show me the side streets in your life: jeff/annie.
Continued from here.
Annie's kneeling, rummaging through the largest duffel bag Jeff's ever seen -- and he was a lawyer, for some not entirely wholesome people.
"You got a body in there? Maybe two?" He just says it conversationally, but she jumps like he shouted.
"Oh, Jeff, you scared me! Shouldn't you be on the nature walk?" She goes back to digging in the bag, stretching the zipper open as far as it'll go.
"Why, so Vaughn can point out which trees he's bros with? Spoiler alert: all of them."
He sinks down next to her and she barely turns to look at him, but answers anyway, "Because it's part of our grade."
"Is it?" Jeff considers it for a second, but decides, even with that information, he was not about to traipse through the forest with Robin Hobo and his band of merry -- whatever. "Wait, if we're being graded, why aren't you on the walk?"
She leans back, pulling out several sheets of colored cloth and what looks like a fan, "Because Devon offered me credit for the assignment and bonus points to help get the camp fire going."
There are just so, so many things Jeff wants to say.
One: Professor Hippie's name is Devon. Fitting.
Two: Why is Annie calling the professor by his first name?
Three: Oh, so a fire in the park is happening. Great. Somewhere Smokey the Bear is having a rage blackout.
Four: No, seriously, why is Annie calling him Devon?
He goes with the one that seems the most pressing, "Devon, eh? You're just a magnet for filthy hippies. What do you have against collared shirts, Annie? Did one strangle your father?"
Now she's arranging the cloth alongside the fan, what the hell is going on? She's barely paying attention to him. He's definitely better looking than that fan.
Still distracted she tells him, "Everyone's supposed to call him Devon, Jeff. Didn't you read the syllabus?"
"No."
"Or the board on the first day of class?"
"Nope."
"Or the --- ugh!" She presses the switch on the fan back and forth, but nothing happens.
Jeff takes it from her and checks the batteries. They're in the wrong way.
"What exactly are we doing with this?" He pulls the batteries from their compartment. "Because my mom would throw a fit if she knew we really were trying to air condition the whole neighborhood."
Annie looks at him blankly.
"No? When you left the door open in the summer and your mom -- what am I saying, kids today aren't allowed to play outside anymore."
He snaps the batteries back into place, testing the switch to make sure it works (it does) before handing it over to her. She smiles broadly.
"Thanks, Jeff, wouldn't have been much of a fire without this!"
"What?"
But Annie doesn't answer, just secures the cloth to the fan and flips the switch. She stands up and watches as the breeze flaps the strips of color around. "Our fire," she says decisively.
"Give me a brea--" he reconsiders, "-- a hand up?"
She smiles pleasantly and reaches her hand out. He's not stupid enough to put any of his actual weight into it and he mostly gets himself up, but once he's standing, he kind of forgets to let go of her hand. In fact, he doesn't let go and then he stares at their hands clasped together, so: even better.
Her hand looks ridiculously, freakishly tiny in his and where his normal instinct would probably be to crush something small and in his hand, it mostly just makes him want to protect her. (To be clear: protect her from everyone but him.)
"Uh, Jeff?"
He shakes his head and lets go of her hand, "Sorry. I was just momentarily stunned by the beauty of that fire. Nice work, Edison."
They stare at the fire, listening to the fan whirring for a few seconds and then listening to the fan grind its gears and then listening to the fan stop working, which is also sort of a visual thing.
In Abed's movie version of this scene, the next part happens like this:
Slow motion, Annie falls to her knees, shaking her fists in fury at the sky and shouting, "Noooo!"
In reality, Annie immediately looks to Jeff like he broke it. Possibly with his sarcasm.
"It's probably just those batteries," Jeff says blithely.
This is apparently not the right tone. This is also apparently a crisis.
Annie hurls herself head first into crazy town.
"My grade! Devon is not going to be pleased! What am I going to do? Oh my gosh, oh --," she hesitates, like she's considering the company she's in, "-- crap!"
"Calm down, come on I'll drive you to Target. We'll get new batteries."
Annie lets out a strangled sort of sob, but nods her head.
By the time they've reached the car, all the way in east bumblefuck because the parks department apparently hates convenience, Annie's switched from hysterical to conspiratorial.
"We're not supposed to leave camp. Devon may ask where we've been, Jeff," she tells him solemnly. "And you'll have to say we went on our own nature walk, you'll have to," she lowers her voice, "lie."
