That Guy
by Steph
Summary: Ryan hates almost all of his coworkers. But he doesn’t hate Toby. A Ryan and Toby sort of friendship fic.
Timeline: Goes from pretty much Weight Loss to Secret Santa, plus a few deleted scenes.
Disclaimer: All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners. The original characters and plot are the property of the author. The author is in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of any media franchise. No copyright infringement is intended.
Thanks as always to Holly for betaing.
---
He talks big when he comes back from the Corporate scandal and pretends that he’s happy to see everyone in Scranton, just thrilled with the opportunities being offered to him as a receptionist or temp or whatever his current job title is. But really? He hates this place and almost everyone here.
He hates Michael and he hates Dwight and he especially hates Jim, because Jim is just so Jim, and that makes him hate Pam because she’s with Jim and he hates that he’s supposed to be happy to be back in Scranton and really he’s not.
Sometimes he even sort of hates Kelly, but he keeps on hooking up with her and maybe they’re dating and maybe they’re not, but she’s here and he’s here and his options are limited so he goes with what he knows.
What he really hates is the feeling that everyone is laughing at him; these people who are so stupid and boring are laughing at him and prying for details and sometimes he lies and exaggerates and sometimes he keeps quiet, mysterious, giving cryptic answers. Sometimes people seem sort of impressed by him, but only people like Michael who has always been creepy around him and Andy who may be a little dim, and most are just laughing at him and so they get put on his revenge list.
After Ryan’s been back for a little while, Toby returns as well. Reclaims his desk back in the annex and doesn’t talk much about his trip and Ryan is actually a little happy to see him, because Toby’s always been an okay guy.
“How did you get this job back?” Toby asks him one day. “I mean who approved this?”
“Don’t know,” Ryan says. “It’s not going to be a problem, is it?” Not that Ryan cares.
“I have no idea,” Toby says. “I guess I could also be asking why’d you come back here in the first place.”
“I could ask you the same thing,” Ryan says. “Why would you ever leave Costa Rica to come back to this?”
Toby pauses at that. Later Ryan will hear rumors of a broken neck, of a custody battle that has turned ugly, but for now Toby is speechless until Ryan sticks out his hand.
“Glad you’re back,” Ryan says.
“Oh,” Toby says, shaking it. “Thanks. You too.”
Ryan hates almost all of his coworkers. But he doesn’t hate Toby.
Toby stays off his revenge list.
--
Sometimes Ryan and Toby go out for drinks after work. Not to Poor Richard’s with Michael and Jim and everyone that Ryan despises, but to some edgy (well edgy for Scranton anyway) smoky bar where Ryan is reminded very slightly of the way he felt in New York. It’s a place where the women are hot and Kelly will never find him. It’s a place where Toby seems very out of his element and fidgets a lot, enough to make Ryan uncomfortable.
Toby isn’t much of a talker, but sometimes after a hard day and a few beers he lets go and Ryan nods and pretends to care about an ex-wife who is remarried and a daughter not seen enough but honestly? Ryan just doesn’t.
Sometimes Ryan talks too. He discusses New York and Corporate, focusing only on the exciting parts and completely ignoring anything negative, because as far as Ryan is considered that negative stuff happened to someone else. Addressing the fraud and the arrest would be like gossiping about a third party not even present to defend himself. And Ryan isn’t into that.
Ryan’s cell phone rings and it’s Kelly and he doesn’t answer it, because he gets so tired of Kelly sometimes. He tells Toby now about how damn clingy Kelly is and how she wants to know where he is at all times and how she always wants to be with him. She wants to wake up with him and go to sleep with him and eat every single meal with him and she wants to pick out his clothes and feed him and she has their whole pink wedding planned and the names of their kids picked out and it exhausts him and smothers him and sometimes he just hates it.
“That doesn’t sound so horrible to me,” Toby mumbles into his beer, just barely loud enough for Ryan to hear over the noise of the bar. “Having someone love you like that. I think it sounds...nice.”
Ryan is drunk enough to be annoyed and says, “You know what? You take her then. Fine with me. I give you two my blessing.”
Toby gives him a look, almost as if he’s disappointed in him, and says, “If you’re that unhappy with her, then you two should break up. You shouldn’t give her false hope.”
“I’ve never given her that,” Ryan protests. But Toby looks away from him and Ryan remembers again why he hates socializing with his coworkers.
--
As a temp who finds being told to do anything resembling office work incredibly insulting, Ryan grudgingly agrees to help with decorations. He hangs up some lights and stockings with the same amount of care and interest he shows doing anything else in this place.
