Community Fic | Institutional Hegemonics and Introduction to Maturescence | Part 1/2
Community fic:
Institutional Hegemonics and Introduction to Maturescence
Annie/Abed/Troy | ~12,250 words | R
Things aren’t going according Annie’s plan. The gang graduates.
Huge huge thanks to the amazing fitofpique for betaing and talking to me about this story right from the very beginning.
I started writing this a loooong while ago, so I would say it is neither spoilery for nor especially compliant with the Season Three finale.
“Con-dean-ulations!” the Dean says, poking his head into the study room. He’s wearing a black unitard with navy blue tights and a mortarboard. “Happy two-weeks-left-of-class-and-then-three-month-until-convocation day!”
“Thanks,” Troy says, grinning.
Jeff spins around from staring down the Dean and fixes Troy with a long look.
Troy turns his big grin toward Jeff, who mouths, “Don’t encourage him,” but Troy still waves goodbye when the Dean saunters out of the room.
Annie rests her elbows on the table. She tracks the Dean’s movements down the hall until he disappears past the final window and then she looks back at the table. They’ve got the Economics final to study for but that’s still days away, so Britta, Piece and Troy don’t even have their books out on the table. Annie’s got hers on the table, but it’s closed. There doesn’t seem like much point to studying now.
She sighs.
“What are you going to do next year, Britta?” Shirley asks, drawing Britta out into two distinct syllables.
“Required courses are a way for the academic hegemony to enforce arbitrary ideals in an attempt to brainwash the masses and turn learning into a formalized education process that spits out carbon copies of the same warped brain.”
“Britta will not be graduating this year,” Jeff says, “due to her ingenious protest of the system via failure to complete the required math credit.”
Britta pounds her fist on the table. “This country’s economy is in shambles. It’s a joke, neigh a profound disservice, to teach the same tripe when it’s clearly been demonstrated to oppress the masses and funnel all resources to the dominant ruling class of white men.”
“Weren’t you taking pre-calculus?” Troy asks.
“Taking is such a strong word,” Jeff says. “Implying, for example, actual attending the lectures.”
“Whatever,” Britta says. “I suppose you’ve already got your corner office picked out at soulless, corporate lawyer town.”
“Or, as the rest of us like to call it, MacMurries, Thompson and Steeles.” Jeff crosses his arms. “Yes, Britta. You’ve got me. I did what I came here to do: finished my degree, got admitted to the Bar, and found a job. Now my Italian faucets will once again have a home, and I will once again receive validation for being a douchebag.”
“Validation for being gay!” Pierce says, snorting to himself. “And, speaking of gay,” he turns to Britta, “don’t worry: I’m going to be staying at Greendale as well. We have another year together - study buddies!”
Britta’s eyes widen.
“How about you, Annie?” Shirley asks. “Are you off to grad school? I hope you will won’t forget about me when you’re at a real university learning about the important world of hospital administration.“
Annie looks down at the desk, her hands flattened against the plastic laminate. She presses her lips together before saying, “I didn’t get into grad school.”
The group utters an audible gasp.
“What do you-” Britta starts, while Jeff burst into a stream of, “This is outrageous,” and Pierce starts calling out, “We’ll sue!”
“It’s okay,” Annie says. “It’s just that it turns out there are a lot of classes normally required for healthcare administration that aren’t offered at Greendale, so my degree isn’t officially equivalent to those at other colleges. I need to spend another year upgrading before I can get in anywhere.”
“That’s okay,” Jeff says. “Listen, that’s - this is okay. We’ve been through worse. We just need to rally together, and we’ll get through this.” His eyes get wide and his forehead seems to expand even further upward.
“It’s just another year,” Britta says. “It won’t be that bad.”
“Except that I’m out of money,” Annie says. “And I don’t qualify for a bank loan, and you can’t get a student loan unless you’re a full time student enrolled in a real program, and upgrading classes doesn’t count as full time, and tuition is a lot more expensive at other schools than at Greendale.”
“Oh, Annie,” Shirley murmurs.
“And if I can’t get a real degree, I can’t get a real job, but real degrees cost real money, and I can’t get real money without a real job, and I can’t get scholarships without a real degree, so there are no other options, and I am completely screwed for next year.” Annie’s voice catches on screwed and she clamps her molars down hard on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to take a breath.
“You were screwed by the institution,” Abed says, nodding to himself, like he does when he’s working out his latest simulation as he and Troy head to the Dreamatorium.
“I guess so...” Annie says. Her eyes still feel a bit prickly.
“We, the masses, have been screwed by the institution. While I didn’t apply to grad school, I also have a bleak future. It turns out there aren’t a lot of jobs out there for film study majors or most of the other majors offered at college.”
The table goes quiet. Troy nods along vigorously as Abed speaks.
“We are the 99%. Oppressed by the institution that has robbed us blind and then thrown into a world that does not want us.”
“Umm,” Annie starts, because she’s learned the signs of Abed getting stuck on something. Three weeks of dodging plastic arrows after they watched The Avengers taught her constant vigilance.
“Occupy Greendale,” Abed says. “It’s perfect: relevant to the greater cultural zeitgeist, specific to our own circumstances. I can get this to go viral. Sundance, I’m coming for you.”
“It’s not Greendale’s fault...” Annie starts.
“We were fed a curriculum of lies,” Abed says. Annie’s not sure which activist he’s emulating, but she can see him gaining momentum. “A promise of a future, a promise of options. Instead we graduate and find ourselves saddled with heavy baggage - student loans, financial uncertainty - and ill-equipped to compete in the global economy. The post-grad life was a fable, and now someone must be held accountable.”
“Okay-y-y,” Annie says. “Well.”
“Annie,” Jeff hisses.
Annie widens her eyes and curls her lips down. She isn’t responsible for Abed.
And anyway, he kind of has a point.
--
Three weeks left to go and then - all the weeks. All the rest of the weeks. It's not a gearing up to summer, it's just a countdown to infinity.
Annie still goes to class, but she’s stopped taking notes and instead sits quietly and tries not to fall asleep. She’s not bereft, but it’s hard to wake up in the morning, hard to fall asleep at night. She stays up late looking at job postings and lies in bed rehearsing what she’s going to say in the interview.
It turns out it’s quite hard to get even an interview when all she’s got is a degree from a community college and no work experience.
It's fine, it's okay. She's got enough for next month's rent and groceries, and then it will still fine but she’ll be out of money.
--
She gave up a long time ago trying to herd Troy and Abed so they can all walk to campus together, but that’s because they have a much looser definition of late and also a different set of priorities in the morning. Annie: showering, hair, outfit, breakfast, collection of last night’s homework. Troy and Abed: broadcast of Troy and Abed in the Morning.
Which is why she’s surprised when she walks across the field to find Abed already in front of the school, holding a megaphone, surrounded by a small but interested crowd of students.
“We. Are. The 99%,” Abed shouts.
Well, Annie thinks, this is happening. And then she cuts around the back to enter the building by the cafeteria.
--
“So,” Annie says, dragging out the oh. “What are you doing?”
“Making signs.” Troy sets the gold glitter pen down carefully on the table before lifting his head to look up at her. “Do you need us to move?”
The kitchen table is completely covered, as is the floor of the shared living area and, Annie would venture to guess, all surfaces of the blanket fort.
“It’s okay,” Annie says. She’s trying to be careful with money, so for dinner she’s having a peanut butter sandwich: nothing she can’t eat standing up.
“Do you want to help?” Troy asks.
She’s tempted. More than tempted, if she acknowledges the little flutter she gets in the base of her throat at the idea of being included. Troy and Abed and Annie making signs.
Troy waits patiently while Annie stands, hesitant, her stupid sandwich getting smushed between her tight fingers. It’s hard to be roommates with Troy sometimes because she still has an instinctive reaction to say, yes, Yes! every time he asks her something.
But Abed has been wearing the same outfit for the past three days, and the holes he cut in his jeans are starting to look legitimately frayed. There’s a very serious air to the sign making, and Annie can’t do serious right now. She can’t do social responsibility and spark the collective consciousness. She can’t even figure out what she’s going to do for lunch tomorrow.
And how do jeans with holes help to make him one of the people, anyway?
“Maybe later,” she says, giving Troy a little shrug.
--
Britta doesn’t come over as much now that her will-they-won’t-they with Troy has landed firmly on won’t. But Troy is camped out at the school, so more than that it is surprising that Britta came over when Annie asked if she wanted to watch a movie because the last time they tried, it didn’t go very well.
Probably it was Annie’s fault for trying to put on Pretty Woman that first time. She will grudgingly admit that Britta has a point on that one, but it took three hours of ranting to get her there. Tonight, Annie plays to her audience and sets up The Devil Came on Horseback, which gets her a very impressed nod even though Britta has already seen it.
Annie goes to the kitchen to get them glasses of water and, when she comes out, Britta is sitting cross-legged on the couch, smiling, like maybe she’s having fun during girls’ night in spite of herself.
