I haven't been on here in ages again, despite having told myself that I would...

Still, I'm glad that I'm now back with an IT Crowd fic, because this fandom just doesn't get enough love anywhere.

This was written for a prompt on the LGBT Fest comm on Livejournal: The IT Crowd, Maurice Moss- Due to an oversight, Moss checks the boxes for both men AND women when signing up for an online dating site. He discovers his mistake shortly before going out on a date with an "Alex." When the date is over, he still doesn't know which gender Alex is, but finds that he doesn't care. Everyone else seems to, however...

I saw that prompt and couldn't resist. The idea was too good to resist, especially since I've wanted to write another IT Crowd fic for a while, but had no ideas whatsoever of my own.

In my mind at least, Alex looks rather like Brian Molko, circa Black Market Music.

Apologies, also for including a link in the fic; it was written for LiveJournal, which accomodates images within posts. FF Net, unfortunately doesn't. But do paste the link; it's uber-cute.

Disclaimer: Everything you see here is owned by Mr Graham Linehan, and not by Ms Cresswell-Peake. Except for Alex, who is the property of the writer. And possibly a little bit of Mr Molko. Just because he's so pretty.
I also did not make the lolcat.

Boys Who Like Girls Who Are Boys Who Are Girls

The sight of Moss engrossed in his screen and oblivious to outside stimuli at half past nine in the morning had long since ceased to raise any interest. But the sight of him hastily typing, and then fidgeting with the mouse or his glasses or the knot of his tie, and giggling like a schoolgirl when the tone of his instant messenger sounded, was slightly more novel. The other two had been watching him with interest since they arrived; Jen with a knowing smile and just a little maternal pride, and Roy with no small amount of bemusement. It was only minutes before Jen's drive to interfere kicked in, and she found herself sidling over to his desk to sneak a look at his screen.

"Hello, what's going on here?"

"What do you mean, what's going on here?" Moss responded, a noticeably suspicious edge sneaking into his tone.

"I was just wondering what's going on on that screen to have you grinning like a Cheshire cat."

"I wasn't watching people doing things!"The exclamation was so loud and sudden that time and the air in the room seemed to stand still for a moment, as if to stop and confirm that it had actually occurred, and both Jen and Roy couldn't help but stare goggle-eyed.

"I wasn't insinuating that you were," Jen reasoned. "I was just curious. Just interested. Just wondering what it is that's making you so happy this morning."

"Oh. That's alright then," Moss replied, switching suddenly back to his usual obliviously cheery self as he unclipped his aerosol bottle from his belt to spray his ear. "I've just joined a new online dating site, and if I do say so myself, it's given me a lot more success than the last one."

"Really?" Roy chimed in, emerging from the pile of old comics, discarded components and fast food containers that passed for his desk to join them. "So how many people have you got interested in you?"

"One," Moss answered, with the satisfied smile of a dog that's just discovered his ability to lick his own balls. With a brief awkward silence prompting him to continue, he added; "Her name is Alex, she's thirty-three, she's just moved over here from Boston, and she works in advertising. She likes blues music, Terry Pratchett, wine and independent films. And lolcats."

"Wow, she sounds like quite a catch," Roy commented, and Jen could practically see the little brain-cogs whirring as he contemplated what he possibly make up in order to pull an Alex of his own.

"She certainly does, Roy," Moss agreed with a self-satisfied smile. "We were IM'ing into all hours of the night last night; it must have been at least quarter past twelve when my mother came in to tell me to go to bed because the noise of the keys was keeping her up."

At this, the tone of the instant messenger sounded again, and Moss gave an odd, comical jump in his seat as he lurched at the keyboard to reply.

"I'll leave you to it," Jen said to him, walking around his desk to pull Roy away while she was at it.

Later on in the day, when she found Moss still at his desk, twisting himself into various contrived positions, she decided to think nothing of it and just get back to work. But when he was still trying out ludicrous poses after ten minutes of confused observation, again, she couldn't bring herself to continue to ignore this bizarre sight.

"What are you doing?" she asked, approaching him as he crossed his legs over the desk and leaned back until he was practically upside-down.

"Ah, Jen!" he cried, springing back up into a normal position. "I was wondering if I could have your opinion on something."

