tumblr prompt: I'd love to read a story that incorporated a significant lime, a pair of woolly socks, and an unfriendly cat. You know, if you get bored and need something obscure to write about. No pressure.

A Significant Lime

for international08
this is what happens when I write about cats
and for the anon who left me the prompt

"What is this?" she mutters, steps back when it comes closer.

"You superstitious, Beckett?"

Kate lifts her eyes to him, her gun at her thigh. "No."

Castle follows her into position, his eyes on the animal. "Black cat just crossed your path. Witch's familiar-"

"Keep your voice down," she mutters. Kate ducks her head around the side of the dumpster in the alleyway in Spanish Harlem, then turns back to Castle. "I just don't want the stupid cat to give away our position."

"Uh-huh. He's cute. He's a tiny thing." Castle reaches out for the black cat and it hisses, fangs and all, claws coming out to swipe his hand. "Ow. Ow, ow-"

Kate elbows him hard. "You need to be quiet."

He sucks on his bleeding hand and she wrinkles her nose, turns back to the dumpster and its view, keeping her eyes on the back door. At just that moment, their suspect slips out, a woman following behind him as they carry a bag towards a late model Ford. The door is propped open, partially obscuring her view of the woman, but she seems to be dragging something behind her.

Kate messages Esposito to say they have their suspect in sight, then half turns to Castle. "Ready?"

He nods and she steps out from behind the dumpster, aiming her weapon.

"Freeze! NYPD!"

He has no idea what happens next. There's a moment, just like there always is, when the suspects freeze and all is perfectly still, entirely calm, and then all hell breaks loose.

There's a dog.

There's the cat twining around his ankles.

There's the dog lunging for Kate, and the cat climbing his legs, and a gunshot, and the yelling suspects, and Esposito firing back, and Castle's fingers are gripped around the dog's muzzle, that peculiar warm tongue, and then fierce claws in his neck, another gunshot-

When it's back to still, quiet again, he's bleeding, she's bleeding, and they each have an animal.

Kate winces when the shot goes in, closes her eyes a moment.

"Better than they used to be," the old ER doctor mutters. "Used to get them in the gut. Burned and cramped. One a week for weeks and-"

"Thanks," Beckett grits out, feeling this innoculation burning as well - she would almost rather have it in her stomach than her ass. Rabies. Damn dog. And why in the world was Castle already current on his rabies vaccination? He said he just had a booster. In Vegas, Kate, wink, wink.

She's not sure he's kidding.

She hates him a little.

Kate eases up and the doctor tells her she can put her clothes back on. "Three more shots over two weeks. Just come back to the clinic. Margaret outside will make the appointments for ya."

"Fine," she sighs, wincing as her glutes flex. It's gonna hurt to sit down.

The doctor disposes of the needle in the biohazard bin. "And don't worry - next three are in the arm."

She winces again as he leaves, hears her phone vibrate in her pants pocket on the chair.

Photo message. Castle with that damn cat. She texts him back:

Not happening.

Her arm is killing her; her ass is sore. Thank God for her leather jacket; it's just bruises that look like teeth marks and an ache down to her bone. Stupid Castle put his hand in the dog's mouth and over its nose and pried it off of her, and seriously.

"I'll get him declawed," Castle pleads. He's carrying the cat close to him. His neck is livid with scratches where the beast tried to climb him like a tree; he's got a mean-looking one right under his eye.

"No, Rick. Feral cat. We're not taking it home." That cat could've gotten him a lot worse. Even now, sedated by the vet, the black cat is struggling in his arms.

The dog could've gotten him.

"But declawed and spayed-"

"No, Castle. We're dropping it at the humane society."

"They'll put him down."

Kate turns her eyes on him, says nothing.

"They already put the dog down," he murmurs.

"It's the law," she says quietly. "It attacked and bit-"

"No, I know. I know."

"I have paperwork," she says finally, staying away from him as he cuddles the writhing cat.

"I named him Sprite," he says helpfully.

Kate is standing in his doorway, staring down at the cat. She's cradling her bruised arm in one hand and her jacket is seriously messed up.

He has to admit, his neck is sensitive, his face feels tender to the touch. The EMT spread antibiotic ointment all over the scratches, and he did as well when he got home, but the cat has clawed him three more times.

"Castle," she sighs. "That cat-"

"Sprite," he says again.

"Castle."

"He can be trained. I'll have him declawed and-"

"He's an old cat - a feral cat. You can't - he's used to living outdoors and killing his food. You can't lock him up in your apartment."

"But Sprite likes it here," he says, wincing at the sound of the whine in his own voice.

