show me the side streets in your life: jeff/britta.
Continued from here.
He sits down next to Britta on the grass, "You don't want to go find your spirit animal among the leaves of green?"
Britta pulls a handful of grass up and starts mindlessly tearing it apart before realizing what she's done. She sets the clump back down and pats it, like that'll fix it.
"I walk my dog on that trail at least twice a week. I'm not going to listen to Vaughn sing a song about a tree Capra's peed on."
Jeff's actually taken aback. It's not like she struck him as a cat person -- she actually struck him as the kind of person that would accidentally kill a houseplant , but a dog?
"You have a dog? Wait, wait, revision -- your dog's name is Capra? You closet sentimentalist!"
Britta looks like she's going to put up a fight or say something, but she busts out with a tiny grin instead, so he keeps on.
"Is it a wonderful life, Britta? Is it?"
"Do you wanna see a picture?" She almost looks -- proud?
Jeff's normally not the type to agree to see pictures of anyone's anything -- unless of course someone is topless in the pictures -- but he's not made of stone, it's a dog for fuck's sake. (Plus, Britta's face right now is way more open than he's ever seen it. That's got to be worth something.)
"Sure." He hasn't even finished the word and Britta's got her phone out. As she's thumbing through it, she starts talking, like, rambling, unguarded, earnest talking.
"When I got back from New York, I didn't know anybody and I saw her on the shelter's website and they said she'd been abused and --" she cuts herself off and turns the phone toward Jeff.
"This is Capra at the St. Patrick's Day parade." On the screen, there's a brownish dog, maybe with some beagle, some Daschund, wearing a green bandana.
Britta presses a button and another picture comes up, this time the dog's wearing an orange t-shirt with a jack-o-lantern face on the back. "And this is Halloween -- we passed out candy after the party."
She flips through a few more, Capra on her back, waiting for a belly rub, Capra's tongue licking at the lens, Capra in an argyle sweater.
"Oh my god, Britta."
She looks up at him, alarmed. "What?"
"Oh my god, you're a crazy dog lady," he drops his voice on the last bit for effect.
"Wha-- no." She ducks her head, squinting at her phone and a picture of Capra in a tiny dog kilt, like she's trying to decide.
"Britta, you dress her up, you take pictures, you go to parades. You're a grade A, blue ribbon, prize-winning crazy dog lady."
She looks back at the phone before snapping it shut and climbing to her feet.
"At least I have somewhere to sleep tonight." It's only the slightest bit smug, but how does the person who just showed off pictures of their pet in human clothes end up winning the conversation?
Jeff watches her for a second, getting himself up and jogging after her.
"You know that tent could fit another person," he catches up to her. "And I solemnly swear to let you have your way with me. I'll just lie back and think of England."
"England's an ally, Jeff, they don't deserve that."
They come up on a playground and Britta makes her way toward the swings and sits down.
"Come on, we'll do this for another 10 minutes, I'll win you over, blah, blah, I'm sleeping in there." This isn't a TV show, they don't need all the middle shit.
"Nope." She pushes off with her feet and starts to swing.
"Oh my god, really, really, you're going to be like this? What would Buddha say about that?" He sits down in the swing next to her and starts to pump, making sure to immediately get higher than her.
"I don't know, my Buddhist phase coincided with my 'experiment with drugs' phase. As far as I'm concerned, Buddha and I might not even see blue as the same color."
"Fine. I promise to tell everyone I actually slept outside the tent." He's almost to the top of his arc now, starting to cherry bump. Man, this is a lot easier than it was as a kid.
"You can definitely tell them that, because it'll be the truth." She turns and smiles at him.
This thing they do, it should get old, but it doesn't. It just makes him think of how kissing her is like this, too. Back and forth, back and forth. For something that's only happened once, he has surprisingly vivid memories of it.
"All right, if I beat you on the jump, I get to sleep in the tent." He's barely even pumping anymore, just letting his weight pull him up and down.
"What is this, a Jennifer Garner movie? No." She pulls back on the chains before leaning forward. "And you could never beat me on the jump."
He turns his head, making sure she can see him and arches his eyebrows before going into the upswing. At the very top, he pushes himself off and lands, several feet away. He barely has time to look back and then Britta's off her swing, flying through the air. She lands with perfect form, like a gymnast, a good three feet in front of him.
"Fuck."
She shoves his shoulder, "Come on, Winger, let's go back. Your old man body is gonna feel that landing in the morning, especially after sleeping on the cold, hard ground."
"The ground in the tent though, right?" She's already walking away and he's calling after her. "Right?"
As it turns out, Professor Hippie's disapproval of The Man does, in fact, stop short of actually breaking the law -- but not short of childishly flaunting it. He's got a battery-powered toy that blows air up in between sheets of red and orange cloth. This is their campfire.
Everyone else has returned from their "nature walk" and spread out blankets around the "fire." (It's like Jeff can "see" air quotes everywhere he looks.)
Jeff's irritated for a second when he notices Vaughn is sitting next to Annie on her blanket -- the one Troy had told him months ago belonged to her grandma -- but he's immediately distracted by the monstrosity Britta's pulled from her bag. It's at least ten different colors, frayed and knotted, with big holes in parts.
"Before I say anything about this blanket, did anyone who is now dead knit it for you, thereby creating some sort of sentimental value that I'd be remiss to mock?"
Britta gives him a weird look and unfurls it on the ground. "No, I made --"
"Wait, wait, wait, let me try first. You knitted this as part of some sort of angry feminist knitting group in a studio apartment in Williamsburg, no, the Village, no, definitely Williamsburg. Wait, it was a Stitch and Bitch in Park Slope -- final answer."
She glares at him and the scoreboard he keeps in his head ticks forward one for Jeff 'The Rocket' Winger.
