Friday having largely passed without incident, Castle pads up to Beckett at the end of the day and favours her with a huge-eyed puppy-dog pathetic stare. She returns it with a coolly quizzical look. She knows what he wants, but a little fun won’t hurt and might cheer him up a tad.
“Something up, Castle?”
He widens his eyes further. It’s ridiculously appealing and goes straight to her hindbrain. Fortunately, her frontal cortex is in control. For now.
“You promised me dinner,” he whines. “But you haven’t said a word about it.”
“Did I?” Beckett says innocently.
“Yes,” he whines even more pathetically. “You said you’d do dinner before tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” Beckett says even more innocently. “Is something happening tomorrow?”
“Beckett!” he squeaks indignantly. “You know the movers are coming. You promised you’d do something nice…” he trails off. “You remember perfectly well! You’re just winding me up.”
Beckett sniggers. “Took you a while,” she grins. “Of course I remember. There’s a nice Thai takeout menu waiting for us, and I even got some beer for you.”
Castle scowls theatrically. “You’re not nice to me,” he says very childishly. “If you’re not nice to me I won’t be nice to you.”
“Guess the swansdown-lined handcuffs’ll be wasted, then,” Beckett ripostes, and watches Castle splutter and choke. She starts to put away her papers, while he gripes and grouses under his breath, though his eyes are sparkling and delightfully wickedly crinkly. His mind is very clearly no longer on his woes. He’ll be even happier when he finds out what’s under her prim shirt and dress pants.
Her mischievous plans are somewhat foiled when Castle isn’t particularly responsive to being kissed when they get to her apartment, and then doesn’t evince much of an appetite for his favourite Thai dish – even when she steals part of it, which would normally evoke histrionic wails and the wreaking of revenge.
So instead of seducing him into happy, sated stillness, she tidies up, makes coffee, and then returns with it to snuggle into him and hug him close.
“You okay?” she asks quietly.
“Maybe. It’s just…”
“All changing?”
“Yeah,” he says heavily, and leans his cheek on her head. “I don’t see how we’ll get through tomorrow without an argument.”
“Mm. You’ve got a plan, though.”
“Yeah, but… I just think when the movers arrive Mother will suddenly wake up to reality and then she’ll be really upset. I hate it when she’s upset.”
“It’s not your fault, though.”
“But I told her she had to leave.”
“You gave her plenty of warnings. She could have stopped anytime, and then she wouldn’t be moving out. You’re not responsible for her choices, just like I’m not responsible for Dad’s. We talked about this, and you’re unhappy because you love her, but that doesn’t mean you need to cave in every time.”
“I know all that,” Castle says heavily, “but it doesn’t help.”
Beckett has another try at hugging him. He’s resistant, but she doesn’t drop her arms. He’s hugged her through her own emotional resistance before, and it’s always helped. She won’t abandon him now: he’s such a tactile person normally that he’d likely see it as confirmation that he’s on the wrong side of the argument. She’ll just stay here and hold him for a while. And so she strokes his shoulder and pets his hair, waiting until he’s somewhat soothed.
It takes a long time, before he loses some of the massive weight of misery that burdens him tonight; a long time of quiet and peace with no demands. His jaw loosens from the tight clench, and his hands relax and slide around her in return. She kisses him gently: no seduction, no hot desire, simply I’m here, you’re here, we’re okay. He holds her, then, for another peaceful, quiet space, and gradually Beckett feels his big body ease, the knots of his muscles untie, and his upset lift. She kisses him gently again, on his cheek, and lays her head back on the broad, comfortable shoulder where it belongs.
“Promise you’ll come tomorrow?” he says, less certain than usual.
“Promise,” Beckett says definitively. “Where am I going?”
“Come to the loft first – say eleven-thirty? Then we’ll all go to the new place together.” His large fingers twist and play with her hair, his palm grazing her jawline. “With the three of us, and the movers, unpacking shouldn’t take long.”
“Mm,” Beckett says. “If you need me round earlier, call.”
“Uh?”
“Um…” She doesn’t want to say if Martha kicks off and storms out and you’re upset. “In case you need someone to order the movers around. You’re not much of a dictator.”
