He would rather drink acid than open his eyes, which is a problem, a paradox, full on miserable irony, because he’d rather be fed to alligators than swallow.

He would rather die than move.

There’s a buzzing in his ears that won’t go away, a throbbing in his throat that burns slowly down his sternum.

“Get up, Halpert.” Jim keeps his eyes closed, opening his clenched fists and spreading his fingers to get his bearings. He feels cold, wet metal and a telltale, solid push in the small of his back that he knows is a bumper.

So he hasn’t fallen.

He is simply leaning, trying desperately not to sink into the velvety blackness that threatens to engulf him.

“Get UP, Halpert.” And he does. He locates the muscles that control his torso and pushes forward, using the car to vault himself into a full standing position.

Ready to fight maybe, but his eyes won’t open and it hurts.

“Look at me before I hit you.” And Jim wants to laugh. He wants to just crack up at the predictable bravado, the overt masculinity with which Roy speaks, how he never in a million years could have imagined being confronted like this, as if his life were a movie.

The truth is, he can’t believe this is his life at all.

But he finally opens his eyes. Opens his eyes and it’s like a thousand miniscule needles stabbing his brain, like he’s betrayed his bodies’ most basic instincts, but he waits. Jim waits until the searing, blinding white has passed, and focuses his eyes on Roy.

Roy who is livid. Roy who is purple and bulging and clenched and it’s terrifyingly comforting that this day has finally come.

“It wasn’t me. I didn’t touch her.” Jim croaks, and he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. Who would it have been, then? He feels something warm and wet drip from his nose and onto his upper lip. He can’t tell if it’s blood or sweat or tears and he doesn’t care, doesn’t care anymore about any of this and it feels like freedom.

Roy does not fly at him like he expected, does not commence to pummel him into the asphalt, just barks out a harsh laugh and stares at him like he’s crazy.

“You expect me to believe that? She was fucking engaged to me, and you… Of course you fucking touched her!” Jim feels a familiar stab in his stomach that has absolutely nothing to do with physical violence, and he can’t help but moan. A moan that means Not Again, a moan that means Why, a moan that means Pam.

A moan that he feels from the bottom of his feet to the top of his bruised fucking head.

And he feels it happening before he sees it, knows what’s coming and simply shuts his eyes, waiting for the moment of impact.

Mercifully, it lands on the side of his jaw, the fist missing places it has previously bloodied. And he hears it before he feels it, the way bone against bone really does sound like someone knocking at the front door, how his neck actually cracks and he thinks, “I hope I don’t die” like an afterthought.

Jim staggers into the car, putting all his weight on one hand so that he feels his wrist burning, struggling to support him.

He wheels around, a blinding rage encompassing him until all he can remember is that he Fucking. Hates. Roy.

And now he can finally kill him.

Jim clenches his fist and rears back, getting ready to just fight, to give into his primal urge to Win His Woman or Save His Honor.

“Don’t!” He hears it, through the rushing in his ears, and he waits a split second too long to strike, and Roy has the upper hand. He uses it to push Jim ever so slightly backward until he’s back up against that fucking car.

“I think we’re done here.” And Roy is gone, lumbering back the way he came.

“Jim! Oh my God, Jim?” Who is that? His eyes are closed again and for the life of him they won’t open. Not for anything will he ever open his eyes again until the shattering pain in his face has disappeared, until his body doesn’t hurt, until she’s gone.
Because when he does, he knows she’ll still be there, and he never wants to see her again.