Title: It Started With a Kiss.
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Rating: PG. One little word the kids might not like so much.
Word Count: 3876
Spoilers: Through 3x09 Santa in the Slush
Summary: "I know that they used to just say Hershey’s Kisses, and apparently the fact that they don't anymore bothers you..."
Disclaimer: I don't in any way own Bones. I'm pretty sure the poor grad student thing tipped you off to that. :) Many thanks to Hart and Barry, David, and Emily for letting me borrow these characters.
Feedback: is love.
It started with a kiss.
I miss you
Three words printed on a sliver of paper taunting her from beneath the familiar silver foil.
She’d found it sitting on her desk when she’d arrived this morning- next to the file from the Gormogon case they’d been pouring over last night.
Just when she thought he wasn’t going to show-
“Hey.”
He was standing in the doorway, hands shoved into the pockets of his neat black suit. His smile soft, but not quite reaching his eyes.
“Hi.”
She returns to her computer and the clicking of her keybord fills the silence. His sigh, barely audible, makes her eyes well up.
I miss you
With a deep breath, she picks up the chocolate and sets it in her open palm, twirling in her seat to face him with a quirky smile.
The corners of his eyes wrinkle as his smile spreads and he moves next to her. Leaning against her desk. Leaning closer to her.
His fingers brush hers lightly before he returns them to his pocket, leaving her hand outstretched between them.
“We see each other everyday,”she levels.
“I know that,”he concedes with a short nod, leaving a silent "But…" hanging in the air between them.
She understands. They haven’t spent any time together outside of work since Christmas. She knows their kiss (the one that they both told Sweets hadn’t meant anything) was the most likely culprit. He hasn’t been in her space nearly as much since that afternoon.
“You know, these used to just say Hershey’s Kisses,”she speaks again.
“I know that.”
She turns slightly, resting her knees against his legs with the lightest pressure.
“What do you say we head out, Bones? I’m getting kind of hungry.”
She nods slowly and reaches out her other hand to grip the wrist peeking out of his pocket.
With an easy tug she pulls it out and uncurls his fingers between them. With a careful smile, she brushes his fingers, mimicking his earlier touch.
“Come on Booth,”she stands, her hips brushing against his, eye to eye, “I’ll make you dinner.”
She slides her arms into the black coat she’d pulled from her closet this morning and pulls her purse over her shoulder. A gentle pressure appears at her back and she glances over her shoulder. As always, he's right there behind her.
*
It started with a kiss.
Paul lets her into the Hoover Building with a nod and a “Mornin', Dr. Brennan.”
His office is locked, but Anne, the bullpen secretary, opens it with a smile when Temperance explains she’s left a file due by 8am on his desk.
As she flicks the light switch on beside the glass panes, she wonders if it was him that taught her to tell a white lie so well. She picks up an empty folder from the shelf behind his desk.
With a quick look to the door, she pulls the silver wrapped candy from her large purse and sets it in front of Parker’s school picture.
You rock.
She wants to hang around. To see the tweaking of his lips when he finds it. To hear the deep rumble of his laughter when he reads its message. But instead, she slides a few sheets of computer paper into the file folder. Just in case anyone notices. Not that they will.
You rock.
*
It started with a kiss.
“Brennan,”she answers her Blackberry with the clipped, professional tone she first mastered while working on her senior thesis.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“I’m assuming you’re going to provide a referent. 'That' is a pretty vague pronoun, Booth, and-”
“I rock, Bones? Didn’t think that was part of your..Squinty-vocabulary.” Although his tone is cutting, she can hear the chuckle over the line.
“You rock, Booth,”she replies simply.
“How’d you get in here anyways?”
“A magician never tells.”
“…her secrets,”he finishes after a short pause.
“Whose secrets?”Temperance raises her eyebrow, leaning back into chair.
“The magician, Bones. The phrase is ‘a magician never reveals his secrets.’ Or her secrets. A magician never reveals her secrets.”
“Right.”
“I-”he stops. She can tell he’s slid his hand over the receiver. His low voice is muffled and she can hear another, slightly higher pitched voice in the background, “-Hey Bones, I’ve gotta run.”
“Okay.”
She sits for a minute, waiting for him to hang up. Or to say something else. She still hears him breathing on the other end.
“Bones?”
“Booth?”
“I…You know, they used to just say Hershey’s Kisses.”
“Yeah, I know. I believe I was the one who pointed that out-”
“Bones!”
“Booth, go to your meeting,”she laughs softly, her eyes slipping shut when his low laughter joins hers. He clicks off his phone and she’s left with an empty line. She picks up the silver wrapped candy she found on her own desk this morning and twirls it by its paper flag.
Kiss someone.
*
It started with a kiss.
She stays at the lab until 10:30. Two more bodies from Limbo identified and ready to be sent to their families. She likes that about her job- that she can give people their loved ones back. Well, that she can give them an answer at least.
The last victim is the one that made her finally pack up and leave. A Gulf War soldier. She’s identified them before. She spent four months in Iraq and Syria in the mid-nineties with two other forensic anthropologists in the middle of the desert. Sweltering in a fourteen-by-sixteen tent under the blazing sun. Matching names to faces that were no longer visible in flesh. She’s had a few cases like this come her way since her work at the Jeffersonian began- but none since she and Booth had been partnered up.
