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crack_van2013-12-09 02:21 pm
stars-inthe-sky.livejournal.com) wrote in crack_van2013-12-09 02:21 pm
Entry tags:
“Nothing Better” by obsession_inc (T)
I've been reading and reccing here for years and I realized just in time that there was one must-do fandom for which I hadn't yet taken the wheel! Enjoy what will mostly be a boatload of Jim/Pam recs (because who are we kidding) over the scant few weeks remaining to us :)
Fandom Category: The Office
Pairing: Pam Beesly/Jim Halpert, Pam Beesly/Roy Anderson, Katy/Jim Halpert
Length: 11649 words
Author on LJ:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
obsession_inc
Author Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Set in the summer between Seasons 1 and 2, this fic has got to be canon. It's the only way to explain the perfectly balanced dynamic between Pam and her life with Roy. Reading this, you leave with a strong sense of exactly why Pam stayed with him for so long. It's comfortable, if incomplete. It's really all she knows. He's really all she knows. Her frustration with her life and her loneliness are on full display here alongside her failure to do anything about them. Her interactions with Jim are as subtle and sweet and fraught are they are in canon, and you'll long to tell this Pam that there is and will be so much more to her life.
She has to climb up on the sink to get enough leverage to open that window, jamming her knee against the divider in between the basins and trying hard not to fall in. The problem with renting an older house was that older houses have older windows, with layers of cracked paint, and splinters, and panes gone all loose. Older windows hate opening. Pam yanks on the window handles from a few different angles without any result other than making the handles feel like they're going to fall off. She can hear Roy's voice over the incessant roaring of the lawn mower; it sounds like he's greeting somebody at the front door, and if that's the case then she doesn't have much time for this. She hunches over with the heels of her hands wedged under the wood along the top of the sash, takes a deep breath, and pushes like crazy.
"Whoa, don't fall," Jim's voice says behind her, just as the window finally pops up, and she promptly loses her precarious balance. Her knee slips, her body twists sideways; she slams a hand into the side of a nearby cabinet to try to catch herself, but it's too late. She lands smack on her left hip in the sink with her right leg sticking up in the air, feeling for all the world like a cat in the middle of an embarrassing hygiene maneuver.
"Are you okay?" Jim is standing in the doorway to the living room with a six-pack of beer in each hand and a sheepish expression on his face. Pam glares at him. He shrugs. "Hey, I told you not to fall. Not my fault you can't follow directions, Beesly."
"What are you doing here?" she demands, shaken and startled and more than a little annoyed.
"Oh, you know," he says, tipping his head sideways, "there was this flyer taped up in the men's room at Poor Richard's and... nah, you know, Roy invited me." He studies her position for a moment. "Do you, uh, need a hand? You seem kind of stuck."
"No, I'm okay." She climbs out, banging her shin against the under-sink cabinet door handle. Her shorts have a wet spot from the sink, right along the hip, and she wipes her palm over it a few times. It feels like there's a bruise forming there. "Well. Hi."
"Hi." Jim holds up the beer. "Um, where should I...?"
"Sorry, sorry." She points him toward the refrigerator and watches as he opens the door and squats down to access the lower shelves. "Roy didn't say you were coming."
The lawn-mower next door stops, and silence falls heavy between them. It seems to last a long time. She can hear the television in the other room, but couldn't have named what was playing if someone paid her. Jim slowly pushes things around in the refrigerator to make room for the beer. Pam can't remember there being all that much in there; it's been too hot to cook all week and she hasn't made it to the store since the worst of the heat finally broke.
Jim clears his throat and says, "Oh," into the fridge. After a moment, he adds, "I just-- Roy just mentioned something, sort of last-minute, I guess, and... I thought you knew."
"Well, I didn't." She remembers Jim saying "see you later" in the parking lot on Friday, and remembers thinking that he'd seemed a little weird when he'd said it, but it wasn't like that would make anyone think he'd be showing up at the barbeque. It's bizarre to see Jim standing in her kitchen. She's not comfortable with this being sprung on her without warning. The guys from the warehouse are okay, because she doesn't spend eight hours a day dealing with them, and they've been coming over for so long that she barely notices anymore. The thing is, even before the cameras, she always had the office and the people in it sort of encapsulated, placed firmly away from her real life. She picks and chooses what to show of herself at the office, what she wears and what she brings for lunch and what she talks about, and she doesn't like losing control of that. Suddenly her whole life, her real life, is on display, without her getting any choice in the matter, and it's making her feel invaded and vulnerable and annoyed.
