Based on a seven step system determined by giraffepoliceforce on tumblr, for how to confess your love to someone. Set early season four, around the time of the rogue head and "just like us". Total crack, and I hope it makes you smile.

Pickup Limes

(Step One: Acquire several dozen limes.)

"Dude." Ryan corners him in the break room, a hand slamming down onto the countertop with such speed and absolute precision that Castle startles. It jolts his whole body and scalding milk comes frothing up from over the lip of the metal jug and onto the curve of skin between his thumb and index finger.

Yelping, he shoves at the switch for the steam wand and drops the jug, sucking hard at his burned hand and still somehow managing to pout around it. Once the scorching heat has stopped licking at him in waves he drops his hand from his mouth and wipes up the spilled milk from the counter, steadily ignoring Ryan's folded-arms thing he has going on. A kind of slow perusal, heavier with judgement than Castle has ever expected from Kevin of all people and honestly. . .since when does Ryan do the macho stance thing anyway? He must have gotten lessons from Esposito.

"Can I help you with something?" Castle huffs, stuffing the whole wad of milk drenched tissues into a trash can and starting again with heating the milk for the latte he was trying to make before he was ambushed. The latte for Kate, beautiful Kate who makes his heart kick hard in his chest every time he sees her back at her desk where she belongs.

And doing so much better, now, than she was a few scant weeks ago. Stronger and smiling more and not so painfully, terrifyingly thin. When she first came back to work it seemed as if she would snap under a strong wind like reed grass, tall and graceful but so very fragile.

"You're staring at her again."

"I'm-" Castle starts, snaps his mouth closed again when he realises that there's no defence. Not anymore. "Yeah. Sorry."

Ryan finally, blessedly unfolds his arms and pats Castle's unburned hand in something that might be sympathy. "You love her."

It's not a question, but all the same Rick's spluttering out an answer. "I- how did you?" A raised eyebrow from the detective and he pales, shrinking backward. "Yes. I do."

"I have an idea for you. A way to ask her out."

Yes, thank you, he feels his mouth dropping. It's just that honestly, the thought has crossed his mind so many times now he can feel the smudged arcs of its footprints along his neural pathways. Asking Kate out, making her see that he means it. He thinks she knows he loves her. She must know. How could she not?

Only, he thought that the others. . .didn't. "A way to ask her out?"

"Yes. And then tell her, man, seriously. You're killing me with your lovesickness." Ryan huffs, moving for the couch and sinking down to watch Castle finish up the latte.

"What do I do?" Rick murmurs, staring down into the rich depths of the coffee so he doesn't have to wither under Ryan's sympathy.

The detective smirks. "I have a plan. You gotta get some limes."

xxx

(Step Two: Go up to them and then drop all the limes.)

It's three days since Ryan's plan and Castle's hand is still blistered from the goddamn scalding milk. He's glad for it, though, because every time he feels the stretch and rush of awareness it reminds him of the plan. The completely stupid, never-going-to-work-in-a-million-years plan. The bag is heavier than he expected; it cuts into the flesh of his palm (on his non-injured hand) and really, if he had known how much pain this whole thing was going to cause him he would have just torn up the paper Ryan gave him.

Maybe. . .probably not. He can take a little pain if it means a chance with Kate Beckett. Although he is worried about the state his hands will be in after this because heh, yeah, he really hopes to need them.

At her desk, Kate is rubbing at the frown lines carved into her forehead and chewing on a pen, going over the paperwork for a recent close. Swallowing hard, Castle steps out of the break room where he stashed his limes and makes his way over to her.

When she glances up he expects an eye roll, maybe a questioning look at the bag in his hand but instead her face breaks open on a smile, wide and beautiful like she's happy to see him here. Her grin wavers, just a little, when he doesn't sit down in his chair.

The chair he's so stupidly grateful to find still sitting pride of place next to her desk every morning. The fear that Gates will remove it and by extension him is constant and crippling. Castle steels himself for what he's about to do, feeling the apology like a lithe web stitching his face into a mask.

Grasping hold of the bottom of the bag with his free hand, he switches his grip and in the process tips the bag upside down. The limes – all twenty or so of them – tip out all over the precinct floor. Some of them roll underneath her desk and crash into her boot-clad feet and she jerks, pushing her chair backwards to get away.

"Castle, what the hell are you doing?"

He doesn't say anything. This, Ryan drilled into him as being vitally important. He's not supposed to speak until it's time, until he says the right thing. The thing he hopes will make her look at him with her eyes creased up in joy every day for the rest of their lives.

See the thing is, he knows she's got walls. She told him as much, and he thought he was okay to wait for her. But he isn't. Not like this anyway, not stagnantly. This is the singularly most important thing he's ever striven for in his life and he won't sit back and watch it pass him by.

Kate needs to dismantle a wall? He has tools at his disposal. The touch of his mouth, taking her out whenever and wherever she'll let him. A whole arsenal of sweet nothings that crowd his tongue, desperate to be whispered against the shell of her ear.

