How To Fall Asleep With An Anthropologist
" I love her."
" Love who Booth?"
" Bones. Okay! I love Bones."
" Bones? You love the hard, mineral structures that make up the skeleton of most vertebrates?"
" I love Dr. Brennan, happy!?"
" Well, which Dr. Brennan do you refer to, because I'm positive there's a lovely Chinese medicine man down town with the exact same title. I'm a little confused. Are you trying to tell me that you are a homosexual Agent Booth?"
" Oh for god's sake. Temperance Brennan! I love Temperance Brennan!"
" Ohhh, that Dr. Brennan."
Whoever said confession was good for the soul was a complete and utter moron. I will stick by that till my dying day. I hadn't been sleeping well. Okay, I hadn't been sleeping at all. I'd toss and turn and rise at a time when even insomniacs can sleep, a thin sheen of odourless sweat coating my clothes.
She was my insomnia.
And even in the small minutes and hours before the sun slid softly over my side of the world, when seconds simply bled into each other and television was nothing but a steady drone of religious vocalisations and pure, infomercial idiom, I still somehow dreamt about her.
How can you dream about someone when you can't sleep?
Caffeine had become somewhat of an addiction, the bitter flavour of coffee beans and the hot texture of the occasional (more like constantly flowing and continuous) mocha made the blood pump through my veins long enough for me to function until I collapsed onto my bed at night.
My gun felt heavy. My eyes felt heavy. And sleep still fled from me like longs shadows escaping from the insipid light against a wall at dawn. If it was happening for some inane reason, I would simply ignore it until it went away. But its because of her. Because I love her and I can't tell her and I know its not going to stop, fade or go away.
It must be the sleep deprivation because normally my thoughts aren't so preposterously and unforgivably poetic.
All I know is that I had to tell someone. Anyone.
It seemed logical to tell him, doctor-client privilege and all. It was a pitifully desperate idea that seemed to have outcomes that transcended the forceful barriers of tiredness and went far beyond all my previous, unconscious acts of stupidity.
Why the hell had I told Sweets?
I had sat there, fidgeting uselessly with my 'Kiss Me I'm An FBI Agent' tie and staring at my lap for approximately five minutes until I cracked. And I told him. I told him I loved her.
I should write a novel. One hundred and one things not to tell your therapist.
Sigh.
So we've established I am unconditionally in love with Temperance Brennan.
Woo hoo.
Now I am screwed so far into the ground it would take a million metal spoons to dig me out.
" Well, Booth, are you sure?"
I look at him incredulously, while he stared back in unwavering patience.
" Of course I'm sure! You don't lose hour after hour of sleep after someone you are desperately-just-in- like with!?"
Someone replaced my therapist with a pea brained twit. A consistently irritating look of contemplation graces his face as he leaned forward, putting his clipboard and expensive looking pen down. No, no, now that I think about it, he's always been a pea brained twit, minus the brain.
He he.
A pea twit.
" I need you to be absolutely sure before we start discussing courses of action."
Absolutely sure!? Was he kidding me? I walk in here, sit down and basically spew out my deepest darkest secret, the dirty little skeleton in my closet and he's questioning my capability to interpret my own feelings?
Wait. Courses of action? What the hell!
" Courses of action! Courses of action!? You make it sound like this is a problem, well, it is a problem, but you're making it sound like Bones is the problem. Bones is not the problem. She's a freaking ethereal goddess sent down to earth to torture me by Satan himself, but she is not, repeat not a problem."
Good lord. There goes my mouth again.
I seriously need to get some sleep.
And now he seems amused. Fabulous. His unbreakably calm exterior seemed to be wavering under the wry smirk trying to curve itself against his lips. Oh, I'm on to you sweets, I am on to you.
" Ethereal goddess aspect of the equation put aside, we still need to figure out if your feelings are concrete. Sometimes because we are lonely we like to mask the emotion with another, equally strong one. Before I can advise you I need you to work out which one it is you are experiencing."
Lonely?! Where does he get this psychobabble?
