It's Always Open Season On Princesses Part 28
Title: It’s Always Open Season On Princesses Part 28
Spoilers: Through S2
Word Count: 4956
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: Dan Harmon owns it all. Bastard.
AN: This chapter kind of kicked my butt. Hard.
“And it opens tomorrow,” Troy told her. “I think it’s going to be awesome.”
Annie nodded at him before turning to Abed, who was seated on the other side of her. “What about you?” she asked.
Abed shrugged his shoulders. “I’m still undecided. J.J. Abrams has a good track record. But he’s disappointed plenty of times. Remember ’Undercovers’?”
Annie caught movement out of the corner of her eye and looked up in time to see Jeff moving toward her with more determination than she would expect from him. When their eyes met, he stalled for the briefest of moments before approaching the three of them. “Hey,” he greeted them.
“Hey,” Abed nodded. “Have you been in there with Pierce this whole time?”
“We had some things to discuss,” Jeff answered. Annie watched as his eyes darted toward Troy’s before he inhaled and looked at her again. “Are you ready to head out?”
“You’re leaving together?” Abed asked from beside her.
“No,” Annie answered immediately, garnering a confused expression from Jeff. “I mean, he’s going to drive me back to my car. Yes.” She could feel the blush beginning to pinken her cheeks. “But we’re not going home together, no.” Her eyes swept up to Jeff again. He was frowning at her. “He’s just giving me a lift to my car,” she finished lamely. There was a certain domesticity to the phrase ‘going home together’ that caused her chest to give a twinge that Annie understood but wished she didn’t. She stood from her seat and turned in the direction of the elevator.
“You guys going home?” Shirley asked as she rose and approached them.
“We aren’t,” Annie stated emphatically. “I mean, he’s going to drop me off at my car and then I’m going home and he’s going home. But we’re not going home together.”
“Relax Annie,” Britta said in a soothing tone. “She wasn’t implying anything.”
“Oh,” she answered belatedly with a small nod. She pulled the sleeves of her borrowed sweatshirt over the ends of her hands before crossing her arms over her chest. “Right.” Annie tucked a thick strand of hair behind her ear and looked up at Jeff. There was an expression on his face that she would almost classify as concern if she didn’t know better by now.
“Thanks for coming back,” Britta continued quietly, meeting Jeff’s gaze unsurely. He swallowed and gave a tiny nod and she offered him a grimace in response. Annie resisted the urge to roll her eyes at the exchange. How had those two ever managed to communicate on any level at all? They were both allergic to feelings.
Maybe that’s why it had worked.
“I’ll call you in the morning, sweetie.” Shirley cooed to her and Annie nodded before hugging the older woman tightly. Annie hadn’t realized how much she had missed everyone until she’d seen them again, having been too distracted by her self-inflicted drama around the clock. But these people were her family, the people she loved and trusted the most in the world. She inhaled Shirley’s scent and let her eyes flutter shut for a moment before pulling away from the mother of the group and straightening back up. Britta moved forward and wrapped her arms around Annie awkwardly, punctuating her stilted hugging technique with a pat on the back. Annie gave Britta a tight smile as the blonde pulled away self-consciously and crossed her arms over her chest. Troy offered up a high five and Abed nodded at her before Annie made a gesture toward the elevator and shuffled in that direction. She could hear Jeff murmuring to the group behind her, but didn’t care enough about what he was saying to turn around and go back. He followed her a moment later and they entered the elevator in silence that felt surprisingly tense. The second Annie stopped moving and wasn’t expected to keep up her half of a conversation, she could feel her eyelids begin to droop.
No, she couldn’t fall asleep again.
Not yet anyway.
She struggled to open them, but they slid closed again, almost against her will. The sound of a soft chuckle from Jeff was what caused her to finally force her eyes open again. Were they in the slowest elevator in the world? The Greendale hospital was only four stories high, why was it taking so long to get back to ground level?
She relaxed and let her eyes drift shut again.
The loud ding of the door opening at the lobby shook her out of her dozing and she met Jeff‘s bemused gaze before shuffling out of the elevator ahead of him.
Always ahead of him it seemed.
They wandered in tandem back to his car and Annie found herself struggling with the door handle several times before managing to get it to work for her. She crawled into the passenger seat and buckled her seat belt instantly to keep Jeff from repeating his earlier actions. Not that she didn’t want it to happen. It was scary how much, even in her advanced state of unconsciousness, Annie wanted it to happen again. She let her eyes slide closed again and inhaled deeply before laying her head back against his soft leather headrest. Jeff backed his Lexus out of the parking spot and drove slowly toward the exit to the street. Annie forced her eyes open once more in time to see him take a right instead of a left as he should have.
