not with a bang but with a whimper
bones, booth/brennan, rating r, words 2237
notes: for ellaboston, because it always is, title from eliot.
Brennan likes to keep in shape. She works out, eats right and her days are so busy, so full and so tiring that seven days out of the week, her brain has switched shut before her head even touches the pillow.
This isn't one of those seven nights.
Her cheek dips deeper into the pillow, arms curving around herself and were this a girl other than Brennan, the term snuggling might come to mind.
She's still Brennan, though. Her skin grazes against the cloth and she thinks of how the side of her face fits perfectly into his hand and all of a sudden there he is. Grinning that grin of his, his fingers framing her face.
Her legs straighten, kicking out the duvet. The thought just walked right in- no prompting, no consciousness on her part and she blames the hour.
(It's irrational of her, perhaps but Freudian slips don't take place in one's own head so she figures her old enemy psychology might be with her on this one.)
Eyes close and she wills sleep to come.
The clock ticks.
She's been distracted all day.
Spilt coffee on her new blouse, the stain spread across in the shape of the carotid artery marking the silk as it's own.
Booth raises an eyebrow at her appearance, clearly pleased to be the more put together of the two for once and he's straightening his tie in the rear view mirror when he catches sight of her fixing Angela's scarf around her torso and smirks.(It's Angela's scarf. Pink- even orange- is involved.)
"Rough morning?"
She nods, vaguely in his direction. Fingers drumming along the dashboard, her eyes fixed to the road. There isn't a lot of traffic, so she thinks they'll get there soon.
He doesn't press further. They slipped into comfortable silences, long ago. She thinks that at some point, between merely tolerating his company and getting very, very used to it, she's come to need him too.
The car stops.
"Booth?" and his head swivels to meet hers.
"My book. I have-"
-her tongue tangles of its own accord. She's stronger than that, though
"I have an event this weekend. A book launch? Would you like to come with me?"
His mouth curves and he nods.
She closes the door of the car and tugs on her gloves, the material stretching over her knuckles with a smooth, quiet zing and she can spy Booth out of the corner of her eye. He's got his hands on hips, one finger cocked over his badge and the gun is never too far.
She wonders why she's so much less Brennan when just before the gloves come off.
The week rolls by, days turning like the leaves of a book. Not too slow or too fast. Just at whatever pace she chooses to take them.
Her stomach is brimming with apprehension. She's not sure what to make of it, so she deems it just that- apprehension. Brennan's not the biggest fan of people. Observation and interaction are two very different arts and she's never made a secret of which suits her better.
Typically, a book launch will consist of a bit more than just a podium and her own voice for ten to twelve minutes. There will be people there. Booth, yes. Maybe Angela.
(Angela's steadfast commentary on her life never changes. Another non date with Booth and she's smiling that grin that Brennan still doesn't have a meaning for.)
But also just people. People who want to shake her hand, get her autograph, take her picture and she doesn't think she'll ever get the hang of it because it doesn't make sense to her, really. A few pixels don't amount to much. A scrawl of ink doesn't amount to much and anthropologically speaking-
This she's getting good at.
Cutting off her thoughts before they turn into words that will somehow cut themselves. She's marginally better equipped- marginally.
The darkness takes on his form again. She closes her eyes against it.
She's wearing red. It's a dress- the sort that's terribly classic and uncomfortable, with a complicated map of zippers and lace doing it up in the back and she remembers not really understanding the first time she laid eyes on it.
There is ribbing on the inside of the bodice, coated with satin that slides and slips when she moves and she wishes she hadn't let Angela convince her to buy it, to wear it but now the silk is plastered to her skin and she thinks taking it off might be an even bigger hassle than leaving it on.
Her fingers play with the canister of lipstick, turning it over in her fingers the way she would a scalpel. She unscrews the lid with the greatest of care and sets on the counter of her bathroom, eyes flicking up to meet the mirror and lifts the contraption closer to her lips.
It's light- almost invisible - and she's tries to remember the number of times she's done this before stood before her bathroom mirror and worked out this routine in the same matter of fact way that she does everything else.
She tries for a smile at her reflection.
Booth's got his tie on, hands resting against the door as he waits for in a stance she recognizes as relaxed, his smile wide to match.
His socks are grey, a tiny gesture that lets her know that the jock has taken the spotlight and twisted it to shine on her.
Not that he thinks he needs do. He chokes a little at the sight of her- her outfit to be more precise but he's complimentary. Appreciative. She appreciates this, returning the stretch of his lips with a small smile of her own as he takes her hand and swings her down the steps in what she supposes is yet another arcane tradition she'll never quite come to terms with.
He holds her door open to let her climb into the passenger seat and all of a sudden her heels don't pinch anymore.
He plays Hot Blooded on the way there. There's no rented tux, no GPS- she leans back in her seat and decides that the best way to take no chances it to trust him.
Her fingers are wound tight around his fore arm, clutching him as they stumble up the steps to her apartment. He's laughing- laughing really loudly and she can't feel the floor beneath her feet.
