Introductory Dodgeball
Disclaimer: I don't own Community. Or Dodgeball.
"Ugh, I can't believe you talked us into this." Britta complains, folding her arms in disgust.
"Guaranteed A for showing up." Jeff reminds her as he drags his sweats down revealing his gym shorts. The rest of the study group is in similar attire and Jeff is pointedly not looking at the smooth expanse of creamy thigh that Annie's short shorts have revealed. Or, for that matter, the hint of cleavage that her tight Greendale tshirt reveals. The effort of keeping his eyes away from her is starting to give him a headache.
"And a chance to do an homage to Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story."
"I already told you, Abed, we're not doing an homage. And I'm not Peter LeFleur."
"True. Your vanity and constant muscle flexing puts me more in mind of White Goodman, but that would make us Globo Gym and I'm not comfortable with playing the villain in this piece."
Jeff rolls his eyes and turns his attention to the teams assembled in the gym. Surprisingly, there are seven other teams signed up for Introductory Dodgeball. His eyes flick over Leonard and the other hipsters, some stoners that used to hang around playing hacky sack with Vaughn, and Fa-, Neil and some of his Dungeons and Dragons league.
"Jeff, are you sure you want to throw the games?" Annie has stepped over to his side and Jeff reminds himself to keep his gaze above the neck. "None of these teams look particularly good and I was on my rehab centre's dodgeball team. We got to national lower zone semis, you know."
"That kind of goes against the point of a blow off class though, doesn't it? All we have to do is stand around for a minute or two and let ourselves get hit with balls-"
"Gay!" Pierce interjects loudly.
"-and we then get the rest of the period to sit around and admire how good I look in shorts."
Annie rolls her eyes. "You got over that lesson from Coach Bogner real quick, didn't you?"
He flips her a grin and her lips quirk in return.
"Vell, vell, vell, vhat have ve here?"
Jeff turns his head to see Juergen standing a few feet away with his team flanking him in a vee.
"Oh look, Annie, a team of Deutchbags. Are you here to get a lesson in dodgeball like the one Shirley and I delivered in foosball?"
"You think you can beat us?" Juergen asks. "You should probably know that back in Deutchland dodgeball is a national sport. Ve all handle our balls from a very young age."
"Balls." Pierce interjects. "Gay, gay, gay."
"Well the only balls you'll be handling are the ones I aim at your face." Jeff retorts.
"At last Jeff has found an adversary," Abed comments. "This is just the encouragement his character needed for this piece."
"Why don't you just give up now and go back to singing in the hills, Von Trapp?" Britta chimes in.
"They were Austrian, Britta, but nice sentiment." Annie places her hand on Jeff's arm and draws his attention away from the phalanx of Germans. "Jeff, we really should get back to working on our strategy."
He turns his back on Juergen and his team and lets Annie drag him over to the rest of the group. "We need to destroy them."
The coach pulls the team names out of a hat to decide on the game matchups and the study group draws Leonard and the hipsters first.
"Just throw quickly." Shirley tells them as they warm up. "They're old and won't be able to dodge your balls."
"Like how Eartha Kitt couldn't dodge my balls in the airplane bathroom." There's a chorus of groans and retching noises. "Come on, it came up organically!" Pierce replies.
Shirley is yelling last minute instructions from her place on the sidelines as they line up, but Jeff is smiling cockily at their opponents. When the whistle blows, he sprints to the centre of the court and grabs three balls, tossing one to Britta and one to Troy. Meanwhile, Leonard and the others are still shuffling away from their starting point.
Jeff takes aim, but it's like something is stopping him from throwing. The old lady he's sized up is looking right at him as she totters up the court. She's using a walking frame, for God's sake. He can't take out an old lady on a walking frame.
"Don't look at their eyes!" Troy screams. His own gaze is locked on Leonard and the ball he's holding falls harmlessly out of his grip and rolls away. Leonard scoops it up as quickly as his bad joints will allow and Jeff is stunned when it bounces off his chest a few seconds later.
"Ha ha! Got you, Winger!" Leonard crows.
"Shut up, Leonard! I've seen your Big Bang Theory fan fiction!" Jeff storms to the sidelines where Shirley is waiting with a furious expression.
"What the hell, Jeff? You just let Leonard get you out!"
"You try staring down one of those hipsters! You look into their eyes and past the cataracts it's like they have no souls." He shuffles over on the bench to make room for Troy and Britta who were also struck down after freezing up.
"Well Annie's having no trouble." Shirley points to where Annie is nimbly dodging balls. She neatly catches a ball aimed at Pierce, who's fallen over his own feet, then flicks it back at a hipster to take them out.
