Platonic (1/?)
Title: Platonic
Author: office_bluth
Spoilers: It picks up right after Pascal's Triangle Revisited. As of now, it doesn't go into season two, but we'll see what happens when I actually, you know, write the rest of it.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13. Jeff Winger's got the tiniest hint of a potty mouth.
Word Count: 2043.
Disclaimer: *mumbles* I don't own Community or its characters. Blah blah blah.
Author's Note: So I wrote this...a while ago. Like, July, maybe. In an attempt to procrastinate sleep (you know you're lazy when...), I was looking through my documents and found this. I'm going to do my best and update this semi-regularly, but with me, seriously, who knows. I hope you all enjoy!
Surprisingly, the kiss doesn’t become, like, a thing between them. Yes, they’re both more than aware that it happened, and yes, okay, Jeff does kind of see her in a slightly new light now. It’s not like he’s overcome with desire every time he sees her, but he doesn’t just see her as the eighteen-year-old add-on to his study group; he sees her for who she is: someone mature, definitely moreso than him, and as a genuinely good person. Annie’s not like Britta in that sense - she doesn’t see everything as an opportunity to prove herself. Annie just…does the right thing. It’s that simple for her.
On the night of the Tranny Dance, after Annie pulls away and Jeff drops his hands off her, they kind of stand awkwardly for a moment. But then Annie sends him that giant grin and he starts chuckling a little uncomfortably, and soon they’re both in hysterics.
“What were we thinking?” Annie chokes out, fat tears running down her cheeks.
“I don’t know!” Jeff cries back. “I don’t think we were! You were…here, and a distraction, and I think - I think I did what I always do, and I ran away from things, and…”
He swallows hard, suddenly realizing that his laughter had stopped abruptly. Now he’s kind of bent over, holding onto a girl who can’t weigh more than 110 pounds to keep himself upright, and he realizes he must look pathetic. Jeff quickly straightens, wiping away the tears that had flowed down his cheeks.
Annie gets it. She stops laughing, her breathing still labored. Jeff watches her chest heave, her shoulders rise…and then they’re kissing again, more frantic this time. Her lithe fingers grab his lapel and pull him close to her, his hands immediately sliding to the small of her back and pressing her into him. And then they’re apart again, this time putting some distance between their bodies.
“We have to stop doing that,” Annie says, still out of breath. Jeff nods, not letting himself look at her. Bad things happen when he looks at her.
He groans. “God, what the hell happened to us? We kissed once before with no problems. How come now we can’t stop?”
Annie’s quiet for a moment, thinking it over as she chews on her bottom lip. Then, with a small shrug, she answers, “Because we didn’t need anything from each other last time. Now we need…an escape.”
Now it’s Jeff’s turn to be quiet. He still doesn’t trust himself, but he figures he kind of needs to make eye contact with her in order for this to fully impact. “I wasn’t running away from anything with you, Annie,” he says. “Well, okay, I was. But I don’t think it happened just because of that. I think…”
He pauses then as he lets himself look at her. Really look at her, for the first time in…ever? How can he have known her for so long, spent so much time with her, kissed her, for God’s sake, and still be so unfamiliar with her? This is Annie. The over-achiever who dragged him to a freaking Dia de los Muertos party, the girl so wrapped up in self-perception that she slammed his head into a table. Twice.
And yet she’s the same girl who made him realize feelings weren’t so bad. Who proved she was capable of taking her hair down, literally and figuratively, and probably changed his life in the process.
He takes a tiny step closer to her, still keeping his distance. Something tells him that, if he had the opportunity, his body would just jump at the chance to kiss her again. And if they’re kissing, they can’t talk, and for once in his life, Jeff Winger just wants to talk about his feelings.
“Do you think,” he starts, a little cautiously, “that we could…hang out over the summer? Not - not like dates, or anything, but…you know, so that we can get to know each other. Away from Greendale.”
He had tried so hard to word it carefully, and yet, he can still tell that she’s hurt by his words. “You don’t want to go on dates with me?” she asks. For the first time in months, she looks like the girl who was led into traffic by crossing guards.
