A Very Bad Idea
By: dharmamonkey & Lesera128
Rated: M
Disclaimer: Ummm, nope, we still don't own anything. We have, however, apparently become squatters in the sandbox that we crashed... so, umm... yeah. There we go.
A/N: Apologies for the delay in posting this latest chapter. This time we'll blame our distracted muse *cough...Angel*, the demands of our other big project, "The Inquisitor," and the monkey having to spend three weeks in a row traveling on business. But we're back, baby. At this point, Dharmasera has a lot of fanfic in queue that needs editing. That means we'll be able to feed your addictions all summer long. So, without further ado, let's see what hungry, hungover Booth and Brennan are up to the afternoon after their epic bender/encounter.
Unf Alert: This story is about two people with a raging attraction who wake up next to each other in bed, not entirely clothed, uncertain as to whether they slept together or merely slept next to one another. You do the math, people. So, if you don't like reading about that sort of thing, or shouldn't be, please stop reading. The rest of you, get your Kleenex out (because we think this thing is funny enough you might just end up in tears before we're done) and a tall glass of ice water, and let's go.
VIII. He Said, She Said, Part III
Pertinent Details on Scenario #8: Set during the beginning of episode 5x01: "Harbingers in the Fountain."
I felt more than saw him watching me. Again, for a man who was one of the U.S. Army's best snipers, I don't know how he did it since he isn't exactly what I would call the silent type...or, for that matter, subtle. But, one minute he wasn't there, and the next he was standing in the doorway. I blinked at him for a minute or so, as I tried to discern whatever it was that he was trying to figure out. He was watching me, and from the perplexed look on his face, I could tell he was concentrating as much mental energy as he could focus on trying to make sense of things...or, at least as much as things make sense in the World According to Booth.
As he stood there looking at me, and I sat there looking back at him, I suppose to an outsider it would have appeared contrived and/or comical. But, the fact of the matter was that we needed a metaphorical time out to try and get our thoughts in order. I could tell he was trying to figure something out by the nervous way he grasped his coffee mug and used his thumb to stroke the thick stoneware handle in almost minute movements. He was biting the inside of his bottom lip again, but more than anything, the dead giveaway that Booth was struggling to make up his mind about something was how he was blinking at me. When he wants it to appear that he's paying attention to someone but, either by choice or necessity, his focus is distracted, he blinks in a seemingly random pattern as the thoughts are going through his mind.
Blink-blink. Blink-blink-blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink-blink.
I first noticed it about six months after we'd begun working together on a regular basis. Initially, I'd thought that perhaps Booth was attempting to use Morse Code to covertly signal pertinent information to me using his blinking pattern. But, eventually, I figured out that it's just a random tic he has...a tell, really. And, he was doing that blinking pattern thing he does as he stared at me. So, I knew whatever he was thinking about, it had to be important since Booth gets cranky when he has to engage in complex analytical thought before he's had at least two cups of coffee and three glazed donuts (or a Boston Cream and a raspberry-filled jelly donut if the glazed were not available).
As he stared at me, I couldn't help but wonder what had captured his attention so completely. Was it the same question I was struggling with? Or did he already know the answer? Did he know something that I didn't? Is that why he was just standing there in such a seemingly casual manner, sipping his cup of coffee like he was leaning up against the door frame in my office at the lab, and we'd just gotten a case, instead of it being his bedroom door the night after we'd both apparently toppled into a bender that might've thrust us over his damn line? Is that what he was grappling with, i.e., how to let me know that he knew what happened, regretted it, and wanted to figure out a way to pretend that such thing had never occurred between us?
That damn line.
Fuck.
How much do I hate that damn line?
A lot. Very much. Extremely so. Or, all of the above.
Have I said how much I hate that fucking line?
For more than two years, it's been the bane of my existence. In a way, it's made my life much harder than it ever should've been, particularly since that day Booth drew his metaphorical safe zone in the sand at Hillside Park. He got scared with Cam, and then when he almost lost her, instead of reaching out and thanking any deity that would listen in gratitude for not having lost her, he pushed her away. And, if that wasn't bad enough, he then turned around and did the same thing to me in what was a completely unexpected and completely brutal preemptive strike. I-I...I didn't realize it at the time. I didn't. If I had, I think I would've responded a bit more...well, aggressively...than I did that day by merely nodding my complicit understanding and dumb agreement. But, he surprised me, I responded lamely while he stared at me with those piercing brown eyes of his, and the conversation was over before I'd even had a chance to mount a logical counter-attack to his offensive. Because, if I could've, I would've. But, then that begs the question...if I'd done that then, what would've happened between us? Because I know that I wasn't ready back then to deal with how I felt...how I still feel about him. Hell, I'm not even certain I'm ready now, even after we may've already slept together. But, I definitely know I'm a lot better equipped to handle it now than I was then. I'm just not sure where that put us as he was looking at me, the two of us having apparently fumbled our way into some type of Mexican standoff.
I was content to remain quiet for a minute, as I gathered my thoughts. I didn't want to make any mistakes this time. For better or worse, I wouldn't have any regrets about things that might or might not happen between Booth and I on this day. So, I'd take my time.
It appeared that Booth was just as content to let the silence weigh over us as he continued to just look at me.
Then, a more practical consideration suddenly shifted the balance of power between us before I'd even realized what had happened once more. One minute, he was standing there in the doorway. He was holding his coffee mug in his hand and sipping it from it, and he continued to look at me, the pungent aroma was starting to permeate the bedroom. I couldn't help but relax a bit as I felt the warm, soothing scent invade my senses. After another moment, and one more deep breath, I looked up at him, and finally registered that he'd actually spoken...and asked me a question to boot.
Did I want any coffee?
It took about 0.25 seconds for me to come up with an appropriate answer.
Hell, yes.
"Where's mine?" I finally managed to ask, my brow furrowing a bit in displeasure as I looked from one hand to the other as if I expected him to conjure it from thin air.
He arched an eyebrow at me and responded, "So, I guess that's a 'yes?'"
For some reason, his response irked me. He asked me if I wanted coffee, implying an offer by the way he'd made his statement. But, still, he hadn't made an effort to procure one for me...like he always does, whether we're at a crime scene, en route to an interview or interrogation, or just at the lab or at the Hoover working. That's what Booth does—he brings me coffee. So, I didn't know what he was expecting when I stared at him expectantly and then became annoyed the more time passed and that I went without any coffee, despite the fact that I'd registered my preference for my own serving of the delicious-smelling caffeinated beverage.
Frowning again, my impatience finally got the better of me as I asked, "Aren't you going to go and bring me a cup?" I blinked at him, thinking that might buy me at least a minute or two more as I awaited for the supplies that would come from the delivery guy courtesy of Thai Village.
For his part, Booth gave me a strange look and then nodded his head slightly in response. "Yeah," he shrugged with a huffed laugh. "I'll go get you one."
"And bring it back here," I stipulated, knowing I was being a bit more demanding than most people would probably be in such situation. But, then again, it's not like I don't know what I can't get away with as far as Booth is concerned and what I can't. Bringing me a cup of coffee was a rather small thing in the grand scheme of things. I knew he'd go and get one for me if I asked, so that's why I did it. He confirmed my assumptions a few seconds later when he spoke.
"Roger that," he replied with a faint smirk as he shot me another strange look before he turned to leave. "I'll be right back."
When he disappeared, I turned around and scanned the rumpled sheets and other bed linens as my mind went back to the question that had been perplexing me since I'd woken up in Booth's bed earlier that morning.
Had we or hadn't we had sex?
Instinctively, my nose twitched to see if I could still smell anything in the air. After all, if Booth and I had finally had sex, the room should've reeked of it, right? I took in the sight before me wondering what further evidence the bedding might reveal. My eyes darted over the various places I could see as I attempted to ascertain whether the linens might offer any telltale signs that are sometimes visible when a couple has intercourse. However, Booth's grey bed linens didn't really have any overt signs that screamed to me that a couple—any couple, that is—had recently had sex in that bed. As my eyes darted to the clock, I began to wonder how much of the evidence would logically still be present given that it had been a minimum of twelve hours, if not more, since any possible exchange of bodily fluids might've transpired. With a sigh, I realized that unless I retrieved my UV light from my purse—which I wasn't necessarily above doing if I couldn't figure out an answer to this conundrum one way or another—the sheets probably weren't going to give up any secrets to me. Sighing, I made a face as I reached for the pillows and fluffed them, arranging them behind me as I sat up and tried to avoid wincing a bit from the dull throb that I'd just begun to register in my lower back.
Wait...what?
My back...damn it. My back was suddenly hurting. Almost as if the pain receptors in my lower lumbar region had suddenly realized that my conscious mind was now aware of the discomfort they were registering, I swear that somehow it seemed that the pain increased tenfold in less than thirty seconds. From a physiological standpoint, I know that's impossible to have actually occurred, but I can't explain it. My back really started to hurt in that moment.
What in the hell did we do last night?
My scowl deepened as I tried to shift into a comfortable position. After a minute, and several grunts as I realized that there would be no substantial relief without a hot shower, analgesics, and/or a thorough massage by a talented masseuse, I finally settled into the position that I thought to be the least painful. And, because I was feeling quite generous, but also because I didn't want to lose the logistical advantage of keeping things in the bedroom until I'd figured out what had actually happened (and what might need to happen again), I tossed a lone pillow on the far side of the bed. Deciding that I was as ready as I'd ever be, I reached for the flat sheet and the comforter, I wrapped them loosely around my lower body, and expectantly waited for Booth to return.
I didn't mind getting her a cup of coffee. I mean, hell, I'd offered her one, basically, so it was only kinda fair, I guess, that I trot my ass out to go and get her one. I'm serious. I didn't really mind getting her a cup of coffee. I do it all the time. It's almost as much of a thing as her stealing my fries, you know—come to think of it, why do all of our schtiks seem like they have to do with me giving or getting things for her? Hmmm.
But, anyway, Bones is a coffee drinker, and she's at least as much of a caffeine addict as I am—maybe more so because she drinks more of it, since she has easy access to the Jeffersonian's fancy Starbucks stuff, while I'm stuck with the lightly-filtered pine-tar that passes as coffee at the Hoover—and, since I'd just burnished the edge of my own hangover by guzzling a cup of joe, it still didn't entirely explain the pissy way she'd responded to my very pleasant offer. No, what irritated me was the way she'd suddenly gotten so snippy with me. I mean, shit—I'd just let her snooze off her hangover in my bed, hogging all the covers and pillows, and not grumbled about it. At all. Not one bit. I was doing the chivalrous thing, because that's the kinda guy I am, giving her space to work through this thing in her head, and being pretty cool about the whole thing, in my opinion, but then she has to get all snit-tastic on me.
