Give A Little Bit, Ch. 2---A Caskett 3-shot set just after Love Me Dead (2 x 09)
Title: Give a Little Bit, Ch. 2
WC: ~1900 this chapter, ~3300 so far
Summary: "He looks up, and for the first time in more years that he can remember, he wants to tell her about it. He wants to unburden himself and let his mother fuss and give him terrible advice. He wants to sprawl on the floor at her feet and look up at her free hand fluttering and the world through the bottom of her martini glass. He wants to tell her all about the girl he likes."
A/N: Three-shot set on Beckett's 30th birthday, just after Love Me Dead (2 x 09)
He decides he doesn't care. That he's going to do something anyway because the two of them . . . because he just is. They can leave him out. They can do whatever without him, whenever they're doing it, but there's nothing stopping him from marking the occasion somehow. That's what he decides.
Except it's not really a decision. It's more the inevitable outcome of moping. It's where he lands after a long, downhill slide from the precinct.
He goes home and does nothing. He goes out again at some point, too uncomfortable in his skin to sit or write or work on beating his personal best in balanced-pencil mustaches. The day gets away from him. He's been wandering the streets in this miserable stuff that's not quite rain. He realizes he's cold. That it's dark and he's soaked and he's chilled to the bone.
He turns into the nearest store front and blinks in the bright light. It's purple. A lot of it is, anyway. Tidy boxes in a deep, satiny shade. Smart diagonal ribbons tugged across their corners and neat stacks of gold foil things with jewel-tone labels piled next to them.
It's a chocolatier, he realizes. It smells amazing. There's a coffee bar way at the back. And judging from the peals of laughter rising up from a bright knot of girlfriends tottering on their stools, it's a bar bar, too. He steps through a wide doorway into another part of the space where wine racks rise in Xs to the ceiling.
He wanders the shelves a while, picking up long, slim bars and thick, heavy chunks in neat wax wrappings. He hefts squat bottles of boutique spirits and peers at the close, elegant writing that sprawls across the tent cards. Vosges Haut Chocolat. There are pairings of every kind. Wafers and wine, truffles and whisky, bars and tall bottles of craft beer.
"Can I . . . help you?"
He spins, startled by the small, cautious voice at his elbow. There's a basket in his hand that he doesn't remember picking up. He certainly doesn't remember filling it, but he must have. It's heavy as hell, and the momentum almost takes him right into the tiny woman who belongs to the voice.
She looks at him expectantly. He looks down at the basket. At the boxes and bars and wedges and bottles. He flushes hot under his rain-soaked clothes. He feels like a fool.
"This," he says in a rush. "I want to buy it."
The woman's blonde head dips to look. "All this?"
She's doubtful. He's tired of doubtful.
"This," he says again. "All of it."
His shoulder aches by the time he gets home. It's only a few blocks, but he's absolutely laden down.
His mother calls to him from upstairs as he barrels into the loft. He answers, kind of. A noncommittal greeting tossed over his shoulder as he rushes for his office, grateful the main floor is empty. He closes the door behind him and falls into his desk chair with the bag at his feet.
He prods it with one foot. He's appalled by it. Intimidated by its sheer weight and the haphazard variety inside. He doesn't know what he was thinking, except it's her birthday and it matters.
Misery settles over him again. He unpacks methodically, bottles first. He pairs them with their smart boxes and ribbon-bound stacks of bars. He hefts net bags tied off with ribbon and arranges everything in a row all across the desk. He starts a second row when he reaches the end.
He rifles through his desk for note cards and spoils a half dozen. A dozen and another half. There are angry starts and sentimental ones. Torturously crafted inside jokes and abandoned dirty limericks. They're trying too hard. They reaching for something. Whatever it is the two of them are, and he's spoiled every single one until he's left with the pen hanging loose in his hand nothing but Dear Kate at the top of the last of the cards he really likes.
He stares down at it long enough to get lost again. To miss the sound of heels clacking across the floor and the door being flung open dramatically.
"Richard, what on earth? I've been calling . . . "
His mother breaks off. She takes in the strange array covering the desk and his despondent slouch.
He looks up, and for the first time in more years that he can remember, he wants to tell her about it. He wants to unburden himself and let his mother fuss and give him terrible advice. He wants to sprawl on the floor at her feet and look up at her free hand fluttering and the world through the bottom of her martini glass. He wants to tell her all about the girl he likes.
"It's her birthday," he says as she wanders closer. She stands beside him, and he doesn't try to hide the card. He doesn't try to hide the name. Kate.
"Oh," she says, as she trails light fingers through his hair. "Oh, darling."
