Chapter Text
For the record, Jim would like to make it known that this began as Pam’s idea. Just because Jim took it and ran with it doesn’t mean that this whole sordid thing didn’t start with Pam.
He would like that to be clear, when the whole thing inevitably crashes and burns and he’s left wifeless and jobless and, hell, probably homeless.
*
They’re enjoying a rare extended afterglow, Cece’s baby monitor suspiciously quiet even after they’ve taken their time for once, when Pam, curled up naked against his chest and tapping out the beat of some song stuck in her head, looks up at him and grins, a little mischievous.
Jim can’t help his instantaneous reaction to that look, is abruptly turned on and full of love for his wife and the fact that they share a love of juvenile pranks, and she laughs at his reaction, pats him on the side like he’s the family dog, and pushes up a little, clearly excited with whatever is running through her head.
“What?” Jim asks her when she neglects to share straight away, and even though he’s in the dark, he can’t help but smile, the curve of her grin so contagious. He dances his fingertips down the gentle curve of her spine, relishes in her shiver, feels the full-to-bursting rush of affection for his wife, Pam is his wife—
—and then his wife opens her mouth and ruins his life.
“Do you think Dwight watches weird porn?”
Jim startles badly, sitting up so fast that he knocks Pam to the side. He stares at his bare knees for a second, blankly takes in the striped pattern of their sheets, turns to look at her, lounging now on the pile of pillows they’d tossed to the other end of the bed.
“I—what?”
Pam shrugs, all casual and bored, like she’s not in the process of destroying his brain, the curve of her smile still rounding her cheeks. He shivers a little when he looks at it, thinks she must be way more ruthless than he could ever hope to be if she’s asking this kind of question while they’re naked in bed.
“I’ve been thinking about it,” she says, tipping her head to the side and making a base effort to gather her hair, frizzing and sticking a little to her neck, into a tamed loop.
“During—” Jim can’t even say it, but he’s a little offended at the thought. He makes himself force it out, but he barely manages a hiss. “During sex?!”
“Basically always,” she confirms, sitting up and nodding, and Jim almost starts tearing his hair out of his head when he notices the twinkle in her eyes. She’s definitely messing with him, at least a little.
There’s nothing for it, he decides. The baby monitor is still quiet, which means the only thing left to do is to distract her to the point that she never thinks about that again.
Jim sort of tackles her back into the pillows, kissing her and tickling her until she’s gasping for air, squealing and crying a little, even as she wraps her legs around his waist and keeps him close.
*
Of course, Pam never speaking of it again doesn’t magically wipe the question from Jim’s memories. It seems like everything reminds him of her demon question. Nowhere is safe anymore, apparently.
He wakes up one morning to Pam’s voice in the other room. He’s bewildered for a moment before he realizes she’s likely talking on the phone, and then he sort of tunes in just in time to hear her reassuring Isabelle that there’s nothing wrong with her, and Dwight was an ass for not calling again.
Pam’s objectively attractive younger cousin was still hung up on their desk-clump-mate, which continued to blow Jim’s mind whenever he was forced to think about it. Luckily, when he staggers out of the bedroom, he notices Cece’s fussing a little in her crib, so he spends some time with his perfect, adorable daughter instead of making his way into the kitchen to watch Pam’s expressions as she keeps talking Isabelle down from the ledge.
The following Thursday, he overhears Dwight talking to Mark and Brian about how he isn’t interested in Angela any longer, and Jim prays none of the cameras are facing him when he hears Dwight mention his contract of sexual intercourse.
Later, when Michael is taking his afternoon nap, exhausted from a long morning of pouting about not getting the lead in a play he likely hasn’t ever seen, Jim comes back from the kitchen with coffee for him and juice for Pam and spots Dwight’s computer screen, some incredibly dweebish game flickering in and out of life as the office’s terrible internet causes the graphics to lag.
Dwight is making swoosh noises every time his character’s sword swings, and Jim abruptly remembers how many fantasy games and novels Dwight likes.
There’s just no way he doesn’t watch weird porn.
Unless he doesn’t watch porn at all.
Jim accidentally unnerves Dwight with all the staring, which is good, because it’s been a few days since he’s even thought about any good pranks, never mind how long it’s been since he’s carried one out.
In the car on the way home, Jim lets Pam finish singing along to the Usher song on the radio that she likes before he turns off the car, double checks that Cece is asleep in the back seat, and turns to Pam, raising his brows.
She mirrors his expression, looking a little amused and a lot excited for whatever is about to come out of his mouth. He’d feel guilty if she didn’t deserve this kind of retribution.
“How do we even know that Dwight knows what porn is?” he asks her, like they’d been having the conversation right then and not two weeks prior. “He still uses a flip-phone, and I seriously doubt that the farm has an internet connection.”
