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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"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.

"Tell me," she murmurs, kneading the shoulder muscle that moves under her fingers when he shifts his hold.

"Dinner and drinks," he says, easing her into a slow turn. "The standard routine. She wanted to come back to my apartment and read my dust jacket --" complete with a healthy heft of his eyebrows "-- but I told her I had work in the morning. 'Guess you're really grown up when you get to use that excuse, right?"

"Castle, I don't think you'll ever be able to use any real grown-up excuses," she lightly teases, squeezing the hand clasped in her own. She knows he can be serious when the occasion calls, but more often than not, he's the kind of playful that he's established in his reputation. He wouldn't be Richard Castle without it.

And, like she'd told him, she enjoys his constant pigtail-pulling.

"Right. I'll have to rely on you to make them for me."

There's a Goldilocks kind of symbiosis to their relationship: it's not too formal, not too loose, but evenly matched enough that their individual styles (though conflicting) are essentially complementary. Beckett does her thing in blue, Castle writes his in red.

He pulls her in close, hand sliding over her lower back. 'Song's gotten quieter now, and half invents a rhythm for them to sway to in the dark.

"Isn't that what I usually wind up doing?" Beckett points out.

Her body follows his pull, her head falling to his shoulder while her nose nudges up underneath his chin and she closes her eyes, sighs, allows herself to ease into the swaying movement he sets for them. She almost has to smile - this is one of those rare moments when she finds herself following his lead instead of the other way around.

"You did a good job today," she murmurs, for lack of better sentiment.

Edited 2010-02-17 19:18 (UTC)

Castle tucks his chin atop the crown of her head, adopting the sway of her body against his chest. Her compliment surprises him. It's not often that Beckett commends him for his random forrays into policework -- at least, not without gritting her teeth.

He squeezes her shoulder. "Careful. You're going to give me an ego."

"Would I really be the one single-handedly responsible for that?"

She knows how to give credit where it's due - even if some of it might be handed over begrudgingly - but Castle's been a help to her. In more ways than the obvious case-solving.

His voice rumbles through his chest, the vibrations traveling to her ear, deep and low, and she sighs again, content.

True. It's no secret that Castle's got a hell of a chip on his shoulder (we're talking Gibraltar here) and that he's adamant that the majority of it is deserved. But Beckett's savvy enough to see through the act (most of the time) and, through her, Castle achieves a sense of self that's a little more respectable.

His hands pass over the small of her back, thumbs folded against her spine. He hasn't slow-danced in a long time.

"I'm curious." When isn't he? "How'd you get a reputation for working the 'freaky cases'? I mean, it's to my benefit, obviously. Wouldn't be shadowing a desk jockey."

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