Castle fic: The Birth of Nikki Heat
Jul. 25th, 2010 12:37 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meridian_roseTitle: The Birth of Nikki Heat
Wordcount: 2055
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Set during the pilot episode, "Flowers For Your Grave"; Castle's point of view regarding his novels, dealing with writer's block, his personal interactions, and his redemption in the form of Beckett and the new character she inspires
Content: set during ep1x01, no violence or sexual references beyond those included in the episode
Prompt: For a![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
castleland challenge, bigbangalt, theme "season one", prompt artist's choice and 100_tales prompt #035 birth
Disclaimer: not mine, not for profit
"What kind of idiot kills off his best-selling character?" Gina asked, going on to berate his "short-sightedness" and "pettiness". If she weren't so damn good at her job as his publicist, he'd have severed that tie with her when the divorce papers were finalised. But she was good, and he hadn't, and she had a right to ask him about his work, about anything that was public rather than personal.
Work – the thought amused him (or would have if he wasn't currently suffering from the dreaded Writer's Block). Castle had been writing as long as he could remember, telling himself stories about the world around him. He knew the best ghost stories at camp, and when he'd exhausted the material concocted a few new ones. That these gruesome imaginings had been well received had surprised him.
Of course it was many years before he finally realised that yes, he could write, yes he was good at it, and yes, he could make a living at doing it. He'd realised the latter before the publishers had – there were a couple of big name publishing houses who were rueing the day they'd thrown Richard Castle's first manuscript into the slush pile – but once he had his mind set on something, Castle tended to pursue it. Even more so if there were obstacles in his way, such those who doubted him, or the thought that the pursuit was impossible or wrong (or both).
People thought him reckless, flighty, but he merely reserved his passions for endeavours worthy of it – though he was sometimes mistaken about the value of the prize he was pursuing. Which explained Gina. What was that Chinese curse? May you find what you are looking for. Yes, sometimes Castle got not only what he wanted, but what he deserved. And she deserved some explanation, he supposed.
"Writing Derek used to be fun, now it's like work," he told her. It was true. And writing wasn't work. Writing was fun, creative, instinctual. Writing was what happened when his fingers tapped on the keys and created pictures in a myriad combination of words, bringing the visions he saw in his mind's eye onto the page. Writing was sharing the incredible tales of love and death with his readers. It was about writing a clever story that led them through the twists and turns, giving them clues so they could try to solve the mystery for themselves, surprising them with a big finale, and throwing in some moments of passion to offset the grisly set pieces.
Writing was a game where he was the dealer who'd stacked the deck but the players didn't mind because this was about watching the drama unfold. Writing was the action that followed from the creative spark. It wasn't copy typing or drafting company reports. It was inspired, glorious, heady. Writing was not work. It was not something that should feel hard, that he should have to force himself to do.
"I wrote half-a-dozen best sellers before him, and what makes you think I'll stop now?" he said, countering her protests. Killing Storm was his way of making sure to let go of the safety net that no longer provided comfort but threatened to strangle him. To have crippled Storm would have left an small "out" should Castle's finances hit rock bottom. One miracle surgery later and Storm would be back in business. Killing Storm, making sure there was no doubt in the reader's mind that Storm was dead, left no room for take backs. Miracle cures were one thing but Storm was not a series of sci-fi novels and there'd be no cloning, time travel, or alternate dimension Storm to take the place of the dead hero.
What he would never mention to Gina was the tiny voice (that had only piped up - and, thankfully, still rarely - since Alexis was born and he had the wellbeing of someone else to consider) that said, "You can always write prequels."
Unfortunately Gina had heard – Mother! Richard thought angrily but kept his playboy mask in place – that he hadn't been writing anything. It frightened him more than he'd ever admit to anyone. He likened it to a crisis of faith, to a priest who suddenly found he no longer had a direct line to God. Whenever Richard went to his altar, his laptop, the connection to the divine spark of inspiration eluded him. The stories he told himself would not fall onto the page, plots refused to form about the discrete plot nuggets, and he hated his new main character.
