#like the way she acted when kate called max will always leave me biting my fist out of frustration

[longmaxsilvarg]

will forever have a soft spot for chloe cause yeah dawg i get it we can try to avoid becoming attached out of the overwhelming fear of being abandoned again but miserably fail together

[pollylynn]

Feet are cold. —Lanie Parish, ME, Hedge Fund Homeboys (1 x 03)

Title: Amiable Rating: T WC: 750

“She has something, right?”

Castle trots to catch up. He’s somehow always trotting to catch up. Kate thinks maybe he wouldn’t have to if he weren’t always stopping to chat with every one of the six hundred new best friends he’s made since he started darkening her doorstep. Maybe he wouldn’t have to if every last one didn’t happily chat back.

“She would’t call us all the way down here if she didn’t have something,” he pants.

“What’s the matter, Castle?” she asks as she pushes through the last set of doors on the way to Lanie’s lab. “Already burn through that enthusiasm for dead bodies?”

“My enthusiasm for bodies burns as hot as ever, Detective.” He bounds ahead to get the door for her. He bows low and sweeps an after you arm toward the threshold.

He’s always doing that, too. It’s unnecessary. It’s annoying. She brushes by him with a scowl that runs right into Lanie’s all-too-observant smirk. “Dr. Parish?”

The ME’s eyebrow shoots up at the pointed use of her title. If Kate were any less annoyed, she might blush at her own misdirected sharpness, but it’s been a long couple of days already. She’s pretty annoyed. Thankfully, though, her friend confines herself to a mild shake of the head as she pulls on a pair of gloves and reaches for the cold locker’s stiff silver handle.

Max Heller’s lifeless body slides into view. Kate catches a glimpse of Castle out of the corner of her eye. He’s caving in on himself. She does the math from this kid to his daughter and a little of her aggravation evaporates. He’s a pain in the ass, for sure, but he bears up under some pretty unbearable stuff. Plus, he occasionally knows better than to run his mouth.

Lanie takes them through what she has. The bruise and the BAC, and Kate hides a smile when his voice shoots up an octave over the number. There’s no bad boy in it. He’s all apoplectic, overprotective dad in the moment, and it hardly even irritates her when they’re on their way out and he makes a dash ahead of her to get the door again.

Hardly, but then Lanie calls after him. “Oh, Mr. Castle?”

He stops short in the act of pushing open the swinging door. The stiff spring carries it swiftly back, he catches it three inches from Kate’s nose as he twists back around.

“Thank you.” Lanie’s sly smile calls up something infinitely dopier in answer on his face.

“They made it?” He lets the door go entirely, ignoring the fact that the move more or less traps Kate halfway in, halfway out. “I trust Cinderella approves?”

“Oh, hell yes.” Lanie laughs. “Won’t be leaving those babies at the ball.”

The slap of Kate’s palm against the door makes him jump. It makes him hop to. It’s satisfying even if she can feel another of Lanie’s smirks burning a hole between her shoulder blades. She stalks down the hall, lowering her shoulder as she hits the second set of swinging doors. He’s there a second before she is, though—of course he is—and her shoulder makes contact with him instead of shitty, scuffed-up laminate. 

“Hey!” He manages to catch her by the shoulders, half breaking her fall, half stopping his own tumble backward. “You ok—”

“Slippers?” she hisses. She brings her arms up between their bodies and breaks his hold on her shoulders like he’s a mugger after her shoulder bag. “You bought the Medical Examiner slippers?”

“Yes?” He takes an immediate step back, opening up space between them. “She said her feet were cold. Yesterday. In the water. So . . . slippers.”

He reaches the end of his ass-saving conversational gambit then. He blinks at her. She gives him back a hard stare, biting the inside of her own cheek viciously so the smile trying to fight its way out doesn’t make it. It’s ridiculous. He’s ridiculous. She makes him sweat a second longer, just for good measure, then she’s off. She makes it a count of three before he launches himself after her.  

“I listen, you know, Beckett.” His words are choppy as he trots to catch up. “I pay attention. That’s why people like me.”

“Some people, Castle.” She spins to face him, timing it perfectly so the back of her body pops the last set of double doors wide a stride and a half before he can get there. “Maybe.”