Annie sets the glasses down on the table, and sits on the couch without pressing Play on the computer.
“So, another year at Greendale?” Annie asks.
“Yeah,” Britta says, quirking her mouth like, What can you do? Like the obvious answer is not, Pass calculus the first time around.
“Well. That’s okay,” Annie says. “Right?”
“I’m on a journey,” Britta says. “Think about how much I’ve learned already. I’ve found my calling - not a bad tradeoff for an extra year at college. It’s like the universe is making me give back that year I should have been finishing high school.”
“And then you’re going to be … a psychiatrist?” Annie asks. It’s been a struggle for Annie, finding the line between pleasant conversation and nosy interrogation. She just wants to know what other people are planning. What’s next for them? What have they got figured out that she still can’t?
“Technically, I guess I might need a PhD for that,” Britta admits. “But there are lots of ways to help people. I’ll find something in the not-for-profit sector.”
“But don’t you want, you know. The real deal?”
“Whatever you do is real,” Britta says in that soft pitying way she gets, like she knows everything about the world because once she lived in New York.
“I know,” Annie says defensively.
Britta tilts her head and studies Annie with her huge eyes. Taking psychology classes has made Britta stranger, certainly, but she also seems a lot more interested in connecting one on one with people now, which is probably why she’s here with Annie instead of camped out at Greendale with Troy and Abed. Although that’s probably where she’ll be heading once they’re done.
“What are you doing next year?” Britta asks.
“Erm,” Annie says. “That’s the question, right?” Her voice gets high and sing-song, but it sounds less playful than she would have liked.
“You should travel,” Britta says, eyebrows rising with excitement. “A month backpacking across Europe will change everything for you.”
“How will that change anything?”
“You’ll have been to Europe. Backpacking!” Britta says. She’s got a bit of a crazed look on her face, but that’s more common than not.
“I don’t have any money,” says Annie. “That’s kind the problem.”
“You don’t need money, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You can hitchhike, and you’ll make friends, and everyone has a spare couch.”
“That does not sound safe.”
“Where has safe got you?” Britta asks.
“Hey,” Annie says, before deciding that it would be better to pretend not to be offended and smooths out her face. Just because her life is in shambles doesn’t mean that Britta’s going to change.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Britta says, pivoting around on the couch so that she can look Annie in the eye, tilting her head earnestly. “It’s just - you’re so young. You still have so much time to learn about yourself.”
“I don’t need to learn about myself,” Annie says, forgetting to pretend to play it cool. “I need to learn how to get a job.”
“Annie,” Britta starts, but Annie cuts in with, “Better start the movie, right?” and leaps off the couch to hit the spacebar on the laptop.
--
Occupy Greendale builds momentum quickly and, by the time classes finish, Abed is sleeping in a tent in a sea of another hundred tents scattered around the quad and only coming back to the apartment to shower, play in the Dreamatorium, and eat butter noodles.
He's actually at the apartment a lot.
But when Abed's gone, Troy's gone, so Annie is spending more time alone than she's used to. Which is fine. She lived by herself for a couple years, she knows how to be alone. Except that there's a week with no classes where she's supposed to be studying for finals, and it turns out that facing the extreme uselessness of one's endeavors is not actually great motivation.
And it's still really hard to get an interview with zero work experience and a community college degree. May's rent is due, which is okay, she's got that money in the bank. But once that cheque is cashed, her bank account will be under one hundred dollars.
Annie pulls out her economics textbook, case of highlighters, and makes herself a cup of tea. She's got everything she needs, but alone in the apartment there's no way that she can pretend that the reason why she's not getting anything done is because Shirley is passing around a plate of brownies or Pierce is being racist or Jeff is wearing that slinky grey cardigan.
She slams her book shut, packs up her supplies in her nylon messenger bag, and heads out of the apartment in search of a better place to study.
She ends up at Applebee's, which is not, actually, a better place to study.
But it turns out that at Applebee's, even with zero work experience and a community college degree, it is possible to get an interview (behind the counter, after the lunch rush, with a manager who is maybe one year older than Annie is) and then get hired.
--
"Well," Annie thinks, tucking the order pad into the front of her apron at the start of her first shift, "this is happening."
--
If she’s got the pay schedule figured out correctly, she should get her first pay cheque eight days after rent is due, having put in three weeks of work, but tips come as a handful of cash at the end of the night, so if she’s careful with that, she’ll probably manage to pull together enough for rent.
It just means that when a three year old throws his glass of milk down the front of her shirt, instead of screaming in his mother’s face, she just smiles tightly and says, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and pats herself down with paper towels in the bathroom.
--
Thursday night and Annie comes home to find Abed on the couch, freshly showered. The door to the bathroom is closed, so she guesses Troy is doing the same.
“Hey,” she says, dropping her keys into the blue bowl by the door and setting her purse on the floor, parallel with her pair of black work shoes.
Abed twists his head around and waves. “You want supper?” he asks. “I made butter noodles.”
“Maybe later,” Annie says. She’s starving after being on her feet all day, but serving food has also made her nauseous, and she thinks she might actually be too tired to eat.
Abed scoots over on the couch, making room for Annie to flop down. He’s rewatching Cougar Town, which means that he’s trying to cheer himself up.
“Tough day of protest?” she asks.
“The Dean came out,” Abed says. He sits motionless but there’s still something anxious about his posture. “He wanted to know our demands.”
“How did that go?”
“Not great,” Abed says. “It’s hard to come up with a concise list of demands using the true method of social democracy. We’re going to be out there for a while longer.”
“Sorry,” Annie says.
“It’s okay. Not sure what I’d be doing instead,” Abed admits. “At least I’m getting good footage.”
“I can get you a job at Applebee’s,” Annie says. “That would go well, I think.”
Abed has started to learn when Annie is teasing, so even though it’s slightly manic, he shoots her a toothy grin.
Troy comes out of the bathroom wearing his boxers, towel wrapped around his neck.
Annie looks down at her feet (angry red dents where her shoes dug in). She can feel Abed shift beside her on the couch.
“That,” Troy says, “was the best shower.”
“Nothing like waiting a week to make you really appreciate the conveniences of modern plumbing,” Annie says. Is Troy going to get dressed now?
He sits down on the armchair. Apparently not.
It’s awkwardly comforting to sit with Abed, silent but clearly deep in thought, and Troy, no guess as to his mood but he’s not wearing a shirt. Her two roommates. If they were the types to talk about such things, she thinks there would be a comradery to their failure to transition to whatever was supposed to come after Greendale.
Instead Abed glares at the TV, waiting for Cougar Town to show him how groups of people connect in a meaningful way, and Annie frets about the ache in her feet.
And, from the half smile Abed gives her when she glances sideways at him, they both studiously ignore the Troy-shaped elephant sitting in the chair, soft grey boxers riding high on his thighs.
--
In the grand scheme of things that she can't talk about with her parents - living with two boys, rehab, kissing a man who is fifteen years older than her - working at Applebee’s rises quickly to the top of the list.
“It’s good, Mom,” Annie says. “I just need a little break from school. Get some life experience, you know?”
“You can always come back home,” her mother says. She’s taking the news that her daughter is a waitress harder than Annie expected, and Annie expected it her to take it pretty hard.
“Uh huh,” Annie says, and chews on the back of her thumb. That’s certainly in the top twenty list of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ways that this could end, but it’s an ever growing list.
--
“Okay, so as we move along the production possibility frontier, a wheevel becomes a widget and no one gets to eat coconuts.”
Annie looks up from where she’s been staring blankly at her notebook, dotting the paper with ink splotches as she rests her pen on different spots.
“Are we back to the coconuts?” she asks. “I thought that was for efficiency and budget lines?”
“There are always coconuts,” Jeff says, colour rising to his cheeks. Angry is not a bad look on him. Law was a good choice of professions.
“Should we just call it a night?” Annie asks, and Jeff’s face morphs into concerned and then quickly into blank, like he can’t let his facial expression rest too long on caring, even when it’s just him and her in the room.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Just doesn’t seem like we’re getting a lot done.”
“The economics final is in three days, Annie,” says Jeff. “Shouldn’t you be staking out territory in the library? Preparing to spend the night with your textbook?”
Annie shrugs. It’s like - she does care, she does. But she’s seen how other people look when they blow off classes, and it’s easier to imitate that right now than to go through all the motions of being herself.
Jeff is wearing a white t-shirt with a very loose neck. She can see the blunt line of his collarbones, but even though she pulled her hair free of a ponytail half an hour ago, Jeff hasn’t started the shuffle down the table, hasn’t come up with an excuse to move beside her. It’s just the two of them in the study room and if he came closer, Annie thinks she would probably - she might. It’s a bit hazy, any of the specifics, but she can imagine putting her hands on his shoulders. The wanting is only low-grade and it feels more like boredom than anything else.
