Author's note: This is for those of you who've missed me while I was in my SVU writing phase. And for those of you who didn't miss me…screw you. Uh…just kidding. Please review.
Disclaimer: As is the case with all of my stories, this is done purely for fun. If reviews were money, I'd beg for them. As it is, I'm only at imploring, a step down from begging.
"The evidence doesn't support your theory, Booth."
"Okay, but what if we used my theory as a basis for finding that evidence?" he suggested.
"It's tunnel vision; you know that doesn't flutter."
"Fly," he corrected.
"Whatever," she answered dismissively. The two of them were walking towards her office at the Jeffersonian, she perusing the case file and he gesticulating with his hands as he tried to explain his conjecture.
"It makes sense! Okay, let's just forget the homeless guy in the burned and bloody jacket for now."
"Yes, let's just ignore that inconvenient little detail," she answered.
He stopped for a moment and she continued walking, appearing not to have noticed his absence. He jogged to catch back up and said, "You know, I think you've been hanging around me too long. You're stepping up the sarcasm." He said it as though impressed rather than offended.
"Mm-hmm," she answered distractedly. He quickly grabbed her shoulders and maneuvered her around a group of people she was about to walk into. She shrugged his hands off and he rolled his eyes.
"Look, Bones, I know all the evidence points to this guy, but I just don't see it."
"See what?" She turned to face him when they reached her office door. "Is he not giving off a 'bad guy' vibe?"
Booth shot her an ironic grin. "Okay, I'm gonna let that slide just this once," he said, following her into her office.
"Booth, just give me something else to go on besides your gut."
"I don't have anything else," he conceded, showing her his empty hands, palms-up, as if to prove it.
She shook her head and shrugged.
"Okay, well what about the wife?" Booth said.
She let out a humorless laugh. "Booth, there is nothing whatsoever indicating that this guy was killed and incinerated by his own wife."
"Troubled marriage!" he insisted. "Not two weeks ago, witnesses saw them having a heated argument outside a restaurant. She threw a punch."
"Booth," Temperance said levelly, "I sometimes get the overwhelming urge to punch you, but I'd never murder you."
"That's…both upsetting and comforting," he answered, narrowing his eyes and inching back out of arm's reach.
She appeared not to have noticed. "I got results back on the foreign substance found coating the teeth," she said, reading a report that had just been faxed.
"What have I done to make you want to punch me?" he asked.
She peered at him over the top of the pages she was holding. "Does it matter? You obviously have kept within the bounds of my patience." She gazed back down at the report. "This says that the substance was in the victim's mouth prior to him being incinerated."
"I'd just like to know what kind of behavior to avoid. I don't really like being punched."
She let out an annoyed grunt and stared up at the ceiling for a moment. "You're coming dangerously close," she said through gritted teeth.
He nodded and held up his hands appeasingly, imitating zipping his lips.
She continued to read off the pages in her hands. He watched her lips formulate words that were foreign to him. The corners of his mouth twitched as he realized that it was those words he enjoyed hearing most from her.
She was on the third page when he interrupted again.
"What if I tried to kiss you?"
She looked at him like he had just grown another head. "What?" She had obviously already forgotten their previous discussion.
"Would you hit me if I kissed you?" he elaborated.
She shook her head in confusion, struggling to formulate an appropriate response. Finally, she said, "I wouldn't recommend trying it."
"So, you would hit me," he insisted.
Her eyes narrowed. "Why would you try to kiss me?"
"I'm just asking a hypothetical question," he laughed, taking delight in her agitation.
"Well stop it, or I'll hypothetically slap you." She turned her attention back to the file.
He chewed the inside of his lip, studying Brennan, weighing his options. After a while, the conversation seemed forgotten.
Brennan was studying the file, her forehead creased in thought. Suddenly, she threw the folder on her desk and sat back in her chair, letting out her breath in a huff.
Booth, who had been reading the police report over again, glanced up in question, but said nothing.
She looked at him, debating with herself whether to ask what was on the tip of her tongue.
"What?" he prompted.
