A/N: This was a response to this meme on livejournal:
Put your iTunes on shuffle, and write a drabble based on each of the first five songs that play. Don't linger when the song is over, this is an exercise.
It was fun, but a real challenge, and I hope you enjoy reading.
Disclaimer: I am not Hart Hanson, and I do not own Bones.
A Handful of Moments in an Unusual Friendship
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I've Just Seen a Face – The Beatles
I've just seen a face/I can't forget the time or place/Where we just met
She's just the girl for me/And I want all the world to see/We've met
Had it been another day/I might have looked the other way
And I'd have never been aware.
Hodgins had never seen someone quite like Zack ever before. He looked young enough to be in high school, but if you looked him in the eye, you could tell that he was more intelligent than any teenager could ever be. But somehow, when he spoke about anything other than science, bones, and hypotheses, he sounded twelve years old again, asking questions that a kindergartener could answer about popular culture and modern trends.
When Hodgins took the boy under his wing, he knew he had a lot of work to do. And somehow, as he patiently explained to Zack yet again why he needed to update his wardrobe, he found that helping him out might not be as excruciatingly painful as he'd thought. In fact, it just might be fun. (But he won't let on.)
Begin – Ben Lee
I'm still singing/Twisting new melodies, breaking arrangements
Thinking about my heart/I guess you've heard, sometimes it's heavy
But I just keep moving/When I hit a wall, I look up at the sky
I'm thinking about my maker/In spite of all this I know she won't give up on me
Zack wishes he knew how to communicate. He wishes that his blunt, thoughtless statements didn't scare everyone off so quickly. No one ever bothered to stick around long enough to teach him how to fix himself. No one until Hodgins, really. And even though that was only because they had to work together, Zack could tell that, after awhile, Hodgins was going out of his way to teach him these things. He taught him how to dumb down his sentences outside the lab, how to think over his words before he said them, how to actually get a girl to say more than two words to him. He taught him how to dress himself and how to drive. He taught him how to be a friend. And there was nothing in Zack's life that he was more thankful for than that.
Amphetamine – Everclear
All she wants to do every night/Is sit beside my window and listen to the sirens
She is perfect in that fucked up way/That all the magazines seem to want to glorify these days
She looks like a teenage anthem/And she looks like she should have been happy
In another life
Some nights, Hodgins walks the long, long walk out to the garage. He walks up the steps and doesn't bother to knock on the door before walking in. Usually, Zack is asleep and doesn't notice him asleep in the guest room until morning. But other nights, he's awake, usually watching old sci-fi reruns on the modest television in the main room. And on those nights, Hodgins just sits down next to him on the sofa and mocks his choice of show or the cheesy special effects or the particularly bad acting. And even though Zack knows he doesn't mean it, he lets Jack pick the fight and win, because he knows he needs it. Those nights, when they stay up until four a.m. watching Zack's Firefly DVDs, they usually fall asleep across each other on the couch and have to rush to make it into work on time. But the mornings after, even though they're exhausted and hyped up on terrible coffee, they make it through the day by meeting each other's eyes across the room and laughing at some ridiculous inside joke that's only funny because they haven't slept. And that's good enough.
All the Way Down – Glen Hansard
And in the morning/When you turn in/I'll be far to sea
And you have broken me, all the way down/You'll be the last, you'll see
He hates the look Hodgins is giving him. That brokenhearted, why did you do this? look that he hasn't seen in years. He wishes he could tell him, hopes Dr. Brennan will tell him, why. He knows Hodgins will understand. He's logical, too.
One by one, the others walk away, leaving only Jack, forehead against the wall, breath fogging up the glass. Zack looks at him, biting his lip and looking far, far younger than ever before. Hodgins just shakes his head before he walks away, too, leaving the boy alone in the dimly lit hospital room, muttering I'm sorry to only empty space.
Numbness for Sound – Howie Day
Cold in the sun/My feet on the ground
A pale windless city/A numbness for sound
I'll wait, back here/or will you notice
A moment in time/A photograph lost here
Since you were mine/I'll wait back here
Or should I start pushing my way back?
He hates that Zack's gone. It's selfish, really, and he knows it, but he doesn't care. Not when Zack's miles and miles away, alone and friendless, locked up in some psychiatric hospital.
Hodgins hasn't been able to bring himself to visit him yet. He's scared he'll finally break. He's been so busy holding Angela together through it all, through the court case and the cleaning out the garage and the hiring a replacement, that he hasn't dealt yet. And he doesn't want to.
But as much as he tries to stifle it all, he can't lock it in. And he ends up on the floor of what used to be Zack's bedroom, laying on the freshly-cleaned carpet and staring at the ceiling and really hating Zack for leaving him like this. He promises himself that tomorrow, yes, tomorrow, he'll visit. He'll visit, and maybe, maybe it won't be so bad.
(And this is when the tears finally come.)
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End