Before the word "okay" could emerge from her mouth, she had Moss' mobile phone thrust into her face.

"Which of these do you think looks best?"

She took the phone and scrolled through several pages of pictures of Moss, some of which were out of focus, some of which cut off the top, bottom, side or entirety of his face, and all of which were absolutely ridiculous.

"Just out of interest, why?" she asked.

"I want to send a picture to Alex," he answered, "but I don't have any good ones of me already."

"Well, they're all a bit… contrived," Jen replied. "Here, I'll take a photo of you. Just… look natural. Like you normally do… Okay, when I say natural, I mean you can smile a bit, just look casual… Yes, not casual as in sprawled over a desk, more sort of… Look, just smile, alright."

The photo was about as normal-looking as Moss would ever be able to manage. "There you go," she said, handing him the phone back.

"Very debonair," he commented. "Thank you Jen."

She decided not to say anything about Moss's clearly skewed definition of the word 'debonair', and just watched him upload the picture and send it. The message tone sounded again a moment later, and Jen once again had to stifle a giggle as Moss lurched at his computer to read it.

"She says I look like the geek chic Hendrix!" he squealed.

Jen had to wonder whether this was a compliment or not.

"Oh… but she can't send me a picture because her boss is being a bum-hole about people storing non-work related images… Ooh! But she can send me a drawing on Paint!... Aww, I'm saving that."

After having stared at it for several minutes, Jen still couldn't figure out what the mass of lines was supposed to represent. But her contemplations were cut short by the sound of the phone ringing, and the caller transpired to be a man screaming about a job that Moss had done the previous week, and a problem that would probably turn out to be the man's own fault, and which she would have to pretend that she wasn't clueless about. She decided to leave Moss to his lovestruck IM conversation and badger Roy to take care of it instead, reasoning that if the customer thought that Moss had done a bad job before, then seeing Roy would reassure him. Roy, of course, was as enthusiastic as ever at being roped into doing Moss's work for him simply for the reason that he didn't have an IM girlfriend with no MS Paint skills. It was almost an hour before she could convince him to do it; a long, arduous hour which consisted of her stealing his fried chicken and then physically dumping his chair, with him still in it, into the lift.

"That was more trouble than it should have been," she muttered to herself when he was finally gone.

"Oh, sorry, what was? I tuned out for a bit."

Moss was looking up at her, his face full of genuine confusion.

"I just… oh, never mind."

Moss shrugged, then turned back to his screen and giggled. "We've been sending each other Paint drawings since I last spoke to you," he explained, not looking at her. The IM message tone sounded for the billionth time that day, causing Jen to twitch violently, but Moss just grinned obliviously at the screen. "Oh look!" he cried. "It's a holly bush with a spider monkey in it!"

Jen still had no idea how any of the blobs on the screen could be identified as a holly bush, or indeed any kind of bush, or as a spider monkey. In fact, she fancied that the picture looked rather more like a not particularly healthy turd on some grass.

"I want to ask her out," Moss said suddenly. "Should I do it?"

Before she had even a moment to formulate a reply, his fingers were already flying over the keys.

"I'm doing it! I'm doing it! I've done it!"

He seemed unnaturally still after that, breathing a little more heavily than normal, until he turned round and asked; "Should I have done that?"

Jen didn't think she could focus the thoughts in her head into a sentence that didn't include the word "facepalm", so she decided not to bother. That infuriating message tone sounded again, and Moss suddenly sprang back to life, and Jen realised that he was shaking as he read the message. He took a shallow breath, and then broke into the widest grin that Jen had ever seen on any face that didn't belong to a wide-mouthed tree frog.

"She said yes!" he screamed, jumping up and sending his chair crashing to the floor. "She said yes! I'd better reply." In an instant, the chair had been uprighted and Moss was sat back at the screen, his entire body unnaturally still, except for his flashing fingers.

"Oh… well done you," Jen commented, silently marvelling at the sudden change in energy. "Where did you ask her out to?"

"One of my favourite restaurants," Moss answered.

"Not-?"

"Oh no, not Messy Joe's," he explained, and Jen cringed to learn that he hadn't amended his pronunciation of the name. "I don't really go there any more. They reduced the size of the sombreros for health and safety reasons, and the atmosphere just hasn't been the same since."

