(no subject)

[mmkaternater]

The NYPD doesn't have an official gym. Not anymore, anyway. Not since the basement in the bottom of the 12th had been found to contain "unusually high levels of asbestos" and not since everybody agreed that it was probably not a good idea for New York's Finest to run on treadmills located underneath five hundred pounds of the stuff. For the last five years, the District Attorney and the mayor had been trying to talk their constituents into springing for a new facility, but response was as sluggish as the blood flow through a diabetic's arteries. In the interim, the New York City branch of the FBI has offered use of their gym to any officer who wants to come in and burn off a few blue calories.

And that's where Castle is today.

Or, would be, more accurately, if he could get past the security cartel in the lobby. Despite the fact that Beckett had finally gotten around to getting him his own sent of presentable credentials, the G at the security desk isn't buying the whole "authorial ride-along" shtick, and Castle has had to sweat through three inter-departmental phone calls, a background check, and a number of pissed-off-looking agents who have filed in behind him, already looking like they just need an excuse to knock a guy's block off.

"I'm with Detective Kate Beckett," he tries again, hoisting his gym bag along his shoulder. "B-E-C-K-E-T-T. Badge number...hell, I don't know her badge number. Page her. She's expecting me."

The badge behind the desk cups his large hand over the mouthpiece of his phone. He looks like the kind of guy who uproots tree stumps in his spare time. "I don't have a record of you on the books, Mr. Castle. You're certain she was meeting you today?"

"Yeah, today. She's got to get re-certified in hand-to-hand combat next week. We were going to practice a few moves."

Stony silence. Castle hears a couple of Gs chuckle in line behind him.

"What?"

"No offense, Mr. Castle, but unless you're gonna' take dictation during her re-certification, she's probably gonna' do better on her own."

Castle casts a glance down to his top-of-the-line sneakers and never-been-sweated-in NYU t-shirt. "You think I don't have what it takes? I'll have you know, I can be pretty intimidating when I want to be. I made a waiter cry once."

The badge chuckles into his collar and returns to his phone call. Castle scans the lobby, touching his stomach with the tips of his fingers, looking dejected. A few seconds later the guy hangs up, gives Castle a tight smirk, and says, "All right, man. She's on her way down to collect you. 'Careful you don't knock her in the head with those forearms of yours."

"Watch it. I can take a maître d' out in two seconds flat."

Comments

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Come on, I want to see how it's done." He draws himself up to his full height and plants his sneakers on the mat, squaring his balance. "I signed a waiver, remember?"

[fanofthegenre]

"Okay, but don't say I didn't warn you."

At worst, she'll just succeed in taking his breath away - and not in the obvious way. If he doesn't squirm or panic and break the flow of things, that is. She grabs his forearm and spins, barely giving him time to blink before she presses back into his hips and bends her knees, hoisting him up and over her side.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Whoa! --" mid-flip, the whole room spinning wildly on its axis, Castle has a fraction of a second to appreciate the world from an upside down perspective before he's on his back on the mat, lungs shuddering.

There is appreciative applause from the peanut gallery.

His breath comes back to him in a rough, low gasp. He blinks up at her, his expression a fifty-fifty of surprise and appreciation.

"Wow." Voice strained, mostly from the effort of trying to peel his lungs off the back of his chest. "I think my entire life just flashed before my eyes. 'You remember Microsoft Office '95?"

[fanofthegenre]

There's a half-second's length of time where she's almost convinced she's really hurt him, but then he breathes and a part of her feels like she can breathe again as well. Her hands fall to her hips and she's fairly certain her smirk can be deciphered even from the G's who can only see the back of her head.

"If that's what your mind flashed back to, I think you really need to get a life," she teases, holding out a hand for him to use and hoist himself back up when he's regained his normal breathing rhythm again.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

He takes her forearm and flashes her a look -- Please excuse any sounds of a struggle I might make in getting up -- before he uses her for leverage to get to his feet. Some things crack and pop, but Castle's no worse for wear post-flight.

