Bones Fic: intermission
Bones fic? Bones fic. It’s been a long time, that’s for sure. But I’m excited to be writing again.
intermission
bones ; booth/brennan (booth/hannah) ; 2,500 words.
the more things stay the same; it’s really about what you want to hear. spoilers for the shallow in the deep.
-
The takeout menus in the kitchen are gone. Brennan stands over the drawer, confused. Her fingers brush over the drawer knob.
“I -” She blinks again. “Perhaps, I misplaced them.”
Behind her, Booth laughs. He takes a seat at her counter. One of the chairs scrapes against her floor.
“We can look them up online, Bones,” he says. When she frowns, he chuckles and shakes his head. “Seriously, not a big deal. And besides, you still get the tofu and I get the pork. Unless -”
“Tofu’s fine,” she says quickly.
Booth picks up the phone and she ignores him. She starts moving around the kitchen; silverware for him and there is a half-finished bottle of wine in her refrigerator. It’s been awhile since she’s bought beer, but she doesn’t think about, can’t think about it, and strays away from the kind of connections in her head that make her stomach start to churn with knots.
It is the first time since both of them have been back since they’ve had a dinner at her place. The last couple of times it’s been the two of them and the others, or the two of them and Hannah; she hasn’t minded, or she tells herself that she doesn’t mind. It is a startlingly slow process trying to let go of those small, strange habits.
“You okay?” Booth asks. He puts his phone down, but still glances at it a little too long. Hannah is off on another assignment and won’t be around tonight. It was actually the other woman who suggested that she and Booth have dinner.
“Fine,” she says. She hesitates. “As unremarkable as it sounds,” she tells him, “I am having a hard time reorienting myself with my apartment. There are … there are the little things.”
“Little things?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She says it quickly and tries to hide it. Booth seems to let it go too. He’s right though, she thinks. They are mostly creatures of habits, and that is something she knows to well. In her head, she can put together sensible moments about people’s habits and how humanity hasn’t changed in centuries with likes, wants, and needs.
When Booth looks at her, she forgets where she can go with it. He smiles too and she tries not to look away.
“You never did tell me about your trip.”
“I did,” she says, confused. He is watching her still.
“No,” he says. “I mean, you told me it was good. Heard from what you told Angela and Hannah and a little from Sweets and … Daisy -”
She blinks. “Daisy?”
He smirks. “Well, mostly from Sweets.”
“I thought I told you everything. There really wasn’t much to tell, or is much to tell. It was successful. We managed and maintained an extensive study. I did not think that you’d be interested in what happened over there.”
“You’re interested,” he says quietly, and she pauses, studying him. She waits for that flutter, the strange feeling that sits and twists in her chest. It’s different too because he’s looking right at her, maybe looking too long and too hard; she never knows how to measure the proper distance, what’s too close and what’s just right. There is never enough time.
“It’s -” she forces herself to smile. Her mouth is tight and awkward. “It’s over,” she manages, “and just as I expected - remarkable.”
“Would you have stayed longer?”
Her surprise is open. She turns and moves to her refrigerator, just so that he doesn’t have to look at her or she doesn’t have to look at him. It’s not straight in her head anymore.
“I don’t know,” she says first. “I don’t think so,” she says again. The second response feels safe. “I think it was time properly spent. It was what I needed.”
“That’s good,” he says.
When she turns, she has the bottle of wine in her hand. Brennan studies him. She almost asks: is it? He’s careful, she catches too, maybe too careful. She doesn’t understand.
“Is everything all right?” she asks instead.
He shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks, and it’s forced, that much she knows. She can pick and place the different tones in his voice. When he looks away too, his voice is softer. She catches the wrinkles in his mouth, the slow warmth that is surfacing more and more. This isn’t a smile, but it’s still there, a ghost or better yet, a permanent afterthought. It’s not for her and this isn’t about them; she can guess that much. She wonders if she should be angry.
