15: Thief of time
"Now what, Beckett?"
Beckett briefly acquires an expression of tired misery, as swiftly wiped away.
"I suppose I ought to look for furniture." She doesn't exactly sound enthusiastic.
"Today?" Castle doesn't think that's a good plan. Sitting peacefully cuddled up with her book and his laptop sounds much better.
"Soon. I can't move in without furniture." She makes a face. "I hope the insurance pays up soon, too." Castle hadn't thought of that. Oh. His mouth opens. "And you are not paying for any of it, Castle." It closes again.
"But you're my girl," he whines. "You're supposed to let me take care of you." He bats big blue eyes and looks appealingly at her.
"If I need money I'll go to the ATM." Her glare stops his whining cold.
"Okay," he placates. "But you know, Beckett, all this independence is very unbecoming in a woman. Anyone would think you had the vote and your own money and wore pants and everything." He smirks evilly.
Beckett sniggers, and looks much cheerier. Her fingers are circling her watch again, but not as much. She hasn't played with the ring at all. Castle concludes that she is feeling better, and cuddles her in a bit more to improve matters further. That means, serendipitously, that her head is very close to his, which means that if he just turns a little and dips a little – there. Her lips were indeed very nicely positioned to meet his. How convenient. She's not arguing with him any more. That's convenient, too. This is much nicer than arguing.
It certainly steals time. When they pull apart, and he finds that Beckett is mysteriously curled in his lap and tucked against him, with which he is sure he had nothing to do and he has no idea how his hands are inside her shirt and pressed against the warm smooth skin there, it's quite a lot later. Past lunchtime, in fact, and he is hungry. For food. Yes. Food. And he is not thinking the word eating in any other context at all. Definitely not. Mainly because if he does think that he'll do it, and he is (he preens) sufficiently good at it that she'll more than wriggle, and then she'll scream, but it won't be in ecstasy. Dammit.
"I'm hungry," Beckett husks. That is not helpful at all. That tone does not incline him to think of sandwiches. Well, other than sandwiching Beckett between his body and the bedsheets. That's not a helpful thought, either.
"Are you?" he asks feebly. Then he makes a determined effort, and recovers some game. "What do you like to eat, Beckett?"
"Oh, so many different things, Castle. You have no idea the range of my..." she pauses… "tastes. Sometimes I like simple and easy. Sometimes I like… spice. Heat." He's hot. Oh God, he is hot. She's killing him. "Vanilla is all very well but I like my flavours to be stronger." Which would be perfectly innocent if she weren't drawing her nails very delicately over his biceps and tracing the muscle line as she said it.
He's losing this game. He's never lost this game before. Except every time he's tried to play it with Beckett, of course. Except these last two days…when they've both won.
"You like strong flavours?" he purrs, suddenly dangerous. "You like to be… overwhelmed?"
"Mmmm."
"Maybe I should put English mustard on your grilled cheese, then," Castle says brightly. Beckett punches him in the bicep she'd just been tracing. "Did you mean something else?" he adds innocently. Beckett growls ferociously. Castle sniggers. "Lunchtime," he says, and bounces off to put together sandwiches, sodas, and absolutely no mustard. Beckett is not precisely looking as if she appreciated him getting one over on her.
Lunch is eaten to the accompaniment of – in Castle's case – a smug smirk and – in Beckett's – a scowl. It's not entirely clear, however, that the scowl is wholly directed at him, though every time she looks at him the scowl intensifies. Castle continues to smirk and eat his lunch.
He starts the tidying with the suspicion that as soon as he turns his back on Beckett she will wreak revenge upon him, but it quickly becomes apparent that she's taken herself back to the couch. Small tapping sounds echo around the loft.
"Beckett, what are you doing with my laptop? Are you sneaking peeks at my writing? That's not allowed."
