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julessworldd · 2 years

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Cheerleader and future rockstar part 2

Warnings: arguments, cussing, running away, smut, Izzy being a cutie pie 🥰. Should be it. It’s a little shorter than i planned on but she’s here! Hope you guys enjoy:))

I pulled away from Izzy, looking up at him. His brown eyes were so gorgeous up close, swirls of chocolate candies dancing. “It’s rude to stare”, Izzy brushed a strand of hair out of my face. “Sorry”, I blushed and backed away some. Izzy grinned, “But a pretty girl like you it don’t matter” I kissed his cheek.

We walked into one of diners my father owns, “Hi how many? Judith!”, Traci got startled. “I’ll work a weekend so you can have time with Paul. Just don’t tell dad okay”, I smiled. Traci sat us down and smiled as she walked away. The whole restaurant was gonna know little Channing brought a boy in. Whose daddy is gonna shit when he finds out who it is. “You work here?”, Izzy asked. “Sometimes but my dad owns this one and two more by the interstate. He owns Wilson’s pharmacy, the record store downtown. Some stuff in Indianapolis and Chicago too”, I said waiting for Annie to come up.

“Damn you are rich”, Izzy laughed. “Mommy and daddy are rich not me”, I spat back. “Hi I’m Annie. Your daddy is gonna have your head, what can I get for you?”, Annie looked like she seen a ghost. Izzy giggled.. “Annie, this is Jeff. I’ll take my usual”, I giggled back. She took Izzy’s order, “Tracie is busy in the back. But she wanted me to tell you, she ain’t a snitch so you don’t have to work”, Annie sat beside me. “I said I would” “She doesn’t have Paul this weekend and she needs the extra money”, Annie said. I nodded. We left have we ate, Annie and traci made everyone swear they won’t tell my dad that I was skipping with a mystery kid. “You actually work for them?”, Izzy asked. “Sometimes, not just to keep them quiet when father comes in. He don’t care either way, he’s likes my brothers and little sisters more”, I said.

Two weeks after graduation

Izzy told me he was leaving for LA this week and he still wants me to go with him. “I understand if you don’t want to, but I really would like to have my girlfriend with me” “I’ll come with you, why wouldn’t I?”, I giggled. “I have 500$ saved up, we can live on that until we get a place.” Izzy said. “Okay”

We were leaving Friday morning in my car to California. Two weeks with driving the map said.

There was a small knock on the door, “Come in”, I said looking up from my vogue magazine. My little sister, Jackie walked in. “Hi Jackie, what’s up?”, I smiled as she plopped on the bed. She sighed. “Jackie” Another big sigh, “What is it, Jacqueline?”, I threw my magazine down. “I heard you and Jeff on the phone. Are you leaving me and Katie?”, she looked at me with sad eyes. “I told you to stop listening to my conversations!”, I sighed and rolled my eyes. “You are leaving us! Why??”, Jackie screamed. “Jackie! It’s just a vacation, Izzy wants to go see Hollywood. He wants me to go”, I grabbed the little girl so she could look at me. I know I’m lying to her but I might come back. “Okay, long as you come back”, She smiled. “When’s daddy coming home?”, she asked. “I don’t know, soon enough”, I smiled.

Friday morning came along, I was finishing packing when a knock came through the door. “Just a minute.” I slammed my bags under my bed. “Come” “Hi darling! So sorry we missed your graduation, we got held up in Chicago”, my mother walked in. “It’s okay Mom. Glad you’re back”, I smiled. Shit!! I was gonna sneak around to the maid’s quarters and run to my car. “What’s wrong darling?” “Nothing, just tired”, I lied. She smiled and walked away. I called Izzy’s, “Come on come on” “Isbelle residence”, Kevin picked up. “Kevin! Is Izzy is busy? Hurry!” “Jeff, it’s your girlfriend”, Kevin yelled. “Hi baby” “Izzy! My parents showed up don’t leave yet. I’m sorry but can we leave tonight instead?”, I sighed. “Of course, Jude. You okay?” “Just worried, but I’ll manage. I love you”, I replied. “It’s gonna be okay. Love you too”, Izzy grinned. “I’ll see you at 11”, I said.

It was dinner time soon enough, I stayed locked up in my room the whole day. “Where have you been, Judith?”, Father asked as I sat down with Katie. “In my room, I got another headache”, I said. “Did Nancy get you some meds?”, he asked. “Uh I had some in dresser still. Lucky me”, I smiled. “That’s good, buttercup. I want you to come to office with me tomorrow”, Father said as he drank some of his whiskey. “What for?” “I want you to get the feel of owning a business, well managing them”

“Daddy! Sissy has a boyfriend”, Katie interrupted. “That’s nice Katie. Now Judith, I think you would like the store in Chicago. She has a what?”, Father was saying. “Judith Monroe Channing!”, Mother gasped. “He was in my English class this year. He’s nice, daddy”, I panicked. “I would like to meet him, after work tomorrow. If that’s okay with you”, he smiled at me. “That’s perfectly fine with me, Daddy”, I smiled back. Fucking Katie! Jackie looked like she was gonna burst at the seems to tell them I’m ditching town soon. After dinner, I finished packing. Jackie walked in, “I’m gonna miss you”. “Awh honey. I’ll be back to visit”, I pulled her into a hug. Everyone was asleep, my parents were drugged up on quaaludes and ppainkillers.

I pulled up at Izzy’s house, his mom was working a late shift at the hospital. Izzy jumped in, “Hi gorgeous” he looked around, “Where’s the dogs?” “I couldn’t risk them barking and waking everyone up. Besides the twins will need someone to play with”, I sighed. “Baby, if you don’t want to go with me it’s okay I’ll catch a bus”, Izzy grabbed my hand. “No I wanna go with you. Just that Jackie knows I’m leaving and god. The look on her face when I told her it was a vacation” I started to cry.

We made it to LA in 10 days, it was so different here. I could tell we make this our home soon. “I think I found a place in Huntington Beach”, I said. “Really how much?” Izzy asked. “200 a month”

Izzy and I were making out on the couch, he had his hand behind my head as we kissed. Izzy was shirtless, trying to pull down my shorts without pulling away. “Mhm, Iz” I pulled away needing air. I pulled my shorts and shirt off, leaving me in my bra and panties. “‘Now that’s more like it, Channing”, Izzy grabbed my ass. “No it’s not, take your pants off”, I smirked. Soon enough I was braless on top of Izzy. “You sure you handle me this way?”, Izzy rubbed my nipple. “Mhm, I’m a big girl” “Don’t say I didn’t warn ya, princess”, Izzy smirked like a smartass. I put my hand on his mouth, “You talk too much”, I slide down him.

“That’s a good girl”, Izzy said bucking his hips into mine. I kept bouncing on him, feeling my tummy knot up. He reached in between us, rubbing my clit. I fell forward to his chest as he rubbed me. “Mhm don’t stop”, I moaned at his ear. Someone knock on the door, as I was close. “Fuck really? People now!”, I whined getting off of Iz. We got dressed before Izzy opened the door. “You’re lucky I got the manger to leave”, Bill smirked. “Fuck! Not you”, Izzy sighed. “Hi Bill” I laughed. “Hi Princess. It’s Axl now”, he waddled in. “Nice place. Are these Izzy’s or yours?”, Axl had my red panties dancing on his finger. “Gimme that”, I blushed as took them away from him. Izzy was banging his head on the door frame, “Stop banging that pretty head of yours, see if he has a place. I’m gonna go shower”, I kissed his forehead.

March 1986

Izzy and Axl had someone coming for the bass position of the band. Izzy drugged me along. “What the hell are you doing with a punk dude?”, I asked. “Branching out, princess”, Axl said as he took a drag from his cigarette. “Uh huh”, I rolled my eyes, this band had so many members come and go it was insane. “This is Axl, the singer and that’s my girlfriend, Judith”, Izzy walked with this 6’3 blonde kid dressed in a Johnny thunders tee. “Does the child have a name?”, I asked. He couldn’t be no more than 19. “Duff and I’m 21”, he smiled. “My apologies”, I replied. Izzy walked over and hugged me, “Stop being mean. Tracii said he was really good”. “I’m not being mean” “Sure you’re not, baby. I seen the resting bitch face”, Izzy kissed my neck. “I’m like with new people. Okay quit Izzy!”, I giggled as he nibbled on my ear. “Ax! Test out your mic now” one of the sound techs said. Axl walked up and let out his infamous screams. The look on Duff’s face was hilarious. “We’re still waiting on the results to see if he’s part banshee”, I told him. He just nodded. Soon enough Steven and Slash joined.

“Is Ax always this angry?”, Steven asked. “Long as I’ve known him”, I said. Steven nodded and Duff grinned. “How long have you and Izzy been a thing?”, Duff asked. “Six years in May” “Damn the longest I’ve had was a year”, Duff said. “3 months for me”, Steven giggled. I patted his shoulder, “you’ll get a girlfriend soon enough, Stevie”.

“Izzy!”, Axl busted in. “Izzy! Where the fuck is your husband?” “First off. Don’t bust in my place like that and he’s at the store. So sit your manic ass down!” I gave a scowl. “Sorry Jude”, Axl sat next to Duff. “Why are you so goddamn happy anyways?”, I scoffed. “I need my guitarists here for this, princess” “My apologies, my lord”, I rolled my eyes. “Hey don’t shut the door, ass wipe!” Slash yelled as Izzy walked in with bags. “Fuck! Who die?”, Izzy looked around as Slash slammed the door behind him. “Will you guys stop slamming my door like you own the fucking place? Nobody died, Iz I don’t think”, I walked to him taking some bags to the kitchen. “Judith! So you guys remember that dude that claimed he worked at the a record company?”, Axl stood in front of us, I stood in the frame of the kitchen. “Yeah Tom something”, Slash said. “Well, he actually does. He talked to his boss showed him the demo I had. Anyways this Greffen dude wants to sign us, a 4 album deal, tour with Motley Crue this summer”, Axl said. The room was silent as we all looked at the ginger singer. “Ax, shut up”, Izzy grumbled. I grinned, holding my tongue.

The phone rang as Izzy was in the shower, I laid on the couch watching a rerun of Mash. “Hello?” “Hi I’m looking for a Izzy. This David Greffen, I’m sure Axl has told everyone about the deal. Is Izzy around.” “Yeah hang on”, I laid the phone on the table. I busted in the a bathroom, jerked the curtain, “Get your fucking ass now! Axl wasn’t lying, the Greffen dude is on the phone. Hurry!”, I pulled his hand. “I have shampoo in my hair still”, Izzy sighed grabbing a towel as he ran to the phone. “Yes, I’ll be there” Izzy ran back to the shower to rinse his hair and body. “I’ll be back soon as I can”, Izzy ran to the door. “Excuse you, Jeffrey”, I spat. “Oh fuck. I love you, bye bye”, Izzy kisses me and my cheeks.

Sure enough Izzy’s ginger counter part wasn’t lying about the deal. The boys had been in the studio for two months non stop. Izzy was finally a rockstar, playing in band like Keith Richards. The 18 year old I started going out with be so fucking happy that he actually got his dream. Of course I was happy for him, he worked so hard to get here.

They were filming their first music video for MTV for Welcome to the Jungle. It was a fan favorite on the strip and was really good. Izzy was nervous, he was afraid he couldn’t fake play right, panicking if he chose the right outfit for this. I was talking to Steven’s girlfriend, Adrianna. She wasn’t my favorite person even before she cheated on him with Axl. Can’t believe he used them fucking on Rocket Queen, the parents would love that one.

Suddenly she smiled, I turned around to see Duff standing behind me. “What is it, Duff?”, I asked looking up at him. “Iz wants you, he’s in his dressing room”, Duff smiled. “Thanks”, I patted his shoulder as I passed him. I was gonna knock on his door, when he pulled me in. “Izzy! What the hell?”, I yelped as I went face first into his chest. “Judith Judith, sweet Judith. Did Duff tell why I wanted you?”, Izzy smirked. “No, he’s probably half lit”, I said, running my hand down his chest. “After all this time, you’re still so innocent”, he kissed behind my ear. I whimpered, “Better hurry, you only got 15”. “Perfect”, Izzy reached between us and got to my panties.

Izzy had pinned down on the floor as he pounded from behind. “Mhmm! Fuck go harder”, I whined. “Go harder? I’ll end up breaking you, kitten”, Izzy keep thrusting in and out of me. “Please”, I turned my head to look at him with puppy eyes. Izzy reached down and rubbed my clit around. I grabbed my panties, biting down on them as my stomach tightened. “Good girl” “4 minutes!” A roadie yelled. My stomach was cramping up, I felt different before my release. It hurts but doesn’t either. I moaned so loud, “Izzyyy!!” I came but felt like I pissed myself. Izzy laughed, laying his head on my back, “Yes, you squirted kitten. Told you we had time” “Fuck you” I whined as he pulled out. “Cute! I did fuck you, Kitten. You good?”, he rubbed my back. “No I’m embarrassed”, i blushed, now I was facing him as he held me. “Don’t be. It was hot, I really enjoyed myself with you. Come on I’ll help you”, Izzy kissed me. Izzy managed the best he could to clean me up and the mess on the floor. I looked down, “Why is not thick?” Izzy snorted, “I don’t know, love. Turn around” Izzy cinched my dress back up, “There”

“Just sit on the amp, you can still see me”, Izzy kissed my temple. “Hey. Love you”, I smiled. “Love you too, kitten” “Hey slut”, Duff’s girlfriend, Mandy smiled. “You heard?”, I asked, sorta blushing. “We all did. Was it good?”, She asked. “Yes it always is, but this time was different”, I said as Axl looked over at us. “What do you mean?” “Towards the end, i uh felt different”, I started tripping on my words. “Lemme guess you squirted. Yes it’s normal but it won’t happen always.”, Mandy smiled. “Oh thank fuck! She’s not broken”, I sighed. Mandy laughed, “Hey girls”, Adrianna smiled. “Oh hell. Hiya”, I giggled. “What are you two so giggly about?” She asked. “When she was with Izzy, she squirted for the first time”, Mandy said, smiling as Duff looked her way from the stage. “Oh welcome to the club, whore”, she kissed my cheek. “Is it that big of a deal?”, I asked. “Kinda”, Adrianna smiled.

