3. will sorenson

It's three days before her first day back at the Twelfth. Three days before things get back to normal? Things get shaken up? Things get…complicated? Simplified? Different? All she knows is that it's time, that this sabbatical with Castle has only proven to her how much of the job is in her. She's good at it, she helps people, she can advocate for these victims without losing herself to the darkness again. She's got him now, Castle, to tether her to the land of the living and no more qualms about letting him fill that role for her, letting him in, doing this with him.

So, three days, and she's taking them with him before they both go back to the late nights, dead bodies, hovering detectives. Lanie has promised to keep a lid on what she knows about them, for the price of one extremely illuminating girls night out, and Castle wants to see how long it will take the boys to realize something has changed anyway. And Gates, well. They can both be professionals, right? Keep their hands to themselves at the precinct, at crime scenes, in the elevator –

"We need cereal!" Castle calls from her left, ambling her way with their big, squeaky shopping cart, interrupting her train of thought.

"Cereal?"

"Yeah, for breakfast?" He shakes his head at her, walking purposefully toward the cereal aisle of the grocery store as she slings her purse into the front of their cart. "We can't have pancakes every day, we'll get fat."

She snorts at him because she's never seen him eat anything remotely healthy for breakfast in the entire time she's known him, but okay Castle. Her eyes trip over the colorful boxes as they walk, yellow Cheerios, green Apple Jacks, purple Raisin Bran, and then he's skidding to a halt right in front of –

"Lucky Charms, Castle? Really?"

He's grinning as he takes them off the shelf, shaking the box as if to check that he's picked the fullest one, the one heaviest with marshmallows.

"You know that's just as unhealthy as pancakes, right?"

"There are whole grains in these, Beckett." He sounds scandalized that she would suggest otherwise.

"Let me see," she says, a guise to grab the box from him, and then she's backing away, moving to slide them back onto the shelf. He shrieks a little bit at her, lunging for his precious box of sugary goodness, but she's almost as tall as he is on her toes, holding the box up over her head. "No Castle!" she says, holding one hand up and trying not to laugh at the desperate look on his face. "It's for your own good!"

"It is not – " His fingertips climb her arm, reaching for the box, but she's holding it just out of his reach. "Give them back," he growls at her, voice hitting this low note she rarely hears outside of his bedroom and then oh he's kind of pressing her back into the shelf with his entire body, and she feels her arm begin to wobble a little bit above them.

She will not be bested this way though, no she will not.

"Give them back to me," he breathes against her, letting his right hand feather across her side. Her shirt is rucked up in the front because of the way she's standing, exposing an inch of skin along her abdomen, and it's there that he touches, light but sure. His chest is against hers too, heaving a little bit, creating that slide of friction that makes her want for more.

Their heads tilt together a little bit then, that ever present magnetic pull between them, and she uses it to her advantage until he's just shy of her lips to whisper "no."

The fingers of his right hand tighten against her waist, the other hand abandoning her raised arm to firmly pin her to the shelves at her back. "Are you sure you want to play this game here, Detective?" he taunts her, using her title for the first time in weeks, and it makes her more than a little bit breathless. His nose nudges against her jaw as he draws his words out, lips skimming, and her eyes droop halfway closed at the sudden rush of heat that flashes through her. Shit.

"Get the Raisin Bran," she chokes out, going for commanding but not quite making it when his lips wrap around her ear lobe.

"I don't want Raisin Bran." His lips move from her ear to her cheek, dropping open mouthed kisses until he gets to her lips, tugging a shallow kiss from her there before his left hand starts softly trailing up her arm again. "I want me Lucky Charms."

She snorts against his mouth, standing higher on her toes to keep the box out of his reach, inadvertently aligning their hips perfectly. "Mmm," she hums. "Feels like you want something else – " and then his mouth is crashing over hers with an umph and it's all she can do not to drop the red box in her hand completely.

