- a/n: the chapter of a three chapter story. First Castle fic. I don't know how long it'll take me to update. As a dancer, it's all about spring showcase right now, but I'll f'sho try. Feel free to comment! = ]

Love, Drugs and Good Alcohol.

Love.

When did love stop being fairytales and happy endings? When did a love story mean good sex and an unbreakable condom? The honest answer is nobody knows, and Castle certainly didn't. He used to roll his eyes quietly to himself upon exiting Alexis's bedroom after her bedtime story and he would almost chuckle to himself. Love stories were sweet. Sweet like coffee with too much sugar. The bitter aftertaste…the truth that the happily ever after didn't belong to you.

Sometimes, he would flip to the ending of the story, where the two characters finally fall in love and they kiss, and that's happily ever after. Yup, Richard Castle knew all about happily ever afters.

So when he asked Kate Beckett if she believed in happily ever afters she smirked. "Why?" She asked, knitting her eyebrows up quizzically at him. "Just wondering." He shrugged his shoulders as if it was no big deal, and leaned in just to be a little more annoying. "So?" He pushed, his eyes searching for hers. "What are you Castle, like five," She shoved him lightly on his forehead with her thumb and he winced at the contact of her freezing fingers.

"Can you feel your fingers?" He reached for her hand as she pulled it away, rolling her eyes. "Not really." She replied, rubbing her hands together. They were sitting outside on a street corner, trying to figure out the conditions of being left in the cold weather for this long. He poked at her stomach, only not really. They were actually waiting for the bus…in twenty degree weather. "It's because you have no body fat," he teased. "And you have too much of it." She poked back, and he couldn't help but to smile.

"So does Detective Beckett believe in happily ever afters?" He grabbed her hand and squeezed it while she tried to pull away, "your hand's going to freeze off." He pointed out. She stopped struggling and gave in because his hands were still warm despite the freezing weather. "Everybody believed in happily ever afters a long time ago." She replied, rolling her eyes just like he used to when the princess finally kissed the prince.

"Oh? So you do?" He bit his lower lip. "I don't have time in my life to wait 'til the last page to fall in love." She shrugged. "A kiss isn't good enough Beckett, huh? So what's a happily ever after?" He questioned her jokingly. "You tell me Castle." She centered her eyes on something off in the distance. "You say first." He let go of her hands, and she grimaced at the burning cold that suddenly made contact with her skin.

"You go first; we all know that secretly you're just another hopeless romantic." She smirked at him, almost mimicking his famous smirk he often referred to as a smile. "Same time. Ready?" He licked his lips. "I'm not falling for that one, Castle." She sat on her hands in attempt to keep them warm. "I swear." He raised his eyebrows. "My gosh Castle, I feel like we're in sixth grade." She replied, adjusting her position a little more and removing one hand to look at the what the chair had printed on her hand. He rolled his eyes and took her hand in his again.

"Are you saying I flirt like a sixth grader, I take that as a great offence!" He smacked her arm playfully. "Fine, I'll say it." He said, inhaling the crisp, cold air. "--GOOD SEX--." They both blurted out at the same time. He laughed, not caring that the old man sitting by them turned to look at them, shaking his head as he stood up and walked away muttering something Kate comprehended as; "couples these days."

If that was the happily ever after in Cinderella, maybe Castle wouldn't have rolled his eyes, but obviously it wasn't and it would never be. Sex and love were not the same, and sex; no matter how profoundly good, would never be the real happily ever after. They both knew this. Sex wasn't coffee with too much sugar, it was coffee without enough sugar, and it only tasted sweet the first contact with the tongue, and then the taste dissolved away into pure bitterness.

Even so, coming from them, it was a start, and this happily after sounded damn sweet.