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lapacifidoraTitle: Introduction to Interpersonal Relations: Simply Because
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Anything through 3.07 is fair game.
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14, for slightly implied adult behavior
Word Count: 1,902
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… The 39 Steps belongs to John Buchan and Alfred Hitchcock.
Author’s note: This was prompted by westwingwolf after Jeff’s slip in “Studies in Modern Movement” that he’s seeing a therapist. She wanted to ‘see’ Jeff’s therapy sessions when he was talking about Annie. Sadly, perhaps, I have a gutter brain. That’s when I turned to honey_pie1 for help. So, I guess you can blame all three of us.
This is also partially inspired by the inimitable Saber Shadow Kat. This chapter’s title is from “I’m In the Mood For Love”; I happened to be listening to the version by Louis Armstrong.
***
Somehow, even with the addition of new cable channels and thousands of dollars spent on new programming by the networks, there still was never anything on at – Jeff fished on the coffee table for his cell phone and tapped the screen – 1:43 a.m.
Absolutely nothing.
The last thing he’d found was a documentary on the history of boxing on the History Channel. It had ended – he tapped the screen again – exactly 14 minutes ago, leaving him with nothing but a juice machine infomercial and the knowledge that the 1897 heavy weight champion was British Boxer Bob Fitzsimmons, who beat American Jim Corbett, in Carson City, Nevada.
That was, incidentally, probably the only interesting thing to ever happen in Carson City.
Jeff sighed and stood, turning off the TV and taking his empty glass and plate to his kitchen. He placed them in the sink and stood staring down at the drain for a long minute.
***
“And how did Annie react when you kissed her?”
“I kissed her head.” Jeff scratched at his jaw, absently measuring the length of his scruff by touch. He exhaled forcefully. “And she didn’t react.” He dropped his hand to his leg and stared across at Dr. Sternin, who was tapping her pen against the notepad balanced on her knee.
“She didn’t react, or you didn’t stay long enough to see her react?”
“Does it matter?” Jeff glanced down at his wrist and, not for the first time since he started seeing this therapist, wished he wore a watch. Or even owned a watch – at least, one he could wear daily, not the monstrosity he’d bought when he was still practicing law that, now, could pay for nearly six month’s rent.
“Do you think it matters?”
“Doc, answering my questions with questions isn’t going to lead me to some sudden realization.” Jeff leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m drawing a blank here.”
“I see.” Dr. Sternin placed her notebook and pen on the small table she kept next to her armchair and held her water glass in both hands, tapping a long finger against its side. She stared down through the water at the carpet. “Jeff, I think you made good progress with your last assignment. But I think you still have a ways to go. I want you to repeat your homework from last week – not exactly the same. I think you have more creativity than that. – and I want you to try to remember more detail this time.”
“Dr. Sternin-”
“I have your best interests in mind, Jeff. I don’t need to know what you do, but I think examining the circumstances you imagine Annie and yourself in could go a long way toward helping us make progress with understanding your relationship.”
“Just- just, like, the scenario?”
“Just that.” Dr. Sternin crossed to her desk and retrieved Jeff’s cell phone. “You can keep the sordid details to yourself.” She held out the phone to him until he took it from her with a dubious look.
“Thanks.”
***
Jeff relaxed against the foot board and started sawing away at the chain of the handcuffs that tied him to the brunette who sat next to him on the short bench, petulantly eating a cold chicken sandwich.
“With any luck, we’ll be free of these in about 10 years.” He chuckled wryly and went back to work with the nail file the brunette had produced from her handbag.
“Well, it’s not my fault you had the poor sense to commit a murder and then fail to escape custody before they’d placed you in restraints.”
“I say.” Jeff turned to her. “Amy-”
“Annie.” She sat up straight and fixed him with a steely glare. “And don’t pretend you don’t know it, as we might not have been formally introduced but we’ve been thrown together often enough thus far that we may as well have been.” She flinched slightly when he shook the nail file at her.
