Author's Note: And now read on as said author works herself into a logistical lather with all the good stuff. I love hookups. They are the best kinds of fanfic, aren't they? Party's not over yet so hopefully I'll have enough motivation to finish chapter four in a few days. Reviews make the motor run faster. Cue the smiley emoticon.

To those of you who reviewed anonymously and to whom I couldn't respond, here's the ticker tape: / asv – Hey, if you review twice I'll write twice as fast. Haha! / Ori – Yup. I actually adore Jeff. I think he's funny as hell and I would do his homework to hang out with him. / tt – Sorry about the cliffhanger. I know they're painful, but they make for excellent chapter breaks. & actually I was referencing the "giant cookie" episode from season 1 and alluding to Troy wanting to live with Abed, not Abed with Annie. I always kind of wondered how Troy wore Abed down since they didn't show us that on Community. / JA fan – Couldn't be more pleased about winning over a Jeff and Annie fan with my story. It's the highest compliment to be paid, I think. I know what you mean about Community being a ship-fest. Initially I didn't like the idea of Britta and Troy (b/c I'm Britta's age and b/c of the age difference) but I've been rewatching Season 3 during hiatus and they've officially seduced me. Speaking of which…

Chapter 3: In a Pinch, a Little Persuasion

x

My hand curled around the back of Abed's neck as I drew him towards me, bringing our two faces together. He froze the instant I kissed him, making no motion to reciprocate, but giving no sign that he found my actions distasteful either. I knew I'd shocked him, and I wanted to tell him that I'd also shocked myself. I didn't know why I was doing this. All I knew is that it felt right and Dear God, why was he not kissing me back?

Some moments passed and we were still connected. My eyes were squeezed tight, blocking out the cold hard reality. Another second came and went and just as I was contemplating walking away with my tail between my legs Abed's mouth opened slightly, beckoning mine.

And then we were kissing together. And it wasn't all on me anymore, because Abed's arm had left the divide and wrapped around my waist, tugging me closer. My heart was throwing itself against my ribcage, sending vibrations down my spine and into my trembling nerve endings. I was so excited. So very excited and not entirely sure why. But something special was happening. Something magical. I could feel it.

Abed's left hand settled itself in the flat between my shoulder blades, and his long fingers sprawled against it, keeping me steady. I cupped his face, kissing him tenderly and trying to express everything that I felt for him in this simple and still remarkably chaste embrace. Abed's lips were silky soft and his face was freshly shaven. It was beyond pleasant. It was nothing like kissing Jeff, and yet everything like kissing Jeff at the same time.

With Jeff I felt hunger. Desire. Heat. With Abed I felt all of those things but there was an added layer of hypersensitivity, and an almost compulsive need to do this right. I was too timid to just jump his bones even though I half-wanted too, but more importantly I didn't want to scare him off. Not when I wasn't even sure what either of us was really getting out of the exchange or why it was happening in the first place. My motivations were seemingly more than hormonal, but what were those at his end? And what if they weren't even based on physical attraction to begin with?

Did Abed like me? Did he even want this? Or was he merely being polite and going with the flow?

The longer I thought about it, the more concerned I became. Who knew how Abed's mind worked anyway? Jeff often called Abed a computer, and if that was true then this was nothing more than a series of input and output to him. What if I was kissing Abed and he was kissing me back simply to mirror me? What if I wasn't even his type? What was Abed's type? I tried to think back to that sexy librarian he and Troy had been going on about last year. Wasn't she tall? And a redhead?

Oh God, this really isn't in my wheelhouse, I thought. I never make the first move. At least not without the guy expressing explicit interest first. I'm usually the submissive one. And he doesn't even seem interested in taking this any further. How am I supposed to get what I want without risking making a fool of myself? Please, Abed, just please, do something to—

"Mmmph!" I gasped as I was lowered down swiftly. My head eased onto the comforter and my startled eyes opened in amazement. Still entwined, Abed followed fast on top of me. He was using his elbows for leverage so that his body wasn't completely eclipsing mine, but his tongue slipped between my surprised lips and then we were really kissing. Deeper and sweeter than I'd ever kissed anyone before. He tasted like cherry lip balm and peppermint dental floss. The best items at the drugstore.

Oh, God. Oh, God, Oh, God, Oh, God.

His fingers were moving fast. They trailed down my middle and took hold of the curves of my hips gently but possessively. On instinct, I parted my legs, giving Abed just enough room to settle between them. He felt good there. Lithe and svelte. I loved the shape of his body and how it draped over my own. Abed's hand slid under the back of my head to cradle it and all I could hear was the quiet rasp of our breathing and the soft smack of his delicious lips on mine. Honestly, he was almost too good at this.

I wanted him.

