A/N: I would like to thank everyone who reviewed the last chapter. Unbelievable what kind of response the last chapter got! Sorry I pissed some of you off XD. Special thanks to IHEARTSEELEYBOOTH for having the guts to review under a username XD. For now, all I can say is, that Bones doesn't know this has happened yet. I can't tell you how that plays out - haven't gotten that far yet, but I do want to say that Bones has a basic understanding of the forms of 'casual sex', so she might be somewhat understanding.
I know some guest reviewers said they weren't going to continue reading, but I'd still like to respond to their reviews here. Therefore alone; Yes I am probably out of my mind XD.
I know the way I wrote Booth's behavior may feel out of character to some, but may I remind you that a) this is fanfiction and b) that Booth isn't feeling like he would like to feel - at all. He's about halfway in an emotional rollercoaster ride, which I think is a great explanation why he isn't exactly behaving like he normally would. Therefore I have to disagree with Lisa; Booth still believes what he said to Bones, but right now he doesn't care as much for what he believes in, since that believe is also what is causing him pain. Basically, he is feeling troubled, he is slowly going to be getting better but that doesn't mean he can't relapse and participate in a - as Rose (thanks for your support) so beautifully described it - tryst. I think Booth just wants to feel loved and Lilly was and is around. Nobody is perfect, so sometimes believing and acting are not going to be in sync.
As for Lilly stroking his ego and or flirting: so far she has only been flirting with one man and it isn't Booth. Lilly genuinely likes Booth, which I hope I will be able to convince the people who are still reading off XD. From her perspective, everything that happened up until now was out of friendship, camaraderie and goofing around with a like-minded person.
Bones Seeker and a guest requested love for Brennan, though I doubt in the same way XD. I didn't plan on having Bones sleep with someone, so I'll think about that XD. As you all have been able to read: writing smutty stuff is hard :O.
A guest requested reassurance: I love B&B too. I also love the idea of Sweets or Wendell together with Lilly. However I am not sure how to play that one out XD, only time and inspiration will be able to tell us, right? So what I am trying to say as cryptically as possible: things have to get worse before they can get better. Please give me some leeway. I can only hope there will still be people reading by then XDXDXD.
This chapter doesn't need the M-warning as much as the last one did; only mentions of what happened previously :)
He had been stuck in the same meeting all morning. Sitting at one of those long conference tables, listening to the new consultant Cullen had been forced to bring in. Having listened to the first part of the nicely decorated acquisition talk, Booth was at a loss why he had been summoned to attend this meeting in the first place.
The consultant was yapping on about some sort of revolutionary computer system, promising it would revolutionize some part of the administration process. And here I was just thinking that administration was the worst part of being an agent in charge of a division. These progress and evolve meetings were even worse than the budget meetings Caroline hated so much. Which he totally understood, but she was so lucky she didn't have to attend these FBI internal meetings. He could care less about auto-fill in and standardized costs forms.
They weren't asking for his opinion anyway and if they would, he would politely respond that he needed to look into it. Angela could probably come up with a much better program at a fraction of the cost than that t this clown was soon going to ask for it. As he mindlessly twirled his phone around, trying to give his monkey mind something to do, his screen lit up.
Incoming message (1+)
Lilly: I am sorry, I can't make it for lunch. I forgot there is a case law lunch meeting today that I need to attend. Gr. Lilly.
Reading the text, his heart sank. The little voice inside his head shouting at him immediately. See it is already happening. She is backing out of lunch at the last moment because she can't stand being around you. They've had sex and now, not even 4 hours later, she was already trying to avoid him by canceling lunch.
Being stuck inside the conference room as room filling, since he had arrived at his office this morning meant he had all the time in the world to let his mind wander to what the hell had happened earlier this morning. Up until now, he had been able to calm his weary thoughts by focusing on the fact that he and Lilly would be able to talk it all over soon enough. Yeah… apparently, that wasn't going to happen now.
