Ode to Optophobia (5B)
Title: Ode to Optophobia, or: Ten Men That Loved Annie Edison (10/19)
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe.
Word count: ~2100 for this installment, ~27,000 for the series thus far.
Disclaimer: I have now been tweeted by both Dan Harmon and Alison Brie. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I'll ever come to having any ownership over Community.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 2.
Summary: Chapter Five (in which Annie is loved for who she never was), Part Two. Starring Vaughn Miller.
A/N: Unbeta'd. Title is from the song "Ode to Optophobia" by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. So I did indeed drop off the face of the fandom for a while. I've sort of had too much boy drama of my own to even think about writing about Annie's. But I will not abandon this story! Also, I think the most important thing in this chapter is that Annie definitely has a BAC chart that she, like, carries around in her purse à la Leslie Knope.
Previously: Chapter 5A.
Vaughn barely suppresses an eye-roll as he trails after his companion, who has bounded through the door of the liquor store like someone is waiting inside to give him a million dollars. He should have insisted that his sister take her own idiot husband for a restocking mission, eight months pregnant or not. The store is crowded with last-minute shoppers picking out their poison of choice for New Year's Eve parties and Vaughn doesn't doubt that his already-buzzed brother-in-law will manage to annoy and/or offend at least three people by the time they get back out of here.
Uninterested in following him on what's sure to be a frenzied path through most of the store, Vaughn wanders aimlessly. He glances cursorily at the wines on the shelves surrounding him, noting the gradient they make from deep red to pink to white. He stops just short of walking into a small brunette woman when he reaches the sparkling wines at the end of the aisle and mutters a "sorry" with probably a little less civility than he would usually be able to muster. The woman doesn't seem to register his lack of courtesy as she turns to him and starts to say, with great grace, "Oh, not at…"
The rest of the sentence is lost as Vaughn looks into the eyes of Annie Edison for the first time in well over eight years.
"Vaughn," she breathes, with an expression of awe. Vaughn, without even meaning to, drinks it in for a moment, remembering the adoring way she used to look at him back when she was nineteen, before her face becomes a display of purely platonic delight and she lets out a high-pitched "ha!" before throwing her arms around his shoulders. "I can't believe it's you!" she squeals in his ear.
Vaughn's own arms wrap around her waist. He suddenly wants to pick her up and spin her in circles the way he used to, but his eyes are open and he can still see the liquor store around them -- this isn't the Greendale quad, and he's not barefoot, and she's not nineteen anymore. He does a quick calculation in his head -- she must be twenty-seven. No, her birthday is in December, he remembers, so twenty-eight now. The sensation of Annie releasing him and stepping back to gaze at his face jolts Vaughn back and he realizes that he hasn't said anything yet.
"Hi." He can do better than that. "Hey, Annie." A small improvement. "How's it going?"
"I'm terrific," Annie beams at him. "How about you? Are you back in town? Oh, how have you been?" Vaughn's not surprised that he doesn't even get a chance to try answering before her eyes pop out and she ducks her head around the corner, apparently seeking someone out. "Jeff!"
Vaughn's own eyes feel like they must be coming out of their sockets.
Annie doesn't notice. "Jeff!" she calls again, happily. "Come here! You'll never guess who it is!"
And there he is. Coming around the corner, clutching a bottle of something brown, towering over Annie and even Vaughn a little. He looks older -- he is older, Vaughn reminds himself, they all are -- but he still has the carefully crafted scruff on his face, the streamlined suit, the default winning-but-condescending look that Vaughn has never seen on anyone else but Jeff Winger.
"Vaughn," he says with surprise, but in a friendly enough way.
"Hey, Jeff," Vaughn says back, offering his hand to shake. "How's it going? Happy New Year."
"Yeah, you too."
"So?" Annie cuts in brightly. "Are you back in Greendale?"
"Just visiting," says Vaughn, dragging his eyes back down the considerable distance to Annie. "Spending the holidays with my sister and her husband."
"Oh, Mac got married?" Annie gushes. "That's so great!"
"Sure," says Vaughn vaguely. "You're still here, then?"
"Denver, actually," Annie corrects. "We're just here for the long weekend; heading back Wednesday."