What the fuck?
Am I being unreasonable here?
Hmmm.
I don't think so.
Anyway, feeling a bit like I was some kind of diner waitress who'd been sent away after bringing the wrong kind of toast ('I ordered dry rye, not white'), I turned around and padded my way back to the kitchen, pausing to take another slurp of my coffee before setting it down on the counter and reaching up into my cabinet to find a suitably inoffensive mug for Bones. Shoving aside my very awesome Steelers 1995 AFC Championship commemorative mug, and my even more glorious Steelers Super Bowl mugs (2005, 2008 and 2010, baby!), and then pushing aside my Phillies and Flyers mugs—seriously, I didn't realize I had that damn many of these things that didn't reflect my team loyalties—I finally found a "World's Greatest Dad" mug that Parker (read: Rebecca) had bought me for Father's Day a couple of years ago. I rummaged around and found a couple of packets of sugar, dumped them into Bones' mug, then poured the DnD coffee on top of the sugar. It was a technique I'd perfected over the years of making up coffees in the FBI breakrooms where the only available stirrers were those piece of shit red plastic straw thingies that don't really stir shit unless it's already half-stirred in to begin with. I turned around, grabbed my mug and topped myself off with a warm-up, and was about to walk back into the bedroom with our two cups when Bones called out from the bedroom.
"Hey, Booth? Can you go into my bag and get me an elastic? Unless you've got one I can use lying around here somewhere, please?"
I froze for a second. An elastic? For a few seconds there, I wasn't sure what the H-E-double hockeysticks she was asking me for—what, did she think I was Office Depot, with a ready supply of rubber bands and paper clips for all her personal stationary needs? And what did she want a rubber band for? Was she gonna use it the way Hodgins used to, snapping it against her wrist to break herself of some kind of bad habit? (And, if so, was I going to get to have any input into which bad habits she'd use the rubber band method to break herself of? Naww. Probably not.)
Then the lightbulb went off, and I realized she was looking for a ponytail-holder. She does look cute in a ponytail. Heh. But I had no idea where I'd find a damn ponytail-holder thingy in my apartment. Hell, it's not like I keep a stash around for her, right? I don't even know where I'd buy 'em even if I wanted to set myself up a stash of hair-thingies. I mean, is this something I can just buy at the supermarket? Even if I could, I'd bet you dimes to donuts that whatever kind of hair-thingies that Bones uses is not going to be the kind I can find without having to spend three hours going up and down the chicky aisles at the store. I thought about it for another minute and then I remembered she'd actually left one on my coffee table a few months back, you know, before my surgery, and I remembered wondering what it was and where it came from. I think I'd ended up using it to secure some loose cables behind my TV, but I sure as fuck wasn't gonna go yank out all the cords running between my TV and speakers so that she can pull her hair back. That's where I draw the line, okay? So—
Once I figured out what she was actually asking me for, I found myself facing a second problem: I had no idea where the hell her bag was. For a minute, I even had to think what bag she was even talking about since the first thought that popped into my head was that the elastic bit was her way of telling me she'd finally stopped joshing me and was finally copping to the fact that we hadn't only had sex, but that she'd actually had the balls to have packed an overnight bag—since if anyone would have the stainless steel set of cajones to pull something like that off, of course, it'd be Bones—and she'd left it somewhere. I'd opened my mouth to say something—I wasn't quite sure which point I'd settled on, i.e., either addressing the fact that she was admitting we'd done the deed (and, if so, could we please fucking do it again...ASAP?), or that she'd left her bag in some weird place in the apartment that she expected me to find like I was a goddamn water diviner with some magic divining rod that I could use to find it.
However, before I could open my mouth, my eyes darted around the kitchen and entryway, and a quick scan of my foyer revealed her trusty old waxed canvas messenger bag was unceremoniously stowed underneath the table where I usually dumped my mail. I walked over and picked up her bag, set it on the mail table and opened the flap, but, seeing all of the papers and folders and little zippered pockets and various other tools of the trade that she always lugged around with her like her magic voodoo black light, I decided that I probably didn't have a snowball's chance in hell at finding a little hair elastic in that bottomless pit. So, I shrugged, slung the bag over my shoulder, grabbed the coffees off the counter, and began to wander my way back into the bedroom.
But, before I'd even taken two steps, her voice rang out again. "And, hey, Booth? Don't forget the milk, please! I think I'd like some milk in my coffee this morning. But, milk...not half and half."
"I thought you just took sugar," I muttered to myself, narrowing my eyes in confusion.
Is this something else I'd forgotten about after my coma, or is she just fucking with me? So this is the morning of all mornings that she decides to go against type and turn over a new coffee-drinking leaf? Hell, I've only been watching Bones drink coffee for, what, the last five years, and now I can't remember how she takes her joe? Fuck.
With another sigh, I opened the fridge and pulled out the quart of whole milk—because I wouldn't dream of drinking that skim milk shit since it never tastes right with my Captain Crunch or Cocoa Puffs in the morning. I'm not really sure how it can make such awesome cereals taste bad, but it does. It tastes like white water, and I don't mean the kind you go rafting in. That's why I never buy anything but whole milk. I unscrewed the plastic cap on the carton and, after glancing to see if Bones was watching me through the open door, but seeing that she was putzing around with the covers on the bed, I took a whiff to make sure the milk hadn't gone bad. Good, I thought. At least I've got that goin' for me, huh? I poured a splash of milk in her coffee, gave it a quick stir, then put the miraculously still-good milk back in the fridge and—take two—walked back to the bedroom with two coffees and her canvas bag in tow.
"Here," I said, setting her coffee on her nightstand as I'd made my way to her side of the bed.
'Her' nightstand? I thought to myself. 'Her' side of the bed? When the fuck did that happen? Hmmm.
"I wasn't sure where you'd keep your hair-thingies in there," I said, setting her bag on the bed in front of her. "So I just brought the whole bag in, Bones."
I sat down on the edge of the bed, just in front of her feet, and took a long sip of my coffee, hissing a little as it seared the tip of my tongue. "Ouch," I grumbled, quickly looking over at Bones and then averting my eyes as I waited for the inevitable lecture from her on the safe consumption of hot liquids. "Did I give you enough milk?" I asked, hoping she'd spare me the safety speech complete with requisite citations of appropriate consumer case law to back up her points about some idiots who didn't take Mickey D's serious when they said the coffee was hot. Duh.
Fortunately, luck seemed to be on my side as Bones seemed more interested in the contents of her bag than pontificating to me in her inimitable squint-style as she does from time to time. Instead, she reached for her bag, and began to rummage around in one of the inner pockets as she asked absentmindedly, "What color is it?"
I shook my head as my brow furrowed in confusion. "What?" I asked, a bit taken aback by her question. "What do you mean, what color is it?"
"The coffee?" she said hopefully as she barely glanced up at me as she continued to rummage around in her bag. "What color is it?" she asked again. "Is it more like milk chocolate brown or more like a creamy light brown color?"
I rolled my eyes a little and laughed. "Bones," I said. "I'm a guy, I don't do colors." I shook my head and scratched my head a little. I'm lucky if I can freakin' match my damn socks, right? Although, in my defense, the whole navy blue vs. faded black sock thing is a huge problem. It's one that truly deserves some kind of Manhattan Project devoted to it, so us guys can, once and for all, can be saved the embarrassment of wearing unmatched socks to work. Women with their nylon stockings just don't have this problem. Yet again the fairer sex gets the fairer side of the bargain. Figures. "Just look for yourself and tell me if it's okay. If it's not, I'll go get you some more milk, okay?"
This time, she shot me a look that said I'd clearly annoyed her since I wouldn't conform to her little analytical exercise in coffee color spectrum analysis. As she narrowed her pale eyes at me, I sighed and then finally gave in as I told her, "Fine. I guess it's more like light brown than chocolate. But, just look and then you can let me know if I screwed it up, and I'll either give you more milk or add more coffee, alright? Problem solved in either case."
"Come on, Booth," she grumbled. "It's not like I'm asking you to do a visual analysis using the Munsell Color scale. Is it more like a Hershey Bar or closer to those white chocolate almond bark pieces that you always wheedle me into getting for you when I'm at Godiva?"
Wheedle? I smirked. It's only because I have impeccable taste, and the shit at Godiva is absolutely amazing, I mean, it's da shizzle...dare I say even foodgasm-inducing? I mean, I'm a Pennsylvania boy through and through, but even I have enough self-respect to admit that Godiva is amazing awesomely sugary goodness stuff. I'd have to be out of my damn mind not to ask her to buy me Godiva when she's, you know, there. So, I do. Big deal. Waste not, want not, right?
In any case, now she was just being difficult for the sake of being difficult, and I wasn't sure why. Always the hard way with her, I told myself. "You know, in the time it's taken you to give me the whole spiel on color theory, you could've just looked over and told me if I gave you enough milk."
"Yes," she agreed, as she triumphantly reached into her bag and pulled out a black elastic. She took her find and began to pull her hair into one of those messy ponytails that she just always looks so damn cute in...As she tucked some loose wisps of hair that had escaped the ponytail behind her ears, she smiled as she said, "But, then I wouldn't have found this." She stopped and glanced over at the coffee mug. "That'll be sufficient...I suppose."
I suppose?
"Phew," I said in an exaggerated expression of relief as I wiped my brow. "Thank God for small friggin' favors, huh, Bones? Coffee disaster averted. We should write out a press release and then call CNN."
For another few seconds, she shot another scowl at me, took a sip of her coffee and muttered, "I said it would do, Booth, even if it's not what I really want." She narrowed her eyes, then raised the mug to her lips again. She hesitated for a moment, letting the mug down an inch or two, then I saw the tip of her tongue dart out between her lips for a couple of seconds before disappearing again as she raised the mug to her mouth again and took another sip.
Some people have this mannerism of holding their tongue between their lips when they're thinking about something—I've been told I do this, but I don't really think I do it all that often—but I've never seen Bones do this. No, but right then...well, fuck me. But, she stuck her tongue out for some reason, whether conscious or unconscious. And the minute I saw that that pretty little pink tongue of hers peeking out of that gorgeous mouth of hers, I was pretty sure she wasn't just talking about coffee anymore.
Hmmm, I thought. I wonder what she really wants. Reminded of the gouges she'd marked her territory by carving Bonesy hieroglyphics so beautifully into my back as I turned a bit to look at her, I smiled at the thought of what she clearly wanted last night—you know, me—and wondered if she wanted more. Oh, please, Jesus. Let it be so...or, at least very least, a man can only hope. right?
