poor poor steve! ;)
Disclaimer: tisn't nor never will be mine, i own nothing!
"Who the hell is Steve, Castle?" she asked again.
He grinned at her. She was completely confused and it showed. He loved to watch her when she was like this, annoyed and stormy, without any real malice or anger.
"Castle, if Steve is some weird euphemism for your…" she waved her hand gesturing in the direction of his pants looking appalled "I'm telling you now,I'm gonna have issue with it."
Laughter burst from him loud and irrepressible, he leant back against the wall and mimicked the way she waved her hand at him, shaking his head.
She smiled and laughed quietly at his reaction but clearly she was missing the joke.
"Steve is Esposito's friend. He works in maintenance." he laughed again, turning to look at her "You have issue with Steve huh!" he said raising his eyebrows, and looked down at his body.
She watched him and twisted her lips to the side, fighting the smile.
"Yes I do!" she kept her head high and defiant, refusing to give him the satisfaction of seeing her crack.
"Want to come up with your own name?" he said grinning widely.
"No, Castle, I don't!" she stepped back as he started walking towards her again. He stopped when she was once again pinned to the wall of the elevator, he reached his hand up high to cup her face but she stopped him.
"Hey! she said holding her hand up. "Last time you did that things got … crazy remember."
"We really need to get out of here don't we." he said catching her train of thought.
"Yeah NOW!"
He stepped back and leant against the opposite wall, putting the not-nearly-wide-enough distance between them.
"So…?" she asked turning towards him "Steve is Esposito's friend in maintenance?"
"Yeah."
"So Esposito knows about this?"
"Yeah," he shrugged "he and Ryan are covering."
"And Ryan!" her eyes closed as she rubbed at them with her finger tips "Esposito and Ryan and some guy named Steve, great!"
He nodded.
"Probably Lanie by now as well."
"You told them you were gonna trap us in here to do what exactly?" She was very close to death glare, it was lurking behind her narrowed eyes.
"Talk" he said smirking
" About what?"
"Ahhh, you see" He sounded proud of himself "I was very inventive. I weaved a very elaborate tale…"
She glared at him again, stopping him before he got into the flow, and he pouted.
"Fine! Long story short we had a fight and I needed a grand gesture."
"What?" it was like talking to a mental patient sometimes it really was, she rubbed her eyes again, trying to force some sense of understanding into her head as she listened to him.
"Our first fight!" he said pouting at the fake memory.
"Our first fight was about you leaving me asleep on the floor!" she poked him in the chest, hard.
"Our second fight?" he said pouting again rubbing at the poke.
"No!" she said stalking towards him "our second fight is gonna be about this" she waved her arm around the elevator "fix it."
"Me?" he asked with feigned innocence.
"Yes you! This was your hare-brained scheme, fix it."
He shrugged, but gave in.
"Apparently," he said stepping towards the control panel, "all I have to do is push the button back in and we are all set."
She rolled her eyes at him.
"You couldn't have said that before?"
He laughed "Where was the fun in that."
He used his palm and pushed the button back into place, turning to her expectantly, she smiled at him lightly, not entirely forgiving, but close.
The smile fell from her face fast as there was a loud crack and pop, and the lights went out.
"What the hell did you do Castle?" she asked as they stood silhouetted in the small and dark, cramped non-moving elevator.
…...
She had been on the phone for the last 10 minutes. He watched as she stood with her eyes closed and nodded at something she was being told.
The barely-there emergency light had finally kicked in.
"Yeah, I get it Esposito, sit tight and wait it out!"
She hung up a few minutes later and he looked at her expectantly for an explanation.
"So basically, there is something wrong with the generator and we are now genuinely stuck." she glared at him.
"For how long?" he swallowed.
"How should I know?"
"Well what's the plan? Fire department been called?" he loosened the neck of his shirt and turned "what…what's the plan here?"
"Steve's on it" she said glaring at him "apparently Steve just needs a wire to be delivered."
"A wire?"
She shrugged.
"A wire that's it? He doesn't have a wire? That's all you know?"
"I'm a homicide Detective Castle, I don't do elevator services on the side!"
He turned and glared at her "Well you should!"
"What is wrong with you?" she said looking him up and down.
He was pacing and yanking on his collar.
"I don't like enclosed spaces."
She made a noise under her breath and he whirled and glared at her.
"Its not funny!"
"Castle I have heard the stories of you duct taping yourself into closets for character research so don't tell me you have claustrophobia"
"That was a closet in my loft not…" he gestured around "…not this!"
"But you pulled the emergency stop button" she said still not believing him.
"YES!" he said rounding on her "because I thought I could push it back in and be out of here in 5 minutes."
"Don't yell at me! I didn't get us stuck in here."