“No!” Jeff take another step towards her, bringing himself just close enough to grab her hand if he really wanted to. But he doesn’t want to. Of course not. That would be rather untoward of him. “I just mean - I do want to go on dates with you. But think about it - you just broke up with your boyfriend. I’m probably gonna be dealing with this Britta and Slater thing for a while. But I don’t want us to drift apart to the point that, you know, when we’re finally baggage-free and it would be, y’know, okay to go on dates, it wouldn’t make sense.”
Approximately seven words into this speech, Jeff realizes that he sounds like a giant girl. He sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. “Okay, I’m gonna try this again. What I mean is…Annie, will you be friends with me?’
Annie looks adorably confused. “But - We are friends. Aren’t we?” she adds self-consciously.
“I don’t know,” Jeff admits. “I might be your friend, but - I’m not used to the whole concept of enjoying another person’s company without getting something out of it. And I think if I could do that with anyone…it’d be you.”
The grin that she gives him then is almost blinding. It catches him off-guard for a moment before he quickly stops himself. This is exactly what he was talking about. If he wants it to work out with Annie - anything to work out, whether that be a friendship or friends that kiss or even, knock on wood, a relationship - he can’t be taking advantage of things like that. For the first time in his life, Jeff Winger is going to be 100% platonic with a girl.
Until the point that, you know, it’s okay not to be platonic, but…well, he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.
“In that case…Yes, I’ll be your friend, Jeff Winger.” She beams at him for another moment, and then her smile quickly disappears. “Uh - Friends don’t kiss, right?”
“Unfortunately not,” Jeff answers. They each take a moment to mourn that fact.
“That’s probably for the best,” Annie muses. Jeff nods in agreement. And then, stupidly, he lets himself look at her lips, and just like that, they’re kissing for the third time that night.
“Goddammit!” Jeff practically jumps away from her. “Are you wearing, like, magnetic lipstick, or something?”
Annie almost lectures him on how unrealistic that is, but she quickly decides it’s not worth it. “Stop kissing me!” she exclaims, her eyes wide open in shock.
That makes Jeff stop dead in his tracks. Literally - he had been walking backwards, trying to get space from her, but the absurdity of her words catches him off-guard. “Stop kissing you?” he asks. “You stop kissing me!”
Annie’s mouth drops open in shock. “I’m not! You keep initiating it!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
“Nuh-uh!”
This, unfortunately, goes on for some time. Much longer than Jeff would care to admit.
But after some span of time, it seems to occur to them both that they’re adults. Jeff sighs, though it sounds a bit more like a groan. “Do, um, you need a ride home?”
“Yes,” Annie says, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. Jeff nods and wordlessly picks up her bags.
He leads her to his car, throwing her suitcases in the trunk without a word to her. She notices his broken windows, but thankfully doesn’t say anything to him. It’s crazy, he knows, but he feels like if he hears her voice again, he might do something rash, like haul her off to the backseat and have her way with her.
He knows where she lives, having dropped her off once before while her car was in the shop. They spend the short ride in silence, the only noise coming from the oldies station that Jeff had forgotten he even had programmed into his favorites.
They’re four blocks away from her house when Annie finally breaks the silence. “I love this song.”
Jeff looks at her, surprised, then at the radio. He hadn’t even been paying attention - the only thing he had thought about since leaving Greendale was the road ahead of him, refusing to let himself think about the brunette sitting just inches away from him. The song sounded vaguely familiar, but Jeff couldn’t quite place it.
“Casablanca’s my favorite movie,” Annie says quietly, almost as if talking to herself rather than Jeff.
He can’t do anything but stare at her in shock. He recognizes the song now - “As Time Goes By”. It’s not that he’s shocked that a girl her age has seen Casablanca, but…it’s her favorite movie? Really? That has to be unique for her age.
They’re two blocks from her house when Jeff realizes that he doesn’t have a problem with the age difference. Not really. He can hardly remember a single time that she acted like a kid, except, okay, maybe that one time that she ran straight into pepper spray. But she kind of erased any embarrassing moments of herself by slamming his head into the library table, so he can’t even hold that against her. When he looks at her, he doesn’t think, “She’s eighteen.” He thinks, simply, “She’s Annie.”
