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lapacifidoraTitle: The Trouble with Omlettes (Or A Toothache, A Skirt and A Bad Egg) (5/?)
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Minor spoilers for season 3, based on the TVLine interview. Assumes knowledge through ‘A Fistful of Paintballs’/ ‘For a Few Paintballs More’
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14 this chapter, for implied adult activities
Word Count: 1,532
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her…
Author’s note: You are all a bad influence. There was a time I was content with simply reading fic. I rather miss it. Also: The smutty bits will follow this part. It’s not as though I have much to work with; just what Beth remembered from her dream
***
Six weeks later, and Annie can only bring herself to call the situation she finds herself in It. Capital ‘I,’ lowercase ‘t.’
She’d toyed with capitalizing both letters but that seemed at once too immature – Did you hear? Jeff and Annie are doing IT. – and too important – Did you hear? Jeff and Annie have been doing IT all summer, and they sit together in every class they have together. The last thing she wants is to make It too important, to read too much into it, to invest too much of herself.
This is Jeff Winger, after all, so it can’t possibly end well. (Unless, she’s different and maybe…No.) And, at this point, Annie knows that even if it’s only, mostly sex – and ordering in pizza and laughing at him when he carefully measures out exactly one serving of salad dressing and arguing whether they’re going to watch ‘Ancient Aliens’ or ‘1001 Ways to Die’ or ‘Frontline’ and laughing at Abed’s Facebook updates – if she invests too much of herself in this, she won’t be able to deal with what happens After It.
Granted, she’s never had a ‘friend with benefits,’ but she imagines (based on a conversation with Abed that she’s pretty sure she made seem hypothetical) that After It involves certain stages, like grieving or buyer’s remorse.
There’ll be disbelief. (It’s only a break.)
Followed by depression. (Do my feelings taste like chocolate covered pretzels? Or do they taste like ice cream? What does heartbreak taste like?)
Next will be anger. (Screw him. Better yet, don’t screw him. Don’t anyone ever screw him again, ever. I hope his arms fall off, and he wakes up covered with monkey hair.)
Then comes justification and negotiating. (She was lonely, that’s all. And if she, someday, is lonely again – and he maybe is, too – then as long as they’re both clear that it’s just loneliness and he agrees not to use that cologne that makes her sneeze, It might happen again.)
Finally, there’ll be resignation. (If Abed’s observations are to be believed – and, at this point, why wouldn’t she believe them? – the resignation will manifest in uncharacteristic promiscuity on her part. Well, maybe if she dug out Caroline Dekker’s I.D. again…)
Annie shivers and draws the comforter tighter under her chin, fighting the pull of consciousness. The mattress shifts under her and Jeff’s arm wraps around her waist, dragging her toward him, her back to his front, her feet tucked between his.
But it’s not Jeff’s movements or even her own anxieties that force Annie’s eyes open: It’s the feeling of bile filling her mouth.
***
Jeff rolls over in his sleep, pulling the comforter up around his shoulders and sweeping a hand slowly over the other half of his bed.
He’s in the lightest stage of sleep, the crest of the cycle where he’s closest to wakefulness, and he thinks for a moment that something is missing.
He hears a distant noise, the sound of a toilet flushing, he thinks, and the fragments of his consciousness remind him that She is here, that She is only temporarily absent, that She isn’t a figment of his imagination.
Jeff licks his lips and takes a deep breath.
“Annie?” A muffled response is his only reply, but it’s enough, so he rolls back onto his side, pulling her pillow closer until she returns.
***
It’s like something died in her mouth, and Annie wants nothing so much as to use an entire bottle of mouthwash, but it’s as much as she can do to not collapse on the floor by the toilet.
Everything she’s eaten for at least the last 24 hours has come back up, forcefully and in a volume she is sure couldn’t possibly have come from her stomach.
