Title: Jam fluff

Series: The Office

Theme No.: 47; Bitterness doesn't stand a chance with those two

Pairing: Jim/Pam

Rating: PG-13

Notes: I've been rather interested in Oscar's character lately; he seems to be the only other genuinely normal person in the office, and I've been itching to tell some kind of story from his perspective. So here it is; a little glimpse into the woes of Oscar's life, though of course we can't let a chapter go by without some mischief from Jim and Pam, now can we?

Also, here is an example of backsliding to the sinfully run-on sentences of my youth. I must ask your forgiveness for that.  Enjoy the story.


Oscar did not keep romance novels under his desk. Yes, he was gay, and because of that Michael now made a point of asking him about his boyfriends every now and then, but he was not quite so far gone -- not quite so garish -- as to flaunt his failing love life in the place where he worked. He took comfort in the fact that he wasn't yet pathetic enough to wallow in misery when he should have been working, like Dwight did on his video game.

The romance novels which Oscar did not keep under his desk mostly had to do with star-cross'd lovers and people whom Destiny had groomed for each other, the kind of people you just knew were going to end up married; you knew from the first moment they laid eyes on each other. The romance novels which were not under Oscar's desk weren't the clichéd, mushy kind; they were generally well-written and sober. Not all of them were about gay couples, although most them were. Oscar in fact kept them in a carefully locked drawer in his apartment, because that wasn't the sort of thing you wanted visitors poking around in, not that he had many visitors these days.

Oscar knew that to mix your business life with your personal life was dangerous, and a thousand times more dangerous than usual when your business life took place at Dunder Mifflin, under the baleful glare of Angela, and Michael's ever-vigilant misinterpretation. So he learned to lie, quickly and easily, smiling and making up complex stories to assuage Michael's raised eyebrows and not-so-surreptitious winks.

And they weren't big lies. In fact, he wasn't lonely; he did have friends outside of Dunder Mifflin, friends who were capable of holding a coherent conversation for more than five minutes. He didn't have the severely crippling emotional oddities that most of his co-workers seemed to have. He was a realist, who knew better than to define himself by his boyfriends or lack thereof, and who knew that a steady, secure, moderately well-paying job was nothing to scorn or be ashamed of.

It was just that, sometimes on a particularly foul and rain-drenched Monday morning like this one, Oscar Martinez sat at his desk and sipped his acidic, bitter coffee and wondered where the hell his life had gone.


Michael did not keep all of Jan's emails saved on his computer, even the ones that were just corporate business and memos and impersonal reminders. He wanted to have them all saved on his computer, but Dwight had told him that Corporate could probably access his emails, and that meant Toby could, too, and Michael would smash his face in with a cinderblock before he would let Toby see – well, anything.

So the emails that Michael did not keep on his computer were instead printed out and stashed in a drawer of the filing cabinet, cleverly filed under L, for 'love'. (L was also for Levinson, but Michael didn't notice that until much, much later.)

He didn't look through them often, of course, because that would have been unprofessional. But sometimes he had days like today – when Jan kicked him in the side and made him fall off the bed and didn't even wake up when he hit the ground. Days like today, when the rain made everything blurry and she didn't even thank him for the toast and the cereal he left out for her. And he knew she loved him – last night had proven that. But still, sometimes it was nice to hear her say it… that is, maybe it would have been nice. He couldn't remember having heard it before.

But that was okay; he just looked through her emails instead, holing up in his office and rifling through the reprimands and reports, searching for a love letter. And he never let himself be disappointed when he didn't find one, no matter how many times he looked.


"So, how was your weekend?" Kevin grumbled, from amidst the stacks of paper that he always left abandoned on Friday afternoons. It was obvious from his tone that he didn't really care; he had a story to tell about his own weekend, and Oscar knew not to mix personal with professional, it was a lesson he'd learned well. So he didn't tell Kevin about the breakup with Gil, about the messy fight and the shouted insults and that terrible sense of no closure, the miasma of unfinished business and good wine choked down like water and the front door slamming shut so hard the doorframe cracked. He didn't tell Kevin about the dulling of romance and the seeds of manipulation, or a Saturday night poisoned by I hate you and the fact that he was alone now, alone again.

Kevin was already talking, but Oscar wasn't listening; instead he stared broodingly into the wavering colors of his screensaver. He was, of course, a realist; and the fact that he didn't have a boyfriend anymore didn't bother him overmuch. No, what was bothering him was the faint trace of a hangover headache that still clung to his temples, and the sour taste in his mouth that the coffee couldn't erase. He was a realist; and now was the time for realism, with the columns of accounting figures in front of him and the growling, overcast sky drenching the city in slush.


Michael hated it when it rained; it was like the clouds were crying. Sometimes he tried to cheer them up, and sometimes he just stayed in his office, trying out depression, to see if it would make him less depressed. Somehow, it never did.

On this particular Monday he opened an email to Jan and wrote, "How was your weekend?" Not because he was actually wondering – after all, they'd spent the weekend together. It would be like their little joke, because he already knew how her weekend had been, but he was asking anyway. He thought about her sitting at home (still in her pajamas) and opening it, and laughing at his wit and cleverness. In the daydream, he could blot out the martini glass in her hand.

He wasn't unhappy. He was happy sometimes – like when they scrapbooked, though they hadn't been doing much of that lately. Like when they made up after a fight… and talked about having kids, having a future. That always made him happy…

The email sat open on his computer screen, blinking, one sentence flickering in and out of existence. Michael thought that single line looked sad and lonely – he thought he should add to the email, write more words to fill up the blankness, maybe add a whole paragraph, with lots of little nouns running around to keep it company. But he couldn't think of anything else to say; and Dwight was knocking on his door.

