#Vera Mulqueen

[castle-dominion]

c4x14 the blue butterfly THIS EPISODE IS SO GOOD I WAS SO HAPPY THE FIRST TIME I WATCHED IT & I WATCHED THE AUDIO COMMENTARY & NOW I GET TO LIVEBLOG IT IDK IF I'LL BE ABLE TO GET THROUGH THE EPISODE TODAY BC IT IS THAT GOOD I WILL HAVE TO PAUSE IT AFTER EVERY LINE I SWEAR

Starting off sexy af, love the music love the costuming (even tho 40s colours were not ideal) love the singing love TJ/LP/BS love everything about this ugh I am dying & I have played maybe five seconds of the episode Ugh the way they talk mmmm I remember when I first watched casablanca & then it was ages until I had the chance to see double indemnity (which actually takes place 10y before this but shush) & heck the way we start off in the middle with castle/JF doing the investigation mmmmjsfhkjhdsjfs it's just sooo good so good so good. "I'm lookin at her" hhhh their eyes meet across the bar aaaaah this is so good.

You know before they flashed forward I thought this might have just been an AU.

Love this fellow's outfit she's so new york. Is ship coming in a figure of speech? We've heard it before. Does it just mean they are coming into money or getting something good like a job promotion? JE: Well, if you can remember anything else, can you please give me a call? SRO manager: Don’t hold your breath, hot shot. *walks out* KR: I think she likes you.

Banks: [we last spoke] Two months ago, which is crazy, ‘cause there was a time we couldn’t go two hours without talking. Glad s2 rysposito aren't here bc espt would make fun of ryan for calling jenny sm. Maybe he was an entomologist. Yo stan owes someone A Lot of money

KR: Just a bunch of books about mobsters and Manhattan in the ‘40s. Castle should read them. he'd probs enjoy them & he's a speedreader too. Ooh the diary! RC: Uh, this diary in Stan’s stuff, it’s also from the ‘40s. It sounds like it belonged to a private eye. Listen to this. “Usually wives turn on the waterworks when shown pictures of their husbands stepping out, but not this dame. She wanted payback. So what’s worse, that I pitched woo with a client, or that I invoiced her for services rendered after?” espt sounds so good when he uses the term "right on" I like it RC: Um, Beckett? Can I take this home for the night? I mean, it might be the key to what Stan was looking for. KB: You just want to read it because you think it’s cool. RC: Yeah, well, that, too. KB: Okay, just so long as…you… [Castle is already walking off with it.] KB: Bring it back in the morning.

Mmm music, old diaries, this is so good. I love the transition bc I could hardly tell what with the VO & the bourbon. Joe Flynn/Rick Castle: So, I figured I’d kill two birds with one stone with a little hair of the dog that bit me. What does that mean?

Oh Martha/Florence Kennard I love! Ugh the outfit the coat the accents & vernacular mmm! The way the characters have a bit of their counterparts in them is so good. Kennard is just enough like martha & susan sullivan can play her so well

How did you know it would change your life? When are you writing this diary? Is it the evening after today or is it days later or what? After the case entirely? Picture of map of manhattan in the 40s. Oh that accent is... something. Gosh alexis is a baby how is she a married woman? hhhhh I can't say everything I love abt it "my shingle" Was her name really vera mulqueen? Was sally's maiden name sally mulqueen? *dabs her eyes* $15 in 1940 is worth $325.85 today or at the time, what 2012? $245.99 in 2012. That much a day plus expenses, hoo that's a lot Ugh the costumes, the acting, the preproduction... JF/RC: Looking at that photograph, all I could think was… Me: Hot dang? JF/RC: what a beautiful doll.

