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lapacifidoraTitle: The Trouble with Omlettes (Or A Toothache, A Skirt and A Bad Egg) (6/?)
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: 2,257
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… ‘Just a Friend’ belongs to Biz Markie.
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 are coming, but they keep not working with how the story is unfolding. It’s not as though I have much to work with; just what Beth remembered from her dream
Right: Thanks for your patience. Real life interposed and sucked me dry for a while. But I want to wrap this up and get back to the Pride & Prejudice thing, meaning regular updates! Especially as I have vague plans (idea & POV) for about six or seven more fics.
***
It’s mid-July, and Annie says a silent prayer every morning that the air conditioning was fixed in May.
Otherwise, she might inadvertently kill everyone she works with – and Jeff.
She’s been thankful every day for the last week that all the work Jeff needed done on his car had been completed before she had her dental surgery. (A week isn’t a weirdly long time not to talk to someone with whom you’ve been…well, that-ing for more than a month, is it? Oh God. Is it?)
She honestly didn’t think she could handle talking to him right now, with his smirk and his arrogance and the way he would try to look down her blouse (even though he’s seen her without it on so, hello, no surprises there) and the way he laughs at her jokes. Really laughs at them, too, not just a perfunctory ‘you’re-hot-and-I-want-to-make-out-with-you’ chuckle. It’s a full, honest to goodness laugh, even when they’re not particularly clever; it’s the kind of laugh that reverberates around in your body, discernible from fingertip to toe and everywhere in between.
(She knows this for a fact: As it happens, she’s not so much sleepy post-sex as she is keyed up and prone to making silly puns.)
A noise from the other side of the waiting room returns her attention to the present. Ramone, his mechanic’s coveralls streaked with the same grease he’s cleaning from his hands with a slightly smelly rag, strides through the waiting area. He gives a low whistle of appreciation as he approaches her desk and leans on it with one elbow, a rakish grin on his lips.
“Hey, Annie. You are looking good today.”
“You’re still emphasizing your words in the wrong places, Ramone.”
“Baby, I don’t know what you could be trying to say.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the showroom, which reflected his image back in spotless detail. “You know homey can emphasize you in all the right places.”
“Sorry. No.” Annie shook her head and dropped her eyes to the papers she tapped against the desk before stapling them together. She looked up at the mechanic from the corner of her eyes. “No, I don’t want no scrubs.”
“Aw, c’mon, Annie.” Ramone’s voice lost its accent and went up in pitch. “The least you could do is humor a guy.”
“That last line didn’t even make any sense.” Annie shuffles a stack of papers and glances up at the young man, whose shoulders are slumped in defeat. “Still aren’t getting any callbacks, huh?”
“No!” Ramone turned to lean his other elbow on her desk. “You know how I told you I kept losing auditions to that blond surfer guy?”
“The bimbo with boy parts?”
“That’s him.” Ramone twisted his rag around his fingers. “Here I thought it was because he kept talking about the fact that he had a friend who’d been in some movie-”
“Didn’t you look that up online? Wasn’t she cut from the final version?”
“That’s not the point! He knows people, and I figured that was why I kept losing out on romantic lead roles.” Ramone threw his rag down and started fiddling with one of Annie’s pencils. Annie picked it up the cloth between two fingers, held it closer to her face, grimacing when she felt her stomach roil from the smell, and tossed it aside. “So I figured, ‘OK, Ramo old boy, you’re going to have to work your way up to being the next Patrick Dempsey. But you can manage the ‘Latino tough guy’ bit.’” He stood up and gestured at himself. “I mean: Latino. Guy. It just kind of writes itself, y’know?” He slumped against Annie’s desk. “But apparently casting directors just don’t see it.”
“Ramone.” Annie sighed and rested her chin in her hand. “Is it possible it’d be easier for casting directors to see whatever you’d like them to if you were out in L.A., instead of driving to Denver every weekend?”
