#2: DRAWERS
3x04 "Punked" and 5x14 "Reality Starstruck"
"I will love you as a drawer loves a secret compartment, and as a secret compartment loves a secret, and as a secret loves to make a person gasp, and as a gasping person loves a glass of brandy to calm their nerves, and as a glass of brandy loves to shatter on the floor, and as the noise of glass shattering loves to make someone else gasp, and as someone else gasping loves a nearby desk to lean against, even if leaning against it presses a lever that loves to open a drawer and reveal a secret compartment. I will love you until all such compartments are discovered and opened, and until all the secrets have gone gasping into the world." –Lemony Snicket
He told her he wears boxers. She pretended not to be listening.
So why is she still thinking about it now?
She has a—well, sort of a boyfriend. Guy. Man. Anyway, official or not, it's probably not good that she's presently more distracted by the thought of Castle's underwear, which she has never seen, than the thought of the man she is supposed to be seeing.
She's also talking about the case, filling Castle in on this lead on a third shooter at the duel. Her work ethic, she knows, is convincing. He doesn't suspect a thing. She is the queen of misdirection.
Except that she's still thinking about how she doesn't know why she is still thinking about Castle's boxers.
Her current excuse is that he's got a steampunk monstrosity of gears and cogs strapped to his arm and his torso is clad in sleek brown leather and she can't keep from wondering what steampunk underwear might look like. She's new to this subculture, but she knows she can't be the first person to think of this. Surely it exists.
(Later, on a whim, she'll type in a search for "steampunk underwear" and will be mildly disappointed in her findings. She'll be scrolling through the image results when Josh calls, and she'll click out of the window on her laptop as though he can see it from across the city. He won't suspect a thing, either.)
But right now, she's standing in Castle's loft, and God help her, she's imagining something snug with brass gears and brown leather when, suddenly, Castle's robotics are misfiring comically, his arm thrust at a diagonal across his chest.
She stifles a smirk that could all too easily escalate to a giggle.
He'd have to be careful not to get those brass gears too close to any sensitive skin.
The Drawer is full of him now. Boxers, T-shirts, pants, socks—any items he might need while he stays at her place, especially for an impromptu visit.
Josh never got a drawer. Didn't matter how many times they were tucked up in bed at her place.
This is the first time she has not only let someone in but actually made space for him in her world.
And she likes it.
The T-shirts and pants and socks are great, of course, but she especially likes the boxers taking up residence in her dresser.
Not that she snoops around The Drawer when he is not there. (But, really, when is she there without him these days?)
There's something so intimate about it; having this under-layer of Castle in her home, all the time, no matter how much or how little of himself he reveals to her each day.
And she hopes that he gets it, that she's letting him in and making space. Hopes that it will encourage him to trust her with more than his underwear.
Beautiful and silky and sexy as they may be.
And when she thinks about it—about what they've given each other in one sweet, silly, simple exchange—it's all summed up in such a Castle Pun that she can't believe he hasn't said it aloud yet: She's got his drawers in her drawer.
Except now it's his.