It feels inevitable by the time he turns the corner on to her block. Not that he has a plan or anything. Not that he has the faintest idea how to actually do this. Still, it feels inevitable, even if he doesn't know what it is.
He stands just outside the spill of the streetlight and stares up at her building. He hasn't been here. Not inside, anyway. She'd made him wait in the car a few weeks ago when she needed to grab something.
He'd whined. She'd ignored him to dash up and back. Less than the five minutes she'd promised. She'd brought him a cookie.
For being a good boy and staying in the car.
He'd stared at the cookie sitting there in the palm of her outstretched hand.
And what if I hadn't . . .
She'd brought her other hand up, lightning quick, to snap it in half and shove one part in his gaping mouth. She'd popped the other in her own, but it didn't quite hide the smile.
He stares up at the building, now. He counts windows and has no idea what's next. He knows the apartment number. He makes an educated guess and there are two possibilities, one light, one dark.
She's not home. It hits him like lightning. He feels stupider than ever. She wouldn't be. Whether it's her night with the gang or something quieter with her dad, there's no way she'd be home. It's her birthday.
He's still wondering what to do. He wants her to have this, now he's here. Now that he's agonized and narrowed it down from half the damned boutique and given up on anything more than a straightforward Happy birthday on the card. Her first name, his last, and those two words. Nothing more.
He wants her to know that it matters to him. That she matters to him, but there's no way she'll be home, and it's . . . tomorrow isn't good enough. He's stubborn and out of sorts and stupid and wet.
A sudden ruckus in the vestibule startles him. He'd no idea how close he'd wandered. The building's entrance is two glass doors and a bank of mailboxes in between. There's a woman with a boy of about five in tow. She's trying to wrangle a stroller, and the boy is bouncing at her side, getting under foot. Castle steps to the outer door. Her foot is wedged to hold it open. She's stretching back for the hooked handle of the stroller, but she can't quite make it.
Castle grabs the door handle and pulls it wide. It's just polite, at first. Nothing buy instinctive good manners, but he stares at the metal under his fingers like it's red hot. It's cheating or something. He wants Beckett to have the gift and the card and everything. He wants this stupidity out of his hands, but it feels creepy. Oozing in like this on the heels of coincidence feels creepy.
"Could you . . .?"
Castle's head snaps up. The woman is giving him a frazzled smile and nodding toward the inner door. The stroller's stuck there, and he hears the first warning signs of a baby about to wail.
"Of course." He looks down at the little boy. "You think you can hold this door for the lady?"
The boy eyes him suspiciously. "She's not a lady. She's my mom."
"Well, then, it's definitely your job to hold the door for her," Castle says solemnly.
The boy rolls his eyes, but does what he's asked. Castle steps into the vestibule and pulls the second door open, trapping himself between the glass and the metal wall of mailboxes.
The woman shakes her head and turns back for the stroller. The little boy is off and running the second her back hits the glass of the outer door to prop it open.
"Jamie!" She calls out as she whisks the stroller through and accomplishes an expert turn to point herself in the right direction.
She barely tosses a harried thank you over her shoulder before she's gone. Before he's alone, the inner door to Kate's building in one hand, the stupid bag in the other.
He inches cautiously down the hall at first, then straightens up and tries for casual. He can't stand it, though. This petty pace, he thinks grimly, and murderous Scots feel like a bad omen. He rushes in long, awkward strides that carry him all the way to the end of the corridor. It's hopeless. He's burning up. He feels so stupid, and he just wants it over with at this point.
He maps the door numbers to the windows, and hers is the one with dark windows if he's done the math right. She's not home. He knew. He knew, but the disappointment is crushing anyway, as he stands there staring at the unkind curves of the metal numbers underneath the peephole.
He hefts the bag in his hand. He really, really doesn't have a plan. He can't just leave it, can he? The East Village isn't the East Village any more, but it's still New York. With the way his current luck is going, someone will call it in as a suspicious package.
He can't just leave it, but he just . . . he's too caught up in this now. It's too much a living thing. The image of her smiling across a table at her dad, both of them trying to keep it light. Both of them missing Johanna.
Another image, and by now he doesn't know whether it's better or worse. Her in a dress. Something short, black, and devastating. One long leg crossed over the other as she perches on a bar stool, laughing and brushing shoulders with Lanie. Pounding the bar and knocking back shots.
He's too caught up to turn back, and before he knows it, he's crouching down and shoving the thick envelope under the door. He's testing the handles of the bag and thinking that the shallow recess of the doorway will have to do for cover. He's sizing it up, trying to pick the corner with the thickest shadows when the handle cranks and the door swings open.
