"Man, I can't believe you did that," Frizz laughed as he breezed through the door. Frizz's shadow followed two steps behind, not laughing but smiling. Bets leaned forward and watched the pair.

She disliked Jim most of the time. He would walk through a room and dismiss everyone with a simple passing glance that made it clear that he didn't care about a damn person here. He stormed through cases as though everyone from the M.E. to the trace lab should drop everything in order to process his paperwork. And the worst sin was his ability to solve cases with clues and hunches that seemed to fall out of thin air.

The rest of them celebrated when they could keep a solve rate above 50 percent, and he barely acknowledged his 83 percent solve rate. No celebration, no crowing, just this quiet acceptance as if everyone should have stats like that. Newsflash: none of them could measure up.

Russo shoved his chair back and headed for the door. Bets watched, waiting, and yes… there was the obligatory shove. Jim stood by Frizz's desk, his eyes focused on Frizz as Russo accidentally put an elbow into his back while reaching for a dropped paper. Frizz glanced up, his blue eyes going from Jim to Russo and back to Jim. Russo waited a half second for any reaction before walking out.

"Hey, Bets. We totally nailed the kids doing those smash and grabs down on Van Buren," Frizz announced happily as he held up a thick file. Bets smiled at him and raised her cup of lukewarm coffee in salute.

"You're the one who tracked down the homeless witness, so this one's all yours, Chief," Jim offered as he reached over and ruffled Frizz's hair. Jim looked down and smiled so widely that small lines formed at the side of his eyes. Knocking Jim's hand away with an uncomfortable laugh, Frizz ducked his head.

"Just doing my job," he insisted with a shrug, but then Bets had never heard Frizz accept praise without either deflecting it or distracting the person offering the compliment.

"No, you're doing your job well," Jim said with same smile, that smile that showed pride and joy Bets rarely saw one man offer another.

Frizz glanced up. "Thanks, Jim," Frizz nearly whispered with a smile that shifted his whole face, a smile that made him look like a child who has just discovered chocolate. In that moment, Bets saw a Frizz she'd never seen before.

Maybe Jim wasn't so bad after all.

"If you want, I can arm wrestle you for him," Jeff commented as he walked through the bullpen where most of the other detectives were working desks. Funny how one of Arizona's famous thunderstorms that flooded streets and turned playgrounds into rivers could make detectives suddenly worry about paperwork.

"I don't think so," Jim answered in that dry voice that only Blair recognized as his amused tone.

"Come on, he was my regular partner before he was yours. Besides, I have this weird assed case, where my main eyewitness is an absolute loon who thinks aliens have been experimenting on his intestines." Jeff's voice now took on a petulant whine.

"Not going to happen." Jim's words made Blair smile. Rafe or Brown or Megan knew that Blair was Jim's primary partner and would never challenge that, but when he and Jim had come back from a routine call, Jeff had made the made the mistake of asking Blair to go along on his call without even acknowledging Jim.

Jim had gone silent and stone-faced, and Blair knew that Jim expected him to leave with Jeff, especially since the whole case was weird-assed. For one second, Blair considered turning around and leaving Jim with the paperwork while he chased this new case, but something in Jim's face stopped him. Hell, he knew the something that stopped him; it was the way the jaw muscle flexed and popped.

For weeks, Jim had remained painfully neutral on every topic, and now Jim was showing a clear desire, and the desire was to have Blair stay with him. Blair was man enough to admit that he was more than a little complimented. So Blair had deferred to his partner, and Jim had quickly fallen back into the old patterns. Blair was his partner and no one was taking Blair out of the station except him. Blair suspected that he should have been offended, but it was actually nice to see the old possessive Jim back in control.

"What? You think I can't take you?" Jeff asked in a tone that was only half playful, and even Blair gave the man a strange look at that one.

"I know you can't take me," Jim commented in this time he actually gave a small laugh.

