Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Are you planning to go to the party on Saturday?” Abed asks Troy halfway through their third rewatch of Inspector Spacetime. 

Troy’s sitting in his armchair with his legs propped up on the ottoman. He pauses with a piece of popcorn halfway to his mouth. “Oh, the Delta Cubes are throwing?”

“No. We disbanded,” Abed says without looking away from the screen. He sinks further into his recliner. “The other Tri-Delts weren’t so crazy about the lack of Greendale sororities. Who are we supposed to invite to parties? …And seduce into weird, unflattering togas, and invite back to our rooms, and then stop using that movie as a reference because let’s be honest, we’re kind of running out of road.” 

“There are plenty of hot girls at Greendale,” Troy dissembles. “They don’t have to be in a sorority.”

“Sure. Sort of ruins the theming though.” Abed rummages through his popcorn bowl for a half-popped kernel. He can feel Troy looking at him. “I guess we already did Animal House, so it’s not a huge loss.”

“So who’s throwing then?”

Abed says, “It’s a school dance. Sadie Hawkins—the Dean sent out an email-blast.” It had been marked as URGENT and TIME-SENSITIVE!, as all of the Dean’s emails were. 

“Oh. I didn’t see it.”

Abed stares at the TV screen and doesn’t move. “I was wondering if you’re going.”

“I guess I wouldn’t know yet.” Troy shifts his weight in his chair. “Since it’s a Sadie Hawkins dance.”

Abed eats another popcorn kernel, just to give himself a moment before saying, “I’m not going.” On screen, he watches the Inspector lean towards a fluttery alien woman, both of them cheated out towards the camera for the benefit of an invisible audience. It’s a bad shot. He likes it anyway.

“Oh,” Troy says, then pauses. “Sorry, man.”

“It’s cool.”

They watch the Inspector embrace his alien lover. It’s gentle, almost asexual, as the Inspector always is. (The Anti-Inspector is another matter.) A very pure kind of love, a rare glimpse into the Inspector’s romantic side—and then, only because he has amnesia. In the next scene, Reggie will appear with the quantum locket containing the Inspector’s life-essence to return his memories in a tragic (but ultimately necessary) restoration of the status quo. 

Abed can’t wait.

“I’m not going to the dance either,” Troy says decisively.

Abed tenses. “I didn’t mean–”

“We can get up to some classic Troy-and-Abed hijinks instead,” Troy continues, and Abed relaxes. “Crash the dance. Go full Animal House.” Troy waggles his eyebrows.

Abed smiles. “That would be cool.” He pauses. “Maybe not full Animal House.” Pinto just had to ruin everything. He’s really the Jim Belushi of Animal House characters, which is impressive given the close proximity to other, more superior Belushi’s. 

“I haven’t seen it,” Troy admits. 

Before he’s even finished speaking, Abed’s on his knees, rummaging through their VHS pile. “We’ll do that next, then. We’ve already done an homage, so really we should’ve watched it before that—but sometimes it’s better not to know what scene you’re in until it’s over. Makes it feel more natural and in-the-moment.” Not that Abed is ever particularly natural or in-the-moment. For him, knowing the script ahead of time is only ever a benefit. 

“Awesome,” Troy says, then jolts. “Shit. It’s one already?”

Abed glances at the clock above the TV, then switches to his watch. “1:20.”

“I’m late for class,” Troy mutters. He leans forward to grab his shoes. “Well, I’m late for the extra study session Shirley and I have been… I mean, I’m doing well—she just wanted some extra help with PE.”

“Sure,” Abed says.

“You know. Push-ups and laps… and what-not."

“Troy.”

“Right.” Troy grabs his backpack and swings open the door. Pauses to point at Abed. “Animal House tonight.”

“Tonight,” Abed agrees. Troy grins and slams the door behind him. The door swings shut, revealing a near-perfect copy of Abed standing in the doorway to the kitchen. 

“Wow. You guys get lamer all the time,” Evil Abed says conversationally.

Abed jumps to his feet. The popcorn bowl falls from his lap and scatters across the carpet.

“Careful. Annie won’t like that,” Evil Abed says.

“You shouldn’t be here,” Abed says.

Evil Abed laughs and strokes his goatee, which is real and a little more filled out than it had been during their first encounter in the Dreamatorium. The outfit is also updated—no longer a direct copy of Abed’s, but a all-black getup with an almost-military jacket made of a shiny fabric. It’s all very mirror-Spock, and Abed briefly wonders if Evil Troy wears a vest.

“Who knows why and when your twisted mind decides to conjure me up?” Evil Abed says. “Well, I know. But that’s circular.”

“You’re not meant to be here,” Abed repeats. “No one’s left. No one’s planning on leaving.”