Ugh the scenes of the city jjghhjkfhghg

I KNOW THAT GUY HE IS MR SCOFFIELD I THINK, FORSHADOWING OMG Satchmo Besty Sinclair <3 ugh she sings so well. & I love this music & I love dancing but I do better with big band music I think. I would loooove to dance there. Shrapnel in my hip? From ww2? Well I love how we get to learn about So Much of the character but it is only mentioned in passing. He is such a big character but we only get these little pieces of him & it was just one mention of shrapnel but it tells us a lot about his character. She's pretty af! & you can see dempsey there in the background. gorillas lmao is that what you called your henchmen back then? You got it boss. RC/JF (V.O.): What was I thinking? This dame was trouble on two legs. I kept telling myself to look away. [A tough-looking man steps up next to Beckett/Vera.] RC/JF (V.O.): She was with Tom Dempsey, for crying out loud – the most ruthless mob boss New York has ever given birth to. [Beckett/Vera kisses Dempsey on the cheek.] Ooh his outfit! RC/JF (V.O.): Dempsey sent over two of his gorillas – an Irishman and a Cuban on loan from some Havana mob family. You can loan henchworkers? [Ryan/irishman and Esposito/cuban tough-walk over to Castle at the bar.] Esposito looks almost normal but ryan looks way out there. KR/Moxie: The boss wants to see you, boy-o. Ooh that accent tho. (my canadian ass first thought "newfie" lol but they say bo'y not bowy or they even say b'y) RC/JF: Sorry, boys. My dance card’s full. JE/Cuban: This isn’t a request, compadre. *shows his gun* That accent too They get to have fun & play other characters. But the characters are not too far off. Their ties too btw, wowie

& the music! Audio mirroring! RC/JF: The waiter? I’ll take a whiskey. The boys here can share a sloe gin fizz. LMAO Great fight scene! Going to clip that for sure! Words cannot describe how I feel about this. (noo not the kitchen! ugh the way he picks him up) & ngl that booty as he throws him into the alley? Nice.

RC, probably not what JF actually said: You should see what my face did to the other guy’s fist. Vera/KB is wearing the fur over her neck entirely. Covering up the goods. Que passando? I speak french not spanish but is that "what's going on?" like "what has passed?" Doesn't put the tapped R before the D, yeah lol. Ah finally revelas the necklace!

Woah that was kind of jarring to jump back to present day but heck yeah! RC: The Blue Butterfly. It’s a necklace. That’s why Stan Banks was killed. Why am I narrating? Because you were just imagining this guy's day while reading his narration & bc it's what hot girls do. u never talk to yourself? ig it is different from narrating...

OMG WHAT A SEXY INTRO THERE

Ok so what I know from acting is from the moment you hit the set you need to use your accent, you cannot just slip it on & off easy so filming the ryan parts & the henchone parts must have been, well, something. Gosh I can't believe we only get one audio commentary of this ep. I want more, more I say! Also I like ryan's patterned red tie & red vest but that striped shirt? The only reason it's ok is bc he is mostly covering it with the vest. It has red stripes. He has a lot of buttons on the sleeves of his jacket. American flag lapel pin today. With smth else ig. Ooh blue diamonds. I miss when blue diamonds were sexy & white diamonds were just there. RC: *passes his papers to ryan* KR: *shows it to Beckett as if castle didn't already hold em up for her to see*

RC: Turns out the Blue Butterfly disappeared sometime in the ‘40s, and rumor has it, it’s hidden somewhere in The Pennybaker Club. If he found it…a million dollar-necklace? Talk about motive for murder. By the way, Ryan, say “boy-o.” [meaning he really was imagining these people in these positions] KR: *looks up from the papers castle gave him* Boy-o. RC: “Boy-ohhh.” KR: Boy-o. RC: “Boy-o.” KR: Boy-o. RC, accented: “Boy-o.” KR: Boy—O. ??? *looks to beckett* [they go back to talking about the case & rick doesn't get nazi gold but SS officer diamonds which is the same thing. Cursed necklaces? stealing stuff from nazis? mob bosses? this is right up castle's alley.] KB: Okay, Ryan, you see if you can get a hold of the bookie. Castle and I will go back to the crime scene. KR: Okay. RC: Boy-o' KR: Boy-o RC: Boy-o' KR: Boy-O RC: Like a leprechaun. KR, with an angry "ew" face: Castle! RC: Sorry.

