Chapter Text
Zack hurries through the Jeffersonian doors and into the lab. His hair is still damp from the shower. He's jittery and wired and... happy? Is he happy?
Dr. Brennan says, "You're late, Zack."
"I'm sorry, Dr. Brennan," he says. His voice sounds weird. He clears his thoat. "It won't happen again."
She just furrows her brow a little and nods. She's disappointed in him. It's a counterbalance to his mood, but it doesn't make him less jittery. Just a different kind of jittery.
Dr. Brennan has some unidentified remains she wants him to look at, over ten years old, not an active case or anything. She'll want his preliminary analysis by the end of the day. She doesn't say that he needs to get it done to make up for being late, but she doesn't have to. He knows.
So, he's piecing together a very fragmented skeleton, tired but focused, when Hodgins pops in and stands across from him at the light table.
"You didn't come back to the house last night."
Zack has a shard of what he's fairly sure is from the ulna, but he's not sure exactly what part. "No," he says, distantly.
"And you were late this morning."
Probably close to the styloid process...
Hodgins rounds the table and leans so that he's in the corner of Zack's line of sight. "So...?"
Zack places the shard of bone and frowns at it. He's not sure. "So, Dr. Brennan's not happy with me, and I need to get this right."
"I was not asking about-- Seriously, you had a date with an actual living human woman, who has inexplicably dated you multiple times without running off, and you didn't come home, and you were late to work."
Finally, Zack looks directly at Hodgins. "You're asking if we had sex."
Hodgins makes a face. "I mean, normal people don't really say it that--"
"We did. Can I get back to work now?"
"Y'know, the way this is supposed to go is, you say it went well, and I say how well, and you say something like really well. And we kind of laugh about it."
Zack narrows his eyes. "That seems needlessly vague."
"Sometimes vague isn't a bad thing."
"It... went well," Zack says. "Now, can I get back to work?"
Hodgins rolls his eyes. "Y'know, you're not the easiest guy to be friends with."
Zack shrugs and picks up another bone shard.
Zack flips open his phone for the fifth time during his lunch break. No messages. He shuts it and shoves it back in his pocket. He takes two more bites of food, a drink of water, then reaches into his pocket again.
"You know phones make noise when someone calls or texts you, right?" Hodgins asks.
Zack flips open his phone for the sixth time during his lunch break. "Yes."
Hodgins sighs loudly. "So, just put it in your pocket, and when it makes a noise, that's when you take it out."
"Sometimes I briefly lose signal, and calls go directly to voicemail, and it doesn't ring." No messages. Zack puts his phone back in his pocket.
"Okay, let's make a deal. You don't check your phone again until the end of lunch."
Zack frowns. "That isn't a deal. A deal requires an exchange of some kind."
"How about you don't check your phone again until the end of lunch, and I don't strangle you?"
"... That is, technically, a deal."
They both eat quietly for a while. Zack fidgets with his fork. He's sure he can feel his phone vibrating in his pocket.
Hodgins, still seeming annoyed even though Zack is doing what he told him to, rolls his eyes. "Look, you need to stop being desperate. She'll call you back, okay? You need to stop wanting it so badly. Maybe talk to a couple other girls in the meantime, just in case."
Zack narrows his eyes. "Just in case what?"
"Just in case she doesn't call back."
"You said she would."
"Okay." Hodgins got up from the table. "We're not talking about this anymore."
"It's been two weeks," Zack says.
Hodgins frowns at him. "Two weeks since what?"
"Since I came to work late."
"Oh."
"Is it desperate to call again now?"
"Look, I don't know. Maybe you should move on."
"Move on to what? I don't date five hundred different women like you do."
"Maybe you should try it."
Zack presses his lips together. Sometimes, he doesn't know if Hodgins is trying to be cruel, or if he's doing it by accident. Either way, he doesn't ask again.
Ask your friends if you have any.
Zack is sitting in the booth at Wong Fu's, listening to Hodgins and Brennan have a spirited discussion about the Patriot Act that Zack is half following. He's pretty sure Hodgins is trying to talk about it loudly enough to annoy Booth, who's sitting at the bar pretending they don't exist.
Zack keeps thinking about what Naomi said. And about what Angela said.
