Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Abed grabbed a slushie from one of the food stands on the Greendale front lawn and headed toward the picnic table where his father and cousin were sitting with Shirley and her sons. He hoped his dad hadn’t said anything too mean to Shirley while he was gone. She talked about her sons a lot so that means motherhood was one of her passions, and people don’t like when people criticize their passions.

When he got near the table, he noticed his dad was gone.

“Where’d my dad go?” he asked Abra in Arabic.

“He said he needed to run to his car,” she answered.

Abed frowned and headed over to the parking lot. Maybe this would give him a chance to talk to his father alone about being more patient with Shirley’s kids.

He froze when he heard his dad talking angrily, though that was kind of his default setting.

“I don’t want him to have to worry about all of that,” his dad was saying.

“I don’t either, I-” came another voice before being cut off.

“So deal with this on your own! You said you could!”

“That was twenty years ago. I wouldn’t get him involved if there was any other way. This is the safest option. Please trust me. You had to have known that you couldn’t protect him from this forever.”

There was a pause and Abed imagined his dad taking a few calming breaths.

“I just want my son to have a normal and happy life… And I know you want that for him too. You can warn him, but no getting him involved in any schemes. And try to make the situation sound as boring as possible, he’ll probably find the whole thing exciting.”

That sounded like the end of the conversation so Abed booked it back to the picnic table. Besides, it sounded like he’d be getting answers from a mysterious stranger soon enough. His dad was right, he did find this whole thing exciting.

Brad straightened his sweater nervously as he walked onto the Greendale campus. Realistically he knew there wasn’t any real security to keep him from being here, but he kept looking around anxiously anyway. He was just worried about security, no other reason for him to be nervous.

He spotted a kid sitting on a bench who looked intimidatable, so Brad walked over and sat down next to him. The kid started and looked up at him through a pair of very outdated glasses.

“You’re probably looking for Jeff Winger’s study group,” the kid said in a nasally voice. “They’re in the library in study room F.”

“Is Abed Nadir in that group?” Brad asked.

“Yes.”

“How did you know I was looking for that group?” Brad asked, narrowing his eyes. If someone knew he was here looking for Abed, that information would probably find its way back to Zack.

“If there’s an interesting or mysterious person here on campus, it usually has something to do with them.” The kid said simply.

Brad studied him for a moment more, but the kid didn’t cave, so he was probably telling the truth.

“Where’s the library?”

“That building over there.”

“Thank you.”

Brad froze when he saw Abed through the study room window. He had planned how to get in contact with Gobi, find Abed, and what he was going to say when he did, but he had been avoiding thinking about what Abed’s reaction was going to be. What if Abed doesn’t believe him? What if he seeks out Zack? What if-

Brad was distracted from his reeling thoughts when the boy to Abed’s left saw him, pointed at him in shock for a full ten seconds, and yelled “Clone Abed!”

Brad rushed into the room as the panicked yell caught the attention of not only the rest of the study group, but also everyone else in the library. He closed the door behind him and went around the room closing the blinds.

“It’s your evil clone. Do I have an evil clone? Are they going to replace everyone or just replace us and then clone us starts taking over the world and-”

“Troy, he’s too old to be my clone,” Abed cut in. Brad finished securing the room and turned to his brother. Thank god this conversation could finally start being rational.

“He’s clearly me from the future.” Or not.

“I am not you from the future,” Brad said wearily. He took a breath and stood up straight, preparing to break the news. “I’m-”

“-my long-lost brother?” Abed asked.

Brad deflated a bit. “Yeah, actually. Did your dad say something?”

“He’s just guessing movie tropes,” said a man around Brad’s age. “He’s not usually right, though.”

“So you’re probably who my dad was talking to yesterday,” Abed said, staring at Brad with wide eyes.

“This is the most excited I’ve ever seen him,” muttered a blond woman. Brad would have labeled his brother’s reaction as ‘curiosity’ rather than ‘excitement’ but he also hadn’t seen him in 19 years so he’d defer to her judgment.

“Yes,” Brad said, not acknowledging the others. “I need to talk to you.”

“Cool,” Abed said, still staring at him.

“In private,” Brad added after no one moved.

“Oh.” Abed started to stand up.

“Wait a minute,” said the man who had talked earlier, holding a hand up toward Abed who sat back down. “You just show up after no contact his whole life and expect him to listen to you?”

“Jeff’s right. Are you here to corrupt our sweet Abed? You must be estranged for a reason, what did you do?”

“Are you trying to recruit him to a terror-”

“Pierce! You can’t say that! But seriously I don’t trust that outfit. What capitalist-”

“C’mon guys, this is his brother, we should at least hear him out if he-”

“Who is ‘we’?” Brad asked impatiently, cutting off the outburst of chatter. “I thought you guys were just a study group, not his babysitters.”

“We kind of have a ‘found family’ thing going,” Abed said, completely unfazed by the bickering.

Brad pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘You have all the information,’ he told himself, ‘so technically you’re still in control.’

“I promise I will explain why I kept my distance when I talk to my brother. Abed, can we please step outside?” Brad said with badly concealed frustration.

“No!” said the blond woman, “You speak in front of us or not at all. We’ve known him for longer and we will actually be able to tell if you’re lying.” She looked at Abed and hastily added, “Because we aren’t biased by family ties.” She was a terrible liar.

“Okay, how about a compromise,” Brad said, straightening up. He ignored the way the blond woman looked between him and Jeff and muttered “Oh god, there’s two of them”.

“How about Abed and I go outside and I will let Jeff- it was Jeff right?- come along,” Brad said, trying to add in a smile to get them to trust him a little more.

“You want to bring Jeff of all people?” the blond woman asked.

“I think it’s a good idea,” said the boy next to Abed. It was the first thing he’d said since the whole clone invasion ramble. “Jeff can use his lawyer powers to sniff out lies.”

“I agree to your terms,” said Jeff, getting to his feet. Abed followed suit and soon enough the three of them were standing outside of the school.

“So, what family secrets do you know? Do I have other secret siblings? Were you given away at birth and adopted into a rich family with dark secrets?”

“Buddy,” said Jeff, cutting Abed off. “I think you’re the adopted one. Based on what I could figure out from your documentary, I don’t think your parents were together for a decade before you were born.” Even though he had only known Jeff for about five minutes, Brad still found the man’s sympathetic look surprising.

Abed seemed to be running the numbers before he nodded. “I guess that makes sense.”

“Yeah, you’re adopted,” Brad said. “You were given away to your parents for your own safety.”

“Safety from what?” Abed asked. He seemed to be staring at Brad’s ear rather than making eye contact.

“From whom,” Brad corrected with a sigh. “Our brother. And before you ask, we just have one brother, no other siblings. He’s a psychopath and he’s figured out where you are so I came to warn you.”

“What’ll happen if your brother finds Abed?” Jeff asked after Abed didn’t say anything.

“I don’t really know. Since becoming adults his attacks against me usually involve bankrupting whatever company I’m working at but that doesn’t really apply here. My best guess is he’ll try to turn all your family and friends against you, ruin your reputation, mess with your mind and emotions, etc.”

“Did he turn your friends against you?” Abed asked.

“I don’t have any friends for him to trick,” Brad said with his best sociopath smile and head tilt.

“Every TV character that says that is lonely,” Abed said. There wasn’t any pity in his voice; he was just stating a fact.

“This isn’t about me,” Brad snapped. “I just needed to tell you to not talk to him and definitely don’t give him any information that he could use against you.”

“How do you know that he knows where Abed is?” Jeff asked, crossing his arms and leaning against the wall of the school. “It doesn’t sound like you guys meet up for lunch.”

Brad shot Jeff a glare. “He came into my work to ruin my life and before he left he said ‘say hi to Abed for me’.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean he knows where I am. Maybe he was just playing mind games,” Abed pointed out.

Brad shook his head. “The fact that he knows your name means he’s tracked you down.”

“Your parents didn’t name me?”

“Their two other kids are named Zack and Brad, obviously they didn’t name you.”

“Well, you didn’t actually introduce yourself.”

“I would have but I kept getting interrupted by-”

“How did you know his name?” Jeff asked Brad, cutting off the brothers’ back-and-forth.

“I was in contact with his parents after he got adopted.”

“But you didn’t stay in contact.” Brad immediately picked up on Jeff’s judgemental tone but Abed didn’t seem to.

“I wasn’t planning on having contact with them after I got them Abed and told them to move. I didn’t want to risk Zack finding out. Abed’s mom reached out to me just that one time because she thought I’d want to know his name.” Brad finally looked away from the stare-down he and Jeff had engaged in and cleared his throat.

“You gave me to them? What about your parents? Wouldn’t you give me to the state and then the state give me to them? Why them? Why did they listen to you when you told them to move? How old are you? Where were we living? Why-”

“Abed!” said Jeff. Abed immediately stopped rambling. “Why don’t we all just take a deep breath and start this story from the beginning.” He looked over at Brad scoldingly. God Brad hated this guy.

“Fine. I’m Brad. We were both born in Illinois. I’m thirteen years older than you and Zack is two years older than me.”

“So I wasn’t planned,” Abed guessed matter-of-factly.

“No, probably not. Anyway, Zack was already a full-fledged psychopath complete with fire-starting, sadism toward animals, the whole thing. He was taking way too much interest in the baby on the way so I knew I had to do something.”

“What about your parents?” Jeff asked. Stupid Jeff and his stupid personal questions.

“Dad was happy with how Zack turned out. Thought he was tough, a real man. He didn’t see anything wrong with his behavior, to him it was normal boy stuff. Mom didn’t really pay enough attention to us to notice anything wrong.”

“The fact they didn’t care probably made it easier to get me out,” Abed said. Brad was grateful not to receive any pity from him. He wouldn’t be able to continue with the story if he had.

“That and the fact that mom died when you were born and dad didn’t want to take care of a baby.”

“Oh.” Abed suddenly looked a bit ill.

“Dude,” Jeff scolded Brad before putting a comforting hand on Abed’s shoulder. Brad just shrugged at him and continued.

“So I convinced Dad to give you up for adoption and got all the paperwork together. I told him that the paperwork would give you over to the state but it was actually paperwork to give you to a specific family and I filled in all the information after I got his signature. Your mom had been my teacher in elementary school. I knew she wanted kids and I knew that she knew that Zack was a psychopath. That’s why they believed me when I told them to move. I brought you to her rather than the fire station like Dad told me to. Your parents didn’t tell me where they moved because we couldn’t risk Zack finding out but your mom took a risk and told me your name.”

Brad waited for a reaction from Abed, who was looking off into the distance behind Brad.

“It’s kind of like Matilda,” his brother said finally.

“What?” Brad and Jeff asked at the same time.

“Matilda got her parents to sign paperwork that allowed her to get adopted by her teacher.”

“It’s kind of like that,” Jeff conceded weakly.

“How did you find me?” Abed asked after a moment of tense silence.

“I just started searching through news stories. Your family changed their last name so it was quite tricky. I finally found a picture for a football thing and you were in it.”

“It was probably when Troy announced he’d play for Greendale,” Jeff told him. “Abed insisted on standing next to him the whole time.”

“I was taking pictures for the school newspaper,” Abed said, the glazed look in his eyes fading as he looked over at Jeff.

“You didn’t even have a camera, you and Troy just have separation anxiety,” Jeff retorted. Brad thought the man almost looked fond.

“Do you have any other questions for me?” Brad asked his brother.

“Zack probably came into your work recently, right? ‘Cause then you started to find me. Did he bankrupt your company? Are you okay?” Abed asked. Brad wasn’t expecting to be asked that. No one cared enough to ask him that since Abed’s mom as he left his brother with her. His coworkers always blamed him for what happened after a visit from Zack, they were never concerned about him. It was an interesting study in nature vs. nurture that Abed was the only one in their family with empathy.

“I have a new job already,” Brad said.

“Where? What do you do?” Abed asked, sounding genuinely curious.

“Mythic Quest. Head of Monetization.”

“What city do you live in?”

“L.A.” He didn’t want Abed to know where he lived because he couldn’t risk his brother coming to visit him, but he’d already said his place of work so his location would be easy enough to Google.

“That’s so cool. Have you seen any famous people?”

“Abed,” Jeff sighed. “Maybe ask questions relevant to the situation.”

“It’s fine,” Brad said with a frown. Normally he would get impatient in this situation but he wanted to disagree with Jeff on as many things as possible. “I haven’t seen anyone. I don’t go out much, to be honest.”

“What’s your favorite show?”

“Do you have class soon?” Brad asked. He was not going to admit he watched Ducktales. He was definitely not going to admit how excited he was at the announcement of a reboot coming soon.

“Oh, yeah. We should probably be going,” Abed said disappointedly.

“Here’s my email and phone number for emergencies,” Brad said, handing over a business card to Abed.

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool,” Abed said before walking away.

Jeff waited for him to be out of earshot before asking, “Why did you have me come? You don’t like me.”

“I don’t like you but I like your distrust of others on Abed’s behalf. Will you keep an eye on him?” Brad hated asking for favors but this was a moment of need.

“Yeah,” Jeff said, sounding serious. “I mean, I already got into a physical fight on his behalf. Although he joined in so I guess it wasn’t effective in the end.”

Brad decided to ignore that last part and handed Jeff his business card before walking away without a word. Power move.

Chapter Text

The morning of Brad's first day at Mythic Quest started with David introducing him to everyone who was willing to talk to them, which ended up being about five people. Brad noted with interest the way David visibly shook off his disappointment at each failed attempt to talk to his employees and plastered a smile on his face.

He then had to fill out paperwork with HR. As he carefully read through the information on each sheet, he listened to David trying to make conversation with Carol while she tried to get work done.

“Did you do anything fun this weekend?”

“No.”

“I saw a movie.”

“I’m sure I’ll hear all about it the next time you treat this room like a therapist’s office.”

Brad watched Carol for a second. He thought himself an expert in passive aggression, but it hadn’t been enough to keep him distant enough from his coworkers at his last job. His brother had still decided he was too happy, so Brad had to figure out how to be even more hostile. Carol seemed like she might be a good person to learn from.

Carol caught him looking and asked, “Are you done?”

“No, I’m only on paragraph three. Fascinating stuff,” he answered in a fake cheery tone.

“You don’t have to read every-”

“Well now I’m even more worried there’s a trick in here. Maybe a loophole to exploit. If HR says not to read something thoroughly, they must be trying to hide something. I better start over and read extra carefully.” Brad leaned back and pretended to get himself comfy on the couch.

“Well, we appreciate the dedication. This’ll give us time to catch up!” David said, smiling widely.

Carol shot Brad a glare but he just smiled softly and tilted his head to the side, watching her force herself to loosen her grip on her pencil before she broke it. He had power over Carol who had power over David. If he actually used that power to his advantage, he might be able to keep this company safe. That was probably where he went wrong the last time, he had plenty of leverage at the last company but never used it.

David then showed him to the office that they would be sharing. As they sat down, David started describing the Creative Director and Lead Programmer, Ian and Poppy. Brad was horrified to find himself smiling as he listened to David describe them the way a parent describes their toddlers. Brad was going to need to get a divider for the office.

‘The lengths you have to go to not let someone walk all over you. Weak.’ Brad ignored his inner monologue and David. He turned on his computer to get everything set up.

By the time he opened his email, David had caught on to the fact he wasn’t listening and had shut up.

His email was mostly information on how to do his job and get access to the financial aspects of the game, but one email with the subject “Jeff had a mental breakdown” caught his eye. He’d given Abed his email for emergencies. He had meant Zack-related emergencies but maybe Jeff had turned violent?

Brad sat up straighter in his chair and quickly opened the message.

“Hey Brad,

Jeff had a mental breakdown in pottery class because someone was better than him and got kicked out for reenacting the pottery scene from ‘Ghost’. I’m not surprised, his ego drives most of the plot-lines he’s in. He seems mostly better now but he was muttering stuff about his mom when he was let back into the class so maybe not. Troy and I started a fake morning show and Jeff was our first guest. You should be on it sometime, I’m sure the audience would love an old-fashioned success story. I started playing Mythic Quest with Troy. I’m not much of a video game person but Troy likes it so it’ll probably be a fun place to work. I think the evil king’s backstory is a bit cliche.

-Abed”

Brad sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. This was absolutely not what he meant when he said “email me if there’s an emergency”. He wasn’t as annoyed as he could have been, though, because hearing about Jeff’s ego causing him to have a breakdown was easily the highlight of his morning.

“Everything okay? You seem frustrated?” David asked him.

“It’s fine. People are just emailing me about stupid stuff already.”

Brad quickly typed the response before David could get curious and come over.

“This is not what I would call an emergency but your feedback is noted.”

Brad looked over at David and saw him frowning in his direction but making no move to approach, so he added a few suggestions for things Abed could say to Jeff on his behalf.

Brad studied the company’s financial history for an hour before checking his email again. Abed had responded with “I think that might violate the PG-13 rating we usually aim for.”

Brad hoped David hadn’t seen him rolling his eyes at the message because he knew hadn’t been able to fully fight away his smile.

It was a couple of weeks before Brad heard from Abed again. Brad didn’t want to think too much about why he was starting to get disappointed the longer he didn’t hear from his brother because he knew thinking about it would only lead to berating himself for caring.

Nearly two weeks after the first email, Brad came into work, started looking through his email, and found one from Abed with the subject line “Happy April Fool’s Day”.

“Brad,

Did your work do anything for April Fool’s Day? Britta (I’ll attach a diagram of who sits where in the study room so you know who is who) tried to do a prank and it ended with a dead frog and a cadaver falling out of the window. Annie and Shirley were temporary security so they had to try to solve the case. My cable was out so I just followed them around to see how it played out. I even got to fire them because the dean wasn’t doing it correctly. Britta ended up confessing after Jeff got handcuffed to a table. Everybody started talking about their insecurities and crying, it was great for their character arcs. There was a group hug but Jeff and I didn’t join in because Jeff was handcuffed to the table and I wasn’t really in the scene. The hug would’ve made a good fade-to-black moment. Pierce was-”

“Hey, Brad. Everything okay?” David asked as he walked in, interrupting Brad’s muttering “what the fuck” over and over again as he read through Abed’s email.

“Yeah, this isn’t… it’s all fine.” He quickly closed out of the email before David could get a look at it when he came over.

“You sure? If you need the afternoon off to take care of something I can-”

“No. It’s nothing,” Brad said, cutting him off. He pulled up Amazon and searched ‘office dividers’. David seemed to get the message and went back to his own area.

Once he was gone, Brad pulled up the email again. The rest of it was Abed asking what he did for work and asking how it compared to different movies.

“There were several attempts to haze me because I’m the newest worker but they were all predictable and easy to deal with.
I have no idea what you see in these people but as long as you don’t get into legal trouble I could not care less what you do.
I would say my job is to manipulate people into getting the company more money, which is really just manipulating people into helping themselves when they’re too stupid to do it themselves.
Also, unless you have gotten involved with the real police, none of the things you mentioned count as emergencies.”

When Brad checked his email again as he worked during his lunch break, he saw Abed had responded.

“So is it like in those mafia movies where you use questionable means to do what’s best for the family?”

Brad rolled his eyes and didn’t dignify that with a response. It might be best for Abed if his cable stayed out for a while.

Maybe Brad should have addressed the whole mafia thing because a few days later he got an email from Abed with the subject line “chicken strip mafia”. He read through Abed’s story of using chicken strips to get extra credit, a monkey, etc. It was a more cartoonishly ridiculous version of the schemes Brad pulled when he was that age. He was rather proud.

He was going to say something about Abed’s friends holding him back from what was clearly a lucrative business within the context of community college, but settled on just saying “impressive”. The whole point of sending Abed away was so he didn’t turn out like him and Zach, so maybe having friends was worthwhile. Even if those friends were insane.

“Hey Brad,

I haven’t heard anything about Mythic Quest having a company-wide paintball game so I guess you can stop worrying about Ian hearing about Greendale’s game and getting ideas. It’s been over a month so it would have happened by now.
School’s over now, and I’m kind of glad because there are too many romance plotlines going on for my taste. Britta told Jeff in front of the whole school that she loved him and the statistics teacher did the same thing but then he just left. I hope next season has more of an action/adventure feel.
I’m going to LA at the end of the summer because the Cougartown fan page I run got so much attention that they invited me to see the set. Maybe we can meet up when I get there. I’m only there for a day, though.

-Abed”

Brad was glad that David wasn’t in the office because he swore loudly after reading the email. He grabbed one of his stress balls and started squeezing it aggressively. L.A. was the last place he wanted Abed to visit.

Zack had probably followed Brad here. Sure the odds of Zack and Abed running into each other on the streets was low, but it was higher than it would be if Abed were literally anywhere else. He was mad at his brother for his irresponsibility, but mostly he was mad at himself because he really did want to meet up.

“I just want to see him to tell him off for emailing me when there isn’t an emergency,” he muttered to himself, as though saying it out loud made it true.

They couldn’t risk meeting at Brad’s house just in case Zack was spying. They risked the same thing meeting at the Mythic Quest Headquarters, but it was a much harder place to monitor with multiple entrances and lots of traffic. If they met in public, it would probably have to be at a restaurant where Brad would be expected to eat and be surrounded by food and other people eating, so that was definitely out. They could talk while driving but if Brad was distracted, he’d probably kill them both.

So, headquarters it was. They had to be careful about it, though. Brad could leave and then come back in a crowd, then have Abed come in some time after. If he dressed like Brad and kept his head down, people probably wouldn’t even notice him. But what if people tried to talk to him? They also needed somewhere to meet where they would get interrupted. Somewhere where no one goes.

“Sue, I need your help,” Brad said before the woman could launch into her overenthusiastic welcome.

“Oh!” Sue seemed surprised. Understandable. “Sure, what do you need Brad? C’mon in and sit down. You working on a project?”

“No, it’s… personal stuff.” Brad didn’t think he’d ever said those words before. He sat in the chair across from Sue’s desk and crossed his legs.

“Oh!” Sue seemed speechless for the first time. Not that Brad talked to her very much, but still.

“What can I do?” She asked after a long moment of gaping.

“I’m meeting with my brother. Here. At headquarters.”

“I didn’t know you had a brother!”

“I know, that’s how I’d prefer it, so I need someplace to meet with him where we won’t get interrupted.”

“Okay… why can’t you just meet at your house?”

“Personal reasons. I also need you to walk my brother in and make sure no one notices. He looks a lot like me so as long as no one gets too close we should be fine.”

Sue stared at him for a moment before leaning forward and folding her hands on top of her desk.

“Y’know, Bradley. All this secrecy makes me a little worried about your family. If you want to talk about anything I am always here to listen.”

“Pass. Will you do it?”

Sue hesitated again. “I’m not getting involved in anything dangerous by helping you, am I?”

“Well, if my other brother finds out he’ll focus a lot of effort into trying to turn you against me. Probably try to get you fired too.”

“Oh, that’s fine then. I’ll do it.”

“Great. I’ll give you a date and time as soon as I know more.” Brad stood to leave. He stopped at the door and looked at Sue over his shoulder. “Do not tell anyone about this or I will ruin your life way before my brother can get to it.”

“I don’t have anyone to tell, hon,” Sue said calmly. She better stop doing that or Brad might actually like her.

“I was counting on that,” Brad said and he left.

Chapter Text

Abed put on his sweater excitedly. He loved a good heist. Brad had sent him very specific instructions to follow. He’d already made it to the L.A. airport and changed into his disguise and now he had to find the getaway driver that was sworn to secrecy by Brad and sneak into the Mythic Quest headquarters. There was an air of danger, mystery, and darkness that-

“Hi, you must be Abed! You look just like a mini Brad! I’m Sue. I was just supposed to sneak you in but I told Brad I might as well get you from the airport too so we can talk strategy.” The woman, Sue, put a hand on Abed’s back and started leading him toward the car she had practically leaped out of. He took a few steps aside, away from the hand.

“It’s nice to meet you. Thanks for picking me up,” he told her.

“Oh, you’re so polite. It’s no problem. Hop on in. Help yourself to any of the candy in the cupholders.”

They pulled away from the airport and Sue was still chatting.

“It’s so nice that you came to see your brother. You know, I think he is a nice man deep down, he-”

Abed was starting to get slightly overwhelmed so he tuned her out.

As planned, Abed kept his head down as they headed in through a back door of the Mythic Quest Headquarters, pretending to read something in an empty manila folder.
“We’re gonna take the stairs back here. They’re just for emergencies but Brad disabled the alarm somehow,” Sue told him quietly. “Your brother is quite something.”

“He said he doesn’t have friends here but you seem to like him,” Abed noted.

“Well, it’s hard to hate someone who goes through all this trouble for his little brother.” Her expression turned thoughtful and she added, “Between you and me, I think he’s as much of a meanie as he pretends to be.”

“I agree. He’s done a lot to protect me. And he answers most of my emails when I tell him about school.”

“Oh aren’t you boys just adorable.”

They arrived at Sue’s office in the crowded basement.

“Alright, I’m pretty sure your brother is already in there so I’ll just keep watch out here. Help yourself to the cookie tin in the top left drawer.”

“Okay, thank you, Sue,” Abed said, meeting her intense gaze for the first time.

“Anytime, kiddo,” she said. Abed knew that was just something people said, but something about how Sue said it made him believe her.

Brad made it about two seconds sitting still in Sue’s office before he started reading through the folders of customer complaints that surrounded the desk to distract himself. If he kept up this level of paranoia about Zack watching him, he was going to have to go hide in his office before Abed could even get here. Reading the complaints was actually helping, though. He loved the combination of slander against Ian’s game, the rambling of idiots, and some quite creative cursing.

He was so wrapped up in his reading he didn’t hear Sue and Abed approaching.

“Hey, Brad,” Abed greeted.

Brad stood up to go greet him but then remembered neither of them was fond of hugs so he awkwardly sat down again.

“Hello,” Brad said, clearing his throat. God this was uncomfortable. “How was your flight?”

“It was good. I watched the Batman vs. Superman movie. It’s not as fun to watch bad movies without friends to make comments with, though. Have you seen it?”

“No.”

“It started okay but it got kind of weird when in the middle of the fight…”

Brad started to calm down as he listened to Abed start to ramble. This was comfortable territory for Abed which then put Brad at ease. Abed did most of the talking throughout their visit; Brad didn’t watch much TV and his job wasn’t nearly as dramatic as Greendale.

“I should probably head over to the Cougartown set,” Abed said after a couple of hours.

“Okay, I’ll have Sue sneak you back out. Call an Uber a few blocks from here,” Brad said, standing up and walking Abed to the door.

“Is all this necessary?” Abed asked. He didn’t sound annoyed, just curious.

“Can’t be too careful. I just assume my brother’s monitoring everything I do and say. I’m usually right.”

“I’m sorry. That sucks.” Just like when they first met, there was no pity in Abed’s voice.

Brad didn’t know how to react when Abed hugged him awkwardly. Abed had his hands resting against Brad’s back and that was the only point of contact. He pulled away before Brad could even move.

“Abed,” Brad said. Abed froze with his hand on the door knob. “I know it’ll be hard to do with how insane your school is, but please don’t draw attention to yourself. Zack probably knows where you live, but if not, we can’t risk him finding out.”

“I promise I’ll try. See ya,” Abed called as he left. Brad waited another five minutes before heading to his own office.

The next day, Brad got an email from Abed saying he had gotten home safe but surprisingly didn’t give any detail about his time on the Cougartown set. Brad brushed it off, though. He had more on his plate lately because Ian had gone over budget on part of the expansion and it was up to Brad to make up the difference.

“Brad,

I’m letting you know that the study group is about to do something illegal. If I get arrested, can I use my one phone call to call you?

-Abed”

Brad swore as he pushed away from his desk and pulled out his phone. He ignored David asking what was wrong as he started walking down random halls to find an empty one. He pulled up Abed’s number and called.

“Hello?”

“What the fuck are you idiots doing?” Now that he didn’t have to be worried for Abed’s safety, Brad was annoyed.

“Oh, Troy and I broke into the office of the lawyer that got Jeff fired to get proof that he was the one that did it.”

“So you’re done now? You didn’t get arrested?”

“No, but Annie chloroformed the janitor. We got away, though.”

“Yeah, until they go through security footage. Also don’t leave a trail by emailing me. I thought you watched movies.” Brad could feel a migraine coming.

“There weren’t any cameras, I checked.”

“Abed, what was the last thing I said to you,” Brad asked through gritted teeth. Not even Ian had managed to piss him off this much.

“Well if you’re counting emails the last thing you said was ‘what the actual fuck is wrong with your school’ because I told you about our anthropology teacher strangling-”

“I’m not counting emails. I’m talking about the ‘don’t draw attention to yourself’ thing. Getting arrested for chloroforming people counts as drawing attention.”

“I would get arrested for going through his computer. Annie was the one who-”

“I am not bailing you out if something goes wrong,” Brad said before hanging up. The janitor would probably remember them. Several twenty-year-olds at a law firm were going to stand out.

“Everything alright, Brad?” David asked when Brad got back to their office. “Did someone hack the store or something?”

“No, everything’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well even if it’s fixed I should still know about it. I am the boss after all and-”

“It’s personal. Forget it.”

“Oh.” Brad ignored the way David was staring at him in surprise and got back to work.

“Do you want to talk about it? Do you need the afternoon off?”

“We’re supposed to be done by now anyway. It’s 8:30. That’s not exactly giving me time off,” Brad pointed out.

“What?!” David checked his watch and started grabbing his coat and keys. “I didn’t even notice the time. My wife is going to kill me.”

Brad watched him leave before turning back to his spreadsheet. He kept his phone next to him just in case.

Abed collapsed onto the couch while Troy set up the movie. He felt awful. Whatever roofie they’d all been given was making him nauseous, his weird-looking injuries ached, his adrenaline was at max for some reason, he kept theorizing what might have happened during the blank spaces in his memory but each theory was less likely and more upsetting, and the last thing he remembered was Troy changing his costume to be less of a nerd like him.

“Are you okay?” Troy asked as he sat down. Abed realized he had been staring at the floor the entire time it took Troy to get the movie going.

Abed opened his mouth to say “I’m fine” but his voice cracked so he closed it again and went back to staring at the floor. Abed almost never cried, but when he did it was usually a full breakdown that took days to fully recover from so he tried to will the tears gathering at the corner of his eyes to go away.

“What do you need, buddy?” Troy asked gently, putting his arm around the back of the sofa behind Abed but not touching him.

“Brad,” he blurted out. He didn’t know where it had come from, he certainly hadn’t been thinking about calling his brother. Sure he’d probably end up emailing him about it later, but not call him for comfort. Brad couldn’t fix the situation like Annie would try to do, he wouldn’t give a speech like Jeff, and he wouldn’t and couldn’t hug him. But, the more he thought about it, the more Abed felt the illogical need to call his brother.

“Okay, buddy. I’ll call him and explain the situation and then you can talk to him,” Troy said comfortingly before stepping into the kitchen. Abed could almost feel his friend watching him.

Brad was grasping for his phone before he fully woke up. He squinted at the number showing up on his screen. He didn’t recognize it, but he recognized the area code was the same as Abed’s.

“Hello?” he asked once he picked up, sitting up and rubbing his eyes.

“Hey, Brad. It’s Troy, Abed’s friend. We have a bit of a situation.” The panic that should have set in the second he got a call from the Greendale area at four in the morning finally hit him and Brad was suddenly wide awake.

“What happened?”

“We went to a Halloween party and the next thing we know we’re waking up with weird injuries and the medical people are saying someone roofied the whole party. We’re back in Abed’s dorm now but he’s freaking out. Like, worse than he freaked out when we chloroformed that janitor.”

“So what can I do?” Brad didn’t let his voice convey his panic but he got up and started pacing.

“I don’t know. He just wants to talk to you, so talk to him,” said Troy.

“I am the least comforting presence someone could ask for,” Brad said with irritation. “Fine, I’ll do my best.”

There was silence on the other end of the line and then he heard Troy say “here you go, buddy”.

“Brad?” Abed’s voice was weak but still rather monotone.

“Uh, hey…kiddo,” Brad greeted, fully grimacing as he said it.

“I appreciate the effort to be soothing but you don’t need to.”

