Fic: It's Always Open Season On Princesses Part 15
Title: It's Always Open Season On Princesses Part 15
Spoilers: Through S2
Word Count: 3617
Rating: R (language)
Disclaimer: Don't own any of it.
AN: As always, I am so thankful to all of you. You really are the reason that I'm doing this. We are back to Jeff's POV. Fall into his messed up head now!
Pick up, pick up, pick up!
“Bennett household.”
Oh. Crap.
Jeff cringed, running a hand through his hair. “Hey, Andre. It’s…Jeff.” He shook his head, trying to think of a way to bail on the phone call.
“Hey,“ the other man answered.
“Sorry to call so late,” Jeff continued before pausing to look at his watch. “It is late there, right?” he asked.
Andre chuckled. “Um, it’s about eleven-thirty. So, yeah.” Jeff gave a nod that Andre couldn’t see. “What…time is it there?”
Jeff froze. Shit. He had totally given himself away, and he’d done it so thoughtlessly too. “Seven-thirty in the morning,” Jeff finally responded. “Is Shirley there?”
“She, uh…she just went to bed, man.” There was a slightly apologetic tone to it. “I can tell her you called though.”
“Yeah,” Jeff said flatly. “Thanks.”
Rather than hanging up, Andre sat on the line for a moment longer. “Um, Jeff. I know this isn’t any of my business…but is everything okay?”
Jeff shook his head. “Yeah.” He furrowed his brow. “So, I’m assuming you know what’s going on?” His voice went up slightly at the end, signifying a question, although Jeff knew better than to have any doubt about it.
Andre sighed. “Kind of. Shirley doesn’t really know how to keep things to herself,” he stated. “She’s kind of a pot-stirrer.”
A humorless chuckle left Jeff’s mouth. “I’ve heard.” He sighed. “So, she knows where I am then?”
“Everyone knows, Jeff. It’s all over Twitter.”
What?! “Who…?”
“Pierce,” Andre filled in. Jeff closed his eyes. How had he not figured that Pierce would blab about it the second Jeff got on the plane? Of course Pierce had told the entire Greendale population via the internet about his recent rash decision.
Rash? Was that the right word?
Stupid?
Not quite…
Baffling?
Yeah, that was it. The choice to get on a plane and fly to Italy was a baffling one. He’d been thinking about it more than he would admit to anyone, even at knifepoint, but he still wasn’t completely sure what had actually happened to his brain. Obviously, it had something to do with Annie, he wasn’t totally clueless. He just couldn’t figure out much past… that. He had just known at the time that he needed to be there with her. It was about making sure Rich stayed far away from her, but he couldn’t really tell if that was out of jealousy or simply his complete dislike for the man. It was about keeping her safe in a foreign country. It just didn’t make sense beyond that. Being in the dark in his own head was unnerving. And then there was the problem of actual her.
Because Annie had been less than friendly toward Jeff for the most part, playing him hot and cold over the last two days. No, that wasn’t accurate. It was more like tepid and freezing. It was like every once in a while, when she recognized she was actually enjoying his company, Annie would shut down her brain and withdraw from him. Jeff just didn’t get why they couldn’t be them again. Them had been great.
So why did she have to throw everything out of balance?
“Yeah,” Andre sighed. “Sorry.”
Jeff grimaced. “Is she going to kill me?”
Andre paused. “Shirley is a wonderful woman and the mother of my children and I love her dearly, but…” He sighed again. “She doesn’t know when to butt out of other peoples’ lives.” Jeff exhaled. That hadn’t been a ‘no’. It had been more of a ‘yes, but I don’t agree with her decision’. “Sometimes, a man has to do what a man has to do.”
“Exactly,” Jeff replied.
“So, you and Annie do your thing and Shirley will just have to accept it.”
Wait, what?
“No,” Jeff corrected. “Annie and I aren’t…” Jeff stilled. He didn’t know what he and Annie were or weren’t anymore. Were they friends now? Were they on speaking terms? She had said the night that he’d gotten there that they would be friends, but had begun progressively pulling away from him since that declaration. Honestly, he would be happy to just get back to America in the same place they’d started the summer, with their friendship intact. Or at least mostly intact.
That’s what he would do. He would just focus on being her friend and keeping her close enough to keep an eye on her, should some guitar-playing pottery-making Greg Kinnear circa nineteen ninety- seven wannabe get crazy ideas about her. He would just have to cross that bridge when he came to it.
And that also went for Italian men who hadn’t learned about personal boundaries.
Had he been talking to someone?
“….we’re just friends,” he finished lamely and heard Andre let out a frustrated groan.
