Addicted To…What?!
"Ellison, Sandburg! My office!" Simon barked, before heading back to his desk.
Blair jumped up from his perch on Jim's desk and followed his partner into the captain's office, closing the door behind him. "What's up, Simon?" he asked.
Simon scowled at him for the blatant disuse of his title before saying, "I've got a new case for you. Seems someone was murdered down at PetsMart."
Blair exchanged a glance with Jim before shaking his head and saying, "Simon, uh, we…"
"Can't do it," Jim said, pointedly looking anywhere but at his captain as he said it.
"And why not?" Simon demanded.
"It's a Sentinel thing, Simon," Blair said, a nervous tension running through his voice.
The captain sighed. "You know," Simon mused, "I'm getting the strangest feeling of déjà moo."
"What's that?" Jim asked.
"The feeling that I've heard this bullshit before."
Jim, having prepared to defend his refusal, was taken aback by his Captain's non sequitur. His lips kept trying to quirk up at the sides. Ruthlessly forcing them to stay down, he said, "Sir?"
Simon held out his hand. "No, really, every time you two do something weird, you always tell me, 'It's a Sentinel thing.' Well, I'm getting tired of it."
"But it is a Sentinel thing," Jim insisted stridently.
Simon cut him off before he could work up a good head of steam. "Well, that may be, but how many more 'Sentinel things' are going to pop up? When are they going to end?" He gave Blair a pointed look.
Blowing out a loud breath, the Guide said, "How should I know? Burton's monograph wasn't exactly a 'Sentinel Care' manual, you know."
Simon sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose in exhaustion. "I know, kid, it's just...I don't know how much more of this I can take."
Jim snorted. He let out a low growl before stopping abruptly, chagrined. "How much more you can take?"
Shaking his head, Simon said, "I know, I know, it's worse for you. I think." Giving his detective a stern glance, he asked, "And what the hell is it this time, anyway? Why the hell can't you take this case?"
"I'd never be able to leave the pet store," Jim said almost inaudibly.
His eyebrows climbing into his nonexistent hairline, Simon asked, "And why is that? How bad could the smells be?"
"It's not the smells," Blair put in. "It has to do with the jaguar being Jim's spirit animal."
Jim growled and gave his partner a quelling look before turning away.
After a few moments, Simon finally ran out of patience. "What in the hell is so bad about a pet store that you can't stand to go there?"
Jim mumbled something under his breath, and Simon, thinking he hadn't heard right, squeaked out, "What?! You're kidding, right? Talk about bullshit…"
Jim gritted his teeth and hissed out, "I know we put you through a lot, Simon. But at least you're not the one who's addicted to catnip."