A/N: Thank you, thank you, thank you - I hope you're not tired of hearing it just yet. :)


When the final member of the study group – Shirley – finishes her last final – Advanced Strategic Marketing – they decide a celebration is in order so they wind up at a karaoke bar.

Jeff may not be a student any more, but they all started Greendale together and they'll end it together so he's goes along to celebrate as well. Even Pierce promises to make an appearance before the night is over – since he returned from his trip, he jumps at pretty much any invitation to show off his ridiculously dark tan.

Jeff leans back against the padded booth, grinning as he watches Shirley, Britta and Annie belt out 'Wannabe' by the Spice Girls. It's the most amusing thing that he's seen in a long time – not because they're bad. Shirley and Annie have pretty good voices, and what Britta lacks in on-key singing, she's able to hide pretty well by layering her voice in with theirs. What makes it so entertaining is how into they are, singing loud and proud and dancing around the stage like they don't care whether anyone's watching.

They get a pretty resounding cheer when they're done – Jeff, Abed, and Troy go for a standing ovation because they've definitely earned it. As usual, Jeff's eyes are drawn straight to Annie as she bounces off the stage like there's a magnetic pull or something. Sure, maybe she's a little sweaty from dancing under those hot lights, but she just looks absolutely radiant to him in her blue and white daisy-printed sundress. He smiles as she slides into the booth beside him, curling into his side. She's not really drunk yet, just a little tipsy maybe, but she's always a little more demonstrative with him in front of their friends when she's had a little something to drink.

But then Britta and Shirley head for the bathroom, and Troy and Abed make their way to the bar for another round, so there's really no reason for her to hold back anyway.

"That was fun," Annie declares, reaching for her nearly empty margarita.

"It looked like fun," Jeff agrees.

She lays a hand on his thigh and leans in close enough so he can smell the sweet, citrusy scent of her breath.

"Are you going to sing something?"

"I'm thinking about it," he says, swirling the scotch around in his glass. "Karaoke's all about finding a song with just the right amount of cheese. I'm torn between 'Pour Some Sugar on Me' and 'Cum On Feel the Noize.'"

She squints, tapping her fingers against his leg.

"I know the first song, but not the second one."

He groans and bounces his knee to jostle her a bit.

"I need you to take my iPod and listen to everything on it, okay?" he says. "When you don't know a song that I'm talking about, it makes me feel very old… and creepy."

She giggles, playing with a button on his shirt.

"You are neither of those things," she whispers. "I promise."

Both of her hands slide over his thigh now, her fingers pretty damn close to his crotch, and she scoots even closer, so she can nuzzle against his throat. He closes his eyes and winds a hand through her hair to keep her pressed against him. She's just starting to pepper his jawline with soft, lingering kisses that have his blood thrumming but probably aren't exactly appropriate for public consumption when Britta and Shirley noisily make their way back from the booth. Annie sighs in disappointment and slowly shifts away from him.

Britta and Shirley seem totally oblivious, cackling loudly as they tumble into the booth.

"So…" Shirley says, sounding pretty giddy. She's had a little more to drink tonight than usual, so it seems like she's really letting her hair down. Or maybe it's just the relief of being done with Greendale. "Are you two lovebirds going to treat us to a duet?"

He glances at Annie, and she's not freaking out at Shirley's choice of words or worrying if it's making him uncomfortable so it seems like he can thank the alcohol for getting rid of all the awkwardness. If anything, she just looks amused, which means that they can both laugh it.

Jeff lifts a shoulder in a casual shrug.

"I really don't think that—"

"Come on, guys," Britta slurs. "That would make my night… it would make my week actually. Maybe even my year. Because I'll record it and put it on YouTube for posterity."

Jeff grins and taps his phone where it sits on the table.

"What do you think I'm planning to do with your stunning rendition of 'I Touch Myself?'"

Britta gives him the finger and Shirley reaches out to slap her hand to the table, laughing all the while. Annie giggles too, even as she noisily slurps the dregs of her margarita through a straw. Troy and Abed return with the fresh round and hand out the glasses and bottles while the girls continue to laugh like they can't quite stop.

"Okay," Troy says as he and Abed slide back into the booth. "What did we miss?"

"Oh, nothing," Britta says breezily. "We're just trying to get Jeff and Annie to entertain us with a fabulous, amazing, embarrassing duet."

Abed perks up.

"Yes," he agrees, turning to Jeff and Annie. "You totally should. It would be a lighthearted moment that's actually rife with deep emotional significance. Perfect timing given that graduation is just around the corner."

"It's a karaoke duet, Abed," Jeff laughs. "It doesn't have any deep significance."

"It'd signify that we're really, really drunk," Annie says. "That's what it would signify."

He bobs his head, pointing a finger at her.

"Yes. Exactly. That would be its only significance."

