Christmas Confessions

By: Lesera128

Rated: T

Disclaimer: I own nothing... Obviously. Just playing in someone else's sandbox for a bit.

Summary: Every time Christmas rolled around, one of them found out they'd ended up facing the truth of some type of confession. And, each year, after said revelation, things never went as Booth and Brennan had planned.

A/N: Many thanks for all the reviews. I'm happy to see that at least some people are interested in this little concept. So, without further adieu, enter Special Agent Seeley Booth, stage left.


Year 2: Booth's First Confession


I couldn't help myself when I did it. It was after midnight, it was late, it was quiet, everyone else was asleep, she was just sitting there so full of herself, and, well—I was still very high.

It's hard to describe the sensation of how I felt in that moment. I was so angry that I was stuck in the lab—I was in a place that I didn't want to be with people I didn't particularly like or even know, and I wasn't doing what I wanted to be doing—nope, not at all. All of that frustration had been dulled into this irksome, teeny tiny annoying point that I could mostly ignore thanks to whatever the hell the anti-fungal drugs were doing to my system. And, then I remembered it was Christmas, and Christmas is so cool, and I was the only one still up except for her, and so I did what seemed perfectly logical at the time—I grabbed Angela's elf hat, put it on, and went to spread some holiday cheer.

I suppose if I'd been sober I would've known that she'd only see the image of me in an elf hat as ridiculous and annoying, at best—because, well, she's the Jeffersonian's very own Grinch-in-Residence. I dunno, maybe I expected too much when I thought her shriveled shrink heart might grow three sizes, enough so that it was become this magical thing like a heart that approaches the normal ones that the rest of us were born with—stupid mistake, I know. Then, I went and found her, and look at how well that turned out. She cracked on me, Christmas, and God—all in the span of about five minutes. And, then, I turned around and just left. Now, I'm used to her insulting me. I can even brush off the insults to the Big Man, since I'm sure he's used to that sorta thing. But, in good conscience, I couldn't let her digs at Christmas, on Christmas Eve, go unchallenged. Besides, I'd dropped my elf-hat in the den of the Christmas Killer at some point after I grabbed it off of the table where she'd been working, and I was afraid she might do something like set it on fire in some Puritanical purge of holiday cheer when there was so little in the lab already. So, I turned around and went back to the platform.

By then, the Grinch's theme song had gotten stuck in my head, and I was having quite a good time half-humming it/half-singing the lyrics to my head. I allowed my head to bob slightly from side-to-side as I backtracked and made my way to where I'd left Oliver Cromwell in front of her microscope and kept singing:

You're a monster, Mr. Grinch.
Your heart's an empty hole.
Your brain is full of spiders,
You've got garlic in your soul.

Mr. Grinch.
I wouldn't touch you, with a
thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole.

You're a vile one, Mr. Grinch.
You have termites in your smile.
You have all the tender sweetness
Of a seasick crocodile.
Mr. Grinch.

At the sound of my approach, she turned around again and sighed. "And, you're back."

I rolled my eyes at her as I approached her work spot. "Don't get your tank top in a twist, Oliver. It's tight enough that you might start popping out all over the place if you do, and we wouldn't want that, since it would probably make me want to come over there and touch you, and do all the things in my mind that I've been wanting to do to you in a sexy non-partner kinda way for a while now—but, like the song says, I can't want to touch you with a thirty-nine-and-a-half foot pole, so cool your jets. I just came for my hat because I dropped it somewhere, and I want it back, okay?"

She stared at me, and I'm not certain why she was giving me this look that was on her face—eyes slightly widened, face flushed, as she blinked at me several times. I stared back at her, and then realized that she probably didn't know why I'd called her Oliver.

"Oh," I said. "Lemme save you some time. You say 'I don't know what that means.' And, then I explain that I called you Oliver because you're the Christmas Killer like Oliver Cromwell was. Minus the whole belief-in-God thing you would've liked him. He hated the good stuff—the bestest stuff—about Christmas, too. He cancelled it, ya know? Christmas? He cancelled it in England in the 1640s. There were no presents or Christmas carols. And, no candy or baked goods or booze. He banned booze for Christmas, the Puritanical bastard."

"Wait," she said, as she suddenly recovered from when I called her Oliver at the beginning of our second conversation. "Did you just imply that I was puritanical?"

I shrugged my shoulders. Her big words didn't really make any sense to me at the time. She was just complaining again about her and me, and I didn't really want to listen to that again since she did that all the time. "I dunno, Bones," I told her. "You tell me."

"Boy," she replied. "You're really out of it."

"Naaaw," I replied, as I spied the hat on the floor near the foot of the chair I'd abandoned earlier. Bending down with a quick sweep of my hand, I grabbed it and stuck the elf hat back on my head. "I'm more with it than you are, Bones."

She stared at me, and I stared at her, and then I pointed at her tank top. "You really do need to get your bra size measured by someone who knows what in the hell they're doing. That thing is way too tight. And, I'm not saying I don't appreciate it, but it doesn't set the right kinda tone for the rest of the eggheads, ya know? It might be too…stimulating for them."

Again, she had that wide-eyed look on her face as she finally asked, "Wait a minute, Booth."

"What?" I said, adjusting the hat on my head. "What can I do for you, Oliver?"

"Why do you keep staring at my tank top?" she finally blurted out.

My brow furrowed in confusion as I tried to make sense of her words. She couldn't be that obtuse, right? Shaking my head, I finally said, "Because it shows off everything you've got, and everything you've got to show off starts with a great pair of boobs? Duh, Bones."

Shaking my head, I turned away, not wanting to get into another argument about how large female breasts somehow indicated that Christ was a figment of my very overactive imagination. Not bothering to turn back, I merely called over my shoulder, "Merry Christmas, Oliver."

As I left the platform and decided where to go next since I still wasn't tired, I never saw her as her surprised look transitioned to a very knowing one as at least she finally comprehended the truth of my impromptu confession—even if, at the time, I hadn't.


-TBC-


A/N2: Coming up next for year three—Brennan's just found out her father is still alive, Booth's told her she's a part of 'their' family, and Cam (unfortunately) is still hanging around as Booth's 'special' friend. Can a Christmas carol from Auntie Mame make things better than they seem? Stay tuned, and if you're so inclined, hit that little button below, and let me know what you think.~