After they filmed the video, they were an overnight stars. Every teenager, kids our age heard them, they wanted to see them. They were over the moon, but they had an album to finish. Axl was starting to become a diva and everyone walked on eggshells.

The door opened, “Hey Kitten”, Izzy smiled. “Hi, how was it today?”, I smiled, getting up to kiss him. “Better. I kinda blocked him out. Get dressed I wanna take you to dinner”, Izzy kissed me back. After dinner we were walking around. “You still happy here, love?”, Izzy asked. “Yes why do you ask that?”, I said. “I don’t know I’ve been thinking.. still thought you wanted to go back home”. “Jeff, home is wherever you are. I would be in Chicago taking care of dad’s businesses”, I rubbed my thumb across his hand. Izzy smiled, “I love you so much! Thank you for driving cross country to support my dream”, Izzy kissed me. “Love you too, handsome”, I giggled, nipping his ear playfully. Izzy gently pushed me against the brick, “You are so beautiful, my love” “mhm kiss me?”, I smiled. Izzy started to kiss me, but someone yelled my name. I finally seen my sister, Jackie. But she wasn’t nine anymore but looked to be 15. “Jackie?”, i walked towards her. She hugged me, “What are you doing out here? Where’s Katie?”, I hugged her back trying not to cry.

“Jackie! There you are, don’t take off like that. Judith?”, our mother said with Katie behind her. “Hi mom”, I smiled. She stood there stunned, “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you or dad that I was moving. Can’t believe Jackie kept a secret this long”, I said as she walked towards, she was pissed. “Oh Judith, my sweet girl!”, she brushed my hair out of my face. “It’s okay. You should have told us, we would have funded your trip well move”, she smiled. She hugged me. “Cheryl! Why did Jackie run away?”, I heard my father walk up, I tensed up. “Daddy, it’s Judith”, Katie said.

“Hi dad. Miss me?”, I smiled. “You’ve grown up on me”, he looked like he was about to cry. He pulled me into a hug, “Thought I lost you for good, Judy” I almost cried at that, always thought I wasn’t his least favorite child. Izzy stood there, unsure what to do. “Who did you run off with anyways?”, he asked. “Remember Katie telling you I had a boyfriend the night I left? Well it was him”, I said looking at Izzy. Izzy walked up behind me, “Oh you’re Sonja’s oldest, uh?” “Jeff but I go by Izzy”, He shook my fathers hand. “Thank you for taking care of my baby”, my mother said. “Not a problem at all, she’s great”, he rubbed my arm. “Is your singer single?”, Katie asked. “Katelin!”, I huffed, rolling my eyes. Izzy giggled, “Uh hard to tell anymore” “Izzy”, I looked at him. My parents and sisters had to leave that night, they spent the whole week trying to find me.

“Your parents are nice, Katie reminds me of you”, Izzy said taking his shoes off. “You didn’t talk to me when until senior year, Iz”, I giggled. “So? She still does”, Izzy stuck his tongue out. “You’re annoying, you know that?”, I giggled as he crawled into bed. “I’m aware, love”, Izzy smirked. “I love you forever”, I raised over and kissed him. “I love you too, kid. Until death do us part”, Izzy rubbed my shoulders. “Did you hint that you might propose soon?”, I bit my lip. “Go to sleep, Baby”, Izzy got at his spot. “You are planning on, you bitch!”, I gasped. “Good night, Judith”, he huffed. That fucker wants to marry me, I knew it!

#izzy stradlin x reader #izzy stradlin smut #Judith Channing oc!#guns n roses fic

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wulfgurlz · 1 year

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i don't ship jeffannie, i do think it's off putting but i think there's a sweetness to their relationship outside of a romantic sense bc even though they had "feelings" for each other, by the end, they were both able to recognize that it wouldn't work and that they weren't meant to be. and they accepted that, and that's okay.

they accepted that they should just be friends. i really like that progression. it shows how mature both of them became by the end, being able to recognize that a full-fledged relationship just isn't what either of them needed.

annie was a confused teenager who literally had no idea what she even wanted when it comes to romance, she was inexperienced and young, and when jeff, an attractive guy showed her affection, she flung herself at him, she tended to do that with most men in the show that expressed a fondness toward her (rich and vaughn) but as she got older she became more mature and started to understand that she didn't want any of those men or their love or sex with them specifically, she wanted to be loved. that was all. her "feelings" had nothing to do with jeff specifically.

and then there's jeff. he understands all the stuff i wrote above, and even though he might have feelings for her and enjoys her affections, he actively decided against acting on any of those feelings because he knew she was still figuring herself out AND he was still figuring himself out, i think that's why his feelings become more prominent later as opposed to earlier, any desires he has that have to do with annie are very tame and wholesome and homey, they have a lot to do with settling down, i think that proves he didn't see her as another sexual escapade, he saw her as someone to settle down with because they had a history of sticking together. and i think he confused how long their friendship lasted for a need to be romantically involved with her on top of that. i think he also understands that annie is NOT his, he doesn't have "dibs" on her, he has to let her go and let her be her own person.

point being, i think there's a sort of tenderness there. "what could've been" and all that. it's nice to think about but when you really think about it, going separate ways is what's best for them. i don't want them to end up together in the movie, i just want them to have a drink and remember how ridiculous they were back then, how stupid all the wistful stares and stolen kisses were. that's all.

#jeffannie #community #six seasons and a movie #community movie #jeff winger #annie edison #barking

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gonzo-rella · 3 years

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Headcanons: Jeff Helping You With Your Anxiety

MASTERLIST | AO3 | KO-FI

Requested by: Anon

hi my love! can i request a hc/drabble with jeff winger helping the reader with their anxiety?? 💖

Relationship(s): Jeff Winger x gn!reader (platonic and romantic)

Warnings: Obviously, descriptions of anxiety and being overwhelmed, but not any detailed descriptions of panic attacks. (Let me know if I need to add any)

(A/N: Well, if it isn’t obvious, I deal with non-diagnosed anxiety which definitely helped me write this. It didn’t specify if you wanted it to be platonic or romantic, so I decided to do both, since I love writing platonic stuff, as well as romantic stuff. Plus, I think we need some platonic Jeff fics, because this man really does give off big brother vibes.)

PLATONIC

Jeff tends to let Annie, Britta and/or Shirley help you when you’re anxious, seeing as ‘they’re better at all that feelings crap’ (as he so eloquently put it).

However, sometimes the girls aren’t available to help you, and thus Jeff is left to do so.

When he’s not as used to helping you when it comes to your anxiety, Jeff would be pretty clueless as to how to deal with you when you get anxious.

He’d probably exacerbate the situation by telling you you’re being ridiculous, that you need to calm down and that there’s nothing to worry about.

Of course, when he realises that just telling you that everything’s fine doesn’t automatically make everything fine for you, he’ll find a different approach.

He’ll try one of his classic Winger speeches to try to make you feel better, but he can’t get it to work at first; after all, no amount of inspiration can stop you from being anxious.

At some point, he’ll learn that taking you outside and talking you through it is the best thing he can do for you, as awkward as it may be for him at first.

But, ultimately, Jeff views you as a sibling to him, so he’d rather help you feel better at the expense of his own comfort than make you face it all alone.

Eventually, he gets pretty used to helping you with your anxiety to the point that it impresses all of your friends.

He figures out how to construct the perfect classic Winger speech that will help ease your anxiety, even if just by a little.

He’ll become a master at helping you through it to the point that Britta is low-key jealous because he’s better at it than her.

ROMANTIC

When he notices you starting to get anxious, Jeff will internally freak out a little, but will try not to let it show on his face.

He’s learned that when you’re holding hands and your grip becomes tighter, odds are you’re anxiety’s increasing in that moment.

It’s become a signal in your relationship.

Still, he’ll be good at recognising how you’re feeling in general without relying on that.

If you’re getting overwhelmed somewhere inside, he’ll lead you to a secluded spot outside.

He’ll let you rant, vent and/or ramble if it will give you some relief and/or help him understand how best to help you.

If there’s any kind of solution, he’ll assure you that he’ll sort it all out for you.

If not, he’ll make sure you know you have him to support you.

By now, Jeff will have learned that it’s always better to ask for your permission before initiating physical contact with you.

If you say yes, he’ll place a hand on your shoulder or pull you in for a hug.

Jeff knows that, sometimes, the best solution to helping you deal with your anxiety can be to help you take your mind off it, so he’ll have a mental list of activities that will help you calm down and/or distract you from what’s bothering you.

Of course, he’ll let you decide what you want to do.

If you just want to relax on the couch, he’ll do that; if you want to go out and do something fun, he’ll do that too.

#jeff winger x reader #jeff winger #community #community nbc #annie edison #britta perry #abed nadir #troy barnes #headcanons #one-shot #romantic #platonic

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softtrobed · 3 years

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hm would you write a fic about annie coming out to jeff? i love their friendship and brother/sister relationship :)

thank you so much for this request! i honestly got a bit emotional writing this. annie coming out to jeff is something that can honestly be so personal...

there's some focus on annie coming out to other members of the study group, but it does mainly focus on her and jeff. i hope that's okay :)

Annie had decided to come out to her friends in the same way she tended to do most things: efficiently and beginning by making a list.

Well, she supposed the most efficient way would be to come out to all of them at the same time, but this way would be more effective in the long run. She knew they’d all have very different reactions, different questions to ask, different levels of surprise, so if they all found out at once, most likely no one’s questions would get answered (not just the ones she would politely ignore), the group would start talking over each other, someone would yell at Pierce and it would almost be forgotten what the point of the conversation even was. This way, although it would take longer, everyone would hopefully be satisfied.

She told Troy and Abed first. That was the easiest, as because the two were a couple, she had no doubt they’d be accepting. Additionally, in the time they’d lived together, she had a feeling they’d already picked up on some of her not-so-straight behaviours: the girl-crushes she formed on the pretty women in the movies they watched together and her disinterest or non-romantic affection towards the men she knew she was ‘supposed’ to swoon over; the way she giggled and twirled her hair while on the phone with a certain girl from Greendale she’d recently reconnected with; the one time she didn’t delete her search history from the apartment computer and Abed may or may not have seen her recent searches, which included among others, ‘am I gay test,’ ‘comphet meaning’ and ‘can you be straight but think girls are really pretty and rarely have long lasting feelings for men?’

She’d come out to them over breakfast one day, and they basically had the best response she could have wished for. They were totally cool with it, but didn’t make it a big deal. They joked about how she was no longer the token straight roommate, she hugged both of them, and the day went on as normal.

Annie had crossed their names off her list with a big smile on her face.

Next had been Britta. Annie had also guessed that she’d be accepting, as what had happened with Paige last year had been a bit misguided but well-intentioned. At least Annie didn’t have to worry about Britta only wanting to be her friend because she was a lesbian, because they were already friends, and Annie suspected Britta had learned her lesson.

As expected, Britta reacted well. Perhaps too well, loudly proclaiming her supporting for the LGBTQ community before asking a string of questions about what it was like dating girls and if kissing them was different if you were sobre and/or not doing it to prove you weren’t homophobic. Annie explained she didn’t know - she actually hadn’t kissed a girl yet - but did wonder if Britta’s questions weren’t just due to her being an ally. She could be wrong, but she had read something about queer people having a way of spotting each other. Still, it wasn’t her place to assume anything, and she put the thought out of her mind as she crossed off Britta’s name.

Next was Jeff. This was a bit trickier. Once again, she didn’t think Jeff would be at all homophobic (unless he turned out to be one of those men who only viewed relationships between women as hot, but she’d cross that bridge if she came to it), but coming out to him made her nervous for another reason. Ever since they’d kissed at the Transfer Dance, his feelings for her had seemed unclear. At first, he’d seemed determined to forget it ever happened - which she’d found unfair at the time, but now appreciated - but lately, it was possible he had actually become interested in her. It felt… really weird, when she thought about it for too long. Not only was she definitely not interested in him, but, partially due to their age gap, their relationship felt too close to a father-daughter or older brother-younger sister relationship to be romantic. Sometimes she wondered why she’d ever liked him like that at all.

Although, since she’d extensively researched what comphet was and realised that was undoubtedly what she’d been experiencing, she could understand a bit better she’d never really liked him to begin with, she’d just latched onto a seemingly unattainable man to convince herself she could be attracted to guys, yet again.

As everyone packed up their stuff to leave the study room, Annie remained seated. “Um, Jeff,” she said. “We’ve both got a free period now, right?”

“Right,” Jeff replied, not looking up from his phone.

“Would you mind if I talked to you about something?”

He looked at her curiously. “Yeah, sure.”

