Going Under, Chapter 4: A post-5x11 (Under the Influence) Castle Four(ish)-Shot
Title: Going Under, Chapter 4
Rating: T (Chapters 1-4; chapter 5 will be M)
WC: ~2600, this chapter, ~15K so far, all told.
Summary: "She's going to have to fax him a schedule. He was pretty sure after this morning's discovery and the not-so-whispered argument about accessory price points for last-minute hickey concealment, this was going to be one of those days where everyone was wondering why they were suddenly observing Catholic school dance standards for personal space." 4-shot right now, will be a 5-shot.
Spoilers: Alternative POV for Under the Influence (5x11)
A/N: It's possible I have a problem. Like, a serious break-with-reality problem. Because I'm obsessed with Under the Influence screencaps and the incredible morphing scarf tying. I have absolutely come to believe that Caskett are going at it furiously in the precinct during the course of that episode. In honor of that, I couldn't just leave them in the back seat of the limo.
For Cora Clavia, who begged me repeatedly to get them out of the back seat. And hopefully Jessie/Carto is not tired of this little episode fix just yet.
This chapter is T. There'll be another, absolutely final, chapter that's rated M. Already written and up here later today.
Thank you for all your kindness along the way with this.
She is not putting her sweater back on. That much is clear. She feels strongly on this point, and given that she is topless and straddling his lap, he is inclined to submit to her demands. So she's commandeering his jacket. That's the upshot of the argument and-praise the lord-it may actually get them out of the back seat.
Of course, calling it an argument is overstating the case when one party is pinned to the backseat by the (topless) other party and has extremely limited use of his hands. Extremely limited, but not limited enough for the other (topless) party's tastes.
That's part of the argument, or "argument" as he likes to think of it. Because apparently his creative use of his hands led to the . . . incident . . . and all of a sudden she's worried about Jeff being traumatized.
As if Jeff were not constitutionally incapable of being traumatized. As if Jeff's children were not enjoying high-end orthodontic work and top-tier schooling thanks to the fact that he considers it his sacred duty not to be traumatized by anything they might get up to in the back of his limo.
Although even Jeff might falter if he could hear her now. Because now she's all moans and disjointed curses and occasional teeth. (And, of course, topless.) Apparently the news that the whole incident was easily 70% her is not winning him the "argument." Not that he has any idea what "winning" might look like under these circumstances, but sloppily creative insults and threats are probably not it.
But it was totally her. At least 70% her. Not that he wouldn't be thrilled to take credit-it was pretty amazing, after all-but by the time she hauled him into the back seat, deprived him of the use of his hands, and tore her sweater up over her head, she was already pretty worked up.
So worked up, in fact, that he wasn't much more than a prop. A very enthusiastic prop, committed to making the most of the limited use of his hands, but still. And by the way, she wasn't complaining about that during the incident. She was vigorously and vociferously not complaining about his hands.
But now she's commandeering his jacket and that's a great idea because the lining is silk and he has never seen her so angry at an inanimate object-not even the espresso machine on a really bad day-as she is at her own sweater right now. So a little silk on skin is not the worst idea she's had lately. Of course, he has even better ideas regarding her skin if they ever get out of the damned car, so he is all for commandeering.
As far as movement on the commandeering goes, her execution could use some work. She thinks she can somehow get the jacket off him without untying his hands. She's pretty adamant that he can't have his hands back. Apparently they're trouble. At least that's what he's been able to glean from in between the moans and the curses. Granted, a little hard to follow (especially given that she's topless), but he's pretty sure that's the take-home message.
So she doesn't want him to have his hands back. She's all bossy and irrational about it. It's kind of adorable coming from someone who can't even sit upright at the moment. Or it would be adorable if she weren't failing to sit upright pretty much all over him. That factoid and the dirty, broken little monologue she has going on right now are rapidly moving the situation from "adorable" into territory dangerously close to another incident. An incident that might complicate her commandeering his jacket.
