The Moves in the Removalist
Disclaimer: BONES does not belong to me. If anyone actually cared about this, I suppose I'd be forced to apologise.
A/N: This is a one-shot response to the Bonesology Fanfic challenge: Moving. The story must be about one of the main characters moving & include two of the following; a lame joke, an old movie reference, Parker, ice-cream, a kiss, something breaking during the move. Woot! A challenge...and my muse is feeling a little bit naughty (Huzzah!).
Seeley Booth examined the scorched Aerosmith T-shirt and shook his head in dismay; the synthetic transfer had melted, making the image of his rock icon look like the love child of Steve Tyler and Freddy Kruger. He threw it down onto charred remains of his couch, which caused sooty flakes to erupt into the air of his ruined apartment.
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Angela Montenegro-Hodgins waddled out from his bedroom, holding four white suit bags by their hangers. "Luckily your suits were in the dry-cleaning bags, Booth. They escaped smoke damage...unlike the rest of your clothes. Looks like you'll need to go shopping soon, unless you're planning to hang around your new place naked..." The heavily pregnant artist grinned and raised an eyebrow saucily.
"Right...,"grumped Booth. "If the insurance company keep dragging their feet, I may have to go naked thrift shopping. I can't believe that they're blaming Parker for the fire."
"I know right?" sympathised Angela. "He was being supervised when he was making the Crepe Suzettes for his French project, who knew that the exhaust hood over your stove would catch fire when you lit the Cointreau liqueur."
"Yeah...I was holding the lighter," ranted Booth. "I was the guy who got second degree burns to his hands and singed eyebrows. Parker was never in danger! What kind of parent do they think I am?"
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"Man, you're the best! Don't let 'em tell you any different. I wish my old man had been half as cool when I was growing up," said Wendell sticking his head out from the cupboard under the sink, where he was salvaging any items that had not melted and placing them into a box.
"Thanks, Wendell," replied Booth, scratching absently at the white dressings over his burned hands. "Now all I have to do is convince the Fire Marshall and Arson Investigator without pulling my badge and gun on them."
Wendell looked thoughtful and gave a pout as something occurred to him. "Didn't you mention that your grandfather set fire to your kitchen a couple of years back?"
Booth gave a wry smile of reminiscence. "Yeah...he set fire to the stove, making grilled cheese...why do you ask?"
The intern got to his feet and brushed the flakes of soot from his ripped jeans, leaving black streaks down his thighs in the process. "Y'know, there was an insurance scam back in Philly, maybe five years ago. There were a bunch of kitchen fires, including a fatal house fire after a rangehood over a stove had been replaced following a cooking fire. It turned out that the contractors had brought in cheap insulating materials from China...stuff that broke a whole bunch of safety standards."
"Seriously?" said Booth.
"...as a Blackhawk's dirty game plan, my friend. You should get the investigator to look into it," suggested Wendell.
"Yeah, I'll do that," said Booth thoughtfully.
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Hodgins entered the kitchen wearing filthy cargo pants and a soot streaked wifebeater. Angela gave a sigh and licked her lips. Booth gave her a weary look.
The bug man smiled at his wife. "Hey Booth! Are you ready to move the food out of this freezer? Dr. B said I should get some dry ice from The Lab and keep it frozen for transport."
"Nah, I told Bones that idea was total overkill," replied Booth. "We'll just unplug the freezer and put the whole thing in the back of the truck. So long as we don't open it, the food will stay frozen."
"Hey whatever, Booth. But it's close to eighty degrees in the shade out there already..." reasoned Hodgins.
"So the ice-cream melts a little!" said Booth. "It'll be a good excuse to eat some after we unpack at the other end. Not that I have too many worldly possessions left after the fire..."
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"Lucky that your new place is furnished then, huh?" said Angela.
Booth frowned, picking up the scorched and cracked Bakerlite telephone. The dialling mechanism had warped form the heat of the fire. It was broken beyond repair, reminding him of the difficult times when he had received it as a gift. "Eh! It's great...but it won't be the same, y'know?"
Angela slugged Booth in the upper arm. "As cute as that troubled pout is, Studly, you need to get this freezer into the truck and we need to get going, before 'I' melt in this heat!"
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Hodgins came over to give his wife a kiss. "Oh we can't have that now, can we, my Wicked Witch of the East?"
Angela recoiled. "Ugh, Jack! Your shirt is filthy..."
"I'll just take it off then..." crooned Hodgins suggestively.
Booth threw his hands in the air. "So help me, bug man! You'll keep your clothes on, or I will arrest you..."
"Ooh! The lion roars," quipped Angela.
"Ha!" snorted Booth. "Okay, Dorothy, Tin Man, Scarecrow...let's get this stuff in the truck and follow the yellow brick road."
"I'm looking forward to catching up with the Wicked Witch of the West..." announced Angela. "She said something about sorting through your CD collection when we dropped off the last load."
"Hey!" snapped Booth. "Don't you be calling my girl a witch now."
