Depth Perception 3/3
Title: Depth Perception
Pairing: Jeff/Annie, ensemble
Word Count: 3726
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, leaning into R
Spoilers: Season 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Community or these characters, oh but Dan Harmon I love you for life.
Description: Annie and Jeff’s relationship - what the group sees, and more importantly, what they don’t.
Author’s Note: This started out as a response to a Ficcy Friday prompt and just sort of exploded into something else and apparently I am incapable of writing anything short.
Part One
Part Two
~*~*~*~
They’ve kissed five times. Annie knows this. She remembers each one, how they were all different. How they all made her feel different. How after each one, she’s almost afraid that it will be the last one and she has to hold on to it and the taste of his tongue and the touch of his hands and the press of his body against hers.
He calls her the Sunday after the first date.
"What are you doing?”
“Studying.”
“Of course… Hey so, do you want to come over? I’m just hanging out here watching TV. I mean, unless you have to study. But, you could do that here too. If you wanted. I don’t know.”
“No.” she says quickly. “I can. Yeah, I can come over.”
It takes her twenty minutes to figure out what to wear and she changes her mind five times before settling on jeans and a tee-shirt. She leaves her hair down and loose around her shoulders, brushes her teeth before grabbing her purse and running out to the car.
She feels nervous as she knocks at his door and when he opens it he looks nervous and tentative and she suddenly remembers that she’s never been in his apartment. It’s like there’s this whole new side of him opening up to her and she wants to run headfirst into it, but once she does, everything changes.
They sit on the couch and he’s been watching a Back to the Future marathon so they just continue to watch that, not really saying anything to each other until finally, finally after five minutes of heightened nerves that are making her feel ill, Jeff says, “Annie?” and when she turns to look at him he leans over and kisses her.
When he pulls away he smiles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She bites her lip and thinks “six” and then somehow ends up nestled under his arm. By the time she leaves a few hours later, she’s calm like everything has finally settled into place and when he kisses her at the door she’s not even sure what number to think of.
They go out again on Wednesday night and it’s a spur of the moment thing. She’s getting in her car at the end of the day when he calls her. He’s thinking about going to that Chinese restaurant around the corner and does she want to join him? It’s a little risky because it’s right near school but if anyone sees them they can just say they were both hungry after class, or something. She doesn’t think about it.
They’re at the restaurant for almost two hours and don’t run into anyone they know and honestly, they probably wouldn’t have noticed even if they did.
Annie’s lying in bed later, staring at the ceiling and clutching her phone to her chest and she can’t possibly sleep. She’s thinking of how she’s already lost count of kisses and the way he argued with her when she tried to pay part of the bill and how he threw his arm over her shoulders when they walked out to the parking lot.
She’s still thinking of these things when she slips out of bed, slides on a pair of shoes and grabs her purse.
It’s 11:45 and maybe he’s already sleeping and it’s probably a bad idea… but when he opens the door he’s still fully dressed and she can see past him into his living room where there are open text books and notebooks strewn across the coffee table.
He squints at her, takes in her sweatshirt and plaid pajamas. “Annie?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Did you try?” He’s smiling.
“Yeessss.”
She doesn’t say anything else, just looks up at him through her eyelashes until he laughs and tugs on her hand to pull her into the apartment.
~*~*~*~
When she tilts her head back she can see the clock on the bedside table glaring a bright red 1:52
“It’s really late,” she murmurs and shifts, stretching her legs out across the bed.
“Mmm hmmm.” Jeff brushes his lips against her hip. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
Her laugh comes out more like a breathy sigh. “In the morning. I have class at 9:00.”
“Annie.” His hands and lips trail a path back up her body until he’s braced above her, “This, right here? Not the right time to talk about school. Besides,” He drops a kiss to her forehead, then her hairline, then lower at the corner of her eye, “I was studying before you came over and distracted me.” Tip of her nose. Cheek. Jaw line. Corner of her mouth. When he finally reaches her lips again he kisses her deeply until she’s sighing and flattening her hand against his lower back, arching against him.
Jeff groans, pulls back and brushes a few wayward strands of her hair off her forehead. He searches her face carefully.
“You are ridiculously gorgeous. You know that right?”
Annie flushes and turns her head into the comforter. His words send a jolt of pleasure through her body. Two hours of this, being on his bed and slowly peeling away clothing and touching, exploring each other and… it’s made everything feel all warm and languid, like floating over water in the summer sun.
She finally looks back up at him.
He clears his throat, then wets his lips and takes a deep breath. “I. Umm.” And he shakes his head like he’s not sure how or what he wants to say so she takes a cue, or rather gives him a cue, and bends one of her knees up to press against his hip.
