InsaneJournal

“Okay, Castle, we need to establish some ground rules.”

Kate was using her cop voice on purpose, the one full of authority with its lower pitch and the sharp bite of the consonants and the clipped timbre of the vowels. It was the one that was almost absurdly effective at bringing men to attention, and nearly as persuasive to the man following her into the room as the husky bedroom voice that she also had in her arsenal.

The lights in the range were automatic, set to flash on when motion was detected near the door, revealing a sleek area with metal partitions and clear shelves to hold phasers and any other gear that one might need to shoot. It was definitely fancier than anything Kate had used with the NYPD but on the whole, a firing range looked like a firing range. The only difference was that the weapons were phasers rather than guns.

“First rule,” she said, glancing past her husband to make sure that the door had closed behind them. “When you leave here, you’ve still never shot a phaser before in your life, and your wife would never, ever use her security clearance to allow you to shoot a weapon outside of an emergency situation.”

Smirking slightly at him, Kate tucked her access card into the back pocket of her jeans. “Second rule: have fun.” She had already gone into the armory for the phasers, the one issued to her strapped into the holster at her hip, the other was from the unassigned stock, intended for training, shooting practice, or self defense in the event of an attack and it took a good deal of effort not to grin when she passed it over to Castle.

It went without saying between them that this was a fantasy come true for him, which was a big reason why she was risking reprimand from a superior to let Rick shoot at a few targets.

Her cop voice was hot, so Castle definitely had her attention, even if he was squirming like a worm on a hook. He was going to get to shoot real, actual phasers, which was basically a dream come true.

Castle nodded eagerly as she handed over the gun. “Got it. Never seen a phaser before. Don’t even know what one is.” If anyone asked, that was his story. It was going to suck that he couldn’t brag about doing this.

He stood next to her and held the phaser out away from her, striking what he hoped was a dashing pose. “How do I look?” he asked.

How did he look? Kate pretty much always thought he was handsome, and she had seen him handle enough guns and defend himself, or her, enough to know that it made him more than just attractive. It was downright sexy.

But she didn't say anything immediately. As usual, it was a bit of a cat and mouse game, as Kate crossed her arms over her chest and tilted her head to study her husband. It wasn’t the sort of gaze where she was mentally undressing him, but from the glint of appreciation in her eyes, Kate was still enjoying the view nonetheless. “Mmmm,” she said, shoulders rising for a brief shrug even as the corners of her mouth twitched with the threat of a smile. “I think you’ll do.”

That said, she leaned forward and lightly pecked his cheek with her mouth, deciding that anything else was a little too risky when Castle had a phaser in his hand.

Castle grinned, knowing how Kate operated. That meant he looked pretty good. Ego satisfied, he turned towards the targets. “Alright. Show me how these work?”

He was cocky, but he practiced gun safety, even when shooting guns back home. He wouldn’t fool around with a real, loaded gun in his hands, and that was basically what the phaser was. It could definitely do just as much damage, probably more, if mishandled. Besides, he didn’t want to blow up the firing range and get Kate in trouble. That would pretty much guarantee that he would never be allowed to shoot phasers again.

“You don’t know already?” Kate asked as she followed Castle into one of the partitions that separated shooters from one another while they were practicing. She had placed herself on his right side, her back pressed into the divider in an effort not to crowd him as he was shooting, but there was obvious surprise on her face. Kate just assumed Castle knew everything there was to know about life on the Enterprise, and that he had known it from the moment he arrived on the ship, given his love of sci-fi and Star Trek.

She hadn’t been expecting to teach him to shoot, just to supervise while he went at it with all his adorable, nerdy enthusiasm.

But then she paused, narrowing her eyes ever so slightly in his direction. Was he just playing her by trying to get her to teach him to shoot in order to initiate some physical contact between the two of them? It wouldn’t be the first time. “You’re screwing with me, aren’t you?”

