Improv!fic: Leave a Tender Moment Alone (Kelly/Andy)
Title: Leave a Tender Moment Alone (Part II of the Billy Joel Trilogy)
Pairing/characters: Kelly/Andy
Word Count: 1,775
Rating PG
Summary: Kelly and Andy eat Skittles together after he returns from anger management.
Spoilers: Through "Safety Training"
Author's Notes: Second of the trio of Kandy improv fics. Elements suggested by fireworkfiasco (listed at the end of the story). Five elements, two hours (very, very close to two hours this time), no beta. All goofs and mistakes are my own.
Kelly is a lot more practical than people seem to think. For example, her sugary snack of choice while she's been at Dunder-Mifflin has been either gummy bears or Skittles, neither one of which involve chocolate, but the thing is, the chocolate stuff in the vending machine is very popular, and they'll always run out like a week or two before what's-his-name the vending machine guy shows up to finally re-fill it. Seriously, it's like there's some kind of anti-sweet-stuff prejudice around here; if they run out of chocolate stuff, people will eat anything else besides Skittles, even if that meanstthat people eat those ranch-flavored corn nut things that smell like barf, and by "people", she means "Ryan", and God his breath is so nasty when he eats that stuff, it's like he's trying to keep her from kissing him all day; she had to start bringing a travel toothbrush and little sampler-size mouthwash to work for him, and even then, she can still smell it. Gross. The thing is, nobody else eats the sugary stuff, except Jim, who seems to prefer jellybeans, so Kelly can pretty much be certain that even if the vending machine guy doesn't show up forever, she'll still have a sweet three o'clock snack. Besides, it makes her breath all fruit-scented, and that is much nicer than the nasty ranch-flavored-corn-nut-barf smell that some people don't seem to ever notice that they get. Not that she's pointing fingers.
The Skittles start disappearing faster when the Stamford people show up, which goes to figure. It's not like Kelly could always be the only one who likes Skittles, and if you add a bunch of new people to the office the odds are, you know, someone will end up liking the same things she likes. She has her suspicions on who it is, but as time goes by and the Stamford people drop like flies, she has to keep adjusting her suspicions-- not Tony, not Martin, not Hannah, which leaves Karen or Andy. Probably Karen, although that would certainly be the only thing that she and Kelly maybe both like. On second thought, considering the appraising looks that Kelly's caught Karen giving Ryan on more than one occasion, Skittles had better be the only thing that she and Kelly maybe both like, or Kelly's going to put one of Karen's meticulously sharpened pencils right up Karen's prissy nose.
Looking back at it later, she totally should have figured it out when the Skittles stopped disappearing at the same time that Andy was in anger management, but seriously, she had a lot to deal with at the time, what with Ryan being all weird every time she mentioned Phyllis' wedding-- really, is it so wrong to talk about romantic honeymoon spots just as a random topic of conversation?-- and she was so upset for a few days that she didn't want to eat Skittles, much less take the time to notice that nobody else was eating them, either. So when she walks into the break room in April and finds Andy morosely sorting a pile of Skittles by color, she's not as surprised as she could have been, but she's still surprised enough to say something.
"Ohhh, so it was you."
Andy gets this pissy look on his face and she wonders if he's going to punch the wall again, but then he does this weird elaborate breathing exercise and whatever it is, it seems to calm him down. It's totally unflattering the way he does it, with his nostrils getting all flared and stuff, and she considers telling him that there are ways to do deep breathing that don't make you look like a frog, but she remembers the hole in the wall and decides against saying anything. "Okay," he says, his voice all flat. "What did I do now."
"No, nothing, I just meant the Skittles. I'd been wondering who else eats them."
"Ah." His face returns to normal. "I take it you're the other one, then?"
"Yep." Kelly feeds coins into the vending machine and hesitates a moment; Skittles has always been her signature snack, but it's different when you're choosing to match snacks with someone, it's like you're flirting or something. Which is dumb, though, 'cause this is just Andy, so she hits the button selection for Skittles. She sits at the next table over and opens a corner of the little bag, and shakes out a careful four or five Skittles. Andy finishes sorting his Skittles and starts methodically eating the red ones. "Why do you eat them that way?" she asks.
"I dunno," he shrugs, "I just always have." He looks down and considers his piles. "You know how just one is, like, big flavor? All the same color is even bigger."
"Yeah, but then you only get each flavor one time," Kelly points out.
He blinks and gets that plastic smile on his face, like he's having to try real hard not to react too hard. "Yeah, okay, but the flavor is bigger."
"Whatever." She goes back to eating her own Skittles. The next time she shakes a few out of the bag, though, three of them are orange. Usually she'd space those out, intersperse other flavors between, but this time she figures hey, what the hell, and eats all three orange ones in a row. It is, in fact, a bigger pop of flavor. Apparently even wall-punching freakboys can be right once in a while.
