Chapter 4: Payback

Castle orders dinner, borrows a book from Kate's shelves and repatriates himself to her bedroom. There is no chair. He can sit on the floor or sit on the bed or bring a chair from her dinner table in. The bureau smirks at him. Just like Kate would. His eyes are instantly drawn to the drawer in question. The handle is smirking at him. At any moment it will become the face of Jacob Marley aka Kate Beckett. It's even tantalisingly not-quite-open but a fraction off fully shut.

Castle sits down on the bed, turns his back on the bureau, and opens the book. Ten seconds later he fixes the bureau with an attempted glare. He's sure the drawer was further open than it was. He turns away again. Another ten seconds passes. He's sure he hears it opening, but when he flicks round it's not doing anything at all. It looks unwarrantedly innocent, but he knows it's just biding its time. And so the time passes, punctuated only by the minute or two it takes to deal with dinner. He keeps his back firmly turned to the drawer.

He's never been so glad to hear the door open in all his life. Sitting in Kate's bedroom, on Kate's bed, with Kate's underwear drawer in reach and constantly at the front of his mind, is the nadir of torture.

"Hey, Castle." Kate appears in her bedroom doorway, casts a brief glance around, and smirks. "How was the book?" Castle growls. "I see you found the list." Her smirk could now be tied round Alaska with room to spare. "Have you had fun?" Maybe that last wasn't the best idea. Castle pounces on her with remarkable speed and kisses her till she squeaks. Is that supposed to be a punishment?

"You are mean, Kate."

"And you peeked." He lets go of her, fast. She steps back, so he can't grab her again and notice any mirthful quivering.

"What? I did not! I never touched it!" She preserves a perfect poker face. It takes her considerable effort.

"It's open. I left it shut. Didn't you even bother to cover your tracks?" Those drama classes in high school are coming in really handy right now.

"I did not. Check it for fingerprints. You won't find a single print of mine on it." Does he really think that will play in Peoria? He's been around the precinct for weeks. Surely he must know that she'll expect him to have the nitrile gloves available.

"Proves nothing. You've had enough crime scene experience to remember to use gloves." Oh, this is so easy. If only preserving a bland demeanour was as easy as winding him up.

"I didn't. Why won't you believe me?" His voice is beginning to take on a higher pitch. He finally remembers to look round at the drawer. It is indeed half way open. This is just downright marvellous. He's so wound up it's untrue. "I never touched it!" he says again, with the same intonation as an unjustly accused child. She's never heard him actually squeak with indignation before. If she wasn't concentrating so very hard on keeping a straight face she'd already be doubled over on the floor with laughter. Though that's not far away.

"Well, who did then? The underwear pixies? You were the only person here. I left it firmly shut. Now it's wide open. Unless you're telling me you let the delivery man into my bedroom?" She's particularly proud of that last line, delivered with absolutely the right note of horror.

"No! Of course not! He didn't even get past the front door." Kate raises an eyebrow sceptically and rolls her eyes.

"So if it wasn't you, what was it? Ghosts? Poltergeists? Little green men from Mars?" Castle looks blank. "What, no way-out theories?" He shakes his head dismally. "Must have been you. Guess you just couldn't resist temptation. Which set did you like best? Black? Scarlet? Pure" – she drags the word sensuously over her tongue – "white?"

"I never saw any of them. Really I didn't. I don't know how it got open but it wasn't me." He sounds really upset that she doesn't believe him. She pats him consolingly – but very patronisingly – on the shoulder.

"I suppose it was unfair," she says sadly. "I should never have put such a strain on your self-control. Offering you the chance to rummage through my underwear drawer… Nah. Couldn't expect it. There is one thing that I find a bit strange, though."

"What?" Castle's drooping miserably.

"How come, when neither of us have touched it since I got in, the drawer is now wide open?" Castle spins round. The drawer is now wide open.

"It's a poltergeist!" Castle takes a couple of fast strides towards the errant drawer.