"Aw, calm down, Martha Stewart. I'll sit right here -- the burnt orange and -- what is this? Glittery puke green? -- goes really well with my outfit," he folds himself down on the blanket.
Britta looks like maybe she's going to actually wrestle him off of it, which, all told, wouldn't be bad, but then Professor Hippie is speaking.
"You've all done great so far, but this next one is going to count as 30 percent of your final grade -- dinner. Go."
Everyone starts pulling food out of their bags or standing to -- standing to find food? Who knows.
Annie's brought a dehydrated four course meal, right down to the ice cream for dessert. Next to her, Vaughn pulls a granola bar from his pocket.
Abed hands Troy a brown paper grocery bag and then gets one out for himself. He starts talking about how this is a recreation of what Emilio Estevez's character -- also a star athlete, like Troy -- brought to detention in The Breakfast Club. He's overshadowed by Troy, who's busy pulling food out of the bag and screaming like it's Christmas.
"Three sandwiches?! Cookies! Milk! Fruit!"
"If you're not able to eat it all, you can share with Jeff. Like Judd Nelson's character, he hasn't brought any food," Abed says and looks at Jeff. "Although I did bring some Pixy Stix, if you'd rather be Ally Sheedy."
Next to him, Troy's circled his arms around the food protectively.
Jeff waves him off, "Thanks, I've got it covered." He pulls his phone out and starts to look through it.
Britta groans, "You can't possibly think ordering take out is going to get you a passing grade."
"I'm providing dinner for myself. Assignment completed. Or it will be, in fifteen minutes -- and if it's not, it's free."
"China-a-Go-Go wouldn't deliver to a real campground," she rolls her eyes.
"And if we were in a real campground, I'd be too full of roasted hotdogs and marshmallows to even think about cashew chicken. But we're not."
(He actually just forgot food, like he forgot a blanket and forgot to sign up for a tent. It's easier to pretend this is all deliberate.)
Once his order's placed -- he goes with the cashew chicken just to make a point -- he looks around. Pierce is slurping down what looks like a protein shake, but can't possibly be. Shirley's eating celery covered in peanut butter and raisins ("My boys call this 'ants on a log,'" she beams). Britta is eating a pita stuffed with like, sprouts or some shit.
They eat in silence for a little while, the sun setting in the background. Just as everyone's finishing and Pierce hands out Hawthorne Wipes -- "These are free for my friends!" He makes a show of not giving one to Vaughn -- Jeff sees the delivery guy walking across the field.
Before he can even get his wallet out, Britta's sprinting away with her purse.
Well, shit.
He reaches the guy a few moments behind Britta, but can hear what she's said: "Whatever he owes you, I'll give you double." She's digging around in her purse.
"Britta --" he's trying for a warning tone, but this battle is already lost, he can tell from the dollar signs in the kid's eyes. He doesn't have the cash in his wallet to triple it.
"Just think of it like you were hunting in the woods and someone got to your kill first," she smirks and hands over a fistful of bills before taking the food -- Jeff's dinner.
The kid grabs it and tears off, Jeff yelling behind him, "I'll be filling out a comment card about this!" It's kind of embarrassing.
"All right, you made your point, can I have my food now?" He turns back to Britta.
"No, it's about time the Jeff Winger luck ran out."
"The Jeff Winger what?"
"You, Jeff Winger, always running around, all devil-may-care, landing on your feet. You're leading a charmed life and I'm here to -- to -- to uncharm it."
"Did you just quote Third Eye Blind at me? That's offensive."
She tilts her head and holds the bag of food up. "This is offensive. The rest of us have to try and you just, just coast on by, in your sunglasses and your pants, so: pssh," she finishes lamely.
He's seen her really pissed, like, actually pissed and this isn't it -- but she's definitely, she's something right now.
"All right, you're right, me and my pants get away with everything. I'm sorry. Can I have my food?"
It should be enough, but instead she takes off running (he's pretty fucking sick of that) and not in the direction of camp.
Jeff considers it for a minute, but Troy really did eat all that food and he watched Annie split her dessert with Vaughn. That leaves the Ally Sheedy Pixy Stix or chasing after Britta.
Ugh.
He starts to run.
Britta's like a goddamn gazelle or something, bobbing and weaving across the other side of the field and into a patch of trees. He follows her for a while until he realizes -- the trees haven't ended. And it's dark. And he can't see Britta anymore.
He stops and yells out, "Britta!" Nothing. "Britta!" Nothing. "Britta!"
"What?" She's right next to him and he jumps.
"FUCK!"
"Aw, little Jeffy's scared?" He can see the moonlight glint off her teeth, she's smiling.
"No, it's just -- whatever. Can I have my food now?"
"I guess," she hands it over, still smiling.
He squints off into the distance and can't see anything except more trees. His stomach is growling and if he has to walk back to camp and then eat his dinner in the middle of a Greendale rendition of 'Kumbaya,' he's just going to end up puking.
"I'm eating here, you can walk back if you want, but if any bears come after you, I'm going to let nature take its course." He sits down on a tree stump and starts to untie the bag.
Britta considers it for a minute and sits down on a rock next to him, "I'm not going to be the one to tell Pierce I left you alone in the woods."
Jeff gets out a carton and is grateful to see there's plastic silverware in with the chopsticks. Dicking around with chopsticks right now isn't high on his To Do list.
He's shoveling food into his mouth when he realizes how quiet it is. "Where the hell are we?" He says it around a mouthful of rice, but Britta doesn't seem to notice.
"We're in the park. I always give Capra a drink from the water fountain over there," she points in between a couple of trees.
"You're sure?"
Britta doesn't answer him, instead she picks up his fortune cookie and opens it, reading the fortune aloud, "'You'll lose your way, but find a new one.' Ooh, how ominous."
He eats for a little while longer, as Britta makes a tiny paper football out of the fortune. When he's done, he stands and says, "Lead on, crazy dog lady."
