A/N: Thanks so much to genevieve719 for the beta!
This story was inspired by: "Damaged People" by Depeche Mode (lyrics here: http/www.depechemode.se/D/damagedpeople.htm
Damaged People
Booth's attraction to Brennan was multi-faceted. The number of these facets had grown over time, and included the fact that he felt they understood each other on a deeper level than most people understood either one of them. In addition to having to deal with death in their respective pasts, both of their current jobs dealt with it every day. And while normally, they knew how to distance themselves from it, once in a while, a case would get to one or both of them, and they'd be there for each other because that was where their pasts came into it all.
Differing in circumstances but not in basic idea, they'd both had to deal with loss in their lives. With Brennan, it was the disappearance of her parents. She was always sure, in the back of her mind, that they were both dead. The mysteriousness of it haunted her to this day. For Booth, it was his days in the Army, seeing so many of his friends die right in front of him, and failing more than once at trying to save them from the enemy.
Because of this, and because of their current occupations where they dealt with human mortality on a daily basis, Booth and Brennan had an understanding of what the other went through, and it made their relationship deeper and stronger for it. Especially when one needed the other.
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Booth knocked on Brennan's apartment door late one night. He gripped a manila folder containing last-minute details about a case they were working on, and they'd need to look them over before morning. There was no answer to his knock, but he'd seen her light on from outside. He knocked again, and then ventured to open the door, which was unlocked, and called her name before walking in.
He heard her voice quietly answer "Hey" back from where she was sitting at her kitchen table, staring at the personal effects of a victim whose case they were currently working on. She turned the object over and over in her hands with her eyes trained on it, seemingly in a trance. He closed the door with a click, and watched her for a moment.
"Hey, Bones. You okay over there?" he asked, concerned, but trying not to let his voice betray it.
Brennan looked up, and then her eyes shifted back to the article in her hand. "Yeah, I'm fine," she scoffed.
He continued to watch her, seeing the determined look in her eye, knowing that she was upset but didn't want him to know it. He wanted to reach out to her, to help her somehow, but he was still unsure of how his comfort would be received.
He had been getting the sense that she was getting weary of it all. After all, she'd just started working with the FBI on these cases about a year earlier. Before that, she worked on identifying victims who had been dead for years: Civil War veterans, Iron Age warriors- victims whose families were long gone. In a lot of those cases, the only people who were searching for the identities of the individuals were historians who wanted to place the skeletons on display in a museum. She wasn't used to working cases of victims whose chopped up bones had been found scattered in a serial killer's backyard fire pit, whose families Brennan and Booth had to notify once the victims had been identified. Watching the face of a victim's loved ones crumple in despair as they learn the bad news was not something he'd ever get used to, and assumed Brennan wouldn't either. He knew she tried to distance her emotions from these cases as she did with the others she worked on; once explaining to him that it was similar to high school biology class when you had to dissect a frog, and after the first couple of cuts, the frog's body became so abstract that you forgot that the liver you were currently poking at was even once part of a living being. But he knew it wasn't as easy as that with humans. It couldn't be.
Booth pulled a chair up next to Brennan and tried to meet her eyes. As he placed a hand on her arm, she sighed so heavily and defeatedly, as if she'd been holding her breath all day and was finally letting herself breathe again. He looked at her face, and saw a tear falling down her cheek. Her defenses were melting again as they had more and more often around Booth. He knew exactly where she was coming from, as it took him a long time after becoming an FBI agent to be able to keep feelings in check when dealing with a particularly saddening case.
He knew she was inviting him in, to see what she was feeling if only for a few seconds, and he wanted to provide her with comfort any way he could. As he reached up to wipe away her tears, cupping the side of her face, she actually leaned into his hand, into the comfort he was providing with his warm touch. He spent a moment stroking the apple of her cheek with his thumb, then moved to gently knead out that stress crease between her eyebrows that seemed almost permanent lately. Her eyes fluttered closed, tears glittered like tiny diamonds on her lashes, and her left hand came up and enclosed around his as it returned to her cheek. He thought he'd maybe gone too far, that maybe she felt like she had gone too far in letting him in, but as he started pulling his hand away, she held it to her face, turned her head towards it, and she softly kissed the sensitive skin of his palm.
And that's when it started. That's the moment when the line was crossed and it became more to them than just a partnership between two people who were more alike than they realized. It became more than a friendship that neither would call a friendship unless they really thought about it, which was something they never had allowed themselves to do. There was a pause, a moment where Brennan's bright, clear eyes opened and locked on his, and time seemed to stop. It felt like inhaling and letting the air just sit suspended in your lungs for a few seconds.
And then it all sped forward in an exhale of time. Wordless acquiescence passed between their eyes, and Booth swiftly moved his hand from her face to cup the back of her neck, bringing her mouth toward his.
Their lips collided with a shocking force, but soon softened. Gentle, short, but thorough kisses were exchanged between the two- rooted in affection, anchored in comfort. He could feel her relax, sink into him, and he was shocked to realize that he himself felt comforted. It wasn't always a feeling he associated with a first kiss with a woman, but as their kisses grew deeper, and as her arms slid around his neck, he felt as if he were being surrounded by a warm blanket. He tried his best to return that feeling, needing for there to be no space between their bodies. So he pulled her to stand up with him, gathering her in his arms, cradling her head in his hands as he kissed her.
Booth let the sensation of warmth surround him, before their lips separated slowly. He opened his eyes to be confronted by hers, a stunning blue, infused with complete openness. This woman, who sometimes seemed so emotionally unavailable, was dropping all of her defenses for him, and he imagined it was for the first time in her life.
He paused for a long moment, knowing that what they were about to do could change their relationship forever. But they needed each other, he reasoned. And he knew that this change was for the better.
Brennan seemed to be thinking for a moment. She tensed a bit, and he could see the imaginary bricks of her protective walls being cemented back into place one by one. His fingers slid from her hair and caressed her neck, hoping to assure her that she had nothing to be afraid of in him, that this was right.
She closed her eyes for a moment, reveling in the touch of another human, letting herself feel alive, and then responded by tilting her head back towards him and capturing his lips once more.
Soon, they fell into bed in a tangled, naked mass of their newly discovered want and need for each other. His touch quieted her previously suppressed dark fears that she hadn't even known existed. His whispers confirmed that crossing the line that they'd danced around so carefully for almost a year was not as scary and deadly as she once thought it was, and his kisses made her feel alive- something she hadn't truly felt in weeks, and she was so grateful for that.
Her blissful climax released the tears she didn't even know she was holding back, and as she was surrounded by Booth's arms once more, she realized that letting someone in emotionally was not so bad after all. And in the moments afterwards, as they held each other in the afterglow, she was not afraid. She didn't feel the need to run, to shut herself down emotionally. This experience had not just been a physical satisfaction, or a temporary emotional fix. She felt something larger going on.
She blinked into the dark and enjoyed the feeling of Booth running his fingers up and down her spine as she pondered their changing relationship, and for the first time in her life, she was letting herself truly feel something.
END