Based on the prompt : s6 "finding a spider web" from the Castlefanfics Prompt Challenge on tumblr.
"I'm not complaining," Castle yelps and dives sideways, puffing as the twisted ivy tickles his face, "I just didn't expect something quite so, yeehhaa, rustic."
Beckett stops and swivels on the spot. The Lanie-sized hiking pack she has slung over her shoulder just missing his face as she whips around. "It's a cabin. In the woods," she deadpans, eyes flaring with gestures her hands are too occupied to supply, "what about that suggests anything other than rustic to you, Castle?"
"I don't know, Beckett, this is where you came to recover from a gunshot wound -" he puffs out his cheeks, blowing hard as he ducks under another spider web, "- I expected -"
"Stainless steel and sterile surfaces?"
"Not exactly."
"Mmhmm." Kate drops her pack to the ground, tiptoeing so she can thrust a hand in her back pocket to retrieve the key. It's a tight fit and she knows her fiancé is getting a pretty decent eyeful right now.
"Can I help you with that?" He asks innocently, feigning it even as his darkened eyes drag lasciviously over her body.
"Sure, Castle," she grins stepping over the threshold. The pack at her feet topples, slumps into the man at her back and she watches as he teeters, arms waving to find balance. "You bring the bags in, I'll go light the fire."
"I found another one," he calls, sounding less skittish the longer this goes on. "This one definitely has to go, it's over the toilet and I cannot pee with an audience."
"Vacuum or relocation?" Kate calls from the kitchen, licking her thumb and throwing another handful of pasta into the rustic soup. Another one of her Nona's recipes she had yet to try on Castle, she'll admit, if he asks - but only if he asks - that she chose this one because of the name.
They've come to an uneasy, if amusing, compromise. She's happy to cook while he does his preliminary check (aka nose around without her) for creatures, bugs and spider infestations (childhood trinkets) as long as she's the one who removes them (and explains them).
Her refusal to kill the smaller spiders has brought on everything from wide eyed shock to shrieks of disbelief. Even after she'd shown him the literature, that by killing the smaller, more obvious ones, you just create a super race of bigger, sneakier, ninja types that go about their business unseen.
"I'd rather know where they are, wouldn't you?" She's tried, but Castle still hadn't been convinced.
"Vaccum," he calls, after a few seconds deliberation, "it's mainly web and it's everywhere. Also, whatever you're cooking smells amazing."
She hums, lifting a spoon to her nose, inhaling deeply. He's right, it does smell good. But more than that it smells like family.
Like home.
Kate sets the lid on the pan so the soup can simmer and rushes off to help Castle. Suddenly she can't wait for him to try it.
Dinner is warm and cosy. The table small enough that their elbows touch and their knees brush, intimacy over candle light that shimmers each time their eyes meet. It keeps the smile on her face long after he's complimented her cooking.
Kate tells him about her mother's recipe book, her Nona's scribbles in the margins. They pour over it sharing their wine, somehow finding themselves sipping from the same glass as they plan meals for the rest of the week. He offers suggestions, trades tips and mm's at the possibilities.
It hits her, all over again, in the serene quiet they create together; this is what life will be like with him. Not so much the loud and rambunctious, but this. The simplicity. The magic.
Leaning over the table, throat thick, Kate pushes herself into his lap. She stops his questions with the softness of her gaze. Hands tender, she kisses him. Not just because she needs to, but because she can.
"What is this?" He asks, voice a babble of curiosity that rouses her from her daydreams. It's easy to get lost here, eyes tangling with the flicker of flames in the firelight. She's been doing exactly that since she was a little girl.
Her mom used to make up stories here, called out she could see fire fairies and ask if Kate could too. She hadn't, not at first, but overtime the wisps of smoke took on shapes, grew bold and claimed her attention. Johanna would spend hours telling tales based on the characters little Katie could see dancing in the hearth.
