Chapter 2
Persuasion
Oh god, oh god make it stop.
This is all he can think about when he arrives to the 12th precinct. The whole way has been a nightmare on top of a nightmare for him. People are crazy. Or at least he thinks that way.
There is so much noise in the Big Apple, he can't stand it. During the brief time it took for him from changing his clothes to getting out of his loft, he discovered that in addition to the telekinesis thingy, he had developed a super hearing as well.
And now he is in agony. He can't filter out anything. He hears everything. Everything.
People talking in the street, the hum of the cars, the annoying screeching of the ambulance two blocks away. He can even hear the little boy dropping his pennies on the ground several hundred yards from him.
"Ugh," he grumbles, stepping into the building in hope that somehow this craziness would stop.
Oh, please make it stop.
The door closes behind him and there it is - much needed relief for him - silence. He leans back against the door and breathes through his nose a few times, trying to calm his racing heart. He must have walked there in a record time. But the noise. Ugh. He couldn't stand it.
But the break from the torture is short lived. The elevator in the far end of the room closes its doors and ventures upwards with a barely audible hum. For normal people.
For him, it sounds like a freight train, moving at full speed. That is not normal. At all.
He covers his ears, trying to muffle out as much of the noise as he can. But it doesn't help. Closing his eyes, he wishes it would stop. It's too much. Too, too much.
Suddenly, the world silences around him.
The elevator stops moving and silence surrounds him again.
Huh?
Can he tune out the noise? Interesting.
Slowly, he walks to the closed doors of the elevator shaft, pushing the button to call it downstairs.
It descends with a normal hum. Well. What can be called normal. It sounds like it does every day. The rattle of the metal doesn't sound so loud anymore.
The doors open with a whisper, he steps in, a suspicious look on his face. He doesn't trust this monstrosity. Nuh uh.
It tried to kill him with the roar of its movements. And it wasn't even the first time.
But now, it is acting so silent and sweet again. Almost as if it were innocent. Innocent my ass.
He pushes the button for 4th floor, to the homicide bullpen.
Hmmm... can he really control his super hearing?
Let's try.
He closes his eyes again and concentrates on his listening, trying to hear more, like it was, before he silenced the world around him.
And there it is. The loud scream of the metal against metal pierces his ears joined by the roar of the elevator engines.
Argh!
Too loud!
Turn it off, turn it off!
He keeps thinking about the silence now, trying to filter the jumbled noise around him.
He removes his hands from his ears. The elevator is still going up.
But … there is silence again. There. Sweet state of silence.
Oh! It worked! It worked!
The ding of the bells announces the arrival of the elevator to its final destination, scaring the crap out of Castle who wasn't expecting the sound to be so loud. Apparently he still needs to work on the filtering thing. But so far, the mental blockage has worked for him. Let's see how it turns out to be later.
He steps out of the elevator and makes his way quickly to Beckett's desk. The detective is standing in front of the murder board, filling in the space between the few pictures already attached to the white planes of the board.
"Beckett!" he announces himself as he approaches. She can barely turn herself around before he is at her side.
Without wasting any time, he grabs her wrist and starts dragging her towards the empty interview room.
"Castle!" she hisses, trying to break herself free. "What the hell?"
"Come on! I need to tell you something!" he tries to reassure her, calm her down before her fury can ignite.
"You know, you could have said it to me before you decided to go all caveman and drag me around like a sack of potatoes," she scolds, still trying to resist the pull of his hand and break herself free. "Castle, let go of me."
"No, I need to talk with you, alone," he presses the matter, a smile creeping onto his face. He can barely contain his excitement. Oh, this is just golden. He needs to tell her. Now.
"Castle, release my hand and I will walk to the interview room myself. You don't need to drag me."
He argues, "But this is so much faster. And funnier."
"Funnier?" she rolls her eyes in annoyance as he is still not letting her go. "What's gotten into you today?"
As they reach the interview room, he shuts the door behind her, closing them into the large room. He covers the windows with the blinds and steps to do the same with the glass surfaces in the other end of the room.
"Castle," she sighs, "what was so damn important that you had to drag me away from the murder board? I was just adding the last details. You could have waited till I was done!"
He turns to look at her. Oh, he has missed her. He barely saw her this morning. Flickering images stream into his mind of what he saw in the wee hours of the morning. But that wasn't enough. And now, she is staring him with this annoyed and sexy look that makes her utterly adorable. Uh. But … first things first. He has to tell her why he is here. Why he needed to drag her away, why it was so important. His whole being is vibrating with excitement that he can barely contain.
"Kate," he starts, breathing in before he continues.
She looks right into his eyes, trying to figure out what is wrong with him.