Losing interest in school has been great for her sex drive. There are a lot of hours in the day to daydream when she’s just staring blankly at the page in front of her.
“I’ll drive you home,” Jeff says, his face soft in a way that it’s usually not.
“Thanks,” Annie says. Not having to bus home is the next best thing to ill advised makeouts with Jeff.
--
Walking into the gym to write her last final brings about this sick feeling of dread, because even after the torture of trying, and failing, to study, opening the exam booklet and realizing that she doesn’t know the answers still brings that terrifying fear, hitting her right in the solar plexus.
It’s doesn’t matter now, it doesn’t matter now, it’s too late, except Annie still doesn’t know how to let go of the horror that she’s failing an exam.
But she has a shift right after, so she can’t even sit the entire three hour exam period because she has to be at work by five. So she turns in her exam booklet, walks out of the gym, walks away from Greendale - dodging between the tents spread across the campus - and catches the bus. It’s the last time she’ll ever go to school, the last final she’s going to write. If Jeff were sitting beside her, she would say, “If only this hoodie were a Time-hoodie,” and he would roll his eyes, but he’d get it.
Or maybe - not really, because she didn’t even see him writing the exam. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he passes his classes: he’s already got everything lined up. She and Jeff end up being on opposite ends of the same thing more often than she would care to admit.
Work is work is work is work is fine, she knows how to get through a shift. Knows how to keep her head down when she walks back to the bus, finds a seat as close to the driver as possible for the ride back, and flies the rest of the way to the apartment.
Abed is home when she walks through the door.
“Where’s Troy?” she asks, setting her shoes together and hanging her bag on its hook.
“At Occupy,” Abed says. “I needed a new camera lense. I’m going to get some shots of the crowds.”
“You don’t keep all your gear over there?”
“Gets dirty.”
Annie nods, and then watches as Abed crouches in front of his camera bag, pulling out lenses with long, careful fingers.
“And then you’re going back?” she asks.
“Yup,” Abed says.
That’s fine. Annie could just go with him, if she really wanted to. There would be a sleeping bag for her in one of the tents, she’s sure. But she doesn’t want to camp out on campus, she doesn’t want to go back to campus. She finished.
“Hey, Abed,” Annie asks, “how’s it … going?”
“What’s it?”
“The movement, being done finals, you know.”
“Good, good, and no I don’t.”
“You’re just going to play this out?” Annie asks.
“Stand my ground,” Abed corrects. “And, yes. I think we’re making process. We’ve got different stations now, so there are three hot meals a day, a communal library. It’s evolving.”
“Cool,” Annie says.
“Cool,” Abed agrees. “Cool, cool, cool.”
So, he’ll go back to Occupy and Annie will just ... find something to watch on TV, probably. This is not how she would have imagined her last day of school back when she first enrolled in Greendale, but then nothing is much like she imagined when she first registered.
It’s too bad that none of them have enough money to keep alcohol in the house. This feeling is probably why people choose to get drunk by themselves.
Annie feels a little drunk even without, like the exhaustion has lowered her inhibitions. Maybe she could give someone a call, find somewhere to go tonight - a place that costs zero dollars and is easily accessible by bus.
“Found it,” Abed says, putting something into his shoulder satchel and clearing the rear of his gear away.
Annie sets her teeth into a smile and gives Abed a thumbs up, which he returns unironically.
Abed looks very tall and lean right now, his cloth bag hanging at his hip, his worn jeans sliding low. He looks like someone who could unite a hundred students to take a stand against their community college, and he’s standing right in front of her. Annie thinks, oh, thinks, this is why Shirley warned against boys and girls living together.
For a second she thinks - but no.
And then, why the hell not?
Abed is drumming his fingers absently against the side of his leg. She could maybe take her hair out of its ponytail and see how that went but, knowing Abed, that won’t be enough. So. She’s just going to, she’s just going to.
Annie clears her throat and tries to keep her voice even as she says, “Do you want to - have sex?”
“Hm,” Abed says.
“And what does that mean?” Annie says.
“Nothing,” Abed says. “I just didn’t expect this.”
“Never mind,” Annie says. “Forget I said anything.” She’s not sure why she thought that would work, but the wrenching twist in her gut feels mostly like embarrassment and also a good part like disappointment.
“I thought you’d ask Troy,” Abed says.
“Why would I ask Troy?”
“You had a crush on him in high school. It would be a powerful symbolic act, taking something you always wanted but were too afraid to go after and using it as a catalyst for forward growth. The simultaneous holding onto and letting go of the past.”
“This isn’t a symbolic act,” Annie says, “it’s a literal act. A... sexual act,” she hisses. This conversation is terrible, but also: did she really think there was any other way it could go?
“So that’s why you asked me. You want to avoid any complicated emotional repercussions.”
“I didn’t ask you because I wanted to analyze this to death,” Annie says. “I thought you were used to girls approaching you.”
“I am,” Abed says.
“So? Are you... saying no?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re saying no?”
“No, I’m saying yes.” Abed looks her right in the eye and gives, what counts for him as, a subtle wag of his eyebrows. It makes the yes sound like yes and Annie feels the shame wash away with a long wave of relief.
“Oh,” Annie says. “Okay then. Like. Now?”
“You asked me,” Abed says. “When were you thinking this would happen?”
“Now, I guess,” Annie says. She looks over at Abed, pulls down the hem of her cardigan and sets her shoulders back. “Maybe it would be easier if you pretended to be Han Solo again.”
Abed pulls his bag off and sets it down on the armchair. “I told you, babe. Once I’m dead, I’m dead.”
She should be embarrassed for him, but instead it just makes it easier to cross the room and throw her arms around his neck. Abed is bony and taller and she can feel the heat of his body under the soft material of his t-shirt.
He kisses her the way she wants to be kissed, putting his hands on her hips and leading her backwards until her back is up against the wall. She rises up on her tippy toes and rocks up when he pushes his leg between her thighs.
Already her face feels flushed, and it takes her a minute to form a coherent thought when Abed mouths under her jaw and whispers, “This is what you want, right?”
Annie says, “Yeah,” her breath hitching in the back of her throat , but then they trip over each other while trying to hop up onto her bed and Abed lands with an, ooph, and blinks up at her - 100% Abed as he waits to see what she’s going to do next. She just pulls her sweater over her head without undoing the buttons. She leaves her bra on, slides her underwear off without removing her skirt, and settles in Abed’s lap.
And then it’s less about Han Solo and more about getting Abed’s dick out, finding a condom and watching Abed’s fingers as he rolls down the rubber.
It hurts when she sits on top of him, like maybe they should have slowed this down. She holds her breath and waits out the sharpness, the throbby, crampy feeling when she’s all the way down. When he’s all the way inside.
Abed is silent and so, so still, looking up at her with his huge eyes. She almost feels embarrassed - she wanted this and it should be easier. She should be able to take what she wants. But Abed is so quiet beneath her, just the soft pressure of his hands holding her carefully around her waist. Moving up and down too much brings the sharp feeling back, but rocking back and forth is okay, just grinding down against him and letting the ache swell into something hot and alive.
“I’m not very good at this,” she whispers, finding that she’s out of breath even though they’re hardly moving. She had sex with her boyfriend in high school, and then a couple of times with Vaughan, but not like. Not a lot. Not enough for sex to feel natural or like anything other than this surreal thing that is completely removed from the rest of her life.
“Feels good,” Abed says. She can see the flash of indecision on his face and then he reaches up and cups her breasts, grabbing a little too hard but he’s got big hands and the feeling of them makes her thighs tremble.
This probably isn’t what sex is supposed to look like, but Abed’s hands on her breasts, even over the thick fabric of her bra, and the slow rocking back in forth ratchets up the tension enough that Annie pushes her hand underneath her skirt and rubs herself off, Abed’s hands moving to her hips to hold her when she starts to shake. She comes in this terrible wave, huffing out the last of her breath and then opening her mouth soundlessly when she can’t find the air again. Abed’s dick is all the way inside of her and her hips are moving all of their own accord, grinding down against him. She curls in on herself, her fingers sliding against the sudden wetness and she has to move her hand away because she’s sensitive, she’s so sensitive now.
Annie shivers. She’s still got Abed’s dick inside of her and it feels more intimate now. More intense now that she’s rocked herself to orgasm in front of Abed, now that he’s seen her come. She’s sweating and the hair that has come out of her ponytail is sticking to her forehead.
“Do you want me to, um. Keep going?” she asks, looking at the pillow instead of meeting Abed’s eyes.
“Yeah,” he says. “Can we, um,” and then they’re rolling around on the bed and Abed is sliding his dick back inside of her.
It’s easier this time; she’s so wet. He slides in and starts moving, and then Abed is fucking her. She’s getting fucked. They’re having sex. This is what it feels like, this is what she’s doing right now.
It’s funny that the first time that sex feels real is with Abed, who’s usually three steps removed from any situation, but mostly it’s hard to think about anything at all.
