"Take me with you...Booth...C'mon, Booth! Argh!" a frustrated Sweets slapped the side of Booth's doorway and leaned through the frame as Booth swept though the bullpen, ignoring the pleas of his partner, whose squared shoulders were heading for the lifts.

Flynn, his partner Carlos, and a handful of rookie agents sniggered.

"What's the matter, Boy Wonder? You and Batman have a tiff?" Carlos grinned.

"No." Sweets sulked. "And I noticed you waited until Booth was no longer in earshot to make that comment. That's very brave of you."

Carlos shrugged. "Who wouldn't want to be Batman? Robin's the gay one." He picked up his coffee cup and headed into the break-room while Sweets stared after him, scowling.

"Don't take it personally. Carlos is a jackass." Flynn said with a quiet smile, obviously feeling a little sorry for the younger man who was now striding down the hallway ahead of him.

"I'm not." Sweets turned and put his hands on his hips to address Flynn, subconsciously displaying his firearm under the tail of his jacket. "I don't consider homosexuality pejorative. I'm just annoyed that Booth doesn't trust me enough to come on this bust with him. I'm a good shot. I am." Sweets emphasised when Flynn gave him an amused little smile.

Flynn scoffed. "You know why he doesn't want you to go..."

"Uh, no. Please, enlighten me." Sweets frowned, crossing his arms.

Flynn shook his head slowly. The kid really didn't help his case when he looked and sounded like an angry spouse. "As far as I can see, for whatever reason, you're actually the person Booth trusts most. He doesn't want you in the field because worrying about you is too distracting. For him."

Sweets furrowed his brow, his gaze flicking away from Flynn and back to him, processing what he'd said. "Isn't that a little strange? For a guy's guy like Booth?"

"Yeah, well..." Flynn raised his eyebrows, and made to keep walking.

Sweets put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "Hey! What did that mean?"

Flynn sighed, clearly feeling cornered. "Look, I didn't mean anything. Everyone knows Booth is a great agent and our best marksman. I have a lot of respect for him. Bit of professional envy too."

Sweets leaned forward. "Why would any of that be in question?"

Flynn's face soured, like he was stuck in the waiting room at the dentist. "It's not. But you know how it is in a place like the Bureau. First Booth gets way too involved over at the Jeffersonian, partners up with a squint instead of a cop. Then you come along, another non-cop, you're his shrink, then his buddy, then you're out in the field, now you're his unofficial partner and you go everywhere together, finishing each other's sentences and bickering like an old married couple."

Sweets pursed his lips. "An old married couple? Is that what they call us?"

Flynn shrugged and shifted on his feet. "I might have heard it said that he's so close to you because Brennan's so cold, and a man needs a wife to talk about his feelings with."

Sweets shifted his weight on his feet irritably. "You're saying people look down on Booth because of his relationship with the Jeffersonian and me?"

Flynn held his palms up in front of him. "None of that matters to me if it gets the job done. And it does. But yeah, I'd be lying if I said Booth's reputation hadn't taken a hit."

A dark shadow crossed Sweets' face. "Thanks for letting me know." He said in a subdued voice.

"Don't sweat it." Flynn disappeared up the hall double-time before the young profiler could ask him anything more.

xxxxxxxxx

"Hey, Shirley Temple, is it true that you dispensed with the formalities and moved in with Booth and the missus?"

Sweets paused, midway through getting into his car in the underground garage. Jackman was actually worse than Carlos. Working against terrorists and projecting the patriarchal nationhood of the United States of America through their personalities all day long clearly created a conservative group-mindset laced with misogyny.

He shook his head, got out of the car again and turned towards Jackman, straightening up to signal his awareness that he was three inches taller than the smirking agent.

"You got something to say to me, Jackman?"

Jackman snorted and rubbed his thumb past his chin, exchanging a look with Carlos, who was standing by his own sedan. "My God! You even sound like him. You gonna try on his suits when he's out of the house too?"

Sweets put his hands in his pockets and gave his pursuant a half-smile. "Well, Jackman, you're a thuggish, second-rate agent nursing a broken marriage, so I don't really care what your motivation for harassing me is, but if I had to guess, I'd say you're jealous. That sound shrinky enough for you?"

"Ooh." Carlos catcalled.

Jackman gave an ugly sneer, cracked his neck and took a few aggressive steps towards Sweets.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you." Sweets cautioned.

"Oh yeah, Sweetie-pie? Booth took you for your certification and now you think you can use that thing?" Jackman nodded to Sweets' holstered gun.

