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The door of his apartment clicks shut behind Abed, and in his mind the credits roll on another episode of the slice-of-life workplace dramedy that’s been his life for the last six months. It’s not necessarily the most exciting genre, but he’d be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy the challenges of working behind the scenes on an actual real-life television show, even if it means the show that is his life is rather lacking in action sequences and explosions.
He hangs his bag on the hook by the door, toes off his shoes, and heads straight for the kitchen, mentally running back through the events of the day until he finds the thread of the Batman alternate-universe spinoff movie he’d been drafting in his head when he left for work that morning. It picks back up in the middle of a car chase and he nods in satisfaction, throwing in a construction zone and a crumbling overpass for extra drama as his hands move without conscious thought, pulling out the ingredients to make buttered noodles.
The plot takes him through the cook time and ends in a satisfying cliffhanger when he sits down on the couch with his bowl to eat, and he debates momentarily if he should continue it immediately. Habit wins out, though, and he hits pause on the story in his mind, turning on the TV to instead watch another rerun of the animated series from the 90s.
He makes it fourteen minutes into the episode before his phone rings.
Abed pauses the DVD, frowning down at the phone. The caller ID is showing an unknown number, and he’s tempted to reject the call and get back to his dinner. Six months ago it’s what he would have done, but now there is the not-so-small possibility that one of his coworkers has run into an overtime emergency and they need him to rush back to the set to help sort it out. He doesn’t have all of them in his contacts, and he’s not sure he can afford to miss a call like that.
He picks up the phone.
“Hello, you’ve reached Abed.”
“Abed!” says a very, very familiar voice, and he realizes quite suddenly that maybe when he walked into his apartment he was actually walking into the opening sequence of an entirely new show.
Or a reboot.
“It’s me, Dean Pelton! From Greendale Community College!”
“Dean,” Abed says. He frowns at the TV, wondering if he can start the episode again while whatever this is, is happening. “Why are you calling me?”
“Aw,” the Dean says, sounding hurt. “Now, really. Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
Abed rolls his eyes. “Dean, what a surprise, it’s been so long, how are you? That’s great, I’ve been well, why are you calling me?”
The Dean makes an exasperated noise, which means he’s far more invested in this conversation than Abed is. “I’m calling because apparently I’m the most reliable contact your little study group has, what with everyone moving around and changing phone numbers and all. Can you believe that? Little old me, and you all trust me to be able to reach each other when you can’t. You know, there are some serious advantages to having a phone number that’s publicly available online? They don’t tell you these things when you take a job at a-”
“Dean,” Abed says.
“Oh, right! Well, I’m calling because I just got a call from a lovely gentleman at the LA port authorities who had some very exciting news for me to share!”
There’s a long, extended pause.
“...Aren’t you going to ask what it is?”
“What’s the news?” Abed sighs, mentally cursing anyone who expects him to be able to read facial cues over the phone. Or at any time, really, but it’s especially egregious over the phone.
“Well…” the Dean says, and makes a drumroll sound with his tongue. “Troy’s coming back!”
Abed… stops. Just, loses a little fragment of time. He doesn’t know if he moves, or even breathes, but there’s certainly no thoughts happening. He comes back to himself with a feeling of time elapsed, no idea how much, and the Dean is still talking.
“...could all go to Señor Kevin's, make an evening of it, I mean I know you don’t go there but surely you could make an exception-”
“Repeat that,” Abed says, and his voice comes out hoarse.
“Señor Kevin's? For the reunion. Once everyone is back in town, it’s a great place for a party-”
“The bit about Troy.” He closes his eyes, pressing his free hand, hard, against his temple.
“Didn’t you hear me? He’s coming back! The man from the port authority said The Childish Tycoon radioed in earlier today and asked them to get in touch with me, well, with you, well, with you through me. Apparently Troy wanted you to fly out to LA to meet him, isn’t that sweet? He said he’d reimburse you for the plane tickets and hotels and all, but of course that won’t be necessary with you living out there. Isn’t that great news? Abed? …Abed?”
“When and where?”
The Dean gives him the details, only sulking a little over the curtness of the question. It’s only going to be a few days before the boat docks, this upcoming Friday at a marina about an hour’s drive from where Abed is living.
And then Troy will get off the boat, and he’ll be home.
“Thank you, Dean,” Abed says, cutting him off as he’s beginning another monologue about planning a reunion party.
