A/N: To the anon reviewers I can't mail, in order from first received to last: Guest - I think all my Annie/Abed stories are going to lack in Annie/Abed in the beginning, at least romantically because I always need to set up the plot haha. Hopefully you'll stick around? / professorson - It took me a second to know what you were talking about but you're welcome! It kind of makes me sad to see Jeff portrayed as the bad guy so often in Annie/Abed fics. He's actually my third favorite character after Abed and Troy and I thought it'd be a refreshing change to have him not jealously pursuing Annie, or Annie 'realizing' that Abed was the better guy all along or something. Thank you for the review! / Guest - Thank you thank you thank you! I am glad you noticed the perspective change. Lessons in Modern Chivalry was super fun to write and as much as I love writing this fic, I won't lie, I'm really worried. Annie is harder for me to relate to so I'm anxious if I'm even writing her correctly. But your review made me feel better and I hope you like what I'll be doing with this story.
Thanks for the story follows! Here's chapter two, also updated sooner than later.
Ch. 2: The Solution
Annie had trapped herself in her room. After classes, instead of going to the study room to meet up with the group she had opted to go straight back to the apartment and avoid any more discussion about her date with James.
She had come to terms with it now, but it didn't mean it made her situation better. It made it worse.
She hadn't had a date since she broke up with her boyfriend in high school and this was her third year in college now. She was having trouble remembering how a date was supposed to go. She could imagine, but most of her ideas were muddled with chick flicks, Disney movies and impossible male leads and she doubted that James was either prince or a closet billionaire heir. James was nice, but he was also normal. The panic set in a little after she realized her standard of normal was walking in on Troy and Abed's bathroom lightsaber fight while she tried to brush her teeth.
For a change, retyping her chem notes wasn't keeping her mind busy. Annie sighed. She looked at the calendar hanging above her computer— it was only two days until the date.
There was a rapid succession of knocking on her door. Troy.
She couldn't avoid them forever. It was her turn to wash dishes and she hated leaving them overnight. Annie walked to the door, unlocked it, and opened it a crack to peer outside.
Troy and Abed were about an inch from her face.
She yelped and jumped back, the door swinging open wide with her movement.
"Troy! Abed!" she shouted, clutching her heart. Abed and Troy straightened their posture, their bodies crowding her door frame.
"We thought about what you said." Troy started.
Annie rubbed her temple. She had a feeling she knew where this was going. "About me never going on a date?"
"No. About you being a prude." Abed replied, his quick, excited tone implying a good idea was coming.
Annie moved to shut the door on their faces.
"Wait- wait- wait!" Troy took a step forward and Abed stuck his foot out as a makeshift doorstop.
"Hear us out, Annie!" Troy rubbed his hands together, excitedly. "We thought about it and thought about it and then we played Halo and then thought about it some more..."
Annie was nodding along to indicate she was listening, though her expression was getting more and more impatient.
"...and then I said 'I need to go to football practice'—"
"—Then I said," Abed continued seamlessly, "'That's it.'" His index finger shot up, his eyes brightening as he relived the moment of epiphany, "'What Annie needs is practice. What if," Abed and Troy stepped out from her door frame and room in unison, "she went on a practice date first?'"
Annie rolled her eyes in exasperation. "With who?"
Abed gave her a quick point. "We haven't gotten there yet."
Troy smiled. "But we're close! A couple more hours and we'll find the perfect candidate!"
Annie just looked at them.
There was a moment of deliberate pause and then Annie said "Good night guys." She closed the door.
"Worst. Idea. Ever." Jeff deadpanned.
Shirley gripped her handbag in excitement. "I think it's nice."
"Ay-bed, take these. They're ribbed. For her pleasure."
Abed reached over to take the condoms from Pierce.
"That is disgusting. Abed don't take those." Britta said sharply. Abed quickly retracted his hand. "Take these instead. They're certified from the UK's Vegan Society." Britta placed a couple condoms into Abed's already open messenger bag. Britta looked at Pierce triumphantly. "No animals harmed for all your anti-baby needs."
"Can someone give Britta something to chew on?" Troy said, taking his seat in the study room. "I don't want to hear her talk anymore."
"Why is everyone giving Abed condoms?"
Everyone looked up.
"Annie!" Britta chirped.
"Annie!" Shirley said brightly.
"Hey Annie." Abed gave her a small wave from his seat.
"We missed you." Troy added.
Everyone but Abed and Jeff were giving her large smiles.
