Chapter Text
Abed had been working at Mythic Quest for a few years without any hiccups. He fell easily into the role of Brad. A nice mix between Jeff and Evil Abed that was easy enough to consistently pull off. Sometimes him being two different people stressed him out to the extreme, and had caused a few meltdowns. But overall, it was better to be Brad than to be a depressed Abed.
Abed had meticulously crafted Brad’s image. He wanted to make him just be an asshole overall, but that just wouldn’t work. All characters need at least little moment of development or else they are these gray, static blocks of annoyingness that did not belong. So, Abed let his coworkers see ‘the real Brad’ a few times, but never enough to see Abed. He was always there, hidden under the surface, pulling the strings.
Abed was getting really good at being the puppet master, no mistakes, total control. Until the first slip up.
It was a normal day, at first. Brad was working in his and David’s office. Some boring papers, he wasn’t paying too much attention, it was just busy work. When he received a Facetime call. Brad’s eyebrows furrowed when he heard the ringing. He opened his mouth to tell David to put his phone on silent when he realized it was actually his phone that was making those continuous, insufferable noises. He moved his hand to pull out his phone and was about to just hang up on whomever was calling, put his phone on silent and just continue about with his workday when he noticed who was calling.
“Frankie…?” He muttered under his breath. His brow lifted in his confusement. He wasn’t confused that Frankie was calling him perasy, it's just, he had set up specific call times with his Greendale friends so that there would be limited Brad and Abed overlap. And Frankie was aware that Abed did not pick up during the work day. ‘So why is she calling?’ Abed thought. After a moment of hesitation, he clicked the green button and let Abed in a little at work. Although risky, his Greendale friends come before Brad, always. Well, most of the time at least.
“Abed, thank goodness you picked up. Now I know that you don’t like to be called at work but please this is an emergency.” Frankie’s calm but slightly nervous voice rang on the other end of the call. She looked mildly panicked through the phone, but for Frankie, this meant that she was actually freaking out a ton. Although Abed typically couldn’t pick up on facial cues very well, Frankie’s sometimes resembled his own, and if Abed knew anyone, it was himself, and Tr-
Abed quickly cut off that train of thought and instead quickly looked over his shoulder just to check, and yes, the door was closed, and yes David had his earbuds in and was happily humming to whatever pop song he was listening to.
“Frankie, it’s alright. What’s happening?”
“Everything had calmed down for a while since the last fiasco with-”
“Leonard and Star Burns and Todd trying to kill each other because they all claimed to be God.” Abed finished Frankie’s sentence for her. Not noticing David’s eyes had moved away from his screen and onto the other man.
“Yeah, that was a whole thing, but now, the Dean ate Chang’s sandwich and Chang hasn’t taken his meds in a little bit and now he’s trying to kill Craig.”
Abed smirked a little bit at hearing the latest Greendale shenanigans, “and? This seems like a Winger speech solution scenario.”
Frankie nodded, “yeah, about Jeff…About ten minutes ago the ambulance took him.” Abed's eyes widened even further than his normal stare. “Nothing too bad though. Just a few minor potentially tetanus infected spoon stab wounds. He’ll be fine. But Chang, he needs to be stopped.”
By this point David had paused his music to try to listen in and get a feel for Brad’s always hidden private life.
“Okay, listen carefully Frankie.” Abed started as Frankie took out a pen and a pad of paper. “Make Chang a forgiveness sandwich and put some of his meds in it, and maybe a sedative depending on how enraged he is.” Frankie nodded along to Abed’s words, frantically writing. “Then once he's out or slightly calmed down, relax him to the couch, and call his psychiatrist, Frankie, please.”
Frankie stopped her nodding, a look Abed couldn’t place on her face, maybe regret? She muttered something along the lines of, “I didn’t…think of that…this school…gotten to me…” She placed her notepad down and let out a tight-lipped smile. “Alright, thank you, that was quite helpful, and sorry again, for calling you at work.”
Abed let out a little laugh, “as I said, it’s fine Frankie, if it’s an emergency like that, you really should call me. Also please update me on Jeff when you can.”
“Of course. Goodbye.”
“Bye.” Abed let out a breath and rubbed his hands over his eyes. He stayed like that for a moment when he realized he didn’t hear that annoying humming. He removed his hands and whipped his head to see David staring at him, eyes wide. “Shit. How much of that did you hear?” Brad demanded.
David gulped, threatened by Brad’s tone. “Um, not, uh too much, but uh, what’s a forgiveness sandwich? And who’s Frankie?”
Abed felt like he was going to hurl, but Brad didn’t panic, at least not in this part of the story. Not during an unplanned moment. So he let his fear turn into Brad’s anger. His nostrils flared and his eyes narrowed. “Tell anyone about this conversation and I will ruin you.”
David nodded, visibly getting sweatier. “Yeah, o-of course, Brad.”
Brad nodded, satisfied. Then turned back to his mundane day work and typed away as David thought about the half conversation he just overheard. Hey, Brad never said he couldn’t spiral while pondering over everything that conversation could have meant.