“Well of course! You know, I’ve always thought of us all as one big happy family? Your study group, and me, and Jeffrey, and-”
Abed hangs up.
He puts his phone on the coffee table next to the TV remote and the bowl of cold, congealing buttered noodles.
He puts his elbows on his knees and laces his fingers together, staring down at his hands.
The first emotion to register from the confusing swirl inside him is, surprisingly, anger.
Now? Now, of all times, is when Troy chooses to return? He’s almost a year overdue. He could have come back at any time. But no, he’s coming back now.
Now, when Abed has finally started to come to terms with the idea that he might never come back. Now, when Abed has finally taken steps to build a life without him, here in LA where he can chase his dream of making it big in the movies. Now, when he’s started something he doesn’t want to stop, now Troy comes back like a tidal wave of things Abed has been doing his best to leave behind, and washes it all away.
He likes the life he’s built here. It’s happy, for the most part. He does what he wants to do, except for when he has to do what his boss wants him to do, and then he recognizes that when he is the boss he’ll expect his underlings to do what he says and really the whole system would fall apart if that small part of it didn’t work, so he does it and that’s okay too. He’s made friends, not close ones like he had at Greendale but still people he enjoys spending time around, and they seem to like spending time around him too. He’s gaining experience in the business, and making professional connections that will serve him well when he starts working on his own projects. He’s only had one ‘episode’ since he moved, and it happened over the weekend so he was able to contain it within the four walls of this apartment.
It’s been… good.
Abed has been proud of himself for finding ‘good’ on his own, without Troy. It’s a bit of a guilty thought, but he doesn’t think he’d have been able to find this ‘good’ if Troy hadn’t left. He’s a little worried he might lose it when Troy comes back.
On the other hand…
Abed has been happy enough, living out here in LA on his own. But he has never, ever found anything that makes him quite as happy as doing anything with Troy by his side. He’s never found anything that makes him as happy as Troy, full stop, and losing that happiness once temporarily killed him.
He's scared to find out what it might do to him, to have the chance to get it all back.
Abed picks up his phone again, and sends a quick text to the group chat giving them the news. Then, as the slew of exclamation marks and heart emojis roll in, he turns off his phone, cleans up the remains of dinner, and goes to bed early.
~~~~~
By the time The Childish Tycoon has cleared customs, gotten permission to enter the marina, and actually docked in the boat slip, it's already midafternoon. Troy secures her to the mooring with practiced ease, tying off ropes and stowing the sail, then heading belowdecks to do a final check of the electronics to make sure everything is fully turned off before he disembarks. It’s strange, to think he actually needs to prepare her for a long-term docking, here. It’s been a long time since he’s been on shore for anything more than a quick supply run.
It feels almost unreal, to know that this time he’s coming back to stay.
He has to check the electronics twice, because he’s so jittery with nerves and excitement that he fully doesn’t look at what he’s doing the first time and realizes as he’s walking away that he doesn’t actually know if he turned anything off or not. He forces himself to pay attention the second time, and leaves the cabin behind him dark and silent, with all systems shut down.
Back on deck he takes a moment to pause, tip his face back into the sun to feel the warmth of it on his skin, and take a deep breath to try to calm his racing heart.
Yes, it’s been a long time since he’s been on shore. Yes, it’s been a long time since he’s been home. Yes, he radioed in ahead and that means this is the first time he’s going to see his best friend in almost two years and they left on good terms, sure, but it was really emotional and he’s never quite stopped worrying about what might have happened while he was gone and so much has happened to him since then and he’s so much later than he promised he’d be and-
And it’s going to be okay, he tells himself, taking another deep breath and hoping this one works better. He doesn’t need to stress about seeing Abed again. They’re best friends, it’s going to be great, and besides, he’s got a plan he doesn’t want to mess up.
Troy walks to the gangplank, staring dramatically over the side of the ship as he does and surveying the nearby walkways for a familiar tall, gangly figure.
It’s going to be perfect. They’ll lock eyes across the distance, Troy will rush down the gangplank, they’ll run to each other’s arms, and when they get there Troy’ll sweep Abed into the air and spin him around in a circle in a cinematic reunion, just like in a movie. He’s been daydreaming about it since the day he left.
