Disclaimer: I do not own the show Castle or any of the characters appearing in this work
Drown In My Regrets
Kate winces at the burn of alcohol sliding down her throat, pushing away the now empty tumbler so the glass scrapes against the surface of the bar, drawing the bartender's attention. She lifts up a hand half-heartedly, signalling for another drink. Brian's on duty tonight and he knows her, knows better than to try to make her stop chugging down copious amounts of alcohol.
She needs vodka tonight.
Drinks with Colin had been pleasant enough; he's a nice guy, and the safety of his flight leaving gave her the comfort of knowing that he wouldn't be expecting anything more from her. He seemed to realize how uneasy she'd been anyway, and spent the majority of the time telling stories about Naomi while she sucked down the drinks she was presented with like a desperate man deprived of water.
Castle has turned her into a complete mess.
Sighing, she runs a quivering hand through her dishevelled hair, fingers tangling in the mused up curls as the thought of the writer catches her off guard.
You made him wait too long, he's done with you. Her thoughts whisper harshly, inklings of self-hatred circling around in her mind as she tries desperately to ignore them. He's realized how broken and pathetic you are and how he deserves so much better.
Brian slides another glass towards her, and she hazily notices that he looks a little concerned, his eyebrows pinching together. She doesn't care what Brian thinks though. Let everyone know how screwed up she is. How she's nothing more than fragmented pieces glued together so terribly that they're all starting to break off, piece by piece.
It reminds her of the china doll with blonde ringlets and a sailor dress her grandmother used to own, her pale cheeks blushed pink and cherubic features sitting prettily on the shelf by the window. How little Katie Beckett ignored her grandma's warnings and picked her up to play with one summer, only to watch as she slipped from her tiny hands and smashed into shards on the floor. Her grandmother tried putting the pieces back together again, but the cracks always remained visible. Jagged scars on a porcelain face; so fragile she'd break with only a single touch.
Kate chuckles darkly to herself, nursing the glass in front of her.
Her own scars aren't pretty. The ones that are visible nor those that aren't. But at least the healed bullet wound and incision scars are only as deep as her skin, whereas the others seem to be ingrained in the threads of her very being, and won't heal so easily.
Those are probably what Castle isn't able to deal with. She can't blame him, hardly being able to deal with them herself, waking up some mornings from nightmares that leave her so distraught it's like she's hanging onto the edges of her sanity by just her fingertips.
He deserves better than her, better than her scars.
'Fun and uncomplicated.'
Jacinda doesn't have scars.
Jacinda.
Beckett grits her teeth, swirling the clear liquid inside her glass as she watches it slosh against the sides, her vision beginning to go hazy with drink as she's reminded of Castle's behaviour during this case.
It's almost like she's looking at a version of him that she met four years ago. The womanizing playboy dissolving any trace of the joyful warmth that she's come to associate with her writer.
Not your writer.
A wave of sadness ripples through her at the thought, and she clenches the glass tighter in her fist, grief for what she's lost beginning to overwhelm her. Even though nothing has been said or done between them, she'd been feeling as though they were on the precipice of something more. She'd thought that they were waiting for one another, but clearly not.
He wants someone 'fun and uncomplicated'. Someone without scars. Someone who's better.
Someone who is not you.
Images of Castle and his bottle-blonde stewardess suddenly flood her brain. Her filter's run down by alcohol and she's no longer able to push back the images of the two of them rolling around in his bed, kissing and touching as they rumple the sheets in their eagerness to have one another, releasing gasps of pleasure to the night as they writhe and-
She slams back the rest of her glass, relishing the fire in her throat this time as if she deserves the burn, desperate to numb herself, desperate to escape from the thoughts assaulting her brain of what- or who- Castle's busy doing right now.
So she signals a wary Brian over again, trying not to focus on how her hand is beginning to feel heavier every time she lifts it, her thoughts and speech getting more sluggish with every sip.
It's going to be a long night.
Castle pushes open the weighted doors to the Old Haunt, shaking off the cool night air as the familiar warmth waves over him from inside. His eyes scan the bar as he wearily makes his way down the steps, looking for the woman who has been the source of his anguish these past few weeks.
