#He's my fave dovah | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

bravevulnerability · 9 months

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Hi! Huge fan of your writing. I come back to fics repeatedly when I need a pick-me-up or the urge to re-read a certain one. Believing Is Seeing is one of my top faves..I was wondering if you'd consider ever doing a fic in which Kate is the disabled one with a service dog. After getting injured on the job (not relating to her mom's case cause that'd be awful) she's depressed and the dog helps heal her spirit & give life back. Maybe AU meeting or he runs into them after he left for some reason.

A/N: I’m not quite sure if this is what you’re hoping for, anon. But I really hope you’re able to enjoy it. :)

It’s his scent that hits her first.

Kate’s fingers stutter over the page of the book she’s trying to read. Granted, she tells herself, there are probably tons of men scattered throughout this city with the same cologne, the same aftershave, but… there’s something mixed in with the scent that has always been only him.

Dovah rustles at her feet, squirming from beneath the cafe table to investigate the approaching figure. But her dog’s lack of growl, lack of tension, and the soft touch of the coffee cup to the table in front of her only confirms it.

“Grande skim latte, two pumps of sugar-free vanilla still your order?”

After three months of not hearing it, his voice is like a tidal wave to her senses. Deep, rich, devastating.

She clears her throat, closes the book she’s been attempting to get through for the last week. Her braille has improved magnificently in the past few months, but reading for the sake of pleasure has yet to become pleasurable again.

Dovah whimpers, an affectionate sound of greeting she typically reserves only for Kate.

And one other person.

“Dovah,” Castle says warmly. She catches the dip in his voice, the likely lowering to his haunches to greet the dog, and feels Dovah rush forward into Rick’s waiting arms. With anyone else, her dog would be skittish, skeptical, ready to snap at the smallest hint of danger or discomfort aimed at Kate. But she’d never turn on Rick.

He’s the one who got her the damn dog in the first place.

“Castle,” she murmurs, gingerly reaching forward to skim her fingertips along the travel cup he’s placed on the table.

Her hearing is better than before, far more honed since the loss of what she once considered her most vital sense. She catches the shallow intake of his breath with ease, listens to the thick swallow that trembles down his throat.

“Kate.” He rises slowly, releasing the air held hostage in his lungs. “You look good.”

She remembers his face, never forgot it. She remembers the defined angles of his jaw, his cheeks and the apples that formed in them when he smiled, the harsh slope of his nose, and those ocean eyes. God, she hates how much she misses looking at him, wishes she did more of it when she had the chance. He was beautiful.

“Wish I could say the same.”

He chokes on a startled noise, a horrified hint of laughter that has her lips cracking a smile that’s been non-existent since… since she made him leave.

The smile falls clean off her face.

“How long have you been in here?”

She wonders if he’s doing that ‘boy caught in the act’ kind of shrug she was once quite fond of.

“Maybe ten minutes,” he estimates, but it sounds like a lie. “Can I sit with you?”

She refrains from biting her lip, knowing it’ll give her away. Instead, her fingers curl around the travel cup’s sleeve, guiding it to her lips.

“Just until I finish my coffee.”

Dovah drapes herself across their feet, her body pressed against Rick’s shin, her head on Kate’s boots. It’s a habit she remembers forming back when he first brought the dog home. Well, to Kate’s home.

“How is Alexis? She messaged me about the application process for Stanford a few weeks ago,” she reveals softly, knowing he’s rooting for Alexis to choose a New York - or at least an East Coast - school for college.

“Ah, yeah, she let me know she was going to reach out to you,” he murmurs. She can hear his knuckles cracking lightly, the slight inhale of his breath. “I told her that I hoped she had better luck than me.”

Her lips purse.

“But otherwise, she’s great. How’s your summer been, Kate?” The bitterness is quiet, but threaded like poison through his words, stinging her.

Miserable, she wants to blurt, but takes a long sip of her coffee instead.

“I’ve just been getting accustomed to my new job,” she admits, brushing her thumb back and forth along the sleeve of her cup. “Can’t live off savings forever.”

“How’s transcription work going in the courts?” he asks her, his voice lowering to a perfect tenor.

Her hearing has felt enhanced since she’s lost what was initially her main sense of identification, and he always knew it sometimes felt too loud in the world now.

“I saw the guys recently,” he adds by way of explanation.

