L'amour des deux lapins: Instantanés Ch. 1, A Caskett 2-shot in the Bunneh-Verse
Title: L'amour des deux lapins: Instantanés, Ch. 1
WC: ~2100, this chapter
Rating: K+
Summary: " 'Nothing,' Castle says, curling his fingers under Ferrous's heavy, freckled chin and getting an even wider smile for his efforts. 'She doesn't want anything for her birthday'."
A/N: Bunneh-verse two-shot. Solely the responsibility of Cora Clavia. The series isn't particularly continuity dependent, but this comes after L'amour des deux lapins: Ce ne est pas un caneton.
He's fast asleep. On his belly with his limbs flung out and his cheek mashed hard into the pillow like he's making up for lost time. He might be. He's a heavy sleeper by nature. When sleep comes, he is anyway, but he's changed his ways since they've shared a bed. Before that, maybe, she reminds herself, as she pictures him ducking under crime scene tape by streetlight, his hands curled around the long-familiar his-and-hers cups.
He's at the ready, usually. On his side with his fingers at her hip on any given night. Up and moving, if not alert, as soon as she is. When the call comes and sunrise is still just a maybe. But he's out good right now. He must know she's already been up. That it's morning on a day that's his and hers and theirs.
He snorts, suddenly, just as she's reveling in the fact that there's nowhere they'll need to be. A sharp inhale that pushes his shoulder blades farther apart. It raises his ribs and the blankets along with them. The tiny black rabbit takes it as a sign. She coils herself to make a dash for his head, but Kate's hand is there.
"No," she says in a low voice as she turns her 180 degrees and sets her on the pillow, almost nose to nose. "He's not really up."
The rabbit slaps her paws down hard a hair's breadth from Kate's skin, and turns back. She stays put, though. She's annoyed, showing Kate the puff of her tail, but she stays put.
"See? He's smiling. He's having a good dream." Batman chirps and swings her head around briefly. An incredulous look. "Ok. Or he could be up to something. A definite possibility."
"Not up to something." The words are barely audible, but the eye closest to her is open and bright. Alert, and she wonders if he's been faking it. "Tell her I'm not up to something." He peels his cheek off the pillow and inches backward. Batman chatters at him, kneading the pillow like she's gearing up.
"He's not." Kate tugs the tip of one long, black ear. "He knows, because I've told him a dozen times, I don't want anything." She lifts her chin clear of the little black body to fix him with a stare. "Nothing. No fuss."
"Nothing," he repeats sulkily. "No fuss. I get it." He plants his face back in the pillow, nose first, so all she can see is his ear and the few wild tufts of hair Batman is dying to get her paws on.
"Where's Ferrous?" he asks through cotton and down. "Ferrous believes me."
The bed rumbles. There's a mighty snore that sends a ripple all through the expanse of pillows above their heads. Batman chirps and makes a run for the tawny, sprawling heap just as the big rabbit raises his head and blinks a happy good morning at them both. All three of them.
"Nothing," Castle says, curling his fingers under Ferrous's heavy, freckled chin and getting an even wider smile for his efforts. "She doesn't want anything for her birthday."
Ferrous isn't listening, though. Batman is pummeling his side, front paws, then back as she kneads his body and settles into the hollow curve of it. Neither of them is listening, curled up and heavy with sleep in an instant.
"Nothing," Kate says. She lifts his arm and rolls under it, fitting herself against him, too. "I mean it."
"You mean it." He burrows against her neck and she shivers with the luxury of weekend stubble burn. "No fuss."
She does mean it, sort of. And she doesn't. It's the kind of game she's never imagined herself playing. And it's not a game at all. It's no simple demurral. It's not a test to see how well he reads her. It's not some bait and switch so she can roll her eyes down the line and tell everyone what a fool he was for taking her at her word.
It's nothing like that.
He's good at this. They are. He does take her at her word. It's just that he hears the words she doesn't say. He picks out the right ones from the mess she still feels like inside sometimes, and he listens to those, too. He holds them up to the light, and it's not that he knows what's good for it. It's that she does and he helps her see that.
She does the same for him, more often than she ever thought she'd need to. He hides his scars differently. Indulgence and grand gestures where she's austere. It's an odd fit, but a good one, and she knows it won't be nothing, no matter how many times she says it and he says it back.
It'll be less than he's inclined to do. The thought makes her smile. Afterward, he'll grumble about how mean she is. He's How there's a debt of honor still outstanding because she went huge the year he was laid up with his stupid knee and he has to get her back. He gets a jump on that some nights.
"It's about balance." His toes nudge at the back of her tablet from his end of the couch. "How long can I go with with this enormous karmic debt hanging over my head?" Ferrous stirs, annoyed at the sudden movement. He kicks out with his back feet, thumping Castle solidly in the side of the thigh.
"You'll find a way," she taps the big rabbit between the ears. A half-hearted warning. Batman chatters for emphasis then settles. She goes quiet as Kate does. "Not with this, though."
"Not with this." He hauls Ferrous on to his chest and says the words to him. They both look a little miserable, Castle for show and Ferrous in earnest. Ferrous just wants everyone to be happy. "We'll draw the shades and cover the mirrors in crepe, won't we, Big Guy? Because she doesn't want anything."