Troy, Abed and Britta had clearly all realised what was going on. Abed gave her a small, supportive smile, Troy gave a quick thumbs up, and Britta winked in a way Annie guessed was meant to be subtle, but no doubt everyone in the room saw.

“Come on, guys,” she said, ushering the others out of the room. “This sounds important, and private, and we’ve all got classes to get to.”

Shirley stopped, muttering that she’d forgotten a textbook, but Britta practically pushed her out of the door as Abed said in a deep voice, seeming to have taken the opportunity to act like a security guard, “Keep it moving.”

Annie smiled as she watched them leave, her friends dramatics a pleasant distraction from what she was about to do. She turned back to Jeff to see he’d put his phone down. Clearly, he knew this was serious. “So,” he said. “What did you want to talk to me about?”

Annie opened her mouth, let out a squeak, then closed it. This was going to be difficult. Maybe she should have just come out to everyone at the same time, the consequences be damned. That way, she would have got it all over with at once.

“Annie, is everything okay?” Jeff sounded so genuine in his concern, a relatively rare sight. “You know you can tell me if something’s bothering you?”

“No, everything’s fine,” she assured him, finding her voice, but he didn’t look convinced. She took a deep breath. “I was thinking recently about that time we kissed.” He looked confused for a second. Didn’t he remember that night? Not that she cared, of course. “You know? During the dance at the end of our first year? I had just decided not to move to Delaware with Vaughn-”

“Right, right,” he cut her off. “I remember. Sorry, go ahead.”

“Thank you,” she said curtly. “So, I’ve been thinking about our kiss, and-”

Once more, he interrupted her. This was just getting annoying. “Annie, look, I know I’ve been giving… pretty mixed signals about my feelings for you, or if I even have any, but lately I’ve taken a good look at myself, and realised that it would never really feel right to be with you. For many reasons, none of which are your fault. It’s just that you’re much younger than me, and you often feel like a little sister to me - as well as a friend, of course - so I’m sorry, but-”

“Jeff.” Her firm tone silenced him.

There, she thought. How does it feel to be interrupted?

“I don’t want to be with you either!”

“Really?” he checked. “Because it wouldn’t be your fault if you did, I’m the one who needs to keep whatever feelings I have for you in check. Plus, I mean, I wouldn’t blame you…”

She rolled her eyes, but a smile began creeping onto her face. “I swear. I was going to say that I’ve been thinking about that kiss because of how, back then, I thought I really liked you. In a romantic way, I mean. But recently, I’ve realised that I just made myself think I liked you, even loved you. I wanted to convince myself I could be attracted to men, so just like with Troy in high school, I picked an unattainable - or so I thought - man. In his case: someone cool and popular who I thought would never notice ‘little Annie Aderal.’ With you, a cool, older guy who just saw me as a child.”

“Annie.” Jeff’s tone was serious but not annoyed. “Are you saying what I think you are?”

She nodded, her lips a thin line. “I’m a lesbian, Jeff. I really hope this doesn’t change things between us, although, honestly, knowing you don’t want to be with me is a big relief, because I was worried I’d break your heart or make things weird, but…” She paused. She was getting ahead of herself. “Well, have I made things weird?”

“Of course you haven’t! Thank you for telling me, that was really brave, especially if you thought I was still interested in you.”

“Thanks,” she said. She quickly added, “It’s not that I thought you’d react really badly. I don’t see you as someone who thinks he’s somehow entitled to any women he has feelings for, but still… I didn’t want to hurt you.”

He stood up, walking around to her side of the table, presumably to remove the physical and metaphorical distance between them, and gesturing for her to stand up as well, which she did. “You haven’t hurt me at all, Annie, I promise. I care about you, so much, even - no, especially - as a friend, and I just want you to be happy. Even if I was madly in love with you - which, thankfully, I’m not - I could never be upset at you, or anyone, for this.”

Annie could feel tears forming in her eyes. “Aww, Jeff!” She practically threw herself at him, wrapping him in a tight hug which he happily returned, laughing.

“Okay, we don’t have to make this all dramatic,” he said, but Annie was sure he sounded a bit choked up.

They came apart, smiling at each other for a few seconds before Jeff hesitantly reached out and gave her a pat on the head. “For old time’s sake,” he explained.

Annie had never felt happier while being given a head pat, which didn’t say much, she knew, but it was accurate, as she’d probably felt happier in general at some point in her life. Still, this was definitely in her top ten.

That night, she crossed off Jeff’s name, remembering the days she would doodle hearts as she wrote down his name, or paired her first and his last. This time, she instead drew a little smiley face. That was far more accurate, she thought. The thought of Jeff no longer made her heart flutter in her chest, but he made her smile, and she was more than happy with that.

#community #nbc community #annie edison #jeff winger #troy barnes #abed nadir #britta perry #shirley bennett #pierce hawthorne #lesbiannie #trobed #community fanfic #my writing #ask #lesbiannie-rights

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stina-is-a-punk-rocker · 3 years

Text

jacqueline wilson’s ‘love lessons’

tw: abuse, pedophilia, characters making Bad Decisions, long unnecessary spiel about my childhood like I’m running a recipe blog

It’s funny how loads of the authors who helped shaped me into the vaguely humanoid being I am today have names beginning with the letter ‘J’; Judy Blume, Jeff Kinney, John Green, J.K. Rowling (yikes, I know) … and Jacqueline Wilson.

I’ve never owned a Jacqueline Wilson book of my own; they were always borrowed from a friend, or from a friend of a friend, or from a friend of a cousin- you get the gist. Her books, for me, come with an entire aesthetic: something reminiscent of yard sales, and reading under the covers with a flashlight, and being lulled into a false sense of security by the deceptively innocent Nick Sharratt illustration on the cover until someone’s best friend gets mowed over.

So I knew what I was getting into when I picked up Love Lessons. I knew this was going to be Fucked Up; and boy, was I right.

(Here’s the part where I warn you about spoilers.)

From an abusive dad to creepy child predator teachers to slut-shaming and victim blaming, this book has it all.

The main character is Prudence ‘Prue’ King, who is homeschooled at the beginning of the book, along with her sister, Grace. Their parents remain rooted in the early twentieth century, and are very strict about- well, everything. No TV, no computers, not a single mobile phone in the house; their clothing worse than the orphans’ from Annie; and their father remains distinctly distrustful of modern institutions like the school and the hospital; and so on, and so forth.

Daddy King suffers a stroke, and has to be taken to the hospital. Meanwhile, Mrs. King (a floppy, spineless woman who lives in fear and awe of her, frankly horrid, husband) sends the girls to school, behind the then invalid Mr. King’s back. Cue Prue and Grace being the freakshows of the school, with their strange clothing and overbearing mother.

Grace manages to make friends, but Prue remains alone. The kids are dicks, the teachers are dicks… well, all of them but one. And that’s the art teacher, Mr. Raxberry (I just couldn’t get over that name; it seems like something you’d name a mythical plant from Pixie Hollow or some shit. I’m assuming it isn’t an actual name, since the spelling & grammar check on my computer doesn’t seem to recognize it), or Rax, as he’s called.

Oh, yeah; Prudence’s favorite subject in school is art, and she’s a whiz at it. This is relevant, because reasons.

And here’s where stuff gets murky. Prue develops a crush on Rax- which is perfectly normal. I’m definitely no stranger to it; I’ve had crushes on my teachers, my mum admitted she used to think one of her professors was cute. And yeah, as I grew older, I grew out of those crushes and now have a markedly more refined taste in men (unless he’s 5’ 7’’, born in ’97 and named Bang Chan, I don’t want him); and my mum married my dad, so I’m assuming she did, too. Admittedly, now that my dad teaches at a university, it’s icky to think that there might be students who have crushes on him- but I digress.

My point is, loads of us have liked our teachers. But I doubt the majority of us have acted on it.

And Prue actively showing her interest in Rax isn’t the worst part. That’s a spot reserved for Rax reciprocating her feelings.

Guess Ezra Fitz and Ms. Grundy (yes, I watched Riverdale; please don’t cancel me) have a new addition to the Creep Club.

The age of consent in the UK is 16, if I’m not mistaken. Prue is 14. She’s just barely become a teenager, and she’s being preyed upon.

Because that is what Rax is. He’s a predator; he preys upon this vulnerable girl who’s never been in a relationship before- hell, she’s never even had friends- her father’s abusive, so she obviously doesn’t have the best experience when it comes to men- she’s unpopular at school, with the students and staff alike- and he lures her in. I don’t care how bloody nice he is to Sarah, or what a good dad he is (well, he’s really not, seeing as he cheated on the mother of his children WITH A BLOODY FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD CHILD)- the guy’s a fucking pedophile.

I was staunchly stuck at a yellow light with him; like, sure, maybe Prue thinks he’s flirting with her- maybe she’s looking at this all wrong, she doesn’t know how relationships work- see, he drew a picture of Sarah, too, in his secret notebook- Prue’s just reading into this too much- up until he says he loves her.

Dude. Humbert fucking Humbert. She’s fourteen, for Christ’s sake, and you’re married. You have two children. She’s a child. She’s probably closer to your son’s age than she is to yours.

(This is the part where I bury my head in my pillow. And scream. Extensively, and with passion.)

The book does make some genuinely good commentary on slut-shaming and victim blaming and abusive parenting. And on one hand, I can see why so many people find issue with the romanticization of the when I kissed the teacher trope- but I can defend it, too.

The book is in Prue’s perspective. She thinks she’s in love with Rax, so obviously, she’s not going to throw in some valuable moral at the end- because she’s too young and inexperienced to think otherwise. And sadly, there are loads of instances of child abuse that go unreported because the victims just don’t know better.

What I have issue with is how the school dealt with it, ultimately. Prudence, a child, has to deal with the consequences of the actions of a literal child predator. Sure, Rax ‘clears his name’ by cooking up some bullshit story about how it was only a crush and he didn’t encourage it, but you’d think other adults would know better and, oh, I dunno- dig deeper into it, instead of blaming it on a child?

“She says you told Mr. Raxberry you loved him and he held you in his arms and fondled you.”

Which Prudence denies, because, again, she doesn’t know better. She then goes on to say that they did nothing wrong. To which the adult speaking to her, in this case, the principal, Miss Wilmott, goes on to say:

“I’m not sure that’s entirely true… I feel that there are some aspects of your friendship that could be considered inappropriate.”

FYI, lady, he kissed her- multiple times (not that kissing her once makes him any more redeemable), and told her he loved her, and admitted to fantasizing about running away with her and leaving his family behind. Fun fact: do you know Prudence is underage?

You’d think that Miss Wilmott would maybe give this whole fiasco a favorable ending, but it turns out she listens to school gossip;

“I haven’t been at all happy with your attitude. You don’t seem to understand how to behave in school. I’ve heard tales of unsuitable underwear and then a silly romance with one of the boys in your class. I feel that in the space of a few short weeks you’ve made rather a bad name for yourself… I don’t know whether you intend to be deliberately insolent but you certainly come across as an unpleasantly opinionated and arrogant girl… I can’t help feeling that you’ll be much better off elsewhere. I shall try hard to engineer a suitable transfer to another school.”

And then she comes out with this gem:

“If you won’t leave, then I shall have to ensure that Mr. Raxberry finds another position.”

“No, you can’t do that! He’s a brilliant teacher.”

“You should have thought of that before you started acting in this ridiculous and precocious manner. If I were another kind of headteacher, I would have Mr. Raxberry instantly suspended. There could even be a court case. He would not only lose his job, he could find himself in very serious trouble. Did you ever stop to think about that?”

Girlboss, gaslight and gatekeep. The fucking trifecta.

Also, by ‘another kind of headteacher’, does she mean the kind of headteacher WHO DOESN’T LET CHILD PREDATORS ROAM FREELY WITHIN THEIR HALLS?

This bitch is out here blaming a child, a literal child, for the crimes of an adult man.

The only time Prue seems aware of the fact that Mr. Raxberry is actually a very shit person is her immediate thoughts that follow after she tells Miss Wilmott she’ll take the fall;

I so wanted to save darling Rax- and yet why hadn’t he wanted to save me? Had he told Miss Wilmott it was all my fault, that I’d got a ridiculous crush on him, that I’d made ludicrous advances to him? … I wanted to tell this horrible, patronizing woman how hungrily he’d kissed me, but I couldn’t do it. I loved him. I had to help him.

NO, SWEETHEART; YOU MOST DEFINITELY DO NOT.

And maybe I’m going overboard with all these excerpts, but here’s what Rax has to tell Prue, after school, following her expulsion:

“I let her think the worst of you, the best of me, just to save my skin. I said it was ridiculous talking about a love affair between us. I said you simply had a crush on me, and that I was just trying to be kind… You were brave enough to stand up to me and force me to acknowledge the truth… I love you… That’s why I had to take a risk and see you this one last time. I didn’t want you to think I didn’t care… Every night when I close my eyes, I’ll think of us together in this car and how badly I wanted to drive off with you. I’ll imagine us walking hand in hand at the water’s edge… I wish I wasn’t such a coward.”

(I burrow into the pillow further. I’m trying to suffocate myself.)

And that’s where I think Wilson went wrong. Sure, Prudence getting expelled for something that was completely out of her hands is unfair, and horrible, but it’s real. That shit can happen.

