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Something's wrong with Jeff.
Abed darts into the bathroom, but stops in his tracks, heading for the stall with the loose brick where Troy hides a pack of candy cigarettes. He turns away from that path as soon as he registers Jeff's presence, though. Because Jeff looks unwell, inexplicably so, and that's not something to just leave alone.
He joins Jeff by the sinks and waits for Jeff to say something. Because Abed did the coming over and Annie says it's better not to push people who don't look okay. He blinks at his own reflection, then at Jeff's, then down at the counter, and when Jeff doesn't speak, it's that much clearer that something's wrong with him.
Abed supposes to himself that this goes without saying. Of course something's wrong with Jeff. Plenty of things are wrong with Jeff. If he felt like it, Abed could list off Jeff's problems for two hours and still have more material to work with. He could fill an epic saga up with things that are wrong with Jeff.
He wouldn't even need to touch on this moment right here, or how Jeff's alternately scratching his nose and fussing with his hair even though someone could wander in at any moment. Starburns, Leonard, Fat Neil. Britta because she's decided once again to ignore the accepted conventions of separate bathrooms. And Jeff doesn't seem to care about that danger.
Everything about this both fits and doesn't. Jeff likes to look good, but he doesn't like for people to know how much he likes it or how much effort he puts into his appearance. Which is what he's risking by doing whatever this is in a public place.
Jeff would care and get hostile if someone walked in on him right now. But he ignores it as Abed inches closer to him, being careful because this has the uneasy, nauseous feeling of finding something forbidden, like a goddess bathing or the Ark of the Covenant. Like Abed's not supposed to see this, much less acknowledge it, but Jeff's pale and gaping, and you're not supposed to leave a friend alone when he looks like this.
So, yes. The evidence says that something is wrong—or at least, it's not right—with Jeff.
Which is fine, really. Nobody else Abed knows is what anyone would call "normal." Everyone in study group has some crop of what Troy calls, "big-time issues." Everyone they know from school has something about them that doesn't fit into anything conventional, whether they're Dean Pelton and his disregard for boundaries, or the competitive spirit that Britta vying for Jeff's affections brought out in Professor Slater.
Even their more normal-seeming classmates inevitably turn out to have extreme neuroses, or lengthy lists of diagnoses, or collections of their dead pets' dismembered paws, taxidermied and then hidden in a shoebox, itself hidden under a loose floorboard in their kitchen. Or an embarrassing fondness for Mills and Boon romance novels. Which was more than Abed ever wanted to learn about chronically congested, mouth-breathing Jacob from his calculus class.
If you really think about things, it stands to reason that if anything were right with Jeff, he wouldn't be at Greendale in the first place.
But his usual quirks don't explain why he's been staring at his own reflection for the past several minutes. Or why his hands keep trembling as he tugs at the areas under his eyes, brushing his hands over his cheeks. Or why he has his brow all knotted up, and he's frowning and licking at his teeth. Or why he's apparently given up on talking, replacing his use of words with a patternless series of sighs, grunts, half-formed expletives, and one repeated word, fat.
Which makes no sense. It's an outlying statistic and Abed filters it, doesn't waste thought on it. Besides, there's still the issue of Jeff not talking.
Really, that's the most worrisome symptom of whatever's wrong with him. The most blatantly un-Jeff behavior he's exhibiting. Jeff still considers himself a lawyer. He defines himself with a mix of material objects and his skill with words—but he has nothing to say right now. Not even one of the preprepared off-the-cuff witticisms he always has at the ready.
They're at the point of non-verbal interaction when Jeff should have some complaint or insult to throw out. Abed's deliberately hovering in the boundary of Jeff's personal space, twisting his hands around his messenger bag's strap and rocking back and forth on his feet, observing Jeff in the intent way he's been told creeps out everybody, even Troy. And Jeff has yet to comment on it. He hasn't so much as tried to ask why Abed's staring at him.
Strange. Strange, strange, strange.