They’re at the curb outside her house when Jeff realizes that he really, really wants to go on a date with Annie. Not now - not while they’re both emotional wrecks with huge amounts of stress on their plates. But someday, hopefully soon, he wants to pick her up and take her someplace nice and make her feel special, the way she deserves.
He cuts the engine, but she doesn’t move. She just stares at her hands like she’s waiting to say something, but Jeff has never been a fan of silence. So he turns to her and says, “I wanna do it. The friends thing. For real.”
She glances at him, her hair falling in front of her eyes. Jeff has to fight every instinct in his body to keep from tucking that hair back behind her ear. “For real? No kissing or flirting or…whatever else you did when you were trying to get Britta?”
“No,” Jeff says, holding her gaze like it’s a promise. It’s Annie who looks away first, her cheeks turning pink.
“Well, then,” she says, “I guess I’d better get going. Friends don’t linger in other friends’ cars, right?”
It may just be the first time Jeff has ever heard Annie say something even close to being witty. He beams proudly at her, trying as hard as he can not to lean over and take her hand.
“Goodnight, Annie,” he says simply.
“Goodnight, Jeff,” she replies. He can see her eyes flutter down to his lips, but he doesn’t think it’s in a lustful way - judging by the determination in her eyes and the smile he can see tugging at her lips, he thinks she’s checking to make sure he’s not going to crack and kiss her goodnight.
“Keep dreaming,” he says, making a big show of turning back to face his wheel and away from her. “I’m not kissing you again, Edison.”
She chuckles. Jesus Christ, when did Annie Edison learn how to chuckle? “Not yet,” she says, her voice suddenly a bit lower. “But one day.”
And then, just like that, she’s gone. Jeff would call after her if the tightness in his pants hadn’t suddenly become painful. With a groan, he forces himself to drive off. Okay - tomorrow is day one of being friends with Annie Edison. That can’t be so bad, right?
Author: office_bluth
Spoilers: It picks up right after Pascal's Triangle Revisited. As of now, it doesn't go into season two, but we'll see what happens when I actually, you know, write the rest of it.
Rating/Warnings: PG-13. Jeff Winger's got the tiniest hint of a potty mouth.
Word Count: 2043.
Disclaimer: *mumbles* I don't own Community or its characters. Blah blah blah.
Author's Note: So I wrote this...a while ago. Like, July, maybe. In an attempt to procrastinate sleep (you know you're lazy when...), I was looking through my documents and found this. I'm going to do my best and update this semi-regularly, but with me, seriously, who knows. I hope you all enjoy!
Surprisingly, the kiss doesn’t become, like, a thing between them. Yes, they’re both more than aware that it happened, and yes, okay, Jeff does kind of see her in a slightly new light now. It’s not like he’s overcome with desire every time he sees her, but he doesn’t just see her as the eighteen-year-old add-on to his study group; he sees her for who she is: someone mature, definitely moreso than him, and as a genuinely good person. Annie’s not like Britta in that sense - she doesn’t see everything as an opportunity to prove herself. Annie just…does the right thing. It’s that simple for her.
On the night of the Tranny Dance, after Annie pulls away and Jeff drops his hands off her, they kind of stand awkwardly for a moment. But then Annie sends him that giant grin and he starts chuckling a little uncomfortably, and soon they’re both in hysterics.
“What were we thinking?” Annie chokes out, fat tears running down her cheeks.
“I don’t know!” Jeff cries back. “I don’t think we were! You were…here, and a distraction, and I think - I think I did what I always do, and I ran away from things, and…”
He swallows hard, suddenly realizing that his laughter had stopped abruptly. Now he’s kind of bent over, holding onto a girl who can’t weigh more than 110 pounds to keep himself upright, and he realizes he must look pathetic. Jeff quickly straightens, wiping away the tears that had flowed down his cheeks.
Annie gets it. She stops laughing, her breathing still labored. Jeff watches her chest heave, her shoulders rise…and then they’re kissing again, more frantic this time. Her lithe fingers grab his lapel and pull him close to her, his hands immediately sliding to the small of her back and pressing her into him. And then they’re apart again, this time putting some distance between their bodies.
