Seventeen-year-old Annie Edison would have thought living with two boys would be uncomfortable. It turns out she's right, but for all the wrong reasons. Her roommates would never dream of making unwarranted advances, but the pining is getting seriously awkward. She isn't sure which would be worse: being a third wheel to them as an actual couple, or hearing Troy sigh longingly in Abed's direction one more time.
The three of them are in their usual position in front of the TV one night, Troy and Abed deep in their comfy chairs and Annie perched on the arm of Abed's. A Cougar Town rerun is on, and Abed is too engrossed to notice Troy staring at him like he's Christian Bale, or maybe even Batman himself. Troy sighs longingly at him. Annie's been counting, and that's the twelfth time this week.
Okay, yeah, she can deal with being a third wheel. Annie resolves to talk to Troy the next time she can get him alone.
It's easier said than done. Troy and Abed spend so much time together that the only time she can manage to corner Troy is a Thursday afternoon in the kitchen, while Abed's at AV club.
"Um, Troy?"
"What's up, Annie?" he says, wiping off a Special Drink mustache on his sleeve.
She's not exactly sure how to say this. She's gone over it in her head a million times in the past week, but there's not exactly a great way of saying I know you're in love with your best friend and the pining is getting annoying.
"I know you're in love with Abed and the pining is getting annoying!" Annie blurts, and then covers her mouth in shock, but finds she doesn't regret it.
Troy's eyes go wide for a second, but then he falls into an easy smile. It's nice to know that he can trust her. "I guess it's been a lot lately," he says sheepishly.
"That's an understatement," Annie mutters. "So, are you going to do anything about it? Or are you just going to sigh dramatically at him for the rest of your lives?"
"Do something about it?" He pauses in mock consideration. "And, oh yeah, get rejected and lose my roommate and best friend? Uh, not happening. Wait, if you've noticed, do you think Abed has?"
"If he has noticed, he hasn't said anything to me about it. Do you want me to ask him?" She's trying to cut back on her excited dance, but this warrants an exception.
"No, Annie, oh my god. Never tell him. You've already messed enough with my love life. Britta was really weird in bed."
"Okay, okay. I promise to leave it alone. But you know you can always talk to me about it, right?" Annie squeezes his shoulder. Troy looks straight at her and nods solemnly, and it looks like the perfect start to a kiss lean, but they're both in love with other people.
Annie squandered most of her alone time with Troy pacing her room nervously, so she shouldn't be surprised when their conversation is interrupted. The door opens, Abed walks in, and Troy and Annie break apart.
"Hey, Abed," Troy says, loudly and without subtlety. "We were just talking about..."
"Eggs!" Annie finishes, and Troy shoots her a look. Like he would have come up with anything better.
Abed tilts his head, taking in Troy and Annie's embarrassed glances, and they stand frozen there for a few moments. Abed grabs a soda from the fridge and sits down in front of the TV. Annie hopes he doesn't hear her and Troy's collective sigh of relief.
Annie is never as good as Abed when Troy wants to dissect the newest episode of Inspector Spacetime, but it turns out she's great for talking about boys. Well, one boy in particular. They talk every Thursday now, for an hour and a half while Abed's out, in exchange for no more dramatic sighs. Wistful glances are still on the table, though. Troy's pretty happy with the arrangement.
Tonight they make dinner together. Troy wields a wooden spoon, and Annie is chopping vegetables and adding them to the pan one by one.
No one's said anything in a while. The garlic he's stirring smells good, and the silence is content.
"Annie?" Troy asks in a small voice. She looks up from her zucchini. "Do you think Abed likes me back?"
Maybe that's a juvenile way of saying it, but they're still not really adults, so maybe that's okay. It's the one thing they haven't talked about. Troy has never wanted to hear the answer, really, because he's afraid of it.
"Troy," Annie starts to say, and there is definitely pity in her eyes, so he cuts her off.