Which was a fluke really- not that Temperance believes in things like flukes or fate- but she doesn’t have a better word for it at 10:30 at night after she’s been up since five a.m.
She pulls into the parking lot and directs her car into the extra space at the edge of the building. Reaching over into the leather bag on the passenger seat, she runs a smooth layer of lip balm over her lips and slides her cell phone into the pocket of her dark blue jeans.
Avoiding the puddles left over from this afternoon’s quick rain shower, she navigates her way to his front door and knocks quietly. He’s probably in bed. But then, he’s come over to her apartment much later than this. Maybe she doesn’t want him to hear her knocks. Maybe she should just get back into her car and-
“Bones,”he swings the door open, his eyes going from surprised to smiling in less than a second. He opens the door wider, raising his arm for her to pass beneath.
She has to duck. With her heels on, he’s not all that much taller than her.
Kiss Someone
She wants to bring up the candy she’d found on her desk this morning when she’d returned from his office. But all she can come up with is-
“I identified two Gulf War veterans today.”
She begins pacing the floor in front of his coffee table where there’s a sweating Sam Adams bottle forming a ring on the dark wood.
He watches her as he settles back into the cushions, turning the volume down on the television, the sound of the Knicks game fading. When her eyes meet his, he sees the uncertainty. They don’t talk about his time overseas often. She almost never brings it up. Well, she brings up the Ranger part- more than he‘s comfortable with really- just not the veteran part.
“I just wanted to say that I’m glad it wasn’t you,”she faces him suddenly, meeting his eyes, “I’m glad that I’m not having to identify your body. Not having to ship your bones to Rebecca and Parker. Or your parents. Or whoever you’d have gone to.”
“We wouldn’t have known each other,”he reminds her softly. Logically.
He meets her eyes for a minute and then nods, “Want a beer, Bones?”
“No,”she shakes her head, “I should go home. I just-”
Kiss Someone
It started with a kiss.
“I’m glad it wasn’t you, Booth,”she nods to herself and this seems to satisfy her. Her eyes
wander to the high barstools in his kitchen and she sees the opened package of Hersheys and the trail of silver wrappers across his counter. A slight smile turns the corners of her lips, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,”he rises to his feet, his hand finding its way lazily to scratch the back of his neck as he considers her, “Breakfast?”
“Are you going to be up at 5?”
“Do you know me?”
“You can pick me up at the lab then.”
He nods and she feels the ghost whisper of his fingers acrosst her elbow as he walks with her to his door. She wants to turn around. She wishes she’d been brave enough to bring the candy out of her bag and into his apartment with her.
Carefully, she walks down the concrete stairs.
“Are you on the street?”he looks out for her car.
“I parked beside you,”she turns back to look at him. It’s safe now. They’re out of his house. She can’t smell the last traces of his familiar scent- cologne mixed with Ivory soap- so strongly out here.
“Hold on Bones,”he slips back inside and reappears seconds later, his bare feet in the open-laced running shoes he keeps beside his doorway.
“I can make it to my car myself, Booth,”she feigns annoyance. Truthfully, she likes when he does these things. Walks her to her car. Guides her with the familiar pressure of his fingers against her spine. Quirking her eyebrow, “I have a bigger gun than yours, remember?”
“Yeah, and where are you hiding it?” he smirks back, gesturing to her outfit. Slim jeans and a camisole topped with a cardigan. He gestures vaguely to the front of her shirt, “Unless you somehow managed to find a hiding spot in there somewhere.”
She glances down the front of her blouse with a sheepish grin, “Well, I do have one...technically.”
“In your car, I’m sure,”he chuckles as she hits the unlock button on her remote. He jogs ahead a few steps and pulls open her door, waiting as she climbs in. He leans forward a bit, his eyes leaving hers and flicking downward then back up to hers, shining, “Nope, didn’t think you had room in there. I’ll pick you up at seven, Bones. At your apartment.”
“At the lab, Booth,” she reaches out to grab the door handle herself, but Booth pulls back, holding her gaze for a minute.
“Night Bones,”he sighs finally, releasing the handle.
“Night Booth.”
*
It started with a kiss.
Hi
It’s sitting on the pillow beside her when she wakes up in the morning. She wonders briefly, when their conversations will be completely limited to what the little slip of white paper can say for them in capital letters and bright blue ink.
Her alarm clock reads 5:57. She’s overslept.
After a quick shower, she puts on the gardenia lotion she knows he likes. He always seems to lean a little closer when she’s wearing it. She slides the jeans she wore yesterday over her legs and puts on one of the new blouses she’d bought with Angela last weekend. Her hair’s already starting to curl but she fights with the hairdryer anyways. She may work with bones all day- but she refuses to do so with frizzy hair. Selecting a peridot and amber necklace, she lays it over her neck feels the cool metal against the skin over her manubrium.
Hi
He must have been here this morning. She didn’t fall asleep until well after two- working on the last draft of chapter ten. And she knows he’s not a middle of the night kind of guy. Well, he is- but not that middle.
She smiles at the chocolate and grabs her purse and laptop case before heading out to the car.
He’s outside her apartment building, leaning against his SUV with a confident smile, “5 am, huh?”
“You were in my house.”