--
Troy comes home, gives Annie a grin as he walks past her doing dishes in the dishes. He makes it to the main room and it’s not until he sees Abed that he comes to an abrupt stop.
“Oh my god,” he says.
The plate that Annie is holding slides out of her hands, slippery with soap.
She makes frantic eyes at Abed from across the room.
Abed raises his eyebrows, looking back and forth between her and Troy.
“Oh my god,” Troy says again.
“Troy,” Annie starts. That’s really all she’s got.
“You two?” he asks, his voice going high, high, high.
Annie widens her eyes at Abed. Why did you tell him? Even though she knows Abed hasn’t said a word.
“Don’t worry,” Abed says. “We’re just doing a little coming of age sideline. This isn’t going to turn into a Rachel and Ross situation - think more Igby Goes Down.”
“Which one of you is Igby and which one is the overdosing junkie and or Claire Danes?” Troy asks, at approximately 80% full volume. It’s a loud volume. A loud, high-pitched volume of distress.
“I guess archetypically Annie is Igby here, but I admit it’s not a perfect metaphor. I’m still a bit. You know?” Abed gestures vaguely: one of those human emotions, you know?
Troy nods.
“So this is something we do now?” Troy asks.
“Bad metaphors?” asks Annie.
“Sleep with each other.”
Troy is riled up, but he hasn’t stormed off or started ranting about betrayal, so all in all things are going better than expected. Particularly if she ignores Abed, who has started wiggling his eyebrows vigorously in Troy’s general direction.
“O-kay,” Annie says. “Good talk. I’m just going to finish the dishes and think a little harder about some of my life decisions. Over there.” And then she walks back to the sink.
There aren’t that many plates left to clean, but she takes her time, and Abed and Troy are on their way back to Occupy before she finishes at the sink. Her fingertips are pruney and her nails feel soft, malleable. She dries her hands on the dishcloth and then goes for a shower.
--
Having sex with Abed doesn’t make things awkward with him, but for some reason she feels like every conversation with Troy has this undertone.
He's sitting on the couch beside of her, flipping through the small number of stations they actually get. Without Abed there to insist they watch something, all of the shows seem kind of stupid.
"This show is never as funny as I remember it being," Troy says, stopping briefly on a Home Improvement rerun before he resumes channel surfing.
"No," Annie says, though she doesn't much remember watching the show in the first place.
Troy leaves the station on The Great Race and turns the volume low enough that they can’t hear what the contestants are arguing about, so it's just calming background noise.
It's quiet between them and Annie's almost asleep when Troy eventually asks, “What was it like?”
“What?” Annie asks. She’s too tired for this. She didn’t even know there were muscles on the bottom of her feet, but she’s pretty sure she pulled every single one of them. However many muscles there are, she has pulled them all. Walking from the restaurant to the bus was almost more than she could handle, and she would have caved and called a taxi were it not for the fact that she’s still nine days away from getting paid and she currently has seventeen dollars and thirty-one cents to her name. The concrete felt like daggers - like the real fairytale about the Little Mermaid, where the mermaid is given legs but every step she takes feels like she’s treading on swords. She still dances all night with the Prince.
Annie’s not going to be doing any dancing.
“With Abed,” Troy prompts. Annie thinks there might have been a start to his sentence, but she’s zoned out.
“It was nice,” she says dreamily, leaning her head against the back of the couch. Troy is this solid presence beside her. Warm but not hot and stuffy like being back in the kitchen. He’s just kind of warm and a whole lot soft and he smells good.
She pulls off her socks, dropping them on the floor beside the couch, and curls her palm over her toes, hissing a little when the pressure makes her baby toe pop.
“You alright?” Troy asks.
“Yeah, just. A long shift,” Annie says. It was just as long as every other shift, but the amount of time she’s spending on her feet is starting to get to her.
“Here,” he says, reaching for her foot, and it takes her a moment to realize that he means to give her a foot rub, that she’s meant to put her feet on his lap.
“Oh,” she says, breathier than she means to. “It’s okay, you don’t have to.”
“Come on,” Troy says again, covering her ankle with his warm palm and giving a little tug.
She uncurls her legs and puts her feet on his lap, careful to avoid kicking him anywhere - carefully.
He starts to rub and she says, “oh,” again, because he actually knows what he’s doing and his hands working over her aching foot is the best thing she’s felt all day. “That’s really good, Troy.”
“Did some, like, massage stuff for football,” Troy says. “You know, if you’ve ever got a Charlie Horse.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“This okay?” he asks, digging his thumb in a little harder.
“It’s really, really good.”
Troy’s head is dropped, staring intently at his hands working over her feet. He’s got this soft look of concentration on his face, like she’s got 100% of his attention right now. And that feels almost as good as the footrub.
“Have you guys done it since?” Troy asks after a long moment of silence, during which Annie turned slowly in a melty puddle of tired and sunk into the corner of the couch. She tenses up again when she realizes what he’s asking.
“No, just the once.”
“How come?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“If it was good. With Abed. Why haven’t you done it again?”
“I don’t know,” Annie says. “It was just - thing to do. We’re not dating.”
“Right,” Troy says.
“It was just sex,” Annie says. She’s heard other people say that and always thought it was a load, but there’s something kind of fun about finally having the opportunity to say it herself.
“How did you, um. Know he wanted to?” Troy asks, clearing his throat to try to hide the way his voice cracked.
“Abed’s not gay,” Annie says sharply. This is not going to be another source of exclusion between her and them. They already love each other in every other way; there’s no way she would be able to compete and she doesn’t want to. She’s tired of watching everyone else get what they want while she’s left behind.
“I know,” Troy says quietly, working his thumbs over the arch of her feet.
Annie closes her eyes and tries not to moan when Troy hits this, like, long sharp thing in the bottom of her foot that aches all the way up the back of her calf. It throbs like crazy and feels so, so good when Troy presses down.
She takes a slow breath, opens her eyes and says, “I just asked him.” That’s all she can give him. Right now, anyway, when her back is sore from carrying trays of food to tables full of screaming children and men who stare at her boobs when she leans forward and women who send her back to the kitchen three times because the pasta still isn’t warm enough. Annie’s too tired to look after anyone else’s feelings right now, but Troy’s hands feel good, steady as they rub out the cramps, and she says again, “I just asked him.”
“Okay,” Troy says, and he rubs her feet for a long while longer.
--
"I'm fine, mom," Annie says, when her mother mentions that her father could probably get her a job filing at his office. Just on weekends, and Annie's genuinely grateful that she's not in a place where she actually has to consider $6 an hour of charity from her parents.
“You need to figure this out,” her mom says. “You’ve been done classes for ages.”
“I know,” Annie says.
“I knew going to Greendale would be a mistake,” her mother says. “You were so close to going to a real school where you would have had real options.”
She thinks about that sometimes. The end of high school when she wasn’t sleeping more than three hours a night because of the pills and the coffee and how there weren’t enough hours during the day to get everything done. At the time it seemed impossible, but sometimes she wonders if maybe she could have pushed through. Wonders where she’d be now if she’d listened to her parents instead of deciding that she could take care of herself better than they ever could.
“I’m handling it,” Annie says, and no matter what might have, could have been, at least that’s finally true.
--
She starts applying for jobs again, even though it takes at least twenty minutes to write each new cover letter and she never, never, never hears back from any of the places.
--
Sometimes, when she gets home after her shifts, Troy or Abed will be there, making signs, taking showers, sitting glued to the TV. Often they're at Occupy Greendale and she has the apartment to herself.
"Have you figured out your list of demands?" Annie asks on one of the nights when they are home.
Abed pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.
"Sorry," Annie says, because even after all these months it's a touchy subject. Specifically, a touchy subject to which the answer is consistently no.
"We just want it to be better, " Troy says. "That's not - it's hard to articulate."
"But you have a job," Annie says, keeping her tone careful. It's kind of the number one thing that they're not supposed to mention, aside from spoilers for the latest episodes of Elementary and references to the fact that Cougar Town has not been renewed for another season.
And maybe the thing about how Annie and Abed had sex, except Troy still brings that up sometimes.
"It doesn't mean the system works," Troy says. "Air conditioning repair is a separate annex. It's like the, um, the other thing that makes it true."
"The exception that proves the rule," Abed says. "And, anyway, he's only working part time."
Abed's become extremist in his views, where the definition for become is more was always and continues to be. He won't even make eye contact with people wearing suits, but Annie's okay in her waitressing apron and heavy rubber-soled shoes. Troy's okay in the coveralls he wears to his part-time job fixing air conditioners at the rec center.
Which is convenient, because they're also the only ones paying rent this month.
"When's it going to be over?" Annie asks.
"I don't know," Abed says. “Sometimes it’s hard to see the end when you’re still stuck in the middle.”
--
Part Two
Institutional Hegemonics and Introduction to Maturescence
Annie/Abed/Troy | ~12,250 words | R
Things aren’t going according Annie’s plan. The gang graduates.
