The tie, part 5: Michael/Jan, (Jim/Pam), ensemble, pg/pg-13
The tie, Part 5: jim/pam, michael/jan, ensemble, pg/pg-13
Title: The Tie
Author: J.L
Category: Jim/Pam, Michael/Jan, ensemble
Rating: PG-13. ish.
Summary: When corporate nixes Christmas parties, Michael decides he and Jan should host one of their own. Meanwhile, Jim and Pam have some fun with Dwight when Michael arrives at work with a questionable tie.
Disclaimer: All WIP rules apply for now. Also, I don't own them. I wish I did. I would make them do naughty things.
----
The Tie
Part 5
by J.L
-----
"Well, Ive been loving you for such a long time girl,
Expecting nothing in return;
Just for you to have a little faith in me."
- John Hiatt, Have A Little Faith In Me
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
underneath his beard so snowy white.
Oh, what a laugh it would have been
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night."
- T. Connor
---
The Tie
Part 5
----
5:30pm
When Jan descends the stairs, Michael is busy filling a neon pink elephant with hershey's kisses and peppermints. On the pinata's left side, Michael has taped a handwritten sign: Navidave, The Mexican Christmas Elephant of Fame and Fortune.
"Where did you get that?" asks Jan, unsure whether she wants to laugh or roll her eyes. Every day now, it seems, she makes a multitude of decisions that affect nobody: do I put gummy worms in Michael's lunches or do I let him fight it out with the vending machine? Do I sit on the futon to watch My Super Sweet 16 (again) or do I wander upstairs to rearrange bedroom furniture? Do I compromise and agree to watch Michael lip-sync to Alicia Keys with his hairbrush (again), or do I give in entirely and play backup air-piano? God, what she wouldn't give to just put on one of her grey suits and stalk into an office building someplace and conference-call the shit out of something.
"Party Superstore," says Michael, without looking up. "Got it on my way home. It's not really a Christmas decoration though, so I have to synergize."
"Improvise," Jan corrects.
"And it was so weird," continues Michael, "Because the salesguy wasn't helpful at all. He kept on saying that nobody makes pinatas shaped like Jesus. Or Santa Claus. But if that was true, then... what would Mexicans put all of their presents in on Christmas Eve?" Michael shakes his head. "It's like they think we're all morons. I'm so glad that at least my salespeople aren't...aren't, uh--" Michael splutters to a halt. "Wow," he says, and lets out a short whistle. "You look hot."
Vaguely surprised, Jan turns. She glances down at her outfit -- an old blue cocktail dress she hasn't worn since... well, honestly? since Ira. A Sunday night in March, three and a half years ago; they were on their way to a celebratory dinner for one of the partners at Ira's law firm. Ira had gone downstairs to hail a cab and had come back complaining that the rain would make them late. "You know, you really do look nice," Jan had offered, sliding her arm up the door-frame and slipping on a pair of heels. She'd posed in just that silly way, like an idiotic Vanna White revealing the puzzle, for at least a minute. Finally, Ira marched past her into the bedroom and emerged with a pair of her least favorite, faded dress-flats. "Is that it?" he'd asked, bluntly. "You don't have a nice pantsuit somewhere?"
"So, um," says Michael, lowering his head and dumping the last of the candy into the elephant, "I'll probably go upstairs and change soon, too. Drastic times call for drastic denim, as the famous saying goes. Then I need to come back down and put some Lisa Frank stickers into goodie bags."
"Okay, sounds good," murmurs Jan, clutching Michael's Christmas card behind her back. She glances at the Christmas tree, and then at Michael, and feels certain that this Christmas card business is just a bad idea. Perhaps the worst idea she's had since trying to combine vodka, espresso, and chocolate milk as a martini--an idea that looked way better on paper when already drunk. In any case, who in the world gives a construction paper Christmas card as a gift? What is she, seven and a half?
Jan takes a deep breath. "Hey," she says, and clears her throat. "Michael?"
A spray of multicolored lights bounces and skips across Michael's skin. Jan finds it both ironic and incredible that Michael's stupid tree--which is in fact quite lopsided, sheared like a bald head in the back, and missing all of its highest branches-- can occasionally pass for charming (when not jutting from her front door like a festive wooden stake.)
