Fic: Paris is for Lovers (1/1)
title: Paris is for Lovers (1/1)
fandom: Community
pairing: Annie/Jeff, a touch of Abed/Britta
rating: pg
word count: 1,524
spoilers: None! I know nothing!
a/n: For the milady_milord prom!fic challenge. I've been wanting to write dance!fic for approximately forever for these two. Title from a quote in Sabrina.
It’s the end of the year, the longest year ever, and there’s a mix of nostalgia and cautious relief in the air.
Jeff swirls a few half-melted ice cubes around in his plastic cup and watches them continue to float around the perimeter in their Scotch pool. It wasn’t the beginning of the year when Jeff promised himself a bottle of eighteen-year-old Macallan come May, because at the beginning of the year he’d never doubted that expensive Scotch would be the kind of thing he’d always have around the house. As it has turned out, things do in fact change, whether you expect them to or not. Imagine that. The flask was a good idea.
Still, in his second favorite Hugo Boss suit, holding a glass (plastic), and leaning against a bar-height table in a corner, he does a good impression of himself.
The cafeteria, with a wide space cleared in the middle for a dance floor and the lunch lines draped with table cloths and holding hors d’oeurves, looks almost classy if you squint. The wall of windows opens the space to the blackened night sky, scattered with stars. If he were a girl it would remind him of that scene in Sabrina at the Larrabee’s party, but, he’s clearly not, so.
Annie clicks up, four inch heels, navy satin, and a clipboard.
“There you are! Everyone’s been looking for you, but I couldn’t help because - well,” she does a beaming shrug that resembles nothing so much as a curtsy, “I’m kind of in charge.”
“Yeah I think you mentioned it once or twice,” he affirms, raising his eyebrows. He watches her brush a few pieces of confetti around the table with her fingertips. “Looks good.”
She folds her hands over the clipboard in front of her and turns out to survey the cafeteria. “You think so?”
“For Greendale? Sure.”
She turns back, maybe a little deflated, and he meets her eyes over his glass as he tips a sip into his mouth.
“Well, I have to-” she motions outward and he nods her off and the Scotch burns in the back of his throat.
_
“Giving it your all to remain cynical and detached, I see.”
“I always put in my best effort when it comes to apathy, you know that.”
Britta grins wryly, he pretends to frown. It’s all as it should be.
Abed approaches with a, “Hey Jeff.”
“Abed, looking good.”
“Thanks.”
“Where’s your other half?”
“Oh he’s dancing over there with the girl from our first semester biology lab,” he points. “We’re introducing a new love interest for him tonight, so I’m kind of on my own for now.”
“You’re not on your own, you’re among friends!” Britta hugs him around the shoulders and he grins enigmatically at her.
The song changes to something horrible and boy-band-y (no really, is that Hanson? Over this sound system, who could tell) and Britta barely reels in her overjoyed reaction. Clearly this is her secret jam.
“Abed let’s dance!” she fairly gasps, grabbing his shoulder in her excitement. Abed looks out to the dance floor, back at Britta in her little black dress, and shrugs “Sure.” He gives Jeff a nod as he links arms with Britta and she tugs him toward the floor.
Jeff watches with a raised eyebrow, thinking Abed’s announcement and approach weren’t nearly as unassuming as Britta seemed to think. The sly bastard.
_
“Annie you should really sit down for a minute, you haven’t stopped to enjoy yourself all night.”
Annie eyes the chair next to Shirley like it’s going to swallow her whole if she gets too close.
“But what if something-”
“Okay, then sit down because you’re making me jumpy hovering like that.”
Annie sits, barely perched on the edge of the chair.
“I guess you’re right,” she relents brightly. “Everything is pretty perfect.”
Shirley smiles, sips her punch, and mentally gives the dessert selection a six out of ten.
_
Toward the end of the night, Annie realizes on one of her scheduled perimeter sweeps that Jeff is no longer at his table. She scans the thin crowd quickly, but he’s gone.
