semby
in
ficofsemby
After Ten Rounds
Title: "After Ten Rounds"
Characters: Jim and Ryan, with Jim/Pam, Ryan/Kelly
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the show or characters.
Summary: Alcohol makes Ryan chattier than usual and he gets involved with Jim's relationship drama.
A/N: This was for yankeeficswap as a Christmas gift for the request: "Ryan somehow acting as a catalyst for the Jim/Pam relationship. I just think he's the last person we'd expect to care about that, and I'd love to see someone tackle that." Also, now looking back, I think Karen and Jim were already pretty obvious about the fact that they were in a relationship pre-Christmas, but re-reading it I seemed to have assumed they were hiding it. I don't know what that was about. AU.
Nearly four months had passed since the two branches merged, which meant not only that the Scranton and remaining Stamford people had had time to adjust and were actually fairly comfortable with each other, but also that Jim was now currently in the longest committed relationship he’d had in about five years.
Four months really wasn’t that long in relationship terms, but it felt huge to Jim. And not huge in the way of great accomplishments, something to be proud of, but huge meaning heavy, weighing him down. Things were getting stale.
So when she called him Saturday and invited him over for yet another movie night, he instead fully decided on another invitation he’d been considering but not so excited about.
“Oh, um… I’m actually going out with some friends tonight. A guy’s night. It’s a birthday thing,” he explained.
He could practically hear Karen’s pout in her voice. “But you went out with your friends last Saturday. And you had dinner at your mom’s last night. I was kind of hoping we could have a night just for us.”
“I know, you’re right, and I totally wouldn’t go to this thing, except it’s the birthday of one of my closest, oldest friends, and I’d be the scum of the earth if I skipped out on him.”
Karen sighed, but when she spoke again, her voice sounded more resigned and understanding. “Well, okay. I guess I can understand that. I’ll find something else to do. Have fun with your friends.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he replied distractedly. “And, listen, next week I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“I’m considering that ‘on-record,’ by the way. I’ll be holding you to that.”
“Definitely.”
xx
After arriving at the bar and seeing a few familiar faces, Jim was surprised when one of the next faces he saw in the group and recognized was Ryan Howard’s.
“Hey!” Jim greeted, his voice betraying his initial confusion at seeing Ryan’s face in such a different setting.
Ryan seemed equally surprised to see Jim. “Hey, you’re here for the birthday, too?” At Jim’s nod, Ryan motioned towards the one guy at the table wearing a big, dorky button reading “It’s my birthday!” in big, bold, colorful letters. “You’re friends with Dave? Wow, that’s so weird that I didn’t know that. I’ve known him for, like, ever.”
“Oh, actually, I’ve only met him a couple times. I’m more friends with Pete, Dave’s brother, and he invited me along,” Jim explained, taking the empty seat between Ryan and Pete. So what he’d told Karen hadn’t been entirely true. It was just one night.
“Hey, you’re here!” Pete greeted, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good timing; we were just about to order another round.”
“Great!” Jim answered, and he was actually looking forward to seeing what the night would bring.
xx
About ten rounds later, Jim was feeling “...drunk! I am so drunk,” he mumbled, his head lowering closer and closer to the surface of the bar.
“Me too,” Ryan replied, his nose already pressed against the cool, sticky wood before he jerked up suddenly to look at Jim. “And I had like three before you even got here, so you don’t even - you don’t even… have things to say.”
Jim pushed his current half-empty glass of beer a distance down the bar with a look of disgust on his face, as if getting the substance as physically far away from him as possible would make him feel better about what he’d already taken in. “You know, I ditched a night with Karen to be here tonight.”
Ryan looked taken aback for a moment. “So, you’re… why?” Seeing as Jim and Karen had never actually acknowledged their relationship aloud at the office, Ryan had almost asked, “So you really are seeing Karen?” but decided to skip that part, since it had always seemed pretty obvious to Ryan, and Jim had basically just confirmed it with that little confession anyway.
