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Annie jolts awake when something from her bookshelf thuds onto the floor. The sun has just barely started to rise, so it can’t be much later than seven. Her head in still in that foggy place between dreaming and being awake, so when she sees how violently the wall is rattling, Annie almost mistakes it for an earthquake.
But no. It’s the wall adjacent to the laundry room, which means it's probably Troy and Abed playing rocket ships with the washing machine again. The least they could do is have the decency to wait until she's awake. Annie groans and pulls herself out of bed
“Troy, Abed, it's like, seven a.m., can you guys please just go back to bed?” She rubs her eyes, rounding on the laundry room. Abed isn't there, though. It's just Troy, sitting on the dryer in his boxers and a t-shirt.
Troy looks up from whatever game he’s playing on his phone – probably Temple Run, because Troy still seems to love it even though everyone else on the planet got bored with it like, a year ago – and his eyes go a little wide.
“Oh, uh, hi, Annie,” he says, his voice doing that high-pitched sing-songy thing like when he gets caught doing something he shouldn’t. “What are you doing up this early?”
“I could ask you the same thing.” Annie says, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “I thought you and Abed were playing some sort of game or something.”
“I just needed wash some of my sheets, no big deal, nothing to get suspicious about,” Troy says, all in a rush.
Yeah, that’s not suspicious at all.
Annie rolls her eyes. “Whatever, Troy. It’s none of my business if you and Abed are sleeping together.”
“We’re not sleeping together.”
“Troy, you don’t have to lie. You’ve been sleeping in the same bed for weeks.”
“I’m not lying. We’re not sleeping together.” Troy stops. “I mean, we’re sleeping together, but we’re not sleeping together, you know?”
“Oh.” Annie hauls herself up onto the washer and pulls her knees up to her chest. “Then why are you doing laundry at seven in the morning on a Wednesday?” She grins back at him. “If I didn’t know any better,” she teases, “I’d think you were trying to do it in secret.”
Troy looks away, focusing on something he’s buying in the Temple Run shop.
“Wait. You were trying to do your laundry in secret, weren’t you?” Annie spins around on the washing machine until she’s facing Troy. “You’re trying to do your laundry before Abed wakes up.”
“Yeah, that whole ‘not sleeping together’ thing is kind of the problem,” Troy says, and it takes Annie about fifteen seconds to put together exactly what that means.
“Oh.” Annie can feel her face heat up, and yeah, okay, her crush on Troy mostly faded years ago once she actually got to know him, but that doesn’t mean she isn’t still attracted to him, and the thought of him doing that is probably something she shouldn’t think about too hard. “Oh. You mean you're doing laundry because...” She leans in and hisses, “because you did you-know-what last night?”
Troy covers his eyes with his hand. “Annie, look, no offense, but I don’t normally talk about this kind of stuff with girls. It’s kind of weird.”
“Oh, no, totally, I definitely don’t want to hear any of the gorey details or anything.”
Annie and Troy both go silent. Annie picks at the edge of her pajamas. Troy kicks his feet against the dryer.
“So do you talk about this kind of stuff with Abed?”
“No,” Troy says immediately. “Not since we actually started dating and making out and stuff. Talking to your best friend about having sex with your girlfriend is a little different than telling your best-friend-turned-boyfriend that you just spanked the chicken all over your Spider-Man pajamas while thinking about him.”
“Okay, first of all, the phrase ‘spanked the chicken’ is really unsexy.” Annie scrunches up her nose. “Second, ew, that is really TMI. And third, I really hope you’re not planning on doing this on a regular basis because I really don’t want to get woken up every morning by you washing your sheets.”
“Well, yeah, that would be dumb,” Troy says. “Next time I’m gonna take care of it in the bathroom because then I won’t have to worry about clean up. Or worry about waking Abed up in the middle of the night.” He stops. “Also I think the washer is done now and I need to stop it before it does that loud buzz-y thing and wakes Abed up.”
Annie hops down so Troy can throw his sheets and pajamas into the dryer and wow, she’s pretty sure she’s red all the way to the tips of her ears. She really needs to change the subject to something that won’t make her have inappropriate thoughts about her roommates.
Troy’s phone vibrates, flashing from where he left it on top of the washing machine. Annie cranes her neck to try to get a better look at the screen. “Who’s texting you this early in the morning?”
“Oh, that’s just my mom. She’s always texting me this early in the morning.” Troy stops and grabs his phone. “‘I’m glad you and that promiscuous white girl finally broke up. You should come with me to the Kingdom Hall on Sunday. Sister Johnson’s niece is in town and she really wants to meet you.’ Same as usual, basically.” He sets his phone back on the washing machine without replying.
“You haven’t told her yet, have you?” Annie sinks down on the floor. “About you and Abed, I mean?”
