the brave soul (Pam)
Feb. 16th, 2007 09:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dollsomeTitle: the brave soul
Character/Pairings: Pam; Jim/Pam, Pam/Toby, Pam/Roy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,551
Spoilers: "Business School"
Summary: There are certain paintings she leaves out. She doesn't like looking at them; they feel like accidents more than anything else.
Author's Note: This last episode reminded me exactly why and how much I love a certain Miss Pamela Beesly -- I'm in awe of how realistically and poignantly her character is being handled this season. After all of the Jim trauma, it's more than understandable that her Fancy New Beesly demeanor would regress, but with that comment from Gil (who had LINES!!), which, painful as it was, she needed to hear, I think we might just see the show bringing Fancy New Beesly back. Which pleases me so much that I'm apparently moved to make really lame Justin Timberlake references.
Um. Fic now. Riiiiiight.
"And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul."
"What do you mean the courageous soul?"
"Courageous, ma foi! The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."
-Kate Chopin, The Awakening
There are certain paintings she leaves out. The still life of the teapot, just in case, and the one of her blue dress crumpled on the floor that she’d felt oddly possessed to paint the week after she broke up with Roy. She doesn’t like looking at them; they feel like accidents more than anything else.
They don’t come with a clever explanation or fit into a specific set; they just exist because, and it’s messy and not-quite-perfect with slightly off-kilter angles and the colors either too airy or too cruel, and she just doesn’t think that’s the sort of thing that anyone’s going to want to see, especially from her. There’s nothing professional about them, and isn’t the point of all this to prove that she’s finally a grown-up?
So it makes sense.
-
She and Jim used to have this game, where he’d give her fake art commissions and she’d sketch them at her desk instead of working. He’d come up with the dorkiest stuff – “A unicorn in a field of flowers” or “Dwight’s grandma” or “Michael’s perfect woman” – and then he’d pay her in boxes of paperclips or candy bars from the vending machine.
They weren’t brilliant or anything – they weren’t even okay most of the time – but he’d always get so excited about it that she got used to holding back smiles as she drew, pencil moving in brisk, cheerful strokes over the backs of old memos.
And they definitely weren’t masterpieces (just something silly to pass the time), but they made him happy and she always really liked the way his face would light up.
“No, this is her. This right here is Grandma Schrute.” And this is where he’d meet her eyes and smile. “Okay, you’re officially so good it’s scary.”
Which is the sort of thing that really made her think she could do this in the first place.
-
Oscar doesn’t actually run into her until later, when he’s about to leave and she’s coming back from the bathroom. The lump in her throat is gone and her hands aren’t shaking too bad anymore, but the sight of him is enough to set something loose in her, a feeling that’s sick and sad and numb and wastes no time in sinking deep into her bones. He catches her eye before she can turn and head in the other direction, and it only takes a second for him to point her out to the guy with him and head over.
“Hey, Pam!”
She forces a smile. It’s something she’s gotten good at. “You came!”
“Yeah,” he affirms pleasantly, like he hadn’t just completely torn down everything about her twenty minutes ago.
“Thank you so much,” she says, the words spilling out of her mouth effortlessly. “It’s so great of you to give up your evening like this.”
“No problem,” Oscar assures her. “We didn’t have anything else going on.” He turns and rests a hand briefly the other guy’s forearm. “This is Gil.”
“Nice to meet you.” She feels like a bad actress in a play, where sentences are nothing more than lines and the emotion wouldn’t be there if you bothered to search beneath the surface.
“You too,” Gil says, perfectly nice, and shakes her hand like it’s nothing. People are such liars, she thinks. “Hey, Oscar tells me this is your first art show.”
She stumbles over her words for a second: here it is, the awful truth. “Um – yeah. Yeah, it is.”
She waits for the snide comment, the biting, irresistible request that she never pick up a paintbrush again. Instead, he just smiles and says, “Congratulations.”
She can’t quite tell whether she’s relieved or disappointed. “Thank you.”
“So, has anyone else from work shown up?” Oscar asks, glancing around.
“No,” Pam says, keeping her tone carefully neutral. “But I get why. I mean, it was really last minute.”
“They’re missing out,” Oscar says gallantly. “Your stuff was really nice.”
“A respectable first try,” Gil agrees with an approving nod.
Well, she doesn’t say (but kind of wants to), It’s not exactly van Gogh.
“It was great,” Oscar assures her. She’s never really thought of him as kind before – just very beleaguered and sort of there (barring all three month escapes to Europe) – and she thinks maybe she should be grateful. Maybe she is, even; it’s just that she can’t quite place the feeling. “Don’t listen to anything he says,” he continues, bright and casual but tinged with the faintest touch of mercy or – God, she hopes not – pity. “He’s an art snob.”
“He’s just bitter because he can’t even manage a successful stick figure,” Gil retorts, smiling slightly at her like the two of them are supposed to be in on the joke together. She laughs like she’s supposed to; it sounds natural, more or less, and she wonders when she got so good at this.
“Seriously,” Oscar says, reaching forward to press his hand briefly against her forearm. “Congratulations, Pam.”
She meets his eyes and smiles and the thought strikes her that this would have been enough to light up her night, otherwise – she’s pretty good at getting by on what she can. If only she’d come over twenty seconds later.
“Thanks again,” she says warmly. “I really appreciate it.”
-
“Pam, that’s so cute!” Kelly gushes, one magenta fingernail reaching up to trace the lines of the building. “It totally looks just like here! Except tiny!”
“Thanks, Kelly,” Pam replies, trying not to sound too weary.
“Michael was so right,” she declares, pulling her hand back and surveying the painting again. “You’re sooo talented.”
“Thank you,” Pam says, forcing a smile. “That’s really sweet.”
“I totally can’t paint at all,” Kelly continues wistfully. “Except, like, my fingernails.”
“Of course,” Pam says with a nod.
“Listen, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.” Kelly says solemnly, reaching over and encircling Pam’s wrist with her fingers. “It’s just that I had this thing, and I really couldn’t get out of it, even though I was totally all, ‘God, I have to go to my friend’s art show!’, but then the thing was all important and—”
“That’s okay, Kelly,” Pam interjects as patiently as she can. “I don’t mind that you weren’t there.”