This is the last, repeat last time I go see a shrink.
" And how, do you propose I confirm which sentiment I am feeling," I ask a little condescendingly.
He seems to ponder the question a moment before sitting back in his chair and folding his arms. It takes approximately three point five seconds for a smug look to appear on his face and he settles completely into his chair, writing notes on my dysfunctional personality all but forgotten.
" Eight days. I want you to try and go eight full days, not just work days, but full, twenty four hour days without thinking about Dr. Brennan in a sexual or more than platonically emotional way. If, for eight days, you can think of her as just your partner, then you aren't in love with her."
He looked at me expectantly.
" What if in eight days I come back here and lie to you?"
He shakes his head sympathetically and leans forward, picking up his spiral bound notebook and fountain pen and scribbling something down in that absurdly neat handwriting of his.
" If you don't do the exercise properly and come back lying through your teeth, Agent Booth, you wouldn't just be lying to me, but to yourself. We'd get nowhere, you'd still be sleepless and probably even more agitated than you are today and I'd be irritated because I'd know you were lying anyway."
Damn it. I hate it when the Pea Twit is right.
But, seriously, lying to myself?
How cliché.
" Fine," I grumble sullenly, intending on being childish since I didn't get my way.
" Good, I'll see you in eight days Agent Booth."
I get up off one of the ridiculously expensive looking leather chairs and head for the door, intent on going home and ignoring all of this until tomorrow.
Hopefully, I'd find a way to kill myself before then.
Day One
" Murder, 29th and Pine. You might wanna take that partner of yours, I hear there's not much of the body left."
Damn.
I was hoping I wouldn't have to deal with her today. My plan was to lock myself in my office and do the months of paper work I decided to accidentally lose every second week.
Obviously, that wasn't going to happen anymore.
After another unsuccessful nights rest and a few shots of triple espresso I wasn't in the best of moods. I paged Bones and got in the SUV, driving myself to the Jeffersonian, planning on picking her up and journeying to the crime scene together. Not, mind you, because I wanted to enjoy her company every second possible, it was just easier this way. Right. Easier.
I dislike Sweets immensely.
He has me analysing everything half to death.
And men aren't supposed to analyse things! They are supposed to be all Tarzan like; simple. Me man, you woman. I am that man. Hear me? I do not analyse every single thing like some teenage girl high on helium and crack cocaine.
Cough. Anyway. Moving on.
She was waiting out front when I got there, her hair all wind blown, holding her CSI looking kit, looking like some avenging angel (albeit a very sexy one), obviously primed and ready to solve the case.
Getting in the car, she brought the scent of cold, crisp air and freshly ground coffee beans.
Swoon.
I can just hear my captain now 'FBI agents do not swoon Booth. Do you get me? THEY DO NOT SWOON!'.
" Morning."
" Hey."
There wasn't even a beat of silence before she opened her mouth again.
" What's the case?"
" Um, some guy found a body out in the woods. And by body, there was nothing left but the sternum."
She glanced over at me in interest.
" No head?"
Nodding, I took a right turn and gripped the steering wheel a little tighter.
" No head, no arms, no legs, no… genitals."
She snorted at the choked way I said genitals.
What? So I'm a little touchy when it comes to all things sex and sexual organ related. I'm catholic, there's a certain amount of public respectability I was raised to have and have proudly.
Not to mention speaking about genitals in front of her makes me a tad uncomfortable because it causes my own… Equipment to join in the conversation.
Out of the corner of my eye I saw her flick her hair back irritably, obviously catching my curious look she sighs and runs her fingers through her delicious curls cantankerously, leaving them in an untidy, but still appealing mess against her shoulders.
" It's getting too long. I want to get it cut but I don't have the time."
I want to scream in bloody murder: No, not the hair.
I think I'd die if she cut all those gloriously silky tresses off.
" NO!"
Shit. I did not mean to say that out loud. Note to self: Buy myself a muzzle.
Looking startled she turned towards me.
" What? Why?"
Embarrassed and entirely pissed off at myself I cringed and stuttered a response.
