Nightmares Chapter 5
Title: Nightmares
Author: hobbitgrl
Spoilers: References up through "Documentary Filmmaking: Redux"
Rating: NC-17 (for serious)
Warning: There's serious angst here. I'm not being hyperbolic. Serious angst. There's also smut in future chapters. And angsty smut. And language.
Word Count: 2,964
Disclaimer: I own no part of Community or it's awesomeness.
Chapter 1 Here:
http://drgirl11.livejournal.com/3543.html#cutid1
Chapter 2 Here:
http://drgirl11.livejournal.com/3758.html
Chapter 3 Here:
http://drgirl11.livejournal.com/3850.html
Chapter 4 Here:
http://drgirl11.livejournal.com/4159.html
Chapter 6 Here:
http://drgirl11.livejournal.com/5956.html
Chapter 5
Jeff wished he could get Abed’s words out of his mind. He played dumb and mocked Abed often for his comparisons of their lives to TV characters, but the truth was Jeff had been raised on TV. He knew exactly what a hero quest was and he knew exactly what Abed had been trying to tell him. It wasn’t like it was anything he didn’t already know about himself. He was in therapy for god’s sake.
He couldn’t finish his scotch after Abed left and he eventually abandoned the bar with a headache and a sour grimace on his face. He was hurting Annie. Every day he didn’t explain to her how he felt, why he acted as he had he was hurting Annie. Acceptance of that fact drove him to text her sometime after midnight. He figured she was probably watching some terrible movie with Troy and Abed, but if he didn’t talk to her now he’d lose his nerve by morning.
Can we talk? He erased it seven times, retyping the same thing before he finally hit “send.” He felt adrenaline flood his system like he’d just, well, blurted out “I love you” at the Tranny Dance. He really needed to apologize to Britta about that whole thing one more time. She was a hell of a friend to stick with him after a debacle like that.
I’m not sure I want to talk to you, she responded. He stared at the phone mute and completely at a loss for words.
I want to talk to you. Erased.
I’m so sorry. Erased.
Can we meet somewhere? Erased.
I’m sorry. Erased.
What can I say? Erased.
Please Annie. Send.
Are we going to do this over the phone? He could practically feel her sarcasm through the text.
You tell me where and when he sent right back.
Here. My room. Whenever you get here, she told him.
Jeff had to swallow around the lump in his throat. He didn’t want to walk past Troy and Abed to her room. He didn’t want to do this with a blanket fort less than ten feet away.
You’re not coming are you? She asked him.
That did it. He was not going to be a chickenshit about this.
I’ll be there in 10 he shot back. He was there in 8.
Troy answered the door when he knocked and Jeff had never seen the younger man look so serious. Annie rose carefully from the floor of the blanket fort and met his gaze with a tentative smile.
“Come on in Jeff,” she invited him when Troy stood there silent. With an awkward nod to Troy he stepped into the apartment and followed Annie into her room. Abed and he exchanged hellos, but Jeff felt like he was some sort of sexual predator being allowed time in Annie’s room on probation. He supposed he was. He had spent all this time terrified he was going to be his father; looking at the brittle set of her shoulders he wondered if maybe it was too late.
Annie closed the door behind him and he looked around like a stranger, terrified to sit but feeling like he loomed over her when he stood. He reached in his pocket for his phone, but didn’t pull it out. This was not a conversation he could hide behind bejeweled. Annie perched lightly on the end of her bed and patted the spot next to her gently, inviting him to sit.
He’d never felt like a more despicable human being than he did in that moment, and that was saying something.
After everything he did to her. Knowing full well everything he was going to do to her, not because he wanted to but because he was just too fucking broken not to, she was still forgiving him, giving him a chance to bask in her light one more time. Jeff waited for the predator to wake up at her gentle movements, her open face, but his monster was, thankfully, silent tonight. He hoped it stayed that way.
“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, dropping next to her. He hadn’t meant to lead off with that, but he supposed it worked. A bit obvious, but true nonetheless.
“For sleeping with me or for kicking me out?” she asked quietly. That got his attention.
“I didn’t kick you out,” he said affronted.
“Jeff,” Annie paused, her eyes scanning her walls before settling somewhere he couldn’t see, “we had sex and then you, you acted like you couldn’t wait for me to leave.”
“I didn’t-“ he started but trailed off at the abject look on her face. “I didn’t want you to leave.”
“Then why did you let me?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never do.”
“Yeah,” he said softly, “it’s complicated.”
“It always is with you isn’t it?” Annie said, ire creeping into her voice. “It’s always ‘complicated’. You’re always too old for me or I’m just too young for you. Or it’s not the right timing; there’s a new excuse every week.”
“I’m no good for you Annie,” he said in a quiet voice. “I’ll hurt you.”
“You already have.” She turned her head away from him, but he saw the moisture gathering in her eyes. Shit-he’d made her cry. Again.