RC: Can you blame the guy? I mean, she was gorgeous. Castle how do you know? You are reading it not seeing it. You are imagining beckett there. I was too caught up in the story to think about the "animosity back home" they kept saying Castle is so right. Minor hidden safe, very hidden secret safe. I love how castle insists on telling the story to get to the part abt the safe. RC: Well, people didn’t waste time back in the ‘40s

Oh gosh look at her dress... lmao the transition

KB: Did you just say, “Kate”? Are you picturing the P.I. as you, and me as the gangster’s moll? RC: What? No. And I didn’t say “Kate”. I said “Fate”. “Fate’s heart quickened.” I was being poetic. (chuckles nervously) God. Anyway, as I was saying, they were just about to kiss when… Why not just read from the diary & say the PI was being poetic? Maybe she would read it & call him out tho. Or ig he was reciting from memory

Oh I love the collar on Esposito/Cuban Henchone rn! Raises his fists like that lol & then Besty/Lanie saves the day & gosh that is a good kiss. "mixed laundry" XP Betsie/Lanie almost sounds normal lol

Two Brunos? Interesting word. Well they are not here right now actually so...??? So you became the girl of a mob boss to wear his jewelry? That's it? That's the reason?

KB & me: WHAT DO YOU MEAN THAT'S IT? I'M NOT ONLY INTERESTED IN THE SAFE I'M ALSO INTERESTED IN THE STORY. btw I like her coat with that red scarf it's v pretty. KB: Well, why would you tell a story when you don’t know the ending? RC: If you wanted a beginning and a middle and an end, I have 27 novels you can choose from. XD

Ray Horton: Stan? And who— who killed him? KR: JE: RH: Me? Why would I kill my business partner? 10g for a diary?

RC: So, I traced the diary. Stan did his research. He purchased it from the granddaughter of Joe’s old secretary, a woman by the name of Ruth Huntsacker. Ah that's where the diary came from KB: Look, Castle, I admit that Joe and Vera’s story is fun and romantic, but whatever happened back in 1947 has nothing to do with who murdered Stan. RC: Uh… (chuckles) I’m not so sure about that. Our bookie alibied out. But ballistics came in, and we got a match. The .38 caliber revolver that killed Stan was used in an unsolved double homicide…in 1947. WOAH NOW THIS IS GOOD. This is so so sexy. Ok so vera mulqueen is her name so sally scoville probably made that mistake when meeting joe flynn on purpose.

RC: Murdered. That’s too bad. I really thought those two crazy kids were gonna make it. KB: Yeah, not exactly the ending I was hoping for. RC: I didn’t even know ballistics went back that far. Me, who watches murdoch mysteries: Oh ho ho! The man also invented blood types & fingerprints & tape & silly putty & (he didn't actually invent any of this he's a fictional character) KB: You know what? I bet you Dempsey caught the two of them trying to run away together, and he killed them. But how does Stan’s killer get Dempsey’s gun sixty years later? KR: Unless Dempsey killed Stan. He’d be, what, like 90 years old? But it’s still possible. RC: Couldn’t have been Dempsey. He died of a heart attack four months after Joe and Vera were killed. KR: Ah. RC: Still…we should dig up that 1947 police report. There could be something in there about the gun that could shed some light on Stan’s murder. KR, resigned: All right. I’ll go to the warehouse and I’ll pull up the old case files. RC: Oh, wai- oh, uh…I want to go. KR: ? *looks to becks* KB: *shrugs* KR: Uh…okay. RC: Can I drive? KR: I don’t care. RC: OwO!!! Espt always make ryan take passenger & beckett never lets castle drive so this is fun. But is it a police car or a personal one? bc castle is probs not allowed to drive if it is a police car.

