Fic > Castle > (i adjust to) the lines you're drawing me
Title: (i adjust to) the lines you're drawing me
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Castle/Beckett; cameos from Lanie and Alexis. Mentions of Montgomery, Ryan, Esposito and Meredith.
Word Count: 2096
Spoilers/References: Blink-and-you-miss-'em references to "A Deadly Affair," "Punked," "Last Call" and "Knockdown."
Warnings: Run-on sentences of DOOM. (Seriously. It's a sickness.)
Summary: They have only one rule: live.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations herein do not belong to me. This story is meant solely for entertainment purposes. No infringement is intended.
Title and cut text come from The Frames song "True". "Song of the South" is property of the Walt Disney Company. The TV show referenced in number 13 is property of Mutant Enemy Productions. Lyrics in number 15 belong to Snow Patrol. The Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park belong to God (aka Peter Gammons), John Henry, Tom Werner, Major League Baseball and me.
Blather, blather, blather: Prompts from 1sentence. And as always, thanks to Mel and Meg for the beta, and to you for reading.
Ring Her cellphone ringing after midnight is an impetus propelling her into an equally dark and still unknowable breach; understanding that Dispatch is also calling him -- impossibly sunny even in their darkest hour -- is her tether to the land of the living.
Hero It's not just the fallen whom she considers heroes; he also (albeit silently) tops her list, because it takes a certain type of person to answer the call - especially in his case, when he could have decided it was a wrong number.
Memory They move past their lost summer, but there is apprehension as the pages of the calendar turn; what if their path hasn't been a straight line of exploration but instead biding time as they go around in circles?
Box After they settle back into a routine (and she remembers how to breathe), she puts her mother's murder board away one Saturday afternoon, carefully tucking its contents alongside the sense of abandonment that propelled her to put it up in the first place; they, not she, will solve it together.
Run It's completely incongruous, she tells him, to offer a chocolate croissant from Balthazar after she's just come back from a run; she shivers through her sweat when he tells her, quite seriously, that there's nothing she could ever do that would make her any less beautiful.
Hurricane He's loved her for so long that he doesn't remember a time when he didn't; she finally admits she feels the same way after they get caught in a torrential downpour coming back from a crime scene and she drags him into the deluge, the raindrops caressing his face just like her lips do.
Wings His biggest fear about relationships was feeling like his wings had been clipped; with her, he embraces flight, wanting to show her the many miles they can travel together.
Cold Beckett's a little confused when the Starbucks barista wants to give her a hug of congratulations when she and Castle pick their up coffees together one Sunday morning; Castle merely smiles and posits that, though this is the detective's first time at his neighborhood store, the girl may feel like she and the detective are old friends by now.
Red She is content despite being apart from the friendly sunset bidding kind adieu in gentle yellows, reds and oranges, because it's no longer "creepy" when he watches her do paperwork; the fact he's rubbing her arches with the same familiarity the sun has when it freckles her skin makes it all the sweeter.
Drink She used to wish she could walk into the Old Haunt and leave herself at the door - be someone normal, unburdened; someone who could openly flirt with him and convince him the morning light in her apartment was well worth seeing - but then he looks at her as if she is the only woman in the world (which, to him, she is) and she decides "normalcy" is a dirty word.
Midnight She'd long worried they were racing a ticking clock, but now that they're together -- now that they're undeniable fact impervious to scrutiny -- it appears the universe was just keeping time, waiting for the inevitable.
Temptation They try to balance wanting to tell the other to stay out of harm's way (because it's not just a casual relationship) with the necessity of the mission (because it's not just a job); it's a high wire act from which they fall, tension sometimes snapping their tightrope.
View She doesn't need or want a private fireworks display viewed from his back porch in the Hamptons, or him arranging for a private skate in Rockefeller Center; a perfect date is Chinese takeout and him introducing her to his favorite TV show (even though, as Alexis constantly reminds him, there are no cows in space.)
Music They dance together at Ryan and Jenny's wedding, and she's surprised to find she doesn't need all this -- trimmings that last a day -- as long as she's got the relationship that'll last a lifetime.
Silk With his hands in her hair, gently and reverently massaging the evils of reality out of her temple, she realizes the songs do indeed make sense; they lay together and just forget the world.
