Studies of Resonant Bodies Chapter 14
Word Count: 1712
Spoilers: To the end of Season 3
Rating: NC-17
“Okay, listen, idiots,” Jerry said, exasperated, from behind his desk. “We know you did it. Even if we didn’t have witnesses saying they saw you going into the Meeting Hall with a duffel bag after hours, it’d be pretty darn obvious that you were behind it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Greg. He was the ringleader of the small group of students who still clung, stubbornly, to the old way of doing things. The way that emphasized exclusivity, that said that air conditioner repairmen were a step above the rest. They continued to wear their old uniforms, even though all the other students had long ago started wearing casual clothes to the annex.
There were three of them there, now, in Jerry’s office. Leaning in the corner, behind Jerry, Troy glared at them, trying to look intimidating. They didn’t seem scared. Or contrite.
“You guys couldn’t even come up with something more original than graffiting ‘Murray Lives’?” Jerry continued. “No one thinks he’s dead! He’s just in jail!”
The three students said nothing.
“For murdering someone!”
“Shouldn’t you be unclogging a toilet somewhere?” Greg asked, inspecting his fingernails.
“Okay, dickhead,” Troy said, suddenly, heat surging into his face. He’d put up with enough shit from Greg, given him plenty of second chances this year. He wasn’t going to let him talk to his friend like that. “Get the fuck out.”
Greg blanched, his calm façade wilting in the face of Troy’s anger. “Y-you mean get out of this office…?”
“No, shit for brains, I mean from the school! I’m expelling you.” Troy paused, unsure suddenly. “Or, uh, excommunicating you, whichever.” He looked over at Thornsten, who’d insisted on sitting in on this meeting. “I can do that, right?”
“Er, yes, Truest Repairman,” the priest said. “You can.”
“Good.” He turned back to Greg. “Pack your shit up and get out. I’m done with you.”
Greg looked around, at his two friends, at Jerry, at High Priest Thornsten.
“They aren’t going to help you,” Troy told him. “Get!”
He slunk out of the room, a dazed expression on his face. His two lackeys watched him go, their earlier defiance gone. They looked scared.
“You two,” Troy said, pointing at them. “Let this be a lesson to you. Quit being dipshits. Get back to class.” They retreated too, following their now ex-leader out of Jerry’s office.
Thornsten crossed to the other side of the desk, taking Greg’s old seat. “That may have been a little… harsh… Truest Repairman.”
“I disagree,” Troy said. “I don’t like bullies, and Greg made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to change his ways.”
“Troy’s right,” Jerry said. “He’s been in here every other day, practically. Remember when he was harassing students who weren’t wearing the old uniforms?”
“We put a stop to that,” Thornsten said. He held up a hand, cutting off Troy’s response. “All I’m saying, Truest Repairman, is that you have to understand where these students are coming from. The changes you have mandated are… well… they take time to adjust to.”
“Greg wasn’t making that any easier,” Troy said. “He was a troublemaker.”
“I bow to Your judgment, Your Coolness,” Thornsten said, lowering his head. Troy hated the way he could hear the capitalized Y. It was creepy. “It’s just… some of your decisions… Like allowing those Greendale students to film in the Meeting Hall-”
“We’re all Greendale students, Thornsten,” Troy corrected, quickly. “Speaking of, I wanted to go say to hi to Abed on his first day of shooting, so, if we’re done here…?”
Jerry nodded. Thornsten still didn’t look happy, but he nodded, too.
“Cool.” He softened a little. “Look… Thornsten… I know this must be weird for you, getting a dude who doesn’t even really believe in your religion as your Messiah. But if you’re right, and God really is a repairman or whatever, maybe that’s what he wanted? Maybe he thought you guys got… too arrogant, or whatever.”
Thornsten looked thoughtful. Troy clapped him on the shoulder on his way out of the room.
#
The Meeting Hall was bustling with activity. Someone had hung a curtain over the portion of the wall where Greg had graffitied his message of impotent defiance People rushed to and fro, setting up cameras, decorating the set. There must have been at least a dozen people working here. Troy was struck with the contrast between this production, with all it’s organization and complexity, it’s big, impressive looking cameras, and the much more simple, two-person shoots he and Abed used to do.
He didn’t see his friend around anywhere.
“Hey man,” a voice asked. “What’s up?”
He turned. The voice came from a tall, blond man who he judged to be about his own age. He was carrying a thick stack of different colored papers.