" I'm just saying, Its fine the way it is. I wouldn't want your hair or, um, you to change."
Looking at me oddly she nodded and turned to face the road again.
" Okay Booth, if you say so."
Not. Good.
At this rate I'm not even going to last the day let alone eight.
Day Two
If she wasn't Parker's mother I would shoot that incessant woman right between the eyes. It's a school night and she was going out with some guy. I think his name was Buddy.
Sounds like a truck driver to me.
This has nothing to do with Parker, I love my son more than anything, its just seriously she could have given me like an hours notice at least that she was going to drop him at my doorstep, in need of a shower and completely starving.
The only things in my fridge right now are beer and um.. Maybe a stick of carrot?
Perfect. I'll just make him beer carrot stew. Sounds fan-freaking-tastic.
So she drops Parker off. Not even a " Thank you Seeley", just a "Don't you dare feed him jelly beans ten minutes before his bed time again, I'll castrate you if you ring me saying he's bouncing off the walls Seeley."
Then, after a brilliant idea of just ordering pizza, chucking him in the shower and hanging out with him in front of the television for the rest of the night (which admittedly sounded pretty damn good) he drops the bomb shell.
He has a huge science project where he has to construct a diorama of the human bone structure. Its due the next day.
Oh the irony.
My one opportunity to escape her fully and focus on my lovely offspring turned to ruins by the horrifying prospect of creating a thing called a diorama by myself.
Needless to say I called her.
Twenty minutes later I opened my door to Bones wearing low riding grey sweat pants, a tight white tank top and holding large bag overflowing with various materials stuffed to the point of overflowing. I wanted to groan and whinge over the fact she was so unbelievably attractive without even bothering but considering she was doing me a huge favour by just being here I shelved my internal rant for a later date.
" Okay, I have corrugated cardboard, diagram stickers, some coloured pens of Angela's and a small ready to assemble skeleton that Hodgins found from when we gave them to kids on field trips to the museum."
I wanted to sing her praises, fall to her feet and worship her, strip her naked and.. Okay, not the time, not the time.
" Thankyou so much Bones, I owe you one."
She just smiled in response and went and sat next to Parker as he continued to chew happily on his slice of supreme pizza.
Platonic thoughts, platonic thoughts, platonic thoughts… Damn it!
In a scene similar to the one in front of me I saw me and Bones and Parker sitting around the breakfast bar, but there was another small addition. A little girl with chestnut pigtails and bright blue eyes. She called me Daddy and Bones Mummy.
Remind me, after I shoot Rebecca, to put a bullet in my skull also.
Day Three
I felt whimsical and hushed in a strange, fogged up kind of way. Its odd, how unusual sleep feels when you've been deprived of it most nights, even for a little while.
It felt easy and had my mind singing alleluia at the top of its lungs with gratitude for the long awaited and desperately needed rest. Sure, I'd slept off and on in the last couple of weeks, its impossible to survive without it, but I hadn't reached a full and real state of unconsciousness for what seemed like months.
But, this, this wasn't sleep. It was torture.
Satan had me on his comedy channel. That must be it.
She tasted of inspiration and thought and all those intangible, elusive pale emissions of sunshine that never existed, that I never thought could have existed. Her lips were real. Not some dreamlike illusion of complete yielding softness, but lightly chapped and damp. It was an addictive, implausibly genuine enigma in every sense of the word.
How did I get here?
How did a case needing to be solved evolve into some silly mistletoe kiss with an even sillier anthropologist?
She tasted of the gum she was chewing, the gum she was unintentionally pushing into my mouth. It made me dizzy and incoherent and my fingers ached to touch her everywhere and anywhere.
And this, ladies and gentlemen, is where I wake up.
In a tumbling mess of sweaty sheets, my mind a jumbled chaos of what was becoming a memory that liked to put itself on repeat in front on my eyelids.
Not cool brain. Not cool.
Does this mean I'm thinking of her in a non-platonic, beyond partner way? Because it was my subconscious that came up with this sick form of torment, not my awake self.
