The early morning light filtering through the bedroom window is almost tangible, and not in the warm, fuzzy, feel-the-moonlight-on-your-body way. In the aggressive, burning, I-can't-remember-how-I-got-home way. The last thing Hodgins remembers is parking his ass on a bar stool and telling the waitress to keep 'em coming. He hopes he didn't drive home.
A shower helps a little. The face in the mirror looks angry and disappointed. Nothing new under the sun, Jack, he thinks without humor.
When he reaches the living room, a pair of garishly embroidered purple socks greet him from the arm of his leather sectional.
"Booth?"
The feet in the socks wiggle and flex. "Hrmph."
Hodgins walks into the middle of the room and stares. Booth peers at him from underneath a crumpled jacket. "Did you sleep here?"
That earns him a glare, as Booth rolls into a sitting position and scrubs his face with both hands. "No, Hodgins. I had insomnia so I drove over here, broke in, and went to sleep on your couch."
"Okay, okay." Hodgins crosses his arms, wonders if that looks defensive, then decides he doesn't care. "Did you bring me home?"
"You were pretty drunk," Booth says carefully. He looks freakishly young with his hair standing on end, more like a hungover frat boy than a thirty-something veteran. Only the badge and gun angled neatly on the end table ruin the illusion. "It was no problem."
There are other questions, like How did you know where I was, and Did I say anything embarrassing, but Hodgins doesn't want to know the answer to any of them. He jerks his head. "There's a guest room down this hall, third door on the left. Shower's fully stocked."
Booth nods and stands, stretching until his back cracks. "I left my car at the - "
"Yeah," Hodgins says quickly. "No problem."
Booth's gaze lingers on him for an odd moment, but he doesn't say anything past, "Okay. Thanks."
*
Hodgins is not a big fan of self-denial. To the extent his life is orderly it is only because he enjoys order; a virtuous impulse is still an impulse. He wants to tell Angela you are definitely not a virtuous impulse and waggle his eyebrows to let her know it's a come-on. But Angela is sleeping with Roxie, and Hodgins isn't allowed to say those things anymore.
The following Friday at five, he corners Booth outside Brennan's office and hands over his car keys. Booth takes them without a word.
The next morning Hodgins wakes early, to the same furious light and the same fuzzy memory.
He lies there with his eyes wide open, and doesn't move until he hears the alarm in the guest bedroom go off and be silenced with a muffled thump.
*
The first time he kisses Booth is in the foyer of his house. He thinks it's because he's drunk and angry and tired, and tired of being drunk and angry - but if he's honest with himself, it has something to do with the way the muscles of Booth's arms shift and tense when he helps Hodgins out of the car.
So he kisses Booth, and Booth lets him, neither kissing back nor jumping away. He lets it happen as quietly as he accepts Hodgins' car keys every Friday, as patiently as he waits for Hodgins to achieve oblivion before ushering him into the car and driving him home.
It's infuriating, so Hodgins breaks away, and says, "Fuck you."
Booth watches him for a moment, and Hodgins wonders if there was a really a time when he didn't see the intelligence shifting behind those eyes. A subjective, intuitive, emotional intelligence, to be sure, but still formidable.
Hodgins is trying to formulate a segue from fuck you to I've grown to respect your intelligence, freakish and feminine as it may be, when Booth says, "Sleep it off, Hodgins. See you on Monday," and walks out the door.
"Fuck me," Hodgins says weakly, and doesn't sleep at all that night.
*
He decides to stop drinking.
Well, he decides to stop getting drunk, which is not quite the same thing, but having a few glasses of wine with dinner has yet to result in him molesting giant, lethal, demonstrably heterosexual FBI agents, so he calls it good.
If Booth thinks about what happened, he gives no sign of it. He seems pleased that Hodgins is getting better, though Hodgins suspects that has more to do with Booth's fundamental decency as a human being than any lingering thoughts about the kiss.
Infuriating.
*
The second time he kisses Booth happens, variously, in the lab, in his house, in Booth's car, and once, memorably, in a submarine, and it usually has something to do with one of them rescuing the other in the nick of time from a vague and menacing villain.
Those are just dreams, of course, and not ones Hodgins would ever admit to having.
*
The second time he truly kisses Booth is several weeks later, and it starts like this: Rebecca is getting serious with her new boyfriend, who is a kind, quiet man with two loving daughters, and Parker will be joining them in Vermont for an extended vacation over the holidays.
The whole situation is disgustingly perfect, and Booth walks around for days with his hands in fists. Hodgins refrains from saying anything; he gets significant looks from Angela and Cam, letting him know they are Not Saying Anything either.
There is an obvious flaw in their plan.
*
"You should be happy for Parker," Brennan says, her brow wrinkling in confusion.
