After fifty comments which ranged between open threats and PPS's, I couldn't help but post as soon as I possibly could!!!
I still love you! ;)
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CHAPTER 7: Booth vs The Pocket-Knife
Agent Anderson wasn't really enjoying himself… all that much. He grimly noted every carefully constructed expression by both partners and tried to recall every good word he'd heard about strong Agent Booth, every exclamation of praise said wondrously about intelligent Dr Brennan. They did work well together, despite this… despite what he was seeing too plainly right before his eyes. And he wouldn't split them up, even though a simple phone call to the Deputy Director from him would suffice. The odd thing was that he wasn't quite sure why… but he just wouldn't.
Gabrielle Anor felt a weary, creeping bitterness claw at her insides. Booth had been wrong in thinking she could never really fancy him. Her heart might remain broken but the pieces always felt a bit more alive whenever this man was around. He was too young for her, and she never considered actually dating him, but… there was something about Special Agent Seeley Booth. Something Dr Brennan clearly knew as well. Gabrielle pushed back her useless longing and sighed, managing to feel honestly sorry for her friend to be put through this weird kind of test.
"How many items?" Booth asked through clenched teeth.
"Five plus that gun you found earlier." Brennan said.
"Okay, then let's get started."
His face was an impassive mask, and she struggled to make hers match (she'd been so good at this four years ago… damn it). His hands, on the other… hand, shook slightly, but no one in the small, now awkwardly quiet, room commented.
Brennan's arms were beginning to ache (although to her dismay they weren't the only body part with an ache she couldn't calm). Booth's hands trailed the shirt more carefully, fingers digging into the flesh in a precise, perfectly scientific way. It didn't take him two seconds to find a black band tied around her waist with two knives attached to it.
When Brennan made to remove it herself, however, Agent Anderson… lost the courage to complain, and decided to let her.
He didn't count on Booth gently tugging her hands away and undoing the strap himself. For this he had to lift her shirt so her hips, waist, belly-button and ribs were clearly visible, skin soft and pale, and delicious. A sliver of her bra momentarily stole his focus. Every breath she took made her chest rise and fall in an incredibly distracting way (especially since he was paying scientific attention to an area close to it).
Booth took a moment to wonder why he was doing this to himself, but unfortunately in the middle of the answering thought the moment ended.
"Does this count as one or two?" He murmured, and she didn't understand what had happened, why she no longer felt that connection and complicity, why he seemed to be uncomfortably avoiding her gaze. Had he forgotten this was her torture session, not his?
"One." She said sharply, hoping to shake him out of this strange new state.
It didn't work.
The shirt slid back in place, his fingers sliding down her waist and she couldn't help a hysterical giggle, possibly from being wound up like a spring, to relieve some tension. It was a sound so alien it startled even herself. To Brennan's surprise, however, this was what made Booth come back to her, and that complicity reignite. But it didn't help that his eyes met hers… only to ask, with a grin:
"Are you ticklish, Bones?"
"No." She said immediately. Today was a day of monosyllables.
He didn't push her, but went back to examining her body. Apparently satisfied with the front of her shirt, he circled her (arms still outstretched and becoming painfully sore).
As he did so, Brennan felt like prey.
His hands were on her back, now, also feeling carefully and very, very scientifically. He felt a sharp wire… in her bra, held in place by the back strap. Well crap. To punish him, possibly, Brennan didn't make an attempt to remove it herself.
So he pulled the shirt up until he was confronted with the catch… he'd undone this thing in so many dreams, seeing it now felt pretty unreal. But at least he'd been right, the offending object was right there.
Now the problem was taking it out. Booth looked down and took a deep breath, to steel his resolve because he knew what came now, and boy, was his body waaay too ready for it.
In a quick, practiced motion, he undid the clasp, carefully removed the sharp wire and tied it back without giving Brennan time to complain. Which she didn't: in fact, she didn't make a sound. After a couple of seconds, Booth realised he no longer had an excuse to look at her beautiful, smooth bare back and let the shirt drop in place.