So . . . no more incidents for the time being. No more incidents until there's a door he can lock behind them. No more incidents. Right.
He has to get them out of this damned car.
His jacket is huge on her. Of course it's huge. Even with the sleeves rolled back in giant cuffs, her fingertips are barely visible, and the voluminous hem flaps almost to her knees. It should be ridiculous. By rights, she should look like some sweet, ridiculous kid wrapped up in someone's hand-me-downs.
She doesn't. She doesn't look ridiculous. Or sweet. She looks hot. And a little scary. And despite the fact they are finally out of the car and currently strolling down a Manhattan street in the middle of rush hour, he may have to reset the "Minutes Since Last Incident" sign to zero. Again.
It's partly the scarf. It's wound around her neck once and the dangling ends are completely failing to fill in the gap between the lapels she's clutching together and it's somehow worse for his concentration than her being topless. It's all flashes of blue fabric and bare, creamy skin. Creamy except for that one little . . . well, not little. It's not little at all. Its not-littleness has been pretty firmly established at this point, and it's hardly the scarf's fault that it's not really hiding anything.
Poor little scarf.
Poor little scarf? Oh, God. He's attached to it. Metaphorically. Metaphorically at the moment, anyway. Who knows what the future holds. Especially when she has that look on her face. But he's definitely developed a ridiculous attachment to it in less than a day. He can't help it. It's got . . . history. History and bare skin right there underneath it. The Little Scarf That Could.
But it's mostly just her. The hotness. And the scariness. It's the squared off lines of the jacket and the controlled chaos of her hair barely brushing the collar. All those pins just waiting for him to hunt them down and liberate them. It's the swing of the hem and the stretch of tailored fabric over her thighs as she eats up the sidewalk between the curb and the door in long, determined strides.
It's the fact that she's still working the bossy thing and her land legs are back. They are absolutely back, and while she might have been concerned about Jeff's potential trauma once upon a time, now that the driver has gone on his merry, well-compensated way, she seems to have very limited amounts of give a shit left for anyone she might currently traumatizing, looking like that. Yeah, as far as trauma goes, they're all on their own. Random New Yorkers, fellow tenants, local wild life. They're all on their own when it comes to Beckett-induced trauma.
He's certainly on his own. Literally on his own, because her land legs are back and she's leaving him in the dust here, utterly unconcerned. Utterly unconcerned about the fact that their last incident was more than a little one-sided and she's commandeered his jacket and, fine, yes, it's that lull between books that means any kind of run-in with the press on the streets is unlikely, but still. Still, she might at least show a little concern for his potential trauma if he winds up on page 6 with a bright blue sweater clutched awkwardly in front of him.
She stops short and whirls toward him and he swears she was reading his mind. Because her eyes are blazing with this mixture of amusement and danger and Jesus she is hot. (And scary.)She looks him up and down and he would absolutely welcome a candid shot on page 6 right about now. He might actually come out of that alive.
She stops short and the rush hour world makes way for her. Of course it does. She looks him up and down. "You comin', Castle?"
She doesn't care about his trauma at all.
The stairs had seemed like such a good idea. Well, not a good idea. Today, there are fantastic ideas and really terrible ideas and absolutely nothing in between. But they'd seemed like the lesser of two evils or something.
Because the elevator-any enclosed space whatsoever-had just seemed like such a bad idea with that look on her face and his jacket swallowing her up and the scarf failing do anything other than draw attention to everything it was theoretically supposed to be covering up. And, really, he thought they both could probably stand to bleed off a little energy.
So the stairs had seemed like the lesser of two evils and the evidence was with him and he'd gotten a little . . . insistent. That was probably a mistake. She's not a fan of insistent from him, even when she's not all . . . this. And she is all this. She has been all this for going on ten hours now and it may just kill him in this very stairwell.
