Working on that 'love makes us do crazy things, jealousy can make us insane, desire can make us irrational'. Hmm, that's where this chapter is going :)
TODAY:
Castle remembers a time during his teen years when his then-girlfriend discovered that he had kissed her worst enemy before her relationship with Richard Rogers began. His girlfriend was livid.
Not as livid as K. Beckett is when she tells him to go and have a shower at his own place, and uses the word sweetheart as someone less lawful might use a gun.
He recalls a time when Meredith found out that he referred to their post-marriage physical relationship as like eating deep fried fun foods. She had been furious. Turned on, maybe, but fuming.
Um, not as furious at Detective Beckett as she stands with her hands on her hips, gritting her teeth together as she flings his cellphone on their bed of love. Until now. It was a bed of love before he'd shown her the message, now it's like the remnants of lust and sex have combusted into a stove of stupidity and sentenced him to HELL.
Castle remembers how Gina responded to rumours he wanted to quit writing. Extreme anger. How Meredith coped with him spending money they just didn't have during the early days. Blind rage. How a young starlet had vented after she realized she was a one-week sex-romp rather than 'future Mrs Castle' … how his interior designer had savaged at him after they broke-up … how his female neighbour had reacted after he admitted to running over her prize-winning rose plants that had blown down in a storm …
'At least it wasn't Ms Kitty,' he had said, referring to the feral cat he had wanted to rundown.
Nothing. Absolutely nothing compared to the way Kate Beckett is currently killing him with a combination of death-stare (one-eyed, even more intimidating) agitated aghast, oily indignation, and perhaps — worst of all — the tint of hurt. It's there, in her single-eyed gaze and she doesn't even try to hide it.
He's a fool.
The very instant he hands her the phone, in a flurry of guilt, anxiety and mirth, he senses his biggest mistake even before it hits him in the face. He'd made a few in the last twelve hours. Castle is guilty about pushing her physically when she hasn't received the all clear, anxious about their now-not-gonna-happen platonic shower — now that would have been a farce if he'd tried to ban all inappropriate touching …
Oh, it would have been soapy, slippery, so different to them together in a tub … but he can't think about that now or he WILL die ...
And, he was jovial about the text from Ryan and Esposito, thought that Kate might need something funny to distract her from the fact that he couldn't coming back to bed, so he had pushed the words in her face before thinking about it. Before checking any of it, really.
Holy shape-shift!
As soon as her eyes flicker over the phone screen, something hard and mighty dies in Castle. It's replaced by a feeling of pure panic. It takes a millisecond to see exactly what he has done and a microsecond to react to her emotional whip-crack. He tries to step onto the front foot to avoid the array of hindsight missiles aimed at his head.
'Yeah, um, Kate? That's so not what it looks like,' he starts, using his hands as a gesture of surrender. Upturned palms, charming smile with messy bed hair, puffed out chest in order to remind her that he's the man from her bed and heart, only moments before including her in on this joke. It's not funny. Her face is all about the unfunny, but he persists, as though words can suddenly render the entire story hilarious. 'This is something that happened just yesterday before you and I were—'
'I'd stop talking if I were you.'
She's so pissed off, Castle thinks he can see a thin spire of steam rising from where her eye-patch meets her skin. He acts as quickly as he can, but unfortunately when he's in Panic Beckett Mode, his filter is as flimsy as the string of words coming out of his mouth. He bumbles a bit. This annoys the hell out of him for a moment. Castle wishes he could butch up, deliver with confidence, not feel so damned emotionally set-upon when he's in the clear.
And then there's her attitude. If he wasn't so intent on putting this right immediately, just so she can go back to recovering and he can resume his daydreaming about their next night together, Castle might be annoyed at her mistrust.
Did the last half-day mean nothing? Have the last three years not allowed Beckett to see the difference between errant playboy and loyal partner? Is she screwing with him? She KNOWS, damn it! She must know it's a bit of fun and she's playing with his head because he's too close. They're getting too close.
'C'mon, Kate! Lighten up, it's a joke.'
If she does know, she's not sharing the slapstick. She's not falling all round the place, holding in her sides so her spleen doesn't erupt from her splitting skin. The fact that she pffts and cloaks herself in her glorious red robe, leaving him entirely naked except for his frown, tells Castle that she's boiling beneath that eye-patch. The fact she's not 'lightening up' has him reaching for his own boxers in a juggle of jingle and bobble. The fact that she's in his personal space, the blunt of her fingernail poking him at the base of his sternum with words spitting and buzzing, makes him realize that this is trouble.
