Timeframe/Info About This Fic: Directly after the last Sweets scene in "Secret to the Siege."
Disclaimer: Bones and its characters belong to their rightful owners.
Authors Note: Well, after my Sweets angst, I decided to try my hand at fluff. There is a reason I don't do fluff xD
"Look, I hate to cut short my meeting with my sixth and eighth favorite people, but I got a date with my first favorite."
Although the phrase was just a gleeful way for Booth to exit the conversation, Sweets' intensive training as a psychologist refused to allow him to dismiss it as a slip of the tongue. He was still ruminating about what the special agent had said when the other two people in the room started snickering.
"Marriage dance?" Sweets repeated the last words of the conversation to try to catch up. Ms. Julian's almost amused expression caused Sweets' cheeks to flood with color.
"Oh." They had no doubt been conversing about sex, which to Sweets (who saw Booth and Brennan almost as his surrogate parents) was very, very disgusting.
Caroline sent him another look as if she were wondering how someone could be so gifted with his job and be employed by the FBI, when he was completely oblivious to the modern world. Keeping a very Ms. Julian-like remark firmly on her tongue, the woman backed out of the Booth's office with an upward glance to the heavens.
Now that Caroline was gone, Sweets was actually able to hear his own thoughts. He walked quickly back to his office with his head lowered to hopefully indicate to any solicitors that he was already preoccupied. The whole "target-for-Pelant's-evil-death-plan" thing was a bit too overwhelming to think about at that moment, and quite frankly, he wasn't sure if he was capable of handling it in its entirety. Not after he had just seen how traumatized the girl—his attempted murderer—had been when she was told her father wasn't the one sending those messages, those she still didn't seem too concerned about the shot she had almost fired into the back of the FBI profiler's skull. Pelant had manipul—
The profiler cut off his thought mid-word. Sweets refused to go dwelling down the road of "what ifs." Instead, he focused on the more recent part of his past conversation with Booth and Ms. Julian.
Whether he acknowledges it or not, Booth has created an unconscious list within his mind that ranks the people in his life according to importance to him. It wasn't an on-the-spot joke, otherwise, he wouldn't have mentioned specific numbers apart from Dr. Brennan being number one. The deep personal attachment would be consistent with his character, although I never imagined it would manifest itself into something so tangible or organized like a list. Sweets shrugged. What did he know? The Booth and Brennan duo constantly threw him for loops. When the two had a child together and anti-commitment Brennan proposed to Booth, simple things like an organized FBI special agent didn't seem that surprising.
Still, the thought that Booth had a mental list as to who his favorite people were piqued the young man's interest, and he was curious to see where he stood in comparison to the others. First he had to discern who the sixth favorite person was and who the eighth was. He briefly played back the conversation. Booth had looked at him first and then shifted his gaze to Ms. Julian. His basic psychology textbooks told him that when most people leave a conversation, they look in the direction of the person they value to be a closer friend first. Booth had even nodded in his direction when he said "sixth." However, the young man countered that he was also closer to Booth position-wise, and Caroline was closer to the door, but the psychologist reasoned that those were both examples of circumstantial evidence, and he was a trained people-reader, thank you very much. Besides, I don't think he would let Caroline crash at his place if she had to sleep in her office, he smirked, satisfied with his logic.
So, after he triumphantly stole the sixth place from Caroline, he was struck by the actual number. He glanced down at his upturned palm and frowned. Six? He waggled his fingers in an upside-down wave. I wouldn't even be on the first hand. He tried to force his slight disappointment away.
I don't know why I'm upset. I shouldn't be. I've only been working with Booth for a few years. It's completely irrational for me to even believe I'm higher than Caroline since she's known Booth far longer than I. Sweets slunk back to his sofa and landed heavily with a loud sigh. What was I expecting?
Still, six was an interesting number.
The room was silent except for the slight tick tick that came from his mounted clock every second. Sweets glanced at his closed door and chewed on his lip slightly, almost wishing someone would burst through. He didn't really want to deal with another case now, even though there was a vast stack on his desk, but he also didn't fancy allowing his thoughts travel back to Pelant.
Tick. Tick.
"I don't think I've ever picked six in an 'I'm think of a number' game," the young man remarked aimlessly, trying to come up with another way to pass the time. Besides, if he was talking out loud, he couldn't hear his clock.
Tiiiick. Tiiiiick.
The noise seemed to become more grating, prompting him start another conversation with himself. "If you consider Booth and the Jeffersonian as a team, I was technically the sixth person to join. Booth and Dr. Brennan. Hodgins and Angela. Cam. Then me."
