Misconception

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Kate doesn't fall asleep.

Her eyes are heavy, and her body is warm and tired and sore, but she can't possibly sleep. Not when Castle lies beside her.

She curls on her side and watches the rise of his bare chest as he breathes, that deep and slow movement of slumber. His hair is flopped low, touching his eyebrows, and his nose and chin jut strongly. She snakes a hand out to brush two fingers over the soft hair at his forearm.

He wakes and turns into her, a groan of her name, and without hesitation, she's taking him inside her and going slow, finally, moving together and no longer against each other. Not frantic but sweet, intimate.

There's something secret and beautiful about the darkness in the room and heat of her skin melding to his, the sound of him meeting her, the rush of her heartbeat in her head.

After, when she untangles and falls back to the mattress, his arm slides around her waist and between her thighs and it's strange and new and it's Castle against her side and laying his head on her shoulder. His lips brushing a sigh of a kiss at her skin.

She still doesn't sleep. Can't possibly. Won't.

She daydreams staring at the ceiling, daydreams and finds herself stroking her fingers through his hair and breathing through her mouth to settle down, flushed, filled, happy.

Happy enough, happy too much, and she tugs on the short hair between her fingers, grips the back of his neck until he grunts and squints one eye awake.

"Again," she says, urgent. A grin suffuses his face - predatory and pleased with himself - as Castle climbs up her body and presses her down. His fingers lace through hers and drag her arms over her head, and when he's not paying attention - or well, paying attention in a different way - she flips them.

Castle lets out a laughing breath; he looks tamed under her like this. She drags herself upright, drawing his hands down to the wide expanse of his own rib cage, their fingers still tangled, until he's palming her thighs.

Their hands loosen. He's not laughing now. Staring. His eyes are star-shot blue, and she grinds her hips down to blow out his pupils.

Castle groans, gripping her, and this time, this time, it's her turn to get creative.

X

Kate carefully folds back the sheet, shifts her legs out of bed. Her toes touch the cold floor, the wood smooth, and it's like every old thing in her apartment is somehow new. The wood floors, the worn rug, the street lights coming in through the window, the shadows made from the chair, the wardrobe - made new by his sleeping form in her bed.

That's definitely new, and it's not just her own life turned inside out. Castle, lying on his back, hair mussed where she grabbed at his ears and pulled him up, his mouth smudged. She leans in over him, reaches out to smooth down what's sticking up, and she can't help putting her nose in against his cheek.

He smells like a muskier version of himself. A sex-soaked version. It makes her whole body heat.

She leaves a kiss at the corner of his mouth.

Kate stands and carefully draws the sheet over him, and then she turns and pads naked out of the bedroom, down the hall. Her skin ripples with the chill coming in from the windows. The moon is still up, though sinking fast as morning approaches, and it looks pale-white pregnant as it begins to fade.

Makes two of us.

She finds his t-shirt in the living room and shrugs it on over her head - his t-shirt, and not the one he picked out for her, but the one he wore over here. It smells like that deeper, richer scent, smells like arousal and urgency and male.

Kate runs her fingers through her hair to work on the tangles where he played with it, and she moves into the kitchen to start some coffee. She's going to make him a cup. She feels expectant and full, and it's not just sex - it could never be, really, with him, just sex - but it's also not just finally having him.

It's having his vision. His - dream of them, like a story he's been telling. She's caught it. For good. For keeps. It's the only story she wants.

She measures out the coffee grounds in her normal, boring coffeemaker, fingering the filter to be sure she's only grabbed one. The familiar motions. She adds the water and nestles the carafe on the hot plate and presses the button.

And for a moment there's that silence where the coffeemaker seems to be doing nothing at all, and Kate can hear the morning creaking around her as it reluctantly shambles in, grey and weak. It's the time where things can fall apart, where the pale light makes known last night's mistakes, where the coffee maker might never actually begin.

She holds her breath.

And then the black plastic contraption gurgles and hisses, errant water bubbling on the hot plate and disappearing, the carafe settling as the coffeemaker pops and begins to percolate.

Kate leans her elbows onto the counter and stares through the window to the city outside, watching it wake and stretch off a long night. The sky washes out, a worn-out blue, the moon can't hang on to its place.

A star still stays. Close to where the moon is beginning to lose it. A star or maybe that's the light of a planet; astronomy was freshman year of college and she only remembers pieces of the night sky, Orion's belt and the Big Dipper.

The coffeemaker begins to slow, and Kate lifts from the counter to gather mugs, the half-and-half from the fridge. She hunts for sugar, finds three little packets from some takeout place, and she places everything before her.

She fixes his coffee just as he likes it, unwilling to deviate in the slightest from his usual, just in case the morning hits him wrong, in case awkwardness shows up. She's not this good a morning person, usually, so she has no idea if he'll wake up surly or talkative or-

But she'll find out. She'll know. Over time, they'll both know.

She carries both of their mugs back to her bedroom and finds Castle sitting bolt upright, looking stunned. The sheet has pooled around his waist and she comes slowly to the foot of the bed, watching the coffee to be sure she doesn't spill, finding small moments to dart her eyes to him.

He can't seem to find words.

"Hi," she says softly, holding out a mug to him.

Castle leans forward and takes it, his mouth spreading a smile out across his face so hesitant, so - happy. "Hey." Rough, raw morning voice. Makes her stomach clench.

He takes a sip and then a longer swallow, and his eyes follow her as she moves to the side of the bed and sits gingerly on the mattress. She pulls one knee up for balance and his eyes follow that too.

He puts aside his coffee mug - settling it on the nightstand - and he brings his hands to her ankle and the hem of the shirt, the backs of his fingers brushing the top of her thigh.

"You're wearing my shirt. I thought I gave you one of your own." But he's smiling, even in his eyes, crinkled in the corners so that she has to lift a hand and run her fingers over the crow's feet.

He turns his head and kisses the heel of her hand.

"I warned you I'd be stealing yours," she says. "And you're supposed to say it looks better on me."

"It doesn't," he answers, shaking his head. She stiffens, but he catches her wrist and tugs her in closer, taking the coffee mug from her hand and placing it beside his own. "It doesn't look better on you - it looks better off."

Kate laughs, and then he finds the hem again and pulls it right over her head.

His grin is infectious.

She comes up on her knees and lets herself fall into him, toppling him back to the mattress so that she lands on top of him.

Castle is chuckling now too, and they're grinning at each other and tracing what they can see with eyes not used to seeing - so much, so freely, so close.

He strokes his hands up her back and cradles her face, cranes his neck to kiss her.

She never thought it would be like this. Never thought it could.

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