Jeff stays silent during this explanation, apparently content to let Annie speak for the both of them. Vaughn pushes down the thought that's rising quickly in his head, telling himself that if they both live in Denver now, it's perfectly understandable that they would have made the trip out here together. It was fiscally and environmentally responsible. Those had both always been big concerns of Annie's.
"So is your whole little study group here?" Vaughn half-jokes, trying to check his surroundings surreptitiously in case Britta's about to come barreling out of the vodka section.
"Just us right now," Annie assures him.
"Yeah," Jeff echoes, "just us." And he throws an arm over Annie's shoulders. The thought is getting harder for Vaughn to push down. It's quickly evolving into a suspicion.
"We're just picking up some things on our way to Abed's party," says Annie, moving just a little bit into Jeff so she's nearly nestling into his side. Vaughn can only nod. After a moment or two of silence, Annie frowns. "Is that why you're here?"
"No," Vaughn answers, "I'm just the driver for my brother-in-law. He, ah...started the party a little early."
Jeff only smirks as Annie turns her gaze to him. Her left arm wraps around his waist as she fake-muses, "Hmm, imagine that."
Jeff probably replies to her. His reply is probably chock-full of biting wit or something. But Vaughn is busy, having been distracted by a flash of light from Annie's left hand as she moved it. There, on her third finger, reflecting the fluorescent lights of the liquor store's ceiling, is a diamond ring. The suspicion Vaughn has been trying to suppress breaks through the wall of denial and dances around singing "I told you so!" The hand that has Vaughn so transfixed suddenly squeezes the side of Jeff's waist, and he flinches and grins, withdrawing his arm from around Annie's shoulders as she drops her hand from his waist. The two look back at Vaughn, who tries to make his face as blank as possible.
"I'm on Designated duty too," Annie says with a little pride, gesturing with a tip of her head towards Jeff.
"Annie, I'm fine," Jeff manly-whines.
"Not according to the chart," says Annie smugly. "Unless you want to tell me the weight on your driver's license is wrong? Then I might think about letting you drive."
Jeff huffs. "What do you know," he grits out. "I do think my depth perception is a little off." A crash sounds in the next aisle and Jeff winces. "Not as off as that guy, though," he adds.
As Vaughn has been expecting, a familiar voice comes from the same direction as the crash. "I'm okay! It's okay! Nothing's broken! I'll put it back."
Jeff chuckles. Annie looks concerned. "Do you think he's all right? Maybe we should go see."
"He said he's fine, Annie."
"But you know how dangerous New Year's Eve can get," Annie protests to Jeff, who rolls his eyes and grumbles something about her mentioning it on the car ride there. "We should at least make sure someone's looking after him."
"Someone is," says Vaughn miserably as his sister's husband comes around the corner behind Jeff and Annie with a full basket swinging from his hand.
"Vaughn!" he shouts. "There you are!"
"Yeah," Vaughn says to him.
"Oh," gasps Annie.
"Yeah," Vaughn repeats. A heavy arm is thrown around his shoulders. Gesturing to the man next to him without looking, Vaughn introduces, "This is Annie, and Jeff. They're, uh, old friends from school. Guys, this is Yngwie."
Neither Annie nor Jeff offers a hand to shake. Jeff smiles weakly at Yngwie while Annie seems to be searching her brain for something. "Yngwie," she mumbles, and her face suddenly lights up. "Wait..."
Yngwie squeezes Vaughn's shoulders. "Yes ma'am, you're thinking correctly," he says proudly. "Yngwie Macadangdang Jr. at your service." He seizes Annie's hand from her side and brings it to his mouth for a kiss. Jeff, with a vague look of revulsion, reaches out and takes Annie's hand in his own, drawing it back in between the two. Annie's own expression of shock and discomfort is so familiar that Vaughn wants to laugh for a moment. Then Yngwie speaks again and the urge dies.
"So you've heard of me," Yngwie declares.
Annie nods warily. "Once or twice."
"Down, Yngwie," Vaughn mutters out of the corner of his mouth.
"So you two...played hacky-sack together?" queries Annie, making a valiant attempt to be polite as Jeff continues to survey the whole situation with some disdain.
