A/N: Set mid season 2.
Castle hunches his shoulders against the gust of icy wind that swirls past him on his way to the Old Haunt, bracing his spine against the shiver that crawls up the ladder of his vertebrae. He would much rather be at home, curled up on his warm couch, under his favorite throw blanket, watching Christmas classics with his daughter, but for the first time, Alexis has decided to deviate from tradition. She's growing into a mature, young woman, he knows that, but forgoing their yearly Christmas Eve dinner for a special date with her new boyfriend is almost too much for him to handle.
It doesn't help that his mother decided to cut out too, something about Christmas caroling with some friends of hers. Traditions are important to him. He never had many as a child and he took pride in instilling them in Alexis' life, giving her the Christmases he never had, but no, his family just thinks he's overreacting. So here he is on Christmas Eve, trudging through biting winds and snow covered sidewalks just to make it to his favorite bar because he's in desperate need of a place to sulk. And maybe drink away his sorrows.
His frown deepens as he finally reaches the bar's entrance and trots down the concrete steps, pushing open the door. Warmth and the scent of stale beer embrace him in a comforting collision and he sighs in a form of relief. At least some things never change.
That is until he sees the lone woman sitting at the bar.
"Beckett?"
Her eyebrow arches at the sound of her name, but her eyes take a second too long to find him, but when she does, an amused snort escapes her lips.
"Of course," she murmurs loud enough for him to hear before she lifts the glass of amber liquid to her lips, taking a long swig, and for a second, he's too distracted by the smooth column of her throat, the way the alcohol slithers down as she tilts her head back. "What the hell are you doing here, Castle?"
"I - um, didn't know where else to go?" he stammers, watching her brow fall into that adorable furrow of confusion at the answer. "Alexis is out, Mother too, so I just – I didn't want to be alone on Christmas Eve."
That explanation seems to strike something in her, a flash of understanding sparking in the cloudy hazel of her eyes, and she pats the barstool beside her.
"Might as well take a seat then," Beckett sighs, waving at the bartender she's apparently become quite well acquainted with.
Castle practically scurries to her side, climbing onto the stool beside her, biting back his smile at being her company for the night, but she appears too sad to warrant even the slightest lift of his lips, sorrow layering over her like a cloak, and he craves to know what has brought her here tonight.
But it's his constant digging in her personal life that got him into trouble. It's been a few months since he had been accepted back as her shadow after going behind her back and opening up her mother's case, and he's still on thin ice, still trying to make up for his mistakes.
"So what are you doing here?" he asks, figuring he can't go wrong with the simple question. "I thought you said you had to work-"
"Montgomery sent me home early," she mutters, glaring down at her drink, a scrutinizing expression on her face as she swirls the shot glass in her hand. "Told me I needed to take Christmas off for once."
"Maybe he was right," Castle tries, receiving a furious glare that he shies away from in return. "Maybe not."
"There are officers working right now who have families, loved ones they could be spending their evenings with while I covered for them instead, yet here I am, wasting a night off I don't even deserve," Kate grumbles, the frown embedded so deeply into the curve of her mouth, he longs with an itching intensity to smooth his thumb along the downturned flesh, help her ease the abused lips upwards.
"You work hard, though. You deserve a nice Christmas, or at least a night off just as much as anyone else," Castle reasons, keeping his voice low, gentle and for her alone as the bartender places the drink she ordered in front of him.
"A nice Christmas," she echoes, her eyes glazing over for a couple of seconds before she shakes her head. "I can't handle Christmas, Castle."
Oh, her mother. What an idiot, he should have known right away that was likely the root of it.
"What about your dad?" he questions and she digs her thumbnail into the stained wood of the bar.
"At his cabin upstate. We don't usually… Christmas is hard for both of us, it's better when we just try to get through it alone."
The image of her spending every Christmas without any sort of company, burying herself in her work and – this year at least – alcohol for the last ten years cracks his heart open. For once, he can't find the words to make it right.
"Every winter, as soon as that chill rolls in, I'm right back there in that alley," she starts quietly, her voice haunted, the fingers around her glass clenching slightly, but her eyes have reclaimed that faraway look, as if she's back there now. "January ninth and we still hadn't taken our Christmas decorations down. And by the time my dad and I did… it was like we were putting Christmas away forever. We haven't opened those boxes since. I don't think we ever will."
It's a risk, a huge risk, but he extends one of his hands, steals one of hers from the cool glass. And she lets him.
