#jameson rook

[debylloyd]

HE GOT AWAY, AND I DIDN’T CARE. I ALMOST DIED, AND ALL I COULD THINK ABOUT WAS YOU. I JUST WANT YOU.

[imzadi-caskett-huddy]

There is Nikki Heat fanfiction on fanfiction.net. I had no idea this existed. Castle fans literally wrote fanfiction based on... well, kinda fanfiction.

Best. Fandom. Ever.

[partnersincrime]

[pollylynn]

Blackwing 602: Chapter 3—A Season 2 Caskett . . . multi-chap of indeterminate length.

A/N: I guess this is Chapter 3. I posted Chapter 2 yesterday. Chapter 1 goes back to  2017, when I did NaFicWriMo (30 stories in 30 days), I wrote one called Blackwing 602. Second part is obviously on Tumblr. If you don’t want to read the first part, all you need to know is that in “A Chill Goes Through Her Veins” (1 x 05), Beckett pockets what turns out to be a very expensive pencil when she’s in Castle’s office. This part is set around the time of “When the Bough Breaks” (2 x 04)

Title: Blackwing 602, Chapter 3 WC: 1000

She means to make a gift of it, somehow. That’s a surprise to her, truly. It’s not theater like so much has been lately. It’s not even one of the little white lies that make her world go round when it comes to him—when it comes to why on earth she endures, tolerates, suffers his presence. It’s not even that. She means, truly and definitely, to make a gift of it.   

It’s not true from the first or anything. Not right from the moment that she “stumbles” across it.  She has it on hand, and that’s the little white lie. So is the fact that she intends—fully intends—to give it back to hm with a flourish. 

She’s been telling herself that one since the sudden urge vigorously organize her desk came on those few nights ago. She’s nodded to herself with satisfaction at the idea that she’s made a decision—she intends to present it with some cutting remark that’ll make him narrow his eyes and flash a smile that’s half admiring and half something more complicated. But opening after opening after opening passes her by when she might have given it back in just that way, and she realizes that she means it to be something more than that. 

She means it to be a gift, but that’s absurd. She stole the damned thing. She flat-out stole it right out of his office the first time she’d ever set foot in his home. And the fact that she’d had no idea how much it was worth—the fact that even then she’d never entertained the notion of a freaking pencil that could run someone the price of a massage at very tony spa indeed—is immaterial. It’s stolen property she has in her possession, and the idea of turning it into a gift is just nonsense. 

And still, that’s what she means to do, though it’s a while before she sees that.  

She carries it in her bag nearly every day. She transfers it to a side drawer in her desk, where she pins it against the very back with post-its or boxes of those stupid binder clips that are too small to be of any use to anyone. And then when it’s finally knocking off time, she looks around like the sneak thief she is, and slips it back to the bag again. 

It’s a ritual she’d invented on the spot the day she “stumbled” across it, and every day after that, it burns a hole in the bag, in the drawer, in the bag again, lather, rinse, repeat. And for a while, she really does think—every single day—that she’ll find a moment where simply handing it back to him will make sense. 

And not quite every single day, she lets the possible moment pass, until another evening rolls around and finds her still at her desk, straightening, organizing, waiting for it to be safe to retrieve her contraband. And for whatever reason, that night, she sighs. She rolls her eyes at herself, and accepts the fact that she means to make a gift of it. 

A gift for what, though? It’s an awkward question. For coming back? For staying? 

That’s not it at all. However shared their misery might have been, there’s still a healthy dose of How dare you? simmering in her veins about all that. She’s grateful he stayed. She’s glad in her heart of hearts, but it’s not the kind of thing she has any intention of admitting, even obliquely. 

So, then. A gift for what? 

The book, she realizes one dreary Sunday. The dedication, a little, but mostly it’s the book itself. She’s dragging around her apartment, unable or unwilling to settle down to any of the half dozen things she could, should, ought to be doing when she slips the book from the shelves. 

She collapses back on to the couch and tucks her toes up between the cushions. She slips off the dust jacket, and when she sets it aside, the sense of familiarity embedded in the act is so strong that it’s practically déjà vu. It’s so familiar that when the hardcover drops to her thighs, the well-cracked spine falls open to her favorite spot, and that’s unnerving as hell. 

And enlightening. 

Because it’s not page 105 it falls open to. That particular stretch still makes her roll her eyes, even if it makes her cheeks burn, too. But that’s not where her copy falls open anyway. It falls open to Powell. Casper he calls the art thief here on the page—one more ridiculous name, and she’s not even sure why he bothered. It’s Powell obviously enough that he must’ve gotten himself in trouble all over again, and she doesn’t hate that. But the trouble he must be in isn’t what she loves about the scene either. 

A fine woman who knew her business was killed this week. 

It’s a simple bit of dialogue to move the plot forward. It’s motivation for the reluctant, retired thief to weigh in with information on the secondary victim that will move Nikki’s investigation forward. But to her, it’s more than that. It’s a touchstone for the two of them. It’s him reaching all the way back to Joanne Delgado and the stark reality that sank in for him that day—the truth  that every murder claims an untold number of victims, whoever might be left still breathing. It’s him shading in what’s so much more than a detail to her with such unexpected delicacy. 

And that’s somehow why she wants to make a gift of it. Because he’s taken her life—her work—and he has . . . amplified it. He has made what’s good and important—the good and the important that extend beyond even the abstract goal of justice—sing out, even to her, and she wants to pay him back in kind, somehow. 

Somehow. 