It's not hard to imagine her future, here, with Castle doing the same thing. Even less of a stretch to allow her mind to wander in more detail, to dark curls and curious blue eyes, small hands and laughter. Her children will hear their story played out in ash, with crackling log gunfire as their backdrop.
"Kate?" He bounces into the room and misses the way she sighs, hiding a smile behind her fingers as she pictures two tiny moppets skidding into the backs of his legs.
She drags herself into reality, reluctant to let go of the daydream.
"I don't know," she throws over her shoulder, too warm and full of soup to move. "You want me to look, you're coming over here because I am not getting up."
Castle laughs and he's there quicker than she expects. Clambering over the aging furniture, sitting on the arm of the couch he falls backwards so his head lands perfectly in her lap.
Kate groans and he grunts and it's all a little jarring. Until it's not.
A contented silence falls over him as her fingers drift across his forehead, body curling around his, a natural orientation that leaves them free to lean into each other. She feels herself start to drift, head lolling back, and it's only when his eyelashes flutter across the palm of her hand that she remembers he wanted to ask her something.
"What did you find this time, Castle?" Her words are slurring with tiredness, with peace, but the curiosity she finds so amusing in him lingers in her own soul too. Plus she likes telling him things, having him know something that no one else will. It keeps her hanging on when sleep could easily drag her under.
"It's engraved." He opens the hand that had been resting against his stomach and reveals the silver and gold harmonica, the letters JJB inscribed along one side.
He watches her face, feels her sigh, her eyes drifting shut again.
"Jim and Johanna Beckett," she mumbles, yawns, her fingers slowing in his hair, "she bought it for him on their honeymoon." She smiles softly, barely lifting her lips as she falls asleep, "We're gonna have a honeymoon."
It's takes every ounce of self control he possess not to wake her up and kiss her.
It's late when they finally make it to bed, the crackle of wood on the dying fire bringing them both awake. Sleepy smiles and dopey navigation make getting ready a slow process but collapsing into the space together makes it all worthwhile.
"Sheets are cold," Kate mumbles and Castle braces himself for the immediate press of her toes.
"Not as cold as your feet, Beckett." They've said it before, they'll say it again, Martha's said they've had the married people thing down for a long time now. Even before they got together.
She can see it, can see them old and crotchety and baiting each other into well practised verse. She giggles. It's the last sound til morning.
He gets louder and more animated the longer the argument rolls on. "I've got a banjo, a harmonica, a didgeridoo and ukulele. You cannot ruin my story with the logic that at one point, in the history of time, there was not a troupe of travelling musical Becketts."
She bites back a laugh, keeps a neutral expression, "There was not."
"Oh, come on?" He cries, lips pouting, cheeks pink, "We ruled out acrobats cos you're so clumsy."
She scoffs. Loudly. "I am no-"
"Out of heels and without a gun I have seen you walk into my bookshelf on three separate occasions."
"One of those doesn't count, you backed me into it whilst trying to take off my pants."
"Okay, fine, two, two separate occasions."
"Still doesn't make me clumsy, and just for that I'm gonna tell you this," she jabs a finger into his chest, "and only this. My Bampy taught me how to play one of those instruments, and I'm not telling you which one."
His eyes narrow and her nostrils flare.
He sets down the mug and rises slowly to his feet. "I bet I can get you to tell me by the end of the day."
He licks his lips, eyes falling down her body in a wave so heated she feels her breath catch.
"I'll take that bet."
She lasts maybe two hours, giving up just as the hot water runs out, her voice breaking around the cry of his name.
"I expect to be serenaded now," he huffs, breath frantic as it escapes him. "Unless the didgeridoo, becomes more of a didgeridon't."
She slaps him wetly with her hand, rolling her eyes, "And I'll expect a standing ovation."
"Greedy." He teases and she chuckles darkly at their shared joke, arms up around his neck when he lifts her out of the shower.
Her legs shake, yet somehow they make it to the bed for round three.