Series Note: There are 65 episodes of The Sentinel, and that got me to thinking...That's 65 opportunities for two beautiful men to make love. Or, at least, to want to very badly. Hmm...

Summary: Episode two, Seige. Blair determines that his is not into being dominated.

Warnings: Rated R. m/m

There had to be some other explanation. Had to.

Maybe it was just all the excitement. Sometimes that could affect a guy-- well, physically. And hell, this was a freakin' dream come true today. Captain Banks had approved his ride-along request. Okay, so he mistakenly believed he was throwing his detective a nepotistic bone and hiring his cousin. But whatever. Blair was just a few short personnel forms away from getting the chance of a lifetime. Hell, he could be anybody Jim wanted him to be.

And what Jim seemed to want was somebody who would mindlessly follow directions with a cheerful yes-sir expression plastered on his face. Jim was so not happy about his solo riff on the thin blue line theme he'd done for the captain. Blair still found it hard to believe that hadn't been a slam dunk. But apparently, it really hadn't, and Jim had gone all drill sergeant on him, barking out the commands. Come to think of it, that was about the same time Blair had started feeling-- well, invigorated. It was all purely coincidental, of course. Had to be. Because he was not into being some flunky Jim could just order around any willy-nilly way he saw fit. Really. He wasn't.

Jim stopped outside the personnel department and regarded him sternly. "I just want to make sure we have things straight before this goes any further. If you're going to ride with me, you have to abide by my rules. From now on, when I tell you to do something, you do it. When I tell you to say something, you say it, the way I tell you to say it, okay? Are we clear?"

An unsanctioned picture flashed through Blair's head of Jim gripping him by the wrists, that no-nonsense mouth against his ear, explaining the finer points of the observer gig, how it demanded complete cooperation, nakedness and the frequent application of handcuffs. His dick leaped to full attention, out of respect for Jim's authority.

Blair clutched his jacket against his body. "Uh, yeah. We're clear."

"Good."

Jim reached for the door. But Blair just couldn't, not like this. Somehow, it didn't seem right to go in there and sign papers like a serious professional when he had a veritable lumberyard in his pants.

"Hey, wait a minute, man. Time out."

"Problem?"

"Yeah, that, uh--" Think, think. "Sixteen-ounce cafe latte I had is kinda banging at my bladder."

He made a gesture with his fist, as if somehow that would make his story more believable, as if Jim wouldn't just take him at his word that he needed to pee. Then it struck him that this particular hand motion indicated sexual intercourse in more than a few cultures. He turned red. What was wrong with him today?

Jim pointed out the bathroom. "Right down there."

And, God--"banging at my bladder." Who talked like that? It was his first day, and he wanted to make a good impression. But here he was sounding like a complete idiot. Worse yet, Jim apparently didn't have a high enough opinion of him to even notice anything was amiss. He probably just assumed Blair babbled on like a fool all the time.

That thought stalled him for a moment. Jim somehow interpreted this as a need for further direction. He put a hand on his arm to guide him, as if he were a six year old who couldn't go to the potty by himself. Blair's brain took offense. His dick bobbed enthusiastically.

He pulled his arm away. "Uh, I think you can trust me to handle this mission on my own."

Handle. Handle? God. What was with him and the Freudian slippage today? Why didn't he just go ahead and blurt it out: I'm going to the men's room to masturbate.

Jim grinned. "You sure you don't need any help?"

Blair's heart started to pound. Shit. Jim couldn't know, could he? It was just some lame-ass joke about his being a clueless kid, right? His traitorous brain--which was supposed to be on the side of reason--chose that moment to throw out some other possibilities, images of the two of them sandwiched in a stall together, Jim being very helpful.

Oh, God.

"No, no, man," Blair said, fighting off an all-out panic attack. "You know, but thanks for the offer."

Hell. Why had he said that? Jim gave him a look, amused, and a little-- speculative, maybe. What was that supposed to mean? God.

He practically ran to the rest room.

Thankfully, it was empty. He hurried into a stall and locked it. There wasn't much time. Jim was out there waiting. He pulled off a wad of toilet paper. The last thing he wanted was to leave behind evidence. He quickly unzipped, unpacked, and got right down to business. He tried to be as quiet as possible, but the flesh-against-flesh sound echoed off the tiles despite his efforts. He wondered if there was some patron protector from social embarrassment he could call on to keep anyone from walking in. But he just couldn't think.