“Come on man,” he snapped. “I’ve been pulling for you, I really have. I don’t want to have to tell my wife that she’s right. She gets this gleam in her eye-” Andre stopped suddenly. Jeff heard a muffled noise on the other end and pulled his phone away from his ear, glaring at the readout screen, as if that would tell him anything. “I’m sorry,” Andre muttered.
“Wha-”
“Jeffrey,” Shirley chirped sweetly a moment later, making Jeff’s blood run cold. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”
“Shirley,” he answered. He was already mentally bracing himself for whatever ‘Jesus can still save you’ rant he was going to get. Then he froze. Why had he actually called? He’d called because he was… messed up in the head. He needed to know that he hadn’t ruined their group dynamic, caused his ( he would probably deny it if asked) family to implode by going after Annie in a yet-to-be defined way. A maybe never-to-be defined way.
Wait.
He’d just decided he wasn’t going after her, hadn’t he? Did he want to go after Annie? Well, yes. Of course. She was a brilliant, gorgeous twenty year-old. If she wasn’t one of his best friends, he would have already slept with her and promptly forgotten her name. Okay, probably not. She was a little uptight. He would have at least been trying a lot harder to sleep with her. There was no hope of that now. Annie had ruined all of that with her stupid friendship.
Yes, this was definitely all her fault.
“Are…we okay?” he asked hesitantly. He narrowed his eyes into the rising sun before turning away and pacing back toward the vineyard again.
“Jeff,” Shirley replied. “You know that what matters most to me is you and Annie’s happiness.” Jeff exhaled gratefully. “If you guys have sorted everything out, then I can’t be mad about that. I’m just glad you finally got your head on straight.”
“Um…”
“He hasn’t talked to her about it yet,” Andre piped up from the extension.
“He what now?” Shirley asked, her voice dropping into her scary octave. “What the hell do you think you are doing, boy?”
“Could you stop yourself from turning into a total cliché for just a second?” Jeff grumbled.
“Watch yourself,” her husband warned and Jeff rolled his eyes.
“Jeffrey,” Shirley said in a brittle tone. “You sat in my kitchen less than a week ago and proceeded to eat three pounds of cookie dough and talk to me about that girl.” Jeff frowned at the memory. “I mean, do you honestly think you’re subtle when you do these kinds of things?”
"She won't let me explain wha-"
"Please," she cut him off. "Do you think she doesn't know what happened? That she doesn't know what you're going to say to her?" Jeff exhaled. "Of course she doesn't want to talk about it, Jeff. The poor girl is embarrassed." He let his eyes narrow. "And if you still don't understand why you're there, you're just causing more problems by talking about it."
His brain was literally hurting him.
Shirley thought he…what, was in love with Annie? Was that the only option here? Was there no in between place where he cared about her friendship and occasionally had dreams about her in various states of undress, lecturing him on things like recycling or punnet squares or the artistry of 'Twilight'? That didn’t seem quite fair. Throwing his head back in frustration, Jeff groaned inwardly. “Shirley, I am no-” He froze then, his angry gaze landing on what was happening in the kitchen at that moment. “I gotta go,” he said abruptly before ending the call and rushing toward the patio door. He paused, counting to twenty. Slowly, he stepped into the house and surveyed the scene before him, allowing his sudden and not entirely coherent hatred to ebb slightly.
Annie stood in front of the stove, giggling softly.
Sergio stood directly behind her, arms wrapped around her form as if he was trying to teach her how to tee off. What was that story about the guy who chopped up the man and hid him under the floor boards? That guy gave himself away because of his guilt, though. Jeff was pretty sure he wouldn’t feel any guilt about hiding this guy’s body, but was worried the floors in the house were too solid to dig up.
“Morning,” Jeff greeted as cheerily as he could. They turned in tandem, the surprised look on Annie’s face a counter-balance to the easy charm that came from Sergio.
“Giotto,” the greasy Italian greeted him happily. “You are up very early.” He gestured toward Annie with a tilt of his head because his arms were still around her. Belatedly, Jeff noticed the pan clutched in Annie’s grasp. “I was just teaching Anna the correct way to flip an omelet.” He brought their joined hands up to show Jeff. Jeff smiled the widest fakest grin he could manage.
“Wow,” he said brightly with an exaggerated nod. “That’s great.”
Jeff tightened his jaw so much he thought his teeth might crack. He watched as Sergio rotated the pan carefully, his hips and Annie’s hips both rotating to match it. “And then you flip,” the chef instructed as he forced the pan upward. Annie squealed and then a moment later was covered with partially cooked egg. “Anna, bellisima!” Sergio cried as he stepped away from her to survey the damage. “Are you okay?” he asked.
But Annie was laughing now, looking down at herself. She brought a slimy yellow hand up to her chest, dropping a yolky handprint onto her shirt. “I’m fine,” she finally gasped out. “I’m great.” She turned to grin at Sergio and Jeff felt a wave of irritation at the idea that he might as well not even be in the room with them. “I’m just going to go change,” she continued before making her exit.
