Work Text:
Troy Barnes' first text message in almost a year arrived at exactly 8:03 on a Saturday morning. Abed should know, he picked it up almost immediately. It read as followed:
In a little port town! actual phone reception! will be back home in a week tops. u miss me?
Abed read the text message. And then he read it again, and again, until he had it memorised, and his hands were stiff from holding his phone and he couldn't seem to stop reading it over and over again, even though that weird static was building up in his head and he ended up kind of sliding down onto the floor, still reading and re-reading the text.
That was how Annie found him, crouched on the floor of the kitchen with his back against the counter, eyes still fixed on the phone. She said comforting words Abed didn't hear and, very carefully, she pulled the phone from his hands. The message slid from his vision, and he forced himself to look at Annie, who had a hesitant hand hovering over his shoulder. He nodded. Touching was ok. Annie seemed to let out a breath and started rubbing small circles on Abed's back, still using that soothing voice.
"What's happened? Can you tell me?"
Abed nodded, swallowing. "I got a message from Troy." His eyes flicked to his phone and Annie removed her hand from Abed's back in order to unlock the phone and read the message. Abed clocked her eye movements, knew when she had really finished reading it and when she was pretending to still read it to give herself thinking time. He didn't hold it against her. He needed thinking time sometimes too, and Annie was more subtle about it that he was.
“Abed, this is great news!' she said, voice bright. "We've still got his room ready and everything, he'll be able to move back in."
Abed considered her words, cocking his head to think. His initial reaction to Troy's return was panic, a panic that he was pushing back in an attempt to calm himself down. He was yet to identify the source of his panic, and while unidentified panic was often a sign of foreboding, he wasn't going to acknowledge it as such. "Everything will go back to the way it was." he said confidently.
Annie frowned, and stood up, holding out a hand for Abed. "Erm, no, quite a lot has changed."
Abed looked at her. "No it hasn't. We're still at Greendale, and live in the same apartment in the same bedrooms without a new roommate. Britta and Jeff aborted their plans of marriage when it became apparent that the Subway University arc wasn't our show's finale. You still hold an unrequited crush on Je-"
"Ok enough!" said Annie sharply. "Things have still changed."
"Like what?"
"Things!"
"What things?"
"I don't know. Things, Abed. You got a girlfriend, remember that?"
Abed nodded. He and Rachel had been a very successful relationship, but when Rachel had graduated at the end of the last semester their relationship had fizzled out into a narratively unsatisfying ending. "But we broke up."
Annie threw up her hands. "But it still happened! Just like Subway trying to take over Greendale still happened."
"I fail to see your logic."
Annie gave him a sad look that meant Abed probably wasn't understanding something that should be obvious. Or that she was sad about something else. Perhaps her crush on Jeff. "You know what, you're right Abed. Nothing much has changed with us. But Troy..." she trailed off. “I’m looking forward to seeing him. I'll send a mass text to everybody in the group."
Abed nodded and didn't ask who she meant by that. Their study group had evolved from a tight-knit Ragtag Bunch of Misfits to something a little wider, as it technically wasn't even a study group anymore. For all he knew, 'the group' now included Professor Duncan or Buzz Hickey. Asking her would make her frustrated, and he didn't like Annie when she was frustrated because she got shouty.
He continued making cereal and sat down in his favourite chair to eat it. He looked at his watch as he sat down. The time was now 8:24.
As he ate, he wondered what it would be like when Troy was back. Would they rearrange the furniture again? Would Troy still want to watch Inspector Spacetime with him?
Annie had wondered back into her room, but she appeared in the living room when Abed called for her. "Annie?"
"Yeah?" Annie's eyes were red.
"Will Troy still want to watch Inspector Spacetime with me?"
Annie made an aborted sobbing noise and rushed across the room, pulling him into a tight hug that was neither wanted nor unwanted. "Oh, Abed. I'm sure he'll still want to watch Inspector Spacetime with you. But- well, he might be different, is all." she pulled back and looked at him.
Abed ran that through his brain. "Ah," he said, bringing out the finger guns. "You think that since Troy has been on a Life Altering Road Trip he'll be a changed man because of it."
"Don't you?"
