stories i tell myself.

―A💜

I hit up my Pinterest hoard of prompts to help with this one; the prompt is bolded. Sorry (?) for the angst.

*****

The bar was busy -- always. It was one of the many reasons he frequented here. Everyone was drinking, socializing with people they knew, too busy to bother him. He had tried going to a quieter place when he needed solace, but there were simply too many opportunities for people to strike up conversation.

He was on his second shot -- or maybe his third -- when a familiar face caught his attention. She was leaning against the bar, waiting for her order. Even after she got her drink, she stepped away to an area where she could be by herself; either she was waiting for someone or she was here alone.

Taking a chance that the latter was true, Jack took his beer bottle and waved to the bartender to send another his way to his new seat.

"Hey, Y/N," he greeted, taking a seat next to her. "Long time."

She turned to him, disbelief and fire lighting up her eyes momentarily before the fire calmed. "Jack Ryan. Wow, it has been a long time."

He took the last pull from the old beer bottle and set it on the table in front of them. "How've you been?"

"Fine. Same ole. You?"

Her curt answer told him that this reunion wasn't as welcome to her as it felt for Jack. "Still with the state department. Doing the same job."

"Telling the same lies, keeping the same secrets?" she asked. She shot back the rest of her drink and shook her head. "Listen, Jack. I don't want to seem not at all happy to see you because that's not the case. But we didn't exactly part amicably, remember? You made the choice for me and never told me why. I've worked really hard to get past all of that, but seeing you ..."

The liquor in his system pushed him to scoot closer to her and take her hand in his. "I loved you, Y/N. I love you. The things I'm involved with, if they found you -- I've seen it ruin enough relationships. I didn't want that to happen to us."

"So you forced it? Just save it. There's no excuses you can make that will make it better --" She motioned between them. "-- that will make this better."

Y/N made excuses about leaving as she stood from her seat; Jack grabbed her hand again. She looked at him with tears in her eyes, much like she'd had the day he walked away from her.

"Why did you come over here, Jack? What do you see when you look at me, after all this time? The girl you loved, or the girl you left?"

-A💜

"Right, so we have the heavyweight cardstock in cream ..."

Jim's sales pitch was wrapping up, but, for the third time since he started this call, a small wad of paper landed in the middle of the page he was reading from. The first two he had ignored, but now he looked up and to his right; Dwight was out on a sales call which meant the slightly irritating distraction could have only come form Y/N.

But she was hard at work, her brow furrowed as she stared at the screen. Frowning, Jim apologized to his client and tried to focus again on the sales call.

"Where were we? Oh, right -- cardstock. The cream is on sale and is a great alternative to the --"

Plop. Another tiny paper projectile came his way, this time hitting him in the forehead before falling to the desk. Jim decided to ignore it once again and finish out his sales call.

Three more paper wads came his way before the call ended. He kept all seven in a small pile on his desk and, when the call was over, he gathered them in his hand and looked to Y/N again. This time, she wasn't able to keep a straight face. Both corners of her mouth tensed in an effort not to smile. Getting up from his desk, Jim stood behind her and dumped the paper wads on her keyboard. Then, he leaned forward, placing a hand on either side of her.

"I believe those belong to you."

She shook her head, although the rumble of laughter she was holding in caused her voice to shake. "I've never seen those before in my life."

"Liar," Jim teased, close to your ear. "Don't worry; you'll pay later tonight."

Anyone want to send in requests for Krasinski blurbs/drabbles?

For clarity sake, I consider blurbs are up to 100 words, and drabbles anything less than 1000 words. Depending on the prompt, I’d respond with something 100ish to less than 1K words.

Keep your requests simple, please. The less room for creativity, the more difficult it is for me to come up with something! Personal flaw, I suppose. If it helps, I love a good trope or song fic, situational/quote/image prompts also welcome.

I will respond to whatever inspires me. No promises to fill all requests. Also just checked and I have some requests that have been chillin’ in my inbox for way too long … maybe I’ll get to some of those?

Now that I’ve taken all the pressure off myself 😂 Send your requests to my ask!