"It's not that." Sweets looked from Jackman to Carlos, and twirled his index finger in the air. "This whole underground structure has security cameras. Jump me and your boss will be the first person to know."

Jackman looked at Carlos, who shook his head at his friend.

Jackman jutted his chin out, and took a few shuffled steps back. "Jump you? Yeah, you'd probably like that."

"Not as much as you would."

Carlos sniggered. Jackman snorted and slapped a hand on the roof of his car.

"That came out wrong." Sweets grimaced, sliding back into the driver's seat of his own vehicle as the other agents drove away.

He sighed. Since his talk with Flynn, he'd been a lot more observant in the halls of the Bureau. The other day, Booth had been complaining about Dr Brennan's avid collecting of meso-American pottery in the break-room, and he'd been defending her interest, when he'd suddenly become aware that two agents were watching them with smirks on their faces. Another time they'd been in the stairwell, rehashing the 'caveman or spaceman' argument, and Sweets had joked that Booth was just overly fond of his club. Another agent had passed a snort-laugh off as a coughing attack.

Flynn was right. He was clearly ruining Booth's street cred.

He smacked the wheel. Office culture might even be the reason Booth had not been promoted. But what could he do? If he told Booth, he'd be devastated. He'd probably lash out at Sweets, maybe even distance himself from Sweets at work. If Sweets was honest with himself, the idea of Booth dumping his friendship because he wasn't cool enough felt a little too close to a bad high school re-run for him to willingly contemplate.

But he was a psychologist. The other option open to him was to manipulate Booth into changing the outward nature of their relationship.

Sweets sighed. He loved their relationship exactly as it was. Booth was his best friend.

But if he wanted to save his friend's feelings in the long term, and his career trajectory, he had to do something.

"This totally sucks." He exclaimed as he turned the key in the ignition.

xxxxxxxxx

"What's bothering you, Sweets?" Booth playfully nudged his shoulder, completely disregarding that Sweet's was using that hand to flick through the suspect's record.

"Nh, you made me lose my spot." Sweets whined.

Booth grinned and tapped the back of his desk-chair. "You're grouchy. De-fin-ite-ly grouchy. What's eating you?"

Sweets flipped a page, eyes focused on the report. "I'm not grouchy."

"Yeah, but in shrink language, everything is complicated and backwards." Booth said sagely, leaning forward over his desk. "So if you say you're not grouchy, I know you mean the complete opposite."

"Huh?" Sweets feigned being so lost in the report he hadn't heard.

"C'mon Sweets, you have an IQ of 240. I know you can read and listen at the same time." Booth's eyes were starting to get that serious 'interrogation' look in them.

Sweets sighed. "IQs over 200 are generally considered impossible."

Booth folded his arms. "What's bothering you?"

Sweets gave a sad half-smile. "You're going to think it's stupid."

Booth gestured forward with his chin. "Try me."

Sweets sighed again, his shoulders slumping. It was show time. "So, I asked a woman out, the other day, you know, a rookie agent?"

Booth frowned. "Which rookie agent?"

"Uh, Tanya Harding?" Sweets said.

Booth pulled his head back and raised his eyebrows. "Really? Harding? Didn't think she was your type."

"Really? You know my shrink language and my type now?" Sweets huffed.

"Get on with the story, Sweets." Booth cajoled him.

Sweets put his hands in his pockets. "Right. Well, when I asked Tanya out, she turned me down..."

"Hence the grouchy." Booth gestured up and down his frame.

"Well, yeah." Sweets shrugged. "But get this. She said she'd never thought of me as attractive because she'd always thought I was gay. Thought I had a 'little gay crush' on you, actually."

Booth raised his eyebrows until they almost disappeared into his hairline. "You're kidding me."

"That's what she said." Sweets pursed his lips quizzically. "Anyway, I've been thinking maybe if I toned down the buddy-buddy stuff with you around the office, she might come to her senses."

Booth grimaced and punched his hand loosely into his fist in order to mask his hurt feelings. "Hey, if this girl means a lot to you, guess it's worth a shot. Although..." he scuffed his shoe on the floor and looked back up to Sweets' eyes "if her radar's that far off, she doesn't sound like much of an agent. Would you really want to be with a bright spark like that?"

Sweets laughed nervously. "What can I say? The heart wants what the heart wants."

Booth snorted. "That's a fact."