Brian had called him up while he had been busy… entertaining Jacinda, informing him of the detective sitting at the bar, ordering a few too many shots to get home safely. Jacinda had been understanding when she'd left, and he's secretly grateful that he won't need to spend another night trying to force the image of her out of his mind while he's with another woman. Plus, even if he could, apparently Beckett will be vicariously ruining his attempts at relationships in some other way.
He needs to put an end to this. It isn't fair to Jacinda or himself. He just isn't sure what other option he has.
Spotting the familiar form hunched over the bar, he makes his way towards the Detective, fuelled with newly awoken anger at how he just cannot catch a break, how she'll always be there, stirring up trouble in his life, calling him to her like a disobedient puppy, drawn to her even when he'll do anything not to be.
He can't even stop himself running back to her.
Getting closer, he realizes through the hazy light of the bar that her hair is mussed, strands sticking up haphazardly with static from where she must have ran her hands through it. Her shoulders are hunched up, almost to her ears as she leans over the bar, as if she doesn't have the energy to prop herself up any more.
Well, that makes two of us.
He pushes down the trickle of sympathy he can feel seeping into him at the sight of her like this, and drops himself heavily onto the stool beside her, dragging it closer across the floor with a screech that echoes too loudly for the quiet of the night. It does the job and gets her attention though, and she turns to him, spills the drink tilted towards her lips as she startles at his sudden appearance.
For a couple of seconds, she just stares at him, eyes wide, and he sees momentary relief reflecting back at him before she pulls the shutters down, hardening her gaze into a glare.
"The hell are you doin' here?" her words are slurred with drink, and he quirks an eyebrow at the blunt hostility.
"Escorting your intoxicated ass home, apparently." Huh. Well, it seems he isn't in the mood for faked politeness either.
Her glare darkens, and she turns towards him, swaying in her seat. "Shouldn't you be busy wooing your 'flight attendant'?" she mocks, practically spitting the words of her distaste at him.
"I was," he says. "But Brian called because you're clearly in no state to get home safely, and you also threatened to…uh, 'shoot off his limbs and feed them to him' if he stopped serving you."
She huffs out a breath, now directing her death glare towards the bartender who's watching them from the far end of the bar, and he hears her mutter 'traitor' under her breath.
He can't understand what her problem is, why she's being so testy and why she's drinking herself to oblivion in his bar at 2am. It's not like she has any reason to be angry with him.
A wince twitches across his face at the thought, knowing that he's lying to himself. Maybe he has put on a poor performance hiding his anger at her the last couple of days, but she doesn't want him anyway, so why would she care?
"Don't feel obligated Castle," she tells him sluggishly, her words running together. He tries to crush down the warmth he feels at how ridiculously adorable she usually is when she's drunk, hardening his gaze instead.
She lied. She doesn't love you.
"Can't have you falling face first into traffic, Beckett," he's speaking through gritted teeth, trying to remain calm.
"Why does it even matter to you?" she exclaims, bolting upwards from her stool suddenly, swaying at the shift of gravity, and he has to restrain himself from reaching out to steady her. "You have Jacinda now, go have fun screwing her and making little blonde flight attendant babies."
He balks at her outburst, feeling the rage festering inside of him. But then she stumbles, putting a palm to her forehead as the dizziness tilts her towards him.
"Watch it, Beckett," he growls at her, standing up to steady her swaying, trying to ignore the heat of their contact. "Just be cooperative for once and let me get you out of here would you?"
She doesn't answer, but leans against him, gripping his coat. He props her up with one arm and reaches for her own coat on the stool with the other. He just wants to get her home and forget about all this so that he can keep trying to move on.
The sooner he gets this over with, the better. The sooner he gets over her, the better.
The world is blurring around her, fuzzy at the edges of her vision and she feels almost detached from her body. Everything is numb except from the warmth of Castle's touch, enveloping her as she staggers next to him down the sidewalk, not able to balance on her heels.
She feels weightless, almost as though her limbs are buzzing with some strange energy, the contact against him igniting a spark that only his touch can light, one that she hasn't felt in so long.
She misses him.