I wanted him so badly. I don't think I'd ever desired anyone or anything as badly as I did Abed just then. My hands, which had been searching for purpose, gripped his torso and then skirted beneath the hem of his t-shirt, bunching it at its base. I needed to feel his smooth brown skin. The heat of his flesh. I needed to dig my fingernails into the small of his back and raise my hips and—

Abed pulled up and away so quickly I nearly got whiplash. I bounced once, twice, and then I scrambled onto my knees, mouth agape as Abed reached for my nightstand to keep himself from tottering as he stood.

"Wha-what-" I began, extremely annoyed.

"Annie, we can't do this," he said sharply.

He might as well have dumped a bucket of ice water straight over my head. I had never heard Abed speak so forcefully before. Especially to me.

He must've realized the insult I'd inferred because he quickly revised his statement in a cooler but still very much strained tone. "Sorry. I can't do this."

I licked my lips. They were still buzzing from the scrape of his teeth. "Why not?"

"I just can't."

"But I-I don't understand." My throat felt like it was shrinking and my voice became small as I struggled to make sense of this. "Are you… not attracted to me?"

Because you sure were thirty seconds ago.

Abed raised an eyebrow, looking perplexed by the question. "No. It's not that."

"Well, then why, Abed? If you want me, too, then… what's the problem?"

Please don't let it be me, I prayed. I don't think I could handle another rejection tonight.

"Where to begin, Annie?" Abed said dejectedly, fixating on the wall behind me as if aiming to bore holes through it. "You're sad. You're vulnerable. You've been drinking. I'm your friend. Your roommate. Your confidante. I came in here to make you feel better and now I'm making myself feel better. You're confusing me for Jeff and I'm taking advantage of you. And it's all wrong, Annie. Wrong, wrong, wrong."

He listed the reasons quickly on his fingers and then proceeded to pace like a madman, stalking across the room. Back, forth, Back, forth. Wavering and muttering to himself in a seemingly hackneyed homage to some bad Nicholas Cage film.

I stayed where I was, knees bent and mind blown. I didn't know what to do. For one hysterical half-second I even considered consulting Britta, the world's worst psych major. It was the most upset I'd ever seen Abed. At least during last year's Christmas breakdown he'd managed to keep all of the emotional turmoil he was suffering under lock and key. Such is the nature of repression, after all. And with that whole Cougartown moving to midseason debacle he'd likewise checked out, turning catatonic for the latter half of the afternoon. None of us in the study group had ever actually seen Abed freak out before. But here he was bursting at the seams. Twitching. Fretting. His normally passive countenance wracked with misguided and ill-begotten guilt. He was in terrible pain. And I'd put him there.

So why was I so angry at him?

"I'm not a little girl, Abed!" I said all of a sudden. And I said it as loudly as he had barked at me earlier. "Or have you forgotten already?"

The angst left his features as quickly as it had engulfed them and Abed whirled around to stare at me stupidly, completely nonplussed.

"And I'm not drunk. I had one beer, hell, less since Jeff spilled some of it on me after he threw me across the room when you came home." My voice was growing angrier with each and every word. "And I'm not mistaking you for him. How dare you assume something like that about me? I'm not some boy crazy idiot, looking for affection or validation or whatever with whomever! I know exactly what I'm doing and who I'm doing it with. I'm not some kid!"

As the rage came pouring out of me, the common sense came flooding in. On some level I realized I ought to apologize. That this wasn't fair at all. Abed was only being a decent person. A real gentleman. Those were things I liked and admired about him, but the way I was feeling right now, well, I was too stubborn to admit it. And I could feel the fire of righteous fury spurring me on because, when push came to shove, all I knew to be true is that you couldn't just kiss a girl like that and then take it back. Not again. Not this time.

And so I held my ground.

Abed studied me for what must've been a full minute, but I didn't so much as blink. I wasn't going to cave on something as important as this. If I gave an inch he'd take me for a mile and I wasn't willing to go back to the way things were before tonight. Something had shifted between us. I was seeing Abed in an entirely new light and for the first time in my adult life, I knew I was on the cusp of something healthy and game-changing. It wouldn't be right for either of us to just ignore it. Even if Abed asked me to, I wasn't sure I could do it.

Don't say you didn't feel it, too. I know you felt it. You had to have felt it!

Abed sighed finally, and before I could get my hopes up any higher, he held his hands out in a hapless fashion. "I wasn't saying that you're like that, Annie. You're stronger than that. You know I don't think that way about you."

My fists began to unclench in spite of myself.

"And I don't think you're a kid, either," he added quietly.

"So you've said," I groused, still somewhat miffed.

"I'm sorry I lost it. You, uh, you caught me off guard earlier."

I relaxed altogether, feeling my shoulders slump and the hairs on the back of my neck stop prickling. This was good. This was progress. Abed was being honest with me. He had calmed down. We were going to talk it out. And then we were going to go back to what we were doing before his conscience had so rudely interrupted us.

"I thought you were used to girls making the first move," I joked, trying to make enough light out of the situation that he'd stop looking so uncomfortable.

"Yeah, but this is different."

"How is it different?"

"I just…" His Adam's apple bobbed noticeably as he tried to summon the right words. "I just don't want to hurt you."