"After I finished out in Delaware," Vaughn confirms. "Then we were traveling, and we came through Colorado so my family came out to see us, and..." he trails off, trusting Annie to fill in the rest of the story for herself. Yngwie doesn't seem to see the need for her to.
"I married Miss Mackenzie Miller," proclaims Yngwie proudly, drawing out every "m" sound. Vaughn clenches his jaw.
Annie looks to Vaughn, surprised. "Really?"
"Wait," Jeff cuts in. "So now her name is Mackenzie Macadangdang?"
"For five glorious months now," drawls Yngwie. "And a baby on the way!"
Even such a pathetic specimen as Yngwie apparently can't deter Annie from her glee at this announcement. "Aww!" she coos. "When is she due?"
"February third," answer Vaughn and Yngwie in unison, but with very different tones. Yngwie hiccups and then burps in Vaughn's ear.
Vaughn flinches. "You're on thin ice, Yngwie."
Annie's face has fallen a little. "Oh." Next to her, though, Jeff is finally looking amused. "Well, babies are great, in any case," Annie tries. "You must be so excited!"
"You bet!" says Yngwie, at the same time Vaughn says "Not really."
Annie looks distraught now, so Vaughn asks squeamishly, "You haven't...do you have kids now?"
"No," says Jeff, at the same time Annie says "Not yet." Vaughn expects a tense look between the two, but they stand there in relative relaxation, still holding hands. The fact that the two of them are clearly together -- not just together, but engaged, Vaughn corrects himself as he remembers to check Jeff's wedding finger and finds it empty -- has not been mentioned in the conversation and apparently it's not going to be. Vaughn finds that he has no problem with this.
Jeff clears his throat obviously and glances at his bare wrist. "We should probably get going," he announces.
Annie finally looks a little annoyed at his lack of tact, but she checks her own wrist, which does indeed have a sleek watch on it, and she frowns. "Actually, you're right. I told Abed we'd stop and get some ice, too."
"Did you pick a champagne?"
Annie nods and plucks the bottle she had been studying when Vaughn nearly bumped into her from a nearby shelf, handing it to Jeff.
Jeff nods curtly to the two other men. "Vaughn...Yngwie." He chuckles a little and heads off to the cash register, leaving Annie alone with Vaughn and the parasite still hanging on his shoulder who is, unfortunately, related to him by law.
"You didn't mention where you're living now," blurts out Annie, looking relieved to have thought of a change of subject.
"Seattle," says Vaughn. "Been there about a year."
"Oh, that's far," says Annie, and she actually looks a little disappointed.
"Yeah," agrees Vaughn. "But hey, I'll probably be back after the baby's born."
"He can't miss meeting Yngwie Macadangdang the third!" chortles Yngwie. Vaughn shuts his eyes.
When he opens them, Annie is pulling something out of her purse. "Will you let me know when you come back to town?" She hands him a business card. "Denver isn't that far."
Vaughn studies the card, and then Annie's face. She suddenly looks a little bashful. "Yeah, of course, mountain flower."
Annie turns bright pink. "Great! Okay, I have to go. I don't mean to dash off..."
"No worries," Vaughn tells her, and for the first time in a long time he means it.
Annie glows with affectionate nostalgia at the phrase. "It was wonderful to see you! And, um, nice to meet you...Yngwie."
"Milady," Yngwie replies, bowing as deeply as he can without letting go of his grip around Vaughn's neck. Vaughn gets pulled down along for the ride a bit before he jerks the both of them back upright. Annie's look of distaste has returned in spades and she starts to scurry off to the exit to the store, where Jeff is now waiting with a paper bag.
Vaughn calls after her. "Bye, Annie! Good to see you! Take care!"
She spins around and waves without pausing in her scamper towards Jeff. "Happy New Year!" She spins around again and she and Jeff disappear through the door, a bell dinging softly behind them.
"That was the ex, wasn't it?" crows Yngwie. "The one who was supposed to come to Delaware and ditched you at the last minute."
Vaughn, who had not been expecting this level of acumen from Yngwie, can only nod, still looking at the door.
Yngwie's elevation to the level of a normal functioning human being, though, appears to have been only momentary. He snickers. "Sucker."
"Can it, Yngwie."
Next: Chapter 6A.
