A/N at the end


After ushering the slow moving detective into the loft, Castle wasted no time in placing the pizza order, exaggeratedly cringing as he requested the unfortunately promised black olives.

Something about the piercing look in her eyes had told him that if he tried to back out of his promise she would damage him.

Twenty minutes later, pizza was on the table, hand crafted beers brewed by local guys with beards and man buns were in hand, and the sounds Beckett was making as she ate had Castle clenching his fists and squirming in his chair.

Kate Beckett had never eaten pizza that hit the spot quite like this one did.

After witnessing Beckett's shocking, near pornographic, display of gluttony, the pair sat across the kitchen island from one another, nursing their beers and entering over consumption induced catatonia.

He was still a bit wide eyed, having been at ground zero of her pounding down nearly three full slices of pizza and a pair of bread sticks, and wasted no time in teasing her about it.

"Dammit, Castle, stop staring at me!" she growled, her head laying down on the cool granite, glaring up at him.

He snorted, gesturing with his bottle. "I'm just trying to figure out where you put it all, Beckett! I've watched you struggle to eat more than a slice at a time for almost half a decade now."

They both stared down at the island wide eyed at the term 'half a decade'.

"Oh my god. You have been following me around for nearly half a decade." Beckett muttered, a slightly horrified look cutting across her flushed face.

Castle grinned, nodding with her. "Not counting every single summer since we met, of course."

Castle froze, knowing that he had potentially stepped on a landmine filled with trauma, anger and poor judgment.

"We really haven't had the best luck with summers, have we?" she whispered.

His face fell a bit, remembering the circumstances behind each of the separations. "Hopefully the next one is a better one." he said shortly.

Beckett sneered a bit. "I'll try to avoid getting shot and you try to avoid boning your ex-wife and maybe we won't go four for four." Castle's face pinched a bit, his bottle cracking off the granite.

Kate couldn't help but feel a bit ashamed at how sharply her statement had lanced out. "I probably could have worded that better." she muttered.

Castle sighed and waved her off. "You're not wrong. We seem to run into either mortal peril or a terminal case of stupid when the temperature starts going up. We'll both have to do better this time around."

Beckett raised her bottle and they faintly tapped the necks together with his, apology in the gesture. "I'll drink to that." she breathed out.

With a fortifying breath, Kate sat up straight and tapped a nail sharply on the table, demanding Castle's attention.

'This should be fun.'

Castle could feel in his guts that he wasn't going to enjoy this conversation, something about the sharpening of Beckett's eyes and the stiffening of her posture that just screamed 'serious and potentially a bit angry'.

"So, Castle. We're gonna talk about this because I want to get it handled before it spoils the rest of the evening for me." She took another pull off of the beer before she slid it out of the way and pinned down her squirming partner with her best interrogation glare.

"I want to be exceedingly clear, so we have zero miscommunications here. I don't ever want to see or hear of you bringing drugs of any kind into my precinct again."

Castle flinched and curled down on himself a bit, shame draping across his shoulders like a lead cloak. "Beckett, I…" Before he could get another word out, Kate's hand snapped out like a striking snake and she had a Vulcan death grip on his bottom lip.

"Shh shh, Castle. I'm talking."

She gently released his captive, now red and swollen, lip. She lightly brushed a fingertip across the abused flesh and sat back, trying not to think too hard on how attractive his lips were with a bit of battle damage on them.

"I'm not going to give you too much hell over this because I'm the one that raided your coat and ate the damn thing, so I'm in this too. And…well..."

She paused and took a steadying breath and pointed sharply straight in between his eyes, "And if you ever tell anyone about this, I'll end you." A faint smile spread across her face, and Castle's chest tightened up.

"I'm having a really good time." she said with a rapid fire mutter and an adorable pout.

The blush that crested the apples of her cheeks showed how far from normal Kate Beckett really was.

