Work Text:
They’re in the office the first time Michael figures something might be up. For once, Gavin is the one doing actual work, editing a video while Ray and Michael engage in passionate discourse about important issues.
“I’m just sayin’.” Ray leans back in his chair and folds his arms. “Not unless the balls touch.”
“Bullshit!”
“Nah, he’s right,” says Gavin, not even looking up from his computer screen.
Michael’s just winding up to tell them both off for not appreciating the nuances of his argument when Ray cuts in.
“Not like you can judge, Gavin. You know, since you bang dudes on the regular and everything.”
“Absolutely true,” Gavin replies, waggling his eyebrows inanely.
Michael must look confused at Gavin’s complete lack of effort to defend himself, because Gavin and Ray catch each other’s eye over his head and suddenly they’re both laughing like they’re in on some big gay secret.
Which they are, of course, but Michael is too dense to fully realize it until almost a week later, when he and Gavin both end up at some couple’s house party along with a few other guys from the office.
Michael’s a few beers in and feeling pretty fucking dandy when he catches sight of Gavin from across the living room, doing that thing where he lurches around unattractively until someone gets in his way. At that point, he either tries to sleep with them or get in a fistfight. Right now he’s weaving through the crowd with drunken intensity, on a collision course with the couch where Michael is minding his own business.
Before he can even finish his beer, there’s a heavy, drunken, weirdly damp weight settling down next to him.
“Hey, Michael,” Gavin says. “Michael, I’ve got a problem.” He picks up one of Michael’s hands and then, annoyingly, lets it drop back down before Michael can snatch it away.
Michael rolls his eyes. “Enlighten me, douchebag.”
Gavin takes a breath in and runs a hand through his hair. “Right, so I was looking for this--”
“For what?” Michael asks when Gavin falls abruptly silent. It’s a nice change of pace, but still pretty weird, so Michael jostles him until the drink in his red cup sloshes over and spatters a few drops onto the knee of his jeans. “Finish your fucking sentence, god.”
Unsurprisingly, Gavin pays no attention to this whatsoever. He’s staring straight at the wall opposite the couch for some reason, eyes wide and mouth quirked up in a stupid grin. Michael follows his gaze, wondering if someone left some tea and crumpets out or some other dumbshit thing. But there’s nothing there at all except for a few small groups of people clustered together and a buff guy in a black t-shirt standing on his own.
Before Michael can ask him what the fuck he’s looking at, Gavin struggles up from the couch with an audible “oof” and dusts himself off, swaying on the spot.
“Gavin, what the fuck?” Michael asks, feeling entitled to at least some explanation for this weirdass behavior.
Gavin only glances down at Michael like he’d already forgotten that he’s there, which is the most infuriating thing he could possibly do.
“I’ve found it, Michael,” he says. He probably thinks he sounds cryptic, but actually he just sounds like an asshole. Which Michael would tell him, except that he’s already making his way over to the guy in the black shirt.
Michael watches the scene unfold, hardly believing what he’s seeing. In a matter of seconds Gavin has himself draped over the buff dude’s arm, sizing him up like he’s some muscular piece of fine artwork. Michael knows he should be relieved that Gavin would apparently rather fawn all over some stranger than bug him, but he somehow finds himself incensed. The guy isn’t even all that buff.
The only-slightly-buff-dude slips an arm around Gavin’s waist in a way that’s definitely more than friendly. Unbidden, Michael’s mind flashes back to that conversation in the office.
“Dude,” he wonders out loud. “Is Gavin about to fuck that dude?”
The girl standing nearest to him smiles nervously and sips her drink. There’s something weird about that smile, though. Something big and gay and secret.
If this was a sitcom, Michael thinks, he would waste a bunch of time somersaulting around corners and pressing people for intel, and then the whole thing would turn out to be a comedic misunderstanding where the black shirt guy just owed Gavin five bucks.
Instead Michael watches Gavin smile up at him sunnily, gesturing toward the door. The guy nods, and then, as if to squash all Michael’s dreams of a sitcom resolution, reaches down to give Gavin’s ass a good squeeze. Michael feels a hot spike of irritation, but he’s sure it’s just because that’s a weird thing to do in public. Anyone would be annoyed.
After they leave, Michael spends a good few minutes just sitting there on the couch, attempting to process what he'd just seen. Gavin fucks dudes now. The whole time they’d been talking before, he was looking for a dude to fuck. Jesus.
Just as his imagination is beginning to fill in all the hairy details, Geoff comes by, holding a drink in each hand.
