Chapter Text
"Okay, so somewhere midway between Greendale, LA, and Atlanta." Troy pulls up Google Maps, and clicks somewhere in the middle. "That would be... Dickens County, Texas?" Half a dozen voices are immediately raised in dissent. "Okay, okay, not there! So where do you guys want to hold the reunion?"
"Greendale," suggests Jeff, and is immediately shouted down.
"God, you really are unbelievably lazy," says Britta, disgruntled. "I know, we could have a road trip! Abed and Troy could drive up from LA and meet us here, and then the five of us could drive out to Shirley!"
"No," says Jeff. "No way. Not another road trip." Everyone ignores him.
"Oh, so I don't get to hang out with you all until the end of the trip," says Shirley, dangerously.
"No, it's not like that – I just thought you'd want to stay put, because of the boys!"
"We're not going on a road trip. Has everyone lost their memories of the last one – or the one before that?"
"I don't see why I can't take part in a road trip as well, it's not as if—"
"I'm sure I could set up an itinerary so we all get to have an equal amount of time on the road with each other," Annie chimes in, grabbing a pen and pencil. "If we start by—"
"If I have to Jack Kerouac back and forth across the whole of North America with you guys, I'm gonna need everyone to sign a waiver absolving me of their horrible murder."
"How about Vegas?" suggests Abed. "I've always wanted to go there. It's a long way for Shirley to travel, but it's pretty much halfway between Greendale and LA – and Troy will fly us all there," he adds as a sweetener.
"I can do that, because I'm rich now," agrees Troy, leaning into shot on Abed's laptop.
Which is how the Greendale Six end up on a four-night trip to Vegas.
Really, they ought to have known better.
---
Waking up with a hangover is not exactly a new phenomenon to Jeff, but this one is a doozy. He turns his head slightly, which results in a sharp pain stabbing into the back of his skull. He groans, and the sound makes his head swim, and moving his hands to stop it makes the whole world start to pitch.
He makes it to the bathroom just in time.
Once he's thrown up all his internal organs, he feels lucid again, and surprisingly much better – although he's familiar enough with the routine to know this is a temporary state. So he takes the opportunity to blink at his surroundings, and it's when he sees the marble wash basin that it all comes flooding back.
The Bellagio.
Vegas.
The reunion.
Annie, beautiful in a slinky satin dress, looking happier than he'd seen her in months...
He glances down at his left hand with the desperate hope that the rest was a dream. But there it is. On his third finger. A ring.
Well, fuck.
He washes his face and brushes his teeth, lingering in the bathroom for ten minutes before he gets up the courage to stumble back into the bedroom. And there she is, on her stomach, face buried in the pillows and snoring gently: the new Mrs. Winger.
At least they're both still fully dressed. He remembers kissing – a lot of kissing – but he's pretty sure that they both passed out before it got anywhere interesting. He's not sure whether or not he feels grateful about this – on the one hand, they can get an annulment with a clear conscience (it'll matter to Annie, he's pretty sure), but on the other hand… he wonders if he missed his one opportunity.
Not wanting to wake her, he sneaks quietly around the room, opening things to find out a) whose room this is, and b) where the fuck they've hidden the fridge. It turns out to be his room (or suite, actually – Troy really went to town), and he pauses, and then shrugs and changes into a T-shirt and clean boxers before grabbing a bottle of water and heading back to the bed. He sits down gently, and indulges himself for a moment, letting his eyes travel down her smooth back, to the dip of her waist and the lush curve of her ass. All he wants to do right now is to lie down next to her, wrap his arms around her, and go back to sleep. But, if he has any scrap of honor left, he should wake her up and tell her the bad news.
He downs half the bottle of water, which makes him feel nauseated and shivery, so he lies down on his side and pulls the cover over him, watching her and trying to work up a plan of what to say – but his brain is fuzzing over again, and he can't string two thoughts together. He doesn't actually have to wake her up, he reasons. The more she can sleep off the inevitable hangover, the better she'll be able to cope with… however she chooses to react to this. He can't imagine it will be well.
God, he's so tired. But he needs to stay awake, so he can talk to her as soon as she wakes up, try to keep her from freaking out.
He lets his hand stray to her waist – but it's okay, it's nothing he hasn’t touched before, over clothing, purely platonically. He can feel her warmth through the fabric of her dress, and it's inexpressibly soothing.
He doesn't even notice himself falling asleep again.
---
The first thing she notices is the heat. She feels surrounded, and at first it's nice, comforting, but as she begins to feel other things – the pressure of her bladder, the dryness of her throat, the swimmy feeling in her head that she's pretty sure is a lurking hangover waiting to pounce, the uncomfortable press of the zipper of her dress and the underwire of her bra – she starts to feel too hot, smothered even. Except for her feet, which feel like blocks of ice. She stirs restlessly – and behind her, there's a masculine grumbling noise, and a hand tightens on her waist.
Annie's eyes shoot open.
