Fic: Benefits of Friendship (1/1)
title: Benefits of Friendship
fandom: Community
pairing: Annie/Jeff
word count: 1,457
rating: PG
spoilers: 3.10 Regional Holiday Music, events from Physical Education mentioned.
a/n: HI! Remember when I used to write (and post) things? I'm doing that again. Well, the first half at least. Thank you forever to dearygirl for the beta :)
“What’s a diminininanahhwww?”
“Seriously? Come on Annie, please, snap out of it.”
“Okay fine.” Annie lets go of Jeff’s hair and steps back, folds her arms and sighs. “I guess I just was hoping I’d catch the Christmas bug.”
“Wait, that was a bit?” Jeff leans forward in his chair and stares at her, his eyes seeming to grow three sizes.
Annie eyes him. “I’m sorry?”
Jeff sits back in his chair with a huff and crosses his own arms. His eyes glaze over a little. “You’re really committed to this glee thing, huh?”
“It’s not about glee, it’s about Christmas!”
“Annie. You’re Jewish.”
“Half, technically. But that just meant there were two sucky holidays in my house. I got to spend all eight days of Hannukah wishing my parents were speaking to each other and Christmas wondering why I could never have any of Dad’s special egg nog.”
Jeff frowns softly and tilts his head to look up at her. “Everybody’s got crappy holiday memories, Annie. That’s why we have to resist this glee club crap so we can make some new memories.”
Annie pouts a little but Jeff reaches out to take one of her hands and swing it back and forth between them.
“Come on, we both know no matter what any of us wants, we’re stuck with each other. Abed and Troy will snap out of it when they realize we’re not going down with them, and we’ll all watch that horrible movie and Shirley will bake things and Britta will try to teach us why Santa Claus is a tool of the patriarchal pedagogy and Pierce will be old and crazy, and you’ll be . . . you. Just like it should be.”
“I heard Horsebot 3000 plays Rudolph,” Annie whispers, smiling back.
“Yessssssss.” Jeff tugs on her hand and she takes a step toward him, then between his knees and sits gingerly on his lap. She loops her arms around his shoulders and gives him a squeeze. He returns it with an arm around her waist.
“Did you really come up with that whole thing or were you coached?”
Annie fiddles with his collar. “Well I think Troy and Abed think they converted me, and then Abed just said I had to find you and just ‘go for it because the song in my pants is the one you will dance to-‘”
Jeff chokes on nothing and it turns into a hacking cough. Annie gives him a few thumps on the back.
“Thanks,” he wheezes. “Wow. So Abed is an evil genius.”
Annie cocks her head to one side. “But it didn’t even work! I tried to tell him I didn’t think it would take all that but he and Troy were pretty convincing in harmony. Troy even played the spoons.”
Jeff shrugs with one shoulder and glances at Annie with a bit of a grimace.
“Well they weren’t all wrong. I mean, even when they’re infected with the glee virus they’re still men. Ish. They get it.”
Annie raises her eyebrows.
“You seriously sang the words “won’t you be my daddy?” Annie. I mean it’s not my thing, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t . . . bring about some . . . thoughts.”
Annie clears her throat delicately. “So that probably warrants . . . discussion.”
“Probably.”
“Hm.”
“Yeah.”
“Well-”
“Or we could just not have the discussion.”
“I like that idea.”
“That’s why you’re the best, kiddo.”
“Remember what we said about ‘kiddo’?”
“Right, right, sorry. I know. No more ‘kiddo.’” He grins at her. “Baby steps.”
She smiles back.
“Soooooo,” Annie swings her legs back and forth slightly, “we’ll do the pageant and then have study group Christmas, right?”
“Annie.”
“Jeff! Pleeeeeeeaase?! Grant me this one teeny tiny holiday wish?” She smashes her cheek against his and wraps both arms tight around his shoulders.
“I’d like to point out that you’re sitting on my lap and asking me for things for Christmas,” Jeff mutters, his voice a little muffled by his smooshed cheek. “I am not Santa, Virginia.”
“But you’re my best friend, Jeff. Pleeeeease?”
