Title: Bad Habits (Part 1 of 3)
Rating: PG-13
Author: Heath07
Disclaimer: I don't own anything, etc.
Summary: Sequel/Companion to Maintaining the Lie. Pam/Jim Okay, so they had an...incident. Things aren't going to be awkward at all.
Notes: Most of the stuff about Scranton is inaccurate. Sorry to any Scrantonites. ;) There will be three parts to this story.
He's been dreading this since the moment they released him from the hospital. And, hey, say what you will about hospital food, but they do make a mean Jell-O. So, okay, he's had a full week to think things over...and over and over. Fine. There's pretty much been a continuous loop going on in his head. But come on? Can anyone blame him? There he was just minding his own broken-legged-bruised-and-cut-face business when out of nowhere Pam just lays one on him. And he is a red-blooded American male and Pam has been a feature in more than one of his fantasies, so what was he to do? He couldn't not kiss her back. He couldn't… Just…her scent and the feel of her soft skin against his hands, her weight bearing down on his chest and…other unmentionable parts, the little moan she let out when he caressed her back with only the tips of his fingers…
So, yeah, things are going to be weird. He's not expecting anything less.
But, still, even a full week is not enough time to prepare him for this moment. This is like a huge deal. There's no way to misinterpret what happened. It can't be labeled as an accident. You know, one of those little moments they sometimes have where their skin brushes against each other or their eyes lock and they don't look away right away. Those things can all be explained away. They're friends. But they crossed that line. And how do they come back from that? Can they?
Things will be clear when he walks through the doors and sees her again for the first time since…well, since whatever the hell it was that happened in his hospital bed that night a week ago. He'll know where they stand the moment he looks at her.
Jim's pretty sure there should be more to life than these strings of torture that he's inflicting upon himself. Perhaps he should take up a hobby. Maybe Dwight's dojo is still accepting students or Michael's improv class could use another, um, you know, improv-er.
If the cameras had been there, things would have been different. He knows this for a fact. Pam's different when the cameras are around. They're different. It's subtle, but it's enough for him to notice.
And he can't change things now. He can't go back and undue the past or forget how it all felt, how she made him feel. He doesn't know how he's supposed to just come back from that and he's not totally convinced that it's possible. Suddenly Michael's infatuation with Jan doesn't seem all that pathetic and that makes him really really sad.
Before he opens the door, he takes a big breath and prepares himself, wondering, idly, if Dwight's dojo breathing techniques really work.
When he finally gets the courage to lift his eyes to look at her, she's not at her desk, and for that he's thankful.
He's not an idiot. He knows things aren't just going to go back to normal. Things are going to be weird and he's prepared himself for said weirdness, but he's not looking forward to that first moment when she looks at him and he sees the guilt in her eyes.
She's not going to leave Roy for him. That was never an option. Roy isn't a bad guy, and Jim isn't stupid enough to think that Pam is some damsel in distress that needs to be rescued.
And, really, what happened…? It was just a fluke, a messed-up thing they did when doing anything else made no sense. It doesn't make it right.
It's not like she feels anything for him. It was just an impulsive mistake. It isn't like it means something, right?
Or maybe it does…and he isn't brave enough to find out.
And, Jesus Christ, he can't concentrate. He hasn't been able to since that night. All he can't think about is the softness of her skin and the raspy way she breathed his name against his lips, so quietly he wasn't sure if he had made it all up.
What he needs is a distraction. He fumbles with his coat and successfully manages to get it off and hung up before he sets his sights on Accounting.
Angela is at her desk, back straight, knees together, proper as always. She's diligently working, of course. Jim thinks, sometimes, that if Angela smiled, really smiled, she might actually be pretty. But Angela never smiles and he's not invested enough to try to make her. She's proficient and neat and likes creepy posters with babies dressed to look like adults. She bakes cookies and brownies and little treats for everyone in the office, even if her "one per person" rule remains unflinchingly rigid, it still tells Jim that she wants to be liked, in some bizarre way. And there's something insanely human about that.
He hobbles over to her and blindly thumbs through his bag, while balancing his weight on his crutches, before pulling out a black book, setting it on her desk.
"Thanks, Angela. It, uh, helped immensely."
His voice sounds strained, tense. He clears his throat.
Angela's fingers stop their furious typing. She looks at the Bible and then up at him.
"Good. I hope you read the section I bookmarked. Exodus 20:2-17?"
He had, actually--when he was seven years old, in Sunday school.
"Uh, yeah, sure. The Ten Commandments are so underrated."
"Yes, especially the tenth one. Although, six, seven, eight and nine could apply to you, too."
Angela closes her eyes and places her hand above her heart. Jim takes an uncertain step back, waiting for something truly disturbing to happen. And here he had thought that her affair with Dwight had mellowed her out some.
