Fic: It's Always Open Season On Princesses Part 8
Title: It's Always Open Season On Princesses Part 8
Spoilers: Through S2
Word Count: 2497
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Dan Harmon owns all of it
AN: Ha! There ARE no Author's Notes! Made ya look!
“And this is the tennis court,” she finished with a sweep of her arm.
“Wow,” Rich responded, his eyes widening. “This place, it is really great.” He grinned at her and Annie felt something wake up in her stomach.
She smiled back at him, hoping against hope that her cheeks weren’t coloring. “It’s amazing.” She tucked a strand of hair nervously behind her ear, uncertain of how to continue the conversation. “So, I…I can’t believe you’re here, Rich.”
It had been a shock, to say the least, to open a door halfway around the world and have Rich be on the other side of it. She’d rushed forward in elation and surprise and thrown her arms around him before remembering that she literally had just answered the door without pants. Belatedly, Annie had pulled away from him sheepishly and just mentioned it was such a surprise to see him there. She’d ushered him upstairs to drop his bags while she put on real clothes before leading him on the grand tour of the house, of which she’d only just become acquainted.
“Well, me neither.” He took in the acreage for a moment before meeting her eye again, as open and kind as ever. “But when Pierce offered me a free trip, how could I refuse?” He shrugged his shoulders before crossing his arms over his toned chest. “This place is just really something, isn’t it?”
Annie frowned, feeling a chilly trickle of uneasiness roll down her spine. “So, Pierce just called you and offered you a trip?”
Rich nodded his head. “Yeah, he said he felt badly about how everything worked out with me joining your study group earlier this year and he wanted to make it up to me.” He pointed. “Is that really a vineyard?”
“Yeah,” she answered distractedly. “So, he just did this out of the blue?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Kind of like you I guess, huh?”
Annie’s next sentence evaporated. What was Pierce doing exactly? She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Had he really sent Rich to apologize to him for Jeff’s shenanigans earlier in the semester? It didn’t seem very Pierce-like to take the blame for someone else, but nothing else really made sense. Unless…He did know about Annie’s crush on Rich. It hadn’t been that secretive. Maybe Pierce didn’t know why she wasn’t dating Rich and assumed it had something to do with him losing the election.
“I have to say,” he went on as if he wasn’t aware she was in the middle of an inner monologue. “I’m really surprised to see you, too.” Annie’s eyebrows shot up. “Pierce…never mentioned that you would also be here.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah, he…wouldn’t have.”
“Why’s that?”
She cringed. “What if…I mean, I’m pretty sure this is a setup.” When Rich’s eyes widened in surprise, Annie looked away, ever so slightly crestfallen.
“Annie,” he started. “I…wow. I really did mean what I said in-”
She was already waving him off, desperate to not have to listen to his rejection again. “I am just as surprised as you are,” she assured him. “I just spent the last two years kind of understanding Pierce’s…brain.” She shook her head. “I’m really sorry that….” Annie trailed off, not exactly sure what she was apologizing for.
“Annie,” Rich smiled warmly. “You are a very sweet girl.” She swallowed down a grimace. “And of course I believe that you were in the dark about this. That Pierce sure is a character.”
“Yeah,” she added miserably. She had actually thought that Pierce was being sweet to her, that he had meant it when he said she was his favorite. She’d never been anyone’s favorite anything.
Two strong hands landed on her shoulders and Annie met Rich’s eyes. Had they always been that clear and blue and perfect? Of course they had. Everything about him was perfect. “Annie, I think we get along really well.” She felt herself nod. He dropped his hands from her body and she stepped ever so slightly toward him, chasing the physical connection. “So I say we have the best vacation in the world and we won’t let Pierce upset us, okay?” Annie bit her lip but nodded again. He glanced back into the house. Pierce had at best sent Rich to give her another chance with him and at worst had done it just so her vacation would be excruciating. It was a lot of work to go through for her either way. He was definitely good at testing people, that was sure.
“Annie?” Shaking herself, she met Rich’s gaze and automatically smiled at him. “I was just saying that I am going to settle in upstairs. You’ll be okay by yourself?”
