Bodies at Rest, Chapter 2: A short Castle WIP
A/N: Sorry there was a longer lull between updates than I intended. The couple of chapters of Material Witness and the most recent TARDIS-verse (History, Moving Quickly) barged their way in. Oh, and Going Wild, too. Brain is prolific and disorganized lately. And I actually had a much longer chapter written that I was going to post as the second and final, but then brain said, "Dumbass, this is actually chapters 2 and 4; I am writing chapter 3 in the background." So this will be four chapters, and chapter 3 should be up by the end of the week. Chapter 4 will follow close on its heels, as it's already written.
Here's the first chapter if you missed it.
She's been watching him lately. That's new.
It's new and more than a little awkward, because he's been watching her. Of course he's been watching her. He's been watching her for four years. That's not new at all.
At first he thinks she's mad. That he's done something and she's waiting for him to realize it. To realize that he's in trouble.
It's not a bad working theory. Her being mad-him being in trouble- would not be new: He watches, he gets in trouble, she gets mad. It's kind of their thing. It's kind of always been their thing. But she doesn't seem mad. She seems . . . curious. Interested.
And determined, maybe?
Determined is part of it. He catches her watching, and she doesn't look away these days. Most of the time she doesn't look away. And even when she does-even when that old instinct rises up-she fights it. She takes hold of herself and squares her shoulders and meets his eye again.
Yeah, she's determined. He just doesn't know what she's determined about.
He just knows she's watching him and he's still watching her. So there's all this sudden eye contact and mutual watching and that is a recipe for trouble in the workplace. Trouble out of the workplace, too, because she's been watching him all the time and when they're not at work, she makes good on it.
And sometimes she makes good on it when they are at work. That's not exactly new. This all started with her on suspension. It started with life and death and finally and so much time to make up for. It started with her on suspension and what felt like nothing but time.
With days and days and days where they hardly ate or slept or had any space between them. Days and days and days that he's still recovering memories from, sometimes at the most inopportune moments.
That's the problem with her watching, too. Because he glances up at her. He glances up when, for once, he hasn't been watching, and he remembers something. A sound she made or just the way the light hit the small of her back and he had no idea whether it was day or night because he was just lost in it. He'll remember something like that and he glances up and she's watching and there is mutual trouble in the workplace.
Not that it's not good. Not that trouble in the workplace is not a special and exquisite kind of good that is definitely not new. Because after days and days and days, suddenly she had to go back to work and it turned out that wasn't nearly enough time. And as freaked out as she was early on there were still stairwells and closets and mostly unused interrogation rooms. Right from the beginning there was making good, because really, they have four years of not making good to make good on.
She's just as eager about that as he is. Making good. They've always clicked at work and the temptation to follow that to its logical conclusion now that they can? Now that temptation and logical conclusion are things that they do . . . well, the eagerness isn't new.
But something's different there, too. Something is new about it, although he's just putting that piece together with the others. With the fact that she's watching him. That's the first piece. And she's not hiding it. That's the second.
And on top of all that there's less . . . coaxing on his part recently. In general, but especially when it comes to making good in the workplace. They're still in the closet there. They have to be. But lately they've been literally in the closet a lot more frequently. Or the machine room. Or under the stairs. And once on a desk in a section of Robbery undergoing a remodel and that was not his idea.
And if none of that's new, it's different. It's not always him coaxing or lying in wait or even sending her a pleading look.
If anything, he's trying to be good. He's trying to respect her boundaries and make sure she knows that he knows her job is important. Even when it's deadly boring, it's important and boring is not some kind of invitation to a clandestine free for all. So he hasn't been coaxing. He hasn't been coaxing as much.
He's been going on a lot of improvised errands to pass the time because there's so much paperwork lately. Or maybe it's not lately. It's probably not lately. It's probably the same amount as it's always been, but he's there more.
He doesn't just come in for the Beckett-flavored cases. He's there more because he hates when she leaves without him in the morning. Even when he's been up all night writing. Even when he's still writing and it's time for her to go.
He hates for her to leave without him, so he says that maybe he'll come in for a while, even if there's not much going on. He says he'll come in and help her with the paperwork and he's still buttoning his shirt while they're walking out the door and people must have noticed the sharp decline in his standards for personal grooming some days and he doesn't care. He doesn't care because he hates for her to leave without him.
She seems to hate it, too. He thinks she always has. Since before the storm, even. He used to experiment. He still has the notes and she's seen them and asked about them and someday she'll get it out of him. Someday the funny story he makes up won't be enough and she'll look at him sharply and he'll be in trouble, but he used to experiment.