Kelly’s eyes widen hopefully. “So you don’t totally hate me?”
“Of course not,” Pam says. She hopes she doesn’t sound as tired as she feels.
“Yay!” Kelly throws her arms around her. “Oh, Pam, I’m so glad we’re friends.”
Pam pats her on the back awkwardly. “Yeah, me too.”
When Kelly pulls away, she’s smiling all slyly. Which really can’t bode well. “Did Roy go?”
“For a little while,” Pam says and smiles back – mostly because she wouldn’t put it past Kelly to get suspicious if she didn’t.
Kelly beams approvingly. “He so loves you. Did he say your paintings were totally pretty?”
“The prettiest,” Pam confirms, and tries to sound enthusiastic. It’s just that they’re right by Jim’s desk, which makes things sort of awkward.
“That’s so cute,” Kelly sighs. “I wish I could paint so Ryan would say my paintings were the prettiest.”
“Yeah, that’s not . . . really why I—”
Apparently it’s not all that important, though, because it takes like half a second for Kelly to jump to something else entirely. “Okay, I have a question, though.”
Pam thinks she should possibly be afraid. “Yep?”
“Why don’t you paint anything pretty?”
The question throws her, and she’s not sure why. “What?”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, the paintings are pretty – sooo pretty, Pam, seriously – but, like . . . Dunder Mifflin? If I could paint, I’d totally paint flowers and fairies and princesses and rainbows and baby Suri and . . . you know. Pretty stuff that makes me happy.” She shrugs.
Pam doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say to that – mostly because, once you get past all the fairies and princesses and TomKat offspring, it’s more or less honesty and courage versus motel art all over again.
“I guess I’m sort of used to painting the things I see all the time,” she finally replies lamely.
“Huh.” Kelly muses over it for a second. “Well, maybe sometime you should just go totally crazy and paint, like, a fairy princess or something.”
Pam bites her lower lip absently.
“Maybe,” she agrees after a moment.
“I think it would be –” Kelly’s gaze flies away from her in mid-sentence, and excitement immediately lights her features. “Ooh, Ryan’s coming out of the bathroom! Finally. He’s been in there for like forty-five minutes. Oh, God, Pam, I’m so glad we’re sitting together now, I can’t even talk about it, seriously. I can’t even – God, he looks so cute. I just want to go and hug him right now in front of everyone. I totally have to go hug him, even if it is in front of everybody. Okay, later!”
She’s across the room before Ryan even has the chance to sit back down at his desk, which leaves Pam standing by herself. After a moment, feeling almost timid, she glances back up at the painting. She doesn’t really look at her work a whole lot. She’s always figured that that’s what the other people are for.
The parking lot looks really sunny, she decides.
“This yours?”
Pam looks over to see Creed eyeing the painting with mild interest.
“Um, yeah,” she says awkwardly. She’s not sure whether she should be proud.
“Nice,” Creed declares, nodding slightly and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Now where’s this supposed to be, exactly?”
-
Toby comes into the break room just as she’s leaving. “Hey, I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it.”
He sounds so genuinely apologetic (especially after Kelly) that she can’t help but smile. “That’s okay.”
He glances at her over his shoulder as he starts feeding quarters to the vending machine. “How’d it go?”
She reaches absently for her necklace, her thumb grazing lightly against the cold silver. “It was . . .”
Great. Good. Fine. Okay. They’re all on her tongue and it should just be a matter of picking one. It’s simple.
Toby turns around to look at her, his features creasing slightly with what she thinks might be concern, and suddenly it just really seems like if you’re going to tell anyone the truth, it might as well be the HR guy.
“You were probably better off going to Sasha’s play,” she admits with a sigh.
He frowns slightly. “Was it really that bad?”
She attempts a smile, but it fades into a grimace pretty fast and she doesn’t really feel like hiding anymore. “It wasn’t great.”
He puts his hands into his pockets sort of uncomfortably, and it strikes her that he seems kind of nervous. “You wanna talk about it?”
Something about this surprises her. “Really?”
“Well, it is sort of my job,” he points out, and shrugs.
And for a second, it seems like a really good idea: he’s staring at her like he actually cares, even though they barely know each other, and she knows that he’s good at his job and something about being here with him even now makes everything seem a little less hard.
But the thing is, it only takes another second for her to realize that she doesn’t know how to say what’s wrong, and he’ll think it’s silly and stupid for her to get so worked up about nobody coming and Oscar and Gil saying those things and Roy just not getting it, and saying it out loud would make everything too real anyway. Maybe she really just isn’t good at this, and maybe Toby’s too sweet to lie to her – maybe seeing the painting in the office was enough to make him figure out she’s talentless (because Michael might be uncommonly wonderful sometimes, but even she can’t make herself believe that he actually has good taste) and maybe he’ll just let her know really gently that this isn’t what she’s cut out for, and that she should just give up all the stupid things she dreams about because reality’s doing a good job of making it really, really clear that none of them are going to happen, and sometimes giving up isn’t a bad thing so much as it is very, very smart.
Toby’s still looking at her, in this way that’s soft somehow (which doesn’t really make any sense, but does anything?), and it’s initiative enough for her to make her decision.
“Um, no, that’s okay,” she tells him. “I mean, it was sort of a crappy night, but it was just my first show, right? It’ll get better.”
“Yeah,” Toby agrees after a moment. “Yeah, I’m sure it will.”
His face sort of falls, and she doesn’t get why. Maybe she’s even more hopeless than she realizes.
“Thanks, though,” she says. “For offering.”
“Of course,” Toby responds. He seems almost desperately genuine. “Anytime you want to . . . – just . . . any time, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees awkwardly.
He smiles, but it’s forced and doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes, and brushes past her as he heads out of the break room. The vending machine’s still blinking.
“Hey, uh, Toby?” she calls after him.
He leans his head back through the door right away. “Yeah?”
