A Dash of Summer
Kate rubs it away, nose tickling, and feels it brush her again.
And then she's awake, a shiver of tension that pops and fades, and she recognizes her daughter asleep over her. "Ella," she breathes, closing her eyes and turning her head to brush Ellery's hair out of her mouth.
Time, what's the time. Kate glances towards the clock and startles. So late. Nearly nine and where's the rest of her family? Castle woke before her? Maybe Dash woke him first.
She slips her arm under the heavy girl asleep on her chest, cradles Ella's head to keep her steady as she moves away. Ellery gives a great sigh and burrows into her mother's pillow, allowing Kate the room to pull the sheet up over her.
She meant to go for a run this morning but it's too late now; they have only Saturday and Sunday before Castle has to be back at Black Pawn on Monday. She doesn't want to waste family time. She'll shower, throw on some clothes, cajole her sleepy daughter into the day.
It's a good plan, but it doesn't happen.
Castle finds her first, slipping into the bathroom when she's in the middle of taking off her pajama shirt. His hand comes to the bare skin of her waist in a way that somehow surprises her, shocking in its intimacy, as if she's not Kate Castle but Detective Beckett.
"What?" he says. "Didn't mean to surprise you. Dash and I have a question, but I can go back downstairs and let you shower in peace, if you-"
She wraps her arm around his neck and presses herself against him, confused by her confusion, touching her mouth to his because she needs the reminder, the rude awakening, the jolt of want.
He grunts and splays his hand at her lower back, slides his palm up to pull her closer. The water for the shower is running, thundering in her ears like her heartbeat, and Castle cups her face with his other hand, breaks her away from him.
"Hey there," he chuckles. "That's nice. Good morning to you too."
"Wanna join me?" she murmurs, touching her lips to his jaw. "Haven't showered with you in months. Miss you." He's been gone too much, getting home late.
"Always leaving early," he sighs. A corner of his mouth twitches up and his eyes dip, scanning her bare skin. "I already showered but I'm sure I need another one."
"I think so," she says innocently. "You stink."
He chuckles and she winks back at him, reaching past him for the shower door. Steam billows out and engulfs them, spinning in the eddies of the air conditioning, and she steps into him, pushing his body back towards the shower.
"Kate," he laughs. "I'm dressed."
"I know. Won't that be fun?"
"Did you take a shower?" Dashiell exclaims, wrinkling his nose as if now Castle smells.
"Yeah. I - uh - the coffee was..." He's got nothing.
Dash huffs. "Are we ready?"
"Ready?"
"Did Mom say it was okay?"
Castle rubs a hand down his face and tries to fathom what in the world his kid is talking about, but his brain is still zapped from Kate, Kate in a shower and peeling his clothes off, and-
"Dad - did Mom say driving was okay?"
"Huh, I forgot to ask. But don't worry," he says, assuring Dash. "We're good." Oh. So. Good.
Shaking his head free of it, he grabs his sunglasses from the counter and the car keys, pockets them as he glances around for Dash's shades as well. Kid's gonna need them.
He picks through the basket of their stuff on the coffee table, unearths a bottle of sunblock. "Here. Do this - we're gonna be outside for a while."
"I hate sunblock."
"It's the spray," he says by way of conciliation. "You'll need it."
"I hate sunblock," he grumps.
"If you want to drive - sunscreen up."
Dashiell sighs and takes the bottle off the coffee table, makes a dramatic face as he sprays it almost close to his arm.
"On your actual skin, Dashiell Hammett."
"I'm-"
"Dash."
The kid grumbles and points the nozzle towards his arm, starts laying it on. Castle finally discovers the sunglasses, untangles them from the rubbery strap of the swimming goggles, a shoe coming loose and bouncing onto the table.
"What's this in here for?" he laughs, grabbing the shoe and chucking it over Dashiell's head towards the back hall. "You need to put your shoes away."
"Right now?"
"No, just - whenever you can manage it. The basket is for ocean stuff, not for shoes. You get me, wild man?"