Cover She, Ryan and Esposito rarely need to yell out their positions, as their trust is iron forged and links them together; there is quiet relief in the fact that she's never had to ask Castle to cover her either, because she knows with certainty he's always got her back.
Promise: There is no discussion if she catches a body during one of his readings, or he has to go on tour and can't be in the gallery while she testifies; they have too much respect for the occupations that brought them together to ever complain about circumstance.
Dream He'd had a lot of fantasies about her, but none ever matched the simple sensuality of her in one of his black t-shirts, making breakfast while arguing with NPR.
Candle They are like a candle: sometimes upright, a steady balance of heat and function, and sometimes burning from both ends, singeing their way toward full-on combustion.
Talent Montgomery sneaks him another bottle of whiskey when Castle convinces Beckett to use instead of lose the vacation time she's accrued; when he asks her what she wants to do, she happily informs him they're going on a road trip of all the baseball stadiums in the league.
Silence It's a bittersweet moment when he realizes his fantasy of interrogation room sex will never materialize; not because she won't consider it, but because there's absolutely no way she could be that quiet.
Journey All roads in Rome lead to St. Peter's; her path of cobblestone truth was laid brick by brick in the knowledge that he is the Watson to her Sherlock, the up to her down and the left to her right.
Fire She feels sometimes that they live their lives forever jumping from the frying pan into the fire; those are the times she wonders whether or not he can read her smoke signals and if he'd launch a search party.
Strength She told him that once, expecting a joke about implanting a subcutaneous GPS chip; instead, he took her hand and paraphrased "Song of the South": "Can't run from me; ain't no place that far."
Mask They'd both spent so much time behind porcelain walls -- masks of self-preservation -- that along with discovering each other, they were discovering themselves in the process.
Ice They'd skated around their truth for so long, fearing submersion and a torturously slow death; when one of them walks away after an impossibly volatile fight, it feels as though the fissures never stopped spreading.
Fall But they do not fall through, because just as unavoidable as the fights is the fact that they will always come back, each the life preserver for the other.
Forgotten Demons are exorcised when she crosses a particular threshold on Long Island; never forgotten but always respected, because it's brought them back to -- and finally -- here.
Dance Lanie does an absurd happy dance when they inadvertently tell her they're together; the changes in their relationship are so subtle that he didn't even realize he'd started reaching for Kate's hand before taking a single step.
Body Pulling back the tarp that covers a body is a moment that knocks the air out of both their diaphragms; their fears, failures, relief and triumphs are synchronicity redefined and as constant as the tides.
Sacred He asks her to marry him via JumboTron at every game they attend during their wandering summer; it's only atop the Green Monster at Fenway Park that she looks like she's seriously considering saying yes.
Farewells Alexis insists Kate accompany them when they move her into Georgetown; the normally stalwart detective is the first to start crying, because it's the only thing she can do in response to the teenager's words that the reason she feels comfortable leaving her father is because she knows Beckett will take care of him.
World He colors outside the lines of her black-and-white world, and for a long time, she'd thought it a chaotic disaster; now she steps back and sees the patchwork existence they've created and deems it a masterpiece.
Formal Structure is eschewed in favor of inevitability, while discretion is dismissed from valor; there is nothing formal to them, no rules except one: live.
Fever When Meredith interrupts the fever pitch of Thanksgiving dinner by showing up unannounced, Castle is stunned not by his ex-wife's antics, but by the fact that he actually can love Kate Beckett more; without missing a beat, the brunette calmly asks Esposito to find another chair while she fixes Meredith a plate.
Laugh He'll do anything to hear her laugh; it's selfish, but the sound is a salve to his soul after the shrapnel of the world pierces his armor.
Lies She never quite believed the lies her parents told her (boys like good girls, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, if you tell me the truth you won't get into trouble) but somehow on her worst days, she believes Castle when he tells her it'll be all right.
Forever He asks her to move in with him as he divides up the paper and she says yes while she pours them coffee; only later will they realize that forever has somehow gone from question to foregone conclusion.
Overwhelmed The fact that she is there to both bring him to his knees and pick him back up again is something the wordsmith will never know how to thank her for.