Jeff smiles slowly and dips down to kiss her again as he reaches back and begins trailing his hand down her thigh.
Suddenly she remembers something, gasps and sits straight up, sending him flying backwards.
“Jeff, that’s right, you have a psychology test tomorrow.”
He looks a little stunned at the sudden shift but then laughs and leans back on his hands, “Yeah, but again. Half naked girl in my bed trumps anything related to school. Actually half naked girl trumps everything, so.” He cocks an eyebrow to make his point, then pulls her toward him, up on her knees so that she’s straddling his hips. Annie settles against him and rests her hands on his chest.
“You should be studying,” she whispers.
“Oh. I am.”
She eyes him skeptically so he tugs her up closer.
“And I’m learning a lot. See, I’ve learned that when I do this.” He presses his lips to the spot under her ear and sucks lightly on the skin there. Annie lets out a little choking gasp and he smiles. “You make that noise. And I’ve learned that I really like that noise. And when I do this.” His hand flutters down her side and she yelps and tries to wiggle away. “It makes you do that.”
“Well, it tickles.”
Jeff raises an eyebrow. “And then of course.” His hand dips slower still, skirting under the line of her underwear and Annie arches, drops her forehead to the crook his neck. “Jeff,” she whimpers against him.
“See. I’m a fast learner.”
“Huh hmmm.”
Jeff presses his free hand flat against her back, bracing her as she rocks against him. She’s got her mouth pressed against the side of his neck, making these little gasping noises against his skin as she clutches at his arms.
“Jeff… I want…” She takes a shuddering breath and shifts, presses her forehead against his. They are both warm with perspiration. Jeff breathes in, cursing mentally when it’s shakier than normal.
“Annie?”
She pauses, just for the briefest moment before nodding and pressing up on her knees, sliding backwards and pulling him with her until he's settled above her again. Her hands are shaking slightly as she touches her fingers to his cheek and Jeff turns his head to kiss her palm, then threads his fingers through hers and pins her hand to the mattress above her head. As his other hand slides down and hooks into the waistband of her panties Annie has to choke back a shudder.
He gazes down at her, his eyes dark, a hint of a smirk playing across his features and she almost laughs before his mouth is on hers again, hard and urgent in a way that makes everything else go spinning off into a mindless haze.
~*~*~*~
Later, afterwards, she’s curled against him, his fingers trailing up and down her arm and they’re both floating, drifting in this cloud of contentment.
“I’m glad I came over.”
“Um. Yeah.”
Annie turns a little and he shifts with her, brushes his nose against her shoulder as their eyes meet.
“Jeff?” She bites her lip and he’s quickly trying to pull himself together for whatever she’s about to say.
But then:
“Are you sure you’re ready for your test tomorrow?”
He stares at her for a second then slowly shakes his head, “Please tell me that’s not what you’ve been thinking about this entire time.”
“Nooo. But.”
“Alright, that’s it. New rule. No talking about school, or school work or class or anything Greendale related while we’re in bed.”
“But.”
“No,” he growls at her and then rolls so that he’s back above her. She tries to say something again so he kisses her and she just ends up sighing, and then moaning against his mouth.
The next day, Annie misses her first class and when Shirley asks, with concern in her voice, if everything is okay, she turns bright red and mumbles something about sleeping through her alarm.
~*~*~*~
Jeff sends her a text message in the middle of study group one day that says,
“make you dinner if we can leave early?”
Her eyes carefully flicker around the table before landing on him and he’s focused on his book but she can read him well enough by now to know that he’s not really reading and that his lips are pressed together to keep them from quirking up in a smile.
It goes against everything she knows but she’s biting the inside of her lip as she types back.
“chicken marsala?”
She stares intently at a spot in her book but out of the corner of her eye she sees the LED light flicker on Jeff’s phone and the way he casually looks over and presses the button to read the new text.
A moment later her phone buzzes in her hand.
“of course.”
She smiles, is about to type a response when:
“Annie, this is frying my brain. Please, please help me with number six.”
“What?” Her head pops up and she looks around the table. “Huh?”
Britta stares back in amusement, “Number six?”
“Oh. Um.” She looks down at her notebook, where she’s only gotten as far as number four.
Now everyone is staring at her and Shirley looks down to see the phone clutched in her lap.
“Ohhh.” Her eyes almost twinkle in merriment. “Annie, are you being distracted by a special someone?”
“What? No. No.” She looks around the table. Jeff’s resting his chin on his hand, watching her with the same look of puzzlement as everyone else, except she knows now, she knows that really, he’s laughing inside and she is absolutely going to kill him later.
