even our shadows flinch

It's not a case of not knowing where she is or who she's with when she wakes up. The sunlight filtering through her thin curtains wakes her as it always does, and as usual she shoves a hand in front of her eyes before she rolls over. She had felt the solid weight beside her in the bed, the dip of the mattress, and she knows exactly when and how she got here when she finally rolls over and sees the solid form of Javier Esposito covered in nothing but her sheets.

He looks different when he sleeps- Softer, somehow, a little more honest and a little less tough man. His shoulders are devoid of any of that tension she had felt beneath her curious fingertips last night, and his mouth is open slightly, a soft snore escaping his lips. She stifles a laugh and reaches out, cupping his jaw so that she can gently close his mouth, feeling him stir beneath her touch.

When he opens his eyes, it's awkward and soft and somehow, okay. This will be okay.

"Uh, hi." He croaks, propping himself up on one elbow and looking down at her.

She's beautiful. That's never escaped his notice before, a blind man could see the beauty escaping from her even as she tries to hide it beneath stuffy suits and a cold personality. But this is different, he's in her bed. Normally, he'd be running for the hills. Commitment isn't his thing, but he doesn't think it's hers either, and something about her is different. And maybe he's sticking around because he wants to know how the story ends, with her mother and the dark tangled roots around her heart caused by grief, and maybe he identifies with her a little too much to be healthy; to look at another person's sadness and make it into something beautiful because of his own is probably wrong somewhere along the line but he- he likes Kate. And he's in her bed and she's smiling softly at him after a night he doesn't think he'll ever be likely to forget and…

And so he doesn't run.

"Hi." She replies softly, blushing a little.

He reaches out and tucks an errant strand of hair behind her ear just because he can't resist. She squirms beneath his touch and he finds himself pausing, assessing her.

"Is this- Uh-"

Kate bites her lip nervously, reaching out to take the hand hovering between them with her own, squeezing softly. He loses a little of the lost look that had been seeping slowly through his mask since he'd woken.

"I'm not… I don't just fall into bed with people, Javi." She tells him, needing to get this conversation out of the way before anything else. "I used to be that kind of girl- after my mom- but not anymore. Not with you."

He nods slowly, fingers flexing in her grip. "Okay."

"And I'm not… In a good place right now," she says, averting her eyes to the ceiling. "I don't know if I ever will be."

"I'm not looking for a relationship, Kate." He says before she can get the rest of the words caught in her lungs out.

It stings a little, deep somewhere in her heart, but she finds herself looking back at him and nodding anyway. This is what she wants, right? Something- Someone, but not a relationship. She can't do relationships, not now. Maybe someday, if she can allow herself such menial hope, but not now.

She tugs him closer by his hand until their bodies are pressed together, his solid warmth comforting somehow as she cradles his hand above her heart.

"Me neither. But I like you, Javi. You're my friend and I like you, but I'm not… Does that make sense?"

He nods, silent as her mind ticks over her next words.

"I need you to tell me if this changes anything, if this means we can't be friends anymore, or work together. A lot of people leave me, Javi, and I don't want you to be one of them. Some people leave me without meaning to and some… some just leave. So, if you are gonna leave, I'd rather you tell me now and save me weeks of suspense until you request to be partnered to someone new or transfer to another precinct." She tells him quietly, part of her lost teenage girl personality creeping into her voice as she speaks.

Esposito smiles at her, not self-satisfying and smug but something tender, honest.

"Not gonna leave you, Kit-Kat."

She smiles at him tenderly, voice a little hoarse as she speaks. "Promise?"

He hooks his little finger with hers, a flare of hope sparking alight in his heart when he sees the amusement sparkling in her eyes at his actions. At least she hasn't stopped laughing at his jokes.

"Promise."

She lets out a breath she hadn't realised that she was holding. Panic dulls in her heart, replaced with a sense of security.

"I like you too, Kit-Kat." He finds himself saying, watching the rose colour flare in her cheeks at what feel like childish words. "I know neither of us are ready for anything like that, but I like you. And I- I mean I'd like it if-"

Kate draws his hand to her lips, pressing soft kisses against his knuckles. It brings him to a stop, especially when she grins at him behind his fingers, nipping down on the pad of his index finger sharply enough for it to draw a hiss from him.

"We don't have to label anything, right?" She asks quietly, but he doesn't quite think he can think of words when she's grabbing his shoulder, slowly pushing him back down into the mattress so she can rise above him.

"Uh- Right." He says, dumfounded.

