Fic: Stages of a Storm, Part 2: Energy Building (or 'Danger Zone')
Stages of a Storm
Part 2: Energy Building (or ‘Danger Zone’)
Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine/Bret (Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: she_burns1
Beta: lordstarfish <3 <3
Disclaimer: I do not own Flight of the Conchords, or Hbo, or Bret, or Jemaine…though I will glad take donations of Bret/Jemaine!
Rating of story: PG
Word Count: 2,610
Brief summary: There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm-Willa Cather Notes: If you haven’t seen ‘Top Gun’ some of this may go over your head. I actually re-watched ‘Top Gun’, a movie which, I am not a fan of, in order to write this. But hey, if you all like this fic it will have all been worth it!
FRIDAY
Bret was practically bouncing up and down on the couch with excitement. Jemaine, who was waiting by the microwave for the popcorn to finish, couldn’t help but smile a little. Bret’s mood was slightly contagious.
He had put the bag in for three minutes at first, then five minutes, with no results, then thirty seconds. Their microwave was fickle and he had punched in two more minutes to see if anything would happen at all. It beeped at him and Jemaine pulled out the bag, shaking it while wrinkling his nose at the burnt smell.
He poured the contents into a bowl, scowling at the few blackened pieces.
He walked over to Bret; bowl cradled in his arms, and took a seat on the couch next to him, “Got a bit burnt.”
“That’s fine, I like my popcorn a little dark.”
“Well, I don’t,” he mumbled while picking through the bowl.
He glanced over to Bret.
“You going to start the movie then?”
“Yeah!” Bret bounded off the couch and was about to put the VHS in the VCR, when there was a loud rumble of thunder. Both men shuddered. Bret lifted back one of the curtains and looked outside into the dark.
“Looks pretty bad out there. Think a storm’s coming.”
“Thunder tip you off, did it?”
Bret didn’t respond to Jemaine’s sarcasm but instead squinted his eyes as he continued to peer out, “Oh, yeah, it’s pretty bad. I can see Mel closing up shop.”
One time Bret and Jemaine, in their boredom, had actually clocked how long Mel would hang outside their stoop waiting to see if she could ‘bump’ into them if they headed out. While neither of them was up early enough to know when she first arrived, they usually were up late enough to see that she normally floated away a little before midnight.
Considering it was only a little after seven, this was extremely early for her and thus predicted that the storm coming in would be a very, very awful one, as nothing short of a hurricane could drive her away.
Bret let the curtain fall back and another echoing boom filled the air. Both of them hunched their shoulders and grimaced. Bret took in a deep breath. They were about to watch his favorite movie. He shouldn’t let a little bad weather spoil his mood.
With this in mind, he quickly returned to his previous happy state and put the movie in. He pushed play and returned to the couch, quickly grabbing a handful of popcorn, much to Jemaine’s dismay, “Hey, hold on! Don’t take so much! This popcorn is for me.”
“No, it’s for both of us; Murray said I could have some.”
“Yes, well, Murray doesn’t have to watch this movie - so, his say-so doesn’t really matter much, does it? I agreed to watch this, but only with popcorn so, you can’t go and eat all of it. You can have a bit, but that’s it, you can have the dark ones…”
Bret didn’t respond, instead drinking more of his drink. Jemaine eyed the can he held suspiciously, “You know, I don’t think you should drink that.”
Bret looked at the can; his eyebrows knitted together, “Why not?”
“Well, it’s got a bull on it.”
“I know. Dave gave it to me. He said he knew how I liked animals. He also said it would ‘give me wings’ or something. I don’t feel like I have any wings yet…but I feel like it could happen soon.”
“Yes, but, I mean, it seems to be…charging you up. Think it has too much sugar-”
“No. It’s good. Tastes ok. Not great, but ok. And ‘sides, Dave also said it would give me energy. It’s an energy drink - he said in America people are crazy about them.”
Now Jemaine looked at the can covetously, “Can…Can I have some?”
Bret seemed to think about it, “I’ll pour you a bit in a glass if I can have some more popcorn…some yellow pieces too, not just the dark ones.”
“Thought you said you liked it dark.”
“I do, but I like it light too.”
Jemaine pouted and thought about it.
“Alright,” he sighed.
Bret rushed to get a glass as the movie began, Kenny Loggins’ ‘Danger Zone’ ringing out. Bret put Jemaine’s glass down near Jemaine’s feet and quickly deposited himself back in his seat, taking another greedy handful of popcorn, “I tried to hurry. The remote’s still missing so I can’t pause the movie. Didn’t want to miss anything.”
“What’s to miss? Haven’t you seen this before?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So if you’ve seen it, you know what’s going to happen. You won’t miss anything.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Something could change.”
Jemaine frowned, “Seems unlikely.”
“Or I could miss a good part.”
“That’s more plausible.”
Jemaine put the popcorn bowl down on the floor between them and sipped his drink. It was strong and kind of syrupy, but pretty good. He watched the jets with some confusion, not really sure of what was going on. He let out a labored sigh, “This is boring.”