“I don’t know. I’m just getting tired… of the same old thing. I don’t even know how it can be the same old thing after only four months, but it feels that way,” Jim answered, fiddling with a toothpick he had picked up at some point in the night. It looked used, and he hoped he had been the one to use it. He dropped it suddenly when it occurred to him that he wasn’t sure if that was the case.
“But you like her, right? You like spending time with her?” Ryan asked, and wondered why he cared. He usually made a point to stay out of all the office relationship drama. Alcohol was a powerful weapon.
“I guess. I mean, yeah, she’s cool, I just…”
“You know, sometimes I really don’t like Kelly,” Ryan blurted. It seemed like a time for sharing.
“Yeah,” Jim replied neutrally. It wasn’t like that was surprising news. “So why are you even with her? Still?”
“Because sometimes I really do like her. Like, a lot. I don’t know.”
“No, yeah, no, I know what you mean!” Jim replied in a burst of energy. He’d never really seen his relationship with Karen as similar to Ryan’s with Kelly, or even any similarities between Karen and Kelly really, but suddenly after ten beers, it seemed like such an obvious connection. “Like, sometimes Karen can be so great, and so much fun, but other times, I’m just… I feel like I’d rather…”
“Be with someone else?”
Jim shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, I guess. I mean I came here to be with you guys tonight instead being with her so…”
“No, I mean like someone else. Like a different girl. Like maybe Pam?” If Ryan had been sober, he never would have made such a suggestion, but he’d spent weeks, months, sitting pretty much straight in the middle of Pam, Jim and Karen and he didn’t miss much. He saw all the looks both girls gave him, and the looks he would return to each of them. It was obvious that it wasn’t nearly so simple as ‘Jim is probably dating Karen, and friends with Pam,’ but Ryan usually stuck to his mantra of: Not. My. Problem. Here, like this, talking to Jim, for some reason all of a sudden he just wanted to know. Like if it was out in the open it would magically be solved, and Ryan wouldn’t have to deal with the awkward glances on all sides of him.
Jim’s eyes widened and he shook his head back and forth, in a way that somehow still didn’t really indicate a ‘no’. “That’s not…” He almost finished that sentence with ‘…what I want,’ but realized there was no point in even trying to lie - he was obviously pretty transparent tonight. “…gonna happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because - because it’s not.”
Ryan rolled his eyes, knowing he should just change the subject, but such a vague answer kind of annoyed him and he felt he had to push the point. “Well, I mean, because you don’t want it to happen, or because you think Pam doesn’t want it to happen, or because it’s pretty obvious both of you want it to happen but you’re both too chicken to actually do anything about it?”
“Hey!”
“Just asking.”
“It’s just not happening, okay? Pam doesn’t want… I mean, it’s been months, months, and she hasn’t - she hasn’t done anything or said anything, and… I’m tired of waiting. And I’ve got Karen.”
“Who you only like spending time with sometimes.”
“Yeah? So?” Jim argued, getting genuinely defensive now. “Maybe that’s something wrong with me, not her. Who’s to say that’s not just the way I’ll always operate in relationships? Who’s to say I wouldn’t get sick of Pam after a few months?”
“Would you?”
“Well, no.”
“So this whole ‘it’s not gonna happen’ thing, it’s the ‘you don’t think she wants it’ reason, with a side of the ‘you’re both chickenshit’ reason, is that it?” Ryan clarified, and before Jim could protest again, Ryan cut him off with, “Because honestly? I think you’re wrong. I think you’ve got a shot.”
“I think you don’t know anything about it - no offense, man, but… you really don’t.”
“I know more than you think - you know, I’ve seen a lot of stuff that you haven’t. Like, last summer, you weren’t around to see how bummed out Pam was, and it wasn’t because of the Roy stuff, because it started before that. And you don’t see the number of times a day she gets distracted from her work because apparently the back of your head is so fascinating.”
Jim’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but before he could respond, a couple of the other guys from the birthday party walked by and one of them clapped him on the shoulder as they were heading to the door.
Ryan turned and watched them leave and then glanced around the bar. “Were they the last… are we the last ones here?”