Kate releases a shaky breath, traces the plastic rim of her coffee cup. “I hate it.”

“I’m sorry,” he murmurs, the apology so earnest, overlapping his irritation. It has her chest aching.

After the accident, Castle stepped up for her, became her source of comfort, her listening ear, her… everything. More than he was before somehow.

She hasn’t been able to open up to anyone else, not like she did with him. Not even her therapist.

“I told you, you could’ve been a trophy wife.”

She laughs despite herself. “Yeah, I’m sure that would have worked out great.”

“What about editing? You could be my editor!”

Her eyes roll. “Castle.”

“C’mon, you’re a total grammar snob. I could have it printed in braille. We still have that special printer at the house!” he recalls, the excitement building slow but true in his voice. “All you’d have to do is go over it for me and tell me where all the wrong commas and run-on sentences are.”

Reluctantly, Kate removes her hand from her coffee, reaches across the table space between them until her fingers knock against his. With a shallow breath, she hooks her pinky around his, squeezes gently.

“Thank you, but I don’t think the literary world is for me.” She sighs and begins to let go, but he gingerly flips his hand under hers, encompasses her fingers in his palm. “Don’t worry about me, Castle.”

He scoffs at her.

“Kate, that’s not something I can just turn off.”

She swallows hard and pulls her hand back.

“It was really good to… sit with you again,” she finishes lamely, clicking her tongue once and feeling Dovah rise to attention beneath the table.

“Kate.”

She ignores him, fixing the leash around her wrist and rising from the chair.

“Please tell Alexis and Martha hi for me,” she adds softly, brushing her knuckles to his shoulder. “Dovah, home.”

Dovah leads her to the door, out into the growing chill of the city. The coffee shop she frequents is only a couple of blocks from her apartment, a safe place where she can pretend to be normal for a little while, and an easy venture for Dovah to guide her through.

It only takes her a few minutes of walking down the sidewalk to huff in irritation.

“If you think I can’t feel you right there-”

“It’s so creepy how you do that,” Castle curses, but then his hand is curling delicately along her inner arm. It’s a warm, familiar touch that penetrates the layers of her clothing. A touch that has her chest tightening. “Just listen to me, then I’ll leave. I haven’t seen you in three months, you owe me this.”

Kate exhales through her nose. “Fine.”

“You know I love you-“

“Castle,” she breathes, her heart constricting inside her sternum, arteries tangling into knots.

“And I know it must have scared you, that you probably have some weird idea in your head that it’s all some pity crush I developed after you lost your sight, but Kate… I was done for from the moment you crashed my book party and you know it,” he murmurs, his voice low but so matter of fact. “Working with you for the past year leading up to the explosion… Beckett, you have to have known.”

She chews on her lip until she tastes the spill of copper on her tongue.

“When that asshole blew up your apartment, I ran for my life to get to you, because that’s what you had become-”

“Rick, please-”

“You, my daughter, my mother… you’re my life. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry you had to lose so much - your sight, your home, your job. I would give anything to trade places with you, to give it all back-”

That has her jerking to a stop. “No.”

“I just-”

“Are we on a crowded sidewalk?”

Usually she would know the answer without help, but the blood is rushing in her ears.

“No, we’re on Franklin street, at the crosswalk before your apartment,” he relays patiently. “There’s some traffic, but nothing too severe.”

“Good, then listen to me,” she mutters, turning her face towards him. “Even knowing what I know now, I would endure it all again if it meant saving you this fate, okay? You running into a burning building for me was bad enough.”

“I would do it again-”

“That is the problem!” she growls, jerking her arm from him and clicking her tongue twice.

Dovah trots forward. She knows Castle is at her back, following her home.

“Ms. Beckett, Mr. Castle,” the doorman greets, confirming her suspicion.

The elevator doors slide closed, trapping the two of them in the lift, Dovah sitting patiently between them.

“You have a brilliant daughter, a wonderful mother, and amazing talent, Castle. All I gave you,” she murmurs, reaching forward, taking those beautiful hands in hers, cradling the scorched skin, the uneven patches of flesh. He ran into a burning building for her when Scott Dunn set her apartment aflame, he picked through searing debris to pull her charred body from the ashes. The door that landed on her actually shielded her from the worst of the fire, but his hands are covered in second and third degree burns that will take years to fully heal. “Is pain.”

“Wounds heal, Kate.”

