A Fine Romance (2/?)
Nov. 20th, 2012 03:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapacifidoraTitle: A Fine Romance (2/?)
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Post-“The Politics of Human Sexuality”, AU after that
Rating/ Warnings: R for language, themes and implications. N for Not Safe for Work.
Word Count: 3,520 (4,970 total)
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her…
Author’s note: This is my poor attempt at a smutty sequel to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
greta_garbo’s amazing fic, “Snowed In,” which I read and loved when I found this fandom. I only hope it meets with her approval. And that anyone who read part one is willing to read the rest of this, even though it’s months later. Huh. Yeah. Um. Real Life kicked my ass. But I am determined to start finishing my WiPs: If the creators of Lost could do it, so can I. Nothing can be as aggravating or difficult as that, right?
***
Previously (Chapter 1)
***
Jeff froze, his mouth atop Annie’s, his eyes flying open and darting around in an attempt to meet what he imagined was her own, wide-eyed, slightly terrified gaze. He felt her hands clutch convulsively against the small of his back and his ass, grunting a little when he felt her fingernails dig into his skin. He pulled back slightly, disconnecting his mouth from hers.
“You heard that?” He whispered against her lips. He felt her nod, the cold tip of her nose brushing against his cheek and her moist breath warming a spot on his jaw. “The wind might’ve gotten in and caught the door.” He felt Annie’s fingers flex and rubbed what he hoped were reassuring circles against her scalp, tangling his fingers still further in her smooth, shiny hair. He started to lower his head back to hers when he heard Annie inhale sharply. Looking down, he saw her eyes darting back and forth as they stared up toward the ceiling and past his head.
It took him a moment to realize he could see Annie’s eyes when he hadn’t been able to before, which meant that there was light coming from somewhere in the room. He forced back a flinch and turned his head to the side, following Annie’s gaze to the library’s ceiling.
As he watched a flashlight beam sweep across the ceiling tiles and come to rest on a bookcase on the far side of the room, Jeff wondered if the girly little scream he choked off in his throat sounded as loud to Annie as it did to him.
***
Annie felt Jeff shudder against her as he made a weird gurgling noise, and, just for a moment, she worried that he was having a stroke and that she’d have to explain to the paramedics or his mom or her mom or someone that she’d killed Jeff Winger because she’d forced him to make out with her in the middle of a snowstorm that kept the ambulance from being able to reach them.
(Or, at least, that’s the reason she gave herself for why she slid the hand at the small of his back up the side of his rib cage, where she wormed it around to hold it over his heart.
It wasn’t because, somewhere between grabbing Jeff’s face and planting one on him to prove what nuclear bombs couldn’t and Jeff sliding a hand into her hair as he kissed her back in a pitch black library, Annie had decided there was nothing she liked as much the feel of his skin under her fingertips.
And it wasn’t because she was hoping that kissing her had quickened Jeff’s pulse as much as it had her own.
Nope: She was concerned for his health.)
She had licked her lips and taken a deep breath, trying to figure out how to ask Jeff to go see who or what was at the other end of the flashlight when two new voices rang out through the silence of the library.
“I think if we raid the lost and found box behind the circulation desk, we can use whatever we find to add to our provisions from the cafeteria.”
“It’ll be just like we’re in ‘Red Dawn,’ except there aren’t any Communists, none of us has a mullet and, for all intents and purposes, the U.S. government still exists.”
***
Jeff closed his eyes and buried his face in Annie’s neck, mentally running through his entire vocabulary of foul language and hoping that when he looked up again, he wouldn’t see a flashlight beam with, at the very least, Britta and Abed at the other end. He started in surprise when she ran a hand tentatively through his hair, then nuzzled her neck and smiled slightly when he felt her lips brush against his cheekbone.
However, when he pulled back and glanced up at the ceiling again, there was still a glow from the far end of the room indicating their friends were still in the library. He took a deep breath and untangled the hand he’d wound through Annie’s hair and gave her an apologetic smile when he removed his other hand from between her legs, unable to keep it from turning into a smirk when she pouted. He pressed his lips to hers briefly and patted her stomach before carefully moving off her and returning to the floor. Putting one finger to his mouth, Jeff mimed ‘go to sleep’ and placed his head on the cushion by her knees, slowing his own breathing and letting his mouth gape open a little.
***
Annie wasn’t sure what was worse: Being caught dry humping Jeff in the library by their friends or dying of sexual frustration.
(She tensed as she felt his head move closer to her leg, and decided she’d rather have been caught by their friends.)