Michael glances up and pops a peppermint into his mouth. "Yeessh?"
Jan exhales. "I, uh..." She shakes her head quickly, like an etch a sketch. "I have something for you." She hesitates, then thrusts the card at Michael. "Just...don't ever say I didn't get you anything."
Michael's brows furrow in curiosity, and he takes the card from Jan. Jan watches as he runs his hand over the front.
"I am a little girl," he reads out loud, gazing at the picture. Then he looks up, his eyes full of surprise. "Jan," he says, "Is this...Toby's head on a cabbage patch doll body?"
Jan bites the inside of her cheek. She wonders whether that ringing in her ears is actually the sound of her stupid heart beating her stupid brain to death. Her chest feels hot and prickly and she's breathing as if preparing to birth yet another bad idea. "Look. I don't know jokes," she states. "Knock-knock, yo-mamma, priest-in-a-bar, or otherwise. I've been told I'm not naturally humorous." She purses her lips. "If you can believe that." Her foot taps restlessly. "Just make me a deal, Michael: if you hate the card, pretend you like it, okay? It'll be like, um--" she waves a hand, "--you know, improv."
Michael nods slowly. "You really shouldn't be so hard on yourself," he offers, "I mean, we can't all be me."
Jan folds her arms across her chest. "Indeed," she says.
Michael opens the card. "Dear Michael," he reads, and pauses, looks up. "Very good start!"
Jan sighs, feeling a strange need to crack her knuckles and weave and unweave her fingers together until her hands hurt. She's pretty sure if she concentrates on the exact angle of the doorway, a hole will open up beneath her and transport her to a dimension where a cashier's check for four million dollars looks suspiciously like a stupid Christmas card made out of construction paper.
"Oh wow," says Michael, still reading, "You were the one who covered Toby's car in saran wrap? I totally thought that was Jim!" His eyes scan the card further. "And you convinced Dwight to use Toby's tires for...what does this say? Target practice?" Michael laughs. "Holy crap, Jan-- this is totally the best Christmas card ever!" Michael gazes at her with huge green eyes. "You know what? I am definitely framing this mofo. It's going up in the bathroom, right next to the love contract." He leans over and kisses the corner of her mouth. "Who would have thought? My girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen, Jan Levinson--hold the Gould, pass the Michael."
Jan touches a palm to her cheek, feeling oddly warm and tingly beneath her eyeballs--Jesus, is she BLUSHING? "It was nothing," she says quickly. "Besides, I think... I think I might have actually enjoyed myself?" she's rambling now, using the heel of her palm to try and rub the truth out of that statement. "Also, Toby is kind of a girl."
"That's what Jan said!" Michael giggles at his own joke and brushes a finger across her cheek. Jan chuckles, and he hooks a lock of hair over her ear. Michael shakes his head. "I can't believe you punched holes in Toby's tires for me."
"Technically I didn't," Jan corrects.
"Still." Michael sighs. "That was really romantic of you."
Jan nods. "Yeah," she agrees, grazing an index finger across his lips, "I know." Her finger trails down his chin, down his neck, to his collarbone. She can feel him shiver, and her heart is pounding and pounding. "This makes me feel like... crazy is the new romantic." She searches his eyes. "Do you think this is crazy?"
"What?"
"THIS," Jan repeats.
"What do you mean?" Michael scrunches his nose. "Do you mean Toby? Because he's not crazy, he's just a skeezy little perv with a skeezy little perv haircut. What did he do? Did he try to get back at you?" Michael lowers his voice. "Did he try to steal your implants?"
Jan sighs. "No, Michael."
"Oh." Michael frowns. "Okay." He angles his head to one side as if immersed in complicated thought. A sudden sparkle alights his eyes, and he squints, likely trying to transmit some sort of message from his pupils to his brain. Jan glances at her watch.
"OH!" Michael takes a deep breath. "You're talking about...being in love."
Jan flicks at a piece of fuzz on his shirt. "Circle gets the square," she says. "Unless it's not that at all. Unless it's something else. Like being drunk." She shrugs. "Or stoned."