“You can’t take a bleeding joke, can you, Annie?” He blew out an exasperated breath and put down the file, taking up the tumbler of scotch and soda. He swirled it around once and downed the last mouthful, setting the glass back on the floor and returning to the handcuff chain. “Twenty-thousand women on this island and I have the appalling luck to end up chained to you.” He sawed for another minute before dropping the file on the bench and running a hand over his face. “It’s hopeless.”
“You mean you can’t break the chain?”
“No. I can’t break the chain. I suppose needs must we resign ourselves to being burdened with each other for the time being.” Jeff propped his chin on one fist and glanced over at Annie from the corner of his eye. He smiled slightly, snorting a little when she smiled back tightly. “Don’t suppose the first time you’d be tied up around a guy would be like this, eh?”
“Ugh.” Annie popped the last of her sandwich between her lips and chewed it thoroughly, gesturing for the glass of milk Jeff had asked the hotel manageress to bring. She took a gulp and wiped the back of her mouth with her wrist. “You’re the worst.”
“No.”
“Yes. Here I was starting to feel a little tiny bit sorry for you, and now I think you’re kind of gross.”
“Only kind of?” Jeff lifted his free arm, wondering briefly once again why the Professor’s spies had cuffed both his and Annie’s left hands together, and rested his arm along the top of the foot board. He knew he had been on the run from the police for a week, much of that time spent hiding in caves and crevices on the moors; he knew he looked like death warmed over, with dark shadows under his eyes; he knew he desperately needed a shave, though he hadn’t checked a mirror yet; but he also knew he’d seen a spark of…something in Annie’s eyes when they’d entered this hotel room and her eyes had bounced from him to the elaborate canopy bed and back again.
“I guess, for a murderer and liar, you’re, y’know, not completely awful.”
“Stop. You’re making me blush.” Jeff replied deadpan, a smirk twisting his lips. He watched as Annie blushed, the pink in her cheeks enhanced by the glow of the fireplace opposite them. She glanced away, toward the door he’d locked earlier, before turning her eyes back toward his. He held her gaze as she turned her face back toward him and he felt something in him drop when her eyes dipped to his mouth for an instant. He slid a little closer, his arm dropping from the foot board to rest along the line of her shoulders. “How many times do I have to tell you I didn’t kill anyone?”
“I don’t know.” Annie replied quietly and a little breathlessly. “How many times would this make it? Six? Seven?”
“You’d let me get this close even though you think I’m a murderer?” Jeff’s own gaze dropped to her mouth, his breath catching when her lips parted and her teeth caught the bottom one briefly.
“I only said you’re kind of gross, not that you’re a monst-” Annie’s indignant reply was cut short as Jeff’s mouth crashed into her own and her head dropped back as his arm came around her shoulders, pulling her toward him. Their noses brushed as he kissed her fervently before pulling back and tucking his chin over her shoulder.
“I swear, I didn’t kill anyone.” He spoke quietly, his breath gently disturbing the stray hairs that had escaped her neatly waved hair. He felt her shudder against him, then the cool softness of her hand against the back of his neck and the softness of her lips as she pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw.
“I believe you.” She sat back from him, a small smile on her face, even as her cheeks flushed hotly. She swallowed and took a deep breath to speak, but a yawn caught her off guard. She squeaked at the end and blinked her eyes open, a sheepish expression on her face.
“It appears you’re as tired as I am.” Jeff stood, taking Annie’s hand in his and pulling her to her feet. “Maybe we should save the confessions for the morning.” He chuckled when she nodded and tugged her close, pressing his lips to hers once more. He felt her free hand creep up the back of his shirt beneath his suit coat and gather a fistful of his shirt in her small hand. He traced the outline of her lips with his tongue, clutching her closer when her mouth opened beneath his, allowing him to trace every ridge along the top of her mouth. He pulled back and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “We should get some rest. Although I’ve never met a distraction I like quite so much.” He laughed against her hair, starting when her hand dropped his shirt and settled at his waist, where she pinched him quickly.