Huge huge thanks to the amazing fitofpique for betaing and talking to me about this story right from the very beginning.
I started writing this a loooong while ago, so I would say it is neither spoilery for nor especially compliant with the Season Three finale.
“Con-dean-ulations!” the Dean says, poking his head into the study room. He’s wearing a black unitard with navy blue tights and a mortarboard. “Happy two-weeks-left-of-class-and-then-three-month-until-convocation day!”
“Thanks,” Troy says, grinning.
Jeff spins around from staring down the Dean and fixes Troy with a long look.
Troy turns his big grin toward Jeff, who mouths, “Don’t encourage him,” but Troy still waves goodbye when the Dean saunters out of the room.
Annie rests her elbows on the table. She tracks the Dean’s movements down the hall until he disappears past the final window and then she looks back at the table. They’ve got the Economics final to study for but that’s still days away, so Britta, Piece and Troy don’t even have their books out on the table. Annie’s got hers on the table, but it’s closed. There doesn’t seem like much point to studying now.
She sighs.
“What are you going to do next year, Britta?” Shirley asks, drawing Britta out into two distinct syllables.
“Required courses are a way for the academic hegemony to enforce arbitrary ideals in an attempt to brainwash the masses and turn learning into a formalized education process that spits out carbon copies of the same warped brain.”
“Britta will not be graduating this year,” Jeff says, “due to her ingenious protest of the system via failure to complete the required math credit.”
Britta pounds her fist on the table. “This country’s economy is in shambles. It’s a joke, neigh a profound disservice, to teach the same tripe when it’s clearly been demonstrated to oppress the masses and funnel all resources to the dominant ruling class of white men.”
“Weren’t you taking pre-calculus?” Troy asks.
“Taking is such a strong word,” Jeff says. “Implying, for example, actual attending the lectures.”
“Whatever,” Britta says. “I suppose you’ve already got your corner office picked out at soulless, corporate lawyer town.”
“Or, as the rest of us like to call it, MacMurries, Thompson and Steeles.” Jeff crosses his arms. “Yes, Britta. You’ve got me. I did what I came here to do: finished my degree, got admitted to the Bar, and found a job. Now my Italian faucets will once again have a home, and I will once again receive validation for being a douchebag.”
“Validation for being gay!” Pierce says, snorting to himself. “And, speaking of gay,” he turns to Britta, “don’t worry: I’m going to be staying at Greendale as well. We have another year together - study buddies!”
Britta’s eyes widen.
“How about you, Annie?” Shirley asks. “Are you off to grad school? I hope you will won’t forget about me when you’re at a real university learning about the important world of hospital administration.“
Annie looks down at the desk, her hands flattened against the plastic laminate. She presses her lips together before saying, “I didn’t get into grad school.”
The group utters an audible gasp.
“What do you-” Britta starts, while Jeff burst into a stream of, “This is outrageous,” and Pierce starts calling out, “We’ll sue!”
“It’s okay,” Annie says. “It’s just that it turns out there are a lot of classes normally required for healthcare administration that aren’t offered at Greendale, so my degree isn’t officially equivalent to those at other colleges. I need to spend another year upgrading before I can get in anywhere.”
“That’s okay,” Jeff says. “Listen, that’s - this is okay. We’ve been through worse. We just need to rally together, and we’ll get through this.” His eyes get wide and his forehead seems to expand even further upward.
“It’s just another year,” Britta says. “It won’t be that bad.”
“Except that I’m out of money,” Annie says. “And I don’t qualify for a bank loan, and you can’t get a student loan unless you’re a full time student enrolled in a real program, and upgrading classes doesn’t count as full time, and tuition is a lot more expensive at other schools than at Greendale.”
“Oh, Annie,” Shirley murmurs.
“And if I can’t get a real degree, I can’t get a real job, but real degrees cost real money, and I can’t get real money without a real job, and I can’t get scholarships without a real degree, so there are no other options, and I am completely screwed for next year.” Annie’s voice catches on screwed and she clamps her molars down hard on the inside of her cheek, forcing herself to take a breath.
“You were screwed by the institution,” Abed says, nodding to himself, like he does when he’s working out his latest simulation as he and Troy head to the Dreamatorium.
“I guess so...” Annie says. Her eyes still feel a bit prickly.
“We, the masses, have been screwed by the institution. While I didn’t apply to grad school, I also have a bleak future. It turns out there aren’t a lot of jobs out there for film study majors or most of the other majors offered at college.”
The table goes quiet. Troy nods along vigorously as Abed speaks.
“We are the 99%. Oppressed by the institution that has robbed us blind and then thrown into a world that does not want us.”
“Umm,” Annie starts, because she’s learned the signs of Abed getting stuck on something. Three weeks of dodging plastic arrows after they watched The Avengers taught her constant vigilance.
“Occupy Greendale,” Abed says. “It’s perfect: relevant to the greater cultural zeitgeist, specific to our own circumstances. I can get this to go viral. Sundance, I’m coming for you.”
“It’s not Greendale’s fault...” Annie starts.
“We were fed a curriculum of lies,” Abed says. Annie’s not sure which activist he’s emulating, but she can see him gaining momentum. “A promise of a future, a promise of options. Instead we graduate and find ourselves saddled with heavy baggage - student loans, financial uncertainty - and ill-equipped to compete in the global economy. The post-grad life was a fable, and now someone must be held accountable.”
“Okay-y-y,” Annie says. “Well.”
“Annie,” Jeff hisses.
Annie widens her eyes and curls her lips down. She isn’t responsible for Abed.
And anyway, he kind of has a point.
--
Three weeks left to go and then - all the weeks. All the rest of the weeks. It's not a gearing up to summer, it's just a countdown to infinity.
Annie still goes to class, but she’s stopped taking notes and instead sits quietly and tries not to fall asleep. She’s not bereft, but it’s hard to wake up in the morning, hard to fall asleep at night. She stays up late looking at job postings and lies in bed rehearsing what she’s going to say in the interview.
It turns out it’s quite hard to get even an interview when all she’s got is a degree from a community college and no work experience.
It's fine, it's okay. She's got enough for next month's rent and groceries, and then it will still fine but she’ll be out of money.
--
She gave up a long time ago trying to herd Troy and Abed so they can all walk to campus together, but that’s because they have a much looser definition of late and also a different set of priorities in the morning. Annie: showering, hair, outfit, breakfast, collection of last night’s homework. Troy and Abed: broadcast of Troy and Abed in the Morning.
Which is why she’s surprised when she walks across the field to find Abed already in front of the school, holding a megaphone, surrounded by a small but interested crowd of students.
“We. Are. The 99%,” Abed shouts.
Well, Annie thinks, this is happening. And then she cuts around the back to enter the building by the cafeteria.
--
“So,” Annie says, dragging out the oh. “What are you doing?”
“Making signs.” Troy sets the gold glitter pen down carefully on the table before lifting his head to look up at her. “Do you need us to move?”
The kitchen table is completely covered, as is the floor of the shared living area and, Annie would venture to guess, all surfaces of the blanket fort.
“It’s okay,” Annie says. She’s trying to be careful with money, so for dinner she’s having a peanut butter sandwich: nothing she can’t eat standing up.
“Do you want to help?” Troy asks.
She’s tempted. More than tempted, if she acknowledges the little flutter she gets in the base of her throat at the idea of being included. Troy and Abed and Annie making signs.
Troy waits patiently while Annie stands, hesitant, her stupid sandwich getting smushed between her tight fingers. It’s hard to be roommates with Troy sometimes because she still has an instinctive reaction to say, yes, Yes! every time he asks her something.
But Abed has been wearing the same outfit for the past three days, and the holes he cut in his jeans are starting to look legitimately frayed. There’s a very serious air to the sign making, and Annie can’t do serious right now. She can’t do social responsibility and spark the collective consciousness. She can’t even figure out what she’s going to do for lunch tomorrow.
And how do jeans with holes help to make him one of the people, anyway?
“Maybe later,” she says, giving Troy a little shrug.
--
Britta doesn’t come over as much now that her will-they-won’t-they with Troy has landed firmly on won’t. But Troy is camped out at the school, so more than that it is surprising that Britta came over when Annie asked if she wanted to watch a movie because the last time they tried, it didn’t go very well.
Probably it was Annie’s fault for trying to put on Pretty Woman that first time. She will grudgingly admit that Britta has a point on that one, but it took three hours of ranting to get her there. Tonight, Annie plays to her audience and sets up The Devil Came on Horseback, which gets her a very impressed nod even though Britta has already seen it.
Annie goes to the kitchen to get them glasses of water and, when she comes out, Britta is sitting cross-legged on the couch, smiling, like maybe she’s having fun during girls’ night in spite of herself.
Annie sets the glasses down on the table, and sits on the couch without pressing Play on the computer.