Kate steps into him, her arm sliding around his waist. "Castle, you have a soft heart. But Lemon Lime can't stay."

His lips twitch at her name for it. "See? He's growing on you already."

"Not him," she sighs at his ear. "Just you."

Lemon Lime is a better name for it. Sprite indicates some kind of wood nymph playfulness that this hellacious cat does not possess. Lemon Lime is a warning about the type of animal it is - a lemon.

"Stop glaring at my cat," he growls.

"Your cat is stalking me," she says back.

"I think it's because you smell like a dog."

"I what?"

He stumbles to a halt in the kitchen, lifts his gaze to her with his mouth dropped open, blinking. "I. I mean. You smell - no. I'm uh. . ."

Kate presses her lips together but shrugs out of her leather jacket; it's pretty much ruined anyway. "I get what you mean," she says, letting him off the hook.

"Even with the slobbery dog, you smell good," he says, giving her a winning smile.

"So I do smell like dog?"

"No. Not at all. Forget it. I'm shutting up now."

"What'd you make for dinner?" she says, discarding her jacket in the trash. She hates to do it, but the sleeve is ruined.

"Just spaghetti. Didn't have much time. I was kinda. . .uh, following Lemon Lime around all afternoon to keep him from-"

"Clawing your furniture?"

He sighs.

"Castle-"

"I just don't want him to die."

"Sometimes, things die."

"Well, at least not because of me."

"It's not even a friendly cat, Rick. It's not even nice. Or humorously discourteous. Or even high-handedly ignoring us. It's mean and nasty and feral."

"I know." He leans in against the countertop. "And my neck hurts."

She sighs and comes closer, her fingers skating up his shoulder, lightly touching the edge of one of the scratches. He's had a rough month, and she knows he's thinking about the dog they didn't own, and-

"Oh shit," he gasps and darts forward.

She's left standing in the kitchen at his stove, watching Castle yank the cat away from his couch even as the runty thing tries to spray it and mark his territory. Ug. The smell.

"Well," she murmurs. "That's unfortunate."

He turns to her helplessly, the cat clawing at his arm to get down. "Kate."

"Humane Society."

His heart is breaking in his eyes.

She hardens hers. "Humane Society."

She can't keep it up. He mopes around the loft following that stupid cat as it tries to claw its way out of the place, and she finally insists that he lock it up in the bathroom.

"Not with Boba Fett," she mutters, turning him around and pushing him towards the stairs. "Guest bath."

"Good call," he murmurs.

While he's upstairs mooning over that beast, she takes his laptop and does a quick google search, reading up on feral cats. When he comes back down, his arm bleeding now, Kate just takes him by the wrist, wordlessly, and leads him to kitchen sink, runs warm water.

He won't meet her eyes, and she sighs, skims her fingers over the angry welts along the back of his hand, avoids those still bleeding. She runs the water over his arm, makes him stand beside her as she gently soaps it up, washes out the wounds.

"Thanks," he says quietly.

"I found a place," she says finally.

"You. . .what?"

She bites her bottom lip and grabs the dishtowel from the counter, wraps it around his arm to pat it dry. "New York has a feral cat initiative."

"You're messing with me."

Kate's lips twitch and she glances at him, huffing softly as she drops the towel back to the counter. "Not messing with you. They have a program called Trap-Neuter-Release."

His mouth drops open, and then he hisses with a wince, drawing his hand away from her. "Trap-Release-what?"

"A vet on the program will neuter him," she says quietly, moving into him to stroke her fingers at his hips. "And then he's eartipped and released back to his habitat."

"Oh," he sighs softly. "That could be good. That's good?"

"That's good," she answers.

She doesn't really want to, but she spends the night at his place, just to keep him company with the little spitfire hellion demon spawn he's been calling Lemon Lime now.

"Here's some sweatpants," he says, coming into the bedroom with a pair of Alexis's leftovers. Bright purple.

Kate takes them, brushes her fingers over his chest to flick a cat hair from his shirt. "Thanks. Socks?"

"Umm, I can find some. Need a tshirt?"

"I stole one of yours," she murmurs, winking at him.

"Oh?"

His hands slide around her waist, hooking into the back of her pants, tugging her in close. Kate nudges into him, then touches her lips to his, softly, feels her lashes catch on his skin.

He draws his hands-

A sudden yowling makes her jump, her hands clutching his tshirt and her body leaning out of his grip. "What was that?"

It comes again, like a dying beast, and echoes through the loft persistently. Castle grips her arms and groans.

"Lemon Lime," she realizes.

"Yeah. You said this feral cat initiative thing-"

"Opens tomorrow morning."

