(no subject)
The next thing that he remembered was something on top of his head, nudging at him, and when he opened his eyes, one of the pugs was curled up half on the pillow and half on his head. He pushed at the dog until it moved, making grumpy, yawning noises as it went.
"Jeff's up," Abed said from the living room.
"We made pancakes!" Troy called, then paused. "Well, Annie made pancakes, and we ate them. But we saved you one. But then one of the dogs ate it. I'm not really sure which one, they all kind of look the same..."
"So really," Jeff said as he appeared from the bedroom, "there are no pancakes."
"Not anymore," Troy admitted, a bit mournfully.
The living room, luckily, appeared to remain intact. Mr. Mittens was lying in Troy's lap, seemingly content, while two of the pugs were curled up against each other in front of the TV. The third pug trotted out from behind the bed sheet that separated Troy and Abed's room from the rest of the living room and went to join them.
"Where is Annie?" he asked, looking around.
"Shower," Abed said. "Would you like leftover pizza?"
Jeff's stomach rolled and he shook his head, turning instinctively towards the bathroom. "Annie's in the shower."
"Uh huh," Troy said. "Stop imagining her naked and come watch cartoons."
Jeff made a noise, half scoff, half snort, and thanked God Annie wasn't actually there to hear him makes that most unattractive noise. "I am not thinking about that."
Abed handed him a bowl of Lucky Charms as he walked past Jeff, to his chair. "Of course you are. Come and watch cartoons."
"I don' care abou' your car'oons," Jeff mumbled around a mouthful of cereal, but sat on the floor between them anyway and allowed the pugs to climb into his lap.
"No," he said, holding the dish higher under his chin. "Not for you."
"They need to go out," Troy said absently. "You need to take them out, Jeff. We decided."
"No way," Jeff said. "If they get out they'll run away again."
"Then you're cleaning up after them," Annie's voice floated to him and he looked over his shoulder to see her standing near the door to her room, rubbing at her wet hair with her towel. She was wearing, what looked like, the softest silk robe, which was falling open around one leg, giving him the perfect view of one shapely, cream thigh.
"I should take them outside," he said and his voice sounded loud to his ears. He stood awkwardly and shuffled towards the kitchen with his bowl. "Come on dogs."
He put Mr. Muggles' leash on one, and found two other leashes in a kitchen drawer (along with a random assortment of other things, like bouncy balls, an unopened bag of candy corn, and fifteen green pens). He didn't question the logic.
"You can't take all three by yourself," Annie said, as she watched him try to grab the pugs one by one to leash them. "Troy, why don't you go with him?"
He didn't take his eyes off the TV. "Me? I don't want to."
She sighed, shaking her head. "Abed?"
He pointed at Troy. "What he said."
Annie made a frustrated noise and walked into her room. Jeff assumed she'd given up, and continued trying to hold the pugs still long enough to hook the leash on, when Annie returned in a dress, her hair still damp. "Let's go," she said, motioning for one of the leashes.
"Then you're cleaning up after them," Annie's voice floated to him and he looked over his shoulder to see her standing near the door to her room, rubbing at her wet hair with her towel. She was wearing, what looked like, the softest silk robe, which was falling open around one leg, giving him the perfect view of one shapely, cream thigh.
"I should take them outside," he said and his voice sounded loud to his ears. He stood awkwardly and shuffled towards the kitchen with his bowl. "Come on dogs."
He put Mr. Muggles' leash on one, and found two other leashes in a kitchen drawer (along with a random assortment of other things, like bouncy balls, an unopened bag of candy corn, and fifteen green pens). He didn't question the logic.
"You can't take all three by yourself," Annie said, as she watched him try to grab the pugs one by one to leash them. "Troy, why don't you go with him?"
He didn't take his eyes off the TV. "Me? I don't want to."
She sighed, shaking her head. "Abed?"
He pointed at Troy. "What he said."
Annie made a frustrated noise and walked into her room. Jeff assumed she'd given up, and continued trying to hold the pugs still long enough to hook the leash on, when Annie returned in a dress, her hair still damp. "Let's go," she said, motioning for one of the leashes.
He handed over one of the leashes, feeling vaguely scruffy next to Annie.
"Are you holding onto Mr. Mittens?" she called out and Troy answered that he was. "Let's go then," she said to Jeff and led them outside.
