Fic- 5 Ways Annie & Jeff Might Spend Her 21st Birthday- Way 1
Title: 5 Ways Annie Might Spend Her 21st Birthday- Way 1
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2305
Disclaimer: This show and it's characters are not mine.
I started writing an Annie birthday fic, and then got a 2nd idea and then realized I could make this into an entire series. I'll post them as quickly as I can. They range from short and sweet to angsty to ridiculous to over-the-top.
“She is so cute,” Annie murmured to herself as she pulled her other leg up onto the couch. She crossed them under her, indian style before turning the volume up and setting the remote back down. On the television screen, Betty strutted down a street in Queens, her new horrifying makeover in place. “How can people not see how adorable she is?” she asked no one. There was a level of sadness in the fact that Annie didn’t even have a cat to talk to in cases like this.
Once she’d gotten home from school that afternoon, Annie had showered and slipped on her most comfortable pajamas and curled up on the couch with season one of ‘Ugly Betty’ on DVD. Her cell phone sat on the scarred coffee table she’d found in the alley behind the building, set to vibrate and completely ignored every time it rang. So far she had ‘missed’ calls from her father, her grandmother and her friend Colby from rehab. Annie was just biding her time, waiting out the night. Tomorrow would be better. It would have to be.
As if her phone knew she was thinking of it, it gave a short shudder. She had a text message. Picking it up cautiously, Annie realized it was from Jeff. She flipped it open with a sigh.
Do you have the answers for the anthro hw?
Of course he was looking to copy off her work for class. Annie shook her head to herself and paused the DVD before answering his text.
I read them to everyone this afternoon. U should pay more attention.
She flipped the phone closed again and placed it back on the coffee table before picking up the comb that sat next to it. She hit play on the remote and began to carefully part her hair. Half her hair was pulled over her shoulder and she began to braid it tightly into a pigtail. Her phone vibrated again, but she let it sit there ignored until she had finished her pigtail. When she had secured the end with a band, Annie finally picked up the phone again.
Pull the stick out- ur acting like britta. ill ask shirley.
Annie exhaled, irritated. She rose from the couch and walked the short distance to her fridge and pulled out a beer that she’d bought with her own ID on the way home earlier. She was home alone on her twenty-first birthday, sadly watching a five year old DVD set from a series that had been cancelled and braiding her hair as she sat in pajamas that she bought at Target.
Her life was really this sad.
Her phone vibrated again, this time it was a call. Annie leaned forward and picked it up. Jeff was calling. Annie rolled her eyes and thought about sending it to voicemail before she flipped it open.
“Hello,” she said as pleasantly as she could.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone it was your birthday?” Jeff asked, his accusatory tone making Annie flinch.
Annie sat up straighter, surprised. “Who told you?” she responded.
“Shirley heard from Garrett who was told by Leonard who saw Ferris pass out at Thirty-One Flavors,” Jeff replied sarcastically.
“Jeff…” Annie sighed, not in the mood for his ‘look how cute I am’ schtick tonight.
“Annie, all last winter you bugged me about accepting your friend request. Now you’re surprised that I finally did?”
She sighed and relaxed back against the cushions. She had almost made it the entire day. When she’d woken up that morning, Annie Edison had been in as good of a mood as she ever had been. It was only when she had managed to make it through the first half of her day without even a mention of what the date was that she’d started to sour toward the idea altogether. By the time she’d left study group and walked to her car in the parking lot, Annie had decided that birthdays kind of suck and this was why adults always pretended they didn’t exist in the first place.
“I…didn’t think it was a big deal,” Annie answered after a moment’s pause.
Jeff chuckled on the other end of the line. “You make everything into a big deal.”
Annie sighed and took a sip of her beer. “Yeah, but people who make a big deal of their own birthdays are jerks.”
“True,” Jeff replied. “But you could have at least mentioned it. Like ‘if anyone was wondering, it is in fact a milestone in my life today’.”
