Work Text:
“No way is that a thing,” Jeff grumbles from where he sits, arms crossed as always, in his standard spot at the Save Greendale table. The Dean stands behind him, broadcasting yet another crazy scheme. This week's model is the ‘bring your spouse-slash-partner to work-slash-school day,’ also known as ‘BYSSP 2 WSS’—christened by the Dean. “Besides, even if it was, it’s a meaningless concept, created so people can snoop on and gossip about their coworkers without having to be sneaky about it.”
“Alright Jeffery,” Dean Craig Pelton says, pulling away slightly (though his hand stays clasped on the other man’s shoulder), “a simple ‘no’ would suffice. But I’m just saying, after everything we’ve been through this year—”
“It’s September, and all we did was loose a competition—”
“Which lost us money, Jeffrey, keep up, please. Anyway, after everything we’ve been through this year, I was thinking we could have a day where we all let-loose and get to know each other. Won’t it be fun!” He jumps up and down, clapping his hands while Frankie and Jeff have a little but very animated non-verbal conversation across the table. “Come on, don’t make me do this without you.”
He sighs. Of course Frankie wants him to agree. But he won’t cave in to her, not this time. “You’re going to have to, Dean, because I’m not agreeing to this.”
“I’ll give you some time to think about it—”
“I just said I’m sure—”
“—and you can come talk to me in my office at the end of the day, when you’ve made up your mind.”
“But I have made up my mind!”
“See you at the end of the day!”
Frankie tracks him down after the first class, and when Jeff makes eye contact, he immediately turns around. Not quite fast enough, it seems, since Frankie steps in front of him, arm clutching her binder, eyes steely and confident. “Whatever you’re going to say, Frankie, my answer is still going to be no.”
“Jeff, you know without your agreement, Craig won’t pull through with this—”
“—mm, yeah. A large reason I’m giving you an emphatic no—”
“But, listen to me, but if he doesn’t do this, he’ll do something much more drastic.” He moves to walk around her, but she shoves him particularly hard in her chest. “Jeff, his behaviour is self-destructive, and you know that if his first idea doesn’t play out, the next one will be more dangerous, not to mention cost us more money. Come on, you know he—for whatever reason—is incredibly dependent on you of all people. Suck up your pride and think about Greendale.”
On that note, she turns, making her hair swish behind her—she’d cut it a little after she and Annie got married (which had, at the time, made Jeff hope she was going butch because it’s kind of strange that Annie is the one who wears pants everyday)—and leaves him to think about all she said. As he makes his way back to his classroom, sighing, he can’t believe she’s made him somehow consider it.
“Goddamnit Frankie.”
Shirley doesn’t find him. She just catches his eye from her little sandwich-cafe-place, and makes increasingly rigorous motions for him to go there that he worries for the arms in her sockets if he doesn’t.
“Yes, Shirley,” he drawls, leaning over the counter, “how can I help you?”
“Oh,” Shirley croons with an overly sweet smile on her face, and Jeff instantly knows she definitely wants something, “I don’t need your help, Jeff. I just wanted to hang out with you. You know, like friends do. We haven’t really been hanging out for a while, and I just wanted to get to know that head of yours better. As friends do.”
Jeff rolls his eyes at her, refusing to encourage her beating-around-the-bush. “You want to ask me why I’m against the ‘BYSSP 2 WSS ’ Day.”
“Now that you mention it, I am curious about why you would be opposed to such a… sweet sentimental day.”
“I already told you why,” he sighs, crossing his arms and leaning against the cashier counter. “It’s a stupid way to spy on Greendale. Which is probably why you’re so for it.”
The woman scrunches up her face in offence, giving him what he expects is what passes for a scoff in Shirley’s version of life. “No! I just wanted a chance to bring my Andre to work, show him everything I’ve been working on… And if I do get to see the relationships of people I work with, well that’s just an added bonus.”
“Sure it is. You do realise that if this goes through, and this actually happens, Frankie’s gonna bring her wife. And you’ll get to find out how outrageously non-heterosexual this entire school actually is. Even considering the Dean.”
“Oh, Jeffrey. I’ve made my peace with that a long time ago. If people want to go live… alternative lifestyles, it’s not in my place to judge; it’s God’s. And anyway, I’ll get to see Annie again.”
“You saw her last week, Shirley.”
Shirley smiles happily, “I know.” Then she looks up at the man standing stiffly next to her, and sighs. “You know, Jeff, you don’t have to feel bad because you’re not married—”
“What? Shirley I don’t feel bad—”
“Well, whatever it is you’re feeling, you don’t have to feel it. We’re not leaving you out just because we’ve gotten our happy ending and you haven’t, and we’re not going to leave you. I came back, remember. Frankie and Dean are definitely here to stay, and Britta and Abed and Troy and Annie always come to visit. You don’t have to worry about being alone… We’re your family.”
Oh.