“You forgot to get your candy bar,” she says, gesturing lamely toward the vending machine.
“Oh,” he says almost sadly. “Right. Thanks.”
She slips out of the break room just as he heads back in, and when she turns to look back at him for no particular reason, he still hasn’t picked anything – he’s just standing there. She kinda knows the feeling.
-
She’s supposed to meet Roy after work so they can go grab dinner, but she winds up staying about a half hour late. She organizes her desk and then Michael’s office, just to be thorough, and there’s still a restlessness that she can’t shake. Something feels unfinished.
At a little after five thirty she shuts down her computer and turns off all of the lights, then slips into the bathroom to freshen up her makeup before she heads down to the warehouse. She hates how dead she looks under the fluorescent lights, and wishes all of a sudden that she actually owned a lipstick that was more than a shade or two away from clear.
When she comes back out into the office, Jim’s standing by what’s technically Ryan’s old desk. He’s staring at the painting. It’s too dark to make out his features.
“Hey,” she says after a moment, not much louder than a whisper.
He looks over at her, surprised. “Hey.”
She’s still not used to it being quiet like this between them.
After a moment she asks, “Why are you standing in the dark?”
“Well, I am a vampire now,” he points out matter-of-factly. His voice is low and warm and familiar and it hits her all over again, the way she’d thought things would turn out and the way that they have.
She tries to smile. “Oh. Right.”
“Plus,” he adds, “I forgot a CD.”
“Oh,” she says lamely. “Well, then it’s a good thing you came to pick it up, I guess.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, and exhales steeply.
She guesses that means the conversation’s over, and that she should just head over to her desk and grab her purse and take off, but she can’t shake the stupid feeling that even one step would be a disruption of something she can’t even figure out or define.
“Hey,” he says all of a sudden, softer. “Nice work, Beesly.”
He shifts his gaze back to the painting.
Embarrassment swells up in her. “You don’t have to say that.”
“No, seriously,” he insists. “Granted, it’s not a unicorn in a field of flowers, but still. Impressive nonetheless.”
“It’s just the building,” she protests faintly, mostly because there’s a smile threatening the corners of her mouth and if there’s one thing she knows, it’s that it’s not smart to fall into this again.
He shrugs. “You gotta start somewhere. Not to mention,” he adds, and turns to smile at her, “that you’ve now officially topped the Mona Lisa in Michael’s book.”
She can’t help smiling back. “Oh, big ‘go me’ there.”
“Absolutely,” he confirms, and when he laughs just a little, the sound is low and sure. She crosses her arms in front of her chest.
“Hey,” he says after a moment, his voice turning serious, “I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it.”
Her eyes are stinging all at once and she just wants to shut them – click her heels, maybe, and there’s no place like home herself right out of this, except who’s to say she wouldn’t wind up right back here? It’s just that it seems all too likely sometimes.
“That’s okay,” she says. At least her voice doesn’t shake. “That’s . . . totally fine. You probably had plans. And it was really late notice, and . . . it’s fine. It’s fine,” she says again, shaking her head slightly.
Jim doesn’t say anything back – just stares at her. They aren’t quite standing in the right places, but it’s close enough, with the dark and the two of them alone here and that look on his face. Most of the time, she thinks she can’t really remember what it was like to kiss him (it was too fast and too soon; all terror and bliss colliding or maybe entwining and it would have been so easy to just forget and invent something else, something better).
She doesn’t know when she got so good at lying to herself. Maybe she’s always been.
“I’m really glad you’re doing this,” he finally says. “The art classes.”
She wants to tell him that she doesn’t know whether it’s worth it, that she doesn’t know how to be brave, to make the right kinds of sacrifices. She doesn’t know how to be honest where it counts, and maybe he doesn’t either.
“Me too,” she says.
His mouth quirks up in a tired half-smile. “’Night, Pam.”
“’Night,” she echoes, and watches him go.
-
Roy’s stretched out on her couch chuckling at a rerun of That 70s Show, and she’s sitting in the faded secondhand armchair with her sketchbook open in her lap. He mutes the TV when the commercials come on. It’s raining out and the window’s a little bit open; she likes the way it sounds.
“Hey, babe, are you sure you don’t wanna come sit with me?”
“No, I want to get some drawing done.”
“’kay,” he agrees easily. “If you’re sure.”
They sink into familiar silence, and she frowns at the blank page in front of her. The pencil feels awkward in her hand.
“Hey, Roy?” she asks, almost by accident.
“Yeah?” He twists his neck uncomfortably to look at her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to him being this attentive.
“Which one of my paintings did you like the best?”
His eyebrows furrow slightly. “What?”
“At the art show,” she persists. “Which one of my paintings did you like the best?”
“I liked all of them,” he announces after a thoughtful second, like it’s a trick question and he knows he’s answering right. “They were all really amazing.”
She idly twists a lock of hair around her finger. “Why?”
“They looked real,” he says. “All three-dimensional and stuff. It’s pretty cool that you know how to do that.”
“What did they feel like?” She feels guilty asking – she knows it’s not fair to him – but she can’t help it.
“I dunno,” he says blankly. “Paper?”
She pulls her finger back, lets the lock of hair swiftly unravel. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I dunno,” he says again, and then – “They felt like you.”
Her heartbeat quickens all at once. If even he can see that – “Really?”
“Well, yeah,” he says, sounding surprised that she has to ask. “You painted them.”
“Oh,” she says softly. It’s a relief, in a way.
Still, the blank page seems to mock her; she traces empty designs against it with her pointer finger.
“You okay, babe?” Roy asks, and the fact that there’s genuine concern in his voice makes it worse.
“Yeah,” she says as lightly as she can. “Don’t worry about it.”
He dozes off before King of Queens starts, and there’s something comical about the sight of him scrunched onto her tiny garage sale sofa with little pink flowers all over it. He doesn’t look right here. That might have been on purpose originally, back when she still felt like she needed to escape from him.
His feet are propped up on the far arm of the couch, one ankle crossed over the other, obscuring the view of the window. There’s a hole in the big toe of his right sock. The curtains are a filmy white, and the wind turns them ghostlike and graceful. It’s too dark to see the rain outside.
