2. Tradition

“What’s wrong?”

“My curfew,” Beckett says flippantly. The alternative is whimpering miserably.  “I turn into a pumpkin at nine.”

“Thought that was midnight, Cinderella?” She winces.

“Only for Vice cops. The rest of us gotta to go to bed early.”  She’s covering as best she can, but Castle hasn’t spent the last several weeks watching every move and flicker of expression that she makes without learning most of her tells.  Right now, she’s lying through her teeth.  Now he really wants some answers.  No-one should react like that to normal conversational topics.

“Liar,” Castle says neutrally. It’s so unlike his normal irritatingly smooth, flirtatious tones that she stops walking and looks up.  He leaves it hanging, and rapidly returns to annoyingly normal.

“We didn’t finish our conversation, Beckett. So I’ll just have to walk you home.”  She splutters, forgetting her momentary misery.

“No way!”

“Yes way,” Castle pronounces smugly. “You’ve been drinking.  It’s my duty to escort you home.”  He pauses, portentously.  “It’s your duty to help me think of my character’s name.”

“I don’t want to. You’re the writer, write.  Use your over-active imagination.”

“I need inspiration.” He smiles sweetly, and falsely.  “You’re my inspiration,” he sings, in a well-pitched baritone.  A passer-by looks round, shakes his head in disgust, and puts his earphones in more firmly.

“At least get the lyrics right. After that, you can try to hit the notes.” 

“I’m hurt, Beckett. Everyone says I’ve got a good voice.”

“Clearly they don’t have to listen to it,” Beckett mutters darkly.

“You could sing too. Then we’d be in perfect harmony.  Wouldn’t that be nice?”  He hums a few bars of I’d Like to Teach the World to Sing.  In tune. 

Beckett growls. It’s neither harmonious nor nice.  Singing is strictly confined to her shower, and very rare karaoke nights with Lanie in out-of-the-way bars that no-one will find her in.  Though when she does sing, she’s got a really great mezzo.  Still, she is not going to be duetting with Castle.  Totally inappropriate.  She discovers with considerable irritation that she’s humming Up Where We Belong.

She discovers with rather less irritation – or at least a very different sort of irritation – that somehow Castle’s incessant, flirtatious triviality has dissipated some of her upset. Is it possible that this hyperactive man-toddler might actually have a good point?  Just one, in the whole compass-round of ways he irritates her?  She wriggles her shoulders in swift negation.  Unfortunately, not only does that fail to dissipate the errant thought, but it’s clearly given Castle the wrong idea.

“You’re cold, Beckett.” She doesn’t need his faked concern.  She really, really doesn’t need his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll heat you up.” She growls.  “I mean I’ll keep you warm.  Lots of people have said I’m hot.”  She’s sure they have.  She will not be one of them.  Even if it’s true.  “Though if you want I could heat you up too.”  The growl she emits this time would terrify tyrannosaurs.  “Okay, too soon?”  She doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

Not dignifying his suggestive comments with an answer does not, it appears, mean that he takes the hint and removes his arm. They’ve had this conversation already, in the bar.  Time for more direct measures.  “Castle, take your arm away.”  This time she’s careful of her phrasing.  He does.  Well, that’s an improvement.  He never usually does anything she asks him to.  Like stay out the way.

“But you’ll get cold, Beckett. Then you’ll catch a cold and then you’ll give me it.  My rugged good looks will be ruined if my nose is running and I sneeze all the time.”

“There’s a solution, Castle.”

“There is? You’ve found a cure for the common cold?  You’ll be famous!  Then I can date you for your high profile.”

“What?” Suddenly something she’d missed – or ignored – earlier knocks at her mind.  He is definitely trying to wind her up.  “I’m not dating you.  That’s ridiculous.”  He droops pathetically at her.  She ignores him and signals a passing taxi.  Castle slides in with her.

