A/N: a study in perspectives
the other side of the bed in a city that never sleeps
я тебя люблю
(ya tebya lyublyu)
She doesn't remember being asleep. But here she is. Woken.
The curl of her eyelashes bob in and out of view as awareness trickles in. Muffled light from the windows falls across the rumpled sheets and wooden floor in shades of bronze. Shadows come alive to distort her reality. Quilted caves and 800-thread count valleys lay before her, and awash in the mess of it is Castle. Relaxed. Untroubled.
After thoroughly tiring one another out, he had been unable to climb all the way back up the bed, to return into her embrace. Their gasps and puffs of breath faded into calm and repose as they watched one another fall into darkness. In sleep, their personal gravities pulled them to their higher apsis. Drifting and sinking into the mattress.
The blinking digital clock on the dresser across the room tells her the power went out three hours and twenty-eight minutes ago. That must be why the air conditioning reset itself… The October chill makes itself known in the room. It sweeps over the bare skin of her back. A shiver runs across her surface, marking a stark contrast between her exposed self and the rest of her body. She shuffles the sheet over her, lightly yanking it to cover herself. The landscape before her flattens and rumples again. The sheet drags along her body, tugs at the entanglement that is her legs with his. Her eyes comb over his form, searching out the details, the story. Lines that drag in exhaustion and difficult cases, lines that tug in laughter and nights together. A bruise blooms on the belly of his right biceps. A bite mark echoes on his shoulder. The tail ends of scratch marks come from around his side and peek from under the sheets.
She bites her lip lightly, smothers a smile at the evidence of their activities. A laugh is caught in her throat. Kate rubs her face into her down pillow. She doesn't want to shatter the silence.
She rustles back out of the pillow, control in possession again. Her attention flickers from the hair now partially obscuring her sight to the steady rise and fall of Castle's breath to the familiar walls and furniture of a room she has so thoroughly occupied. And it hits her.
She is at home here. Curled in the sheets, wrapped up in him. He is home.
The realization zips through her. Bubbles rising within her, a shiver through her muscles.
Her life is peaceful in this secret they carved out together. It has been so long since she has felt so … safe, since another person was home for her. The way she feels with him – like both her feet are firmly planted on one side of a figurative door - is a constant. And she remembers that now, realizes it, at this latest midnight hour. The rubble of felled walls has been swept away for quite some time without her notice.
She wiggles a little, stretches her legs along his, to feel all the places he touches. She wants to rest in this moment, curl up in it. Revel in this feel of forever. She closes her eyes to heighten her senses, to really feel them and absorb them.
я тебя люблю.
She tries to whisper the words, but they come out louder than intended, more hoarse. Her vocal cords are strained from the evening. She's stunned by the sudden break in silence and the way it falls back in on itself. So very quiet again. He doesn't move. Good, she doesn't want to wake him. Her eyes close again, giving herself to the dark and fading into the quiet air. Time is suspended.
She can hear him begin to stir, feel it in the springs, hear the scrape of his hair against the sheets. Muscle memory has her fingers itching for the feel of running through them.
His fingertips are light upon her face. She inhales with it. She loves the way he touches her, how gentle he is. How he reveres her. Her breath escapes her slowly as he strokes her hair behind her ear. His hand trails down to – ohh. Her spot. He calls it 'her spot'. The place that makes her want so much more. She has to stop herself from keening. She lets the words go again. я тебя люблю. She can feel the love in his caress. The stutter of his touch skimming down her throat. Her words reverberate back to her. From the thrum of her vocal cords to the pads of his fingers and back, burning his fingerprints onto her thin skin. A warmth glows in her chest at the thought of him returning the words. And even as her skin cools from the absence of his hand, she's warmed by the thought. Of hearing the words in the soothing dark rather than the too bright light.
тебя люблю.
They slip out again, a leaking faucet that can't be fixed. Now his whole body moves toward her. The mattress dips and the springs creak. Her eyes stay closed and her smile hidden. She senses his looming presence ever closer. Her stomach clenches in anticipation. Does he reach for her in sleep? Or has the quiet of night woken him as well?
His lips find their place on her shoulder. She tightens her hold on her pillow. The chill runs through her, her nerves firing off in excitement. The creases of his mouth remain imprinted on her.
She can't not touch him. She reaches out her hand, eyes still closed, the thrill of feeling for him humming through her. And yet it is not so much searching for him as it is answering a call, with how in-tuned to him she is.
Her hand finds his chin, rides the edge of his jawbone up to his cheek. The rasp of his 5o'clock shadow scratches her palm. Her thumb strokes him, finding the corner of his mouth. Oh, the things that mouth did to her. She wants him to know, wants to show him.
я тебя люблю. She wants him to believe in the words she has never said in the light of day.
He kisses her thumb. As if he knows, understands.
She curls in towards him. She wants to feel all of him. Not just his legs and his cheek. Everything.
He moves towards her as if he can sense her need. He curls into her, his lips connecting with her chest, not too far above her scar. She keeps in her whimper. Even after all this time, it still feels like that first night. With slower pulses and calmer breath, but the reverence still speaks to her soul. His kiss drags him down into sleep, tucked perfectly under her chin.
Oh, she loves him, she loves him. Kate curls around him. She rests her head against his, breathing in the scent of his morning shampoo and the dried sweat from not too long ago. His arms skim her body, tug her as he wraps himself around her abdomen. She can feel his forearm slide along her ribs, over her long scar. The surgical path to her heart. And it's been so long and it's irrational and he's asleep but she has to have him feel it. To feel her beating heart. She tugs him. Fingers carding through his hair, arms around his shoulders, she tugs him into herself, closer and closer. Her heart is his. Her lips on his ear. я тебя люблю.
He sinks into her.
It's nothing, yet it's everything. This moment. This is what always feels like. And the night goes on.
I love you
A/N: These chapters were inspired by sleepless nights, incredible bed sheets, and my inability to say "I love you" in English.