Kate hesitates briefly, but then her eyes slide close and her lips move his a little shyly, a little awkward. But then his hands rest on the small of her back and he can't help thinking that despite the baggage they both carry like solidary martyrs, there could be something right in this after all.

There's a part of this that feels too cosy. Too intimate and too normal and too much like the relationship they both swore this most definitely isn't. It's just coffee at the place round the corner from the twelfth, but Kate can feel Esposito's ankle resting solidly next to hers beneath the table; she can't help smiling when he smiles and she knows that everybody else around them must think they're a couple. They look like a couple.

But, they kind of are, aren't they? She wonders if you can be a 'couple' without being in a relationship. She doesn't know. There are too many blurred lines and empty spaces and smudged words to make sense of it, but a larger part of her doesn't care. She tells herself the same thing she told herself when they woke up together on that very first morning. Javier Esposito makes her laugh. He makes her smile and he makes her feel safe. She likes him. He likes her. And for now she can allow it to be that simple.

Kate looks up from her coffee to find him peering curiously at her bag where it rests half under the table, half poking out. She's about to ask what he's looking at when his gaze flicks up to hers and he smiles a smile that has just a hint of smirk about it.

"Derrick Storm, Kit-Kat? Really?"

Heat pricks at her face, her back straightening immediately. There's a rush of something close to indignation in her chest but she softens it. "What's wrong with Derrick Storm?"

Esposito is still disbelieving, one eyebrow raised slightly. "You like crime novels?"

"Yeah, what's wrong with crime novels?" She is frowning at him now, one foot reaching out to nudge her bag and the book it cradles further below the table as though protecting it somehow.

He laughs and she tries not to let that grate. "Kate, you're a cop – a detective. Isn't reading Richard Castle kind of like taking a busman's holiday?"

"No," she says, a little indignantly, but then her tongue struggles to form more words. She looks down into the depths of her coffee and Esposito watches with interest as her shoulders seem to hunch a little, like her body is trying to curl in on itself to protect something vital at its centre.

After a moment, Kate looks up at him and breathes out, consciously relaxing her body from its instinctive posture. "It's just…um…" Her face reddens a little more, white teeth biting her lower lip for a moment. "His books are kind of important to me."

Esposito looks surprised. "Really? I gotta admit I had you pegged for more of a classic lit kinda girl."

"Oh I am, too, but…" She trails off, fingers twisting with each other awkwardly in her lap as she glances warily at him. She is suddenly very aware of her heart beating in her chest, weight pressing down on this little secret as though it doesn't want to be told. She's deliberating, wondering whether she can give him this part of herself too – peel this precious layer of herself back and let him see a little deeper beneath her skin that he already has.

"But?" he prompts.

"But…" She lets out a rush of air – breath she doesn't know she's been holding. "Richard Castle's books are special to me…They're a part of me."

She smiles just ever so slightly and Esposito sees her gaze wander into the distance a little. He knows it has to be the past that they've wandered to. It's always the past with her, memoirs and faded photographs etched on the insides of her skin. When she speaks, her voice is soft and reminiscent and he is reminded of how young she is, how torn up and scattered she is despite her age.

"I remember…it was about a week after my Mom's funeral and I was on the Subway…Someone had left a tattered copy of In a Hail of Bullets on the seat next to me. I picked it up and…I was hooked." Kate looks up at him and there is a hint of sadness in her smile that wrenches on his heart. "I mean, I'm not claiming that his work is great literature. It isn't. But there's something in his plots that reels me in, that gives me hope, you know?"

"Hope?"

She shakes her head, knowing that what she's saying can't possibly make sense. He understands her better than anyone has in a long time, but she cannot expect him to understand this. She knows it comes across as a morbid fascination, a self-indulgence in the macabre. Maybe it is.

"His books… They give me hope that justice does exist. That maybe, just for now, I'm simply the unlucky one. That maybe, if I just keep going, I'll solve my Mom's case one day. His books showed me that even goodness can come out of evil and joy from sorrow. I remember picking up that novel on the Subway and missing my stop because I was so engrossed. Because since seeing my Mom in that alley, I hadn't felt at peace… But I felt peaceful reading his book, caring for his characters, wishing for them to receive the justice I didn't have. I still feel that now. Every Richard Castle book that comes out – I'm right there at the front of the queue to pick up my pre-order." She pauses just long enough to take a breath, to smile ever so slightly and meet Esposito's gaze to let him know it's okay – she's okay, she's not going to fall apart on him again, not here. "I know that all sounds stupid and maybe immature, I don't know. But his books help me."