“Yeah, that sounds jerky,” Annie retorted in into the receiver. “Did you really just call to chastise me?”
“I don’t need your standardized test vocabulary, Edison,” Jeff shot back. “So, what are you doing tonight?”
“Um,” Annie stalled, trying to come up with a really exciting-sounding lie in a matter of seconds. “I’m watching television?” Okay, so she wasn’t good on her feet. “And then I’m going to eat a frozen pizza.”
“What?” he asked incredulously. “Annie, you can’t spend your twenty-first birthday alone in your apartment eating frozen pizza. Come on, let’s go out.” Annie frowned to herself. “I’ll call everyone.”
“Please, no.” Annie felt her voice grow strong surprisingly quickly. “Troy’s birthday was a terrible night.”
“It wasn’t so bad,” Jeff defended feebly.
“You think that because you were drunk,” Annie replied as she took a long pull from her beer bottle. “But trust me, it was just a long sad evening.” Her mouth quirked up sadly. “My plan is just to quietly get a year older.”
“When did you get so jaded?” he asked, laughter in his voice.
Annie’s answer was out of her mouth before she had a chance to think about it. “I guess I spend too much time with you.”
There was a moment of silence on the other end of the phone.
“Jeff?” she questioned cautiously.
“I’m here,” he answered in a detached tone. “Annie, you know that when I-”
“I’ll see you tomorrow, okay?” Annie cut him off.
He paused. “Yeah, okay.”
“Night,” she said quietly.
“Night,” Jeff echoed before Annie ended the call.
Annie laid her head back against the couch and sighed. Okay, so she probably should have sent him to voicemail. There was no reason to give him such a guided tour of her fragile psyche. She started the DVD and the characters sprang to life on screen. Annie allowed herself to get sucked into the world of Mode while braiding her other pigtail. Just as she was finishing the first disc, there was a knock on the door. With a smile, Annie rose from the couch. Ms. Kingsbury, who lived above the bookstore next door had said she was going to stop by with cookies. Annie wrenched the door open without checking the peephole. She realized a moment later that she definitely should have.
Jeff filled her doorway, a smirk firmly in place on his handsome face. In one hand, he held a large brown paper bag. In the other, a small pink box. A cardboard party hat sat crookedly on his head. Annie smiled uncertainly up at him. “Jeff?” she greeted.
“I’m happy to see you too,” he grinned sarcastically as he gestured for her to get out of his way so he could enter the apartment. She stepped back and he entered. Instantly, Annie felt as if she might as well strip off her clothes and show him her oddly-shaped birthmark. Having Jeff in her apartment, where she slept, was completely unsettling.
Her imminent emotional breakdown didn’t phase Jeff at all, as he collapsed on her small couch and glanced fleetingly at the television screen before opening the paper bag on her coffee table and began pulling cartons out of it. “Okay, so I know you like something chicken,” he began as he pulled several containers from the bag. “I just couldn’t remember which kind, so I got like four different ones.” He held out a pair of wrapped chopsticks toward her and Annie slowly moved toward her couch, watching him with a wary gaze.
“You brought me chinese,” she stated as she gingerly dropped into the empty space next to him.
“You didn’t eat, did you?” he asked, glancing toward her kitchen area.
Annie shook her head. “I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”
“Okay well,” he waved his hand over the top of the feast he’d laid out on her table. “Then yes, I brought chinese.”
She leaned forward and perused the cartons as he opened them for her. She pulled the cashew chicken from his grasp and he met her gaze briefly before picking up a carton for himself and leaning back against her cushions. “Okay, so what are we watching?”
“’Ugly Betty’?” Annie answered hesitantly.
Jeff nodded. “This is the show where they put glasses on some hot girl and we’re supposed to pretend she’s not hot, right?”
Annie let out a breathy chuckle. “Something like that.”
He turned his head to look at her. “Nice pigtails, by the way.”
She tried to speak around a mouthful of chicken, but settled for giving him a dirty look. He chuckled as she chewed and swallowed quickly. “Thank you.”
