To Raise Perhaps, Many Flowers (5/?)
Title: To Raise, Perhaps, Many Flowers
Part: 5
Fandom: Bones
P/C: Angela/Zack, Booth, Hodgins, mentions Brennan
Rating: NC17
Summary: Zack noticed that things were going better.
Warnings/Notes:
Language, adult subject matter and triggering images throughout. Slightly prolific/pretentious in this chapter.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
“Love is shown in your deeds, not in your words."
-Fr. Jerome Cummings
The most prolific exchanges in life are wordless. We find ourselves confronted with the faces of others, unable to match the ferocity with which you hear them.
Language is a prison.
Angela stared him in the face, tears in her eyes, her teeth bared at him.
“How could you do this to me?”
***
48 hours earlier
Zack noticed that things were going better.
Angela told him about the phone call and how, when she’d finally made it, it had been nothing like she’d imagined. She told him about the therapy sessions that she’d been to, the advice she’d been given and the other rape survivors she had met at the Center.
Zack nodded the whole time, not mentioning his shared belief with Dr. Brennan that Psychology was pure guess work and nothing even remotely resembling science.
Things at the lab were going more and more smoothly. Dr. Brennan’s suspicions about both Angela and Zack’s strange behavior the last two months had be quelled by Booth, who, Zack hoped, was still looking for whoever had hurt Angela.
Even though she was getting better, Zack still spent close to every night at Angela’s. He didn’t really think of it as at Angela’s so much as with Angela. They had even started spending the weekends together, going out when Angela felt like she could and staying in, watching movies, cooking, playing old board games like kids or just reading.
Occasionally Angela would read passages aloud to him. He would remember later that she was reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. He couldn’t remember the passage in and of itself but could remember simultaneously loving and hating it. He wanted to ask her why she was reading a book about death, about grief. It didn’t make sense to him that she would immerse herself this way.
But he never asked.
***
They were sitting next to each other on the couch like it’s any other night.
Angela was reading The Bell Jar for what felt like the first time, even though she’s read it twice before. On both occasions she cried. This time though, she sat stoically dry eyed. She glanced at Zack out of the corner of her eye. He was reading, off all things, The Dark Phoenix Saga, something she viewed as totally apt and completely bizarre at the same time. Things had been going better at the clinic for her. Her counselor, Rayanne, tells her that with every day and every breath that she can allow herself to be brave, to live, to read, to paint, to have sex, to be a friend, to fall in love. Angela loves her, despite the slightly cheesy sentiment. She has always believed that the clichéd and cheesy are around for a reason: they are the truth.
She was reading the last chapter of The Bell Jar when the Pheonix catches her eye. Again, an overripe, clichéd metaphor if ever there was one, but she can remember when her mother called her a firecracker and how she always used to feel like she was on fire: heat and light and flow. She looked down at the page in front of her:
I am, I am, I am.
Zack turned to her. “I think I am finally understanding the feministic symbolism in Jean Grey that you mentioned to me earlier.” She looked at him for a moment. “Angela?” She quickly put her hands on either side of his neck and pulled him toward her. She kissed him, roughly, sharply, their teeth meeting behind their lips. She will later akin it to a crash, but it doesn’t matter.
Angela hasn’t kissed someone for almost three months. She didn’t know if it was completely stupid, but she wanted to believe that she’s better so badly, that she would do this, push away her life preserver, her only friend, just to feel like everything is back to normal.
She took a breath and pulled away.
She took her hands away from Zack’s face.
He opened his mouth.
“Are you alright?”
She opened her mouth not sure of what she would say next. Her only real instinct at the moment is to ask Zack to kiss her again. The first time felt too fast, she didn’t know how to feel or act. But Zack was staring at her, his eyes wide and sort of flushed. He looked totally perplexed by this new information.
She kissed him again, this time a little less sloppily, trying to feel like herself again.
“Not yet.”
***
Zack spent the next four days in a haze of lust, confusion and rudimentary algebra. Algebra was always comforting to him, ever since he’d learned it at the tender age of nine.
(2r-xy = xy2)
He had no idea how to approach Angela anymore. Everything he came with sounded either contrived or utterly inappropriate. He didn’t understand why she had kissed him; it had probably (21.78%) nothing to do with sexual attraction. So why then? Previously, he would have said Angela had probably (68.3%) only done it to try it, to have an experience. But everything had changed now.
(3(x/2) + y2=8)
He had read a few textbooks about Psychology in lieu of Angela’s…(condition? accident? 8x-r3=r+x?) and had read several accounts of victims being using their sexuality to take control of their bodies again. This didn’t make a lot of sense to him, but he did understand the element of choice involved. He did dwell on the thought (well, not dwell so much as brood) that Angela had just used him because he was there.
(2x+y=-6)
(4x+2y=8)
He had returned to Hodgins’ garage with his Firefly boxset (she loved Jayne, he loved Zoë) and his NetFlix subscription (they had watched Red Dawn and Casablanca). He took solace in the reveal of the Final Cylon, Captain Picard’s seemingly endless victories and tried to forget that Angela had ever kissed him.