"Thou shall not covet thy neighbor's house; thou shall not covet thy neighbor's wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is thy neighbor's."
Okay, so maybe not.
"Thank you, Angela, uh, for that. I certainly shall not be coveting anyone's ass today."
He bites his cheek to stop a grin from forming.
"You can laugh at my beliefs, Jim, but it doesn't make what the two of you are doing any more moral."
Jim raises his eyebrows.
"And what exactly is it that I'm doing?"
She scowls.
"She's practically married."
"Who?"
Angela shakes her head and smiles that wry, knowing smile that makes her look so unflatteringly plain. She holds out the Bible for Jim once again.
"Maybe you should keep this."
"No, really, that's okay. Thanks."
He can feel Angela's eyes on him as he carefully makes his way back to his own desk and all he can think is that they're not married yet.
Not yet.
It echoes in his head. His closes his eyes as a wave of nausea passes through him.
And the worst part, he thinks, when he's back at his own desk and turns on his computer, is that he can't even share this with Pam—the one person that would truly appreciate the absurdness of Angela's reprimand.
When Dwight gets to the office, he makes it a point to "accidentally" knock Jim's cast with his umbrella.
"That's not funny," he says, shrewdly.
"What?"
Jim looks down at his cast and his eyes immediately gravitate toward the little cartoon Pam drew.
"That," Dwight says, pointing with the tip if his umbrella. "It's despicable and rude and not even a good rendering. Who drew that?"
"Pam," Jim answers, quietly.
"Pam. I should have suspected. The two of you are like peas and cabbage."
"Peas and carrots, Dwight," Jim interjects.
"Whatever. It's the same thing. They're all vegetables."
"No, it's really not the same thing at all."
"Doesn't matter. It's still disrespectful. I did not put feathers in my hair or," he says, leading the umbrella to a lower part of the cast, "there. In fact, I could fire you for harassment."
"You can't fire me, Dwight," Jim says, wearily. Not five minutes with Dwight and he's all ready exhausted.
"We'll see," Dwight says, in a voice Jim guesses is supposed to be maniacal. He steeples his fingers and nods his head, a secret plan surely brewing.
Jim grits his jaw and continues to pour through the stack of messages that Pam must have compiled for him throughout the week. Her neat scrawl stares back at him, taunting him. His eyes quickly dart to Reception. No sign of Pam yet.
Dwight settles into his chair and pulls out a paper bag from his brief case. From the brown bag, Jim assumes is his lunch, he pulls out two hardboiled eggs and proceeds to very noisily and messily crack their shells and peel them. From his desk drawer he takes out salt and pepper shakers.
"Can't you do that in the kitchen?"
"No," he says, dismissively.
Jim ignores him as usual and plods along.
It's ten minutes later when Dwight deems it necessary to speak again.
"I hope you don't think you're going to get special treatment just because you have that thing on your leg."
"Thanks, Dwight."
"I just think you should know that in your absence Michael put me in charge of your accounts and you have some very rude clients."
Jim hangs his head. This is the last thing he needs today.
"What did you do, Dwight?"
"My job. This is a work environment and I don't think that any idle time should not be wasted."
"So, you're saying we should waste time at work?"
"No, Jim. I'm saying that you and your clients have a thing or two to learn about business. I informed them of that and now I'm informing you."
"Great. So I guess I'll be phoning a lot of people to apologize for you…being you."
"Uh, excuse me, Jim. You should just be grateful that someone was here to pick up your slack."
"Right. Grateful. Sure."
If Dwight hadn't confiscated Jim's stapler a few months back, he would use it right now to staple Dwight's bottom lip over his head.
More and more people arrive for the day, until the office is almost full. They stop by his desk and tell him they're glad to see him and that he's looking well. Creed asks if he knows when the tall guy that used to have his desk is coming back. Jim doesn't even bother to correct him. Kelly goes into a five minute meltdown about strappy sandals and bridal magazines and then asks if he'll find out if Ryan is seeing someone else.
"Jimbalya! What's up? What's happening?" Michael says, before he's even made it around the corner.
His spirits are high, but Jim knows that Michael has been worried--if the fifteen messages a day were any indication. He's not really sure if his concern is really for his well-being or the part he played in the accident. In the days following the accident, as word got out, there was talk of a suspension. As soon as corporate found out he wasn't planning on suing the company, they stopped calling
"Nothin'."
Jim turns in his chair, aware the whole office is tuned in to watch Michael make an ass out of himself.
"So, how's the…?"
"Yeah, the leg's healing nicely," Jim says, hand on his leg for emphasis.