Was she really unable to meet him or was she brushing him off for all sorts of possible reasons? The question stung harder than he was realizing. Rereading the two sentences he forced himself to take a deep breath, hoping it would help him feel a little more at ease. However, it didn't help, staring at the text message he still wasn't able to see anything different than rejection in the all too short message. Swallowing he bit back the urge to respond with a snappy message like; are you changing out of your job now or should I reserve a spot on the moon for you?
Be reasonable. He countered for himself. Surely she would contact him after she got out of that meeting to reschedule. She knows that we need to talk, it is going to be fine. She had seemed fine when they were getting dressed. Yeah, who isn't when still being in the clouds?!. But then again, her firsts words had been I guess we are going to have to hurry.Okay, truth be told, when he asked her if he had to worry about becoming a dad to another child outside of wedlock, that hadn't been the most romantic gesture in the history of human-kind either.
Lilly could be incredibly rational. Was that a good or bad thing? Did that explain her actions this morning or explain why she stood him up now? He wasn't sure if he could handle her acting like it never happened when they did see each other again. But what was the alternative? Facing reality? The reality was he screwed up badly, the reality was that she had done something she obviously shouldn't have done and she probably was going to resent him for that.
He had been incredibly stupid; having sex, having it without protection, having it with a much younger colleague.
His heart wrenched at the realization, the thought, the possibility that Lilly wouldn't want to deal with him anymore. That was after all what it always seemed to come down to.
How had they ended up in a situation like this… Okay, it had been his bold suggestion that had resulted in Lilly even staying in the locker room. Maybe his emotional shit was causing him to be a bad influence on her? She didn't back down easily though, on whatever front he could find a challenge to throw her way, she took him up on it. The way she had pushed herself to knock the PFT test out of the park was pretty damn impressive. And apparently, getting naked with a coworker wasn't enough to get her to run out screaming. Damn, it had been like they had been possessed or something. Don't even go down that path. Booth sighed, shifting in his seat. Blaming invisible powers never ended well. His life and therefore his decisions were his responsibility, that much he had learned the hard way from attending Gamblers Anonymous.
Entering into another relationship now would be a very bad idea. Like he had told her a couple of weeks before, he was still angry. At Hannah, Bones, and Rebecca, basically at all humans with two X chromosomes. If any of those three would have said yes to what he had offered each and every one of them, then he would have been living the happily ever after Parker liked to hear about so much.
He and Lilly had been growing closer, becoming friends even, so he couldn't do to her what she had deemed more than okay for him to take from some unnamed girl. Except for the fact I already – kind of – have. Like if nailing a woman would somehow rebalance the universe after he had been unable to nail down his relationship with Hannah or any other woman. Make love, not war, that was that old school slogan right?! Lilly had told him to go out and find a rebound. Pretty sure this isn't what she had in mind either.
This type of situation was the exact reason, okay one of the reasons, why he didn't like talking about sex. Talking about it was the first step down onto the slippery slope that ended with having sex. It was like when he and Cam had been fooling around. It had been tricky and they hadn't been nearly as secretive as he had hoped and thought. And it had been hard to get passed it when they had ended it while leaving their friendship intact.
Sure, this time around it could be different. Lilly had an office job, he was a field agent, officially both in different agencies, there were more than enough safeguards to keep history from repeating himself. The line he once had created had been slowly fading away for years now. A once bright and glow in the dark yellow line had turned into a vague barely visual line.
It was stupid how he had just risked a fun and relaxed working relationship. There was this thing with him and women he couldn't seem to figure out. Somehow he only seemed to be able to fuck things up. Quite literally. He bitterly thought.
After running through the Hoover to grab his after workout breakfast and quickly moving on to the meeting room his thoughts came in crashing in. Being bored out his brain, the gray mass had decided to fill its time with more frustrating thoughts. Sitting there listening to the new consultant that Cullen had been forced to bring in.
His mind pulling him back to his administrative duties and how Lilly had helped him through the most urgent pieces not even a week ago. Damn, I hope we can still work together like that.
Even though it had been a stupid thing to do, maybe even the worst possible thing, on some level it had felt right. As soon as they had been in that shower, he hadn't had a single coherent thought and it had been wonderful to not worry for a minute or to be consumed by thoughts about his failed relationships. Instead of all of that, his mind had been nearly empty, just taking in the sensations and finding ways to create more of those same sensations. Leaving his body to guide him. But now… he couldn't seem to shut up his thoughts. One thought tumbling over the next, trying to get his undivided attention.
