[fic] of all the gin joints
of all the gin joints
community | annie; jeff/annie
late season one | pg-13 | 1000 | oneshot
Sometimes (and technically that’s already a lie) she thinks about him.
Sometimes (and technically that’s already a lie) she thinks about him.
Not too much, you understand, not enough for it to be noticeable but just enough to have to quickly look away when he looks back at her because she isn’t staring. That’s just creepy and so…high school. And she’s neither of those things; she’s a mature, responsible adult now.
(That’s another lie, but shh, don’t tell anyone).
-
It’s not like she hasn’t had crushes before (she’s a freaking teenager alright, just leave her alone), she knows the way they go.
There’s a step-by-step procedure that she has memorized, and if she were to ever forget it, then there are always those charts she made with each step highlighted and color-coded. That’s the way it went with David and Justin and that guy in her geography class who thought that Bangkok was some sort of sex position (she mostly pretends not to remember his name because she mostly pretends she has standards).
That’s the way it started with Troy. He was the Prom King and all that and she had that math notebook with the anatomically incorrect hearts stating that ‘TB loves AE’ (not the other way round, that’s important, not the other way round) and hey, maybe if she wrote it enough times, it would be true.
But because she couldn’t rely on the universe to get the hint, she also bit her lip seductively (and cut it on her braces, but that part never made it to the final version of her diary entry) and wore her sexiest clothes and crossed and uncrossed her legs in the way Sharon Stone had done in that movie that she’d watched in secret because she wasn’t old enough.
It ends with a pill addiction and some guy inside her and a realization that maybe sex was just as boring as sex-ed had always made it sound. Maybe it’s her, but he also said some other guy’s name while coming inside her, so. (Maybe it’s still her, god, is she turning straight guys gay now?)
It’s a simple two-step procedure actually- fall in love, fall out of love (nobody else ever falls).
-
So, Jeff Winger.
She’s read the literature, you see (if anyone carefully analyzed the Harlequin books, they’d see there’s a whole political and social subtext that superficial readers completely miss.) and she knows how it’s supposed to go.
He’ll antagonize her and she’ll toss her head and tell the world that she wouldn’t fall for him if he were the last man on earth and he’ll just laugh because he’ll think she’s too young (every one of those girls in the books that she reads with newspaper covers are nineteen, she’s nineteen, it’s a sign from the cosmos), but then she’ll start paying attention to someone else and the jealousy will burn through him and he’ll realize that really? It’s always been her. Always. And then there’ll be the mandatory kiss in the pouring rain and the sex which might or might not be censored. She knows how it’s supposed to go.
(There’s nothing in her books about how he’ll sleep with her older, more gorgeous, more blonde friend and then kiss her and then ignore her and then…seriously, somebody needs to change the scriptwriters).
-
There’s this one (other) time when she gets completely drunk and tells the whole world that she’s in love with him. Like, literally. She’s standing on the table and the world is spinning (and maybe Shirley’s frowning a little, but her eyes can’t rest long enough on one place to be able to tell for certain).
“Elektra complex,” says Pierce, sagely, and she’s grateful when he doesn’t add anything about how he’d be the better candidate for her daddy issues (also, um, ew, Jeff is nothing like her dad, her dad’s hair is much darker).
“The sexual build-up hasn’t been enough to warrant the confession of love that’ll probably be better suited for the season finale. So obviously this is just a red-herring to keep the viewers guessing, and seems to suggest that Jeff-Annie probably isn't endgame.”
(Oh, so she can’t even get her love confessions right. Have they constituted a Nobel in the category yet?)
Jeff looks at her and half-smiles, “you’re drunk.”
That doesn’t mean she isn’t in love. But, whatever.
-
See, the thing about this whole thing is; she isn’t going to be nineteen forever.
She's going to grow-up and do something and forget all about Jeff Winger until the time when she’ll be engaged to someone else and caught in a nightmarish work schedule and they’ll meet again because, of all the gin joints, in all the world, he’ll walk into hers.
And they’ll fight, because they always fight, it's tradition. And then they’ll take shelter from the storm (the rain, the rain’s important) and he’ll kiss her against some door, hard, and fast.
And they’ll fuck (not make love, because that'll come later, when there is love to make) in some rented motel and she’ll hate herself for cheating but that’s okay because she has a vast experience with the hating herself part of it. But then he’ll fall in love, he has to, and she’ll be able to throw away her color-coded two-step charts because they’ll finally be redundant.
Someday.
(But today she’ll go to class and ignore him till he talks to her first, because although she’s been too busy with work and heartbreak throughout her life, she’s seen the movies and read the books. She knows how real life works, okay).