Regrettably, Pam is not as instantly horrified at the combination-thought of Dwight and porn as he had been, and she looks thrilled at the idea that he’s still being haunted by this question.
“Do you think he’d have old tapes? Magazines? Erotic novels?” She asks, clearly thinking out loud. “He’d probably want to keep them hidden from Mose.”
Without even really knowing what he’s saying, Jim’s mumbling, “I wish there was some way we could find out.”
Pam stares at him, chewing on the inside of her cheek as she thinks about it, leaning back in her seat, the seatbelt still strapped across her chest. When she lurches forward in excitement, the safety lock enacts and she gets a little stuck, and she hardly seems to notice, as excited as she is.
“We’re well overdue for another romantic stay at Schrute Farms’ Bed and Breakfast.” Pam tells him cheerfully, and Jim is startled into laughter.
*
Jim leaves Pam with the job of convincing Dwight to let them stay another night on his farm and takes his own, far easier job of calling his sister and asking if she’d be willing to keep Cece overnight. He does not think about the fact that he and Pam will be spending their first whole night away from their daughter on Dwight’s farm.
Pam’s a goddess when it comes to dealing with Dwight, as always, starts complaining about her chair early in the morning, shifting and sighing and really working for it. She and Dwight have lunch together and Jim bets she offers to share her sandwich with him, because Dwight is about gestures more than the actions themselves, and when they come back in, Dwight holds the door for her as she says, “I wish there was a chair-building class I could take somewhere.”
Dwight doesn’t jump until she continues with a well-placed jab on the weak, inferior quality of mass-manufactured seating.
“Mose and I’ve just finished a dining table and twelve chairs to go with it.” he tells her, and Jim makes himself get out of his seat and go get an unnecessary cup of water so he doesn’t spook Dwight out of making his offer. “I suppose chair-making is a logical follow-up class to table-making at Schrute Farms.”
“Do you think I would be tired after the class?” Pam asks innocently, and, while she makes reservations for them to stay the following night, Jim drinks three cups of water and hovers around Stanley’s desk until the man physically swats him away.
When they get home, they give Cece extra attention, keeping her up a little later than she’s used to so they can talk to her and play with her, and Jim knows Pam’s been distracted with their ridiculous quest and it’s only just now hitting her that they’d be leaving Cece the following morning, for the very first time.
When Cece has finally knocked out a little after eleven, they go together to put her in her crib, turning off the overhead light and leaving the little Winnie the Pooh nightlight on and glowing a soft yellow light. Pam is clearly reluctant to leave the bedroom, tipping her head and studying their daughter like they’re going to be gone months instead of hours.
They watch Cece breathe for a long time before Pam turns in the loose circle of his arms around her waist and hugs him back, pressing close against him and sighing a little.
“I know she’ll be fine,” she whispers, and Jim rocks her a little, like they’re dancing.
“I’m nervous too,” he tells her, like it’s a secret, and he feels her cheek curve on a smile against his chest.
In the morning, Pam tears up a little when Larissa gets to their house just after breakfast, and they’re late leaving because Jim wants to go over everything twice and almost starts a third round before Larissa bodily shoves him into the front hall and tells him to get lost. She’s a little nicer to Pam, but the sentiment is the same, and, reluctantly, they leave, kissing Cece goodbye one last time as they go.
The first ten minutes or so of the drive are pretty quiet, the radio on low and Pam’s hands firmly on the ten-and-two position of the steering wheel of their silver SUV. Jim watches them drive further away from their house and stares out the window as they pass Scranton’s small town center.
“What if we don’t find any porn?” Pam asks suddenly and Jim inhales sharply and chokes on his saliva. He has no answer to this question.
They discuss potential hiding spots, mapping out a plan of action. Jim intends to fake an injury during their chair-building class, because Pam’s sure she’ll do better at keeping Dwight outside with her. As always, they sort of side-step acknowledging the fact that Pam and Dwight are, absurdly, something close to best friends. Jim remembers Dwight hugging him when he moved to Stamford and carefully files the memory into the Do Not Discuss box too.
Pretty soon, the residential areas start to give way to houses with bigger and bigger lots, more trees and fewer stoplights. Pam’s got Dwight’s vague-and-bizarre directions to the main house memorized, and they are startled, as always, when they spot Mose out in the fields and he starts chasing after their car.
Dwight isn’t sitting out front this time, which means Pam says that they should leave their bags and go and look for him. The Schrute Farm is pretty nice, and Jim is as excited to hold her hand as he’d been when they first started dating, so the journey up and down the paths as they look inside different outer buildings and barns is almost relaxing.
