My first Office fic, and this is all because of Lori. She's a horrible person, but I must thank her for the beta...
There's very few things in life that he can control.
This he knows.
The weather, that's definitely high up on the list of things that are out of his control and yet every time it rains, Pam pulls her hair back and up and it's as though he's willed it; though he's willed it to rain just so he can see a sliver of her perfect skin.
And she doesn't wear makeup, so it's all the more perfect for that reason.
He was never that kid in high school, wasn't the one to sit idly by and pine after the pretty girl. No, he was the smart one, the quirky, witty one. The boy with the heart on his sleeve, going for broke and asking the pretty cheerleader to homecoming, shocked when she said yes and wasn't a bitch to him. Corsage and all, he was an amazing date (still is).
But he cheated on her with Stephanie Curley in the third floor bathroom his senior year and fucked everything up. Jim really has a tendency to do that, fuck things up royally at crunch time. Falling asleep during the SATs and crashing his mom's car the first time he drove. He vomited on his old, old, ex-ex girlfriend the first time he decided to drink and nearly killed his first roommate when he'd burned a pizza and smoked out his first apartment.
Cool as a cucumber when the cameras are on him, but there is always a little sheen of sweat tickling around his hairline because he wants to watch her, always wants to watch her. But that's creepy; stalker creepy.
Dwight creepy.
And so he doesn't. He's gotten really great with his peripherals, but he'd gotten terrible headaches from watching her out of the corner of his eye, and after getting an ulcer from his abundant use of aspirin, he's stopped doing that too.
There were times when she would touch his hand – still – and he would smile like he always did. And he'd never be weary of Karen because she was sweet and didn't suspect and was the right type of woman for a man to fall in love with... but not the right woman for him, never was.
He thinks that maybe this torture he's putting himself through is much more fun than the resolution of the tension would be. Jim's a rational man although he acts likes such a putz and he would never admit it out loud, but the gentle roils of his stomach feel fantastic. Pam makes his stomach toss and turn and it feels... alive, great, amazing.
And he's worried that if he makes a move, the gentle, frightening waves that course through his veins will ebb and subside and she'll just be her and he'll just be him and they wouldn't be Jim and Pam but Jim... and... Pam, and not so much as they used to be.
He thinks that, he thinks it a lot, and then she makes a crazy face at him while Michael's leaned over Dwight's desk and his fears subside for a brief second and they'll just look, look, look at each other and he'll realize that he is the man-who-would-never-fall-in-love-who-fell-so-hard. Coffee beans and skittles and paper clips and he is so hers and she doesn't even know it.
(Maybe she does, he isn't one for speculating... not really...)
At nights, there are times (many of them, truth be told) that he tries to imagine her body, naked, on top of his, writhing to his rhythm, holding him like... like... what? It was bad, how he could never picture how she was underneath her clothes, but there was a part of his brain that realized that she was far too precious for him to be thinking like that. That in itself was strange (stranger for a man who had several photos in Hustler dog-eared...).
She's not engaged anymore, not really seeing anyone and he's free to make another move, but it just doesn't feel right. He wants maybe to take her to Vegas and just indulge in debauchery and stupidity and get the childish urges out of his system and yet he knows it won't help. Well, Vegas would be fun, even more fun with her there, but it wouldn't quell the urge...
Sometimes Karen would pull her fingers through his hair and not ask for anything, not ask for anything at all. She brought her own Guster DVD and knew all the words to the newest Sufjan Stevens album, baked really fattening cake and drank like a champion. Karen was relaxed (at home), selfless, sweet, strong (in stomach as well as in character) and gorgeous. Such a wonderful replacement, but a replacement nonetheless.
The distraction is nice; a warm body to curl into his while they watch a football game, the comforting hand on his as they sit together and view a horribly cheesy gore movie on pay-per-view. Par, she is par for the course and though he feels horrible about it, it is like he's powerless to stop it.
Maybe he is. And maybe, and maybe again.
Pam starts painting her nails and he wonders what drove her to the dark, the mauve, the maroon, the very-near-blood. It used to be nude and pale pink but her nails are dark now and it's now, with that color, that he can imagine her nails cutting down the skin of his back, drawing him into her, telling him that she's waited so, so long and it's so right...
But still, all she does is smile (more shyly than before, actually, but she laughs louder and touches him more) and goes along with his insane plans and... that smile... endless, toothy smiles that stretch from ear to ear, leaving him to once again ponder how her jaw stretches so tightly.
Karen smiles at him and Jim feels a slight tightening in his chest, but when Pam smile, well... he suffocates when Pam sends him a genuine grin.
When he thinks about running two fingers over the apple of her cheek he thinks that maybe it'll be alright for a little while longer, even if he can't ever touch her.
Just the thought, maybe it's enough.