Two down, three to go…
Was this karma of some kind?
Keeping with his procrastinating principles, Booth left the worst for last (aka, the skirt) and centred his attention to the boots. Brennan looked fantastic in high heels. Hot. There was just no better, simpler word: she looked smoking HOT.
He sat down at her feet and did not, under any possible circumstance, look up.
"Give me your foot, Bones."
Brennan felt something snap inside her as she threw caution to the wind, didn't complain, and simply lowered her throbbing arms (yeah, they weren't the only throbbing… um, but she didn't want to think about that).
"Fine." She exhaled and gingerly put her weight on one (very high heeled) foot. The other leg she outstretched and put in Booth's lap. Gabrielle chose this moment to leave the room, without even bothering to mumble an excuse.
Anderson looked away and began feeling a bit of remorse for losing his temper with Booth, but he was too proud to back down now. And a sadistic part of him, hitherto unknown, wanted to see how they would react.
And there was always that pocket-knife…
"There's something…" Booth turned to Anderson for the first time since this began. "Can I just remove the boot?"
"Of course, if you have to find whatever it is you think is hidden there."
Well, this just got better and better.
Booth took the zipper and slid it down, revealing more and more smooth, creamy skin. And not once looking up, or away, or… he wished he could just close his eyes and not look at all. Two small knives in their sheaths were strapped to her calves.
"Aha. Three down, two to go." He told her perfect ankle. The irrational (and stupid) desire to kiss it took him by surprise. He hadn't always been a 'feet' person.
Brennan managed to be thankful that Booth didn't look up, because she felt perfectly naked at this very moment, the skirt having rode up to her thighs and beyond.
"Give me the other leg, Bones."
She put a hand on his shoulder to regain her balance as she took her weight out of one high-heeled booth to put it on the other: for Brennan, who hardly ever wore stiletto boots ('hardly ever' meaning… well, never, let's be scientifically accurate here) this was harder than it sounds. Or maybe it was just as hard as it sounds.
Booth bit the side of his mouth again, resulting in a painful stab of reality coming back.
Two Korean Tae-Kwon-Do throwing stars hid in the new boot once he'd removed it.
"Are you kidding me? Do you even know how to use these?"
"Not Korean Tae-Kwon-Do, no, but I do have black belt in Karate, and we've used similar artefacts there."
"Right. Somehow I keep forgetting that."
She smiled, but he didn't see because he was conversing with her knee. A very nice knee it was, too…
"So just…" he cleared his throat "One more to go, huh?"
"Yep." Brennan said curtly.
Anderson actually reached the point where he opened his mouth to stop them, the words ready at his throat. But then he closed it again.
"Okay then." Booth felt paralyzed. His throat was dry, his palms were sweating (not great, seeing as he was about to touch her) and his head buzzed. "Okay, I'll just… yeah, okay."
Brennan stonily stared ahead, at the door through which Gabrielle had left. She desperately wished she could do the same.
Booth stood up, only to realise there was no way in hell he was bending to feel her up, so he sat back down again, but her legs were too long and anyway his brean wouldn't let him look up because it knew what would happen to his body, so he stood again, almost got another head rush, sat down… and found that kneeling worked.
Fan-this was so painfully wrong and right-tastic.
There was just… so little of the skirt. And it was so tight. He couldn't… he couldn't touch her, not like this, it felt like a violation of her privacy and of her right to intimacy, this entire situation felt like a horrible, horrible mistake…
He tried to extend his hand toward her thigh, but his heart seemed to twist in his chest, screaming 'Wrong! This is wrong, not like this, please not like this!'.
"Tell you what." Anderson spoke finally, realising what he'd done. "Guess it by not touching her. Name the most likely places where the last weapon could be, and Dr Brennan can tell you when you get it right."
Booth sighed. "Thanks, sir." He stood up and shared a 'Phew' moment with his Bones, who managed a sneaky smile. "So… uh…"
Ah. Now what?