Despite the fact that Jeff knows the guilt of lying is going to eat at Annie until she freaks out and tells on herself (and, by extension, him), it's kind of endearing. She's scheming and plotting and this is the girl Jeff made out with and the girl that stands up to him and the girl that -- oh, fuck, whatever. This is Annie, all of it, it's just that this is the part that doesn't make him think of how, biologically speaking, he could've gone to school with her parents.
(Which -- if his biological response to every time they make eye contact is anything to go by -- doesn't apparently matter to Jeff all that much.)
"All right, only this once, I don't want to make a habit of it and," he mimics the way she dropped her voice, "turn into a liar."
He clicks the remote to unlock his car and they both open the doors. Jeff has a momentary impulse to open her door for her, which is ridiculous -- not because that isn't something he occasionally does when laying it on extra thick, but because, they're going to Target to buy batteries for a toy campfire. This isn't a date, for fuck's sake.
(Jeff is being extra careful not to drive like a dick, but that's for safety sake, OK?)
They're stopped at a light a few blocks from the park when Annie finally decides that they're both prepared enough to lie to Devon about where they've been. She immediately turns her attention to the CDs in his center console.
She picks up his copy of Van Halen II and flips it over, "Is this a Weezer cover band?"
He takes his eyes off the road to confirm that she is, in fact, insinuating that a formative album from his youth, is actually a tribute to those pork and beans-loving assholes. She is.
"What."
"Oh, is it not? It's just -- the logo looks similar, I wonder if they got it from Weezer."
Jeff's grip goes white on the steering wheel. If he'd needed any sort of reminder of just how fucking young Annie is, this is like someone rented a billboard that played "And the Cradle Will Rock" and put it on a truck that followed him everywhere.
"Annie, I'm only going to say this once, Van Halen did not, in any way, shape or form, get anything from Weezer." He's trying to keep his voice level. It's not working.
"Oh," she says, and she sounds unconvinced.
If they continue this conversation, Jeff will, 100%, leave her in the Target parking lot. She's cute and all, but he's not going to let some kid come in here and make him feel like an old man for all the times he air guitared to "Runnin' with the Devil." This is sacred.
Jeff takes a couple of deep breaths, but is somehow even angrier. Angry that Annie is, like, 12, angry that, through some misguided sense of propriety, that even matters to him. Angry that she wore khaki hiking shorts and sitting in the seat like that, he can see a significant amount of leg.
"I'd think a band that put out a song called 'Hot for Teacher' would appeal to you in some way," he sounds a little bit like an asshole.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She goes red in the passenger seat and he's not sure if it's blushing or rage.
"No, no, I just mean, this is an awful lot of trouble you're going through for Devon," now the conversation has entirely switched gears. Jeff can't even keep up and he's the one doing it.
Annie turns toward him in her seat, "Well, I'm sorry that my grades are important to me!" She crosses her arms tightly.
In an actual relationship, right now is the exact moment Jeff would pull the cord. He can get laid, it's not a problem. He doesn't need to deal with relationship fighting to do it. The way the thing with Michelle imploded proves that.
Instead, he's immediately ready to apologize to Annie. Which, maybe he did cross the line with the Devon thing, but she's clearly in the wrong on Van Halen (just so, so wrong) and he's still willing to admit he's the bad guy here.
"OK, you're right, I'm not taking the assignment, I'm not taking school seriously enough." He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, because there's a chance she's not just going to let the argument drop -- and he maybe wouldn't fault her.
But she does, immediately brightening, "There's the Jeff Winger I love -- the one willing to grow."
No, seriously, what the fuck just happened? It's ridiculous how fast he can feel out of water with Annie, how fast she can throw him from his guard. Britta -- Britta he gets. They have a dance they do, but Annie, Annie's a wild card. That's probably the intriguing part (because he refuses to admit that he's a dirty old man and it's an age thing, because it's actually not. He's not, like, Pierce or anything).
Before he has time to respond, Target's in view and he's got an out. He turns into the parking lot and finds a spot.
"So, lithium or akaline? We don't want Professor Hipp-- Devon's fire going out before everyone's gotten the true camping experience."
Annie considers this as he parks the car and opens his door.
"We better get both, just to be safe," Annie nods decisively and gets out of the car.
Jeff smiles -- he handled that pretty damn well, if he does say so himself. Emotions: not as hard as they look.
Target's got those little displays right at the front and there are batteries in the one nearest the entrance. He walks over to them, picking up a four pack of AA Energizers.
"Got 'em," he looks around for a cashier before walking toward one.
