Disclaimer: Not mine. none of it. Unless someone sees a black swan.
Summary: Booth. Hodgins. Beer. Man-Talk. Swans?
Characters: Booth, Hodgins
Pairing: B/B
Spoilers/Warnings: Through ep. 102
Rating: PG
Dealing With Black Swans
They hadn't been talking about her. Hell, they hadn't even been talking about women at all. Still, Hodgins had tipped his beer up to an empty angle and when he set it down he said, "It's Popper's swans man." Hodgins still had the beer bottle, his fourth, by the neck. He rocked it in aimless circles around the ring of condensation on the bar top.
"Huh?" Booth asked which was a perfectly acceptable question in man-talk, no points lost for lack of finesse or eloquence. He took a swig of his own beer and waved at the bartender for two more thus providing cover for how much he didn't care what the scientist had to say. And getting more beer.
So Hodgins replied, "This thing with you and Dr. Brennan." He accepted the new beer without comment, popping the top and laughing to himself. "You know, it's driving Angela crazy. She's usually really good with people … relationships. So it's making her a little nuts, you pretending to date other people."
Booth clamped his jaw down over just how little he needed to hear that his heartache was difficult for other people. The guy just wanted to bring up Angela. He got that. But still. "You said something about … swans?"
"Yeah. Karl Popper. He's like the only modern scientific philosopher worth mentioning. He wrote a lot about oh, the scientific method, falsifiability, how observations become scientific law. How to prove something. That kind of thing."
Booth nodded, dragging thoughtfully on his beer. Hodgins would get to the point, given enough time.
"He used this example about swans. He said you can say 'all swans are white' and you get reports from millions of people all over the world of only ever seeing white swans. Europe, Asia the Americas. All white swans. But then wham! Someone in Australia reports a black swan. And the second that one person sees a black swan, all those millions don't matter because the statement isn't true anymore." Hodgins leaned back, shaking his head. "That black swan, man...."
Booth turned a quizzical eyebrow on Hodgins and eventually the other man pulled himself out of scientific reverie. "Dr. Brennan, you know, she hasn't had it easy with people. I don't know her all that well, personally, but even I know that. So, she's a scientist right? Through and through."
"Yep," Booth agreed ruefully, his voice old with misery.
Hodgins nodded. "A lot of people believe in love. Really believe in it. But Dr. Brennan's seen too many black swans. Scientist in her can't buy into the love conquers all thing. Her family left, right? The people who are supposed to love you no matter what."
Booth drummed his fingers on the bar top. "So you're saying the problem isn't that she needs proof that love exists, it's that she's seen proof against it and that, what, invalidates everything else? Forever."
Booth was silent a while and eventually Hodgins tried to change the subject to anything else but Booth cut him off. "So what happens when you see a black swan. What do you do?"
Hodgins wracked his brain to find a way to turn the metaphor into something good. Or at least a little less harsh. But he was talking even as he was thinking. "Black swans suck. They're these extreme outliers so there's no reason to expect them, you can't really prepare for them at all. They can wreck your whole hypothesis. And you can spend years on a hypothesis. So going back to square one …."
"Sucks," Booth supplied.
Hodgins clinked his beer bottle with the agent's, agreeing with a gulp. "But, if you can get over yourself, they're good. At least you stop wasting your time believing something that's wrong, you know?"
Booth nodded and stared at his hands for a long time, working his fingers. He pinched minutes between his fingertips, squeezing all pretense of comfort and relaxation from the evening.
Hodgins had had enough to drink that he'd gone a little loose in the lips but no so much that he could miss the tensions warring in Seeley Booth. Sitting next to the agent was like sitting next to a nuclear event. "Look," he said. "I don't know why I said anything. None of my business."
But when Booth stood from his seat at the bar, he was grim, determined, and almost smiling.
Hodgins leaned back enough to make his seat on the stool precarious. "You look like you're about to lead a holy crusade against the evils of science," He said in sheer surprise.
A long-absent grin broke out across Booth's features. "Bones says she doesn't believe in love," he explained. "But I think it's just that she doesn't believe anyone could love her. Not really. Not forever."
"Which is helpful because …?"
Booth clapped Hodgins on the back and dropped a few bills on the bar. "Unexpected outliers, man. I'm the black swan."
End