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“You guys,” said Annie, sitting down at the study table and putting down her books, “I think we need to talk about Abed. He’s acting weird lately.”
Jeff barely glanced up from his phone. “Weirder than usual?” he asked, wincing as Britta kicked him under the table.
Annie glared at him. “Yes, weirder than usual. You guys have noticed it, right?”
There was silence then Jeff, Britta and Shirley all shook their heads. Annie rolled her eyes, and turned to Troy. “You’ve noticed it, right?”
Troy swallowed. “Uh, yeah?”
“Really? Or are you just saying that to make me happy?”
“To make you happy.” he mumbled.
Annie sighed. “Come on, I can’t have been the only one to notice it. He’s eating better, and he’s smiling like, all the time, for starters.”
Jeff actually did look up from his Blackberry this time. “Er, Annie, those are all good things.”
“No! You don’t-" she frowned. How best to explain this to a bunch of people who didn't live with Abed? Abed did routine, it was one of his Abed things. For him to change multiple parts of it at once was worrying. But if Troy didn't even understand, there was no way she'd make the rest of the study group get it. She shrugged. "It’s just weird.”
“Ok, I know you call me the downer, but seriously?" Said Britta, "Maybe Abed’s just happy. The infectious energy Troy’s been radiating with for the past few weeks was bound to rub off on him.”
Across the table, Troy made a point of smiling brightly. “Sorted. Abed’s happy. Can we study now?”
“But you don’t get it!" Said Annie, resisting the urge to stop her feet. "Troy, you must have noticed that he’s sleeping later, you live with us too.”
Troy shrugged. “Maybe he’s staying up late watching Inspector Spacetime, I don’t know.”
“But he’s always been an early riser!"
“Then recently he’s enjoying sleeping late.” said Shirley, “That’s not necessarily a sign anything’s wrong. Maybe our Abed is just growing up.”
Annie huffed, but conceded, opening up her biology textbook and slamming it on the table with unnecessary noise. Maybe she should bring up the buttered noodles thing. The whole group knew he ate nothing but buttered noodles, but recently he'd been eating all kinds of things. And it wasn't even at Annie's insistence, he just ate what Troy ate.
Abed entered before Annie could try again. “Hey guys.” he said, sitting down next to Troy and pulling out his books. “What’re we talking about? Where's Pierce?”
"He had a thing." Said Jeff, not looking up.
"And as for what we're talking about, we were discussing you.” said Britta. Annie shot her a furious glare that Britta ignored, and Troy held his book up in front of his face to shield himself from the conversation. “Annie thinks you’re acting differently,” continued Britta, transitioning into therapist-voice, “Has anything changed in the past few weeks you haven’t told us about?”
Abed looked thoughtful for a moment, then clicked his fingers. “Oh, yeah! I got a boyfriend.”
Troy dropped his textbook and it hit the table with a thunk. “Dude.” he said.
Abed looked around at the stunned faces around the table. “I wasn't supposed to say anything." Still silence. Annie's mind was racing. "Is this a big deal? When I dated Rachel it wasn’t a big deal.”
“Because Rachel was a girl.” said Jeff, saying what they were all thinking.
“Is this the part where I point out the hypocrisy of treating my relationship differently because it’s with a man?” Asked Abed, clasping his hands in front of him.
"No!" Said Britta, "No, no. Of course not, we’re cool with it. Right, guys?” she asked, glaring around the table.
Jeff nodded, as did Shirley, but her expression was pained. Abed's eyes fell on Annie, who immediately nodded and gave Abed her most accepting smile. Troy's book was in front of his eyes again.
“According to chick flick cliche, you’re all likely to want to question me about my relationship. If I could ask that you refrain from asking me who he is, that’d be appreciated, as our relationship is technically a secret.”
Troy snorted from behind his book.
“Why’s it secret?” asked Annie, “I can ask that, right?”
Abed’s eyebrows knitted together. "I'm not sure. I think he’s not entirely comfortable being in a gay relationship yet.”
“You deserve better.” said Britta immediately, her words full of misplaced indignation. "You need somebody who accepts you for who you are.” She slapped the table.”You need somebody who accepts themselves."
Troy shifted in his seat. He still hadn't said anything, which struck Annie as odd. Maybe he knew the man's identity. Or maybe he didn't, and he was mad at Abed because of it - after all, the two of them had a very strict "friends tell each other everything" rule.
