Pairing: Jeff/Annie
Spoilers: Through the finale of Season 4, and the steak dinner that Jeff's been waiting 4 years for...and got Tweeted.
Word Count: 2561
Rating: PG-13 (language)
Disclaimer: If I owned Community, you'd all probably absolutely hate it.
Author's Notes: I take liberties with character's motivations and thoughts...but that's kind of the name of the game if you're going to write fan fiction. I try as hard as I can to stay within the limits of the developed character though.
The door swung open, and a hand fumbled around near the doorframe until it found a light switch. The lights flickered on to reveal a room with cardboard packing boxes, and large plastic totes filled with Christmas decorations, yards of fabric for Human Being costumes, Greendale fliers and brochures…simply summed up as piles and piles of crap.
"Recognize this room?" Annie could practically hear the grin in Jeff's voice.
"Of course…but it looks a little different now. It's the storage room I set up as an 'infirmary' during Troy and Abed's pillow war."
"See? That's why you're the smart one. Your mind is like a steel trap, Edison." Annie didn't HAVE to hear the grin this time, she was looking right at it. In that moment, Annie's eyes clouded over, and she wobbled nearly imperceptibly.
Jeff used his signature grin often, at least, if he thought it could gain him an advantage, and he was in a good enough mood to grin. Unlike Troy, he didn't bother smiling when he didn't feel like smiling. In those circumstances, he had other methods of working a situation in his favor. In this case, however, he was genuinely happy to be here, with Annie, enjoying a night together. And, quite frankly, with every stop they made, Jeff felt like he and Annie were increasing their bonds at a rate faster than he'd expected, and the burden he felt lifting off of his shoulders was almost physically palpable. But when he saw Annie's eyes slightly lose focus, and her shift in balance, he immediately keyed into her change in mood.
Praying that it wouldn't be awkward, he wrapped his arm around her, and pulled her down alongside him, to sit on one of the larger, sturdier boxes. She rested her head on his shoulder, and he allowed her a few seconds of pure comfort before breaking the silence.
"Hey, what's wrong…I honestly wasn't expecting this sort of reaction from you here."
Annie started at this, and pulled back to look him dead in the eyes. "How did you know? I didn't think I really gave off much body language."
Jeff just chuckled at this. "Annie, do you REALLY pay that much attention to your own body language?"
Annie rolled her eyes. "Of course I do. I've had to learn to, living with Abed. If you so much as sneeze wrong, he's got a theory about what's affecting you to alter your normal behavior. He's like a brother to me, but I've also learned after a few of his…events, that I need to watch out for myself. Abed means well, but sometimes he'll try to manipulate people or events to fit what he wants. I don't like being manipulated, and I don't like seeing others manipulated."
Jeff winced slightly at the hard tone Annie's voice had taken on towards the end of that little spiel.
"Annie, I noticed your reaction because I'm an attorney by trade. Noticing people's subtleties, tics, tells, and manipulating them in the favor of my client, and ultimately, myself was my bread and butter."
"But I thought you weren't going to do that anymore? I thought you were going to play for the 'good team' now?" Annie looked at him plaintively, doe eyes threatening Jeff's resolve.
Jeff pulled away, and stood up to pace the ground several feet in front of her.98
"Annie, even if I take different clients…stop defending the prostitutes and scum bags and such, and only take on as clients elderly widows who just want to keep megacorporations from razing their house to build a new strip mall, I'm still going to have to be able to pick juries and 'work the crowd,' so to speak…it's just how law is, muffin."
The new nickname earned a quirked eyebrow and Jeff saw her gently mouth the word out of his peripheral vision. He exhaled, glad he'd said it with enough bite to it that it could be taken as affectionate or sarcastic. Judging by her reaction, that was NOT one he'd be trying again.
Annie spoke up again. "So, is that why we're here? So you can defend your job to me? Or did you have something else in mind?"
"Both…actually. I had something else in mind, but making sure you understand my work behavior going forward is an added bonus. It'd be completely tragic if one day I was talking about a case, and you realized that just because I'm going to try to take a less morally relative stance, it doesn't mean that suddenly there's a choir of angels singing in my office lobby. Lawyers are still manipulative jerks, good or bad. We're the ultimate example of the ends justifying the means, to a point, anyway."
Jeff looked down, composing himself. This one could be explosive if not handled properly. Annie could feel tension radiating off of him, and after several seconds, broke the silence.
