Prompt:

You work at the phone store and I keep purposely messing up settings on my phone so I can come in and talk to you AU

Part 1 / 5

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A doorbell chimes and startled, he looks up from his book on the merits of online dating and scans the store for the source of the noise. His eyes travel and lands on the most beautiful woman he's ever seen in his life. She looks a little agitated, fingers of one hand clutched tightly around her phone, as she taps furiously at the screen with her other hand. He notices that she's drenched, her long brunette hair hanging down past her shoulders, dripping water onto the shoulders of a particularly expensive looking coat.

She looks up from the phone and her eyes meet his from across the room. Oh god, she's gorgeous. Tall and lithe, legs that went on for miles, and her face … Castle swallows as he blinks, not believing she's actually walking towards him. Him. Oh crap, he glances quickly into the back room, hoping Eddy comes out of wherever he was so he -

"Excuse me, I need your help," the woman says as she leans against the glass counter.

Castle turns back to look at her and clears his throat.

Should he tell her he doesn't actually work at the store? That he's only waiting for Eddy to finish up in the back so they could close up early and go to Esposito's birthday party? That he really shouldn't be standing behind the counter at all, but he'd been so annoyed at the lack of seating in the store that he didn't think it would matter if he sat behind the counter anyway since he thought no one would possibly come in at such a late hour.

"Um, hello? Are you deaf?"

Castle snaps out of his slight panic and grins nervously at her. "No – no not deaf, just… caught me by surprise is all. No one has come into the store for the past half an hour."

She's looking at him weirdly, eyebrows cocked in disbelief. Her eyes drift to the title of the book he's been reading before she entered and then back up at him. "RIght," she says as if she's silently judging his choice of literature. It looks like she's about to make a comment, but then decides against it. "Look, I'm late and I need to get this working again."

She shows him her phone, taps at the screen and frowns when nothing happens. "Nothing happens – as you can see. And I need it to work, it's an emergency. I got a call from dispatch and it cut out suddenly, and now nothing is working. I need an address and I could go back to the precinct but –"

"- the precinct?" He gasps in excitement. "You're a cop? That is so cool! You don't look like a cop – no offence but … you … don't care."

She's glaring at him heatedly, clearly not amused. "Can you fix it or not?"

He takes the phone from her and starts to play around with it. He doesn't work in the store but he's still pretty good with technology and maybe he'll be able to fix her phone and possibly earn her eternal gratitude. He grins widely at her as he continues prodding at her phone.

"Sometimes phones are fiddly when they come into contact with water," he says. He's making it up as he goes, but it's not entirely a lie. She's drenched and he's almost a hundred percent sure she would have taken that call from dispatch as she was walking about in the rain.

"Yeah, that was my fault," she looks dejectedly at the phone. "Can you save it? Maybe dry it out or something?"

Her voice is music to his ears, even when it's laced with annoyance and impatience. He stares at her for a beat, taking in the sharp features of her face, the angles that he will remember forever. She's inspiring him and she doesn't even know it. His fingers are itching to go home and immortalise her with words, to describe how the lighting in the store perfectly accentuates her jawline, the stretch of her neck … But his inspiration is currently glaring at him again and he hastily looks back down at her phone.

"Uh, look. We could probably take it apart and try to have a look but because I'm in a nice mood -," he winks at her, but he only gets another annoyed look from her in return. "- I'll give you this nifty tip. Take it home and bury it in a tub of rice. It'll dry the thing right up and if it wasn't exposed to the water for too long, it should be as good as new after a good twelve hours or so."

She looks sceptical at his suggestion, but takes her phone back from him anyway. "And you're sure about this?"

Castle nods. "Sure, I'm sure. And if it doesn't, you can bring it back here tomorrow and we'll go from there? In the meantime though, you can use the store's phone to get that address you want. It's not a problem. No charge!"

This time she actually smiles, and he's once again entranced by how she beautiful she is. He pushes the store's phone towards her across the counter and gestures for her to use it.

He backs away from the counter, giving her privacy in case she wants it. He hears snippets of the conversation, even managing to catch her name when she introduces herself to whoever it was on the other line.

Detective Beckett.

Beckett. It's a strong name, no nonsense. He whispers it, testing out how it rolls off his tongue. He decides he likes the name. Now all he needs a first name.

"Oi, Castle, what the hell are you – oh, hello Miss!"

Eddy emerges from the back, his jacket in hand and the keys to the store swinging from his fingers. Eddy narrows his eyebrows suspiciously at Castle, tipping his chin questioningly at the Detective who's pushing back the store's phone towards the men behind the counter.

"I'm sorry, were you closed?" Beckett directs the question to Castle when she sees that Eddy's actually about to leave, but then shakes her head. "It doesn't matter, I've gotta go anyway. Thanks so much for your help. And for letting me use the phone."

"Anything for one of New York's finest," Castle says, giving her his most charming – or so he thinks – smile.

She blushes, but then rolls her eyes at him. Okay, so maybe she's been on the receiving end of one too many lines like that one. He'll need to work on that then. Eddy coughs loudly behind him and Beckett turns to him, only just noticing that they weren't alone anymore.

"Thanks again," Beckett says as nods at Eddy. She grabs her unresponsive phone and starts towards the entrance. "Oh," She turns back at the two men. She points at Castle's book, lying forgotten on the counter. "I hope you reading that doesn't mean you're completely against offline dating. 'Cause that would be a damn shame."

Castle looks back down at his book and then back up at her gaping, just in time to catch her winking at him. She actually winks at him! And then before he's managed to collect himself, she's waving at them both, her fingers fluttering adorably at them before the door slams shut and Castle's left staring at her back through the glass doors, disappearing into the night.