Voices Carry
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... )
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... )
Setting his boots on the mat, Jack tried not to imagine how warm Seeley would feel first thing in the morning, how it would feel to wake up nestled like two spoons in a drawer; to be pinned beneath the weight of Booth's knee thrown over his thigh, heavy and hot as he slept. What his skin would smell like first thing in the morning, and how his first kiss would taste, what he'd say. . .
"Couldn't sleep," he admitted, looking away. "And I'm so fucking tired, man." The admission fell from hs lips before he could reel it back in because it was true. After walking the beach until dawn he could feel the low frequency trembling in his limbs, an indicator of exhaustion that was fast becoming second nature -- and he was sure Booth could see it written all over him.
The sun-streaked wood beneath his feet was warm and comforting. Holding on to the doorframe he shucked his socks off and tossed them atop his boots, shrugged out of the hoodie and sweatshirt and let them drop. The thin hospital scrubs he wore were chilled and sticky with sea spray, but at least his tee shirt was dry.
With leaden feet he crossed the mudroom floor and tipped his head in the direction of the kitchen.
"Coffee pot's in here," he said quietly. "C'mon, I'll show you how to make it."
The kitchen was wide and bright, large windows offering a panoramic view of the sun rising over the shining silver ocean, and of the seagulls circling and crying overhead. Jack opened a cabinet under one of the sinks and pulled out an ancient electric Faberware percolator.
The heady, pungent, thoroughly comforting scent of rising sweet dough made Jack's mouth water suddenly. Closing his eyes, he breathed it in, savoring faint traces of moss and yeast and musk, trying to place the sense memory.
It was nothing he'd ever known, but at the same time was so familiar, so present, so real...
Something solid and warm brushed Jack's upper arm. He opened his eyes to find Booth standing shoulder to shoulder with him, waiting for his lesson on how to make a pot of coffee.
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Seeley grunted. He watched Jack pull an old percolator out of a drawer and laughed out loud.
"I thought you were going to show me something state of the art. Something that even the other squints haven't seen yet."
Booth leaned against the immaculate countertop, looking down at Jack and once again he found himself swimming in the depth of those blue eyes. Darker with exhaustion, bruised shadows underneath. Lips that needed the moisture of a kiss, wind-chilled skin that Seeley ached to touch.
He settled for the brush and rush of standing too close, leaning in too near. Seeley's head dipped down, his fingers curled around the marble edge behind him. His chest tight and bare and every breath seemed to come at a cost that burnt through his lungs to his spine.
"I'm still waiting for you to show me something I've never seen before."
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Resisting the urge to follow the nudge with a kick to the ankle -- a weird little game he plays with Zack when they're up all night and stupidly tired, he pulled out a vacuum sealed coffee from the sub-zero. With basic instructions on the bean to water ratio mumbled quickly, he told Booth to take matters into his own hands and do the rest.
Jack left Seeley to his task and shambled into the wide hallway that spilled into the long, bright sunroom.
With a flick of his wrist he unsheathed an old overstuffed couch that was better suited for an actual cottage than for vastness of the room. A second sheet lifted and tossed revealed an ottoman nearly as big as the faded denim sofa.
The sheets landed in a corner; Jack stumbled as he pulled an old square trunk out of the corner and set it next to the couch.
He dropped into the relic from the 60s with a sigh that, had he not been so worn out, would have approached contentment. Leaning back into the cushions he stretched his legs out on the footstool.
"Yo, Seel. You've got 12 minutes once you plug it in," he called, rubbing his eyes as he stretched out his lower back. "You want me to show you something you haven't seen yet?"
He chuckled, punchy.
"Give me five and you'll see me sleeping. That'll be a thrill."
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He found him sitting in a room that was filling with sun. Stretched out on a small couch, his feet up and his eyes closed.
"True enough. Watching you sleep is something I've never seen before."
Seeley entered the room and sat down on the couch beside Jack. Close enough that he could feel the warmth of the scientist's body, close enough that he could move his fingers and touch the side seam of Jack's pants. Close enough that the fact that Booth wore no shirt and his sweats were loose and his cock still half-hard and sensitive from his pre-dawn jerk off was probably apparent.
And at this very moment, Booth didn't care.
But he'd seen the trunk next to the couch. Not in a place that made any sense and if there was anything he'd noticed about this summer house that belonged to the Hodgin's family in the short time Seeley'd been here, it was that everything had a place. Everything was put and kept in it's place.
"What have you got, Hodge?"