"No. 'M looking at furniture." Ah. The scowl is explained. Beckett might like clothes shopping – she certainly likes good clothes and shoes – but she wasn't precisely cheery about apartment hunting and she doesn't seem cheery about furnishing it. Strange, when her previous apartment had been so well put together.
"Don't you like furnishing?"
"Yes, but I need to do it all at once." Oh. O-kay. Enough said. She'd built the previous décor up over time.
"No, you don't. All you need are a few things."
"Like what?"
"Table, chairs, couch, king size bed."
"What?"
"Table, chairs, couch, king size bed," Castle says patiently, and waits for that to sink in.
"I don't need a king size bed."
"Yes, you do." Beckett looks crossly at him.
"Don't be silly. All I need is a queen."
"Hope you like cuddling, then."
"What?"
"My bed is king size. Plenty of room for both of us – as you know, Detective – without anyone running out of space or falling out the edges." He grins evilly. "Plenty of room for people to sneak in without disturbing anyone."
"I do not sneak."
"Didn't we already have this argument – and I won?"
"You did not win. I won. I don't sneak."
"You sneaked last night. Again. When I wasn't looking."
"It's not my fault you were in the bathroom primping through your nightly beauty routine."
"But look how successful it is. I'm gorgeously handsome." He grins.
"Your ego is entirely irrelevant to this discussion. I don't need a king size bed. Except to fit your ego."
"So you agree I'll be in it?"
"What? No!"
"You just said I would be."
"Did not."
"Did. You said you'd get a king size bed so my ego would fit. So since my ego is part of me, obviously I'm going to have to fit. So that's agreed. Not that you were very nice about it, Beckett."
Beckett scowls in furious frustration and can't find an argument to deal with him, which is just what Castle wants. She's simply being difficult for the sake of it, since she's spent nearly a week sneaking into his bed and – er – enjoying the advantages of being there. So to speak. Or, preferably, touch.
"You should get a laptop of your own, Beckett." She groans.
"I know. It's not top of the list right now."
Castle takes advantage of her momentary distraction to tuck Beckett back in so that he can read the webpages over her shoulder. And hug her, which is a happy by-product. The furniture Beckett is looking at is all very plain and light. Simple. It will, Castle realises, look just right in the space that she's renting. As will Beckett. It's just that she'd look much more right, right here.
While he's thinking, Beckett is muttering at the website. She isn't happy about the dimensions being difficult to find, it appears. She mutters for a little longer.
"Have you got blank paper and a pencil?" she asks, out of nowhere.
"Sure." He wanders off and returns with a pad and a couple of pencils. Beckett puts the pad on her lap and sketches out two rectangles. Then she scrawls on a few short lines on one side, and two on another. Castle looks down at it, blankly. Beckett chews the end of the pencil – ugh – and writes on some numbers. Then she looks at the webpage, and starts to draw on smaller rectangles. About that point, Castle works out that she's sketching out her new space and putting in furniture dimensions.
"I didn't know you could do that."
"Skill. I'm very good at judging size and fit."
"Really?" drawls Castle. "That's good to hear." Beckett rolls her eyes.
"Furniture, Castle. Much as I keep hoping for a miracle, you have not turned into furniture that would fit in my apartment, like a wooden table. You talk too much."
"You don't want me to turn into a wooden table, Beckett. Wooden tables wouldn't be as comfortingly warm and cuddly. They'd be rigid and unpleasant."
"Are you suggesting that you're never… rigid, Castle?"
He chokes. Beckett looks coolly at his distress, and carries on sketching various alignments and then rubbing them out. The surface of the paper is nearly as abraded as the surface of his self-esteem.
Eventually she has a picture she's apparently happy with. Castle peers at the little boxes she's drawn and tries to imagine the furniture in situ.
"Okay," she says. "Guess I'd better order it. It's going to take at least two weeks before I even get a delivery date." Her face scrunches up. "It won't get better for waiting." She slides cautiously off the couch and aims for the stairs. "Card," she says in explanation, and disappears upwards.