“Annie, don’t you think I’ve thought of that?” Ramone ran a hand over his close cropped hair. “If I could figure out how to get there-”
“If you could figure out how to get there?” Annie interrupted. “It’s simple, Ramone. You get in your car and get on the I-70 and you keep driving.”
“It’s not that simple, querida.” Ramone leaned forward and set his chin on his folded arms. “I’d have to get a different agent and new head shots and talk my cousin Javi, who I haven’t talked to in a couple years, into letting me crash on his couch and-”
“Excuses.” Annie said, shaking her head. “If you want something badly enough, you figure it out. You make it happen.”
“Uh huh.” Ramone raised one eyebrow as he stared back at her. “Like you with your Sugar Daddy?”
“Wha-?” Annie choked on an inhalation and stared at the mechanic. “Wha-who-what are you talking about?”
“You think we didn’t see that guy, coming in here, bringing you coffee and whatever every day?”
“It wasn’t every day.”
“Querida. Please.” Ramone shook his head. “He’s smitten. And some of the things he had us check and fix? They weren’t absolutely necessary: He could’ve waited.”
“They weren’t…” Annie repeated, staring at her reflection in the floor to ceiling windows opposite her desk. She shook off her daze and the implications of his last statement, and met Ramone’s eyes. “He’s a friend. From school.”
“Uh huh. Whatever you need to tell yourself, querida.” Ramone picked up his rag and started walking backwards toward the service door. He grinned, bopping his head and giving his shoulders a little shimmy. “You, you got what I need. But you say he’s just a friend, and you say he’s just a friend.”
“Shut up, ‘Man in Line Number Three.’”
***
Jeff contemplates whether he should trust the guys at the car wash he goes to with detailing the interior of his car, or whether he should man up and take it into the body shop and mechanics: They can probably handle the work.
He rubs at a spot on his dashboard and exhales heavily before looking up at the side of the building in front of him.
It’s been a week (nearly) since he woke up and realized Annie had been sick in his bathroom. A week (minus a few hours) since Annie ran out on him.
A week (short a few hundred minutes that seem like months) since he’s spoken to her or sat next to her, plate of Chinese take-out in hand while they worked through a list of TV shows Abed had recommended (‘Psych’: Yes. ‘Running Wilde’: Meh. ‘Farscape’: Yes and No.), or even seen her.
Jeff had lost track of the number of times he’d picked up his phone to text or call her , only to set it back down: If she wanted to talk to him, she would call him.
(The fact that she apparently did not want to talk to him made all manner of crazy thoughts bubble to the surface: Multiple Personality Disorder, Secret Spy Identity, Alien Mind Control, Transition to Monster.
He found it more difficult to ignore the less crazy thoughts: Eating disorder. Cancer. Pregnancy. Drugs. But he had found blasting ‘Wasting Light’ through his headphones made it a little easier.)
But they had made today’s plans weeks ago, when he was still trying to cross whatever trench she had tried to dig between them and before he’d stormed her dental surgeon’s office to take her home.
Jeff sighed and climbed out of his car, heading toward the door at the building’s back corner and ignoring the come-hither looks of the aging hookers lounging against the side of Dildopolis. He paused at the door, wondering if Annie would buzz him in, but a pale, skinny kid with long dark hair and a creepy stare held the door open for him while exiting. He jogged up the stairs and came to stop outside her door, raising his hand, fingers curled inward, to knock.
But he hesitated: A week was an awfully long time not to talk to someone with whom you’d been – well, doing what they’d been doing for more than a month. (Was it? Crap. What if this was normal? It was normal, wasn’t it?) Maybe he should go back down to his car and call her, check if she still wanted to go today. Check if she still wanted to go with him.
It was at that moment that Annie’s door opened, and Jeff found himself staring, slightly agape, at Britta.
***
“Britta?”
“Winger.” The blonde looked him up and down suspiciously. “What’re you doing here?”
“Ah.” Jeff blinked and cleared his throat. “I’m here to pick up Annie.” He shrugged and forced himself to relax when Britta’s look of suspicion changed to a frown. “We’re going to Abed’s thing and I was supposed to drive her there.”
