Annie Tales (2/5)
Title: Annie Tales
Author: robert3A-SN on ff.net
Character/pairing: Jeff/Annie, the study group, Dean Pelton
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 2,951 words in chapter 2, 5,989 through two chapters
Genres: Romance, humor, parody
Summary: Chapter 2 - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Annie is in her usual happy mood coming back to school on Monday morning, yet her friends are all in….various different moods of their own.
Disclaimer: If I owned Community, there never would have been a three-month hiatus, but I don’t and there was.
A/N: This is based on a Ficcy Friday prompt from eleventhimpala, who previously inspired my fan favorite “Five Friends Who Kept Jeff and Annie’s Secret” This time I’m filling her prompt of a group of fairly tale spoofs starring Annie and Jeff/Annie - although the ideas for which stories to parody and how are mine.
On the advice of crittab, I am finally posting the full text to a story right here on LJ, instead of sending you to the link on ff.net and asking for reviews and hits here. If you do still want to leave reviews on ff.net - where the story is at http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8030132/2/ - you can. But now that the text can be read here on LJ, perhaps it will inspire others to leave comments and feedback at last.
Chapter 1: Cinderella
Annie was the first to come into the study room on Monday morning, as always. And as always, she was even earlier than usual on a Monday, since it was her favorite day of the week. Of course, she knew by now to keep that to herself with the others - at least more than she used to.
But since Annie was the first one here, she could hum all she wanted from her joy over returning to school. The weekend wasn’t as long and torturous as usual, and she had her favorite yellow cardigan/blue skirt combination on, so she was belting a pretty good song in her heart. However, she still knew she had to stop humming when the others arrived.
Fortunately, Shirley was the next to arrive, as she was always in a happy mood on a Monday. Since she was in church 24 hours ago and had quality time with Andre and the boys all weekend, she was still riding high. Annie knew to savor these moments while she could, before the rest of the week chipped away at Shirley’s happy mood.
And it looked like it was getting off to a head start now, as Pierce arrived with a grumpy look. “You want my advice? When you duel your dead dad in a dream, do not use a magic sword you got from a hot mermaid! They’ll backfire on you every time and the mermaid sex is only 95% worth it! I knew I should have tested the sword in bed, but it just had to look five times bigger than my penis! Not that it isn’t only two times bigger in the real world!”
Thankfully for Annie and Shirley’s decreasing good moods, Troy and Abed made their entrance. But Annie still looked disappointed when she saw Abed in a white wig with hair sticking up everywhere. “He still hasn’t detoxed yet? I thought being back in school would help him!” Annie protested to Troy.
“Annie, I’ve seen him detox from playing Doc Brown at least three times more than you. Trust me, he’s actually ahead of schedule,” Troy pointed out. Annie had to take his word for it - plus Abed was making progress by doing impressions by himself now. As such, being “Back To The Future”’s Doc Brown all day yesterday in the Dreamatorium was still a step up for Abed.
“Strange, I don’t remember the DeLorean taking me to this timeline. This scott doesn’t look great quite yet,” Abed/Doc Brown confessed.
“It’s okay, Doc. The DeLorean’s been destroyed, you came back to the present in your flying train, and I like people calling me chicken now! Your work is done, at least until the reboot or Part IV starring Marty Jr. Power those gigawatts down, Doc….that’s it….” Troy urged until Abed seemed to snap out of it and take off his wig.
“Oh, hey Troy, hey guys. Did I make it in time for this week’s cold opening?” Abed asked as if nothing happened at all. “Yeah, buddy, we wouldn’t freeze our openings without you!” Troy cheered with a dopey grin before performing their usual handshake.
As Annie barely wrapped her head around the usual Troy/Abed madness, Britta was barely making herself walk into the room. “Don’t even….something….” was all she could mutter as she slumped into her seat. “Word of advice, not all psych books have hidden meanings when you’re hi…..” she trailed off as her sleepy head fell on the table.