“You lost feeling you’ll never get back in some areas,” she whispers, her thumb skirting along the edge of his wrist, the outer bone of his index finger - spots she’s memorized. “You can barely write.”

“You think I didn’t know the risks?” He draws his hands back from hers. “We’ve had this conversation, you’re just too damn stubborn to listen.” His hands touch her cheeks, palms cradling her jaw. “I wanted you more.”

The elevator chimes and she steps out of his grasp, taking the well-memorized path to her apartment, snagging the keys from inside her coat.

“So is that it?” he questions at her back, voice raising. She walks in, leaves the door open, and unhooks Dovah from the leash. “We spend months together, healing, being… happy and you just - you get scared and we’re done?”

Kate shrugs the coat from her shoulders, tosses it on the couch. She doesn’t want to think about the months that followed the explosion - the months spent in the loft with him and his family once they were both released from the hospital. Agent Shaw successfully arrested Scott Dunn, but she could barely find the will to care, to feel any sort of victory.

The doctors told her she was blind - temporary or permanent, it was too soon to know, but the blunt force trauma from the blast had her head slamming hard against the floor, a random piece of furniture, a wall - no one knew - and she woke up unable to see. The last thing she remembers is a blurry image of Castle, stripping off his coat and wrapping her battered body in his arms, carrying her to safety.

The first month was nothing but grief for her. Grieving her sight and the domino effect of loss that came with it - her career, her apartment, her… her purpose, her mom’s murder. All of it was out of reach now, gone.

Castle was the only thing to remain in the darkness.

He snuck into her hospital room every night, listening intently to her confess her fears, her anger, her pain. The first time he crawled into the hospital bed beside her, she let him hold her, bandaged hands at her back.

“I’m never going to see you again,” she rasped into his throat, tears finally falling. “Castle, I can’t see you.”

She buried sobs into his neck, fell asleep against his chest.

He didn’t let her argue about where she would stay once they were released. They moved what little possessions she still owned into his bedroom. He refused to make her walk upstairs until she was more familiar with her surroundings and her blindness. She refused to let him stay in the guest room.

Their routine from the hospital carried on into the new normal of her life. They would spend mornings in the same buildings, in different areas of burn units and physical therapy clinics, and then he would take her on a walk through the calmer parts of the city - his favorite parks, the length of the High Line, along the Hudson on the west side of Manhattan. He couldn’t hold her hand, so she gripped tightly to the arm of his sweater, trusting him with her life as he led her through a city she once thought she could navigate with her eyes closed. They would return to the loft eventually, the two of them figuring out how to make dinner together (“I’m literally blind and you can’t use your hands, this will be great,” she muttered the first time, making him choke on a laugh) and spending evenings with his mother and daughter.

Alexis threw herself into learning braille, rushing in after school and meeting Kate in the dining room with a stack of books tucked under her arms. Together, they would pour over materials, memorizing a new alphabet, talking through the hardest parts.

She still misses her study partner.

At the end of the night, Rick would touch her shoulder and lead her to his bedroom. She would shower and he would wait outside the bathroom to ensure she maneuvered through the process safely. Once dressed, she would help cover his fingers in the cooling, antibiotic salve the doctors prescribed him.

“They’re feeling a little better,” she would examine, the varying terrains of his skin like a map to her fingers. The broken skin and cracked flesh ranged from the tips of multiple fingers to the edges of his wrists, luckily going no further. The doctor had personally promised her that Castle would heal fine, but the assurances failed to assuage her guilt.

“They’re looking better each day,” he would confirm, gingerly sweeping his thumb along hers. “They definitely hurt less.”

After wrapping his hands, washing hers, she would crawl into bed beside him, sinking into the warmth of his mattress and the safety of his body next to hers.

The routine instilled a level of trust in him she never thought she was capable of, but he proved worthy of it. No longer was he the playboy wannabe she had begun to doubt was an act all along; instead, she was met with a man who would stay up all night with her when she couldn’t sleep, who swore to her with fierce reassurance that she would be okay, that she would reclaim her life, and that he would be there for her every step of the way.

He was the man who - exactly a month after the accident - got her a dog straight out of the best academy of guide dogs for the blind that he could find.

“Her name is Dovah. She’s eighteen months old, a german shepherd mix, has bright blue eyes, brown and white fur, and she’s very happy to meet you,” he murmured, barely contained joy in his voice as she listened to him set the dog on the bed with her that morning.