He knows he’s really pushing his luck now. There is every chance that he will be maimed or shot in the very near future.  But his mind has started to work in a rather different direction from its normal concentration on getting Beckett out on a date, and if teasing her with nicknames and short forms of Katherine will extract some information – which it already has, if only he can put it together – then he’s going to carry on until he’s explicitly told to go home.  First off, however, she’s upset and she’s thrown back a reasonable quantity of alcohol far too fast, although she’s looking surprisingly sober, so he is going to make sure she gets home in one piece.  Even if she carries a gun.  He’s not going to make it obvious that he’s indulging his mile-wide chivalrous streak, though.  That wouldn’t do at all.  He’ll stick to innuendo and annoying-ness.  Even if it’s mutating faster than a flu virus in February into something very different from mere sexual attraction.

“Why are you in my taxi?” Beckett asks petulantly.

“I said I’d escort you home.” He sounds as if she should have known that.

“I don’t need an escort. I have my gun.”

“You don’t get off that easy.”

“Why, Mr Castle, are you making me an indecent proposition?” That is surely the last remnants of the vodka talking.  It’s certainly not she.

“Would you like one?” His voice has dropped.  Now it’s prowling round the cab.  He’s remarkably close, despite the fact that she’s firmly tucked into her corner and he’s rammed up against the edge of his.  It only proves that he’s disgracefully oversized.  Which is not at all attractive.  Really.  (Your previous boyfriend was tall and broad, the voice reminds her.  Lobotomy.  Tomorrow. Lanie will arrange it.)

“No.”

“Too bad. If you change your mind, let me know.”  She can hear the wicked smile without needing to look.  His voice hasn’t lost a jot of the predatory undertone.  She ignores its effects on her hindbrain.  She is a modern, civilised adult, six thousand years and more removed from the cavemen, and she is in control of her baser instincts.  Remnants of vodka or not.  She slides even further into the corner of the cab, and stares out at the now-driving sleet until they reach her building.

She pulls out a bill and is firmly forestalled. Castle is not only sneakily and unnecessarily paying for the cab but he’s also sneakily and irritatingly on the sidewalk side.  She can’t get out the cab on her side without the door being taken off by some other passing traffic, or being squashed. It’s perfectly clear that he’s intending to see her right to her door.  Well, if he wants to prove that he’s polite he can.  It’s entirely unnecessary, because she didn’t doubt his manners.  Irritating and suggestive he may be, but not rude.

When she gets to her door her own manners take over her brain before her intelligence finds its way out of the final drops of no-longer anaesthetizing vodka. “Would you like to come in for a minute?” exits her mouth without her permission.  Castle looks depressingly enthusiastic.

“I knew you liked me,” he oozes. He bounds in, somewhat in the manner of an over-indulged Labrador, and comes to a halt in the middle of the room.  For a few seconds he’s blessedly silent.  When he opens his mouth again Beckett wishes she hadn’t let good manners overcome good sense.

“That’s a birthday card.” No shit, Sherlock.  He picks it up, and reads it.  “To Katie, from Dad.”  He’s clearly about to make a flip comment when he abruptly seems to perceive that she isn’t in the mood for any of his thoughts on the salutation.

“When was your birthday?” She doesn’t answer, pretending not to have heard.  “It’s today, isn’t it?”  More silence.  Letting Castle know that she didn’t even have plans on her birthday wasn’t in the playbook.

“You should have said earlier. I’d have got you a cupcake with a candle.”  He’s appalled.  It’s her birthday, she’s got precisely one birthday card, and she hasn’t made a single change to her normal working day except that he finagled her out to a bar, somehow upset her and has now followed her back to her apartment where she’s pretending that it doesn’t matter that she’s not celebrating.  Birthdays do matter, and celebrating with friends matters more.  She’s been cheated of a proper birthday.

Well, he’s sure of one thing now, and that is that she is quite definitely single. He’d been pretty positive anyway, from her reactions to him, but now he is certain.  No harm in trying to alter that. He’s been hoping for this sort of chance for some time.

“That’s precisely why I didn’t say.”

Castle looks humorously shocked.

“Birthdays are for celebrating. Surely you know that?  How old are you?”  Beckett raises her eyebrows.  “Oh, okay.”  She waits for the next shoe to splash down.  “Why aren’t you out on the town?”

