jam oneshots | for the soul~

fabric softener.

am not dead

Pam's face creased slightly, a mixture of amusement and confusion. She turned to glance at her best friend. She smiled. Jim caught her looking at him, and his lips twisted into a similar smile. "What?" He asked.

"You use fabric softener?" She asked, smiling, looking at him with questioning eyes. He glanced at her, sharing the same smile as her. "Yeah. You don't?" He queried.

"No, I do," she quipped, her hands firmly behind her back, nodding slightly. She watched as his smile turned into a look of confusion, but she could tell he was entertained by her question. "Okay." He said, and they both chuckled slightly. Jim privately wondered what that was all about. Did Roy not use it or something?

Fortunately, the cameras turned away from them to focus on something else in the store for a moment, and he gazed at her again. "Why do you ask?"

"It's just...oh, I don't know. Roy doesn't use it. Ah, then again, he doesn't really do the laundry anyway," she laughed softly, but the joke fell flat immediately. "That's a shame." Jim merely said, then cracked another joke about Michael. Pam was confused for a second, but then she noticed out of the corner of her eye that the cameras were on them again, and she went along with it.

Later on, as Pam skated along with Jim on the ice, him steadily guiding her along with his hands, she realised how much they looked like a married couple. They had also looked like they were in a relationship earlier when they were buying a number of items to cheer up Kevin; albeit, some very strange items. And she also realised how okay she was with that fact.

***

"CeCe!" Jim called to his 3 year old daughter. "Come back!"

Cecelia giggled loudly and shook her head, her curls bouncing. "No daddy!" She said, then ran off in the direction of the bread aisle. He sighed. Pam leaned over and kissed his cheek. "I'll get her," she mumbled, then chased her daughter. Jim chuckled, and looked down at Philip, who was sat in the trolley chewing his fist gummily. "As much as I love your sister, she is bonkers." He informed his son. Philip removed his fist from his mouth and laughed at his father. "Dada!" He said happily, then waved up at him. Jim leaned over and ruffled his son's hair, then looked at the shelves. He noticed something that made him smile.

A few moments later, Pam came back, clutching a writhing CeCe in her arms. "No Mommy! Put me down!" CeCe said angrily. Pam simply plonked her in the cart next to Philip then looked at Jim. "Hey, is everything okay?"

She watched as Jim reached out and tapped on a shelf talker. "Do you know what this is?"

Pam looked at it, her brain calculating, before she realised. Her lips twisted into a grin. "Yep. Fabric softener."

"Not just any fabric softener," he insisted. "This is the fabric softener brand that I took off the shelf when we went to go and buy some stuff for Kevin to make him feel better all those years ago. Do you remember?"

"Of course I do," she smiled even more. "That was the moment I fell in love with you even more, babe."

"Why?"

"Because. Roy didn't help me with the laundry very often, and it was nice to know that someone else used fabric softener too. Plus I realised how much we looked like a married couple and I just liked that idea. Also I just thought it was cute how you used fabric softener. I imagined you doing laundry and...I don't know. It just looked really cute in my head."

"How dare you, Pamela Beesly-Halpert? I look cute doing everything." He stuck his tongue out at her, and she giggled. "Loser." She leans over and kisses his other cheek, then looks over at the bottle of fabric softener. She watches as he took the bottle off of the shelf. "You use fabric softener?" She asked in a familiar tone, a delightful mixture of amusement of confusion. He glanced at her, somewhat bewildered, before he realises what she's doing and he smiles.

"Yeah. You don't?"

She paused. "No, I do," she concluded. Jim placed the fabric softener in the cart. "Okay," he said and laughed a little, before gently pulling her into a kiss. She smiled against his lips and kissed him back, wrapping her arms around me. "Mommy, daddy, no! Nasty!" CeCe shouted, throwing one of Philip's toys at Jim's head. He pulled back and laughed. "Cecelia Halpert, don't throw toys," he reprimanded, picking up the stuffed animal and placing it next to Philip again. She giggled.

"Sorry Daddy."

Pam turned to look at Jim again. "I just wish the original had ended with a kiss too."

"And a toddler throwing a stuffed toy at my head?"

"Oh, absolutely," they laughed. CeCe and Philip laughed too, though they didn't know why they were laughing. "That would have made it even better," Pam insisted with a grin, before she kissed him again.