Chapter 2

When he returns, and when the hot chocolate arrives, she is forced to admit after the very first sip that it is indeed the best hot chocolate she has ever had.

"Told you so," Castle says smugly. She's so delighted by the taste that she doesn't kill him for that, being too busy burying her face in the cream in the manner of a gourmandising tiger. She may re-emerge with more cream on her face than a two-year old, but she doesn't really care. She can even manage to ignore the ridiculously overdone decorations.

She can't ignore Castle's arm, back around her. He seems to have decided that his arm belongs around her in all circumstances short of the bullpen – it better be short of the bullpen or cases – and is making it clear. Possibly he's making it clear to a group of nice-enough-looking men in the inside corner, who are eyeing her up. Were eyeing her up. They aren't any more. Huh. She peeks at Castle, between two coughs. He's wearing a very strange expression – a mixture of smug, possessive, and affectionate. If she had to sum it up – though surely her cold has mushed her brain into porridge – she'd say that it said Mine. Well, it might be Christmas but she is not anyone's present. She'll decide what – or who – she does.

Castle's aftershave tickles her sniffling nostrils again. It is very attractive. It would no doubt be even more attractive if she weren't so stuffed up with the cold that she can only smell a little of it. It's just as well she can't smell more of it. She might be tempted to do something dumb.

As if she hasn't just done something dumb by snuggling into him and putting a hand on his knee, entirely accidentally. Castle's reaction speed would have astonished Isaac Newton, and possibly disproved Einstein's Theory. Santa Claus on Christmas Eve (if he existed and if faster-than-light travel weren't impossible) couldn't have moved faster than Castle. His hand lands over hers and imprisons it, which also means that she is held in considerably closer and tighter than had previously been the case. Castle, quite unfairly, is using his other hand for his hot chocolate, which is just far enough away that her nose is not assaulted by anything that might be a Christmas-spice smell. If she could smell anything, what with the cold and the aroma of Castle or his aftershave. She blows her nose, which doesn't really help.

Castle's clamped embrace has mutated into him burying his nose in her hair and ensuring that her ability to escape being cuddled in is zero, at least without inflicting severe and entirely unseasonable violence. Not that the season would stop her, since it doesn't stop any other form of criminal conduct or annoyance, but it's quite difficult to draw her unsilenced gun and shoot him while (one) no-one notices and (two) he's holding her hands. Plural. The sneaky so-and-so has managed to trap both of them. She tugs. Nothing happens.

"I want to drink my chocolate," she says. It should be a sharp snap of irritated briskness. Instead it sounds plaintive, and quite probably pathetic. Castle lets go of one hand, with a soft stroke over its back. Beckett coughs, and chases it with what turns out to be the last drips of her lovely chocolate. She eyes the bottom of the mug depressedly. "It's all gone," she sulks, with an extra dose of plaintiveness for good measure.

"That's easy," Castle says, regarding her carefully. "We'll have another one." He waves happily at the staff. "Are you sure you don't want any spices?"

"No, thank you," Beckett says. "I like mine plain and unadorned." She sneezes, in counterpoint.

"You like the simple things in life?" Castle asks mischievously.

"I like you," she snarks. "That's simple."

Castle doesn't appear fazed at all. "Of course liking me is simple. I'm very likeable," he oozes. Beckett is quite sure that wasn't what she meant. Didn't she mean you're simple? "I have very simple likes and dislikes too." She doesn't ask. One of his likes is sure to be Christmas. One of his dislikes is Scrooge. She is exactly the reverse.

"I like you," he murmurs. Yeah, well, the arm around her and the nuzzling had rather clued her into that. "And I think you like me a lot more than you let on." He smirks. "And we both like the hot chocolate."

The hot chocolate arrives at that moment, fortunately. The look in Castle's bright blue eyes didn't have much to do with Christmas saintliness, but had a lot to do with the creative definition of naughtiness while feeling very, very nice. Beckett hides in the chocolate and tries to ignore the answering response sending quivers down her nerves. She is rather afraid that she's failing. Even her appalling cold and hardwired cynicism about the commercially-induced ghastliness that Christmas seems to have become isn't blocking out her reaction to Castle's proximity and increasing levels of flirtation. He's now stroking her hand in a very interesting manner. She blows her nose. She doesn't actually need to blow her nose, for the first time today, but it's a useful way to calm down.

"Don't we?" Castle asks.

"Yes," Beckett has to admit. She means to reply to the comment about hot chocolate. Castle, however, takes shameless advantage of her short response to subvert the meaning. It's entirely unfair of him to use the effects of her cold to take shameless advantage of anything. Christmas is no excuse, either. She may be all wrapped up by him but she still isn't a present.