She breathed out a light chuckle. “Yeah,” she assured him. “I’ll be fine by myself.” The words echoed through her head and she stilled for a moment before heaving a sigh. She really had to stop thinking about how everything in existence related back to her own sad love life. Jeff had rejected her, yes. There was no wiggle room there. He definitely had. But that was that, and she’d said they were still friends and she wouldn’t ever mention it again, so her feelings for him were currently very much a back burner type of thing.
Right now, she needed to worry about Rich and the implications of him showing up at her door in Italy. Her fingers itched to call Pierce right now, wake him from a sound sleep and demand an explanation for why the most perfect doctor in the world, the man who had rebuffed her only five months ago, was currently walking back into her perfect vacation mansion to go hang his shirts up in the closet according to color.
Just like she had.
Annie mindlessly wandered past the pool and slowly toward the front of the house. The back of the house, everything around the patio was peppered with weeds and wildflowers, charmingly natural. But the closer she got to the front of the immense lot, the cleaner the grass became, almost perfectly manicured. She idly wondered if Pierce really kept a full staff on at the house all year without ever actually coming to the country.
Did she actually still have feelings for Rich? Had she ever? Annie couldn’t even remember anything that had happened before she got on the plane, as if none of it actually had happened. Maybe her life wasn’t even real before that very morning when she’d woken up in Europe. She’d woken up in Europe and a man had literally been sent to her doorstep. A perfect man. She should be blushing and fretting a lot more. Maybe Jeff had managed to deaden all of her non-essential senses.
That wasn’t overly dramatic at all. Annie rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. She wasn’t Catherine Earnshaw. Even if she was, there was literally no Heathcliff. Instead, everywhere she turned, guys couldn’t wait to tell her how much they weren’t going to fall in love with her and could they please prove that to her?
She glanced down the road to what she assumed was the west. Kevin was standing at the end of his long driveway, hosing his sports car off. When he noticed her, he raised a hand and waved her over. She was being beckoned to a stranger’s house by a creep who had been staring at her legs only an hour ago. Weighing her options, Annie smiled at him and made her way over to the adjacent property.
“Hey,” he greeted her when she finally reached him. He quirked an eyebrow at her before turning his attention back to his thirty-thousand dollar car. “I see you found clothes.”
She smiled uneasily at him before glancing up at the house. “Your home is beautiful.”
He looked back over his shoulder at it and shrugged. “Camilla is in there, making mimosas if you want to head in.” She furrowed her brow at him and he chuckled. “It’s okay.” He turned to face her more fully, letting the hose slip slightly between his fingers. “She’s quite intrigued by you. I’m worried you might be her new project.”
Annie glanced back at the house before slowly making her way to the front door. The short walkway to the front archway was made of one giant piece of granite, which meant Annie was standing on something that cost more than she would ever earn in her entire lifetime.
How rich was Pierce anyway?
She knocked on the door before pushing it open and stepping into the surprisingly chilly foyer for the sweltering May weather outside. Or maybe because of it. Annie found herself wandering through a two-story living room. Where Pierce’s home was old charm and architecture, this one was like walking into the twenty-third century. Modern paintings hung on the walls next to the biggest flat screen television Annie had ever seen.
“Hello?” she called out, rubbing her bare arms as she continued to move through the house.
“In here princess,” she heard a woman answer. “I was wondering how long it would be before you found your way over here.” Annie stepped into the open kitchen area, where Camilla was seated at the island, sipping from a coffee mug. Behind the counter was the most beautiful man Annie had ever seen. He was small of stature and had skin the color of caramel. He smiled at her and she was hit with an overload on handsome, cheekbones and dimples and white teeth all coming at her at once. She knew without stepping closer to him that he would smell very good.
“Ann,” Camilla stated in a slightly slurred tone. “This is Sergio.” Her finger swung around to the man who was currently coming toward Annie with a hand outstretched.
“Buona matina,” he murmured, clasping her small hand in his muscled one. Annie smiled shyly at him.
“I told you she was pretty,” Camilla noted from behind him and he smiled at Annie.
