A/A Fic: Apartment 303, Chapter 2
Title: Apartment 303: Chapter 2
Author:ogwriter
Rating: blanket NC-17
Word Count: approx. 2,300
Disclaimer: I don’t own or profit from Community, just a fan writer.
Description: Annie is going away for the week, the study group visits the Red Door, and chicken fingers are a metaphor for life.
Posted to: abedxannie livejournal community
Apartment 303 - Chapter 2
They sat down to an 8 o'clock dinner. Inspector Spacetime had run late, and the others had offered to meet for drinks downtown, but the small group didn't seem to feel any urgency as they swiped chicken fingers through ketchup. Troy and Abed had decided to finish off the remaining half-bag of the mostly freezer-burned morsels, having been momentarily innocent in their forgetfulness of the true, insidious deliciousness of chicken fingers.
"I don't know what it is," Troy was saying as he savoured one of the strips, "But these almost taste better than the ones they have at school." He still wore his full navy blue outfit, a sort of imitation doublet that comprised the police attire of a one Constable Reggie. Beside him, swaddled in his Inspector Spacetime bathrobe, necktie and bowler hat, Abed acknowledged Troy's chatter with a reverent nod. The pair looked funny, still sitting around in their costumes.
"I know what you mean." Abed replied, sipping an Orange Soda thoughtfully as Annie leafed through Greendale's final edition of the school paper for the year. Tattered and already a week old, its front page bore the out-dated warning of finals week, and a legitimately scary depiction of the Winter-Decorated Human Being wishing everyone a Merry Happy. "I think it's mostly psychological," Abed continued, taking a bite of his own chicken finger as he watched Annie turned the page. "People want what they can't have, it's classic unrequited love-with no classes during the holidays and no Greendale chicken fingers in sight, you've created a craving that romanticizes the chicken itself."
Chewing thoughtfully on his ketchupey chicken, Troy seemed to wax philosophical. "Damn, man." They shared a look.
"You must really love chicken." / "I really do, it's true."
"I mean, don't get me wrong, I get why." / "Chicken Goodfellas-"
"-You guys," Annie interrupted, pointing at a page of the newspaper. "Look-Greendale's theater department is doing a production of CATS." Abed followed Annie's eyeline to the advertisement that lay under her fingertip. The poster read 'Cats' in a fancy font, and was made up of Greendale students big and small, costumed with awkward tufts of fur into vaguely anthropomorphic felines. Together in their impurrfect wardrobe, the show's players were posed in an odd, first-year-drama style tableau.
"Interesting," Abed panned, reading her for intent.
"We should all go see it before I have to leave for the week!" She confirmed, and Abed's eyebrows rose in the moment before Troy suddenly grabbed the paper away.
"Oh," Troy stuttered, suddenly off-kilter as his eyes skirted over Greendale's Cats ad. "This, I don't know if you guys would like this-if I would like this." He scratched his ear, clearly back pedaling. "And you know, and-the theater's so pretentious this time of year-," He tried for a joke, but his laughter was nervous as he hid the advertisement with a quick fold of the paper. Annie resisted the urge to confer with Abed's reaction and maintained awkward eye contact with Troy as he 'subtly' put the newspaper down the front of his shirt.
"Troy, what-" Annie began, her brow furrowed in confusion as Abed merely munched a chicken finger. Troy was still talking distractedly, still working on changing the subject. "Why don't we go to the movies-" He ventured, "The new Sherlock is out, Annie-,"
At this, Abed's head tipped in excitement to catch Annie's reaction with a raised eyebrow. "Robert Downey Jr., Annie. Pew."
Faced with the choice to either question Troy's bizarrely obvious misdirect, or to make good on her claims of being newly loosey goosey, Annie simply smiled. Okay, going limp.
"Sherlock it is." She agreed, as a conspicuously relieved Troy gathered their empty plates toward the kitchen. Abed tapped a pencil, sitting watchfully as Annie checked movie listings on her phone. Before long, she spoke up over the sound of the gently running sink.
"If we go before 6 on Saturday, I have a coupon that works for free Icees," She said, and when she looked up, it was to meet Abed's eye.
The overhead light cast a shadow on his face as he tipped the brim of his bowler hat to her gently. It made her smile. "Icees. Cool, cool, cool."
