A/N: Firstly, want to thank the nice people who checked up on me. :) Long story (kinda funny story) short, I had a concussion about a month ago when a combative patient knocked me out. Nuts, right? I've had one constant headache for the last four weeks and it's hard to even look at a computer screen for too long -- thank God for nice instructors helping me finish my last month of school! So I'm bringing you this instead of an update to Febrility because A) it was sitting on my hard drive and already done, revised and just waiting to be posted and B) because it's Ang's birthday and she asked for something. :) Hopefully an update is coming soon for Febrility, though; and hopefully, you all enjoy this one. It's not much, but it gets me reminiscing about Money, Chair Model, and other season four goodies. I miss Jim and Pam. Summer sucks, my hair looks horrendous.
Disclaimer: Nothing here is mine.
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Well, one time I bought lingerie -- something slightly reduced at Victoria's Secret that made me blush and cringe a little -- and wore it for Roy. Waited for a time when he was a little drunk so I wouldn't be so self-conscious. I wanted to pull on a curl and twist it around my finger, but my hair down is and was a mess. I wanted to tip toe into the bedroom and wanted his eyes to roll back into his head. Just a little, just one time.
Instead I walked in with my head bowed, biting my lip and found him sleeping. Like, passed out and gone sleeping on the bed. I sighed and turned toward the dresser in the pink and black get-up to sort through the clutter. Mostly mail.
"Damn, babe," I'd heard come from the bed. I smiled, kind of, setting down the mail and walking over to him. And it was nice for a little while, but Roy was just a drunken mess... Not that he was a drunk all the time or anything, but Roy's drunken sexual advances came with closed eyes and clumsy hands. "Damn, babe" was the only remark I heard, so I figured it wasn't a hit. This lingerie thing. He only moved what he needed to out of the way and that was it.
I gave up for good on that one, and that was years before Roy and I were over. It was when Roy was still the light of my life and everything. But I vowed never to make that mistake again. I cringe just thinking about it, think of the way I'd quickly dunked the bag full of lace and bows into the garbage outside. Under all the discarded mail.
I think of that night briefly tonight when I can't find any clean bottoms to wear to bed. Jim's bedroom door is opened a crack and I can hear him typing away at his desk in his "office" (room full of shit) a couple of doors down the hall. He yawns, far away, as I close my drawer (my drawer among his drawers) in resignation. I exchange my t-shirt for one of his longer ones and it hits me at my thighs. This is lingerie I'm much more comfortable wearing, I think as an afterthought.
I pull on a couple of socks from Jim's top drawer. They're slouchy and mismatched, which I only notice on my way out the door when I switching the light out. Jim has this thing about his sock drawer... he doesn't match pairs, just throws them all together. I've offered, you know, believe me, but... It's quite possibly the most challenging part of the relationship.
The office is dark, Jim is nearly a silhouette against the white-blue glow of the laptop screen. My hair is still down from the work day, the curls falling a little bit -- I hope it looks "tousled" but I hate to look in the mirror at this time of day. I pull on one of them as I yawn and scratch his back a bit when I meet him at his side.
He's calm and sighs heavily, he's so exhausted, I know. He settles his arm around my waist where it meets my hips and pats my side.
"I'm ready to go to bed, quit... everything Dunder-Mifflin." He rests his chin into his palm briefly before scrolling down the screen.
I squint and cringe. "Wall Street Journal, Jim, really?"
He opens his mouth like he's going to argue this point and then closes his eyes and sighs again. "Yeah," he says, half-laughing and shaking his head. "You're right." Without looking over at me, he scoots his chair away from the computer by inches and tugs me onto his lap. I lay my forehead on his shoulder and nearly fall asleep to the rhythmic run of his hand over my stomach.
He's pressing a kiss into my hair when his hand meets my thigh and he freezes, everywhere. His sudden stillness jolts me awake, my eyes opening quickly.
"What?"
"You," he says, quietly, amused.
I tug his shirt down toward my knees. "I was out of pajama pants, I couldn't find any."
He moves my hand out of the way and tsks at me. "I'm not complaining."
I roll my head back and look down at him, closing my eyes when his hand wraps around my neck so he can kiss me. Kissing Jim in the dark, with his hand on my thigh, dressed in his t-shirt. This is already better than the time I wore real, less roll-out-of-bed lingerie.
I should share this with him. The wine from earlier makes me think I should, anyway.
I tear my lips off of his. Sometimes I part from his mouth before he has plans to, because his lips are still stuck out and flushed, and his eyes are heavy when he looks up at me. I push his hair back out of his eyes, which makes him blink so slowly... I want to kiss this man to sleep.
With my hand still in his lush hair, I get a little flirty and roll my eyes to the side. "Do you know, this one time, I wore lingerie for Roy?"
He smirks, eyes sliding closed again. "I'm going to cut... just a small visual from that sentence out of my head."
"He didn't care," I say, ignoring him, raking my fingers through his hair, watching him sigh again. "I walk into the room in one of your t-shirts and these socks that don't even match... And you have the decency to act like it's sexy. You're so good to me."
"It is sexy," he says, rolling his eyes and rocking his head back, pulling me around so my thighs straddle him. He grins at me and I feel my smile stretch and bare itself completely. "You're sexy in just about anything, but in my t-shirt? With your hair... down like that? Tipsy on wine?"
