Applied Massage Therapy
Disclaimer: I don't own Community.
A/N: Thanks to everyone that's been reading/reviewing my stories so far, it's been great!
"Hi Jeff!"
Jeff glances up from his phone to look at Annie standing right beside his table. She is bouncing up and down on the balls of her feet, her thumbs tucked in behind the straps of her backpack and she's grinning at him like the Cheshire Cat.
"Can't do it." He says, returning his attention to his phone.
"But I haven't even asked you do to anything!" she unhooks her thumbs and shrugs off her backpack so she can more easily slide into the seat across from Jeff.
"But you were going to. The extra perky hello, the anticipatory bounce in your step, the full wattage smile."
"Well, it's just one little thing."
"Annie, I'm really busy."
"Busy doing what?" she leans over the table and snags his phone. "Jeff! You're just playing Bejeweled!"
"And on my way to an epic score!" he snatches the phone back.
"Come on, Jeff. I just need help with this one thing and then I won't bother you." Annie turns the full force of her pout and eyes combo on him and Jeff is stupid enough to look up and get sucked in by it.
"Urgh, enough with the eyes. Fine, what do you want? You can ask, just don't expect that I'll do it."
"I need help with one of my classes."
Jeff feels his stomach lurch. Ever since the first day of semester when Annie had passed around copies of all their schedules so they'd always know where everyone was, Jeff has expected this moment to come. He'd quickly scanned the schedule and one class in Annie's list jumped out at him immediately.
"No way." He says firmly. "Ask one of the others."
"Don't you think I have? Troy is useless, he giggles the entire time!" she starts ticking off fingers as she lists the other members of the group. "Abed just lays there like a dead fish, Shirley won't let go of her handbag and she keeps mumbling something about how Jesus wouldn't approve, Britta keeps talking the entire time about Uganda which is really distracting, and Pierce, well, ew, you wouldn't really want me to ask Pierce would you?"
"Wait, I'm not your first choice?" Jeff is a bit shocked by this. Surely Annie came to him first for everything?
"Of course not. I knew you'd kick up a fuss so I asked a few others first." For the first time, Annie won't meet his gaze.
"What number am I?" Jeff demands. He knows it's stupid to be annoyed at not being the first person Annie asked to do something he doesn't want to do, but is she not aware of how things are supposed to work around here?
"..ffennn." she mumbles softly.
"Sorry? What was that?" Jeff leans forward and cups a hand behind one ear.
"Fifteen! You're the fifteenth person I've asked, okay?"
"What the hell, Annie? Fifteen? Who else was above me? Magnitude? Vicki? Leonard? I swear, if you asked Leonard before me…"
"Well it doesn't really matter, does it?" she fires back. "You've already said you won't do it."
"And that is where you're wrong. I am going to do it, just to prove to you that you should have asked me first."
Immediately, Annie's face breaks into a smile and her eyes flash. "Thanks Jeff, I knew I could rely on you!" she slips out of her seat and skips away before Jeff is finished realising he's just been duped.
"Sucker!" says Leonard as he shuffles past on his way over to the Subway counter.
"Shut up, Leonard! I know about that signed poster of Andy Griffith in your locker!"
Jeff checks his watch again. Five minutes to eight. His leg jiggles up and down and he has to fight the urge to start biting his fingernails.
Annie has promised that she'll be at his apartment at 8pm so that he can help her with her class. Jeff had protested that he really didn't want to be at his apartment for this, but when Annie sweetly suggested the alternative of her apartment while Troy and Abed looked on, he quickly agreed that his apartment probably was more suitable.
He's busily concentrating on the second hand of his watch making its way around the dial when there's a knock on the door and he jumps, causing some of his Macallan neat to splash out of the glass he's holding and onto his jeans.
"Dammit!" he brushes at the denim, conflicted as to whether he's more annoyed about getting alcohol on his expensive jeans, or about wasting even a drop of Macallan. The scotch wins out because the one thing Jeff really needs to get through the next hour is a stiff drink. Or five.
He opens the door to find Annie beaming at him, a bulky item in a zip up bag tucked under one arm and a shoulder bag over the other, her hair pulled back in a smooth ponytail. She's wearing an Inspector Spacetime tshirt over a pair of sweat pants that really shouldn't make her look at attractive as they do.
"Hi Jeff! Can you just grab this?" she motions to the bulky item, which turns out to be surprisingly heavy.
"How the hell did you get this up the stairs?" he asks, lugging it into the middle of the room and setting it down.
"Oh, one of your neighbours helped me." Annie says, closing the door behind her and setting her shoulder bag down.
