COMMUNITY FIC: Mistakes (Abed/Annie/Britta, 500 words)

[neigedens]

Title: Mistakes
Author: neigedens
Rating: Teen; no warnings
Word Count: 500 words
Notes: Written for the brittaanniethon on LJ for lenina20, who wanted Britta/Annie/Abed future fic.

Abed rolled off the couch sometime after dinner, when Annie and Britta were both sitting on the floor eating in front of the TV like they usually did when they were both too tired after work to cook or sustain much of a conversation.

"You two are really pretty," he said, looking up at them from the floor. "You could both be in a toothpaste commercial or something."

Britta swallowed. It was really hard to believe someone when they said you were attractive when you were eating that crappy instant Velveeta shit because you were too tired to take out the lettuce when you got home. "What makes you say that?"

"Are you kidding?" said Annie. "I've got horrible teeth!"

"What?" said Britta, looking at her. "Who said?"

"I still have a little bit of an overbite. And they're not white at all. It's embarrassing."

"That's ridiculous," said Britta. "There's nothing wrong with your teeth."

Abed shrugged. "Whatever. That's what computers are for."

"You mean for correcting my messed-up teeth?" said Annie.

"We've gotten into a whole weird area here," said Britta. "More importantly: Jesus, Abed, did you just roll off the couch? Just how lazy are you?"

Abed's lip twitched, but he shifted around so his head was on her lap. "Sorry. I was trying to make conversation. I read somewhere that TV is killing interpersonal relationships, which is almost the exact opposite to what I've always thought. Plus you both look really tired."

"I am really tired," said Annie, putting down her fork on her plate and leaning against Britta too. "Taking this many classes was a mistake."

Britta sighed, and when she did she could feel the pressure of both the people leaning against her. If you wanted to talk about mistakes, you could look at her. The first mistake had been renting an apartment with friends. She had seen perfectly good friendships go into the crapper that way, over recriminations about lost rent and not cleaning the toilet.

"You'll be done quicker this way," he reminded her. "Plus even if there is something wrong with your teeth, you have really great hair to make up for it."

Annie looked mollified, if a bit confused. The second mistake, Britta thought as she ran her fingers through Annie's admittedly very nice head of hair, was sleeping with one of those friends-turned-roommates. "Thanks, Abed. You always know...something to say, anyway." And she leaned over and gave Abed a sweet and, to Britta's mind, almost chaste kiss on the forehead.

Britta sighed. The last mistake was probably sleeping with both roommates at the same time, which was a situation rife with possibilities of conflicts of both the interpersonal and the physical type. (Abed's ability to take up a very small amount of space while sharing a bed was what had saved them from the second problem, thankfully.) But when Abed gave Annie that inscrutable look that was almost funny in its bird-like intensity, and Annie looked down at Abed with that smug smile, well, Britta lost count of all the mistakes she had ever made and could only say, "Screw dinner. Do you guys want to go to bed?"

"Yes," said Abed instantly, sitting up.

"But what about the dishes? And--oh." Britta kissed her and sighed again. Sometimes Annie was even worse at picking up a signal than Abed.