Troy pushes Jeff's fresh glass of scotch a little closer to him.

"Well, drink up then. Because now that the idea's in my head, I've got my heart set on seeing you two up on that stage."

Britta nods enthusiastically.

"See? You'll ruin the whole night for the rest of us if you don't do it."

Shirley, Abed and Troy hum their agreement, but Jeff just shakes his head.

"I think you'll all live if you don't hear me and Annie sing 'You're the One That I Want' or 'I Got You Babe.'"

Annie's lifts her head from her drink and beams up at him.

"I know both of those!" she declares happily.

She goes back to sipping her margarita through a straw, like the conversation doesn't really have anything to do with her, and he can only grin because she's a pretty amazing combination of cute and sexy at the moment that makes it difficult to concentrate on much else.

Until Britta opens her big mouth.

"Annie knows them, Jeff," she needles. "So you've got no excuses."

They're all, minus Annie anyway, looking at him expectantly, so he frowns and downs half of his scotch.

"Well, if you're gonna be a total buzz kill and *not* sing a duet," Troy says. "Is it okay if Abed and I do 'I Got You Babe'?"

That only starts an argument between he and Abed about whether that's really the best song for them to sing, with Britta adding her two cents about how they shouldn't feel the need to adhere to traditional gender roles by singing a duet meant for two guys. Shirley interrupts to ask if either Abed or Troy is interested in singing 'Endless Love' with her, and from there, Jeff loses track of the entire conversation. He glances over at Annie, who's still sipping her drink like she doesn't have a care in the world.

"Hey," he whispers to her. "Did you really want to sing a duet?"

She shrugs, honestly looking like the whole thing really doesn't mean much to her.

"It might be fun," she says. Some of the salt from the edge of her glass has transferred to thumb and she stops to lick it off. "I just think it's more fun to sing with other people than by yourself."

Jeff regards her skeptically.

"So you want me to get on stage with you and sing a song from 'Grease?' Is that what you're saying? Because I need to be a whole lot drunker for that. And then I probably won't be much good to you later tonight."

She giggles, shaking her head like that's the last thing she wants.

"We don't have to sing a duet-duet," she tells him. "We could sing anything to together…" She wraps both of her hands around his forearm and squeezes lightly. "Oooh! Let's sing 'Pour Some Sugar On Me!' Or the other song about the noise. I don't know that one, but I bet I can follow along."

He laughs and lifts his arm to lay it on the top of the booth behind her so his fingers can trace up and down her bare arm.

"You want to sing Def Leopard with me?"

"Yes!" She's practically bouncing in her seat with excitement now. "Yes! Let's do it!"

She starts to slide to the edge of the booth, tugging on his arm to pull him with her. He could easily fight her, but she's so excited and giddy at the prospect of singing with him that he figures that it can't be the worst thing he'll ever do in his life.

"Where are you guys going?" Britta asks, when she sees them standing beside the table.

The rest of the group looks over at them with interest too.

"To give the people what they want, apparently," Jeff says wryly.

Britta's eyes light up and she grins.

"You're seriously going to do a duet? Oh my God! Where's my phone?"

She dumps her bag on the table and frantically starts rooting through it. Jeff starts to get a few second thoughts then – it's one thing to make a fool of himself in public; it's another thing entirely for there to be video evidence of the embarrassment. He knows that from hard-earned firsthand experience.

But Annie smiles up at him, her arm wrapped around his waist, and he decides that he can be a good sport.

"Not a real duet," she corrects Britta. "We're just going to sing something together."

"What song?" asks Abed.

Jeff opens his mouth to answer, but Annie quickly presses her hand over his lips.

"It's a surprise."

He lets her drag him over to fill out the song request slip, watching as she uses the little golf pencil to scratch out their title in her neat, precise handwriting. They wait their turn at the bar, and he convinces her that they should have a couple of shots of tequila to loosen themselves up. Mostly, he just wants to watch her lick salt off her skin again and suck on that little wedge of lime.

But the shots do help – well, they help him anyway.

Annie doesn't really need it.

She belts out Def Leopard lyrics as enthusiastically as she did the Spice Girls' song, even though he's willing to bet that she doesn't know this tune nearly as well. He feels like a fucking idiot for the entire thing, particularly when he sees that it's not just Britta capturing the moment for posterity, but all of his friends recording this indignity on their phones as they hoot and holler from the booth – he will never, ever hear the end of this, that's for damn sure.

But he also kind of has fun – because Annie's enthusiasm is pretty damn infectious and he's always looked pretty good in a spotlight, if he does say so himself. They don't get quite as hardy a reception as Annie did with Britta and Shirley, but they get a decent enough hand when they're done so he's not as humiliated about the whole thing as he could.

Especially when Annie grabs him just as they get off the stage and kisses him hard and deep.