Moving to the counter, she picks a glass off the wine rack. She doesn’t offer any to Booth. Beer, she reminds herself. It’s beer. This could have changed, she thinks too. But Hannah is more of a beer girl and this about symmetry and matches.
She feels too like he’s trying to catch her. This isn’t the place, she wants to say, and it’s confusing her too.
“You don’t have to be here,” she says.
“Takeout’s coming.”
She sighs. “I’m fine, Booth.”
“I just figured - ” he pauses, as if he were trying to pick his words carefully. “I know Sweets is more open with his time in the foster system and I know it’s harder for you to talk about. I know how you get. I just wanted to know if you were okay.”
Her eyes widen. She’s caught completely off-guard and feels unsure of herself all of the sudden.
“I am perfectly capable of handling myself.”
He sighs.
“That’s not what I mean, Bones.”
They haven’t talked about this in a long time, in a really long time; there are conversations on the mall that pop into her head, or random and utterly unprepared sharing the cab, a beer and a coffee at the dinner. She moves to sit next to him instead. There’s a chair next to Booth’s at the counter, but Brennan picks the one at the end.
She stretches her legs over the chair. The wine glass sits next to her untouched. Booth sighs loudly.
“We haven’t talked in awhile,” he murmurs.
“We always talk,” she half-lies. It feels too quick and she looks away, studying the wine glass. She isn’t in the mood, she thinks. There are certain things that she’s losing taste for.
“Not like we used to.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He leans forward, bent over the chair as he reaches forward. His fingers curl around her wine glass and he pulls it back, drinking half of it before putting the glass down onto the counter hard. It clicks and she jumps, just slightly, turning as if she heard someone at the door.
Her cheeks flush. Booth’s chair makes a clicking sound. He’s shifting his weight against it, she thinks.
“I know,” he says, and it’s odd, she thinks, that he would say it that way. When she looks back at him, he’s rubbing his eyes. “We’re in a weird place,” he admits.
“Weird - place?”
“We’re catching up with each other,” he tries again.
They make equal sense. But Brennan bites her tongue; her hand curls around her wine glass and she finishes it off.
“It’s been months,” she murmurs.
“A year,” he corrects.
There is weight to the phrase. A year; there were no letters, no attempts to contact each other, and that weighed heavily on her side. She wanted to be selfish and that made more sense to her at the time. She needed to disconnect, to completely disconnect and be perfectly selfish for just that period of the time. It doesn’t mean she didn’t think about him either.
“I thought we were discussing your concern about my participation in the foster system,” she says. She swallows too.
He nods and she steels herself for the push. Booth leans forward and seems to reach again; it’s not for, she realizes, as his hand falls short and hits the top of the counter.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“No.”
He looks at her in surprise. Her gaze becomes steady.
“It is harder for most adults to discuss certain points and passages of their lives. Childhood, for me, is still one of those periods of my life that I cannot discuss with any sense of safety.”
He scoffs. “What does that even mean, Bones?”
She doesn’t answer just yet, looking off to the side and at the clock. There is a part of her that’s tempted to move this conversation, away from the kitchen and into the living room, too close to the door and the odd comfort of an early night. But then there’s the question, the question of the things that she was willing to tell him before all of this, before she made the decision that she needed to leave and before he decided to follow in kind.
“Bones,” Booth repeats, and his fingers brush over her hand. They hover softly. She meets his gaze and lets out a sigh. “I didn’t mean to sound like - ”
His phone rings. She looks away. “I am not ready to.”
Hannah comes midway through dinner. There are two cartons of Chinese already finished as she digs through the last of Booth’s. Both Brennan and Booth watch her too, Booth with his half-smile of contentment and Brennan holding herself carefully.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Hannah says to her. She’s apologetic and Brennan lets a shy smile slip. “I was in the area and Seeley said that I should stop by to see your awesome place.”
Brennan looks up at Booth. He looks away. “He did,” she says curiously. It’s supposed to be a question, but Brennan suddenly feels anxious and exposed. She doesn’t like the feeling.
Hannah touches her arm though, smiling. “I told him that I’d rather do drinks first. I feel like I’m infringing anyway.”
