let me see us clearly
Title: let me see us clearly
Characters/Pairings: Castle/Beckett
Summary: She won't open her eyes.
Rating: NC-17
Spoilers: None.
Warning: Trigger warning for torture. Written for the kink meme.
Her calves burn. Her wrists ache. She can’t feel her shoulders. It’s starting to hurt to breathe.
And still she won’t open her eyes.
It makes it all the more painful, unable to anticipate where the next blow is coming from. But if she opens her eyes and sees his face, it’ll hurt even more.
So she keeps her eyes shut, dancing on her tip toes with her arms stretched up over her head. Numbing the pain through her blindness.
She can still hear his voice cutting through the pain, strained and gasping around the syllables of her name. And that’s what is making her feel the burn of her muscles in her legs and the cut of the handcuffs into her wrists and the collapse of her lungs in her chest.
If he would just be quiet for a minute, she could focus through the haze, and find them both a way out of this.
The man’s hand comes down hard on one of the deep knife wounds along her back and she has to bite into her lower lip to stop the whimper. Her eyes almost open but she forces them shut again. When that hand pushes her forward so that her entire weight is hanging from her wrists, she can’t bite back the strangled yelp.
Her feet kick out, looking for solid ground but only connecting with the man’s knee. She tries to lash out harder but he lets her fall back, her toes brushing the cement floor as she feels something in her shoulders snap.
Castle’s babbling turns into shouts of protest and she can hear the sharp crack of the chair legs against the floor as he struggles to get free.
The barrel of a gun jams into her side just as the man steps up against her back. “Tell me,” the man growls into her ear.
He doesn’t give her a chance to say anything - she wasn’t going to speak anyway - before he pulls the trigger.
The click echoes in the room. Her head lolls forward, mouth open as she coughs raggedly with the quick adrenaline rush.
“Strike one.” The barrel reappears on her other side.
She doesn’t have the energy to tense up again when a second click sounds. “Strike two.”
The next shot rings clear, bouncing off of the brick walls. For a moment, she feels the burn of a bullet that never comes. A body hits the ground hard just as other voices join Castle’s. Someone bumps against her, wide hands at her waist as they lift her up off the hook on the ceiling.
She has her eyes closed but she can still hear his voice as the EMTs strap her onto a gurney.
Everything stings. The soft cotton of the blanket that the EMT wrapped around her shivering shoulders abrades her skin. There’s a sling holding up her right arm. Her feet keep slipping from the runner along the back of the ambulance, each slide off the metal re-opening the cuts on the bottom of her feet. She still hasn’t quite gotten control over her breathing; shallow, gasping exhales as she stares at the pavement that is being painted blue and red by the flashing lights.
She hasn’t let herself break down yet. It’s there, hiding in the shadows, waiting for her to finally let down that compartmentalized wall.
“Beckett! Kate!”
Her eyes flutter open, searching the bursts of light for him in the dark street. He swings around the side of the ambulance, his free hand already grabbing for her before he can come to a complete stop. That hand falls to his side as he looks at her.
“I’m o -”
“Do not say you’re okay,” he whispers harshly.
She nods slowly, eyes drifting down to the peek of her toes under the blanket. “You’re right.”
“Can I?” he asks, stepping closer, one hand feathering over her knee without pressing into the bare sliver of skin there.
Her body is already falling forward into his, her forehead touching his collarbone. His hands are light, gentle against her back. He’s touching open wounds but she doesn’t care.
Because when she pulls back, her eyes are wide open. He’s no longer a fuzzed-out voice in the darkness. Her fingers tremble as she drags them along his jaw, making sure he’s real. “I’ll be okay. We’ll be okay, right? Eventually?”
“Yeah,” he murmurs into her hair. “Eventually.”