Nibbling a little on the inside of my lip as I tried to suppress a snicker, I asked cautiously, "What do you really want, Bones?"
"Uhhh, some more milk for my coffee?" she clarified as she blinked at me hopefully, her voice seemingly devoid of anything vaguely flirtatious or even sarcastic. Damn.
"Oh," I replied, unable to keep the disappointment from bleeding into my voice. "How 'bout I just go grab the milk and bring it in here so you can make sure you get just what you want, okay?"
Without waiting for her reply, I stood up, retrieved the milk carton from the kitchen and brought it back to her. I opened for her and nodded for her to offer up her mug so I could top her up on milk. She held her mug out as I said, "I bet it's nice to be back to civilization and all of the, you know, luxuries of first world living, huh?"
I was making polite conversation for some weird reason, and then, after as nice as I was getting the coffee and bringing Bones her bag, you know what she did? She kicked me.
Son of a bitch.
After I'd gotten my hair off my neck, I felt a bit better. A few sips of Booth's coffee was also starting to make me feel just a bit more alert and like my normal self as I set the coffee cup back on the nightstand. Overall, I was feeling better than how I'd felt when I'd first awakened. However, the pain in my back was still there, and my pain receptors were getting more and more persistent in letting my brain know that I'd fucked up my lower lumbar back muscles in some way, and I was not going to pay for it until I addressed the situation. I shifted my legs in the bed a bit, adjusting from how I'd been sitting with my knees pulled up to my best so that I was sitting Indian style under the covers. Neither one of them really brought my sore muscles any relief.
Goddamn it, what did we do last night? Some type of regimen that was designed to test every possible sexual position that a male and female can shift into while having intercourse? Fuck, Booth—
I frowned as I sighed and straightened out my legs. Then, quite unintentionally, I lightly kicked Booth in the leg as he finished asking me some question about first world living conditions.
"Hey!" he yelped as he jumped about a foot off the bed, but, quite impressively, managed to retain control of his half-full coffee mug and didn't actually spill any of the hot brown liquid on himself or the bed.
The manual dexterity that he displayed in that moment made me wonder if perhaps he was more limber in bed that I'd initially thought, and was, in fact, a culpable party in contributing to whatever circumstances wrecked my back. Hmmmm. Interesting.
Once he was seated and realized that my sudden movement hadn't done any significant damage, he scowled at me and said, "Hey, Pele. Watch it, okay? We aren't going for any shots on goal or field goal points, so no kicking, huh?"
"Errr, sorry," I said, a bit sheepishly. "My legs hurt, and I can't seem to get comfortable no matter which position I try."
Pausing, I reached out and grabbed my mug of coffee off of the nightstand. I took another, still somewhat tentative sip, and when I found that, especially after adding more milk, the temperature of the caffeinated liquid wouldn't scald my mouth, I downed the mug's contents in a few gulps.
Extending the empty mug to Booth, I brushed my mouth with the back of my free hand and said, "Thanks."
He stared at me for a minute and then said, with what seemed to be a somewhat insincere smile on his face, "Wow, Bones," he said. "I'm not sure what kind of guzzlefest we had last night, but if you inhaled beers last night anywhere near as quick as you just destroyed that cup of joe, it's no wonder we're both a mess this morning...or this afternoon...or whatever the hell time it is." His forehead crinkled as he looked around for his alarm clock. "What time is it, anyway?"
I couldn't help but frown at his words. Did he think I was a mess? Is that his way of saying that I was displeasing aesthetically? I mean, is that...is that his way of telling me that he wasn't attracted to me? Was that it?
I wasn't very happy about this circumstance. I wasn't very happy about it at all. And, I was becoming even further annoyed with this apparent inability to have a direct conversation about what had happened last night between us that had somehow manifested.
Ignoring his question, I leveled my stare at him as I said, "Do you think I'm a mess?"
"Wait, what?" he gulped. "No—no, that's not what I meant. What I mean is...aww, come on, Bones...you know I think you look great all the time..." He seemed generally taken aback by my direct question, and was fumbling for the right response. "What I meant to say was, well...we both woke up this morning—and I, uhhhh, think we woke up before noon, right?" He paused again and his eyes darted to the window as if it had some mysterious source of insight to provide to him. My frown deepened as he nodded to himself, looked back from the window to me, and continued, "Yeah, we did...at least I think we did. But, uhhh, what I meant was, earlier, that we both woke up hungover as all hell, and...well..." He bit his lip and looked away, then brought his eyes back up to meet mine. "I mean, you know. Half-dressed?"
I sighed and blinked at him for a couple of times. I still wasn't ready to have this part of the conversation yet despite my initial direct question of if he thought I looked like I was a mess. My head still hurt, my body was still sore, and I was still hungry. The caffeine from the coffee hadn't completely kicked in yet, and it was possible that he'd given me an answer to the secondary question I'd tentatively decided I needed to find a response for before I could determine if we'd actually had sex, even if the evidence seemed to be piling up in the affirmative category despite my earlier opinion to the contrary.
My eyes shifted to stare out the bedroom door towards the outer room of the apartment, and I sighed as I thought, Damn it, where is that delivery guy?
And, then, my somewhat frazzled mental processes finally caught up, and I processed the significance of Booth's cumulative ramblings.
He said he thought I looked great all the time.
Hmmm. Well, that was a positive sign. Because, he said it with such a fumbled lack of verbal adroitness, I doubted he could be insincere in sharing that bit of information with me. A flush of warmth spread throughout my chest as my frown softly transitioned to a small smile. I blinked shyly at him a couple of times, at a loss for what to say or to do next. Fortunately—and although I don't believe in fate or anything like that, I do believe in fortuitous timing—it was at that exact moment that a sharp rap came on the apartment's front door.
"Who the hell could that be?" Booth grunted with a slight frown, standing up and staring into his coffee cup for a minute, before moving towards the bedroom door.
While Booth was confused as to who could be knocking on his door, I had a sneaking suspicion I knew exactly who it was...and I knew I needed to get to him before Booth did. Despite how much my back ached, with a rather impressive series of movements of my own, aided by a surge of adrenaline, I said in a bit too perky a voice, "Ummm, I'll get it." I then kicked off the sheet and down comforter. I winced a bit as a I shifted on my legs, stood up, and trotted on shaky feet around Booth, out the bedroom door, and towards the front door before he'd even realized what I'd just done.
"What?" Booth called after me. "Hey, Bones—wait..."
If I wasn't mistaken, as I walked, I thought I could feel his eyes on me for a minute. But, I don't think it could've lasted for very long as I quickly heard his heavy footfall come up behind me. As soon as I reached the front door, I pulled it open once I heard a confirmation from the visitor that he'd come to deliver my Thai food. After I greeted him, I took the credit card slip, signed it, and handed it to the delivery boy before I took the box of food that he had brought for me. Thanking him, I nodded my head in goodbye before I turned around and inhaled a wonderful deep breath of the tantalizing aromas coming from the box. I smiled as some of the tension that had been in my upper body melted away, and I felt a satisfying warmth of anticipation spread throughout my body that had nothing to do with Booth. Quite pleased with myself in that moment, I didn't stop to give Booth a second look as I brushed back past him and headed towards the bedroom, taking my treasure box with me as I went.
When I first heard the knock on the door, I immediately assumed it was either the landlord coming over to complain about somebody being parked in his reserved space out front, or else Angela stalking Bones. She's a good friend, but does tend to get a bit overprotective at times. So I was completely taken by surprise when Bones—who until that moment had shown little or no inclination to get up off her tuchos and do anything other than lay in my bed and hog my pillows—leapt out of bed, still wearing only a pair of panties on bottom, and ran to the door.
My door...what the hell?
As soon as she opened it, I saw the delivery guy standing there with a crooked, flat-brimmed Nats cap and a cardboard liquor box full of Asian takeout. I'd barely made my way towards the door before Bones had signed the credit card slip, closed the door behind her and started back towards the bedroom hugging the box of food to her chest.
Excuse me? This is my apartment, thank you very much. Who in the hell did she think she was just up and ordering takeout from my phone, to my apartment, and then moseying her way back to my bedroom to nosh on her purchases?
Answer: Bones.
Geezus...
For a second there, I thought about saying something to her about charging her rent. Then, the smell of panang sauce hit my nose and I pretty much forgot how indignant I was about her cheeky, presumptuous behavior. I just wanted some of that freakin' Thai goodness. And so did my stomach, which took the opportunity to remind me how hungry it was—having finally shaken the whole 'If you even think about putting food near me right now I'm gonna puke up every ounce of whatever I've still got in me' hangover thing—by grumbling loudly as I followed her back into the bedroom.
Okay, I'd totally missed something—specifically, breakfast and lunch—because somehow, after a little DnD coffee appetizer, Bones decided we were skipping ahead to dinner. As if my totally fucked up body clock needed any more help turning my days and nights upside down after the hell of a bender we'd just had, Bones had apparently found time to phone in an order of dinner for lunch.
When the fuck did she have time to do that? And how...?
As she trotted back towards the bedroom with her box of goodies, I turned around and looked at the clock on the stove. 4:43. Hmmm. Alright, so it's almost time for dinner. But, still.
"What's that, Bones?" I called out after her, raising one eyebrow as I watched her carry the box of takeout back into the bedroom. "Dinner? Seriously? Did this turn into a B&B at some point, I missed it? And who says you get to eat dinner in my bed, huh? I mean, my bed's for sleeping and watching TV and drinking the occasional shake and...well...other stuff, but not for eating. I have a dining room table and a coffee table in front of the sofa for that."
She considered his words for a minute and then narrowed her eyes before she shook her head. "I'm hungry," she as she studied him. "I'm hungry, and I want to eat, and my back hurts—so, yes, I think it'll be better if I eat here. Is that a problem for you, Booth?"
So, activating my Boothy translation special powers, it didn't take me long to figure out that Bones had just basically told me, in her uniquely Bonesy way, that she didn't really give a rat's ass what my preferences were or what the rules were in my house about eating in bed. She was gonna eat in bed. Period. End of story. El fin.
Great.
You know, she always does this. She says something and just because she thinks that she's the smartest smarty pants on the block, she can just use logic and reason to browbeat the people around her into doing what she wants done just because she wants it—wait.
Stop. Wait, wait, wait.
Wait, I thought. Her back hurts? I scratched my head. Is that what she just said? Really? Because if it is...well, then it's not just me with the bumps and bruises from last night's boomchickawowow, I thought with an inward smirk. Then, as soon as the thought really registered in my mind, I instantly felt bad. I hate it when she's hurting. I really do. And I didn't like it at all that she was hurting because of what we'd done the night before, whatever exactly it was that we did, the purpose of which was to feel good, and to make the other person feel good.