"We need to call the local shelters," Annie said when they reached the street. "Ask if any dogs have been reported missing."
"After the Dean tells us which one is his," Jeff said, trying to untangle the two pugs from their leashes. "He should be back soon, though."
"Good," Annie said, pulling out her phone to text Britta. "Hopefully Britta's back from… whatever she was doing."
"Protesting a pole, I think. Or a tower."
Annie smiled a bit at him. "You know, yesterday wasn't that bad."
"Let's still never do it again," Jeff said, and Annie grinned.
"Definitely not." She hesitated, shifting a bit on her feet. "We could do the hanging out thing, though. You know. Without the dogs."
"Or the demonic cat?"
"It's not demonic," Annie protested. "Just old and sick."
"No cats, Annie," Jeff insisted. "No pets of any kind. No animals at all."
"Well then," Annie said nervously, "wouldn't that be kind of like a date?"
"Would it?" Jeff asked. "Would you want it to be?"
“Would you?” she asked, trying for coy, but she was pretty sure it came out slightly more on the terrified side of things.
Jeff groaned as the dogs got tangled again, stooping to try and separate them. “How do they keep doing this? Are you retarded?” One of the pugs sneezed on his hand, and he cringed.
Annie laughed, still nervous. “Don’t ever get a pet, Jeff.”
“I wanted a dog when I was a kid,” Jeff said, straightening back up. “My mom said that we didn’t have the room for it, though. My neighbor had this golden retriever, Lucky, that I used to play with all the time. I’d hop the fence to his yard and play fetch with him until he kicked me out.”
“We had cats,” Annie said, quieter.
“You seem like a cat person,” Jeff said, tilting his head to the side. Annie actually thought he looked a bit like a pug there, and the thought was so insane that she giggled before covering her mouth. If Jeff noticed, he didn’t say anything. “Yeah. I’d like to go on a date with you.”
She blinked back at him, trying to comprehend his words. “Really?”
“Really.”
The smile she gave him back was blinding.
*
Somewhere between lunch and Mario Kart, Britta showed up. “Hey,” Jeff said, tugging her in quickly before anything could escape out the door. It wasn’t until he was leaning against the closed doorframe that he paused to take her in, with twigs in her hair and what looked like a bruise from handcuffs on her wrists. “How’s the pole?”
“Pole?” Britta asked, frowning back at him.
“Didn’t you save a pole?” Annie asked from the kitchen, and Britta rolled her eyes at Jeff, who thought that was rather unfair.
“It wasn’t a pole, okay? That would be *stupid*. They wanted to tear down a cultural landmark on 36th and put up a high-rise tower in its place.”
Annie appeared from the kitchen with a tray of muffins. “Oh, are you talking about that old house? That thing is an eyesore.” She wrinkled her nose.
“That eyesore was the home to a family of raccoons, I’ll have you know.”
Jeff smirked, reaching to remove one of the twigs from her hair. “Did you save Fantastic Mr. Fox?”
“They were raccoons, not foxes,” Britta said, swatting at his hand. She hesitated. “But no. I tried to move her, but she kind of clawed at me. I choose to believe she saw the inevitable hopelessness of fighting the institution, and chose to give up.”
“Or, maybe she just didn’t like crazy wild animals trying to pick her up?”
Britta swatted at him again until Annie held out a muffin. One of the pugs appeared at their feet, tail wagging. “What’s that?”
“A pug,” Jeff offered.
“That may or may not be Mr. Muggles,” Annie added.
“That’s a stupid name,” Britta said, while Jeff snorted. “Is Mr. Mittens here?”
“He’s with Troy,” Jeff said, nodding to the dreamatorium’s closed door.
Annie moved back toward the kitchen. “Knock first,” she said. “And tell them I made muffins.”
Britta shrugged, but moved toward the room.
"Guys," she said, banging on the door. "Annie made muffins and I want Mr. Mittens back."
She started to open the door, but it was quickly pushed closed in her face.
"No," Troy shouted. "In a minute."
"Troy," Britta said, "I want my cat. I need to go home and get a shower and..."
"You can shower here," Annie said. "And then join us for muffins."
"Are you sure?" Britta asked hesitantly, her hand flying up to her hair. "I'd really like to clean up and eat real food."