Jim’s eyes gave a quick sweep of the room. “Uh, yeah. Looks like. You wanna share a cab?”
“Nah, sorry, we live in opposite directions from here. I think I’m just going to run and catch those guys and see if I can get a ride. I know one of them lives right by me,” Ryan said as he stood up and put on his coat.
It was like their conversation up to this point had never happened. They were back to being just a couple of guys who worked together and had had a few drinks.
“Okay, I’ll find my own. See you Monday.”
“Yeah, see ya.” Ryan gave a wave as he headed to the door, not even looking back.
Jim turned to the bartender. “I’ll just have one more beer.”
xx
Jim felt a little weird expecting that things might be different between him and Ryan now that they’d ‘shared a moment,’ or, at least, ‘had a moment of sharing,’ but as a couple of straight guys, it was their unspoken duty to forget about anything that had been said and just move on. So it was unsurprising when the only difference on Monday morning was that their usual greeting of “Hey,” was now, “Hey, how’s it going?”
A little more personal, even if neither of them showed any outward interest in the other’s answer to that question.
The other difference was that now Jim found himself being ten thousand times more conscious of Pam’s presence behind him - though he had previously thought he couldn’t possibly be more aware of her than he already was - and trying to sense if she was looking at him. Unfortunately, he was not one of those people with a super-enhanced sixth sense about that sort of thing, and he had to restrain himself from actually turning around to check several times throughout the morning.
Karen had been working on a huge sales pitch with Dwight throughout most of the week before, and they were just doing the final preparations that morning before they were to actually meet with the client that afternoon. Her looks to Jim varying from ‘help me’ to mock ‘I’m going to strangle myself’ faces stopped being cute after the second or third day, so he was tuning out her presence until the project was over, which was easy enough so long as he was using all his focus power on trying to see Pam through the back of his head.
Karen finished at around eleven and, as expected, approached his desk to attempt their first real conversation since their phone call on Saturday afternoon.
“Thank God that’s over,” Karen breathed out as she sat down next to his computer monitor. “It was… I don’t know if ‘brutal’ is a strong enough word.”
“Agonizing? Terrifying? Barbaric?” Jim helpfully supplied.
“Any of those would do, yes,” Karen agreed. “So, you never called me back after I called you yesterday morning.” She lowered her voice, but it still wasn’t the subtlest of questions for this location, particularly since the cameras caught everything, but they’d been playing up the ‘we’re pretty good friends outside of the office too, and hang out sometimes’ angle to cover their bases, and Jim figured a friend calling him on a Sunday morning wasn’t too suspicious.
“Yeah, the, uh, the hangover from hell didn’t ever quite go away yesterday. I think I was even still feeling it a little this morning.”
Karen chuckled, not unsympathetically. “Aw, poor Jim. So I didn’t get to hear about the raging party Saturday night. Did the birthday boy have as much fun as you obviously did?”
“I’m pretty sure, if anything, we all had equally fun Sunday mornings.”
“Ouch. How old was he? Was it a big one, like thirty, or…?”
Jim sighed inwardly. He wasn’t really expecting the Spanish inquisition over his one night out. “Um, no, he was twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-seven,” Ryan piped up from out of nowhere. Jim hadn’t even realized he’d been listening. Karen looked at Ryan in surprise, and he looked back at her steadily. He repeated, “Dave was twenty-seven.”
Karen tilted her head to the side, and turned back to Jim. “You forgot the age of one of your closest, oldest friends? On his birthday?”
Ryan looked at Jim in confusion. “Hey, didn’t you say you’d only met him…” On seeing Jim’s look, he stopped abruptly, realizing how very, very stupid that question had been. He couldn’t remember if that was a violation of Clause II or III of the Guy Code, but it was definitely a big one. And the fact that he hadn’t finished the sentence didn’t make a difference - the meaning didn’t get by Karen.
“What? You’re not - you’re not really friends with the guy?” Karen asked, standing up from Jim’s desk. The look on her face was more one of not-understanding than anger, but it looked like it could easily turn to anger if Jim’s explanation didn’t suit her. “Why would you lie about something like that?”
