Hi everyone! I'm back again with yet another "Texts From Last Night"-inspired fic. I'll post the TFLN tweet that inspired this at the end. There will be three chapters in total.

Note that for purposes of this story I've reduced the age difference between Castle and Beckett. Just go with it, okay? :)

"Yeaaaaaaah! Y - 2 - K, baby!"

Kate Beckett rolled her eyes as the drunken whoop reverberated through the frat house. A small group of revelers went dashing past, red plastic cups sloshing beer over their hands, their sneakered feet crushing bits of pretzels and tortilla chips into the carpet as they threaded their way through the crowd. The rest of the partiers ignored them, gyrating to the music, laughing, drinking, carefree.

Kate shook her head and took another swig from the bottle of champagne she had liberated while the bartender's head was turned. She was starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, but she needed more to get her through this night.

What the hell was she doing here, anyway? She was the same age as most of these idiots - just turned twenty a few weeks back - but she felt light-years beyond them in maturity, thoroughly impatient with their childish antics.

Losing your mom would do that to you.

She raised the bottle to her lips again, scanning the crowd for any sign of Maddie - the friend who had accompanied her to the party and then disappeared - or of a reasonably good-looking guy who might be a little less drunk than the rest.

She wasn't stupid; she knew why single girls came to frat parties, especially on New Year's Eve. They came looking for, at a minimum, someone cute to kiss when the clock chimed midnight. And usually more than kissing, and usually way past midnight. She knew all of that, and she'd known it when she agreed to come to this party with Maddie.

As soon as the calendar flipped over to the year 2000, January 9th would be staring Kate in the face: a date that would always represent pain and grief for her; the first anniversary of the day her life had changed forever. Nearly a whole year later, and the agony of her mother's murder had barely subsided at all.

So yeah, maybe she'd come to the party looking to block all of that out, if only for a short time. Looking to drown her sorrows in cheap champagne and the eager, clumsy touch of a cute but forgettable frat boy.

But she might have waited too long, she thought grouchily as she watched the mass of sweaty, drunken fellow students bouncing to the beat of the music. It looked like just about everyone had paired off while she was moping on the couch in the corner; any guy left unclaimed by now would probably be so drunk he couldn't even get his own pants off, let alone hers.

She glanced at her watch. 10:45 P.M. She had an hour and fifteen minutes to either find someone to kiss, or throw up her hands and say to hell with it. She could still hop an uptown train and be back home in time to watch the ball drop on TV, with only her equally sozzled dad for company.

Her lips twisted in distaste at the thought. She wasn't ready to think about her dad's drinking, how it only seemed to be getting worse rather than better as the days ticked by. Time was supposed to heal all wounds, but so far it was doing a shitty job of it for both Kate and Jim.

No, damn it. She wasn't going home to her dad and the cold, sad apartment with its echoing loneliness and empty spaces where her mom should be. She was going to find a warm body to help her forget. She had condoms in her purse and sexy, lacy underwear beneath her tight dress. She just needed to get her ass up off this couch and flash a smile, crook a finger, and some dumb boy would fall into her lap.

Hopefully not literally.

She took another mouthful of champagne. One more minute to gather her confidence, that was all she needed.

"Dude, this is pathetic. It's almost eleven and you still don't have someone to kiss."

"Yeah, and, you totally chickened out of stealing that police horse."

"Shut up," Rick Castle grumbled, glaring at his friends.

Well, not so much friends, really. More like... guys he hung out with sometimes, and was always embarrassed about afterward. They were still in college, whereas he had graduated a couple of years ago; at 24, with a novel on the New York Times bestseller list and another one beginning to climb up the charts, he should really be finding himself some new friends by now. Yet somehow he kept gravitating back to the college guys, even though they were, basically, a bunch of immature assholes.

He punched one of them in the shoulder, just hard enough to make his point, and shoved the other. "I didn't chicken out," he growled, narrowing his eyes at them. "That cop was armed, in case you didn't notice."

"Please. He wouldn't have actually shot you," Chad insisted, then paused, his red-rimmed eyes glazing over in thought. "Would he?"

"Nah," said Marcus dismissively. "But whatever, dude, this is the party. This party is where it's at, man."

"Yeah," Chad agreed as they wove their unsteady way down the sidewalk toward the boys' frat house. The pounding music from their fraternity's New Year's party could already be heard and felt in Rick's bones. "This is where you're gonna find her, dude."

"The girl you're gonna kiss at midnight," Marcus clarified unnecessarily. "Guarantee you she's in there, bro. No question."