Because if he were thinking, even the least little bit, clearly he wouldn't be jacking off in the police station. It had to be against the law--public lewdness or something to that effect. Although, technically, he was in a stall, not in plain view. Would that make a difference? Probably not. He had to be out of his mind to be doing this.

But, he was doing it, and there was definitely no turning back now. He braced one hand against the wall and picked up the pace with the other. Every prisoner-at-the-mercy-of-a-jackbooted-cop sex cliche paraded through his head. He pictured pat downs and nightsticks and strip searches. It was really quite beneath him. He was a scholar. His brain was supposed to be this finely honed instrument, this repository for knowledge. But apparently, sometime during the day it had changed management and become a low-rent porn theater. Only nobody had bothered to let him in on the little alteration until he was standing there beside Jim with a boner in his drawers.

And why the hell was it rough stuff that was turning him on so much? Make-love-not-war Blair Sandburg wasn't into being dominated. No way, no how! There had to be some other explanation for it, some psychosexual dynamic in American society, some collective unconscious thing.

Hadn't he even read something in a psych journal once, a theory that civilian fantasies about law enforcement officers were really a symbolic way of working out the unnerving and complex relationship people had with authority? It sounded like a valid theory to him. That had to be the explanation. This was just a symbolic hard-on, nothing to worry about.

But his rebel imagination really didn't care what the reason was. It went right on happily conjuring up more scenarios, things like Jim dragging him into an interrogation room and locking the door behind them, a stark look on his face that promised Blair would never even think about defying him again.

Shit! That was it. He bit his lip, squeezed his eyes shut and came into the wad of toilet paper. It was a hell of an orgasm, not what he would have expected from a flyby jerkoff in the men's room. But then, there was all the excitement of his first day on the job. That was his story, and he was sticking with it.

He disposed of the toilet paper and scanned the stall for telltale signs. But he didn't see anything. He went ahead and peed. There had been that sixteen-ounce latte, and a story was always more convincing when it had a basis in fact. He chose not consider that maybe he was being just a little paranoid.

After he finished, he washed up at the basin and stared at himself in the mirror. He was a bit flushed, and his hair was wilder than usual. He had a sort of shifty look in his eyes, too. He just hoped it didn't scream: "Hey, I'm a pervert who just beat off in the men's room."

He rushed back down the hall to the personnel department. Jim was inside, leaning against the counter, trying to make small talk with the woman behind the desk.

"Is that White Shoulders you're wearing, Vera?" he asked.

It surprised Blair. Somehow, Jim didn't strike him as the suave-with-the-ladies type.

Vera touched her neck. She was a little self-conscious and obviously quite flattered.

"It's not too much, is it?" she asked.

Jim shook his head. "No, not at all. It's just that whenever I smell White Shoulders it reminds me of my grandmother."

Vera stopped smiling. "Your grandmother?"

Jim nodded.

"Is there something you need, Detective?" she asked stonily.

Jim looked completely startled by the change in her tone. Blair tried not to laugh. It was really quite heartening. If Jim was this clueless about people, then hopefully Blair had nothing to worry about.

"Uh, yeah, I just needed--" Jim flailed.

He looked around a bit desperately and saw Blair standing there.

"You fall in or something?" he asked, sounding annoyed, as if it were Blair's fault he didn't know how to talk to women.

"I, uh-- I turned the wrong way, got a little lost," Blair told him.

Jim sighed impatiently. Blair joined him at the desk.

"So, what do I need to do?" he asked Vera.

She handed him a tome. "You're required to read the manual," she said. "Fill out the application materials, and sign the consent form."

He flipped through the pages. It was all rules and regulations and procedures, hardly a fascinating way to spend an afternoon.

"Great," he said. "When I'm done with all this, I should qualify for a license to kill, huh?"

Jim didn't laugh. Neither did Vera.

"We've got a couple of hours here, Chief," Jim said. "So I'm leaving you in Vera's capable hands. All right?"

"Sure."

Jim eyed Vera warily. "Well, good luck then."

Blair nodded. "Thanks, man."

Jim headed off. Blair smiled at Vera, hoping maybe he could persuade her to let him cut a few corners. She didn't appear the least bit charmed by him. Unfortunately, Vera reminded him of all the reference librarians and aid administrators and various other sticklers for procedure he'd tangled with during his academic career. There was no putting anything over on these people, so you might as well not even try.