What’s bad is showing Rax in a positive light after all that. If only Wilson had written Rax to not be the Romeo he thinks he is. Make him ignore Prudence, throw her under the bus in front of her face, instead of this star-crossed lovers bullshit it’s made out to be. Show your younger audience that Rax is not a good man. I’ve got a little over two weeks left for my twentieth; I can see why this is unacceptable. But I was a little younger than Prue when I watched Pretty Little Liars, and my only gripe with Aria dating Ezra was that Noel Kahn was so much cuter.

It shows when you scroll down the Goodreads reviews; you’ve got adults giving it one or two stars, and teenagers giving it four or five, with their biggest complaints being, “but Toby was cuter!!!”

Other non-pedophilia related complaints regarding the book include: Prudence being unlikable- which I didn’t really notice, considering she reacted to some people way better than I would’ve, even at 19 (which probably says a lot more about me than it does about Prue, but oh well). Still, Prudence obviously isn’t the most prudent of people- and again, she’s fourteen. Look me in eye and tell me you weren’t an arsehole at that age (unless you’re fourteen now, in which case, I assure you that you’ll look back on yourself someday and go ‘wtf was I thinking’). Bringing up Toby’s dyslexia in an argument was low, though.

There were people who thought the Kings’ almost-Amish lifestyle was exaggerated and unrealistic, but I assure you, it may very well be real. There are 8 billion people on the world- it’s fair to assume that several of them are complete weirdos.

Grace was a sweet character, and I adored her with every fiber of my being. As were her friends Iggy and Figgy. Honestly, I would’ve loved a book about Iggy, Figgy and Piggy’s (mis)adventures too.

#love lessons #jacqueline wilson #teacher #teacher crush #teacher x student #anti ezria #ezria #pretty little liars #aria montgomery #ezra fitz #when i kissed the teacher #book review #books

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gucciwins · 4 years

Text

Into You

Breakup’s bring heartache but they also bring a new beginning.

Word Count: 8658

A/N: Angst, it was fun to write. Honestly, I really loved this ending. I struggle with endings but this felt like the perfect one. Relationships take work and no communication can ruin that. Remember to love and to trust. I love you

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

Julia: Dinner at 7 Cafe Habana

Julia: He won't be there

You sigh at the sight of the second message. It's pathetic that your friends have to let you know, but you don't want to run right into him. It is the last thing you need but the thing you want most.

Pathetic.

Y/N: I'll be there x

You look at the text you sent and sign grateful for her reaching out. You haven't seen your friends in a few weeks, and it's been months since you've been to your favorite restaurant. Everyone knows how hard it's been since the breakup. They aren't choosing sides, but sharing a lot of the same friends is hard. You live in the city, and he's always on the road, it's only fair he gets to go out with them because you know you'll have other opportunities.

You wore a comfortable sundress and black flats, not wanting to drive in heels. A gold bracelet on your wrist, fingers bear no rings like you usually did. A ring tan sitting on your right index finger makes your eyes foggy, but you shake the thought away and enjoy the ride down PCH window down the ocean breeze coursing through your hair. Joni Mitchell on blast to overpower your thoughts of memories connected to this exact drive you're making.

Walking in, you take a deep breath and smile as soon as you open the door. The smile drops instantly when you see who's sitting two seats away from Julia right next to Jeff. Brown curls and a broad back. Tattoo's on display. You see her mouth an apology and lifts her phone. You walk out without a second thought, hoping they didn't see you.

Your phone rings once you're back in your car. It's Julia, so you answer.

"Hey babe, I didn't know I swear. He walked in with Jeff talking about how he was here for the weekend then going back home to London."

"It's fine, toots." You sigh.

"Are you doing okay?" She asks voice a bit low.

You're trying to choke back your tears, but it's hard. It's hard because he's so close yet so far. He seems fine, perfect even, and here you are crying in your car like a loser.

"It hurts, and it hurts to know he's fine. He's not hurting like I am. I miss-" You cut yourself off as you feel your tears falling down like a waterfall. "I want the pain to pass."

"Sweetie, do you want me to meet you at your apartment?"

"No, just let them know my sister called me and that it was a family emergency, but everything is fine. I'm going to head to her house for the weekend. Hug, my nephews. Stuff my face in cupcakes."

"As long as you promise to bring me one."

You laugh for the first time in what feels like forever. "That I can do."

"Next Saturday, Alex's birthday. Say you'll show up for him."

"I'm there. Got his gift all wrapped up."

"You're not alone." She reminds you. "Despite all you think, you're still our friend."

"Thank you. I love you, toots."

You know breakups are never easy, but this one flipped your entire world upside down. You're not sure what's up or down, left or right. All you know is you gotta keep putting one foot in front of the other.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

The music is loud. It hurts your head, and you can't hear yourself think.

It's perfect.

It's been so long since you allowed yourself to go out and drink. A party with friends is a guaranteed good time.

You decided to dress up. The way you dress is an excellent way to hide your emotions or so you've been told. A black dress, your favorite black dress. The little back dress that every woman is supposed to own. You paired it with red heels your sister gifted you two Christmas ago. Makeup was simple, but you did go with a bold red lip. It always made you feel more confident.

You're three shots in when you hear a voice behind you. You ignore it at first but turn around when they say your name.

"Jake?"

"In the flesh." He jokes.

"Oh my gosh!" You bring him in a hug before pulling back to get a good look at him. "I didn't know you were in town. Do you know Alex?"

"No, his sister is my girlfriend."

Your eyes widen. "No, we talk once a week, and you've never mentioned the girlfriend. Since when?" You punch his shoulder.

"We've been together close to eight months now." A big grin on his face.

"My best friend is all grown up. Committed relationship, met the family, next is moving in or baby if you're following your dad's footsteps." You tease.

"No, baby, but we are moving in together. My lease in Seattle is up, and she has hers for another year."

"I'm happy for you." You place a hand on his forearm, letting it rest there. "She's amazing, and we get along so well. It's perfect."

He nods, and you keep chatting as if no time has passed. It's comfortable with Jake, he's been your best friend since childhood, and although your sister thought you'd end up together, it just didn't work. You kissed once, and it was like kissing a wall. It's a sibling love, one that will never fade.

He clears his throat, causing you to look at him. "I heard about," You cut him off before he can continue.

"Think everyone has, but I'm good. I won't lie and say I've been fine because I haven't been, but I'm getting better." You tell him truthfully.

"Was it bad?"

You run a hand through your hair. "Awful. No yelling, we never liked to yell just lots of crying. I did the crying, and he did the heartbreaking."

He nods and hands you another shot that you accept happily.

"I was so lost the first week that I thought about moving from the state, the country." You laugh at the thought now. "But here is home, at least for now."

"Have you seen him? I know he always disliked me."

"That is true, could never get him to see you were just Jess to my Cece."

"Obviously, I was Cece." He fakes a hair flip.

"Well, of course, all I do is go home and break out singing to any song."

"Never change, buttercup." He kisses your head and then tenses up.

"Think I'd be six feet under if laser eyes existed."

"What makes you say that." You go to turn around, but he doesn't let you.

"He's at a table with Alex. Drink in hand, looking our way, and he doesn't look happy. Do you think he's going to march this way?" His hold tight on you.

You groan and lay your head on his chest. "If he made eye contact with you, then yes, he'll be over soon, so that means you got to go find your girlfriend, and I need the bartender's attention."

"Always a phone call away. We leave on Friday, dinner Wednesday." Jake walks away and quickly finds Annie. He whispers in her ear, and she looks your way. A big smile on her face and you blow her a kiss. She grabs it and stuffs it in her boobs. Annie's a weird one, but she's the best.

Knowing he's watching you makes you uncomfortable. He wasn't supposed to be here, this was your night, and now you just want to cry, don't even care about drinking anymore.

You walk out to the balcony and smile at the sight of the moon. LA doesn't allow much stargazing, but the moon always shines bright. Now would be a perfect time for a smoke, except you don't do that. Always were miss goody-two-shoes.

"Nice night." His voice interrupts your thoughts. "A bit chilly for Los Angeles." The deep, smooth voice sends chills down your body, not the weather.

"Weather is always unpredictable here." You mutter.

"How you've been," Harry asks, stepping closer.

"Fabulous."

Sarcastic answer. How typical of you.

"I haven't been that good either."

You're close to tears. "What do you want, Harry?"

"I wanted to check on you. Haven't seen you at any gathering of our friends." He twists his H ring, keeping his hands busy. "Bit worried."

"They're your friends, don't get no right going anymore."

Harry's three steps away. "Not true, everyone in there cares for you. Just because we-" He stops.

He can't even say it. He broke up with you, and he can't even say it.

"They all love you."

"Yeah, well, I wish I loved myself."

Harry flinches as if you've slapped him. The words hurt him, but not as much as they hurt you.

"Don't say that, love."

You turn to him. "I'm sure you want to be friends, and that's great, but I can't now." You let your tears run down your face, not caring that he can see. "I love you, and I was sure you were it for me, but I can't stand being around you without wanting your arms around me. I can't see you talk to everyone yet, not talk to me, but most importantly, I hate that I don't get to be the one going home with you anymore."

Harry remains quiet. Green eyes are filled with tears.

"You have to understand."

"No" You step close to him, heart close to beating out of your chest. "You have to understand that you destroyed us for your career. To benefit yourself, not caring what you broke along the way. It's been one month, and all I can think is that I'm not good enough for Harry Styles, the rockstar. No, he needs another famous person on his arm, not an elementary school teacher who doesn't own a pair of Gucci shoes."

"Please let me," Harry's voice cracks.

"A year. Twelve months. 365 days. All for what, all for nothing. "I love you," and "we'll have a small wedding." It was all a lie. I was just kept around for fun while you took a break from touring. Maybe I'll be good enough to write a song about."

"You don't get to do that." He cries.

"Why not!" You tell. "You broke up with me with no warning out of the blue. We had sex on the kitchen counter, and fourteen hours later, you broke my heart." You have so much sadness and anger, and you know you're close to drowning. "I had no choice but to let you go, but for all I know, you've let go of me weeks before."

"I don't know what to say."

"You're not the man I thought you were." You walk away from the hand on the door. Your back to him, his shoulders are shaking in sobs. "That's the most disappointing thing, you lost yourself in the industry now you're just one of them."

You walk out and catch Julia's eyes. She goes to step forward but stops herself when she sees you shake your head no. You can name everyone in that room, but you know that at the end of the day they'll pick Harry.

It hurts, but all one can do is pick themselves up and move on.

✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:* ✧･ﾟ: *✧･ﾟ:*

The days go by slow, but Summer has finally arrived. The California heat is only rising, but it’s a cooler day, and you're at the beach when you look over at your sister laughing as her husband splashes her with water.

Your stomach twists in the worst ways possible, you're jealous and green isn't a good color. You've spent most of the time caring for your two nephews seeing as your sister and husband worked not that you minded you did have the summer off.

It's been four months since the breakup, and some days it feels like it was yesterday. The pain comes crashing back when you wake up and stretch your hand out to touch him but tense up because you know when you open your eyes, he won't be there.

Malibu beach is not a place you've frequented, but little Ty asked for this specifically, and none of you never learned how to tell him no.

You close your book and grab your phone from the bottom of the bag. Slip your hoodie over your head, the breeze picking it up, and adjust your black shorts. You signal to Tess that you're going for a walk and that you have her phone. She sends a thumbs up. There you go on a walk with your back towards the sun.

It's funny, before dating Harry you walked the beach every Sunday on your own. Enjoying the laugh of families and the seagulls flying high. Then he joined you and together hand in hand, you'd walk down talking and sometimes just taking in the silence allowing the waves to do all the talking for you. Towards the end, he'd convince you to stay in and cuddle him, and beach Sunday became cuddle Sundays. You can’t remember a time you did go on a walk alone again when you were with him.

In the end, you lost both. Lost Harry and lost the love of the ocean because of the painful memories tied to it. With time you must remember the things lost and changed, but this is something you're reclaiming. Routine is constant and good. It gives stability and strength.

"Sweetie," you hear someone yell but keep on walking. It's probably a child going in too deep.

You stop when you hear your name being yelled and turn expecting to see Tess but instead are met with kind blue eyes. A sincere smile on her face. It's Anne.

"Oh dear, thought it was you." She says.

"Hi, Anne." You say a bright look of surprise on your face.

Anne steps in close and puts her arms around you in a big hug. A mother's embrace is one you've longed for and will continue to long for the rest of your life. Anne treated you as a daughter from the moment you met, and that's something you're sad to have lost.

"You look so tan, how long have you been in town?" You ask, admiring her as you pull away.

"A week. Came down to visit Harry." She offers a small smile at the name of her son.

"That's great. Summer's a good time to enjoy the ocean here." Anne nods, agreeing. "How were you able to spot me?" You ask genuinely surprised she was able to do so.

"I'd recognize you anywhere. The yellow jumper helped."

You look down and chuckle. "It does shout "look at me.""

You stand there a few more seconds looking around nervous to ask her to join you, but you really liked her company, and as much as you like being alone now was not the time.

"I was just walking down, would you like to join me?" You look down at your toes afraid she'd say no.

"Oh, yes, my dear. Sounds fantastic."

She takes a step forward, and off you go. It's quiet, not the uncomfortable kind, but allows you to get lost in your own thoughts with no pressure of not starting a conversation. Your thoughts are calm, it might be the ocean or Anne, but you're grateful. Losing Harry wasn't just losing him, it was losing everyone that he introduced you to. You were friends for over a year before you started to date. You met Anne a month into the friendship, and it was easy. She doted on you for your kind and quiet nature. She had said something about your aura being pure.