Well, yeah, he’d definitely done that, but he was actually serious this time. “I mean, I have an idea, but I don’t want to blow a hole in the wall,” he said. He held the phaser out on front of him and aimed for the target on the other side of the range. “Just pull the trigger? Do I need to worry about blowback or anything?” Yes, Kate, he was actually trying to be safe. Did this mean he was getting old? Possibly. It looked very easy to shoot on the show, but how did he know what was reality and what was just TV? Until a few months ago, he never would have thought that any of this could be real.

“Wow…..” it was maybe a little embarrassing that she was standing there and gaping at him, but Rick had absolutely thrown her for a loop for a moment. “This wasn’t at all what I was expecting,” she told him, pushing away from the wall to approach Castle.

“You’re right, you just pull the trigger,” Kate said, pointing towards the button that was on the handle of the phaser, not too far from where a trigger would be on a gun. “Obviously, the laser will come out the end, but at the top you’ve got your setting.” Extending her arm, she tapped the top where a slider switch was but made it a point not to flip the button. “That’s your settings. So if it’s pushed toward the back, and the silver barrel is pointed outwards, it’s set to stun.”

Taking the weapon from Castle’s hands for a moment, Kate pressed the top slider and the barrel of the gun pivoted outward, spinning in a small circle so that the red end that had previously been pointed towards the handle was now facing outward. “Like this, it’s set to vaporize which….” she shrugged, knowing Castle understood what that meant before she switched the phaser back to stun and passed it back to him.

“There isn’t any kickback like a gun. It’ll warm up like one if you use it a bunch, it’s still metal and it’s shooting a laser, but you don’t have to worry so much about bracing your shooting arm with the other one.” That said, Kate gave him a smile, rising up onto her toes to kiss his cheek again. “But I’d appreciate it if you started practicing by using the proper stance for a handgun until you get a feel for the difference.”

“Would you rather I be safe or sorry?” He asked. “Damn, I'm getting old, aren't I?” Castle watched as he showed her the different settings. “Where's the setting for sexy?” Maybe he was still a sixteen year old boy after all.

After she handed the gun back, he got into the typical stance and once again aimed at the target. Carefully pressing the button, he watched as a laser shot out the end of it and hit the target on the other side. Castle was giddy. “Hell yeah!”

“Always safe,” Kate replied immediately, deciding not to react to his mention of being old. It wasn’t really old so much as serious that he was getting at anyway, and while there were times that she would tease him about having nearly a decade on her, they were few and far between because she didn’t care one bit.

But then Rick opened his mouth again, and the eyeroll was so ingrained into who she was that Kate didn’t even realize she was doing it. Even so, it didn’t quite stop her from sliding her hand into the back pocket of his jeans and giving his ass a little squeeze, which she thought was a sufficient enough response to stroke his ego a bit more. “Focus, Castle.” she told him a moment later, her hand back safely by her side with a nod towards the target at the opposite end of the range.

The shot wasn’t exactly in the ten ring, but it was close enough that Kate’s grin was huge when she glanced over at him. His marksmanship had always been rather good, and it looked like shooting with a phaser wasn’t gonna be that different for him. “Impressive, babe,” she said, chuckling a bit at the look of glee on his face. He was just so excited by some things, and it never failed to bring some joy to Kate when she was nearby.

He knew she loved him, even when he said ridiculous things or acted like a fool. That was how he knew it was unconditional with her.

Castle really wasn’t a bad shot, and he was pretty psyched that shooting a phaser was so easy. And he finally didn’t have to make the sound effect noises with his mouth. “This is awesome,” he said. “How good are you with it?” Beckett was obviously an even better shot than he was, and he was curious to see how she’d adapted to a phaser.

“You kidding?” she asked, her mouth quirking up with a bit of a smirk. Kate didn’t really consider herself cocky about much in life, but the ability to break people in interrogation and to be an accurate shot were probably on the list.

Nudging him over, she gently pulled the phaser from his hand and squared up to the target, her hands wrapping around the base of the handle just like it was her service piece from home. The three blasts that she fired off were in quick succession, all of them inside the ten ring and looking a bit like a small triangle given where the curve of the laser’s stream had burned away the target’s silhouette. Done showing off for her husband, Kate placed the phaser on the shelf in front of her and shot him a grin over her shoulder. “Just like riding a bike.”

