Fic: Diorama, Jeff/Annie
Fic: Diorama
Author: Nakanna Lee
Characters: Jeff/Annie (spoilers for 2.09), largely mentioned ensemble
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: Of the show I own nothing but love everything.
Word Count: 2,300
Summary: Under the blankets with Jeff, Annie flashes back to her summer badminton class.
The blanket fort came down around Annie, and when she turned her head to the left she saw that it had come down around Jeff, too. She wondered whose sheets these were. They smelled like linen and chicken fingers. The last thing probably had something to do with the fact that most fort-goers had raided the cafeteria and smuggled in the good stuff.
Now in her little pocket of sheets everything smelled sort of like Jeff, too, and it was warm and guy-smelling in that fresh and tingly way Jeff always smelled. Their eyes met and then dropped to lips and the second seemed to extend and grow in detail.
With Jeff she always went off-book, always off-script-with debate or with guns. And although it would have struck most people who knew her as out of character, it felt more in character to her, more natural. Spontaneous Annie was relaxed Annie, not the tense bobby-pinned spaz of popped pills that had finally, gradually, given way to buttoned cardigans and clear skin and less neurotic tendencies (although still some).
Annie felt her body slip into disconnect, and as Jeff lifted a hand to her face she closed her eyes and the past summer appeared to her like an intricate diorama of its own: there was summer class and Abed with falafels and tennis shoes for badminton and that chemical fire. And of course those random run-ins with Jeff, only a few but she thought about them so much that there seemed to be more, in hyper detail. She pictured herself gluing tiny figures of the study group onto a painted paper maché replica of Greendale.
She was still picturing it, in its absurd and tiny detail of Pierce’s wheelchair and Britta’s dark roots, when Jeff’s quick, hard inhale made up all the sound in their blanket bubble. His thumb brushed beneath her chin, tilting her face up to his.
***
The summer diorama went like this:
Annie had waited all summer, thinking about Jeff and the kiss. Their latest kiss. Fortunately she had a summer class to distract her. She was taking badminton to fulfill a gym requirement. It was for six weeks and met every Wednesday from noon until three. She tried telling the professor-who was actually the chemistry teacher who carried a lunch kettle filled with fluids he’d combine between sets-that they were playing at the worst time of day. The sun was too sunny. The heat was too hot. Annie had sunburn in thumb-sized patches beneath her eyes, where the shadow from her plastic visor stopped.
The professor ploughed on, oblivious beneath protective goggles, and Annie spent her Wednesdays hitting a birdie over a stretched fishing net (stolen from the boating crew, because Greendale didn’t have tennis courts). There was no intramural field, either, although signs were plastered over the dormant school walls advertising rugby and bocci clubs. All the men were shirtless and looked suspiciously photoshopped. So instead Annie’s class practiced badminton on campus mall, the net strung between trees, on a patchy area of grass the clever Dean had dubbed “The Human Green.”
Then in the last week of July, they only had one class left for their final: A badminton tournament. Annie was confident she’d finish at least in the top three. Most of her classmates were pear-shaped mothers who talked constantly of coupons and their uteruses. Annie spent much of her time smiling awkwardly and nodding. Their chemistry teacher encouraged the class to invite friends and family to the tournament. (Behind him, he’d set the lower level of the bleachers afire. The flames were green.) Annie’s classmates gossiped about who’d be coming from the office and Annie, in a sudden bout of loneliness, decided she’d invite the study group.
She hadn’t seen much of anyone during the summer. So she made a Facebook Group (“Raise a Racket for Racquetball!”--because nothing played off of the word badminton) and invited everyone. It was a virtual failure. According to Facebook, Britta was country-hopping between legal drugs and, as Pierce commented on her wall, “rampant lesbianism,” although with less accurate spelling. Annie had defriended Pierce after he asked in his status, “How do I make a fanpage for Annie’s boobs?” (He repeatedly insisted this referred to the monkey.) Troy was busy with an internet project of seeming epic proportions, although hadn’t yet revealed what it was, just that it involved a lot of hanging out with Pierce. Shirley did respond by writing on the group’s wall, “That sounds nice,” but then qualified that she had to spend her afternoons making tuna fish sandwiches for her boys and cutting the bread sideways, because it was all in the sideways cut that motherly love is shown.