“As far as you know,” Evil Abed says, stalking forward. He even moves evil-ly—kind of slinky and a hair too fast. Abed starts to sidestep, a bit hopeful they’ll clone-circle each other, but Evil Abed stops as soon as he reaches the kitchen table, so no dice.

“I do know. If someone in the study group was leaving, they would have told me.”

“You’re right. No one needs to leave. There are plenty of ways to be evil with Troy,” Evil Abed says, stroking his goatee evilly. “You just have to get a little… creative.”

“I’m not cutting off his arm.”

“Sure.”

“Or cauterizing his larynx. Or dying his hair. Or–”

“Don’t be dramatic,” Evil Abed says. He pulls out one of the chairs from the kitchen table and sits, crossing his legs, resting one hand on his knee—a classic evil posture. He motions with a flourish for him to sit as well, but Abed stays standing instead with the couch safely between them.

Evil Abed rolls his eyes. “I’m not here to ask you to hurt anyone.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“You don’t need to believe it. It’s true.”

“Then if you’re not here to darken the timeline–”

“Oh, but I am,” Evil Abed says. “There are a multitude of ways to begin your villain arc. Some are less unpleasant than others.”

“Like what?”

There’s a pause in which Evil Abed waggles his eyebrows. Abed chokes.

“Oh, come on,” he says, voice taut. “That’s—this is crazy. Even for me.”

“What’s the problem? You have another tedious moral objection?” Evil Abed grins. “Britta wouldn’t be too happy to hear that. How regressive of you.”

“I have a moral objection to bad writing,” Abed corrects. “Which this definitely is.”

Evil Abed just watches him, tilts his head slightly. 

Abed sighs. “Look. The whole ‘our evil selves are subtextually gay’ concept is lame, vaguely homophobic, and more importantly, way overdone. It’s everywhere—the Anti-Inspector, Willow, Low Rimmer.”

“Some things are tropes for a reason. The reason being that they’re cool and good every time. Disney villains, Willow, Jim Moriarty.”

“What? No. Why?” Abed says. “We hate BBC Sherlock.”

“No, we don’t. Best adaptation since The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes.”

“The darkest timeline,” Abed reminds himself. “I can’t believe there’s a universe where I have bad taste. It doesn’t seem possible.”  

“Speak for yourself. You just used Buffy as a negative example.”

“I can like Buffy and still recognize that it’s a product of its time. Unlike you, who apparently can’t stop shilling for a show that ended a decade ago.”

“You know that no one needs to shill for Buffy. It’s a classic, it sells itself.”

“1998 called, it wants its Nokia 511 back. And also for you to get a new phone already."

"I have an iPhone. I’m not Jeff.” Evil Abed rolls his eyes. “And that’s pretty rich, coming from you. By which I mean me. Remember—my opinions are your opinions. The call’s coming from inside the house."

“Scream’s ‘96, not ‘98. Clearly I’m losing my touch.”

"You think that’s Scream? Must not like scary movies.”

“Just testing you. 1979, When a Stranger Calls. Not that that’s better for you. Off by more than a decade, yikes–”

“1974, actually,” Evil Abed interrupts. “Black Christmas.” He stares at him intently.

“Are you here to kill me?” Abed realizes. He steps back. "Is that why we're talking about this?"

“I’ve been very clear about my intentions.”

“Okay. We should stop talking about horror movies, then. Bad set-up if there’s no payoff.”

“Sure, no problem. Let’s talk about Sherlock Holmes. Now there’s a better payoff.”

“I think this conversation’s gotten a little inaccessible,” Abed redirects. “I’d like to move us towards something with more mainstream appeal–”

“That’s what you don’t understand,” Evil Abed snaps, “It doesn’t matter—” and suddenly he lunges for Abed, kicking aside the kitchen chair and leaping over the couch. 

Startled, Abed stumbles back and slips on his abandoned popcorn bowl—a momentary delay that allows the other him to close the distance between them in seconds. He stops only a foot or so away from Abed, glaring. Abed grips the TV console behind him, his heart pounding. 

“It doesn’t matter if it’s inaccessible,” Evil Abed hisses, too close. “It doesn’t matter if we’re inaccessible.” He reaches out and touches Abed’s face—Abed flinches but doesn’t move away. Tactile, when did these get tactile? That couldn’t be a good sign. Thankfully, Evil Abed drops his hand, clears his throat and steps back a little.

Abed’s heart is going very fast. He’s pretty sure he can’t be killed by his imaginary evil doppelgänger, but he’s also not feeling great about almost putting that assumption to the test. He hates being crazy. He hates it.

“Mainstream appeal,” Evil Abed mutters. “I can’t believe this. Are you seriously laboring under the delusion that whatever we are was ever going to be mainstream? You’re worse than the Dean.”

