Disclaimer: The only part of Castle that I own is the TV on which I watch the show.
A/N This chapter returns to M territory for a short time about three quarters of the way through. If you want to skip that part, stop reading at the line "At 4:17 he hears her knock and opens the door." You can pick up the thread again at "He's asleep in seconds."
Castle had gone in to tell the Captain of his return, and chatted with him for a bit. "Good to have you back, man," he'd said. "Been kind of dull around here without you, but I never said that."
"Right, sir."
It's a very quiet day in Murderville, so four of them are sitting in the break room for a few minutes, catching up. Castle had brought a stack of files from Beckett's desk, put them in the middle of the table, and opened one. "If Montgomery sees us, we'll tell him we're working on an old case," he'd said happily, and pulled out a chair.
Beckett had decided to take the chair opposite him, on the as-yet-untested theory that it will be easier to look at him than to have him next to her, and feel him pressing his thigh against hers or covertly squeezing her knee. "I told Castle about a couple of the cases he missed," she says, hoping to keep the conversation in the safe zone.
"Yeah. Makes me wish I'd come back sooner."
"The exploding hand, am I right? That had your name all over it, bro," Espo says.
"True." Castle looks crushed.
"She tell you about the guy who drowned in the kitchen sink?"
"The sink?" Castle gives his partner an astonished look. "No, she did not, Ryan. How can a grown man drown in the sink? Unless he was a, you know, little person?" He holds his hand out at tabletop level. "Or it was some humongous sink?"
"Nope. But he had a very strong, very pissed off girlfriend who filled the sink with gin and held his head in it until, as she said, 'the freakin' bubbles stopped coming outta the bastard's ugly nose'."
"Let me guess. Juniper Juice? Was that the brand?"
Ryan's eyes are wide; he's impressed. "Man, how'd you know that?"
"Oh, I see where this is going," Beckett says.
"You do?" Esposito frowns. "How?"
"Juniper Juice is terrible gin."
"So?"
"Detective Beckett is correct, gentlemen. It's rotgut. Worst gin ever made. If that woman had had even a trace of affection left for the guy she'd have drowned him in something better."
"Much as I love this trip down Alcohol Alley, guys, we need to get back to work," Beckett says as she stands up.
"I thought you, we, didn't have a case?"
"We don't. Doesn't mean there aren't things we should be doing."
"Not me," he says, following her out to the bullpen. "Not if you're talking about paperwork. Not in my job description. Of course, technically I don't have a job description."
"How about this for a job description, Castle?" Espo asks. "You been lounging around in the Hamptons for weeks while we've been sweatin' in the city. Protecting and serving. How's about you bring us some lunch?"
"It's not even nine. Isn't that kind of early for lunch?"
"He's got a point, Espo. Tell you what, Castle, if you help me with some paperwork for a couple of hours, and there's still no new case after lunch, you can go home and none of us will complain that you're not helping. And you get a free pass until the next body drop. We won't ask you to come in 'til then. Sound good?"
"Yeah." The part of it that sounds good is sitting at her desk, where he will shuffle papers while he breathes in the scent of her and revels in the memory of what she looks like under that blouse. Since what's under it turns out to be, as he so recently and happily discovered, even better than he had ever imagined. And he has one hell of an imagination, if he does say so himself.
"Now siddown and start making yourself useful," she says. Did he always smell this good? And didn't he use to leave only two buttons on his shirt undone? Now there are three, resulting in the exposure of an alluring expanse of skin, and every time he flips over a piece of paper she sees the muscles move in his chest, which means she has to clamp down on various muscles of her own. It's deliberate, he's absolutely doing this deliberately. They've been working—at least she has, but she's not sure what he's doing—for a while when she thinks she hears him humming. She looks at him: he's scanning, way too innocently, an evidence inventory list. He's humming! That son of a bitch is humming, just loud enough for her but no one else to hear, "I Wanna Sex You Up." She ignores him. Well, visibly ignores him. What's not visible is another matter. A few minutes after eleven she goes to the ladies room, splashes cold water on her face and wrists, and sends him a text.
"Don't know how long I can take this. You're driving me insane."
He feels his phone vibrate and clicks it on. Thank God he'd muted it because it's a text from Kate, and after she'd left the loft this morning he'd changed her alert to Usher's "Bad Girl." He taps a reply.
"I am? Really? What are you gonna do about it?"
She steps out of the ladies room into the hallway and waits until she's almost in sight before she stops to answer. "Tie you up and fuck you senseless the minute I get home." That should shut him down for the moment. She can hear him coughing before she gets to her desk.
"You all right, there, Castle?" she asks brightly. "Swallow something the wrong way?"
More coughing follows.
"You better not be comin' in here with a cold, Castle," Espo calls out from his desk. "I'm going on vacation end of the week, and I ain't gonna be using that as sick time."
"He's fine," Beckett says. "Something just got caught in his throat." She reaches for a new file, spends a quarter of an hour on it, and begins to hum, very softly, "Can't Take My Eyes Off of You." Two can play at this game.
Castle pushes his chair back and gets to his feet. "It's almost noon. I'll go get lunch, okay? What kind of food do you want?"
"Seeing as you're buying," Ryan says, "the good stuff. Italian. Chicken parm for me."
"Make that two," Espo says. "And don't forget the garlic bread."
"What about you, Beckett?" Castle asks. "The same?"
"No. I'll just have a Caesar salad, thanks. Not really hungry right now. I'll probably grab something when I get home."
