He knew the kid was beating himself up. He didn't have much of a poker face for a shrink. Booth tossed his head patiently and paced a few feet back and forth around his office, weighing up his options.

Caroline knocked on his open door.
"How's our sweet cupcake holding up?"
Booth glared at her.
She put a hand on her hip. "That well, huh? So what are you gonna do about it, cherie?"

"Me? Why me?"
"That boy idolises you, cher, and you know it. If anybody's gonna get through to him, it's you."

"That doesn't mean I'm responsible for him! He can't be an agent in the field, carry a gun, and come crying to me if he skins his knee. Men work things out on our own!"

"Who exactly are you trying to convince with that impassioned speech? We all want someone to run to Cher, when we're hurting."

With that, Caroline gave him a long look and left.

Fine. He was going to have to see the kid. Fine. He did a few more laps of his office then knocked at his swivel chair to send it spinning. He made his way to Sweets' office. The door was closed and he paused, clasping the handle. He was panting. Seeley Booth, former sniper, was panting, and it wasn't from exertion.

He'd been thinking a lot about Sweets lately. Worrying about him. At night, lying next to Bones, he'd find himself wondering if Sweets had gotten past his Pelant-related issues. Picturing his large brown eyes, the pucker in his brow, the fullness of his lip. He'd mostly wanted to knock some sense into Sweets. But sometimes, he'd imagined holding him. Rocking him gently.

And he didn't know what to make of that.

The guy he usually ran the odd quirks of human behaviour by was on the other side of that door. No use this time.

He almost turned around and went back to his own office, but Caroline was right - Sweets needed some help. And Booth had never been good at resisting the people who needed his help.

Sweets startled a bit when the door swung open. His office was dark and his spine, encased in a wrinkled suit, was curved into his therapy couch.

"Agent Booth" he said listlessly.
"Hey, Sweets." Booth's heart sank as he took a quick sweep of the office. Given the state of this place, the kid was in a rough way.

"What can I do for you?"
"What you can do for me is pull yourself out of this funk." Booth strode over and pulled open one of the Venetian blinds, flooding Sweets' desk with light.

The kid re-crossed his legs, sat up a bit straighter, but continued to sit in the darkness. "Is there a case?"

"There's something I'm trying to solve, yeah. The mystery of why you're letting Pelant get to you."

Sweets just stared at him.

"C'mon, this isn't your first time at the rodeo! The Grave Digger tried to play you. Almost every criminal we interrogate makes a crack about your age, or your..."

"Is this your idea of a pep-talk? Really?" Sweets asked.

"You're tougher than this! I don't get why you're lying there and taking it..." Booth stopped, horrified. Something he said had brought tears to Sweets' eyes.

"Oh, hey," Booth said awkwardly, his eyebrows knit "it's gonna be okay...just tell me what this is about."

"He was going to kill me, Booth." Sweets sniffed, trying not to actually shed the tears. "Pelant wasn't trying to psych me out to throw my game like the others - he took my research, used it against all of you, then ordered his proxy to target me because I'm the disposable one. Don't you see? The game still goes on without me." he wiped his face on the back of his hand, and Booth fought the strange impulse to dry his eyes for him.

Sweets laughed. "The worst part was, everyone was so relieved the target wasn't you. They were all so glad you'd survived, it brought home just how little I matter to the group."

"You matter, Sweets. You matter to me."

Sweets made eye contact with Booth for the first time since he'd started crying. That deeply earnest expression on his face, he'd seen it before.

When Booth was looking at Brennan.

"Booth?"

"You do, Sweets. You matter." Booth repeated, swallowing. "And if Pelant can't see just how much we rely on you to solve the cases, just how lost we'd be without you, then he isn't as smart as he thinks he is."

Sweets was looking up at Booth now, a little awed. "You mean that?"

"I do."

There was an uncomfortable pause where Booth was sure that Sweets was running their conversation back through his head, checking for linguistic markers. He was oddly nervous about what Sweets might discover.

He could make his excuses and go, but instead, he took a few hesitant steps towards Sweets, watching the wheels turn in his head.

Finally, Sweets looked up, boggled.

"You really do mean it, don't you? More than you're letting on?"

Booth took another hesitant step.
"We care about you, Sweets."

"You care about me." Sweets emphasised, exasperation a light in his eyes. Booth perched on the vacant armrest of the couch and really looked at the kid, drank in his features. He was a nice looking boy, really, for all he was a scarecrow. Sensual-looking. Dark eyes, long lashes...his posture was changing under the weight of Booth's attention, the space between his chest and shoulders more open, his arms relaxed, his neck more accessible.

The thought came to Booth unbidden: He's getting reading for me to take him.