Slowly, Esposito shakes his head. He reaches for her hand on the table, threading his fingers through hers and just for a moment, Kate doesn't think to worry about what that means or what the people around them might think. She just feels warm and safe. Understood.

"It's not stupid, Kit-Kat. Nothing that helps you is stupid, or immature," he tells her quietly. Then he grins. "And hey, now at least I know what to buy you for your birthday."

That makes her laugh, although there is a small snag in the back of her mind that registers the significance of his remark. Her birthday is months away yet. Will they still be holding hands on coffee tables in November? She shakes the question away, files it away in the dark spaces where she hides her other unwanted thoughts. For now she is content to sit, warm fingers slipped between hers.

Esposito can't help but smile at her and wonder if she even knows how incredible she is. He has learnt quickly to take the secrets she gives to him and treat them as the precious things they are, tiny layers of her skin that he has to allow her to take back if she wants them. But he is grateful. He is grateful to her for sharing her darkness with him, her secrets and her past. It makes him feel that his own is less of a burden, less of a weight to carry. She reminds him that he is not alone, that the world is messy and complicated and ugly but some things – some things are simple.

She cannot believe this is happening.

Kevin Ryan is young. New, and young, and partnered with Esposito and everything is just impossible. Their dynamic has been thrown off by this new detective, taking separate cars to scenes and her view of him from her desk is obscured by Ryan sitting at his own new one, placed opposite Esposito's. She tells herself it shouldn't matter; they were never really partners, not officially, she's on her way to lead detective and she doesn't like having a partner, having someone to rely on her in situations such as the ones they find themselves in – but nevertheless, he had been her pseudo-partner, an almost, a possibility.

He's a good detective, Ryan, good at his job, she'll admit to that. But throughout the first three days of his new position, he walks in when she finally has the chance to be alone with Esposito, he buys the team Chinese and eats it with them instead of it being simply her and Esposito alone playing footsie and stealing food in the break room. The case is running her dry and so she doesn't have time to talk to Esposito outside of the precinct about this new addition to the team, stares at his texts blearily in the half-light of 5am but can't find the energy within her to reply.

She doesn't quite know what she wants to say.

"Hey," she hears, startling out of her reverie to find Esposito leaning against the doorjamb of the break room as she nurses a cold cup of coffee at the table.

"Hey," she replies quietly, looking down at the brown liquid as he seats himself beside her.

"New kid's from narcotics, apparently. Don't see how he has the stomach for murder with a face like that," Esposito grumbles, flexing his muscles slightly and instead of laughter rising from within her it's bitter words.

"Just because you've been here longer, it doesn't mean you're better."

There's an aching silence once the words are tossed from her lips like discarded newspaper. He stares at her, nostrils flaring slightly as his eyes roam her face, and she simply tightens her jaw. Part of her guesses she should probably apologise, let this blow over and let them fall back into – into… Well, whatever it is they have. But most of her is just so tired and drained and she cannot deal with this right now. This is exactly why she's not looking for a relationship. She's selfish – and she senses that on a deeper sense than they both realise what they're doing here is too – but she'll never apologise for that. It's who she is, and while it may not be beautiful nor kind nor anything near what she aspires to be, it's the only way to protect herself.

"Wow." He says after the silence, leaning back in his chair with wide eyes. "Wow, you're an ass when you're frustrated."

"I never said I wasn't."

She stands, dumps her coffee mug in the precinct sink and spins to glare at him as he glares back.

"You know, you can be an ass too. You're not even giving Ryan a chance."

"What the hell, Beckett? Give him a chance? The kid is green and in my way. You know it works better when it's just the two of us." He argues, rising from his chair.

"But it's not just the two of us, Esposito, and you need to accept that."

"Are you sure that you're the one to be dishing it out right now? You haven't exactly accepted the kid yourself."

She growls, low in her chest, pushing away from the sink to meet him eye-to-eye. There's a flare in his eyes, something dark, and she hates that, hates how he could possibly be feeling any trace of arousal right now when all she is right now is pissed off and tired and so completely confused.

"I'm not the one who seems so eager to prove himself. Shoving before Ryan when we're after a suspect, jumping down his throat before he can give us another lead, excluding him from discussion. What the hell is your problem, Espo?"

Esposito's shoulders drop, moving backwards slightly in defeat. Her chest heaves as she watches him and she still can't force the words out, an apology, because she knows she's being too harsh and he doesn't deserve this but damn it at the same time he does. He's not the only one who's been affected by the new addition to the team, and she wish he'd see that, instead of simply only seeing her when she shows her scars.