To his credit, Jeff did wait about four full seconds before trailing after her. She was already on the second step when he decided to speak. “Hey,” he said, causing her to turn around and appraise him critically. “So, I didn’t know you were so into cooking.”
“He’s teaching me,” she responded, immediately on the defensive. She crossed her arms over her chest. “Are we really going to do this?”
“Do what?” Jeff shot back. Annie rolled her eyes at him and turned to continue stomping up the stairs. Jeff sighed, feeling his ire rise more quickly than it usually did when around this woman. Did she have to be such a drama queen about everything all the time? She loved being able to act overly hurt or angry and then have things come to a spectacular end of some kind. It was almost the same illness that Abed seemed to have, of trying to create stories where stories didn’t exist.
Well, okay. This time she kind of had a point.
Setting his jaw, Jeff followed her up the stairs and slunk toward the doorway to her room, which she’d left open. Because she knew he would follow her. Groaning inwardly at that, Jeff planted himself against her door jamb and watched her silently. Annie’s back to was to him. He took a breath. “Egg yolk is really bad for you anyway,” he ventured carefully. Annie turned to face him, her eyes cold.
“Then I guess it’s a good thing that it doesn’t absorb through the skin,” she shot back tightly. He watched closely as her hands rose to the top button of her shirt. “What do you want, Jeff?” Her voice was irritated, but there was also a feeling of exhaustion to it that made Jeff want to step forward and gather her into his arms.
Instead, he smirked at her. “Just trying to get some tips on making a healthy breakfast.” This was good. If he was charming enough, she might forget she was mad at him.
“You mean for all the random women you make breakfast for before kicking them out of your apartment?” Annie asked and Jeff grinned at her in spite of himself. She really was a spit-fire.
Or something that sounded less like his grandfather.
“They don’t get breakfast,” Jeff replied, his eyes narrowing slightly as he waited for her reaction. He found himself slightly disappointed when all she did was shake her head at him. Annie pursed her lips in thought for a moment before beginning to actually unbutton her shirt. “Um,” he said a second later, standing to his full height. She raised her eyebrows at him in a challenging manner, opening her shirt completely. Trying desperately to keep his eyes on her face, Jeff let his mouth quirk up on one side. “Ms. Edison, you’re trying to seduce me.”
She let out a frustrated groan that he felt roll across his stomach and lower. He slouched back against the door jamb and crossed his arms over his chest to distract from his problem. “Jeff,” she said in a low voice. “Just to refresh your memory, I said I was going to come up here and change and your response to that was to follow me to my room.” She tipped her head to the side, eyes narrowing dangerously before she dropped her shirt altogether. “So, who should be the one on trial here?”
Holy crap.
She was using law metaphors.
She was taking off her clothes and using law metaphors.
Jeff gritted his teeth before swallowing down the wave of desire that washed over him. He absolutely could not move farther into her room. He gestured toward her with a wave of the arm. “And yet, only one of us is standing here half naked."
The challenging smile slid off of Annie’s face. Crap. He could actually see the light leave her eyes. No, he wanted flirty awesome Annie back. How could he get her back? “I’m not doing this, Jeff.” Her voice was determined. She shook her head. Jeff held onto his breath, trying not to focus on the tightness across his chest.
“Doing what?” he asked robotically.
Annie surveyed him silently for a moment before letting her forehead wrinkle. “This whole…”she waved her hand between them, “ little adorable…thing that you do with everyone.” Jeff shot her a knowing smile, pleased with himself.
“You think I’m adorable.”
Annie just stared at him. “Why are you here?” she asked sharply. Jeff felt his smile disintegrate and had to swallow over the lump in his throat. “Was it just because of Rich?”
“Yes,” he answered before cringing at the expression on her face. “I mean, it wasn’t totally about that.” He moved toward her and watched as Annie stepped back from him, still topless. His eyes darted down to her ample cleavage, encased in a pretty astounding red bra. God, that was always there under those uptight little cardigans? Her chest jumped at her sharp intake of breath and Jeff snapped his eyes back up to her face. She frowned deeply at him before turning her back to him. He found himself staring at her mostly naked back and felt his jaw slacken. Before he really had a chance to appreciate the lines of her body, she was covering herself with a clean shirt and spinning back to face him.
“Wasn’t totally about that,” Annie repeated, crossing her arms over her chest, more defiant now. Did she get her power from her clothes? “So, if you had never found out Rich was here, would you have come?”
Um…shit. There was no wiggle room there.
She was very good.
Despite the situation, Jeff felt an unmistakable flash of admiration shoot through him, making his tongue almost buzz with its intensity. “No,” he replied honestly, bracing himself for her kicked puppy face. What he got was much worse. She actually looked…understanding, resigned almost.