“Uh huh.” Britta stared at him for a long moment before she stepped out of the doorway, allowing Jeff to enter. “That’s funny. Cause when I called her earlier this week to find out if she was going, I offered to drive her.” She closed the door and leaned back against it, crossing her arms over her chest. “And here I am.”
“Um.” Jeff turned to face away from the blonde, taking in the neat studio apartment and making every attempt not to look like he knew exactly where everything was kept. He swallowed and turned back to Britta. “Maybe I misunderstood.”
“Maybe.” Britta dropped her defensive posture and walked toward him, throwing herself down on Annie’s bed and retrieving a magazine lying there open. “We can ask her when she’s done getting ready.” She glanced at him sidelong as he perched on the back of Annie’s couch. “Actually, it’d be cool if we could all take your car. I’m trying to put off getting gas for another couple of days, and your car would be more comfortable for all of us.”
“All of us?”
“Yeah. I was going to drive Annie and Shirley.”
“Shirley’s meeting you here?”
“Yeah.” Britta sat up, tucking a leg beneath her and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Well, not here here. Her ex-husband was going to drop her off at the nearest Starbucks and then we were going to swing by and pick her up.”
“Oh.” Jeff nodded and drew his cell phone from his pocket, so he could keep his hands occupied with something other than straightening the newspapers scattered on Annie’s coffee table. “Sure. No reason why we can’t all go together.” His head swung toward the bathroom door when he heard the tumblers shifting as the lock turned.
“Britta, do you think I’ll need a sweater? The weather’s been so all-over-the-place this week that I-” Annie entered the room, her smile freezing in place as she spotted Jeff leaning against her couch. She glanced pointedly at Britta, who was intently reading a blurb in a fashion pictorial. She relaxed slightly when Jeff shook his head and took a deep breath. “Oh, hi Jeff! What are you doing here?”
“Hey.” Jeff tried for his usual tone of disinterest. “I thought I was driving you to Abed’s thing.”
“Oh.” Annie crossed to her dresser, picking through the jewelry arranged on its top. “I didn’t know that was a set thing.”
“Yeah.” Jeff frowned at the back of her head and glanced toward Britta, who was still engrossed in the magazine. “Well, I hadn’t heard from you otherwise, so I figured we were still on.”
“Oh.” Annie turned to face him. “Right.”
“I mean, you’re not rude like I am.” Jeff swallowed and struggled to keep his tone friendly. “You wouldn’t just change your mind about something and not at least let the other person know.”
“Of course she wouldn’t.” Britta shook her head as she set aside the magazine and stood from the bed, tossing a cardigan lying across one of the pillows to the brunette. She turned a smug stare on Jeff. “Annie has manners. Unlike some people.” She smiled at the brunette and picked up her bag and jacket. “We’re taking Jeff’s car. And we’re probably keeping Shirley waiting. C’mon.” She headed toward the door.
“Right behind you.” Jeff walked toward Annie, glancing at the back of the retreating blonde before looking her over head to toe. When he spoke, his voice quiet. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Um. How’re you feeling?”
“What?” Annie looked at him askance, though Jeff could see a flicker of panic behind her skepticism.
“I mean, y’know, how’re you doing?” Jeff rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Are you well?”
“I’m fine.” Annie picked up her purse. “How are you?”
“Fine.” Jeff looked her over again, taking in her casual blouse, her familiar flats (her favorite pair, which looked odd not tucked under his coffee table), and the denim skirt she wore. He cleared his throat as they headed for her front door. “New skirt?”
“Why?” Annie shot him an annoyed look as she locked her front door. “You want to wear it?”
“No.” Jeff frowned at her. “I just don’t recognize it.”
“You don’t know all my clothes.”
“Funny.” Jeff followed her toward the stairs, where Britta was waiting for them, hands on hips. “I was pretty sure I’d picked up most of them from my floor at one point or another.” He smirked when Annie glared at him. “Or was this one of the items you had to use the step ladder to retrieve?”
