December fic meme: 01
fandom: Community
pairing: Annie/Jeff (with a tiny hint of Britta/Troy, because they are irresistable)
word count: 1,142
rating: PG
spoilers: Debate 109, Beginner Pottery, Epidemiology.
a/n: For the Advent Calendar Fic Meme. crackers4jenn snapped up December 1st with the prompt "Community, Annie/Jeff, Annie + Rich = debate partners. Annie + Jeff = angry makeouts." Here you go buddy!
It started when Jeff arrived at the study room to see Annie sitting in her usual spot wearing her Greendale Debate sweater.
“What’s the bribe gonna be this year, Annie? I already got a parking spot and priority registration. Think you can swing an honorary degree?”
“What? Oh!” Annie popped up from her notecards and smiled indulgently. “Don’t worry, you’re off the hook this year, Jeff.”
“Oh. Okay. Well.” Jeff hiked up a stern face as his traitorous memory produced a full-body replay of Annie lunging up and grabbing his face with her little hands, pulling him in for that kiss. “Good.”
_
When Jeff stopped by Abed’s dorm later that day, he walked into a sea of cardboard, markers, and glitter.
Jeff pinched the bridge of his nose and shifted backwards a few steps, trying to avoid the irreversible travesty of glitter transfer onto his shoes.
“Should I even ask?”
Abed glanced at Jeff briefly before returning to his tube of puff paint.
“We’re making signs to take to Annie’s debate tomorrow.” He offered up a coffee can full of art supplies and gestured to a rolled up poster board. “We’re going to need slogans.”
Jeff scoffed and folded his arms. “Please, you really think I’m going to spend my afternoon doing arts and crafts?”
When Britta arrived around forty five minutes later with dinner purchased to go from the cafeteria, Jeff looked up from his cross-legged position on the floor, hunched over a poster board decorated with a construction paper robot in a little red skirt and a navy blue sweater. “Go off book!” was written in metallic block letters across the bottom of the sign.
Abed’s said “Go Annie” with an elaborate charicature drawing of her in her debate sweater, surrounded by each of the members of the study group, and the Human Being all holding pom poms and cheering. Troy’s included a confusing chart with two cartoony drawings of naked butts and a lot of arrows above an all-caps encouragement to “REBUTT!”
“Oh now this is just precious,” Britta cooed sinisterly as she picked her way through the mess to sit on the bottom bunk. “No signs for Rich?” she asked.
“We’re out of poster board. Someone will have to make a book store run,” Abed answered as Jeff asked, “who?” and stole half of Troy’s sandwich. Troy squawked but Britta subdued him with a pack of Poptarts.
“You didn’t hear?” He asked as he broke the crusty edges off his Poptart and handed them over his shoulder to Britta who munched on them like biscotti as she pulled her legs up under her on the bed. “That banana dude you hate for no reason is Annie’s partner this year.”
“RICH FROM POTTERY CLASS is Annie’s DEBATE PARTNER?!”
Troy, Abed, and Britta all froze and stared at Jeff.
“Dammit, why didn’t you guys tell me?!” Jeff struggled up from the floor and barged out the door, poster board forgotten behind him.
“He must have the most awesome poster idea ever,” Troy sighed.
_
The doors to the study room opened with a great heaving whoosh of air, swept outward with enough force to disturb the papers spread over the table. Sheets of loose leaf covered in neat loopy scrawls fluttered up into a worried eddy of motion.
“What. Is going. On.”
“We’re preparing for our debate!”
“What.”
“We’re . . . preparing. For the. Debate.”
“Oh really.”
“Yes. Really.”
“And who is sitting IN MY CHAIR.”
“Um, Rich. From pottery class? Remember him?”
“Oh hey, buddy! It’s me, Rich, from pottery class, remember?”
“Sure.”
“Well what brings you by our little prep session here?”
Nobody, nobody, except for Rich From Pottery Class, could make the term “prep session” sound more singularly sinister and lascivious, Jeff was completely certain.
“Annie,” Jeff ground out, “can I please talk to you in the hall for a minute?”
“Suuuure,” Annie answered unsurely as she rose slowly from her chair. She shot Rich a confused look as she padded over the to exit. Jeff held the door open for her and glared daggers at Rich over his shoulder as she passed by him.
“Why is Dr. Chiquita your debate partner?”
“Why not?”
“Why not? I’ll tell you why not. Because you shouldn’t have a debate partner with a shady past full of lies and inexplicable useless talents!”
“Isn’t that exactly the kind of debate partner you were?” Annie spat back, suddenly whipped up into a fury.
“No, no! I don’t have any inexplicable useless talents!”
“I know you don’t, you just have a talent for interrupting and pissing me off!”
“Whoa whoa, kids, let’s all just settle down here and have a little-”
“SHUT UP!” Annie and Jeff snapped in unison. Rich took in their angry stances and backed away slowly, back through the study room doors.
“Wait,” Annie said with a defiant hair flip in Jeff’s direction, “I’m coming.”
Jeff glared as hard as his face would let him.
_
Abed handed Jeff his forgotten sign with the Robot Debater Annie the next day as they filed into the bleachers. “Hey do you have a marker or something? I need to make a last-minute edit to this thing,” Jeff asked. Abed produced a Sharpie and Jeff scrawled a “DON’T” in front of the “Go off-book!” slogan along the bottom of the sign.
Jeff slumped in the bleachers, grumpy and morose, throughout the whole debate. Annie and Rich argued their points competently, if lacking a little of the swagger Jeff had brought to the stage.
When they finished their final statements, Jeff looked up from his phone at the polite round of cheers coming from the crowd around him. “That’s it?” He looked up at the stage to see Annie and Rich share a high five so weak, it lacked any distinctive clap and they didn’t even blow it up afterwards.
“Mmmhm! Now they have to tally the scores, but I think we all know who has Jesus on their side,” Shirley nodded helpfully.
“Jesus schmesus,” Shirley gasped, and Jeff apologized before continuing, “what that team needs is a Winger-grade closing argument.” Jeff was up and striding down the stairs to the gym floor before any of the study group could protest.
“Hey!” he called as he bounded up onto the stage, “Fruit Basket! That’s not how you win a debate, this is.”
Jeff grabbed Annie around the waist, hauled her up against him, and kissed her deeply.
In the stands, Shirley tapped Abed’s shoulder repeatedly. “Abed, what does this have to do with whether or not they should lower the legal drinking age?”
By then it had reached the time when, last year, Annie had broken off the kiss and spouted a perky line about going off book. This time she just curled her fingers into Jeff’s hair and pulled him closer.