With one decisive pencil stroke, she captures the curve of Roy’s right foot. The windowsill comes next, then the challenge of the curtains – drifting faintly back and forth, never pausing to fall still. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or why. She doesn’t bother considering it; she’s sick of having to stop.
Character/Pairings: Pam; Jim/Pam, Pam/Toby, Pam/Roy
Rating: PG
Word Count: 3,551
Spoilers: "Business School"
Summary: There are certain paintings she leaves out. She doesn't like looking at them; they feel like accidents more than anything else.
Author's Note: This last episode reminded me exactly why and how much I love a certain Miss Pamela Beesly -- I'm in awe of how realistically and poignantly her character is being handled this season. After all of the Jim trauma, it's more than understandable that her Fancy New Beesly demeanor would regress, but with that comment from Gil (who had LINES!!), which, painful as it was, she needed to hear, I think we might just see the show bringing Fancy New Beesly back. Which pleases me so much that I'm apparently moved to make really lame Justin Timberlake references.
Um. Fic now. Riiiiiight.
"And, moreover, to succeed, the artist must possess the courageous soul."
"What do you mean the courageous soul?"
"Courageous, ma foi! The brave soul. The soul that dares and defies."
-Kate Chopin, The Awakening
There are certain paintings she leaves out. The still life of the teapot, just in case, and the one of her blue dress crumpled on the floor that she’d felt oddly possessed to paint the week after she broke up with Roy. She doesn’t like looking at them; they feel like accidents more than anything else.
They don’t come with a clever explanation or fit into a specific set; they just exist because, and it’s messy and not-quite-perfect with slightly off-kilter angles and the colors either too airy or too cruel, and she just doesn’t think that’s the sort of thing that anyone’s going to want to see, especially from her. There’s nothing professional about them, and isn’t the point of all this to prove that she’s finally a grown-up?
So it makes sense.
-
She and Jim used to have this game, where he’d give her fake art commissions and she’d sketch them at her desk instead of working. He’d come up with the dorkiest stuff – “A unicorn in a field of flowers” or “Dwight’s grandma” or “Michael’s perfect woman” – and then he’d pay her in boxes of paperclips or candy bars from the vending machine.
They weren’t brilliant or anything – they weren’t even okay most of the time – but he’d always get so excited about it that she got used to holding back smiles as she drew, pencil moving in brisk, cheerful strokes over the backs of old memos.
And they definitely weren’t masterpieces (just something silly to pass the time), but they made him happy and she always really liked the way his face would light up.
“No, this is her. This right here is Grandma Schrute.” And this is where he’d meet her eyes and smile. “Okay, you’re officially so good it’s scary.”
Which is the sort of thing that really made her think she could do this in the first place.
-
Oscar doesn’t actually run into her until later, when he’s about to leave and she’s coming back from the bathroom. The lump in her throat is gone and her hands aren’t shaking too bad anymore, but the sight of him is enough to set something loose in her, a feeling that’s sick and sad and numb and wastes no time in sinking deep into her bones. He catches her eye before she can turn and head in the other direction, and it only takes a second for him to point her out to the guy with him and head over.
“Hey, Pam!”
She forces a smile. It’s something she’s gotten good at. “You came!”
“Yeah,” he affirms pleasantly, like he hadn’t just completely torn down everything about her twenty minutes ago.
“Thank you so much,” she says, the words spilling out of her mouth effortlessly. “It’s so great of you to give up your evening like this.”
“No problem,” Oscar assures her. “We didn’t have anything else going on.” He turns and rests a hand briefly the other guy’s forearm. “This is Gil.”
“Nice to meet you.” She feels like a bad actress in a play, where sentences are nothing more than lines and the emotion wouldn’t be there if you bothered to search beneath the surface.
“You too,” Gil says, perfectly nice, and shakes her hand like it’s nothing. People are such liars, she thinks. “Hey, Oscar tells me this is your first art show.”
She stumbles over her words for a second: here it is, the awful truth. “Um – yeah. Yeah, it is.”
She waits for the snide comment, the biting, irresistible request that she never pick up a paintbrush again. Instead, he just smiles and says, “Congratulations.”
She can’t quite tell whether she’s relieved or disappointed. “Thank you.”
“So, has anyone else from work shown up?” Oscar asks, glancing around.
“No,” Pam says, keeping her tone carefully neutral. “But I get why. I mean, it was really last minute.”
“They’re missing out,” Oscar says gallantly. “Your stuff was really nice.”
“A respectable first try,” Gil agrees with an approving nod.
Well, she doesn’t say (but kind of wants to), It’s not exactly van Gogh.
“It was great,” Oscar assures her. She’s never really thought of him as kind before – just very beleaguered and sort of there (barring all three month escapes to Europe) – and she thinks maybe she should be grateful. Maybe she is, even; it’s just that she can’t quite place the feeling. “Don’t listen to anything he says,” he continues, bright and casual but tinged with the faintest touch of mercy or – God, she hopes not – pity. “He’s an art snob.”
“He’s just bitter because he can’t even manage a successful stick figure,” Gil retorts, smiling slightly at her like the two of them are supposed to be in on the joke together. She laughs like she’s supposed to; it sounds natural, more or less, and she wonders when she got so good at this.
“Seriously,” Oscar says, reaching forward to press his hand briefly against her forearm. “Congratulations, Pam.”
She meets his eyes and smiles and the thought strikes her that this would have been enough to light up her night, otherwise – she’s pretty good at getting by on what she can. If only she’d come over twenty seconds later.
“Thanks again,” she says warmly. “I really appreciate it.”
-
“Pam, that’s so cute!” Kelly gushes, one magenta fingernail reaching up to trace the lines of the building. “It totally looks just like here! Except tiny!”
“Thanks, Kelly,” Pam replies, trying not to sound too weary.
“Michael was so right,” she declares, pulling her hand back and surveying the painting again. “You’re sooo talented.”
“Thank you,” Pam says, forcing a smile. “That’s really sweet.”