"I'm not tipsy," I argue, standing up and away from him while he protests by clutching my hips.
"Yeah, you are," he says with a nod, distracted when I slide my panties off my hips and down my legs. "What are you doing?"
"Being tipsy," I say, looking down, almost stumbling as I toe the flimsy fabric away from me. Not even cute underwear... pink and cotton and plain. Jim traps them with his own feet and pulls me back to him.
I try to pull myself closer to him, but he won't let me get close enough and I know what that means. He bypasses my lips and his tongue touches my neck. The laptop falls asleep and the room darkens as I rest my forehead onto his shoulder. I try once again to scoot closer but his palm stops me on my bare stomach and I know why he's doing this, so...
I nearly say "Come on," but he lets his fingers slide down and touch me in the place that's been waiting for him and my world implodes a little, gets smaller, concentrates.
His voice is near my ear. "Move in with me. Keep all your pajamas here. Fill up all my drawers. Please?"
My jaw is dropped and I'm breathing hard against his skin, and he has to stop his movements to get me to answer. My whole body falls a degree. He's already asked me this a couple of times before, and I tell him no. It's too soon, I think. It's only been a few months. I'm trying my hardest to give this my all, my best moves, and I'm trying to learn from the past. Roy and I moved in, against my parents' wishes, right out of high school. And we weren't ready for it at all, and we'd been dating for nearly two years when high school ended. I know I'm not the same person I was with Roy, and Jim isn't the same person I was with in high school, but you only get one chance sometimes with someone. I don't know. I'm just trying to be careful.
He backs up to look at me and the color is coming back into my eyes, enough sense in my mind to answer him.
"Are these your real estate tactics in play?" I ask him breathlessly, but he doesn't answer. He waits.
"Jim," I say, quietly. I roll my bottom lip into my mouth.
He cocks his head to the side and smiles, so softly, defeated.
"Why not?" he says, pleading as he squeezes my hips.
I just shake my head. "Don't look at me like that." He exaggerates his pout and it makes me giggle. "It's just... very soon."
He nods, lips in a tight line. He's heard it a number of times already. I think he just wants to be casual about it, slide right into it because we've always just fit like that. And I trust him so completely and love him so much, that part of me can easily see myself doing so. But it's just too critical a time, I guess. And too critical a thing, this relationship. We're doing fine but I don't want to take that wrong turn.
Which I've already told him a number of times, also.
"Okay," he says, nodding. "You know, you're here all the time anyway. Or I'm at your place... and we're always together all the time anyway."
I nod. "I know," I say, tilting my head to the side, my face pleading with him.
He nods once more. "Okay."
He looks so dejected, sitting there with a half-smile on his face, stroking my bare hips back and forth, slow and soft. His head is tilted down so all I see are his eyelashes, they blink once and I almost give in. If I didn't love him so much and want this to work so much, maybe I would give in. I won't miss my footing on this one.
This one works.
I look down at his sweet expression, the pout I know he doesn't mean to wear -- he's not trying to make me feel bad, I know this. It's nice to have someone who wants to be with you so much, to wear this face when you tell him no. Instead of someone who gets angry and moody when you don't want to move out with them (you know, because they can't afford a one bedroom apartment on their own right out of high school).
Oh, he's wonderful.
"Okay," he says softly and inhales deeply, warmly and flattens his palms against my thighs. "I get it."
My eyebrows perk up, because he looks serious and happy at the same time. "You do?"
He nods and closes his eyes, opens them again to look at me. Warm. "Yeah. I do."
I bite my lip and regard him skeptically. He rolls his eyes a little bit and we both laugh quietly against each other. He seems like he doesn't know what to do, really, so he leans forward and just touches his lips to mine. The glow leaves my lips, meets my toes, comes back in an instant.
"I do," he says, hushed against my mouth. All of his sincerity, his fingers, his lips, his voice gets me and I kiss him again, firm and moist, wanting more of it than the situation calls for really. He smiles at me when we part, looks like he really means it, and kisses me back.
Even though I can feel it, in the way he speaks to me, that this is the last time he'll ask me (and that I'll have to make that move when the time comes, and I'm fine with that), he's so sweet and calm about it that it doesn't bother me that he's asked me so many times. It wouldn't bother me if he asked again, the way he flatters me with his question.
I sit on his lap and we make out for a bit, slower and smoother than before. Without speaking, we make it about just this instead of the road we were heading down earlier. He pulls me closer to him and I slide my arms snug around his neck, roll my head to rest on my shoulder and he kisses me like this, instead until our lips are numb and he hugs me tightly to him.
He sighs into my hair, down across my ear, and over the skin of my neck.
"Jim," I breathe, speaking to his chest, "I really love you."
I'll never tell him you're so much better than what I had before, you're so much better than all of them because it's hard to be articulate, sometimes. There are about a million things going through my head, ideas to just show him and tell him. Why does lingerie stick out?
"I love you, Pam," he says simply and kisses my forehead.
I smile, full and happy in the dark. "I should probably figure out a way to make this up to you."
"Oh?"
"Like, black flimsy things..." I grin when he shifts and rocks his head back, closes his eyes.
"God," he murmurs and I laugh out loud. "Well, can that be the one thing that stays here, at least?"
He puts two hands on my hips and picks me up, so he can smile at me when I giggle and while I blush.
"Yes."
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See? Nothing special. Tell me what you think anyway.
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