"Good, good. So, no need to sue, right?" Michael says, tentatively, and Jim can see the vulnerability in his eyes.
"I'm not going to sue you, Michael."
The instant relief is almost comical. At least, it would be, if he didn't have the injuries as proof positive that this job is bad for his health. It used to be just a mental thing, but now he's actually physically been hurt working for Dunder-Mifflin. Still, it's not Michael's fault that he's such an idiot. Well, okay, so it is, but Jim's not the suing kind.
"Wow, that's… I wasn't even concerned about that. I can't believe you even brought that up… I'm just filled up with worry about my good buddy, Jim."
Jim catches Michael's reactionary shot to the camera. It's not easy admitting that he does feel a little sorry for Michael sometimes. Of course, if he waits it out a good five minutes, he generally screws up again and everything goes back to the status quo.
"So, did you get the thing?"
The camera zooms in, getting a tight shot of Jim.
"Oh, um, yeah. Thanks for the, uh, flowers. They really cheered me up."
"Well, it's the least I could do for my pal, Jim. Well guess I better get to work. Lots to do. Lots to do," Michael says, quirking his eyebrows and smiling really wide at the camera.
Michael enters his office and closes the door behind him.
Jim looks to his right and frowns. Pam still hasn't shown up.
It's ten o'clock before Pam makes it into work. Jim knows she sees him when he hears her surprised "oh." He doesn't get up from his seat and she doesn't approach him.
She makes herself look busy by shuffling around papers. After a moment, she pulls out a pink highlighter—the one they used to make hearts on all of Dwight's business cards and the framed World Anime Expo 2002 poster he keeps tucked away in his bottom desk drawer. He didn't notice it for two full weeks, but the anticipation was well worth Dwight's reaction. From the corner of his eye, he sees her look at the highlighter as if just realizing she's holding it in her hand and then she looks at him. It hurts him more than he ever realized it would to see her and to know how different things will be from now on.
At lunch, he gets his ham and cheese sandwich from the fridge and eats it at his desk, while checking his missed calls and e-mails from the previous week. It's easy to avoid Pam when he has so much to catch up on.
There's a meeting at three. In the conference room, he sits between Stanley and Kevin, listening to their breathing while trying to block out Dwight and Michael's argument about who should start the meeting. There's a weird noise coming from Stanley. It's a slow whirring sound like his nose is about to take flight. Jim knows that Stanley's been having an awful time with his blocked nasal passages—it is allergy season, after all, according to Dwight—and he tries his hardest not to smile.
Pam has taken the seat directly behind Stanley, beside Phyllis. He can hear her suppressed giggles and in a moment of weakness he turns his head to look at her. She catches his eyes and he immediately turns back around, his pulse racing fast, making him feel a little dizzy.
For the rest of the meeting, he forces himself to focus on the front of the room, even when Dwight lifts his shirt to highlight a part of his speech about Marketing Strategies. How the two are related he's not really sure. He tunes out after Michael brings in his guitar and sings a collection of George Michael's Greatest Hits, badly.
Michael tells him to go home early and when Pam makes a trip to the bathroom, he does just that.
They didn't talk the whole day.
When he goes home, he eats leftover Mac n' Cheese his roommate, Mark, left in the fridge and, after taking his pain pills, passes out in his clothes, watching TV.
He thinks it should somehow feel less like a chore to get up in the morning and go into work. It should get easier.
It hasn't.
It's been a week and a half since he's been back and the most he's said to Pam is a few words. An "excuse me" when he was trying to get coffee one morning and a "hi" when they got stuck coming up in the elevator together.
He hates the way she's started to look at him.
He hates that it's so hard.
He hates that he still wants her.
After everything, he still wants to somehow work things out. He just doesn't know how.
And he's just so…so…confused.
"Do you need help or something?"
"Huh?"
He's startled enough that she's standing in front of him, speaking to him, that he almost falls out of his chair.
"You look… I don't know… Pitiful?"
"Gee, thanks."
"Did Dwight kick your puppy or something?"
She's trying to be funny. She's trying to do…whatever it is that they do, to cheer each other up. It's not working. Even the most clever line won't work on him now, because she's standing too close and he can smell that perfume she always wears and feel her warmth, begging him to just let it go. Just forget what happened and be her friend. Because she needs him to be and he needs to be. But he can't…even though he really wants to. It still hurts too much.
"I have to… Uh…go."
"Oh."
It's hard to be coordinated with the crutches, but he manages to get himself up and away from her as fast as his body allows.
There aren't many places to hide in the office. There aren't many places the cameras don't follow close behind, either. But the bathroom is usually a safe haven. So, it's there that he makes his great escape. He leans against the door and lets his head fall back against it none-too-gently.
"Idiot," he chastises himself, quietly.