Within a few minutes, Annie has singlehandedly cleaned up the entire hipster team. The rest of the study group storms the court and they're all jumping up and down and talking smack at Leonard as he trudges off the court.
"And we've still got the rest of the period left for you to prance about in your shorts." Annie points out as Jeff gives her a victory high five.
A week later they're watching the rest of the second round games after a challenging victory against Magnitude's team, and Jeff starts to feel the faintest hint of fear as Juergen's team ruthlessly takes out Neil and his league. The Germans have all taken off their sweaters to reveal matching tshirts featuring the face of David Hasselhoff.
"Clichéd," Abed points out when he sees the shirt.
"Geez, they're good." Jeff mutters to himself.
Annie glances over at him. "We could be too with a bit of practice. I mean, aside from Pierce, we're all pretty quick and Troy and Abed both have a good throwing arm. No one seems to want to hit Britta or me for some reason, so it's just you that needs to step up."
"You realise that they don't want to hit you because that way they can keep watching you two bouncing up and down in those tiny uniforms, right? It's basically the oil fight all over again."
"Jeff!" she swats his arms, blushing and tugging at her short shorts with her other hand.
Jeff knows she's right, though. His aim is pretty shoddy and his height is a disadvantage in a game where you need to be small and quick. Annie is by far their best player and she's been showing a degree of ruthlessness that Jeff is finding strangely attractive.
"Anyway, you need to stop worrying that the ball is going to hit your face. I can see you stressing about it and then you get distracted and get out." Annie continues. He notices that there are still spots of colour high on her cheeks and the tips of her ears are pink.
"Uh, hello? Money maker?" he circles his face with one finger. "I shouldn't have to keep pointing that out to you."
"If you focus on the game you won't get hit at all." She retorts, flicking her ponytail.
"Well maybe I need some pointers."
"Well maybe you do. After school. Here."
It isn't until later when he's in the showers that he realises that he's agreed to extra practice for a blow off class.
"Faster!"
Jeff picks up the pace as he runs back and forth along the dodgeball court, swooping down every few yards to scoop up a ball and toss it to Annie. She has revealed herself as a hard taskmaster and Jeff is struggling after an hour of high intensity training. It's the fourth session she's put him through over the past week and Jeff is pleased to discover that he's actually improving. At the same time, he's pissed at himself for putting so much work into a class carefully selected for its blow off potential over a handful of other possibilitiesl.
"Ooh look, an extra practice for the big game tomorrow. You vill need a bit more than that to beat us."
Jeff pulls up to see Juergen standing in the doorway to the gym, tossing a dodgeball from hand to hand.
"Bite me, Baron von Douche."
Annie raises an eyebrow. "Not your best comeback, Jeff."
She turns her attention to Juergen. "You should probably put in some extra practice yourself. You were looking pretty sloppy at your last game. I counted at least three fouls and I'm pretty sure the German embassy will confiscate your passport if you get to four next time."
Juergen turns his attention to Annie and Jeff is pleased to see her straighten her spine and lift her chin slightly.
"Vell, vell. Maybe my first ball comes straight at you instead of him. Right between those pretty blue eyes."
"That's it." Jeff's starting across the court, his hands balled into fists, only to have Annie drag him back.
"Save it for the court!" she tells him. Juergen's smirking at him as he backs out of the gym and Jeff is barely able to keep himself from following and punching the crap out of him.
"I swear, if he hits you…" Jeff trails off, looking down at Annie's face. Her hand is still clamped onto his arm.
"Then you'll get a ball and hit him back. That's dodgeball, Jeff." She points out. Her hand is still on his arm and she's looking up at him with this look on her face that Jeff really shouldn't think about.
"Well let's get back to it." He says at last. "I should work on my aim."
Annie finally removes her arm and goes to set up some targets. As a reward for staying strong and ignoring that look she gave him, Jeff lets himself watch her bend over to set out the mini traffic cones.
It feels like half the school has turned out to watch the final game of dodgeball. Dean Pelton has been hanging around making offers of a pre-game massage that Jeff has swiftly declined.
Jeff's having a hard time concentrating. Shirley has let her determination to win the game get a hold of her and has instructed Britta and Annie to turn up with their already skimpy tshirts shortened to reveal a swathe of midriff. She's hoping that the sight will distract the opposition but she didn't count on the rest of her team being distracted as well. Britta, of course, has insisted that boys do the same because it shouldn't always fall on the women to provide a distraction using their bodies. Jeff realises he needs to intervene before Pierce can comply but he can't drag his gaze away from Annie.