Would she have felt forced? The thought hit him like another wrecking ball, this one making him a little nauseous. He was quite a lot stronger than her and his hands had been all over her, his arms had kept her close and at the same time, those arms would have made it impossible for her to get out of his grip. But she hadn't given him any signs she had wanted to get away from him, leaving Booth now confused as to what Lilly would be thinking about this, about him.
When they had kissed, standing so close to each other his self-restrained had burst like a soap bubble, colliding with a wall, disappearing like it had never been there at all. That kiss had opened the floodgates and at that moment he didn't give a shit about what he was doing to her. He had wanted it, so he had taken it. But now, it worried him. He had a lot of other female colleagues, hell even his partner was female. She was the standard he compared every other woman to these days. What if the floodgates had been opened that far that he couldn't behave around them as well?
No Seel, don't start thinking like that. This was just one-time accident, a slip of his restraint, patience. He was after all working through one hell of a break-up and apparently it started to get to cause him to act up. Hell, if I was capable of not sleeping with Bones for all these years, I won't start assaulting any of the other women in my life.
It always scared him how he could lose his self-control like it hadn't even been there in the first place. Except around Bones, I've always been able to restrain myself around her. Not that he knew if he was all too happy about that too. But that was another problem, one he had cataloged for another time, sometime in the future.
He could just apologize to Lilly for his behavior and hope she and he himself would be able to forget about it. He once again reminded himself that he had gone through this type of thing with Cam before and they were still friends now, so it wasn't impossible to move on after sleeping together. But do I want to move on? The question kind of threw him off and he wasn't sure he wanted to internally investigate it any further. Do I even have the option to not just forget this? Sure, he had to admit that it had felt good to feel that type of release again. After all how many times could you bruise the bones in your hands out of frustration before it would become dangerous?
Officially it was the end of the business day and he still hadn't heard anything from Lilly. He truly had tried not to freak out and to try and understand her canceling on him, but just the thought of Lilly lying to him and her trying to avoid him was making him nauseous.
He had been beating himself up for hours now. It was taking all of his calm not to go look for Lilly and make sure they were going to be okay. He couldn't believe she still hadn't contacted him. If he couldn't talk to her about it now, he figured he needed to talk to someone else about it. Easier said than done. He couldn't just go up to anyone and confess that I slept with a much younger woman I work with almost daily, do you think she hates me now?
It had taken him quite some time to decide on who he trusted enough to talk about something like that. His army friends? No. They weren't that close anymore and they had envied his previous relationships. Rebecca? No, way too judge-y. Bones? Definitely not. Normally he would keep something like that to himself, his sex life was a private affair after all. But he had already decided that was no longer an option for the sake of his sanity. Ironically, if he had ended up with anyone else right now, he probably would have confided in Lilly. She had already proven to be trustworthy and he could definitely use some of her optimism right now.
Maybe he should look up Gordon Gordon. Sweets would be able to supply him with some great advice but he couldn't and wouldn't let the little pencil pusher in on how he had gotten his rocks off, practically accidentally. Hell, the shrink might actually really like Lilly and telling him what had transpired between Booth and Lilly would just be unfair torture, probably making boy wonder cry and cry. However annoying the junior doctor could be, he was still one of his friends. A shrink was a professional and that was definitely a plus, considering he couldn't keep threatening people he would shoot them if they blabbed. Which brought him back to the possibility to go and seek out Gordon Gordon for advice, but he hadn't seen his favorite shrink in a long time and even though the doctor always gave him a good honest look in the mirror, this time though he longed for the advice from someone who also knew Lilly. So with a deep sigh of resignation, he concluded that left him with only one viable option, a truly last resort; bug boy.
It was quite ironic that he was seeking out the help of doctor experiment. When Hodgins had come to him to tell how he and Angela had ended up in the Egypt room, for the third time in one week, Booth had told Hodgins to be a gentleman and to keep it to himself. Nope, he did not need the images of the curly scientist on top of the only artist he could stand. And now here he was, walking towards the boogie room, wanting Hodgins' opinion about Lilly and him and exactly how to what percentage screwed he was. He needed the opinion of someone he trusted and who knew both him and Lilly.
