Title: Idiots and Lost Causes
Author: wordybee
Spoilers: Up to season 3, I guess.
Rating: T for now?
Warnings: Weird timeline. Swearing. Mopey Jeff Winger.
Word Count: 2,585 for this chapter.
Disclaimer: I don't own Community.
Summary: Jeff and Annie have been in the habit of giving up for so long that neither of them noticed that they never actually did.

Jeff wakes up a second time after falling asleep in his comforter-cocoon on the couch and he feels significantly better until he remembers why he'd been drinking in the first place.

(Annie with a glimmering diamond ring and a smile just as sparkly. Engaged to a guy Jeff only knows as a name in anecdotes.)

He pulls his blanket away from his face and looks around the room. The light coming in through the windows is the yellowish color of afternoon and there's another glass of water and another couple of aspirin on the coffee table next to him. Jeff drinks the water but leaves the pills and stands up to wander into the kitchen.

Mary is sitting at the tiny table in the corner of the kitchen and she hands him his phone. Jeff notices that she still has a purple pen and she's still circling things but she's added a yellow legal pad to the mix and Jeff doesn't really feel like questioning what's going on.

"This was in your jacket pocket," says Mary, then hands him a napkin, "and this."

Jeff takes the napkin and instantly recognizes Annie's handwriting. If found call 555-0109. Even when using lipstick on a napkin, Annie kept the characteristic neat, girlish touch to her writing.

"Oh," says Jeff. He looks at Mary carefully, but she doesn't seem angry. Obviously female handwriting, phone number, out late and home drunk – she should be angry, right? That's how it goes on TV, that's how things usually stack up for wacky relationship hijinks and/or non-wacky relationship implosions. Jeff doesn't know if TV got it wrong or what, but Mary isn't showing a hint of jealousy or anger or paranoia or anything.

"There's some mac and cheese in the oven if you want it," she says. She stands up and pats Jeff's shoulder, tucks her magazine and a stack of papers in the crook of one arm, and grabs her purse from the back of her chair. "I've got a late shift tonight. I'll talk to you later…?"

Jeff nods, his thumb rubbing distractedly against the screen of his cell phone as he tries to figure out whether he's in trouble with his girlfriend or not. He wishes he'd had more girlfriends and less flings, because he doesn't have a clue if this is normal or abnormal or if she might have poisoned the mac and cheese. He feels like he's missing something very important, and it'll come back to bite him eventually.

When he hears the door open and shut – quietly, like Mary is conscious of Jeff's persistent headache and doesn't want to hurt him – he comes back to himself and looks down at the napkin in his hand.

Oh, he thinks, and he remembers.

("Jeff, are you sure you're okay?" Britta asked him, and that was rich coming from her – Jeff wasn't the one who'd been moments away from dancing on top of the bar, only to be talked down by Troy. He didn't say that. Jeff just gave her a bobble-headed nod and ate one of the olives from his second martini.

Britta wasn't the one who reached over and pulled Jeff toward her, though. That was Annie, giddy with drink and good news, and she said to him, "Jeff, I think you've had enough."

But Jeff shook his head. He waved for another martini – or he tried to, but his arm had grown a mind of its own and just sort of flopped backwards against the back of his chair, then onto the table again. Annie's touch was a hot iron on the hand not uselessly flopping around and when he looked at her she had a soft expression on her face. Her eyes were bright and glassy and her smile was big and Jeff desperately wished there wasn't a ring on her finger that meant he couldn't think of her in the way he thought of her, that he couldn't think about kissing her or telling her that she mattered to him in a way that went beyond friendship and shared experiences and respect for her good brain or her good heart. He suddenly felt very sad, and was glad his attempt to flag down the bartender had failed. He probably didn't need any more alcohol.

Annie giggled just a bit. She picked up a napkin and wrote If found and her phone number on it with a thing of pinkish-red lipstick and tucked it into Jeff's jacket pocket, then zipped the pocket closed.

"Don't lose your jacket," she said.

"I won't."

There was a lull. Jeff frowned and said, "You know I have a girlfriend."

He ignored the part of his voice that made him sound like he'd just remembered that fact himself. He ignored the guilty twinge in his alcohol-muddled mind that connected his feelings for Annie and his disappointment in her engagement with the fact that he had no right to be disappointed. He had no right to have feelings.