Author: veryspecial0ne
Rating: R for the whole series, to be safe.
Word count: ~2100 for this installment, ~27,000 for the series thus far.
Disclaimer: I have now been tweeted by both Dan Harmon and Alison Brie. I'm pretty sure that's the closest I'll ever come to having any ownership over Community.
Spoilers: Through the end of Season 2.
Summary: Chapter Five (in which Annie is loved for who she never was), Part Two. Starring Vaughn Miller.
A/N: Unbeta'd. Title is from the song "Ode to Optophobia" by Danielle Ate the Sandwich. So I did indeed drop off the face of the fandom for a while. I've sort of had too much boy drama of my own to even think about writing about Annie's. But I will not abandon this story! Also, I think the most important thing in this chapter is that Annie definitely has a BAC chart that she, like, carries around in her purse à la Leslie Knope.
Previously: Chapter 5A.
Vaughn barely suppresses an eye-roll as he trails after his companion, who has bounded through the door of the liquor store like someone is waiting inside to give him a million dollars. He should have insisted that his sister take her own idiot husband for a restocking mission, eight months pregnant or not. The store is crowded with last-minute shoppers picking out their poison of choice for New Year's Eve parties and Vaughn doesn't doubt that his already-buzzed brother-in-law will manage to annoy and/or offend at least three people by the time they get back out of here.
Uninterested in following him on what's sure to be a frenzied path through most of the store, Vaughn wanders aimlessly. He glances cursorily at the wines on the shelves surrounding him, noting the gradient they make from deep red to pink to white. He stops just short of walking into a small brunette woman when he reaches the sparkling wines at the end of the aisle and mutters a "sorry" with probably a little less civility than he would usually be able to muster. The woman doesn't seem to register his lack of courtesy as she turns to him and starts to say, with great grace, "Oh, not at…"
The rest of the sentence is lost as Vaughn looks into the eyes of Annie Edison for the first time in well over eight years.
"Vaughn," she breathes, with an expression of awe. Vaughn, without even meaning to, drinks it in for a moment, remembering the adoring way she used to look at him back when she was nineteen, before her face becomes a display of purely platonic delight and she lets out a high-pitched "ha!" before throwing her arms around his shoulders. "I can't believe it's you!" she squeals in his ear.
Vaughn's own arms wrap around her waist. He suddenly wants to pick her up and spin her in circles the way he used to, but his eyes are open and he can still see the liquor store around them -- this isn't the Greendale quad, and he's not barefoot, and she's not nineteen anymore. He does a quick calculation in his head -- she must be twenty-seven. No, her birthday is in December, he remembers, so twenty-eight now. The sensation of Annie releasing him and stepping back to gaze at his face jolts Vaughn back and he realizes that he hasn't said anything yet.
"Hi." He can do better than that. "Hey, Annie." A small improvement. "How's it going?"
"I'm terrific," Annie beams at him. "How about you? Are you back in town? Oh, how have you been?" Vaughn's not surprised that he doesn't even get a chance to try answering before her eyes pop out and she ducks her head around the corner, apparently seeking someone out. "Jeff!"
Vaughn's own eyes feel like they must be coming out of their sockets.
Annie doesn't notice. "Jeff!" she calls again, happily. "Come here! You'll never guess who it is!"
And there he is. Coming around the corner, clutching a bottle of something brown, towering over Annie and even Vaughn a little. He looks older -- he is older, Vaughn reminds himself, they all are -- but he still has the carefully crafted scruff on his face, the streamlined suit, the default winning-but-condescending look that Vaughn has never seen on anyone else but Jeff Winger.
"Vaughn," he says with surprise, but in a friendly enough way.
"Hey, Jeff," Vaughn says back, offering his hand to shake. "How's it going? Happy New Year."
"Yeah, you too."
"So?" Annie cuts in brightly. "Are you back in Greendale?"
"Just visiting," says Vaughn, dragging his eyes back down the considerable distance to Annie. "Spending the holidays with my sister and her husband."
"Oh, Mac got married?" Annie gushes. "That's so great!"
"Sure," says Vaughn vaguely. "You're still here, then?"
"Denver, actually," Annie corrects. "We're just here for the long weekend; heading back Wednesday."
