Wow, I can't believe the number of story alerts and the general response I got for this little ditty. THANK YOU! I guess the combination of Castle vs. the snowblower (with some Casketty goodness) was just too much of a cliffhanger. I hope I don't disappoint.
Disclaimer: Same as in the previous chapter-I don't own anyone. Although we do own a snowblower, thank goodness.
Thirty minutes later, they stood in the garage, dressed warmly, looking at the large red machine with handles. Well, actually, Rick was trying to look at the large red machine with handles, but he was having a difficult time due to one Detective Beckett, who after she changed, had appeared in a pale pink, puffy winter parka, with the fur-trimmed hood pulled up to cover her head. And not only that. She had furry white boots on her feet, and her skin-tight blue jeans were tucked into the boots. She looked like a snow bunny. She looked adorable.
But then she spoke, and dragged him back from his world of Beckett-bunny admiration. "Tell me again, why do you have to do this now?"
"Because this isn't the whole storm. Last night was only the first part, I guess, and the worst is yet to come. This is kind of a lull in the storm, at least according to Frank. He told me I should try to get it all done now, and then when the rest of the storm comes in, it won't be as hard to do it again. If we wait and have to do everything at once, it'll make everything that much more difficult because there will be more snow and it'll be heavier and more compact and everything."
"Uh...okay."
"So, anyway, what do we do with this thing?"
"Well," she said, staring at it, "I think the first thing you need to do is get it out of the garage."
"Right!" he said, and opened up the garage door. As the garage door went up, the snow swirled into the vacuum of the garage, taking Kate's breath away. "Whew! That's cold!" she exclaimed.
Rick grabbed the blower and pushed it out of the garage, remarking on how heavy the thing was. They couldn't get that far, because a three foot snow drift had decided to situate itself right in front of the door. Kate grabbed a shovel from where it was hanging on the wall of the garage and started to shovel a path in front of the snowblower. "Why are you shoveling? Doesn't that defeat the purpose of using a snowblower?" he asked her.
"It's a snowblower. Shouldn't it be outside in the snow? Besides, aren't these things loud? Do you really want to start it up in here?"
He shrugged. "Guess not." He pushed it into the clear space that she had cleared right outside the garage, and then he stood there, looking first at one side of the machine, and then at the other.
"Are you trying to start it with mental telepathy or something?" Kate sarcastically asked Rick when he didn't make a move to touch the machine.
"That would be nice. There's no key. There's not a place to even put a key if I had one. How are you supposed to start something with no key?"
"Do a dance for the secret snowblower god?" she suggested, which elicited a 'funny, ha ha' type of look from Rick. She laughed. "I think you need to pull that cord." Kate pointed to a cable with the bright red plastic handle attached.
He reached out and pulled the cord slowly. She shook her head. "No, you have to yank it back really fast, to start the engine or whatever. It's like an old lawnmower. Haven't you ever seen someone start a lawnmower?"
"Sure. With a key."
"Castle, we don't have keys. You have to let it go."
"Okay, fine. Here goes nothing. Stand back. I don't want to hurt you."
She moved out of the way and he took the handle in his hand. He braced his legs and counted up to three. On three, he gave the cord a mighty yank, so mighty, in fact, that his hand slipped out of his glove from the force of the quick pull, and the fast, fierce momentum from his pull combined with his hand no longer holding onto the cord made him lose his balance, and it propelled him into the snow drift behind him.
Kate put her gloved hand over her mouth to try to stifle some of her laughter. The look on his face was one of unmitigated surprise. "Uh, Castle? Maybe that was a little bit too much of a yank."
"You don't say," he said dryly as he got up and brushed himself off. He went over and grabbed his glove out of the handle. Unfortunately, it didn't want to cooperate and he ended up in a tug of war to get the glove out.
Kate watched the fight with further amusement, finally telling him, "I think so far, it's snowblower, two, Castle, zero."
"Okay, snow bunny, since you find this so amusing, how about you figure out how to get this monster started?"
"Snow bunny?" she asked him with a challenge in her voice, taking a step forward until she was face to face with him. "You're calling me a..." she raised her eyebrows at him, "snow bunny?"
He tried to back up but found himself trapped by handle of the snowblower. "Well, uh, yeah. You're wearing furry boots and a pink jacket." His voice got cutesy as he grabbed the fur around her hood. "And you have this cute widdle fur around your hood too. Snow bunny." He gave her an impromptu little peck of a kiss on the end of her nose. "And you're adorable." Then he realized what he did and he jumped back, but didn't get very far because the snowblower was still in back of him.
But she looked surprised too, said "Why did you do that?"
He just shrugged and with a half-smile, told her simply, "You look cute."
