Title: cavorting back and forth between sodom and gomorrah
Characters: Angela, Oscar, Gil, Kevin
Word Count: 821
Author's Note: Written for challenge #3, 'sleepover,' over at
office500. Oh, Oscar/Angela. Maybe you're my Office OTP.
When Angela comes in on Monday muttering viciously about kitchen fires and derelicts, Oscar can’t really help but be morbidly intrigued. It turns out that the man living below her in her apartment complex left to check the mail in the middle of preparing dinner and somehow managed to forget about it entirely.
“And now,” Angela finishes tersely, “they’re informing me that I have to find somewhere else to stay overnight while they survey the damage.” She sniffs indignantly. “Can you believe it?”
“That’s horrible,” Oscar offers sympathetically.
“And Pam’s just informed me that her mother is coming to visit this afternoon,” Angela continues, fuming impressively. “And she can’t fit both of us into her pathetic little apartment. And the only other person I could have possibly stayed with is away at a sales convention.”
“The same one Dwight went to?” Oscar asks.
“I’d imagine so,” she replies.
“You could sleep over at my house, Angela,” Kevin volunteers, a slow smile creeping onto his face.
“I would rather drown myself,” Angela answers crisply.
“Or,” Oscar says hesitantly, “You could stay with Gil and me. We’ve got a pretty nice spare room.”
As soon as it’s out of his mouth, he has no idea what possessed him to say it. Angela’s right eyebrow shoots up into an immediate formidable arch; she inhales sharply. He might as well have just asked if she was interested in spending a fun-filled evening cavorting back and forth between Sodom and Gomorrah.
He’s about to apologize - because really, the eyebrow is starting to freak him out - when she clears her throat and responds, very precisely, “All right.”
Oscar stares at her. “Seriously?”
Kevin snickers.
--
“Angela?” Gil repeats incredulously. “Psycho bitch Angela??”
“She’s not so bad,” Oscar protests. He’s not sure whether he’s lying.
“Not so bad?” Gil scoffs. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this the same woman you’ve complained about after work every day for the past half a decade?”
“We’ve been sort of getting along lately,” Oscar says lamely.
“That’s because she wants to fix you up with girls.”
“Why? You worried?”
“You wish,” Gil retorts, but he starts to smile.
“So?” Oscar prompts.
Gil sighs in defeat. “Tell her to leave the hand sanitizer at home.”
--
She brings her cats. Lucy, Sprinkles, Hamilton, and Otter all look as wary and vaguely disconcerted as she does. Oscar understands that they’re cats, but he still can’t shake the sense that they’re all judging him too.
Gil’s under strict orders not to try to grab his ass or make out with him over the dinner table just to give Angela a mental breakdown. When Oscar introduces them, she manages to shake Gil’s hand for a full two seconds before abruptly pulling away.
“Charming,” Gil mutters in Oscar’s ear.
Dinner goes about as well as could be expected. Gil combats the awkward silence by complaining about people at work, which Oscar thinks is kind of rich considering the circumstances. He somehow goes from this to talking about moving to New York, an idea he’s obsessed with lately and one that Oscar hates for a reason he can’t quite determine. Angela sneaks quick, darting glances at both of them and hesitantly picks at her food, as though wary of poisoning.
After an excruciating seventeen minutes, Gil gathers up the dishes and escapes into the kitchen. He shoots a look at Oscar as he goes.
“You sure you’re not hungry?” Oscar asks, standing. He logically knows that he shouldn’t abandon his house guest to go do dishes, but he’s pretty sure he can’t take much more of this. Plus, she’s got her feline entourage to keep her company in the spare bedroom.
“No, I’m fine, thank you,” she responds stiffly.
“Okay,” Oscar says, and reaches for her plate. “I’m just gonna go help Gil with these, then. If you want, you can go watch some TV. Or if you’d rather read, you could look-”
“Your gentleman friend doesn’t seem to like me very much.”
Oscar’s pretty sure nobody’s ever referred to Gil as his gentleman friend before.
“Uh,” Oscar says.
“Well, he doesn’t,” Angela snaps defensively.
Oscar holds back a sigh and sits down again. “That’s probably because he knows how you feel about our lifestyle.”
Angela looks surprised. “You told him about me?”
“A little.” Best not to delve too deeply into that one.
Angela just stares at him, and the struggle going on in her head is spelled out pretty clearly on her face.
“You two seem very normal together,” she finally allows.
He feels a pang of something - relief, or gratitude, maybe. Oscar truly, truly doesn’t get his relationship with this woman.
“Thanks,” he says, meaning it even though it’s technically the wrong answer.
Angela eyes the dishes. “I’ll help you carry those.”
“Okay,” he agrees. There’s the faintest trace of a smile in her eyes as she follows him into the kitchen.