THE DARE IN THE SNIPE HUNT 1/30
Casefic
Spoilers:Set S1 between 'The Soldier On The Grave' and 'Woman In Limbo', though not based on airdates- the time's a little too stretchy for that :-) and Cullen's still working while his fill-ins transition.
Disclaimers: No profit, 'Bones' and it's characters owned by Hart Hanson/Fox/et al – no offense or statements intended regarding the Lumbee nation or Mara Salvatrucha - I have used them creatively to my own devious ends.
Length: ~ 65,000 words
Um... Present Tense. Sorry? I didn't ever think it'd be so long...
Thanks!!!: To starlet2367 whom you can thank for making me scrap a long ass lab scene and swap it for a hard-to-write ensemble scene at Wong Fu's, but which is a lot more fun :grins: and to ares132006 who gave me the nod on the more complete version - they both lend me far more support and praise than I deserve :-)
Story sources (no, I don't always bookmark, but it's a few of them anyway) at the end.
THE DARE IN THE SNIPE HUNT
*** 1 ***
Booth and Ericson are sitting against the Humvee's rear tire, changing their socks. Booth is pulling dead skin from the blister on the ball of his foot when he glances up and sees Matthews is pouring gasoline on a burn pile. A mocha-colored arm is hanging out, bright, beaded bracelets gracing the slender wrist.
"Wait!" Booth yells, as Matthews sets the can down. Booth leaps up, sand hot under his bare foot, and the blister stings. "Wait!"
He runs towards Matthews, who never even looks at him, just strikes a match. The explosion blows back faster than Booth can raise his arms. Hot air batters his face.
"Daddy," Parker says into his ear.
"What. What?" Booth is muzzy and dazed as he wakes. He can feel Parker standing at his head, by the bed, but then he is awake and Parker is just a dream. He lays there awhile, listening to the empty of his apartment, to the echo of Parker's voice in his head.
Sometime later, his cell rings. Booth picks it up without opening his eyes. "Booth."
It's a quarter to six in the morning and the long and the short of it is that Brennan is going out to the woods of Maryland on loan, with Booth as her keeper.
*
After he knocks on her door at a quarter to eight, bagels in one hand and coffee in the other, he covers the peephole with his index finger. She's on her phone when the door swings open.
"... today. No, do the rest, but I want to see the skull before reconstruction."
Booth stands in the doorway. "Ask who I am."
"What? No, not you, Zach. Yes."
"Close the door."
She frowns at him. Booth resists her charm and waves the bag of bagels in his left hand at her. She steps back to let him in. "No, I think you'll probably have to use wide-spectrum for that."
"No, Bones, close the door and ask who I am," Booth says.
"Booth, get in here. Zach, have Hodgins call if he gets anything off the Romanian."
"Not until you ask me."
"Yes." She closes the door. "Thanks, Zach. Oh, one more..." And her voice fades into the recesses of her living room.
Booth knocks. He waits twenty seconds and knocks again. Nothing. He sets the cardboard tray of coffee on the floor and digs out his cell.
She lets it ring four times. He can hear it both in his ear and through her door, before she answers. "Brennan."
Booth rolls his eyes. "Bones. Let me in."
"Who is this?"
"I'm counting to ten."
"It's not locked, Booth."
Booth snaps his cell shut, counts to ten anyway, opens the door, retrieves their coffee, and kicks the door shut on his way in.
***
Gathering plates, napkins and two knives, when Temperance turns, she gets full frontal Booth blocking the kitchen doorway. She can pull a poker face, so she does, but her lungs need air. How can the man still look so federal in jeans and a tee? He's wearing a faded striped oxford over the tee, open and hanging out and it should look sloppy, but doesn't. His sneakers are red, which she just doesn't get.
"They're red," he says.
"I see that." She takes a shallow breath, and walks straight at him. He gives way and follows her to the long table by the window where they set everything down.
She's got on her favorite green slacks and a light sweater. "Go ahead. I guess I need to change."
"We're going to Douglas Point," he says unhelpfully, as he rolls down the bagel bag and fishes for the cream cheese.
"Which is..."
"On the Potomac, south side. Site's back in the woods."
"Okay." She watches him sit and break a bagel. "You want to toast that?"
"No. Want me to toast yours while you change?"
