Chapter 2
He prowled up on to the bed, and lay down next to her, curling his tail over her hips, forgetting that he'd intended to be the cat instead of the huge panther. In her sleep, she mewed, which was reassuring, and snuggled, which was more so: pressing into his furry warmth. She liked to snuggle in, whether feline or human.
Usually. Snuggling hadn't exactly been top of her mind when she'd stormed out. He stayed still, and waited, dozing again. Beckett turned over in her sleep – and jerked awake and away.
Castle put a huge paw over her, to bring her back. She swiped at him, but forgot she was human. It had as much effect on him as a gnat would have had. He rumbled at her, with a hint of a growl. She tried to turn her back on him, and the rumble became more growly. When she stopped trying to turn, he patted gently at her and rubbed his black head into her neck, very softly.
"Go away," she said, pushing at him. He didn't move an inch away, but his tail slid over her. "I don't want you here."
Castle changed back. "I didn't know about the tea."
"Yeah, right. Just like you 'didn't know' about the natural fibres. Fool me once..." She turned over. "Go away. I need to sleep."
"I didn't. It was called Nepeta Tea. The store assistant said it was good for headaches. If I'd known it was catnip I wouldn't have got it."
"Yes, you would. You just can't resist experimenting."
"Not with drugs," Castle said heavily.
Beckett's eyes opened wide.
"Never, ever with drugs on someone else."
She blinked.
"I saw what happened when drinks got spiked." He squirmed. "I'm not saying I was totally clean all the time – but I never did it to anyone else." He suddenly had her full attention. He wriggled even more uncomfortably, ears pink. "I – er – had to get some of them out."
"Of jail – or of wherever you were?" she asked.
His ears went bright red.
"Where you were."
He nodded.
Her hand crept on to his shoulder. "How?"
"Some were...um...suggestible. Some...I pretended I wanted a good time. Who was going to argue with me?" Arrogance suffused his tone. Her hand dropped away. "And then I got them back to their home." It returned. She never liked it when he behaved like the playboy superstar that Page Six would have him be. "So I wouldn't have doped you. If I'd thought it was catnip..."
"You'd have suggested we both try it."
"Uh...maybe?"
Beckett stayed still, not snuggling, not separating. Castle noted with disfavour that she was enveloped in a sloppy t-shirt, and that he was fully dressed. Neither seemed appropriate to the moment. He stripped down to his boxers and slipped under the quilt. His hands sneaked under the t-shirt and pulled her in close, producing a soft sigh and the removal of the t-shirt.
"I really didn't mean to get you high," he murmured.
"I know."
"Where've you been?"
"Out."
"Not the precinct – did you go to Central Park without me?" His hands clamped round her waist. "You did! You went and had all the fun of prowling round and terrifying lowlifes and I didn't! That's not fair!"
Beckett folded into herself.
Oh. Maybe that hadn't been the best thing to say.
"Is that what you do when you're upset?" No reply. "Look, stop hiding. I know I upset you, I said I didn't mean to, but stop hiding from me. I – you're allowed to be upset in front of me, okay? Not just losing your temper – you do that plenty – but actually really in tears upset."
It was just as well he still had his hands on her waist. It meant that Onyx's attempt to leap off the bed could be foiled before it began.
"And turning into something that can't talk is cheating too. Stop hiding and just tell me you're upset." Onyx monumentally failed to respond to that. Castle plucked her out of the sheets – she wouldn't rip her claws through her own sheets – and, sitting up against the pillows, tucked her into her favourite place on his shoulder and petted her.
"Silly cat," he soothed. "Hiding from me." The cat emitted a disgruntled growl-mew, which didn't exactly fill Castle with confidence in his tactics. He continued to stroke, which wasn't having much effect. Onyx might not have been running away, but she surely wasn't nestling in.
"Why do you do this?" he asked. "You know I'll find out that you're upset eventually, so why hide? You know you can lean on me. Just because you couldn't tell anyone the truth about being a cat – which is still the coolest secret ever – you think you can't share anything difficult. Well, you shared being a cat with me – and made me one too, so you should share the rest of how you feel. If you couldn't trust me you'd never have sneaked into that alley." His fingers hadn't ceased to pet. "Just trust me, Kate."