"You always tell me to tell him how I feel, but what if I ruin everything? Like in that movie." He can't think of the name, but Abed would know exactly which one he meant.
"Oh, Troy, you could never ruin everything," Annie says, and remembers to put down the knife before hugging him. "Abed will love you no matter what, and I love you too."
Troy knows that, but it's good to hear. He beams at her, but her face falls as she sees something over his shoulder. He turns around to find Abed standing next to the rolling boulder scene model, messenger bag slung over his shoulder, and both eyebrows raised.
"Abed! Hi!" Troy wonders exactly how much of that he heard. Abed's looking pretty distressed, and Troy isn't in the mood for rejection, so he retreats into the blanket fort as casually as he can, and Abed doesn't follow him. Even with a pillow over his head, he can hear the conversation in the kitchen.
"I thought you were still at AV club," Annie says, kind of shrilly.
"I think something's burning," Abed deflects. Troy can hear the click-click of the stove being turned off, and he can smell the burnt garlic. "You should be more careful."
"Abed?" Annie says, in that soft voice she uses when she's getting ready to tell Abed something important about life or social interaction or something.
"Yeah."
"You know it's rude to eavesdrop on your friends, right?"
"Yeah. You guys are being kind of secretive lately. Are you talking about me?"
"No!" Annie answers, too quickly. "We were just talking about, um, a project for school! A secret project."
Maybe Abed buys it, because moments later the blankets open and he comes into the fort. Troy braces himself for an uncomfortable conversation, but Abed climbs up to the top bunk without a word.
This is not the first time he's walked in on something mushy between Troy and Annie, but it's the worst. Abed's been coming home from AV club earlier and earlier, hoping to catch them in the act of something. He wanted a confrontation—it makes for great TV—but when the situation arose, he couldn't bring himself to follow through with it.
He doesn't understand why Troy hasn't just told him that he and Annie are dating. It's clearly not a new development—he heard Annie say that she loves him, and she doesn't throw that word around, not after everything that happened with Jeff. His two best friends have been dating long enough for casual "I love you"s in the kitchen, and they're trying to keep it a secret from him.
This is different from Troy dating Britta. He's run the simulation for this, and the breakup isn't nearly as clean. However, that simulation was run with him still living in the apartment...
It takes Abed under two minutes to calculate that Troy/Annie has almost guaranteed success with him out of the equation. And he's seen a hundred movies where people do this, let their loved ones go, but it doesn't make things any easier.
He climbs down from the bunk bed and stands facing Troy, who may be crying into a pillow.
"Troy, I understand what's going on." Troy sits up on the bed, and he has puffy eyes and a tearstained face. "You don't need to hide it from me anymore."
A tentative smile creeps across Troy's face. "Really?"
"Yes. I'll try to find a new place as soon as possible."
Troy's face falls, and Abed wants to sit down on the bed beside him, but he has to let go.
Annie was wrong. Abed has gotten too good at opening the apartment door silently, and he heard Troy talking to Annie, and now everything is out on the table and Abed is leaving. He's not only not interested in Troy, but so skeeved out by his crush that he actually can't bear to live with them.
Troy has to let him go. Any attempts to make him stay would probably seem creepy, and he's done enough damage already.
He cries into his pillow to muffle the sobs, but Annie hears him anyway, and she's there after a couple minutes, giving him a shoulder to cry on.
Abed pokes his head into the blanket fort at some point to say goodbye. Troy doesn't know how he came up with somewhere to go so quickly. He can't help but wonder if it's because Abed saw this coming. Subtlety is a skill he's never mastered.
Tears well up in his eyes again and Annie holds him tighter. "We'll see you at school tomorrow, right Abed?" she says.
"Right." He points finger guns at Annie, but the gesture lacks its usual crispness. Abed won't even meet Troy's eyes.
The door slams shut and it's over. Abed is gone from their apartment, hopefully not gone from their lives. The anticipation that was budding inside Troy for weeks, maybe even months, is replaced with a raw kind of sadness.