Annie's trailing behind him and he just barely notices, but she's lost some of the Annie enthusiasm.
He gets in line, there's a lady with 40 things in front of them and he makes a show of putting the one pack of batteries on the conveyor belt, hoping for an, "Oh, that's all you have? You can go ahead."
It doesn't come.
Annie's finally caught up to him and is staring at the batteries on the belt like she can implode them with her mind. He's pretty sure Abed could probably do something like that, but Annie? No.
"What's the deal? You want me to buy the jumbo pack so we have back up?"
She shakes her head once, quickly, "No, no, this is great. Do you want some money?" She reaches for her bag.
"I think I can handle two bucks."
"Thanks!" It's a kind of false enthusiasm.
The lady in front of them tells the cashier she's forgotten laundry detergent and can she just run back and get it? Jeff curls his toes inside his shoes.
He's about to start looking around for a different cashier, maybe, oh, an express lane, when Annie speaks again, a lot quieter.
"It's stupid, when I was on the pills, they would call me the Energizer Bunny, like i just kept going. I used to think it was a compliment."
Jeff can feel his eyebrows go up and short of clawing at his face to bring them back down, there's nothing he can do about it, but she continues anyway.
"I don't want you to think I always do this around batteries."
"Oh, no, of course not." But, yeah, that thought crossed his mind.
"It's just --" she pauses and Jeff tries trying to find an out of this conversation because he is definitely going to say the wrong thing. "I haven't had a lot of friends since then and being with one and then the bunny and -- I sound crazy."
All right, here it goes, he's already wincing about how badly this is going to end, "Annie, no one thinks you're the Energizer bunny. If anybody's a bunny in this group, it's Pierce. Or maybe Troy."
Goddamn it, why did he bring up Troy? There's no way she's actually over that whole thing yet, plus, Troy went to high school with her back when she was an unstoppable bunny.
He holds his breath.
She laughs.
ohthankgod.
"Thanks, Jeff," she gets up on her tiptoes to -- to what? To -- oh my god, she's going to kiss him, it's going to be on the cheek though, right, rig---
He turns his head toward her at the last second, totally and completely losing control of his body. What the fuck did he do -- oh shit, oh fuck, oh --
Her mouth lands on and, yep, this confirms it, he's completely out of his mind. She might slap him? Maybe? He wouldn't be afraid, except that time she slammed his head into the table, it was with a surprising amount of force.
Instead she makes a tiny noise of surprise, but immediately yields. He tilts his head the slightest bit, moves his mouth, just a little. She responds the same way.
He does it again. She does it again.
Jeff's mind is barreling toward pinning her up against the candy display, but settles for bringing a hand up to her hip. He's just curling his fingers into the bottom of her shirt when the lady in front of them comes plowing through the aisle with her giant tub of Tide.
"Excuse me," she snarls out, shoving into them. Jeff immediately jumps away.
"Oh, uh, sorry."
He's trying not to meet Annie's eyes, but that, obviously, is all he's doing -- looking at her, trying to see if this is going to be a Problem or if she's mad or if she maybe wants to do that again. Like, not in Target. And not in front of an auditorium of community college students.
Annie wipes, deliberately and delicately, at her mouth and gives him a tiny smile.
He feels it everywhere.
Even though the horrible woman in front of them takes another five minutes checking out, Jeff doesn't notice. Now that it's pretty clear Annie's not upset, he's able to stop looking at her eyes and commence staring at her mouth.
And from the way she -- still deliberate and delicate -- licks her lips, Jeff's pretty sure they're on the same page.
Holy shit. He's never going to be able to go into a Target again without getting hard.
When it's finally their turn at the register, Jeff pays for the $2 batteries with what was probably at least a five, if not a ten, blurts out, "Keep the change!" and grabs them before the receipt even prints. He's out the door, Annie right next to him, within a minute.
He basically power walks, not even caring how stupid he looks (he's only keeping from running because he doesn't want to lose Annie), to the car.
Jeff starts clicking the unlock on the remote frantically in his pocket, even though they're still pretty far away. He's not exactly sure what's going to happen when they get in the car, but he's not going to wait a few extra seconds to find out.
By the time they're finally there, Jeff swings his door open with more force and reckless abandon than he's ever treated the Lexus with. It's a nice car, but it's his nice car, so it'll understand.
He slides into the seat at the same time Annie slides into hers and then everything's still for a moment while they look at each other.
Jeff can actually hear the blood pounding in his ears and it's so quiet other than that, he's sure he's having some sort of episode. When has a Target parking lot ever been quiet?