Ten minutes later she hasn't reappeared. Five minutes after that, she still hasn't. Five seconds after that Castle is mounting the stairs himself. It doesn't occur to him till he reaches the top that she might be in the bathroom. That idea is swiftly banished when he hears the unmistakable sounds of upset Beckett, smothering said upset in a pillow. He sits down on her bed and pats her back as she lies prone on the bed.
"What's up, Beckett?"
"I want my old furniture back. I liked it. It took me ages to find it all, and it's all gone." The emphasis on liked gives Castle the impression that it had – each piece had – held meaning for her. "I don't want to have to get all new stuff. Not that I've got much to put in it anyway." Castle pats her some more. He wants to pick her up and hug her, but that would be uncomfortable. When she's ready, she'll come to him and be comforted. In the meantime, he has an idea.
"Why do you need to get new furniture?"
"Because all my furniture got blown up." Dumbass is loud on the silent air.
"No, why do you need new furniture." She turns over, slowly, and looks up at him blankly. "You could get old furniture. Investigate the thrift and antique shops."
"I can't afford antiques."
"Pre-loved, then. Isn't that the term?" There's a spark of interest in her damp eyes. He pulls her up to sitting by her wrists. She sniffs wetly. He hands her a Kleenex. "Sniffing is horrible, Beckett. Blow." She does, though it's accompanies by a blackly ominous scowl. "Attagirl." The scowl would now destroy cities. "Come here." Despite the risk of scorch marks in his shirt and possibly skin, he cuddles her into his shoulder. Shortly, her shoulders move. He hopes, ridiculously, that her mascara is waterproof, and then realises that there is no dampness. "We could go now, if you wanted. If your ribs will stand it? There are plenty of places nearby." She stays close, not speaking. Her long, elegant hands are gripping his upper arms; her shoulders now still but her breathing still slightly ragged.
" 'Kay," drags from her mouth.
"We don't have to go today. When you're up to it."
"It won't get better for waiting." She'd said that earlier, too, about new furniture.
"It won't get better for making you miserable, either."
She blows her nose again, defiantly. "Let's do this." Determination buttresses her words. She sits up straight, stretches in that strange half-and-half way that doesn't stretch her ribs but flexes every other point, and then stands to slip her feet into her shoes. Castle follows her and can't resist catching her in again.
"I thought we were going to furniture stores? That's not getting us out of here."
"Moral support, Beckett."
She looks sceptical. "Moral support? You have a moral that will provide support to anything other than a house of cards?" Castle looks her straight in the eye. "Sorry," she says. "That was unfair." She leans in and on him. "It's just all too much. I'm snarky and unkind so that you don't feel you have to feel sorry for me and it's not fair on you but I have to cope somehow or I'll never stop crying." He rubs her back gently, big hands covering a wide span: keeping her close, safe.
"If you're going to be snarky, I'll – I'll set my mother on you." Beckett looks appropriately horrified. "I'll make you come to her productions."
"I'll claim the Geneva Convention protections," Beckett flips back. "Torture is illegal."
"And it would be," Castle says ruefully. "My mother is actually a pretty good actress, but her choice of productions … not so much." He pets a little more, delicately suggesting that Beckett's head should lean on his shoulder and nestle into his neck where the scent of her hair can delight his nose and the soft pressure of her body against his – still so very gentle and careful, when he wants to be able to hold her tightly and never need to worry about it – can delight the rest of him.
Beckett, however, being determined to go furniture shopping – get it over with seems an appropriate phrase to Castle – is not in the same romantic mood as Castle is. She straightens up far too quickly, steps back far too forcefully, and is halfway downstairs far too soon.
"What do you like, Beckett?"
"Huh?"
"I'm not going to waste time pointing out items that you'll hate from the get-go. What sort of furniture are you looking for?" She's as decisive as usual.
