Body, Remember: A Castle One-Shot (N-Q-P WP)
Title: Body, Remember
WC: ~2000
Rating: T+ (I think it's safely this side of M, but . . . )
Summary: "He caught her staring and it was all too much. The scent of coffee and the way his sentences kept trailing off into a stretch and a yawn. How warm and irresistible he looked in the seductive grey light of a rainy morning that just begged her to take him back to bed."
A/N: For Cora Clavia who has tragically boring training things today. Et voilà: A little not-quite-pr0n without plot. Because, yes, it's been done, but I'm hoping that you're all like me and the scenario never gets old. Ever.
She thinks she's imagining things at first. That she's just a little dazed from the whole . . . incident . . . by the coffee maker this morning.
That was a tactical error. Letting him catch her staring. But she's only human, and she'd really like to meet the male-inclined woman who could resist that. Rumpled, sleepy Castle in his Flash t-shirt and Hulk boxers. Not even half awake and still going through the well-practiced motions of assembling her latte. Insistent that she not leave without it.
Hell, the coffee maker alone is sexy enough that she sometimes wonders how they ever make it out of the kitchen. That might be all over now. They might never make it out of the kitchen again. They might have to live there, half-naked on the floor between the breakfast bar and the fridge.
Because she tipped her hand. He caught her staring and it was all too much. The scent of coffee and the way his sentences kept trailing off into a stretch and a yawn. How warm and irresistible he looked in the seductive grey light of a rainy morning that just begged her to take him back to bed.
The thought of an eternal, godforsaken day with him here and her there. Hours and hours of some pointless training session and him here all the while. Behind his desk and probably not even bothering to get dressed.
It was all too much and he caught her. Had her dead to rights. Had her, she thinks, and she's pretty sure he was lying when he said no one would even notice the distinctive pattern of wrinkles in her dress pants.
She knows he was lying. She just can't seem to care. With the monotone of the HR rep filling her ears and the good kind of sore settling into every part of her, she can't seem to care.
So she thinks she's imagining it. The faintest hint of vanilla when she pulls her pen out of her bag and remembers his fingers brushing over her lips. Her tongue slipping out to capture the trace of syrup on them as he pushed the bottle aside to clear the counter.
But the scent lasts. There's nothing at all on the pen. Just the suggestion of it wafting up. It's barely a hint, but it lasts.
She shoves it down. The sharp immediacy it evokes. She shoves it down and clicks the pen open. She tells herself she'll get him later. That they'll have a talk about him rifling through her things, probably with sticky hands.
She turns her attention back to the front of the room. To the constant drone and the steady, all-too-slow advance of brightly colored slides. That doesn't last.
Her attention span doesn't stand a chance.
The lights are low and this is the dumbest waste of time ever conceived by anyone, anywhere. Ryan and Esposito are deep into their game of hangman. She mouths H to Ryan. Esposito sourly writes in two of them and curls his arm around the legal pad, shielding it from her.
She tunes back in to the drone of the "communications facilitator." Because that's what today's adventure in pointlessness is about. Facilitating communication. Theoretically.
But the HR guy has mispronounced, misused, or otherwise stumbled over a dozen words in the last fifty and there's not a chance in hell she can keep her mind on this without snapping. Keeping her mind on this is not really safe for anyone.
She taps the screen of her phone and glances down at her lap. She has it on vibrate, but maybe she missed something. It's more than a long shot. Gates has a passion for scheduling and there'd have to be something like six simultaneous murders in their jurisdiction alone for there to be even a hope of getting out of this. But she checks her phone anyway because she has to do something.
It's a mistake. Checking her phone is a huge mistake.
He's changed her wallpaper. It's a close up of him hiding a smile behind a mug. Her mug. She sees the hint of lipstick curving around the edge and a matching stain, faint and dragging down from the corner of his mouth.
Because she was practically out the door when he held that very mug out to her with a drowsy flourish. Make up on and everything buttoned up, because he'd only just dragged himself out of bed and somehow she doesn't need nearly so much time to get up and out the door when he's not hovering over her. Hands and mouth everywhere, unfastening and tempting. Teasing until it seems like they won't even make it out of the kitchen.
But he was sulking today. He was hardly even out of bed before she was almost ready to go. And just then, he had her coffee ready. Just then he swore he couldn't be responsible for the harm she might inflict on others if he let her out into the world undercaffeinated.
She was practically out the door when he caught her staring. When he stumbled toward her and caught her around the waist. When he stole the taste of coffee and vanilla right off her lips and tongue. When he undid every last button and eased her up on to the counter and she was still asking if he was even really awake. When he mumbled that he knows her in his sleep and made good on the brag.
