If I was being graded on originality, I'd get an F-.
But as a writing catharsis? A+
So, if that averages to a C and C is average I thought I'd share.
This wasn't the first time they'd danced together. It wasn't even the first wedding they'd danced at together, but it was the first one since they'd gotten together, and he wasn't entire sure but he could tell that he isn't the only one who was realizing the significance of the moment.
She's pliant and warm in his arms as they move around the dance floor, the blush chiffon of her dress over her hip soft under her palm, the skin of her hand even softer wrapped in his own. She's leaning heavily against him, her temple against his shoulder, tucked so close into him that he could feel when her eyes had closed four songs ago yet still hadn't opened, so heavily sated with champagne and wine and sheer happiness that even though he's asked her if she'd like to leave at the end of every song since then she just hums out a quiet "just one more song."
He doesn't mind. With his cheek pressed against her hair, her nose nudging the side of his neck, the long line of her body soft against his own, he really doesn't.
The reception is pretty much empty at this point and he slides his eyes open to see who is left. Alexis and Max left an hour ago, and he's definitely not thinking about that. At a table off to the side of the dance floor, Ryan it sitting with Jenny's feet in his lap, her heels on the floor in front of his chair as he rubs his pregnant wife's feet, knowing that they had a sitter at home for their oldest and they were trying so desperately to keep the night to themselves for just a little bit longer. Some of the precinct people were still hanging around, Hastings and her husband, LT and his wife. There were a few of the bride's cousins sitting a table by themselves, still drinking, making eyes at a table of the groom's old friends who were talking about the good old days.
He let his eyes trail back to the couple in question. It had been a quiet joke amongst groomsmen, that marriage-phobic Esposito was getting married before twice-married Castle popped the question to Beckett, but he'd let it go with a good-natured smile, teasing back that once you found the right woman, you knew what to do, and it was about time Esposito finally learned and asked Lanie to marry him or he would have been alone forever.
And really, it doesn't bother him. Not too much. He would love to marry her, there are moments when he literally aches with it, moments like when she's cooking breakfast in his kitchen in front of his mother and his daughter wearing his shirt; when she's standing in front of the precinct and her mind is going a mile a minute and she puts her hand on his arm to ground her.
She's the longest strictly non-professional (because really… who is he trying to fool) successful relationship he's ever had and that thrills him just as much as it terrifies him. Because he has been married twice, brokenly in love once before that but he's never been so desperately attached to a woman before. He's never been so painstakingly invested in every aspect of another adult's life as he is in hers. It's been 6 years, nearly two of those spent together and it's not perfect but it is perfect. Nights wrapped up in their sheets are just as amazing as nights spent spooning on the break room couch (it happened once and it was the best worst night's sleep he's ever had), date nights where she gets dresses up and they go out just as special to him as movie nights cuddled on the couch.
He's been in his friends' shoes twice before but he thinks that maybe he's wrong - maybe he's never been there at all. Because this dance right now, this dance with this woman is the closest he's ever been to having true love in his arms, the closest he's been to the fairytale ending where the white horse shows up and they ride off into the sunset. And he knows that's not reality, that with them it would be all the more likely that someone would stumble into the reception, a bullet wound in their stomach bleeding all over the dance floor, but he knows that this, what they have, what's sitting between them as steadfast and true as man's best friend, is real.
He loves her. She loves him. They love each other and he thinks perhaps it's the realest thing he's ever known.
He pulled away from her slightly, just enough to press a kiss to her forehead. He let his lips linger, breathing her in, the smell of her shampoo and the lingering traces of hairspray that she'd been subjected to that morning, the distinct sent of her tickling his senses as she let out a hot, quiet sigh of content against the skin of his neck. He pulls away and she looks up at him, her eyes dark and shining, an eyebrow curved up in question and he smiles, shaking his head slightly before he leans down and captures her lips in a soft kiss, like he just couldn't help himself.
(He couldn't.)
He's been down this road before. He'd learned, despite his nature that the longer the journey, the more rewarding the destination is, and while it's fun to go flying down a long road on the back of a Harley (especially her Harley), it was just as enjoyable to walk down it hand in hand. Because yes, maybe you stumble more that way, and maybe sometimes you need to take a breather, but you don't crash that way. And they'll get there. One day. One day it'll be them, and they'll dance just like this, but she'll be his height because she'll wear whatever killer heels she wants to that Lanie wouldn't allow because they made her look too short, and she'll be wearing all white or ivory or whatever variation of the color she chooses because he doesn't care but there will be a ring on her finger that he put there and he'll have one too and this time it's never coming off.
He's just lucky, so lucky to be able to do this now – to hold her and love her. He's so lucky that somehow, whatever had come before her had just stripped him down, wiped him clean of all he thought he knew about love so she could fill all the empty spaces.
Because this, this right here, this is love.
She settles back against him, a content smile on her lips when nuzzles into the collar of his shirt, breathing him in deeply. He feels his lips tilt up at the corners, his heart beating heavily against his chest with all the words he wants to say and all the questions he wants to ask. But he doesn't. He just lets the warmth of her seep into him through his tux. He let his cheek fall back onto the top of her hair, closing his eyes as she shifted against him, trying to get a little bit closer to him as the song ended, a preemptive, "just one more," tumbling from her lips as the next song started.
Soon.
One day soon.
This much I know is true:
That God blessed the broken road
that led me straight to you.