She managed to get her blush under control and continued with the reprimand, leveling him with a glare once more. "I'm a cop, Castle. If I fail a random, worst case scenario, I could lose my badge, at best I could take a black mark, lose everything I've spent over ten years working for, get forced into mandated rehab, and end up working foot patrols for the rest of my career."

"Nikki Heat; Meter maid." Castle snarked, with a faint grin, and Beckett couldn't help but join in despite the seriousness of the conversation.

"You're absolutely right, Beckett. I promise you, it won't happen again." Castle mimed crossing his heart, and held out a pinky to his partner, which she took with an exasperated roll of her eyes.

Keeping her pinky hooked up with his, he laid their hands down on the table and continued.

"I'm just so glad that this didn't go worse. Because believe me, I know it could have. I mean, imagine if we were in the middle of a case? Holy shit." He blew out a breath and his face continued to fall, despair radiating off of his hunched shoulders.

"If something had happened, I don't think I would have ever forgiven myself." He sighed in the smallest voice she'd ever heard him use.

Kate swallowed hard and felt her stomach clench as the cloud of depression continued to press down on her, admittedly somewhat deserving partner.

He huffed out a shaky breath and continued, talking straight down at the granite table top. "I promised that I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize your job when I started following you, and I just can't seem to stop myself from putting you in these terrible situations."

Having had her fill of watching the self-flagellation take place, she gave him a tight, almost painful squeeze of his fingers, Castle's eyes snapped up to Beckett's slightly smiling face.

'She's so aggressive. It's hot.'

"Enough, Castle. It's done. Just…do better. That's what I need from you." She released his fingers and flipped his hand over, tracing the veins along the back of his hand.

'Suck it, Burke! See? I can talk about stuff!'

Kate was sure that her next appointment was going to be a fun-filled experience.

Now that she had eaten and her head was starting to clear up a bit, Beckett found herself actually wanting to talk about stuff.

The kind of stuff they just didn't talk about.

Castle stared at her wandering finger and started sensibly pondering alternate universes and CIA sponsored drug based mind control experiments.

'Guess we should do this talking about our feelings thing, huh?' Beckett stuck her tongue out, grunting in disgust. "Uhh, I'm so bad at this." She muttered under her breath.

The finger that she was scraping the back of his hand with had taken on a bit of a tremor, her breath rattling harshly in her chest.

"Remember what I said ages ago? I like having you around." She paused, figuratively girding her loins, thinking of all the things they needed to just fucking say.

'Spit it out, you wuss!'

"Just remember the swings." And her face fell a bit as she dropped her chin down onto her arm and tilted her head to the side, regarding Castle.

"I know it's been hard on you and everything I said was layered with so much subtext. I don't want you to think you're waiting for nothing."

That terrifying look was back in his eyes.

"I'm still a mess, but I'm working on it and dammit I'm getting close. I want you in my life, Rick."

'God, I love this ridiculous woman.'


Beckett twisted the top off of her second beer and tossed the cap across the kitchen, missing the trash can by about a foot.

Castle helpfully called out 'Kobe!' and was glared at for his efforts.

'So ungrateful.'

"So, I was promised an explanation." She grinned as he pulled an ugly face, "Don't make that face, I'm just curious." She kicked at his foot, her heel clacking off the leg of the island.

"I'd love to hear what constitutes a 'good explanation'' for carrying drugs in a police station." She snarked, using exaggerated finger quotes.

Castle's face fell and the smile slid off Beckett's face, concern climbing when his eyes started bouncing around across the room, finally falling on the liquor cabinet.

He stood up, absently holding up a finger as he walked. "Give me a second, Detective."

One finger was poured, thrown back, and refilled before Castle wordlessly offered her a drink. With her negative response, he carried his tumbler back to the table and sat back down.

The pair sat silently for a few minutes, Castle incessantly tapping his fingers on the counter before he picked the glass up, threw it back, and slid it away.