“You are - not,” Brennan finishes carefully.
“See?” Booth says too.
There is this strange third wheel feeling, and between the two of them, Brennan doesn’t really understand how to fit herself. She doesn’t know Hannah, she’s learning Hannah; and somehow, in the middle of this, she is starting to feel like she’s forgotten Booth.
Both women watch Booth as he stands and leaves him. He carries the rest of the food, saying something about cleaning up for her. When he disappears, Brennan meets Hannah’s gaze.
“Is everything okay?” Hannah asks.
Booth is loud in the kitchen and they can hear him. The sound of silverware hits the sink and her refrigerator opens with a pop; it should be amusing, how awkward he moves around her place now.
“Why?” Brennan manages. She lowers her voice midway. “Did Booth tell you that things were difficult?”
Hannah laughs softly.
“You look tired, Temperance.”
It is one of those moments that Brennan is supposed to get, that she does get but chooses not to; it’s in the spirit of being personal with people and the only one that has ever gotten that side of her implicitly is Angela. Booth was close, she remembers. Now, she doesn’t know how to start again.
But Hannah is genuine too and Brennan can appreciate that. It’s effort and it makes her nervous and cautious. The other woman is important to Booth and she gets it, but she much more comfortable in the things that she knows: bones, the pages of her book, and the new files that keep coming to the lab.
“I -” she tries not to show her hesitation. “We are trying to do - to catch up. We have not had a lot of time where we’ve talked or discussed our years away.”
The answer is diplomatic. Hannah seems to get that too. Brennan feels awkward as the woman smiles brightly. Behind her, she hears Booth walk back into her room. They are about interruptions, she decides.
“We should go,” Booth says.
“Of course,” Brennan tells them. She stands and politely moves to her door, slowly gathering Booth’s jacket for him. Hannah has kept hers on and when she gets to the door too, Brennan hands it to her instead of Booth. This is the right thing.
“Thanks for letting me crash,” Hannah tells her.
There are polite exchanges here. Booth returns to them too quickly, as if he were listening to the conversation. Everything feels disjointed; they’ve talked about everything and nothing at the same time, and this isn’t the first time either, it’s been like this ever since the two of them have started to really come back to each other.
Brennan lets them out of her apartment quietly though. She folds herself into her door and smiles briefly as Booth passes, sharing a small smile.
It feels unnecessary as she closes the door. “This isn’t it,” she says out loud.
In the morning, there is an email from her publisher open on her computer. Brennan stares hard at the screen. Now back, there are anxieties about new dates and new materials. She doesn’t really know where or how to begin.
She hears Cam’s voice as it passes her office. She looks up to watch and catches Booth just as he settles against her door.
“Hey,” he says.
“Is there a case?” she asks. The corners of his mouth turn and she feels confused, waiting. “Booth?” she asks again.
He moves into her office and then by her couch. He hovers and seems both awkward and nervous. She watches carefully.
“No,” Booth says. “I thought - ” He stops and fidgets. “Let’s have breakfast,” he suggests. “Figured it was quiet around here and judging the expression on your face, you could use breakfast.”
“There is something wrong with my face?”
He chuckles and she hides a smile. She says it for him, but hides it well. Booth has already picked up her jacket from the couch and she quickly wonders if this is a good idea.
“Breakfast, Bones,” Booth says. He walks to the door and slowly she stands and brushes her hands over her hips. She hears her computer beep with an alert and thinks she should really stay, focus, and get back to where she should be this way, the way that she’s always known how and the way that’s never failed her.
But she looks up at him too, just as his gaze softens in a way that she hasn’t seem him look at her in a really long time. She’s startled and uncomfortable, surprised that he can still look at her this way and doesn’t really know what else to do with it. It feels new and then the same. Her teeth brush over her lip and she shakes her head. This is what she wanted, she thinks. Familiarity. Even this has changed too.
She will never say this to him. “Breakfast,” she manages to agree. Brennan believes in practice. “It sounds nice,” she adds.