"Yeah, get you. Where's my other shoe?"
"It's not in here. Your responsibility," Castle answers, watching his son layer the sunscreen. "I think that's enough. Here, spray my fingers, and I'll get both our faces."
Dashiell grins and hops up from the floor, presses the nozzle and soaks his father's outstretched hand. Castle rubs his thumb into the mess and wipes it over his son's cheeks and forehead, the ski slope of his nose. "You have freckles."
"I do?"
"Yeah, those are new this summer." When did it happen? Castle must have been at work. He's always at work these days, and he's missing out.
Dash lifts his chin so that Castle can get his ears - though that doesn't help at all. "Allie has freckles."
"She does, yeah. Mostly on her shoulders and her arms, but when she was your age and we'd come out here, she would get them all across her face. A carpet of freckles."
"A carpet," Dash hums, repeating the phrase, smiling at it. "I have how many?"
"Just on your nose - let me count. One, two... five."
"Three comes next, Dad."
Castle barks out a laugh, grins at his son when he sees the kid is actually messing with him. "Yeah, yeah, laugh it up furball."
"That's my favorite movie," he confesses. His grin matches his father's.
"Of all the Star Wars or of all time?"
"All time. No. Wait. My favorite of all time is that one you showed me."
"The one I showed you?"
Dashiell grins. "Spaceballs."
Castle grins back again, his little mirror - and how pleased would Kate be about that movie, and letting Dash stay up until one in the morning with him to watch it last week when he got home so late. Oh well. He swipes the reminder of the sunblock across his own nose. "Ah, yeah. That's a pretty funny one."
"'I'm a Mawg - half-man, half-dog. I'm my own best friend,'" Dashiell quotes, giggling.
"'There's only one man who would dare give me the raspberry - Lone Star!'" Castle quotes back, leaning in to his kid and yanking up his shirt. Dash squeals and jerks away, but Castle raspberries his stomach, long and loud, making the kid giggle like a hyena.
"Oh - oh - that's - Dad!"
"All right, I'm done," he promises, letting his son go. "It's a funny movie. I know. You ready to drive?"
Castle taps him in the forehead and nods towards the front door. Dashiell apparently built legos during that - uh - interlude with Kate - and now he abandons his warship on the floor and runs towards the hall, destroying his lego creation in the process.
"Hey, wild man. Your legos-"
"Come on, Dad. I've been waiting ages."
Castle follows him out the front door, shutting it behind them as the fierce sun bounces over the lawn. He slips his sunglasses on and hands Dashiell's over, taking stock of the place.
The grass is a little matted from where cars were parked, but it's not too worse for the wear. The catering vehicles and wedding organizer's team have gone as well, so it seems forlorn out here, but Dashiell is already racing for the golf cart on the other side of the detached stone garage.
"Hey, wait," he calls out. "Not there. The car first."
Dashiell halts in his tracks, his face turning slowly. "The car?"
"We'll start out your lesson there," Castle assures him, heading towards the cool interior of the garage. He wonders - randomly, strangely - what it would have been like to have his father teach him to drive. He never showed interest as a kid like Dash, but when he was fifteen and the license loomed ahead of him... he wonders if that would have made things different for him.
"I get to drive the car?"
"Oh, no, sorry, my man. I meant that we'll go over everything from the driver's seat, no turning on the engine. But you can see what it looks like before we head to the golf cart and ruin you."
"Ruin me. I'm not ruined."
Castle takes him by the shoulder. "I just mean - driving a golf cart isn't exactly the same thing, kiddo. It feels differently. But I want your first time in the driver's seat to be behind the wheel - the correct wheel."
"Oh. That matters?"
Castle pushes on the top of Dashiell's head and opens the front door of their Audi. "Yeah, it matters. And I wish we were doing this in the city, for your sake."
"Why? What's in the city?" Dash gives him a confused look as he scrambles up into the driver's seat.
"My Ferrari."
"Oh," Dash gasps. "Yeah. Yeah I want that."
"I know. Everyone does."