That was hot as hell and he grinned at her. He was a good shot, but she had practice and real world experience over him. Castle didn’t begrudge her that at all.

He picked up the phaser again and aimed for the target, trying to hit better than he did the first time. “I think the heroine in my holonovel should be an expert phaser shot,” he said before firing off another laser.

“And a supermodel, I’m sure,” Kate said with a laugh, crossing her arms over her torso as she watched him. While Castle had told her before that he was going to write a holonovel, this was the first time that he had said anything about their being a heroine or a hero. “You’re going to have another female main character?” she asked, realizing that she was surprised by it. For reasons she couldn’t even name, Kate had been sure that he would go back to a male lead for his next set of books.

Castle shrugged. “Why not? I liked writing Nikki. And, mind you, she was not a supermodel.” His ideas for the holonovel were still nebulous, though he wanted it to be a pair again. Perhaps he would alternate between the male and female perspective. “She’ll be a Starfleet officer, but one that fights crime, I guess.”

Apparently there wasn’t a lot of crime in space, because Castle wasn’t sure who was supposed to be fighting it now. The Enterprise had a security team but that was as far as it went.

“Oh, don't misunderstand. I'm not complaining, I'm just surprised.” Kate explained, “I've thought for a long time that when you decided to move on from Nikki that you would go back to a male-centric series.” But then she reached out to lightly tug on his ear, her mouth quirking up even as she narrowed her eyes. “She wasn't, huh?” She asked.

“Hmm, security team?” Kate asked, releasing his ear, “She would have to be an officer to work any crimes.” She left it unsaid that anything other than an officer or higher rankings were left to smaller jobs. Castle knew that already, she had expressed her frustration at being held back due to not having Starfleet training many times.

“I mean, I guess there are crimes, right?” Before she gave her answer, Castle shot his phaser again, getting closer to the center of the target this time. “This place is awesome, but it isn’t a utopia. Have we all just been lucky so far on here? Or maybe there are too many cameras and witnesses and people don’t want to try things.”

Even a few hundred years in the future, human nature was the same. Motives for murder were still the same - love, power, revenge. Maybe not money as much with the replicator system in place. Most people had what they needed, but that didn’t mean that some people didn’t want more.

“Oh, I'm sure they do.” Kate replied. “I mean, somewhere out here there's a jealous lover or someone that needs or wants more money or power. That's gonna be the case as long as there are humans, and some of the alien races we have here and that I'm sure we will come across won't be all that different. Murder is going to be universal, as awful as that is. I think it's the method of how it would be dealt with that differs from home.”

“Murder on the Enterprise…..” she shrugged her shoulders at that. “It's not impossible but I think it's considerably less likely than on another planet or even on Earth.”

“But maybe it's not just murder that she could investigate,” Kate added as an afterthought. “I know murder is maybe the sexy option for a book, but why not investigate other things too? Robberies, drugs, prostitution rings…” She couldn't be sure those were still a thing so many years in the future, but she felt it happened in some form because, much like murder, sex was always going to exist and some were going to exploit it.

Nodding her approval at his latest shot, Kate stepped over and placed herself at Castle’s right shoulder. “Next time you shoot,” she said, placing one hand against his bicep and the other against his shoulder blade, gently urging him to lift it just a bit more. “Don't drop your right shoulder, it's falling just a hair, probably because that is your shooting hand and you are trying to adjust for kickback.”

Castle took her advice and adjusted his shoulder, which produced a more accurate shot. Shooting a phaser was definitely different, and easier, than shooting a gun.

“It would widen my options, that’s true,” he added, agreeing that there were other crimes to explore. “Maybe I’ll make her half-alien or something. I need to come up with a name too.”

That was always one of the most fun things about writing, coming up with character names. He loved stuff that could produce a play on words.

