Doomsday
When they were both dressed, reasonably in control of themselves again, Kate led the way out of his bedroom, through the bodies splayed in the floor, children sleeping in uneven heaps as if thrown together haphazardly. It looked like a war zone.
Castle's hand tugged on her fingers, brought her through the study and out into the living room. It looked no better. Alexis was sacked out on the couch with her blanket pulled up over her head, her socked feet sticking out. As Castle passed by, he grabbed her toe and tugged; a grunt followed, and the foot withdrew into the shell of the blanket.
Kate paused, arrested by the thoughtless warmth behind the gesture, but a little body hurtled into her, catching her about the legs.
"No, no, no!" it screamed.
Two more kids came skidding down the hall, stopping abruptly when they saw Beckett and Castle. Kate put a hand down and gripped the small, bony shoulder, pulling the boy away from her. Blonde hair in matted curls around his face, a streak of jelly on one cheek, he squirmed away from her the moment he no longer had her protection.
"Damien, come away from her," one of the older boys called out. "We ain't gonna do nothing."
Damien shrank back against Kate's knees again, glanced up at her, decided against that course as well and shifted away, moving towards the living room.
Kate gave a hard look to the two tormentors, long enough for them to scowl and fade back down the hall, then she headed for the kitchen where Castle was already talking with one of Kevin's sisters.
The woman had made tons of breakfast and was currently apologizing for it. "I should have asked, but Kevin said-"
"It's no problem, really. Kelly, you're completely fine using whatever ingredients you like. Anything at all." Castle saw her and grabbed for her hand, but she avoided his reach and made her own way to him, pressing her hip into his side once she was there.
If this was the only day they got, she was going to make the most of it.
She saw movement at the edges of her vision and turned. Damien was haunting her steps, head tilted as he peered up at her. The moment she saw him, he fled around the side of the kitchen island, hiding from her.
Kelly swatted at him and pushed him out, but Kate wasn't sure that Damien was hers either. There were two more Ryan sisters - Kamille and Kris - and she thought Ryan had two brothers as well, neither of which had decided to pack up their families and follow Kevin into Castle's bunker.
Perhaps that was wise. Maybe she should have kept away as well.
"Sit, sit. I'll dish you up eggs and toast and whatever else. Orange juice is already on the table. I've got bacon. Pancakes. Some of everything?" Kelly was already grabbing a few plates from the cabinets and Castle was being relegated to the dining room table.
Kate followed, feeling equally as out of place, and sat at the table with him, close. His palm slid across her knee, slowly, a heat flaring up her thigh, and then his hand was gone. As if he was only testing her.
She scooted the chair in closer, angling it so that she could slide that same knee between his. Castle stared at her a moment, and then a smile flashed in his eyes, broke across his face.
Two plates were set before them, rocking Kate back into her chair, looking up at the woman. "Thank you, Kelly."
"No problem. Kris is doing laundry, by the way - the boys got into the potted plants, but we cleaned it up-"
Castle looked both stunned and amused at the same time. Only Castle would be so good about something like that. "Use the place. Really. I'm glad you're all here."
Kelly went back to the kitchen, side-stepping another little boy - one Kate hadn't seen yet - and then came Damien again, skulking back down the hallway towards her.
Kate ignored the kid, focused instead on Castle. He was watching her as well, and when she caught him, he only lifted an eyebrow and raised his glass of orange juice in salute.
This was going to be a strange day - their own little world being orbited by the bustling, hectic, crazy Ryan family.
She lifted her own glass, caught his eyes, and wondered why in the world she'd let herself get this far.
When tomorrow came, and she knew it would, she was going to hate herself for falling off the wagon.
"Live it up, Kate," he murmured, and took a long draught from his glass.
When Kamille asked for more toilet paper for Alexis's ensuite bathroom, Castle only had to go as far as the hall closet to find a package of twelve. He glanced around and saw the twins arguing with each other near the door.
"Go long, Maisey," Castle yelled and chucked two rolls of toilet paper at her head.
The twin screamed and ducked while her sister laughed, and Castle realized he wasn't sure which one he really threw those at.
"Uh, Maggie?"
"Why you throw toilet paper at me?" she shrieked, her little freckled face livid.
"Your mom said you guys ran out," he tried to explain.
Too late. Maggie/Maisey had already started for him, and he got a tornado of blonde five year-old tackling him like an NFL linebacker. He went down, off-balanced already by the package of toilet paper in his arms and unable to grab for Kate in time.
She let him fall too; he saw that. The blonde tasmanian devil got her knees on his chest and pushed off, then whacked a toilet paper roll against his shoulder for good measure, growling at him while Kate laughed.
