Community Fic: Not Coming Sunday

[peppermintpuppet]

Title: Not Coming Sunday
Fandom: Community
Relationship: Annie Edison/Shirley Bennett
Rating: M
Length: 222 words
Notes: religious guilt

Lord, forgive her, she’s drinking too much and—-Lord, forgive her, her mind is going all dark, all black and muddled. She reaches out for someone to hold onto, for someone to touch. They’ve already seen the pictures in the bar, so does it even matter? Does it matter at all anymore? So: she drinks. Lord, forgive her, because in her frantic attempts to remove every reminder of her presence that ghosts over this place, before they ruined it all, she forgot the one reason she really had to stop going here: alcohol makes her want to sin sometimes.

Forgive her as she reaches out underneath the table and finds Annie’s knee. The softness of her, the warmth. It could be anyone, really, and it wouldn’t matter, but it’s Annie, and it’s her innocence, and her tightly-wound, beautifully strung-together demeanor that Shirley both admires and cannot see as her complete truth. She, even now, suspects that Annie is a bit lost—and when Annie stiffens but does not pull away, Shirley gets her confirmation. You can try to figure everything out and only end up further away from where you started; she suspects this happens more often than not. She knows the experience well. Her hand squeezes Annie’s knee, curls inwards.

“Shirley,” Annie says. She cannot figure out what it means. A warning? A lure? Does it even matter? Lord, forgive her.