fanofthegenre | [ forced decompression ]

Entry tags:

oom,
rick castle

[ forced decompression ]

Combing the parking garage for any sign of the third victim's body proves fruitless. The killer - whoever he is - isn't sticking to his normal M.O. of leaving the body where he's killed them, either. Forensics bags the lone pump, the clumps of blonde hair, swabs the places where her blood had spilled, but Beckett isn't hopeful yet. Changing his tactic means he's becoming more unpredictable, getting harder to pin down, but the fact that she's being sent home after feeling like she and her team can actually be a help is weighing heavy on her shoulders. Her protests fall on Agent Shaw's ignoring ears, and she leaves feeling more helpless than before - a feeling she doesn't appreciate having at the moment. It's not until she's climbed into her car and left that she realizes Castle's still there, but something tells her he doesn't mind being left with another brilliant mind to build theory with.

The unit, a small trio of suits wearing earpieces, are waiting in various places throughout her apartment building by the time Beckett gets there, a bag of takeout Chinese in one hand. The sight of them only re-emphasizes her frustration over the situation, and her other hand tightens around her keys when she lets herself into her apartment. She makes a point of checking all the windows, combing rooms, and then pokes her head out into the hallway and tells the guys to head on home. There's no point in keeping them around when everything's perfectly secured and she's got a gun in her bedside drawer - and one in the living room, too.

Beckett changes into a loose-fitting shirt and a pair of jeans and cracks open the Chinese, mixing rice and veggies together with her disposable chopsticks. Fifteen minutes in and the casefile is spread out on the couch in front of her, and Beckett settles in Indian-style, combing over the information: crime scene photos, eyewitness accounts, victims' backgrounds - searching for anything she might be missing, anything Agent Shaw and her team (and her "smart board") haven't pinned down yet.

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"I don't know about that," Beckett starts, but it's hard to develop a quick retort to follow when Castle's hands are in the process of working some of the knots out of her back.

His thumbs press in under her shoulders and she leans forward, exposing the clothed expanse of her back to him with a soft sigh.

"Now this, this is a good decompression."

He rumbles his approval and shifts a knee underneath him, propping himself up for a better angle and more access to her aching muscles. "See? I'm full of good ideas."

There's a particular knot of tension between her shoulder blades, wedged like a knot at the nape of her neck. He pushes his thumb over it, testing its mettle, then uses the side of his fist to work it out. The pressure is even, but firm. He's trying to get her to relax, not de-bone her.

She's tight, but getting more pliant by the moment and Castle finds that he likes the fact that he can do that to her -- moreover, that she actually lets him from time to time. He's aware that she's always only sharing half of what she's actually feeling. That's her nature and he understands why she'd want to keep parts of herself, well, to herself. Castle's not that way. He says what he's feeling the moment he feels it, without censor. He's gotta' drive her crazy that way.

"And about half of them we can agree on," Beckett's quick to correct - even as his manipulation of a particular spot of tension between her shoulderblades has her scrambling to find something to hold onto. One of her hands settles for his leg, fingertips applying the slightest amount of pressure as they dig into his thigh and hold, tightening only when he reaches a corresponding knot in her back.

She's stiff, unyielding at first, almost like a straight plank of wood, but under Castle's seeking hands, her back begins to arch and bend, giving way to the rhythm the kneading sets. She rolls her head from side to side when his fingers fly over the back of her neck, strands of hair falling free to graze his knuckles.

"This one, though, we agree on," she adds softly, and then: "I remember the first time you did this."

"I do, too." And his grin is like radiant heat. "Despite what you might've thought, I wasn't trying to instigate anything. My intentions? Totally honourable." He pushes his thumb to the nape of her neck, gently urging her chin down to her collarbone.

"Now, though," he amends, teasingly.

"Honorable, my ass," she mutters, but it's certainly not a question of his intentions so much as it is the realization that what he's doing is actually serving as more of a distraction than the wine had.