"Volunteering for the Christmas shift is the only tradition I have. It made me feel like - like I was keeping watch and now even that's been taken from me."
The hand still curled around the glass lifts and she knocks the last of what he thinks is cheap tequila back, not even wincing at the signature burn that sluices down her throat.
"So are we starting a new tradition of drinking the holiday away?"
Beckett meets his eye in a brief moment of amusement, right before she notices their clasped hands still sitting between them on the bar. She pulls her hand away and he doesn't stop her, doesn't try to cling. She's just told him a personal, painful part of her past, he won't push for a long while.
"I suppose so," she shrugs.
"Then the next round is on me," he decides, calling to the bartender for a scotch, but she catches his arm as it rises, shaking her head.
"Not scotch," she mumbles. "That was what my dad always drank."
Shit. Okay, so they were getting drunk carefully.
"What about one of the holiday cocktails? We could get drunk festively, Beckett!"
She doesn't want to laugh, he can tell by the way she covers her mouth with the back of her hand, but he can still see the quirk of her lips.
"Fine," she concedes and he claps his hands together in excitement.
"How about a mistletoe martini?" Castle grins, which earns him a light smack to the shoulder. "No? Maybe a classic then, what about eggnog?"
Her lips purse in concentration, but eventually she shrugs and he shoots off their order to the bartender.
They ended up trying almost every holiday themed alcoholic beverage on the small menu before he decided it was time to get Kate home.
"Castle, why're you being such a buzz kill?" she slurs while he pays their tab and catches her around the waist when she lists into his side. "I don't wanna go home yet."
"It's getting late, Beckett," he insists, leading her towards the bar's exit and oh, the stairs are going to be one hell of an endeavor. He's not wasted, but he's definitely not sober and Kate had a head start on him for who knows how long before he got here and she's far past buzzed now.
She growls and presses against his side, curling her fingers at his neck, and he needs to insinuate some space between them as soon as possible.
Castle hauls her out of the Old Haunt and practically carries her up the stairs, onto the street, where he tries and fails to hail a cab.
"Take me home with you," she whispers, her lips at the hinge of his jaw, and the hand curved over her hip to support her unsteady weight squeezes hard enough to bruise.
"You don't want that," Castle tells her firmly, but Beckett is anything but deterred, nipping at the skin of his neck, sending an inappropriate flare of heat shooting through his bloodstream.
"Don't tell me what I want," she mumbles against his flesh, hot breath fanning out over his throat, and he attempts to escape her mouth, the perfect press of her body against his side.
"You hate me, Kate. Remember?" he tries, tries to remind her before she does something she'll regret that results in her never meeting his eye again. "I annoy the hell out of you and most times you want to shoot me."
A cab finally comes to a stop in front of them and he silently rejoices, jerking away from her a little too quickly, and guiding her inside the cab with a very tentative hand on the small of her back.
"I don't hate you," she says, plopping down on the cracked leather while he slides in after her and gives the driver his address. If all else fails, he can put her in the guest room. "Not so much anymore."
Castle rubs at his eyes, the effects of the alcohol dragging him down. He can't afford to be anything but alert while Kate is drunk and under his care, especially not when she's draping herself at his side, that wicked mouth back at his jaw.
"Beckett," he groans, detaching her fingers from his bicep and craning his neck from her lips. "Stop."
He thinks he's succeeded and for a moment, they're able to ride in silence, but then he hears the trembling breath she releases beside him and when he looks back at her, her lip is quivering.
"Kate?"
"You proposition me not even a year ago and now suddenly I'm not good enough?" she demands and he almost bangs his head against the Plexiglas barrier in front of him. Drunk Beckett has proven to be very handsy and very sorrowful, and he should have known, after she revealed why she was at the bar in the first place, that it was not a good idea to feed her grief with a natural depressant.
"You know that's not true," he murmurs, covering one of the balled fists at her knee, but she knocks his hand away from hers, crossing her arms over her chest instead and glaring out the window with half-lidded eyes.
He'll blame it on the alcohol in the morning, but determination wells up in his chest as she steadfastly avoids him, staring but probably not seeing the lightshow of Manhattan on the night of Christmas Eve, and he does the unthinkable.
Castle reaches for her, tugging her roughly into his side, using her moment of surprise to cradle her jaw in his palm and slant his mouth over hers. Beckett reacts instantly, fingers winding in his hair, body arching forward. He's about to pull her into his lap, but then-
"Hey, none of that!" They hear from the front seat and Kate tears her lips from his, looking just as dazed as he feels as they both meet the cab driver's scolding gaze in the rearview mirror. "We are three minutes from your destination. Keep it in your pants 'til then."
