inviting the fire, epilogue (the end!)

[wouldbedorothy]

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Title: Inviting The Fire: Epilogue
Author: wouldbedorothy  (AHS)
Pairing: Gale/Randy
Rating:  PG-13 at most end to very NC-17 fic, lol
Series/Sequel: It's OVER, ya'll!
Summary: wrapping up, explaining what happened after 11... and jumping forward for a glimpse of them a year later... 1325 words (some probably schmoopy, lol).
Author's Notes: I'm still really shocked by how much this was embraced.  I love you guys! :)  Contains brief lyric from "The Flame" by Cheap Trick.
Disclaimer: I don't know G or R, and obviously this didn't happen, because there definitely *was* a QAF.  Dylan's my character so... yes, I apologize for her, lol (but she's only briefly mentioned here). 

Inviting The Fire
by AHS

Epilogue

 
July 10, 2001

“What’s this new tradition you’ve come up with?”

“Well, since on your last birthday, we couldn’t kiss… every birthday from now on, however old you are, that’s how long we’re going to kiss.”

“So, you’re gonna kiss me for thirty-two seconds?”

“Not much of a party, is it? That’s us every day. No. Thirty-two minutes… no coming up for air.”

“Sounds dangerous, Rand.”

“Mm hmm. You ready?”

“Hell yes. We’ll use the watch you got me. Ready, set… c’mere you…”

*****

The show did go on, eventually. Carolyn’s nineteen-year-old daughter, Beverly… who’d been reading lines with her mom for weeks… was able to fill in for Dylan for the rest of that weekend’s performances. By the next and final weekend, Dylan had pulled herself together, fiercely determined to prove herself to the theatre once more. Booker had also returned by that time (his brother was okay), so Dylan, Randy, and Gale never had to all be onstage at the same time again. She and Randy were able to work together… and she and Gale even managed a good talk, putting an awkward but respectful sense of closure on their relationship.

Dylan and Travis had apparently shared a real connection and made a go of their relationship for a while. Although, Gale and Randy didn’t know what happened to them when Dylan moved to Los Angeles to try her hand at film and TV. The biggest significance of her move had been the selling of the house. Ownership had been completely hers (she lived pretty comfortably through inherited money), but she’d decided it was only fair to cut Gale a check for the difference his renovations had made in the price of the house. The amount had been… substantial, and while he thought of not accepting, eventually he took it. He knew it was her way of making peace, and he also knew exactly what he wanted to do with it.

Funded by the combination of that and their own savings, within another month or two, Gale and Randy were living in New York City, in an apartment that was theirs. It was small, and rent was ridiculous, but they were there and they were together.

Now… a year after the most disastrous non-performance of a play he’s ever been a part of… Randy has done two off-Broadway shows and two Broadway, including one musical, and garnered excellent reviews. Gale’s done some acting, too… a play, an episode of “Law & Order”… but he’s also starting to get into photography as more than just a hobby. Randy tells him all the time to stop wasting all his film on him, but he is by far Gale’s most inspiring subject.

Gale jokes that he only started doing the photography because, as Dylan said, “Two actors in a relationship never works.”

Gale doesn’t talk to her anymore, but they do see her occasionally… on their TV screen. They haven’t seen her in anything big yet, but one time they were flipping channels and landed on her, grinning unnaturally in some infomercial for “Love Metal Ballads of the Early 90’s,” or something like that. They really do hope she ends up getting better work, because she is very talented.

They still laughed. But then she had led to this conversation…

“I guess I’ll always feel a little indebted to Dylan. Not because of the check, but because… you know, without her freaky ways, you and I might never have gotten so, uh… close.”

“Yes, we would have.”

“We would?”

“Gale, it wasn’t Dylan. It was… God, or the universe, or fate. We were meant to meet and be together, and it would have happened, even if it had been a different way.”

“Okay, Mr. Fate. Tell me how.”

“We might have met in Georgia.”

“Let me guess… when I was eighteen and you were ten? First comes love, then comes prison…”

“Shut up. I’m just naming possibilities… Maybe someone else in your life would have encouraged you to act, and we’d have met on an audition.”

“Maybe.”

“Maybe even on a job… playing love interests.”

“……Yeah right, Rand, like that would ever happen.”

“Well, I will admit… without the nympho girlfriend bringing us together in such a unique way… making you face your overpowering carnal need for me nearly from the start… who knows how long you would have been in denial? We might have gotten stuck in ‘just friends’ mode.”

“Then I’m glad the universe chose to do it this way… where we fucking have it all.”

*****

For Randy and Gale, the difficult part of kissing for thirty-two minutes certainly isn’t boredom. It’s not even breathing. It’s only kissing… not doing anything more than that. They manage somehow, but as soon as the little beeping sound sets them free, clothes start flying.

Then the phone rings.

“We don’t want any,” Gale grumbles, proceeding to ignore. But Randy manages to sneak a peek at the caller ID.

“It’s your mother.”

“Fuck!” he yells this time, frustrated. “I know she gave me life, but can’t I talk to her tomorrow?”

“Hang on.” Randy grins, picking up the receiver. “Mrs. Harold? Yes, this is Randy… Sorry about that, but Gale’s busy right now… Yes, I know I ruined your son’s chances for a good Christian marriage… But hey, aren’t you at least happy the chance for grandchildren isn’t out the window?… I mean, that’s what he’s busy with. Your son’s going to get me pregnant tonight or die trying… Are you all right? You should rest, Mrs. Harold, you sound tired. Happy Gale’s birthday!” He hangs up, and Gale lets loose his cackling.

“I’m gonna get you pregnant??”

“I just like to fuck with her head… She does know it doesn’t work like that, right?”

The thing is… while neither is interested in marriage, they have recently begun to discuss options for having a child. Randy knew early on that he wanted to get to see Gale be a dad, but he surprised himself by how much he started wanting to do it with him. Despite his maturity, though, Randy’s still pretty young… only twenty-three… so they’re taking it slow.

“There’s no telling,” Gale says, still laughing. “I’m just glad your mom adores me.”

“You make her son happy. Of course she does.” Randy crawls back into Gale’s arms. “And I choose not to tell her some of the more unsavory details about you… such as your lingering fondness for breasts.”

Randy likes to tease his partner about his days as a heterosexual, and his inability to be categorized now. He even straddles Gale sometimes and holds up pictures of different celebrities or models, both female and male, and playfully makes him confess which ones he is attracted to. Gale’s tastes can fall on either side, but Randy knows better (at least most days) than to be insecure. He knows it’s only ever the two of them in their bed. That was such an important place for them to get to in their relationship, and they’ll never go back.

“You know I love your tits best, Rand.” With that, Gale flips him on his back and starts biting the little circles of flesh.

“Ahh… okay, okay.” Randy rolls them over again. “Now find me a Chapstick, and I’ll give you your birthday blow job.” Kissing for thirty-two minutes can really chap your lips.

“Then what?”

“Greedy, aren’t we? What do you want?”

“I want you to fuck me.”

“That could be arranged.”

“Then, if I can move after that, I want to… dance with you… while you sing to me.”

“You want to dance??… Not to ‘Happy Birthday’?”

“Nope.”

“‘After the fire, after all the rain… I will be the flame’?”

“Yeah.”

“I can do that.”

“However far I had left to fall a year ago today, I fell that moment… you fucker.”

“I love you, too, Gale.”

“Love you, Rand.”