"Okay..." Michael gazes at her seriously. "Are you drunk or stoned now?"
Jan shakes her head. "No." She brushes his cheek with her thumb. "No." And presses a kiss to his earlobe. "No." She pulls back and looks at him.
"Hmm," says Michael, his pupils wide and dilated. "Then I guess you've fallen pretty hard for me, huh?"
Jan raises an eyebrow.
"You have. You so totally have." He grins. "You are just, like, stoopid in love, aren't you? You are totally fo-shizzle over me." Michael plays absently with the ends of her hair, his smile huge and ridiculous. "Admit it, Levinson. You're all smitten. You're a total smitten kitten with mittens."
Jan shakes her head. "Michael, what the hell is fo-shizzle?"
"Smitten," continues Michael, "Smitten like the bitten kitten sittin' in a bitchin' kitchen." He takes a deep breath. "Wow. That's really hard to say." Then pokes at Jan's ribcage with his index finger. "Say, you want to try? I bet you can't do it. Not twice in a row, anyway."
"Oh, for crying out loud." Jan hooks an arm around his waist and pulls him close. She takes a deep breath. "Yes Michael I'm in love with you, gee isn't that a surprise from all the other six thousand times I've said it, wow what big strong hands you have, yes all the better to touch me with, hey Jan that's what she said, yadda yadda you're so clever Michael, kittens mittens kitchens, if you don't rip this dress off of me within the next thirty seconds I swear to all that is holy on this godforsaken holiday that I will bite down someplace unfortunate."
"Wow." Michael shakes his head. "You're really bad at tongue twisters, Jan."
Frustrated, Jan grasps Michael by both lapels until she can hear his pulse throbbing through his shirt. "Michael," she grits. "I...need...you...to...not--"
"Something wrong?" Michael grins a lopsided, oddly confident grin. He rests one hand lazily at the back of her neck, tickling the hairs there, making them stand on end. "Stoopid," he whispers in her ear victoriously. "Stoopid in love."
"Oh yeah?" Jan's arms circle his neck. "I know you are but what am I."
Michael sucks in a quick breath. "Dude." His nose touches hers as he murmurs into her lips, "That was really harsh."
And just as they are so close, just as they are right there, just as he's about to fuck the crazy out of her and Jan is sure she can hear her ears in her pulse or her pulse in her ears or whatever it means when she can't hear anything but Michael breathing, there is a harsh knock at the door, followed by a series of six or seven rather hysterical rings of the doorbell.
"Michael!" bellows a familiar voice.
Both Jan and Michael turn to see Dwight Schrute (is that an elf costume he's wearing?) pressing his face against their living room window, his nose crooked to an almost eighty degree angle, a mad swirl of snowflakes gathering between his forehead and the glass. Behind Dwight, Jan recognizes Paul adjusting the zoom on his handheld camera. Paul shrugs and waves, and Michael waves back. Jan pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to imagine a word for the female equivalent of blue balls.
"I know I'm early," Dwight yells through the window, "But I needed to come for the tie!"
"The what?" manages Jan.
"It's for your own safety, Michael!" Still pressed against the glass, Dwight cocks his head to one side, finally noticing Jan. He looks her up and down as if considering sticking a fork in her and holding her over a rotisserie. "We haven't interrupted any conjugal Christmas rituals, have we?" he yells.
"We?" asks Jan.
"I think he means Paul," says Michael.
"Hey, you guys?" yells a second, very familiar voice. "Uh... Can I come in? It's really cold out here!"
Jan and Michael exchange silent glances. Suddenly, from below where Dwight has commandeered the snow covered hydrangeas, the head of a slightly frozen-looking Andrew Bernard appears. He presses his hands to the glass. "Please!" he begs. "My scrotum is starting to chafe! I'm really sensitive to inclement weather!"
Jan sighs. "I think I'll go...put something in the oven."
"More hot dogs?" asks Michael.
Jan gazes out the window, where it appears Dwight's tongue has gotten stuck to the glass. He shrieks as Andy tries pulling him by the shoulders. "My head," Jan answers. And without another word, she's wandering into the kitchen in search of asprin.