“Thank God. So, how can I help?” Brad sat in his desk chair. He was much calmer now that he knew Abed wasn’t in danger.

“I don’t know, do you have any sage brotherly advice?”

“I’m a little out of my depth on this one. Maybe if you talk about it?”

“But Troy already told you everything.”

“Yes, but maybe you could talk about… your feelings.” Why was it so difficult to get those words out, he was talking to his own brother for god’s sake.

“I feel scared and I don’t know why, and the fact I don’t know why is making me more scared. And I really don’t like it when people mess with my brain chemistry.”

“Okay…” Brad tried to think about the problem analytically. Most of his job was to make improvements and solve problems. “What if you tricked yourself into thinking that you know what happened? Lots of people cope by lying to themselves.”

He must have been on speakerphone because he heard Troy groan at his idea, but Abed hummed thoughtfully.

“Psychological conditioning can cause people to believe loads of stuff. Plus this would be a good spot to show flashbacks of the possible events.”

“Right,” Brad agreed even though he had no idea what his brother was saying. “So what sort of injuries do you have?” He really didn’t want to know but he needed to in order to come up with a story.

“They sort of look like bite marks,” Troy told him. Brad immediately sat up straight in his chair.

“Do you have any other injuries?” He asked urgently.

“No,” Troy assured him, though Brad didn’t think the boy understood what had gotten Brad so worked up. That was probably for the best, it would only cause them to stress out more about what happened during the gap in their memory.

“I think a mythical monster would be a safe explanation to go with,” said Brad, leaning back in his chair again. Fiction was generally safer than reality.

“I don’t know a mythical monster that tries to eat people and wipes their memory,” Abed said thoughtfully.

“What about aliens?” Troy piped up. “We don’t know anything about their powers. Maybe we were abducted and experimented on and they wiped our memory so we won’t remember them and it’ll be a surprise when they try to take over the world.”

“I don’t think that makes sense with the bite marks,” Abed said.

“What about vampires?” Brad asked, scrolling through Google for ideas.

“They don’t look like vampire bites. Or werewolf bites.”

“Oh! Men in black!” Troy shouted, causing Brad to jerk the phone away from his ear for a second.

“That would explain the memory wipe, and maybe the aliens weren’t experimenting and just trying to eat us instead.”

“That… makes sense,” said Abed.

“Great. Now you don’t have to worry about what happened,” said Brad. “You were attacked by aliens and the government had to wipe your memories.”

“Okay. We’re going to watch a movie now. Thanks for your help, Brad,” said Abed.

“Yeah, Brad. You did a good job.” Brad hated how reassuring Troy sounded, like the boy knew Brad had been panicking most of this conversation.

“Stay out of trouble. Bye.” Brad hung up without waiting for a response.

He started to get ready for the day instead of going back to sleep; he was an early riser anyway. That was the first time he’d really comforted someone. He hadn’t done it the conventional way, but that ended up being for the best. Abed had let him stay in his comfort zone and he had come close to understanding Abed’s way of thinking.

‘I’m lucky to have a brother like Abed,’ he thought, before rolling his eyes at himself in disgust.

Chapter Text

“Well, we are making fabulous and unexpectedly intense progress,” Duncan the Christmas wizard said as he appeared on Planet Abed. “Now, what I’d like to do is visit The Cave of Frozen Memories, and along the way, another Christmassy companion should be joining us.

Abed agreed to go to the cave because it was on the way to the North Pole. Just as he was about to break out into song, an odd beeping sound filled the air.

“Oh look, Abed,” Duncan said, “Someone’s coming toward us. Do you see them?”

“Yeah, who is it?” Abed could just make out a figure in an approaching snowstorm.

“Hello everybody.” The snow dissipated to show Brad with his usual sweater and smirk.

“Hey, Brad. You didn’t turn into a Christmas version of yourself on the way here,” Abed pointed out. Maybe it was because he had arrived a different way? But that didn’t make any sense because so had Duncan.

“No, I did. I’m Scrooge. Not much change needed.” Suddenly a long coat appeared over Brad’s sweater and a tophat appeared on his head. He also now had ridiculous long sideburns. At least now it would be easier for the audience to distinguish their faces. It was hard to see the differences with a claymation format.

Jeff scoffed and muttered something.

“That’s not very festive,” Annie complained.

“No, it’s fine,” Abed told her. “I think he’s more like Scrooge after the ghosts visit him where he tries to make Christmas better for everyone, just like he’s trying to make Christmas better for me.”

“I’m more concerned about the delusion than saving Christmas,” Brad said.

“Oh well, that means you can find the meaning of Christmas with me, and then you’ll have a change of heart like Scrooge.”

“Alright, now that that’s all settled, let’s head to the cave,” Duncan told them. Abed took that as his cue to break out into song.

Brad didn’t participate much on the journey. He mostly just snickered whenever Duncan or Jeff got frustrated. He even gave a full-on laugh after Annie’s song about Jeff.

After Duncan ran out of The Cave of Frozen Memories crying, Brad leaned against one of the ice walls and studied Abed.

“Well played. I think if you make your therapist cry that means you win at therapy,” he told his brother.

“Brad, this is serious. We lost our wizard,” Annie scolded.

“He’ll be back. This just means he’ll actually have to put effort into this rather than being condescending,” Brad pointed out.

“You’re right,” Abed said. “He’ll be back. We need to destroy this cave quickly.” He initiated self-destruct and opened the slide to Pine Tree Station.

“The wizard didn’t bring us here to find the meaning of Christmas and I can’t have anyone going beyond this point that’s on his side,” Abed told them, looking at Britta. Troy, Annie, and Pierce all went down the slide.

“Do you want me to come along? I don’t do Christmas so I might ruin whatever this is,” Brad said as he approached the entrance to the slide.

“Well, it sounds like you need to find the meaning of Christmas, too. You can come,” Abed told him. Brad smiled and went down the slide.

Abed then turned to Britta. She didn’t need to find the meaning of Christmas. Her mind was already made up. Plus she was an ally of the Christmas Wizard.

“There’s the Menorah Mountains. And Jehovah Witness Bay. Do you celebrate anything Brad? I can add something in?”

Brad looked up from his phone.

“Nope.” He went back to texting a panicked David. This was the first day he had ever taken off of work and everything was already going to shit in his absence. Once he had finished the message, he tossed his phone across the room and focused his attention back on the FaceTime call on his computer.

“I like the rituals. My parents are divorced, too,” Abed was saying. “My mom’s Polish. She loves Christmas. Every year she visits on the same day, December 9th. Every year we sit and watch Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. Together. Every year.”

“But Abed,” Troy said. “Today is December 9th. It’s the last day of classes.”

“Yeah, that can’t be right. She comes every year. Today must be December 8th. She comes every year.”

Well fuck. Brad couldn’t see anyone else in the room but he assumed they were wincing in sympathy just like he was. He opened a different tab and started looking for plane tickets. It’s not like he had any other plans for the holidays.

“Okay, Abed. Time to stop the train.” Duncan appeared on the screen behind Abed. God this guy was annoying. Brad didn’t really have a problem with his approach but he didn’t have to be so smug and condescending about it.

“I’m crawling out the window,” Abed was saying.

“No you’re not. Snap out of it,” Duncan said, grabbing onto Abed’s shoulder in real life. Brad glared at him but Duncan didn’t see him.

“Whoa, whoa. Who taught you therapy?” Troy reached over in real life and threw Duncan’s hand off Abed’s shoulder. Brad thought trying to snap Abed out of it was probably a good thing, even if he disapproved of how Duncan was doing it. But, if Troy thought this was bad for Abed, he’d trust Troy. Troy was the only person in that group of idiots Brad trusted to have his brother’s best interest at heart all the time, with no ulterior motives. He didn’t trust Troy with anything else, though.

“I am a professional and you are tampering with a highly delicate book deal. I mean human being.” Okay, fuck this guy.

“I’m on the roof of the train,” Abed announced.

“Oh, great. Well, I’m teleporting there. Because I can do that because I’m a wizard.”

“Well I summon the ghost of Christmas past to take you to cry about your childhood some more,” Brad told Duncan, giving him a small innocent smile when the professor glared at him.

“Who’s side are you on?” Duncan asked.

“I want to see where this is going,” Brad answered with a shrug.

“Well I drink a ghost repellant potion,” Duncan snapped at Brad before turning his attention to Abed. “Abed, there is no train. This is not real.”

“I can’t hear you,” Abed said, “I’m going to the front car.”

“You’re very clever but it stops here. There’s no more journey. It’s just you against reality and reality always wins.”

Brad was really enjoying how frustrated Duncan seemed about an imaginary train adventure.

“Abed, I’m unhitching the cars, okay?” Annie said from off-screen.

“Nice,” Brad told her. “Hey, Troy, give me one of your drumsticks.”

“Here you go,” Troy said, playing along.

“Okay, I aim for the weak point in an ice shelf and cause an avalanche to land on top of us, stopping our half of the train. Looks like you barely escaped, Abed.” Brad was almost having fun.

“What? Oh, give me a break. Do you know what you’re doing?” Duncan cried.

“We’re learning to teleport,” Troy said. “And we’re helping our friend find the meaning of Christmas.” Troy came on screen and started dragging Duncan out of the room.

“Hey, you’re actually grabbing me in real life, delinquent.”

“We’ll keep him away, Abed. Go. Find the meaning of Christmas,” Annie said.

“At the very least take notes,” Duncan cried just before the door of the study room closed in his face.

Someone grabbed the laptop Duncan had placed in front of Abed and moved out of the room. Suddenly, Brad was staring at Abed’s annoying blond friend.

“Why are you having so much fun with this,” she demanded. “Your brother is having a serious breakdown and could get kicked out of college. You’re supposed to be helping him.”

“Look, you said that he thinks finding the meaning of Christmas will end the delusion, right? And because he’s the one that created the delusion, he also creates the endpoint.”

“That… makes sense,” Britta muttered. “But how is he supposed to find the meaning of Christmas, that’s such an abstract thing.”

“He just has to find what it means to him.”

“But his definition of Christmas was tied to his mom.”

“He’s looking for a new meaning now,” said Brad. He did not expect his day to involve helping his brother’s friends understand a Christmas delusion fueled by abandonment.

“So just have to tell him that Christmas can mean hanging out with us?”

“Mhmm. Or me. I’ve just got to figure out a return flight home.”

“Oh. You’re a really nice guy Brad,” Britta said, studying Brad. He did not need this woman trying to psychoanalyze him.

“Tell anyone and I’ll get you arrested for drug possession,” he said with a smile.

“Marijuana is legal in-”

“I’ll find a way.”

“Okay, jeez.” Britta placed the laptop in front of Abed, again.

Abed was staring blankly at the table in front of him as Duncan paced behind him.

“There’s nothing left to do now but heal. And share the experience with as many reputable journals as possible,” the professor was saying.

“What the fuck did you do?” Brad demanded. He’d been watching Abed closely and his brother hadn’t even blinked.

“I forced him to face the truth: his mum has a new family and isn’t coming for Christmas.”

“That bitch,” Brad muttered. He’d entrusted her with his little brother and this is what she does.

“Hey,” Britta scolded him. “That’s a pretty misogynistic-”

“Sorry,” Brad muttered, not really listening. He glared at Duncan. “If you don’t fix this I will sue you for malpractice.”

“Hey, this is not my fault. This is what Christmas does to people. We put too much meaning into it and it lets us down.”

“We beg to differ,” Jeff said menacingly.

“What are you doing back here?” Duncan asked, echoing what Brad was thinking. He didn’t think Jeff actually cared that much.

“Saving Christmas,” said Troy.

“Everyone, point your magic Christmas weapons at him,” Annie ordered. Brad just stared at Duncan who stared at the others.

“Okay, I’ve got a candy cane launcher, now,” Brad announced with a shrug.

“Oh brother, this is ridiculous,” Duncan told them. “You are enabling a delusion.”

“The delusion you’re trying to cure is called Christmas, Duncan,” said Jeff.

“And seeing the world in claymation,” Brad pointed out, unable to resist getting on Jeff’s nerves.

The group ignored him and started continuing to say what Christmas was to them. This was easily the weirdest afternoon Brad had ever had.

“Why don’t we sing it?” Shirley said. And now the afternoon was even weirder.

What was even weirder was that everyone agreed, though it took some scolding from Shirley. “Brad, you should pitch in,” Britta muttered to him from next to Abed.

“Even if I wanted to, I couldn't. How do you all know the tune to this? Is it from something? How are you rhyming so seamlessly? How the fuck are Annie and Jeff harmonizing an improvised song?”

The group finished their surprisingly decent song.

“And Christmas Pterodactyl!” cried Annie.

“Alright, alright. I’m leaving,” said Duncan, heading to the door.

“Initiate self-destruct,” Annie added, causing Brad to genuinely laugh. Annie was now his favorite of Abed's friends, with Troy in second place of course. He appreciated how the two of them had stuck with his brother throughout this whole adventure and seemed to understand him better than the others.

“I get it,” Abed said while standing up, startling Brad out of his thoughts. His brother stood up and “The meaning of Christmas is the idea Christmas has meaning. And it can mean whatever we want. For me, it used to mean being with my mom. Now it means being with you guys.”

Brad smiled at him but quickly forced a blank expression on his face when the rest of the study group came into the frame to hug Abed.

“Wow, I feel so much better now. I guess we don’t need to be stop-motion anymore,” said Abed once the hug was done. Brad sighed in relief.

“Well, why not just keep it going for the rest of Christmas? It just feels so right,” Britta suggested. Brad looked at her a bit incredulously but kept quiet.

“Do you want to go watch Rudolph?” Troy asked Abed, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Sure. Do you want to come, Brad? We can set up the computer toward the TV,” Abed suggested.

“I’ll wait and watch it with you when I come to visit. If that works for you,” Brad told him. He couldn’t fully hide his smile as Abed’s eyes lit up.

“Really? When are you coming? I have a bunk bed so you can stay in my dorm if you want!”

“I arrive in the afternoon of the 23rd and leave on the 26th. I have to do some work between Christmas and New Year so I can’t stay your whole winter break.”

“I can probably start sneaking away from my family by then. We can watch so many shows in that time!” Troy cut in.

“Sounds good. I’ve got to go. Apparently, some stuff is happening at work. See you in two weeks.”

“Bye, Brad.”

Brad started changing back into his work clothes and started thinking of ways to convince Abed to let them both stay in a hotel or something. Any option was better than staying in a dorm room. Dorms were one thing Brad missed the least about college.

He knew that in the four days he was there, he would be forced to watch a bunch of movies he hated, would have to deal with his brother’s shenanigans (hopefully it wouldn’t be as bad without the rest of the group there), and, most worryingly, would have to figure out how to get around eating three substantial meals a day without Abed getting suspicious. Even with all these concerns, though, he was still kind of excited.

Chapter Text

“Merry Christmas!” said Abed excitedly as he opened the door to his dorm.

“Uh, yeah, Merry Christmas,” Brad said much less enthusiastically. Abed didn’t notice.

“Put your shoes by the door and your coat anywhere. Do you want to watch Rudolph first? Since you haven’t seen any Christmas movies I figured we’d watch every one that’s on Netflix over the next few days.”

“Whatever you want to do,” Brad said in the slightly exasperated (and slightly fond though he’ll never admit it) tone that he often directed at David. He walked in, setting the Tupperware container of cookies that Sue had given him a few days ago that he knew he wouldn’t eat.

“I also thought we could go out in the snow. I need to show you the snowmen that Troy and I made. They’re a Calvin and Hobbes homage,” Abed chattered on as he set up the movie.

“Okay, but the second I get cold I’m abandoning you,” Brad told him. That was a lie. He was always cold and he would be freezing the second he stepped outside but he really did want to see the snowmen.

Abed settled on the couch and gestured for Brad to join them, pulling up the movie.

Once the credits started playing on Frosty the Snowman, Brad stood up and stretched.

“I'm going to head back to the hotel for a few minutes. I don’t trust the bathrooms here,” he told his brother.

“That’s fine, it’ll give me a chance to pray,” Abed said as he cleaned up the mess from the Lucky Charms he had been eating during the movies.

“Huh, I thought your mom raised you Catholic based on your Christmas obsession,” said Brad.

“I lived with Dad so he was in charge of my religious upbringing but Mom visited on Christmas so I always celebrated it with her.”

“When did she leave?” Brad asked. He sat back down, bathroom run forgotten.

“When I was six.”

“I’m sorry, Abed. I thought I could trust her to take care of you. All that work and you were still raised by strangers.”

“It’s not your fault,” Abed said, looking over at Brad for the first time since the conversation took a more serious turn. “I don’t regret being raised by my dad.”

“Do you guys get along?” Brad asked. He didn’t know anything about the man that did most of the work raising his brother.

“Sort of. It’s complicated,” Abed explained, looking away again. “We don’t see each other a lot, we never really did. He’s super busy with the restaurant. I thought he blamed me for mom leaving. He never actually said that he didn’t, he just said that he never said it. But that was also the first time I’ve seen him cry, so I forgive him if he did.” Brad had started to get mad at Gobi as Abed started explaining his childhood but now he was too focused on trying to imagine the angry man he met in the parking lot crying to stay angry.

“He doesn’t really understand me,” Abed continued, “It’s like if an alien came to earth and met a human and they never learned to speak each other’s language, they don’t necessarily start fighting but they stop trying to understand each other after a while.”

“You’re not an alien.”

“No, but those are usually the characters I relate to on TV, like Spock. There needs to be better representation of autism.”

“Yeah, I guess,” said Brad. He was a little out of his depth in this conversation now.

“I think that’s why Mom left. I’m pretty difficult to deal with sometimes. She sent me to a lot of doctors before she left. Dad didn’t send me to any until I got into trouble with a movie theater. I don’t think he wants to fix me.”

“I’m sorry Abed,” said Brad.

“Please don’t track her down and try to ruin her life,” Abed said, looking over at Brad with an accusing look.

Brad held up his hands in surrender.

“Are you religious?” Abed asked suddenly.

“No. How religious are you?”

“I try to pray but that’s about it. I don’t even know where the nearest masjid is, I only go when I visit Dad. So is your whole family Arabic?”

Brad winced. “About that…I forgot to tell you we’re actually Indian. But still Polish. My dad was Polish and my mom was Indian.”

Abed stared at the wall behind Brad with a blank face.

“Abed?” Brad asked tentatively after a moment.

Abed blinks and looks at him. “I’ve filled out so much paperwork incorrectly.”

Brad ended up having to use the dorm bathroom. He spent a full minute trying to pull the door back open with his elbow on his way out before giving up and using a wad of paper towels to do it. He missed the garbage as he threw the paper towels away while propping the door open, so it joined the sea of debris on the floor.

Abed was waiting for him on the couch. He looked rather calm for someone who had an identity crisis five minutes ago.

“So do you want to watch a movie or talk some more?” Brad asked as he sat down next to his brother.

“Let’s talk. The long-lost brother trope usually involves comparing childhoods.”

“I prefer people to not really know anything about me,” Brad told him with a slight smirk.

Abed just rolled his eyes. Damn, that line was so much more effective with David.

“What do you do for fun if you don’t watch TV?” Abed asked him.

“I work all the time, I don’t really have time for fun.”

“But you have to have free time once in a while,” Abed pointed out. The kid’s had an older brother for nine months and he’s already fallen into the stubborn and annoying role apparently.

“I do stock market calculations, read, watch documentaries, stuff like that,” Brad said.

“Oh,” Abed said, looking a bit put out.

“I also do fencing and archery,” Brad said reluctantly.

“Wow, really?” Abed’s eyes lit up. Brad sighed but answered the onslaught of questions that followed.

“So…do you go on any dates? You never mentioned anything in your emails,” Brad said after silence had fallen again. This is what normal people talked about, right? David sure brought it up a lot.

“Not really. I get asked out all the time but I don’t like awkward first dates where it’s all small talk, y’know.”

“Yeah, I remember those days.”

“Do you not date anymore?”

“No. I realized I can’t risk it with Zack and everything…” Brad trailed off awkwardly and looked away.

There was a long moment of silence before Abed suddenly asked, “Are you gay?”

Brad looked over at Abed sharply. “What?”

“Are you gay?” Abed asked. Brad studied him. He didn’t look judgemental or anything, just genuinely curious.

“Abed, buddy, you can’t just ask people that,” Brad told him.

“Oh. Sorry. I was just wondering because Britta thinks you are. You don’t have to answer. Sorry.”

“It’s a learning opportunity,” Brad says with a shrug. “When did Britta say that? She’s not wrong, I’m just curious.”

Abed doesn’t give any reaction to the fact Brad just came out before saying, “Well when Pierce says someone is gay, usually when Britta tells him off and she says something like ‘you don’t know that their gay’ but when Pierce said something about you, Britta didn’t say that.”

Brad just hummed in response. Silence settled again.

“I’m bi,” Abed said.

“Okay. Do your friends know?” Brad hoped Abed wasn’t looking for one of those overly emotional declarations of love and support because Brad knew that if he tried that it would come across as sarcastic.

“No. I’m not hiding it, like if they asked I’d tell them. I just really hate serious conversations and talking about feelings. I’ll wait for it to come up naturally in a light-hearted setting.”

Brad snorted a bit. “Good luck with that.”

“Are you going to come out to your friends?” Abed asked.

“I don’t have friends. I’ll come out the second David says anything that can be construed as homophobic just to make him uncomfortable, though.”

“Who’s David?”

Brad launched into a rant about how irritating yet fun to mess with David was. He did not like the analyzing way Abed was looking at him as he did it.

The next day, Brad arrived at Abed’s dorm room in the early afternoon, just like he had yesterday. He had lied and said he still had some work to do that morning, but really he wanted to avoid lunch plans.

As The Grinch was loading, Abed looked over at Brad and said, “Before I forget, my dad invited you over for dinner tomorrow.”

Brad pulse skyrocketed immediately. “You told your dad I’m here? He’s going to kill me.”

“Why would he do that?” Abed asked, furrowing his eyebrows.

“Because I’m putting you in danger by being here. He didn’t even want me talking with you, and staying with you for several days is way worse.”

“Oh. Well, it’s too late to fix that so you might as well come,” Abed pointed out. The sibling bonding they did yesterday must have really paid off because Brad could almost see a pleading look on his brother’s expressionless face.

“Fine. Let me update my will first, just in case.”

“Do I get anything?” Abed asked curiously. Brad just laughed.

They arrived at Gobi’s apartment late so that the family restaurant could still be open during the dinner rush. Abed knocked and Brad adjusted his sweater nervously.

The door was thrown open, spilling warm light into the hallway.

“Hey, Dad,” Abed greeted his father as he walked past him.

“Hello, Abed,” Gobi answered in a voice that was nearly warm. He then looked at Brad and scowled. “Bradley.”

“Mr. Nadir,” Brad said, copying his tone.

“Dad, you have to step aside to let him in,” Abed told his father, oblivious to the tension.

Gobi stepped aside. He and Brad glared at each other as Brad made his way into the dining room.

“Dad got us takeout from the restaurant,” Abed told Brad excitedly. Abed couldn’t see the small smile his father was giving him, but Brad caught it before Gobi noticed his staring and scowled again.

Gobi and Brad had a stare-down most of dinner while Abed chatted about school and TV shows. Occasionally they were forced to look away when Abed spoke to them specifically, but that wasn’t often. The staring contest also gave Brad a good excuse to barely touch his food. Power play.

“Can I go to my room for a bit?” Abed asked his dad after finishing his food. Gobi grunted in agreement and started clearing the table. Abed washed his dishes and disappeared down the hallway.

Brad looked at his mostly full plate of food and didn’t know what to do.

“Put it back in one of the takeout containers and bring it home with you,” Gobi told him, as though reading his mind. Brad glared at him but did what he said.

“So Abed said you and him have been emailing each other,” said Gobi as he continued cleaning up dinner. “I thought that was dangerous.”

“It was, but Zack already knows where Abed is so there isn’t really anything to lose. Besides, even if Zack got ahold of the emails, all he would learn is that Abed’s friends are idiots.”

“But if you show attachment, your brother will come for him,” Gobi said, stopping cleaning so he can glare at Brad.

“He already knows I care,” Brad muttered. He stood up and turned to face Gobi.

“I did everything I could to keep Zack from finding him, but he did anyway. There’s nothing we can do now but wait to see what he does. The only good thing to come of this is now Abed has someone else looking out for him, so let him have that.”

Gobi was studying Brad and didn’t say anything so Brad continued.

“You’re his father and you want what’s best for him but he’s an adult so he can email whomever he wants about his fake morning show or whatever.”

Gobi sighed and sat down at the table again. Brad hesitated and copied him.

“I want two things for Abed,” Gobi said, looking at his hands. “I want him to be safe and I want him to be understood. If what you say is true and I really have no control over whether he is safe, I can at least have some say in the second so… Please keep talking to him.”

Brad blinked in surprise but made sure that was the only indicator of his feelings. He waited for Gobi to continue.

“I’m glad he has someone who he can talk to. I wish he could talk to me, but… he’s different. He’s hard to understand.”

“You two not being able to understand each other isn’t his fault,” Brad told him harshly. “He can’t change the fact that he’s ‘different’.”

Gobi didn’t rise to the bait, though, and continued with the same sad wistful tone. “I know. I should try harder but I just…” Gobi trailed off, putting his head in his hand tiredly for a second before looking up at Brad, again. “I wouldn’t change anything about my boy. I just get frustrated sometimes when it means I can’t connect with him.”

“And you getting frustrated means you lash out at him, and make him feel like he has to change,” Brad pointed out. He wasn’t qualified to give parenting advice. Where was this insight even coming from?

“I regret it every time it happens, but he brushes me off whenever I try to talk about it. I wish his mother would have taken him with her, she always understood him better.”

“Now that’s bullshit,” said Brad. He got up and started to pace. “Abed said she was always trying to fix him. That’s not what he needs.”

“But he was always the happiest when she came over for Christmas. They never fought, she never yells-”

“She’s not in his life enough to fight with him! She spends like one day making him not hate her, you spent his whole life actually parenting him. And she abandoned him! She’s never coming back for another Christmas, which is why I stepped in. You’re not perfect, like at all. I actually have a lot of critiques but you stayed which should be a low bar but his mom managed to find a shovel and dig her way under that. You loved him like he was your own even if you’re shit at showing it. He was more excited about eating this takeout which he’s probably had a million times before than he was about any of the movies we watched. But, yeah, sure ‘woe is me, I’m the worst father in the world’. You’re not, so stop sulking and try being the best parent you can, because you’re all he’s got and he still needs you.”

Brad plopped back down into his chair, ignoring the way Gobi was staring at him in shock with tears in his eyes.

“You’re right,” said Gobi. “He needs you, too. Please don’t abandon him. He can’t lose someone else.”

“Do you blame him for her leaving?” Brad asked quietly.

“She gave up when things got difficult, and raising a child is always difficult. I think the only thing that could have stopped her from leaving is if I had been around and helped her more.”

“He thinks you blame him,” Brad told him. Maybe he shouldn’t be sharing what Abed had told him in private, but he thought it would help in the long run.

“I know. He made a video about it in his film class,” Gobi said. He looked down at the table and Brad saw he was ashamed. “I saw how frustrated she was with him all the time. He would have tantrums for seemingly no reason and she couldn’t do anything about it. For a while, I did think that if Abed was more like the other children, she wouldn’t have left. But, when she left, we couldn’t afford to go to all the doctors she sent him to. I never went to any appointments with them but I figured they were trying to figure out how to calm him down whenever he got worked up, so I started trying things. I talked to some of my customers, looked online, and found things that helped. I realized that Abed wasn’t really any different from the other kids, he just needed different things. And because of that, I realized she was always going to leave because she wasn't willing to try. But the damage had already been done.”

“He forgives you,” Brad told him. “He said you were so guilty you cried. It was the only time he saw you cry so he figured you really meant it.”

“It’s the one thing I wish I could change, way more than I wish she’d stayed. But I was also crying because I could understand him through his movie. It was like I was really seeing him for the first time. I realized that it was possible for him to be understood.”

“And that’s all you want for him,” Brad finished for him.

“Yes, which is why I want you in his life. I think he would benefit from having someone to talk to other than his crazy friends.”

Gobi reached over to pat Brad on his shoulder. Brad flinched slightly but didn’t move away. Gobi noticed and looked at him sadly.

“I think you could benefit from having him in your life, too,” Gobi said before giving Brad’s shoulder a pat and leaving to wash the dishes.

Abed came back out of his room looking less drained and sat next to Brad, who was thinking about what Gobi had said.

“Hey,” Abed said, bumping their knees together to get Brad’s attention.

“Hey. I was thinking… I don’t have a favorite Christmas movie to show you but I have a favorite Christmas episode of a show. Do you want to watch it?”

“Really?” Abed asked, eyes lighting up.

“Yeah. But you can’t tell anyone about it.”

“Sure.”

“It’s Ducktales.”

The two brothers talked for a bit about the show and how excited they were for the reboot coming out. Gobi came over to sit by them once everything was cleaned up and he had divided the food into several boxes for them to take home. He didn’t contribute, but he watched them with an amused look.

They left a little while later, each with several boxes of food in their hands.

“Bye, Dad. Good luck with work.”

“Thanks, son. Any plans for the rest of the break?”

“Well, Troy and I might hang out for a bit once he can escape his family. Oh, and there’s a movie that’s coming out that I want to see.”

“Do you want to see it together?” Gobi asked hesitantly. He looked at Brad over Abed’s shoulder and Brad gave him an only slightly sarcastic thumbs-up.

“Yeah, I’d love that,” Abed said with a slight smile. Gobi looked relieved and laid his hand on his son’s shoulder for a moment. Brad realized that that gesture might be one of the things Gobi had discovered that helped Abed since Abed didn’t seem to like hugs sometimes.

Brad and Abed headed down to Brad’s rental car. Abed held all the food in his lap while he stared at the window and hummed happily to himself.

Chapter Text

Abed clung to Troy’s arm as he huddled in the hospital bed.

When Jeff had pulled up to the hospital and opened Abed’s door for him, Abed had been unable to do anything but stare at the automatic doors in fear. Jeff had sighed and pulled Abed out of the car, slinging one of the younger man’s lanky arms over his shoulder. Troy had done the same thing on Abed's other side, holding onto his friend’s hand. When the two had set Abed down in one of the uncomfortable waiting room seats, Abed had refused to let go of Troy’s hand. Troy hadn’t said anything, just lifted Abed’s arm off his shoulder and moved their joined hands into his lap.

Now, two hours later, Abed still hadn’t let go of Troy. The doctors had tried to get rid of him, saying Abed wasn’t in a fit state to consent to the other two hearing his medical history and such, that was only for family. Jeff had made some lawyer arguments but what had won the doctors over was the way Abed started wailing when they tried to take Troy away. Or at least he had tried to wail, he did have tonsillitis after all.

Jeff was arguing with the doctors about something else now, but Abed wasn’t listening. The only thing he was aware of was the brightness of the wall he was staring blankly at, the feeling of Troy’s hand in his, the way Troy kept his arm perfectly still in the grasp of Abed’s other hand, and the feeling of Troy’s fingers stroking through his hair gently.

Finally, the yelling stopped and Jeff moved into Abed’s line of vision. It took a few minutes before he actually looked at Jeff, focusing on the bridge of his nose.

“You’re dad is on his way here. They had some trouble getting ahold of him,” said Jeff. Abed just nodded. It was the lunchtime rush hour.

“They want to get you psychiatric help because of the whole ‘removing your tonsils by yourself thing’. I was able to talk them out of having you monitored for now, as long as we stay with you the whole time.” Abed nodded again.

“You’re still in contact with your brother, right? Do you want to tell him what’s going on?”

Abed nodded a third time and pulled out his phone. He was a few lines into the email before Jeff looked over his shoulder and grabbed the phone out of his hands.

“He shouldn’t hear about this over email,” Jeff scolded. Abed finally made full eye contact and raised his eyebrows slightly.

“I know you can’t talk. How about I call him for you?” When Abed nodded, Jeff handed Abed back his phone and pulled out his own.

“Do you have-” Abed started saying raspily before Jeff cut him off.

“Yeah, he gave me his number when he first came to Greendale. Told me to keep an eye on you.”

“What do you need?” Brad asked as he answered the phone. He ignored David’s glare. Ever since David gave a lecture on polite phone introductions Brad had been answering the phone as curtly as possible whenever his coworker was around.

“Brad, it’s Jeff. I’m calling from the Greendale hospital.”

“What?” Brad asked sharply, quickly getting to his feet and leaving his office, ignoring David’s questions. “What happened? How bad is it?”

“They’re going to remove his tonsils but it’s a pretty routine surgery, but there’s another problem. Troy and I found him trying to take out his tonsils on his own with a kitchen knife.”

“Oh my god,” Brad said faintly, trying to control his sudden nausea. He was never good with blood, especially when it came from people or animals he cared about.

“We stopped him before he could do any real damage, he just nicked the side of his mouth a bit. But the doctors are talking about monitoring him and psychiatric evaluations and I think it’s just going to make things work. I mean I agree the kid needs therapy if he’s this afraid of doctors but I think it’s safe to wait. Plus he won’t acknowledge anyone in the room that isn't us. I had to repeat everything the doctors were asking just to get a nod or a headshake.”

“I guess all the doctor's visits when he was a kid really did a number on him psychologically.”

“That’s what I was thinking. Hopefully, his dad can speak on his behalf. He just got here.”

“That’s good.” Brad paused awkwardly. “Should I come visit? It’ll be hard to get a flight at the last minute but I can try?” He didn’t know what the expectation was for this. If Abed needed him he wouldn’t hesitate to visit but he was having trouble grasping how serious the situation was.

“We have everything under control, I just thought you might want to be updated. I can call you again when they start preparing him for surgery. Hearing your voice may calm him down and we need all the help we can get. Troy is barely keeping him calm and there aren’t any doctors even in the room right now.”

“Yeah, keep me updated.”

“Okay. Bye.” Jeff hung up.

Brad started walking back to his office. He had half a mind to get a flight to Colorado anyway, but he also had to start trusting Abed and his friends to be responsible adults once in a while.

“Hey, Brad. Is everything okay? Do you need another day off for a family emergency? I mean, you don’t have to tell me anything, obviously,” David started rambling as soon as Brad walked in.

Shit. Brad couldn’t get updates from Jeff without David getting suspicious over why he was leaving to take phone calls so often. He had to find somewhere else to work today, he couldn’t put up with David. He could camp out in a meeting room for the day but they might ask questions if it’s just him by himself. He needed someone else to be there who he trusted with personal information.

“Yeah, everything’s fine. I actually have to do some work with Sue today,” Brad said, thinking fast.

“Sue? What could that project possibly be?”

Brad gathered up his stuff, including some of the stress toys that Abed had bought him. While hanging out in Abed’s dorm, Brad had found a stress ball and hadn’t put it down for hours, so a week after he came back, he received a package with a note from Abed saying he noticed they helped Brad and that it was a late Christmas present.

“It’s way above your paygrade, David,” Brad told his coworker as he walked out the door. He could hear David saying something about being the boss.

“Sue, do you want to work on a fake project with me upstairs?” Brad asked the second the woman opened the door.

“Would I?!” She said excitedly, immediately stuffing folders into a satchel. Brad assumed her question was rhetorical so he didn’t say anything. No more than ten seconds later, Sue closed the door to her office and started heading toward the elevator with Brad.

“So what’s the fake meeting a cover for?” Sue asked once the elevator doors had closed.

Brad swiped his id card to get them access to the rest of the building. He didn’t look at her as he explained the situation. He left out the part about Abed trying to do surgery on himself, though.

“Oh, poor thing. It’ll be okay though. This happens to lots of people.”

At the sight of Sue's compassionate eyes, Brad had to resist the urge to snap at her. Instead, he just ignored her.

They worked in silence for a while, but Brad kept getting distracted checking his phone for news from Jeff.

“So, uh, you said Abed had some friends with him?” Sue asked, pulling Brad out of his anxious thoughts.

“Yeah. Why?”

“What are they like?” Despite the nonchalant face Sue was maintaining, Brad knew what she was doing, but he was desperate for a distraction so he would give in just this once.

“Well, the person who called me is named Jeff. He’s egotistical and a bit of an asshole but he actually called me out for not talking to Abed earlier so I guess I trust him with Abed in an emergency.”

“So he’s like you?” Sue asked teasingly.

“Sort of, but people actually like him for some reason,” Brad told her, rolling his eyes. He was feeling calmer already and was fighting away a smile.

“Well, popularity is a fickle thing, isn’t it,” Sue said sagely.

“I don’t know how people take him seriously after the whole pottery incident.”

Brad found himself telling Sue about his opinions on Abed’s friends and the adventures that Abed told him about. He left out some of the more serious moments like the Christmas group therapy session, but that still left him with plenty of stories.

Sue was an attentive listener. She asked for more details on the relationship drama with Jeff, Annie, and Britta than Brad normally would have given, but her enthusiasm for drama made him start to get invested too. Soon they were full-on gossiping like high schoolers.

“-and then, Annie punched him in the face!”

“No!” Sue gasped, sounding delighted.

“Yeah. So then she tells the group-” Brad was cut off by his cell phone ringing.

“I got to take this,” he told Sue, moving to the other side of the room as though that would actually do anything.

“Okay, I’ll just be listening to music.” Sue put in her headphones and started playing the Beach Boys so loudly Brad could hear the individual words to “Wouldn’t it be Nice”.

“Jeff,” Brad greeted as he answered the call.

“Brad. They’re going to try putting him under. Should be interesting because he bit one of the doctors earlier.”

“Wow. They didn’t restrain him or anything, right?”

“I mean, Troy’s holding him but it’s not really restraining at the moment. It’s more of a precaution.” Jeff paused. “Actually they might just be cuddling. I mean, they already hold hands sometimes… Anyway, Abed’s sick so he doesn’t have the strength to do too much damage so the doctors aren’t too worried about it happening again since we’re on guard.” Brad filed away several questions for later.

“You said something about talking to him, right? I’m not the most comforting person in the world,” said Brad, trailing off awkwardly.

“Yeah but he doesn’t respond to normal attempts at comfort so it’s fine.” Brad scowled a bit at Jeff’s tone but didn’t say anything.

“Hey, Brad. You’re on speakerphone. Abed has a pad of paper he’s been writing on so I’ll read whatever he says to you,” came Troy’s voice.

“Uh, okay. Hey Abed.”

“Hey,” Troy said on Abed’s behalf.

“Um. I hope you feel better?”

There was a pause and then Troy said, “He’s giving me a look that says ‘Just talk normally, you’re making everyone uncomfortable'.”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to say! I’ve never been in this situation before.”

There was another pause and Brad could hear writing.

“How is Sue?” Troy read out.

Brad stiffened. “What? What do you mean? I’ve barely talked to her since a year ago.”

“Don’t bother lying. I can predict behavior. You’re using a meeting with Sue to cover up the fact you’re going to be taking a lot of phone calls from Jeff because of this.”

Brad sat in stunned silence for a second before recovering. “Okay, you got me. It was the most strategic move. I hope you don’t mind that I’ve been telling her about some of your… adventures.”

“I’m just happy you're making friends.” Troy made a little ‘aw’ sound as he finished reading what Abed had written.

Brad scowled. “It’s a mutually beneficial coworker relationship,” he hissed. He looked over at Sue, who looked up at him after a second and smiled brightly. Upon seeing his stressed face, she held up one of the stress balls he’d brought with him and raised a questioning eyebrow. He nodded and caught her surprisingly powerful throw.

“Sure” was Abed’s only response. Troy did an eerily good job of capturing the passive disbelief.

“Do you like Sue?” Brad was thrown off by the question. Abed knew that Brad liked Sue, even though he had denied it mere seconds ago. Then the realization hit him.

“Troy, how long has my brother been unconscious?” He’d tolerate Abed’s teasing but he wouldn’t hesitate to fistfight Troy.

“Only for that last part. They’re moving him now. Have fun hanging out with your giiiiiirlfrieeeeend.”

The only response Brad could give to being accused of having Sue as his girlfriend by the man who was just cuddling Brad’s brother was a scoff. He then immediately hung up.

He returned to his seat across from Sue who looked up and turned off her music.

“Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, he’s going into surgery right now.”

“He’s going to be okay, Brad,” Sue told him in a comforting voice he thought was unnecessary.

“I know,” he said, looking at her in confusion. She just smiled and patted his hand.

They actually managed to get work done for an hour, though Brad did take a break in the middle to order a Luke Skywalker Build-A-Bear to be sent to Abed in the hospital, before Sue set down one of the folders with a sigh.

“Well, I’m going to go get lunch, do you want to come?”

“Oh, I’m not hungry. Probably the stress,” Brad said before the panic could even set in.

‘Wow, you didn’t even hesitate to use your poor brother’s illness to get yourself out of the situation your own idiocy landed you in. Is this better than having to step out of your office every couple hours,’ his brain berated him.

“Are you sure?” Sue asked him, furrowing her eyebrows. He didn’t know why she was concerned, anyone looking at him could see a few skipped meals wouldn’t kill him.
“Yes, I’m sure,” he told her, adding a warning tone to his voice.

“Okay.” Instead of leaving, Sue turned back to her computer. Brad did the same, but he glanced over at her every few minutes, wondering what her next move would be.

After half an hour, Sue closed her laptop and looked over at him.

“Y’know, I usually walk around this little park nearby during lunch break. You don’t have to bring anything, I just thought it might be fun to get out of the office.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” Brad said hesitantly.

“Oh come on. We can sneak out so no one sees us. And remember, your brother can’t do much more damage than the hackers who published all my information online and made me hide out at my sister’s house.”

Brad was about to say his brother absolutely could cause more damage but paused when Sue mentioned her sister. Sue knew so much about Abed and his friends and Brad knew nearly nothing about Sue. How could he make sure she didn’t betray him if he didn’t have blackmail or some other hold over her.

“Sure, let’s go.” For the blackmail, he told himself.

The pair went back down to the basement so Sue could grab the lunch she had packed before heading out into the fresh air and sunlight.

The park was only a couple blocks from their building but Brad had never noticed it before. Maybe because it could barely count as a park. He could’ve sworn he’d seen road medians bigger than this.

“So…” Brad started awkwardly. Small talk was the worst. He was really only comfortable talking about business or insults. “You said you have a sister nearby? Do you have other family, too?”

“Well, I don’t have a husband or kids if that’s what you’re asking. It’s just me and my cats right now.”

“How many cats do you have?” Brad asked, genuinely interested.

“I have four. I know that makes me a bit of a crazy cat lady. Do you have any pets?”

“You can’t tell anyone this but I just got a cat a few weeks ago.”

“Aw! What’s its name?”

Brad considered not telling her but he eventually mumbled, “Emma.”

“Well, that’s an adorable name.”

The two of them talked about cats for a little while before the conversation turned back to Sue’s family.

“Yeah, my sister lives in Nevada and I’ve got a brother in Oregon. My two other sisters are in South Dakota and my parents are still in Minnesota.”

“Ah, Minnesota. That explains the accent.”

“Yeah. Although the accent isn’t as common as you’d expect. Where are you from?”

“Illinois.” When Brad didn’t offer any more information, they lapsed into silence. Brad was actually quite impressed with Sue’s ability to use a fork while walking laps around the small park.

“So what do you do for fun, Brad? I feel like I know a lot about your brother but nothing about you.”

Normally Brad’s go-to answer was 'watch animals eat each other', but he didn’t want to freak Sue out after they’d talked about cats for so long. Although cats ate other animals so it kind of made sense but that might just be Brad’s pretty fucked up mind rationalizing it.

“Um, I watch basketball,” he offered. “And I watch TV sometimes. I also go over the company's finances just for the fun of it.”

“Y’know, I could have sworn I heard you in the parking garage the other day telling David how much of a dork he was for playing some video game,” Sue told him teasingly.

“Being a nerd is so much better than being a dork,” he retorted. “What about you? What do you like to do?”

“Well, I participate in a lot of church stuff.” Alarms immediately started to blare in Brad’s mind. Growing up in rural Illinois gave him several… opinions… on organized religion. On the bright side, it would make it easier to keep Sue at a distance if all he had to do to get her to avoid him was to come out. He'd have to wait until the end of the day, though, because she was still useful to him right now.

“I don’t like a lot of the people that go there,” Sue was saying, “but I go for myself, not for them.”

“What’s wrong with them?” he asked cautiously.

“Just overly judgemental,” she answered, wrinkling her nose.

“You do realize we spent most of the morning gossiping, right?”

“We weren’t judging them, we were laughing at them,” Sue said brightly. Brad really hoped she wasn’t a homophobe because she was definitely his second favorite person ever.

Before either could say anything, Brad’s phone rang.

He stopped walking and answered it and immediately asked, “How’d it go?”

“Everything went fine. He’s out like a light right now.”

“That’s good,” he said, giving Sue a thumbs up when she looked at him questioningly.

Jeff hummed in agreement on the other end of the line and said, “I’m just happy Troy’s finally stopped crying. The nurses were probably about to hook him up to an IV.” Brad filed that information under his ‘Trobed?’ memory file.

“When is he going to wake up?”

“In a couple of hours, probably. I’ll call you then.”

“Okay, thanks,” Brad said before hanging up.

“Everything go okay?” Sue asked.

“Yep. Let’s head back to the office. I should get in a couple hours of work before Abed wakes up.”

He and Sue mostly worked for the next couple of hours, with occasional breaks to talk about Abed’s friends. Jeff called him when Abed had woken up, leading to Brad, Jeff, and Troy both having to reassure a slightly crying Abed that the cut he got on the side of his mouth that morning didn't make him the Joker, that he would be able to do his Batman voice again soon, and that even without his voice he could still fight crime because he was intimidating in other ways.

Jeff also informed Brad that they were letting Abed go home tomorrow.

“Abed’s dad can stay with him overnight but I convinced them to let Troy stay, too. They’re kicking me out, though. Can’t say I’m upset about it,” said Jeff. Brad almost believed him based on how tired the other man sounded, but Jeff had spent the whole day with Abed and Brad bet he would have been willing to spend the night, too.

“Thank you for looking after him,” Brad said seriously.

“Yeah, well, if you’d walked into his apartment to find him with a knife in his mouth you wouldn’t want to let him out of your sight either,” Jeff said tiredly. Brad winced just imagining it.

“But we all accepted that he’s a bit different,” Jeff continued, “that means accepting the ‘concerning’ weird as well as the ‘fun/quirky’ weird. Anyway, the rest of the group is visiting soon so I gotta go.”

“Okay, thanks again.”

“No problem.” Jeff hung up.

“Well Brad, it was a lot of fun hanging out with you, even under the circumstances,” Sue told him as she gathered up her stuff to head out.

“Yeah,” Brad agreed, surprising himself with just how genuine his agreement was.

“Do you want to go on a lunch break walk tomorrow?” Sue asked him.

“Sure.” Brad actually had had fun talking with Sue, so why not.

The two of them walked over to the elevator so Sue could go get the rest of her things. Just as the elevator was closing and Brad was turning to leave, Sue stopped the door with her hand and called out to Brad.

“I know we’re just work friends, but you can talk to me about anything. I mean, if you want to,” she told him. Brad had to break eye contact. He didn’t know how to deal with the concern she was aiming at him.

“Sue being work friends makes you my best friend just by default. And…” God expressing emotion was painful. “You can talk to me too, I guess. I will totally make an anonymous account to bully those children,” Brad said, pointing at the folders Sue was holding.

“I’ll think about it,” Sue said, beaming. She stepped back and let the doors close.

Chapter Text

“Hey Sue, want to hear about some Greendale drama?” Brad asked as they met at their usual spot in the parking lot. For the last few weeks, they would meet at the back of the parking lot and head over to the park together.

“Ooooh, yes!”

“Okay,” said Brad, pulling up Abed’s email. “So Abed just said ‘Shirley may be pregnant with the baby of our ex-Spanish teacher but her ex-husband who she’s back together with after he apologized for leaving her for a stripper said he’d raise it.’ I mean how does that even happen in real life?”

“I know. That’s good of her husband though, isn’t it?”

“I think it’s kind of a bare minimum. They were on a break, she had every right to sleep with whomever she wanted and if he wants to be with her it’s expected for him to care about her kids. I just don’t know why she’d want to get together with Chang. He destroyed Jeff's lexus with a keytar and has a restraining order against him by one of the professors.”

“No!” Sue gasped. “Why did he do that?”

Brad paused to eat a few of the crackers he had started bringing with him for lunch recently before launching into the story.

Brad frowned when his phone buzzed on his desk. No one ever texted him. David had tried several times when he first got Brad’s number but Brad had shut that down pretty quick, Sue always waited for him to text first, and Abed preferred emailing like an old man.

“Hey Brad, I know I normally email but this was a time-sensitive matter. What do I do if Troy and I both want to ask the same girl out to the dance? I don’t want any feelings to be hurt.”

David and Abed were constantly in competition for who made Brad roll his eyes the most. This moment put Abed in the lead because the sheer intensity of this eye roll made it worth at least ten.

“Why the fuck would you ask me that?”

“Oh I was actually hoping you’d ask Sue. I think she knows enough about me and my friends to offer input.”

“I don’t talk to Sue. That was a one-time arrangement.”

“Lie. Can you please go ask for her help?”

Brad sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose but got up and headed to the basement.

“Hey, Brad!” Sue’s eyes lit up when she saw him. Brad would never get used to that.

“Hey, Sue. Can you come upstairs where there's a signal? Abed needs girl advice.”

Sue’s face somehow lit up more. “Yes!” she squealed.

“Be discreet about it,” Brad reminded her tiredly as they headed toward the elevator.

“Of course.”

Abed’s conversation with Troy was cut off when his phone rang. The screen showed that Brad was calling him back.

“Hello?” he said once he’d picked up.

“Here’s Sue,” Brad said brusquely.

“Hi Abed! I hear you need relationship advice!” came Sue’s cheerful and slightly tinny voice over the phone.

“Yeah,” Abed agreed. “Me and Troy-”

“Hi, Sue,” said Troy.

“-need help figuring out what to do since we both want to ask the same girl to the Valentine’s Day dance.”

“Well it’s nice to meet you, Troy. I guess my suggestion would be to ask her at the same time since she might just say yes to whoever asks her first. Or you guys could just go as a throuple. Is that what it’s called? I mean, I guess it depends on… y’know, if you want to.”

Abed could hear Brad make a choking noise in the background, and Troy made a similar sound next to him.

“I guess that would give her time to get to know us before she decides,” Abed conceded. He knew what Sue had meant but he was pretty sure Troy wouldn’t want to do that. “Thanks, Sue. Can you make sure Brad doesn’t overwork himself?”

“I mean, that’s not really what it means to be a… Never mind. It’s my pleasure, honey. Good luck!”

“Thank you,” Abed and Troy said in unison before Abed hung up.

“Going as a throuple isn’t a bad idea,” Troy said, giving Abed a look the other couldn’t interpret.

“Yeah, and then we can split up when she’s made her choice.”

“Or we could- yeah that sounds like a good idea.” It sounded like Troy wanted to say something else but he stayed silent.

When Brad met Sue out in the parking lot he was immediately bombarded with questions.

“I don’t know anything,” Brad told her, cutting off her stream of questions. “He hasn’t said anything so I was going to call him now.”

“Is he going to be okay with me being here?” Sue asked as they began to walk.

“He knows I’m going to tell you everything anyway.” Brad ignored the way Sue beamed at him.

They sat on one of the benches in the little park and Brad pulled out his phone to call Abed.

“Hey, Brad,” greeted Abed. As expected, his tone didn’t give any hints as to how the night before had gone.

“Hey, buddy. How’d it go?”

“I’m here, too,” Sue cut in before Abed could say anything. “Just let me know if you want to have some bro time, I can leave.”

“I was going to tell him to tell you about it anyway.”

Brad gave Sue an ‘I told you so’ look before leaning closer to his phone. “Give us the deets.”

“She agreed to go to the dance with the both of us to get to know us and then choose who she wanted as her date.”

“Well that’s good,” offered Brad.

“Yeah. She chose Troy. She told him I was too weird.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, sweetie,” Sue told him.

“It’s okay. Troy got mad at her for saying that and left her. We met up in the hallway and he said 'there's someone out there for us’ and I said ‘Happy Valentine’s Day’ and he said ‘it is now’ and we hugged and spent the rest of the evening with our friends. And Britta made out with a girl she thought was a lesbian,” Abed rambled in his usual toneless and practical voice.

“Well that is… a lot to process,” Brad said after a moment of silence. It was taking all of his willpower not to look at Sue; he didn’t want her to know his thoughts on Troy and his brother.

“Did you have fun?” Sue asked.

“Yeah.”

“Well that’s all that matters.

“Why did Britta kiss a girl she thought was a lesbian?” Brad asked bluntly.

“Brad, I think that’s probably obvi-” Sue started to say. Brad held up a finger, telling her to wait.

“She wanted to make a point that she was comfortable with lesbians and the girl was doing the same thing with her but neither of them was actually a lesbian.”

“There it is,” Brad said triumphantly. He looked at Sue. “You can’t expect a normal answer from that group.”

“So what are you up to now, Abed?” Sue asked, ignoring Brad.

“I’m in the hospital.”

“What?” Brad asked sharply.

“It’s not for me. Pierce overdosed on painkillers and is bequeathing us stuff on his deathbed. I’m making a documentary about it.”

“Is he actually going to die?” Brad asked curiously. He really didn’t care either way.

“No. Well, not from the drugs. Jeff might kill him, though.”

“Keep me updated about that,” Brad laughed.

“Will do. Do you want to see the documentary when it’s done?”

“Sure.”

The three of them talked for the rest of Brad and Sue’s lunch break, though Sue let the brothers do most of the talking.

“We should be heading back,” Brad told Abed after his younger brother had somehow convinced him to watch The Cape.

“Okay, talk to you again soon. Bye, Sue.”

“Bye, Abed!” Sue waved at the phone even though Abed couldn’t see her.

The second Brad hung up, Sue grabbed his arm excitedly.

“Abed and Troy are so cute, I can’t handle it!”

Brad was too startled to react for a moment but he finally managed to say, “I don’t think they’re a couple.”

“But Abed said they spent the rest of the dance together. Troy left that girl for him!”

“That’s totally normal for them. They cuddle and hold hands one minute and the next they’re both asking out the same girl.”

“Oh.” Sue sounded genuinely disappointed.

“It could still happen,” he offered.

“Yeah. And they’re young so it might take time. They would make a cute couple though.”

“I know right?” Brad agreed. Sue beamed at him.

“I’m so glad you’re not a homophobe,” Brad told her casually once they had reached the parking lot.

“I can see why you might have thought that, but I only care about the religion when it makes people happy, I just kind of ignore the stuff that’s used to hurt other people. I don’t think it’s a sin or anything.”

Brad just nodded awkwardly, not really having anything to say to that.

“Okay, well. See you tomorrow.”

They end up spending lunch in Sue’s office watching Abed’s documentary that he somehow edited at superhuman speed. Sue even made popcorn.

“Your brother is so wise,” Sue said seriously as the ‘Cool Abed Films’ logo came up.

“Yeah. It wasn’t as funny as I was hoping but I guess it was good.”

“You were laughing through most of it,” she pointed out.

“Okay, it wasn’t funny to people who don’t take pleasure in other people suffering,” he said, giving her what Ian called his ‘sociopath smile’.

“Whatever you say, honey,” Sue said with a pleasant smile and a pat on Brad’s hand.

Brad didn’t hear from Abed for a little while but that was fine, he knew the end of the semester could be a busy time. However, without any new gossip to talk to Sue about, Brad had to actually talk about himself and Sue could always tell when he was lying.

“I can tell when someone’s putting on an act,” she had told him.

“Yeah, because it takes one to know one, right?” he had shot back. She didn’t seem fazed by it, just mumbled something about defensiveness before taking another bite of her sandwich.

When Abed’s birthday came, Brad decided to be the one to reach out, for once.

“Hey, Brad.” Abed greeted when he answered the phone.

“Hey, Abed. Happy birthday,” said Brad. He put Abed on speakerphone and continued folding his laundry.

“Oh, thanks. You remembered,” Abed sounded slightly surprised.

Over the two decades after Brad had given Abed away, every March 24 he’d say a silent happy birthday to his missing brother. That fact was going to die with him, though.

“Yes? You were born when I was thirteen, not five,” he said instead.

“I guess that makes sense. When’s your birthday? I should've asked sooner,” said Abed.

“That’s classified.”

“If you don’t tell me I’m going to send you ‘Happy Birthday’ emails every day just in case.”

“Okay, fine. April 28th.”

“That’s finals week for me. Was your birthday always during finals? Does that mean you never celebrated it? Can I throw you a birthday party to make up for years of stressful birthdays?”

Brad waited for Abed to finish rambling before answering each question, “Yes. I mostly didn’t celebrate it because I had no friends. Please don’t.”

“Fine,” Abed sighed.

“Are you having a birthday party?” Brad asked him.

“No, I’m just meeting up with Jeff to have an adult dinner.”

“Why, Jeff? What about Troy? And what movie are you copying?”

“The movie is ‘My Dinner with Andre’. Jeff and I haven’t hung out much and I feel like the only reason he’ll agree to hang out with me is if it’s my birthday.”

“So why don’t you spend your birthday with someone who does want to hang out with you?” Brad asked probably a bit too bluntly.

“Because sometimes friendship requires work. You need to reach out. Like how you reached out to Sue for help.” A life lesson pulled straight out of a TV, probably.

“So what else have you been up to?” Brad asked, trying to change the topic.

“I had a fling with a secret service agent and accidentally became friends with a war criminal and started watching The Cape.”

“I know I say this a lot when I talk to you, but what the fuck?”

“It’s not as bad of a show as some people-”

“That wasn’t what I was referring to.”

Chapter Text

Brad packed up his things and left the meeting that started with discussing goals for the new expansion and ended with Poppy and Ian arguing. He pulled out his phone on the way out the door to check for missed calls. He stopped so suddenly that David ran into him when he saw 34 missed calls from Troy Barnes.

“You okay, Brad?” David asked while gathering the papers he had dropped.

“Yeah,” Brad said dismissively before storming to his usual semi-abandoned hallway. Once he was safely out of earshot, he called Troy back.

“Hey, Brad. It’s Troy. Y’know, Abed’s friend.”

“I remember,” Brad said. “What happened?”

“Well, Abed hasn’t slept for three days and now he’s talking gibberish. I thought it might be time to call in an adult. Or a real adult at least.”

Wow, Abed was having a very rough semester of school.

“Take him to the hospital, they can probably give him sedatives,” Brad told him, trying to keep his voice calm.

“Abed hates doctors, remember? Also Annie said she thinks he might have been dosed with an amphetamine.”

“Why does she think that? That’s not a very common thing to dose someone with, is it?”

“I don’t know but uh… I think I can take her word on that one,” Troy said vaguely. Brad knew what he was hinting at but frankly didn’t care about Annie or her problems. Unless…

“Text me Annie’s number,” he told Troy.

“What? I don’t think-”

“Just do it.”

“Okay,” Troy said, sounding stressed. Brad felt his phone vibrate from a text notification.

“So what do I do?” asked Troy, sounding scared.

“Okay, um,” Brad didn’t really know what to do, but he’d had his fair share of insomnia. “I know he doesn’t like doctors but if he doesn’t get some sleep in the next 24 hours, take him anyway. Until then… you know what, give me a second to research. In the meantime, just make sure he doesn’t hurt himself.”

“Okay, I can do that.” Troy sounded scared enough that even Brad felt some sympathy.

“You can do this Troy,” he told the younger man.

“Yeah. Yeah, we’ll be fine. But call back soon please.”

“Right.”

Brad hung up and dialed the number Brad had texted him.

“Hello?” said Annie.

“Annie Edison. I have some questions for you.”

“Oh?” Annie’s voice was much higher now.

“I’ve just been informed that my brother has been experiencing some interesting symptoms and you told Troy Barnes you thought it was an amphetamine. That’s an interesting conclusion to come to. Fortunately for you, Troy seems to think this was just your attempt to help him figure out what’s wrong with Abed. But that’s not why you told him that, was it? You were trying to keep him from going to the hospital where they would be forced to investigate further into students being given drugs against their will. You don’t want that because you know the trail would lead back to you.”

Annie was silent on the other end of the line. “What do you want?” she asked, resigned.

“I want you to tell me how to help him, information you should have given Troy considering it would help undo the damage you caused someone who considers you a friend.”

“What? I consider Abed a friend!”

“And yet you’re letting him suffer just to cover your own ass. I don’t know a lot about friendship but I don’t think that aligns with most peoples’ definition.”

“Look, I’m sorry! I’ll tell you everything I know, just please don’t tell them that I did it.”

“Okay, I won’t.”

Brad called Troy back when he was done talking to Annie.

“Can you describe his symptoms a bit more?” Brad asked Troy.

“Um, yeah. He’s not sleeping, he’s talking gibberish, he’s super fidgety and paranoid, and he won’t eat anything.”

“Okay. Do you guys have a weighted blanket?”

Under Brad’s instruction, Abed was tucked into his bed with a dose of melatonin and a weighted blanket.

“He’s still trying to get up and move around,” Troy told Brad.

“He needs to try to stay relaxed,” Brad said after reading through an article on tips for treating insomnia.

“I told him that but I’m not sure he understands.”

“Is the weighted blanket helping or is he getting claustrophobic do you think?” Brad asked.

“I think it’s helping. It usually helps when he’s overwhelmed.”

Brad frowned in concern at the idea of his brother getting overwhelmed on a regular basis but it made sense given his autism.

“Okay, well if we increase the pressure it may help ground him more and keep him in place,” said Brad, deciding to focus on the problem at hand.

“Okay, how do we do that?”

“I don’t know,” Brad admitted. “Do you think he’d react badly to you laying on him? I know he doesn’t really like physical contact.”

“Um, I don’t know. It’s worth a try I guess,” said Troy, sounding flustered. There was some shuffling on the other end of the line.

“He does seem calmer now,” Troy whispered, probably trying not to disturb Abed.

“Okay, see if that works. Call me back in a few hours if it doesn’t.”

“Okay, thanks, Brad. I'm glad I called you.”

“No, problem.” Brad hesitated before gritting his teeth. “And thanks for taking care of him,” he said in a tone that sounded more frustrated than grateful.

“Always.”

“Gross.” Brad hung up. He took his time walking back to his office, delaying the inevitable confrontation from David. It's not his fault that he's the first person Abed's friends call when there's an emergency. Oh shit. He's the first person Troy thought to call. That is not good. How had this even happened? He had told himself he would warn Abed about Zack and never talk to him again.

The second Brad walked into their shared office, David turned to face him.

“You’ve been on the phone for nearly an hour, is everything okay?” he asked.

“Peachy,” Brad replied, sitting at his desk and turning on his computer.

“If you need to take the day off again you can. You don’t need to hide in a conference room with Sue again.”

“I wasn't planning on it. I’m just going to make another call during my lunch break to check in and then that should be it. No need to concern yourself.”

“Actually, the lunch breaks are another thing. You used to just stay here and work but now you're leaving every day. If something is going on, you can talk to me.”

“Nothing is wrong and it’s none of your business.” Brad turned in his chair so his back was to Brad.

“Okay, well. I’m here for you, Brad.” Brad ignored him. He liked David, as much as he tried to deny it even to himself, but he couldn't trust him. He could only bring himself to talk to trust Sue because he had been forced to trust her at the beginning, and there was no one she could talk about him to. David was notoriously an oversharer, it would be a week before he told the office how nice of a guy Brad truly was.

They worked in silence until it was time for Brad to meet up with Sue. He grabbed an apple and a small bag of crackers from his bag and left. He could feel David watching him as he left.

“Hi, Brad! Are you okay?” Sue asked, her smile quickly fading into a look of concern.

“Abed’s sick. I’m going to call Troy to check in on him,” he told her, pulling up Troy’s phone number.

“Okay.” They started walking.

“Hey, Brad,” Troy said quietly over the phone.

“Hey. How is he?”