Abruptly, human-Beckett arrived in his arms, her head on his shoulder just where Onyx had been – for a second, before she put a small but ominous distance between them.
"Trust goes both ways. You want me to trust you but then you sneak around to get answers without talking to me either." Castle opened his mouth. "I believe you about the tea. But... you've got a track record. You could have asked me about the t-shirts and natural fibres. You could have asked me about brushing and ear-petting. But you didn't. So..."
Castle got around to shutting his mouth. "But you don't tell me about it. You don't answer."
"You don't ask."
"Because you never answer."
It was Beckett's turn to close her mouth. Without answering.
It wasn't... Oh. He might have a point. She didn't confide. But it wasn't just about the cat: that had been just one more secret. It had been her father, and her – seen now – half-hearted relationships, and, let's face it, a woman in the man's world of the NYPD wasn't exactly going to admit to any weakness or ever be seen upset rather than angry, was she?
"No..." she said.
Castle's jaw dropped. "No? I so totally didn't expect you to say that!"
Onyx reappeared, jumped off the bed and hid under it.
"You're doing it again. Hiding."
She was. Because she was totally embarrassed by his reaction and she really just wanted him to go away right now so she could be embarrassed completely on her own. Hiding was a perfectly reasonable reaction.
Hiding, it turned out, was only a perfectly reasonable reaction if there wasn't a large, predatory panther on a mission to retrieve her. Castle-panther turned out to have a very long reach indeed, and Beckett-Onyx found herself being scooted across the floor courtesy of a very large paw, and then pounced upon to keep her in place. Worse, she couldn't wash off the dust bunnies which had evidently been breeding under her bed, because she was pinned down. If he'd made claw holes in her wooden floors he'd be paying for the repairs.
Castle-panther lay Sphinx-like on the floor, regarding her smugly. It was quite ridiculously unfair that his paws were that wide and his claws that long. It was also unfair that she was on her back, with her stomach and throat exposed. That position did very strange things to her. She should be scared, but instead she was, er, aroused. And that rat knew perfectly well that in any cat form her reactions would be totally different from her human reaction, which would be to kill him. Slowly.
His paw wasn't pressing on her, but it was very clear that she wasn't going anywhere. The huge panther bared his teeth, coughed as if laughing, and bent his head to nuzzle at her nose. She batted at his ears, and he coughed again, a little meaningfully. Without effort, he flipped her over, caught her into two large paws, and tucked her in so that their fur merged and she was perfectly enclosed: safe, warm and wholly nestled. He'd never done that before. She liked it. She felt...um...protected. Sheltered. She lay quiet, and enjoyed it: eyes closed, tail still, ears up.
Castle-panther nipped very carefully at her neck, and Onyx sighed and relaxed. She wasn't going to try to go anywhere.
Oh. No. That was not dignified. He was not going to be allowed to do that ever again. The panther had picked her up by the scruff of her neck – with his teeth! – just as if she were a cub, which was totally not allowed, and deposited both of them back on the bed, with her nestled into his forepaws again and their ears touching. He emitted a satisfied purr deep in his chest, closed his eyes and was instantly asleep. Beckett-Onyx promptly followed him. Forbidding him ever to pick her up like that again would wait until the morning.
Onyx opened an eye, decided she didn't like it and shut the eye again. Mornings should be abolished. There was a nuzzle at her neck. Too bad. Too early. She curled herself up tightly and ignored the morning, the nuzzle, and the whole wide world.
That was unfair. Nuzzling had stopped. The warm fur around her had disappeared, and while she had her own warm fur, she'd liked the extra. She gave an unhappy noise, and tried to slide under the quilt. Castle's large hands pulled her out again. She flicked her tail crossly, and flattened her ears.
"Out you come," he coaxed. "I wanna pet you."
Oh. She supposed she could deal with being petted, as long as she didn't have to wake up or do anything. She allowed herself to be extracted, placed on his shoulder, and stroked as only Castle could stroke her: perfectly judged to be firm without pressing; gentle without being ineffectual.
"Now," he said, when she was purring and contented: curled lax on his lap where she had slithered, "why don't you change back so we can fix this and then" – he grinned lazily – "find something fun to do?"
