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.
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Dunder Mifflin’s second quarter camaraderie event is a camping trip. It has little to do with anything about the company, but Michael insists that it will help boost sales and more importantly morale. He says something about seeing the trees for the forest and Pam bites her lip to keep from laughing when Jim looks over at her.
He says with a tone full of conviction, “And what better place to be than in the depths of the woods surrounded by trees, because where does paper come from? That’s right, trees. We are literally going to be engulfed in this business, people.”
Jim comes over to reception later and says, “Dwight’s ordering a new tent on the internet right now. I think he’s going to ask Michael to bunk with him. He’s also looking at two person sleeping bags. So.”
Pam face twists in disgust and he laughs.
“So do you think Roy’s going to come along?”
She looks away from his face then and towards the camera before her eyes settle on the surface of her desk. “Um, I don’t know. He’s usually got stuff going on most weekends, so…”
He nods and puts his hands flat on the desk, not oblivious to the way her gaze seems to freeze on them and how her face almost imperceptibly twitches a little when he moves his fingertips.
“Hey. Who knows, you might get to share a tent with Angela,” he says with a grin as he backs away slowly.
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On Friday afternoon, they head out to Lake Wallenpaupack. Michael is dressed in a ridiculous amount of hiking gear complete with thick wool socks and hiking boots and one of those vests with all the pockets. He has binoculars around his neck and Jim leans down to Pam and whispers, “I’m confused. Is he going hiking, fishing, or bird watching?”
Pam fights her smile and whispers back, “My best guess would be some horrible combination of all three.”
Her smile blooms when Jim nods and bumps his shoulder with hers gently.
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She laughs out loud when it turns out she is sharing a tent with Angela. Angela just rolls her eyes and swiftly unrolls her sleeping bag.
“Try to keep your things on your side of the tent,” is all she says when Pam starts to unroll her own sleeping bag.
Jim is sharing a tent with Kevin and gives Pam a wary look when he notices the multiple scented candles Kevin has packed with him. But it’s better than having to share a tent with Dwight so he doesn’t complain.
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By the time everyone is set up, the sun is setting and Pam looks up and admires the sky through the trees. She comes to the lake often with Roy and this is always her favorite time of day to be there. The sky is streaked with all different shades of pink and orange and it makes her fingers itch for her watercolors. She hasn’t painted in almost a year and something about that fact makes her look back down at the ground.
And there’s Jim like always, standing in front of her just as she’s feeling doubtful about who she is and the life she’s chosen. Like there’s some sort of whistle that only he can hear and she’s blowing it so loudly right now.
He’s wearing jeans and a faded navy blue hooded sweatshirt and he looks so comfortable that she feels it just looking at him. The sweatshirt looks like it’s been worn for years. Maybe it’s his favorite item of clothing. The one he hardly ever washes because he wants it to be available to him whenever he might want it. She has the strangest urge to press her nose into it and just breathe. The sleeves hang loose around his wrists and she just absently smiles a little and reaches out to touch the tattered cuff of his right sleeve.
He bows his head to catch her eye as she does so and says, “Do you want to go for a walk?”
She pulls her hand back and looks up at him, “It’s going to be dark soon.”
He grins and pulls a flashlight from the pocket on the front of his sweatshirt. “Ah, see, I actually thought of that ahead of time.”
She laughs. “But did you bring a compass?”
He frowns and searches his pockets, “Damn, I must have left my compass at home.” And then he’s reaching into his back pocket and saying, “Oh, oh- Wait.” He pulls his hand out of his pocket and opens it up to reveal a cheap plastic compass lying on his palm. He beams proudly down at her.
She presses her lips together in a playful sort of smile. “So prepared.”
“Are you impressed?”
“Extremely.”
“Good. Let’s go.”
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They walk through the woods for a while, not really saying much of anything. She just listens to the way the leaves crunch beneath his feet and the way he ducks under low branches. Sometimes he’ll reach for her hand when there’s something thorny in the way or when there’s a log that needs stepping over. She takes it gently, barely holding on and smiles shyly at him when she’s passed whatever the obstacle was.
She shivers a little when it starts to get colder and he looks at her and says, “Do you want to head back? You look cold.”
She zips her jacket up all the way and shakes her head, “No, I’m fine.”
Then they walk into a clearing in the woods that’s filled with tall grass and overgrown bushes. She looks up at the sky and gasps audibly. He’s standing close behind her and she turns around to see if he’s- But he’s looking at her and not at the sky.