Noticing Annie looking at him, Troy got up from the table. His voice was higher than usual when he spoke, "Hey Abed I'm really happy for you man, but I realised I have somewhere to be."
His bag caught on his seat as he tried to pick it up and he let out a frustrated noise, tugging it up and swinging it over his shoulder. "Bye guys." He said, his voice strangled.
The group watched him go, bemused, "I hope he's ok." said Shirley. "Troy can can be so sensitive."
Abed looked panicked. That is to say, Abed looked just like he did normally but his eyes were wider and he was twisting his hands on the table. "If it's ok with you guys, I need to follow Troy." He offered no further explanation as he collected his books and left, but no more was really needed. If Troy was upset, naturally it would be Abed who'd go find him, social skills be damned.
Once Abed was safely far away and probably out of the library, Annie put her hands on the table and leaned forward conspiratorially. "Operation 'find out who Abed's dating' is a go." she said.
Jeff sighed as Shirley and Britta both made excited noises. "Come on guys, let the poor guy have some privacy.” He said. Annie faltered for only a moment before she caught Britta’s eye.
"We're doing this because we care." said Britta. "We have to get it out in the open, it's eating Abed alive!"
"Weren't we just discussing how happy he was recently?"
Britta held up a hand. "Look deeper, Jeff."
Annie felt only a little guilty. Yeah, Abed should have privacy, but some things didn't add up right. If Abed had a boyfriend, why was he still spending so much time hanging around the apartment with her and Troy?
"I say we delegate jobs." She said. "Obviously, I'll be surveillance, since I live with Abed. I'll tell you any clues or suspicious activity that I notice. Britta, you work from a phycological angle, see if you can't get Abed to open up."
Britta pumped the air. "Yes! Therapist job! I won't let you down."
Annie looked a Shirley and chewed her tongue. "Shirl, are you sure you're ok with this? This is a guy that Abed's dating."
Shirley had a hard look on her face, but when she spoke it was in that sweet-and-careful voice of hers. "Abed is a good boy, and if he wants to date men then it is my duty as his friend and as a Christian to support that."
Annie blinked. "That is... surprisingly liberal of you, Shirley. Ok, you're good with gossip, you've got to ask around. But be discreet. You can do that, right?" Shirley nodded. Annie looked at Jeff. "You're not taking part?"
"Right. I've made it clear before how I don't think we should be interfering in Abed's love life." He paused. "Why can't you be cool, like me?" All three girls groaned, and Jeff spared a moment to look indignant before apparently deciding he didn’t care enough to say anything more.
"Fine. Well, lets make a list of Abed's male friends and see what we get." Annie said, pulling out a notebook and one of her purple pens and writing 'Abed's Male Friends' in big, round letters at the top of the page. She underlined it twice for good measure. "Well, there's Jeff and Troy, obviously." she said, writing those names down immediately. "It's good to be thorough. Who else?"
Silence. "Chang?" asked Britta hesitantly.
Jeff laughed. ”Off to a good start, guys." He said.
"Help us or shut up." said Annie sternly, feeling a thrill of pride when Jeff's mouth clamped shut.
Shirley supplied a few names of classmates she'd seen Abed talk to, and then Annie wrote down Professor Duncan and the Dean, just to be sure.(The idea of abed dating the Dean made her stomach turn.)
Nobody had any more names to suggest, so Annie put down her pen. Nobody on the list seemed particularly likely. ”So, of these people, who do we know to be interested in men, other than the Dean?"
Nobody else was, to their collected knowledge, and Jeff snorted. "Excellent detective work."
Annie ignored him, ripping the page out and handing it to Shirley. "Ok, so it's your job to dig out the dirt on if any of these people like men. Got it?"
Shirley nodded, giving a little clap. "Ooh, this will be fun. Care to join me, Jeffrey?" Jeff gave her a withering look.
The bell rang signalling the end of lunch, and the group packed up, Annie still going over the plans aloud. Jeff was the first out of the door, having not bothered to take out his books all lunch. Moments later, they all heard his triumphant "Ah-ha!"
"Guys," he called, "I've solved your little mystery."
The three of the them practically tore out of the study room and into the library, where Jeff was pointing at... Troy and Abed, sitting on the floor with their backs against the shelves.
Troy burst into tears, and Jeff retracted his finger as though burned.