"Nothing but a gentleman, I'm sure."

"Oh no. I'm despicable."

He fans his fingers over the base of her neck, easing her cheek down toward her shoulder. His thumb sits civilly beneath her earlobe, supporting her with his fingertips, while he works some things loose from the other side. Her pulse bumps the thin skin between his thumb and forefinger. He can tell when he's doing something she likes by the pressure on his leg -- a firm squeeze he interprets to be "good," a lighter one when he's exhausted a spot and she wants him to move on. Every once in a while she'll dig the heel of her palm into his thigh, or make a little sigh, or flex beneath his hand and he knows she hasn't let herself get out of gear since the last time he did this.

His wrist starts to tire so he shakes it out, switching hands. He's focused on the task, but he's also thinking about the case. Trying to come up with something new that'll energize the trail and get Beckett's mind back in the game. Hell, get her back on the case, period. His eyes alight on her bookshelf. He recognizes the spines of his novels, standing at attention, and it triggers something in his brain.

"Why Nikki Heat?" he asks, running his thumbs beneath her shoulder blades. "Why my books? Why not Patterson? Or Cannell? They produce more than I do." He frowns. "I'm not buying it's because this guy's tastes are more refined than the average bear's."

"You said it," she points out, if on the off-chance he wants to point the finger away from himself later on.

Suffice it to say, she's feeling sufficiently limbless - boneless, even - by the time he even thinks to speak again, her eyes drooping closed and her head slumping forward, her breathing slowing and deepening. Her heart rate, on the other hand, feels like it's moving in a quickening time, signaled by the hand on his leg that occasionally squeezes and grips whenever he reaches an area of significant tension. She's caught up in the rhythm of it, the slow kneading as he works his way over small sections of her back to tackle each head-on, and for a moment her brain isn't picking up the jist of what he's trying to figure out by talking.

"Who says you're not just as good as they are?" she says, the unintentional compliment sidling in to sandwich itself between a sigh and a groan. "Quantity doesn't always equal quality, Castle."

"And imitation is the sincerest form of flattery," he says flatly. "Or not."

He slides his fingers to the side of her neck, easing her cheek against the opposite hand. She's starting to really relax now; he can feel it in the way her muscles unlock and give themselves over to his work. He's not gonna' lie -- that hand on his knee is giving him some pretty clear signals. He shifts behind her, trying to get comfortable without getting too comfortable.

"In this case, how would you decide?"

She tilts her head from side to side, feeling the fingers of his hand splayed out against her cheek, one resting against the corner of her mouth. When she smiles slowly, she can feel it shift down along her jawline. It's getting harder and harder for her to maintain a vertical position; she can feel herself beginning to slip back towards him, limp and contented.

"Dunno." He frowns, thinking back to the body at the train station and its twin on the carousel. The engraved slugs were more than just a message to Beckett -- they were a game. The opening move of a chess match where one of the players is blindfolded and the other is a sicko with a metropolitan library card. He strokes his fingers over the shallow bow of her collarbone, his intentions maybe a little more personal than therapeutic.

"You think if it wasn't my books, it would have been somebody else's?"

"We'll never know the answer to that now, I guess."

Even if it was the kind of thing they could speculate on, her brain isn't feeling the urge to pursue anything resembling higher thought at the moment. She's just as content to arch back against him with another sigh, her hand going slack against his leg.

"I think I've lost all desire to move."

Castle discovers that he doesn't like the answer to that question, regardless. Speculation is the stock and trade of policemen and authors, and neither one of them particularly enjoys being left dumb and blind in the middle of a story. Right now, Beckett's sending him clear signals that she doesn't want to consider the case, and that's fine. 'More fine is the comfortable slump she's gotten herself into, her shoulder blades pressed against his chest. He gives her upper arm a soft squeeze and moves his mouth to the crown of her head, laying a kiss into the part of her hair. "My work here is done," he says.