When she looks up, Andy is smiling real big. "What'd I tell ya?" he asks.
"Okay, okay, you were right," she admits, feeling a grudging smile creeping up her cheeks. "I guess you can be right."
"Of course I can," he declares, and he's right back to being all bouncy and that particular brand of weird that's normal for him. "What do you think about the sour ones?"
"Too sour. They get my throat all closed up like I'm having an allergic reaction or something."
"Wild berry?"
"They're okay," she says. "It's not like I'd buy them on purpose, but they'll do in a pinch."
"Tropical?"
"Ick." Kelly sticks her tongue out, forgetting that it's probably all party-colored now from the Skittles. "I don't know, they're just, bleah, ick, not my thing. What about you?"
"Oh, you know, just... what you just said." Andy makes a little waving motion with his hand.
"You can have opinions of your own, you know," she says, feeling a little irritated. "The whole imitating thing only works on Michael. Everyone else just thinks you're being a dope."
He stares at her for a moment, like he's thinking about getting pissed off again, but it might be too much work. "I like the sour ones," he admits, his lip all stuck out and pouty. It makes him look like he's five years old or something.
"There, was that so hard?" On a whim, Kelly gets up and sits at the same table as Andy. "See, you can have opinions and still have people like you just fine."
"Oh, so you like me now?" He waggles his eyebrows at her like Groucho Marx.
She rolls her eyes. "Like, friend-like, stupid. And yeah, you're okay, as long as you don't scare me half to death again by punching another wall or something."
Andy goes quiet and cranky-looking again. "Well," he says, all petulant and sullen, "I didn't know it was scary."
"Well, it was."
"Well, I'm sorry I scared you."
"Well, I accept your apology."
"Well," Andy says, and it's one 'well' over the line of funny and his face goes all goofy when it hits him what he's said. Kelly starts giggling. "Wellllllll," he says again, drawing it out all bombastically, and she seriously can't stop giggling because it's so stupid and so hilarious. For a minute there he keeps saying "well..." and Kelly keeps giggling, and oh, God, it's the best time she's had all week.
"Stop, stop," she orders, clutching her stomach, "I had a Pilates class like two days ago and I can't laugh this hard, it's killing my abs."
Andy nods in agreement, still grinning from ear to ear. "A day when I can make the beautiful Miss Kapoor laugh like that is a great day for the Bernards."
"Like, Saint Bernards?" Kelly asks, playing dumb.
He looks hurt. "No, I meant--"
"I know," she assures him, patting his arm. "I know, I'm just kidding."
Andy looks down at her hand, still on his arm. "I didn't mean to scare you," he says; it's not petulant at all this time, and actually kind of sweet.
"It's okay," she says. "In retrospect it wasn't as scary as when the b--" She actually can't bring herself to say the word. "When the word-that-rhymes-with-chat got loose in here a few weeks ago."
Andy's eyes tip up at the ceiling and she can practically see a list of rhymes going through his head. She helpfully flaps her hands in a bird shape and hums the old "Batman" theme song. "Oh!" he blurts. "Oh, yeah, I heard about that, right. You mean you're scared of--"
"Don't say it," she warns him.
He holds up a hand solemnly. "I won't. But, you are?"
Kelly shrugs and pops two green Skittles into her mouth. "I know I shouldn't be, they're just more innocent living creatures that don't really want to hurt us, but just yeeeeeeeugh." She shivers. "It was awful. I hid, like, all day."
"They eat fruit, you know," Andy says. "Insects and stuff, too, but a lot of them eat fruit."
"So, what, are you saying I should have offered it some Skittles?"
"Maybe so. Maybe so." He grins. "But maybe it's better that you saved them to tame other scary things, like, you know. Me."
"Oh, shut up." She rolls her eyes. "You're not so bad."
"Compared to a bat," he says, still in that Mr. Jokey-pants voice.
"God, shut up already," she tells him, slapping his shoulder. "You're okay, okay? It's all in the past and everything's fine. Just shut up."
"Okay," Andy agrees amicably, and pretends to zip his mouth shut and throw away the key. Then he looks at his watch, reacts in shock to the time, and does an elaborate progression of mimed gestures to indicate that he's going back to his desk. On his way back, he pretends to hit an invisible wall. It's totally stupid, but Kelly likes that he's trying to entertain her even if he's doing it very badly.
Really, she decides, he's not that bad. Even if she does have to share the Skittles supply now.
Author's Notes: The elements, as given by fireworkfiasco: red skittles, a word that rhymes with chat, an apology, fruit-scented something, a sharpened pencil. Started at 7:57 AM; completed at 10:00 AM-- I am getting CLOSER to ONLY TWO HOURS. Yay!
