Meraki, Ch. 2-A plotless Caskett WIP set shortly after Murder He Wrote (5x04)
Title: Meraki
WC: ~1400 this chapter, 2400 so far
Rating: T
Summary: "She wants that. The sweetness of settling next to him, words and sounds and satisfaction rolling over them both. The quiet pleasure of feeding him. Of making this her place, too. Their place." A story of indeterminate length about nothing at all. Set some time not too long after "Murder, He Wrote" (5 x 04)
She chases him out into the rain. Well. She chases him out. The rain is his idea. A door and the howling wind between them, because anything else is too tempting.
No matter how many rooms away he goes, the smells from the kitchen are incredible, and the music she makes calls to him. Bare feet pattering and the percussion of the knife. The bright hiss of things landing in hot oil. Actual snatches of melody floating above the ring of her glass as she sets it decisively on the counter. Actual melody, because she sings. She mutters to herself and laughs out loud as she moves efficiently from there to here, and she sings.
She's too tempting,
It's fun to bother her. There's nothing new about that, except that everything feels new. Four months into this-four years and four months-every single thing about being with her feels new. And old. Comfortable. They know each other inside and out, and still- every day-he uncovers some new fact or favorite or thing that goes bump in the night for her. Something she loves and he had no idea.
It's magnified here. Away from the city where she's so different-where they're so different-that it's like another sun in another sky. Here, she shoves her hands deep in her pockets and saunters. She floats on her back and twists in the water. She cuts through it with clean, graceful strokes and splashes like a little girl. She turns up a palm and reaches for his. She says walk with me and they ramble together along the beach. She leaves her watch behind.
She's enjoying herself. Wholeheartedly. She turns the tables and bothers him.
She snoops and rifles through things. She clambers up on the couch with him or into the hammock, all warm, bare, salt-smelling skin. She plucks books and magazines and newspapers from his hand and tosses them away.
She closes his fingers around things she's found and demands their stories. Shells and beach glass and tacky souvenirs. A solar-powered mason jar that glows with softly shifting colored lights and a dusty collection of hideous little figurines Alexis was obsessed with a hundred years ago.
She cuts him off and makes up her own versions when she thinks his are boring. She pulls off his sunglasses and gives him her interrogation stare when she thinks he's exaggerating. She seeks him out. She demands and gets her way.
She bothers him all the time here. He'd like to bother her now.
He'd like to be with her, rocking the tall stool back and back because she bites her lip and worries he's going to fall, whether she'd ever say that or not. He'd like to distract her with chatter and kisses while he palms the remote from the counter and messes with the playlist she has going. He'd like to dart away with it and make her chase, swatting him with a tea towel and threatening him with unidentified kitchen gadgets as they race through room after room.
He'd like to let her catch him. Take his punishment up against the French doors. He'd like to kiss her to the satisfying reverberation of things clattering to the floor. Whatever's in her hands. Whatever's in his.
He'd like all of that, and it's tempting.
It's tempting, but this is, too. Her. Today. This time.
It's enthralling, the way she's . . . installing herself. Marks on the cutting boards and fussy stacks utensils set just so in different drawers. Her breath fogging the copper bottom of a hanging pot and the decisive sweep of her forearm, wiping away half-imaginary smudges and leaving the memory of the way she grins at her own reflection in it.
It's tempting enough to make him wait. To leave her be and know she's left her mark. That a hundred signs of her will be here the next time and the next time and the next.
It's tempting enough to have him out here, breathing deep. Holding on tight to the porch railing to anchor himself and lifting his chin to the rain. It's tempting enough for the moment to keep his back to the house. To give her time and space and now. To let this place fill up with light and scent and her.
But the door opens just then. The clatter of casters and a mournful sigh as outside and in meet.
"You're soaked!"
Her words are all but swallowed up by the storm. By the sea and the swollen sky.
He turns to her, laughing. He is soaked.
She's standing in the doorway, one annoyed hand braced inside as the wind rushes to her and gathers up her hair. Light pours out of the kitchen behind her and he has to have her.
Her eyes go wide, but his intention registers a second too late. His name is a broken off syllable as he tugs her out into the storm. As he spins her against the side of the house and covers her body with his.
"You're soaked," she says again, breathless this time and kissing him.
"Soaked," he echoes as he sips raindrops from the tip of her chin.
He is. She is. She's shivering with it and he means to take her inside. He means to dash through the house with her, dripping and ducking away as she scolds. He means to peel away the rain dark fabric from her stippled skin and wrap her around and around with a huge, sinfully soft towel.
He means to, but her head lolls against the wall and she's kissing him like it's been a thousand years since the last time. The scent of rain and cedar winds around them. Her palms slide between the buttons of his shirt and she gasps like the warmth of his skin burns her.
"No."
He hears it. Faint and nonsensical. Vaguely annoying.
"Yes," he says crossly. But he's the one against the house now and she's far away. A rain-slicked arm and a long, long fingertip away.
"Dinner," she says firmly. Too firmly.
She's wavering. Vulnerable. His hand snakes out. He tugs the tails of her shirt. Draws her in and unknots them along the way. He slides his fingers up and over her belly. "Order in. Later."
"Castle . . ."
It's testy, but he has her. He knows he has her. She's coiled against him and she can't stop tasting the rain on his skin. She slides kisses and grazes him with her teeth and her tongue peeks out along the way. He has her, but there's a regretful little sigh the wind doesn't quite steal away.
He breathes deep. He lifts his chin to the rain again and catches her fingers in his. She wants this. He does, too.
He sweeps their arms high over her head and twirls her into his body and out again. Her eyes open wide. She's soaked and dizzy and looks thoroughly kissed. She's tempting in too many ways.
"Ok," he says. He spins her again. Across the porch to the open doorway this time. "Dinner."
The floor's a wreck. Leaves and sand and wet blown almost all the way to the counter. He tries to herd her past it. Says it's his fault and he'll take care of it, but she digs in her heels, literally.
"My kitchen," she whirls toward him and doesn't quite quaver. "Tonight. My kitchen. You. Go shower. Dress for dinner."
"Dress?" He sounds appalled. He doesn't mean it. Not entirely, but he was picturing bathrobes. Compromising on store-bought whatever needs making right now and warming her up in the shower. Talking her into that at least.
"Dress," she says, though, and she does quaver this time. Her fingers fly to scrape her sopping hair back from her forehead. Her cheeks. She looks at her toes. Over her shoulder. "Yeah."
He sees then. The silverware neatly bundled in raw silk napkins. Candles like tall, slim soldiers standing by. A bright bowl of flowers he doesn't recognize. He sees it all. Care and a pretty table. Company plates and her hair pinned up.
"Dress," he says. "Dressing. I'm going. Dressing, but don't you . . . you're . . .?" He trails off. Feels ungrateful. Clumsy.
But she smiles and shakes her head. She lights up. "No. You go. I only need a few minutes."
"Going."
He says, and unlikely as it seems, he is. He's going.