Title: "P. B. B."
Fandom: Castle
Pairing: Ryan/Esposito
Wordcount: 1, 241
Occasion:
ryanandesposito 's Hallowe'en ficathon.
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine, sadly. This is unbeta'ed, and thus is probably riddled with mistakes. My bad. At least it's posted. LOL -- maybe I should wait until tomorrow so that mine isn't eligible?
“Alright, Lanie, give me a hint.”
The M.E. looked up and peered cautiously at Beckett over the rim of her Castle-brand alcoholic concoction (“Careful,” Rick had warned her, “it has mysterious clothes-vanishing properties”).
“Hint?”
“Your costume,” Beckett prompted. “Either tight-fitting, solid-colored, jewel-tone body suits are back in style, or you’re supposed to be some purple-loving superheroine.” Beckett surveyed her friend from top to bottom and back again, taking in everything from purple stilettos to purple eyeshadow.
Lanie scoffed and flipped the ends of her violet wig, flaunting both her disdain and her manicured fingernails in the same shade. “I thought the hat gave it away,” she sighed.
“A flattened sombrero?”
“A lid,” Lanie huffed. “Like the lid on a mason jar.”
“So you’re...a purple jar…”
“Or something purple in a jar,” Lanie prompted exasperatedly. “It’s really not that difficult.”
“You’re…grape jelly?”
“Thank you!”
Beckett couldn’t suppress a little giggle. “Of all the things you could have been for Halloween, you pick grape jelly?”
“Seen Javier?” Lanie asked loftily, apparently ignoring her remarks. She sighed and looked around as well.
“No, but he said he’d be here, so I wouldn’t wor-“
“JAVI!” Lanie shouted, waiving excitedly in the vicinity of the refreshment table.
And that’s when Beckett saw him. She really needed to get her eyes checked, she reflected - she wasn’t sure how she could have missed him.
Lumbering through the crowd was an enormous jar of Jif Creamy Peanut Butter that appeared to have Esposito’s head sticking out of a hole in the lid. Beckett chuckled at him, but the chuckles turned to snorts as he drew nearer and she tried to suppress her laughter.
“Lookin’ good, Esposito,” she teased, her bottom lip wavering.
“No shame,” he said jauntily, sniffing and looking over at Lanie. “You gotta admit, we’re a better pair than you and your date.” Beckett cringed at the emphasis he put on the word and opened her mouth to argue, but he cut smoothly across her. “It’s sad that the only way he could get you to come was by letting you not dress up.”
“What do you mean?” Beckett shot back. “I am dressed up.”
“As yourself.”
“As Nikki Heat!”
“Which is the same thing as ‘yourself’,” he sighed. “And of course then Castle had to be Derrick Storm…”
“Not my fault his theme of the evening was ‘pairs’,” Beckett sighed.
“’Pairs’ is how he says ‘couples’ without you objecting,” Esposito retorted. “But see, my little Jelly and I-,” he wrapped an arm around Lanie’s waist, “-go together far better than your Castle characters. You two aren’t even from the same book! You’re not even from the same set of books! Jelly and I, we’re never apart - we just go together like that. Nothing goes with peanut butter like jelly.”
“You keep telling yourself that,” said a yellow blob just behind Esposito’s shoulder. He whirled (as quickly as he could without disturbing his enormous jar costume) to find Ryan’s face on the side of a banana.
“What are you doing?” he snorted.
“You should see Jenny,” Ryan said with a smirk. “She’s the cutest chimp I’ve ever seen.”
“Oh yeah?” Esposito taunted, digging him in the ribs. “So she’s the monkey to eat your banan-“
“Anyway,” Beckett said loudly, her cheeks flushing. “I’m shocked the two of you didn’t go as something,” she added, motioning to Ryan and Esposito.
“The theme is ‘couples’,” Esposito reminded her.
“Not couples,” she shot back, glaring at him. “’Pairs’. There’s a difference.”
“Keep telling yourself that,” he jibed.
“Last year you two went as Tonto and the Lone Ranger. There wasn’t even a theme last year!”
“I didn’t have a girlfriend last year,” Ryan reminded her gently. “Besides, Esposito was on a weird sandwich kick this year. I wasn’t planning to be part of a sandwich.”
“It’s really not that bad to be part of a sandwich,” Lanie murmured, sliding over to press against Esposito, or as much of him as she could with the side of his jar in the way. “Imagine, being pressed up against this burning hunk of man, sliding together, all wrapped up in something yummy…”
“And that’s where I exit this conversation,” Beckett announced, slipping over to the refreshment table with a grinning Lanie following her. As he watched her purple back retreating after Beckett, Esposito’s smile slipped from his face.
“You didn’t want to be a sandwich with me?” he said sadly. “And here I thought your girl was making you go with her.”
“She was,” Ryan corrected defensively. “Believe me, she would have killed me if I hadn’t taken her as my date. And anyway,” he added, drawing closer to Esposito’s jar so that he could lower his volume, “you know as well as I do that had Castle not meant ‘couples’, he would have said ‘partners’, or something similar. If you and I had shown up matching, they would have figured it out - we talked about this, remember?”
“I know,” Esposito sighed, resisting the urge to grab Ryan’s hand, which hung temptingly close to his own. Instead, he turned slightly so that his fingers covertly brushed Ryan’s and took a deep, calming breath. “I just…it feels weird, being with her. And you aren’t helping,” he added hotly, the sudden change in his tone making Ryan’s eyebrows jump. “Why does everything you do have to be so damn sexual?”
“What?” Ryan hissed.
“A banana? Seriously? She asked you to be a banana, and you agreed? You’d rather be a banana than part of a sandwich with me?”
“You wanted me to be a slice of cheese!” Ryan whispered exasperatedly.
“I wanted us to be a grilled cheese,” Esposito clarified. “So that I--…” He stopped short, as though his voice had been taken from him, and closed his mouth, looking away.
“What?” Ryan prompted.
“It’s nothing.”
“It’s not nothing - say it.”
“No,” Esposito said flatly, looking anywhere but at Ryan, as though it would hide the burning red that had started up his neck and now taken residence in his cheeks.
“Say it.”
“No.”
“Please say it?”
“It’s stupid!”
“It’s not!” Ryan sighed. “Whatever it is, it’s not stupid. If it were stupid, you’d have just said it, and we’d have both laughed, and this conversation-argument-thing wouldn’t be happening. Obviously it’s not stupid, which means you need to say it.”
“I don’t need to do anyth-“
“I want you to say it,” Ryan clarified. “And I’m sure we’re both making a big deal out of nothing, so just get it over with and-“
“I wanted you to be the cheese,” Esposito murmured, placing a hand on Ryan’s shoulder to draw him closer, “so that I could be the bread, and wrap myself around you all night.” They were both silent for a few moments, and then -
“I don’t see why you can’t do that anyway,” Ryan murmured huskily. “In fact, it’d be a whole lot easier without costumes - without clothes, period.”
“Wish I could,” Esposito sighed, “but you’re going home with your monkey.”
“Only if you want me to,” Ryan pouted. “Believe it or not, Jenny’s and my costume was all for you.”
“How-“
“Because I know you, Javi.” Ryan looked across the room at the woman in purple and smiled. “I know for a fact that you think PB and J is alright, but if given the choice, you’d pick peanut butter and banana every time.”