Comments | maid_inthe_maze: Voices Carry

j_hodgins in maid_inthe_maze

Voices Carry

Nov 25, 2006 21:18

continued from here

No use in running
It's always the same
You can count on the panic
It's the faces that change...

( When Seeley spoke it was soft enough to deafen him... )

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j_hodgins November 27 2006, 00:39:35 UTC

Jack signaled the waitress for another pint, and another glass of beer for Booth.

"It's a Cape thing," he laughed, munching on a perfectly fried scallop. "Big ocean. High dunes. Big moon. Kick-ass scallops. And if you're gonna pass for a local here, dude, you need to get some of that Philly out of your voice."

He looked through lowered lashes at the reflection of Seeley's face in the curve of the oil lamp and struggled to push the memory of the way his voice had sounded the night before as he slipped on the cusp of disaster.

I want...

And Jack did want, want so badly that the smooth, salty-sweet scallop was turning to acid in his mouth. He drained the last of the pint and dove his fork deep into a mound of coleslaw as if he hadn't just eaten an embarrasingly large pile of fried seafood and potatoes.

"Goddamn. Saltwater totally amps up the appetite," he commented between bites, examining each thin strip of carrot and cabbage as though he was seeing the dressing-soaked salad for the first time in his life. "Save room for dessert."

former_ranger November 27 2006, 00:50:02 UTC

Seeley tried to not stare. He really tried to not watch Jack eat. To not watch Jack's tongue sneak out of his mouth and lick up a missed drop of scallop, a drip of dressing. He tried not to imagine the feel of those white teeth on his skin, the warm press of those lips on his cock. The lap of that tongue inside his mouth.

Booth ate his dinner and hoped that he nodded at the appropriate times. He listened and he watched and he didn't think about the way Jack had fit so nicely against him in between the solidity of his hallway wall and the immobility of his own body. Last night.

The sun slipped down, it burnt like fire as it sank below the sea and then the space outside the restaurant dropped into complete darkness. Not city dark. Real dark.

There was nothing to look at, nothing to find distraction in but the sea blue eyes of the man across the table from him.

"Everyone in your family come to this Halloween party? How many people are we talking about?"

j_hodgins November 27 2006, 01:09:40 UTC

The impossibility of attraction had never interrupted Jack’s romantic pursuits. He’d wound his way around inconvenient husbands, boyfriends and girlfriends before and never met a dangerous liaison that didn’t intrigue him.

It was never about conquest. It was always about making the world as it should be. As in “you’d be happier with me,” or “we’d have so much fun together,” or “it could be different. Better.” It wasn’t so much his belief in himself that informed such a confident worldview - it was his belief in chemistry. Complimentary attributes. Like components. Similar features.

But this?

Seeley's intensity, the sheer will of him trapped Jack in an improbable grip of need, and not just the need to really kiss him, full and deep and slow and breathlessly, or to really touch him, every inch, every patch of flesh ... but a need to know him. See him. Understand the genesis of his fear, learn what makes him laugh, what impulse drives him to love ( ... )

former_ranger November 27 2006, 01:26:26 UTC

"So she saw something that she shouldn't. Something that wasn't planned, but something that happened in the passion of the moment ( ... )

j_hodgins November 27 2006, 01:40:26 UTC

Booth was smiling, sitting back, shoulders wide against the pitted chair.

Jack wondered what he saw. If he could see ( ... )

former_ranger November 27 2006, 01:57:57 UTC

"Sure. Thought you wanted to talk about business."

Booth grabbed the check from the waitress' hand before she could hand it to Jack. He stood and went to the register, paying without thinking about what he was doing. He was out in the dark and waiting by the SUV before Jack had left the restaurant and he had to keep his mind on the case. On the discrepancies. On the mystery.

The air was chill and Seeley could see his breath as it blew out of his mouth. White clouds that disappated before they could move a foot from his face.

j_hodgins November 27 2006, 02:08:20 UTC

He took a moment to swallow back the irritation, to manage the prickles of hurt shooting through his shoulders, down his arms. Just sat at the table, alone, and ran it down one more time.

Booth was frantic, out of his mind. Bound and gagged and flayed open by the fear.

Jack just happened to be there.

It could have been anyone else. Might have been his ex, or his present, or Agent Cutie or the waitress.

And the looks, the glances, the vibe he caught that made him believe was a projection of his own loneliness and despair, and he had no right to project it on Seeley -- or to blame him when the new day dawned and the entire incident was passed off as just that -- the incident.

He was goddamned if he'd turn it into the elephant in the room.

Stamnding, Jack breathed deep, hard. Months of feeling the heat between them, of sensing that there might, that there could, that if the light was right and the moon was at the right spot in the sky there could ... dissolved in JD-soaked panic that had nothing to do with...

He couldn't even ( ... )

former_ranger November 27 2006, 02:24:45 UTC

It would have been easy to say yes. It would have been simple to toss Jack the keys and move over to the passenger door. It probably would have made more sense to give in to the smile and the nod and the outstretched hand and get to his bed quicker. Get a door and a hallway away from this man. Get another night's sleep separating them.

Easy.

And so very not Seeley Booth.

"I'll drive."

Seeley kept the keys in his hand and unlocked the car. He turned back and smiled at Jack's expression. He reached up and rubbed his thumb over Hodgin's bottom lip, his own teeth biting into the soft blush of his own mouth.