“Is it… Vaughan?”
Suddenly, maybe Jeff is no longer laughing inside.
“No.” Annie throws her hands up in the air, “How many times to I have to tell you guys?”
Vaughan’s semi-pro-community-college hackey-sack career had come to a disappointing end when he had been walking barefoot around campus, stepped on a bee, had an allergic reaction, developed staff infection and ended up in the hospital for two weeks. Now he was back and everyone had cooked up the conspiracy theory that he and Annie had started their relationship up again. It certainly explained moments like this.
And if anyone notices the way Jeff’s jaw tenses whenever anyone talks about this possibility, they don’t say anything because, well, Jeff never liked Vaughan.
(Concurrently, they didn’t question Annie’s “Ughh” when she realized she had to take Statistics. Mainly because Britta echoed the sentiment and no one likes Professor Slater.)
It takes about five minutes to convince the group that she’s not carrying on an illicit text messaging affair with Vaughan even though, yes, it is nice that he wears shoes now.
Jeff’s only contribution is a muttered, “Tevas aren’t shoes.”
Later on when she’s sitting on his kitchen counter watching him make dinner she sets a new rule: no texting during school hours.
~*~*~*~
Some times the whole secret relationship is kind of fun.
Like when they walk toward the back of the group, his fingers dancing along the back of her hand every time their arms bump against each other and the way she ducks her head and looks in the other direction to avoid his smirk. Or how Jeff gets caught staring blankly into space during class and this isn’t exactly a new thing so no one even stops to think that it could possibly be because Annie answered a question and used the word “sex” (and she said it in a normal voice but her face still turned pink) and now all he can think about are all those other things that make her blush.
Sometimes they forget or don’t care enough to be quite as careful but the group is sitting at lunch laughing and they fail to notice that Jeff hasn’t come back from the bathroom and that Annie hasn’t joined them from class yet.
But Annie stays late in class finishing up notes all the time and Jeff’s probably powdering his nose (thanks Pierce) so…
… later in the study room they don’t notice that Annie’s hair is no longer held back in clips or that the bottom of Jeff’s shirt is missing a button.
But they’re still Jeff and Annie and he’s still perfectly capable of being an asshole and she’s still hypersensitive and sometimes it drives them to fight in his apartment and it spills over into the next day and no one understands why she snaps at him for not understanding a concept from the chapter they’re studying or why he completely ignores her and turns to Britta for help.
Later, he’s waiting outside her classroom and pulls her aside into a quiet corner where they both apologize and don’t even scan the hallways before he wraps her up in a hug.
When Abed calls Jeff at dawn the next morning (he and Troy watched all twelve hours of the Star Wars saga and now they’re acting out key scenes and they need someone who can fit into the Princess Leia bikini) and he answers with a whispered, “What in the name of all that is good in this world could possibly make you call me right now?” no one would even think to imagine that Annie would be sound asleep behind him, her nose pressed into his back, her fingers curled loosely into the dip of his hip.
~*~*~*~
“I tried setting Jeff up with my friend from yoga but he said he wasn’t interested.”
“It is weird that that boy doesn’t seem to be dating as much lately. Do you think it’s because he has another secret girlfriend?” Shirley asks with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
Pierce laughs, “Maybe it's because-”
“Pierce! Jeff is not gay. Get off it.”
“Well Britta, it does take one to not know one, right?” Pierce rolls his eyes at Troy while pointing his thumb in Britta’s direction. “What I was going to say was that Jeff’s not dating anyone because he’s too busy banging Perky Boobs.”
Britta and Shirley both immediately look down at their own chests. Then they look up at each other and Pierce lets out another snort, “Please. Like that would be either of you.”
They both turn and look at him in disgust as Abed breaths out the name “Annie.”
Everyone starts to scoff at this for a second but then they all stop and stare at each other.
“Pierce. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” But Britta doesn’t seem very convinced by her own words. Shirley looks like she’s concentrating, trying to remember something.
Troy looks awed suddenly. “They don’t spend as much time together as they used to.”
“Guys look.”
Britta points across the quad where Annie and Jeff have just emerged from the library.
Everyone tilts their head in the same direction as they watch the pair interact. Annie’s waving her arms animatedly as she tells him a story. He throws back his head and laughs and launches into some tale of his own, gesturing wildly while Annie smiles up at him.
“So?”
“Shh. Just keep-”
And then Jeff stops talking and looks around and Annie freezes, her eyes wide. They both say something, then immediately turned around and walk in opposite directions.
“Ohhhh.”
They all look at each other again.
“Huh. Maybe.”
~*~*~*~
Annie and Jeff had been careful.