"Ok, Jeff. Spill it. What's the big deal about this room? What are you setting straight here?"
She quietly cursed herself. She hadn't wanted to come off so snippy, especially after how nice of a moment they had just had in the dean's office previously, and then the walk through the dark halls of the school until they got to the storage room gave her a perfectly justified excuse to cling just a little bit tighter to Jeff than just the arm he'd offered her. She hadn't minded that a single bit. Regardless, as she and Jeff had realized back during their famous debate, they really WERE in sync with each other, so sometimes when he got tense or anxious, it would spill over to her. That's what was happening right now, and she hated it.
"Do you remember what they nicknamed you back during the…kerfuffle?" Jeff couldn't bring himself to call it any of the popular, serious sounding names, like "The War," "The Civil War," or "Pillowgeddon."
"The Angel of the Battlefield," Annie proudly recalled, smiling from ear to ear.
Jeff echoed her. "The Angel of the Battlefield," nodding soberly. "So, how many lives did you save during the whole conflict?"
"Well, none, of course. It wasn't a REAL war, Jeff."
"EXACTLY! You were giving kids Gatorade and lint rolling feathers off of them! I'm sure you see how ridiculous that is, even if it WAS sweet and adorable."
Annie was caught between offended and flattered. "Sweet and adorable, AND ridiculous? Want to narrow that down there, Benedict Arnold? That's right. I went there. You were playing both sides against each other…couldn't just pick a side, could you?"
Jeff turned and looked her straight in the eyes. Something that looked like anger and hurt flashed through them.
"Neither. Could. You."
"But I did it differently! I helped tend to people instead of trying to eke out an advantage for myself."
"No, Annie…you just didn't want to commit. This was the safe way for you to not have to choose which of your roommates you were going to support. Why couldn't you just pick one and go with it?"
Annie pressed her lips together into a thin line, exerting enough pressure that her lip gloss was the only color left in the area. Jeff really meant it when tonight was about honesty, and he was going to make her face it as well. Just like he always did. That was part of what Annie appreciated about him, he always made her face the hard things just as much as he made sure she appreciated the small victories. Most other people seemed to give her a free pass on her behavior a lot of the time, "Oh, Annie's young, don't worry, she'll grow out of it," or "Cut her some slack, she's young." As easy as it could make her life, Annie didn't want easy, and she saw that in pushing her to face the difficulties of life that others would allow her to skate out of, not only was he helping her grow, but Jeff was placing her on the same level as himself and everyone else. She was being made a peer, not some 'little sister' to be tolerated and patronized.
Of course, as much as she appreciated it, she also found it aggravating as hell sometimes. Like right now, when his line of questioning had her between a rock and a hard place.
"Ok then, who did you think I should pick, Ol' Saint Nick?" Jeff's expression went from solid to befuddled. He managed to mumble out a "At least you didn't go with a mattress guy this time." Annie wasn't swayed though. She wanted an answer, and the next time he glanced over her way, she just raised her eyebrows and made it obvious that she was waiting on a response from him.
"I don't have an answer for you, Annie. I didn't have one then, and I don't have one now. That's why *I* didn't pick a side either. I've been through so much with both of them, I simply couldn't decide between one or the other. That, and, again, the whole conflict was just plain stupid to begin with. So, like you, I didn't pick one of them to side with like Pierce or Shirley did. Unlike you, I actively worked to keep the conflict alive, because it kept me out of class, and that's an ok thing in my book. No one was actually getting hurt, and you and I could just text all day when we weren't actually with each other physically."
Annie took a minute and thought back to the time she and Jeff had spent together during the conflict. He'd come down and just hang out on one of the couches in her makeshift infirmary and chat with her, while she busily tended to the "wounded." She hadn't really realized at the time, but she and Britta had been the only ones to maintain neutrality in the conflict, and Jeff had played both sides against each other. Britta had been too busy 'photographing' the events, and everyone else was too split by faction, so while the conflict occurred, her only real friendly contact was with Jeff.
"You know, you were the only person I really texted through that whole little drama?" she looked up in his eyes as she admitted the hard truth to him.
"Annie, you're pretty much the only person I text NOW, other than letting people know I'm going to be late for the study group, or miss class, or what bar we're meeting at. You're the only person I text with to TALK."