“Jim, look up.”
He seems reluctant and that makes her shiver again, but he eventually comes to stand next to her and looks up at the stars.
“You can see- I mean, entire galaxies. I’ve never- I’ve been here with Roy so many times and seen a lot of stars, but not like this. This is-”
He’s looking at her again, she can feel it. She wants him to be looking at this with her. Not because- She just wants to share it with him. Share something like this with him.
“Jim, you’re not looking.”
“I looked,” he says, shrugging.
She shakes her head and looks at his face in the dark. “Isn’t this one of the most amazing things you’ve ever seen?”
There’s a pause and she can’t really make out the details of his face so she just waits. Then he says, “Yeah, one of.”
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They get back to the campsite and they’ve missed whatever worthless seminar or speech Michael put the rest of the employees through. There’s a campfire and a few people are sitting around it. Kelly and Ryan are cuddled up together next to it much to Ryan’s chagrin. Kevin is roasting marshmallows (seven on one stick) and Creed is warming his feet.
Jim throws Pam an inquiring look, darting his eyes from her to the fire. Pam shrugs and they sit down across from Ryan and Kelly. She tries to tell herself that it’s just the fire that’s making her feel so warm and not the fact that they’re pretty much attached from the knee to the shoulder because of how close he’s sitting.
They sit for a while, talking quietly and closely about everything. When he laughs, she feels it vibrate through her entire body.
She starts to talk to him about problems with Roy and notices a change in his demeanor. They’re good friends, but maybe not good enough for this kind of thing. But still she’s saying, “Sometimes I just feel like he doesn’t understand who I am, you know?”
All he does is nod and stare at the flames of the fire which are slowly growing smaller and smaller.
“I don’t know…It’s stupid. Are you tired?”
He looks at her then and smiles, “Are you?”
“A little.” Her head feels heavy and so do her eyes.
“Okay.” He stands up and brushes off the back of his pants.
“You don’t have to- I mean, you can stay up if you want. It’s not like we’re-”
“Oh. Yeah, I know. But what am I going to do without you?”
She tilts her head to the side a little, “Good point.”
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She’s approaching her tent when she starts to hear noises. Noises that sound like- Oh, God. Angela is not the only person in that tent right now.
She hurries over to where Jim is making his way towards his own tent.
“Jim! Jim, oh, God.” She’s shaking her head back and forth furiously, trying to rid herself of the noises she just heard. She grabs his arm, pulling at the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
“Pam, what’s wrong?” His voice is flooded with genuine concern.
“I- Uh, I was about to get in my tent when I heard-” She frowns and sticks out her tongue, still shaking her head. “Angela and- In my tent, making noises that aren’t sleeping noises.”
He looks at her with wide eyes. “Oh, my God.”
“Jim, my stuff is in there,” she says, completely distraught and still clawing at his sweatshirt.
But now he’s smirking and looking over at her tent, “Who do you think is in there with her?”
“It’s Dwight. I’m sorry I never told you that I knew about the two of them, but at the time it just seemed like maybe it should be kept a secret because people were talking about you and-” She stops her rushed flow of words there and finally just says, “Can I sleep in your tent or not?”
“But I’ve got Kevin.”
She looks back over at the campfire and he’s still sitting there, roasting marshmallows.
“He’s not here now, is he? At least for a while until they’re done with- And I can grab my stuff and sleep outside of the tent or- Something.”
He smiles gently at her and says, “Yeah, okay.”
He unzips the door to the tent and they both climb in. The tent is small and Kevin’s got his things covering his sleeping bag on his side so it’s a cramped fit for both of them. He lies down on his side with his back pressing against the wall of the tent. She lies down next to him and they’re all but pressed against each other.
They don’t say anything for a second. They just keep adjusting and readjusting, trying to find a comfortable position that doesn’t involve the two of them completely tangled with each other.
She ends up propped up on her elbow, her head resting on her hand. He’s doing the same and both of their free hands try to find a place in between that isn’t occupied by the other. She laughs it off when his hand brushes slightly against her breast. He blushes and her heart beats faster.
Their heads bump into each other and she groans, saying, “Why does Kevin have so much crap on his side of the tent?”
But his forehead is still resting against hers and he doesn’t laugh at this comment or say anything in response. He’s just looking at her and then he says, “Hey.”
“Hey.”
She tries to turn her head a little so she can’t feel his breath on her skin. But with this new angle she just feels it even and hot against her neck and her collarbone and she closes her eyes.
