Strange Magic

Richard Castle touches an amulet and acquires a...unique...magical power. AU during "Poof! You're Dead" Caskett.

This fic will have 2 parts. The prompt will be at the bottom of part 1. It was from Reddit if that gives you any indication. Also, its kind of a crack!prompt. Shout out to acertainzest for helping talk me through some of Castle's...calculations. :) Enjoy

Part One

Richard Castle was falling.

Falling, falling, endlessly plummeting towards earth, only there was no earth, no solid ground. He fell through blackness, his limbs askew and flailing, and his head—god, his head; how did his head hurt this much if he was falling through open air?

He tried to cry out but couldn't. In fact, he wasn't even sure he could draw breath. His throat seized, his tongue felt heavier and heavier in his mouth, until suddenly he heard it—the sharp cut of his name slicing through the blackness.

"Castle!"

He knew the voice; he'd know his partner's voice anywhere. "Beckett!" He tried to swim towards her, to move his arms and legs and propel himself towards the noise, but there wasn't a clear direction. She was nowhere and everywhere.

"Castle? Can you hear me?"

"Beckett!" He attempted to cry out again, but no words came out. Mustering up just a little more effort that time, he was able to grasp at a breath. As the oxygen surged into his lungs his eyes flew open, though he felt instantly blinded from the contrast of the bright room to the black of his dream. Coughing and spluttering, he tried to move, to get up, to calm his breath, but he couldn't—at least, not until he felt warm hands pressing on his shoulders.

"Whoa, Castle, slow down. Breathe. Look at me. C'mon Castle, look at me."

His gaze searched frantically until it landed on brown with flecks of gold; his solid ground. "Beck-" he choked on her name and she hushed him.

"Don't try to speak. Just breathe. Does anyone have a water bottle?"

Anyone? Who was anyone? Weren't he and Beckett alone in this room?

Then, he turned his head, looking away from the detective for the first time so the room came into focus. He wasn't in a void filled with black, but a shop full of many objects. A magic shop, his brain hazily remembered. Drake's Magic Shop, to be specific. And he and Beckett had arrived there after someone—the magician!—died. And then…shit, what had happened after that? How had he ended up on the ground?

"Here, Castle. Drink some of this."

He looked back towards his partner, who had sat on the floor beside his head. She cradled his neck, lifting his head from the ground slightly, as she tipped a bottle of water against his lips. He took a few sips, but then, his senses beginning to return to him, felt silly and gently pushed her arm away. "I'm okay; I'm okay." He insisted, propping himself into a half-seated position with his elbows braced against the floor. He was, indeed, feeling generally more conscious, but his head still felt as though it had been split in half by an axe.

"Are you sure? You went down like you got an electric shock. Do you know what you were touching?"

"I…" He gazed straight ahead and realized he was lying at the foot of a large table with an expanse of objects on top of it. From his position on the floor, he couldn't see them with any sort of detail, so he attempted to stand, but felt a bit dizzy, so he sat hard on his rear.

Kate moved around in front of him, looking directly at his face for a moment, and then frowning. "I think I should call you an ambulance."

He balked immediately. "No Beckett, I'm fine I don't…what's that?" He pointed vaguely in the direction of the spot just above her head where a strange gray ball now floated.

"What's what?"

"You have a bubble over your head."

"A what?"

"A…" He moved his hands around in front of him as though he was cradling a basketball. "A bubble…"

She twisted her lips to the side and stared at him for five seconds before concluding, "Okay, we're getting you an ambulance."

"No, Beckett—wait." While she popped up instantly, it took him a bit longer to clamber to his feet—and even longer to feel steady on them. "I don't need an ambulance. I'm fi—hey." He changed the direction of his comment when he spotted the amulet on a gold chain resting atop the table just a foot from him. It definitely looked familiar—and like something he would have touched.

"Castle?"

"This; I'm pretty sure I touched this." He pointed to the object, but kept his hand a safe distance away, since he didn't think his body could take two shocks in such a short period of time.

"Excuse me!" Kate called out to Eliza, the assistant to the magician and shop owner. "Could you come here please? Can you tell us what this is? The necklace on the gold chain."

Eliza approached, glanced at it for a moment, and then shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't know; I don't think I've ever seen it before."

Kate hummed, then turned back to her partner. "Are you sure that's what you touched?"