Annie was caught off guard. She realized it was exactly the same situation she was in. She'd text to coordinate, but there was always a purpose to it. With Jeff…they'd coordinate (badly, if Halloween was any example,) but they'd also just shoot the breeze, and essentially enjoy each other's company. Annie had a nagging feeling that something about this was wrong though. What about…
"What about all the texting you do in class and in the study group? That isn't going to me, and it's definitely more than just coordination."
Jeff boggled at her. "Are you serious? Britta actually didn't tell everyone? Incredible!"
Annie suddenly got defensive. She didn't have any problems with Britta, but whenever the topic became something between Britta and Jeff, she started to feel oddly sick to her stomach, and started having flashbacks to the beginning of their second year.
"No, Britta hasn't said a thing. Some big secret you're only sharing with her, I suppose?"
Jeff had been staring off toward the back wall, seemingly lost in thought. About Britta, Annie guessed. Then he snapped back to attention, and looked straight down into Annie's eyes, and that certain…something she saw in his eyes oh-so-often cracked the ice she was starting to feel forming around her heart, and definitely made her knees far less sturdy than was probably safe.
"Secret? With Britta? Hell no. I think you'd be smarter than to ever entrust Britta with a secret, and I certainly hope you give ME enough credit to know I wouldn't trust her with one." He paused momentarily, and refocused back on the back wall. He took a deep breath, and started angling backwards towards a box to sit on. As he eased himself down, seemingly by reflex, he caught each of her tiny hands in his gigantic ones, and pulled her towards him. It was awkwardly intimate, but by the time he was settled, she was standing between his knees, and he was looking her directly in the eyes, right at her natural level.
"Annie. I'm texting no one at all. Britta knew because I threw it in my dad's face on Thanksgiving to show how damaged I am, and for some crazy reason, she thought it would be appropriate to show up at his house to act as a 'therapist.'"
Annie's confusion showed clearly on her face. "So, when you're typing away on your phone all day long…"
Jeff broke eye contact to grin and hang his head half-shamefully. "Yep…not going to anyone at all. My draft folder is stuffed full of texts with no recipients."
Annie stood there, rigid. She cocked her head to the side, then the other, then cocked it slightly more to the same side, and again. Jeff could only watch, and wonder, first of all, had Abed had rubbed off on Annie a bit too much, and secondly…how did her reboot her so she'd break out of this blue screen of Annie?
Finally, she broke out of whatever weird feedback loop she was in. "Jeff, WHY do you just text all day if you aren't sending them to anyone?"
"Simple. At first, it was something I did so I could ignore everyone. It was a safety mechanism. It allowed me to keep everyone at an arms length, because I was absorbed in my phone all the time. Over time though…I started actually writing my feelings and thoughts down in these quick little soundbites. I was essentially texting myself, and it was somewhat cathartic."
Annie had a coy smile spreading across her face. "You mean…almost like a journal?"
Jeff wasn't ready for the conversation to take this turn, but it looked like it was going there, whether he was ready or not. He had to improvise. "Save it, Edison. It's my turn for asking questions." Annie was caught completely flat-footed and the smile dropped right off of her face, and wide-eyed, she looked at him quizzically, waiting for him to pose the question he'd teed up.
"Do you remember what I asked you in this room back during the conflict, when you told me I should write in a journal?" Jeff knew this was a softball, and he expected Annie to knock this one out of the park.
She scoffed, not even seeming to realize that Jeff had lobbed this one at her, but just feeling relief that the question wasn't very difficult, and some pride that she knew the answer off the top of her head. "Of course I do, Jeff. You asked something snide about if I would still like you if you 'wrote in a Hello Kitty notebook.'"
Jeff knew he had her trapped. He felt the old courtroom rush of adrenaline, like he had maneuvered a witness right into the corner he wanted them, and was ready to pounce. He moved forward directly into Annie's personal space, and looked down at her.
"You remember it, but you never answered."
Annie was clearly uncomfortable. Her skin was flushing, her breathing was getting shallower and more rapid, and her eyes were as wide as Jeff had ever seen them. The only thing that worried him was his uncertainty about whether she was scared of him right now, or excited to be so close to him. He knew that for him, it was definitely the latter feeling. Even just being up close and personal with Annie like this was enough to make his pulse pound.