This dream of a night, those hours of fulfillment, that togetherness he wants to replicate again and again and …
'A joke? Really? You think this is a joke, Castle?'
He did. Before she takes the poke of her fingernail and skids it downwards from his diaphragm. Damn! Where the hell are his boxers?
'If you took time to really think about this and—'
'Now you think I'm overreacting?'
She turns, bends, finds his boxers in a flash of obvious anger and frustration. Picking them up, Kate holds them like they are coated in radioactive waste and shunts them in his general direction with a look of disdain. It's when she casts her eye towards the phone on the bed, curls her lip in an expression of disgust and points her finger towards her bedroom door, that Castle's panic turns to agitation. Everything escalates before he has the chance to douse the spot fire.
'It is a joke. Ryan sent that text.'
He reaches for the phone, trying to hook his legs through his boxers at the same time. He ends up on his knees, one hand grasping his cell, his face smothered in the duvet, making him feel like a clown on speed. Nobody's laughing. Castle would grin but he's so intent on proving the sext message came from the guys at the 12th, that his lips try to form more words. Instead, he's subjected to lying face-down in the scent of her — in the memory of their night together — and his brawn pleads with his brain to just make up. The Beckett smell is like a weapon of mess destruction on his resolve to prove that she's wrong about the message. About him, and his devotion to her.
Until …
'Now you're lying?'
She wraps her robe around herself, increasing her guise of self-protection, further reducing the flesh to which Castle was once privy. Damn her and her Beckett 'I won't allow myself to get too close in case I'm hurt by Richard Castle, untrustworthy cad' mantra! The fact she thinks he's lying about this? Enough to ignite the sensitive fuse that leads to his indignation TNT.
'No. Not lying … I don't lie, but I think you should know that by now, Beckett. I—'
'Then why tell me that Ryan sent this text message?'
Whether it's because he's called her Beckett for the first time since they started this, or in reaction to his tone, Kate backs off physically but maintains the scathing look of disdain. Castle reads it every which-way, until his thoughts collide with emotion and he reverts to being angry. It's easier. If he's mad, he can't think too much about her simultaneously hating him, being repulsed by him, and distrusting his (previously well-loved) ass.
God, what he would do for a dose of morphine right about now. Not so much for his pain, but to return the aphrodisiac to this non-Aphrodite.
'I don't know what's pissing me off more,' she mumbles to herself, as he watches her step around to the far side of the bed. He stays where he is, adjusting his boxer shirts, taking a deep breath, running his hand through the bed-mess of his hair. It's not until she passes him in a run of red robe does Castle realize that she's retracing their (previously well-loved) steps into her bathroom and picking up all his clothes en route.
'I can't hear you,' he says, following her, wanting to either fix it or make her eat … eat … what … humble pie? Nope! When he spots the (previously well-loved) bathtub, Castle knows he wants to make her eat bubbles. Followed by an elixir of morphine and meditation music. 'What are you saying? Um, my ears are still burning from when you called me a liar.'
She rounds on him. Her jaw is square, set. Her eyes oval, her fists balled into knobbly spheres. Her hair? Nondescript of shape, but so sexily disheveled, he wants to circle her and spire his hands through it. Some women look like fishwives with oblong red noses when they are enraged. Kate Beckett is even hotter when roused to this level. If the time was right and he thought it might help, Castle would evoke his inner neanderthal, barrel her up against her shower screen and kiss her into submission. If that's the right word? No. Kiss her into an epicentre of trust where there's no need for armour.
'I said,' she raises her voice to ridiculous levels. If Castle wasn't so annoyed, he'd laugh. 'That I don't know what's pissing …' she throws his balled-up shirt at his chest. 'Me …' she flings his pants at his feet. 'Off …' one of his socks follows. 'MORE …' and his other sock at his head. It hits him in the eye. Of all places.
Oh, the coincidence! It socks.
'The fact that you're lying to me, lying about lying OR the fact I …I let ...I … Goddamn it, Castle ...'
She stalks towards him, making to jab him in the sternum again, but just as she's about to jerk, Castle grabs her hand in a move reminiscent of the time she went for her gun and he kissed her as cover.