“You did not lie,” he answered in accented English. Annie felt her stomach heat up and silently tried to tamp it down desperately. She absolutely could not turn into a simpering teenager right now.
But he did smell really good.
“Sergio is our chef,” Camilla explained as she approached them. “We actually share him with Pierce when he’s here though, which means that Sergio is your chef as well.” She settled just behind Sergio’s left shoulder and shot Annie a meaningful look. Annie turned a wavering smile on Sergio, who grinned back playfully.
“Oh,” was all she could squeak out of her tight throat.
Camilla turned her head and spoke right into Sergio’s ear. “We can share him.”
Annie was heartened to see Sergio grimace ever so slightly before facing Camilla with a grin. “How could I get so lucky?” he asked.
“And now,” Camilla announced as she stepped forward and linked her arm through Annie’s. “We are going to be heading back over to Hawthorne Manor.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “Where young Annie and I will be readying ourselves for a full day of shopping.” She turned to address Annie. “I just love a makeover.” Annie glanced down at her own clothes, feeling more and more like a second-grader by the second. Did she need a makeover?
“You are a very beautiful girl,” Sergio said in a quiet reassuring tone, as if reading her mind. She exhaled quickly before blushing profusely. She should say something witty in response. Before her brain could move past that thought, she was already being pulled out the back door by the blonde woman. They stepped together down the patio steps and practically right into Pierce’s backyard. Camilla was barely out of Sergio’s earshot before she began speaking about him in hushed tones.
“He also works part time as a personal trainer for people in the area,” she confided. “He speaks four languages.” Annie listened silently as Camilla listed out his attributes as if reciting his resume. He has done modeling, couldn’t you tell from those cheekbones and Camilla had been in Italy enough times to know that they don’t all look like that because a lot of them are chubby with mustaches. Annie nodded along. Did she mention that he loves to sail and wants a big family?
The veracity at which this stranger was throwing Annie toward yet another stranger was disorienting to say the least. She stopped at the edge of the tennis court and turned to Camilla. “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do,” she said as genuinely as she could. “But I am actually trying to…” She swallowed and only allowed the next words to escape as a whisper. “..to get over someone right now, so I’m really not ready to-”
She was cut off by the expression on Camilla face. Annie turned to look the direction that Camilla was currently staring just as Rich stepped out into the bright Italian sunlight in his swimming trunks. He smiled in recognition and jogged over to them with a wave. “Hello,” he greeted Camilla warmly. “Are you the neighbor?”
“Yes,” Camilla answered smoothly before conjuring her giant sunglasses back to her face. “And you are?”
“Rich,” he stated as he put a hand to his own well-defined chest. “I’m a friend of Annie’s.”
The older woman turned to face Annie haughtily. “Really.”
Annie heard her phone chirp from her pocket and pulled it out gratefully as she stepped away from the other two. “Troy, isn’t it like three in the morning there?” she greeted him.
“About that, yeah. Listen, do you have a video camera?” he asked, sounding slightly slurred.
Annie paused. “I have one on my phone?” she said unsurely.
There was a muffled conversation on his end before Troy was back again. “Yeah, awesome. Abed or I will be in touch to let you know what your task is.”
“Troy,” Annie chuckled. “Are you drunk? What’s going on?”
“Abed and I decided to start a ‘Spiderman’ marathon at midnight, but it‘s hard to get through the third one sober.” He was talking very quickly, his words all muddling together. “So he thought it would be a good idea to get some no no juice and then film ourselves watching them.” Troy paused. “I don’t think I’m going to make it through the third one before I pass out.”
“You have to,” Annie stated. “Otherwise, you won’t see the disco dancing.”
“Is it awesome there?” he asked. “What is going on?”
There was no way Annie could describe what was actually going on, especially not to Troy while he was drunk in Abed’s dorm room. It was like she was in an alternate reality. Had she fallen down the rabbit hole? What answer could she possibly give him? She glanced up at the house that towered over her, to the stranger who wanted to adopt and make her a real woman.
“It’s awesome.”