"I suppose so. It's possible a more thorough analysis of the road trip genre would be required before I can say for definite, however." he said.
Annie nodded. "You go do that, then. Tell me if you hear any more from Troy."
Once left fully alone with his thoughts, that weird bubble of panic rose up again. He attempted to clang his spoon more noisily on the bowl as a distraction, even tried tapping a beat with it. But making beat was less fun when there wasn't Troy to come in with a rhythm or spontaneous rap. Maybe Troy wouldn't want to rap anymore? Abed tried to ignore that panic, too.
He dumped his empty bowl and spoon into the sink with a clatter and knelt in front of the blu-ray/dvd shelves for either a road trip movie or season 21 of Inspector Spacetime.
Instead, he ended up sitting on his haunches staring at the titles of the meticulously ordered DVDs, but at the same time staring at nothing, seeing right past the DVDs to the blank wall. He couldn't figure out a logical reason for his panic, but there had to be one. Something he'd forgotten. Something crucial.
Of all the genres the group had explored, it had come to Abed's attention that they were generally more of a sit com format than anything else, occasionally diverting into non-typical action or pairing off into small romcom-style B-plots. In popular sitcoms or romance movies, what was a typical reaction to a friend returning from a long journey away (aside from the surprise party, which he felt the group had greatly overused over the years)? The answer come to him in an obvious moment as he stared at the season 1-10 boxset of Friends that his eyes had settled on while his brain had been elsewhere. In the season 1 finale, Ross returned from a trip abroad, and Rachel had bought flowers to profess her love for him.
It was a typical feature of romantic plots for person A to become unavailable through distance or a new significant other, and it is at this point person B realises how much person A means to them. Cue either a dramatic scene where person B reveals their feelings in some manner, or half a season’s worth of angst.
It seemed logical to Abed, then, that he should be arranging some kind of welcome for Troy to show how much his absence had been felt. After all, he doubted any member of the group had realised just how vital Troy was for their dynamic to work until he was gone. The romantic notions were, in this instance, unnecessary. He was relatively certain of this.
Surprise parties were off the table, overdone or not. Troy didn't like being frightened outside of horror movies, and even then he cried. Troy was likely to cry anyway, and Abed had often observed that Troy felt uncomfortable crying in front of people. Troy could not be made to feel uncomfortable, because then Abed would undoubtedly be a Bad Friend. So an immediate whole-group reunion wouldn’t work. The first time Abed saw Troy, they would have to be alone. Troy never felt uncomfortable crying in front of Abed, and Abed rarely felt uncomfortable when Troy cried.
A gift, or token of some kind, would be necessary. Troy would be inheriting a large amount upon his return home, as were the conditions of Pierce's will. Before leaving, Troy had assured him he had no desire to move into the old mansion the other man had died in, so Abed didn't have to worry there. But it did mean that material gifts lost value.
He tried to remember which gifts Rachel had liked when they were dating. He discovered early in their relationship she had enjoyed it when he played out scenes in romantic movies, mostly due to the feelings they implied. He couldn't summon rain, and a watering can didn't seem sufficient in this instance, so he thought of other typical gestures of affection.
Food? He used to buy Troy food all the time. Chocolates? Troy got stressed when he he couldn’t identify which flavours were which, and Abed got stressed when the descriptions of the chocolates were inaccurate and relied too heavily on adjectives. Rachel had bought Ross flowers on Friends. If it was a meeting between just the two of them, as previously considered, Troy would be unlikely to reject the flowers on the grounds of his masculinity.
At this point, he got up off the floor, talking the Friends boxset with him.
He didn't know what flowers to get Troy. He would ask the study group, he decided, skimming through Google results quickly on his phone and finding them insufficient. As long as he was vague, they'd be unlikely to jump to the conclusion that he was aiming to seek out Troy alone in order to express his emotions privately. It went outside his previously established character traits, which would prove useful for concealment.
Most of his weekend was spent re-watching Friends and ignoring Annie's rather pointed questions as to why he was doing so, and clearing the storage boxes and washing that had gathered on top of Troy's bed. It was still made (by Annie, the day Troy left) and had the same bedsheets Troy had been using before he went. The Troy-smell had completely faded, which made Abed sad. He hadn't noticed before, but he wasn't sure he could even remember what Troy's smell was.