"You want to know why I killed Derek? There were no more surprises. I knew exactly what was going to happen every moment of every scene," Castle explained a bit later to his daughter – who was doing homework, God knew where she got that streak of responsibility from. And now he didn't know what he was doing to do next. Storm had sucked out his genius, each paragraph of the final pages more bland than the next. Castle had sighed with relief when Storm was dead, and he was free of him. The ideas would become fresh and new, now, he had thought. That the epiphany of a new bestseller plot wasn't showing up on time was starting to grate. He'd taken the leap of faith, and now he was free-falling.
"Just once I'd like someone to come up to me and say something new," Castle complained and finally the universe answered him as a striking woman approached him. It wasn't his autograph she wanted.
"Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD, we need to ask you a few questions about a murder that took place earlier tonight."
If nothing else, it would make great publicity, Castle thought. But she didn’t arrest him. Not this time.
*
"I have a copycat. Oh my gosh, in my world that's the red badge of honour," Castle said. It was that attitude that probably added to Beckett's refusal to let him borrow copies of the crime scene photos.
What Beckett clearly wasn't aware of was how well connected Castle was. He wasn't going to let her sideline him out of the most amazing thing to happen to him ever. Crimes based on his novels – the lesser ones, but hey, you couldn't have everything – needed his input to be solved. He was the only one who truly understood all the subtle nuances behind the motives and the execution. Or so he'd tell Beckett's captain. And if that didn't work, he'd call the mayor.
*
Lanie appreciated his attention to detail. Beckett didn't appreciate his not listening to her and staying out of the way, nor his using his contacts to move things along. Castle was still deciding what the deal was with Ryan and Esposito. They were more laid back than Beckett but then they didn't have their gender to overcome in the traditionally male domain of policing. They seemed to be sizing him up too. Not a suspect, not a cop. Friendly but not too friendly. He could work with that.
Castle drank in the details of the precinct, the filing system, the chairs. He did it almost subconsciously, the way a soldier might scan for exits and potential dangers. Details were what made a scene real. Details could come with backstory, like a hole in the ceiling that might have been from the time a suspect grabbed a cop's gun and in the ensuing struggle the weapon went off, thankfully pointed upwards and not at anyone. He made mental notes at every location they went to.
Stealing crime scene photos finally did get him arrested – which Beckett took a lot of pleasure in. Later, he thought that was the moment he truly created Nikki Heat. Not her name, or her full story, those came later, bones and the flesh and the clothing until she was a fully fledged character. But the idea of her, the shape of who she was, the essence of a new hero.
*
" At one death you look for motive, at two deaths, at two you look for a connection. At three, you look for someone like Kyle. At three, you don't need motive because totally unstable serial killers don't usually have one." It seemed so obvious to him he couldn't understand why no-one else had seen it. Then he stepped back, looked through the eyes of a detective. You can't get creative without evidence that this is not a run of the mill case. You can't develop wild theories. Writers can, though, and that's why he could see it.
He spotted a young man sitting on a railing, a woollen hat in his hand, military dog tags round his neck, and mentally wrote a character sketch within the five seconds it took to drive slowly past him. Castle exulted in the ease in which this happened. He would never take his muse for granted again.
*
"He's much thinner now. Like sick thin, not work out thin." Castle knew she must have seen the photos too, just not made a connection because she wasn't really looking for one. But he could focus on the small details while she questioned the man, could try out various scenarios until he found one that made the most sense – and the best story. It gave them a lead, someone else to chase.
Castle was having a ball.
*
The brother had an alibi. A passport. That was one hell of an alibi. Castle hated being wrong - and then Beckett took pity on him.
"He didn't even check his calendar, but he was ready with an alibi. In my experience, innocent people do not prepare alibis," she explained. Something he'd overlooked. He made a note of it, filed it away as another piece of brilliance for his new character to display.
