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Chapter Text

Chapter 1: First Day

The office was empty as you entered. Listening closely, you could hear murmuring coming from what you could only assume was the meeting room. You debated on whether to knock on the door or continue waiting, hoping that someone would come out and notice you.
Before you could decide, a curly haired brunette came out of the room and started walking towards you.

‘Hi, I'm Pam,’ she said warmly. ‘Can I help you with anything?’

You straightened up, suddenly feeling flustered,
‘Hi I'm Y/N Y/LN, I'm supposed to be starting here today.’

Pam smiled brightly, but it then softened into something more apologetic,
‘Oh! Our new hire, welcome. Just to give you a warning, this office, it’s not normal, I won’t say anything else though, it would ruin all the fun.’

You slowly blinked at her, confused, but before you could voice any concerns, the meeting room door burst open.

A man in what seemed to be a woman's suit noticed you and said,
‘Dwight, you picked out a very nice stripper this time. I approve.'

Dwight stiffened, and spoke,
‘Michael, I haven’t ordered the stripper yet. I don’t know who this is. Woman! Identify yourself now! Or else I will get my nunchucks!’

You stared at the two men, unsure whether to address the nunchucks, or the fact they thought you were a stripper first.

You decided to brush over it, hoping there is still a bit of redemption for a good first impression.
‘Hi, Y/N Y/LN. First day.’

Michael's eyebrows shot up and he looked straight into the camera.
‘Ohhhh yes, I briefly remember an email about this, I didn’t really think it was that important.’ He slung an arm around your shoulder, he smelled like cheap aftershave, as if you had been working there for years. ‘Anyways, I'm Michael. Your boss! Ha-ha! But I am also going to be your friend, and maybe more, wink wink.’

You instinctively tried to back away, questioning whether you really need this job, and then you notice him.
A tall, messy haired man, covering his mouth with one hand as he tried not to laugh at the situation playing out in front of him – the situation you happen to be a part of.

‘Jim.’ Pam whispered in your ear, ‘His name is Jim, he’s a salesman, and totally single.’

You could feel the heat rising to your cheeks, you opened your mouth to defend yourself, but nothing came out.
Luckily, or maybe not, another voice cut in.
‘I am Dwight Schrute, assistant regional manager.’

‘Assistant TO the regional manager.’ Jim cut in.

‘Shut up Jim, same thing,’ Dwight continued.

‘No, it’s not.’ Jim chimed in again.

You had to try and compose yourself to keep from laughing out loud.

‘I am Dwight Schrute, Assistant TO the regional manager,’ he looked over at Jim, visibly annoyed, ‘I apologise for threatening you earlier, but to be fair you entered the office building without announcing yourself. Also, you somehow got in without any codes, I need to get on to corporate about this.’

Dwight then marched off saying something about breaches and incompetence.
Jim then came up to you, and gave you a cute, lopsided smile, and then he spoke, voice sounding just as attractive as he looks.
‘Hi, I'm Jim. Looks like we are going to be desk mates.’

He held his hand out for you to shake it. After staring for a second too long, you shake his hand.
‘I call top desk.’ You said, pulling a light chuckle out from Jim.

-

Interview - Y/N

Sitting in the meeting room with a camera in your face is something you will have to get used to.
You make a mental note to start talking to yourself in the mirror at home.
‘I'm starting to worry that this job should come with hazard pay.’

You look out and get a glance of Jim before trying to play it off casually,
‘It mightn’t be too bad here though, I think the people will make it a bit easier.’

-

Interview - Jim

‘What the new girl?’ Jim said in his interview, ‘Yeah she’s cute I guess.’

He then had a small smile on his face before he looked down at his hands bashfully.

-

Chapter Text

Chapter 2: Testing the Waters

The rest of the day wasn’t too bad; you met the rest of the office, and Pam invited you to have lunch with her.
You and Pam decided to go to a quiet restaurant, away from the noise of the office.
‘So Y/N, what do you think of the place so far?’ Pam asked.

You pause for a quick moment to think,
‘I didn’t know what to expect honestly, but this, was not part of any of my guesses.’

Pam audibly laughed,
‘Yeah, the office can be pretty… interesting to say the least. But at least the people are nice, especially Jim.’ She said with a wink.