He took a deep breath, and tried to explain without blaming her, knowing she was right and it wasn't her fault.
"Its just…I've been stuck in here before."
She narrowed her eyes
"When?"
"Mummy curse!" he said.
She laughed "Oh yeah, you were laying on the floor!" as the memory flooded her mind she suddenly remembered he had genuinely seemed upset when she had finally ley him out.
He glared at her, but her smile was already fading.
"Sorry" she said "I forgot about that."
He sat down on the floor, leaning his back against the side of the elevator, he drew his knees up to his chest.
"Yeah with all the stupid things I do I guess its hard to pick out one specific incident."
"Castle" she said walking over and sliding down next to him. She reached out her hand and squeezed his knee, but he wouldn't look up, his head was dropped in his hands, his knuckles white against his dark hair.
She didn't like seeing him like this, it hurt to watch. She turned towards him and reached out her hand again, this time pulling his free from his hair as she continued to try.
"Rick." she waited for him to look up and he did this time, slowly. His eyes were gloomy and pained, and she pouted her lips in sympathy before leaning across him and cupping his cheek. She tried to comfort and soothe him the way he did her, with a simple but significant touch of her hand.
"We're going to be fine!"
"Yeah?" He watched her, his eyes pensive, as he leaned into her hand, he smiled but it didn't reach his eyes.
"Yes" she said as an idea took root in her head.
"Do you promise?" he asked leaning further into her hand, heavily, and closing his eyes, he placed his other hand over hers on his knee.
She laughed, he sounded like a child in need of reassurance, and more than anything she wanted to give it to him.
"I do!" she said and instantaneously realised it sounded like a more significant declaration.
He opened his eyes and smiled at her.
"Don't start." she said before he could make a comment.
He smiled again properly this time, in the way she loved, the way that lit up his face.
"Fine. Distract me."
"Err how?"
"Tell me a story."
She laughed "No way that's your job!"
"Sing me song."
She laughed again "Fat chance"
"Talk to me in a Russian accent?" his eyes lit up.
"Ok lets go back to the first option" she said.
"Ooo you're going to tell me a story?"
"Yeah" she said scrunching her eyes together, the idea back and blossoming nicely.
"Ok, I am all ears" he sat up and when she went to do the same he pulled her back so her hand slipped from his face, but the one on his knee stayed joined to him.
He twined their fingers together and yanked her into his side.
"You want me to tell you a story while we cuddle Castle." she laughed, but she didn't resist and settled into him.
"Yes!" he said like its was blatantly obvious, he banged their joined hands together on his knee "come on…on with the story."
"Ok but no comments, no character additions, no editing as I go!" she lifted forward, feeling his other hand settle around her shoulders.
He went very quiet.
"I mean it." she said squeezing his hand.
"Fine I'll be quiet." she could hear the pout in his voice.
She smiled.
"Ok…Once upon a time…"
"Seriously, that's so overused"
She elbowed him in the side.
"Ow, fine shutting up!"
"Ok, ONCE upon a time…" she said again "there was a man, a very annoying and obnoxious, devious man…."
"I don't like this story" he said grumpily.
She let out a long put-upon breath and shook her head.
"You'll never hear the end and I think you might like the end."
He turned to look down at the top of her head. Her voice was…there was something there. What exactly was she up to?
"Ok, no I'm good" he said intrigued "you carry on."
"If you make me restart again, Castle, I'll never tell you how it ends."
He didn't say anything. He just squeezed her hand. She understood.
"You gonna be good?"
He squeezed again and she laughed.
"Ok err…annoying and devious obnoxious boy" she smiled as she mentally demoted him for interrupting, he squeezed her hand again, he understood "who met a girl. A very smart and patient girl…" she grinned as he squeezed again but she carried on "…and the boy decided it was his mission in life to drive the girl crazy."
"But she liked it!" he said, stating it firmly, finally unable to be quiet anymore.
She elbowed him.
"Ow!"
"And she may have appreciated it on occasion" she conceded. "Where the girl was all twisted and dark, the boy was light and free, and they were drawn to each other."
His eyes darted back to the top of her head as she called herself twisted and dark.
He had never seen her like that.
She was injured, but she wasn't twisted, and never dark, she was shadowed, her past hung over her until she was free to step back into the light.
He realised she was still talking and he was missing half the story.
"…got hurt and the boy told her he loved her and it made everything feel new and like it was lit with sunshine even when the sky was black."
She took a deep breath, her voice catching on the words as she spoke.
"But the girl was scared and she pretended she hadn't heard because she didn't want to hurt the boy."
She let out another sigh before forging on with her tale.
"She wasn't ready, wasn't whole, and she wanted to be whole so she could give him everything she had to give."