And this. Ryan's plan.

xxx

(Step Three: Start picking them up, but keep dropping them. The clumsier you look the better.)

After he's stared at the limes for a good few seconds and desperately avoided Kate's gaze as she narrows her eyes at him and gives him a look that he thinks would make a lesser man puddle on the linoleum, Castle gets to his knees and starts trying to collect his limes back together.

This part is important, Ryan told him. He has to get it right, be clumsy. The problem is that Rick Castle is a pretty suave guy, if he does say so himself, and so it's a challenge to do this at least somewhat convincingly. He gets two or three of the limes in his hands and then drops one, totally on purpose, grabs for another and drops his whole handful to the floor.

"Oh my god, Castle, are you kidding me? Pick them up." Kate says. Authoritative, of course, but underneath the softness of real amusement hums melodious and rich.

He gets a couple more limes into his grip and then he chances a glance up at her and drops them all. And this time it's not for show, not part of his plan. Just her. She's wearing her hair straight lately and he really likes it a lot, loves the way it makes her incredible bone structure so intense.

Obviously he likes her curls, but they make him want to fist his hand at her nape and drag her mouth against his. So the straight hair is, at least, easier on him in many ways. He thinks he might be quite a lot in love with her shirt, too. A silk thing with a floral pattern that he would never in a million years have picked out as something she'd wear, but of course it looks perfect on her and he just wants to draw his hands up her sides and underneath to the softness of her skin.

It's not her hair, or her shirt, that have him a clumsy idiot who seems to have lost all of his motor skills, though. It's the look on her face as she watches him, tender and open and so amazing. There's confusion there too – he is after all trying to gather up the twenty three limes currently rolling around her precinct floor – but it's not the main focus. Mostly, she looks like she thinks he's adorable.

And that's good, that will work in his favour. He focuses on his limes again, continues his pattern of gathering and dropping them over and over. Her eyes are hot on him, making warmth rush to his cheeks and he tries desperately to ignore it. The way she looks at him, how breathtakingly gorgeous and fun and sweet and truly, truly extraordinary she is.

He manages to collect ten or twelve of his limes in the crook of his arm and then he drops them and she huffs, turning back to her desk and trying to refocuses on her paperwork. He sees her though, watching him from the corner of her eye.

Soon, Kate.

xxx

(Step Four: Keep doing this until you have their attention.)

It takes maybe five minutes for her curiosity to win out the war he's been watching rage in her. Reaching out her foot, she pokes his side very carefully with the toe of her boot and lifts an eyebrow when he glances upwards, flicking her eyes from his face to the limes on the floor and then back to his face.

"Do you need some help?"

He shakes his head, smiling at her. Wishing all the while that he were allowed to talk, but he can't yet. And it's really getting difficult, because he wants to tease Kate for the genuine concern that is spreading across her face. Slowly, but there all the same.

Although, he has been trying to pick up limes for the past ten minutes, so he supposes it isn't entirely unfounded.

Kate pushes her chair out from underneath the desk and folds her arms, crossing her legs at the knee. They're so long, so graceful, and he's lost count of the number of times he's imagined them wrapped around his waist or stretched out next to his on the couch or folded under her as they picnic in the park.

Now he has her full attention, it's a battle not to give up on this whole endeavour and sit in his chair and never mention this whole entire thing ever again. This could go well, could earn him that bubbling laughter that seems to spill out every now and then seemingly without her permission. Or she could have him committed.

Either way, it forces them out of their stalemate. His knees are starting to protest now and he shifts his weight, struggles to get comfortable. His attention, he thinks, deserves a show. So he makes a bigger deal of his failures, huffing and sighing and grunting and letting the limes roll a little further away, stretching to grasp them back again.

She already thinks he's insane, he can tell without even looking at her, so he might as well play it up for the crowd. Not that there is one; he picked a quiet moment. The boys are out running down a lead (he so did not want Ryan here to watch this. Or really Espo either) and Gates has a meeting, so the only people that might see him are the scatterings of uniforms that come in and out.

If he gets to kiss Kate Beckett at the end of this he would happily have it broadcast on national television. He doesn't need his reputation, doesn't need to be suave and smooth and sophisticated. He needs her.

Sneaking a glance at her again, he sees the furrow between her brows and that zig-zag vein that jumps out in her forehead when she's confused or stressed or hurting. This is probably the most ridiculous thing he's ever done in his life so far – and he did steal a police horse naked – but he wants to drag it out as long as possible because he is terrified.

xxx

(Step Five: Finally gather up the limes. Try looking a bit sheepish.)

Okay. Time to show her that actually he's not completely inept. He can gather some limes.

Castle hooks one of the bag's handles over the knob of Kate's desk drawer and collects the limes a couple at a time, dropping them inside of the grocery bag as carefully as he can. He doesn't really want them to bruise; after this he'll take them to the Old Haunt and maybe utilise them with some tequila and some salt.