She rolls her eyes and sets off between the trees, only there's no water fountain.
"It's, uh, it's got to be just up ahead."
They walk a little bit further. Nothing but more trees.
"Oh my god, are you serious? We're lost in the woods. Over shitty Chinese food. Great." There's definitely a little bit of a whine in his voice, but Jeff's past caring.
Britta keeps walking, "We're not lost."
It takes about 10 minutes, but she comes around to it -- they're lost.
"Fine, I'll just call and they'll come find us. I'm sure this isn't the first time Professor Nature back there has lost a student."
Because sometimes life is a Jennifer Garner movie, he doesn't have a signal.
Britta pulls out her phone, "AT&T sucks, if you weren't such an iPhone whore, beholden to the whims of corporations, you'd get a carrier that --"
Apparently Britta's fancy, non-AT&T phone doesn't have a signal either.
They yell. They yell a lot. Nothing but crickets and wind and some other Robert Frost nonsense.
"How big can this park be? We'll just walk until we find something."
Britta, even in the dim light, looks embarrassed. "Uh, actually the park joins up with a forest. Like a real forest."
"You're joking."
"Nope," and her eyebrows climb up toward her hairline.
There's some bickering and then they turn around. They pass by Jeff's discarded Chinese food ("Nice, Jeff, nice and classy." "Shut it, Ranger Rick.") and keep going and suddenly it's been an hour.
"They've got to be looking for us. We might as well just stop," Jeff's about 30 seconds away from a temper tantrum. He can feel it.
"Fine." Britta makes her way to a fallen tree and sits down, leaning up against it.
He sits down next to her, far enough away that he's not actually touching, but close enough that he can feel her there. It's not that he's actually worried (more like inconvenienced), but they're still in the woods, in the dark.
They sit for a while, starting up a makeshift game of acorn target practice. Jeff looks at his watch, it's actually pretty late.
"So who's watching your dog tonight?"
It's the first thing either of them has said in what feels like an hour.
Britta startles next to him, "Oh, um, my neighbors. They just got a new puppy and are trying to socialize him anyway."
"Dog people," he says it jokingly, lightly.
She bumps into him with her shoulder, "Aw, come on, you can't actually hate dogs."
"I don't." And then he spends the next five minutes telling Britta the story of how he got a dog in the fourth grade, but his dad said he didn't take care of it and one day when he came home from school, Gizmo was gone.
Britta doesn't say anything, but scoots a little closer next to him, kind of leaning against his arm. He'd blow her off, tell her he didn't need any sympathy, he's a grown man, but Gizmo was the best dog in the whole goddamn world and fuck it, it's about time someone tried to make it up to him. Plus, he's pretty tired.
And thirsty. Jesus, he's thirsty. Chinese food, stupid idea anyway.
"Hey, do you have any water?" He looks down at Britta and she's got her arms wrapped around herself, knees to her chest. "Wait, are you cold?"
She shakes him off, "No, I'm not cold. I think have some water --" she starts rummaging through her purse and pulls out one of those metal water bottles, "A ha."
(Of course she's got one of these hippie REI canteen things. Plastic bottles kill the Earth after all, right?)
Once she's handed him the water, she pulls her knees back up and, yeah, she's cold.
"All right, we'll do it like this, so as not to put you in a position where you need anything from me. I'll warm you up, if you give me some water."
"I hardly think your volunteering to make out with me in exchange for a drink qualifies as a fair trade." She says it, but her heart's not in it.
"Whoa, whoa, who said anything about making out? Slow down there, Britta. Although you did buy me dinner --" He smiles. "No, I mean like this, here." He unscrews the bottle and takes a big drink before giving it back to her. She takes a drink, too, and Jeff's weirdly pleased that she didn't wipe the rim off or anything. Christ, who's back in the fourth grade now?
"All right, now, here, just," he lifts his arm up and puts it along the back of the tree, leaning into her before wrapping his hand around her arm. "Better?"
Britta stiffens for a second, but then seems to realize it might actually help and settles against his side.
"Where are they?" Britta says and it's half muffled by where her head is leaning against his armpit. (Two things: one, when did this happen, two, he showered today, right?)
"You know, Pierce is probably wandering the field in circles calling our names." She laughs softly and he can feel it across his shirt. He continues, "Vaughn's showing Annie how the Earth will lead them to us. Shirley's fretting. Wait, no, Shirley's yelling at the professor and he's terrified, really, truly, terrified. Troy and Abed, hmm." He stops and Britta picks it up.
"Troy and Abed are going to actually find us. Abed saw it in a movie and they're practically here. Got to be, right?" Her head lolls further into him and he doesn't want to look down to confirm it, but he's pretty sure from the way her voice trailed off, she's closed her eyes.
Jeff figures, sure, OK, they'll be here soon, what's the harm in closing his eyes, too?
When he wakes up, he keeps his eyes shut for a second, because when he opens them it either better be daylight and there's camp just ten feet away or there's everybody, coming through the trees to get them.
It's plenty bright when he opens his eyes, but it's just the moon. Really, neither of those things happen, but Britta's still sleeping on him and so he takes that in. She jumps awake a few seconds later, "What?! Huh?!"
"We're still here," he looks at his watch, "And it's only been 20 minutes."
She sits up straight and his shirt's damp with sweat where she's been leaning into him. He can smell his own deodorant, which, oh thank god, he did shower.
"Maybe we should try walking again?" Her hair is all messed up, kind of, like, sex messed up and it's enough to distract him into agreeing.
Except that when she goes to stand, she trips, falling back down to the ground, "My leg's asleep, fuck it."
They settle back against the log.
Britta doesn't lean back into him, but doesn't object when he stretches his arm out again.