I had figured that I was the only one that was a bit bruised and battered after our sadly-forgotten but obviously epic union the night before, but apparently I was wrong. I wondered what other little details she was keeping from me. Now, I've never been much of a biter, but I've been known to gift the right neck with a nice hickey or two. But, her back, huh? I wondered what was up with that. A smirk flashed across my face as I thought of what kind of absolutely wild monkeysex we must've had that she's hurting—images of her contorting and writhing under me that had been some of the leading tracks off the Best of Bones: The Jacking-off Collection skipped into my mind for a second, and just for a minute, I felt a slight tugging in my groin at the thought—because backaches are definitely not a hangover symptom.
But, then my smirk faded, and I felt myself frown at the thought that she was in pain...and the irony of the fact that she was the one who'd woken up with a fucked back wasn't lost on me. Maybe God had decided to reward me for my selfless sharing of my pillows after all. However, that overprotective caretaker feeling I tend to have wherever Bones is concerned kicked in at the moment. I even tuned out the yummy smells of Thai goodness that were less than two feet away from me as I nodded at her.
"Your back hurts?" I asked. I waited for her to nod before I sighed and said, "Geez, Bones, why didn't you tell me earlier? You want another Advil?"
"Maybe after I east," Brennan said. "I think any analgesics might work better on a full stomach."
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, my own stomach grumbled again. I suddenly realized that Bones' Thai excellence was a whole hell of a lot better than any shitty second-rate breakfast I could cobble together, so I conceded the point to her, even if it was pretty cheeky to snarf supper in my bed without at least pretending to ask permission. A smile brightened my face as I nodded at her and said, "Okay, cool." I then added after a very brief pause, "So, uhhhh, do we need plates, or are we just gonna eat out of the cartons here?"
She stared at me for a minute and then slowly shook her head. "No, I'm fine...thanks." She paused before she shot me a sly look and added, "And, what do you mean are 'we' eating out of the cartons?"
"Right," I said, knowing she wasn't serious but wanting to just torture me a bit. Resisting the urge to roll my eyes at her, just in case she'd decided to turn over a new leaf and be a total hardass about sharing the takeout since I really did want some, I nodded simply, "Sure. Okay." She blinked at me almost a minute as I waited for her to cave and tell me which carton was mine. When she didn't I scowled a bit at her and said, "Awwww, come on, Bones. You aren't really going to sit in my bed in my apartment hoarding enough Thai takeout to feed a starving family of four for at least three days, and leave me to rummage around in the kitchen and make myself up a day-old bagel with cream cheese and maybe have some Oreos or Gummie Bears for dessert if I can find them, are you?" I shot her a look and rolled my eyes. "Because, if you are, that's fine with me, but I just want to know one way or the other."
"Okay," she nodded when I'd finished talking, apparently satisfied with my suggestions. "That sounds like an excellent plan. I concur."
Damn it.
I leaned my head back and sighed. "Seriously, Bones?" I asked. "I know you aren't sitting there with that wicked-smelling stuff and refusing to share it with me, because that it just wrong. Plain wrong. It goes against the FBI Partner's Handbook Code of Conduct, Section 447, Paragraph 22, Subparagraph 5. So, I know that's not what you're doing. Because it counts as torture, really." I hesitated before I more firmly nodded. "Yeah, definitely torture. The pure evil kind that's definitely prohibited by the Geneva Convention, ya know. And even if it wasn't, I never pegged you as the sado-masochistic type. I mean, I don't think you'd ever be that cruel, even if you are hungry, hungover, sore, and maybe a little cranky, so come on, Bones, huh?" I immediately realized that in uttering the word 'cranky' and 'Bones' in the same sentence, I was setting myself up for a smackdown and tried to backpedal before she verbally bitch-slapped me like she normally does to squints or other academics that have pissed her off. She doesn't usually do it to me, at least not since the first year we'd worked together, but given the weird fucking day we'd both had, I wasn't going to take any chances. "Not that you wouldn't have every reason to be cranky under the present circumstances, and I'm not saying that maybe I'm not a little cranky, too, even if you are cranky, but I'm not saying that you are for sure, but if you are—"
As I sputtered and tried to recover, Bones simply reached for a carton and pulled out a vegetarian summer roll. She licked her lips for a minute and then opened her mouth wide before she bit down with a bit of a vicious bite and then let out the type of moan I'd long hoped she'd make in my bed—just not because of food.
Son of a bitch.
She blinked at me for a minute, chewing in an unusually pronounced way, almost as if to leave no doubt in my head that she was savoring the spring roll just to punish me. Another loud rumble of my stomach reminded me I was in no place to negotiate and total, unconditional surrender was my only option if I wanted any food from her. But, still—I have my standards...so I did try one last tactic.
"Come on, Bones," I pleaded, my voice teetering on the edge of a whine. "I made you coffee and brought you your bag and everything. I let you sleep in my bed and take all the pillows and covers, and I didn't bitch at all. So, come on—take pity on a guy, for heaven's sakes, huh?"
She chewed and swallowed the bite of the summer roll she'd eaten. Giving me a devious smile, she said, "You have made a good start on earning some Thai goodness, as I believe you've called it before, but not quite enough, I think, to earn a sampling of the most excellent food I've procured. So, the question is...what else are you willing to do to get some?"
What am I willing to do get some? I miraculously managed to suppress a snicker at that one. Heh.
Ahh, yes—there it was. A part of me was expecting when this bit of our routine would show up. I know it well...very, very well. This is the part of our thing where she's a cat on the prowl, and I'm her favorite ball of yarn. It's her schtik, or one of them, anyway. She particularly likes the deprive-Booth-of-food variant on this little game, which is sometimes mildly amusing, but when I'm hungover as fuck and my stomach's growling like a rabid polar bear because I haven't had a damn thing to eat since, well, I wasn't exactly sure when, but in any case, I was pretty damn hungry, and I wasn't really in the mood to play that type of game. But, still, she had the food, and since I wanted some, and she knew I knew she knew it, I was screwed.
Damn it.
"Okay," I muttered. "So, is this some kind of guessing game exercise, or is this like a bidding thing, where I offer up some kind of exchange and you decide if you'll accept it?" I rolled my eyes in an exaggerated way to register my mild annoyance.
"Try me," she offered, a bit of playfulness coming into her voice. "And find out."
Right.
Okay. I'm not sure when someone flipped the playful switch on Miss Crankypants, but something had shifted for her in about the last five minutes. Maybe the spring rolls were better than I remembered, because I could definitely tell she was feeling better...and that meant I was fucked. It was just a question of how fucked and under what circumstances. See, when I do this sort of thing with Bones, I frequently feel like I brought a knife to a gunfight, because she's way, way smarter than I am. And, more importantly in this situation, she has the damn food and, hence, all the bargaining power. So, like I said, I knew I was pretty much fucked...it was just a question of how badly.
"Well," I began. "I suppose you want me to offer up something like, you know, when I get reinstated and get my SUV back, I'll let you drive. But no, that's not on the auction block there so, hmmm. Let me see."
I stared at her for a minute, trying to figure out what she wanted. What the hell could I offer her? Well, there was always...heh...well, I knew what I really wanted to offer her, but...
Nope, I told myself. Not the time, Booth. Okay? She clearly wasn't anywhere near the frame of mind for that kind of offer, even if she was half-dressed and sitting in my bed, so I mentally slapped myself and brought my mind back to the matter at hand.
She's got more money than you can shake a stick at, so I knew me offering to take her out to dinner or whatever probably wasn't gonna win the day. Offering to take her to a ballgame—well, even though I knew Bones to be a closet baseball fan, she'd see right through that and accuse me of offering her something that's really something I want and not what she wants, even if she actually did want it, so that wasn't gonna work, either. I could make her something, like dinner, but...well...I've done that before and something told me that wasn't gonna quite cut it. I wracked my mind trying to think of something I could offer her that she'd actually accept.
Why did she have to be so...complicated?
"Make me an offer, Booth," she said encouragingly after the silence had gone on between us for a very long minute or two.
"Okay. How about this? Free home repairs or other manual labor for a week?" I finally tried as I made my first offer.
"What kind of manual labor?" she asked with an arched eyebrow.
Hmmm. I narrowed my eyes, trying to discern whether she was just getting snarky and quippy with me, or if she was actually flirting with me. I was hoping for the latter. Is she really...wait...she's not...she's not actually flirting with me, right? I couldn't figure out if she was really still busting my balls in her usual Bones fashion or if she had upshifted into innuendo. I swear she's fucking with me...right?
"Whatever kind you need, Bones," I replied. "I'm very handy, and strong. And, as you well know, I'm a very hard worker."
She blinked at me and then tilted her head at me. Maybe I was going fucking nuts from my impromptu hunger strike, combined with the delayed alcohol poisoning that I was sure I was suffering from, but I could've sworn that the timbre and pitch of her voice had changed.
What the fuck?
"Handy perhaps being a synonym for good with your hands?" she questioned with her own eyes narrowing as she spoke, her voice still completely devoid of any type of indication if she was serious...or something else.
"Absolutely," I said, adding as I'm pretty certain my voice had dropped a half-octave as I edged my toe over the line into mild innuendo. She wasn't waving the checkered flag there, but I could tell, sense really, that something, somehow, had changed. I struggled to put my finger on it. Her voice wasn't really all that different, though there was something very subtle, a very slight edge to her voice that I might not have even noticed but for the circumstances we'd found ourselves in—waking up next to each other in bed, half-dressed, my back and backside all scratched up and bruised, and her with a sore back—but it was so subtle, I started second-guessing myself. But there was something in her eyes, just a little flicker, a twinkle of laughter, and for a moment, just a fleeting second, I swore I'd seen her flash me that sexy half-grin of hers. But maybe I was seeing what I wanted to see. I wasn't sure I'd seen what I thought I'd seen, and even more unsure why exactly it had all of a sudden shifted, but there was something there that wasn't there before. I knew it. I refrained from wagging my eyebrows at her just to be on the safe side, but couldn't help but add, "I've always been very good with my hands, Bones...and very resourceful."
She stared at me for a moment, and then nodded. "Fine. Here's my offer. You get one carton, and in exchange—but only after we've eaten—we're going to test the validity of your assertion. You say you have good hands..."
"Yeah," I said with a snicker that I made no attempt to suppress this time. "So what, you want me to build you a treehouse or something?"
"No," she replied simply with a small shake of her head. "That won't be necessary."
"Hmmmm," I murmured. "Then what can I do to demonstrate my handiness in exchange for some of those tender Thai vittles there?"
"I would suggest," she nodded. "That after we've eaten, I want to see how good those hands of yours are at working me over...that is, my back muscles." She stopped and flushed a bit as she looked up at me and added, "Agreed?"