“I totally can’t paint at all,” Kelly continues wistfully. “Except, like, my fingernails.”
“Of course,” Pam says with a nod.
“Listen, I’m sorry I couldn’t make it.” Kelly says solemnly, reaching over and encircling Pam’s wrist with her fingers. “It’s just that I had this thing, and I really couldn’t get out of it, even though I was totally all, ‘God, I have to go to my friend’s art show!’, but then the thing was all important and—”
“That’s okay, Kelly,” Pam interjects as patiently as she can. “I don’t mind that you weren’t there.”
Kelly’s eyes widen hopefully. “So you don’t totally hate me?”
“Of course not,” Pam says. She hopes she doesn’t sound as tired as she feels.
“Yay!” Kelly throws her arms around her. “Oh, Pam, I’m so glad we’re friends.”
Pam pats her on the back awkwardly. “Yeah, me too.”
When Kelly pulls away, she’s smiling all slyly. Which really can’t bode well. “Did Roy go?”
“For a little while,” Pam says and smiles back – mostly because she wouldn’t put it past Kelly to get suspicious if she didn’t.
Kelly beams approvingly. “He so loves you. Did he say your paintings were totally pretty?”
“The prettiest,” Pam confirms, and tries to sound enthusiastic. It’s just that they’re right by Jim’s desk, which makes things sort of awkward.
“That’s so cute,” Kelly sighs. “I wish I could paint so Ryan would say my paintings were the prettiest.”
“Yeah, that’s not . . . really why I—”
Apparently it’s not all that important, though, because it takes like half a second for Kelly to jump to something else entirely. “Okay, I have a question, though.”
Pam thinks she should possibly be afraid. “Yep?”
“Why don’t you paint anything pretty?”
The question throws her, and she’s not sure why. “What?”
“I mean, don’t get me wrong, the paintings are pretty – sooo pretty, Pam, seriously – but, like . . . Dunder Mifflin? If I could paint, I’d totally paint flowers and fairies and princesses and rainbows and baby Suri and . . . you know. Pretty stuff that makes me happy.” She shrugs.
Pam doesn’t know what she’s supposed to say to that – mostly because, once you get past all the fairies and princesses and TomKat offspring, it’s more or less honesty and courage versus motel art all over again.
“I guess I’m sort of used to painting the things I see all the time,” she finally replies lamely.
“Huh.” Kelly muses over it for a second. “Well, maybe sometime you should just go totally crazy and paint, like, a fairy princess or something.”
Pam bites her lower lip absently.
“Maybe,” she agrees after a moment.
“I think it would be –” Kelly’s gaze flies away from her in mid-sentence, and excitement immediately lights her features. “Ooh, Ryan’s coming out of the bathroom! Finally. He’s been in there for like forty-five minutes. Oh, God, Pam, I’m so glad we’re sitting together now, I can’t even talk about it, seriously. I can’t even – God, he looks so cute. I just want to go and hug him right now in front of everyone. I totally have to go hug him, even if it is in front of everybody. Okay, later!”
She’s across the room before Ryan even has the chance to sit back down at his desk, which leaves Pam standing by herself. After a moment, feeling almost timid, she glances back up at the painting. She doesn’t really look at her work a whole lot. She’s always figured that that’s what the other people are for.
The parking lot looks really sunny, she decides.
“This yours?”
Pam looks over to see Creed eyeing the painting with mild interest.
“Um, yeah,” she says awkwardly. She’s not sure whether she should be proud.
“Nice,” Creed declares, nodding slightly and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Now where’s this supposed to be, exactly?”
-
Toby comes into the break room just as she’s leaving. “Hey, I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it.”
He sounds so genuinely apologetic (especially after Kelly) that she can’t help but smile. “That’s okay.”
He glances at her over his shoulder as he starts feeding quarters to the vending machine. “How’d it go?”
She reaches absently for her necklace, her thumb grazing lightly against the cold silver. “It was . . .”
Great. Good. Fine. Okay. They’re all on her tongue and it should just be a matter of picking one. It’s simple.
Toby turns around to look at her, his features creasing slightly with what she thinks might be concern, and suddenly it just really seems like if you’re going to tell anyone the truth, it might as well be the HR guy.
“You were probably better off going to Sasha’s play,” she admits with a sigh.
He frowns slightly. “Was it really that bad?”
She attempts a smile, but it fades into a grimace pretty fast and she doesn’t really feel like hiding anymore. “It wasn’t great.”
He puts his hands into his pockets sort of uncomfortably, and it strikes her that he seems kind of nervous. “You wanna talk about it?”
Something about this surprises her. “Really?”
“Well, it is sort of my job,” he points out, and shrugs.
And for a second, it seems like a really good idea: he’s staring at her like he actually cares, even though they barely know each other, and she knows that he’s good at his job and something about being here with him even now makes everything seem a little less hard.
But the thing is, it only takes another second for her to realize that she doesn’t know how to say what’s wrong, and he’ll think it’s silly and stupid for her to get so worked up about nobody coming and Oscar and Gil saying those things and Roy just not getting it, and saying it out loud would make everything too real anyway. Maybe she really just isn’t good at this, and maybe Toby’s too sweet to lie to her – maybe seeing the painting in the office was enough to make him figure out she’s talentless (because Michael might be uncommonly wonderful sometimes, but even she can’t make herself believe that he actually has good taste) and maybe he’ll just let her know really gently that this isn’t what she’s cut out for, and that she should just give up all the stupid things she dreams about because reality’s doing a good job of making it really, really clear that none of them are going to happen, and sometimes giving up isn’t a bad thing so much as it is very, very smart.
Toby’s still looking at her, in this way that’s soft somehow (which doesn’t really make any sense, but does anything?), and it’s initiative enough for her to make her decision.
“Um, no, that’s okay,” she tells him. “I mean, it was sort of a crappy night, but it was just my first show, right? It’ll get better.”
“Yeah,” Toby agrees after a moment. “Yeah, I’m sure it will.”
His face sort of falls, and she doesn’t get why. Maybe she’s even more hopeless than she realizes.
