Well this was certainly a fun day.
Jim was not in a happy state of mind. Huddled in the break room with a cup of 'lemoñadé', he was sitting in the same chair where he'd told Karen that he still had feelings for Pam, and hadn't moved from the spot since she'd stormed out. She'd been pretty angry, not that it surprised him. Jim doubted he'd be seeing her for the rest of the day.
To pass the time, he had been dully watching people pass in and out for refreshments, or otherwise staring down at his black loafers. Should've worn the brown, they were the lucky ones, damnit.
Pam had come in a little while later. "Hey Jim, what are you up to?" she'd asked, a genuinely curious look on her face.
"Hey, oh, well…"
Luckily, Michael had come in as he was fumbling for a response.
"Come on, Pama-lama-ding-dong, dance with me! Let's get you into the Mexican spirit! You may not be able to beat me at dancing, since I am obviously the best in the office, but you can still make an effort!" he said, snapping his fingers and stomping his feet in a bad impression of a castanet player.
"No Michael. Just no."
Pam shook her head and gave Jim one of her 'Sorry, going to escape now!' looks before scampering out of the room. Jim breathed a sigh of relief; at least she was temporarily distracted from his problems.
Michael had turned to Jim afterwards, giving him a wink.
"Don't worry Jimbo my good buddy; I'll keep Pam entertained so you and the gal pal can have your private nookie time."
Being that he was Michael Scott, 'private nookie time' was accompanied by not-so-subtle air quotes. Considering that 'private nookie time' with Karen wasn't on Jim's priority list anymore, either news of relationship problems spread slowly in the office, or Michael was the last to know. Jim figured that the latter was more likely as he watched Michael exit to go track down Pam again.
A few minutes later, a pair of black slacks entered his line of sight. His eyes trailed upwards to find a gray, long-sleeved shirt encompassing the body of his lanky, brown-haired, bespectacled coworker, Dwight. The man was looking down at Jim with an arrogant stare, the kind of expression that said 'I don't like you, I tolerate you.' It was Dwight's normal face whenever he was around Jim, direct and to the point.
"So I suppose you are disappointed that I will be sitting across from you again, instead of your good friend Andy?"
The question surprised Jim. He raised an eyebrow to Dwight, who was standing as he normally did: stiffly, with his arms crossed. The way his foot taped obviously meant this wasn't a rhetorical question. Should I be honest?, Jim thought to himself.
"Well, it'll certainly be a change," he said, leaning back, and stretching his arms out in a nonchalant fashion.
"I hope that this time around we can work together in a more… professional light," Dwight intoned with a slight sniff of superiority, his voice deeply serious as usual. "Maybe we can be more productive instead of childish, for the good of this company?"
Jim thought for a moment, and then smiled. Hopping up from his chair (causing Dwight to jump slightly), he walked over to the other man, whose widened, surprised eyes contrasted sharply with Jim's mellow grin.
"Tell you what Dwight. You promise to stop being so stiff collared and violently serious all the time, and I'll find another person's stapler to steal and encase in Jell-O."
He brushed past Dwight, giving him a friendly smack on the back as he walked towards the door.
"…can you teach me how?"
Jim stopped dead in his tracks, eyebrow rising slightly in confusion. Did he just ask me… what I think he did?
Turning around, he saw a slight change in the appearance of his coworker. Dwight's grating stare was still apparent, but he'd moved his hands to his pockets, and was leaning slightly on one leg. He only did this when he was uncomfortable about something, which, Jim mused, was more often now that Jim was back.
"Can I teach you what?" Jim asked coolly, leaning an arm on the doorframe.
"How to be less… stiff collared as you call it?"
"I was kidding you know. I'm still probably going to be Jell-O-izing your stuff for a long time."
"I know but… I do not want this to happen again!" Dwight blurted out, his expression becoming haphazardly nervous for a moment before changing back to a safer, passive-aggressive look.
Jim, not wanting Dwight's voice to carry out to the other partygoers, closed the door and then looked back over at Dwight.
"How do you expect me to change that?"
"Michael liked Andy because he was a… fun guy," Dwight said, a little sigh escaping his lips. "He was cool, funny and charmed everybody." Jim suppressed the urge to laugh at that statement, letting Dwight continue. "That is why Michael picked him over me."
Jim shook his head vigorously at Dwight's conclusion. "He was a yes-man, Dwight; a people pleaser. Considering you never stalked Michael around the office or punched a hole through the wall, I'd say you're in a better position than he is to be Michael's number one guy. At least Michael doesn't hide behind doors whenever you're in the room." Am I actually defending Dwight? Jeez, the universe is 2 for 0 today, isn't it?