"All right. From now on, I'll leave the Karate Kid stuff to you." He folds his palms together and bows to her, a pupil before his sensei.

[fanofthegenre]

Her other hand comes around to clap him on the back, careful not to make hard contact in case he's trying to hide a tender muscle or a strained tendon. If it lingers, it's only unconscious and nothing else.

"You actually held your own." Her voice shows signs she's impressed.

"So, are we thinking hot shower or ice?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle feeds her a look that would be kicked out of a church if it had corporeal form.

"For me or for my bruised masculinity?" He waves a hand. "I'll be fine. 'Might sit down for a while, though. If you wanna' take a swing at some of the Everlast bags for extra practice, I can hang around. I can always pick up some tips watching you spar with a real opponent."

[fanofthegenre]

Beckett shrugs off the offer, already close to her cooling-down stage.

"Don't worry about it. I was able to go a few rounds while you were downstairs trying to get through the red tape." There's a stack of freshly-cleaned white cotton towels resting on a shelf near the mat; she heads in that direction to grab one and dab at the back of her neck.

"Besides, I could probably use the chance to soak."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"And gloat," he suggests, a very good sport about the fact that a ninety-pound female detective just kicked his ass up and down the gym. He tugs the zipper on his gym bag and pulls out a pair of bottled waters, passing one to her before he shifts the strap of the bag over his shoulder.

He cracks the cap on his bottle and takes a long swig, Adam's apple bobbing rhythmically. When he finishes, he drags the back of his wrist over his lips. "Gotta say, for the record? That was pretty hot. You didn't even flinch. It was just up and over. Authors-over-easy. 'Completely feeds my fantasy of you as an Amazon war goddess."

[fanofthegenre]

"An Amazon war goddess?" Beckett's voice reflects both incredulity and amusement; she manages to curb her smile to a degree where she can swig from the water bottle he's handed her, but she's already chuckling before she can swallow. Her own gym bag rests a few feet away; she leans over to pick it up, in a slow movement that won't put too much strain on her back.

By the time she's resituated, shifting the weight of the strap on her shoulder, she's face-to-face with Castle again.

"And are there theme-appropriate outfits that go along with this fantasy of yours?"

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"Several. But wardrobe really isn't important once you drag the dashing, albeit alarmingly-out-of-his-depth jungle explorer into your hut." His grin just barely teases the envelope.

[fanofthegenre]

She tilts her head, almost as if she's giving the idea a fair amount of thought - and then shakes her head.

"Roleplay might do it for you, Castle, but I'm a girl with simple tastes."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

"So I should cancel those tickets to the Congo, huh?"

He grabs a towel on his way off the mat, swinging the terrycloth around his shoulders like the prize fighter he isn't. 'Scrubs the back of his neck with one end and reflects on getting a gym membership, if only to keep up with her on the daily grind. They pass a group of feds working the weights and Castle sucks in his stomach. Frailty, thy name is 'author'.

[fanofthegenre]

There may be a slightly hidden smile as she catches that particular move in her periphery. Beckett rocks back onto the heels of her sneakers, balanced perfectly, as she waits for the elevator to rise.

"Anything else make it onto your day planner today?"

She's already picturing the scenario in her apartment: the clawed-foot bathtub, filled to brimming with hot water and some of the bath salts Kate had sent her as a Valentine's gift. The image alone is enough to send another flare of pain to her worked muscles.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Reminded, Castle pulls his iPhone out of his bag and flicks his thumb over the screen, checking messages. "Alexis has this Career Day thing at school. I've got to drop by the apartment for a shower and a change of clothes before I head over there." He banks a look at her. "Though I'm seriously starting to question the whole educational system if they want a guy like me in there giving career advice to high school students."

