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Annie sighs, placing her now empty cup on the counter beside the sink. It’s dark, and the glass shines and glistens.
I’ll wash it tomorrow.
She rests against the counter, tugging the hair tie from her ponytail before tying it up again. The television in the living room is on (the light from it, flashing and shining, lit her way to the kitchen from her bedroom), and she assumes Abed is asleep on the sofa in front of it. It’s playing Inspector Spacetime. Annie recognises the exaggerated English accents, the sound of lasers being shot at tin. The volume is low.
Annie sighs again, closing her eyes and crossing her arms in front of herself, dropping her head.
It’s been quieter since Troy left.
(Abed is quieter since Troy left.)
She rubs her face, standing up straight and turning to leave the kitchen and shut off the tv. But when she looks into the living room, Abed isn’t asleep. He’s sitting up on the sofa, cross-legged with a blanket pulled around his shoulders. He’s holding it tightly, his fingers rubbing the fabric, and his eyes are shining, glazed, like he’s looking through the screen instead of at it. He doesn’t even look like he’s watching it. He looks like he’s just thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, with the television as background noise, as a distraction.
He looks lonely.
“Hey, Abed,” Annie says gently so she doesn’t startle him, but he startled anyway, looking at her. “Do you know what time it is?”
“Hi,” he responds, almost just whispering. “No, I uh… No.”
“It’s late,” she tells him. It was a little past midnight last she checked as she worked on her forensics essay. “Don’t you think you should go to bed?”
He stares at her, like he’s looking through her, like she’s another screen, before looking away.
“One more episode,” he says.
She pauses, watching as he turns back to the television.
“Hey,” she says after a few seconds. “I haven’t seen Rachel in a while, how’s she doing?”
“We broke up,” he says without hesitating, and she blinks, jerking her chin back in surprise.
“What?”
“Yeah.”
“But…” She shifts on her feet, wondering if she should sit next to him. “I thought you guys were really happy together, I thought you loved each other.”
“We did, it just… sort of fizzled.” He bites his lip, watching the Inspector pull a map out of his pocket, even though it looks too big too fit. “It just felt like we were going through the motions of a relationship. Going through tropes and dates because that’s what we were supposed to do. It didn’t feel like love love.”
“What… What does?”
He sighs, adjusting the blanket.
“It just feels different,” he says. His voice is stronger now. “Better.”
“Abed?”
“Yeah?”
“What’s it feel like to fall in love?”
After a second, he moves on the sofa, shifting closer to the armrest and gesturing subtly beside him. She sits, crossing her legs and facing him. Curious.
“It’s really nice,” he says softly. “It feels like coming home. They’re familiar. And comforting.”
Annie makes a mental note of Abed’s use of they’re, but stays quiet, listening intently.
“They’re safe. Like you can say or do anything and you know they won’t judge you or think you’re weird or want you to stop.” He speaks softly, like he’s forgotten he’s speaking to her, like he’s talking to himself.
“And you trust them,” he continues “Because you know they won’t hurt you. Because you know them and they know you.”
Annie doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t want to interrupt. So she looks away, letting him speak, listening and listening and thinking and thinking.
“And it doesn’t even matter if they don’t feel the same way, or if they don’t know how you feel, or if they could never feel the same way, or…” His voice breaks at never, trembling and snapping like a dry leaf. He shakes his head, furrowing his brows lightly. He’s looking through the screen again.
“Because just being with them is enough. Just being around them, just knowing that they’re there is enough. It’s okay if they don’t feel the same because just existing with them is enough. It’s like floating in the middle of the ocean.”
She looks back at him. His eyes are shinier than before. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“It’s so peaceful and welcoming and beautiful, but it… feels dangerous. Like at any second something might pull you under and drown you.”
He’s quiet.
She doesn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue, waiting for him to tell her something that will tell her yes, it’s exactly what you’re thinking, something that will confirm her suspicions about herself and him. But he doesn’t for a while, watching the screen.
“It sucks,” he says, and his voice cracks like he’s trying not to let it shatter. “It sucks, and I hate it.”
“Why?” she whispers. “It sounds beautiful.”
