Office fic: the summer before you, the platonic friend, came back
the summer before you, the platonic friend, came back, she spilled paint on her coffee table and it looked fine
the office, pam/toby, jim/karen, jim/pam, pg, up to spoilers for traveling salesmen, 949 words, for misunderstood_b
Ten years is a grass stain on her knee, a dent in Roy’s car (and a record), but she’s managing, she promises.
He walks his path
And I follow mine
One truth for one eye
He's come to find me
PJ Harvey, Kamikaze
i.
The summer before you, she moves into a new apartment, starts school and all over again because choice is choice. And she’s grasping choice.- it’s been too long.
Ten years is a grass stain on her knee, a dent in Roy’s car (and a record), but she’s managing, she promises. And her conversations have to waver a little, just a little, with yeah, I’m okay.
Toby walks her to her car that night, late- Michael avoided the end-of-month inventory- and she smiles when they reach her car.
“Thanks,” she murmurs.
He nods, sliding his hands into his pockets. His lips purse together and she waits, watching.
“You, um-” He stops and sighs. But then, genuinely starts again, “If you ever need to talk, Pam, you know where I am.”
It’s unbelievably awkward and corny, but it’s something that she needs to hear. She bites her lip though and wonders if Toby’s like the rest them, aware of a private world that she never knew she had.
Slowly, she breathes. “Yeah. I know.”
ii.
Come back, before the summer is just an adjective and he is starting to really settle in Connecticut with a stiff second chance.
He says yes to dinner with Karen because she can cook and he can’t cook unless he calls his mother and keeps her on the phone for the duration it takes to make something edible.
And he knows that this is cruel because even from a distance, being in love is ghostly but still there. It’s about acknowledging it and that, he promises, is something he’ll never do again.
He does, from time to time, think he should call her- they were friends and he misses friends- but he’s selfish, a Hemingway man, and he never picks up the phone. He knows what a congratulations will taste like and he just won’t do it.
(can you keep a secret?
There is a time before the first time that Pam doesn’t know about because Jim has her old number.
He thinks about it late and he has a beer, a Law & Order rerun his audience for the moment. His fingers brush against the phone and then he picks up with a hesitant hey.
“It’s done,” Roy says quietly, after pausing with surprise, his voice ringing of just close your eyes and count to ten.
Jim thinks boxes, but tells Roy not to say anything because he knows that he won’t at all.)
iii.
The platonic friend is coming back and she’s the first one he tells about the marathon that weekend.
She smiles and he bites the inside of his mouth to keep from blushing (and god, Toby, this isn’t the high school prom) because she’s attentive and in front of him.
“So where is it?”
He blinks, digging into his pocket for a brochure and then handing it to her. He nods at the site. “It’s not the Boston Marathon or anything,” he mumbles. “But, you know, it’s something.”
She laughs. “Do you have a cheering section?”
He shrugs. He was planning something with Sasha, but his ex suddenly decided that his daughter needed to have a series of scheduled play dates this weekend.
Pam looks positively scandalized, after his obvious no, tossing her pen to the side and looking at the brochure again.
“You have to have a cheering section,” she says, nodding. “I think I can make it after my class. Definitely before the-”
“You don’t have to,” he blurts.
She smiles at him. And he thinks about the smile, attributing it to the times that Roy has come and talked about her to him. She smiles and you forget seems nothing more than a lovelorn infatuation. But again, Pam’s smiling at him and for him.
So he forgets. (She’ll find out later that day anyhow.)
iv.
Karen knows there’s a girl because girls always know that it goes a little something like: there was this girl before you.
But it’s okay, it’s okay enough for her to agree to Scranton instead of New York and Times Square. She feels a little silly doing this for a guy who seems to swear by let’s take it slow but lets her come over anyway.
She meets Pam over sweaters, missing Jim’s uneasy glance in their direction. Pam’s smile is tired and still, she thinks oh, well, a friend because she doesn’t know anyone else but Jim.
On her way out, on the first day, she stops after Kelly’s shrill delight and between Pam’s wince.
“I swear,” Kelly beams. “I knew you were going to like Colin. He’s like the anti-Roy. Totally, like, bohemian and stuff.”
Karen’s unsure of stepping in because she’s not used to this. She goes makes a motion to Jim instead, a call me and he nods.
She misses Toby’s head shaking as he passes her for the stairs and the echo of well, like, maybe there’s still hope for you and Jim.
v.
This is weeks later. And then a month, maybe two.
She finds about chai latte after she spills paint on her coffee table that night. (It’s Sasha, on her third weekend over at Pam’s, that explains to her: Daddy likes you. And he couldn’t find a flower.) She curses when the red mixes with blue, staining the carpet, and he grins shyly because it’s not exactly comfortable, but it’s something. And they both need something.
“It looks fine,” he reassures her, moving to the kitchen to grab something to clean the carpet. It’s been weeks. “Call it artistic licensing.”