Jeff stays silent during this explanation, apparently content to let Annie speak for the both of them. Vaughn pushes down the thought that's rising quickly in his head, telling himself that if they both live in Denver now, it's perfectly understandable that they would have made the trip out here together. It was fiscally and environmentally responsible. Those had both always been big concerns of Annie's.
"So is your whole little study group here?" Vaughn half-jokes, trying to check his surroundings surreptitiously in case Britta's about to come barreling out of the vodka section.
"Just us right now," Annie assures him.
"Yeah," Jeff echoes, "just us." And he throws an arm over Annie's shoulders. The thought is getting harder for Vaughn to push down. It's quickly evolving into a suspicion.
"We're just picking up some things on our way to Abed's party," says Annie, moving just a little bit into Jeff so she's nearly nestling into his side. Vaughn can only nod. After a moment or two of silence, Annie frowns. "Is that why you're here?"
"No," Vaughn answers, "I'm just the driver for my brother-in-law. He, ah...started the party a little early."
Jeff only smirks as Annie turns her gaze to him. Her left arm wraps around his waist as she fake-muses, "Hmm, imagine that."
Jeff probably replies to her. His reply is probably chock-full of biting wit or something. But Vaughn is busy, having been distracted by a flash of light from Annie's left hand as she moved it. There, on her third finger, reflecting the fluorescent lights of the liquor store's ceiling, is a diamond ring. The suspicion Vaughn has been trying to suppress breaks through the wall of denial and dances around singing "I told you so!" The hand that has Vaughn so transfixed suddenly squeezes the side of Jeff's waist, and he flinches and grins, withdrawing his arm from around Annie's shoulders as she drops her hand from his waist. The two look back at Vaughn, who tries to make his face as blank as possible.
"I'm on Designated duty too," Annie says with a little pride, gesturing with a tip of her head towards Jeff.
"Annie, I'm fine," Jeff manly-whines.
"Not according to the chart," says Annie smugly. "Unless you want to tell me the weight on your driver's license is wrong? Then I might think about letting you drive."
Jeff huffs. "What do you know," he grits out. "I do think my depth perception is a little off." A crash sounds in the next aisle and Jeff winces. "Not as off as that guy, though," he adds.
As Vaughn has been expecting, a familiar voice comes from the same direction as the crash. "I'm okay! It's okay! Nothing's broken! I'll put it back."
Jeff chuckles. Annie looks concerned. "Do you think he's all right? Maybe we should go see."
"He said he's fine, Annie."
"But you know how dangerous New Year's Eve can get," Annie protests to Jeff, who rolls his eyes and grumbles something about her mentioning it on the car ride there. "We should at least make sure someone's looking after him."
"Someone is," says Vaughn miserably as his sister's husband comes around the corner behind Jeff and Annie with a full basket swinging from his hand.
"Vaughn!" he shouts. "There you are!"
"Yeah," Vaughn says to him.
"Oh," gasps Annie.
"Yeah," Vaughn repeats. A heavy arm is thrown around his shoulders. Gesturing to the man next to him without looking, Vaughn introduces, "This is Annie, and Jeff. They're, uh, old friends from school. Guys, this is Yngwie."
Neither Annie nor Jeff offers a hand to shake. Jeff smiles weakly at Yngwie while Annie seems to be searching her brain for something. "Yngwie," she mumbles, and her face suddenly lights up. "Wait..."
Yngwie squeezes Vaughn's shoulders. "Yes ma'am, you're thinking correctly," he says proudly. "Yngwie Macadangdang Jr. at your service." He seizes Annie's hand from her side and brings it to his mouth for a kiss. Jeff, with a vague look of revulsion, reaches out and takes Annie's hand in his own, drawing it back in between the two. Annie's own expression of shock and discomfort is so familiar that Vaughn wants to laugh for a moment. Then Yngwie speaks again and the urge dies.
"So you've heard of me," Yngwie declares.
Annie nods warily. "Once or twice."
"Down, Yngwie," Vaughn mutters out of the corner of his mouth.
"So you two...played hacky-sack together?" queries Annie, making a valiant attempt to be polite as Jeff continues to survey the whole situation with some disdain.
