we were one cell in the sea
Title: we were one cell in the sea
Fandom: The Office (US)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Karen/Pam
Short summary: Random snapshots from a life well lived.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Office or any related media.
Notes: Written to fill my claim at 1sentence. By the way, I just realized that there are three Starbucks references in this. Yep, I’m from Seattle; how could you tell?
001. ring
Pam was never one for coffee; Karen, however, is a caffeine addict, and before Pam knows it her kitchen table is covered in dark circular cappuccino stains left over from Karen’s morning Starbucks.
002. hero
When Karen was little she thought heroes were handsome, noble princes who saved beautiful princesses from mortal peril; now, her hero is a small woman named Pam who holds Karen’s heart in her hands and guards it with quiet courage.
003. memory
Karen had convinced herself she was over Pam, but when she sees the Halpert-Beesly wedding announcement in the newspaper, all she can see is Pam's smiling face, framed by that curly hair, and she suddenly feels sick.
004. box
With Karen, it’s the small things that matter - trying a yoga class together on a Saturday morning, playing Halo on their Xbox, sharing an Oreo milkshake at the diner down the street - because with every new moment Pam feels herself moving further and further away from the boxed-in life she’d lived with Roy.
005. run
With Roy, Pam thinks, she was being pulled along, always one step behind, always an afterthought; with Jim, she was running as far as she could away from Roy, trying so hard to be different than before, to be in front, to be better; with Karen, they set the pace together - sometimes they walk, sometimes they run, and sometimes they just lie down together and listen to the sounds of the world going by.
006. hurricane
On Monday, Pam tells Karen that she’ll give her a surprise if she can convince Dwight that a hurricane is going to hit Scranton; on Thursday, Karen comes home, informs Pam that “Dwight’s busy hurricane-proofing the office,” then looks at Pam sultrily from under her dark lashes and asks for her reward.
007. wings
As hackneyed as it sounds, Pam will always remember Karen as the girl who, without trying, taught her how to fly.
008. cold
On a particularly cold night in December, Karen wiggles her eyebrows and tells Pam that she knows plenty of ways to warm her up; Pam smacks her lightly and asks her if she could get any more cliché, but the flush coloring her neck and cheekbones gives her away.
009. red
Karen knows that Pam’s never been comfortable working with vibrant reds and oranges (all her art so far has been in soft colors like the pastel blouses she used to wear and the muted sadness she’d carried in her eyes); when she wakes up one morning to find Pam, eyes colored with a determined boldness, sitting on the floor with a mug of pure crimson paint by her side, she thinks she’s never been prouder of anyone in all of her days.
010. drink
“It’s hot milk with honey; it’ll help,” Pam murmurs softly, then bends over to kiss Karen’s forehead; Karen sips quietly, then looks up at her through bleary eyes and a runny nose and murmurs her thanks.
011. midnight
With Pam, Karen doesn’t feel the need to have long heart-to-hearts far into the night as she had with Jim; there are no insecurities, no doubts here (and there are better things to be doing in bed at midnight, anyway).
012. temptation
Karen has always been proud of her self control, but when she steps into the bathroom one morning to find Pam brushing her teeth and wearing nothing but one of Karen’s button-up dress shirts and no underwear, she barely has time to think before her lips are on Pam’s and her hands are sliding underneath the front of Pam’s shirt.
013. view
Karen grew up by the sea and has always felt something missing when she wakes up in the morning to building after building rising in the horizon, but she finds she doesn’t quite mind them so much if she’s looking from out of Pam’s back window.
014. music
Pam could definitely use a few voice lessons, to say the least, but nothing calms Karen down quite like Pam running her fingers through Karen’s hair and singing old Disney songs terribly off-key.
015. silk
Karen’s old futon with the firm mattress isn’t exactly a silk-sheeted bed, but when Pam lies nestled among the quilts in Karen’s arms she can’t help but think that it’s the most comfortable place she’s ever known.
016. cover
Pam gathers all her art of Karen into its own binder and decorates the cover with a sketch of Karen’s hand intertwined with her own.
017. promise
Pam isn’t ready to promise her heart to anyone, not yet, so Karen doesn’t ask for it; she just smiles at Pam and asks her if she’s free over the weekend.
018. dream
Pam tucks her thoughts of Karen away on the cobwebbed shelves in the back of her mind (she knows by now that your dreams will get you nowhere).