Still, she tried to focus on breathing evenly and tucked her hands – cold now that they weren’t pressed against Jeff’s skin – under her arms.
“Dude.” The sound of rustling fabric from nearby made Annie tense for a moment before she remembered she was supposed to be asleep. “Looks like we lucked out and some poor bastards left without their coats.”
“Oh, those poor dears.”
“Let me see those.”
“No! You’re just going to hog them all, like you tried to hog the Skittles.”
“I could buy the company that makes Skittles: Why would I hog them?”
“I dunno. Because you’re a hogger?”
“You guys, hold on.” More fabric rustling and the soft thumps of several things dropping against the table made Annie hold her breath for a moment. “Don’t you recognize these?”
“I feel a plot twist coming.”
“They do look familiar. That looks like Annie’s coat-”
“Yeah. And this looks like Jeff’s jacket.” Silence followed that comment, and Annie prepared herself, drawing some strength from the weight of Jeff’s head against her knee.
***
Jeff had never liked people watching him while he slept: It was creepy and weird and usually inappropriate and creepy.
(He briefly wondered if the second creepy was warranted, then remembered he was at Greendale: It was always warranted.)
But he supposed if it came down to being caught necking with Annie like a horny teenager and being caught ‘sleeping’ with his head awkwardly bent to rest on the couch, he’d take the awkwardness of the couch over the awkwardness of explaining why he had his hands all over the girl who couldn’t legally drink yet.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder and shook him gently.
“Jeff?” Shirley’s voice was quiet, and Jeff imagined it was the same one she used to wake her own sons in the morning. “Jeffrey, it’s time to wake up.”
“They’re probably hypothermic.” Pierce scoffed, and Jeff had only Britta’s indignant squeak as a warning before the older man was yelling in his ear. “WINGER! Wake up! Don’t go into the shiny, gay disco-ball light!”
***
Annie’s eyes shot open as Pierce yelled, but turned her surprise into a passable impersonation of waking up, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.
“What’s going on?” She propped herself up on one arm and ran a hand through her hair, hoping to tame some of the tangles she was sure Jeff had left earlier.
“Yay!” “Cool.” Troy and Abed bumped fists before Troy turned to glare at Pierce. “See? They’re not half-dead. You didn’t need to yell.”
“Annie, what are you doing here?” Britta sat down on a nearby chair, holding Annie’s coat out to her with a concerned look.
Annie took the coat from the blonde and glanced over at Jeff, who was slipping his own jacket on and accepting a scarf Shirley fished from the depths of her enormous purse. She swept a hand around her neck, under the collar of her coat, flipping the ends of her hair out and tucking it behind her ears.
“I was helping Jeff study for our Spanish exam.” Annie forced herself to yawn again and reached into her pockets for her gloves, surprised at how cold it had become in the library – and trying not to think about how she’d been keeping warm less than 10 minutes earlier. “By the time we realized how bad the storm was, we were trapped in here. We must have fallen asleep.” Annie widened her eyes and glanced around in false curiosity. “Did something happen to the lights?”
“Yeah. The power went out.” Troy shook his head. “First, Abed and me, we were playing ‘Mario Karts.’ And I was all like, ‘You’re going down, man!’ And he was all, ‘I think that remains to be seen.’ And I was all, ‘Who are you, man? Captain Picard?’ And he was all, ‘I think I’m more like Captain Janeway.’ And then I sort of accidentally on purpose drove my car into his, and they both kind of exploded, and then the power went out.” Troy paused and took a deep breath, somehow managing to look embarrassed while half-shrouded in shadows. “I kind of thought at first we made the power go out. But Britta explained that was silly because driving my car into Abed’s in a video game wouldn’t affect the real world.”
The rest of the group stared at Troy unblinkingly until Britta took a deep breath.
“Right! Anyways, we all got stuck here-”
“What were you doing here?” Annie tilted her head to one side, wondering how long she could keep the focus off her and Jeff having been alone together in the library for several hours.
“Um.” Britta blinked quickly. “I was…well…”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Pierce huffed in annoyance. “I’m her ride to and from campus right now because little Miss Mother Earth had her oil changed by some hippy dippy mechanic, it turns out it wasn’t real oil and now her car is in the shop.” He folded his arms over his chest. “And I had a meeting with Dean Pelton about some marketing ideas, and Brittles had to wait for me to finish.”
