Taken from an anonymous prompt on Tumblr: Kate gets a UTI from the gratuitous sex. How they handle it, or Kate doesn't tell Castle and keeps turning it down.
Rolling to glance at the clock on the nightstand, Castle feels all at once puzzled and impatient. How long has she been in the bathroom, anyway? Long enough that no warmth is lingering on her side of the bed anymore. There's no water running, so he knows she didn't step into the shower. He hasn't even heard the flush of the toilet. There's just…silence.
He curses his doom and gloom, worst-case scenario writer's imagination when he slips from the sheets to check on her, but come on. She's been in there for at least fifteen minutes, and even though they've only been together a few weeks (and what a blissful few weeks it's been), he feels he's allowed to be at least a little concerned.
His knuckles rap softly against the door. "Kate? Is everything okay in there?"
Her sigh is loud enough to be heard through the door, and she finally replies, "Yeah, I'm okay. I'll be out in a second."
"Okay."
Their relationship may still be in that shiny, getting-to-know-you-on-a-very-intimate-level phase, but he already knows Kate well enough to realize she's anything but okay right now. That sigh, the strained tone of her voice…yeah, something is definitely amiss.
He can only await her return now to find out what's the matter, so he settles back into the sheets, still naked from their frantic post-breakfast sex that began in the kitchen and ended in her bed. Of course, breakfast had been preceded by a much longer, slower, completely toe-curling round of lovemaking, and that was after their romp last night on her couch. And he couldn't forget yesterday afternoon in the shower…
Honestly? They've been completely insatiable.
Grinning to himself with no small amount of pride, he takes a moment to revel in their physical compatibility. He had always suspected they would click in the bedroom as well as they did outside of it, but the reality of Kate has turned out to be far and away better than any two-dimensional fantasy he had conjured before that stormy night when she appeared on his doorstep.
She's amazing. Exquisite. Passionate and vocal and adventurous. She's positively uninhibited with him and it sets him ablaze, his blood burning with an unquenchable desire to have her, to give her pleasure, to make her fall apart over and over. And perhaps what astounds him most is that she lets him, that she wants him just as much and gives it all back with such blatant enthusiasm.
But as blissful as the sex has been, it's so much more than that. What she does to him, what she brings out in him and makes him feel…he's falling harder and deeper with every moment he spends with her, clothed or not. After two unsuccessful attempts at marriage, he had convinced himself that any chance of matrimonial bliss was long behind him, and yet he finds himself daydreaming about sliding a ring onto her finger, about children, about sharing a home and a life with her. He wants forever with her.
There are only a few weeks of her suspension left, and while he could never regret resuming their partnership, he'll miss their aimless days of waking late and cooking together, lounging on the couch and sipping coffee, arguing over the crossword puzzle and settling their disagreements with sex. They'll have to curb the spontaneity they've been able to indulge in during her time off, but he imagines that denying their urges will only intensify things when they can finally give in to their desires at the end of the day. And there's always the supply closet at the precinct if their need becomes desperate, even though she declares absolutely not, Castle! every time he teasingly brings it up…
His reverie is broken when the bathroom door finally clicks open, and he watches as Kate walks almost gingerly back to the bed, worry lancing through him at the sight.
Oh God…did I hurt her? Was I too rough? We did that thing with her leg on my shoulder earlier, but that wasn't exactly the first time…
She grimaces as she sits and then slides under the covers, reclining onto her pillow and throwing an arm haphazardly over her eyes with another deep sigh. Turning onto his side, he takes in her demeanor; she looks thoroughly miserable, and he can't not ask about it, especially if he might be the cause of her discomfort.
"Hey. What is it?"
Her arm flops to the bed, but her eyes stay affixed on the ceiling. She lets out a long, noisy exhale before she shakes her head and says, "I've just been careless."
Wait…careless? It's not a word that fits with who he knows her to be. His writer's imagination goes to work once again, and he tries to think of the myriad of ways in which she could possibly be careless. Immediately, his mind flashes to contraception, and while they haven't had an in depth conversation on the topic of birth control outside of her telling him that she's on the pill, he wonders…
"I'm gonna need to go see my doctor…" she murmurs next.
His eyes widen with the potential implications of that statement. Oh…oh God. Not that he wouldn't be thrilled to have another child, and especially with this woman, but…wow. They're barely a few weeks into this thing and…
"Castle."
He finally notices that she's staring at him, a puzzled look on her face at his dumbfounded expression. "Wha? Huh?"
"I'm not pregnant, Castle. I have a UTI."
He's flooded with relief (and maybe the tiniest pinch of disappointment) but…wait, a what?
"You have a what now?"
"A UTI? A urinary tract infection? I've had them in the past, and I'm usually pretty good at avoiding them. In fact, it's been years since I've had one. But we've been, kind of, um…" She clears her throat then, a small, soft smile gracing her lips. "We've been so enthusiastic in the bedroom…"
"Whoa, slow down a second, I don't understand. What does our sex life have to do with you having a…?" He looks to her to fill in the blank for him.
"A UTI. It's actually very common in sexually active women."
When he murmurs well we've certainly been active lately… she reaches over and slaps his bicep playfully.
"Anyway, the technical explanation is that having sex forces bacteria up into the urinary tract where it doesn't belong, and from there it wreaks havoc. It's my own damn fault, really. I should be getting up and using the bathroom after each and every time we have sex, but…"
"Oh God, Kate. I know for a fact you haven't been doing that. We're usually cuddling afterward. Or hell, going straight into the next round." He waggles his eyebrows and throws a suggestive grin her way at that.
"Exactly."
"Why didn't you say something before? God, I feel afwul."
"Castle." She turns on her side to face him then, reaching a hand out to cup his cheek. "You did nothing wrong. I haven't been getting up because…well, honestly, I didn't want to. I wanted to stay with you, in bed."
He can't help the wide smile that splits his face at her declaration. She wanted to stay.
"Still, I feel terrible that I had anything to do with how you feel right now. Is it bad?"
"Well, it doesn't feel great. It burns when I pee, and I constantly feel like I have to go. There's this weird, crampy pressure low in my abdomen."
Reaching under the covers, he gently places one wide, warm palm just above her pubic bone. "Here?"
She smiles at his tender touch. "Yeah. That actually feels nice."
He draws her close then, their limbs tangling as she slots her head under his chin with a deep sigh of contentment.
"So, what can I do to make it better?"
"Not much. The doctor will just give me some antibiotics. They actually work amazingly fast. I should be feeling better by tomorrow."
"And what about…"
"Sex? Well, we might have to hold off for a day or two."
"Well, I know I can restrain myself, but I don't know about you."
She barks out a laugh at that, and he knows that it's because he's not entirely off-base. She initiates things as often as he does, if not more so.
"Well, I'm sure we can find something else to do." She pulls back so she can see his face, a sly little smile gracing her lips. "You know, we could read…"
Oh, this woman.
"We could could watch TV."
"We could get something to eat."
His dips his head to capture her mouth with his then, and while it goes no further than the sweet, slow smudging of their lips, at least this time, they're not interrupted.
Thank you for reading...as always, I'd love to hear your thoughts.