"Mr. Sandburg, the department requires all incoming personnel to submit to a drug test. I hope that's not a problem for you."

"Oh, come on! Do I look like that would be a problem?"

She gave him a look.

"Uh, never mind," he said. "Don't answer that."

He always hated that about dealing with bureaucrats like Vera. They had this way of staring at you, as if they could see through walls, much less transparent posers like you. Blair's stomach suddenly clenched at the thought. She couldn't possibly know that he'd-- could she? No. No way. He had to calm the fuck down. Maybe he should cut back on the caffeine or something. No more sixteen-ounce lattes for him.

Vera handed him a little plastic cup. "Go fill this up."

"Well, now that might actually be a problem, because, um-- I just went."

Vera gave him the other patented bureaucratic look, the how-is-this-my-problem glare.

"I'll see what I can do," he said and headed back to the bathroom.

It felt a lot like returning to the scene of the crime. He wondered if the day could get any stranger.

Of course, it was always a mistake to think things like that. It only served as an invitation. He was in the bathroom, throwing water on his face, trying to coax his bladder into cooperating with him, when he heard the shots. What the hell was that? He peeked out the door and saw fatigue-wearing militia types holding a gun on one of the detectives Jim worked with. Blair quickly closed the door again and tried to think what Jim would tell him to do. Hide, no doubt.

He ducked into a stall, the stall, actually, although he was quite certain this was neither the time nor the place to mull that over. He heard a noise outside. Shit! What would they do when they found him? Shit, shit! Then he remembered something he'd seen in a movie once, some story about high school students trying to dodge their power-mad principal. He quickly pressed his back against the wall and put his feet up on the other side, balancing precariously. The door opened, and he held his breath. A moment later, the door whooshed closed again.

He got down and sat on the edge of the toilet. God. What the hell was he doing here? Surely, there was an easier way to do doctoral research, like living with a tribe of head hunters or studying ancient ruins in the middle of a war zone.

Shit! He jumped up as he heard a voice coming down the hall. He scrambled back into position, but his hold wasn't as steady as it had been before. Someone came in. Blair tried not to breathe. He listened to the water running in the sink. Were crackpot commandos always this intent on good hygiene? His thigh muscles trembled, and then he slipped. He foot hit the hardware, and the toilet flushed.

The bolt-action sound of the rifle was unmistakable. "Come out of there. Now!" a voice ordered.

He really intended just to give himself up, but then something got a hold of him, a picture of what Jim would do if he were there. In no way did it involve meekly holding up his hands and begging the man with the big gun not to hurt him. He knew he wasn't Jim, but he couldn't shake the image. Then he remembered something he'd seen on television, some slapstick moment from a truly bad comedy on one of the cable channels he watched, and he just went with it.

The metal stall door connected with the gunman's head. The man fell and didn't get back up again. Blair stared at him, lying there on the tile. He couldn't believe it had actually worked.

He ran. Clearly, the men's room was not the place to hide. Even right-wing wackos had to pee sometime. He raced down the hall, turned one corner and then another. He didn't know his way around the place yet, but he could see an opening at the end of the corridor. It looked like it might be a way out. He ran faster.

When he got there, though, it was just a recessed area with vending machines.

"Fuck!" he cursed.

But then it occurred to him that maybe this was serendipity. There was just enough room between the machine and the wall to fit him. He wriggled his way back in there and tried to catch his breath. Where the hell were the cops?

He might have been there five minutes when he heard clomping boots echoing off the linoleum, headed in his direction. He tried not to make any noise. He tried not to berate himself for picking this place to hide. Because, really, who knew paramilitary crazies would stop for snacks in the middle of taking hostages? He heard coins falling into the slot. Then the guy slammed his hand angrily against the machine. What? No Ho-Hos?

"Fuck you and your exact change," the guy yelled and then started firing at the machine.

Shit! Who knew someone could get so pissed off about needing a couple of nickels and some dimes? In a panic, Blair pushed the machine, trying to get away from the bullets. It must not have been perfectly level, because it tipped forward without much effort and fell on the man, knocking him out.

Blair tentatively stepped out from behind it, making sure the guy wasn't just faking. He tried to calculate the odds of successfully defending oneself with a vending machine when the opponent was armed with a semiautomatic pistol, but he couldn't do the math in his head. The numbers were just too large. But then, who really cared? He was still alive and not in the clutches of the fascist nutballs. What did it matter if it was only thanks to freakish chance?