019. candle
Roy had always tried to woo her with scented candles and bottles of champagne; Pam had gone along with it to be nice, but now she finds that nothing gets her in the mood quite like those moments when Karen just looks at her.
020. talent
They start watching American Idol together in February; by April, they have a weekly ritual, complete with excessively buttery popcorn and fuzzy slippers, in which they vote as often as they can for the candidate they think is the least talented (when he doesn’t win, they’re irrationally disappointed).
021. silence
Karen makes Pam comfortable with things she never thought she’d be able to accept: her femininity, her self-worth, the silence between them as they lie together in bed that isn’t really silence at all.
022. journey
In mid-July they pool their vacation time, make thirteen hours worth of mix CDs, Google every Starbucks from Scranton to the Oregon coast, and make their way across the country in Karen’s old Bug; as Karen drives down a dirty road in the middle of Oklahoma, her hand slung over Pam’s shoulder and Pam’s bare feet up on her dashboard, she feels something she hadn’t known she was missing slide into place inside of her.
023. fire
When Pam was with Roy, she hadn’t felt any incentive to change things or do something with her life, but Karen instills a fire in her - it sizzles in her veins and scorches her bones - and it’s the first time in years she’s been excited to get out of bed in the morning.
024. strength
As she thinks about Roy (and what could have been, and what was, and what she’s lost), Pam swears she can feel courage bubbling up inside of her like hot tea, soft and subtle and not unlike the feeling of holding Karen’s hand.
025. mask
When Kevin starts whining at her from behind his Darth Vader mask (“Pam, where are the Reeses? You always put Reeses out on Halloween”), she makes something up about Michael wanting the office on a diet; really it’s just because Karen is allergic to peanut butter (and Pam doesn’t want to take any chances).
026. ice
Pam supposes she could wax poetic and say that Karen burst into her life and thawed her cold and icy heart, but it’s easier and more truthful to say that Karen just makes her really, really happy.
027. fall
Falling in love has always terrified Pam, but now that she has Karen there to catch her, she thinks (for the first time), I can do this.
028. forgotten
Every morning, during those short moments between sleep and wakefulness, Pam always expects the person next to her to be soft, feminine, dark-skinned and smiling sleepily; when Jim pulls her closer to his chest, she feels something inside of her crack.
029. dance
takes place during Phyllis' Wedding
As Pam watches Karen sway in Jim's arms, the silk of her dress sliding under his big hands, she realizes she doesn't know who she's jealous of anymore.
030. body
It occurs to Pam one night as they’re lying in bed, moonlight shading Karen’s face in a way that’s entirely too poetic, that their bodies mirror each other; they’re both full, supple, rounded, all curves and softness and joyous femininity.
031. sacred
Karen hates clutter in her workspace; the only things she’s put on her desk since she came to Scranton are her old Yankees coffee mug and a small oil painting which is, in fact, a Pam Beesly original.
032. farewells
The night everything ends, they fuck one more time on her couch; as Pam’s nails dig into her shoulders, Karen wonders for a split second why she’s leaving but tries to tell herself it’s for the best.
033. world
Sometimes Pam thinks that Karen’s seen so much, done so much, felt so much of the world that she’ll never be able to catch up; the thought leaves her feeling strangely hollow.
034. formal
Karen grins up at Pam from her place on the couch, eyes lazily tracing Pam’s body, and Pam doesn’t think she’s ever felt more beautiful than she does right now, standing in her living room in her ratty old sweatpants.
035. fever
When Karen catches cold, she insists that Pam go to work and leave her to fend for herself; that doesn’t stop Pam from calling her every half-hour to ask if her fever’s gone down yet and does she need anything and is she keeping hydrated and eventually Karen just tells her to come home, already (come home to me, she says with a hoarse voice and a quiet smile).
036. laugh
Pam takes a moment to lean her head against the wall and let Karen’s laughter echo in her heart.
037. lies
I can’t love her, Pam thinks, watching Karen out of the corner of her eye; I can’t.
038. forever
Karen's cynicism has always been her crutch, so when she starts seeing forever in Pam's eyes, she forces herself to look away.
039. overwhelmed
Sometimes Pam can feel herself drowning in her past - drowning in Jim’s long hands and the scruff on Roy’s chin and the invisible weight of the little golden band that used to sit complacently on her ring finger - and she starts to wonder if being with Karen is really the right thing to do.