“How old are you again?” he asked with a smirk.
“Seven,” Annie responded sarcastically as she dug through her food to pick out the cashews. When she glanced up at him, Jeff was looking at her thoughtfully. Annie blinked at him several times.
“Hey,” he started, seeming concerned about his words. “What you said earlier about being jaded because you spend so much time with me?”
Annie shook her head. “Jeff, I was just…” She shrugged in a non-committal fashion. “I just didn’t have a very good day.” She gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry if I made it sound like I was blaming you.”
Jeff sat forward and placed his food on the table before fully turning toward her. Annie bit her lower lip nervously. “Look, I know I give you a hard time for being a kid.” She frowned at him. “And that Zac Efron poster hanging on the wall behind me isn’t exactly helping your case, but…” He sighed. “I think I sometimes confuse your…optimism for naivety.” His mouth quirked up on one side, giving her an contrite smile. “I just…it’s good that you’re able to be…the way you are, so…” He awkwardly patted her flannel-covered knee and Annie watched the way his hand looked touching her, trying to lock it into her memory.
She cleared her throat and set her container down as well. “So, what’s in the box?” Annie asked, nodding her head toward the small forgotten box he’d brought with him. He glanced at it and bobbed his head slightly, as if just remembering it was there. He picked it up and handed it to her. Annie flipped open the top and giggled.
Inside sat an oversized cupcake, smeared with teal frosting and bearing the ‘Hannah Montana’ logo.
“My choices weren’t that great,” Jeff noted, leaning over to look at it. “It was this or Nascar.”
“You made the right decision,” Annie nodded as she pulled the cupcake out of the box. “I’m really not into car racing. At least not the legal kind.” She smiled up at him, but faltered when she met his eye. He was looking at her enigmatically, and it was disconcerting for some reason.
“I’m not singing,” he stated, his eyebrows going up. Annie tried to keep the smile off her face. “I’m serious.”
“Okay,” Annie nodded solemnly. Then, she cocked her head to the side and smiled warmly at him. “Thank you, Jeff.” He rolled his eyes slightly. “This is the nicest birthday party I’ve ever had.”
“That is really sad,” he replied flatly. Annie chuckled at the truth of that statement. “And this is not a party.” He clasped his hands together. “In fact, we don’t have to tell anyone that I came over at all.”
Annie nodded, understanding. “Heaven forbid someone hear that you might actually care about people.” She carefully dipped her finger into the frosting and licked it off. “You want half of this?” she asked, holding it toward him.
“I already ate like three hundred carbs today, so I’m going to pass.” Jeff rubbed a hand across his firm stomach.
Annie shrugged and licked her way around the outside of the cupcake, ignoring the shake of Jeff’s head. “Or is it about it being me?” she asked daringly after a moment’s silence.
“Is what about you?” he asked, his eyebrows furrowing in confusion.
“The whole thing where I don’t mention that you’re a nice guy,” Annie answered, continuing to lick the frosting off the cupcake without taking her eyes off of his face. He swallowed and frowned. “You don’t want to be the guy who brings a young girl dinner on her birthday when she didn’t actually tell him where she lived?” She raised her eyebrows significantly.
“You’re not young,” Jeff answered in a non-answering kind of way. “You’re twenty-one.” He leaned back and put his feet up on her coffee table. “And no one should be alone on their birthday.”
“I’m going to remind you of that on Starburns’ birthday,” Annie shot back with a grin which Jeff returned. Annie relaxed into the couch and when her knee landed against Jeff’s thigh, he glanced over at her.
“Happy birthday Annie.” His voice was surprisingly soft, his face more relaxed than he usually allowed it to be.
“Thank you,” she answered in a voice barely above a whisper. She gave him a tremulous smile before turning her head back to the television set. Neither one of them commented on where her knee was, or the way he casually rested his elbow on it after another hour.
Neither of them spoke of the evening ever again.
Way # 2 http://elsiesnuffin.livejournal.com/9925.html#cutid1