"So, is it in a thigh sheath?"
"No."
"Then…" Seriously, what on earth was he supposed to ask? "Then is it…?" His voice cracked, once again making him feel like a teenage boy. Maybe his rather lost, mesmerised look finally drew the pity of Agent Anderson, who clapped his hands.
"Okay, okay, game over. Remove the pocket-knife, Dr Brennan, and let's get back to the job."
Brennan did it so quickly Booth didn't have time to see anything. She hitched up the skirt and slid the pocket-knife out from where it was taped to her inner thigh (brushing areas she'd rather Booth not see at this particular moment). And finally… finally it was over.
Booth stood up in a fluid, agile movement and breathed in relief. Brennan grinned at him, like they'd just passed a test together by cheating.
The next two hours (during which Gabrielle ate her pride and went back inside) passed uneventfully. Brennan had excellent self-defence skills, and even Agent Anderson admitted to being surprised by her fitness. Guns would mostly be left up to Booth (who took ten minutes to figure out which costumes would work with them) because of their bulk, but some small calibre stuff could be used by Brennan, and she had knives, pins, wires, and a few cute gadgets, including a bracelet that hid two razor-like metal squares.
Hopefully the situation in which they would have to use these wouldn't arise, after all, she knew how tight security would be in such a hotel, it didn't matter if one of the guards there was former FBI.
By the end of the session, both partners felt much more secure about their cover, and their defence. During the last half hour, they moved to the studio for more space to practice kicking in stiletto boots, martial arts while wearing tight mini-skirts and using conventional objects as weapons.
"Well, I think we can safely say Dr Brennan will do a fantastic job. I am happy I was called in for this, you complement Agent Booth in every aspect. Congratulations."
Brennan nodded, feeling a little out of breath after a short sparring session against Booth wearing the pink semi-transparent dress (the first one she'd tried in Anor's dressing room) that clung uncomfortably to her body, restraining movement and range.
"She'll be great." Booth said in agreement, smiling at her. He didn't doubt his words for a second, but as he said them an old extra sense of security and calm washed over him, something he hadn't felt since this case began.
*
He was driving her home when a thought occurred to him.
"Have you said goodbye to everyone at the lab? Angela will miss you, even if you're only gone for a couple of weeks. They'll be so worried."
"I… can't really think about that. I haven't been much in the lab these past few days. Preparing, haven't we?" She looked out the window as she answered, and this was a clear sign of something wrong.
"Bones, we leave tomorrow! Do they even know it's tomorrow?"
"I'll… call them."
He stopped the car. "Temperance, what are you doing?"
She shifted uncomfortably and wished she could shield her face from his inquisitive eyes. "They know it's soon, okay? It's difficult for me to face a goodbye."
"You'll only be gone two weeks, and we've left before. We might even need their help at some point, so you might be able to contact them. I don't understand why you won't say goodbye."
"It's not that I won't. Look, I see this can go two ways: either we succeed, in which case it's not that important to say goodbye, if we'll be contacting them and anyway, back in two weeks. If we fail… it's better this way."
"We won't fail."
"We might."
"No. No, we won't."
She started at the total trust in his voice. He really did believe they would. Hollywood Rob and his Angel would work, discover which crime-boss was responsible for the five murders, and while investigating, try to catch incriminating evidence against the others. Uncover the traffic of women, then leave all the arrests to NYPD, and get the hell out of the Hotel DeMarco.
"Okay." She croaked.
"Yeah, but-" After a pause, he laughed. "That's twice now you've agreed with me, and I'm still not used to it. And this time without evidence!"
"I'm going soft." She grinned, feeling weightless, floating, euphoria stealing gravity…
"Yeah you are, Bones! What happened?"
'I fell in love with you.' She thought.
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By the way… case begins in the next chapter! Some people complained about the prep, but I hope it wasn't too dragging, I really did want to make it interesting and new (I don't know many authors that spend time with it).
Anyways… guess what?
Please reviewwwww!