040. whisper
Every once in a while, Karen hears Pam’s voice whispering to her (mundane, little things; what should we do for dinnerss and how was works and sometimes even I love yous); every time, she turns around to look, and every time, she has to remind herself that Pam is gone.
041. wait
takes place during Lecture Circuit, Part 1
As her eyes fall to Karen's rounded belly, the memories of their last encounter flash, unbidden, into Pam's mind (the familiar smells of Karen's apartment; her sweater, draped across Karen's couch, floating like a ghost of times past in her peripheral vision; Karen's voice, trembling but full of finality, burning her ears: "I can't wait forever").
042. talk
When her mother sat her down for The Talk in fifth grade, she hadn’t even mentioned this, but as Pam pauses above the juncture between Karen’s thighs and looks up into her eyes, she thinks that maybe she can figure it out on her own.
43. search
As Pam savors the feel of Karen’s soft hair between her fingers, she suddenly thinks that the things you aren’t looking for are sometimes the things you are meant to find.
044. hope
Pam doesn’t think about her life in very dramatic terms; she is, after all, a (small, unimportant, insignificant) receptionist at a regional paper company, but something about Karen makes her want something more.
045. eclipse
Pam doesn't think she'll ever be able to look at Karen and not see a little bit of Jim lurking in the shadows.
046. gravity
Karen is like anti-gravity to Pam; every time she falls down to Earth, Karen is there waiting to lift her back towards the sun.
047. highway
If you asked Pam to tell you how to get to Karen’s place, she could do so in her sleep, highway exit and locations of the three closest Starbucks included.
048. unknown
With Roy, Pam had been too quick to call it love; with Jim, she’d been too intent on calling it friendship; she doesn’t quite know what it is that she has with Karen (but it occurs to her one day as she reaches up to brush Karen’s hair out of her eyes that she likes it that way).
049. lock
The sales team is on a day trip to New York and the only thing keeping Pam sane at her desk is the warm, comfortable weight of the key to Karen’s apartment in her pocket.
050. breathe
Pam's surprised that, with all the excitement of her new life with Karen, she still has time to stop and just breathe (but she's grateful, too, because it gives her time to remember how lucky she is and God, is she lucky).
Thank you for reading! Feedback is love. :)
Fandom: The Office (US)
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Karen/Pam
Short summary: Random snapshots from a life well lived.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Office or any related media.
Notes: Written to fill my claim at 1sentence. By the way, I just realized that there are three Starbucks references in this. Yep, I’m from Seattle; how could you tell?
001. ring
Pam was never one for coffee; Karen, however, is a caffeine addict, and before Pam knows it her kitchen table is covered in dark circular cappuccino stains left over from Karen’s morning Starbucks.
002. hero
When Karen was little she thought heroes were handsome, noble princes who saved beautiful princesses from mortal peril; now, her hero is a small woman named Pam who holds Karen’s heart in her hands and guards it with quiet courage.
003. memory
Karen had convinced herself she was over Pam, but when she sees the Halpert-Beesly wedding announcement in the newspaper, all she can see is Pam's smiling face, framed by that curly hair, and she suddenly feels sick.
004. box
With Karen, it’s the small things that matter - trying a yoga class together on a Saturday morning, playing Halo on their Xbox, sharing an Oreo milkshake at the diner down the street - because with every new moment Pam feels herself moving further and further away from the boxed-in life she’d lived with Roy.
005. run
With Roy, Pam thinks, she was being pulled along, always one step behind, always an afterthought; with Jim, she was running as far as she could away from Roy, trying so hard to be different than before, to be in front, to be better; with Karen, they set the pace together - sometimes they walk, sometimes they run, and sometimes they just lie down together and listen to the sounds of the world going by.
006. hurricane
On Monday, Pam tells Karen that she’ll give her a surprise if she can convince Dwight that a hurricane is going to hit Scranton; on Thursday, Karen comes home, informs Pam that “Dwight’s busy hurricane-proofing the office,” then looks at Pam sultrily from under her dark lashes and asks for her reward.
007. wings
As hackneyed as it sounds, Pam will always remember Karen as the girl who, without trying, taught her how to fly.
008. cold
On a particularly cold night in December, Karen wiggles her eyebrows and tells Pam that she knows plenty of ways to warm her up; Pam smacks her lightly and asks her if she could get any more cliché, but the flush coloring her neck and cheekbones gives her away.