"Maybe we should buy new sheets?" suggested Annie as she turned to survey the now-cleared bed where Abed sat. "Those ones are bound to be a bit stale by now, wouldn't you say?"
"I suppose we could wash them." Said Abed, reluctant to change anything. He got of the bed and stood to the side, watching Annie strip the sheets rather than helping her do so. He blinked as the duvet cover was removed and the pillow cases stripped from the pillows. For the first time he wondered if his instance to remain in the pillow fort in Troy's absence had more to do with wanting his room to remain untouched than his love of the soft fort or the possibility of a new roommate. (Not that he and Annie had discussed that again since the night with Rachel and Annie’s brother and the VHS game that had proven very enjoyable once they understood the rules.)
"Hey... uh, Abed?" Annie's voice was hesitant. "Do you know what this is?" She was pulling something from inside one of the pillow cases as she spoke. It was a crumpled piece of card, and Abed recognised it immediately.
"It's Troy's ticket for the Inspector Spacetime convention." said Abed. "It's not important. Give it to me." he held out his hand.
Annie gingerly placed it in his open palm. "I could just bin it."
"No." said Abed, turning away from Annie and exiting Troy's room entirely, moving over to the pillow fort and sitting down on on the bottom bunk. He turned the ticket over in his hands, smoothing it out on the palm. In Abed's hand writing were the words "Troy and Abed friends forever". He remembered writing them. He'd asked for Troy's ticket, claiming he need to check it for something, and borrowed Britta's pen to write it. She'd told him all about how jealous Troy had been acting about the minute Troy went to the bathroom. She'd suggested, using her therapist-voice, that perhaps he needed reminding how important he was to Abed. Sure Troy wouldn't appreciate such a sentimental gesture with his girlfriend present, he had written it on the ticket instead. Troy had never bought it up, so Abed assumed he'd never noticed.
But Troy had noticed, so much so that he'd kept it under his pillow, and that caused a surge of affection and need in Abed, the kind he hadn’t felt since… well, since Troy had been around. And it was enough to make him face it. Loosing Troy had hurt a lot, not only because Troy was his best friend, but because Troy looked after him.
He wasn’t going to rely on Troy as much anymore. And if the trope of road trip and coming of age comedies were to be believed, then Troy would be more independent and wouldn’t need Abed as much either. It was a scary thought made far less scary by the bent and crumpled card stock in his hands. Troy and Abed friends forever.
“Knock knock.” said Annie brightly from outside the fort.
“Oh, uh, come in.” said Abed, stuffing the ticket under his own pillow for no other reason than it felt like the right thing, theatrically, to do.
“Buttered noodles for tea?” asked Annie. Abed nodded, shooting finger guns at her and half-winking. Annie smiled, apparently satisfied he was back to normal, and left the fort. Abed followed her out.
He put on Friends as they ate in order to keep the conversation away from Troy. He’d had a small amount of written work to do over the weekend, along with helping Annie with Troy’s room, but he’d still managed to make it all the way through season one and had just started his rewatch of season 2. The relationship between Ross and Julie made Abed uncomfortable to watch, and it never had before. He blamed it on having used Ross and Rachel as an analogy for himself and Troy, which was foolish of him. Troy had very little in common with Ross and he had even less in common with Rachel, and Troy was not going to return to Greendale with a new best friend in tow.
“Do you still think you and I are the Chandler and Phoebe of the group?” asked Annie suddenly, referencing Abed’s comment from several years ago. “Friends who don’t get storylines together?”
Abed shook his head, eyes still on the screen, and Annie made a contented noise. “I’m guessing you and Troy are Chandler and Joey, right?”
Inwardly frustrated at Troy being bought up despite his best efforts to avoid thinking about him, he nodded. “I suppose our relationship would be best considered a ‘bromance’, although that term has been bastardised somewhat recently.” He considered adding something about how ‘bromances’ were often thinly veiled queerbating, but resisted. He wondered if, in the TV version of his life, he and Troy would be considered queerbating. And if so, whether it would still be queerbating if one of the two (Abed) was bisexual?