“I can dictate just fine,” Castle says firmly, “when I need to.”
“Huh,” she says disbelievingly.
Castle smiles slowly and lazily. Beckett sees it with considerable pleasure and a healthy dose of relief that he’s come out of his despondency. “An essential item in every dictator’s armoury is handcuffs. But since you don’t seem to have any with you, despite your earlier promises, I’ll just have to improvise.”
Desire flashes darkly from his eyes to hers, and he shifts her without effort for his mouth to cover hers, to trap her slim wrists in one broad span and use his unhindered hand to undo that prim and proper plain shirt, and push it off her shoulders. It’s but the work of one wicked moment to wind it around her wrists behind her back, to knot it just firmly enough: more than the illusion of restraint, given once before when she’d shown him that deeper trust, less than the reality. Her eyes are hot and sparking; small gold flares in the endless depths, and she softens against him, that unusual femininity that only ever arrives when they’re alone; the first clue he’d had that she wasn’t the badass Beckett of the bullpen.
He kisses her smoothly again, then sets her back to allow for the unprotested removal of her pants, and a slow, scorching perusal from pate to pedicure and back again.
“Pretty,” he says suavely. “You put them on just for me, didn’t you?”
Them means a matched set of midnight blue lingerie, form-fittingly brief and lacy.
“I like them.” He runs a finger along the edge of the bra, down into her cleavage. “Very… directional.” She shivers, and her nipples peak. “Not that I do what other people tell me. Being a dictator, you see.” He nips delicately at her ear, and she wriggles against him. “I guess I’d better think up some suitably tyrannical actions to deal with you.”
She smirks. “Like what?” she purrs.
“Mmm,” Castle rumbles into her neck. “Well, your hands are tied, so I guess I can do anything I like.” He stands up. “Starting with relocating you.” He picks her up, puts her over his shoulder, pats her ass, at which she squeals in vocal protest, grins evilly and drops her back into his arms to kiss her hard and stop the noise; and then takes her through to the bedroom and arranges her neatly on the bed.
“I want a kiss,” his Kat pouts at him.
“Do you?” Castle says.
She moves sinuously, and disentangles her hands.
“Yep.”
She sits up and hauls him down in one fast movement. Castle, however, isn’t inclined to give up on his immediate plan, and therefore allows himself to be hauled down and thereby also land on top of her, pinning her down. She’d have done better to dispose of the shirt first, too. Tactical mistake, that, Beckett. He leaves most of his weight on her, preventing her moving, and retrieves her crumpled cotton shirt, threading it quickly through the spindles of her headboard and then detaching each hand from his neck and knotting the shirt-sleeves around them. Who needs handcuffs when he can invent some MacGyveresque solution right here?
“Too bad,” he says, and acquires a hungry, wolfish look. “I’ve got different plans.” He dips his head to tickle his tongue at the hollow of her throat. She squirms under him. He sits back on his heels, between her legs, and undoes his own shirt exceedingly slowly, playing to the gallery. She watches with hot eyes and parted lips, and as it slips from his shoulders attempts to use her own feet to push him forward to fall over her once more. She fails.
“Tut, tut,” Castle says smugly. “That’s not going to work.” She growls. It would be a lot more effective if she wasn’t wearing two tiny scraps of midnight blue lace, neither of which are concealing her feelings in the slightest. He flexes slightly, and smirks at the indrawn breath. When she’s in this mood, he knows exactly what a show of strong muscle and wide chest does for her: fires her up and melts her down. She’s watching him intently, more aroused with each small muscle movement designed to show off his power and potency, and completely unable to do anything about it, her hands held above her head.
He follows up by bending forward and licking a hot wet line down the valley between her lace-covered breasts, not touching her anywhere else, and then sits back again. He unbuckles his belt as slowly as he had undone his shirt: watching her watching him watching her. Desire crackles on the air between them as it slides through the loops and to the floor. The slow scritch of the teeth of his pants zipper scrapes in the silence, and his pants follow the belt to the floor. She moves again, fluidly feline, locks ankles behind him, pushing at him. He doesn’t move, and tsks at her.