---
Maybe he cried about what she’d said after brushing it off and finding his way to the nearest bathroom stall. But if he did, it was just a little. Besides, even if he did cry for half an hour—which he still isn’t admitting, by the way (just the thought of what it’ll do to Shirley’s ego makes him shudder)—he still won’t change his mind. Nope.
This is what he tells himself as he walks to Craig’s office, a strong resolve and definite ‘no’ on his lips, but as he opens the door, he realises this is gonna be way more difficult than anticipated. Dean Craig Pelton sits in his chair with the most hopeful, childish grin on his face, and Jeff is reminded of what Frankie said about him being self-destructive.
Screw you, Frankie.
Needless to say, what comes out of his mouth is most definitely not a ‘no.’
----
‘BYSSP 2 WSS ’ is set a week later, when everything has calmed down and Craig deems it enough time for them to ‘prepare to present themselves as a couple.’ Oh yeah, that’s the other thing: the Dean has somehow (with the promise of a skipped day and slight raise, but that's off the record) roped him into being his ‘spouse’ for the entire day.
Frankie found it quite amusing when he told her.
(“So you said yes, right?” She asks over the phone.
“Ugh. Yes.”
“Ha. I knew it, Jeff, there is some good in you yet.”
“Stop that, you sound like Abed…” They both laugh in a sad, bittersweet way. “And, there’s another thing…”
“What is it?”
“I… have to be his husband for the day.”
A pause. Something that sounds suspiciously like Frankie telling Annie, and then something else that sounds suspiciously like a snort of laughter and Annie laughing hysterically. Jeff hangs up.)
Frankie doesn’t look so amused now, however, and Jeff smirks. Karma is a bitch.
“What’s the matter, Frankie?” He taunts, “Day not working out like you planned? Serves you right for agreeing to this bullshit.”
“Hey,” Annie almost-scolds, giving him one of her tamer glares with her big brown eyes, and continues in a haughty yet sweetly naive way. “I, for one, think it was a great idea… Just maybe not, you know, properly executed.” She looks to Frankie, who, Jeff realises as he looks at her too, is not paying attention and instead warily watching the people who walk past them, her hand protectively on Annie’s waist.
“What’s up with her?”
“I- Well… We’ve been… stalked, I think is the right word, by a horde of college freshmen. They think we’re cute.”
“That’s good… right? At least they're not homophobic.”
“It would be, yeah, if they weren’t so obsessive about it. It’s really starting to freak Frankie out, and she was already so worried about the whole thing last year. You know, when she was outed to the whole school and had a panic attack because she's never been comfortable with making her sexuality a statement.” Oh yeah. Jeff had kind of forgotten about that.
Still, he rolls his eyes at her blatant accusation towards him. “It can’t be that bad, right?” And Annie narrows her eyes at him.
“Oh yeah?” Pulling Frankie towards her, she places a chaste but intimate kiss on her wife’s lips, who, even while checking the walls for overenthusiastic freshmen, instantly returns the kiss. Her arms wrap around Annie’s waist, and as they pull away, the hands cupping the taller woman’s face go to play with the collar of Frankie’s blouse. The smiles on their faces are idiotically in love, and Jeff finds it sickening.
Though not as sickening as the cooing and fawning that comes out of seemingly nowhere. The sounds almost rival Shirley’s cutsey squeals of happiness (back in the glory days, Abed’s voice reminds him… or back maybe four hours ago when Anne and Shirley were reunited, he tells Abed’s voice back). A large gaggle of still-teenage college students surround the three of them all of a sudden, incessantly asking questions and talking over one another, and Jeff totally figures out what’s going on as he tries to breathe.
“So,” he says to Frankie later, as they discuss the events of the day, “it seems you have a cult of baby lesbians after you. Welcome to my world.”
“You have a cult of baby lesbians?” Chang asks in a way that immediately sounds gross, and Jeff doesn't want to think about it as he tries to stop the groan that ultimately makes its way through his lips.
“No that’s not what I— ugh. Nevermind.”
“They will go away, right?” Frankie says, in her earnest but somehow slightly, confidently stuck-up way. “They can’t follow me forever.” Jeff shakes his head.
“Sure they can.”
“I pray they all find God.”
“Shirley!”
“How did being married to the Dean go?” Jake Russel (the only remaining freshman applicant who passed the test of time and bat-shit crazy Greendale hijinks to stay in Save Greendale—plus, Craig had a massive bias towards him because he’s “African-American, Queer, and oh-so Attractive”).
Jeff waves a hand at him. “Not too bad. Everyone knows we’re not really together, anyway.” The Dean makes a sound and this, and Jeff raises an eyebrow at him. “What?”
The other man only shrugs in that annoying way he does, his head tilted the the side, and his hips swaying just a little. Jeff knows this stance. It's the one where he’s telling the person it’s directed at that he knows something you don’t, and that he’s going to be as shiteatingly annoying about it as humanly possible. “What?” He spits at him.
“Do they, Jeffery? Do they know we’re not together?”
He scoffs. “Of course. Right guys?” Craig only smirks at him. Jeff looks around at the table to find everyone averting their eyes. “Wait—”