“And I stayed late for the Black Professional and Entrepreneurial Students Association meeting,” Shirley said, tugging the fuzzy headband she was wearing down around her ears. “Except I had to step out to take a call from my sister, who’s watching the boys, and when I came back in, they’d all left because of the weather.” Shirley looked down at her hands and continued more quietly. “Only no one bothered to tell me, and I didn’t realize until I’d been there, alone, for twenty minutes. And by then I was stuck here.”
“So then how did you all find each other?” Jeff asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He bit back a comment about ‘freaks flocking together,’ which he knew he would’ve made even a few weeks ago.
“Troy and I went to the cafeteria to look for food.” Abed gestured between himself and Troy with his thumb. “That’s where we found Britta, who was waiting for Pierce.” He pointed at the blonde.
“And freezing.” Britta grumbled, pulling her light-weight coat closer around her.
“Right. Then Shirley called me to find out if she could stay in my room, and we talked her through the dark hallways until she reached the caf.”
“It was like a trust exercise.” Shirley raised an eyebrow as she stared at Troy. “Except I could hear someone in the background trying to convince Abed to send me to the gym instead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Troy widened his eyes as he shrugged and looked around. “Whoa, I never realized how many books were in here…”
“It’s the library, Troy.” Britta gave him a skeptical look.
“Right.” Troy nodded. “Library. Books. Cool. So, what are we going to do now?”
***
After much debate (wherein Pierce advocated drawing up a lottery to determine who they would eat first if they were stuck there, and Jeff had to explain several times that it was a snow storm, not the apocalypse), the group decided to raid the library’s lost and found and the emergency kit, then hole up in their study room.
Abed and Shirley rationed out the food they’d collected from the cafeteria, and Annie, Britta and Troy collected cushions from couches in the library to make pallets.
(Jeff was elected to keep Pierce occupied making a sign to put in the exterior door so anyone coming in the morning to clean the sidewalks would know there were people inside.
Jeff tried to talk his way out his assignment, but shut up when he was reminded of lying about hanging out with Senor Chang.)
Annie and Britta were hauling a large cushion toward the study room when the blonde slumped back against the circulation desk and dropped her end, causing Annie to stumble.
“Sorry.” Britta reached behind her and clasped her hands, stretching her arms. “It’s heavier than it looks.”
“Oh.” Annie nodded in understanding, though her gaze kept drifting over Britta’s shoulder, toward the exterior doors where Jeff and Pierce appeared to be arguing over how to hang the sign. “That’s OK.” She looked back and realized the blonde’s eyes were focused on her. She swallowed and smiled brightly. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Britta picked up her end of the cushion again, and they continued toward the study room in silence for several feet. “Hey, Annie.”
“Hmm?”
“You know, if you’re ever stuck with Jeff, and you don’t know how to get out of it, you can always call me.” Britta gave Annie what she hoped was a sisterly smile. “I know you don’t like to be rude, but I know you were probably bored before we got here.”
“Oh.” Annie’s smile froze on her lips. “Um. Actually, it wasn’t that bad.”
“Right.” Britta scoffed as she tugged at her end of the cushion, which had caught on a lump in the carpet. She looked up when Annie didn’t respond and noticed that the younger woman’s face was mostly hidden by her hair. “Right. Well.” The blonde cleared her throat and wondered, for the first time since finding her friends in the library, exactly how they’d entertained themselves all evening. “The offer still stands. If you ever get stuck someplace, and you need an excuse to leave, you can always call or text me.” She chuckled awkwardly. “I can be rude enough for the both of us.”
“OK.” Annie nodded and glanced up, looking up fully and shaking her hair back from her face when she saw Britta’s suspicious expression. “Thanks.”
***
“Dude, we can’t build a fire in here!” Troy put his hands on his hips as he stood toe-to-toe with Pierce.
“Why not? It’s cold. Fire is hot.” Pierce threw his hands in the air in frustration before gesturing toward Annie, Britta and Shirley, who were helping Abed arrange the couch cushions into sleeping pallets. “After all, it’s not like any of the girls are going to offer to strip down and keep me warm.”
“WHAT?” Britta’s head snapped round to pin Pierce with a glare, her eyes narrowing even as her cheeks began to flush in rage.
“Pierce!” Jeff stepped between the two men, his goal no longer to keep Troy from hitting the older man but to keep the blonde from killing Pierce. “While I’m sure any of us would do whatever was necessary to keep everyone alive,” He raised his voice as Shirley scoffed and began muttering to herself, “don’t you think it’s a little sexist to count on one of our female friends to share body heat with us?”
“Look, Winger, what you do in the privacy of your own home – or bar bathroom stall or car or dirty alley or-”
“Get to the point, Pierce.” Jeff said, as he crossed his arms and grit his teeth.
