fanofthegenre | [ late night at the precinct ]

Entry tags:

oom,
rick castle

[ late night at the precinct ]

Long nights of paperwork are nothing new for Beckett.

Spending the dull hours of the evening filing away even duller paperwork is a routine she's grown accustomed to; the life of a detective isn't always preoccupied with chasing down a suspect or interrogating a guilty party. Sometimes, there's the moments that aren't always worth writing about, the files she somehow manages to let pile up while she's doing the more exciting parts of her job. It's a vicious cycle, the way the tedious work tends to sneak up on her when she's least expecting it.

Every now and then, her eyes flick to the clock, tracking the time, gauging how many hours she has left to finish what she's working on before she'll be getting absolutely no sleep at all. She's the only one here, apart from the night guard working the desk downstairs, and every now and then she stops to stretch, or to refresh her coffee after fiddling with some of the dials on the espresso machine - the machine that nearly requires a PhD from Starbucks to know how to use.

Sitting back down again at her desk, she rolls her shoulders and then her neck, settling in to wrap up a few last-minute details on the open file in front of her.

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Part of him remains courteously objective to her reactions. A bigger, more prevalent part of him, wonders if this is what Kate Beckett sounds like when she lets herself go. Would she sound any different if he had his hands on her in a more intimate setting? Would she be more or less vocal?

He skims his hands up the sides of her throat, pulling the crown of her head against his stomach. His thumbs resettle beneath her shoulder blades, pulling the last nerve bundles apart, his palms gently kneading her shoulders to spread the feeling around.

"You're not saying anything," she notes faintly, her eyes still closed, even if she is obviously aware that she's resting back against him now while he finishes up along the middle of her back and either side of her spine.

"Is my back that crooked?"

She laughs at her own humor, quietly, though she notices that her body doesn't tense even the way it had earlier when she'd been in pure resting mode.

"You're not the best case I've ever seen, but you're definitely not the worst." He pushes his thumbs over the middle of her back, rocking her forward in her chair. "'More like someone who should learn to take it easy every once in a while."

"You're not the first person to tell me so," she admits, leaning forward to rest her forearms on the surface of the desk.

"Though I don't think it's a lesson I'll be able to put into practice too often."

"I know."

The long, graceful bow of her back is exposed to him and Castle uses the angle to push his thumbs all the way down the middle of her spine, palms skimming the depressions between her ribs.

"If it weren't for Milliways - "

She breaks off to release an audible sigh, her back arching slightly.

" - I don't think I'd get much of an off-time at all."

Castle slips his left hand around her middle, palm flat against her stomach, while he rubs the side of his right hand over the bumps in her spine, trying to encourage better blood flow. He's nearly bent over her now, his chin hovering over her shoulder, the top of his chest against her upper back. 'Just close enough to be within the boundaries of propriety.

"Thank god for the broken space-time continuum at Milliways, huh?"

"Mmhmm," Beckett wordlessly agrees.

She's relaxed enough as to be almost completely limp in his arms, her hands clenching into visible vists and then relaxing, palm-flat, against the files on her desk. There's something about this form of proximity that's stoking some kind of heat down low in her stomach, a burgeoning flame that will burst into a helpless fire that she won't have an iota of control over.

He unfolds his fingers and passes the flat of his palm over her lower back. "Ah --" part sigh, part victory grunt "-- you're a little tight down here, too." His cheek moves against the part in her hair. "Man, you're really making me work for it, aren't you?"

"I never said I would be easy," Beckett manages, in a light tease, the flat of her stomach occasionally shifting against Castle's palm when she sways with the motion of his other hand.

"Yeah, I figured. I deal in adjectives and 'easy' doesn't even break the Top 100 with you." He pushes his hand to the top of her ribcage, holding her in place while he pushes his fingertips down the length of her spine.

"So what adjectives are on the list?"

Curiosity wins out; the question is also mostly to distract her from thinking too hard about any visceral responses he may be working out of her system.

His chuckles and, given how close they are, the sound registers as a physical thrum through his body to hers.

"Nuh uh," he says. "You want compliments, you're going to have to pay for the Platinum Package."

She clucks her tongue against her teeth, slowly shaking her head.

"What does that entail, exactly?"

"I get to use the bullhorn the next time we corner a suspect. And I have full access to the siren."

"Maybe on the bullhorn, definitely not full siren access. You'll get occasionally allotted privileges, time and place to be determined by me."

"But what if we're really in a hurry?"

He moves his hand to her hip, just above the place where her blouse flares out. He has to be careful here. 'Slip of the fingers and he could very well touch bare Beckett skin.

"I promise I'll still have enough time to make that call."

She arches her back again with another noise of contentment.

It's highway robbery, but Castle'll take it.

He folds his hands around her hips, thumbs at the base of her spine, easing the heels of his palms over her lower back. "Smart. Capable. Driven. Resourceful." The timbre of his voice dips with the placement of his hands. "Passionate."

'Edge of his thumb brushes her naked back.

"Sensual."

Twice. It's hardly an accident.

"Sexy."

She's overly sensitized as it is, nerves vibrating like a plucked string, and the combination of his hands on her and his voice, low and rumbling in her ear, is serving to accomplish something else entirely - besides giving her an otherwise impossible opportunity to unwind.

"Castle," she utters, in what she originally intends to be a small form of protest, but in the aftermath, Beckett realizes it had wound up sounding closer to a moan.

Very close to her ear but just out of her peripheral vision. "You're thinking of the Diamond Package," he says.

"Something tells me that doesn't involve the siren."

It's easier, with her eyes still closed, to fall into that relaxing lull. She almost doesn't want to re-open them.

"Give the lady a cigar." He pushes his hands over the tight muscles of her lower back, thumbs in situ on either side of her spine. Her waist is tiny. He could fold her between his palms if he wanted to. "The Diamond Package doesn't involve cigars, either," he says.

"Access to something else, then?"

She knows perfectly well what; the question is posed with the kind of faux-innocence that Castle is fully capable of seeing straight through.

He can and he does, but it doesn't really matter. The banter's slipped into another dimension and Castle's head is heavy and slightly fuzzy. He's glad to have a repetitive task to occupy his hands or else she might just leave him speechless. Imagine that: a mute wordhound. Tongues would wag.

"It's a very exclusive upgrade."

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