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The sun was warmer than a blanket and drying the salt-crusted damp of the thin cotton scrubs quickly, seeping into the coldness of his legs. He let the heat draw him in, pull him into the bleary uncertainty of near sleep.
Booth said something. It was muzzy and quiet and he wasn't exactly sure of the question, so he let the tiredness take over.
"More n'Buffett. Less than Gates," he murmured, crossing his arms across his chest, and turning to lean into the sun, warm and solid and soothing. The pillow felt hard and smooth beneath his cheek, but it was sun-warm and comfortable -- and smelled like moss and bread dough and salt -- so he pushed in closer with a sigh and let the heat overwhelm him.
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Booth couldn't see the furniture under the sheets, but he assumed it was all like the pieces that Jack had uncovered. Perhaps a little weathered, maybe a scar here and there, but heavy and durable and lushly, comfortably upholstered. Every single piece.
His eyes moved over the pictures on the walls. Faces in photographs he couldn't make out and framed paintings that seemed to have been picked for the colors and the way they accented the sunlight rather than the content.
When Booth figured that more than twelve minutes had passed, he carefully slipped out from under Jack's head. He pushed the other man down, pulled his legs up on the couch and made sure Jack's head was on a pillow. One soft brush of his thumb over the warm skin just above Jack's beard, one curl of his fingers through Jack's hair and Seeley stood. He walked soundlessly back into the kitchen and poured himself a mug of coffee.
Then he set off to explore this summer house. Learn the hallways and look in the rooms and find more questions that might lead to some answers for the girl they'd found in the maze.
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The truth you hide...
Jack's skin prickled and rose in tight furrows of gooseflesh, dragging him out of a restless REM reality.
Nothing's ever goona be okay... have you ever ... will you...
With his breath coming short and hard he bounced up from the couch as if yanked by an unseen hand. Heart hammering in his throat, he squinted and tried to gain focus; the sun had moved far west to the front of the house, leaving the sunroom shady and chilled. It looked to be about eleven, and Booth was nowhere to be seen.
Coffee. He was making coffee and I was, what? he thought. Fuck, how could I lose five hours?
Fully awake and thrust into the frantic speed of the oversleeper, Jack took the back stairs two at a time to get back to his room. His skin was tight with salt and he felt like shit, but he passed on a shower and grabbed jeans and a sweater from his bag, clean socks and the extra pair of shitkickers he liked to wear at the lab and dressed as quickly as he could.
The maze.
"Fuck, not the maze," he swore aloud. "Goddamn."
With a fast look into Booth's room, Jack sprinted down the corridor, back down the stairs that led to the kitchen.
When he came to the landing, he paused and peered down the lower stairway to the servants' quarters. As quickly as it had overtaken him, the need to find Booth eased, transformed.
Carefully, quietly, Jack stepped down into the sublevel where the live-in staff slept and spent their off hours. Four tiny bedrooms, no bigger than cells, and a small, clean bathroom with an ancient tub and a pull chain toilet.
He hadn't been in Lucille's room in years, but he didn't have to give it any thought as he curled his fingers around the doorknob.
Sick sorrow juiced him like a hit of some rancid drug, turning his knees to jello and crushing his chest with the sudden rush of memory.
They'd never made love in her room, nor his.
He'd never sat on her bed or touched the clothing in her closet or the trinkets on her dresser.
She'd never allowed him in her room, but when she wasn't working Jack would steal down and open the door and just ... breathe.
Tears welled and he fought them, hard, useless as they were. As he pushed the door opened the room blurred in a wash of blue and white and he could do nothing but stand, rooted to the spot.
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When he felt he had a handle on the layout, he started again from the front door. As if he'd just come in. He moved quietly and efficiently. Skimming and scanning and cataloging. He found himself looking for Jack's face in too many photos, in too many relatives. His fingers stroked over the ivory keys of an old piano, touching one key just long enough to know that the salt air had made it hopelessly out of tune. He looked for the servant's passageways, knowing that a house this big and a family this prominent would have seperate pathways for the help. Just so they never came into accidental contact with the guests. With the family.
He wondered how terribly scandelous it would have been for Jack to have his friendship with Lucille exposed.
Even now. Today.
Booth heard the sound of footsteps in the house. First running, then slowing and he tracked the quiet noise to find Jack, awake. Standing in a doorway of a room that was smaller than the bathroom in Seeley's bedroom. Tears ran from Jack's eyes and Seeley realized that this had to have been Lucille's.
His hand moved to the back of Jack's neck and Booth looked over Jack's shoulder.
"When was the last time she lived here? Last summer? Fall? Is there anything left of hers in this room?"
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