“Yeah,” Troy said. “Hey. I’m-”
“Troy Barnes, I know. You‘re Abed‘s friend.” The stranger stuck out his hand. “I remember, from that pillow war. That was awesome. I’m Mark. Mark Millot. Rhymes with merlot.”
Troy shook his hand.
“Abed says you’re the one who got us this room. That’s awesome, man.”
“Yeah…” Troy said, unnerved that this guy knew so much more about him then he did of him. “Is he around, by the way? I wanted to talk to him.”
“He texted me that he was running late. Yoga went long or something? I don’t know.”
Abed does yoga? Troy thought to himself. “Oh…” he said, pretending that he knew that. “Right.”
“He should be here soon, he was super excited to start shooting. Have you read the script yet? We’ve been working really hard on it.”
“I, uh, don’t even know what the movie’s about,” Troy answered. “Abed hasn’t really talked about it with me much…” Or at all.
“It’s gonna be awesome man. Total old school film noir. We’re gonna shoot it in black and white and everything. Abed does a great Bogart. It’s going to kill at the film festival.”
Troy frowned. “Noir?” He really liked noir. He and Abed had plowed through the Bogart canon together, back when they’d first started hanging out. The Big Sleep. The Maltese Falcon. Casablanca. Even the weird ones, like In a Lonely Place (Abed had really liked that one). It’d been his first exposure to the genre, but something about it, something about the way the heroes always struggled against a cynical, bleak world that didn’t give a shit about them, had really stuck with him.
“Yeah!” Mark said, excitedly. “I think he got the idea from the last paintball game. That’s where we met, actually. I guess we really bonded over it, cause once the A/V Department started up again this year-”
Cause of me, Troy thought, bitterly.
“-he asked me to come and write it with him.”
“Sounds… awesome,” Troy said, not caring if Mark picked up on the mocking quality in his voice.
He apparently didn’t. “Yeah, man,” he gushed.
Troy was beginning to realize that he really did not like Mark Millot.
#
Abed opened the door to the A/C Repair Annex in a rush. He was late, and he knew it. All he was missing was just the initial setup, he knew, and he trusted the people he’d chosen to work with enough to do that without him. It still seemed… unprofessional.
He wasn’t entirely sure he regretted his decision, though, to wait the hour until Dawn’s yoga class got out. And the half-hour they spent together after that, either. He smiled, running a hand through his hair. His stomach was already complaining that he’d skipped on lunch, but other parts of his anatomy were much more… content.
He was shaken out of that pleasant thought upon entering his new studio when he saw Troy there, talking with Mark. Uh oh, he thought. Troy had been dropping less and less subtle hints lately that he wanted to be involved in Abed’s movie in some capacity. And Mark could be… hard to take… in the best of circumstances sometimes. It wasn’t his fault. He was just kind of… pretentious. Which was fine for Abed. A lot of people would probably say that of him, too, with all his pop culture knowledge and love of homage.
But Troy might not see it that way. His friend had always had a jealous streak.
“Troy!” he said, keeping his voice light as he approached them. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Abed!” Troy said. “Yeah, I was looking for you.”
Mark stood there, grinning. Abed shot him a pointed look.
“Oh, right,” he said. “Uh, I guess I’ll just go check in with Kelly, make sure she’s got everything she needs.” He wandered off.
“So,” Troy said. “I know it seems like you’ve got things… all set here, but I just wanted to see if you wanted any help. I could be an extra or something! Like some mob boss’s goon, or whatever?”
“Troy…” Abed said slowly. His friend frowned. Abed hated this. He hated confrontation. He could hear Britta’s voice in his head, though, telling him that it was important to set boundaries. “I was… I kind of wanted this to be… my own thing. You know? Something I could have to myself.”
“Oh…” Troy said. The frown had gone, but Abed knew, from experience, that that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “Like yoga, you mean.”
“Ah,” Abed said, feeling his stomach drop. He winced. He hadn’t mentioned that to his friend, either, afraid that he’d want in on something he’d really just intended to be something between him and Jeff. That’d probably been a mistake. “Listen-”
Troy sighed. “No, I’m sorry. That was mean. And I get it, I do. I just… I really liked making movies with you man.”
Abed felt his expression soften. “I do too, Troy. Maybe we can shoot something this weekend? Something quick, and fun, just like we used to?”
“Yeah, maybe…” Troy said. His mouth was still a straight line, though, his face impossible for him to read. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair. You seem like you’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Abed watched him walk away, hands jammed into his pockets, back slightly slumped. He thought about storms again, and the horizon.