"Pretty sure, but I can't be certain…hey, now everyone has those bubbles." He said as he observed gray dots popping up over Eliza's head in addition to the two uniformed officers that remained in the magic shop.

"Right—ambulance."

"No, no!" he whined and took a step towards his partner. He definitely did not want the cavalry called; he was already moderately embarrassed. Besides, he didn't think he needed to be checked out by a hospital, especially since he was progressively feeling better. "I'm fine, Beckett; I'm just going to get some fresh air."

With as much casualty as he could muster, Castle exited the magic shop and took a few steps down the sidewalk, breathing in the crisp January air. He really was feeling steadier on his feet with each passing minute. His head didn't feel like it had been cracked in half anymore either, though a dull pulsing ache deep in his brain remained.

"Castle?"

He turned back towards the magic shop and watched his partner approach. His eyes were drawn towards the top of her head and he noticed that the gray ball was now more like a gray circular outline that had some strange symbols inside that almost looked like numbers, but they were still too blurry to make out. This was odd because no other part of his vision was blurred, so he stared at them for a few more seconds which, unfortunately, drew Kate's attention.

"Castle? Hey." She waved her hands around above her head to catch his eye. "What are you seeing? What do you mean by bubble? Like…Like I'm wearing an astronaut helmet?"

He shook his head. "No, no. More like…oh, like an indicator in a video game."

She blinked at him. "I don't know what that means. Does everyone have one? Or just me?"

"I…" He gazed around the street briefly, and what he saw was a sea of humans—and their indicator bubbles. "Everyone."

She hummed for a moment, then shook her head briefly. "Okay, I won't call you an ambulance, but I really think I should take you to the hospital to be checked-"

"No, Beckett, really, I… I just have a headache so I'm going to go home, take some aspirin, and lay down."

She hesitated. "You're sure?" When he nodded, she responded with, "Okay, but you call or text me later and let me know how you're feeling, okay?"

Touched by her concern, he offered a smile and a nod. "Sure Beckett. Good luck with Drake's case. Sorry I have to sit this one out for now."

She shook off his concern. "Don't worry about it—just feel better, okay?"

He nodded, and with that made his way towards the nearest subway entrance.

By the time Castle arrived back at his apartment, he still felt baffled by what had happened to him not quite an hour prior. The good news was that his headache was steadily improving, but weirdly that seemed to correlate with the increasing clarity of the circles he saw above everyone's head—circles he'd dubbed "number bubbles."

Everyone he saw on the subway had a grey circle above their head. As the car made its way downtown, those circles became clearer and clearer until he could safely conclude that each circle had a number inside of it. He couldn't really determine a pattern to the numbers, but he did take note that most peoples were in the several thousand range. He hadn't the slightest clue what that number could mean, but hoped he'd have more clarity after a nap.

After dropping his keys on the small table by the door, he walked through his bedroom and into the bathroom. After using the toilet, he stepped up to the sink to wash his hands and only then noticed that he could see a bubble above his head as well. Unlike all the others, his bubble was encased in an orange circle not a gray one, and the number read 5,780.

Five thousand, seven hundred and eighty; what could that number possibly mean? And what was the significance of the orange color to his number bubble? It stood to reason that since it was his own bubble it would be unique—that certainly kept on the 'video game' theme he'd been working with in his mind—but why orange? Did the color have a meaning? Were there any other colors besides gray and orange? What would those colors mean?

Shaking his head, Castle dug around in one of his bathroom cabinets until he found the extra strength headache medicine. He shook two pills into his palm, tossed them onto his tongue, then leaned over to drink enough water from the tap to swallow. Then, as he walked out of his bathroom, he undid his belt and let his jeans drop to the floor. After shedding his button-down, he fell into bed, shut his eyes, and hoped that when he woke up, he'd have a better idea as to what was going on.

The following morning, Richard Castle awoke to his 7:30 a.m. alarm and felt quite rested. His head no longer ached, and he felt good; ready to put the bizarre events of the prior day behind him. He sat up, arched his back in a stretch, and then made his way to the bathroom as he normally did.

Just like the afternoon before, Castle was startled at the sight of his own reflection when he went to wash his hands. The orange bubble above his head was still there; it had not been some bizarre electro-shock-induced hallucination. At least not a temporary one.