“I was,”he nods, meeting her and taking the laptop case while opening her door at the same time. He shuts her in and sets the computer carefully in the back before climbing into his seat, “The Diner?”
She murmurs an agreement and they’re pulling away from the curb.
Traffic on the Beltway is a nightmare. But they sit in a companionable silence, the sounds of the Carson and Kennedy morning show drifting through the speakers. He pulls into a metered spot forty minutes later and she feeds three quarters in while he waits for her to cross the street.
His hand is on her back when she steps off the curb and they weave through the busy street to the glass doors of The Diner.
“French toast, Bones?”
She looks up to see him staring at her curiously over a steaming cup of coffee. The waitress is standing at their side, tapping her pen against the thick pad in her wrinkled hand.
“Yeah,”she blinks, “Yes. French toast and half a grapefruit-”
“Bones. No. Do you know how much taste is in a grapefruit? None. Zero,”he frowns, “You could at least order a fruit with taste.”
“A grapefruit has taste, Booth,”she argues as the waitress takes her leave.
“But you just add sugar to it. Anything you add sugar to has no taste. Therefore has no merit as fruit-”
“You add sugar to your strawberries,”she argues smoothly.
“N-not the same-”
“Ah!”she points her finger across the formica table, proud that she has exposed the flaw in his argument. She takes a sip of her coffee and spits it back into the cup.
“What?”he wrinkles his nose. She doesn’t understand why he’s so digusted by these things. Bones, mud, spit out drinks.
“Decaf. I’m going to get some real stuff,”she rises to walk to the counter just as her phone trills from within her purse, “Grab that, Booth.”
He leans across the table for her bag, opening it cautiously and peering in. He wonders-not for the first time- why she doesn’t carry a smaller bag so he can find what she needs when she inevitably makes him rummage through it.
There’s the gun. Can’t miss that, he smirks to himself.
Aha! The phone. He pulls it out just as it quits ringing, his fingers brushing stiff metal. His eyes turn back into the bag, sliding quickly past the tampons she’s thrown in and to the silver wrapped candy.
Kiss Someone
So she had found it.
“Who is it, Booth?”she peers over her shoulder as the cook takes her mug from her.
“Um,”he diverts his eyes quickly to the blue screen, “The Kid.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,”she rolls her eyes, thanking the cook with her new mug of fully caffeinated coffee in hand and returns to the table, “He has a doctorate you know. That’s higher than you.”
“Yes, I know that Bones,”he rolls his own eyes, returning the bag back across the table into the seat beside her, “Hey, why don’t you just carry you phone in your pocket like I do? Save me from having to dig through your suitcase, huh?”
“Booth, I don’t have enough room in these pockets for my phone,”she states, rising from her chair and pivoting as if to display the relative snugness of her pockets to the FBI agent.
“I-yeah-not much room,”he brings his coffee to his lips and takes a quick gulp.
“I guess you saw the tampons,”she announces dryly, “And now you’re uncomfortable. You know Booth, it’s a perfectly natural part of life. And anthropologically speaking, the more time a male and female spend together, the more attuned he becomes to her cycle. He begins to pick up on subtle pheromone indicators when-”
“Bones,”he silences her with a glare, “As much as I’d love to hear about- no- you know what? I wouldn’t love to hear about that. Ever.”
“I’m sure when you lived with Rebecca you-”
“Bones,”another glare.
“I’m just saying, Booth, it’s nothing to be uncomfortable about.”
“And, you know, it’s not exactly picking up on pheromone levels so much as you making me go through your purse and me having to look right at your..you know…those things.”
“Tampons.”
“Bones.”
“It’s just a word Booth,”she grins, watching him squirm while she dials Zach’s extension at the lab, “It’s Brennan.”
She watches him as Zach asks her advice on a difficulty he’s having with a skull reconstruction. He stirs another packet of sugar into his coffee. The waitress sets their plates on the table and he thanks her with a smile, asking for a small orange juice for Brennan. She always likes the tangy juice when she eats her grapefruit.
He watches her while she finishes explaining how to restructure a malar bone. He sets the silver wrapped chocolate on the edge of her plate when she turns to draw what Zach is obviously trying very hard to describe on her napkin. She hangs up a minute later and smiles apologetically, “This is only his second full reconstruction on his own. He’s having trouble distinguishing the shards from the right and left zygomatic processes.”
“It’s all Greek to me, Bones,”he shrugs, taking another bite of his steak.
“Technically it’s Latin. Why do you feel the need to eat beef so early in the morning, Booth?”she pokes at his plate with her clean fork, “Scientists and nutritionists have long suggested eggs are the more suitable protein-rich alternative for early meals. That way the body doesn’t have to work so hard to digest the complex-”
“Eat, Bones,”his fork is in front of her lips, a piece of her French toast balanced carefully on its prongs. He prods her with a twirl of the fork and a smirk, “Come on, open up.”
She rolls her eyes, but obliges and he slides the fork between her lips and teeth. When he pulls it back, he licks the rest of the syrup off the top while her eyes wander down to the candy that’s appeared on the table between them.
Kiss Someone
“Are we going to have entire conversations in Hershey Kisses now?”she raises her eyes to meet his.
“We could,”he reaches across the table and steals a bite of grapefruit, hissing an Ow! at her slap, “We’ve been doing it pretty well so far.”