“Thanks, though,” she says. “For offering.”
“Of course,” Toby responds. He seems almost desperately genuine. “Anytime you want to . . . – just . . . any time, okay?”
“Okay,” she agrees awkwardly.
He smiles, but it’s forced and doesn’t come close to reaching his eyes, and brushes past her as he heads out of the break room. The vending machine’s still blinking.
“Hey, uh, Toby?” she calls after him.
He leans his head back through the door right away. “Yeah?”
“You forgot to get your candy bar,” she says, gesturing lamely toward the vending machine.
“Oh,” he says almost sadly. “Right. Thanks.”
She slips out of the break room just as he heads back in, and when she turns to look back at him for no particular reason, he still hasn’t picked anything – he’s just standing there. She kinda knows the feeling.
-
She’s supposed to meet Roy after work so they can go grab dinner, but she winds up staying about a half hour late. She organizes her desk and then Michael’s office, just to be thorough, and there’s still a restlessness that she can’t shake. Something feels unfinished.
At a little after five thirty she shuts down her computer and turns off all of the lights, then slips into the bathroom to freshen up her makeup before she heads down to the warehouse. She hates how dead she looks under the fluorescent lights, and wishes all of a sudden that she actually owned a lipstick that was more than a shade or two away from clear.
When she comes back out into the office, Jim’s standing by what’s technically Ryan’s old desk. He’s staring at the painting. It’s too dark to make out his features.
“Hey,” she says after a moment, not much louder than a whisper.
He looks over at her, surprised. “Hey.”
She’s still not used to it being quiet like this between them.
After a moment she asks, “Why are you standing in the dark?”
“Well, I am a vampire now,” he points out matter-of-factly. His voice is low and warm and familiar and it hits her all over again, the way she’d thought things would turn out and the way that they have.
She tries to smile. “Oh. Right.”
“Plus,” he adds, “I forgot a CD.”
“Oh,” she says lamely. “Well, then it’s a good thing you came to pick it up, I guess.”
“Yeah,” he agrees, and exhales steeply.
She guesses that means the conversation’s over, and that she should just head over to her desk and grab her purse and take off, but she can’t shake the stupid feeling that even one step would be a disruption of something she can’t even figure out or define.
“Hey,” he says all of a sudden, softer. “Nice work, Beesly.”
He shifts his gaze back to the painting.
Embarrassment swells up in her. “You don’t have to say that.”
“No, seriously,” he insists. “Granted, it’s not a unicorn in a field of flowers, but still. Impressive nonetheless.”
“It’s just the building,” she protests faintly, mostly because there’s a smile threatening the corners of her mouth and if there’s one thing she knows, it’s that it’s not smart to fall into this again.
He shrugs. “You gotta start somewhere. Not to mention,” he adds, and turns to smile at her, “that you’ve now officially topped the Mona Lisa in Michael’s book.”
She can’t help smiling back. “Oh, big ‘go me’ there.”
“Absolutely,” he confirms, and when he laughs just a little, the sound is low and sure. She crosses her arms in front of her chest.
“Hey,” he says after a moment, his voice turning serious, “I’m really sorry I couldn’t make it.”
Her eyes are stinging all at once and she just wants to shut them – click her heels, maybe, and there’s no place like home herself right out of this, except who’s to say she wouldn’t wind up right back here? It’s just that it seems all too likely sometimes.
“That’s okay,” she says. At least her voice doesn’t shake. “That’s . . . totally fine. You probably had plans. And it was really late notice, and . . . it’s fine. It’s fine,” she says again, shaking her head slightly.
Jim doesn’t say anything back – just stares at her. They aren’t quite standing in the right places, but it’s close enough, with the dark and the two of them alone here and that look on his face. Most of the time, she thinks she can’t really remember what it was like to kiss him (it was too fast and too soon; all terror and bliss colliding or maybe entwining and it would have been so easy to just forget and invent something else, something better).
She doesn’t know when she got so good at lying to herself. Maybe she’s always been.
“I’m really glad you’re doing this,” he finally says. “The art classes.”
She wants to tell him that she doesn’t know whether it’s worth it, that she doesn’t know how to be brave, to make the right kinds of sacrifices. She doesn’t know how to be honest where it counts, and maybe he doesn’t either.
“Me too,” she says.
His mouth quirks up in a tired half-smile. “’Night, Pam.”
“’Night,” she echoes, and watches him go.
-
Roy’s stretched out on her couch chuckling at a rerun of That 70s Show, and she’s sitting in the faded secondhand armchair with her sketchbook open in her lap. He mutes the TV when the commercials come on. It’s raining out and the window’s a little bit open; she likes the way it sounds.
“Hey, babe, are you sure you don’t wanna come sit with me?”
“No, I want to get some drawing done.”
“’kay,” he agrees easily. “If you’re sure.”
They sink into familiar silence, and she frowns at the blank page in front of her. The pencil feels awkward in her hand.
“Hey, Roy?” she asks, almost by accident.
“Yeah?” He twists his neck uncomfortably to look at her. She doesn’t think she’ll ever be used to him being this attentive.
“Which one of my paintings did you like the best?”
His eyebrows furrow slightly. “What?”
“At the art show,” she persists. “Which one of my paintings did you like the best?”
“I liked all of them,” he announces after a thoughtful second, like it’s a trick question and he knows he’s answering right. “They were all really amazing.”
She idly twists a lock of hair around her finger. “Why?”
“They looked real,” he says. “All three-dimensional and stuff. It’s pretty cool that you know how to do that.”
“What did they feel like?” She feels guilty asking – she knows it’s not fair to him – but she can’t help it.
“I dunno,” he says blankly. “Paper?”
She pulls her finger back, lets the lock of hair swiftly unravel. “That’s not what I meant.”
“I dunno,” he says again, and then – “They felt like you.”
Her heartbeat quickens all at once. If even he can see that – “Really?”
“Well, yeah,” he says, sounding surprised that she has to ask. “You painted them.”
“Oh,” she says softly. It’s a relief, in a way.