"That's exactly what Jeff said," I reminded him.

Abed frowned. "But I'm not Jeff."

"That's exactly what I'm saying."

He nodded slowly, as though he was piecing it together now, and I took the gesture as a sign of encouragement. Sliding off the bed, I drew myself to my full height in front of him, looking up in expectance. "Well then?" I asked.

Abed sucked the air in through his teeth and shook his head. "It's not enough, Annie."

"What would make it enough?"

"I don't know. A magic eight ball? A time machine? What if we do this and it all goes wrong? What if we wake up tomorrow and you regret it? Haven't you seen When Harry Met Sally?"

The earnestness in his eyes just then moved me and I took his hands into my own. "This isn't a movie, Abed."

"I know that."

"And I seem to recall things worked out okay for Harry and Sally in the end."

He blinked, unfazed. "That's because it's a movie."

I sighed, playing with his fingers which were lax and disinterested. "Do you think you'd regret it?"

Abed took his time in replying. "I'll regret it if you do."

"Same here."

He nodded again, but didn't respond. I didn't know if I was any closer to seducing him. I wasn't the sort of girl confident enough to have a bag of tricks at the ready anyhow. But I was a debate champion. And Abed usually responded very easily to logic…

Fuck it! If I have to improvise, I'll improvise.

"Please, Abed," I breathed, going for the jugular as I batted my eyelashes and worried my bottom lip. It was the sort of thing that worked on anything male, and sure enough, Abed's eyes were immediately drawn to my mouth, which I'm sure was full and pink from our brief yet very heated makeout session. He was tempted, all right, so I'd already done due diligence in appealing to his lesser angels. But how to breach the gates…?

"I could still hurt you, you know," he murmured, letting his hands drop as I tried to place them on my waist.

"I doubt that," I soothed.

"It's true, Annie," he said, looking away. "I've hurt people before. Not intentionally. But I don't understand them and they don't understand me. It frustrates them and then they leave. I hurt my parents. I broke their marriage. I hurt my one and only girlfriend, because I didn't care when I was supposed to care. And when I tried to care it was fake and she could see through me."

"But Abed," I reached for the side of his face to try to regain some eye contact, "don't you see? If you hadn't cared about her you wouldn't have tried in the first place."

"You weren't there though," he protested weakly. "You don't know me, Annie."

"Well then let me know you!" I pleaded. "I'm not asking for anything more than tonight, Abed. Weren't you the one that said we that need to live in the present? Let go of the past?"

He made a sheepish face. "I say a lot of things."

"Yeah, I know. I listen."

He didn't say anything, still focusing on the damned wall.

"You've never hurt me before," I said, growing increasingly desperate as I failed to provoke a reaction. "And you do understand me, Abed. Sometimes better than I understand myself. We've been friends for years now. I'm not some stranger you're taking a stab at. We hang out all the time. We get along great. We even live together."

He shrugged, still far away.

"Abed," I said impatiently, "we've kissed before, remember?"

That seemed to wake him up. "That was different," Abed said. "We were LARPing, and I was Han Solo."

I snorted. "Okay, first off, Abed, I don't even know what 'LARPing' means. And secondly, do you honestly think that when I replay that day in my mind I'm picturing Harrison Ford?"

Abed opened his mouth to reply and I held up a free finger. "Say that you imagined me as Carrie Fisher and I will kill you."

He couldn't help but smile. "No."

I stroked his softening face. "Good then."

Abed's eyes fluttered for a moment, as if lulled by my touch. "Do you… think about that day often?"

He reeked of curiosity and it made me grin. "That's classified information."

Without warning Abed turned his face into my hand and kissed it. My breathing grew labored as he met me with a heavy-lidded and single-minded gaze. It was like nothing I'd ever seen on him before, and it aroused me to no end.

We stood like that for some time. The ghost of his touch in the heart of my palm. What was it supposed to mean anyways? Was it a promise or an apology?

"I hate change you know," Abed said at long last, his voice considerably lower.

"Some changes are for the better," I said. Standing on my tiptoes, I pressed my lips against the skin of his throat and he made a noise of unmistakable longing. "I am not a little girl, Abed."

"No, you're not," he agreed, lowering his face and resting his forehand against mine. His sweet breath was intermingling with mine and I wanted him to take me so badly I would've begged him.

"I really like you, you know," I said in a breathy voice that sounded nothing like my own and would've mortified me under normal circumstances. "I really want you. I wouldn't be doing any of this if I didn't."

Abed's fingers brushed past my breast and reached for the start of my cardigan, toying with the first of the plastic discs that bound it. "This feels kind of surreal," he said softly.

I nodded excitedly. "But in a good way?"

"Yes." He unhooked the top button, keeping his eyes fixed on mine to observe my reaction. When I gave no sign of protest he unhooked another. "You're getting dangerous, Annie," he told me.

"Is it the doe eyes?"

"Something like that."

And in that moment I knew I'd won.