Spoilers: Through S2
Word Count: 2497
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Dan Harmon owns all of it
AN: Ha! There ARE no Author's Notes! Made ya look!
“And this is the tennis court,” she finished with a sweep of her arm.
“Wow,” Rich responded, his eyes widening. “This place, it is really great.” He grinned at her and Annie felt something wake up in her stomach.
She smiled back at him, hoping against hope that her cheeks weren’t coloring. “It’s amazing.” She tucked a strand of hair nervously behind her ear, uncertain of how to continue the conversation. “So, I…I can’t believe you’re here, Rich.”
It had been a shock, to say the least, to open a door halfway around the world and have Rich be on the other side of it. She’d rushed forward in elation and surprise and thrown her arms around him before remembering that she literally had just answered the door without pants. Belatedly, Annie had pulled away from him sheepishly and just mentioned it was such a surprise to see him there. She’d ushered him upstairs to drop his bags while she put on real clothes before leading him on the grand tour of the house, of which she’d only just become acquainted.
“Well, me neither.” He took in the acreage for a moment before meeting her eye again, as open and kind as ever. “But when Pierce offered me a free trip, how could I refuse?” He shrugged his shoulders before crossing his arms over his toned chest. “This place is just really something, isn’t it?”
Annie frowned, feeling a chilly trickle of uneasiness roll down her spine. “So, Pierce just called you and offered you a trip?”
Rich nodded his head. “Yeah, he said he felt badly about how everything worked out with me joining your study group earlier this year and he wanted to make it up to me.” He pointed. “Is that really a vineyard?”
“Yeah,” she answered distractedly. “So, he just did this out of the blue?”
“Yeah,” he agreed. “Kind of like you I guess, huh?”
Annie’s next sentence evaporated. What was Pierce doing exactly? She couldn’t wrap her head around it. Had he really sent Rich to apologize to him for Jeff’s shenanigans earlier in the semester? It didn’t seem very Pierce-like to take the blame for someone else, but nothing else really made sense. Unless…He did know about Annie’s crush on Rich. It hadn’t been that secretive. Maybe Pierce didn’t know why she wasn’t dating Rich and assumed it had something to do with him losing the election.
“I have to say,” he went on as if he wasn’t aware she was in the middle of an inner monologue. “I’m really surprised to see you, too.” Annie’s eyebrows shot up. “Pierce…never mentioned that you would also be here.”
She bit her lip. “Yeah, he…wouldn’t have.”
“Why’s that?”
She cringed. “What if…I mean, I’m pretty sure this is a setup.” When Rich’s eyes widened in surprise, Annie looked away, ever so slightly crestfallen.
“Annie,” he started. “I…wow. I really did mean what I said in-”
She was already waving him off, desperate to not have to listen to his rejection again. “I am just as surprised as you are,” she assured him. “I just spent the last two years kind of understanding Pierce’s…brain.” She shook her head. “I’m really sorry that….” Annie trailed off, not exactly sure what she was apologizing for.
“Annie,” Rich smiled warmly. “You are a very sweet girl.” She swallowed down a grimace. “And of course I believe that you were in the dark about this. That Pierce sure is a character.”
“Yeah,” she added miserably. She had actually thought that Pierce was being sweet to her, that he had meant it when he said she was his favorite. She’d never been anyone’s favorite anything.
Two strong hands landed on her shoulders and Annie met Rich’s eyes. Had they always been that clear and blue and perfect? Of course they had. Everything about him was perfect. “Annie, I think we get along really well.” She felt herself nod. He dropped his hands from her body and she stepped ever so slightly toward him, chasing the physical connection. “So I say we have the best vacation in the world and we won’t let Pierce upset us, okay?” Annie bit her lip but nodded again. He glanced back into the house. Pierce had at best sent Rich to give her another chance with him and at worst had done it just so her vacation would be excruciating. It was a lot of work to go through for her either way. He was definitely good at testing people, that was sure.
“Annie?” Shaking herself, she met Rich’s gaze and automatically smiled at him. “I was just saying that I am going to settle in upstairs. You’ll be okay by yourself?”
