A/N: Another short one, but I think I've edited this too many times and want to just get it out to you all. A fun little second-person piece tagged to (flashbacks from) 5x16, The Parts in the Sum of the Whole.
You're still grinning when your lips finally meet, the breath holding whatever he was going to say next flutters against your mouth before you swallow it whole. His breath hitches and you take the opportunity to lick against his closed mouth. When he opens it and caresses your tongue with his own, you taste the acidity of the lime, the salt, and the burn of the cheap tequila you'd shared, the bitterness of the rainwater invading your tenuous shelter beneath the bar's awning.
You realize then what was strange about his words. You'd been seduced before, certainly. Had done your fair share of seducing. You knew about bravado and, to some degree, could ascertain innuendo, at least of a sexual variety; could distinguish the postures and conversational patterns of an interested party from an anthropological standpoint. You think of your square-jawed professor with his high opinion of himself; that man you exchanged numbers with at a bar last week - Paul? Patrick? - who harbored no uncertainty about his sexual prowess.
But this man – this strange, fascinating man – did not offer you bravado. Did not attempt to sell you on his abilities, personally or professionally, before letting you plunder his mouth and holding onto you as if you were his sole lifeboat in this maelstrom of tequila-stoked arousal.
Instead, he had offered you vulnerability. A fault.
Getting it under control.
You wonder if it was the first time he'd said it out loud. And then you wonder what that would mean.
Rather than trying to draw you in, he'd simply opened himself before you. And you'd stepped forward into him. You wonder what that means for you. And you decide then that until you can puzzle that answer out, you're not sleeping with him. You know, although you're not sure why, that he'll want to stay, or want you to stay, and that's not something you're inclined to do – even without the strings he's just entangled you in with his soft confession in front of this seedy bar where dubious characters seem to know him. Your lips quirk a bit more as the ironic thought comes to you that you could help him kick his habit – surely it was a gamble to tell you this character flaw, after all, and this sentimental creature will inevitably draw a line of some sort between his words and the rejection he's about to experience. But while you feel for his inevitable questioning of himself and his choices, you won't risk making yourself vulnerable in front of him just to spare his feelings.
Later, in the cab, after he's finally out of sight, you listen to the rain pound against the roof of the car. Watching the city under this deluge from the safety of the yellow, smoke-infused backseat, you're already trying to think of a way to see him again now that you and your institution have been fired. Because every answer you posit yields yet more questions, and you're Temperance Brennan – you always find the answers.