Fic: She and Him (and Her)
Title: She and Him (and Her)
Author: alias424
Fandom:Castle
Pairing: Castle/Beckett
Wordcount: 1,325
Rating: T
Spoilers: None
Stop. Focus. Wait, no-riiiiiight there.
Wrong. Focus.
Every cell in her brain is screaming at her to stop-except for the ones controlling the muscles that very much want to keep going. Because daaaamn….
Obviously the devil on her shoulder is well in place. Shouldn’t there be an angel to balance out the other side? Her conscience… common sense… anything.
But. But-
He’s so much gentler than she would have expected, as if he’s been worshipping her all along, just waiting for the right moment to put thought into action. Gentle. Gentlemanly. Never words she thought she’d use to describe him. And soft. So soft. She’d barely be able to feel his lips brushing against hers, his fingertips working their way up her arms, if it wasn’t for the fact that even the slightest of touches has her skin tingling. A sound-that she’ll never admit to making-escapes her throat, and she swears she feels him laugh into her mouth in response.
She lets her eyes flutter open for half a second-just enough so she can see him. Just enough so she can-
“Stop trying to get into my head, Castle.”
He jumps. (Though if directly questioned, he’ll deny it.) He and Nikki have had their share of arguments-he did write strong female characters after all. But she’d generally accepted her inability to exist without him driving her thoughts (and he’d won most of the important arguments, anyway-those… two times, at least, but those were live-and-let-die situations and she’d have been a goner without him so they should outweigh all the others).
(That’s what you think, hotshot. You know, Rick, it’s a lot harder to enjoy those moments you’re supposedly creating for me when you keep swapping me with her at just the right….)
“What?” He hopes the face he pulls is innocent enough, tries to dig into his arsenal of simpler moments to perfect it: that window he hadn’t broken with a baseball eons ago, the frog he hadn’t put into the teacher’s desk….
“I can feel you trying to do that writer thing of yours.”
Right. Writer. Reality. The case. The If you spin one more asinine story right now… and the very final (and very tired) Zip it, Castle.
And Beckett. Watching the phone in such a way that he almost expects it to ring out of fear.
(If you want to undress her with your eyes, I can help. Remember the cover of Naked Heat…?)
Oh, it’s going to be one of those nights, isn’t it? That’s all right, he can multitask. Fact and fiction. Beckett and Heat.
There’s a sudden squeak as Beckett turns her chair to face him, an eyebrow raised. He grins. These are the games they play-Clue is part of the day job, and that’s (almost) adult enough, but there’s been something like Snakes and Ladders going on right alongside it-the upper hand passing between them as quickly as one can answer back to the other. And right now, it’s his move. So he rolls the die and lands on, “If you're gonna accuse me of this so-called writer thing, you'll need evidence.”
It’s the way Beckett’s forehead wrinkles when she groans and her hand tenses just enough to notice that makes him wish he had chosen another comeback. (Because the noise itself has you a little bit turned on? Go ahead. Try to deny it.)
“Don't talk to me about lack of evidence right now.”
And he won’t. There’s a hurt in her eyes that she doesn’t want to show, blinking in strength until it looks specifically like annoyance-with-him (a very Beckett emotion) but he chooses (correctly, he thinks) to interpret as tiredness. And so he’ll uncharacteristically, but not impossibly, restrain himself. (Just from speaking, or from drooling on her desk? You do remember she’s a detective, right? And the way you look at her is enough for a conviction on quite a few counts.)
Beckett sighs. The tiredness (okay, maybe there’s a little annoyance there) lingers in her tone. “You have a look.”
(See? Damn straight you have a look. Half untrained puppy dog, half bull in heat.)
“You'll have to be more specific. I have many looks. All undeniably handsome.”
She rolls her eyes. “The writer thing. You have a look. Focused and....” When she slides her chair towards him her knee brushes his and he has to focus everything he has on not moving at all because anything-toward (longing) or away (reverse reflex, too obvious)-will give him up in an instant. “Like this.”
She leans even closer, all her concentration both on him and elsewhere, her eyes narrowing just slightly, and there’s something eerily maniacal and-
(Hot, right? You're having a harder and harder time getting through certain scenes for me, Rick. And yes, the pun was intended. So choose your words carefully….)
