Hello Bones fans! This is a oneshot about Booth's cop nickname. The subject was mentioned in the episode The Man in the Mansion.
Thanks to xhio86 over at the bitesize_bones episode tag meme on LJ for the lovely prompt!
Temperance Brennan stood in her partner's office muttering to herself as she sifted through stacks of case files and other papers.
"I don't know why Booth can't just organize his workspace. Surely it would take less time to create some order in this mess than to hunt through all of this whenever you need something…"
Her back was to the door, and since Booth wasn't going to be in to the Hoover building that day, Brennan didn't expect anyone to hear her ramblings. Let alone actually answer them.
Nevertheless, a reply came. "Ah well that's Booth for ya," a gravelly voice said from behind her. "Some things never change."
Brennan jumped and spun toward the sound, knocking her knee against Booth's desk and plopping unceremoniously into the chair behind her. Rubbing her knee, she turned to face the unexpected guest.
He was tall and lean, dressed in a police sergeant's uniform.
"Can I help you?" She asked rather curtly, glaring at him. He certainly could have had the courtesy to knock before barging in on her.
"Is Booth around?"
"Obviously he's not," she said without any hint of humor or apology in her tone. "He'd be rather difficult to hide in here, don't you think?"
Instead of being offended at her remark, the stranger just laughed. "You don't bullshit, do ya? I like that. You Booth's secretary?"
This time she visibly bristled. "No. I am Doctor Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institution. I provide assistance to Booth in his homicide investigations."
"Ah. You must be an incredibly brilliant and patient woman if you work with him." He smiled at her disarmingly. "Do you think you could still give ol' Boy Scout a message, let him know that an old buddy dropped in to see him?"
"Boy Scout?"
"Booth's nickname from our days at the police academy."
"Oh. Okay, I suppose." A memory niggled at the back of her mind. Something about cops and how they got their nicknames. She pushed it aside, however, and waited while Booth's friend scrawled his name and number on a fast food receipt that he fished out of his uniform pocket.
"Great. Just tell him Mike Holliday said hello if you would." With that, he handed her the receipt and backed out of Booth's office.
Brennan dropped by Booth's apartment that evening to discuss the progression of their case. He'd thrown out his back again, and been told in no uncertain terms to stay out of the office until he was off of all painkillers.
She found him in his darkened living room with the hockey game flickering from his big screen and beer bottles and peanut shells littering his coffee table. She looked at the scene in moderate disgust, sitting gingerly on the edge of his couch to show her distaste at his messiness.
"Booth! What are you doing?" She gestured to the food and drink in front of him. "This stuff isn't good for you! You're taking analgesics, so you shouldn't be drinking alcohol. And these peanuts have far too much sodium in them. An excess of sodium causes the body to retain water and swell, which will only exacerbate the pain in the tissue around your T9 vertebrae."
"Aw come on Bones, give it a rest. I'm in pain here."
Suddenly she sat up straighter, blue eyes staring straight through him. Peanuts…Peanut…Sully's old cop nickname. She racked her brain, going over her conversation with Booth's friend. What had he said Booth's nickname was?
"Bones?"
She blinked and focused on her partner again. "Booth. I met a friend of yours while I was in your office today." She pulled the old receipt out of her bag. "He asked me to tell you hello."
Booth looked at the scrap of paper and his face instantly lit up. "You met Mike! He's a great guy; a great cop. I've been friends with him since I was a boy."
Boy…Boy Scout…Booth's apparent cop nickname. Funny she'd never hear the other FBI agents using it. Perhaps it wasn't any special nickname, but just a reference to an organization in which Booth had participated in his youth. "Why did he call you Boy Scout?"
The beer bottle Booth had been holding dropped to the coffee table with a loud clunk. "I…uh…I don't know." But his cheeks colored and he immediately tried to change the subject. "So, Bones, you've got some paperwork for me?"
"Your reaction suggests that you do know."
"I just…I…do you want a beer, Bones?" he hopped up from the couch quickly, forgetting about the pain in his back. "AARRGGHH!" He fell stiffly back to the couch.
Brennan was off the couch immediately, gently supporting his arm as she tried to help him move into a more comfortable position on the couch. "Are you okay, Booth?"
"Yeah." He grimaced. "Actually no, I'm not. I need you to do the magic back thing."
"I'm not a chiropractor. I really shouldn't be adjusting-"
"Bones, please! Just try, I'll sign a waiver if you want. I'll do whatever you want. Just please help me."
She looked at him shrewdly. "Okay."
He sighed in relief. "Okay? You'll do it?"
"Yes, I'll try. But there is something I want."
"Anything. What is it?"
"I want to know the real reason your nickname was Boy Scout."
He winced. "Booooones…"
"And also why none of the other agents at the Hoover call you by that name," she added as an afterthought.
"It's just a nickname, Bones. No big deal. Please fix my back."
"Tell me."
He made a frustrated grunting noise. "The boy scout motto is be prepared. I'm…uh…always prepared. Hence the name Boy Scout."
She didn't have his uncanny ability of instinctively knowing when someone was lying, but she knew that he was not telling the whole truth here. "Cop nicknames are ironic. If they called you Boy Scout because of the motto, it must have been because you weren't prepared for something."
He was stunned into silence at her unusual display of insight.
She snatched the paper with his friend's phone number from where it had fallen at his feet. "It's okay, Booth. If you don't want to tell me the story, I'll just call Mike and ask him about it. He seemed like a nice guy, I'm sure he won't mind telling me." She grabbed her bag and headed toward his front door, pulling her phone out and beginning to dial the number on the slip.
"Bones! No, wait. What about my back!"
"We had a deal, Booth. You tell me what I want to know and I'll fix it for you. You didn't tell me, so I'm not adjusting your vertebral column. I'll email you the names of a few decent chiropractors."
He made a strangled sound and cursed under his breath. "Fine. FINE! I'll tell you." He crossed his arms over his chest and pouted, looking quite a bit like Parker when the latter was denied ice cream or an extension on his bedtime.
She perched on his couch again and leaned toward him, eyes bright and eagerly anticipating his story.
"I…forgot my handcuffs when I went into work one day. Now fix my back."
"Where were your handcuffs?"
"At my apartment."
She was puzzled. "Why did you forget them?"
"I…well…they weren't where I normally kept them."
"Where were they?"
A pink flush slowly crept across his cheeks and he raised a hand to rub nervously at the back of his neck. He mumbled his answer under his breath, too quickly and much too quietly for her to hear.
"What?"
Heaving a great sigh and clenching his jaw, he closed his eyes and forced the words out. "They were hooked to my bed."
"Your bed." Suddenly the light dawned and she giggled. She giggled. Brennan didn't do giggling. "You were engaging in sexual bondage activities with your regulation-issued handcuffs!"
Booth just clenched his jaw even tighter.
"Okay, Booth. Stand up, and I'll correct your back problem."
He stood slowly and gratefully, thinking that she was blessedly determined not to tease him about her newfound knowledge.
No such luck, however. As she stood behind him, hooking her arms beneath his own and rotating him forward, she whispered in his ear, "So did you break the laws of physics, Booth? Or maybe you broke something more mundane…your bedpost, perhaps?" She chuckled as he escaped her grasp as quickly as possible and shot out of the room. She was not going to let this go. Perhaps Angela would be interested in this revelation…
Hope you enjoyed! I could be induced to add another chapter in which Booth and Brennan have a little handcuff fun. Let me know what you think!