Troy and Abed still sit next to each other in the study room. As far as she can tell, Annie's the only one who knows what's going on. She's tried to talk to Abed about it a few times, but he refuses to listen.
The Save Greendale committee meeting ended a few minutes ago, and Annie closes her binder to listen to the casual chatter.
"Hickey," Britta calls across the table. "I heard your son's coming into town this week." She's probably looking for someone to therapize.
"Yes, and that is my personal information. How would you like it if I tell the group your personal information? Ms. Perry's here copied one of Ms. Edison's history papers."
Annie gasps in disgust. "Is that why you wanted to borrow my laptop? Ugh!"
"Well, Annie still emails with Vaughn!" Britta.
"Jeff calls in sick twice a month to go shopping!" Annie.
"Shirley doesn't go to church if there's a Bones marathon!" Jeff.
"Jeffrey!" Before Shirley can add something hurtful, Abed cuts in.
"Troy and Annie are dating," he says, and the charged back-and-forth slows to a halt, but tension is still thick in the air.
Annie stares at him incredulously. "No... we're not?"
"Annie, it's okay. You don't have to pretend for my sake."
"Abed," Troy says slowly, "is that why you moved out?"
Britta and Shirley gasp audibly. Jeff puts down his phone.
"Yes. Storytelling convention dictates the importance of stepping back to allow your loved ones to pursue other relationships, no matter the personal sacrifice."
"Abed, we're not dating," Annie says again. Abed shrugs, looking unconvinced. "Troy, tell him."
"Yeah, definitely not dating."
"Why didn't you say something, then?"
"I thought you left because you heard me talking to Annie about you," Troy says, then freezes, as he realizes what he just said.
"I talk to Annie about you sometimes. Is that an issue?"
"No, I was—" Troy squirms uncomfortably. Annie smiles encouragingly at him and gives him a thumbs up. He exhales. "I was talking to Annie about you, like. A crush. Me. On you."
Shirley's hands fly to her mouth. Britta is literally on the edge of her seat. Even Hickey looks interested.
"Oh. I see."
"And?" Britta says. Annie really wishes she would stay out of this. This is something she really doesn't want Britta'd.
"I'd like to move back in to the apartment."
"But Abed?" Troy says. Troy does something complicated with his eyebrows, and Abed nods in understanding.
"I need to run a simulation of Troy/Abed. Hold on."
Hickey rolls his eyes, but the rest of them—even Jeff—wait for a few moments in silence while Abed calculates. Annie knows he's trying to rely less on his simulations, but this is important.
"Yes," he finally says.
Troy grins and holds out his arm for the handshake. "Awesome."
"Okay. Meeting adjourned?" Annie says, still beaming, and pushes in her chair. The others follow suit. She walks over to Troy and Abed, who are staring down at their intertwined hands with a sort of mysticism. "Ready to go home?"
They stop on the way back to pick up Abed's stuff, and they end up in front of the TV together, watching Die Hard because they all need some comfort. Annie still sits on the arm of Abed's chair, between him and Troy, but she wonders if that's going to change. If everything's going to change.
Two weeks later, Annie corners Abed in the kitchen while he's heating up a bowl of buttered noodles. Not much has changed since that fateful day, other than the fact that he and Troy kiss sometimes and get to talk about their feelings whenever they want, not just when one of them is about to die in a zombie apocalypse. He's actually pretty confident they're being less ostentatious than Troy and Britta had been.
"Abed, do you want me to move out?"
"No," he says quickly. "Why?"
"Well, when you thought Troy and I were dating, you left."
Pining doesn't make for good TV, he thinks. But he just says, "Really, it's fine."
"Okay," Annie says, and hugs him.
When Troy walks into the kitchen, he doesn't say anything. He smiles softly at Abed and pats Annie on the shoulder. Apartment 303 has never been better.