"You didn't mention what it was for, did you?" Jeff asks, a hint of panic in his voice.
"Of course not. Now can you please get the table out and set it up for me?"
He unzips the bulky item to reveal a fold out table, which he sets up in the space he made earlier by shifting the couch closer to the TV.
Annie is busily removing bottles from her bag and when she hears the click of the last table leg locking in place, she glances over her shoulder to Jeff. "You can get changed now, Jeff."
"About that. I was thinking we could just do this like I am." He gestures down to his button down shirt and jeans. "I mean, it'll be just the same."
Annie turns around fully to face him and puts her hands on her hips. "Jeff. You agreed to this! I have to follow the coursework if I want to pass. So go get changed like I told you to."
He hesitates for a few seconds, weighing up the options. Option one is that he does what Annie says and endures the most excruciating hour of his life. Option two, he refuses and endures Annie being angry at him until they graduate. And she'd probably stop giving him copies of her class notes.
"Fine." He mumbles, disappearing into his room and shutting the door. He emerges two minutes later wearing only a thick towel wrapped low around his hips.
Annie lets out a muffled squeak at the sight and turns her attention to her bottles of oils. "If you could just get up on the table. Face down, please."
Jeff complies. His one consolation is that Annie now seems to be as uncomfortable as he is with this entire situation.
He can sense her hovering over him as he lays there, his face pushed through the opening in the massage table. He can just make out her blue floral sneakers as she moves in to stand by his side.
"Okay, I'm going to get started now." He can hear the light squishy noise of her rubbing the oil into her palms and then her hands are on his back.
Every muscle in his body immediately tenses at the sensation of Annie Edison's hands on his bare flesh. Her finger tips are running up and down his spine, pressing down firmly here and there.
"Jeff, you need to relax. You're not supposed to end up more tense after a massage!"
It's both the best sensation he's ever experienced and the worst. He never should have agreed to this, yet he can't believe he didn't volunteer as a subject earlier.
All semester Jeff's been dreading Annie asking him to help her with her Applied Massage Therapy course. He'd heard Starburns talking about it at lunch in the first week and how they'd been encouraged to find a subject to practice on. Every time Annie talked about her class, his greatest fear was hearing her talk about some guy that had volunteered to help her out. He'd imagined a sort of hybrid between Vaughn, Starburns and Chang, for some reason. They'd end up madly in love and Jeff would have to sit there watching them make out. And then, of course, he'd have to beat the crap out of Vaughn/Starburns/Chang. He'd been close a couple of times to blurting out that he'd help her, but the realisation of what that would mean had stopped him.
He's feeling hot and cold all over as her hands ply their magic and every part of him starts to relax against his will.
Every part, bar one.
"Uh, Annie?" he shifts slightly to one side to try and relieve some of the pressure. "Are we about done here?"
"Don't be silly, Jeff. I've barely started." She's sounding slightly out of breath from her exertions and she's back to using her normal voice now that she's busy doing something related to her grades. "I may have underestimated how long this would take. You're so much bigger than the dummy I've been practicing on. I can't reach properly."
He can see her feet going up onto tip toes as she reaches across him to rub down past his rib.
"Damn it, I can't get there properly. Hold on a second."
Before he realises what's happening, Annie hoists one knee up on the table and scrambles up, quickly swinging one knee over so she's straddling his hips. Jeff panics and tries to get up, but Annie firmly presses him back down.
"Annie, this is ridiculous. You should try Britta again. I bet if you let her smoke some marijuana beforehand she'd shut up."
He can feel her knees pressing into either side of his hips and then she's leaning over him to rub at his shoulders.
"That's better," she hums. "I can really put more pressure in from this angle. I'll have to make a note of this."
Jeff is panicking for real now. He's starting to get really uncomfortable laying face down, but if he rolls over and Annie sees…
He tries a few deep breaths and tries to visualise Starburns working on his back instead of a petite brunette with Disney eyes and a Penthouse rack, but she's mindlessly humming Daybreak as she works and it's impossible to think of anyone other than Annie touching him like this.
Fifteen minutes later, Jeff is still in agony. He's thought about baseball, he's thought about the Dean, but the one thing he can't stop thinking about is Annie and her talented hands.
"Okay, time to turn over so I can do your chest." She announces, settling back on her heels.
"Um, I don't think that's a good idea." Jeff mumbles.
"Come on, Jeff! I need to be able to do both sides."
"Annie. I am not going to turn over."
"Yes, you are. I won't move until you do."
"Well it seems we're at an impasse. I can't actually turn over while you're sitting on me."