Belasco is pretty for an old guy. Watercrafter lookin dude.

Someone else accessed your police files? Nice location u got here. Different place to film in. RC: Damn it, Joe. You old sap. Dizzy with a dame and got yourself cooked. KR: So, Mr Bogart, what exactly are we looking for here?

CB: Of course not. When I asked to see the alleged diary, he refused, and yet, he wanted access to all my research on The Pennybaker Club. I mean, really, the whole thing was absurd. Yeah that is kind of rude...

Esposito's hair is... interesting. Short but long enough that he brushes it & parts it.

KR: It feels like we’re looking for a needle in a haystack, except for, we can’t find the haystack. RC: Who needs a haystack when the needle is right here? Wait I just realized-- where did they get that previous photo of tom dempsey?? Wait nvm it was in castle's internet search along with the initial photo of the blue butterfly

Love the transitions "Hatchet men" lol Doyle, my nova scotian uncle has that last name. Lots of scottish & irish immigrants there obv. It's like newfoundland but less intense. Then PEI is like nova scotia #2. RC/JF: So every clover-loving Irishman worth his salt will be huddled around a radio tonight, cheering good ol’ Jimmy on. You’re gonna wait till a rousing part of the fight. Then you’re gonna excuse yourself. Whoever’s assigned to be watching you surely won’t be paying much attention. That’s when you slip right out the back door, where I’ll be waiting for you. that's way too easy. No way theyre going to let that happen But hey they are both so good looking. JF/RC: Look at me. I’m a new man. I’m a better man. I haven’t even had a drink since I met Vera, Girl it's been like a week. Then again for someone who consistently drank himself to sleep in his office, maybe this is a miracle. What if she doesn't have a sister HA I WAS RIGHT

KR, with his cheek in his hand, listening: What happens next? [btw I like his wedding ring, it's rly pretty. & also I love seeing it, he is In Love.] RC: I don’t know. That’s the end of the statement. KR: But if Sally wasn’t Vera’s sister, then who was she? [I love how castle is getting everyone invested in this story] RC: Sally set up the P.I. It’s a classic film noir twist. KR: But whhhy? RC: I don’t know. :D KR: What was Sally up to? [Ryan he only knows as much as you do! He may be a writer but you are a detective] RC: I don’t know. :D KR: Do you think she was connected to Dempsey? *takes the file* RC: I don’t know, :D but isn’t this great? KR: KR: *double take from castle to the file to castle*

YESS THE ADVENT OF WEST SIDE WALLY At least espt excuses himself before taking the call. That's the polite thing to do. Becks sharing the file with some other detective there. the little things make the show

Man has a wedding ring... WOAH TOM DEMPSEY Nice outfit! the makeup team possibly could have done a bit more to make him look related to tom dempsey not genetically identical to him imo but whatever that's just me Wait no maybe they did do enough about it I think. it's good.

So how do you know his real name was stan? Pillar in the community...? Oh guest book at betsy's funeral, that's how he figured it out. TD: No, I did not—I did not shoot him. Stan—Wait. Stan did find it? KB: Come on. You tell us. TD: I don’t know. I was not there! "was not" rather than "wasn't" I like it

Ok espt what are you wearing? Today you are wearing a dress shirt & a tie which is nice (if different from your frequent pyjama look) but grey on grey with THOSE greys does not work bud.

Ah good grammar <3 Jerry Maddox was the old bartender??? (But ik how this goes, why would he sign his name that way in the guest book?) JE: Good job, Castle. RC, like a puppy: Yeah? JE: .. Yeah.

The med guy calls him jerry too. I see. Aw she offers homemade soup <3 Beautiful blue eyes on this man, love the old music too. JM: but I was just a bartender back then What did you become later then?

