AN- So, the thing is, I love this show and that is probably one the main reasons why I haven't written a fanfic about it earlier. I didn't think I would ever be able to do justice to it, especially to the jokes as I tend to drift towards angst.
But a plot bunny and the chemistry that is Jeff and Annie convinced me to give it a shot and at the end I realized that it really is tough to do justice to Sitcoms and I haven't quite managed it. So, this is a bit of angst and stuff but I tried my best…Hope you like it.
Dedicated to bsloths , my awesome beta and friend without whose help and encouragement this little one shot would never have seen the light of the day.
Disclaimer: I begged and threatened but all in vain…
He's vaguely aware that she is acting a bit differently; mostly he's only trying his hardest not to stare at the leg she has crossed over the other. He's lightly alarmed to note that even Abed hadn't called out to the Basic Instinctness of it all.
He notices she's wearing perfume one day when she passes by him on way to Anthropology class; another day, her bright cardigans have given way to pale-coloured business jackets; everyone in the group notices she isn't making dioramas every second of the day, because really, the library suddenly has much more room.
It's only when her backpack gets replaced by a purse that he actually starts to worry.
However, he's too engrossed in knowing what's wrong with Annie to notice what is right...
His options were limited to a feministic reproach, a movie/TV reference, a lecture on morality, or simply a dumb remark. He decided to go for the offensive but frank answer to his question.
"She is growing up."
"Before you make any remark about her anatomy, Pierce, I'll have you know that I have seen her yearbook pictures and she has been well endowed since she was sixteen."
"Well she isn't sixteen anymore, Jeffrey. Little Annie's turning twenty one next week..."
"Annie? Twenty one?" As in Twenty One, as in she's an adult now and he doesn't have to worry about getting arrested for having vivid images about a girl with Disney eyes in a Red Riding Hood costume.
The finality of it hits him right in the gut…
Of course he offers to get her her first legal drink. It's his thing…
He just doesn't realize that almost everybody in the bar wants to do just that.
And as the night continues, Annie, in her little black dress that she claims is an essential in every grown woman's closet, is beyond the point of being innocently drunk.
"Is this a date?" she asks suddenly and Jeff has to control his first instinct to cough up his drink.
"No, Annie, I just wanted dibs on being the first to get you drunk," he looks around the place, "but apparently I'm not the only one here."
With Annie looking the way she does today, he isn't surprised that every male in the house has his eyes drawn to her and call it chivalry, protective instinct, or merely the fact that he likes being around her, but Jeffrey Winger hasn't left her side the entire evening.
"Where is everyone else?" he asks after a tense silence, and he almost gets up go look for Britta, Abed, or even Pierce but the sight of a greasy-haired guy almost waiting to pounce on Annie makes him change his mind and he settles back into his stool. Giggling, Annie takes out her cell phone and shows him a message from Britta.
Stuck at a jam at Jubilee Road. Will take some time.
'Great' he grumbles under his breath; he should have known that deciding on this out of town place was a bad idea. It had to be, it had been Britta's.
"So…" she slurs a bit, "there is something you should know."
"What?" he grins because drunk or not, Annie is always adorable.
"I am twenty one today."
"I know," he smiles at her, "hence the night out."
"Noooo…," she whines, "you don't understand. I'm a woman today." She looks at him seriously, "I'm not a kid anymore."
Like he needs a reminder.
She continues, "I'm not a child now, Jeff. You should know that."
And he thinks he knows what she is talking about. But before he can understand the implications of her words fully, she bounces down from the bar stool and makes her way to the dance floor.
Reluctantly and almost ashamedly not being able to control himself from the way she turns back to look at him, Jeff follows her.
He shouldn't have followed her.
He should have trusted his first instinct and known that dancing was not really his thing and dancing in this close proximity with Annie, with her hips swaying in that little thing, was hardly the situation he wanted to deal with right now.
He was an evolved man. A responsible, grown-up man who had decided the first time he had kissed Annie Edison that he needed to keep himself away from her. For her own good and a lot for his own.
She bewitches him, in a way no other woman ever has. And he knows a lot of women.
"We should go home," he tells her over the music and she grins up at him and determinedly snakes her arms around his neck, "Not so fast."
What has gone wrong with her?
"Annie," he supplies, "Listen, you're drunk and I'm, I'm a bit confused. Let's just go."
There is a very big chance that he isn't going to survive this morality thing for too long.
