Abbraccio, A Caskett One-Shot tag for Undead Again (4 x 22)
Title: Abbraccio
WC: ~1200
Rating: K+
Summary: “ She tries to let it be enough, but these have been long, awful weeks and it does no good to deny that it's hard to watch him walk away, both of them with open wounds.” One-shot tag for Undead Again (4 x 22)
They part friends. More than friends, though she holds her breath against that. Hope. She holds her breath and tries to let what this is be enough.
I . . . think I understand.
Something like their old, easy camaraderie and the promise of tomorrow. She tries to let it be enough, but these have been long, awful weeks and it does no good to deny that it's hard to watch him walk away, both of them with open wounds.
It's hard to know that he knows. To suspect, because what else could it have been back in that hospital corridor? What else could it have been?
She's left wondering. Mechanically straightening her desk while the useless whys and hows of it occupy her mind. He knows. He's been punishing her. He's been . . . going. Leaving, and now he's not.
I'd like to be there when it does.
She presses a hand to her stomach, telling herself that it's hope. The rise and fall of her insides. Hope. It is, and it isn't. Because he was going and things have been awful.
She comes to her mug. The worst of it. It's the worst in the whole break room. It has a practically invisible crack in the base of the handle, so it rocks and threatens to snap off entirely. A chip in the rim that leaves the unpleasant, grainy sensation of unglazed ceramic on her skin. It's penance. The only one she's allowed herself to use while he's been scarce at the precinct. While he's been empty handed when he hasn't made himself scarce.
She carries the mug to the break room. Empties it and winces at the stale smell. She hasn't been diligent. She's dumped cold dregs and poured burned sludge from the bottom of an old pot right on top. Penance, she thinks as she washes it carefully now. And anger. Soul-deep hurt over what he's said and hasn't said.
She wishes he'd stayed tonight. She's sure of it as she sets the mug a little too firmly in the dish drainer. Something pings against the draining board. Another chip to keep the first company. She brushes her fingers over the bottom of the mug in apology. Strange apology for her rough handling. Her carelessness. Still, she wishes he'd stayed.
She turns from the sink and finds herself tidying there, too. Sorting colored packets and bringing plastic stirrers flush with one another. Finding something in this world she can impose order on.
She mops up spills. She runs a thin stream of water over a wad of cheap, rough paper towel and coaxes errant grains of sugar into her palm. Flakes of non-dairy creamer and cereal and other nameless things. She works methodically, pulling canisters away from the wall and pushing them back into neat rows. Sweeping trash into her cupped hand and ridding this corner of the world of chaos.
Her insides rise and fall. She's angry. She's hurt. She's relieved and then angry again when she sees a flash of long, pale leg disappearing behind the wheel of his Ferrari. When the memory of cloying perfume is thick in her nose.
She has an appointment with Burke in the morning, and that's good. She's eager for it. Impatient. It's for the best that she do this carefully. She knows it's for the best, but she stands in the middle of the break room-she stands in the middle of this newly tidy loneliness-and she wishes he'd stayed.
He's lighter as he goes. He presses his back to the wall of the elevator, weak with relief and something not quite so nice. The sudden removal of the bitter, gnawing anger that's kept him upright all these weeks. It leaves him weak, and there's too much room for other things.
Hope, and he can't quite be glad of its return. He's too fearful of its keen, cutting edge. Too exhausted still by how badly that moment hurt. Too mistrustful that there can be some explanation-any explanation other than pity from her. Cruelty, though his heart has never understood how the two go together in the rendition of her that he's lashed out at and turned away from all these weeks.
It leaves too much room for regret. For searing shame and wicked, coiling jealousy when he thinks of her bare skin brushing a shoulder that's not his. When he thinks of his own tight-lipped silence. The way he laughed fiercely, slamming himself forward from moment to moment like he could unlearn how he'd come to be these last four years. How he'd come to be by her side.
There's too much room for every question he told himself it was pointless to ask. Pointless, because only one answer mattered: She doesn't love him. She's never loved him. She can't love him. Except . . . she does. She might. She could?
There's too much room in him, filling up too quickly. With anger that makes his heart sore, so different from the cold, black thing of all these weeks. With indignation, because how could she not feel safe with him? How could she not know that she has his heart and he'd be so careful with hers? With shame again, because he's been faithless and awful. Indignation and a different kind of anger still, because what is faithlessness when you're in a mess like this? With doubt, because he's too good at this. These house-of-cards stories he tells himself about them. He's too terribly good at it.
He sighs and knocks his head against the back wall of the elevator. He stares out at the wide world as the doors open, and there's too much.
There's too much he doesn't know.
"Beckett?"
It's so quiet, she's sure she must have imagined it. She's sure it's wishful thinking. She makes her self manhandle another high stool into place under the table before she lets herself turn. Before she braces herself for the doorway that must be empty, because she imagined it. She must have imagined it.
But he's there. His broad shoulders fill the blank space of the open door, even though he's bowed. He's unwound the rough, tattered scarf from his neck and he's worrying it between his hands. He's silent now, and her breath catches in her throat. A moment where she's sure she's imagining all this and it's bad. She's seeing things.
But he makes up his mind, and she knows then that it's him. The shift on his feet and the square of his shoulders as he lifts his chin. Anger and hurt on his face that her mind would have done differently if it weren't him. Better and worse, that's what her mind would have done, but this is him.
"Castle."
It's quieter, if that's possible. Her own voice is quiet enough to be almost lost in even the hush of the precinct this late, but it doesn't matter.
He moves and she moves and his arms are around her, tight. Tight. He ducks his head. An awkward last-minute swerve so the makeup is away from her and it's the real skin of his cheek pressed to hers. She locks her hands together behind his back, pressing her ear hard to his chest and hearing the thank god thank god thank god rhythm of two hearts as they cling to each other. As they hold on.
"I missed you." The words wind together in the late hour quiet and she doesn't know if they're hers or his. It doesn't matter.
They hold on.
abbraccio-Italian-Etymology-m (plural abbracci)
1. embrace, hug
2. brace (that which holds tightly)
This was the NPR tumblr word of the day yesterday, and it inspired me to this short thing.