And Sasha giggles like she gets it, beaming when Pam and Toby share a soft smile together.
She shakes her head.
end.
the office, pam/toby, jim/karen, jim/pam, pg, up to spoilers for traveling salesmen, 949 words, for misunderstood_b
Ten years is a grass stain on her knee, a dent in Roy’s car (and a record), but she’s managing, she promises.
He walks his path
And I follow mine
One truth for one eye
He's come to find me
PJ Harvey, Kamikaze
i.
The summer before you, she moves into a new apartment, starts school and all over again because choice is choice. And she’s grasping choice.- it’s been too long.
Ten years is a grass stain on her knee, a dent in Roy’s car (and a record), but she’s managing, she promises. And her conversations have to waver a little, just a little, with yeah, I’m okay.
Toby walks her to her car that night, late- Michael avoided the end-of-month inventory- and she smiles when they reach her car.
“Thanks,” she murmurs.
He nods, sliding his hands into his pockets. His lips purse together and she waits, watching.
“You, um-” He stops and sighs. But then, genuinely starts again, “If you ever need to talk, Pam, you know where I am.”
It’s unbelievably awkward and corny, but it’s something that she needs to hear. She bites her lip though and wonders if Toby’s like the rest them, aware of a private world that she never knew she had.
Slowly, she breathes. “Yeah. I know.”
ii.
Come back, before the summer is just an adjective and he is starting to really settle in Connecticut with a stiff second chance.
He says yes to dinner with Karen because she can cook and he can’t cook unless he calls his mother and keeps her on the phone for the duration it takes to make something edible.
And he knows that this is cruel because even from a distance, being in love is ghostly but still there. It’s about acknowledging it and that, he promises, is something he’ll never do again.
He does, from time to time, think he should call her- they were friends and he misses friends- but he’s selfish, a Hemingway man, and he never picks up the phone. He knows what a congratulations will taste like and he just won’t do it.
(can you keep a secret?
There is a time before the first time that Pam doesn’t know about because Jim has her old number.
He thinks about it late and he has a beer, a Law & Order rerun his audience for the moment. His fingers brush against the phone and then he picks up with a hesitant hey.
“It’s done,” Roy says quietly, after pausing with surprise, his voice ringing of just close your eyes and count to ten.
Jim thinks boxes, but tells Roy not to say anything because he knows that he won’t at all.)
iii.
The platonic friend is coming back and she’s the first one he tells about the marathon that weekend.
She smiles and he bites the inside of his mouth to keep from blushing (and god, Toby, this isn’t the high school prom) because she’s attentive and in front of him.
“So where is it?”
He blinks, digging into his pocket for a brochure and then handing it to her. He nods at the site. “It’s not the Boston Marathon or anything,” he mumbles. “But, you know, it’s something.”
She laughs. “Do you have a cheering section?”
He shrugs. He was planning something with Sasha, but his ex suddenly decided that his daughter needed to have a series of scheduled play dates this weekend.
Pam looks positively scandalized, after his obvious no, tossing her pen to the side and looking at the brochure again.
“You have to have a cheering section,” she says, nodding. “I think I can make it after my class. Definitely before the-”
“You don’t have to,” he blurts.
She smiles at him. And he thinks about the smile, attributing it to the times that Roy has come and talked about her to him. She smiles and you forget seems nothing more than a lovelorn infatuation. But again, Pam’s smiling at him and for him.
So he forgets. (She’ll find out later that day anyhow.)
iv.
Karen knows there’s a girl because girls always know that it goes a little something like: there was this girl before you.
But it’s okay, it’s okay enough for her to agree to Scranton instead of New York and Times Square. She feels a little silly doing this for a guy who seems to swear by let’s take it slow but lets her come over anyway.
She meets Pam over sweaters, missing Jim’s uneasy glance in their direction. Pam’s smile is tired and still, she thinks oh, well, a friend because she doesn’t know anyone else but Jim.
On her way out, on the first day, she stops after Kelly’s shrill delight and between Pam’s wince.
“I swear,” Kelly beams. “I knew you were going to like Colin. He’s like the anti-Roy. Totally, like, bohemian and stuff.”
Karen’s unsure of stepping in because she’s not used to this. She goes makes a motion to Jim instead, a call me and he nods.
She misses Toby’s head shaking as he passes her for the stairs and the echo of well, like, maybe there’s still hope for you and Jim.
v.
This is weeks later. And then a month, maybe two.
She finds about chai latte after she spills paint on her coffee table that night. (It’s Sasha, on her third weekend over at Pam’s, that explains to her: Daddy likes you. And he couldn’t find a flower.) She curses when the red mixes with blue, staining the carpet, and he grins shyly because it’s not exactly comfortable, but it’s something. And they both need something.
“It looks fine,” he reassures her, moving to the kitchen to grab something to clean the carpet. It’s been weeks. “Call it artistic licensing.”
And Sasha giggles like she gets it, beaming when Pam and Toby share a soft smile together.
She shakes her head.
end.