"Jeff," she says, like she needs him to know she's talking to him and not the hundreds of other people in the woods. "I know this is my fault. So you can just say it now and get it over with. 'You got us lost in the woods, Britta," she drops her voice when she mimics him.
Huh. He hadn't really thought of it that way, it is her fault. But really he says (and thinks):
"No, you're right, I was, what did you call it? 'Coasting on by?' If I hadn't tried for the easy way, we'd be back at camp and I'd be sneaking into your tent right about now."
"And I'd be locking the zipper," she pauses. "That's about the most grown up conversation we've ever had."
"Shh, don't tell anybody." He looks down at her and she's already staring at him.
A lump forms in his throat, the kind of lump adults are supposed to outgrow, right? You're supposed to stop being affected by pretty girls who go toe-to-toe with you and instead focus on ways to keep everyone from bothering you.
He swallows, but it doesn't go away. She's actually making eye contact with him. It's unnerving.
Without even thinking about, he curls his hand around her arm again. When her mouth opens just the tiniest bit, he tightens it.
There's that feeling, the one where he's not a grown up, where he's not detached, where there's a tingling heat spreading across his chest.
She's got to know, right? She's got to know that if this goes on just two seconds longer, he's going to kiss her.
He mentally counts to two, then to four. She doesn't move, just keeps looking at him and he can see the tiniest bit of her teeth past her lips.
The handful of times anything like this has happened to him with a woman like Britta, he's opened his mouth and said something stupid. Half the time they kiss him anyway, but the other half, he's fucked it up.
If Professor Slater taught him anything, it's that those are risky odds.
So he keeps his mouth shut, just raising his eyebrows the tiniest bit, like a question.
She raises hers back.
He leans in and she actually, holy shit, she actually tips her head up.
Kissing her in the quad, it was all in fast forward, like in triple time, but he figured that was because he hadn't had any time to think about it. But kissing her this time, it's just as fast, everything zips by.
Jeff tilts his head and Britta tilts hers and then their lips are together and then they're moving. He uses the hand around her arm to turn her into him. He brings his other hand up to her face. She loops her arms around his neck. It's so fast, move, move, move.
He feels like he's falling behind, like he needs to catch up, which is ridiculous, but there it is. He opens his mouth to get her bottom lip between his and then there's her tongue and so he sweeps his out.
Before it even registers, he's half picking her up, and she's doing the other half, walking on her knees, moving to straddle him. His hands fall around her waist and she moves hers up into his hair.
He forces himself to slow everything down, to bring it into focus. He slides his tongue against hers and concentrates on the damp, warm feel of it. She pulls back and he thinks he's blown it, that is was always meant to be fast, but instead she moves her mouth down to his neck.
Oh. Oh.
She's sucking, then licking, then there it is, just the tiniest nip, just a little bit of teeth and he bucks up into her.
Now he's blown it.
She pulls back and he's expecting something sarcastic or something witty or something that isn't just a tiny smirk as she grinds down onto him before kissing him again.
He's going to go ahead and take that as tacit permission for -- something.
He unclenches one of his hands from where he'd been clutching the back of her shirt and moves it around to the front. He's just gotten it curled around her ribs, when the fast forward is back and then suddenly he's moved it up, and he's, jesus fuck, he's palming Britta's breast.
She breaks the kiss and breathes out -- he'll call it a groan and bump the scoreboard up, but it's actually quieter than that.
It's not that he's trying to jerk his hips, it's just, his pants are tight to begin with. And if there's any chance she'll do that grinding thing or neck thing or anything again, he's going to go for it.
She does.
She drops down a little, sinking further into his lap, landing, oh, OK, yep, and he can't even being to imagine how stupid he looks because he knows he's chasing after her mouth.
He finds it again and it's wet and open and his tongue just slides back inside. He's moving his other hand around, skirting his fingers just up under the edge of her shirt and --
"Whoa, it's getting X-rated up in here!"
Troy. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Troy.
Britta goes still and rigid and then practically vaults off of him.
He shifts a little in his pants and gets up (very fucking uncomfortably, thanks) to stand next to Britta.
She smooths her shirt down and clears her throat as Troy emerges from behind a tree, Abed at his heels.
Troy's teeth look blindingly white in the moonlight -- it's also probably because he's got a face-splitting grin on.
"You guys didn't have to stop -- white people getting it on, I've rented that one before."
Jeff's trying to figure out what to do -- say something? Ignore it? Acknowledge it? Check on Britta? He settles on scanning the woods behind them, to see if everyone just witnessed that.
"It's just us," Abed speaks in his normal tone, fast and clipped.
"Yeah, we actually found you guys a while ago," Troy says. "But Abed said we should observe because it's good -- what was it?"
"Character development," Abed supplies.
"Yeah, character development. I thought it was gonna be boring, but, man, get it, Jeff!" Troy puts his fist out for a bump, but lets it drop when Jeff doesn't move.
"Wait," Britta says. "You let us stay in the woods, thinking we were lost, for character development." Oh and there it is, that's Britta actually pissed.
Abed's still unfazed, "Of course, you had to be out of your natural element for anything to develop. It's a mixture of several different romantic comedy formulas. Britta, you're like Meg Ryan in --"
Jeff can feel the heat radiating off of Britta and there's no doubt that she could snap Abed like a twig, so he steps in.
"All right, just take us back to camp," he tries to make it sound like he's pissed, but it's not working.
Abed turns on his heels and starts walking, Britta close behind. Troy's still looking at Jeff like he's a hero and because he is feeling pretty fucking great right now, he raises his fist just the tiniest bit. Troy bumps it enthusiastically. Jeff puts a finger to his mouth, like, shh, and points at Britta.
&&.
It was probably too much to ask that he also end up in Britta's tent for the rest of the night, so he doesn't.
(The professor gives them an automatic A for surviving in the wild. He ends up in her apartment instead.)