You didn't have a mom, she died when you were three in a car accident. Your dad being in and out of rehab but enough to keep the roof over your head. Once Tess turned eighteen, she got an apartment and moved you both in. At eleven years old, you got the call your dad died. Tess adopted you, and ever since then, it was the two of you. That is until she met Andrew in a biology class. He helped Tess pass with an A. Turns out that he was studying to be a doctor. They started dating once the semester was over and didn't look back. Tess was always a good student, maintaining A's and B's while caring for you. Andrew learned of the situation and didn't leave like most people would do no, he stayed right there. He became a constant and even began to help with school work and projects. You always told Tess that you were preparing her to be a great mom. Andrew's family was very accepting of Tess; they treated her as their own, but you never felt like you belonged. It was the perfect family, but you didn't see where you fit in. Tess knew that, but she reminded you that she wasn't going to walk away from you that you would always be her number one. To this day, it stands true, obviously falling a little under her children, but love still strong.

But with Anne, she didn't see you as someone broken or lost but someone who needed a bit more love. Love is what she has given you, she became your friend, someone you could trust in along with Gemma. It felt like your world was falling apart when Harry broke up with you because you couldn't turn to them, and your sister had her family to worry about. You always were good at becoming unseen when needed. Never wanting to be a bother. Except, here with her by your side, you don't know how you're supposed to let her go.

Anne stops walking and takes a seat in the sand, placing her sandals by her side, and you join her without questioning her.

"I waited for your phone call. Every day for the past week when Harry gave me the news even though I knew you wouldn't call." Anne cleared her throat softly. "I hoped you would."

You sigh. Those words were enough to bring tears to your eyes. You thought you were dried out of tears, but you were wrong. "I was close on many nights but- I-I it felt wrong too. He's your son, how could I do that to him?"

"He may be my son, but you're important too. My heart has enough space in there for you in a relationship with him or not."

You nod. Trying to wrap that around your head that she loves you even though Harry does not.

"The breakup came out of nowhere. The day before we're fine talking about adopting a cat and the next, he sits me down to tell me we're breaking up." You block the memories trying to resurface and trace small circles on the sand.

You did out a seashell and cleaned it off before asking your question.

"Did he tell you why he was doing it?" It hurts to ask, but you need to know if he was honest with her.

Anne sighs but nods. "He said that it wasn't going to work out. You couldn't handle the public eye anymore and that it would only continue to affect you and your job. Said something about not fitting the image."

A tear falls down, but you're quick to wipe it away. "He sat me down and told me we were breaking up. Didn't let me ask why or anything. A year together is nothing in this industry, we barely made it a month to the public eye. You'll be forgotten quickly, also tell me that because he was working on the new album, he needed an image more than the one he had."

"That's not who I raised him to be," Anne says, disappointment evident in her voice.

"Although he broke my heart, I still love him. I still love him as much as I did when we first got together. I just don't trust him."

Anne grabs your hand and links it together. She anchors you together because although she knows that she said you can count on her, this would most likely be the end of your relationship. Neither of you wants to admit it.

"It's funny, the first month I avoided every place we ever went together, and it was hard because we did a lot around here. There are roads I avoid completely. This is my second time back at this beach, and I loved it here." You run a hand through your tangled hair due to the ocean breeze. "But now I'm going back to these places, and I pray every time I get out of the car not to run into him even though that's exactly what I want to happen. It's cliche, I know, but I really did lose my best friend." The tears are falling silently, and you are grateful Anne doesn't comment on it, but you swear you can see her eyes glisten. You rest your head on her shoulder and look out at the waves, no clouds in sight, just a clear blue sky. How you wish your brain would look this blank.

There's so much you want to tell Harry now months after the breakup, but there's the fear of breaking down in front of him.

"Anne"

"Yes, darling." She responds softly.

"I-I uh-" You clear your throat. "If I were to give you a letter to Harry, would you give it to him. There are some things I need to get off my chest, and he needs to know."

"That I can do."

You sit up and grab both her hands and bring them to your chest. She looks at your love and sadness in her eyes. "You can only give it to him when you know he's better. He will need to hear this later when our hearts don't ache as much. When you as a mom realize he needs it. It'll be the closure we both need."

"I promise."

You make plans to meet for breakfast the next morning as she has no plans and knows he's busy. You'll deliver the letter and be on your way, closing that door behind you. You spend half an hour together more before you walk her down to the pier and make your way back to your sister. Heart heavy but not as broken.

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You roll over and smile when you see Harry still asleep. He's lying on his stomach, and his head turned in your direction. You lay on your side, happy to admire him. There's a hint of a smile on his face, must be from the dream he is having. His long eyelashes resting on his cheeks, looking delicate and fragile. Not an inch of stress on his face. You can't help yourself and bring your index finger up to trace over his plump pink lips. Soft. You stop when you see him twitch a little but continue when he lets out a small snore. The room is quiet; your apartment is not located on a busy street, something your sister said was a must for when your nephews came to stay. You let Harry rest and get up going to the living room. You sit on the floor looking out at the window at the birds flying around, chirping away basking in the morning sun. You hear the creek of your door and know Harry is on his hunt for you. He's clumsy, so you won't be surprised if he crashes into the couch. He still must be tired. You hear a quiet "shit" and let out a chuckle. He stumbled around the corner with his misplaced shoes. You don't comment on it knowing he'd just turn the blame on you because he got out of bed for you.

"Poppet, after last night, I thought you'd like to wake up in my arms." Harry sits behind you, the blanket wrapped around him now being placed over you as he drags you into his lap.

"I'm an early riser, you know that."

He sighs into your ear. "Means I didn't tire you out enough last night."

"Oh no, you did just that. The bruises are proof."

He laughs and kisses your neck lightly three times.

"Coffee in the kitchen if you want some. Also, some muffins Gabby bought me for taking her dog on the hike with me."

"I want something else for breakfast." He whispers into your ear. His hand sliding up your thigh. He's met with your black shorts, he knows there is nothing underneath seeing as he put these on for you. "Will you let me?"

"Only cause you asked nicely."

Harry is quick to lay you on your back. Your shorts come off just as quickly, he pushes your shirt up to expose your breasts. He sits back on his knees and allows you to see how hard he is in his shorts.

"You're beautiful" He breathes out. "A true dream."

"You told me that last night repeatedly." You remind him how he whispered in your ear at dinner with your friends around how the red dress had him hard as soon as he saw you walk in. You knew that if he picked you up, you would not have left your apartment. The night ended precisely how you wanted with Harry in your bed. Three months dating, it felt right.

It was perfect.

He leans in, placing small kisses on your calves, slowly moving up to your thighs. He kissed last night's bruises gently, a reminder of how rough he got once he got a taste of you. It drove him crazy.

"Smell so sweet." He dragged his lips up to your core. His tongue between your folds, you moan softly under him. He pressed little kisses to your clit, you felt him smiling against you when he felt your thighs begin to tremble.

You let out a louder moan when he slipped a finger inside, your hands reached down to grasp at his hair. He pulled back to look up at you with dark eyes, smiling at you with wet lips.

"You're a tease, baby." You breathe out as he slips in a second finger. He moves slowly, building up the pressure.

He brings his mouth back down to your clit, gently grazing his teeth over it.

"Oh, fuck!" You gasp.

"C'mon poppet, come for me." A moan leaves your lips when his tongue picks up speed, making up for the loss of his fingers. "Please, let go for me."

You grip his hair harder, letting your orgasm take over your whole body. His tongue slowing down as you throw your head back and lay your hands on your side. He slowly works you through it until he sees your breathing come down, gentle kisses to your hips. He works up until he gets to your breasts. He leans in kissing each one gently. "Sorry, I neglected these beauties. I got so lost in you."

Harry continues to move slowly, but you have had enough of slow. You pull him up into your arms, until he settles on top and kiss him until it leaves you breathless.

You taste yourself on him, Harry kissing you harder as your hand begins to trail down to his shorts. He breaks the kiss and leans your head left, giving him more access to your neck, which he accepts quickly. He's slow and gentle compared to last night.

"Going to let me make love to you, poppet." You nod wishing he'd move quicker as he kicks his shorts away.

“Yes” You whisper, he’s building up the anticipation.

He lines himself up, slowly pushing in. You let out a whispered fuck at his size. He goes in gently, not wanting to hurt you, always wanting you to feel good.

Harry leans forward, kissing you as he begins to move against you.

"Baby," You breathe out. "B-baby-y-y faster."

Harry keeps your lips close, his breathing picking up. Whispered words against your lips. “I'm going to make love to you for the rest of my life. It's you and me, poppet."

Your eyes shoot open, and you're quick to look around. You're in bed, left side empty.

He's not here.

He hasn't been here for months. Why does he keep coming back? Your brain needs to let him go, but you know that isn't the one holding on to him.

You get out of bed and walk to the kitchen for a glass of water. There has never been an easy way to move on. This letter might be the best start.

Harry,

I love you. I'll always love you.

That's hard to stay, but it's the truth. You are my best friend. Remember the first time we talked on the phone and how we didn't want to hang up, so we talked about everything. From my first broken bone to your job at a bakery. You told me all about your childhood and all your dreams. At that time, I thought I would be at your side cheering you on as you were accomplishing them but that’s not the case. Just know that I'll be rooting for you.

I'm sorry I didn't fight for you. Guess it seemed like I didn't love you, but I did. I do. I think only ever having my sister on my side, I never realized I never learned to fight for those I love. Never doubt my love, it's real.

Don't be afraid to move on and love again, you deserve it. You deserve the greatest love out there.

Remember, just because you love summer doesn't mean it can stay because who knows what October can bring.

Maybe one day we'll find a way back into each other's lives, but until then, take care, H.

Y/N

You put it in the envelope and seal it. You write his name on the front.

It's time to close the chapter, time to move onto the next.

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October has finally rolled in, and you couldn't be more excited. Autumn brings in the cold and the changing of the leaves, but if you were to ask the students, it just means candy. For the month each Friday, a new activity is done in honor of Halloween. Your classroom is decorated in pictures drawn of your student's favorite movies. As well as small pumpkin string lights your sister gifted you last year. Your classroom door has black paper covering it and white ghosts—22 one for each student with their name on them stuck to it. You added caution tape to give it more detail. Then added small pumpkins around. It reads "Spooky Students" the class had a good laugh at the name, proper pleased.

The first week was simple, doing a math game.

Candy corn math.

The children enjoyed it, all having fun adding and subtracting. Tina ate one and almost cried because she thought she'd get in trouble. You assured her it was all for fun. Then let them all eat their treats as you played them Halloween music. Fridays are meant to relax and have fun. That's exactly what you show your students.

The second week they make spider headbands. Grace, your teacher assistant, helps with the cutting and stapling. The students enjoy gluing the spider's eyes most. It's an easy project when the students are focused on it. You have an hour of the day left and decide to play, It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. It's starting, and as you're organizing the glues and packing away the scissors in their pencil boxes, Nicole, the front desk assistant, tells you there's a package you have to sign for. You nod to Grace to look over the class, and she gives you a thumbs up in return. As you reach the main office, you see a baker with two boxes chatting with Matthew Collins, the Vice-Principal.

"Good afternoon gentlemen, I assume this is for me." You say, pointing to the pink boxes.

"Good afternoon, got your kids treats, I see." He acknowledges.

You shake your head, stepping to look at the note sitting on top of the box. You flip it open.

Figured you and the children deserved a sweet treat. Take care, honey. xx Anne

PS: A dozen snickerdoodle cookies are waiting for you at home.

Anne, always so sweet and thoughtful. You had kept in contact with her after that time you handed her the letter. You came to realize you couldn't lose her, and she wasn't about to let you go without a fight.

"A good friend actually sent them, knows how excited we get for October." You tuck the note in your cardigan pocket.

"Well, that's a great friend to have. I hope your class and you enjoy it. Have a great weekend." Mr. Collins leaves, and you bid goodbye to the baker.

As you make your way back to your class with two dozen cupcakes, you can't wipe the grin on your face. They are going to be so excited. The cupcakes are half chocolate and half vanilla. The orange frosting swirled beautifully on each one, each topped with a spider ring.

You return, and all the kids are focused on the scene when Sally begins to yell at Linus as he's waking up for making her miss the Halloween festivities. Grace is quick to help you tell the kids you have a surprise for them all. The movie still plays as Grace places napkins on their desks.

"A friend sent me a treat for you all because she heard how wonderful you've been doing." You tell them slowly approaching closer for them to see the box in your hand. "Say, do any of you like cupcakes." Cheers filled the room with your words.

You both worked fast to give them each a cupcake of choice, no arguing whatsoever. Kind students you have. Grace grabs chocolate, and you grab the last vanilla for yourself. Grace lets you know she's going to get waters from the cafeteria to give to them.

You sit at the back counter legs cup, leaning against a llama poster that says, "We love learning." A small gift for Julia. You grab the cupcake and fix your spider headband before taking a picture to send to Anne.

Y/N: Cupcakes were a real success. I can't thank you enough. Love you, xx.

Anne: Don't you look precious.

Anne: Glad, you all enjoyed it. Love you xx

It's an excellent way to end the week with a sweet treat from Anne and good old classic Charlie Brown.