This plan lasts up until the moment he actually does see Abed, standing on a walkway a little ways away from the boat slip, and the slamming wave of relief encapsulated in the thought oh thank god he actually came nearly takes him off his feet.
Troy bolts for the gangplank, runs halfway down it, and jumps over the side, hitting the ground hard enough his knees almost buckle.
“Abed!”
Abed’s head snaps around toward him, but Troy’s already off again, sprinting as fast as he can. Abed takes maybe two steps in his direction, starting to lean forward like he wants to run as well, before Troy crashes into him in a hugging collision that sends Abed stumbling back with the momentum and would leave them both falling to the ground if there wasn’t a handy railing close behind for them to run up against and come to an (inelegant, but at least still upright) halt. Troy’s arms are locked around Abed’s torso in a vise grip, his face smushed into his friend’s shoulder. He can feel Abed’s arms around his own shoulders too, holding tight, the way Abed only hugs when he really needs the hug.
“I’ve missed you so much!” Troy says, the words almost lost in the fabric of Abed’s shirt and the beginnings of a sob that’s starting to well up in Troy’s chest. “I can’t believe you actually came all the way out here for me! You’re the best! I’m so sorry it took me so long to get back, I wanted to reach out but there was this whole thing and they wouldn’t let me back on shore and the lawyers said it might ruin my case if I talked to you and-”
-the Hawthorne Wipes Board of Directors tried to deny the inheritance, is what Troy means to say. They hadn’t liked so many shares in the company belonging to Pierce in the first place, and they certainly weren’t happy about all that money getting left to some random twenty-something kid the old man had met at community college. After the whole pirates thing got sorted out me and LeVar finished up the year at sea, but the Board tried to claim that I couldn’t count those first few months since I wasn’t actually doing the whole ‘sailing the world alone’ thing. At first it seemed like they just wanted me to spend a few more months on the boat and that was fine but after that was over they still tried to block me from getting the money and I had to go to court over it. My lawyers - well, LeVar’s lawyers that he let me use - said that if I tried to dock on US soil or contact any of my friends and family before it all got sorted out then it would give the Board grounds to claim I had violated the terms of the will and win the case, so I’ve been floating off the coast of California for months stuck in endless phone calls trying to get it all fixed, and I know I probably should have just given up and come home without the money but then all of it would have been pointless and I'd have left you behind for a year for no reason, LeVar called it the ‘sunk cost fallacy’, but he also said that if the cost is 14 million dollars it's worth a lot of sinking and they kept saying it would just be a few more weeks so I thought I just needed to hold on a little longer and it did get fixed, I won the case and I’ve got the money but I know I’m super late and I’m so sorry!
It’s what he means to say. He’s not sure how much of it he actually manages to articulate, because he is fully crying now and it’s hard to talk through the tears, but there’s a point where Abed inhales sharply and his fingers clench into the fabric of Troy’s shirt, so he thinks the general gist of ‘it wasn’t my choice to be gone so long’ has gotten across.
After a while the attempts at words trail off into just sobbing, and they stay there for a time, rocking gently side-to-side and holding each other close with the sound of the waves nearby as a quiet background soundtrack. Troy can feel something in his chest settling with it, a restless anxiety finally calming at the feeling of Abed’s bony shoulder under his cheek.
Eventually Abed sniffles, and loosens his grip, and they pull back from the hug far enough to actually look at each other. Troy is a little surprised to see that Abed has been crying, too: it’s such a rare occurrence that he never expects it, even when the circumstances certainly warrant it.
“I’ve missed you too,” Abed says simply, nodding a little as he looks Troy up and down. “It’s good to see you again, Troy.”
“It’s good to be back,” Troy says, and lifts a hand without thinking about it. Abed mirrors the gesture and their palms clap together twice, accompanied by the oh-so-familiar thump thump of a hand against his chest. There’s a moment of startlement from both of them, and Troy thinks it’s a little sad that they’re both so surprised that their old handshake still comes so naturally, but then the delight that it does come so naturally takes over, and he grins, and Abed smiles, and then they’re both laughing and Troy is hugging him again and everything in the world feels right.
“Come on,” Troy says, excitement giving a bounce to his step. “Let me show you around the boat! You never got a chance to see inside before!”
“Yeah!” Abed says enthusiastically. “And you have to tell me everything that happened while you were gone. Did you say pirates?”
“Oh, it was a whole thing,” Troy says, and leads the way back on board.