009. red
Karen knows that Pam’s never been comfortable working with vibrant reds and oranges (all her art so far has been in soft colors like the pastel blouses she used to wear and the muted sadness she’d carried in her eyes); when she wakes up one morning to find Pam, eyes colored with a determined boldness, sitting on the floor with a mug of pure crimson paint by her side, she thinks she’s never been prouder of anyone in all of her days.
010. drink
“It’s hot milk with honey; it’ll help,” Pam murmurs softly, then bends over to kiss Karen’s forehead; Karen sips quietly, then looks up at her through bleary eyes and a runny nose and murmurs her thanks.
011. midnight
With Pam, Karen doesn’t feel the need to have long heart-to-hearts far into the night as she had with Jim; there are no insecurities, no doubts here (and there are better things to be doing in bed at midnight, anyway).
012. temptation
Karen has always been proud of her self control, but when she steps into the bathroom one morning to find Pam brushing her teeth and wearing nothing but one of Karen’s button-up dress shirts and no underwear, she barely has time to think before her lips are on Pam’s and her hands are sliding underneath the front of Pam’s shirt.
013. view
Karen grew up by the sea and has always felt something missing when she wakes up in the morning to building after building rising in the horizon, but she finds she doesn’t quite mind them so much if she’s looking from out of Pam’s back window.
014. music
Pam could definitely use a few voice lessons, to say the least, but nothing calms Karen down quite like Pam running her fingers through Karen’s hair and singing old Disney songs terribly off-key.
015. silk
Karen’s old futon with the firm mattress isn’t exactly a silk-sheeted bed, but when Pam lies nestled among the quilts in Karen’s arms she can’t help but think that it’s the most comfortable place she’s ever known.
016. cover
Pam gathers all her art of Karen into its own binder and decorates the cover with a sketch of Karen’s hand intertwined with her own.
017. promise
Pam isn’t ready to promise her heart to anyone, not yet, so Karen doesn’t ask for it; she just smiles at Pam and asks her if she’s free over the weekend.
018. dream
Pam tucks her thoughts of Karen away on the cobwebbed shelves in the back of her mind (she knows by now that your dreams will get you nowhere).
019. candle
Roy had always tried to woo her with scented candles and bottles of champagne; Pam had gone along with it to be nice, but now she finds that nothing gets her in the mood quite like those moments when Karen just looks at her.
020. talent
They start watching American Idol together in February; by April, they have a weekly ritual, complete with excessively buttery popcorn and fuzzy slippers, in which they vote as often as they can for the candidate they think is the least talented (when he doesn’t win, they’re irrationally disappointed).
021. silence
Karen makes Pam comfortable with things she never thought she’d be able to accept: her femininity, her self-worth, the silence between them as they lie together in bed that isn’t really silence at all.
022. journey
In mid-July they pool their vacation time, make thirteen hours worth of mix CDs, Google every Starbucks from Scranton to the Oregon coast, and make their way across the country in Karen’s old Bug; as Karen drives down a dirty road in the middle of Oklahoma, her hand slung over Pam’s shoulder and Pam’s bare feet up on her dashboard, she feels something she hadn’t known she was missing slide into place inside of her.
023. fire
When Pam was with Roy, she hadn’t felt any incentive to change things or do something with her life, but Karen instills a fire in her - it sizzles in her veins and scorches her bones - and it’s the first time in years she’s been excited to get out of bed in the morning.
024. strength
As she thinks about Roy (and what could have been, and what was, and what she’s lost), Pam swears she can feel courage bubbling up inside of her like hot tea, soft and subtle and not unlike the feeling of holding Karen’s hand.
025. mask
When Kevin starts whining at her from behind his Darth Vader mask (“Pam, where are the Reeses? You always put Reeses out on Halloween”), she makes something up about Michael wanting the office on a diet; really it’s just because Karen is allergic to peanut butter (and Pam doesn’t want to take any chances).
026. ice
Pam supposes she could wax poetic and say that Karen burst into her life and thawed her cold and icy heart, but it’s easier and more truthful to say that Karen just makes her really, really happy.
027. fall
Falling in love has always terrified Pam, but now that she has Karen there to catch her, she thinks (for the first time), I can do this.
028. forgotten
Every morning, during those short moments between sleep and wakefulness, Pam always expects the person next to her to be soft, feminine, dark-skinned and smiling sleepily; when Jim pulls her closer to his chest, she feels something inside of her crack.
