A/N: Post-ep one-shot for 5x18: 'The Wild Rover'. I was struck by how unsure of himself Castle seemed when he confessed this childhood cheating incident to Kate, as if he really assumed this would change the way she sees him now. It made me think about the fact that we all have hidden secrets or thoughts that we're ashamed of, things we keep hidden even from ourselves because we're afraid it will change how others view us. Hence the 'life unknown' (La Vie Inconnue) of the title, which also contain 'a glass of Burgundy' (Un verre de Bourgogne).
This story is based on a prompt from the lovely Dmarx: Castle and Beckett are sitting on the sofa and he says something to crack her up and they've both had a bit too much wine and he blurts out "you're so beautiful when you laugh."
"The First Duty of wine is to be Red...the second is to be a Burgundy"
- Harry Waugh, (1904-2001) Wine merchant, known as 'the man with the million dollar palate'.
Un Verre de Bourgogne et La Vie Inconnue
As they sit side-by-side on his sofa, their latest case successfully put to bed, glasses of good Burgundy tended by cool fingers, Kate watches her partner after he decided to confess.
His face was so earnest, and she can see the scared little boy in him still; the one who was flunking out of boarding school so badly that he thought he had to cheat just to stay in class. And this is just another example, despite no further proof being needed, of how honest Richard Castle truly is, how good a human being, how he is moral to his core, and of how much he desperately wants and needs her approval.
He values her opinion of him so highly that he would humiliate himself with a confession like this, as if he hadn't already earned her respect, her love and devotion many time over by now with his loyalty, his courage, his time and energy; all of his days spent following her, squeezing his own life, his family and writing career in around her job and what little free time they get together outside of the Twelfth.
He stuns her sometimes with this lack of confidence, coming from the man who ruined her long-held image of him at a stroke when they first met with his arrogant front and playboy lifestyle.
She watches the metaphorical clouds part and the sun come out when his eyes lose their troubled tint, and she realizes that he's baring all of himself to her, piece by tiny guilty little piece, until she's seen everything – the worst, the weakest, the most flawed, selfish, unattractive and childish that he can be, and if she fails to reject him after all of that, then maybe, maybe, he will be worthy of keeping her, of being with her forever.
This is his version of waiting for the other shoe to drop.
He behaves as if he can't quite believe that she loves him for who he really is. As if she's missed finding out some vital fact, discovering some critical piece of evidence that will damn him in her eyes and completely blow this thing between them apart.
She can see it in his tired, slightly hesitant expression and feel it in the tentative way he cradles her body; how this has been worrying him so much that he has taken to talking about it in his sleep at night – his subconscious battling to tell her what his conscious brain wasn't ready to, was too afraid to – I'm a cheat, a liar and a coward.
She can feel his relief too, in the ardent crush of his mouth on hers, the hungry, needful thrust of his tongue between her open lips. He needs her so badly, but he wants her so honestly that he is removing every last skeleton from the back of his closet, dusting it off and presenting it to her like a cat with a dead mouse in it's jaws - Exhibit A.
Do you still love me now? Surely not.
"You're right, Castle, it does change how I see you," she tells him. "Makes me like you a little bit more," she adds, her smile beaming, her eyes shining with so much unspoken love and compassion for this complex man.
When she crawls over him to reassure him of her 'liking' with one kiss then two, they melt into one another, their mouths melding, needing, his careful hands telling the whole of the story.
When they break apart, sitting up to return to their wine and an evening in front of the fire, he looks more centered, more sure of himself again. The fear and self-doubt have been boxed up for now, put away until next time.
"Then here's to talking in our sleep," says Castle, clinking his glass of red against his partner's.
The glow of firelight through wine is rich and warming.
Kate smiles and raises her own glass to take a sip, the ruby red liquid just barely coating her lips when…
"Wait! You just said talking in 'our' sleep."
"Yeah. What of it?"
"Our?" Kate repeats, placing her wine glass down on the coffee table a little too forcefully, tearing her eyes away from the swirl of expensive Burgundy that leaves a viscous bloodlike glaze around the sides of the vintage Steuben wineglass to stare at her partner.
"Castle, I don't talk in my sleep," says Kate, definitively, sounding just a little too panicked even to her own ears.
