I'm a joker
I'm a smoker
I'm a midnight toker
I sure don't want to hurt no one
He looked up when there was a can of Coke set down on his desk.
"Here," she said.
The look he gave her clearly said 'Wasn't I supposed to buy you a Coke?'
"Just buy it from me," she insisted, her voice sounding different for some reason. Was it guilt? Shame? He couldn't tell, but he had a feeling it had something to do with their earlier one-sided conversation. He just looked up at her with a slightly confused face.
She pushed on. "I haven't talked to you in hours and it's just been weird and I really wanna know what the hell is going on with Dwight."
When he didn't respond, she reached down and nudged the can across his desk a few times until it hit the edge of his desk calendar.
He considered it for a moment - probably more like a split second - before his smile got a little gentler and he shifted until he could reach into his pocket, pulling out his wallet. He flipped it open to pull out a one dollar bill, then handed it to her with slightly over exaggerated movements. He continued to be over exaggerated as he picked up the can and placed it on the far corner of the desk near her thigh where she picked it back up again.
"Hi," he finally said, a little surprised at how much not talking could make his voice sound so rough. He almost made a face, but thought better of it as she replied with a smile, "Hey."
"How much time do you have left on your break?" He barely had time to get the entire question out before she was responding to him, "Ten minutes." She grinned at him, the corners of her eyes crinkling up.
He stood up and gestured with the wallet still in his hand for her to go past, then he followed her into the break room.
They sat down at one of the tables, the can of coke between them. Pam shrugged out of her coat and slipped it onto the back of her seat before sitting down. When they were settled, she pulled two plastic cups out of one of her coat pockets and held them out to him.
"Wow, you really went all out, didn't you?" he teased, one corner of his mouth curving up in a smirk.
"This is so we can share," she explained, taking the cups apart and setting them down in front of the can of Coke. She popped the tab and fill both the cups, carefully sliding one over in front of him.
"This was probably the worst day ever to not be able to talk," he said, finally breaking the silence.
Pam laughed and nodded. "Yeah, probably." She lifted her eyebrows at him and smirked, clearly pleased with the outcome of the day.
They started out talking about Dwight and his urine - which made Pam make faces and gagging noises which, in turn, made Jim laugh heartily - and then, as Pam poured the rest of the Coke into their cups, she lifted her eyes to his, grinning.
"What?" he asked, a confused look on his face once again.
"So, Jim," she started, setting the empty can back down on the table as she returned his cup to him. "Have you ever done drugs?" She leaned in towards him for even more emphasis. She grinned widely at him before sitting back in her chair.
She'd expected a quick 'no, have you?' She hadn't been expecting him to hesitate. Her eyes widened.
"Uhhh... well." He leaned back in his chair, stretching his long legs out underneath the table.
She blinked at him in disbelief. "You have, haven't you?" she accused, slightly more amused than shocked now. "My god, Jim. I never knew!" She was laughing now and he shifted in his chair uncomfortably. "What did you do?" she asked. "Did you smoke? Did you drop acid? Wait... you did cocaine, didn't you?!"
Jim looked down at the cup in his hand, a faintly embarrassed smile on his face. "One out of three is pretty horrible, Pam," he teased lightly, looking back up at her again with a much bigger grin on his face. "I thought you knew me better than that."
She rolled her eyes at him and stuck out her tongue. "So.. which one was it?" she asked, lifting her eyebrows at him as she leaned her elbows against the table. "Did you get high a lot?"
When he didn't answer right away - he seemed a little embarrassed - she narrowed her eyes at him, looking him over once or twice, which made him blush. Finally, just as he was about to tell her, she guessed again, "Did you smoke that joint outside, Jim? Was that you?"
He laughed heartily. "Pam, I haven't smoked pot in a while," he replied, before she started guessing outrageous things again. It wasn't the truth, perse, but... three weeks was a while, right?
"But you have before?" she clarified, looking slightly pleased with herself.
