Holiday Post #8: Ryan/Esposito + skating
Dec. 9th, 2010 01:39 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ifeelbetterTitle: As Long As The Skating Is Getting Better
Author:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ifeelbetter
Disclaimer: I own nothing of value. Nothing. Definitely not a PhD.
Summary: Castle assumes every New Yorker can skate and has Rockefeller Center booked for Christmas Eve. Ryan and Esposito have to learn to skate fast or risk major embarrassment.
Notes: I have no idea why there isn't a vibrant and wild fandom for this pairing. It perplexes me. The show seems to be begging for it. And--guys--the adorbs of them. The adorbs is strong in this one.
It all started--as so many of their worst ideas seemed to these days--with an offhand comment from Castle.
"Every true New Yorker's been ice-skating at Rockefeller Center," he had scoffed at Beckett as they dropped into the chairs around Esposito's desk. "Am I right, fellas?" Then Castle looked to them for support, obviously secure in his belief that (a) they would agree and (b) they, as real New Yorkers, had been to Rockefeller Center to go ice-skating.
If anyone else had made such an assumption, Ryan would have been completely comfortable snorting and making a crack about how only tourists think that's a necessary qualification for authenticity in his city. Then Esposito would have pounded his fist and the person who was dumbass enough to have started it in the first place would have been schooled.
It was, perhaps, a bit off that Ryan assumed that Esposito would be there. In his hypothetical, imaginary scenario. He hadn't bothered to construct a believable interlocutor but he'd been sure Esposito would be there.
It was also a testament to something being loose in the cogs in his head that he hadn't done any of that when it was Castle making the assumptions. He could chock it up to Castle being New York through-and-through, more than anyone else Ryan had ever known. If he called qualification, it was a freaking qualification.
So he'd spluttered a little and made some kind of agreement grunt and Esposito had to do the same by that point because anything else would have been rude.
But, no. Neither one of them had ever been.
Castle clapped them both on the shoulders (Ryan secretly believed it was his way of rubbing their noses in his superior height and, whatever, stature's not everything), grinning dangerously widely.
"That is why, my young swains, we will be introducing Beckett to the practice on Christmas Eve," he said. "You two, the lovely Kate, me and my fine family--it will be a true Christmas miracle."
Beckett was glaring at them over Castle's shoulder. She had a sixth sense about when they were lying and she was calling liar-liar-pants-on-fire with her eyes.
"Oh, yeah, absolutely," Ryan said, inwardly cringing. The last time he'd been on skates, he'd walked away with a wrist in a cast. And he'd been twelve.
"For sure, bro," Esposito agreed in his manic-but-cool voice, the one that meant there was a Not Suave Thing happening inside that he was determined to make a Suave Thing by sheer willpower.
* * *
"Why the hell would you agree--" Esposito hissed, five minutes later.
Ryan started speaking in the same second. "I'm gonna break my other wrist," he groaned, "And then I'm going to be the most ridiculous detective ever."
"Oh, great, you're going to break your wrist, yeah, but I'm not going to be able to stand and I'm going to be the most ridiculous detective ever," Esposito hissed. He was leaning in awfully close in his panic-rage-on-the-D/L. He was getting a little spittle on Ryan's eyebrow.
They paused for a breath.
"...you don't know how to ice-skate?" Ryan asked.
"Fuck you very much," Esposito informed him. "This is your fault."
"We're going to have to take lessons," Ryan decided. "It'll be like...research. For a case. Sort of like that."
"Yeah," Esposito agreed. "It's fine if it's research, right?"
Ryan was always impressed by the lengths to which Esposito would go to convert the Not Suave Thing into the Suave Thing. He seemed positively enthusiastic about the idea of taking lessons with a bunch of eight-year-olds. All he needed was the lie--the obvious lie--of calling it research.
"I'll make us appointments," Ryan said, pulling his phone out.
* * *
The upside about them being impoverished and under-appreciated detectives instead of, say, best-selling socialite authors was that the only place they could afford was in Jersey. Way out in the middle of nowhere. Where no one knew them at all.
It was a small comfort they clung to as they slid across the ice into groups of children like bowling balls toppling pins.
"Look, it's about the centrifugal force, right?" Ryan theorized after they'd toppled another school group. "Let's center ourselves here."