Hard. It sounded beautiful, despite the bony kid bruising his midsection.
"Maisey! Get off of him!"
And she did, of course, at her mother's outrage, but in doing so, she also got her foot in Castle's rib and an elbow shoved into his diaphragm. He grunted and closed an eye as the girl was yanked away by Kamille, stayed lying in the floor as he tried to catch his breath.
A hand entered his line of sight. A slim and quivering hand, because its owner was still laughing at him.
He took it and let her pull him to a sitting position, wheezing.
"That's what you get for trying to play football with the terror twins."
He sighed. "My mistake." He still had her hand, so he yanked hard and had her falling across his lap.
She was heavier than she looked.
"Oof. Jeez, Kate."
She slapped his shoulder and tried to scramble off of him. "You butthead."
He laughed at her, juvenile and hilarious, and wrapped an arm around her waist, bringing her back down. His lips found the back of her neck, and she stiffened.
"Castle. Not in the hallway."
He was about to argue that but he saw Alexis drag herself from the living room to the kitchen, clueless as to what her father was doing, but still entirely too close. She might not appreciate seeing him wrestling Kate in the floor.
Darn. But-
"One more," he whispered, found the tender skin behind her ear and touched his tongue there.
She shivered, her body melted back into his, the hands at his arm cradling rather than clawing. "One more," she murmured.
He spread his fingers over her ribs and then trailed his mouth down to the tendon at her neck, pressed his teeth there, soothed with his lips.
He felt her ragged breath in, the way she stilled as if waiting.
"Castle?"
"Time to get up off the floor," he said finally, putting both hands on her waist and lifting.
She got to her feet, turned and gripped the inside of his arm to pull him up as well. Her chest brushed his shoulder and he stared at her, couldn't tamp down the longing that he knew welled up and spilled over into his eyes.
Kate stared at him for a long moment, as if she was gathering the courage to say something else, something important.
"Katie? Have you had breakfast?"
She startled, stepped away from him to head back down the hall towards her father.
He closed his eyes and sighed.
Too many people.
She really hadn't thought it through; she'd seen the game in the stack at the bottom of the closet, the crazy houseful of kids were getting on her last nerve, and so she pulled it out and spread the plastic sheet on the living room floor.
Twister.
Kate had intended that the kids could play and get out of everyone's hair, but it turned into an Esposito-Ryan-Castle competition in which they each pulled in their respective others.
Not that she was Castle's other. No. Wait.
It was just - partners. They were playing partners.
Partners. And now the kids were in the study, or scattered down the hall, or in other bedrooms playing with Barbies, Matchbox cars, and Legos, but not Twister.
And she had Castle's crotch in her face, Esposito's arm wrapped around her thigh so that his hand rested on the green circle, and Jenny's knee was the only thing holding her up in this awkward angle.
"Jenny, whatever you do, don't move," she laughed, and tried to shake her hair out of her face.
Castle gasped. "Whatever you do, Kate, keep - keep doing that."
She growled at him, wanted to knock him over for that comment - especially as Esposito and Lanie both laughed - but she couldn't move her palms away from green and red, or they would lose. And she was not losing Twister to Ryan and Esposito.
Espo made a remark under his breath that Kate didn't catch, but she got the intent clearly. "Javi, say another word and I'm telling Lanie about the lettuce-"
"Hush your mouth," he barked at her. "Lanie, whatever she tells you, ignore her. She's just trying to get back at me."
"Lanie. Remember that time you-"
"Beckett!"
"Ooh, what? I don't know this story," Castle whined. "Tell me. What lettuce? What did Lanie do?"
"Do I want to know this?" Lanie said, shifting her balance to one side and causing the whole pretzel of their tangled bodies to sway precariously.
"Well, see, you had that salad-"
"Beckett, you shut your mouth or I will take you down."
"You gonna hit a girl?" Ryan asked.
"No. I'm gonna hit Beckett. Entirely different."
"Yeah, she can take you," Castle snorted.
"Watch it, stud. I'll mess you up first."
"Kate'll save me."
"Okay, now someone has to tell me." Lanie shifted again and everyone yelled at her to stay still. "You all shut up. Tell me the thing, the lettuce, Beckett."
"Beckett, don't you dare."
"Lanie-"
Esposito lunged for her, toppling everyone in a piles of arms and legs and torsos, flesh pressing close, breathless, laughing, groaning.
Kate landed in Castle's lap, splitting her lip on his belt, one arm twisted under his thigh, while his knees squeezed her hips.
She lifted her head, licked at the blood on her bottom lip, and saw his eyes roam over her hotly.
Okay. Twister was a terrible idea.
Or a really great one.