She shakes her head and retreats. He makes her apartment seem smaller. And brighter.
"It'll be cooler there," he calls after her. "Grab a jacket."
***
Bones is still nursing her coffee twenty minutes later as Booth hits the beltway and lets the Tahoe stretch a little.
She closes the brief file he gave her when they left her place and finally looks over at him. Booth catches himself rolling his lower lip as he waits to see how pissed she is. "Although Zach thinks you've become our intermediary," she says, "I have worked other federal cases without you, Booth."
"I know."
"This isn't your case."
"No."
"So why are you here?" She seems to remember suddenly that they are in the Tahoe, and waves her hand at the dashboard. "Why am I here?"
"Deputy Director Cullen and Dr. Goodman felt you might need... back-up."
"Baby-sitting."
"Vacation, voo-doo, murder charges- ringing a bell?"
"That wasn't my fault."
Booth can't help it, he grins. Trouble follows after her like flame from a match and it never seems to be her fault.
"What are you smiling about?"
"Let's just... listen to some music, hmm?" He flicks on the radio and skims the tuner past the morning shows until he hits "Proud Mary" and stops.
He opens and closes his fingers on the steering wheel and rolls his shoulders once. The rest of the truth is that it's been a hard few weeks. Booth's slotted cases in between Kenton's betrayal of the FBI, Bones' screw up in New Orleans, and taking time off to work Mandy Cullen's investigation. But Kent's case dropped him over the top, brought him too close to his past, and Cullen's making him field grounders until his 'bad mood' lifts. In Booth's opinion, Cullen hasn't met Booth's bad mood yet, but now's not the time to prove it.
Foreigner is up. "Hot Blooded". Booth loves this song, it's been awhile since he's heard it last. Wishing he were headed for the beach instead of the woods, he taps the steering wheel and sings under his breath. After the first chorus, Bones reaches out and flicks it off.
Booth waits for her to speak, but she just looks at the windshield like it killed her first born. "What? Foreigner too low-brow for you?"
"Booth! You got blown up to that, how can you listen to it?"
"I did?"
"Yeah- guilty pleasures, air guitar, ka-boom all over my kitchen?"
"I thought I was getting drinks?"
"You don't remember."
"No."
"That's... understandable. I didn't realize, Booth. I'm sorry."
Well. Shit. Booth leaves the radio off and sinks into the task of driving, focusing on the feel of the pavement, the red porsche to his left, the semi to his right. The driver in front of him, in a little blue Honda, is fond of riding the brakes. Probably two-footing it. He has just started to relax, thinking about his dream explosion, which never happened, and Parker's breathy voice in his ear, which has, when Bones decides to prod.
"Don't you hunt?"
"What?" Hearing himself, Booth wonders if he's ever met another woman who's made him sound so clueless. If so, he can't remember her.
"In New Orleans, you seemed surprised I hunt."
"Well, yeah. I'd think you'd get enough death in your daily life."
"Hunting isn't about death, Booth, it's about life. Our ancestors hunted without debate for, literally, thousands of years. As modern-day native tribes lose their ancestorial territories, they lose the ability to pass on their life-sustaining skills to their youngest members."
"Bones..."
"Hunting with traditional tools is a dying art." She sounds emphatic, like she's trying to prove something to him.
"Bones, I'm not arguing that with you."
"Do you hunt?"
"No."
Now she seems surprised, which makes him inordinately happy. "It's honorable, " she says. "Vital even, to our survival, to be able to hunt for food, clothing, shelter. It's important that those skills aren't lost."
"I'm not arguing that with you." Booth chuckles and shakes his head.
"What?"
"Joe Versus The Volcano."
"I don't know what that means."
God, she can push his buttons. "It's a movie, Bones. You were probably too busy with your bow or slingshot or whatever to see it."
She leans back and gives him that look, the one that says he's a neanderthal who doesn't care enough about the real issues of the world. He thinks maybe he could teach her a little bit about the "real" world and the pleasures of escapism.
She crosses her arms. "Huh."
Booth knows enough to be wary, but he's also dying to know what she's thinking. "What?"
"I just thought- you're so alpha-male. You were a Ranger, a soldier, a trained..."
"Ah, ah, ah," Booth says sharply, holding up one finger in warning.
