December 7 - Full Grown
The holly and the ivy,
When they are full grown,
Of all the trees in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.
-The Holly and the Ivy, Gibson Bull
"Castle."
"Um."
"Castle," she snaps. She hears it. She does. She hears how it sounds coming out of her mouth, but her irritation level is pretty high right this moment.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," he chants. "One second, Kate."
She crosses her arms over her chest. "Castle."
His head finally turns, snapping, towards her, the controller in his hands, the headset over his ears. He starts fumbling, reaching forward to disconnect, shut down, press pause, whatever it is on that game, and something weird happens to her.
She's nagging.
She's - turned into this?
"No," she says suddenly. "No, I didn't mean you had to stop playing. Castle." She did mean it. But. Now she doesn't. "Play your game. Patel? Is that his name? Beat the pants off him."
"You... mean that? I mean, it's just a video game. I can be done-"
"No," she says, uncrossing her arms. "I was going to ask if you - if you needed anything." It's a really terrible lie, but she should probably get out of the house. "I'm heading to the - drug store."
"You are?"
She is? "Yes. Need some stuff. Vitamin C, all that." Supplies. She really does; it's legitimate. "Your throat sounded rough this morning - you want me to get cough drops or those zinc lozenges?"
He blinks at her. This is - a little surreal - the two of them doing this strange dance.
She waves her hand at him. "Never mind. I'm going. You have fun."
"Okay. Uh. Let me know when you get back?"
"Sure."
She's not the nagging housewife.
She's not.
When Kate gets back, she comes all the way into the office and combs her hand through his hair. He startles hard and jerks his chin up to look at her.
"I'm back," she laughs softly.
He immediately pauses the game, drops the controller. "I can be done if you-"
"No, I can entertain myself." She holds up the book she found at the drug store. "Got a book."
"Better not be cheating on me with James Patterson."
"Nope," she says brightly, bending down to kiss that wrinkling forehead. "Cheating on you with Jennifer Egan."
He's grinning as she pulls back. "Oh, girl on girl action-"
She pushes her fingers into his temple and knocks him back. "You play with yourself, Castle, I'll play with this."
"Kinky." But he's reaching for his video game again, his attention split. That's okay. She's got The Keep by Jennifer Egan, a novel about a tower in a castle, and she really can entertain herself.
Castle comes crawling up the bed, jostling her. Her eyes are slow to lift, reading the next few sentences voraciously, trying to finish the thought.
"Kate," he husks.
It was one of those views that made you feel like God for a second. The castle walls looked silver under the moon, stretched out over the hill in a wobbly oval the size of a football field. Looking down made something go easier in Danny.
"Kate." He lays down at her side, wrapping an arm around her, and she has to lift the book to keep from losing her place. His chin lands on her shoulder. "Kate."
Her gaze jerks, travels over her shoulder to him. His hair is sticking up, cheeks flushed. "Rick?"
"Did you happen to get those zinc things?" he gruffs. "I feel hoarse."
"You sound hoarse," she murmurs, lifts her fingers to his forehead. His skin is burning. "You have a fever?"
"Maybe?" Slow blink. "No. I'm okay. Video game got intense. I started losing; makes me hot."
She takes one last lingering look at her book, turns down the corner of the page-
"No, don't stop," he rasps. "Just tell me where you put those throat things."
She pauses. "In the bag on the bathroom counter. I haven't put them away yet."
His kiss is rough against the skin of her cheek. "'Kay. Stay. I'm good."
She follows his departure with her eyes, but The Keep is calling her back. Ghost story and mystery, the little drowned girl in a tidal pool, the broken man narrating a life she's not sure is even real.
She vaguely registers Castle rifling through the bag from the drug store, but she's already back in the book.
When she's forced to, she wanders through the loft with the book in her hands, barely lifting her eyes to watch where she's going, heading for another cup of coffee, or heading for the thermostat to notch up the heat, or heading for an apple so she won't have to stop and eat dinner. Just read.
Her husband is a second presence haunting the loft. Alexis is there at some point, asks what she's reading, Martha makes a comment, they disappear from her radar. Castle stays peripheral when he's never peripheral - outlier and entity, a contrail in the sky of her horizon when usually he's the golden sun.
He followed Mick through the doorway into a shady passage paved with cobblestones. Inside the castle walls it was almost dark. Danny felt the beginning of fear, that ice in his chest. He touched the knife through his coat. He was sweating. Danny looked at Mick's cashed-out face and felt an ache. All that struggle, all that failure.
She pulls her knees up in bed, coffee mug against her chest, turns the page, soaking in the story.
At some point, she senses Castle doing something, being - other, but she doesn't pull out enough to know what. Her awareness surfaces every now and again to notice odd details, but her consciousness doesn't put them together: the door closing, Castle coming through to the bathroom, a woman's voice, the television coming on, water running.
Late, too late, no light left in the sky, she lifts her head and realizes her eyes are straining, the bedroom is basically dark, and the bed is heavy and close with body heat.
Castle is asleep beside her.
She folds the book closed around one finger to mark her place, and she lays her hand to the back of his head. He's turned away from her, shoulder hunched in, and he's radiating heat. She skims her fingers to his forehead, pushing back his bangs, and he seems to rouse.
"Rick?"
"Feels good," he sighs.
She trails her fingers over the bone structure of his face, eye socket and cheek, the prominent chin and jaw. "You take anything?"
"Yeah."
"You need anything?"
"No."
"Okay," she whispers.
The day gives up and the room sinks into darkness. She leans over and turns on the bedside lamp, the golden glow spilling around her, but he's still in shadow.
She returns her hand to the top of his head. "If the light bothers you-"
"No," he husks. "It's fine, fine."
"Just let me know," she finishes. She combs her fingers through his hair a moment more, watching him, and he slowly works his shoulders back until he's pressed against her side, spine to her thigh.
She uses one hand to turn the pages, leaves the other to pet her husband, smooth and continuous, the heel of her hand resting behind his ear, fingers over his eyebrow.
Danny felt the battle in Ann: how much she wanted to please Howard to make up for the stuff with Mick and keep this castle adventure a fun thing for everyone, but also how she knew it was a shitty, stupid idea to go in the tunnels and didn't want to go or let her kid go. But if she stood in the way, Howard would go ahead and have the adventure without her. And she'd be the one who stayed behind.
Sometime during the darkest part of the night, when she's glanced at the clock twenty times and promised herself this is the last page but it never really is, Castle turns in his sleep and curls his arm around her thigh, his face against her hip.
He doesn't wake, but she lifts her hands, waits until he settles, and then she goes back to reading, the book propped on his back, her fingers at his shoulder.
Stroking his ear.
Ann took Howard's hand. It was incredible - like she'd forgiven him for getting them into this thing, when they weren't even out yet.
Castle sleeps; she reads until the last chapter is done.
