fanofthegenre | [ a missing scene ]

There's sterility in luxury. A couple dozen best-selling novels in the bag and you don't have to worry about coming home to a three-by-five foot apartment, the walls peeling with a thousand-and-one memories of sob stories left before. Castle's apartment is professionally furnished, expertly tailored, and, right now, the last place he wants to be.

He's been wandering the West Side for a good part of the evening, trudging through remnant snow slush, his silhouette cut against great clouds of bunker steam. At around ten he starts to feel the cold and actually hails a cab, giving the driver the address as easily as if it were his own. Detective Beckett's apartment is an impressive edifice wedged between two brownstones, its tan marble like an exclamation point between two dull expressions of punctuation. He pays the driver and gets out, his breath puffing in front of him, filling the wide blue collar of his coat. Her lights are on. This late, that's either a very good -- or a very bad -- sign.

His pull with her doorman gets him through to the lobby and from there it's just a short (jolty) elevator ride to Beckett's floor. A light is out at the far end of the hall, close to Beckett's door. If Castle believed in portents (he had occasion to, every once in a while), he would see this as a sign.

He raps gently on her door.

The sound of the running water very nearly muffles the sound of the knock on the door altogether - but not quite. Beckett's in the middle of testing the bathwater's temperature with a bare foot when she catches it - these days, she's all too prepared to hear each and every creak and clatter in her apartment - and draws her robe tight around her frame, securing her hair against the back of her head with a clip. Her movement towards the front door is only briefly halted as she downs the remaining contents inside the small tumbler in her hand; she sets the empty glass down on the kitchen counter with a hollow sound and continues on her way, shuffling slow to peer through the eyehole.

Castle's face looms, misshapen and disproportionately represented in the small, warped lens, and she sighs, resting her forehead against the door around the same time that her hand automatically clasps the knob. With a twist, she pulls it open just enough to peer around through the open slit of space. Her cheeks are pale despite the attempts to drink some color into them, her eyes dull, her shoulders weighed down with an invisible tension. She licks her lips, tasting vodka.

"What do you want, Castle?"

He eyes her appreciative through the slit in the door. "This is just like a scene I wrote once," he admits, and could instantly stomp on his own tongue. His lips move, fishily, around an expression that he's not quite comfortable with. A peek of terrycloth around the edge of the door alerts him to her plans. He's going to have to be extra cagey to win his admittance. Luckily, he's come prepared.

The fold of his coat peels back and reveals a bottle of top shelf whiskey, its label stylistically distressed.

"I figured we could have a drink. That is, if there's room left between you, me, and rubber duckie."

Her jaw clenches, and she bites down on the inside of her cheek to stop a petty retort right in its tracks. Instead, she opens the door a little wider, bracing her hand against the side, ready to ask him why he thinks he even deserves to be let in after a comment like that. The reveal of the bottle, however, changes her train of thinking. She arches an eyebrow, but says nothing, and turns around to walk further in, leaving the door open for him.

"I'll be right back. Don't touch anything."

At the very least, she's going to have to put some clothes on. Five minutes later, she's back in the living room in a pair of sweats and a camisole, her hair still pinned up, the heat in her apartment substantial enough to negate the need for too many layers. She grabs her previously used tumbler from before and another clean one for him and sets up on her couch, putting them down to rest on the coffee table for his pour.

Edited 2010-01-30 05:29 (UTC)

Castle was never any good at high school math, but he aced bar proportions and therefore settles a healthy dose at the bottom of Beckett's tumbler. The radiator is chugging out a Union Station-style groove that Castle finds both provincial and comforting; he has shed his jacket and familiar multi-colour scarf by the time she returns to him. There's a warm circle underpinning both his arms when he sees her, but he attributes the swell of heat to her sub-standard heating system.

"We don't have to talk if you don't want to," he says, perching on the edge of her couch. In fact, he prefers that they don't. Many a good mood has been wasted by inviting conversation into the same room as good whiskey. He clinks his glass against hers, an informal, bastardized toast. His clothes and body start to attune themselves to the climate of her apartment.