“What you do on your own time is your business.” Pierce replied, giving the younger man a condescending look. “And if your business is gay business where you cuddle up with other dudes, that is your business. But I’ll only be sharing body heat with a person who’s squishy in all the right places.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Britta began to remove her coat, her eyes ablaze. Annie and Abed stepped forward to pull her back.
“Who you callin’ ‘squishy,’ you self-righteous, bald old coot?” Shirley crossed the room to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeff, an expectant look on her face. Jeff glanced over at her and swallowed down his laughter before risking a glance over at Britta. The blonde was trying to shrug off the restraining hands of the two others, and Annie, as though sensing the weight of his gaze, raised her eyes to meet Jeff’s briefly.
“‘Squishy’ is a compliment!” Pierce exclaimed.
Jeff found his mouth suddenly dry as he forced his gaze away from Annie’s, remembering all too clearly how squishy some of her more interesting parts were. From the corner of his eye, he saw color rise in her cheeks before her head turned back to Britta, her hair swinging forward to hide her face.
“Dude, stop saying ‘squishy!’” Troy replied as he crossed his arms, mirroring Jeff’s stance unconsciously.
“I’ll say what I want!” Pierce shouted back hoarsely, his breath fogging briefly in the cold of the study room. “Squishy squishy squishy squishy SQUISHY!” The older man took a deep breath as he shouted the word, preparing to start again, but the breath was knocked out of him as a small chair cushion smacked him in the side of the head. Pierce stumbled a few steps, lifting a hand to his temple to fix his glasses and turned to look at his assailant. Shirley stood behind him, cushion dangling loosely from her hand while she stared at him in shock.
“I- I- I’m sorry. I don’t know what ca-”
“You wanna go, African Queen?” Pierce took a step toward one of the pile of cushions, reaching blindly for a weapon of his own.
“Oh.” Shirley blinked slowly before her mouth twisted in a snarl. “Oh. You did not just go there.” Her grip on the cushion tightened visibly, and she rolled her neck.
“Let’s go, Aunt Jemima.” Pierce stepped toward the petite woman, lifting a large cushion from the back of a couch.
“They. Call. Me. Mrs. Butterworth!” Shirley matched him step for step as they began to circle each other.
“The African Queen was a paddleboat.” Abed spoke quietly, his voice breaking the horrified silence the other four slipped into as the situation escalated.
“Pierce! Shirley.” Jeff shook his head as he stepped between them, raising his hands in a non-threatening manner. “Abed, as usual, is right. The last thing we need to d-” He was cut off abruptly when Pierce smacked him in the chest with the cushion. The force of the impact knocked the breath out of him, and he bent double for a minute, bracing himself on his knees. When he straightened, he glared at the older man but continued with his train of thought. “The last thing we need to do right now, trapped here, vulnerable, cold and tired, is turn on each other.”
“Yeah.” Troy piped up, nodding vigorously. “We read about a situation just like this. All these reindeer that got trapped up on a mountain pass in a blizzard and they turned on each other.” His eyes widened dramatically even as his voice dropped to a stage whisper. “And then they ate each other.”
“Well, if any of the ladies would like to eat m-”
“Pierce, don’t finish that sentence if you don’t want a sexual harassment suit in the morning.” Jeff spoke, closing his eyes and shaking his head before turning to Troy. “What are you talking about?”
“Yeah.” Britta, recovered from both her earlier rage and confusion, said, her normal knowing expression slipping over her features. “Um. Troy, I don’t think that’s what happened.”
“Sure it is.” Troy looked to Annie, who glanced at the other study group members wildly, shaking her head. “You remember this from history class, right, Annie? We were supposed to watch a movie about it, but then the parents of half the class decided they didn’t want their kids watching reindeers in a blizzard battle to the death, and then the TV got stolen, which was crazy because it was one of those old ones and it was bolted to the wall and the ceiling because of the last time it was stolen-”
“Troy, sweetie, what are you talking about?” Shirley looked at the younger man with no little amount of concern.
“Oh, come on!” Troy shrugged. “You guys have to have heard about it! It’s like this big, famous thing in U.S. history: The Donder Party.”
“Don’t you mean the Donner Party?” Annie asked, an awkward smile on her face as she purposely avoided meeting Jeff’s eyes. (The current situation was hitting a little too close to home, given their discussion of Britta and Troy’s relative merits earlier in the evening.)
“That’s what I said.” Troy sighed in exasperation. “Except that’s the Americanization of their real name.” He looked to Jeff and shook his head as he chuckled. “The state of the education system in this country, amirite?”