"I've told you that I was kicked out of several boarding schools when I was a kid, right?" At her affirmation, he continued, "I never really elaborated on that."

"It wasn't specifically bad behavior. I've had problems with focus since I can remember." He began, absently waving his hand, "I swung hard between hyper fixation and indecisiveness, paralyzing boredom. The end result is that I failed every single class I ever took besides English. It was the only one I didn't have to try very hard to be good at."

Castle looked up and found Beckett's face stuck in an 'O' position, and decided to continue before she could cut in.

"I flunked out of several schools. The doctors always said the same thing. 'He's got a lot of energy, put him in sports'." He paused with a sneer. "Children's mental health counseling in the eighties left a lot to be desired." He finished with an uncharacteristic sharp edge to his voice.

He took another pull off of his beer, and looked down to find thin fingers pulling at the edge of his shirt sleeve. Beckett began to toy with the tip of his thumb and looked up to meet his eyes. "Go on." she whispered.

"Uh. Yeah. So things went on. I moved from school to school. Same story, different title." He flattened out his hand, and she continued worrying at the edges of his fingernails. "Nothing changed until I wrote an article for a school newspaper in ninth grade." His jaw clenched and his eyes closed.

"When I met Damien Westlake."

Kate's teeth clicked closed and her stomach turned, remembering the man and the betrayal Castle seethed with at the conclusion of that case.

Castle plowed on, eager to get the conversation out of the way. "Damien was the school pothead. So, naturally I had to try it too." His eyes were unfocused, staring at a spot somewhere over her shoulder, looking at things long passed.

"It didn't fix anything, but it slowed me down a bit." His arm lifted up and he tapped at his right temple, "It made everything not so loud."

His darkened blue eyes met hers; "You have no idea how loud it can get up here sometimes."

He shook his head, almost as if waking up from a nap, a small smile cutting across his face.

"We tried medications. They made it quiet but they turned me into a zombie. Going through the motions. I couldn't feel, I couldn't write." and with a small grin continued, "And I'd rather deal with some background noise and hassle of dealing with a drug dealer over not being able to write."

With a wider grin that put a bit of color back in his face, he continued. "Though it's not the hassle it used to be. Turns out, everything is easier to find when you've got money."

The pair sat in silence for a moment before Castle started moving things around, preparing to clean up. "And that's the story, detective."

Beckett sat in silence, picking at the label of her beer and slowly nodding. "I guess I don't really get it, but I think I'm glad I don't." She breathed out. "But I understand. Thanks, Castle. I think I feel a bit better about it now."


"So, movie then bed? The guest room is ready and waiting as usual if you want to crash here." Castle stood up and began clearing the trash from the evening's supper.

"I'm pretty sure there's still a few of your things in the dresser from your previous stays." He called back over his shoulder as he chopped the pizza box into pieces to stuff into the recycling.

After washing his hands in the sink, Castle turned to find that Beckett had unbuttoned and removed her button up shirt and was now sitting in a thin white tank top, the outline of her dark colored bra just visible beneath.

Castle bit down on his tongue hard enough that he tasted iron and had to remind himself to keep breathing.

Beckett remained still sitting at the island, chewing hard on her lip, eyes far away in thought, and metaphorical smoke rolling off the top of her head from the grinding gears.

Castle moved forward slowly, as if he were approaching a wild animal.

To startle her was to take life and limb into his own hands.

He softly padded up to the table next to her, bumping her shoulder lightly with his forearm.

With a jump, she swung around quickly, and her burning blush had him a bit on the concerned side.

"Penny for your thoughts, Detective?" She scoffed and waved a hand at him, faintly grinning.

"You're rich, they're gonna cost you way more than that." She said with a playful glare. "Seriously, sit. You're hovering."

He couldn't fight the toothy smile that spread across his face as he took the seat next to her and propped his foot up on the crossbar of her chair.

The pair sat in silence and he allowed her to continue to mentally chew over whatever it was that had her twisted up.