They took a step back from each other and Jeff took in Annie’s disheveled hair and swollen lips and fought the impulse to spend the entire night cataloging her reactions to his kiss. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
“Right. To bed.” He nodded at her, pleased when she smiled shyly and returned his nod. They turned away from each other and went to round the foot board to their respective sides of the double mattress: The handcuff chain brought them up short. Both their eyes dropped to the metal cuffs tying them together, then rose to meet the other’s gaze. Annie stepped forward, once again within kissing distance.
“I should probably just follow your lead.” She stared up at Jeff, who nodded stiffly. She followed him round the end of the bed.
“Ladies first.” Jeff watched as Annie shifted, trying to determine the easiest way to climb in given her calf-length skirt. His eyes widened as she turned to him with an unreadable expression in her dark eyes.
“I think you were right earlier.” She brought both hands to the side zip, shivering slightly as his hand followed hers and came to rest just above her hip. “My skirt is still rather damp.” With a quick motion, she undid the zipper, letting the wool fall to the floor and leaving her in a shorter half-slip and her stockings.
“Right.” Jeff forced his gaze to go no lower than Annie’s shoulders, which only served to draw his attention to the quick rise and fall of her chest as her breathing sped up. “Wouldn’t want you to get sick, would w-”
***
A door of an apartment down the hall banged open, jolting Jeff out of sleep and sending him sitting straight up in bed. He looked around in some confusion, as he didn’t remember going to his room or shucking his jeans and climbing into bed.
He shook his head and scratched his leg with his left hand, pausing when his dream filtered through to his conscious mind. He swore quietly and stumbled out of bed, searching for a pen and paper so he could write down what details he could remember.
Dr. Sternin had better be right about the details helping him figure out this thing with Annie.
***
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Anything through 3.07 is fair game.
Rating/ Warnings: PG-14, for slightly implied adult behavior
Word Count: 1,902
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her… The 39 Steps belongs to John Buchan and Alfred Hitchcock.
Author’s note: This was prompted by westwingwolf after Jeff’s slip in “Studies in Modern Movement” that he’s seeing a therapist. She wanted to ‘see’ Jeff’s therapy sessions when he was talking about Annie. Sadly, perhaps, I have a gutter brain. That’s when I turned to honey_pie1 for help. So, I guess you can blame all three of us.
This is also partially inspired by the inimitable Saber Shadow Kat. This chapter’s title is from “I’m In the Mood For Love”; I happened to be listening to the version by Louis Armstrong.
***
Somehow, even with the addition of new cable channels and thousands of dollars spent on new programming by the networks, there still was never anything on at – Jeff fished on the coffee table for his cell phone and tapped the screen – 1:43 a.m.
Absolutely nothing.
The last thing he’d found was a documentary on the history of boxing on the History Channel. It had ended – he tapped the screen again – exactly 14 minutes ago, leaving him with nothing but a juice machine infomercial and the knowledge that the 1897 heavy weight champion was British Boxer Bob Fitzsimmons, who beat American Jim Corbett, in Carson City, Nevada.
That was, incidentally, probably the only interesting thing to ever happen in Carson City.
Jeff sighed and stood, turning off the TV and taking his empty glass and plate to his kitchen. He placed them in the sink and stood staring down at the drain for a long minute.
***
“And how did Annie react when you kissed her?”
“I kissed her head.” Jeff scratched at his jaw, absently measuring the length of his scruff by touch. He exhaled forcefully. “And she didn’t react.” He dropped his hand to his leg and stared across at Dr. Sternin, who was tapping her pen against the notepad balanced on her knee.
“She didn’t react, or you didn’t stay long enough to see her react?”