There's no way in hell he's breaking eye contact with her to assess things though. The second he looks away, the second she realizes this is probably a bad idea.
And it might be -- it might be a bad idea, which is why he can't make this move. There's no way he's going to make it seem like he pressured her into anything. It's just so fucking touchy, this whole thing, with her age and his, and it shouldn't matter, but it does.
Until it doesn't.
Annie gives him her big smile, the one where she's doing something not mandated by any of her self-imposed rules, and practically launches herself across his car.
The gear shift is still between them, but she's grabbing his face with her hands and his hands don't have much room to go anywhere but to her head and then they're clutching at each other, kissing like Jeff only lets himself think about when he's drunk.
He immediately opens his mouth and she opens hers and he's surprised by the force of her tongue as it sweeps past his teeth.
Jeff's reacting on instinct, moving his hands into Annie's hair and using the leverage to tilt her head for a better angle. He slides his tongue against hers and it's messy and wet and hot. She fucking shivers under him and he feels it like a hook, right at the bottom of his stomach, pulling up.
She works herself up on her knees, so tiny in his car that she only has to break away from the kiss for a second before coming back at him. He gets his hands around her waist, leaning her into toward his body, breasts half pressed against his chest at a weird angle, but it's awesome. Super. Fucking. Awesome.
There's not a lot of room for him to do anything significant, but he shifts toward her as much as he can, arching his lap up into her, which is -- not subtle.
Just as plainly, she drops a hand to his upper thigh, bracing there before fucking squeezing.
He breaks off into a choking cough, more than a little startled. She pulls back to give him space and the way she's panting makes his skin feel like it's pulling too tight. He clears his throat and leans forward to kiss her again, but stops at a loud, annoying sound.
What the --
Annie shrieks, "Oh!" and stares with huge saucer eyes out the driver side window.
Jeff turns to look and there's a big, heavy, black flashlight rapping against the window of his car. Beyond it, a security officer is crouched down, shaking his head. Jeff goes to put the window down to talk to him and -- apologize? -- when he realizes he hadn't even started the car. Annie pulls herself back into her seat as Jeff reaches to open the door instead.
"Just go," Annie's voice sounds loud in the car, but it's how firm she says it that makes him blink.
The security guy is saying something outside the window and Jeff's immediately shifting up, trying to get his keys out (which, with how tight his pants are presently, isn't easy). He finds them and gets them in the ignition in a few seconds and now security's yelling, something about indecency and Jeff's license plate and he's not welcome back.
Jeff turns the car on and throws it in drive, pressing on the gas hard enough to peel out. He watches in the rearview mirror as the security guard waves his flashlight in the air, yelling after them. He looks toward Annie, who melts back in her seat.
"I can't believe we just did that," and she says it all proud, which makes him proud.
"Yeah, I guess I'll have to find some place else to buy paper towels and batteries," he smirks.
"Where are the batteries?" It only takes a second and she's back to laser-focused Annie. He kind of appreciates it.
"Uh, didn't you grab them?"
"Nope."
"Then I don't know. And Ponch back there made it pretty clear we're not allowed back."
He looks for recognition on the CHiPs joke first (it doesn't come), but also to make sure she's not going to get upset that they have to go back to camp without the batteries.
She shrugs, "Oh well," and he's relieved.
And happy -- he's happy.
&&.
By the time they park the car and walk out to camp, it's dark. Jeff can just make out the class, sitting in a circle, the professor telling some story in wild hand gestures. It's looks like somehow they got the fire working, Jeff can see the colors flapping in the moonlight.
He touches Annie on the shoulder with one hand, pointing with the other, "Look, the fire's going."
She squints, tilting her head, "How did they do -- oh my gosh, that's Pierce."
Jeff's head snaps up and, holy shit, it is Pierce. He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the circle waving the strips of color around with his hands.
Pierce stops, mid-wave, and cups a hand over his eyes, looking right at them. They've been spotted.
A minute later they've reached the camp and instead of getting a bunch of questions about where they've been and what happened to them, they get a loud, disjointed story about what happened on the nature walk.
Somehow Britta tripped into Shirley and Shirley fell, but didn't hurt herself and then Pierce tried to administer CPR anyway and now Shirley's at home, excused from the final, and Pierce is acting as the fire to avoid failing -- or expulsion.
What Jeff takes away from this story is -- Annie's got a tent to herself.
(They end up back in the car anyway because it's cold. This time it's a park ranger.)
&&.