---
CONTINUED...
Title: The Tie
Author: J.L
Category: Jim/Pam, Michael/Jan, ensemble
Rating: PG-13. ish.
Summary: When corporate nixes Christmas parties, Michael decides he and Jan should host one of their own. Meanwhile, Jim and Pam have some fun with Dwight when Michael arrives at work with a questionable tie.
Disclaimer: All WIP rules apply for now. Also, I don't own them. I wish I did. I would make them do naughty things.
----
The Tie
Part 5
by J.L
-----
"Well, Ive been loving you for such a long time girl,
Expecting nothing in return;
Just for you to have a little faith in me."
- John Hiatt, Have A Little Faith In Me
I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus
underneath his beard so snowy white.
Oh, what a laugh it would have been
If Daddy had only seen
Mommy kissing Santa Claus last night."
- T. Connor
---
The Tie
Part 5
----
5:30pm
When Jan descends the stairs, Michael is busy filling a neon pink elephant with hershey's kisses and peppermints. On the pinata's left side, Michael has taped a handwritten sign: Navidave, The Mexican Christmas Elephant of Fame and Fortune.
"Where did you get that?" asks Jan, unsure whether she wants to laugh or roll her eyes. Every day now, it seems, she makes a multitude of decisions that affect nobody: do I put gummy worms in Michael's lunches or do I let him fight it out with the vending machine? Do I sit on the futon to watch My Super Sweet 16 (again) or do I wander upstairs to rearrange bedroom furniture? Do I compromise and agree to watch Michael lip-sync to Alicia Keys with his hairbrush (again), or do I give in entirely and play backup air-piano? God, what she wouldn't give to just put on one of her grey suits and stalk into an office building someplace and conference-call the shit out of something.
"Party Superstore," says Michael, without looking up. "Got it on my way home. It's not really a Christmas decoration though, so I have to synergize."
"Improvise," Jan corrects.
"And it was so weird," continues Michael, "Because the salesguy wasn't helpful at all. He kept on saying that nobody makes pinatas shaped like Jesus. Or Santa Claus. But if that was true, then... what would Mexicans put all of their presents in on Christmas Eve?" Michael shakes his head. "It's like they think we're all morons. I'm so glad that at least my salespeople aren't...aren't, uh--" Michael splutters to a halt. "Wow," he says, and lets out a short whistle. "You look hot."
Vaguely surprised, Jan turns. She glances down at her outfit -- an old blue cocktail dress she hasn't worn since... well, honestly? since Ira. A Sunday night in March, three and a half years ago; they were on their way to a celebratory dinner for one of the partners at Ira's law firm. Ira had gone downstairs to hail a cab and had come back complaining that the rain would make them late. "You know, you really do look nice," Jan had offered, sliding her arm up the door-frame and slipping on a pair of heels. She'd posed in just that silly way, like an idiotic Vanna White revealing the puzzle, for at least a minute. Finally, Ira marched past her into the bedroom and emerged with a pair of her least favorite, faded dress-flats. "Is that it?" he'd asked, bluntly. "You don't have a nice pantsuit somewhere?"
"So, um," says Michael, lowering his head and dumping the last of the candy into the elephant, "I'll probably go upstairs and change soon, too. Drastic times call for drastic denim, as the famous saying goes. Then I need to come back down and put some Lisa Frank stickers into goodie bags."
"Okay, sounds good," murmurs Jan, clutching Michael's Christmas card behind her back. She glances at the Christmas tree, and then at Michael, and feels certain that this Christmas card business is just a bad idea. Perhaps the worst idea she's had since trying to combine vodka, espresso, and chocolate milk as a martini--an idea that looked way better on paper when already drunk. In any case, who in the world gives a construction paper Christmas card as a gift? What is she, seven and a half?
Jan takes a deep breath. "Hey," she says, and clears her throat. "Michael?"
A spray of multicolored lights bounces and skips across Michael's skin. Jan finds it both ironic and incredible that Michael's stupid tree--which is in fact quite lopsided, sheared like a bald head in the back, and missing all of its highest branches-- can occasionally pass for charming (when not jutting from her front door like a festive wooden stake.)