Annie stepped tentatively to her own seat. "You saw me this morning Troy..." she sat down slowly, her eyes wandering over the group. "So... what's... up?" she continued carefully.
"My erection." Pierce said. He chuckled at his own joke.
Shirley shook her head, a frown on her face as she looked away from Pierce.
There was another long pause as everyone else exchanged glances.
"All right!" Jeff shouted. "Stop acting like there's landmines around Annie. I thought you two already told her most of your plan?"
"Plan?" Annie perked, "What plan?"
"We were get-ting to the rest of it." said Troy through gritted teeth, shooting a death glare at Jeff.
"Please do because I don't get the condom part in this whole plan either." Shirley said, looking at Troy and Abed respectively. "I thought we all just agreed that Annie should go on a practice date with Abed."
Everyone groaned.
Shirley looked around innocently. "Did I say something wrong?"
Troy inhaled deeply. "Too soon, Shirley!"
"Too soon?" Shirley asked.
"Wait— what?" Annie suddenly said, as if Shirley's previous words just sunk in. "A practice date with Abed? Wait. Oh my God... is that what the condoms are for? Oh God—" Annie stood up so fast, her chair tipped and clattered to the floor behind her.
"Annie, it's not what it looks like." Abed said quickly. "Britta gave them to me and I took them for Troy."
"For Troy or to use with Troy?" Shirley asked suspiciously.
"Gay!" Pierce shouted.
"Well I wasn't going to use them for the practice date tonight." Abed replied casually, "It's not kosher. And I'm not one to decline a gift."
"Thanks man."
Troy and Abed shared a handshake.
"Wait, I'm not kosher?" Annie said, clearly mishearing and aghast for an entirely new reason, "I'll have you know I'm very kosher. I'm the most kosher thing in this room."
Abed cocked his head to the side, his eyes faraway. "Well, I suppose if you're consenting we can have pretend sex on our pretend date."
"O-kay, this conversation just got really weird, really fast." Jeff said.
"Does that mean you're agreeing with your practice date with Abed?" Britta said teasingly in Annie's direction. She raised her hand for Abed to high five. "Way to go!"
Abed gave Britta a brief smile and reached forward to high five her. Pierce leaned over to give Abed a firm pat on the shoulder while Troy mouthed "Nice one" to his best friend.
"What did I just agree with?" asked Annie, panicked.
"A practice date with Abed." Shirley punctuated her excitement with a giggle.
"But I don't need a practice da— what is that?" Annie caught sight of the not-yet-erased cacophony of lists, chemistry equations, diagrams, and flow charts on the white board written hastily on the far side of the room— all of which centered around the word "Annie."
Abed's eyes immediately lit up at her interest. "That," Abed started, standing to gesture grandly at the board, "is the Date Recruit Evaluation Analysis Module. Or DREAM for short."
He expressed the title in the same manner as he and Troy introduced the Dreamatorium so Annie was immediately suspicious. "DREAM?"
"Yeah." Troy began from the table, disappointment evident in his tone, "I wanted to call it the STD but I couldn't find anything else it could stand for except Soda Train Drumstick."
"It was also the brainchild of the Dreamatorium so it was chosen for conceptual symmetry." Abed added.
Annie just looked at him.
He took the cue to continue, "The list of the names on the left get thrown into the flow chart, pass into a venn digram for further analysis by the group to weigh positives and negatives and finally run through a 'trust-o-meter,' which measures how much we trust the potential candidate to take you out on a practice date, thereby achieving optimal date results." He pointed at the right side where a much shorter list titled "results" had been compiled.
Annie squinted at the board. "What are the chemistry equations for?"
"Ah, allow me to explain that one." Troy started seriously. He stood with an air of authority before making his way to the white board, hands behind his back. "They were there when we got here. I thought they made the graphs and stuff look more professional and serious, so I asked Abed if we could keep them. We did." Troy went back to his seat in as serious a manner as he left it.
Abed noticed Annie didn't look impressed so he continued, pointing to another list titled "Exempt" crammed in the corner of the white board. "And those are names automatically filtered out because of past mutual romances. We figured since you already had those experiences you probably required practice elsewhere."
Annie stood and walked around the table to read the "potential candidates" in Abed's tiny, neat writing on the board. Abed followed.
"Chang?" Annie read aloud, incredulously.
Abed pointed over his shoulder without a glance. "Shirley's idea."
"Star Burns?" Annie continued.
His finger shifted to the left. "Jeff's."
"I didn't know it was serious, An-nie!" Shirley defended.