After a deep breath, he sets his sites on the urinal, thankful for the peace and quiet the bathroom provides.
He's just gotten his zipper about halfway done up when the door bursts open and slams closed behind him.
"I hate this!"
Looking over his shoulder, he's only mildly surprised to see Pam, leaning against the door, holding out the camera and boom operators, Luke and Brian. The door clicks shut and she locks it with a satisfied smile. She's half out-of-breath and her hair is a little mussed and she's looking at him like he just kicked her puppy.
"Whoa, Pam. Men's room," he says, flushing for emphasis.
"I know," she says, and looks around—anywhere but at him. "But…it's the only place we could be alone."
He quirks an eyebrow, intrigued.
"O-kay."
"We have to talk."
She says it just like that. Flat. Like there is no room to argue. And the determination on her face makes him keep his lips sealed.
"I can't take it any more… All this…silence. I mean, it's so weird. And, you! You won't even look at me anymore. And, if you do, it's with these…these, I don't know…these eyes, you know?"
He waits a beat, making sure it's okay for him to talk now.
"I appreciate that, Pam, I do. Me, looking at you with my eyes and all… But, I'm kinda… I mean, I'm a little busy here, if you hadn't noticed."
And then she does notice. He's still rooted in front of the urinal with a hand braced against the wall so he won't fall down. The crutches he's been using to get around with are leaning against the sink and he hasn't moved since she invaded his privacy.
"Oh. Oh, yeah. Uh, sorry about that. Do you need help or something?"
Jim coughs.
It's not his imagination that her cheeks turn a very dark shade of red.
"Okay, forget I just said that. I didn't mean--"
Jim actually smiles and bows his head, a little embarrassed. "S'okay," he says, "could you just…?"
"Oh, yeah, sure."
She turns around and Jim does up his fly. He stumbles to the sink to wash his hands and slowly, methodically, rinses the soap from his fingers.
"What do you…I mean, what do you want to talk about?"
He's looking at her through the mirror, not yet brave enough for a face-to-face confrontation. She has all ready turned back around and he can feel her eyes on the back of his neck.
"Jim."
"What?"
There is a long silence that follows and for a second he wonders if she's even going to continue.
"I'm sorry, okay?"
"For what?"
She sighs.
"Don't do that. You know what I'm talking about."
"Oh, that."
"Yeah, that."
"Don't worry about it. It was my fault," he says, brushing it off.
"No. No, I…it was me. I was the aggressor. I shouldn't have…"
He drops his eyes. The more she reminds him it was a mistake, the less he can fantasize about it actually meaning something.
"I didn't stop you."
"You did, though."
He nods because no matter what he says, it's not going to come out right and he has a bigger chance of making it out of this with some dignity intact if he just keeps his mouth shut.
"I, um… I don't know what came over me." She pushes a stray lock of hair behind her ear and rolls her eyes. "I'm not… I mean, I'm not usually so…forceful."
"Yeah, you did kind of attack me, Beesley."
"What!"
He smiles. Maybe he's just a sucker, a sentimental sap that is easily swayed, but he cannot not have Pam in his life. Even if they'll only ever be friends. He'll take it. The alternative is much worse.
"Sorry. Just had to see the look on your face."
"Funny. So, look, can we just forget about this? Pretend…I don't know, like it never happened?"
"Yeah. Yeah, sure. It never happened."
It'll be easy, he thinks. He's gotten good at pretending.
Her smile is magic, lighting up the room. She even looks beautiful in the fucking men's room. And she actually claps. Claps like a kindergartener, just once and very impulsive, but so Pam. It makes his chest feel very heavy, like his ribs are being crushed, like he can't breathe.
"Okay, good. Great. Um, so, I'm just going to…go. I'd hate to see what would happen if Dwight found me in here. It's bad enough that Angela has been giving me this death glare ever since--"
She shakes her head and doesn't continue.
They stand there facing each other, just breathing. A minute passes before Pam gets fidgety and grabs a hold of her necklace. She brings it up to her mouth and rests it on her lower lip, twirling the tiny charm in her fingers. All of this is done unconsciously, of course. Jim knows her well enough to know that she doesn't just do these things to drive him crazy. Even though it does. Drive him crazy, that is. Jesus, he would probably do anything, say anything, to be those links of gold across her lips right now. He's such a fucking sap! He shifts and forces himself to look away.
"It's just odd," she says, and her voice is magnified by the acoustics in the bathroom, "how you think one thing and it turns out to be something completely different, you know?"
Jim's gaze shifts back to hers slowly.
She drops the necklace and shakes her head.
"Well, anyway. See you out there?"
"Sure."