“Work tomorrow.” She concocts an almost-truthful statement.  “Can’t be out late when you’re on early shift.”  While he’s been asking questions, Castle’s slowly meandered across the room to where Beckett, now, as always in her apartment, barefoot, is desultorily looking for her takeout menus and considering the virtues of strong coffee to provide her with something that will improve the evening.  The vodka has worn off.  How can she go from almost effectively anaesthetized to stone cold sober in an hour?  It’s not fair.

“So, Beckett. Names.  Especially appropriate on a birthday.”  He’s practically on top of her.  She jumps at his voice that close.  Castle puts out a hand to steady her and fails to remove it.  In fact, he adds another one, so that he’s now placed two large, warm hands round her waist.  “You know what else is traditional on a birthday?”  His voice has dropped into a low, rumbling register that’s talking to her nerves, not her ears.

“What?”

“A kiss.” Which he provides, lightly on her lips.  And then, when out of sheer shock she doesn’t kill him at once or even step back, he bends and kisses her again, much more forcefully, big hands and long fingers drawing her inward, tongue running along the seam of her mouth and demanding – receiving – entrance.  His hands shift on her back to hold her against him, one at the curve of her spine, one sliding upwards to her neck and into her hair, twisting into the short locks at her nape.  She isn’t sure at all how her own hands came to be round his neck.  She can’t even blame the vodka, because it’s worn off.  So she has absolutely no idea why she isn’t killing him already, (it’s not as if she couldn’t) and even less idea than that as to why she’s joining in.  Except that no-one’s held her tightly and kissed her like this for a very long time and everywhere his hands go they leave a little trail of desire and heat and it’s just so nice to be wanted.

She opens fully under his lips and lets him explore her mouth. He tastes of Scotch and heat and indefinably of big, hard male, and the more she responds the tighter he’s caught her and shit he feels good against her and this is why she likes big, broad men, because she can feel protected.  Which is really very odd because she can take care of herself perfectly well and she has a gun and an average target score of over ninety-five.   

She gives up thought in favour of sensation; drops the last vestiges of daytime hard, controlled shell and curves softly into Castle. His reaction is immediate and certainly doesn’t disappoint: his kiss turns hard and possessive, tongue requiring her concession to his demands, hand angling her head for full access; his other hand runs down from the small of her back to over the curve of her ass and pulls her firmly against hard weight and hot body, holding her in just the right place so that she can feel how much he wants her.  She knows that she’s already soft and wet and open: not her usual daily self at all, and the more she softens the more he takes and the more she gives back and oh it’s just so easy to let him lead her further and further down this path.

It’s just so easy to be exactly who she isn’t in the precinct: to be Kat not-Kate-not-Beckett who likes soft t-shirts and sweats and flowing skirts and even occasional dresses, not sharply tailored pants and jackets; who can cook and (whisper it softly) play acoustic guitar and (never say it aloud) likes occasional slushy romance novels and baths with softly aromatic bubbles and scented candles; and who, just for once in a way, would like not to be the alpha in the room but to be petted and protected and cherished.  Which, for the next little while, seems to be a possible, if temporary, outcome.  Because the Castle who currently has both arms tightly round her and his mouth hard on hers doesn’t seem much like the one who turns up at the precinct either.  Exactly who he isn’t in the precinct, in fact.  He’s a lot less irritating, for a start.  Not irritating at all.  His kisses are as smooth, seductive and sinful as good moonshine whiskey, and slide down every sensitive synapse to gather moistly within her.

Castle, not being one to let an opportunity pass him by, had seized it and as swiftly found that, as he had hypothesised almost since moment one, Beckett is not nearly as unaffected by him as she’d pretended. He is somewhat surprised, however, that in more intimate circumstances she’s not at all like she is outside her door; but he is perfectly content to take control of the course of the evening and of this strangely yielding, soft Beckett.  It’s clear that she doesn’t want to take charge; and from that he has rapidly deduced that – since she is not, as she could, maiming him – she wants him to.  Which suits him just fine, because it’s only taken him a few weeks to be entirely enraptured by Detective Kate Beckett, who is currently not Detective Kate Beckett but some completely different woman – equally enrapturing – who’s pliant and responsive in his arms, where she fits just perfectly.  Despite the height and the usual heels, currently and conveniently missing, there’s surprisingly little of her.  Her wrists are delicate, her waist slim, her collarbones sharply defined.  Must be her driving daytime public personality that makes her seem to occupy the whole of any space she’s in: the focal point, always in command of the room, wherever she is.  Except, it seems, here. 