“You said I wasn’t much of a dictator,” he says. “Funny how you’re the one who can’t do anything.” She tugs a little on the shirt, but this time it doesn’t give. She looks at him, eyes wide and dark, but no hint of panic or uncertainty or fear.
“Seems not.” She bites down on her lower lip, and strokes it with the very tip of her tongue. It’s intensely provocative, and Castle is certainly intensely provoked. He leans forward again, propped on his arms so that he doesn’t touch her, so that she has to arch and curve towards him and still not reach her goal, and with mobile mouth slides the dark lace damply across each neat breast. She pushes into him, and sighs softly.
He takes his time. No reason to hurry, no need to leave, no desire to stop. Her pert nipples deserve plenty of attention, and he provides it: long strokes and furling rolls, palmed pressure, the occasional drag of teeth. She likes all of it. He likes all of it.
“Who said I wasn’t very dictatorial? I’m dictating your reactions,” he growls into her ear, and she shivers against him and wriggles and tries to steal a kiss. And fails.
“Come here,” she breathes. “Come kiss me, Castle.”
“Oh, I’ll kiss you,” he returns, and does: all the way down her throat, cleavage, stomach and to the narrow strip of lace that covers her. He rests hands on her hips, leans up on his elbows and smiles lazily all the way up her body. “Now, where were we?” he asks rhetorically, and proceeds to prove that in this one matter he is quite definitely dictating her actions, reactions, and vocalisations. Calling them words might be overstating the case somewhat, though his name is prominent, until she dissolves on a long a and a convulsive shudder and her body relaxes beneath him, quivering with aftershock and completely his.
She’s untied before her eyes open, cuddled in; lax and soft and draped around him; her arms creeping around his neck, pulling him closer, over her, opening for him and to him and welcoming him in. She’s so very tight around him, as close as they can be, and they move together as her hips curve and arch to his thrusts and at last they come together on each other’s name.
They fall asleep still tangled together, without even cleaning up.
Regrettably, Castle has set his alarm for six, and while it’s not Beckett’s klaxon it’s still plenty loud enough to wake the dead, to which Castle’s sleep bears a considerable resemblance. He jerks into wakefulness, is entirely not inclined to return to sleep at the thought of the nightmares that consideration of the coming hours will undoubtedly produce, and gives Beckett a hopeful jab with a finger which does not produce anything except a sleepy groan.
“Wha’zz’t? Sleeping.”
“Gotta go. Movers.” He rolls out of bed, discovers his revolting state, and aims for the shower. Beckett doesn’t shift.
“Moversh?” she slurs through a yawn. But Castle’s already under the hot water, frantically trying to clean himself. He needs to be an hour ahead of the movers, just in case. In case of what, he doesn’t want to think about right now.
“Movers!” she suddenly squeaks, and her eyes fly open. “You got to go, Castle. You’ll be late.” About that point her ears catch up with her eyes and hear the shower. Some time after that her brain catches up with both of them. At that point she falls out of bed, staggers to the kitchen, puts the kettle on and wonders how the hell she is awake at six-fifteen on an off-shift Saturday. It doesn’t seem fair.
Coffee helps. Marginally. She does remember to make one for Castle, who arrives at a run, downs the coffee in one scalding mouthful, kisses her hard and departs on a call of See you at eleven-thirty. Or possibly at elven-thirty, which at this hour of the day is equally probable since she should still be dreaming, though elves are not the dream she’d choose.
She glares at her empty coffee cup, glares at the empty space where Castle had been, currently refilling with air, glares around at her bedroom door – and goes back to bed.
Three hours later, her alarm wakes her body, which, being at a more reasonable time, also wakes her brain. Her brain tells her she needs a shower, probably three hours ago, and then lots of coffee. It seems like a plan.
Castle has made it home with, unusually, a reasonably adequate margin to spare. He even manages to shave and style his hair: feeling that he needs all the moral reinforcement he can get. It’s all in the small details. Speaking of which, a not-so-small detail is swishing down the stairs. There is a considerable aura of tragedy queen around her. He hopes it’s Desdemona. He expects it to be Lady Macbeth, possibly combined with Regan and Goneril. If only he could claim his mother were Ophelia, and have her safely committed. A convent seems unlikely, though White Plains would be a good alternative.