Spoilers: To the end of Season 3
Rating: NC-17
“Okay, listen, idiots,” Jerry said, exasperated, from behind his desk. “We know you did it. Even if we didn’t have witnesses saying they saw you going into the Meeting Hall with a duffel bag after hours, it’d be pretty darn obvious that you were behind it.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Greg. He was the ringleader of the small group of students who still clung, stubbornly, to the old way of doing things. The way that emphasized exclusivity, that said that air conditioner repairmen were a step above the rest. They continued to wear their old uniforms, even though all the other students had long ago started wearing casual clothes to the annex.
There were three of them there, now, in Jerry’s office. Leaning in the corner, behind Jerry, Troy glared at them, trying to look intimidating. They didn’t seem scared. Or contrite.
“You guys couldn’t even come up with something more original than graffiting ‘Murray Lives’?” Jerry continued. “No one thinks he’s dead! He’s just in jail!”
The three students said nothing.
“For murdering someone!”
“Shouldn’t you be unclogging a toilet somewhere?” Greg asked, inspecting his fingernails.
“Okay, dickhead,” Troy said, suddenly, heat surging into his face. He’d put up with enough shit from Greg, given him plenty of second chances this year. He wasn’t going to let him talk to his friend like that. “Get the fuck out.”
Greg blanched, his calm façade wilting in the face of Troy’s anger. “Y-you mean get out of this office…?”
“No, shit for brains, I mean from the school! I’m expelling you.” Troy paused, unsure suddenly. “Or, uh, excommunicating you, whichever.” He looked over at Thornsten, who’d insisted on sitting in on this meeting. “I can do that, right?”
“Er, yes, Truest Repairman,” the priest said. “You can.”
“Good.” He turned back to Greg. “Pack your shit up and get out. I’m done with you.”
Greg looked around, at his two friends, at Jerry, at High Priest Thornsten.
“They aren’t going to help you,” Troy told him. “Get!”
He slunk out of the room, a dazed expression on his face. His two lackeys watched him go, their earlier defiance gone. They looked scared.
“You two,” Troy said, pointing at them. “Let this be a lesson to you. Quit being dipshits. Get back to class.” They retreated too, following their now ex-leader out of Jerry’s office.
Thornsten crossed to the other side of the desk, taking Greg’s old seat. “That may have been a little… harsh… Truest Repairman.”
“I disagree,” Troy said. “I don’t like bullies, and Greg made it pretty clear he wasn’t going to change his ways.”
“Troy’s right,” Jerry said. “He’s been in here every other day, practically. Remember when he was harassing students who weren’t wearing the old uniforms?”
“We put a stop to that,” Thornsten said. He held up a hand, cutting off Troy’s response. “All I’m saying, Truest Repairman, is that you have to understand where these students are coming from. The changes you have mandated are… well… they take time to adjust to.”
“Greg wasn’t making that any easier,” Troy said. “He was a troublemaker.”
“I bow to Your judgment, Your Coolness,” Thornsten said, lowering his head. Troy hated the way he could hear the capitalized Y. It was creepy. “It’s just… some of your decisions… Like allowing those Greendale students to film in the Meeting Hall-”
“We’re all Greendale students, Thornsten,” Troy corrected, quickly. “Speaking of, I wanted to go say to hi to Abed on his first day of shooting, so, if we’re done here…?”
Jerry nodded. Thornsten still didn’t look happy, but he nodded, too.
“Cool.” He softened a little. “Look… Thornsten… I know this must be weird for you, getting a dude who doesn’t even really believe in your religion as your Messiah. But if you’re right, and God really is a repairman or whatever, maybe that’s what he wanted? Maybe he thought you guys got… too arrogant, or whatever.”
Thornsten looked thoughtful. Troy clapped him on the shoulder on his way out of the room.
#
The Meeting Hall was bustling with activity. Someone had hung a curtain over the portion of the wall where Greg had graffitied his message of impotent defiance People rushed to and fro, setting up cameras, decorating the set. There must have been at least a dozen people working here. Troy was struck with the contrast between this production, with all it’s organization and complexity, it’s big, impressive looking cameras, and the much more simple, two-person shoots he and Abed used to do.
He didn’t see his friend around anywhere.
“Hey man,” a voice asked. “What’s up?”
He turned. The voice came from a tall, blond man who he judged to be about his own age. He was carrying a thick stack of different colored papers.
“Yeah,” Troy said. “Hey. I’m-”
“Troy Barnes, I know. You‘re Abed‘s friend.” The stranger stuck out his hand. “I remember, from that pillow war. That was awesome. I’m Mark. Mark Millot. Rhymes with merlot.”
