Title: This is Life
Disclaimer: I do not own Brennan or Booth. Or the concept of Bones, for that matter.
Rating: M
A/N: Thanks for all the lovely reviews, once again. I'll edge towards happiness shortly, I promise.
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"Hey sweetie!" Angela's voice was unforgivably chirpy for a Sunday morning. What was worse, was that DC was behind by quite a few hours. How did her best friend manage not to rest at the weekend?
"Hey Ange," Brennan mumbled, her cheek pressed into her downy feather pillow. "What time is it?" Her hand searched blindly for her watch on the bedside table.
"Well, it's five thirty, here. Which makes you an official lazy bum. Get up." Brennan found her watch, and turned the face towards her, blinking dazedly at the shifting hands. Ten thirty. "Where's your hunk Federal agent, these days?" Angela asked, a sing-song note to her voice.
Brennan stiffened, glancing over her shoulder to find that the bed was empty, and when she passed her leg over the sheets, they were cool. He'd been gone awhile. "I honestly can't say…" she replied, trailing her fingers through her hair. "Is everything alright, Angela?" Brennan could almost feel her best friend nodding at the other end of the line.
"Everything is fine sweetie. I just wanted to let you know we got the remains that you had FedEx-ed over. They arrived yesterday and your dutiful little assistant stayed in the lab until after midnight. It was Saturday night, Brennan. Zach's turned into a bona fide geek." Slipping from beneath the covers, Brennan yawned and stretched.
"Leave Zach alone, Angela. Besides, I don't need you corrupting him. He'll be calling in on Monday's with a bad case of 'the flu'." Angela, hardly ever contrite and never bashful, just laughed.
"That only happened once, sweetie. How are you?" The unexpectedness of her question caught Brennan unawares. She stared at herself in the mirror for a long moment, noting that the darkened circles beneath her eyes had faded and her sink had regained a healthy colour instead of the sickly pallor she'd become to used to, these days. She was eating better, too.
"I'm good. It's Booth I'm worried about," she said, dropping her eyes to the bronze clip on the dressing table. "He's seeing ghosts. A sure sign of insanity." Angela laughed, the sound tinny and so far away. Brennan missed her friend. Missed the sometimes shallow girlish conversations.
""Ghosts? Like… real ones?" Brennan rolled her eyes, turning away from the clip.
"Ghosts don't exist, Angela," she scolded. "So no, not real ones. Figments of his tired imagination, maybe." The living room was pleasantly warm and mysteriously empty. Booth, it seemed, had gone out, opting not to sleep in. Didn't he realise it was Sunday.
"In your opinion, maybe. But I didn't call to discuss souls of the underworld. Have you two… you know…" Brennan moved into the kitchen and filled the kettle, her brows knitted. They hadn't done anything, since her unlikely breakdown a few nights previous. Aside from some hand holding, and words of comfort, Booth had been… physically distant. "Ooh… really? Not even once?" Angela said, interpreting her silence/
"No… but it's early days yet. We're coping." Coping was a pretty average word which meant the weren't steaming on nicely towards happiness. It meant she hadn't toppled off the fine line between sanity and insanity, either. It simply meant, she existed. "Booth has locked his feelings up, for a little while. I think he's a bit shaken…"
"By his ghostly experience?" Angela sounded incredulous.
"No… maybe. Hey, I'm not a psychologist. I hate all that." The bolt on the door slipped up as the handle outside turned, and she spun. He looked fresher, this morning, his dark eyes watching her as his lips curled into a smile. "Hey, Ange, I have to go. Call you later…"
Booth unwrapped his scarf from around his neck, and shook his jacket down his arms. "Just up, Bones?" He asked, dropping both items to the stand behind the door. She hummed in response. "Oh hey, the you're making coffee. Reading my mind, now?" His hand brushed her elbow as she stepped past her, and his touch, despite the cold autumn morning, was hot against her skin.
"Booth? Where did you go?" He snagged an apple from the fruit bowl on the table, sinking his teeth into the fresh green fruit.
"Church," he replied. "How are you this morning?" She was growing impatient with everyone's constant queries of how she was. Booth might have been asking in polite passing, but the sentiment was still there. The same sentiment as Angela, which had the unspoken question attached 'are you going mad, yet?'.
"I'm fine," she replied briskly. "Why church? Are you feeling religious all of a sudden?" Booth crunched on the apple, again, shrugging.
