"What are you doing?"
"I'm picking you up." He kneeled down and scooped her up and the part of her that was looking for him to return to his old self saw this. The rest of her though was defiant.
"I can walk thank you."
"Shutup Beckett."
"Put me down."
He was just as defiant. "Beckett if you don't shutup and let me carry you to your desk I promise I'll drop you right here."
She knew she had made him angry. He was pulling away from her and she didn't know what she had done but she did know she didn't want him to go further. She pulled herself close to him in his arms as he carried her up the two flights of stairs. She laid her head on the crevice of his shoulder and chest and couldn't help but think it was the perfect place for her head to lay down after sex.
His body was warm and he was breathing heavy as he reached the top of the first flight and he pivoted his body to go around the bend.
She felt the whirling sensation for microseconds but it was enough to hope he would kiss her. The butterflies were growing into hawks doing lazy circle shaped flight patterns in the sky. The tension growing like it should. Intimacy and partnership are never things to take for granted. True love is like simmering coals and not a flame. You have to keep fueling the fire at an even, steady rate. At first she wanted nothing to do with him because how could the author live up to the hype of the books he writes?
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When her eyelids gently started to flap open in her bed she was struck with the reality of feeling what she had done. She was drugged, raped and beaten three days before but she hadn't said a single word to her dad. It was hospital, police, forensics and more police for three straight days. When she arrived home her own father wasn't there to say "How ya'been?" but the influx of Mystery Monday on the tv was a wave of comfort. It was an obscure channel her father had forgotten to cancel after it was free and it played any and everything all mystery on Monday's and she caught it during sweeps week. She could read the title and figure out who had committed the crime everytime. What's better than that? She had stumbled on a marathon. It was playing all week. Crime after crime flashed across her eyes and she solved them time after time by noticing things the writers had to put in to keep the watchers watching. A gesture. A directorial cue that he gave to the actors or the lighting or way something was said. The lack of contractions in a speech pattern. The way eyes moved when an actor was speaking. She tracked and followed the subtleties mentally and each time she was right about a case being solved she wanted to know more and more... How would I do as a real detective?
It was more like a pull then her pushing. It was easy for her to disect all the details and evidence. It was always about the evidence in these shows. Point A would lead to name, which would lead to Point B which would lead to motive, which would lead to Point C add an "Oh it was the butler" and roll credits. Writers had 45 minutes of time and 15 minutes of commercials. It all became boring and she soon turned to books. She could study word patterns by the authors and characters that way. If she felt she got good she decided she would enroll in the academy. She started with Arthur C. Doyle and admired Holmes' slightly odd nature. Agatha Christie was more interesting to her because the detective had such a good memory. For a break in those first few weeks she'd devour a romance novel off the discount rack. She rarely finished them but on occosion she'd get one that would grab her.
Then one day on her break from mystery novels and crime shows, she'd become obsessed with feeding her brain any and all sources of things criminal, she came across a book by Richard Castle...
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He plopped her into her chair at her desk and got his phone out.
"What are you doing?" She asked.
"I'm telling my date I was inconvenienced and that I'll be there short-"
"No. What are you doing?"
The emphasis didn't make much sense. He looked behind himself to make sure she was talking to him. "I'm calling my date to tell her-"
"No Castle! What are you doing with her?" Her voice was louder. Much louder. Ryan had entered and when she had spoken up he stopped like a deer in the headlights and had hoped he wouldn't be seen. Castle had seen him though and matched his line of sight. Fortunately Castle spoke first.
"Ryan can you get some ice? I think she sprained her ankle."
"Don't avoid the question!" He heard the clicking sound followed by a sharp slap on his wrist and as he moved to look back at the direction of the sound, towards her, he felt his body motion stop with a metallic clang. She handcuffed him to her desk.
The immediate thought in his mind was of when she said "Next time let's do it without the tiger" but this probably wasn't what he had in mind.
Their eyes met and as much as he wanted to punch her for not letting him walk away, he felt a rush of victory. He had her attention. Although not the best kind.
Ryan had come back with an ice bag and saw the handcuffs linking Castle to the desk. Saw the facedown. Their eyes staring each other right into the pupils and trying to grind the ugly, glorious, awful and sexy truth from their brains. Ryan spoke up, "Ice bag?"