"This isn't really about the new kid, is it?" He asks quietly.

She closes her eyes and counts down from ten the way that her therapist had taught her, in the way that has never really worked, but she attempts countless times anyway. Because she needs to stop thinking, about how Ryan's affecting this, them, how it terrifies her because they're in so deep when it's not supposed to be a relationship, and here they are: In the middle of the break room yelling when anyone could walk in and see. And this is, what, a lover's spat?

"We're… We're hiding this thing, and it's hard, hiding it," she tells him honestly, "for me, at least. And you're – you're god damn jealous of another detective over what? Over what, Javi?"

"You're-" The word sounds strangled escaping his mouth, his eyebrows pulling into a frown. "Jeez, Kate, we're… You're-"

"Is it because it's been a week since we last slept together?" She spits bitterly, watching the anger flare in his eyes and feeling so damn angry because this isnot a relationship, it's not, and he does not get to be jealous about her spending time with a new detective even if she is not the slightest bit interested in him, nor the other way round. "Is it because I've been too tired to deal with whatever this is? Or because this is a secret, and you wanna boast about how manly you are, wanna boast about how you managed to bed Kate Beckett, the ice queen, which I know they – "

His mouth covers her savagely then and her hands move upwards, curling sharply in his shirt and eliciting a painful hiss from him as she shoves him away, heart thumping wildly in her chest. Holy crap.

"What," she heaves, "the hell is wrong with you?"

His fist lands solidly in the break room wall, not as hard of a punch she knows he can throw, but enough to make his knuckles bleed. She watches in barely disguised horror, anger shimmering through her veins when he turns back to her and oh God they are in the precinct and she needs to leave.

"You know what? I don't need this. It's 5:30, and I'm going home, and you – put some ice on that or something, I don't care. I'll see you tomorrow." She mutters disdainfully, pushing past him.

Guilt eats away at her heart, but she refuses to look back.

He's standing outside her door again, staring at the chipped wood polish and scratched up keyhole and wondering if it's always going to fall to his lot to apologise first.

She opens the door with fire in her eyes. Her hair is a mess, like she's run her hands through it too many times. He can tell she's been chewing on her lip again too because its red and swollen and oh he wants to kiss her. Kissing her, touching her, mapping her body with his hands as he aligns with her against the mattress is all so much easier than talking with her. The letters are shaken up inside both of them and they're still learning to use them properly.

"Espo, it's late. I was about to go to bed. What do you want?" She sounds tired and still angry with him but Esposito doesn't miss that she uses the abbreviation of his surname, the two syllables soft on her tongue.

He shrugs and tries for a smile. "They say you should never go to bed angry with each other."

Kate crosses her arms over her chest, still blocking the doorway. "We're not in a relationship, Esposito. That rule doesn't apply."

The reversion to his full name has his mood darkening again. He doesn't even understand what this is all about. Not completely.

"Kate, who are you trying to kid here? So you don't want to call this a relationship? Fine. You got no arguments from me. But admit it's something. It's enough of a something to have you getting het up over the arrival of some new guy who might get between us or figure us out. It's enough of a something for you to feel threatened." He levels his gaze with hers and she hates that he can do that - that he can look her straight in the eyes without flinching, without wanting to look away. He takes a step forward. She's not wearing her heels so she is forced to look up at him. "It's enough of a something to have you running scared, Kit-Kat."

"I'm not scared, I'm - " She bites back the rest of the sentence because it's a lie and they both know it. Of course she's scared. She's terrified. The last man to ever make her feel anything let her down beyond anything she had expected. He used her, used her vulnerability and her fears and gave her none of his own.

"Okay," she says quietly, stepping back to let him in after a long silence. "I'm scared. But don't pretend you're not too."

Kate closes the door, rounds on him like he's her interrogation victim, except she's the one with wide eyes and trembling nerves.

"I mean, what are we doing, Javi?" she asks, voice small and scared. She reminds him not for the first time of a child, yet her womanhood cannot be denied. Even scared and still angry and lost, she is striking.

"Does it matter? You're the one who didn't want to label things."

"Does it -" she gasps, glaring at him. "Does it matter? Of course it matters! What if we get found out? I can't afford for that to happen, I gotta - "

His mouth covers hers and swallows her words whole. This kiss is as savage as the one in the break room before, something furious and desperate in the movement of their lips. At first she struggles - he is unbelievable - but then his tongue probes her lower lip and she feels the adrenaline spark in her tired heart. She has forgotten this power of his to make her feel alive.