"Wood. Light. Not too heavy, no ostentatious decoration" – Castle hums happily at the vocabulary, he loves it when she uses five-dollar words – "but with character. Let's see what the first store is like, and then you'll probably have a pretty good idea."
The first store is useless, and Castle is not helped by the nagging feeling that there's a piece of knowledge playing knock-the-door-and-run-away in his head. They move on to a second, only not hurrying because every time Beckett tries to speed up and apply her usual brisk, forceful stride she winces as it resonates through her ribs. It's more useful, at least in terms of finding out her tastes, but Beckett still doesn't like anything.
"Coffee, Beckett. Let's pause for a minute or two and have a think." He refuses to listen to Beckett's mutters of I'm paying, orders two coffees and, after a moment's thought, a sfogliatine for Beckett. Lemon, to match her mood. She tears into it. Two gulps of coffee later, she suddenly perks up.
"We're so dumb, Castle!"
"Speak for yourself," he says, offended.
"We shouldn't be here, we should go to the flea markets." Castle mentally slaps himself upside the head. That's the thought he couldn't catch. They are dumb. Not that he's going to admit it.
"Hell's Kitchen?" he asks.
"Sure, but there's a quieter one up off Columbus. GreenFlea, at West 77th. And it's near the new place." The pastry has disappeared in two quick bites. The coffee is drained in three slugs. "C'mon, Castle, let's go." He has the distinct feeling that if he doesn't hurry up she'll be tugging him up and dragging him out. She's developed enthusiasm: her eyes are bright and her lips quirking happily. He drains his cup and bounces up, made happier by her evident cheerful purpose, and fired by their goal doesn't even think before grabbing her hand to be towed out.
Castle insists on a cab, stowing Beckett in and pointing out that it will be much better for her healing ribs to be in a cab not the subway. It deposits them at the Columbus entrance, during which journey Castle hasn't let go of Beckett's hand for a moment. Fortunately for him, she seems to be equally as content to have her hand held as he is to hold it. It's all quite ridiculously sappy.
GreenFlea is much more useful than the previous stores. They wander happily hand in hand in the sunshine, arguing amiably about the relative merits of birch over pine or unstained walnut over light oak, gradually getting closer and closer. The fourth time their hips bump Castle lets go of Beckett's hand and slings his arm round her. Astonishingly, she twines her arm round his waist in return and they fall into step as if they'd been walking together like this all their lives. As they meander, Castle's eyes flitting from one pitch to the next while Beckett gives the selection a hard stare that Castle last saw in Interrogation One, she starts to make soft noises of interest and satisfaction at various points.
Once they've been round once, Beckett stops making soft interested and satisfied noises and starts making noises of focused intent. Castle recognises the noises as Beckett on the hunt and ready to bring down her prey, and resigns himself to not being allowed to buy her anything.
While she's intimidating the pitch-holders into giving her good pricing on the few items she's selected, Castle wanders off and inspects various sites with pictures and little bits and pieces of ornament. Her apartment hadn't had much in the way of ornament, but – aha! A geometric rug in brown and terracotta shades would work against her bare brickwork and tall windows. He discusses his thoughts with the vendor for a while, and convinces her to put one aside for him. He wants to buy it for Beckett, but he doesn't want to foist it upon her until (one) she's actually in her apartment (even if she should stay with him and not go anywhere at all without him and certainly not move to a place of her own) and (two) he's floated the idea. After that, if she likes the idea of a rug, he'll present her with it as a housewarming gift.
He's daydreaming idly around, wasting time to stay out of Beckett's way, when he passes a small bric-a-brac stall. His eye is initially caught by a particularly ugly Toby jug, but after his fascinated horror has passed he spots something else. He has a short discussion with that stallholder and agrees to collect it from her two Sundays on, pays and insinuates himself back into the crowds in case Beckett should spot him.
Thank you to all readers and reviewers, in particular guests who cannot be thanked individually.
Thank you also to everyone who read and/or reviewed Double Cross, especially all the guests whom I can't thank.