"I have religious values, yes. And they're not sudden. Some of us are raised with religion in mind." Brennan scoffed, spooning coffee into two cups and pouring the steaming water into each.
"You mean like brainwashed? And what are you trying to imply?" His eyebrows lifted, a touch of malice evident in expression.
"I wasn't implying anything, Bones," he snapped. "I go to church, you don't. I don't brainwash you. Let it go." She mumbled her apology, passing him a cup, which he accepted, his eyes a little suspicious. "What did Angela want?" He asked, the coffee burning his tongue a little as he sipped. Brennan gave an easy shrug.
"Checking up on me, I guess. And you. She asked about you." Booth nodded slowly. "We're not having sex, why is that?" The question, so random, yet so direct and entirely suitable for Brennan, took him by surprise. An chunk of apple lodged in his throat and it was all he could do, not to choke.
"What…?" He mulled over this for a moment, then shrugged. "We can if you want." There was a naughtiness in his grin that disarmed her, and made her smile. She chuckled, the sound warm and husky. He missed their easiness.
"I do…" she admitted. "Grief is a desperately lonely process, don't you think." He nodded, sipping his coffee again, watching her over the top of his cup. "Um… do you? Want to, I mean?" He straightened, distinctly aware of his body's reaction to her suggestion.
"This is crazy, Bones. We don't usually stand around discussing it. Normally, we just… do." She mulled this over for a moment, and nodded sharply. Booth set his cup aside and reached out, snagging the waist of her pyjama shorts, yanking her towards him. Her coffee spilt, and she ignored it, releasing the mug from her hand. It tumbled, crashing to the floor and smashing. It went unnoticed. His touch was all over her, moving across her back, beneath her shirt, stroking her skin. His lips had crashed down upon hers. She titled her head, stunned at the mutual need that crackled between them.
Her own fingers leapt into action, splayed across his chest, tugging at the buttons of his sensible Sunday shirt. Warmth radiated from the body she had missed so much. He felt hard, and alive, and at that moment, all she needed. Angela's call had reminded her, quite abruptly, of how much she loved having Booth inside her.
She heard the old cotton of her shirt tear, as his fingers pulled at the material. Booth spun, knocking her against the counter, broken shards of ceramic so close to the soles of her feet. Yet she didn't care. A sweep of wet arousal pulsed between her thighs and nothing besides their mutual nudity, mattered.
He tugged at her shorts, freeing her of the navy blue pyjamas and her underwear at the same time. His hands moved over her thighs, over her belly, cupping at her breasts. He felt her nipples, hardened into aching points, against his palms.
"Is now the right time, Bones?" He asked as her dexterous little fingers unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his pants in five seconds. Her mouth was upon his again, her fingers wrapped around the steel length of his erection.
"Do you doubt it?" She asked. He did. But with each stroke, his resolve melted a little, and he was unable to voice his concerns that, perhaps, it was too soon for both of them. He hooked her thighs, pressed her against the workbench again, and slid into her warm wetness.
When he glanced down, he saw the fading mark of the bullet wound in her thigh, when he lifted his eyes, the circular gash in her shoulder seemed to scream out at him as a constant reminder of what had happened when a forensic anthropologist went into the field. Damn, it made him angry, still.
He concentrated his anger on his thrusts, his movements frenzied and livid, but she didn't seem to mind. Her legs wrapped around him, welcoming every inch of his fury. She moaned her appreciation of his frantic movements, her fingers digging into his scalp. She bucked wildly against him, her hair framing her lovely face as her features contorted in an expression of pleasure.
"Yes…" she whimpered, as she climaxed around him. Adrenaline, mixed with anger and lust made him come. It had been so long since they last made love, he felt as though there should have been a tenderness to their touch. Yet all he felt was satisfaction and release. No loving epiphany.
As she dressed, she cleaned up the spilt coffee and scooped the shards into a dustpan, her eyes unfocused. She sighed. He wondered if maybe she'd expected a romantic reunion, too. God, once the elation of orgasm disappeared, he felt pretty damn lousy.
"Bones?" He said, pressing his fingers against his eyes.
"Hmm?" She replied vaguely.
"I'm sorry." There was a long pause.
"Yeah," she said. "Me too."
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A release, of sorts. Romantic, lovely-gubbly stuff shall return.