His tongue is rolling over her bottom lip before she can even make sure their aisle is empty (it is, for now), and the whimper that spills from her mouth is as involuntary as it is loud, and then his palm is halfway up the back of her shirt as she gasps around his tongue and she's really, really thinking about letting him take her right up against the shelf of the cereal aisle of the grocery store in the middle of the day until her shiny haze of lust is cut through with a foreign sounding cough.

To his credit, Castle pulls away as quickly as she pushes him off, leaving her draped halfway across three different kinds of cereal, panting shallowly and clutching a box of Lucky Charms.

"Kate?" the offending cough speaks, making her swing her head around until she realizes that they've been completely caught groping each other in the grocery store by none other than Will Sorenson.

Well.

"Sorenson," comes Castle's less than amused voice before she can speak, that familiar thread of distaste lining his words before she sees him trying to hold back a smirk. Men.

Will gives Castle a squint and then promptly proceeds to ignore him, turning his gaze to the fairer detective. "I thought you were over all that sugary stuff," he says, grinning wryly and motioning to her cereal box but meaning Castle, trying to reconstruct that easy rapport they once had.

She hears Castle choking on his own words beside her, so she shoves the box into his hands to distract him. "Yeah, well," she shrugs. She thought she was over a lot of things before she met Castle.

"So are you two?" he motions between them, and she can feel the sarcasm radiating from Castle's body, can hear him in her head saying something about how his tongue was just in her mouth and his hands were all over her but no they're not –

"Yes, we are," he answers before she can, tossing his freshly won cereal into their cart.

Will eyeballs the eggs, paper towels, and shampoo they've already picked up. "How domestic."

Beckett thinks he might let it go at that, toss a nice to see you at her and leave, but the lingering tension from the last time the three of them were together apparently lingers.

"Finally landed your dream man, Kate?" He's being an ass, and she holds her breath because she knows from his tone that he is not done. "Does the real man stack up to the fantasy?"

Castle moves from her left to intervene, but she shoots out a palm, and he hangs back. Good boy.

"Don't be a jackass, Will." He at least has the decency to look mildly embarrassed, takes a step back from her. The glint in his eye reads to her like he wants to tell her she would have been better off with him, but he doesn't say it, just raises his hands in a gesture of surrender and starts to back out of their aisle.

"Enjoy your Lucky Charms."

He turns his back and disappears around a corner and then Castle is swearing yeah she will under his breath like a belated comeback, making her roll her eyes and bite back a smile.

"Well, we can't be everyone's dream couple," he says, shrugging and hurrying their cart out of the cereal aisle before she can snatch up his Lucky Charms again. "It's a much better story if we have a nemesis anyway."

"A nemesis? Really Castle."

"I'm just saying, every hero needs a foil."

"Oh so now you're the hero of this story too?"

Their shoulders bump as he knocks a box of Raisin Bran off the shelf at the end of the aisle, refusing to make eye contact with her as he does, making a tight warmth bloom through her chest.

"Well, I mean, unless you regularly have fantasies about men who aren't the heroes of their stories…" He lets his voice trail off, cutting a sideways leer at her and ugh fuck Will for opening that can of worms again.

She levels him with that look she has, the one that usually makes him shut up (or mercilessly keep going, depending on his mood), sliding a palm around his back and leaning into his ear. "Did you already forget how much I love bad boys?"

Castle chokes on his own saliva as she presses an open mouthed kiss to his cheek, rocking back smugly onto her heels to continue walking by his side to the register.

"Wait," he says, stopping suddenly, eyes going wide in that way he does when he's just had a brilliant idea. She waits for it, as always. "Should we go back and get some Count Chocula then?" his expression goes from wide eyed and open mouthed to squinty and completely amused with himself and she smacks him across the back of his head.

"Just count yourself lucky you got those Lucky Charms and let's go home."

"Sure you don't want to smack me around a little more?"

"Castle."

"Going."