She eased back from him a bit before she recovered sufficiently to voice her opinion about his description of her attire. "Castle, this happens to be a very warm down jacket. It's practical. As are the boots. Did you not tell me to bring warm clothing? Yes, I believe you did. And if I hear any mention of snow bunnies at the precinct after this, I'd advise you to start being very careful with your coffee and your chair. If you thought the curse of the mummy was bad, wait till you see the curse of the snow bunny." She backed up and walked around him to look at the other side of the snowblower. "Do you really have absolutely no idea how to run this thing? How can you even own it when you have no clue how to use it?"
"It's for Frank to use! I asked what model he wanted and he told me. And I bought it. He's the one that uses it, not me."
"Well, now I guess it is you. And me too, if you can't get this thing working." She bent over to look at it, and he bent over it with her. "Oh, I remember this! I had a friend and I stayed with her for a week when I was a kid after they moved to a house out in Jersey. Her dad was mowing the lawn and we wanted to see if we could start the lawnmower, you know, if we could pull it hard enough to get it started. You know, we were skinny girls and we wanted to prove we were strong or something. Anyway, we kept pulling and pulling and the darn thing wouldn't start. Then her dad came out and he pushed this little rubber plunger thing a few times and then it started right up."
"A magic rubber plunger?" he asked with a smirk.
"Do you want some help with this or not?"
"Fine. Magic rubber plunger it is. You can do the honors." He held out his hand in invitation.
She pushed the primer a few times. "All right. Try it now. That is, unless you think you strained something before."
"Would you rub it if I did?" She sent him one of her looks and he grinned back at her and grabbed the handle of the cable again. He pulled it, and although this time he didn't end up in the snowbank, the snowblower still didn't start either.
Rather than keep trying what appeared to be a futile endeavor, he bent down to look at the levers and switches again. Then he bent down to look even a little more closely at one of them. "Hey, look at this. There's a lever that has little pictures. There's one of a turtle and one of a rabbit. The tortoise and the hare! I bet that's the control for the engine...fast or slow. Ooo, I'm getting good now!" He was obviously very proud of himself.
Kate bent down next to him to look. "Nice detective work, Sherlock Castle. I guess you did learn something from me after all." As she relayed the compliment, she patted him on the back in a congratulatory way. Perfectly normal, except for two things: first, she didn't normally do that type of thing, and second, with her close proximity, it ended up coming across more like somewhat of an embrace, despite their thick winter clothing. He turned to look quizzically at her, and look of amusement left her face as she realized their position. She quickly dropped her arm and stood up.
"Uh, yeah. Uh, so maybe we should try pushing the lever up and then you can try to pull the cord?" she suggested, trying to get them back on track.
"Slow or fast?" he asked. She looked at him, and although he was talking about the engine setting, she got the strangest feeling that there was more than one meaning to his words.
"Slow, definitely slow," she said very resolutely.
With one last look, and a little salute from him to her, Rick turned back to the machine and pulled the lever up to a little past turtle. Then he grabbed the handle and pulled. This time, they got a definite engine sound out of it when he pulled. A smile lit up Rick's face and he fist-pumped, saying "Ooo, I got it now," before grabbing and pulling the cable with more force.
It took two more tries, but then the engine sputtered to life. He raised his hand and high-fived Kate. Then he looked back at the loud machine. "Okay, now what do I do?" he asked.
"What?" Kate shouted, unable to hear him over the loud noise.
He looked up at her and yelled, "Sorry. How do I make it go? And blow. Snow."
"I don't know." She gestured to the big red thing. "You said you got it. So figure it out."
He looked at the levers and saw one with a bunch of numbered settings. It had a little rabbit by it, so he deduced it was for speed. He moved the lever to the highest setting, but nothing happened. The puzzled look on his face must have alerted Kate, and she touched his arm to get his attention, and then pointed to the the squeeze trigger on the bottom of the handle by the speed lever. He squeezed it and the machine shot forward. Rick wasn't ready for it, but it proved to be a good fail-safe because he let go of the handle and the machine stopped. Kate had jumped back out of the way in surprise, and was now laughing at the shocked look on his face. "Geez, Castle, moderation? Slowly, remember?" she shouted at him.
"Right!" he shouted back and gave her a thumbs up. He switched the speed setting to the lowest and set the machine in motion again, only this time at a much slower pace. Kate, still standing off to the side for safety, gave him an A-OK sign with her thumb and forefinger.
But after several feet, the machine slowed. Rick noticed it seemed to be getting stuck in the snow; it wasn't blowing anything. He was beginning to get a feel for the machine now, so he figured there was some way to turn the auger on. He noticed another lever, just like the speed lever, but on the other handle. He engaged both levers, and amidst a bit of a rumble from the auger starting, the big machine started to spit snow out of its chute on the top.