The entire staff is eating a late dinner in Brennan's office, an increasingly regular occurrence now that Zack's absence and Roxie's presence aren't so obviously awkward. Every horizontal surface covered in takeout containers, though Hodgins has long since given up wondering why it takes twenty-five cartons of food to feed their little group. Roxie can pack it away, though, which is yet another item in a depressingly long list of things Hodgins finds himself liking about her.
Cam makes frantic shushing motions from her place on the other side of Booth, but Brennan ignores her. "After all, you've always wanted his home life to include a father. Now, he'll have a strong male presence on a day-to-day - "
Booth puts his plate down and stands up. He doesn't say anything, and Hodgins can't see his eyes - but whatever they show is enough to make even Brennan fall abruptly silent. After a moment, he turns and walks away. It would be easier if he stomped, or ran, or knocked fragile things over on his way, but he simply walks, and is gone.
There is a brief, horrified silence, during which everyone looks everywhere but at Brennan, and Brennan peers at her pad thai as if it might reveal where she went wrong. Finally Cam stands.
"I'll go," Hodgins says without meaning to. Cam stares at him for a moment, in the grip of a protective impulse that looks uncomfortably like love. She remembers herself, and nods once, sharply.
*
Booth is spent by the time Hodgins finds him behind the Jeffersonian. Slumped into a metal bench designed for someone half his size, he's got his face buried in both hands. His knuckles are raw, and Hodgins knows one of the brick walls lining the narrow green alley bears traces of skin and blood.
"She didn't mean anything by it," Booth says after a moment, talking into his hands. Hodgins shifts from foot to foot, and forbears from saying that's my line. "I shouldn't have - "
"Knock it off," Hodgins says, more sharply than he means, and Booth looks up at him in surprise. "Just - Give her a pass, but give yourself one, too."
Booth looks blankly back at his hands, and Hodgins looks at the exposed back of his neck. Moments unspool into the darkness. Hodgins isn't exactly sure where his thoughts go, but when they come back, kneeling at Booth's feet and pressing a crumpled napkin to his bloodied knuckles seems like the most natural thing in the world.
"This sucks," Booth says suddenly. His voice is unsteady, and Hodgins thinks he's probably supposed to ignore both the words and the tone.
Instead he looks up. He looks, and keeps looking, until Booth looks back. "Fuckin' A, man," Hodgins says solemnly. "This is fucking bullshit."
He wants a laugh, but Booth settles under his hands and says, roughly, "Yeah."
He thinks he should say something manly and encouraging. "You can sleep in my guest room," he says instead.
"Okay," Booth says.
*
They sit in the darkened car outside Hodgins' house. Booth is quiet, save for an occasional huffed breath; Hodgins can't tell if it's annoyance, misery, or possibly allergies.
"I could have him killed," he says quietly.
Booth turns to him; he's backlit by the porch lights, but Hodgins sees, or imagines, a glint of humor in his eyes. "Yeah?"
"I have people."
"Do you?" A definite smirk.
Hodgins spreads his hands. "Well, my people have people. Obviously I require plausible deniability."
"Too late." Booth flips his jacket open to show his badge. "FBI agent."
"Damn."
This time, when he kisses Booth, he does it with his eyes open, knowing neither of them will be able to pretend that alcohol was to blame. Booth tenses and mumbles something that might be a protest against his lips. Hodgins mmhmms at him, meaning to back off, but his good intentions get lost in sensation, and are obliterated when Booth miraculously starts kissing back.
Holy shit, Hodgins thinks with a fervor he reserves for rare pollens and good sex. Possibly great sex, actually, possibly unforseeably amazing sex, if the way Booth kisses is any indication. There's nothing restless or unfocused about this Booth - the man kissing him is the Booth who emerges when the task at hand requires the full measure of his focus. It would be terrifying if it wasn't so hot.
*
There are a few moments where things could stop; where they could break apart and laugh, and head inside to drink until the alcohol blots out the whole night. Hodgins is aware of each crossroads, mentally preparing himself, but Booth cruises right on past them. By the time Booth levers his seat back and drags Hodgins across the middle console, it's clear plausible deniability is no longer an option.
It's awkward, theoretically; the Alfa Romeo hardly fits two grown men sitting up, let alone sprawled across the front seat. In reality, Hodgins figures having his knee wedged against the dashboard is a more than fair trade for having Booth caught beneath him. God knows he'd never be able to manage it in the open, because Booth moves, Christ, it's like riding an earthquake, he seems to be moving in ten directions at once and they're all unbelievably good.
Hodgins lifts his head to suggest they might move this party inside, but he can't quite remember how to get the words from his brain to his mouth. It doesn't help that Booth is beautifully lost in sensation, his head tipped back against the seat, his mouth just open enough to invite a kiss. After a moment, though, Booth blinks and looks at him with dazed eyes. "Okay?"
"Yes," Hodgins says. He grins. "Hell, yes."