For the Dead Travel Fast
—-xxx—-
He woke when the car door slammed, a rough sensation in his throat, hands clutching the steering wheel. He was bewildered by the glare of light and the press of darkness, couldn't remember what he'd been doing.
"Hey, you awake?"
He twisted around and saw Kate crawling over the console and into the passenger seat. "Yeah," he murmured. "Awake."
"You're not usually the one to pass out after sex," she said, a slip of a smile.
"Oh." Memory came rushing back and he stared at her. "Oh. Wow."
She was smiling broadly now. "We're charged."
He blinked.
She reached across the console, leaning in close, two fingers at his chin. "The car is charged."
"I've been unconscious three hours?" he rasped.
"I cut it off a bit earlier than that," she said. "We're at about eighty percent." She was skimming her fingers against his throat. "Didn't want to risk staying much longer. You feel okay?"
"Oh. Yeah. Eighty percent is good, smart. Feel okay, I think."
She nodded. "You're a little warm. Want some water?"
"Where'd you find water?"
"In the car, from earlier."
"You changed clothes," he rasped.
"You should too." She gestured to the back. "Duffle bag back there." She was studying him minutely, so much so that he wondered if he had something on his face. "My turn to drive."
He nodded. Felt his eyeballs gritty in their sockets. He rubbed his fists into his eyes and yawned. "Okay. Let me… get myself together. I'm kind of out of it."
"Can you crawl through?" she asked. "I'd rather you not be out there. Leave no trail."
"Yeah, I can." He dropped his hands, struggled to coordinate. "I think." The steering wheel was inordinately cumbersome, his knees wouldn't pull up into his chest, he couldn't manage to turn in the seat. "Help a guy out."
"Drink some water first, Castle. You look disoriented."
He took the bottle from her, top already twisted off, went ahead and slugged it back. He did feel better after a few gulps, realized his shaking hands were starting to settle too.
"That's better," she murmured. "Your eyes are a little more blue now."
"Oh yeah?" He craned his neck to look at himself in the rear view mirror, cackled at the unnatural look of them. "That is insane. Remember when I had that zombie costume I borrowed?"
"Yeah, it does look kind of like that."
"That was a fun case. We should do that sometime. A zombie walk. Wouldn't that be hilarious? Two vampires at a zombie walk in teh dead of night."
She was silent, and he glanced over at her, surprised to see tears fresh in her eyes.
"Whoa. Kate? Hey. We don't have to do that. I know I was kind of an ass to you back then, if that's bringing up past hurts for you—"
"No, you dummy," she muttered, slapping his shoulder. She swiped at her cheeks and ignored his questioning. "Get back there, change clothes, okay? You smell pretty ripe."
"Okay." He didn't push it, knowing she'd talk eventually, given enough time and silence. He made a doofus of himself crawling over the center console into the backseat, getting stuck a moment, but she happily shoved on his back end to help him over.
She climbed into the driver's seat and touched the occupant profile; the seat and mirrors automatically adjusted to her preset specifications, and he could practically feel her pleasure with the Porsche coming off her in waves.
"Just don't turn on the warming seat feature," he called up, unzipping the duffle. "Then I'll know I've been replaced."
"Shut up. I love this car, but not as much as I love you."
He grinned to himself and pulled out a pair of clean jeans, shedding the athletic shorts that hadn't felt like much protection. When he pulled the t-shirt off over his head, she had already turned the vehicle onto the gravel under the main filling station lights, and he caught a flash of tears on her cheeks that sobered him pretty fast.
Once he had changed into clean clothes, he crawled back over the console and into the passenger seat, even as Kate got them back out onto the highway. "You gonna talk to me or what."
"Give me a minute," she croaked. She was doing an admirable job of holding back tears, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, eyes dead ahead.
He put on his seatbelt and rummaged in the bag on the floorboard for more water or something to eat. "We'll have to stop for some kind of sustenance, and I don't mean sucking each other off."
"Oh my God, you did not just say that."
"Come on, it was funny."
She shook her head, but he saw the faint twitch of her lips. The tears were dry. He'd successfully averted an emotional crisis, and he felt pretty pleased with himself. She also handled the car better than he did, he could admit it; she'd been trained at the Academy after all.
"So what are we now, twenty more hours to Great Salt Lake?" he asked. They'd turned the GPS off on the Porsche, but he had the feeling someone somewhere could turn it back on and track them, given a warrant or two. "And, uh, you think we have time, when we next stop for food, for a call home?"
"Oh yes, Rick, I'm sorry, we will definitely do that. Alexis and your mother—"
"Let's stick with Alexis," he said, holding up a hand with a wince. "Don't go too far."
She chuckled softly, but the shine was back in her eyes. "You're a good man," she murmured. "Here you are, turning into a full-blooded vampire, and you're cracking jokes and keeping my spirits up and—and doing the right thing by all of us. I should have told you before it came to this."
He reached across the console, going most of the way, but he left his hand palm-up and waiting for her. She took it with one of her own, squeezing, the other on the wheel. She wasn't looking at him, but at the road, and he sensed a great deal of shame in her. "When should you have told me? It's not first date material. And I didn't even know you'd been married before until we went for the license."
"Oh God, what a stupid—"
"Kate, ease up on yourself. This is a big deal. This kind of secret isn't the same as forgetting you're probably still married to a guy from college. I mean. This is the stuff that would break a lesser man."
She grunted, a twitch of her lips.
He grinned. "And yeah, it's a work in progress, my processing of this new paradigm, but isn't it easier now that you're not alone? That's important to me. That you're not alone in any of this."
She slumped, her head leaning back against the rest, a brief moment of either total exhaustion or total relief. "Yeah. It's shitty to do to you, but it's so good to have you with me."
"Partners," he said easily. But it wasn't, really, was it? This wasn't easy. And so far nothing tragic had happened, but he was anticipating the next twenty hours or so would not be pretty.
"Partners," she rasped. Brought his hand up to her mouth and—
licked the back of his hand.
Castle grunted in surprise.
"One added benefit?" She grinned, flashed him a look. "You're very tasty. Sexy-tasty. I'm glad to have you with me in that too."
"Hell yes."
—-xxx—-