prompt: "What if Abed hadn't stopped Jeff and Annie from angrily undressing during the pen incident?"


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Eyes On Me

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It was amazing, and awful, and Abed nearly couldn't believe it was happening. The fiasco unfolding before him was exactly like the scene in the reboot of Pride & Prejudice where the rest of the world disappeared around the dancers, except in this case Annie and Jeff were screaming at each other, no one was dancing, and their clothes were about to come off.

They might literally rip their own clothes off in a fit of rage and sexual tension. His friends were living the viewer's dream but were too wrapped up in each other to notice their own meta achievement.

"...if you do, my pen will fall out!"

"You precocious little bitch!"

Abed noticed Britta off to one side, her head yo-yoing between the two screaming friends, while Troy and Shirley had their shared "Oh god the white people are going crazy" look. Pierce appeared almost as wrapped up in the scene as Jeff and Annie, who now had their hands on the bottoms of their shirts and their elbows rising. Abed opened his mouth, but the will to speak and avert this disaster between his friends was stymied by a cold, abstract curiosity. Would they do it? Jeff, maybe-he was an exhibitionist, but Annie? Was this all a game of ego or had they genuinely forgotten the rest of the study group was even in the room?

"There's no goddamn pen!" Jeff roared, and then his shirt was gone and he stood in the middle of the group, his muscles heaving like an extra from Gladiator and his eyes digging furiously into Annie's. It was as if Jeff was so focused on not losing his staring contest that he hadn't yet realized Annie was standing in her bra, arms flung, out, breath panting in tandem to his.

"Abed!" said Shirley in growing horror.

"Are we doing this?" choked Troy, eyes bouncing between his two half-naked friends and his four clothed friends.

"Jeff! What the hell," yelped Britta.

"Well there's no pen in these, mister!" Annie shouted, pointing at her breasts, now covered only by a cotton bra. "For all I know you hid it where drug-traffickers put their crack!"

Jeff's voice tipped on its highest arch as he retorted, "You want to see, Annie?" and his hands were on the buttons of his pants when Britta jumped between them.

"Stop it!" she shouted, hands outstretched like a classic damsel. She stared over her shoulder at Jeff, eyes wide and blue. Her voice dropped a level, shifting from encompassing to personal. "Stop it."

Abed watched Jeff wake up from a daze, blinking dumbly at Britta. His breath came in shallow draws, his neck was flushed, and he lifted his gaze from Britta to fix on Annie again, just on the other side of the blonde's impromptu body shield. Jeff's eyes raked over his enemy, taking in her pink cheeks, her white neck, her slim tummy. Annie raised her chin, and in violation of all Abed could have predicted about her modesty, she did not cover her chest.

Abed watched Jeff's face go slack, then pale. He wrenched his eyes from Annie as if she were a point of blinding fire, and glanced again at Britta. Abed had trouble identifying the emotions unfolding in that look, and before he had the chance it was over. Jeff's expression went empty as he focused on the carpet of the study room. In the last few seconds everyone had stopped talking, shouting, even breathing. Abed had never seen a tableau get so intense in so short a progression of time. Jeff looked at the floor, Annie looked at Jeff, and Britta was about to say something she definitely shouldn't be allowed to say if she wanted everyone to come out of this as friends.

The silence held, Britta inhaled, and then—

"Tables, we need tables!" declared Shirley. "We need tables now so that we can finish this and go home and think about all the terrible things we've done today."