A/N: Final chapter up later today. Thanks for reading.
WC: ~1900 this chapter, ~3300 so far
Summary: "He looks up, and for the first time in more years that he can remember, he wants to tell her about it. He wants to unburden himself and let his mother fuss and give him terrible advice. He wants to sprawl on the floor at her feet and look up at her free hand fluttering and the world through the bottom of her martini glass. He wants to tell her all about the girl he likes."
A/N: Three-shot set on Beckett's 30th birthday, just after Love Me Dead (2 x 09)
He decides he doesn't care. That he's going to do something anyway because the two of them . . . because he just is. They can leave him out. They can do whatever without him, whenever they're doing it, but there's nothing stopping him from marking the occasion somehow. That's what he decides.
Except it's not really a decision. It's more the inevitable outcome of moping. It's where he lands after a long, downhill slide from the precinct.
He goes home and does nothing. He goes out again at some point, too uncomfortable in his skin to sit or write or work on beating his personal best in balanced-pencil mustaches. The day gets away from him. He's been wandering the streets in this miserable stuff that's not quite rain. He realizes he's cold. That it's dark and he's soaked and he's chilled to the bone.
He turns into the nearest store front and blinks in the bright light. It's purple. A lot of it is, anyway. Tidy boxes in a deep, satiny shade. Smart diagonal ribbons tugged across their corners and neat stacks of gold foil things with jewel-tone labels piled next to them.
It's a chocolatier, he realizes. It smells amazing. There's a coffee bar way at the back. And judging from the peals of laughter rising up from a bright knot of girlfriends tottering on their stools, it's a bar bar, too. He steps through a wide doorway into another part of the space where wine racks rise in Xs to the ceiling.
He wanders the shelves a while, picking up long, slim bars and thick, heavy chunks in neat wax wrappings. He hefts squat bottles of boutique spirits and peers at the close, elegant writing that sprawls across the tent cards. Vosges Haut Chocolat. There are pairings of every kind. Wafers and wine, truffles and whisky, bars and tall bottles of craft beer.
"Can I . . . help you?"
He spins, startled by the small, cautious voice at his elbow. There's a basket in his hand that he doesn't remember picking up. He certainly doesn't remember filling it, but he must have. It's heavy as hell, and the momentum almost takes him right into the tiny woman who belongs to the voice.
She looks at him expectantly. He looks down at the basket. At the boxes and bars and wedges and bottles. He flushes hot under his rain-soaked clothes. He feels like a fool.
"This," he says in a rush. "I want to buy it."
The woman's blonde head dips to look. "All this?"
She's doubtful. He's tired of doubtful.
"This," he says again. "All of it."
His shoulder aches by the time he gets home. It's only a few blocks, but he's absolutely laden down.
His mother calls to him from upstairs as he barrels into the loft. He answers, kind of. A noncommittal greeting tossed over his shoulder as he rushes for his office, grateful the main floor is empty. He closes the door behind him and falls into his desk chair with the bag at his feet.
He prods it with one foot. He's appalled by it. Intimidated by its sheer weight and the haphazard variety inside. He doesn't know what he was thinking, except it's her birthday and it matters.
Misery settles over him again. He unpacks methodically, bottles first. He pairs them with their smart boxes and ribbon-bound stacks of bars. He hefts net bags tied off with ribbon and arranges everything in a row all across the desk. He starts a second row when he reaches the end.
He rifles through his desk for note cards and spoils a half dozen. A dozen and another half. There are angry starts and sentimental ones. Torturously crafted inside jokes and abandoned dirty limericks. They're trying too hard. They reaching for something. Whatever it is the two of them are, and he's spoiled every single one until he's left with the pen hanging loose in his hand nothing but Dear Kate at the top of the last of the cards he really likes.
He stares down at it long enough to get lost again. To miss the sound of heels clacking across the floor and the door being flung open dramatically.
"Richard, what on earth? I've been calling . . . "
His mother breaks off. She takes in the strange array covering the desk and his despondent slouch.
He looks up, and for the first time in more years that he can remember, he wants to tell her about it. He wants to unburden himself and let his mother fuss and give him terrible advice. He wants to sprawl on the floor at her feet and look up at her free hand fluttering and the world through the bottom of her martini glass. He wants to tell her all about the girl he likes.
"It's her birthday," he says as she wanders closer. She stands beside him, and he doesn't try to hide the card. He doesn't try to hide the name. Kate.
"Oh," she says, as she trails light fingers through his hair. "Oh, darling."