“Does it matter?” Jeff glanced down at his wrist and, not for the first time since he started seeing this therapist, wished he wore a watch. Or even owned a watch – at least, one he could wear daily, not the monstrosity he’d bought when he was still practicing law that, now, could pay for nearly six month’s rent.
“Do you think it matters?”
“Doc, answering my questions with questions isn’t going to lead me to some sudden realization.” Jeff leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees and ran a hand through his hair. “I’m drawing a blank here.”
“I see.” Dr. Sternin placed her notebook and pen on the small table she kept next to her armchair and held her water glass in both hands, tapping a long finger against its side. She stared down through the water at the carpet. “Jeff, I think you made good progress with your last assignment. But I think you still have a ways to go. I want you to repeat your homework from last week – not exactly the same. I think you have more creativity than that. – and I want you to try to remember more detail this time.”
“Dr. Sternin-”
“I have your best interests in mind, Jeff. I don’t need to know what you do, but I think examining the circumstances you imagine Annie and yourself in could go a long way toward helping us make progress with understanding your relationship.”
“Just- just, like, the scenario?”
“Just that.” Dr. Sternin crossed to her desk and retrieved Jeff’s cell phone. “You can keep the sordid details to yourself.” She held out the phone to him until he took it from her with a dubious look.
“Thanks.”
***
Jeff relaxed against the foot board and started sawing away at the chain of the handcuffs that tied him to the brunette who sat next to him on the short bench, petulantly eating a cold chicken sandwich.
“With any luck, we’ll be free of these in about 10 years.” He chuckled wryly and went back to work with the nail file the brunette had produced from her handbag.
“Well, it’s not my fault you had the poor sense to commit a murder and then fail to escape custody before they’d placed you in restraints.”
“I say.” Jeff turned to her. “Amy-”
“Annie.” She sat up straight and fixed him with a steely glare. “And don’t pretend you don’t know it, as we might not have been formally introduced but we’ve been thrown together often enough thus far that we may as well have been.” She flinched slightly when he shook the nail file at her.
“You can’t take a bleeding joke, can you, Annie?” He blew out an exasperated breath and put down the file, taking up the tumbler of scotch and soda. He swirled it around once and downed the last mouthful, setting the glass back on the floor and returning to the handcuff chain. “Twenty-thousand women on this island and I have the appalling luck to end up chained to you.” He sawed for another minute before dropping the file on the bench and running a hand over his face. “It’s hopeless.”
“You mean you can’t break the chain?”
“No. I can’t break the chain. I suppose needs must we resign ourselves to being burdened with each other for the time being.” Jeff propped his chin on one fist and glanced over at Annie from the corner of his eye. He smiled slightly, snorting a little when she smiled back tightly. “Don’t suppose the first time you’d be tied up around a guy would be like this, eh?”
“Ugh.” Annie popped the last of her sandwich between her lips and chewed it thoroughly, gesturing for the glass of milk Jeff had asked the hotel manageress to bring. She took a gulp and wiped the back of her mouth with her wrist. “You’re the worst.”
“No.”
“Yes. Here I was starting to feel a little tiny bit sorry for you, and now I think you’re kind of gross.”
“Only kind of?” Jeff lifted his free arm, wondering briefly once again why the Professor’s spies had cuffed both his and Annie’s left hands together, and rested his arm along the top of the foot board. He knew he had been on the run from the police for a week, much of that time spent hiding in caves and crevices on the moors; he knew he looked like death warmed over, with dark shadows under his eyes; he knew he desperately needed a shave, though he hadn’t checked a mirror yet; but he also knew he’d seen a spark of…something in Annie’s eyes when they’d entered this hotel room and her eyes had bounced from him to the elaborate canopy bed and back again.
“I guess, for a murderer and liar, you’re, y’know, not completely awful.”