&&.
Click here to go back to main! \o/
He sits down next to Britta on the grass, "You don't want to go find your spirit animal among the leaves of green?"
Britta pulls a handful of grass up and starts mindlessly tearing it apart before realizing what she's done. She sets the clump back down and pats it, like that'll fix it.
"I walk my dog on that trail at least twice a week. I'm not going to listen to Vaughn sing a song about a tree Capra's peed on."
Jeff's actually taken aback. It's not like she struck him as a cat person -- she actually struck him as the kind of person that would accidentally kill a houseplant , but a dog?
"You have a dog? Wait, wait, revision -- your dog's name is Capra? You closet sentimentalist!"
Britta looks like she's going to put up a fight or say something, but she busts out with a tiny grin instead, so he keeps on.
"Is it a wonderful life, Britta? Is it?"
"Do you wanna see a picture?" She almost looks -- proud?
Jeff's normally not the type to agree to see pictures of anyone's anything -- unless of course someone is topless in the pictures -- but he's not made of stone, it's a dog for fuck's sake. (Plus, Britta's face right now is way more open than he's ever seen it. That's got to be worth something.)
"Sure." He hasn't even finished the word and Britta's got her phone out. As she's thumbing through it, she starts talking, like, rambling, unguarded, earnest talking.
"When I got back from New York, I didn't know anybody and I saw her on the shelter's website and they said she'd been abused and --" she cuts herself off and turns the phone toward Jeff.
"This is Capra at the St. Patrick's Day parade." On the screen, there's a brownish dog, maybe with some beagle, some Daschund, wearing a green bandana.
Britta presses a button and another picture comes up, this time the dog's wearing an orange t-shirt with a jack-o-lantern face on the back. "And this is Halloween -- we passed out candy after the party."
She flips through a few more, Capra on her back, waiting for a belly rub, Capra's tongue licking at the lens, Capra in an argyle sweater.
"Oh my god, Britta."
She looks up at him, alarmed. "What?"
"Oh my god, you're a crazy dog lady," he drops his voice on the last bit for effect.
"Wha-- no." She ducks her head, squinting at her phone and a picture of Capra in a tiny dog kilt, like she's trying to decide.
"Britta, you dress her up, you take pictures, you go to parades. You're a grade A, blue ribbon, prize-winning crazy dog lady."
She looks back at the phone before snapping it shut and climbing to her feet.
"At least I have somewhere to sleep tonight." It's only the slightest bit smug, but how does the person who just showed off pictures of their pet in human clothes end up winning the conversation?
Jeff watches her for a second, getting himself up and jogging after her.
"You know that tent could fit another person," he catches up to her. "And I solemnly swear to let you have your way with me. I'll just lie back and think of England."
"England's an ally, Jeff, they don't deserve that."
They come up on a playground and Britta makes her way toward the swings and sits down.
"Come on, we'll do this for another 10 minutes, I'll win you over, blah, blah, I'm sleeping in there." This isn't a TV show, they don't need all the middle shit.
"Nope." She pushes off with her feet and starts to swing.
"Oh my god, really, really, you're going to be like this? What would Buddha say about that?" He sits down in the swing next to her and starts to pump, making sure to immediately get higher than her.
"I don't know, my Buddhist phase coincided with my 'experiment with drugs' phase. As far as I'm concerned, Buddha and I might not even see blue as the same color."
"Fine. I promise to tell everyone I actually slept outside the tent." He's almost to the top of his arc now, starting to cherry bump. Man, this is a lot easier than it was as a kid.
"You can definitely tell them that, because it'll be the truth." She turns and smiles at him.
This thing they do, it should get old, but it doesn't. It just makes him think of how kissing her is like this, too. Back and forth, back and forth. For something that's only happened once, he has surprisingly vivid memories of it.
"All right, if I beat you on the jump, I get to sleep in the tent." He's barely even pumping anymore, just letting his weight pull him up and down.
"What is this, a Jennifer Garner movie? No." She pulls back on the chains before leaning forward. "And you could never beat me on the jump."
He turns his head, making sure she can see him and arches his eyebrows before going into the upswing. At the very top, he pushes himself off and lands, several feet away. He barely has time to look back and then Britta's off her swing, flying through the air. She lands with perfect form, like a gymnast, a good three feet in front of him.
"Fuck."
She shoves his shoulder, "Come on, Winger, let's go back. Your old man body is gonna feel that landing in the morning, especially after sleeping on the cold, hard ground."
"The ground in the tent though, right?" She's already walking away and he's calling after her. "Right?"
As it turns out, Professor Hippie's disapproval of The Man does, in fact, stop short of actually breaking the law -- but not short of childishly flaunting it. He's got a battery-powered toy that blows air up in between sheets of red and orange cloth. This is their campfire.
Everyone else has returned from their "nature walk" and spread out blankets around the "fire." (It's like Jeff can "see" air quotes everywhere he looks.)
Jeff's irritated for a second when he notices Vaughn is sitting next to Annie on her blanket -- the one Troy had told him months ago belonged to her grandma -- but he's immediately distracted by the monstrosity Britta's pulled from her bag. It's at least ten different colors, frayed and knotted, with big holes in parts.
"Before I say anything about this blanket, did anyone who is now dead knit it for you, thereby creating some sort of sentimental value that I'd be remiss to mock?"
Britta gives him a weird look and unfurls it on the ground. "No, I made --"
"Wait, wait, wait, let me try first. You knitted this as part of some sort of angry feminist knitting group in a studio apartment in Williamsburg, no, the Village, no, definitely Williamsburg. Wait, it was a Stitch and Bitch in Park Slope -- final answer."
She glares at him and the scoreboard he keeps in his head ticks forward one for Jeff 'The Rocket' Winger.