~~~~~
Abed is gratifyingly impressed by both the pirate story and the tour around the boat. Troy has to admit he's a little puffed-up and show-offy about the whole thing, basking in the opportunity to sound all cool and suave and like a well-traveled adventurer in front of his friend, but Abed truly doesn't seem to mind. He asks questions and engages in the tale, giving Troy's narrative as much attention and enthusiasm as he would a new episode of a favorite TV show, and Troy has missed him so much it almost hurts with how happy he is to be talking like this again, like they're the only two people in the world and they'd both be happy to spend eternity that way.
The conversation reverses as Abed helps him carry his luggage to the car, and on the drive back to Abed's apartment he gets to hear the abridged summary of everything he missed at Greendale while he's been gone. It's bittersweet, to learn that the group split apart so much after he left, but he's also glad to know that he wasn't the only one to decide to set out into the world chasing a dream. For Abed especially, the fact that he actually got a job in TV production and is living here in LA doing what he loves makes Troy so proud he feels like his chest might burst with it.
Abed’s apartment is a small, one-bedroom place, but the tour of it still takes some time because they keep getting distracted by models and replicas and the photos of the study group that Abed’s hung on the walls in every room, stopping to give the requisite ‘I remember that!’s and the ‘that reminds me of…’s. Outside of memorabilia the place is a shrine to pop culture and Abed’s favorite shows, even more so than their old shared apartment had been, and it gives Troy the same ‘stepping into Abed’s brain’ feeling that the Dreamatorium always had. It’s not a bad thing: he’s really missed Abed’s brain.
The final stop on the tour is one they’ve already passed in and out of several times on their way between other rooms, as Abed proudly shows off the blanket fort he’s constructed over the fold-out couch in the living room to give Troy a bit of privacy while he sleeps, since there’s no actual guest room. Troy spares a passing thought to wonder if he’ll even be able to sleep on solid ground anymore, without the rocking of the boat to lull him off to dreamland, before turning to Abed with a smile.
“Thanks for letting me stay on such short notice. I know I kind of jumped you out of the blue with all this.” He waves vaguely at his pile of bags, trying to encompass everything that is his sudden return from the sea.
“Of course!” Abed says, as if it was never a question at all that Troy would find welcome in his home, and Troy knows that it never was a question, for either of them, and loves that fact. “We’re already proven compatible as roommates, and it would suck if you had to leave early to find a hotel tonight.”
“It would,” Troy agrees, and then lights up as he remembers something. “Oh, hey, I almost forgot! I’ve got something for you!”
He’s got several things for Abed actually, and for the rest of the group, and his parents and other family too: various trinkets and souvenirs he’s picked up over the course of his travels. Those can wait, though - the big thing, the one he’s been excited to give to Abed since he first thought of it, takes priority.
Troy digs around in his pile of luggage for a moment before coming up again with a huge stack of notebooks held in both hands and an equally huge grin on his face.
“These,” and he proffers them with a courtly bow, “are for you.”
Abed takes the stack with a lifted eyebrow, tilting his head to the side. “What are they?”
“Every time I thought of something I wanted to tell you while I was gone, I would write it down so I didn’t forget,” Troy says, still smiling an irrepressible smile, and he knows it looks dorky. He’s always dorkier when he’s around Abed, and he hadn’t realized how much he’d missed being a dork. “It ended up being… a lot.”
There’s a look on Abed’s face for a moment, the fragility he sometimes has when he’s struggling with a strong emotion. Troy is used to seeing it and being allowed in: he lifts his arms a fraction, ready to pull Abed into a hug, and then the expression vanishes. Abed gives him a small smile, nodding.
“Cool,” he says calmly. “Cool cool cool.” He puts the stack down on the coffee table, tapping the top of it twice before stepping away again. “I look forward to reading them.”
It’s like a vast chasm of space has opened up between them.
Abed is masking. Troy recognizes it: he’s seen it often enough when they were in public together, but it never really happened when they were alone. Abed is putting on his polite, ‘people’ face, following a social script instead of showing his true feelings, and it kills Troy, just a little, deep inside.
“Cool,” he echoes, and he can feel the heaviness in his own voice, how hard it is, suddenly, to keep smiling.
Abed flashes another smile that doesn’t reach his eyes, turning briskly toward the kitchen with every indication that nothing is wrong.
