Title: Sweet Tooth
Rating: K
Disclaimer: Not mine. No profit made.
A/N: Since I've had a rash of one-shots about Toby not getting the girl, I figured I'd put them in a vaguely themed collection to avout spamming the section with a bunch of random tidbits I'd have to keep explaining. Most of this is Season 3-centric, sort of floating around the continuum of the mood at that time.
The funny thing is, he doesn't even like jellybeans.
But the tray's still there, even though there's no sandy-headed salesmen to haunt it. It's another constant of Dunder-Mifflin, a backdrop to the tiny dramas that unfold. A weak springboard for his weak agenda.
Anyway... Jellybeans. He never even liked them as a kid on Easter. They stick in his fillings when he tries to eat them, or leave colored splotches on his palms as he carries them, in clenched and sweating fists, back to his corner of banishment.
But no one else goes up there these days, so when he passes by, he stops under that pretense and smiles uncertainly when she glances up. Sometimes she smiles and sometimes she looks like she actually means it. Once in a while, she says "Hey" and he says "Hey" back and wanders away with a pounding heart.
Every time, though, he's left with sticky artificial flavors that he doesn't want. It feels like a metaphor, but for what he can't tell.
If she knew, she might laugh. Or she might look at him with confused pity.
Either way, he gets the sinking suspicion that she'll probably never find out.