“Where are we going?” Annie mumbled. “My car is at the airport. The airport is the other direction.” Jeff kept his eyes on the road.
“We’re not going to the airport.”
He had to be kidding.
Right?
Or maybe she had misheard him. Annie knew she wasn’t really awake enough to trust what he was saying, or at least what she thought he was saying. Where could he possibly be taking her if he wasn’t driving her back to his car?
Like he said he was going to.
“Okay,” she mumbled with a sidelong glance at him. He kept his eyes on the road. “If we’re not going back to the airport to get my car, then where are we going?”
“I’m taking you home,” Jeff intoned to her, squaring his shoulders.
Something about the late-night tone of his voice and the words he was saying made Annie’s stomach flip over. Despite everything he had put her through in the last three weeks, he was still able to cause a reaction in her.
Annie hated it.
“Jeff,” she stated as surely as she could. “I can drive home on my own.”
“She yawned,” he shot back, finally looking over at her. Annie rolled her eyes before turning to look out the window with a frown. Why was it that Jeff always felt the need to make decisions for her? If she wanted to drive her own car home, why couldn’t he just let her? The new tradition he had of acting like he was her chaperone was endlessly infuriating. She wasn’t supposed to drink, she wasn’t supposed to hook up with strangers, she wasn’t supposed to get behind the wheel when she was mostly asleep.
Okay, so he probably had a point.
But Annie didn't have to like it.
“So how am I supposed to get my car back?” she asked, crossing her arms petulantly across her chest.
Jeff let out a sigh. “I will come pick you up tomorrow and take you out to the airport to get your car.”
“How do I know you’re not lying?” Annie shot back.
“I’m not,” Jeff answered easily.
“You said before that you were going to take me back there,” she pointed out challengingly.
He cleared his throat. “Yeah, I was lying then.”
“Jeff,” Annie whined.
“You do know that isn’t going to work, right?” He gave her a look that seemed almost bemused and Annie felt a twinge in her chest. She was tired, probably too tired to be thinking. What Annie needed was time and space to actually organize her thoughts. She had spent the last two weeks, no the last two years under a self-imposed barrage of overly-complicated and overly-childish feelings for Jeff. Enough was enough. She could push and push and spend the next two years pushing him, but in the end, would they be any better off?
“Fine,” she murmured quietly and shoved her hands into the pockets of her hoodie.
Annie's phone buzzed in her pocket and she pulled it out to check the screen. Rich had sent her a text.
Hope your flight was good. Need to talk to you about Camilla. Call as soon as you can.
She would call him in the morning, she didn't think she could handle any more drama from anyone tonight. The Lexus pulled up in front of Dildopolis, the neon pink sign flashing in the summer night boasting that they were ‘Op n 24 Ho rs’. Jeff put the car in park and Annie climbed out slowly. Once she got up the stairs and back into her apartment, she could scream or throw things or collapse and sleep for a week.
She just needed to get away from Jeff before any of those things happened.
He popped the trunk and Annie bent over her luggage, blinking in the suddenly bright light from the small bulb inside. In the next instant, she felt his large palm settle on her head gently, reflexively protecting her from the trunk lid. Standing straight, her eyes flew to Jeff’s. He seemed as surprised by the action as she did and immediately pulled his hand away. The end result was something close to a pat on the head. Annie frowned at him before turning back to her luggage resignedly. It could have been worse.
He could have slapped her across the face.
That probably would be worse.
Grasping her largest bag, Annie tugged as hard as she could, pulling it only slightly out of position. She let out a small whimper before clearing her throat in an effort to cover up the noise. It was too late though. Jeff chuckled at her, which caused Annie to frown deeply at him.
“Here,” he said in a voice that sounded low to her ears and then he was covering her hand with his much larger one and pulling the suitcase from his trunk easily. Together, they sat it on the asphalt between them and rose again together, eyes meeting in the sulfuric yellow light of the street light overhead.
Jeff’s eyes were….what was that expression? Annie felt a tingle shoot up her spine and carefully swallowed down the taste of adrenaline that filled her mouth. She was on the precipice of what she already knew from experience to be a very slippery slope. If he could cause that kind of reaction in her from just a look that she couldn’t even define, there was no telling what might happen if he actually tried to charm her in any way. Not that it was likely at this point. Jeff had been pretty clear. She was a manipulative little kid. He had no real intentions toward her, or if he did, he held little hope for them. The way he’d managed to cut her down, to evaluate the situation so angrily, still made Annie shudder.
