iluvroadrunner6: ([castle] beckett)
Emily ([personal profile] iluvroadrunner6) wrote2010-05-18 02:05 pm

Demming/Beckett - Too Late

Fandom: Castle
Title: Too Late
Author: [livejournal.com profile] iluvroadrunner6
Rating: PG-13
Characters: Tom Demming/Kate Beckett, mentions of unrequited Castle/Beckett
Content Warning: Spoilers for 224: A Deadly Game
Summary: This was the reason why she didn’t let her guard down.
Author’s Note: Don’t get me wrong, I love me some Castle/Beckett, but after last night … yeah. Beckett deserves a pretty cop who isn’t an idiot.
Disclaimer: They belong to ABC, not me. I’m just borrowing and will put them back where I found them.



This was the reason why she didn’t let her guard down.

Detective Beckett was always ahead of the game. She caught wind of a criminal and she didn’t let go until she caught the guy. It was what she was good at, and as a detective, it was what put her at the top of the class. Once she had his or her scent, she didn’t let go. Not until she got what she wanted. A great way to handle herself as a detective—not so great when it came to her romantic relationships.

Kate Beckett, the woman, tended to get burned and often. You weren’t supposed to hound a person into getting what you wanted from them. You couldn’t force them to accommodate your work schedule, or getting called in to go look at a dead body at three in the morning, or just deal with it when you show up smelling like decomp and whatever else when you were forced to chase a suspect through a landfill. She got by telling herself that it was fine. It was just the way things work. Some people got it and some people didn’t.

Detective Tom Demming got it. Granted, he was on the job, and usually dating someone on the job wasn’t the greatest idea, but he was a good, sweet man who treated her well and didn’t care if she smelled like decomp. He made her laugh, and didn’t mind her quirks, and just wanted to be with her. It should have been enough. It was enough. And then Esposito had to open his big fat mouth.

“Can I have another, Bernie?” she sighed, gesturing to the glass in her hand. She had been slowly making her way through glasses of whiskey for the past hour, trying to bleach that moment out of her mind, if at all possible. She had always knew that hindsight had a mean backhand, but this seemed to feel like they had added in a kick to the gut while she was down, and she just wanted the soreness in her ribs to stop for a while. She wanted to stop thinking about how she had made a massive idiot of herself, and Castle probably didn’t even realize it.

She had thought that Rick Castle had gotten it. He followed her around crime scenes like a lost puppy, making stray flirty comments that she tried not to let get under her skin. He was a fixture. Something that she got so used to having around that when he told her he was leaving for the summer, it stunned her in a way she hadn’t expected. And when she tried to get him to stay, or at least let him know that she was on the same page he was, and he takes his ex-wife to the Hamptons for the summer. It wasn’t fair. She was tired of being burned. For once, she just wanted what she wanted. She’d had that—for a little while at least—but in true Beckett fashion, she had to go and screw it up.

“You know, usually it’s the dumpee who’s supposed to get piss drunk.”

The bar was somewhat noisy, and she was surprised that she actually heard him, but when she turned to find Demming standing next to her, glass in his hand as well. She gave him a sheepish smile, before nodding.

“Yeah, usually. Doesn’t mean the dumper still doesn’t have it hard though.” Especially when she gets turned into the dumpee in the span of an hour.

“I’m sure it doesn’t,” he said softly, sitting down next to her and playing with the glass in his hand. She didn’t know how many he was in, but he seemed about on par with her at the moment. He was quiet for a moment, waiting for her to go into her next glass when he turned back to her, seeming a little braver than he was earlier. “It was Castle, wasn’t it?”

“What was?” she asked, downing the rest of her glass.

“What you want right now,” he sighed. “It’s Castle.”

She wasn’t sure what to say at first, but she figured that they were both feeling crappy with themselves, she might as well tell him the truth. “Yeah. It was.”

He was quiet for a moment, giving her a confused look. “Was? From the way Castle looked at you, I would have thought that that wouldn’t be a problem.”

“I was too late,” she admitted quietly. “He is in the Hamptons. With his ex-wife. For the whole summer.”

He was quiet for a moment, before reaching over and covering her hand on the bar. “I’m sorry, Kate.”