(no solution)
***
Angela tried to adjust to the empty apartment, but it wasn’t the same anymore. It had seemed more crowded with Zack, like there was just enough room for both of them to breath, but more then enough still.
She would walk into the small kitchen and find that there was no one there, and that the blanket was still folded neatly on the couch, the pillow delicately resting on top. This sight made her chest ache. She was terrified that Zack would never come back.
She talked with her counselors and her group at the rape center (she was very proud about having graduated to group therapy, but had no one to tell now that Zack was…gone? At home?) Each of them had told her that reaching out in a bold physical manner could be scary for another person and for her. It was Grace, a fifteen-year-old girl in her group (high school prom, her friend’s date, the bathroom of a nice hotel in downtown DC) who suggested that she might be in love with Zack. “It’s hard not to fall in love with someone when they know everything about you.” She folded her arms across her chest after saying this, hunching her shoulders slightly, as if trying to hide the mumbled words between her breasts and her forearms.
Angela doesn’t want to think about being in love, especially after what had just happened. Her mother’s voice chimed through her head: Angie, you only ever fall in love when you least expect it. She had always thought her mother was so clichéd with her sayings and cigarettes and gossip. Maybe, though, that didn’t stop her from being right, at least just this once. It wasn’t hard for Angela to believe that she was falling in love with Zack, though for her it was nothing short of terrifying.
But she was still Angela Montenegro after all of this, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she starting to put all of this behind her?
***
“Angela kissed me.”
Zack fought the urge to turn and run away from Hodgins’ work station.
“What?” Hodgins looked up from the microscope. “Are you sure you want to talk about this now? And do you mean she just kissed you? As in, within the last week?” Hodgins looked deeply perplexed.
“Well…we were sitting on her couch…reading…and she kissed me. Twice.”
“So? So what?”
Zack sighed, exasperated. “So, why did she kiss me?”
Hodgins rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? She likes you! You practically live with her now!”
Booth walked up to them, unsmiling as usual. “Zack. Need a word.”
He pulled Zack over to one side of the forensic platform, near Dr. Brennan’s office. “I think I found the guy who hurt Angela.”
“You think you found him?”
“Yes. But I’d need to take her statement before I turn it over to the local police, which is what I’m going to have to do.”
Zack shook his head, adamantly. “She won’t do that. She doesn’t even know that I talked to you about this.”
“Talked to him about what?” They both turned to see Angela and Brennan walking out of Brennan’s office. “Zack?” Angela turned towards him, her face falling. “Did you…?”
Zack looked down at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Angela.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “How could you do this to me?”
Part: 5
Fandom: Bones
P/C: Angela/Zack, Booth, Hodgins, mentions Brennan
Rating: NC17
Summary: Zack noticed that things were going better.
Warnings/Notes:
Language, adult subject matter and triggering images throughout. Slightly prolific/pretentious in this chapter.
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4
“Love is shown in your deeds, not in your words."
-Fr. Jerome Cummings
The most prolific exchanges in life are wordless. We find ourselves confronted with the faces of others, unable to match the ferocity with which you hear them.
Language is a prison.
Angela stared him in the face, tears in her eyes, her teeth bared at him.
“How could you do this to me?”
***
48 hours earlier
Zack noticed that things were going better.
Angela told him about the phone call and how, when she’d finally made it, it had been nothing like she’d imagined. She told him about the therapy sessions that she’d been to, the advice she’d been given and the other rape survivors she had met at the Center.
Zack nodded the whole time, not mentioning his shared belief with Dr. Brennan that Psychology was pure guess work and nothing even remotely resembling science.
Things at the lab were going more and more smoothly. Dr. Brennan’s suspicions about both Angela and Zack’s strange behavior the last two months had be quelled by Booth, who, Zack hoped, was still looking for whoever had hurt Angela.
Even though she was getting better, Zack still spent close to every night at Angela’s. He didn’t really think of it as at Angela’s so much as with Angela. They had even started spending the weekends together, going out when Angela felt like she could and staying in, watching movies, cooking, playing old board games like kids or just reading.
Occasionally Angela would read passages aloud to him. He would remember later that she was reading The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion. He couldn’t remember the passage in and of itself but could remember simultaneously loving and hating it. He wanted to ask her why she was reading a book about death, about grief. It didn’t make sense to him that she would immerse herself this way.
But he never asked.
***
They were sitting next to each other on the couch like it’s any other night.
Angela was reading The Bell Jar for what felt like the first time, even though she’s read it twice before. On both occasions she cried. This time though, she sat stoically dry eyed. She glanced at Zack out of the corner of her eye. He was reading, off all things, The Dark Phoenix Saga, something she viewed as totally apt and completely bizarre at the same time. Things had been going better at the clinic for her. Her counselor, Rayanne, tells her that with every day and every breath that she can allow herself to be brave, to live, to read, to paint, to have sex, to be a friend, to fall in love. Angela loves her, despite the slightly cheesy sentiment. She has always believed that the clichéd and cheesy are around for a reason: they are the truth.