The clues start not long after that. Not clues, exactly. And not hints, either. Not entirely. He leaves strange things just barely sticking out of closets and drawers. The silk end of something. Two somethings, one wide and one narrow in a dark, jewel-tone print. She just has time to see that before he shoos her away.
"Going through my underwear drawer again?" He boxes her in between the bureau and the wing-back chair. "You know you only have to ask. I'd be happy to give you a guided tour."
He pitches his voice low and backs her against the wall, but it's a diversion. Batman is already running furious figure-eights around their ankles and Ferrous is backing up hard with the hem of one pant leg held fast in his teeth.
"I'm not the snoop here, Castle." She bumps him with her hip and stoops to retrieve Batman.
"True. Hey!" He snaps his fingers. Ferrous freezes. His nose points at the floor in abject guilt, but it takes another warning before he lets the fabric go. "I've always been impressed by the way you leave it at the office, Beckett." He blocks her view of the dresser with his body, opening and closing the drawer quickly. Tucking whatever it is out of sight. Turning to lean casually against it. "Me? I'd be dying to know what's in the drawer, but not you."
She gives him a hard look. Batman doubles it, but he's smiling.
"I wouldn't worry about it anyway." He snaps his fingers again and Ferrous heaves himself into the air, turning to hop along at heel. "It's nothing.
Kate clenches her teeth. She rucks up Batman's fur and puts her back to the drawer. "Nothing," she tells the little rabbit. "It's nothing."
Feathers are the next . . . whatever. Shot over the bow. Preemptive admission of guilt. Feathers, and she has no idea what that's about. Yellow, pink, and satin black. One here and another there.
"Oops."
He sweeps them up as soon as she sees them. He gives her a faux sheepish grin. A real one when there's one stuck to Ferrous's nose.
"How many do you think he ate before that?" She folds her arms and glares.
"One," he says quickly. "Not even. It was just . . ." He narrows his eyes, but he's half glad to be caught. "Just that little piece." He tries for causal and overshoots. "Something Alexis was wearing."
"Alexis." Kate's voice is flat. Batman gives him A Look over the rim of her oversized coffee cup. Just on principle.
"My mother." He scowls at himself. "My mother would have been more plausible with feathers."
"Slightly more plausible," she tells Batman. She curves her palms around the black heap of little rabbit, corralling her and ticking her sides. "He's a hopeless liar, you know."
"Only when I want to be."
There's not much in the way of physical evidence after that. There are phone calls he lets her hear the tail end of, but they make no sense. She hears something about costume jewelry and then some chemical name he has trouble pronouncing. When she looks it up, it's use for half a dozen things, none of which has anything to do with the others. There's no pattern and it's kind of maddening that he, of all people, can keep a secret when he wants to. That he's only a hopeless liar when he wants to be.
There's a lot of whispering. A lot of bent heads and sudden silence and she panics a little when he holes up with Gates for half an hour one day. She watches it unfold through the glass, and it's odd. The Captain's short, sharp gestures and the look of stubborn patience that might get him killed under the circumstances. The apologetic gesture to the windows between them and the bullpen and Gates actually closes the blinds. It definitely might get him killed.
There's a buzz after that. Ryan and Esposito. A nod and a big grin from Lanie the next time they're down with her. She officially starts to worry when her phone rings later that day.
"Hi, Dad." She picks up right away. It's not like him to call out of the blue. It's not like him to call her at work, and it's a little heart stopping.
"Katie!"
He sounds surprised, and she's suddenly aware that Castle's hovering at her shoulder. She whips her head around and catches the grimace he's not quite quick enough to hide.
"Tell him hi," he says in a too-loud whisper. He waves a hand at the phone. "Your dad, right?"
She's busy enough glaring at him that she misses most of whatever her dad is saying. It's just as well, though. It's a lie, whatever it is.
". . . where my head is."
"No. It's fine, Dad." She arches an eyebrow at Castle. "I get it."
She doesn't, though. She doesn't get how any of it fits together. Castle's phone rings exactly two minutes later. He ducks out of the bullpen and she knows it's her dad. She knows it has to be, and she's officially worried.
There are rabbits where they shouldn't be when she gets home. They're content enough, but they're snoozing on the kitchen counter, and Castle is nowhere in sight. She doesn't call out for him right away. She takes in the scene.
Batman's belly pooches out like she's fuller than full. Ferrous's whiskers have a tell-tale orange tint to them. There's been some serious snacking going on.
"New trick, Big Guy?" She strokes her fingers through their fur, dark, light, and dark again. "Show me?"
She taps Ferrous between the ears. They're both heavy headed, but she knows she's right. Carrots and Batman's ears sitting a more stubborn angle than usual can only mean he's been fending her off and bribing Ferrous, but she doesn't know what it has to do with anything. With Gates and her dad and him slipping out early.
"What's he up to?" she whispers.
"Nothing." A glass of wine lands on the counter next to her. His hands curve at each hip and his lips brush the skin just behind her ear. "Promised, didn't I?"
Batman clacks her teeth and Ferrous stirs, blinking heavily at the two of them. Worry flutters against Kate's ribs, but it's not long for this world. It's no match for the ease that flows between them. She turns in his arms a nyway, clumsy and struggling. She tips her head back and searches his face. His eyes are clear and bright. There's a little line between his brows because he hates when she doesn't believe him. When she even pretends she doesn't believe him.
"You did," she says, kissing him. "You promised."