He and Annie drove to school together and entered the study room at the same time, but it was to Abed they all turned to direct their questions about Troy's return. "Annie says Troy should be back in a week - is that true?" asked Shirley hopefully. Abed nodded.
"Got anything more specific than that?" asked Jeff, his eyes glued to the phone they all knew he wasn't actually texting anybody with.
"No. Just one text message, but once he's on land again properly he'll probably send more."
"Abed and I have been making his room up again." said Annie with excitement.
"I thought he was moving into Pierce's old place?" asked Britta, gesturing with her pen as she spoke, 'You know, because of the inheritance stuff."
Annie went about explaining how that wasn't the case, and how they were all going to have to help Troy sort through the place before selling it, which was met with universal groans around the table.
"It's the least we could do for him. And for Pierce." said Annie, and the group seemed to quiet down. When it became apparent nobody else was going to start speaking, Abed closed his book to get the group's attention.
"Britta, you're good with flowers."
Britta shrugged. Abed took that as reluctant agreement and continued, "Can you help me pick some out?"
Annie’s forehead puckered. ”Who're the flowers for?"
He blinked. "No comment."
"Have you met a girl you like?" asked Shirley in a sing-song voice, leaning forward to look him over, as though there’d be visible signs if he had. Abed shook his head.
"No, they're for a man."
"Oh," said Shirley, taking her hands of the table and smoothing her skirt, "Well, while Jesus did claim to love all, are you sure-"
"Shirley, Abed's not gay." said Britta fiercely, then looked at him. "Unless you are, in which case I am totally supportive. Like 100% here for you.”
"Thank you." said Abed. "But I'm not gay. I like men and women."
There was a pause, and then Britta spoke again, her voice hysterical. "You never said that before!"
Abed found himself painfully aware of the lack of unintentionally offensive comments coming from the chair now occupied by Buzz Hickey.
"It wasn't plot relevant." he said.
"And what, it is now?" asked Britta. Abed waggled his eyebrows conspiratorially, enjoying the reaction from the rest of the group. Somehow, that piece of information about himself seemed more relevant than it did before, but he was unsure why.
"Leave the guy alone." said Jeff, and the group fell silent. "He was asking about flowers.”
"Well, Abed," said Britta, leaning across the table in his direction. "I would be happy to help you get flowers for this mystery man. Can you give me any details about him?"
"No." said Abed with certainty. The plan remained intact, even if the group were mistakenly thinking this was romantic, and conversation moved on.
Only Annie was still looking at him funny, and she cornered him when they were leaving the study room. "Abed, are these flowers for Troy, by any chance?"
"Yes." He hated lying directly.
"Aww, Abed!" said Annie, bouncing on her toes. "That's so sweet."
"It's a gesture of friendship."
"Just friendship?" asked Annie, raising her eyebrows. "Because I get the impression you wouldn't be getting flowers if it were Jeff or Shirley coming back from a year-long trip."
"Best friendship, then." said Abed.
"Ok." said Annie, hoisting her bag a little higher on her shoulder and still giving him that funny look that he had trouble identifying the meaning of. "But you may want to think if that's really what's going on here."
"Friendship is what's going on here.” he clarified.
"But-" she took a breath. "All I'm saying is, maybe you've got feelings that you're not realising you're harbouring."
Abed cocked his head. "You mean romance, but that's impossible. I already examined the situation, Troy and I have a bromance. Bromances almost never slip over into the typical romance category."
"But this isn't TV Abed."
"I know that." Why did people keep saying that to him? "But TV mimics life."
"TV mimics what it thinks the viewers and the station want." said Annie, and that pulled Abed up short. "And screw the station, this viewer wants you and Troy to be happy."
And with that Annie vanished, leaving Abed awkwardly standing in the middle of the library while the bell rang, wondering whether Annie was on to something.
He had a free period, so he settled down on one of the computer chairs and tried to really analyse his relationship with Troy, as per Annie's request. Why had romantic couples been his first point of reference? Why didn't his thoughts go to Chandler and Joey, or JD and Turk? Annie had effectively told him not to to think about this in TV terms, but he was doing so anyway. Why did he think Rachel and Ross?
And he'd wanted to get Troy flowers. And be alone with him when he did it. How did he want that situation to play out, in a perfect world, if he acquired the perfect flowers with Britta's help?