Kate kisses him back, allowing her frustration to fuel the embrace as she braces herself against his chest, moaning when his fingertips skirt beneath the hem of her blouse and she finds herself backed up against the bookcase. They lose themselves there and later there will be deep lines across her back where the shelves dug in and scratches in his shoulders where her nails clung to his skin.

At midnight Kate is gathered in his arms on the couch, crumpled blouse undone and bare legs entangled with his, the denim of his jeans rough against her skin.

"I'm sorry," she murmurs into the dark.

Esposito jerks out of his half-slumber. "What for?"

"For being an ass."

He slips a hand to her thigh. "We're both asses, Kit-Kat."

Murmuring in agreement, Kate drops her head back down onto his shoulder, eyes closing. "Maybe that's why this thing works…we're both kinda fucked up assholes."

He turns his head to accommodate her more comfortably, inhaling the cherry and cinnamon smell of her hair. He hums in what could be agreement or disagreement. "Maybe."

Sleeping round each others' apartments isn't unheard of, but after their fight it becomes a more frequent thing. He presses his thumb against the frown that settles on her forehead in her sleep, and she in turn presses open-mouthed kisses against his bare skin when he shudders amidst the swirl of nightmares. They give when the other isn't looking, and they never talk about it – They've never spoken about much since their fight, since Ryan. Instead for weeks they've been treading on ice.

She wakes up one Saturday morning to find Esposito awake already, staring at her softly. There are no words for the warmth in her chest for that; not because he makes her speechless, but because her mind feels guilty for the way her body reacts to him.

It's too much. Maybe they should talk about it.

"Morning," she croaks, reaching out to tangle her fingers with his.

He seems touched by the innocent gesture that leads to nothing more. It's not often that they exchange words in bed that aren't interrupted by angry kisses upon swollen, raw lips, or are simply a prelude to the former. That's what they both want though, and she knows this, and he knows this. Their bodies fit together, and their scars match, but in the end it's never going to be what it would if they were a little less broken, a little less scarred.

"Yo," he says gruffly, and she can't help the laughter spring free.

His lips quirk at that, and he's glad that if he can provide her with nothing else, he can provide her with laughter. And it's beautiful to watch, the way the happiness temporarily shrouds the sadness in her eyes. It may be a guise, and it may be fleeting, but it's enough.

Once the laughter fades from her system, her eyes turn to his and implore for answers that they both know he cannot give. He feels himself grow weary, lays down on his shoulder and faces her properly as words spill from her lips.

"Do you ever think about it? What this is?"

Her words are timid, small. It's strangely not her but at the same time – after all of this damage, after all of her scars – he's not surprised in the slightest.

"All the time," he tells her honestly, raw.

If she's surprised, she doesn't show it.

"I'm sorry, Javi. That I can't be… That I can't be more. That most days I don't – I don't really want to be, if it means giving up on my mom."

"Hey," he soothes her, staring down at their tangled hands. "Last time I checked, Kit-Kat, it wasn't just you holding back."

He doesn't look at her. He can't bring himself to. The words aren't a lie, they're the honest truth. She has her murdered mom, an alcoholic father and he has his own demons; the army, the PTSD, his dead partner. They're both too broken for people so young. And she is so beautiful, in small glimpses he often catches the young woman eager to face the world before her mom was taken from her in the bitterness of winter, that it breaks his heart. It breaks his heart, because they don't love each other, and they never will, and he doesn't need her. Not in the right way – they depend on one another to compare scars as though that makes them any less alone.

He looks up at her, catches her watching him as though she knows what he's thinking.

And she is so beautiful. She deserves so much more. Maybe they both do.

"You ever… Do you think that - ?" She cuts her own voice off with a sigh, pressing a palm against her lips.

"One day, Kit-Kat," he says, "you're gonna find someone. A real someone, I mean, someone you wanna spend the rest of your life with. I'm gonna find that someone too. Maybe we'll both still be broken when we get there, but…"

She pulls their tangled hands to her lips, kisses his knuckles the way she did on their first morning together, so many months ago.

"Maybe we'll both still be broken," she repeats him softly, "but somebody will show us how to be a little less ashamed."

The fingers at her lips unfurl to catch a curl of her hair. He threads it through his fingers, another part of her to cling to. "But for now…this is enough?"

She doesn't meet his gaze but she does smile. "This is enough," she says quietly. And it is.

TBC