"No, you look, there are only so many times I can tell you to--" and Esposito dropped his voice to avoid children overhearing "--fuck off before I start to sound like a broken record."
"I think we already passed that," Ryan said mildly.
Esposito stabbed a finger into the puffiest point in Ryan's coat. "Don't you start," he warned.
The fact that his legs wobbled out from under him (both seeming determined to make a break for it in opposite directions) did not help him with the threatening quality he was going for. Ryan had to catch him under each arm, leaving Esposito's arms poking awkwardly up over his head and his head dipped somewhere near Ryan's navel.
"Don't you start," Esposito tried again, his face plastered in Ryan's puffy coat. It sounded mostly too muffled to be intelligible.
Ryan shifted as best he could--not a dignified moment for either of them, really--and hoisted Esposito back into a precarious balance on his own skates. He had that crouched-down posture of beginners, the one that says to all who pass that this is a person who thinks the ground might swallow them up at any moment. It involved a certain awkward butt-sticking-out, arms-splayed-out, tensed awkwardness that might just have been the most extreme Not Suave Thing Ryan had ever seen his partner subjected to.
And that included dumpster diving. Esposito came out of a dumpster looking fine. Ryan had often stopped, an elbow propped on the corner of a dumpster, and admired the view as Esposito sauntered out of whatever alleyway they were dumpster diving in. It was a question of aesthetics, right? It wasn't a sexual thing to have the only possible reaction to a man who looked like Esposito walking away, now was it?
Ryan had hoisted Esposito upwards enough so that he could clasp his hands behind his hack, still under his arms. He put one leg between Esposito's too, just to make sure.
"I'm pretty sure this is all about centrifugal force," he told Esposito.
And that was when Esposito put his arms somewhere. Which meant that Ryan realized--stupidly behind the times again--that Esposito was close enough that putting his arms somewhere meant that he put them around Ryan.
A girl with a tiara on over her thick woolen hat--an obvious compromise between a pre-teen's sartorial choices and her parents' practicality--made a sound as she skated gracefully past them. It sounded a lot like, "Aawwwwwww."
"OK," Esposito said. It was his husky voice too, which had always done things to Ryan's spine. "How are you so balanced right now? I thought you broke your wrist the last time you tried this."
"I did," Ryan said, his own voice dipping dangerously into 'husky' territory, "I broke that wrist but good."
"And yet you're all upright," Esposito pointed out.
Ryan was aware there was a certain obviousness in the content of this particular conversation. On his side, he was entirely sure that the cause was the fact that his brain was shutting off all non-essential functions for internal repairs. He had maxed out a piece of his brain; it had short-circuited and taken all higher cognitive functioning with it.
"I am upright," he agreed. "Standing. Standing here."
"Yeah," Esposito agreed.
He was really very close.
Ryan licked his lips. They were suddenly very dry. Esposito tracked the motion.
Fuck it, he thought.
"I bet you forty bucks I get to the men's room before you," Ryan said, risking everything.
"Done," Esposito agreed.
And they were across the entire rink in less than a wink without a single spill.
* * *
By Christmas Eve, they were both skating like champs. They did a couple of loops around Beckett and Castle--Beckett sliding un-gracefully (but not unwillingly) into Castle's arms--and then did a couple more backwards.
It turns out that ice-skating is the kind of skill that you learn once, you've got it for life. And if you've got a good enough reason to pick it up quickly...well, that can only help.
Author:
ifeelbetterDisclaimer: I own nothing of value. Nothing. Definitely not a PhD.
Summary: Castle assumes every New Yorker can skate and has Rockefeller Center booked for Christmas Eve. Ryan and Esposito have to learn to skate fast or risk major embarrassment.
Notes: I have no idea why there isn't a vibrant and wild fandom for this pairing. It perplexes me. The show seems to be begging for it. And--guys--the adorbs of them. The adorbs is strong in this one.
It all started--as so many of their worst ideas seemed to these days--with an offhand comment from Castle.
"Every true New Yorker's been ice-skating at Rockefeller Center," he had scoffed at Beckett as they dropped into the chairs around Esposito's desk. "Am I right, fellas?" Then Castle looked to them for support, obviously secure in his belief that (a) they would agree and (b) they, as real New Yorkers, had been to Rockefeller Center to go ice-skating.