"When are you going?"

"Tonight, straight after work."

"So you're going in…?" She waved her arms in the general direction of his hideous checked shirt, too-short trousers and battered trainers.

"No. I always keep a spare stash of clothes at the office. Don't you?"

When Moss emerged from the office toilet after work that evening, he had swapped his chunky trainers for a pair of plain black shoes, changed his tie, put on a cardigan and combed through his parting, creating a rather fearsome right-angle on the side of his head. Jen thought she could detect a faint whiff of some sort of cologne.

"Looking good Moss," Roy commented, not actually bothering to turn away from Moss's screen to look at him.

"Thank you very much, Roy," Moss replied as he pulled on his anorak.

Realising that she was now expected to make some kind of compliment, Jen choked out; "Yes, you look very… like you."

Moss seemed to accept this, and grinned broadly as he headed for the stairs.

"Wait, Moss, hang on a second!" Roy cried, just as Moss began to ascend. "Do you realise that when you were signing up for this site, you ticked the boxes to say you were looking for women and men?"

"Did I?"

"Says it right here on your profile; 'Looking for: Men/Women'."

Moss laughed. "Well, I am a silly Simon. I bet Alex'll find that hilarious when I tell her later on."

"Moss, that's the thing…" Roy replied.

Moss stopped, and came back down to the bottom of the stairs.

"Alex… it's not specifically a girls' name, is it," Roy elaborated.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… has she ever made it totally clear that she's a woman?"

"Erm… no; it's never come up. I just assumed that she was."

Roy clicked a few links. "Hmm… doesn't really make it clear on her profile either… and there's no picture. Did she ever mention anything that only women mention? Like, I dunno, her bras or anything?"

"Why would she mention her bras? We haven't even met in person yet."

"Alright… but she hasn't said anything- anything at all- that would confirm she's a woman?"

Moss thought for a moment. "No," he answered. "Well, it doesn't matter. I suppose I'll just have to find out when I get there."

The person sat opposite him was about five foot seven or eight, and dressed in a baggy suit with wide arms and legs, though something of a fitted cut and what looked like shoulder pads, with a loose shirt. Alex, as far as Moss could tell, was wearing no makeup, and had blue eyes, and a wide mouth, and dark brown hair that came to just below chin-length; the kind of length that would be described as short on a woman, but long on a man.

"I'm glad I managed to get a date so quickly," Alex was saying. She, or he, had a subtle yet noticeable American twang, the kind that sounds perfectly natural when spoken with the kind of pitch that could belong to a slightly higher-voiced male, or a mildly deeper-voiced female. "I've never lived in this city before. When I lived in Britain before, I was born in Birmingham, but I grew up in Dublin, and then my parents moved us to the States when I was eleven. I really don't know anybody."

"It must be very strange, coming to live somewhere where you don't know anyone at all. You could meet all kinds of weirdos."

Alex laughed. "Yeah, it is strange. But I haven't met any weirdos yet. Everyone in this country is so different to what I'm used to, I suppose I'm the weirdest one here."

"I don't know, people seem to think I'm quite weird," Moss replied, managing to rearrange the cutlery without looking at it, so that it was all perpendicular. "I still can't quite figure out why."

"Weird people are the best," Alex said, smiling. "I was really nervous about meeting people, but you seemed so nice online that I thought, you know, I've gotta start somewhere, and this is definitely the best I could have hoped for."

Moss felt his words catch in his throat, and couldn't quite manage to force them out.

"I'm sorry," said Alex. "I didn't mean to embarrass you with all this serious talk. Boring boring boring. Let's get some food!"

Alex seemed to be a person of rather exotic tastes, Moss observed when the food arrived, watching her, or him, begin to devour a butternut squash curry, as he tucked into his own deep-fried potato wedges, which he had long since learned, without any real disappointment, were basically glorified chips.

"And when he came in, he was actually dressed as Death! I swear, it made me laugh so hard that I had this cheap pinot grigio coming out of my nose! And I don't know if that's ever happened to you, but it burns…"

They split the drinks, with Alex ordering a bottle of chardonnay with the main course. Truthfully, Moss thought was slightly sour, and he found that he couldn't drink it as quickly as he'd like to.

