It ought to be different.
It should be breathtaking in a seeing-the-niagara-falls-for-the-first-time kind of way. It should make his heart pucker with awe, send it racing in yen. Affection should keep him awake. Fantasies should make him close his eyes and fill his veins with desire. He should laugh with fascination and allure. Maybe it should ache and sting, but it should be romantic. He can live with tough break-ups, with rejection, with fighting. He's been through all of it.
It's part of the deal.
It is absolutely not supposed to be like this. Castle is sure. So very, very sure.
Gut wrenching fear makes his stomach contract as he gets violently sick, his fingers clench white porcelain. It's the middle of the night and he wants to wash his hands the entire time because he keeps dreaming about her blood spilled all over them. Her red-spattered white gloves. He retches dryly.
Whispers oh God as he lays his weary body down on the bathroom tiles.
Beckett. She hasn't called yet. And he's starting to think - maybe she won't. Maybe she just won't call him. Maybe she's letting him rot in his own personal aftermath of everything that's happened. It's hell.
It's checking his phone at a steady pace. It's becoming an insomniac in order to avoid the nightmares.
It's worse in the dark, when there's no need to act in front of his family. This isn't their burden to bear.
What runs out of his eyes over his temples in his ears is cold and sticky. Crying? Yes, of course; he just vomited his entire dignity and flushed it away. Doesn't matter anyways.
»Fuck I hate that bitch«, the bitter words leave his foul tasting mouth imploringly, almost pleadingly. Never been much of a swearer, just trying it out lately (doesn't help).
But: he means it. Lord, does he mean it. Or not. He wants to mean it. Means nothing. Nothing means anything anymore.
She hasn't called, it's been a month and a half, why hasn't she called?
Maybe she remembers now, maybe she doesn't, maybe that's why. Maybe it isn't.
Maybe, maybe not; he lingers in between. Checks his phone. Doesn't sleep.
Sees her again and again. His beautiful Kate. His bloody devil. His redemptory doom.
Walk away, he tells himself to want it and yet doesn't. The only direction he wants to walk is towards her.
To either hug her ever so tightly or shake it out of her, the whysand hows and sorrys he needs to hear. Maybe both, maybe crush her in his arms, protect and destroy her once and for all.
God, he wants it to stop so badly - thoughts spiraling. Contradictory feelings.
He's getting cold on the floor, stays anyway. The tears have run dry, his stomach has stopped cramping, he feels so hollow.
It should be over now, better, in a way, but it isn't. It's been a month. Maybe it's going to be another one. Maybe she's just not going to call him - as simples as it is, he just can't believe this is an option.
Kate Beckett, eye of the maelstrom that his life has become in the past three years. Never ebbing wellspring of, well, everything - inspiration, fascination, pain, danger, frustration, love, lust. Not going to call him like she said she would.
If this was one of his books and he could re-write the ending: His phone would ring. His phone would've rang two chapters ago.
But there is no ring, and her face doesn't flash up on the screen. Nothing to sugarcoat it.
Castle tried a lot of things to make it better.
Went to shoot a target to pieces in the middle of the night a few times. That was at the beginning, when he was still expecting a call any second. When he thought, if I ever see that guy, I'll be faster. Just faster.
He tried alcohol. At the Auld Haunt, in silence, with Esposito. Ended up at her door, or at her building, to tell the truth. He didn't go up and he didn't contact her. Just stood on the side walk, watching the cars.
One time, he tried writing down what he would like to tell her. A few nights ago. I know your life is fucked up, it is, I'll give you that, but
Kate, what I told you when your blood soaked my shirt, you should now, Kate, I lo
Seriously, four weeks? Do you have any idea what it's like
I'll happily give you a lot of things but you have to let me have this call
It didn't go so well.
One time, he woke from a nightmare and thought she really had died and he had only blocked it out. What happened consequently is something he and his mother don't ever talk about. Castle is only glad Alexis wasn't home to witness any of it. It included a lot of bawling, several smashed fitments, untreated hyperventilation and falling asleep in his mother's lap.
He's all past the aggressiveness now.
Just scared for her, traumatized, helpless, hollow and unbelievably sad. He liked hating her so much better.
»Bitch«, he tries again, but along with the memory of blood, his own trembling voice keeps replaying in his head:
I love you, Kate. Stay with me.
He's never gonna tell anyone about how low he got.