Pairing/characters: Kelly/Andy
Word Count: 1,775
Rating PG
Summary: Kelly and Andy eat Skittles together after he returns from anger management.
Spoilers: Through "Safety Training"
Author's Notes: Second of the trio of Kandy improv fics. Elements suggested by fireworkfiasco (listed at the end of the story). Five elements, two hours (very, very close to two hours this time), no beta. All goofs and mistakes are my own.
Kelly is a lot more practical than people seem to think. For example, her sugary snack of choice while she's been at Dunder-Mifflin has been either gummy bears or Skittles, neither one of which involve chocolate, but the thing is, the chocolate stuff in the vending machine is very popular, and they'll always run out like a week or two before what's-his-name the vending machine guy shows up to finally re-fill it. Seriously, it's like there's some kind of anti-sweet-stuff prejudice around here; if they run out of chocolate stuff, people will eat anything else besides Skittles, even if that meanstthat people eat those ranch-flavored corn nut things that smell like barf, and by "people", she means "Ryan", and God his breath is so nasty when he eats that stuff, it's like he's trying to keep her from kissing him all day; she had to start bringing a travel toothbrush and little sampler-size mouthwash to work for him, and even then, she can still smell it. Gross. The thing is, nobody else eats the sugary stuff, except Jim, who seems to prefer jellybeans, so Kelly can pretty much be certain that even if the vending machine guy doesn't show up forever, she'll still have a sweet three o'clock snack. Besides, it makes her breath all fruit-scented, and that is much nicer than the nasty ranch-flavored-corn-nut-barf smell that some people don't seem to ever notice that they get. Not that she's pointing fingers.
The Skittles start disappearing faster when the Stamford people show up, which goes to figure. It's not like Kelly could always be the only one who likes Skittles, and if you add a bunch of new people to the office the odds are, you know, someone will end up liking the same things she likes. She has her suspicions on who it is, but as time goes by and the Stamford people drop like flies, she has to keep adjusting her suspicions-- not Tony, not Martin, not Hannah, which leaves Karen or Andy. Probably Karen, although that would certainly be the only thing that she and Kelly maybe both like. On second thought, considering the appraising looks that Kelly's caught Karen giving Ryan on more than one occasion, Skittles had better be the only thing that she and Kelly maybe both like, or Kelly's going to put one of Karen's meticulously sharpened pencils right up Karen's prissy nose.
Looking back at it later, she totally should have figured it out when the Skittles stopped disappearing at the same time that Andy was in anger management, but seriously, she had a lot to deal with at the time, what with Ryan being all weird every time she mentioned Phyllis' wedding-- really, is it so wrong to talk about romantic honeymoon spots just as a random topic of conversation?-- and she was so upset for a few days that she didn't want to eat Skittles, much less take the time to notice that nobody else was eating them, either. So when she walks into the break room in April and finds Andy morosely sorting a pile of Skittles by color, she's not as surprised as she could have been, but she's still surprised enough to say something.
"Ohhh, so it was you."
Andy gets this pissy look on his face and she wonders if he's going to punch the wall again, but then he does this weird elaborate breathing exercise and whatever it is, it seems to calm him down. It's totally unflattering the way he does it, with his nostrils getting all flared and stuff, and she considers telling him that there are ways to do deep breathing that don't make you look like a frog, but she remembers the hole in the wall and decides against saying anything. "Okay," he says, his voice all flat. "What did I do now."
"No, nothing, I just meant the Skittles. I'd been wondering who else eats them."
"Ah." His face returns to normal. "I take it you're the other one, then?"
"Yep." Kelly feeds coins into the vending machine and hesitates a moment; Skittles has always been her signature snack, but it's different when you're choosing to match snacks with someone, it's like you're flirting or something. Which is dumb, though, 'cause this is just Andy, so she hits the button selection for Skittles. She sits at the next table over and opens a corner of the little bag, and shakes out a careful four or five Skittles. Andy finishes sorting his Skittles and starts methodically eating the red ones. "Why do you eat them that way?" she asks.
"I dunno," he shrugs, "I just always have." He looks down and considers his piles. "You know how just one is, like, big flavor? All the same color is even bigger."
"Yeah, but then you only get each flavor one time," Kelly points out.
He blinks and gets that plastic smile on his face, like he's having to try real hard not to react too hard. "Yeah, okay, but the flavor is bigger."
"Whatever." She goes back to eating her own Skittles. The next time she shakes a few out of the bag, though, three of them are orange. Usually she'd space those out, intersperse other flavors between, but this time she figures hey, what the hell, and eats all three orange ones in a row. It is, in fact, a bigger pop of flavor. Apparently even wall-punching freakboys can be right once in a while.