She breathed out a light chuckle. “Yeah,” she assured him. “I’ll be fine by myself.” The words echoed through her head and she stilled for a moment before heaving a sigh. She really had to stop thinking about how everything in existence related back to her own sad love life. Jeff had rejected her, yes. There was no wiggle room there. He definitely had. But that was that, and she’d said they were still friends and she wouldn’t ever mention it again, so her feelings for him were currently very much a back burner type of thing.
Right now, she needed to worry about Rich and the implications of him showing up at her door in Italy. Her fingers itched to call Pierce right now, wake him from a sound sleep and demand an explanation for why the most perfect doctor in the world, the man who had rebuffed her only five months ago, was currently walking back into her perfect vacation mansion to go hang his shirts up in the closet according to color.
Just like she had.
Annie mindlessly wandered past the pool and slowly toward the front of the house. The back of the house, everything around the patio was peppered with weeds and wildflowers, charmingly natural. But the closer she got to the front of the immense lot, the cleaner the grass became, almost perfectly manicured. She idly wondered if Pierce really kept a full staff on at the house all year without ever actually coming to the country.
Did she actually still have feelings for Rich? Had she ever? Annie couldn’t even remember anything that had happened before she got on the plane, as if none of it actually had happened. Maybe her life wasn’t even real before that very morning when she’d woken up in Europe. She’d woken up in Europe and a man had literally been sent to her doorstep. A perfect man. She should be blushing and fretting a lot more. Maybe Jeff had managed to deaden all of her non-essential senses.
That wasn’t overly dramatic at all. Annie rolled her eyes at her own thoughts. She wasn’t Catherine Earnshaw. Even if she was, there was literally no Heathcliff. Instead, everywhere she turned, guys couldn’t wait to tell her how much they weren’t going to fall in love with her and could they please prove that to her?
She glanced down the road to what she assumed was the west. Kevin was standing at the end of his long driveway, hosing his sports car off. When he noticed her, he raised a hand and waved her over. She was being beckoned to a stranger’s house by a creep who had been staring at her legs only an hour ago. Weighing her options, Annie smiled at him and made her way over to the adjacent property.
“Hey,” he greeted her when she finally reached him. He quirked an eyebrow at her before turning his attention back to his thirty-thousand dollar car. “I see you found clothes.”
She smiled uneasily at him before glancing up at the house. “Your home is beautiful.”
He looked back over his shoulder at it and shrugged. “Camilla is in there, making mimosas if you want to head in.” She furrowed her brow at him and he chuckled. “It’s okay.” He turned to face her more fully, letting the hose slip slightly between his fingers. “She’s quite intrigued by you. I’m worried you might be her new project.”
Annie glanced back at the house before slowly making her way to the front door. The short walkway to the front archway was made of one giant piece of granite, which meant Annie was standing on something that cost more than she would ever earn in her entire lifetime.
How rich was Pierce anyway?
She knocked on the door before pushing it open and stepping into the surprisingly chilly foyer for the sweltering May weather outside. Or maybe because of it. Annie found herself wandering through a two-story living room. Where Pierce’s home was old charm and architecture, this one was like walking into the twenty-third century. Modern paintings hung on the walls next to the biggest flat screen television Annie had ever seen.
“Hello?” she called out, rubbing her bare arms as she continued to move through the house.
“In here princess,” she heard a woman answer. “I was wondering how long it would be before you found your way over here.” Annie stepped into the open kitchen area, where Camilla was seated at the island, sipping from a coffee mug. Behind the counter was the most beautiful man Annie had ever seen. He was small of stature and had skin the color of caramel. He smiled at her and she was hit with an overload on handsome, cheekbones and dimples and white teeth all coming at her at once. She knew without stepping closer to him that he would smell very good.
“Ann,” Camilla stated in a slightly slurred tone. “This is Sergio.” Her finger swung around to the man who was currently coming toward Annie with a hand outstretched.
“Buona matina,” he murmured, clasping her small hand in his muscled one. Annie smiled shyly at him.
“I told you she was pretty,” Camilla noted from behind him and he smiled at Annie.