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Annie's kneeling, rummaging through the largest duffel bag Jeff's ever seen -- and he was a lawyer, for some not entirely wholesome people.
"You got a body in there? Maybe two?" He just says it conversationally, but she jumps like he shouted.
"Oh, Jeff, you scared me! Shouldn't you be on the nature walk?" She goes back to digging in the bag, stretching the zipper open as far as it'll go.
"Why, so Vaughn can point out which trees he's bros with? Spoiler alert: all of them."
He sinks down next to her and she barely turns to look at him, but answers anyway, "Because it's part of our grade."
"Is it?" Jeff considers it for a second, but decides, even with that information, he was not about to traipse through the forest with Robin Hobo and his band of merry -- whatever. "Wait, if we're being graded, why aren't you on the walk?"
She leans back, pulling out several sheets of colored cloth and what looks like a fan, "Because Devon offered me credit for the assignment and bonus points to help get the camp fire going."
There are just so, so many things Jeff wants to say.
One: Professor Hippie's name is Devon. Fitting.
Two: Why is Annie calling the professor by his first name?
Three: Oh, so a fire in the park is happening. Great. Somewhere Smokey the Bear is having a rage blackout.
Four: No, seriously, why is Annie calling him Devon?
He goes with the one that seems the most pressing, "Devon, eh? You're just a magnet for filthy hippies. What do you have against collared shirts, Annie? Did one strangle your father?"
Now she's arranging the cloth alongside the fan, what the hell is going on? She's barely paying attention to him. He's definitely better looking than that fan.
Still distracted she tells him, "Everyone's supposed to call him Devon, Jeff. Didn't you read the syllabus?"
"No."
"Or the board on the first day of class?"
"Nope."
"Or the --- ugh!" She presses the switch on the fan back and forth, but nothing happens.
Jeff takes it from her and checks the batteries. They're in the wrong way.
"What exactly are we doing with this?" He pulls the batteries from their compartment. "Because my mom would throw a fit if she knew we really were trying to air condition the whole neighborhood."
Annie looks at him blankly.
"No? When you left the door open in the summer and your mom -- what am I saying, kids today aren't allowed to play outside anymore."
He snaps the batteries back into place, testing the switch to make sure it works (it does) before handing it over to her. She smiles broadly.
"Thanks, Jeff, wouldn't have been much of a fire without this!"
"What?"
But Annie doesn't answer, just secures the cloth to the fan and flips the switch. She stands up and watches as the breeze flaps the strips of color around. "Our fire," she says decisively.
"Give me a brea--" he reconsiders, "-- a hand up?"
She smiles pleasantly and reaches her hand out. He's not stupid enough to put any of his actual weight into it and he mostly gets himself up, but once he's standing, he kind of forgets to let go of her hand. In fact, he doesn't let go and then he stares at their hands clasped together, so: even better.
Her hand looks ridiculously, freakishly tiny in his and where his normal instinct would probably be to crush something small and in his hand, it mostly just makes him want to protect her. (To be clear: protect her from everyone but him.)
"Uh, Jeff?"
He shakes his head and lets go of her hand, "Sorry. I was just momentarily stunned by the beauty of that fire. Nice work, Edison."
They stare at the fire, listening to the fan whirring for a few seconds and then listening to the fan grind its gears and then listening to the fan stop working, which is also sort of a visual thing.
In Abed's movie version of this scene, the next part happens like this:
Slow motion, Annie falls to her knees, shaking her fists in fury at the sky and shouting, "Noooo!"
In reality, Annie immediately looks to Jeff like he broke it. Possibly with his sarcasm.
"It's probably just those batteries," Jeff says blithely.
This is apparently not the right tone. This is also apparently a crisis.
Annie hurls herself head first into crazy town.
"My grade! Devon is not going to be pleased! What am I going to do? Oh my gosh, oh --," she hesitates, like she's considering the company she's in, "-- crap!"
"Calm down, come on I'll drive you to Target. We'll get new batteries."
Annie lets out a strangled sort of sob, but nods her head.
By the time they've reached the car, all the way in east bumblefuck because the parks department apparently hates convenience, Annie's switched from hysterical to conspiratorial.
"We're not supposed to leave camp. Devon may ask where we've been, Jeff," she tells him solemnly. "And you'll have to say we went on our own nature walk, you'll have to," she lowers her voice, "lie."