It does. It sounds amazing. And unfamiliar. She doesn’t think she’s ever felt it before, not with Jeff or Rich or Vaughn or any of the guys she liked in high school.
“It is,” he says. “It’s just… You can’t help it. When you fall there’s nothing you can do to catch yourself. You’re paralysed and you just have to hope for the best. Nothing hurts more than falling and just… crashing. Fucking face planting.”
Annie’s eyes widen. She doesn’t hear Abed talk like this often. He blinks and pulls the blanket tighter around himself.
“There’s nothing you can do,” he repeats softly. His voice becomes thick, softened with the tears flooding his eyes that won’t spill over. “Even when you try to ignore it and pretend it’s something different, something normal, it doesn’t change. And even though it sucks, it’s still beautiful and amazing, because you can just… You find them everywhere. They’re in everything that makes you happy, everything beautiful.”
Annie takes a deep breath, looking away, overwhelmed with realisations and realisations.
“And it sucks because it won’t leave you alone. They won’t leave you alone,” he says, and Annie wants to reach out and touch him. But she doesn’t. “Fucking everywhere. Everywhere I look,” he breathes, “he’s right there.”
Annie’s eyes swell, looking at the screen, and the colours blend and blur until her vision is a bleary mess of shifting blues and reds and shadows and light.
It makes sense.
The blanket from the fort, torn apart the day after Troy left, completely demolished while Annie was out, a pile of blankets and pillows and tape and ties and a melted Abed in the middle of it, curled into himself, clutching at the blue blanket, the same one that’s pulled around him right now.
The days and days Abed spent in the apartment, refusing to even get out of bed.
The red sweatshirt he wore for weeks until Annie convinced him to take it off long enough for her to wash it, and the way he cried when he got it back, murmuring that it smelled different.
The nonstop Inspector Spacetime on the television, playing and playing and playing even though it’s clear that Abed’s mind is miles and miles and miles away.
“Abed?” Annie asks softly, because he’s fallen silent and unmoving. He doesn’t respond, but his eyes shift from the television to the floor, still glassy and unfocused. He exhales, like he’s realised what he’s just told her. “Are you... Are you in love with Troy?”
It takes a few seconds, a few silent, empty seconds, and then he takes a deep, shuddering breath and nods so weakly he barely moves at all. And then he crumbles.
The tears finally fall and he leans toward Annie, turning his face into her when she wraps her arms around him, barely even noticing that she’s crying herself.
“It’s okay,” she murmurs when a sob breaks out of him, burying her face in his neck, against the blanket and his skin, trying not to let her voice shake. “That’s okay.”
“I don’t—” Abed chokes, and she shakes her head, hushing.
“It’s okay, Abed, it’s okay.”
He cries.
And cries.
And cries.
She holds him, murmuring to him and doing her very very best to not let herself break. She’s never seen him like this, or heard him like this, sobbing, and whining and gasping, shivering, moaning, trembling, clutching at the blanket like it’s a lifeline.
When he calms down, he slumps, falling against Annie,
between her arms, and she runs a hand through his hair, laying her cheek on his head, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath as his shoulders rise and fall.
“It’s okay,” she whispers after a few minutes of quiet, because she doesn’t know if he’s fallen asleep or not. She’d let him fall asleep, right here in her arms.
He takes a shaky sigh, and then says, “I know.”
She relaxes, leaning against the back of the sofa and lifting her leg to rest it on top of his lap. He lays a hand on her leg, rubbing gently at the fabric of her pajama pants.
“Have you told him?” she asks, and he scoffs.
“How would I?” he says, more than asks. “How would I tell Troy Barnes I’m in love with him? Troy Barnes…” he says, almost wistfully. “Star quarterback and prom king.” His voice cracks.
“You mean Troy Barnes, supreme dork?” Annie says, frustrated. “The same Troy that built a blanket fort across the whole school with you just because? And that got a gluon photo with you at a Spacetime Convention so you guys could be bound together forever?” His hand grips her leg, holding onto her like he’s bracing himself. “That held your hand in the hallways so you wouldn’t have to look up and get overwhelmed or overstimulated? That got you your first stim toy in your favourite color?”