"Aren't you worried about it attacking you?" He completely misses the undertone of uncontrollable amusement in Kate's voice.

"Beckett, it's a real live poltergeist!" He sounds like he's won the lottery.

"I thought poltergeists were, by definition, dead?" she says dryly.

"This is wonderful! You have to come see. We need a trap. Imagine the ramifications!" He's almost reached the drawer. Kate gives up all semblance of control. Castle's so enthused by the possibilities that he doesn't even notice. "What can we catch it in? Have you got a jar?"

"Would it go in a jar?" Kate says very unsteadily. This is delicious. It's wonderful. In about five seconds it's going to be fabulous. Oh, payback is so sweet. Castle's made it to the drawer. He turns round to look at her.

"Of course it would go in a jar. Ectoplasm compresses almost to nothing. Just like Ghostbusters."

"Are you Bill Murray?" She receives a glare.

"No. I'm far braver and better looking." Snort. Snurgle. Keeping any sort of control over her boiling-over mirth is becoming a lost cause. Get on and investigate, Castle. It'll all be spoilt if he delays much more and she explodes in giggles. Snurk. He peers into the drawer. She's making for the door as there's a noise of enraged elephantine proportions.

"Beckett!" Ah. He's found it. She's laughing so hard she can barely walk.

"Yes?" she snorts. "Something wrong?"

"You… you… you are despicable! You set me up. You were horrible to me. You deliberately made it look like I'd been peeking."

"Wouldn't you have?" It's difficult to speak through her gales of laughter. She collapses on to the couch and tries, very unsuccessfully, to stop laughing for long enough to breathe. "Oh, your face. Oh, I should have taken pictures. Oh, that was so funny." She snurks and snorts and snurgles and fails utterly to stop laughing. "Don't you like my contraption?"

He comes barrelling out of her bedroom with a tangle of springs and levers and makes straight for her. She's still limp with laughter and doesn't get out the way fast enough. Next thing she knows he's grabbed her giggling form and is imprisoning her on his lap. Not the worst outcome in the world.

"You deliberately set me up." She nods, happily. "You set it all up. You tricked me. You really made me think I'd failed your test." She snickers some more. "You never meant any of it, did you? You just wanted to wind me up."

"Yep," she says cheerfully. "And I got you but good. Shall we have dinner?" Oh. Somehow getting up doesn't seem to be happening.

"Not yet," Castle says direfully. "You were mean. You didn't play fair. In fact, Beckett" – Beckett? Uh-oh – "you cheated. And now I've got you. You can't move." Oh. She can't. That's not playing fair, either. He hadn't looked so toned that he could stop her pulling away. Not that she'd been doing a lot of looking, lately. She'd had some difficulty keeping her eyes open. And the angle of her vision hadn't been too helpful, either.

"You said anything I wanted, if I'd only buy you out of the clutches of the sharks at the fundraiser. Stop complaining. I got what I wanted. I completely pranked you. And now you're just being a sore loser." There's a growl under her ear, which is currently (how? She didn't do that – did she?) tucked against his chest.

"But I didn't lose. I completed the list. So I won. So you have to come out on another date. That'll be the third date. Fourth, if you count the fundraiser. So we're dating. Officially." What the hell? She's squawking. She never squawks. She sounds like a constipated pigeon. She gibbers. She never does that, either. Now she's turned into some form of brain-fried monkey. She needs to get this together. Dating? Her brain fries again.

That is entirely unfair. Now who's cheating, Castle? Ohhh. Definitely cheating. She can't concentrate when he's delicately tracing a fingertip down into the vee of her shirt and undoing her buttons as he goes.

"You're my girl." There's enough male satisfaction in his voice to float Arizona. She will kill him. His girl? No way. If he ever says that anywhere outside her apartment she will dismember him. It sounds good though – what? Nonsense. Ridiculous teenagery possessive statements do not give her a warm glow. Oh. They do. Well, it shouldn't. So it can't. Sorted. So he can just lose that sexy smirk. He can stop undoing her shirt, too. Oh. He has. Good. Really. Oh. It's because he's run out of buttons.