She can still feel him tensing behind her in her relaxed state and knows that this is continuing to nag at his mind even when he moves to change the subject. It means the world to her that it does, for some odd reason. Their partnership has never been without its snags and hiccups, but they're starting to take a backseat to the more significant advantages and benefits. This, however, probably can't be categorized as the latter, since it falls under the realm of anything but professional.

Beckett turns her head to the side, her nose nudging up underneath his jaw.

"Not quite," she murmurs, drawing his arms around her waist.

"Little overtime?" he offers, amused, and slides his fingers over her palms, thumbs on the back of her wrists. "There's gotta' be some paperwork for that, right?" He slips his left leg out from under her and bends it at the knee, steepling her between his body and the back of the couch. His chin rests obediently -- or as obedient as he gets -- on her shoulder.

"We won't be putting this in any reports," she corrects, sliding her fingers through his and smiling slowly, her cheek shifting against his as her lips move. A brief pause, and then she moves again, to turn her head to enough of a degree where it places her lips against the shell of his ear.

"Come to bed with me," Beckett whispers.

On impulse, he squeezes her wrist. Does she have any idea what that tone of hers does to him? She should file for a license -- Woman With a Concealed Sex Kitten Voice -- so there's at least some record of it, so unsuspecting guys like Castle know what they're getting themselves into. His thumb dips into the center of her palm and stays.

"M'I gonna' have to carry you?" Given that she's two state forms away from Jello right now, and the idea of him throwing her over his shoulder, caveman style, is kinda' intriguing.

It's not something she would ever openly broadcast, and even the times she has attempted to be sexy have usually come as a somewhat comical attachment to her undercover work, but where Castle's concerned, it just boils down to the fact that she likes to uproot him. He'd done it with the massage, but one choice sentence from her and he's hanging on her every word.

"I think I can make it," she says, even if her legs feel fairly useless at the moment. Regardless, she tries her hardest to feign stability as she pushes off the couch to stand on her feet.

Castle assembles his legs and gets up after her, his head swimming for a second or two (the perfect remedy for which, he decides, is another swig out of one of the wine glasses on the coffee table) while they both navigate the temporary awkwardness that comes after deciding to take things elsewhere. He's tired and worn out, sure, running on the last dregs of his own adrenaline, but Beckett being near gives him a stunning clarity of mind that's either madness or the sheer will to get to where they're going.

He drags the blanket up over the back of the couch for safekeeping and follows her, his hand floating in the empty space above hers while he wrestles with the impulse to take her fingers.

The wine's still messing with her head when she gets to her feet (she had chugged it pretty fast, admittedly), and she has a moment where it feels like her center of gravity is almost nonexistent before her stability returns and she can actually start moving. She can sense Castle near her, behind her and slightly along her side, his fingers occasionally grazing the inside of her wrist when their arms swing naturally.

The hallway down to her room feels even longer than normal, her perception dulled by relaxed muscles and alcohol surging through her bloodstream. In fact, the only thing that remains in focus for her is Castle when she stops in the doorway to her room. Her balance disrupted, she sways slightly, her back hitting the frame, and reaches out to grab a fistful of Castle's sweater, yanking him in towards her as her mouth tilts upward to seek out his.

Surprise, pleasant and palpable, ripples through Castle's middle. He almost wants to tell her, Stop, slow down, we've got all night, but he's dimly aware of the time and the fact that they'll both have to be back in the bullpen in a couple of hours. Why not? as his hands settle on her hips, gently pushing her back against the frame, willing as much contact between them as he can get.

Her mouth tastes like the wine; the wine and the ozone and her own, natural taste. It's got his head swimming. His hands come up on either side of her, pushing the t-shirt up her ribcage, thumbs getting lost in the thin cotton. He cups the underside of her breasts in his palms, testing their weight, thumbs skimming her nipples through the fabric of the shirt.