Troy curled into Abed's side to cry, and Abed immediately wrapped his arms around the other man in almost uncharacteristically comforting gesture. "I told you to stay out of it." said Abed. His voice was calm, but he sounded... angry. And not acting-out--a-movie angry, but genuinely angry.
Jeff looked sheepish, and Annie always felt terrible when she saw Troy crying. Only Britta looked frustrated, terrible as she was at judging situations. "I don't get it."
Apparently, Jeff had thought better of sharing his discovery, and he said nothing.
Abed had started running hand through Troy’s hair while still glaring at Jeff and... Oh.
Oh.
Wow, they made terrible relationship detectives.
It was Shirley who spoke, looking at Abed and the still-sniffing Toy with kind eyes. “Abed,” she said, using her softest (and most cutesy) voice, “Are you and Troy…?”
Troy let out another sob, “YES, OK?” he half-wailed, earning them a shush from the librarian. He buried his face in Abed’s shoulder and any doubt as to Jeff's discovery vanished. "I didn't want to tell you guys so I told Abed it would be fun to keep it a secret for a while and then everything got intense."
“Aw!” said Annie, “You guys!” She crouched and held out her arms, and it was Troy who pulled her in, and suddenly the whole group converged in one awkward, half-sitting down group hug.
Troy sniffed himself to a stop, and looked at the group with watery eyes. “I love you guys."
Jeff sat down against the opposite set of shelves with Britta and Shirley, the emotion apparently too much for him, but Annie sat cross-legged directly in front of her boys.
Now she looked at their interaction, really looked at it, it made a ton of sense. The two of them had never exactly held back when it came to touches, but now they sat so close the entire side of their bodies were pressed against each other. Troy still leaned into Abed slightly, even if they’d repositioned themselves so he wasn't openly crying into Abed’s shoulder. His boyfriend’s shoulder. Ok, this would take some getting used to.
“Originally I embraced the situation as an opportunity to try out the secret relationship trope, but eventually the deception grew both difficult and tiring..." said Abed, looking into the distance for a moment. Annie just knew he was playing some kind of clip montage in his head, and she coughed politely. Abed snapped back. "While I found myself ultimately more happy in this relationship than out of it, I became frustrated. The lying became too much and, when the topic came up, I told you all half the truth."
He shrugged. "I should have known it would be out of character for you not to want to find out the rest."
“Sorry for keeping it secret.” said Troy. As if anybody was actually mad at him, the way he’d just been crying. “It wasn’t cool of me.”
“Wait,” said Britta, “How did Jeff find out?”
“He walked in on us kissing just now.” said Abed promptly. "Again, should have seen it coming."
“You were making out in the middle of the library. Not particularly subtle." Said Jeff. The entire group laughed at that, although Annie found it strangely difficult to picture her two friends actually kissing. She supposed now they’d be kissing around the apartment…
“Wait,” she said slowly, “If I live with you, how did I not know? You two barely leave the apartment.”
The two men spoke in unison. “The Dreamatorium.”
“Oh, gross, guys!"
Troy shrugged. “Anywhere we wanna go.”
And now Annie was kind of scared to enter that particular room ever again. And this was all right under her nose?
“Well, I’m glad we know.” said Shirley. “And since you two weren’t here to hear it earlier, Jesus says to love everybody, and it’s only his place pass judgement. So I’m… happy for you.”
“Thanks Shirley.” said Troy, smiling that little half-smile that meant he was being serious. Abed nodded solemnly. He still hadn't taken his arm from around Troy, which was actually kind of cute of him.
Jeff stood up. “As much as I love our group heart-to-hearts, I actually do have class now.”
“Oh crap.” said Britta, leaping up too. Everybody else followed suit, murmuring similar curses.
“Er, guys.” said Troy, just as they were about to leave the library. “Where’s Pierce?”
“He had a thing." said Jeff, shrugging. “I think he was going to try seducing that Home Ec professor with the huge eyebrows.”
“So Pierce doesn’t know yet.” said Troy, and Annie could tell he was going to enter panic mode again.
“I’ll tell him.” she said quickly. No need to make them sit through Pierce’s undoubtedly homophobic obliviousness, even if he had been much more accepting since the Hawthorne Wipes thing.
“Thanks Annie.” said Troy, looking relieved.
“Yeah, thanks Annie.” said Abed.
As the group dispersed, Annie realised Troy and Abed were holding hands. And it wasn’t weird. In fact, it made more sense than most things in Greendale ever did.