She didn't want to change back, and there was nothing to fix except Castle's insatiable curiosity, which was unfixable without a full frontal lobotomy. She had considered it, but he'd likely lose all the other things that made him Castle, which probably wasn't worth it. However, his hands were petting around her ears in a very provocative fashion, which left her inclined to provide some provocations of her own. She switched form.
"Well, hello," Castle oozed.
Ah. No t-shirt. Which had had its usual effect on Castle, whose eyes were dilated as wide as they could go and who'd clearly forgotten any idea of talking. There was only room for one idea in his head right now, and it had nothing to do with talking. Not that she could talk. Her mouth was otherwise engaged, as was his, and stroking was not confined to her cat form. He could stroke her human form equally excellently, and he was. She arched into his wicked hands and encouraged him.
Fairly shortly her hands became equally wicked, which was obviously all Castle's fault for setting a bad example. He shouldn't have wasted his time getting dressed, because it all came off again. As did her minimalist panties, with considerable – er – appreciation – along the way. And then he slid against her and then into her and then they didn't bother with thinking or talking any more.
"So," Castle said lazily, a broad hand on her waist to hold her close (and stop her running off and hiding again, though the panther had loved hunting her down and catching her), "how about a deal?"
"Deal?"
"Yeah. Deal. I won't sneak around to find things out, but you answer when I ask. Or tell me you don't want me to know," he added hastily.
There was a brief flicker of the pure black Siamese before Beckett returned. For a moment, she didn't say anything.
"Okay..." she said finally. "But if I don't want to answer or tell you to keep your nose out, you don't keep trying to find out."
"Okay..." Castle said, just as slowly. "I'll...well, I'll try not to."
"I'll try to answer."
"Okay." He smiled beautifully. "All fixed."
"Mm."
"Come here."
"Why?" she asked, provocatively. "I'm comfy right here." She snuggled down and closed her eyes peacefully.
"It's mid-morning. You can't go back to sleep."
"I'm a cat. I can sleep anytime."
"Explains a lot about how you run your cases and never seem to need to sleep at night."
"They call them catnaps for a reason."
"You can't be a cat in the bullpen – can you?" His eyes lit up. "Where are you hiding? You must be hiding somewhere or I'd have heard about the precinct cat. C'mon. You've got to tell me now."
She smiled, very cat-like. "Nope. I don't." His face fell. "But you can look for me. If you find me..." she trailed off, enticingly, "...then you get a prize."
"Hide and seek? I love hide and seek."
"So do I," Beckett purred. She flicked a quick glance at the open bedroom door. "Catch me if you can," she teased, changed and flashed past him out of the door. Castle's panther was a crucial few, stunned, seconds behind her, by which time she'd disappeared. Of course, she had the advantage that she knew her apartment inside out, which, despite Castle's best efforts, he did not. (But he would. He surely would.)
He padded out of the bedroom, yawned – and changed back to close the door. He knew she wasn't in there, and now she couldn't get back in without changing herself. Back as a panther, he sat and sniffed the air. It didn't help. The whole apartment was Beckett/Onyx-scented, which he should have thought of. He looked around, eyes narrowed and the thrill of hunting thrumming through him; his claws flexed out and – when he realised – in again. Clawing Beckett was not a good plan.
Aha. Over there. A pile of cushions was suspiciously disarranged. He prowled sideways, sneaking up on the heap, pounced – and caught nothing but air and a stray feather. A derisive mew came from behind him, and he whipped round to see the tip of a black tail disappear under the couch. Well, he knew how to deal with her hiding under furniture. He swiped a huge paw underneath, from end to end. All he caught were dust bunnies.
He sat back on his haunches and considered. An idea inserted itself into his head. He slinked on to the couch, and lay there, still and absolutely silent. Beckett would never believe he could be patient, but his panther was far more patient when stalking than Castle-human, and besides, he could be patient when the reward would be so pleasurable.
He waited, and waited, and waited. Finally, a set of sable whiskers emerged from a small nook, followed by Onyx's elegant nose and ears. He hunkered down, and waited further. The rest of Onyx arrived, right to the tip of her tail. Still he waited, until she took a few delicate steps away from her hiding place.
