![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Title: Temporary: A Noun
By:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kellifer_fic
Fandom: The Office
Rating: PG
Characters: Ryan, Ensemble, Ryan/Kelly
Words: 1,633
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no money!
Summary: Eight ways to succeed in business, or at least, show up.
~ Be Passionate ~
Ryan has turned clock-watching into an art form.
He can’t actually see the clock from his desk, but he can burn about ten minutes by leaning casually back, edging ever closer until the rim of the clock will appear from around the filing cabinets in the middle of the office. There would be a moment of dangerous teetering and a metal groan as he pushed his chair to its limit until he could just see the one to six side.
He needs to plant his feet and lean to get the other numbers into his sight-line and then there would be the momentary pause to guess what time it was with his eyes closed and the tiny thrill he would feel if it was actually later or the needle-sharp moment of disappointment if it was earlier.
He can just look at his watch, but that lacks commitment.
~ Don’t think about Failure ~
“Of course it will work!”
Ryan always feels a cold knife of dread when he hears those words, especially from Michael.
“Are you sure you don’t want Dwight to help you with this? He’d know what he was doing.” There was a lot about Dwight that was ludicrous, but he was surprisingly adept at anything that required physical labour or mechanical know-how.
Michael makes the very special mew of disgust that Ryan has learned is just for Dwight.
Six hours later, Ryan is covered in grease, his best work shirt is going into the trash when he gets home and he is standing with Michael in the middle of the office with a fully disassembled car, shoved aside furniture surrounding them.
Ryan just knows he shouldn’t have answered his phone on a Saturday at two in the morning.
“So, we put it back together now, right?” Ryan prompts.
“Yessiree!” Michael claps his hands together and rubs them. “It’ll be hilarious. Miller will be all ‘where’s my car?’ and it’s in the office. But how?”
Brendan Miller, “efficiency expert”, who was doing a branch by branch study on employee satisfaction which Ryan suspected was a nice way of saying that he was looking for people to downsize. His car was in the Dunder Mifflin car park because he was staying the weekend in Scranton to visit with family and had been picked up by his brother. He was planning on doing final interviews and heading off Monday morning in his tiny and stylishly retro mini.
Or so he probably thought.
Ryan was starting to get a very bad feeling about all this. Actually, he’d had a very bad feeling all along but sometimes it was just easier to go along with Michael.
“So, what’s first?” Ryan asks, waiting a beat while the blankness surfaces on Michael’s face that means he doesn’t have the answer to something.
Ryan always thought it looked like Michael was temporarily shutting down to escape disaster.
“You said you’d done this before,” Ryan prompts and Michael ducks his head a little.
“Well, I’d heard of it being done,” he admits.
With a sigh, Ryan sits down on a tyre.
~ Be Willing to Learn ~
He had to time it exactly.
Just long enough to have her giving up and walking into the office on her own and not long enough that he was going to be late.
He’d thought it odd at first that Kelly happened to arrive exactly when he did in the morning, no matter what time he got there. Eventually he’d spotted her sitting in her car, radio on, laying in wait. She would spot his car, look like she had just pulled up and was getting organised, and emerge from her own vehicle the moment he did.
Ryan knew this because of the day he’d had Jim pick him up when his car was in the shop and they had both watched Kelly just sitting there for ages. Jim being Jim, had finally gone over and tapped on her window, asking if she was okay.
Kelly had startled and then had flushed bright red when she had spotted Ryan behind Jim’s shoulder.
~ Use any opportunity to Network ~
Ryan has exactly one cigarette a month. He had quit smoking just before he had started at Dunder Mifflin and hadn’t fathomed how much he would need it to cope. He compromised with himself and a smoke every thirty days seemed like the best plan.
You had to look forward to something.
He spots Jan getting out of her car from across the parking lot and she sees him at the same time and zeroes in. He’s not even sure she knows his name but he recognises the look. He has his lighter out and held towards her by the time she’s next to him.
“Thanks…?” she pauses, waiting.
“Ryan,” he supplies. “Ryan Howard.”
“Oh, right,” she nods.
“I just wanted to say thankyou,” Ryan blurts before he can help himself.
