December 3 - I have finally realized: I need your love
Castle wakes up and stretches in bed, whines as he yawns, chuckles to himself for no real good reason - just kinda tickled. Pleased. Maybe he was dreaming.
Kate. Just. . .Kate.
He grins and checks the alarm clock - she's probably already at work, but she hasn't called with a body so he'll take his time, roll in around nine or so. His usual.
He probably should shower and dress, be respectable first, but no. He wants to see the Advent calendar, see what else is in there.
Castle slides out of bed and hisses at the cold floors, heads for the dining room as he yawns again. He finds his sweatshirt thrown over the couch and snatches it up, tugs it over his head. Coffee would be good too.
His phone is. . .where? Huh, maybe-
Oh, here we go.
Castle muffles another yawn as he calls up the playlist, starts today's song. He turns up the volume and sticks it on the kitchen counter as he pulls the carafe from coffeemaker. The low beat thrums through the loft and he finally takes a long, first sip from his mug.
Ahhh.
Oh, it's a Muse song. Cool.
Castle's fingers fumble through an air guitar rendition, thump on the counter in rhythm. He takes another long swallow of coffee and his eyes catch the three-dimensional Advent calendar like he's been purposefully not letting himself look.
Which is exactly what he's been doing. Because now that he sees it, he can't do anything but want it.
Advent.
Castle grins and shuffles over to the dining room table. He crooks his finger in the casement and tugs the window open.
Nothing?
Oh, wait.
Castle ducks his head and sees the glint of flat plastic, scrapes his nail across it to bring it forward. A guitar pick. She's giving him a guitar pick?
Huh.
It's cool though - bright red with a black thumbprint on the fat end. He flips it over and sees she's written two words: Game on.
Ga-
Whoa. Wait. Game on? She hates playing Guitar Hero with him. She-
Muse. Oh no. She's gonna kick his butt at 'Knights of Cydonia', isn't she?
Kate startles when arms wrap around her waist, but in the next instant she smells coffee.
Doesn't excuse the ambush hug. "Castle."
"Guitar Hero? Really?" His mouth presses a quick kiss to the spot behind her ear. "Can it be a marathon?"
She rolls her eyes and turns into his embrace, glances around the break room, but they're alone. She leans in and brushes a soft kiss to his mouth. "Yeah. Guitar Hero marathon, Castle. Merry Christmas."
He laughs at her, fingers squeezing her hip, and crowds in closer to give her a tight, celebratory embrace. She has to hold her coffee away from him to keep it out of the path of his happy destruction, patting his cheek when he nudges into her, kissing her again.
His smile makes it sloppy, and she pushes him away. "Okay, Castle. Let me drink my coffee. You sticking around?"
"Nope. Can't. Gotta practice."
"No way," she laughs. "That's cheating."
"I haven't played that game in ages, Kate. I gotta make sure I can still bring it."
She lets her eyes flick to his mouth and drag back up to meet his gaze. "Oh, you bring it, Castle. No need to worry."
He huffs at her, a startled eyebrow up and his fingers tugging her closer.
"Not-uh, Romeo. I've got a Monday's worth of work waiting on me." She can't help the stupid smile that teases her lips, but she pushes him away again. "And no help from you, apparently."
He shrugs with that little boy look, but he lets her go. "When are you coming over?"
"Soon as I get done. You gonna make me dinner?"
"Does ice cream count as dinner?"
Kate wrinkles her nose and sidesteps him as she presses her coffee cup to her chest, leading him out. "Real dinner, Castle. Make Guitar Hero worth my while."
"You've been practicing!"
Kate can't even hide the smirk, but she keeps her eyes on the game, focuses intently on the movement of the colored notes up the screen, fingers flying.
"When?" he grunts. "When did you have time for this? This is crazy."
She doesn't reply - she can't really - she has to maintain her concentration. It's hard.
"Come on. This is ridiculous. How long? How long have you been practicing Guitar Hero without me?"
"Oh, poor baby. I bet you spent two months after it came out playing in your pajamas."
"In my shades, dress shirt and underwear, actually."
"Your. . ." She takes her eyes off the screen for just an instant and she hears the missed notes, jerks her head back to the game. "Your sunglasses and underwear?"
"You know. Like Risky Business."
Kate laughs explosively, just picturing Castle in his white socks and dress shirt, eyes hidden behind his shades, the pale flesh of his thighs flashing-
"Whoa. Suddenly you're terrible."
Kate growls and tries to pull her mind back, but then Castle is crowding into her, breathing hotly on her neck. She stumbles through a series of three, the colors across the fret board, and hears Castle hum in devious pleasure.
Uh-oh.
His fingers shiver up the inside of her arm even as her own work frantically at the colored buttons of the guitar, but it's hard. Difficult. It's so difficult when his mouth is skimming her neck, his heat making her chest flush.
On the game, the crowd is starting to hiss at her, natives getting restless because she keeps missing notes.
"You ever try this song on Expert?" he murmurs. "Cause I know those fingers. Strong. Nimble. So very-"
"You have to stop," she croaks. "Not fair. It's not-"
His mouth attaches to her earlobe, sucks.
Her knees tremble and Castle is sliding his arm around her waist, as if he's helping her, but it's worse - it only makes it worse-
And then she's not just missing, but totally punching the wrong colors, hitting green instead of red, not able to reach the orange, and she can't even follow the thing, and now the song is falling apart and the crowd is outright booing her and-
Castle crows in her ear. "Fail! You lose."