"Hi G-man, what are you doing in my bat cave?" Hodgins asked surprised the FBI agent came to seek him out, in the depths of the Jeffersonian.
Booth, looking very uncomfortable, placed his hands deep in his pockets. "Just wanted to talk to you about something, if you got the time."
Noticing the tensed look on his friend, Hodgins nodded. "Oh sure, okay." Hodgins emptied his hands, closed the lids of what he was working on and turned to Booth. "Go ahead, you have my undivided attention."
"I… uhm... I..." Booth sighed. Looking up at the inquisitive look on Hodgins face made him run away. "You know what, never mind, I shouldn't take up your time."
Surprised, Hodgins looked at a heels turning Booth. "Now, come on Booth! I can see something's off, you came all this way to tell me, just tell me.
Jeffersonian work bees and their damn logic. Get a grip on yourself, just spit it out already. "Lilly and I, we did it in the showers of the FBI gym." That was not how he had imagined it would come out, at all, but at least the major problem was clear now.
Sometimes it was really annoying when your brain is way too fast to give you time to consider your surprise. For a split second Hodgin's mouth was wide open. "Wow, dude! You did what?! Wait, I didn't know you were dating Lilly. Isn't that a little soon after Hannah? Is it even legal? How did that happen? Omg, I need to tell Angie." Hodgins got up from his desk chair.
Booth, however, was faster and pushed the rambling scientist back into his desk chair. "Hodgins, one question at a time, you are adding to my headache here." Booth sounded agitated, voicing his growing impatience.
Not quite receiving the message, Hodgins rambled on. "What do you think Dr. B. will think of it? Hell, imagine Caroline's reaction. How was it? Omg, you dog!" Hodgins punched Booth's shoulder.
Snapping his fingers in front of the bug man's eyes, Booth tried again. "Hodgins, snap out of it!"
Hodgins focused his cheery blues on the irritated agent. "Right, sorry man." He took a deep breath in, trying to relax, exhaled out. Giving it a couple of seconds to regain the power of his brain. "Okay, I think I am good now. First question: how did it happen? Did you slip and fall or something?" Hodgins imagined the proverbial banana peel, although in this case, wet shower tiles would work just as well.
Booth shot him a look. "Technically, those are still two questions."
"Yeah yeah, I guess I am still a little in shock, cut me some slack here, just tell me what happened already?"
Shrugging, the agent tried to decide on how and what to tell. "Well, the FBI gym is getting remodeled, so there is only one locker room available. Longer story short; we showered together and then it just… kind of happened."
Hodgins knew better than to press for details. The chances of Booth telling him more than the agent was willing to share were about as slim as a curve touching its asymptote. "Well you lucky bastard, stuff like that never happened to me when I was single. Okay, I did end up in the Egyptian room with Angela more than once." Picking up on the pained look Booth gave him, Hodgins was quick to apologize. "Sorry, I guess I am oversharing. I hope I don't offend you when I ask you this, but why are you telling me? You are such a private person, especially in all matters concerning... Well you know... the sack."
"Because I am worried. Naturally, there wasn't much time after we… finished. We both had morning meetings to attend, so we haven't had time to discuss any of it. We planned on having lunch together, but about halfway through my morning meeting I got this." Booth dropped his phone on Hodgins' desk for him to read.
"You see, I am worried about her reaction," Booth said, exasperated.
Looking up at the agent's cringe, Hodgins handed him back his phone. "Okay, I agree, this sounds kind of cold and detached, but you don't know if someone was looking over her shoulder or something. Have you already tried calling her?" Hodgins would have to admit it wasn't the most considerate message. Usually, Lilly would add a smiley or something, but this message was almost too empty. Still, he wasn't ready to judge Lilly that quickly. Lilly had, maybe hastily, composed that message and rushed messages were never flawless.
