lierdumoa | I wrote fic! Go read!

Title: It Went Like This: Pt. 1
Fandom: QaF RPS
Pairing: Gale/Randy
Rating: NC-17
Summary: Gratuitous sex and reality avoidance. Probably not the best way to start a relationship. I call it the interlude that wouldn't die. Most of the plot will be in pt. 2.

A/N: My sincere thanks to

quinn222 for the beta, and to

songstress_magz, for the non-beta. All my love to

spaggel for egging me on, and for her sage advice on the viability of kitchen lubricants. Massive hugs to everyone else who did readthroughs while I was writing this and reassured me that it wasn't crap.

Prequel: So I Was Thinking...

The night we first had sex was perfect. A little too perfect. So of course, I was expecting our morning after to be a total disaster. I was sure the moment Gale saw that he was tangled together with me on my bed he would blurt out something to the effect of, "We moved too fast," or "This was a bad idea," or even, "Glad I finally got that out of my system!" I was basically terrified of what he was going to say once he opened his eyes.

I brought my hand to his forehead to smooth back his hair, but stopped short of touching him because I was too afraid of waking him. I pulled my hand back. I then lay there like a pussy and prayed for one more half hour. Just one more goddamn half hour to watch him sleep. To pretend that everything was okay. Being the lucky guy that I am, not four minutes had gone by before the phone rang, jolting Gale awake instantly.

I thought briefly of suing the phone company for unjustifiable cruelty. Gale groggily pushed himself up into a sitting position. I was still caught up in my irrational terror, so my first thought was that he was going to leave. Without a word. He was going to walk out of my apartment with his mussed hair and his morning stubble and no uncomfortable goodbye slowing down his stride and -- why the fuck was he answering my phone?

Oh, God.

He put the reciever to his mouth and said, "Michelle? Oh, what time is it? Damn, sorry, I'm still in bed. I was up late--"

Oh, God. "Gale?"

I'd forgotten what he's like before his morning coffee.

"Tell me you did not just answer my phone."

I snatched the phone from his hand. "Michelle?"

There was a long pause. "Ah, hey Randy," she said finally. "I didn't mean to wake you guys up."

I could hear the amusement in her voice. "Yeah," I mumbled, "just...Gale's an idiot. Don't say anything to anybody."

"You're a half hour late, you know."

I glanced at the clock. Shit. She was right. "I'll be right there," I said, and hung up. I turned to Gale and glared. He looked back at me. And then his eyes started to glaze over. I couldn't figure out why until I glanced back and noticed how he was tenting the sheets.

Huh. You know, I've been told that I'm cute when I'm angry. A statement guaranteed to get me even more pissed off than I already am. Don't think anyone ever found my anger a turn-on before, though. It was kind of amusing, actually. It took a moment for Gale to realize that he'd zoned out, and when he did, he got this vaguely frightened expression. As if he thought I was going punch him. Which I found even more amusing.

So I laughed.

Gale pouted. I laughed harder. By the time I wound down he was looking at me pensively. "So I was thinking..." he began, "We should call in sick. Talk about stuff." I noticed that his eyes were glazing over again. I wondered whether I should just give him some coffee and smack him until his brain caught up with his dick. No. That wasn't really necessary. I liked horny Gale better than lucid Gale, anyway.

I kissed him, and smiled. Looked like I was going to get my half hour of unreality after all. Looked like I was going to get the entire day, in fact.

Score.

It was after a good twenty minutes of making out that I remembered to call Michelle back tell her that Gale and I weren't going to make it to work after all, so she could go ahead and call in sick for us. I could practically hear her eyebrows scraping her hairline when she heard that message. There was a good chance that by tomorrow absolutely everyone was going to know.