"After I finished out in Delaware," Vaughn confirms. "Then we were traveling, and we came through Colorado so my family came out to see us, and..." he trails off, trusting Annie to fill in the rest of the story for herself. Yngwie doesn't seem to see the need for her to.
"I married Miss Mackenzie Miller," proclaims Yngwie proudly, drawing out every "m" sound. Vaughn clenches his jaw.
Annie looks to Vaughn, surprised. "Really?"
"Wait," Jeff cuts in. "So now her name is Mackenzie Macadangdang?"
"For five glorious months now," drawls Yngwie. "And a baby on the way!"
Even such a pathetic specimen as Yngwie apparently can't deter Annie from her glee at this announcement. "Aww!" she coos. "When is she due?"
"February third," answer Vaughn and Yngwie in unison, but with very different tones. Yngwie hiccups and then burps in Vaughn's ear.
Vaughn flinches. "You're on thin ice, Yngwie."
Annie's face has fallen a little. "Oh." Next to her, though, Jeff is finally looking amused. "Well, babies are great, in any case," Annie tries. "You must be so excited!"
"You bet!" says Yngwie, at the same time Vaughn says "Not really."
Annie looks distraught now, so Vaughn asks squeamishly, "You haven't...do you have kids now?"
"No," says Jeff, at the same time Annie says "Not yet." Vaughn expects a tense look between the two, but they stand there in relative relaxation, still holding hands. The fact that the two of them are clearly together -- not just together, but engaged, Vaughn corrects himself as he remembers to check Jeff's wedding finger and finds it empty -- has not been mentioned in the conversation and apparently it's not going to be. Vaughn finds that he has no problem with this.
Jeff clears his throat obviously and glances at his bare wrist. "We should probably get going," he announces.
Annie finally looks a little annoyed at his lack of tact, but she checks her own wrist, which does indeed have a sleek watch on it, and she frowns. "Actually, you're right. I told Abed we'd stop and get some ice, too."
"Did you pick a champagne?"
Annie nods and plucks the bottle she had been studying when Vaughn nearly bumped into her from a nearby shelf, handing it to Jeff.
Jeff nods curtly to the two other men. "Vaughn...Yngwie." He chuckles a little and heads off to the cash register, leaving Annie alone with Vaughn and the parasite still hanging on his shoulder who is, unfortunately, related to him by law.
"You didn't mention where you're living now," blurts out Annie, looking relieved to have thought of a change of subject.
"Seattle," says Vaughn. "Been there about a year."
"Oh, that's far," says Annie, and she actually looks a little disappointed.
"Yeah," agrees Vaughn. "But hey, I'll probably be back after the baby's born."
"He can't miss meeting Yngwie Macadangdang the third!" chortles Yngwie. Vaughn shuts his eyes.
When he opens them, Annie is pulling something out of her purse. "Will you let me know when you come back to town?" She hands him a business card. "Denver isn't that far."
Vaughn studies the card, and then Annie's face. She suddenly looks a little bashful. "Yeah, of course, mountain flower."
Annie turns bright pink. "Great! Okay, I have to go. I don't mean to dash off..."
"No worries," Vaughn tells her, and for the first time in a long time he means it.
Annie glows with affectionate nostalgia at the phrase. "It was wonderful to see you! And, um, nice to meet you...Yngwie."
"Milady," Yngwie replies, bowing as deeply as he can without letting go of his grip around Vaughn's neck. Vaughn gets pulled down along for the ride a bit before he jerks the both of them back upright. Annie's look of distaste has returned in spades and she starts to scurry off to the exit to the store, where Jeff is now waiting with a paper bag.
Vaughn calls after her. "Bye, Annie! Good to see you! Take care!"
She spins around and waves without pausing in her scamper towards Jeff. "Happy New Year!" She spins around again and she and Jeff disappear through the door, a bell dinging softly behind them.
"That was the ex, wasn't it?" crows Yngwie. "The one who was supposed to come to Delaware and ditched you at the last minute."
Vaughn, who had not been expecting this level of acumen from Yngwie, can only nod, still looking at the door.
Yngwie's elevation to the level of a normal functioning human being, though, appears to have been only momentary. He snickers. "Sucker."
"Can it, Yngwie."
Next: Chapter 6A.