Bret’s face was a cross between shocked and wounded, “What? How can you say that?”
“Well, I don’t know what’s happening.”
“They’re flying their cool jets.”
“And?”
“…and it’s cool.”
Jemaine put his drink back down on the floor and rested his elbow on the couch’s arm rest, his fist propping up his head, “It’s more fun to watch cars.”
Bret shrugged and sipped more of his drink, “I really like this stuff. Makes me feel all…jittery.”
“You getting hyped over there?”
“Hm?”
“You know…hyped up, like the way people get when they take drugs.”
“Oh, um, no. No, we took illicit drugs before, remember? This isn’t like the acids.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jemaine muttered, unconvinced, while he watched Bret shake.
He pointed at the screen, “What are their names? I could only kind of hear them.”
“Oh. Well, there’s Maverick, naturally, he’s the main guy. Then there’s Cougar, Goose-”
“Goose? What kind of name is that? Which one is he?”
Bret pointed at the screen when the tall, skinny man came on screen, “That’s him there. He’s Maverick’s best friend.”
Jemaine’s eyes narrowed as he studied him, “He doesn’t look like a goose.”
“It’s his call sign.”
“His what?”
Bret rolled his eyes, his sugar-charged brain was going a mile-a-minute now and it was frustrating that Jemaine’s thick mind couldn’t keep up, “The pilots have call signs - it helps them hide their identities.”
“Like super heroes?”
“Kinda,” Bret’s lips screwed up to one side, “But cooler.”
Jemaine didn’t see how being a pilot was cooler than being a super hero. Super heroes could fly without planes. He was about to point this out when suddenly the jet in the film turned upside down in the air. Jemaine grinned, “Ok, now, flying upside down there - that is cool.”
“See? Told you. This movie is the best.”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” Jemaine muttered under his breath but Bret caught it and scowled at him, even more so when Jemaine let out an indignant grunt, “They’ve all ready played this song.”
“What?”
“This song they’re playing now - the one about danger - they played it at the beginning and now they’re playing it again. They should let another song have a go.”
“It’s a cool song. I like it,” Bret mumbled.
He tried with some difficulty to keep his attention on the movie. With every sip of his drink, he increasingly wanted to just jump up and run around in circles, which wasn’t the best position to watch Top Gun from. He gave his head a few shakes and gripped the couch arm to focus.
The scene had now changed to Maverick’s induction to the Top Gun school. As their commander discussed different planes and tactics used in war, one of the students commented, “This gives me a hard on.”
Jemaine snorted.
“Bet that’s why you like this movie so much, huh, Bret? Giving you a hard-on, too?”
Bret didn’t even look at Jemaine, “Not answering that.”
Jemaine thought about teasing Bret some more, but turned his attention back to the screen and found himself fidgeting slightly. For some reason he found he had nothing to do with his hands. They floated about his lap idly and he rested them firmly on his knees. After a few more minutes of intent not-movie-watching, his hands still wanted to move, so he started rubbing his legs, which only elevated the problem.
The movie, however, was not helping his distraction problem. On the screen, Maverick stared intently at a pilot, who stared back just as hard.
Jemaine rubbed his legs a little faster. “Are they flirting?”
“What?” Bret did look at Jemaine now, stunned by this question.
Jemaine pointed at Maverick on the screen, “He’s just staring at him, looks like he wants to kiss him. Actually…he’s kind of scoping out all the guys now.”
“He’s trying to figure out who the best is,” Bret said this at the exact same time that Maverick said the same thing in the film.
“The best what?”
“The best pilot.”
Jemaine looked doubtful as he eyed the screen.
“Are you sure? Because now he’s looking at that other guy again, a lot.”
Bret shook his head, “Are you going to keep commenting on the movie or are you going to watch it?”
Jemaine crossed his arms and huffed, “I can’t help it. I’ve got questions. I’ve never seen this movie. How am I supposed to know what’s going on?”
Bret tried to remember if he had seen a movie before with Jemaine and whether or not Jemaine had been this annoying through it.
The movie now cut to a scene of a bar and Jemaine frowned, “What’s wrong with these girls?”
“Hmm?”
“I thought you said this movie had hot girls. These girls have weird hair and clothes.”
“Oh, it was the 80s, man. And these girls here are window dressing. The hot girl comes later.”
“Hot girl? I thought you said girls, as in more than one-” Jemaine cut himself off as he suddenly got caught by a bit of dialogue in the movie between Maverick and Goose as they scoped out the 80s girls in the bar.
“This is what I call a target rich environment.”
“You live your life between your legs, Mav.”
“Goose, even you could get laid in a place like this.”
“Hell, I’d be happy to just find a girl that would talk dirty to me.”
Jemaine nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
“Movie back on track for you, then?” Bret asked, slightly smug and irritated at the same time, bouncing in his seat as he tried to work off some of the energy from the drink.
Jemaine made a non-committal sound in his throat and reached down to snatch up some more popcorn. Bret suddenly felt super focused and the movement distracted him from the film as he watched Jemaine toss the kernels into his mouth. Jemaine had a way of eating food that was totally obscene. His tongue crept out to catch the food first instead of the food just going into his mouth like a normal person.