Unfortunately no-one told Castle that. He thinks she's a present. Specifically, he's decided that she's his present, and more specifically that this present is for kissing. He's leaned in and down and planted a surprisingly soft kiss on her lips. All terribly innocent. Until his tongue flicks along the seam of her astonished lips, which is not at all innocent and is terribly naughty. It also opens the present, so to speak.

Beckett discovers that hot chocolate with stupid Christmas spices is actually very nice. Even if it is second-hand. Castle lifts off, and smirks smugly.

"See?" he says. "I like you. You like me." He drinks his chocolate. Beckett tries out several responses for size in her head, and doesn't like any of them. They lack snark, sarcasm, or sardonicity (is that even a word, she wonders, and doesn't ask Castle). Instead, she sneezes. Snarkily. Then she drinks her chocolate. She'd do that sardonically, but drinking hot chocolate with whipped cream is not conducive to sardonic behaviour.

She coughs, again, and then again and again. She can't stop coughing, suddenly. When the spasm does stop, her eyes have teared up and her throat hurts. The hot chocolate solves the second. The first is only solvable by ruining a paper napkin, which, since it is decorated with ridiculously annoying jolly Santas is not in any way a problem. The more of those she ruins the better place the world will be. She uses another three before she's content that her eyes are perfectly dry.

"I think I'd better get you home," Castle says suavely. "I would have bought you dinner, but you'll just have to put up with take-out. Can't have you infecting the whole of Manhattan. It's not nice. Especially at Christmas."

"Bah, humbug!" is what Beckett means to say. Somehow all that emerges is atchoo!, which is not at all satisfying. Who cares that it's Christmas? Everyone gets colds in winter anyway. A nice dinner would have been – well, nice. And now she's being deprived of it. She humphs very sulkily. She would blow her nose on one of the stupid Santa napkins, to prove a point, but her nose is sore enough already, so she sticks to Kleenex.

Castle holds her coat for her, which seems to be a nice gesture but rapidly turns out to have the ulterior motive of putting her into it, stroking her from shoulder to ass, and then holding on to her. He doesn't miss the opportunity to keep stroking her hip, either. It's cheating. Definitely cheating. It's especially cheating because it feels really, really nice. Now he's steering her out the café, which she is perfectly capable of doing by herself despite the confusing effect of all that tinsel.

Annoyingly, despite the throngs of over-baggaged Christmas shoppers stopping in the way, walking so slowly that they might fall over, and blocking the sidewalk with their insane quantities of parcels, and despite the swirling snow, Castle picks out a cab instantly, ushers her into it and follows, giving her address and then ensuring that he's reinstated his arm around her. In point of fact, and despite her cold and lack of any holiday spirit whatsoever, he is making sure that she's tucked so close against him that he could tell the colour of her underwear by touch.

"There," he says happily. "All comfy." She looks crossly at him, and then blows her nose. He looks back, dips down and kisses the abused, sore tip of it, very carefully. "Kissed better."

"That's ridiculous. Kisses don't cure colds."

"I've never been convinced of that."

Beckett essays a glare, which is ruined by another coughing fit. Castle cuddles her in, and when she's finally finished wheezing plants a kiss on the top of her head.

"That won't help," she says.

"No, but it's nicer than cough syrup."

"For who?"

"Whom."

Beckett growls.

"Nicer for me. I don't like cough syrup."

"I'm the one with the cold here, and if I think cough syrup will help I'll take it. It's more use than dumb Christmas outfits and snowflakes, anyway."

"How about some Christmas spirit, Beckett?"

"I don't do Christmas spirit."

"You'll do this one," Castle says, cheerfully impervious to her hatred of the season and her incoming-nuclear-warhead glare. He halts the taxi for them to exit, turns them both into the entry of a small liquor store, lets go of Beckett, picks up three smallish bottles without hesitation or apparently looking, adds a packet of something from the counter that she can't be bothered to read, pays, and re-collects her. His bag clinks happily. It has a Christmas tree on the front. Beckett glares at that too, but sadly it doesn't turn into a scorched tree. It clinks even more merrily, instead. Beckett is not made merry by the noise.

"What is it?" she says.

"Christmas spirit. Since the humbugs got left at the precinct" – nice use of the passive-aggressive tense there, Castle: she deliberately left them there – "there should be some space in your head for some Christmas spirit."

"My head is full of cold," she argues.

"We'll displace it, then."