But between the faraway look in Gale's eyes and the prominent ridge jutting out from between his hips, I honestly couldn't bring myself to care. I kissed him again. He smelled like morning breath, and the aftertaste of semen. Slightly foul, but somehow familiar. I'd never kissed him with morning breath wafting between our lips before, and I was surprised how easy it was to ignore the unpleasantness. His tongue slid ticklishly against the roof of my mouth, then slipped under my tongue, pressing up before moving off again. I didn't want him to stop.

I swung one of my legs over to fall between his, managing somehow to catch a corner of the sheet between our bodies. I started to lift myself up so I could pull the fabric out from between us, but before I could reach in, his fingers were biting into my hips and he was pulling me down against him. The pressure and the slide had me hardening against the thin barrier of cloth and the flex of muscles just underneath. I was against his upper thigh and he was digging into my hip, both of us leaking into my sheet. Uncontrolled grinding as the twin stains we made spread fast from thread to thread. Wet, and so close, and almost like skin against skin but not. Not.

Oh, God, Gale.

We were quiet. Gale came on an intake of breath, pressing up hard enough to bruise and quaking, fuck, like his muscles were unclenching all at once, all too quickly. Heavy wetness spread through the bedcovers and onto my skin in a warm mess. He's a bit sloppy in the morning, you know. Before his coffee.

I was a bit sloppy too, I realized, when my orgasm followed his far too suddenly, a pathetic, choked off sound bursting out of my mouth. So fucking embarrassing. Soon the sheets were squelched between us, sticky and uncomfortable. I didn't want to move. I figured I'd have to, later. Much later. For the moment, I let my face fall into the space between his neck and shoulder. The pillow beneath his head smelled like cotton and sweat.

It was easy to doze off.

I didn't wake up again until Gale pulled himself out from under me and, grabbing hold of my wrist, dragged me with him to the bathroom. He rummaged through the cupboards and drawers for a minute before finding an unopened packet of toothbrushes. He opened one and held the brush under the faucet, wetting it before picking up my tube of toothpaste and squeezing out the recommended dime sized amount. He'd barely gotten the thing between his lips before he was shouldering his way through my shower curtains, hand once again affixed to my wrist.

We stood there under the shower spray and he watched me, brushing his teeth with one hand and adjusting the temperature with the other. Gale brushed his teeth in the shower. How...efficient. I felt myself smiling. He let go of the shower knob, put a hand to my waist, spun me around, and pulled me back against him. There were warm palms sliding down towards my groin. Long fingers stroking me to hardness.

Trickles of toothpaste suds dripping from his chin to my shoulder, rinsing off faster than they could fall.

After the shower I wrapped a towel around my waist and brushed my teeth in front of the sink. Gale scrounged for a clean towel in my linen closet, patted himself dry, then threw it in the hamper and strolled naked into the kitchen to heat water for coffee. By the time I joined him the water had started to boil. We sat down for lunch, seeing as it was a bit late for breakfast. I got some leftover potato salad out of the fridge, and we ate it staight from the tupperware bowl. We drank the coffee from teacups since all the mugs were dirty. Sharp and bitter. We both liked it black.

Gale gazed at me inscrutably as he ate. The silence wasn't comfortable, but it wasn't uncomfortable either. It felt charged. Charged silence and potent stares eventually led to my body being bent over the back of my chair, arching wontonly to Gale's deliberate thrusting. This must be the honeymoon phase of our relationship, I thought, my hands clenching into fists and my knees shaking so badly they knocked against the chair legs, hard enough to bruise.

"Feels fantastic," Gale groaned into my ear, and I found myself nodding helplessly, bucking up under him as he found my prostate. Vocabulary faded from monosyllabism to simple pants. In mere seconds I came onto the kitchen tile, Gale right behind me, and we stood still for a few shaky moments before slumping to the floor, breathing hard and fast.

It took a while for me to catch my breath. I spent the time patting myself on the back for keeping a pack of lubed condoms in the cabinet next to the stove. Gale stood up first, and helped me to my feet. We cleaned off the floor, then he walked back to my bedroom to pull on the jeans I'd peeled off him the night before. I realized that neither of us had been wearing any clothes since the night before. Gale's jeans were still discarded at the foot of the bed. He pulled them on without bothering to look for his underwear. He picked up the shirt he'd worn, sniffed it, discarded it, then found my t-shirt and put it on instead.

I felt like I was watching the nature channel.

Now dressed, he looked at me and gave me an embarassed grin, peeking out from under his eyelashes while putting one hand to the back of his neck to shove down the shirt tag. "Do you remember where my shoes are?"

He really needed to stop looking at me like that. It was making me want to ravish him on the hallway carpet. And use words like ravish. Oh, right -- the hallway. That's where his shoes were. "Your shoes are in the hallway. So are your socks I think, and. Wait. Why do you want your shoes? Are you leaving?"

And really, I meant that last question as casually as possible.

He gave me a searching look. "Grab me some sweatpants out of my bottom drawer, would you?" I asked, suddenly feeling very naked. He found a pair and tossed it to me before walking out into the hallway. I tried not to follow him like a lost puppy.

"I have to go pick up some things at my apartment," he said. "I'll come back over tonight. You know. If you want."

If I -- "Yeah. Yeah, please."

I did not just say please. You were mistaken. Fingers in ears. Loud singing. Nope, can't hear you.

He walked through the living room and out, towards the stairs. He did a small backwards wave just as the door clicked shut behind him.

I was alone in my apartment. I shouldn't be allowed to be alone in my apartment. I think far too much. It's bad for me.

I started thinking about how this whole thing began. For the longest time I thought I didn't feel anything for Gale beyond casual friendship. We worked together. We got along, most of the time. If I thought I felt something more, I figured it was just Justin bleeding over into my real life. Cause, you know, method acting. It gets to you. If Justin were so desperately in love with Brian, it made sense that I'd sometimes stare at Gale too long from across the room or sit closer to him than necessary when we were on a sofa together.

At least, I thought it made sense. Till my ex-boyfriend, who at the time was not my ex, asked me one night when we went out to dinner, "Do you guys always cuddle like that?"

"We don't --"

Oh.

Okay, so maybe I had a little crush, on Gale. No big deal. I'd get over it. Only my job wasn't exactly making it easy on me. You try getting over a guy who you have to make out with all the time. Who's so pretty it isn't fair, despite the unibrow. Who's watched all your favorite movies with you even though he can't stand most of them and complains, like, the entire time. Who gets really bad 80's music stuck in your head. On purpose. Who laughs when you yell at him and then shuts you up by slipping you tongue. And it works. Every damn time. And...yes. I had a point, here.

My point being that I was never exactly given the opportunity to get over Gale because I never got enough space. So my little crush, with plenty of water and nourishment and sunlight, grew and grew and grew into a big fat unrequited bitch. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Gale kept dating women.

It was a few months ago that I actually acknowledged my feelings for him. After that, I resigned myself to my fate. I was in love with a straight guy, which was kind of shitty, but overall I was okay. Until one day I found Gale looking very upset, and as usual tried to comfort him, and he kissed me. Not the "let me distract you so you'll shut up" kind of kiss, but an actual kiss. A "let me tongefuck your mouth until your brain trickles out of your ear" sort of thing.

It was rather unfair of him, I thought. He'd told me he was straight. He'd showed me he was straight. And then he kissed me. He made me feel, made me hope, made me hard, and as soon as he'd done that, pawned the whole thing off as a lapse in judgement. I didn't exactly react well. I sulked like a seven year old. There was a week or so of silent treatment, and then yelling, and a snide remark or two.

This brings us to the night before, in which he had somehow managed to convince me that having sex with him was a good idea. I was so close to telling him to go fuck himself when he gave me a look. This big eyed, pleading look. I'd even go so far as to say coquettish. Of course I wasn't going to say no to that. I'm glad I didn't. The sex was fantastic. The sex was brilliant. And with a bare minimum of freaking out on his part.