For a moment, she has no idea where she is, she recognizes nothing – but she forces her brain into a cold start (What happened, where am I?) and it all begins to tumble back in fits and starts. Troy's homecoming, she remembers. The trip to Vegas. The others wandering off to go to Cirque du Soleil, but Annie had always been terrified of clowns, and Jeff wasn't interested. Playing the slots, and then the roulette wheel, and then craps. She'd been on a winning streak – nothing to frighten the casino, but enough to cover a decent chunk of her school tuition, and halfway through the evening she'd sensibly cashed in most of it and had it sent to her room. The rest, she'd allowed herself to play with, and she remembered the giddiness as her winning streak continued, and they drank more, and it felt like everything was going right. Flirting with Jeff, getting him to blow on her hand. The teasing rumble of his voice in her ear as she leaned over the table and put it all on one roll of the dice: "If you win this one, I'm totally going to marry you for your money."
Annie gives a quiet, panicked squeak as the rest of the night slides into place, and she wiggles her hand – currently trapped under her body – and feels the hard press of an unfamiliar band around her finger. "Oh god," she moans under her breath. "Oh god, oh god, oh god…"
Now that she knows who's in bed with her, wrapped around her like a particularly muscular blanket, she recognizes all those other little signs – his cologne, his suitcase over there, the shirt and pants strewn carelessly on the floor…
She looks down at herself in a panic, but no, she's still dressed, and she barely remembers coming back to the room, so she's pretty sure she passed out as soon as she reached a horizontal surface. There had been kissing, though. Oh boy, had there been kissing. She feels her whole body flush hot and cold.
Jeff chooses that moment to make a sleepy noise and pull her more tightly back against him, his arm banding tightly around her chest, just beneath her breasts. He nuzzles into the back of her neck, and Annie closes her eyes and whines quietly. Oh god, this is all kinds of fucked up, because she wants this more than anything, but they've jumped a step – several steps, in fact. Several very important steps, such as, oh, actually admitting how they feel about each other, and then dating, and sex, and all the stuff that comes before getting freaking married.
A wave of nausea sweeps over her, and she jerks quickly out of his arms, and stumbles on wobbly legs for the bathroom, getting there just in time.
She HATES throwing up – not only is it vile, but it always triggers a wave of emotions in her that are beyond all reasonable proportion or control. She can't stop retching, and it's so awful and she just wants to stop, but it keeps coming and all she can do is suffer through it. Within moments, she's hanging over the toilet bowl, sobbing uncontrollably. A few seconds later there's the sound of hasty footsteps, and the tap running. She has enough presence of mind to press the flush, but then slumps against the bowl, past caring about her dignity. A damp washcloth is thrust into her hand, and she takes it gratefully, and sobs into it. Her teeth rattle against the glass of water he hands her to rinse her mouth.
When it becomes clear that she's done throwing up but not done crying, Jeff hauls her into his lap, rubbing her back helplessly. "Shhh, it'll be okay, baby, I swear, everything will be okay," he says, sounding panicky and entirely unreassuring. She clutches his T-shirt through a fresh wave of tears – but thankfully that seems to be the last of it, and at last she quietens down into hiccupping breaths.
"I hate getting sick," she explains croakily, when she's able to speak again.
"Yeah, no shit," he says, but gently. He's wrapped himself around her – one knee propped up behind her, arms around her, chin resting on her head – and it's really comforting.
"No, I mean – that's why I'm crying – it's not about..." She trails off, tears threatening. Okay, maybe it was a little about that, too.
The hand on her back pauses, and then resumes. "Right," he says. "That."
They sit in silence for a moment, contemplating the new world order. "Oh god," says Annie, panic threatening to overwhelm her again. "What are we going to do? We got married!" Her voice drops automatically on the last word, like it's an obscenity.
"Yeah, I was there too, remember? So is it living up to the fantasy?"
"Jeff, this isn't a joke!"
"I know, I know," he sighs. "I just – look, I'm too hungover to deal with this right now, okay? Can we just go back to bed and sleep it off?"
She pulls herself upright and glares at him. "No. No, we can't sleep this off, Jeff. I have to get back to my room before someone finds me here!"
"And says what? We're married – it literally couldn't be more respectable. Hell, we haven't even had sex."
"Oh, so, what, you want to – to claim your marital rights now, is that it?"
"Well, I'm up for it if you are!"
She makes an exasperated noise. "You're such a pig. This is all your fault!"
"My fault? How d'you figure that?"
"Well, there's only one person in this room who's nearly gotten married three times in the last five years, and it's not me," she says, tartly.
He gapes at her for a moment. "I… Those were different!"
"Oh, really? In what way?" She waits, but he can't seem to find an answer to that. "I can't believe I married you!"
"Amazing, married less than a day and we already sound like my parents," he says. And then the fight leaves him, abruptly. "Annie, I didn't mean that—"
"I am going," she says, pushing herself off of him and up to standing, "back to my room."
"We should talk—"
"I don't think that's a good idea," she says tightly. "We might both say something else we'll regret."
He nods. "Okay. If that's what you want."
She pauses at the bathroom door, and looks back, unwillingly still drawn to him, no matter how much he pisses her off. He's still sitting on the floor, arms outstretched and propped on his knees, staring at his hands. He looks weary – defeated.
"Jeff?"
He looks up.
"I'll… I'll see you at breakfast, all right?"
He nods, and his brow clears a little. "All right," he agrees.