At the door, he hands her jacket over. Their fingers barely touch.
intermission
bones ; booth/brennan (booth/hannah) ; 2,500 words.
the more things stay the same; it’s really about what you want to hear. spoilers for the shallow in the deep.
-
The takeout menus in the kitchen are gone. Brennan stands over the drawer, confused. Her fingers brush over the drawer knob.
“I -” She blinks again. “Perhaps, I misplaced them.”
Behind her, Booth laughs. He takes a seat at her counter. One of the chairs scrapes against her floor.
“We can look them up online, Bones,” he says. When she frowns, he chuckles and shakes his head. “Seriously, not a big deal. And besides, you still get the tofu and I get the pork. Unless -”
“Tofu’s fine,” she says quickly.
Booth picks up the phone and she ignores him. She starts moving around the kitchen; silverware for him and there is a half-finished bottle of wine in her refrigerator. It’s been awhile since she’s bought beer, but she doesn’t think about, can’t think about it, and strays away from the kind of connections in her head that make her stomach start to churn with knots.
It is the first time since both of them have been back since they’ve had a dinner at her place. The last couple of times it’s been the two of them and the others, or the two of them and Hannah; she hasn’t minded, or she tells herself that she doesn’t mind. It is a startlingly slow process trying to let go of those small, strange habits.
“You okay?” Booth asks. He puts his phone down, but still glances at it a little too long. Hannah is off on another assignment and won’t be around tonight. It was actually the other woman who suggested that she and Booth have dinner.
“Fine,” she says. She hesitates. “As unremarkable as it sounds,” she tells him, “I am having a hard time reorienting myself with my apartment. There are … there are the little things.”
“Little things?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
She says it quickly and tries to hide it. Booth seems to let it go too. He’s right though, she thinks. They are mostly creatures of habits, and that is something she knows to well. In her head, she can put together sensible moments about people’s habits and how humanity hasn’t changed in centuries with likes, wants, and needs.
When Booth looks at her, she forgets where she can go with it. He smiles too and she tries not to look away.
“You never did tell me about your trip.”
“I did,” she says, confused. He is watching her still.
“No,” he says. “I mean, you told me it was good. Heard from what you told Angela and Hannah and a little from Sweets and … Daisy -”
She blinks. “Daisy?”
He smirks. “Well, mostly from Sweets.”
“I thought I told you everything. There really wasn’t much to tell, or is much to tell. It was successful. We managed and maintained an extensive study. I did not think that you’d be interested in what happened over there.”
“You’re interested,” he says quietly, and she pauses, studying him. She waits for that flutter, the strange feeling that sits and twists in her chest. It’s different too because he’s looking right at her, maybe looking too long and too hard; she never knows how to measure the proper distance, what’s too close and what’s just right. There is never enough time.
“It’s -” she forces herself to smile. Her mouth is tight and awkward. “It’s over,” she manages, “and just as I expected - remarkable.”
“Would you have stayed longer?”
Her surprise is open. She turns and moves to her refrigerator, just so that he doesn’t have to look at her or she doesn’t have to look at him. It’s not straight in her head anymore.
“I don’t know,” she says first. “I don’t think so,” she says again. The second response feels safe. “I think it was time properly spent. It was what I needed.”
“That’s good,” he says.
When she turns, she has the bottle of wine in her hand. Brennan studies him. She almost asks: is it? He’s careful, she catches too, maybe too careful. She doesn’t understand.
“Is everything all right?” she asks instead.
He shakes his head. “Why wouldn’t I be?” he asks, and it’s forced, that much she knows. She can pick and place the different tones in his voice. When he looks away too, his voice is softer. She catches the wrinkles in his mouth, the slow warmth that is surfacing more and more. This isn’t a smile, but it’s still there, a ghost or better yet, a permanent afterthought. It’s not for her and this isn’t about them; she can guess that much. She wonders if she should be angry.
Moving to the counter, she picks a glass off the wine rack. She doesn’t offer any to Booth. Beer, she reminds herself. It’s beer. This could have changed, she thinks too. But Hannah is more of a beer girl and this about symmetry and matches.