But when it started to slide away from scary and new into something more familiar it became significantly harder to hide from everyone. When they were still nervous and jumpy and trying to kill each other with sexual tension it had been easy to brush off as just weird quirks of who they already were.
But when he slid down next to her at lunch she just immediately wanted to relax against him. And when she was hyperventilating that one of the classes she needed for transfer was full she almost turned into him and he almost curled his arm around her waist and almost leaned down to brush his lips against her temple.
So they had to keep setting new rules and pretty soon they could hardly look at each other at school because they were afraid that someone would see it and just know.
And yet, it’s only when the side-glances and the touches and the secret text messages stopped, that someone finally noticed something. Like all those things had been there all along and their presence was so familiar that no one saw it, but once it was gone every thing seemed weird and wrong like a wind had changed.
~*~*~*~
Annie works late at the newspaper office and falls asleep at her desk, her head pillowed on her arms. She wakes up to a touch on her shoulder and the sound of someone saying her name.
“Annie.”
“Hmm.” Her head pops up and Jeff’s peering down at her in amusement. She blinks at him a couple times. “What?”
“Come on Ace. It’s almost 11:30. Let’s get you home.”
She rubs her fists into her eyes, smearing her mascara in the process, “I’m not done.”
“Well that’s too bad. You can finish tomorrow. You’re exhausted.”
She wants to argue but her mind’s still sort of foggy and Jeff’s already shoving all her stuff into her backpack. He shuts off the lights and she leans on him a little bit as he leads her out into the hallway.
“I’m writing about the rash of burglaries around campus over the past few months.”
“Riveting.”
“It is.” She yawns. “Someone’s been breaking into the faculty offices. Professor Duncan’s bust of the queen was stolen, so was Professor Whitman’s Hula-Hoop.”
“Wow. Someone’s really hitting those guys where it hurts.”
“I know! It’s terrible. So I’m gonna find out who it is and nail him to the wall.”
“You know it’s probably just some stupid prank right?”
“Justice must be served Jeff. And I’m going to be the one that makes sure it gets served. On a silver platter.” They’ve reached his car, the only one left in the deserted parking lot.
He laughs at the intensity in her voice, presses her up against the passenger door and whispers, “And that’s why I love you.”
She giggles as he leans down to kiss her and as his lips start to slide down her jaw line she breathes out a tiny, “I love you too” and her hands tighten around his waist.
Jeff stills, presses a kiss to the side of her neck and pulls back to look at her. She just nods and ducks her head into his shoulder shyly. He pulls her back in, arms wrapped around her completely.
"Yeah," he whispers.
And smiles.
~*~*~*~
He falls silent and looks around the table.
They all stare back.
“So. That’s… what we wanted to tell you.” His eyebrows are knit together in confusion.
Annie’s at his side, tense, like she’s expecting some kind of verbal assault to be unleashed at any moment. Jeff looks at her then back at the group.
“You guys are really going to say nothing about this?”
“Oh.” They all start to murmur, darting glances at each other, avoiding looking in the direction of either Jeff or Annie.
“Oh Jeff, how could you? I’m very disappointed in you for violating poor Annie like this,” Shirley says in monotone.
“Yeah. It’s disgusting. How horrifying. You should be ashamed. Pervert.”
“Insert pop culture reference here.”
Jeff purses his lips together. He and Annie share another glance. She looks a little dumbfounded.
“You guys knew.”
“Yeaaahhh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yup.”
Pierce laughs, “You two weren’t nearly as clever as you thought you were. Couldn’t fool us. I’ve got a keen eye for this kind of stuff. I’ve known you guys were knocking boots for weeks now.”
Annie makes a strangled coughing noise and Jeff kicks her leg under the table.
“Weeks, right. So.” He leans forward. “None of you said anything?”
“We were just waiting for you two to fess up. But for the record, I’m still not sure I’m okay with it,” Shirley says plainly.
“And we’re a little insulted that you didn’t tell us earlier.”
“I’m disappointed in myself actually. I should have known. There were plenty of signs.” Abed tilts his head and regards them in thought. Jeff makes a mental note to put his foot down to any sort of Newlyweds type reality show that Abed will inevitably dream up.
“Okay. So. Good.” He smiles over at Annie because everything they had spent all night worrying about hadn’t actually happened and maybe this will actually just be as simple as, everyone knows and now they can just move on.
Annie smiles back and covers his hand with hers.
Everyone groans.
“Do you have to do that here? We study here.”
“Seriously guys, maybe you should slow this thing down a little."
Okay, so maybe it will take a little more time.