Whisper Their hands on each other alternate voicing tales in breathy whispers and fiery screams; it is not a confused cacophony but a fluid symphony they always know by heart.
Wait She breaks her self-imposed rule about public displays of affection in the bullpen when he, decked out in a custom tuxedo and two tickets to the hottest show opening in a decade tucked in his pocket, wordlessly takes his seat by her desk as she prepares to take a surprise confession; the kiss is "thank you," "I'm sorry," and "I don't deserve you and pray you never figure that out" all rolled into one.
Talk He long ago memorized the tones and timbres in which she speaks (suspects get sandpaper roughed over open wounds, while those left behind receive smooth, delicate diamond words), but she seems to have ten different ways of speaking to him; he's both flattered and intrigued...and hopes he never figures out all her mysteries.
Search She'll catch him staring at her as though the solution to every question ever posed is written on her face; in a way, they are, because all the important questions he didn't know he should be asking are answered in her existence.
Hope He has never really been one to abide by "hope, faith and charity," but for her, he wants to.
Eclipse They sit back-to-chest on his vast roof deck to watch a lunar eclipse with the crickets providing commentary and the thick city summer blanketing them protectively; she lets it seep into every pore, for she knows this little slice of heaven -- like the eclipse -- will disappear as quickly as it came.
Gravity Sometimes the pressure of being with each other threatens to suffocate them and they have to fight the polar magnetism that defines them; it's safe to do that, though, because gravity is a constant: it will forever orientate them to each other, no matter how far they roam.
Highway They argue sometimes over which is more important, the journey or the destination; they do agree that as long as the other is in the passenger seat, they'll drive forever.
Unknown She used to feel like she was trapped in the tomb of the unknown soldier; she knows she will always have a voice, an advocate in him, which makes it possible for her to act that way for someone else.
Lock He slides the apartment key onto her key ring without any pomp and circumstance; it's silly, but there's still a part of him that thinks he'll jinx everything if he uses his weaponry of words to give it purchase.
Breathe Each morning brings with it new challenges, from the weather to the cases; knowing the day's first breath will always be in the other's company is the best foundation on which they could ever hope to stand.
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairing: Castle/Beckett; cameos from Lanie and Alexis. Mentions of Montgomery, Ryan, Esposito and Meredith.
Word Count: 2096
Spoilers/References: Blink-and-you-miss-'em references to "A Deadly Affair," "Punked," "Last Call" and "Knockdown."
Warnings: Run-on sentences of DOOM. (Seriously. It's a sickness.)
Summary: They have only one rule: live.
Disclaimer: The characters and situations herein do not belong to me. This story is meant solely for entertainment purposes. No infringement is intended.
Title and cut text come from The Frames song "True". "Song of the South" is property of the Walt Disney Company. The TV show referenced in number 13 is property of Mutant Enemy Productions. Lyrics in number 15 belong to Snow Patrol. The Boston Red Sox and Fenway Park belong to God (aka Peter Gammons), John Henry, Tom Werner, Major League Baseball and me.
Blather, blather, blather: Prompts from 1sentence. And as always, thanks to Mel and Meg for the beta, and to you for reading.
Ring Her cellphone ringing after midnight is an impetus propelling her into an equally dark and still unknowable breach; understanding that Dispatch is also calling him -- impossibly sunny even in their darkest hour -- is her tether to the land of the living.
Hero It's not just the fallen whom she considers heroes; he also (albeit silently) tops her list, because it takes a certain type of person to answer the call - especially in his case, when he could have decided it was a wrong number.
Memory They move past their lost summer, but there is apprehension as the pages of the calendar turn; what if their path hasn't been a straight line of exploration but instead biding time as they go around in circles?
Box After they settle back into a routine (and she remembers how to breathe), she puts her mother's murder board away one Saturday afternoon, carefully tucking its contents alongside the sense of abandonment that propelled her to put it up in the first place; they, not she, will solve it together.
Run It's completely incongruous, she tells him, to offer a chocolate croissant from Balthazar after she's just come back from a run; she shivers through her sweat when he tells her, quite seriously, that there's nothing she could ever do that would make her any less beautiful.