She feels too like he’s trying to catch her. This isn’t the place, she wants to say, and it’s confusing her too.
“You don’t have to be here,” she says.
“Takeout’s coming.”
She sighs. “I’m fine, Booth.”
“I just figured - ” he pauses, as if he were trying to pick his words carefully. “I know Sweets is more open with his time in the foster system and I know it’s harder for you to talk about. I know how you get. I just wanted to know if you were okay.”
Her eyes widen. She’s caught completely off-guard and feels unsure of herself all of the sudden.
“I am perfectly capable of handling myself.”
He sighs.
“That’s not what I mean, Bones.”
They haven’t talked about this in a long time, in a really long time; there are conversations on the mall that pop into her head, or random and utterly unprepared sharing the cab, a beer and a coffee at the dinner. She moves to sit next to him instead. There’s a chair next to Booth’s at the counter, but Brennan picks the one at the end.
She stretches her legs over the chair. The wine glass sits next to her untouched. Booth sighs loudly.
“We haven’t talked in awhile,” he murmurs.
“We always talk,” she half-lies. It feels too quick and she looks away, studying the wine glass. She isn’t in the mood, she thinks. There are certain things that she’s losing taste for.
“Not like we used to.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
He leans forward, bent over the chair as he reaches forward. His fingers curl around her wine glass and he pulls it back, drinking half of it before putting the glass down onto the counter hard. It clicks and she jumps, just slightly, turning as if she heard someone at the door.
Her cheeks flush. Booth’s chair makes a clicking sound. He’s shifting his weight against it, she thinks.
“I know,” he says, and it’s odd, she thinks, that he would say it that way. When she looks back at him, he’s rubbing his eyes. “We’re in a weird place,” he admits.
“Weird - place?”
“We’re catching up with each other,” he tries again.
They make equal sense. But Brennan bites her tongue; her hand curls around her wine glass and she finishes it off.
“It’s been months,” she murmurs.
“A year,” he corrects.
There is weight to the phrase. A year; there were no letters, no attempts to contact each other, and that weighed heavily on her side. She wanted to be selfish and that made more sense to her at the time. She needed to disconnect, to completely disconnect and be perfectly selfish for just that period of the time. It doesn’t mean she didn’t think about him either.
“I thought we were discussing your concern about my participation in the foster system,” she says. She swallows too.
He nods and she steels herself for the push. Booth leans forward and seems to reach again; it’s not for, she realizes, as his hand falls short and hits the top of the counter.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asks.
“No.”
He looks at her in surprise. Her gaze becomes steady.
“It is harder for most adults to discuss certain points and passages of their lives. Childhood, for me, is still one of those periods of my life that I cannot discuss with any sense of safety.”
He scoffs. “What does that even mean, Bones?”
She doesn’t answer just yet, looking off to the side and at the clock. There is a part of her that’s tempted to move this conversation, away from the kitchen and into the living room, too close to the door and the odd comfort of an early night. But then there’s the question, the question of the things that she was willing to tell him before all of this, before she made the decision that she needed to leave and before he decided to follow in kind.
“Bones,” Booth repeats, and his fingers brush over her hand. They hover softly. She meets his gaze and lets out a sigh. “I didn’t mean to sound like - ”
His phone rings. She looks away. “I am not ready to.”
Hannah comes midway through dinner. There are two cartons of Chinese already finished as she digs through the last of Booth’s. Both Brennan and Booth watch her too, Booth with his half-smile of contentment and Brennan holding herself carefully.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Hannah says to her. She’s apologetic and Brennan lets a shy smile slip. “I was in the area and Seeley said that I should stop by to see your awesome place.”
Brennan looks up at Booth. He looks away. “He did,” she says curiously. It’s supposed to be a question, but Brennan suddenly feels anxious and exposed. She doesn’t like the feeling.
Hannah touches her arm though, smiling. “I told him that I’d rather do drinks first. I feel like I’m infringing anyway.”