Annie grinned and led her towards her room. "Sure, I have towels and a spare robe. You can stay the night."
Britta still looked unsure, but the promise of a shower, clean clothes and warm muffins was just too much.
"Why do you have three dogs?"
“It’s a long story,” Jeff said, nudging her toward the bathroom. “And none of your business.”
“Whatever,” she sighed, and disappeared into the bathroom.
Annie cast a worried eye toward the closed door of the Dreamatorium before stepping over to knock again. “Troy?” she asked.
“In a minute!” he repeated, and she paused.
“There are muffins,” she said, but when Troy didn’t answer, Jeff pulled her over toward the sofa.
Annie kept her eyes fixed on the Dreamatorium. "What are they doing in there?"
"Whatever it is, they're fine," Jeff said. "How much trouble can they cause with just their imagination?"
Annie narrowed her eyes at him. "The fact that you even have to ask that worries me greatly."
Jeff shrugged. "They're locked in a room."
"You don't know what that place does to you," she said. "It's weird."
"It's a room, Annie," Jeff said. "A black room with tape on the walls."
"And Abed's imagination," Annie protested. "You know what that does."
"Spends more time on other planets that it does on this one, yeah," Jeff said. "Stop worrying."
Annie huffed a little and folded her arms. "You don't know what it's like living here."
"Thank God," Jeff muttered.
They didn’t hear the door when Troy and Abed emerged, but Annie gave them a long look as they each grabbed a muffin off the tray. They didn’t look too weird - there were no costumes, no silly string clinging to their clothes. “What were you doing?” she asked.
“Playing,” Troy answered, going for casual, as he settled himself into the chair. Mr. Mittens curled up in his lap, seemingly content.
Abed nodded in agreement, reaching for the remote to change it from the news. “Spoilers,” he said, flipping it over to 16 Candles instead. Annie leaned against Jeff and kept watching them warily, but said nothing.
They stayed like that for some time, the only sound an occasional click-clack of pug nails on the floor or the TV, until Britta emerged from the bathroom. She had a green towel wrapped around her head and was wearing one of Annie’s robes.
“Hey, guys,” she said, moving around into the living room, but she stopped between the TV and the sofa, looking at Troy.
“Can you move?” Jeff frowned, trying to look around her. “Some of us are actually trying to watch TV.”
“Mr. Mittens isn’t trying to kill you,” she said, still looking at Troy with a perplexed expression. He smiled sheepishly back, running his fingers over the cat’s back until he purred.
“Yeah. I think we’re kind of friends now.”
“Or at least not mortal enemies,” Abed clarified. “A truce has been called.”
A smile spread slowly over Britta's face. "Really?"
"Yeah," Troy said. "We had a lot of time to get to know each other. He's not so bad."
Britta settled down in front of Troy, curling her legs beneath her as she reached out carefully to stroke Mr. Mittens. "This is pretty great," she said quietly and Troy smiled to himself.
Annie awwed at them, even as Jeff rolled his eyes. Abed was entirely focused on the TV.
"Do you two want to get a room?" Jeff said.
"Ignore him," Annie said, slapping his leg. "He's just jealous."
"Of what?" Troy said, spinning his chair around to glare at Jeff, still stroking the cat.
"You look like a really lame Bond villain," Jeff said. "I'm not jealous of anything."
"Shut up, Jeff," Britta said, reaching up to touch Mr. Mittens and stroke his head. Annie made another quiet aww noise when she and Troy shared a shy look, until Jeff nudged her.
"Stop staring."
"I'm not," she said, smiling and not taking her eyes off them. "It's just cute."
"Try," Jeff said dryly, as one of the pugs launched itself into his lap and fumbled about until it was comfortable. They spent the afternoon like that, with just the TV and the occasional sound of Abed eating Cheerios for noise.
Around dinner, Jeff was starting to get nervous. "Shouldn't the Dean be back by now?"
"I don't know," Troy said, giving him a hard look. "Isn't that something you should find out when you agree to pet sit? Oh wait. You don't even remember agreeing to pet sit."
"You don't remember agreeing to watch them?" Britta asked, frowning at him from her spot on the floor.
Jeff held up one finger. "First of all, when I agreed, there was only one."
"You're speculating, because you don't actually remember," Annie said.
