For the Dead Travel Fast
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She came around slowly, consciousness returning in soft, snowy layers.
She was cold. Flat on her back. The sky was deep black kissed with stars.
She felt fingers in her hair, her head on his thigh. She tilted her head back and saw him in the yellow moon, his teeth shining, bared, his bleached eyes far away from her. "Rick," she croaked.
He glanced down. His mouthed closed around his teeth and his eyes softened. "Hey. You're here."
"I'm… wet?" She lifted a hand, water dripping from her sleeve, fingertips wrinkled.
"I didn't know what to do. You were pouring sweat. You wouldn't wake up."
Her hand dropped. Splashed. "I'm in the lake," she mumbled, trying to process.
"You were burning up with fever."
She might have tried the Gatorade first.
"I did what you said but it didn't seem to work."
She tried to touch her shoulder, but he caught her hand. Her fingers twitched as he brought his lips to her knuckles. His breath was warm, shaky, but he didn't try to even suck her fingers into his mouth.
She swallowed and looked up at him. "It didn't work?"
"It's not healing."
"I feel better," she whispered.
"It's… you tasted bad. I didn't like it."
She groaned, tried to push herself up; he didn't tell her no, just hooked his arms under her shoulders and hoisted her upright. Pulled her onto his lap, keeping her ass out of the water. "You're wet too," she rasped.
"Yeah, I walked you into the lake."
She touched her shoulder, gasped as the pain ricocheted along her clavicle and knotted at her throat.
"I thought it would heal, I thought it would be better if I… I didn't drink." He gripped her tightly. "I did what you said." His fingers dug into her arms. "Why didn't it work?"
Kate explored, slowly, the place at her shoulder. "I don't know."
"What?"
"I said I don't know." She was half sprawled in sand and tiny rocks, she smelled of mud and algae and dead fish. Her shoulder and the lower part of her neck held two puncture wounds. "I don't feel any slashes, with your teeth? Did you—"
"Those healed," he husked. "Did you know it… feels like sex? Tasting you feels like making love."
She felt her cheeks heat and glanced at him. "Yeah."
"I think you orgasmed in your sleep. You weren't even conscious, but that flush came over your whole body. And stayed there. You were burning with fever, like—like those back to back orgasms when I—"
"It was probably something like that," she said quietly. She had not ever expected Castle to be upset about sex.
Of course, mix in the blood letting and maybe...
"That doesn't feel very good, you know, like there's no consent in that. With me just forcing it on you like that. It's not at all the same as waking you with—"
She touched her cold fingers to his throat; his babbling stopped. "I know it doesn't. I'm grateful you did though." She swallowed roughly. "Saved my life."
He stared at her, his eyes dark. Sad. "I can still smell it. H-her. It's not a good smell, Kate."
She turned her head and took a cautious sniff but all she caught was the metallic tang of her blood, sweat, the mud of the lake. "I can't smell it like you can."
"No?" His jaw dropped. "Why not?"
She shook her head slowly. "I wasn't… transitioned properly."
"Is that what's happening to me?"
Tears sprang to her eyes, spilled over. He immediately cupped her face in his hands, his thumbs brushing awkwardly against her tears. "No, don't, don't."
She kissed the heel of his hand. "I'm sorry."
"Sorry for what? This is scary and weird and freaky… and very very cool. Better than Twilight."
She laughed, choked on it. "It's mostly just been annoying," she sighed. "I… have so much to explain."
There was a weird silence between them. His eyes withdrawn, as if he were somewhere else.
"My head is still kinda fuzzy," he said after a beat. "Maybe save that for when everything isn't so…"
"Fuzzy?"
"There's a lot I don't seem to remember. And there are times I… want to sink my teeth in your—" His ears burned red; even in the moonlight and the wash of surf around her knees, she could see his embarrassment.
His shame. "Don't be ashamed. It's… I think it's natural." She chewed on the inside of her cheek and laid her forehead against his. "Why do you think I like having you in my mouth, Rick Castle?"
"Shit," he breathed. He made that noise he made whenever she would close her hand around him and slink down to her knees. She loved that noise.
She felt her lips twitch in a smile. Trailed her fingers down his throat to the place at his chest where she'd torn him open. To save his life. "I had to do it here instead though. Because of the gunshot wound."
"The—what?"
She winced, pulled back to look at him. "We were shot. In the loft after…" The confusion on his face, the sheer inability to comprehend her—she stopped trying to explain. "Later. But I think it might be why I can't heal from this." She cautiously touched near the puncture wound. The deranged vamp had not been going for her, but apparently trying to take her mate. She shivered as the skin throbbed. "There's a bullet inside me. It's difficult to heal when my body is constantly trying to grow over a shifting foreign object."
His hands gripped her roughly. "Kate? I don't… what do we do?"
"We need to find someplace safe for a while. Where we can hole up, no one can scent you out, and you finish transition while I'm still weak."
"Finish? Am I… not yet done?"
She shook her head. "No. A few more days."
"Days?" He stared at her. "How long has it been?"
She winced at the way he rattled her with his urgency, ground her teeth to keep it from showing on her face, the pain. Her shoulder was enflamed, likely her body was on the edge of tipping over into shock. "Only about twelve hours, so far. Mine took a week, but it never progressed as it should." She licked her dry lips. "He kept draining me. I couldn't phase properly." It hurt.
Castle released her arms as if burned. "Who?" he croaked. That high flush on his cheeks was a warning, and she heeded it.
"I'll tell you the whole story when you've phased out," she promised. "There are… some instabilities coming, Castle. I want to focus on getting you through it in one piece." She lifted her hand, the one he'd gouged in his insensate state, stroked his hair off his forehead. "You're much stronger than me, more in control. I'd have… in your place, I wouldn't have had the strength to resist me."
He grunted, flashed her a dark look. His eyes were still that unnatural white. "Normally, I might agree. But you stink, Beckett. You stink like a cesspool."
She flinched, then laughed, touching the wounds at her shoulder. "Do I? Well, maybe a gift in disguise. Help keep a lid on your rampant desire for me."
He gave her a cocky grin, opened his mouth—
"Yoo-hoo! You there! Are you two okay? Looked like you guys about drowned."
Kate stiffened, her eyes catching Castle's stricken gaze. She turned her head, and coming down the beach were a man and woman, hand in hand, with a dog on a leash before them.
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