“You are - not,” Brennan finishes carefully.
“See?” Booth says too.
There is this strange third wheel feeling, and between the two of them, Brennan doesn’t really understand how to fit herself. She doesn’t know Hannah, she’s learning Hannah; and somehow, in the middle of this, she is starting to feel like she’s forgotten Booth.
Both women watch Booth as he stands and leaves him. He carries the rest of the food, saying something about cleaning up for her. When he disappears, Brennan meets Hannah’s gaze.
“Is everything okay?” Hannah asks.
Booth is loud in the kitchen and they can hear him. The sound of silverware hits the sink and her refrigerator opens with a pop; it should be amusing, how awkward he moves around her place now.
“Why?” Brennan manages. She lowers her voice midway. “Did Booth tell you that things were difficult?”
Hannah laughs softly.
“You look tired, Temperance.”
It is one of those moments that Brennan is supposed to get, that she does get but chooses not to; it’s in the spirit of being personal with people and the only one that has ever gotten that side of her implicitly is Angela. Booth was close, she remembers. Now, she doesn’t know how to start again.
But Hannah is genuine too and Brennan can appreciate that. It’s effort and it makes her nervous and cautious. The other woman is important to Booth and she gets it, but she much more comfortable in the things that she knows: bones, the pages of her book, and the new files that keep coming to the lab.
“I -” she tries not to show her hesitation. “We are trying to do - to catch up. We have not had a lot of time where we’ve talked or discussed our years away.”
The answer is diplomatic. Hannah seems to get that too. Brennan feels awkward as the woman smiles brightly. Behind her, she hears Booth walk back into her room. They are about interruptions, she decides.
“We should go,” Booth says.
“Of course,” Brennan tells them. She stands and politely moves to her door, slowly gathering Booth’s jacket for him. Hannah has kept hers on and when she gets to the door too, Brennan hands it to her instead of Booth. This is the right thing.
“Thanks for letting me crash,” Hannah tells her.
There are polite exchanges here. Booth returns to them too quickly, as if he were listening to the conversation. Everything feels disjointed; they’ve talked about everything and nothing at the same time, and this isn’t the first time either, it’s been like this ever since the two of them have started to really come back to each other.
Brennan lets them out of her apartment quietly though. She folds herself into her door and smiles briefly as Booth passes, sharing a small smile.
It feels unnecessary as she closes the door. “This isn’t it,” she says out loud.
In the morning, there is an email from her publisher open on her computer. Brennan stares hard at the screen. Now back, there are anxieties about new dates and new materials. She doesn’t really know where or how to begin.
She hears Cam’s voice as it passes her office. She looks up to watch and catches Booth just as he settles against her door.
“Hey,” he says.
“Is there a case?” she asks. The corners of his mouth turn and she feels confused, waiting. “Booth?” she asks again.
He moves into her office and then by her couch. He hovers and seems both awkward and nervous. She watches carefully.
“No,” Booth says. “I thought - ” He stops and fidgets. “Let’s have breakfast,” he suggests. “Figured it was quiet around here and judging the expression on your face, you could use breakfast.”
“There is something wrong with my face?”
He chuckles and she hides a smile. She says it for him, but hides it well. Booth has already picked up her jacket from the couch and she quickly wonders if this is a good idea.
“Breakfast, Bones,” Booth says. He walks to the door and slowly she stands and brushes her hands over her hips. She hears her computer beep with an alert and thinks she should really stay, focus, and get back to where she should be this way, the way that she’s always known how and the way that’s never failed her.
But she looks up at him too, just as his gaze softens in a way that she hasn’t seem him look at her in a really long time. She’s startled and uncomfortable, surprised that he can still look at her this way and doesn’t really know what else to do with it. It feels new and then the same. Her teeth brush over her lip and she shakes her head. This is what she wanted, she thinks. Familiarity. Even this has changed too.
She will never say this to him. “Breakfast,” she manages to agree. Brennan believes in practice. “It sounds nice,” she adds.
At the door, he hands her jacket over. Their fingers barely touch.