Jeff replied, too. He wrote (and Annie might have memorized it), “make note I will only attend if the losers are ignited by boric acid and antifreeze.” (Jeff typed without punctuation, Annie studied. He probably assumed that his snarky inflection superseded it. Also, the only time he ever capitalized was for the word “I.”) Annie kept revisiting his post on her group’s wall. Not only did Jeff reply, but the reply made it clear that he had seen Annie’s mid-summer status about the bleacher fire. And this meant he’d been checking her profile.
It took her a full two days to finally write back: “Haha, lol, I know right?” and in her giddiness she realized her cyber laughter was redundant. When she reread Jeff’s post she realized, with disappointment, that it had let her down with a wry but distant sort of gentleness.
It was how he reacted to the kiss, too, at the Tranny dance. Annie had been so bold as to hook her fingers in his belt loops and then Jeff stopped. He recanted and did the math aloud. Annie’s lips were still tingling when she tried to say she wasn’t as boggled by age, but he patted her on the shoulder without really listening and then made a beeline for the parking lot.
Earlier in the summer she’d seen him out in jogging clothes, too, when she was walking to work in the shopping mall. She was a cashier in the Hallmark store, spent her time rearranging small porcelain desk animals and opening the cackling Hoops & Yoyo audio cards. Annie was wearing an oversized uniform that she’d tried to tie in the back with a hairband, but it only made her look lumpy. Jeff was standing at the crosswalk waiting for the light to turn. His fingers were poised on his neck and he was watching women in tights eat on a streetside bench.
He was in a fitted shirt and shorts and sneakers that looked aerodynamically expensive. He also wasn’t sweating, and Annie suspected that Jeff Winger didn’t jog when he went jogging. He strolled. Exercising in public was for the benefit of other people who passed him.
For a second Annie thought she’d meet him on the other side of the street, but when she couldn’t come up with anything clever or sexy to say, she panicked and whirled on her heels. Her short sleeves fell to her elbows and she beelined for the Hallmark store, and spend the workday reading the inside of clever and sexy cards trying to figure out what should have come out of her mouth.
The badminton tournament gave her a chance to see Jeff again, but it was a failed gesture if he didn’t take her up on the invite. In the end, Abed was the only one who showed up. He brought falafels for everyone. When Annie saw him the morning of the final, already on the corroded bleachers with bags of food, she waved. Abed raised his hand in response.
He fed the other spectators-two women with large thighs and red glasses, both caked in suntan lotion and hairspray-while Annie served and volleyed and moved forward in the brackets. She won two games handedly and a third when Tyrekkia, a woman with extra calves and a persistently mispronounced name who was really the strongest competition, went down with a hyperextended elbow.
The chemistry professor lifted his head from his vials to inspect the playoff bracket Annie designed. (It was color-coded and involved gold stickers.)
“Players need two losses to be eliminated,” he said. “And Tyrekkia has only lost once. You’ll have to play her again, Annie.”
Tyrekkia frowned. She tried to stretch out her arm and gave a wheeze of pure agony.
“No forfeits,” said the professor. “My vials need another ten minutes of sun exposure, so suck it up.”
“I can substitute.”
Annie looked up to see Jeff striding across The Human Green. He wore jeans and a t-shirt that did distracting things to his arms. She shielded her eyes with her hand, even though she wore a visor. She tried to look casual but was overthinking how to position her legs.
“Jeff!” she said. “I-I thought you weren’t coming.”
Jeff lifted his hands and it was then that Annie noticed he was holding bags of falafels. “Abed texted me to say he needed more food.”
Annie looked at the two other attendees on the bleachers. They’d skeptically given up on their falafels (which they’d pronounced “fall-a-fells”) and had resorted to carbonation-dying cans of diet coke. “Really?”
“Plus I told him we could play with fire after the tournament,” said Abed. He nodded at the chemistry professor, who grinned in reply and hovered around his beakers.
“I do not want to miss the historic day Greendale burns down due to exactly what it’s built upon: careless enthusiasm,” said Jeff. He dumped the falafels and jogged-Annie thought of his shorts and those sneakers-to the opposite side of the net, across from her. “Aim for the vials, Annie,” he said.