"Looks like a sleepless night," he sighs.

Kate curls up, his wool socks twisting in the sheets and slipping down again. She glides her hand down and tugs them up, jostles Castle in the bed. The yowling has leveled off into a pitiful mewling, and she just can't take it anymore.

She eases out of bed, pauses at the edge to make sure Castle's still asleep, and then she heads for the door. Out in the hall, the pitiful cat noises are no longer muffled - bouncing around the walls and echoing painfully. Kate moves through the living room and takes the steps two at a time.

Standing just outside the door, Kate hesitates a moment more, then twists the door knob.

Oh.

Oh no.

Castle wakes to cold sheets and an empty bed, blinks in the darkness as he tries to figure out what's pulled him from sleep.

Huh, it's quiet and-

It's quiet?

The cat.

It's got to be dead or something.

Castle groans out of bed and stubs his toe on the bedside table, grabs his robe from the chair and pulls it on. He shrugs his shoulders, wriggling into it, his fingers cold, his toes, and then heads for the upstairs bathroom.

He's still half-asleep when he trips up the steps, heads down the hallway towards the bathroom door. He narrows his eyes at the sound of her voice - Kate - and pauses outside the closed door, listening in.

She's. . .talking to the cat. She's murmuring to it like she'd talk to a person, normal voice, modulated, a hum. She's giggling?

Castle opens the door and accidentally hits her in the back with it. He apologizes as he slinks inside through the thin crack.

"Kate?"

She's got her feet stretched out in front of her, the cat perched on her purple-clad shins and batting at her socked feet.

Kate turns and blushes as she sees the look on his face. "He was. . .lonely? And I couldn't sleep."

Castle sinks down onto the cold tile with her, realizes his bathroom is a wreck: the roll of toilet paper is now in snow-like shreds littering the floor, the bottom edge of the shower curtain is slashed to ribbons, and the corners of the cabinet are gnawed down to the wood grain.

And here's Kate. Playing with the demonic cat. "Hey, he's eating your feet."

"No. Your socks are too big. His claws get tangled in the wool and it freaks him out and he chews on it."

She's grinning a little at him, sheepish, and he shifts into her side, watching the cat's hackles rise as its claws get stuck in her socks.

"You couldn't sleep?"

"He was making a racket."

"Oh, yeah. I managed to fall asleep."

"I noticed."

He grins and hides it against the side of her neck, kisses her softly. "You're cute."

"Shut up."

"Four hours till we can turn the Lemon in," he says. "But maybe after that. . .?"

"Hmm?"

"We can get a dog. You like dogs."

She laughs at him, tilts her head in the harsh light of his bathroom. "We'll see."

The same dumpster, the same alley, four weeks later. It's not usually how it happens, but Castle asked to be the one to release Lemon Lime back to the wild streets.

The cat is in the carrier Castle got at the vet; he can feel the thing pitching around, crazy to get out. Lemon Lime has been at the vet's since getting neutered, but Castle has visited him every week.

Kate tugs him by the wrist and his whole body throbs with welts. He's clawed up both arms because he told the vet he didn't want to take the cat back to his stomping grounds all woozy and disoriented.

Not that Lemon Lime has appreciated Castle's consideration.

"Here," she says, nodding to the side of the dumpster.

Castle sets the carrier down, sighs a little as the demon-sprite knocks into the metal grill of the door. He wrenches it open and the feral thing tears off, climbing his arm up to the elbow before leaping away and disappearing behind the dumpster.

Kate snags the pocket of his jacket, tugs him back. He steps away, peers into the darkness behind the dumpster, but he doesn't see the feral cat.

She takes the carrier, shuts the door, and heads back the way they came, leaving him in the alley.

He says a soft good-bye, knows he's being ridiculous. He can't help it.

He feels like he needed to tame a wild thing.

Kate nudges him away from the cages at the far end of the pound; he follows because his heart is heavy and there's nothing to be done for it. He knows he couldn't keep that cat - feral as it is, needing its own space. It will never be able to live inside.

But-

Kate's fingers curl at his elbow and she sighs. "Look."

He realizes she's pulled him away from the dogs and positioned him right in front of a skinny little thing behind the cage door, the only kitten not curled up in a pile with the others.

"It's black," he says in surprise. "A cat. A black cat."

"Your powers of observation are astounding."

"But you don't like cats."

She shrugs at him. "But you do."

"Do I?" He's always considered himself to be a dog person.

He glances back to the blue-eyed black-furred kitten, pushes his knuckle against the wire mesh of the cage door. The dark thing comes to investigate, rubs its head against Castle's finger.

