Chapter 1: Sleep little baby
"But Beckett…"
"Please, O'Leary? You're the only one we can trust."
"But Beckett…"
"They sleep really well, now. Honestly. You've been round lots, so you know that. And they take bottles last thing at night, and we'll have fed them their meal so you won't have to deal with the mess, and I'll leave you some milk ready, and we just wanna go out, you know? They're a year old now, and I keep worrying that they won't be synced to me any more and can you imagine what could go wrong?" She widens huge, pleading eyes at him. O'Leary, despite his long friendship with Beckett, is not proof against it.
"Waaaaallll," he drags out, longer than the Mississippi river, "I've been around enough they know me, and they're really cute – any way they come – an' I guess you deserve some grown up time."
"Thanks. I owe you."
O'Leary feels, after Beckett's left, that he might just have been hustled. He'd thought that she 'n' Castle had managed several brief nights out, but he guesses that they could do with a proper date night, an' if she's frettin' about the fluffballs gettin' a little more independent, then he supposes he can step up. After all, how much trouble can two babies be? And they will be babies, because Beckett an' Castle can hardly go out for dinner in Manhattan as two black panthers. He can easily handle two babies.
They are super-cute, he muses. Crawling like demons, in baby form, still small and fluffy as either feline. He tries not to think about the logistics of how they grow in any form, because it hurts his head. He reckons that it would hurt any head that didn't have the brains of Stephen Hawking, and he's none too sure about him either. Anyways, after the first three weeks, Beckett had stayed mostly human, and so the babies had too. Just as well. Half the NYPD seemed to have wanted to visit, though Castle had strictly controlled it, much to everyone's irritation, until he'd explained that waking Beckett would result in bullets.
O'Leary grins his sabre-tooth size grin. Castle's a good guy, and he's good for Beckett. If their twins grow up like them, they'll be pretty good stuff too. He turns back to his caseload, feeling just a little flattered that he's the only one trusted to look after the babies without their parents there.
A few days later, he gets a text from Beckett asking if the next Saturday night is okay. O'Leary's cool with that. Pete's out of town on some audit in Milwaukee, and takeout and the game isn't half as much fun on your own. Sure, he sends back, see you 6.
When O'Leary gets to the Castles' loft (he supposes that if there are babies involved it's the Castles' loft), the twins are awake, happily exploring the floor, investigating the cushions, and trying to pull themselves up on the couch while squeaking joyfully if they achieve it. David is, as ever, close to his father; Petra is experimenting with head-butting one of the bigger floor cushions to see if it moves. Since Beckett is sitting on it, with an expression O'Leary can only describe as sardonic sappiness (it's very peculiar), it does not move. Petra is not impressed, and babbles at her mother with an edge of baby irritation that would prove her heritage without any need for DNA testing.
"They just get cuter and cuter," O'Leary drawls. The bass rumble attracts the babies' attentions. David claws at Castle's pants to stand up and survey the giant (Castle has a cautious palm around his middle), and blows a few baby bubbles at him. Petra, who has loved O'Leary since the moment he first picked her up as a tiny kitten and she tried to climb even before she could walk, crawls at near light speed to his feet and tugs sharply and demandingly at his jeans, emitting first a hopeful babble and, when that is not instantly answered, a more insistent noise accompanied by harder tugging. O'Leary bends down and sweeps her up, for which he receives a brilliant baby smile showing off a number of little white teeth.
"Waal, ain't you the sweet li'l thing when you get your own way," he coos. He can coo. It's just a bit more like a condor than a dove. Petra babbles at him some more. He sits down next to Castle and David and bounces her on his knee a few times. She takes a firm grip of his t-shirt and levers herself up. Castle looks a tad worried. O'Leary reckons that he's a little protective, but in deference to both Castle's worry and his likely death at the teeth and claws of one or other Castle-panther if either baby should be hurt, he uses one huge hand to hold both of Petra's and puts the other one firmly over her chubby diapered bottom. "Gettin' big, honeypie."
"Yeah," Beckett says. "They grow like weeds."
"That's what they're supposed to do."
"I guess. Every time I get home they've grown out their onesies again.."
"Not quite," Castle says. "But some days it feels like it." David squeaks at him from the floor, and Castle easily pulls him up to the same position as his sister. He gurgles. "That's right. Say thank you nicely."
"We really appreciate this, O'Leary," Beckett says.
"Where are you goin'? Just in case there's some real emergency."
"We'll both have our phones, but we thought the Fairway Café. I don't want to go anywhere too smart and noisy. I can get noisy right here at home."
"Oh, yes," Castle agrees fervently.
"Long way away."
"Yes, but it's good, and their pumpkin pie is to die for. Just what I want, really."
"I can make pumpkin pie," Castle says.
"Yeah, but good as that is, theirs is just a little better."
Castle humphs. David tries to copy it, and O'Leary grins widely. "Real daddy's boy, ain't he?"
"Yeah," Beckett says sardonically. "Pity me, O'Leary. Two of them to put up with."
"Waal, y'know, Beckett – he's got two of you. Your little Petra's gonna be just like you."
"That is not a reassuring thought, O'Leary!" Beckett squawks.
"And on that happy note," Castle says quickly, "let's show O'Leary where everything is and then go."
O'Leary duly learns where the bottles, diapers, spare onesies and cot (one cot, apparently the twins prefer to sleep cuddled together even when human, just as they would do as kittens) are; how to switch on the baby monitor (he reckons the switch marked ON is quite a good clue); and is then directed to the fridge where there is an array of sodas and a full meal which looks very appetising and would feed three O'Learys. He is perfectly certain that Castle made it, largely because it's not Georgian food and that's all he's ever known Beckett to cook.