***
Author: lapacifidora
Spoilers: Post-“The Politics of Human Sexuality”, AU after that
Rating/ Warnings: R for language, themes and implications. N for Not Safe for Work.
Word Count: 3,520 (4,970 total)
Disclaimers: Not mine. Although I think Dan Harmon knows this friend of mine and based Troy on her…
Author’s note: This is my poor attempt at a smutty sequel to
greta_garbo’s amazing fic, “Snowed In,” which I read and loved when I found this fandom. I only hope it meets with her approval. ***
Previously (Chapter 1)
***
Jeff froze, his mouth atop Annie’s, his eyes flying open and darting around in an attempt to meet what he imagined was her own, wide-eyed, slightly terrified gaze. He felt her hands clutch convulsively against the small of his back and his ass, grunting a little when he felt her fingernails dig into his skin. He pulled back slightly, disconnecting his mouth from hers.
“You heard that?” He whispered against her lips. He felt her nod, the cold tip of her nose brushing against his cheek and her moist breath warming a spot on his jaw. “The wind might’ve gotten in and caught the door.” He felt Annie’s fingers flex and rubbed what he hoped were reassuring circles against her scalp, tangling his fingers still further in her smooth, shiny hair. He started to lower his head back to hers when he heard Annie inhale sharply. Looking down, he saw her eyes darting back and forth as they stared up toward the ceiling and past his head.
It took him a moment to realize he could see Annie’s eyes when he hadn’t been able to before, which meant that there was light coming from somewhere in the room. He forced back a flinch and turned his head to the side, following Annie’s gaze to the library’s ceiling.
As he watched a flashlight beam sweep across the ceiling tiles and come to rest on a bookcase on the far side of the room, Jeff wondered if the girly little scream he choked off in his throat sounded as loud to Annie as it did to him.
***
Annie felt Jeff shudder against her as he made a weird gurgling noise, and, just for a moment, she worried that he was having a stroke and that she’d have to explain to the paramedics or his mom or her mom or someone that she’d killed Jeff Winger because she’d forced him to make out with her in the middle of a snowstorm that kept the ambulance from being able to reach them.
(Or, at least, that’s the reason she gave herself for why she slid the hand at the small of his back up the side of his rib cage, where she wormed it around to hold it over his heart.
It wasn’t because, somewhere between grabbing Jeff’s face and planting one on him to prove what nuclear bombs couldn’t and Jeff sliding a hand into her hair as he kissed her back in a pitch black library, Annie had decided there was nothing she liked as much the feel of his skin under her fingertips.
And it wasn’t because she was hoping that kissing her had quickened Jeff’s pulse as much as it had her own.
Nope: She was concerned for his health.)
She had licked her lips and taken a deep breath, trying to figure out how to ask Jeff to go see who or what was at the other end of the flashlight when two new voices rang out through the silence of the library.
“I think if we raid the lost and found box behind the circulation desk, we can use whatever we find to add to our provisions from the cafeteria.”
“It’ll be just like we’re in ‘Red Dawn,’ except there aren’t any Communists, none of us has a mullet and, for all intents and purposes, the U.S. government still exists.”
***
Jeff closed his eyes and buried his face in Annie’s neck, mentally running through his entire vocabulary of foul language and hoping that when he looked up again, he wouldn’t see a flashlight beam with, at the very least, Britta and Abed at the other end. He started in surprise when she ran a hand tentatively through his hair, then nuzzled her neck and smiled slightly when he felt her lips brush against his cheekbone.
However, when he pulled back and glanced up at the ceiling again, there was still a glow from the far end of the room indicating their friends were still in the library. He took a deep breath and untangled the hand he’d wound through Annie’s hair and gave her an apologetic smile when he removed his other hand from between her legs, unable to keep it from turning into a smirk when she pouted. He pressed his lips to hers briefly and patted her stomach before carefully moving off her and returning to the floor. Putting one finger to his mouth, Jeff mimed ‘go to sleep’ and placed his head on the cushion by her knees, slowing his own breathing and letting his mouth gape open a little.
***
Annie wasn’t sure what was worse: Being caught dry humping Jeff in the library by their friends or dying of sexual frustration.
(She tensed as she felt his head move closer to her leg, and decided she’d rather have been caught by their friends.)
Still, she tried to focus on breathing evenly and tucked her hands – cold now that they weren’t pressed against Jeff’s skin – under her arms.
“Dude.” The sound of rustling fabric from nearby made Annie tense for a moment before she remembered she was supposed to be asleep. “Looks like we lucked out and some poor bastards left without their coats.”