Sweet Mary, Mother of God. I am pretty damn sure my face must have lit up like the White House Christmas tree at hearing her 'offer.' If I'm still asleep, God, please don't wake me up, because this is about to get potentially really awesome. I hesitated for perhaps a millisecond, tops, then blurted out, "Sure, Bones. No problem. I can definitely help you out there. I mean, hell, you've put those magic fingers of yours to work for my benefit several times. It's only fair that I offer you the same service in return, you know, in your hour of need."
"Right," she said after she stared at me for a full minute. "Agreed. Now, which one do you want?"
I was tempted to tell her to fuck the cartons and just go for the main course of Bonesy-goodness that I couldn't quite figuring out why she was offering me, but what the fuck. Until she told me different, I was going to see how far we could push this thing and maybe, if I was lucky, I'd get lucky again...and be lucky enough actually to remember it this time.
True, that's a lot of luck. But, hey...I was suddenly feeling pretty good. Maybe it was gonna turn out to be my lucky day after all...in more ways than one.
I hadn't expected it to turn out like this.
I didn't think we'd go from coffee to Thai to me securing an offer from him to take a go at my back. I really hadn't. But, it sort of just happened. We were talking, and because I wasn't at my best right then, the words sort of just spilled out of my mouth. It was as if, somehow in between the point where I got out of bed, and I knew he was definitely staring at my ass as I walked to the front door to get the takeout from the delivery guy, some switch had been flicked in my brain. I knew he was watching me not as he'd watched me many times before with the eyes of a partner and a friend. No, instead, he was watching me with the eyes of a very, very interested male watching a female to see if there was the potential to act on mutual sexual attraction at some point in the near future. Even if my rational brain wasn't solving the process as to what had happened between Booth and I last night to my complete satisfaction, apparently some more base part of my brain was. That made me both excited...and sort of very confused by the entire way events were proceeding between us. Then, there was also a part of me that was curious. Very curious. I wanted to know how far he'd let things go. Could he really want to get rid of that dumb fucking line he'd used for two years or more to keep things from getting more personal between us than they'd ever been to that point? And, if so, that led to another interesting set of questions. Because, the simple point of the situation was that...even if he was still attracted to me, and even if we had had sex last night, then that still left the question of: what next?
What happens next?
How far would he let things go? How far did I want him to let things go? How far would I let things go between us? And, depending on how far that he let things go, and how far I wanted to let things go, then what did that mean for us?
Because, at least as far as I was concerned, I wanted to let things go as far as they could. Really. I did.
I'd spent a lot of time thinking about Booth over the past six weeks. Longer than that if you count the day of his surgery and the four days before he woke up. And, I suppose if I'm going to be technically accurate, I probably should add a couple of more weeks to the running total for the time I spent thinking about him after I'd asked him to provide a semen donation so that I could be inseminated.
Damn it.
And, now, here we were not quite two and a half months later, and we'd gone from partners, good friends, and potential parents via artificial insemination...to what? Partners who fucked? Partners who fucked once or fucked more than once? Or something else entirely?
Sighing, I pushed the somber—and rather sobering—thoughts away. Shifting on the bed, I gestured to the other side of where I was sitting and said softly, "Come here. It'll be easier, and we'll make less of a mess if you're sitting over here."
"Uhhh, okay," he agreed as he set his mug down and asked, "Do you want something to drink?"
"Water," I shrugged as a rather normal vibe descended between us. For a few minutes, it was just like the countless other times we'd ordered and shared takeout together. It's just this time, instead of eating it on his couch or mine...well, we were going to eat it half-dressed and in his bed. Nodding at him, I explained, "I got some of the spicy stuff, so ice water would be good, I think?"
He nodded without saying a word and disappeared into the kitchen, returning in record time with two glasses of ice water and some napkins. He sat down on his side of the bed, made a face at me as he took the lone pillow I'd left for him and propped it between him and the headboard—in what looked to be a rather pitiful buffer even to me—before he sat down. I reached into the box and began to distribute the food that I'd ordered for him—because, despite the terms of our agreement, I actually did have more than one carton for him—and as long as he stayed away from my vegetarian fried dumplings in panang sauce, I was pretty certain there wouldn't be a problem.
Despite the earlier, and albeit flirtatious, vibe to our verbal exchange, we ate in relative silence. And, then, just like that, my stomach was full and my back was still aching, and I knew I'd run out of time to see if Booth was going to make good on his part of the agreement we'd made or not.
I wasn't sure if that was a good thing or a bad thing, but in either case, I was about to find out which it was in one way or another.
It turned out that Bones actually did order some cartons of takeout for me—beef in hot-sweet chili sauce and pork pad woon sen—which ended up being a lot more satisfying than a day-old bagel from Morrie's. We sat there on my bed, eating our respective cartons of spicy Thai food, with neither of us saying anything. I kept waiting for her to say something, since it's usually Bones that breaks the silence anyway, but this time, she didn't say a peep. I found this a bit disconcerting, to be honest, because if she's not talking, it means she's thinking, and when those gears start turning up there, God only knows what's gonna happen. Usually, it means I'm in deep shit for one reason or another.
The longer the silence went on, the more anxious I got that she was talking herself out of something, but I was afraid to say anything because I didn't want her to think I was pushing her. Every so often, as I looked down, and plucked a bit of hot-sweet chili beef out of my carton, I would steal a glance at her face. Her makeup from the day before had long since rubbed away, but she still looked gorgeous in that natural, simple, uncomplicated way that women think guys don't appreciate but we do. At one point, I was looking at her, just letting my eyes skim along that line from her earlobe along her jaw to her chin, and she turned her head a little, just enough so her eyes met mine. I smiled a little awkwardly, and she smirked back, but neither of us said anything.
As soon as we'd gathered all the empty takeout cartons, and put them back in the cardboard box they'd been delivered in, I quickly zipped out to the kitchen, and set the box on the counter next to the stove to deal with it later. I didn't want to give Bones and that recursively squinty brain of hers an extra cottonpickin' minute to have second thoughts about me giving her that back rub. I was pretty sure that, at least in the moment that she made that 'offer' after we'd been speaking in what seemed to be to be thinly-veiled innuendo, she was willing to consider—well, how else can I say it?—getting physical again and, hell, that was an opportunity that I was definitely not going to squander, especially after we'd just sat there and eaten dinner in almost complete silence. I wasn't sure she hadn't changed her mind yet, but on the off chance she was still interested, I wasn't gonna waste a goddamn second. Nope. No-sir-ee. Not at all.
I mean—look, was I starting to get a little horned up thinking about giving her a backrub?
Abso-fuckin'-lutely.
But, I didn't feel that way just because I wanted to get laid. I mean, seriously. I didn't. Really.
My body didn't even really start to wake up again until I walked out of the bedroom to dispose of the empty cartons and trash, but I'd be lying if I told you didn't start feeling that tingly sensation in my fingertips and the pit of my stomach. Now that it really seemed like there was at least a chance of getting to touch her, well, intimately, it was almost like I'd given myself permission to get a little excited. So, yeah, permission granted, I was getting just a little excited. Even if it was just a little, because it was. But what a little bit it was, huh? But, like I said, it wasn't as if I just wanted to get laid.
I mean, I did, but not just to get laid. The fact of the matter was, the woman sitting there in my bed was the woman I'd been dreaming of having in my bed for the better part of four years—well, five if you go all the way back to that first case we worked together. That woman sitting there—in my bed!—is the woman I'd come to admire, depend on, and care for so deeply over the years that sometimes I was sure that it was no longer clear where her life stopped and mine began, the way we were so interwoven into each others' lives. Even before I had my surgery, she'd be the last thing I'd think about before I went to bed each night and the first thing I'd think about when I woke up. And then, well...then there was my coma dream...and it was a weird alternate universe, with me and her being nightclub owners as opposed to the kind of partners we are in real life, and she was different, too...more confident, a little less reserved, a bit more outgoing and...well, somehow more...connected with people than Bones often is in real life.
So, yeah, I know, the coma dream was definitely not real, but in a way—you know, the way things were between me and her in that dream—it was everything I'd ever wanted: we were in love, married, working together, and had even started a family together. And, in a sense, the Bren in my coma dream was still Bones. We were still partners, of a sort, and...well, I...I loved her...and she loved me back.
It felt so real, and it really ripped me up inside when I woke up and realized that none of it had been real. I don't know if I'd ever tell her that, but, waking up from that dream and realizing that it was just a dream—that was the real nightmare. It was. Really.
It was kinda depressing, actually. Well, if I'm gonna be honest, it wasn't just 'kinda' depressing. Honestly? It was totally depressing. Completely and totally, Phillies-just-blew-a-six-run-shutout-lead-in-the-bottom-of-the-ninth-and-aren't-going-to-the-playoffs-now kinda depressing. It sucked. It really and honestly blew monkey balls. So, in a sense, maybe it was a good thing that Bones went off to Guatemala to dig up Aztecs (or whatever) because I didn't know how I'd have found my way out to the other side of all that had she been around. I really didn't. If I'd needed to sort out how not-married-to-Bones real life was different than my married-to-Bones coma dream, it was gonna be a hell of a lot easier to do with her not around. Besides, I'd been fairly depressed while she was gone. And I didn't want her to see me like that. So it really was better that she wasn't there.
That being said, even though she was gone for the six weeks it took for me to get my shit back together after waking up from my coma and recovering from my surgery, I thought about her all the time. And, I mean, all the time. It wasn't just the coma dream. It wasn't like I felt nothing for her before, and then suddenly I had this crazy coma dream and all of a sudden, wham, I had all these feelings for her. It was more like, I'd had all these feelings for her, all along, but somehow or the other, the way it all came together in that coma dream, it was as if it crystallized everything so I was able to finally see what I had been unwilling to admit before.
I love her.
I do.
I love Bones.
I'm not even sure I realized it before that morning, but as I walked out there to the kitchen to stow the takeout trash, I guess it all became clearer somehow. That little feeling, that little buzz, that tingle I felt at the thought of giving her that bribery backrub—it wasn't just because I wanted to get laid again. It was because it offered an opportunity to maybe, just maybe, have a second chance to enjoy with her what we'd apparently enjoyed the night before, but in the wreckage of our blackout hangovers, we'd no memory of.
This was our second chance. Not just to have sex, but to make love. To be something, her and me.
I was positive. I knew it.
Now, I just needed to do something about it.
So it was with all that simmering in my head that went to the kitchen sink and washed my hands, not because I really thought they were dirty, but to give myself ten seconds to think as I watched her sitting there on the bed.