Kate buries her face in his neck, snickering against one of his collarbones while he tries to catch his breath, but he can still taste her in his mouth, the predominant burst of liquor on her lips, the burst of peppermint that had been on her tongue, the underlying flavor of something he's sure is hers alone, and he wants more, wants her, desperately.
They get thrown out of the cab a block early and spend the short walk to his loft freezing under the rain of falling snow, but when he unlocks his door and guides Kate inside the empty loft, she's pushing him up against the nearest wall, nudging one of her knees between his, and god, he can't help it, he hauls her forward to find her mouth, to explore the wet, heated cove behind the barrier of her lips.
The groan she releases, the grind of her hips, has him trailing his mouth along the cutting angle of her jaw, sipping at the traces of slow lingering on the skin of her neck that she offers up to him.
"Warm me up," she gasps out the demand, tugging at his shirt, but no, no, they can't do this. Not when she's drunk and won't remember a second of it.
Castle pulls away from her, but up against the wall, there's nowhere to go, no way to escape the sinful press of her body and the heat of her seeking mouth.
"Beckett, Kate, please-"
"Why?" she growls, biting down on his bottom lip, hard enough to elicit a sting of pain before she's soothing the flesh with her tongue and then traveling the length of his jaw, sucking at the sensitive skin beneath and making him jerk. "Why don't you want me?"
"You know that isn't it," he grinds out, curling his hands at her hips, his grip bruising when she thrusts forward. "I just know this isn't what you want. Not like this."
Kate's head tilts back, giving him a clear look into her clouded eyes, her flushed cheeks, and he knows touching her will likely only make this situation worse, but he can't help cradling her face in his hands.
"Since when are you a gentleman?" she sighs, leaning her cheek into one of his palms, catching herself by the lapels of his coat when she starts to sway too far sideways.
"C'mon, you can lie down," Castle tries, coaxing her body towards the bedroom while he tries not to stumble himself. They both need to lie down, sleep off all the peppermint schnapps and rum laced eggnog. "I can still keep you warm."
"Mm, you can try," she hums.
They manage to stagger to his bedroom in the same fashion they staggered through the sidewalks outside, swaying and bumping into one another. Kate's laughter fills the air when he knocks her into a wall, and since it's just one night, since it's temporarily allowed, he turns his head, smudges a kiss to her smiling lips.
She returns the kiss with fervor, but doesn't fight him this time when he gentles her, putting her away with a brush of his lips to her cheek.
"Can I borrow clothes?" she yawns, the drowsy stage of drunkenness finally seeming to make its appearance.
"Of course," he murmurs, easing her to the edge of the mattress while he make his way to the bureau across the room, finding a sweatshirt and pair of flannel pants.
When he turns with the clothes in hand, she's kicked off her socks and boots, her jeans, and he's helpless against the sight of her legs - long, svelte, and bare. She tugs her sweater over her head and he slams his eyes shut out of reflex, holds his sweatshirt out to her, not opening her eyes until he's sure the fabric is covering her nearly naked body.
"Okay, so I'll be upstairs in the guest room if you-"
"No, Castle, c'mon," she whines, flopping down backwards on his bed, without any pants on, and nothing could have prepared him for this drunken version of Beckett, who doesn't wear the pants he offers her and begs him to stick around. "It's Christmas and I'm sick of being alone. Just stay with me."
Rick swallows, glancing from her body splayed across his bed to the open doorway to his office, to relative safety. He doesn't really know what they are, especially not after tonight, but he's involuntarily hoped for words like stay with me to come from her lips for a while now.
In the beginning, it was just fantasies, explicit imaginations that had him taking cold showers in the middle of the night, but nothing more, nothing intimate or personal, but now… now, he wants more than a night in a bed with her.
Castle sighs and walks around to the empty side of the bed, pulling the comforter back and helping her ease beneath the sheets. She tugs him in after her, giggling when he topples gracelessly onto the mattress beside her, but then she's tilting unsteadily towards him, pressing a simple, undemanding kiss to his lips, as if it's something they do everyday.
He's too dazed to move for a couple of seconds, but Kate turns on her side, her body already going limp with slumber, and she grabs his arm before she can disappear, hauls it over her waist. She relaxes back against his chest and he tries to do the same, to relax, but his body is stiff with tension, with uncertainty, and even in her drunken, exhausted state, she must feel it.