She takes a second look down at her phone. It's an even bigger mistake this time. It's from this morning. The picture. She's sure of it. She can see her own fingers twisted in his hair, leaving it disheveled in exactly that way. And the half moon marks on one side of his neck are all too familiar.
It's from this morning and the memory creeps along every one of her senses. She hears him coaxing her along. Morning gravel in his voice and the drag of his rough cheek over her breast to match. She sees herself floating up and out of her body and his mouth, hungry at her hip and between her thighs. She tastes herself on his tongue.
She takes a second look down at the phone and it's that smile. The particular smile she needs-needs-to wipe off his face every single time.
It's from this morning, and it pisses her off to no end that he keeps cracking the code for her lock screen. It pisses her off that he needs a talking to right the hell now and she's stuck here.
She's half tempted to thumb over to her photos. She's half tempted to find out just how much punishment they're looking at and what kind. She's half tempted to just give in to this. To let herself wind up and up and make a concerted effort to get back to the loft over the lunch break. To climb up on his desk and drape his body over hers. To give him a preview of things to come.
But the drone drones on and it's only been-dear God-forty minutes. She can't give in to it this early. That way lies madness.
She clicks the phone dark and slides it back into her pocket. The twist of her hips and the stretch of fabric remind her of the dark mark at the very top her thigh, just inside, and that is not helping.
She zips open her leather portfolio and freezes. Because she's not imagining that. Vanilla is one thing. There's a handful of explanations for the scent of vanilla that might let him off the hook. Not that she believes any of them, but lord knows things got messy, and he could be innocent of that. Sort of innocent.
But this is different. This is his cologne. She flips to a clean page in her legal pad and it drifts up. It's subtle, too.
She thinks it's subtle.
She hopes it's subtle.
But the next second it's swamping her. It's overwhelming, and she has to close her eyes and grip the sides of her chair.
She glances over at Esposito, suddenly paranoid that everyone can smell it, but he's cupping his hand around his pen and scratching letters in the margin of his notepad. It's Ryan's word now and he's intent on guessing. He doesn't even glance her way.
She pulls herself together. The pad looks new. Untouched. He was careful to not even crease the tops, but there's space now that she looks closely. There's faint undulation at the long side, and the leaves don't quite fall flush at the bottom.
She flicks over another page and another. It fans the fragrance up toward her. She turns the pad sideways and sees it. The merest smattering of droplets along the edge.
She turns over sheet after blank sheet until she finds it. The heaviest concentration and it's not much. Hardly even a smudge from most angles, but she sees it for what it is.
The negative image of the tip of his thumb where he must have held the pad in a shower of tiny droplets for less than a second.
She sees his handwriting, bold and little rushed in the center of the page.
Body, remember not just how much you were loved,
not simply those beds on which you have lain,
but also the desire for you that shone
plainly in the eyes that gazed at you,
and quavered in the voice for you
She stares. She gives herself twenty seconds-twenty seconds exactly-to devour the words and let her fingers sweep over the translucent pinpricks just at the edge of the page. Just where his thumb rested for less than a second and the heel of his hand must have steadied itself to write.
She stares, then flips the pad closed.
She smooths a palm down the length of the page and squares the edges with the flat of her hand. She zips the portfolio closed and folds her hands on top of it.
She fixes her eyes on the front of the room. She empties her mind and lets the words buzz in and out of her.
Esposito nudges her. He gives her a questioning, slightly concerned look. She shakes her head. A small, tight movement and it's almost more than she can risk.
The minutes pass. It's slow. It's agonizing, but she only realizes it in a distant kind of way. She's waiting, and noon comes at long last.
She strides for the ladies room. She splashes water on her face and nearly runs Ryan down as he hovers just outside the door.
He asks if she's ok. She nearly laughs, but reins it in at the last second. She says she's not feeling great and from the mirror five seconds ago-from the little she can remember-it's probably convincing. Her color is high and there's a strange, glittering hardness behind her eyes. Her hands are shaking. All of her is shaking, but the hands are all anyone would notice.
Ryan touches her shoulder in sympathy. He turns her in place and ushers her to the elevator. He tells her to go home. That he and Javier will cover for her if they can. That they'll explain to Gates that she was sick if anyone notices she's not back for the second half of the day.
She nods. She thanks him or thinks she does. She thinks she takes the subway back to the loft. Probably the subway, because she doesn't remember walking, and she certainly couldn't drive at the moment.
All of her is shaking and she can't get her key in the door.
She doesn't have to, though.
The door opens inward and he's pulling her through.
He's unbuttoning and tugging and sliding and his mouth is everywhere the second he comes upon bare skin. He tastes like vanilla and his cologne is a deep note underneath. His words are low in her ear. Rich and warm and no gravel now as he backs her against the counter.
"I was expecting you sooner."
A/N: The poem is "Body, Remember" by C. P. Cavafy, Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard.