Gratis-A post-Home is Where the Heart Stops Caskett one-shot in the Unnamed Series.
Title: Gratis
Rating: M
WC: ~2700
Summary: "She's just going to give it back. She'll wait for the end of the day. He'll be annoyed. He'll needle her a little and go. He'll be over it by the next morning and it'll be done."
A/N: Another in the Unnamed Series. Set some time after "Home is Where the Heart Stops" (1 x 07)
She gets it out of her locker as soon as humanly possible. The dress. That gorgeous dress.
It's just too bizarre having it there, so she smuggles it out in a gym bag. She worries about ruining it. Permanent damage or whatever, but it's not like she can carry it out on a hanger. It's too bizarre.
It's a funny feeling. Dropping it at the dry cleaner with her sober suits and sensible blouses. She ignores the look the Korean kid gives her. It looks funny to him, too, and he gives it to her in slow, loud English when he explains that it's going to be more expensive.
"All the beadwork." He gestures. Squints from the deep red and flashing silver of the bodice to her. To the sea of black and charcoal grey that makes up the rest of her order. He shakes his head, like the juxtaposition is just too unbelievable. "Extra charge. Not your usual. Dresses are more expensive anyway." He jerks a thumb up to the whiteboard.
"Yes," she snaps. "Fine."
She grabs the ticket and turns on her heel. She can't wait to just be done with it.
She has it with her when she goes to return his mother's jewelry. Martha's jewelry. She's adamant that she call her Martha.
It's in the trunk of her cruiser that morning. She had swung by specifically to pick it up. Spent more time than she cares to admit going over it to extract it from the plastic and cheap wire hanger. To remove every last pin and restore it to the papery folds of the box it came in. Like she can rewind time or something. She doesn't care to think about that either. How far back she'd go if she could. What she regrets and what she doesn't.
She has it, but she passes the trunk by then doubles back. She hesitates, her key hovering over the lock for longer than she'd like before she moves on. Before she makes her way up to his loft and gets tugged into the whole cozy domestic scene in his kitchen. Before he makes her eggs and all three of them insist that she stay. Before she tells tales and he smiles like it's a fond memory, even though she's poking at him. Playing up the awkward moments while Alexis and Martha laugh.
She's glad she left it in the trunk. She doesn't bother to think about why.
It shouldn't be hard to pick a fight with him. Never mind why she feels like she needs to pick a fight to get rid of the damned thing-to give it back-it just shouldn't be this hard. They squabble all the time, and she's going to kill the next person she catches muttering about "old married couple" under their breath. But that's just it. They're squabbles. Things blow over between them, all too easily, and she doesn't know when that happened.
She hates him comprehensively. He drives her up the wall every minute of every day. But he's hard to stay mad at, which makes her mad. And lately it's like he knows she's up to something. Like he knows she's trying to pick a fight and he's not playing.
It's not like he treads carefully. She doubts he could if he wanted to. He's like an amped up, curious puppy and he just can't stay out of her business, personal or professional. He does stupid things. But brave things, too. Clever things and he makes her mind turn in new ways and she's not going to let the work suffer just to spite him.
He infuriates her and she infuriates him, and it really shouldn't be this hard. But he gives her a look sometimes. When she's worked up and he's worked up, he gives her this smile and turns the tables and she's laughing. Or talking. He gets her talking, and it's really annoying.
She thinks about calling him Kitten. It backfires-rather spectacularly-into memories of things she's not thinking about. Vivid memories of things that definitely don't count.
She gives up the idea of a fight. Of making it some kind of grand gesture. She's lost track of what knife she's trying to twist or why, and she doesn't want a scene. She never wanted anything public, of course. The buzz is bad enough already.
She's just going to give it back. She'll wait for the end of the day. He'll be annoyed. He'll needle her a little and go. He'll be over it by the next morning and it'll be done.
That's her plan, but days pass and somehow it doesn't happen. She gives him a ride home a couple of times and it stays in the trunk. She forgets. A couple of times, she just legitimately forgets. They sit outside his building with the heat cranked up in her cruiser just talking and she forgets. A couple of times she's too tired to wrangle. A couple of times she doesn't want to. She just can't make herself.
But it bugs her. The box in the trunk. Toting it back and forth from her apartment on the nights she doesn't take her cruiser home. She really does want to be done with it.
She sees her chance the day he drives into the precinct from some errand he's complained about at length. She hasn't been listening. She's been making up her mind. It's gotten ridiculous. Going on a month since she picked it up from the dry cleaner, and this works. She can't exactly make him carry it on the subway. Never mind that she has. Back and forth, more times than she wants to count.
It's late. Dark already, and there's no reason for him to walk her out. There's no reason for him to follow her down into the bowels of the motor pool garage, except they do this more and more. They draw out the end of the day, and she's not about to dissuade him now. This is her chance.
He's chattering as she pops open the trunk. Critiquing their murderer for his lack of finesse.
"I'll take an unsophisticated murderer any day of the week if it means I get home before midnight, Castle."
She turns to him with a smile, the silver box resting on her palms. It's forced. Her stomach churns unpleasantly and her heart rate kicks up.
He looks down and there's a second where he's pleased. Excited. But the moment turns almost instantly. His brow furrows.
"What's this?"
She doesn't answer. She thrusts it toward him.
"Thanks for the loan." She manages to get that out so they don't stand there staring awkwardly at one another until one of them drops dead.
It clicks. The words and the box. He gets it.
"It wasn't a loan." There's ice creeping into the words. His body is rigid. His hands are unmoving at his sides.
"Well I obviously can't keep it," she snaps. She's flaring hot. This isn't how it was supposed to go. She shoves it at his chest. "I can't accept a gift like that from you."
"Obviously." The word comes through his teeth.
He's not annoyed. He's not sulking and wheedling. He's livid. Well and truly angry and there's no fire at all in it. Nothing sullen, all stone. His hand shoots out to snatch the box from her. He's striding away with it tucked under his arm before she can get her mouth open.
There's a dumpster against cinderblock wall enclosing the stairwell. He flips up the lid in one fluid motion and shoves the box in without missing a step.
"Castle!"
He doesn't slow. He's through the door to the stairs before she's finally moving. Two flights up-ground level-before she's even within shouting distance again. She's never had the slightest problem matching him stride for stride, but now she's panting.
She loses him in the crowd on the sidewalk. It's a miracle she sees him turn into a parking garage a few doors down at all. He's jerking the ticket from the pay machine and pushing through an interior door as she gets tangled up with some overly chivalrous jackass trying to exit just as she's trying to enter the lobby from the street. She grits her teeth and mutters a thank you as he stands back holding the door, but he calls something unflattering after her anyway.
She spills out into the dark interior of the garage. He's half a row down, just clicking open the locks.
"Castle, wait." He doesn't pause. Doesn't turn, and she's desperate. Fearful, she realizes, and sick at heart. "Castle, I'm sorry."
He stops at least. With his hand on the door, he stops. She drops into a walk. Rapid, but her side is burning and she's a wreck.
"I'm sorry," she says again. "That was . . . unnecessary." She's just a few steps away now and she slows. "It was . . . I'm sorry."
"It was fucking childish, Beckett." He doesn't turn.
"I know." She's standing right beside him now. Practically. A step behind and her hand flutters at his elbow. His shoulder. "I don't . . ."
He turns then. He snatches at her fingers like he wants to bat them away. Like he can't stand the thought of her hands on him. She flips her wrist, though. She has him by the hand. She steps in swiftly. He turns his face, but she ducks to the side to follow. She finds his eyes.
"Castle, I'm sorry."
He has her against the car then. One hard, angry kiss and then it's something else. It's always something else, whatever she meant it to be in the first place. Whatever either of them meant it to be.
His palms are at her shoulders and he's bending her back. Looming over her and peering into her face. "I don't understand you." His head dips and he drops the words one by one in her ear. His mouth travels over her neck and his hands drop to her hips. He pulls her against him, away from the car. "I don't understand this."
"Me neither." She's clinging to his neck with one arm. She's barely on her feet, fumbling behind her for the door handle. "I don't know. I don't know."
They tumble into the back seat, pushing and pulling. Her jacket is an awkward jumble behind her that he somehow arranges into something like a pillow the third time her head smacks hard into the glass.
Her blouse is gaping open, every button neatly undone and he's tugging aside something she's pretty sure is a laundry-day bra, lapping and nipping and sucking. Driving her insane with hands and teeth and tongue even as he works her pants open and down her thighs.