Jim looked from Karen, to Ryan, and finally gave in and looked to Pam, who had obviously been watching this whole scene in fascination, though she made a point to look at her desk and start shuffling papers around to look busy when he looked her way. He turned back to Karen. “Can we talk?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it sounds like we probably should.”
She followed him to the break room, followed by a hurrying, eager cameraman who didn’t get very far due to Karen shutting the door in his face. Ryan shared a look of curiosity and pity with Pam, and lowered his head to his desk.
He should have stuck to his usual M.O. and kept his mouth shut.
xx
At lunch time, Ryan was in the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee when Jim walked in, the first time they’d seen each other since Jim left to talk with Karen - they’d been in there a long time.
“So, thanks for that,” Jim started. He wasn’t normally the type to lash out at someone for making what was no more than a silly mistake, but he wasn’t in the best of moods. “Now Karen’s in with Michael giving her resignation, and seriously considering leaving town altogether. That’s just… great.”
“Come on,” Ryan responded, not having it. “You obviously weren’t that into her anyway. And you told me you ditched her that night; you didn’t say you lied about why.”
“I know, I know… It’s just - it was nice, sometimes. She’s a great girl.”
“But not the girl you want,” Ryan reminded him. “You know, this isn’t the kind of thing I would normally stick my nose in, but I got the ball rolling while I was drunk and now I just have to clarify and make sure you took me seriously: the stuff I said about Pam was true. I definitely think you’ve got a pretty good shot. Just… something to keep in mind.”
xx
Ryan rolled his eyes as he watched Pam walk out that day at five. Jim had looked like he’d taken Ryan’s advice to heart at the time, but had made absolutely no move to act on it for the rest of the afternoon. Ryan had thought that maybe after Karen left with her box, that would be Jim’s cue, but still nothing. He'd even left a few minutes early with no more than a nod and a “Have a good night” to Pam.
Useless chickens, the pair of them. Ryan had done the best he could, better than he ever thought he’d care to do, and as of tomorrow he would be back to his old mantra: Not. My. Problem. It helped him maintain his sanity.
Kelly came by to walk out with him a few minutes after five, and he spent the elevator trip only half listening to her elaborate plans for them that evening, and how they should deal with cars - should they go separately now, or drive back later to pick up one of their cars, to which he inserted his only word in the entire conversation: “Separately!” - and whether they would be on time for their reservations if they went to the movie first, or if they should just hang out at his place until dinner and then see the movie afterwards, or…
“Oh, my God!” Kelly abruptly stopped her monologue when they were a few feet out into the parking lot to stand and gape across the parking lot for a moment. Then she grabbed Ryan’s arm and tugged, hard, and pointed with her other arm while jumping up and down excitedly. “Oh, my God, will you look at them? Jim and Pam are holding hands and standing close and smiling and oh, my God, do you think they’re dating? I was so sure he was dating Karen, but that whole thing with her quitting today was totally weird, and maybe this is why. Maybe she just had a thing for him but found out about him and Pam, and oh, my God, doesn’t it look like they’re about to kiss? They are so cute! How long do you think they’ve been-”
“You know what?” Ryan interrupted firmly, for once not letting her intrude and spy on another couple’s private moment. “Why don’t we just get out of their way and you can ask Pam about it tomorrow.”
Even through Kelly’s protests of “But, oh my, God, Ryan…” she let him lead her over to his car, and as he opened the door for her, he glanced over and saw Jim do the same for Pam. Jim looked up and gave him a nod and a smile. Ryan gave a thumbs-up back and felt like a total dork.
But hey, it was actually kind of cute. As long as nobody knew he thought so.
Originally posted (anonymously, by the mod) here on December 25, 2006 (have since been made aware that the comm has been deleted, but a good samaritan has kindly rounded up all the comm's fic links in google cache and permalinks here
Characters: Jim and Ryan, with Jim/Pam, Ryan/Kelly
Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the show or characters.