"You don't remember agreeing to watch Mr. Mittens either, do you? Oh my god, Jeff! You even repeated back to me what I asked!"
He held up a second finger. "Second of all, everyone should just stop asking me to do things when I'm on my phone."
"But that's how we got you to give us that money for the scooter," Troy said, then paused, looking guilty. "I mean… scooter? We don't have a scooter."
"Anymore," Abed clarified. "Troy crashed it."
Troy stared at the ground, sad. "I really thought all those floaties would make it a water-scooter."
"We're going to talk about that later," Jeff said, leaning back.
Britta pointed a finger at him. "You're letting us change the subject. The point is, you forgot about my cat! What if you hadn't been home?"
"I was home, and it all worked out fine," Jeff said, and as though just to spite him, there was a crash from the kitchen and the sound of nails clattering on the floor in their scurry to get away.
"By fine, do you mean how we now have two extra dogs, and you don't know which one is the Dean's?" Troy asked, raising one brow.
"I could make you pay me back for the scooter," Jeff said as he got to his feet.
Troy winced, then smiled, overenthusiastic. "Free puppies!"
"They're not free," Annie sighed, getting to her feet. "The Dean is going to know which one is his, we're going to get the other two back to where they belong, Jeff should really stop texting and talking, Troy and Abed are not going to hit him up for money anymore, and we're all going to behave, because this has been a really long weekend." She disappeared into the kitchen to clean up whatever the pugs had destroyed before anyone could argue with her.
All in all, Jeff was impressed. And maybe a little turned on.
*
Britta had passed out on the floor after spaghetti, and somehow Troy had wound up sitting next to her, with her head in his lap. He seemed scared to move, even though his leg had long since fallen asleep. A part of him really wanted to join Abed in the Dreamatorium again, but the rest of him was really content where he was.
Jeff was just helping Annie wash the rest of the dishes when there was a knock at the door. "Finally," Jeff sighed.
"Guys," Troy whispered from the living room. "Can someone else get that?"
Jeff took a deep breath, and swung open the door. Dean Pelton was leaning against the door frame, looking utterly exhausted.
"Jeffrey," he exclaimed, a little less exuberantly than usual, and with a tired smile. "Thank you for looking after Mr. Muggles. I'm sure he enjoyed his play date with Troy and Abed." He yawned and his eyes fell closed, his head nodding forward before he jerked upright again. "Jeffrey!"
"Dean," Jeff said and then grabbed his shoulder before the guy collapsed. "Why don't you come in for a while?"
"That's very nice of you, Jeffrey," the Dean said. "And please, call me Craig."
"Craig," Jeff repeated, with what he realized was a genuine smile. Craig raised his hand to his mouth, looking a little overwhelmed.
Craig moved inside, and one of the pugs got up from where it had been asleep on the sofa to hurry over and jump at his legs, begging for attention. "Who do we have here?" Craig asked, smiling sleepily as he reached to pet the dog's head.
Jeff hesitated, honestly unsure of whether or not it was the Dean's dog. "A pug," he settled on, and Craig made some noise between a snort and a yawn.
"Well, yes, I can see that."
One of the other pugs ran over, bouncing around at his feet, and the Dean knelt to pick him up. "There's my boy. Did you make some new friends?"
Jeffrey let out a breath he didn't realize he'd been holding. That was one crisis averted, at least.
"Yeah," Jeff said. "These are Annie's dogs. I thought a play date might be nice."
Annie glared at Jeff but then hurried over and smiled at Craig. "Yes. They're mine. This is..." She cast around for a name and blurted out "Celestina."
"Celestina?" Jeff mouthed.
"And Pete," Troy added, before Annie could give another boy a girl's name."
Craig smiled at the pug still sitting at his feet, tail wagging. "Well, it's very nice to," he paused to yawn, "meet you, Celestia." He straightened back up. "I didn't know you had pugs, Annie! We'll have to have play dates more often."
Annie shot Jeff another look, but then just smiled back at the Dean. "Maybe."
Jeff went to fetch Mr. Muggles' banana and his food, and once they'd packed him up and they all said goodbye (except Abed, who was still in another room, and Britta, who thankfully didn't wake up when Troy got up carefully), he was on his way.
"I'm going to miss that little guy," Troy sighed, sitting back down on the floor.
Jeff nodded to Celestia. "Well, that one looks just the same. Play fetch with him."