"I love lolcats so much that I bought a cat and named him Lol. I follow him around with a camera all the time, but he never does anything funny. I must have the most boring cat in the entire world."

Moss bought two White Russians with dessert, and he noticed Alex's nose wrinkle slightly at the taste.

"Vodka and milk," Alex explained. "They're just two things that I'd never have thought to put together. I like the cream though. The cream goes well with dessert."
Considering it in his head for a moment, Moss leaned over and picked up a cherry from Alex's chocolate cherry cake and dropped it on top of the White Russian. Alex giggled, then picked up the drink and delicately licked the cherry from the cream.

Moss suddenly became less than comfortably aware of the round red fruit being crushed between Alex's white teeth; of the devilish point of that crafty pink tongue; of the glimmer of every tiny drop of saliva imprisoned within the hot, sealed cavern of Alex's mouth, and of the sharpness of that enticing smile.

"Moss, are you alright? You just spazed out, and then sort of shivered."

"Oh, I'm fine… I had brain freeze."

"But you're eating sticky toffee pudding."

"I know."

Alex shrugged and went back to the cake.

"You make me laugh," she said.

She was looking at the cake, but since cakes weren't sentient, Moss could be fairly certain that she was speaking to him, and so he felt a steady flow of pride running through him, which soon turned into a gushing hot flush.

When the bill arrived, both of them offered to pay at once, which caused both of them to trip over their words and laugh awkwardly. They agreed to split it, and wandered out together.

"Where do you live?" Alex asked.

"Oh not far," Moss replied, continuing to point out the exact street, the route he normally took, and why he chose to deviate from the route that most people seemed to believe was more convenient.

"I don't live too far from there," Alex told him. "Do you want to walk back and save the money for a taxi?"
They set off down the street, wandering back at a steady pace, shivering a little in the cool evening air. Alex described the woes of living with a boring cat, and Moss pointed out various local landmarks, such as the park he never walked through, and the lamp-post that Roy had once desired to urinate from the top of whilst drunk.

"This is my house," Moss said as they reached his front door. "Well, it's not my house; it's my mum's house, but as long as I eat my five a day and rub her feet three times a week like the podiatrist says, she doesn't bother me."

"Okay," Alex replied. "See you, Moss. I had a great time tonight."

Moss found that he couldn't say anything, despite feeling desperately pressed to.

"You'll be online tomorrow, right?" Alex asked.

"Oh yes!" Moss blurted out. "Yes, definitely."

"Great," Alex grinned. "I'll talk to you then. Bye."

"Goodbye."

It wasn't until Alex gave him a shy smile and walked away down the street that Moss fully registered that the tiny peck on the lips had even happened. He went into the house wearing a grin that he could never have been able to suppress, even if he had wanted to.

When Moss stepped into the office the next morning, he was accosted by a "How did it go?" and a "What happened?"

"It went brilliantly!" he replied. "Alex is an absolutely wonderful person, and we got on like a house on fire. We discussed lolcats long into the evening."

"No, I mean- ow!"

Moss wasn't sure why Jen had punched Roy in the arm. But he assumed that she must have her reasons. After all, she usually did.

"What we mean is… was Alex what you expected?" Jen asked.

"Everything I expected and more!" Moss answered. "Alex actually has a cat named Lol!"

"Good looking?" asked Roy.

"Very! Alex has some snappy trouser suits."

"And, y'know… bodily?"

"What do you want to know…? Erm, slim, blue eyes, very well-groomed hair…"

"Ah! Long hair, is it?"

"Ish."

"How tall? Very tall? Short?"

"Sort of in-between."

"Oh my god, Moss! You're going out with someone with no distinguishing features whatsoever!"

"What do you mean? Alex has got distinguishing features. Alex has got seven piercings."

"Where are they?"

"One in the nose, one in the eyebrow, five in the ears."

"No others? On… anywhere else?"

"No… none that I could see."

"Moss," Jen cut in. "We were wondering-"

"Oh for god's sake, Moss, is Alex a man or a woman?"

"Er, well, I-"

"You couldn't tell, could you?" Jen guessed.

"Not really, no," admitted Moss.

