Hi everyone, Happy CastleFanficMonday! This is me attempting the Castle Ficathon this year and also my rom com au fic based on 10 Things I Hate About You. While it may not seem like it at first, this will primarily be Caskett with a little smattering of Esplainie in between. Hope you enjoy this!

PROLOGUE

Detective Javier Esposito steps off the elevator with his head held high, nodding at the uniforms he passes by on the way to the bull pen. It's his first day with the 12th and he wants to make a good impression. He's far from being a rookie, but he knows that transfers like himself more often than not have a harder time falling into an already established rhythm and he wants to make things as easy as possible for himself. He's going to start by being friendly. That's never hurt anyone before.

"You must be Detective Esposito!"

He startles and turns around, coming face to face with another detective who seems to be all smiles and overflowing with exuberance. The detective looks young, but he knows better than to judge a book by its cover. The other detective holds out his hand and Esposito can feel the subtle strength in his grip as they shake hands. His gaze is welcoming but there's a steely glint in his eyes that he recognises; the horrors that they encounter as detectives often leave unmistakeable traces behind and he sees this in Ryan. Yeah, he might look young, but he's definitely not someone who should be underestimated.

"Hey, yeah. Javier Esposito, transfer from the 54th. How are you?"

"Oh, I'm great. Super. I'm Kevin Ryan, your new partner. Welcome to the 12th! We're excited to have you here, homicide's been pretty shorthanded since McNulty left. I'll show you to your desk."

Esposito nods and follows him, taking in the new bullpen he's soon going to call home. It's a little homier than his last precinct and he decides he likes it. The wood paneling along the walls are in stark contrast to the glaring white walls at the 54th; warmer and more inviting. There's a large whiteboard in the middle of bullpen, a timeline drawn through the middle of it with photos of suspects stuck over it, notes hastily scrawled around them. He skims the board and oh- flowers arranged over the vic's body? Kinky.

He's heard the rumours about the precinct's main homicide team, about how they attract the really good cases; the ones that are on the ... interesting side of weird and gruesome. They also have one of the highest case closure rates in the city and it's part of the reason he pushed for the transfer. And the other part - well, he doesn't want to think about it. He needs to get over his past, to get over Ike and start fresh. In any case, his stint in the 54th's robbery division had been invaluable and he's learned plenty during his time there, but homicide's a whole new ball game.

They arrive at a desk in the middle of the bullpen and he nearly runs into Ryan when he stops in his tracks. "So this is your desk and mine's right here. We'll be in Beckett's team by the way. I'll introduce you when she comes back from lunch."

"Sure, bro." He sets his bag on the desk and nods towards the murder board. "Good case?"

"Really good. We just solved it, in fact. Serial murderer based his murders on a couple of books by this guy, Richard Castle. He's based here in New York, so we got him in to consult with us for a bit, turns out the guy's pretty switched on and we closed it with his help."

Esposito deflates, can't help but feel a little disappointed that he's missed out on the case but he's also put out by the fact that the team needed some second rate author to help them close the case. Maybe the rumours weren't true. Maybe the team wasn't as formidable as he thought it was. He's about to ask Ryan more about his team when he's distracted by a woman walking into the bullpen.

She struts across the room holding a large folder in one hand, hair as dark as ebony cascading down her back. She glances around before eventually noticing Ryan and starts to make her way towards them. She's wearing a lab coat over her clothes, but Esposito can tell she has an amazing body under baggy white material. She cocks an eyebrow at him as she approaches the pair of them and turns to Ryan when she's close enough.

"So this is the fresh meat?"

Ryan nods. "This is Detective Javier Esposito, transfer from the 54th. Esposito, this is Doctor Lanie Parish, Medical Examiner at the OCME."

"It is such a pleasure to meet you, Doctor Parish." Esposito bestows what he thinks is his most charming smile at the doctor and extends his hand to shake hers. She eyes it for a moment but takes it anyway, giving it a firm shake before sliding it slowly out of his grasp. The contact is brief but the silky smooth glide of her skin over his is positively mesmerising. He eases himself onto the corner of the desk, tries to mask his captivation with an air of nonchalance.

"Well, nice to meet you too, Detective," she says, the corner of her lips rising up in a sly smirk. She doesn't hide the way she takes him in, her eyes tracking downwards, devouring. "Very nice."