It is now the third week. The four first grade classes made a trip to the pumpkin patch. The school budget did get slightly raised this year, allowing you to buy small easy to carry pumpkins for each student. Parent chaperones are enabling you to make smaller groups to take each student to different activities. Your small group of six decided on the slide mountain that was atop of bales. It was fun, even going down yourself. Then that led you to picking pumpkins. Joey has trouble deciding before leaving the slightly bigger one when his arms got tired. You decided to get two big ones and two small pumpkins to take to your sister's house and you could carve together this weekend. It was now your turn for the hayride, and Chloe was really excited. She was the first one on, and as the trip went on, her head kept turning, wanting to see it all. This place really outdoes themselves each year, decorations only getting better. As it was closing time to go back to school, all students sat at the tables awaiting their apple cider and cinnamon-sugar donuts.

You were about to take a seat next to Henry, the shyest student in your class when your name is called. You turn around and see Jeff, Harry's manager, and friend.

"Hi Jeff," You step close and accept the hug he offers.

"How have you been?" He asks.

You nod. "Good, welcoming the cold weather."

"It is nice."

Your grin begins to fade slightly as the small talk gets awkward. It's been a long time since you've seen Jeff. Not at all, forgetting how important a friend he was to you as well as Glenne.

"What brings you here?"

"On a class field trip." You gesture to the table behind you, seeing the kids sneak glances at you.

"That is wonderful, good class this year?"

You grin thinking about each of your students. "The best."

"Her cider is getting cold." Susan whispers, the small wide-eyed blonde says to Joey, worrying for you.

"I've got to go back, probably going to bomb me in questions as soon as I sit."

"Of course." Jeff smiles in understanding.

"Tell Glenne I say hello. Take care, Jeff."

You turn around, heading to the table. You laugh as your students quiet down as you take a seat.

"Alright, what do you want to know now?"

The students always take your mind off everything. No conversation is ever dull, still trying their best to find out more about their teacher.

Although seeing Jeff was nice, he's not the person you wished to run into every day.

No, that someone has beautiful brown curls and emerald green eyes.

The end of day breezes by, back in the classroom, the students grabbed their backpacks and walked out front to meet their parents. As you tidy up the classroom, Grace walks in a tight smile on her face. You know she has something to ask, but don't pressure her to do so.

"Was that man a friend, we saw you with," Grace asks, wiping down the desks, "mom's were gossiping, thinking you were being asked out or was an old flame. Don't have to tell me, but he did look like a friend, at least an old one."

You close your planner, happy with the coming week's plan. "My ex's friend.." You explain. "We were close. He was always kind and welcoming. Lost a lot of people during the breakup."

She shoots you a small smile. "Never easy, but you don't get through it alone. Some people are meant to come into your life as lessons."

Grace's optimism never fails to make you grin. "That is really nice to hear."

"I keep waiting for the grand gesture for my ex to sweep me off my feet." Talking about this, tears at your heart, but it has weighed you down. "I just want to run into him. Go to our favorite places in hopes of seeing him even just for a moment."

"That means you're not ready to put yourself out there?" Her voice was full of curiosity.

"Correct. I love Harry, I always will, but my heart seems to be holding on for some reason."

"I'm a phone call away if you ever want to get drunk and watch movies and eat our weight in food." She offers sincerely.

"I'll keep that in mind."

Grace bids you goodbye and walks out. It's nice to be reminded you have people around you supporting you, but all you want today is to see the sunset and you know just the spot.

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Malibu is known for having the best spots for the ocean view and standing here, a blanket wrapped around you, hearing the waves continue to crash with the rocks below you believe it is. You came here because you know not many people know about this location and if the other two cars there say anything about it continues to be unknown.

Growing up in Southern California, you have always been grateful to have the ocean nearby. You and your sister would always make your way here to celebrate good days or to clear your head. You spent your day here when you got accepted into UCLA and when Andrew proposed to Tess. This place is full of good memories; it's like being there all the bad in your life disappears. Bringing Harry here for the first time was a big step in your relationship, it was you letting him get to know you, no barriers in the way.

You hear a car pull up, but don't bother looking over thinking the person might be heading down the trail. It's a couple, and you can hear the girl whisper something then heads off to the dirt trail. You're not sure how long you stand there when you take one final look before unwrapping the blanket and placing it in your trunk. Just as you are about to close it, you hear your name called.

You turn around quickly and are surprised to see him. You weren't even aware he was here, last you heard he was on the last leg of his world tour.

He's dressed in a black Columbia hoodie, grey Nike shorts, and black running shoes. His hair has beautiful long curls, and he's got a clean-shaven face, always made him look younger but does give a good view of his strong jawline.

"Harry," You breathe out.

Your heart is beating so fast you think it might jump out of your chest. You've been waiting for the day you run into him, but it was not today.

It might be the worst day. After a field trip with first graders, no one is making out as clean as they arrived that morning. Your lavender knitted sweater has sugar stains, and your old blue jeans have dirt on your knees from kneeling to help with the pumpkins. You wore old black converse never bothered with the dust, but this time you wish you had your back up pair. You don't even want to imagine how your hair looks. You snap out of your thoughts when Harry stops giving you a once over and breaks the silence.

"I always seem to find my way here." He tells you, looking down at his shoes.

You sit in your open trunk of your CR-V and scoot over to let him know to sit. He does so without saying more. It's a heavy silence, but you don't give it much thought looking out at the ocean.

"I got your letter."

The letter you wrote four months ago. If you're honest, you didn't think back to that since you handed it over to Anne.

"When?" You questioned.

"Two weeks ago," He looks over at you, staring at you, waiting for you to look over at him. "How long did mum have it?"

You lock eyes with him, his eyes filled with curiosity and kindness. "Since June." You look away, not able to take in all the emotions coming up. "Guess you were finally ready for it."

Harry nods and stands up, and he walks a few steps before making his way back to stand in front of you. He looks nervous about sharing, and all you can do is offer him a smile. He lets out a deep breath.

"I went on this date that Jeff set up for me, and it was awful. Nice girl, but everything felt wrong. It was wrong." He runs a hand through his loose curls as if to get rid of the nerves. "I looked at her, closed my eyes, and opened them, and the person I wanted it to be was not in front of me."

Harry's looking at you as you try to wrap your head around his words. You don't know how to respond. He was waiting for you, but he was the one who left you.

"You didn't realize it until then?" You're confused. It took him eight months to realize he made a mistake.

He stares right at you, not wanting you to miss his next words. "I realized it the second you walked out the door."

Your face drops at his words.

Harry runs a hand down his face before taking a step forward. "I tried to find you. I would go all over Los Angeles hoping to run into you, but I stopped after the party when you told me the truth."

"I was harsh, felt awful at how I handled it afterward."

"Don't apologize," he gives you a half-smile, "I deserved that. Honestly, I needed it."

You both go silent. You're staring at one another, memorizing each other's faces that you had begun to forget. You could stare at Harry forever, and you always told him that he had a face one could get lost in forever, finding new details to memorize.

"Do you even remember that night?" You ask because you know you do. It used to haunt your dreams until it didn't. That day no longer lingers at the back of your head, but if you think back to it, all the emotions come again, hitting you harder than ever.

Harry sighs, "Every time I close my eyes."

You walk into your apartment, surprised at the quietness. Harry always liked to have music playing. He's sitting on the couch staring at the black screen of his phone.

"H, ready to cook dinner, got home early because you said you wanted lasagna tonight. Always faster when we cook together." Stepping closer to see why he's sitting so still on the couch.

"Sit with me." He whispers, patting the seat next to him.

You sit down, reaching to grab his hand, and he lets you. He squeezes it tightly before letting go.

"I love you." His eyes meet yours. He looks in pain. "But I'm breaking up with you."

A million thoughts run through your head. Harry's breaking up with you. He's leaving you.

He looks at you, waiting for you to say something. "It's not easy for me, but it's what's best for my career. I will be going back on tour soon, releasing a single. You wouldn't handle all the attention with paparazzi well, so I'm saving you. It's easier for others in the business, but you wouldn't survive this"

His words cut daggers into your heart.

It's best for my career.

It keeps repeating in your head, his job, he doesn't think you're enough for his lifestyle. You weren't enough to keep him happy.

"Harry, it doesn't-" The tears are rolling down your face, you can tell he wants to reach over to wipe them, but he holds himself back. "So this is it?"

He nods. "The end for us, but we can-" You cut him off before he can say, friends.

You already had him in your life as a friend. You can't go back to that not after knowing how he loves being the little spoon, how much he loves his hair being played with, but most importantly, how kind and gentle of a lover he is. He has so much love to give and do not receive that any more will break your heart: no kisses, no hugs, and no love.

You grab your keys, bag, and slip your shoes on. "Goodbye, Harry."

He stands eyes red, he looks sad, but he has no right. He wanted this, not you. His house had become a second home, but now you feel like an unwelcome guest. You walk out without looking back each step towards your car, making you cry harder.

This is the end. An end, you never saw coming.

It seems like you were both lost in the memory when you hear Harry begin to weep quietly. Your heart pulls you in two ways, wanting to comfort him or sitting there, letting him cry, but before you can decide, he's wiping his tears.

He lifts his head to meet your eyes, his eyes keep filling with tears, but he doesn't bother to wipe them anymore. "Are you happy?" he whispered.

You nod a small smile on your face to assure him. "I am. I'm not sad and miserable anymore, but I'm also not filled with sunshine. I lost a lot when we broke up; you have to know that," He nods letting you know he's listening. "I also found myself, found love I lost over the years. Found love in me."

He smiles when he hears that his dimples were coming out. "That day at the party, I was in the worst place possible, but I reached out to my sister and told her I needed therapy. I wouldn't have gone if it weren't for my sister's support. Honestly, you were in the back of my mind because you shared to me how important and impactful it was for you, and I know I had so much to share not just from the breakup but from my childhood."

"I'm glad." He chokes out his voice, rough from crying.

"I am too." You smile because this is nice. All the running you did didn't allow you to talk with Harry, but the time has come, and you're grateful for that.

"I wasn't planning on coming up here today, obviously," You gesture to your dirty clothes. "I had that pull to come here as soon as I was pulling out of the school parking." You confess to him.

"I finished a yoga class and was on my way home when I took the wrong exit," Harry corrects himself, "Or well the right turn looking at it now."

You're not sure where you stand with Harry, but you both know the feelings are still there. As if they never left.

"We can't pick up where we left off."

Harry nods, agreeing. "In that case, may I take you out on a date Sunday?"

"I'd love that, Harry."

You stand up and pull him in for a hug. You know you surprise him because he tenses up before wrapping his arms around you. You sigh as you feel Harry squeeze you tight. He breathes you in, and you can't help but let out a small laugh.

"Did you just sniff me?" You're laughing against his chest feeling his heartbeat pick up.

"Oi, don't laugh at me. You smell like strawberries." He defends.

"Pretty sure I smell like dirt and sweat. A field trip running around kids will do that to you."

"I disagree." He pulls back to look down at you, but you keep your head on his chest, liking being in his arms. "Always smell great."

You move to pull back, thinking it must be too much too soon for both of you, but Harry doesn't let you. He holds on tighter. "Couple more minutes, please love," He whispers against your hair. You nod and let him begin to sway you both gently as if you were both ones with the wind.

"Is it too forward to ask to kiss you?" Harry asks timidly.

You lean back and laugh before looking up at him, his eyes hopeful but also knowing. "It is."

"It was worth a shot."

Harry leans in to gently press a kiss to your forehead, his lips soft. He steps back after a few seconds. "I'll call you."

You nod. "Please do."

Harry holds his car door open but makes no move to step in as if waiting for something. You don't want him to leave.

"Harry," You call out. He turns around and shoots you a cheesy smile causing you to smile back. "I really want you to kiss me, trust me but,"

Harry nods in understanding. "Slow and steady, love."

You stare at him, and his eyes are bright and hopeful. Hopeful in their future together. "Slow and steady, we can do that."

Just like that, you and Harry both drive away from each other, but your future together has never looked brighter.