She wouldn't admit he was right, but he kept pushing away at it.
*
He helped her get a warrant and that time his connections didn't bother her. She was driven now, a bloodhound on the scent. It didn't give the best visual image and he knew he'd have to think up a better metaphor later, something more becoming for the lady-cop-hero he was nurturing in his head.
*
"Cuff me once, shame on you. Cuff me twice... shame on me." Beckett should have realised that he wouldn't be so easily restrained. He learns from his mistakes. Well, maybe not all his mistakes….
Being held hostage was an incredible experience. He let himself ride the adrenaline rush, taste the fear. On the other hand the safety was on, he wasn't in any real danger, and so could observe the proceedings.
Lady-cop-hero was going to have red hair he decided.
*
He and Beckett flirted as they said their goodbyes.
"So I can be another one of your conquests?" she'd asked and he'd replied, "Or I could be one of yours."
She walked away and in his mind's eyes lady-cop-hero walked away, hips swinging. He saw her clearly. She'd need a name, and she still needed fleshing out, but she was real to him now, the way Storm had become when he wrote the first Storm novel.
He spent most of the night typing, getting down the ideas, pouring the details he'd gathered onto the pages. This was different though; he had an actual person to gain inspiration from. He could do even better with lady-cop-hero (maybe Nikki?) if he could continue to gain access to the woman who had inspired her.
As soon as it was a reasonable hour he rang the mayor's office. The mayor was reading "Storm Fall" and was looking forward to what he'd write next.
"I have a brilliant new hero," Castle explained, "but I'm going to need to do some research. Bit of a secret, but the next novel is going to star a hard-as-nails but still sexy female detective. Clearly I lack female perspective, but I have an idea about that."
*
He went to the precinct and hid until Beckett was called into Montgomery's office and then sat at her desk, watching as Montgomery laid it out. There was no wiggle room here. Beckett accepted her fate; Montgomery nodded towards him.
Beckett stared at him and he smiled. This was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.
Wordcount: 2055
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Set during the pilot episode, "Flowers For Your Grave"; Castle's point of view regarding his novels, dealing with writer's block, his personal interactions, and his redemption in the form of Beckett and the new character she inspires
Content: set during ep1x01, no violence or sexual references beyond those included in the episode
Prompt: For a
castleland challenge, bigbangalt, theme "season one", prompt artist's choice and 100_tales prompt #035 birthDisclaimer: not mine, not for profit
"What kind of idiot kills off his best-selling character?" Gina asked, going on to berate his "short-sightedness" and "pettiness". If she weren't so damn good at her job as his publicist, he'd have severed that tie with her when the divorce papers were finalised. But she was good, and he hadn't, and she had a right to ask him about his work, about anything that was public rather than personal.
Work – the thought amused him (or would have if he wasn't currently suffering from the dreaded Writer's Block). Castle had been writing as long as he could remember, telling himself stories about the world around him. He knew the best ghost stories at camp, and when he'd exhausted the material concocted a few new ones. That these gruesome imaginings had been well received had surprised him.
Of course it was many years before he finally realised that yes, he could write, yes he was good at it, and yes, he could make a living at doing it. He'd realised the latter before the publishers had – there were a couple of big name publishing houses who were rueing the day they'd thrown Richard Castle's first manuscript into the slush pile – but once he had his mind set on something, Castle tended to pursue it. Even more so if there were obstacles in his way, such those who doubted him, or the thought that the pursuit was impossible or wrong (or both).
People thought him reckless, flighty, but he merely reserved his passions for endeavours worthy of it – though he was sometimes mistaken about the value of the prize he was pursuing. Which explained Gina. What was that Chinese curse? May you find what you are looking for. Yes, sometimes Castle got not only what he wanted, but what he deserved. And she deserved some explanation, he supposed.