Somehow they've got to her building. Somehow Castle has kept her cuddled in all the way that they have walked from the liquor store. It has, thankfully, stopped snowing. The snowflakes might, at a pinch, be pretty outside but when they're melting on the floor they're nothing but a nuisance.

In Beckett's apartment Castle wanders to the kitchen as if it were his own, puts down the clinking bag and wanders back to Beckett.

"There," he says. He slips off his coat, hat and scarf and hangs them up, and then turns to her. She's been watching with open-mouthed irritation as he does all this. It's not his loft. It's her apartment. It's also resolutely devoid of any Christmas décor except a handful of cards and a small, table top sized, artificial tree with small white lights and the occasional small silver bauble. She wouldn't even have that except that it makes her father happy that she has one. He looks round. "Minimalist," he says.

"Yeah." So? She likes it that way. No mess, no fuss. As close to tasteful as the season can supply.

Castle is taking her coat off. This is quite unnecessary, as is the way in which he uses the action to sneakily stroke right down her torso. Just before she manages to formulate any objections, which are not instantly springing to her mind, he stops. Her initial disappointment is quite ridiculous. Her pleasure as he unwraps her scarf from her neck, stroking that, is equally ridiculous, especially when he manages to find a spot below her ear which causes her to wriggle a fraction and press against him.

"Oh," he says happily, and strokes it again. "Something simple that you like?" His tone changes to drip seduction over her. Then he leans in and kisses the spot. She wriggles again, more definitively. "Definitely keen on simple likes." And then he simply covers her mouth and invades.

All thoughts of Christmas or humbug fly out of Beckett's head, along with all other thoughts of any nature whatsoever. Who cares about Christmas? Just don't stop kissing her like that. His hands roam up and down her back, pressing her closer and closer. There's a lot of him to be pressed against, and she doesn't only mean his wide chest and firm thighs. She opens to his demanding tongue and embarks on some manual exploration.

It's all totally spoiled when she has to wrench her mouth from his and turn so that she can sneeze. That's not fair. She'd found something that didn't need to come with Christmas nonsense and her thrice-bedamned cold is ruining it. Bah, humbug!

When she tugs away, Castle initially acquires an expression containing an unpleasant combination of upset and annoyance, but as she sneezes, swiftly followed by another paroxysm of ghastly coughing, that rapidly changes to understanding and sympathy. He steers her to sitting on her couch, and then abandons her. He probably doesn't want to catch the cold, she thinks unhappily, especially since he does Christmas like it's going to be abolished. (which wouldn't, she reflects, be such a bad outcome. Certainly it would remove a lot of irritations from the month of December.) She turns round, and spots him investigating her cupboards, in which he finds a pan. The clinking bottles glug their contents into the pan, the packet of whatever it was follows, and shortly her apartment is full of the scent of hot alcohol. It does not smell like mulled wine. This is good. The smell of mulled wine triggers all her anti-Christmas instincts, and, at least in her imagination, also triggers her Glock.

"What's that?" she croaks out.

"Punch," Castle says. She looks blankly at him. "Punch. Hot alcoholic drink for winter in general. Not specifically about Christmas, Beckett," he adds slightly mischievously. "Good for coughs and colds and sore throats."

"Okay," she emits feebly, blindsided. It smells nice. And it has lots of alcohol. And it's not associated with Christmas so she won't feel like a hypocrite if she enjoys it. Castle is humming happily in the background as she takes a couple of lung-busting deep breaths. As she does her, completely forgotten, hat falls off. She goes to hang it up, and on her return route investigates the kitchen. Castle looks round, smiles widely, and stretches out the arm which is not occupied in stirring the punch to catch her in.

"It'll just be a few moments," he says. "You need to let the flavours blend."

"Okay," she says.

Castle takes a step away from the hot pan, and embraces her a good deal more forcefully. "I have some simple ideas for passing the time," he flirts. "Like this." He doesn't bother asking before he kisses her again. She'd pull him up on his bad manners if it wasn't that talking with your mouth full is also a display of very bad manners. Besides which, he's propping her up. Her knees are a little wobbly. This has nothing to do with his aroma. Nothing at all. It's nothing to do with her nine-month Castle-induced relationship drought either. Her hands slide into his hair, and her body melts into his.

For the second time, she has to break off to cough. This is truly irritating. Just as she was starting to think that everything was going beautifully, her cold intervenes. Bah, humbug. Her cold has no sense of timing at all. She'll name it Ryan, shortly. This time Castle doesn't let go of her, though he does extend one arm to give the punch a stir.

"We'll need mugs," he says. Beckett thinks that what she needs is not a mug but a magic cold-remover. If she could have one of those, right now, she'd even believe in Santa. For a moment.