If anyone else had made such an assumption, Ryan would have been completely comfortable snorting and making a crack about how only tourists think that's a necessary qualification for authenticity in his city. Then Esposito would have pounded his fist and the person who was dumbass enough to have started it in the first place would have been schooled.
It was, perhaps, a bit off that Ryan assumed that Esposito would be there. In his hypothetical, imaginary scenario. He hadn't bothered to construct a believable interlocutor but he'd been sure Esposito would be there.
It was also a testament to something being loose in the cogs in his head that he hadn't done any of that when it was Castle making the assumptions. He could chock it up to Castle being New York through-and-through, more than anyone else Ryan had ever known. If he called qualification, it was a freaking qualification.
So he'd spluttered a little and made some kind of agreement grunt and Esposito had to do the same by that point because anything else would have been rude.
But, no. Neither one of them had ever been.
Castle clapped them both on the shoulders (Ryan secretly believed it was his way of rubbing their noses in his superior height and, whatever, stature's not everything), grinning dangerously widely.
"That is why, my young swains, we will be introducing Beckett to the practice on Christmas Eve," he said. "You two, the lovely Kate, me and my fine family--it will be a true Christmas miracle."
Beckett was glaring at them over Castle's shoulder. She had a sixth sense about when they were lying and she was calling liar-liar-pants-on-fire with her eyes.
"Oh, yeah, absolutely," Ryan said, inwardly cringing. The last time he'd been on skates, he'd walked away with a wrist in a cast. And he'd been twelve.
"For sure, bro," Esposito agreed in his manic-but-cool voice, the one that meant there was a Not Suave Thing happening inside that he was determined to make a Suave Thing by sheer willpower.
"Why the hell would you agree--" Esposito hissed, five minutes later.
Ryan started speaking in the same second. "I'm gonna break my other wrist," he groaned, "And then I'm going to be the most ridiculous detective ever."
"Oh, great, you're going to break your wrist, yeah, but I'm not going to be able to stand and I'm going to be the most ridiculous detective ever," Esposito hissed. He was leaning in awfully close in his panic-rage-on-the-D/L. He was getting a little spittle on Ryan's eyebrow.
They paused for a breath.
"...you don't know how to ice-skate?" Ryan asked.
"Fuck you very much," Esposito informed him. "This is your fault."
"We're going to have to take lessons," Ryan decided. "It'll be like...research. For a case. Sort of like that."
"Yeah," Esposito agreed. "It's fine if it's research, right?"
Ryan was always impressed by the lengths to which Esposito would go to convert the Not Suave Thing into the Suave Thing. He seemed positively enthusiastic about the idea of taking lessons with a bunch of eight-year-olds. All he needed was the lie--the obvious lie--of calling it research.
"I'll make us appointments," Ryan said, pulling his phone out.
The upside about them being impoverished and under-appreciated detectives instead of, say, best-selling socialite authors was that the only place they could afford was in Jersey. Way out in the middle of nowhere. Where no one knew them at all.
It was a small comfort they clung to as they slid across the ice into groups of children like bowling balls toppling pins.
"Look, it's about the centrifugal force, right?" Ryan theorized after they'd toppled another school group. "Let's center ourselves here."
"No, you look, there are only so many times I can tell you to--" and Esposito dropped his voice to avoid children overhearing "--fuck off before I start to sound like a broken record."
"I think we already passed that," Ryan said mildly.
Esposito stabbed a finger into the puffiest point in Ryan's coat. "Don't you start," he warned.
The fact that his legs wobbled out from under him (both seeming determined to make a break for it in opposite directions) did not help him with the threatening quality he was going for. Ryan had to catch him under each arm, leaving Esposito's arms poking awkwardly up over his head and his head dipped somewhere near Ryan's navel.
"Don't you start," Esposito tried again, his face plastered in Ryan's puffy coat. It sounded mostly too muffled to be intelligible.
Ryan shifted as best he could--not a dignified moment for either of them, really--and hoisted Esposito back into a precarious balance on his own skates. He had that crouched-down posture of beginners, the one that says to all who pass that this is a person who thinks the ground might swallow them up at any moment. It involved a certain awkward butt-sticking-out, arms-splayed-out, tensed awkwardness that might just have been the most extreme Not Suave Thing Ryan had ever seen his partner subjected to.
