This Tornado Loves You, Chapter 4-A Short Caskett WIP, Set June 2013
Title: This Tornado Loves You, Chapter 4
WC: ~2000 this chapter, 8300 total
Summary: "He turns back to the doors, watching eagerly as a new tide of passengers comes and goes. She sees more than one jaded rider turn away to hide a small smile. Like it's impossible not to catch it from him. This fizzing enthusiasm for the moment. For the day. For life. She knows how they feel." Set June 2013; minor spoilers for After Hours. Ignores Watershed.
A/N: OMG, I am SORRY. It's five chapters. But I absolutely promise it's just five. There's another moment that I want to explore that just doesn't fit here.
Thank you for reading and reviewing. Thank you SO MUCH for sharing baseball stories and memories and being kind enough to read even if the very idea of baseball makes you nod off.
Castle hands his mother into the back seat of the car. He leans in to shake Jim's hand one last time. They exchange a few quiet words and when he straightens-when he closes the door solidly and turns back with a final wave as the car pulls away-he has this solemn smile on his face and he breathes the night in, deep and careful. Like he's full already. Like he couldn't hold one drop more of contentment.
It makes Kate want to wrap him up. It makes her want to wrap the whole day up or keep it under glass or something. She settles for ducking under his arm. For looping her elbow through Alexis's and murmuring, "Let's go home."
They make the third train after they crowd into the station. The first two roll out, packed tight with Cyclones fans and scores of people heading home from the amusement park. With others in sleek, dark clothing, Manhattan bound and just starting their evening.
The third time, though, they're close enough to the front of the crush to make it, and Kate works her magic. Every inch the cop even in a t-shirt and shorts, she slips through the crowd and finds a couple of seats. She turns to the two of them with a flourish as she drops back into one of them. He offers to stand, but Alexis rolls her eyes and tugs him down between them.
Castle smiles, and they squeeze three across into the space hardly big enough for two. He flings his arm wide along the back of the seat, swaying right and left in an exaggerated version of the train's motion. He bumps their shoulders and leans hard, one way, then the other. He generally makes a nuisance of himself.
"Gonna make you stand," Kate grouses as she bumps him back to center.
"No you're not," he says happily as he kisses her forehead. "You're tired. You're a snuggler when you're tired." He turns to Alexis. "She's a snuggler when she's tired," he stage whispers.
"I'm not sure I needed to know that." Alexis screws her face up in mock distaste, but she leans in and adds her weight to Castle's. It's a pile on.
"Castle . . . Castles!" Kate protests weakly. She works her shoulders side to side like she's trying to get away, but she's no match for them.
Anyway, it's true.
She is tired and this feels good. The two of them clinging to each other and gathering her in. This feels perfect.
She leans into the two of them, heavy, sloppy, and content.
The train clatters along and there's an end-of-day hush blanketing the crowded car. Sticky children with bright-colored stains on their clothes nod in their parents laps. Couples and small knots of friends list together. They swap seats and overhead handles and square inches of real estate to lean a hip against. They prop each other up.
The three of them talk quietly. Comfortable fragments of stories. Piecemeal memories of summer and long, quiet pauses. Nudges and tired nods.
It's been a good day.
They all got a little too much sun. Castle's nose has a new smattering of freckles and there's a wide strip of neck that deepens to something just past brown. Alexis's shoulders are regrettably pink in patches that will probably smart tomorrow.
Castle's palm smooths over Kate's arm. The friction raises a little more heat than usual. He notices and gives her an apologetic look. She shakes her head and presses his hand between her shoulder and cheek. The warmth will be the worst of it. She doesn't really burn.
She's just pleasantly tired with it. The sun and more. Blue sky and the breeze over the stands. The summer day baking into the concrete beneath their feet. History and the new, wide circle around the five of them.
She's pleasantly tired with all of that and now with the roll of the train and the buzz of his contentment. Their contentment. It's a long summer day, and high above the subway, she knows it's not quite dark outside, even yet. Still, she'd gladly race the sun to bed right now.
She lets her head sink back against his arm. He curls it tighter around her and brushes a kiss over her temple.
He and Alexis argue about some technicality of scorekeeping. Some one-in-a-thousand situation. Castle tries to appeal to Kate's expertise, but she waves him off with a grumpy half smile as her eyes slip closed.
"Ooooh, trying to get your girlfriend to play favorites?" Alexis taunts as she jostles his shoulder. "That means you know I'm right."
"I know no such thing," he says airily. He ducks his head to Kate's ear. "I'm your favorite. Tell her I'm right," he whispers loudly.
"No way. I know better than to get between the two of you." Kate laughs and turns his cheek away from her.
"Don't bother her." Alexis tugs him off Kate. "We'll ask Jim. He's impartial."
Kate eyes flick open at that. The easy sound of her father's name on his daughter's tongue. The memory of it fills her up. Two heads bent together, red-tinged with gold and grey lightened to silver by the sun. Strange. Still strange, but welcome. Good.
"Hardly," he snorts. "You are obviously his favorite Castle."
He's scoffing, but Kate hears it underneath his words. Something in his voice that's soft and full and bigger than all three of them.