He ran back down the hall.

Eventually, he saw an exit sign and followed it to the fire stairs. He opened the door and ducked inside. He stopped a moment to catch his breath, trying to practice the centering exercises his mother had taught him. But sometimes, panic was just too far gone to reel back in. He started for the stairs. If he could get out of the building, he could get help. But then he heard the hollow thudding of boots on the steps below him. He dashed back inside and hurried along the corridor.

He tried several doors before he found one open. It was somebody's office, file folders and books stacked everywhere, a miniature American flag in the pen holder. It was a police office, after all. Outside, he noticed a window washer's rig, his ticket to freedom. Of course, it wasn't right outside the window, but a little below. He'd have to jump for it. Still, it was the kind of thing that always worked in the movies, and that was really the only experience he had with situations like this.

It took him several tries to find something that would break the plexiglass. That wasn't very cinematic. Nor was standing by the open window struck still by terror, having serious second thoughts about whether this was a good idea or not. Like he always told people, it wasn't heights that bothered him so much as the prospect of falling to his death. Finally, though, he decided it was better than facing men with machine guns. He jumped for it. Miraculously, he made it. He started to imagine what Jim would think, what he might say, that he might even be proud. Maybe he'd start to see that Blair could actually be useful as an observer.

But then, his Hollywood happy ending was interrupted by a man on the roof shooting at him, putting a hole in the arm of his favorite coat. There was more gunfire, and then the rig started to plummet, knocking him to his knees. He only had time for an instant of terror before the contraption thankfully jerked to a stop. He scrambled to his feet. He'd never been so grateful to be alive and stationary in his whole life.

The relief was short-lived, though. He heard the now familiar rifle noise and turned around to find two of Kincaid's men at the open window, their guns aimed right at him. He put his hands up in surrender. God, what was it with these guys? Couldn't they slack off every once in a while the way every other worker did? They were supposed to be patriots. Wasn't doing a half-assed job the American way?

They ordered him back through the window, pushed him out into the hall, and jabbed a gun in his kidneys as they marched him to the squad room. More goons met them at the door. One of them snapped a pair of cuffs onto his wrists and ordered him to sit on a nearby desk. Kincaid stormed over, waving a gun in his face.

"Are you the mole who took out two of my men?"

Blair didn't answer. Kincaid grabbed the neck of his jacket, half strangling him, and Blair had one of those striking moments of realization. He wasn't into domination, never had been, never would be. Of course, it was a little late in the game to be figuring that out now, but still, it was good to know.

"In this militia, an act of aggression like that is a capital offense," Kincaid informed him.

Blair could feel the cold steel of the gun against his cheekbone.

"Hey, man, you don't want to do that, believe me," he said, trying to cover up his panic, trying to think what Jim would do. "I'm worth more to you as a live hostage than a dead body."

"What makes you think that your sorry ass is worth anything to anybody?"

"Banks sent me in," he said, with a flash of bravado, pure make believe.

"You're a cop?" Kincaid asked.

"Yeah. Lieutenant Sandburg, Narcotics. I've been teamed with Ellison."

"He's telling the truth, Kincaid," one of the detectives chimed in, trying to help.

Kincaid fired in the direction of the man's head, missing by mere inches. "Shut up!" he barked.

Then the gun was back in Blair's face. He closed his eyes, certain the bullet was coming, hoping it would happen so fast he wouldn't even know what happened. A phone rang, and one of Kincaid's men called him over. Blair tried to figure out how to breathe again. He listened to the conversation. Apparently, Kincaid was getting what he wanted, his men released from prison.

Kincaid hung up, his mood noticeably improved, and turned back to Blair. "Looks like the execution's off," he said.

He grabbed Blair around the throat and got so close Blair could smell his breath.

"I guess I could use a man like you."

Kincaid said each word slowly, with an odd deliberation, never once breaking eye contact. Blair didn't like the way he was staring at him. Maybe he was imagining things, but it didn't strike him as the kind of look you'd waste on someone you regarded merely as a prospective human shield.

The phone rang again. The helicopter was landing on the roof. Kincaid rounded up his men, declared victory, and ordered them all to evacuate.

He pointed to Blair. "Mr. Natural here is coming with me. He's my protection."