“But they’re out of bounds.”
“Don’t you want today to end in a combustive blaze of glory?”
Annie huffed, feeling competitive. “You’re just trying to trick me into losing.”
“Oh, am I?”
“You don’t even have a racquet.”
“For what?”
Annie sighed. “For racquetball.”
Jeff finally considered the net strung between them. “Does it involve fishing?”
The chemistry professor was busy lining up the beakers closer to the playing field. He was mumbling something about his inability to get tenure and his ability to get mixed signals from Dean Pelton. Annie wasn’t especially listening, because Jeff had bent his knees a bit and put his hands on his thighs, shifting his weight back and forth in some athletic stance of seriousness.
It took a second for Annie to realize he was mocking her.
“Not funny,” Annie said, straightening up. She pushed back her shoulders.
“Yeah, it kind of is.”
“Jeff, I need this class for a grade.”
“Is this how it’s going to be all next semester?” Jeff said. “All super-serious, dedicated-to-education Annie?”
“But we’re in college.”
“Oh.” Jeff genuinely paused, surveyed campus. “You know I keep forgetting.”
“You forget a lot,” said Annie. She hadn’t meant to say it aloud, but there it was-heavy with implication although her voice came out light, almost pouty. She studied the birdie in her hand and hoped Jeff missed it.
He didn’t say anything. Then, “Annie.”
“Love serving love.”
“Annie.”
“Love means zero,” she said.
“I know.”
“Okay.” Annie put her weight on her back foot, bent her arm with the birdie, and raised her racquet hand. “Ready?”
“I am completely underprepared.”
“I know.”
“As long as you know.”
Abed was listening, between bites of falafel, with an appreciative nod. “Obligatory sport-and-unstated-emotion parallels. Cue slow motion and ‘80s power ballad.”
Annie tossed the birdie in the air and squinted, waiting to swing until the perfect moment.
***
Jeff was scruffy and Annie hadn’t kissed him like that before. It was better scruff than-what was his name? oh Vaughn-than Vaughn’s had been. Jeff was groomed and probably didn’t bathe in soap rendered from llama fat. He was obsessed with presentation, taking careful steps to look as effortless and natural as possible. Annie understood. He just did it much better than she ever could.
Annie dropped her hand down to his side, between his shirt and arm, and he reached across to her and did the same. They shuffled each other closer and Annie sighed into his mouth. Her mental diorama was collapsing into pieces. She watched the Britta and Slater plastic miniatures topple off first.
It occurred to Annie that she and Jeff were sort of tangled in bed sheets right now. Chicken-smelling bed sheets, but still. And Jeff was making murmuring sounds from the back of his throat that Annie hadn’t heard him make before. Then she thought of the paintball war, of him and Britta, and wondered if she herself was actually going to sleep with Jeff Winger, and also after a complicated gun series.
She wondered if he’d let her and her best way of asking was to arch against him, to push her breasts into his chest and feel him tug her tighter against his body. His hand was in her hair again. From somewhere in the collapsing blanket fort she heard the rising chaos of the Latvian parade, the spilled slosh of cocktails, cries from foiled board game aficionados.
Jeff took his lips from hers but pressed their foreheads close. Annie couldn’t tell who was breathing harder. She looked at him, his flushed face in the heat of their private collapsing world.
Jeff nibbled at her ear, and whispered, “Would that this fort were a time fort.”
***
Dean Pelton looked up from his MacBook, sufficiently tickled. This was the cure to writer’s block, and even better than Psych fanfiction: Fiction about real life people! Sure, they were students and it was probably crossing some quote-unquote ethical boundary, but no one would know the difference, especially if it all stayed in a password protected document on his password-protected computer. (No one would ever guess YouRSoBootyful.)
He sat back in his chair and sighed happily. He was about to get up and finally return the prop guns to the theatre department when, in a particular stroke of genius, he pulled up the Replace All option. With snappy precision he inserted his name in every spot where “Annie” appeared.
Sure, there’d be pronoun changes to make, but still. Already it was, without a doubt, a considerable improvement.
end