Title: The Only Truth
Rating: M
Author: eyrianone
Disclaimer: (From ViaLethe) – 'Words are mine. World ain't.'
Spoilers: Post-ep for 'Always' Rated for mature audiences – and that's your warning.
Summary: It's indescribably beautiful – how they are together. A post-ep for 'Always'.
A/N: Let's face it all of us are destined to write one of these. It was THE episode of this series - the game changing one, because there is 'before' this episode and then there is 'after.' Dedicated to 'Purplangel', just because.
"And our love's the only truth
That's why I run to you"
Lyrics from 'Run to You', by Lady Antebellum
Her steps are steady, and so completely certain as she leads him by their clasped hands into his darkened bedroom. Lightening flashes again, illuminates in a perfect second of brightness the smile painting her face, dancing in her eyes, and it's unlike any expression of hers that he's ever seen before. His mind frantically starts cataloging, searching through his memories of her for a clue and then it hits him. Kate's at peace, hell she's incandescent – joyful - and he realizes that this is what it looks like – how she looks in the aftermath of letting it all go.
It's breathtaking, she's breathtaking, and the author struggles just to breathe.
His heart is a wild and frantic thumping thing trying to escape the confinement of his chest – he keeps thinking he has to be dreaming, or else he's hallucinating, because they were over – it was all over – and now its just not. Now it's beginning, as she's birthing them anew with each fresh second that passes, and he loves her . . . God he loves her so damn fiercely, so gut-wrenchingly desperately . . . and she loves him. She loves him – oh God she does, she does. He can see it, can feel it . . . hell he can taste it in his mouth every time she kisses him.
They reach the side of his bed and Kate tugs him closer, kissing him deeply again, her tongue in his mouth once more, her fingers buried in his hair. He lets go of her hand in favor of cradling her face between his palms, broad fingers splaying against her skull. She's as fragile as she is strong and the feel of her mouth opening under his is . . . he can't describe it . . . there are no words for what this is.
No words for what she alone can do to him. How she can unmake him, strip him raw; make everything in him about her.
He can feel her small strong hands unbuttoning his shirt, pushing the halves wide so she can run her fingers first across his bare chest, before she strokes down his sides . . . leaves him burning in her wake. His hips tilt towards her, the lower half of his body seeking her already. Want pumps thickly into his veins - dark and needy and dominant, and he lets go of her head so she can tug the stubborn sleeves of his shirt from his arms.
The writer tries to speak, tries to find some words in his fertile mind that can convey to her what this means to him – but nothing will come out his mouth that isn't a gasp, or a moan. But then she sheds her blouse completely, reaches behind her for the clasp on her bra and as it falls away, baring her to him for the first time – the words come.
Things he needs her to know – things he needs to know.
"I love you." He tells her. "God Kate. I want you to understand how it was killing me to walk away . . . to say those words to you - that I was done. I'm . . . if you'd died Kate . . . so much of me, so much of who I am would have died with you."
Her lips quirk up, sadness filling her eyes slowly but only lingering for a moment before he sees her love for him just rise up and sweep it away. But it's enough to convey to him how he affected her when he left, enough to tell him his loss – her belief in that loss – is the biggest reason they are finally doing this.
"Tell me." He urges her suddenly; crushing her urgently against him, hugging her so tight; her naked chest is all against his and she shivers in his embrace buries her face against his neck.
"Tell me all of it Kate – tell me all that I missed." He's beseeching, he can hear it, but he needs to know more, needs to understand everything – all that finally brought her here.
All that delivered his dreams into his arms.
He whispers into her damp hair, eyes tightly closed he begs softly. "Please Kate . . . please."
Tell me the story Kate . . . tell me our story.
She tenses, pushes past it, breathes the words onto his heart.
"I chased my sniper to a rooftop – so there's nowhere to go when I fight him. He's much too strong, too well trained and I can't beat him – I can't win. He tosses me over the edge and there are twenty stories to the concrete below and I can't hang on Castle – I can't hang on. And all I know is that this time I'm going to fall – this time I'm really going to die. And I'm so mad, there's just all this anger boiling within me because I don't want my life to end in that moment - not with so many regrets – not with so much left undone - all of it about you. And then you're there – because I can hear your voice Castle - so I start calling out to you . . . . I'm screaming for you as my fingers are slipping, and any second might be my last. And I'm dying all alone Castle – and I can't face it – I can't bear it – because it's not like the other times – and I need you there – I can face it only if you're there. But I'm slipping, and I'm falling with your name on my lips and then I'm just not, I'm held securely, and I'm safe and I know it's you – I just know its you – but when I look up – it's Ryan. It's a swat team and its Captain Gates and so I ask Ryan for you – and he shakes his head. You're not there Castle - you're not there and the wall – in that split second the stupid wall is just all gone. And nothing else matters anymore – because without you there is nothing left to care about; there is nothing that I want. Nothing more that I need but you. I just want you Castle – I just want to love you."
She tips her head up to kiss along the underside of his jaw, and he's burning again. Desperate to be naked and within her, to claim all that he's coveted for so long, all he's been seeking since the moment she told him her name.
"Take me to bed." She pleads in words and with her eyes. "Show me you forgive me for being a fool for so long a time. Show me how you love me Castle . . . show me now."
He's smiling when he swings her up into his arms, depositing her with infinite care on the center of his bed. She kneels up and trails hot open-mouthed kisses across his sternum, hands reaching for the buckle on this belt, nibble fingers working swiftly to free it so she can push the barriers of his clothing aside.
