Chapter 6.
Onyx turned up at dinner time, and amused herself by winding in and out of Castle's legs as he prepared and then ate his dinner.
"She's not interested in anyone else, is she?" Alexis asked rhetorically.
"It's my charm and ruggedly handsome looks," Castle replied, to a groan from Alexis, a huff from his mother, and a loudly derisive miaow from the cat.
"It certainly isn't your modesty, kiddo."
"And on that flattering note, I shall make my exit."
Castle repaired to his study, not pursued by a bear but preceded by Onyx, who appeared from under the dinner table and led him out.
"I had the dumbest idea today. For a moment, I thought that you were Beckett in disguise. I mean, obviously that's nonsense, because shape-shifters don't exist, but it would be so cool if they did. It would explain a lot about you, too. How you're never there when Beckett comes by, and how she's hurt just the same as you. I know it's just a coincidence, but it would be amazing. Anyway, I'm going to prove it isn't true by getting you two in the same room." He drooped. "It would be great, though. Really great. Though if shape-shifters were even a thing I'd have bet on Beckett being a much bigger cat. A black panther, like Bagheera out of the Jungle Book. Or maybe a tiger, or a leopard. Something lethal, anyway."
Onyx favoured him with a flat-eyed, sardonic stare that somehow made it perfectly clear that she thought him utterly insane.
"I know. I'm being silly. Come here, then." She jumped up into his arms. He tickled her under the chin, and she purred softly, growing louder as he stroked her more firmly. "You're almost mended," he murmured to her. "Good. Don't do that again. One of you putting yourself in harm's way all the time is quite enough for me. It's not good for my blood pressure. You need to take care. God knows Beckett doesn't. I get that it's her job, and I wouldn't want it any other way, but it's scary." Onyx miaowed, and pushed her head into his shoulder. Castle flirted with her ears, pondering. "It's still weird," he said into the quiet study. "So many coincidences."
He pulled the laptop towards him, making sure that Onyx could see the screen too. "Let's have a look," he told her. "You can find anything on the net. Someone will suggest a way to detect a shape-shifter."
An hour or so later, he had found dozens of ways to detect a shape-shifter, accompanied by Onyx's contemptuous feline stare. Clearly she did not believe in such tales. Reading them through, Castle was inclined to agree. One suggested a decoction of mandrake, silver, quicksilver and spider-webs, spiders optional. He shuddered. Another sure-fire detection method involved DNA testing, which Castle was certain would work, if only he knew anyone who wouldn't laugh him out of state for trying it. Besides which, Beckett must have had blood tests before. Alternatively, he could feed the suspected shape-shifter ibuprofen, but that webpage noted that if the animal was normal, it would die in agony. Not a good option at all. On the other hand, Beckett had been swallowing Advil like there was no tomorrow, so that didn't prevent her being a shape-shifter.
None of the internet theories were plausible, practical or performable. Castle scowled blackly at the screen. "That's no good," he grumbled at Onyx. "How'm I supposed to prove that you aren't Beckett?" Onyx merely yawned, showing a full set of sharp white teeth, and resettled herself comfortably on Castle's chest, where, except for a short break to drink her evening drops of coffee and visit the bathroom, she stayed, purring quietly.
Castle didn't know what small noise woke him in the very early hours of the morning, but wake he did. Onyx wasn't at his neck, either. He sat up, rubbing his eyes, to see if he could spot her, but she wasn't anywhere in sight. He sleepily staggered out of his room to the study, where she was also nowhere to be found, and then to the main room. He was just in time to see the handle turning to close the outer door without a sound. He flung himself across the room, but his frantic glances around the dark hallway didn't show him anything. He checked everything in case it was a burglar, but nothing was missing at all: his wallet and laptop exactly where he had left them. He was almost ready to tell himself he'd imagined it: too much writing or an over-active imagination, but then he had an idea. A completely and utterly insane idea, but an idea. He grabbed his phone and called Beckett.
There was no answer. Which of course wasn't determinative, but he happened to know that Beckett never, ever had her phone on silent even when off-duty – she'd said once, in a moment of abnormal confidence, that it was for her father – and so her not answering was certainly highly suggestive. Without any further ado, he dressed, grabbed phone and wallet and slipped out of the loft as silently as… well, as whoever had left moments ago.
"Where are you off to, Mr Castle?" the night doorman asked.
Castle stopped. "Did you see my cat go by?"