“Oh, those poor dears.”
“Let me see those.”
“No! You’re just going to hog them all, like you tried to hog the Skittles.”
“I could buy the company that makes Skittles: Why would I hog them?”
“I dunno. Because you’re a hogger?”
“You guys, hold on.” More fabric rustling and the soft thumps of several things dropping against the table made Annie hold her breath for a moment. “Don’t you recognize these?”
“I feel a plot twist coming.”
“They do look familiar. That looks like Annie’s coat-”
“Yeah. And this looks like Jeff’s jacket.” Silence followed that comment, and Annie prepared herself, drawing some strength from the weight of Jeff’s head against her knee.
***
Jeff had never liked people watching him while he slept: It was creepy and weird and usually inappropriate and creepy.
(He briefly wondered if the second creepy was warranted, then remembered he was at Greendale: It was always warranted.)
But he supposed if it came down to being caught necking with Annie like a horny teenager and being caught ‘sleeping’ with his head awkwardly bent to rest on the couch, he’d take the awkwardness of the couch over the awkwardness of explaining why he had his hands all over the girl who couldn’t legally drink yet.
A hand came to rest on his shoulder and shook him gently.
“Jeff?” Shirley’s voice was quiet, and Jeff imagined it was the same one she used to wake her own sons in the morning. “Jeffrey, it’s time to wake up.”
“They’re probably hypothermic.” Pierce scoffed, and Jeff had only Britta’s indignant squeak as a warning before the older man was yelling in his ear. “WINGER! Wake up! Don’t go into the shiny, gay disco-ball light!”
***
Annie’s eyes shot open as Pierce yelled, but turned her surprise into a passable impersonation of waking up, yawning and rubbing at her eyes.
“What’s going on?” She propped herself up on one arm and ran a hand through her hair, hoping to tame some of the tangles she was sure Jeff had left earlier.
“Yay!” “Cool.” Troy and Abed bumped fists before Troy turned to glare at Pierce. “See? They’re not half-dead. You didn’t need to yell.”
“Annie, what are you doing here?” Britta sat down on a nearby chair, holding Annie’s coat out to her with a concerned look.
Annie took the coat from the blonde and glanced over at Jeff, who was slipping his own jacket on and accepting a scarf Shirley fished from the depths of her enormous purse. She swept a hand around her neck, under the collar of her coat, flipping the ends of her hair out and tucking it behind her ears.
“I was helping Jeff study for our Spanish exam.” Annie forced herself to yawn again and reached into her pockets for her gloves, surprised at how cold it had become in the library – and trying not to think about how she’d been keeping warm less than 10 minutes earlier. “By the time we realized how bad the storm was, we were trapped in here. We must have fallen asleep.” Annie widened her eyes and glanced around in false curiosity. “Did something happen to the lights?”
“Yeah. The power went out.” Troy shook his head. “First, Abed and me, we were playing ‘Mario Karts.’ And I was all like, ‘You’re going down, man!’ And he was all, ‘I think that remains to be seen.’ And I was all, ‘Who are you, man? Captain Picard?’ And he was all, ‘I think I’m more like Captain Janeway.’ And then I sort of accidentally on purpose drove my car into his, and they both kind of exploded, and then the power went out.” Troy paused and took a deep breath, somehow managing to look embarrassed while half-shrouded in shadows. “I kind of thought at first we made the power go out. But Britta explained that was silly because driving my car into Abed’s in a video game wouldn’t affect the real world.”
The rest of the group stared at Troy unblinkingly until Britta took a deep breath.
“Right! Anyways, we all got stuck here-”
“What were you doing here?” Annie tilted her head to one side, wondering how long she could keep the focus off her and Jeff having been alone together in the library for several hours.
“Um.” Britta blinked quickly. “I was…well…”
“Oh, for Pete’s sake.” Pierce huffed in annoyance. “I’m her ride to and from campus right now because little Miss Mother Earth had her oil changed by some hippy dippy mechanic, it turns out it wasn’t real oil and now her car is in the shop.” He folded his arms over his chest. “And I had a meeting with Dean Pelton about some marketing ideas, and Brittles had to wait for me to finish.”
“And I stayed late for the Black Professional and Entrepreneurial Students Association meeting,” Shirley said, tugging the fuzzy headband she was wearing down around her ears. “Except I had to step out to take a call from my sister, who’s watching the boys, and when I came back in, they’d all left because of the weather.” Shirley looked down at her hands and continued more quietly. “Only no one bothered to tell me, and I didn’t realize until I’d been there, alone, for twenty minutes. And by then I was stuck here.”
