One thing about being trapped in close confines with Richard Castle is that he is, alarmingly, so much less annoying than Kate would've expected. It's like that mask has come off, the one he still wears sometimes, where he feels like he has to act like a little kid around the precinct just because that's how he defines himself. She's been lucky enough to see smatters of the man beneath the façade — the father, the writer — but all of a sudden it's like that's all she can see. He makes her hot chocolate, he sits in silence, his only comment during the entire movie is when the sun catches the snow outside and he thinks it beautiful enough that she should see.
And when Home Alone 2 ends, he's the same. So tame, so quiet, nothing at all to say about those stupid robbers or the hotel bill to the point where she wonders, maybe, if he's holding back for her.
So it's not just that his old mask has come off; it's that he's putting a new one on. The version of himself which he thinks she'll find most tolerable. God, did she do this to him?
"I'll go wash up," he says then, and before Kate can think any better of it her hand is darting out to catch his wrist. He stills.
"No," she blurts. "Um. Later. We can do that later."
"Okay," he says, and that's all. Fuck, god, he deserves more than this. If not more than her — because he'd never accept that, and they both know it — then at least more than this awful caution, the deer-in-headlights expression of his at the burning cuff of her fingers around his forearm.
"You wanna go out in the snow?"
He tilts his head a little, like a golden retriever. Same trust, same loyalty.
"Do you? You told me like three hours ago that the snowbanks were way too high."
"Changed my mind," Kate gives, even though really she has no preference and the only thing she actually wants is for him to feel a little more at home here. If she gets to see another flash of snow-flushed Richard Castle breathing all heavy through a beaming smile, that's just a side benefit. "The lobby doors open outwards so there's no way they'll give, but there's this raised back exit near where the trash chute comes out which I think might be a solution."
"Solution," he smiles. It's a little softer than she knows what to do with. "You're such a detective."
"Mm, and you're a tagalong civilian consultant. So pipe down."
"Ruggedly handsome, genius tagalong," Castle clarifies, and then he frowns before Kate has the chance to rebuff him. "I only have the one pair of shoes. They'll get wet."
"That's fine," she says easily. "They'll also dry again, and it's not like we're going anywhere for the foreseeable."
Castle grins. He likes being trapped with her. He's making zero effort to hide it.
"Don't we make quite the Hallmark Christmas movie?"
"Oh, God," Kate groans, collapsing back into the couch. "Don't start."
Useless instruction. He's thrilled with this idea, she can tell.
"OMG, Castle," he chirps, in what Kate assumes is a terrible imitation of her voice, and when the fuck in her life has she ever once said OMG? "It's so cold and lonely in my huge bed. You wanna share?"
So she throws a couch pillow at him. "You're awful, you know that? I do not talk like that. And the bed is mine."
He cocks an eyebrow, and the expression almost, almost reads as not for long. But maybe she's just being overly hopeful. God, maybe she just wants him too much.
"Think about it, Beckett. We are the festive rom-com pairing. Famous writer, street-smart detective, trapped together and huddling for warmth on a snowy Christmas evening. What ever will they do?"
Kate huffs at him. "I'll remind you that I sleep with a gun. You try huddling me for warmth and you can huddle yourself all the way back home."
"You'd be so cruel? Sending helpless me into the cold and dark?"
No, never. Helpless him. But she's in this now. "Yep. Map if you're lucky."
"Map. How old are you? We have GPS in our phones now."
Kate almost makes a remark about their decade-wide age gap, but that feels a little cruel, even for her. Joking about their age difference is definitely an established-couple sort of jibe, not the kind of thing she can quite be bringing up yet when the word couple still only hangs between them 24/7 like a doomed sprig of mistletoe.
"No comeback? Ha," Castle smarms. "Double ha."
She just shoots him a glare which makes him wince. Ha indeed, Richard.
"So. Snow?"
He lights up a little and she's so glad, so grateful, he's opening up at last and it's her who has managed to do that. Pulling Castle out of the shell he formed around himself six months in the name of waiting. How he stopped courting her, stopped making those passes, stopped doing things like buying her dresses or rescuing her father's watch from the ashes of a desecrated apartment because those kinds of gestures were all of a sudden a little too big for both of them. She'll admit, she misses it. But she's getting there, getting back to him. Slowly. Thank god.
"Yes. Definitely. Before the sun sets."
"Okay. Here." Kate spends a moment rifling through the pile of clothes she gave him, before emerging victorious with an enormous pair of sweatpants and a hoodie. "Wear these. I can just chuck them in the dryer straight after."
Castle looks positively thrilled about being given her clothes to wear. Massive sap. She almost calls him out on it until she remembers how much of a buzz it gave her when he lent her so many of his clothes the week her house blew up.
"Be right back," he grins, disappearing. Kate lets out a breath, because thank fuck he's not going to be wearing that devastatingly tight t-shirt again anytime soon. She hopes. Does she? Christ. It's weird being this much of a girl again, giddy with it, with the man in her kitchen and her living room and somehow not yet her bed. Her heart, though. Ridiculous. And yet there he is.
She's in pretty casual clothes herself, a long-sleeved running shirt and leggings — not pajamas, but definitely not anything that she'd wear to work — but everything's going straight in the wash after this anyway so she probably doesn't need to change. A couple minutes of cold won't kill her, but any further suggestions on Castle's part wherein they huddle for warmth just might.
He re-emerges a few minutes later in clothes which fit him pretty well, all things considered. The pants are a little baggy, but not so much that they drown him, and the hoodie looks like it was made for him. All that money on tailored shirts just for him to fit into her stupid oversized NYPD garb. Whatever.
"Ready?"
"So ready," he says. And he is. She can feel the excitement carding from him in waves.
"You're like a little kid, you know that?"
She doesn't mean it as an insult, so she's glad that he doesn't take it as one.
"Oh yeah. Snow is just the best thing ever. I feel like a little kid whenever I see it out the window, you know? Especially here where it's so rare."
"Mm. And then you go on midnight runs and almost freeze to death. What would you have done if I'd have slept through your call?"
"Kept calling." He shrugs, smiling a little. "Where else would I go?"
God, he guts her out sometimes. Where else? So flippant, such an easy thing for him to just admit like that. And it's true, it's true, it's true. For her as well. He's it for her. Nobody else she'd think to run to.
"Well," she says, "then it's a good thing I picked up."
He's got that look on his face that just makes her bones go all hollow. Studying. So intense. She feels swallowed under the blue of it, wonders if it's the face he makes when he's writing a particularly good chapter, or maybe when—
Right. Well.
"You picked up," he repeats then, so quiet she almost misses it. "Third ring."
"Castle," she warns, but it's so half-hearted, she's so tired of having to do this cautious don't-get-too-close dance with him when really more than anything she just wants to know what the hell he means by specifying that, yes, she picked up on the third thing.
"Yes, sorry. Snow time?" He smiles. There's that shell again. Fuck. "Hey, like go time."
"Snow time," she confirms, nudging him. "Or, snow attempt. We might not even be able to make it out there."
He shakes his head, determined. "Nope. I'll make a snow angel or I'll die trying."
SNOW! almost. next chapter i think. very exciting. hope u all enjoy this one! things will start ramping up soon i promise xxx
in a bit of a rush so i haven't proof-read this — please mention if you pick up on any mistakes! continually blown away by everyone's support for this story; i haven't been directly responding to anyone's reviews because i'm still a little daunted by this website's responding-to-reviews-via-direct-private-message system, but please do know that i'm reading every single review and soooo filled with joy every time anyone leaves a new one! so kind of you all. much love :)