Okay, so now that they got that out of the way, they can just go back to how they were before. They can play practical jokes and trade longing glances and share little glimpses into each other's lives. Right, that'll make things easier. Jim's not sure what it would feel like to get shot, but he's pretty damn sure it wouldn't be as painful as this.
The next day when he walks into the office, he does stop to say hello to Pam and every time she passes his desk, she gives him a reassuring smile.
It's one of those days when everything irritates him. Dwight's anal-retentiveness, Angela and Oscar's ongoing battle with the thermometer, Kelly's insistent chattering, the smell of Creed's mung beans, even Pam's kindness starts to bother him. It's too much for him to take. He just wants to go home, crawl into bed, bury himself in his covers and not wake up until the morning.
He's not really sure what brought on his mood, but he knows it has something to do with all this pretending he's been doing lately. Fed-up is an understatement.
His face has started to heal, but he finds it easier to hide behind the bruises. It's certainly easier to avoid confrontation, because who would hit a guy that's already down on his luck? Roy doesn't seem to know anything about that night in the hospital, but he's not sure how long that will last. Pam doesn't make it a habit of keeping secrets from him. When word gets out (if it gets out) he's not really sure how that will change things, but he knows the waiting is killing him.
There used to be a vicious dog that lived two doors down from the house he grew up in. Every morning on his way to school, he'd walk two blocks out of his way to avoid him. It worked out well, until one day that dog got loose and the inevitable happened.
It's not the same thing, not really. And maybe it's a bad analogy, but a part of him knows the inevitable is going to happen and when it does, it's going to hurt like hell.
Near the end of the day, he stretches out his legs, maneuvering his foot so the side of it faces Michael's office and consequently the rest of him faces Pam's desk.
The pain in his leg comes and goes. Sometimes by the end of the workday it throbs so badly he can barely stand. Today there is just a dull ache, but he unconsciously grits his jaw as he flexes his toes.
"Leg sore?"
"What?" he says, looking up at her, where she's perched behind her desk.
Pam's expression is open and her eyes are wide. They dart to his cast.
"Oh. Oh, no. Just playing it up so Michael will let me go early. He still feels pretty bad about running me over, and I figured I better milk it while I still can, since I get the cast off pretty soon."
"Nice."
She smiles and so does he.
"Yeah, I figure once it's off, the reminder's gone and things will pretty much go back to normal."
Her smile falters and he can no longer read the look on her face.
He actually can't wait to get the cast off because Michael's not the only one haunted by it. To Jim, all he sees when he looks at it is the dashed dreams of a worthy artist and a night that, for all intents and purposes, was one of the best and worst of his life.
Corporate announces a new position opening up in the Scranton branch to hopefully boost sales and alleviate the need for downsizing. Josh, the manager over at Stamford has already implemented it and with such great success they thought it would be a good idea to do a trial run here. Jim isn't particularly interested, but Michael has hinted once or twice that he would be perfect for it. There isn't a lot more responsibility for a somewhat sizable pay increase and it would sort of make him Dwight's superior and that's just tempting enough for Jim to fill out an application.
Sometimes Jim lets other people believe they are smarter than him. He asks questions for which he already knows the answers. He's stopped thinking about why he does these things. Maybe it's because it's easier. Easier to allow people to think he's suited for his position at Dunder-Mifflin than for them to know that he's better than this job and this town. Not that he thinks that, but Pam told him that once and she's just not a very good liar.
Well, unless she's lying to herself.
It's a new day. A new start. He's decided that he's just going to have to get over Pam if he wants to get on with his life. He can't run away from the problem anymore, he must confront it head-on and that means going back to being Pam's friend and ignoring all the adorable things she does and plunging forward.
Scratch that. A guy getting over a girl does not think of her, or anything she does, as adorable.
Pam stops by his desk on her way to the fax machine, resting on the corner of it and smiling brightly at him.
"So, anything interesting happened to you lately?"
He stretches out his arms and folds his hands behind his head.
"Uh, no, not really. I keep having this reoccurring dream, though."
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah," he says, nodding. "It's about sharks."
"Sharks?" she asks, leaning in, as if they're sharing some great secret.
"Yeah, I, like, go to this pet store and buy this shark—not a big one, but one about a foot long—and then when I get it home and put it in its tank, it just, like, dies, but I keep going back to the store determined that the next shark will live. The thing is it's like I'm buying the exact same shark every time. I mean, I'm no shark expert, but I don't think they look exactly the same, you know? Weird, huh?"
"Uh, ye-ah. I think you've been spending way too much time with Dwight."
"You injure me, Pam. Right here," he says, indicating his chest where his heart is beating fiercely under his fingertips.
She walks away smiling and he's smiling too, but it quickly fades.
"Here," Pam says and drops a folded paper on his desk.