Annie swallowed hard, her senses were being overwhelmed by Jeff's proximity. She could feel the heat coming off of him, and could smell the faint remnants of his cologne, Macallan, and what she guessed was hair gel, or wax, or pomade… Her eyes were glued to his, and his words echoed in his ears. She was dying to reach out and kiss him like she had when she'd ditched Vaughn the night of the Tranny Dance, when she'd realized that Greendale was where she needed to be, and deep down, she knew she had the kernel of feelings for Jeff. She hadn't dared to hope for anything at that point, but then when she'd run into him…she lived in the moment. But now, in this moment, all she wanted to do was grab him, and fulfill that last sense that was missing right now, and taste him again for the first time in years. Something in his eyes warned her off though, and she knew she had to answer his question.
"Jeff, don't be silly. I'll like you no matter what. I thought we put the whole thing behind us when you did your part to fix Troy and Abed."
"Not what I asked, councilor."
Annie started almost imperceptibly, realizing that she was seeing some new Jeff she hadn't seen before. She recognized some pieces of courtroom Jeff, but he was mixing in some new elements. This one had some level of passion and intimacy she knew he wouldn't show in public. This was Jeff with his guard down, but still willing to put up a good fight. Fine. He was letting his guard down…time to go for broke.
"Well, if you really need to know, then yes. I think keeping a journal would be a good thing for you, and while I'll care for you no matter what, knowing that you think enough of me to try out some of my advice would mean the world to me. How do you like that, Jeff Winger at Law?"
He backed up very slightly, his face bursting into a full-on grin. His cocky grin, but with some predatory elements mixed in. She wasn't sure how she felt about this Jeff…he wasn't exactly tender, but damn, was he sexy! She knew that whatever trap he'd set, she'd walked right into, and steeled herself for his next salvo.
He reached up to the highest level of the bakers shelves next to them, and withdrew an expensive looking black leather notebook. Annie felt her heart drop into her stomach. He'd scored a point, but it was by listening to her! He backed away another step, opening room so he could have space to open up the notebook, and flip through it, and allow her to see. He'd filled two thirds of it, front and back. Mostly words, some doodles…she wanted to swear she saw a couple of hearts in the doodles, but he flipped through too quickly. He wasn't intending her to identify anything, just to prove that he'd listened.
Dry mouthed, she tried her best to save face. "You had to get leather? I thought Hello Kitty was the arrangement?" Internally, she cringed…and she heard that snide Annie voice echo up from the depths for the second time that night. "That was the best you could do? It'll serve you right if he just laughs in your face and walks out of here. You're never going to see him again, little girl, and it's all because you make a fool of yourself time and time again." She felt tears well up, but kept them in, and stood her ground.
Jeff knew he'd won…and played his trump card. He closed the notebook, and handed it, face up to Annie. There, on the cover, in the lower right hand corner was a small, worn Hello Kitty sticker.
"I couldn't actually bring myself to buy a Hello Kitty notebook…but I figured I could handle a sticker." He caught her eyes again, and his smile softened. He noticed a tear starting to work its way toward her cheek, and reached out to catch it. He was good at reading people, but Annie was kicking off some mixed signals, and he didn't know if these were good tears, or bad tears.
"Hey…something wrong?"
Annie let loose then. "No! I don't know. Things just got a bit tense there, and I thought you were going to yell at me, and maybe ditch me, and I'd never see you again, and it was all my fault because I'd pushed you to do something you didn't want to do! And then it turns out you did it all, and it made me so happy, but I'm still scared!" She knew she was full on crying, and making a fool of herself, but she couldn't hold it in anymore. It'd been a roller-coaster of a day, and was turning out to be even more of a night.
Jeff pulled her in close, and held her. He had a feeling that this sort of response was going to be coming from both of them tonight…quite a bit, and he knew that before the night was done, it was more than likely that Annie would have to be the one comforting HIM. He stroked her hair for a short time, and then pulled back, and reached out to tip up her chin with the side of his finger. He knew he could kiss her, and he wanted to kiss her, and he had to restrain himself from kissing her…this was more important.
He looked right in her eyes. "Thank you."
"For what? Ignoring you until you hunted me down, and then bullied you into keeping a journal?"
"No, Annie…thank you for calling me on my bullshit. And thank you for being the one person who can really push me to do things to make myself a better person. Just like texting myself…you have no idea how many problems journaling has helped me work out. And I have you to thank for it. You're the only person I know who sees the best in me, and goes out of their way to try to get me to be that person. And it's not just me…you do that with everyone. In a world as negative and cynical as the one we live in, that's a rare commodity, and it makes you a wonderful person."