“Nice job,” Toby says from behind him and it doesn’t sound sarcastic.
“Thanks.” Ryan grabs the last of the lights. “Want me to decorate the annex?”
Toby shakes his head. “No thanks.”
“Whatever,” Ryan says. “Not too big into the Christmas decorations?”
Toby shrugs. “I don’t mind them.”
“You’re Jewish, right?” Ryan asks, trying to recall a conversation from long ago. Wasn’t there a slight moment of bonding over this before Toby wandered back to the annex and Ryan went back to his desk, where Michael was no doubt waiting?
“Half,” Toby reminds him and they both sort of smile at each other.
“Me too,” Ryan says. “The kind of half that gets bar mitzvahed.”
“I’m the kind of half that goes to Catholic school and seminary,” Toby says and Ryan is really smiling now because he now knows for sure they’ve had this conversation before even if he doesn’t quite remember when.
Maybe the first time he was a temp, back when he wasn’t totally disillusioned with this place and these coworkers. Or maybe as a salesperson, back when he was actually trying to do his best. Or maybe even when he was at Corporate, the wunderkind who still tried to make connections with the people he left behind.
“Maybe I can bring in a dreidel,” Ryan suggests.
Toby nods and says, “How about I bring in a menorah and we light only half of it?” and Ryan laughs, which is strange because he’s usually laughing at a coworker rather than with one, and he follows Toby into the annex so he can decorate Kelly’s desk for her.
--
Ryan follows Kelly into store after store at the mall and the only reason he doesn’t just take off and leave is because she’s the one who drove and she would never let him take her car with only a vague promise that he would come back to get her as soon as she was done shopping.
Not after last time.
They are in a toy store right now looking for a present for someone’s bratty kid and Ryan walks away from her going down random aisles avoiding bumping into harried looking women and kids with snotty noses, crying and whining.
Ryan finds himself in front of a small display of kites. He was talking to someone recently about kites; who was it? Oh right. Toby had the book The Kite Runner on his desk; Ryan had asked him about it, speaking loudly over Kelly and Erin who were gushing over recent class pictures of Sasha.
“What are you doing?” Kelly asks him now. She already has two big bags of purchases; bags he will no doubt be lugging around while she spends more than she should and further demonstrates how the true meaning of Christmas has been lost in this disgusting display of consumerism.
“I’m going to buy Toby a kite,” he says, knowing how weird that probably sounds.
“Cool!” Kelly says without asking for further explanation. She reaches forward and grabs the rainbow-colored one. “Buy him this one.”
Ryan smirks at her choice. “Don’t you think that kite’s a little gay?”
Kelly glares daggers at him and screeches, “I think you’re a little gay!” before stomping off.
When Ryan finally finds her, surrounded by Hannah Montana and Jonas Brothers paraphernalia, she won’t even look at him.
“He’s colorblind,” she finally says.
“Ah,” he says assuming she’s just sharing some trivia about one of the Jonas Brothers and wondering what an appropriate level of disinterest would be.
“So if you buy him a kite and it’s the brightest, prettiest, most colorful one there is maybe he’ll be able to not be colorblind anymore because of how colorful the kite is and how much he wants to see it. So it might cure him and he’ll finally be able to see pretty colors.”
“That’s not quite how it works, Kelly,” Ryan says.
She pouts, pushing out her full lower lip. “It could.”
“But it won’t. That’s just being stup...”
She puts her hands on her hips. People are starting to stare at them now. “Don’t you dare call me stupid, Ryan Howard. Don’t you dare.”
“Fine,” he says. “Whatever. It is actually kind of sweet of you.”
She jumps into his arms then, planting kisses all over his cheeks and maybe he’s okay with that and he ends up buying the kite and he’s sort of glad that Toby is colorblind because otherwise he might be confused why Ryan was giving him what appears to be a gay pride kite as a Christmas gift.
--
Ryan is not a grinch, not anti-Christmas or anti-celebrating by any means. It’s not Christmas itself that is bringing him down. It’s where he is - in Scranton, in this horrible office with these ridiculous people he can’t get away from - that makes him angry.
He boasts to anyone who will listen about his talent in photography, how he’s a natural so he’s put in charge of taking holiday photos. He takes picture after picture of his coworkers sitting on Santa Phyllis’ lap and tries to ignore Michael and his various tantrums and Jim, because in general the less Ryan has to interact with Jim, the better.
