For my birthday girl, because it's her favorite.
He offers too much. Too many sweet ideas and thoughtful extravagances that she can't say no to let alone agree with before he's already off and away and explaining the next one.
He's up for a movie, and they can go out, or stay in, or just go for ice cream. They can take a walk or sit and talk, drink more wine. Eat leftovers, have tea and toast, coffee and donuts - which he will totally run out and buy if she wants them warm.
Anything.
Everything.
A plethora of suggestions tumble free and she's smiling quietly behind fanned fingertips, watching his skin pink up in the faintest, almost out of character, blush. He catches her watching and his grin leaks across his cheeks like ink in water, dissipating slowly as it follows the stain of his embarrassment.
He's enthusiastic about keeping her here and he's just shown his hand. He knows it too and watches for her reaction, wondering if she's unaware. If his enthusiasm will have Kate heading for the door.
She's not oblivious to it, not at all. The same deep yearning for more than a scant brush of knuckles and well meaning promises wells up within her at every offering to prolong their time together. Their almost kiss lingers on his lips just begging for her to step in and taste it. She feels it too, the hope that adds youth to his smile, feels as though tonight she doesn't need the excuses he offers up just to keep her close.
It would be so easy to agree to one, or five, or twenty of the simple, beautiful in their mundanity, activities he decrees. He adds another three to the list and it would be easy if he shut up long enough for her to get a word in.
Somehow that's part of his charm, has been for as long as she can remember. The tidal wave of his thought process drowning out her own, catching her up in a whirlpool all his making until her own ideas and wants are spun out and she's chasing them right along with him.
It can be overwhelming.
Freeing.
Familiar.
She taps her foot and it's almost an unconscious act, sense memory in response to his movement. She can taste the coffee and feel her desk beneath her fingers, smell the white board markers as though the precinct has appeared at their backs. He's oblivious, throwing out wild ideas and dancing for her attention. All the while his eyes are as wide and blue, and pleading, as they were that first day. As they were today in the bank.
It makes her heart kick up at the reminder, the sound of an explosion echoing in her ears as loudly as his own when his voice finds her. "I'm -" he falters, hands aloft and face suddenly washed clean of pretense, " - I just don't want the night to end yet."
Something in the way his voice deepens has her stepping in. Something more of darkness than light in the way his lips lift with a resound smile has her clapping her hands more cheerfully than she would have otherwise.
"A movie." Kate demands it, and the Beckett in her tone backs her up. "And ice cream. Here though, Castle," the whine genuine enough to delight and amuse him, "I've taken off my shoes and there are people out there." Her hand flutters toward the door and he laughs, head nodding, darkness lifting.
She hears him chuckle to himself as he walks away, mimicking her use of the word, a curse, glad to know he's not one of those people she's so against seeing.
He's not people. He's - more.
And it's such an easy thing to do, giving him that light, both of them smiling now, happy. Why doesn't she do it more often?
Oh, right. Healing.
Mind and body and soul.
And the whole muscle tone thing. Kate dips her head as she watches him arch up, an exaggerated stretch for bowls that accentuates the length and width of his body, she really does want to be able to get her legs all the way around him when she finally gets to have him. Grip him tight. Wrap her arms up around his -
"Beckett?"
Her eyes snap up and he's staring, but apparently so was she, because the up part of her vision requires tearing her eyes off his ass. She doesn't blush though, not even when his mouth pops open in surprise and no joke dances out to lighten the mood.
He stares, and so does she. It's a thing. Their thing. Like coffee and always and unspoken vows to tear down walls.
She smirks and their tension lingers. Mounts. Doubles somehow until she's blistering hot. Untouched. Wanting. This is usually when she'd run, usually when he'd turn and throw out a new topic to set them free. But for tonight she wallows in it, soaks it in, allows the heat of their clashing pupils to suffuse her with warmth, shocked and exhilarated when Castle appears content to do the same.
This life that they're celebrating comes at them from all sides yet for tonight they choose to ignore it. Standing instead toe to toe on a precipice, each daring the other to jump.