She shrugged. “I guess I just read the signals wrong.” She paused, looking at her glass again. “And I really want to drink.”

“Mind if I join you?”

It was a bad idea. There was a tiny voice in the back of her mind told her that that was a bad idea. Maybe not for her, but definitely for him. But the bigger, louder voice that was mostly fueled by alcohol and her being hurt told her that she didn’t want to be alone more. She watched the bartender refill her glass before nodding.

“Yeah. Sure.”

***

She stumbled back into the wall of his apartment, one hand reaching for purchase on the wall, while the other was focused on getting his shirt off his shoulders. He tasted like whiskey and peppermint and it was familiar and good, even though it wasn’t what she really wanted, she was capable of pretending for a while. It felt good to not be alone.

His lips moved down to the slope of her neck, hiking her up further against the wall so that he was pressed flush against her, one hand trailing down over her thigh and hooking it over his hip. It wasn’t a bad fit. There weren’t any spaces, it didn’t feel awkward, and she wasn’t sure if that was the booze or something else, but at least for this particular moment, Rick Castle was the last thing on her mind.

[identity profile] lovefromgirl.livejournal.com 2010-05-18 06:34 pm (UTC)(link)
*pets Kate* Poor baby. Demming may be a bit of a robot, but bless him, he's there...

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-18 06:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Eh, I liked Demming. But I can be a little shallow and he was very pretty.

Thanks for reading!

[identity profile] lovefromgirl.livejournal.com 2010-05-18 07:52 pm (UTC)(link)
Hey, being slightly robotic doesn't make him unlikable. ;-) I'm wishin' I had a Beckett to drink with (and a Demming to seduce me) because I'm a little bit in her shoes at the moment.

Okay, a lot in her shoes. And I may have been beaten to the punch by the woman who ran my college orientation. Bizarre but true.

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:56 am (UTC)(link)
I just wish I had a Demming to seduce me. I haven't had to worry about that lately.

[identity profile] annemarie272727.livejournal.com 2010-05-18 09:00 pm (UTC)(link)
Loved it! I'm really going to miss Demming :/

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:57 am (UTC)(link)
Me too. He was awesome.

[identity profile] spaciireth.livejournal.com 2010-05-18 11:36 pm (UTC)(link)
Have to admit, I only really started liking Demming in last night's episode, and then after THAT ending, I've actuallly become a bit of a fan of him/the pairing.

So having said that, really liked this piece!

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
The ending was so bad. I felt so bad for kate.

Thank you! I'm glad you liked it.
rainne: (Castle - Beckett - NYPD)

[personal profile] rainne 2010-05-19 12:04 am (UTC)(link)
I agree with [livejournal.com profile] spaciireth, I actually started liking Demming last night. Poor guy, he really did like her, and I think if there hadn't been Castle, he'd have been good for her.

Great piece, very sad.

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:58 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I'm glad you liked it.

[identity profile] afteriwake.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:27 am (UTC)(link)
Haven't seen the episode yet but this filled me in on what I wanted to know. Very good story, BTW. I get the feeling once I'm done watching the episode this will be added to my personal canon.

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:59 am (UTC)(link)
=D I'm debating whether or not I want to expand on it and just have Beckett run off with Demming and live happily ever after.

[identity profile] kalyrn.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 12:41 am (UTC)(link)
Thanks for writing this I personally really liked Demming because I felt that Kate needed some fun in her life. Also I like the pretty.

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-05-19 01:03 am (UTC)(link)
I really liked him too. I was really sorry to see him go.

[identity profile] theaquamarine.livejournal.com 2010-06-03 03:28 am (UTC)(link)
Wow, for a die-hard Castle/Beckett shipper, I really liked this! And I gotta agree with all of the other reviewers- I ended up liking Demming. I mean, the guy is HOT.. and he is a good guy, who genuinely liked Beckett. Great job!

[identity profile] iluvroadrunner6.livejournal.com 2010-06-03 07:38 pm (UTC)(link)
Thanks! I love Castle/Beckett too, but Demming was too adorable for me to pass up. Especially after Castle was an idiot.

Thanks for reading.