“Thanks,” Annie muttered with a tight smile before turning back to the trunk to retrieve the the rest of her bags. She could feel Jeff’s eyes on her, putting her nerves as far on edge as they could be in her advanced state of exhaustion. When she had gathered all of her bags in her arms, she reached down to pull at the handle of the wheeled suitcase and turned to make her way toward the building.
“Do you need some help?” he finally chuckled as he watched her struggle.
“No,” Annie lied as she glanced over her shoulder at him. “And you don’t have to give me a ride in the morning. I’ll call Shirley.”
“What?” Jeff asked, the humor leaving his voice. “Why?”
Annie expelled all of the breath in her lungs in a frustrated whoosh and finally turned her body fully back toward him. “I just don't want you to feel like you have to.”
“I don’t feel like I have to,” he remarked patiently as he took a step toward her. “I volunteered. After I decided to strand you here without your car in the first place.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she murmured, feeling something nauseating seep into her stomach. She wasn't ready to talk about everything they needed to talk about. Annie was hoping against hope that Jeff was just going to drop it and let her go inside to regroup for the evening.
“Why not?” he asked, effectively ignoring every silent plea Annie had given him. She pulled her lower lip into her mouth and chewed on it without speaking. “Annie?” Jeff stepped up to the curb slowly and approached her. She averted her eyes from him quickly, instead staring unfocusedly at the top of his Lexus.
Really?
After everything they had been through, he wanted to have the conversation now? He’d spent how long getting just close enough to her to make her notice only to turn tail and run as fast as he could, and now he wanted to discuss things? Maybe not. Maybe he really was just asking her why she didn’t need him for a ride. But Annie knew Jeff knew her, whether he wanted to or not. Which meant that he knew that answering that question was going to lead to the conversation neither of them were ready for after the lack of sleep and food and hygiene they had been experiencing.
“I’m really tired, Jeff.” Annie sighed as quietly as she could manage. “I’ll just…I’ll see you at school or something.” She struggled to turn herself and her luggage back around as quickly as possible, but Jeff was quicker. He was in front of her within seconds, pulling one of her bags from her grasp easily.
“You’ll see me in school?” he asked with an edge to his voice. “That’s it?” When she looked up at Jeff, he had an expression on his face that she couldn’t place in the dim light of the street. Although with him, there was just as good a chance that she wouldn’t be able to place it in a hospital room either. “Annie, I think you might see me a couple times before September. Stop being dramatic.”
“I’m not,” she argued with a frown. “And you don’t know that we’ll see each other before school starts.”
Jeff heaved a giant sigh. “I have asked you not to watch so much ABC Family, you know.” Annie rolled her eyes. “You’re smarter than this self-inflicted drama.” He inclined his head toward her as he stepped closer. “At least you’re kind of talking to me now.” Annie bit her lip again and watched Jeff’s face soften a moment later. “I’ll help you get upstairs and then I’ll come in the morning and take you to your car.” He reached for her suitcase, but Annie jerked away. “What the hell?” he asked in an exhausted tone.
“I don’t need you to do things for me,” she said stubbornly. She knew that if he came upstairs, things were going to get that much more complicated. He couldn’t be in her apartment. Jeff wanted to finish things with her, felt the need to put a lid on whatever had happened between them in Italy. It seemed like a distant memory now, almost as if it was a dream she’d had rather than reality.
Except Annie would assume her dreams would have nicer endings than what was going to happen between the two of them.
“Well, you do in this case.” Jeff jerked his head in the direction of the rickety wooden stairs she needed to climb. “You aren’t going to be able to make it up their by yourself with everything.”
“I made it down with everything,” she replied and watched Jeff’s face change ever so slightly.
“Why are you acting like this?” Jeff asked.
Annie’s mouth dropped open. “Why are you acting like nothing has happened between us?” She could feel the tremble in her jaw and clamped her mouth shut as tightly as she could. He couldn’t see her fall apart. Annie needed to get away from him before the exhaustion of everything really hit her and she finally embraced the pain she‘d been trying to ignore. “Maybe you can brush everything away like it didn’t happen, but I can’t Jeff.”
He rolled his eyes. “I’m not trying to brush anything away, Annie.”