Despite the fact that Jeff knows the guilt of lying is going to eat at Annie until she freaks out and tells on herself (and, by extension, him), it's kind of endearing. She's scheming and plotting and this is the girl Jeff made out with and the girl that stands up to him and the girl that -- oh, fuck, whatever. This is Annie, all of it, it's just that this is the part that doesn't make him think of how, biologically speaking, he could've gone to school with her parents.
(Which -- if his biological response to every time they make eye contact is anything to go by -- doesn't apparently matter to Jeff all that much.)
"All right, only this once, I don't want to make a habit of it and," he mimics the way she dropped her voice, "turn into a liar."
He clicks the remote to unlock his car and they both open the doors. Jeff has a momentary impulse to open her door for her, which is ridiculous -- not because that isn't something he occasionally does when laying it on extra thick, but because, they're going to Target to buy batteries for a toy campfire. This isn't a date, for fuck's sake.
(Jeff is being extra careful not to drive like a dick, but that's for safety sake, OK?)
They're stopped at a light a few blocks from the park when Annie finally decides that they're both prepared enough to lie to Devon about where they've been. She immediately turns her attention to the CDs in his center console.
She picks up his copy of Van Halen II and flips it over, "Is this a Weezer cover band?"
He takes his eyes off the road to confirm that she is, in fact, insinuating that a formative album from his youth, is actually a tribute to those pork and beans-loving assholes. She is.
"What."
"Oh, is it not? It's just -- the logo looks similar, I wonder if they got it from Weezer."
Jeff's grip goes white on the steering wheel. If he'd needed any sort of reminder of just how fucking young Annie is, this is like someone rented a billboard that played "And the Cradle Will Rock" and put it on a truck that followed him everywhere.
"Annie, I'm only going to say this once, Van Halen did not, in any way, shape or form, get anything from Weezer." He's trying to keep his voice level. It's not working.
"Oh," she says, and she sounds unconvinced.
If they continue this conversation, Jeff will, 100%, leave her in the Target parking lot. She's cute and all, but he's not going to let some kid come in here and make him feel like an old man for all the times he air guitared to "Runnin' with the Devil." This is sacred.
Jeff takes a couple of deep breaths, but is somehow even angrier. Angry that Annie is, like, 12, angry that, through some misguided sense of propriety, that even matters to him. Angry that she wore khaki hiking shorts and sitting in the seat like that, he can see a significant amount of leg.
"I'd think a band that put out a song called 'Hot for Teacher' would appeal to you in some way," he sounds a little bit like an asshole.
"What's that supposed to mean?" She goes red in the passenger seat and he's not sure if it's blushing or rage.
"No, no, I just mean, this is an awful lot of trouble you're going through for Devon," now the conversation has entirely switched gears. Jeff can't even keep up and he's the one doing it.
Annie turns toward him in her seat, "Well, I'm sorry that my grades are important to me!" She crosses her arms tightly.
In an actual relationship, right now is the exact moment Jeff would pull the cord. He can get laid, it's not a problem. He doesn't need to deal with relationship fighting to do it. The way the thing with Michelle imploded proves that.
Instead, he's immediately ready to apologize to Annie. Which, maybe he did cross the line with the Devon thing, but she's clearly in the wrong on Van Halen (just so, so wrong) and he's still willing to admit he's the bad guy here.
"OK, you're right, I'm not taking the assignment, I'm not taking school seriously enough." He looks at her out of the corner of his eye, because there's a chance she's not just going to let the argument drop -- and he maybe wouldn't fault her.
But she does, immediately brightening, "There's the Jeff Winger I love -- the one willing to grow."
No, seriously, what the fuck just happened? It's ridiculous how fast he can feel out of water with Annie, how fast she can throw him from his guard. Britta -- Britta he gets. They have a dance they do, but Annie, Annie's a wild card. That's probably the intriguing part (because he refuses to admit that he's a dirty old man and it's an age thing, because it's actually not. He's not, like, Pierce or anything).
Before he has time to respond, Target's in view and he's got an out. He turns into the parking lot and finds a spot.
"So, lithium or akaline? We don't want Professor Hipp-- Devon's fire going out before everyone's gotten the true camping experience."
Annie considers this as he parks the car and opens his door.
"We better get both, just to be safe," Annie nods decisively and gets out of the car.
Jeff smiles -- he handled that pretty damn well, if he does say so himself. Emotions: not as hard as they look.
Target's got those little displays right at the front and there are batteries in the one nearest the entrance. He walks over to them, picking up a four pack of AA Energizers.
"Got 'em," he looks around for a cashier before walking toward one.
Annie's trailing behind him and he just barely notices, but she's lost some of the Annie enthusiasm.