This was an interesting parallel. The young man's lips pursed slightly as he thought about this. Since Brennan is obviously the first, does that mean each person above me is also a member of the Jeffersonian? And I'm last? Sweets shook his head. No, there would be an empty slot, unless Booth counts himself as one of his favorite people. Despite his initially contrary personality, I doubt he is that arrogant.
Tick. Tick.
Sweets gritted his teeth. He was considering shooting the clock, smashing the infernal contraption with a paperweight, throwing it out the window, or lighting it on fire with two pencils and his most recent case file. After another volley of relentless ticks, he came to the conclusion that doing all four wouldn't be a particularly bad idea, though he'd probably be put on probation for reckless discharge and homicidal tendencies. For once, the psychologist started to feel an iota of pity for the murderers who "just couldn't take it anymore" before they snapped.
Desperate for anything that could distract him, Sweets spotted a legal pad out of the corner of his eye. He leaned over, grabbed the pad, and ripped off the first layer of case notes, crumpling the profile rough draft into a pale yellow snowball. Sweets tapped the edge of the pen against the notepad's spine as he thought about what to do.
Without even realizing that his pen was swiftly moving across the paper, a row of six numbers appeared on his sheet of paper. He frowned at the list, but decided to dive into the project anyway. Without hesitation, he wrote down Dr. Brennan's name in the first slot.
That's an easy one.
The psychologist rightly assumed that the father in Booth would take precedent over anything else. He stared at the second and third spot and his frown deepened. Which child does Booth love more? Christine, who he had with Brennan, his love, or Parker, who it's very obvious that he loves dearly too. Sweets didn't realize it, but his pursed lips were making slight smacking sounds as he thought. It was possible for Sweets to try to use is "shrinky powers" to determine which kid Booth loved more, but it felt almost traitorous to the family he now considered himself a part of.
"Even I can't decide on which child I like more," Sweets murmured softly, staring at the empty slots. The psychologist shrugged and placed both of the kids in the second and third slot to prevent prejudices or unfairness. After all, it really didn't matter since Sweets knew he was way before Booth's children on the list.
"Number four," he muttered, scanning the list again. It felt like he still had a ways to go before reaching his spot on the line. Sweets closed his eyes and briefly ran a list of people who would possible have a spot in "Booth's Top Ten" though his mind. It's extremely likely that those who have the closest personal connection with Booth are those who have shared a longer past with him.
It still made the shrink a bit uncomfortable to dive into Booth's few shared recollections about his past, but he figured this slight breach of privacy was in the name of science, as one of the Squints would say. He doodled aimlessly on the legal pad as he thought.
"It wouldn't be his father, obviously." Sweets scribbled out the messy star he had attempted to outline. "Perhaps his mother, though her reappearance may have been too late to factor into his long-term list." In the corner of the paper, Sweets drew a sloppy box and labeled it as "Maybes." Inside of it, he added Booth's mom with two question marks. Already two swings and two misses. However, he couldn't seem to shake the feeling that the others were rooted deep in Booth's past.
The psychologist scratched his curly head with the cap of the pen and nearly jumped in the air when he reached his revelation. "Pops!" He instantly shrunk back into his previously tight position, hoping his exclamation wasn't too loud to alert his secretary. Sweets immediately scribbled the name of Booth's grandfather on the list.
If it wasn't for his grandfather, Booth might be dead. He told me that years ago. The idea that someone who rescued and raised Booth and his brother wasn't on the list was ridiculous. Mr. Hank "Pops" Booth was definitely number four.
The discovery of the fourth person on the list bled directly into the fifth person. Even though Booth constantly complained about his reckless brother, it was obvious the older brother cared immensely about Jared. They were family—survivors of an abusive father and a missing mother. With a satisfied smile, Sweets scrawled Jared's name in the fifth blank. Completely carried away with his task at hand, he started to hypothesize who would be next.
If his belief that family is the most important remains constant, perhaps his mother would be next. Sweets shook his head. It still didn't seem right. The older man's reactions had been too angry and un-Booth-like when his mother returned after so long. There needed to be more time in between until Mrs. Booth/now-someone-else moved up on the list.
He briefly pondered on whether or not the next person could be a part of Brennan's family, since he loved his first favorite so much. However, after a bit more thought, Sweets was able to cross off both Max and Russ, even though they were now "friends" of Booth's. There were too many shades of gray in their background for Booth to consider them his favorites. He instantly removed Rebecca or Hannah from the list of possible suspects, due to the fact that Dr. Brennan was now a permanent fixture in his life. Booth was the type of person who Sweets expected would delete any faulty favorites immediately.