“I disagree,”she steals a bite of steak.
“Hey!”
“You did it first!”she smirks.
“How can you disagree, Bones? I’ve personally gotten a lot out of our Hershey conversations. For example, I know that they used to just say Hershey Kisses, and apparently the fact that they don’t anymore bothers you.”
“It doesn’t bother me. I’ve merely made an observation.”
“Three times.”
“Once was you.”
“Fine. Twice.”
“I didn’t even acknowledge this one,”she gestures to the candy between them, “-when you left it for me yesterday. So, I would argue, Booth, that the Hersheys have diminished what was formerly an open line of conversation between us-”
“How do you even know it’s from me, huh?”he waggles his eyebrows, “Maybe you have a secret admirer, Bones. What about that new Squint? Timmy. Tommy. T-”
"Timothy,”she rolls her eyes, “That kid in genetics?”
“Bones, I’ve seen the way he gazes at you,”he teases, his brown eyes lighting up.
“Booth, please, he’s a child,”Temperance frowns, stabbing into her grapefruit, “And I do know it’s from you because I saw the open bag on your counter last night. Plus, you snuck into my bedroom this morning to leave another one. You’ve admitted to two-”
“Yeah, I have,”he grins, motioning to the one on the table with his fork, “So, why haven’t I claimed responsibility for this one, then?”
“You have.”
“Oh, I have?”
“You braved my frightening tampons to retreive it from my purse to make sure I saw it again. Obviously you wanted to bring it up since neither one of us acknowledged it,”she concludes, a satisfied smirk in place.
“Hmm,”he nods thoughtfully, setting his chin in his palm and tapping his fulls lips with his index fingers, “And let me ask you this, then-”
“Mmmhmm?”she leans forward on her forearms, meeting his silent challenge.
“We’ve been leaving these chocolates for each other and I’d say we have a pretty good system going, wouldn’t you?”he posits, taking in her nod, “One of us leaves the candy, and the receiver acknowledges it, correct? At least, that’s how it worked until you found this one…wherever you found it.”
Her confident smile falters, but only he would notice the slight shift in her expression, “So actually, you’re trying to put this off on me, when really, it’s you who’s too scared to bring something like a kiss up.”
“I’m too scared?”she laughs, her fire returning, “Booth, need I remind you which one of us initiated…”her voice drops to a whisper, “our kiss at Christmas?”
“What?”he grins, “I couldn’t quite hear ya there, Bones? Are you embarrassed? About the swapping of-”
“Booth!”she hisses, her eyes flitting to the older couple at the next table over who is beginning to listen to their heated discussion.
“Bones,”he chuckles, stealing another bite of her French toast, “Eat up. You’re going to be late for work.”
A quick glance at her watch and a curse under her breath, “Shit. Booth, we’ve got to go.”
He laughs loudly and dabs his napking over his lips, “Finish up; I’ll go get the check.”
After he’s paid, he scans the restaurant for her, and finds her standing in the sunlight, watching the taxis in their push and pull dance. He meets her outside with a hand against her lower back and catches her indulgent smile with a curious one of his own. Her eyes drop then meet his again. His own eyes catch the glint of silver in her open palm when her smoky voice admits softly, “It’s kind of non-specific.”
“I thought you’d appreciate the possibilities it offered,”he returns confidently as they cross the street together, “You know...someone...You might pick Hodgins, or Zach. Hey, maybe even Angela. Or Tommy-”
“Timothy. Who is twelve.”
“Isn’t that my line?”he laughs as he opens the passenger door for her.
“Booth?” Instead of climbing into the seat, she stands in front of him- leaning against the back door, her palm still extended between them.
He closes the distance between them and catches her soft lips between his; his scent and the taste of syrup and fruit invading her senses. He pulls back just enough to lean his forehead against hers, “Or I thought that maybe it was non-specific enough that if you didn‘t want to discuss it, I could pawn it off on Timmy.”
He steps into her, their bodies touching and she giggles against his lips and meets his eyes again, “Booth?”
“Bones?”
“Next time, no reasons,”she tugs at the lapels of his jacket and they both think back to mistletoe and meddling lawyers and the chocolate she’s still holding, “Just because, okay?”
“See Bones? Entire conversations,”he laughs and captures her lips once more before brushing her hair from her jaw line.
It started with a kiss.
----------------------------------------
Notes: This whole thing started when I got a bag of Hershey Kisses over Christmas and discovered that they had become the chocolate version of Sweethearts. Needless to say, I was a little bothered by this one. :) So, the Kisses are real- and believe me- they got weirder. Things like "Let's go out!" and "I hate Mondays" were hiding in the bottom of my bag. I don't know, maybe I just don't like my candies to talk to me. But I was eating a few of these during a Bones marathon and I decided that Booth might be the kind of guy who thought these little sayings would be fun.
And so the story grew.
And I listened to a lot of Coldplay's Warning Sign too. Not quite sure what that has to do with the story- but it was pretty much on repeat!
I hope y'all enjoyed this. It was definitely fun to write! Leave me a note. Let me know if you loved it, hated it, want your own Hershey-Giving-Seeley-Booth. :)
Pairing: Booth/Brennan
Rating: PG. One little word the kids might not like so much.