"Aw, calm down, Martha Stewart. I'll sit right here -- the burnt orange and -- what is this? Glittery puke green? -- goes really well with my outfit," he folds himself down on the blanket.
Britta looks like maybe she's going to actually wrestle him off of it, which, all told, wouldn't be bad, but then Professor Hippie is speaking.
"You've all done great so far, but this next one is going to count as 30 percent of your final grade -- dinner. Go."
Everyone starts pulling food out of their bags or standing to -- standing to find food? Who knows.
Annie's brought a dehydrated four course meal, right down to the ice cream for dessert. Next to her, Vaughn pulls a granola bar from his pocket.
Abed hands Troy a brown paper grocery bag and then gets one out for himself. He starts talking about how this is a recreation of what Emilio Estevez's character -- also a star athlete, like Troy -- brought to detention in The Breakfast Club. He's overshadowed by Troy, who's busy pulling food out of the bag and screaming like it's Christmas.
"Three sandwiches?! Cookies! Milk! Fruit!"
"If you're not able to eat it all, you can share with Jeff. Like Judd Nelson's character, he hasn't brought any food," Abed says and looks at Jeff. "Although I did bring some Pixy Stix, if you'd rather be Ally Sheedy."
Next to him, Troy's circled his arms around the food protectively.
Jeff waves him off, "Thanks, I've got it covered." He pulls his phone out and starts to look through it.
Britta groans, "You can't possibly think ordering take out is going to get you a passing grade."
"I'm providing dinner for myself. Assignment completed. Or it will be, in fifteen minutes -- and if it's not, it's free."
"China-a-Go-Go wouldn't deliver to a real campground," she rolls her eyes.
"And if we were in a real campground, I'd be too full of roasted hotdogs and marshmallows to even think about cashew chicken. But we're not."
(He actually just forgot food, like he forgot a blanket and forgot to sign up for a tent. It's easier to pretend this is all deliberate.)
Once his order's placed -- he goes with the cashew chicken just to make a point -- he looks around. Pierce is slurping down what looks like a protein shake, but can't possibly be. Shirley's eating celery covered in peanut butter and raisins ("My boys call this 'ants on a log,'" she beams). Britta is eating a pita stuffed with like, sprouts or some shit.
They eat in silence for a little while, the sun setting in the background. Just as everyone's finishing and Pierce hands out Hawthorne Wipes -- "These are free for my friends!" He makes a show of not giving one to Vaughn -- Jeff sees the delivery guy walking across the field.
Before he can even get his wallet out, Britta's sprinting away with her purse.
Well, shit.
He reaches the guy a few moments behind Britta, but can hear what she's said: "Whatever he owes you, I'll give you double." She's digging around in her purse.
"Britta --" he's trying for a warning tone, but this battle is already lost, he can tell from the dollar signs in the kid's eyes. He doesn't have the cash in his wallet to triple it.
"Just think of it like you were hunting in the woods and someone got to your kill first," she smirks and hands over a fistful of bills before taking the food -- Jeff's dinner.
The kid grabs it and tears off, Jeff yelling behind him, "I'll be filling out a comment card about this!" It's kind of embarrassing.
"All right, you made your point, can I have my food now?" He turns back to Britta.
"No, it's about time the Jeff Winger luck ran out."
"The Jeff Winger what?"
"You, Jeff Winger, always running around, all devil-may-care, landing on your feet. You're leading a charmed life and I'm here to -- to -- to uncharm it."
"Did you just quote Third Eye Blind at me? That's offensive."
She tilts her head and holds the bag of food up. "This is offensive. The rest of us have to try and you just, just coast on by, in your sunglasses and your pants, so: pssh," she finishes lamely.
He's seen her really pissed, like, actually pissed and this isn't it -- but she's definitely, she's something right now.
"All right, you're right, me and my pants get away with everything. I'm sorry. Can I have my food?"
It should be enough, but instead she takes off running (he's pretty fucking sick of that) and not in the direction of camp.
Jeff considers it for a minute, but Troy really did eat all that food and he watched Annie split her dessert with Vaughn. That leaves the Ally Sheedy Pixy Stix or chasing after Britta.
Ugh.
He starts to run.
Britta's like a goddamn gazelle or something, bobbing and weaving across the other side of the field and into a patch of trees. He follows her for a while until he realizes -- the trees haven't ended. And it's dark. And he can't see Britta anymore.
He stops and yells out, "Britta!" Nothing. "Britta!" Nothing. "Britta!"
"What?" She's right next to him and he jumps.
"FUCK!"
"Aw, little Jeffy's scared?" He can see the moonlight glint off her teeth, she's smiling.
"No, it's just -- whatever. Can I have my food now?"
"I guess," she hands it over, still smiling.
He squints off into the distance and can't see anything except more trees. His stomach is growling and if he has to walk back to camp and then eat his dinner in the middle of a Greendale rendition of 'Kumbaya,' he's just going to end up puking.
"I'm eating here, you can walk back if you want, but if any bears come after you, I'm going to let nature take its course." He sits down on a tree stump and starts to untie the bag.
Britta considers it for a minute and sits down on a rock next to him, "I'm not going to be the one to tell Pierce I left you alone in the woods."
Jeff gets out a carton and is grateful to see there's plastic silverware in with the chopsticks. Dicking around with chopsticks right now isn't high on his To Do list.
He's shoveling food into his mouth when he realizes how quiet it is. "Where the hell are we?" He says it around a mouthful of rice, but Britta doesn't seem to notice.
"We're in the park. I always give Capra a drink from the water fountain over there," she points in between a couple of trees.
"You're sure?"
Britta doesn't answer him, instead she picks up his fortune cookie and opens it, reading the fortune aloud, "'You'll lose your way, but find a new one.' Ooh, how ominous."
He eats for a little while longer, as Britta makes a tiny paper football out of the fortune. When he's done, he stands and says, "Lead on, crazy dog lady."