"... hunter," Bones says, frowning at him, though Booth is certain the word she wanted was 'killer', because now she knows that's exactly what he is, now matter what he tells himself. He can actually feel the earth pressed against his belly, the stock warm beneath his palms, the scope riding hard upon his cheek.
"You seem the perfect type for crunching through the leaves to a deer stand."
"Implying I would hunt with a big gun. That hurts, Bones. A pistol is all I need."
"So you do hunt."
"Only when obligated."
"What does that mean?"
In answer, Booth tries the radio again. Bones subsides, looking out the window, and Booth stifles a deep sigh of relief. Hunting holds no appeal for him. Ticks and sunburn and blood on your hands. Under your fingernails. In your hair if something goes wrong. Do you save the blood for use or not? Skinning was always a treat, and who ever really does anything with the skins, or makes sausage from the intestines, or eats any organ besides the heart or liver?
Booth hates liver, though he's not above eating it. And the heart, well, he can't think about that right now. He can already feel the slippery slide of it between his fingers, coated in oil, the woman saying, "Coma. Coma, Americano." It was tender and hot, burning his fingers, and so what if he didn't know exactly what kind of animal it came from? His stomach didn't exactly care.
Now- Sid's apple pie, that's food. A thick Porterhouse at Sam and Harry's. Smoked pork chops at Vaserely's. Rebecca's macaroni and cheese. Mother Mason's ham and potato cassarole. That bagel this morning? That wasn't food. Booth's stomach rumbles in agreement.
***
The staging area is half a mile or so from the site in rough country. From the file, Temperance knows they are in one of Maryland's last parcels of old growth forest, probably why Jack Stratton chose to bury some of his countless victims here. Undisturbed, little traffic. Huge old oaks and tall hickory, second story maples and dogwoods with thick, gnarled trunks, lots of brushy undergrowth. The rhododendrons are still blooming. Two porta-jons and six varieties of county, state and federal crime lab units. "We have to walk in," Booth says as he parks. "This area is state-owned, but the site's on private land with no access."
An agent Booth says he knows from around gives them a crude map and ID to hang around their necks, but then answers his phone and hustles off.
Temperance is wearing her Doc Martens already. Booth trades his sneakers for a worn pair of hiking boots in the back of the Tahoe. He checks his .357 while he's at it, sheltered by the rear doors. He sees her watching him and smiles at her, with a half-shrug. She smiles back, even though she's still annoyed at him for assuming too much about how and why she hunts. She likes that he's thoughtful in his preparations, not willing to leave good enough alone. It is no different than gathering the proper tools in the lab prior to starting a new project.
They trudge up the rutted bike trail in the company of two silent techs hauling tackle boxes and numbered markers. If it weren't for the circumstances, it'd be a pretty walk. Breathing deep, relishing the movement after being cooped up in the car with moody, broody Booth, Tempe tastes the late spring air on her tongue. It's earthy and fragrant. There are vines with spicy, red blooms, and asters are growing in clumps all along their path; still, it feels wrong. The woods are hushed, the silence heavy, without birdsong, or the usual skittering of small prey in the brush. Temperance feels watched.
About a quarter mile in, two ATVs come roaring down the trail towards them, their empty trailers bouncing along behind. The drivers, in yellow crime lab jumpsuits, pull to one side, tilted high sideways, shut off the engines and wait for the walkers to pass. They both look grimy and sport dark circles under their eyes.
"How long you been here?" Booth says.
The taller one, slender and pale, a real lab rat as Angela would say, answers. "Nearly four days. We're not working nights, the site's too old to risk missing something, but we're all on security detail."
"How many?" Temperance asks.
"Eleven graves so far, sixteen whole or partial skulls. And a mass burial. They're still probing. You're Doc Brennan, right?"
"Yes."
"It's a real honor to meet you, ma'am."
"Thank you."
"We'll be headed back in a couple of hours. I hope you can tell us something new by then." He nods. "Guys," he adds by way of greeting the techs.
They nod back and Lab Rat and his partner rev their ATVs into life and are off again. The trees swallow the sound in a remarkably short time, but around the next bend, two unhappy mockingbirds are squabbling with a trespassing squirrel, which chases the creepies from Tempe's neck.