"Guys..." Rick muttered hesitantly, scowling. "I shouldn't..."

"Come on, Ricky." Marcus pushed him forward. "Not still thinking about Meredith, are you? Dude, forget her. She's history."

"History," Chad repeated for emphasis.

"Yeah..." Rick knew they were right. Meredith hadn't been returning his calls for weeks now, since she'd headed out to Hollywood, so yeah, he definitely needed to forget her.

And although he wasn't crazy about the way the guys talked about the kind of college girls at these parties, it was true that all Rick wanted right now was a simple, uncomplicated fling. A warm, soft mouth to kiss at midnight, and then if she wanted to come back to his place and do a bit more than kissing, that would be great too. Tomorrow she could get back to her normal college-girl life, and he could go back to working on his next book and pretending he wasn't the kind of twenty-something who still hung out with college kids.

"And hey, check it out," Chad added, smirking in what he probably thought was a sly, smooth way. "While you were talkin' to that cop on his horse, I lifted these off him."

Rick and Marcus both gaped as Chad pulled his hand out of his jacket pocket and held up a pair of handcuffs.

"Oh shit," Marcus gasped, bursting into raucous laughter. "Dude, you did not."

"I so did," Chad hooted, and they both cracked up, clutching each other for support. Rick groaned and shook his head.

"God, Chad, you're such a dumb-ass," he grunted, trying not to grin, because come on, it was kind of funny.

"Dude. This is it! Shit, it's perfect." Marcus was alight all of a sudden, his eyes sparkling with excitement, and Rick felt a tingle of apprehension pushing its way through the alcohol-fueled haze that was his brain.

"What?" he asked warily, swaying slightly on his feet as they started up the stairs.

"You still owe me a dare from before, remember?" Marcus needled, smirking. "Because you totally wimped out with the horse."

Rick groaned again. "Okay, okay, fine. What's the dare?"

"You take these." Marcus swiped the handcuffs from Chad's fingers and shoved them into Rick's hand. "We're going into this party, dude, and the first girl you see - the first girl-"

"-who's not already with someone-" Chad chimed in.

"-right, who's not already with someone," Marcus agreed, nodding, "the first girl, you handcuff yourself to her."

"What?" Rick blinked, briefly making himself dizzy. "You gotta be kidding me."

"No, no. It's gonna be awesome, you'll see," Marcus insisted, as Chad cracked up again, leaning against the door frame, his skinny body shaking with drunken merriment.

"It seems a little..." Rick trailed off, uncertain. His half-pickled brain couldn't quite puzzle it out, but he was pretty sure there was a very good reason why this was a very bad idea.

Then again, he'd thought the same thing about stealing the police horse too, and hadn't he been wrong about that? It would have been pretty awesome, after all. Riding a police horse around downtown Manhattan on New Year's Eve. Chicks would have loved that. Wouldn't they?

"Come on, what's the worst that could happen?" Marcus asked, throwing his arms wide, staggering a little at the motion. "If she's mad, you'll just kiss someone else."

Sure. That made sense, Rick thought fuzzily. It wasn't like he would kiss a girl who didn't want to be kissed.

"Okay," he said, nodding. He fumbled with the handcuffs until one loop clicked into place around his left wrist. Chad and Marcus whooped, grinning, thumping his shoulders.

"Atta boy, Ricky! Get to it."

"I'll get us some more drinks," Chad added, yanking the door open. The party hit them full in the faces - music blasting at top volume, the smell of beer and sweat, the air humid from accumulated body heat.

The three young men grinned at each other and pushed their way inside.

Okay, Kate told herself, it was now or never. Time to stop hiding on the couch like a timid freshman. Time to get up and -

"Hi! How ya doing?"

Seeming to appear out of nowhere, a large young man plopped down on the couch next to her. Before she had a chance to react, he had grabbed her hand and was gazing soulfully into her eyes. "I'm Rick," he said.

"Kate," she replied, slightly stunned. He had nice eyes, she noticed immediately. A bright, sparkling blue, set in a ruggedly handsome face, and she could see in her peripheral vision that he was tall and broad - just the way she liked them. His hand, wrapped around hers, was big and warm.

He smelled faintly of beer, and his eyes were a little glazed from it, but that was to be expected. At least he wasn't too drunk to even sit up. Maybe there was hope for this night yet.

"I'm really sorry about this," he said, making her frown and blink in confusion. "I want you to know that in advance."

"Know what? Sorry about what?" she asked, bemused. He didn't reply, but his hand shifted, sliding up her arm, and she both heard and felt a metallic click around her wrist.