But the stench of sick and the lump of…something she can feel clinging to the heel of one hand are proof positive that something is seriously wrong with her. With a groan, she feels her stomach clench and opens her mouth reflexively, choking as the dry heaves wrack her frame. She waits it out, taking a shuddering breath when the spasms stop and rests her head against her arm.
Finally, she half crawls, half drags herself to the bathroom vanity, pulling herself up and leaning heavily on the counter. Even in the glow of the nightlight, she looks gaunt and her face feels clammy. She fills a Dixie cup with water and gulps it, sloshing it around in her mouth before spitting out, then fishes the toothbrush and toothpaste she keeps at Jeff’s from a drawer and makes an effort to rid herself of the stale, acidic taste that lingers.
Annie clings to the countertop and then the wall as she crosses back to the toilet, flushing it and closing the lid. She grabs a towel and puts it down on the lid before she sits, one arm wrapping around her stomach and one rubbing at the tears she can feel drying on her cheeks. The pain is less, but she feels weak and wants nothing so much as to curl up in her own bed, with her favorite blanket and her giant kitchen trash can, so if she’s sick again, she can just puke into a bag and not worry about clean-up.
From the bedroom, she hears a sound that might be Jeff or might be a car passing by outside. The very thought of crawling back into bed with someone else – even Jeff Winger – makes her headache worse, and she groans, her head dropping into her hands.
But even with a towel for a cushion, a toilet lid is still a toilet lid, and Annie stands, bracing herself against the wall as she wobbles a little. When she’s found her feet, she shuffles back into the bedroom, picking up her clothes as she goes and pulling them on, stopping to rest against Jeff’s dresser or the bed frame periodically to rest. There’s a momentary panic when she can’t find her shirt, but she settles for pulling on his button down, ignoring that it smells like him and focusing instead on the fact that, having been pulled (enthusiastically) off his shoulders several hours ago and spending the intervening time on the floor, it’s unwrinkled.
Annie finds her shoes and purse in the living room and slips out the front door, closing it softly behind her and squashing the feeling rising in the back of her throat that might be guilt – but is probably just another dry heave – and makes it to her car with only a few breaks to rest.
It’s not until she’s lying in bed, in Jeff’s shirt and her pajama pants, with her favorite blanket and her enormous trash can from her kitchen nearby that she stops to wonder what, exactly, the hell just happened.
***
Jeff yawns and blinks sleepily, reaching out to check if Annie’s still asleep.
When his hand meets air, he props himself up on one elbow and wipes at his eyes with his other hand. He checks under the blankets (because she’s tiny; she might’ve curled up), under the bed (he’s not sure why, but why the hell not), and even out on the couch (he’d found her there one morning, a cold cup of coffee on the coffee table and C-SPAN muted on his TV).
It’s not until he notices her purse missing from his kitchen counter – and her shoes absent from her end of the couch – that it occurs to him to check for her clothes in the bedroom.
When all he finds is her shirt, crumpled into a ball under the head of the bed, he clenches his hands into fists, focusing on the feeling of his nails pressing into his palms, to subdue the feeling he distantly recognizes as panic. He crosses to the bathroom, switching on the overhead light and looking around, frowning when the only things he notices out of place are a towel on the toilet lid and her toothbrush and toothpaste sitting by the sink.
Shaking his head, Jeff crosses to the toilet and bends to pick up the towel, which is, of course, when the scent of vomit hits him like a shot between the eyes. Reeling back, he shakes his head and pinches his nose shut before leaning down again, tossing the towel aside and lifting the toilet lid. The bowl is empty – Thank god, he mutters automatically: He is not good with other people’s sick. – but the scent lingers , and he imagines there’s probably something stuck under the rim.
Jeff stands straight so quickly he can feel the blood rushing in his ears and he takes a step back, leaning against the vanity while he breathes deeply through his mouth.
His thoughts from more than a month earlier run through his mind: If Annie was sick, she would tell him. She would.
Except now, Jeff’s not so sure and not even the clenching of his fists can distract him from the feeling he’s now pretty sure is panic as a new thought starts to run on a loop in his head.