Nothing Better
Fandom Category: The Office
Pairing: Pam Beesly/Jim Halpert, Pam Beesly/Roy Anderson, Katy/Jim Halpert
Length: 11649 words
Author on LJ:
obsession_incAuthor Website: AO3
Why this must be read: Set in the summer between Seasons 1 and 2, this fic has got to be canon. It's the only way to explain the perfectly balanced dynamic between Pam and her life with Roy. Reading this, you leave with a strong sense of exactly why Pam stayed with him for so long. It's comfortable, if incomplete. It's really all she knows. He's really all she knows. Her frustration with her life and her loneliness are on full display here alongside her failure to do anything about them. Her interactions with Jim are as subtle and sweet and fraught are they are in canon, and you'll long to tell this Pam that there is and will be so much more to her life.
There isn't any point in leaving the air conditioner on if they're just going to be in and out of the back door all night, but that means that the kitchen is boiling hot. Pam wipes her forehead with the back of her hand for the millionth time and decides that it'll probably be all right if she opens a window. The next-door neighbor has been mowing his lawn for an eternity with the loudest lawn-mower in the world, but at this point she's willing to deal with the noise for the sake of airflow.
She has to climb up on the sink to get enough leverage to open that window, jamming her knee against the divider in between the basins and trying hard not to fall in. The problem with renting an older house was that older houses have older windows, with layers of cracked paint, and splinters, and panes gone all loose. Older windows hate opening. Pam yanks on the window handles from a few different angles without any result other than making the handles feel like they're going to fall off. She can hear Roy's voice over the incessant roaring of the lawn mower; it sounds like he's greeting somebody at the front door, and if that's the case then she doesn't have much time for this. She hunches over with the heels of her hands wedged under the wood along the top of the sash, takes a deep breath, and pushes like crazy.
"Whoa, don't fall," Jim's voice says behind her, just as the window finally pops up, and she promptly loses her precarious balance. Her knee slips, her body twists sideways; she slams a hand into the side of a nearby cabinet to try to catch herself, but it's too late. She lands smack on her left hip in the sink with her right leg sticking up in the air, feeling for all the world like a cat in the middle of an embarrassing hygiene maneuver.
"Are you okay?" Jim is standing in the doorway to the living room with a six-pack of beer in each hand and a sheepish expression on his face. Pam glares at him. He shrugs. "Hey, I told you not to fall. Not my fault you can't follow directions, Beesly."
"What are you doing here?" she demands, shaken and startled and more than a little annoyed.
"Oh, you know," he says, tipping his head sideways, "there was this flyer taped up in the men's room at Poor Richard's and... nah, you know, Roy invited me." He studies her position for a moment. "Do you, uh, need a hand? You seem kind of stuck."
"No, I'm okay." She climbs out, banging her shin against the under-sink cabinet door handle. Her shorts have a wet spot from the sink, right along the hip, and she wipes her palm over it a few times. It feels like there's a bruise forming there. "Well. Hi."
"Hi." Jim holds up the beer. "Um, where should I...?"
"Sorry, sorry." She points him toward the refrigerator and watches as he opens the door and squats down to access the lower shelves. "Roy didn't say you were coming."
The lawn-mower next door stops, and silence falls heavy between them. It seems to last a long time. She can hear the television in the other room, but couldn't have named what was playing if someone paid her. Jim slowly pushes things around in the refrigerator to make room for the beer. Pam can't remember there being all that much in there; it's been too hot to cook all week and she hasn't made it to the store since the worst of the heat finally broke.
Jim clears his throat and says, "Oh," into the fridge. After a moment, he adds, "I just-- Roy just mentioned something, sort of last-minute, I guess, and... I thought you knew."
"Well, I didn't." She remembers Jim saying "see you later" in the parking lot on Friday, and remembers thinking that he'd seemed a little weird when he'd said it, but it wasn't like that would make anyone think he'd be showing up at the barbeque. It's bizarre to see Jim standing in her kitchen. She's not comfortable with this being sprung on her without warning. The guys from the warehouse are okay, because she doesn't spend eight hours a day dealing with them, and they've been coming over for so long that she barely notices anymore. The thing is, even before the cameras, she always had the office and the people in it sort of encapsulated, placed firmly away from her real life. She picks and chooses what to show of herself at the office, what she wears and what she brings for lunch and what she talks about, and she doesn't like losing control of that. Suddenly her whole life, her real life, is on display, without her getting any choice in the matter, and it's making her feel invaded and vulnerable and annoyed.
Nothing Better