Word Count: 3876
Spoilers: Through 3x09 Santa in the Slush
Summary: "I know that they used to just say Hershey’s Kisses, and apparently the fact that they don't anymore bothers you..."
Disclaimer: I don't in any way own Bones. I'm pretty sure the poor grad student thing tipped you off to that. :) Many thanks to Hart and Barry, David, and Emily for letting me borrow these characters.
Feedback: is love.
It started with a kiss.
I miss you
Three words printed on a sliver of paper taunting her from beneath the familiar silver foil.
She’d found it sitting on her desk when she’d arrived this morning- next to the file from the Gormogon case they’d been pouring over last night.
Just when she thought he wasn’t going to show-
“Hey.”
He was standing in the doorway, hands shoved into the pockets of his neat black suit. His smile soft, but not quite reaching his eyes.
“Hi.”
She returns to her computer and the clicking of her keybord fills the silence. His sigh, barely audible, makes her eyes well up.
I miss you
With a deep breath, she picks up the chocolate and sets it in her open palm, twirling in her seat to face him with a quirky smile.
The corners of his eyes wrinkle as his smile spreads and he moves next to her. Leaning against her desk. Leaning closer to her.
His fingers brush hers lightly before he returns them to his pocket, leaving her hand outstretched between them.
“We see each other everyday,”she levels.
“I know that,”he concedes with a short nod, leaving a silent "But…" hanging in the air between them.
She understands. They haven’t spent any time together outside of work since Christmas. She knows their kiss (the one that they both told Sweets hadn’t meant anything) was the most likely culprit. He hasn’t been in her space nearly as much since that afternoon.
“You know, these used to just say Hershey’s Kisses,”she speaks again.
“I know that.”
She turns slightly, resting her knees against his legs with the lightest pressure.
“What do you say we head out, Bones? I’m getting kind of hungry.”
She nods slowly and reaches out her other hand to grip the wrist peeking out of his pocket.
With an easy tug she pulls it out and uncurls his fingers between them. With a careful smile, she brushes his fingers, mimicking his earlier touch.
“Come on Booth,”she stands, her hips brushing against his, eye to eye, “I’ll make you dinner.”
She slides her arms into the black coat she’d pulled from her closet this morning and pulls her purse over her shoulder. A gentle pressure appears at her back and she glances over her shoulder. As always, he's right there behind her.
It started with a kiss.
Paul lets her into the Hoover Building with a nod and a “Mornin', Dr. Brennan.”
His office is locked, but Anne, the bullpen secretary, opens it with a smile when Temperance explains she’s left a file due by 8am on his desk.
As she flicks the light switch on beside the glass panes, she wonders if it was him that taught her to tell a white lie so well. She picks up an empty folder from the shelf behind his desk.
With a quick look to the door, she pulls the silver wrapped candy from her large purse and sets it in front of Parker’s school picture.
You rock.
She wants to hang around. To see the tweaking of his lips when he finds it. To hear the deep rumble of his laughter when he reads its message. But instead, she slides a few sheets of computer paper into the file folder. Just in case anyone notices. Not that they will.
You rock.
It started with a kiss.
“Brennan,”she answers her Blackberry with the clipped, professional tone she first mastered while working on her senior thesis.
“Do you even know what that means?”
“I’m assuming you’re going to provide a referent. 'That' is a pretty vague pronoun, Booth, and-”
“I rock, Bones? Didn’t think that was part of your..Squinty-vocabulary.” Although his tone is cutting, she can hear the chuckle over the line.
“You rock, Booth,”she replies simply.
“How’d you get in here anyways?”
“A magician never tells.”
“…her secrets,”he finishes after a short pause.
“Whose secrets?”Temperance raises her eyebrow, leaning back into chair.
“The magician, Bones. The phrase is ‘a magician never reveals his secrets.’ Or her secrets. A magician never reveals her secrets.”
“Right.”
“I-”he stops. She can tell he’s slid his hand over the receiver. His low voice is muffled and she can hear another, slightly higher pitched voice in the background, “-Hey Bones, I’ve gotta run.”
“Okay.”
She sits for a minute, waiting for him to hang up. Or to say something else. She still hears him breathing on the other end.
“Bones?”
“Booth?”
“I…You know, they used to just say Hershey’s Kisses.”
“Yeah, I know. I believe I was the one who pointed that out-”
“Bones!”
“Booth, go to your meeting,”she laughs softly, her eyes slipping shut when his low laughter joins hers. He clicks off his phone and she’s left with an empty line. She picks up the silver wrapped candy she found on her own desk this morning and twirls it by its paper flag.
Kiss someone.
It started with a kiss.
She stays at the lab until 10:30. Two more bodies from Limbo identified and ready to be sent to their families. She likes that about her job- that she can give people their loved ones back. Well, that she can give them an answer at least.
The last victim is the one that made her finally pack up and leave. A Gulf War soldier. She’s identified them before. She spent four months in Iraq and Syria in the mid-nineties with two other forensic anthropologists in the middle of the desert. Sweltering in a fourteen-by-sixteen tent under the blazing sun. Matching names to faces that were no longer visible in flesh. She’s had a few cases like this come her way since her work at the Jeffersonian began- but none since she and Booth had been partnered up.