"No, but I wasn't looking."
"Anyone else?"
"Not a soul."
Okay, so if Beckett was Onyx or vice versa she certainly hadn't gone out as her Beckett-self. Castle waved a brief farewell at the doorman, hailed the first cab he saw and directed it to Beckett's apartment, as fast as it could manage. His, still completely insane, thought process could vaguely be described as if I get a cab I can get there faster than a cat or than Beckett. She'd have to shift back to Beckett and then get a cab, which gives me a few minutes on her. Swiftly followed by: This is insane. But he had to know.
The cab deposited him at Beckett's unmanned door, and Castle went up, quietly in deference to the hour. He rang her bell, waited, rang it again, waited, rang it a third time. There was no answer. Again, not determinative, but highly suggestive. He stood in the dark hallway, stalking a solution to the concatenation of coincidences – and hoping that Beckett wouldn't shoot him when he found that he was wrong. He didn't think that she'd exactly appreciate his latest theory.
He didn't have to wait long for something to happen. The door to the stairwell opened a crack and, under Castle's astonished, disbelieving eyes, Onyx prowled out, stopped, sniffed the air, and abruptly started to retreat. Castle moved like lightning to catch her before she dissolved back into the dark.
"What are you doing here?" he asked her, silkily interrogative. "More to the point, how did you get out? Last I knew, cats couldn't manage door handles. Not mine, anyway." He picked her up. "I thought it was all a coincidence, but it wasn't, was it – Beckett." The cat spat at him, and hissed angrily. "You wouldn't know how to come here unless you lived here, and if Beckett had had a cat – you – she'd have taken you back as soon as I showed her the photos." He deftly avoided the cat's infuriated swipe, and took a firm hold of her front paws. "How'd you do it?"
The cat wriggled frantically, twisted in his grip, and managed to jump down, yowling when she landed, as if the movement had hurt. Castle took advantage of her moment of pain and collected her again, ensuring that she couldn't swipe at his face. She squirmed and wriggled and twisted and hissed and clawed and spat, and made no impression on Castle at all. Eventually, she simply glared viciously, ears laid flat to her head, tail whipping furiously.
"Stop running away, whoever you are." Castle sat down with his back to Beckett's door, and then turned round to realise that he was leaning against a very discreet and indeed almost undetectable cat flap. "Ohhh," he breathed. "That's suggestive. Why would Beckett need a cat flap when she hasn't got a cat? She – you – told me she didn't have a cat. It's for you, isn't it? So you can get back in without anyone noticing."
The cat continued to glare, with an air of caught-out disgruntlement creeping into its look.
"C'mon. I've worked it out now. You might as well admit it. Besides, this is so cool. I can't believe you really exist. It's amazing. Fabulous. Fantastic."
The cat's expression altered to a very familiar look of resigned irritation, and its ears came up to a less angry elevation.
"If I let go, will you open the door?" he asked persuasively. "I think we've got a lot to talk about." He stroked her gently. "A lot to talk about," he repeated.
Onyx-Beckett gazed up at him, clearly assessing his sincerity, and then suddenly clambered into her as-a-feline-accustomed position on his shoulder, butting her head into his neck in a familiar and comforting way. He petted her just as he always had when she'd balanced there, and was hugely relieved to hear her purr.
"Okay then, deal." He let go of her. She slithered through the cat flap as he waited nervously, not yet sure she'd hold up her end of the bargain. He faintly heard a soft sigh, and then the lock turned over and the door opened, Beckett, fully dressed in soft cotton tee and pants, behind it. Castle stepped inside and instinctively simply pulled her into his arms. His head dropped to hers, foreheads touching, and he stood there for a moment, only holding her, until he stroked gently up and down her back, and she arched into his hand in that same boneless, feline way as Onyx had and – he was quite definite about it – purred in pleasure.
"I've got you," he said comfortingly. "Whoever you are, I've got you and I am keeping you." He tipped her chin up, and kissed her: sure, searching and utterly sensual. Her arms slipped round his neck, softer hands than he would ever have expected if he didn't know that sometimes they were paws; the tips of her nails reminding him that sometimes they were claws. He kissed her again, deeper, softer, slower; taking time to explore, to sense her curving and melting against his broad chest, to ease her before the conversation they had to have; but also simply for the sheer joy of kissing her as he had wanted to, right from the very start.