But Annie apparently couldn't see the mix of emotions on Jeff's face. Nonplussed by his mention of a girlfriend, she simply replied, "Yeah?"

"It'd be smarter to write her number."

She shrugged. "I don't know it."

That made Jeff smile. Because it'd be easy for Annie to just swipe Jeff's phone and find Mary's number in his contacts list but, "You like being the one who takes care of me."

Annie's expression was somewhere between amused and indignant with a touch of embarrassment. She stirred her drink and blushed prettily and that was when Jeff kind of fell asleep on the tabletop. He only woke up when Troy smacked his shoulder and said, "Your taxi's ready to go, man," and by then, Annie was already gone.)

Jeff is knocked out of the memory when his phone rings and buzzes in his hand. He accepts the call (from Shirley) and coughs out a hoarse, "Hello?"

"Jeffrey, are you okay?" Shirley's voice is full of concern and admonishment. It is two in the afternoon and Jeff probably sounds like he'd just woken up (which he had, of course, but still) and he can't remember if Shirley noticed Jeff's enthusiastic drinking the night before but he really wants to restore some level of dignity to the situation.

Jeff clears his throat and says, "I'm fine, Shirley," and actually sounds like it could be true. He ties up the lie cleanly by saying, "You caught me in the middle of eating."

"Oh. Well, don't eat too much. Annie wants us all to have dinner with her and Vincent tonight over at the apartment. We have to congratulate the happy couple!"

Shirley sounds positively overjoyed by the idea and even though Jeff really, really tries, there's no way he can make his "Yeah, we do," match her level of zeal.

Shirley says that they're eating at six and Jeff blandly tells her he'll see her there.

He pulls the phone away from his ear and ends the call. The good news is, he'll finally have a face to match to the name "Vincent." That's also, unfortunately, the bad news.

Normally, the fact that Jeff had arrived home in a taxi the night before would give him the perfect excuse not to go anywhere, but he's too overcome by curiosity to take that out. Curiosity, he thinks, and a touch of rather sick emotional masochism.

Picking up his car means he can probably get there a little late, though. Late is cool. Late means Jeff is cool – with the dinner, with Annie getting married, all of it.

Jeff still arrives on time despite all his efforts, and he wonders if the universe warped time just to fuck with him. He's still pretty hung-over and doubly nauseous because the taxi he'd taken to get his car had smelled like some late-night partier had probably been charged extra for their trip quite recently. It was the sort of smell that lingered. His head still hurts, too, but before leaving he'd taken the aspirin Mary had left for him and they're starting to kick in so his chances of hiding it are good.

When he opens the door, Abed announces, "Jeff's here!" and ushers him into the living area of the apartment. The younger man provides another tick in the yes column of Jeff's mental Is Abed psychic? chart by taking one look at the covered ceramic dish and saying, "He brought mac and cheese."

Troy is immediately all over that. He walks up to Jeff and takes the dish, opens up the aluminum foil cover and sniffs it like it's some glorious five-star meal and not leftovers that Jeff had just stirred up a bit to hide the portion Mary had taken out of it. It was pretty good mac and cheese, though. Troy sets it in the center of the table.

Jeff is evidently the last to arrive, which is good for his ego in a bizarre way that he's never tried to understand. Troy joins everyone else already situated around the TV just as Annie bustles in from the kitchen with a strange man in tow. Obviously Vincent. Jeff is instantly suspicious of the man because he's mousy-haired and kind of nerdy, maybe in his late twenties or very early thirties and he doesn't look like anyone Annie would actually go for.

(Jeff ignores the part of him that tells him Annie's taste in guys hadn't done her much good over the years, and maybe she intentionally chose someone out of type because her "type" tended to be douchebags.)

"Jeff!" Annie seems quite peppy tonight. "This is Vincent," she says, gesturing to the man and then, to Vincent she says, "This is my friend Jeff."

Vincent holds out a hand for a handshake and Jeff takes it, trying his hardest not to crush the guy's fingers in a cliché display of contempt. He doesn't trust him. Why had Annie never introduced any of them before? How had they gotten to the point of engagement and none of the group had met the guy, or knew anything about him other than his first name?

(Who is Annie Edison going to be in several months' time? Is she going to have some different name and some different life? Will he – will they even know her at all?)