Kissed her for cover? My (previously well-loved) ass! Cover has never entered the equation. He only ever kissed her because he's wanted to — needed to — and so has she, even on that night he pretended it was all about the job.
Now? She's looking at his mouth, squinting her unpatched eye directly into the gap of his lips and wondering. Castle can read her curiosity as clearly as if she'd spoken the words 'are you game enough to kiss me, Rick? I'm mad enough to kick your (previously well-loved) balls, but you look like you wanna kiss me. Do it! Dare you!'
He's close enough to feel her breath on his throat, emotional enough to imagine her heart leaping from her chest and battering him into oblivion, hot enough to want to plunge his tongue against the sting of her mouth.
'You're calling me a liar,' he manages to grunt. To his own ears, his voice sounds like he's been sucking charcoal through a rock face. 'You owe me an apology, Kate.'
'I owe you nothing, Rick.'
She catches his wrist in her free hand and yanks her other out of his grasp. Castle stands his ground. This time, Kate doesn't back away, but continues to invade his personal space, without the sharp fingernails to his sternum.
'I know all my colleague's cell numbers by heart. I know their caller IDs, the precinct's undercover numbers, their home numbers. Hell, I even know what Ryan had for breakfast, Castle, so do not tell me that the … the … that …' She loses eye contact for a second and Castle has a moment of remorse. He might just be sorry and want to fix this now, beg her forgiveness because one of their friends has sent a joking, unfunny text. Somehow it's his fault — Castle will take the blame, it's not her! He will fix this ...
'Don't treat me like one of the fools you usually sleep with, Castle …'
And maybe not!
'Hey, you know what? That's enough!'
Yeah, he sounds like he's speaking to Alexis, but something about Kate's irrationality is reminding him of a teenaged tantrum. A very sexy tantrum, sure, but a misplaced, illogical rant, accompanied by clothes throwing and chest poking. It's all so passionate and fevered.
'I'll say when it's enough,' she counters, squirting her gaze at his mouth again, moving forward so that her robed breast is fluffing at his nipples, causing them to leer and groan — um, maybe that's his eyes and mouth? But Castle would swear that the leering and groaning is happening at chest level. 'And if there's enough of anything, it's your lying ways.'
Without thinking, Castle presses his face down and forward so that they're not only standing toe-to-toe, but nose-to-nose. He wants her to smell his anger in exactly the same way he's detecting hers. 'Let's ring Ryan, Beckett. I've told you already that I don't LIE. If you're so sure I'm lying, let's rule out all the evidence. That's the way you work, isn't it? In your job?'
There's less than a bee's dick of width between them, but he strains further into her so that her unpatched eye is so blurred to his sight, she looks like a malformed Cyclops. A very hot, Cyclops, yes, but a one-eyed freak nonetheless. 'You rule out stuff! In your job, in your personal life!'
'And what's that supposed to mean, Castle?'
'Exactly what it sounds like! You wanna believe the worst of me, just because we've had the best time, just because we're getting too close. You wanna rule me out because of what you're feeling. The best thing, ever.'
She scoffs. He feels the hurl of fire and brimstone cake his lips. If he licked them now, he'd taste her ire. 'You're the best, Castle? Is that what you think? That I'm rulin' you out because you're the best.'
'I am! We are!' He might as well say it. Keep up the bravado he was letting slip away over the course of this night when he thought she was starting to see him for who he really is, rather than the Castle caricature. 'Whether you want to admit it or not is up to you.'
He tries to wear a grin, wishing she would dare to slap it off him so that they could start diffusing this situation, but they are so close together, she probably won't be able to see it. He tries anyway. He feels her frown against the bridge of his nose.
'Depends if you're ready to admit lying. Who is she Castle? The texter? A fan of your writing? Someone you're seeing but haven't gotten around to telling the paparazzi yet? Oh, or telling me?'
'I'm not seeing anyone! It was Ry—'
'Maybe a third ex-wife you might have cheated on?'
When he'd told her it was 'enough' a few moments before, Castle had meant it. When she hurls words about cheating and ex-wives in a random attempt to blame him for other things he just didn't do — wasn't doing now — he can't stop himself unleashing. And maybe this is what he needs to do to make Beckett realize? She can be happy. They can be happy, but it's all about her inaccurate perceptions.