Annie hit his arm.
"Where's Pete, anyway?" Troy asked, as he pulled Celestia into his lap.
"Oh no," Jeff said, spinning around in a circle. "We are not doing this again." He got down on his hands and knees and started to crawl around, peering under the furniture. "Pete!" he shouted.
"We just gave him that name," Annie said, watching him with her hands on her hips. Jeff thought she was about to start tapping her foot. "He won't come to it."
"Who's Pete?" Britta murmured, frowning up at Troy through narrowed eyes. "I was asleep."
"Pete is Annie's dog," Troy said unhelpfully.
“Annie doesn’t have a dog,” Britta frowned, and Troy just shrugged.
There was a noise from the other room and Jeff stood quickly. “Pete?” he asked.
“I’m telling you, he’s not going to come to that name,” Annie sighed.
Jeff ignored her, moving toward the Dreamatorium. He opened the door, to find Abed and Pete sitting across from each other, staring. It looked a bit like they were waiting to see who would blink first.
The pug lost.
“What are you doing?” Jeff frowned, leaning against the doorway.
“He was lonely,” Abed said, tilting his head to the side. The dog did the same, in mirror action, though its tail began to wag. “I think we’re friends now. I’ve decided his name is Milo.”
“Like Milo and Otis?” Jeff asked, then paused. “Wasn’t Otis the pug?”
“He was,” Abed conceded, tilting his head to the other side. The dog launched itself at him, nudging at his hand, until Abed turned it over. “But Milo was the one always getting himself into trouble.”
Jeff smiled a little. “Milo it is, then.” He closed the door carefully, leaving them to play, and moved back into the living room.
“Well?” Annie asked, hands still on her hips.
“I’m pretty sure you’ve got two pugs now,” Jeff said, collapsing onto the sofa. A wave of exhaustion hit him. “And Pete is now Milo.”
“Like Milo and Otis?” Troy asked, sounding a little too exhausted. He paused. “Wait, wasn’t Milo the cat?”
Jeff shrugged. “Abed logic,” he said, reaching for Annie’s hand. “How do you feel about becoming a dog owner?”
“They might have homes,” Annie said slowly, even as she sat down beside him. “People looking for them.”
“Did they have collars?” Britta asked as she sat up, yawning.
"No," Annie said. "But that doesn't mean..."
"So call the shelter," Britta said. "Leave your number. If anyone misses them they'll call, otherwise..."
"Otherwise we have two dogs," Troy grinned. "Awesome. That one needs a new name," he said, pointing at Celestia.
"Why?" Annie asked, affronted. She hugged Celestia closer.
"Because it's a dude," Britta said. "Is there any food?"
"There are muffins," Jeff said. "There were muffins."
Annie lifted Celestia up and gasped. "Oh. Okay. He needs a new name."
"I'm hungry," Britta said, yawning.
"I can get you something," Troy said, smiling as he brushed her hair out of her face.
"Oh God," Jeff sighed. "You two really need to get a room."
Troy and Britta laughed nervously. “A room?” Troy asked, getting to his feet. “Why would we need a room? We have a room. We’re in the living room. See, room’s right there in the name!”
“Yeah, Jeff,” Britta scoffed, while he rolled his eyes again.
“Just make out already,” he sighed, and Troy and Britta exchanged nervous looks and laughs again. “He even made friends with your demonic cat for you.”
“He’s not demonic!” Troy said quickly, and Britta cast one hard look at Jeff before smiling at Troy.
“I really am glad you two are friends now.”
He rubbed the back of his neck, smiling sheepishly. “We just needed to get to know each other better, that’s all.”
“Oh my god,” Jeff sighed, throwing a pillow at them. Annie elbowed him, hard, when Troy finally disappeared into the kitchen.
"Shut up," Britta hissed.
"Now I know why the cat was so badly behaved," Jeff said. "Bad parenting."
"I will hurt you," Britta warned, but Jeff ignored her.
"Go cuddle in the fort or something," he said. "You know you want to."
"You're an ass," Britta said and jumped up. "I am going to the blanket fort, but just to get away from you."
"Sure," Jeff drawled. "Try to keep the noise down." He started to laugh as Britta whirled away, but it stuttered to a halt when he caught the look Annie was giving him.