Which was a fluke really- not that Temperance believes in things like flukes or fate- but she doesn’t have a better word for it at 10:30 at night after she’s been up since five a.m.
She pulls into the parking lot and directs her car into the extra space at the edge of the building. Reaching over into the leather bag on the passenger seat, she runs a smooth layer of lip balm over her lips and slides her cell phone into the pocket of her dark blue jeans.
Avoiding the puddles left over from this afternoon’s quick rain shower, she navigates her way to his front door and knocks quietly. He’s probably in bed. But then, he’s come over to her apartment much later than this. Maybe she doesn’t want him to hear her knocks. Maybe she should just get back into her car and-
“Bones,”he swings the door open, his eyes going from surprised to smiling in less than a second. He opens the door wider, raising his arm for her to pass beneath.
She has to duck. With her heels on, he’s not all that much taller than her.
Kiss Someone
She wants to bring up the candy she’d found on her desk this morning when she’d returned from his office. But all she can come up with is-
“I identified two Gulf War veterans today.”
She begins pacing the floor in front of his coffee table where there’s a sweating Sam Adams bottle forming a ring on the dark wood.
He watches her as he settles back into the cushions, turning the volume down on the television, the sound of the Knicks game fading. When her eyes meet his, he sees the uncertainty. They don’t talk about his time overseas often. She almost never brings it up. Well, she brings up the Ranger part- more than he‘s comfortable with really- just not the veteran part.
“I just wanted to say that I’m glad it wasn’t you,”she faces him suddenly, meeting his eyes, “I’m glad that I’m not having to identify your body. Not having to ship your bones to Rebecca and Parker. Or your parents. Or whoever you’d have gone to.”
“We wouldn’t have known each other,”he reminds her softly. Logically.
He meets her eyes for a minute and then nods, “Want a beer, Bones?”
“No,”she shakes her head, “I should go home. I just-”
Kiss Someone
It started with a kiss.
“I’m glad it wasn’t you, Booth,”she nods to herself and this seems to satisfy her. Her eyes
wander to the high barstools in his kitchen and she sees the opened package of Hersheys and the trail of silver wrappers across his counter. A slight smile turns the corners of her lips, “I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yeah,”he rises to his feet, his hand finding its way lazily to scratch the back of his neck as he considers her, “Breakfast?”
“Are you going to be up at 5?”
“Do you know me?”
“You can pick me up at the lab then.”
He nods and she feels the ghost whisper of his fingers acrosst her elbow as he walks with her to his door. She wants to turn around. She wishes she’d been brave enough to bring the candy out of her bag and into his apartment with her.
Carefully, she walks down the concrete stairs.
“Are you on the street?”he looks out for her car.
“I parked beside you,”she turns back to look at him. It’s safe now. They’re out of his house. She can’t smell the last traces of his familiar scent- cologne mixed with Ivory soap- so strongly out here.
“Hold on Bones,”he slips back inside and reappears seconds later, his bare feet in the open-laced running shoes he keeps beside his doorway.
“I can make it to my car myself, Booth,”she feigns annoyance. Truthfully, she likes when he does these things. Walks her to her car. Guides her with the familiar pressure of his fingers against her spine. Quirking her eyebrow, “I have a bigger gun than yours, remember?”
“Yeah, and where are you hiding it?” he smirks back, gesturing to her outfit. Slim jeans and a camisole topped with a cardigan. He gestures vaguely to the front of her shirt, “Unless you somehow managed to find a hiding spot in there somewhere.”
She glances down the front of her blouse with a sheepish grin, “Well, I do have one...technically.”
“In your car, I’m sure,”he chuckles as she hits the unlock button on her remote. He jogs ahead a few steps and pulls open her door, waiting as she climbs in. He leans forward a bit, his eyes leaving hers and flicking downward then back up to hers, shining, “Nope, didn’t think you had room in there. I’ll pick you up at seven, Bones. At your apartment.”
“At the lab, Booth,” she reaches out to grab the door handle herself, but Booth pulls back, holding her gaze for a minute.
“Night Bones,”he sighs finally, releasing the handle.
“Night Booth.”
It started with a kiss.
Hi
It’s sitting on the pillow beside her when she wakes up in the morning. She wonders briefly, when their conversations will be completely limited to what the little slip of white paper can say for them in capital letters and bright blue ink.
Her alarm clock reads 5:57. She’s overslept.
After a quick shower, she puts on the gardenia lotion she knows he likes. He always seems to lean a little closer when she’s wearing it. She slides the jeans she wore yesterday over her legs and puts on one of the new blouses she’d bought with Angela last weekend. Her hair’s already starting to curl but she fights with the hairdryer anyways. She may work with bones all day- but she refuses to do so with frizzy hair. Selecting a peridot and amber necklace, she lays it over her neck feels the cool metal against the skin over her manubrium.
Hi
He must have been here this morning. She didn’t fall asleep until well after two- working on the last draft of chapter ten. And she knows he’s not a middle of the night kind of guy. Well, he is- but not that middle.
She smiles at the chocolate and grabs her purse and laptop case before heading out to the car.
He’s outside her apartment building, leaning against his SUV with a confident smile, “5 am, huh?”
“You were in my house.”