"You don't even like cats," he says again, looking over his shoulder to stare at her.

"I like you," she offers.

He withdraws his finger, turns back around to look at the hallway that leads to the dog cages. He remembers Kate with that gorgeous golden retriever, the look on her face-

"Let's get a dog," he says insistently.

"Castle-"

"Together," he stresses, reaching down to wrap his fingers around her hand. Her palm is warm as it meets his.

"Oh," she breathes. She blinks a couple times, glances to the hallway with something like trepidation. "Maybe we should start small? Like a plant?"

"You can do it. Come on."

He pulls her back to the rows and rows of dog cages, and she doesn't resist.

They get a plant.

They can't agree on a dog, none of the humane society's rescues are right for them - too old, too much a puppy, too sick, too needy, too deranged. Since any dog of theirs will wind up cooped in her apartment when they're at work, and then transported back and forth between their places as they spend the night, it doesn't make for a stable environment for the kind of dog that comes from a shelter.

They get a plant.

Kate rolls her eyes at him as he positions the orchid on his kitchen counter. "Don't assume it's a sign from the universe when that thing dies," she warns him.

"Why would it die?" He's filling a glass with water, ready to pour it over the exposed roots.

"It's an orchid. They're notoriously hard to take care of."

"I'm good. Green thumbs, both of them."

She glances around his loft, noticing pointedly the lack of plants. She has more foliage than he does and half of that is in her fridge.

"I won't take it as a sign," he grumbles into the face of her doubt.

"Your place still reeks of feral cat."

"Lemon Lime sprayed his pheromones all over."

She wrinkles her nose and pushes into his side at the counter, studying the graceful, wide-leafed plant. "What color flowers?"

"White."

"It'll be pretty," she says softly, conciliatory. He sets the half-filled glass of water on the counter.

"If it blooms."

"What happened to the confident Mr. Green Thumbs?"

"Took a backseat to reality."

She snorts and nudges his hip with her own. "Whatever. You'll be on the laptop tonight, googling orchid care instead of writing. I know you."

He turns his head and gives her a slow, sly smile.

"Uh-huh," she mutters. "But when you fall behind your writing schedule, don't complain to me."

"The schedule can be rearranged for just one night."

She hums at him, shaking her head, because it won't be one night. He'll turn it into a thing, be anal about it, talk her ear off about orchids and their place in history, about legends of famous orchids or whatever.

That's fine. He'll do all the research and she'll keep track of the plant, do the actual work. Usually how it goes.

"So this is a dry run for what?" he says finally. "A kid?"

Kate turns sharply in the circle of his arm. "No. It's a dry run for a pet."

He grins wider. "My bad. What was I thinking? Of course. Not a baby. But it's kinda the same."

"Are you crazy?" she hisses, socking him in the shoulder.

"Nope. Just figure that a cat is relatively a whole lot easier to swallow than a kid. So. . ."

"So you think scaring the crap out of me will make me reflexively want a cat?"

"Yes."

"It might be working," she growls at him, pushing away.

He's chuckling at her and she stalks towards the living room, then spins around to point her finger at him.

"Don't think you're gonna wear me down."

"About what? The cat or the kid?"

"Castle."

"Uh-huh. You're already melting. I can see it. We'll have one by the end of the year."

"I didn't say never. I said. . .not now. Just not right now."

"I mean the cat."

"You're enjoying this, aren't you?"

"Little bit."

"I hate you."

He laughs as she narrows her eyes, comes in closer. He's so smug, so self-assured.

She wants to wipe that smirk right off his face.

"Castle," she purrs, brushing her body against his, eyes slitted, tongue touching her top lip and retreating.

"Y-yeah?" he stutters.

"You wanna practice?" she murmurs suggestively, nuzzling her nose into his, nipping his bottom lip wit her teeth. She can feel the edge of the kitchen counter at her palms.

"Practice. Yes. I do. Practice."

She slides one hand along his belt to the buckle, finds the cup of water with her other. She lifts on her toes and breathes hotly against his open mouth, moves in close enough that their lips barely brush.

"Kate," he moans.

She shoves the water glass into his chest and darts away, grinning darkly at him. "Then water your plant."

"Wh-what?"

"Practice, Castle. Practice taking care of your. . .pet."

And she saunters off to his bedroom.

He's not far behind.

The orchid dies.

Over-watering. Root rot.

Kate grins smugly at him as she dumps it in the trash. "Too bad, Castle. None for you - we can't even take care of a plant."

He gapes at her. "No kids?"

"No cat."

Right.

He grins back darkly. "So what I'm hearing is - kids are still on the table."