“Mentally unhinged?” This earns him the Beckett glare, as expected (patented about… 20 minutes into their first case), so he makes a show of pretending to shield himself from its fury. “What? That's what you were giving me. If you want another interpretation-”
“Your words for your look. Remember that.” Her eyes shift from him to her watch, which continues to add the minutes, and the phone, which continues to not ring. “Don't you have something else you could be doing right now?”
(Something else, someone else…. I think everyone in the station knows the answer to that question.)
“I was being quiet!” His hands raise to show his innocence automatically, and the pen he didn’t remember he’d been holding goes flying. And lands in Beckett’s lap.
“Shocking as it may seem to you, Castle-” The pen his back in his hand, her fingertips touching his. “-lack of sound doesn't always make you less annoying.”
“No more looks.” He raises his right hand, the pen holding steady this time. “Scout’s honour. No more trying to get into your head.” (You’re not going to be able to resist this one, are you?) “Your pants on the other hand… I can make no such promises.”
“Classy.” An irritated tone to the untrained ear, but there’s a hint of a smile there (hidden but not well enough) and that changes everything.
“C’mon, you can't expect me not to take a setup like that.”
(Speaking of things you’d like to take….)
“Of course. That would be something I’d expect of an adult. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was-Beckett.”
She’d jumped on the phone so quickly that he’d barely heard it ring. And though it’s already passed, his mind has frozen on that moment before she had the receiver to her ear where she’s stretched long and with a graceful awkwardness between her chair and the desk, the delicate curve of her back angling at the shoulder and down her arm to her outstretched hand-and as hard as he tries, he can’t seem to tear his eyes from the afterimage of that sliver of skin that was briefly left uncovered as her shirt followed her body’s momentum.
(Just jump her. Jump her, get over her, and then you can focus on-)
His hand suddenly feels empty but he can’t seem to account for the missing weight until he sees her standing over her desk, scribbling something furiously on a scrap of paper. The change in her voice is immediate. He doesn’t need to hear the words to know that there’s been a break in the case, a lead, whatever she needs (they need) to start putting the puzzle pieces into place (together).
“Hey. You coming, Castle?”
(Oh, you two make this too easy. Honestly.)
Somehow she’s across the room already, and he manages to jump up (without knocking over his chair) and start after her. The case. Now he’ll be able to focus.
(Yes. Focus. Because she does have a nice ass, doesn’t she?)
Well… he can multitask.
Author: alias424
Fandom:Castle
Pairing: Castle/Beckett
Wordcount: 1,325
Rating: T
Spoilers: None
Stop. Focus. Wait, no-riiiiiight there.
Wrong. Focus.
Every cell in her brain is screaming at her to stop-except for the ones controlling the muscles that very much want to keep going. Because daaaamn….
Obviously the devil on her shoulder is well in place. Shouldn’t there be an angel to balance out the other side? Her conscience… common sense… anything.
But. But-
He’s so much gentler than she would have expected, as if he’s been worshipping her all along, just waiting for the right moment to put thought into action. Gentle. Gentlemanly. Never words she thought she’d use to describe him. And soft. So soft. She’d barely be able to feel his lips brushing against hers, his fingertips working their way up her arms, if it wasn’t for the fact that even the slightest of touches has her skin tingling. A sound-that she’ll never admit to making-escapes her throat, and she swears she feels him laugh into her mouth in response.
She lets her eyes flutter open for half a second-just enough so she can see him. Just enough so she can-
“Stop trying to get into my head, Castle.”
He jumps. (Though if directly questioned, he’ll deny it.) He and Nikki have had their share of arguments-he did write strong female characters after all. But she’d generally accepted her inability to exist without him driving her thoughts (and he’d won most of the important arguments, anyway-those… two times, at least, but those were live-and-let-die situations and she’d have been a goner without him so they should outweigh all the others).
(That’s what you think, hotshot. You know, Rick, it’s a lot harder to enjoy those moments you’re supposedly creating for me when you keep swapping me with her at just the right….)
“What?” He hopes the face he pulls is innocent enough, tries to dig into his arsenal of simpler moments to perfect it: that window he hadn’t broken with a baseball eons ago, the frog he hadn’t put into the teacher’s desk….
“I can feel you trying to do that writer thing of yours.”
Right. Writer. Reality. The case. The If you spin one more asinine story right now… and the very final (and very tired) Zip it, Castle.
And Beckett. Watching the phone in such a way that he almost expects it to ring out of fear.
(If you want to undress her with your eyes, I can help. Remember the cover of Naked Heat…?)