She pulls his belt out slowly, deliberately smiling up at him through the dark fan of her eyelashes as she does so – teasing him, seducing him. It's unnecessary, but it's totally working; his body has hardened now to a point coasting on the razors edge of discomfort, literally aching with need.
He slides his fingertips beneath the edge of her panties in retaliation, and then slips them slowly free again, painting maddening swirls of heat on the base of spine instead, wondering internally at the smoothness of her skin, the softness that overlies the sinewy strength he can detect in the muscles underneath.
She tugs at his pants, pulls them halfway down his strong thighs before he sits next to her and kicks them free. Kate doesn't give him a moment to turn back to her; she reaches out immediately to stroke him through the soft cotton of his boxers, her hand confident and sure, even as her breathing is shallow and unsteady. He can watch her hand on him for only a second before he's forced to shut his eyes on a groan, when he can re-open them - she's watching his face carefully, and in her eyes he sees expectations that match every single one of his.
And the author knows, he just knows that they will be as good at this as they are at solving murders. The synchronicity between them as effortless in this arena, as it's always been elsewhere. Though this part of 'them' is new, this part of their relationship was always inevitable. This is their natural state of being – lovers – they've just been fighting against it from the first moment they met.
And every reason why escapes him.
And none of them matter anyway.
He hopes this is the only battle they were forever destined to lose.
Because he needs this; he needs her so badly he realizes in a tight rush of frantic anxiety, she has to be his – always.
"Your turn." He murmurs, his voice low and shockingly steady. Pushing against her stomach he urges her onto her back so that he can tug her wet jeans down her legs. She laughs freely at him when he has to exit the bed to tug the sodden, stubborn denim from her body in a standing position. It's the only way he can get enough leverage.
"Jesus how long were you out in the rain Kate?" His vivid blue eyes fill with loving concern – but Kate just smiles, she just smiles, answers but doesn't.
"Castle I'm dripping wet here – and yes my clothes apparently are too."
Oh she's evil. She's just pure evil – and so other-worldly gorgeous in just her black panties, in his bed – in – his- bed!
Wow.
It's the sight of her there – it just – it does something to him. Something inside snaps, something too long held in captivity, and the need to possess her rises so swiftly within him that he reacts without any conscious thinking. He practically tears the flimsy lace from her body, and then pushes his own underwear firmly out of his way. Naked he looms over her, pushing her slender legs wide so he can settle between them.
Kate's pupils dilate. Her lips fall open on a small gasp of surprise, but she looks up him completely unafraid, supremely confident – just raw need swirling in her forest colored irises.
Everything he's feeling in this moment is almost too much. It feels like his body just can't possibly contain it all – so much is crammed inside him with no place left to go.
His hands fist in the linens of his bed, and Castle wages a war for self-control. He tries to breathe slowly, to force the desire threatening to completely consume him to back down . . . he couldn't bear it if he were to hurt her by being in a hurry; by joining them too quickly, or too roughly. God knows, he knows Kate Beckett isn't easily breakable – but the forces driving him suddenly – the desperate need – he has real fears about his ability to hold it all back.
Breathing is clearly a mistake.
The smell of her, the perfume lingering on her skin and in her hair despite the downpour, the scent of her own desire – it wreathes through his head, tangles itself within the knot of his emotions – breaks the straw.
He chokes out her name as he takes her. One thrust, one quick piston of his hips and he impales her. Shit. He didn't mean for it to start so quickly, with no real foreplay . . . he usually has so much more finesse than that. But it's Kate – and that's both explanation and condemnation all wrapped up into one. She deserves his loving worship, she deserves everything, and the apology is all over his face, in his kiss as he feathers his mouth across her forehead and down onto her lips.
She soothes him with murmured nonsense, caresses his face, kisses him back, and then she matches his intensity. She moves beneath him, pulls him in deeper, digs her nails into his back.
"It's okay." She whispers into his ear. "I won't break. We won't break . . . we can take what we need."
She kisses the tip of his nose as her lower half undulates against him again. And then again.
"Kate." It's all he can say, but the guilt for his sudden intrusion falls away – they are in sync still – he can see it in her face now - that she has no more control in this moment than he does.
And then there is just movement between them, fierce and strong, push and pull. And the writer discovers his control can come only when he lets go of the reins – he has to let this be. Just let it live. Let it be their first time and just give into what their bodies demand.
The play and slow ravishing, and tenderness will all come later.
Now is want. And now is need. Desire.
And love. Love is now and love is in total control, and it's in every touch, in every kiss, in every look that passes between them.
It's remaking them, changing them, forging and growing and binding and the writer knows they'll never truly be separate entities ever again.
It's indescribably beautiful – how they are together.
It gets more perfect when Kate comes for him. The tension in her lithe frame racked up past the point where her body can contain it, and she gasps his name, eyes wide and then slamming shut as the shudders of ecstasy take her away. He can't look away from her face for a moment, watches every flicker of pleasure that ghosts across her features.
She comes back to him right at the moment when he's losing himself completely, and she does as he did, watches him as he spills his love within her, tremors running through every part of him until he can no longer hold himself up and he falls down into her embrace.
"I love you Castle, I love you, I love you, I love you." She tells him devoutly, all her fierceness mixed with undisguised longing as she wraps him up tightly in her arms, refusing to let him move even an inch away from her.
"Too heavy." He says gently.
"I don't care." She replies. "I can take it – I want it all. Just stay Castle – just stay."