All over, he's wearing the expression usually reserves for when Annie's going overboard with something and Jeff doesn't want anyone to think he's worried about her. Except that Annie isn't going overboard on anything at the moment, not really. Aside from hanging out with Rich. Which doesn't count because Annie's allowed to have other friends, and that's supposed to be a good thing, and Britta specifically told Annie not to cater to Jeff's ego if it tried to get between her maybe-friendship, maybe-romance, who-knows-and-really-it's-no-big-deal-right with Doc Potterywood.
Abed's not sure he'd use the word "ego" to describe Jeff right now. Maybe in the Freudian sense, or at least what Abed understands of it from Wikipedia. Maybe in the sense that he's intensely focused on himself. But that stops seeming all that related to Britta's use of the word as Jeff smooths his quivering hands over his collar, fumbles twice in undoing the top button of his shirt, doesn't manage to steady himself or his fingers any as he moves down the line and undoes the rest of them.
Blinking at the reflection of Jeff's torso, Abed tries to think if he should say anything. What he could say, or what he's supposed to say, or if anybody else would know what to do in this situation. Maybe Shirley would. She saved Abed from the depths of his own self-obsession and from his equally narcissistic film. It might be right up her alley. Knowing what's going on in Jeff's head and what the best way to handle it might be. Having any kind of idea about what a good friend might do in this situation.
Then again, Shirley's initial idea of handling this might just be to appreciate the view, or as much of it as she can while Jeff palms at his own chest. Abed frowns and wrinkles his nose. Tries this course of action, because if it has any basis in reality, then he should at least try it. Because Shirley understands more about navigating other people than he does.
All Abed can tell comes down to two truths. First, that Jeff was not exaggerating when he mentioned adding extra sessions to his workout schedule. As ever, he's slender, but not skinny. Lithe is probably the word that Abed wants. Jeff has the sort of build that Abed would expect speed-oriented heroes like the Flash to have in any version of the real world where their powers weren't limited by friction, or inertia, or G-forces and their effects on a human body, or the minimum caloric requirement to fuel supersonic movement, which Abed's fairly certain Jeff doesn't meet.
Second, that this silence has even set Abed's nerves on edge, and since Jeff seems preoccupied, Abed needs to say something.
As he goes to open his mouth, Abed startles—a rush of navy blue darts out in front of him and he flounders, hands jerking and flailing until he finally manages to catch the shirt. He twists it up around his arms without meaning to and blinks at it, then up at Jeff's reflection again.
Abed only breaks from examining the mirror's Jeff because mirror-Jeff looks over at mirror-Abed, and other people take comfort in making eye contact, even though they regularly use it as a means to harass each other, never mind how upset they get with Abed when he fails to make it. Immediately, Abed wishes that he hadn't broken from his usual pattern.
Even with the usual brain-fog Abed gets when he tries to read people and the nuances of their expressions, he can't mistake the look on Jeff's face for anything but pain. Hurt. The sort of pain that's trying to pass itself off as anger and affronted glaring, but doesn't quite succeed, even if it does look like the glowering, sarcasm-free expression that Jeff hasn't worn since his physical and starting cholesterol medication.
The sort of pain that Abed would have to convey through tricks of camera angles, composition of shots, and soundtrack choice because there's no way to put words to it without it coming off as hokey.
Jeff clenches his jaw, presses his lips into a stretched out, pale line, and Abed would suspect that Jeff's abusing magic, if he didn't know better. Abed's arms itch, and so does the back of his neck. Everything squirms, reminding him that he shouldn't even have seen this in the first place. His nerves and his muscles all writhe around with the desire not to look Jeff in the eye anymore, but he can't manage that until Jeff hisses that so help him, he will strangle Abed with his bare hands if he wrinkles the fabric.
And at that, Abed only looks away so he can put Jeff's shirt right. Fold it up all nicely and evenly, then fold it over his arms. He finishes and looks up right as Jeff splays his hands over his stomach. Jeff pinches at his abs, doesn't look up from his midsection, returns to grumbling and huffing whenever he gets his fingers wrapped around something other than muscle. Even when it's clearly skin, not whatever else he thinks it could—
Fat. As that thought clicks into place, bringing plenty of others with it, Abed drops his gaze to the sink. He has never been more grateful for his limited capacity for facial expressions.