"Even a pointless list has to have a bottom." Jeff said without looking up from his phone.
"Exactly," continued Abed, "which is why I added Garrett so that we've come full circle." he pointed at Garrett's name for emphasis. Annie placed two fingers at her temple as if she had the beginnings of a headache. Abed immediately backtracked. "Neither Chang nor Star Burns made it through to the final results. Garrett was the only one of the three that did because he was deemed harmless by the group."
There were murmurs of agreement behind them. Annie heard Pierce say something about "as harmless as a vibrator without batteries."
"Abed..." Annie began, his name rolling off her tongue like a warning.
"Yup?" Abed replied innocently.
Shirley cut in before Annie went to throttle him, "But Annie!" Annie's attention snapped to Shirley in irritation to which Shirley gave her best Christian smile. "Look at all the nice results we came up with for you." She gestured at the right side of the whiteboard and Annie followed the movement.
"Aren't you glad that a close friend is someone you can practice with?" Britta said with an encouraging smile, "Abed made it to the top with flying colors."
"No I didn't," Abed corrected nonplussed, "Troy had football practice so he couldn't do it, Neil had a Dungeons and Dragons tournament and I was only chosen because I was the next available candidate—"
"The dean was fourth?" Annie said in disbelief.
"I was fourth?" The dean echoed in pleasant surprise.
The group turned to see the dean, dressed in full wizard garb plus wand, leaning against the bookshelf near the door. No one bothered to ask when he got there.
"I never could have dreamed that I would be in the top five of any list you all came up with." The dean leaned over to give Jeff a squeeze on the shoulder. "Also, since I have everyone's attention, we are screening a full showing of Magic Mike in the cafeteria at 6pm today! See you all there!" He gave Jeff one last imparting squeeze and then walked out of the room.
"You know that movie is about male strippers, right?" yelled Jeff over his shoulder.
"Jeff would know all about that." Pierce commented.
"Shut up, Pierce." Jeff addressed the rest of the group, "And why are we still having this conversation? Clearly Annie doesn't agree with this idea."
Britta shot a glare at Jeff before she turned to speak soothingly to the youngest member of the group, "Annie, you were scared stiff yesterday at the mere idea of going on a little date with a classmate," Britta said, "This'll be good for you."
"If it's any consolation, Annie," Pierce added, "You're wound up tighter than a Jewish curl and Abed's religion is going to give him 72 virgins when he dies, so really this date is good for the both of you."
"Wow, thanks Pierce." Annie got up and left the room.
The remainder of the group turned to look at Pierce.
"What? I was only trying to help."
"Try. Less." Jeff deadpanned.
Shirley looked pointedly at Abed. "Abed you have to go find Annie and calm her down."
"Me? Usually Jeff takes the wheel at this point—" Abed began.
"Abed's right," Britta supported, turning to Jeff.
"I'm busy."
"Doing what?"
"Not being involved."
Britta sat back smugly. "Hah, typical Jeff, all because something doesn't revolve around him he loses interest."
Jeff glared at her. "Fine. How's this?" His eyes flicked to the man next to her, his voice taking a higher pitch that matched mannerisms that were uncannily Britta. "Well, Abed, you thought of the plan so now it's your responsibility to fix it."
Abed pointed at Jeff and made a small pew sound. "Point taken, Britta."
Jeff gave him a weird look.
"I'd go with you, but the last time I tried to comfort Annie we both got dehydrated." Troy explained, "We cried so much I was worried our eyes would dry up and fall out like raisins." He paused thoughtfully. "I don't even remember the reason why we were crying."
"I remember. I found you both huddled under a three-piece pillow fort in the living room. Annie was crying because her grandmother was in the hospital and Troy was crying for the sake of crying." Abed paused. "All right. You've convinced me." He stood and shouldered his messenger bag.
"I did?" Troy said, confused.
"He did?" Jeff repeated, equally confused.
"It's not in my character realm to do the comforting usually. I'm more of the go-to impartial advice guy. But I'm for expanding my horizons and doing things out of the norm. Catches the audience off guard, makes characters more realistic and it's required for this plot to develop." He nodded once and walked out of the room in the direction Annie went.
Shirley straightened in her chair so she could see around Jeff as Abed turned a corner and out of sight. "Is this the part where we get up, follow him at a respectable distance, hide in a bush and then eavesdrop?"
There was a short pause.
"Yeah." Britta and Jeff said in unison. The remainder of the Greendale 7 bolted out of the room after Annie and Abed.