“Do you have to be such an ass?” she sighed, hitting his arm again. “All the time, anyway. Maybe I don’t want to go on a date with you.”
“An ass would not have relived Adventures in Babysitting this weekend for his friends.”
“You only did that because you lost them!” she snapped, then pointed a finger at him. “And don’t you dare tell me again that I lost them.”
“Fine,” Jeff said, leaning back. “There is a vague possibility that I may have been partially responsible for their escape.”
She shook her head at him. “You’re such a lawyer,” she muttered, even as she leaned her head onto his shoulder. “You’re going to help take care of these dogs.”
“Are you sure you want me to?” Jeff asked. “My track record should prove that I’m not very good with live animals.”
“You did fine, aside from the losing them part,” Annie said. “And it’d be kind of like you’d have a dog of your own. It’s not a golden retriever, I know.” She nodded to Celestia, who was curled up at the other end of the sofa. “You want to name him?”
“Lucky,” Jeff answered, a little too quickly, judging by the smile on Annie’s face. She reached for his hand nervously and squeezed it.
“Fine,” she said, putting on a dramatic sigh. “I guess I will still go on a date with you.”
Jeff smiled, as Lucky snorted from the other end of the sofa.
*
It was a week before they actually managed to have their first date. Annie was taking summer classes, so her days were filled, and even though they’d hung out at the apartment watching Troy and Abed play video games while they played with the dogs (who so far, did indeed seem homeless, if the lack of calls from the shelter was anything to go by), but those weren’t dates.
“Hey,” he said, leaning against the doorframe when she opened it. “You look really nice.”
Annie smiled and did a small twirl for him. “You better be taking me somewhere nice. Britta said you took her to a date once at McDonalds.”
“I paid for her,” Jeff said, like that somehow made up for it. They shared a smile anyway.
“Get a room!” Britta shouted from her position on the sofa, where she and Troy were focused on some war video game.
“Focus,” Troy said, nudging her gently. “Or you’re going to shoot me aga- Dammit, Britta!”
“I’m sorry,” she sighed.
Jeff snorted and shook his head. “Are you ready to go?” he asked, stepping into the apartment and closing the door behind him.
“Just about,” she promised, and hurried to put on her shoes.
While he stood there waiting, there was a knock behind him.
“You should get that,” Abed said from where he sat in the chair, pointing a spoon at Jeff. “Because we’re comfortable, and don’t want to.” Milo was curled up in his lap, and to be fair, they did look particularly comfortable.
Jeff rolled his eyes, but opened the door to reveal Leonard, holding a shoebox.
“Leonard?” Jeff asked, uncertain. “What the hell are you doing here?”
Leonard frowned at him and pushed the shoe box into his hands. “You said you’d watch my turtle tonight, Winger. I have a hot date with Ethel.” He straightened up after, smiling.
Jeff looked from the shoe box to Leonard again, still frowning. “Why would I do that?”
“How should I know?” Leonard frowned at him. “I almost didn’t hear you were going to be here tonight. It’s lucky I did.”
“We get a turtle?” Troy asked, dropping the controller and moving over quickly to take the shoe box from Leonard. “I love turtles!”
By the time Annie joined them, Leonard had disappeared, and Troy was cradling the turtle in his hands. “What’s that?” she asked, stopping dead in her tracks.
“A turtle,” Troy offered, holding it out to her. “I’m going to name him Leonardo!”
“You don’t get to keep every pet that you babysit,” Jeff said, but Troy ignored him.
"Did you do this?" Annie asked Jeff with barely contained rage. "On our date night?"
"I swear I don't even remember talking to Leonard this week," Jeff said. "Why would I screw myself?"
Britta seemed about to launch into an extended rundown of exactly why, when Abed said "Uh oh."
"Uh oh?" Jeff said. "Uh oh?"
"I may have told Leonard what happened last time," he said. "And I may have said Troy loved turtles."
"I do love turtles," Troy agreed.
"And did you tell Leonard I'd look after the turtle tonight?" Jeff growled.
"Maybe," Abed said. "Sometimes I lose track in the middle of conversations."
"Abed..."
"It's fine," Annie said, tugging on Jeff's hand. "We can still go out. Abed can watch the turtle."
"Exactly," Troy called, still looking fairly giddy. "How much trouble can one turtle cause?"