“I’m your best friend?”
“Well, yeah.”
Annie catches Jeff’s eye and sees he’s grinning at her. He rolls his eyes but wraps his arms around her and hugs her tight. Annie smiles into his shoulder and squeezes back. She lets out a happy half-squeak of a sigh and Jeff chuckles quietly.
“So, pageant? Friend?”
“Annie, friends don’t manipulate each other into doing horrible things like drinking the glee club Koolaide and dancing around like an idiot in front of the whole school.”
Annie pops back and gives him an incredulous look. “Since when do you care about looking like an idiot in front of the whole school, Mr. Naked Pool?”
“Uh, since when does singing in baby talk in this … thing” - he flips at the hem of Annie’s skirt and she smacks his hand away - “NOT cancel out naked pool?” He raises an eyebrow and laces his fingers together over her hip.
“It’s completely different,” she says as she carefully rearranges her skirt over her thigh.
“Mm-hm.”
“It is! I’m not naked,” she blushes and looks away as she sees Jeff’s eyes dip below her chin, but she also preens a little, “and this wasn’t a tantrum, it was a calculated tactic to get you to catch the Christmas spirit and join your friends in the pageant.”
“Mmmmmm-hm. Like I said, using friendship for your own selfish manipulative purposes.” He feigns a sniff. “You’re getting so good at this!”
Annie smacks his shoulder. “Besides, the whole school didn’t see me in this outfit, it was just for you.”
“Just for me, huh?”
“Well,” Annie continues to concentrate on picking at the feathery edging on her skirt. “A good friend knows what interests friends of theirs…right?”
Jeff’s mouth pops open and Annie glances over at him with a slightly evil grin on her lips.
“I told you you’re getting good at this,” he says quietly, and returns her grin.
Annie, by now full-on giggling at her own deviousness, pops a kiss on the tip of Jeff’s nose and she’s still giggling when he slips his hand to the back of her neck and pulls her mouth to his. When the laughter dies down the kiss deepens and softens both at once as they open their lips and tilt their heads for a new angle. Jeff slides his free hand to Annie’s waist and she wraps hers tighter around his neck, not just following him along but bringing him closer.
“This part of the plan?” Jeff asks between slow lazy kisses. He slides the tip of his nose along her cheek and she smiles.
“Not specifically.”
He murmurs a “hm” in response before she pulls him in again and then her tongue is sliding against his and no one’s talking.
“But it’s not not part of the plan,” she adds after a moment. She leans her forehead against Jeff’s and they look at each other cross-eyed for a moment. Jeff ‘hm’s’ again, acknowledging and questioning. Annie just shrugs her shoulders back and widens her smile, dipping back in for a last steady, quick kiss that would seem almost final if he didn’t know better.
“Friend,” he mutters when she pulls back.
“Yes, friend?”
Jeff shakes his head at her and then drops his forehead to her shoulder and sighs.
“What?” she drags out, swinging her legs back and forth a little, sounding entirely pleased. Jeff pulls his head back up, taps her hip and they both stand. He regards her silently for a few seconds, then closes his eyes.
“We are not, under any circumstances going to Regionals, understand?”
Annie’s eyes light up like fireworks and she clasps her hands together behind her back, shaking her head. “Definitely not. Just the pageant, then back to normal.”
Jeff points a finger at her in an attempt at menace. “I mean it, Annie.”
“Of course you do. No matter how friendly two people may be, there should always be boundaries, Jeff.”
He rolls his eyes and folds his arms. “Precocious little-”
Annie clears her throat and Jeff swallows back the next word and replaces it with, “friend.” She smiles up at him beatifically and produces from a box of costume pieces a light green cardigan.
“This should do it,” she says, holding it up for him. Jeff wrinkles his nose, as he inspects it, but finally snatches it from Annie’s hand and pulls it on. “Pageant then done.”
Annie nods solemnly and holds up her pinky for a swear. Jeff bats her hand away.
“Cut that out, we’re not twelve. And I’m only wearing this because it’s vintage J Crew.”
“Merry Christmas, Jeff.”
“Yeah whatever.”