Okay, I told myself. It's game time, alright? Don't fuck this up. I toweled my hands dry and took a deep breath. You can't fuck this up. So be cool...and do it right.
Nodding to myself, feeling a bit more confident after my brief little Booth-to-Booth pep talk, I noticed that the bedroom was unusually quiet. I pushed away a negative thought that something was wrong. Instead, I concentrated on the positive and merely called out to her.
"You alright there, Bones?" I asked. "Need any more water or anything?" I hesitated, then added, "I read somewhere that a good massage releases toxins or something like that from your muscles, and you're supposed to drink lots of water after a massage to flush all those toxins out of your body. And, I dunno about you, but I think I've still got some toxins in my system that need to be washed out. So do you want me to bring you another water?"
It took a moment before the response came, but finally she called out, "No. That's okay. I think I'm good. Thanks."
I shrugged my shoulders lightly as I considered her response to be fairly normal. Taking a deep breath, I smiled as I walked back into the bedroom and paused in the doorway as I just looked at her. Her hair was a little mussed up still, even though she'd pulled it back into a ponytail earlier. But otherwise, she looked great. Beautiful even.
I know women get all obsessed about makeup, and don't get me wrong, I love it when a woman goes to the effort to get all dolled up, but I'll tell you, there's still nothing better than a beautiful woman, sitting—or laying—in your bed, with no makeup on, and a smile on her face. Revlon and Covergirl and all those people can go to hell, because that's beauty that'll take a guy's breath away. And as I stood there, for just a brief instant, in the doorway to my bedroom, looking at her, sitting Indian-style in my bed, I was sure that she was the most beautiful thing I'd ever laid eyes on.
"So," I said a little awkwardly. "You ready to see how good these magic Boothy fingers are?" I raised my eyebrows and grinned, raising my hands and waggling my fingers in the air to illustrate her point.
She stared at me for a moment and then opened her mouth to speak. But, after a few seconds, instead of any words coming out, all she did was shut her mouth and give a small, almost minute nod of her head.
I pressed my lips together and cocked my head to the side. Why's she so quiet all of a sudden? I asked, a bit of my earlier worry bleeding into my excited optimism. She's not having second thoughts, right? I took a deep breath and decided that, no matter what, I was going to make the best possible go at this, and not do what I'd spent the last four-odd years doing: second-fucking-guessing myself and headshrinking myself to death. I pursed my lips and furrowed my brow as I stared at her, narrow-eyed, and tried to figure out what to do. What to do? my inner voice asked. Then, a sharper voice bellowed at me. What? Are you some kind of eunuch from the Chan dynasty? Get off your goddamn, hungover ass and make good on your offer to make the lady feel better. Do that, you've got a better than 50/50 shot at getting to have another go at the most beautiful woman your sorry ass has ever met. So move. If she wants to call this off, she will. But get going, full steam ahead, until she pulls the brake, and maybe...just maybe, if you're such the lucky schmuck that you think you are, maybe she won't make a grab for the brake at all. So do it.
I nodded happily to myself, the stronger voice beating out the weaker voice of worry and self-doubt.
Right.
Swaggering towards her a bit, I gave her a toothy grin. "So, uhhh," I began. "How do you want to do this, Bones? Ummm...you know, you gonna keep your shirt on, and, uhh...you know...or do you want to put a towel over you, or...what?"
"I'm not certain, Booth," she said, her voice measured as she spoke. "What do you want?"
Oh jeez, I sighed silently. That's a dangerous question, I thought, biting my lip to keep from smiling.
I knew what I wanted. Or, at least, what part of me wanted—the part of me I was trying to keep from totally blowing my cover and making me look like a insensitive, clumsy horndog. But the fact was, looking at her, looking back at me like that, with a swirl of interest and vulnerability in those pale blue eyes of hers, I really couldn't help thinking how nice it'd be to see her bare back laying out there in front of me, with that delicious, kissably smooth skin ready for the...
Not helping, Booth, I told myself as I tried to will away the vague sensation in my belly that was telling me if I didn't slow down this freight train, I was gonna embarrass myself and, quite possibly, freak her out.
"Well, hmmm." I looked into her gorgeous blue eyes, and saw uncertainty, but something else—hope? desire? curiosity?—flickering in them, too. "Well, uhh...see? The other times I've given back rubs, well, either the woman was just wearing a bra or bikini top, or else..." My voice trailed off, and I grinned sheepishly. "You know, she wasn't wearing...well, uhhh...to be honest, anything. But, it's really a question of your comfort level, Bones. I'm...well...it's not just that I'm paying back the debt I owe for that wickedly awesome Thai dinner you so kindly procured for us, but, you know, I want to make you feel good. I'm kinda bummed your back's hurting you, and I—of all people, you know—can appreciate what that's like when you feel like shit because of a wrecked back, so I want to help you out." I thought for a second and added, "I don't want to make you uncomfortable, Bones. So, no...you tell me what you want...and we'll go from there."
At least...I hoped we would.
I turned and looked at him for another long minute after he'd finished his little nervous ramble.
I don't know if it was a good thing or a bad thing that I sought out his eyes once more with mine because, as hard as I tried, I realized that I couldn't tell what was going on in his head. His faux confidence was apparently having a detrimental effect on me and making my emotions and logical mind spiral a bit out of control in a somewhat unpredictable manner. And, in that moment, distracted as I was, I couldn't figure out what he was thinking. I knew I should be able to know that information, however, I didn't because I just couldn't read him in any significantly accurate way in that moment. And, that just annoyed the fuck out of me even more because, while it's not like I've ever been very good at reading people to begin with, but I like to think that I've developed at least a bit of skill when it comes to reading Booth. He's my partner, after all. But, in that moment, I couldn't get a signal in that moment...and all the ones that came after it, I supposed, it was becoming increasingly imperative that I know what he was thinking and what he was feeling.
And, there was more than one reason for it.
On one hand, I've always believed that complete honesty is preferable to subterfuge in almost any situation as it saves time and keeps misunderstandings from happening. On the other, and more personal, hand...well, there was something off about this. Something had happened in between when he'd brought the take out boxes to the kitchen and come back. He was just a tad bit...well, too suave. Too smooth. Too...well, I'm not sure what, but it didn't match the Booth that I'd been dealing with in one way or another since we'd woken up.
This...well, this Booth was different...and I didn't know what he was thinking since he wasn't really telling me what I needed to know. Of course, part of that could be my fault since I wasn't asking the proper questions, and I was vacillating on the topic in a very unusual way, but...I couldn't help but feel that maybe he was just doing this to what...? Why, logically, could he being do this? I mean, sure, it could just be because he's a male, I'm a female, and our impromptu flirting might've put him in a brainspace where he was horny and wanted to get laid, to use the parlance that is no doubt echoing in Booth's mind if, indeed, that's the case. Second, he could be doing this because he has some personal/romantic interest in me as I'd hoped. Third...well, he could also be doing this to make me feel better, I suppose.
Hmmmm...he was somewhat concerned when I mentioned my back as causing me some pain.
Wait—was that it? Was he just...trying...fuck!
Fuck, fuck, fuck. I was so damn frustrated. Fuck!
I didn't know what he was doing. And, I wasn't quite certain how to ask him. So, it was driving me metaphorically nuts, and...wait—
Back rubs.
As in plural.
As in more than one.
He said he'd given back rubs.
As in the fact that he'd done this before, and hmmmmm...
Hmmmmmm.
Okay. Well, that was something that I could focus on, and maybe use it as a point to get more information out of him since for some inexplicable reason I was nervous about taking a direct approach with him. Yes, I know—that doesn't make any sense, especially considering the fact that I was the one who was saying it, but what the fuck. It'd been a rather consistent day for things to not make sense...so, backrubs. As in plural. As in there was more than one woman whom Booth had used his so-called magic fingers on over the years. Okay. That was simple...so maybe I could start with that.
Licking my lips, I blinked at him a couple of times before I spoke. "So, Booth," I told him as I looked at him. "Is this way that you're telling me that you've done this...often?"
"Well," he coughed, his forehead crinkling in confusion. "Well, yeah—I have. Sure. I mean, I've given backrubs to..." He laughed awkwardly. "Well, I mean, when Rebecca was pregnant, you know, before we kinda fell apart, I'd give her back rubs after she'd get home from work or school. And, I've given a back rub or two to, ummm, well...to...ummm...err...some of the women I've, you know, sorta dated over the years. I've given shoulder massages to female friends I wasn't, uhhh, involved with." He laughed again.
"Can I be honest here, Bones?" He put his hands on his hips and shrugged. "I'm not sure, uhh, what you're looking for here," he said.
He had a wide-eyed, awkward, vulnerable look on his face, somewhat reminiscent of the expression I'd seen on his face a few times before—most recently as I was walking into the pre-op prep suite before his brain surgery. He shifted his weight from one hip to the other as he stood there, as if he wasn't quite sure where to stand. Maybe that was it. He wasn't sure where he stood, metaphorically speaking, with me.
I cocked an eyebow as he continued to ramble. While I'd be the first to admit that there's something particularly attractive about Booth when he's acting this boyishly uncertain, it bothered me a bit that he was so, well, unsettled. But I wasn't sure at that point what to tell him to reassure him, so I just let him keep talking.
"I can give you a nice soothing back rub, if that's what you what," he admitted. "But...if you're, ummm, maybe looking for something more, ummm...you know...uhh...well, involved? Do you know what I mean?"
Well, now, that was a surprise.
Ummm...I'm not certain, but Booth...my partner of four plus years...Booth...my best friend...Booth...was he...was Booth...well, was he propositioning me? Because, I'm not positive, but I think he was...ummm...
Huh.
Ohhhh.
Wait...
Fuck me.
I think I went in that moment from confused to a state of complete mental clarity because if he was indeed propositioning me, then he wasn't giving me a backrub just because he felt sorry for me. No, his motivation had to fall into one of the following categories: (a) either the wanting said backrub to lead to sex because he wanted to get laid and/or (b) he wanted to get laid because he was with me.
Those implications also put a new proverbial spin on the other questions that had been metaphorically racing around in my head earlier. If Booth was indeed making a sexual proposition to me, well...if he was, then that obviously takes care of the answers to questions one and two:
(1) Yes, he does still have a physical attraction to me and (2) yes, it's highly likely we had sex last night.
So, if that's true, then it brings us to question number three: does he want from me? If he was propositioning me, and I decided to take him up on that offer, what would happen next?
Would he give me another answer to my other lingering questions?
Pursing my lips together, I decided there was only one way to find out and that was to keep him talking.
Tilting my head at him, I asked, "I'm not certain, Booth. Perhaps...you need to be more specific."