"What the hell?!"

Oh shit, oh shit. Rick was definitely the stupidest man alive. Why the hell had he let the guys talk him into this?

He'd done it - handcuffed himself to the first girl he saw - and she was definitely going to kill him. And she was gorgeous. She was the hottest woman he had ever seen, he was sure of it. Oh god, he didn't want her to kill him. He wasn't ready to die yet. He wanted to kiss her. And so much more.

He was such an idiot.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he babbled, watching with dread as her beautiful green eyes first widened, then narrowed murderously. "My friends, it was a dare. They, uh, they-" He looked frantically around the room, searching the crowd, but of course Chad and Marcus had completely disappeared. Their girlfriends had been waiting for them at the party and had whisked them away as soon as they arrived.

"Are you completely insane?!" the girl - Kate - demanded, her eyes sparking fire at him. Shit, the anger made her even hotter.

"No, no. I just took a dare. I swear," he said earnestly. "I promise you, I'm not some kind of... of..."

"Rapist?" she suggested acidly.

"No!" he exclaimed, aghast. "No, god, no, listen, I'm just an idiot, okay? It was a stupid prank and I... never should have listened to those jerks." The last few words came out on a sigh, his shoulders slumping in self-reproach.

Kate pulled her lower lip between her teeth, studying him. "A prank?" she repeated skeptically.

"Yeah..." Somehow he found himself telling her the whole stupid story, from the aborted police-horse heist to the handcuffs and the dare. He knew it made him look pretty bad, but he figured she had the right to know.

"That's some fable, Aesop," she remarked when he had finished. "Too bad you didn't read the moral in advance."

"Yeah," he agreed ruefully, rubbing his forehead with his free hand. "I really am sorry."

"Okay," Kate said coolly, "well, just unlock the cuffs and we'll forget this ever happened."

A sinking feeling dragged Rick's stomach toward the center of the earth. "Oh, shit," he mumbled.

Kate took in a long breath and sighed it out, closing her eyes briefly. "Let me guess. You don't have the key."

"I..." He groaned. "My friend Chad, the one I was just telling you about. He, he probably has it. We gotta find him." Chad would have the key, wouldn't he? Oh god, if he didn't, Rick really was going to be a dead man.

He watched helplessly as Kate hefted a half-empty bottle of champagne in her other hand. She lifted the bottle to her lips, and Rick's mouth went dry. Seriously? She was drinking champagne straight from the bottle? Wow.

"Okay," she said, lowering the bottle. "Let's find this asshole friend of yours, then." She licked her lips, and he couldn't help staring, transfixed. Damn, that was hot.

"Okay," he repeated. "Okay." Find Chad. That's what they had to do. He couldn't have gone far; Rick was sure that the guys wouldn't be leaving the frat house, not this close to midnight.

Oh god. Midnight was coming up. What were the chances that Kate was going to let him kiss her, after all of this? He searched her face, but her expression was inscrutable. She was a complete mystery.

"Let's go," she said, and they rose from the couch together, only a little awkward with their wrists cuffed together.

Once they were on their feet, he looked at her again and was surprised by how tall she was. Nearly up to his eye level, and he wasn't short. He wouldn't have to stoop at all to kiss her, and the mere thought sent tingles zipping through his bloodstream.

He let his eyes go wandering, appreciating the low-cut neckline of her dress, the tight fit of the material along her torso, and the short hemline. Below that, there were what looked like miles of long, smooth legs that he was already imagining wrapped around him.

He dragged his gaze back up to Kate's face and found her giving him the same once-over that he had just been giving her. Her eyes slid away from his and he thought he detected a slight flush staining her cheeks before she twisted her wrist, bringing her cuffed hand toward his.

"Hold my hand," she instructed, and his heart skipped a beat.

"What?" he managed, dry-mouthed.

Kate rolled her eyes. "It'll look less obvious that way," she said, her tone of voice clearly adding you idiot to the end of the sentence. He felt his ears warming, but what did a little embarrassment matter, when she was slipping her hand into his, threading her slim fingers between his thicker ones, letting their palms meet? He'd never known that simple hand-holding could feel so intimate.

"Come on," she prodded, nudging his shoulder with hers. "Where would this friend of yours have gone?"

"Right. Um." He began to move into the mass of people, his mind churning sluggishly. Where would Chad be? Upstairs, where it might be a little quieter, or down here in the midst of the party?

"Have you seen Chad?" he called randomly toward a few faces he vaguely recognized, raising his voice to a near-yell to be heard over the pounding music. But everyone just shook their heads and shrugged.