Abed sighs again, nuzzling his face into Annie’s shoulder, and she presses closer.
“He loves you, Abed,” she says gently. “Even if it’s not the same way you love him, it won’t change anything, I promise.”
He’s quiet, and she would think he’s fallen asleep if his fingers weren’t still fiddling with her pants. There’s a little indent in the fuzz, where there’s a smiley face, and he runs his fingertips over it, scratching and rubbing it.
“Can I tell you a secret?” he finally says, so softly she almost doesn’t hear him.
“Of course.”
“The uhm…” He takes a deep shaky breath. “The whole apartment smells like the ocean. Like sea salt. All the time.”
Annie’s heart crumbles like a sandcastle and she exhales.
“That’s beautiful,” she says, because it is. Even though it hurts even her, and she’s never even been in love with Troy.
“I guess.”
“Can I tell you a secret?” she whispers after a quiet minute, because she isn’t sure how much longer she can hold this thing inside of her, this thing she didn’t even know was inside of her, pushed away on a shelf and covered in dust.
“Tell me.”
“I—” She cuts off, taking a sharp breath and biting her lip, wondering how to say it. It takes her longer than she’d like, thinking and thinking until her brows are drawn and her lips are pursed. Abed waits.
“I think I, uhm… I think I’m a lesbian.”
“...Okay.”
Annie squeezes her eyes shut, letting tears cascade down her cheeks.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
She takes a gasping breath, trying not to let a sob rack her body, and Abed squeezes her leg, pulling at it so she comes closer.
“That’s okay,” he says softly. “I love you, you know.”
The sob finally breaks free as she chokes out, “I know.”
He lets go of her leg and reaches up, holding her hand and then her wrist and just holding her so her arm presses against his neck harder. She tightens her arms around him, crying. Crying and crying.
“I love you too,” she whispers when she stops. “So much.”
He turns his head and presses a kiss to her shoulder.
“It’s been a very emotional night,” he says lightly, and she chuckles tearfully.
“Yeah.”
“Look, it’s us,” Abed says, lifting a hand and pointing at the television. She’d forgotten it was even on, and she looks over Abed’s head to where Geneva and the Inspector are embracing. Annie giggles, hugging Abed tighter and rocking slightly.
“Do you wanna watch with me?” Abed asks gently, like he’s nervous, and Annie almost says no, but fuck it, it’s a Saturday.
“Yeah,” she says.
They readjust, so Annie is laying on his lap, her hands grasping his leg lightly. He carefully places the end of his blanket over her and unties her ponytail so he can run his hands through her hair.
Annie giggles at the show, at the accents and effects, and she feels Abed’s belly move as he giggles with her. She even laughs as she drifts off, until she falls asleep, gripping Abed’s pajama pants.
She doesn’t see the blorgons get knocked over like Dominos (which Abed knows she would have laughed at), or at the way Geneva says “You're a liar!” that sounds more like “lawyer” on account of her over-exaggerated British accent that sounds Australian (which Abed knows she would have laughed at).
She doesn’t feel Abed move as he retracts his hands from her hair and reaches over the armrest to his laptop on the floor.
He opens it to a map, blackish-grey with little red, glowing dots. He looks, watching them.
Him and Annie, side by side. Jeff and Britta and Shirley at home. Pierce in the cemetery. (Almost a comfort really, despite not being able to get the tracker back. Part of him hates to think about what would happen if he saw it move one day, but another part of him thinks it would be quite the adventure. But, though he’d never say it out loud to anyone but Troy, he wouldn’t want to see if move. He’d honestly hate to find out that Pierce faked it (which he wouldn’t put beneath him). He’d hate to hear what Pierce would have to say about… anything, really.)
He zooms out on the map, scrolling until the world spins and he finds the last red dot, floating in the ocean, miles and miles and miles away.
He watches it, until the tv stops and asks if he’s still watching. He ignores it, forgets about it. Annie moves on his lap, turning her head so her face presses against his leg.
He watches the dot like he’s expecting it to travel around the world by the time the sun comes up, by the time he blinks. It doesn’t move.
He closes the tab.
And opens his email.
And a draft.
And then he types.
Troy,