Before he could curse his misfortune aloud, Castle realized something wasn't the same about the bubble. He studied it for a moment, then realized; the numbers had changed! The prior day, his number bubble ready 5,780, but now it read 5,781.

"Age in days…" he mumbled aloud while distractedly rubbing his hands together beneath the running water. If the number was his age in days, that would certainly explain the increase of one, but…was that right?

Somewhere in the depths of his mind he remembered calculating Storm's age in days for something he was writing. He was sure the number had been above ten thousand, and since he kept Storm's age very close to his own—if anything, Storm was a little younger—the number being a representation of age no longer made any sense.

As it was far too early to do mental math, Castle walked back to his bed, grabbed his phone off its charger, and did some quick division with the calculator app. This told him a person who was 6,780 days old wouldn't have yet lived two decades on earth, so that was most definitely not his age in days. But then…what else explained the increase?

Thinking back to the day before, Castle reviewed what had happened after he returned from the magic shop. He'd napped, woken up, and seen he had received texts from both his mother and daughter saying they had other plans for dinner that night. He'd gone to the kitchen to search for something for himself when Gina turned up on his doorstep. Immediately, he'd been annoyed because he assumed she was interested in continuing their earlier fight and he was not. That's hadn't been the case, though, because she asked him what was wrong claiming he looked pale, and he told her about being shocked in the joke shop (though purposely leaving out the hallucinations he seemed to have acquired). Seeing as their relationship had been more tense than not as of late, Castle was pleasantly surprised with how concerned Gina seemed. She insisted he lay down on the couch while she ordered them takeout for dinner. Then later that night after he insisted that he was fine she'd actually—

Oh.

OH.

They had sex—for the first time in a while, as it happened. That was the only singular event from the night prior that he could think of, so that had to be it.

He'd had sex 5,781 times in his life.

Nodding to himself, Castle stroked his hand down over the stubble on his jaw and paced around the space beside his bed. Having sex almost fifty-eight-hundred times was a lot. A lot. Possibly…too much? It sounded great of course, but in the opposite way of his original age-in-days theory, it didn't quite sound right.

Sitting on the edge of his bed, Castle cradled his phone in his hands and prepared to do some more early morning mathematics. First, he calculated how many years in total he'd been sexually active, and it was twenty-five. This number, while accurate, also struck him as quite high. He gazed distantly across the room as he remembered the young man he'd met at the Twelfth Precinct just a few days prior. He was a recent graduate from the police academy and was joking around that now that he was finally twenty-one, he could go out and have a cold one after his shift. Castle now realized he had been having sex far longer than that man was alive, which mean that man could have been his child. After ruminating on that upsetting notion for a minute, the writer pushed it from his mind and turned back to his calculations.

If he had sex fifty-seven hundred times in his life, that meant he would have had to have sex an average of four-and-a-half times a week for the duration of his sexually active years. While the manly side of him wanted desperately to believe that to be fact, his writer's brain remained skeptical. He definitely had not had sex over four times a week back around the time he lost his virginity; not even close. And, true, as he blossomed into adulthood there were plenty of times when he probably had sex more than four or five times in one week, were those enough to balance out his dry spells? Most likely not.

Castle's thoughts bounced through all of his long-term relationships and marriages and he knew that in reality he'd gone without frequent sex a fair bit, particularly during his marriages. He very much doubted he and Meredith were intimate more than a handful of times during Alexis's first year—and during their last year of marriage. And, hell, the same could be said for his last year of marriage with Gina. As much as the testosterone coursing through his veins wanted to believe the more-than-four-times-per-week average, that number just didn't seem plausible unless—

Unless.

Oh. Well. Unless the sex still counted if he was the only participant.

"Huh," he said aloud as he thought back though his life while taking all types of sex into consideration. If his teen years were any indication, the fifty-seven hundred number almost sounded a little low but, no that had to be it. It definitely seemed to be the most plausible option.

Castle continued to think about what other possible explanations for the number bubbles he could think of while tugging on his robe and shuffling his way out towards the kitchen.

"Morning Dad."

Castle was so deep in thought that the sound of his daughter's voice was startling. He half-jumped, looked up, and tried to recover with, "Good morning, Alexis," but instead the sound that came out of his mouth was a half-yelp, half-cry when he saw above her head a grey bubble encircling the number fifty-seven.