Pairing: Jeff/Annie, ensemble
Word Count: 3726
Ratings/Warnings: PG-13, leaning into R
Spoilers: Season 1
Disclaimer: I do not own Community or these characters, oh but Dan Harmon I love you for life.
Description: Annie and Jeff’s relationship - what the group sees, and more importantly, what they don’t.
Author’s Note: This started out as a response to a Ficcy Friday prompt and just sort of exploded into something else and apparently I am incapable of writing anything short.
Part One
Part Two
~*~*~*~
They’ve kissed five times. Annie knows this. She remembers each one, how they were all different. How they all made her feel different. How after each one, she’s almost afraid that it will be the last one and she has to hold on to it and the taste of his tongue and the touch of his hands and the press of his body against hers.
He calls her the Sunday after the first date.
"What are you doing?”
“Studying.”
“Of course… Hey so, do you want to come over? I’m just hanging out here watching TV. I mean, unless you have to study. But, you could do that here too. If you wanted. I don’t know.”
“No.” she says quickly. “I can. Yeah, I can come over.”
It takes her twenty minutes to figure out what to wear and she changes her mind five times before settling on jeans and a tee-shirt. She leaves her hair down and loose around her shoulders, brushes her teeth before grabbing her purse and running out to the car.
She feels nervous as she knocks at his door and when he opens it he looks nervous and tentative and she suddenly remembers that she’s never been in his apartment. It’s like there’s this whole new side of him opening up to her and she wants to run headfirst into it, but once she does, everything changes.
They sit on the couch and he’s been watching a Back to the Future marathon so they just continue to watch that, not really saying anything to each other until finally, finally after five minutes of heightened nerves that are making her feel ill, Jeff says, “Annie?” and when she turns to look at him he leans over and kisses her.
When he pulls away he smiles and tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She bites her lip and thinks “six” and then somehow ends up nestled under his arm. By the time she leaves a few hours later, she’s calm like everything has finally settled into place and when he kisses her at the door she’s not even sure what number to think of.
They go out again on Wednesday night and it’s a spur of the moment thing. She’s getting in her car at the end of the day when he calls her. He’s thinking about going to that Chinese restaurant around the corner and does she want to join him? It’s a little risky because it’s right near school but if anyone sees them they can just say they were both hungry after class, or something. She doesn’t think about it.
They’re at the restaurant for almost two hours and don’t run into anyone they know and honestly, they probably wouldn’t have noticed even if they did.
Annie’s lying in bed later, staring at the ceiling and clutching her phone to her chest and she can’t possibly sleep. She’s thinking of how she’s already lost count of kisses and the way he argued with her when she tried to pay part of the bill and how he threw his arm over her shoulders when they walked out to the parking lot.
She’s still thinking of these things when she slips out of bed, slides on a pair of shoes and grabs her purse.
It’s 11:45 and maybe he’s already sleeping and it’s probably a bad idea… but when he opens the door he’s still fully dressed and she can see past him into his living room where there are open text books and notebooks strewn across the coffee table.
He squints at her, takes in her sweatshirt and plaid pajamas. “Annie?”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Did you try?” He’s smiling.
“Yeessss.”
She doesn’t say anything else, just looks up at him through her eyelashes until he laughs and tugs on her hand to pull her into the apartment.
~*~*~*~
When she tilts her head back she can see the clock on the bedside table glaring a bright red 1:52
“It’s really late,” she murmurs and shifts, stretching her legs out across the bed.
“Mmm hmmm.” Jeff brushes his lips against her hip. “Do you have somewhere to be?”
Her laugh comes out more like a breathy sigh. “In the morning. I have class at 9:00.”
“Annie.” His hands and lips trail a path back up her body until he’s braced above her, “This, right here? Not the right time to talk about school. Besides,” He drops a kiss to her forehead, then her hairline, then lower at the corner of her eye, “I was studying before you came over and distracted me.” Tip of her nose. Cheek. Jaw line. Corner of her mouth. When he finally reaches her lips again he kisses her deeply until she’s sighing and flattening her hand against his lower back, arching against him.
Jeff groans, pulls back and brushes a few wayward strands of her hair off her forehead. He searches her face carefully.
“You are ridiculously gorgeous. You know that right?”
Annie flushes and turns her head into the comforter. His words send a jolt of pleasure through her body. Two hours of this, being on his bed and slowly peeling away clothing and touching, exploring each other and… it’s made everything feel all warm and languid, like floating over water in the summer sun.
She finally looks back up at him.
He clears his throat, then wets his lips and takes a deep breath. “I. Umm.” And he shakes his head like he’s not sure how or what he wants to say so she takes a cue, or rather gives him a cue, and bends one of her knees up to press against his hip.
