Umm, my first OFFICE fic...kinda nervous, I'm not gonna lie.
Plus, I haven't written anything except classwork in ages, so there is a pretty good chance this is incoherrent babble...
It's short, yes. Sweet...well, I'll let you guys be the judge of that. Jim/Pam, of course, because there just isn't anything else.
And I don't own anything. Because I'm pathetic. Thanks for reminding me.
The first time Pam woke up at Jim's place, it was not at all how she expected it.
Because really, she was quite past the point of denying that she had ever expected it to happen at all.
Thought of it, perhaps. Dreamed of it...well, yes, but she never told anyone about that. But expected it? That was the sort of cocky prospect she didn't admit that to anyone, even herself.
Until now, of course. Until "it's a date." That changed everything.
And when it did happen... oh dear, she certainly had hoped for better. She wasn't being unreasonable or anything. She hadn't been looking for perfect, she hadn't wanted a fairytale or anything, but she didn't think better was too much for a girl to ask for.
And better than this couldn't be too hard to achieve.
The first thing she was immediately aware of was how terribly awkward she felt. Her neck was stiff and cocked at an uncomfortable angle. Her legs were twisted beneath her in a tangled heap, a series of pinpricks alerting her to the fact that the pair were painfully numb. And perhaps most noticeably, a revoltingly familiar burn plagued the back of her throat.
None of these sensations were those which one wishes to accompany a (long-awaited) first date.
She furrowed her brow and tried to think through the painful throbbing in her temples. What possibly could have...
Oh dear God no...
That burn in her throat? The pounding headache? The whole sleeping over the toilet? Had she truly spent her first night with Jim wasted? Had she really fallen asleep fully clothed, sitting up, slumped over, with her clammy cheek pressed against the cold plastic surface of Jim's toilet seat!
When the realization of her state hit her, she jumped away from the porcelain bowl with a jolt. A move which proved none too smart, as a wave of queasiness instantly shook through her. She couldn't possibly have spend the night following her first date with the man she quite possibly has been in love with for years throwing her guts up in his bathroom, could she?
All sign seemed to point obnoxiously to YES.
She prayed to God she hadn't landed a drunken kiss on him yet again. Or completely rejected him (yet again). Or...dammit, the humilitating possibilities were endless.
Cradling her face in her shaking hands, Pam let out a mournful groan and slid down onto the cold tiled floor. However, instead of making contact with the chilly surface as she has anticipated, she instead found herself sinking into a pillow and blanket someone had graciously left out for her, had she chosen to abandon her perch at the toilet. At the time, she must not have been fully appreciative of Jim's sweet gesture, but now the evidence of his kindness only made her embarrassment that much more searing. Especially when she noticed another pillow and blanket laying empty over alongside the bathtub. These covers bore the tell-tale wrinkles of actually being slept in, and her heart performed a strange little aerial of soaring and then sinking. He stayed up with her? How sweet, but┘how embarrassing! It was bad enough Jim has had to witness her alcohol-induced escapades at the Dundies, but now he could add overnight babysitting to his inebriated Pam resume as well?
Yet another example of how her best friend was pretty much the greatest guy in the world, and how she once again had managed to sabotage their potential for a real relationship with her stupid subconscious defense mechanisms. With a pitiful groan, she pulled her legs up to her chest and burrowed into Jim's blankets, wishing for a quick and easy death so that she would never have to face him again. Not alive at least.
And that peculiar part was that she didn't even remember drinking very much last night! Of course, alcohol did tend to make a person apt to forget such details, but she has never once been so smashed she blacked-out. That she had last night just seemed unlikely. She certainly felt ill, but despite the nausea and headache, something just didn't feel like her typical hangover. They had gone out for dinner at a sushi bar she had never been to before, and all she remembered ordering was one glass of sake. Of course, the stuff was potent, but she could have sworn she didn't even finish the glass, so just how...
In a flood of rather too vivid images, just why she hadn't managed to finish that one glass of sake came rushing back to her. The waves of nausea, the intense stomach pains, the incessant vomiting, oh God the food poisoning!
So it hadn't been the damn sake at all! She hadn't been highly intoxicated and a general drunken wreck! She was sick! Really, truly, Doctor-certifiably afflicted with an honest-to-God illness! God bless that contaminated raw fish!
Oddly enough, she felt a strange sense of elation at her returned memory, despite its disgusting subject matter. She might have made a spectacle of herself by blowing chunks all night, but at least she hadn't made a fool of herself by drunkenly swooning over Jim like some sort of sophomore girl at the senior prom. She was fairly certain that poisoned people were incapable of swooning, and besides, she would pick being a spectacle over a fool any day.
Now Jim's earlier caretaking took on a whole new meaning. Of course she was humiliated that he had to see her in such a condition, but says a lot about a guy that he would spend his night camped out on the bathroom floor to take care of his poisoned date. Taking care of his drunk date was just a much more mortifying matter.
So when the bathroom door swung open she couldn't stop the small smile playing at her lips from spreading into a full-fledged toothy grin. She stared up at him sideways from where she lay curled up on the floor, and he tilted his head to meet her gaze.
"Morning Beesley."
On second thought, maybe it wasn't such a horrible way to wake up after all.
And how FLIPPING LIT am I that there is a new episode next week! SQUEAK!