He gets in line, there's a lady with 40 things in front of them and he makes a show of putting the one pack of batteries on the conveyor belt, hoping for an, "Oh, that's all you have? You can go ahead."
It doesn't come.
Annie's finally caught up to him and is staring at the batteries on the belt like she can implode them with her mind. He's pretty sure Abed could probably do something like that, but Annie? No.
"What's the deal? You want me to buy the jumbo pack so we have back up?"
She shakes her head once, quickly, "No, no, this is great. Do you want some money?" She reaches for her bag.
"I think I can handle two bucks."
"Thanks!" It's a kind of false enthusiasm.
The lady in front of them tells the cashier she's forgotten laundry detergent and can she just run back and get it? Jeff curls his toes inside his shoes.
He's about to start looking around for a different cashier, maybe, oh, an express lane, when Annie speaks again, a lot quieter.
"It's stupid, when I was on the pills, they would call me the Energizer Bunny, like i just kept going. I used to think it was a compliment."
Jeff can feel his eyebrows go up and short of clawing at his face to bring them back down, there's nothing he can do about it, but she continues anyway.
"I don't want you to think I always do this around batteries."
"Oh, no, of course not." But, yeah, that thought crossed his mind.
"It's just --" she pauses and Jeff tries trying to find an out of this conversation because he is definitely going to say the wrong thing. "I haven't had a lot of friends since then and being with one and then the bunny and -- I sound crazy."
All right, here it goes, he's already wincing about how badly this is going to end, "Annie, no one thinks you're the Energizer bunny. If anybody's a bunny in this group, it's Pierce. Or maybe Troy."
Goddamn it, why did he bring up Troy? There's no way she's actually over that whole thing yet, plus, Troy went to high school with her back when she was an unstoppable bunny.
He holds his breath.
She laughs.
ohthankgod.
"Thanks, Jeff," she gets up on her tiptoes to -- to what? To -- oh my god, she's going to kiss him, it's going to be on the cheek though, right, rig---
He turns his head toward her at the last second, totally and completely losing control of his body. What the fuck did he do -- oh shit, oh fuck, oh --
Her mouth lands on and, yep, this confirms it, he's completely out of his mind. She might slap him? Maybe? He wouldn't be afraid, except that time she slammed his head into the table, it was with a surprising amount of force.
Instead she makes a tiny noise of surprise, but immediately yields. He tilts his head the slightest bit, moves his mouth, just a little. She responds the same way.
He does it again. She does it again.
Jeff's mind is barreling toward pinning her up against the candy display, but settles for bringing a hand up to her hip. He's just curling his fingers into the bottom of her shirt when the lady in front of them comes plowing through the aisle with her giant tub of Tide.
"Excuse me," she snarls out, shoving into them. Jeff immediately jumps away.
"Oh, uh, sorry."
He's trying not to meet Annie's eyes, but that, obviously, is all he's doing -- looking at her, trying to see if this is going to be a Problem or if she's mad or if she maybe wants to do that again. Like, not in Target. And not in front of an auditorium of community college students.
Annie wipes, deliberately and delicately, at her mouth and gives him a tiny smile.
He feels it everywhere.
Even though the horrible woman in front of them takes another five minutes checking out, Jeff doesn't notice. Now that it's pretty clear Annie's not upset, he's able to stop looking at her eyes and commence staring at her mouth.
And from the way she -- still deliberate and delicate -- licks her lips, Jeff's pretty sure they're on the same page.
Holy shit. He's never going to be able to go into a Target again without getting hard.
When it's finally their turn at the register, Jeff pays for the $2 batteries with what was probably at least a five, if not a ten, blurts out, "Keep the change!" and grabs them before the receipt even prints. He's out the door, Annie right next to him, within a minute.
He basically power walks, not even caring how stupid he looks (he's only keeping from running because he doesn't want to lose Annie), to the car.
Jeff starts clicking the unlock on the remote frantically in his pocket, even though they're still pretty far away. He's not exactly sure what's going to happen when they get in the car, but he's not going to wait a few extra seconds to find out.
By the time they're finally there, Jeff swings his door open with more force and reckless abandon than he's ever treated the Lexus with. It's a nice car, but it's his nice car, so it'll understand.
He slides into the seat at the same time Annie slides into hers and then everything's still for a moment while they look at each other.
Jeff can actually hear the blood pounding in his ears and it's so quiet other than that, he's sure he's having some sort of episode. When has a Target parking lot ever been quiet?