He'd meet Troy of his boat and presumably they'd hug, and it'd be long and warm because Troy didn't do back-patting no-homo hugs when Abed was concerned. And then Abed would give him the flowers, and Troy would start crying if he wasn't already, and thank him, and then he'd... he'd kiss him. Abed would like that, he thought, to be kissed by Troy. Or to kiss Troy.
Oh. Abed was pretty sure his mouth was hanging open. He replayed the scene in various ways in his head, but he couldn't see a perfect situation that didn't end with one of them kissing the other. Kissing was definitely not a feature of a bromance. Annie had been right.
He was in love with Troy. It had to be love, because Abed didn't do things by half and Troy was Troy. You couldn't just be in like with Troy.
He didn't get anything done all free period, or all day. He was floating. Very happily floating on a cloud of realised emotions. Annie spotted his big-for-Abed smile and smirked at him, but didn't comment further. Now it was just a matter of floating it out until Troy eventually returned home.
Another text on Friday at 7:21 pm. This one read:
Back on the road, caught up in heavy traffic. Will be home Saturday evening! Meet u outside Greendale.
Outside Greendale was unacceptable under normal circumstances, but perhaps it would be empty enough that evening that he'd get his moment alone. He didn't share the location mentioned in the text with anyone, not even Annie, in case they tried to tag along.
Britta had reluctantly given him flower advice, and a pretty bouquet of somethings was sitting in water on his dresser. Annie had done that knowing smirky thing when she saw them, but again she didn't comment.
Saturday was a big ball of nerves and waiting until he got another text.
at greendale in half an hour. Meet me there? ;)
Abed didn't read into the emoticon, as they weren't uncommon in Troy's written communication. Instead, he put on his nicest cardigan and picked up the bouquet and left, not saying a word to Annie. If she realised where he was going, she didn't try to follow him.
Abed felt as though time could not go any slower. The longer he stood outside Greendale, the more he started second-guessing his whole plan.
The car carrying the boat rolled up to the school, and suddenly he could see Troy waving through the window, and butterflies rose in his chest. No, not butterflies, but elephants, trampling his chest and squashing his organs, His knees even felt weak, and he wondered if that made him the damsel in this situation. Was Troy the hero, back from a daring quest? No, that was far too basic a narrative structure for their relationship. He expelled the thought from his head.
Then, before the engine had even cut out, the door was being flung open and Troy's head appeared. He was grinning. "Abed!"
"Troy!" Troy clambered from the boat, a bag slung over his shoulder. He pulled Abed into a rib-crushing hug, and Abed clung tight. "I've missed you, man."
"I've missed you too."
He pulled back, and they touched hands and bumped their chests automatically. It had been a long time since Abed had done that handshake. "Are those for me?" he asked, gesturing to the flowers.
"Yes." said Abed, holding them out in front of himself. "I had Britta help arrange them."
"Awesome." said Troy, taking them from him and stiffing them deeply. He was still grinning from ear to ear, and Abed was vaguely aware he was doing the same. "Where's everybody else?"
"I came alone." Troy looked a little disappointed, and Abed immediately wondered if his actions were selfish. "They'll meet us back at the apartment." he said, and Troy hugged him tight again.
"I have so many stories to tell you, man. I bet they'd make great movies, actually. You still do that, right?"
"Make movies? Of course. Why- why would I stop making movies?"
'No idea." Troy was still grinning, but Abed's cheeks were starting to ache and his smile fell slightly. Troy wasn't crying, or kissing him, an this didn't really resemble any reunion from any movie. "You got the car?"
Abed nodded. It was Annie's car, technically, but all three of them drove it. Troy returned to the boat to say his goodbyes to Levar Burton and was back minutes later with another duffle bag. While he was gone, Abed texted Annie telling her he was with Troy and to invite the group round to meet them at the apartment. ”Can you carry this?" he said to Abed, who took it obediently and started to walk with Troy to the car.
"I'm so hyped to see everyone." Troy said, "What have I missed?"
Abed didn't even know where to start. "Season 52 of Inspector Spacetime."
Troy didn't even react to to that, throwing his bags into the boot of the car and getting in the passenger side. "No, with Greendale."