Oh denial, thy name is Seeley Booth.
Day Four
My phone is ringing.
It's midnight and my phone is ringing.
" Hello," I ask wearily.
" Angela bought me the Karma Sutra in chocolate form," she replies in a curious voice.
I sit bolt upright and choke on my saliva. Did she just say Karma Sutra? She just said Karma Sutra. Right?
Clearing my throat and pinching myself, (what? It isn't illogical for me to think this is my subconsciousness' sick way of getting back at me for not sleeping! Its making me imagine things. Like Bones ringing up at midnight saying chocolate Karma Sutra things), I answer hoarsely.
" Um, Bones, did you call me up just to tell me Angela bought you the Karma Sutra in chocolate form or is there another purpose of this call?"
My voice sounded husky with sleep, even though I hadn't been sleeping which led me to the realisation that I was beginning to feel an all too uncomfortable sensation of arousal swell in the pit of my stomach.
I needed to end this. Soon.
" Yeah. And to ask if you wanted me to save you a piece. Would you like me to save you a piece?"
Believe it or not, being asked at almost twelve thirty in the morning if I would like a piece of obscene sex scene chocolate saved for yours truly, is not the strangest thing that has ever happened to me.
" Ah, sure, if you'd like."
I scratch my head, wondering absently if I can accidentally hang up on her without her somehow figuring out that it was actually on purpose. But before I can fully process the idea, she decides to once again open her mouth.
" You know, they have the oddest positions, one in particular isn't even anatomically correct. The men in question are in, what looks like a fishermen's knot, while the woman is bending in such a way.."
And she continues to describe every single last detail of that piece of chocolate.
By the end of it I'm holding the phone at arms length and my breath is heaving out of me, resembling what I think could be very close to hyperventilation.
When I hear the tell tale signs of her finishing her rant and an echoing, "Booth? Are you there Booth?" I place the phone back against my ear.
" Ah, Yeah. I'm here. That's, um, interesting Bones. It's getting late though, shouldn't you be getting some rest?"
" Are you okay Booth, you sound a little breathless?"
Oh, I'm freaking peachy. Juuust peachy.
The woman I'm supposed to be trying to think only platonically of for the next four days rings up and tactlessly describes lewd sex acts to me and is now wondering if I am okay.
Lets see.
Of course I'm not okay.
" I'm fine," I manage to semi-squeak.
" Okay. Yeah I am a little tired actually. See you tomorrow?"
" Sure," I answer, once again weary and beginning to feel very taciturn.
She hangs up and I sit there listening to the dial tone for five minutes before hanging up myself, deciding I would get up and do some paperwork instead of lying here awake uselessly.
Like I said. I'm just peachy.
Day Five
She had the kind of observational skills police officers can only dream of.
In fact, I'm surprised it's taken her this long to point the evidence of my sleeplessness out.
The circles underneath my eyes were deep and black, bordering on a strange, cavernous violet. I knew my posture, well, sucked, and I looked like I had an ever present hunch back because I was too physically exerted to have the usual, casually intimidating stance of your common, every day FBI agent.
To put it plain and simple? I was exhausted. And it was seriously wearing me down.
I was sitting in an outlandishly shaped lab chair whilst Angela, Zach and Bones were explaining their new theories concerning the case we were investigating. I listened inattentively, slumping against the insanely uncomfortable piece of furniture and lolling my head to the side.
It didn't take long till they realised I wasn't paying them their deserved consideration.
" Booth?"
Angela's question was inquisitive and lightly concerned. I wasn't one to not pay attention to a probable beneficial turn to a case.
" Yeah?"
" You okay?"
I sighed, sitting up and wincing when my head attested to the movement. It decided it wanted to give me a migraine this morning. Hurrah head. Hurrah.
" Yeah. Tired. Go ahead, I'm listening."
Bones, quiet for the small exchange, cocked her head to the side. Her earrings, fixating, hanging chandeliers that were bronze, then silver as the bright, intrusive lights of the museum slid delicately across them as they sliced back and forward with the movement of her face, made me a little dizzy. Her long neck was just there, fragile and defined.