It's in your intentions and how much you care about the other person.
He'd dismissed it at first. He's used to people just saying what they think will make him stop asking questions, and it sounds like another platitude. Maybe it is. Maybe he should listen to the second part of her advice. It's more actionable, more practical, but...
"Hodgins."
Hodgins finishes a point about the importance of privacy and how being innocent doesn't mean you don't have anything to hide, then he looks at Zack. "Don't tell me you agree with her. You don't have to agree with her just because you're her assistant."
"I don't care about the Patriot Act. I need to get out."
"How do you not care? It affects--"
"I need to make a phone call," Zack says.
Hodgins stops, and his expression changes. Almost as if, for a moment, he's forgotten his argument. "You sure about that?"
Zack nods.
"Let him go make his call," Angela says, grinning.
Reluctantly, Hodgins slid out of the booth. "If you come back in here looking sad, I don't want to have to talk to you about it."
"Hodgins," Angela says sharply, then she turns her attention to Zack. "If you come back sad, we'll talk to you about it, sweetie. But you won't, because it'll be fine, right?"
Zack shrugs, then he gets up. As he's headed out to the sidewalk to call Naomi, Hodgins calls after him, "Just remember, the FBI's probably listening in!"
Zack hurries through the Jeffersonian doors and into the lab. His hair is still damp from the shower. He's tired but for the first time in a month, he feels... okay. Maybe he feels good.
He's not late this time, but it's close, and it earns him a look from Dr. Brennan. When she's out of the room, it's Angela who edges closer to him while Hodgins seems to be focused on his work.
"So, looks like your call went well. You never came back to dinner."
"Naomi agreed to let me come over."
Angela smiles and gives him a friendly shove on the arm. "Way to go, Zack!" She walks off toward her office with her head held high. On her way, she leans toward Hodgins. "I told you I gave him good advice."
Hodgins huffs a sigh, then looks over at Zack. "That line she gave you worked?"
"No," Zack says.
Hodgins furrows his brow. He gets up and moves closer to Zack. "Did... you just lie to Angela?" he asks, an amused glint in his eye.
"Not exactly. I did take her advice. Just... not the advice she thought I took." Zack shrugs a shoulder.
"So, did you stay over with Naomi or not?"
"I did. But... it didn't 'go well'?" Zack frowns. "I mean, it did, but according to your rules of communicating on this topic, I have to say it didn't."
"I'm not sure I even want to ask what you're talking about."
"I'm not supposed to say we didn't have sex directly, right? So I have to say it didn't go well."
Hodgins peers at him. "So you didn't have sex with her?"
"Now you're changing the rules."
"It's not rules, it's..." Hodgins holds up his hands, frustrated. "Okay, just. We're already in this conversation. You may as well say it how you say it."
Zack nods, feeling vaguely satisfied. "I went to her place. We talked about how we both really want to be friends. We had sex a month ago, because it seemed like the next thing we were supposed to do."
"Sounds like she let you down easy this time at least..."
"I was the one who said we should just be friends."
Hodgins raises an eyebrow. "You obsessed over this girl for a month, and now you told her you want to be her friend."
"Angela said sex is about intentions and how much you care."
"Is that what she said?"
"One of the things."
"And that's why you decided you just wanted to be friends with Naomi?"
"Sort of. Yeah."
"Y'know..." Hodgins let out a breath. Zack can tell he doesn't want to talk about this, yet he continues. "Sex can also just be about having fun with someone you like. It doesn't have to mean anything."
"I think it does for Naomi. I think that's why she was mad at me."
"That's... a surprisingly mature way to take that."
"Also I think she might like women," Zack looks up thoughtfully at nothing in particular. "She said she felt like she could sleep with me because I'm 'safe.'"
"Okay, we've ventured right back into topics I'm not touching with a ten foot pole, so I'm going to go... do my job."
Hodgins backs up a few steps before about-facing and going back to what he was doing before. Zack wants to let it go--part of him is as relieved as Hodgins probably is that this conversation is over--but there's one more thing.
"Don't tell Angela," Zack says. "She seemed... happy about me and Namoi."
Hodgins shakes his head, chuckling to himself. "Sure. I won't tell her."