She looks tired, but he'll be damned if he's going to say anything about it.

For once, she's not completely concerned about the state he's seeing her in, both the expression on her face and the clothes on her body - all things considered, this is probably the least-dressed he's ever seen her, and she doesn't have a ton of makeup applied with tender care by Lanie or a coiffed hairstyle to hide her fatigue behind. She leans back against the couch, almost curling in on herself, resting her arms against her front and cradling the glass in her hand close to her face.

Beckett's almost grateful when he suggests not talking. The silence that sets in, apart from the clanking of the radiator, isn't uncomfortable, but she's not about to be left to the thoughts running through her head, alone or otherwise. Company helps. Alcohol helps. But barely. She lifts the glass to her lips, grimacing slightly at the momentary burn that follows her sip, but it's not enough to stop her from taking another.

"How's your head?" she asks. It's partly out of concern, but also partly from the need to distract herself from the temptation to mentally re-enact the past few hours.

At the mention of physical trauma, Castle remembers his injuries and raises a hand to tend to the crown of his head where the brunt of the abuse occurred. "I've seen melons at the Whole Foods that looked better," he admits, palpating his gourd as if he's trying to piece it together through topographical phrenology. "Alexis and my mother tell me that I still look pretty, despite the trauma." He flashes Beckett a bright, over-enthusiastic grin. "My agent should be thrilled."

He swirls the dust motes around the bottom of his glass and takes another sip. Beckett's handling her liquor better than he expected. No -- that's not necessarily true. Part of Castle knew that Beckett would take after the cultural stereotype of the Irishwoman who could hold her liquor. Her mouth is stained red-orange by the drink. He feels a pang of remorse for not coming over earlier.

"Don't say I never offered you a first-hand experience shadowing me," Beckett responds, somewhat dryly, her voice thick and whiskey-laced. She smiles, but it doesn't quite reach her eyes as she tilts her head back to take another, liberal sip. "Being held at gunpoint definitely does wonders for the creative process, I'm guessing."

Her free hand reaches back to scratch the juncture between neck and shoulder, where a few stray strands of hair have fallen to brush, ticklish against her skin. She leaves her hand there, resting diagional across her front, an unconsciously placed shield as her gaze drifts over, down and somewhat along his left side. Without missing a beat, she finishes off her drink.

And Castle is there to pour her another, like a never-ending fountain of libation, the bottle in his hand and a radar in his brain that tunes him in to her particular needy frequency. His hand rests in the valley between her hip and his, the unfathomed land of couch and divide, 'bottle between them to support the difference.

"I think," he begins, then stamps his lips together in self-correction. Instead of finishing the thought he pours himself a refresher, the gold in his glass as fair as yellow glass. It's a few seconds before he gets back on track with out-loud vocalizations and, when he does, his voice is much lower. 'Soft, patient dove mutter that he used to use on his daughter when she woke up with nightmares.

"You know you did the right thing."

Her hand trembles, a fraction of a second, but just long enough to give her away. It's difficult for her to recall when the mental replay started, likely long before he showed up at her door, but now that it's in her head, she can't get it out - Coonan's face, haughty and defiant, turned slack as the shot from her gun rings out and she stares down the barrel when he slumps to the floor, his blood gushing out over her hand, his life slipping away as she keeps trying to resuscitate the man hired to kill her mother.

"You know I wouldn't have let him - "

Beckett's voice wavers on the last syllable, the sentence unfinished, but the unspoken thought hangs in the air, the sentiment behind it obvious in her tone even as she averts her gaze again and hides her falter with another sip of whiskey. It burns less, now, in those few moments right before the numbness starts to kick in in its place.

He shakes his head. 'Unclear whether he's dismissing her defense or dashing away at least a half dozen of his own. The brown bottle is lonely and so he shares some of it with his own glass.

"I know."

