Disclaimer: I do not in any way own Castle nor do I claim to.
Author's Note: Someone challenged me to take songs and make them Caskett related by writing fics about a certain lyric. I accepted. This will be a collection of those fics and ficlets.
I remember every look upon your face
The way you roll your eyes, the way you taste
You make it hard for breathing
Two Is Better Than One - Boys Like Girls
His eyes blink open slowly, cracks of light getting in and making him wince. He lifts an arm and presses his palm to his right eye in hopes to ward off the sting of luminosity after hours of darkness. There's a weight on his other arm, warm and heavy. He wiggles his numb fingers in hopes to rejuvenate the dead limb but all it does is cause the weight to shift to his shoulder.
He really doesn't mind mornings like this. He doesn't care if the light is still blinding he needs to see her. There's a moment when he takes that back, a moment when he opens both eyes and groans because they left the blinds open and it's entirely too bright. Then his gaze lands on the woman curled up at his side, using his shoulder as a pillow and his body for her personal heat source. How she needs it when she's also managed to steal the entire blanket, he'll never know. But he suppresses a shiver and rolls over to snuggle down against her.
Dead limb be damned, he's going to stay in bed and love her just a lifetime more. He has the rest of his life for everything else but he has now with her and she's still asleep. She's relaxed and youthful in her slumber, too beautiful. He's still tired…rambling in his thoughts but he can't bring himself to doze off. She's smiling in her sleep, just a little tilt of her lips and he wants to know what's causing it.
And then she lets out a little snore and he's the one smiling. He beams at her, lifts a hand to brush back the wild strands of her hair but somehow his fingers end up tracing the lines of her face. The brow he's seen furrowed entirely too much during the last case, the tiny indention she gets between her eyebrows from frowning so much, and on to the tip of her nose which she scrunches as he drags his finger down the slope. This woman is without a doubt the love of his life. He's still knocked breathless by the simplest of things.
Her laugh.
Her words.
Every time she touches him.
The little hum she makes when she's sleeping and he rubs his thumb over her temple. That tiny sound makes his heart swell every damn time. He wants to hear it now. So he presses gently, strokes the warmth of her skin back and forth, rubbing little circles until she's humming low and nuzzling his bicep.
He recalls the moment he met her, the short hair and the attitude. He remembers every detail down to the shoes she wore. The irritated tone of her voice as she said his name still plays in his head but he's in awe of her now. More than he was back then. She doesn't grump at him as much, she's quite pleasant most of the time and he can't help but lean in and kiss her forehead when she scoots impossibly closer. Her thigh slides over his hip as she mumbles incoherently and he pulls back just in time to see her thick eyelashes flutter.
He loves this part as well. He loves watching her struggle to open her eyes because she's too warm and content against him. But it's like a sucker punch to the heart when her lashes rise and her eyes clear. Her lips tilt but that's not what has him sucking in a breath. In the early morning, her eyes are golden with specks of green. A circle of whiskey around her pupil and he falls in love all over again.
"Hey," she murmurs. Her voice is rough with sleep and entirely too enticing.
He rubs his thumb over her temple one more time and she closes her eyes and hums once more before her lips press to his bicep. His fingers bury themselves in the wild tangles of her hair and he can't help but press his mouth against her head as he answers. "Hi."
"Bright."
"Mm, we left the blinds open." They'd been too exhausted to care. They fell into bed after a soft kiss and her borrowing his shirt. Both were too tired to seek out pajamas.
And here they are, tucked against each other to ward off the cool chill of morning. She lifts her arm, bringing the blanket up to tuck it around them both and he murmurs a soft thank you in her ear when his bare chest meets the soft fabric covering hers.
"Sorry for stealing the covers," she says with a soft smile while shuffling closer. "Didn't mean to."
"Used to it." The woman he's madly in love with is a complete bed hog at least seventy-five percent of the time. If the blankets aren't wrapped around her, they're kicked to the bottom of the mattress and god save him if he tries to pull them back up. "Maybe I should have my own blanket."
"Shut up."
"You'd probably steal that one too." He presses his nose to her cheek, smiles against her jaw and nips the tender skin.
"Stop it, we're sharing."
"For now." He snakes his other arm around her, pulls her in tight and just holds on. He's clinging a little and she notices but gives in by rubbing her cheek against his.
"You okay?"
"Yeah. Just appreciative after that last case." The case that stressed her out and had him bumbling for a way to make it better but it's over now.
Her hand comes up to rest against the base of his skull, to hold him in place just as intimately as he holds her. "Scared you?"
"Tends to happen when someone holds you at gunpoint."
"M'fine." Her lips press to his temple, his cheek, down his jaw. And he knows she's fine. He's watched her be fine all morning.
He doesn't know how he lived without her, just knows that he can't now. There's no way. And there's a split second he holds her just a bit too tight because her spine pops and she sucks in a breath.
"Sorry."
"We have the day to ourselves, ease up a little." She's teasing her fingers through his hair, making him moan when her nails scrape his scalp. "Wanna stay like this?"
"Are you asking if I want to stay in this bed with you and spend the day cuddling?"
"Do you?" Her lips split on a grin and he bumps his nose to hers.
"Beckett, is that even a question?" He pinches her hip and opens his mouth against hers, swallows her surprised giggle when he rolls her beneath him.
An entire day in bed with his wife? He'd be insane not to take advantage.