He squeezed her hand again, tight, and kept it that way for a few seconds.
"Because she knew when she did it would be magical and lasting and worth it."
Emotion poured through the words as she spoke them.
"Then the boy did something stupid and the girl did something stupider and they hurt each other."
He felt her slipping into memories and the pain of their mistakes so he spoke again, bringing her back.
"But the girl told him she loved him back." he reminded her.
She smiled and he could hear it in her voice.
"Yes she did, when she was ready and not broken she realised battles that needed to be fought would be easier if she had the boy to help her."
She squeezed his hand this time.
"So she took him dancing and told him she loved him too and he spun her in circles and dragged her back to his cave."
"He's a cave-boy?"
"Yeah!"
"Ok, I like cave-boys."
"Me too!" she said laughing. She had slipped across his body more by now, and leaning as she was, she could tell most of the tension and worry had left him.
"So did the boy do unspeakable things to her in his cave?" he asked.
"Yes unspeakable, wondrous, marvellous things that left the girl tingly from head to toe."
"Good for him."
"And her!" she said, as she nudged him, feeling him laugh.
"But then reality set in and the girl had to go back to chasing bad guys and the boy had to go back to annoying the girl."
He grumbled but didn't speak.
"Until one day the boy decided it would be funny to trap the girl in a different kind of cave. The kind with buttons."
"Uh-o."
"But the plan backfired and the boy got scared and the girl had to come to his rescue by telling him a story. And the boy lived happily ever after. The End!"
"Hey," he said "that is not an ending!"
"Sure it is" she said sitting up and turning to grin at him.
"No its not, you just stopped dead and you said I would like the ending!"
"You will."
"There's more?" he asked confused as she raised herself up, using his straightened legs as leverage to bring her body close to his.
"Yeah, I told you the boy lived happily ever after remember?"
He nodded watching her face as she smiled at him and her eyes darkened.
"Well there was a reason." she leant in closer, her eyes burning into his.
"There was?"
"The girl told the boy a secret that made him very, very happy."
"She did?" he asked leaning towards her, almost closing the distance between them, her breath dancing across his face as she spoke.
"She told him that when they had gotten trapped in the cave the second time and the power had gone out," she ran her fingers along his neck, lightly turning his head "the camera had stopped working." she smiled as he turned to look at her, his eyes wide at the implication.
"And what did the girl do when she realised they were trapped in an enclosed space with no cameras?" he asked his voice harsh and deep and full of wonder at her words.
"Oh" she said smiling as she leaned in "she kissed the boy."
She caught his shirt collar in her hands and closed the gap between them, her lips moving over his and her hands slipping under his collar until she was holding onto his neck.
Her fingers splayed across his face, rubbing his earlobe between her fingers with one hand as her other slipped down the back of his shirt to grip tight at his neck.
She felt his hands slip under her jacket, around her waist and pull her towards him, he dropped his knees and opened his legs to guide her closer, until she found herself laying on top of him, this time with him pinned to wall.
That crazy feeling was starting to bubble under the surface again, that longing to be closer. She pulled back slightly to look at him, questioning, then she leaned in slowly, hoping he wouldn't stop her this time, and started to undo the buttons on his shirt again.
He pulled her back to him, not stopping her hands, and she wanted to purr and scream and beg and laugh all at the same time.
He caught her head in his hands and dragged her mouth to his, lips crushing over hers, and parting them.
His hands found the front of her shirt and yanked it hard, sending a cascade of buttons across the floor around them. She growled against his lips as his hands found their way to her skin, she burned with a fever for him, everything felt hot and she wanted to drink him in and cool herself down.
"Kate," he said catching her face again his voice urgent and full of need "you're sure? I don't think I have enough self control to say no to this twice!"
She looked down quickly at her shirt, bit late now she thought, but she smiled mischievously and nodded.
"No audience remember!" she looked up at the dead camera and smiled again, so very glad that the generator had broken.
But he was pushing her away, and she was about to get angry as he twisted her to the side, gave her a quick kiss on the lips and slid her off of his lap.
She opened her mouth to ask him what he thought he was doing but he jumped to his feet and grabbed his jacket, throwing it high above his head. It stuck, catching and covering the small protruding camera.
She realised what he was up to and that crazy and intense, warm, bubbly feeling came bursting back through her stomach, licking waves of heat and desire through her body again.
"Just in case the power comes back on." he said turning around, taken by surprise when he found her standing directly behind him, a smile dancing across her face.
"Why didn't you just do that before?" she asked leaning into him again.
He reached around, twisting his hand in a loop of her hair and using it to guide her face to his.
"Cos I'm a very, very stupid…"
His words were cut short as she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him.