He'd stay away. He'd mark the time. In days earlier on. Hours later when he couldn't stand it. He'd mark the time he stayed away and he'd count. Everything. Smiles. Sharp words. Eyerolls, of course. He'd count it all and plot it against the time he stayed away and he thinks she's always hated it. Or it's near enough to always that she can't really remember when she didn't want him around.
But it's another new thing lately. She doesn't work at hiding that she hates it. She doesn't make a show of how in the way he is. Oh, she gives him shit. That's eternal and he wouldn't have it any other way. She needles him about when he last showered and says Help in sarcastic quote marks on paperwork days, but she doesn't fight him on it. She doesn't get that annoyed little vee between her eyebrows and snap at him the whole way to the precinct.
And they go to the precinct together most of the time. Almost always nowadays. That's new, too. They drive together or walk and he kills time getting their coffee and tries not to make it too much like clockwork. He tries to stagger how much later than her that he gets in, but he's not sure he's pulling it off.
He's just there more and people have to notice. They have to notice that he's there, but he gets bored just as easily and she humors him and how could people not notice?
So he tries to be good. He tells her that his butt is falling asleep from too much time in the chair and he makes up things he has to do right now. He goes on improvised errands.
He's trying to be good, but more often than not, lately, she comes after him.
She follows and stakes out some shadowy corner and snags his sleeve or grabs him by the belt loop as he's passing by. He actually can't remember the last time he was the one doing the ambushing, now that he thinks about it.
That kind of trashes the "mad" theory, too. Not just the fact of it. Mad and making good in the workplace are not exactly strangers as far as the two of them are concerned. Sometimes mad and making good are fast friends and there's not a thing wrong with that.
There are a lot of things right with it when it comes to making good in the workplace. There's a certain . . . efficiency that goes with mad. Quiet, furious efficiency. Especially for her. But that's not how it is lately.
Lately, she has this smile.
And that's another new thing. New thing number four. Or maybe number three, part B. He's losing count and he wonders idly when all this started.
It's another new thing anyway. It's not just that she's not mad. It's not just that it's not fast and hard and angry. (Or not always, anyway. Not always.)
It's that she follows and finds a place where they can have a few minutes together. Where she can smile at him and he can work the knots out of her shoulders. Where they can plan an evening. They can plan for the weekend and talk about things that need doing around the house. His and hers.
She finds a place for them to be normal together. And that's new, too. These mundane things she makes time for even though she's busy and they're at work and really it's absurd the number of people who already know and they have to be careful. And she still makes time.
And sometimes it's not mundane at all. It's not practical. It's not a good idea. It's trouble and she catches him by the sleeve and pulls him along with her and she has this smile for him. Not the one that has him scrambling to remember what he has to be sorry for. Not the one that makes him swallow hard and scan for emergency exits. Not the one that says We are going to get this done quickly and quietly.
It's the one that starts out small and shy, but then it lights up her whole face. The one that goes on long enough that he gets lost in it. That he forgets to breathe. The one that comes with her stepping into him and bringing his mouth down to hers. The one that has her breathing for them both.
It's the one he sees right now. As he's rounding the corner between floors and there it is. There she is. Reaching for him and stumbling backwards. Taking him with her and kissing him like they have time. Like she has time for him and this even though the stack of files on her desk is tall enough that it keeps losing vertical integrity.
She breaks the kiss and he pulls himself together. She has work to do and boundaries and respect and the workplace all that. He takes a step back. He tries to take a step back. He tries to be good, but she still has him by the shoulder. She still has him by both shoulders and she slides her hands up, not down, and links them behind his neck.
"I thought you had work to do." The words slip out and he can hardly believe it's his voice. He presses his lips against hers like he can erase them.
"I thought you had writing to do today," she retorts. And she presses her lips against his like she's telling him something.
She is. He's just not sure what.
Maybe she's had enough and she's just trying to be nice about it. Maybe she wants him out of her hair, even though he thought he was being good. That's probably what she's trying to tell him.
"You want me to go?" He means for it to be an offer, but it comes out plaintive and he tries not to squirm. He does have writing to do, but he misses her and he doesn't want to go.
But she kisses him again. Just an unhurried brush of her lips over his and it doesn't feel like she's just being nice. She is being nice, but not nice like she's trying to tell him to get the hell out. Only nicely. It doesn't feel like that at all, because their breath is mingling and she's standing there with her forehead pressed against his like she has time for this.
She tips her head back a little so she can look at him. "Do you need to?"
He shakes his head. He reaches for words, but she's watching him and he can't find them, so he shakes his head.
Her eyes drift closed and she smiles. She smiles and she's not mad and she's not just being nice. She's determined.
"Then, no," she whispers. "I don't want you to go."