“Yeah, I’m kind of planning on doing that sometime around the first of never.” Troy balls up a pair of socks and throws them a little too hard into the dryer. “And if you knew my mom, you’d understand exactly why she can never, ever know.”
“Troy, look, I get that mom is kind of religious and conservative, but do you really think you can keep this away from her forever?” Annie asks. “I mean, she’s your mom.”
“Okay, Annie, you have to understand.” Troy drops down onto the floor next to her. “My mom isn’t kind of religious. My mom calls me up twice a week wanting to know why I won’t come back to church with her on Sundays. When you moved in, I got a four hour lecture on the dangers of premarital sex. It took me two years to get her to go from calling Abed ‘that Muslim boy’ to ‘that nice Muslim boy’. If I told her I was dating Abed, she would literally drag me back to her house, lock me in my old bedroom, and only let me out of my room to go back to church.”
Troy braces his arms on his knees and stares down at the tile. He sighs, and Annie can’t help but reach over and squeeze his hand.
“Hey, listen,” Annie says. “If you’re not comfortable telling your mom yet, you don’t have to tell her. But she’s probably going to find out sooner or later, so just... be careful, okay?”
The both go silent for a long moment, and Annie can’t decide whether the silence is comfortable or not. The only sound is the whirring of the dryer.
Then Troy’s stomach growls. Annie laughs, which makes Troy laugh, too.
“Hey, we’ve still got twenty minutes before Abed gets up.” Annie hops to her feet and dusts off her pajamas. “Why don’t we go get breakfast for everyone? I could really go for bagels.”
“Only if we can make fun of the way Britta says the word ‘bagel’,” Troy says, and Annie grins.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
It ends up taking them longer than expected to get breakfast, mostly because the bagel place doesn’t have any asiago bagels ready yet, and when Troy tries to talk Annie into getting an everything bagel instead she just complains about how garlic makes your breath stink. It’s okay though, because the manager gives them free cookies for having to wait. Also, if they ever get attacked by vampires today, Annie will get bitten and Troy won’t and then she’ll feel pretty dumb for not listening to him.
Not that Troy thinks they’re actually going to get attacked by vampires, but it never hurts to be careful.
When they finally get back, Abed’s already awake and watching Adventure Time reruns in the living room.
“Hey, Abed,” Troy calls, setting the bags down on the dining room table and plopping down into one of the chairs. “We got bagels, and Annie got us free cookies because they didn’t have the bagel she wanted ready.”
“Cool,” Abed says, without looking away from the screen. “Cool cool cool. Your laundry’s done. I put it away for you.”
“Oh.” Troy pauses midway through unpacking the cream cheese. He’d almost forgotten the whole reason he was up so early anyway, and he thinks about saying something like he spilled juice on his sheets, but he and Abed promised not to lie to each other and Abed would probably see through that anyway. “So, uh...”
“Troy said I could come with you guys to the comic book store today!” Annie chirps, and Abed stares at him with that wide-eyed, slightly panicked expression that means Troy needs to do damage control.
“No, no, no, that is not what I said,” Troy cuts in. He glares at Annie. “I said if Abed doesn’t mind, you could come with us to the comic book store. Those are not even close to the same thing.”
“You don’t mind, do you, Abed?” She does that big-eyed, fluttery-eyelash she always does whenever she wants something, and Troy really wishes he could pull it off because it seems to work on pretty much everyone when she does it.
Abed considers it for a moment. “Fine. But you’re not allowed to buy anything unless I approve it first.”
Annie’s mouth drops open and she does that offended little gasp that Abed loves to imitate. “Abed, that’s not fair!”
“Trust me, it’s for your own good.” Abed digs a cinnamon crunch bagel out of the bag and slathers it in honey walnut cream cheese before sitting down in the chair next to Troy. “There are certain things that never should have seen the light of day, like The Dark Knight Strikes Back, the second Nightwing Annual, or anything by Scott Lobdell.”
“Nightwing is... he’s one of Batman’s sidekicks, right?” Annie picks off a bit of her asiago bagel and dips it into her salmon cream cheese, which is probably the most disgusting kind of cream cheese in the world.
Abed shakes his head. “She doesn’t even realize how much she needs our help,” he says, glancing back at Troy.
Troy’s too busy watching Annie eat her smelly fish bagel to respond. “That stuff is gross and it smells like old people feet,” Troy says, pointing at her cream cheese with a plastic knife.
Annie rolls her eyes. “You’ve never even tried it,” she points out. “Besides, you have no room to talk, garlic breath.”
“And when your old people feet cream cheese wards off vampires, I’ll agree with you,” Troy says.