Immediately, she feels that it's vital he knows this; how much she misses their easy banter, the way his presence has become something she looks forward to everyday. He's practically holding her up as he leads them through the street, the night air frigid on her nose and she buries further into him, feeling him shiver.
She sighs against the soft material of his coat. "Missed you, Castle."
He grinds to a halt, and she nearly falls forward with the momentum.
"What?"
Lifting her head from where it's buried against him, she realises her earlier anger seems to have extinguished now that she remembers how good it feels to be close to him like this. "You were gone," she tells him, her voice thick with the need for sleep. "You were gone and I missed you."
She feels his grip around her arm tighten slightly, his entire posture hardening. "I haven't been anywhere."
Beckett shakes her head, wincing when it makes everything around her spin, but she needs him to understand this. Understand that he's been gone.
"You were gone," she repeats, looking at him to understand. "My-you has gone, and old-you has come back."
He stares at her like she has two heads. Maybe she does have two heads; he looks like he has three heads right now. "What-"
"-You're sleeping around and being a huge jackass again," she says, getting more riled up as memories from the past few weeks overwhelm her. He's looking completely bewildered, as if he doesn't understand what she's talking about. "Is it because she's fun and uncomplicated?" she spits his own words back at him. "Because, yeah, maybe she's good at sex, but I can do this thing with my tongue-"
"-Beckett!"
She stares up at him, the confusion clear across his face in the dim street lights. "What?"
Castle looks at her incredulously for a long moment, and she sees a flare of something softer, something more familiar in his eyes before it's replaced once again with the cold emptiness she's been on the receiving end of recently. He shakes his head and mutters a quite come on at her, moving forward again.
He starts down the empty sidewalk ahead, the amber cast of street lights reflecting off the puddles left behind by the rain, and she notes absent-mindedly that the steady drizzle is starting to soak them.
But he isn't listening to her, and he needs to know.
She shoves him away, needing space, suddenly overcome with the suffocating feeling of his arms around her. Tilting dangerously in her heels, she manages to right herself at the last second, and her fogged mind has finally had enough. He needs to know what he's been doing to her, pride be damned.
Castle staggers backwards with the force, one foot landing in a puddle with a splash that soaks the leg of his pants. He stares at her in surprise, the anger disappearing for a blissful moment and she takes the opportunity.
"No," she points a finger towards him, trying not to wince at how her own voice rings inside her head. "No, you don't get to do this. You can't just pull away without telling me why. You owe me that much."
When she looks back up, his eyes have become so dark that she can't distinguish between their empty black and the night surrounding them, anger practically seeping from him.
Even with a mind fogged with drink, she feels herself quickly sobering up as she suddenly realises she's said something very, very wrong.
"You want to talk about owing, Beckett?"
She looks at him like a deer caught in the headlights, face sheet white and wide eyes staring back in horror. He ignores the twinge in his gut telling him to stop, protect her from his feelings and just take her home like he's supposed to. "How about when you left for three months without a word. No explanation, just a vague 'I'll call you', before leaving everyone with nothing."
"Castle, I had just been shot," she exclaims back at him, moving closer and suddenly looking much more clear-headed than she did five minutes ago.
"Do you think I don't know that?" he growls, everything he's been holding back about the previous summer suddenly rushing to the surface, and he finally gives up trying to stop it. "I wake up some nights feeling like I have your blood stained on my hands, like I've just watched you flat-line in the ambulance again, only this time they can't bring you back."
He's going to cry, she's going to make him cry, but he can't stop, it's like a dam holding back his feelings has finally been removed, letting it all rush out at once. "I thought you were gone, and then you disappear and leave me wondering every morning whether I imagined the whole thing, and that my dreams where you don't open your eyes again are the ones that are grounded in reality. So, you may have been the one who was shot, Beckett, but you certainly weren't the only one scarred."
His chest is heaving, tears threatening to spill from his eyelids and he slams his mouth shut, drained and angry and done, cursing himself silently for losing it so spectacularly. He doesn't even have the excuse of alcohol like she does. Risking a glance at her, he notices her eyes shining, jaw hanging open as she stares at him.