Beckett continued to gnaw at her lip, tilting her head back and forth as if having a mental conversation with herself, eyebrows raising and lowering.

She was brought out of her mental debate by Castle's snort. Her eyes snapped up to find him sitting there wide eyed with both hands over his mouth. Her eyes narrowed and she pinned him down with her best Detective Face.

"You laughing at me, Castle?"

Castle put his hands over his heart and swooned, an exaggerated look of anguish on his face. "I'd never, Beckett. It looked like you were having quite the conversation, so I was just giving you some space to get it all sorted."

He reached out and tugged on one of her runaway curls and pinned her with that back of the dust jacket smile that twisted up her guts and made her want.

"Talk to me, Detective. What's got you in a twist?"

She sighed, letting both hands drop to her lap. Her head lolled back and she sat there briefly with her eyes close.

"I want to ask you something that I'm not honestly sure how to ask. And maybe could we shelve 'Detective' tonight? All things considered, it's kinda making this harder."

His eyebrows hiked up and he tugged again on the curl that he had claimed.

"Fair enough, Beckett. Maybe just go for it? How bad could it be?"

Her shoulders slumped and she took on an air of defeat.

She swallowed hard.

"Do you have any more?" she muttered, barely audible in the nearly silent loft.

Castle's eyebrows shot up.

"Any more? I'm going to need you to be a bit more explicit, Beckett." he said lightly, though with a fairly decent idea of what she was getting at.

Beckett grimaced and huffed at him. "You're really going to make me just say it, aren't you?" she pouted out. She dropped her head to hide behind her hair and whispered, "Weed, Castle. Do you have any more?"

Castle's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

"You really are having a good time, aren't you?" He smirked out, before backpedaling at the acid in her look. "I assume Kate is asking and not Detective Beckett? Because my answer to the Detective is 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'"

Beckett bit down on her lip again, an unhappy glower settling in between her eyebrows. "Oh, come on, Castle! Don't mess with me. I'm having a hard enough time with..." She trailed off shaking her head, an embarrassed flush burning attractively down her neck.

With a frown, she slapped her palms down on the table and stood up from her chair. "Whatever, forget it. I should probably…."

Castle felt everything start fishtailing violently and scrambled to correct.

He snagged her hand as she turned, pulling her toward his seat, in between his knees.

Feeling braver than was probably safe, he grabbed her by the hips and held her in place, doing his best to not acknowledge exactly where he'd just put his hands.

"Uhbup bup bup bup. Be at peace, Beckett." He looked up at her and smiled, trying to get her back to the zen headspace she'd been in all evening.

A wildly embarrassed Kate Beckett was probably the cutest thing he'd ever seen besides baby Alexis.

He squeezed her hip bones and was a bit horrified to realize that 'half mast' was definitely understating his situation.

She looked down at his hands then back up at his rapidly flushing face. Her right eyebrow hitched up and she bit down harshly on her already abused lip.

'Turnabout is fair play, right?'

She lightly ran the fingertips of her left hand up his arm, ending up at the base of his skull. She briefly scratched at the soft, fine hairs before fisting a handful of his hair and firmly tilting his head back to meet her eyes, a small smirk unfolding across her face.

"So, your hands Castle. Do you have intentions I should be concerned with?" She husked out, her voice hot like steam as it left her throat. She could feel her pulse beating in her temples and tight, coiling heat burning it's way down her spine and settling in her lower belly.

His pupils blew out leaving his eyes deep black pits, just slivers of deep midnight blue. The grip on her hips tightened to just this side of painful and she could see the muscles of his jaw jumping, fighting to regain some semblance of control.

'Oh wow, that really does it for him.'

Unbidden, a voice from the past whispered in her ear;

'But if it makes you feel any better, I'd be happy to let you spank me.'

She laid her other hand over the tightening grip on her hip, tilting her head to the side.

'Well isn't that interesting. May just be worth investigating.'

