Unique In All the World


Castle pulls back the shower curtain, clutching his son tightly with one arm, and he reaches for the towel hanging from the bar. It's faintly damp from bath earlier tonight, but it'll work. He pulls it down and wraps it around Dashiell, steps over the tub to place the boy on the rug.

Dash shivers even though he's wrapped up, and Castle has goose bumps racing across his arms and legs as he squats down before the kid to rub him dry. Dashiell grips his father's knees and runs his hands along Castle's goose bumps, just as he does to Kate when she hasn't shaved.

Strange little kid.

Castle feels the overwhelming urge to protect him, this kind-hearted boy with his defenseless skin and different brain. Protect him, shelter him. Never let the world touch him. But that's impossible, and probably not good for the kid (as he has to remind himself).

He cups Dashiell's face and kisses his forehead, gruff with it, with his own feelings clogging his chest. He remembers that moment when he held Alexis for the first time, and how he had that sensation of oh God, it's up to me - but he didn't have that with Dash or Ellery. Not like that, not that overwhelming sense of being singularly responsible. He had Kate, and he knew they would parent together no matter what, and there was such confidence in knowing that Kate Beckett was his children's mother.

Nothing against Meredith, but he had felt, from that first moment holding Alexis that it would be all on him. He would have to be responsible.

He feels that same inordinate duty here now. He doesn't know why. Kate is Dashiell's mother, and exactly the mother this boy needs, but even as Castle crouches over his son in the draft coming in through the bathroom door, he's convicted. He has to protect this boy.

He has to.

Castle is responsible because Dashiell has needs that both parents have to be on top of. It's not just Kate - making schedules and emotional barometers and patiently answering every question. Castle absolutely has to follow through. Pull-ups at night, for one - and he knows he forgot a couple times with Alexis, got out of the routine, and there were tear-filled I had an accident, but this is different. Dashiell is different, and Castle has to be better.

Dashiell, unique in all the world, and Castle has to be the father he needs.

He wraps his son in the towel and picks him up again, leaving their sodden clothes on the tile floor. Out in the hall, Dashiell clamps shut his chattering teeth and squirms down deeper into the towel while Castle strides naked to the boy's bedroom.

He finds clean pajamas for the kid, and of course, a pull up, and he helps the damp boy wrestle into everything. Dashiell pats his shoulder with a curled lip. "You're wet, Daddy."

"It'll dry. And I've got pajamas downstairs." It is kind of weird to be naked in front of his two year old. Even six months ago, he might not have cared, but Dashiell's awareness of his own body has slowly dawned, and he's studying his father.

"I go with you," Dashiell says.

"Okay, buddy. Sure." He needs to change Dashiell's sheets and start the laundry too, and then a little expedition through their bedroom - where the boy can see his mother - might be in order. "But let me get your bed sorted."

"Sorted," Dash echoes.

"It's not bad," he reassures. "Just don't want to leave it overnight. Remember how Mommy put the plastic cover on the mattress? It's just fine. It happens and that's why we have the plastic."

"Makes a funny sound."

"Oh?" Castle murmurs. "I bet it does." Huh. Wonder if that's been waking him up.

Castle puts the boy in the doorway, just to keep him from wandering back into the mess, never know with Dash, and he turns around and strips the bedding from the mattress. The comforter is damp as well, but not as bad as the sheets and blanket, and he wads everything up and wraps the pin-stripe comforter around it.

"Hey, stay right here. Don't touch it," he says, moving around the boy. He uses the bath towel to gather their wet clothes, and he adds that to the load on the floor of Dashiell's bedroom. "Okay. Let's take this down to the washing machine."

"Naked," Dash says, one little eyebrow dancing up and down.

Castle chuckles. "Yup. Still naked." He picks up Dash once more and carries him back through the hall, sticks his head into the baby's room to check on her (still asleep), and then down the stairs, balancing his two loads.

Dashiell winds an arm around Castle's neck and holds himself away from the soiled bedding. But his shame and tears have gone, and he seems sleepy, battling the droop of his eyelids.

Castle sets Dash on his feet in the living room. "I'm gonna start the washer. Hang on."

But he can sense Dashiell following him like a puppy through the room and past the fireplace, to one side of the kitchen and to the door of the laundry. He opens the lid of the machine and stuffs everything inside, uses the detergent with bleach in liberal amounts, and starts the cycle.

When he turns around, Dashiell is giggling at him.

He feels better, even though he knows what the kid is laughing about. "Don't. Yours will look like this when you're older." He snags a t-shirt and a pair of boxers from the basket of clean clothes he forgot to fold last week, and he pulls them on.

"Mine?"

"Yeah. Growing up. That's what it does."

"Huh."

"Don't worry. It's not a bad thing."

"But a whole lotta pee."

Castle chokes on his laughter, but he leans over and gathers Dash into his arms. "Yeah, maybe so. But at least I don't have to worry about having an accident. Well, not until I get very old."

"Very old," Dash mumbles. He seems perturbed that Castle is laughing, and still sleepy too, so Castle stands up with his son and carries him out of the laundry.

"Did I do a good enough job?" he asks, nosing into Dash's temple.

Dashiell tilts his head back. "I guess."

"I haven't put clean sheets on your bed yet," he admits. "But I thought maybe, if you can be still and quiet enough, you could sleep with us in the big bed."

Dash gives a soft sigh, as if his whole world has been made right. "Yes, I can be so quiet."

"Sounds good, huh?" he whispers, rubbing his son's back. Dashiell's language has really grown by leaps and bounds since his sister was born, from grunts and one-word sentences to full blown conversations.

Choosing his moment.

"Come on, my man. Let's get in the big bed."

"Mommy."

"Yeah, your mommy is there too."

He carries Dashiell back through the dark living room and down the hall. At their bedroom, Dash is too tired to lift his head, but he reaches out for a sleeping Kate.

"Shh, quiet, remember? Mommy was on Mars today; it was a long trip."

Dashiell giggles, but he turns a curious eye to his father.

"Mars is far away. You can ask her in the morning." Castle lowers the boy to the bed, keeping him close with a hand on his shoulder. He follows after, lying down and keeping Dashiell in the middle. "No, don't wake her."

He wraps an arm around Dashiell and squeezes, a trick they learned from the therapist, Dash squirms in the tight embrace - but it settles him. Castle carefully draws the covers up, watching Kate in the darkness to be sure they don't wake her.

Dashiell lays his head on the mattress, practically dwarfed by his father's arm around him. Castle leans a little into the boy's back, giving him some deep pressure, and Dash sighs happily.

"Sleep, Dash. Better in the morning."

Fighting sleep himself, Castle stays awake as long as he can, in case Dash needs him, in case there's more than just the disappointment of having an accident, more than just a boy who has trouble transitioning into slumber.

It takes an hour. An hour of listening and fighting sleep, quiet in the darkness, smoothing his fingers along the side of his son's face just like Kate always does. Over and over so that the boy's eyelids shut in reflex until finally, finally, Dashiell's eyes close for good and he falls asleep.

Castle lets himself follow.