Summary: He was a soldier, and he could see in the grim lines of her eyes that she loved him enough that when he died, his bones would lay upon a white table.
A/N: If I owned Bones, Seeley would be naked in my bed right now, surrounded by candles, so obviously he is not mine. This story is dedicated to my love of Seeley Booth, so enjoy!
She carried his bones like they held the secrets to the world and his Glock was at her waist, and his blood was under her fingernails like onions and it rained under skin for years after.
She loved him.
Souls Will Pass Into Bones
By: Ixion of Moonlight
He was a soldier, and he could see in the grim lines of her eyes that she loved him enough that when he died, his bones would lay upon a white table. Bones would caress every inch of him in a way that might be sinful in a different context, but she would find his secrets in time. His heart would be safe though. Seeley Booth would never tell her I love you. Oh right. Because dead men did not give their hearts to strangers. After his death, she would regard FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth as just that, a stranger to be sealed away.
I love you enough to burn it all down, he told her, and her eyes were so blue and cold that he feared when he was gone, she wouldn't hold his bones at all. Wouldn't cherish the ribs that encased a heart that wanted something as fragile as paradise in the white of her curves or a skull that once had flesh that would caress the smooth of her neck.
In the grips of agony, Booth walked in circles around the war. And Parker, his son and the twenty-year-old that died in his arms, are side by side and both smile in that wicked curling way as if to say, You're our father. So go make us proud. He carries an American flag before his shoulders feel like they're ripping through skin and he lines up, fires, and another father is dead. Parker just smiles like he can do no wrong. Bullets litter his side and hey, my blood is red, he thinks and my bones are white, and it won't be long now before I am under her fingertips. He wants to make love as she looks at him above her coffee, and he almost wants to strip right there, suit and all and bury himself in her until he can breathe around the ache.
no, Booth, no more
No more being a soldier, or wanting to be her lover, or keeping his gun almost under his pillow because he can't sleep without it, or dreaming about growing wings and leaving his son behind. He guesses it's supposed to be no to everything. The desert blinds him and then there's the remembered blood on his crisp, white shirt, and he wondered why her blood was red because under the high of the kiss beneath mistletoe, he was sure her blood would be something effulgent. Sigh, oh the poetry days, when he read unknown authors and ate oranges off of her breasts. She would laugh and tell him he already had his place against her side, right here, in the early morning.
A little boy sat in the corner, and it was their son. Can I see the Bone lady?, he whispers and Booth tells him a secret:
She doesn't love us.
Days are spent kneeling praying to God for forgive me, I have sinned and loved every second of the descent. Knowing she would forgive him (even if God wouldn't) because she didn't feel the darkness in the way he guided her hips with his hands in passing, letting them linger and with a sigh, take away, or the nights his body shuddered in longing, and he came so hard and long with her name trapped against his lips that he grew harder when he saw her the next morning. Supple curves draped and flowing past him with a Good morning, Booth when all he wanted was to consume her.
There is a building on fire, and he is inside it. Oh and that's my skeleton right there, he thinks, oh and there's the white table. Tears are absent here, and he's standing at the entrance to Limbo. I love you, Bones.
"Booth-"
"Just give me this." Teeth and he's sucking on her lower lip, and his suit isn't hiding anything. She wraps her hand around the tie she bought him for his (oh god) thirty eighth birthday, the one with the smiling skeleton on it, and she breaks his back over her knee and all his oxygen is gone. I'm dead, and this is it. Blood is thick on his hands, and he cries into her shoulder.
His soul is wandering close by.
Temperance Brennan knew death like she knew Seeley Booth. Because he was that. Dead and once, a lover. She takes in the simple form of his body stripped of skin and closes her eyes at the arch of his hip and the dark brown of his eyes, begging behind her eyelids. This body she knew better than her own. He would press closer when she bit his neck and cry out at her tongue running along his spine and broad shoulders covered in scars were sensitive. She loved the depression of his shoulder blades, but she never told him.
She wore a lab coat naked once, just to see what he would say. He might have been bleeding like the soldier he was, but he sighed speaking of nights filled with want, take, despair. He curled into her against the very same table his bones rested, beaming white up at her like his charm smile.
"Come on Bones, take a walk with me." Love me, he was saying in context. Booth said there were tells when someone was lying. And he was the best liar she knew. He bought her a gun, finally, but she carries his Glock with her wherever she goes. "That's my gun," he said to a stripper once when she brushed against it while giving him a lap dance, and Bones thought he was possessive about it. Then again, if he lost it he would be naked. She wouldn't mind.
Their bodies created fire and maybe that was the light charring along his knees. But she was a killer for him, the assassin hung up, gutted, and lit on fire. Thanks Dad. Parker is depressed and so is she. Booth's gun is on the table, or in his son's hands, but the pie is almost ready.
"Here you go Booth. Apple." Incredulous chocolate brown eyes.
"You love me."
"Apple pie told you that?" Smile with white teeth, and she's back to the whiteness of his bones.
His soul is floating by her side, but she only believes in death. He makes love to her again, and she's never loved like this, but Seeley Booth will never know.