“I was,”he nods, meeting her and taking the laptop case while opening her door at the same time. He shuts her in and sets the computer carefully in the back before climbing into his seat, “The Diner?”
She murmurs an agreement and they’re pulling away from the curb.
Traffic on the Beltway is a nightmare. But they sit in a companionable silence, the sounds of the Carson and Kennedy morning show drifting through the speakers. He pulls into a metered spot forty minutes later and she feeds three quarters in while he waits for her to cross the street.
His hand is on her back when she steps off the curb and they weave through the busy street to the glass doors of The Diner.
“French toast, Bones?”
She looks up to see him staring at her curiously over a steaming cup of coffee. The waitress is standing at their side, tapping her pen against the thick pad in her wrinkled hand.
“Yeah,”she blinks, “Yes. French toast and half a grapefruit-”
“Bones. No. Do you know how much taste is in a grapefruit? None. Zero,”he frowns, “You could at least order a fruit with taste.”
“A grapefruit has taste, Booth,”she argues as the waitress takes her leave.
“But you just add sugar to it. Anything you add sugar to has no taste. Therefore has no merit as fruit-”
“You add sugar to your strawberries,”she argues smoothly.
“N-not the same-”
“Ah!”she points her finger across the formica table, proud that she has exposed the flaw in his argument. She takes a sip of her coffee and spits it back into the cup.
“What?”he wrinkles his nose. She doesn’t understand why he’s so digusted by these things. Bones, mud, spit out drinks.
“Decaf. I’m going to get some real stuff,”she rises to walk to the counter just as her phone trills from within her purse, “Grab that, Booth.”
He leans across the table for her bag, opening it cautiously and peering in. He wonders-not for the first time- why she doesn’t carry a smaller bag so he can find what she needs when she inevitably makes him rummage through it.
There’s the gun. Can’t miss that, he smirks to himself.
Aha! The phone. He pulls it out just as it quits ringing, his fingers brushing stiff metal. His eyes turn back into the bag, sliding quickly past the tampons she’s thrown in and to the silver wrapped candy.
Kiss Someone
So she had found it.
“Who is it, Booth?”she peers over her shoulder as the cook takes her mug from her.
“Um,”he diverts his eyes quickly to the blue screen, “The Kid.”
“I wish you wouldn’t call him that,”she rolls her eyes, thanking the cook with her new mug of fully caffeinated coffee in hand and returns to the table, “He has a doctorate you know. That’s higher than you.”
“Yes, I know that Bones,”he rolls his own eyes, returning the bag back across the table into the seat beside her, “Hey, why don’t you just carry you phone in your pocket like I do? Save me from having to dig through your suitcase, huh?”
“Booth, I don’t have enough room in these pockets for my phone,”she states, rising from her chair and pivoting as if to display the relative snugness of her pockets to the FBI agent.
“I-yeah-not much room,”he brings his coffee to his lips and takes a quick gulp.
“I guess you saw the tampons,”she announces dryly, “And now you’re uncomfortable. You know Booth, it’s a perfectly natural part of life. And anthropologically speaking, the more time a male and female spend together, the more attuned he becomes to her cycle. He begins to pick up on subtle pheromone indicators when-”
“Bones,”he silences her with a glare, “As much as I’d love to hear about- no- you know what? I wouldn’t love to hear about that. Ever.”
“I’m sure when you lived with Rebecca you-”
“Bones,”another glare.
“I’m just saying, Booth, it’s nothing to be uncomfortable about.”
“And, you know, it’s not exactly picking up on pheromone levels so much as you making me go through your purse and me having to look right at your..you know…those things.”
“Tampons.”
“Bones.”
“It’s just a word Booth,”she grins, watching him squirm while she dials Zach’s extension at the lab, “It’s Brennan.”
She watches him as Zach asks her advice on a difficulty he’s having with a skull reconstruction. He stirs another packet of sugar into his coffee. The waitress sets their plates on the table and he thanks her with a smile, asking for a small orange juice for Brennan. She always likes the tangy juice when she eats her grapefruit.
He watches her while she finishes explaining how to restructure a malar bone. He sets the silver wrapped chocolate on the edge of her plate when she turns to draw what Zach is obviously trying very hard to describe on her napkin. She hangs up a minute later and smiles apologetically, “This is only his second full reconstruction on his own. He’s having trouble distinguishing the shards from the right and left zygomatic processes.”
“It’s all Greek to me, Bones,”he shrugs, taking another bite of his steak.
“Technically it’s Latin. Why do you feel the need to eat beef so early in the morning, Booth?”she pokes at his plate with her clean fork, “Scientists and nutritionists have long suggested eggs are the more suitable protein-rich alternative for early meals. That way the body doesn’t have to work so hard to digest the complex-”
“Eat, Bones,”his fork is in front of her lips, a piece of her French toast balanced carefully on its prongs. He prods her with a twirl of the fork and a smirk, “Come on, open up.”
She rolls her eyes, but obliges and he slides the fork between her lips and teeth. When he pulls it back, he licks the rest of the syrup off the top while her eyes wander down to the candy that’s appeared on the table between them.
Kiss Someone
“Are we going to have entire conversations in Hershey Kisses now?”she raises her eyes to meet his.
“We could,”he reaches across the table and steals a bite of grapefruit, hissing an Ow! at her slap, “We’ve been doing it pretty well so far.”