"Maybe it's one of the Jeffersonians…?" The only person he could think above all the others would possibly be Cam. He was friendly with Angela, certainly, but Sweets had a feeling that this friendship started courtesy of Brennan. Same with Hodgins, though Sweets figure the husband was lower on the list than Angela, since bugs seemed to creep Booth out immensely.
"I think it's definitely Dr. Saroyan," Sweets announced out loud. "They have had a relationship long before the others and are both veterans of crime. It is entirely possible that Booth values their friendship the most. After all, he does confide in her often." He glanced down at his paper and lifted his pen to write Dr. Saroyan's name in the sixth blank and froze. The spot was already filled. Lost in his confused blur, he read the name softly under his breath and felt a burning blush creep up his neck.
Lance Sweets. It was his own name. How could I have been so dumb…? Sweets mashed his lips together in embarrassment and tried to cover up his error with a breezy laugh. It was an incredibly stupid mistake and he was grateful no one was present to witness the blush spread further across his ears and cheeks.
Then the realization hit him like a fire truck. He was Booth's sixth favorite person. In the grand scheme of things, that was a relatively low number. Sure, it was closer to ten than zero, but it was a whole lot better than eight or eleven. It wasn't even a double digit. He scanned the list again to make sure he didn't make a numbering mistake, but each spot was correctly filled with its rightful person.
The young man's lower lip dropped slightly in shock as he noticed the trend that went through the top five. There were all apart of Booth's biological family. The only person who was possibly on the fence was Dr. Brennan, but even before the announcement of their engagement, Dr. Sweets had always regarded them as an old married couple. Regardless, Booth and she had had a child together—surely that must count for some aspect of the biological family, he reasoned. Sweets widened chocolate gaze then dropped onto the sixth name, his name.
He was the first person on Booth's favorites list who wasn't a part of his immediate family. The thought instantly filled the younger psychologist with a content, warm feeling. Despite all of the age and profession jokes, the angry lash outs, and blatant ignoring Booth always did, he genuinely cared about the young man. A goofy smile started to tug at the corners of Sweets' lips. Booth had always seemed more concerned about Sweets than any of his other fellow agents whenever the young psychologist was placed in a dangerous situation, but Sweets had only thought that was because Booth didn't want his walking Polygraph to be damaged.
But it was because he actually sees me as a friend.
Sweets glanced back down at the legal pad and felt a twist in his gut as he saw what he had doodled. A shovel. After Heather Taffet's violent assassination with Sweets as the closest casualty, apart from Ms. Julian, Booth was one of the only people to notice the significant change in the shrink. He also was the first to notice the young man's upward curve back to his regular self.
He also let me crash at his place for a few months. Sweets drew an abstract version of Booth's and Brennan's mighty hut and lightly shaded in the roof. And he was genuinely sad to see me leave—though I think he appreciated the free babysitting more. But that still proves that, subconsciously at least, he trusts me with his infant daughter.
The psychologist outlined the fuzzy form of a little duckling. Quite frankly, he had no idea what it meant. He had a feeling it had to do with Dr. Wyatt, since Booth didn't start quacking until after that dinner with the fancy stew. One time after a suspect that Sweets was profiling turned hostile, Booth had announced to Brennan via phone that he and "the little duck" were fine. Dr. Brennan had even gone as far as to accidentally let slip the words "imprinted duckling" once, though the meaning was completely lost on Dr. Sweets.
The last image that Sweets sketched on the paper was a tiny gun. He shivered slightly in the warm room. Booth had saved his life only hours before. If Anna had approached him in the middle of traffic with a pleading expression, Sweets knew deep down in his gut he would help her, despite any bad vibe he was receiving. It was unlikely he would have realized that it was too late until the fourth bullet had pieced his chest. Sweets swallowed thickly. He really didn't want to think about this now; the whole reason he had made the list in the first place was to avoid thinking about Pelant's latest target.
"Still," Sweets murmured softly, "he saved my life." After Anna had been taken into custody, Booth relayed the missing information to the clearly out-of-loop Sweets. Once the veteran learned from Brennan that Sweets was the intended target, he ran well over a block to get to the young psychologist in time, including racing over parked cars. Sweets' rescue was almost like something out of a comic book or a movie.
The warm feeling surged back through the young man as he thought about all that Booth had done for him in the past. A light smile glazed upon the shrink's lips.
"I guess six isn't that bad of a number," he announced softly, glancing back at the list.
Thanks to everyone who read this!
(Yes, I probably should just stick to angst xD)