"We are not dating." He smiles seraphically. She'd hit him, if she could free her hands. Tugging her shirt down her arms to stop her was not fair. Hot, but not fair – what? She doesn't know him well enough for that. Yet, says a seductive little voice in her head. It sounds alarmingly like Castle.

"Silly Kate," he smiles affectionately. Silly? She growls dangerously. "Of course we are. You don't have to tell anyone, though."

Phew.

"I'll do that." NO! He grins. It bears a remarkable and deeply unwanted resemblance to her earlier crocodile smirk.

"I'll start with Ryan and Espo – oh, and Lanie. She'll kill me if I don't tell her first. Paula will need to hear, to manage the PR. The rest can wait. Well, except Mother and Alexis. Oh – and Captain Montgomery." She's squawking wordlessly but furiously.

He's tricked her again. He effectively stops her planned tirade by kissing her. How's she supposed to complain when his tongue's down her throat? She can't even complain that her shirt's now completely off. Her hands should not be encouraging him by holding him closer. He shouldn't feel this good when she's this angry with him. Ought to be angry with him. She'd manage to stay annoyed if he wasn't nibbling her ear, or kissing exactly the right spot on her neck, or palming her breasts with those wickedly large hands. It's very difficult to stay annoyed when she's panting. It's even harder when his mouth is moving naughtily downward and approaching the lace edge of her bra. She's failing utterly to de-fluff her brain into arguments – they are not dating and he is not telling anyone that they are dating – hold on, those are contradictory. If they're not dating there's nothing to tell.

Thought is thrown into chaos when his mouth closes over her nipple and he sucks hard through the fabric and then plays and worries and then, once she's making little noises, undoes her bra and nips at the undercurve, leaves the spot where later she's sure there will be a mark, and promises herself revenge or at least a matching mark. If, that is, she has enough brain cells – oohh – to remember that.

He's stopped. Why's he stopped? Oh, okay. He's kissing her again and she doesn't even have enough brain left to do something about it. Like pull him closer. Or undo his shirt and leave some marks of her own. Or – oooohhh – or... or... Or just let him do whatever he wants because it feels so good and his hand is holding her up and the other hand is on her thigh and making her think some very, very dirty thoughts about what he'll do next and ohhh she was right: he's dancing fingers over her dress pants and some very sensitive areas and she's ohhh squirming against his hand which is entirely unfair because she needs both her hands to hold on to his shoulders and can't retaliate at all.

Which is undoubtedly why he's taken completely shameless advantage of her momentary weakness to undo her pants and insinuate his fingers on to the smooth silk of her panties and – stop. No. Don't stop. She knows exactly what his fingers can do. And she'd rather like them to get on and do it. Now. Except he isn't. Worse, he's stopped kissing her, (which means that perforce she has stopped kissing him, which was not in the game plan) moved her away (which was definitely no longer in the game plan because she'd had some plans, when she could focus her mind again) and stood up. That's not good. He surely can't be that upset by her joke? If he were he'd not have started down this route. He's just teasing her. Humph.

He was just teasing her. Because he's tugged her up and left her shirt behind and ooops she's just fallen into him because she's tripped on her pants which have puddled round her feet. That's Castle's fault, too. If he hadn't tugged, she wouldn't have tripped. Not accidentally, anyway. Oh well. If you have to trip over you might as well fall into a nicely muscled chest and some rather strong arms. Even if he does still have a shirt on. She takes advantage of her misfortune (or something like that) and drops a moistly lascivious kiss on the open vee at his neck. There's an indrawn breath. She points the moral by undoing a few buttons, and nestles in. It's entirely reasonable that she should kiss his pecs. They are, after all, right there.