When he gets in the elevator, he puts his fist in his mouth to keep himself from screaming. The restaurant is only five blocks away, and it's early enough that there's no one ahead of him in line. Once he's placed his order he takes out his phone.
Beckett's phone pings. Uh huh, she figured. A text from Castle.
"What exactly will you be grabbing when you get home?"
She'd been sure he'd take the bait, and knows she should have prepared a comeback. She has to think for a moment before she replies.
"Something south of the border." She turns off her phone to avoid further temptation.
"Hey, guys? I'm going to run across the street to the bakery and get a little dessert. We were kind of tough on Castle today, you know? I have to admit I'm glad he's back."
"Me, too," Ryan says.
"Right," Espo adds.
She takes the stairs down, humming the whole way.
"Luncheon is served," Castle says as he exits the elevator with two plastic shopping bags. "Can we eat in the interrogation room?" He looks around. "Where's Beckett?"
"Ran out to get something. Said she'd be right back. C'mon, Javi."
The three men are unpacking lunch when she walks in. "Why are we eating in here?"
""Well, Beckett," Castle says. "I've missed the ambience of this room and thought I'd jump right back in, have the full olfactory experience. I'm reminded of the full-body-sweat terror you produce in your doomed interrogatees."
"Big word, Castle."
"Big writer," he answers, and takes a seat.
When the four of them have almost finished their lunch—which has been accompanied by good-natured teasing and storytelling, as if nothing had changed over the summer—Beckett says, "Oh, I got dessert. I'll be right back." She returns with a large plate of chocolate-frosted cupcakes and a small plate with one sugar-dusted confection.
"This is for you, Castle," she says as she places it in front of him. "It's a welcome-back doughnut." She sees him swallow, hard, and hopes that the boys are so dazzled by the cupcakes that they miss it.
"You shouldn't have," he wheezes.
"Of course I should. I thought it would have great associations for you. You know, cops, doughnuts. Memories to savor, right?"
"Right," he says, more than slightly worried that he too may be on the verge of full-body-sweat terror. "Thank you. I do, um, love a good doughnut." He picks it up and takes a large bite. "Really makes me feel like a cop."
Beckett checks her watch. "Sorry, but I think the party's over, guys. Thanks for lunch, Castle. It was really sweet of you."
"Yeah, thanks, man," Ryan says, and Espo agrees.
"But I get to go home, don't I, Beckett? I stayed to help this morning and we ate lunch and no one's been bumped off in the cozy confines. You'll call me the next time someone is, right?"
"Yup, that was our deal."
"Okay. I'm out of here. Bye, all."
As she watches his retreat, she realizes that she's never been more relieved and never more dejected at someone leaving the premises. She manages to get through the next three hours in a perfectly normal way. She hopes. She's sure. She checks herself at regular intervals, and checks her phone at the same time. He has sent her seventeen texts, but she doesn't reply except to confirm that she'll come back to the loft after work. Everything is fine.
Everything is fine. He'd bought flowers and wine and steak and fresh corn and tomatoes on the way home. The table is set and the meat is marinating. He's changed the sheets on his bed and put fresh towels in his bathroom and swapped the bars of cedar-and-sandalwood soap for ones of pear and freesia. At 3:45 he opens the wine to let it breathe. At 4:17 he hears her knock and opens the door to let her in. At 4:17:21 he has her pressed against the wall, his mouth covering hers, one hand in her hair and the other already making its way under her blouse. At 4:19:55 the blouse hits the floor. At 4:24:09, she's riding his thigh when she gasps, "Castle, what are you doing?"
"I'm trying—" he says, before his mouth decides it would rather latch onto her breast than talk.
"What? Trying what?" She's upright, but barely.
It's 4:25:37 before he can answer. "Fuck you senseless before you do it to me."
"Okay, then."
At 4:31 precisely, when she's half dressed and still up against the wall, she comes so hard that she digs her fingernails into his shoulder and almost draws blood. He doesn't mind and she's too far gone to notice.
By 5:15, when they're sprawled across his bed, the orgasm tally is four: three for her, one for him.
"Castle?"
"Mmm?"
"I will never, ever again ask you to hold your tongue."
"Good to know."
She rolls over on top of him, and rests her chin on his chest. "Is it my turn?"
"Your turn to what?" He sounds very sleepy.
"To fuck you senseless."
"Can we wait a little while? I want to be awake to enjoy it."
"Sure." But not too long, she thinks.
He's asleep in seconds. She's still lying on top of him, watching his face. It's so unexpectedly serene, serene and happy. Even in sleep. She feels a rush of something, of a lot of things, that they are where they are. And she knows, and knows he knows, that they're both in this for the rest of their lives. She remembers the Billie Holiday period she went through during college, and then after her mother died. She hasn't listened to her since, which is a pity. She will again now. But Billie Holiday made a miracle of a song that speaks to her right now. She lets it roll through her while she watches Castle sleep.
I've always placed you far above me,
I just can't imagine that you love me.
After all is said and done,
To think that I'm the lucky one,
I can't believe that you're in love with me.
She figures that he's slept long enough, so she shimmies down his body, begins to stroke him, and takes him in her mouth. She wonders how long it will take him to come to.
"Jesus, Kate."
She releases him just long enough to smile and say, "Good, you're awake."
And that is why they don't have dinner until nearly 10 o'clock. She's having a second ear of corn, and butter is running down her chin, when she says, "Castle, promise me you won't come to work this week."
TBC