fanofthegenre | [ case closed ]

Entry tags:

oom,
rick castle

[ case closed ]

"The ex-wife in the office with the fire ants," Beckett murmurs, juggling the ring of keys in her palm until she singles out the one she's looking for and slides it into the lock on her apartment's front door.

The case had wrapped all too easily after she and Castle had made it back to the city. Anne Gordon had confessed only after a little pressing in the interrogation room, and a secondary search of Cavendish's home had even turned up several crispy exoskeletons in the fireplace ashes from where she'd attempted to burn the evidence of the shopping bags. All in all, things had ended rather nicely - Castle had even fulfilled his urge and gotten to play with the squad car's siren and lights, and now she was going to put up her feet for the evening - probably literally - with Castle in tow.

She lets them both into the apartment, flicking on a few lights and shedding her coat and scarf before making her way towards the kitchen. Clearly, there are several options awaiting her in the relaxation department, but she's aiming for just one right off the bat.

"I'm gonna grab a beer. You want?"

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He shakes his head.

"No, I mean it. I write fiction. I deal in fiction. Most of the time, half of what people are telling me is what they think I want to hear. When you told me about your mother, that was a truth." He turns his eyes to her, remarkably serious for a guy who just helped crack a case where "ants in the pants" was the final nail in the coffin. "I appreciate things like that."

Beckett's answer isn't exactly a verbal one.

She smiles, leaning over to rest her head along his shoulder, and then sighs, another level of tension disappearing.

"I think I'll sleep better tonight knowing that everything's been wrapped up."

Her head drops onto his shoulder and Castle feels her arm tuck nicely in line with his own. He spends a few seconds reliving his harrowing high school years before he eases his arm up over the back of the couch, around her shoulder.

"You know what else would help you sleep better tonight..."

He's staring into the middle distance when he says it but, by god, his smirk is a thousand decibels and she's sure to hear it.

"Haven't the faintest," she murmurs, her own smirk plain as day and clearly audible in her words.

It's comfortable here, just resting, and her cheek shifts against his shoulder as her free hand slides along the top of his thigh before it comest to rest with her fingertips dangling over his kneecap.

Castle drops his hand over her fingers. "Glass of warm milk," he confirms, "was what I was going to suggest."

She chuckles, nose nuzzling into his shoulder when she shakes her head, her mood warm and calm.

"Sure you were."

He briefly turns his nose toward the top of her head, smiling against the fall of her hair. His beer condensates in his hand, but he's already warm. "This is nice."

"Mmm," she wordlessly agrees.

That may also be attributed to the fact that her radiator, which had barely been pumping out heat last week, is now supplying the room with a steady stream of it. Beckett feels her cheeks flush with warmth.

"Think I'm gonna go change."

"You want me to get out of here?" he offers, unlooping his arm from the back of the couch.

"You want to go?"

She lifts her head, blinking slowly.

"I wasn't planning on going to bed. It's just - warm in here."

"I figured you had paperwork to do." He puts his beer on the coffee table and leans forward, elbows on his kneecaps.

"Unless you wanted me to try and talk you out of doing it. I think we both know that I'm pretty good at that."

"I do, but it's nothing that can't wait." Hers is almost empty now; she finishes it off with a quick tilting-back of her head.

"I think last time your method of persuasion involved less talking."

"Is that what you want?" He draws the back of her kneecap underneath his palm, gently pulling her toward him. "You're gonna' kill the sense of romance."

"You're trying to play the romance card?" Her fingers slide through one end of his scarf, pulling it away from his collar. "I'll have to admit, I'm curious to see how it's done."

"Why? 'Been a long time?" He lifts his chin up and away, conscious of the sharp zppp! of a scarf as it friction-burns its way from his throat.

She'll have to give him points for that one, the question hitting a little closer to the side of truth than not.

"You could say that."

Castle gives the back of her knee a soft squeeze. "Go get changed."

She doesn't take very long. If anything, she's anxious to get out of the grime of the city that always seems to permeate her clothes, to wash her face clean and scrub off even the minimal amount of make-up she wears.

When she reappears, she's donned a dark camisole and traded a pair of shorts for her stand-by sweats in an attempt to keep cooling down.

Beckett doesn't see him right away, but she's also fairly certain he wouldn't leave without telling her.

"Castle?"

In her absence, Castle's refreshed their beers and shucked his blazer on the back of one of her seldom-used dining room chairs. He interfaces with her stereo, shirt rolled up to the elbows, brow knit in concentration. Beckett may be frugal when it came to little luxuries, but her stereo system is more complex than Cape Canaveral.

"Hey --" as she returns, looking well-scrubbed and refreshed "-- you look great. Give me a second to divert the launch codes and..." The CD player whurrs into compliance. Castle steps back, triumphant. 'Holds out a hand to her.

"Come dance with me."

There are certain aspects of her apartment, here and there, where she's sprung for luxury over adequacy - her bathtub, for instance, was enough to make Kate openly salivate when she visited, and the stereo is just one more tiny indulgence among the old picture frames and the thrift store finds.

"I don't know what I'm more concerned about, the fact that you've just acquainted myself with my music library or that you want me to dance in my pajamas."

She takes his hand despite verbal protests, sliding her other onto his shoulder, and steps toward him as she waits for the first song to start.

"Last time we did this I was better-dressed," Beckett murmurs.

"Last time we did this we were casing a charity gala in hopes of catching a couple of jewel thieves." He turns his hand to cup her palm, lacing their fingers together. The music builds on the backbone of a lazy blue trumpet solo, sliding through the room like a plume of directed smoke.

He fans his fingers over the small of her back, leaning in to brush his lips against her ear. "And I saw that Sade CD, Detective Beckett. I'm on to you."

"And you pulled me onto the dance floor because it was supposedly the only place we could talk without being overheard." Beckett hides her disbelieving grin against his shoulder, both in regards to his true intentions and the jab at her CD collection.

"I plead the fifth. And you saw no such thing."

He turns her out to the ribbon of a solo saxophone -- "I know, it was very James Bond" -- and then reels her back in. "I like this better. My mother isn't here, for one thing."

"Although there really was nothing like watching your face while the wealthy patrons of the ballet bid for a night of your company."

Beckett sidles up against him, swiveling her hips and turning out to look at his face.

"How'd that date turn out, by the way?"

"You really want to know?" he baits.

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