And it was enough to make me think.
If I were to walk away, against my will, from all of this.. Would I make it out alive?
Being a sniper, had admittedly been a sick sort of way to vent the undeniably angry things I could never say, never express. It had given me a shameful high of adrenaline and made that coursing feeling of guilt a harmless undercurrent for so long. Too long.
Being an FBI agent, had then been such an underlying lifeline for me. It had shelved the regret, the horrible, somehow unavoidable god complex I had adopted.
She had unearthed the honesty.
And when I was tired like this, when everything was languid and indolent, I ached. I ached for the fifty two lives no longer present on the earth because of me.
Her utter bluntness and social vulgarity were very real roots to the ground. I loved her for her understanding, for her willingness to so readily accept what I was and am without arrogance, only a steadfast readiness.
She was my partner. And the fact I couldn't leave, couldn't extricate myself from a situation that posed a possible threat to both of our lives on the field, was something too dangerous for me to contemplate.
Argh. I hate Moody Booth.
He broods and thinks way to much.
By this point she had approached me. In the midst of Moody Booth's temporary reign, I hadn't noticed (I blame Sweets, that stupid, pea twit of a man).
" You haven't been sleeping."
Uncharacteristically, she reached out, tracing one of the dark bruises under my eyelashes before pulling away, a gentle anxiety etched on her brow, on her high cheekbones and soft jaw.
" No," I replied somewhat disgracefully.
" How long?"
" A while."
" Why?"
I smiled wryly. It's not like I could just randomly say 'you actually'. Yeah. That'd go down real well.
" I guess you could say I've been having some disturbing dreams."
Try day dreams. Seeing as I haven't been sleeping and all.
Angela, forever the squint with an affinity for all things to do with fate and general hippy-ness smiled slyly, obviously trying to lighten the melancholic atmosphere.
Hey, don't blame the gloominess on me. It's Moody Booth's fault.
" Every dream means something. Now, Agent Booth, what's been keeping you up at night," she murmured teasingly.
In a mimicking motion of Bones' she tilted her head to the side, Zach, eternally the fellow spectator had that 'if I listen long enough I might learn something' look on his face and wasn't going to be any help so I just sighed and shook my head.
" It's nothing. Don't worry about it," I said evasively, trying desperately to swerve away from my undesirable night life.
" Well, its obviously not work related, or you wouldn't look so embarrassed. Is it a sex dream Booth? Is that what's got you so on edge?"
If she only knew how close that assumption was to the truth.
Oh hello, Blushing Booth decided Moody Booth was stealing all the spotlight, he figured it was time he made an appearance.
Angela cracked a smile at the obvious discomfort on my face and looked at Zach and Brennan fleetingly before doing a little jig on the spot.
Poor Angela. Hodgins has corrupted you with geekiness my friend.
" I just wanna hug him till he turns purple!"
Eh. I would rather not be hugged till I turn a rather unflattering shade of mauve.
" I'm fine. Really. It's nothing to be concerned over," I turned my attention solely to Bones, "really," I said in a quieter voice.
She nodded, though begrudgingly before turning back to the table holding the skeletal figure of our latest victim.
I smiled a little. Temperance Brennan cared for her partner. But did she care for me?
Shoving the thought away I stood up, trying to think of some witty comment that I could say that would set the group at ease and reaffirm my FBI godliness to the universe.
But, in the back of my mind, Moody Booth asked me how long could keep this up?
I told him to go die in a hole.
Day Six
She was sitting at her desk, head bent low over something of importance, a look of intense attentiveness on her face. I was standing outside of her large office, the glass separating us but sending sporadic rays of characterless light across the dark raven lowlights of her hair.
Her lab coat was off, abandoned on the comfortable lounge sitting against her doorway and I could see the deep burgundy of her silk work shirt send glints of pale, colourless shades of red against the mahogany of her desk, paling her perfect skin and the swell of her cleavage to the point where she looked like nothing but a soft, ghostly illusion.