Dwight looked surprised for a moment, but his expression quickly faded back into determination. "Andy might have been dispatched, but someone new could come to steal Michael's loyalty, and then what? I need someone to teach me how to be appealing to people, and you are the perfect candidate, Jim. Whether I want to admit it or not, you know how to get people to like you, despite you atrociously obvious character flaws." He folded his arms, the regular Dwight glare back in swing.
"Well, that really makes me want to help you." Jim said, glaring back at him. Dwight changed his expression almost immediately, replacing it with a slightly desperate, pleading look.
Jim leaned back against the door and pressed a hand to his forehead, sighing. "Alright Dwight. If it means making the workspace slightly more tolerable, I'll do it. I'll teach you how to be a 'fun guy', or whatever you want to call it. It will involve lots of training and meditation, and you may be called to sacrifice your life for the cause at any moment, but if you are successful young padawan," …hell I might as well have fun with this, he thought, "you will be officially deemed a 'fun guy.' Do you accept this mission, Dwight K. Schrute?"
"I accept, Sensei!" Dwight swung his arms together and gave a deep bow, just as he would to his karate master. This just made Jim groan and press a hand to his forehead.
"This is what I'm talking about. You're already taking this too seriously."
"…Sorry. So what is the first item on our agenda, Sensei?"
Jim moved his hand from over his eyes to find an eager look on Dwight's face. You had to feel a little sorry for the guy, he supposed. But then again… why did I agree to this?
Pushing himself off the door, he walked over and slung an arm around Dwight's shoulder, causing the older man to jump slightly.
"Well, first, never, ever call me Sensei again."
"Okay…"
"Now, we retrieve Andy's cell phone before he goes AWOL, and then we get Agent Beesly. This will take as much of her cunning as mine; though even together, who knows how much of your screwed up personality we'll be able to fix."
"Hey! I am not screwed up Halpert!"
"Sure Dwight. Sure."
/\/\/\/\/\/
"So… what is the point of this?"
Pam giggled a little and rolled her eyes at Jim, whose expression was of exasperation for the millionth time that night.
"The point of this is to see the wonderfully comedic results. Now the pole, if you would?"
Dwight grumbled something about uppity salesmen, but handed the object over anyways.
"Alright, that's it for tonight. We'll see the results in the morning. Good job agents, dismissed."
Dwight immediately swung into another respectful bow, a habit he'd refused to drop (though the sensei line was thankfully gone), and then left Pam and Jim to go and get his coat.
"So I heard about you and Karen…"
Jim turned his head from watching Dwight walk off to see Pam's sympathetic face looking up at him.
"Yeah, well, we wouldn't have worked out anyways."
"How come?"
His breath caught in his throat. Now's my chance, he thought. I can win her back…
"I… well, it was just our personalities. We didn't mesh," he said, shrugging.
"Oh." She looked disappointed, like she'd been expecting him to say something else. Jim rubbed the back of his head sheepishly and gave her a grin. What the hell is wrong with me?
"Crap!" he said, suddenly remembering something. "Dwight has my cell phone!"
"…Why?"
"I gave it to him to hold when we were gathering all that stuff before. I didn't want it to get all messy. Sorry Beesly, I've got to get it. See you tomorrow?"
She gave him a smile and nodded. "I wouldn't miss out on this for anything."
He gave her a quick hug, and then ran to catch up with Dwight.
As he hammered his feet down the hallway to the elevator, his mind raced with questions. Why the hell didn't I tell her? She's single, I like her, and she obviously doesn't hate me. And I know, I KNOW she broke up with Roy for me. I just know it. Why can't I tell her I love her?
He caught his breath during the elevator ride down to the ground, and then continued running as the doors opened, down the hallway and out the door into the parking lot. Dwight was next to his car's driver's side, facing towards the door as if he was about to leave.
"Dwight, wait!" Jim shouted, running towards him. Dwight didn't turn around as Jim caught up to him. He leaned against the car for a moment to catch his breath.
"Jeez, you move fast, you only left like a minute before I did!"
Dwight turned around slowly, and Jim saw that his cell phone was grasped in the man's hand, flipped open; the dim glow reflected on his palm.
"Why did you call Jan on the day I resigned?" he snapped.
Crap. "Why are you looking at the stuff on my cell phone Dwight? That's private property." He reached out and grasped for the phone, but Dwight pulled back sharply and backed up.