"Aw, Moss, how'd you manage that?" asked Roy.

"I don't know. She was very ambiguous."

"She! You said 'she'! You think she's more likely to be a woman?"

"I have no idea, Roy! Sometimes I just think of her as 'she' because I thought she was a woman before I met her! Sometimes I think of her as 'he'!"

This was all entirely true; throughout most of the conversation the night before, Moss had thought of Alex as a 'she'. But when Alex had offered to pay for dinner, and to walk Moss home, he had suddenly become a 'he' in the internal narrative of Moss's mind. He had found, through the night, that when he thought about different aspects of Alex's personality, the pronoun changed in relation.

"But you must have seen the…"

Roy screwed up his face, while cupping his hands over his chest.

"Roy!" Moss chided. "It's very rude to look at a lady's bosoms. Even if she might not actually be a lady." He paused for a moment. "And besides which, she was wearing quite a baggy shirt."

"Okay, but if he was a man, when he stood up, you must have been able to see…"

He trailed off, vaguely indicating his own groin.

"Roy!" Moss scolded again. "It's very rude to look at a man's whatsits. Even if there might not actually… be any."

"Okay, okay, but… how do you expect to get by with Alex if you can't tell whether he's a man or a woman?"

Moss shrugged. "If it means that much to you, I'll go on IM now and ask."

This time, it was Jen who jumped in. "No, Moss, you can't do that! You can't just come up to someone, after you've already been on a date with them, and let them know that you can't tell whether they're a man or a woman. You just can't."

"Why not?"

"Trust me, Moss- it's insulting."

Moss nodded. "Ah, I see," he said, knowingly. "It's happened to you."

The glare he received in exchange sent him shuffling back to his desk.

"So what can I do instead?" he asked.

"Ask her questions," Jen replied. "Or him. Ask questions that men and women always answer differently."

Moss and Alex went on several more dates in the next few weeks. They went for a walk round Covent Garden; they went to see a film; they went to the pub; they went to Chessington World of Adventures, and they went to the Natural History Museum, where they found themselves kissing incessantly, largely because there was only so much of Moss's enthused monologue about whatever dinosaur they were standing closest to at the time that Alex could handle. But Moss's efforts to discover Alex's sex still proved fruitless.

"Is Alex short for anything?"
"No. just plain old Alex Matthews."
"Any middle names?"
"Hillary. Though I'm not sure whether it's after my grandfather or my aunt."

"What did you go as last Hallowe'en?"
"Frank N. Furter. There was a cinema not far from where I used to live that always used to do a midnight showing of Rocky Horror on Hallowe'en. All my friends used to go."

"Do you think you'll ever have children?"
"For now at least, I'm very happy without any. Maybe in the future… I don't know. I've always thought I should adopt if I ever do want them, because there are already kids out there who really need parents."

"Boxers or briefs?"
"On me or on others? I don't mind either way. Briefs, boxers, thongs, girl boxers, commando… depends on what I'm wearing over them."

"Tampons!"
"What about them?"
"Nothing… I just like the word. It's quite bouncy."
"Yeah, I suppose it is. Like 'poppadom'."

Every time Moss came to work the day after a date, he would be bombarded with requests to know the questions he had asked and the answers that Alex had given. Moss would listen to Jen and Roy debate what these answers could mean for hours and hours, until they ran out of possible conclusions. After a while, they asked for a photo of Alex, so Moss brought them one, and they spent hours poring over it, analysing the clothing, and what they could see of the body underneath.

After a while, Moss ceased to be amused by their continuing obsession, so he just turned back to the IM to talk to Alex about the silly things that the employees of Reynholm Industries did to their computers, and funny things that Alex's cat hadn't done.

"Moss! Moss!"

Moss jumped at the sound of Roy's raised voice shouting down his ear.

"What?" he asked.

"Work's over, Moss," Roy explained. "It's half past five."

"Oh, really? Where has the time gone?"

This truly was something that Moss couldn't answer; he'd logged into the IM at quarter past ten, and he didn't remember having worked, eaten or even having heard anything since then. Oh well.

"I'm just having a conversation with Alex," he said. "I'll be out in a bit."

He saw Roy and Jen share a mutual shrug, and then turned back to his screen as they left.