‘I don’t know what you are implying.’ You say with a laugh. ‘Honestly, I'm just here to work. I'm not looking for anything at the moment. I just want to settle in and get the lay of the land. While we are on the topic though, any talent?’

Pam blushes slightly,
‘Yeah, I'm actually engaged, you might have seen him, Roy, he works down in the warehouse. We’ve been engaged for three years but hopefully setting the date soon.’

You think to yourself that three years is a long time to stay engaged for, but decided its not your business to pry any further.

‘Oh, looks like our break is nearly over, we should get back to the office.’ Pam said, looking slightly disappointed. ‘We should hurry before Michael accuses us of forming some sort of coup’

You laugh out loud,
‘I could see that happening.’

-

Interview – Y/N

‘Pam seems nice, I hope we will get along!’
You pause for a second,
‘I hope I’ll get along with everyone in the office.’

-

Interview – Pam

‘Y/N seems normal, its nice to have normal.’ Pam smiles, ‘I think we could be friends.’

-

Walking back into the office wasn’t as daunting as it was the first time, especially since you had Pam with you this time.

When you walked back in the first person you noticed was Jim. He looked up at you and Pam straight away. He gave a small wave to Pam, then turned to you and gave a small smile before getting back to work. (Or back to pretending to work.)

You hang your coat on the coat rack and make your way to your seat. Once you sat down you started to look for your pen-

Except your pen wasn’t anywhere on your desk. You usually wouldn’t care if a pen went missing but this one was a really nice black gel pen that wrote very smoothly. You shoved some paper around, lifting up a folder, and a stack of papers – but it wasn’t anywhere. You try to remember if you left it somewhere else but when you couldn’t think of anywhere, you checked around the floor in case it had fallen – it hadn’t.
‘Missing something?’ Jim’s voice floated over, feigning innocence.

You look over in his direction, suspicious already,
‘Yeah, I can’t seem to find my pen, have you seen it by chance?’

Jim continued looking as his computer pretending he didn’t have all his attention on you and your reaction in that moment.
‘yeah, I may have seen it somewhere.’ He said while shrugging slightly.

‘Mind letting me know where that somewhere might be?’ you say, feeling amused at the situation.

‘I don’t know,’ Jim said, ‘It might cost you.’

You shoot him a confused look,
‘Cost me? Like I have to pay for it back?’

Jim leans back on his chair, swinging side to side,
‘No, no, not money. How about an IOU? A favour that I can redeem at a later date…’ He pauses for a second, a slight smirk appearing on his face, ‘unless I forget.’

Laughing slightly, you nod your head.
‘Okay, but nothing too crazy when or IF the time comes.’

Jim smiles and points to the coffee mug on your desk, a coffee mug you don’t remember placing on your desk at any point in time. You narrow your eyes at the mug and bring it closer to yourself.

There it is, your pen, inside the mug. Great, except the mug was full of strawberry jelly. You stare at the pen before turning to face Jim.
‘…Jim.’

Jim tried but fails to look innocent.
‘Don’t mention it,’ Jim said while trying to hold in a laugh, ‘It’s my welcome gift to you to celebrate your first day.’

You look back at the mug again, laughing out the ridiculousness,
‘Will this happen often?’

‘No way, this is just for today. You’d get sick if you eat jelly every day. Maybe a brownie next time?’ Jim says the last part more to himself than to you.

You shake your head slightly, trying to hide the fact that you are smiling and trying to compose yourself.
‘This is so stupid.’

‘Thank you,’ Jim says rather proudly. ‘I worked very hard on that.’

For a second you thought he looked a bit nervous, but you ultimately decided you were imagining things.

You decided right there that you would get him back.
‘Watch yourself Halpert, I’ll get you back.’ You said with a laugh.

‘Oh yeah? Bring it on Y/LN. looking forward to it.’

One thing you do know for sure is that this office will definitely not be boring.

-

Interview – Jim

‘I wanted to test the waters a little bit, see if she would be a target or an accomplice.’
He smiles,
‘She’s going to make a good team mate I think.’

-

Interview – Y/N

You are eating jelly out of a mug, talking between bites.
‘Day one and my pen is in jelly. I wonder how he knew strawberry was my favourite?’