Troy slaps a layer of chive cream cheese as thick as his little finger on his bagel and Annie scrunches up her nose. “Vampires aren’t the only thing you’ll be warding off,” she says. “I hope for Abed’s sake that you’re planning on brushing your teeth when you finish eating.”
Troy definitely hadn’t considered that when he picked his breakfast. He clamps his hand over his mouth, setting his bagel back on his plate. Maybe he should have just gone for a chocolate chip bagel instead.
“You’re insinuating that Troy’s choice in breakfast will make him unpleasant to kiss,” Abed says, staring at Annie. He looks back at Troy. “It doesn’t bother me. You should eat whatever you want.”
Troy feels his face go a little warm at that. He smiles over at Abed before going back to his bagel.
Annie shakes her head. “You guys are the weirdest kind of cute.”
It ends up being a long, long day.
Britta tags along to the comic book store, mostly because Annie invites her without telling them, and she and Abed end up arguing nearly the entire trip. Then Abed convinces her to read a few old Birds of Prey trades and the two of them spend the entire rest of the time loudly and incessantly agreeing with each other, which Troy supposes is probably an improvement but not any easier on his eardrums.
After two hours at the comic book store, half an hour at Wal-Mart looking for candy necklaces (don’t ask), ten minutes at the drugstore for band-aids (related to the candy necklace incident), two and a half hours at the movie theater to see Iron Man 3 (Annie cries once, Troy cries three times, and Britta spends most of the movie asking Abed what’s going because she never saw the first two), and forty-five minutes at Chipotle, Troy thinks he’s probably more exhausted than he’s ever been in his life.
When they finally make it home, Troy collapses onto the bottom bunk, face down on Abed’s pillows. Abed is sitting on the floor and scouring through his comics looking for something for Britta – probably Batgirl, Troy knows it’s Abed’s favorite.
“You can nap, if you want,” Abed says. “I’ll make sure to wake you up in time for Mythbusters.”
Troy’s not actually sleepy, just resting his eyes, and he thinks he manages to tell Abed so but he’s not sure.
The next thing he knows the world is blinking back into focus, soft and dark around the edges. Abed is still sitting on the floor in front of the bed, this time on his laptop.
“Wha’ time izzit?” Troy mumbles. He rolls onto his side and peers at Abed’s screen. He’s on Facebook, which is... odd. Abed hardly ever uses Facebook anymore.
“It’s only seven-thirty. You weren’t asleep very long.” He stops scrolling and glances over his shoulder at Troy. “You seemed really tired. Did you sleep well?”
“Mmh,” Troy says, which isn’t much of a response, but he’s not really all that coherent at the moment. Troy pushes himself upright. “Facebook?”
“I’ve been talking to my cousin Abra. She’s been taking English lessons and she wanted someone to practice with.” Abed closes the laptop and turns all the way around to face Troy. “She’s trying to convince her dad to let her visit for the summer.”
“Oh, cool,” Troy says. He scoots over and Abed climbs onto the bed next to him. It’s a little cramped, and it almost makes Troy miss his big bed, which is sort of now Britta’s bed, mostly because her old bed was actually just a really lumpy futon mattress.
“Also I changed my Facebook status to say I’m in a relationship,” Abed says. “I didn’t say who it was with, though, so you don’t need to reciprocate. Shirley liked my status, but based on the comment she left she might think I’m dating Annie.”
Troy has to take a few seconds to let that sink in because that... that is kind of a big deal by Abed’s standards.
“I’ll probably get a call from my dad asking about it as soon as he notices.” He looks back at Troy, probably trying to gauge his reaction. “Would it bother you if I told him we’re dating?”
“That depends,” Troy says, pulling his knees up to his chest. “Do you think he’s gonna be mad?”
Abed tilts his head to one side, the way he does when he’s thinking about something. “Probably,” he admits. “But my dad gets mad about everything, especially if it involves my mom or American Idol. He won’t be mad at you, though.”
“So he’ll be mad at you?” Troy asks.
“No, he doesn’t usually get mad at me, either,” Abed says. “He mostly gets mad at the world. Or mad at my mom. Or mad at himself. Or sometimes mad at Ryan Seacrest. But not mad at you or me, I don’t think.” He looks back at Troy. “I think my dad actually likes you.”
Troy is pretty sure Abed’s dad doesn’t actually like him so much as he hates him less than Jeff or Britta, but from what Troy knows of Abed’s dad that might basically be the same thing for him.
“Annie thinks I should tell my mom,” Troy says.
“You don’t think it’s a good idea,” Abed offers.
Troy sighs. “I feel bad because I don’t want to lie to her, especially not about you, but I know exactly how she’ll react and I’m just not ready for that yet.”