He holds her closer, tastes more deeply: teasing and tantalising and taking and testing this new theory that the terse, tense Beckett might be someone quite different in her own home, her own private space; until finally he turns her round, rapidly surveys the room and lands his gaze on a large, full-cushioned couch. He walks them to it, where this carefully-judged exploration can be continued in comfort.  Whilst he can, quite readily, hold her up, (and pick her up and carry her, but he’ll demonstrate that later if it seems appropriate) he’d rather it wasn’t necessary.  It’s very odd, though.  He’d expected, somehow, that the first time they kissed would grow out of rage and frustration and be hard and raw and angry.  It’s not.  It’s strangely soft and delicate and yes he’s taken her mouth hard and deep but there’s no rage about it.  He wouldn’t have put them – this is a them – down for traditional roles in any capacity whatsoever, but right now it seems that Beckett’s being (this has just got to be wrong) feminine.  His display of masculinity is less surprising.  Metrosexuality only goes so far.

Beckett surrenders to being moved on to her couch and into Castle’s lap without the slightest semblance of a fight. Why fight what you want?  No arguments, no problems, no complications.  No commitments either, but who cares?  It’s her birthday, and this is her present: a chance to be kittenish-Kat, not Kate, not Beckett.  She’s so tired of being the strong one; the one in command.  She can put it down for tonight, for the first time in years.  She’ll pick it up again tomorrow, when she wakes.  It’s just one evening.

But strangely, given the huge volume of suggestive, not to say heated, comments that Castle has produced since the day she stormed his book party to haul him in for questioning, he currently seems content with kissing. Hard, deep, and forceful kissing which she is very much appreciating – but nothing more, yet.  Still, he’s very good at that, and hadn’t she thought earlier that she isn’t up for a one-night stand?  She’s past that sort of casual behaviour, no matter what her body is telling her right now, which could be encapsulated in the three words jump his bones, pronounced in a very Lanie-esque twang.  She is, after all, a mature adult, not an over-sexed, hormone-soaked adolescent.  Really.  Though if it came along she’s currently pretty certain she wouldn’t object, or stop it.  It’s her birthday, and surely she can do what she wants on her birthday?  God knows the rest of the day has been fairly crappy, and some pleasurable diversion would be good.  This is currently a very pleasurable diversion.

Castle hasn’t moved off kissing largely because he has become instantly, hopelessly and incurably addicted to the taste of Beckett’s soft mouth under his and the way she feels simply held close against him. For now, it’s entirely unnecessary to push the point of this clearly mutual attraction.  There’s no need to hurry.  On the other hand,  he could carefully explore a little further.  Nothing too blatant.  He’s not a sex-crazed teen.  Even if it’s Beckett.  He leaves kissing her mouth and feathers fingers over her jaw, tipping her face towards him and playing with the wisps of short hair round her ears.  Interestingly, as her hair dries from the sleet that had accumulated on it, it’s acquired a soft wave.  He wouldn’t have predicted that, he’d expected her hair to be as rigidly controlled as she normally is.  Then again, he’s been wrong about the extent to which her personality is all about control, it seems. 

Lips follow fingers as Castle investigates the fine-boned outline of Beckett’s face, glides round her jawline and delves delicately into the curve of her ear, the recess behind it, finds a spot where she wriggles and breathes just a little harder, faster; so he kisses that again just to make sure he’ll be able to find it the next time. He has a very good memory for matters which interest him, and right now the contents of his arms interest him extremely.  Not, of course, that this is new.  Said contents have been the most interesting issue around him for weeks.  Rather reluctantly, he stops kissing her.

“Isn’t this a better way to spend your birthday?” He tucks her into his arm a little more comfortably so that he can purr into her ear. “Traditions are always a good thing.” He doesn’t say, or do, anything further. It seems like he’s waiting for something: a word, or a signal: