Work Text:
destiny is overrated, so I think I’ll write my own
I don’t believe it’s complicated, so I think I’ll stay at home
I followed the leader
now I just follow myself
Abed idled in the car by the curb, watching Annie emerge from her building alongside a coworker. The man was tall, all straight white teeth and well-styled hair and tailored pants – when Britta had visited them last month, she'd dubbed him ‘the handsome one.’ As he and Annie strode down the office’s front steps toward the sidewalk, he gave her a winning smile, head cocked to one side and hands spread like he was doing his best to persuade her of something.
Abed had the windows cracked for some air, as spring gave way to summer, so he caught some of what was being said as they drew closer to the car. “You sure?” the man was asking, playful.
Annie laughed. “Yeah, I’m sure. But thank you, Pete. I really appreciate the offer.” She reached for the handle of the passenger side door.
“Well, okay,” Pete sighed, still grinning, as she got the door open. “But you have my number, if you change your mind.”
She didn’t respond to that directly, giving another small laugh instead. “I’ll see you on Monday, Pete.” Then, tossing her purse into the footwell, she got herself seated and pulled the door back shut. There was a little sigh as she fumbled with her seatbelt, and then she turned to face Abed, smiling. Not the deliberate, cheery smile she’d been sporting for Pete, but the comfortable, easy smile she so often wore when it was just the two of them. “Hey, you.”
“Hey.” Abed reached out to boop her nose in greeting, then shifted the car out of park and turned his attention to the road. Hoping he sounded the right amount of curious, he asked, “What was that about?”
“Nothing much,” she answered, making herself comfortable as he slowly pulled away from the curb and back into the flow of traffic. “Pete and a few people from other departments like to grab drinks on Friday nights, I guess. He invited me along to join them.”
“And you didn’t want to go?” Abed tried to decide how exactly he felt about that. Of course, he valued their unspoken tradition of takeout food and TV on Friday evenings, as long as neither of their work schedules got in the way, but he didn’t really love the idea of being the reason she didn’t make more local friends. “He seemed pretty hopeful you’d agree.”
“Nah, I’m not worried about it,” she answered, waving a hand. There was a pause, and he didn’t have the chance to look up from the road and glance at her, but he could almost feel her thinking. “And yeah, I guess he did. Carey thinks he’s into me… Well.” She shifted a little in her seat. “Carey’s the one who’s outright said she thinks he’s into me. But I’m pretty sure a bunch of other people think so, too. Janice from the front desk keeps commenting to me about how handsome he is, and how sweet, and oh if only she were twenty-five years younger…”
He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a second. “He does sound nice, whenever you mention him. Actually…” He bit his tongue, then admitted, “When you were talking the other day about how he organized that big office food drive, I kind of thought he sounded a bit like Rich.”
Annie laughed at that. “Yeah, I guess… But Pete’s even blander than Rich, honestly.”
Now that gave Abed pause. “Do you not like him?” he asked, genuinely taken by surprise. Stopped at a light, he finally got a moment to look at her. “I mean, you definitely liked Rich…”
“I… did, yeah,” she answered, sheepish. Turning away as traffic began to move again, she busied herself opening the window further, then closing it a bit, opening it again, apparently seeking the position that afforded her exactly the right amount of breeze. “I don’t dislike Pete. There’s nothing wrong with him. He’s friendly, and smart, and compassionate… but I think he’s also a little boring, maybe. It sounds like an insult, and I don’t mean it that way, but…” She trailed off, searching for words. “I don’t know. I think I would eventually have gotten bored of Rich, too, probably. Hindsight is twenty-twenty, right?”
“That’s what they say,” he agreed, watching the pickup truck ahead of them as it slowed, hesitated, and then finally turned on its turn signal. Normally, drivers who didn’t seem to know where they were going irritated him a little, but Annie was giving him too much else to think about. “I didn’t know you’d come to that conclusion. I think I always assumed that that romantic, leading-man kind of guy was just… your type.”
In the corner of his vision, he saw her wince a little. “So did I, for a long time,” she confessed, awkward but at least capable of laughing at herself. “But I think it’s more like… that was what other people expected to be my type. What people wanted for me, in an abstract sort of way. The insecure high achiever finds a nice, confident, capable man to love and provide for her, and then she never has to worry about anything ever again.”
Abed chuckled slightly. “I dunno. Never worrying about anything ever again sounds kind of nice.”
“Sure, I guess,” she laughed back. “But even if it’s possible, I don’t think a picture-book husband is what’s gonna get me there. Especially when I’m a long, long way from ever being a picture-book wife. I don’t think I’d ever really be happy, if my life played out that way.”
In a lot of ways, this was good to hear. Abed had observed for years that Annie was happier when she was being fully herself, unencumbered by others’ expectations. She still struggled with those expectations often, but she’d been getting better. Even so, he hadn’t realized she’d thought this much or this consciously about it. It was a bit of a surprise to hear that she’d already come to these conclusions. “Shrugging off the established narrative,” he said finally, slipping back into a more familiar frame of reference. “So, if you’re not the good girl who meets a good boy, settles down in a nice house with a picket fence and a couple kids, and lives out the six-out-of-ten-stars, forgettably happy ever after… then what is the storyline waiting in Annie Edison’s future?”
He could feel her smiling at him. “I haven’t decided yet,” she said, her voice warm. “I was thinking maybe I’d write something of my own, you know?”
“Most protagonists who say that go on to walk pretty predictable paths,” he pointed out, glancing at her again with a bit of a grin.
“Yeah, yeah.” Annie rolled her eyes. “Says you, of all people.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“What?” She laughed again. “I mean you’ve already mastered writing your own story! C’mon, Abed, you’re the guy who sees the story. All of the stories. And the guy who weaves in and out of them as he pleases, sometimes participating, sometimes just standing back to watch things unfold. You always choose where you want to go, who you want to be around, what you want to do – and you make those choices based on the story you want to live in. Whatever’s most interesting or most satisfying for you. I want to find the story I like the most, too. I mean… I learned all this from you in the first place, Abed.”
And if she’d been surprising him earlier in the conversation, it was nothing compared to this. Abed blinked hard, trying to focus on the road. “Is that… really how you see me?” he asked slowly. “I mean, it’s… It makes me sound a lot more interesting than I think I usually am. At least for most people.”
“Since when have I ever really been ‘most people?’” she asked fondly, reaching over to pat his leg. “The way you live your life inspires me a lot, Abed. And being close to you helps me remember what I actually want in my life. That’s part of why I decided to move out to California with you.”
“I… didn’t realise that.” He wasn’t even sure what to say.
She squeezed lightly before drawing her hand back away from his leg. There was nothing inappropriate about the gesture; it felt more emotionally intimate than physically, really. It was sweet and affectionate. In the corner of his eye, he saw her turn toward the window again. “Sometimes I think my ideal might be to collaborate with you, if I’m honest,” she told him then, her voice a little quieter than it had been a minute ago. “Write a story together, with us both as the main characters.”
Abed flexed his fingers around the steering wheel, struck dumb now. He knew what it sounded like she was saying, but it just… didn’t seem likely. Not under any circumstances, honestly, but especially not sitting in his beat-up old Honda in the streets of Los Angeles, at 5:56 pm on a Friday afternoon in late May. But then– this was Annie, and she knew how he thought. How he communicated. She’d learned, over the years, how to say things to him so that he’d understand exactly what she meant, and how to avoid saying things that he’d misinterpret.
Pulling up to another stoplight, he turned to study her. He could only see the narrowest stripe of her face, still turned away from him and looking out the window. As he watched her, he ran through all kinds of storylines he’d once considered, at best, unlikely fits for his life. And he started to smile.