The hunger must have registered in Booth's eyes because Sweets blushed. "Are we really going to do this?" he asked, but it was an invitation.

Booth slid down into the chair beside Sweets and reached out to cup his cheek. He leaned forward, softly and kissed Sweets' sultry mouth, feeling more charged and confident as Sweets moaned and threaded his long fingers into Booth's hair at the baseline where skull met spine. He slid his fingers under Sweets' jacket, nudging it off, only to find that in shirt and tie, he looked appealingly like a school boy.

As they got more frantic, he commented between kisses:
"I really hope you aren't into this because you have some shrinky messed up issues with your father."

Sweets pulled away slowly, lips lingering, and gave him a playful smile. "Booth, need I remind you that you have shrinky messed up issues with your father." Booth found it incredibly hot when Sweets challenged him. He simultaneously grinned and flexed his eyebrows before practically pinning Sweets back to the couch with caresses. He loosened Sweets' tie and began nibbling his neck. Sweets actually giggled.

"Cut it out, that tickles!"

The protest turned to a deep moan in his throat as Booth worked on his ear. "Uh, Booth, I'm getting a little worked up here, maybe we should..."

Without stopping, Booth slid a hand across Sweets' lap and began rubbing at the hardening in his pants.

"Unh, Booth," Sweets panted "Aren't we...going a little fast?
"I can slow down if you like." Booth taunted.

"Ummnnn...no, I mean, this is the first time I have...with a man...and I'm guessing it's...for you...too...damn that's distracting!" the flushed psychologist breathed.

Booth buried his face in the crook of Sweets' arching neck for a moment, and spoke quietly in his ear: "Look, I don't know what this is, I don't even really want to think about it yet, I'm just...following a feeling. You shrinks think you need to talk about everything to make it real, I know, but we can talk later, okay?"
He pulled back and tilted Sweets' chin up so he could scan his face. He'd never want to take advantage of the kid, but there was no mistaking the look of shy pleasure in his eyes. Booth stood up for a second, locked Sweets' door and drew all the blinds so no one from the office could see in. Then he lay forward on the couch, his torso pressing against Sweet's undershirt now that his business shirt was hanging open. He reached down and unzipped their flies so that both of them could press against each other, with only the thin fabric of their underwear separating them.

Sweets touched Booth's face, grabbed his back, and kissed him as Booth started a steady rhythm. There was a fineness to Sweet's features as he writhed, an openness and a vulnerability as he held Booth's gaze. He's giving me the guy's role. Booth thought. This must be strange for him. That quirky bravery that made Sweets put himself out there, time and again, made him be dorky and vulnerable, made him reach out to people, when he'd had just as many excuses growing up to be defensive as Booth had - that was what Booth loved about Sweets.

Had he just thought the L-word?

He was forbidden from chasing that thought down by the crescendo of his own body and seconds later, the whimpering of Sweets beneath him. "Booth, Booth I'm gonna..." and then he made a sound that honestly sounded like a pained cry.

"Sweets! Are you okay? He asked through his post-orgasmic haze.
"Yeah, that's my O face." Sweets said glumly. After a moment, he slid out from under Booth and grabbed a box of wet wipes from his draw, proffering them to Booth. "I have some trouble letting go."

He didn't know if it was post-sex endorphins or whether Sweets truly cut such a tragic figure , but he just had to gather him into his arms. He held the kid fiercely, horrified to note that he was choking up.

"Booth, hey Booth, I'm alright. It's alright." his voice was light and gentle, not his sympathetic shrink voice but something more sincere.

"Look at the pair of us. We're a mess." Booth laughed wryly, still looking out over Sweets' shoulder, averting his gaze.

"Well, I know we aren't gonna talk about it yet, but for the record, I like the idea of being your mess." Sweets said.

Bones had made him watch some program on ancient Rome, which said that the virtuous men, the warriors, had two relationships: a wife to bear their children, and a younger man to love. Of course, Bones was much more than a child-bearer - he loved her - but in an entirely different way to the feelings he was having now. There was something manly in it, as though they were addressing the problems of their boyhoods only they could understand, and a sense that he was passing a baton. The program said the relationship was also a mentorship - once the young man had matured, he would find his own younger lover to instruct.

He knew he ought to feel guilty - some part of his brain was already calculating how many Hail Mary's this transgression was worth, but another part of him was roving Sweet's form, thinking of all the planes of his body he'd like to run his hands over, all the secret places he'd like to possess. This wouldn't last forever - one day Sweets would outgrow his need for this, his old wounds satisfied.

That made it all the more important that he take a mildly-surprised Sweets in his arms again before he left and tell him "You're mine for now." Sweets glowed, his smile widening, knees weake as they shared a soul-shattering kiss.