"What's this?"
"I looked up sharks in this, like, dream journal book I have at home… Anyway, read it, Halpert."
"Uh, thanks."
He can't figure out what stuns him more, the fact that Pam has a book about dreams or the fact that she consciously went out of her way to find out what his dreams mean.
Jim's not sure if he wants to read the note or not. He does open it, though, when Pam looks his way. Scanning it quickly, he gathers that it's not particularly good to be dreaming of sharks, except that dead sharks seem to be okay. Huh. Odd. Screw shark conservation!
He skips down to the bottom where, circled in red ink, is the word "promotion" with a question mark and a happy face. But not an ordinary, stick-person happy face, but a Pam original--one with detailed features and even little ears that stick out at the sides and look suspiciously like his own. He shakes his head and smiles, despite himself, stuffing the paper into his pocket as Dwight approaches.
"What was that?"
"What?" he says, pretending to be oblivious. Toying with Dwight never gets old.
"That letter."
"Nothing. It's private."
"Who gave it to you? Is it from Michael? Corporate? Are you getting the promotion? Tell me now, Jim!"
It's been like this for about a week now--Dwight constantly hanging around, always hovering over his shoulder, waiting to find out who was getting the "big promotion." It makes him sad, really. That Dwight has so little to look forward to and that he, himself, has nothing better to do than drive Dwight crazy with false information about the promotion, his interview, and what the job entails.
"It's nothing, Dwight," he says, rubbing his eyes. "I promise you'll be the first person I tell when I get the job."
"Thank you, Jim, that means—wait a minute. Who says you're getting the job? What have you heard?"
They're eating lunch together for the first time in a very long time. And, yeah, things are pretty much the full spectrum of weird. When Pam had asked if she could have his napkin, he'd knocked over his can of grape soda, spilling the sticky liquid all down his pants, because their hands had touched. Like, skin-on-skin, touched.
So, now he has a purple stain on the crotch of his pants and Pam has insisted on calling him Grimace—you know, because Grimace is purple and clumsy, duh!--for the last ten minutes. And, like, what the hell is Grimace, anyway?
The teasing reflects how far they've come. They're almost back in that "comfort zone" they've spent the last three years occupying.
Yeah. So that's great.
When all the carrots are gone and they've lost interest in the game of tic-tac-toe Pam started, Jim picks up a gossip magazine Phyllis left in the lunchroom. It's at least six months old. He thumbs through the pages, lazily.
"Hey, how come no one told me Jessica and Nick broke up?" he says, feigning shock.
"Who?" she says and takes a sip of her water.
"Pam, come on! Do you, like, ever watch TV?"
She laughs.
"Apparently, not as much as you."
"Hmm. See if I ever fill you in on what happened on Deal or No Deal again," he says, trying not to smile, even though he does a very bad job of it. It's almost impossible not to smile when he's around Pam. He is so lame.
"Oh, the tragedy! I don't even get that show anyway," she says, pushing on his side and making the cutest scrunched-up face.
"Wait, what is that all about?"
"What?" she says, self-consciously running her tongue over her teeth and bringing her hand to her mouth.
"What was that, just now? What were you just doing?"
"When?"
"Just now."
"Oh, you mean when I squidged you?"
"Squidged? Is that even English?"
"Yes. Squidge, squidged, squidging. Don't you remember? It's that word we made up for when you squint and nudge someone at the same time."
Jim rolls his eyes, smiling.
"Oh. Oh, right. Squidging, how could I forget?"
"It's all the reality TV going to your brain," she says and looks pointedly at the camera. "Maybe you should start watching the news."
"I only watch fake news."
"It shows."
"Ouch."
They're looking each other in the eyes and Pam's not looking away, like it's a dare. It feels a little too intense and he coughs and turns his head.
So that whole "comfort zone" thing has pretty much taken over Jim's life again. Every time he tries to take a step back, he just gets sucked back in.
He's half-convinced that this is all just one big joke, just one big prank that some higher power is pulling on him. Because he has this lousy job and this crush and that's all he really has. Sure, sometimes there's poker, the bar and the dating scene to break up the monotony of the day, but mostly those things leave him feeling empty. It's when he's with Pam that he truly feels alive. And sometimes that scares him.
Pam's at his desk—more accurately, sitting on his desk—swinging her foot back and forth, sometimes just gracing his thigh with the heel of her very-white tennis shoe and rearranging all the bobble-heads on Dwight's desk.
Jim tries to concentrate on their game of solitaire that Pam gave up playing five minutes ago, but she's too close and too distracting for him to do anything substantial.
He can feel her eyes dart from him to the computer screen. "Jackoffqueen," she mumbles
"What?"