“For what?”
Ryan presses his mouth together because how does he explain that Michael actually having a real-life girlfriend means the awkward and embarrassing man crush he has on Ryan seems to have subsided.
“For the opportunity,” he says. “I was only a temp but was given the fulltime position.”
“Oh, right,” she says again.
~ Find a Mentor ~
“What?”
Ryan realises he’s staring again and pulls his gaze away. A few minutes later his gaze is drawn back to Dwight and he’s thinking How? How does someone like Dwight become the branch’s top salesman when I can’t seem to sell water in the desert?
“I know I’m going to regret this,” Ryan begins and Dwight turns back to him, looking suspicious. Ryan understands. Dwight spent a lot of time sitting next to Jim. “I was just wondering if you’d take me on a sales call with you? See what you do?”
Dwight blinks, then a slow smile spreads across his face. One that Ryan is man enough to admit terrifies him.
“What do you know about beet farms?” Dwight asks and Ryan casts about desperately for Kelly.
~ Have Faith in yourself ~
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean yes, you’re sure, or yes because you’re changing your answer?”
“Yes, I mean no… wait, yes I mean yes. Hang on… I just…”
“So it’s a yes then?”
“I…wait. What?”
“Oh, I’m so glad you think so too.”
Ryan has a warm lap of Kelly and he’s really not sure what he has just agreed to. He had always thought he was a smart guy but dating Kelly, he’s starting to really doubt that because she has ways of ambushing him that means he has a date for the next three Christmases, her and his mother have a weekly shopping commitment and their first child will be called Tomorrow Amelia Blossom.
Kelly is thrilled and Ryan knows to be afraid.
~ Persevere ~
Ryan hates cold-calling but he sticks at it. He really doesn’t have a choice because while everybody professes not to care much, they guard their client lists and practically snarl when he asks for leads. Jim is the only person Ryan hasn’t asked and while he knows Jim would probably happily hand over some of his clients, it reeks of giving in.
Ryan is talking to an administrator for a small shipping firm who is politely but firmly explaining how they are now getting their paper supply through one of the bigger chains because the smaller companies can’t match their discounts when Ryan asks, “So, are there any positions available?”
“I’m sorry?” the woman asks, dropping the bored tone.
“Anything at all? I’m not really fussy.”
“Weren’t you calling to sell paper?”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re asking for a job?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, um, okay. I guess… you can send over your resume?”
“Sure. Just give me your fax number.”
As Ryan writes down the number he feels himself smile for the first time all day.
~ Think Big ~
Dunder Mifflin was supposed to be a stepping stone. He was going to temp there for a maximum of six months and move on to bigger and better things. It was just a stop-gap to help pay for tuition before he found a real job.
Then Jim left and Michael asked him to stay on fulltime. Ryan said yes mostly because it looked like Michael had been crying.
Really recently.
Kelly was supposed to be a bit of fun. Just a girl to pass the time with that smelt nice and made an effort. She really liked him and was enthusiastic in a way that Ryan hadn’t encountered before. There wasn’t anything he could do wrong, none of the careful tip-toeing that was required with most women. He could and did make her cry but forgiveness was only a hug away and he got kind of used to it.
People started saying RyanandKelly the way you referred to couples and he didn’t correct them. He caught himself saying we more than he’d like to and his friends stopped trying to fix him up with the random girls they met.
Ryan stopped wearing purple because that was Kelly’s signature color and she refused to look like one of those crazy couples that dressed alike. He picked up two muffins in the morning on his way in and there was coffee always waiting on his desk at ten.
He started thinking Tomorrow wasn’t such a terrible name for a kid but he dug his heels in and got the Blossom part dropped.
Ryan slowly lets go of the preconceived notions of the way he was expecting his life to go and his mother looks at him one day and says, “You seem happier.”
Ryan realises that strangely enough, he is.
By:
kellifer_ficFandom: The Office
Rating: PG
Characters: Ryan, Ensemble, Ryan/Kelly
Words: 1,633
Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue, no money!
Summary: Eight ways to succeed in business, or at least, show up.
Ryan has turned clock-watching into an art form.