It feels inevitable by the time he turns the corner on to her block. Not that he has a plan or anything. Not that he has the faintest idea how to actually do this. Still, it feels inevitable, even if he doesn't know what it is.
He stands just outside the spill of the streetlight and stares up at her building. He hasn't been here. Not inside, anyway. She'd made him wait in the car a few weeks ago when she needed to grab something.
He'd whined. She'd ignored him to dash up and back. Less than the five minutes she'd promised. She'd brought him a cookie.
For being a good boy and staying in the car.
He'd stared at the cookie sitting there in the palm of her outstretched hand.
And what if I hadn't . . .
She'd brought her other hand up, lightning quick, to snap it in half and shove one part in his gaping mouth. She'd popped the other in her own, but it didn't quite hide the smile.
He stares up at the building, now. He counts windows and has no idea what's next. He knows the apartment number. He makes an educated guess and there are two possibilities, one light, one dark.
She's not home. It hits him like lightning. He feels stupider than ever. She wouldn't be. Whether it's her night with the gang or something quieter with her dad, there's no way she'd be home. It's her birthday.
He's still wondering what to do. He wants her to have this, now he's here. Now that he's agonized and narrowed it down from half the damned boutique and given up on anything more than a straightforward Happy birthday on the card. Her first name, his last, and those two words. Nothing more.
He wants her to know that it matters to him. That she matters to him, but there's no way she'll be home, and it's . . . tomorrow isn't good enough. He's stubborn and out of sorts and stupid and wet.
A sudden ruckus in the vestibule startles him. He'd no idea how close he'd wandered. The building's entrance is two glass doors and a bank of mailboxes in between. There's a woman with a boy of about five in tow. She's trying to wrangle a stroller, and the boy is bouncing at her side, getting under foot. Castle steps to the outer door. Her foot is wedged to hold it open. She's stretching back for the hooked handle of the stroller, but she can't quite make it.
Castle grabs the door handle and pulls it wide. It's just polite, at first. Nothing buy instinctive good manners, but he stares at the metal under his fingers like it's red hot. It's cheating or something. He wants Beckett to have the gift and the card and everything. He wants this stupidity out of his hands, but it feels creepy. Oozing in like this on the heels of coincidence feels creepy.
"Could you . . .?"
Castle's head snaps up. The woman is giving him a frazzled smile and nodding toward the inner door. The stroller's stuck there, and he hears the first warning signs of a baby about to wail.
"Of course." He looks down at the little boy. "You think you can hold this door for the lady?"
The boy eyes him suspiciously. "She's not a lady. She's my mom."
"Well, then, it's definitely your job to hold the door for her," Castle says solemnly.
The boy rolls his eyes, but does what he's asked. Castle steps into the vestibule and pulls the second door open, trapping himself between the glass and the metal wall of mailboxes.
The woman shakes her head and turns back for the stroller. The little boy is off and running the second her back hits the glass of the outer door to prop it open.
"Jamie!" She calls out as she whisks the stroller through and accomplishes an expert turn to point herself in the right direction.
She barely tosses a harried thank you over her shoulder before she's gone. Before he's alone, the inner door to Kate's building in one hand, the stupid bag in the other.
He inches cautiously down the hall at first, then straightens up and tries for casual. He can't stand it, though. This petty pace, he thinks grimly, and murderous Scots feel like a bad omen. He rushes in long, awkward strides that carry him all the way to the end of the corridor. It's hopeless. He's burning up. He feels so stupid, and he just wants it over with at this point.
He maps the door numbers to the windows, and hers is the one with dark windows if he's done the math right. She's not home. He knew. He knew, but the disappointment is crushing anyway, as he stands there staring at the unkind curves of the metal numbers underneath the peephole.
He hefts the bag in his hand. He really, really doesn't have a plan. He can't just leave it, can he? The East Village isn't the East Village any more, but it's still New York. With the way his current luck is going, someone will call it in as a suspicious package.
He can't just leave it, but he just . . . he's too caught up in this now. It's too much a living thing. The image of her smiling across a table at her dad, both of them trying to keep it light. Both of them missing Johanna.
Another image, and by now he doesn't know whether it's better or worse. Her in a dress. Something short, black, and devastating. One long leg crossed over the other as she perches on a bar stool, laughing and brushing shoulders with Lanie. Pounding the bar and knocking back shots.
He's too caught up to turn back, and before he knows it, he's crouching down and shoving the thick envelope under the door. He's testing the handles of the bag and thinking that the shallow recess of the doorway will have to do for cover. He's sizing it up, trying to pick the corner with the thickest shadows when the handle cranks and the door swings open.
A/N: Final chapter up later today. Thanks for reading.