“So, another year at Greendale?” Annie asks.
“Yeah,” Britta says, quirking her mouth like, What can you do? Like the obvious answer is not, Pass calculus the first time around.
“Well. That’s okay,” Annie says. “Right?”
“I’m on a journey,” Britta says. “Think about how much I’ve learned already. I’ve found my calling - not a bad tradeoff for an extra year at college. It’s like the universe is making me give back that year I should have been finishing high school.”
“And then you’re going to be … a psychiatrist?” Annie asks. It’s been a struggle for Annie, finding the line between pleasant conversation and nosy interrogation. She just wants to know what other people are planning. What’s next for them? What have they got figured out that she still can’t?
“Technically, I guess I might need a PhD for that,” Britta admits. “But there are lots of ways to help people. I’ll find something in the not-for-profit sector.”
“But don’t you want, you know. The real deal?”
“Whatever you do is real,” Britta says in that soft pitying way she gets, like she knows everything about the world because once she lived in New York.
“I know,” Annie says defensively.
Britta tilts her head and studies Annie with her huge eyes. Taking psychology classes has made Britta stranger, certainly, but she also seems a lot more interested in connecting one on one with people now, which is probably why she’s here with Annie instead of camped out at Greendale with Troy and Abed. Although that’s probably where she’ll be heading once they’re done.
“What are you doing next year?” Britta asks.
“Erm,” Annie says. “That’s the question, right?” Her voice gets high and sing-song, but it sounds less playful than she would have liked.
“You should travel,” Britta says, eyebrows rising with excitement. “A month backpacking across Europe will change everything for you.”
“How will that change anything?”
“You’ll have been to Europe. Backpacking!” Britta says. She’s got a bit of a crazed look on her face, but that’s more common than not.
“I don’t have any money,” says Annie. “That’s kind the problem.”
“You don’t need money, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You can hitchhike, and you’ll make friends, and everyone has a spare couch.”
“That does not sound safe.”
“Where has safe got you?” Britta asks.
“Hey,” Annie says, before deciding that it would be better to pretend not to be offended and smooths out her face. Just because her life is in shambles doesn’t mean that Britta’s going to change.
“I didn’t mean it like that,” Britta says, pivoting around on the couch so that she can look Annie in the eye, tilting her head earnestly. “It’s just - you’re so young. You still have so much time to learn about yourself.”
“I don’t need to learn about myself,” Annie says, forgetting to pretend to play it cool. “I need to learn how to get a job.”
“Annie,” Britta starts, but Annie cuts in with, “Better start the movie, right?” and leaps off the couch to hit the spacebar on the laptop.
--
Occupy Greendale builds momentum quickly and, by the time classes finish, Abed is sleeping in a tent in a sea of another hundred tents scattered around the quad and only coming back to the apartment to shower, play in the Dreamatorium, and eat butter noodles.
He's actually at the apartment a lot.
But when Abed's gone, Troy's gone, so Annie is spending more time alone than she's used to. Which is fine. She lived by herself for a couple years, she knows how to be alone. Except that there's a week with no classes where she's supposed to be studying for finals, and it turns out that facing the extreme uselessness of one's endeavors is not actually great motivation.
And it's still really hard to get an interview with zero work experience and a community college degree. May's rent is due, which is okay, she's got that money in the bank. But once that cheque is cashed, her bank account will be under one hundred dollars.
Annie pulls out her economics textbook, case of highlighters, and makes herself a cup of tea. She's got everything she needs, but alone in the apartment there's no way that she can pretend that the reason why she's not getting anything done is because Shirley is passing around a plate of brownies or Pierce is being racist or Jeff is wearing that slinky grey cardigan.
She slams her book shut, packs up her supplies in her nylon messenger bag, and heads out of the apartment in search of a better place to study.
She ends up at Applebee's, which is not, actually, a better place to study.
But it turns out that at Applebee's, even with zero work experience and a community college degree, it is possible to get an interview (behind the counter, after the lunch rush, with a manager who is maybe one year older than Annie is) and then get hired.
--
"Well," Annie thinks, tucking the order pad into the front of her apron at the start of her first shift, "this is happening."
--
If she’s got the pay schedule figured out correctly, she should get her first pay cheque eight days after rent is due, having put in three weeks of work, but tips come as a handful of cash at the end of the night, so if she’s careful with that, she’ll probably manage to pull together enough for rent.
It just means that when a three year old throws his glass of milk down the front of her shirt, instead of screaming in his mother’s face, she just smiles tightly and says, “It’s okay, it’s okay,” and pats herself down with paper towels in the bathroom.
--
Thursday night and Annie comes home to find Abed on the couch, freshly showered. The door to the bathroom is closed, so she guesses Troy is doing the same.
“Hey,” she says, dropping her keys into the blue bowl by the door and setting her purse on the floor, parallel with her pair of black work shoes.
Abed twists his head around and waves. “You want supper?” he asks. “I made butter noodles.”
“Maybe later,” Annie says. She’s starving after being on her feet all day, but serving food has also made her nauseous, and she thinks she might actually be too tired to eat.
Abed scoots over on the couch, making room for Annie to flop down. He’s rewatching Cougar Town, which means that he’s trying to cheer himself up.
“Tough day of protest?” she asks.
“The Dean came out,” Abed says. He sits motionless but there’s still something anxious about his posture. “He wanted to know our demands.”
“How did that go?”
“Not great,” Abed says. “It’s hard to come up with a concise list of demands using the true method of social democracy. We’re going to be out there for a while longer.”
“Sorry,” Annie says.
“It’s okay. Not sure what I’d be doing instead,” Abed admits. “At least I’m getting good footage.”
“I can get you a job at Applebee’s,” Annie says. “That would go well, I think.”
Abed has started to learn when Annie is teasing, so even though it’s slightly manic, he shoots her a toothy grin.
Troy comes out of the bathroom wearing his boxers, towel wrapped around his neck.
Annie looks down at her feet (angry red dents where her shoes dug in). She can feel Abed shift beside her on the couch.
“That,” Troy says, “was the best shower.”
“Nothing like waiting a week to make you really appreciate the conveniences of modern plumbing,” Annie says. Is Troy going to get dressed now?
He sits down on the armchair. Apparently not.
It’s awkwardly comforting to sit with Abed, silent but clearly deep in thought, and Troy, no guess as to his mood but he’s not wearing a shirt. Her two roommates. If they were the types to talk about such things, she thinks there would be a comradery to their failure to transition to whatever was supposed to come after Greendale.
Instead Abed glares at the TV, waiting for Cougar Town to show him how groups of people connect in a meaningful way, and Annie frets about the ache in her feet.
And, from the half smile Abed gives her when she glances sideways at him, they both studiously ignore the Troy-shaped elephant sitting in the chair, soft grey boxers riding high on his thighs.
--
In the grand scheme of things that she can't talk about with her parents - living with two boys, rehab, kissing a man who is fifteen years older than her - working at Applebee’s rises quickly to the top of the list.
“It’s good, Mom,” Annie says. “I just need a little break from school. Get some life experience, you know?”
“You can always come back home,” her mother says. She’s taking the news that her daughter is a waitress harder than Annie expected, and Annie expected it her to take it pretty hard.
“Uh huh,” Annie says, and chews on the back of her thumb. That’s certainly in the top twenty list of terrible, horrible, no good, very bad ways that this could end, but it’s an ever growing list.
--
“Okay, so as we move along the production possibility frontier, a wheevel becomes a widget and no one gets to eat coconuts.”
Annie looks up from where she’s been staring blankly at her notebook, dotting the paper with ink splotches as she rests her pen on different spots.
“Are we back to the coconuts?” she asks. “I thought that was for efficiency and budget lines?”
“There are always coconuts,” Jeff says, colour rising to his cheeks. Angry is not a bad look on him. Law was a good choice of professions.
“Should we just call it a night?” Annie asks, and Jeff’s face morphs into concerned and then quickly into blank, like he can’t let his facial expression rest too long on caring, even when it’s just him and her in the room.
“Are you feeling okay?”
“Yeah,” she says. “Just doesn’t seem like we’re getting a lot done.”
“The economics final is in three days, Annie,” says Jeff. “Shouldn’t you be staking out territory in the library? Preparing to spend the night with your textbook?”
Annie shrugs. It’s like - she does care, she does. But she’s seen how other people look when they blow off classes, and it’s easier to imitate that right now than to go through all the motions of being herself.
Jeff is wearing a white t-shirt with a very loose neck. She can see the blunt line of his collarbones, but even though she pulled her hair free of a ponytail half an hour ago, Jeff hasn’t started the shuffle down the table, hasn’t come up with an excuse to move beside her. It’s just the two of them in the study room and if he came closer, Annie thinks she would probably - she might. It’s a bit hazy, any of the specifics, but she can imagine putting her hands on his shoulders. The wanting is only low-grade and it feels more like boredom than anything else.