He could be in New York right now he thinks to himself as he snaps a picture of Creed on Phyllis’ lap which is creepy on more levels than he wishes to consider. He figures he should be grateful that he isn’t still at the bowling alley, that he is actually employed when so many people are not, but after Michael tried to pull him onto his lap - well, Ryan isn’t feeling very grateful about anything lately.
While Kelly is swooning over her Twilight poster from Jim (and Ryan knows for sure he’ll get an earful about it on the way home - how Jim just “gets” her in a way Ryan doesn’t), Ryan makes his way back to the annex and hands Toby his present.
Toby is obviously touched and says, “Wow” a few times and Ryan is quite pleased with himself for picking out a gift for someone who actually appreciates it. Toby smiles at the kite and then at him and goes in for a hug.
Ryan does not hug. Not with these people. And yeah sure he likes Toby, as much as he can like anyone at this godawful place, likes Toby more than most people here seem to like Toby, but Ryan does not want to be known as that guy. The guy who hugs. The guys who gets hugs back. Because the second that little secret gets out Michael will be first in line for some action.
Ryan shudders to himself and evades Toby’s hug in as graceful of a way as possible, and they end up sort of patting each other on the back before going their separate ways.
--
After the party has died down, after Andy has, depending on your point-of-view, either been incredibly charming or incredibly creepy with his drummer serenade to Erin, Ryan waits in Kelly’s car.
Most of their coworkers have left for the night, but Kelly is inside talking to Erin, debating the pros and cons of being wooed by one Andy Bernard. It’s a private conversation, Kelly tells him pointedly, and they have to do it inside where it’s warm, because Erin, with her assorted health problems, gets cold easily. And Ryan can’t come with them because it’s totally private and girl talk.
So Ryan waits in her car, with the heater running and changes the radio station to something a little more palatable than Lady Gaga. He finds talk radio and listens for a few minutes to a discussion on the miserable state of the world, before finding some alternative station that he can zone out to.
He watches the few coworkers left, standing in the cold. They must be the ones without families, without social lives outside of the office. Meredith is there and Kevin. Creed and Toby. Kevin leaves first, followed by Meredith, who slides a little on the ice. Creed leaves next but not before looking around and stuffing whatever was in his hand into a pocket. It is impossible to hear and know for sure, but to Ryan’s eyes, he looks like he’s whistling.
Toby walks slowly, carefully to his car, across from Kelly’s. He is carrying a few boxes, a briefcase, plus the kite.
Ryan looks to the building again, willing Kelly and Erin to come out already. He’s cold and bored and hungry and he’s just sick of this day and this holiday and this office and this life.
Out of the corner of his eye, he sees movement. He looks over to Toby again who’s struggling with all he’s carrying. Toby has his keys out and is turning the lock and it’s almost in slow motion, but Ryan can see him slip just a little, regain his balance, but lose his grip, sending all the papers and folders in the boxes and the kite tumbling down into the snow.
Toby looks at the mess in the snow, shoulders hunched and shivering. It’s depressing in a way, Ryan thinks and he almost wishes he had his camera with him because it would be a perfect coda to the black and white series he’s working on now.
Toby kneels into the snow and, still shivering, rubbing his arms, picks up wet papers and Ryan debates what to do. He can so easily get out of Kelly’s car, walk over to Toby, and help him. He can kneel with him in the cold and lift up the sodden paperwork and they can laugh over how it’s probably all worthless anyway (perhaps some more complaints from Dwight?) and if the ruined papers are something important he can commiserate with Toby about how much life sucks in general, even at Christmastime, and maybe they can go out for some drinks and he’ll even let Toby pick the place (which would probably be Poor Richard’s where Toby feels more comfortable).
But maybe it’ll be easier if Ryan just ignores Toby and his struggles, because isn’t Toby always struggling with something? Maybe it will be better for both of them if Ryan turns his head so he won’t have to watch his coworker fumbling around in the snow, looking so foolish and pathetic. Maybe it will be better if Ryan stays in the car, pretending that he hasn’t seen anything, and is just listening to music, waiting, oblivious to everyone else. And Toby will be done in a minute and will hop into his heated car and go to his heated apartment and everything will be okay. Right?
The wind picks up just a bit and blows the rainbow kite a few feet away from Toby, the tail getting all tangled up in the rear wheel, and it would almost be comic if it weren’t so damn tragic and Ryan watches it all, sitting in the car, still debating what to do.
The End
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© 2006-2023 More Than That | Skin created by Kali