"Nice to meet you, Jeff," Vincent says, and he's got an accent. He's got a fucking English accent and Jeff wants to murder him with the pair of scissors on the table next to him. Then Jeff wants to sell his soul to the devil, perform a magic ritual to bring Vincent back to life, and kill him again. Hell would be so worth it.

(Jeff can compete with nerdy and young. He can compete with smart, funny – whatever else Vincent could turn out to be, other than nerdy and young. There's a level of appeal achieved by the English accent, however, which gives otherwise feeble opponents an edge that Jeff can't overcome.

Not a competition, Jeff berates himself, and tries to believe it.)

There must be a glint of Jeff's rather homicidal intentions sparkling in his eyes because Vincent reaches with his other hand to forcibly pull away from Jeff's grip. He laughs nervously and says, "Annie, your friends are very charming."

Jeff's fingers twitch in the direction of the scissors. Vincent is only saved by the sound of buzzing and Annie saying, "Uh, sweetie, come with me to get the pizza and dessert. Jeff, there are drinks in the kitchen if you want anything." She turns to the rest of the party. "We'll be back in fifteen minutes, tops, guys."

Pleasant smiles follow the happy couple out the door, until it's shut behind them and Jeff is surprised to hear Pierce blurt, "I don't like him."

"Oh come on, Pierce," Shirley says, "I think he's sweet! And that accent is so charming. I thought British accents sounded kind of funny, but now I realize that is was just because the only time I'd ever heard one in real life was from Professor Duncan and he was usually drunk."

Britta nods, "Yeah, as much as I loathe the oppressive system of marriage – no offense, Shirley – and abhor the concept of lawfully forced monogamy because it's generally a trap to sell flowers and wedding dresses to clueless women – again, no offense, Shirley – I'm happy for Annie. She's young and idealistic and that's adorable. I say we let her live these happy days in peace because god knows it's going to turn on her eventually."

Britta takes a sip of her wine and turns back to watching TV with Troy and Abed, wholly ignorant of the anger lasers boring into her skull via Shirley's incensed glare.

"I'm gonna go bake something," Shirley growls.

"We don't have anything to bake," Abed says.

"Then I'll drink something and think about baking. Watch your television."

"Okay."

Jeff sighs. "I'd hate to say this, but I agree with Pierce," he says as Shirley stomps into the kitchen. He pulls up a chair and leans in toward the rest of the group conspiratorially.

"I mean, what do we actually know about this guy? Have any of you ever met him before? Troy, Abed, you live with Annie – has he ever been over before now?"

Both men shake their heads. Troy takes on a particularly suspicious look that Jeff finds encouraging, but Britta snorts.

"Come on, Jeff," she says. "You're acting like it's some big conspiracy. Annie's been talking about Vincent for weeks. Maybe months, I don't know – sometimes I zone out."

"Yeah, but what has she said about him?"

Britta doesn't have an answer for that. Annie had pretty much told them that Vincent existed, and that was it. Compared to her previous relationships – which generally involved long descriptions of the guy in her I love butterflies voice and lots of agonizing details about the dates they'd been on – Annie's relationship with Vincent was an utter mystery. Except for a few hinted remarks that they were dating, Vincent could have been a friend of Annie's from class or something, or a friend from Annie's volunteer work at the hospital. And then, suddenly, Annie was engaged and it seems very suspicious to Jeff. He tells the rest of the group as much and they all seem to be on his side except Britta, who is persistent in the belief that Vincent is just a nice guy with a pleasing accent.

"He's sweet, Jeff, and Annie likes him!"

"Yeah, you remember what happened with the last guy Annie was interested in dating who you said that about?"

Troy frowns. "Business Suit Greg?"

Pierce says, "Oh, I liked him."

Business Suit Greg was an asshole.

Jeff huffs and rolls his eyes. "Okay, the last last guy. Rich? Anyone remember him? And maybe remember his recent appearance on the local news's bi-weekly Psychopaths and Scumbags feature heading the Psychopaths list? You guys approved of him, too, and god only knows what might have happened if they'd actually dated!"

Britta's face falls. "But Vincent is English!"

"So was Jack the Ripper, Britta. I guarantee you: Vincent is evil. He must be stopped before he hurts our Annie."

That's when Annie returns with the pizza and two bags full of ice cream cartons and everyone plasters fake smiles on and pretends they hadn't just been conspiring against her new fiancé. Jeff jumps up from his chair and rubs his hands together, feigning eagerness.

"Well guys, let's eat!"