Kate trails her hand over his forearm, tracing nonsensical patterns with soft fingertips, lulling him to sleep.
"Night, Castle," she slurs, her hand falling slack atop his arm, and he leans in, sweeps a kiss to the back of her neck before dropping his head to the pillow behind her. He wishes he could stay awake, watch her at peace under the blanket of sleep, but his own intoxication has his eyes falling shut.
"Until tomorrow, Beckett."
Castle wakes giddy with the Christmas spirit he experiences every year without fail, but this year, his joy is clouded with a hangover that has him craving an Aspirin and a large glass of water. Rick squints against the morning sunlight, feeling the rays pierce through his throbbing skull like knives, but the dull stabbing in his head and his holiday cheer are soon overshadowed as his vision comes into focus by the wonder of seeing Kate Beckett curled up next to him.
The memories of the night before flood his mind, intensifying the already steady pounding, and he sucks in a breath as she shifts in her sleep, inching backwards, towards the warmth of his body. The impending sense of doom that accompanies the thought of her waking up tells him he should make his escape now, while he has the chance, but he can't sacrifice the moment to study her like this, to marvel at the sight of her face slack and untroubled, at the look of her covered and engulfed by his clothing, at the white light of snowfall shining through his bedroom window draping over her exposed skin, giving her an ethereal glow. A snow angel in his bed.
Damn, he's getting sappy. He needs coffee and he'll make her some too. Hopefully, it'll ease her freak out when she wakes up and realizes whose bed she's in.
It takes a great deal of effort to peel her eyes open and they slam shut as soon as she does, blinded by the piercing white light filtering through the window. She could have sworn she had left the curtains closed yesterday, but she tugs the covers over her head nonetheless, takes a slow breath so not to worsen the throbbing headache reverberating through her skull.
She turns on her side beneath the covers, away from the unpleasant glare of sunlight, and nuzzles the pillow beneath her cheek, humming at the overpowering scent of him flooding her senses-
Kate stiffens, shoving the sheets away and jerking upright in the bed, a bed that isn't hers.
"Don't panic," a familiar voice whispers, slipping inside the unfamiliar room with a cup of coffee in hand and oh god, she didn't.
"We didn't," Castle assures her, easing the door that leads into what looks like his office shut and coming towards her with caution, as if she's some wild animal and he's trying not to corner her. "You just slept here last night, that's all. I promise."
Beckett glances down, noticing the oversized sweater draped across her body for the first time. It smells like him and it confirms his statement. She's still dressed, minimally, but still clothed.
"You just wanted something comfortable to sleep in," he continues to explain, placing the mug of steaming liquid on the nightstand closest to her and retrieving two little white pills from the pocket of his robe.
"We were drinking together, at the Old Haunt," she murmurs, the memory returning with fierce clarity, the sight of him walking through into the bar looking like a lost puppy still swimming through her hazy mind. "I kissed you," she whispers suddenly, curling her fingers over her bottom lip, as if she can still taste him there.
She had a lot to drink, she knows that, but she can still piece together the essential parts of their evening – their time at the bar, their time in the cab, their time against the door of his loft.
Fuck, she will never live this one down.
"Actually, I kissed you first, but you did your fair share," he shrugs, a hesitant grin on his lips, and... and this is so not what she had expected.
Richard Castle has her in his bed, had her all over him last night if she's - unfortunately - remembering correctly, where's the smug jackass she had come to know?
"I think I tried to do more than that," she mutters, hiding her eyes behind the wall of her palms, digging her fingers into her tousled hair.
"You were drunk, Kate, and so was I. It didn't mean anything," Castle reassures her, placing a tentative hand on her shoulder, far too friendly, far too sad, after the night they had. "We can just pretend it never happened."
Beckett peeks through her fingers to catch a glimpse of him, her shame falling way to curiosity. He looks hurt, as if his own words have struck a blow, and she doesn't know this part of Castle quite as well as the arrogant playboy act she sees at the precinct, but she does recognize a hint of the man behind the veneer. The man who gushes about his daughter, the man who brings her an extra cup of coffee when they're working a rough case, the man she thinks about when she's alone in her bed.
She knows it's a bad idea, but this side of Castle softens her heart, causes her to want things, and she sighs, reaches forward, and tugs him down to sit beside her.
"What if I don't want to pretend?" she questions, watching his blue eyes go wide and bright, his ears turning a subtle shade of pink.