He doesn't break her gaze as he moves, setting out bowls and spoons, changing his mind and reaching instead for the tub and one singular item of cutlery.
She wets her lips, and his eyes drop imagining sliding the silver spoon into her mouth, hearing her moan at the burst of flavor.
His fingers flex around the ice cream, her mind immediately caught up in the dexterous strength he possesses, the sinful mix of hot and cold that could paint her skin.
He takes a step that becomes a stride, uncertainty washed from his face as he gathers what they need knowing all the while she watches, her face as serious as his own.
She tips her chin into her hand and leans onto the counter, thankful for solid surfaces and female bodily reactions being much easier to hide than men's. There is a Castle brain boner going on right now and as soon as she thinks it Kate snorts into her hand and drops her head onto her arm breaking the mood. Mortified. Delighted. Ridiculous.
What is wrong with her?
Is she drunk?
"Beckett, you drunk?" Castle asks, his voice louder with each word as he moves to join her.
Drunk is as ridiculous as she is, giggling against her own skin, hiding her face from his, and not even a possibility beyond the whole drunk on you thing her mind throws out just to mess with her, make her laugh harder.
It hurts in a good way, dulls the ache and lessens the shadow that settled over her at the thought of losing him. Lifts the thick swirl of sexual need that bathes them just enough that she can breathe again, can think beyond the need to feel his lips beneath her own.
She peeks one eye open and startles back when his giant blue eyeball is right there, peering at her over the crook of her own elbow, nose perched on her skin in a move she surely should have felt. He catches her before she can go far, holds her til she's upright then releases her softly, laughing at her shock, at the noise that trumpets out of her mouth.
"Jeeze, Castle," she swats at him and clutches her chest with a dramatic flare reminiscent of his own. He laughs, she does too and her heart pounds hard, fierce, a fiery crescendo of want and surprise beating out its presence below the palm of her hand.
She doesn't miss the way his eyes dip, linger with curiosity, nor does she miss the sheer determination it takes for him to look up.
His smile is slow and almost apologetic and she'll have none of it, not tonight. No dwelling on scars and explosions when they're both alive, when they're both here.
"Ice cream," she reminds him, keen to lead him away from woeful thoughts and standing still, eager to feel his body relaxing beside her own as they pretend to pay attention to the movie and not each other.
"I like hearing you laugh," he murmurs instead, watchful, awaiting her reaction. Surprising her again so that she freezes, lips parted, her urge to guide him to his couch swallowed up by another urge altogether.
Castle sets down the ice cream and the simple act feels like a defining moment. A last chance to call a halt to whatever comes next.
Neither of them say a word.
There's bare inches between them now, empty, untouched space, and Castle breaches the void, has her tipping back on her heels unprepared for the surety of his stride. Kate's pupils flicker across his face, unsure where to land, what part of his expression fascinates her most and the weight of everything between them has her reaching for him to steady herself.
Her fingers slide into the belt loop at his side as the tips of two fingers touch her cheek, the chill immediately followed by heat that engulfs her. He draws them down to smudge his thumb across the crest of her smile, eyes lost there for a moment only to flick straight back up and find hers closed.
"I thought you'd died today, Castle." She breathes out quietly, her eyes coming open on his name.
"I know," he replies with a tinge of sadness in his tone, telling her that he doesn't know, not really. She smiles again at his confusion, at the sweetness of his touch now he thinks he's soothing her.
She doesn't want to be soothed.
"I don't want that to happen again- " her voice is low, breath warming his lips as they tip closer.
"Me either," he agrees, eyes hard on hers as his fingers drop from her face, glide down the column of her throat and settle at the center of her chest.
"- without knowing - " she continues, tilting her head to one side and reaching for the collar of his shirt.
"Knowing?"
"- what it's like -" she rises up and holds him tight, gaze focused on his lips.
"Like?"
"- to kiss you without -"
He swallows thickly, eyes dropping to her mouth as he fights back a smile, "Kiss me?"
She breathes the words against his lips, "- being interrupted."