It is strangely emotionally draining for nothing to happen. Annie found herself waiting for another fulfilling moment with Abed, but there was nothing. She was the only one acting weird, but no one called her out on it. No one noticed her watching him more, laughing louder at his jokes or walking him to classes in directions different than the one she was going in. She was pretty sure Abed himself hadn't noticed or if he had, he did that creepy no reaction thing. No one asked and there was no one to tell. The only one she could talk to about it was Abed and she didn't want to risk opening that can of worms.

It was in this eagerness for another encounter with him that she realized there was actually something there. She wanted something with him, because it'd make her happy. He made her happy and that meant the world to her, but it also made everything more complicated. Since he obviously had no interest in exploring these feelings she really needed to put them on the back burner.

Living with him and Troy wasn't helping her forget about him. He was always there. He'd always been there, but now she felt it. She felt him sitting a few feet away while they watched a movie, felt him sleeping in the next room. She saw all the extra little things he did for his friends. The way he turned down the television down when he knew she had a headache or how he moved all his questionable food to its own drawer so it wouldn't bother them as much. Had he always been so considerate or was she now just noticing?

She also felt like she'd gotten a delayed message about how cute he could be. Not cute like a puppy, which she feared was how she'd always thought of him before, but handsome cute. He could be so good looking when he was being informative or confident. He had facial expressions that made her giggle and the way he wagged his eyebrows did odd things to her insides. His hands were also her new fixation, long and delicate fingers that could move impossibly fast when he was working on something. He always made grand hand gestures that drew attention to them.

Something, she couldn't remember what, had called for a costume change and he and Troy had torn their shirts off in front of her. She'd always noticed Troy was well built, but Abed was all lean muscle and caramel skin. She couldn't help licking her lips at the memory. His face might be all angles and a bit too narrow to be ever being considered traditionally handsome like Jeff, but there was something in his brief smiles and the way he tilted his head that was majestic.

Annie dropped the pen she'd been using to make a list of things she'd suddenly noticed about Abed.

"Majestic?" she asked aloud and closed the diary and secured the lock. The lock might be a bit much, but she always worried. She wrote down things when she couldn't talk about them. She normally wrote about her worries about school or those regretful urges she got for a little extra help when finals came around, but this was a much more sensitive.

She had three notebooks filled of things relating to Jeff, books that if he ever found out about would make things awkward for a while. She'd have thrown them out, but they reminded her of a certain point in her life and that was important. Now, she had a notebook with Star Wars on the cover instead of kittens or flowers. It was different than the others, because it was different than anything she'd ever written about before.

She was writing in a crush journal about Abed. She wasn't sure what was weirder, that she had a crush journal at her age or that its single topic was Abed. Abed was no means a typical guy, but she was used to that by now. He was unique, but that wasn't always a bad thing. Maybe people outside of the group wouldn't get it, but after four years, she felt like she knew him. She knew the different sides of him, the things he liked and what he hated.

She didn't keep the journals to be childish or to act like a stocker. They were there in order to keep herself on track. With Jeff she'd gone full steam ahead and held nothing back. That hadn't worked well at all. This time she was at a standstill. He wanted to skip all of this. She knew he wasn't interested from the get go and yet here she was. She should see a therapist since she seemed to only go after guys that didn't want her.

"I wish I'd never realized he was a guy," Annie said stuffing the book under her mattress after checking the lock three times.

She could pinpoint the moment when that had changed, the moment when Abed had gone from one of the group to one of the guys she wrote books about. It'd been Abed's own fault. He was the one who had put the image of her in his bed into Annie's mind. She could almost feel it, being wrapped in his extra-long arms and snuggling close to his warm chest, listening to his heartbeat as he awkwardly wrested his chin on top of her head as if unsure of where to put himself.

"I should be asleep," she said seeing it was into two hours after midnight. She went to lie down and instantly regretted the bottle of water she'd been sucking down for the last half hour. She got up and headed into the living room through to the bathroom.

She came out a few minutes later and heard the faint whispering of voices. She paused and looked to the pillow fort. There was a light flickering inside and she could only guess that Abed as awake.

She should leave him alone. His prediction that she'd spend a night in his pillow fort came back to her mind and she pushed it back. She could totally go say hi to her friend if she wanted. She went back to her room for a moment, putting on a thin wrap over her tank top. It was unseasonably warm and the apartment, windows open and all was full of sticky heat. She was still dressed modestly, tank top with a wrap now and regular length shorts, absolutely appropriate attire for visiting a completely platonic roommate no matter the hour.

"Abed," she said as she approached the blankets.