"No, not yet, I figured, well hoped really that she would contact me first and if she really is busy, I didn't want to interrupt her either. I did email her about a couple of cases during my meeting this morning and she hasn't responded to those either. But here we are, at the end of the business day, no line of communication, just silence." Bitterness sounding in Booth's voice, trying to mask his insecurities with annoyance. I just need to know I am right to be worried, that I am not some jealous insane Flintstone man.
Hodgins nodded, knowing the frustration of not wanting to be clingy, but sometimes it was hard not to come off that way. "I wouldn't worry too much, Lilly is always pretty diligent at responding to her emails, so I'd say she is really preoccupied with something else. Give her a day or two. She isn't really the ignoring type. If she has any problems with you I am sure she would come out with it."
Booth nodded, still lost in thought. It was always good to hear it from someone else.
"Was it any good though?" Hodgins' eyes sparkled mischievously. As much as he thought of Lilly as a family member, he knew she had enough options and he was actually more surprised Lilly had been open for a bit of morning fun than Booth. He had seen guys come on to Lilly and thus far she had shut them all down flat - hard.
The tiny sparkle in the agent's eyes before he regained his senses told the scientist all he needed to know. "Sorry Jack, but that is between me and her."
"Alright, that is fair." You already gave me the response I was looking for. " What are you hoping is going to be her reaction though?"
Booth thought for a second. "Well, at this moment any reaction would be great. I don't want her to shut me out. We were really getting along, before all this, in a non-sexual way. I'd really hate it if that would change."
"Lilly is pretty in touch with her feelings, so I don't think she'll shut you out. At the same time, I don't know much about Lily's... let's call it private preferences." Hodgins looked a little uncomfortable, thinking about that. He was a happily married man with a brand-new family now, so his focus had shifted to different things of beauty in life.
Booth smiled. It was ironic and funny in a way that he had finally managed to make Hodgins feel uncomfortable about a subject bug man used to love talking about. Maybe being married to the most openly sexually extravagant person he himself had ever met had tamed the science doctor. "I know she is, but what if she feels used or something. Sure, I am not her boss or anything, but she is an intern, I am an agent in charge. She is my responsibility when I take her out to the field."
"Yeah... That does have all the ingredients for awkwardness, but I am sure she is too rational too even consider that as a possibility. I am pretty sure Lilly isn't easy to subdue by mental voodoo. So if she wasn't on board, she would have flat out told you about it. You'll see that once you talk to her, it is going to be fine. I am sure about that. That being said, I don't know her as well as you do." Hodgins gave a small smile. Like in the biblical sense. Knowing that comment could probably end in the agent shooting him in the ass. Trying to save that from happening, he tried offering a solution; "Angela probably has a much better insight into Lilly's mindset than I do."
"Funny", the agent responded dryly. "As much as I like and respect Angela, you know how she is and I am not in the mood for any of her little speeches.
Yeah, Hodgins hadn't expected Booth to waltz over to Angie's office to ask for her opinion. Knowing he was probably risking his life by pushing the envelope, but call it scientific curiosity or just plain nosiness, Hodgins had to try one last time: "How do you want this to turn out? Like, are you ready for another relationship?"
He knew Hodgins would be able to calm his mind but at the steep price of difficult questions. It, however, was a fair question though. A question he hadn't found a suitable answer for himself. "Honestly, I don't know. I do know I don't usually tumble into bed with women anymore, so maybe that is a sign or something? But at the same time, she is too young for me, right? I genuinely like her, but I never felt like I'd end up in this situation. We need to be able to work together. At the same time, like you said, I still don't know how Lilly feels about all this." Booth rambled.
Hodgins smiled. "Yeah, she is a tad young, but she is great at adulting. Hey! That is another reason why you don't have to be that worried."
Still not entirely convinced, Booth kept silent for a second. "Yeah, I guess I'll just have to wait and see.
Hodgins nodded. "Though, if I were you I'd try to figure out if you are ready for another relationship before you bump into her.
A/N: So I hope you enjoyed this chapter a little more than the previous one XD. I am hoping I'll be able to post the next chapter upcoming Sunday, but I can't promise anything. Once again, thank you for reviewing and if you made it to here: thanks for still reading my story :).