protagonist syndrome

[SMS] sure, jeff.  [SMS] yay !! i spent a lot of time picking out the emojis for you guys. abed is a movie camera, britta is a cat, and shirley is a pie ! troy is still a football, but i haven’t changed it since high school.  [SMS] a birth chart tells you all your signs. you know there’s more than a sun sign, right ?

[sms] i kind of do

[sms] ‘less i wanna start crying with the girls

[SMS: delayed]  You’re not hitting on me, right? [SMS] I mean, the compliments, winky face, small talk, and now discussion of music I’m interested in? This feels very high school crush.

[SMS] But that defeats the purpose. [SMS] You’re supposed to befriend the squirrel, not capture it.

↳ his words send a dagger through her heart, yet she still feels it beating. annie edison has always been the empath of the study group. applying abed’s chapstick, comforting shirley over andre, bonding with frankie. only annie could show any semblance of kindness towards a man like pierce, hold out for him as the ace of hearts. when jeff looked her, she had been able to restart raquel and open the entrance. because she knew what love meant: caring about others. some criticized her sensitivity, dismissed as naiveté, yet really the glue that kept the seven together, the seed that blossomed them into better human beings. that was annie’s gift. annie’s strength. cherry lips pout. ❛ of course it hurts. leaving what you know behind always does. ❜ annie isn’t going to lie to him. his feelings are valid        though his feelings are good. as someone who originally wanted to cheat his way to a degree, had said he only tolerates greendale, those words highlighted his moral growth. ❛ look at me, jeff. i’m ready to embark on a new chapter of my life      start my career with the fbi ! but that doesn’t mean i’m not hurting. ❜  

expression softens, melting into doe eyes and the little upwards quirk at the side of her mouth, annie places a hand on his shoulder. ❛ missing others means you care. and that’s a huge accomplishment for you, jeff. it shows you value other people besides yourself. ❜  then a sigh falls from her lips. this part wouldn’t be easy to explain. when troy left to sail the world, their apartment felt empty. the chair at the opposite end of the table, the seat next to abed at lunch, felt empty. both annie and abed shared a vacancy in their hearts. and after a heated game of pile of bullets, they realized their true intentions: to fill that third spot. and whether it would’ve been with her brother or his ex-girlfriend, it would never be the same. both annie and abed had to accept a difficult truth of waiting months, maybe even years, for troy to return. anthony had been right: his absence clearly created some kind of vacuum. and so would hers.

through a more optimistic lens, annie wasn’t leaving by boat. through a less optimistic lens, there was no reaching pierce. however, the latter might be for the best. 

❛  time passes. life goes on. it has to, at some point     past community college,  ❜  fingers absentmindedly smooth down his sleeve. she’s done this to calm down abed on more than one occasion. it even soothes her, the soft fabric of his sweater. hopes to  give jeff some peace of mind. annie knows the walls he builds, the gates he protects in an effort to seem unbothered. yet she can understand his pain, and she so desperately wants to mitigate it, as much as she can, talking to him, while she’s still here. ❛ and i wish i could tell you how to deal with it, but it’s different for everyone. no matter how many stars we wish on or fairytales we believe in           ❜ cue teeth sinking into her lower lip.  ❛  there’s no magic, non-committal way to deal with it and have the pain be gone. but it gets better        it gets easier. it has to, right ? ❜

It is so, so easy to love her.

It’s easy to love Annie with her gentle touches, with her kind eyes and her soft smiles and the intimate knowledge that she can only afford to be so soft because she’s already been hurt enough. And Jeff thinks that maybe years of film and television had skewed his perspective-- when everything you know says that romantic love is the highest love of all, and you want to give someone the love that they deserve, it becomes even easier to think you’re in love, too.

Her hand is familiar. Her touch more so. Jeff almost hates himself for how long it took him to come to the conclusion that loving someone as a friend isn’t settling, how long it took him to appreciate the simple brush of fingers down his sleeve.

Sex isn’t what makes people love you.

Love is.

“Are you...” He laughs, and this one sounds a little less forced this time. A little more disbelieving. “Annie, are you ‘the world spins madly on’-ing me?

“Not that I’m against the message at this point in my life. It’s common for a reason. But...”

To have something so obvious reiterated to him almost makes him feel stupid. Almost.

But he doesn’t feel completely out of his mind, because he knows Annie says it out of love. And he knows that if the world will keep spinning for him, then it’ll keep spinning for her, too. Whether either of them want it to or not.

“God, a part of me just wishes it could get easier with us together instead of apart.”

If he were a lesser man, a more selfish man, he’d do everything in his power to make his friends stay. To make Annie stay. To make Abed stay, and-- jeez, he can’t even think about that properly yet, not after the way it made him crack at the bar only hours ago. The incident feels like it’d been ages past, but Jeff knows better.

And he knows that his friends are leaving, and he’s going to have to deal with it.

“...I’m gonna miss you.”

He’s gonna miss this: the kindness of Annie’s touch, and the way his voice goes soft around her in a way that doesn’t even make him hate it.

“And I know-- I know there’re gonna be texts, and calls, and I guess I’m finally gonna have someone on the other side of the screen to talk to” -- he chuckles a bit at that one -- “but, sheesh. This caring business is tough.

[Text The idiot lawyer]: It’s way too easy to become a professor at this place. She’d be upset that you’re talking to me during the quiz. You even bother to do it? [Text The idiot lawyer]: What is the important bit? [Text The idiot lawyer]: How many times are we going to discuss this. Because something is coming. Someone’s been working on it for a very long time.

[SMS] I could always teach it. Squirrels are incredibly low maintenance. [SMS] Really it’s just keeping feed out and they’ll usually return if you do it the same time every day.

[SMS] As if you’ve been taking a dip in said pool recently. [SMS] Compared to some other songs? This is a Psalm from Sunday Church. [SMS] And I’m fun with music, by the way. Especially when it comes to Rocky Horror.

[SMS] she acts like she knows what’s best for everyone. still, using that emoji would be *so* uninspired. you can’t wear sunglasses indoors ! 

[SMS] it means you like being in charge and you need more independence more than most other zodiac signs do. do you want me to give you a copy of your birth chart ? i’m a sagittarius 😄

[SMS]  Very true. [SMS]  And so humble, too. It’s a wonder you haven’t been canonized yet. [SMS]  Do you honestly have to ask? [SMS]  The only thing that would make it more obvious is if there was ABBA or whatever the latest and greatest Broadway show was.

[Text The idiot lawyer]: Have you not been paying attention? Have to learn the difference between what’s real and the bollocks people have put out there! How else are you going to deal with whatever is coming to this place? [Text The idiot lawyer]: There’s a little fear there. At least something anyway… What’s the issue with you texting me? I’m barely a bloody professor. [Text The idiot lawyer]: Why? I’m wondering if I should regret it though… seeing as  I’m getting messages when i can just look up and fucking see you.

[SMS] But don’t I? [SMS] ……… perhaps. Don’t you want it though?

[SMS] I wouldn’t know how to take care of it.

[A moment. Why is he even considering any talent in squirrel care?]