Finally, he drew his mouth away and drew his Beckett after him to the couch; brought her down into his lap where she had spent so much of the last week, and wrapped his arms around her. He meant to ask why, but his mouth opened on, "How? How do you do that?"
Beckett shrugged. "It just is."
"That's not a story, Beckett! You can't tell me that. It's no fun. Not cool at all." He was practically bouncing with the joy of finding out that legends – or that particular legend – came true. "C'mon. There's gotta be more to it than that." He grinned widely at her, as delighted as a small child on Christmas morning. "Will you show me? Please?"
Beckett groaned. "There's a reason I keep this a secret."
"But I've worked it out. Pleeeeaaassseee?" He opened his eyes to their very widest, pleading with her. Beckett emitted a noise that resembled a hiss. "Pleeeaaaseee?"
"Stop whining."
There was no warning, no messy, gruesome, painful writhing, no gloopy fluid, no cracking of bone or tortured noise. One instant Beckett was sitting on his lap, the next she'd been replaced by Onyx. The only indication of anything happening had been a slight sighing noise.
"Wow. Wow wow wow. That's incredible." Onyx-Beckett hissed derisively. "No, really. Can you come back again straight away?"
Another sigh, and Beckett was back on his knee. "Where do your clothes go?"
"Trust you to think about that," she muttered. "I don't know. It only works for natural fibres, though."
"Aren't you interested?" Castle was horrified at her lack of concern or curiosity.
"I was interested in keeping it a secret."
"Hm," Castle hummed very sceptically indeed. "Were you?"
"Yes!"
"I think you're fibbing," he teased. "You had to know I'd work it out eventually."
"Didn't," she said sulkily, and gave him Onyx's flat, annoyed stare. "I didn't think even you would believe something that way out. You're insane, you know that?"
"I just have a very wide definition of reality. I'm quite capable of stripping away all the extraneous camouflage and believing that what remains is the truth. However unlikely."
She slumped. "Now what?"
Castle didn't like her slumping, especially since it wasn't into him. He tucked her Beckett-form against his body, and her head on his shoulder. "I wasn't planning on telling anyone, if that's what you're worried about. And since you know exactly how I feel – actually, let's just talk about that. You spied on me," he growled. "You cheated."
"Cats are curious," Beckett said airily.
"Curiosity killed the cat."
"And satisfaction brought it back," she capped his line, and smirked wickedly.
"Is that so?" Castle asked, in a slow, conversational drawl. "Guess I know what I need to do, then." A fine line of colour rose along Beckett's face. "You're distracting me. You sneaked into my bed, and you snuggled up to me, and I told you all my secrets."
"It's not my fault that you never stop talking. Who talks to their cat anyway?"
"Everyone." He stopped to regroup. That was as might be, but it wasn't what he really wanted to know right now. "So why exactly were you-as-Onyx stalking down an alleyway behind where I was giving a reading?"
Beckett remained absolutely silent for a moment, and then, as she failed to find any sort of an answer that she wanted to give, turned back into Onyx.
"That is not fair!" Castle squawked. "You can't do that." Onyx sat and coolly washed a paw. His imprecations went past her without a pause. "Are you going to do that every time you don't want to talk? Because if you are, I'm going to start asking questions in the precinct. Or Remy's. Or the middle of Central Park. You can't pull that trick there."
Onyx washed the other paw, simply, Castle thought, to prove her indifference, and then became Beckett again. "That's not fair," she said crossly.
"And you changing into a cat and not telling me is?"
"Yep. Anyway, you chipped me," she said with high indignation. "And how was I supposed to get that out when you put in a cat flap tuned to it? Or explain how I had a cat's microchip in my back in the first place?"
"I didn't want you stolen. And I still want to know what you were doing in that alley."
Beckett's high colour ramped up another five notches.
"You were looking for me!" Castle suddenly said. "You wanted me to pick you up and take you home. You were – you were finding out if I was genuinely interested. Why, Beckett, you're a romantic at heart. You like petting and snuggling."
"I'm a freaking cat, Castle. All cats like petting and snuggling."
"Good," he said suavely. "I like petting you. Cat or not." He demonstrated, stroking a warm hand from the top of her head down over her hair, then down her back all the way to the dimple at its base. She curved into it. "And you like me petting you." His palm wandered round over her hip to find her thigh. "I'm sure we can find a lot of time for petting." It slid back to her hip, and his fingers explored the edge of her soft pants. Shortly, her tee lifted slightly, and his hand curled on to bare skin, as soft as the fur it had been only a moment before.
