Disclaimer: I own an awesome pancake recipe, but none of what else is featured herein...

How has he never been here before?

This is what he thinks to himself as they wander around the charming little grocery store near Kate's apartment. Castle is amazed she even knows where one is, but is then doubly surprised that she doesn't cook more, if this is where she shops. He's going to have to start coming over here to buy food. They have everything. He keeps expecting Daniel Boulud or someone to walk by, shopping cart in hand.

The cheese section alone makes him slightly weepy.

Kate, sadly, does not weep, even after he explains the wonderfully underrated charms of goat's milk cheeses.

"Oh, Kate, look at this. This stuff is great."

She looks over his shoulder at the bottle he's holding. She shakes her head.

"We don't need first cold pressed olive oil for pancakes. We don't need any oil for pancakes, actually."

"Yes, I am aware of how to make pancakes," he says. "But I thought you could use a little tour of a store like this. It's called a grocery store. This is where you can buy the things can be put together to create food."

"And my apartment is a place where we could make food, and then eat food, and then burn off that food. Or would you like to give your speech on stinky cheeses again?"

"No no, you're right, we can get to the burning off plan..."

Kate's kitchen is not large. At least, not compared to his. However, in this specific instance, a lack of space is working to his advantage, since it means a return to the whole glorious bumping and touching thing that they've recently introduced into their repertoire.

"Can you hand me the vinegar?" he asks.

"Vinegar? Seriously, Castle?"

"Someone who wanted to use Bisquick cannot criticize the recipe of a true pancake artisan."

"Pancake Artisan? I don't think my kitchen is big enough for the three of us. Maybe I should leave things to you and your ego." She moves away from him, but he reaches out with his non-whisking arm, pulls her back to his side.

She leans into him, dips her pinky finger delicately into the batter, brings it to her mouth. When she slowly licks the batter off of her finger, he can feel it in his groin.

"Okay, fine, Artisan it is," she says with such a smile that he fumbles pouring the batter into the skillet. The resulting puddle looks less like a pancake and more like a sperm hugging an ottoman. She looks into the skillet and giggles.

"Maybe I spoke too soon," she says. He should feel insulted, should point out that his less than graceful shaping is her fault, except that she giggled, and he's found that his IQ temporarily drops forty points every time she giggles.

He fiddles with the skillet, flipping a few pancakes as Kate grabs plates and syrup. He has to wonder about a woman who didn't have milk or eggs in her fridge, but did have maple syrup.

He motions for her to hold out a plate, and when she does, he drops the ottoman pancake and one he tried to make into glock onto it. He's always enjoyed making his pancakes into shapes. He claims it's because he has a daughter he likes to make laugh, but really, he does it because it's fun.

Kate looks at his creations, cocks her eyebrow. Yeah, she can see through him, he knows, but they are alone and flirting together in her kitchen on a Saturday afternoon, and if she thinks he's a dork but still has him here... he'll take it.

She hops up on the counter to eat, and rather than load up another plate, he just drops more pancakes - Mickey Mouses this time - onto hers. He comes and stands between the vee of her legs, and she in turn slices off a bit of pancake with her fork, holds it out for him to eat.

As he chews, he realizes that, careful as she is, she's really a bit of a sloppy cook. She has flour dusting her cheek, her forearm, and the thighs of her jeans. He can't help himself, he laughs.

"What?"

He rubs his thumb over her cheek, shows her the flour that has accumulated on the pad there. "You, my dear Kate, are a bit of a mess."

"Hmmm..." she says, and her eyes darken in a way that is both fun and calculating. He loves this side of her.

Her free hand comes around before he's really aware, and flicks him in the nose, leaving a line of maple syrup on the tip.

He reaches to her side, tries to find his own weapon and she strikes again, this time with a handful of flour dusted into his hair. His fingers come down in the butter, so he smears it onto the exposed skin of her midriff where her shirt has ridden up. She gasps and gives him a look that let's him know that the opening sorties are over.

Things do not get less childish after that.