Kate lowers her lashes. She lets her eyes fall not quite closed. She takes herself out of the equation and watches. She listens and sees it, tease and bicker back and forth, but it's there all the while. Underneath. The day has been strange for him, too. For both of them.
It's not just about their parents getting along or Alexis drawing new lines. It's not just boundaries and links or her being home but not home. Working out how the three of them are together. It's not just the five of them finding away to coexist.
It's more than all of that, and she thinks it's not something he never envisioned. Hopeful as he is by nature, she doesn't think even he saw this kind of possibility. The way they fill in the empty places in one another's lives.
It's more than any of them could have expected.
It's good.
Kate hangs back as they climb the stairs at forty-second street. This isn't their stop.
She watches the two of them ahead of her. Stiff, upright spines and mechanical steps.
They're not quite arguing. They both want this. They want sweetness of the day to last.
But neither is willing to give, either.
Castle looks over his shoulder. Down the stairs at Kate. He's pleading a little, but she shakes her head. She hates to do it, but . . .
His shoulders sag. A breath of disappointment, but he gives a tight smile and nods. He reaches up. Brushes his fingers down the back of Alexis's arm. She pauses, relenting. She waits as he comes to her side.
Kate lets out a breath of her own and climbs a little faster. She catches up and just hears Castle murmur Thank you as he bumps Alexis's shoulder with his.
"So long as we're clear: You're being unreasonable and overprotective and this is a one-time thing," Alexis scolds, but she bumps his shoulder in turn and smiles. "Because you bought me cotton candy."
"Agreed." He turns to Kate again. Holds his arm out for her.
"Cotton candy," he whispers. "Works every time."
They climb together. The last steps to street level.
Times Square is busy as ever. It's loud and bright. It makes her sad for half a second. It feels like the end of the day-like real life intruding-but Castle nudges her hip. He rests an arm over Alexis's shoulder and tips his chin up.
It's blinding for a few seconds. Spots dance in Kate's eyes, then clear.
It's spectacular.
It's a long, long summer sunset. The sky is streaked with peach and lavender and indigo. Ragged clouds scud along, and the city stark and black against it all. Even the riot of chasing artificial lights, ads flicking over and over, can't quite compete.
It's spectacular.
They stand like that awhile. The three of them, unlikely tourists all of a sudden, with crowds streaming around them like it's somewhere else. Some other city for the rest of the world flowing around them while they stand here, still and together.
Alexis breaks the easy silence first. She kisses Castle's cheek. "I should go."
There's regret in her tone. He hears it. Answers back gratefully.
"You have to?" He's wheedling, but it's a performance. He knows he'll lose this, and it's ok. "You don't want coffee? Ice cream? To spend the night in a luxurious Soho loft, rather than some shabby dorm?"
"Dad." She shakes a stern finger at him. "I'll take a cab from here. That was the agreement."
He hangs his head. Alexis winds her arms around his waist. She crashes her cheek against his chest. He hugs her back.
They untangle and Alexis reaches for Kate's arm.
"Hold up," Castle says before she can get there. He plants a hand on top of her head and Alexis laughs as he turns her in a half circle like a music box ballerina. He unzips her backpack and fishes something out. "Thanks for being my mule," he whispers loud enough for them both to hear.
Kate arches an eyebrow as she moves to hug Alexis. Castle dances away with something clutched to his chest, delighted and secretive.
"Don't worry," Alexis says in her ear. "It's nice."
"Thanks for having my back," Kate laughs.
Alexis pulls back. She holds Kate at arm's length and looks up at her, warm and smiling.
She looks so much like him-so generous and hopeful and happy with a will-that it hurts.
"Thank you, Kate," she says simply. "For today."
"You too." The words are unexpectedly rough and thick. She'd like to blame the sun. The fact that she's tired with it, but it's more than that. "For today."
Castle raises his arm and a cab pulls up. Alexis rolls her eyes from the back seat as he reaches across her and hands money to the driver. She frowns and shoos him out of the car when he tries to say something to the man. Some ridiculous lecture, no doubt.
Kate laughs and mouths another thank you to Alexis from the curb.
He stands, watching as the cab pulls into traffic and Alexis turns away with a final wave.
Kate steps into his back. She slides her hands around his waist and presses her lips to her shoulder blade.
"Don't pout, Castle," she says low in his ear.
"No pouting." He turns into her. He buries his face in her hair and allows himself one sigh. "Not today."
"So." She pulls back. "Home?"
He looks over the top of her head at the traffic. At the lights and strolling couples. Cafe tables with crisp linens and the black faces of the buildings climbing high into the summer night.
"It's early," he says. "And I have you to myself."
"And I have you."
She steps back. She looks him up and down. Tries to gauge whether he's restless. If the empty loft will bring the end of the day crashing down on them both.
Her gaze snags his. There's a drawn-out instant. Heat flares between them. He bows his head. He brushes her shoulder with his mouth. Her neck.
"Have me to yourself at home, Castle," she says in a voice that's low and dark and hardly there.
"Home," he says against her cheek, her jaw, her lips. "Home."