Still, the blank page seems to mock her; she traces empty designs against it with her pointer finger.
“You okay, babe?” Roy asks, and the fact that there’s genuine concern in his voice makes it worse.
“Yeah,” she says as lightly as she can. “Don’t worry about it.”
He dozes off before King of Queens starts, and there’s something comical about the sight of him scrunched onto her tiny garage sale sofa with little pink flowers all over it. He doesn’t look right here. That might have been on purpose originally, back when she still felt like she needed to escape from him.
His feet are propped up on the far arm of the couch, one ankle crossed over the other, obscuring the view of the window. There’s a hole in the big toe of his right sock. The curtains are a filmy white, and the wind turns them ghostlike and graceful. It’s too dark to see the rain outside.
With one decisive pencil stroke, she captures the curve of Roy’s right foot. The windowsill comes next, then the challenge of the curtains – drifting faintly back and forth, never pausing to fall still. She doesn’t know what she’s doing or why. She doesn’t bother considering it; she’s sick of having to stop.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 07:43 am (UTC)Here are the many reasons why this rocked on so many levels:
1. THE AWAKENING. Augh! One of my absolute favorites, and it's so perfect for this and ohhh Pam.
2.
Pam looks over to see Creed eyeing the painting with mild interest.
“Um, yeah,” she says awkwardly. She’s not sure whether she should be proud.
“Nice,” Creed declares, nodding slightly and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Now where’s this supposed to be, exactly?”
BWA! YES.
3. Pam's fake comissions for Jim! Grandma Schrute! OH MY HEART. I was marathoning some season 2 episodes earlier tonight with some friends, and even with "Michael's Birthday", it just...aside from the unrequited love thing, they used to be such good friends! And it's pretty much impossible for them to go back to that comforting, easy place now, with jinx and spontaneous dental hydroplosion and finishing each other's sentences, which is why this:
She wants to tell him that she doesn’t know whether it’s worth it, that she doesn’t know how to be brave, to make the right kinds of sacrifices. She doesn’t know how to be honest where it counts, and maybe he doesn’t either.
Killed me dead. Because, oh. She still can't. She doesn't know how. :(
Aaaaand I have so much more to say but sleep is nice, so.
In short, wonderful, wonderful job! It's scary how well you seem to get inside the characters' heads...you are very good...at what you do.
:)
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Date: 2007-02-17 08:05 am (UTC)The exchange between her and Jim just broke my heart into tiny pieces.
And this? This just cracked me up.
“Nice,” Creed declares, nodding slightly and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Now where’s this supposed to be, exactly?”
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 08:09 am (UTC)Well, Oscar and Gil less so. ;P
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Date: 2007-02-17 08:14 am (UTC)Just...wow. I've read a lot of fics that follow Business School, and none of them were right. This? Was right. In so many ways.
Of course Pam has a collection of drawings at home that she wouldn't submit, and she'd be amazingly good at pretending that seeing Gil and Oscar didn't hurt her. You've got this sad desperation to Pam down amazingly well; it really made me pause and reconsider Pam and her actions for a moment, just to reassure myself. (So many fics paint her in a false light, but you've got Pam Beesly captured so hauntingly well that I'm half hoping you secretly write for the show.)
In addition to your loverly Pam, your Kelly is darling and so Kelly; I was cringing listening to her talk about painting things that are pretty. I was half-expecting Pam to haul-off and slug her.
And your Toby! Oh - you took his moment of creepy wish-I-could-be-there and turned it into a heartful moment of regret and connection with Pam. Wonderful.
Creed's line? Stole the show for a moment there, really. I haven't laughed so hard since...well, Creed agreed to make stakes for Dwight. So. ;D
And your Jim and Pam! I don't think I have words - you created such an obvious chasm between them; a messy entanglement of maybe that it caught at something in me. (Yes, I was teared up by the end of this, so.)
The ending absolutely slayed me; the idea of Pam sketching Roy's feet is so skewed (maybe that's the wrong word?) that it's achingly perfect. I don't know why or how, but I know that I will have that image in my head for a good long time.
...wow; I hadn't meant to leave such a...verbose review. My apologies! ♥
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Date: 2007-02-17 08:17 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 09:57 am (UTC)Also: Kelly. She is so great. I love her heartfelt insincere excuses and her "Yay!" and her request for paintings of baby Suri.
The Jim/Pam parts hit me right in the gut. I haven't read a Jim/Pam-focused story like that in a long time.
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Date: 2007-02-17 03:41 pm (UTC)This is why you're on my flist, because of your complete brilliance at writing. I felt so sad for Toby. I never really got into Toby/Pam, but the whole idea is pretty cute. And Roy, while he may be trying more, just can't compete with either Toby or Jim. Sorry matey. And Vampire!Jim just makes me grin. There totally needs to be a fic of Jim as an actual vampire and Dwight goes after him... *stores it in the back of her mind* On second though, I'll write that =D
Again, great job!
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Date: 2007-02-17 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 05:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 06:17 pm (UTC)Just really beautifully done. It amazes me that it's only two days after that episode aired and you have something this tightly written and posted. Do you ever sleep? ;)
(P.S. I think there might be an "and" missing right before "Baby Suri" in Kelly's monologue about Things That Are Pretty.)
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 06:28 pm (UTC)(Mmk, enough with the creepy).
Creed's comment was spot on and amazing. I've read a couple of Pam-centered fics by other authors and none of them really seem to capture her so exactly as you did here. The idea of her presenting this facade about how she didn't hear Oscar and Gil was done in a very timid Pam way. And... I dunno. This entire fic (and all your fics, really) just always seem like they could be part of the show. Not many authors can pull that off.
Also? I love you for infinity because you mentioned painting GRANDMA SCHRUTE. Oh, man.
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Date: 2007-02-17 07:23 pm (UTC)You _slay me_.
I love how this is perfectly in canon and feels so accurate on all levels.
The drawings of the teapot and the crumpled blue dress...perfect touches. If Pam did have them, I'm sure she'd feel the exact mixture of shame and confusion with which she regards them here.