“Look,” he said exasperated, “you’re already crying. That’s what I do. I hurt you!” He stood up, unable to sit next to her when everything he did made it worse. He, Jeff Winger who could talk the Pope out of his hat, was constantly saying the wrong thing to this beautiful, sweet woman who just wanted to love him. He wondered sometimes if he wanted to love her-maybe that was the problem.
“I just don’t know what you want from me Jeff!” she hissed, real anger making her voice shrill. “I thought maybe after we, you know once we-“
“Fucked?”
She reared back as if slapped and he was suddenly caught in flashbacks of all his nightmares. Annie crying. Annie bleeding. Annie begging him to stop.
His stomach was roiling and he felt the saliva run in his mouth. He was running for the bathroom, gagging before he made it out the door.
He didn’t have time to lock the door behind him and she followed him, of course. She always followed him when she shouldn’t; found him when he was vulnerable or drunk or tired of fighting. He heard the faucet run as he dry heaved over the toilet and then felt the pressure of a cold washcloth onhis neck. Her kindness made him heave again and his long fingers curved around the bowl, digging into the cold porcelain as he saw Annie crying. She was always crying. He always made her cry.
When his stomach finally settled down he just sat there, head hung over the bowl and tried to get his bearings. He knew she was still in the bathroom with him; he could hear her soft breathing as she stood by the sink. Finally lifting his head, he held the washcloth on his neck with one hand and raised his head to see a glass of water held out in front of him. Without a word he accepted it and swished his mouth out, spit, and swished again.
“I don’t suppose you guys have an extra toothbrush?” he said with a weak smile.
“We do, as a matter of fact,” Annie told him emotionless. “And you’re welcome to it.”
“Thanks Annie,” he sighed.
“Once you tell me what’s going on with you.” It was his turn to rear back from her words. She was standing calmly over him, her face an emotionless mask; her eyes were dry, but her mouth was set in a grim line and he knew in this one battle she was going to win.
“I don’t want to be my father,” Jeff finally told her, giving in after fighting with himself.
“Why not?”
“Because he was an asshole,” Jeff laughed without humor.
“Why do you think you’re him?” Who was this girl Jeff wondered as he debated how to answer her question. Who was this person that could watch him throw up so calmly, take care of him, and demand straight answers from him?
“He was-“ Jeff paused, unsure how to sate her curiosity without revealing too much, “abusive.”
“How so?” He looked at her again, unprepared to have her questioning him so casually, so-rationally. When had Annie grown up so fully?
“Being jerked around by you is a crash course in adulthood,” she told him still without emotion in her voice. His eyes widened as he realized he’d spoken aloud-again-and he marveled at the lack of judgment in her tone.
“I seem to have a hard time keeping my inside voice inside around you,” he tried to joke.
“You seem to have a hard time with a lot of things around me,” she told him. In that moment he wanted his Annie back. He wanted his sweet loving girl who had patted the spot next to her on the bed. He wanted the woman with rapture on her face as he made her explode again and again in ecstasy. He wanted the girl whose heart he hadn’t broken again and again.
“God I’m sorry,” he said, his breath catching. “I ruined you. I was so afraid of destroying you and I did it anyway. I thought if I could just stay away from you, you might have a chance-“
“How as your father abusive Jeff?” she interrupted him.
“Did I do this to you?” he asked instead of answering. “Did I beat the emotion out of you?”
“Jeff,” she sighed, taking pity on him and giving him a small smile as she knelt down and rubbed one hand through his hair soothingly. “You’re no picnic, but everything’s not about you.”
“Who else hurt you?” he asked his protective instinct roaring to life at her words.
“Me Jeff,” she told him holding his gaze. “I hurt me when I got addicted to pills. I hurt me when I went through withdrawal of those pills. And my parents and my classmates and Spaghetti the amazing peeing homeless man and yes, you too, but it’s not your job to protect me all the time. It’s definitely not your job to take care of me. You suck at it anyway.”
“I’m such an asshole.”
“Sometimes,” she agreed. “But I want you to tell me what you’re so afraid of if we’re together.” She brought her other hand up and caught his face in her soft grip, holding his gaze with her own.
“I’m worried,” he began, mesmerized by her eyes, “no, I know that I’ll hurt you.”
“Why? How do you know that?” she pushed. “You’ll cheat on me? You can’t be monogamous?”
“No,” Jeff said disgusted. “It’s not that. Well, it’s mostly not that. I’m not a good person Annie. Deep down where everybody knows who they really are even if they never acknowledge it, I’m bad. Not just a jerk or selfish or an asshole-I’m an awful human being. And if we were together, really together, it would only be a matter of time before I hurt you.”
“Tell me how,” she kept pushing him. “Why do you think you’ll hurt me?”