She pouts at him and he wants to tell her that that wasn't a very grown-up expression. But it looks sexy as hell on her and he decides to say nothing at all. "One more drink," she pleads.
And he could never get a word in argument against her anyway, "Fine, one more drink. Just one more."
He leaves her at the bar to go to the washroom, with clear directions that she was not to go anywhere, talk to anyone, or accept a drink from anyone.
Splashing some much needed cold water on his face to clear his head, Jeff walks out to find Annie doing exactly that.
No, no, no. He hadn't signed up for babysitting…Except of course she wasn't a baby anymore.
"You're not drinking any more," he says, sliding her drink from in front of her and gulping it down in one gulp in sudden frustration.
"But Jeff, these are free drinks."
"No, Annie these are not," he says, glaring at the man who had moved two stools closer to Annie while he had been away, "anyone who offers you a free drink definitely wants something in return from you."
"Oh! But you did buy me my first," she reminds him and he is definitely having dreams about that tone, "do you want something in return too, Jeff?"
Somebody, please help him! Annie Edison was going all seductive on him.
He manages to get her out before things inside turn violent. Truth be told there are three of them and one of him and he loves his face a little too much.
She is still laughing, "They thought you were my Dad."
"I know," he says irritably, "I heard it."
She continues to giggle, "You didn't have to throw a drink at the poor guy, Daddy."
"Poor guy!" he retorts, "The man had a hand on your thigh, Annie. And then he has the cheek to say that I shouldn't have taken my daughter out looking like that anyway. Not only was he off base but I'm beginning to realize just how messed up it all sounds."
She stops before he can get his car door to open, "Jeff…," and there is a sudden seriousness in her voice which makes him stop, "tell me the truth. Don't I look old enough?"
"Invalid question! Didn't we just get compared to Lolita and her father in there?"
"Jeff! That's not what I'm talking about! Isn't this," she gestures to herself, "isn't this enough?"
He looks at her, actually looks at her, not in the way he would usually look at women dressed up like her. You know, cleavage showing, dark lipstick, high heels, tiny dress…But the way he looks at Annie every day, with affection, "Annie…you're more grown up than all of Greendale put together." He sees the disappointment in her eyes; this is not what she has been asking. This is not why she had gone through a personality change over a week, "As for this dress," he lightly tugs at the thin straps at her shoulder and Annie flushes a little, "you look hot in it."
It's true even though for the good of mankind in general he would do anything to make sure she doesn't wear it ever again.
She smiles at him in a familiar way and he relaxes, "C'mon. Let's go now. I'll message Britta on the way."
"Where are you taking me?"
"Home," he says absentmindedly, looking for his keys.
"Mine or yours?" The question comes out soft from behind him and he stops trying to get the door to open. Did she really mean what she was saying?
He turns back to her, preparing himself to give one of his best lawyer speeches. He has no intentions of hurting Annie, not today, not ever. But telling her that he wanted to be the good guy here was going to take some solid tact.
He takes a deep breath and looks her straight in the eye, "I'm not taking you anywhere near your place when you're drunk. So, what I propose is we head back, find the group, and ask one of them to take you home."
"Why can't you take me to yours?" she bites her lips anxiously and gives him the look that makes him have trouble speaking.
And he can, a big part of him wants to. He really, really wants to haul her over his shoulder, push her into his car and drive at hundred miles per hour and not stop till they have reached his place and he has her pinned against his wall. And there is another part of him, a much bigger, a much stronger part of him that would never take advantage of Annie Edison, "Because I don't trust myself around you."
And suddenly she has thrown her arms around him and he stumbles a little, his hand reaching for the car to gain support. She buries her head in his chest, like she is a little afraid to look him in the face, "Annie…?"
"Jeff, I want to go with you. I want you."
And he freezes, because this isn't her being drunk and seducing, this is her being drunk and honest. And she probably expects the same thing from him.
"Annie," he tries his hand at honesty, "those men inside were right. I am old enough to be your father."
She separates herself away from him, "That's bullshit Jeff. One would have to be a father at sixteen for that."
"It's known to have happened before."
Her eyes grow wide a little because she never had thought of that before, "But I'm twenty one today." She all but her stamps her foot in a tantrum, "Adult in every sense there is. Why are you afraid now?"
"Annie, Annie, Annie," he rubs his hands across his face and carefully styled hair in dire frustration and more, "you think I haven't noticed. Don't I know that you threw up the day you took your coffee black and sugarless and added enough mustard in your meal to go green?"
