Office Ficlet: "A Mile In Your Shoes" (Jam, PG)
Fandom: The Office (US)
Title: A Mile In Your Shoes
Author: arby_m
Pairing: Jim/Pam, Roy/Pam, Jim/Karen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For Phyllis's Wedding.
Warnings: Angsty angst - happy belated V-Day!
Length: ~1000 words
Disclaimer: Fictional characters used without intent of copyright infringement.
Summary: What Pam was thinking at the end of Phyllis's Wedding, and what happened after.
Feedback: is ♥
x-posted to MTT
Pam watched as Jim danced with that girl. He was a full head taller than she - they look like they're in junior high, for Chrissakes. That was uncharitable of her, she knew, but she really wasn’t in the mood to throw Karen any more rope. Already it inexplicably looked like she wasn’t going to hang herself with it. Pam felt a leaden weight of hopelessness settling in her stomach like leftover wedding cake, and stared at Jim morosely, willing him to stop this nonsense and get with the program already.
She knew she was getting way too intense - inappropriately so, even - but she couldn’t help it.
I can’t pretend I don’t care anymore. I can’t go back to the way things used to be.
(Resolutely ignoring the small, still voice saying, sound familiar?)
The couple had rotated so that Jim was facing towards her, and he glanced over to where she sat. She had sort of left her stare on him as she thought, and she came to herself in time to catch the tail end of his reaction. He looked startled, almost shocked, and a slight flush came to his cheeks.
Pam felt sick. Her heart beat wildly in her throat like a startled bird. She looked away, but the damage had been done. Suddenly she hated herself for being so pathetic. She couldn’t just sit there, mooning over him like some kind of loser.
Like the way he used to do over you?
This time the voice in her head was stronger, but no less matter-of-fact. She was so busy mulling over the repercussions of what it said that she didn’t notice at first who sat down next to her.
Roy. A mental eye-roll accompanied this realization.
He was looking pretty good, actually - he seemed to have done something different with himself since they split, though it was still just yesterday’s fish wrapped in today’s newspaper - but she eyed him with indifference.
He was gazing at her like she was the last drop of water in a desert. A selfish part of her reveled in that look, in that feeling of being so wanted.
Jim used to look at me that way. Like he couldn’t get enough of me.
So when Roy started with the stupid small talk, she let him go on, and when he asked her to dance it was a relief, that someone was doing something, even if it was the wrong person at the right time. She made him take her outside where no one would see them, like he was her secret shame.
He was comfortable as a cast-off old pair of slippers, and he didn’t talk, which allowed her to go on thinking about Jim, the sore tooth she couldn’t help pressing. She replayed the conversation by the bar, taking it apart, looking for clues that Jim was still into her. Maddeningly, she couldn’t really find any. She’d been the one who was flirting, he’d merely smiled and answered with a hint of his old teasing. There’d been a ghostly remnant of affection there, that was all.
She wanted to hit something, but not being a man that was impossible, so instead she let Roy kiss her. It meant nothing, she felt nothing; there was a dried-out husk where her heart should be. Jim was with Karen now - Pam had spurned him, then changed her mind but cravenly waited too long for any self-respecting man to come crawling back. She couldn’t blame him in the slightest, that was the worst thing about it. When she looked back at it now, it was so obvious, how she’d left him no choice.
The lurking sickness in her gut rose until it became a hand, beating at her mouth to get out. She broke away from Roy and puked wretchedly in the parking lot, wrenching, awful; a punishment she knew she deserved. Roy knelt quietly beside her and held her hair, for which she was grateful and resentfully ashamed at the same time. He didn't even make fun of her for barfing. For him, this passed as gentlemanly behavior.
Finally it was over. Grimly she wiped her mouth and said to Roy without looking at him, “Can you give me a ride home?”
“Sure,” he replied, quiet - seeming humbled, for once. The inside of the truck echoed with his self-conscious silence - of all he’d left unsaid, of whatever it was he thought he could do to win her back. She didn’t feel the need to lighten that load for him in the slightest. She was who she was, and he didn’t get her at all, had never gotten her, really, not in any way that mattered. Her throat ached as if in premonition of the sobs she’d be choking back as soon as she was alone. Her mouth tasted as sour and horrible as you’d expect. It's weird; I'm not even that drunk.
Not a moment too soon, they arrived at her front door. Getting out of the truck, she ignored Roy’s longing looks and said, “Thanks,” as casually and dismissively as possible. She left it at that. Already she’d given him too much hope by letting him kiss her, in a moment of weakness.
Be strong, Beesley, she thought to herself, and half-laughed derisively at the Jim-voice in her head.
Shut it, Halpert.
But even a phantom Jim was better than the real Roy, so she waved at the latter and turned to unlock her front door, the gateway to her Fancy New Life, alone and yet not-quite-lonely. Put it this way - she wasn’t holding her breath for one of Ryan’s BS friends to ride up in a shining white Mercedes and rescue her. A lame old Corolla would do just fine, with the right driver.
She had a sudden morbid vision of herself as Miss Havisham - Miss HavishPam, Michael would have said - as if he would ever get that reference in a million years - moldering away waiting for the wedding that passed her by years ago, still clutching her frost-limed bouquet, in a room doilied up with spidersilk cobwebs, shuttered tight against life and light, and Pam shuddered, wondering how long she could afford to wait.