Michael glances up and pops a peppermint into his mouth. "Yeessh?"
Jan exhales. "I, uh..." She shakes her head quickly, like an etch a sketch. "I have something for you." She hesitates, then thrusts the card at Michael. "Just...don't ever say I didn't get you anything."
Michael's brows furrow in curiosity, and he takes the card from Jan. Jan watches as he runs his hand over the front.
"I am a little girl," he reads out loud, gazing at the picture. Then he looks up, his eyes full of surprise. "Jan," he says, "Is this...Toby's head on a cabbage patch doll body?"
Jan bites the inside of her cheek. She wonders whether that ringing in her ears is actually the sound of her stupid heart beating her stupid brain to death. Her chest feels hot and prickly and she's breathing as if preparing to birth yet another bad idea. "Look. I don't know jokes," she states. "Knock-knock, yo-mamma, priest-in-a-bar, or otherwise. I've been told I'm not naturally humorous." She purses her lips. "If you can believe that." Her foot taps restlessly. "Just make me a deal, Michael: if you hate the card, pretend you like it, okay? It'll be like, um--" she waves a hand, "--you know, improv."
Michael nods slowly. "You really shouldn't be so hard on yourself," he offers, "I mean, we can't all be me."
Jan folds her arms across her chest. "Indeed," she says.
Michael opens the card. "Dear Michael," he reads, and pauses, looks up. "Very good start!"
Jan sighs, feeling a strange need to crack her knuckles and weave and unweave her fingers together until her hands hurt. She's pretty sure if she concentrates on the exact angle of the doorway, a hole will open up beneath her and transport her to a dimension where a cashier's check for four million dollars looks suspiciously like a stupid Christmas card made out of construction paper.
"Oh wow," says Michael, still reading, "You were the one who covered Toby's car in saran wrap? I totally thought that was Jim!" His eyes scan the card further. "And you convinced Dwight to use Toby's tires for...what does this say? Target practice?" Michael laughs. "Holy crap, Jan-- this is totally the best Christmas card ever!" Michael gazes at her with huge green eyes. "You know what? I am definitely framing this mofo. It's going up in the bathroom, right next to the love contract." He leans over and kisses the corner of her mouth. "Who would have thought? My girlfriend, ladies and gentlemen, Jan Levinson--hold the Gould, pass the Michael."
Jan touches a palm to her cheek, feeling oddly warm and tingly beneath her eyeballs--Jesus, is she BLUSHING? "It was nothing," she says quickly. "Besides, I think... I think I might have actually enjoyed myself?" she's rambling now, using the heel of her palm to try and rub the truth out of that statement. "Also, Toby is kind of a girl."
"That's what Jan said!" Michael giggles at his own joke and brushes a finger across her cheek. Jan chuckles, and he hooks a lock of hair over her ear. Michael shakes his head. "I can't believe you punched holes in Toby's tires for me."
"Technically I didn't," Jan corrects.
"Still." Michael sighs. "That was really romantic of you."
Jan nods. "Yeah," she agrees, grazing an index finger across his lips, "I know." Her finger trails down his chin, down his neck, to his collarbone. She can feel him shiver, and her heart is pounding and pounding. "This makes me feel like... crazy is the new romantic." She searches his eyes. "Do you think this is crazy?"
"What?"
"THIS," Jan repeats.
"What do you mean?" Michael scrunches his nose. "Do you mean Toby? Because he's not crazy, he's just a skeezy little perv with a skeezy little perv haircut. What did he do? Did he try to get back at you?" Michael lowers his voice. "Did he try to steal your implants?"
Jan sighs. "No, Michael."
"Oh." Michael frowns. "Okay." He angles his head to one side as if immersed in complicated thought. A sudden sparkle alights his eyes, and he squints, likely trying to transmit some sort of message from his pupils to his brain. Jan glances at her watch.
"OH!" Michael takes a deep breath. "You're talking about...being in love."
Jan flicks at a piece of fuzz on his shirt. "Circle gets the square," she says. "Unless it's not that at all. Unless it's something else. Like being drunk." She shrugs. "Or stoned."