“Well,” she breathed out, now instantly back in her overly-bright voice. “Then I hope you two will be very happy together.” She smiled up at him tightly before striding past him. Jeff turned on his heel instantly to follow her out of the room.
“Cute,” he grinned down at her and Annie rolled her eyes up to him. “So, we’re okay?”
She stilled at the top of the stairs and huffed in a way he tried not to find endearing. “Jeff, we are as good as we ever are.” She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “We talk without saying anything, have conversations without actually getting to the root of the problem, argue without resolving anything.” She dropped her hands to her hips. “Lather, rinse, repeat.” She shrugged. “Right?”
Why couldn’t she understand the situation she kept trying to shove him into? It was like there was only one place for him in her social itinerary and if he didn’t want to be her steady boyfriend, she didn’t have time for him at all. How was that fair? She was friends with Abed without having rules and parameters and expecting more. Well, except for the time she apparently made out with him. Wait, why had she done that? He still didn’t know.
“You’re unbelievable,” she muttered a moment later and Jeff realized belatedly that he’d asked the last part in his outdoor voice. He watched her move down the stairs with purpose before catching up to her. “And the most ridiculous part is you already know why.” Annie’s voice was accusatory.
“I do?” he asked, furrowing his brow. He couldn’t remember having heard why they had actually… He shook the image from his head. Those thoughts gave him the urge to fly back to Greendale just to kick Abed in the shins really hard. The guy had tiny legs. They might actually snap. That was at least part of the problem. The idea of Abed ‘s lips on Annie’s made him want to physically harm one of his best friends.
Annie was right, he was unbelievable.
Unless she had meant it in an awesome way, but Jeff really didn’t think so.
Was he jealous of the idea of her kissing Abed? Or Rich? Or Sergio? Or any other living breathing mammal? Yes. Fine. He wanted to kiss her. Kissing Annie was fun. Fun and easy. Well, sometimes it was easy. Sometimes it led to broken noses and broken engagements.
“-and anyway, it's all irrelevant now anyway. Right?” Oh, crap. Had she been talking this entire time? And now she was asking him a question. Jeff had to play this very carefully.
He nodded slowly, trying to gauge her reaction. When she gave nothing away at first, he fully committed to it. “Yes, right.” She gave a tight nod in response and Jeff felt a sinking feeling in his gut. She was giving him her Resolve face. She was swallowing down and next would come the moving forward and-
“You’re twenty,” he spit out, surprising even himself. As far as random outbursts went, it was one of his stranger ones. The panic had made him do it. That was a good excuse, right?
Annie sucked her lips into her mouth before replying. “I actually know that, Jeff.”
“I mean… you’re...great, but-”
“Twenty,” she nodded sardonically.
Jeff winced slightly. “Yeah.” He sighed. “It’s not what you wanted to hear.”
Annie smiled ruefully to herself. “It never is.” She shrugged self-consciously and Jeff shoved his hands into his pockets to keep from wrapping them around her small form. “Did you know that I’ve never once been chased by a guy?” She glanced down the staircase, talking more to herself than to him now. “I’ve always been the one going after guys. I never thought I really had that much to offer and I’ve seen what happened to my mom after my dad left, and didn‘t want to end up alone with no one caring about me.” She sighed. Jeff felt something short out in his brain, jolting him into a sense of total awareness.
He was going to kiss her.
Yes. He was. Screw the deal he'd made with Pierce, he was going to kiss the crap out of her and damn the consequences. She wanted him to kiss her. Right?
It was kind of unsettling that he wasn’t even freaking out about it.
Just had to lean down and-
“But I…think I’m done.” Jeff froze halfway down to her and straightened up the second her eyes flew up to meet his. She was nodding again, convincing herself of something she’d already decided on, the way Annie did. “It’s time for some guys to chase me.”
The silence that stretched between them there on the staircase seemed to last forever. Jeff didn’t know what to say to that. How did she always manage to throw him? He cleared his throat. “Well,” he finally stated. “It sounds like you’ve got a plan then. Good luck with that.” His voice sounded low and flat to his own ears and it must have to Annie’s too, because she looked up at him, that tiny wrinkle between her eyebrows. It smoothed out an instant later and her smile was present, if not real.
“Yes,” she responded with levity. “And my first act is allowing Sergio to seduce me.” She actually flipped her hair toward him as she descended the rest of the stairs, solo this time.
What the…?
Had she really just said that?
Jeff’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glaring after Annie’s retreating figure the entire time. Text from Britta. Oh, this would be awesome.
You unbelievable douche. If you try to fuck her now, I will kill you.
Jeff groaned loudly before putting his thumbs to work answering her.
I know. You won’t have to work on an alibi.