Hurricane He's loved her for so long that he doesn't remember a time when he didn't; she finally admits she feels the same way after they get caught in a torrential downpour coming back from a crime scene and she drags him into the deluge, the raindrops caressing his face just like her lips do.
Wings His biggest fear about relationships was feeling like his wings had been clipped; with her, he embraces flight, wanting to show her the many miles they can travel together.
Cold Beckett's a little confused when the Starbucks barista wants to give her a hug of congratulations when she and Castle pick their up coffees together one Sunday morning; Castle merely smiles and posits that, though this is the detective's first time at his neighborhood store, the girl may feel like she and the detective are old friends by now.
Red She is content despite being apart from the friendly sunset bidding kind adieu in gentle yellows, reds and oranges, because it's no longer "creepy" when he watches her do paperwork; the fact he's rubbing her arches with the same familiarity the sun has when it freckles her skin makes it all the sweeter.
Drink She used to wish she could walk into the Old Haunt and leave herself at the door - be someone normal, unburdened; someone who could openly flirt with him and convince him the morning light in her apartment was well worth seeing - but then he looks at her as if she is the only woman in the world (which, to him, she is) and she decides "normalcy" is a dirty word.
Midnight She'd long worried they were racing a ticking clock, but now that they're together -- now that they're undeniable fact impervious to scrutiny -- it appears the universe was just keeping time, waiting for the inevitable.
Temptation They try to balance wanting to tell the other to stay out of harm's way (because it's not just a casual relationship) with the necessity of the mission (because it's not just a job); it's a high wire act from which they fall, tension sometimes snapping their tightrope.
View She doesn't need or want a private fireworks display viewed from his back porch in the Hamptons, or him arranging for a private skate in Rockefeller Center; a perfect date is Chinese takeout and him introducing her to his favorite TV show (even though, as Alexis constantly reminds him, there are no cows in space.)
Music They dance together at Ryan and Jenny's wedding, and she's surprised to find she doesn't need all this -- trimmings that last a day -- as long as she's got the relationship that'll last a lifetime.
Silk With his hands in her hair, gently and reverently massaging the evils of reality out of her temple, she realizes the songs do indeed make sense; they lay together and just forget the world.
Cover She, Ryan and Esposito rarely need to yell out their positions, as their trust is iron forged and links them together; there is quiet relief in the fact that she's never had to ask Castle to cover her either, because she knows with certainty he's always got her back.
Promise: There is no discussion if she catches a body during one of his readings, or he has to go on tour and can't be in the gallery while she testifies; they have too much respect for the occupations that brought them together to ever complain about circumstance.
Dream He'd had a lot of fantasies about her, but none ever matched the simple sensuality of her in one of his black t-shirts, making breakfast while arguing with NPR.
Candle They are like a candle: sometimes upright, a steady balance of heat and function, and sometimes burning from both ends, singeing their way toward full-on combustion.
Talent Montgomery sneaks him another bottle of whiskey when Castle convinces Beckett to use instead of lose the vacation time she's accrued; when he asks her what she wants to do, she happily informs him they're going on a road trip of all the baseball stadiums in the league.
Silence It's a bittersweet moment when he realizes his fantasy of interrogation room sex will never materialize; not because she won't consider it, but because there's absolutely no way she could be that quiet.
Journey All roads in Rome lead to St. Peter's; her path of cobblestone truth was laid brick by brick in the knowledge that he is the Watson to her Sherlock, the up to her down and the left to her right.
Fire She feels sometimes that they live their lives forever jumping from the frying pan into the fire; those are the times she wonders whether or not he can read her smoke signals and if he'd launch a search party.
Strength She told him that once, expecting a joke about implanting a subcutaneous GPS chip; instead, he took her hand and paraphrased "Song of the South": "Can't run from me; ain't no place that far."
Mask They'd both spent so much time behind porcelain walls -- masks of self-preservation -- that along with discovering each other, they were discovering themselves in the process.
Ice They'd skated around their truth for so long, fearing submersion and a torturously slow death; when one of them walks away after an impossibly volatile fight, it feels as though the fissures never stopped spreading.
Fall But they do not fall through, because just as unavoidable as the fights is the fact that they will always come back, each the life preserver for the other.