"Guys, come on, don't be like this," Blair complained as Jeff's face took on the sharp defensive expression that the man so often wore around Captain Roth. Jeff opened his mouth to continue the exchange, but then Jim physically stepped back and Jeff closed his mouth, and Blair thought the moment had passed. Blair thought wrong.

"Jeff may not be able to take you, but I'm willing to lay odds that I can," Russo chimed in, from his side of the room. Blair watched as Russo pushed his chair back and stood, straightening his jacket over his wide shoulders in a rather amusing dominance display.

Jim looked over at the second detective, and Blair could tell from the relaxed slope of Jim's shoulders and the amused grin that Jim didn't feel intimidated at all. Unfortunately, Jim's amusement only seemed to annoy Russo even more.

"Unless you have a whole lot of friends around the corner that I don't know about, I know I can take you," Jim commented as he crossed his arms over his chest.

"Big talk from the new guy," Russo said darkly as he crossed his arms over his own chest and glared. What Russo didn't take into consideration was that Jim's glare was twice as lethal.

"You know, my gym has a boxing ring, we could settle this very quickly." Russo pushed his lower lip out with his tongue in an expression that Blair had learned meant that the man was about two seconds from shoving a cuffed suspect face-first into the nearest wall. The man had been challenging Jim for so long that Blair should have known it had to come to a head at some point. For weeks, Jim had stepped aside for Russo as Russo physically shoved past him at the station. Jim had ignored muttered insults that the sentinel could clearly hear. For weeks, Jim had been building up his own frustration, and now that the actual challenge had been issued, Jim's face lost all playfulness.

Blair opened his mouth to suggest just how foolish that would be, but then again, he didn't think Russo would listen to him in the first place. Instead he just kept his mouth shut and watched the most blatant display of posturing he'd seen since he was sent out to study the behavior of adolescent chimpanzees in the wild. He was caught somewhere between fascination and amusement and horror that this was about to get out of hand. Of course he wasn't going to compare them to chimps out loud. He didn't think they would actually kill him, but he'd been wrong before.

So instead he moved to the side of the bullpen where he could watch Jim and Russo glare at each other viciously while Jeff stood with his hands on his hips in frustration at being ignored by the two larger men. Of course, it could be worse. Jim certainly had more immediate ways to prove his physical superiority, and no one would be *actually* hurt by a small boxing match. Hopefully…. Maybe. Blair looked from one to the other as he tried to judge just why Jeff's pestering had made the two men react so strongly.

"I suppose I can use the exercise," Jim countered quietly. Quiet Jim was dangerous Jim, but only Blair knew that.

"Oh man, you two did not just make a date to be beat the shit out of each other, did you?" Blair interrupted since this little contest over who was in better shape was starting to get out of hand.

"Oh for God's sake just flip a coin or something." Bets complained loudly from the other side of the room where she sat at her desk with narrowed eyes frowning at the whole room. "I swear to god I am so sick of dealing with men and their egos that there are days I just want to spit. If you both wanna work with Frizz, then flip a coin or something, but from where I sit, I don't really give a shit which one of you is in better shape." Bets glared until Russo and Jim both lowered their arms and dropped the aggressive body language. "I think the whole point of this job is to work together against the criminals, not to beat each other up every other day try to prove who has the bigger cock."

Bets immediately went back to her paperwork, and Blair could see the shock on Jim's face as he opened his mouth to shoot a comment right back to her. But then Russo turned his back and wandered to his desk, and Jeff gave up on the idea of getting Blair's help with his recalcitrant witness and snorted his frustration before leaving.

Blair wasn't sure whether it was that the other men had backed down so quickly to Bets or whether it was that Jim simply respected the fact that he was on her territory, but Jim closed his mouth without saying a word. Jim turned and went back to his desk, a large hand lingering on Blair's arm for a moment at he passed.

Blair really needed to get together with Bets and figure out how she managed to get the toughest man he'd ever met to back down without a fight. With scary superpowers like that, it didn't even matter who was in better shape.