Kate elbows him hard and spins around, poking his chest. "You cheated."
"You did first. Practicing ahead of time."
"You did the same thing all morning, Castle."
"You're just mad because you lost."
"No. Not-uh. Rematch." She spins away from him and strums the guitar, restarts the song.
"You're on," he says, but unloops the strap from her neck and takes the guitar out of her hands. "But my turn first."
He's right. She has been practicing. And she is gonna mop the floor with him.
They shoved the coffee table out of the way, pushed the leather couch under the window, had to remove the chairs to the living room. His desk Castle nudged to the other side.
"We need room."
"Only because you dance around when you play," she mutters.
"Fine. I need room. Now-" He makes a shooing gesture with both hands.
"Am I dismissed?" she says archly.
"For now. I need total silence so I can concentrate."
She narrows her eyes at him and stalks closer. One finger comes out to the body of his guitar and presses down, the strap pulling against his neck. He winces and gives her a lame smile, all heh, you wouldn't and appeasement in his eyes.
"You're trying to quit while you're ahead," she accuses.
"No, I'm not."
Oh yeah, he totally is. Look at that - he can't help but smirk. She growls. "That's cheating. We're playing until I win this thing back."
"You should just. . .go eat the dinner I made you," he says finally. "I'm going to switch to World Tour and play 'Hotel California' and it takes ages. Then we can switch back and battle it out."
Kate crosses her arms over her chest, but her stomach is growling and three hours of Guitar Hero III is really just too much. She needs a break.
But she's not about to let him know that.
"Come on," he cajoles, wriggling closer even with the guitar between them, his hands coming to her hips, eyes so very blue on hers. "Just eat a few minutes, Kate, and you'll be all energized and ready to come back strong. Let me have six minutes and eight seconds to play."
"Alone."
He pulls out the wrinkled brow, the sad eyes, even the crease to his bottom lip, and she gives in, turns for the living room.
"Fine. Have your six minutes to play in peace. But I'm coming back. And when I do. . .you're going down."
She escapes to the kitchen, grinning to herself, about ready to die of starvation.
This night is working out so well.
Castle yelps when she slaps him. "Woman."
"Stop messing me up."
"Competitive much?"
"Surely you didn't think I was going to let you win."
"Let me?" he gasps.
"Stop talking. Stop distracting me. Go get us some dessert."
He grumbles, but leaves her to head to the kitchen.
She's the one who starts singing along to the ones she knows. He's not expecting it, just picking out the notes while he plays Weezer's 'My Name is Jonas', and then suddenly she's bouncing a little on her toes and softly singing. She knows every word.
thanks for all you've shown us; this is how we feel.
He doesn't dare open his mouth and comment, wouldn't even dream of teasing her, because even after a year of doing this, being together, some things are still so intimate, so personal, that when he's given a view of her private stuff, he can't speak.
She's just really enjoying the song, and he's enjoying her.
And when his favorite part comes around, and she's still on her toes in time to the beat, her eyes on the screen and watching him play, he can't help half-singing the words under his breath:
the workers are going home, yeah, yeah, yeah-
Kate turns her head and flashes him a grin, and that does it, that ruins him. He misses every note after that because he has to frame that beautiful, smiling, joyful face with his hands and press his mouth to it, taste her.
She's amazing.
"It's so late," she groans. "It's so very late. On a school night, Castle."
"One more. One more, please, please please. We can both play."
Kate wrinkles her nose, glances again at her watch. "Okay. One more."
"Yes!" he crows, doing a dramatic spin in his socks on the wood floor. She laughs and rubs a hand through her hair, trying to wake herself up.
"You pick the song," she nudges, carefully holding her guitar up so she can move in closer to his side. Castle is already scanning through the set list, vacillating over some, coming back to others, obviously trying to make it a good one.
She tilts her head against his shoulder and yawns, watching him move through the songs, blinking slowly. As far as mastery goes, they're pretty much even, though on some, Castle was playing at Expert level, so his percentages weren't as good as hers on Hard.
And then a song she almost picked for his Advent playlist scrolls by and she stiffens. "That one. Let's do that one."
"Rolling Stones?" he asks, turning his head to her.
She nods. "Yeah. Please." She knows she's faintly blushing, her heart beating too hard. It will only mean something to her - he'll never get it - but it would be. . .
Special. Because it's part of the whole thing, part of what she's trying to show him, even though this song is rather oblique and it would never mean to him what it means to her.
A red door.
"All right then. Here we go. Rolling Stones 'Paint It Black.'"
And even though they apparently are both too tired to hit all the guitar notes, they both know all the words.
I see a red door and I want to paint it black.
Castle crawls into bed behind her and his elbow buckles, sending him flat on his face. Kate snorts a laugh and pushes at him with her knee, her eyes already closing.
"Someone's tired," she mumbles.
"But so much fun." He cups his hand behind her thigh and settles on his back, yawning again.
She hums and draws her arm around his ribs, her mouth landing at his shoulder in what he guesses was supposed to be a kiss. Castle grins to himself and half turns towards her, raising his hand between them to stroke her cheek.
She opens her eyes, blinking, a question unspoken.
"Kate."
"Yeah."
"You rock."
A/N: I have not seen Christmas Castle, obviously, so let's assume that doesn't happen December 3rd. I reserve the right to incorporate it later, if it turns out to be important to the emotional trajectory of my AU version of Beckett and Castle.