***
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: 2,257
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… ‘Just a Friend’ belongs to Biz Markie.
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 are coming, but they keep not working with how the story is unfolding. It’s not as though I have much to work with; just what Beth remembered from her dream
Right: Thanks for your patience. Real life interposed and sucked me dry for a while. But I want to wrap this up and get back to the Pride & Prejudice thing, meaning regular updates! Especially as I have vague plans (idea & POV) for about six or seven more fics.
***
It’s mid-July, and Annie says a silent prayer every morning that the air conditioning was fixed in May.
Otherwise, she might inadvertently kill everyone she works with – and Jeff.
She’s been thankful every day for the last week that all the work Jeff needed done on his car had been completed before she had her dental surgery. (A week isn’t a weirdly long time not to talk to someone with whom you’ve been…well, that-ing for more than a month, is it? Oh God. Is it?)
She honestly didn’t think she could handle talking to him right now, with his smirk and his arrogance and the way he would try to look down her blouse (even though he’s seen her without it on so, hello, no surprises there) and the way he laughs at her jokes. Really laughs at them, too, not just a perfunctory ‘you’re-hot-and-I-want-to-make-out-with-you’ chuckle. It’s a full, honest to goodness laugh, even when they’re not particularly clever; it’s the kind of laugh that reverberates around in your body, discernible from fingertip to toe and everywhere in between.
(She knows this for a fact: As it happens, she’s not so much sleepy post-sex as she is keyed up and prone to making silly puns.)
A noise from the other side of the waiting room returns her attention to the present. Ramone, his mechanic’s coveralls streaked with the same grease he’s cleaning from his hands with a slightly smelly rag, strides through the waiting area. He gives a low whistle of appreciation as he approaches her desk and leans on it with one elbow, a rakish grin on his lips.
“Hey, Annie. You are looking good today.”
“You’re still emphasizing your words in the wrong places, Ramone.”
“Baby, I don’t know what you could be trying to say.” He jerked his chin in the direction of the floor-to-ceiling windows at the front of the showroom, which reflected his image back in spotless detail. “You know homey can emphasize you in all the right places.”
“Sorry. No.” Annie shook her head and dropped her eyes to the papers she tapped against the desk before stapling them together. She looked up at the mechanic from the corner of her eyes. “No, I don’t want no scrubs.”
“Aw, c’mon, Annie.” Ramone’s voice lost its accent and went up in pitch. “The least you could do is humor a guy.”
“That last line didn’t even make any sense.” Annie shuffles a stack of papers and glances up at the young man, whose shoulders are slumped in defeat. “Still aren’t getting any callbacks, huh?”
“No!” Ramone turned to lean his other elbow on her desk. “You know how I told you I kept losing auditions to that blond surfer guy?”
“The bimbo with boy parts?”
“That’s him.” Ramone twisted his rag around his fingers. “Here I thought it was because he kept talking about the fact that he had a friend who’d been in some movie-”
“Didn’t you look that up online? Wasn’t she cut from the final version?”
“That’s not the point! He knows people, and I figured that was why I kept losing out on romantic lead roles.” Ramone threw his rag down and started fiddling with one of Annie’s pencils. Annie picked it up the cloth between two fingers, held it closer to her face, grimacing when she felt her stomach roil from the smell, and tossed it aside. “So I figured, ‘OK, Ramo old boy, you’re going to have to work your way up to being the next Patrick Dempsey. But you can manage the ‘Latino tough guy’ bit.’” He stood up and gestured at himself. “I mean: Latino. Guy. It just kind of writes itself, y’know?” He slumped against Annie’s desk. “But apparently casting directors just don’t see it.”
“Ramone.” Annie sighed and rested her chin in her hand. “Is it possible it’d be easier for casting directors to see whatever you’d like them to if you were out in L.A., instead of driving to Denver every weekend?”
“Annie, don’t you think I’ve thought of that?” Ramone ran a hand over his close cropped hair. “If I could figure out how to get there-”
“If you could figure out how to get there?” Annie interrupted. “It’s simple, Ramone. You get in your car and get on the I-70 and you keep driving.”