She wants to laugh. She wants to flip him to his back and interrogate him. And how, exactly, Mr. Castle, did you get so good at back seat sex.
She ducks to find his mouth. She curls her fingers under his jaw and tugs. She wants to laugh, but their eyes meet and she goes white with panic. The anger is gone. All that ice is absolutely gone, a mix of hurt and confusion in its place.
She closes her eyes tight against it. She works her knee up over his thigh and shoves at his hips with her own. He groans and takes the hint, pulling her with him as he rolls to his back. She catches up, her fingers busy at the buttons of his shirt. She peels it back as she goes, her mouth tasting every inch of skin as she bares it.
His hands roam across her breasts, down her hips, and he drags his nails along the backs of her thighs. There's something serious in all of it. Something wounded and curious and searching.
She fumbles at his belt. She digs her nails into his ribs trying to drive them on, but it comes back to this, again and again until she's finally sinking over him and he's catching her mouth with his own. His palms slide up her back beneath her shirt, broad and warm and demanding. She drives her hips down, rolls forward and rises up again and again, until finally the desperate flame catches in him, too.
"God, Beckett." His mouth is hot at her ear, and he sounds so relieved. Like he's been clinging to something and he finally has hold of it.
She kisses him. Works at his body relentlessly with her own. She feels him tense. Hears the choked, panicked sound he makes as he tries to hold back.
She laughs at that. A throaty purr in his ears she can't quite help as her tongue flicks at his earlobe. "Come on, Castle."
He crashes into her. He jerks his hands down her spine. One makes its way to the back of her neck to hold her fast. The other creeps between their bodies, and how the hell he has the presence of mind to find every last perfect spot she'll never know, but his fingers circle and glide and press and tease and he's mimicking her words with more than little edge to his voice. "Come on, Beckett."
She cries out. Loud, yet strangely muffled in the close confines of the car. Her body seizes up, head to toe, and she can't remember how to breathe until she's falling against him. Until he catches her tight around the waist before she rolls right off him and on to the heap of clothes piled up in the footwells.
She's too limp to move. Too worn out to backpedal or flee or let the burning embarrassment back in, somehow.
"I'm sorry." It creeps out. She curses silently. Of course she's not too worn out for that.
He's quiet. His nose brushes her forehead. His lips at her temple. Acknowledgement at least, but he doesn't say anything for a long while. "Doesn't count?"
He's looking at her down his nose. An awkward angle. She gives him a puzzled look. She blushes.
"Make-up sex?" He's working a little too hard at it. Joking. Pretending it's obvious. It's worse than his anger in its own way. Resignation. "Guessing it doesn't count."
"Back seat sex definitely doesn't count." She pushes up. Tries to meet him halfway because she doesn't know how else to do this. She never does, so she tries for something mock dignified with her blouse gaping open and her laundry-day bra strap sliding down her arm. "Grown woman."
"So I've noticed." He trails his fingers down her still-bare thigh. There's a leer in it. More than a little, but it's quieter than that. Something like forgiveness in it, too, strangely enough. He wants them to be ok and she's boneless with relief.
The bicker and jostle one another trying to make the best of the space that seems suddenly cramped as they dress. She dresses, really, and he helps. As unlikely as it sounds, there's something strangely gentlemanly about the way he slips a hand behind her back to steady her as she struggles back into her pants.
"Good?"
She nods her thanks. He reaches back to dig her coat out from where it's wedged against the door. She takes it from him as she pushes open the door and slides out into the mercifully empty garage. He follows, shoving his hands back in his pockets as the awkwardness settles well and truly over them again.
"I'm sorry, too," he says suddenly. "For overstepping. The dress. I didn't . . . I was going to say I didn't know it would bother you, but that's a lie."
She points a miserable smile at the garage floor.
"I didn't think how it might make you . . . uncomfortable, though." He kicks at an oil stain. "And I'm sorry for that."
"It . . . Castle . . . I let it make me uncomfortable." She hauls her hands out of her pockets. Holds them up. "I'm just not that person."
"Ok." He nods, a little stiffness creeping back in. A little more damage done. "Noted."
"It was gorgeous," she blurts. "Really beautiful."
"It was." His eyes travel up to meet hers. He holds her gaze. "Really beautiful."