He can’t actually see the clock from his desk, but he can burn about ten minutes by leaning casually back, edging ever closer until the rim of the clock will appear from around the filing cabinets in the middle of the office. There would be a moment of dangerous teetering and a metal groan as he pushed his chair to its limit until he could just see the one to six side.
He needs to plant his feet and lean to get the other numbers into his sight-line and then there would be the momentary pause to guess what time it was with his eyes closed and the tiny thrill he would feel if it was actually later or the needle-sharp moment of disappointment if it was earlier.
He can just look at his watch, but that lacks commitment.
“Of course it will work!”
Ryan always feels a cold knife of dread when he hears those words, especially from Michael.
“Are you sure you don’t want Dwight to help you with this? He’d know what he was doing.” There was a lot about Dwight that was ludicrous, but he was surprisingly adept at anything that required physical labour or mechanical know-how.
Michael makes the very special mew of disgust that Ryan has learned is just for Dwight.
Six hours later, Ryan is covered in grease, his best work shirt is going into the trash when he gets home and he is standing with Michael in the middle of the office with a fully disassembled car, shoved aside furniture surrounding them.
Ryan just knows he shouldn’t have answered his phone on a Saturday at two in the morning.
“So, we put it back together now, right?” Ryan prompts.
“Yessiree!” Michael claps his hands together and rubs them. “It’ll be hilarious. Miller will be all ‘where’s my car?’ and it’s in the office. But how?”
Brendan Miller, “efficiency expert”, who was doing a branch by branch study on employee satisfaction which Ryan suspected was a nice way of saying that he was looking for people to downsize. His car was in the Dunder Mifflin car park because he was staying the weekend in Scranton to visit with family and had been picked up by his brother. He was planning on doing final interviews and heading off Monday morning in his tiny and stylishly retro mini.
Or so he probably thought.
Ryan was starting to get a very bad feeling about all this. Actually, he’d had a very bad feeling all along but sometimes it was just easier to go along with Michael.
“So, what’s first?” Ryan asks, waiting a beat while the blankness surfaces on Michael’s face that means he doesn’t have the answer to something.
Ryan always thought it looked like Michael was temporarily shutting down to escape disaster.
“You said you’d done this before,” Ryan prompts and Michael ducks his head a little.
“Well, I’d heard of it being done,” he admits.
With a sigh, Ryan sits down on a tyre.
He had to time it exactly.
Just long enough to have her giving up and walking into the office on her own and not long enough that he was going to be late.
He’d thought it odd at first that Kelly happened to arrive exactly when he did in the morning, no matter what time he got there. Eventually he’d spotted her sitting in her car, radio on, laying in wait. She would spot his car, look like she had just pulled up and was getting organised, and emerge from her own vehicle the moment he did.
Ryan knew this because of the day he’d had Jim pick him up when his car was in the shop and they had both watched Kelly just sitting there for ages. Jim being Jim, had finally gone over and tapped on her window, asking if she was okay.
Kelly had startled and then had flushed bright red when she had spotted Ryan behind Jim’s shoulder.
Ryan has exactly one cigarette a month. He had quit smoking just before he had started at Dunder Mifflin and hadn’t fathomed how much he would need it to cope. He compromised with himself and a smoke every thirty days seemed like the best plan.
You had to look forward to something.
He spots Jan getting out of her car from across the parking lot and she sees him at the same time and zeroes in. He’s not even sure she knows his name but he recognises the look. He has his lighter out and held towards her by the time she’s next to him.
“Thanks…?” she pauses, waiting.
“Ryan,” he supplies. “Ryan Howard.”
“Oh, right,” she nods.
“I just wanted to say thankyou,” Ryan blurts before he can help himself.
“For what?”
Ryan presses his mouth together because how does he explain that Michael actually having a real-life girlfriend means the awkward and embarrassing man crush he has on Ryan seems to have subsided.
“For the opportunity,” he says. “I was only a temp but was given the fulltime position.”
“Oh, right,” she says again.
“What?”
Ryan realises he’s staring again and pulls his gaze away. A few minutes later his gaze is drawn back to Dwight and he’s thinking How? How does someone like Dwight become the branch’s top salesman when I can’t seem to sell water in the desert?