“It’s not that simple, querida.” Ramone leaned forward and set his chin on his folded arms. “I’d have to get a different agent and new head shots and talk my cousin Javi, who I haven’t talked to in a couple years, into letting me crash on his couch and-”
“Excuses.” Annie said, shaking her head. “If you want something badly enough, you figure it out. You make it happen.”
“Uh huh.” Ramone raised one eyebrow as he stared back at her. “Like you with your Sugar Daddy?”
“Wha-?” Annie choked on an inhalation and stared at the mechanic. “Wha-who-what are you talking about?”
“You think we didn’t see that guy, coming in here, bringing you coffee and whatever every day?”
“It wasn’t every day.”
“Querida. Please.” Ramone shook his head. “He’s smitten. And some of the things he had us check and fix? They weren’t absolutely necessary: He could’ve waited.”
“They weren’t…” Annie repeated, staring at her reflection in the floor to ceiling windows opposite her desk. She shook off her daze and the implications of his last statement, and met Ramone’s eyes. “He’s a friend. From school.”
“Uh huh. Whatever you need to tell yourself, querida.” Ramone picked up his rag and started walking backwards toward the service door. He grinned, bopping his head and giving his shoulders a little shimmy. “You, you got what I need. But you say he’s just a friend, and you say he’s just a friend.”
“Shut up, ‘Man in Line Number Three.’”
***
Jeff contemplates whether he should trust the guys at the car wash he goes to with detailing the interior of his car, or whether he should man up and take it into the body shop and mechanics: They can probably handle the work.
He rubs at a spot on his dashboard and exhales heavily before looking up at the side of the building in front of him.
It’s been a week (nearly) since he woke up and realized Annie had been sick in his bathroom. A week (minus a few hours) since Annie ran out on him.
A week (short a few hundred minutes that seem like months) since he’s spoken to her or sat next to her, plate of Chinese take-out in hand while they worked through a list of TV shows Abed had recommended (‘Psych’: Yes. ‘Running Wilde’: Meh. ‘Farscape’: Yes and No.), or even seen her.
Jeff had lost track of the number of times he’d picked up his phone to text or call her , only to set it back down: If she wanted to talk to him, she would call him.
(The fact that she apparently did not want to talk to him made all manner of crazy thoughts bubble to the surface: Multiple Personality Disorder, Secret Spy Identity, Alien Mind Control, Transition to Monster.
He found it more difficult to ignore the less crazy thoughts: Eating disorder. Cancer. Pregnancy. Drugs. But he had found blasting ‘Wasting Light’ through his headphones made it a little easier.)
But they had made today’s plans weeks ago, when he was still trying to cross whatever trench she had tried to dig between them and before he’d stormed her dental surgeon’s office to take her home.
Jeff sighed and climbed out of his car, heading toward the door at the building’s back corner and ignoring the come-hither looks of the aging hookers lounging against the side of Dildopolis. He paused at the door, wondering if Annie would buzz him in, but a pale, skinny kid with long dark hair and a creepy stare held the door open for him while exiting. He jogged up the stairs and came to stop outside her door, raising his hand, fingers curled inward, to knock.
But he hesitated: A week was an awfully long time not to talk to someone with whom you’d been – well, doing what they’d been doing for more than a month. (Was it? Crap. What if this was normal? It was normal, wasn’t it?) Maybe he should go back down to his car and call her, check if she still wanted to go today. Check if she still wanted to go with him.
It was at that moment that Annie’s door opened, and Jeff found himself staring, slightly agape, at Britta.
***
“Britta?”
“Winger.” The blonde looked him up and down suspiciously. “What’re you doing here?”
“Ah.” Jeff blinked and cleared his throat. “I’m here to pick up Annie.” He shrugged and forced himself to relax when Britta’s look of suspicion changed to a frown. “We’re going to Abed’s thing and I was supposed to drive her there.”