Troy shook his hand.
“Abed says you’re the one who got us this room. That’s awesome, man.”
“Yeah…” Troy said, unnerved that this guy knew so much more about him then he did of him. “Is he around, by the way? I wanted to talk to him.”
“He texted me that he was running late. Yoga went long or something? I don’t know.”
Abed does yoga? Troy thought to himself. “Oh…” he said, pretending that he knew that. “Right.”
“He should be here soon, he was super excited to start shooting. Have you read the script yet? We’ve been working really hard on it.”
“I, uh, don’t even know what the movie’s about,” Troy answered. “Abed hasn’t really talked about it with me much…” Or at all.
“It’s gonna be awesome man. Total old school film noir. We’re gonna shoot it in black and white and everything. Abed does a great Bogart. It’s going to kill at the film festival.”
Troy frowned. “Noir?” He really liked noir. He and Abed had plowed through the Bogart canon together, back when they’d first started hanging out. The Big Sleep. The Maltese Falcon. Casablanca. Even the weird ones, like In a Lonely Place (Abed had really liked that one). It’d been his first exposure to the genre, but something about it, something about the way the heroes always struggled against a cynical, bleak world that didn’t give a shit about them, had really stuck with him.
“Yeah!” Mark said, excitedly. “I think he got the idea from the last paintball game. That’s where we met, actually. I guess we really bonded over it, cause once the A/V Department started up again this year-”
Cause of me, Troy thought, bitterly.
“-he asked me to come and write it with him.”
“Sounds… awesome,” Troy said, not caring if Mark picked up on the mocking quality in his voice.
He apparently didn’t. “Yeah, man,” he gushed.
Troy was beginning to realize that he really did not like Mark Millot.
#
Abed opened the door to the A/C Repair Annex in a rush. He was late, and he knew it. All he was missing was just the initial setup, he knew, and he trusted the people he’d chosen to work with enough to do that without him. It still seemed… unprofessional.
He wasn’t entirely sure he regretted his decision, though, to wait the hour until Dawn’s yoga class got out. And the half-hour they spent together after that, either. He smiled, running a hand through his hair. His stomach was already complaining that he’d skipped on lunch, but other parts of his anatomy were much more… content.
He was shaken out of that pleasant thought upon entering his new studio when he saw Troy there, talking with Mark. Uh oh, he thought. Troy had been dropping less and less subtle hints lately that he wanted to be involved in Abed’s movie in some capacity. And Mark could be… hard to take… in the best of circumstances sometimes. It wasn’t his fault. He was just kind of… pretentious. Which was fine for Abed. A lot of people would probably say that of him, too, with all his pop culture knowledge and love of homage.
But Troy might not see it that way. His friend had always had a jealous streak.
“Troy!” he said, keeping his voice light as he approached them. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”
“Abed!” Troy said. “Yeah, I was looking for you.”
Mark stood there, grinning. Abed shot him a pointed look.
“Oh, right,” he said. “Uh, I guess I’ll just go check in with Kelly, make sure she’s got everything she needs.” He wandered off.
“So,” Troy said. “I know it seems like you’ve got things… all set here, but I just wanted to see if you wanted any help. I could be an extra or something! Like some mob boss’s goon, or whatever?”
“Troy…” Abed said slowly. His friend frowned. Abed hated this. He hated confrontation. He could hear Britta’s voice in his head, though, telling him that it was important to set boundaries. “I was… I kind of wanted this to be… my own thing. You know? Something I could have to myself.”
“Oh…” Troy said. The frown had gone, but Abed knew, from experience, that that wasn’t necessarily a good thing. “Like yoga, you mean.”
“Ah,” Abed said, feeling his stomach drop. He winced. He hadn’t mentioned that to his friend, either, afraid that he’d want in on something he’d really just intended to be something between him and Jeff. That’d probably been a mistake. “Listen-”
Troy sighed. “No, I’m sorry. That was mean. And I get it, I do. I just… I really liked making movies with you man.”
Abed felt his expression soften. “I do too, Troy. Maybe we can shoot something this weekend? Something quick, and fun, just like we used to?”
“Yeah, maybe…” Troy said. His mouth was still a straight line, though, his face impossible for him to read. “Well, I’ll get out of your hair. You seem like you’ve got a lot of work to do.”
Abed watched him walk away, hands jammed into his pockets, back slightly slumped. He thought about storms again, and the horizon.