

"Possibly my store room," He re[lies, suddenly dark and forbidding, the stranger who appears in our dreams to make them nightmares, "Where all the lost, strange, forbidden, or fantastical things belong."



There is a pause.

Then with a sharp snap he unfolds his fan and flutters it, utterly erasing that dark visage and suddenly looking harmless. Foolish, even.
"Or maybe it is a magical bar! ♥!"

[fanofthegenre]

Kate looks about as overwhelmed as a nineteen-year-old version of herself can.

Which is to say: a lot.

"Uh-huh."

[onceareaper.livejournal.com]

Whoops. He didn't mean to break the little human. Just when he thought he had a good grasp on them, they change. Very bizarre, very bizarre indeed.

"Perhaps a drink, to fit the surroundings?" He asks, in a slightly less manic tone.

[fanofthegenre]

"Sure, I guess."

She's not old enough to drink - not legally here, anyway - but her mind goes back to something he'd said earlier.

"Wait - did you say magical bar?"

[onceareaper.livejournal.com]

"Would you rather try to believe it is a perfectly normal bar?" Urahara asks, his voice pitching upwards in incredulous question. "You could try, but even I am not that imaginative."

[fanofthegenre]

In terms of appearances, it looks fairly normal.

Then again, she hasn't exactly seen the Window yet.

"Maybe not normal, but magic? Come on. That's ridiculous."