Somewhat uncharacteristically, he raises his voice. He has to give Beckett credit, she simply does not flinch. Her own voice escalates in rebuttal, and Castle can feel his eyes bulging. He's sure her nostrils are flared and they're both spitting chips. Or chitting ships.
'There are TWO ex-wives in my life. I didn't cheat on either of them, there's never been a third, and the last thing I would ever, ever do is cheat on you.'
'Pity you won't get that chance!'
'There's no pity 'bout that, Beckett! The only pity is that you can't get it through your skull — your thick head-of-hair skull — that Ryan sent the damn message, but you're too stubborn to even try to see it!'
'Not stubborn. I just know every single number and that's not Ryan's number.'
'It is! It is Ryan's number!'
'It's not Ryan's number. I know all of the—'
'It's his other number.'
'Castle? Ryan has no number that I don't know about! When are you going to get that through your … your ... what the hell was it you said? Your thick head-of-hair skull? Just admit it! You're lying to me, I'm an idiot that slept with you, and as soon as that happened, you're on to something else.' He watches her champ and toss. She's so raw, he can feel her muscles twitch. 'Someone else.'
'What? You're ridiculous!'
'At least I'm not a liar.'
He jostles against her to raise the phone into the inch of space between them. He's searching for Ryan, praying that Ryan will call, will SMS, will do something to show himself as the Sexter of Mischief. Castle scans the phone again. 'There it is, there's Ryan's number … ohhh … it's … um ...'
Okay. So it's not as obvious as Castle had thought it was. Okay, he and Ryan rarely call each other, but he did see Ryan keel over in hilarity following the same text the previous day. And, oh God, he recalls that Ryan and Esposito had mouthed something about the phone ... something about the phone … urgh ... ohno ...
He didn't expect RYAN'S CALL ID to be screeching across the phone, but he did anticipate a small life-buoy of help from his precinct bros. The bastards. He'll never shout them a round at The Old Haunt again. In fact, he'll ban their brawny, cop asses from the place for the rest of their woebegotten lives.
'Well?' She's taken a step back, stands with her hands on her hips and waits.
'It's Jenny's. It's been sent from Jenny's phone.'
He wonders why he has said that out loud. He's thinking about the name 'Jenny' and why Kate hasn't instantly recognized her as Ryan's fiance, when a damp, balled towel meets the side of his head. Most towels wouldn't hurt a man as tough as himself. This one seems lined with a bunch of steel-capped stilettos aimed at his temple.
'You and Jenny can go to Hell, Castle. Take your stuff and get the hell out!'
'There's a hell of a lot of hell round here,' he mumbles, flicking open his crumpled shirt and putting one arm through. 'If you're too overwrought to realize that I'm talking about Jenny, Ryan's fiance, then I've got no clue what to do next.'
'Overwrought?'
'And you call yourself a detective?'
'Oh, my God, Castle, what? Overwrought?' she says, curling her lip, stepping up to the plate where there's suddenly no room for Castle to finish dressing as she's well inside his batting box. He stands with his shirt draped open, his boxer shorts askew, his mouth prepared for more verbal spray. 'I'm overwrought?'
'Sure. And a damn bit irrational, Kate.'
As she clamps her fists by her side in angry gesture, her mouth collides with his chin. It must make her more frustrated. With fire flushing from the nose of the dragon, Beckett has him in a police double-grab to his opened shirt before Castle can say that he doesn't mind if she's irrational and overwrought, as long as she STOPS calling him a liar.
It's so different to when she grasped at his lapels in The Old Haunt. It's equally as unsettling, but the buzz of the fight is so intense, it's not nearly as pleasurable.
'Just—'
She ploughs her lips against his. It's bruising, confrontational and Castle closes his eyes on every fantasy he's ever had about raw, rough sex with this woman. He wants it … no he doesn't … God, but he always has, and the bathtub would be nothing compared to if Beckett threw him against the tiled wall of her bathroom and fucked him.
But he doesn't want that ...he's in love with her … he doesn't want it rough ...
Excuse me?
He pretends he doesn't.
He's really does not want it rough …
He doesn't. (He might have thought about it, once or twice?) On the Precinct desk, against the coffee machine where the expresso beans compacted and steam hisssssed …
But now? He doesn't. It's all about the loving.
There's no need to be rough.
Is there? But aren't they fighting? He's a liar, she's a bossy bitch detective with trust issues?
It's rough. He's ready. In a way.