“Are you hungry? I could cook, but mostly I just have the ingredients for buttered noodles. How about takeout for dinner?”
“Okay,” Troy says, and follows along in his wake doing his best to mask, too.
~~~~~
He spends a restless night in the blanket fort, not quite able to tell if his inability to settle is because of his own jumbled emotions or because he’s so far from the ocean. It’s a bit of a shame - even a fold-out couch bed like this is eons more comfortable than his bunk on the boat, and he’d been looking forward to zonking out like a log for ten hours straight.
In the morning things are easy again, and he and Abed plan a whole day together of hanging out and goofing around, catching up on all the time they’ve missed. Abed has a long list of places he wants to take Troy to that he’s been keeping since he moved here and first started planning a hypothetical tour of the city, and Troy is down for anything so long as they can do it together.
It’s… good, for the most part. They still get along like a house on fire, obviously, and from strolling a boulevard talking, interlocked hands swinging casually between them, to dashing through a skatepark pretending to shoot lasers at aliens on the moon, they haven’t lost any of the closeness or playful dynamic that always characterized their relationship. But there are moments throughout the day, where Troy will say something or Abed will do something and then suddenly things will be… off.
It’s like slipping gears, Troy thinks. They keep clicking and then falling out of step, acting just like they used to and then suddenly there will be this distance between them. Troy can’t figure out why, or what’s causing Abed to pull away from him, and it’s driving him slightly crazy with the unpredictability of it. He tries to tell himself it’ll just take time: they’ve been apart for so long, and they need to get used to each other again before they can go back to how it was before. But then Abed will relax, and everything will be like there was never any distance at all, and Troy wants to rush it and skip over that adjustment period so bad. He’s missed being them so much.
They’re both pretty tired by the time evening rolls around, so they settle in on the (temporarily couch-shaped again) couch and put on an Inspector Spacetime marathon to see them through until bedtime. It does not escape Troy’s notice that the DVD box set is rather dusty and doesn’t seem to have been touched in quite a while, but he tries not to think about that.
It’s during the second episode, while the Inspector and Constable Reggie are preparing to be bonded in the Gluon Chamber and Troy is wondering vaguely where that picture of him and Abed ended up, when Abed reaches for the remote, pauses the episode, and says quite calmly: “I don’t trust you anymore.”
It’s like a blow to the gut. Troy feels breathless, reeling, his entire world caving in with no warning. “What?” he says, weakly.
“We’ve been weird today,” Abed continues. His head is tipped slightly to the side. He’s not looking at Troy. “We’re not… clicking.” He laces his fingers together to demonstrate. “We’ve both felt it, and I know you’ve been wondering why.” He shakes his head a little, eyebrows lifting for a moment in a regretful expression. “It’s nothing you’ve done wrong. It’s me.”
“...Because you don’t trust me anymore,” Troy says. He sits up, bracing his elbows on his knees and lacing his own fingers together, too. Abed glances over at him, his lips slightly pursed, a furrow between his eyebrows.
“I don’t trust you not to leave again,” he clarifies. “I used to think we’d be together for the rest of our lives, and then you left. And it was the right decision,” he looks very earnest about that. “I don’t resent you for it, and I’m glad you did. It’s been good for both of us, to live on our own.” His gaze slips again, darting away from Troy’s eyes. “But it means you might-” A grimace flickers over his face for a second. “-Will probably leave again. And I can’t just act like that’s not true.”
Troy frowns. “Abed-”
He stops, and takes a breath. He’s spent a lot of time thinking about this conversation and all the different ways it might go, and while he didn’t expect to be having it so soon after he got back he knows what he wants and he’s determined to get this right.
“Let me make sure I’ve got this straight. You want me to stay, right? You haven’t been weird because I’ve been too clingy, or trying to get closer than you’re comfortable with, or whatever? You want us to go back to how we were before?”
Abed blinks at him. “Yes. In an ideal world, we’d move back in together and be as close as we were before, and if we ever wanted to leave we’d go to a new place together instead of splitting up again.”
“I want that too!” Troy says, smiling at the idea. “So what’s the problem?”