Annie swallowed down the instinct to punch him in the throat. But as soon as it subsided, she noticed another sensation that was working its way up her throat. She was….excited. Excited at the prospect that he really wasn’t trying to ignore anything. Yet. She had to get a grip on things, if just the act of him saying he wasn’t trying to ignore her got her this excited. “I’m the one who has been trying to talk to you since we started this discussion, and you keep blowing me off.” Annie pulled her lower lip into her mouth to keep it from trembling.
“Annie.”
She shook her head, feeling everything wind up uncomfortably inside of her.
“Annie.”
Jeff tugged the bag back toward him with a force Annie wasn’t expecting and she came with it, stumbling slightly. One of his hands reached out to steady her. “You don’t get to flounce away now, sorry.” There was that strange sense of happiness back in her gut again. “I understand that you’re at the end of your whole ‘Eat Pray Love’ thing and the conclusion is telling me off and then…I don’t know…cutting off your hair and becoming a feminist, but we’re not done talking about this.”
Annie couldn’t stop the smile that turned her mouth upward. “Have you ever read that book?”
“I saw part of the movie on television one night,” Jeff defended. He watched her for a beat. “You smiled.” She bit her lip self-consciously, worrying her brow.
“I know how this works,” she said in response to nothing. “You continue to be passive aggressive about any guy that might look in my direction, but refuse to actually make a move on me yourself.”
Jeff reared his head back, his expression telling Annie that he clearly thought she was a nutcase. “I’m…pretty sure I’ve made several moves.” She knew she was blushing, but couldn‘t stop it. There were so many things that she needed to say to him, but starting with the fact that she‘d almost allowed herself to get carried away with him that way was not near the top of the list.
“I wanted you to come with me,” she stated, another non-sequiter that Annie almost hoped he wouldn’t be able to reply to. “It wasn’t part of some plan to make you seem like a jerk.”
“I know.”
“You said I was trying to make you the bad guy,” Annie pointed out.
Jeff sighed. “I was…upset.”
“With me,” she guessed.
“Yes,” Jeff conceded and Annie frowned. “Well, not just you.”
“Pierce?”
Jeff nodded slowly. “Yes, but…me too.”
Annie swallowed. “You’re never disappointed in yourself.” Jeff shrugged. Something cold settled in her stomach. “You regret it.”
“I…what?” He seemed genuinely perplexed by her summation. “What would I have to regret?”
She shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know. I don’t want to talk about it.” She sighed. “You win.”
“I win?” Jeff asked.
“Yes,” Annie clarified. “You always win.”
“This isn’t winning,” he replied. “And I don’t always win.”
“You faked your way into a law firm,” she shot back with furrowed brows. “Uh, that's winning.”
“That’s cheating,” Jeff corrected. “And I ended up at Greendale, which is definitely not winning.”
He still wished he had never ended up at Greendale. Despite his telling his friends that he loved them, in the end if he’d been given the choice, he would choose never to have met any of them at all. The thought shouldn’t have broken her heart as much as it did, but Annie felt the crack in her chest immediately. “I’m going to go to bed,” she murmured.
“So….” Jeff frowned. “That’s it then?”
“Jeff.” Annie actually allowed herself to give him a wry smile. “We were together in Italy for a week and we couldn’t manage to make anything happen.”
“There were a couple other factors involved there, you know.”
“The point is,” she continued with a shake of her head. “That if nothing happened in the most romantic place in the world, it’s not going to happen here.”
“Annie.”
Annie’s entire body sagged and she let out a loud sigh before glancing up at Jeff. He looked almost as exhausted as she felt. “I’m done.” He frowned deeply at her. “I’m… tired of trying to force you into something that you clearly want to avoid.” She could feel herself starting to shake with the nerves that were surfacing. Jeff waited for her to continue, his eyes on her in an intense manner. Or at least what felt like an intense manner given her body‘s reaction to it. Her insides all twisted up painfully. “I…” she sighed again. “It wasn’t part of my plan to fall for …an insecure thirty-five year-old who faked his degree and seems to disdain all of us half the time.“ Jeff winced at her words but didn’t stop her. Annie could feel everything pushing up into her throat, everything she‘d wanted to say to him for the last two days. All of the emotion she‘d been trying so hard to avoid, knowing what the end result would be. “And I probably do deserve…” She let out a sigh. “…better than that.” His arms crossed over his chest defensively and gave a nod that Annie felt in her toes. Was he upset?
No.
That was just what she wanted to see.
They stood in silence for what felt like a very long time. Annie knew Jeff was staring at her, waiting for her to keep talking. She could feel his eyes on her. There was only one thing she could think of to say.