"Never let your enemies have access to your things Jim. I was checking to make sure you hadn't been getting too friendly with Michael while I was gone, but here I see you made your move at an even higher positioned person than I expected!"
"What are you talking about Dwight?"
"You don't fool me, Halpert," Dwight said, pointing a finger in his face. "You want my job as Assistant Regional Manager, just like Andy did! You were probably getting tips from him on how to work your own charms so you could get Michael to fire me! Then, when I was gone, you had to get rid of Andy, so you went to Jan because Michael liked him too much for your influence to work! You couldn't wait, could you?" Dwight's expression was crazed, twisted in maniacal rage.
"Dwight, you're insa-"
"That's why you were so eager to help me now!" Dwight yelled, interrupting him. "You want to make me look like a fool by pretending to teach me how to be a fun guy, and instead you're going to make me look like a psycho! You evi-"
A fiercely strong smack against the face made Dwight stumble backwards slightly. Jim's cell phone flew out of his hand and slammed to the ground, shattering. He looked up in shock, similar to the expression he'd worn the last time Jim had smacked him. The other man's face was contorted into frustration.
"Dwight, you do fine on your own making yourself look like a psycho. Do you want to know why I called Jan that day? I called to find out why the hell you were leaving and to try and stop it."
Dwight's eyes lit up in surprise. "Wh-what are you talking about?"
Jim gave an exasperated sigh and bent down to pick up the broken pieces of his cell phone. He kept his eyes down as he spoke.
"I guess my original reason for calling was selfish. I thought that something might've happened on the sales call, so I called Jan to make sure my job wasn't in jeopardy. She told me that you'd lied to Michael again, and rather than telling the truth, you decided to leave. I have no idea why you would DO that, but I guess I don't know you as well as I thought." He looked up to the other man.
Dwight bent down, his eyes averted, and began to help pick up the pieces. "I'm dating Angela," he said suddenly. Jim's eyes popped slightly, but he held back obvious questions that came to mind.
"And this has to do with this situation… why?"
Dwight rolled his eyes and scoffed, as if the situation was obvious. "That day, I went to corporate to deliver the papers she'd forgotten to send. I didn't want her to get in trouble, and she didn't want our relationship to come out and become everybody's new gossip, so I didn't tell anyone. I wouldn't tell anyone. That's why I left, so I wouldn't have to."
"Why would you think that people would care about your relationship with Angela?"
"One word: Kelly."
"Ouch. Right..."
"So what did you say to Jan after she told you?" Dwight implored, still not looking at Jim.
He watched Dwight's fingers shuffling around bits of cell phone before speaking again. "I told her that she needed to talk some sense into Michael. Yeah, you did try to betray him once, but we were all trying to look out for ourselves then, and I think you learned your lesson the first time. You're not that stupid Dwight. I think."
Dwight looked up, ready to give Jim a piece of his mind, but he was surprised to find his coworker giving him a smile that said 'I'm kidding'. Dwight managed to return it with a blank stare instead of a glare. They finished scooping up the cell phone pieces and stood.
"You're lucky. I've got a warranty for this, and the hard drive is still intact, so I can transfer all the information I had on here to a new phone. Otherwise your entire desk would be sitting in a Jell-O bubble."
He held his bag out slightly, and Dwight dumped the pieces in his hands into it. When Jim pulled back however, one of Dwight's hands was still out towards him.
"Uh… what's with the hand?"
"I apologize for disrespecting your personal space. If you would still like to coach me, I would appreciate it."
Jim chuckled and reached out, grasping Dwight's hand firmly and shaking it.
"Unlike you Dwight, I don't loathe people outright after one spat. No, it takes years for the loathing I've built up for you to be created." He gave a cheeky grin when Dwight glared, and pulled his hand back swiftly.
Jim stepped back as Dwight brushed past him and got into his car. He revved the engine and backed out, coming to a full stop for a moment, car now fully straightened in the lane. Jim wondered why he wasn't moving for a moment, when two honks came from the car. The driver's side window rolled down, and Dwight's arm appeared through it, waving back and forth shakily in a … is he waving goodbye to me?
"…I will see you tomorrow!" came a hesitative shout from the car, before it sped out of the parking lot and onto the street, disappearing around the corner.
Jim let out a laugh, realizing what the hesitation was about. He's still Dwight, but maybe he's turning a little more human. If Dwight had been willing to open up a little with his confessions, and even wave him a goodbye, maybe there was hope for him yet.