"Fine!" the pressure disappears as she swings her leg over and gets off the bench. Jeff remains motionless.
"Jeff! You said you'd move if I got off."
"Actually, I merely pointed out that was unable to move while you were sitting on me. That doesn't automatically follow that I would, in fact, turn over once you moved."
She stamps her foot in annoyance. "Jeff! Stop trying to lawyer me. Do you want me to fail? Do you?"
"No, but I'm still not moving."
"Argh!" she screeches. "If you don't move, I'm going to start techniques from chapter nine!"
"You might need to spell out what's in chapter nine if you want me to take that threat seriously."
"It's the chapter on…on buttock massage." She whispers the last two words and even without looking at her Jeff knows she's gone red. Hell, he can feel his own face going scarlet.
"Ok, Annie. I'm going to sit up and you're going to look the other way. Just do it." He adds before she can argue.
Gingerly, Jeff uses his arms to lever himself up and onto his side. He draws his legs up and then swings them over the side. And then he looks over to see Annie peeking at him through her splayed fingers, her face beetroot red and her mouth open as she stares at the tent in the front of his towel.
"Annie! What the hell!" he cries out, trying desperately to angle so she can't see his lap.
"You probably should have mentioned that that happens during massages before we started, Jeff." Her voice is even higher pitched than it normally gets when she's wound up.
"It doesn't normally happen during massages!" he retorts. "I've had hundreds of massages and it's never happened until now! How could I not react with your hands on me?"
"I did that?" she asks incredulously.
"Of course you did."
This is greeted by silence and he glances over his shoulder to see a mix of emotions on Annie's face. There's still embarrassment by the bucket load, but there's also curiosity and a dash of satisfaction.
He knows he's revealed too much even before Annie's face takes on her determined look that he hasn't seen since the debate two years ago and she crosses the brief distance between them to stand in front of him and drag his face down to hers.
Jeff knows he should pull away, but he's been denying the Annie of it all for far too long and he's just so tired of lying about how he feels about her. He snakes an arm around of her and pulls her against him. They're kissing desperately and her hands are sliding down his chest to rest at the edge of the towel he's wearing.
"Annie, wait-" he pulls his face away to blurt out as her hands dip lower.
The next few minutes pass in a lust-filled haze for Jeff, punctuated by Annie's little sighs and moans as he nibbles on her earlobe and palms her breasts through her top. Her tentative touch turns bolder as she realises he's enjoying what she's doing and Jeff groans.
Finally, it's all too much. He surges to his feet and drags her with him towards his room, his towel and her clothing hitting the floor in their wake.
"Wow." He says, sometime later, laying flat on his back on his bed. Annie is curled up against his side, her head resting on his chest and her fingers trailing up and down his stomach. "That was the best massage I've ever had."
"Jeff!" she swats at his chest in mock annoyance. "I can assure you that that definitely isn't in the text book."
"Well that's a relief. Mostly because it gives me a better understanding of where Greendale finally draws the line on its coursework."
Annie snuggles in a bit closer and resumes tracing her fingers over him. "You're not sorry, are you?" her voice is very small and unsure and Jeff hates that all the denials he's made over the past two years have let her think that he would believe that.
He drags her up with him so they're sitting and he places his hands either side of her face so she's forced to meet his eyes.
"Annie, this is the best thing that's ever happened to me. I can't believe I didn't let it happen earlier, but the only reason I didn't was because I was stupidly trying to protect you."
"From what?"
"You know, the usual things. Like how I'm so much older than you and how I'm a jackass. How I'd just end up hurting you."
"You wouldn't do that." She leans in closer and he moves his arms so he can lace them around her.
"The old Jeff Winger would have. But you've helped change me into someone new. The whole study group has, hell, Greendale has. But mostly you."
Annie's almost purring with happiness at his words and Jeff feels his heart clenching at the sound. He's not quite ready to tell her he's in love with her, but he knows that day won't be too far away.
"You know, we'll need to finish that massage so I can pass my exam." Annie says as they slide back down to the pillows, and Jeff lets out a short bark of laughter at how quickly her mind can turn back to her grades.
"Maybe later." He promises.
"I was rather thinking now might be better." She moves in a flash to straddle Jeff as he lays there and leans forward to press her hands either side of his chest, pinning him beneath her.
"You realise that the same, uh, problem, might arise that stopped us last time?" Jeff points out, his breath already starting to come a little faster as he looks at Annie above him, her hair dishevelled and her face glowing with happiness and mischief.
She swivels her hips ever so slightly and Jeff gasps. "Oh, I'm counting on it."
The End.