You smile to yourself, finishing off the last piece of jelly,
‘And yeah, I thought it was very funny,’ you say the next part quite rushed, ‘But don’t tell him I said that.’

-

Chapter Text

Chapter 3: The Jelly Seminar

It’s been about a week since you have started at the Dunder Mifflin Scranton Branch. You have really begun settling in and have gotten into the work flow. Now that you are more comfortable you have decided this is the perfect time to get your revenge on Jim.

The only problem is you don’t know what to do.
You’ve brainstormed so many different ideas; put something of his in jelly, move everything on his desk one inch to the left, you have even thought about getting Dwight in on it.

You quickly decided not to include Dwight... for now. You want to prove to Jim you can do it by yourself and you are not one he can just mess around with without any repercussions.

Then an idea hits you. A fake seminar. All about jelly analysis and hole puncher optimisations. You begin your planning. You record yourself giving a short lecture about the analysis of jelly and the offices optimisation of hole punchers.

You even make graphs, including but not limited to ‘The Number of Paper Clips vs. The Time it Takes to Punch Holes in a Stack of A4 Paper’. You might have splurged a little and ordered an official jelly stamp as well. It just seemed fitting.

-

Interview – Y/N

‘I don’t know if Jim will fall for this but I had fun putting it together, that’s the main goal… right?’ you say nervously.
‘I wonder if I should have named it something not as… obvious’

-

You get to work early so you can get onto Jim's computer before he gets to work. You input a meeting on his calendar for ‘Departmental Jelly Analysis and Hole Puncher Optimisation’, and you save PDF to his computer with the graphs that look very professional. Pam walks in and comes over to see what you are doing.
‘Are you finally going to get Jim back?’

You turn to look at Pam,
‘Yeah, I just wanted to find my footing before I started something I wasn’t sure that I could finish. I may need your help convincing Jim though.’

‘Oh, I'm in, just tell me what I need to do.’

You then fill Pam in on the details. She thinks the idea is brilliant, and agrees that if Jim is sceptical about the meeting she’ll do her best to convince him otherwise. She even helps you set up an online meeting that will play the pre-recorded lecture of you when opened.

You decide to go to your desk now that everything was set up, as soon as you sit down, Jim enters the office.

He hangs his coat up and greets Pam like he does every morning. Not that you are paying attention to Jim’s every day habits.

He sits down at his desk and looks over at you,
‘Good morning, have a good weekend?’

You respond in the most natural voice you could muster, not wanting to reveal anything too soon.
‘Yeah, it was alright. Would’ve been better if everything didn’t shut at 8pm but, what can you do?’ you say while shrugging lightly.

‘You could say that again.’ Jim says with a chuckle, while opening up his calendar like he does every morning.

You see his eyebrows furrow and you can only guess that he found it.
‘Hey, Pam? What's this new meeting about on my calendar? I don’t remember scheduling this.’

‘Jim, you scheduled this Friday evening, don’t you remember?’ Pam played along, glancing at the camera, giving it a small smirk.

Jim seemed even more confused,
‘I did? Wait, it’s in 10 minutes?!’

Jim starts rushing to look through the PDF. Michael walks in and Jim turns to him straight away,
‘Michael, did we have a meeting scheduled for today?’

‘Uhh, maybe?’ Michael replied. ‘Probably, you can handle it by yourself, can’t you? I have to do this really, really important… thing. Yeah, thing.’

‘Yeah, totally.’ Jim says in an unsure tone. ‘What even is jelly analysis? Did we get new products in? Why wasn’t I told about this?’ you hear him mutter to himself.

You thank whatever higher beings may exist for Michael being an unreliable and oblivious boss. You look at Jim, he is trying to stay cool but you can tell he is slightly freaking out.

He stands up gathering his things, rushing slightly.
‘Good luck Jim, you’ll kill it.’ You say to him as he starts to head into the meeting room.

Jim smiles nervously at you,
‘Thanks Y/N, I sure hope I do.’

Jim now enters the meeting room clutching the documents as if they were classified. He organises his material and you see him take a breath. You start to stare at the corner of your keyboard, trying your best not to stare into the room and give it away too quickly.

