This is in response to a semi-challenge from blc in reference to the last chapter. I had forgotten about the snake in New Orleans, and now I must needs go back and see if I can't work it out somehow. (Tsk; writers leaving holes big enough to drive a Mack truck through--why couldn't she have been afraid of anything else in Mummy in the Maze? Piranhas, maybe? Bees? Chickens?)
"I need to check the tags," Brennan said, frustrated. John Doe 361 was real, she knew it, even if she couldn't remember him. But there were x-rays, real ones, of a real body; she had sent them to DC, to her team. She clung to that thought as she headed for the freezer room. There are x-rays; therefore there is a body. Simple logic. The simplest.
"Ah, Dr. Brennan, you might want to be careful--Sam's in there, performing a last blessing for the deceased, and his pet snake could be a little skittish."
Great. What else can go wrong? she wondered. Missing memories, vanishing corpses, interfering partners, not to mention somehow getting beaten and losing Mom's earring, and now a snake. All I need now is to be arrested. Her lips tightened and her momentum checked slightly. But her need to know, to examine, to see for herself, overrode that initial spurt of fear. Besides, I know it's in there. No surprises.
She dialed the lab and set the phone on speaker. The more she had to keep herself occupied, the less likely she would lose any composure. It was an old technique, and so far, it hadn't failed her. And as she talked to Zack and Angela, Booth trailing her with the phone and inserting a few comments of his own, she began to rapidly examine all the body tags. She didn't think anyone noticed that she was starting on the far side of the temporary room. That was easily explained, anyway.
She did manage to get wrapped up enough between the phone call and the search that she didn't realize that she had actually pushed past Sam and his snake until she was done examining tags.
Once finished talking with the lab, she waved a hand at Booth to turn off the phone. His eyes were locked on Sam, snake about his shoulders, chanting prayers. Personally, Brennan figured they were about as valid as any other belief system, but would never dream of interrupting what was plainly an important ritual for him. The anthropologist in her was too strong.
Booth apparently had fewer compunctions about it. "How do we know this is not the guy shoving mojo bags into dead people?"
"Those spells are the work of a sorcerer. Priests--houngans--can make healing mojos, but I'm not allowed."
"But snake shaking, that's fine?"
She took a step closer to Sam and looked at the snake he was holding. She couldn't identify the exact species, but he did have a grip on it. And it wasn't hissing, at least, or tasting the air with its tongue. Aware of Booth watching her, she stretched out a hand and delicately stroked its underside with a gloved hand, as much to freak in? out? her partner as to prove something to herself. She focused intently on the snake, tuning out the two men. This isn't so bad, she realized with some surprise and let her fingers curl around it. Not that I would want to be alone with it or handle it myself. But maybe they aren't so terrifying after all. For some reason, she trusted Sam to keep it under control.
"Hey, Bones, how's about while you're a murder suspect, you, uh, act more like a normal woman and less like Lily Munster, okay?" Booth said, snapping her out of her reverie.
The name rang a vague bell as she let the snake curl about her wrist. More of her unease slid away as the snake continued to behave. Feeling quite daring now, she actually stroked the head with her bare hand, much as she would pet a mouse or a bird.
She never thought about how she was upsetting Booth, of all people, until he caught at her arm to pull her away. "Good bye. Good snake. Bye-bye. That's it," Booth added, pushing her towards the exit. "Call me crazy, but I'm suspicious of snake man."
She sighed. "That's because you've been inculcated by the mainstream culture's prevailing Judeo-Christian tradition into instinctive skepticism of alternative mores," she said loftily, knowing it would irk him. Her split lip made it surprisingly easy to stifle the smile the tugged at her mouth. Maybe things aren't all bad. I've managed to annoy Booth thoroughly and maybe made strides towards ending an old phobia. Now all we have to do is find John Doe 361 and go home. Nothing to it.
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Blame it on the voodoo, if you like.