Annie was stunned. She'd just been Winger speeched in a complimentary way. He almost never used his speeches to build someone up directly…just to teach lessons people could use to build themselves up. She was still raging with conflicted emotions, but she could feel deep inside, a seed of warmth and pride building at what Jeff had pointed out, because she knew it was true. She DID want to help everyone to be the best they could. Most people, including Jeff in most of his moods, called that sort of behavior naïve…but frankly, if she had the choice between being naïve and seeing the good in people, or being worldly and a cynic, she was happy with her naivety.
She knew Jeff might get angry, and she felt slightly guilty, since it may be a betrayal of trust, but she flipped the notebook open to the first page. She didn't want to read it, just wanted to see when he'd started it, assuming he dated his entries. Almost immediately, she was distracted by the first page being prefaced by a ragged edge near the spine. Someone had torn out the front page…kind of sloppily, too, which, between that, and the fact that it was HIS notebook, she assumed it was Jeff. She looked up at him cocking an eyebrow, silently asking him about the torn out page.
"What…you didn't ever see the documentary they made about the 'War?'" he said, dropping his avoidance of the more dramatic term.
"Nope. No reason to. I lived it, and it made my life more than a little uncomfortable for a period of time, since it led to my roommates feuding."
Jeff nodded in understanding. "Ok...well, my first entry was about my part in ending the war. They decided to use it in the documentary, so I ripped it out. THEN they ended up having me just do the voiceover, while they showed the footage of me going to the Dean's office for the hats, so I didn't really need to rip it out."
Annie 's eyes defocused slightly, and she nodded in understa…"Wait! What do you mean you went to the Dean's office for the hats?!"
Jeff gave her the look that always made her feel like he was assuming she was in the slow class "I'm not sure how much more simply to put that…I gave Troy and Abed pretend 'magical friendship hats' in the Dean's office…I thought you knew that?"
"Right, and they pretended to take them off and discard them. You told me that while you lounged and I fed kids Gatorade…"
"So, obviously, I had to go back to the Dean's office to get them back to end the whole thing, right?"
Annie's confused expression gave way to a soft, affectionate smile. "I figured you just stepped out long enough to give everyone the illusion you went back for them. You really went all the way back?"
Jeff smiled at the sound of her pleased chuckle. He loved making Annie happy. Really, really loved it. "You seriously never watched it? You should…but, yeah, I went back to the Dean's office, and got the 'hats' from where I remembered them tossing them. I even spent the effort to undent and dust them off. I figured I owed it to them, and to you, to do it right, whether anyone saw it or not."
Annie couldn't help just staring at him wordlessly.
"Ok…they're good tears this time, right?" She only nodded at him, and rushed straight at him. He had to think quickly to intercept, and pull her into a hug…narrowly avoiding her kissing him, as she wrapped her arms around his neck, he pulled his head up, and her head into his chest, trying to make it seem like a hug, and not a kiss avoidance. As hard as it was…he wasn't ready for that yet. He still had more work to do.
He held her for several minutes, just enjoying having her in his arms. It felt so right, and he knew that if he called it good for the rest of the evening, and just told her they were done with what he'd called her down for, he could probably spend the rest of the night enjoying himself more than he ever had before…but Jeff was learning to be less short-sighted, and was trying to make sure the rest of his life was enjoyable, not just one night. So, eventually, he broke away, and looked down into her eyes, pressing his forehead against hers long enough to say "So…there you have it. I'm trying to be less of a manipulative bastard, and more of a good person…but I'll fail from time to time. When I do, I need YOU there to call me on it, and once you finally get through my thick skull, I'll do what I need to do to make it right, ok?"
Annie couldn't speak…she was giddy, even though she'd worried that Jeff would notice she'd been angling to kiss him, and felt a bit foolish. Even with that, it made her warm inside realizing that Jeff was an even better man than she'd ever known before…and that he credited her with part of making him that way. She just nodded up at him, smiling from ear to ear as she looked at him through tear-blurred eyes.
"C'mon, sweetness…we're done in here. We've got more ghosts to visit before the night is over and we can go see Tiny Tim and the Cratchits."
Sweetness? What was up with him and his penchant for new nicknames for her tonight?