If it does, he has only himself to blame, because he should have picked up on it. The potential for evil. He should definitely picked up on it when he informed her that they were taking the stairs and she whipped around like she might actually devour him on the spot. He should have picked up on it when she was suddenly, terrifyingly agreeable. When all of a sudden she was plastered up against his side and making a beeline for the stairwell door.
The thing is, she's fast. Ten hours into this, he's trying to remember important things like how feet work and whether his will is up to date, and she is fast. And he failed to account for railings. Railings and her recent obsession with knots. In retrospect, the stairs were bound to be trouble. Heh . . . bound.
So he has only himself to blame for this. Or thank. Or something. In any case, he sees now that this is really his fault. Or he would see it if he could see anything. Seeing is not currently an option, because his eyes are shut tight and he's pretty sure that all the light has left the world permanently and taken all the air with it.
But that's good. All the air being gone is good, because if the air is gone, then no one will hear him scream. And screaming will happen. Screaming is inevitable. Inevitable, because there's a metal safety strip digging into his back and a very dedicated NYPD detective interrogating his lap.
But at least no one will hear him scream.
He's furious with her. Definitely, completely furious. Not impressed. At some point-a long, long time from now, when she has made this up to him in some very creative ways-he might be impressed. Because she just . . . vanished like a freaking ninja when that door slammed open. But right now, he is furious. Also very concerned about keeping his pants up.
Because he's down another button-and, millionaire author or not, he is going to start fining her-and she has his belt. Which is kind of impressive. In the back of his mind, behind the wall of righteous fury, he knows that it's kind of impressive.
Because she didn't leave him with his belt hanging open, which would have been really hard to explain. She had the presence of mind to go from . . . that . . . directly into some kind of ninja math and correctly determine that there was no time to do his belt up again.
And, ok, it's kind of objectively impressive, because in the time it took him get his feet under him, she managed to not only do the ninja math but act on it before she melted into the shadows. Like a ninja. And here he is: Belt gone, shirttails untucked. And damned if that isn't better than any of the alternatives. Stupid ninja math.
So maybe he's a little impressed. But he's mostly furious. And flustered. Because of the pants. Because she took off in complete silence and he's not even sure which way she went. Because part of him is wondering if he imagined this whole thing. This whole day. Like maybe he slipped in the shower and hit his head or got electrocuted by the vending machines yesterday and this has all been a coma fantasy.
No, he's back to furious. Because he would not imagine this. He would not imagine her bailing on him in such a critical moment. He would not fantasize, in or out of a coma, about her leaving him and his compromised pants to do damage control with her neighbor.
Diagnosis: Furious.
And it is totally beside the point that he knows everyone in the building better than she does. He knows for a fact that did not figure into her ninja math at all. It is also totally beside the point that her being topless underneath what is obviously hisjacket might have been harder to explain than wrinkled shirt tails and a certain . . . lack of focus.
But all of that is completely beside the point. The point is she left him worrying about his pants and trying to extract himself from small talk with Evelyn from across the hall, who is like one hundred and eleven years old. And what is Evelyn doing taking the stairs anyway? What the hell is her one-hundred-and-eleven-year-old self doing bumping her granny cart full of groceries up the damned stairs so there is absolutely no way he can get out of this without offering to help?
Fine. He'll help. He will hitch up his compromised pants and help. And then, when Evelyn insists that he come in for a cup of tea or some hard candy or whatever it is one-hundred-and-eleven-year-old ladies do to say thank you, he will calmly say, "No, ma'am, I am afraid that the lovely detective across the hall is in need of some serious and immediate punishment." That's exactly what he'll do.
He grabs Evelyn's cart and fists his free hand around his rapidly retreating waistband. He wonders why anyone ever takes the stairs.
Stairs are just bound to be trouble.
A/N: So, just so we understand our options. I can end Going Under FOR GOOD AND FOR ALL right here and post the M chapter as a separate story, or I can add the M chapter to this and up the rating for the whole thing. Thoughts on this or anything else appreciated!