Jeff's a perfectionist, albeit one who's obsessed with making it look so effortless that he convinces himself this is true. Jeff cares more about his image and how people perceive him than anyone Abed's ever met. He's making his Annie's-going-overboard-but-I'm-not-worried faces, and paying a distressing amount of attention to his waist, and apparently, he's afraid of being fat.
Which makes no sense, at first, because he's not fat or even close. But which makes some kind of sense as Jeff sighs, lets himself half-double over and rests his palms on the counter just so he stays upright. It makes some kind of sense because he stops looking at the mirror—something that seems like an impossibility, for all it's happening—and more than that, Jeff outright avoids making eye-contact with his reflection.
Something is very, very wrong with Jeff. Unless Abed's misreading everything, as usual. But if he's not, then the presentation of this all adds up to something serious that Abed doesn't want to say. In case it's not real and saying it makes Jeff mad. Or in case it is real and saying it makes it worse.
All of which makes Abed think plenty of things he knows to filter without pausing to think that he should. Not because they're offensive or hurtful, but because Jeff wouldn't appreciate being compared to various Lifetime movies of the week or documentaries about Karen Carpenter.
Finally, Jeff says something: "He's fitter than me. Smarter, nicer, better looking. He is perfect, in every way that I can never be. That's what she sees in him, isn't it." He looks up from the counter, wearing a grimace that wants to be a smirk. "And I absolutely do mean Annie and Rich, in case you're thinking about playing dumb and pulling out the cute, 'I'm confused by unexplained nuance' card."
"I don't think that Annie's that shallow," Abed says, after a moment of blinking down at the back of Jeff's neck. He wants to help. He's trying to help. But it would be so much easier if he could just be programmed to have that kind of function—being able to just be aware of people's feelings and the subtle meanings in their words and actions, then figuring out the best way to handle them on their own terms—instead of the self-awareness he has.
The most useful thing he has going for him right now is that he actually knew who Jeff was talking about without the explanation.
"She might still be harboring some hurt," he suggests. "She can be vindictive in the same way you are. She can definitely hold a grudge. And you did tell Britta you loved her while Annie was sitting right there, only to have everything blow up, and you didn't apologize to anyone for it. But I don't think that Annie's shallow enough to flirt with Rich over his looks. Or just to get back at you for that incident with Britta."
Jeff laughs, but it's not a good sound. It's cold, and harsh, not entirely unlike barking. He snatches back his shirt and as he tosses it back on, does up his line of buttons all over again, he says, "Abed, trust me. She kissed me, and on some level, it was over competing with Britta and Michelle. Annie absolutely can be that shallow, and the worst part is she's not even being shallow in fawning all over Rich like that."
He sighs and it sounds like growling. Glares at mirror-Jeff. Snarls, "Everything about him is better than me. He's even better at not slipping up."
Here, there's definitely some subtlety Abed thinks he's missing. Something that should inform what he says next—but as he tries to ask about it, Jeff starts stalking out the door. He only turns back once, and it's just to say, "By the way, Abed? This never happened. Got it?"
Abed sighs, and nods, and although none of the situations aren't really all that similar, he's fairly certain that he can list several fictional versions where some character must've felt just as confused and uncertain as he does now. Wondering if it's the good thing or the right thing not to tell anyone about this, just because he gave Jeff his word. Wondering if he's going to see Jeff that often outside of study group anymore, because Jeff runs away from emotional vulnerability like it's a wolf and he's covered in steak.
Well. Abed could list some fictional counterparts. If any of them would come to mind.
Jeff might have broken him again, and he didn't even need to use alcohol this time. Jeff's good at that, and on some level, that's probably what friendship means.
And as he knots his hands up in his bag's strap, as he stares intently at the sink, the only things Abed knows are these: he has no idea what to do about any of this; and something bad is wrong with Jeff.