Summary: Alcohol makes Ryan chattier than usual and he gets involved with Jim's relationship drama.
A/N: This was for yankeeficswap as a Christmas gift for the request: "Ryan somehow acting as a catalyst for the Jim/Pam relationship. I just think he's the last person we'd expect to care about that, and I'd love to see someone tackle that." Also, now looking back, I think Karen and Jim were already pretty obvious about the fact that they were in a relationship pre-Christmas, but re-reading it I seemed to have assumed they were hiding it. I don't know what that was about. AU.
Nearly four months had passed since the two branches merged, which meant not only that the Scranton and remaining Stamford people had had time to adjust and were actually fairly comfortable with each other, but also that Jim was now currently in the longest committed relationship he’d had in about five years.
Four months really wasn’t that long in relationship terms, but it felt huge to Jim. And not huge in the way of great accomplishments, something to be proud of, but huge meaning heavy, weighing him down. Things were getting stale.
So when she called him Saturday and invited him over for yet another movie night, he instead fully decided on another invitation he’d been considering but not so excited about.
“Oh, um… I’m actually going out with some friends tonight. A guy’s night. It’s a birthday thing,” he explained.
He could practically hear Karen’s pout in her voice. “But you went out with your friends last Saturday. And you had dinner at your mom’s last night. I was kind of hoping we could have a night just for us.”
“I know, you’re right, and I totally wouldn’t go to this thing, except it’s the birthday of one of my closest, oldest friends, and I’d be the scum of the earth if I skipped out on him.”
Karen sighed, but when she spoke again, her voice sounded more resigned and understanding. “Well, okay. I guess I can understand that. I’ll find something else to do. Have fun with your friends.”
“Yeah, thanks,” he replied distractedly. “And, listen, next week I’ll make it up to you, I promise.”
“I’m considering that ‘on-record,’ by the way. I’ll be holding you to that.”
“Definitely.”
xx
After arriving at the bar and seeing a few familiar faces, Jim was surprised when one of the next faces he saw in the group and recognized was Ryan Howard’s.
“Hey!” Jim greeted, his voice betraying his initial confusion at seeing Ryan’s face in such a different setting.
Ryan seemed equally surprised to see Jim. “Hey, you’re here for the birthday, too?” At Jim’s nod, Ryan motioned towards the one guy at the table wearing a big, dorky button reading “It’s my birthday!” in big, bold, colorful letters. “You’re friends with Dave? Wow, that’s so weird that I didn’t know that. I’ve known him for, like, ever.”
“Oh, actually, I’ve only met him a couple times. I’m more friends with Pete, Dave’s brother, and he invited me along,” Jim explained, taking the empty seat between Ryan and Pete. So what he’d told Karen hadn’t been entirely true. It was just one night.
“Hey, you’re here!” Pete greeted, clapping him on the shoulder. “Good timing; we were just about to order another round.”
“Great!” Jim answered, and he was actually looking forward to seeing what the night would bring.
xx
About ten rounds later, Jim was feeling “...drunk! I am so drunk,” he mumbled, his head lowering closer and closer to the surface of the bar.
“Me too,” Ryan replied, his nose already pressed against the cool, sticky wood before he jerked up suddenly to look at Jim. “And I had like three before you even got here, so you don’t even - you don’t even… have things to say.”
Jim pushed his current half-empty glass of beer a distance down the bar with a look of disgust on his face, as if getting the substance as physically far away from him as possible would make him feel better about what he’d already taken in. “You know, I ditched a night with Karen to be here tonight.”
Ryan looked taken aback for a moment. “So, you’re… why?” Seeing as Jim and Karen had never actually acknowledged their relationship aloud at the office, Ryan had almost asked, “So you really are seeing Karen?” but decided to skip that part, since it had always seemed pretty obvious to Ryan, and Jim had basically just confirmed it with that little confession anyway.