“Uh huh.” Britta stared at him for a long moment before she stepped out of the doorway, allowing Jeff to enter. “That’s funny. Cause when I called her earlier this week to find out if she was going, I offered to drive her.” She closed the door and leaned back against it, crossing her arms over her chest. “And here I am.”
“Um.” Jeff turned to face away from the blonde, taking in the neat studio apartment and making every attempt not to look like he knew exactly where everything was kept. He swallowed and turned back to Britta. “Maybe I misunderstood.”
“Maybe.” Britta dropped her defensive posture and walked toward him, throwing herself down on Annie’s bed and retrieving a magazine lying there open. “We can ask her when she’s done getting ready.” She glanced at him sidelong as he perched on the back of Annie’s couch. “Actually, it’d be cool if we could all take your car. I’m trying to put off getting gas for another couple of days, and your car would be more comfortable for all of us.”
“All of us?”
“Yeah. I was going to drive Annie and Shirley.”
“Shirley’s meeting you here?”
“Yeah.” Britta sat up, tucking a leg beneath her and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Well, not here here. Her ex-husband was going to drop her off at the nearest Starbucks and then we were going to swing by and pick her up.”
“Oh.” Jeff nodded and drew his cell phone from his pocket, so he could keep his hands occupied with something other than straightening the newspapers scattered on Annie’s coffee table. “Sure. No reason why we can’t all go together.” His head swung toward the bathroom door when he heard the tumblers shifting as the lock turned.
“Britta, do you think I’ll need a sweater? The weather’s been so all-over-the-place this week that I-” Annie entered the room, her smile freezing in place as she spotted Jeff leaning against her couch. She glanced pointedly at Britta, who was intently reading a blurb in a fashion pictorial. She relaxed slightly when Jeff shook his head and took a deep breath. “Oh, hi Jeff! What are you doing here?”
“Hey.” Jeff tried for his usual tone of disinterest. “I thought I was driving you to Abed’s thing.”
“Oh.” Annie crossed to her dresser, picking through the jewelry arranged on its top. “I didn’t know that was a set thing.”
“Yeah.” Jeff frowned at the back of her head and glanced toward Britta, who was still engrossed in the magazine. “Well, I hadn’t heard from you otherwise, so I figured we were still on.”
“Oh.” Annie turned to face him. “Right.”
“I mean, you’re not rude like I am.” Jeff swallowed and struggled to keep his tone friendly. “You wouldn’t just change your mind about something and not at least let the other person know.”
“Of course she wouldn’t.” Britta shook her head as she set aside the magazine and stood from the bed, tossing a cardigan lying across one of the pillows to the brunette. She turned a smug stare on Jeff. “Annie has manners. Unlike some people.” She smiled at the brunette and picked up her bag and jacket. “We’re taking Jeff’s car. And we’re probably keeping Shirley waiting. C’mon.” She headed toward the door.
“Right behind you.” Jeff walked toward Annie, glancing at the back of the retreating blonde before looking her over head to toe. When he spoke, his voice quiet. “Hey.”
“Hey.”
“Um. How’re you feeling?”
“What?” Annie looked at him askance, though Jeff could see a flicker of panic behind her skepticism.
“I mean, y’know, how’re you doing?” Jeff rolled his eyes exaggeratedly. “Are you well?”
“I’m fine.” Annie picked up her purse. “How are you?”
“Fine.” Jeff looked her over again, taking in her casual blouse, her familiar flats (her favorite pair, which looked odd not tucked under his coffee table), and the denim skirt she wore. He cleared his throat as they headed for her front door. “New skirt?”
“Why?” Annie shot him an annoyed look as she locked her front door. “You want to wear it?”
“No.” Jeff frowned at her. “I just don’t recognize it.”
“You don’t know all my clothes.”
“Funny.” Jeff followed her toward the stairs, where Britta was waiting for them, hands on hips. “I was pretty sure I’d picked up most of them from my floor at one point or another.” He smirked when Annie glared at him. “Or was this one of the items you had to use the step ladder to retrieve?”
***