“I disagree,”she steals a bite of steak.
“Hey!”
“You did it first!”she smirks.
“How can you disagree, Bones? I’ve personally gotten a lot out of our Hershey conversations. For example, I know that they used to just say Hershey Kisses, and apparently the fact that they don’t anymore bothers you.”
“It doesn’t bother me. I’ve merely made an observation.”
“Three times.”
“Once was you.”
“Fine. Twice.”
“I didn’t even acknowledge this one,”she gestures to the candy between them, “-when you left it for me yesterday. So, I would argue, Booth, that the Hersheys have diminished what was formerly an open line of conversation between us-”
“How do you even know it’s from me, huh?”he waggles his eyebrows, “Maybe you have a secret admirer, Bones. What about that new Squint? Timmy. Tommy. T-”
"Timothy,”she rolls her eyes, “That kid in genetics?”
“Bones, I’ve seen the way he gazes at you,”he teases, his brown eyes lighting up.
“Booth, please, he’s a child,”Temperance frowns, stabbing into her grapefruit, “And I do know it’s from you because I saw the open bag on your counter last night. Plus, you snuck into my bedroom this morning to leave another one. You’ve admitted to two-”
“Yeah, I have,”he grins, motioning to the one on the table with his fork, “So, why haven’t I claimed responsibility for this one, then?”
“You have.”
“Oh, I have?”
“You braved my frightening tampons to retreive it from my purse to make sure I saw it again. Obviously you wanted to bring it up since neither one of us acknowledged it,”she concludes, a satisfied smirk in place.
“Hmm,”he nods thoughtfully, setting his chin in his palm and tapping his fulls lips with his index fingers, “And let me ask you this, then-”
“Mmmhmm?”she leans forward on her forearms, meeting his silent challenge.
“We’ve been leaving these chocolates for each other and I’d say we have a pretty good system going, wouldn’t you?”he posits, taking in her nod, “One of us leaves the candy, and the receiver acknowledges it, correct? At least, that’s how it worked until you found this one…wherever you found it.”
Her confident smile falters, but only he would notice the slight shift in her expression, “So actually, you’re trying to put this off on me, when really, it’s you who’s too scared to bring something like a kiss up.”
“I’m too scared?”she laughs, her fire returning, “Booth, need I remind you which one of us initiated…”her voice drops to a whisper, “our kiss at Christmas?”
“What?”he grins, “I couldn’t quite hear ya there, Bones? Are you embarrassed? About the swapping of-”
“Booth!”she hisses, her eyes flitting to the older couple at the next table over who is beginning to listen to their heated discussion.
“Bones,”he chuckles, stealing another bite of her French toast, “Eat up. You’re going to be late for work.”
A quick glance at her watch and a curse under her breath, “Shit. Booth, we’ve got to go.”
He laughs loudly and dabs his napking over his lips, “Finish up; I’ll go get the check.”
After he’s paid, he scans the restaurant for her, and finds her standing in the sunlight, watching the taxis in their push and pull dance. He meets her outside with a hand against her lower back and catches her indulgent smile with a curious one of his own. Her eyes drop then meet his again. His own eyes catch the glint of silver in her open palm when her smoky voice admits softly, “It’s kind of non-specific.”
“I thought you’d appreciate the possibilities it offered,”he returns confidently as they cross the street together, “You know...someone...You might pick Hodgins, or Zach. Hey, maybe even Angela. Or Tommy-”
“Timothy. Who is twelve.”
“Isn’t that my line?”he laughs as he opens the passenger door for her.
“Booth?” Instead of climbing into the seat, she stands in front of him- leaning against the back door, her palm still extended between them.
He closes the distance between them and catches her soft lips between his; his scent and the taste of syrup and fruit invading her senses. He pulls back just enough to lean his forehead against hers, “Or I thought that maybe it was non-specific enough that if you didn‘t want to discuss it, I could pawn it off on Timmy.”
He steps into her, their bodies touching and she giggles against his lips and meets his eyes again, “Booth?”
“Bones?”
“Next time, no reasons,”she tugs at the lapels of his jacket and they both think back to mistletoe and meddling lawyers and the chocolate she’s still holding, “Just because, okay?”
“See Bones? Entire conversations,”he laughs and captures her lips once more before brushing her hair from her jaw line.
It started with a kiss.
----------------------------------------
Notes: This whole thing started when I got a bag of Hershey Kisses over Christmas and discovered that they had become the chocolate version of Sweethearts. Needless to say, I was a little bothered by this one. :) So, the Kisses are real- and believe me- they got weirder. Things like "Let's go out!" and "I hate Mondays" were hiding in the bottom of my bag. I don't know, maybe I just don't like my candies to talk to me. But I was eating a few of these during a Bones marathon and I decided that Booth might be the kind of guy who thought these little sayings would be fun.
And so the story grew.
And I listened to a lot of Coldplay's Warning Sign too. Not quite sure what that has to do with the story- but it was pretty much on repeat!
I hope y'all enjoyed this. It was definitely fun to write! Leave me a note. Let me know if you loved it, hated it, want your own Hershey-Giving-Seeley-Booth. :)
Listening To: coldplay- warning sign
52 love | Love me, Love me, Say that you love me
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