"Okay..." Michael gazes at her seriously. "Are you drunk or stoned now?"
Jan shakes her head. "No." She brushes his cheek with her thumb. "No." And presses a kiss to his earlobe. "No." She pulls back and looks at him.
"Hmm," says Michael, his pupils wide and dilated. "Then I guess you've fallen pretty hard for me, huh?"
Jan raises an eyebrow.
"You have. You so totally have." He grins. "You are just, like, stoopid in love, aren't you? You are totally fo-shizzle over me." Michael plays absently with the ends of her hair, his smile huge and ridiculous. "Admit it, Levinson. You're all smitten. You're a total smitten kitten with mittens."
Jan shakes her head. "Michael, what the hell is fo-shizzle?"
"Smitten," continues Michael, "Smitten like the bitten kitten sittin' in a bitchin' kitchen." He takes a deep breath. "Wow. That's really hard to say." Then pokes at Jan's ribcage with his index finger. "Say, you want to try? I bet you can't do it. Not twice in a row, anyway."
"Oh, for crying out loud." Jan hooks an arm around his waist and pulls him close. She takes a deep breath. "Yes Michael I'm in love with you, gee isn't that a surprise from all the other six thousand times I've said it, wow what big strong hands you have, yes all the better to touch me with, hey Jan that's what she said, yadda yadda you're so clever Michael, kittens mittens kitchens, if you don't rip this dress off of me within the next thirty seconds I swear to all that is holy on this godforsaken holiday that I will bite down someplace unfortunate."
"Wow." Michael shakes his head. "You're really bad at tongue twisters, Jan."
Frustrated, Jan grasps Michael by both lapels until she can hear his pulse throbbing through his shirt. "Michael," she grits. "I...need...you...to...not--"
"Something wrong?" Michael grins a lopsided, oddly confident grin. He rests one hand lazily at the back of her neck, tickling the hairs there, making them stand on end. "Stoopid," he whispers in her ear victoriously. "Stoopid in love."
"Oh yeah?" Jan's arms circle his neck. "I know you are but what am I."
Michael sucks in a quick breath. "Dude." His nose touches hers as he murmurs into her lips, "That was really harsh."
And just as they are so close, just as they are right there, just as he's about to fuck the crazy out of her and Jan is sure she can hear her ears in her pulse or her pulse in her ears or whatever it means when she can't hear anything but Michael breathing, there is a harsh knock at the door, followed by a series of six or seven rather hysterical rings of the doorbell.
"Michael!" bellows a familiar voice.
Both Jan and Michael turn to see Dwight Schrute (is that an elf costume he's wearing?) pressing his face against their living room window, his nose crooked to an almost eighty degree angle, a mad swirl of snowflakes gathering between his forehead and the glass. Behind Dwight, Jan recognizes Paul adjusting the zoom on his handheld camera. Paul shrugs and waves, and Michael waves back. Jan pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to imagine a word for the female equivalent of blue balls.
"I know I'm early," Dwight yells through the window, "But I needed to come for the tie!"
"The what?" manages Jan.
"It's for your own safety, Michael!" Still pressed against the glass, Dwight cocks his head to one side, finally noticing Jan. He looks her up and down as if considering sticking a fork in her and holding her over a rotisserie. "We haven't interrupted any conjugal Christmas rituals, have we?" he yells.
"We?" asks Jan.
"I think he means Paul," says Michael.
"Hey, you guys?" yells a second, very familiar voice. "Uh... Can I come in? It's really cold out here!"
Jan and Michael exchange silent glances. Suddenly, from below where Dwight has commandeered the snow covered hydrangeas, the head of a slightly frozen-looking Andrew Bernard appears. He presses his hands to the glass. "Please!" he begs. "My scrotum is starting to chafe! I'm really sensitive to inclement weather!"
Jan sighs. "I think I'll go...put something in the oven."
"More hot dogs?" asks Michael.
Jan gazes out the window, where it appears Dwight's tongue has gotten stuck to the glass. He shrieks as Andy tries pulling him by the shoulders. "My head," Jan answers. And without another word, she's wandering into the kitchen in search of asprin.
---
CONTINUED...