Then you hear it. Your own voice coming out of the meeting room. It wasn’t loud, and you don’t think anybody else could recognise it but, it made you smile when you hear Jim burst out into laughter.

In the video you are in your best suit, you managed to find a pointing rod, the one with the hand at the end, and used it to point at the graphs you projected onto your wall. You made yourself look extra professional, like a CEO.

Yes, you are lecturing on jelly analysis but you wanted it to have some bit of believability.
‘As you can see, our jelly distribution is currently at 32.89% efficiency. If we don’t act now, our hole punchers may become sentient. We do not want that to happen.’

You can see Jim taking notes, he seems very invested. He hasn’t looked out at you once. You thought he would just see the beginning and give up, you never expected him to watch the whole video, especially not take notes as well.

The video finished up with you saying,
‘Good luck Mr. Halpert. Don’t mess this up. Only you can prevent the invasion of the Hole Punchers.’

Jim stayed silent after the video ended. He just stared at the blank screen. He then stands up and walks over to you.
‘I’ll have my report by tomorrow evening. I won’t let you down.’ He says with a salute.

He then sits back down at his desk and sees the stamp you have left for him. He picks it up to examine it, and smiles widely.
‘Now this, this is brilliant.’

-

Interview – Jim

‘She pranked me back today. It was good.’ He said the next part slightly sarcastically, ‘I somehow believed that I had to do a seminar on jelly analysis.’

He had a smile on his face and continued to speak,
‘I knew it was a prank, Jelly Analysis, come on. But she put in a lot of effort. It’s cute.’

He was holding the stamp in his hand,
‘Also, I think this is the best thing I have ever owned.’

-

Interview – Y/N

‘I think he was impressed. I'm not the best at thinking up an idea for pranks, but I can definitely commit to the bit’

You take a breath and look at the camera crew,
‘I can’t believe he actually fell for it. I was sure he would see right through it.’

-

Chapter Text

Chapter 4: Emergency Contact

You’ve been a part of the office for a few weeks now. You are getting friendlier with all your co-workers. Even Angela, though, you only talk with her about both your cats. You had decided that that was the only safe topic with her.

You were in the break room with Angela as she was showing you pictures of herself in matching outfits with her favourite cat, Sprinkles.

-

Interview – Y/N

‘I love cats, I have my own. I named her Tivali, like Cleopatra’s cat, but there is only so many photos I can see of Sprinkles before I begin to lose my mind.’

-

Interview – Angela

‘Y/N is a lovely person. She likes cats, and she seems to love her daily updates on what Sprinkles gets up to.’

Angela then holds a picture up to the camera,
‘This was Sprinkles last week after I got her a new toy, look at how happy her face is.’

-

Angela begins to pull out more pictures of Sprinkles from her bag when you hear a voice coming from behind you,
‘Whatcha up to?’ Jim was here.

Maybe he could try and save you.
‘I'm showing Y/N here photos of Sprinkles.’ Angela said with a bit of pep in her voice.

‘Yeah Jim,’ You say, trying to say ‘help me’ with your eyes. ‘You should come over and see some of the pictures. They’re great.’

Jim strolls over, hands in his pockets, with a smirk on his face.
‘Oh wow,’ Jim says while leaning over you, standing a bit too close, ‘Matching outfits, very… coordinated.’

Angela beams while looking at the photo,
‘Sprinkles can really pull off any colour. Not everyone can do that.’

‘No, they cannot,’ Jim replies.

Angela begins to pull out even more photos, you try to hide the groan you want to leave out.
‘Let me find the one from Sprinkles’ last birthday. You’ll love it.’

You never thought you would say this, but, you really want to get back to work. You thought Jim only came over to make your suffering worse but, then you hear him speak.
‘Hey Y/N, did you get a chance to finish that report that Michael wanted?’

‘The report?’ you ask.

Jim nods his head at you,
‘Yes, the urgent one. The one Michael said he wanted by ‘yesterday’.’ He put yesterday in air quotes.

‘Ah, yes. I remember now, the important one.’

‘What did Michael want a report for?’ asked Angela.

‘Paper, just… paper.’ Jim replied.

