The Truth in the Lie

or

Crossing the Line

A/U. Set... whenever you like.

'Do you think we should stop?' He stared up at the ceiling, one arm thrown across his head.

His companion spoke next to him.

'No.'

'Good, because I can't.'

She snorted. 'I assume that you don't mean you're physically incapable of stopping, Booth-'

'I am, I am, that's exactly what I mean.' He was literally, physically, incapable of stopping.

'You stopped right now.'

Yeah, but that's only because I've just had you, and you're lying here in bed with me.

'Do you think we should stop?'

Fabric rustled as he turned his head and looked over at her. 'No, but I do think we have to talk instead of just pretending nothing's happened and lying about it to ourselves.'

'We never lie.'

'Bones, the only time we've been honest in the last couple weeks, we haven't been talking.'

'We have been spending an increasingly large amount of time in bed outside of work.' She mused at the ceiling, in that reflective tone.

'How can you be so calm about this?!'

She looked towards him at his raised voice. 'Would you rather I not be calm?'

'No, I just- you are just so infuriating sometimes, do you know that!'

'Then why are you still here?'

'Because I- ! You know why.'

The intensity in his eyes made her shiver in the darkness, but the silence couldn't hide the hitch in her breathing. The pounding of his heart might have done.

He looked away.

'Booth?'

'I-I don't know.' A gruff dismissal.

'Booth, I- where are you going?' her tone was anything but calm as he sat up and set his legs down over the side of the bed, pulling on his boxers in the process. 'Are you leaving?' He raised an eyebrow at the panic in her voice.

'To get a glass of water', he replied clearly to the first question. Instead of reminding her this was his apartment, as he stepped into his jeans- because it was cold- still leaving them unzipped, he asked, 'would you like one?'

'No, thank you.'

But he got her one any way. She accepted it, looking up at him.

'Why are you still here, Bones?' he murmured into the silence.

'Would you rather I leave?'

'No.' That was it. I'd rather you stayed forever.

She raised the glass to her lips and drank the liquid down in a few speedy gulps. He'd taken to tracking the progress of each drop of water as it traced over her lips and down her neck, clearly exposed and visible in the oversized shirt- his- and further still, down between-

'Booth?'

'Yeah?' licking his lips unconsciously, he raised his eyes to meet hers. He was still in a daze, his head buzzing.

'-even listening to me?'

'Sure I was. Yeah.' He sat down on the edge of the bed and his eyes were drawn back to their previous distraction. 'You think we should change the colour- sheets- and the-water-' the next thing he knew his mouth was on hers, and he tasted the cool drops on her lips that evaporated in the sizzling heat between them as he kissed her deeper… and deeper and deeper. He finally pulled away when the need for air would not be ignored.

She looked at him with dazed baby blue-grey eyes. Temperance blue, he decided.

'What was that for?' she all but panted, and though the words were clear her voice was shaky.

'Nothing.' Fucking magic, every time he kissed her. He almost suggested- let's have sex again even as she said they needed to talk, but then she sneezed cutely and looked up at him with those wide Temperance blue eyes as he wrapped a blanket securely around her and suddenly the only thing he'd been afraid she'd find out because he was too impatient to say anything else if they talked came out of his mouth.

'I'm in love with you.' He'd told her he loved her before, but then there had been the possibility he meant it in a more general sense- and he did, in every sense it was possible to mean the word. There could be no confusion this time.

'I know, Booth', she replied serenely, sweetly. Calmly. 'You already told me. I'm in love with you too.' His heart about stopped. She'd said it back then, too, and he'd had the same reaction, but now…

He couldn't bear to hear it repeated, just in case he'd heard it wrong.

'Wait, so… so you didn't misunderstand me then, you- you know how I feel about you.' He wasn't sure he was getting it- he couldn't believe this. 'We've said how we feel about each other.'

'Yes.' She cocked her head to the side and spoke slowly, as if to a child- or him, when he was being daft and un-genius-y.

He couldn't believe this.

'Bones, then why the hell are we-' So much for not getting confused. 'Why are we making such a big deal out of this? I love you, you love me', his heart still leapt saying it out loud and hearing the words again- 'why the hell are we hiding this?' Why aren't we screaming it from goddamn rooftops?

'I don't know, I thought it might appear unprofessional if we revealed our relationship to friends and colleagues.' She scrunched up her nose adorably and he couldn't believe his luck- or the absurdity of the situation. 'And what do rooftops have to do with anything?'

He sighed, and shook his head. 'C'mere.'

She snuggled into him and he pulled her closer. 'So we can talk about it now?'

Oh yeah. And I'm going to tell everyone in the universe within hearing distance and beyond that you're mine. His body hummed, his mind, even his soul filled happily as he pulled her to him. Mine, mine, mine.

'Hey, Bones?'

'Mmhm?'

Can we move in together? Because will you marry me was going to get a definite no.

'…Nothing.'

'Booth?'

'Yes?'

'I'd like to talk about the possibility of cohabitation.'

He leaned over and kissed her.