Castle opens his mouth under the plunder of Beckett's assault. Her tongue plunges, compresses, duals, and he hears a hitch in her throat when it catches his canines. Her teeth gnash against anything they contact — his teeth, the corners of his lips, the soft tissue where his lips meet his skin. He lets her barrage him into her wall — or something else that's solid? Could it be that elephant in the room the size of his fantasy? Beckett's grip on his shirt is so intense, he feels the fabric tear a bit as she shoves him against the hard, vertical surface.
She's on him. All over him. Fingers pinching his nipples, teeth at his neck, one hand descending to where he's certain that he doesn't want it too abusive, but instead, she doesn't touch him there at all. She catches the sharp of her nails against his inner thigh and it hurts like sweet, sexy torture. It's painful. It's nothing like the feeling in his heart when she flung words at him. It's physical pain. She should totally moonlight.
Her robe is still as closed as the case they worked in Dungeon Alley.
Fuck, yeah, but he wants it rough!
'You nipped me,' he wolves into her open mouth, pushing back almost as vigourously as she's pressing. He uses the opportunity to pivot and fling, wrenching himself off the wall and laying her firmly against the spot he'd been occupying. His lower body traps hers in a no-exit pin.
'I nipped you, you lied to me. We're almost even.'
Beckett pulls on his ears, jamming her mouth against his, pushing her fingernails into his shoulders. She rakes them across the back of his neck, synchronizing the crashing of her teeth into his, the grabbing of his butt, the bucking of her hips. It's rough. He's not that ready.
'I didn't lie. I don't lie.'
He wonders what it would be like to force the issue. To push her to the point of begging or wanting it so damn much that she might take back all these thoughts and hurts. There's no time to experiment. Everything is being kissed way too fast.
'I'm telling you that you did. Lie.'
He's not like that. He'd rather soften her, wear down her defenses, gain her trust through love and attention to detail. Even though Castle wants to pretend he's a Viking, he's really a court poet, happier with the woo than the woo-den boats … um, the slaughter, rape and pillage of the object of his desire.
'I've never lied to you ...'
She sneers against his cheek. Beckett moves her lips over to his chin, the underside where his whiskers scrap at her lying taunts, and she mixes up the kisses and the nips.
'… so stop it. It's just a Ryan joke on Jenny's phone.'
'You stop lying.'
'You stop pretending you don't know the text is a joke, just so we can't get closer. You're so afraid to let me in. Well, guess what? I'm—'
'You keep on sayin' that, Castle, you can go the hell home. Now.'
It's almost like the final tolling of the bell in the boxing ring. One athlete has swung all the punches, the other fighter has defended and attacked and got a bloodied patch over the eye. The knockout blow. It's hers, on him. And maybe, it's his on her. His continual denial, his inability to simply call Ryan and make things right because he's been so offended by her lack of trust. His hapless response to a kiss bathed in anger, primed to punish. He still wants it, and it disgusts him.
But she's in this ring too.
Her illegal strikes to his ego. Her total inability to believe. Her bantamweight attempts to be happy which are failing; she's been beaten in this type of bout before. It makes her as venomous as a ragged street fighter, as wary as a punch drunk kid.
He avoids her lips and looks at her, arms braced either side of her head.
'Go on. I knew you'd go, Castle. Go and be a sweetheart, writer boy.'
They're both KO'd. Suddenly Castle is so very, very tired of punching the air. Pushing away from her, he doesn't give in to his urge to gentle a kiss and show her how much he wants things right between them. He's so hurt, he wants to pummel a punching bag.
Castle doesn't even bother dressing properly. He makes himself as decent as he can on the way to the door, and refuses to look back when she warns him not to call her 22 times 'when you feel like owning up to the lie.'
He does give in to the need to slam her door. He hopes that the Buddha statue is shaken to its core and the furious fiasco of his heartbeat will ricochet through her apartment. It had been so much easier in The Old Haunt where the only things at stake were a pool game, an untucked shirt, a lingerie of red and an injury to the eye.
Finding the time on his phone, Castle notices that it's an inappropriate hour to head into The Haunt, but he's going anyway. He'll text Ryan and Esposito, meet them there and have a drink before Ryan speeds his way to the altar in a couple of days time. Unless he picks the leprechaun up and throws him into the Hudson for his role in the texting tease.
(Previously well-loved) Jenny too. The soon-to-be newly weds deserve to be as happy as Castle and Beckett.