A snippet from an old musical--Blair couldn't remember which one--passed through his head. Doin' what comes naturally. Oh, God no. Kincaid grabbed him by the collar and yanked him off the desk. He pushed him toward the door. Blair was still not into being dominated, just in case anybody needed a recount.

"Why am I getting singled out?" he asked, as Kincaid half dragged him down the hall.

Kincaid waved the gun at him. "Don't worry about it, Serpico. You're one of the lucky ones. You're coming with me."

Funny, Blair didn't feel all that lucky.

Kincaid kept the gun pressed against Blair's back as he hustled him into the stairwell and up the steps to the roof. When Blair saw the helicopter, he really began to panic. Where the hell was Jim? Where was anyone? In the movies, this was exactly the point where someone would swoop in to rescue him. But nobody seemed to be coming.

Blair tried to make himself dead weight. He tried to pull away so he could run back to the building.

"No! You don't understand," he tried to explain.

Kincaid kept a tight grip on his arm. "Shut up, kid."

"I'm not really a cop! I was lying!"

He lunged, desperate to get away.

"Shut up!" Kincaid screamed.

Kincaid yanked him roughly by the elbow, and Blair stumbled, knocking against him. And then he felt it, the hardness against his hip. Kincaid's gun was in his hand, not his pocket, so that must mean he was just glad to--

Blair went wild, struggling to break Kincaid's grip.

"I'm an anthropologist," he said, desperately.

Kincaid snorted. "Yeah, and I'm the president."

But Kincaid didn't really sound convincing. And Blair realized he knew. Kincaid knew he wasn't who he claimed to be. He probably had from the first. He just didn't care.

"Get him in there!" Kincaid yelled to his men in the helicopter.

They dragged Blair on board, their guns pointed at him. And Blair just wanted to beg. He wanted to say: This is not my world. I'm not prepared for this. God, please, it's only my first damn day. But it wouldn't do any good. He was already lost. He knew enough to realize that. The cops would find his body disposed of somewhere, not right away probably, but after he'd spent some time serving the cause with his underwear down around his ankles.

And this pointed out something very, very important that he'd been overlooking all day--a simple truth, not the least bit profound, but crucial, nonetheless. Fantasy was not reality. He might have indulged in a sticky daydream about being handcuffed and at Jim's sexual mercy, because Jim was the most honorable man he'd ever met and would never do something like that. The fantasy just gave Blair a way to try on possibilities he'd never considered before without having to feel so responsible. In the end, it really wasn't about domination at all.

But what was happening now-- well, this was hard, bruising reality. This was domination, the authentic, no-holds-barred variety. And it was totally different from his harmless little daydream, actually being handcuffed and completely vulnerable to a madman who, in his perverse distortion of honor, would regard raping him as a well-earned spoil of war and killing him as some kind of justice.

Blair could finally see himself the way Jim must see him--his terrible, wide-eyed naivete, movies and television his only skewed frame of reference, in so far over his head that he didn't even know enough to be scared, not until it was way too late. He'd just kept hoping for some technicolor miracle, but now, he could see that this was just ordinary, marvel-free life, whatever he had left of it. There was no cavalry, no rescue in the final sequence. There was just this helicopter ride to nowhere.

The chopper pitched to the right as it took off. Blair held onto the seat in front of him, his knuckles white, trying not to look down.

"What was that?" Kincaid asked the pilot.

"Air currents," the man said.

But the helicopter kept rocking back and forth. Blair felt positively green. Helicopters really were not his thing. He divided his time between worrying that the flying death trap would crash in a blinding fireball or that he would throw up on Kincaid and get tossed overboard for breaking some obscure martial law that forbade upchucking on the commander-in-chief.

"There's something wrong," the pilot said. "We're pulling to the right."

Kincaid pressed his face to the window. "Looks like we got a stowaway, boys," he said.

Blair leaned forward, trying to see out. It looked like-- But it couldn't be, could it? Jim. Hell. Maybe there were still a few cowboys left in the world.

"Lose him," Kincaid ordered.

Blair balled his hands into fists. His heart pounded. Please, don't fall, Jim.

And then, maybe miracles did happen every now and then. Because somehow Jim managed to hang on as the pilot shook the craft, trying to throw him off.

Kincaid glanced at Blair over his shoulder. "Hell, I guess he just doesn't want to let you go."