“I don’t know. I’m just getting tired… of the same old thing. I don’t even know how it can be the same old thing after only four months, but it feels that way,” Jim answered, fiddling with a toothpick he had picked up at some point in the night. It looked used, and he hoped he had been the one to use it. He dropped it suddenly when it occurred to him that he wasn’t sure if that was the case.
“But you like her, right? You like spending time with her?” Ryan asked, and wondered why he cared. He usually made a point to stay out of all the office relationship drama. Alcohol was a powerful weapon.
“I guess. I mean, yeah, she’s cool, I just…”
“You know, sometimes I really don’t like Kelly,” Ryan blurted. It seemed like a time for sharing.
“Yeah,” Jim replied neutrally. It wasn’t like that was surprising news. “So why are you even with her? Still?”
“Because sometimes I really do like her. Like, a lot. I don’t know.”
“No, yeah, no, I know what you mean!” Jim replied in a burst of energy. He’d never really seen his relationship with Karen as similar to Ryan’s with Kelly, or even any similarities between Karen and Kelly really, but suddenly after ten beers, it seemed like such an obvious connection. “Like, sometimes Karen can be so great, and so much fun, but other times, I’m just… I feel like I’d rather…”
“Be with someone else?”
Jim shrugged. “Yeah. I mean, I guess. I mean I came here to be with you guys tonight instead being with her so…”
“No, I mean like someone else. Like a different girl. Like maybe Pam?” If Ryan had been sober, he never would have made such a suggestion, but he’d spent weeks, months, sitting pretty much straight in the middle of Pam, Jim and Karen and he didn’t miss much. He saw all the looks both girls gave him, and the looks he would return to each of them. It was obvious that it wasn’t nearly so simple as ‘Jim is probably dating Karen, and friends with Pam,’ but Ryan usually stuck to his mantra of: Not. My. Problem. Here, like this, talking to Jim, for some reason all of a sudden he just wanted to know. Like if it was out in the open it would magically be solved, and Ryan wouldn’t have to deal with the awkward glances on all sides of him.
Jim’s eyes widened and he shook his head back and forth, in a way that somehow still didn’t really indicate a ‘no’. “That’s not…” He almost finished that sentence with ‘…what I want,’ but realized there was no point in even trying to lie - he was obviously pretty transparent tonight. “…gonna happen.”
“Why not?”
“Because - because it’s not.”
Ryan rolled his eyes, knowing he should just change the subject, but such a vague answer kind of annoyed him and he felt he had to push the point. “Well, I mean, because you don’t want it to happen, or because you think Pam doesn’t want it to happen, or because it’s pretty obvious both of you want it to happen but you’re both too chicken to actually do anything about it?”
“Hey!”
“Just asking.”
“It’s just not happening, okay? Pam doesn’t want… I mean, it’s been months, months, and she hasn’t - she hasn’t done anything or said anything, and… I’m tired of waiting. And I’ve got Karen.”
“Who you only like spending time with sometimes.”
“Yeah? So?” Jim argued, getting genuinely defensive now. “Maybe that’s something wrong with me, not her. Who’s to say that’s not just the way I’ll always operate in relationships? Who’s to say I wouldn’t get sick of Pam after a few months?”
“Would you?”
“Well, no.”
“So this whole ‘it’s not gonna happen’ thing, it’s the ‘you don’t think she wants it’ reason, with a side of the ‘you’re both chickenshit’ reason, is that it?” Ryan clarified, and before Jim could protest again, Ryan cut him off with, “Because honestly? I think you’re wrong. I think you’ve got a shot.”
“I think you don’t know anything about it - no offense, man, but… you really don’t.”
“I know more than you think - you know, I’ve seen a lot of stuff that you haven’t. Like, last summer, you weren’t around to see how bummed out Pam was, and it wasn’t because of the Roy stuff, because it started before that. And you don’t see the number of times a day she gets distracted from her work because apparently the back of your head is so fascinating.”
Jim’s eyebrows lifted in surprise, but before he could respond, a couple of the other guys from the birthday party walked by and one of them clapped him on the shoulder as they were heading to the door.
Ryan turned and watched them leave and then glanced around the bar. “Were they the last… are we the last ones here?”
