WARNINGS: Asexual!Bones; Slight AU due to asexual!Bones, though that's not explicitly stated.
A/N: I really wanted to explore the possibility that Brennan could be asexual, which was what I felt could be possible in the first few seasons. Also, the marked lack of capitalisations is a stylistic choice that I'm trying out :)
temperance brennan is a whirlwind. she stumbles into his life like a breath of fresh air, constantly challenging him and pushing him to become better. she forces his hand every moment she can, and no matter how much he originally tried to distance himself from her, she has an annoying ability of getting under his skin.
in short, temperance brennan is like nothing he has ever encountered before, and she's charmed almost instantly.
he's never been once to work with squints – it's like they're part of an entirely different world – but with her, it's different. he has a feeling that she's the one person who can keep on challenging him, the one who won't take any of his crap and will call him out on any and every mistake he makes.
in short, temperance brennan has all the potential of being his perfect partner.
so he asks to be assigned to her, and while his boss gapes at the fact that he's willing working with lab techs, he just waits until the director agrees to his request.
temperance brennan intrigues him, and he's going to enjoy trying to peel off all of her many layers and get to know her – he knows he will, the only real question is the time it will take.
he was right – bones is perfect for him. he knows he annoys her as much as she annoys him, but that's what keeps them on their toes around each other. for the first time in his life, he actually understands why squints like her team are necessary.
sure, he's always known that they help in getting evidence necessary for getting judges to sign up on warrants, and their depositions are dreadfully helpful in convincing juries to convict felons, but he's never seen them as being on par to the actual cops, the trained investigators. after all, they're the ones who are on the front lines, not the lab rats.
but with bones, it's different. now, he's working side by side with these so often that sometimes he feels like he's one of them. and he can see how they too, in a way, are right in the frontlines of these cases. their findings are what help him, in turn, find the perpetrators and bring them to justice, and he cannot help but feel awed by them.
bones helps him to see the world in a way he's never thought of before, keeps him guessing constantly, and that's something that thrills him – it makes him a better investigator, helps him be better at his job, and that's something he's always going to be grateful for.
seeley booth is not blind, no matter what the rest of the fbi says. of course he's noticed that bones is quite possibly the most gorgeous woman he's ever met. she even puts rebecca to shame, and considering that she's the mother of his child, a woman he once thought was the only woman he would ever love, that is saying a lot.
bones is downright beautiful, but that doesn't change the fact that she's his partner and his friend before anything else. she knows he's attracted to her – he'd made his feeling quite clear on that first case they worked together – and if she wants something more from their relationship, it's up to her too make the first move.
in the meantime, he's happy letting things be the way they are. he may not have her love, but he has her friendship, and that's still more than what he had expected to get from her.
it's years before she finally makes that move. they've faced serial killers and crazed cannibals and everything in between together, and in a way, it's a relief knowing that there's nothing, not even the prospect of a failed relationship, that can tear them apart. but despite it all, it takes losing one of her own – and he had liked vincent nigel-murray too, liked him in a way he's found difficult to like any of her assistants since zach – for her to come to him, to ask him for comfort.
that first night she spends wrapped in his arms, it's driven more by the need to be certain that he's alive than anything else, but there's a realisation there too, that she wouldn't trust anyone else to see her so weak, and that's what sparks their relationship.
he doesn't mind taking it slow with her. he knows her better than anyone – he knows how awkward she can get when it comes to relationships, how they always make her second guess herself when she becomes too emotionally involved – and it's no hardship at all, moving at her pace. he never imagined that she'd finally reciprocate his feelings – the euphoria of that alone is enough to keep him happy for weeks, if not months.
but time passes, and she still doesn't seem inclined to go any further than a few kisses and cuddling in bed, and he knows he needs to talk to her. he's never going to be one to stray – that's just not the kind of person he is – but if there's something that's stopping her from taking their relationship further, he needs to know.
and he sits her down, and he explains why he wants to talk – and she sighs. it's definitely not the first reaction he had been expecting. he'd thought she'd immediately go into long detailed explanations, and she still does that, but that sigh alerts him and keeps him on edge. he knows that no matter what this conversation ends in, he's going to find out about people he'd love to be able to kill – that sigh wasn't anything good, and unless he's losing his skill at reading people, it spoke of at least one heartbreak in bones' past.
and the last thing he likes being reminded of is just how many ways his precious squint has been broken and shattered into tiny pieces.
he pushes his fears aside, though, and gives her his full attention when she starts to talk. she deserves nothing less than that from him.
at first, he cannot understand what she's trying to tell him. she's quite frequently told angela about her sexual exploits, and having her explain how she's a virgin just confuses him. but then she explains how those stories were made up to protect the real truth, and he pushes his confusion aside – whatever bones is about to reveal to him, he knows it's taking her a lot of trust to do so, and he will give her his complete concentration.
asexuality makes no sense to him when she first explains it to him. not wanting to have sex isn't exactly something that he can easily wrap his head around. and maybe if it had been anyone else, it would have taken him all that much longer, but it's bones, and she's always been different to everyone else he's ever met. once he wraps his head around the concept – well, it's not hard to imagine her as not ever being sexually attracted to anyone.
but he also understands why she's explaining this to him. no matter how he reacts to her news, it will still impact the relationship between the two of them.
she offers to turn a blind eye if he sometimes needs to turn elsewhere for physical gratification, and he immediately wants to protest the idea. but this is brennan, and she knows him better than he knows himself – and she's right. unlike her, he does need some form of release. so he agrees to keep that possibility on ice until it became necessary, and at the same time, made it clear that it was always up for re-examination. if she ever became uncomfortable with it, even the possibility of taking up her offer was something that he would willingly give up.
he knows that it will be a struggle for him if he accepts it – cheating doesn't come naturally to him. but maybe if she gives her, it won't even be cheating.
if he had explained this to almost anyone he knew, they would have labelled him insane. he knew he was good looking, and could score with a good percentage of women, despite the fact that age was slowly catching up with him. no one would understand why he took the trouble of staying in a relationship where his partner couldn't give him a large part of what he wanted, especially not when he could easily get someone else to share his life. he knew for certain that bones' didn't understand. her look of shock when he had accepted her had given her away. hell, he isn't even sure why he's doing this himself.
but what he does know that he's madly in love with temperance brennan, and he would do anything for her. he knows better than anyone else the many times – and ways – he could have lost her in the span of their partnership, and there's nothing that's going to keep him from her any longer, not if he has a say in it.
asexuality isn't as important as she is. he fell in love with the woman she is, not her body, no matter how beautiful said body was – and even if all her could have was her mind, heart and soul…well, as far as he was concerned, three out of four wasn't a bad average.
they still have a lot to figure out, he knows that. and they would be doing exactly that – but that was for later. now? now he is more than happy to pull her in his arms and let the feel of her lying there accompanied by the sound of her heartbeat lull him to sleep.
I hope you guys liked it! Please don't forget to drop a review on your way out - I'd love to hear what you think about this :)