She released his hair, digging her nails into the back of his neck briefly before stepping back, forcing him to release her.

She almost felt disappointed.

"So, how about you go see what you can find for us. I'll get us a couple more beers, and we can get to that movie you've mentioned a few times." Her voice was rough and her heart thumped excitedly.

He nodded silently.

"Good boy."

'Nothing's ever going to be the same between us again, is it?'

She almost felt a sense of loss at the thought.


Castle came out of his office carrying a small box and found the living room empty.

With a shrug, he laid the box down on the table, snatched the controller for the TV and threw himself back into the large overstuffed couch.

Flipping through the collection of movies, his eyes narrowed and a toothy grin stretched across his face. As he considered pressing play, he heard the telltale clicks of Beckett's heels, coming back from the bathroom.

Looking back over his shoulder he grinned and announced, "My girlfriend sucked thirty seven dicks!"

Without pause, Beckett snorted and responded in kind.

"In a row?"

Castle threw his head back and laughed loudly. "Clerks it is."

Heels clicking in the dark, Beckett rounded the couch and stood in front of Castle, arms crossed and a contemplative slant to her otherwise expressionless face.

With a confused grin, Castle looked down at the four inch heels she was still wearing. "Take your boots off, get comfortable. I may have found just what you were asking for."

The room filled with a heavy silence, and Kate took another two steps until she stood just a couple of feet in front of him.

"Is your love for me like a truck, Castle?"

Confusion swept over his face and his eyes widened. "Beckett?"

"Help me take my boots off, Castle." she spoke softly into the thick silence of the loft.

She took a step forward and raised one foot off the ground, years of yoga allowing her to maintain steady balance on the remaining foot. She extended her leg and pinned her sharp heel sharply into his left pectoral, her arms remaining crossed.

Castle gasped, one hand raising to touch her ankle, the other dropping to cover and adjust his obviously rapidly growing reaction.

'Who would've thought. Mistress Heat, indeed!"

"Your safe word is apples, right?" she breathed out, eyes glittering deep emerald, and he could feel his pulse hammer behind his eyes.

Castle swallowed thickly, the sharp, grinding pain in his chest mingling with the roaring arousal that left him stiff and panting. "Kate, please." he whimpered out, his voice quaking. "This really isn't funny."

Her expression never wavered, beside her right eyebrow hitching up. "I'm not laughing." She twisted her foot slightly, digging the heel further in.

"My boot, Castle." she said in a soft, commanding tone.

'Holy Shit. This is the coolest thing that's ever happened to me.'

He nodded and slowly reached for the zipper of her boot, failing to get a good grip the first try due to his shaking fingers.

He slowly dragged the zipper down to the arch of her foot before reaching up to grasp her calf, just below her knee, and lifted her foot slightly. With his other hand, he grabbed the heel, pulling and turning the boot off her heel before removing it completely.

As she tried to switch feet, he held on tight. She tilted her head and continued to watch as he hooked his finger in her white ankle sock and pulled it off as well, a faint smirk on his face.

"Orange, Beckett? Very sexy." he grinned.

He turned his head toward her foot and lightly took the end of her long, slim big toe in his mouth, swirling his tongue over its tip.

"You have gorgeous feet. Somehow, I'm not surprised." he breathed, letting his breath wash over the tops of her freshly uncovered, neon orange painted toes.

Her pupils blew out, her eyes swirling black holes in the low light and he could see the muscle of her jaw twitching sporadically.

She gently removed her foot from his grasp and raised the other, planting the heel on his right leg, perilously close to his groin. She smirked at the long, breathy groan he released as he held onto her ankle tightly.

He repeated the process, pulling down the zipper before gently removing her foot from the boot, kissing gently at her knee as he snagged the sock to pull it off as well.

Atop her foot lie a tattoo; a small pink rose with a banner.

1/9/99, I love you, never forgotten in flowing script.