But it was something she couldn’t say.
When she finally worked up the nerve to meet his gaze, Annie felt something unspool in her stomach. His eyes had a quality to them that seemed almost sad. Before she could think better of it, Annie was opening her mouth to speak again. “I think I’m in love with you.” Worry lines appeared on Jeff’s face and she knew that it had been the wrong thing to say. The good news was at least now he would cut and run. There was no other option for him. The sensation of needing to throw up was swallowed down again and then she shook her head. “I know that you think that I don’t know what I’m talking about because I’m too young to understand these feelings that I have and you think they’re not valid feelings because they don’t come from a dark cynical place because I’m a positive person and that makes me…naïve and prone to being taken in by older men who are only going to hurt me.” She stopped to breathe and was surprised at the way her chest already felt lighter just from what little she‘d managed to get out. It was freeing, especially knowing what the outcome would be. It was her chance to get it all off of her chest for once, before he left and never acknowledged any of it again. It could be the exhaustion she was feeling or it could be the understanding that it was probably her last chance to really tell him everything she’d been holding inside, but Annie wanted to say more. “You might have hurt me I guess, but I won’t ever know.” She sighed and Jeff inhaled in the same beat. “Even if you do feel something for me, not only will you never acknowledge it, but you’re actively running away from it. If you’re really that desperate to not be with me, why would I want to be with you?” She reached for the bag he was holding again and Jeff allowed it to slip from his grasp. “I guess in the end, I could thank Pierce for really making me realize what I had been too stupid and young to see before.”
“What?” he snapped, yanking the bag back toward him again. Annie was unprepared for the movement and stumbled forward into his arms. “You have got to be kidding me. You just….” He stepped back, holding her at arm’s length and Annie met his gaze unsurely. “You...” Jeff let out a frustrated groan. “Get in the car.”
Annie opened her eyes in alarm. “What?”
“Get in the car now.”
“No,” she said with a shake of the head. “I’m not getting back in the car, Jeff. I’m home already.”
“We’re not having this discussion in front of a sex shop and we’re not having it in your rat hole of an apartment with your creepy Russian neighbors listening in through the walls.”
“They’re Greek,” Annie informed him.
“Whatever.” When she merely stared at him defiantly, Jeff lowered his face to her level and Annie sucked in a breath. “Annie, get in the car.”
She could feel the tremble in her jaw and clamped her jaw shut tightly to keep it from being visible to the man right in front of her. “No,” she whispered. “I can’t.”
“Annie.”
“Jeff." She sighed and felt it all the way down her spine. Whatever fight you want to have right now, any other things you want to yell at me, I just….I can’t, okay?”
“I’m not going to yell at you,” he explained in a voice that was getting closer and closer to yelling by the second.
“I didn’t think you were going to yell at me before either,” she countered.
“You got mad at me,” he reminded her. “You snooped through my things and found something you didn’t like and then confronted me about it.”
“If I hadn’t, I would still be completely in the dark about everything.” Annie stomped her foot. “The only reason I know anything about what is going on with you and Pierce is because I found out for myself.”
“Annie,” he growled. “Get. In. The. Car.”
She shook her head. “No.” Backing away from him, Annie continued to shake her head. “Please. Let’s just drop the whole thing.” The fact that he wanted to so effectively put her in her place about everything that had happened between them made her chest ache.
“No, we’re not dropping it,” he shot back with an edge to his voice.
“Jeff….” She reached for her suitcase again.
“What?”
She let out a deep sigh. “I can be as mad at you as I want to, but that doesn’t change the way I-” She cut herself off, knowing that sentence would end badly.
“Doesn’t change the way what?” he persisted cruelly.
“I still want to be your friend,” Annie said instead of answering his question. She couldn’t see a way in which she was ever going to be able to get over her feelings for him if she spent more time with him over the summer. Heck, she’d tried last summer after he’d kissed her and instead had spent three solid months trying to run into him and doodling his name in her journal. This was a million times worse than that. “So I think only seeing each other at school is right.”
“No,” Jeff decided after a moment of silence.
“No?” Annie echoed.
“Annie, I don’t want to have to forcibly put you in my Lexus. But I will.” Annie frowned. “And we both know that you live in a neighborhood where no one will even blink at it.” She shook her head again and felt a tear finally slip down her cheek. He cocked his head to the side and the look he shot her made her entire stomach flip upside down.
Jeff swallowed.
He licked his lips.
“Please?”