"What makes you so sure?" he asks, smirking, leaning back against the fluffy pillows he pressed her body into not five minutes ago.
"I just know," she insists petulantly, crossing her arms over her chest with a frown, before raising uncertain, questioning eyes to his.
Do I?
"You're asleep, Beckett? How can you know? For sure, I mean. Not even you have superpowers when you're asleep. Believe me, I know."
"What's that supposed to mean?" she snaps, without really meaning to, her eyes narrowing suspiciously when Castle continues to gloat and tease.
"Just…you think you know. But how can you be sure? How well do any of us know ourselves as individuals, let alone know the people we…care about?"
"Isn't that a little existential for this early in the evening?"
"Then drink up. Cause I say we drop down the existential rabbit hole tonight," Castle suggests, leaning forward to top up her barely touched wine.
"Meaning?" asks Kate, a sinking feeling in her stomach.
Because she's been pushing him for the last three days to reveal who this Jordan is that he repeatedly rambled about in his sleep. But the thought of having revealed secrets of her own or having him ask her to reveal some now is leaving her a little nauseous.
"Meaning…you got the origin of 'Jordan' out of me…"
"Eventually," interjects Kate, dryly, taking a large gulp of wine.
"Eventually," concedes Castle, with a gracious nod of his head. "So, I think it's only fair that I get to ask you about something that's been puzzling me for a while."
Kate thinks she may just have felt her heat stop beating for a second. Her blood runs ice cold and her brain does a series of mind-bending contortions trying to fathom exactly what he could be referring to.
"Puzzling you…about…about me?"
She can feel herself getting warm, her face flushing, heat rushing up her neck. Because they're not so different, these two; each believing themselves to be flawed and unattractive in both small and big ways that they try to keep hidden from one another and the world, until circumstance or a bout of honesty causes fissures to appear, forcing them to the surface like bitumen in a tar pit.
"Drink up, Kate," Castle smiles, playfully nudging her thigh with his knee.
Her glazed expression shows where her mind has gone; that she has left the room to wander the echoing halls of her past, her damaged psyche, examining all the fears and shameful thoughts she has, trying desperately to figure out what her partner is about to hit her with.
If she had stayed present, looked at his face, she would have realized that he means to have fun tonight. He has off-loaded a burden, and now he wants them to have fun with her past too, to normalize and equalize things between them.
"Is…is this about that letter? The one from Bracken's threats file? The one from McManus that I almost destroyed? Because I still feel bad about lying to you over that," she says, hazarding a guess, her most recent guilt-inducing secret bubbling up into her subconscious.
"What? What…no! Kate, we already talked about that. Ancient history," he assures her, squeezing her hand, and giving her an encouraging smile.
"Then what?" she asks, taking another healthy mouthful of smooth, rich, spicy red wine to calm her nerves.
"There's no rush is there?" teases Castle, settling back against the cushions. "We've got all night."
"We've…?" chokes Kate, needing to be put out of her misery right now. "Castle, if there's something you want to ask me, then…ask," she implores him, already feeling the effects of the strong wine going straight to her head.
"You're sure? Because this can…"
"If you say wait, I will hurt you," she threatens, laughing when he flinches away from her, pressing himself deeper into the over-stuffed upholstery, her smile getting wider the more he plays up his fear.
What he comes out with next completely disarms her - worry, fear, nerves, every self-protectionist thought all forgotten, wiped clean away.
"You're so beautiful when you laugh," Castle tells her quietly, his voice reverent, his eyes soft and full of love as he watches her so carefully, his head tipped to one side.
Kate sits up a little straighter, the smile slowly drifting from her face, the tightening in her throat and sharp pinpricks behind each eye foretelling the threat of real tears. She hugs her glass to her chest, the wine making her feel loose and bold, her partner making her heart swell for the second time tonight.
Kate licks her lips, and then raises her eyes from her lap to meet her partner's the waiting blue ones. She toys with her wineglass before she speaks, the deep earthy color radiating all the way down inside the delicate stem.
"Castle, you know how I feel about you, right? I…I mean I know I don't always let on what's on my mind. But…"
She hesitates, wondering how much she needs to say exactly. How explicit she needs to get to make him understand. She watches Castle nod, but it's a nod of quiet acceptance. He knows the boundaries, how far she will go to reassure him, and though she can tell that this is enough for him for now, suddenly it's no longer enough for her.