Frankly, it was too good to be true. I never get this lucky. There had to be a catch. Maybe I was being paranoid. That's what happens when I get left alone in my own apartment for too long. Paranoia strikes. I can't help it.

Gale, please come back.

Please.

He came back an hour later. I was almost done working myself into a frenzy over the thought that he'd ditched me when he knocked on the door. I opened it to find him carrying what had to be a lifetime supply of microwave popcorn. "Let's watch a movie," he said.

Being Gale, he hadn't actually gone out and rented a movie. He said, "We'll watch something of yours." Never mind that he'd already seen all of my movies, with the exception of my porn, which quite obviously isn't the kind of entertainment suited for microwave popcorn. We ended up watching King Kong Lives on HBO. At Gale's insistence, of course. I tried to change the channel, but he slapped my hand away -- slapped my hand away -- saying, "Look, it's got that chick from Terminator."

King Kong Lives shall henceforth be referred to as Gale's Hetero Wet Dream Circa 1986.

Gale toed his shoes off and we sat on the floor. Gale preferred to use the couch as a back rest, instead of a seat. Of course, he made me join him on the carpet. He claimed that if I were behind him on the couch I'd spend the whole movie throwing popcorn in his hair.

Alright, so I threw popcorn in his hair once. Sue me.

It seemed that every time he leaned over me for the popcorn he managed to clinch his body closer to mine. After about half an hour his left foot had managed to slide under my ankle. Another five minutes and his leg was practically cradling mine from underneath. Not our usual seating arrangement, but I wasn't about to complain. The whole thing was strangely non-sexual. Affectionate, I guess.

I didn't watch the movie very closely. I know that Gale fell asleep before the end of it. It was about three quarters of the way through, I think, that he started nodding off. His fingertips were greasy with buttered popcorn, his mouth slack and his eyes drooping. His head fell forward with exhaustion, only to jerk-snap back as he tried to stay awake. Finally his head leaned back on the couch cushion and he drifted. I slid off of his leg so the limb wouldn't fall asleep on him. I started to turn the tv off, but nodded off myself before I got the chance.

My eyes closed to the sight of his face glowing blue under the light of the screen, then pink, then green, then...

I woke up early to a seductive drag of friction over my nether regions. Without opening my eyes I took inventory of the situation. I remembered that I'd fallen asleep. My neck was cricked at an odd angle, legs sprawled wide on the living room carpet. I remembered that Gale had fallen asleep beside me. My eyes snapped open.

Gale.

He wasn't beside me anymore. He was on the floor with his arms wrapped around my thigh as if he were hugging a teddy bear. His fingers were kind of tugging on my sweatpants. Right. That would explain the friction. I tried to nudge him awake with a hand to his shoulder. He made a sleepy noise and then rolled over. Only he rolled in the wrong direction, because instead of rolling away from me, he was now practically lying on top of my leg, with his face buried right where my upper thigh meets my crotch.

Fuck. As if I hadn't already been sporting wood. I tried nudging him awake again. He groaned sleepily. I guess if we were in bed he would have been burying his face in his pillow. Real cute Gale -- but that isn't a pillow. Please stop nuzzling my cock. I really don't want to start off the day by coming in my pants.

I tried shaking his shoulder. He pressed his face in deeper, then went still. He stiffened and breathed in hard through his nose. His hand shifted tentatively on my sweatpants, then started to creep up the underside of my thigh. Jesus, I love his hands. Hands. Fingers. Just. Gale, Gale, Gale what are you trying to do to me? I couldn't hear anything past my own breathing. My whole body was going tense. This had to stop. I slid my hand into his hair and pulled his head back. He blinked his eyes into focus and greeted me with a smile.

"Good morning, Randy."

The words just rolled off his tongue. Bedroom voice. I hauled him up for a kiss. He still tasted like popcorn butter from the night before. His hands moved up under my shirt to my hips, touching lightly, thumbs rubbing over skin. I started to grab hold of him and pull him between my legs. He scrambled a bit and ended up leaning over me, on his knees between my thighs, pushing my head back against the couch cushion with his mouth, still moving his thumbs over my hip bones. No.