He frames the speech with a hand: "'Work hard, study hard, believe in yourself' --" he turns his wrist "-- but if you can't do any of that, crank out a couple of novels and wait for the champagne to start flowing."

[fanofthegenre]

"If I'd heard a speech like that on my school's Career Day? I don't know, maybe there wouldn't have been a Nikki Heat after all," she jokes, stepping onto the elevator once the doors open. Taking advantage of the brief respite, she lets her bag fall to the carpeted floor, rolling each of her shoulders in turn. Sparring is, admittedly, one of her favorite ways to exercise, but it can take its toll on the body, especially the move she'd been doing with Castle.

"It's good, though," Beckett adds. "That you're doing this kind of thing for her. Kids always say they'd rather their parents stayed far, far away, but secretly, they like it when they show up to chaperone field trips or parent-teacher conferences. It shows that you're a father who, you know, cares."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's used to compliments and even more used to knowing that they don't mean anything. But when Beckett tells him that she thinks he's doing a good job with Alexis, Castle knows she means it and it means more to him than he could say.

"You know how they say that your kids only want you around for so long, then you become 'uncool'." He's halfway toward somber now, watching the numbers tick down on the floor read-out. "I'm trying to delay that inevitability for as long as possible."

[fanofthegenre]

"Yeah, but even when you've reached 'uncool' status, you'll still be the one she wants to come to with her problems," Beckett says, watching him watch the descending numbers as the elevator groans and shudders.

"Believe me. I used to tell my mom everything, before - "

She stops herself, glances away, reaches for the water bottle jutting out of her bag to distract herself with it instead.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle hears her indrawn breath and it takes his attention off the descent. He scopes the side of her face for a tell, realizes what he's doing, and then softens his examination of her. What she's told him of her mother -- those few and far between glimpses of a life before the badge and the gun -- is frail and fragmentary. Castle imagines her words as a thin pane of brittle glass.

"I'm sure she was a great listener," he says gently. "I think you got that from her."

[fanofthegenre]

"She was," Beckett agrees, with a brief nod and an even briefer smile. The sound of the elevator, however, rescues her from having to embellish any further on the sensitive subject.

She bends to shoulder her bag, slipping out quickly and noting the look the officer behind the desk is all too readily shooting in Castle's direction. If looks could maim.

"Well, I'm sure you'll impart your words of wisdom on those impressionable minds," she says, her weight shifting from one sneakered foot to the other. There's a moment where she debates, briefly, over what to say next, but in the end, she settles.

"Give me a call," Beckett murmurs, "when you're free."

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

It sounds sterile and colourless and for a second Castle wonders if he's said something wrong or if she's just melancholy. In either case, he's not gong to do either of them any favours, so he chooses an even

"Sure"

and starts toward the cab stand outside. On his way out the revolving door he turns to fish a last look at her through the glass. Then the world takes him and he's gone.

[fanofthegenre]

There's a sigh that follows him out. Beckett counts to ten and then leaves for her own cab, her legs sore and her head full. The ride is silent, too quiet in comparison to the conversation that had lasted up until just before he'd left.

She mindlessly walks up the flights of stairs to her floor, lets herself in without really giving much thought to it. She strips down and stands over the tub, watching it fill like a drone and only remembering to add the bubbles at the last minute.

The hot water is a shock to her system, but an appreciated one, and she sinks in with a different kind of sigh this time, closing her eyes and pushing the bothersome thoughts away as the water idles over her skin.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's mother is finishing up a life-coaching session (in his office) when he returns. He can hear her affirmations from the foyer, all YES WE CAN!s REACH THAT SUMMIT!s at a going rate of $150 an hour. Castle toes out of his sneakers and dumps his keys in the bowl by the door, swinging his gym bag under the coffee table. He's still in Beckett's headspace, and has been ever since he left the gym. He knows that solemnity and her mother are inexorable, but he gets a cold twist in his chest whenever she brings the subject up or, god forbid, whenever he's stupid enough to stumble onto it.