"Left hand cupboard," she says, detaching herself half an instant before the sneeze arrives.

"Go and sit down. I'll bring it," Castle says helpfully. "If you try, you'll drop it all when you sneeze." Which last is not a helpful statement at all.

"Will this cure my cold?"

"Possibly. But you won't feel nearly as awful after you've drunk it."

Beckett cautiously takes a sip of steaming, aromatic liquid, and nearly drops the mug. "What's in that?" she squeaks. "Neat alcohol?"

"It's a secret recipe. Don't you like it?"

"Yes, but it's blown my head off."

Castle taps the top of her dark head. "Still seems to be attached to me." He kisses it. "Yep, it's there." Somehow his possessive arm has made its way back around her shoulders. She shifts a little to make herself entirely comfortable and ends up tucked in very close indeed. Another sip of punch is taken. It's delicious. Another one slides smoothly down her throat. It's even more delicious. Several more follow. It really is soothing her throat, and, after an elephantine blow of her nose, that's cleared too. Life suddenly looks a lot better.

As does Castle. He looks delectable, in fact. She sets her punch down with a very definite click, deprives him of his own mug in a second fast movement, and then frames his face to pull it round and kisses him, just as firmly as he'd earlier kissed her.

It's as explosive as a match thrown into gasoline. If she'd been able to think, she might have thought that all Castle had been waiting for was her to make her move. Now she has, and he's reacted in spades. He's hauled her into his lap, leant her backwards over his arm, and he might have begun by plundering her mouth but he's taken a detour to the spot that made her squeak and wriggle earlier and then he's avidly exploring down her throat and into the vee of her top. His other hand is exploring her hip.

Her hands are not exploring. They have discovered. Specifically, they have discovered the correct method of untucking his shirt and of undoing his buttons. Who needs a fat old man in a red suit to bring happiness? She'll have a muscular man in his birthday suit. No need for myths at all. It's all humbug. Reality is just fine, especially when it's in the form of a very solid and real Castle currently investigating the contents of her shirt – oooohhhhh. Just do that again, please… oooohhhhh. That's a much better ting-a-ling than sleigh bells. And her shivers have nothing to do with snowflakes glistening. Snowflakes are not required.

She's managed to open all of Castle's buttons and move on to his belt. Who needs to unwrap presents when she can unwrap this? Though she seems to be rather less wrapped than she has been. Skin touches skin, and suddenly heat flares between them and she's standing and pulling him behind her, the punch forgotten in the hot grip of lips on lips and the drumbeat of racing pulses.

He stops her before she crashes into the bed and turns her into him: his hands now slow and sure, intent on her; his mouth firm and insistent. Everything's slowing down: a seduction not an inferno; smooth not scorching; pure pleasure underlain by passionate possession. Hands wander, teasingly soft; lips roam, nibbling at pulse points. Shirts fall away, pants puddle on the floor, skin rubs over skin, hard heat meets moist warmth. Naughty fingers start to explore more interesting areas, and soon mutual stroking turns to a much more detailed investigation of the places that make her moan, the playful palming that makes him groan.

He gently pushes her down to sitting and then lying across the bed, it seems only mildly hampered by her wicked capture of some very sensitive areas. She definitely likes this night-time visitor a lot better than any stupid fat Santa. The only ample girth she likes is the one that's filling her hand right now.

In fact, she really doesn't need Santa, Christmas, decorations or anything else. She's pretty happy right now.

And then she stops thinking entirely as Castle demonstrates with consummate ability and an absolutely evil use of tongue and fingers that Santa is not the only person who comes at Christmas time.

When she recovers, she muses that oral reciprocation is probably out of the question. An ill-timed sneeze or cough could be very damaging. However, there are ways around that. Ten of them. Ten fingers tickling. So much more useful than ten lords a leaping. See, Christmas is totally unnecessary. It's humbug. She has a much better idea for making him happy. She employs her ten fingers to make him growl and gasp and groan, and then slithers over him to take him in properly. There is a predatory noise, she is pulled down flat against him, and then Castle rolls them and rises over her and it's impossibly, perfectly good.

She's lying, curled against his broad chest, perfectly happy, when she realises that Castle is rumbling. It resolves itself into words, eventually. Diction appears not to be his strong point when luxuriating in afterglow.

"See?" he says, "Christmas is about making people happy."

"You only want to be this happy at Christmas?" Beckett says naughtily.

"There's only one answer to that," Castle growls, and reaches for her. "Bah, humbug!"

Thank you to all readers and reviewers.

Happy Christmas, everyone, or Happy Holidays.