“I know I’m going to regret this,” Ryan begins and Dwight turns back to him, looking suspicious. Ryan understands. Dwight spent a lot of time sitting next to Jim. “I was just wondering if you’d take me on a sales call with you? See what you do?”
Dwight blinks, then a slow smile spreads across his face. One that Ryan is man enough to admit terrifies him.
“What do you know about beet farms?” Dwight asks and Ryan casts about desperately for Kelly.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“Do you mean yes, you’re sure, or yes because you’re changing your answer?”
“Yes, I mean no… wait, yes I mean yes. Hang on… I just…”
“So it’s a yes then?”
“I…wait. What?”
“Oh, I’m so glad you think so too.”
Ryan has a warm lap of Kelly and he’s really not sure what he has just agreed to. He had always thought he was a smart guy but dating Kelly, he’s starting to really doubt that because she has ways of ambushing him that means he has a date for the next three Christmases, her and his mother have a weekly shopping commitment and their first child will be called Tomorrow Amelia Blossom.
Kelly is thrilled and Ryan knows to be afraid.
Ryan hates cold-calling but he sticks at it. He really doesn’t have a choice because while everybody professes not to care much, they guard their client lists and practically snarl when he asks for leads. Jim is the only person Ryan hasn’t asked and while he knows Jim would probably happily hand over some of his clients, it reeks of giving in.
Ryan is talking to an administrator for a small shipping firm who is politely but firmly explaining how they are now getting their paper supply through one of the bigger chains because the smaller companies can’t match their discounts when Ryan asks, “So, are there any positions available?”
“I’m sorry?” the woman asks, dropping the bored tone.
“Anything at all? I’m not really fussy.”
“Weren’t you calling to sell paper?”
“Yes.”
“And now you’re asking for a job?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, um, okay. I guess… you can send over your resume?”
“Sure. Just give me your fax number.”
As Ryan writes down the number he feels himself smile for the first time all day.
Dunder Mifflin was supposed to be a stepping stone. He was going to temp there for a maximum of six months and move on to bigger and better things. It was just a stop-gap to help pay for tuition before he found a real job.
Then Jim left and Michael asked him to stay on fulltime. Ryan said yes mostly because it looked like Michael had been crying.
Really recently.
Kelly was supposed to be a bit of fun. Just a girl to pass the time with that smelt nice and made an effort. She really liked him and was enthusiastic in a way that Ryan hadn’t encountered before. There wasn’t anything he could do wrong, none of the careful tip-toeing that was required with most women. He could and did make her cry but forgiveness was only a hug away and he got kind of used to it.
People started saying RyanandKelly the way you referred to couples and he didn’t correct them. He caught himself saying we more than he’d like to and his friends stopped trying to fix him up with the random girls they met.
Ryan stopped wearing purple because that was Kelly’s signature color and she refused to look like one of those crazy couples that dressed alike. He picked up two muffins in the morning on his way in and there was coffee always waiting on his desk at ten.
He started thinking Tomorrow wasn’t such a terrible name for a kid but he dug his heels in and got the Blossom part dropped.
Ryan slowly lets go of the preconceived notions of the way he was expecting his life to go and his mother looks at him one day and says, “You seem happier.”
Ryan realises that strangely enough, he is.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
And you catch the reason I think they are so good together so well in the last section.
Thank you!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Ryan said yes mostly because it looked like Michael had been crying.
Really recently.
Hahaha, YES, oh man, this must be what happened.
“You seem happier.”
OH, this kind of hit me right in the chest. Ryan fic tends toward the bleak, I think because of canon, but this is so fantastic, seeing him, of all people, get a kind of momentary happy ending. Nice nice nice.
P.S. I hope this isn't creepy but I've been thinking about your list of reasons why you write fic ever since you wrote it, it was so good! That point about how fandom makes writing a communal instead of solitary thing was so dead on.
From:
no subject
Not creepy at all unless you have been thinking about it while sitting outside my house in your car taking pictures... hehehee...
I honestly hope I can keep in contact with the writers I've met on here through the years, track their lives, writing careers if that's where they want to go... :)
From:
no subject
From:
no subject