“You did not lie,” he answered in accented English. Annie felt her stomach heat up and silently tried to tamp it down desperately. She absolutely could not turn into a simpering teenager right now.
But he did smell really good.
“Sergio is our chef,” Camilla explained as she approached them. “We actually share him with Pierce when he’s here though, which means that Sergio is your chef as well.” She settled just behind Sergio’s left shoulder and shot Annie a meaningful look. Annie turned a wavering smile on Sergio, who grinned back playfully.
“Oh,” was all she could squeak out of her tight throat.
Camilla turned her head and spoke right into Sergio’s ear. “We can share him.”
Annie was heartened to see Sergio grimace ever so slightly before facing Camilla with a grin. “How could I get so lucky?” he asked.
“And now,” Camilla announced as she stepped forward and linked her arm through Annie’s. “We are going to be heading back over to Hawthorne Manor.” Her voice dripped with contempt. “Where young Annie and I will be readying ourselves for a full day of shopping.” She turned to address Annie. “I just love a makeover.” Annie glanced down at her own clothes, feeling more and more like a second-grader by the second. Did she need a makeover?
“You are a very beautiful girl,” Sergio said in a quiet reassuring tone, as if reading her mind. She exhaled quickly before blushing profusely. She should say something witty in response. Before her brain could move past that thought, she was already being pulled out the back door by the blonde woman. They stepped together down the patio steps and practically right into Pierce’s backyard. Camilla was barely out of Sergio’s earshot before she began speaking about him in hushed tones.
“He also works part time as a personal trainer for people in the area,” she confided. “He speaks four languages.” Annie listened silently as Camilla listed out his attributes as if reciting his resume. He has done modeling, couldn’t you tell from those cheekbones and Camilla had been in Italy enough times to know that they don’t all look like that because a lot of them are chubby with mustaches. Annie nodded along. Did she mention that he loves to sail and wants a big family?
The veracity at which this stranger was throwing Annie toward yet another stranger was disorienting to say the least. She stopped at the edge of the tennis court and turned to Camilla. “I really appreciate what you’re trying to do,” she said as genuinely as she could. “But I am actually trying to…” She swallowed and only allowed the next words to escape as a whisper. “..to get over someone right now, so I’m really not ready to-”
She was cut off by the expression on Camilla face. Annie turned to look the direction that Camilla was currently staring just as Rich stepped out into the bright Italian sunlight in his swimming trunks. He smiled in recognition and jogged over to them with a wave. “Hello,” he greeted Camilla warmly. “Are you the neighbor?”
“Yes,” Camilla answered smoothly before conjuring her giant sunglasses back to her face. “And you are?”
“Rich,” he stated as he put a hand to his own well-defined chest. “I’m a friend of Annie’s.”
The older woman turned to face Annie haughtily. “Really.”
Annie heard her phone chirp from her pocket and pulled it out gratefully as she stepped away from the other two. “Troy, isn’t it like three in the morning there?” she greeted him.
“About that, yeah. Listen, do you have a video camera?” he asked, sounding slightly slurred.
Annie paused. “I have one on my phone?” she said unsurely.
There was a muffled conversation on his end before Troy was back again. “Yeah, awesome. Abed or I will be in touch to let you know what your task is.”
“Troy,” Annie chuckled. “Are you drunk? What’s going on?”
“Abed and I decided to start a ‘Spiderman’ marathon at midnight, but it‘s hard to get through the third one sober.” He was talking very quickly, his words all muddling together. “So he thought it would be a good idea to get some no no juice and then film ourselves watching them.” Troy paused. “I don’t think I’m going to make it through the third one before I pass out.”
“You have to,” Annie stated. “Otherwise, you won’t see the disco dancing.”
“Is it awesome there?” he asked. “What is going on?”
There was no way Annie could describe what was actually going on, especially not to Troy while he was drunk in Abed’s dorm room. It was like she was in an alternate reality. Had she fallen down the rabbit hole? What answer could she possibly give him? She glanced up at the house that towered over her, to the stranger who wanted to adopt and make her a real woman.
“It’s awesome.”