Kate reached out hesitantly and immediately felt the dog’s head come up under her palm.

“Her handlers said she was strong, dedicated, and extremely protective. Reminded me of you.”

The smile had tugged on her lips and they had spent the morning practicing commands with a dog that became a lifeline for her.

Castle helped her find her new apartment shortly after, swearing it was exactly her style, and enjoying every moment of helping her shop for and furnish the place.

“It’ll be weird without you,” she confessed to him that first night she moved into the new building in Tribeca.

They were standing together in a bedroom she couldn’t see, but apparently, he had outfitted her bed with purple sheets and put pictures of her parents on the nightstand. Her appliances were all fitted with braille instruction, Dovah was set up in the living room, Alexis had even made her a map to be sure she wouldn’t get lost in the new place - she had everything she could need.

He reached for her hand with still healing fingers, drew hers to his cheek so she could “see” his expression while he spoke.

“I’m just a phone call away. Less than ten minutes from here, five if I make a run for it,” he promised her, but her fingers trailed along his cheek, traveling the planes of his face.

Her thumb skimmed the paper thin skin beneath his eyes, following the soft wrinkles expanding from the edge of his lashes to his temple.

“What if I don’t want you to go?”

His breath was uneven, but he kissed her palm. “Then I won’t.”

Her fingers curled, as if she could trap his kiss there. But instead, she lowered them to his chin, steadied her hand there as she stepped closer.

“Castle?”

His hands were touching her waist, steadying her, guiding her near. “Yes?”

She tipped her head up, pretended she could still see the ocean blue of his eyes on her. Their noses bumped, the heat of his breath skittering across her lips, and she lowered her fingers to his neck, felt the race of his pulse beneath the skin.

“Will you kiss me?”

It took only a moment for him to close the distance, kissing her gentle and slow and wonderful. She learned then that when Richard Castle kissed her, she could see the stars again.

She hummed into his kiss, gently shut the bedroom door so not to startle Dovah, already dozing on her new couch.

“Stay.” His mouth curved into a smile against hers. “Stay with me, Rick.”

“Yes,” he whispered, pressing her into the new bed.

For months more, she forgot to feel afraid. She let herself enjoy the days leading up to the summer, let herself exist in the bubble of her new life with Castle and Dovah and his family.

Until he told her he loved her, lying in his bed on a Tuesday night after a game of special braille scrabble with his daughter and a long shower together in his bathroom.

“I love you,” he murmured in the quiet of the night, the scars of his hands scraping along her cheekbone. The returning words were already swollen in her throat, how much she loved him back, but… all she could see behind her eyes was how much Castle loved her. What he did for those he loved.

Bursting into burning buildings, ruining his body, turning his life upside down. All for her.

She couldn’t say it back, so she kissed him, hoped he felt it, hoped he knew. Because the next day, she took Dovah, went home, and asked him for space.

“If it’s because of what I said-”

“No,” she told him over the phone, her face buried in her pillow, Dovah curled into her chest as if she could keep Kate’s heart from further fracturing. “No, Castle. I just - we’ve been through a lot these last few months and I need some time.”

“Okay, how much time?”

“I don’t know, I’ll - I’ll call you,” she lied, fisting her fingers in Dovah’s thick fur.

She didn’t call. She forced herself not to call and she hated herself for it, for how much she knew it had to hurt. But he didn’t deserve the life she could give him, the sad world of leading around a blind woman who would always be mourning the past.

She didn’t call because she loved him back, and she wanted better for him.

The press of his chest at her back jerks her to the present. His palms are warm over her shoulders, his hips a bracket around hers, and she can’t help it, she leans into him.

“I miss you, Kate,” he mumbles into her hair. “My kid misses you, my mother. I’ve missed you so much the last three months. Just tell me how to fix whatever I did-”

“No,” she rasps, digging the heel of her hand into one of her useless eyes. “Rick, it isn’t you. It was never you. I’m damaged goods and I wanted more for you. I want to be more-”

“What are you talking about?” She’s shaking, her chest quivering with tears she’s been holding in for months. His arms are around her now, holding her together, and she scrambles to find his hands, to layer her palms over his scarred knuckles. “What the hell are you talking about and why weren’t we talking about this sooner? Why did you disappear on me?”

