Title: Handcuffed
Summary: Set any time before the season finale. After a failed attempt of catching the murderer, Booth and Brennan are left abandoned and handcuffed together. ONESHOT, mainly dialogue.
Rating: K+
Disclaimer: If wishing made it so, I'd totally own the rights to Bones.
A/N: I don't normally do oneshots, but, what the hey, I was too lazy to write an entire story. ;)
"Bones. Psst. Hey, Bones! Wake up! … are you awake?"
Brennan groggily opened her eyes, blinking slowly as she tried to adjust to the darkness. Her hands were tied behind her back- wait, was that metal? Was she handcuffed? Her back and neck ached from the position she was in; she must have been asleep like this for hours. Her brain was slowly rebooting as her partner nudged her with his shoulder again.
"Bones!" It wasn't quite a whisper. She wasn't sure how to define the volume, or the urgency in his voice. "BONES!"
"I'm awake, I'm awake…" She assured, still playing back the last bit of her memory before she was unconscious.
His head rested on the back of hers as he sighed, sounding relieved. "Are you okay?"
"We're handcuffed together. The murderers got away and are probably on their way to Canada by now. Nobody knows where we are. There's no reason for any to-"
"Bones, are you okay?"
She rolled her eyes. Of course, he didn't care about the situation they were in. "I'm fine. A little achy, but fine."
There was a short, uncomfortable silence.
"You should have stayed in the car."
"What?" She wasn't sure she heard him right.
He hesitated before repeating. "I told you to stay in the car."
"You're trying to blame this on me? If you had given me a gun, we wouldn't have been in this mess."
"Yeah, what would you have done with a gun? Shoot half a dozen druggies before they could take a shot at you? If you had stayed in the car, you could have called for help and we wouldn't even be in this mess."
"If you had called for backup like required-"
"You didn't have to come with me."
"-you should have informed your-"
"Squints belong in a lab." Booth's voice rose over hers.
Brennan bit back a snarky reply. They'd been partners for over three years. Built the strongest trust she thought possible. Been through hell and back with each other. Was he seriously pulling that squint crap with her?
"…Bones?"
She didn't respond.
"Bones!" Booth snapped. "I didn't mean that. I'm just not fond of being shot at and having the bad guys get away."
"I'm not too fond of it either." Brennan retorted. "How'd he get your handcuffs anyway?"
Booth sighed. "Oh, lets see, I don't know, maybe when they started punching me in the gut and grabbed my gun? They got my badge, my wallet and gun… and they obviously found a use for the handcuffs, so, go figure."
"… So, how are we getting out of this one?"
"Oh, don't worry about it. When we don't show up soon, the squints will track our location. No big deal."
Brennan seemed confused. "But Booth… they took our phones. What will they track?"
"Oh, well… I sorta, kinda, installed a GPS device into those shoes you're wearing."
"You what?"
Booth twisted his head in attempt to look at her. "For your protection. Just in case some psychopath kidnaps you again, we'd know where you were."
"Did you install one in yours shoes too?"
"No!" Booth seemed surprised by her question. "Why would I do that?"
She shrugged. "It's only logical. You and I deal with the same situations, the same people. If someone were to kidnap me, they probably would be just as likely to kidnap you."
"Yeah, I guess, but come on! I'm an FBI agent, I'm not going to put a tracker in my shoes."
"Why not?"
"Because," he explained lamely. "Because it's the principle of it… it's just… not right."
"That makes absolutely no sense," Brennan stated, shaking her head. "I think it's only fair that if I have a GPS in my shoe that you get one too."
"No way!"
"Okay, fine, then when we get out of here I'm throwing these shoes away."
Booth hesitated. "Well… I put them in your other shoes too…"
"Booth!" She seemed annoyed now. "Did you break into my apartment to do that?"
"No!" Booth defended. "No way! I used the key you gave me!"
"So you broke into my apartment." Brennan stated, trying to make sense of it all.
"I had a key."
"That's for emergencies. You had no right to do that without my permission. Isn't that some sort of invasion of privacy? Isn't there laws against that?"
Booth scuffed. "You didn't give the me handbook to the key. And besides, I'm an FBI agent, I do what I want."
"That's not true."
"Yeah, whatever. I did it, and that's that. I just… I just wanted to keep you safe, Bones. No more close calls. I needed to know you'd be safe."
"I'm always safe with you, Booth." Brennan insisted.
He sighed. "No you're not."
Brennan tried to shift from her position, the movement digging the metal restraints into her skin. She grimaced and stopped moving. "So, what, we just sit here until someone comes and rescues us?"
"Yep."
"Okay… Well, we've already been here for a couple of hours, surely they've noticed by now."
"Probably."
"So they could be hear any minute…"
"Yep."
"Or it could be another couple hours."
"Yep."
The two partners sat back to back in silence. Handcuffs linking their hands while rope wrapped around their bodies glued them together.
"Hey Booth?" Brennan asked, breaking the silence.
"Yeah?"
"Did you tell anyone about the GPS?"
"Uhh…"
The end.