Countdown, a bones fanfic

Everyone shouts together. The countdown has begun. The electricity in the room intensifies tenfold. I don't understand it, but for whatever reason I'm infinitely more excited, too. Maybe it's the fact that in two weeks, there's been no case to work on. No case to worry about. No case to lose sleep over.

You went to get another drink. This is your fourth. I find it amusing, because after two you get tipsy. But for some reason, tonight you have thrown all caution to the wind, and though I'd never admit it aloud, I like it. I see you, scrambling through the crowd to find me.

I wonder how I got you here. There's no case, no victim, no bones or scenarios or lab equipment or squints. I wonder how, in Jesus' sweet name, I got you here. At a party. With me. "Bones! Over here!" I shout, and your eyes light up with drunken recognition. I laugh, and you lean on me, but I don't think you notice. I do. Oh, God, I do.

You explain to me how exhilarating this whole thing is (your words, not mine). You explain how you don't understand why I don't take you out more often. I make a comment about your drunken state, which you deny, but I'm just a talking head. The truth is, without a case to work on, I feel like I'm making excuses to be with you. And it might not make sense, but without work, without "Agent Seeley Booth" and "Forensic Anthropologist Temperance Brennan, we're just a man and a woman. And that's when things get complicated.

Like now. As everyone pairs up, couples pull each other close, preparing for the kiss, their first of the New Year. It's tradition, a sort of promise, and as the mass of people around us melts into uniform pairs, I'm stuck. So much of me wants to pull you close, to ring in the New Year by finally fulfilling my past two New Year's resolutions. And this year, the chance is so agonizingly close.

I can barely stand it, and I know I don't have much longer to decide. You are getting flightier by the gulp, and while I take a large drink of the fluke you brought me, everything feels a little warmer. It doesn't make the decision any easier. And a little bubbly in the system usually does. Tells you how long I've been considering this.

Would you care, I wonder? Would you remember in the morning, I wonder more? Because if I do this, after almost three years of holding back, you'd better freaking remember it. I sure as hell will. That is, if I do this.

The idle party talk everyone is making is absolutely no comparison to the scientific conclusions you are making about every pair in the room, the only thing that, I know, lets you have a home-like ground in this out-of-your-arena party. And even your scientific conclusions don't compare to the way you lose every bit of your science and disconnected observance when we spot Angela and Hodgins preparing themselves for the tradition. We had no clue they were here, and you want to say hello, but I tell you to stay back, because I know what 3 seconds time will bring, and they won't want interruptions.

God, I'm really running out of time now. I look at you, and I must be staring, because you look at me back, in a much stranger way. My heart melts, at the curiosity in your eyes. Always curious, always wanting knowledge more than anything else. And me, all I want, more than anything else, is you. And you're so close. All I have to do is reach out, and pull you in, and this feeling in my gut, the eternal knot of not knowing what will happen if I ever did, if it wasn't about a deal, or to tickle someone else's sick holiday fancy, will disappear. But if I do this, if I do this I can't be doing it for me, or the knot in my stomach. I set my fluke aside, and I decide that if I do this it has to be for us. Not for me, not for you, but for us, if there could ever be an us and I hope to God there could be.

Now. Or. Never. I've lost track of everything, and before I have the chance to think over it anymore, because there have been enough thoughts coursing through my head in the last ten seconds to last me the entire year, I take the fluke from your hands, and set it aside. Confetti is being thrown, the very few without a partner to ring in the New Year with are chugging back more and more flukes, party horns are blowing, and the couples are all moving closer. But, honestly, that's all blurred now. My heart is pounding faster than it ever had, on a case, in the field, during a kill, ever. I can't remember the last thing I heard before my hearing was overtaken by the strangest whooshing of air (or maybe blood), but I stared you straight in the eyes, and memorized the look I received, deciding to analyze it later. Then, I brought my hand to the back of your neck, and pulled you in until our lips touched. And once you were there, I wasn't about to let you go. Three years of passion poured into that kiss, and the clock struck midnight, a new year came to be, and you kissed me back. You kissed me back like I have never been kissed before, and like I always want to be kissed again. I pulled away, and smiled. You smiled back. And that was all I needed. I moved to kiss you again, but you beat me to it, and you will never know how that made all my walls come down. You, and only you could do that to me. And now that you have, what a bright new year it will be. For the first time in three years, my New Year's resolution changed. And this year, it's to never let you go.