Abed’s shoulders take on a fine tremor. 

Evil Abed sighs. “God, this is depressing.” 

Abed still doesn’t reply. Evil Abed reaches out and starts to touch his face again, and Abed can’t help it, he jumps again.

His face scrunches up. “You idiot. I’m trying to help you.”

Everybody always is, Abed thinks. He says: “You’re not.”

“No, I’m not,” Evil Abed agrees—placidly, as if to soothe him. 

Abed takes a breath. “You’re an evil version of me from an evil timeline and you’re trying to sabotage my relationship with Troy. Unfortunately for you, it can’t be sabotaged.”

“Sabotage is one word for it,” Evil Abed mutters.

“More importantly, you’re not real.” Abed squeezes his eyes shut. “So.”

“Hard to argue with that one,” Evil Abed says. “Maybe I’ll just possess you like last time. Get the job done.”

“You won’t,” Abed says. 

“I won’t,” Evil Abed admits.

Abed lists forward, stumbles, and his Evil counterpart jerks as if he’s stopping himself from reaching out to catch him. Instead, Abed pushes past him and staggers to his armchair. Evil Abed moves to sit tentatively in Troy’s chair, just barely perching on the edge.

Abed sits, then stares at his abandoned popcorn bowl that tripped him earlier. He kicks it, hard, and watches the last few kernels scatter across the rug. He can see spots where the butter has started to seep into the carpet. 

Evil Abed perks up. “Hey, that was pretty evil.”

“Shut up.”

“I mean it. Annie’s going to have to clean it up, like always—and you won’t apologize or even thank her, like always, and resentment will begin to stew and maybe, just maybe, over time–”

“I said, shut up.”

“It’s inevitable—I’d say I’m sorry, but I’m not. It’s what we do,” Evil Abed says. “You will turn evil, and when that happens, well…” He waggles his eyebrows.

Abed sighs. “This is so regressive.”

“It’s a staple of the genre. And let’s be honest—for you and Troy, it’s more of a feature than a bug.”

“Is that what you told Troy?” Abed says, tired.

“No,” Evil Abed says. “That’s what he told me.”

Abed stops for a moment. Then: “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” Evil Abed says. “I guess that’s for you to decide.”

Abed swallows and tries not to think about anything at all. Finally, he says, “You are.”

Evil Abed sighs. “I’ve done my due diligence. The rest is up to you.”

Abed’s not great at reading faces in the best of times, but he can’t stop himself from turning to Evil Abed in that moment, just to try and glean something—to see if there’s anything in his own face that betrays the lie—but when he looks at Troy’s chair, it's empty. Abed sits there, staring at the empty chair for more time than is appropriate, normal, or sane—truthfully, he sits there until Annie comes home, hours later, from her banner-making session. At which point he gets up and spends twenty minutes helping her scoop popcorn back into the bowl with his bare hands. It’s oily and uncomfortable. But still, he lies on his side and slowly picks kernels out one-by-one from beneath the console while Annie attacks their renter-standard carpet with a toothbrush and dish soap.

There’s probably a scene from a movie that’s like this, but Abed’s doing his best not to think of it. Getting rid of the Dreamatorium clearly wasn’t enough—not when there’s a Dreamatorium built into his head. But getting rid of that’s easier said than done. 

Evil Abed is nothing but trope and shorthand all the way through, so to stop seeing him, Abed has to stop seeing the tropes. So basically, he might as well give up now.

“I feel like Cinderella,” Annie says after a few minutes, her voice bright. It should clearly be a negative statement, but in her mouth the shape becomes neutral, or even positive. “She was my favorite princess when I was a kid. Well, except for Belle, but I wasn’t allowed to watch those ones.”

Abed’s favorite was Jasmine, for reasons that are both obvious and stupid. But he shouldn’t say that, for reasons that are two-fold: first, he needs to at least try to fix this whole mess, and second—well. This timeline’s already dark enough.

“I’m sorry about the popcorn.”

“It’s alright. It was an accident… right?” She looks a little pained for a moment. “Not, like, an homage to an epic movie where a character throws popcorn everywhere?”

“Yeah,” Abed says. “It was an accident.”

“Well, that’s fine, then.” She continues attacking the rug with the toothbrush. He fishes out another couple kernels.

Abed chews on air for a second. “I think it's time I stop filtering everything through pop culture.” 

Annie pauses her scrubbing, but doesn’t interrupt. He continues, “I think it’s important for my character growth.” Fuck. “I mean, my regular, normal growth.”

“Abed…” Annie sits back on her heels and smiles. “I’m really proud of you. I think that’s a step in the right direction.”

Abed says, “I think it is.” 

He hopes it doesn’t sound like he’s trying to convince himself.