She rolls her eyes and sets off between the trees, only there's no water fountain.
"It's, uh, it's got to be just up ahead."
They walk a little bit further. Nothing but more trees.
"Oh my god, are you serious? We're lost in the woods. Over shitty Chinese food. Great." There's definitely a little bit of a whine in his voice, but Jeff's past caring.
Britta keeps walking, "We're not lost."
It takes about 10 minutes, but she comes around to it -- they're lost.
"Fine, I'll just call and they'll come find us. I'm sure this isn't the first time Professor Nature back there has lost a student."
Because sometimes life is a Jennifer Garner movie, he doesn't have a signal.
Britta pulls out her phone, "AT&T sucks, if you weren't such an iPhone whore, beholden to the whims of corporations, you'd get a carrier that --"
Apparently Britta's fancy, non-AT&T phone doesn't have a signal either.
They yell. They yell a lot. Nothing but crickets and wind and some other Robert Frost nonsense.
"How big can this park be? We'll just walk until we find something."
Britta, even in the dim light, looks embarrassed. "Uh, actually the park joins up with a forest. Like a real forest."
"You're joking."
"Nope," and her eyebrows climb up toward her hairline.
There's some bickering and then they turn around. They pass by Jeff's discarded Chinese food ("Nice, Jeff, nice and classy." "Shut it, Ranger Rick.") and keep going and suddenly it's been an hour.
"They've got to be looking for us. We might as well just stop," Jeff's about 30 seconds away from a temper tantrum. He can feel it.
"Fine." Britta makes her way to a fallen tree and sits down, leaning up against it.
He sits down next to her, far enough away that he's not actually touching, but close enough that he can feel her there. It's not that he's actually worried (more like inconvenienced), but they're still in the woods, in the dark.
They sit for a while, starting up a makeshift game of acorn target practice. Jeff looks at his watch, it's actually pretty late.
"So who's watching your dog tonight?"
It's the first thing either of them has said in what feels like an hour.
Britta startles next to him, "Oh, um, my neighbors. They just got a new puppy and are trying to socialize him anyway."
"Dog people," he says it jokingly, lightly.
She bumps into him with her shoulder, "Aw, come on, you can't actually hate dogs."
"I don't." And then he spends the next five minutes telling Britta the story of how he got a dog in the fourth grade, but his dad said he didn't take care of it and one day when he came home from school, Gizmo was gone.
Britta doesn't say anything, but scoots a little closer next to him, kind of leaning against his arm. He'd blow her off, tell her he didn't need any sympathy, he's a grown man, but Gizmo was the best dog in the whole goddamn world and fuck it, it's about time someone tried to make it up to him. Plus, he's pretty tired.
And thirsty. Jesus, he's thirsty. Chinese food, stupid idea anyway.
"Hey, do you have any water?" He looks down at Britta and she's got her arms wrapped around herself, knees to her chest. "Wait, are you cold?"
She shakes him off, "No, I'm not cold. I think have some water --" she starts rummaging through her purse and pulls out one of those metal water bottles, "A ha."
(Of course she's got one of these hippie REI canteen things. Plastic bottles kill the Earth after all, right?)
Once she's handed him the water, she pulls her knees back up and, yeah, she's cold.
"All right, we'll do it like this, so as not to put you in a position where you need anything from me. I'll warm you up, if you give me some water."
"I hardly think your volunteering to make out with me in exchange for a drink qualifies as a fair trade." She says it, but her heart's not in it.
"Whoa, whoa, who said anything about making out? Slow down there, Britta. Although you did buy me dinner --" He smiles. "No, I mean like this, here." He unscrews the bottle and takes a big drink before giving it back to her. She takes a drink, too, and Jeff's weirdly pleased that she didn't wipe the rim off or anything. Christ, who's back in the fourth grade now?
"All right, now, here, just," he lifts his arm up and puts it along the back of the tree, leaning into her before wrapping his hand around her arm. "Better?"
Britta stiffens for a second, but then seems to realize it might actually help and settles against his side.
"Where are they?" Britta says and it's half muffled by where her head is leaning against his armpit. (Two things: one, when did this happen, two, he showered today, right?)
"You know, Pierce is probably wandering the field in circles calling our names." She laughs softly and he can feel it across his shirt. He continues, "Vaughn's showing Annie how the Earth will lead them to us. Shirley's fretting. Wait, no, Shirley's yelling at the professor and he's terrified, really, truly, terrified. Troy and Abed, hmm." He stops and Britta picks it up.
"Troy and Abed are going to actually find us. Abed saw it in a movie and they're practically here. Got to be, right?" Her head lolls further into him and he doesn't want to look down to confirm it, but he's pretty sure from the way her voice trailed off, she's closed her eyes.
Jeff figures, sure, OK, they'll be here soon, what's the harm in closing his eyes, too?
When he wakes up, he keeps his eyes shut for a second, because when he opens them it either better be daylight and there's camp just ten feet away or there's everybody, coming through the trees to get them.
It's plenty bright when he opens his eyes, but it's just the moon. Really, neither of those things happen, but Britta's still sleeping on him and so he takes that in. She jumps awake a few seconds later, "What?! Huh?!"
"We're still here," he looks at his watch, "And it's only been 20 minutes."
She sits up straight and his shirt's damp with sweat where she's been leaning into him. He can smell his own deodorant, which, oh thank god, he did shower.
"Maybe we should try walking again?" Her hair is all messed up, kind of, like, sex messed up and it's enough to distract him into agreeing.
Except that when she goes to stand, she trips, falling back down to the ground, "My leg's asleep, fuck it."
They settle back against the log.
Britta doesn't lean back into him, but doesn't object when he stretches his arm out again.