“He’s asleep.”

Brad sighed in relief.

“He keeps getting restless whenever I try to get up so I might be stuck here for a while,” Troy continued. “At least there was a phone charger by the bed.”

“Okay, well… um, make sure to take care of yourself, too?” Brad cringed. He hated conversations like this.

“Will do. Take care.”

“Yep. Bye.” Brad stuffed his phone in his pocket a little aggressively, still trying to shake off his own discomfort.

“Is he okay?” Sue asked. Brad knew she wanted to ask if he was okay, too. He was glad she didn’t.

“Yeah, he should be fine.”

“That’s good.” Sue was looking at him expectantly.

“Just ask me what’s wrong, I know you want to,” he sighed.

“Okay, what’s wrong? There’s something else going on.”

Brad said she could ask, he didn’t say he would answer. They kept walking around the park in silence.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it, I know you’re a private person,” Sue told him.

“I’m not anymore,” Brad said tonelessly. “I’ve known this kid for a year and now I get called for advice all the time, and I talk to you every day.” He didn’t tell her that that realization terrified him.

“Most people would consider that a good thing. Think of it as having allies.” Sue was giving him the understanding smile that he still couldn’t fully face.

“Allies are just people who go down with you in a losing battle,” he said quietly. 'And then they resent you for it,' he added in his head.

“Good thing friends are people who are always willing to lose with you,” she said, smiling up at him as she pulled him into a quick side hug.

He froze and Sue stopped walking, too. She didn’t say anything, as Brad’s thoughts raced so fast he couldn’t move. The guilt that he was putting Abed and Sue in danger by not chasing them away, the panic at knowing there was nothing he could do about it now, the fear they would start asking questions he didn’t want to answer but they were probably entitled to by now, the anger at himself for not being strong enough to keep them safe, and so much more.

Eventually, he took a deep breath and came back to reality.

“Everything’s going to be okay, Brad,” she told him. She started walking again, giving him some privacy but going slow enough that it would be easy for him to catch up.

He blinked away tears, took a deep breath, and caught up with his friend.

When he made it back to his office, David was still out on his break, thankfully. Brad put back the apple and crackers he couldn't get himself to eat over the voice in his head that was so much louder than usual. He started working, with an apathetic look carefully placed on his face in preparation for David's return.

For the rest of the day, Brad received texts from Troy assuring him that Abed was just sleeping.

When he got home, Brad made an anonymous email account, pulled up the contact information of the Hawthorne Wipes company, got ahold of Pierce Hawthorne’s email, and started typing.

“Mr. Hawthorne,
I have it on good authority that Annie Edison from your study group dosed you all with an amphetamine. This information is not enough to get her into legal trouble, and I don’t think you would want to do that to her anyway. It is, however, good blackmail material and you are the only person I trust out of your study group to use this information as destructively as possible with little regard for consequence or others’ feelings. Feel free to use this information however or whenever you see fit.
Sincerely,
A concerned party”

Brad had found himself unable to hurt Sue, Abed, and even Troy, but that did not mean he was a nice person.

At work the next day, Brad finally got an email from Abed.

“Hey Brad,
Thanks for helping out yesterday. I don’t usually have problems sleeping so I don’t know what happened. Troy seems really freaked out by the whole thing but not as much as I expected so imagine your emotional aloofness helped calm him down. I know mine normally does. I’m fine now so you don’t have to worry. I also invented a new language, it has its own grammar structure and everything! I was also wondering if I could see you again this summer. I’m doing a two-week-long film program in LA. We can have a secret meeting again if that’s what you want.
-Abed”

Brad played with one of his fidget toys as he considered the risks. Since they’d already met at HQ once, that would probably be safe to do again, but maybe he could risk having Abed over at his house. He’d been reckless enough already, what were a few more risks?

‘You’re an asshole for putting him at risk just so you can feel less lonely,’ he told himself. It was something he told himself all of the time, whenever he talked to Abed, went on walks with Sue, humored David’s attempts to be ‘office buddies’. He knew he was needy and weak to get this close to people when he knew the risk it posed for them. He knew what kind of a person that made him.

“Abed,
When are you going to be here? You can stay with me, I doubt you can afford a decent hotel here.
-Brad”.

‘You let a college kid you’ve known for a year have this much control over your life? Pathetic,’ the darker part of his mind screamed at him.

“I know,” Brad mumbled aloud, resigned. He hit send.

Chapter Text

“Hey, Brad. Happy Birthday.”

“Thanks,” Brad said just as tonelessly. “Were you the one that told Sue?”

When Brad had met Sue for their lunch break, he was immediately ambushed by Sue overenthusiastically singing ‘Happy Birthday’. But she hadn’t told anyone else or gotten him anything so he tolerated it.

“Yeah, I did mention it when I talked to her last,” Abed told him.

“You and Sue talk?”

“Not often, I was just telling her that I was staying with you when I visit LA since she offered her her guest room.”

“...Okay,” said Brad, not sure how to respond to that.

There was silence for a bit, but that was normal for them on the rare occasions they talked on the phone. They just assumed the other was doing something, even though at the moment Brad was just petting his cat.

“Guess what,” said Abed.

“What?” Brad asked, humoring him.

“You share a birthday with Shirley's son. He was born today.”

“Cool,” Brad said insincerely.

“Yeah, he was born in our anthropology classroom because there was a riot going on in the parking lot so she couldn’t leave.”

“What?”

“Yeah but it was okay since I’d delivered a baby before so I just told Britta what to do.”

“What the fuck?!”

“Yeah, back in March I delivered a baby in the back of a car in the parking lot. I was worried for a second it was mine but we got that cleared up pretty fast when the actual dad chased me around the school grounds.”

“What the fuck!” Brad was staring ahead in full open-mouthed shock at this point.

“We’re also going to be having a western-themed end of the year picnic next week.”

“No, we’re going back to the whole delivering a baby thing,” Brad told him, pinching the bridge of his nose as he felt a stress headache begin.

“Why? What more is there to say?”

“Well first of all, you’re too young to have to worry about being someone’s baby daddy!”

“I’m twenty-two,” said Abed, sounding confused.

“Fine, then you’re old enough to know how to- to practice safe sex. God, I can’t believe I’m having this conversation.”

“I was safe but condoms are only 98 percent effective.”

“You learned that from ‘Friends’ didn’t you.”

“I learn most things from TV.”

“That’s not something you should be learning from TV,” said Brad. His headache had grown substantially worse. He sighed and gritted his teeth before asking, “Do you have any questions that couldn’t be answered by TV?”

“This type of conversation usually leads to bonding in movies but I’m going to say no.”

“Oh thank god.”

“Now can I talk about paintball?”

“Please do.” That had been a terrible conversation.

Even two weeks after Abed’s insomnia incident, David still kept asking if Brad was okay and if there was anything he wanted to talk about. Brad always responded “yes, I want to talk about irritating coworkers who overstep their boundaries” but it never deterred David. It was starting to get to the point where Brad was seriously considering telling Ian about the paintball games Greendale had. He’d love to see David’s face as he failed to talk Ian out of causing damage to his own company.

“So, Brad,” David said one day, turning in his desk chair to face Brad. “I was walking through the parking lot the other day and couldn’t help but notice you and Sue leaving together.” The suggestiveness in David’s tone made Brad pull up the news article Abed had attached to his email about the most recent paintball game.

“Well, David. You did point out that we have a bit of a workplace alliance. In order to maintain alliances you have to communicate regularly,” said Brad.

“It didn’t look very work related. You two seem happy together.” David was grinning now. Brad was attaching the news article to an email to Ian.

“David, have you ever considered what would happen if Everlight involved property damage?” Brad asked.

“Um, no,” David frowned.

“Well you’re going to see it if you don’t stop talking.”

David looked confused but took the hint.

The summer passed without much excitement from Brad, as usual, as well as Abed, surprisingly. It really did just go to show that that study group brought out the worst in people in Brad’s opinion.

A week before Abed was coming to visit, the panic started to set in.

“I’ve seen him in person twice in the last twenty years,” he told Sue during their break.

“Yeah, but you’ve talked to him a lot. Besides, you’re brothers! You’re made to get along,” she said, smiling at him.

“That’s definitely number one on the list of ‘things not to say to the brother of a psychopath’,” he said dryly.

“Oh. I forgot about him.” Sue looked a bit put out. “Is that why you’re actually nervous? Because you and Abed get along really well.”

“Maybe. Probably,” Brad admitted. “But also this is a two-week visit. I stayed three days with him once and the rest of the time we just talk on the phone. So much could go wrong even without Zack getting involved.”

“Even if something does go wrong, you two can figure it out.” Sue put her hand on his arm. Brad had to resist the impulse to shake it off. “I know that you will do anything for him, even confront all your issues and ask for help. And he looks up to you.”

“You don’t know that,” said Brad. He was unable to look at her sympathetic eyes.

“He must talk about you a lot to his friends if they know to call you whenever something happens.”

“Okay,” Brad relented after a moment, desperate to get the conversation over with. Sue smiled and gave his arm a squeeze before letting go.

Brad clearly wasn’t the only one who was nervous about Abed staying for a couple weeks. He received a text from Troy asking for Brad’s email. Within minutes of giving it to him, Brad received an email that simply said ‘in case of an emergency’ with a document attached. When he opened it, Brad was nearly blinded by the colorful word art that said “What to do if Abed gets overwhelmed”.

Troy had put together a bulleted list where he clearly just typed things as he thought of them, like ‘if he doesn’t want to be touched, wrap him in a blanket and hold the ends so it’s tight’ and ‘he’ll only eat buttered noodles’. Brad didn’t email anything back to Troy but he immediately started to assemble the advice into a more organized guide.

Another problem that was causing Brad stress was the fact that his house wasn’t set up for company. His guest room was more of a storage room and didn’t even have a bed. Also his fridge and cabinets were basically empty and he had no idea what Abed usually ate other than buttered noodles and takeout.

Brad would probably just take Abed grocery shopping but he didn’t want his brother to realize his fridge wasn’t ‘I haven’t gotten groceries in a while’ empty but rather ‘I don’t really keep food in the house’ empty. So he found himself on a grocery delivery app adding everything he had ever bought before to an online order that totaled less than twenty items. He also threw in some Lucky Charms, pasta, butter, chocolate milk, and chicken strips because he was pretty sure Abed liked all of those.

Brad had gotten into the habit of assuming Zack was spying on his house, but normally he didn’t have anything to hide so it only ever caused him a bit of paranoia. But he nearly had a panic attack when the furniture store delivery truck came to drop off the new guest bed. It officially sealed Abed’s fate and Brad couldn’t protect him.

‘You’ve done everything you can to protect him, but some risks are worth it,’ Sue had told him when he had started panicking about Abed’s visit a few days prior. Brad tried to cling to her words as he started wrestling with the fitted sheet.

Abed hated airports, they were easily his least favorite part of traveling. By the time he made it to the exit of the LA airport, he swore he could feel the people near him touching his aura or something, like his body was predicting where they would brush into him. He was glad Troy reminded him to bring his noise-canceling headphones.

He followed Brad’s directions to one of the pickup areas where he found Brad leaning against the side of a black car that, even with Abed’s limited knowledge of cars, he knew was expensive. Even though it was nearly 90 degrees outside, Brad was still wearing a sweater and dress pants. Abed gave him a small wave and took off his headphones.

“How was your flight?” Brad asked as he opened the trunk of his car and grabbed Abed’s suitcase for him. Abed could tell Brad was tense, but he didn’t know why.

“It was fine. I watched the Lego Batman movie. It was good.” Abed climbed into the passenger seat. He wondered if he was the first person who sat in it since Brad was a bit of a social recluse.

“You don’t think it’s making a mockery of your favorite superhero?” Brad asked as he started the car.

“I mean, it’s a mockery based on truth. Besides, in some ways it’s more accurate to the comics, especially the ones that aren’t as dark.”

Abed could see Brad starting to relax as they left the airport.

“So how has work been?” Abed asked after a few minutes more of talking about Batman.

“Nothing really interesting,” said Brad. “I’ve started threatening David with telling Ian about indoor paintball games whenever he’s being annoying.”

“They’re super fun.”

“And Ian would totally want to do it but the property damage costs are enough to make David very opposed to it.”

“Yeah, the property damage was pretty bad. Good thing we won so we could give the money back to the school so they can fix it.”

“The poor janitors,” Brad said in a tone that didn’t match his words.

“Why did you need to threaten David?” Abed asked curiously.

“He kept insinuating that Sue and I are together,” Brad sighed.

“But you’re old.”

Brad made an offended noise that reminded Abed of Annie. “Thirty-five is not that old.”

“You sound like Jeff.”

“You take that back.”

Considering the locked front gate, security camera, and private drive that led to Brad’s house, Abed was surprised when he saw it was fairly normal-sized. The house was still much too big for someone who lived alone, especially from the perspective of someone like Abed who chose to share a room, but it wasn’t a mansion or anything. The property itself was probably the most expensive thing about the place. It was so big and surrounded by trees that Abed couldn’t see any of the neighboring houses.

Abed was also surprised when, after entering a different passcode for both the garage and the house itself and then having to use a key to get in, the inside wasn’t full of suits of armor and marble statues. The TV and couch were nice and the kitchen looked like an untouched IKEA set, but that’s about all there was to Brad’s house.

There were six pictures in the entire ground floor, which was six more than Abed was expecting. One was a selfie of Brad and Sue at a park, one was a group picture of what Abed assumed to be the entire Mythic Quest company outside the building, one was of Brad and a man with a mustache who was probably David, one was Brad with David and two other men and a woman, one was a selfie Brad taken with the cat that was currently perched at the window, and one was a selfie that Abed and Brad had taken over Christmas. Abed had taken it on his phone and sent it to Brad but had received no response. Brad was only smiling in the pictures with Sue, Abed, and his cat.

An entire wall of the living room was covered in shelves. One shelf had a small pig statue, a raven statue, and the Scrooge McDuck figurine that Abed had gotten Brad for his birthday. The rest of the shelves were filled with books.

“Have you read all these?” Abed asked, starting to look through the titles. There were boring-looking finance books and biographies about people he didn’t recognize, but there were also a lot of fantasy, horror, and mystery books, even some comics. Two of the shelves were dedicated to issues of National Geographic.

Brad, who had been getting food for his cat, looked up at him and hesitated for a moment.

“The bottom left shelf is the books I’m planning to read,” he admitted.

Abed continued to read through the titles, making a note of any that looked interesting so he could find them in the school library later.

“Guest room is upstairs, first door on the right. I don’t really know what you want to eat for the next two weeks so you should probably come grocery shopping with me in a few hours,” Brad told him as he set the food in front of the cat.

“Cool. Cool, cool, cool.” Abed brought his suitcase up to the guest room that was as big as his bedroom back home and the dreamatorium combined.

He grabbed his phone so he could call Troy and tell him he'd arrived safely like he had promised.

Chapter Text

“A pillow fort?” Brad asked skeptically.

“Yeah, Troy and I build them all the time. We made one that took up the entire first floor of my dorm hall,” Abed told him, already starting to plan what the fort would look like.

“Yeah, you told me about that,” said Brad. “I don’t have enough blankets.”

“You only need three to make a fort big enough for two people.”

Brad looked at him for a moment. Even Abed could tell he was exhausted, but this would be worth it in the long run.

“Fine,” Brad relented, setting down his wine glass on the coffee table only for Abed to pick it up again and bring it to the kitchen along with the soda he’d been drinking.

“We need the coffee table,” Abed called over his shoulder as he left the room. He heard Brad going upstairs to get blankets and Abed quickly followed him, going to the guest room he was staying in and taking off the comforter and sheet.

“Grab your pillows too,” he called down the hall to Brad. Abed thought he could hear him muttering from across the hall.

Brad wasn’t as fun to build forts with as Troy was, but the fort that was set up in Brad’s living room was the best Abed had ever built. What he obviously lacked in enthusiasm, he made up for in good architectural instincts.

The both of them were now lying on their stomachs on the floor of pillows they had put in the blanket fort and facing the TV. Abed scrolled through movie options while Brad alternated between massaging his temples and drinking.

“Do you want to watch Ducktales in preparation for the reboot next week?” Abed asked.

“Sure,” Brad agreed, setting his glass to the side. Abed considered going to the kitchen to grab his soda but decided it was a bit late for sugar.

Two episodes later, Brad was asleep. Abed turned down the volume on the TV a bit and pulled out his phone to text Sue.

‘The plan was a success’ he told her.

‘Oh, that’s a relief. Let’s hope he stays asleep for a while. He needs it!’ she replied almost immediately.

She was right, he did need it. Abed had been staying with Brad for three days and he was pretty sure Brad hadn’t gotten a full night’s sleep since he arrived. Abed had noticed right away that Brad had become even more reserved, less energetic, and more distracted. Abed texted Sue his concerns and she had said she was worried too, so they started putting a plan together as part of what Sue called the ‘Brad protection squad’. Sue had recommended the squad’s first order of business be getting Brad to sleep more.

So now Abed was left to watch Ducktales until his bedtime in a few hours. It wasn’t his favorite show by a long shot, even though he told Brad he liked it. He left in on, though, because he thought a familiar sound might help Brad sleep.

He texted Troy an update as well. He had been telling Troy all about his trip, and when he had mentioned his and Sue’s plan, Troy had declared that, since he was in ‘the Abed protection squad’ and Abed was in ‘the Brad squad, he would therefore automatically be part of the ‘Brad protection squad’ too. It seemed like sound logic to Abed.

Brad shifted in his sleep and Abed studied him, seeing if he was going to wake up. Brad’s cat, Emma, hopped off the window sill, padded over to their fort, and burrowed under Brad’s arm. Brad seemed to calm down a bit so Abed went back to scrolling through Twitter.

A couple of hours later, Brad woke up with a sharp inhale. His gaze darted from the cat that was now asleep on his chest to Abed, who gave him an awkward wave. He then rolled to his side, causing Emma to meow disgruntledly, and immediately fell back asleep.

Abed turned his attention back to his phone, pleased with the plan’s success.

Brad woke up with a stiff back and a cat paw hitting him in the face.

“Stop that,” he mumbled to Emma before sitting up, his head brushing against the blanket roof of the fort, which had half collapsed on top of Abed at some point in the night. His brother was curled up like a cat and holding one of the pillows to his chest. His breathing was very shallow which kind of freaked Brad out.

Brad crawled out of the blanket fort with as much dignity as he could and stretched. His back was regretting sleeping on the floor last night but his mind was finally clear. He hadn’t gotten more than four hours of sleep a night since he’d agreed to let Abed stay with him, and in the last few days, he had been waking up every two hours and checking his security system.

He fed Emma, checked his email, and scrolled through the news for a little while. Then he started getting ready for work at six o’clock like he always did.

Before he headed out the door, he lifted Emma off of his shoulders and set her on the counter.

“Behave for your uncle,” he told her. “And if you destroy another one of my pillows, I’m going to be mildly upset with you for three whole seconds.” He kissed her on the head before grabbing his keys and leaving.

He usually showed up to the office an hour early, but today he might stop for a mochaccino.

“So, what do you want to do tonight?”

Abed was surprised by Brad’s question. Usually, it was him trying to convince Brad to do something. But then again, Brad seemed to be doing a lot better mentally. He’d even made them dinner and took an almost normal-sized portion for himself.

“Can we do fencing again?” Abed asked. On Sunday, Abed had slept in until noon because traveling exhausted him, then Brad spent the afternoon teaching him how to fence, and they spent the evening watching shows. Brad had been surprised when Abed picked up on fencing pretty quickly, Troy had not been when Abed told him about it.

“Sure. Or I can teach you some self-defense.”

“What about archery?” Abed didn’t really care what they did, he was just curious.

“Only if you get a lesson from an actual instructor first, I don't want to be responsible for you accidentally shooting yourself, your dad would kill me.”

“Okay. What kind of self-defense do you know?” asked Abed.

“Little of this, little of that,” Brad said vaguely. “Let me change out of my work clothes and I’ll meet you downstairs.”

Brad had his basement soft of like a gym fencing, archery, and other miscellaneous equipment scattered along the walls and a mat taking up most of the floor in the middle. Abed checked to see if the mat was any bouncier than it had been on Sunday.

Brad didn’t even react when he reached the bottom of the stairs and saw Abed jumping around the basement.

“Try kicking in front of you while you do that, test your balance,” was all he said.

Brad spent an hour teaching him different moves, many of which would not be allowed in professional tournaments.

“But Karate Kid specifically said not to aim for the knee,” Abed told Brad when he was told to try to aim his roundhouse kick lower.

“Those rules don’t apply if you're being attacked.” Brad hesitated. “Wait, why didn’t you say anything about the front kick?”

“I thought I was aiming for your face and you just didn’t want to hold up the pad that high.”

“Yeah, your kicks are landing at that height on purpose.”

Abed eventually got bored.

“Do you want to see some of the moves I did during the paintball games at my school?” he asked Brad hopefully.

“Uh, sure?” Brad said, wiping some sweat off of his face and tossing the punching mitts they had been using to the side.

“Okay, so stand there and face the punching bag and pretend that it’s Jeff and you’re shooting at him.”

“If you insist,” Brad said, though for some reason he sounded pleased.

Abed showed him every cool move he could remember doing, ending on the off-the-wall jump that he did in the first game. When he was done, he looked back at Brad who was watching him with a look that was either shock, concern, or fear. Abed couldn’t narrow it down.

“If I ever follow through with my threat to have a paintball game at MQ, you’re definitely taking my place,” Brad told him.

“I wouldn’t want to ruin the artwork on the wall, it looked pretty cool. Is the rest of the office decorated like that?”

“I mean, we have the occasional ax on display,” Brad said with a shrug.

“Cool.”

“Do you want an office tour? It’ll be pretty boring but if you’re that curious we can stop in Friday night after everyone leaves. We can probably get Sue to join if you want to see her again.”

"Sure," said Abed. He didn't bother coming up with a subject transition and blurted out, "Do you think if I learned archery I could do that 'jump off the wall and shoot' move with a bow?"

“If this is your attempt to try to get me to teach you archery, you’re doing a very bad job,” Brad told him dryly.

“Legolas could shoot and slide down a flight of stairs on a shield. It didn’t look that hard,” Abed pointed out.

“Fine, I’ll let you do archery stunts when you have superhuman strength and agility,” Brad told him, starting to head back upstairs. Abed followed him.

“I thought you'd never seen Lord of the Rings,” Abed said, confused.

“I haven’t, that movie’s for dorks like you.”

“Does making your own spreadsheets for NBA statistics count as cool?” Abed actually didn’t know. There were sports involved so maybe it was a cool thing to do.

“I wanted to look at trends over the years,” Brad said defensively. “If you keep talking back to me I’m going to put you in time out.”

Abed knew he wasn’t being serious so he shot back, “I’ll just use that time to get your cat to love me more than she loves you.”

“She would never,” scoffed Brad.

“She let me rub her belly earlier.”

Brad, who was now standing at the top of the stairs, looked over at Emma in betrayal.

“You traitor.”

They ended up watching more TV after they'd cleaned up.

“Have you seen this one?” Abed asked, pulling up ‘The Dark Knight Rises’.

“You already know the answer is no,” said Brad.

“But you’ve seen the Lord of the Rings.”

“No, I read the books.”

Abed stared at him for a moment. “Wouldn't that be considered dorkier than watching the movies? And why do you have a TV if you never watch anything?”

“I watch basketball,” said Brad, ignoring Abed’s first question.

“Boring,” said Abed as he pressed play. Brad threw a pillow at him.

Despite telling Abed when they started the movie that he wasn’t going to sleep in the blanket fort again, Brad didn’t make it to the end of the movie.

‘Brad ate dinner tonight and he’s asleep in the blanket fort again. I think he’s doing a lot better,’ Abed texted Sue.

‘Yay! I was worried,’ she texted back.

‘Also, Brad said he’d give me an office tour Friday night after everyone leaves and that you can come too.’

‘I’ll be there!’

Sue, it turned out, was just as excited for the tour of the office as Abed was. Apparently, she wasn’t able to get access to the main part of the building with her key card and had only left the basement when someone let her up.

“Like a princess trapped in the dungeon,” Abed said when she described her situation.

“Oh aren’t you sweet,” she said, pinching his cheek. It was hard to remember Sue wasn’t even thirty yet when she acted like a grandma.

Brad showed them his office, and Abed was happy to see the stress toys he’d gotten Brad for Christmas lined up on his desk.

“What team signed this?” Sue asked Brad, pointing to the basketball in the glass case.

“The Chicago Bulls,” he told her. He was eyeing one of the papers on his desk.

“Hey, no working,” Sue scolded him. “Bond with your brother.”

Brad showed them around the rest of the first floor, instructing them to be quiet next to the janitor’s closet because apparently, the head writer slept there.

It took passing the same display case three times for Abed to realize Brad was lost.

“Look, if I need something from a different part of the building I just make David do it,” Brad said defensively as he looked around for something he recognized.

It took twenty minutes for Brad to lead them back to his office. Every time he found a dead end, Abed and Sue smiled at each other behind his back. When they found their way back, Sue started cheering and clapping her hands, and Abed decided to copy her. Brad rolled his eyes and grumbled something at them but didn’t turn away fast enough to hide his smile.

Chapter Text

“So what are you doing for the rest of the summer?” Brad asked a few minutes after the credits for the new Ducktales reboot had finished. Abed suspected he had needed those few minutes to keep himself from crying based on how he’d reacted to hearing the opening theme.

“I’m going to help my dad with the restaurant for the rest of the summer and then move into the apartment Troy and I are going to share.”

“You and Troy are going to rent an actual adult apartment? With actual rent and bills and stuff?” Brad asked, raising his eyebrows.

“Yeah. We’re gonna share a room and turn the other bedroom into a dreamatorium where we can act out imaginary scenarios.”

“There it is,” Brad muttered. Abed didn’t know what ‘it’ was.

“I’m also working on a model of the boulder scene from Indiana Jones.”

“So it’s not an adult apartment. That makes more sense.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a childlike sense of wonder,” Abed told him, quoting something Shirley had said when Jeff had gotten annoyed by their antics. Shirley had gotten annoyed too less than a minute after she said that.

“Okay, since I’m genuinely worried now: you do know how rent works right? And budgeting? And taxes?”

“Yes to everything except budgeting.”

“Do you need help? I know some great programs. Or you can do it by hand. I actually made a template for the company.” Abed started to zone out a bit as Brad continued to talk about the importance of budgeting but didn’t interrupt. After all, Brad had had to listen to him ramble about TV.

“I’ll think about it,” Abed said when he noticed Brad pause.

“You could turn your new room into a blanket fort,” Brad suggested after a few moments of comfortable silence.

“It might be hard to fit the bunk beds under it,” Brad said thoughtfully. “Although we could just make the walls blankets and just not have a ceiling. We could probably make a whole other room…”

“Yeah, speaking of blanket forts, are you going to help clean that up,” Brad said, pointing to their collapsing blanket fort.

“I will tomorrow morning.”

“You’re going to sleep in there again? How is your back not killing you?” After the first few days with the blanket fort, Brad would try sleeping in his room, inevitably fail, and then sleep the next night in the blanket fort after he passed out during a movie due to sleep deprivation.

“I’m not old,” Abed said with a shrug. “I once fell asleep in a dresser drawer so the pillow floor is nothing.”

“What?” Brad asked with a startled laugh.

“Britta drunk dialed Jeff so he wanted to even the playing field and drunk dial her back so he and I got drunk in my dorm room.”

Brad seemed to struggle to find a response before he finally said, “Aren’t you Muslim?”

“Yeah,” said Abed. He considered adding something like ‘not a very good one’ but frankly, he didn’t think that was true. He believed, wasn’t that good enough?

Fortunately, Brad filled the silence that followed as Abed struggled for something more to say about regularly breaking the tenets of Islam.

“So as a filmmaker, which Ducktales do you prefer so far?”

“Well unless it takes an unexpected turn I expect this version is going to be a lot less racist.”

“Okay, good point. Other than that.”

Abed thought about it for a moment. “I like that there’s going to be an overarching plot because they can cover more complicated topics and concepts and it leads to the opportunity for character development but that means it’s not like a classic Sunday morning cartoon where there’s isolated episodes.”

“So you’re saying it’s good but different?”

Abed blinked at him in surprise. Most people just agreed and moved on rather than trying to understand what he was trying to say.

“Yeah, basically.”

“But which do you prefer?”

“I think the only thing the original has going for it is nostalgia.”

“You take that back.”

Brad dropped Abed off at the airport the next night. He helped him get his suitcase out of the trunk and then stood facing each other awkwardly for a moment, Abed not making eye contact.

“Is it okay if we hug?” Brad asked, trying desperately to act confident in a situation he never thought he’d find himself in.

Abed nodded and stepped forward. After a moment of hugging, Abed dropped his arms but didn’t pull away. Brad let go a few seconds after.

“Text me when you get home,” Brad told his brother who cocked his head to the side and studied him before nodding.

Abed grabbed his suitcase and headed toward the sliding doors.

“Na razie,” Abed called over his shoulder.

“Na razie,” Brad echoed, taken aback. It had never even crossed his mind that Abed would likely know Polish too.

Brad got back in his car and headed back and headed back to a quieter, emptier house that perfectly reflected his life. He scooped up Emma and sat on the couch, aimlessly scrolling through channels on the TV before giving up. He decided to take advantage of the fact that he would be able to sleep better at night and went to bed early.

Things went back to the way they usually were for Brad. He spent his lunch breaks with Sue, manipulated his coworkers, hung out with his cat, and talked to his brother. Abed started calling and texting more often but still used email as his main method of communication. One major change was that whenever Abed called during work hours, Brad would take the call in his office. On the one hand, Brad didn’t want David knowing anything about himself or Abed. On the other hand, the look on David’s face when Brad would say something like “keep the fork jousting to a minimum” and then refuse to give context was priceless. He also did it because watching David struggle to tell him off for making personal calls at work was also priceless. He was always careful not to use Abed’s name or give away any information, though.

He still went to the same empty hallway whenever he thought the call might get serious, like when Abed told him about Jeff getting high on monkey gas and attacked the table with an ax. He didn’t want David thinking he cared when he had asked if everyone was okay.

“I was interrupted before I could fully discuss this, so I was wondering what your thoughts are on what the existence of identical earths in parallel universes says about free will.”

Brad sighed and rubbed his eyes.

“Context?” he asked tiredly. He’d had to come in early because of an error with the store.

“We were doing two competing model UN’s so I asked if they took place on parallel earths in different galaxies or identical earths in parallel dimensions.”

“Why do they have to exist on two different earths? Isn’t the whole point that it’s alternate routes that can be taken from the same starting point?”

“So each model UN is part of a different timeline and we just compare which timeline is darker?”

“Yeah, I think so.”

“Interesting.”

“I sense I’ve made the mistake of giving you an idea,” Brad told him apprehensively.

Abed just hummed in a way Brad couldn’t interpret.

“Anyway, have fun at work. Cześć.”

“Bye.”

That was another thing that was new: ever since the exchange at the airport, Abed had started casually throwing in Polish sayings when they talked. Brad rarely used it back, he hadn’t spoken the language since he was a kid and he wasn’t anxious to connect to his past. That being said, it didn’t bother him when Abed did that like he thought it would.

“What the hell was that about?” David asked him.

“Investor,” he answered, giving his coworker a small innocent smile.

It turned out Brad was right about giving Abed ideas. Two weeks later, he got an email from his brother with the subject line “the darkest timeline”.

“Hey Brad,
I’ve been thinking about what you said about alternate timelines and I’ve realized that there’s probably a darkest timeline. I know that if I was in that situation, I would try to corrupt the original, good timeline so that’s probably what the alternate version of me is doing right now. If you see a version of me with a goatee, it’s actually evil me who has come to this dimension to destroy it.
-Abed”

Brad had to fight away a migraine.

“What am I doing in the evil timeline? Is this going to be a season-long arc?” he asked, hoping he’d get more of an answer if he put it in Abed’s terms.

Abed emailed back an hour later.

“I don’t think you’d be very different. You’d just watch it happen. And yes, I think so. Maybe even a multi-season arc.”

Well, if Brad didn’t play an active role in the alternate timeline, there wasn’t really anything he could do about this. He went back to work.

“I just found out I’m the sanest one in the group. Or at least the least likely to be homicidal, I guess that doesn’t necessarily mean sane.”

“What a way to start a conversation,” said Brad, kicking his feet up onto his desk, staring down a scowling David. “Can’t say I’m that surprised, but what determined this?”

“Britta’s a psychology major-”

“Yikes,” Brad laughed.

“-and she made us take tests and determined that one person in the group was a homicidal maniac so she had us tell scary stories to try to figure out who it was. Then it turned out she scanned the sheets upside down so she redid it and it turned out everyone but one person had the potential to be homicidal and that person was me. The rest of the group didn't know that because we filled it out anonymously but I recognized it.”

“Okay,” Brad said apprehensively. Abed could’ve easily put that in an email so he sensed there was more to it.

“I don’t think they would’ve believed me if I’d told them. Jeff thinks I’m a robot, Pierce thinks I’m crazy, Britta keeps trying to be my therapist, and Shirley keeps treating me like a kid.”

“Okay… Do you want me to do something, give advice, or just listen?” Brad asked as he headed out of his office and toward the abandoned hallway.

“Just listen, I guess. I don’t want you threatening them or anything and I don’t think there’s anything I can do about it either because I don’t want to change.”

“That’s healthy.” Brad wanted to say Abed should talk to them about it but that would count as giving advice. “What about Annie and Troy?”

“They’re the best.” Abed’s tone was flat as ever but Brad detected a hint of fondness, which for Abed was practically gushing. “Annie’s moving in with us next week.”

“I thought you only had two bedrooms,” said Brad, humoring Abed’s attempt to change the subject.

“We’re going to build a blanket fort in the living room.”

“Y’know, if you’re allowed to drill holes in the walls, you could fix eye bolts into the walls and run wires up near the ceiling and hang blankets from there for the walls.” It would leave more room for the bunk beds.

“I didn’t understand most of that,” Abed told him. “I’ll tell Troy. He’s good at fixing things.”

“Okay. Well, I’ve got to go back to work,” said Brad, already heading back to his office.

“Okay, porozmawiamy później.”

“Sure.” Brad hangs up sits at his desk.

David doesn’t say anything, but he’s looking at Brad with a weird look of concentration.

Later, when Poppy bursts into the office complaining about Ian, David looks less out of his depth as usual and asks if she wants him to listen, give advice, or do something. It ends up being the best interaction Poppy and David have ever had.

“Hey Brad,
The air conditioning school (it’s an annex of Greendale) is trying to recruit Troy. They abducted him and put him through some tests and said he had to choose between plumbing and air conditioning. Troy didn’t want to, though, because the AC school makes you swear to live a life of solitude and he told me at Pierce’s gay party that he wants to watch TV instead.
-Abed”

Brad read the email several more times, trying to comprehend it. Just when he thought that school couldn’t get any weirder. As usual, he decided to skip over the weird stuff and focus on what’s important.

“So he said that he chose you while you were probably surrounded by pride flags. I’m no expert but I think that counts as romantic subtext,” he responded.

He got an email back saying, “It could be. I don’t think it’s going to be canon any time soon, though. Also, Troy still thinks he’s straight.”

“You think he’s not?”

“I can predict what people will do based on behavior, I can tell when someone’s not straight if I’ve spent enough time with them.”

“Fair enough.”

Chapter Text

“What’s wrong with you?” Brad asked, rude wording doing little to hide his genuine concern.

Sue sighed. “I got doxxed again.” That explained why everything about her screamed ‘stressed’.

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

“It’ll blow over in a week,” said Sue, sighing again.

“Are you going to stay with your sister again?”

“No. She’s on vacation. I’m probably going to stay in a hotel, but I’m having trouble finding one that allows pets. I had to sneak my cats into my office because I didn’t have anywhere else to put them and I probably won’t be able to even get back into my house for a few days so I couldn’t leave them there.”

Brad gave a long sigh. “You can stay with me if you want,” he said unenthusiastically.

“After what happened when Abed started staying with you I can’t agree to that.”

Brad scowled at her and she stared pointedly back.

“I see your point,” he said irritably. “But, Abed was way more of a target than you so I’m not as worried about something happening if you stay over.” One of the things he missed about being completely isolated was not having to have conversations about his problems.

“Well,” Sue thought about it for a moment. “If you’re sure it won’t be a problem, I’d really appreciate it. “But if it starts to affect your health then I’m staying somewhere else.”

“Deal.”

Sue studied him for a moment more before her face split into a grin.

“Thank you, Brad!” She threw her arms around his neck before quickly pulling away. “Oh! I’m sorry, I forgot you don’t like- I should have asked, I’m sorry.”

“It’s fine, Sue,” trying to compose himself. Yes, this was an uncomfortable, unfamiliar situation but it wasn’t bad necessarily. “Do you want to drop off your cats right now?” he asked awkwardly.

“That’d be a good idea. I’m worried that the one time someone other than you or David visits will be when I have an office full of cats and then I’ll have to explain that that’s not normally how it is.”

Brad zoned out a bit as Sue continued rambling. Some of the anxiety he felt over Abed’s visit was returning. Not so much that Zack would find out, just the usual fear of letting people in close enough that they can see how vulnerable he really is.

When Sue’s car finally pulled up in front of Brad’s house, he got out and unlocked everything before returning and grabbing two of the cat carriers. He directed her to the living room.

“Oh, this must be Emma! Isn’t she a cutie!” Sue cooed at the cat watching her indifferent from the window.

“I don’t really know how she’s going to react to other cats,” Brad warned.

“Well, these guys can stay in a different room if that’s a problem,” Sue said cheerfully. “Maybe we should let one out and see how she reacts?”

Brad nodded and Sue opened one of the carriers. Emma remained entirely indifferent so they let the rest of the cats out.

“Should we head back?” Brad asked after watching the cats wander through his house curiously.

“Sure.”

That evening found Sue and Brad on the sofa surrounded by five cats. Emma sat on Brad’s lap and batted at the other cats if they tried to get too close to Brad. She hadn’t minded them getting close to her, though. Sue and Brad had come back to find Emma in the middle of a sleeping pile of cats. Brad had sworn she had been glaring at him.

They were watching basketball while Sue did some knitting and Brad used his computer to keep track of the scores of the other games.

“Do you want to order food?” Brad asked reluctantly when the game was done. It was pretty late.

“Sure,” Sue said cheerfully.

“You don’t have to keep doing that,” Brad told her.

“Doing what?”

“The whole cheery act. It doesn’t work on me.” Excessive cheeriness also usually annoys him, but he tolerates it from Sue.

“I don’t think I quite know how to turn it off,” Sue said thoughtfully, though a tiny bit of sadness was starting to show through.

“I can understand that,” Brad said slowly.

Sue gave him a small smile. “Don’t worry,” she said, “I can see through your act, too.”

They ended up ordering from a pasta place. Brad was glad Sue didn’t comment when he only got a salad.

He let Sue pick the movie which is how he ended up spending an hour and a half-consciously refraining from giving scathing commentary on a dumb rom-com.

The next day, Brad left work a bit early like he always did when the Bulls were playing, but this time he stopped by the basement to peer pressure Sue into leaving early, too.

“I’ve never played hooky before,” she said excitedly as they walked through the parking garage.

“We’re leaving half an hour early, it’s not that rebellious,” Brad said dryly but with a hint of a fond smile on his face.

“Do you drink?” he asked Sue after they had gotten back to his house and changed out of their work clothes.

“Sometimes. Why?”

“I thought we could make this like a real party. I mean, I don’t have beer but I’ve got some fancier stuff.” Brad looked in his fridge and pantry. “I’ve also got veggie straws, hummus, pita chips, and yogurt.”

“Sure, I could use a drink right now.”

They each nursed a few daiquiris and took vodka shots every ten minutes or so. Brad was tipsy after three shots and two daiquiris because he hadn't had much to eat, but Sue seemed to be even more of a lightweight. They were decently drunk before the first half was even over. The game was close and Brad was on the edge of his seat, but he made sure to answer all of Sue’s questions about the sport.

By the end of the game, the score was tight and they were more or less plastered. Even though she didn’t really care about the sport, Sue jumped up and cheered whenever the Bulls scored, and once he was drunk enough, Brad started to join her. When the final buzzer sounded, Brad and Sue were jumping and hugging.

They collapsed back onto the couch and Brad turned off the TV. They both nursed their drinks in comfortable silence.

“This was the most fun I’ve had in a while,” Sue mumbled.

“Me too,” he admitted.

“But you hung out with Abed. That was probably fun.”

“It was.” After a moment of silence, Brad said, “I wish I understood him better. I don’t know what he’s talking about half the time.”

“Yeah, but you don’t let that stop you from getting along and loving each other. I wish me and my siblings were like you and Abed,” Sue admitted sadly.

Brad sat up a bit straighter and looked at her. “But you stay with your sister and stuff,” he said eloquently.

“She doesn’t actually care, she just wants to seem like a nice sister. Appearing like a perfect happy family, that’s what’s important.”

Brad didn’t say anything, he felt like she had more to say.

“That’s why I like you, Brad. When you do something nice, it’s not just ‘cause you want people to think you’re nice. You want people to think you’re not nice but you do nice stuff anyway.”

Brad couldn’t think of a response, he just watched her sadly as well as curiously.

“I wish other people could see the real you,” she told him, finally looking up from her glass.

“I don’t know who the real me is,” he said quietly without thinking.

“Me neither,” said Sue. She then started to cry.

Brad sets down his glass and moves to sit next to her. He grabs her glass too and sets it on the coffee table before hesitantly wrapping his arms around her shoulders. He didn’t really know what he was doing, he usually used his words to comfort people, but Sue didn’t seem to notice his awkwardness as she buried her face in his sweatshirt. He sat completely still and tense until she cried herself out and sat up.

“Sorry,” she said, wiping her eyes.

“It’s okay,” he said. Everything he said usually came across as sarcastic or mean so he put effort into making it sound genuine.

“I hate my job,” Sue said with a watery laugh.

“Why don’t you quit?”

“The pay, mostly. And I don’t really have anywhere else to go.”

“Oh,” was all Brad could think to say.

“I wanted to be an actress but I wasn’t very good at playing sad characters. I guess I just never learned how to let myself be sad even for pretend.”

“I’m sorry your life kind of sucks.”

“I’m sorry your life kind of sucks, too,” said Sue, resting her head against the couch and looking at him. “I wish we were friends when we were younger. Maybe life could’ve sucked less for both of us.”

To his horror, Brad started to tear up. Stupid alcohol. “It just would’ve made things worse for you,” he said quietly. “Zack always got people to turn against me.”

“He’ll never get through to me,” she said, wrapping her arms around him like a koala. “You’re stuck with me.”

Brad didn’t hug back but he tilted his head against hers and rested his hand on the arm going across his chest. The voice in his head that usually told him not to do things like being nice to people didn't have time to change his mind as he impulsively acted on every thought that crossed his mind. They sit like that for a few minutes.

“So, do you liiiiike anyone?” Sue asked with a giggle.

Brad groaned. “With how drunk you clearly are, you wouldn’t remember if I told you anyway.”

“Exactly, there’s no risk.”

“I’m not talking about guys with you.”

“Fuckin’ knew it,” Sue muttered.

“What?”

“I knew you liked guys. Oh sorry, Google told me not to say that. I meant to say that I love and support you.”

“Thanks. Do you like guys?”

“Yeah?” Sue said. Brad didn’t comment on the questioning tone.

“Men are kind of stupid,” Sue mumbled into his shoulder.

“Yeah,” Brad laughed.

“Goodmorning,” said Brad when Sue entered the kitchen at around eleven the next day. He tried not to smile at how bad her bedhead was and the fact her pajama pants were on inside out.

Sue just groaned in response. “Coffee?” she asked.

Brad pointed to the pot on the counter and went back to his spreadsheet. Abed hadn’t been exaggerating when he teased Brad about keeping track of NBA stats on his own just for fun. Besides, you couldn’t trust ESPN.

“How are you so normal?” Sue asked, squinting at him over her cup of coffee.

“I’m not a lightweight,” he told her. Really he was just used to headaches, fatigue, and nausea.

“Any plans for today?” she asked.

“Oh, yeah, actually. Abed sent me a documentary he made about the filming of Greendale’s new commercial. Apparently, the Dean went insane.”

Sue’s eyes lit up. “Well, anything by ‘Cool Abed Films’ is bound to be good,” she said.

They sat in silence for a couple of minutes.

“Can I let my cats go outside? I think they’re getting a bit tired of being cooped up.”

“As long as you bring them back in before it gets dark. There’s some coyotes in the area.”

“Does Emma ever go out?”

“No, leaving the house scares her.” It probably had to do with her time as a stray.

Sue went to let her cats out and Brad went to shower. They did their own things for a few hours but then came together to watch the documentary.

“Y’know, I’m starting to see why the school is the way that it is…” Sue noted as they watched the Dean smear ashes on his face and strip naked.

“I can’t believe he actually had to go through the raw footage and pixilate that,” said Brad, making a face of disgust. “That has to violate some sort of rule about employee-student interactions.”

They both still had looks of mild horror on their faces when Abed’s face popped up in front of flashing lights and jarringly loud music.

“Well,” Sue said after a moment of silence. “It was well done. The editing and sequencing of scenes…”

“Yeah. I did enjoy the part where Jeff had a mental breakdown.”

“I liked being able to see what some of the other people look like. Chang seems… interesting.”

Their conversation was interrupted by a scratching at the door.

“One of the cats probably wants to be let in.” Sue opened the door and a cat sprinted past her and hopped up onto the chair.

“Oh, Snowball!” Sue scolded. “Stop bringing me dead animals.”

Brad took a closer look at the cat and realized there was currently a dead animal in his house. He bolted to his feet and walked as calmly as he could to the corner of the living room as far away from the cat as possible.

Then, the ball of fur came to life and escaped from Whisker’s clutches. Brad screamed internally but could only let out a gasp as the creature ran toward him. There was no way he’d be able to outrun it, squirrels were terrifyingly fast.

He grabbed a pillow to defend himself but he knew it was futile.

“It’s just a squirrel, Brad!” Sue called to him as she tried to herd the evil creature back toward the front door.

“I know that!” Brad snapped. He watched the creature scamper around his living room knowing that at any second it could decide to come for him and he wouldn’t have time to defend himself. Squirrels were unpredictable and feral, he stood no chance.

Sue finally managed to chase the squirrel back outside. She closed the door quickly and turned to Brad who stood up straight and tossed the pillow back onto the couch.
“Are you okay?” Sue asked. Brad appreciated that she wasn’t laughing at him.

“Yeah. It’s just a squirrel,” he said, his voice much higher than usual.

“I mean… they can be scary?”

“Don’t patronize me.”

“I wasn’t!”

Chapter Text

“What do you need?” Brad asked as he answered his phone without looking. He was a little disappointed to see he didn’t get a reaction from David. It was nearly eleven at night but nearly every MQ employee was still working after Montreal changed a deadline last minute.

“Hey, Brad,” Abed greeted, not at all phased by Brad’s rudeness.

“Oh, hey. Look, I’m pretty busy right now, something came up at work.”

“Oh. That’s fine. I can call you back tomorrow,” said Abed. Something about the tone in his voice made Brad finally turn his attention away from his computer.

“Wait,” Brad sighed before Abed could hang up. “I can spare five minutes.” He got up and ignored David’s frustrated, inarticulate, sputtering and walked to his usual hallway.

“I wanted to spend Christmas with the study group, or at least do something together like last year when we watched Rudolph but no one wanted to. Then I convinced them to do the Glee Christmas pageant as substitutes because they all had a group mental breakdown but then the choir director wanted us to do it for a lot longer than just Christmas so I sabotaged him by sending in Britta and then he confessed to murdering the last Glee club.”

“What?! You’ve been spending time with a murderer?” Brad hissed, hoping no one was overhearing this.

“Yeah, so the whole thing was canceled. I tried to force them to have holiday cheer and it ended terribly and now they all want to spend Christmas alone or with their actual families.”

“You’re really going to skip over the murder thing?”

“The police will probably find him.”

“He’s on the loose?” Brad asked incredulously. How was Abed so calm about all this?

“He was spotted a state over so it’s fine. So can you come over for Christmas again?”

It took some effort, but Brad managed to force himself to ignore the fact one of his brother’s teachers was a murderer.

“I don’t have any plans. I’ll text you when I’m going to arrive. Are your roommates going to be around?”

“No, they’re spending time with their families,” Abed said tonelessly.

“I don’t know everything about your situation but you could always spend time with your dad,” Brad told him, heading back to his office so he can start looking at plane tickets.

“He has to work so it won’t be that much different from staying at my apartment. I’m going to dinner at his place for Christmas, though. Not that he’s acknowledging that it’s on Christmas. You should come, too.”

“Maybe,” said Brad, knowing full well he would. “I’ve got to get back to work.”

“Okay.”

Brad sat at his desk and pulled up his work schedule, looking to see what days he had off.

“Everything okay?” David asked tiredly.

“Some places really need to put more thought into who they hire,” Brad told him, then refused to answer any follow-up questions.

Brad sat thinking for a minute before pulling out his phone again and dialing Jeff’s number.

“Brad? What-”

“You fuckers better fix whatever you did,” Brad threatened before immediately hanging up.

David looked over at him in alarm so Brad gave him a cold smile that had him turning back to his computer immediately.

“What on earth are we watching?” Brad asked as he stared at the screen in horror from where he sat on the futon he’d moved next to the recliners in Abed’s living room. He figured it was a bit less likely to have been found on the side of the road than the chairs.

“Inspector Spacetime Holiday Special,” said Abed. “The creator had his knighthood revoked.”

Usually, when Abed talked about that dumb time traveler show, he was notably excited, or at least more intense which was the Abed version of excitement. Now, his voice was flat.

“Pause it,” Brad said. “What’s going on with you?”

“It’s just been a dark semester so I thought the study group was going to lean more into the ‘found family’ trope.”

“How has it been dark?” Brad asked, hiding his concern.

“The study group has been fighting a lot, Jeff attacked us with an ax and killed Pierce’s father, we found that most of us have the potential to be a murderer, the Dean went insane, Shirley and Jeff realized she bullied him as a child, and my copy of the special edition of The Dark Knight was broken,” Abed listed. “I just wanted to end on a high note but I made everything worse.”

“At least you haven’t befriended any more war criminals,” said Brad, trying to lighten the mood. When it didn’t work, he sighed and said, “You just wanted to do something nice for your friends, it’s not your fault you uncovered a murderer.”

“But they didn’t even want to do it, I was being selfish,” said Abed, looking at his hands in shame.

Brad just shrugged. He fully supported getting people to do what he wants through manipulation. “You’re allowed to try to be happy.”

Abed looked at him intensely.

“I’m happy,” Brad said defensively, knowing what Abed was trying to say.

Abed still didn’t say anything and continued to stare.

“I’m as happy as I can be without it coming back to haunt me in the end. Besides, we’re talking about you.”

Abed finally blinked.

“I can’t expect them to be around all the time.”

Brad wondered if he had meant ‘forever’ instead of ‘all the time’.

Abed hit play on the movie again and Brad pulled out his phone.

‘I thought I told you to fix whatever you did,’ he texted Jeff.

He didn’t get a response.

Half an hour later, Brad heard singing coming from the hallway outside, and Abed noticed a few moments later. He looked at Brad before getting up to open the door.

Abed’s study group filed in singing a Christmas song that Brad recognized but didn’t bother learning the name of. They all pretended not to notice Brad scowling at them as they gathered in the kitchen.

“We decided we wanted to spend the holiday together,” said Annie after they had finished singing.

“It’s been a dark semester,” said Jeff, “I basically killed a guy. And I kind of attacked you guys with a fire ax. I’m thinking about seeing a shrink.”

“What?” Britta asked excitedly.

“Don’t,” he told her quickly.

“Holy crap,” Troy said in awe, “Look how terrible this Christmas special is.”

They all moved to the living room.

“Brad’s here,” Abed told them unnecessarily.

“Hi, Brad,” Annie greeted nervously. Shirley waved. He looked at them with a carefully blank expression until they looked away with fear in their eyes. He got the futon to himself.

They watched the worst movie in creation for a while until Shirley and Pierce left. The others dutifully sat through it, though, making fun of it and exaggeratedly cringing whenever there was awkward dialogue.

Abed had a small smile on his face as he sat holding Annie’s hand. Brad noticed Troy looking at them but also looking at Britta. Brad hoped that didn’t actually go anywhere, he thought it was a bit weird that Britta was thirty and Troy was the most immature twenty-one-year-old he’d ever met. Abed and Annie could be cute, he supposed.

After the movie finished, the others sat around talking. Brad pretended to be focused on his phone but actually was listening in with amusement and slight horror as they described their school year thus far. As Britta was talking about almost setting fire to a turtle, Brad’s phone started buzzing as David’s name popped up on the screen. Without a word, he walked out into the hallway of the apartment building.

“What?” he asked rudely. He was in a compromised position. If David asked him to come into the office, he would have no choice but to reveal that he was not spending the entire vacation sitting at home, so he might as well get as much control over the conversation as he can right away.

“Hi, Brad,” said David. His voice wasn’t disgustingly cheerful nor nervous, which were the two main settings of David’s personality. Instead, he sounded tired and sad.
“What do you need, David?” asked Brad. He meant for it to sound mean but he couldn’t quite manage it.

“I was wondering if you wanted to hang out. Have a boys' night.”

“Why?” Brad asked apprehensively. This conversation was going exactly as he feared.

“My uh, my wife kicked me out,” David admitted.

“Ah,” was all Brad said, waiting for David to say more.

“Yeah. I can’t say I didn’t see it coming. So do you want to go for a drink?” David asked hopefully.

“I’m busy.”

“C’mon, please? We're friends, right? I don’t want to spend Christmas alone.”

Brad considered his options. If he gave David the impression that he would rather stay at home alone than get a drink with David when his wife kicked him out, it would keep them from being friends which would be in David’s best interest in the long run. But he just couldn’t bring himself to hurt David that much, he knew he would never be able to fully push the other man away.

“I’m not actually at home. I’m in a different state visiting family,” Brad told David keeping his voice deliberately calm as the usual panic of telling people personal things hit him.

“You can just tell me if you don’t want to, you don’t have to lie,” said David, sounding pathetically sad.

“David, I promise I’m not lying. I’m visiting my brother.” The more detail, the more David would be assured that Brad isn’t lying. And the more danger David, Brad, and Abed were in. “That’s who I keep calling at work,” Brad explained.

“Oh,” said David, surprised. “Well, don’t let me distract you for too long.”

“Don’t worry, some of his idiot friends are over so I’m fine getting away from them for a while before I start to lose brain cells from being in the same room with them for too long.”

David laughed, sounding much better than he had at the beginning of their conversation.

“Well, Merry Christmas,” said David. “Or, uh, happy holidays. Not that you can’t celebrate Christmas!”

“David,” Brad said wearily.

“Sorry.”

Brad was going to hang up but then paused.

“You can try calling Sue,” he told David. Sue might hate him for this, he didn’t really know. “Just don’t tell her I told you to.”

“Thanks, Brad,” David said with so much sincerity that Brad immediately hung up.

That evening, Brad and Abed went to Gobi’s falafel stand in the mall food court. They had planned on having dinner at his apartment but one of his workers had had an emergency so he had to work later. So Brad ended up spending Christmas Eve picking at falafel in a food court that was not properly cleaned and people talking way too loud.

“Once we’re done eating, we can hang out in his office,” Abed told him. Brad wondered if he had actually noticed his discomfort or if it was just a coincidence. “I used to spend time there after school before I was allowed to stay home by myself.”

The office was more of an alcove in the back of the kitchen with a computer, chair, and filing cabinet crammed into it. Abed let Brad have the desk chair and dragged a chair from the food court and placed it next to the desk.

Brad and Abed entertained themselves by making fun of customers horrifically mispronouncing menu items, stealing extra refills from the soda fountain, and talking about Ducktales (Brad was hoping Gobi didn’t know enough about TV to figure out they were talking about a children’s cartoon). Whenever he had time, Gobi came over and talked to them before having to back to work less than a minute later.

Brad could imagine a young Abed sitting in this desk chair with a school bag at his feet as he watched the chaos in the kitchen with wide eyes. Brad felt a tightness in his chest just thinking of the years he had missed.

At one point, Abed went back to the storage area of the food court, saying he needed a break. Brad was immediately approached by Gobi in his absence.
“Abed told me he stayed with you out in California.”

“He did,” said Brad, keeping his voice flat until he figured out the direction of this conversation.

“Is that safe?”

“It was probably safer than the hotels in his price range.”

When Brad saw Gobi’s scowl, he sighed and added, “I have a good security system and my house is in the middle of nowhere.”

Gobi studied him but said, “If you’re sure, then I trust you.”

“Seriously?” Brad asked. Everyone knew better than to trust him. And he knew better than to let other people trust him. Except for Abed, Sue, and David, obviously. He was too weak-willed to push them away.

“You haven’t let him down yet,” Gobi said with a shrug. “And if you do I know you’ll fix it.”

After the dinner rush, Gobi sent the rest of the workers home early. Of course, this meant it got busy again less than half an hour later. Brad had somehow been talked into working the register while Abed helped his dad in the kitchen.

“How can I help you?” he asked in a monotone voice over and over again. He’d worked plenty of jobs like this in high school when he was too young to do anything else. The years of experience took over and he mindlessly took orders for the last hour until closing. It was fortunate he didn’t run into any rude customers. Without the need for a job motivating him, there was nothing incentivizing him to be polite.

As they cleaned up after closing, Gobi let Abed play music. Most of it Brad didn’t recognize, he used his Spotify account mostly for podcasts. Once, though, a song came on that Brad had heard David sing multiple times. When he saw Gobi and Abed looking at him, Brad realized he had started humming the familiar tune.

When the restaurant was closed, they parted ways at the exit. Gobi put his hand on his son’s shoulder like usual, but Abed ducked in for a quick hug. For some reason, this meant that Brad also got a hug that he was still trying to process as he drove Abed home. He had planned on just dropping his brother off and going to the hotel he’d been staying at, but Abed managed to convince him it was early enough for one more movie. Brad ended up falling asleep halfway through. He usually went to bed at nine, sue him. He woke up with a crick in his neck and a blanket thrown over him.

Chapter Text

Brad was starting to regret showing that he cared about David because now he got constant updates on the state of David’s marriage.

“Me and the Mrs. are doing well,” David would say as he walked into the office.

“For now,” Brad shot back in an attempt to get him to stop talking.

He was also starting to regret sending him to Sue because now that those two were friends, they both kept trying to convince Brad that the three of them should get drinks together after work. The idea of a friend group, even a small one, felt so much less private and more likely to have Brad constantly looking over his shoulder, so he turned them down every time.

Then, because the universe hated him, he had to care about David’s problems again.

David had left early from work one Friday, but Brad stayed late. The companies income had increased dramatically and Montreal had greenlit buying the rest of the office building, rather than operating out of the first two floors and renting the upper space out to other companies, and hiring more staff. Technically speaking, Brad was only in charge of the way the game brought in money, not what they did with it. But, after only one year of working at MQ, Ian had started having Brad be a second opinion on every financial decision, and in recent months, Brad had been unofficially operating as the entire accounting department and part of HR.

So now it was eleven at night and Brad was waging war with the printer. The one in his and David’s office had broken yesterday and hadn’t been replaced even though David said he would take care of it immediately. The bullpen printer had been working fine for the last hour and now refused to print no matter how much he troubleshot.

Brad gave up and headed back to his office, deciding to leave it as a problem for tomorrow. He had to get back to Emma soon, anyway. He asked Sue to stop by after she left work to catsit for a bit but she probably left a few hours ago.

Brad froze when he saw that the door to his office was closed. He knew he had left it open. He slowly approached the door, staying in the shadows cast by his desk lamp. He peered through the doorway after taking a moment to steel himself.

“David, what the fuck?” Brad asked angrily. The second he saw the disheveled man, all his panic immediately turned into anger.

“Oh, hey Brad,” David said wearily. Brad noticed immediately that he was struggling to form words, and then he noticed the bottle of whiskey on David’s desk.

“What are you doing?” Brad asked apprehensively, slowly approaching the other man.

“My wife kicked me out again,” David said, taking another drink directly from the bottle. “I think it might be for good this time.”

“What are you doing here?” Brad asked. “Shouldn’t you go to a hotel?”

“Yeah, probably. But I remembered I had this in a filing cabinet.” David held up the bottle.

“Okay. Well, I think you’ve had enough so how about we both get out of here.”

David blinked at him dumbly for a moment. “I was just going to sleep on the floor.” He pointed at the floor unhelpfully.

“That’ll kill your back at your age,” said Brad, offering a hand to help him up.

“I’m only a few years older than you,” David muttered and accepted the help.

As soon as David got to his feet, he stumbled and had to grab the desk for support.

Brad sighed. With the state David was in, he knew it would be easier to just have him sleep on Brad’s couch.

“C’mon, D-man,” said Brad as he threw David’s arm over his shoulder and started helping out to the parking garage.

Brad ended up dumping David on the couch because he didn’t trust David with stairs. He went to the kitchen to get David a glass of water to help with the hangover he’d have tomorrow. When he came back, David hadn’t moved. He looked up when Brad shoved the water in his face.

“Thanks,” David mumbled. “You’ve got a lot of books.”

“Good to know the alcohol hasn’t dulled your powers of observation,” Brad said dryly.

“Is that a picture of us?” David asked excitedly.

“Uh, no.” Brad quickly grabbed all of the pictures off of the bookshelves and down from the wall as quickly as he could.

“Shut up,” he told David when he returned to the living room and saw the other man smiling at him.

Emma appeared, brushing against the side of the couch before hopping into Brad’s lap with a soft ‘meow’. David looked at her with wide eyes.

“You look like a supervillain,” he said when he managed to tear his eyes away from the cat and made eye contact with Brad.

“What?” Brad asked blankly.

“You’re all scowly and stroking a cat.” Brad was starting to wish he was drunk, too, to make this situation a little less painful. Unfortunately, he hadn’t replaced his alcohol supply since he and Sue had managed to make it through the entire supply in one night.

“I think my wife might be evil,” said David. Never mind, Brad would have sold his soul for a drink right now.

“Jesus Christ, David, she just doesn’t like you, that doesn’t make her evil.”

“I guess not. You don’t like me and you’re not evil.”

“Wrong on both accounts,” Brad muttered bitterly. He did like David, but he knew nothing good would come of it. He also knew that after everything, he couldn’t exactly be considered a good person.

“I know she’s not evil, it’s just easier to think that.” David burst into tears.

Brad sighed longsuffering, which trailed off into him muttering ‘fuck’. He absolutely was not going to hug David, they just didn’t know each other that well. So Brad shuffled a bit closer to David and awkwardly patted his shoulder. He kept his hand there as David started crying harder and as he finally started to calm down and talk about his marriage.

Brad wasn’t really listening, he was too hyperaware of the situation and what this would mean for him to process any of what David was saying.

“It means a lot to me that you’re here, Brad,” said David.

“It’s my fucking house.”

“I meant, like, emotionally. I knew you weren’t as mean as you pretend to be.”

It would be so easy to just betray this trust that David has in him and not have to deal with everything being friends with him would entail. It should have been easy. David was emotionally vulnerable and Brad didn’t want to deal with David’s neediness and inability to be discrete about their friendship. A friendship with David would be all risk and no reward, so unlike his friendship with Sue, so why couldn't he get himself to say anything?

“Go to bed, David,” he said curtly. He picked up Emma and headed up the stairs. “And take your shoes off.”

He set Emma on the bed and went into the ensuite bathroom. He splashed water in his face and just stared at himself in the mirror for a moment, gripping the edge of the sink.

“You never fucking learn, do you?” he said to his own reflection. “You’re putting everyone at risk and for what? Because you can’t tell David, fucking David, ‘no’? You’re that much of a doormat, you pussy?”

He was broken out of his self-loathing when he felt Emma brush against his ankle. He looked down at her and sighed. He wiped the water off of his face and picked her up to put her on the bed again. He avoided looking at his reflection as he got ready for bed.

Brad woke up at five in the morning to hunger pains. He stumbled downstairs to feed Emma and start a pot of coffee. When he saw a figure sit up on his couch, Brad let out a startled squeak.

“Oh, hey, Brad,” David mumbled as he rubbed at his eyes. “Is today Saturday? Why are you up so early on a Saturday?”

“Yeah, it’s Saturday. I’ve got to feed my cat, go back to sleep,” Brad told him.

Instead of going back to sleep, David stumbled to his feet and walked into the kitchen. He was still in his very rumpled work clothes.

“Thanks for letting me stay here, man,” said David sincerely.

“I figured having two people sleeping at HQ would make it something we have to look into,” Brad said with a shrug.

“You could’ve taken me to a hotel,” David pointed out.

“Getting your credit card from you in that state would probably count as robbery.”

“See, you do have a conscious,” David beamed.

“Oh my god, I am not having this conversation again,” Brad snapped.

“Why can’t you just accept that you’re a good person,” David whined, following Brad as he moved to fill Emma’s food bowl.

“Tell anyone that and I will fucking end you,” Brad threatened.

“What about Sue? She already knows,” David pointed out.

Brad stared at him for a moment. “Do you two talk about me?”

David had the decency to look embarrassed. “I mean, we do have some Brad appreciation time once in a while,” he admitted.

Brad stared at him with horror. He needed to do some damage control. He stood up straight and approached David slowly until he would have been towering over him if he had had more than a two inch height advantage.

“You two will not tell anyone,” he said slowly and threateningly.

“Okay! Okay,” said David, taking a step backward. Brad narrowed his eyes even more when he saw the other man was blushing.

“So…” said David, clearing his throat. “I should call my wife.”

“It’s 5:30.”

“I should call my wife in a few hours.”

David sat at the kitchen table and studied Brad’s house. Brad wordlessly handed him a cup of coffee.

“I can’t check into a hotel until this afternoon,” David told Brad, looking at him with pleading eyes.

“You can stay here for a bit,” said Brad, glaring at David so he wouldn’t say anything about it.

“Thanks, man,” said David. “So what do you want to do?”

Brad sighed. “I have some work to do, you can do whatever you want.”

"You're working on the weekend?"

"Do you really think anyone at the company would put up with me if it weren't for the fact I'm good at my job and put in extra hours?"

They ended up in the living room, David on his phone and Brad on his computer.

David kept trying to make conversation, which Brad ignored each time, except when David asked Emma’s name. It seemed harmless enough information.

Brad got bored after a while and decided that, if David had to be here, Brad might as well indulge in his favorite hobby: psychological warfare. Usually, he had a specific goal in mind or a situation that he used to his advantage, but he had neither at the moment. It was time to turn to someone else for inspiration.

He subtly pulled out his phone and texted Abed.

‘If you want to do your talkshow, I have a captive audience as long as you promise to mess with him,’ he said.

‘David?’ asked Abed.

‘Yeah.’

‘Friends shouldn’t mess with each other.’

‘I’m not friends with him.’

When Abed didn’t respond, Brad interpreted it as silent judgment.

‘C’mon, please?’ Brad asked.

‘Give me 30, I’ll make it a podcast.’

When Abed sent him the audio file, Brad set aside his computer.

“Want to listen to a podcast?” he asked David casually.

“Oh, sure! What kind?” David asked excitedly.

Brad just shrugged and pushed play.

“Welcome back to 'Troy and Abed in the Moooooorning!'” Brad had to put effort into keeping a blank face instead of rolling his eyes.

“Today, we’re bringing you an inspirational story of a biology teacher who started his career in prison.” Troy and Abed proceeded to interview Annie who was clearly trying to sound more intimidating. The story was detailed enough that Brad suspected it was based on a true story. By the end, David had a look of awe on his face. Good, he thought this was real.

“And now for a music break before the news,” said Troy. Brad’s phone started playing a song about someone who pushed their friend away because they were in love with them.

‘You little shit,’ Brad texted Abed. He got a smiling emoji with a halo in response.

“And now, back to the news,” said Abed after the song had finished. “The suspect in a quadruple homicide in LA is still on the loose. The suspect was described as a six-foot-tall man, and recent evidence indicates he may have a connection to a video game company and has a cat. He likely lives alone on a very isolated property.”

“If you see this man, do not be alone with him,” said Troy. “If you have a tip for the police, call this number.”

‘Who’s number is that?’ he asked Abed.

‘The Dean’s.’

‘Nice.’

Brad turned off the “podcast” and gave David his best sociopath smile.

“Y’know Brad, if you ever need anything, and I mean anything, I’ll help you.”

“What do you mean?” Brad asked innocently while texting Abed ‘Oh my god, I think he’s offering to hide me from the police.’

“I’m just saying that hypothetically if you needed something even if it’s, say, hiding a dead body, I will do it.”

“You will be the body,” Brad told him before sulking and turning his attention back to his phone.

Abed had responded, ‘Oh no, someone likes you too much for you to mess with him’.

‘Who the fuck taught you sarcasm,’ Brad texted back, sulking even more.

‘This is Troy, Abed told me to answer his phone for him. His hands are covered in glue.’

Brad stuffed his phone in his pocket without answering.

They put on a movie to pass the time. David kept tearing up every time the characters did anything remotely romantic. Because he was, unfortunately, still not afraid of Brad even if he believed him to be a murderer, David still kept trying to strike up a conversation, which Brad sulkily ignored every time.

Eventually, Brad got tired of David asking about lunch and agreed to order food. He refused to get food from the pasta place he and Sue usually ordered from.
When three o’clock came, Brad drove David back to MQ to get his car.

“I really appreciate you letting me stay over, Brad,” said David as he climbed out of Brad’s car. Brad had to resist the urge to just drive away with the passenger side door open.

“I promise not to tell anyone,” David said awkwardly when Brad didn’t say anything. He wouldn't say anything but David was an open book and everyone would be able to see he liked Brad. Hopefully, they'll just think he's crazy.

“See you Monday, David,” Brad said after a moment. He watched pityingly as David struggled to get his keys out of his rumpled suit jacket. Once he knew that David could get into his car, he drove off.

Chapter Text

Because Brad is a dick, he waited until Sue was drinking from her water bottle to tell her the news.

“David stayed over at my place Friday night,” he told her, fidgeting with the cuffs of his shirt while she was distracted by her own violent coughing.

Once they’d both settled, Sue looked up at him with wide eyes.

“So, why did David stay the night?” Sue asked, failing at sounding casual.

“It’s not like that,” he said, scowling at her.

“That’s not what I asked,” she said, holding up her hands in mock surrender.

“His wife kicked him out again and he decided to come back to the office to get drunk so I let him sleep it off on my couch.”

“And how do you feel about that?” Sue asked, sounding serious all of a sudden.

“I’m not talking about my feelings,” he said flatly before walking faster, leaving Sue to catch up.

“Okay, okay, you don’t have to talk about that, but could you at least tell me why he keeps trying to subtly ask if you’ve murdered someone?”

David had the decency to not bring up the impromptu sleepover, but he acted differently around Brad. He was more comfortable, teasing, and nice. Brad hated it, but there was nothing he could do about it now. David didn’t take his scowls and quips seriously. Brad had expected this, since he’d shown his weakness, but it didn’t make facing his failure to keep other people away any easier.

As extra work piled up and he had less time to sleep, Brad’s physical health declined. This only made him more irritable toward David, who still managed to remain oblivious.
Brad found himself scowling at the back of David’s head yet again when his phone rang.

“What?” he snapped.

“Good morning to you too,” Jeff said on the other end of the line.

“What do you want, Winger?” Brad asked. His voice was toneless but the panic hit him immediately. He hoped Abed wasn’t in the hospital again.

“Abed and Troy are fighting and it’s starting to get ugly.”

Brad sighed. He was relieved it wasn’t a medical emergency or anything, but he could also imagine the toll this would probably take on Abed. However, he couldn’t interfere in everything in his brother’s life.

“Despite how they might act, they are both adults and can sort this out for themselves.”

“You realize this is Abed and Troy we’re talking about, right? They’ve held the school hostage overnight to have a pillow fight.”

“Yeah that sounds about right,” Brad sighed again and massaged his temple as he felt his headache, which had lasted several days now, worsened. “Look, we know from past experiences that it works best to let it just play out. Eventually, they’ll tire out and get to the point and deal with it.”

“I don’t know if we can afford to let it play out much longer, they’re starting to hurt each other’s feelings. I was going to call a secret meeting since they’re refusing to meet with each other. I was thinking we could do it lawyer style where I speak for Troy and you speak for Abed.”

“I am not playing telephone with adults who are capable of talking to each other,” Brad said, but it came out more weary than irritated like he wanted.

“Is everything okay?” Jeff asked awkwardly. Apparently, Brad wasn’t the only one going soft.

“Yeah. Just… do your intervention but I really think you should just let them play it out and end it on their terms. If things have already been said, it’s probably not going to get much worse. I mean, they’re them, how bad can it be?”

“You’d be surprised. I was actually also going to ask you to just talk to Abed because Troy texted him some pretty serious stuff. I mean, Abed said some stuff too and Troy’s more sensitive, but it was still bad.”

Brad’s stomach sank. “Okay, I will. Thanks for dealing with all this.”

“No problem. I’ll update you if it gets worse.”

“Thank you. Bye.”

After he hung up, Brad ran a hand down his face. ‘Talk to’ meant ‘comforting’ and Brad had no idea how to do that.

“Everything okay?” David asked. Brad looked up to see David looking at him with concern.

“Fine,” he said shortly.

“Family troubles?”

Brad knew that the way his face immediately went blank would be suspicious but he couldn’t help it.

“Everything’s fine,” he snapped. “I just need to go make a phone call.”

He stormed out, ignoring whatever David said in response. He went to his usual abandoned hallway and called his brother.

“Hey, Brad,” Abed said when he picked up. He sounded just as tired as Brad.

“What’s going on?” Brad asked, trusting Abed to know what he was talking about and to not be offended by lack of pleasantries.

“Troy and I couldn’t agree on whether or not to build a blanket fort or a pillow fort and it turned into a two-episode long arc.”

Brad pinched the bridge of his nose. “Can’t you make one with both?”

“But then it’s not a pillow fort. We said we were going to make a pillow fort.”

“Abed, part of being in a relationship of any kind is being flexible.”

“But why am I the one who has to compromise? Why does everyone else think they know better than me?”

“Troy doesn’t want you to change, he just wants to build a blanket fort instead of a pillow fort,” Brad sighed.

“But last week he said sometimes I have to listen to him because I don’t understand some things. And he texted me that he’s my only friend because no one else is patient enough and that I don’t understand that because I’m mentally ill.”

Screw not getting involved, Brad was going to hire a fucking hitman.

He took a deep breath to calm down. He was supposed to be winding down the situation.

“That’s not true, Abed. He was lashing out. And there are things he doesn’t understand. Most things now that I think about it.”

“I know. He was upset because he intercepted the email I sent my second in command about his weaknesses.”

“What did you say?” Brad asks warily, leaning heavily against a wall to try to get his legs to stop aching. It didn’t work.

“That he’s distractible and sensitive and insecure about the fact he cries a lot. I told him he wasn’t supposed to see that and he said I wasn’t supposed to think that.”

It was the sort of thing Brad teased David about.

“Did you tell him that those were actually things you like about him?” Brad asked casually, ignoring what his own brain was implying.

Abed’s moment of silence said it all.

“They’re still weaknesses in the context of a pillow fight,” Abed said finally. His tone was a bit harsh.

“Are you… You’re playing a character right?”

“Maybe,” Abed said thoughtfully. “I might be playing you.”

“Okay, well, stop doing that,” Brad told him, using his condescendingly patient voice out of habit. “You can decide not to be friends with Troy, you’re an adult. Just make sure you’re not doing it because you're playing a character or you’re being childish.”

“Jeff says we’re always childish. We’re having a pillow fight right now.”

Brad took a moment to think through his response.

“Not everything you do is childish and some of the childish stuff you do is for mature reasons,” said Brad, cringing at the sentimentality. “Anyway, I’m not really here to give you advice, I was just checking on how you’re doing with your… feelings.” This was the second-worst conversation they’d ever had, Brad decided.

“I’ll be okay. Even if everything goes bad here, I’ll always have you and Sue. I have to go now, the troops need rallying,” said Abed, tone never changing. “Do usłyszenia.”

“Do usłyszenia,” Brad echoed. He frowned at his phone for a moment after hanging up. Abed definitely didn’t sound fine, and did he really think things were so hopeless he’d only have Sue as a friend? He was basically turning into a mini Brad, and Brad knew better than anyone that that was not a good thing to be.

Brad got back to work as best he could. His headache was making it hard for him to look at a computer screen and he was dedicating more of his waning energy to forcing himself not to cough than he did working.

As expected, Abed called him again to tell him that the fight was over. Luckily, David was out of the office.

“Jeff gave us magical friendship hats and told us we didn’t have to be as sarcastic and boring as him.”

In the background, Brad could hear Jeff’s offended “I didn’t say anything about boring.”

“So did you actually address the conflict when you came up with a resolution?” Brad asked wearily.

“No.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely going to come back to bite you in the ass, but good job finding a temporary solution.”

“Everything’s fine now. The episode is over,” Abed argued half-heartedly.

Brad took his feet off of his desk as he prepared for another serious conversation. Of course, that was the moment David walked back in.

Brad tried to think of a way to phrase his concerns in a way that sounded work-related but came up empty. And if he told Abed to wait until he got to his usual abandoned hallway, his brother would probably change the subject.

So Brad switched to Polish and just hoped that Abed knew more than just ways to say goodbye.

“This is just going to eat at you if you don’t address it,” Brad told him, ignoring David’s curious look.

“There’s nothing to address. Nothing new anyway,” Abed said stubbornly. Grammatically, his Polish was just as good as Brad’s, but his accent was worse.

“Whatever you say,” Brad relented. He’d tried the brotherly advice thing, there wasn’t much more he could do.

“I’m going to go hang out with Troy. We need to make up for lost time,” said Abed, hanging up.

“It’s been one day,” Brad said to himself, incredulously.

He was glad that Abed and Troy weren’t fighting, but Brad was still worried something was going on with Abed. He wished he were better at being a brother.

“What language was that?” David asked from over at his desk.

“David, how long have you been sitting there?” Brad asked, faking surprise and irritation. The counselor his high school forced him to see had told him that he needed to take more time to do things that actually made him happy when he was feeling stressed, and there were few things that made Brad happier than messing with David.

“For a few minutes,” David said with confusion before his eyes widened. “Oh no, is that disrespectful? Was I not supposed to hear any of that? Is it a cultural thing?”

Brad barely had to do anything to wind David up, it was really sad. “Yes, David. Get out!”

He smirked as David scrambled out of the office.

Ten minutes later, David slunk back into the office, stopping in front of Brad’s desk.

“Were you fucking with me?” David asked suspiciously.

“I was fucking with you,” Brad agreed mildly, not looking up from his computer.

“Aw, look at us. Being pals.”

“You’ve ruined it.”

Chapter Text

Brad was worried enough about Abed that he actually texted him a couple of times during the following week, which brought the number of text conversations on Brad’s phone up to three. Usually, Abed just sent an emoji in response to Brad’s prying questions, but nearly a week after the pillow fight, he got a text saying “Troy loves Britta”.

Brad had seen this coming. He’d noticed the way those two had looked at each other on Christmas, but he still felt a resurgence of pity for his brother.

He struggled to think of a response. The last week had really made him realize how unequipped he was to offer brotherly advice. It might be time to call in some help. Just as he was gathering up his things to visit Sue, David walked in.

“Guess what, Brad.” Brad ignored him but he continued anyway. “Poppy and Ian tried to pull me into one of their arguments and I told them that they were grown adults and I wasn’t going to play telephone with them and they could just talk to each other directly,” David told him proudly.

“Wow, good job, man,” Brad said only half sarcastically.

“The best part is, I think they actually did end up working it out for themselves.”

The sounds of arguing started to trickle into the office.

“Sure, D-man,” said Brad, wrinkling his nose and giving his coworker a condescending smile.

“Welp, I’m gonna go tell Sue about it.”

“No, I was going to go talk to her. You can wait an hour.”

“We can talk to her together,” David suggested hopefully.

“Nope,” Brad called over his shoulder, popping the ‘p’. He was glad David relented easily, it would have been embarrassing to have to resort to the ‘she was my friend first’ card.

“Sue, I don’t know what I’m doing.”

“I know. What are you talking about specifically?” Sue asked, not looking away from her computer.

“I am such a bad influence on you,” Brad laughed as he sat across from her. “I bet you’re not even looking at anything, it’s just for dramatic effect.”

“Yeah, it’s not even on,” Sue said, beaming at him. “What can I help you with, Brad?”

“Abed’s having issues that I’m not equipped to give advice on. He and Troy were fighting and they’ve stopped now but I think there are some unresolved issues there. And now Troy is dating Britta but Abed and Troy are very codependent so there’s going to be ramifications that I can’t really help with because all my emotions are at least three shots of vodka deep.” Brad finally cut off his rambling with a deep breath.

It was only when Brad looked up into Sue’s concerned face that he even realized that he’d been staring at his hands the whole time.

“Brad?” Sue hesitated. “Are you doing okay? Are you sleeping enough?”

“What? Yeah, why?” That was a lie and Sue could probably tell. Because of his weak immune system, whenever Brad got sick, it lasted for almost a month.

“It’s just…” Sue seemed to be thinking carefully about what she was about to say. “Abed doesn’t expect you to be good at talking about things, he knows you and you guys kind of have your own way of dealing with things. And he doesn’t expect you to fix everything. It means a lot to him that you try, though. And it means a lot to him that you spend time with him. We sort of thought you knew that.”

“If I can’t fix the problem and I can’t be comforting in any way, what good am I? All I am is a bad example and potentially a risk to his life.” ‘He’d be better off without me,’ Brad thought, scowling at one of the many stacks of papers in Sue’s office.

He started a bit when he felt Sue gently grab one of his hands.

“Honey, it’s not about being useful. Abed and I, we both appreciate when you try to help us with things, especially knowing how hard it is for you sometimes, but what matters the most is that we love you and we love spending time with you.”

Brad squeezed her hand but didn’t look at her. He started even worse when he felt a cold hand on his forehead.

“Oh, Brad, you’re sick. That’s probably making this whole thing worse,” Sue exclaimed. She let go of his hand so she could hurry around her desk and take a closer look at him.

“I’m fine, Sue,” he said unconvincingly, snatching her hand away from his face as she tilted his head. Something was keeping him from letting go of it. Oh, god, had he been the type of person that gets clingy when sick and he just didn’t know it because he’d never had someone to cling to? This was pathetic.

“I think you should take a day to get some sleep. You look exhausted.”

“I have work to do.”

“How much work have you actually gotten done today?” Sue asked. Brad remained silent.

“You’ll be way more productive after getting some sleep,” she continued. She tugged at his hand to get him to stand up.

As soon as he got to his feet, Brad’s vision immediately tunneled and he suddenly couldn’t feel his limbs. Sue made a noise of alarm and wrapped an arm around his waist. Brad clung to her hand even tighter, making her other arm useless.

“I’m good,” Brad mumbled when his vision came back after a second. Sue hesitantly let go of him.

Brad let Sue lead him by the hand to the elevator. Somehow, just over the last few minutes, his exhaustion had become almost unbearable and his headache became sharper and more painful.

“What do I tell David?” Brad asked quietly, struggling to pull the words from his clouded mind.

“You might just have to tell him the truth,” Sue told him. “Is this really worth lying about? What lie would even work?” she asked when she saw his pout.

“I don’t know,” he sighed. He used his ID card to let them up to the main level.

When the elevator doors opened again, Sue let go of his hand. Part of him was grateful because he knew he would regret it if people saw that he actually had a friend, but the other half childishly wanted to grab her hand again.

They headed to his, thankfully empty, office so he could grab his things before they headed to the parking garage. When they were out of the building, Sue looped her arm through Brad’s and led him to her car.

“I can still drive,” he complained as he got into the car anyway.

“You are not in a state to do L.A. driving,” she told him.

Brad leaned his head against the cool window and closed his eyes. Sue turned off the radio and let silence settle.

“Shit, I forgot to text Abed back,” Brad told her after ten minutes of silence. “He just said that Troy is in love with Britta, what am I supposed to say to that?” He fumbled for his phone, having to check all his pockets because he couldn’t remember where he’d put it.

“Tell him he can hang out with you over FaceTime or something. He knows that quality time is your love language.”

“What?” Brad sputtered.

“Don’t worry about it,” Sue said in a sing-song voice.

Brad pulled up the text conversation with Abed and typed ‘It’s going to be okay’ because that’s something people said to each other as far as he was aware, and then ‘you can call me anytime’. He sent it before the discomfort of serious interactions could set in.

They pulled up to the gate in front of Brad’s house and Sue got out to unlock it. Brad was glad he had let her keep the spare keys to it and his house after she had stayed with him back in November. He also told her the new codes for the keypad every time he changed them, just in case.

Brad made it into the house on his own but ended up collapsing bonelessly onto the couch as his energy quickly ran out.

“You should change into something more comfortable,” Sue told him. “Where do you keep your medicine, you should take a fever reducer.”

“In a minute,” he mumbled, throwing an arm over his eyes.

He heard Sue close the curtains before walking over to stand behind the couch by his head.

“You look like shit,” she told him sympathetically as she started running a hand through his, probably sweaty, hair. Brad was glad he had his arm over his eyes because he immediately started to tear up. No one had ever done that for him before.

“I feel like shit,” he admitted once he was sure his voice wasn’t going to crack.

They stayed like that for a couple of moments as a wave of aching pain passed through Brad.

“I’m going to go get changed,” he told her once the pain became more manageable.

“Okay. Can I make you soup or something?” She was trying to be casual but Brad could hear the intensity and apprehensiveness behind her words. He was glad she didn’t mention that he hadn’t eaten anything when they went to the park for lunch.

The idea of eating made Brad nauseous, but no more than usual so he nodded.

“You should take something for your fever,” she called after him as he headed up the stairs.

“‘Kay,” was all he managed to say back.

He changed into sweatpants and a sweatshirt that he’d had since college and headed to the bathroom to find some Tylenol. He stopped short when he caught sight of himself in the mirror. He definitely had not looked this pale and clammy when he’d left for work this morning. It was as if having someone else acknowledge that he was sick made all of his symptoms worse all of a sudden.

He found the Tylenol and just guessed at the dosage. He refused to look at his reflection again as he did so.

By the time he made it back to the couch, he was exhausted, in pain, and wheezing. He curled up in the middle of the couch and pulled the hood of the sweatshirt over his eyes as even the dim light sent a stabbing pain through his head.

He heard a soft ‘meow’ and suddenly the small space between his chest and the edge of the couch was occupied by Emma. Brad blindly reached out and started petting her. Brad let himself focus solely on the softness of her fur, trying not to think of anything, especially not how miserable he was.

He was startled out of his meditation by the sound of a bowl being set down on the coffee table. He pulled back his hood and looked up at Sue. She was looking at him the way she looked at her cats, like she was going to start cooing about how cute he was.

“You’ve got some bedhead,” she told him, trying not to smile and failing miserably.

Brad scowled (pouted) but didn’t try to fix his hair. Lifting up his arm that high seemed impossible.

“Do you want to watch a show or something?” Sue asked as she sat on the couch by his head.

Brad’s headache was bearable again so he nodded.

“What do you want to watch?” she asked as she grabbed the remote.

“Ducktales?” he asked hopefully. If he was going to act like a second grader sent home from school anyway, he might as well.

“Okay,” she agreed, mercifully not commenting on the childish choice.

Brad pushed himself into a sitting position where he swayed a bit. Sue noticed and scooched closer so he could lean against her.

Brad ended up watching a couple of episodes of Ducktales leaning against Sue with his legs curled up to his chest, hands tucked into his sleeves, and hair sticking up in every direction as he managed to eat most of the soup Sue had made for him. He immediately started nodding off against Sue’s shoulder afterward.

He woke up an hour later with his head on a pillow in Sue’s lap and Emma in his arms. He made a noise of confusion as his sleep and sickness-addled brain tried to make sense of the unfamiliar situation.

“Go back to sleep,” Sue told him gently as she started petting his hair with the hand that wasn’t holding her phone.

He did as she said. After all, he was secretly a pushover.

Chapter Text

“I have a better idea,” said Annie, and dread filled Abed. It was her ‘I know better than you’ voice. He really wished people would stop assuming they knew better than him.

“Y’know what would make your scenarios a lot more realistic?” she continued.

“If Troy weren’t on a date,” he complained.

“Why don’t you take all your thoughts and your logic and add one step to the process,” she said, ignoring him.

“What are you doing?” Abed panicked as she grabbed the empty tissue box.

“From now on, before you do or say anything, you’re going to think about how it affects the people around you.”

Abed didn’t hear what she said after that as distress drowned out her words and his own thoughts.

Another person was asking him to change. Was forcing him to change. But maybe she had a point. It was worth running a scenario to test it. What would the world look like if he put others’ needs first? What could he do to make them happy?

So as Abed started acting out the scenario, he made himself disappear.

“Hello, Annie.” Abed decided to give Annie what she wanted, so he played Jeff.

“What was I doing on the floor?” he asked. “Were we doing it?” He wondered briefly if Jeff was aware of how creepy he came off sometimes.

“Are you being Jeff?” Annie asked incredulously.

“Well, I’m not being a Kardashian,” he replied smoothly.

“So where are we now?” Annie asked, sounding annoyed. Abed thought about where Annie would be happiest and turned the Dreamatorium into a hospital.

“We’re in the doctors’ lounge at Greendale hospital school,” he told her.

“Hospital school?” Annie asked skeptically.

“It’s a sexy, emotional school where doctors save lives and make love,” he told her. “Often simultaneously. Our stories? Ripped from the headlines. Our passions? Unbridled. Our Cafeteria? Eh.”

“Make love to me, Annie,” he told her, grabbing her arms. “I know I’m just some surgeon and you’re a hotshot upstart administrator, but damn the rules, damn the system, damn our two-foot height disparity. I want you.” Abed hoped that adding in the detail that Annie was successful would make her happy.

Instead, she wrenched herself from his grip.

“Okay, Abed, I get it. We have different sensibilities. Later.” This was going to be a difficult simulation if she wasn’t going to follow the script.

He watched Annie walk out of the room, only to return, as he had suspected, a few seconds later.

“Okay, Dr. Jeff. Can you please tell me where I can find Abed?” she asked. “I owe him an apology.”

“Abed? Never heard of him,” Abed said as Jeff. The simulation wasn’t done yet. He didn’t exist.

“Terrific,” said Annie, but Abed thought she might have meant it sarcastically. Then, she straightened up dramatically.

“I asked you a question, doctor,” she said angrily. Finally, everything was running smoothly again.

They played out the scene a bit before Abed decided a scene change was needed.

“Fine. Dr. Perry might now,” said Abed.

Abed changed the Dreamatorium to the bio lab.

“Look, there’s Britta and Troy fooling around with each other,” Abed told her so she could see what he saw. He couldn’t help letting some annoyance slip into his voice even as he played Jeff.

“Look, there’s Abed having overcome his issues.”

“Nice try,” he told her before turning his attention to the imaginary Troy and Britta. “Dr. Barnes, Dr. Perry.” He then jogged to where imaginary Britta was standing.

“We just saved an uninsured homeless man’s life,” he said as Britta.

“Using an unapproved procedure. Now we’re going to kiss,” he said as Troy, sounding as unenthusiastic about the idea as he hoped the real Troy was.

“This is what you think I want?” Annie asked as she watched Abed kissing the air.

“What do you want, administrator?” he asked her.

“I want to talk to Abed.”

“There’s no one here by that name,” he told her.

“You’re lying!”

“Maybe I am, so what?” he asked her before ad-libbing some character backstory.

Then Annie fake-stabbed him with a needle.

“Sodium pentothal,” she said. “Known commonly as ‘truth serum’”. She was very good.

“I saw Abed’s name in the hospital school files,” he admitted, knowing she had won this round. But at least it allowed him to do more character backstory. And his acting of Troy’s inception breakdown was pretty convincing and emotional in his opinion.

“You said you saw his name in the files,” said Annie.

“Right,” he said, then he rendered the Dreamatorium to be the medical study room with Shirley as a nurse and Pierce as a patient.

“Shirley,” Annie said with annoyance, cutting off what could have been an emotionally impactful scene. “Get me the file on Abed.”

“Abed doesn’t exist, young lady,” he told her.

“He exists if I say so. This is my hospital school!” she cried. But it wasn’t, this was Abed’s mind. He was in control. No, wait. He wasn’t anymore. Annie had changed the settings.

“Your hospital school, young lady, is a simulation being run through a filter of other people’s needs. Abed’s been filtered out because nobody needs him.”

“I need him,” said Annie.

“You’re not a simulation,” he countered. He had no way of knowing if real people were being genuine or not. He assumed, though, that if she were a simulation that he could understand, she wouldn’t need him either, and his simulations were pretty accurate.

“No, but this is,” Annie said, slapping the air in front of Abed’s face and ordering ‘Jeff’ to get the files. Abed thought the scene had gone on long enough so he agreed.

“There is an Abed in this hospital school, but he’s not a doctor, he’s a patient,” he told her. Then, because dramatic reveals are always interrupted in movies, he called for security as Shirley.

“Jeff, take me to Abed,” Annie ordered.

“Where is that?” he asked.

“Enough games, just take me where I want to go!”

“Follow me.” He created a fake examination room.

“This is Doctor Brad,” Abed explained. Annie made a face at the name that Abed couldn’t interpret. Maybe she was trying not to laugh at the slightly ridiculous name?

“He’s Abed’s primary doctor,” Abed continued. “He’s been taking care of Abed for over twenty years.”

“Okay, Doctor Brad,” said Annie. She definitely was making fun of the name. “Where is your patient?”

“Where he needs to be,” Abed said as Brad, giving her an unconcerned shrug. He figured this version of Brad would be a little more carefree so he minimized the tension and hyper-awareness he always noticed in his brother.

“And where is that?”

“He’s been admitted as a psychiatric patient.” If Annie was going to force him to be in her simulation, it should at least be accurate. After all, Troy had told him he was mentally ill.

“Abed’s not crazy!”

“You only think that because, until now, you thought that it was ‘cute crazy’. If you saw the uglier side, you’d agree he’s right where he belongs.” Troy, who had seen that side of him, had told him as much. No one else would be as patient as Troy. Everyone else would lock him away.

“How can you say that?” Annie asked in shock. “He’s your bro- patient. You’ve been taking care of him his whole life.”

“And if I had to take care of him any longer, I’d be the one in the psych ward right now,” Abed said with a bit of a laugh that came out a bit strangled as saying the truth out loud brought tears to his eyes. He had seen the stress that his last visit to LA had put on Brad, and had heard the tiredness in his voice when they last talked on the phone. And even if his brother was the strongest person he knew, everyone had a breaking point.

“You’re lying! You would never stop caring about Abed because he gave your stupid life meaning! If anything, you need him more than he needs you. What did you have before he came along?”

“A lot less anxiety,” Abed offered.

“And no friends, no family, no place to go for Christmas. Just your job. You were basically Scrooge.”

“Can Abed be the ghost of Christmas past in this analogy?” Abed asked as Brad. Watching people’s memories was a lot like watching movies.

“Only if you tell me where to find him,” Annie said stubbornly, folding her arms.

“Fine, Jeff can take you there.”

“Follow me,” he said as Jeff.

He changed the scene to the outside of Greendale. Setting the scene just as Leonard had described.

“Knock it off, Abed,” Annie told him.

“I’m not Abed, you’re confused,” Abed said because he assumed Jeff wouldn’t be above gaslighting women. “So was I, but not anymore.”

“Jeff,” Annie said, annoyed, before correcting herself. “Abed, stop. I don’t want to do this.” Abed felt a bit bad but the simulation needed to play out.

“I want to talk to Abed,” she said stubbornly. “I’m taking the file. Oh! It says Abed is in the recovery parlor. Condition: never better.”

“You’re not holding anything,” Abed told her. Also, recovery parlors definitely weren’t real things.

“This is the file,” he said. “‘Abed Nadir, psychiatric patient 1373, control freak with no empathy. People bend over backwards to cater to him.’ Signed, healthcare administrator Annie Edison.”

“That’s out of context,” she said weakly.

Abed hushed her. “You’ve thought of everything, Annie. With Abed gone and Troy and Britta together, there’s nothing standing in the way of us.” And then he would be left behind, like always.

“Come on, this is your dream,” he told her. “This is why you played matchmaker. This is what’s important to you.” It’s what was important to everyone, it seemed. He knew that this season was doomed to be romance arcs he could never be a part of.

When Abed leaned in for a kiss, Annie pushed him away.

“You are not Jeff! Because Jeff cares about Abed.” Abed kind of believed her, but that didn’t mean Jeff wasn’t better off without him. And he would probably realize that someday. They all would.

“And I did not push Troy and Britta together so that this would happen. I did it because I thought they were cute together and this would’ve been a bonus. And we are not here! And I am not staying here because I hate whoever you are!” Maybe his Jeff impression wasn’t as good as he had thought.

Annie stormed away, running into the wall of the Dreamatorium before he could stop her.

The simulation got a little out of hand from there as Abed played Annie and then Annie played Abed, but eventually it calmed back down and Abed ended up in a metaphorical locker.

“You think this is where we’d put you?” Annie asked him as he sat pretending to be handcuffed. “You know that’s absurd, right?”

“I’m not stupid. You can see I’ve increased the square footage. It’s a metaphorical locker. It’s a place where people like me get put when everyone’s finally fed up with us.” People who were weird, annoying, and controlling.

“Abed,” Annie said with exasperation. “So maudlin. If you start turning into a vampire…”

“I’ve run the simulations, Annie. I don’t get married, I don’t invent a million-dollar website that helps people have sex, I don’t make it into Sundance or Dance Pants. Troy invents Dance Pants in 2019. Don’t tell him, he needs to stumble onto it.” Logically, he knows that Troy being with someone else doesn’t mean he won’t get married, but it really felt like Troy was the only one for him.

“Listen,” Annie told him. “The scenarios you’re running here are like great science fiction. They’re impressive and detailed and insightful, but they’re not accurate for crap. Science fiction never has been. Look at 2001. Did we have a Space Odyssey? No, we got snowboarding in the Olympics and over validated Carson Daily.”
“Poor guy,” Abed said mildly.

“Yeah, cry me a river,” Annie retorted. “My point is, your simulations are nothing more than anxieties. You’re afraid you don’t fit in, you’re afraid you’ll be alone. Great news: you share that with all of us, so you’ll never be alone and you’ll always fit in. We won't leave you just because we fight sometimes or you do something 'scary-weird' or because it's stressful to care for someone, like with your brother. We're not just keeping you around until you make a mistake. And yes, I meddled with Troy and Britta. You caught me. I was trying to make life go according to some script. But I can’t, and you can’t. We both need to get more comfortable winging it. At least it’ll be less work.”

He had to be okay with not being in control. He never was in control to begin with, he supposed. And since he didn't actually know the future, there was still hope for a good one.

“That would cut down my Dreamatorium time by 18 hours a week,” Abed told her. “I could take up yoga.”

“You have the body type,” she said with a smile. She helped him escape and they played Inspector Spacetime for a bit before getting lunch.

They were peacefully eating the buttered noodles that Abed had made when Annie froze suddenly and looked at him.

“Abed, why do you think you’re not going to get married?” she asked.

“Because I’m afraid of being alone like you said,” he answered, confused about why that part had stuck out to her.

“But you said that the simulations are run through your thoughts and what you know about your friends. What about our group makes you think you won’t get married?”

“That simulation was run entirely based on my thoughts, not you guys,” he told her quickly. Too quickly, it would seem, because Annie immediately narrowed her eyes at him for a moment.

“Are you in love with Britta?” she asked with a gasp, eyes widening. “And her being with Troy makes you think you’ll die alone?”

“I’m not in love with Britta,” he told her flatly, annoyed at the mere insinuation.

“Oh,” she said, deflating a bit before realization dawned on her face. “Oh. You’re in love with Troy,” she said quietly.

Abed tried to say something, to deflect, but he couldn’t. It was like the words had stuck painful metal barbs into his throat and refused to leave. Instead, he gripped his fork tighter and stared at his hand.

“Oh, Abed. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I should’ve waited until you were ready to tell me,” Annie rambled. Abed wanted to reach out a hand to her to tell her not to worry about it but his arms felt heavy for some reason.

So instead, Annie was the one who reached out and grabbed his hand. She leaned forward to try to catch his eye, which only made him look away more.

“You know I love you, right? The whole group does. Nothing is going to change that.”

Abed finally looked in her direction but still didn’t make eye contact.

“I love you too,” he said quietly, squeezing her hand.

“What, why is one of your goals to create a website to help people have sex?” Annie asked suddenly as she drove them back to Greendale.

“I was taught that if you have a talent you should use it to help others, like help them improve a skill that comes naturally to you.”

“Gross! Abed!” Annie scolded. Abed wasn’t sure why, though. She was the one who asked.

Later that night, Abed called Brad.

“What’s up?” Brad asked the second he picked up, sounding concerned.

“I just wanted to tell you that Annie and I had a talk and I’ve worked through some of my issues. I know you’ve been worried lately,” Abed told him.

“Well, that’s good. It almost makes me feel bad about blackmailing her that one time.”

“What?”

“What?” Brad asked with fake innocence.

“Anyway,” Abed said when Brad didn’t elaborate. “I also wanted to see if you were okay. You sounded off when we talked on the phone a few weeks ago.”

“Oh. I was just a bit sick. I’m fine now.”

Abed wanted to tell Brad to take care of himself, to take a step back from Abed if he needed to, to not sacrifice his own health for Abed. He wanted to tell his brother how scared he was, over the summer, when he thought his visit might send Brad to the hospital. But he couldn’t get himself to say the words that would get ignored anyway.

Instead, he said, “I’ve got to go now. Love you.”

“Yeah, love you, too,” Brad said after a moment's hesitation.

It was only after he had hung up that Abed realized it sounded like Brad had been crying.

Chapter Text

“So how did your brother take the news of us being expelled? Is he pissed at us for being bad examples?” Jeff asked Abed suddenly one night. He had joined Abed and Troy for movie night but he seemed more interested in the whiskey he had brought along.

“Oh, are we allowed to talk about that again?” Abed asked curiously. They hadn’t even said the name ‘Greendale’ since they were kicked out a month ago.

“It’s not that we weren’t allowed, it's just… Never mind. What did your brother say?”

“I didn’t tell him.”

“What? Abed! You need to tell him,” Jeff scolded. Even Troy was looking at him with alarm, now.

“Every time I call he either doesn’t pick up or he says he’s busy,” Abed said. “Sue says it’s because he’s having a hard time right now.”

“He’ll want to know about this. Call him and tell him it’s important and if he doesn’t pick up then I’ll call him,” Jeff told him. Abed didn’t understand why Jeff calling him would make a difference but he nodded along anyway.

“Okay,” he agreed. He pulled out his phone.

Abed didn’t regret helping his friends start the riot at Greendale and it wasn’t his fault that the season finale was happening when Brad was struggling. And yet, just the thought of telling his brother what had happened and adding to his stress was making him feel… bad. He couldn’t narrow down the feeling more than that. He hesitated for a moment more before pressing the call button and putting his phone to his ear.

“You can go to your room to do it,” Jeff told him.

“I’m fine,” Abed said, not minding if the others heard. Jeff sighed and paused the movie.

“Hey, Abed. I’m pretty busy right now so I’m going to have to call you back,” Brad told Abed soon as he picked up.

“This is important,” Abed says quickly before his brother could hang up. He looked over at Jeff who gave him a nod.

“What happened?” Brad asked. Abed was relieved to hear emotion in his brother’s voice for the first time in over a month, even if it was worry.

“So funny story,” Abed said after a moment of trying to figure out how to begin. He’d heard Troy use that phrase when he told his mom what had happened and Abed thought it might help ease the tension of the situation.

“Oh god, what did you do?” Brad asked, sounding tenser than he would have normally.

“How did you know I did something?” Abed asked, surprised. For all Brad knew the situation may not have been his fault.

“People only start conversations with ‘funny story’ if it’s definitely not funny and the fact that you said it means you went out of your way to find something that would soften the blow of whatever you’re about to say, so what the fuck did you do?”

“We started a riot at a funeral for the school drug dealer and got expelled but it’s okay because it wasn’t the real Dean. If I can prove that, it’ll all go back to normal.”

“What the actual fuck?” Brad groaned.

Abed was pretty sure that was a rhetorical question so he stayed silent.

“So what is your plan going forward?” Brad asked wearily.

“We have to prove that it’s not the real Dean,” Abed said, becoming Inspector Spacetime again. He spent most of his free time in character lately.

“Okay…” Brad sighed. “How do you plan to do that?”

“I don’t know yet. Maybe they will get sloppy and throw out something they shouldn’t have.”

“So you’re going to go through the school’s dumpster,” Brad asked slowly, “which is probably trespassing.” It definitely was, Abed had already been busted for it a couple of times.

“Sacrifices must be made in order to end injustice,” Abed cried in his Inspector voice.

“No, they don’t. Don’t do anything illegal,” Brad told him, sounding exasperated.

“An innocent man’s life is at stake.” Who knows what Chang would do to hide away the Dean.

“Then tell the police, just please don’t get involved. Focus on what you’re going to do with your future. Have you talked to your dad?” He had, of course. His dad hadn’t even been that mad. If anything, he was rather happy to have Abed back working at the falafel stand.

Instead of telling Brad any of this, he focused on the ‘call the police’ part. “An inspector’s job is not to deal in the mundane.”

“Are Jeff or Annie with you?” Brad asked Abed.

“Yeah, Jeff’s right here. Why?” Abed was confused. Brad usually avoided talking to the rest of the study group.

“Can I talk to him?” Brad asked, ignoring the question.

“Sure,” Abed agreed reluctantly. He looked up to see Jeff looking at him with wide eyes, shaking his head vigorously. “Brad wants to talk to you,” he told her, holding out his phone.

Jeff closed his eyes and sighed before taking it. “What’s up, Brad?”

Abed could hear Brad say something angrily on the other end of the line, even from a few feet away.

“Well, funny story…” Jeff said slowly, then grimaced.

Abed looked at Troy, wondering if he could tell how the conversation was going, but only got a shrug in response. They went back to staring at Jeff

“Look,” Jeff said, starting to sound annoyed, “if you want to try to talk him out of it by playing along with his Inspector Spacetime fantasy, be my guest but I’ve known him long enough to have learned it won’t work.”

Jeff wordlessly handed Abed the phone and started up the movie again.

“What were you guys talking about?” Abed asked his brother, deciding to head to his room since he couldn’t hear over the movie.

“I was asking him to make sure you didn’t get arrested.”

“Oh,” Abed said flatly. He had deduced that Brad was going over his head and asking Jeff to babysit him but hearing confirmation made the disappointment set in. Of course his brother didn’t believe him about the Dean, just like the others.

“Look, I know you don’t like people telling you what to do but this is serious and I’m trying to look out for you,” Brad told him, sounding a bit tired. Or maybe frustrated.
Abed tried to curb his annoyance. He knew that Brad didn’t think he was incapable of taking care of himself or that he was a child but it was starting to grate on his nerves. Even if Brad didn’t think he was a child, it didn’t change the fact he was being treated like one.

Brad sighed after a few moments of silence. “I know that you asked Sue to look after me,” Brad pointed out. His tone was gentler than it had been for the rest of the conversation.

“I won’t get arrested,” Abed told him, mollified. That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to investigate. He knew he was right and didn’t care if the others believed him.

“So you’re still going to do it, you just won’t get caught?” Brad asked, sounding tired again as he potentially read Abed’s mind.

“Yes,” Abed told him honestly. “Does that mean you’re going to answer your phone more? In case I get arrested?”

“I’m not posting your bail,” Brad told him, though Abed suspected he was lying.

“What have you been busy with?” Abed asked after Brad didn’t say anything else about the fact he’d been ignoring Abed’s calls.

“Work stuff. Speaking of which, I have a meeting I should be getting to.”

“Is this my fault? Whatever’s going on with you?” Abed asked suddenly. “Did I do something wrong?” He hadn’t been able to stop thinking about the Brad from the dreamatorium. The one who with so much less on his shoulders without Abed to look after.

“No, Abed,” Brad sighed. “It’s my fault. I realized I should have just told you about Zack and left you be.”

“No, you shouldn’t have,” Abed protested.

“Goodbye, Abed.” Brad hung up.

Abed frowned at his phone, the display now showing Brad’s contact information. He knew what Brad had said didn’t actually have that much to do with him and more to do with Brad’s paranoia, but after everything that had happened recently, he didn’t like having proof that there wasn't truth to his simulation, no matter what Annie said otherwise.

He knew Brad would call him back soon and try to talk him out of his investigation. At least it could make for a good film homage. Movie detectives are always called away from their yarn-covered crime board by an important phone call.

“Oh my god, he’s calling me now,” Britta complained loudly as her phone started going off during dinner.

“Who?” Abed asked. Britta looked at Jeff before sitting up a little straighter.

“Oh, um, no one,” Annie said before Britta could answer. Her voice sounded higher than usual.

“Okay,” Abed shrugged.

“No,” Jeff said, looking at Annie. “This is getting ridiculous. Abed, would you please tell Brad to stop calling us.”

“He’s been calling you?”

“Yeah, like every other day,” Annie told him.

“I’m pretty sure he’s alternating between the two of us,” Jeff added.

“He’s called me a few times, too,” Troy offered.

“Apparently I’m the last resort,” Britta said, holding up her phone so he could see the missed call from his brother.

“He hasn’t called me,” said Shirley, sounding offended.

“Maybe because every time we call you you end up talking about your baby for two hours,” Britta mumbled while taking a drink out of a water bottle that everyone knew didn’t have water in it.

“He hasn’t called me, either,” Abed said emotionlessly. He wasn’t sure what emotion he was supposed to be putting in it. He wasn’t that disappointed that he wasn’t being nagged but he would rather that than having the others be asked to watch him. He wasn’t that hurt or annoyed because he knew this had more to do with Brad than him. Maybe he should have gone with concern.

“Well, you said he was ‘having a hard time’, right? I’m sure it’s nothing personal,” Jeff said like Abed didn’t know that.

“Oh?” Britta asked, lighting up. “If he needs to talk to someone-”

“No,” Jeff and Abed said in unison. Brad would absolutely break Britta.

“Well we need to do something,” Annie said. “This can’t be healthy. Who knows what else he has going on.”

Abed had some ideas. Sue had been texting him about how thin and tired Brad had been looking. About how he never left his office and wouldn’t talk to David either. Abed had bought a plane ticket a while ago so he could do his yearly summer trip to visit Brad, but he had asked Sue to let him know if he needed to come earlier.

“Well he’s not going to listen to Britta and he’s not talking to Abed so there’s not much he can do,” Troy said through a mouth of Doritos. It was their main course since it was ‘like nachos without having to do all the work of dipping the chips into cheese’.

“He’d probably listen to my dad,” Abed offered.

“There’s no way he’s going to agree to that,” Jeff scoffed.

“Then we’ll need to set a trap!” Abed cried in his Inspector Spacetime voice.

“How?” Troy asked excitedly.

“No idea.”

Chapter Text

Brad picked up his buzzing phone, fully prepared to reject another call from Abed or Sue. It was easy, now. More of a habit than a guilt-laden choice. He froze when he saw the call was from Jeff.

“What happened?” he asked as soon as he picked up.

“It’s always such a delight to talk to you on the phone,” Jeff greeted sarcastically. “Your brother got caught trespassing and is being forced to go see a psychiatrist.”

“This is the exact situation I was trying to avoid when I asked you to keep an eye on him,” Brad snapped at him, storming out of the office while David watched him with worry. He’d been doing that a lot lately.

“With the mind games it takes to get him to listen to us, it’s pretty much impossible to talk him out of something when he puts his mind to it,” Jeff said irritably.

“Well, you should have tried harder!” Brad hissed. “If he gets institutionalized he’s going to be vulnerable and we’re not going to be able to look after him. What if they decide he needs to meet Zack to get closure or some bullshit. He could probably convince them I’ve just been manipulating Abed and I’m the cause of all this and-”

“Brad!” Jeff cut him off. “It’ll be fine. I’ll go with him and do some lawyering. It’s very unlikely that they’d actually be able to commit him anywhere.”

Brad took a deep breath. “Fine, just tell me how it goes.”

“Or you could always just talk to him,” Jeff offered unsubtly. “He misses you.”

“Well that is unfortunate,” Brad said before hanging up.

Brad dove into his work like he always did when he was having a crisis. He started to relax as time melted away in a blur.

He found enough work to keep him until nine, which was actually quite difficult because he’d been doing it for a month. He had spent the last hour individually three-hole-punching papers that were perfectly fine in a folder to put into a binder.

He headed through the blissfully empty office and to his car. He reached for his keys only to find the pocket empty.

“Looking for these?” Sue asked from behind him. He whirled around to see Sue twirling his car keys around her finger.

“How the fuck?” Brad asked. It felt like his brain was trying to claw its way through syrup just to form the question. He should really stop eating so much sugar. Or just eat something other than a mochaccino all day.

“I had inside help,” Sue said with a sneaky smile that didn’t reach her eyes.

“David,” Brad growled. His exhausted brain didn’t even need to think to come up with that conclusion.

“He’s just as worried about you as I am,” Sue told him, smile gone. “I haven’t seen you in weeks.”

“I’ve been using my lunch hour to check on Emma.” Given how far away he lived, he definitely spent more than an hour away from the office but he more than made up for it with how late he worked.

“You could always leave work at a normal time instead. This isn’t healthy and you know it.”

“I’m fine,” he told her as he tried to grab his keys back.

“We both know that’s not true, Brad,” she said, pulling out of his reach. She was right, even Britta could figure out Brad was not okay.

“Well, you don’t need to worry about it because I’m not some little pet project that lets you feel good about yourself for once.”

She stilled from her attempts to keep his keys away from him to look at him with wide, hurt eyes. He grabbed his keys and walked away so that he didn’t have to look at her too long. He had hoped when he was younger that he would stop feeling guilty when he drove people away after doing it enough times. That he’d get used to it. He never did.

“Brad,” Sue called after. “Please let me help. I love-”

“Don’t,” he interrupted. He couldn’t go through this again. Couldn’t deal with the rush of memories of when he was younger and desperate to hear those words that were immediately followed by memories that reminded him why he couldn’t. How could he let anyone get close to him while he was hyper-aware of the danger that was always following him?

“I can’t just watch you fade away like this,” Sue said, and even though Brad had his back to her, he knew she was in tears.

“Then stay in the basement,” he said, getting into his car.

He heard Sue take a deep breath. “I want you to know that I’m not going to stop you from leaving because I don’t deserve to be spoken to like that, not because I don’t care about you,” she told him.

As Brad slammed his car door shut, he smiled slightly for the first time in weeks as a hint of pride joined his grief.

As soon as he got home and fed Emma, Brad pulled out his phone and called Jeff.

“What’s the verdict?” he asked as soon as he heard a click on the other end.

“You’re not going to believe this, but Abed’s right.”

“Excuse me?” Brad asked, leaning tiredly against the counter.

“The psychiatrist Abed had to see was planted by Greendale’s head of security to throw us off his scent. He confirmed everything. Chang really did kidnap the Dean and replace him with a doppleganger.”

“I-” It’s not that Brad was speechless. He actually had several things to say very angrily but they were all trying to come out at the same time, so he couldn’t form a coherent thought other than the overwhelming urge to throw his phone at the wall.

“Look, I know it sounds crazy but considering this is Greendale we’re talking about, this is actually pretty par for the course.”

Brad took a deep breath and eased up his grip on his phone so it wouldn’t shatter.

“What are you going to do about it?” he asked, very afraid of the answer.

“We’re going to go to the police, obviously.”

“And if that doesn’t work?”

“We can find some way to gather evidence.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you people,” Brad groaned. “Do not get arrested while doing something insane. Are any of you functional adults with an understanding of long-term consequences?” He was almost yelling at this point, which was something he never did. It was a sign of losing control. However, he never had any control in this situation to begin with so it didn’t matter.

“A man’s life could be at stake, Brad!” said Jeff.

“So you’re just going to ruin everyone else’s instead?”

“This isn’t about you, Brad.”

“I know that,” Brad hissed. “It’s about protecting Abed and not letting him end up in prison.”

“Everyone knows you’re only trying to protect yourself,” Jeff scoffed before hanging up.

Without thinking, Brad slammed his fist down onto the counter space next to him, which he immediately regretted as pain laced up his arm.

“Fuck!” he shouted, voice cracking pitifully. He took a few deep breaths, holding his injured hand to his chest.

He started when something brushed against his leg. He looked down to see Emma looking up at him and pacing anxiously. He scooped her up into his arms, ignoring the way it made the pain worse. He wound his fingers through her fur while staring blankly at the wall across from him while she nuzzled his shoulder.

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do,” Brad told her with a sigh. “Every time I step in I just make things worse in the long run.”

Emma meowed quietly.

“Of course I’m going to go, I’m just tired of having to look over my shoulder while I’m doing it.”

Brad arrived at Abed’s apartment late the next afternoon. Despite how much time he had had between deciding to come to Colorado and getting on the next available flight, Brad hadn’t gotten any sleep the night before. His vision was starting to blur a bit as he knocked somewhat frantically on the door.

“Abed-” he started as soon as he saw the door open, but he was cut short when he saw Gobi Nadir standing in the doorway.

The other man seemed just as surprised.

“Brad! What-” Gobi’s face then turned angry. “You’re just showing up here after not talking to my son for weeks! Did you even think about how this would affect him?”

Brad’s brain was in such an addled state, he wasn’t capable of quickly forming rational thoughts such as “this man is angry but I know he won’t hurt me”, so instead his flight, flight, or freeze response took over. He flinched back from Gobi but that was the most movement he was capable of with how weak his knees were. He stood rooted to the spot, breathing hard, and staring at the older man with wide, probably bloodshot, eyes.

Gobi froze too and studied Brad for a moment.

“Come in Brad,” he said with a sigh, moving out of the doorway.

“Can’t,” Brad said eloquently, shaking his head. “Abed and his friends are going to do something illegal. I’m here to stop them.”

Gobi massaged the bridge of his nose for a second. “I knew it was suspicious that he suddenly wanted my help with budgeting,” he muttered.

“What?” Brad asked, not expecting this response.

“He asked for my help so I would be here to stop you.” He paused, studying Brad again. “Or maybe have an intervention.”

“He didn’t know I was coming.” Brad decided to ignore that last part.

“He is very good at predicting what people are going to do. It was quite frustrating when he was younger. I could never scold him properly because he'd just recite what I
was going to say.”

Brad couldn’t think of a response for a moment before he remembered why he was there.

“It doesn’t matter, we need to go stop them.”

Gobi took an irritatingly long time to respond. At least three seconds.

“Alright, but I’m driving.”

“What? No, I can-”

“I wouldn’t be doing my responsibility if I let you drive when you’re like this.” Gobi brushed by him, locking the door behind him with a key that Abed gave him.

Brad wanted to point out that Gobi didn’t have any responsibility toward him, but he supposed the man could have been talking about his responsibility as a responsible citizen so he followed Gobi in silence.

As they drove to Greendale College, Brad allowed himself a moment of weakness to rest his head against the car window. Now that his adrenaline had lowered a bit, he had realized he had a pounding headache. He could see Gobi look over at him with concern every few minutes.

They approached Greendale, which was surrounded by what looked like children with weapons, and then drove right past it.

“What are you doing?” Brad asked Gobi accusingly as the other man calmly kept driving.

“It looked fine to me, no police cars,” Gobi said with a shrug.

“You’re not worried about Abed’s safety?” Brad asked accusingly. He had trusted this man to take care of his brother. Had he been betrayed by both of Abed’s parents?

“I am worried but I know that he is an adult and he needs to learn through experience. And you really need to learn to pick your battles when you're a parent, especially Abed's. Besides, everything always seems to work out okay for Abed.”

“You can’t count on everything working out all the time!”

“I’m focusing on immediate problems, not future ones that might happen. So, what is wrong with you?”

“What?” Brad asked incredulously. This was not what he was expecting to happen today.

“You avoided Abed for months and then turned up looking like roadkill. What is wrong with you?” Gobi asked again.

“I don’t have to talk to you, you’re not my dad,” Brad mumbled as he leaned back against the window.

“Thank you, your dad is a MFer. You know, I actually wanted to take you with us but my ex-wife thought it would be too dangerous. Americans don’t value children’s safety as much as they should.”

Brad didn’t know what to say to any of that so he just stared at Gobi incredulously.

“But at least you turned out… well not okay but better than I expected,” Gobi continued.

“Thanks,” Brad said deadpan.

“You're welcome. So why aren’t you talking to Abed, you’re making him upset.”

“I’m doing what you wanted!” Brad snapped. “I’m keeping him safe. If I sever connections with him then Zack won’t come for him.”

“You said it was too late and that Zack already knew you cared.”

Brad shook his head, which immediately made him dizzy. “I was wrong,” he insisted, “I can fix this, I can stop Zack.”

Gobi looked at him with pity that made him scowl.

They drove in silence for a minute, most likely in a random direction.

“Did you know that Abed still keeps the Christmas card his mother sent him when she told him she wanted to stay with her new family?” Gobi said, startling Brad who had spaced out almost immediately.

“No,” Brad said bitterly. “I can’t believe I left Abed with her.”

“It may be selfish of me but I’m very glad you did. But that’s not why I told you that.”

Gobi pulled the car into a parking lot and put the car in park. He turned to look at Brad.

“You’re never going to be able to make Abed stop loving you and you never stopped loving him. At this point, all you’re doing is hurting him for no reason,” he told him gently.

“I fucking know,” Brad admitted bitterly. “I know it’s too late. This wouldn’t be happening if I just hadn’t stayed in contact. I failed him. And for a while, I could just deny it and think we weren’t actually that close but then a month ago he told me he loved me and it just shoved my failure in my face. And I know it’s too late to fix it but it made me feel better about this mess to try. So what am I supposed to do now? How can I just sit back and watch everything fall apart the way it always does?” To his horror, angry tears had welled up in his eyes. He looked down at his hands which were clenched into fists.

Brad jumped when a hand landed on his shoulder but calmed down quickly. He told himself it was because he didn’t have the energy to stay on edge, not because he settled into it.

“I’m sorry you were raised to think that being loved meant you failed,” Gobi told him after a few moments of silence.

“I was asking for your advice, not your pity,” Brad told him without any actual anger. He wiped at his watery eyes with irritation.

Gobi huffed but didn’t let go of his shoulder. Brad was actually starting to get uncomfortable the longer the contact went on.

“Well, you were also raised to be manipulative and tricky. Prove your brother and father wrong. I know you can do it. But if not, the best thing you can do for Abed is to be his brother.”

“Okay,” was all Brad said. He felt like he could breathe for the first time in months. Nothing about his situation had really changed, but the part of his mind that screamed at him for failing Abed had quieted a bit.

“Okay,” Gobi agreed. He squeezed Brad’s shoulder before letting go.

“Can we go stop Abed from breaking and entering now?” Brad asked as Gobi started the car again.

“I’ll take care of it after I drop you off at Abed’s place to take a nap.”

“It’s 7 p.m.,” Brad pointed out.

“I can’t afford to throw out my back trying to drag you out of the car when you pass out. So you are going straight to the couch young man.”

Gobi more or less shoved Brad onto the couch when they got back to Abed’s place.

“Okay, I won’t pass out in your car now,” Brad told him, “Can you go stop your son from getting arrested?”

“In a minute,” Gobi called over his shoulder as he headed to the kitchen. Brad untied his shoes with trembling hands and carefully placed them under the coffee table where they wouldn’t be in the way.

Gobi came back in with a bag of food from his restaurant. Brad felt nausea crawl its way up his throat as though practicing throwing up.

Instead of handing him the whole bag, Gobi set it on the table and pulled out a small container.

“Abed always ate pita when he was upset. The articles I read recently called it a comfort food I think,” Gobi said awkwardly, showing the box at Brad.

“Thanks,” he said, starting to relax again. Gobi tossed a couple of blankets strewn on a nearby chair onto the couch next to him. The older man studied him for a moment before going somewhere outside of Brad’s range of vision and coming back with two more.

“Take a nap while you can,” Gobi told him as he finally started leaving the apartment. “It’s not going to be very quiet when they get back."

When the door closed, Brad didn’t go to sleep as he was told. Instead, he pulled out his phone and called Sue.

“Oh my god, Brad! Are you okay? You didn’t show up for work and no one knew where you were!” Despite how awful Brad had been to her, Sue still sounded so worried for him.

“I know, I’m sorry.” Brad’s voice cracked a bit as he said it. The immense wave of relief that washed over him upon hearing proof that Sue didn’t hate him now, in addition to his usual fear and weariness, was just enough to send him over the edge.

“Oh, honey. Where are you? I can come get you if you need,” Sue said gently.

“I’m at Abed’s place, I got a flight earlier today. Could you take care of Emma while I’m gone?”

“Of course. How long will you be gone?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t really think that far ahead.”

“And have things been going good?” Sue asked hesitantly.

“Yeah, I wish I’d done this sooner.”

“I’m glad.”

“Sue, I’m so sorry.” There were so many things he wanted to add but he couldn’t decide on one so he just stayed silent.

“I forgive you. You just focus on getting better and we can talk about it more when you get back.”

Part of Brad wanted to argue that she was making it sound like he had the flu and that he wasn’t sick, but the part of his brain that had always been self aware and that he usually ignored said that wasn’t true.

“Okay,” he agreed quietly.

“I want to come up with a plan to make sure this doesn’t happen again,” Sue said quickly, as though she’d been rehearsing.

“Okay,” he said again. He really didn’t want to deal with anything that conversation would entail but he also respected Sue’s need to set boundaries after what he’d done. He was proud of her.

“You should get some sleep, you sound tired,” Sue said after a moment of silence.

“I am tired,” was all he could think to say.

“I know, I’m sorry.” The way Sue said it made him think she truly understood the true weight of the word ‘tired’ for him. “How about you go to bed and I’ll call you tomorrow?”

“Sounds good. I-” Brad swallowed down his panic, “I love you.”

“I love you too, Brad. Sleep well.”

Brad curled up on the couch under a nest of blankets. Just as he was about to fall asleep, he realized he should probably tell David that he would be out of the office for a little while. He sent a quick text before burrowing under the blankets again. His phone buzzed immediately with David’s text of “okay, take all the time you need :)”.

Chapter Text

As he and the others celebrated their reinstatement at Greendale, Abed looked over to see his dad coming toward him.

“How's Brad?” Abed asked, figuring there was no point in pretending that he hadn’t arranged for his dad to be at his apartment when his brother arrived.

“Sleeping for what looks like the first time in weeks,” his dad answered, pretending not to notice Abed’s fake mustache. “Did everything go okay?”

Abed knew that his dad had no idea what he was even asking about, but he was happy to tell him about his reinstatement at the school as they headed out to the parking lot.

“So did you actually want my help with budgeting or was it just a trap?” his dad asked as they got in the car.

Abed thought about it for a moment. “It was mostly a trap but Annie says I should start being more responsible with spending.”

“I would have helped your brother if you had just asked me,” his dad told him.

“Why?” Abed asked, remembering how angry his dad would get whenever he brought up Brad these last few weeks.

“Because I don’t want you to lose another person,” his dad answered after a moment of silence.

“So do you actually think he might leave?” Abed asked anxiously.

“No, don’t worry about that. Your brother wants to fix this, Abed, but he needs help to be able to do it. And I don’t want you to have to worry about that, which is why I would have helped without the trickery.”