Moss wasn't sure what time it was, but it was sometime after dark when the creeping shadow escaped from behind the red door and glided silently across the room.

"Hello Richmond!" Moss called.

There was a bizarre, animalistic shriek as Richmond tripped over the sofa and fell head-first over it.

"Oh," he said. "Hello Moss. I didn't realise anyone else was here."

"I'm sorry, I must have lost track of the time. Good golly gosh, it's nearly half past one in the morning! That is slightly embarrassing."

"That's okay," Richmond replied. "It's not often I have company." He stood there awkwardly for a moment as Moss continued to answer Alex's messages. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"I've got a new girlfriend who might be a boyfriend," Moss explained, as Richmond crept up to his side, the light from the screen making his face look even more ghostly white than usual. "But that's the problem; I can't tell which one she is. Or he."

"Surely you can just ask," suggested Richmond.

"Do you think?"

"I don't see why not. If he loves you, or she, then surely he'll understand."

"I'm not sure…"

"People are often confused by me," reasoned Richmond. "I don't mind if they ask me questions, even if I do get bored of explaining to people that I don't actually sleep in a coffin or drink blood. I like to think that it brings us closer together."

"I suppose so…" Moss mused. "We've got a date tomorrow. I'll ask then."

He turned back to the IM, while Richmond just sort of lurked in the general vicinity, creeping up on inanimate objects.

Roy and Jen returned the next morning to find Moss sitting at his computer, chatting away on the IM, still wearing the same clothes as the day before, and sporting a dazed smile and an unrealistic amount of stubble.

"Oh my god, how have you not figured it out yet?" Jen screeched, before storming into her office.

One look at Roy's face told Moss that they were both as surprised as each other.

"Alex, I've got something I need to ask you."

"What is it, Moss?"

"This is quite awkward… I've been thinking all day how I could bring this up to you, but nothing really seems ideal… Alex, ever since I've met you, I've been thinking, and I need to find out, because it's killing me not knowing… I can't actually tell whether you're a woman or a man."

…

"You WHAT!?"

Moss was sitting on the sofa, with Jen and Roy on either side, hunched over and looking like he was ready to cry at any second.

"You asked her?" Jen asked.

"Yes."

"And she dumped you?" Roy chimed in.

"Yes," Moss replied, feeling Jen lean over to slap Roy on the arm.

"Why, Moss?" Jen asked.

"I was advised to."

"By who?" asked Roy.

"Richmond."

"Richmond!?" Roy cried. "You asked Richmond for advice!?"

"Should I not have done?"

"Richmond has left the building twice in the past six years!"

"That's a no, then?"

"Yes, Moss, that's a no."

"…Oh."

"Don't worry, Moss," Jen consoled him. "You've still got the site. There must be at least… some people waiting to get to know you."

"No."

"Oh."

"I think I'm just going to go on IM and… oh, yeah."

With a few awkward hugs, they dispersed, and the office was quieter than normal that morning. A job came through sometime in the early afternoon- a man on sixth who was having problems with his email- and Moss went to take care of it to take his mind off things. It turned out to be a routine problem, and he fixed it quickly, and asked the man to send him a message, just to confirm that it had worked.

He found two messages waiting for him when he got back to the office. One was the one that he had expected, but the other made his heart begin to pound.

Sender: Alex Matthews.

He had to wait almost twenty minutes before he could bring himself to open it. And when he did, he found himself face-to-face with Alex's boring cat.

http: // i459. photobucket. com/ albums/ qq318/ crivillas/ sorrycat. jpg

Hi Moss,

This is really awkward, but I'm sorry about yesterday. I suppose I am quite ambiguous. You wouldn't be the first person I've confused. I think I've just stopped noticing.

But I'm really sorry. I was meen.

If you're not too mad, maybe you could come over Friday, or Saturday, or whenever you like, and we could play the Wii or watch some films, or go to the pub, or see if we can get the cat to do something funny. I don't know.

Anyway… I so sowy!

Love,

Alex.

Moss smiled, and almost felt on the verge of tears again.

It didn't really matter, he decided, what sex Alex happened to be. Whichever he or she was, someone who made him smile and shared a mutual love of lolcats would be a terrible thing to lose.