Pulled from the Castle Fanfics Prompts blog: 'You're not supposed to fall in love with your friend with benefits.'
You're not supposed to fall in love with him.
It's supposed to be harmless, meaningless sex. Something to take the edge off a long day of working for the dead. They go back to her place, sometimes to his when his mother is otherwise engaged and Alexis is spending the night with a friend, share a glass of wine and fake small talk until they spring together like animals.
Usually its quick and hot, gratifying in a way that Kate never lets herself analyze. Sometimes they'll doze, wake up in the middle of the night for another desperate round that often toes the line between this no strings, no attachment arrangement that they have.
One of them always leaves afterward. Dresses in the half light that filters into the bedroom from the city streets, murmuring platitudes about seeing you tomorrow, or having a good night.
But she starts to miss him when he's gone. On the nights where they don't come together Kate struggles to sleep, too busy thinking about what Castle might be doing or if he's missing her too. It makes her grouchy the next day; all snarls and glares at Ryan, Esposito and the various officers who work with them until that half smile arrives with a giant cup of coffee, sparkling blue eyes, and a sizzle of electricity that dances along her fingers when they touch.
She feels the way her heart kicks into overdrive, the swooping, endless need that flutters from deep in her abdomen when his eyes crinkle up in happiness. His voice is whisper soft compared to the din of the bullpen, but she can hear the intimacy, the promises and the wants that have truthfully always been there; even before dirty bombs and freezers scared her enough to allow him into her bed.
Months ago. They've been doing this for months, spending their days with this unspoken and unacknowledged need, sharing glances and the slightest brush of a hand across a shoulder at the murder board, a finger trailing across the back of a hand as they walk to a crime scene. They've shared beds and brought each other comfort and pleasure countless times, but it's standing in the middle of the precinct, knee deep in the case that has defined her life that the tidal wave of realization crashes over her.
She wasn't supposed to fall in love with him, but as Castle stands quietly beside her, free hand warm and comforting where it's pressed against her waist, she realizes that she has.
You're not supposed to fall in love. A truly ridiculous notion since he was halfway there before he ever went to bed with her.
They were casual; tumbling onto her bed, sometimes his, with a desperate need and a frenzied want that should have lessened over time. Instead, it grew, building and morphing into this constant ache of desire. Not just for sex, but for the fleeting moments of true companionship and intimacy that have filled the spaces between red hot passion and all consuming sex.
He now knows that Kate prefers to sleep on her side, that long and lean body curled against him. He knows that there's a spot just behind her ear that will make her gasp in pleasure if he scrapes his teeth against it, and that she buys her underwear as matching sets. She makes little snuffling noises in her sleep, something between a snore and a sigh that never fails to make him grin. Sometimes, when he holds her on the edge, leaving her desperate and ready, she'll swear at him in Russian.
On some level, Rick has known he's been in far too deep for their definition of their relationship for weeks, maybe even months. He almost told her in Los Angeles, almost let the words slip from his mouth on their last night in California as he tugged Kate towards his room and the bed they'd yet to share.
He'd kissed her instead, distracted his heart and his mind with the taste of her skin and the feel of her hips locked around his waist.
He regrets it now. As he kneels on vivid green grass and listens to the echo of terrified screams, he wholly regrets keeping it to himself. The woman he loves is bleeding profusely from a bullet wound, agony and fear etched into every inch of her face. All he can do is try to keep her calm, try to keep her conscious, though he's no fool.
Richard Castle kills people for a living and he knows how close Kate is skirting to the line. The blood has already coated his hands, and still it continues to seep from between his fingers, rolling towards the grass and painting it a damning, terrifying red.
"I love you, Kate." He sets the words free with a sob lingering in his throat, the heavy press of tears fogging up his eyes. "I love you."
He wasn't supposed to fall in love with her, but huddle over a broken, battered body on a warm spring afternoon, Rick admits that he has.
She still loves him. Damn it to hell.
Three months of disability leave. Constant nightmares and panic attacks. Grueling rehab. Lingering issues with how her body is painfully thin and riddle with scars. Weeks of silence, of shutting herself away and pretending he isn't important.
But Rick Castle is important. He's the person she thinks about before she falls asleep, the first person on her mind when she wakes up. He's the one she's wished for when the nightmares creep up and Kate wakes to the sound of her own hoarse screams.
It used to unsettle her with how much she wanted him. But that's nothing compared to the bone deep terror of the realization that she needs him. Independent and capable are things she prides herself on, but there's some small, fractured portion of her that doesn't quite work without the presence of her writer.
Because he's hers. And, terrified or not, she's willing to admit that she's his.
If he'll still have her, that is.
With a deep breath, Kate lifts her hand to knock on the door. The shuffling begins immediately from somewhere within, a distant rhythmic tapping of feet as they move across hardwood floors. It's little more than a minute where she's forced to wait; time in which her heart beat doubles and anticipation swells like a wave about to crash into shore.
He's guarded when the door opens, as unreadable as she's ever seen him. That alone makes her ache, pushes a dozen explanations and apologies into her head until it seems to buzz with her need to make it right. In her fear she's wrecked something so precious, hurt a man who has only wanted to give her the world.
"I'm sorry." It slips out without her permission, surprising both of them in how her voice seems to shake with emotion. In any case, it removes the veneer of Castle's expressionless mask, leaving a man who is both wary of her and angry with her.
"For what?" Castle's voice is rough, edged with the anger that she expected and a relief that makes her want to sob and enfold herself in those broad arms.
"For not telling you the truth, for shutting you out," Kate doesn't allow herself to flinch when his eyes burn dark blue, the anger bubbling to the surface and threatening to snap the carefully composed control, "I shouldn't…I should have called, Castle. I should have…."
She's so close to babbling, so off centered and emotionally spent that she's willing to offer up things that he'd normally have to pull out with great patience and greater care. But almost dying seems to have reset her priorities, pushed her into defining the things in her life that she can't live without.
"And what is the truth, Kate?" He uses her first name on purpose, making their conversation more than the precinct, more than work partners and friends. He rarely called her by her given name at work, Kate was for their private life, an acknowledgement of the barrier put in place between the two sections. Kate was for the woman, Beckett was for the cop.
Even if he loved them both.
"That I love you," Kate tells him, using the moment of shock that passes over his face to step into his loft and erase the distance between them, "I didn't mean for it to happen, but it did. All your snoring and muttering about Nikki in your sleep, the way the hair at the back of your head sticks up after you've been to bed, how you say my name when you let go…."
He's staring at her like a man who has been sat down to a feast after weeks of hunger, eyes stunned and tinged with the slightest hint of joy in the crystal blue flecks, "I love you, Rick."
The rest of her speech is lost, absorbed by the feel of his mouth sliding over hers. He's trapped her against him, one arm holding her steady at the waist and the other angling her head so that he can attack her mouth with a kiss that knocks the air from her lungs.
They're both breathing hard when they break apart, the same dazed and slightly besotted look lingering in their eyes, "We have a lot to talk about…." Castle begins, fingers soothing and smooth as they trail across the graceful line of her neck.
"I've got time."
"Good," he grins, dusting his mouth over hers one last time, and kicking the door closed with his foot.