"I was rehearsing at growing up," she admits.
"I know," he agrees, "but that doesn't change the fact that you're still a kid and I'm still a creep."
Her eyes harden at the word kid and he regrets it immediately, "So? You want to or you don't want to sleep with me?" she asks bluntly.
And there is just so much a man can take anyway. Screw anything called 'the right thing to do'or 'group dynamics' or 'she deserved better'; and it doesn't even have anything to with the fact that she looks like she walked out of a B grade Hollywood movie, it's simply because this is Annie. His Annie, whom he had kissed at the Tranny Dance and had wanted to kiss again ever since.
He grabs her shoulders and smashes his mouth against hers. It's a kiss of need and desperation and Annie is too shocked at first to respond to anything. And then slowly her lips open up and she moans, low and clear and the kiss changes. It's different. It's passion and it's need but it also speaks volumes about the feelings he has so desperately been fighting against.
He grabs her flush against him one last time before releasing her, "Does that answer your question?"
And she doesn't look that drunk anymore.
"But Annie," he says taking two steps away from her, "It doesn't change the fact that it's me and it's you. Red Riding Hood and The Big Bad Wolf don't exactly spell romance."
She nods, a little disheveled, slightly more sorted, yet still drunk, "That's okay," she says a little breathlessly, her fingers moving on her own accord to touch her lips, "I don't want to sleep with you either."
"You don't?" he looks at her in shock, "Why not?" And he can't help but feel a little hurt. Troy was right, perhaps he does have issues.
"Because you're…You're Jeff Winger. You're unreachable, unapproachable. Like God. And it's creepy if you want to sleep with God. Don't you think?"
He laughs at the absurdity of it, "Yeah. As I said I have denied the signs for too long."
The rest of the group arrives before they go looking for them and for some time there is just a lot of argument over why they had chosen a place so far away anyway, till Britta turns to look at Annie, "Wow! Did the manager at the Dildopolis present you with that dress?"
"I like it," Pierce adds, and Troy nods.
"Lay off," Jeff tells them.
"You're not going to send her to her place looking like this are you?" Shirley asks, hurriedly taking out a stole from her oversized purse and covering up Annie, "she is too drunk to be left alone in that neighborhood and Lord, they ought to make them smaller these days. Look at all the cleavage you're showing, Honey."
"She's right Jeff," Britta agrees and he wants to tell them that he wasn't that insensitive after all and had thought of it earlier but Britta beats him to it, "One of us needs to take her with us," she looks up at him suspiciously, "how much did you let her drink anyway? This couldn't be her choice."
"True," Abed finally breaks his observational silence, "but seeing the change Annie has been moving towards in the week-long arc, being drunk is the final straw in her growing up characterization. That and…," he looks at Jeff and shuts up when the taller man raises a questioning eyebrow at him, which is almost as much in curiosity as in warning.
Jeff looks at Annie, standing there in the middle of people who cared immensely about her; Shirley's stole wrapped around her comfortably as she bites her lips in anxiety. A part of her looks just like the Annie of a week before.
He throws a glance at Pierce and Troy and decides against them immediately; he trusts Abed but he doesn't trust the dormitory which also houses Starburns, and Shirley's place was already a full house.
That leaves them with either him or Britta. Britta with her cats and their unusual disdain towards strangers or him with his couch which was too small for his height, and his chivalry that would not allow Annie to sleep on it either. The alternative of them sharing his bed, however innocently, was at this time highly inappropriate. It had already been established that he wasn't very good at self control.
"Take her home with you Britta. She'll probably need heavy hangover care tomorrow morning and you might want to put a bin next to the bed," he pats Annie on her head, and for once the gesture doesn't ensue in awkwardness between them, "don't worry I'll bring some coffee tomorrow morning."
Britta nods, a little surprised at his thoughtfulness and Shirley looks at him approvingly and Abed a little suspiciously. Annie avoids looking at him. But he doesn't care because just before being whisked away by Britta, she turns around to look at him and mouths a thank you.
"Milady," he nods in return.
And then she is gone and Jeff Winger, left alone on a sidewalk, miles away from home, outside a bar where there were at least half a dozen drunk men ready to pick up a brawl with him, suddenly realizes that this may have been Annie's adulthood party but he kind of just grew up a little bit too.
AN- Please do let me know what you think.