"Oh." Obviously, Troy would be more interested in that. "Well, it was almost bought by Subway, but we saved it by finding buried treasure and the original founder of the school who'd been underground Greendale in a closed-off computer lab since the 70s."
Troy whined. "I missed buried treasure?"
"It was cool.” he said simply. No doubt the others would elaborate later.
"Anything else? What's been up with the group?" asked Troy, as he did up his seatbelt and Abed put the keys in the ignition.
Abed thought of which relationships would be of most interest to Troy. He had dated Britta, so there was somewhere to start. "Britta and Jeff tried to get married in a classic end-of-season panic."
Abed waited for some noise of upset, but there was none. Good. Troy didn't seem to regret breaking up with Britta. "Annie has a secret crush on Jeff."
Troy snorted, but gave no comment other than "Anything else?"
Abed wasn't sure if there was anything else. He knew very little of what went on in the group’s lives, as he tended to let their relationship talk fade to background noise. But Troy's questions were an attempt to feel included, he realised that. He could, perhaps, mention his own relationships. He remembered those.
"I got a girlfriend."
Troy let out a strangled noise, and Abed glanced at him. "Go on." said Troy, his hand over his mouth and his voice a fraction too high.
"But we broke up after she graduated."
"That's rough, buddy."
Abed shook his head. "It was for the best." he said, still looking at the road. The words were basically empty, but they said them a lot in movies.
"Who was it?" Asked Troy, his voice still all strange.
"Rachel."
"Did I know her?"
"Not really."
"Oh."
There was quiet, and Abed wondered why that would upset Troy. It wasn't even a current thing. There was a sniffing sound, and Abed glanced at the passenger seat again. Troy was crying, only Abed wasn't sure he understood the reason.
"Are you crying because you find my having a girlfriend distressing?"
"No." said Troy, his voice thick. "I'm not crying."
"Yes you are."
"Ok, fine. I'm sad because I missed your first girlfriend."
"That doesn't feel like sufficient emotional stimulus."
"And I missed Britta and Jeff going crazy and the school almost being sold to Subway. That's sad."
"You regret leaving." said Abed, muddled.
"No. It's just that I missed a-" he gulped for air, "-whole year."
"A year and two months." Clarified Abed, which just made Troy sob harder.
Abed felt a new desire to comfort Troy. In the past, he'd always just let the man cry it out, but now he felt an urge to reach out and touch him, comfort him in some way. But his hands remained firmly on the steering wheel as Troy sniffed himself back to normal and they pulled up outside the apartment block.
Abed let them into the apartment where, as promised, Jeff, Britta, Annie and Shirley (along with Chang) all waited for him. "Surprise?" said Annie, shooting Abed a you're-in-trouble look.
At that, Troy immediately burst into big, proper tears and there was a chorus of "awwws" as everybody in the room moved forward to envelop their missing family member into a huge group hug.
There was a distinct party atmosphere reminiscent of their flat-warming dinner but without any dice or alternate timelines. Britta and Annie danced and Shirley made brownies that they all ate. Troy didn't stop grinning all night and Abed didn't leave his side, even when the conversations going on around him held no relevance to his interests. Troy told them stories of his time travelling and Abed laughed in all the right places, but mostly all he wanted to do was stare at Troy. Which he did, so much so, in fact, that he had to be prompted to talk.
It was past midnight when the group left (or most did, Britta was passed out on the couch, sound asleep, and nobody had the heart to wake her). Annie started tiding, but they hadn't really made all that much mess, and Troy yawned. "I'm exhausted. Guessing I'm in the pillow fort?" he asked.
"No," said Annie, "You're in your room."
"That's still mine?" asked Troy, gesturing to the door that once lead to the Dreamatorium. "I figured Abed would take it once I was gone."
"I found a pillow fort to be superior." said Abed. He hesitated, "Also, it felt wrong to move into your room."
Troy seemed to be the verge of saying something, but he swallowed his words. "That's- that was nice of you." he swallowed again, and his next words were spoken very fast, “Abed-I-need-to-talk-to-you-now.” He grabbed his arm and pulled him into his bedroom, slamming the door shut behind them.