And that included dumpster diving. Esposito came out of a dumpster looking fine. Ryan had often stopped, an elbow propped on the corner of a dumpster, and admired the view as Esposito sauntered out of whatever alleyway they were dumpster diving in. It was a question of aesthetics, right? It wasn't a sexual thing to have the only possible reaction to a man who looked like Esposito walking away, now was it?
Ryan had hoisted Esposito upwards enough so that he could clasp his hands behind his hack, still under his arms. He put one leg between Esposito's too, just to make sure.
"I'm pretty sure this is all about centrifugal force," he told Esposito.
And that was when Esposito put his arms somewhere. Which meant that Ryan realized--stupidly behind the times again--that Esposito was close enough that putting his arms somewhere meant that he put them around Ryan.
A girl with a tiara on over her thick woolen hat--an obvious compromise between a pre-teen's sartorial choices and her parents' practicality--made a sound as she skated gracefully past them. It sounded a lot like, "Aawwwwwww."
"OK," Esposito said. It was his husky voice too, which had always done things to Ryan's spine. "How are you so balanced right now? I thought you broke your wrist the last time you tried this."
"I did," Ryan said, his own voice dipping dangerously into 'husky' territory, "I broke that wrist but good."
"And yet you're all upright," Esposito pointed out.
Ryan was aware there was a certain obviousness in the content of this particular conversation. On his side, he was entirely sure that the cause was the fact that his brain was shutting off all non-essential functions for internal repairs. He had maxed out a piece of his brain; it had short-circuited and taken all higher cognitive functioning with it.
"I am upright," he agreed. "Standing. Standing here."
"Yeah," Esposito agreed.
He was really very close.
Ryan licked his lips. They were suddenly very dry. Esposito tracked the motion.
Fuck it, he thought.
"I bet you forty bucks I get to the men's room before you," Ryan said, risking everything.
"Done," Esposito agreed.
And they were across the entire rink in less than a wink without a single spill.
By Christmas Eve, they were both skating like champs. They did a couple of loops around Beckett and Castle--Beckett sliding un-gracefully (but not unwillingly) into Castle's arms--and then did a couple more backwards.
It turns out that ice-skating is the kind of skill that you learn once, you've got it for life. And if you've got a good enough reason to pick it up quickly...well, that can only help.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 06:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 03:59 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 10:34 am (UTC)the one that meant there was a Not Suave Thing happening inside that he was determined to make a Suave Thing by sheer willpower.
I laughed so hard at this line because it's so perfectly Esposito and I love that Ryan knows him well enough that know what's going on inside him right now.
And I loved this so much too: It was a question of aesthetics, right?
Because Ryan would so think that and argue it in his head. ♥♥♥♥
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:01 am (UTC)And Ryan has an internal monologue that is intense.
Glad you liked it! :)
no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 01:31 pm (UTC)If you want to join in with other Ryan & Espo shippers more, you should definitely check out
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:01 am (UTC)...and your icon makes my knees wobble.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 02:12 pm (UTC)Also? Please pleeeease write more Fan Fiction for this pairing! I made a list of all the Ryan & Esposito Fan Fic that exists here: http://community.livejournal.com/ryanandesposito/2671.html
But there's not nearly enough of it!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 02:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:02 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 02:38 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:03 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 03:31 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:04 am (UTC)NOBODY TELL THEM THEIR GAME IS CRAZYPANTS.
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 04:33 pm (UTC)This was wonderful- the Christmas gift, Castle, Beckett, and of course Ryan and Esposito. It reminded me of that male stripper storyline, where Esposito got all lathered up and did pushups to demonstrate his manliness. Oh, this was great!
And I'm sticking my toe in a new fandom- what do you mean, there isn't a bunch of rabid fanpoodles writing this pairing? I think the writers ship it!!
no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:06 am (UTC)I have been directed to
no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 04:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:06 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-09 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-10 04:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-15 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 07:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-12-16 07:30 pm (UTC)And yes, the fandom exists! It's just kinda small :( Please join the fun on