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“Take a hint, Zack.”
“What hint?”
Naomi pauses with an expression similar to Hodgins looking at a particularly confusing slime, her lip twisted to the side and her brow furrowed. She then stormed off with a bounce of her vibrant hair, leaving Zack a statue in her wake.
What? What am I missing?
Naomi and him had shared a night together a month before, and after that night she had refused to return his calls. What had he done wrong?
The forensic anthropology student was thoroughly perplexed.
Wasn’t that how it was supposed to go?
He had followed the usual formula and it was routine as normal. He didn’t feel like it was any better or worse than the times before, was that not enough?
Hodgins called out for him beside Angela and they both comforted him vaguely.
“Toughen up, buddy, be a man.”
“You okay, honey?”
He numbly explains his predicament as they all walk off together.
“Ask your friends if you have any.” She had said.
Later, Zack stands over a collection of bones he is examining. He felt like unidentified remains, sitting in the lab. Something to be examined and studied like one of his flesh-eating beetles the team had to kill to identify the chemicals within with the man in the SUV.
What was wrong with him? His relationships always ended this way; his significant other telling him they felt wrong with him. Why didn’t anyone want to spend their affectionate enthusiasm with him? It was all exaggerated anyway, there weren’t any long-term sparks like in the songs. It was practical. A partnership to avoid problems due to the human nature of companionship and social interaction.
Though he didn’t quite understand the other benefits, kissing was uncomfortable to say the least not to mention the other requirements to a relationship.
He didn’t want to do those things but they had always been necessary to stay with a partner.
Hodgins bustles about behind him and Zack stutters out a question, his voice fading at both ends of the sentence.
“Hodgins, how do you stay in a relationship?”
He stews in the silence before his coworker finally responds.
“Is this because of Naomi?”
Zack holds his breath for a moment.
“..it always turns out this way…”
He admits quietly.
Hodgins sets down his tweezers and turns toward Zack, resting his back and palms on the metal table behind him. The sterile air of the lab is warmed by his presence.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Hodgins tilts his head, paying full attention to Zack’s answer.
“Everything is going good, normal…or at least I think it is, and then they leave. Because I’m not ‘right’.”
He folds his arms across his chest and looks away so he doesn’t have to see his coworker’s pity.
“It’s just..so hard to do everything I’m supposed to.”
Hodgins leans forward,
“What are you ‘supposed to do’?”
Zack flushes with embarrassment
“..I don’t know, the”
He tucks his head into his chest
“kissing..and stuff”
Hodgins whips back around to pick up his tweezers and resume his work, Zack turning to do the same.
“So, you don’t..like kissing?”
Hodgins tests.
Zack furrows his brow
“No? It’s gross and wet.”.
He raises an eyebrow and half-turns
“Is that not how it’s supposed to feel?”.
Hodgins is silent for a few moments, his hands stilling over the deceased bugs on the table.
“Maybe this is a conversation for someone else.”
…
Zack lies face-up in his bed with a perplexed expression, his dark eyes reflecting the moonlight streaking through the window blinds.
Maybe I am a freak.
He pulls the covers all the way up to his chin and sighs.
Or maybe it’s Hodgins.
The corner of his mouth quirks and he closes his eyes.