"Jeff," she says, like she needs him to know she's talking to him and not the hundreds of other people in the woods. "I know this is my fault. So you can just say it now and get it over with. 'You got us lost in the woods, Britta," she drops her voice when she mimics him.
Huh. He hadn't really thought of it that way, it is her fault. But really he says (and thinks):
"No, you're right, I was, what did you call it? 'Coasting on by?' If I hadn't tried for the easy way, we'd be back at camp and I'd be sneaking into your tent right about now."
"And I'd be locking the zipper," she pauses. "That's about the most grown up conversation we've ever had."
"Shh, don't tell anybody." He looks down at her and she's already staring at him.
A lump forms in his throat, the kind of lump adults are supposed to outgrow, right? You're supposed to stop being affected by pretty girls who go toe-to-toe with you and instead focus on ways to keep everyone from bothering you.
He swallows, but it doesn't go away. She's actually making eye contact with him. It's unnerving.
Without even thinking about, he curls his hand around her arm again. When her mouth opens just the tiniest bit, he tightens it.
There's that feeling, the one where he's not a grown up, where he's not detached, where there's a tingling heat spreading across his chest.
She's got to know, right? She's got to know that if this goes on just two seconds longer, he's going to kiss her.
He mentally counts to two, then to four. She doesn't move, just keeps looking at him and he can see the tiniest bit of her teeth past her lips.
The handful of times anything like this has happened to him with a woman like Britta, he's opened his mouth and said something stupid. Half the time they kiss him anyway, but the other half, he's fucked it up.
If Professor Slater taught him anything, it's that those are risky odds.
So he keeps his mouth shut, just raising his eyebrows the tiniest bit, like a question.
She raises hers back.
He leans in and she actually, holy shit, she actually tips her head up.
Kissing her in the quad, it was all in fast forward, like in triple time, but he figured that was because he hadn't had any time to think about it. But kissing her this time, it's just as fast, everything zips by.
Jeff tilts his head and Britta tilts hers and then their lips are together and then they're moving. He uses the hand around her arm to turn her into him. He brings his other hand up to her face. She loops her arms around his neck. It's so fast, move, move, move.
He feels like he's falling behind, like he needs to catch up, which is ridiculous, but there it is. He opens his mouth to get her bottom lip between his and then there's her tongue and so he sweeps his out.
Before it even registers, he's half picking her up, and she's doing the other half, walking on her knees, moving to straddle him. His hands fall around her waist and she moves hers up into his hair.
He forces himself to slow everything down, to bring it into focus. He slides his tongue against hers and concentrates on the damp, warm feel of it. She pulls back and he thinks he's blown it, that is was always meant to be fast, but instead she moves her mouth down to his neck.
Oh. Oh.
She's sucking, then licking, then there it is, just the tiniest nip, just a little bit of teeth and he bucks up into her.
Now he's blown it.
She pulls back and he's expecting something sarcastic or something witty or something that isn't just a tiny smirk as she grinds down onto him before kissing him again.
He's going to go ahead and take that as tacit permission for -- something.
He unclenches one of his hands from where he'd been clutching the back of her shirt and moves it around to the front. He's just gotten it curled around her ribs, when the fast forward is back and then suddenly he's moved it up, and he's, jesus fuck, he's palming Britta's breast.
She breaks the kiss and breathes out -- he'll call it a groan and bump the scoreboard up, but it's actually quieter than that.
It's not that he's trying to jerk his hips, it's just, his pants are tight to begin with. And if there's any chance she'll do that grinding thing or neck thing or anything again, he's going to go for it.
She does.
She drops down a little, sinking further into his lap, landing, oh, OK, yep, and he can't even being to imagine how stupid he looks because he knows he's chasing after her mouth.
He finds it again and it's wet and open and his tongue just slides back inside. He's moving his other hand around, skirting his fingers just up under the edge of her shirt and --
"Whoa, it's getting X-rated up in here!"
Troy. Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck. Troy.
Britta goes still and rigid and then practically vaults off of him.
He shifts a little in his pants and gets up (very fucking uncomfortably, thanks) to stand next to Britta.
She smooths her shirt down and clears her throat as Troy emerges from behind a tree, Abed at his heels.
Troy's teeth look blindingly white in the moonlight -- it's also probably because he's got a face-splitting grin on.
"You guys didn't have to stop -- white people getting it on, I've rented that one before."
Jeff's trying to figure out what to do -- say something? Ignore it? Acknowledge it? Check on Britta? He settles on scanning the woods behind them, to see if everyone just witnessed that.
"It's just us," Abed speaks in his normal tone, fast and clipped.
"Yeah, we actually found you guys a while ago," Troy says. "But Abed said we should observe because it's good -- what was it?"
"Character development," Abed supplies.
"Yeah, character development. I thought it was gonna be boring, but, man, get it, Jeff!" Troy puts his fist out for a bump, but lets it drop when Jeff doesn't move.
"Wait," Britta says. "You let us stay in the woods, thinking we were lost, for character development." Oh and there it is, that's Britta actually pissed.
Abed's still unfazed, "Of course, you had to be out of your natural element for anything to develop. It's a mixture of several different romantic comedy formulas. Britta, you're like Meg Ryan in --"
Jeff can feel the heat radiating off of Britta and there's no doubt that she could snap Abed like a twig, so he steps in.
"All right, just take us back to camp," he tries to make it sound like he's pissed, but it's not working.
Abed turns on his heels and starts walking, Britta close behind. Troy's still looking at Jeff like he's a hero and because he is feeling pretty fucking great right now, he raises his fist just the tiniest bit. Troy bumps it enthusiastically. Jeff puts a finger to his mouth, like, shh, and points at Britta.
&&.
It was probably too much to ask that he also end up in Britta's tent for the rest of the night, so he doesn't.
(The professor gives them an automatic A for surviving in the wild. He ends up in her apartment instead.)
&&.
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