Jim’s eyes gave a quick sweep of the room. “Uh, yeah. Looks like. You wanna share a cab?”
“Nah, sorry, we live in opposite directions from here. I think I’m just going to run and catch those guys and see if I can get a ride. I know one of them lives right by me,” Ryan said as he stood up and put on his coat.
It was like their conversation up to this point had never happened. They were back to being just a couple of guys who worked together and had had a few drinks.
“Okay, I’ll find my own. See you Monday.”
“Yeah, see ya.” Ryan gave a wave as he headed to the door, not even looking back.
Jim turned to the bartender. “I’ll just have one more beer.”
xx
Jim felt a little weird expecting that things might be different between him and Ryan now that they’d ‘shared a moment,’ or, at least, ‘had a moment of sharing,’ but as a couple of straight guys, it was their unspoken duty to forget about anything that had been said and just move on. So it was unsurprising when the only difference on Monday morning was that their usual greeting of “Hey,” was now, “Hey, how’s it going?”
A little more personal, even if neither of them showed any outward interest in the other’s answer to that question.
The other difference was that now Jim found himself being ten thousand times more conscious of Pam’s presence behind him - though he had previously thought he couldn’t possibly be more aware of her than he already was - and trying to sense if she was looking at him. Unfortunately, he was not one of those people with a super-enhanced sixth sense about that sort of thing, and he had to restrain himself from actually turning around to check several times throughout the morning.
Karen had been working on a huge sales pitch with Dwight throughout most of the week before, and they were just doing the final preparations that morning before they were to actually meet with the client that afternoon. Her looks to Jim varying from ‘help me’ to mock ‘I’m going to strangle myself’ faces stopped being cute after the second or third day, so he was tuning out her presence until the project was over, which was easy enough so long as he was using all his focus power on trying to see Pam through the back of his head.
Karen finished at around eleven and, as expected, approached his desk to attempt their first real conversation since their phone call on Saturday afternoon.
“Thank God that’s over,” Karen breathed out as she sat down next to his computer monitor. “It was… I don’t know if ‘brutal’ is a strong enough word.”
“Agonizing? Terrifying? Barbaric?” Jim helpfully supplied.
“Any of those would do, yes,” Karen agreed. “So, you never called me back after I called you yesterday morning.” She lowered her voice, but it still wasn’t the subtlest of questions for this location, particularly since the cameras caught everything, but they’d been playing up the ‘we’re pretty good friends outside of the office too, and hang out sometimes’ angle to cover their bases, and Jim figured a friend calling him on a Sunday morning wasn’t too suspicious.
“Yeah, the, uh, the hangover from hell didn’t ever quite go away yesterday. I think I was even still feeling it a little this morning.”
Karen chuckled, not unsympathetically. “Aw, poor Jim. So I didn’t get to hear about the raging party Saturday night. Did the birthday boy have as much fun as you obviously did?”
“I’m pretty sure, if anything, we all had equally fun Sunday mornings.”
“Ouch. How old was he? Was it a big one, like thirty, or…?”
Jim sighed inwardly. He wasn’t really expecting the Spanish inquisition over his one night out. “Um, no, he was twenty-eight.”
“Twenty-seven,” Ryan piped up from out of nowhere. Jim hadn’t even realized he’d been listening. Karen looked at Ryan in surprise, and he looked back at her steadily. He repeated, “Dave was twenty-seven.”
Karen tilted her head to the side, and turned back to Jim. “You forgot the age of one of your closest, oldest friends? On his birthday?”
Ryan looked at Jim in confusion. “Hey, didn’t you say you’d only met him…” On seeing Jim’s look, he stopped abruptly, realizing how very, very stupid that question had been. He couldn’t remember if that was a violation of Clause II or III of the Guy Code, but it was definitely a big one. And the fact that he hadn’t finished the sentence didn’t make a difference - the meaning didn’t get by Karen.