Finally Beckett and Castle have finished telling him everything three times over and pointing out the blindingly obvious four times, made him promise to call them if there is so much as a hiccup out of place, and leave, assuring O'Leary with every breath that the babies are really good sleepers now and he should put them down at around seven or so after they've each had their last bottle and don't forget to read them their story because it's important for their linguistic development, (that was Castle) but they won't worry too much if the twins have one slightly later night.
"Once they're asleep, they don't wake," Beckett assures him. "I don't know how we got that lucky, but it's pretty useful."
O'Leary shoos the two mother-hens out the door before they can delay any further and turns back round to the bright eyed babies.
"Looks like it's just you an' me," he rumbles.
If he could have heard Beckett's commentary to Castle, and seen Castle's stunned, lustful expression when she finishes, he might have been a little less sanguine. If he'd remembered that the Fairway Café is not far from Central Park, he'd have been a lot less sanguine. And if any of the three adults had remembered that felines are essentially nocturnal, they'd all not have been sanguine at all.
O'Leary lowers his container-ship bulk to the floor, where the twins spend a great deal of quality time learning to mountaineer. He is, however, very grateful that the jeans are sturdy. A cup might otherwise have been required. They are not careful about where they grip. The babies squeak, babble and bubble at him pretty much constantly, and Detective Colm O'Leary, six-foot ten tall, fifty-four inch chest, with a buzz cut and muscles on his muscles, sharp shooter and best sparrer in the NYPD, lies on the floor cushions and babbles baby-talk right back. It is certainly the first time the babies have heard an evening's stream of baby-talk emitted down at the bassoon and double bass end of the orchestral scale. However, they like it, and they like him. Mountain climbing is obviously their favourite sport, and when O'Leary, totally besotted with Beckett's babies, props himself up a little with some more cushions, they practice on his chest.
After a while, however, and not too far after the twins' ostensible bedtime, their wide eyes (blue for David, hazel for Petra) begin to droop, and babble starts to change to whimpers. O'Leary, being really quite intelligent (he hides it: it's so useful to let people think that you're all muscle and no brain) heats up their bottles, and by dint of his sheer size is able to put David on one knee, Petra on the other, support them, one in each arm, and watch them both glug down their last bottle with sleepy relish. They are just so adorable, he thinks. He'd never have put Beckett down as maternal – and indeed, on most people's gauges she has effectively deceived them into thinking that she is not, having applied her own patent brand of sardonic commentary to most of the trials of parenthood, though O'Leary knows that she is fiercely in love with and ferociously protective of her twins – but even she has a small picture of Castle with both twins on her desk, and Espo tells him that when she looks at it her whole face softens.
He gathers up his two sleepy, mumbling charges, one against each shoulder, and takes them up to their cot. Just as he'd been told, they snuggle into each other. He looks around for their storybook, and spots it exactly where he ought to have expected it, on a table right next to the cot, next to which is a very comfortable armchair. He sits down, and begins.
"Out of the gate and off for a walk went Hairy McClary of Donaldson's Dairy," he reads in a singsong bass, picking up the rhythm without any difficulty and looking at a small Scots terrier with enough fur to qualify as a mobile rug; and carries on happily through Hercules Morse, as big as a horse; Bottomley Potts, all covered in spots; Muffin McClay like a bundle of hay; Bitzer Maloney all skinny and bony; and finally Schnitzel von Krumm with the very low tum. O'Leary's grin widens with every page and every new dog, though the only one he'd like to own is Hercules Morse, who just might be big enough to suit him.
By the time he's finished, the babies are, as promised, asleep. O'Leary takes the monitor, tiptoes out of the room without hitting his head on the doorway – for three years, between sixteen and nineteen, he'd had trouble with that – and sneaks silently downstairs to have the dinner that had been left for him. The babies don't make a single untoward squeak or snuffle as he eats it. Not wishing to push his luck, however, he doesn't turn on the TV, but selects a book from the extensive Beckett-Castle library, and settles down comfortably, keeping a wary eye on the monitor.
Around about nine or so, he hears a soft noise, but since it's not immediately repeated, he doesn't think anything of it. He's going to let sleeping babes lie. There is a small rustle, but it don't make no nevermind.
Over at Fairway Café, located at West 74th and Broadway, and therefore extremely conveniently placed for a late night feline excursion to Central Park (though Beckett has already twisted Castle's ear for reminding her not to eat the squirrels that she chases or they'll have another set of kittens and he's not sure the world can cope with a pregnant Beckett) Castle and Beckett are enjoying a very nice meal safe in the knowledge that O'Leary can cope with nearly anything.
So when Beckett breathes seductively, "I wanna go play, Castle," and curls her fingers, he's nothing loth. They saunter across to Central Park, look naughtily at each other, Beckett stretches slightly and dusts a kiss over Castle's mouth – and then changes to Onyx and slips through the entryway unseen by any other man or beast. Castle's behind her in a heartbeat. They strut through the grass until they're well away from any edges where people might see them, and then Castle nips assertively at Beckett's neck and they both shift into their panthers: Castle massive and powerful, Beckett slimmer and elegant: both of them a lethal streak of darkness in the New York night. They shake out their paws, and open up with a long, stretching chase. Beckett flirting her tail and encouraging Castle-panther to chase and catch her, cover her with his feline bulk and take her down. It's all very satisfying.
They sneak out of the Park as invisibly as they arrived, and start back to the loft.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers. Chapter 2 on Wednesday.
This is another instalment in the insane (and entirely fluffy) Cool for Cats universe, and therefore thinking too hard about the - er - science (really?) behind it is likely to fry the brain.
This story is firmly the fault of Shutterbug5269.