Sweets could see that Booth was stinging a little from the rejection, but he couldn't see much of a way around it. He was doing this for his big, burly partner's sake, after all.

For his part, he was feeling lonely already.

xxxxxxxxx

"I don't understand." Brennan said, folding the baby's washing.

"Why Sweets' behaviour would be upsetting to me? It's not." Booth was wearing his gym clothes, still a little hyped from coming back from his run. "I just don't think pursuing a stupid girl like that is going to get him moved on and moved out of our house any faster." He wiped the back of his hand over his brow, agitated.

"I meant I don't understand your description of Sweets' behaviour. It seems out of character. In my observations of Sweets, he has always prioritised his relationships with you and I above those he might form with potential mates." She put a folded blanket in the basket.

Booth winced. "Uh, that could actually be the problem."

Brennan smiled. "Sweets is not gay."

"I know that, Bones. It wouldn't bother me if he was." Booth ran his fingers through his sweaty hair.

"It wouldn't bother you if another male, in close proximity to you at work and at home, had romantic feelings for you?" Brennan said, disbelievingly.

"Well, it would be a little weird, yeah. In a way, though, it would be sort of flattering." Booth laughed. "Two geniuses with crushes on me."

Brennan raised her eyebrows and smiled. "You miss pal-ing around with Sweets in the office."

"Uh-uh. No I don't." Booth smiled and shook his head slowly from side to side. "All I'm saying is, he's supposed to be here figuring out how to make good life choices – and I don't think he's making good life choices."

Brennan smiled and pushed it. "You miss your little friend."

"Bones, no." He took another step towards her.

"I think you do." She teased him.

"You know what I don't miss? The time in our lives when I couldn't stop you from talking by doing this."

He leaned forward and kissed her.

xxxxxxxxx

When Caroline walked into the copy room, she heard a deep man's voice ask: "...lover's quarrel?"

Then that punk Jackman added: "Did you stop putting out? Or was the problem that you offered to start?" she turned the corner to find Agent Carlos and Agent Jackman crowding Sweets into a corner over a copy machine. Sweets had a heavy profiling textbook in his hand against his chest, the fingers of one hand still between the pages, marking his place.

He was scowling at the other men. He didn't look frightened. Just fed up. "Why do you care, Jackman? Hoping there's an opening in Booth's schedule for you?"

Jackman shoved the book hard, so that Sweets got pushed back into the copier, his fingers squashed between the pages. "Turns out, shrink, there's no cameras in the copy room. I checked."

"What in the cross-eyed devil is going on here?" Caroline exclaimed loudly, bustling into the room and announcing her presence.

Carlos had the grace to look embarrassed, but Jackman just said "There's a queue for the copier."

"Well, maybe you best come back later." Caroline huffed.

Carlos nodded and the pair of them made a quick exit.

Then she turned on Sweets, who was looking visibly paler and more frightened now that the threat was gone. "What was all that about, Cher?"

"It was nothing. Just fooling around." He swallowed.

"Boy, you sure are one stinky liar. I mean you reek." She waved a hand theatrically in front of her face. "I saw that look on your face. You were waiting for him to hit you. Egging him on."

Sweets sighed, and blushed. "If he punched me, I'd have something real to take to Internal Affairs to get Jackman fired."

"A nasty piece of work like Jackman doesn't just hit you once. You're a psychologist, so you know that, Cher."

Sweets sighed, and shrugged.

He knew.

"So, what? You want Jackman to lose his job that badly? What exactly did the little miscreant do?" Caroline put her hands on her hips.

Sweets rocked on his feet. "This stays between us?"

"If it has to, Cher."

Sweets inched closer to Caroline. "Have you ever heard anyone...talk...about Booth and me?"

Caroline frowned. "Talk, how?"

"Like, that maybe Booth's not such a macho guy anymore because he hangs around with me." Sweets said, eyes downcast.

"Oh, that's nonsense, Cher! Agent Booth is the biggest, toughest, most ass-kicking agent on the force, you ask anybody!" Caroline nodded her head as though she'd settled the matter.

"Well, actually, I've noticed among the senior agents that there's some hostility towards Booth because of his reliance on intel and support from members outside the FBI. Squints, shrinks..."

"Lawyers?" Caroline asked, eyebrows raised.

"Non-cops." Sweets finished. "I've been examining their behaviour, the hierarchy among the senior agents, and although Jackman is second tier, he's the major agitator. If he's gone, Carlos will come more under the influence of his level-headed partner and the talk will cease before Booth has to hear anything about it."