"Umm..okay," he said, blushing a little which softened the expression on his face somewhat and did make me feel a bit better for some reason at seeing his vulnerability. "Well, I guess what I was trying to say is, you can either keep your shirt on, take your shirt off and leave your bra on, take them both off and cover up with a towel for modesty, or dispense with the shirt, bra, screw the towel and do this, you know, topless. It's your body, and your backrub, so it's really your call." He paused, then his expression brightened as he suddenly seemed emboldened for some unknown reason that I knew I couldn't possibly fathom without some type of assistance from him. "I might offer a suggestion that might reflect my personal bias, but it's really up to you."
"But, wait...I'm still not certain," I said, suddenly knowing I needed for him to give me at least one point of clarity here that I could hold onto as things progressed, in what I was sure to be, if nothing else, a very chaotic manner. "How much or how little clothing I chose to wear can contribute to the soothingness of the massage. Explain, please.."
Booth's eyebrows flew up as he considered my words. "Oh, okay. Err...well, if you're going for the most soothing massage that'll knead away any of those knots you have back there...well, I think that requires skin on skin, you know?" He grinned and winked at me in a rather roguish way that made my stomach do some type of flip flop motion. "Your back, bare of clothing, and my bare hands. That's what the pros do, of course, not that I'm claiming to be anything but a skilled amateur here, you know, but..."
Well, okay, that made some sense. So—
"Then, perhaps, you should help me take off my shirt?" I suddenly found the words spilling out of my mouth before I'd even realized what I'd said.
He blinked at me for just the briefest of times before he nodded sharply. "Wow, sure," Booth said, his voice bright with enthusiasm. "I'm always happy to offer my clothing removal services," he added with a lopsided grin and a vague waggle of his eyebrows.
It was apparently at that point that whatever confidence and bravado was affecting Booth suddenly infected me as well because all the logical thoughts in my mind suddenly disappeared from my head when he grinned at me, leaned in, and I smelled his scent.
Fine.
Fuck it.
We're doing this.
So—
"Well," I said, "if you're as good as you claim to be, perhaps you need to start making good on your claims by coming over here and actually removing something?" As soon as the words were out of my mouth, I realized I'd surprised both of us apparently in the making of such a statement.
Holy shit, I said to myself. She's gonna let me take her shirt off. And probably her bra, too. And let me touch her bare back. Holy fucking shit. I am lucky. I didn't think, but—wow. Damn. Holy shit.
For a moment, I wondered what she'd think—or, given how things might, if I'm lucky, proceed from here, what she will think—when she sees what my back presently looks like. Would it freak her out to know that we'd not only had sex last night, but something wild and aggressive enough to tear me up like she did? Then again, Bones doesn't usually freak out about things of a sexual nature, so maybe not. In any case, that's really the last thing I need to be thinking about right now. Hell, my back isn't even in play yet.
Focus, Booth. So I nodded my head, shot her as cocky a grin as I could muster up, and sat down on the edge of the bed, a few inches away from her.
"So, to get things started, I suggest we take off this lovely little number," I said, reaching for the bottom hem of her teal-hued knit top and looking over at her as I hesitated. "Is that okay?" I asked quietly..
She merely gave me a strange look and then shrugged her shoulders slightly before she lifted up her arms. I reached for the bottom hem of her top and pulled it over her head, biting the inside of my lip so that I wouldn't gasp or snicker or laugh maniacally at how awesome this was...and how even more awesome it was going to be. I didn't want to do anything that was goofy or strange or anything that might weird Bones out there. It seemed she'd moved away from the edge of Panic City to a more comfortable, laid back space in Cautiously Optimistic Central, and I sure as hell wasn't going to do anything, anything, to dial back the odometer on that one. My prime directive was to not freak her out, and I wasn't going to do anything that might even come close to doing that.
She was wearing a fairly simple underwire wine-colored bra that snapped in the back. My mouth went dry as I stared at it. "Ahh, hmmm, well..." I sorta stammered after a minute, my voice cracking a bit in a way that made me wince. Real suave there, Booth. But I quickly put the thought out of my head as I stared at her chest. I looked admiringly at the way her breasts looked in that bra. It wasn't fancy, but the color really accentuated the pale ivory skin of hers, and, well, obviously, the shape of her breasts, which I'd been admiring and privately worshipping for years. "Do you want to keep this on, or take it off? If you want to take it off, Bones, I, uhh...I'd do that for you." I punctuated my offer with a half-grin.
"How about this," she suggested with a strange smoothness coming into her own voice that seemed to indicate that whatever Bones was thinking or feeling or getting ready to do, is most definitely was not a freak out (at least the bad kind) in any way, shape or form. "I'll lay down and then you can unclasp it once I'm situated on the bed?" she said with a nod.
Good solution there, Bones, I thought.
"Yeah," I said. "Sure, that'll work. Do you want me to place a towel to cover your, uhhh, ass...errr, backside, like the professional masseuses do, or are you okay with me seeing your underwear?"
She blinked at me for a minute, and I swear that I saw a bit of a naughty smile as she noticed my crude slip before I recovered. But, it disappeared, and I thought I might've imagined it if she hadn't asked, "Why? Haven't you been staring at my ass every time I've gotten out of bed and moved anyway?"
Damn. She knew. Then again, she always knows, doesn't she? Still, I've never been one to give up that easily. I bit the inside of my lip again—man, with the amount I'd been laying into it in the last few hours, I knew it was going to be as sore as hell later, but I had to do what I had to do—as I thought about how, yes, I'd definitely been taking full advantage of the fact that she'd been sitting around, laying around, and then traipsing around wearing just those cute little panties. These were the same panties, by the way, in case anyone forgot, which didn't do a damn thing to hide that rockin' ass of hers, thank God. And as mildly annoyed as I'd been at the time to learn that she'd ordered takeout, I have to admit, my annoyance faded a bit, and I felt more than a little twinge below my own waist, when I saw her run over to answer the door in those panties.
I smiled at the image, then finally conceded her point as I realized there was no point to trying to deny what we both already knew. I shrugged a little, and laughed. "Busted, huh?" was all I said. "Sorry," I said. "But I assume that you gotta pretty good look at my ass running around in boxers all morning and before that, when all I had on was a button-down shirt that had been totally unbuttoned. We're probably even on that account, wouldn't you think?"
I flashed a teasing eyebrow at her and waited for her answer.
"Have you caught me looking?" she asked simply.
"No," I admitted. "That's why I said I 'assume' that you'd gotten a good look at my ass, et cetera."
"So...are you offering if I want to take a closer look at some point then?" she then countered.
Hmmm. That was quite an interesting query she tossed out there. She wants to see my ass? If she wanted to take a look at my ass, whether...well in Bones-speak, in just a cursory visual inspection or a more detailed, hands-on assessment, I was all too ready to give her the opportunity. Fuck, yeah. And, holy hell, if she was wanting to see my ass, then as far as I could tell, I had the all-clear because she just waved the green flag.
Drivers, start your engines.
So, as soon as I heard her ask that little zinger, I had an almost immediate answer. ready to serve her back
"Absolutely, Bones," I said happily and enthusiastically as I got caught up in what had suddenly developed into a serious bit of double entendre flirting that made me wonder how dirty things might get between us if we were really lucky. Hmmm... There was only one way to find out, so that's why I said, "If there's some part of me that you want to see, I'm willing to let you sneak more than a tiny peaky, if that's what you really want. No strings attached even. It doesn't have to be part of playing doctor/nurse or 'I'll you mine if you'll show me yours' kinda thing."
She laughed at that, in a way that made me remember how much I loved her laugh, and made the mild tingling that had been humming at the base of my spine grow just a tad bit stronger. Then, she gave me a sharp nod as she told me, "Good to know. But, for now, why don't we just start with the massage? If you can make my back feel better then...maybe...we'll see what else you can use those fingers of yours to do to me."
At hearing her make reference to 'what else you can use those fingers of yours to do to me,' I felt my balls hitch and a certain part of my groggy anatomy perk up. Hoooboy. Fuck she's so goddamn sexy. Just...well, fuck.
And, on that note, I decided to take her words as the challenge they were. I had a mission to accomplish. I knew that if I could accomplish it with a successful outcome, then good...no, really super mega excellent things would follow. And I wanted that. I wanted her. I wanted the whole fucking shebang.
So, nodding, I cleared my throat before I surveyed the bed. "Let's make sure the bed's made well enough that this will be comfortable for ya," I said, walking around to make sure the sheets and blankets were evenly laid on top of the mattress. I mean, hell, it doesn't have to be a U.S. Army Infantry School style of crisp bed making. It just needs to be comfy enough to relax on while your partner straddles you and rubs out all the knots and hard spots in your back, right?
Bones. Straddled. Bones being straddled. Bones being straddled by me. Fuck.
Just...well, fuck.
This is gonna be so fucking awesome.
"So, okay," I said. "Wanna lay down on your stomach and then, once you're comfortable, we'll take your bra off. Cool?"
"Unclasp it," she corrected me. "Not take it off. For now...just unclasp it."
"Okay," I said, trying to keep a straight face even though I really felt like pouting. All that wind up and no pitch? One second she was talking about seeing what other things my magic fingers could do to her, and then the next minute she waves the checkered flag and leaves me in what is clearly a lookie-but-no-touchie situation. You just can't make this easy, can you, Bones? We've got to do a few pace laps, huh? I thought. Okie-dookie. I can deal with that. Fine.
I let her lay down on her stomach in the middle of the bed, and once she seemed to have found a restful position, I leaned over and gently unhooked the two clasps that held the back of the bra closed. Once I'd undone the clasps, I casually let the garment lay open, "Do you want the straps to come down, too?" I asked, unsure how far to push her so that it wasn't too far before it was too soon. "Maybe I need to ask you, where on your back are you suffering the most pain? That's probably where I should focus on, huh?" I paused for a moment and then nodded. "So, what's hurting where, huh, Bones?"
She took what seemed to me to be a very deep breath before she exhaled and responded. "Lower back," she told me after she'd made a frown. "It's almost as if I twisted the wrong way somehow, and I've been paying for it ever since."
Hmmm. What did we do last night? If she was sore because she twisted the wrong way, I guessed that whatever we did, it was more than just the usual a la carte selections off the menu of sexual positions.
I thought about it for a moment. Twisting means changing positions. Huh. Seemed to me, whatever we did, this was more than just a three pitches straight over the plate, three up, three down sort of inning. We batted around the cycle, more than once, and I was coming to think we might've even gone into extra innings there. What did I do to her? And, at least as interesting a question: what did she do to me? Did I make her scream? How many times? Did we even stay in the bed the whole time? My eyes quickly shot over to the bedroom carpet and I wondered if...Nope...someone would have rugburn if we'd have done that. Then I glanced over at the wall near the window. Did I take her against the wall? God, if we did—that's fucking hot. My balls tightened at the thought of it. Fuck—
Ground control to Sergeant Booth, another sharp voice sounded in my head. First fucking thing's first. Focus. I shrugged away the thought and turned my attention back to the mission at hand.