That's unkind. She was doing something nice. It doesn't happen often. He should just enjoy it. It's not on to run his hand into her hair and stop her kissing that nicely accessible chest and turn her face up just so he can take her mouth again. But she can put up with it for a few more moments. Or hours. Especially as they seem to have re-entered her bedroom. Three steps… two steps… one step – range. She undoes his pants in a trice, shoves them down and watches happily for the first fraction of a second as he trips on them and falls backwards on to the bed. Shame she forgot he was still hanging on to her. She lands rather harder than she'd like and they oof simultaneously as the breath rushes out of each of them. It's not all bad, though. She's ended up sprawled over him, straddling an interestingly engorged area and with the option – which she instantly exercises – of finishing opening his shirt and undertaking a little more testing of her theory that if she nips his nipples he's going to enjoy it immensely. Last time didn't quite supply enough proof, really. More experimentation is needed.

Very little experimentation is actually allowed. Very shortly after she tries she seems to have ended up flat on her back (again) being kissed ruthlessly (again) and naked. (again) Though Castle is also naked. (again) There are some compensations… Another – er – compensation is making itself known to her. Forcefully. Ooohhh. Now if she simply wriggles a little that way and turns into him and brings her leg up round his waist like that and slides… Oh yes. That feels just right.

"I like this dating thing." What? "I really like it." How's she flat on her back again? She opens her mouth. Castle withdraws somewhat and pushes forward again. What was she about to say? Oh yes.

We are not dating. That's what she meant to say. She did. So how did it actually come out as "Me too."? That was not what she meant to say. It really wasn't. But she isn't exactly getting a chance to use her tongue to form words. If she could articulate any words. He's so good at making her feel good and he fits her just perfectly and he's hitting just the right spot and please more she's probably scarring his back but harder he really does not seem to mind and yes, there, now, yes Castle.

Wow. Maybe this dating thing is a really, really good idea. She snuggles in – not that there appears to have been a choice about that, since there's an arm around her already – and tries to unscramble her brain. She feels that she's been tricked, again. How has it happened that he pleaded with her to save him from the shark shoals of seniors at the fundraiser, agreed to do anything she wanted in return, and instead she's gone on two dates with him, promised to go on a third, and here he is in her bed again? Not that she objects to the last one. Oh no. That's not the point. She did him a favour, and how come it's turned into him getting exactly what he wanted? She was supposed to be the one getting exactly what she wanted. He's the one who wants to be dating. She just wanted payback.

Ohhh ohhh. That's sneaky. Deceptive. Duplicitous. Delicious – ohhhh! He shouldn't be allowed to use his tongue like that. How'd he slither down there anyway? Ohhh fuck that feels good when his fingers move and his lips and tongue move and ohhh very careful teeth. Why does she care about payback anyway? It doesn't matter, so long as he keeps doing that.

"That's good," Castle smirks while she's still trying to recover thought and breath and muscle control. "I'd hate to think you were just using me for sex and nothing more." Huh? "Dating involves more than just sex, you know. I can get to know you." His body seems to know her very satisfactorily already. Best friends, in fact, their bodies. "Show you off publicly." She screeches. "Joking, Kate." She settles down again, grumping. "I think I'm going to like dating you officially." He starts to show her just how much he likes it, which turns into how much they both like it, which turns into a tangled mess of exhausted limbs and messy bed.

Dating, huh? She supposes, as she falls asleep cuddled into Castle's body, that it's not such a bad idea.

Six months later, by which time everybody knows that they're dating because Castle has no discretion at all, Castle lets it slip when she's muttering darkly that she has no idea how she got into this situation - that he'd planned the whole thing. It had fallen wholesale into his head at the moment his mother announced he was for sale.

Payback's a bitch.

And... we're done. Thank you all, I hope you've enjoyed it. Please let me know!

PS - I'm sure that if you try hard enough you can construct a timed drawer-opening contraption. If anyone works out how, let me know. For everyone else - please just go with the fictional flow.