The weight of the limes starts to make the top of the bag fold in on itself, the gaping mouth falling slowly closed and Kate takes a hold of the other handle to hold it open for him, let him secure his precious limes away.

A flash of absolute adoration tears through him and he chews on the inside of his lip to stop himself just blurting it out right here on the floor of the precinct with his slacks all crumpled and Kate looking at him like she's about five seconds away from calling for the men in white coats to get him out of here.

Underneath that though, she seems relaxed. Happy. It's so good, after the summer, after having not seen her. Like a balm to his stupid heart, so he finds himself utterly unable to regret any of this. Castle glances up at the woman he loves and smiles, as sheepishly as he can muster.

Her eyebrow arches again (does she practice that in the mirror?) but she doesn't say anything. Instead, she fishes out the several limes that rolled underneath her desk and guides them towards him with her foot. Doesn't kick them, so she must have noticed that he's trying to be relatively careful with them.

His hangdog face gets a grin from her, a delightful eye roll, and once he has his last lime in the bag with its brothers and sisters she unhooks it from the drawer knob and gathers it into her lap, flattening her hands on top of the limes and pursing her lips at him.

Castle peels himself off of the floor and they both wince at the obnoxiously loud crack of his knees in protest. Sinking into his chair he huffs and wipes a hand over his forehead before he takes his bag back from her and secures it in his own lap. She's still staring at him expectantly but he's trying his best to block her out again.

Not ignore her; he could never bring himself to do that. And anyway, he orients around her so if he did try he'd be entirely unsuccessful. His whole life now, outside of his mother and daughter anyway, is about Kate. It's the main reason he's doing this, gave in so easily to Ryan's dumb idea. He won't walk away and he won't sit quiet and watch her fall in love with someone else.

Castle glances at her and tries to convey his gratitude with the quirk of his mouth, staying carefully quiet.

xxx

(Step Six: Look them deeply in the eyes and say, "Sorry. I'm bad at Pickup Limes.")

"Are you going to explain to me what just happened?" Kate says after a moment, her arms folded. And he knows she's trying to look stern, but really she's only drawing attention to her uh. . .assets. She's gorgeous, really.

Sometimes he forgets, because she's also his best friend and he sees her all the time and he has to try his best not to dwell on it or he would literally never be able to stop staring at her. And then sometimes it just smacks into him and he can hardly breathe, her beauty simultaneously the thing that chokes him and his only relief.

Castle draws in a breath through his teeth and meets her eyes. This is it. This might be the start of their future together. He just has to open his mouth and get the damned words out. "Sorry. I'm bad at pickup limes."

"You're. . .what?" She gapes at him, a pretty flush to her cheeks and her mouth parted so invitingly that it takes everything in him not to lean across the desk and kiss her senseless.

Instead he shrugs, jiggles his legs so she'll see the limes dance inside the bag in his lap. "I'm bad at pickup limes."

"Is this. . .you coming on to me?" She's staring at him and he manages to nod and then she laughs, louder than he thinks she was expecting because she immediately brings a hand up to press to her mouth. He still sees it though, shards of joy through her splayed fingers. "Oh my god, Castle. Tell me you're kidding."

"It was Ryan's idea." He mutters, staring at his shoes.

That surprises her, he can tell. Her shoulders are a little stiffer inside of her blazer and that frown is back at her forehead, the one he wants to touch his mouth to in penance. "You asked Ryan for advice on how to come on to me?"

"Uh, no. He said he was sick of me moping." The honesty startles him and his head snaps up, her eyes searching his face for some clue as to what's going on. "Not that I'm sad or anything. I'm really happy, being here every day with you. But I think we both could be happier."

"Castle I told you, I can't-" She grits her teeth, shame washing over her face and he reaches for her hand, laces their fingers before she gets a moment to think about it.

His thumb smoothes back and forth over her palm as if to gentle her and he holds her eyes, lets her see his certainty. Because he is sure, about this at least. He doesn't know the logistics of how they'll work; he just knows they'll make it through.

How could they not? "I think you can do it, Kate. If I help you. Let me help you."

"Castle-"

"We'll go slow." He says, trying his best not to plead with her. "We'll figure it out together. No pressure."

"Okay." She hums, chewing on her lip in a completely failed attempt to stop the spread of her smile. He sees it, and he grins too, desperate now to kiss her.

"Let's get out of here."

Kate nods and stands up from her chair, striding towards the elevator with him at her side and the bag of limes dangling from one hand. As soon as they're inside the elevator car and the doors slide closed he goes for her mouth, tentative and sweet until her tongue slicks against his and then it's fast and hot and he reaches up to cup her face in his palms-

And drops his limes all over the floor.

xxx

(Step Seven: Marry them.)

Tumblr: katiehoughton

Twitter: seilleanmor