Work Text:
Troy held a shuddering Abed in his arms, the latter buried his head in his shirt and cried until he felt slowly felt himself drift off to sleep. Abed didn't sleep for almost a week as he was up every night trying to finish formatting a ten page socio-cultural assignment for anthropology class. Although he enjoyed it, he's burned out from simply writing two to three paragraphs of information for each question underneath, and was also feeling hungry and tired.
With noise canceling headphones over his ears blasting music, Abed ignored Troy and Annie's frequent calls for dinner or for some TV time, text messages even. His eyes were bloodshot and bags were very clearly visible under his eyes due to his commitment to this assignment Professor Bauer had given them to do. Abed fought the sleep threatening to close his eyes at any time he felt like his eyelids were almost about to close, either at school or Casa Chez Trobedison. While studying in Group Study Room F, Abed still had his eyes wide open, glued to his laptop screen and typing away, frequently looking back to reference his textbook or course content.
Sitting around the working boy, Troy and the girls had worried looks on their faces, and tried one by one to initiate conversation with Abed, to make him say something, anything, but no response. He was mute. Jeff dismissed their concerns with sassy remarks of his own, while his eyes were still glued to his phone, clearly putting the assignment off to the last minute til its due date.
Neither Troy or Annie had ever seen Abed focus his attention on something so detailed and informative. As much as Annie is a brainiac most of the time, she does learn to take her rest times and is still mastering it. Troy, however, has a much shorter attention span as he begins for five or maybe up to ten minutes, and kills the others by distracting himself.
Abed does not know how long he's been sitting on his bum on that seat for, a matter of time or a little more than a two hours have passed, and he also felt his legs beginning to get sore, refusing to take break until he was through with this individual assignment worth 30 percent.
At long last, Abed saved and submitted the socio-cultural assignment in its proper dropbox. Since it was the last week of fall term, he had spent the last four weeks writing a rough draft for it, and then on the final week, edited it and made it look clear, readable, and presentable.
Coming to the living room, there was Troy on the couch, and Abed plopped down upon him, an exhausted look on his face. Troy felt just how light his best friend was but didn't mind it. He drew large soothing circles on his back with his one hand, and the other gently held him by the arm. The sound of silence flowed through their apartment for a considerable amount of time until Abed got up and Troy spoke, while carding his fingers through his hair, assuring him in a whisper it is okay to take a rest from assignments every now and then and not have to do them in one whole, entire day, but just little bits of them at a time until they're due on a certain date, in a few weeks or in a month or so.
After stretching out his legs, Abed thanked Troy and as Annie came out of her room after video-chatting with Britta, the three sat over at the kitchen island, eating leftover warm plates of buttered noodles for supper time, as Abed theorized about the likelihood of how the fifth installment of the Indiana Jones series would play out, in comparison to the fourth which "blows".
On the final day of anthropology class, Professor Bauer ordered three extra large cheese pizzas for her students to celebrate while dancing. Needless to say, the class had a great time. At last it was time to say goodbye, out of the Study Group, Annie stayed a little bit longer to talk to Professor Bauer while the other five just went home to begin their winter holidays.
Annie later returned home to Casa Chez Trobedison where her two boys are sleeping peacefully in their blanket fort and joined them in between after a nice warm shower and changing in a fresh set of jammies. The two guys turned to either sides of the brunette simultaneously and lovingly trapped her in their arms.