“Do you want me to hold your hand?” Abed asks. “If this were a movie, this would probably be the moment where I take your hand.” He pauses. “I’d also probably encourage you to be honest with your mother, but that doesn’t usually work out as well in real life as it does movies.”
“You can hold my hand, if you want,” Troy says, and Abed reaches over and places his hand over Troy’s. It feels a little awkward, like Abed’s not quite sure how he’s supposed to do it – he’s more used to being the passive recipient of physical contact than he is the instigator, at least when he’s not playing a role – but it makes Troy smile all the same.
“So, if this were a movie, what kind of movie would it be?” Troy asks.
Abed’s gaze goes a little unfocused, the way it sometimes does when he’s thinking. “I don’t think we really fit neatly into a specific genre,” he says, after a moment, “but the closest approximation would probably be a lesbian coming of age story.”
Troy grins. “So we’re But I’m a Cheerleader?”
“We’re closer to Show Me Love than we are to But I’m a Cheerleader,” Abed says, and Troy’s never seen that one but he’s pretty sure he and Abed will end up watching it at some point anyway. “Or maybe Bend it Like Beckham, but without the soccer.”
“There were lesbians in Bend it Like Beckham?” Troy asks, because it’s been a long time since he’s seen that movie and he didn’t pay that much attention, mostly because he’s always thought soccer was kind of lame, but he’s pretty sure he would have remembered if there had been lesbians.
“It was subtextual.” Abed looks down at their intertwined hands, and Troy can almost see him thinking. He’s pretty sure he’d give just about anything to be able to actually read Abed’s mind right now. “I know why you were doing your laundry this morning,” he says abruptly.
“Oh,” Troy says.
“Mostly because I heard you last night.” Abed quirks his head to one side and stares at Troy.
“Oh.” Troy suddenly feels warm all over and he can’t decide if it’s in the good way or the bad way. “I was kind of trying not to wake you up but I guess that didn’t really work? So, uh, sorry, next time I’ll definitely take care of it in the bathroom.”
“You don’t have to do that,” Abed says, and yeah, Troy is definitely the good kind of too-warm. Then Abed’s brow furrows. “You didn’t have to move to the top bunk, either. You asked to stop. Then you moved.”
“Abed...” Troy’s head is starting to feel a little swimmy and he really, really doesn’t want to have this conversation right now.
Abed is quiet for a moment, staring into the distance, like he’s fitting the pieces together in his mind. It only takes him a few seconds. “Does the idea of having sex with me makes you nervous?” he asks, looking at Troy curiously.
“It’s not... I mean...” Troy’s mouth feels kind of heavy and clumsy. There really isn’t a good way to tell the guy you’re sort of dating (who you can’t even quite bring yourself to call your boyfriend in your head) that the reason you’re afraid of having sex with him has nothing to do with him and everything to do with the fact that you’ve basically spent the last seven years of your life trying to force yourself to be straight for a religion you haven’t felt that committed to in years, so he just sort of sits there opening and closing his mouth like a fish while he tries to think of something to say that doesn’t sound stupid.
“We don’t have to have sex if you don’t want to,” Abed says, and it’s just – that’s not it, that’s not even close to it.
“I do want to,” Troy says, and he pretty much has to close his eyes for this because there’s no way he can actually look at Abed and talk about – this. “Have sex, I mean. I want to a lot. Like, a lot a lot. But I’m also kind of scared? Like, what if Shirley and my mom are right? What if I make God angry and then bad things start happening to me?”
“I can’t answer that,” Abed admits. “But personally, I think that God has more important things to deal with than worrying about sex between consenting adults.” He pauses. “This isn’t really about religion, is it? This is about your mom. You’re afraid how she’ll react when she finds out.”
Troy slides down onto the pillows and sighs. “It’s not just that, though? Like, I’ve spent my whole life having all this stuff about how being gay is wrong drilled into my head, and even though I don’t actually believe it’s still sort of there, and it’s just – I don’t even know how to explain it, it’s like I just have this big ball of feelings that I can’t untangle just sitting inside my stomach, you know?”
“I understand,” Abed says. “This is a big change for you and it’s going to take time for you to adjust. Just let me know when you’re ready.” Abed starts to scoot off of the bed and Troy grabs him by the arm.
“Wait, Abed.” Troy pushes himself back upright. “When I said I loved you last night, you said it back.”
“Oh,” Abed says. “Was that wrong?”
“No, definitely not wrong,” Troy says. He smiles. “It’s just... you’ve never said it back before.”
Abed is quiet for a moment. “It made you happy,” he says, and it sounds somewhere between a statement and a question. Troy nods. “And if I said it more often, would that make you happy?”
“Really happy,” Troy says.
“I love you,” Abed says, and Troy grins like it’s Christmas.
“I love you too.”