He reverently brushed the petals with his thumb, smiling up at her.

Without a word, she eased the foot out of his hand and sat down next to him before shifting further down the couch, snatching a small throw pillow from the corner and laying down on his thigh, hugging the cushion.

"Show me what you brought out for me, Rick."

With a shaky smile, Castle pulled the slim black vaporizer out of the box he'd obtained in his office, explained the mechanics of the device to her, and started the movie.

Neither mentioned what just happened.


The air was so heavy with tension they could taste it.

The credits rolled.

With a flick of his thumb, Castle turned off the television, plunging the loft into semi darkness, flickers of light from the windows faintly illuminating the room, stretching the shadows.

Beckett stood up slowly, stretching with her arms straight up. Her tank top pulled up slightly and a flash of pale flesh at her waist shone like moonlight in the dark.

Castle sat stiffly with his spine ramrod straight, muscles jumping out of his jaw, lips faintly trembling. His leg was fighting to start bouncing like a jackhammer.

Hands were unconsciously clenching into fists and shakily releasing, fighting the urge to dig his hands into the flesh of her fucking spectacular thighs.

He wanted to take her.

Grab the cut of her hips and squeeze.

He wanted to mark her.

Make her his.

And Kate Beckett was just...watching him.

Her left hip cocked out to the side, arms crossed across her waist, and an unreadable expression across her slightly flushed face. Her right eyebrow was hitched high, her often abused bottom lip savaged in between her teeth, and her eyes were so dark they glittered like obsidian in the low light.

Heat blazed through his veins and pulse pounding harshly in his temples. The flickering shadows of the loft pressed down heavily upon them and he had to force himself to just. keep. breathing.

"Music, Rick. I need something…fun." A faint smile brushed her lips as she began to faintly sway in place, running her hands through her hair, leaving a tousled mess.

Her eyes roamed from his bouncing foot to his adorably mussed hair.

'I just can't fight this anymore, I'm so tired.'

The set of her face never wavered but no amount of her, admittedly impressive, stoicism could hide the hunger that flowed from her hooded eyes like glowing, arcing plasma.

Rick froze as he had a sudden flashback to a hungry, angry tiger.

'Okay, maybe she's going to be doing the taking.'

With a light smile, Castle merely gestured toward the entertainment center against the far wall of the room.

"You're the boss, Kate." He whispered.

Beckett pivoted, a slow smirk curling across her swollen lips.

Castle could do nothing but watch as her hips swayed, slinking though the flickering dark of his loft like liquid sex, skin tight jeans hugging the curve of her rear in a way that had him clenching both his thighs and his teeth.

As she neared the illuminated entertainment center she turned back and pinned him with narrowed eyes, the energy crackling through her darkened orbs lit his soul on fire.

"You just remember that you said that, Rick." she husked out.

She looked so wound up that it was a little bit intimidating.

Or a lot.

Without his consent, his shaft throbbed painfully against his zipper.

Hard enough to hang a wet towel off of.

'She knows exactly what she's doing to me. Fucking tease.'


Silence hung dark and oppressive in the loft as Beckett casually scrolled down the list of music on the attached touchscreen.

Castle couldn't help but smile fondly at this adorable, indecisive Kate, chewing at her thumbnail as she continued to scroll and scroll and scroll.

Such a sudden, dramatic shift from the seductive, intimidating dark siren she had been just moments before.

She's beautiful and she's dangerous. She's dominating and she's fragile.

Absolutely adorable and so fucking sexy.

She's everything and always.

He couldn't sit still any longer.

Castle smoothly stood, fire coiling up his spine. He adjusted his pants with a grimace, and strode across the living space, coming to a halt behind her.

Her head snapped up with a harsh gasp when she felt the radiating heat of his chest pressing into her back, his bulk wrapping around her slight form, hands grasping with bruising force on her hip bones.

'He's done waiting.'