“Part alien?” Kate asked, one eyebrow lifting up in surprise. “I guess this one isn’t gonna be based on me then.” She had never really thought about it before, of Castle finding someone or something else to drive his books, but there was definitely a tiny part of her that was a little hurt even if she knew it was beyond ridiculous to feel that way. Castle had every right, and every reason, to find someone else to inspire his new series. It wasn’t very interesting writing about someone who patrolled the ship and brought food to whoever had ended up in the brig for the night.

“What are the chances that you pick one that sounds like she’s moonlighting as a stripper or a porn star?” she asked, and though there was a certain twinkle in her eyes to indicate that she was teasing, it was also a question born of the fact that Kate had absolutely hated Nikki’s name until at least the third book. Nikki Heat sounded less like a bad-ass homicide detective and more like some buxom blonde in a Skinemax nightly special, though Castle had written a character with enough integrity and heart to overcome most of that.

“It could still be based on you even if she were part alien,” Castle said. “She could have some of your qualities, but not be your clone.” Nikki Heat had been a pretty blatant representation of Kate. This time he thought he might be a bit more subtle with it.

“Yeah,” he continued, with a slight smirk on his face. Castle knew she’d hated that name. “What about… Dixie Kane?”

“I think that probably depends on the type of alien,” Kate replied, cutting her eyes over at him to convey her skepticism. There were some races that she couldn’t quite reconcile her own personality meshing with, but if anyone could make her believe it in a book, it’d be Rick.

Stepping away from him for a moment, she slipped into one of the side rooms to pick up another phaser. A minute later she was back and busy working on lowering the divider between Castle’s area and hers, managing to get it down in time to give him a look of disgust at the name he suggested. “Castle, that sounds like a porn star with a terrible Southern accent. Or a drag queen.”

Castle smirked, knowing that it was ridiculous. He had just said it to see her reaction - which was perfect and exactly what he had expected. Biting his lip, he tried not to laugh as he watched her set up to shoot next to him.

“So no go on Brandi Foxx then? I could do a lot with a last name like Foxx. Outfoxxed, et cetera”

She opened her mouth to shoot that one down as well, entirely prepared to dislike whatever he was going to suggest. But Kate had to admit that Fox, at least as a last name, wasn't that bad. Of course, judging from the way Castle operated, it was probably going to be spelled with two or three x’s and she would either have to talk him out of it or just grin and bear it.

But Brandy, or Brandi, or even Brandee….regardless of how it was spelled, it conjured up an image of a ditzy college girl who had her dad’s credit cards to pay for everything and not much else. “Brandi? Castle, really….”

Pausing to take her aim at her target, Kate pulled off a couple shots before she turned back to him. “Fox isn't a bad idea, because foxes are cunning, smart, and very allusive. Even if you're just going to use it for title opportunities and to talk about how hot she is,” she said with a roll of her eyes in his direction. “It could be really good.”

“But if you're going to do that, you should name her partner Hunt. Or Hunter if you wanted a first name,” and then she grinned. “Hunt and Fox. You can call them Funt.”

“I do like the idea of being able to do things with Fox,” he mused as he watched her shoot. Her aim was perfect, as always. “With one x. She could be all those things and a total fox.”

He fired off another round and then continued. “I like where you’re going with that, though not too sure about using Hunt.” That reminded Castle of his father, even if he knew that wasn’t the man’s real name. His feelings about the man were still mixed. “And um, I’m gonna veto that ship name because it just sounds wrong.”

“Kind of like your wife,” Kate replied, sticking her tongue out at him for just a moment. “But one x would be better. Two is…..” she paused, trying to think up a word other than the one that immediately sprang to mind and coming up short. So she went with what her brain had initially supplied. “Raunchy.”

“But seriously, don't name her Brandi. Maybe something….I don't know, traditional?” She shrugged at him, aware that it was maybe an odd thing to say given that her name, Katherine, was about as traditional as they came. “Just something to balance the offbeat last name.”