They find Dwight in the slaughterhouse, expertly and terrifyingly plucking what looks like his third duck of the day. Pam’s expression of woozy discomfort completely validates the slight upheaval Jim feels in his belly, and they back away to go back and look at the patch of wildflowers and make little braying noises at the goats roaming the land freely.
Eventually, after Mose has run past the two of them and screamed at the crows trying to destroy the crop, Dwight comes out, still blood-stained and carrying a string of ducks that Jim assumes will be their dinner, and he looks startled when he comes across the two of them, lounging in the shade of one of the walnut trees.
“Excuse me,” Dwight says in his businessman voice, and Jim and Pam both wave away his fake concern, Pam assuring him that they’re enjoying the landscape far too much to be worried about a late check-in. He looks unsure for just a moment before he collects himself, expression settling on a pretty good middle-ground between Dwight-their-coworker and Farmer Schrute, owner of their most-frequented bed and breakfast.
Yeesh, Jim backtracks when he has that thought. He really needs to take Pam on more trips away.
Far away, Mose begins climbing a tree, and Pam leans her head onto Jim’s shoulder, mumbling a little about pulling out her sketchpad later on.
Dwight comes out again later to coax Mose down from the tree, and the four of them have a not-unentertaining picnic on the porch. Jim wonders exactly when he started getting used to beet salad as Pam lets Dwight talk about how carrots are the easiest—and therefore, the most inferior—vegetable to grow. After, the three of them watch Mose do backflips on a trampoline for a little while before Dwight sends him up the stairs with Jim and Pam’s matching duffle-bags.
“We would like to stay in the nighttime room this time, if that’s okay,” Pam tells Dwight, and Dwight nods, yelling something in German up at Mose.
Dwight’s chair-making class is a little easier to follow than Mose’s table-making class, even though he starts with a long lecture about the evolution of the modern chair, before reminding them the different properties of each type of wood. Pam asks about stain colors like she’s really getting into the lesson and Jim is forced to acknowledge that this may be both a retcon mission and a real vacation.
When Jim drops a hammer on his foot and makes a fuss about wanting to go in and lay down for a while, Dwight yells for Mose and makes him give Jim a piggyback ride back to the house. Jim is certain Pam had taken a picture of the scene with her phone, but it hardly matters, because as soon as he can convince Mose to leave him be, he’s got to get to searching.
Jim searches Dwight’s room first, because it feels like the riskiest place. There’s next to no personal effects in it, aside from a huge painting above his bed of several frogs playing stringed instruments and a copy of A Series of Unfortunate Events on the bedside table. Jim checks, and it’s the fifth one.
In Dwight’s closet is a truly remarkable collection of mustard-colored shirts and slacks in half a dozen differing shades of brown. Jim stares at the tie collection for too many wasted minutes before he gently closes the door and escapes the bedroom to go search the rest of the house.
He’s lounging on a couch that must be at least two hundred years old when Dwight and Pam come inside, sweaty and cheerful, and when Pam meets his eye and he subtly shakes his head in the negative, she hardly looks disappointed.
“As always, Jim,” Dwight says snootily as he expertly wraps up Jim’s ankle with medical tape after muttering about liability suits, “your lovely wife is far superior to you when it comes to necessary life skills.”
“I made two chairs!” Pam tells him excitedly. “Dwight said they’re wholly adequate.”
“For a beginner,” Dwight clarifies, like they don’t know him well enough at this point to know what a compliment the sentiment is, even with the qualifier.
“Very excited to take them home,” Jim agrees, and then he has a stroke of genius. “Do you have anything I could read down by the creek?”
Dwight names several war-and-battle anthologies and even more fantasy series titles, flickering in and out of his host voice depending on whatever expression Jim makes at each suggestion.
“I was thinking something a little more,” a beat, “sexier?”
Maybe not a stroke of genius, then. Maybe just a stroke.
Dwight had laughed off Jim’s request at first, and then gotten all huffy in that way he does when he thinks Jim’s making fun of him, and then he’d just walked out of the room, looking shifty eyed and bewildered.
Jim deserves Pam’s look of scorn when they get outside, a biography of Marie Curie under one of her arms.
It’s still a nice early evening, and Pam’s chairs really are quite nice, and when Mose starts practicing his bird-calling from the roof, it only adds to the atmosphere.
Before dinner, Pam and him call Larissa, listening to her wax poetic about their daughter and describe in detail every moment of the day so far. They tell Cece over the phone how much they love her and miss her, and they wish her an early goodnight, and when Dwight comes out to announce dinner only seconds after they hang up, it feels like a peace offering.
Too bad Jim’s gonna blow it to smithereens.
“I wanted to apologize if I made you uncomfortable earlier,” Jim tells Dwight over succulent roast duck, a beet hash, asparagus, and a goopy, oddly delicious beet-wine vinaigrette. Both he and Pam can cook relatively well, but Jim thinks about staying at the Schrute B-and-B more often just to eat like this would be nice.