Oh, it’s going to be one of those nights, isn’t it? That’s all right, he can multitask. Fact and fiction. Beckett and Heat.
There’s a sudden squeak as Beckett turns her chair to face him, an eyebrow raised. He grins. These are the games they play-Clue is part of the day job, and that’s (almost) adult enough, but there’s been something like Snakes and Ladders going on right alongside it-the upper hand passing between them as quickly as one can answer back to the other. And right now, it’s his move. So he rolls the die and lands on, “If you're gonna accuse me of this so-called writer thing, you'll need evidence.”
It’s the way Beckett’s forehead wrinkles when she groans and her hand tenses just enough to notice that makes him wish he had chosen another comeback. (Because the noise itself has you a little bit turned on? Go ahead. Try to deny it.)
“Don't talk to me about lack of evidence right now.”
And he won’t. There’s a hurt in her eyes that she doesn’t want to show, blinking in strength until it looks specifically like annoyance-with-him (a very Beckett emotion) but he chooses (correctly, he thinks) to interpret as tiredness. And so he’ll uncharacteristically, but not impossibly, restrain himself. (Just from speaking, or from drooling on her desk? You do remember she’s a detective, right? And the way you look at her is enough for a conviction on quite a few counts.)
Beckett sighs. The tiredness (okay, maybe there’s a little annoyance there) lingers in her tone. “You have a look.”
(See? Damn straight you have a look. Half untrained puppy dog, half bull in heat.)
“You'll have to be more specific. I have many looks. All undeniably handsome.”
She rolls her eyes. “The writer thing. You have a look. Focused and....” When she slides her chair towards him her knee brushes his and he has to focus everything he has on not moving at all because anything-toward (longing) or away (reverse reflex, too obvious)-will give him up in an instant. “Like this.”
She leans even closer, all her concentration both on him and elsewhere, her eyes narrowing just slightly, and there’s something eerily maniacal and-
(Hot, right? You're having a harder and harder time getting through certain scenes for me, Rick. And yes, the pun was intended. So choose your words carefully….)
“Mentally unhinged?” This earns him the Beckett glare, as expected (patented about… 20 minutes into their first case), so he makes a show of pretending to shield himself from its fury. “What? That's what you were giving me. If you want another interpretation-”
“Your words for your look. Remember that.” Her eyes shift from him to her watch, which continues to add the minutes, and the phone, which continues to not ring. “Don't you have something else you could be doing right now?”
(Something else, someone else…. I think everyone in the station knows the answer to that question.)
“I was being quiet!” His hands raise to show his innocence automatically, and the pen he didn’t remember he’d been holding goes flying. And lands in Beckett’s lap.
“Shocking as it may seem to you, Castle-” The pen his back in his hand, her fingertips touching his. “-lack of sound doesn't always make you less annoying.”
“No more looks.” He raises his right hand, the pen holding steady this time. “Scout’s honour. No more trying to get into your head.” (You’re not going to be able to resist this one, are you?) “Your pants on the other hand… I can make no such promises.”
“Classy.” An irritated tone to the untrained ear, but there’s a hint of a smile there (hidden but not well enough) and that changes everything.
“C’mon, you can't expect me not to take a setup like that.”
(Speaking of things you’d like to take….)
“Of course. That would be something I’d expect of an adult. I’m sorry, I don’t know what I was-Beckett.”
She’d jumped on the phone so quickly that he’d barely heard it ring. And though it’s already passed, his mind has frozen on that moment before she had the receiver to her ear where she’s stretched long and with a graceful awkwardness between her chair and the desk, the delicate curve of her back angling at the shoulder and down her arm to her outstretched hand-and as hard as he tries, he can’t seem to tear his eyes from the afterimage of that sliver of skin that was briefly left uncovered as her shirt followed her body’s momentum.
(Just jump her. Jump her, get over her, and then you can focus on-)
His hand suddenly feels empty but he can’t seem to account for the missing weight until he sees her standing over her desk, scribbling something furiously on a scrap of paper. The change in her voice is immediate. He doesn’t need to hear the words to know that there’s been a break in the case, a lead, whatever she needs (they need) to start putting the puzzle pieces into place (together).
“Hey. You coming, Castle?”
(Oh, you two make this too easy. Honestly.)
Somehow she’s across the room already, and he manages to jump up (without knocking over his chair) and start after her. The case. Now he’ll be able to focus.
(Yes. Focus. Because she does have a nice ass, doesn’t she?)
Well… he can multitask.