I heard myself sigh, words sliding against my tongue in an unintentionally rasping way.
" Such beauty. O, she doth teach the torches to burn bright."
" Since when do you quote Shakespeare?"
Crap!
Hodgins. I thank every deity that exists that he has his nose in a case file and can't see who it is I actually think makes that theoretical torch burn.
" You heard nothing and saw nothing. I was never here. Got it squint?"
He looked up, an obviously amused look on his face.
Oh, I'm so glad my affliction has given him the giggles.
" Okkkay then Mr. Invisible, if you're done spouting sonnets like some shirtless Adonis, can you please give my report to Dr. Brennan? Thanks."
Great. Now I have to actually go in there.
Originally I was only here to remind Zach that I needed the evidence processed before tomorrow night, but I got distracted by the woman in red, sitting innocently in her office chair, completely unaware of my turmoil.
Leaning against the doorway to her office I cleared my throat. Looking up she smiled vaguely before motioning for me to come in before going back to her paperwork.
" Hey Booth, I thought you were out searching for suspects today."
" I was, I mean I am, I just came here to check if Zach had processed the evidence I asked for, then Hodgins came and asked me to give you this report and you know, here I am."
Clearing my throat again I approached her desk, placing the file on a non-descript, bare corner before backing up so I didn't do or say anything stupid.
Without looking up again, she simultaneously took the file and continued the conversation.
How do women multitask like that?
" How did Parker's science project go?"
Flashbacks of the evening flitted quickly through my mind and I smiled a little. Parker was so happy with the finished product of his diorama that he had rung me the next night to tell me to thank Dr. Brennan for all her help.
" Really well. He really likes you."
It wasn't a lie. He'd even hugged her before she left. And truly, compared to a lot of other kids, he wasn't naturally affectionate.
Glancing up she gave me an enquiring sort of smile.
It made my eyes ache to look at it.
God damn her for being so irresistible.
" That's nice. But I don't know why, I haven't exactly done anything to evoke feelings of likeness out of him."
I'm pretty sure I gaped.
" Are you kidding me? You were great. You're going to make a fabulous mother."
AH! What. The. Hell.
Marvellous Seeley. Why don't you just ask her right now to mother your children? Cause seriously, that will be a lot more subtle then what you just said.
Idiot!
But she just smiles in a small, sad kind of way.
" Maybe," she replies a little disbelievingly.
" Not maybe. Absolutely."
Well. I might as well reassure her whilst being unbearably transparent.
She smiles a little deprecatingly, her full, luscious (yes I just said luscious, yes I am going to dig myself a grave, hop into it and fill it with hungry fire ants) lips curving in this deliriously seductive way that did things to my insides that must have had Satan (who I swear, was still watching me on his comedy channel) laughing his fiery ass off.
" The day you start reciting Shakespeare is the day I'll be a good mother," she states triumphantly.
I choke on absolutely nothing.
She looks at me oddly but I just can't muster up the strength to do anything but choke. On absolutely nothing.
If only she knew.
Day Seven
Okay. I just can't do it.
I caved.
I can not keep this up for another two days. I need to know what to do, before I go postal and kill the mail man. Get the pun? Postal? Mail man?
Arghhh Seeley need sleep now.
I think it's that desperate, primal urge that has led me to his office, right outside the door where I am about to barge in like a mad man and demand he tell me how to fix this.
I swing open the door, not bothering to look around the rest of the room, his secretary said he was in, so I glance straight at his usual chair where he is staring at me, a surprised look quickly coming onto his face.
He opens his mouth to say something but I cut him off.
I need to get this out.
" I cant take it anymore! You need to tell me what the hell to do. Because seriously, sending me off and telling me to think of her in a purely platonic way is the stupidest thing you could have done. I haven't thought of her platonically once. It's not possible. Unless you count me picturing her naked and covered in whipped cream platonic. And if so you are seriously deranged."
I was impassioned now.
