Office drabble: last year in moscow
last year in moscow
the office, pam (pam/roy, pam/jim), pg, 531 words, spoilers for phyllis’ wedding, for gingirella.
Roy’s fingers splayed against the back of her neck is kind of strange, history ringing in her ears.
Write it down but
Don't send the letter
Goldfrapp, Forever
*
Roy’s fingers splayed against the back of her neck is kind of strange, history ringing in her ears.
But she says nothing.
*
In a diner:
“Still like strawberry ice cream?”
She blinks, her palms pressing against the table’s surface. There’s a bit of charcoal crafted around her nails, which she should’ve really painted but she missed when she found a run in her stockings instead.
But Roy is trying, trying, and trying- he deserves with years, the benefit of the doubt, but is she really up for round four? She can’t think of another ten years, another string of disappointment singing one, two, and three.
“Yeah,” she clears her throat, “I still do.”
*
Monday, morning, they run into each other and pass through the kitchen. His hands are in his pockets and his face screams hypothetically.
“So,” he sighs.
She spins a thread of hair between her fingers and watches it as it coils off and away. She shakes her head, but doesn’t know why she says it:
“It was just ice cream.”
*
Roy remembers the mountains at lunch.
But it was New Hampshire, the leaves, the air, and quiet that he hated- she doesn’t have the heart to tell him what she remembers because he’s smiling and it’s been a long time.
“Would you go back?” His finger graze her wrist and she jumps, a little, out of a strange new habit.
(His face almost breaks her heart, singing you didn’t used to do this.)
She picks at her carrots instead, her fingers folding the plastic of the bag over and her fingers sliding against it slowly. “It would be nice,” she murmurs idly. “I guess.”
He nods. “I guess.”
*
The theory about parking lots is that Jim and Pam can’t avoid them.
Her fingers curl around the handle to her car door, but Jim’s coming out and her curse on timing is really killing her. But she’s not avoiding him, she swears, she’s just trying to step away for real this time.
“Hey!” He calls across the lot and from his car.
Her hair spills against the back of her neck and she itches for a ponytail, a canvas, or anything that says distraction. She can close her eyes and see the paints on her window sill- red, yellow, blue, and green. But what to do, what to do?
She hides in amusement instead. “Hi.”
He jogs across the lot, they wave to Toby as he leaves too, and Jim stills right in front of her with somewhat of a smile. She doesn’t know what to think, she’s been caught off guard and altered to a degree.
“I need new music.”
She hesitates (peace offering?) and he sighs and hello, all over again, we’re really not good at this thins in the air..
Her lips purse together. “Okay.”
*
“John Denver, Beesly?”
She snorts. “For my mother, Halpert.”
They stand still, for the moment, the two of them and just the two of them. It’s kind of nice, kind of strange, and the CD passes between them with a you’re breaking all kinds of rules of cool.
She laughs. And it’s okay.
(For now.)
finished.
the office, pam (pam/roy, pam/jim), pg, 531 words, spoilers for phyllis’ wedding, for gingirella.
Roy’s fingers splayed against the back of her neck is kind of strange, history ringing in her ears.
Write it down but
Don't send the letter
Goldfrapp, Forever
*
Roy’s fingers splayed against the back of her neck is kind of strange, history ringing in her ears.
But she says nothing.
*
In a diner:
“Still like strawberry ice cream?”
She blinks, her palms pressing against the table’s surface. There’s a bit of charcoal crafted around her nails, which she should’ve really painted but she missed when she found a run in her stockings instead.
But Roy is trying, trying, and trying- he deserves with years, the benefit of the doubt, but is she really up for round four? She can’t think of another ten years, another string of disappointment singing one, two, and three.
“Yeah,” she clears her throat, “I still do.”
*
Monday, morning, they run into each other and pass through the kitchen. His hands are in his pockets and his face screams hypothetically.
“So,” he sighs.
She spins a thread of hair between her fingers and watches it as it coils off and away. She shakes her head, but doesn’t know why she says it:
“It was just ice cream.”
*
Roy remembers the mountains at lunch.
But it was New Hampshire, the leaves, the air, and quiet that he hated- she doesn’t have the heart to tell him what she remembers because he’s smiling and it’s been a long time.
“Would you go back?” His finger graze her wrist and she jumps, a little, out of a strange new habit.
(His face almost breaks her heart, singing you didn’t used to do this.)
She picks at her carrots instead, her fingers folding the plastic of the bag over and her fingers sliding against it slowly. “It would be nice,” she murmurs idly. “I guess.”
He nods. “I guess.”
*
The theory about parking lots is that Jim and Pam can’t avoid them.
Her fingers curl around the handle to her car door, but Jim’s coming out and her curse on timing is really killing her. But she’s not avoiding him, she swears, she’s just trying to step away for real this time.
“Hey!” He calls across the lot and from his car.
Her hair spills against the back of her neck and she itches for a ponytail, a canvas, or anything that says distraction. She can close her eyes and see the paints on her window sill- red, yellow, blue, and green. But what to do, what to do?
She hides in amusement instead. “Hi.”
He jogs across the lot, they wave to Toby as he leaves too, and Jim stills right in front of her with somewhat of a smile. She doesn’t know what to think, she’s been caught off guard and altered to a degree.
“I need new music.”
She hesitates (peace offering?) and he sighs and hello, all over again, we’re really not good at this thins in the air..
Her lips purse together. “Okay.”
*
“John Denver, Beesly?”
She snorts. “For my mother, Halpert.”
They stand still, for the moment, the two of them and just the two of them. It’s kind of nice, kind of strange, and the CD passes between them with a you’re breaking all kinds of rules of cool.
She laughs. And it’s okay.
(For now.)
finished.