"We were awesome," she declares, laughing against his mouth. "So much better than that dumb couple that sang 'A Whole New World.'"

Her eyes are blazing with the kind of competitive fire that she usually saves for Model U.N. battles and student government elections, which turns him on almost as fast as the sight of her bare skin.

"Obviously," he says. "I mean, we're us."

She bobs her head, still giggling, and leads him back to the booth. Their friends are all smiles too – particularly Britta who's got her lighter out and is waving it back and forth in tribute.

"That was one of the greatest things I've ever seen," she announces. "Jeff's air guitar alone is going to get this thing like a billion hits."

He sinks into the booth behind Annie and smirks.

"I'm so glad that we could amuse you."

"Oh, it was nice," Shirley assures him, reaching across the table to pat his hand. She's pretty drunk at this point, though, so he's having a hard time taking anything that she says seriously. "You two were adorable!"

He frowns and reaches for his nearly empty glass to drain it.

"We weren't *adorable*," Annie insists. "We kicked ass is what we did."

She holds up her margarita to clink it against his in a pretty emphatic toast – she spills a little of her drink on her hand in the process, but somehow, it doesn't really spoil the effect.

"You two definitely have chemistry," Abed says.

"Ah, they're doing it," Troy points out. "So duh."

"But that doesn't always mean anything. There are plenty of examples of real life couples who don't exhibit much chemistry on-screen, so it doesn't necessarily follow that—"

"We're not on-screen, though," Jeff says. "So I don't think any of this really applies."

"Yeah," Annie agrees, curling her hands around his bicep. "We're both just awesome. That's all there is to it."

Britta groans and kicks Jeff under the table.

"You're a terrible influence on her, you know that?"

"I don't see how encouraging a little confidence is a bad thing."

Annie snorts and swats at his stomach.

"I knew I was awesome before … us."

He drapes his arm behind her on the booth again and smiles.

"Maybe. But you weren't as comfortable admitting it, were you?"

She tilts her head, thinking it over, and then gives a little shrug of her shoulder. But she grins too, looking so pleased that he really doesn't care if he's right or wrong. He rubs his knuckles against her bare shoulder and she flushes, biting at her lip.

"I'm getting the feeling that you two would be seriously insufferable if I wasn't already drunk," Britta says, rattling the ice around in her glass.

"Yeah?" Jeff says. "Why don't you go sing about it?"

Britta just smirks.

"Why would I do that? I could never compete with the show you just put on."

"You might still have fun, though," Annie says, entirely earnest.

He nods.

"Yeah, Britta. Just because you can't compete with us doesn't mean you can't have fun too."

Britta makes a face like she's just eaten something sour and flips the soggy cardboard coaster from beneath her drink his way. Annie manages to catch it between her hands before it hits him, totally on a fluke, but she brandishes it proudly, like she's just saved him from a mortal wound.

"Nice catch," he tells her, and she grins up at him with a sultry look in her eyes that suggests that she's willing to remind him exactly what other nice things she can do with her hands before the night's over.

They wind up sharing a cab with Shirley since his apartment and her house are in the same general direction. Annie konks out against his shoulder before they even make it to Shirley's, her hand curled into the hem of his shirt. Shirley smiles at him over the top of her bent head.

"You know, sometimes I really do forget she's not that innocent, little girl we first met," Shirley says, and he braces himself for some kind of lecture or warning, even though he honestly thought that they were past all that. "And it's really not fair to her. Because she's a strong, capable young woman who's probably better able to take care of herself than all the rest of us put together."

He laughs quietly, bobbing his head.

"Probably."

"I hope you didn't take Britta seriously earlier. About you two being insufferable."

He shrugs.

"I rarely take Britta seriously," he jokes. "So..."

Shirley shakes her head and sighs.

"I think it's just a little strange for us to see you so happy. So maybe it takes a little getting used to, you know?"

He doesn't know what to say to that, so he just tightens his grip on Annie's shoulder and studies his lap.

"Come on, Jeff," Shirley whispers conspiratorially. "It's just you and me, so you can admit it. It's nice, isn't it? To have someone to care about, who cares about you in return? Instead of an endless parade of trollops whose names you barely remember?"

He makes a sound that's a cross between a sigh and a laugh – because drunk Shirley is just as perceptive and intimidating as sober Shirley.

"It's not half bad," he says.

It's Shirley's turn to laugh.

"Not half bad?" she repeats. "As long as you know you're not fooling me for a hot second, I'll accept that."

He busts out one of his most charming smiles.

"Could I ever fool you, Shirley?"

Her laughter gets a little deeper and she shakes her head.

"Not even a little bit." She cocks her head toward Annie. "Not where this one was concerned anyway."

When the cab pulls away from Shirley's house, Annie rouses a bit.

"Are we home?" she asks sleepily.

"Not yet," he tells her. "I'll wake you when we get there."