“I can’t trust that,” Abed says, gravely. “You might mean it right now, because we’ve been apart for a long time and you’ve missed me, but you’re going to change your mind at some point. You’re going to want something different. And I can’t go back to the way we were if it’s only going to be temporary, I can’t-” He chokes up for a second - Troy can see it, even if Abed is remarkably good at hiding it. “I can’t get as close to you as we were before when I know I’m going to lose you,” he continues after taking a shallow breath. “I can’t do that again. I’m sorry.”
“I’m not-” going to leave again, Troy almost says, and then stops, because this is Abed, and because this is Abed he knows this really isn’t about him and whatever promises he might make right now. It’s about Abed, and Abed’s trust issues, and about the fact that a lot of people have told him ‘I’m never going to leave’ over the years, and all of them have - Troy included. It breaks his heart to think about it, to know how many people have walked away from his favorite person in the world, and how because of all that the most creative, intelligent, fascinating, and overall loveable man Troy has ever met is now so convinced that no one will ever want to stay.
So Troy shuts up, and thinks for a few minutes about all the ways someone can promise something, sitting silently on the couch with his elbows on his knees while Abed perches next to him with pin-straight posture. Then he says:
“Marry me.”
Abed’s head snaps around, his eyes going wide. “What.”
“Marry me,” Troy repeats. “They made it legal, right? For two dudes to do that?”
“Yes, but-” Abed stops, his mouth still half-open, and Troy knows that he’s managed to blindside him so much that he’ll fully shut down if Troy doesn’t give him a bit more of an explanation.
“I want to spend the rest of my life with you,” he says. “In sickness and in health, till death do us part, the whole shebang. And I think you want the same thing, but you're not going to let yourself have it because you don't trust me to stay. Well, I'm going to stay, and I'll make it legally binding if that's what it takes to prove it to you.”
Abed shuts his mouth. He blinks a few times.
“I mean it,” Troy says. “We can do it tonight. Right now.” He stands up, holds out a hand to Abed. “Let's go to the airport. I'll buy us tickets to Vegas, and we can get hitched by a bad Elvis impersonator before the night's out.”
Abed stands on his own, and Troy's hand falls back to his side. “I mean it,” he repeats, almost a threat.
“You could still file for divorce,” Abed says, in an exploratory tone, like he's looking for holes in Troy's plan.
“I'm not Pierce,” he snorts. “Or Jeff, or Britta.” He pauses. “Or Shirley or Annie either, but I think they both care a lot more about the sanctity of marriage than the others? And I'm not-” He hesitates, but he knows he has to go there, even if it hurts. “I'm not your parents, either. I'm not the kind of person who would get divorced. You know I'm not. I wouldn't make this kind of commitment unless I was going to stick it out.”
He can see it in Abed's face: he does know. There's fear there now, a fear that is so strong because it is fed by so much hope.
“We can go to the airport right now,” Troy repeats.
“Are you asking me to be in a romantic relationship with you?” Abed asks, instead of addressing the question at hand.
Troy shrugs. “If you want to? But I kind of got the impression that you don't, you know… do that.”
“I… have done that,” Abed says slowly. “But I don't know if I've ever felt the way you're supposed to feel when you do.”
“Okay,” Troy shrugs again. “We don't have to be in a romantic relationship to get married. We can do it as best friends.”
“Do you have romantic feelings for me?”
“Maybe?” Troy's bisexuality is still something he's figuring out, and Abed is the biggest question of all. “Sometimes, sometimes not? I know I love you, and it’s so big that sometimes it's hard to tell if it's romantic or not.”
The fragile expression is back, and Abed's eyes are a little damp. He takes a deep breath. “I don't want to be the reason you feel like you can't date anymore,” he says quickly. He's breathing fast, staring hard at a space just to the right of Troy's elbow. “I'm not trying to be the only person in your life.”
“Okay, that's cool,” Troy says. “Dating's fun. But if I do decide to, I need you to know that I'm not doing it because I'm looking for someone to replace you. It'd just be because, you know,” he shrugs. “Boobs are hot.” He places a hand on Abed's shoulder, tries to meet his eyes. “I've been around the whole world, Abed, and I've never met anyone who makes me as happy as you do. You're my favorite person. If you don't marry me, then I'm never getting married to anyone, because there's no one else out there I'd want to spend the rest of my life with.”
Abed nods, but doesn’t entirely seem to hear Troy. “I thought you wanted to be your own person,” he blurts out. “To learn who you are when you're Troy, Alone, instead of always being Troy and Abed.”