Title: A Mile In Your Shoes
Author: arby_m
Pairing: Jim/Pam, Roy/Pam, Jim/Karen
Rating: PG
Spoilers: For Phyllis's Wedding.
Warnings: Angsty angst - happy belated V-Day!
Length: ~1000 words
Disclaimer: Fictional characters used without intent of copyright infringement.
Summary: What Pam was thinking at the end of Phyllis's Wedding, and what happened after.
Feedback: is ♥
x-posted to MTT
Pam watched as Jim danced with that girl. He was a full head taller than she - they look like they're in junior high, for Chrissakes. That was uncharitable of her, she knew, but she really wasn’t in the mood to throw Karen any more rope. Already it inexplicably looked like she wasn’t going to hang herself with it. Pam felt a leaden weight of hopelessness settling in her stomach like leftover wedding cake, and stared at Jim morosely, willing him to stop this nonsense and get with the program already.
She knew she was getting way too intense - inappropriately so, even - but she couldn’t help it.
I can’t pretend I don’t care anymore. I can’t go back to the way things used to be.
(Resolutely ignoring the small, still voice saying, sound familiar?)
The couple had rotated so that Jim was facing towards her, and he glanced over to where she sat. She had sort of left her stare on him as she thought, and she came to herself in time to catch the tail end of his reaction. He looked startled, almost shocked, and a slight flush came to his cheeks.
Pam felt sick. Her heart beat wildly in her throat like a startled bird. She looked away, but the damage had been done. Suddenly she hated herself for being so pathetic. She couldn’t just sit there, mooning over him like some kind of loser.
Like the way he used to do over you?
This time the voice in her head was stronger, but no less matter-of-fact. She was so busy mulling over the repercussions of what it said that she didn’t notice at first who sat down next to her.
Roy. A mental eye-roll accompanied this realization.
He was looking pretty good, actually - he seemed to have done something different with himself since they split, though it was still just yesterday’s fish wrapped in today’s newspaper - but she eyed him with indifference.
He was gazing at her like she was the last drop of water in a desert. A selfish part of her reveled in that look, in that feeling of being so wanted.
Jim used to look at me that way. Like he couldn’t get enough of me.
So when Roy started with the stupid small talk, she let him go on, and when he asked her to dance it was a relief, that someone was doing something, even if it was the wrong person at the right time. She made him take her outside where no one would see them, like he was her secret shame.
He was comfortable as a cast-off old pair of slippers, and he didn’t talk, which allowed her to go on thinking about Jim, the sore tooth she couldn’t help pressing. She replayed the conversation by the bar, taking it apart, looking for clues that Jim was still into her. Maddeningly, she couldn’t really find any. She’d been the one who was flirting, he’d merely smiled and answered with a hint of his old teasing. There’d been a ghostly remnant of affection there, that was all.
She wanted to hit something, but not being a man that was impossible, so instead she let Roy kiss her. It meant nothing, she felt nothing; there was a dried-out husk where her heart should be. Jim was with Karen now - Pam had spurned him, then changed her mind but cravenly waited too long for any self-respecting man to come crawling back. She couldn’t blame him in the slightest, that was the worst thing about it. When she looked back at it now, it was so obvious, how she’d left him no choice.
The lurking sickness in her gut rose until it became a hand, beating at her mouth to get out. She broke away from Roy and puked wretchedly in the parking lot, wrenching, awful; a punishment she knew she deserved. Roy knelt quietly beside her and held her hair, for which she was grateful and resentfully ashamed at the same time. He didn't even make fun of her for barfing. For him, this passed as gentlemanly behavior.
Finally it was over. Grimly she wiped her mouth and said to Roy without looking at him, “Can you give me a ride home?”
“Sure,” he replied, quiet - seeming humbled, for once. The inside of the truck echoed with his self-conscious silence - of all he’d left unsaid, of whatever it was he thought he could do to win her back. She didn’t feel the need to lighten that load for him in the slightest. She was who she was, and he didn’t get her at all, had never gotten her, really, not in any way that mattered. Her throat ached as if in premonition of the sobs she’d be choking back as soon as she was alone. Her mouth tasted as sour and horrible as you’d expect. It's weird; I'm not even that drunk.
Not a moment too soon, they arrived at her front door. Getting out of the truck, she ignored Roy’s longing looks and said, “Thanks,” as casually and dismissively as possible. She left it at that. Already she’d given him too much hope by letting him kiss her, in a moment of weakness.
Be strong, Beesley, she thought to herself, and half-laughed derisively at the Jim-voice in her head.
Shut it, Halpert.
But even a phantom Jim was better than the real Roy, so she waved at the latter and turned to unlock her front door, the gateway to her Fancy New Life, alone and yet not-quite-lonely. Put it this way - she wasn’t holding her breath for one of Ryan’s BS friends to ride up in a shining white Mercedes and rescue her. A lame old Corolla would do just fine, with the right driver.
She had a sudden morbid vision of herself as Miss Havisham - Miss HavishPam, Michael would have said - as if he would ever get that reference in a million years - moldering away waiting for the wedding that passed her by years ago, still clutching her frost-limed bouquet, in a room doilied up with spidersilk cobwebs, shuttered tight against life and light, and Pam shuddered, wondering how long she could afford to wait.