“Hey, Michael--whoah, what’s wrong with you?” he asks upon getting one good look at Michael’s face.
“I think Gavin just went home with a guy. Like, in a sex way.”
Instead of being appropriately shocked by this information, Geoff throws his head back and laughs his unsettling laugh.
“Where’ve you been, dude? Gavin’s been bringing guys home for like a month now.”
“Are you fucking with me?” Michael asks.
“Totally serious,” he says. “I’m surprised he didn’t say anything to you, actually.”
Before Michael can ask any more questions about it, of which he has many, Geoff gives him a vague salute and moves on with his drinks.
---
The next day at work, Gavin is practically leaking cheer and vitality from every pore. He also has a giant hickey on his neck. Michael has to suppress the urge to punch him on sight, but that’s nothing new.
Still, as Twilight-Zone as the whole thing is, Michael feels like he should probably say something now that they’re both sober to show that he’s not about to have a big homophobic freakout or anything like that. They don’t end up alone until near the end of the day, both waiting around for videos to render.
“So did you fuck that guy last night or what?”
Immediately, Gavin’s back stiffens and he turns to look at Michael as though he’s been caught off guard. He recovers quickly, though, turning back to his computer and scrolling through a few menus. “I dunno, did you?”
“You asshole, I’m trying to be supportive,” Michael grumbles, dragging around his Final Cut window as if that’ll somehow make the loading bar move faster.
Gavin still seems thrown off, but he stops staring at his screen to look over at Michael.
“Yeah,” he says, grinning a little bit. “It was top.”
Michael has to laugh at that. “You gonna see him again?”
This time it’s Gavin’s turn to laugh, not even hesitating in his reply.
“Course not. It’s all just a bit of fun.”
Michael wants to ask why Gavin didn’t tell him about any of this on his own when it was apparently common knowledge to the rest of humanity, but before he can say anything Jack comes in wielding a video camera for some behind the scenes thing. After that, the two of them get too caught up in their work to resume the conversation.
---
The next couple weeks pass by almost like normal. Gavin doesn’t act any different at all, and Michael feels like it should be simple to just take it in stride and move on.
Except sometimes, when Gavin complains about a dude texting him too often instead of a girl, or blasts some poor guy with the full force of his masculine wiles when they’re out at a bar, some weird unnamed thing will twist around in Michael’s stomach; a cramped, almost nauseous feeling that he’s somehow missing out.
Which is completely ridiculous, of course, because the only thing he’d be missing out on is Gavin’s weird junk, and it’s not like that isn’t old news anyway.
Mostly, he’s able to just put the whole thing out of his mind.
---
The next time it comes up, the two of them are hanging out at Michael’s place, drinking beer and eating pizza and making fun of infomercials.
“At what point do they just give up on trying to trick people into believing that a regular fucking human would even need any of this shit?” Michael wonders aloud, dropping a pepperoni into his mouth as a middle-aged man grimly struggles to buckle his own seatbelt onscreen.
Gavin does his stupid little giggle, letting himself slump over until his head is practically resting on Michael’s shoulder.
Michael reaches over to push him away, but instead of backing off Gavin crowds himself even further into Michael’s space.
“What do you want, asshole?” Michael asks, ignoring the way his heart starts to beat faster. This is no time for Disney bullshit.
“Your knob,” Gavin stage-whispers.
“Fuck you,” Michael says.
“No, it’d be the other way round. Ray and I discussed it.”
Michael snorts, even as he grudgingly lifts an arm up over the back of the couch. “I would literally destroy your anus.”
Gavin winces and shuffles in his seat. He mumbles something that Michael doesn’t quite catch but which sounds suspiciously like “not as bad as all that.”
As he shifts around, his dumb hair brushes against the side of Michael’s face, threatening to invade his nasal cavity. Without thinking about it, he drops his hand down from the back of the couch into Gavin’s hair, pushing his head out of the way and then ruffling it up just to be an asshole. He expects Gavin to laugh, and maybe finally pull away so his fucking heart rate can return to normal levels, but instead he makes an approving noise and butts his head up into Michael’s hand.
“You’re a fucking idiot,” says Michael, but he keeps on doing what he’s doing, combing his fingers through Gavin’s hair and scratching at his scalp like he’s a cat. A big weird talking cat with a stupid haircut.
After about fifteen seconds of this treatment, Gavin shivers and slowly lets his eyes blink shut.
“Mmmph,” he says.
Michael just keeps on scratching. He doesn’t know why, exactly, since in most other circumstances he probably wouldn’t allow this to go on as long as it has.