He hit Send. The redundant question vanished from his desktop, evaporating into the cyberspace void. "How was your weekend?"

He thought gloomily that she probably wouldn't answer until Friday – if she bothered to answer at all.


The story of Oscar's weekend, the story he hadn't told Kevin, had begun with a candlelit dinner and ended in hate. The romantic, the sentimental man, might have taken advantage of Kevin's rambling to indulge in a bout of self-pity as painfully bitter as the office coffee; but Oscar was an accountant, and he locked the sentimentality away into the corner of his mind, the same way he locked the romance novels away in the cabinet. Or, at least, he tried to; but some of it still seeped out, the unfairness of it all. How terribly unfair it was that it was so hard to find a good man, how impossible it was to argue with an empty room, or to add and subtract heartache away the way he smudged Michael's little stupidities out of the office finance reports.

Well, he was through with it. Done with Gil, done with all the pain and trepidation of falling in love; what was the point? With the leaden dread of Monday morning pressing down it was too easy to believe that love was impossible; that nothing lay in store for him but Dunder Mifflin finance reports, forever and ever into eternity…

And good riddance. What had boyfriends ever brought him but heartache? What had romance ever done for him, for anyone – look at Dwight, who moaned like an animal and stared like a zombie; look at Angela, who had grown more frigid and sharp-tongued than ever; look at Michael, who was… well, Michael.


"Thanks, my weekend was fine, Dwight," Michael announced, in answer to the question that Dwight hadn't asked. "I hung out with Jan. We spent all of Saturday together… and all of Sunday, too." He waggled his eyebrows emphatically. "And let me tell you, we were not going to church…"

Dwight opened his mouth to say something, but Michael cut him off with a dismissive wave of his hand; he leaned back in his chair, because reclining made him feel powerful and like what he imagined Donald Trump must feel like all the time. Donald Trump, he reflected, could probably get any girl he wanted.

"It's so great to have Jan to go home to every day," Michael sighed. He looked sharply at Dwight, who was standing stiffly at attention while he waited for his superior officer to finish making small talk. "You should get yourself a girl, Dwight," Michael announced. "I bet you'd be much less of a kiss-ass… if you know what I mean." He winked wildly, with no discernible result.

After several more seconds passed during which Dwight remained totally immobile, Michael sighed and slumped forward onto his desk. "Tell me about your weekend, Dwight," he groaned, and the rant that followed was almost enough to make him wish that he could be at home with Jan instead of at the Dunder Mifflin office.

Almost.


"So, how was your weekend?"

The sound of the door opening was almost drowned out by the burst of laughter that accompanied it. Oscar looked up, jolted out of his gloom just in time to catch sight of Jim and Pam staggering into the office, arm in arm, both biting back laughter and soaked to the bone. Jim answered Pam's question with a shrug and a raised eyebrow. "Oh, it was awesome. I met this really great girl."

"Yeah?" Pam prodded, unmistakably mischievous. "Is she pretty?"

"Hmm," Jim's face grew serious, considering. "Nah, I don't think pretty is exactly the word…"

"You jerk!" Pam growled, punching him playfully on the arm; then he reached out to tickle her in return, and the tickle fight got confused, and as the whole office stared at them, Jim leaned down and kissed her.

It was a rather long kiss; the muddy water dripping from their coats had formed a permanent-looking stain in the carpet before they broke apart, only to realize that they were the focus of a half-dozen curious, gape-mouthed stares. Pam immediately flushed a brilliant red and darted behind her desk with a muffled squeak; Jim only smiled his languid smile and sauntered over to his desk as though nothing was wrong.

"What a sickeningly shameful display," Angela murmured, disgust thick in her voice, and Oscar realized with a start that he was smiling.

He shook his head to clear it, and returned to work with a frustrated sigh. It was a rainy Monday morning at Dunder Mifflin, which was about the worst combination of circumstances known to man; and Oscar had just lost a boyfriend, and was very likely never to find another one. He should have gone mad by now, he had been working himself up into a fine froth of bitterness and shame…and of course Jim and Pam, the office's resident angelic-perfect couple, had had to just burst in and ruin everything with how easy, how possible they made true love seem. Like all the star-cross'd lover stories come to life, in a failing mid-range paper supply company, no less.

"Bitterness is absolutely impossible with those two," he murmured under his breath, almost growling in frustration.


By the time Michael had finally managed to get rid of Dwight, the hubbub from the outer office had caught his attention instead. He swiveled around and glanced through his blinds just in time to catch sight of Jim and Pam, fully lip-locked in front of the entire office, dripping rainwater and quaking with laughter.

Michael was happy whenever he got to spend his time at Dunder Mifflin; and the sight of Jim and Pam made him doubly happy, as he thought with a snicker how Toby must be going crazy at this completely un-company-regulated PDA.

And for the first time all day, the darker bit of Michael that lurked beneath the outer happiness lightened up a bit; and the Monday stormy-morning gloom lifted away effortlessly, removing the heaviness from Michael's shoulders and freeing him to bounce up and into the office proper. He loved Jim and Pam, and Jim and Pam loved each other, and that was enough to make him smile. After all, what did Michael have to worry about? Why was he all gloomy in the first place? If Jim could find happiness, then Michael definitely would – Jim was only a salesman, after all, and not a very good one at that. Michael, on the other hand, was a regional manager, and that had to count for something in this world.

The thought cheered him up immensely. If Jim could have a smokin' hot and happy girlfriend, then Michael could, too. "Who could be depressed with those lovebirds around?" he chuckled, trying to turn some of the frowns in the office upside-down. Jim himself rolled his eyes, while Pam blushed a bit and slouched down behind reception, as though trying to hide.

Michael shook his head, muttered, "I love those crazy kids," and returned to his office, ready to face the day.


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