"I have super powers," he blurts out, smiling widely, his hands shaking with joy.
He sees the flicker of emotions rush through her face, the widening of her eyes in surprise before she can even think about the implications of what he just said.
Maybe there's hint of interest there too.
Then, her whole demeanor changes. The spark and adoration fades from her eyes and her face portrays annoyance again.
"Wow, Castle," she says in disbelief. "And here I thought it was something important. Next thing you're going to say is that you can fly, too." She rolls her eyes and shakes her head to stress her words.
"No, not yet," he answers quickly, trying to shrug off her sarcasm.
"But..." he starts when he sees her moving closer to the door. He needs to stop her. He needs to make her believe right now that he is not making this up. She won't believe him anyway, unless he can prove it to her.
"But what?" she sighs in annoyance.
Uh oh, he knows that voice. It's not good. He freezes for a moment to think of exactly what to say to her. This calls for careful approach.
When he doesn't say anything and just stares at her, she continues. "Castle, I don't have any time for this nonsense."
"It's not nonsense!" he defends himself. "I can prove it!"
"Yeah?" she drawls out, unimpressed. "Just like you proved it when you said you could beat me in sparring. I remember well how that turned out."
He winces. Yes. That turned out well. He ended up with a bloody cheek and a sprained wrist in addition to losing to Beckett.
"No, no!" he steps closer to her, trying to make her believe. "Just hear me out, I am not making this up."
She gives him a pointed stare but doesn't say anything. He takes it as a green light for explaining himself. He doesn't make her wait. Storytime.
"I woke up this morning. You were gone. I went to make myself a world famous Castle coffee when I realised that there were no clean cups... except yours, that you left on the counter. There it was. I was too tired to go and get it. And I just leaned over the counter. And it flew into my hand."
"Flew into your hand?" she repeats, still not believing him. "Castle, how much whiskey have you had this morning. Are you sure you didn't fall out of bed and hit your head?"
"Beckett," he steps even closer to her, touching her left arm with his hand. "You gotta believe me, it happened! I tried it several times. And it worked. And when I was walking down here, I realised I have super hearing too. I can hear everything."
She arches up her eyebrow and shifts her jaw. She isn't buying anything.
Oh very well then, he will dish out everything.
"It was cool for like first few minutes, but do you realise how many sounds there are in the world? Everything makes so much noise. The cars, the buildings, and don't even get me started on people..."
She opens her mouth to say something to disrupt his monologue, but he continues before she has the chance, "But … somehow I got the hang of it. I think I can filter out the overwhelming noises."
She is silent now and that's not a good sign. He needs to do something. Fast.
"Look, I know you don't believe me," he tries to reassure her.
"Yeah, you could say that," she replies sarcastically, biting the inside of her mouth.
"Let me prove it to you," he begs.
She considers what he is saying for few moments, her gaze travelling from his eyes to his mouth and back to his eyes.
"Okay, prove it. I wanna see it myself," she sighs, mentally giving in on his crazy theory.
"Ok," he nods and turns around to observe his surroundings.
He notices a little blue cup on the table, probably some detective had forgotten the mug on the table and not bothered to pick it up there. He looks at the mug and then he turns his attention to her.
"Okay, see the blue cup there," he waits till she nods at him, "I will move it from the table to the shelf. Pay attention."
She doesn't reply, but stares at the mug.
It's good enough for him. The show-off is a go-go.
He takes in the position, turning his body towards the table and squinting his eyes to stare at the mug. He tries. So hard. Just like he did it at home several times. It had worked there. It never failed. The yellow cup always flew into his hand with no problem.
But this mug doesn't move.
Not even an inch.
He gives it one more go, trying to concentrate harder than before. He needs it to move. He needs it to fly from the table to shelf. Come on. Move! Move, you damn cup!
The stubborn cup stays at its place. Nothing works.
"Wow, Castle. I can see your magical skills from far away," she doesn't even bother to suppress her overflowing sarcasm in her voice. "Look, I got work to do, so go get yourself a cup of coffee and join me at my desk, okay?"
She opens the door and waltzes out of the room.
"But Beckett!" he yells after her. "I really do have super powers!"
"Yeah," he hears her answer as she is walking away. "And pigs can fly!"
"I had super powers..." he mutters to himself, staring at his hands, not knowing where his powers went. His shoulders sag in disappointment. He failed to show his awesome skills to her.
What happened?
Here you go, the next chapter is here. I am really sorry for not updating it soon. I had pretty busy time at work trying to tie things up before my vacation started. Now I am resting in Finland. You should try it. It is very pretty in here.
Please let me know how you liked the chapter and leave a review!
(Word count 3375... a long way to go to the 25000)