Ooh interesting, he says: Of course. It was a big deal back then. Dempsey, the fella that owned the club, shot them in cold blood. So confirming the story But then when rick asks: The same year, do you remember a woman named Sally Scofield? She was a redhead. In 1947, she would’ve been about 18. JM looks really confused like he doesn't know her. Which would make sense for Jerry Maddox, but he looks overly confused bc he is JF trying not to reveal that he, well, you know.

Gina? Ooh different person narrating! Except... not really a different person narrating ; ) Drops the pretty girl for a new, younger, pretty girl. Ew. Then again she was there bc she wanted to wear his bling RC: & Sally? JM: Couple months after, uh, Vera and that P.I. got whacked, Dempsey died of a heart attack. RC: (yea I asked abt sally bro) JM: The evening of his funeral, in walks Sally, all dressed up. Ordered a whiskey neat, slammed it back, gave me a big ol’ crocodile grin, said she was free. Then she strutted on out the door, and that’s the last time I ever saw her. Interesting claim... it's a revenge story. It would be SO good from the other point of view, you're in the hold of a mobster & then he dumps your mom for the younger prettier thing & mum kills herself with pills bc this pretty girl wanted bling & your mob daddy wanted a pretty girl so you kill the pretty girl & probably kill the mobster too? That would be good except we know it didn't happen like that & it ends up a tragedy. RC: Somehow she used the P.I. to do it. JM: >:(

KR, pink shirt no tie, cute af as usual: So…West Side Wally. May I call you Wally? WSW: I prefer West Side. I LOVE HIM SM WSW: Whoa. Cagney and Lacey, [XD] you can stop right there. I wasn’t living in the club two days ago. I had already gotten bought out by the other guy. [but u leave your sleeping bag & stuff?] KR: Bought out? JE: By the other guy? yeah babes that's what he said. I love west side, he's great.

No he cannot do his show from prison b'y Oh & again he looks good he has nice style too. Bull whip. That's cool ig. lol so dramatic holding his hand as he says stan was holding the necklace Sure bestie.

Wasn't it so that she could kill vera or smth but dempsey did it for her so she ended up faking his heart attack instead & she killed the one who stole her mother's spot & the man who dumped her mom? Except wait why would maddox only see her in 1946? Maybe that's when he started idk. Do you trust what a man has to say abt shoes? Also there are many pairs of shoes, they could have both had those shoes... except then you said she'd be wearing heels. RC: Beckett, I just realizes something. KB: ? RC: "I Can't Give You Anything But Love." KB: ???? Ouh louis armstrong Satchmo! But listen maybe he played this club many times & that's why they BOTH fell in love with his music.

the fear on their faces when they get called by their old names <3 so good (sad)

He really really sounds like Castle's Joe Flynn when he says: Lady, you got it all wrong. WHOA THE MED AIDE? Huntsacker? His mom sold the diary. Her gramma was mrs kennard. He's back here after all this time. yk that's a good point. He is gently being a spy but then some other guy bullies them lol. But for how long were these two pretending to be the bartender? Frankie Benjamin Huntsacker the aide called him jerry earlier when the detectives came to talk.

"Bushwhack" lol

GASP THE BLUE BUTTERFLY Ugh the MUSIC tho! *casually touches it with his hands* How much of it was paste? Apparently the one they actually made was made of blue sapphires & they auctioned it off for charity. There are plenty of minerals that you can use in place of diamonds. Moissanite & white sapphires are both subs for diamonds. I'm sure blue sapphires can replace blue diamonds, except blue diamonds are typically not as coloured as a good quality blue sapphire.