She hangs on to him, legs swaying dangerously as she misses a step and he catches her closer to him, pulling her to him till all her eyes can see are his lips stretched wide open and his white teeth winking in the dimness.
It's part impulse, part alcohol plummeting through her veins but soon her lips are moving against his the doorknob pressed into the small of her back. His hands appear to be the only thing holding her up, hooked tight under her elbows and she thinks- well, she isn't really thinking anymore- he's swallowing up her thoughts with just as much efficiency as he is her words.
His mouth moves off of her, head tilting till their noses almost touch, chins tucked away from each other, ragged breath dragging against her cheek as he whispers her name like a prayer, over and over again till she kisses him. It's soft, quick and then he says
-Bones.
Her heart stops- well, it doesn't stop it just slows to a heavy drum – but it feels like it's stopped.. Like she left her breath somewhere between his lips so she tilts up her head and doesn't even realize that she's waiting for him to kiss her again.
His hand slides onto her back, tugging her into her apartment and he lowers his mouth to her face, tracing the line between her hair and her skin. He's playing with the clasps of her dress and when his fingers meet her bare skin there's a sound. It's soft, needy and it sighs around his jaw.
She sobers just a little when she realizes it's hers.
The moment his fleeting. Booth is quicker with his fingers than she is and the back of her dress falls open, sliding along the curve of her hips and she steps out of his arms letting it fall to the floor, smiling in admiration of his clever fingers.
She hears her name, his voice reaching her ears but not her head and the liquor in her system does away with any compulsion she has in moving back to him. Her hands flit over his body and he's trying hard to be quiet, still as a statue and letting her undress him because he realizes that it's important for her to click open his belt buckle and take control.
It's her that guides him into her bedroom, their grasping for the bed, for each other in the dim light and she laughs when the back of her knees hit the mattress because their tangled together all wrong, his hair tickling the line of her hip bone.
"Bones"
It's said with urgency- she can't tell if he's trying to push her away or hold her closer to she twists her body beneath his, legs tight around his hips.
He groans, pushing closer to her core. His lips have descended to the hollow of her neck, sliding over her collar bone with an alarming amount of familiarity. His hands span her hips like an old lover moving over her flesh like he already knows every inch of it.
She sits up a little, dragging his body up hers till theirs are level.
"Booth." It's not a question-
-she trying to-
"We shouldn't do this."
The thought sits in the room, creeping in between their flushed skin and she wishes it away.
"'I want to do this- we shouldn't." She wants to tell him that she wants it anyway and that she's wanted it for a while.
"I want to do this with you."
Her words feel small and her fingers reach for his.
Booth has large hands, one of which is currently cradling her hip when he moves it off her skin to her hand, she hears a whimper and she's kissing him again. Her fingers tug at his hair.
"I want to do this with you." She's a broken record, playing close against his lips like a secret and the air is heavy with things unsaid..
He's moving inside her now and she gasps with each stroke because it's Booth.
The lines on her ceiling start to drift away and there isn't much to feel but his skin- all of him pressed against all of her and she has the irrational wish that his flesh would just melt into hers on a permanent basis and her nails rake across his back in an almost territorial gesture.
Which is ridiculous- she isn't-
She belongs to the age of reason. People don't own people- it isn't possible.
It is not possible to own a human being if in this moment, it feels like all of him belongs to her.. It's just the hormones and the endorphins and all those other things that blur lines between fact and fiction. Fiction like the ghosts that save lives and fiction like possession and-
His hips twist till she's straddling his waist and all conscious thought is forgotten as his tongue traces down to the valley of her breasts, finger skipping up her rib cage like he's counting the bones even though he knows she could tell him the answer.
She feels him shudder against her and their moving in such an effortless rhythm that her lips fall open, head tilted back like at angle she wouldn't try if she were sober and she decides he's half of her intoxication- half of her.
His arm around her waist angles her into his side, tucking her limbs into his embrace. Her eyes close against his skin and she's breathing deeply before the clock can claim another minute.
Booth doesn't like the sunlight. She can tell by the way his eyes curl up at the corners that he's wishing dawn away.
Her bed has never seemed so big. It's an ocean stretched out between them. She's not caught up on the etiquette for mornings after with a partner and she doesn't know what her fingers want to do, sliding them under her pillow till he flops over to the middle of the bed, arm reaching for her through his sleep.
He mutters something, fighting sleep as he opens his eyes and she hopes he's not wincing at the sight of her.
"Bones."
She doesn't want him to talk anymore.
"Good morning."
"Last night was-"
"Yes." She is firm.
"We were drunk." It sounds redundant.
"I don't-" she hates her fickle tongue, his hands in her hair scrambling her thoughts- "I don't want it to have been because we were drunk."
He presses his lips to curve of her cheeks and then pulls back. He seems earnest, playful fingers reaching out to cup the side of her face.
"It wasn't. It could never be."
Her palms are flush against his cheeks, legs slipping between his.
She thinks they'll be all right.