“This is great!” Shirley cheered. “I couldn’t exorcise the pot out of her the last two times she studied high! But the third time’s got to be the charm, oh happy day!”
“Shirley, you…..ugh, I can’t even tear apart religion right now….” Britta yawned against the table.
“Oh big deal, I’ll never get it up to mermaids or cutting my dad in half again! At least not before 5 a.m., and that’s the good dream time! Damn you, shell boobs!” Pierce grumped.
“You know, I’ll bet Doc Brown could have taken you back in time and helped you cut him in half for real,” Abed pointed out. “As long as you don’t gamble or replace Crispin Glover, you’ll probably keep the time-space continuum intact.”
“But what if he turns ‘Johnny Be Good’ into a jazz number?” Troy asked worriedly. Abed thought about it and then answered, “Yeah, that’d be too great and terrible a risk. I guess there are some things even Doc Brown can’t tamper with. Good job saving music history, Troy,” Abed complimented as Troy gave another dopey smile and basked in saving history. “Sorry Pierce, looks like Jeff still got to kill your dad after all,” Abed announced.
“Oh, don’t wipe my rap sheet clean on my account.” With that, Jeff was officially the last one in, as always. However, Annie’s usual smile at seeing Jeff was smaller than usual, since Jeff sounded a little stuffy. “Jeff, are you going to ruin my Monday by getting sick?” Shirley asked for Annie.
“Shirley, the only thing sick about my body is my abs, and a few other finely tuned body parts. So before you accuse this temple of having the sniffles, check your facts next….” Jeff then had to stop his egotistical bragging long enough to sneeze into his hand. He used his other hand to reach into his pocket - but was a bit more worried when he then reached into his other pocket.
“Wait, the tissues are gone already?” he asked into his dirty hand. “Then what do I wipe myself with? I can’t get it on my wardrobe and make it contagious!”
“It’s all right, I’ve got this,” Annie assured as she reached into his backpack. “You’re not the only one who doesn’t want to get sneezy, Jeff. But I can spare some tissues and be ready if a cold tries to keep me from school.”
“I’m not sneezy and I don’t have a cold!” Jeff still insisted even as he talked into his unclean hand. “If I was, then you’d risk getting sick just by being near me. And if you gave me tissues and got near me, you’d risk getting contaminated. So wouldn’t you rather celebrate that the both of us aren’t sick?”
“Well, you’re more important right now than me getting sick, okay?” Annie admitted before backtracking. “I mean….if you get sick, you can’t lead the group through this week’s adventure, and then where will we be? So for the good of the group, I’ll risk taking one for the team.”
It was very doubtful that the group bought that cover up, or that Jeff even did. But what he did get out of it was, “You’d risk getting sick and missing school?” With that affirmation of how important he was to Annie, Jeff actually reached out with his clean hand and took the tissues Annie offered. He stuffed all but two in his pocket, then wiped his hand with one and wiped his nose with the other.
Yet in spite of that sight, Jeff still smiled softly in thanks and Annie gave a bashful smile of her own. She managed to stop herself from humming in song again too, in spite of breathing near Jeff’s contaminated air.
“Hey, you and her get a….” Britta tried to say before getting too sleepy to finish. “God, you’re lucky my textbooks aren’t the Wizard of Oz!” Before Annie could even begin to decode that, Chang rushed into the study room and right towards her.
“Thank God you’re here! I don’t have time to explain, but the only way for me to protect Greendale is to cut out your heart!” Chang declared. “Trust me, it’ll break the spell around this place and make me the fairest in the land! Then the talking animals will serve me and save us all….that’s worth cutting out your heart for me, right?”
“Ew, not even close!” Annie yelled, wanting to dismiss this as another Chang delusion - and mentally preparing to run if he really had heart-cutting tools. But Jeff then stepped in and said, “You know, if you need a heart, why don’t you take out Leonard’s? He’s lived forever, and you probably need a real experienced heart to break the spell! If it could keep him standing for 120 years, it can do anything!”
