I seem to write nothing but emotional confrontations so far. Yay for confrontations!

Spoilers: 3x03

Summary: Honesty doesn't always help a relationship.

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COMPETITIVE ECOLOGY:

Great Standards and Expectations

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We're gonna gonna be more happy.

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Jeff flopped into the study room and came face to face with Todd's turtle. He leaned back in his chair and smoothly pulled out his phone. "Why is there a turtle on our study table? Is someone trying to get Todd to come back?"

"He just gave it to me," chided Annie. She put her arms on the tabletop and lolled her head at the slow-creeping reptile. "He said I was the only one who wouldn't light in on fire. ...And I was the only person here."

Jeff scowled. "Well, it's sitting where our biology books should be sitting. I thought we learned our lesson with the goat and the monkey?"

"Jeez, you're in a bad mood," retorted Annie. "It's just a turtle, it can't steal anything. It can't even get off the table without suiciding. Besides, why is Troy the only one who gets a mascot? Maybe I should call it Troy Balls."

"Wouldn't if I were you," said Jeff behind his cell phone. "You might make his week."

"Uuughhh, you're right," Annie groaned. She put the animal back in its terrarium and closed the lid. Inside the large turtle sidled up to a dish of water and a pile of lettuce as if it hadn't been fed in eons. Perhaps stupid, baby-loving Todd wasn't such a great turtle-master after all?

"I'll name her/him Darren, just in case it remains sexually ambiguous," concluded Annie. "Maybe I shouldn't even keep him. Or her. She/he almost died because of Britta's marijuana lighter. Even the monkey turned criminal after staying with us. Our love is toxic."

"Hey!" Jeff kicked her chair leg. When she looked up he'd put his phone on the table and was gifting her with his full attention. "Speak for Pierce. Your love is all-consuming, pink, and a little frightening with its focus, but it's not toxic."

Annie let that marinate for a second, then asked, "How do you know my love is pink?"

Jeff's neck straightened and his chin went in while his eyebrows went up. "Are you saying that if your love had a color it would not be pink?"

"Well." Annie hedged. "Fuchsia, maybe. That's like... sexy pink."

He waved in a 'there you go, then' gesture and went back to his data phone. He was deep into a Zombie Farm invasion against the Frozen King when her next question startled him nearly into restarting the game.

"The idea of my love frightens you?"

When in doubt, Jeff was not above pretending to be stupid. He'd seen how well it worked for other students at Greendale. "What? What are you talking about. I wasn't listening; there's an ice cream man I'm trying to kill with garden zombies here."

"You said," Annie pressed, "that my love was all-consuming and frightening."

"Did I say that?"

"Yes," she snapped, and grabbed the phone. Without hesitation she dropped it onto the terrarium, where it hit Darren and bounced into a pile of lettuce.

Jeff's brows were extremely furrowed at this point, and he split his attention between Darren and Annie with equal suspicion. His jaw clenched with near super-human restraint.

"Well?" he said with great care.

"Well?" snapped Annie.

"You obviously have something to say."

"I do! I want to know why love scares you. Why my love is scary to you. Not—" She pointed at his chest and glared, "—that it's being offered up in any way, just to make that clear. But what is so scary about me, exactly?"

Sensing a conversation trap, Jeff lawyered up. He folded both hands together and took on his public speaking voice, which was deceptively softer and cooler than his regular tone. "Well, for a start, you're pathological."

"You've already said that."

"I'm not done," he cut back at her. "You're so controlling that anything which doesn't meet your exacting list of standards and expectations is treated as a problem. You meddle, and being in a relationship with you might be great until something went wrong, the whole thing spiraled into misery, and you went predictably overboard with your grief or rage to the point of making everyone around you miserable!"

"Oh," she whispered. Visibly shaken, Annie wrapped her arms around the terrarium and pulled it close against her chest. "So that's why. You think I'm unstable. And fascist. You think I'm an unstable relationship fascist."

Jeff sighed, and rubbed his forehead. "Annie, come on. I didn't say that. I only meant—"

"No," she said, standing up with the terrarium in her arms. "I can understand why you'd think that. Observationally, you might have some ground there." Her voice nearly broke, but she held it together for the finish. "I think you should know, however, that I'm not as exacting as you think. Our study group has been broken and flawed. It's failed to live up to educational standards several times. But I love our group, and I've never forsaken anyone because they disappointed me. I don't see people that way."

Recalcitrant now, Jeff walked around the study table with hands outstretched, but she kept the turtle cage between them. "Look, Annie, I apologize. None of that was true. I'm just being an ass because you cornered me. Please don't cry."

"I'm not going to cry!" she snapped. The wetness in her eyes spoke to the contrast, but Annie fought to keep her ground. "I'm not disappointed in anyone, Jeff. But I have to say that I am disappointed in one thing. One thing I was really looking forward to. Guess it's not going to meet the standard after all. Someone's standards, anyway. So—So— I have to go home now."

"Annie, just wait a second," said Jeff.

"I have to feed Darren again," she announced, and marched out of the study room.

Jeff dropped into his chair, putting his forehead on the cool wood of the desk. He'd screwed up—again. Now she would be mad at him—again. Then yippee-ky-aye because everyone else would be mad at him tomorrow. And no one would be getting any fuchsia.

He banged his head against the table experimentally. It hurt, and was in no way satisfying.

"The goddamned turtle has my cell phone..."