She's giggling. He's pretty sure she might have just said something dirty.
"I'm so bored. Even solitaire isn't cutting it anymore," she says, sighing.
He swivels around in his chair and looks to make sure everyone else in the office is not listening. Dwight is still in Michael's office going over some details about another elaborate party that corporate won't be paying for.
He motions for her to come closer.
"I might have a solution for that, but it requires precision and an evil mind. I will not lead the innocent into a mission such as this. Think you can handle it?"
"What are you talking about?" she says, excited.
"Office pranks, Pam. On our favourite volunteer Sheriff's Deputy. "
Her eyes light up and she smiles slyly.
"Dwight."
"Obviously. You in?"
"Definitely!"
A trip to the local grocery store, a fake note for Dwight sending him on a fake errand for Michael and they're in business. The plan is simple: simply remove the mouthpiece from Dwight's phone, place half a head of garlic (cut open for best results), replace mouthpiece and wait.
"So the garlic is in place, now all we need to do is sit and wait for him to get a phone call. Wait, what are you doing?"
He looks at her curiously. She looks back through a veil of eyelashes and smirks.
"Cutting Dwight's roll of tape into half inch pieces, so that every time he tries to use it, it keeps breaking before he can get a decent sized piece."
He looks at her and even lit by the crappy fluorescents, she looks beautiful. And her mind…she just creates these completely devious plans that always manage to top whatever he's come up with... She really is amazing.
"That's brilliant!"
"I know," she says, smirking.
He rolls his eyes and returns her high five.
"Humble, too."
"Suck it, Halpert."
So he has this lousy job and this crush…and maybe that's all he really needs.
Jim and Pam take their morning break together, like any other morning. Unfortunately, there is only one package of Skittles left in the vending machine. And with two hungry co-workers vying for the same awesome snack, there is only one way to settle their differences: competition.
Thus, the first annual Dare or be Square Tournament is born. (Name of competition to be changed as soon as they think of something less lame.)
So far the pranks have been easy to accomplish because the recipients have been previous victims. But, this? No, this is going way too far.
Pam's is already giddy with her impending victory, but Jim is determined to not let this conquer him.
"Just do it," Pam taunts, tugging on his shirtsleeve.
"This is all very sixth grade of you," he scolds.
Pam slaps her hand on her desk and her eyes are wide with mirth.
"Oh, my God! You're afraid of him, aren't you?"
Isn't that obvious by now? Jim raises his eyebrows.
"Uh, yeah. Did you hear the way he yelled at Ryan?"
Pam shakes her head and grabs the bag from her desk, poised to rip open the plastic.
"Fine, forfeit. The Skittle are mine!"
"Hold on," Jim says, and covers her hand.
It's warm and soft…and what the hell is he doing? He's such a masochist! They both stop for a second and Jim nervously peels the bag out of her hand.
"Slow down, buckaroo."
"Buckaroo?"
He clears his throat.
"Been watchin' a lot of Westerns lately."
"Sure," she says, not even bothering to hide her laughter.
"Okay, settle down, little lady," he says, in a very bad John Wayne impersonation.
"Just admit defeat and maybe I'll let you have one of my tasty Skittles."
"I didn't say I wouldn't do it. Just, give me a minute…to, you know…"
"Work up the courage?"
"No."
"Stop being a girl?"
Jim's mouth contracts and he suppresses a smile.
"You do realize you're a girl, right?"
"Yeah, but I'm insulting your manhood."
He rolls his eyes.
"Fine."
"Go ahead," she says, making a sweeping motion indicating that the row of desks aren't going to come to him, so get to walking.
"Going."
Jim rolls up his sleeves and cracks his knuckles.
"Stop stalling."
He looks at Pam and shakes his head.
"So pushy."
He can feel her eyes on him the entire sixteen and a half steps it takes to approach Stanley's desk. He looks over his shoulder and she's giving him a thumb's up and an encouraging smile.
Stanley has a pencil in one of his hands and the other is splayed out on his desk, holding the pages of one of his crossword books open.
Jim's never really had the patience for crossword puzzles. But here's one that he would probably get: Office worker's name with a death wish, three letters.
"Uh, Stanley?"
Stanley does not acknowledge Jim standing right beside him instead he remains fixated on the puzzle in front of him.
"What do you want? I am trying to get some work done."
Jim starts gesticulating wildly with his hands, realizing that he doesn't want Stanley to help him find his mind the way he tried to help Ryan. Because Stanley might actually literally help him find his mind after this...as in, bash in his skull to find it.
"Yeah, no, I totally respect that. It's just…"
"Just what?" he says, finally looking up. The eyes that meet Jim's are big and clouded with boredom.