She was reading the last chapter of The Bell Jar when the Pheonix catches her eye. Again, an overripe, clichéd metaphor if ever there was one, but she can remember when her mother called her a firecracker and how she always used to feel like she was on fire: heat and light and flow. She looked down at the page in front of her:
I am, I am, I am.
Zack turned to her. “I think I am finally understanding the feministic symbolism in Jean Grey that you mentioned to me earlier.” She looked at him for a moment. “Angela?” She quickly put her hands on either side of his neck and pulled him toward her. She kissed him, roughly, sharply, their teeth meeting behind their lips. She will later akin it to a crash, but it doesn’t matter.
Angela hasn’t kissed someone for almost three months. She didn’t know if it was completely stupid, but she wanted to believe that she’s better so badly, that she would do this, push away her life preserver, her only friend, just to feel like everything is back to normal.
She took a breath and pulled away.
She took her hands away from Zack’s face.
He opened his mouth.
“Are you alright?”
She opened her mouth not sure of what she would say next. Her only real instinct at the moment is to ask Zack to kiss her again. The first time felt too fast, she didn’t know how to feel or act. But Zack was staring at her, his eyes wide and sort of flushed. He looked totally perplexed by this new information.
She kissed him again, this time a little less sloppily, trying to feel like herself again.
“Not yet.”
***
Zack spent the next four days in a haze of lust, confusion and rudimentary algebra. Algebra was always comforting to him, ever since he’d learned it at the tender age of nine.
(2r-xy = xy2)
He had no idea how to approach Angela anymore. Everything he came with sounded either contrived or utterly inappropriate. He didn’t understand why she had kissed him; it had probably (21.78%) nothing to do with sexual attraction. So why then? Previously, he would have said Angela had probably (68.3%) only done it to try it, to have an experience. But everything had changed now.
(3(x/2) + y2=8)
He had read a few textbooks about Psychology in lieu of Angela’s…(condition? accident? 8x-r3=r+x?) and had read several accounts of victims being using their sexuality to take control of their bodies again. This didn’t make a lot of sense to him, but he did understand the element of choice involved. He did dwell on the thought (well, not dwell so much as brood) that Angela had just used him because he was there.
(2x+y=-6)
(4x+2y=8)
He had returned to Hodgins’ garage with his Firefly boxset (she loved Jayne, he loved Zoë) and his NetFlix subscription (they had watched Red Dawn and Casablanca). He took solace in the reveal of the Final Cylon, Captain Picard’s seemingly endless victories and tried to forget that Angela had ever kissed him.
(no solution)
***
Angela tried to adjust to the empty apartment, but it wasn’t the same anymore. It had seemed more crowded with Zack, like there was just enough room for both of them to breath, but more then enough still.
She would walk into the small kitchen and find that there was no one there, and that the blanket was still folded neatly on the couch, the pillow delicately resting on top. This sight made her chest ache. She was terrified that Zack would never come back.
She talked with her counselors and her group at the rape center (she was very proud about having graduated to group therapy, but had no one to tell now that Zack was…gone? At home?) Each of them had told her that reaching out in a bold physical manner could be scary for another person and for her. It was Grace, a fifteen-year-old girl in her group (high school prom, her friend’s date, the bathroom of a nice hotel in downtown DC) who suggested that she might be in love with Zack. “It’s hard not to fall in love with someone when they know everything about you.” She folded her arms across her chest after saying this, hunching her shoulders slightly, as if trying to hide the mumbled words between her breasts and her forearms.
Angela doesn’t want to think about being in love, especially after what had just happened. Her mother’s voice chimed through her head: Angie, you only ever fall in love when you least expect it. She had always thought her mother was so clichéd with her sayings and cigarettes and gossip. Maybe, though, that didn’t stop her from being right, at least just this once. It wasn’t hard for Angela to believe that she was falling in love with Zack, though for her it was nothing short of terrifying.
But she was still Angela Montenegro after all of this, wasn’t she? Wasn’t she starting to put all of this behind her?
***
“Angela kissed me.”
Zack fought the urge to turn and run away from Hodgins’ work station.
“What?” Hodgins looked up from the microscope. “Are you sure you want to talk about this now? And do you mean she just kissed you? As in, within the last week?” Hodgins looked deeply perplexed.
“Well…we were sitting on her couch…reading…and she kissed me. Twice.”
“So? So what?”
Zack sighed, exasperated. “So, why did she kiss me?”
Hodgins rolled his eyes. “Are you serious? She likes you! You practically live with her now!”
Booth walked up to them, unsmiling as usual. “Zack. Need a word.”
He pulled Zack over to one side of the forensic platform, near Dr. Brennan’s office. “I think I found the guy who hurt Angela.”
“You think you found him?”
“Yes. But I’d need to take her statement before I turn it over to the local police, which is what I’m going to have to do.”
Zack shook his head, adamantly. “She won’t do that. She doesn’t even know that I talked to you about this.”
“Talked to him about what?” They both turned to see Angela and Brennan walking out of Brennan’s office. “Zack?” Angela turned towards him, her face falling. “Did you…?”
Zack looked down at the floor.
“I’m sorry, Angela.”
Tears welled up in her eyes. “How could you do this to me?”