Work Text:
Chapter 1
Jeff sat heavily down on the grimy barstool, signalling to the bartender for his usual. Revelling in the quiet before the man next to him spoke up. "Quite the performance tonight winger, unorthodox but effective for sure"
He wants to say he’s not sure why he came here, but that would be a lie, and he tries to make a habit of at least being honest with himself at the very least, most of the time. “Can it less known Weasley, how did you even know about it?" It literally ended an hour ago and he can guarantee the other man would never be caught dead at a school event he wants paid to attend, even then it was a 50/50 chance he’d show up.
"Jeff, Jeff, Jeff usually you're much better at changing the subject" when Jeff just raises an eyebrow, staying silent, Duncan tsks, rolling his eyes "Leonard already put it up on his YouTube page, Garrett shared it twitter" he pulled up the offending video in question and there it was in all its grainy quality with a frankly horrific running commentary from Leonard, the kiss that caught him completely off guard, effectively knocking on his ass.
But of course, he doesn’t want to actually admit to any of this. "Leonard's like a hundred how does he even know what YouTube is"
Duncan shakes his head, an annoyingly familiar, if drunkenly messy smirk overtaking his features "Again a very transparent attempt at diverting, that kiss must have really thrown you off kilter"
"Yeah, well, you try and have a perky type A teenager throw herself at you and still be on your game" Jeff huffs out, feeling irritated and somewhat exposed.
"I've tried many times Jeff but it usually gets nowhere near the throwing themselves at me stage" Duncan replies simply but not without a fair bit of humour colouring his words.
"Yeah well it's not all its cracked up to be" Doe eyes and pouty lips suddenly invade his vision and he has to physically shake them off, dispelling them from his thoughts. Or at least the forefront of them.
"Oh I'm sure, woe is you and all that" he takes a second to squint at Jeff "if I might take a second to take my drinking buddy goggles off and put my therapist glasses on" He must be fairly drunk already because he makes a show of going through the motions of doing just that, and it’s all a little ridiculous but Jeff’s a bit too wary of where this might be leading to outwardly laugh at him.
Jeff snorts. Ok maybe not that wary "Be sure to clean the dust off them first"
"Har har let's all bag on the TENURED professor shall we"
"Pretty sure being tenured at Greendale, and boasting about it, is a form of Stockholm syndrome, at the very least cruel and unusual punishment"
"We're not here to talk about my poor life decisions Jeff, we're here to talk about your little crush on your bouncy study buddy" Disturbingly Duncan for some reason decides to mine the 'bouncy' part and Jeff pointedly ignores this, powering on.
"And here I thought we were here to get hammered, also study buddy? Way to make my currently pathetic life sound like a 90s high school sitcom" Not that it’s far off the mark if he’s being honest. Which again he rarely is considering his lack of honestly is what even got him into this overall ridiculous situation.
"I noticed you didn't correct me on the crush part, which is of course very interesting, and the getting bluttered will come after the therapising, I'll certainly need it after wading around in your particular brand of neuroses" He makes the crazy in the head sign, which seems a bit unprofessional but Jeff graciously decides to let it pass without comment.
"I didn't correct you on it because it was ridiculous and frankly not even worth addressing" Jeff let's out a long suffering sigh "If I talk about it then you're on the next 3 rounds, no debate" he cringed at his choice of words but didn't comment further.
"Don't think of it as a chore, think of it as having your very own non judgemental sounding board to talk about your thoughts regarding big eyes and bigger boobs" Again for whatever reason he decides to mine out his words, focussing on the boobs this time with a slight widening of the eyes, which is disturbing enough that getting blackout drunk is going to be necessary to purge the image from his mind.
"Ground rule if we're going to be talking about my friend you're calling her Annie and nothing else, got it?" It’s the first time she’s actually been brought up by name since he got here and it manages to bring into focus everything that has actually went down the last few days, everything that’s changed but also what’s stayed the same.
"I never thought I'd see the day, Jeff winger with friends he sticks up for, even when there's no benefit to him" Neither did Jeff until he was forced into this toilet of a school maybe it’s him that has the Stockholm Syndrome, but he can at least comfort himself with the knowledge that in 3 and a half years he’ll be out the door a freshly recertified lawyer. But maybe this time with an actual support system that’ll keep him from reverting to his old ways, god this place is making him so lame.
"Once again, can it" he sighed resignedly "Look she, she let her hair down"
For a few seconds the only response Jeff gets is a hiking of Duncan’s eyebrows, than all at once he’s squinting, and tilting his head looking too analytical for comfort “Come again?"
Jeff sighs, swirling his scotch to gather his thoughts from wherever they were (Annie’s lips Annie’s eyes Annie’s -) "Look we were prepping for the debate and I dunno, we were talking and she let her hair down and it's like I was finally allowing myself to really look at her, and what I saw scared the crap out of me"
"I'm sorry I must have missed the part where we stepped into an episode of one tree hill" At least he didn’t say days of our lives, it’s the small victories.
Jeff nodded his head, conceding "So we've moved on from 90s sitcom to 2000s drama, progress I guess"
Duncan suddenly leans back in his chair, crosses his legs and strokes his chin thoughtfully, of course bing well on his way to drunk the actual act was a lot less graceful than it sounded “And how does that make you feel Jeff?" In what Jeff assumes to be his best therapist voice, but with the slurred speech and that accent comes out with decidedly less impact.
"... I see why you ended up at Greendale"
Duncan crosses his arms, but only after throwing a gross looking bar peanut somewhere to the right of Jeff’s head "The psychologist in me recognises using insults to hide from your issues. The petty human in me wants to remind you that at least I get a paycheck for being there"
Jeff grins sardonically "I love our little chats, why don't we do this every week?"
But Duncan just shrugs, takes a rather large drink of his pint and sits back casually "If it gives me an excuse to get plastered and psychoanalyse for a couple of hours count me in"
Jeff sighs resignedly and gives in to the inevitable "You've got 5 minutes to wrap up the analysis so we can focus on the drunk part so shoot"
"Was the kiss planned?"
"Nope"
"Did you enjoy the kiss?"
"Uhh have you seen Annie? Obviously I enjoyed it"
"So you're going to do it again?"
"Absolutely not"
"See here's where my confusion lies, you've had, as you said, a frighteningly attractive girl throw her lips at yours in a self confessed very enjoyable kiss and you're not going to pursue it? That doesn't really match with the Jeff Winger I've drank with over the years"
Jeff takes a second to actually consider his response, because for some reason this feels more important than just a conversation with an old drinking buddy in an ugly bar "In case you've forgotten Duncan she's 18, and I'm 30" he coughs uncomfortably before pushing on "something, and she's my friend, so no, I'm not going to chase after her like some lovesick dork" Not since he was in his teens anyway but no one needs to know that.
"See now I'm not sure whether this is a sign of genuine growth on your part or just another instance of your perfected at-this-point avoidance and compartmentalisation" he looks like he’s genuinely trying to decipher which it is and Jeff shifts a little uncomfortably.
It feels like he’s hit his limit of sharing for the day so he decides to shift focus to Duncan’s true passion, getting good old fashioned drunk "Well you'll have to find out next time cause your 5 minutes are up buddy"
"You realise now that I absolutely won't be letting this go, it's not often you get a chance to dive into the inner workings of Jeff Winger"
"I'm sure you're already working on your next publishable paper, hey maybe this time you won't be sent straight to the APA's spam folder"
"With a psychological goldmine like you I'll be on the cover of Psychology Today before you can say textbook narcissist with unchecked vanity"
"Well it is a bit of a tongue twister"