"Uh.. maybe once or twice." Now that couldn't be more of a lie. In truth, Jim had managed to spend the majority of his time spent at college stoned. It probably helped that Mark was his roommate back then, too, and was stoned every day. It did help to have connections. And, now that they were sharing an apartment, well... Needless to say, three weeks ago had been a pretty interesting time.
"I've never done it," she said, interrupting his thoughts. To his surprise, she sounded a little sad about this.
"Never?" he asked, laughing again. He reached up with one hand and ran his fingers through his hair before rubbing the back of his neck. He wasn't sure if he was exactly all that comfortable discussing this with her.
"What's it like?"
"Seriously?" he asked, his eyebrows almost disappearing behind the hair that fell over his forehead. He rubbed at his jaw with his palm and scratched at his throat before replying. "It's hard to explain."
She started to interject that he shouldn't give her a cop-out answer, when he continued, "It's just.. it's different for everyone and.. it's different every time."
"When was the last time you smoked?" She was watching him curiously now, but looked totally serious, and he had to bite back his laughter again.
"Uhhh..." He tried to come up with some way to stall and quickly downed the rest of his Coke, almost choking on it.
"Jim..?"
"Probably uh.. Well, I mean.. it's been a while, you know?" he lied, rubbing his fingertips against his mouth. "A month or so?"
Pam's bark of laughter surprised him. "Jim, a month or so isn't 'a while'," she laughed, shaking her head a little.
He felt really embarrassed now and wished he hadn't told her. But, then she was leaning close to him again, her hands in her lap. "So, um.. do you think I should try it?" she asked, suddenly sounding shy and nervous. And why shouldn't she? She knew Roy smoked pot in high school and probably still did sometimes, but she'd just.. never had the chance and she was always just a little bit curious about it. Whenever she asked Roy about it, he'd just laugh about it and brush her off.
He wasn't sure he'd heard her correctly and he tilted his head slightly, a confused look on his face. "Should you try it?" he repeated. "Are you asking me to get you high, Pam?" His voice was much lower when he spoke this time and he was leaning in, too, as if there were other people in the room that could possibly overhear their conversation.
"Maybe." She wasn't looking at him anymore, instead staring down at her empty plastic cup and twirling it around across the top of the table.
"Pam, I-"
"Please, Jim?" Now she was looking at him - god why did she have to look at him like that - and there was no possible way he'd ever be able to say no to her. Ever.
"Are you sure you really want to do that, Pam?" he asked, his voice completely serious and perhaps a touch concerned.
She didn't even respond, just looked at him, and that was all the answer he needed. He sighed, almost sounding defeated, and nodded. "I'll see what I can do. I'll let you know, okay?"
She shot him a timid smile and then she was gathering their trash and throwing it away. "We should probably get back. I think it's been more than ten minutes." With that, she was grabbing her coat and walking out of the room and back into the office.
Jim sat there for another minute or so, elbows on the table and head in his hands as he tried to collect his thoughts.
"I can't believe I just agreed to that."
Story Notes:
This story includes drug references and drug usage. Please do not read if this sort of thing does not interest you!
Written for a backstory meme at my_slate. This is completely unbeta'd, so any mistakes are my own. I generally don't do chapterized stories, but this is a special case. Title comes from 'The Joker' by The Steve Miller Band.
Disclaimer: The Office and it's respective characters do not belong to me. This is for fun, not profit.
Written for a backstory meme at my_slate. This is completely unbeta'd, so any mistakes are my own. I generally don't do chapterized stories, but this is a special case. Title comes from 'The Joker' by The Steve Miller Band.
Disclaimer: The Office and it's respective characters do not belong to me. This is for fun, not profit.
Author's Chapter Notes:
This chapter includes mention of drug usage.
Chapter End Notes:
Please review! This part was just something written as a totally-never-happened-but-ahahaha-imagine-if-it-did backstory and then it grew into something a little bit more. I have one more part to this that is going to be set some time either between seasons three and four or during season four.