Losing interest in school has been great for her sex drive. There are a lot of hours in the day to daydream when she’s just staring blankly at the page in front of her.
“I’ll drive you home,” Jeff says, his face soft in a way that it’s usually not.
“Thanks,” Annie says. Not having to bus home is the next best thing to ill advised makeouts with Jeff.
--
Walking into the gym to write her last final brings about this sick feeling of dread, because even after the torture of trying, and failing, to study, opening the exam booklet and realizing that she doesn’t know the answers still brings that terrifying fear, hitting her right in the solar plexus.
It’s doesn’t matter now, it doesn’t matter now, it’s too late, except Annie still doesn’t know how to let go of the horror that she’s failing an exam.
But she has a shift right after, so she can’t even sit the entire three hour exam period because she has to be at work by five. So she turns in her exam booklet, walks out of the gym, walks away from Greendale - dodging between the tents spread across the campus - and catches the bus. It’s the last time she’ll ever go to school, the last final she’s going to write. If Jeff were sitting beside her, she would say, “If only this hoodie were a Time-hoodie,” and he would roll his eyes, but he’d get it.
Or maybe - not really, because she didn’t even see him writing the exam. Maybe it doesn’t matter if he passes his classes: he’s already got everything lined up. She and Jeff end up being on opposite ends of the same thing more often than she would care to admit.
Work is work is work is work is fine, she knows how to get through a shift. Knows how to keep her head down when she walks back to the bus, finds a seat as close to the driver as possible for the ride back, and flies the rest of the way to the apartment.
Abed is home when she walks through the door.
“Where’s Troy?” she asks, setting her shoes together and hanging her bag on its hook.
“At Occupy,” Abed says. “I needed a new camera lense. I’m going to get some shots of the crowds.”
“You don’t keep all your gear over there?”
“Gets dirty.”
Annie nods, and then watches as Abed crouches in front of his camera bag, pulling out lenses with long, careful fingers.
“And then you’re going back?” she asks.
“Yup,” Abed says.
That’s fine. Annie could just go with him, if she really wanted to. There would be a sleeping bag for her in one of the tents, she’s sure. But she doesn’t want to camp out on campus, she doesn’t want to go back to campus. She finished.
“Hey, Abed,” Annie asks, “how’s it … going?”
“What’s it?”
“The movement, being done finals, you know.”
“Good, good, and no I don’t.”
“You’re just going to play this out?” Annie asks.
“Stand my ground,” Abed corrects. “And, yes. I think we’re making process. We’ve got different stations now, so there are three hot meals a day, a communal library. It’s evolving.”
“Cool,” Annie says.
“Cool,” Abed agrees. “Cool, cool, cool.”
So, he’ll go back to Occupy and Annie will just ... find something to watch on TV, probably. This is not how she would have imagined her last day of school back when she first enrolled in Greendale, but then nothing is much like she imagined when she first registered.
It’s too bad that none of them have enough money to keep alcohol in the house. This feeling is probably why people choose to get drunk by themselves.
Annie feels a little drunk even without, like the exhaustion has lowered her inhibitions. Maybe she could give someone a call, find somewhere to go tonight - a place that costs zero dollars and is easily accessible by bus.
“Found it,” Abed says, putting something into his shoulder satchel and clearing the rear of his gear away.
Annie sets her teeth into a smile and gives Abed a thumbs up, which he returns unironically.
Abed looks very tall and lean right now, his cloth bag hanging at his hip, his worn jeans sliding low. He looks like someone who could unite a hundred students to take a stand against their community college, and he’s standing right in front of her. Annie thinks, oh, thinks, this is why Shirley warned against boys and girls living together.
For a second she thinks - but no.
And then, why the hell not?
Abed is drumming his fingers absently against the side of his leg. She could maybe take her hair out of its ponytail and see how that went but, knowing Abed, that won’t be enough. So. She’s just going to, she’s just going to.
Annie clears her throat and tries to keep her voice even as she says, “Do you want to - have sex?”
“Hm,” Abed says.
“And what does that mean?” Annie says.
“Nothing,” Abed says. “I just didn’t expect this.”
“Never mind,” Annie says. “Forget I said anything.” She’s not sure why she thought that would work, but the wrenching twist in her gut feels mostly like embarrassment and also a good part like disappointment.
“I thought you’d ask Troy,” Abed says.
“Why would I ask Troy?”
“You had a crush on him in high school. It would be a powerful symbolic act, taking something you always wanted but were too afraid to go after and using it as a catalyst for forward growth. The simultaneous holding onto and letting go of the past.”
“This isn’t a symbolic act,” Annie says, “it’s a literal act. A... sexual act,” she hisses. This conversation is terrible, but also: did she really think there was any other way it could go?
“So that’s why you asked me. You want to avoid any complicated emotional repercussions.”
“I didn’t ask you because I wanted to analyze this to death,” Annie says. “I thought you were used to girls approaching you.”
“I am,” Abed says.
“So? Are you... saying no?”
“Yes.”
“Yes, you’re saying no?”
“No, I’m saying yes.” Abed looks her right in the eye and gives, what counts for him as, a subtle wag of his eyebrows. It makes the yes sound like yes and Annie feels the shame wash away with a long wave of relief.
“Oh,” Annie says. “Okay then. Like. Now?”
“You asked me,” Abed says. “When were you thinking this would happen?”
“Now, I guess,” Annie says. She looks over at Abed, pulls down the hem of her cardigan and sets her shoulders back. “Maybe it would be easier if you pretended to be Han Solo again.”
Abed pulls his bag off and sets it down on the armchair. “I told you, babe. Once I’m dead, I’m dead.”
She should be embarrassed for him, but instead it just makes it easier to cross the room and throw her arms around his neck. Abed is bony and taller and she can feel the heat of his body under the soft material of his t-shirt.
He kisses her the way she wants to be kissed, putting his hands on her hips and leading her backwards until her back is up against the wall. She rises up on her tippy toes and rocks up when he pushes his leg between her thighs.
Already her face feels flushed, and it takes her a minute to form a coherent thought when Abed mouths under her jaw and whispers, “This is what you want, right?”
Annie says, “Yeah,” her breath hitching in the back of her throat , but then they trip over each other while trying to hop up onto her bed and Abed lands with an, ooph, and blinks up at her - 100% Abed as he waits to see what she’s going to do next. She just pulls her sweater over her head without undoing the buttons. She leaves her bra on, slides her underwear off without removing her skirt, and settles in Abed’s lap.
And then it’s less about Han Solo and more about getting Abed’s dick out, finding a condom and watching Abed’s fingers as he rolls down the rubber.
It hurts when she sits on top of him, like maybe they should have slowed this down. She holds her breath and waits out the sharpness, the throbby, crampy feeling when she’s all the way down. When he’s all the way inside.
Abed is silent and so, so still, looking up at her with his huge eyes. She almost feels embarrassed - she wanted this and it should be easier. She should be able to take what she wants. But Abed is so quiet beneath her, just the soft pressure of his hands holding her carefully around her waist. Moving up and down too much brings the sharp feeling back, but rocking back and forth is okay, just grinding down against him and letting the ache swell into something hot and alive.
“I’m not very good at this,” she whispers, finding that she’s out of breath even though they’re hardly moving. She had sex with her boyfriend in high school, and then a couple of times with Vaughan, but not like. Not a lot. Not enough for sex to feel natural or like anything other than this surreal thing that is completely removed from the rest of her life.
“Feels good,” Abed says. She can see the flash of indecision on his face and then he reaches up and cups her breasts, grabbing a little too hard but he’s got big hands and the feeling of them makes her thighs tremble.
This probably isn’t what sex is supposed to look like, but Abed’s hands on her breasts, even over the thick fabric of her bra, and the slow rocking back in forth ratchets up the tension enough that Annie pushes her hand underneath her skirt and rubs herself off, Abed’s hands moving to her hips to hold her when she starts to shake. She comes in this terrible wave, huffing out the last of her breath and then opening her mouth soundlessly when she can’t find the air again. Abed’s dick is all the way inside of her and her hips are moving all of their own accord, grinding down against him. She curls in on herself, her fingers sliding against the sudden wetness and she has to move her hand away because she’s sensitive, she’s so sensitive now.
Annie shivers. She’s still got Abed’s dick inside of her and it feels more intimate now. More intense now that she’s rocked herself to orgasm in front of Abed, now that he’s seen her come. She’s sweating and the hair that has come out of her ponytail is sticking to her forehead.
“Do you want me to, um. Keep going?” she asks, looking at the pillow instead of meeting Abed’s eyes.
“Yeah,” he says. “Can we, um,” and then they’re rolling around on the bed and Abed is sliding his dick back inside of her.
It’s easier this time; she’s so wet. He slides in and starts moving, and then Abed is fucking her. She’s getting fucked. They’re having sex. This is what it feels like, this is what she’s doing right now.