And he does. He gets what she's saying, even if she's not saying it. Six months ago he would have called that kind of insight "writer's intuition," but he knows now that he's moved past the pages of a novel and into a territory that can't be captured, culled or kept within the margins of a word processing program.

"When's the first time you got drunk?" he asks, apropos of nothing except a spinning golden-tinged glass and his own memories. "I think I was fifteen. 'Mother was rehearsing for The King & I and I snuck into the King of Siam's liquor cabinet. 'Spent the whole night doing cartwheels across the stage until I threw up in Tuptim's shoes." He offers a half smirk. "Not exactly my finest moment."

That earns a sincere, surprised smile on her lips, one she ducks her head to try and cover up, but there's no denying her amusement or her appreciation for the distraction. She lifts her gaze to him, then twists her glass between her fingers, watching the lamp light refract against the surface and the liquid swaying back and forth inside.

"God, I don't even - when I was sixteen, I think? It was such a predictable thing: kid's parents were out of town and left their house wide open for the partying. Someone didn't waste any time before spiking the punch. All I remember is throwing up all over their trimmed hedges outside, but the next day, all anyone could talk about was the drunken tabletop rendition of En Vogue I'd offered up to anyone within earshot."

She shakes her head at the memory, a combination of nostalgia and embarrassment.

"My mom grounded me for a month when she caught me stumbling in at three in the morning. I wasn't too stealthy back then."

Edited 2010-01-30 06:29 (UTC)

The image of the pristine Katherine Beckett -- replete with trimmed hedges and En Vogue -- is just about as much as Castle's collective imagination can take, and his cheeks bulge with the effort of keeping whiskey in.

"En Vogue?" he finally manages, his voice stripped three octaves. "I woulda' pegged you for a Whitesnake girl. And I insist on a re-enactment of the tabletop thing --" he cracks a wide, toothsome grin that splits on the rim of his glass "-- I'm within earshot."

"I know, I know," she starts, already prepared to come to her own defense, but there's nothing she can say that would really do anything other than dig herself an even deeper hole.

"Not happening," Beckett adds, attempting to fix him with a stare that would break the shell of any hardened criminal, but it loses some of its power under the buzz she's currently riding from the whiskey, loosening her tongue and bringing a unique pinkness to her cheeks and chest. She clears her throat, then scrunches up her nose, bothered by the angle of the clip in her hair that feels like it's digging into her scalp. 'More of a hindrance than a help, and at this point, she could care less about what her hair looks like, so she reaches up to remove it, setting it to one side and combing fingers through the brown strands to relieve the itch.

Castle watches her micromanage her hair like he watches her manage everything else: with a wonder that anything gets done at all. Beckett's all business, but she still manages to make business look good, even in sweats.

He starts in low and soft:

"I can't look without being watched, you know
You rang my buy before I made up my mind
Oh now attitude, why even bother
I can't change your mind, you can't change my color...

Beckett's almost at a loss for words. Somehow the fact that Castle actually knows the song doesn't surprise her, but she's not going to be so easily coaxed into this. A drink - or five, perhaps - is one thing, but a spontaneous belting of lyrics? Another thing entirely.

"Stop that," she mutters, but it doesn't have the verbal punch behind it that she'd like it to, and she shifts on the couch, drawing her ankle underneath the opposite thigh.

He continues, unassailed,

"Freeeeee yo' miiiind," replete with contradictory shoulder shrugs, "and yo' body will follow."

"Castle," she insists, a chuckle tacking on to her protests before she realizes it's even there.

She reaches out to nudge his arm, the movement made weak and sloppy by the drinks coursing through her bloodstream, wreaking havoc on her nerve endings.

He digs her elbow into her soft underbelly, rolling his shoulder toward the assault. The bottle clinks again, borne on some psychic tether, and in the end both of them have glasses filled three-quarters full, prisms spilling over the backs of their palms. Castle sucks a rainbow of colour from between two of his knuckles and grins, his shoulders quaking with amusement.