Jeff smiles slowly and dips down to kiss her again as he reaches back and begins trailing his hand down her thigh.
Suddenly she remembers something, gasps and sits straight up, sending him flying backwards.
“Jeff, that’s right, you have a psychology test tomorrow.”
He looks a little stunned at the sudden shift but then laughs and leans back on his hands, “Yeah, but again. Half naked girl in my bed trumps anything related to school. Actually half naked girl trumps everything, so.” He cocks an eyebrow to make his point, then pulls her toward him, up on her knees so that she’s straddling his hips. Annie settles against him and rests her hands on his chest.
“You should be studying,” she whispers.
“Oh. I am.”
She eyes him skeptically so he tugs her up closer.
“And I’m learning a lot. See, I’ve learned that when I do this.” He presses his lips to the spot under her ear and sucks lightly on the skin there. Annie lets out a little choking gasp and he smiles. “You make that noise. And I’ve learned that I really like that noise. And when I do this.” His hand flutters down her side and she yelps and tries to wiggle away. “It makes you do that.”
“Well, it tickles.”
Jeff raises an eyebrow. “And then of course.” His hand dips slower still, skirting under the line of her underwear and Annie arches, drops her forehead to the crook his neck. “Jeff,” she whimpers against him.
“See. I’m a fast learner.”
“Huh hmmm.”
Jeff presses his free hand flat against her back, bracing her as she rocks against him. She’s got her mouth pressed against the side of his neck, making these little gasping noises against his skin as she clutches at his arms.
“Jeff… I want…” She takes a shuddering breath and shifts, presses her forehead against his. They are both warm with perspiration. Jeff breathes in, cursing mentally when it’s shakier than normal.
“Annie?”
She pauses, just for the briefest moment before nodding and pressing up on her knees, sliding backwards and pulling him with her until he's settled above her again. Her hands are shaking slightly as she touches her fingers to his cheek and Jeff turns his head to kiss her palm, then threads his fingers through hers and pins her hand to the mattress above her head. As his other hand slides down and hooks into the waistband of her panties Annie has to choke back a shudder.
He gazes down at her, his eyes dark, a hint of a smirk playing across his features and she almost laughs before his mouth is on hers again, hard and urgent in a way that makes everything else go spinning off into a mindless haze.
~*~*~*~
Later, afterwards, she’s curled against him, his fingers trailing up and down her arm and they’re both floating, drifting in this cloud of contentment.
“I’m glad I came over.”
“Um. Yeah.”
Annie turns a little and he shifts with her, brushes his nose against her shoulder as their eyes meet.
“Jeff?” She bites her lip and he’s quickly trying to pull himself together for whatever she’s about to say.
But then:
“Are you sure you’re ready for your test tomorrow?”
He stares at her for a second then slowly shakes his head, “Please tell me that’s not what you’ve been thinking about this entire time.”
“Nooo. But.”
“Alright, that’s it. New rule. No talking about school, or school work or class or anything Greendale related while we’re in bed.”
“But.”
“No,” he growls at her and then rolls so that he’s back above her. She tries to say something again so he kisses her and she just ends up sighing, and then moaning against his mouth.
The next day, Annie misses her first class and when Shirley asks, with concern in her voice, if everything is okay, she turns bright red and mumbles something about sleeping through her alarm.
~*~*~*~
Jeff sends her a text message in the middle of study group one day that says,
“make you dinner if we can leave early?”
Her eyes carefully flicker around the table before landing on him and he’s focused on his book but she can read him well enough by now to know that he’s not really reading and that his lips are pressed together to keep them from quirking up in a smile.
It goes against everything she knows but she’s biting the inside of her lip as she types back.
“chicken marsala?”
She stares intently at a spot in her book but out of the corner of her eye she sees the LED light flicker on Jeff’s phone and the way he casually looks over and presses the button to read the new text.
A moment later her phone buzzes in her hand.
“of course.”
She smiles, is about to type a response when:
“Annie, this is frying my brain. Please, please help me with number six.”
“What?” Her head pops up and she looks around the table. “Huh?”
Britta stares back in amusement, “Number six?”
“Oh. Um.” She looks down at her notebook, where she’s only gotten as far as number four.
Now everyone is staring at her and Shirley looks down to see the phone clutched in her lap.
“Ohhh.” Her eyes almost twinkle in merriment. “Annie, are you being distracted by a special someone?”
“What? No. No.” She looks around the table. Jeff’s resting his chin on his hand, watching her with the same look of puzzlement as everyone else, except she knows now, she knows that really, he’s laughing inside and she is absolutely going to kill him later.