Taking a breath I opened my mouth again and silenced whatever he was going to say.
" No. Shut your pea twit mouth. You just had to go and doubt my feelings. My ardent, ever present feelings. It cost me my dignity. I've made a fool of myself so many times this week in front of her that I'd have more grandeur left after baring my ass for the world to see on top of the Golden Gate Bridge, or getting fake breasts, dressing up as a clown and wearing a sign that says 'honk my hooters, I'm a freaking clown'! So tell me what the hell am I supposed to do because I positively, without any doubt whatsoever love Dr. Temperance Brennan!"
Breathing heavily I slumped against the closest wall, taking in the aghast, slowly morphing into a strange look of humorous satisfaction on his face. Someone else, someone female cleared their throat awkwardly.
Oh. God.
" Agent Booth," Sweets began, " Dr. Brennan and I were just discussing you."
Repeat. Oh. God.
Shoot me now.
" In fact, why don't you have a seat, you two could use a group therapy session."
She looked beyond shocked, staring at me like I had two and a half heads, which, truth be known would have been better than her hearing whatever the hell I just said.
Why was she even here? Last time I checked, she was, unlike me, emotionally stable.
Not knowing what else to do I turned on my heel and left the room as quickly as my legs could carry me. I'd made it out to the parking lot before she had caught up with me.
And here is where she tells me she can't work with me anymore because I'm a perverted bastard and an insensitive jack ass. I brace myself, but refuse to turn around.
" What?"
I know my voice shakes and I can feel all my senses throbbing painfully. Here it comes.
" Did you mean it?"
What?
" Huh? Did I mean what?"
Well I wasn't expecting that. Maybe she'll still be my partner. Maybe I wont lose her completely. I turned a little, but not fully, enough so she could see half of my pained profile.
" What you said in Sweets' office. Did you mean it?"
It's not like I could deny it.
" Every word."
She came up behind me, not trying to turn me around to face her, but enough so I could almost feel her against my back.
" Why did you tell Sweets?"
Sighing, I rested my head tiredly on my shoulder and glanced at her and then at the asphalt at her feet with hooded eyes. This had been a very long week.
" I haven't been sleeping. You're everywhere even when you're not there and I just haven't been sleeping."
I couldn't repeat myself again. She'd have to use those exceptional observational skills of hers because I just couldn't say it all again. It was too much too soon.
" Besides being an Anthropologist I took a short course in human psychology back in college. I can help you. Come on," she tugs on my arm and whispers lightly.
What was I supposed to do?
It was a miracle she was even looking at me at this point.
So I followed her. Followed her into my car where she took my keys and drove me to my apartment. Let her go before me as we walked up the stairs and into the open space of my living room.
She dropped the small, business looking purse she said she used for the bare essentials on the couch and turned to face me again, a soft expression on her face that made the blood pulse gently against my temples.
" Can I borrow something to sleep in?"
Not even questioning her, I went into my bedroom and opened my top drawer, pulling out the classic pair of old boxer shorts and white t-shirt, the utter strength of my fatigue not even giving me the incentive to question her.
She went into the bathroom and came out five minutes later and it was the shock of seeing her in my clothes, her long legs, the way the baggy aged shirt just hung off her, brought sanity back to me with full force.
" What," I ask in a rushed, extremely confused voice, " the hell are you doing?"
" Sleeping," she answers simply, "go get changed. We're going to bed."
I take it back. She is emotionally unstable.
Seeing that I'm obviously not going to budge she goes to my top drawer herself and pulls out some similar items of clothing to what she was wearing and throws them at me, before forcedly shoving me into my bathroom and slamming the door.
The only thing I could think of for approximately twenty seconds was: God she was hot when she was forcedly shoving me around.
Changing quickly I worked up the courage to go back into my bedroom. She was sitting in the middle of my bed, the covers turned down and the pillows arranged in a way that I assumed she preferred. Seeing her pointing to the spot next to her I sat down on the very edge of the bed, staring at her in a sort of subdued, disquiet apprehension.
" Brennan, I don't.. Understand.."