The Creed joke was funny, indeed.
The exchanges with Toby, Jim and Roy all broke my heart for different reasons. It's clear even here that Jim is the best in the office for her, but I couldn't help feeling sympathy for all the pairings (just as I do on the show).
Other great touches: the small, floral couch that Roy doesn't fit on, his hole-y sock.
Finally, I love how the drawing she starts at last will become iconic of her imperfect present. Will that help her accept it? Or will it symbolize that she has to move on? I think Pam could go either way.
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Date: 2007-02-17 07:38 pm (UTC)“They looked real,” he says. “All three-dimensional and stuff. It’s pretty cool that you know how to do that.”
AUGH. And Toby, and Jim, and just all of it. This is totally ineloquent feedback, but this captured the feel of Pam in that episode, and what she must be experiencing right now, absolutely perfectly.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 08:15 pm (UTC)she’s pretty good at getting by on what she can
I mean, that really sums up Pam, right there.
This was so sad and real and poignant and funny but also -- Kelly and Creed are funny, only they're not, when you think about it, and you've really captured that.
This is the dumbest, most inarticulate comment :p, but this was really, really good.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 09:06 pm (UTC)“Nice,” Creed declares, nodding slightly and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Now where’s this supposed to be, exactly?”
This almost made me topple off my chair in amusement. I could so see Creed saying that, leaning forward a little, peering at it all... Creed-like. Hee.
Oh, and the art commissions from Jim made me smile, and really a bit sad for them. rather miss the Jam, when I really think about it. *sigh*
Toby! Hee. This line, here-
"She slips out of the break room just as he heads back in, and when she turns to look back at him for no particular reason, he still hasn’t picked anything – he’s just standing there. She kinda knows the feeling."
It's the stuff great writing is made of, methinks. Oh, Toby. Not to mention it really shows your rather strange bias for... Tam? Poby? Whatever. Because that sort of line, with its fantastic pitch perfect-ness, if any other writer thought of it, would probably have been reserved for the main ship. I do love how, in your mind, Pam/Toby is just as wonderful (if not more) as Jam. Though really, it kind of is, when I watch scenes like, "It's not art."
“I liked all of them,” he announces after a thoughtful second, like it’s a trick question and he knows he’s answering right. “They were all really amazing.”
Ohhh... that is Roy. That is Roy, so completely. I think that's what I love the most about your writing- you capture the characters so well.
Ack, I must scamper off and type up notes for US History now, cheers, and keep writing.
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Date: 2007-02-17 09:35 pm (UTC)I know I'm going to go all out of order reviewing this but so many things come to mind that I'd rather not forget them then try to remember which part they came in the story.
Oscar and Gil? Okay you officially win simply because you wrote Oscar and Gil, and so perfectly, too.
Kelly in this is sooo Kelly...
Toby kind of broke my heart, which he always does, but the way you did Toby and Pam's exchange was so wonderful and just...Toby has his own reasons for being sad and so does Pam, and when they talk it's like, I don't know. I'm sorry this is such a useless review. I just can't stop gushing.
I love that Jim remembered the "unicorns in a field of flowers," and that he brought it up in their conversation. I don't know why that sticks out to me so much, but it does.
Roy...god, he really means the best and it's not his fault. Really it isn't, and I love the way you captured them at home being together.
The way you've written Pam is just so perfect and I have no way of describing how much I felt like this was really her and that this is really what happened afterwards.
They aren’t quite standing in the right places, but it’s close enough, with the dark and the two of them alone here and that look on his face. Most of the time, she thinks she can’t really remember what it was like to kiss him (it was too fast and too soon; all terror and bliss colliding or maybe entwining and it would have been so easy to just forget and invent something else, something better).
Just...brilliant.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-17 11:17 pm (UTC)But I'll try anyway.
Pam's point of view is so quiet and subtle, and this mirrors the show so well in that there's so much more you (the viewer you) want her to see. Especially with Toby and Jim. Kelly and Creed - so funny. CREED. Every time I see him I want to say his name like Dwight does in the S2 blooper reel, when they're tossing the football around. CREED.
For incoherence, I ramble pretty good, eh? Roy tries so hard. I can't dislike him for the fact that he and Pam are just not meant for each other.
I still don't know how I feel about Oscar and Gil. They were needed to give Pam that reality check, but it's difficult to get over my Pam-love and not be angry with them for insulting her. I just keep telling myself she needed it. And you continued that so beautifully here.
So, in conclusion, to sum up... I loved this.
OH. And Jim commissioning drawings, and being so gleeful over them? KILLS ME. The reminder of how great their friendship used to be is stunningly painful!
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 12:57 am (UTC)I mean, Pam running into Oscar and Gil and Kelly and Creed just...being so perfect and I am seriously incoherent right now, but this is just one of those times. I apologize for the ensuing thought jumble:
And for a second, it seems like a really good idea: he’s staring at her like he actually cares, even though they barely know each other, and she knows that he’s good at his job and something about being here with him even now makes everything seem a little less hard.
You + Pam/Toby makes my life just so happy.
And the art commissions and unicorns and Grandma Schrute and just...perfect Jim and Pam interaction.
Oh, and Roy on her little garage sale flowered couch with a hole in his sock? Good lord.
Basically, I am choosing to believe that this actually did happen on the show. You ftw, always.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 05:47 am (UTC)And God, Jim/Pam just...it breaks my heart (stupid ability to identify with fictional characters). This was honestly just amazing, sweetie. SO much amazing.
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Date: 2007-02-18 07:06 am (UTC)She wants to tell him that she doesn’t know whether it’s worth it, that she doesn’t know how to be brave, to make the right kinds of sacrifices. She doesn’t know how to be honest where it counts, and maybe he doesn’t either.
Oh, PAM.
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 08:13 pm (UTC)Like others, I loved Grandma Schrute. Also-
“No, seriously,” he insists. “Granted, it’s not a unicorn in a field of flowers, but still. Impressive nonetheless.”
no subject
Date: 2007-02-18 11:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-02-19 02:10 am (UTC)