“You’re right….this one probably couldn’t even get the mines running again!” Chang gestured to a still confused Annie. “Chang you, Jeff, but in the good way this time! Now where’s that old warlock heart?” Chang called out as he ran away.
“Well, that should fill our Monday weirdness quota ahead of schedule,” Jeff declared before getting one of Annie’s tissues out and blowing his nose. But by the time he looked back up - and by the time Annie could savor Jeff ‘saving’ her - Dean Pelton arrived wearing a black cloak, a fake hump, grotesque old lady makeup and a big fake nose, while carrying a basket of apples. “Ah, summoned on cue as usual, evil queen.”
“Thank you for the royal promotion, Jeffrey,” Dean Pelton said obliviously. “That means you have to listen to my decree that it’s health week! If you don’t eat right, even perfect specimens like Jeffrey can turn into old, decaying, only moderately sexy creatures like this!” he gestured to his own attire. “So take this cautionary tale to heart and pig out on these apples, not much more delicious pigs!”
“You just got suckered into buying old lady makeup with your new costumes. And now you’re making up gimmicks to get rid of it, right?” Jeff theorized before sneezing.
“How I fail to read fine print for misleading sales is not the issue, Jeffrey! Maybe a few apples will get that nose dripping in the right way again,” the Dean proposed.
“You know, if you put that on and still let yourself talk about noses, you deserve whatever jokes you get,” Jeff countered and pointed at the Dean’s big fake nose. However, Annie then stepped in before the Dean could retort or cry. “Noses aside, you are right! Health is very important, and I want my mind and body to be at tip top strength! So I’d like to take an apple, please.”
The Dean nodded and handed over an apple, to which Annie thanked him and took a big bite. But then she froze after biting down - and then yelled in pain. “Ow! Ow, my tooth!” Annie repeated after she took the apple out. But Jeff was already on his feet by then.
“Let me see!” Jeff ordered as Annie opened her mouth, then he saw Britta waking up and trying to come up with a quip. “Go right back to sleep, Britta!” Jeff commanded, and Britta tried to grumble out how Jeff didn’t own her before laying her head back down. With that, Jeff turned back to Annie’s open mouth, although he had absolutely no idea what to look for. “Which tooth hurts, Annie?” Jeff asked with slightly more control.
“My left front tooth….I think it’s loose!” But when Annie tried to touch it with her tongue, she cringed and groaned in pain again. Jeff then turned his full fury on Dean Pelton, declaring, “Okay, I didn’t want to send you to Gitmo for your crimes until I became a lawyer again! But I guess you really can’t wait that long to be waterboarded!”
“No, I can’t get water on this makeup! Have mercy!” the Dean cringed. “Oh, I’m melting, I’m melting….not even in the hot way!”
“Ugh, at least get your wicked witches straight!” Jeff groaned, now turning his attention back to Annie. “Forget it, you’re lucky we have to go to the dentist anyway!”
“What?” Annie yelled before aggravating her tooth again. “Jeff, I’m not leaving school for this, I’ll be fine! I’ll just skip lunch and snacks and then go after school!”
“Nope, can’t risk it!” Annie couldn’t even ask what ‘it’ was, since Jeff had moved on to searching her backpack. Finally he pulled out a group of pens. “There are your pens that record classes, right? Good! Abed!” Jeff rushed through before going to Abed’s chair. “I know this isn’t like a movie, but even Doc Brown worked on projects other than the DeLorean! This is your DeLorean sabbatical! You’ll record biology for Annie, then give the other pens to people from her other classes to record them too! Then collect the pens at the end of the day and give them to Annie, and she’ll take notes if the dentist lets her!”