She leaned back with a serene smile, allowing him to support her weight, feeling his nose dig deeply into her hair, greedily drawing in her scent.

The faintest hint of her arousal flooded his nose and the tenuous grasp he had on his inner caveman snapped.

His right hand trailed up, coming to rest just below the curve of her breast, landing directly on knotted remnants of the surgery that saved her life. Pausing to briefly scratch at the lace of the bra he could feel under her light tank top, he wrapped his wide hand around her rib cage and squeezed.

The other hand trailed up and tangled itself into her hair, fingernails scratching at her scalp. His thick fingers gathered a handful of the thick chestnut curls. With a decisive scrape of trembling fingers, he clenched the handful into his fist, firmly pulling her head back to gain access to the long curve of her neck.

Beckett gasped and her jaw fell open, eyes shuttering closed, the sharp sting of his clenched fist firing across every nerve ending in her scalp, further stoking the raging flames gathered low in her belly.

'We're gonna be fucking amazing together.'

The heavy pressure on her ribs spread into a flush up her neck and across her heaving chest.

It was not a tentative squeeze. It was a harsh, bruising pressure and the things he was saying without actually speaking brought tears to her eyes.

She was strong.

Healed.

Whole.

'He just gets me.'

Hot breath washed over the shell of her ear, teeth flashing along its ridge. His tongue dexterously snagged the lobe, pulling it into his mouth. Sucking. Pulling.

Castle's breath shuddered out harshly and he ground his forehead into the mass of curls clenched in his fist before diving toward the ridge of her throat. Teeth sinking in, dragging out a gasp and an expletive against her will.

"Shit, Castle!"

He rewarded her sharp, pained gasp with the flat of his tongue, working its way wetly up her exposed neck, swirling over the purpling mark already flaring at her pulse point, stopping to once again dig his nose into the side of her head.

She smiled faintly, feeling the choking, gasping against her super heated skin.

'He's shaking everywhere.'

She had never completely and truly grasped the extent of the very real power she held over this man until tonight.

"I'm scared too, Rick." she breathed.

And the energy shifted again to something far heavier.

Far more always.

With a choked sob, Castle's hand released her heaving ribs, brushing his thumb almost reverently along what would be thick, finger shaped bruises by morning. He gently loosened his white knuckled grip on her hair and he gathered her into him, surrounding her.

He needed to be closer.

Bring her into his heart and hold her there.

"Be with me, Kate. We were made to fix each other." he breathed into her ear, lips quivering.

She turned in his arms, bringing her arms up around his neck, digging her fingers into the hair at the back of his neck, bringing his forehead down to touch hers.

The trembling pair, completely entangled together from their heads to their feet.

Wet cheeks and fear in their eyes and they were the only two people left in the whole universe.

Their lips barely brushed over one another. Harsh breaths mingling, hot and damp.

Hanging by a thread with tears in her eyes and heart on his sleeve.

"Let me love you."

She nodded.


Bit spicy, but nothing over the top. I had originally started down that road and it ended up bloating into a 10k word monster that got way waaay too explicit for this site. I'll keep working at it and either post it as an epilogue chapter or potentially a separate fic.

Bit cliche at the end, but cliches are cliches because they work. At least the last word wasn't always, amiright?

Beckett's experience with edibles was definitely not what you're likely to see with a high-powered dose and no tolerance. That usually tends toward panic attacks and passing out in my experience, but not so much fun to read about.

I'm also 100% certain that there's absolutely no chance the Kate Beckett in the show would let this go. She may not have arrested him, but she definitely would have sent him on his way. This is all just for fun.

I absolutely do not advocate self medicating. Castle's experience with add was basically taken from snippets of my personal experience with doctors in the rural midwest being completely uninterested in calling it anything but 'boys being boys'.

I'm going to mark this complete, but keep eyes open, I may just go ahead with that horn filled epilogue or side story, but it'd be a while. Life keeps happening and it stops for no one.