Flush & Falldown

Summary: And if it was all just a decoy, there was no reason for him to know what she tasted like. Companion to "Knockdown." Yep. It's that story.
Rating: R for language and content. Think of the children.
Spoilers: "Knockdown," especially the last ten minutes or so. Hehe. You know which part I mean.
Disclaimer: Eu nu am Castle. And BAM with the Romanian.

Flush

I'm open to dumb ideas here.

Good. Cause I've got one.

Castle's plan isn't anything more than act drunk. For all his trashy detective novel glory, he's got nothing more than acting drunk. It really is a dumb idea. And it's not working.

He feels, rather than sees, the slight tense of muscle in her otherwise slack arm, and he hears the snap of her unholstering her gun when it hits him. Duh. The dumb idea isn't working.

Go for the moronic one. The one not even good enough to write.

When he grabs her, the look on her face is somewhere between confusion and knowing. Oh, she knows. Beckett hasn't read his books all her life and worked with him for three years without knowing what he's going to try. It's a desperate, seat-of-the-pants excuse for a plan but it's all he's got. And right now, he'll go with it.

But she doesn't fight him – and if his brain could work properly, he might realize this is a bad time to find something so hot – and before he can think twice about it, his mouth is on hers.

It shouldn't be so gentle. It should be frenzied. But she's too shocked to push, and he's too shocked at the feel of her lips on his to remember that this is supposed to look like something other than the last first kiss he's ever going to want.

He lets her go, and suddenly he realizes that he's not sure what to do.

She stares at him with a blank, scared face, but before he can form a coherent thought beyond uhhhhh, she pulls him in again and goes for it.

The blood is rushing in his ears and his face is burning in the chilly night air, and she is so warm and pliant and giving, and oh God that's her tongue against his, hot and wet and fuck sending all his blood straight south. He catches her lower lip between his – oh, God, so good – and feels her shudder. The little noise that escapes her sends a jolt straight to his groin, and murderer or no, he knows, faster than he can process the thought, that he wants her. He wants her so bad.

Hell if it doesn't feel like the twelfth time today he's been near the business end of a gun. And even though he knows it means nothing, it's just the single thing standing between them and death…oh fuck if it isn't the hottest turn-on. Fuck if he doesn't want to drag her over to the car and keep her pressed up against him till –

The rush of cold air against him catches his attention before he opens his eyes and sees her spinning away from him. She takes down the guard with a single kick, leaving her panting for breath – or was that from him? – and it might possibly be the sexiest he's ever seen her.

(And if it was all just a decoy, there was no reason for him to know what she tastes like now.)

Castle can see Lockwood aiming for her, can see the look of affirmation as she must have appeared in his sight, and as he sees the finger moving for the trigger, he stops thinking. Her. Save her. Stop him.

And he blinks, and Lockwood is on the floor. This man just tried to kill her. Tried to destroy her. Tried to take her away. To erase her. To shoot the most incredible woman in the world. From sheer, vicious, meaningless evil. This man needs to die.

He doesn't even feel pain in his hand until he sees the blood all over Lockwood's face, glistening and sticky. The haze starts to disappear as he looks up and Beckett is there, alive, safe, beautiful, and unhurt.

He meets her gaze. She understands.

She wraps the bandage gently around his palm, her fingers soft and warm on his wrist, and he wants to kiss her again. He wants to touch her, hold her, have her. She is oxygen and his lungs are burning.

He doesn't know when it went from teasing to attraction, from attraction to respect, from respect to affection, finally from affection to pathetic, hopeless love. But somewhere it did. And now he can't do anything without her. He doesn't like taking days off. It means he doesn't get to sit by her desk and stare at her.

The warmth of her hand on his helps dull the ache in muscles most used to typing, and the warmth in her eyes captures him.

He doesn't know when Kate Beckett became the center of his life. But she did. And he doesn't want it to change.

When Castle gets home, he comforts his anxious mother and daughter, who finally retire to bed after seeing that he is safe and sound. He tries. He is still far too wired.

He almost calls her. But she is busy, and even if she is already home, he doesn't know what he's going to say.

(That's a lie. He will ask her to come over. And they'll talk. And either she'll try to ignore it, or she'll flat-out tell him it was all a fake. And he has no idea how he'd stop her.)

So he tells himself she needs rest.

It takes him hours of pacing, re-alphabetizing his already alphabetized bookshelves, pushups on his bedroom floor, and finally the better part of a bottle of scotch to get to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. He dreams they're back in the alley. But the guard disappears, her jacket is gone and she's wearing that bloodstained shirt again. He tears it off her as they stumble back to the car, and as he throws her down onto the backseat and lowers himself onto her, her hair swirls around her bare shoulders like silk. And then she makes that little noise again, squirming against him, and her hands are flexing against the skin of his shoulders, her breath hot and unsteady, her taut thigh muscles clenching around his waist in a sudden spasm as she lets out a strangled gasp. He wakes up groaning, tense, heart pounding, drenched with sweat, and so aroused it's painful.

He goes into the station that afternoon, after a morning of fitful sleep filled with restless dreams. And officer he doesn't know takes his statement, and he goes in to talk to Montgomery, who is tired but pleased that everyone survived and Lockwood is no longer a threat.

Beckett's not there. Montgomery said she came in, gave her statement, and he sent her home. She was on leave for a few days. She needed the time off. And she'd earned it.

Castle pauses by her desk on his way out, noticing the usual tidiness. She's good at keeping her things neat. He's always liked that about her.

He wants to talk to her, but he doesn't know what they'd talk about.

He doesn't know what to say right now – he's already done flowers – so he sends her a text message. You OK? Anything you need? I'm on my way out of the station right now.

Her reply takes only seconds.

I'm fine. Thanks.

He thinks he should maybe leave town for a few days to calm down from this case. Clear his head. His brain is spinning and he's not sure what to do.

Then another message arrives.

You want to get some dinner tonight?

Author's Note: This one was a bit of a departure for me. I wanted to really capture the overwhelming wash of adrenaline that that kind of high-stakes situation must feel like, when even a cerebral person just wouldn't have time to form the most cogent, well-thought responses. And the look on Castle's face after the first kiss? YUM. That was not Castle acting. That was Castle REALIZING.