Something is wrong with Annie. And she doesn’t want him to know.
***
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Minor spoilers for season 3, based on the TVLine interview. Assumes knowledge through ‘A Fistful of Paintballs’/ ‘For a Few Paintballs More’
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14 this chapter, for implied adult activities
Word Count: 1,532
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her…
Author’s note: You are all a bad influence. There was a time I was content with simply reading fic. I rather miss it. Also: The smutty bits will follow this part. It’s not as though I have much to work with; just what Beth remembered from her dream
***
Six weeks later, and Annie can only bring herself to call the situation she finds herself in It. Capital ‘I,’ lowercase ‘t.’
She’d toyed with capitalizing both letters but that seemed at once too immature – Did you hear? Jeff and Annie are doing IT. – and too important – Did you hear? Jeff and Annie have been doing IT all summer, and they sit together in every class they have together. The last thing she wants is to make It too important, to read too much into it, to invest too much of herself.
This is Jeff Winger, after all, so it can’t possibly end well. (Unless, she’s different and maybe…No.) And, at this point, Annie knows that even if it’s only, mostly sex – and ordering in pizza and laughing at him when he carefully measures out exactly one serving of salad dressing and arguing whether they’re going to watch ‘Ancient Aliens’ or ‘1001 Ways to Die’ or ‘Frontline’ and laughing at Abed’s Facebook updates – if she invests too much of herself in this, she won’t be able to deal with what happens After It.
Granted, she’s never had a ‘friend with benefits,’ but she imagines (based on a conversation with Abed that she’s pretty sure she made seem hypothetical) that After It involves certain stages, like grieving or buyer’s remorse.
There’ll be disbelief. (It’s only a break.)
Followed by depression. (Do my feelings taste like chocolate covered pretzels? Or do they taste like ice cream? What does heartbreak taste like?)
Next will be anger. (Screw him. Better yet, don’t screw him. Don’t anyone ever screw him again, ever. I hope his arms fall off, and he wakes up covered with monkey hair.)
Then comes justification and negotiating. (She was lonely, that’s all. And if she, someday, is lonely again – and he maybe is, too – then as long as they’re both clear that it’s just loneliness and he agrees not to use that cologne that makes her sneeze, It might happen again.)
Finally, there’ll be resignation. (If Abed’s observations are to be believed – and, at this point, why wouldn’t she believe them? – the resignation will manifest in uncharacteristic promiscuity on her part. Well, maybe if she dug out Caroline Dekker’s I.D. again…)
Annie shivers and draws the comforter tighter under her chin, fighting the pull of consciousness. The mattress shifts under her and Jeff’s arm wraps around her waist, dragging her toward him, her back to his front, her feet tucked between his.
But it’s not Jeff’s movements or even her own anxieties that force Annie’s eyes open: It’s the feeling of bile filling her mouth.
***
Jeff rolls over in his sleep, pulling the comforter up around his shoulders and sweeping a hand slowly over the other half of his bed.
He’s in the lightest stage of sleep, the crest of the cycle where he’s closest to wakefulness, and he thinks for a moment that something is missing.
He hears a distant noise, the sound of a toilet flushing, he thinks, and the fragments of his consciousness remind him that She is here, that She is only temporarily absent, that She isn’t a figment of his imagination.
Jeff licks his lips and takes a deep breath.
“Annie?” A muffled response is his only reply, but it’s enough, so he rolls back onto his side, pulling her pillow closer until she returns.
***
It’s like something died in her mouth, and Annie wants nothing so much as to use an entire bottle of mouthwash, but it’s as much as she can do to not collapse on the floor by the toilet.
Everything she’s eaten for at least the last 24 hours has come back up, forcefully and in a volume she is sure couldn’t possibly have come from her stomach.
But the stench of sick and the lump of…something she can feel clinging to the heel of one hand are proof positive that something is seriously wrong with her. With a groan, she feels her stomach clench and opens her mouth reflexively, choking as the dry heaves wrack her frame. She waits it out, taking a shuddering breath when the spasms stop and rests her head against her arm.