And then he pounced from the couch, and landed right behind her on three feet; the fourth paw restrained to a gentle landing on her back rather than the instinctive blow. She miaowed crossly, and lay down, conceding.
"Got you," he said happily, once changed back again. He picked her up and petted her against his shoulder. "I win. What's my prize?"
A human Beckett slithered into his lap. Much more importantly, a naked human Beckett had slithered into his lap. He deeply regretted having donned his boxers, and regretted it even more when she straddled him.
"Prize?" she husked. "You want a prize?" She wriggled. "I think that's quite hard." She wriggled again. "Mm. Yes."
Castle was quite definitely hard. Beckett was obviously inclined to play with her prey, which was entirely unfair since he'd won the chase. On the other hand, playful Beckett – playful naked Beckett – wasn't so common that he'd take any risks of spoiling it, since playful naked Beckett was his best playmate ever.
"My prize is you," he growled, the panther's love of the chase and the catch underlying his words. "I caught you." His arms tightened around her, and she smiled.
"So you did. And here I am." She wiggled. "Here you are, too."
"So I am," Castle said lazily, "and I'm just considering what to do with you. So many options." He kissed her, which was always a good option to begin with, and was enthusiastically kissed in return. Hands wandered freely, petting became stroking became palming and rolling and sliding; mouths investigated and found delights; bodies heated and breath panted; and one dragged the other back to bed.
"I have an idea," Beckett breathed into Castle's oh-so-attentive ear.
"Mm? What sort of an idea? Having ideas is my job."
"No, that's having crazy theories." She smiled mischievously. "I think we need to share more."
"Yes? I mean, yes, but what are you suggesting we share that we don't already?"
"Well..."
"What! Tell me, Beckett. It's not fair to tease me like that."
"When I...mmmm...tease you, you'll know about it," she breathed.
"Just tell me."
He pinned her down by leaning across her chest and drew his fingers threateningly over her midriff to the spot that he knew was hopelessly ticklish.
"Well..." she said again, and squeaked as his fingers moved. "Don't tickle! Not nice."
"Neither's not telling me your idea."
"Bully," she grumbled. "Okay. We should share that tea."
"Uh?"
"You think I'm going to be the only doped cat in our house?"
"Our house?" Castle gulped.
Beckett's jaw dropped as she realised what she'd said. She hadn't meant to put it quite like that.
"Our house?" he said again. "Uh...are you suggesting you should move into the loft? Because I'm totally up for that and I'll call the movers right now but since most of your shoes are already there I think we've got the main issue covered and who's going to take over this apartment" –
"We are."
"Uh? But... but what about my loft? I don't wanna" –
"We'll have that too."
"Uh?"
Beckett took pity on Castle's sex-addled brain. He wasn't usually that slow. "I was still working it out, but I thought that we could be mostly human at yours and keep here for being, well, not. All the time. Nobody's going to walk in on us here, and we could turn it into a place that's really cool for cats."
Castle gleeped. Words were beyond him. Beckett oofed.
"Need to breathe," she gasped. Oh. He loosened his grip on her and kissed her hard.
"Move in? Really? I've been waiting for you to get there for months."
"We've only been...um..."
"Dating?"
"I guess – for six months."
He coloured. "Well. Anyway." He kissed her again, rather than sticking his foot in his mouth. "That's a great idea," he said after he lifted off.
"I know."
"Smugness isn't attractive."
Beckett merely smiled. Smugly.
"So when are we going to do it?"
"Soon?" Beckett said, a little uncertainly.
"How about tomorrow?"
She supposed that that was soon. "Don't you think it might be better to give your family more than twelve hours' warning?"
Castle pouted. "I guess. Next week, then."
Beckett, not unusually, felt as if she'd been caught up in the enthusiastic Castle-tornado.
"It'll be great," he bounced. "What do you want here to be like?"
"Cushions, low couches, rugs... a much taller scratching post."
"Why?"
"Panther. You like being a panther. I like being a cat. You need a taller post – or you'll be caught by Animal Control in Central Park ripping up their trees."
"Okay."
"But most importantly..." she paused and grinned mischievously.
"What?"
"A kettle, a teapot, and two teacups."
"Uh?"
"The first thing that's moving here is the catnip tea."
Fin.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers.