"Castle-"
Holding a hand up, he squeezes his eyes closed as he stops her. "Please," he murmurs softly, too emotionally drained to argue anymore. "I heard you say that you remembered what I told you, and I know you don't feel the same way, but that summer almost broke me, Kate."
He hears a sob, a broken thing that sounds like it's escaped without permission, and opens his eyes to see her stumbling towards him, gripping onto the lapels of his coat with both hands.
"Don't feel the same way?" her eyes are wild, speckling brown and green as they shimmer in the street lights. "How could you even think that?"
He pauses, mind freezing in a tableaux of confusion as he processes her words.
"What?" he asks dumbly.
Beckett gives him a watery smile, stroking one hand up along his lapels to his cheek, dusting her fingers over the rain soaked skin, and his heart reawakens inside his chests, thumping in tune to the rain beating down around them as hope surges through him.
"I know that I'm broken," she tells him, voice barely above a whisper. "I know that I'm not fun and I'm too complicated." Okay, he feels bad for that. He didn't mean it, but she's carrying on before he can stop her and apologise. "But, Castle, I am so stupidly in love with you that it terrifies me."
Everything stops.
What?
He barely gets out a choked 'Kate,' before she flings her arms around his neck and presses her mouth to his. He responds to the inviting heat of her immediately, pulling her closer with one arm as he cups her cheek with his other hand, and the high moan she lets out threatens to undo him right there.
She's practically draped over him, still unsteady on her feet, and he clings onto her as she deepens the kiss, stroking her tongue against the seam of his lips. Humming against her, he opens up as she runs her hand through his hair, the gentle exploration at the nape of his neck contrasting with the passion of four years build up being released into their kiss. He notes absentmindedly that she tastes like raindrops, with a hint of lingering coffee and… vodka?
"Kate," he gets out between kisses, smudging his mouth against her cheekbone to soak up the rain. "You're drunk."
She laughs, a beautiful thing that he's missed, and he can't help the surge of pride he feels hearing the breathless quality of her voice as she speaks. "Not that drunk."
He'd been wrong. He'd gotten it all so wrong, reacting impulsively to her confession and believing the worst, running off to Vegas and flashing around other women he's picked up, achieving nothing but hurting her in the process. "I've been an ass."
"You have."
"I brought a flight attendant to your crime scene."
"You did."
He lifts both hands up to cup her cheeks, the two of them nose to nose as he meets her eyes, shining with something brighter than tears now.
"I'm sorry," he rasps, pressing his forehead down to meet hers. "I thought you didn't love me back."
She hums, lifting up to press her lips against his with a soft peck. "I'm sorry for lying and making you doubt me. I do love you."
Laughing, he feels like the weight that's been pressing down against him these last few weeks has suddenly been lifted, leaving him feeling as weightless as she looks. "I love you too."
Humming again, her eyes close as a blissful smile paints itself across her lips, and he decides that he wants to hear that noise every single day for the rest of his life. She's exhausted though, and they seriously need to get out of the rain and into warm clothes before they get sick. "Kate, we need to get you home."
"Will you stay with me?" his eyes widen. "Just to sleep?" Oh. Good, he isn't sure how great an idea anything more would be right now, especially because he isn't sure he'd able to tell her no.
"Of course," he smiles, the thought of 'just cuddling' (because he will be cuddling) tonight more than anything he could have hoped for, especially recently. Plus, he can help prepare her for the killer hangover she's inevitably going to have when she wakes up tomorrow. "Do you want me to get you Advil in the morning?"
Her eyelids flutter back open as she gives him eskimo kisses, rubbing her nose gently against his.
"Throw in a coffee and we have a deal."
Inspired by the prompt from 'castlefanficprompts': 4x20. Beckett goes out with Colin for that drink. Hours later after Hunt has left, Castle gets a call from his bartender at the Old Haunt, asking if he could come get Detective Beckett because she was too drunk to drive home.
A/N: After being an avid reader of fanfic for years, I've finally decided to be brave and try writing something myself. This is my first story, so I really appreciate anyone taking the time to read this, and I'm not a writer, just someone with an overactive imagination who loves the show, so all mistakes are mine.
Hope you enjoyed it, and would love to know what you think!