Troy takes a slow breath, nodding. They’re getting to the heart of it all, slowly. “I did want that. And I did learn. And it turns out that Troy Alone isn't really a different guy than Troy With Abed, he's just… Troy. I'm still the same person, when I'm alone, and a big part of being me is… wanting to share that with you.”
Abed's tongue flickers out, wetting his lips, and his gaze jumps from left to right. He looks hunted. “But-”
“I didn't leave because I wanted to leave you,” Troy interrupts, and Abed's eyes snap forward to meet his. “It's-” He sighs, and now it's his turn to look away, running his free hand through his hair and trying to think. It's something they talked about before he left, but it bears repeating, because he's not sure he did a good job of it, last time. He has the right words for this now. He's spent a long time figuring out the right words for this, and now he just has to remember them.
“You are an extremely self-determined person,” he says, looking at his own hand where it's still resting on Abed's shoulder. “You know who you are and what makes you happy, both when you're with other people and when you're alone. And I've always known who I am and what makes me happy when I'm with you, but-” He takes a breath. “When you're off on a big-time movie set, directing the next great classic that'll be shown for generations, I don't want to be the guy sitting at home, killing time until you get back ‘cause I don't know what my purpose is without you. I want to be the guy who's out there pursuing his own interests and hobbies, making his own purpose, and…” he smiles, “...waiting for you to get home so we can tell each other about all the exciting things we did that day while we were apart. I want to be able to bring as much of myself to this relationship as you do. That’s why I had to leave.”
He looks up again, meeting Abed's eyes, and puts his other hand on Abed's other shoulder, holding him there. “Abed. You know me, right? Better than anyone?”
Slowly, Abed nods.
“And I know you? Better than anyone.”
Another nod.
“And you believe me when I say I love you, right? Even if you don't trust me to stay, you trust me to care about you?”
There's a hesitation, and then he nods again.
“Then trust me when I say I wouldn't mess around with this.” Troy swallows thickly. “I know how much me leaving hurt you last time. I know that if I left again, it would- I know that I've only got one shot.” He squeezes Abed's shoulders a little tighter. “You know me well enough, to know that I know you well enough, to know that I've only got one shot, and that if I mess it up I'll lose you forever. If I wasn't absolutely sure that I'm never leaving again, I would be holding back. I wouldn't- I wouldn't mess you around, pretending that I was sure, if I had any doubts. Because I know that I only have one shot.” He stares into Abed's eyes, searching. “Do you know me well enough to trust me on that?”
For a moment, Abed just stares at him. Troy can almost see the thoughts racing behind his eyes, running the probability calculations on everything he knows about Troy, weighted down with a hefty error margin of his own fears and anxieties. Then he gives a final, very small nod, and a smile flickers at the corner of his mouth.
“I think I can trust that.”
Troy beams. “Okay! Good!”
“Good,” Abed echoes.
“So are we- can we be us again? Can you- I mean, I know it’s going to take time, I don’t expect things to be perfect immediately, but will you- will you work on it with me? To try to get back to how it was before?”
Abed nods again. “Yes. We’ll get there.” Confidence is returning to the way he holds himself with every second that passes, the anxieties falling away now that he’s settled on a clear path for the future.
“Great! So… are we heading to Vegas?”
The confidence falters for a moment. “What?”
“I wasn't joking about that,” Troy says. “Do you want to get married?”
Abed stares at him, and the smile returns with a faintly teasing edge. “I think we can hold off on that one. At least for now.”
“Okay. But if you ever change your mind, just give me the word. It doesn't even have to be a word, you can just give me the-” He shoots a finger gun, putting on his best Elvis voice, “Uh huh huh.”
Abed laughs, and Troy knows that they're going to be okay.
“So,” Abed says, flopping back onto the couch, and Troy joins him a second later, sitting much closer than before and draping an arm across his shoulders. Abed doesn't lean into it, but then, he never did. It feels right. It feels like them. “Who is Troy, Alone?”
Troy hums. “It turns out he's really into birdwatching? I feel like an old man saying it, but there are so many cool birds out on the ocean. Oh, let me get my phone, I gotta show you a picture- I saw an albatross! It was so big…”
Hours later, when they finally fall asleep - upright, sitting on the still couch-shaped couch, heads resting on each other's shoulders, far away from the gentle rocking of the ocean - Troy sleeps like a log.