Ryan clears his throat, breaking the spell and Esposito turns to him indignantly. He's annoyed and a little frustrated at Ryan - had it not been obvious they were having a moment? He looks back at Lanie, eyebrows raised sheepishly but the moment's clearly gone and the woman is back to being all business, the playful tone in her voice disappearing as she hands him the folder in her hand.

"Can you give these to Beckett when you see her? She'll need them for her final report."

Esposito completely misses Ryan's response, he's too busy cataloging the way the doctor's curves are accentuated by the dress she's wearing under the lab coat, how the hem stops just above the knee, enough to be work appropriate and yet still short enough to tease. Before he knows it, the legs he's not so subtly ogling start moving away and he panics, slipping off the edge of the table in an attempt to catch up to her retreating back.

"Okay, you don't want to do that." Ryan snags his sleeve, preventing him from further movement. "She's off limits."

Esposito sputters incredulously. Seriously? Who was this guy? Telling him he can't – well, excuse him. "Where do you get off telling me what I can and cannot do, bro?"

Ryan rolls his eyes, folding his arms in front of him. "I'm just watching out for you. Lanie's …" Ryan trails off and points a finger at a closed door across the room, with the word 'Captain Montgomery' etched on the glass paneling. "She's the Captain's daughter."

Esposito spends the next half an hour sulking at his desk, filling out the final pages of the transfer paperwork he has to turn into Human Resources. Ryan grins smugly at him from the other side, his face etched with delight, no doubt relishing at the thought of being able to stall his advances with Lanie.

He's about to sign the last dotted line on his stack of papers when a commotion causes him to pause and look up. A tall, striking woman stalks into the precinct as if she's on a mission, her ridiculously high heeled boots clacking rhythmically against the hardwood floors. The other cops scurry away from her like the red sea parting for Moses as she marches into the bullpen. The frown on her face looks permanent and there's a vein on her forehead that pulses angrily as she approaches a desk in the middle of the room.

Esposito watches with interest from his desk as she shrugs off her coat and flings it over the back of her chair, slamming her cell phone down on the table. She closes her eyes, head tipping slightly backwards as if she's praying to a higher power for some sort of reprieve from the day. "Castle!" she barks out, her voice ringing through bullpen.

Another man skids noisily into the bullpen, his sports jacket flying behind him as he hurries to her. He holds up a paper bag and waves it in front of her face. "Sorry, Beckett, sorry! Valesquez wanted to chat and I couldn't say no. Here, everything's here, I promise."

Beckett?

The angry brunette with the freezing glare currently chewing out the other guy is his boss? That tall, leggy, gorgeous detective is meant to be his team leader? She looks more like a supermodel than a cop- not that he's complaining. Between the ME who dropped by earlier and this Detective Beckett, he's definitely struck gold in terms of eye candy. He can totally get behind that.

"So that's Detective Beckett?" he asks Ryan, tilting his head towards the duo, now bickering about whatever is contained in the paper bag. "Doesn't she get along with her partner?"

Ryan chuckles, shaking his head as he also watches in amusement while Beckett argues vehemently with the man in hushed whispers, jabbing at the paper bag as if it's personally offended her. "Yes, that's Beckett, don't let her looks fool you. She's amazing at what she does, best I've ever seen - but Castle's definitely not her partner. He's the writer I told you about before."

"The one who helped with the case?" Esposito clarifies, eyes darting quickly to the murder board, and then back to Castle who's now whimpering by Beckett's desk, contorted sideways as Beckett's fingers stretch out, twisting his ear. "Seriously, bro?"

Ryan smirks and nods. "Yeah, somehow he managed to convince the Captain to let him shadow Beckett for a while." He turns around in time to see Castle crash into his chair, massaging his ears. "Wanna guess how that's working out?"

Esposito leans back on his chair, twirling his pen between his fingers as he takes in what his new partner has just told him. He's barely even had half a day at his new job and it's already turning out to be very interesting. His boss is a kickass detective rock star, her pseudo-partner is more likely than not going to be a ball of laughs and his own partner seems to be able to hold his own. He thinks he might actually like it here at the new precinct.

His eyes fall to the folder he's meant to be handing off to Beckett and he's reminded of Lanie, her sinfully soft dark skin, sleek black hair and he can't help but still feel a little disgruntled about his ruined moment from before. So what if she's the Captain's daughter? That might mean she's off limits to other people, but Javier Esposito is nothing like other people and he sure isn't going to let that stand in the way of potential romance. Anyway, if that Castle guy managed to convince the Captain to let him follow his top detective around, how bad can he really be?

Thanks for all your help, Alex!