“Because you’re weak,” he whispered, his head suddenly too heavy to hold up. He tipped forward and she let him rest against her shoulder; she stroked his hair, never stopping or pausing even as he went on. “I know you’re an adult and I know you’ve seen more than most adults twice your age, but I could-I would eviscerate you. “
“I’m not as fragile as you think I am Jeff” she told him, her voice laced with a dark humor. “That you’re worried about hurting me proves you’re not as awful as you think you are.”
“Annie,” he growled, pulling his head away from her and catching her hands in his own.
She didn’t believe him; she thought he was exaggerating or being melodramatic and that irritated him. He was trying to pour his heart out to her and she was laughing at him. Anger came on the heels of the irritation and the monster inside him, the predator he’d been so grateful was gone earlier roared awake. He didn’t try to hide it from her this time. She gasped, but she was the one caught in his grip now. He knew his face was twisted in a sneer; his eyes were icy, hateful pits.
“When I say I’m worried that I’ll destroy you,” he snarled in a low, vicious voice, “I’m not being hyperbolic. I’m not being melodramatic. When I say that deep down I’m an awful person I’m telling the truth Annie. That thing other people have that keeps them from going too far, keeps them from really losing control-I don’t have that. It was beat out of me long, long ago. I could destroy you with words, or-if I really am my father-I could end up hitting you like I watched my father do to my mother over and over again. Do you understand what I’m telling you?”
“Oh Jeff,” Annie cried, her cold control cracking apart and tears streaming down her face. “You’re father beat you didn’t he?”
Jeff dropped her hands like she burned him. Pushing up from the floor he stood to his full height and tried to step around her, but she was up, blocking his way before he could get out of the bathroom.
“Get out of my way Annie,” he said quietly. He was not going to get into this with her.
“No.”
“Annie,” he growled with a lethal tone.
“Make me.”
“FUCK?!” he roared at the ceiling, temper snapping and spinning away from her towards the wall behind him. “DID YOU NOT HEAR ANYTHING I JUST FUCKING SAID TO YOU?!”
Abed and Troy were beating down the bathroom door before he finished the sentence. The door slammed open into the sink and they tripped over each other in their rush to get inside.
“It’s fine guys,” Annie told them calmly without taking her eyes off of him. She was still crying, but he could tell his yelling hadn’t fazed her. She was crying for him, not because of him. “Jeff’s all bluster.”
He stopped, dumbfounded, trapped between Annie’s small form and the window as Troy and Abed vibrated behind her, both ready to jump in and protect her from the monster that had replaced their friend Jeff Winger.
It was his nightmare come to life. Annie staring him down and he was angry-so very fucking angry.
“I’m done with our heart to heart,” he snarled from the windowsill; he was as far away from her as he could get, even leaning back into the window. Troy leapt at him, but Abed held him back. They were still there, in the bathroom, but Abed wasn’t letting them interfere. Jeff ignored them, his attention focused entirely on Annie.
“So move me,” Annie said quietly, meeting his anger head on.
“Annie-“
“Jeff,” she retorted. “You’re angry aren’t you? Furious at me for trapping you in here? For butting into your life over and over again? So let’s do this. Let’s have it out once and for all.”
“MOVE!” he hollered leaning further back into the windowsill.
“No.”
Troy had stopped trying to jump in. He and Abed were both standing back, curiously at ease for all the raised voices, but they hadn’t left the bathroom. Jeff ran his hands through his hair over and over, desperate to escape, desperate to get out of this crazy apartment and away from these stupid, suicidal idiots.
He was revealed to them all for what he was now; the therapy hadn’t helped at all. He would lose his friends and he would lose Annie. He would grow old and alone, wealthy and a lawyer but unloved. He would schmooze and booze with the rich and famous and go home to an empty apartment and his nightmares and keep getting older and bitterer and angrier. And some day he would wake up and die.
That realization hit him straight in the gut as Annie stared him down. He was pinned against the wall by her gaze and she didn’t look scared or nervous. She just looked-sad. She looked unbearably, unbelievably sad.
“Please let me go Annie,” he whispered, sliding down the bathroom wall. “Just let me go.”
“I got this guys,” she told the boys, gently pushing them back out the door and closing she and Jeff in alone again. Troy gave a little resistance but went willingly when Abed gave him a look. After shutting the door and locking it she turned back towards him; his head was hanging as his forearms rested on his knees. That look of pity on her face was seared into his eyelids. She pitied him and he felt like a kid again, helpless, unwanted, and burdensome.
Without saying anything else she walked over and sat next to him, putting her head on his shoulder as if, for all the world, it was just a normal night like any other. Like they hadn’t had sex and he hadn’t been a monumental ass about it. Like she hadn’t just found out he was terrified he would turn into an abusive asshole.
He heard a strange sound echo off the walls of the bathroom and felt a weight settle on his chest. He couldn’t quite breathe right; Annie’s arms were around him then, pulling him into her embrace and he realized that sound was him. He was sobbing uncontrollably into her arms.
She held him without saying a word.