When she sighed, it had nothing to do with shifting form, and everything to do with the way he kissed her: as if they had all the time in the world and yet none to spare; as if she was (oh, she surely was) the whole of his world. His hands moved on her as if they knew every inch of her body, and yet in this form he had never touched her with intent. The tee rose higher, and still higher, his hands following, and she turned into him and gave herself up to his wickedly searching mouth and arousing touch, the purr rising in her throat. He came away from her mouth, forcing a disappointed little mew and a warning brush of nails under the shoulders of his button-down; but it soon changed to a soft, vibrating moan when he took liberties with his mouth instead, played and lipped and licked and sucked until her nails dug in and she clung to him.
"Take me to bed," she purred seductively. "After all, I've spent plenty of time in yours."
"Come here, then," Castle rasped, stood, and swept her up. "You don't need to be a cat for me to carry you to bed." She curved into his body and slung arms around his neck, and the bedroom door swung closed behind them.
"Will you still be Beckett in the morning?" he asked, much later.
"Whoever you like," she replied, and tucked her head into his neck and her arm across him.
A few weeks later, Castle's intense curiosity about everything to do with Beckett's two-natured self had largely been satisfied, although almost every night she had threatened to shoot him if he didn't stop asking questions. She seemed to be a complete one-off. Much to his disappointment, there was no shape-shifting community in the underworld of New York; her father did not become a cat, as far as she knew her mother had never become a cat, she knew no-one else who was anything other than human. Not even the massive Detective O'Leary at Central Park precinct, Beckett's long-time pal, who Castle had really, really hoped was secretly a grizzly bear, was anything other than utterly normal. As far as Beckett knew, she was unique. (In so many ways, Castle thought.)
"But what about blood tests?" Castle asked plaintively, munching the Hallowe'en candy that he'd brought round to Beckett's apartment in honour of the date, and admiring the timing of the full moon lighting the Manhattan sky. That full moon was just the last gloss to make up a truly excellent All Hallows Eve.
"Nothing out of the ordinary. Cat shows cat, human shows human. Same for DNA." He drooped, again.
"I wanna know how it happened," he said.
"Must have been sorcery." He perked up, in the hope of an answer. She had brushed that question off every time he'd asked. "Just leave it, okay?"
"Hmph," he sulked. "You'd think you'd tell me. Hallowe'en gift. C'mon. Sharing the secret by the light of the full moon?"
"You wanna share the secret? Hmm. I know how to take your mind off it for now." She stretched, rubbed over him, and stalked to her bedroom. Castle didn't loiter on the way.
He was sprawled out across her bed with his eyes shut, after another round of intense and spectacular lovemaking, waiting for Beckett to return from her clean up and to nestle in, choosing whichever form she felt like, when there was an odd noise.
He peeled his eyes open into the cold, bright moonlight and sat up with a shriek. Prowling towards him was a full-sized, coal-black, evidently female jaguar, green eyes bright and mouth open with very sharp teeth on display. She padded to the bed, and leapt up, pinning him down with broad, heavy paws on his shoulders. Hot breath gusted past his ear. Claws pierced the sheet beneath his shoulders.
"Beckett? Beckett? Please tell me you're Beckett? This isn't funny, Beckett! BECKETT!"
The jaguar emitted a coughing laugh and bent her head to his neck, sharp teeth against his skin, not quite drawing blood. Yet, thought Castle's terrified mind, body paralysed in fear.
"Curiosity killed the cat," she said, perfectly clearly through the open jaws around his neck, "but satisfaction will bring you back."
One year later:
Newspaper editorial, October 31st 2010
Rumours of a pair of big cats, possibly black jaguars (panthera onca), continue to swirl around Manhattan, as more and more people report sightings. Despite extensive searching for a year, ever since the rumours began, no evidence at all has been found to prove that these beasts exist. We think folks have gotten a bit carried away with the Halloween (or alcoholic) spirit.
Beckett put the paper down and smiled at Castle over the breakfast table. "Or maybe they didn't."
Fin.
Happy Hallowe'en, everyone! "From ghoulies and ghosties and long-leggedy beasties, and things that go bump in the night - good Lord, deliver us."
Thank you to all readers and reviewers who have prowled along this piece of silliness with me. Thank you especially to guests, whom I cannot thank directly.
All being well, I intend to resume What's in a Name next week.