“What? You’re not - you’re not really friends with the guy?” Karen asked, standing up from Jim’s desk. The look on her face was more one of not-understanding than anger, but it looked like it could easily turn to anger if Jim’s explanation didn’t suit her. “Why would you lie about something like that?”
Jim looked from Karen, to Ryan, and finally gave in and looked to Pam, who had obviously been watching this whole scene in fascination, though she made a point to look at her desk and start shuffling papers around to look busy when he looked her way. He turned back to Karen. “Can we talk?”
She nodded. “Yeah, it sounds like we probably should.”
She followed him to the break room, followed by a hurrying, eager cameraman who didn’t get very far due to Karen shutting the door in his face. Ryan shared a look of curiosity and pity with Pam, and lowered his head to his desk.
He should have stuck to his usual M.O. and kept his mouth shut.
xx
At lunch time, Ryan was in the kitchen making himself a cup of coffee when Jim walked in, the first time they’d seen each other since Jim left to talk with Karen - they’d been in there a long time.
“So, thanks for that,” Jim started. He wasn’t normally the type to lash out at someone for making what was no more than a silly mistake, but he wasn’t in the best of moods. “Now Karen’s in with Michael giving her resignation, and seriously considering leaving town altogether. That’s just… great.”
“Come on,” Ryan responded, not having it. “You obviously weren’t that into her anyway. And you told me you ditched her that night; you didn’t say you lied about why.”
“I know, I know… It’s just - it was nice, sometimes. She’s a great girl.”
“But not the girl you want,” Ryan reminded him. “You know, this isn’t the kind of thing I would normally stick my nose in, but I got the ball rolling while I was drunk and now I just have to clarify and make sure you took me seriously: the stuff I said about Pam was true. I definitely think you’ve got a pretty good shot. Just… something to keep in mind.”
xx
Ryan rolled his eyes as he watched Pam walk out that day at five. Jim had looked like he’d taken Ryan’s advice to heart at the time, but had made absolutely no move to act on it for the rest of the afternoon. Ryan had thought that maybe after Karen left with her box, that would be Jim’s cue, but still nothing. He'd even left a few minutes early with no more than a nod and a “Have a good night” to Pam.
Useless chickens, the pair of them. Ryan had done the best he could, better than he ever thought he’d care to do, and as of tomorrow he would be back to his old mantra: Not. My. Problem. It helped him maintain his sanity.
Kelly came by to walk out with him a few minutes after five, and he spent the elevator trip only half listening to her elaborate plans for them that evening, and how they should deal with cars - should they go separately now, or drive back later to pick up one of their cars, to which he inserted his only word in the entire conversation: “Separately!” - and whether they would be on time for their reservations if they went to the movie first, or if they should just hang out at his place until dinner and then see the movie afterwards, or…
“Oh, my God!” Kelly abruptly stopped her monologue when they were a few feet out into the parking lot to stand and gape across the parking lot for a moment. Then she grabbed Ryan’s arm and tugged, hard, and pointed with her other arm while jumping up and down excitedly. “Oh, my God, will you look at them? Jim and Pam are holding hands and standing close and smiling and oh, my God, do you think they’re dating? I was so sure he was dating Karen, but that whole thing with her quitting today was totally weird, and maybe this is why. Maybe she just had a thing for him but found out about him and Pam, and oh, my God, doesn’t it look like they’re about to kiss? They are so cute! How long do you think they’ve been-”
“You know what?” Ryan interrupted firmly, for once not letting her intrude and spy on another couple’s private moment. “Why don’t we just get out of their way and you can ask Pam about it tomorrow.”
Even through Kelly’s protests of “But, oh my, God, Ryan…” she let him lead her over to his car, and as he opened the door for her, he glanced over and saw Jim do the same for Pam. Jim looked up and gave him a nod and a smile. Ryan gave a thumbs-up back and felt like a total dork.
But hey, it was actually kind of cute. As long as nobody knew he thought so.
Originally posted (anonymously, by the mod) here on December 25, 2006 (have since been made aware that the comm has been deleted, but a good samaritan has kindly rounded up all the comm's fic links in google cache and permalinks here