Caroline hurrumphed. "And you thought getting beaten to a pulp was the best way to accomplish that, Cher?"

Sweets swallowed. "Office politics could be affecting his chances of promotion. And Booth's reputation is important to him. Finding out about this kinda thing...it would hurt his feelings."

"And you think, maybe he'd decide to spend a little less time with his pet psychologist." Caroline turned her prosecutor's glare on Sweets.

All the fight seemed to drain out of him. "The thought had crossed my mind."

"Now you listen to me, Cherie." She poked a finger into his chest. "That man adores you. You're like the little brother and the best friend he never had all rolled into one. And if you think he would drop you like a hot potato on the say so of some mook like Jackman, you ain't giving him the credit and affection he deserves."

Sweets hung his head.

Poor kid had never had a big brother, Caroline reasoned, so he didn't know how this was supposed to work – that Booth was supposed to take care of him, not the other way around. She reached out and tilted up Sweets' chin with the crook of her finger until he was looking her in the eyes. "You promise me one thing here and now. Don't you go doing anything that encourages them to lay one finger on you. Not one thing. You leave them to me – I'll fix their little wagons. You hear me Cher?"

Sweets closed his eyes and nodded. "I hear you."

"Good. Now you get back to your office and work me up that profile on Yohan Ginzer. I need it by Monday."

Sweets gave a boyish smile. "Yes, Miss Julian."

xxxxxxxxx

Caroline bustled straight into Booth's office "We need to talk."

Booth was behind his desk, feet crossed, with the phone pressed against his ear. "I'm on hold, here, Caroline."

"You can ring 'em back."

Booth huffed and hung up the phone, uncrossing his legs and sitting up in his chair as he did so. "Is this about the Ginzer case?"

"No, Cher." She shut the glass door behind her and came further into the room. "This is about the cloud that's been hanging over your sweet little ray of sunshine."

"Sweets is fine. Girl trouble, that's all." Booth shuffled some papers on his desk, breaking eye contact.

"That most certainly is not all, Cher. Not five minutes ago I broke up what was gonna be a fistfight between our Sweets and Carlos and Jackman."

Booth tilted his head, face suddenly serious. "Sweets doesn't get into fights."

"It would have been more like a bloodbath, Cher, and that's the truth." Caroline nodded solemnly. "He thought he was protecting your honour."

"My honour? What does this have to do with me?" Booth frowned.

"Apparently, some of the senior agents – the inferior ones of the Carlos and Jackman variety – have been taking pot-shots about you behind your back because of how much time you spend socialising with the squints and baby-boy Sweets. From what I overheard, they were teasing him for looking up to you."

"No, Caroline, you got it wrong. If the other agents were harrassing him, Sweets would have told me." Booth stared at her with hurt eyes.

"Not if he thought he was sparing your feelings." Caroline crossed her arms and looked imposingly down at Booth. "The way he saw it, these goons were not only disrespecting you, they were affecting your chances of promotion. He thought if he told you about it, he'd lose the best friend he ever had, so he went to bat for you the only way he knew how. He was gonna let Jackman beat him up so he could get the creep fired."

"I'll befriend whoever I want – I wouldn't let a second-rate cop like Jackman tell me what to do! Sweets should've known that." Booth stood up, clearly more angry at the idea that anyone would lay a hand on his kid psychologist than he was at the kid himself.

"I set him straight on that score, Cher. But if his plan wasn't so twisted and horrific, it would sort've be a little sweet." Caroline tilted her head.

"Yeah. Sweet and suicidal." Booth shuddered to think what could have happened to his idiotic friend if Caroline hadn't intervened. "This stops, right now."

"Ooh, I just love it when you get all he-man, Cher." Caroline smiled. "That's what I wanted to hear. But you go easy on that boy when you talk to him, you hear me? Or I might have to get heavy with you."

"Oh, I'll go easy on Sweets." Booth said in a tone which implied the opposite. "But first, I have to talk to a few people."

xxxxxxxxx

In the bullpen, Booth located the desk he was looking for. "Agent Harding?"

A young woman with a freckled nose and a brunette bob-cut that had experienced a serious run in with a hair-straightener looked up. "Yes, Agent Booth?"

Booth folded his arms. "This might seem like it's coming out of nowhere, but did Lance Sweets ever ask you on a date?"

"The profiling guy?" Harding crinkled her brow. "No, why? Is he going to? Cos I mean, he's pretty cute. Funny, in a geeky sort of way. If we didn't work together, I'd consider it." She twirled her pen in her fingers.