No.

I'd just washed these sweats. And we were going to be late for work. Oh, fuck -- work! "Gale." He kissed me harder, forcing me to put my hands on his chest and shove him back. "Gale, we have to go to work."

"We do?"

His thumbs slid down my hipbones, underneath my waistband, closer to -- "Stop."

He sighed and buried his head in the crook of my neck, letting his body slump against mine. "Five more minutes."

"No. You are not making me come in these pants."

He smiled. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it. Real fucking funny Gale. "Would you get off me already? Go make coffee."

He did climb off of me, though not without brushing his knee against my groin as a final tease. He's evil like that. I scowled at him and he smirked, then rubbed a hand over his face and stood up. I let my head fall back against the couch cushions again and let my eyes fall shut for a second as I listened to him pad his way towards the kitchen.

I got up and made my way to the bathroom. I came out after a short shower to find Gale pouring two cups of coffee. He was about to sit down when the phone rang. I saw him reaching for it, and ran to pick it up before he got the chance, pressing two fingers to his lips as I brought the reciever to my ear.

"Yeah, Michelle. We'll be at work today."

Gale gave me an angry look. Then opened his mouth and started sucking on my index finger. He always fights dirty.

I yanked my hand back and took a seat at my kitchen table. I didn't look at Gale until I'd taken a few long swallows of coffee. "So," he offered, "What now?"

"You shower. We head out."

"You want to show up at work together?"

"That's the plan, yeah." Did he think people were going to notice something? We showed up at work together all the time. We ate breakfast together all the time.

You know, it's a little ridiculous how long it took me to figure out that Gale's affection was somewhat more than platonic.

"Right," he muttered. "Uh, clothes?"

"I've got plenty of extra shirts. I think I have an old pair of your jeans, too."

"Oh?"

"Yeah. Remember? You spilled V8 on them. I put them in the wash and leant you some of my sweats."

"Right."

"You know, I kind of want my sweats back."

Gale gave me a confused look, then comprehension dawned and he bent his head. I realized he was snickering quietly into his coffee. Yes Gale, stealing my clothes is very amusing. Ass. Still, I couldn't help but smile in response.

"Come on, before Michelle hunts us down and castrates us."

He raised a brow at me, very Brian-like, and got up to put his empty cup in the sink. I soon did the same. A short while later I was hunting down his jeans while he showered and brushed his teeth -- simultaneously, the freak. I paused in my search to stare somewhat longingly at the bathroom door, but managed to stay on task by reminding myself I needed to get us to work on time. Ambushing Gale in the shower was not conducive to punctuality.

After dressing with commendable speed, we were out the door. The trip to work was quick, and soon I found myself being ushered into makeup, while Gale was dragged off elsewhere to get into costume. He gave me one last inscrutable look before disappearing around a corner. I headed towards the nearest chair, closed my eyes, dropped my head back, and let the artists surrounding me go to work.

Hal was the only other actor there, when I arrived. He asked if I was feeling better. It took me a moment to figure out what he meant. Then I remembered how I'd told Michelle to call in sick for me. I managed to reply without blushing. I doubt he would have been able to tell anyway, with the people hovering over my face. I thought he'd left, but when I opened my eyes again I saw that he was standing by the door, looking at me and grinning widely. I waited for him to crack a joke.

He didn't say a word. The grin kept getting wider, though. I gave him a questioning look. Wider still. It was starting to freak me out a little. Perky people tend to do that to me. I was probably just being so paranoid again, I thought, and turned to ignore him. I heard him chuckle. Even Hal doesn't start laughing for no reason. What the hell was so funny?

I started to ask him when I noticed the look on his face. It's the same look Thea got when she heard a particularly juicy piece of gossip.

Oh, Michelle. You bitch. You told.

Continue to Pt. 2

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