“Is it… Vaughan?”
Suddenly, maybe Jeff is no longer laughing inside.
“No.” Annie throws her hands up in the air, “How many times to I have to tell you guys?”
Vaughan’s semi-pro-community-college hackey-sack career had come to a disappointing end when he had been walking barefoot around campus, stepped on a bee, had an allergic reaction, developed staff infection and ended up in the hospital for two weeks. Now he was back and everyone had cooked up the conspiracy theory that he and Annie had started their relationship up again. It certainly explained moments like this.
And if anyone notices the way Jeff’s jaw tenses whenever anyone talks about this possibility, they don’t say anything because, well, Jeff never liked Vaughan.
(Concurrently, they didn’t question Annie’s “Ughh” when she realized she had to take Statistics. Mainly because Britta echoed the sentiment and no one likes Professor Slater.)
It takes about five minutes to convince the group that she’s not carrying on an illicit text messaging affair with Vaughan even though, yes, it is nice that he wears shoes now.
Jeff’s only contribution is a muttered, “Tevas aren’t shoes.”
Later on when she’s sitting on his kitchen counter watching him make dinner she sets a new rule: no texting during school hours.
~*~*~*~
Some times the whole secret relationship is kind of fun.
Like when they walk toward the back of the group, his fingers dancing along the back of her hand every time their arms bump against each other and the way she ducks her head and looks in the other direction to avoid his smirk. Or how Jeff gets caught staring blankly into space during class and this isn’t exactly a new thing so no one even stops to think that it could possibly be because Annie answered a question and used the word “sex” (and she said it in a normal voice but her face still turned pink) and now all he can think about are all those other things that make her blush.
Sometimes they forget or don’t care enough to be quite as careful but the group is sitting at lunch laughing and they fail to notice that Jeff hasn’t come back from the bathroom and that Annie hasn’t joined them from class yet.
But Annie stays late in class finishing up notes all the time and Jeff’s probably powdering his nose (thanks Pierce) so…
… later in the study room they don’t notice that Annie’s hair is no longer held back in clips or that the bottom of Jeff’s shirt is missing a button.
But they’re still Jeff and Annie and he’s still perfectly capable of being an asshole and she’s still hypersensitive and sometimes it drives them to fight in his apartment and it spills over into the next day and no one understands why she snaps at him for not understanding a concept from the chapter they’re studying or why he completely ignores her and turns to Britta for help.
Later, he’s waiting outside her classroom and pulls her aside into a quiet corner where they both apologize and don’t even scan the hallways before he wraps her up in a hug.
When Abed calls Jeff at dawn the next morning (he and Troy watched all twelve hours of the Star Wars saga and now they’re acting out key scenes and they need someone who can fit into the Princess Leia bikini) and he answers with a whispered, “What in the name of all that is good in this world could possibly make you call me right now?” no one would even think to imagine that Annie would be sound asleep behind him, her nose pressed into his back, her fingers curled loosely into the dip of his hip.
~*~*~*~
“I tried setting Jeff up with my friend from yoga but he said he wasn’t interested.”
“It is weird that that boy doesn’t seem to be dating as much lately. Do you think it’s because he has another secret girlfriend?” Shirley asks with a wiggle of her eyebrows.
Pierce laughs, “Maybe it's because-”
“Pierce! Jeff is not gay. Get off it.”
“Well Britta, it does take one to not know one, right?” Pierce rolls his eyes at Troy while pointing his thumb in Britta’s direction. “What I was going to say was that Jeff’s not dating anyone because he’s too busy banging Perky Boobs.”
Britta and Shirley both immediately look down at their own chests. Then they look up at each other and Pierce lets out another snort, “Please. Like that would be either of you.”
They both turn and look at him in disgust as Abed breaths out the name “Annie.”
Everyone starts to scoff at this for a second but then they all stop and stare at each other.
“Pierce. That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard.” But Britta doesn’t seem very convinced by her own words. Shirley looks like she’s concentrating, trying to remember something.
Troy looks awed suddenly. “They don’t spend as much time together as they used to.”
“Guys look.”
Britta points across the quad where Annie and Jeff have just emerged from the library.
Everyone tilts their head in the same direction as they watch the pair interact. Annie’s waving her arms animatedly as she tells him a story. He throws back his head and laughs and launches into some tale of his own, gesturing wildly while Annie smiles up at him.
“So?”
“Shh. Just keep-”
And then Jeff stops talking and looks around and Annie freezes, her eyes wide. They both say something, then immediately turned around and walk in opposite directions.
“Ohhhh.”
They all look at each other again.
“Huh. Maybe.”