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Thank you for reading! I love you

Come talk to me and tell me what you thought of Into You

#harry styles writing #harry styles fanfiction #harry styles angst #harry styles fluff #harry styles smut #harry styles one shot #harry styles story #harry styles x reader #harry styles x you #harry styles imagine #harry styles #my writing

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crash-cinematic-universe · 4 years

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Troy Barnes Headcanons

hey gay people time for troy because i love him. im sure i will go on a multi-paragraph rant about how donald glover is actually the perfect man in the near future but for now we TROY

first of all: troy is gay

also? he’s like really fucking bad at soccer

one time he saw Abed wearing his Letterman jacket and he cried

troy used to see episodes of inspector spacetime on the tv when he was in middle school and he HATED it. he thought it was a lame stupid nerd show. and then abed fell in love with it and suddenly troy realized that the real lame stupid nerds were middle school jocks.

when abed first proposed the idea of the dreamatorium, troy was elated

there was a part of his brain. an itty bitty tiny part of his brain that was like. what if we banged in there loooooool

good for him

troy pretends that he has game but he does. not

thats why he likes abed so much. he doesnt NEED to have game

god how did this turn into trobed headcanons goddamn

troy is Insecure with a capital I

he feels weak because of how sensitive and emotional he is

he didnt understand his sexuality for 21 years of his life and thats Kinda Wacky Tacky bro

he’s ashamed and feels like a failure because of the football incident

thats why he’s so happy to have his friends

because they’re always there to show him that his emotions are valid and that a few mistakes doesn’t make you a total failure

el oh el does he know that i love him

he does everything he can to make annie feel welcome and appreciated by the group because he feels guilty for how she was treated in high school

he idolizes jeff because he seems so cool

he appreciates britta for showing him that his feelings are valid and that he shouldnt feel bad for being a gay person

gay people are epic and cool i would know im one of them technically

his favorite form of showing affection is holding hands and thats why he’s constantly holding abed’s hand

troy sings to help abed sleep sometimes

troy has a crush on batman but only after the halloween party where abed dressed up as batman. troy didn’t realize the connection until later

troy is unbelievably protective of his friends (mostly abed) and he gets jealous like. really fucking easily

he is just afraid! of losing his buddies!

he made all of his friends friendship bracelets

jeff doesn’t wear his, but he keeps it on his key chain

annie wears hers but she takes it off and loses it

pierce doesn’t wear his because it makes him feel “trashy” what a bitch

britta wears hers but it breaks pretty quickly and she forgets about it

shirley wears hers but only with certain outfits

abed wears his all the time. he never takes it off. abed’s bracelet outlives everyone in the study group because he treasures it like its gold

king

he cannot draw for SHIT

Troy doesn’t have very good grades, but he does have certain subjects where he’s just fuckin wild man

besides. you know. plumbing and stuff

for example: astronomy? after he and annie studied and abed told his about the solar system? troy is almost an expert

overall troy is just. he is just a cool dude whom i love a lot

#troy barnes #abed nadir #troy barnes headcanons #community #community tv #community headcanons #the greendale seven #donald glover

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daydreaming-cheese-weasel · 3 years

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does anybody else not really ship annie with anyone? like I am so totally on board with lesiannie but I don’t ship her with britta? I can’t really see them together for some reason, maybe britta is just really chaotic and im not sure annie would be great with someone with that kind of personality. also i can kinda see how someone might ship jeff and annie- they have a nice dynamic- but a) i love the lesiannie hc and b) I can’t see them together in the long run. I think they would realize that it wouldn’t be the healthiest thing for either of them. jeff is older and he needs to “let the kid stuff go” and annie is still young and even though I believe she’s found herself and her path, there’s still a lot to life for her to live before settling down. some people also ship her with abed, which is cute, but she doesn’t understand him like troy does. i think abed would fall for somebody who gets him, but won’t control him (like troy!!). annie is rather controlling, as we know and i don’t think it would really work. annie needs someone who would change with her and grow with her but still be grounded. changing isn’t abed’s jam. jeff is already pretty much settled and learning how to just be older and okay with that and grounded. and britta changes a bit too much... none of these people would be right for her, imo. i wonder how old frankie is? that might be kinda cute if they are close in age. they have “the same dragon” which I think is so awesome and they are similar but also have very different personalities. these are just a few thoughts, no hate to anybody who ships annie with any of these people or anyone else, ofc!!

#annie edison #britta perry #lesiannie #jeff winger #frankie dart #abed nadir #troy barnes

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simping-for-tape · 4 years

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Drunk Calls and Funny Confrontations

Requested? [Yes/No] @decaffeinated--fangirl

Fandom: Community

Summary: In which Jeff calls you, intoxicated, and you let him know that you care for him.

Word Count: 968

Warnings: Alcohol, Secondhand embarrassment.

Jeff shoots the liquid down his throat, the taste stinging his tongue. It was 10:00 in the evening, and he wasn't the only poor soul in the bar.

Ever since Slater and Britta confessed to Jeff, he doesn't know what to do with himself. He likes both of them, but he knows they have to choose one. What made it even worse is that they despise each other, and that hate would be latched onto him if he picked either one.

He wasn't the one to make decisions. If he had to make one, he would have lied about it, like when he was a lawyer. But this is important. When two fantastic and beautiful women-a smart & hot professor who you flirt with during the class and can help you be a better person, and someone's pants you want to get in but it turns out that she's a smart, amazing woman who takes no shit, it would be a tough decision.

He orders two, three, then ten more. His limbs becoming weaker and his walk has a stumble to it. How anybody didn't stop him walking out of the bar is beyond me.

The distance from the bar to his apartment wasn't long, but it was hard to walk there if you can't even walk at all.

He manages to open the front door, but as soon as he feels something in his throat, he runs to the nearest object, which was a plant that Annie asked him to take care of while she was on vacation. He emptied his stomach into the dirt, wiping his residue off his face, and groggily walks to the bedroom. He wonders how he's gonna tell Annie that he was so careless that he vomited in her plant while drunk.

He belly-flops onto the mattress and lay there until he felt bored and started to scroll on his phone, wanting to call someone, anyone who would be willing to listen. Jeff randomly picks one of his contacts on the phone and starts to ramble.

You walk into the study room, a smirk on your face. Your walk was radiating confidence, and you have never been brighter in your whole life.

You open the door to the study room where Jeff was leaning back on his seat, shades covering his eyes.

You leaned over to his ear. "Good morning Jeff!" You shouted and laughed as he jumped from his seat so fast, his shades falling off his face.

He glared at you while holding his head. "Hi," he tiredly replied, "and can you not be loud?"

You sat at your designated seat beside Jeff. "Sorry," you apologized, though you didn't actually mean it, "So, how was your night?"

"Spectacular," he replied sarcastically and you rolled your eyes, "Wait," he turned to you, "How did you know..."

"That you went drinking?" You smirked deviously at him, "When you went out, I got a call from somebody at about one in the morning. Does that sound familiar to you?"

Jeff furrows his eyebrows at you. "Y/N, what are you talking about..." he trails off as you take out your phone from your pocket. He visibly tenses up. "Oh, no."

"Oh yes, Jeff," you smiled innocently at him as you press play.

"Heyyy...whoever I'm calling, *hic* How are youuuu doooinnngg? Ahhh...I'm so drunk right now. So, what uuuup? *hic* Annnnywayyys, I just wanted call to tell you I looooove youuu. I hope this goes to Britta. Or Slater. Or a snail. Heh. Snails are soooo cool. What am I thinking? This is stupid. I don't know what to do. I like both of them so much. I mean, Slater is mature, smart, sexy, and cool, someone I can get along with. And Britta, Britta is... well... she's Britta, and that's a compilment...or is it compliment? Compl... Now I'm confused.

"I think the issue is that they love me, but I like them. And there is a huuuuge bUG! Ah! Sorry, that was a cockroach with wings. Anyway, I think I just want someone who gets me, and can understand my fears when I'm at my all time low. So..."

You pressed pause midway the voice mail and Jeff raises an eyebrow. "Did you pause it because there is more embarrassing stuff you can't play out loud?"

"No. You proceeded to rant about snails that you started to bore yourself and went to sleep," you summarized, and he threw his head in his hands.

You moved you chair so that it faced him. "Jeff," you placed your hand on his shoulder and he looked up at you.

"Normally I would make fun of you and mention this to everyone I speak to, but I'm going to move this on to a serious note." You can see his eyes soften.

"You know you can talk to us, right? To me?" You asked, and when he didn't answer, you sighed. "Look, your 'I'm so cool, I'm a lawyer with hard abs' act may work for everyone, but it won't work on me. I see right through you. Not everyone can be cool all the time. Sometimes they break down. I get how hard it is to make a choice when two girls tell you they love you. Well, it's never happened to me before, but I can understand stress. Also, this study group that you created, can also be your safe haven. You want to talk about something, we can talk."

Jeff looked like he was about to argue, but once he saw how serious and concerned you were, he let out a sigh. "Thanks," he said, and you grinned, nodding.

"But if you do send that out, you are dead," Jeff points at your phone.

"Please, you love me too much," you teased, and waved at your friends entered the room, and Jeff smiles at you.

Yeah, he just might.

#Jeff Winger x Reader #jeff winger #Community x reader #community imagines #jeff winger imagines

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everyepisodeofcommunity · 3 years

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100.

Basic Crisis Room Decorum.

100 episodes is the threshold a show traditionally needs to cross in order to be rerun in syndication. That’s a thing which I know is true, but, being British, I don’t totally understand what that means or why it’s the case. Still - the random number generator has today dropped us on the exact episode where Community hits triple digits, and gives us our first visit to the Actually Pretty Good sixth season.

When Community was first airing, I stopped watching during season 4 and never picked it up again, and only recently saw season six for the first time here in the present (2021ish) and I quite liked it. It rarely has the sheer electricity or frequency of laugh out loud jokes of Seasons 1 and 2 but it also doesn’t have most of the stuff I found occasionally noxious in Seasons 3, 4 and 5. It’s a smaller and less ambitious show, but a fun one.

And this is one of its smallest and most fun episodes. There’s definitely an alternate timeline version of BCRD (everyone’s calling it that) that takes place entirely in the Study Room in real-time, but even without strictly adhering to the limits, this has the compressed and focussed feel of a bottle episode, for the most part. The downside of that is that it doesn’t feel particularly bold or new - Abed’s position here mirrors his control room work when the gang didn’t really go to space - but we are seeing new characters and their dynamics with the group, this is a strong Frankie ep and I think only the second appearance of Elroy? (I try to work from a fresh watch of the episode alone when writing these, I could check this but I won’t). I am as close to a full on Frankie stan as you can get while hating Ayn Rand and she is perfect throughout this episode - her opening gag of only resting one half of her brain at a time, her bonding with Annie, actually the best part of this episode is the Annie - Frankie - Jeff triangle, as they bounce off their different views of what does and does not matter in the situation, the idea of the truth and our old friend moral relativism (booyah).

Elroy doesn’t contribute a huge amount here but he’s good when he does - the introduction of Natalie Is Freezing is a weird new part of the Community mythos and it’s a shame that we never reach the chorus of Pillar of Garbage because that is a SPOT on 90s radio-alt-rock parody, full marks to everyone involved in composing and recording the snippet. It also gives Britta one thing to do in an episode that otherwise kind of serves as the nadir of the Homer-Simpsonification of her character - she enters stage left and immediately shits her pants because she’s so drunk, even though she is clearly not shit-your-pants drunk, a level of drunk I understand to exist that is absolutely not being exhibited here and would be very hard to achieve while tending bar well enough to not get fired. IMHO. Other than that, she’s barely in this episode which maybe speaks to the writers figuring out this version of the ensemble - where does Britta fit in if Jeff and Frankie are arguing the philosophy of law and butting heads with the ever idealistic Annie?

I’m sure they’d have figured it out in season 7. If a dog can almost get a degree, what can’t a talented writing staff achieve? (........ making Chang work, I guess, but, you know, there are no perfect shows)

NOTES

- I don’t love the business with The Dean and the Japanese teenagers with their comically broken English. Firstly because it feels DICEY, but secondly because it’s one of those things that seems to operate on a separate level of cartoon reality. And I’m not a Plot Hole Hunter TV Sins guy by any means, I don’t care if shit makes sense or not, but I care a lot about Feel and Tone and this just feels like it’s from a wackier show. Yes, wackier than the one about investigating wether a community college almost gave a degree to a dog!

- On the other hand, it does bless us with Jeff’s reaction to The Dean putting down the olives which is very funny in a strange understated way - “I’m really confused by this” is a great line reading

- You know who else has great line readings? Paget Brewster. From her immediate leap into no-nonsense texting to her bonding with Annie over their shared love of competence and I love the “Jeff said I sounded like Abed” to “You know he’s unstable right?” run. It makes sense that Frankie is the person who recognises that it’s fucking weird that they all just hang out with Chang

- Ugh, fine, quickly - the Chang pornography thing is horrible and not funny and I hate it!

- There’s a LOT of Craig in this episode and I’m not a huge fan of that (The Dean works best in small tactical bursts, imho) but he is great in the closing infomercial.

- Big fan of Abed’s 0 degree turn into “The Attack Ad” tone of voice

- Truly, truly great Facial Expression Acting from Alison Brie, Paget Brewster and Jim Rash in the scene where they discover the nature of the attack ad and Frankie asks the big question. Perfect moment.

#Community #Season 5 #Frankie Dart #Paget Brewster #Joel McHale #Jeff Winger #Dean Pelton #Abed Nadir #Danny Pudi #Benjamin Chang #Elroy Patashnik #Keith David #Britta Perry #Gillian Jacobs #Annie Eddison #Alison Brie #basic crisis room decorum

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rainbowplussome · 4 years

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my community headcanons for funsies!

abed is nonbinary. he still uses he/him pronouns though because it’s easiest, and it’s less like. a thing for him? like he just doesn’t really understand everyone’s obsession with gender. he uses he/him but he wouldn’t mind at all if someone used she/her or they/them or any other pronoun simply because it doesn’t matter to him. (he knows not to disrespect other people’s pronouns, though, because it’s really not that hard to get it right.)

sexualties: annie is a lesbian, troy is bi, jeff is straight (is he tho?), britta is bi-curious, abed is pan. shirley is straight but after she reconciles her friends’ sexualities with her religion she is a huge ally. pierce can die.

annie hates tea and hates that she hates tea. she’ll pretend to drink it to seem sophisticated but then she’ll spit it back in. she actually has a tiny little addiction to energy drinks but refuses to let anyone know. once on a particularly difficult midterm she decided fuck it and in the middle of a study session just grabbed a six pack of monster and poured one into her shitty tea.

when britta and jeff are sleeping together, they actually have several threesomes with random strangers who don’t mind. most of them are male. jeff, being a repressed bisexual, pretends like he only does it for britta’s sake but he’s just as into it as she is. a few times they do it with a girl and while britta mostly keeps to herself during these times she can’t help but feel a little aroused at the prospect. both keep these feelings to themselves.

abed and annie actually end up taking judo together. they’re both really good at it—almost unsettlingly so. like they’ve been in there one week and it already seems like they could kill a man if they tried. annie, in particular, falls in love with the art and begs abed to do other forms of martial arts with her. by their third year at greendale, they’re taking taekwondo, judo, and jujitsu two times a week. abed goes along with it because annie likes it and hey, he might need legit fight moves in future projects and what better way to incorporate them than to learn them himself?

shirley once accidentally spiked the study group with weed. she didn’t realize this new shop was a weed shop, see, and so when she bought brownies she truly had no idea they were spiked. she felt awful about it, but everyone else thought it was pretty funny once she explained the situation.

britta has seventeen leather jackets. eleven of these are from past boyfriends. one of these eleven is jeff’s, but britta refuses to wear it in public on the off chance that he’ll recognize it and want it back.

jeff is team dad and he absolutely hates it. this man will flat out refuse to acknowledge it for the hope of it just going away. (not actually, though. it makes him feel important).

once it was really really stormy and thundery and stuff and troy abed and annie showed up in his dorm literally begging to spend the night on his couch. jeff grumbles but agrees and they pretty much end up having a slumber party on his sofa.

annie has a huge crush on britta. only troy and abed know about this, and they tease her relentlessly.