She won’t see him again for three months, and she’d wanted something more like . . . closure. Maybe his mildly snide comment is what she needed, though. Maybe.
She picks up his almost empty glass and regards the few drops of liquid lining the bottom. Experimentally, she dips a finger in and licks it. It tastes like oak, like the smell of it, old and fresh at the same time. It would remind her of him even if she’d never met him.
_
They say their goodbyes, Shirley; Pierce and, perplexingly, Sra. Escuadera; lastly Abed, Britta, and Troy, trailed by his date. They smile, and hug, and whisper inside jokes, and Annie feels like she’s filled with tears from her toes up. The foursome are the last ones out the doors, and when they close with a finale-worthy “chunk,” Annie turns back and surveys the outcome of her work.
The windows really did make it spectacular. A full moon is framed attractively through some trees, and the low lighting - still swirling around the air in multi-colors off the disco ball - reflects the scene murkily in the glass.
Some of the tables are moved from their diagrammed locations, chairs are everywhere. Table cloths dribbled with stains, crumbs, discarded tops of strawberries, little drink straws. Plastic punch cups make little filmy spots of light, crumpled napkins cast shadows. Streamers hang limp and straight, torn in sections and scattered over the dance floor, and confetti is everywhere, gritty like sand on the floor.
She’s picking up a disposable camera to add to the lost and found box when the doors open, starling her. She turns, brushing her hair back from her face.
Jeff’s almost buried in the shadows, stray lights just touching his shoulders, his forehead, the toes of his shiny dress shoes. He hadn’t worn a tie, and his collar had been open all night, but he looks less formal now even so.
He approaches, stepping out into the watery lighting, and the moment loses some of its magic when he does and she sees the Starbucks cup in his hand. He holds it out with a sheepish grin.
“I thought you’d be tired,” he says, and she takes the coffee and stares at it a moment.
“Two sugars, no cream,” he amends, remembering.
“Thank you.” She murmurs it, and takes a sip. She coughs, and he winces.
“Sorry, it’s fresh.”
She shakes her head and follows his lead when he sits on the nearest stray chair. It’s a relief; even though the roof of her mouth is stings from the coffee at least she has an excuse to sit. She straightens her legs out in front of her, balancing the tips of her heels on the ground and pointing her toes skyward. She closes her eyes and hears Jeff’s quiet inhale. When she opens her eyes he’s sitting with his elbows on his knees, inspecting a fingernail carefully.
He gives up and glances around the room.
“Hasn’t looked like this since paintball,” he says, referencing the post-dance mess and hoping for a conversational tone.
Annie laughs, though she never did get to the cafeteria that day.
She leans over and sets down the coffee on the floor next to her, and unbuckles the ankle straps on her heels quickly, slipping them off. She sighs involuntarily and wiggles her toes, holding her legs out in front of her as she sits up so her feet don’t touch the dirty floor.
When she looks up, Jeff is watching her, grinning, his chin resting on one fist. She’s not sure a look can give a physical sensation, but she feels it, and the blush glowing on her cheeks.
Jeff looks away, and straightens in his chair. He braces his hands on his knees when he stands, and Annie stands up too without thinking, coffee left on the floor next to her bare feet.
The air feels too thin, her fingers twine tightly in front of her.
“So, um,” Jeff states carefully. He steps forward, and she reaches, and this time they get it right on the first try.
He’s hugging her, stooped over with her arms curved up under his and her hands barely reaching his shoulders, feeling how easily he could pick her up and listen to her surprised laugh ringing like a cartoon princess. If he wanted to. If she wanted him to.
It pops into his head too fast to keep from saying it.
“Did you dance?”
“Hm?”
She pulls away, and then they’re just standing there, arms still knotting around waists, close.
“Tonight, did anyone dance with you?”
She shakes her head slowly.
He feels all breathy and stupid and he thinks she must be loving it, somewhere underneath the wide eyes.
“We should dance,” he whispers, drawing her closer, moving a hand to the center of her back at her waist, drawing her other arm from around his waist to hold her hand.
The disco ball swirls silently above.
_