The mystery to Rick Castle's earlybird attitude is really no mystery at all: he's simply got the metabolism of a 12-year-old kid on a sugar high, thirty-some years past its alleged expiration date. From a very young age, when his actress-mother's next booking often required them to fudge sleep schedules, Rick Castle's composition has been sixty percent CoCo Puffs, thirty percent rocket fuel, and a healthy slice of ADD left to make up the remaining ten percent. It's been helpful in his career, especially when he'd been writing Storm's Break, because he'd been able to get up well before Alexis (who was then less than two), or his wife (who was about two years away from demanding the divorce that had made him feel like an infant). In those early hours when everyone else was asleep, it almost felt like he had the entire city to himself. New York City hummed at a different frequency at six in the morning. It had helped him write.
Now old habits are ingrained in him, and the old dog rarely stays in bed past seven thirty except when Beckett sleeps over, which she tends to do more and more frequently. They don't say anything about it. He thinks about it. Hell, sometimes he spends half the time he's supposed to be using for writing to think about what it means. Sometimes they'll be eating dinner (he's gotten better at getting her to cook, but he is smart enough not to to buy her cookware of her own) or watching a movie, or even working the murder board, and he'll feel the question in the back of his throat like a lump --
So, what are we, exactly?
But then he sees that she's going to town with a kitchen knife on those endives, or Bruce Willis will just be about to drop Alan Rickman off the roof of Nakatomi Plaza, or Esposito comes in with a break in the case -- and the compulsion leaves him. That night, when she winds up on his doorstep with an overnight bag, Castle can't think of anything but how good she looks, or how glad he is to see her; and he thinks that should be enough for him. Naming it risks the very real potential of destroying it.
Whatever it is.
This morning he wakes and feels her shape in the dark beside him. He lays there, trying to will himself back to sleep, knowing that it will be at least another couple of hours before she gets up. He turns his head on the pillow to see the white plane of her shoulder cheated away from him, draped by the sheet. Her breath rises and falls in even increments. He feels calmer watching her. After a few minutes he gets up, shifting his weight on the mattress like an old pro so he won't disturb her. 'Goes out into the dark living room and into the office, booting up his Mac, then into the kitchen to pour some frozen fruit into the blender. He doesn't fire it up. Beckett likes peach smoothies just a little soupy; he has a good forty minutes before he'll be able to rend them to the perfect consistency in time for when she wakes up.
He wanders back into the office and checks his e-mails, then farts around in front of an empty Word document before the books on the shelf on the opposite side of the room demand his attention. One book, Heat Wave, is askew. He rises, nudges it back into place, and then reconsiders, opening the book to the dedication.
To the extraordinary KB and all my friends at the 12th.
no subject
Now old habits are ingrained in him, and the old dog rarely stays in bed past seven thirty except when Beckett sleeps over, which she tends to do more and more frequently. They don't say anything about it. He thinks about it. Hell, sometimes he spends half the time he's supposed to be using for writing to think about what it means. Sometimes they'll be eating dinner (he's gotten better at getting her to cook, but he is smart enough not to to buy her cookware of her own) or watching a movie, or even working the murder board, and he'll feel the question in the back of his throat like a lump --
So, what are we, exactly?
But then he sees that she's going to town with a kitchen knife on those endives, or Bruce Willis will just be about to drop Alan Rickman off the roof of Nakatomi Plaza, or Esposito comes in with a break in the case -- and the compulsion leaves him. That night, when she winds up on his doorstep with an overnight bag, Castle can't think of anything but how good she looks, or how glad he is to see her; and he thinks that should be enough for him. Naming it risks the very real potential of destroying it.
Whatever it is.
This morning he wakes and feels her shape in the dark beside him. He lays there, trying to will himself back to sleep, knowing that it will be at least another couple of hours before she gets up. He turns his head on the pillow to see the white plane of her shoulder cheated away from him, draped by the sheet. Her breath rises and falls in even increments. He feels calmer watching her. After a few minutes he gets up, shifting his weight on the mattress like an old pro so he won't disturb her. 'Goes out into the dark living room and into the office, booting up his Mac, then into the kitchen to pour some frozen fruit into the blender. He doesn't fire it up. Beckett likes peach smoothies just a little soupy; he has a good forty minutes before he'll be able to rend them to the perfect consistency in time for when she wakes up.
He wanders back into the office and checks his e-mails, then farts around in front of an empty Word document before the books on the shelf on the opposite side of the room demand his attention. One book, Heat Wave, is askew. He rises, nudges it back into place, and then reconsiders, opening the book to the dedication.
To the extraordinary KB and all my friends at the 12th.
He smiles.