Could you write a fic where castle compliments Beckett’s hair in linchpin and asks her about it? I’ve always loved that the show made her hair naturally wild and curly and then she usually styles it into those beautiful soft waves but seeing her natural hair is like a glimpse into a sweet vulnerable side to her 😩 thank you love your writing!! 🩷
Try this (please note, I did not go back and watch the episode again; this is quite off the top of my head):
Beckett pushed her hands deeper into her pockets, her eyes fixed on the river.
Narrow as a strangled breath breaking the surface of the water. Wise as the river itself.
Blue lights swept across her face, red again, icy blue. Damp at the back of her neck, a shudder she couldn't suppress. The dredging crew was looking for her submerged unit; Beckett watched numbly.
Wide as the river itself.
Wide. And dark. And deep.
He scared the shit out of her when the coffee was pushed into her field of vision—a split second's terror for no good reason (and then she heard I guess the good thing about having your daughter at a crime scene—). Her hands were already taking it, fingers burning painfully as heat transferred from the cup. "Thanks," she tried, her voice cracking.
He was staring at her. She found herself staring back at him. Whatever he'd been about to say, whatever she'd thought to say in thanks—the gratitude seemed all off, disproportionate to the enormity of that wide and deep and dark river.
"Cold," she said stupidly, her lips tangling on the word.
He nodded to the coffee; she took a reflexive sip and gasped, fire down her esophagus.
He made a startled move towards her; stopped. Backed off as she waved him away, choking on heat, pure flames of heat.
Good. Necessary. It had knocked the trembling out of her body, the muscles firing indiscriminately with the aftereffects of adrenaline and near-death.
Her heart jerked. He stared at her.
"What," she said, curling the coffee cup to her chest. That moment. That moment with the water rising and rising and ris—
"Your hair," he blurted out.
He looked down, back up; his face was sober soft lines and eyes that asked her questions she had no answer for. She swiped at a trickle of water at her neck and he reached out and grasped the edge of the jacket, pulled it up her shoulder, tighter.
By the time Sophia had kicked them out of CIA central, escorted by the lowest man on the totem pole no doubt, her spirits had bounced back while his, it seemed, had drowned.
When the hoods came off, they were outside of the precinct. She looked up as she got out of the car, borrowed clothes loose and ill-fitting, but she no longer felt like she was swimming.
Castle, hands in his pockets, looked at the sidewalk. She side-eyed him and gave a chin nod towards the precinct. "You coming?"
He didn't look at her. Cleared his throat.
"Castle," she insisted. Her toes were still not yet thawed, as if the cold of the river hadn't yet dissipated from her veins. "Don't let her get to you."
He made a desultory noise and looked up at her, finally, only to go still.
Completely, utterly still.
"What," she said, the staring thing somehow extra creepy when he was so arrested doing it. (Pun not intended, what the hell was wrong with him?)
Her arms dropped to her sides. Her mouth opened. Closed again.
"It dries... curly like that?"
She felt the heat bloom from her belly up, prickling at the back of her neck, her scalp. "It... has a mind of its own," she found herself murmuring. The heat suffused her face and she rallied. "It was dry by the time they drove us into her lair and you didn't seem to notice it then."
"Her lair," he scoffed. But the awkwardness fell over him again, his body held stiffly, his hands flexing into fists, his eyes roving. "I never thought to find you like this."
"What?" she croaked. "No. We're not doing—this." She twisted on her heel and headed for the precinct, every inch of her body burning, spikes of heat even down to her once-numb toes.
"Beckett," he called after her, hurrying to catch up. "In the car, I thought I wouldn't—find you."
All the heat dropped out. The wash of chills down her spine made his face fall slack; neither looked at each other as they went inside.
Narrow an escape, wide as the river.
She bobbed to the surface in the elevator, breaking the suffocating silence. "So... you slept with her."