029. dance
takes place during Phyllis' Wedding
As Pam watches Karen sway in Jim's arms, the silk of her dress sliding under his big hands, she realizes she doesn't know who she's jealous of anymore.
030. body
It occurs to Pam one night as they’re lying in bed, moonlight shading Karen’s face in a way that’s entirely too poetic, that their bodies mirror each other; they’re both full, supple, rounded, all curves and softness and joyous femininity.
031. sacred
Karen hates clutter in her workspace; the only things she’s put on her desk since she came to Scranton are her old Yankees coffee mug and a small oil painting which is, in fact, a Pam Beesly original.
032. farewells
The night everything ends, they fuck one more time on her couch; as Pam’s nails dig into her shoulders, Karen wonders for a split second why she’s leaving but tries to tell herself it’s for the best.
033. world
Sometimes Pam thinks that Karen’s seen so much, done so much, felt so much of the world that she’ll never be able to catch up; the thought leaves her feeling strangely hollow.
034. formal
Karen grins up at Pam from her place on the couch, eyes lazily tracing Pam’s body, and Pam doesn’t think she’s ever felt more beautiful than she does right now, standing in her living room in her ratty old sweatpants.
035. fever
When Karen catches cold, she insists that Pam go to work and leave her to fend for herself; that doesn’t stop Pam from calling her every half-hour to ask if her fever’s gone down yet and does she need anything and is she keeping hydrated and eventually Karen just tells her to come home, already (come home to me, she says with a hoarse voice and a quiet smile).
036. laugh
Pam takes a moment to lean her head against the wall and let Karen’s laughter echo in her heart.
037. lies
I can’t love her, Pam thinks, watching Karen out of the corner of her eye; I can’t.
038. forever
Karen's cynicism has always been her crutch, so when she starts seeing forever in Pam's eyes, she forces herself to look away.
039. overwhelmed
Sometimes Pam can feel herself drowning in her past - drowning in Jim’s long hands and the scruff on Roy’s chin and the invisible weight of the little golden band that used to sit complacently on her ring finger - and she starts to wonder if being with Karen is really the right thing to do.
040. whisper
Every once in a while, Karen hears Pam’s voice whispering to her (mundane, little things; what should we do for dinnerss and how was works and sometimes even I love yous); every time, she turns around to look, and every time, she has to remind herself that Pam is gone.
041. wait
takes place during Lecture Circuit, Part 1
As her eyes fall to Karen's rounded belly, the memories of their last encounter flash, unbidden, into Pam's mind (the familiar smells of Karen's apartment; her sweater, draped across Karen's couch, floating like a ghost of times past in her peripheral vision; Karen's voice, trembling but full of finality, burning her ears: "I can't wait forever").
042. talk
When her mother sat her down for The Talk in fifth grade, she hadn’t even mentioned this, but as Pam pauses above the juncture between Karen’s thighs and looks up into her eyes, she thinks that maybe she can figure it out on her own.
43. search
As Pam savors the feel of Karen’s soft hair between her fingers, she suddenly thinks that the things you aren’t looking for are sometimes the things you are meant to find.
044. hope
Pam doesn’t think about her life in very dramatic terms; she is, after all, a (small, unimportant, insignificant) receptionist at a regional paper company, but something about Karen makes her want something more.
045. eclipse
Pam doesn't think she'll ever be able to look at Karen and not see a little bit of Jim lurking in the shadows.
046. gravity
Karen is like anti-gravity to Pam; every time she falls down to Earth, Karen is there waiting to lift her back towards the sun.
047. highway
If you asked Pam to tell you how to get to Karen’s place, she could do so in her sleep, highway exit and locations of the three closest Starbucks included.
048. unknown
With Roy, Pam had been too quick to call it love; with Jim, she’d been too intent on calling it friendship; she doesn’t quite know what it is that she has with Karen (but it occurs to her one day as she reaches up to brush Karen’s hair out of her eyes that she likes it that way).
049. lock
The sales team is on a day trip to New York and the only thing keeping Pam sane at her desk is the warm, comfortable weight of the key to Karen’s apartment in her pocket.
050. breathe
Pam's surprised that, with all the excitement of her new life with Karen, she still has time to stop and just breathe (but she's grateful, too, because it gives her time to remember how lucky she is and God, is she lucky).
Thank you for reading! Feedback is love. :)