"Writing Derek used to be fun, now it's like work," he told her. It was true. And writing wasn't work. Writing was fun, creative, instinctual. Writing was what happened when his fingers tapped on the keys and created pictures in a myriad combination of words, bringing the visions he saw in his mind's eye onto the page. Writing was sharing the incredible tales of love and death with his readers. It was about writing a clever story that led them through the twists and turns, giving them clues so they could try to solve the mystery for themselves, surprising them with a big finale, and throwing in some moments of passion to offset the grisly set pieces.
Writing was a game where he was the dealer who'd stacked the deck but the players didn't mind because this was about watching the drama unfold. Writing was the action that followed from the creative spark. It wasn't copy typing or drafting company reports. It was inspired, glorious, heady. Writing was not work. It was not something that should feel hard, that he should have to force himself to do.
"I wrote half-a-dozen best sellers before him, and what makes you think I'll stop now?" he said, countering her protests. Killing Storm was his way of making sure to let go of the safety net that no longer provided comfort but threatened to strangle him. To have crippled Storm would have left an small "out" should Castle's finances hit rock bottom. One miracle surgery later and Storm would be back in business. Killing Storm, making sure there was no doubt in the reader's mind that Storm was dead, left no room for take backs. Miracle cures were one thing but Storm was not a series of sci-fi novels and there'd be no cloning, time travel, or alternate dimension Storm to take the place of the dead hero.
What he would never mention to Gina was the tiny voice (that had only piped up - and, thankfully, still rarely - since Alexis was born and he had the wellbeing of someone else to consider) that said, "You can always write prequels."
Unfortunately Gina had heard – Mother! Richard thought angrily but kept his playboy mask in place – that he hadn't been writing anything. It frightened him more than he'd ever admit to anyone. He likened it to a crisis of faith, to a priest who suddenly found he no longer had a direct line to God. Whenever Richard went to his altar, his laptop, the connection to the divine spark of inspiration eluded him. The stories he told himself would not fall onto the page, plots refused to form about the discrete plot nuggets, and he hated his new main character.
"You want to know why I killed Derek? There were no more surprises. I knew exactly what was going to happen every moment of every scene," Castle explained a bit later to his daughter – who was doing homework, God knew where she got that streak of responsibility from. And now he didn't know what he was doing to do next. Storm had sucked out his genius, each paragraph of the final pages more bland than the next. Castle had sighed with relief when Storm was dead, and he was free of him. The ideas would become fresh and new, now, he had thought. That the epiphany of a new bestseller plot wasn't showing up on time was starting to grate. He'd taken the leap of faith, and now he was free-falling.
"Just once I'd like someone to come up to me and say something new," Castle complained and finally the universe answered him as a striking woman approached him. It wasn't his autograph she wanted.
"Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD, we need to ask you a few questions about a murder that took place earlier tonight."
If nothing else, it would make great publicity, Castle thought. But she didn’t arrest him. Not this time.
*
"I have a copycat. Oh my gosh, in my world that's the red badge of honour," Castle said. It was that attitude that probably added to Beckett's refusal to let him borrow copies of the crime scene photos.
What Beckett clearly wasn't aware of was how well connected Castle was. He wasn't going to let her sideline him out of the most amazing thing to happen to him ever. Crimes based on his novels – the lesser ones, but hey, you couldn't have everything – needed his input to be solved. He was the only one who truly understood all the subtle nuances behind the motives and the execution. Or so he'd tell Beckett's captain. And if that didn't work, he'd call the mayor.
*
Lanie appreciated his attention to detail. Beckett didn't appreciate his not listening to her and staying out of the way, nor his using his contacts to move things along. Castle was still deciding what the deal was with Ryan and Esposito. They were more laid back than Beckett but then they didn't have their gender to overcome in the traditionally male domain of policing. They seemed to be sizing him up too. Not a suspect, not a cop. Friendly but not too friendly. He could work with that.