“We have to stop doing that,” Annie says, still out of breath. Jeff nods, not letting himself look at her. Bad things happen when he looks at her.
He groans. “God, what the hell happened to us? We kissed once before with no problems. How come now we can’t stop?”
Annie’s quiet for a moment, thinking it over as she chews on her bottom lip. Then, with a small shrug, she answers, “Because we didn’t need anything from each other last time. Now we need…an escape.”
Now it’s Jeff’s turn to be quiet. He still doesn’t trust himself, but he figures he kind of needs to make eye contact with her in order for this to fully impact. “I wasn’t running away from anything with you, Annie,” he says. “Well, okay, I was. But I don’t think it happened just because of that. I think…”
He pauses then as he lets himself look at her. Really look at her, for the first time in…ever? How can he have known her for so long, spent so much time with her, kissed her, for God’s sake, and still be so unfamiliar with her? This is Annie. The over-achiever who dragged him to a freaking Dia de los Muertos party, the girl so wrapped up in self-perception that she slammed his head into a table. Twice.
And yet she’s the same girl who made him realize feelings weren’t so bad. Who proved she was capable of taking her hair down, literally and figuratively, and probably changed his life in the process.
He takes a tiny step closer to her, still keeping his distance. Something tells him that, if he had the opportunity, his body would just jump at the chance to kiss her again. And if they’re kissing, they can’t talk, and for once in his life, Jeff Winger just wants to talk about his feelings.
“Do you think,” he starts, a little cautiously, “that we could…hang out over the summer? Not - not like dates, or anything, but…you know, so that we can get to know each other. Away from Greendale.”
He had tried so hard to word it carefully, and yet, he can still tell that she’s hurt by his words. “You don’t want to go on dates with me?” she asks. For the first time in months, she looks like the girl who was led into traffic by crossing guards.
“No!” Jeff take another step towards her, bringing himself just close enough to grab her hand if he really wanted to. But he doesn’t want to. Of course not. That would be rather untoward of him. “I just mean - I do want to go on dates with you. But think about it - you just broke up with your boyfriend. I’m probably gonna be dealing with this Britta and Slater thing for a while. But I don’t want us to drift apart to the point that, you know, when we’re finally baggage-free and it would be, y’know, okay to go on dates, it wouldn’t make sense.”
Approximately seven words into this speech, Jeff realizes that he sounds like a giant girl. He sighs, squeezing his eyes shut. “Okay, I’m gonna try this again. What I mean is…Annie, will you be friends with me?’
Annie looks adorably confused. “But - We are friends. Aren’t we?” she adds self-consciously.
“I don’t know,” Jeff admits. “I might be your friend, but - I’m not used to the whole concept of enjoying another person’s company without getting something out of it. And I think if I could do that with anyone…it’d be you.”
The grin that she gives him then is almost blinding. It catches him off-guard for a moment before he quickly stops himself. This is exactly what he was talking about. If he wants it to work out with Annie - anything to work out, whether that be a friendship or friends that kiss or even, knock on wood, a relationship - he can’t be taking advantage of things like that. For the first time in his life, Jeff Winger is going to be 100% platonic with a girl.
Until the point that, you know, it’s okay not to be platonic, but…well, he’ll cross that bridge when he gets to it.
“In that case…Yes, I’ll be your friend, Jeff Winger.” She beams at him for another moment, and then her smile quickly disappears. “Uh - Friends don’t kiss, right?”
“Unfortunately not,” Jeff answers. They each take a moment to mourn that fact.
“That’s probably for the best,” Annie muses. Jeff nods in agreement. And then, stupidly, he lets himself look at her lips, and just like that, they’re kissing for the third time that night.
“Goddammit!” Jeff practically jumps away from her. “Are you wearing, like, magnetic lipstick, or something?”
Annie almost lectures him on how unrealistic that is, but she quickly decides it’s not worth it. “Stop kissing me!” she exclaims, her eyes wide open in shock.