"What makes you think the wife did it?" she finally asked.
He smiled a slow grin. "Your evidence isn't adding up to the homeless guy, is it?"
"Just…tell me why you think it's the wife," she answered irritably.
He chuckled. "I already told you, it's a gut feeling. No hard proof."
"Well, I can't put 'gut feeling' on a report, so you're just gonna have to do a little better."
"You're the forensic anthropologist, why don't you find better proof?"
"We combed the crime scene," she argued. "We got every scrap."
"We must have missed something," he countered, looking at her pointedly.
"You mean I must have missed something."
"I didn't say that."
"But that's what you meant."
He gave a noncommittal shrug.
"My team got everything," she insisted angrily.
She noticed a smirk working at the corners of his mouth.
Brennan scowled then said, "You're still trying to get me to punch you, aren't you?"
Booth could no longer contain his smile. Laughing, he said, "I was close, wasn't I?"
"I'm not talking to you anymore," she said, then picked up the folder and resolutely resumed her reading.
"Oh, c'mon, Bones…the silent treatment?"
She didn't say anything.
"You can't not talk to me. We're working together." He stared at her, waiting for a reply. She didn't even acknowledge that she had heard him.
Angela poked her head in the office door. "Hey, Brennan?"
Temperance looked up. "Yeah, Ange, what's up?"
"I've compiled the list of possible objects used as the weapon on our guy." She waved a printed piece of paper. Booth walked over and accepted the paper from Angela, taking his time looking it over.
"Booth, can I have the list, please?" Brennan said with forced civility.
"Oh, you're speaking to me now?" he teased, making his way back to her desk with the paper.
She pinched her lips shut and and fixed him with a glare, holding out her hand for the paper.
Booth mouthed a silent "okay" and held out the page toward her. She reached out to grab it, and he pulled it away. She reached out again, faster, but he pulled it back again, like he was dangling a string in front of a cat to make it dance.
Brennan finally managed to yank the paper away from Booth, wrinkling it in the process. She smoothed it out and read it, once again ignoring the FBI agent.
Angela watched the exchange with a mixture of confusion and amusement. "Is there something I should know?" she asked.
Brennan's shoulders slumped and she answered, "Booth is trying to get me to hit him."
Angela looked at Booth. "Why do you want her to hit you?"
"It's not that I want to get hit. I'm just…you know…"
"He's 'testing his limits'," Brennan finished, adding air quotes.
"Oh, honey, no to the air quotes. Why don't you just punch him and get it over with?"
"No way! I'm not stooping to his childish game," she replied indignantly.
"Sweetie, guys are simple creatures."
"Uh, hello? Yeah, guy standing right here," Booth announced, waving his arms.
"Well, I'm not doing it. He's just going to have to grow up," Brennan replied with finality.
"Okay, if you say so," Angela replied before excusing herself and returning to the lab.
Booth grabbed a pen and started tapping a rhythm on Brennan's desk. She snatched the pen from him and put it in her desk drawer.
He started drumming a new, more persistant rhythm with his knuckles. She clenched her fist, then got out of her seat and moved to stand in front of him.
"Booth, I am not going to hit you. So just stop trying."
"You're not gonna hit me?" he asked.
"I'm not gonna hit you," she repeated.
"No?"
"No."
"Not even if I do this?" and he leaned forward and captured her pouting lips with his.
After a few seconds, reality caught up with her and she pulled away. He couldn't read her face.
He didn't have to.
Her fist connected with his left cheek.
Before he had time to feel the pain, she had grabbed his face in her hands and pulled his lips to meet hers. He responded almost immediately, bringing his hand up to grasp the back of her neck while the other found her waist.
Too soon for Booth, Brennan pulled away.
He watched her walk out the door, calling over her shoulder, "I'm gonna check something in the lab."
He tested the movement in his jaw, wondering vaguely whether he'd have a bruise tomorrow as he followed her out of the office.
'Yep,' he thought to himself. 'So worth it.'
END
Yeah, out of character, a little childish, and plotless. Review anyway, please.