~*~*~*~
Annie and Jeff had been careful.
But when it started to slide away from scary and new into something more familiar it became significantly harder to hide from everyone. When they were still nervous and jumpy and trying to kill each other with sexual tension it had been easy to brush off as just weird quirks of who they already were.
But when he slid down next to her at lunch she just immediately wanted to relax against him. And when she was hyperventilating that one of the classes she needed for transfer was full she almost turned into him and he almost curled his arm around her waist and almost leaned down to brush his lips against her temple.
So they had to keep setting new rules and pretty soon they could hardly look at each other at school because they were afraid that someone would see it and just know.
And yet, it’s only when the side-glances and the touches and the secret text messages stopped, that someone finally noticed something. Like all those things had been there all along and their presence was so familiar that no one saw it, but once it was gone every thing seemed weird and wrong like a wind had changed.
~*~*~*~
Annie works late at the newspaper office and falls asleep at her desk, her head pillowed on her arms. She wakes up to a touch on her shoulder and the sound of someone saying her name.
“Annie.”
“Hmm.” Her head pops up and Jeff’s peering down at her in amusement. She blinks at him a couple times. “What?”
“Come on Ace. It’s almost 11:30. Let’s get you home.”
She rubs her fists into her eyes, smearing her mascara in the process, “I’m not done.”
“Well that’s too bad. You can finish tomorrow. You’re exhausted.”
She wants to argue but her mind’s still sort of foggy and Jeff’s already shoving all her stuff into her backpack. He shuts off the lights and she leans on him a little bit as he leads her out into the hallway.
“I’m writing about the rash of burglaries around campus over the past few months.”
“Riveting.”
“It is.” She yawns. “Someone’s been breaking into the faculty offices. Professor Duncan’s bust of the queen was stolen, so was Professor Whitman’s Hula-Hoop.”
“Wow. Someone’s really hitting those guys where it hurts.”
“I know! It’s terrible. So I’m gonna find out who it is and nail him to the wall.”
“You know it’s probably just some stupid prank right?”
“Justice must be served Jeff. And I’m going to be the one that makes sure it gets served. On a silver platter.” They’ve reached his car, the only one left in the deserted parking lot.
He laughs at the intensity in her voice, presses her up against the passenger door and whispers, “And that’s why I love you.”
She giggles as he leans down to kiss her and as his lips start to slide down her jaw line she breathes out a tiny, “I love you too” and her hands tighten around his waist.
Jeff stills, presses a kiss to the side of her neck and pulls back to look at her. She just nods and ducks her head into his shoulder shyly. He pulls her back in, arms wrapped around her completely.
"Yeah," he whispers.
And smiles.
~*~*~*~
He falls silent and looks around the table.
They all stare back.
“So. That’s… what we wanted to tell you.” His eyebrows are knit together in confusion.
Annie’s at his side, tense, like she’s expecting some kind of verbal assault to be unleashed at any moment. Jeff looks at her then back at the group.
“You guys are really going to say nothing about this?”
“Oh.” They all start to murmur, darting glances at each other, avoiding looking in the direction of either Jeff or Annie.
“Oh Jeff, how could you? I’m very disappointed in you for violating poor Annie like this,” Shirley says in monotone.
“Yeah. It’s disgusting. How horrifying. You should be ashamed. Pervert.”
“Insert pop culture reference here.”
Jeff purses his lips together. He and Annie share another glance. She looks a little dumbfounded.
“You guys knew.”
“Yeaaahhh.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Yup.”
Pierce laughs, “You two weren’t nearly as clever as you thought you were. Couldn’t fool us. I’ve got a keen eye for this kind of stuff. I’ve known you guys were knocking boots for weeks now.”
Annie makes a strangled coughing noise and Jeff kicks her leg under the table.
“Weeks, right. So.” He leans forward. “None of you said anything?”
“We were just waiting for you two to fess up. But for the record, I’m still not sure I’m okay with it,” Shirley says plainly.
“And we’re a little insulted that you didn’t tell us earlier.”
“I’m disappointed in myself actually. I should have known. There were plenty of signs.” Abed tilts his head and regards them in thought. Jeff makes a mental note to put his foot down to any sort of Newlyweds type reality show that Abed will inevitably dream up.
“Okay. So. Good.” He smiles over at Annie because everything they had spent all night worrying about hadn’t actually happened and maybe this will actually just be as simple as, everyone knows and now they can just move on.
Annie smiles back and covers his hand with hers.
Everyone groans.
“Do you have to do that here? We study here.”
“Seriously guys, maybe you should slow this thing down a little."
Okay, so maybe it will take a little more time.