"I like it too much when you tell me where to go."

j_hodgins November 27 2006, 02:37:19 UTC

Tasering would have come as less of a shock.

Booth's thumb was hot and hard, pressing into his teeth. Posessive.

Something in the far reaches of Jack's consciousness snapped, jolting him into the new and startling reality, tipping him upside down in his skin.

Without thinking, Jack slapped Booth's hand away and rolled his eyes. Turning, he dug his heels into the asphalt and strode to the passenger side of the SUV, ignoring whatever better nature had helped him keep his mouth shut for the entire day.

"That's just fucking great. Fanfuckingtastic. Bad enough to be falling for a goddamn fed." he muttered. "Take a left out of the lot," he instructed, beting himself in to the passenger side and slamming the door just a little too hard. "Then take your second right."

former_ranger November 27 2006, 02:44:40 UTC

Seeley got into the SUV. He turned the key and started the engine. He rolled down his window and followed Jack's directions. The cold air did nothing to cool him off. The town passed by in a blur and they were out in the true dark before Booth was ready for it.

The car crept along a two lane path, bushes on either side and the sound of the surf hitting rocks under the soft purr of the engine. Seeley's eyes had adjusted to the dim light and he glanced over, his eyes caressing the outline of the man that sat in the seat beside him. As far away as he possibly could get. A continent. A world. A lifetime.

"Who was the first man you ever kissed?"

j_hodgins November 27 2006, 02:58:19 UTC

"Billy. Billy Quintilani."

Jack kept his eyes on the road, didn't look at Seeley. He had know way to know that his question was uncovering a puzzle piece to Lucille's life, had no way to understand that he'd intuitively found the first wedge driven between them, so many years before. And that the memory hurt, still. Especially.

"We were classmates at CalTech. Sophmore botany. He kissed me in a hangar in Pasadena where we were working on a float for the Tournament of Roses. Tall. Italian. Cute. We dated for that winter."

The words spilled out before he could hold them back, soft and hot in the chill of the cab, leaving wide clouds of breath on the windshield.

"Lucille didn't approve. She thought I should have stayed on the right side of the fence, she said. It hurt her. Take your next left."

Jack turned his face to Booth and returned the question with scientific dispassion, struggling to control the flood of memory and the flood of anguished feeling actually having the conversation had sparked.

"What about you?"

former_ranger November 27 2006, 03:12:15 UTC

The SUV crawled along the dirt path and Seeley wished that he still smoked. His fingers curled as if he was still holding a cigarette, they brushed his lips as if he was holding the filter up to his mouth. He inhaled and exhaled as if he was still grabbing for that nicotine rush.

He glanced out the open window and marveled at the stars that shown above them. A carpet of light.

"In the army. Scott. We'd just taken out a key. After all day on a dune in the sun and the fucker didn't present until the last light of day and I shot him down before he even saw the sunset."

A curve in the road and Booth followed it, turning the wheel in his hand and staring at the twin paths as if they held the secret of life. Fifteen miles an hour. Slower.

"A hug. It was nothing. Everyone hugged, but then he kissed me. Right fucking there in the last light of day. He fucking kissed me and I kissed him back and I wanted more. I realized I'd always wanted more ( ... )

j_hodgins November 27 2006, 15:10:50 UTC

Jack’s camped in the Mojave and knows that relatively luxurious experience bears no resemblance to where Booth has been. But he knows how easily skin blisters and peels there, how it dries to the texture of the sand and eventually splits and weeps; blood at first, then something akin to tears ( ... )

former_ranger November 29 2006, 00:35:30 UTC

"Sounds like Lucille and I have more in common than I thought."

Seeley slid out of the driver's seat, pocketed the keys and stared up into the black outline of the house that towered over them. He could hear surf pounding in the background, the call of crickets just emerging from their winter hibernation or whatever the fuck bugs did when it was below freezing.

Booth opened another car door and pulled out his bag and jacket. When the door shut, it was quiet. Silent. And Seeley walked around the SUV to join Jack and wait for the other man to move.

"Does anyone sleep here? Any of the help?"

j_hodgins November 29 2006, 00:48:22 UTC

"I told you, man. Lucille would have dug you. You'd make her laugh," he said, smiling. Jack knew it was true: after a maddening game of good cop/bad cop she would have deemed him worthy of her company and let him in. "You help. That's how she measured people ( ... )

former_ranger November 29 2006, 01:02:27 UTC

"Now I help."

Seeley followed Jack through the dark. His shoulders rolled under his shirt and he felt the vibration of his cell phone through the thin cotton of a front jean pocket.

He pulled it out, checked the number and flipped it open.

"Hey Bones."

Booth glanced over and caught the bright moonlight as it crossed over Jack's face. The pale white made the blue appear silver. It made shadows of Jack's cheeks and temples and Seeley knew the dark at the hollow of his throat would be moist and warm and taste like clouds.

"Yeah." Booth talked into the phone, but kept his eyes on Jack.

"I'm on vacation. Relaxing. No work, I promise. Somewhere out on the coast, just checking in now. Might do some fishing in the surf tomorrow, who knows?"

Seeley's smile widened and he nodded as if Temperance was there, in front of him.

"Good night to you, Bones. Talk to you later."

Booth snapped his phone shut.

"Going to open the door, Hodgins? Let me in?"

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