“Stop. You’re making me blush.” Jeff replied deadpan, a smirk twisting his lips. He watched as Annie blushed, the pink in her cheeks enhanced by the glow of the fireplace opposite them. She glanced away, toward the door he’d locked earlier, before turning her eyes back toward his. He held her gaze as she turned her face back toward him and he felt something in him drop when her eyes dipped to his mouth for an instant. He slid a little closer, his arm dropping from the foot board to rest along the line of her shoulders. “How many times do I have to tell you I didn’t kill anyone?”
“I don’t know.” Annie replied quietly and a little breathlessly. “How many times would this make it? Six? Seven?”
“You’d let me get this close even though you think I’m a murderer?” Jeff’s own gaze dropped to her mouth, his breath catching when her lips parted and her teeth caught the bottom one briefly.
“I only said you’re kind of gross, not that you’re a monst-” Annie’s indignant reply was cut short as Jeff’s mouth crashed into her own and her head dropped back as his arm came around her shoulders, pulling her toward him. Their noses brushed as he kissed her fervently before pulling back and tucking his chin over her shoulder.
“I swear, I didn’t kill anyone.” He spoke quietly, his breath gently disturbing the stray hairs that had escaped her neatly waved hair. He felt her shudder against him, then the cool softness of her hand against the back of his neck and the softness of her lips as she pressed a kiss to the underside of his jaw.
“I believe you.” She sat back from him, a small smile on her face, even as her cheeks flushed hotly. She swallowed and took a deep breath to speak, but a yawn caught her off guard. She squeaked at the end and blinked her eyes open, a sheepish expression on her face.
“It appears you’re as tired as I am.” Jeff stood, taking Annie’s hand in his and pulling her to her feet. “Maybe we should save the confessions for the morning.” He chuckled when she nodded and tugged her close, pressing his lips to hers once more. He felt her free hand creep up the back of his shirt beneath his suit coat and gather a fistful of his shirt in her small hand. He traced the outline of her lips with his tongue, clutching her closer when her mouth opened beneath his, allowing him to trace every ridge along the top of her mouth. He pulled back and dropped a kiss on her forehead. “We should get some rest. Although I’ve never met a distraction I like quite so much.” He laughed against her hair, starting when her hand dropped his shirt and settled at his waist, where she pinched him quickly.
They took a step back from each other and Jeff took in Annie’s disheveled hair and swollen lips and fought the impulse to spend the entire night cataloging her reactions to his kiss. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders.
“Right. To bed.” He nodded at her, pleased when she smiled shyly and returned his nod. They turned away from each other and went to round the foot board to their respective sides of the double mattress: The handcuff chain brought them up short. Both their eyes dropped to the metal cuffs tying them together, then rose to meet the other’s gaze. Annie stepped forward, once again within kissing distance.
“I should probably just follow your lead.” She stared up at Jeff, who nodded stiffly. She followed him round the end of the bed.
“Ladies first.” Jeff watched as Annie shifted, trying to determine the easiest way to climb in given her calf-length skirt. His eyes widened as she turned to him with an unreadable expression in her dark eyes.
“I think you were right earlier.” She brought both hands to the side zip, shivering slightly as his hand followed hers and came to rest just above her hip. “My skirt is still rather damp.” With a quick motion, she undid the zipper, letting the wool fall to the floor and leaving her in a shorter half-slip and her stockings.
“Right.” Jeff forced his gaze to go no lower than Annie’s shoulders, which only served to draw his attention to the quick rise and fall of her chest as her breathing sped up. “Wouldn’t want you to get sick, would w-”
***
A door of an apartment down the hall banged open, jolting Jeff out of sleep and sending him sitting straight up in bed. He looked around in some confusion, as he didn’t remember going to his room or shucking his jeans and climbing into bed.
He shook his head and scratched his leg with his left hand, pausing when his dream filtered through to his conscious mind. He swore quietly and stumbled out of bed, searching for a pen and paper so he could write down what details he could remember.
Dr. Sternin had better be right about the details helping him figure out this thing with Annie.
***