“Good morning, Mother. Would you like some breakfast?”
“Ah, Richard,” Martha declaims. “Come to deliver the coup de grace?”
“Mother,” he says with exemplary, if pained, patience, “you are moving to an apartment which most actors would kill for; you will have ample opportunity to – how did you put it to Alexis? Ah yes – conduct individual rehearsals, which is a phrase I truly wish I had never heard – and don’t even try to explain, thank you; and your thoroughly excessive allowance will continue to support your Bergdof habit until you are too old to stagger there no matter how many Mimosas you consume. Even you cannot describe this as a coup de grace.” He hands her the keys to the new apartment, and removes the old keys from her purse.
Martha regards him with a very black look indeed. “You are evicting me, however you dress it up. This is my home.”
“No,” Castle says, still patiently. “This is my home. Your apartment will be your home. Now, the movers will arrive in less than an hour. Are you ready for them?”
His mother looks at him, and suddenly Castle sees tears forming in her sharp blue eyes. He steps forward and hugs her.
“Mother, it’ll be fine.”
“I just wanted us all to be a family.”
Castle doesn’t say anything at once. His mother might be upset but he’s not going to change his mind now.
“We’ll still be a family. Nothing will ever change that.” He hugs her again and then steps back. “Coffee?”
“No. I shall go and attend to my packing. I will depart with the utmost dignity.” Her eyes are now tearless and hard.
Castle regards her departing, poker-stiff back with some dismay. He would have been a lot more relieved, paradoxically, if his mother had gone for loud and theatrical histrionic argument. He’s still unhappily sure that there is more emotion to come.
He pours himself more coffee, and awaits the movers.
The movers duly arrive precisely at eight a.m., consisting of two men who more closely resemble refrigerators than humans. Castle, who even in his state of trepidation can’t help himself making mental notes for minor characters, is rather pleased by them.
His mother, however, is not. The first intimation of this is a high-pitched screech which fills the loft.
“Not that one, dolt! This one!”
Clearly her direction of the Dream has affected her vocabulary. Castle is already half-way upstairs before his brain has instructed his feet.
His mother is over-stressed, and is doing her best to ensure that everyone around her suffers from the same malady. The removal men are commendably placid, though Castle does take a surreptitious peek to see whether they have donned earplugs. He looks around. Very little is packed. He opens his mouth to start directing –
– and most fortunately Alexis appears, returned from her sleepover earlier than expected, and seeming as if she’d dressed rather hurriedly and a little flustered.
“Grams,” she says, “what are you doing? I thought you promised I could help? You said you wouldn’t start without me. We talked about this!”
Castle takes a sneaky, silent step backwards to the door.
“Sweetie, of course you can help. But…”
“But nothing,” Alexis wails, and half-turns to drop a wink encompassing her father and both removers. “You promised. If you don’t let me help how’ll I know where you want anything put in your apartment? You said I could pick a room, too.”
Castle admires, in a rather appalled fashion, the creative use of emotional blackmail inherent in Alexis’s tirade, though he does rather wonder why his mother hasn’t spotted that it would be far more appropriate to a preteen than a fifteen-year old. No doubt it has something to do with her own ability to throw tantrums, which makes Alexis’s behaviour completely explicable. To his mother, not to him. If she hadn’t winked, he’d have been considering Alexis’s sanity.
“How can I start on my interior design career” – what? What has Alexis been saying to his mother? – “if you won’t even let me help arrange your apartment?”
“But sweetie” –
“Grams,” Alexis whines. Beckett would have recognised the patented Castle pathetic, puppy-dog, wide-eyed expression. Of course, she’d have ignored it. Just as well she isn’t actually here to scoff. It would have ruined the whole production.
“Darling, of course you can. But these dreadful removers are utterly confusing me.”
Alexis turns to Castle, winks again, and says, “Dad, give me and Grams a minute or two.”
“Grams and I,” Castle says. “How many times must I tell you?” He locks gazes with the two removers. “D’you guys want coffee? The girls here’ll take a few minutes” – Alexis produces a sizzlingly furious scowl – “to get organised.”