So she means to make a gift of it.  A/N: Playing chicken here with myself. I know how it ends, but I have very little of that written. But I guess I have all the time in the world between now and tomorrow morning when the sun will (probably) be up, and I have to continue hammering away at completely reinvented classes. 

[monalyssa33]

Crashing Heat (Nikki Heat, book 10) by Richard Castle - book cover, description, publication history.

I get author alerts when new items are added to the library catalog where I work (including ones that haven’t come out yet) and I got one today for a new Richard Castle book. I was completely unaware of it and I haven’t heard anything about it from the fandom.

[pollylynn]

“Let's just say, I'm not afraid to go deep to find out who someone really is.” —Duke Jones, Nikki Heat (3 x 11)

Title: Unraveled Rating: T WC: 700


She strips off her work clothes with more vehemence than she really cares to examine. The heels go first. She kicks them to the back of the closet, then pauses. Her natural inclination toward neatness, order, discipline wars with the petty, aggravated feeling she hasn’t quiet shaken yet.

Petty and aggravated wins. She leaves the shoes lying there at crime-scene angles against the wall. She peels her jeans down her legs and hauls the v-neck shirt over her head. She stuffs them both, along with socks, underwear, bra, deep into the hamper and slams the lid on all of it.

Her costume.

That’s what it is, and it’s not as if she didn’t know that. As she steps into her flannel, drawstring pants and pulls on a soft, worn sweatshirt, she reminds herself that of course she knows it’s a costume. What she wears to work, who she is on the job, it’s a persona, complete with signature wardrobe pieces, and she’s just had enough of it for one day, two days, however long Natalie Rhodes has been pulling her to pieces. She’s just had enough Nikki Heat for a while.

That’s what she thinks—what she says to herself out loud—as she tosses her cast off leather motorcycle jacket from the couch to the floor and prepares to hurl herself down. She prepares to sprawl and stretch and slouch put as much distance between herself and Nikki as possible.

That’s not how it goes, though. She looks at the couch for a longing second, then drifts to the bookshelf. She runs her fingers along the spines of one section, then the next, then the next, but she knows—knows—where this ends up.

She runs her fingers along the spines with his name. The Derrick Storms. The few one-off novels. Those are all her mom’s. They’re smoke damaged water-logged, though that’s mostly from her mother’s love of reading in the tub. The scent of lavender bubble bath is almost certainly imaginary at this point, but it’s no less potent for that.  

She lingers on all those books and hopes for a moment that’s what she’s after. She hopes for a moment that it’s a connection to her mom she needs to snap her out of the frustration and discontent of not knowing where she begins and the persona ends. But that’s not it. It’s not Derrick Storm. It’s not Death of a Prom Queen or When it Comes to Slaughter that she’s ultimately drawn to. It’s her books. Their books. It’s Nikki that she tugs free from the orderly line of spines set flush on the shelf.

She does sprawl then. She stretches and slouches and flops on her belly. She lays Naked Heat aside for now and props Heat Wave on a pillow a few inches in front of her nose. She props her chin on the backs of her hands.  She flips through the good parts, where he gets her sense of humor—her dry, wicked sarcasm, yes, but her silliness too. He captures her flash points almost too well, and he parcels those out between Nikki and Rook. He lets his own avatar take on the rage when Nikki has to keep her cool, and it’s more relief than a stupid mystery novel should afford.  

He writes into the spaces between the things she does and why she does them in a way that infuriates her and terrifies her and makes her feel like the whole world is rooting through her underwear drawer. But it also makes her feel . . . known. He writes into the moments the two of them have never quite had. The moments they’ve missed entirely or dipped their toes into, only to get completely derailed by Ryan or Esposito or their own stupidity and rotten fucking timing. He plays them out with lovely things said and unsaid between Rook and Nikki.

It’s fiction. It’s fantasy well beyond the predictably placed, blush-inducing sex scenes. It’s a version of her that sees right through the persona, and sprawled out on the couch with his words on the page in front of her, she knows where she begins and ends.

images via homeofthenutty

[alwayswritewithcoffee]

Have you read Crashing Heat? What do you think of it as the last book in the series? It's the only Nikki Heat book that I didn't read and I don't know if I should buy it, because I didn't read very good reviews (they didn't even translate it into Spanish like all the previous ones), but on the other hand, Heat Storm had so few interactions of Nikki and Rook and I didn't feel like they had an ending as such. Could it be said that they has one in Crashing Heat?

I mean it's.....fine? It requires you to ignore that Hinesburg died previously in the series, and a few other continuity mistakes that annoyed me. The story is at least something different than another presidential candidate being a bad guy (seriously can't believe they wasted two books on that crap) and there are callbacks in the plot to season seven and season eight (and one with season six) that, depending on how you feel about them may make you eye roll or giggle. There are more interactions between Nikki and Rook, but not much character development. The theme of the book for them is basically 'we're mad, let's have sex' or 'i missed you, let's have sex.' But it's miles better than Heat Storm, so that's something I guess. Personally, I wouldn't buy it. See if you can check it out from a local library or something. Not unless you just want a complete set of the books. It's not a must-have in the series to me by any means.

[alwayswritewithcoffee]

He tapped his temple, a gesture she’d come to recognize as a symbol of his never-ending brainpower. If she hadn’t loved him so much, she’d have thought he was the most arrogant man on the planet. Which was exactly what she’d thought when she’d first met him. But his charm eventually won her over. “Mind. Sponge. Boundless capacity for knowledge.” She turned in her seat, bending one leg under her, to face him. “Then put your Victoria St. Claire hat on, squeeze that sponge, and spin me a tale, writer boy.

Crashing Heat, Richard Castle