Joe you said that any irishman worth his salt would be around the radio, not the cuban & mob boss too. I can't believe dempsey let her go but ig he was focussing on the fight. Hoo that leg The ice? Oh the bling, the diamonds Oof she just killed lenny! Yeah Sally was totally a victim! That's sooo cool they just ran away & burned the bodies & UGH THAT'S SO GOOD I'VE BEEN WANTING TO LEARN HOW TO LIGHT A MATCH ON MY THUMB FOR YEARS They probably lied tbh... You know, didn't want to get caught for a murder they did so many years ago, they did not struggle for the gun & have it accidentally go. Girl it is not up to YOU to decide. Tho I do like your decision. JF: We don't know how to thank you RC: I do Ok but here's the thing, how would they get by without the money they were going to get from this thing? Also hold on didn't this guy have a fake? The writer believes it was always a fake, castle believes it was switched out back in the 20s, Jerry & Viola (Joe & Vera) seem to think that they hid the BB but Frankie got his hands on a fake... idk I KNEW the brick would be a thing! Oh the music <3 RC/JF: Let the bastard spend the rest of his life not knowing his prized possession is right under his nose. Love <3 <3 <3 woah that dog! Tell them it was fake or tell them someone found it? The way he pulls her in like that <3 ALWAYS <3 <3 <3 How did they make it without the money from the BB tho? That's why they concocted this plan in the first place Weird ending but So Good I love it! ugh too good! Brilliant!

I am going to transcribe the audio commentary I swear.

this episode is one of my faves & I know I say that abt a lot but DANG this one was golden! So freaking good! So Freaking Good!

[pollylynn]

Title: Oldfangled

WC: 1000

Episode: The Blue Butterfly (4 x 14)

She thinks it’s funny when he gets swept up in the romance of a bygone era. Nowadays she thinks it’s funny, and she’s aware that’s funny in and of itself. Back when he was pitching time-traveling killers and dragging her out of bed to traipse through Prohibition-Era secret tunnels, she mostly found it annoying.

Or it seemed . . . proper to find it annoying back then. It seemed wise at the time. But they’re kind of not doing proper, lately. They’re kind of not doing wise, and that’s more than a little hair-raising, so she keeps charming out of the corner of her eye. She pointedly ignores adorable when that stomps right up to tap her on the shoulder. She goes with funny. It’s funny that he’s so easily caught up in the past, given that he is, in his habits, his purchases, his oooh! shiny! mindset, very much caught up in the not-too-distant future.

He has a new phone every week, it seems, and exactly one of those is attributable to a bank robber stomping on it. He openly scorns her not just for the fact that her phone is antiquated, as he likes to put it, but for how few bells and whistles it has. He snatches it up regularly so he can point and laugh at how many of her apps are out of date, how many everybody’s got it apps she doesn’t even have.

In her idle moments, she still sometimes thinks back to her short stint as his houseguest and the bewildering array of kitchen gadgets tucked away in every drawer, every cupboard in his kitchen. He is an aficionado of high-tech pens and magnetic belt buckles. He sports a parade of paradoxically analog watches that all look like the come from the Maxwell Smart collection.

He is very much in love with anything cutting edge, anything futuristic. But right now, he’s in love with the past, too. He’s waxing rhapsodic about the music-saturated walls of the Pennybaker Club. He’s making off with leather-bound diaries and scamming her into listening as he reads aloud from it, as he—no doubt—embellishes on the fly, and he very definitely delights in leaving her hanging on the fate of Vera and Joe and the location of the damned secret safe.

She wants to challenge him on it. She wants to ask him what he’d do if he couldn’t invest in a new damned laptop almost as often as he invests in a new damned phone. She wants to taunt him about where he’d actually be in life if he’d had to bang out out his pot boilers on a manual typewriter. She really wants to ask him—even though she’s fully aware that it could wind up stranding her in an Enthusiastic Castle conversation for days—what he’d be willing to give up to travel back to the days when a grown man could write the phrase pitching woo, even in the privacy of his own diary, and not have someone arrest him for crimes against the English language. She wants to make him choose—then or now Castle, you can’t have both . . .

But she’s enjoying herself. She’s enjoying him enjoying all of this, so she settles for being amused. She settles for, every once in a while, gently reminding him how uncharacteristically indulgent she’s being, and for less gently reminding him that the romance of a bygone era has never once solved a crime.

