AN: I know nobody really likes author's notes, but I just wanted to say, for continuity reasons: this takes place sometime before "The Dundies." And thanks for reading. x) Hope you like it!
DISCLAIMER: ...would I really spend my time on FanFiction if I owned even a tiny smidge of The Office? xD
He tries to remember how he ended up here.
He knows where he is, he's in the office—he's in the break room—and he's been here all evening and he doesn't know what time it is but it's probably late and he's all alone and he remembers their conversation. Her laugh as it rolled warmth throughout the air, stray auburn curls that rested in fuzzy ringlets around her ears. Her innate touches, like the flit of a butterfly's wings. Yearning to be set free, then denying his proposal of quenching her fragile thirst.
He saw the fear flash through her eyes.
And he knew what he had to do.
It came to him instantaneously, more of a neon blinking "duh!" sign than a flash of an epiphany. Something—the perfect, oh-so-simple solution—to poise everything in eternal peace, to slice his misery in shreds until it dissolved into nothing but faded memories.
It's hard to imagine how she won't see it that way.
Oh, Pam—my beautiful, perfect, misguided Pam…
He can't go on like this. He curses himself for letting things get this out of hand, but she's like an addiction, one that threatens to swallow him whole and yet not quite kill him.
Which brings him to—
He shakes his head to clear the fuzziness. The clock ticks to eleven-thirty. Everything seems to be slipping away right now, and all that's left is a pathetic clutter of forged apathy that he just knows will make a terrific soap opera plotline one day. His gaze jumps to the sheet of drawing paper he's running his fingers over rhythmically, until he realizes that he's smeared half of the intricate lead design.
"Dammit," he curses, as reluctant tears dot even more of the ruined sketch. He stole the one thing from her he could truly say he knew she loved, and then just went and wrecked it. It's wasted, like everything else he's ever done for her. Her blindness has screwed him over so many times—shouldn't he, for once, have at least a partial opportunity?
His sobs tremble faster, aware of how unfair he's being.
Maybe she really does, somewhere, deep in the very nadir of her soul's candid cavity, clutch a sliver of love for Roy. An ache to call herself Mrs. Anderson, the hope of a future…without him.
But he doubts it. If anything, it's probably the other way around; he decides all he's going to ask for is the knowledge that he's the real dream she's buried beneath her practicality. That would do nothing more than a notch above satisfying him.
And that's truly all he needs.
Because he knows that he can't live without satisfaction. Maybe for awhile, sure, like a cancer victim falsely assuming they're just suffering from a cold or the flu or some other sort of common, non-threatening condition. When really? The horrible truth is that they're just in the beginning of the disease's unjustifiable, rigorous cruelty, balancing on a tightrope between the edges of affirmation and justice.
Well. He's just running in circles, putting off the inevitable. Quickly, with a drop of long-awaited nerve, he slides his hand into the depths of his bag.
The tops of his jagged, half-chewed nails hit plastic; his breathing quickens. The lights are off, excluding a thick line of cream spilling out from under the men room's door. It cracks just enough of the darkness to make sure no one's lurking unseen. He left it on purposely, and he summoned enough tremulous courage to exit the bathroom only half an hour ago.
The bottle of pills is withdrawn. Cold, sweat-laden nausea overtakes his sanity as he manages to shakily unscrew the notched plastic water bottle lid. Tilt his head back and fill his mouth. Without blinking or breathing or thinking, ripping the plastic from the medication and pressing down tightly on the lid and revolving to the left and sending capsules racing into his palm and lifting his hand to his mouth and waiting for the relief to come—
"Oh my God."
Choked water is sent spewing across the table. Raindrops of pills shower, drunk with anticipated gravity, to the half-lit linoleum.
Now he really wants to die.
So Pam switches on the light.
He immediately turns away, scrunched eyelids shedding ribbons of tears, blocking the flood of brightness from dilated pupils. She found him. God, right when it was almost to the point of once unattainable perfection—she freaking found him.
"What the hell are you doing here?"
The words are sharper than intended on his tongue. God, he should have predicted this. All his dreams are genuinely shattered now, after she's witnessed his pitiable weakness.
"I couldn't sleep—and I realized I couldn't find my"—her gaze flickers to the sopping table—"my sketchbook, and I thought I left it here—and Nik from the camera crew was here, behind the door. That—that's how I got in. And then—oh my God—Jim."
In the name of all things holy. The goddamn camera crew.
They've been with him the whole time.
They were going to let him—they were—
"Christ, Pam." He rocks, hunched in a somewhat fetal position, back and forth, the repetitive motion somehow soothing. He can't stop saying it. "Christ, Pam. Christ, Pam. Christ."
He doesn't notice the sparkle of tears clouding her irises.
"Christ. Pam…"
He makes himself say it, a buildup of mutilated desire from their very first moment. So hard to keep smothered down. So much harder to release.
"Oh Christ, Pam, I was going to die."
And so liberating after it's done.
She crumples into a chair and takes his hand. "I—I don't understand. Why—I mean, why would you want—"
"Pam." His voice takes on the qualities of a little boy and grown man at the same time, a tone that slices her clean through. He looks her straight in the eye.
He's tired of pretending.
"Why do you think?"
"I think—I think I'm going to throw up."
Jim immediately grabs a stack of napkins from the counter.
But she doesn't. She lowers her head to her chest, and begins to sob. "I can't believe this. Oh, my God, Jim, I'm so sorry…" Managing to look up, it's her turn to cut him in half. "I'm sorry."
But she does know…
A cross between a cough and a hiccup escapes from her thickly moistened throat. "But…I know that's not enough."
He wants to tell her it's OK, it's going to be fine, it's not her fault.
"…You're right."
She doesn't respond.
He coughs, wipes his eyes. "I, uh…I ruined your sketchbook."
She plucks it from the pool of regurgitated water. A sign of what was dangerously close to having been.
"It's worth it."
A long beat engulfs their thoughts as their heart rates slow, and they slowly begin to recuperate from the shock of what they're gaining a full realization of just happened.
"You do know I couldn't do it, right?"
Surprisingly, the words aren't his.
"Do…what?"
"Do anything. At all." Her knuckles turn white as they squeeze the living blood right out of his hand. "Not without you. You save me, Jim. Every day. And I…
"I'm tired of pretending."
"Then don't."
The cameras gain an ounce of respect, and click off.
They'll interview them in the morning.
He's tilting towards her, she's leaning towards him, and they're intertwined by a breathtaking revelation of snow-white truth that lifts them above the sky, above heaven even, and holds them there until they're empty of burden but full of thick cakes of love, not worried about tomorrow or today or the future, but only each ticking second of bliss as it slips effortlessly by.
"Pam," he murmurs, pulling away in sync, rubbing the tips of their noses together affectionately, a motion that shoots invisible sparks into the air.
"What?"
"I just…wanted to say thanks." He gently rubs her earlobe between his forefinger and thumb, tracing circles into the soft flesh.
"Mmm?"
"I didn't really want to die."
"I know."
"I wanted to kiss you—"
"So Jim…"
"…But I realize…I mean, Roy…"
She raises her eyebrows, surprisingly suggestive. He didn't know she had a suggestive look in her. He loves it. "Why don't you get the hell on with it?"
He smirks.
And they kiss.
And they end up intertwined on the floor.
And she thanks God that she remembered to take her birth control before she left.
And they reach perfection.