The Study Group had chosen the Red Door to patronize, turning the night into a strangely principled affair for the Greendale parents. Jeff and Britta had so carefully constructed expectations for its atmosphere that the venue was destined to be mediocre at best, and it was. The Red Door, or L Street, whatever its name was-it was good enough, with a hipster slant that the two of them could agree on. Moreover, the study group were all present and strangely on time, with the exception of Troy, who had deigned to stay in and play "Modern Shooter 6: Operation Alpha" into the night. In one of many private asides, Abed posited that the setup was actually going quite well for Jeff and Britta- meaning that they would likely have to compensate by bickering.
After an initial round at the bar, Abed and Britta peered out together at the semi-active dance floor, deadpanning at their imminent fates as their pints ran low. Acting as shameless wallflowers, they watched from a booth as Jeff and Annie engaged in a conspicuously awkward not-dance, and Pierce and Shirley bopped innocently nearby. When Britta finally shook her head and balked at the former pair's googly eyes, Abed regarded her with barely-subverted intrigue.
"Is it just me, or do they look like an 80's exercise class?" She asked jokingly. "It's like 'Step Aerobics: Get a Room Edition'. Am I right?" Her golden curls bounced as she padded her own joke with laughter, but there was the hint of anxiousness in her voice. Abed sucked his teeth and nodded along, his face somewhat impassive as he took the last swig of his beer. Britta's gaze gave her away quickly enough as it ran back to Jeff's form across the room.
Objectively, he would have suspected her of jealousy, possessiveness of a juvenile sort. People want what they can't have, classic unrequited love scenario, more Greendale chicken fingers that they couldn't eat. It was a cut and dried romantic subplot, he might attempt to compartmentalize-yet somehow, at the sight of Jeff's look and Annie's blush, he found he could not muster the hubris to judge Britta. Instead, he found he felt the pang of something else. Hypocrisy?
The song was ending, Annie was bounding happily back to the group's booth, and Pierce had brought a pitcher from the bar. Jeff ordered a round of Jagerbombs 'ironically', and Britta ordered everyone the very same, perhaps attempting to out-ironic him. Pierce got legitimately drunk, Annie became legitimately uncomfortable, and soon enough Shirley implied they were unholy.
"You'll notice when we pay the tab," Britta was boasting to Jeff, "That I get a discount from the servers here."
"Is that for certain services rendered?" Jeff quipped, and Abed moved habitually to add a "Classic Winger" notch to his desk, before realizing their actual setting.
"No, Jeff," Britta answered severely, but she almost seemed fond of his mockery. "It's because during my work with Greenpeace, I chained myself to a tree out front of here for an entire afternoon, and in doing so got this fine establishment into the local paper." Britta looked self-satisfied even as Shirley's eyes rolled and Annie made a face that screamed, 'judging you'.
Jeff was squinting now, his crow's feet creasing in scepticism. "Two things-One, why would you ever boast about that?-and two, that 'tree' out front is a cedar shrub-"
"Oh, what, I'm in the Botanism club now?" She objected suddenly to his criticism.
"You mean Botany club?" Jeff replied bitingly, and Abed and Annie shared a glance as they watched the pair digress into 'flirtation as thinly-veiled aggression' mode. "Really, Britta."
"Sorry, wouldn't know. I'm too busy being over here in the gets discounts club." She simpered patronizingly.
"Greenpeace, botany clubs," Shirley piped up, after pointedly drinking water all night. "I just know this is all drug talk."
"In that case, call me GreenPierce," the old man punned shamelessly, his lack of sobriety lending itself to his quest to seem relevant as he pushed up his tinted glasses and gestured wildly at Annie. "I'll take any drugs you kids've got. Come on, Judy Garland, quit holding out. Give up the crazy pills." Pierce laughed and found himself to be quite the comedian, even as the fair girl looked stricken by his comment.
"Pierce," she began, her eyes wide, "I do not have drugs! And I don't use pills-and I'm not Judy Garland-," The moment was awkward as everyone's eyes seemed to wander, and in the small lull, Abed strained to hear the words she did not say-And I'm not crazy!
In a second the beat was over and Britta commented dryly that she 'doth protest too much', but it was all periphery as Abed observed the subtle fallout-Annie, sitting temperately, poking with her red and white straw at the ice cubes in her empty Screwdriver. Annie and her breakdown, Annie and her anxiety, Annie who internalized it all. Abed saw the flick of her gaze to Jeff, absorbed in his Blackberry and Macallan scotch. The brunette shivered in her dimly-lit corner of the booth and re-centered the buttons on her tight little sweater.