Kate's hand was warm in his, and she was right: it was easier to move around this way, the cuffs sitting quietly around their wrists. No one would give them a second glance. Of course, it also forced her to stay close behind him, the long lines and curves of her body a tantalizing presence against his back. His head was swimming, and it wasn't just from the beer.

He pushed his way through the crowd, making slow progress toward the stairway at the back of the room.

Kate could feel the tension radiating off of Rick as she followed him through the party, but as for her, she was beginning to enjoy herself. This ridiculous situation might be exactly the thing she'd been seeking to distract her.

It helped that she was able to see the humor in the situation, after the initial shock had worn off. When Rick had plopped himself down on the couch and handcuffed himself to her, she'd been angry, of course, and a bit scared, but their conversation had served to reassure her. Rick's horror when she had mentioned rape was genuine, and as crazy as it seemed, she believed his story. Handcuffing oneself to a stranger on New Year's Eve sounded like exactly the kind of thing that one stupid drunk frat boy would dare another stupid drunk frat boy to do.

It also helped that he was seriously hot. When he'd been telling her the ridiculous story about his friends daring him to steal a police horse, his whole face had become animated, his free hand gesturing to punctuate the tale; despite being clearly at least half-drunk, he was still an entertaining storyteller. Then, when they had stood up, she'd been pleasantly surprised to find him a few inches taller than her, his broad shoulders filling out his t-shirt very nicely. She'd been so busy checking him out that she almost hadn't noticed him doing the same to her in return.

He did seem a little older than the typical frat-boy type at these parties, though. On that thought, she pressed herself in closer to his back, grinning at the way his steps faltered at the contact.

"Are you a student?" she asked into his ear, letting her breath flow across his neck. She felt him shiver, even as he was shaking his head.

"I, uh, graduated a couple years ago," he replied over his shoulder.

"Oh, so you have a job?"

"Um. Sort of."

Before she had a chance to ask what that meant, they had reached the far end of the room and slipped through a door, finding themselves in a stairwell. The noise from the party dropped off dramatically as the door closed behind them; the sudden quiet was almost overwhelming. Kate lifted the bottle to her mouth again, taking another large gulp of the lukewarm champagne.

"He might be upstairs," Rick explained, looking back at her with a bit of hesitation in his gaze as he put one foot onto the first stair.

Kate shrugged. "Okay."

They started up the stairs, side by side now, their cuffed hands still clasped together.

"So," Rick said after half a flight, "after we get out of this, uh, predicament," with an embarrassed wince, "is there someone we need to find and beat up?"

"What do you mean?" she asked, tilting her head curiously. He glanced sideways at her, then returned his attention to his feet, watching them as they climbed the stairs.

"Guy who brought you here and then abandoned you," he clarified. "He must be some kind of idiot."

"Oh... no," she denied, feeling her face flush unaccountably hot. "I didn't, uh, I just came with a girlfriend." When his head came up again, wide eyes seeking hers, she quickly amended, "I mean, a friend. Who is a girl."

"Oh, good. Phew," he said, pretending to wipe sweat from his brow. "I mean, not that there's anything wrong with, uh, but that's not really how I wanted to spend my New Year's Eve, handcuffed to a lesbian."

Kate laughed. "Okay, but how did you want to spend it?" she couldn't help asking. "I mean, what was your big plan here? 'Oh, you handcuffed yourself to me without my consent, so yes, I would love to kiss you at midnight,' is that what you thought would happen?"

Rick grimaced. "It does sound pretty dumb when you put it that way," he admitted. "Somehow when my friends came up with the idea, it sounded kinda cute. You know, like the kind of thing a girl would think was sweet and romantic."

"I'm guessing your friends don't know much about women," Kate commented. Rick nodded thoughtfully.

"In my defense, I figured if you didn't want to kiss me I'd just find someone else."

"Oh," she chuckled, "so your Plan B was to kiss another girl while still handcuffed to me?"

He groaned, bringing his free hand up to smack himself in the forehead. "Man, I have really got to stop hanging out with those guys."

"Sounds like a good idea," she murmured, shaking her head in amusement.

They reached the top of the stairs and emerged into the hallway. The second floor of the frat house, where the bedrooms were, was quieter than downstairs, but by no means peaceful. Clumps of people were standing around, chatting, or in the case of one group, playing cards. Most of the bedroom doors were open with people coming and going. A few couples were leaning against the walls, already getting a head start on the midnight kisses.

Kate paused, letting Rick take the lead. He squinted down the hallway, then took in a deep breath, squared his shoulders, and started forward.