“Maybe I should-” She starts to get up, but he grabs her wrist.
“Don’t? Uh, I mean, stay. It’s not so- I mean, it’s nice. Isn’t it?”
She lays back down and this time she’s less cautious about where she places her body and when their hips knock into each other, she tilts her heard forward and her forehead rests on the crook of his neck. She lets out a staccato breath and feels his hand on her waist.
“Jim…”
His lips are on her neck, placing impossibly light kisses on her neck. She grips his shoulders hard and feels her eyes start to burn. His mouth makes its way up her jaw line and then he’s kissing her so softly that she would be collapsing if she weren’t already lying down. Her hands release his shoulders and she brings them to rest gently on the sides of his face. She presses against his mouth harder now and he responds by placing his leg in between hers and bringing himself closer to her.
One of his hands is in her hair, just so completely lost within her hair. He pulls at it and twists it around and it would hurt if it didn’t feel so good when his fingertips found her scalp. His other hand is resting on her belt and she’s trying to push her body so it will move- But he keeps it there safely. There’s an ache within her and she needs-
Their bodies slide against the floor of the tent and make a soft swishing noise as she moves to be on top of him. She feels his teeth on her bottom lip and a low moan escapes from her lips that causes his back to arch a little.
He laughs against her mouth and says, “God, we’re almost as bad as Dwight and Angela.”
And she freezes. Just stops completely.
“Oh, Pam, I didn’t-”
She rolls over and back onto the ground next to him. She’s crying now and maybe she’s been crying this whole time. She can’t really remember much about the last minute or so besides his mouth and his hips. She wipes her eyes with the tips of her fingers and then sits up.
“I have to- I’ll find somewhere to sleep.”
“Pam, wait.”
She goes to unzip the door to the tent and it’s stuck. She lets out a loud groan and flops back down on the floor, crying harder now.
“Stupid door is stuck.”
He gets up and tries the zipper and sure enough it doesn’t budge. He pulls at it harder again and again. But it’s useless so he joins her on the floor. He carefully puts his arm around her and she puts her face into his shoulder as she cries.
“Maybe when Kevin comes back, he’ll be able to get it open from the other side.”
She nods against him.
“Hey, I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t mean to push you into anything.”
“I know. ” She turns so her nose is in his sweatshirt and breathes in his smell, acting on the urge she had earlier. “You smell…really good.” When she looks at him, her eyes are growing bright again.
“Thank you.” He looks at his sweatshirt, “You just got snot all over my favorite sweatshirt.”
She smiles apologetically with a bit of pink in her cheeks.
“So, hey, I’ve got a pack of cards. Do you want to play Go Fish?”
She raises her eyebrows at him, “Only if you’re prepared to lose.”
He pulls the deck of cards out of his bag and gives her a half smile, “Didn’t you learn earlier that I’m always prepared?”
She laughs and feels comfortable again as she watches his hands deal out the cards.
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A half hour later, Kevin comes back to the tent and after a few hard yanks, the zipper comes undone. Kevin’s eyes shift from Pam to Jim and then a slow grin forms on his face. “Did you guys do it?”
Pam’s cheeks burn and Jim looks at her and then to Kevin, “Yes, Kevin. We had lots and lots of sex. That’s why we’re sitting here playing Go Fish right now. Sex got boring.”
Kevin doesn’t react for a second and then just says, “Nice.”
Pam excuses herself and throws Jim a smile as she climbs out of the tent. She sleeps in Meredith’s tent, finding that she was left with a tent all to herself.
She dreams about Jim and how he tasted like mouthwash and how the curves of her body had locked in with his so perfectly.
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The next morning, she sees him walking towards the rest of the group. He looks disheveled and he’s still wearing last night’s clothes. She approaches him slowly.
“Hey.”
“Hey. Good morning.”
“You’re still wearing the snotty sweatshirt,” she says, pointing at the snot in question.
“Oh, yeah. Well, it is my favorite.”
She sighs and looks down at her feet, kicking at the mulch. When she looks back up at him, the sun is right behind his head so she’s squinting as she says, “I haven’t painted in over a year, maybe longer. I realized that last night.”
She can see this statement running through his head. First he’s confused, but then she sees the meaning of it dawn on him and she’s so thankful that he understands her, because she really doesn’t know how to say anything most of the time, but she can just look at him and he knows what she means. She can just give him some cryptic statement and he gets that she’s not even talking about painting.
And he nods and says, “Okay.”
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