“So then how did you all find each other?” Jeff asked, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He bit back a comment about ‘freaks flocking together,’ which he knew he would’ve made even a few weeks ago.
“Troy and I went to the cafeteria to look for food.” Abed gestured between himself and Troy with his thumb. “That’s where we found Britta, who was waiting for Pierce.” He pointed at the blonde.
“And freezing.” Britta grumbled, pulling her light-weight coat closer around her.
“Right. Then Shirley called me to find out if she could stay in my room, and we talked her through the dark hallways until she reached the caf.”
“It was like a trust exercise.” Shirley raised an eyebrow as she stared at Troy. “Except I could hear someone in the background trying to convince Abed to send me to the gym instead.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Troy widened his eyes as he shrugged and looked around. “Whoa, I never realized how many books were in here…”
“It’s the library, Troy.” Britta gave him a skeptical look.
“Right.” Troy nodded. “Library. Books. Cool. So, what are we going to do now?”
***
After much debate (wherein Pierce advocated drawing up a lottery to determine who they would eat first if they were stuck there, and Jeff had to explain several times that it was a snow storm, not the apocalypse), the group decided to raid the library’s lost and found and the emergency kit, then hole up in their study room.
Abed and Shirley rationed out the food they’d collected from the cafeteria, and Annie, Britta and Troy collected cushions from couches in the library to make pallets.
(Jeff was elected to keep Pierce occupied making a sign to put in the exterior door so anyone coming in the morning to clean the sidewalks would know there were people inside.
Jeff tried to talk his way out his assignment, but shut up when he was reminded of lying about hanging out with Senor Chang.)
Annie and Britta were hauling a large cushion toward the study room when the blonde slumped back against the circulation desk and dropped her end, causing Annie to stumble.
“Sorry.” Britta reached behind her and clasped her hands, stretching her arms. “It’s heavier than it looks.”
“Oh.” Annie nodded in understanding, though her gaze kept drifting over Britta’s shoulder, toward the exterior doors where Jeff and Pierce appeared to be arguing over how to hang the sign. “That’s OK.” She looked back and realized the blonde’s eyes were focused on her. She swallowed and smiled brightly. “Ready?”
“Sure.” Britta picked up her end of the cushion again, and they continued toward the study room in silence for several feet. “Hey, Annie.”
“Hmm?”
“You know, if you’re ever stuck with Jeff, and you don’t know how to get out of it, you can always call me.” Britta gave Annie what she hoped was a sisterly smile. “I know you don’t like to be rude, but I know you were probably bored before we got here.”
“Oh.” Annie’s smile froze on her lips. “Um. Actually, it wasn’t that bad.”
“Right.” Britta scoffed as she tugged at her end of the cushion, which had caught on a lump in the carpet. She looked up when Annie didn’t respond and noticed that the younger woman’s face was mostly hidden by her hair. “Right. Well.” The blonde cleared her throat and wondered, for the first time since finding her friends in the library, exactly how they’d entertained themselves all evening. “The offer still stands. If you ever get stuck someplace, and you need an excuse to leave, you can always call or text me.” She chuckled awkwardly. “I can be rude enough for the both of us.”
“OK.” Annie nodded and glanced up, looking up fully and shaking her hair back from her face when she saw Britta’s suspicious expression. “Thanks.”
***
“Dude, we can’t build a fire in here!” Troy put his hands on his hips as he stood toe-to-toe with Pierce.
“Why not? It’s cold. Fire is hot.” Pierce threw his hands in the air in frustration before gesturing toward Annie, Britta and Shirley, who were helping Abed arrange the couch cushions into sleeping pallets. “After all, it’s not like any of the girls are going to offer to strip down and keep me warm.”
“WHAT?” Britta’s head snapped round to pin Pierce with a glare, her eyes narrowing even as her cheeks began to flush in rage.
“Pierce!” Jeff stepped between the two men, his goal no longer to keep Troy from hitting the older man but to keep the blonde from killing Pierce. “While I’m sure any of us would do whatever was necessary to keep everyone alive,” He raised his voice as Shirley scoffed and began muttering to herself, “don’t you think it’s a little sexist to count on one of our female friends to share body heat with us?”
“Look, Winger, what you do in the privacy of your own home – or bar bathroom stall or car or dirty alley or-”
“Get to the point, Pierce.” Jeff said, as he crossed his arms and grit his teeth.