“Well….this is certainly heavy,” Abed reflected as he accepted the pens from Jeff. But Annie still went over and exclaimed, “Jeff, this isn’t necessary! What if he doesn’t angle the pens just right and the recordings get garbled? That’s too great a risk, so I’m telling you again I’m fine!” Unfortunately, she gritted her teeth together and hurt herself again, disproving her point.
“Right, off we go, then. The rest of you, make sure the Dean doesn’t leave the country,” Jeff insisted, taking Annie’s backpack and leading her out despite her groans and final protests. Once they were gone, Britta woke back up suddenly and mumbled out, “What’d I miss?” before seeing the Dean and screaming at him.
“Sigmund Freud in old lady makeup! You’ve come back to finish me off before I got sober! Well, I’m ready for you this time!” she cried before jumping up and beating up the Dean’s fake hump with the little energy she had. “Oh God, this isn’t the manhandling I imagined I’d get in here!” the Dean protested.
Outside of Greendale, Jeff drove Annie to the first dentist with a nice office building that he could find. Using all the charm and lawyer tricks he had, he got Annie to get examined within two hours. Then he used several new ones to set an appointment for her to get her tooth fixed and healed hours later.
The pain and Jeff’s rush to destroy it left Annie too blindsided to nitpick - but she had time late that afternoon while they were in the waiting room. Plus after Abed called and reassured her that the pens recorded everything, she was much more at ease to ask some questions.
“Jeff, what’s really with the rush to save my tooth?” Annie asked while moving her mouth carefully. “If this is about paying me back for the tissues….”
“No, you….just need that tooth healthy before anything else happens to it,” Jeff answered, although his voice seemed to waver for reasons other than his sinuses.
“Why is it so important to you that something doesn’t happen to it?” Annie dared to ask. She soon realized that going into that type of issue in a waiting room, where people could hear them and judge Jeff, probably wouldn’t work. So she resigned herself that she wouldn’t get anything clear out of him - and she probably had more pressing concerns now anyway.
But Annie then heard Jeff mutter something, although the clearest word she heard was “smile.” “What was that?” she asked, as Jeff was looking anywhere but at Annie. She tapped him on the shoulder a few times until he did look back, then smiled to try and encourage him to talk. But when she grimaced a little from her toothache, Jeff finally spoke.
“You have the best smile in school….probably the best one anywhere else, too. I….I don’t want that smile to get ruined by one bad tooth….not on my watch,” Jeff assured. “Besides, the Dean probably wanted me to eat that apple, and I let you take the rap anyway….”
“Jeff, that’s not your fault, I’m the health nut!” Annie reminded him. “You can’t hate yourself for every bad thing that happens to me. Especially when you do….stuff like this when it’s not your fault! The fact that you go all out to help me when stuff is your fault or not….it means more than anything you might have let happen. That’s how I know it’s going to be okay and nothing else matters. So I hope you know it at some point too.”
Annie spoke gently and smiled as wide as she could under the pain - all of which seemed to make Jeff calm down and be quiet. In fact, he stayed quiet the rest of the wait, and even only waved at Annie when it was her turn to go into the dentist’s office. Nevertheless, Annie chose to think he was okay - she certainly wanted to go under the dentist’s gas on a high note.
Once she went under, the next thing Annie knew was that she probably felt like Britta when she was….mellow. However, she also thought she felt a pair of lips pressing against hers. When she finally opened her eyes and saw Jeff standing over her, she was half convinced she had hallucinated that feeling. Otherwise it would be like Jeff kissed her to wake her up, after she was knocked out to fix what an apple did to her.
That’s the kind of magic that starts animation empires, but Annie was on too many painkillers to know if it was reality. So she just smiled at Jeff with no pain at all again and said nothing, enjoying the relief and his company.
For his part, Jeff figured he’d let her enjoy the high and her fixed tooth tonight, let her furiously write her notes tomorrow, then tell her more about his stealth kiss and….other things the next day - when her perfect smile could properly light up everything again.
Assuming that she didn’t catch his cold by then.