Dwight laughs his hosts’ laugh, and Mose lets out a shrill giggle half a beat later. “Please.” Dwight says. “I am a Schrute. I do not feel discomfort.”
Jim thinks about how many openings he’s letting slip by, and, beneath the table, Pam’s foot taps a soothing beat against his own.
“Besides,” their host continues, overconfident as always, “I know you were just making it up to get a rise out of me. And you failed; the rise was not gotten.”
Pam and Jim share a side glance and Pam sips at her beet wine before clearing her throat. “Uh, Dwight?” She starts haltingly, glancing at Mose, who’s abandoned eating for playing. When Dwight swivels his gaze over to her, she blushes a little, looking extra pretty in her red flannel and the dim light of Dwight’s dining room. “Jim didn’t make it up.”
Dwight blinks and then laughs that same, fraudy laugh. “Pamela,” he says, pitying. “I know there’s no such thing as sexy books.”
“There are,” Pam insists, and Jim feels a little like he’s in the twilight zone. He drinks more of his wine and decides to just enjoy the show. “They’re really common, and have existed for a long time. They’re a sub-genre of romance novels!”
Dwight’s mouth opens and closes once before he shakes his head a little, looking like he’s going to keep insisting they’re making it up. Before he can, Pam soldiers on, braver than anyone Jim has ever known.
“They have plenty of historical context too—” she tells him, warming to the subject. “—people like Benjamin Franklin used to read them and use them for inspiration.”
“Inspiration,” Dwight repeats blankly. He waves Mose off when his cousin makes some sort of half-gesture to get up, and the boy leaves quickly, a stalk of asparagus in each hand as he goes.
“For—intercourse,” Pam says, hesitating now, finally. She meets Jim’s gaze, her cheeks pink from the wine and the subject, and Jim feels a little hot himself. When he grins at her, she seems to regain her momentum, straightening up. “They kind of fell to the wayside with the emergence of porn, but the internet is bringing them back, a little.”
Dwight stares at her. Pam does a little shimmy that all girls apparently learn how to do at some point, and suddenly she looks daintier and more feminine, even though, ostensibly, she looks exactly the same.
“Personally,” Pam continues, her voice getting a little breathier, one finger twirling a lock of her straightened hair. “I prefer the books—erotica—” here, she enunciates carefully, and Jim watches Dwight watch her mouth. “—but porn is okay too.”
“Just—videos of people, having intercourse?” Dwight confirms, and Pam nods, and somehow another button on her flannel has come undone, bringing her farm-girl outfit from cute to sexy in a move that Jim didn’t see, even though he’d been paying pretty close attention.
Following some sort of formula only she knows, Pam decides not to push this subject any further than it’s gotten. She keeps Dwight’s gaze for several long seconds after he finishes speaking, before abruptly breaking it to fork another pile of meat into her mouth, chewing appreciatively and swallowing before changing the subject to the morning activities.
Aware that his wife is somehow the number one expert on how to interact with Dwight, Jim participates in this discussion, wondering idly what the next plan of attack is even as they talk, their usual dynamic hardly affected by the intimacy of their environment and their—
—discussion of porn.
Jim thinks, again, for posterity, about how this started with Pam. Just because he escalated it doesn’t remove her from the blame card.
He thinks that’s what he’ll say when they get taken to court for insanity.
Dwight gets Mose to clear the table and sort out the dishes, and he disappears somewhere soon after the faucet is running and Mose is up to his elbows in bubbles, so Jim and Pam loiter in the den, sitting close together and talking about Pam’s dad’s newest relationship and enjoying being close.
Jim follows Pam’s lead and doesn’t bring anything higher-rated than PG again on their little trip. He and Dwight go fishing before the sun has even finished rising and return soaking wet and covered in mud from when they’d gotten into a slap fight on the little paddle boat and overturned the whole thing.
With their small collection of caught catfish and the eggs that Mose had collected, the four of them have greasy, deliciously gluttonous omlettes with little tomatoes and flaky apricot pastries. While Mose stuffs their duffle bags and Pam’s two chairs into the trunk, Pam hugs Dwight tight and somehow makes him promise to let them come stay again soon enough. Jim gets a hug too, and a flyer telling him to write about his stay on Yelp, and a reminder to not be late the following morning because the two of them had an important sale call and Dwight didn’t want Jim to ruin their chances.
“What now?” Jim asks Pam when they drive away. Her head is tilted back and she looks more relaxed than she has in months, and Jim finds himself again in the insane position of owing Dwight hugely. He reaches over and takes her hand, lacing their fingers together over the center console, and, though her eyes stay shut, her lips twitch into a fond little smile and Jim just—loves her.