If I could write it out of her history, I would, he thinks, and takes that thought back a half second after he thinks it. He'd spare her her pain, sure, and he'd do it a thousand times over. But so much of what Beckett is depends on what happened to her. It made the soft parts hard, and the hard parts like steel. It's what gives her the fire of her personality, fuels her ambition, and gives her that undefinable...well, Beckett-ness that he's come to know and admire.

'You is who you is and if you ain't who you is, then who is you?' as Guru Martha would say.

He strips in front of the bathroom mirror and takes a look at his ribs and chest. 'Couple of tender spots that will likely bruise over by morning. He's going to have to take it easy and not let Beckett know that he's this soft. She'll never trust him to leave the car if she knows he bruises like a Georgia peach.

The shower spray is almost scalding. Castle scrubs the sweat out of his skin and gives himself a few minutes beneath the jets, head bowed, eyes closed, thinking about what had happened at the gym. He starts to get interested, but detaches himself from the lustful reminiscing by choosing to shut off the water and step out. It feels inappropriate, especially after the last thing they'd said to one another.

Twenty minutes later he's clean and pressed, trading affectionate barbs with his mother before leaving the apartment for another lucky cab.

[fanofthegenre]

The water is just hot enough to soothe away any aches and pains that she may have suffered through in her work-out - even the small rounds she'd gone through with the punching bag would've been enough to fill her arms and legs with a small amount of stiffness. Her eyes drift closed as she inches down, sudsy water lapping over her clavicles and shoulders. It's all too easy to fall into the warmth-induced haze, punctuated only by the occasional sigh or the shifting of her weight, the sliding of one leg against the other.

Her eyes snap open to cold water and pruned skin. She's fallen asleep in the tub again, and hoists herself out with a small shiver, drying herself off quickly before she develops a chill. She's not due at work tonight, so she dresses down and scans through the numbers posted for different delivering restaurants on the fridge. Take-out food, a beer or two, a movie she's already seen at least a handful of times - Beckett has her own fun, but it may not be the stuff of book-premiere parties and club openings.

She's waiting for her pizza to arrive and the DVD is still looping on its main menu; for now, she's sprawled out on the couch, one arm resting across her stomach while the other props up beneath her head. In the semi-quiet, her mind drifts again, to earlier in the day, and rather than try to bury the thoughts again, she chooses to dwell on the image of Castle staring up at her from the mat with that ever-complicated expression on his face.

[bestsellingego.livejournal.com]

Castle's afternoon had consisted of being forced to sit in a rickety school desk for an hour and a half, waiting for his chance to speak about his job, while a parade of much-lauded firemen, financial advisers and construction workers spoke their piece before him. Well, maybe he was being generous with the financial advisers. Still, that being said, he didn't "blow it" as he'd predicted for himself, and he'd even gotten a thumbs-up from Alexis after the thing was over. She'd thanked him for sticking to the basics -- writing, research, the Creative Process -- instead of delineating into the field's subcategories (parties, publishers, creative sexual positions) and he'd said that he could see the sparkle of promise in some of their eyes.

"Just as long as they don't out-sell me," he'd amended, folding his daughter into his arms for a hug.

To be honest, he'd been thinking about Beckett throughout the entire speech, and when the bell rang, Castle is the first one out the door. Threading through a river of teenagers, he parks himself on the steps outside the school and thumbs through his iPhone contacts. 'Stops on Beckett's number and hovers over the 'SEND' button. His heart feels like a pendulum, swinging side to side in his chest. He pockets his phone and hails a cab. Beckett's apartment isn't too far from here and the streets slide by in a blur of twilight colour, all of the street lights winking on at once.

He gets out at her place and pays the driver, gamboling up the cupped stone steps to her respectable apartment. There's dim TV noise coming down the hall on either side. Castle brings his knuckles up to her door and knocks. The pendulum in his chest swings again.