Title: Stages of Gale
Author: phobosgirl (phobosgirl@hotmail.com)
Date: 12/18/05
Rating: R for language
Authors notes: This is part one of several. My muse is being stubborn and only giving me this story in fragments. It is demanding that I find coherence in its chaos and I am reminding it that I am on vacation until January 3rd. As a compromise, I have written the first fragment it gave me. This is, as usual, un-beta’d cos I wouldn’t know a beta if one walked in my front door. Feedback is more than welcome and can be sent to phobosgirl@hotmail.com
Disclaimer: This is only for fun. None of this is real nor should any implication be made based on this manuscript that I have any insider info on either of these two actors.
Warnings: Gale/Randy (Queer as Folk) RPS
Complete: no

Stages of Gale- Part 1

The first time was in the middle of season one.

I was walking through the studio parking lot after work one night, yawning and stretching and grumbling to myself about the late hour. I saw him leaning against my car, the streetlamps casting him in an orange glow, his arms crossed. He appeared to be studying the ground intently, but even from thirty feet away and having known him for only a few months, I could still discern the tension in his posture, the strain in his face.

I approached him whistling tunelessly, not wanting to startle him. I stood in front of him and studied his form… head down, hair covering his troubled eyes, fists clenched and tucked across his chest. He was a man with something on his mind.

“Gale?” I questioned softly. He didn’t look up but his body language told me he’d heard me; his jaw tightened and he huffed out a nervous breath.

“Gale, what’s wrong?” I tried again.

Two beats, four, ten and finally he raised his head and his eyes met mine.

His expression spoke the words his voice couldn’t find. There was fright and longing and a deep desire to be understood. He stared at me and I at him until finally, before I made him shatter into a million pieces by forcing him to tell me what he wanted, I nodded, letting him know that I recognized his need. He sighed heavily and the relief in him was evident.

“Get in,” I told him and after another moment spent studying my face, he walked around to the passenger’s side and folded his tall frame into my car.

I took him to my apartment, to my bed, and tried to be what he needed. There were few words exchanged except for simple instructions- “slower”, “now”, “more”, “touch me”. Our lovemaking was measured but awkward and saturated with strangled emotion, fervor and his deeper conflicts. And when he came, he turned his face away from me and threw one arm over his eyes so I wouldn’t see him at his most vulnerable.

My heart broke for him.

Afterwards, I expected him to slip away. I was sure I’d wake in the morning alone, that he would have left in the night to hide his shame. Instead, when I opened my eyes, I saw him sitting in a chair near the bed, half dressed and holding one beat-up tennis shoe in his right hand. He seemed to have forgotten what to do with it, so intently was he staring at my face.

He gave me a small smile and moved to kneel down next to the bed, our eyes level. His fingers flitted along the back of my hand to my bare shoulder, then to my face and finally to brush the hair back over my ear. His eyes were just as restless, tracing the path his hand was taking, and I laid still, letting him touch me as he pleased for fear of scaring him into running. Finally satisfied, perhaps, that I was real and that last night had actually occurred, he leaned in and gave me the barest of kisses on my lips.

“Thank you,” was all he said, and I knew he needed to be reassured that nothing would change between us, that I understood his need to find himself in his own time.

I smiled my promise and nodded. It seemed enough for him and a few minutes later I heard my front door open and then close again as he made his way out.

Work went on and while we never tried to pretend it didn’t happen, we also didn’t talk about it, either.

Our friendship deepened, and for that I was grateful. He was unlike anyone I’d ever met and I found myself drawn to his quirky humor and astonishing but quiet brilliance. He enticed me to join him out in the world and I learned from his example that I could be who I was and still enjoy the vibrancy of life going on around me. He caused some of my innate darkness to lift.

What he might have learned from me he kept to himself, but I know he enjoyed my company as much as I enjoyed his. We were comfortable together.

Weeks passed in a blur.

**************************************** **************************************** *************

The next time was easier for him.

Continue on to Stages of Gale - Part 2