"Come on, detective. I know you've got it in you."

"Maybe," she tentatively promises, and in an instant, the glass is once again empty and she's swaying to her feet, leaving it behind on the coffee table and wiping the corner of her mouth with her fingertips. The stereo in the cabinet rests only a few feet away, and she squints at her small collection of music until she finds what she's looking for, putting it in and selecting the right track.

"But I am not singing that," Beckett declares, as the first few strains of a harmonica fill the room and Steven Tyler starts rasping from the speakers. Reflexively, her hips start swaying back and forth to the slower beat, head tilted to listen to the tune, and then she closes her eyes, almost forgetting her company entirely as she begins to softly sing along with the chorus.

Castle, possessed of a good Y chromosome just as much as the next man, watches her slink across her living room to tend to the stereo and -- oh god, of all choices -- Steven Tyler occupies the room with his extra large beanbag lips. Not that Castle pays attention to the melody. He's much more interested in the syncope of hips that's going on in front of him; Beckett's whiskey-induced reprieve has got her waist going like a slow-acting pendulum.

Castle swallows audibly.

No, no, no," his moral chorus is quick to chime in. Damn them for their perseverance; he though the last glass had shut them out for good. Still, it's hard to think objectively about one's partner when one's partner's mid-riff is peeking from beneath the bottom of her tanktop as she sways to Eighties rock.

It's not a hot bath, but it's almost the next best thing. Her eyes still closed, Beckett rolls her neck back and forth, tipping her head from side-to-side in a mild attempt to relieve some of the tightness creeping up on her. The whiskey is helping to numb a little, and what she can feel now is a slow burn, a vague and subtle tingling sensation starting at the middle and rippling outward to the tips of her fingers and toes, her body humming with renewal.

The singing rises in volume, and then she turns away from the stereo, crazy, crazy high and soft on her lips when she reaches for her glass and nearly pouts in disappointment at finding it empty. She quickly forgets about it as the lengthy guitar solo kicks in, leaving the glass to sidle around the table to Castle's end.

"Well, c'mon," she chuckles, reaching out for a hand to pull him to his feet and swaying in front of him with a loose grin. "I'm not going to be alone in this, Castle."

Edited 2010-01-30 07:17 (UTC)

Richard Castle's stomach reacts to this on multiple levels, not the least of which involves a dramatic drop in confidence levels, as the current state of his union has him accepting the unfamiliar, slim, pale hand and rising to the dance. He almost reaches for the bottle before Beckett's body distracts him: rolling to the pitch, bobbing to the rhythm, her long neck cast out like a plotting line in Magellan's atlas. He thinks, oh god and finds himself dancing to Aerosmith before he knows it.

"Why detective," he says, nicely covering his surprise, "I didn't know that you were the 'writhe-on-the-hood-of-an-old-T-bird' type." His fingers slink between the spokes of her knuckles, jutting her hand up with his, their palms kissing like cousins.

"What, your writer's intuition didn't pick that up? I'm shocked," she teases, using their linked hands to lift his arm in the air and spin herself underneath, revolving in and then back out before she leans in with an uncharacteristic giggle.

"And who said anything about it being a T-bird?" Beckett adds, leaving him to ponder that particular thought over for a moment or two as she reaches for the bottle itself, her lips wrapping around the opening to take a swig, and then squints at the label with a soft exhale. When she sets it back down, she straightens up too quickly, the momentum dizzying, and stumbles back against him.

Edited 2010-01-30 07:29 (UTC)

Castle can hold his liquor, but even he's starting to feel a little hazy after contributing to the reduction of the bottle's contents. He chases the phantom of her hand as it returns the bottle to the table.

"Whoa," he says with a laugh, catching her around the waist when she tilts off kilter; his arm loops her just long enough for her to get her balance back under control. Her brunette bob swings under his nose, trailing perfume. He tries not to think about it. "Well, you dance better than most epileptics," he admits, "so that's not bad."

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