Tonight is a game-changer. Time to suit-up.
"You are one of the kindest, most generous, most selfless people I have ever met. You say you're still trying to earn the applause you got as a kid. Well, I'm here to tell you that you need to stop trying, Castle. You have a genuine talent. You're not some fake waiting to be found out."
"But…"
Kate holds up her hand to silence him.
"Please, Castle? I need to say this. Just let me finish."
Castle nods, an apologetic duck of his head.
"You have more than earned my respect, my loyalty, my…my love for you," says Kate quietly, looking directly at her partner again to see if he's taking in everything she's finally finding the courage to say. "So, yes. You need to stop trying and start enjoying the fruits of your labor. Because you've earned it, Castle. All of it. And you've earned it honestly this time."
When she stops speaking, there are tears in his eyes - big dark pools of unshed tears - and his lower lip is quivering.
He swipes at one cheek when a fat, salty traitor escapes to slide down his cheek like a little kid at a waterpark.
"You're not that lonely, misfit of a child anymore, Castle, trying to fit in where he thinks he doesn't belong. You have people who love you just for being you. And you have legions of fans who love you for your writing too. For what your books give them. Hope, justice and pure escapism."
She can see from the look on his face that he wants her to back up, to repeat the words he's been kidding himself he didn't need to hear from her. But he won't. Because he's too much of a gentleman and he's too careful where she is concerned; this mindful behavior so ingrained in him now that he should tread lightly and demand little from her. So she vows to give him more.
"You just asked me what happens if I didn't like what I saw? Castle, you have never disappointed me. Ever. You may have annoyed me, sure," laughs Kate, moving closer to him and taking his hand. "On lots of occasions. But you never stop amazing me and I will never stop looking. Understand?" she asks, giving him a kindly smile, his serious face still containing more than a hint of 'brave solider' about it.
"You sure about that? Cause I can get a little messy," he says, tapping the side of his head with his wineglass.
"Castle, we all have a hidden inner life. Every one of us. Months in therapy will attest to how just how messy my head can get at times. But you don't scare me. Not anymore."
"You scare me," he blurts, and Kate laughs again, freeing the joyous sound from her chest, the ruby red glow from her glass reflecting onto the light cream marl of her sweater and matching the warm blush on her cheeks.
"Well, maybe that's just the way it has to be. Gotta keep you in line somehow," she jokes, leaning in to kiss his cheek and nuzzle her nose again his.
Castle breathes her in, laces his free hand round behind her neck, drawing her closer and holding her to him.
"I heard you," he whispers, so gently that his words are little more than a puff of air against her skin. But she knows exactly what he means; that this is enough for now.
They down the rest of their wine and stumble off to bed; bumping arms and shoulders as they compete to be the first through the bedroom door, giggling like kids the whole time.
Later, when they are lying on their backs, cocooned in the warm, dark room, their limbs heavy, their bodies sated, Kate's mind cuts loose.
"What were you going to ask me earlier?"
"Hmm?"
"The thing you've been puzzling over. What was it?"
Castle turns to her and smiles, his fingers skating lazy figure of eights over her stomach.
"Doesn't matter. You told me more than I needed to know already."
"You sure?"
"Is this a one time deal?"
"No. Never stop looking, Castle. Remember? We share, we look, and we deal with whatever we see."
"Oh, I like what I see," he leers, lifting the sheet and leaning down to press a tickly, wet kiss to her tummy button.
Kate squeals and draws up her knees, trying to fend him off. But it's a lost cause. As they tumble across the sheets, wrapped in one another's arms, she tugs on his earlobe and whispers the words against his jaw.
"I really like what I see too."
Burgundy, noun: a dark red color associated with the Burgundy wine of the same name, which in turn is named after the Burgundy region of France.
Burgundy is associated with vigor, elegance, richness, refinement, leadership, maturity, fertility and wealth.
It is the color of red earth and drying blood, rubies and garnets.
A/N: I can't begin to explain how excited I am for Monday's episode. Love to hear your thoughts as ever. Have a great weekend. Liv