Right into the face of Kate. Which really did make her look like a snow bunny.
She'd been standing off to the side, out of his way so he didn't run over her again. But they were both caught up in figuring out the various buttons and levers on the machine that neither one of them thought to look at where the snow would be directed once the machine started eating it.
Gross oversight.
Rick's joy at finally figuring out how to make the snowblower actually blow snow was quickly overshadowed by the shock of seeing it directed into Kate's face. He quickly let go of the levers and the machine stopped moving and spitting snow, and just sat there idling loudly. He stood there with his jaw hanging open, not really sure what to do, as she was trying to wipe the snow off her face, blinking her eyes furiously. "Castle!" she shouted, and then after catching sight of him again, started advancing toward him with a menacing look on her face.
He turned tail and ran. Or tried to, through the snow. She gave chase, yelling at him "Castle, you are so dead for that!"
When he got around toward the back of his house, he looked back to see where she was. Just as he turned, he saw a flash of snow-covered pale pink fly through the air toward him, aiming for a tackle. She did tackle him, but the advance warning that he got by his peek allowed him to avoid most of the tackle by turning his body as he fell. So when he did fall, Kate was the one who ended up almost underneath him.
"You are such dead meat!" she grunted, struggling under him in the fluffy snow. The noise from the snowblower wasn't nearly as loud back here.
"It was an accident!" he defended himself, but then as he looked at the woman almost beneath him, laying in the snow, he became entranced by the droplets of snow that had melted into water on her skin, and by the snow that still clung to her eyelashes and to the hair framing her face.
"Castle, that little stunt-" she began, but then her words were cut off as Rick, having lost all train of thought along with all of his willpower or resistance as he stared at her, lowered his lips to hers, claiming them in a tender series of kisses.
Kate immediately stopped struggling once she realized that she was laying in the pristine white snow, being kissed by Castle. Kissed! By Castle! And very nicely, she thought. She broke away, having grabbed his face to pull it away from hers because she couldn't back away. His eyes bore into hers, seemingly as shocked as she was by the sudden kiss. But even though neither had intended for it to happen, they could both read the sudden desire in each other's eyes amidst the confusion of their new position. Kate's eyes flitted between Castle's eyes and his mouth, and she realized that even though she hadn't planned on this at all, she wasn't ready for it to be done yet. The bell had been rung, it couldn't be unrung, and she wanted to ring it again. Loudly. So she grabbed the back of his neck and drew his lips down to hers again.
When he felt her hand at the back of his neck, Rick felt twin stabs go through him-one of relief that she was continuing what he'd started, and the other one desire. When he felt her tongue touch his, he responded by pressing her a little more into the snow, not wanting to let her have a chance to escape from this snow heaven. Their lips worked over each others willingly, feverishly. He only wished that he could touch more of her skin than just her lips, but they were both clothed for the weather and had no other bare skin exposed other than their faces. They both melted into the kiss, taking it slowly and savoring the new feelings between them.
After several minutes of laying there, their kisses slowed and they reluctantly pulled away from each other. They opened their eyes and looked at each other, still seeing the same people they'd been an hour ago, but now seeing so much more too. Their eyes were dark with desire, and now that desire was openly directed toward the other person; no curtains, no looking away, no trying to hide it. And also in each others eyes they saw possibilities, although neither was willing to acknowledge those possibilities quite yet.
Kate broke the silence first. "My butt is getting cold." Then she gave him a small smile.
At the sight of her smile and the words of her light comment, he knew they were okay. He grinned back at her and pushed himself back and stood up, then reached his hands down to help her up. "Want me to help you brush it off?" he asked with that suggestive tone that he did so well.
"No," she told him plainly. But then with a suggestive tone of her own, she added "not this time." And she sauntered off toward the front of the house, walking through the tracks that they'd just made. "Come on, Castle," she shouted to him, "the snowblower is still running and you still have a bunch of snow to take care of before the rest of the storm hits."
Rick followed Kate back around to the front of the house, never noticing the woman trying to hide herself in the curtains of one of the upstairs bedrooms as she looked out over the back yard. Martha stood there with tears in her eyes and a big smile on her face, so happy to have seen that her son and the lovely detective had finally, finally decided to dig their heads out of the sand and do something about the sparks that flew between them.
And that was going to make the rest of this little getaway very interesting indeed.
How did you like it? Was it enough of a battle between Castle and the snowblower?
Like I said in chapter 1, this was supposed to be a one-shot, and then it morphed into a two-shot. So is it better to just end it here, and let you leave the rest of it to your imaginations, or continue it? Let me know what you think!
Reviews are always appreciated! Many thanks to those of you who took the time to share your thoughts with me about the previous chapter. Hope you enjoyed this one!