"Polo," Abed responded and Annie smiled.

She timidly opened the flap and looked inside. She wasn't exacting expecting what she saw. Abed was in a black tank top, which did temptingly nice things to his arms and a pair of black boxers that looked like they were possibly made out of silk. He was in his underwear. She should go now. She wanted to turn back, but she couldn't. If she did, he'd know something was up. She had to act normal. Her cheeks were red from the heat, that was all.

"What are you doing up?" she asked walking inside and sitting next to him on the side of his bed.

She could understand why he was so under dressed. It was hot with all the extra layers overhead and a laptop going. She had done this dozens of times, but now the intimacy of it had her shivering despite the heat. Abed didn't turn to look at her. He didn't seem to notice the close quarters they were suddenly keeping.

"Watching a movie," he said then when she didn't ask what still added, "French Kiss, with Meg Ryan. It's a classic, but not one of her best works. It's my third viewing, but I still don't completely understand how the hero goes from scoundrel to romantic interest. It does have a pretty good tagline though. You see he's going to say I want you and she'll pause for him to continue. The first time he does and the second time he simply repeats I want you indicating that he'd like a relationship with her."

There was something about the way Abed's mouth formed the words 'I want you' that made Annie's stomach do somersaults. She pushed those feelings away. She was an adult. She could do this.

"A romcom?" she asked still surprised at how much of their terminology she could use these days.

"More or less. It's not very heavy on the com, in my opinion."

"I've never seen it."

"You'd like it."

"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I love all romantic movies," she said a bit put upon. She didn't want him to think she was obsessed with romance, which she wasn't. She was obsessed with a very particular romantic situation and that's how it tended to go.

"That was very Britta of you," Abed informed her with a sideways look, "I thought you would like it, because the main character is like you. She's high strung, demands perfection and makes a fool of herself from time to time which makes her human."

She wasn't sure how to take his description. It didn't sound very flattering, but he was still watching a movie that made him think of her. She decided that made up for it and sunk into the bed beside him. She could feel the heat of her bare arm touching his. It wasn't something she would have ever paid attention to before, but now she was hypersensitive to his closeness. She could even smell him, like good shampoo and some off brand deodorant.

She tried to watch the movie, uninvited, but she never felt like an unwanted guest these days. She knew the rules. No talking during the movie and never mention it if Abed broke his rule by talking.

She did her best to focus on the film even though he was halfway through and nothing made sense, but her eyes kept wandering. His arms and chest were just so perfectly framed. She'd remember sneaking peeks at Jeff from time to time and wondered why she'd never thought to look

"This isn't working," he said, pausing the movie. Annie stared at the screen, realizing the situation must be dire if he'd turned something off. His face turned to her and she felt uneasy under his scrutiny.

"What do you mean?" she asked still looking ahead.

"Skipping this part," he said self-assured he was right.

"I didn't mean...I don't know what you're..." she said, but it was all lies. She knew exactly what Abed was talking about and hated herself for having ignored his wish to skip past it. She had come to his bed on the hopeless day dream that maybe she could just fall asleep here. She'd wanted it so stupidly bad.

"It's okay. It was never possible. Some story arcs are simply too powerful to avoid," he said as Annie found it impossible to look at him and then it got worse, "The situation has become intensely sexually charged. First I see your breasts and present myself to you and now you're looking at me like I'm the first candy cane at Christmas time and you want to...even though you didn't interrupt me, I'm going to censor myself there. I realized mid thought that it was highly suggestive."

"I am so not looking at you like that," she defended a bit too quick and far too loud. She crossed her arms indignantly even if she didn't have a leg to stand on.

"Even I know that you're lying," he said a smile twitching at the corner of his lips.

"Do you mind if I fast forward?" he asked and Annie finally looked over at him. He wanted to go back to watching the movie and pretend that none of this had happened? She could handle that.

"Okay," she said nodding.

She went to turn back to the screen when she felt his fingers on her chin. Those fingers that had been her fixation for weeks were touching her. His thumb gently pushed her face back towards him and her breath caught in her throat. She turned willingly, trusting him so completely it was a little scary. She expected him to talk, to set down ground rules. She expected everything besides what happened.

Abed leaned in slowly and kissed her. It was a simply touch of lips to lips. The other's they had shared had been passionate, but not this one. It was slow and clumsy, but full of emotion. It was clumsy and it was raw. She'd never been kissed like that. She kissed him back, lips experimentally parting.

He didn't take the invitation, the hand under her chin twitched before he pulled away. He turned back to the laptop and turned the movie back on again.