Work Text:
A heavy silence envelopes the elevator on the way back to work.
Dwight is in the back, hunched on in himself. He flinches, hedges back, every time someone goes near him.
Michael is in the front, smile wide on his face, still gloating obnoxiously as he exits the elevator.
And Jim can't get the image of that moment a line had been crossed, where Michael had pushed Dwight's arms above his head and told him to open his mouth, so he could spit in it.
In front of everyone.
Dwight's pathetic little cries of protest, his regression right back to grade school.
Because of course he'd been bullied. Dwight just has this thing about him that makes - Jim would have bullied him in high school.
Jim knows he goes too far.
But that's just too far.
But it's Michael and it's mostly a harmless, confused sort of injury - without serious intention to harm.
Really, it's not like Dwight should have so openly been flaunting his 'dominance' - not when he could so easily be subsumed.
He puts it out of his mind, he was the instigator sure but there are a lot more people at fault than he is. Besides, he has other things to worry about like Pam and worrying he'd made it weird between them.
Still, Dwight's moment of forced submission replays in his head sometimes. It gets him high on that feeling he gets, when he's really pressing Dwight and Dwight sometimes looks like he's about to cry, face flushed and mouth downturned.
The next thing Jim hears is that Dwight gets the Assistant Regional Manager title.
And it's an apt apology from Michael, Jim gets that. He gets that less though when Dwight rubs it in his face for the fiftieth time.
He can't help cracking,"Maybe I'd get a title too - and all I'd have to do is open up and let the boss spit in my mouth, huh?"
Dwight sputters before going quiet, face slowly turning red.
For once he has nothing to say.
Jim wants to smile triumphantly, but he doesn't, because even he recognizes it was a cheap shot.
The thing is, the best part about Jim's day - other than Pam - is pressing Dwight. Flustering him. And...humiliating him too.
There's something about it. The way Dwight can only just take it, can't do anything about it, can only submit to it. It wouldn't perhaps be so alluring if Dwight wasn't so defensive about his manliness. The dominance he desperately tries to portray falling apart to expose him at every turn.
Jim maybe has an unhealthy preoccupation.
Maybe he has a problem.
He tries not to think about it but the thought always creeps round at night. It's difficult, to suddenly be cognizant of how much actual time he spends thinking about Dwight.
In the end the epiphany comes thinking about Dwight crying over the ending of Armageddon.
Because you know who cries over the ending of Armageddon? Chicks.
The thought that Dwight was adrift in that much compassion - the way he must have sobbed, causes a swell of affection. It's so all encompassing that for a moment it paralyzes Jim.
Causes his gaze to catch on an unassuming Dwight for a very long while, until it's nigh impossible for Dwight not to notice. He realizes he's been pulling pigtails for the last few years to his own detriment.
"What are you looking at?" Dwight asks indignantly, squirming in self consciousness.
For a moment Jim's unable to answer.
"N-" he has to clear his throat, as the word sticks, "Nothing."
Dwight looks like he doesn't believe him. More than that Dwight looks like he's about to be openly mocked, is steeling himself for it.
"Just never realized your eyes were so blue." Jim says, and turns back to his computer screen.
Outwardly, Dwight doesn't react.
But a moment later Jim can see a small hesitance creep across his face, something soft and cautiously pleased.
Jim's grinning for the rest of the day.
It's not that Jim's darker impulses have disappeared. Only now it's himself he pictures pinning Dwight down and asking him to open his mouth.