Soon enough Annie saw him looking, and glanced up from across the table. Was it awkward that he didn't look away? Was it strange that she had noticed him looking at her? Was he being weird now? She smiled, nodded at him, and seemed fine.
"Wanna go soon?" she asked, tapping her wrist to suggest that he check the time on his calculator watch.
1:08am.
The night felt weary and incredibly old on the bus ride home. The world outside was painted in an oily black that flew past the bus' windows in an illegible blur of dimly-lit suburbs. Back at the bar, Shirley had been tasked with chaperoning Pierce, Britta, and Jeff- leaving Annie and Abed to chivalrously volunteer for public transit. In truth, they didn't mind very much. The bus lurched along down winding city streets, its interior cast in a cheap fluorescent glow as an overhead advertisement for City College flickered intermittently. Music leaked loudly from the headphones of a teenager at the back of the bus, becoming a dull echo as it reached where Abed and Annie sat further towards the front. Abed occupied the window seat and watched the streetlights outside as they sped past, catching only half-glances of indiscernible driveways and storefronts in the night.
The sound of the music, the buzz of fluorescent lighting, the pumping of the brakes-together they had become a pleasant white noise. In his weariness, the steady chatter of their setting was comfortable, and lent a rhythm to their silence. His gaze went to their reflection in the bus window, to Annie's closed eyes as she lay her head on his shoulder and dozed, half-wasted. They were drunk, indeed, yet not beyond talking-and so it was out of honest preference that they kept no dialogue, even as her eyes fluttered open to watch the passing streets with him once more.
"Wait…Where are we?" She asked finally, a look of confusion and self-admonishment crossing her face.
In his liquored state he addressed the window, noting the nearby street names as the bus made a stop to gain a passenger. "It will be a bit until our stop. We're only near Flanagan's Hole." He answered, his speech lilted by intoxication. The sound of coinage echoed from up front, a fare being paid. Annie hummed as the doors closed quickly behind a rush of cold, winter air.
"Did I tell you a guy hit on me last time we were there?" Abed ventured, tipsy and talkative, his eyebrows rising on their reflection in the glass. Annie smirked at the absurd image it conjured, as she thought of a striking Romeo character bending a knee to a flattered and blushing Abed. Her nose wrinkled as she imagined Abed's hypothetical handling of the situation.
"Did you break his heart?" She responded, ribbing him as she leaned upon his shoulder. He sniffed chidingly, nodded at her blurry form in their reflection.
"In the end, the guy threw his drink in my face." He deadpanned, tipping his head in consideration of the memory. "So I suppose realistically, either one of us could have been the Aniston. Real classic stuff." Annie finally laughed; the sound fluttering amidst the audio of the bus's whining brakes and other passengers' ambient hip hop. It was the pleasant white noise again, ticking along metronomically, measuring their comfort in units of silence as Annie picked her head up, tucked hair behind her ear. He let himself slip her a private reaction-face as they regarded each other's image on the window pane. They were somewhat colourful in their winter clothes, wearing puffy jackets and wool hats to ward against the Colorado winter.
"I guess the world just wasn't ready for our love." He concluded jokingly. She blinked and smiled, and the moment felt pleasantly candid-It was probably the alcohol.
The bus' engine bayed loudly with acceleration as it made a wide turn up in the direction of their apartment, and the pair of them swayed with the vehicle's sudden momentum. In the window's reflection he saw her face turn to profile, and he knew she was looking at him, right next to him, knew that it would be normal to return her gaze. A gentle chime sounded at the front of the vehicle, and an overhead sign flickered and lit up: Stop Requested.
The sound seemed to cue the delayed turn of his head, the new closeness of their faces, and the sudden immediacy of the situation as they sat nestled together against the window. He knew the look in her eye, for it was a familiar look of inspection, the very same that he used to try to contend with life through scrutiny. She looked unassuming as she regarded him, and curious, and tired, and cute. Something sounded suddenly in his chest. The brakes of the bus pumped loudly as Annie drew a careful breath, blinked at him, opened her cherry lips to speak-
Abed spoke first.
"This is our stop."