It’s funny that the first time that sex feels real is with Abed, who’s usually three steps removed from any situation, but mostly it’s hard to think about anything at all.
--
Troy comes home, gives Annie a grin as he walks past her doing dishes in the dishes. He makes it to the main room and it’s not until he sees Abed that he comes to an abrupt stop.
“Oh my god,” he says.
The plate that Annie is holding slides out of her hands, slippery with soap.
She makes frantic eyes at Abed from across the room.
Abed raises his eyebrows, looking back and forth between her and Troy.
“Oh my god,” Troy says again.
“Troy,” Annie starts. That’s really all she’s got.
“You two?” he asks, his voice going high, high, high.
Annie widens her eyes at Abed. Why did you tell him? Even though she knows Abed hasn’t said a word.
“Don’t worry,” Abed says. “We’re just doing a little coming of age sideline. This isn’t going to turn into a Rachel and Ross situation - think more Igby Goes Down.”
“Which one of you is Igby and which one is the overdosing junkie and or Claire Danes?” Troy asks, at approximately 80% full volume. It’s a loud volume. A loud, high-pitched volume of distress.
“I guess archetypically Annie is Igby here, but I admit it’s not a perfect metaphor. I’m still a bit. You know?” Abed gestures vaguely: one of those human emotions, you know?
Troy nods.
“So this is something we do now?” Troy asks.
“Bad metaphors?” asks Annie.
“Sleep with each other.”
Troy is riled up, but he hasn’t stormed off or started ranting about betrayal, so all in all things are going better than expected. Particularly if she ignores Abed, who has started wiggling his eyebrows vigorously in Troy’s general direction.
“O-kay,” Annie says. “Good talk. I’m just going to finish the dishes and think a little harder about some of my life decisions. Over there.” And then she walks back to the sink.
There aren’t that many plates left to clean, but she takes her time, and Abed and Troy are on their way back to Occupy before she finishes at the sink. Her fingertips are pruney and her nails feel soft, malleable. She dries her hands on the dishcloth and then goes for a shower.
--
Having sex with Abed doesn’t make things awkward with him, but for some reason she feels like every conversation with Troy has this undertone.
He's sitting on the couch beside of her, flipping through the small number of stations they actually get. Without Abed there to insist they watch something, all of the shows seem kind of stupid.
"This show is never as funny as I remember it being," Troy says, stopping briefly on a Home Improvement rerun before he resumes channel surfing.
"No," Annie says, though she doesn't much remember watching the show in the first place.
Troy leaves the station on The Great Race and turns the volume low enough that they can’t hear what the contestants are arguing about, so it's just calming background noise.
It's quiet between them and Annie's almost asleep when Troy eventually asks, “What was it like?”
“What?” Annie asks. She’s too tired for this. She didn’t even know there were muscles on the bottom of her feet, but she’s pretty sure she pulled every single one of them. However many muscles there are, she has pulled them all. Walking from the restaurant to the bus was almost more than she could handle, and she would have caved and called a taxi were it not for the fact that she’s still nine days away from getting paid and she currently has seventeen dollars and thirty-one cents to her name. The concrete felt like daggers - like the real fairytale about the Little Mermaid, where the mermaid is given legs but every step she takes feels like she’s treading on swords. She still dances all night with the Prince.
Annie’s not going to be doing any dancing.
“With Abed,” Troy prompts. Annie thinks there might have been a start to his sentence, but she’s zoned out.
“It was nice,” she says dreamily, leaning her head against the back of the couch. Troy is this solid presence beside her. Warm but not hot and stuffy like being back in the kitchen. He’s just kind of warm and a whole lot soft and he smells good.
She pulls off her socks, dropping them on the floor beside the couch, and curls her palm over her toes, hissing a little when the pressure makes her baby toe pop.
“You alright?” Troy asks.
“Yeah, just. A long shift,” Annie says. It was just as long as every other shift, but the amount of time she’s spending on her feet is starting to get to her.
“Here,” he says, reaching for her foot, and it takes her a moment to realize that he means to give her a foot rub, that she’s meant to put her feet on his lap.
“Oh,” she says, breathier than she means to. “It’s okay, you don’t have to.”
“Come on,” Troy says again, covering her ankle with his warm palm and giving a little tug.
She uncurls her legs and puts her feet on his lap, careful to avoid kicking him anywhere - carefully.
He starts to rub and she says, “oh,” again, because he actually knows what he’s doing and his hands working over her aching foot is the best thing she’s felt all day. “That’s really good, Troy.”
“Did some, like, massage stuff for football,” Troy says. “You know, if you’ve ever got a Charlie Horse.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“This okay?” he asks, digging his thumb in a little harder.
“It’s really, really good.”
Troy’s head is dropped, staring intently at his hands working over her feet. He’s got this soft look of concentration on his face, like she’s got 100% of his attention right now. And that feels almost as good as the footrub.
“Have you guys done it since?” Troy asks after a long moment of silence, during which Annie turned slowly in a melty puddle of tired and sunk into the corner of the couch. She tenses up again when she realizes what he’s asking.
“No, just the once.”
“How come?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
“If it was good. With Abed. Why haven’t you done it again?”
“I don’t know,” Annie says. “It was just - thing to do. We’re not dating.”
“Right,” Troy says.
“It was just sex,” Annie says. She’s heard other people say that and always thought it was a load, but there’s something kind of fun about finally having the opportunity to say it herself.
“How did you, um. Know he wanted to?” Troy asks, clearing his throat to try to hide the way his voice cracked.
“Abed’s not gay,” Annie says sharply. This is not going to be another source of exclusion between her and them. They already love each other in every other way; there’s no way she would be able to compete and she doesn’t want to. She’s tired of watching everyone else get what they want while she’s left behind.
“I know,” Troy says quietly, working his thumbs over the arch of her feet.
Annie closes her eyes and tries not to moan when Troy hits this, like, long sharp thing in the bottom of her foot that aches all the way up the back of her calf. It throbs like crazy and feels so, so good when Troy presses down.
She takes a slow breath, opens her eyes and says, “I just asked him.” That’s all she can give him. Right now, anyway, when her back is sore from carrying trays of food to tables full of screaming children and men who stare at her boobs when she leans forward and women who send her back to the kitchen three times because the pasta still isn’t warm enough. Annie’s too tired to look after anyone else’s feelings right now, but Troy’s hands feel good, steady as they rub out the cramps, and she says again, “I just asked him.”
“Okay,” Troy says, and he rubs her feet for a long while longer.
--
"I'm fine, mom," Annie says, when her mother mentions that her father could probably get her a job filing at his office. Just on weekends, and Annie's genuinely grateful that she's not in a place where she actually has to consider $6 an hour of charity from her parents.
“You need to figure this out,” her mom says. “You’ve been done classes for ages.”
“I know,” Annie says.
“I knew going to Greendale would be a mistake,” her mother says. “You were so close to going to a real school where you would have had real options.”
She thinks about that sometimes. The end of high school when she wasn’t sleeping more than three hours a night because of the pills and the coffee and how there weren’t enough hours during the day to get everything done. At the time it seemed impossible, but sometimes she wonders if maybe she could have pushed through. Wonders where she’d be now if she’d listened to her parents instead of deciding that she could take care of herself better than they ever could.
“I’m handling it,” Annie says, and no matter what might have, could have been, at least that’s finally true.
--
She starts applying for jobs again, even though it takes at least twenty minutes to write each new cover letter and she never, never, never hears back from any of the places.
--
Sometimes, when she gets home after her shifts, Troy or Abed will be there, making signs, taking showers, sitting glued to the TV. Often they're at Occupy Greendale and she has the apartment to herself.
"Have you figured out your list of demands?" Annie asks on one of the nights when they are home.
Abed pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs.
"Sorry," Annie says, because even after all these months it's a touchy subject. Specifically, a touchy subject to which the answer is consistently no.
"We just want it to be better, " Troy says. "That's not - it's hard to articulate."
"But you have a job," Annie says, keeping her tone careful. It's kind of the number one thing that they're not supposed to mention, aside from spoilers for the latest episodes of Elementary and references to the fact that Cougar Town has not been renewed for another season.
And maybe the thing about how Annie and Abed had sex, except Troy still brings that up sometimes.
"It doesn't mean the system works," Troy says. "Air conditioning repair is a separate annex. It's like the, um, the other thing that makes it true."
"The exception that proves the rule," Abed says. "And, anyway, he's only working part time."
Abed's become extremist in his views, where the definition for become is more was always and continues to be. He won't even make eye contact with people wearing suits, but Annie's okay in her waitressing apron and heavy rubber-soled shoes. Troy's okay in the coveralls he wears to his part-time job fixing air conditioners at the rec center.
Which is convenient, because they're also the only ones paying rent this month.
"When's it going to be over?" Annie asks.
"I don't know," Abed says. “Sometimes it’s hard to see the end when you’re still stuck in the middle.”
--
Part Two