That makes Jeff stop dead in his tracks. Literally - he had been walking backwards, trying to get space from her, but the absurdity of her words catches him off-guard. “Stop kissing you?” he asks. “You stop kissing me!”
Annie’s mouth drops open in shock. “I’m not! You keep initiating it!”
“Nuh-uh!”
“Uh-huh!”
“Nuh-uh!”
This, unfortunately, goes on for some time. Much longer than Jeff would care to admit.
But after some span of time, it seems to occur to them both that they’re adults. Jeff sighs, though it sounds a bit more like a groan. “Do, um, you need a ride home?”
“Yes,” Annie says, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. Jeff nods and wordlessly picks up her bags.
He leads her to his car, throwing her suitcases in the trunk without a word to her. She notices his broken windows, but thankfully doesn’t say anything to him. It’s crazy, he knows, but he feels like if he hears her voice again, he might do something rash, like haul her off to the backseat and have her way with her.
He knows where she lives, having dropped her off once before while her car was in the shop. They spend the short ride in silence, the only noise coming from the oldies station that Jeff had forgotten he even had programmed into his favorites.
They’re four blocks away from her house when Annie finally breaks the silence. “I love this song.”
Jeff looks at her, surprised, then at the radio. He hadn’t even been paying attention - the only thing he had thought about since leaving Greendale was the road ahead of him, refusing to let himself think about the brunette sitting just inches away from him. The song sounded vaguely familiar, but Jeff couldn’t quite place it.
“Casablanca’s my favorite movie,” Annie says quietly, almost as if talking to herself rather than Jeff.
He can’t do anything but stare at her in shock. He recognizes the song now - “As Time Goes By”. It’s not that he’s shocked that a girl her age has seen Casablanca, but…it’s her favorite movie? Really? That has to be unique for her age.
They’re two blocks from her house when Jeff realizes that he doesn’t have a problem with the age difference. Not really. He can hardly remember a single time that she acted like a kid, except, okay, maybe that one time that she ran straight into pepper spray. But she kind of erased any embarrassing moments of herself by slamming his head into the library table, so he can’t even hold that against her. When he looks at her, he doesn’t think, “She’s eighteen.” He thinks, simply, “She’s Annie.”
They’re at the curb outside her house when Jeff realizes that he really, really wants to go on a date with Annie. Not now - not while they’re both emotional wrecks with huge amounts of stress on their plates. But someday, hopefully soon, he wants to pick her up and take her someplace nice and make her feel special, the way she deserves.
He cuts the engine, but she doesn’t move. She just stares at her hands like she’s waiting to say something, but Jeff has never been a fan of silence. So he turns to her and says, “I wanna do it. The friends thing. For real.”
She glances at him, her hair falling in front of her eyes. Jeff has to fight every instinct in his body to keep from tucking that hair back behind her ear. “For real? No kissing or flirting or…whatever else you did when you were trying to get Britta?”
“No,” Jeff says, holding her gaze like it’s a promise. It’s Annie who looks away first, her cheeks turning pink.
“Well, then,” she says, “I guess I’d better get going. Friends don’t linger in other friends’ cars, right?”
It may just be the first time Jeff has ever heard Annie say something even close to being witty. He beams proudly at her, trying as hard as he can not to lean over and take her hand.
“Goodnight, Annie,” he says simply.
“Goodnight, Jeff,” she replies. He can see her eyes flutter down to his lips, but he doesn’t think it’s in a lustful way - judging by the determination in her eyes and the smile he can see tugging at her lips, he thinks she’s checking to make sure he’s not going to crack and kiss her goodnight.
“Keep dreaming,” he says, making a big show of turning back to face his wheel and away from her. “I’m not kissing you again, Edison.”
She chuckles. Jesus Christ, when did Annie Edison learn how to chuckle? “Not yet,” she says, her voice suddenly a bit lower. “But one day.”
And then, just like that, she’s gone. Jeff would call after her if the tightness in his pants hadn’t suddenly become painful. With a groan, he forces himself to drive off. Okay - tomorrow is day one of being friends with Annie Edison. That can’t be so bad, right?