"Okay," I said. "Now, do you mind if I straddle you?" I had to pause for only the briefest of seconds so that my voice wouldn't crack again. I swallowed once, willing myself not to get hard and failing miserably as the words 'straddle' and 'Bones' ping-ponged inside my head. Fuck. Come on, Booth. I then took another breath before I continued, "I've got...err, well you know I've still got my boxers and a T-shirt on, so it's not...you know, I'm not naked or anything, so this isn't sexual...that is, it doesn't have to have any sexual connotations, unless you want it to...err, but nevermind that. I just—oh fuck. What I mean is, if I can move that way, I know I can have better leverage to work out those kinks. It's a bit harder to do from the side. It's do-able, but just harder. Either's fine with me...it's your call."
I huffed another breath as I waited for her response, silently praying her logical brain—which never misses a single goddamn detail—somehow tuned out the part of my ramble that mentioned 'sex'...'naked' and all that other shit.
Wait. Who was I kidding? This is Bones we're talking about here. Of course she's not gonna miss a thing like that. I was pretty sure I was totally fucked. But, wait again. She still hadn't pulled the brake up, so I considered that's a good sign since...aww, damn.
I was thinking about this way too fucking much.
Shit.
Fortunately, goddess that she is, Bones chose that exact moment to distract me from my mental quicksand when she spoke. "You know it's very hard to make me feel uncomfortable once I've given leave for someone to touch me, Booth," she shrugged with a simple smile that I heard in her voice more than saw in her face. "Just do whatever it is you need to do."
Heh.
I sure knew what I wanted to do, but I tried to will away the beginnings of a hard-on and tried again to focus on the task at hand. It seemed as if I'd been doing that a lot lately with her. That said, she'd just basically given me a blank freakin' check to do whatever I needed to do to give her one rockin' awesome massage. That meant one thing. Yep. I was sure as hell gonna straddle her. Because, of course, that was the best way to give her the best possible massage. And I wasn't just pulling that shit out of my ass. It's the truth. No, really.
"Super," I muttered, the relief clear in my voice. "Say no more."
And she didn't. I looked over and waited for her to get comfortable on the mattress, and then was just about to climb in bed and straddle her legs so I could focus on her lower back when a brilliant idea came to mind.
Oil. Her skin. Oiled up. With me touching her. I mean, damn—that's a hot image. Smokin', really. I needed to do whatever I needed to do to make that happen. That's what the lady said, right? 'Just do whatever it is you need to do.' A man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, right?
Fuck, I'm good.
"Oh, uhhh, gimme a sec, Bones," I said. I stood up and ran into the bathroom, opened up the medicine cabinet and scanned it for that tiny bottle of mineral oil I had. I have no idea whatsoever the circumstances under which I'd come to acquire it, but I did know I had a pretty good idea where it was.
"Come on, come on, come on," I muttered as I looked for the small bottle and then swallowed an excited yelp of triumph when I spotted it.
Target secured, I walked back into the bedroom and climbed onto the bed. My breath hitched a little in my throat as my eyes were immediately drawn to those nice, white cotton panties that looked absolutely delicious on her cute little ass. I made a little sound, a grunt maybe, as I shook my head and tried to refocus myself. I straddled her legs, taking care to put all my weight on my own haunches as I brought my hands to her lower back. That lower back...her skin. Oh, God...wow. How many times had I rested my hand there over the years, just ever so slightly touching her there as she walked through doors, down hallways...and after all that time, I was finally touching it, skin-to-skin.
Focus. I reached over and grabbed the little bottle of baby oil and flipped the lid up, then squeezed a dime-sized amount into the palm of my hand.
"You ready there, Bones?" I asked her.
I didn't wait for her response, but rather rubbed my hands together, making sure to roll each of my thumbs over my oily palms to coat them with the slick, sweet-smelling oil, and then brought them down to the little space in the small of her back, just above the waistband of her panties. I fanned my hands over the delicate curve there, then touched the sides of my thumbs to the soft, ivory flesh on each side of her spine, and stroked them over her skin, gently at first and then more firmly as I pressed my thumbs into her flesh. I could feel her muscles beneath her skin, and they did seem a bit tense. Dragging the sides of my thumbs in ovals over those muscles, over and over again, I couldn't help but smile at hearing the soft sigh that eventually escaped from her lips.
"Like that?" I chuckled.
I know I liked it. Fucking-A, this was awesome.
I shifted my hips a little, partly to make sure I wasn't putting my weight on her legs, but more because I could feel that tell-tale twittering feeling in my groin, and I knew I was getting really turned on, but I didn't know what else to do about it. Shrugging, I just pressed forward knowing that Bones was the type of gal that could stop me anytime she wanted to...and then some. I unfurled my loosely-clasped fists and brought my fingers around to squeeze the plush curves on each side of her hips as I continued to roll tight, firm ovals with my thumbs over the muscles on each side of her spine. I wondered what all these places were called—and a part of me thought about asking her—but I decided not to, and just kept at it so she didn't squint the mood we were working on building here to a sad and miserable death.
"Is that too hard?" I asked her, wincing a bit the moment I realized my choice of words since I knew at least one of us was dealing something that was getting too hard...and harder by the minute. Fuck—
"No," she responded, her voice dreamy and strange in a way I'd never heard it sound before that made my breath catch in my throat. "That spot...there." She hissed a bit as I followed her verbal cues and concentrated on one spot just above and a couple inches to the left of her spine in the part of the swell that lead to her awesomely curvy ass. God, she was so fucking sexy, it was killing me. "Just there. Ohhhh. That's...that's one of the places where the muscles...it's...I...I-I feel some soreness particularly in that spot. It's very...mmmmmm...tender, Booth. Very...ahhhh, very tender."
Every time she made one of those sounds—oooh, ahhh, mmmmm—I felt a tingle roll up my spine and across my shoulders. Sure, it was just a massage, and I was just working out the kinks in the muscles of her back, but damn, with her making noises like that, there was no force in the universe that was gonna keep me from thinking about what kind of noises she was gonna make when I put my hands to work on other delicious parts of her body. It was becoming extremely difficult to think about anything other than all the other things we could be doing that might cause her to make noises like that. I clenched my eyes shut for a moment and tried to get my game face back on. I again prayed what I'd started to think of as my own personal prayer to some unnamed patron saint of concentration.
Come on, man. Stay with it. Focus, huh? Focus.
I let up on my thumbs and brought my fingers around toward the middle of her back, then began to apply similar firm, oval-shaped strokes with the pads of my fingers on each side of her spine. I loved the way her skin felt—so soft and silky, perfectly even and smooth, like marble, but warm and inviting. A grin broke across my face as I noted the way the darker skin of my hands looked against her ivory skin. My skin, which is already a little dark on account of having inherited a bit of my Italian grandmother's coloring, had gotten even darker over the course of the five weeks since I got out of the hospital after my surgery. Since I was on disability from work, and Bones was gone, digging up those Aztecs or whatever else she was playing Indiana Jones to find in Guatemala, I'd a lot of free time, and the weather is still nice, so I spent a lot of time outside—jogging and swimming (taking advantage of Bones' apartment's pool, since, you know, she did give me the key to the pool area, and well, she did say it was okay if Parker and I used it...it's not like she said Parker and I always had to use it at the same time, right?)—and so I'd gotten myself a little bit of a tan, which I hadn't even really noticed until I saw my hands working over the soft, white skin of her lower back.
"Is that making it feel any better there, Bones?" I asked her, my voice gravelly in a way that I knew I don't think it ever sounded outside of the hour or so that preceded any of the awesome times when I knew sex was imminent. But, as she squeaked a small yelp as I pressed into her back and her body tensed, and I knew I'd hit a particularly sore spot. I frowned at her movement as it reminded me—through the rapidly building haze of horniness that was building in my head—that I felt kinda bad that, whatever we'd done the night before, it had left her sore and hurting. I mean, I guess she'd returned the favor with those scratches, but it's not the same, and I didn't ever like seeing her hurt. So, I felt a bit for her in that moment as I lightened my touch and her body relaxed a bit.
"That...what you're doing there...it feels better, but I...oh, damn, it's still sore as hell," she breathed. "It's better, but...ohhhh—that's good, Booth. Keep doing that."
Fuck yes I will. Just try to stop me.
"I'm sorry your back hurts," I said as I went back to drawing ovals in her flesh with the sides of my thumbs. "You know, I hate it when you hurt." I felt her tighten a little at my words, which was absolutely the last thing I wanted in that moment. Trying to do damage control, I said, "I-I...you know, Bones...I just wish..." I laughed a little as I slowed the motion of my hands. "It's kind of a bummer, you know, to have the aches and pains, but not be able to remember any of the good stuff that made any of that worth it?"
Hmmm...
I'm not sure if I did any solid damage control or had just made things worse by tossing those words out there like that. It was really the first time since she'd shot me down with her 'we hadn't had sex' talk that morning that either one of us had directly referenced the giant fucking elephant that was in the bedroom with us. So, for better or worse, it was now out there since I'd spiked that fucking pachyderm over the net and into her court. We just had to see how things would go as a consequence...for better or worse.
And, for once, even as I said it, I wasn't certain which way it would go...I just hoped, someway, somehow things would turn out for the better, because I really love this woman...and finally getting to make love to her and remember it would be a nice thing too...particularly as far as my quietly raging case of blue balls as concerned.
Heh.
A/N: Yes, yes, yes—we know...
We know what you're thinking. "After 20K+ words, you numbnuts end the chapter THERE?" Answer: Yes, we did. We hope you'll forgive us. We did it because these two are about to launch into an important discussion that we needed to deliver to you intact, in Part IV. This piece will have six parts, by the way. And you can probably guess that the really, really good stuff (errr, you know we're talking about here, right?) is in the last few parts of the story.
This is one of a couple of fairly experimental pieces Dharmasera is doing right now. This one, of course, is experimental from the standpoint of the style in which we've written it. First person narrative is a tricky thing. It either works or it doesn't. Alternating first person is even more difficult to pull off in a way that preserves a coherent narrative, especially where the narrators have such dramatically different ways of thinking and speaking. In any case, we hope this is working for you folks, but we'd love to hear from you.
Let us know what you thought of this third installment of "He Said, She Said." It's a great opportunity to put that very nice, new and improved, bright and oh-so-sparkly review button to good use.
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