Booth gave her a wan smile, his estimation of the agent going up. "Sorry, that's all. Thanks."

She looked confused. "Don't mention it?"

But Booth had already moved on and was striding in to the meeting room where the Domestic Terrorism taskforce was listening to Flynn give a presentation. "Where's Jackman?"

"Hey, Seeley, kind of in the middle of something here?" Flynn said, gesturing at his Powerpoint up on the projector.

"This won't take a minute." Booth said, turning his back on Flynn to search the crowd. "Jackman! Just the big tough guy I wanted to see."

Jackman folded his arms in his chair. "Problem, Seeley?"

"Yeah, there is a problem." He looked out over the faces of the other agents, trying to gauge which ones were sympathetic to Jackman and which ones indifferent. "At the FBI we're supposed to be a solid team, in the business of keeping people safe. Poor teamwork gets people killed. And yet, I hear you've been sowing discord. Making jokes about my partner."

"A real team player would pick a cop as his partner." Jackman muttered.

"A cop like you? Sweets might be a scrawny kid, but he's a better thinker and a better shot than you are." Booth smiled. "And Sweets would never pick on somebody at the Bureau, try and make them feel small to impress me, the way you've been working very hard to impress Carlos here."

Jackman got red in the face as Carlos eyed him uncomfortably. "So what, you want me to back off your boy or we take this outside?"

Booth gritted his teeth. "No." He said finally, looking each member of the Domestic Terrorism force in the eye. "That's not how we do things here. But if I hear you've been harassing any of my people again, so much as a knock-knock joke I don't like, and I'll be putting in a formal complaint. Then, I'll be coming round personally to collect the witness statements and signatures of everyone in this room."

Jackman swallowed, looking either side of him only to see that the other agents were avoiding his gaze.

"Fine." He grunted.

Booth swept the room with one more imposing glance, nodded to Flynn, and left the room. There was one more person he had to see.

xxxxxxxxx

"What the hell were you thinking, Sweets?!"

Sweets looked up from his computer at the fuming agent, his voice glum. "Caroline told you."

"You're damn right she told me! The question is, why didn't you?"

Sweets sighed, and pivoted around in his chair so he was facing Booth in the doorway of his office. "I didn't want you to feel bad. Buffering people's feelings is sort've what I do."

"You don't buffer people's feelings with broken bones, Sweets. Not ever." Booth ranted. "How do you think I would've felt if your little plan had come off? You think I would have just sat back and been content to visit you in the hospital knowing Jackman had put you there?"

Sweets grimaced. "You're saying you would've retaliated?"

"For a psychologist, you're really stupid!" Booth rolled his eyes. "And then, I'd be out of the Bureau along with Jackman. So great plan, there. Really top notch." Booth made the 'ok' gesture with his fingers sarcastically. "And what made you think I was so precious that I couldn't deal with some dumbass jokes?"

Sweets looked so crestfallen it was almost comedic. "Look, I'm sorry, Booth. I didn't think your macho ego would cope well with people laughing at you behind your back. And I know you've never really partnered up at the Bureau, and I thought...maybe you'd decide to go back to working cases solo."

Booth folded his arms. "Sweets...part of what makes me a big, macho agent is that I don't give a crap what any of those guys think." He paused. 'Bones says the alpha males, the mavericks, they distinguish themselves..."

Sweets nodded like he'd heard it all before "...the belt buckle. I know."

"No, you don't know." Booth said. "I work with you, and Bones, and with the Jeffersonian because you're the best. You're not 'strictly procedure' types...but you're the best. And you distinguish me. No way would I give that up."

Sweets winced. "I appreciate the sentiment, but I feel like you just called me a novelty belt-buckle."

Booth grinned. "A lie-detector novelty belt-buckle."

Sweets shook his head. "That's not helping."

Booth shrugged. "Well if we're talking insults, how about the fact you shrinkily implanted the notion that you had a gay crush on me, because you thought it would make me shun you."

Sweets blushed. "Well, if it were true, it would."

Booth sighed theatrically. "Why does everyone assume that if you're a manly guy, you're a bigot? Bones said the same thing."

"Well, she's right." Sweets said, a grin slowly spreading on his face as the two of them bickered out into the hallway.

"You have trust issues, you know that?" Booth said, jostling him with a shoulder as they walked past Flynn, who nodded.

"I'll keep that in mind, Dr Booth." Sweets said dryly.

THE END