"Dad? Are you okay?"

"Um…I…uh…" he stammered while internally cursing himself for looking at the number. He tried to look away, but he was fixated and horrorstruck. Fifty-seven. Fifty-seven! That meant his only child, his little girl, had—good god! "Um, yeah, yeah I'm f-fine."

Alexis's eyebrow raised suspiciously. "Are you sure?"

"Definitely," he croaked while feeling the exact opposite. Knowing he needed to busy himself with something distracting, he walked over to the coffee pot and managed to croak, "Aren't, um, aren't you going to be late for school?"

"Not if I leave right now—have a good day, Dad!"

"Y-yeah, y-you…you too."

Once he heard the door slam shut, Castle leaned heavily against the counter and exhaled with a slight moan. There had to be another explanation, didn't there? The number wasn't related to sexual activity at all; that would be ridiculous. No, it had to be…maybe it was the number of times a person sneezed, or had seen a movie, or…or…or…

Or he had just obtained the worst superpower of all time.

Maybe there was a way to turn it off. Yes—yes that was it. If he gained the powers, he could lose them. While normally he'd have welcomed any sort of magical inclination, in this case, he was more than willing to give it back before it became too uncomfortable and upsetting, and definitely before—

"Richard?"

Fuck.

Castle scrambled with the coffee pot in hopes of disappearing into his bedroom before his mother entered the kitchen, but it was too late. He could hear her heels clicking across the floor and he knew he had to do everything possible not to look at the floating bubble above her head.

"Mother." He spun around with a grin that was obviously forced and far too chipper. "How are you?"

"Fine…what's going on with you, kiddo?"

"Nothing, nothing. I'm fine I just—shit!" he muttered beneath his breath when he caught sight of the gray bubble with a number just north of eleven thousand. Oh, god, why did he have to look?!

Coffee now forgotten, he gave an awkward wave and then hurried towards his bedroom. "Just in a rush to get to work—I mean Beckett's work, I mean there's a case and I'm—help. Bye."

Moving across his bedroom at a near gallop, Castle stripped off his robe and underwear and ran directly into the shower. He dipped his face under the spray of water, grabbed for a bar of soap, and then began to rub it across his face, focusing on his eyes. It burned and he knew it wouldn't make much of a difference, but in that moment it was the only thing he could think that might make him feel a little bit better.

"Look people in the eye, Castle; look 'em in the eye." Castle muttered to himself as he rode the elevator up to Beckett's floor later that morning. Normally, this was not something he had an issue with. He felt his people skills were above average and he always loved connecting with others. Seeing as there was no better way to do this than to look them in the eye, he almost considered himself a professional at it. Unfortunately, he also knew there was something more interesting to look at above their heads. Interesting…and horrifying but interesting nonetheless.

Castle tried to maintain his inner mantra as he stepped off the elevator, but of course that was impossible because the first person he saw was his partner. "Beckett," he said in an almost startled way when he saw her number to be 2,967. That meant her number was about one half of his and he wasn't quite sure what to make of that. Should he feel bad? Or simply accept it as a factor of men and women being very different?

"Hey Castle," she said, her voice ringing of genuine concern. "Are you okay? You never texted…"

"Oh, I'm sorry; I forgot," he said honestly. With all his thoughts about the number bubbles and what they might mean, he had completely forgotten about his promise to Beckett.

"It's okay, I just want to make sure you're not…" She lowered her voice and took a step closer to him. "Seeing anything you shouldn't be."

"Ah no; no, I'm all good." Though normally he would not have lied to his partner, he did so only so she didn't worry about him. Considering what had transpired the day before, he did not believe the bubbles he saw were as a result of hitting his head or any other sort of trauma, but instead whatever magical powers that amulet possessed. He was still processing them, and, quite frankly, hoping they would wear off, and thus didn't want to worry or concern his partner. At least, not until he knew more.

She smiled and his heart fluttered. "Good, glad to hear it—now c'mon; I'll catch you up on the case."

Wearing a smile that matched hers, Castle didn't hesitate to follow.

The Prompt: there was a reddit thread about strange wishes i think and one was "I wish that everyone had a counter over their head that shows how many times they've orgasmed in their life so far"

Part Two will be up soon!

Thanks for reading

(PS - I am still in semi-retirement, this was just the nagging prompt I had to write :) )