When she looks up, Andy is smiling real big. "What'd I tell ya?" he asks.
"Okay, okay, you were right," she admits, feeling a grudging smile creeping up her cheeks. "I guess you can be right."
"Of course I can," he declares, and he's right back to being all bouncy and that particular brand of weird that's normal for him. "What do you think about the sour ones?"
"Too sour. They get my throat all closed up like I'm having an allergic reaction or something."
"Wild berry?"
"They're okay," she says. "It's not like I'd buy them on purpose, but they'll do in a pinch."
"Tropical?"
"Ick." Kelly sticks her tongue out, forgetting that it's probably all party-colored now from the Skittles. "I don't know, they're just, bleah, ick, not my thing. What about you?"
"Oh, you know, just... what you just said." Andy makes a little waving motion with his hand.
"You can have opinions of your own, you know," she says, feeling a little irritated. "The whole imitating thing only works on Michael. Everyone else just thinks you're being a dope."
He stares at her for a moment, like he's thinking about getting pissed off again, but it might be too much work. "I like the sour ones," he admits, his lip all stuck out and pouty. It makes him look like he's five years old or something.
"There, was that so hard?" On a whim, Kelly gets up and sits at the same table as Andy. "See, you can have opinions and still have people like you just fine."
"Oh, so you like me now?" He waggles his eyebrows at her like Groucho Marx.
She rolls her eyes. "Like, friend-like, stupid. And yeah, you're okay, as long as you don't scare me half to death again by punching another wall or something."
Andy goes quiet and cranky-looking again. "Well," he says, all petulant and sullen, "I didn't know it was scary."
"Well, it was."
"Well, I'm sorry I scared you."
"Well, I accept your apology."
"Well," Andy says, and it's one 'well' over the line of funny and his face goes all goofy when it hits him what he's said. Kelly starts giggling. "Wellllllll," he says again, drawing it out all bombastically, and she seriously can't stop giggling because it's so stupid and so hilarious. For a minute there he keeps saying "well..." and Kelly keeps giggling, and oh, God, it's the best time she's had all week.
"Stop, stop," she orders, clutching her stomach, "I had a Pilates class like two days ago and I can't laugh this hard, it's killing my abs."
Andy nods in agreement, still grinning from ear to ear. "A day when I can make the beautiful Miss Kapoor laugh like that is a great day for the Bernards."
"Like, Saint Bernards?" Kelly asks, playing dumb.
He looks hurt. "No, I meant--"
"I know," she assures him, patting his arm. "I know, I'm just kidding."
Andy looks down at her hand, still on his arm. "I didn't mean to scare you," he says; it's not petulant at all this time, and actually kind of sweet.
"It's okay," she says. "In retrospect it wasn't as scary as when the b--" She actually can't bring herself to say the word. "When the word-that-rhymes-with-chat got loose in here a few weeks ago."
Andy's eyes tip up at the ceiling and she can practically see a list of rhymes going through his head. She helpfully flaps her hands in a bird shape and hums the old "Batman" theme song. "Oh!" he blurts. "Oh, yeah, I heard about that, right. You mean you're scared of--"
"Don't say it," she warns him.
He holds up a hand solemnly. "I won't. But, you are?"
Kelly shrugs and pops two green Skittles into her mouth. "I know I shouldn't be, they're just more innocent living creatures that don't really want to hurt us, but just yeeeeeeeugh." She shivers. "It was awful. I hid, like, all day."
"They eat fruit, you know," Andy says. "Insects and stuff, too, but a lot of them eat fruit."
"So, what, are you saying I should have offered it some Skittles?"
"Maybe so. Maybe so." He grins. "But maybe it's better that you saved them to tame other scary things, like, you know. Me."
"Oh, shut up." She rolls her eyes. "You're not so bad."
"Compared to a bat," he says, still in that Mr. Jokey-pants voice.
"God, shut up already," she tells him, slapping his shoulder. "You're okay, okay? It's all in the past and everything's fine. Just shut up."
"Okay," Andy agrees amicably, and pretends to zip his mouth shut and throw away the key. Then he looks at his watch, reacts in shock to the time, and does an elaborate progression of mimed gestures to indicate that he's going back to his desk. On his way back, he pretends to hit an invisible wall. It's totally stupid, but Kelly likes that he's trying to entertain her even if he's doing it very badly.
Really, she decides, he's not that bad. Even if she does have to share the Skittles supply now.
Author's Notes: The elements, as given by fireworkfiasco: red skittles, a word that rhymes with chat, an apology, fruit-scented something, a sharpened pencil. Started at 7:57 AM; completed at 10:00 AM-- I am getting CLOSER to ONLY TWO HOURS. Yay!