Forgotten Demons are exorcised when she crosses a particular threshold on Long Island; never forgotten but always respected, because it's brought them back to -- and finally -- here.
Dance Lanie does an absurd happy dance when they inadvertently tell her they're together; the changes in their relationship are so subtle that he didn't even realize he'd started reaching for Kate's hand before taking a single step.
Body Pulling back the tarp that covers a body is a moment that knocks the air out of both their diaphragms; their fears, failures, relief and triumphs are synchronicity redefined and as constant as the tides.
Sacred He asks her to marry him via JumboTron at every game they attend during their wandering summer; it's only atop the Green Monster at Fenway Park that she looks like she's seriously considering saying yes.
Farewells Alexis insists Kate accompany them when they move her into Georgetown; the normally stalwart detective is the first to start crying, because it's the only thing she can do in response to the teenager's words that the reason she feels comfortable leaving her father is because she knows Beckett will take care of him.
World He colors outside the lines of her black-and-white world, and for a long time, she'd thought it a chaotic disaster; now she steps back and sees the patchwork existence they've created and deems it a masterpiece.
Formal Structure is eschewed in favor of inevitability, while discretion is dismissed from valor; there is nothing formal to them, no rules except one: live.
Fever When Meredith interrupts the fever pitch of Thanksgiving dinner by showing up unannounced, Castle is stunned not by his ex-wife's antics, but by the fact that he actually can love Kate Beckett more; without missing a beat, the brunette calmly asks Esposito to find another chair while she fixes Meredith a plate.
Laugh He'll do anything to hear her laugh; it's selfish, but the sound is a salve to his soul after the shrapnel of the world pierces his armor.
Lies She never quite believed the lies her parents told her (boys like good girls, this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you, if you tell me the truth you won't get into trouble) but somehow on her worst days, she believes Castle when he tells her it'll be all right.
Forever He asks her to move in with him as he divides up the paper and she says yes while she pours them coffee; only later will they realize that forever has somehow gone from question to foregone conclusion.
Overwhelmed The fact that she is there to both bring him to his knees and pick him back up again is something the wordsmith will never know how to thank her for.
Whisper Their hands on each other alternate voicing tales in breathy whispers and fiery screams; it is not a confused cacophony but a fluid symphony they always know by heart.
Wait She breaks her self-imposed rule about public displays of affection in the bullpen when he, decked out in a custom tuxedo and two tickets to the hottest show opening in a decade tucked in his pocket, wordlessly takes his seat by her desk as she prepares to take a surprise confession; the kiss is "thank you," "I'm sorry," and "I don't deserve you and pray you never figure that out" all rolled into one.
Talk He long ago memorized the tones and timbres in which she speaks (suspects get sandpaper roughed over open wounds, while those left behind receive smooth, delicate diamond words), but she seems to have ten different ways of speaking to him; he's both flattered and intrigued...and hopes he never figures out all her mysteries.
Search She'll catch him staring at her as though the solution to every question ever posed is written on her face; in a way, they are, because all the important questions he didn't know he should be asking are answered in her existence.
Hope He has never really been one to abide by "hope, faith and charity," but for her, he wants to.
Eclipse They sit back-to-chest on his vast roof deck to watch a lunar eclipse with the crickets providing commentary and the thick city summer blanketing them protectively; she lets it seep into every pore, for she knows this little slice of heaven -- like the eclipse -- will disappear as quickly as it came.
Gravity Sometimes the pressure of being with each other threatens to suffocate them and they have to fight the polar magnetism that defines them; it's safe to do that, though, because gravity is a constant: it will forever orientate them to each other, no matter how far they roam.
Highway They argue sometimes over which is more important, the journey or the destination; they do agree that as long as the other is in the passenger seat, they'll drive forever.
Unknown She used to feel like she was trapped in the tomb of the unknown soldier; she knows she will always have a voice, an advocate in him, which makes it possible for her to act that way for someone else.
Lock He slides the apartment key onto her key ring without any pomp and circumstance; it's silly, but there's still a part of him that thinks he'll jinx everything if he uses his weaponry of words to give it purchase.
Breathe Each morning brings with it new challenges, from the weather to the cases; knowing the day's first breath will always be in the other's company is the best foundation on which they could ever hope to stand.