Finally, she half crawls, half drags herself to the bathroom vanity, pulling herself up and leaning heavily on the counter. Even in the glow of the nightlight, she looks gaunt and her face feels clammy. She fills a Dixie cup with water and gulps it, sloshing it around in her mouth before spitting out, then fishes the toothbrush and toothpaste she keeps at Jeff’s from a drawer and makes an effort to rid herself of the stale, acidic taste that lingers.
Annie clings to the countertop and then the wall as she crosses back to the toilet, flushing it and closing the lid. She grabs a towel and puts it down on the lid before she sits, one arm wrapping around her stomach and one rubbing at the tears she can feel drying on her cheeks. The pain is less, but she feels weak and wants nothing so much as to curl up in her own bed, with her favorite blanket and her giant kitchen trash can, so if she’s sick again, she can just puke into a bag and not worry about clean-up.
From the bedroom, she hears a sound that might be Jeff or might be a car passing by outside. The very thought of crawling back into bed with someone else – even Jeff Winger – makes her headache worse, and she groans, her head dropping into her hands.
But even with a towel for a cushion, a toilet lid is still a toilet lid, and Annie stands, bracing herself against the wall as she wobbles a little. When she’s found her feet, she shuffles back into the bedroom, picking up her clothes as she goes and pulling them on, stopping to rest against Jeff’s dresser or the bed frame periodically to rest. There’s a momentary panic when she can’t find her shirt, but she settles for pulling on his button down, ignoring that it smells like him and focusing instead on the fact that, having been pulled (enthusiastically) off his shoulders several hours ago and spending the intervening time on the floor, it’s unwrinkled.
Annie finds her shoes and purse in the living room and slips out the front door, closing it softly behind her and squashing the feeling rising in the back of her throat that might be guilt – but is probably just another dry heave – and makes it to her car with only a few breaks to rest.
It’s not until she’s lying in bed, in Jeff’s shirt and her pajama pants, with her favorite blanket and her enormous trash can from her kitchen nearby that she stops to wonder what, exactly, the hell just happened.
***
Jeff yawns and blinks sleepily, reaching out to check if Annie’s still asleep.
When his hand meets air, he props himself up on one elbow and wipes at his eyes with his other hand. He checks under the blankets (because she’s tiny; she might’ve curled up), under the bed (he’s not sure why, but why the hell not), and even out on the couch (he’d found her there one morning, a cold cup of coffee on the coffee table and C-SPAN muted on his TV).
It’s not until he notices her purse missing from his kitchen counter – and her shoes absent from her end of the couch – that it occurs to him to check for her clothes in the bedroom.
When all he finds is her shirt, crumpled into a ball under the head of the bed, he clenches his hands into fists, focusing on the feeling of his nails pressing into his palms, to subdue the feeling he distantly recognizes as panic. He crosses to the bathroom, switching on the overhead light and looking around, frowning when the only things he notices out of place are a towel on the toilet lid and her toothbrush and toothpaste sitting by the sink.
Shaking his head, Jeff crosses to the toilet and bends to pick up the towel, which is, of course, when the scent of vomit hits him like a shot between the eyes. Reeling back, he shakes his head and pinches his nose shut before leaning down again, tossing the towel aside and lifting the toilet lid. The bowl is empty – Thank god, he mutters automatically: He is not good with other people’s sick. – but the scent lingers , and he imagines there’s probably something stuck under the rim.
Jeff stands straight so quickly he can feel the blood rushing in his ears and he takes a step back, leaning against the vanity while he breathes deeply through his mouth.
His thoughts from more than a month earlier run through his mind: If Annie was sick, she would tell him. She would.
Except now, Jeff’s not so sure and not even the clenching of his fists can distract him from the feeling he’s now pretty sure is panic as a new thought starts to run on a loop in his head.
Something is wrong with Annie. And she doesn’t want him to know.
***
