FIC: can't be with or without you (The Office, Karen/Katy, Katy/Pam, Pam/Angela, PG-13)

Title: can't be with or without you
Author: aphrodite_mine
Summary: Three stories of three women, intersecting.
Info: written for livelovebelieve, for the Office Rare Pair exchange [ipod_ovenmitt] Karen/Katy, Katy/Pam, Pam/Angela, subtitles are Bon Iver lyrics
Word count: about 1,030


1. [I wear my garment so it shows]

She looks up from the beer she's nursing far too slowly. Karen smiles, thinks she looks like more of a martini girl. "I made a lousy one sale today. I hardly have the money to pay for this. I should just... take myself home and cry into some ice cream." She takes a slow sip, grimacing quickly and then going in for another swallow (a glutton for punishment), her fingers around the neck of the bottle.

Karen isn't one hundred percent sure that the girl is talking to her over the bored-looking bartender, at least until she turns Karen's way and droops considerably on her bar stool. "Toast?" She has--god, these really green eyes. And she really shouldn't frown with those lips.

"Why not?" Karen lifts her half-empty glass and clinks it against the girl's. "What to?"

"To me being a total failure at everything. Has a nice ring to it, dontcha think?" Another really pathetic swallow.

Karen's heart lurches. "Oh god. I can hardly let you sit here like this." She reaches and taps a finger against the girl's cheek, sliding it down. "All sad."

She flushes, looks down into the bottle, but Karen thinks she sees the hint of a smile.

"I sell purses. Badly, it would seem." She turns to Karen again. "How cliché, right? A former cheerleader, can't get a better job than propagating feminine accessories." She smiles, and God--Karen had the right idea, but it was only a guestimation-- "My name's Katy. You wouldn't happen to be in the market for a stunning new purse, would you?"

Karen notices her heart beating against her chest--she couldn't miss the slamming way it forces her out of breath--and grips the bar. "Afraid not," she states, finishing off her drink and clinking the glass back on the counter. "I'll buy you a drink, though. A real drink." She lifts a hand for the bartender, looks at Katy from the side of her eye. "I'm Karen."

Katy thanks her, and says quietly, "It suits you."

2. [harness your blame, and walk through]
“Dunder Mifflin, this is Pam.”

“Oh hi again. This is Katy?” Okay, right. Like she didn’t know what her name was. She tried again. “This is Katy. I’m calling for Jim. Could you connect me?”

A pause, too long of a pause. Damnit. She knew she should have gotten his direct line.

“Actually, Katy, he’s on a sales call. But if you’ll hold for a moment, I can connect you then.”

“Okay, sure, but I—"

The line went dead-ish, and then a kind of really lame music came over the speaker and Katy sighed. Pam really wasn’t that great of a receptionist if she hung up on people like this. She just wanted to leave a message, honestly.

And okay, she’d only met Pam twice, maybe? So maybe it wasn’t fair to judge her on the basis of those meetings and a few phone calls during which Pam had been curt and overly-professional.

Oh, and whatever, miss “I have weird indie taste in movies and make your boyfriend laugh.” Once Katy got through, she would ask Jim for his direct line. Definitely. This time.

Click. Breath. “Okay, um. I don’t think Jim can really talk right now. This is a really important call and he’s giving me the signal, and maybe I should just take a message.”

Katy paused. They have signals? One signal naturally assumes more. Well… “I guess he doesn’t really need me to bring him a sandwich anyway.”

“Um, yeah. I think he brought something.” Katy heard the sound of pen on paper, then keys striking.

“Oh, are you busy? I guess I should go. I mean, if Jim can’t talk.”

“I’m not—I mean. You don’t have to-- Hang up, I mean. I can talk,” Pam murmured, “For awhile.”

Katy looked down, not replying for a moment. “All right.” And she didn’t ask for Jim’s direct line.

3. [I told you to be patient]

The copier is broken again.

Kevin makes exaggerated faces and turns towards Angela saying “uh oh,” like a buffoon. She can only take so much more of it before she does something untowards.

She marches—yes, marches—to Pam’s desk. Eyes the receptionist sprawled on the floor, the manual and copier in pieces in front of her. “Obviously, you don’t understand. I need to get these reports in the mail by five, and to do that, I need to make copies. And to do that, I need to use the copying machine.”

Pam looks up from the manual. “You can’t just print extra copies?” She blows a quick breath up against her face, pushes a hair off of her forehead. Her pants have a stain on them, from the toner or something, but it’s disgraceful. And inappropriate.

Angela can see plenty of cleavage. Especially from this angle. She clears her throat.

“That would really be a waste of toner, and as I’m responsible for keeping the budget relatively… sane, I don’t think I can authorize a decision like that, to be frank!”

There’s a clank—Pam must have dropped two pieces of the copier together—and Angela jumps a little. Pam sighs. “You know, Angela, I’m asking you one thing. Just a little sacrifice while I figure this out, okay? And I could probably work faster without you hovering.”

She doesn’t say anything more; simply closes her mouth and turns around. But after she prints the copies at her desk, Angela pulls up some numbers and nods to herself. She watches Pam grumble and dust herself off as she stands up to answer the phone with the familiar greeting. She sounds harried.

“We’ll have to cut back on your vacation, but I think there’s money here for a repairman. You know—get the job done right.”

A pause. Angela carefully doesn’t look up or across the room.

“Thank you.”

“Don’t thank me,” Angela insists. “And put on a sweater. This is a work environment, not a gym.”