Angela rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips defiantly. "Excuse me...as the pregnant woman in the room, I call shotgun on any and all tantrums, are we clear?"
Booth snorted, but smiled at the artist, whose belly was pushed out comically as she attempted to strike a sassy pose.
Wendell and Hodgins each grabbed an end of the now unplugged freezer and began lugging it toward the doorway.
Forty minutes, one toilet stop, one traffic jam and four frayed tempers later; Booth finally backed the his SUV up to the loading dock of his new apartment building.
"C'mon big guy," said Angela. "Let's go and see the Wicked Witch..."
"Angela!" said Booth in a warning tone.
"Oh lighten up, Booth!" she said in a slightly exasperated tone as she knuckled at her lower back. "Besides, she sure has your lion heart enchanted..."
He smiled and just waggled his singed eyebrows in response as they followed the freezer into the goods lift.
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As they finally reached his floor, the lift buzzed and the door opened to a blessedly cool hallway. Booth and Angela entered the apartment, the door was stood ajar.
"Honey, I'm home!" called out Booth.
"I'll be right out," called the Wicked Witch of the West from the bedroom.
"We brought ice-cream..." said Angela, as the lady of the house emerged in a tank top and cargo pants.
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"Where did you put my pain meds? My fingers feel like they're going to explode," Booth complained.
"Maybe the bandage is too tight," suggested Angela. "Or maybe they just need to be kissed better."
Booth gave a chuckle as he locked eyes with his lover. "If anything is getting kissed, it's not going to be my fingers, okay...mmph!" He was entirely correct as his lips were summarily engaged, followed by his tongue shortly thereafter.
Angela gave a derisive snort at the display of affection. The couple separated briefly and went back for a second innings.
The artist sighed. "I'd tell you to get a room, but this is your place..." She was being completely ignored.
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The grunting sounds of Wendell and Hodgins arriving with the freezer between them, announced their arrival on the threshold of the apartment. Angela waddled over to pour a glass of water for herself from dispenser of the fancy internet fridge in the kitchen. Glancing at the men with the freezer, she shrugged and jerked a thumb toward the utility room where the freezer needed to go.
Wendell and Hodgins emerged from the utility room, each taking a glass of cold water from Angela and tossing them back.
"So, they're going to abandon the unpacking and jump straight to the christening of the apartment, huh?" said Hodgins with a smirk.
"Sure looks that way," observed Wendell.
The couple finally disengaged. "Your pain meds are on the counter," she said.
"Thanks Bones, I'm feeling better already," he said with a smile.
After a brief pause for a late lunch, the unpacking was done and dusted. Their friends begged off just before the sun set, leaving Booth and Brennan alone.
"Welcome home, Booth," she said as she leaned against him.
"Thanks for taking me in Bones," he said running the only finger that had been spared from burns along her jawline.
"You were here practically every night anyway. It made sense that you should move in. Plus my apartment is bigger," she reasoned.
He kissed the tip of her nose affectionately. "Then how does it explain that my melted TV was so much bigger than yours is."
She smiled at his ongoing lamentation over the loss of his 42" flatscreen. "Size isn't everything..." said Brennan suggestively.
Booth gave her a cocky smile. "Oh, you're seriously not going there, Bones."
"Perhaps we can debate the size of your...new television, over that ice-cream that you promised me," she said, poking him in the ribs.
He wriggled out of poking range. "Great idea! There's a carton of your favourite cookies and cream in the freezer."
"I'll get it," said Brennan deliberately pushing him out of the way with her hip. "You don't want to mess up your dressings. They're soiled enough from your removalist activities today as it is."
"I supervised...mostly," he called after her retreating back as she went to the freezer.
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She returned holding the ice-cream carton with a concerned expression on her face.
"What's up?" he asked.
She gave a grimace and opened the lid, peering at the contents suspiciously. "The freezer wasn't plugged in...some supervisor you turned out to be!"
Booth opened the cutlery drawer and fumbled two spoons out using his injured fingers. "Then we'll have to improvise."
"Fine by me," agreed Brennan, a small smirk twitched over her lips as she took her spoon and dug it into the half-melted mess in the carton. "I scream for ice-cream."
Booth groaned at the second-grade play on words. She held up the spoon of semi-solid confection. "Come and get it..." she teased.
He leaned forward to take the ice-cream offering into his mouth, but the glob of ice-cream chose that moment to slide off, landing on her chest, eliciting a small scream in reaction.
"I'll get it!" he said.
"Don't mess up your dressings, Booth!" she chided.
"Who said anything about using my hands?" he quipped, before using his mouth in hot pursuit of the rapidly melting ice-cream.
Brennan gave an appreciative chuckle, as she ran her fingers encouragingly through his hair. "If you keep that up, you should know that I plan to scream..."
He lifted his head from her delicious cleavage. "Oh, Bones...you can count on it."
FIN - Review if you love ice-cream...or perhaps if you like the idea of Booth eating ice-cream this way :D