She sighs, the nerves of her body overstimulated as a side effect of the wine. Every point of contact his hands make with her skin provokes a different response of some kind - a gasp, a whimper, a shudder. She feels both out of her head and completely immersed in the sensations that are overtaking her, the need that courses through her system when his hands skim up over her hips, her sides. Her breasts fit within the cradle of his palms and she arches into them, shifting towards his body with a soft murmur of delight.

The doorframe digs in, hard and unyielding, against her spine, and her shoulderblades shift along it until there's nothing behind her back but air, air and the bed waiting, its sheets thrown back and mussed from her earlier attempt to sleep. Somehow, though, in the fumbling and shuffling of feet, it's Castle she nudges back towards it until his calves and her shins meet up with the side of the mattress. Her lips slide over his in a deliberate hunger, but her hands are moving below between them, moving fabric out of the way to expose more skin. Her fingers find his length first, stroking slow and experimenting, only to pave the way for the lips that envelop him when she sinks down to her knees.

She pushes him down and he's momentarily confused, hands sliding off her shoulders, until he realizes what she's doing (and where she's going) and then he's all at attention, focused as he can be under the circumstances. "Beckett..." What's that tone? Hesitation, readiness -- gratitude? They've done this dance in the dark before, but somehow, now, Castle's worried that he might not measure up. Then her mouth is on him and he thinks, good boy, before he groans around the feeling.

She can count on one hand the number of times she's done this, and for a second, Beckett freezes, unsure of how to proceed. Instinct and memory take over almost instantly when her name slips from his mouth in a quiet groan, and her free hand settles against his hipbone, squeezing her answer once. She's doing this out of what, exactly? No, Beckett thinks, reveling in all of it: the taste of him that lingers on her mouth, new and unfamiliar, the way he'd uttered her name like she's never heard before, the sense that even this gives her nearly as much pleasure as it does him - I'm doing this because I want to. It's a delicate combination of lips and tongue and a hand that every so often slips in to alternate while she glances up at him, gauging his reaction by the expressions that filter over his features.

Gotta' think about something -- anything -- to keep himself from losing it then and there. He tries counting street names, starting uptown and working his way back, but all that does is remind him of all the things they've seen and driven past together, her in the driver's seat of the squad car, the occasional glances he steals at the neck of her blouse when they roll up to a stoplight. Then he's thinking about the way she gets flushed when they get the squeal on the radio, when they're on their way to a scene, and it's the exact same concentration she's showing him now. All that focus and grit, the wild thumpthumpthump in her neck when her pulse accelerates, her hands on the steering wheel (now on him) and all that galloping expectation for what comes next.

He pushes his fingers through her hair because, honestly, he can't think of anything better to do with them and the touch grounds him, pulls him back to her, even as his hips twitch expectantly. He feels a bead of sweat roll past his shoulder blades, all the way down to the base of his spine. If this is alien to her, she could have fooled him. Castle's not the kind of guy who would turn this down -- and he hasn't, in the past -- but Beckett's got a way of working him, tongue and lips and teeth, that stands apart from everyone else.

She counts to a few more heartbeats before she finally breaks away, her fingers giving Castle's hip another squeeze, and it's then that she tilts her head to gaze up at him. His hand still rests in her hair and she nuzzles into the touch, her cheekbone grazing the inside of his wrist, but it slips loose when she rises back up to her feet and pulls him into her, her hips pressing firmly against his own. Her arms cross over her chest, hands curling beneath the hem of her nightshirt, and in a quick tug upward it's gone and all that's remaining is the bare skin of her upper half, her dark hair spilling down over her naked shoulders.

His shirt joins hers on her bedroom in the span of a blink, and when she kisses him this time, it's with a searching purpose, pressing herself to him. It's easier now to find where she fits with Castle up close, hands resting on the outside of his arms as she kisses the smooth plane of his chest, finds the angle of his clavicle and traces it with just the tip of her tongue. It's as much for her own benefit as it is his; she savors each sound from him as it comes while she commits him to memory by touch alone.

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