Angela seemed to accept this and started to organise her photos to put them back into her bag. While she is looking down, you and Jim slip out of the break room.

Once you get out of earshot you sigh dramatically,
‘I thought I was going to learn about Sprinkles whole life story there, thank you.’

Jim lets out a quiet laugh,
‘I need to teach you better. Rule number one of living in Scranton, whenever Angela reaches for her bag, run.’

As you are talking and making your way back to your desks, your shoulders brush slightly just for a second, and Jim glances at you with a half-smile.
‘Next time you need rescuing I don’t think a report is going to cut it.’ Jim says seriously. ‘We may need to look into some sort of tranquiliser darts, something humane, of course.’

You let out a small laugh, and as you are sitting back into your chair you say,
‘Or we could go with a not so crazy idea and just feign an emergency, maybe I should start a fake emergencies list.’

As you and Jim were making yourselves comfy in your chairs to get back to work, Dwight cuts in,
‘AN EMERGENCY? What is it? is Michael okay? MICHAEL!’

‘Dwight, there is no emergency.’ Jim says with a tiredness in his voice.

‘Are you sure?’ Dwight says while reaching into his desk drawer for his nunchucks. ‘If there is an emergency, I will be the only one in this office capable of keeping anybody safe.’

‘Oh yes,’ you say with sarcasm in your voice. ‘If there was an emergency, the only person I could trust would be Dwight. Who else is there?’

Dwight had a stupid grin on his face while turning to Jim,
‘See, you haven’t corrupted the newbie as much as you thought Jim. For I, Dwight, am the superior being in this office, no, in the whole of Scranton.’

Dwight shoots off yelling something about securing the perimeter, and Jim turns to you.
‘So, since your super manly protector is gone, I guess I must be next in line for your emergency contact?’ he says with a playful grin.

Trying to hide the smile threatening its way onto your face, you focus on your computer.
‘It seems so, I hope you don’t run from me like my last emergency contact.’

-

Interview – Jim

Jim is sitting with one hand covering his mouth hiding a smile,
‘Emergency contact? Yeah that kinda just came out. I didn’t think about it until after I said it.’

He glances out of the meeting room towards your desk,
‘But, sure. If she needed someone to call I wouldn’t be mad if she chose me, I guess.’ He said with a slight shrug.

‘Unless it’s another Angela emergency. I think I can only handle like, one of them a year, if even.’

-

Interview – Y/N

‘Honestly I might just take Jim up on him being my emergency contact, at the moment I just have down 911.’

You grin while saying,
‘I really should have a different emergency contact. Maybe I should go with Dwight, he seems to have the spirit, I guess?’

-

Neither of you noticed Pam and the filming crew standing over by the copier, pretending to refill it with paper, whilst sharing a look, and listening in to your conversation.

-

Interview – Pam

Pam sits with her hands placed on her lap,
‘You guys saw that right? They were totally flirting! I genuinely think they’d be the cutest couple in the office.’

She paused while looking slightly off camera, zoning out. Once she focused again, she said a little too quickly,
‘After me and Roy, obviously.’

-

Chapter Text

Chapter 5: The Coffee Habit

You don’t know when it started. All you know is that lately, every time you get to your desk in the morning, a cup of hot coffee is waiting for you exactly how you like it. You have an inkling that Jim is behind it, as whenever you take the first sip of the drink you can feel him stare into the side of your face.

You genuinely think he is going to stare a hole through your skull.

It also doesn’t help that it’s the exact same mug every time. Yes, maybe it’s a coincidence, but it’s the same mug Jim used to prank you on your first day here. The one that somehow became your favourite.

You don’t know whether or not to thank Jim or pretend you haven’t noticed. You decide to say it to Pam in the break room, and get her opinion.
‘Hey, so Jim… I think he has been bringing me coffee every morning but I'm not a hundred percent sure that it’s him.’

Pam without an ounce of hesitation says,
‘Oh, it’s Jim alright. I see him place the cup every morning. It’s always just before you come in.’ Pam says.

She stirs her tea, looking down into it, while saying,
‘He used to bring me coffee too.’

She goes silent for just a second too long,
‘He has stopped lately though.’ She said the last part more to herself.