“I wanted to stick with the heist genre,” Abed told him, earning a huff in response. At least it wasn’t followed by a lecture on separating fiction from reality.

They pulled up to Abed’s apartment. Just as Abed made to get out of the car, his dad put a hand on his shoulder. Abed moved out from under it since he wasn’t in the mood for physical contact, but his dad didn’t seem fazed by it like he used to, which Abed was grateful for.

“You’re brother’s not well, Abed,” his dad said quietly. “You know that, right?”

“Yeah.” He wasn’t good at reading facial expressions, but he was perceptive enough to notice the dramatic physical changes that usually accompanied Brad’s deteriorating mental health.

“I know you’re the younger brother and there’s not much you can do, but be patient with him and tell me if there’s anything you need me to do.”

“Okay,” Abed said before getting out.

Brad awoke to the sound of the front door opening and closing, but it took him another few minutes to find the energy to open his eyes. When he did, he found himself face to face with Abed, who was dressed like a plumber and sitting on the coffee table and staring at him.

“Did you steal that uniform or have it custom-made? I’m not sure which is worse.”

“Troy and I have matching outfits for pretty much any occasion including various heist roles. I had hoped we would get to be the magic double act but Jeff and Britta called that one.”

“Of course. So how did it go?” asked Brad as he sat up and dumped the mound of blankets off of him and onto the floor.

“We rescued the dean and we’re allowed back into Greendale,” Abed answered, maintaining his intense eye contact.

“So Chang was really holding him hostage and had a doppelganger of him kick you guys out?” Brad asked in disbelief.

“Yep.”

“Have you ever considered transferring schools? To one that’s saner? I can pull some strings and get you into some California hipster film school,” Brad offered.

“I thought you were severing ties,” Abed said. If it had been anyone else, that statement would have been extremely passive-aggressive, but Abed probably meant it with genuine curiosity and confusion.

“Abed,” Brad said quietly, but he couldn’t think of what to say next, couldn’t think of how he could possibly begin to explain to his little brother the truth about how much of a mess he was.

The two sat in silence, Abed still staring at Brad who was staring at the wall.

“I’m sorry I didn’t believe you,” Brad told him. It seemed like one of the safer things to say since it was definitely not his biggest failure as a brother.

“It is kind of unbelievable,” Abed admitted, “like a plot from a sitcom.”

They fell into silence again as Abed continued to stare at him, clearly expecting him to say something.

“I shouldn’t have dragged you into this,” Brad said quietly.

“Because it would be easier for you if you hadn’t?” Abed asked.

Brad finally looked his brother in the eye. “What? No,” he said, “Why would you think that?”

Abed didn’t say anything, just raised his eyebrows slightly. Brad suddenly remembered what he had looked like the last time he had accidentally looked at himself in the mirror. He also thought back to the conversation he had had with Gobi about Abed’s mother thinking he was a difficult child and leaving and knew he had to cut off this line of thinking immediately.

“Okay, it looks bad now, but being able to be your brother again was the best thing to ever happen to me, and that’s why it was selfish for me to do it. I’m sorry for putting you in danger just because I was weak. And I’m sorry that I’ve been taking my anger at myself and my own failure out on you the past few weeks. I promise you that this has nothing to do with you, Abed, this is all just me and my problems and I’m sorry for dragging you into this, and I wish the only person I had to worry about getting hurt was myself, but what’s done is done and I have to accept it.” Brad sighed and rubbed at his tired, probably a bit bloodshot, eyes. “You’re not difficult or too hard to look after, I’m the problem here. I just… Everything’s a mess, Abed, and I don’t know how to fix it.”

“How can I help?” Abed asked.

Tears filled Brad’s eyes. He didn’t understand how someone related to himself and Zack could turn out as kind as his little brother.

“I don’t want you to worry about it. I’ll… I’ll figure this out and I promise something like this isn’t going to happen again.”

“Okay,” Abed said in a tone Brad couldn’t decipher. “I’ll try to stay out of trouble so you don’t have to worry about me as much.”

“Our brother is a psychopath, I’m going to worry no matter what,” Brad pointed out flatly.

Abed was silent for a moment, then asked, “Do you want to watch something until the others get here?”

“Of course,” Brad told him. He really didn’t but he owed Abed quite a few movie marathons.

As they watched some sci-fi movie Abed chose, Brad schemed. His mind was the clearest it had been in weeks, even after just a couple of hours of sleep. He kept thinking about his conversation with Gobi. There had to be something he could do, some way to use his shitty childhood to his benefit. He couldn’t fix everything, at least not without killing Zack and that would just cause more problems down the line. But maybe he could make it so he only had to worry about Zack coming after him. Some way to draw his attention, offer up something else he loved, instead.

“I need to make a call,” he told Abed suddenly. He stepped into the hall of the apartment building and pulled up an email that he hadn’t intended on answering from an online newspaper that wanted to interview him about e-commerce. He called the number attached to the email, even though it was nearly midnight. It was a power move.

“Hello?” asked the reporter whose name Brad hadn’t bothered looking at.

“I’ll do your interview if you do something for me.”

“Who is this?” the baffled reporter asked.

“Oh. Brad Bakshi.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“I want you to write an article about Mythic Quest’s new expansion. I will tell you everything I know, you just need to write it and not leave anything out, especially the projected profit.”

“Okay… why? This sounds sketchy, am I going to get in legal trouble?”

“Do you want a big story or not?” Brad snapped.

“I do! Can you call back tomorrow and we can set up a time?”

Brad sighed. He supposed it was too much to ask of someone to do the interview in the middle of the night. “Fine,” he said.

He hung up before he got a response.

Brad walked down the hallway a bit so he could look out the window at the street full of run-down college student apartments.

“Focus on me you son of a bitch,” he muttered, imagining Zack’s smug face as he read a tell-all article about how Mythic Quest would soon be at the top of the video game industry, especially with some of the modifications to the gameplay that Poppy was making. It might hurt the company, giving away so much information, but it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.

“Um, are you okay, Brad?”

Brad turned to see Annie at the top of the stairs, looking at him in concern. She’d probably heard him talking to himself.

“Yes,” he answered, straightening up and scowling.

“Okay,” she said, clearly not believing him. “The others are here to grab their stuff but they should leave pretty soon.”

He nodded and watched the others make their way up the stairs in their ridiculous costumes. Britta gave him a bright smile that made him glare harder, Shirley and Jeff shot him disapproving looks that he ignored, and Troy refused to look at him in a way that reminded Brad of a guilty puppy which he immediately took note of. Pierce came up last, and Brad was speechless for a moment as he took in the old man's outfit.

“What the fuck are you wearing?”

Once the others were ready to leave and Brad was done yelling at Pierce, Troy cleared his throat.

“Um, there’s something I gotta tell you guys. Remember when we were trapped in the basement and that fan suddenly stopped, letting us escape and stop Chang from blowing up the school?”

“Sorry, what was that last part?” Brad asked.

“Well, it actually stopped because I made a deal with the AC repair school,” Troy continued, ignoring Brad. “In exchange for their help, I have to enroll and I’ll never be able to see any of you ever again.”

“I don’t see the connection between joining the AC repair school and never seeing your friends again,” Brad said.

“Being an AC repair man is a lonely life, we have to cut all ties,” Troy said sincerely.

“Did you make this arrangement beforehand?” Brad asked, already trying to think of a way to get Troy out of this completely ridiculous situation. He knew pointing out that this was basically kidnapping would have no effect so he might as well play along.

“No, I didn’t want to do it but we were trapped and I was desperate. They have cameras on every AC unit so I nodded at it and the guy watching stopped the fan.”

“How much time do you have?” Abed asked quietly.

“They’ll probably come for me tomorrow,” Troy answered, looking at his friend with heartbroken eyes.

Abed looked at the ground and nodded, then went into his blanket fort bedroom.

Brad followed.

“Abed, we can find out how to fix this, it’ll all work out,” he told his brother. It had only been an hour since their last crisis was fixed, why couldn’t they catch a break?

Abed sat on the lower bunk and shook his head, not looking at Brad. “Troy won’t accept any tricks, he’s too noble.”

“Then it’ll just sort itself out in some way, things always seem to at that hellscape you call a community college.”

“But it’s almost the season finale, that’s when permanent changes happen.”

Brad tried to remember Abed’s movie code. A season was a school year so he was most likely referring to people leaving since that happened after graduations and during season finales.

“Maybe he’s not leaving the show, he’s just on a side quest.”

“Maybe,” Abed said, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“Just in case he doesn’t, you should make the next day count,” Brad told him gently. “Instead of hiding out in here.”

Abed nodded and stood up. “Are you leaving?” he asked, finally looking at Brad.

“No, I’m sticking around for a while if that’s okay with you.”

“Cool. Cool cool cool.”

Chapter Text

Brad bolted upright when he heard his alarm and immediately hit his head on the upper bunk when he blindly tried to stand up to turn it off. Even after staying in Abed’s apartment for weeks, Brad never got used to someone sleeping above him.

Brad blearily went to the kitchen and started making coffee. It was still dark out, so Annie would be asleep for another couple of hours and Abed a couple more after that. Early mornings were the only alone time Brad got anymore so he savored the TV-less silence. His life lately was spent with one eye on his computer doing his work for MQ remotely and the other on his brother who hadn’t left the apartment since Troy left.

Brad got ready, putting on some of his brother’s clothes that he was borrowing since he hadn’t packed much to travel out here. He still wore the more professional clothes he traveled in during video calls, but otherwise, he wore whatever he could find that wasn’t a graphic tee. It was slim pickings. He would have preferred to borrow Annie's clothes, honestly, but he knew they wouldn't fit.

He got some work done and checked how the apartment was on groceries. He tried to go to the store early when Abed was still in bed and unlikely to get in trouble. They were fine on butter, noodles, and coffee which was all he and Abed needed since Abed was refusing to eat anything other than that and occasionally whatever Annie made, but Brad would leave her to get her own groceries.

He started another pot of coffee around 7 and, like clockwork, Annie showed up a few minutes later.

“Thanks for the coffee,” she said like she did every morning.

“It’s not for you,” came his usual reply.

It never stopped her, though. The second people become more comfortable around you, all they do is disrespect you.

Annie left to get ready for the day and then came back to the kitchen. She and Brad worked in companionable silence, Brad trying to find an excuse to call David early in the morning to annoy him and Annie making breakfast. She set a plate of plain pancakes on the table in front of Brad before wordlessly turning back to the stove. Brad picked his way through a couple. She was a good cook.

Abed stumbled into the kitchen right as Annie was finishing putting out some eggs and oatmeal. She took the now cold plate of pancakes and heated them in the microwave quickly before setting them back on the table.

“So… you two have any plans today?” Annie asked.

“Britta’s coming over for therapy,” Abed said as he drowned his pancakes in syrup.

Brad immediately started to protest. “That’s-”

“A terrible idea because even real therapists shouldn’t do therapy on their friends and Britta is far from qualified?” Abed interrupted. "You've already said."

It took all of Brad’s willpower to just take a deep breath and say, “Well, as long as you’re aware.”

Abed had to be testing him. Surely the only way the kid would agree to this was to see if Brad would actually make good on his promise to treat him like an adult who can make his own choices and handle his own problems how he wants.

Breakfast continued in tense silence. This was normal, though, with Abed being on edge because of Troy being gone and Annie and Brad being on edge because of their entire personalities.

After breakfast, Abed went to pace in the living room while Annie and Brad did the dishes.

“I’m really worried about him,” Annie said like she did every few hours.

“Just give him time,” Brad told her. He didn’t really want to be comforting but he appreciated Annie and the care she had for his brother so he was willing to make the sacrifice.

“Abed’s really stubborn. If we just keep waiting, he could be like that for a long time.”

“Let’s give it another week before we start panicking,” he told her, tossing the dirty dishtowel into her face as he went back to his work at the kitchen table, earning him a glare. Brad was glad for an escape from the sad Disney princess eyes she had been giving him.

“This is the worst idea you have ever had and I saw the outfit you were wearing last week,” Brad told Britta as he followed her up to his brother’s apartment after letting her into the building.

“Well, it’s not your decision to make so it doesn’t matter,” she said as she brushed past him.

Brad scowled at the reminder that the whole study group knew all his business.

“Besides, you say that about every idea we have and it always works out,” Britta insisted. It was the same useless argument that she had been giving all week ever since she and Abed told him their plan to let Britta practice her therapy skills.

Brad pushed past her and unlocked the door to the apartment using the key he’d stolen from Abed. Since he was the one who had been doing any task that involved going outside, he figured it was okay. The events of last month, the friction between him and his brother, were the only thing keeping him from making a copy without telling Abed.

“Not because they’re good ideas. It’s just the situation is so stupid it falls apart on its own. I give it another week before Troy’s back because something ridiculous happened at the AC cult.”

“You’re being a bit meta, Brad,” said Abed.

Brad was surprised to see the door to the Dreamatorium open. Abed hadn’t been in it since Troy left.

“Sorry to take your job,” Brad told him. He picked up the abandoned bowl of buttered noodles that he had made for Abed earlier and put it in the fridge. Then he joined Britta in standing in the doorway to the Dreamatorium.

“Hello, Britta,” Abed said with a dark, calculating gleam in his eye. He then cocked his head and looked at Brad. “Hello, brother.”

Brad stared at his brother for a moment, unable to look away from the felt facial hair, before grinning at Britta.

“Good luck,” he told her cheerfully, pushing past her again to exit the apartment. “If anything about this goes wrong, though I don’t see how that could be possible, you can always, always come to me so that I can tell you ‘I told you so’ to your face.”

“This isn’t-”

Brad cut off Britta by slamming the door shut.

He was a bit irritated at both of them at the moment so he didn’t feel the guilt he usually felt when leaving Abed in his current state. If they were going to ignore his advice, they could deal with the consequences on their own like they wanted. At least it should be entertaining.

Once he got out of the building, he stopped in the middle of the sidewalk. He hadn’t actually planned what he was going to do once Britta came over, he just knew he wanted to get out of the house after watching Inspector Spacetime for hours on end whenever he wasn’t working. He didn’t really know what to do with his unexpected free afternoon.

He thought about getting some work done at a cafe or something but realized he had left his computer in the apartment and there was no way he was going back to whatever dumpster fire that was going to turn into. He also didn’t want to visit Gobi at the falafel stand because the last time he had tried that, Gobi had tried setting him up with various employees and shoved plate after plate of food at him. And he couldn’t call Sue right now because she didn’t have service in the basement of MQ.

Had he been this bored at MQ, he would have found David or Poppy and tried to start some sort of chaos in the office. Someone who works with money as much as he did would never pay for entertainment when he could create it.

Of course, he realized, he didn’t have to create any chaos here. In fact, anything he could come up with would pale in comparison with the average day at Greendale.

As Brad walked toward Greendale, he was suddenly reminded of the first time he was there over two years ago. Back when he had convinced himself that he would only talk to Abed once to warn him and then never see him again, now he was headed there just to see what his brother’s friends were up to. What had happened to him?

“Are you here for the court hearing?” asked a nasally voice behind him.

Brad turned to see the same kid who had first directed him to the study group.

“Yes,” he answered immediately. A hearing at a community college should be interesting.

The kid directed him to where Shirley was apparently suing Pierce for ownership of her sandwich shop.

“Would you think less of Shirley Bennet if she offered to ‘sell Ben on Craigslist for a chance to bump it with Denzel’?” a balding man was asking Annie as Brad walked into the room. Oh yeah, this was going to be good.

When it was Jeff’s turn to question Pierce, Brad noticed for the first time that he was wearing a suit. Even as he fumbled through asking Pierce about funding, Jeff exuded confidence. Brad could finally understand how he actually got away with pretending to be a lawyer for so long.

As Jeff headed back to the table to check his notes, Brad recognized a spark in his eye as the one he often saw in himself.

“Hey, uh, while I’m doing this… Does anybody know any funny jokes?”

Brad smiled slightly. It had been a while since he’d seen his own personality reflected in someone else in a way that wasn’t really fucking depressing.

It didn’t take long before the audience started to get fed up with Pierce’s ‘jokes’. Brad helpfully provided people with wadded-up paper to throw and gleefully threw several of his own. He had needed this after a month of being cooped up in Abed's apartment. Then, he immediately felt a bit guilty. It wasn't Abed's fault he was having trouble functioning after his other half had left. Brad shouldn't be here having fun after all the stress he'd given Abed before he'd come to Colorado. He should be helping instead of leaving his brother to the worst fate: having to talk to Britta.

During recess, Brad saw the other lawyer talking quietly with Jeff and crept closer.

“I’m the big dog now. So, you want the last three years in this toilet to have a point? Then I’m the guy you gotta make happy. Or, you know, you can finish up your big win here,” the other man was saying.

Jesus these two were taking this shit way too seriously. The store would happen either way, it didn’t actually matter who signed the paper. It wasn’t something to destroy your entire career over. Seemed like an easy choice to Brad. Which of course meant he had to make this situation more difficult.

He moved one more chair over so that he could be directly behind Jeff before speaking.

“Fake court sure is a foolish reason to throw away your career. Then again, because you’re not here as an actual lawyer that means you're here as a friend and Shirley would be so disappointed if you failed her the way you did your old job. Then again, at least she can go home to her family and her future in business and you would have to go home to the knowledge that this classroom court is the highest thing you’ll ever be able to legally practice in. Are you really the cold-hearted-"

“Did you need something, Brad?” Jeff finally cut him off. Brad was a bit relieved because he hadn’t actually planned an end destination for that speech.

“Entertainment mostly,” Brad said with a shrug.

“Finally get tired of following around your little brother?” Jeff snapped. Brad wasn’t bothered, he’d been told worse and also deserved it as always.

He was prepared to snap back when Craig entered and immediately ran into a table. Then Shirley came back and started talking to Jeff so Brad just leaned back and watched.

A little while into their second recess, Britta stormed into the room. Brad pointedly ignored her.

“You’re just in time for Jeff’s closing statements,” Annie told her.

“Who cares? Everything is terrible,” she replied. Just the sort of thing you want to hear from your brother’s fake therapist. Did anyone in this group have a real job?

“Oh, no. Have you been watching Dance Moms again?”

“I’m thinking of dyeing my hair,” Britta mumbled.

Brad could dig into the veritable gold mine of responses he had to that, the door slammed open revealing Abed carrying what looked like a bone saw. Brad just watched as his brother started talking to himself while everyone around him seemed to not notice.

“I’m going to cut off Jeff Winger’s arm,” Abed said in the completely silent room. No one but Brad seemed to hear.

“Don’t you mean dark? Welcome to my world,” Abed said to the air in front of him. This was what Brad meant when he told Britta she’d make everything worse.

Brad’s promise not to helicopter parent his brother as much was getting harder to adhere to as he watched Abed plug in the bone saw.

‘It’ll all work out’ Brad told himself.

As if it was a sign from the universe that Brad needed to calm down, the chord was too short to reach Jeff.

“Psst! Jeff! Winger!”

That Jeff seemed to hear as he turned to look at Abed for a moment, presumably trying to process the fake facial hair and saw, before just turning back around.
Well, at least that put some of the responsibility for whatever was about to happen onto Jeff’s shoulders.

Brad never looked away from his brother as he left the room just in case he made a sudden move, but let himself listen in on Shirley telling Jeff that she was sorry she put him in a terrible situation with his old firm.

“I want you to have what you want,” Shirley said sincerely.

In that moment, Brad knew Jeff wasn’t going to let the other guy win the case.

As Jeff started saying he was going to throw the case, Brad was alarmed to see Abed come back into the room with an extension cord.

He got up and slowly walked up to Abed who didn’t seem to notice him. He totally wasn’t going to interfere but it also didn’t hurt just to be nearby. For non-interfering reasons.

Abed turned around once he’d plugged in the bone saw again and froze when he saw Brad. He gave him the same calculating look that he’d given Britta earlier.

“I don’t need to do anything here,” Abed said before turning back to Jeff.

“I’m lying when I say there is no truth,” Jeff announced from the front of the room.

Brad let out the breath he’d been holding when Abed froze.

“The truth is… the pathetically, stupidly, inconveniently obvious truth is… helping only ourselves is bad and helping each other is good.”

Brad would have rolled his eyes but he didn’t want to risk looking away from Abed, though his brother seemed to be captivated by what Jeff was saying.

“Now I just wanted to get out of here, pass biology, and be a lawyer again instead of helping Shirley,” Jeff continued. “That was bad. And my former colleague wanted so badly to keep his rich client that he just asked me to roll over in exchange for my old job. So, I guess we all walked in here pretty bad. But now… Shirley’s gone good. Shirley’s helping me. It’s that easy, you just stop thinking about what’s good for you, and start thinking about what’s good for someone else.”

Brad actually did roll his eyes at that point. Predictable and childish lesson.

“And you can change the whole game with one move.” Oh god, he wasn’t done. “Now if you like this idea, you can make it true by doing something good for everyone here. Throw this case out of court, it’s dumb. That is all.”

“I withdraw my case,” Pierce announced. “Why didn’t you just do some inspirational speech about friendship? You’re fired,” he told his lawyer.

Honestly, Brad was kind of on the side of this lawyer who was now looking around completely baffled. He officially hated this place.

The facial hair fell off of Abed’s face and he seemed to come back to himself. He looked at Brad and silently handed him the bone saw before walking over to sit next to Annie.

“I don’t fucking want this,” Brad said to no one in particular before dropping it on the floor and following his brother.

“By the way,” the other lawyer was saying, “I never got a chance to tell you this, but it was me who turned you into the State Bar.”

Finally, some drama.

“I know, and I never got a chance to say thank you.” Fuck. This place was hell.

“This place has made you so gay.”

“Hey! Don’t use ‘gay as a derogatory term’. Booyah, good person,” Pierce told the lawyer.

“Actually I do want that bone saw. I’m going to put myself out of my misery,” Brad muttered as people started cheering.

“You shouldn’t talk like that,” Britta scolded.

“You are in no position to give me psychological advice,” Brad told her before storming out of the room. He really hated her.

Brad was lurking in the hallway when the others came out of the room and started congratulating Jeff, but he ignored them in favor of watching his brother approach Britta.

“Britta, I’m so sorry,” Abed said.

“It doesn’t matter, Abed. I should have never played therapist with you. I’ll change my major just one more time.”

‘Yes!’ Brad thought to himself

“But you can’t. You cured me.” -No!- “I mean, I’m not cured. I’m willing to admit I definitely need therapy.” -Yeah, fair- “You’re the only kind of shrink I could ever trust.” -No! Fuck!- “The kind with as little control over my mind as me.”

Brad was going to have to stop interacting with any of Abed’s friends, it made it so much harder to stay out of Abed’s business when he knew stuff like this was going on.

Abed and Britta hugged as Brad run a hand down his face and noted the beginnings of a migraine.

“Mind if I cut in?” a voice asked behind Brad.

“Troy!” Britta cried as she held out her arms to him.

Brad fully laughed at her when Troy walked past her to hug Abed. She glared at him.

“You’re back!” Abed said happily.

“Yeah, I made a new rule that the air conditioning repair school has to act like a regular school. I can do that because I’m their messiah.”

Brad raised his eyebrows at Britta to say ‘I told you so’. She rolled her eyes.

“Cool. I went crazy and I wanted to cut off Jeff’s arm.”

Jeff looked alarmed and shot Brad a questioning look. Brad smiled innocently and shrugged.

“I missed you so much, buddy,” Troy told Abed sincerely.

Britta cleared her throat and Troy turned to her.

“So why are you their messiah?” Brad asked as soon as they started hugging.

Troy quickly let go of Britta and turned to Brad.

“Oh, there was a prophecy,” Troy started explaining. Britta looked at Brad with murder in her eyes. He feigned a curious expression and nodded along to the absolutely insane shit Troy was saying.

As the group started heading… somewhere (Brad wasn’t really familiar with the layout of the school and no one had told him) Abed fell into step beside him.

“Were you actually going to let me cut off Jeff’s arm?” he asked curiously.

“Nah. I’d have intervened eventually. I figured I’d give you a chance to sort out… whatever that was yourself.”

“I was trying to make this timeline more like what I had theorized the darkest timeline would be like. Jeff in the darkest timeline was missing an arm so that’s
why I needed the bone saw,” Abed told him helpfully.

“So you were lashing out,” Brad surmised.

“Yeah, I guess.” Abed looked ashamed. “But like Jeff said, I needed to start thinking about what’s good for someone else. Like not cutting off Jeff’s arm.”

“Oh god, Jeff’s speech is actually what did it? I was hoping you were having some internal epiphany.”

Abed just shrugged.

“What did you mean when you said you didn’t need to do anything when you saw me?” Brad asked after a moment of silence.

“Well the events of the darkest timeline revolve around a pizza night with the study group that you weren’t there for so you would be unaffected,” Abed explained quickly.

“Is that all?” Brad asked suspiciously.

“You’ve also spent the month having to look after me, sleeping in a bunk bed, and missing your cat,” Abed said. Brad could pick up the subtle guilt in his usual monotone.

“If you think that’s the worst thing I could possibly be doing right now, you don’t have as big of an imagination as I thought,” Brad told him flatly.

Upon seeing Abed’s concerned look, Brad tried to deflect.

“I have been missing my cat, though. Now that Troy’s back, I should probably go home. I wonder how the office held up with me working remotely,” he said lightly.

“You have a cat, too?” Britta cut in.

Brad glared at her. “I live on a lot of land, I need something to keep the mice away. It’s a strictly symbiotic relationship,” he told her.

“He’s talked to her on the phone every day he’s stayed with us,” Annie joined in. “He said something about not wanting her to forget his voice.”

“Aw,” Britta and Shirley cooed.

“Wow,” Jeff said mockingly.

“I’m not taking any criticism from a guy who just won a community college court case by giving a speech on the power of friendship,” Brad snapped at him.

Abed gave Brad the plane ticket he had bought a while ago to visit Brad in LA saying that both of them staying here for a month could count as their summer visit. The flight wasn’t for another few days but Brad immediately started packing up his stuff when they got back to the apartment to give Troy his bed back and also to avoid having to help him move back in.

“You don’t have to do that,” Abed said from the doorway, making Brad jump a bit.

“What? Why?”

“I took down the Dreamatorium and Troy’s making it his room.”

Brad studied his brother and could see subtle disappointment.

“Well, that means I can stay here when I visit instead of going to a hotel,” Brad offered. God, the sacrifices he makes.

Abed lit up a bit. “We can do all the stuff other siblings who share a room do. We can stay up late talking, fight over who gets top bunk, and if I win then you can kick the bottom of my bed when I’m being annoying. We should have been doing that this whole, I’ve really been out of it.”

Brad was filled with dread as he reluctantly said, “Well, we have three more days.”

Chapter Text

Brad sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee on the morning he was set to return to California. The only change to his morning routine that day was when Annie came in holding a few pieces of paper.

“Hey, Brad,” she said in a sing-song voice with a fake smile. “Can you-”

“I’m not going to do anything until you start talking like an adult.”

Annie’s entire demeanor changed instantly. “Oh, I-”

“And if someone only does something for you when you ask them in a little girl voice, then they’re a creep,” Brad added.

“What about when I try to make myself cry to get people to do something for me?” Annie asked curiously.

“Well that’s a different situation but it won’t work on me. What do you want?”

“I was going over our budgets and Abed and I really can’t afford to cover the rent from last month by ourselves and it’s not fair to make Troy pay since he wasn’t here for most of it. Can you cover a third of it?”

“Sure,” Brad agreed, grabbing the papers from Annie. “Are utilities included in rent?”

He scanned the papers while sipping his coffee.

“You don’t have to look at those too closely,” Annie said quickly, holding out her hand for him to hand them back. “I can just tell you-”

“Why are overcharging Abed and Troy on rent?” Brad asked her sharply.

“I’m not keeping it!” Annie cried. “They’re terrible with money so I’ve been taking an extra 10 dollars and putting it in a savings account! It’s for their own good.”

Brad studied her. He agreed with her wholeheartedly but he also knew Abed would be upset if he found out she had been going over his head and babying him. Well, that sounded like Annie’s problem.

“I won’t say anything,” Brad told her.

“Oh, thank-”

“For now.”

Annie scowled at him as he pulled out his checkbook. He decided to just pay off the entire rent for the month. The kids could use some free funds. He handed her the check and left the kitchen before she could say anything.

A few hours later, Brad was sitting in the front seat of Gobi’s car, a comfortable silence settled between them. The rest of the car, however, was anything but silent as Abed, Annie, and Troy had crammed themselves into the back seats and were bickering.

“Abed, I can’t move over when Troy is man-spreading like that.”

“Troy, move over, Annie’s wearing her wool coat and it’s sticking to me.”

“My butt is fully against the door!”

“Just close your legs.”

“Annie, guys can’t do that. It hurts.”

“The Dean sits with his legs crossed so I doubt that.”

“Do you guys know where there’s lots of leg-room?” Brad called back to them. “The apartment. Where I told you to stay.”

The three of them stopped arguing amongst themselves and talking over each other for a second, only to start arguing with him and talking over each other.

“I always go with you to the airport.”

“We were roommates for months, Brad, I have to see you off.”

“I actually didn’t know what we were doing, but these two were going, so…”

Even though they weren’t arguing anymore, they were still all talking over each other and it was driving Brad insane.

“Who wants to play the quiet game?” asked Gobi, speaking up for the first time.

“That’s not actually going to work on us-” Annie scoffed.

“I love the quiet game!” Troy interrupted her. “My parents played that with me all the time growing up!”

“I was the reigning champion,” Abed told him proudly as though he wasn’t raised an only child.

Silence blissfully settled over the back seat as the children entertained themselves by trying to get each other to break.

Brad settled back into his seat, sighing as his headache started to ease.

“Well played,” he told Gobi approvingly. He wondered if this would work on David.

Gobi just winked at him.

Brad wondered if this is what normal families were like, with eldest siblings who were in on the jokes and schemes of their parents while their younger siblings annoyed them and caused chaos in the background. The idea was the exact opposite of Brad’s carefully controlled life but maybe he could handle that kind of life.

When they got to the airport, Abed immediately hugged him. Of course, Abed’s version of initiating was to kind of lean on Brad so he’d put his arms around him and then not actually hug back. It reminded Brad of a cat and he once again thought of Emma. As much as he was going to miss his family here, he ached for his family back in California.

Annie and Troy got Brad's bags from the back of Gobi’s car. They were mostly full of things he’d bought in Colorado since he hadn’t planned to stay this long. He’d given a lot of his extra things to Abed so that he wouldn’t have to bring as much back but he’d also bought some really nice sweaters with textures Abed hated. Gobi had teased him for buying business casual clothes for his vacation but Brad argued he still had to attend video calls.

Much to Brad’s chagrin, Annie and Troy joined the hug once they had dumped Brad’s luggage onto the pavement.

“Take care of yourself, Brad,” Annie said smiling up at him.

“We’ll miss you, man,” Troy added.

Brad patted each of them on the shoulder awkwardly, leaving Abed to just lean against him, head on his shoulder.

The kids stepped back and Gobi stepped forward. He warmly wrapped his arms around Brad and held him securely with a hand on the back of his neck. Pinned the way he was, Brad basically had no choice but to rest his head against the man’s shoulder.

“Thank you for everything,” Brad said quietly, half hoping it wouldn’t be heard.

“Of course, you’re family,” Gobi said simply, rubbing his back when Brad’s breath hitched. He was being held like a child, or at least Brad thinks that’s what it’s like, he doesn’t have much experience. But he feels like he’s being protected and he assumes that’s what being hugged by a parent feels like. Being as tall as he was, he never felt this shielded when being hugged.

Brad pulled away and subtly wiped his eyes with his sleeves. He grabbed his bags, wrinkling his nose at the dirt on them.

“See you at Christmas?” Brad asked.

“Yeah,” Abed agreed immediately and even Annie and Troy looked excited about it for some reason.

“I love you,” Brad told Abed and, unwillingly, his eyes flicked to Gobi who was standing behind his son.

“Love you, too,” Abed said.

“We love you too, Brad!” Annie called as he started to walk away. He didn’t know who ‘we’ was referring to but he decided that having an unknown number of people that love him wasn’t as bad a thing as his instincts would have him believe.