*choosing groups for a project*

troy: annie, why don’t you partner up with britta? *suggestive eyebrows*

abed: it is a chemistry project. you’re great at chemistry, especially with britta.

annie:

annie, blushing: i hate you both.

nobody knows how old abed is. legit nobody. they pretend like they know because they’ve known him for years and don’t want to seem like bad friends, but they honestly have no idea. they keep trying to subtly trick it out of abed because they don’t want to admit to each other that they aren’t sure like “oh, how many candles do you want on the cake?” and “how much older are you than troy?” and other subtle questions but abed doesn’t really get subtlety so he answers with a movie reference.

he’s actually a little less than a year older than troy. troy is the only one who knows this.

annie and abed do jigsaw puzzles all. the damn. time. constantly. and they’re really good at them, too—troy tries to help out sometimes but he ends up kind of flailing about miserably in the background. annie, realizing this, starts working with him on a jigsaw puzzle with just the two of them, talking about different methods and teaching him how to piece it together.

troy is still on the football team through season four!

shirley loves britta’s cats. loves loves loves them! she constantly asking to catsit when the boys are with andre.

shirley and britta have tea parties once a month at britta’s place! green tea, of course, because after vaughn made britta switch she started to really enjoy it. annie joins in occasionally but not often because she hates tea, as mentioned above.

#community #abed nadir #annie edison #troy barnes #shirley bennett #jeff winger #britta perry #headcanons #not tagging pierce because he sucks #(in my opinion)

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goblinconceivable · 4 years

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All The Feels

Random bulletpoints of Annie/Jeff analysis because I am overcome with shippiness. :D Also more like bullet-lengthy-paragraphs. You tried, self, you tried.

Pascal’s Triangle (PT) is not a love triangle.

Sure, look at the top two rows and you’ve got a binary split, ie, choice between two women. But PT is row based, your current row based on the one above. It’s complex. Look below the binary surface of choice to row 3, where it actually becomes PT, where the complexity begins (and Community is about complexity.) 1, 2, 1, a total of 4. The 2 is the merging of the two 1s from row two - Ie, two women who get lumped together. And beyond them is a 1 that springs out of nowhere - Annie. Surprise!

Kiss at the end of S1

Jeff’s major deal is being afraid of expressing caring/vulnerability, while desperately craving/needing it. Britta and Slater were both saying they loved him, and he does want to take that, but runs scared because they are challenging him to admit his feelings in public, which no one who really knows and cares about him would do. His scene with Annie is private. And she isn’t asking him FOR anything, she’s just asking what’s up, because she cares about the answer. He feels safe, he opens up, it’s intimacy, which is both giving and taking. Notably he admits he’s glad she’s staying after his share, this is him saying he cares about her too.

His explanation of the situation is a perceived choice between being the New Year’s guy (who he wants to be) and the Three Weeks Later guy (who he is.) But the thing about New Year’s is the initial momentum always fades, and you have to put in the work, which Slater doesn’t help him with. And he WON’T be able to sustain it on is own. The guy he IS isn’t who he wants to be, it’s just giving up, rather than striving, even if imperfectly, to reach those goals. Annie falls into the sweet spot: she understands what his default is, but shows him that he CAN be the man he wants to be, shows him what those steps ARE, encourages him to take the steps to be that person, and rewards him when he succeeds. Which he does, with her behind him.

And she kisses him first. Which is an offering similar to Britta and Slater’s public announcements, but through action, not words. Jeff uses words as shield and weapon, as did the other two. Bypassing this essentially shortcircuits his brain. His brain will warp and analyze and question, but she kisses him gently, an invitation not a demand. He’s already put aside his sword and shield during their talk, and doesn’t feel the need to pick them up because he feels safe and cared for and is okay accepting and reciprocating that.

Play

Jeff is all adult and aloof and beyond such petty childish pursuits such as play, which is the scoffed at domain of Annie/Troy/Abed. But he actually really wants it. It likely stems in part from his loss of a proper childhood, but it’s also just who he is. Imagination isn’t just for the young, the loss of the ability to play is an oft-bemoaned feature of adulthood, one the learned remind us we ought recapture. (And a joy of parenthood is getting to do that through your children.) But look, he literally was playacting being a lawyer. It’s how he engages with the world. He just justified that as a means to an end and did it for power and profit, rather than for enjoyment.

We see this, I argue, when responding to Annie’s playacting they were married. Annie anticipates a bad reaction, but he doesn’t give one. No judgment. He then establishes it’s not a deeper issue (”do I have to worry about this” ie, is this real/insanity). When he says “I can tell you one thing your fantasy got wrong...” he’s not challenging her, or even taking offense, and while he’s not entering into her fantasy world (which is over anyway), he’s offering fodder. He’s involving himself in the narrative process for her benefit. And in the couched language of daydream he’s reassuring her -if- it was true, he would be devoted. IF is a super important word in play, because you don’t have to believe, for example, you ARE a pirate. You just need to act as IF you were a pirate.

Also cute, I take as justified fanon the deleted scene where he orders her appletini. He was whining to her about it but it was relaxed because they both know he’d do it anyway. And when the bartender turns out to be a believer in Annie’s created fantasy world, Jeff stops himself from correcting him and destroying the world. Instead, he lets it persist just far enough to let himself glance at Annie as if it was true, and in that moment he sees her through the eyes of fantasy, and sees a beautiful woman, rather than all the complexity of their relationship.

Then there’s basically all the giant Greendale instances of play. Which one way or the other, he gets roped into and ends up jumping into with abandon. (Paintball, lava etc.) And they’re often paired, because he enjoys playing with her, and the “if this” acts as license for them to explore their compatibility. And their capers, when they pair up in the “real world”, is really just a sophisticated form of play. As brought up pointedly when they were searching for the ASB, there’s a dual nature here. They aren’t just buddies, like Troy and Abed, who are also very fantasy oriented (cardboard submarine!). There’s a level of daydream beneath the fantasy world where they can set aside the complexities of their relationship, and say “if we’re solving this crime, then we can live in this bubble and just be together.”

I also really love the whole Professor Professorson episode because of course the layers are just so intricate and delightful when they unfold. He tackles her which was total overreaction, he’s in a heightened world and committed to it. They plot out this crazy intricate play to teach the Dean a lesson together, where they involve real emotions. Many of which are Annie’s, but that means they’re creating a world in which it is safe to amplify her feelings which they are both aware of but are usually repressed, especially by Jeff. And he praises her for that later (she went off book and deceived like a master) rather than being uncomfortable. They exit play safely because they trust each other while playing and can leave that permissive world as an if. And it ends with the blanket fort collapsing and cocooning them. It is a play space literally being broken, begging the question of how much impact our play can have on our real selves.

Season 6

So basically I think I missed fandom the first time around and just binged on meta and there’s (fanon?) that Jeff spent the season looking for her attention, but Annie had pulled back? I zipped through a bunch of scenes they were in together, and heartily agree. Also I think I went a little nutty but What I see:

Annie doesn’t ignore him or anything, but where she might have previously inserted herself in his life, she starts to let him fend for himself while she diverts her attention to other relationships, and treats him more like she does the others. I don’t think she really does anything like taking his class so she can evaluate his teaching and bludgeon him into being better? But when they’re in a situation, like City College’s ad, she stands up to him as normal, challenging him to be better and do the right thing, as she always has. Rewards him with approval when he does, and his whispered “thank you” is the cutest thing ever because it’s an intimate choice in a rather boisterous exchange.

Meanwhile Jeff does seem to spend a lot of time and energy trying to get back to a place where he’s first in her eyes. There are a lot of shots in S6 a the Table and group scenes that involve him looking at her disproportionately, first, last, or only when speaking, esp when they’re all at the table. When I went back and tried to do the same to S5 those scenes are set up a bit differently and I saw less of it but I think there’s just fewer group scenes in general though?. In S6, he often ends a comment directed at the group (non table) by looking at Annie, indicating he wants her response, and thus her attention and engagement. And often, she is the next person to speak. Which is her personality as a leader, which supports the idea that while he’s seeking her out, she isn’t necessarily responding to that but just being her.

Finale

I’ve sort of run myself dry thinking through other things. And great analysis is plentiful and most recent. So not even bullet points just ramble But:

Oh3, so when Garrett proposed and Abed noted Jeff had a funny look, he’s been daydreaming marrying Annie for that lone plus longer? That took me a long time to put together as an actual literal thing.

Oh2, it’s all canon that he has issues with prolonged eye contact because he doesn’t want people to see him broken and he doesn’t break eye contact through any of this. He knows she knows he’s broken already and is quietly fine with her seeing everything and this is a moment for *sobs*

Oh wait hey, so callback to that bit where she’s like “your words don’t mean anything” and he’s like “That’s what conversation is, people saying things to get stuff.” Because he’s 100% not trying to get anything by telling her he’s let her go. And he means a lot by saying it. And if he said “I love you” there’s an implied sense of obligation to say it back and since he means romantically he can’t do that. So this is just him letting her know, no pressure, no expectation, that he loves her and has loved her but it’s okay because she’s free and he wants her to be free because he loves her. And he means it so hard when she says “kiss me goodbye” he’s all “you don’t owe me anything.”

But she does love him too, except she knows she’s in a different place emotionally and professionally. And it’s sweet and a gift because she doesn’t make this about her but about him and his feelings. So she preempts his regrets because she knows he WON’T kiss her goodbye unless she invites him to. There’s something I’m reaching for and can’t find here. She doesn’t admit to anything because there’s no point? It would just hurt him either way? Sharing her feelings through action rather than words?

And so much squee thinking how far everyone’s come for this scene to be a thing which could happen.

Callback to Annie’s marriage fantasy when Jeff has his own. Hers was external, by her personality (esp at the time of her maturation) and thus public and psychologically working out a reasonable feeling of abandonment as she gave their fictional selves marital difficulties. His is very internal, and occurs after Abed, always so reliable as a gateway to fantasy, turns the tables on him. He’s experiencing reasonable feelings of abandonment, and while he runs, it’s to a safe space of “what if,” a coping mechanism he has learned, and which allows for working out of psychological issues.

It’s dual: in that the larger issue is his need for a sense of stability. Though he’s staring at the table the scene doesn’t involve Greendale at all, he already had that fantasy. This is about wanting a life outside of the safe zone of the college. And while he suggests a dog as an option he imagined a kid because having one represents stability for him - it was his father who left, and he won’t leave. If there’s a kid, this is a life, Annie can’t leave. But he offers her imaginary self complete editing powers, because all he really wants is to be able to love and be loved. It’s indulgence, a desperate grasp at balm because while he let her go, he can’t let her -go.- He was okay with being close friends, they do love each other as friends. See his pitch. But faced with losing that, he’s stripped bare. He indulges in his supressed hearts desire and is faced with the reality of what he already knows: it’s not in the cards.

And he’s stripped down to insecurities that aren’t limited to Annie. It’s cute how they jive over Marvel, though it’s weird to me and takes up more time and weird dramatic looking around that doesn’t feel playful enough to be justified. The tone of their voices is too serious, it’s a mismatch. I like how he admits the huge thing that he let her go as far as he has control, and suddenly a time pressure is on their alone time. Everything is immediate right now, everything happening fast. I wonder what Annie would have said if not for the text. But that’s the thing, it’s the wrong time for them and this is a goodbye. It’s too late but just under the wire all at once.

In this chapter at least. In the safety of the group Annie brings up a season 7, which we all know could happen years down the line. Would have been more fitting if she said movie though. Still, he takes that as the comfort in which it was intended.

WTF with his all coed season 7? Yes, we cut to it so it totally isn’t happening, but has he put his issues to rest and is just fantasizing crap or what? It makes no sense to me.

I love that he not only puts her first after she invites him to kiss her goodbye by asking “what about you,” but is -asking for consent.- He doesn’t even move towards her until he gets it, he’s literally just standing back. What’s up with the penis thing? Meta reference to shortcut arguments that it’s not true love but lust? Is it Jeff acknowledging his own cynicism and how he’s dropped it? Since he’s so clearly not in a lust mode here. Is he adding a tiny bit of his usual pointed add ins to his speeches?

I guess it’s like... this is one of his speeches, but it feels out of place because of his delivery? Which is beautifully subdued and resigned and honest and just defeated, but defeated in the sense that he defeated all the barriers he still keeps around himself.

and goodbye hug and kiss at the airport.

#community #jeff x annie #meta

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