"Troy, what-" Abed was cut off when Troy pulled him into another even tighter hug that lasted significantly longer than the last, and wasn't hindered by the heavy bag on his shoulder.
"I have missed you so much. I can't even-" Troy took a deep breath, and pulled away, one hand still on Abed's shoulder. "I'm sorry about how I left. I want you to know, this is real Troy speaking, not his clone."
"I haven't been clone Abed for a while now." said Abed. He hadn't even realised he'd switched back.
Troy nodded. "Ok. Good. So this is from real Troy to real Abed. Please don't freak out or anything, but I gotta get this off my chest. I missed you. A lot."
Abed blinked. "Why would that freak me out?"
"I missed you so much I felt sick, Abed." he paused. "That may have been the water, thinking about it." he shook his head. "No, I missed you, like this deep homesickness and at first I understand it, but by the end of the third month I figured it out." He paused. "Then I realised that wasn't it and by the end of the fifth month I'd figured it out for real."
Abed didn't say anything, because this felt significant and he didn't want to ruin it with the wrong dialogue. They were still standing by the door, and Troy hadn't moved back after hugging him, a hand still on his shoulder. When it became apparent Troy wasn't continuing without his input, Abed said, in a voice unlike his own, "What did you figure out?"
"I don't ever want to spend time way from you. I talked to Levar about it and he said I might actually be in love with you-"
Abed kissed him. A tiny kiss, a barely-even-a-kiss, the smallest peck of lips, pulling his face away super fast.
Troy blinked. "Oh."
"Um." Said Abed, trying to move away from the door and give Troy space, but the hand on his shoulder held him tight. Troy said nothing for what felt like a very long time, his eyes wide in almost comical shock. "I'm sorry. It seemed like an appropriate moment to initiate a kiss."
"Is it an appropriate moment to initiate a kiss now?" asked Troy, his gaze faraway.
"I guess it could be." said Abed, and Troy's eyes focused on him. "No, wait, it is. Definitely."
Troy lifted his hand from Abed's shoulder and it hovered in the air for a moment before he placed it there again, and rested his other hand on his other shoulder and, very carefully, infuriatingly slowly, leaned towards Abed. Abed leaned forwards to close the distance, anxious to try kissing him again, properly this time, and then they were kissing.
It lasted while, and it was like an explosion in Abed's brain. He didn't know what to do with his hands, he waved them randomly a moment before letting them rest on Troy's chest, and then Troy was smiling into the kiss, and there's only so much you can smile before you're not even kissing anymore and Troy reached it fast and started giggling, not moving away from Abed's lips. “So you felt like that too?" he mumbled.
"Yes." said Abed.
"Good." said Troy, kissing him again. Just a peck, something chaste. And well, Abed didn't quite understand that considering how he was already conveniently backed against a wall and the room had a bed and if this were a movie they'd be making out by now.
He pulled Troy closer to him, his hands fisted in his shirt, and kissed him furiously, with far more passion than he'd ever really kissed with when he was being Abed. Because this was real Abed kissing real Troy, and he wasn't going to ruin it by being Hans Solo or even Evil Abed, because he knew Troy would know the difference.
Troy responded with vigour as their mouths collided and their lips moved against each other, crowding Abed even closer against the door. Then the door opened and Abed stumbled backwards straight into Annie.
"I knew it!" she said triumphantly. Then she actually seemed to realise what she'd walked in on. "Sorry. I'll leave you to it."
Troy was blushing furiously. "No, uh, you don't have to, we were just-"
“Making out against a closed door." said Annie. "I get it, it's fine. Please don't have loud sex when I'm next door, though, okay?"
Troy opened his mouth to make some kind of excuse, but Abed said, "Cool." and shut the door again.
"Dude!" said Troy.
"What?" said Abed, looking at him steadily. "Annie has given us permission to continue kissing. I plan to do so."
"Yeah." said Troy. "Yeah, ok. But I'm really sleepy."
"Sleepover?" asked Abed, nodding to the bed. It was a sign of their friendship that Troy knew that wasn't an innuendo.
"Yeah." he said, "That'll work."
"Cool." said Abed, one hand on the doorknob so he could retrieve his pyjamas. "Cool cool cool. I just got you back, I'm not letting you leave my sight tonight."