"Get a hold of yourselves." Shirley says to the boys, squirting their faces with water from one of the drink bottles lining the side of the court.
Jeff wipes the water off and is on the point of saying that the view definitely makes him want to get hold of a very specific part of himself when he notices Juergen across the court. He's pointing at Annie and miming a vicious dodgeball throw and suddenly all Jeff wants to do is get on the court and take him out.
After a last minute pep talk from Shirley that features some very un-Christian suggestions on how to approach the game, they're lining up ready for the whistle.
The Dean has been given the job of starting the game and, with a last minute kiss blown in Jeff's direction, he blows the whistle hard.
The first few minutes of the game are intense. There are lots of throws on both sides that are getting blocked. Pierce is an easy target and he gets sent to the bench quickly, only to be dragged back on when Annie catches a ball tossed at her.
Jeff is suddenly grateful for all that extra training he put in as he easily dodges a couple of balls tossed straight at him. However, despite having Annie repeatedly drill into him the importance of focusing wholly on the game, he's keeping one eye on Juergen.
Juergen's been playing cat and mouse with Annie, continually feinting throws in her direction before swiftly switching targets. And then Annie trips as she makes a particularly skilful dodge and Juergen has her in his sights.
It's like it's happening in slow motion for Jeff. He launches himself across the court as Juergen throws the ball. He dives in front of Annie and instead of the ball striking her it smacks him right in the middle of the face. The last thing he hears as he lands hard on the ground is Shirley calling a time out.
When he comes to it's to find Annie kneeling by his side clutching one hand and the Dean clutching the other.
"Jeff! I can't believe you did that." Annie cries out.
"Me either, Jeffrey. Your face, your BEAUTIFUL FACE!" Jeff panics slightly at the Dean's hysterics and looks at Annie.
"What about my face?"
He doesn't miss the slight wince she gives as she pauses a moment too long before answering. "Oh, it's fine. Don't you worry, Jeff. We're going to win this game for you."
Troy and Abed help him over to the sidelines where Nurse Jackie shines a flashlight in his eyes a few times. More worryingly, the nurse dabs carefully at his face with some wipes and, holy shit, is that blood?
The Dean stops sobbing long enough to restart the game and Jeff watches as Annie darts around the court with an angry intensity that makes him feel a bit dizzy. Of course, that could be from where his head struck the wooden floor and not due to anything else. Like stupid emotions or something.
It's down to just Juergen and Annie and they're peppering each other with balls. One barely misses Annie and she flings the ball she's holding across the court as she dives to her left. She lands heavily on one side, but the shot was good and the court erupts into cheers as it smacks Juergen in the face and smashes his glasses.
Jeff tries to jump up and join the rest of the study group as they flood the court to congratulate Annie, but Nurse Jackie pushes him back down. But it doesn't matter as Annie extracts herself from the tangle of Troy, Abed, Britta, Pierce and Shirley to fling herself at Jeff.
She throws her arms around him and Jeff wraps his around her tightly. They hug for a second before Annie lifts her head and leans in to press her lips against Jeff's and-
"OW!"
She pulls back and bites her lip. "Oh, I'm so sorry Jeff! I didn't mean to knock your nose!"
He's patting gingerly at his face and his eyes widen as he encounters his nose a full inch over from where it's supposed to be.
For the second time in a very short space of time, Jeff Winger passes out.
Annie props the small dodgeball trophy in the middle of Jeff's coffee table. It's a couple of days after their victory and Jeff's worst fears have been realised. Both his eyes are black and his nose is swollen. He's refusing to go to class until it is back to normal and the group have been taking turns dropping notes and assignments for all his classes off to him at his apartment.
"Can I get you anything?" Annie asks, placing some neatly typed biology notes down next to Jeff. He moves the notes and gestures for her to sit beside him.
"You don't have to mother me, you know." His voice is coming out funny from all the gauze he has stuffed up his nose.
"But I feel so guilty! You shouldn't have thrown yourself in front of that ball. It probably would have just hit me in the chest or something."
"Geez, don't even joke about something happening in that region. As attached as I am to my face, I think I'm even more attached to your boobs."
Her face flushes with colour, but she's looking pleased with herself as well.
"Well I suppose I should thank you then."
"I suppose you should."
With that, she kneels up on the couch and braces one hand on his chest and leans in to gently press her lips against his, carefully avoiding his nose. The kiss is sweet and gentle and makes Jeff almost forget that he looks hideous.
"There." Annie hums with happiness as she draws back. "Debt paid."
"Mmm, I wouldn't be so sure about that. You know how highly I value my face." Jeff replies, pulling her back towards him.
The End.