Jim looks over his shoulder at Pam, whose hand is hovering over the very last bag of fruity goodness, otherwise known as Skittles. Oh, how she taunts him!
He takes a deep breath.
"Pardon me, sir, but do you have any Grey Poupon?" Jim says in his best English accent.
"Is that supposed to be funny?"
Jim shakes his head very fast. He bites down the urge to call Stanley sir or salute him or something.
"Uh…see, Pam and I, we're—Okay, see, there's only one bag of Skittles left and that's pretty valuable merchandise, so-- You know, I'm sensing you really don't care. Am I right?"
Jim's met with a blank stare.
A few seconds tick by and…yep, still nothing.
Jim slowly walks back to reception, aware that he's just made a potentially deadly mistake.
"Yeah, so I think Stanley may kill me…or at least maim me just enough so I'm unrecognizable."
"That was so worthy of the last bag of Skittles. The look on his face! The look on your face! Congratulations!" she says, presenting him with the brightly coloured candy like it's a trophy.
"Let's share."
"But you won, fair and square," she says, surprised.
He shrugs his shoulders.
"Yeah, but you got Dwight to make a citizen's arrest on himself! I'm still not really sure how that one works, but what the hell, it was awesome! Not to mention the whole air guitar thing with Creed. Now that, my friend, is worth at least ten packages of original Skittles and one package of tropical flavoured Skittles," he says, sliding the bag toward her.
"Yes," she says, leaning forward and pushing the bag back toward him, "but you also got Dwight to believe he was colourblind and was actually wearing two different coloured socks."
"Well, I had to top what you did to Michael," he says, smiling. "I mean, whispering all his messages to make him think he was losing his hearing? That's pure genius right there."
"You make some good points. Okay, what do you say we split it?"
"That's what I'm saying."
He meets her eye and they both break out huge smiles, full teeth and everything.
This works out best for them, anyway. Jim always ends up giving Pam the yellow ones anyway because he knows they're her favourite and he's not especially fond of them. The green ones are his favourite. He always saves those ones for last. Not that he expects Pam to remember that. It's not like she takes note of all his likes and dislikes and stores them in her head in a special hypothetical Jim file, the way he does. She's not a total freak like he apparently is.
Pam opens the bag and goes about separating them out into colours. While she's busy, he looks back at Stanley, relieved that he's resumed working on his crossword puzzle and is not planning Jim's untimely demise.
"Here," she says, pushing a fistful of candy at him. She's taken all the yellow and half of the other colours. Or, wait, not all of the colours. Jim inspects his pile and then hers again. She's given him all the green.
He concentrates on the back of her head because she's looking down and for some reason something tells him that she's doing it on purpose. But then reality kicks in and he chastises himself. He has to stop looking for things that clearly are not there.
"I love the green ones," he says and, breaking his usual habit, pops one into his mouth.
When Pam looks at him, a small impish smile on her face, his stomach flips.
"I know."
He looks down at his pile and back at her.
Okay, so he's been fooling himself. He does need more than this lousy job and this far from innocent crush. He needs to get a life.
He's tried to avoid going to her desk like usual, even though she has the really good kind of jellybeans out in the community bowl, just waiting for him. He remains strong and avoids temptation. It's Pam that interrupts him while he's working…or, at least, pretending he's working.
"Everyone's going out for drinks tonight. You're coming, right?"
She says it casual, but there's an undertone to her voice that he can't quite decipher.
"Tonight? No, I can't."
"Really? Why not?" she says genuinely interested.
Jim shifts in his chair.
"I've…got a date."
"Oh," she says, nodding.
He avoids eye contact and straightens his tie.
"Yeah, so…"
"Is it Katy?"
"Uh, no. Actually, Ryan's been seeing her, I think."
"And that doesn't bother you?" she asks, a little defensive.
"Um, not really," he says, shrugging. "I think I went out with her for the wrong reasons, anyway."
Jim continues to avoid making eye contact. It's safer.
"So, if it's not Katy, who is it?"
"It's…someone else." Jim takes a deep breath and scratches his neck. "It's someone I met recently. It's a new thing. I would have told you, but things have been--"
"Weird. Right. So, um, where did you two meet?"
"Actually, it's funny. She works at the hospital. Took my cast off, actually."
"Oh. That's…neat."
"Yeah, I dunno. We just got to talking and… Anyway, she's pretty cool."
"That's great. Really great. I'm happy for you."
He wonders if it's just his mind playing tricks on him, but she doesn't exactly sound sincere.
"Thanks," he says, but she's already walking away.
He was going to tell her.
He was.
But every time he tried to, something came up. And, okay, so maybe he was waiting for a moment like this to test the waters, just to see where they stood. But instead of making things clear, everything is even more muddled and complicated than before.
TBC...