Except the romance of this bygone era keeps stubbornly . . . at least contributing to the solving of a crime. He takes a deep dive into the diary’s provenance, and she thinks the time for amusement might be over. She’s on the verge of delivering the five more minutes, then it’s bedtime news when Ryan sidles in with the shocking ballistics match that ties Stan’s murder to a 65-year-old double murder—the murder of Joe and Vera, it seems, and she thinks, sadly, that will surely take the bloom off the bygone rose.

But he’s committed. He’s devastated, too. She sees his off-hand crazy kids remark for what it is—a not particularly convincing cover for a genuine sense of loss. Because he believes that Joe was in love with Vera five days into even knowing she existed. He doesn’t—for one second—wonder if Vera, who just happens to know where the secret safe is, is all-too-likely a femme fatale who sees in Joe an opportunity to walk away from Dempsey with a million bucks around her neck.

The romance is real for him, even when he’s fervently hoping they can slap the cuffs on Belasco and park his smug face behind bars. Even then, he holds on to a what really happened scenario for Joe and Vera. He waves away the obvious story—the one that pushes the I told you so button in her own head, because so much of the inside of her own head is convinced crushing disappointment is what happens when you let yourself get swept up in the romance of anything.

But the universe is on his side. There’s a tense and terrible stretch when it seems like Joe and Vera might be the bad guys—they might have killed Stan to protect their secrets, and they might have killed God knows who all those years ago. But it doesn’t turn out that way.

It turns out that Joe was in love with Vera, five days in, and Vera might have had the makings of a femme fatale once upon a time, but the love of a good man more than reformed her. She looks at him looking at Joe and Vera, still lost in one another’s eyes after all these years, and she doesn’t have to ask what he’d give up for the romance of a bygone era. She doesn’t have to ask what he would choose—then or now . . .

She doesn’t have to ask.

A/N: Castle's old softy fuzzy feelings have no morphousness.

images via homeofthenutty

[kate--beckett]

4x14 // 8x22

[rockthistowninsideout]

Me being more than just slightly gay for Stana Katic as Kate Beckett as Vera Mulqueen (my new icon)?

It’s more likely than you think.

[ao3feed-danielsousa]

Intersection—1947

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2kG6EvW

by Polly_Lynn

Disparate paths cross in New York City, 1947.

Words: 2262, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Castle, Agent Carter (TV)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: F/M, Gen

Characters: Peggy Carter, Daniel Sousa, Joe Flynn, Vera Mulqueen, Jerry Maddox, Vera Maddox

Relationships: Peggy Carter/Daniel Sousa, Joe Flynn/Vera Mulqueen, Jerry Maddox/Viola Maddox

Additional Tags: Crossover, Ships Passing In the Night, Angst, Mystery, Adventure, Adventure & Romance

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/2kG6EvW

[heroofretribution]

[nympha-doras]

[lordofkavaka]

Stana Katic as Kate Beckett as Vera Mulqueen from Castle 4x14 The Blue Butterfly (photo credit: Ron P. Jaffe - http://www.ronjaffe.com/television/)

[castleforloversonlyabsentia]

Stana Katic/Vera Mulqueen Credit for the original photo belongs to Ron P. Jaffe.

[barbarashershey]

"...but it’s not a necklace, Joe. It’s a diamond noose, and it’s getting harder to breathe."

[bighugstana]

Stana Katic as Vera Mulqueen. Made out of the lyrics of 'Just The Way You Are' - Bruno Mars

[pollylynn]

“You two are a walking fairytale.” —Betsy Sinclair/Lanie Parish, The Blue Butterfly

Title: Hard Boiled Rating: T WC: 750

She’s all smiles as they stand shoulder to shoulder in Joe and Vera’s—or Jerry and Viola’s, rather—slightly dingy hallway waiting for the elevator. It looks good on her. Not that there’s much that doesn’t look good on her. He smiles in turn, a champagne-bubble grin that comes all the way up from his toes. She catches him at it.