But they’re in private, and Gavin’s practically molded to him, and he sighs a little whenever Michael’s hand gets close to the nape of his neck. All that makes Michael want to forget how weird this is and just keep petting Gavin indefinitely, while the pizza gets cold and the infomercial people become progressively more stupid.
He must have zoned out for a while, because the next thing he remembers is Gavin letting out a weird honking sound and then jerking awake. It’s kind of hilarious to watch him look around wildly with his hair fluffed up in a million different directions, trying to remember where he is.
“Dude,” Michael snickers. “Did you just snore so loud you woke yourself up?”
Gavin only grunts in response, stretching so that his shirt rides up and he’s pressed even further into Michael’s side. Normally, Michael would flick him or poke him or make fun of how hairy he is, but it seems weird to do it now, when they’d practically just been spooning.
“Get off,” he says instead, pushing at Gavin until he reluctantly separates himself from Michael. His eyes are still sleepy and half-closed.
“You should get home,” says Michael. He tries to get up himself, but struggling off of the comfortable, well-worn couch would be enough of a struggle even if Gavin wasn’t there to tug petulantly at his sleeve.
“Wait,” Gavin says. “Give us a kiss, Michael.” He’s smiling like he’s quite proud of himself for coming up with this game plan.
Michael’s stomach drops. Suddenly, he feels as though the apartment is way too warm. Like, tropical levels of heat.
He’s just fucking joking, Michael reminds himself before his brain can go off on a tangent, scrambling to answer quickly enough so that things don’t get awkward. More awkward, anyway.
“Who’s us? Me and you? I can’t give myself a kiss, dumbass.”
Gavin’s fingers tighten on the sleeve of Michael’s shirt and he laughs like that’s the funniest thing he’s ever heard.
“No, me and me.”
“I’m not kissing you, you just woke up,” says Michael, and immediately feels like punching himself in the face. Although he’s positive there’s a mile-long list of viable reasons not to kiss Gavin, every single one seems to have fled his mind. Attempting to pry his fingers bodily from his shirtsleeve has no effect.
“You just woke up,” say Gavin, successfully dismantling Michael’s entire argument. Knowing this, he presses his advantage. “Just one? One for the road, Michael?”
Michael makes him wait for a long moment, and finally shrugs his shoulders, forcing himself to seem casual. “Will you shut up about it?”
“Yeah,” says Gavin smugly. It’s with nothing else in mind except for wiping the smirk off that face that Michael grabs onto Gavin by the fabric of his own shirt this time, and pulls him back in close enough that he’s practically sitting on Michael’s lap.
Their mouths fit together disturbingly well. Gavin applies just the right amount of lazy pressure to make Michael tilt his head in, wanting more. He tastes like pizza and not much else, but he puts his hands on Michael’s shoulders to brace himself, and when Michael sucks his bottom lip he clings to them as if for dear life.
It probably makes Michael feel better than it should. He brings a hand up to the nape of Gavin’s neck and Gavin shivers again, mouth moving to Michael’s jaw, down the side of his throat.
Michael pulls away before he can make any marks, heart thudding in his chest once again.
“There,” he says, trying to sound calm. “One for the road.”
Gavin wipes the back of his hand across his mouth and starts chewing on his lip in a very distracting manner.
“One more?” His hopeful tone dissolves into a yelp as Michael pushes him again, this time hard enough to send him toppling over onto the cushions.
“Don’t be an asshole,” says Michael.
“Well, fine,” Gavin replies in a wounded tone. “If I’d known you were gonna have a gay panic about it.”
“I’m not having a gay panic just because I won’t make out with you!” Michael says loudly. “You know, you’re such a fucking dickhead sometimes--”
Before he can really get into the swing of things, he notices that Gavin is hunched over with laughter. He reaches over and gives Gavin a good punch on the arm, which makes him screech and flail a hand out to hit Michael back, except it’s the pussiest half-slap ever conceived of, and then before he knows it they’re both sitting on the couch together laughing their asses off. It’s the most ridiculous thing in the world, and somehow also the most typical.
“I’m sorry, Michael,” Gavin says after they’ve both calmed down somewhat. “I know you weren’t having a gay panic.”
“I know you know,” says Michael, and when Gavin grins over at him, he grins back.
“So, uh,” Gavin continues, obviously bent on pushing his luck. “How about that second one for the road, then?”
Michael stretches out, pinning Gavin up against the cushions as he reaches for his phone and enjoying the way his eyes go wide. “Nah.”
Gavin actually, physically deflates like a balloon. Michael thinks this is definitely going to be fun. “Come over tomorrow and I’ll see what I can do.”