"I - but I thought-" Kate bites her bottom lip, enjoying this flustered side to him as well. "Is this some kind of Christmas miracle?"
Her eyes go wide at the joke, her heart jack-rabbiting in her chest. It's Christmas morning and she's in his bed, making rash decisions and fighting the temptation to drag him back under the sheets with her.
"Don't panic," he repeats, a chuckle in his words this time as he curves his fingers over the hunched bones of her shoulders. "Alexis isn't awake yet, neither is Mother. No one knows you're here and I can sneak you out before they wake up."
He smiles at her, but it's forced, not reaching his eyes, and she scrambles for an explanation that won't hurt his feelings. It's her first Christmas not spent working at the precinct, she knew it would be a change, but this is all too much.
"What - what do you usually do on Christmas morning?" she asks, twisting her fingers in the fabric of his sweatshirt that engulfs her hands.
"Well, usually we just do stockings, but since Alexis and my mother were both away last night when we normally do presents, we'll do those too. Otherwise, just Christmas classics on the TV, breakfast," he shrugs. "Just spend time together."
Nothing too extravagant then. Huh.
"That almost sounds like how we'd spend our Christmases, when Mom was alive," she reveals, pulling her knees to her chest.
Castle's eyes soften, the tense set to his shoulders loosening.
"I know it's too soon, but you're welcome to stay," he throws out, making it sound oh so easy. "Otherwise, I made you coffee before you go."
He reaches past her, offering the cup to her with a grin.
"I added peppermint, it's really good."
Kate accepts the cup with a smile, taking a slow sip of the liquid, humming with satisfaction.
"It is," she confirms with a nod, staring down into the holiday brew in her cup as she says her next words. "Listen, Castle, I know I'm not the easiest person to get to know and that I don't always let on what's on my mind, but - I do want to give this a shot."
He purses his lips, but his eyes light up, irises sparking like lightening to the sea, and her heart flutters with foreign excitement.
"But Christmas with your family… it's just a little too much too soon for me."
"Hey, no problem," he assures her quickly. "We can play this however you want. No pressure."
She releases a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding for the last minute, relief flooding her chest. Sleeping with Castle had seemed probable, but a relationship with him? She had never fathomed the possibility until now and she definitely hadn't expected to feel so hopeful at the idea of more.
"Thank you," she murmurs, taking another long sip of his delicious coffee before placing it on the nightstand and leaning forward.
He's uncertain, nervous when she drifts in close, but he doesn't stop her from kissing him as he did last night, doesn't put her away when she paints the shape of his lips with her tongue and coaxes him closer. No, he actively participates this time.
Castle allows her to get dressed in his room while he makes her a to go cup of his Christmas coffee since her first cup went cold, but he continues to grow distracted, nearly missing the travel mug while preparing to pour the liquid in.
He just made out with Kate Beckett in his bed on Christmas morning. She had pushed the sheets away and crawled into his lap, sealing her body against his and moaning into his mouth while his hands were finally allowed the opportunity to explore the gorgeous expanse of her legs, roaming the skin of her outer thighs, slipping underneath the worn fabric of his sweatshirt to trace her spine.
He had almost rolled them over, pinned her to the mattress and proved how good they were together right then, but it's already approaching 8 a.m. and his daughter will be up soon, always waking early on Christmas morning no matter how old she gets, and they've already decided it would be better if Kate left the loft before his family awakened.
When she comes striding out, he notices she's still wearing his sweatshirt under her coat and his heart flares with pride and delight. He doesn't know where the sweater she had worn last night is, but he secretly hopes it's lost somewhere in his room. It'll give her a definite reason to come home with him again.
"Thank you," she grins when he presents her with the coffee on their way to the door.
Castle pulls the front door open for her with a heavy heart, wishing it wasn't too soon, wishing she could stay, but even her departure can't diminish all of the happiness she's brought him in these early hours of Christmas morning.
"I'll see you tomorrow?" she asks, chewing on the corner of her lip, adorably shy.
"Definitely," he nods, a little too enthusiastically, but it evokes a soft chuckle from her lips while she curls her fingers at the collar of his robe, tugging on him until he steps in closer.
She pushes one last, thorough kiss to his mouth before she slips from his arms and down the hallway, calling back to him over her shoulder before she disappears inside the elevator.
"Merry Christmas, Castle."
Rick slouches against the frame of the door, gazing like a love struck idiot down the path she just walked.
Merry Christmas indeed.