Castle drank in the details of the precinct, the filing system, the chairs. He did it almost subconsciously, the way a soldier might scan for exits and potential dangers. Details were what made a scene real. Details could come with backstory, like a hole in the ceiling that might have been from the time a suspect grabbed a cop's gun and in the ensuing struggle the weapon went off, thankfully pointed upwards and not at anyone. He made mental notes at every location they went to.
Stealing crime scene photos finally did get him arrested – which Beckett took a lot of pleasure in. Later, he thought that was the moment he truly created Nikki Heat. Not her name, or her full story, those came later, bones and the flesh and the clothing until she was a fully fledged character. But the idea of her, the shape of who she was, the essence of a new hero.
*
" At one death you look for motive, at two deaths, at two you look for a connection. At three, you look for someone like Kyle. At three, you don't need motive because totally unstable serial killers don't usually have one." It seemed so obvious to him he couldn't understand why no-one else had seen it. Then he stepped back, looked through the eyes of a detective. You can't get creative without evidence that this is not a run of the mill case. You can't develop wild theories. Writers can, though, and that's why he could see it.
He spotted a young man sitting on a railing, a woollen hat in his hand, military dog tags round his neck, and mentally wrote a character sketch within the five seconds it took to drive slowly past him. Castle exulted in the ease in which this happened. He would never take his muse for granted again.
*
"He's much thinner now. Like sick thin, not work out thin." Castle knew she must have seen the photos too, just not made a connection because she wasn't really looking for one. But he could focus on the small details while she questioned the man, could try out various scenarios until he found one that made the most sense – and the best story. It gave them a lead, someone else to chase.
Castle was having a ball.
*
The brother had an alibi. A passport. That was one hell of an alibi. Castle hated being wrong - and then Beckett took pity on him.
"He didn't even check his calendar, but he was ready with an alibi. In my experience, innocent people do not prepare alibis," she explained. Something he'd overlooked. He made a note of it, filed it away as another piece of brilliance for his new character to display.
She wouldn't admit he was right, but he kept pushing away at it.
*
He helped her get a warrant and that time his connections didn't bother her. She was driven now, a bloodhound on the scent. It didn't give the best visual image and he knew he'd have to think up a better metaphor later, something more becoming for the lady-cop-hero he was nurturing in his head.
*
"Cuff me once, shame on you. Cuff me twice... shame on me." Beckett should have realised that he wouldn't be so easily restrained. He learns from his mistakes. Well, maybe not all his mistakes….
Being held hostage was an incredible experience. He let himself ride the adrenaline rush, taste the fear. On the other hand the safety was on, he wasn't in any real danger, and so could observe the proceedings.
Lady-cop-hero was going to have red hair he decided.
*
He and Beckett flirted as they said their goodbyes.
"So I can be another one of your conquests?" she'd asked and he'd replied, "Or I could be one of yours."
She walked away and in his mind's eyes lady-cop-hero walked away, hips swinging. He saw her clearly. She'd need a name, and she still needed fleshing out, but she was real to him now, the way Storm had become when he wrote the first Storm novel.
He spent most of the night typing, getting down the ideas, pouring the details he'd gathered onto the pages. This was different though; he had an actual person to gain inspiration from. He could do even better with lady-cop-hero (maybe Nikki?) if he could continue to gain access to the woman who had inspired her.
As soon as it was a reasonable hour he rang the mayor's office. The mayor was reading "Storm Fall" and was looking forward to what he'd write next.
"I have a brilliant new hero," Castle explained, "but I'm going to need to do some research. Bit of a secret, but the next novel is going to star a hard-as-nails but still sexy female detective. Clearly I lack female perspective, but I have an idea about that."
*
He went to the precinct and hid until Beckett was called into Montgomery's office and then sat at her desk, watching as Montgomery laid it out. There was no wiggle room here. Beckett accepted her fate; Montgomery nodded towards him.
Beckett stared at him and he smiled. This was going to be the start of a beautiful friendship.