There's no way in hell he's breaking eye contact with her to assess things though. The second he looks away, the second she realizes this is probably a bad idea.
And it might be -- it might be a bad idea, which is why he can't make this move. There's no way he's going to make it seem like he pressured her into anything. It's just so fucking touchy, this whole thing, with her age and his, and it shouldn't matter, but it does.
Until it doesn't.
Annie gives him her big smile, the one where she's doing something not mandated by any of her self-imposed rules, and practically launches herself across his car.
The gear shift is still between them, but she's grabbing his face with her hands and his hands don't have much room to go anywhere but to her head and then they're clutching at each other, kissing like Jeff only lets himself think about when he's drunk.
He immediately opens his mouth and she opens hers and he's surprised by the force of her tongue as it sweeps past his teeth.
Jeff's reacting on instinct, moving his hands into Annie's hair and using the leverage to tilt her head for a better angle. He slides his tongue against hers and it's messy and wet and hot. She fucking shivers under him and he feels it like a hook, right at the bottom of his stomach, pulling up.
She works herself up on her knees, so tiny in his car that she only has to break away from the kiss for a second before coming back at him. He gets his hands around her waist, leaning her into toward his body, breasts half pressed against his chest at a weird angle, but it's awesome. Super. Fucking. Awesome.
There's not a lot of room for him to do anything significant, but he shifts toward her as much as he can, arching his lap up into her, which is -- not subtle.
Just as plainly, she drops a hand to his upper thigh, bracing there before fucking squeezing.
He breaks off into a choking cough, more than a little startled. She pulls back to give him space and the way she's panting makes his skin feel like it's pulling too tight. He clears his throat and leans forward to kiss her again, but stops at a loud, annoying sound.
What the --
Annie shrieks, "Oh!" and stares with huge saucer eyes out the driver side window.
Jeff turns to look and there's a big, heavy, black flashlight rapping against the window of his car. Beyond it, a security officer is crouched down, shaking his head. Jeff goes to put the window down to talk to him and -- apologize? -- when he realizes he hadn't even started the car. Annie pulls herself back into her seat as Jeff reaches to open the door instead.
"Just go," Annie's voice sounds loud in the car, but it's how firm she says it that makes him blink.
The security guy is saying something outside the window and Jeff's immediately shifting up, trying to get his keys out (which, with how tight his pants are presently, isn't easy). He finds them and gets them in the ignition in a few seconds and now security's yelling, something about indecency and Jeff's license plate and he's not welcome back.
Jeff turns the car on and throws it in drive, pressing on the gas hard enough to peel out. He watches in the rearview mirror as the security guard waves his flashlight in the air, yelling after them. He looks toward Annie, who melts back in her seat.
"I can't believe we just did that," and she says it all proud, which makes him proud.
"Yeah, I guess I'll have to find some place else to buy paper towels and batteries," he smirks.
"Where are the batteries?" It only takes a second and she's back to laser-focused Annie. He kind of appreciates it.
"Uh, didn't you grab them?"
"Nope."
"Then I don't know. And Ponch back there made it pretty clear we're not allowed back."
He looks for recognition on the CHiPs joke first (it doesn't come), but also to make sure she's not going to get upset that they have to go back to camp without the batteries.
She shrugs, "Oh well," and he's relieved.
And happy -- he's happy.
&&.
By the time they park the car and walk out to camp, it's dark. Jeff can just make out the class, sitting in a circle, the professor telling some story in wild hand gestures. It's looks like somehow they got the fire working, Jeff can see the colors flapping in the moonlight.
He touches Annie on the shoulder with one hand, pointing with the other, "Look, the fire's going."
She squints, tilting her head, "How did they do -- oh my gosh, that's Pierce."
Jeff's head snaps up and, holy shit, it is Pierce. He's sitting cross-legged in the middle of the circle waving the strips of color around with his hands.
Pierce stops, mid-wave, and cups a hand over his eyes, looking right at them. They've been spotted.
A minute later they've reached the camp and instead of getting a bunch of questions about where they've been and what happened to them, they get a loud, disjointed story about what happened on the nature walk.
Somehow Britta tripped into Shirley and Shirley fell, but didn't hurt herself and then Pierce tried to administer CPR anyway and now Shirley's at home, excused from the final, and Pierce is acting as the fire to avoid failing -- or expulsion.
What Jeff takes away from this story is -- Annie's got a tent to herself.
(They end up back in the car anyway because it's cold. This time it's a park ranger.)
&&.
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