Blair didn't really believe that was why Jim was out there. He knew he would have come after Kincaid no matter what. But still, the idea of Jim going to such lengths to save his life touched him warmly.

Kincaid slid open the chopper door. "He's just going to have to learn to let go," he said and aimed his gun at Jim.

Blair just couldn't let him do it. Couldn't. Mild-mannered, turn-the-other-cheek Blair Sandburg. He threw the full weight of his body into Kincaid and knocked him over the side. Blair fully expected to be responsible for his death. But apparently, Kincaid had a way with luck, too. Somehow, he managed to catch Jim's leg and hang on for dear life.

Jim demanded that the pilot turn around. The man refused. Blair scrambled around for something that might convince him and found, of all things, a flare gun at his feet, another freakish stroke of action-film-esque good fortune.

He was Naomi Sandburg's son, and he really was not into violence or domination. But he was even less fond of untimely death. So he jumped into the front seat, blocked the guy in the passenger side with his body and shoved the flare gun in the pilot's face.

"Turn around, or you buy it," he threatened.

The pilot sneered. "You take me out, and you're all going down."

"I don't think so," Blair said. "I flew Apaches in Desert Storm. Now turn around."

This was the real world, not a movie, so Blair really expected the guy to call his bluff. But sometimes, he guessed, the powers were just on your side. The pilot apparently bought his load of crap, because he banked the copter around and headed back to the police station. Blair kept the flare gun on him and an eye on Jim. He was still down there. Thank God.

Against all odds, they made it safely back to the precinct. The cops took care of the bad guys. There was a moment of confusion when they mistook Blair for one of Kincaid's men, but the captain straightened it out.

"He's on our team," Banks told them.

Hearing the captain say that gave him a feeling, not the same feeling that Jim gave him, but then, that was probably for the best.

"Did you say I was on your team?" Blair asked, just to make sure his hearing hadn't been damaged during the helicopter escapade.

"Strictly as an observer," the captain insisted.

He nodded. "An observer. Strictly. Right."

Of course, as an observer, he'd already been shot at, almost fell to his death, took out two armed militia members, told an assortment of really big lies, and nearly became the hostage-slash-sex-slave of a nutcase on the FBI's most wanted list. But he figured it was best not to bring up any of that just at the moment.

Jim and the captain went off to take care of-- whatever cop things they needed to do. Blair looked around for someone to let him out of the handcuffs. He asked a woman whom he thought he recognized as Jim's ex. She gave him a disapproving look, but helped him anyway. It would have been nice if Jim hadn't forgotten all about him, but it did feel good to be free again. There was no arguing with that.

Blair watched Jim and the captain talking. He had the distinct impression that Jim was spilling his guts. After the captain walked away, he went over to Jim.

"You told him, didn't you?" he said.

"I had to."

"Did he like freak out about the Sentinel thing or what?"

Jim shook his head. "Actually, I think everything is going to be just fine." He patted Blair on the cheeks.

And everything began to make sense, Jim's bossiness, Blair's weird reactions. Hell, it was classic.

Just look at that last little maneuver. Touching another man's face was such an alpha male gesture. Jim was spelling out his own place in the pack, as well as Blair's. That's what this whole day had been about--well, up until the standoff with the armed lunatics, at least. Jim had been declaring himself the leader. It made perfect sense given the hierarchical power structure of an institution like the police department. Blair had consciously rejected being relegated to a secondary role, but unconsciously, he'd been trying to show Jim that he accepted his authority. No doubt, if he were a dog, he would have peed all over himself to demonstrate his submissiveness, but since he was a man-- he, well, went a slightly different route. For the life of him, he didn't know why he hadn't figured it out before.

For good measure, he decided to give his hypothesis a little test.

"So there's just one more thing I've got to ask you," he said to Jim.

"What's that?"

"This wasn't like a typical day for you, was it?"

He put on his best shit-eating grin, an expression appropriate to a dog well back in the pack. Jim just laughed and walked off, a totally alpha-like response.

Blair ran after him. He really did want to know the answer.

"Well, is it? Come on!" he called to Jim.

And then he realized what he was doing. Yep. His test had confirmed his speculations. He was definitely acting out his role in the power structure, just as he must have been with the hijinks in the rest room. No need to look for a more personal or disturbing or embarrassing explanation.

This was his theory. He was sticking with it.