Ape and Essence

Castle adjusts the pillows behind his head on his side of the bed, the darkness cool and inviting. He's pleasantly full but a little too empty at the same time - the loft is quiet, dinner with his daughter was like a warmth in his chest, and now the air conditioner kicks on again, reminding him that he doesn't actually need to claim a side of the bed tonight.

He gets back up and goes to the thermostat to adjust the temperature; no point in wasting energy if she's not here complaining about how hot he is. (Not always a complaint; sometimes it's a moan, sometimes it's a shiver, sometimes just her cold toes against his calf and her humming sigh of relief, Freezing all day, Castle; stop moving away from me.)

He's padding back through the study when his phone vibrates loudly against the bedside table where it's charging. He runs for it and scoops it up before it can vibrate right off, answers with a grin.

"Hey there. Sorry I had to cancel on you."

"Hey, Papa Smurf," she sighs. "And, no. Dinner with Alexis isn't canceling."

"Ew, ew, no," he says, climbing back into bed and settling down again. "She always said that Papa Smurf and Smurfette had a thing."

"What?" Kate gasps. "Gross. No. Not-uh. Papa Smurf was the father of all the Smurfs. There's no way he had a thing with Smurfette."

"Well, see, technically, she was created by Gargamel to distract the Smurfs so he could catch them."

"But," she says heavily. "Papa Smurf turned her into a real Smurf. So - voila - Papa Smurf's her daddy."

"Ew."

"Ew," she agrees. "I'm having a talk with Alexis. We're clearing this up."

"No," he chokes out. "No, don't. She'll know we're calling her Smurfette behind her back."

"Uh-huh, like you haven't to her face? Her - is it still blue?"

He can practically hear the wince in her voice. "No, it's back to peaches and cream, thank goodness. Except for this one spot right at her crown-"

"So you weren't making Smurf jokes all night."

He chuckles, tries to picture what Kate's doing right now. "I was not. I restrained myself."

"Just Avatar jokes then?" He thinks that's the noise of the fridge closing, so that must be Kate getting her water for the night.

"Just Avatar," he admits, grinning, knowing she's grinning too.

"I can't believe you did that to her. A trap in her own home."

"I didn't know it would be her," he defends, listens to her closely, hoping to hear the sound of her throat working as she drinks her glass. Maybe? Then the clink of it in the sink.

She has a throaty little sound of indignation. "What did you expect when you put that trap out in the first place? You can't tell me the Borrowers, for real, Castle."

"Why not the Borrowers?"

"Because they're boring," she says, and that totally wasn't the answer he expected. Not at all.

"Boring? The Borrowers aren't boring."

She must be checking the locks on her door; he can hear the faint thud as she twists the deadbolt open and then back again. She does that at his loft too, locks them in. It's oddly sweet and little heartbreaking, and he wishes he were there. Just to take her hand and guide her to bed.

"They are boring. I hated those books as a kid. One of my aunts gave me a run of them, and I guess I felt like I had to read them because they were gifts. Those and Little House on the Prairie."

"I bet you loved Little House."

"No. Not at all."

"What? No way. Alexis loved those."

"She also thinks Papa Smurf and Smurfette had a thing-"

"Ew."

"Ew," she echoes, a little faint, and he thinks she must be moving into her bedroom now, pulling back the covers with both hands so that the phone is tucked between her shoulder and her ear. "Little House was too sad. I didn't like how hard it was for them - people dying and fires and crops failing. It made me feel guilty, rich and privileged and riding the subway."

"Oh, Beckett," he laughs. "I bet no one has ever said that before, rich and privileged and riding the subway."

"Shut up."

"No, no, it's great. I love it. So what was the last book you read that you couldn't put down? It sucked you in and held you and you wanted to talk about it for days afterwards?"

"No." She sounds a little breathless, like she's just managed to get herself settled in bed.

"What?"

"No, not-uh. Not playing this game."

He humphs into the phone. "Why not? Come on. I won't laugh at you when it turns out to be some pretentious literary novel."

"You can't laugh at me anyway, since the last thing you read that you couldn't put down was a poorly-edited, large-font fictional piece about alleged Bigfoot."

"Non-fiction," he argues back.

"With pictures," she adds.

"Bigfoot has been seen and documented by reliable sources. You didn't stay and listen to Kurt Wilson talk about his time in the woods-"

"No," she drawls out. "I didn't stick around for campfire ghost stories. More's the pity."

"No ghost stories, Beckett. Bigfoot. Come on, get it straight."

"My bad." And now there's a sound he doesn't recognize at all. Maybe she's watching television while she talks to him on the phone. In her bedroom? Maybe on the laptop. Sometimes she uses her old one to catch up on shows he's gotten her addicted to; it helps her wind down enough to sleep. When he's not there to help her himself.

"Castle."

"Where are you?" he asks, realizing suddenly that the thing rising up in him is suspicion. Those noises weren't her getting ready for bed.

She laughs. "You miss me?"

"Yes, clearly. But where are you?"

"Not - what am I wearing?"

"That comes next."

And then the door clicks over the phone.

And in his loft.

In his loft.

Castle jumps out of bed and flies towards the living room, moving faster for this than he did for the springing of his trap, and there she is, standing just inside the foyer with her keys dangling from one hand and her phone still against her ear.

He hears her next words in stereo.

"Booty call."

Castle laughs and comes for her, taking the keys and phone from her hands, adding his and tossing them towards the couch. They bounce, he cringes, but they stay on the cushion, and she lets out a warning noise but follows as he tugs her towards the bedroom.

"What are you wearing?" he asks, fingers tangling with hers.

"Sweatpants. I left my shorts here, I think."

"You did. I found them." He grins at her and wriggles his eyebrow and she wrinkles her nose back at him.

"Gross."

"Oh," he laughs. "No. Not like that. I think they're still in the bed actually." He rifles at the foot of the bed and finds them, holdin them up to her with an alakazam motion.

"Oh, good." She shucks her pants in one smooth motion, her rear end dancing as she slides into those short shorts, then gives him a look over her shoulder as she climbs into his bed. "Just gonna stand there?"

"No. Nope. Still, finish the conversation. Last book you read that you couldn't put down. Since I seem to be completely wrong in guessing your childhood favorites."

She smirks at him until he crawls into bed with her, pushing his feet down to the end. She angles herself at his side and he realizes he forgot to turn the thermostat back down but at least this way she'll throw the shirt off sometime in the night.

If he's lucky.

"Come on, last book you read that you loved," he says again, poking her shoulder as they settle.

"No way."

"Why won't you tell me?"

"Your ego doesn't need anymore stroking from me."

Delight zips through him, fast and furious, and he cups the back of her head with a feeling both tender and fierce, but instead he just clears his throat and goes for immature.

"Only kind of stroking that works anymore."

But she laughs and pets her fingers across his tshirt, lifts up a little to kiss his cheek. "Sadly, I think that's kinda sweet."

"I've rubbed off on you."

She gives a dramatic sigh. "At the moment," she says dryly. "No. And I was serious about the booty call, Castle."

"Oh, good." He rolls over her in a flash, a grin spreading wide across his face as he dips his mouth down to touch hers. "Now, tell me the name of that book, Kate Beckett. I wanna hear you say it."

She rolls her eyes at him, but her fingers lace behind his neck. "I'm gonna need a little more foreplay."