“What?” she says. She narrows her eyes, but the smile stays.

“What what?” he asks, all innocence. The elevator arrives, and he moseys on in.

“You were staring.” She eyes him from the hall. She dips one toe into the space between the doors as though she’s not entirely convinced she’ll be joining him on the ride down.

“And you were giving me a smile I could feel in my hip pocket,” he shoots back in his best rapid-fire noir, well before he can think through the wisdom of it. He watches her eyes go wide and her ears go red. The temperature in the slightly dingy hallway goes up roughly two hundred degrees, and the champagne-bubbles pop. “That’s, um, Marlowe. Phillip Marlowe. Um …” He swallows. “I mean, it’s Raymond Chandler, but …”

“Farewell, My Lovely,” she says cooly as she steps into the elevator. “Yeah, I know.” She punches the button that’ll carry them down—back to the real world—but she turns on sharp heel toward him, and there’s something about the way she’s holding her body that says she’d like to linger where they’ve been this last little while, with its smoky nightclubs and back alley evening gowns. “I’m not allowed to smile?”

“When’s the last time ‘allowed’ was in the picture with you, doll?” He kicks back against the elevator wall, tugging an invisible fedora down over his brow.  

She laughs—champagne-bubbles-all-the-way-up-from-her-toes laughs. It breaks the mood as the elevator moves jerkily downward, but he might like the one that settles over them now even better. It’s quiet and comfortable. Not Phillip Marlowe and Miss Anne Riordan with her hat tipped to an angle of forty-five degrees, but Nick and Nora Charles headed home for a nightcap by wordless mutual agreement.

She breaks that mood, too, though. Just before the elevator doors open to spill them out into the cracked-tile, battered-mailbox world of Jerry and Viola’s—most definitely not Joe and Vera’s—lobby, her hand twitches out like she means to jam a fist on the big red STOP  button. She doesn’t, but she pivots to face him. She blocks his path, filling the whole space the doors leave gaping as they roll open.  

“Thanks, Castle,” she says.

“For what?” he asks.

He studies her as she stares down at the cracked-tile floor, at her own hands, twisting shyly together at her waist. He really doesn’t know what she means. It’s his favorite mystery, his favorite mood yet. 



“For Joe and Vera’s story,” she says. Her ears go red again. “For finding the ending.”

“It’s a good one, isn’t it?” He falls into step beside her as she turns to make her way through the lobby. “Good enough you’d think a dame’d be grateful enough to buy a guy a drink.”

“You would think that, wouldn’t you?” She doesn’t look at him. She shrugs into her coat against the chill and turns her face away so he has only the barest glimpse of her profile.

“Two days ago, I woulda held out for it,” he says as he hitches his shoulders and drops back into the persona. It’s something in the spaces between Phillip Marlowe, Sam Spade, Joe Flynn. It’s something that makes her smile into the glittering winter night. “But there’s was no point in dialing that number, not with this dame, so I caved. I crumbled. I went down like Jimmy Doyle in Cleveland. I opened my mouth and some pencil-necked kid’s squeak came out.”

He turns to her just as they step into a copper pool of street light. He rides the moment, impulsively tugging her by the elbow to swing her around so they’re face to face. She’s all  smiles as she peers up at him through a dramatic flutter of lashes. It looks good on her. His tongue-in-cheek narration turns prophecy. HIs voice comes out a full octave higher than he’d like it to.


"Hey, sister, any chance a tomato like you’d be caught dead tipping a few with a palooka like me?“

images via homeofthenutty

[kate--beckett]

“And that’s when I saw her. All I could think was... what a beautiful doll.”

[breathlifein]

Stana Katic / KBex alter egos through the years

[heroofretribution]

As they stared into each other's eyes, Kate's heart quickened .

[in-this-reverie]