But she did frown at the conflicted look on his face at the mention of Hunt, remembering a little too late about the connection to his father and a fake alias. “Oh, Castle, I'm sorry,” she said, and from her tone it was clear that she meant it. “I forgot about your dad…” but she hadn't forgotten all the conflicted feelings and the emotional fallout that it caused in his life and, by extension, hers.

Even with her regret hanging between them, it didn't stop her smirk. It was laser sharp, and a complement to the mischievous twinkle in her eyes. “I know, that's why I said it.”

“Like a porn star,” he added with a smirk. Castle knew exactly why he had said it. “I won’t pick Brandi, don’t worry.” Using Kate’s first name might be a nice tribute. As long as the character was kick ass, he was sure Kate would appreciate it.

He shrugged when she apologized and then leaned over to kiss her cheek. “It’s ok, babe.” Honestly he wasn’t too upset, though he didn’t really feel like talking about his dad at the moment. Instead, he’d rather discuss her last comment. “We still have the best ship name, by the way.”

“Well….yeah…” she said with a nod, doing her absolute best not to grin as she put her phaser down to look at him. Glancing over had been the mistake, because all too soon Kate was giving him one of those big smiles of hers and trying not to start laughing. “How many times have you seen a porno and the actress is named Candy or Crystal or Brandi or something to that effect? And with a last name like Fox, it just opens up the door that much more.”

Smiling when Castle leaned over to drop a kiss to her cheek, Kate reached up to brush the back of her hand along his jaw, “Only because we worked murder cases, if I hadn’t been a cop it’d just be awkward. Dead relationship walking.” But she did like that their combined name equalled out to Caskett, it never failed to make her smile. “It’s better than Peeniss,” she said with a laugh, referencing The Hunger Games’ Katniss Everdeen and Peeta Mellark who probably had the worst ship name she had ever heard.

“But what about Stone for the partner? Stone….Shields…..Chase…..” Kate was pretty much just rattling off names that could serve for a last name and sounded masculine to her, and also that would fit in a porno because, well, now that was in her head and she couldn’t get away from it.

Castle loved seeing that grin on her and it produced one of his own in return. “A few times,” he admitted. Castle had seen more than a few pornos. “Actually it seems more likely to be a stripper’s name. I’ve known a lot of strippers named Candy.” And he’d definitely met his fair share of strippers.

“Yes, that’s definitely a worse name than Funt. Do fans actually use that?” Maybe they did, if only for the ridiculousness of it. “I like Chase. That might pair well with Fox.”

“A few?” she asked around a laugh, an incredulous tone to her voice. “Rick, how long have I know you? How long have we been together? We’ve watched more than a few ourselves, we’ve taken photos in bed which is as good as porn considering what they show, nevermind what you did before we started dating.” Some girls might have cared about that, chalked it up to disinterest in her and the like, but Kate had never been bothered by it. She wasn’t a prude, she definitely wasn’t shy, and as long as Castle kept his hands and mouth off other women, she didn’t care.

Plus she was pretty sure that he knew she’d kill him if he didn’t.

Holding up a finger to ask him to wait, she stepped away from the divider to go back into the side room. This time when Kate returned she was holding two bigger guns, the same sort of laser weapon as what they had been shooting, but built like a rifle. “I don’t know if they do, it was in some BuzzFeed thing ranking fictional ship names. They were last.”

Passing him one of the rifles, Kate gave Castle a wiggle of her eyebrows. “I think I’d make his last name Cocks,” she said, that devious smirk curling at her lips again.

“Yeah, well. I was trying for an understatement there,” Castle said. His past was pretty sordid, but his only interest right now was in her. That didn’t mean that he didn’t have eyes and didn’t notice that there were other beautiful women around, including on this ship, but he wasn’t going to touch. He was pretty damn satisfied with Kate.

He grinned when she handed him the rifle-like phaser. “This looks awesome. Same stance as for the smaller one?”

He snorted at her last name suggestion. “Fox and Cocks? Sounds like if Dr. Seuss wrote a porno.”