“Because I love you too,” she chokes out, shifting in his arms to face him, to lift trembling hands to his face, feel the downturned curve of his mouth, the ache in his eyes that radiates to his cheeks. “I love you and it scares me. It scares me to love someone like this, to let you love me, to - to risk losing it all. And god, Castle, I just - I didn’t want you stuck with me. I didn’t want you to think you had to love me because I’m so - so broken-”

His lips quiet her, sealing over her words and stealing her breath. Kate groans, fanning her fingers at his cheek to feel the work of his jaw, fisting her other hand in the worn fabric of a flannel she’s felt before. Her back bumps into the door and then her world is nothing but the sensation of Castle kissing her again, his body flush with hers, hands in her hair, angling her face upwards so he can kiss her deeper.

“You are not broken,” he growls into her mouth, nipping on her bottom lip. “You are the same woman I knew before the explosion. You are strong, you are caring, and you are hot.”

Her lips crack into a watery smile beneath his.

“And everything in between, Kate Beckett. You are everything I want. Always have been. Living together, healing together - it just made me fall in love with you faster,” he murmurs, dusting his lips to the corner of her mouth, the bone of her cheek, the lid of a closed eye. “But don’t think for a second that we wouldn’t have ended up here sooner or later, no matter what.”

His forehead drops against hers.

“God, you’re so damn stubborn and I am so angry with you right now,” he mutters into her cheek, the words vibrating against her skin. “Why didn’t you tell me any of this earlier?”

“I panicked,” she admits, caressing the lines of his jaw with exploratory fingertips, the frown on his lips, the crease of his brow. “I thought - I was scared and I wanted to be selfless. I figured you would see how much I took from your life once I was gone.”

“Stupid,” he corrects, earning a huff, but he only nuzzles closer to her. “Stupid sometimes, but still extraordinary. That never changed, Kate.”

She cranes her neck, finds the corner of his mouth with her lips. “I’m so sorry, Castle.” He turns into the kiss, lets her have the work of his mouth for a long moment before he bumps his nose against hers. “I understand if you need time to-”

“No,” he gruffs, fingers bruising against her hips. “I gave you time, space. No more.”

She sighs, trails her fingers down his throat, caressing collarbones.

“No,” she agrees, staining another apology along his chin. “I don’t want any more space either. I just want you.”

His arms wrap around her, damaged hands splaying firm at her spine.

“Come back home,” he mumbles into her lips. “I’m not asking you to move in yet, just come watch movies on my couch, play scrabble with my kid, share my bed with me three to four nights a week.”

A quiet laugh echoes between them, she ignores the little flip of her heart at his yet, and nods.

“Yes, but can we… can I have you to myself tonight, Castle?” she whispers, feeling his adam’s apple bob beneath the flutter of her fingertips. “These last three months… I ruined our summer and I want to make it up to you, but I want to talk this through. I need to be better about talking.”

Rick’s lips brush the skin between her brows, a pleased little quirk of his mouth against her skin. “Of course. Let me just text Alexis, let her know what’s going on so she doesn’t worry.”

“If she’s not okay with it-”

“She missed you, Kate, was a little confused and disappointed when you stopped seeing me, but I don’t think she’s upset with you,” he reassures her.

“I’ll talk to her tomorrow, take her for coffee or something,” she murmurs aloud, chewing on her bottom lip.

“I’m sure she’ll love that.”

“I’ll bring Dovah, I know that’s who you guys really missed.”

She hears the click of her dog’s nails on the hardwood floor across the room, likely coming in from the kitchen that houses her food and water bowls.

“I mean, she was certainly an added benefit to your presence,” Castle sighs, drawing her from the door, fingers sliding down her arms to find her hands.

She laces her fingers through his.

“Where are we going?” she asks, even though she already has an idea.

“To your room, to talk, maybe do some packing,” he chirps, guiding her along after him, but she can hear the grin in his voice, the mischief that lies there.

“That all?”

“Well, if we can squeeze it in, I was planning on showing you how much I missed you, maybe punishing you a little bit for making me miss you that much for the whole summer,” he muses, one of his arms jerking with what she assumes is a shrug. “But only if we have the time. It’s still early, there’s always tonight.”

“No,” she murmurs, covering the space between them when he slows. Her chest touches his and she swears she can feel the acceleration of his heart against hers. “We have longer.”

#castle fanfiction #castle au #kate beckett #richard castle #prompt #anon #mine

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