Groaning under her breath she reached over, dragging me under the covers and bending me into a suitable sleeping position. She then curved herself against me and closed her eyes.
" Ah.." I started, my entire being rigid and taut.
" Shut up and relax. We're going to sleep."
Sleep? Sleep!?
This position may have been appropriate if she wanted to give me a brain aneurysm, but to sleep? No. No, no, no, no, no.
Seeing that I was still implausibly tight and unyielding she sighed (somewhat dramatically if I might add) and yanked my arm from my side, wrapping it around her waist and all but shoving her head against my chest, putting her arm against the curve of my shoulder and splaying her fingers against my ribs.
Cue spluttering and other such incoherent nonsense that makes me sound like some prepubescent teenage boy.
" Booth," she says a little testily, " I'm trying to help you sleep here and you obviously aren't going to sleep if you are wound so tight you feel like you're about to stretch your very bones, which is physically impossible, but that's not the point."
She expects me to sleep like this! Is she crazy!?
I always knew, deep down, that she had a screw or two loose.
" Um, not to put a damper on your thought out, scientific plan and all but how am I supposed to sleep with you wound around me like some tempting minx wearing my clothes and smelling like.. Um.. Just how am I supposed to sleep okay? How?"
Well, there's really no point in shielding her from my feelings now is there?
And besides. She is a minx.
" I thought it was logical that if you knew your feelings were appropriately returned you could sleep better."
My feelings are returned?
Somewhere in the distance I hear Moody Booth cry in abject horror and start melting like the wicked witch of the west and Ecstatic Booth start leaping and dancing like a kid high on sugar all around the vast spectrum of my mind.
She returns my feelings.
Couldn't she have freaking just told me then!?
I'm sleep deprived and she expects me to actually have the energy to decode and decipher her unrelentingly, complicated sense of reason.
" So you, you love me back? You love me?" I must have sounded aghast because she props herself up and stares at me agitatedly.
" Well I'm certainly not lying in your bed to, as Angela says, get busy."
Get busy. Oh Lord someone call me an ambulance.
Overwhelmed with relief and an unexplainable contentment I gather her slim body up against mine and hug her to me tightly. I hear her sigh, this time in equal ease and happiness and settle back down against my neck.
How long had I waited for this?
" Booth?"
I realise my eyes are closed and I'm suddenly inexplicably sleepy.
" Mm?"
" If you're not too tired, maybe tomorrow we can do the whipped cream thing you suggested in Sweet's office?"
Smiling so widely I was probably showing my back molars I kissed the top of her head gently, indulging in the immense gratification it provided me by being able to do it freely and enjoy it without an ounce of guilt or longing.
" Sure. Night."
I decided to ignore the fact it was ten in the morning.
Tightening her hold around my waist she murmured against my chest tenderly.
" Love you."
Some moments in life may seem anti-climatic but are actually the opposite. You see, sometimes one moment can mean everything to someone and nothing to everyone else.
One hour. One minute. One second.
Shooting people for a living taught me that, it taught me the importance of one second ago, of one second to go.
In this case, my extraordinary romance, my eight days of true realisation that the retired sniper, FBI Agent loved some overanalysing, overbearing Anthropologist didn't end on top of some high building sharing some extravagant kiss in the rain, but in my bed on a sleepy Monday morning, loved up and lazy with nothing else to hope for. Nothing else to want.
" Me too."
I'd never fallen asleep so quickly in my life. And it's safe to say, that this perhaps anti-climatic moment…
Meant everything to me.
The End.
Author's Note: I just want to thank everyone who reviewed Mac And Cheese Please. And also to say that this is a very LONG very choppy changy messy oneshot that is no where close to perfect, but is something I've just always had an urge to write.
What can I say? I just love Booth POV stories and I finally got enough incentive to write one.
And yes, Zach is in this one simply cause I really liked him and they decided to turn him evil.
Reviews make my heart smile.
Lena.
P.s Yes the Karma Sutra in chocolate form does really exist. Strange I know.