“No need,” Kate replied, flashing a grin over her shoulder. “I know all about your sordid past.” And it was actually a nice thing to know the worst of someone and still have a relationship as strong as she and Castle had. She had enough friends to know how rare it was, so many people just threw it the towel when things got hard or held on to bitterness and anger even when they said they had forgiven someone. It always seemed to come back and destroy them later.

Nodding her head at his question, she pointed towards the sliding mechanism on the side. “That’s what determines the width of the beam you are shooting. The further back it goes, the bigger the laser beam will be when you shoot.” She wasn’t going to tell him to keep it rather narrow, Kate figured Castle would come to that conclusion on his own.

She couldn’t help but laugh at the rhyme of the two names, having missed the obvious in her effort to tease Castle. “Yes, there you go,” she said with an ear splitting grin, shouldering her rifle and wrapping her hand around the handle at its base. “A book of porn told in nothing but rhyme. I bet it’d be a bestseller.”

And then, after taking the time to sight the target and adjust the beam, Kate took her first shot, missing the center ring when the beam hit the target too high.

Castle watched her shoot first and then grinned. This thing was even better than the phaser. Thank God he had a wife who loved playing with the same toys as he did.

“What something like, ‘I would not fuck you on a train, I would not fuck you on a plane’?” He couldn’t help himself, no matter how wrong that sounded.

After Kate took her turn, Castle fired at the target across from him, watching as the beam seared it. At this point he wasn’t even as concerned about accuracy as he was about the awesomeness of the weapon in his hands.

The snort of laughter she gave in response to his rhyming wasn’t very dignified, but Kate couldn’t help it. The whole thing was absurd but she also knew that if Castle wrote it and put pornographic photos in for illustrations, it probably would sell because sex always did, no matter how ridiculous or badly put together it might have been.

How else could Fifty Shades of Grey have become so popular? It wasn’t well written or that interesting. It was just the sex contained within the pages.

“Okay, technically,” Kate said, lining her sights up for another shot as she spoke, “I would absolutely have sex with you on both of those.” She was slightly surprised they hadn’t managed to do it on a plane as it was. It also wasn’t specifically about them, but the whole thing was never gonna happen so it really didn’t matter so much did it?

“But they would actually have to have sex, Castle. Otherwise, there’s no point to the book.” And then, with a shrug of her shoulders, she pulled the trigger a second time, the beam searing the line of the ten ring.

He always loved when he made her laugh. And of course he'd have sex with her just about anywhere.

“So let me get this straight,” he said with a laugh. “My holonovel should be an adult version of a Dr. Seuss type book starring people named Fox and Cocks who talk about all the places they don't want to have sex?”

Somehow that was what their conversation had spiraled into. Not that Castle was mad, because it was amusing as hell.

“No,” Kate said around a laugh, “I’m saying that should be a separate book entirely. You can’t make a holonovel that’s only about sex. Then it’s just porn.”

Angling another shot to her target, she hit the bullseye for a second time and satisfied with that, Kate put the rifle down and turned to look at him. “But I will say this has to be one of the most ridiculous conversations we’ve ever had when we’ve both been sober.” Of course she didn’t care in the slightest but she was pretty thankful that no one else was around to hear them carrying on.

Pushing aside all the nonsense, she did reach out to place a hand on his bicep to snag his attention, using her other hand to crook a finger in his direction to encourage Castle to come closer. “Seriously though, I think your book should be about whatever you are driven to write. Space detectives or private eyes in New York or porn stars that just speak in Dr. Seuss rhymes. The only thing I really care about is that you are proud of it.” And then, with a slow smile, Kate popped up onto her tiptoes and brushed her mouth over his. “But I swear to God, if you base this character on me and give her a stripper name, I will hurt you.”

Castle laughed again and then smirked at her. He held up his hand like he was taking a vow. "I solemnly swear that I will not give her a stripper name." That promise at least could be made. He kissed Kate again and then turned to fire the rifle once more. Ridiculous conversations were just another part of their relationship - one of the fun parts to him.