It doesn't take long until they and most of her kitchen surfaces are covered with milk and flour, syrup, butter, sugar and the rest, and he's got her pined hard against her refrigerator while she's holding an uncracked egg over his head.

He looks at her and promptly forgets the egg of Damocles she's holding. Her face is covered in flour and she even has a bit of eggshell stuck in her eyebrow, and yet he's so completely taken by the look in her eyes that he has trouble breathing, so he pushes harder into her, forgets the game, and takes her mouth with his.

She drops the egg. He can't tell if it lands on him or not, as all he's really aware of is how one of her hands is pulling hard at the back of his head and the other is sliding along the waistband of his jeans, tickling the sensitive skin there.

"Bed?" he manages to gasp out.

"Here."

He looks down at the floor. "Spanish tile?"

In response, she flicks open the button of his jeans, runs her hand lower.

"Here," he says.

"Eyah, this tile is cold."

"Opens in the front, Rick."

"Um, you're on my hair..."

"An inch to the righ... oh yes, yes, oh god."

"Ricky? You're really going with Ricky?"

"Your knee is, um..."

"Just trying to get leverage."

"Leave the syrup and butter where they are."

"Cramping is not to be taken lightly."

"More."

"Oh, Jeez, ouch. Man, there's a reason none of this part ever makes it into the romance novels."

"You read romance novels?" she asks, before echoing his grunt with her own.

"Okay, the romantic interludes of crime novels. Oh, let me help with that," he says, rolling onto his side and taking her hand away from her hair. He reaches behind her, untangling her hair from her bra. One of the things that neither of them had quite anticipated was that flour and eggs and the heat from some otherwise very nice friction can all combined to form a sort of glue. They are lying on Kate's kitchen floor, half-naked and half-glued to all the detritus of their aborted food fight. It's an entirely ridiculous scene, and if he were here with anyone but Kate, he'd be mortified right now. Instead he's just exhausted and happy.

"I really should have thought of this, but pancakes aren't a normal part of my foreplay routine."

"Because the rest of the prior twenty four hours are?"

"Touche'."

"This scene will not appear in any of your books, ever."

"Not on par with tequila shots, is that what you are saying?"

She softens, sits up. The exposed skin of her back makes a pathetic popping noise as it stickily pulls away from the tile. It sounds, vaguely, like opening Tupperware, but they both ignore it as she leans in, kisses him again.

"Better than tequila, but since everyone already thinks we live out all of your sex scenes..."

"I think we need a shower."

"We need to clean my kitchen."

"Shower, then clean."

"Clean, then shower."

He looks around. He's actually the neater of the two of them, and he's in enough of a post-coital bliss that he'll do whatever she asks anyway. He stands, helps her up, even though their hands stick together as he does so. He looks around the kitchen as he pulls his shirt back on, has to wrestle it over bits of flesh that have batter stuck to them. He can't help but laugh at the scene.

"What?" she asks.

"Look around."

She shakes her head, but looks closely at her kitchen. He can tell the moment that she sees what he's seen. She smiles that smile he's so used to, when she finds something funny, but doesn't want to admit it to him. But it really is funny. All the flour and batter, in addition to acting like glue, has also acted like paint. Her kitchen is covered in hand prints, ass prints, and ... other signs ... of what they've just been doing.

For a second he's tempted...

"Don't think of it, Castle."

"What?"

"Taking a picture."

He shakes his head to deny it, because of course that is what he was thinking.

"Come on. The faster we get this done, the more time we can spend in the shower before dinner with Alexis. The cleaning supplies are under the sink."

"I've fantasized about this moment for years, you know, and I can't say any of the fantasies ever involved the line 'the cleaning supplies are under the sink.'"

"Not one French Maid fantasy? That surprises me," she says, handing him paper towels.

"Okay, so there were a few."

"Good, since you'd look cute it a little white apron."

"I really would," he says.

A/N: So, that's the end for now, since sexytimes, albeit gluey sexytimes, have occurred. However, the plot demons have already attacked my pretty little head, so a sequel will start soon.