“What you do on your own time is your business.” Pierce replied, giving the younger man a condescending look. “And if your business is gay business where you cuddle up with other dudes, that is your business. But I’ll only be sharing body heat with a person who’s squishy in all the right places.”
“I’m going to kill him.” Britta began to remove her coat, her eyes ablaze. Annie and Abed stepped forward to pull her back.
“Who you callin’ ‘squishy,’ you self-righteous, bald old coot?” Shirley crossed the room to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Jeff, an expectant look on her face. Jeff glanced over at her and swallowed down his laughter before risking a glance over at Britta. The blonde was trying to shrug off the restraining hands of the two others, and Annie, as though sensing the weight of his gaze, raised her eyes to meet Jeff’s briefly.
“‘Squishy’ is a compliment!” Pierce exclaimed.
Jeff found his mouth suddenly dry as he forced his gaze away from Annie’s, remembering all too clearly how squishy some of her more interesting parts were. From the corner of his eye, he saw color rise in her cheeks before her head turned back to Britta, her hair swinging forward to hide her face.
“Dude, stop saying ‘squishy!’” Troy replied as he crossed his arms, mirroring Jeff’s stance unconsciously.
“I’ll say what I want!” Pierce shouted back hoarsely, his breath fogging briefly in the cold of the study room. “Squishy squishy squishy squishy SQUISHY!” The older man took a deep breath as he shouted the word, preparing to start again, but the breath was knocked out of him as a small chair cushion smacked him in the side of the head. Pierce stumbled a few steps, lifting a hand to his temple to fix his glasses and turned to look at his assailant. Shirley stood behind him, cushion dangling loosely from her hand while she stared at him in shock.
“I- I- I’m sorry. I don’t know what ca-”
“You wanna go, African Queen?” Pierce took a step toward one of the pile of cushions, reaching blindly for a weapon of his own.
“Oh.” Shirley blinked slowly before her mouth twisted in a snarl. “Oh. You did not just go there.” Her grip on the cushion tightened visibly, and she rolled her neck.
“Let’s go, Aunt Jemima.” Pierce stepped toward the petite woman, lifting a large cushion from the back of a couch.
“They. Call. Me. Mrs. Butterworth!” Shirley matched him step for step as they began to circle each other.
“The African Queen was a paddleboat.” Abed spoke quietly, his voice breaking the horrified silence the other four slipped into as the situation escalated.
“Pierce! Shirley.” Jeff shook his head as he stepped between them, raising his hands in a non-threatening manner. “Abed, as usual, is right. The last thing we need to d-” He was cut off abruptly when Pierce smacked him in the chest with the cushion. The force of the impact knocked the breath out of him, and he bent double for a minute, bracing himself on his knees. When he straightened, he glared at the older man but continued with his train of thought. “The last thing we need to do right now, trapped here, vulnerable, cold and tired, is turn on each other.”
“Yeah.” Troy piped up, nodding vigorously. “We read about a situation just like this. All these reindeer that got trapped up on a mountain pass in a blizzard and they turned on each other.” His eyes widened dramatically even as his voice dropped to a stage whisper. “And then they ate each other.”
“Well, if any of the ladies would like to eat m-”
“Pierce, don’t finish that sentence if you don’t want a sexual harassment suit in the morning.” Jeff spoke, closing his eyes and shaking his head before turning to Troy. “What are you talking about?”
“Yeah.” Britta, recovered from both her earlier rage and confusion, said, her normal knowing expression slipping over her features. “Um. Troy, I don’t think that’s what happened.”
“Sure it is.” Troy looked to Annie, who glanced at the other study group members wildly, shaking her head. “You remember this from history class, right, Annie? We were supposed to watch a movie about it, but then the parents of half the class decided they didn’t want their kids watching reindeers in a blizzard battle to the death, and then the TV got stolen, which was crazy because it was one of those old ones and it was bolted to the wall and the ceiling because of the last time it was stolen-”
“Troy, sweetie, what are you talking about?” Shirley looked at the younger man with no little amount of concern.
“Oh, come on!” Troy shrugged. “You guys have to have heard about it! It’s like this big, famous thing in U.S. history: The Donder Party.”
“Don’t you mean the Donner Party?” Annie asked, an awkward smile on her face as she purposely avoided meeting Jeff’s eyes. (The current situation was hitting a little too close to home, given their discussion of Britta and Troy’s relative merits earlier in the evening.)
“That’s what I said.” Troy sighed in exasperation. “Except that’s the Americanization of their real name.” He looked to Jeff and shook his head as he chuckled. “The state of the education system in this country, amirite?”
***