You have no idea how to respond to Pam, so it’s a relief when Phyllis walks into the break room.

She glances at the camera crew, grimaces, and gestures with her eyes toward the two of you.

-

Interview – Pam

‘Jim has taken up bringing Y/N coffee every morning. It’s cute. He used to do the same for me.’

She takes a breath,
‘I’ve taken up drinking tea anyways. I like it in a really specific way, so,’ Pam stops for a beat. ‘It would be difficult for him to make it anyways. It’s herbal.

Footage of Pam plays making her tea. She boils water, and adds it to the mug with her tea bag inside. That’s it.

‘Yeah, it’s… complicated.’

-

Interview – Jim

Jim is sitting in the chair leaning back, very casually. Almost like he is trying too hard to look like he doesn’t care.
‘Coffee? Oh that, yeah, some people just… find coffee on their desks. Haven’t you guys heard of the coffee fairies?’ He shrugs. ‘It’s magic’

He glances at the crew, waiting to see if they buy it.
‘Plus, I don’t even know how to make coffee the way Y/N likes it. Well, not really. I mean…’
He leans forward on his chair, elbows resting on his knees. He looks a bit nervous.
‘I guess I’ve seen them make their coffee a few times in the break room. That’s what makes me a great salesman, my... observational skills.’

He sits upright again as if he has just explained everything perfectly. He then looks at the camera crew.
‘I didn’t say that I didn’t make her coffee exactly… but I'm not going to confirm either.’

Jim shifts in his seat before asking,
‘Can I get back to work now?’

-

It’s the next day and you’ve had time to think about what you should do. You notice there’s a cute café near the office that sells pastries. You decide to pick up two of them. One for you and one for Jim.

While walking to work you think about what to say if he asks you about it. Maybe you could say that the café had a two for one deal?

Once you get to work you see Jim sitting at his desk and the mug of coffee in the same place on your desk it has been on for every morning as of late.

You put the pastry on the side of Jim’s desk. He glances at it, then looks up at you.
‘What’s this?’ he says with a smirk.

‘Oh, it’s just payment.’ You try to say casually.

‘Payment?’ Jim asks.

‘Yeah, you have become my caffeine dealer. I’ve got to make sure you’re satisfied.’ You walk away to hang up your coat, too nervous to remember earlier.

Jim starts to open the pastry bag when Dwight suddenly appears, leaning over his desk with a serious look. Jim raises an eyebrow and gives a subtle deadpan sigh. You just watch as Dwight gestures wildly, clearly explaining something, but you don’t catch a word.

From Jim's POV:
‘You know she could be trying to trick your brain with that.’

Jim pauses what he is doing before turning to Dwight.
‘Tricking me how?’

‘She could be trying to programme your brain to think of her whenever you see a pastry. Pastries make you happy, right? So now, every time you get a pastry, you think of her, and feel happy. Then eventually you won’t even need a pastry to feel happy when you think of her.’

‘Dwight,’ Jim says, raising an eyebrow.

‘Yes, Jim?’ Dwight replies, expectantly.

Jim deadpans at Dwight while resuming his opening of the pastry bag,
‘Shut up.’

-

You come back and sit at your desk. Jim smiles at you while taking a bite of his pastry, though Dwight is shaking his head at you. You decide to ignore him and look back at Jim.

He took too big a bite of his pastry, and when you caught him, he gave a sheepish grin. You can’t hold back the smile that made its way to your face this time.

-

Interview – Y/N

‘Caffeine dealer? What was I thinking? Why didn’t I just say there was a two for one like I planned?’ You facepalm.

‘Though I do think it worked out. Maybe I should stop thinking things over so much.’

You smile to yourself before saying,
‘Maybe the café will have a new two for one deal every day.’

-

Interview – Jim

‘I'm her caffeine dealer.’ He says with a smile on his face. ‘It’s cute.’

He smiles looking at the empty pastry bag he brought in with him.
‘It’s nearly like we are eating breakfast together. But, we aren’t, because we sit at different desks, and we don’t talk to each other while eating.’ He sighs.

‘But, we are eating at the same time, and we both got each other parts of the breakfast. So, we basically are eating breakfast together.’ He pulls a lopsided grin.

-