Bret had always thought it was pretty disgusting, like a frog or something, and normally avoided looking at him when he ate, but this time Bret looked at Jemaine, then at the movie, then back again. Jemaine kind of had Tom Cruise-features going on. Or, not really. Actually the only thing they had in common was dark hair. And nice lips.
Now he was comparing their lips, looking at Tom Cruise and then back to Jemaine again. Bret hadn’t really noticed Jemaine’s lips before, not even when Mel had been shoving a picture of them in his face, but now he found himself looking less at the screen and more at Jemaine’s lips. They were full and soft looking and Jemaine’s tongue was sneaking out to wipe butter off his bottom lip.
Bret shook his head and directed his eyes back to the screen. For some reason watching him eat wasn’t as gross as it usually was. It was…confusing. Jemaine’s lips, his tongue, his mouth…Bret stopped bouncing up and down but did begin to drum his feet on the floor, wrapping his arms around himself because he felt like they needed to be somewhere.
He had sat with Jemaine on the couch many times before but right now, for some reason, it felt…funny. Maybe they had just never sat next to each other on the couch for this long? Bret became aware that Jemaine was talking.
“…ok, so that blonde girl is hot. And - wait, he’s following her into the ladies room? I thought you couldn’t…but he is, so…man, why haven’t we tried that?”
“What?”
“Following hot girls into the ladies room.”
“Don’t think it would work.”
“Suppose it is rude. Mel tried to walk in on me once when I was - she almost saw my - yeah, no good - you’re right.”
“Didn’t work for him either. See?” Bret said as Maverick had no luck with the hot blonde.
Jemaine nodded and rose to his feet, “Pause the movie, will you? I need to use the toilet.”
“I told you the remote is - forget it,” Bret muttered, since Jemaine was already gone, and got to his feet to stop the film while he waited for his bandmate to return.
Part 2: Energy Building (or ‘Danger Zone’)
Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine/Bret (Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: she_burns1
Beta: lordstarfish <3 <3
Disclaimer: I do not own Flight of the Conchords, or Hbo, or Bret, or Jemaine…though I will glad take donations of Bret/Jemaine!
Rating of story: PG
Word Count: 2,610
Brief summary: There are some things you learn best in calm, and some in storm-Willa Cather Notes: If you haven’t seen ‘Top Gun’ some of this may go over your head. I actually re-watched ‘Top Gun’, a movie which, I am not a fan of, in order to write this. But hey, if you all like this fic it will have all been worth it!
FRIDAY
Bret was practically bouncing up and down on the couch with excitement. Jemaine, who was waiting by the microwave for the popcorn to finish, couldn’t help but smile a little. Bret’s mood was slightly contagious.
He had put the bag in for three minutes at first, then five minutes, with no results, then thirty seconds. Their microwave was fickle and he had punched in two more minutes to see if anything would happen at all. It beeped at him and Jemaine pulled out the bag, shaking it while wrinkling his nose at the burnt smell.
He poured the contents into a bowl, scowling at the few blackened pieces.
He walked over to Bret; bowl cradled in his arms, and took a seat on the couch next to him, “Got a bit burnt.”
“That’s fine, I like my popcorn a little dark.”
“Well, I don’t,” he mumbled while picking through the bowl.
He glanced over to Bret.
“You going to start the movie then?”
“Yeah!” Bret bounded off the couch and was about to put the VHS in the VCR, when there was a loud rumble of thunder. Both men shuddered. Bret lifted back one of the curtains and looked outside into the dark.
“Looks pretty bad out there. Think a storm’s coming.”
“Thunder tip you off, did it?”
Bret didn’t respond to Jemaine’s sarcasm but instead squinted his eyes as he continued to peer out, “Oh, yeah, it’s pretty bad. I can see Mel closing up shop.”
One time Bret and Jemaine, in their boredom, had actually clocked how long Mel would hang outside their stoop waiting to see if she could ‘bump’ into them if they headed out. While neither of them was up early enough to know when she first arrived, they usually were up late enough to see that she normally floated away a little before midnight.
Considering it was only a little after seven, this was extremely early for her and thus predicted that the storm coming in would be a very, very awful one, as nothing short of a hurricane could drive her away.
Bret let the curtain fall back and another echoing boom filled the air. Both of them hunched their shoulders and grimaced. Bret took in a deep breath. They were about to watch his favorite movie. He shouldn’t let a little bad weather spoil his mood.
With this in mind, he quickly returned to his previous happy state and put the movie in. He pushed play and returned to the couch, quickly grabbing a handful of popcorn, much to Jemaine’s dismay, “Hey, hold on! Don’t take so much! This popcorn is for me.”
“No, it’s for both of us; Murray said I could have some.”
“Yes, well, Murray doesn’t have to watch this movie - so, his say-so doesn’t really matter much, does it? I agreed to watch this, but only with popcorn so, you can’t go and eat all of it. You can have a bit, but that’s it, you can have the dark ones…”
Bret didn’t respond, instead drinking more of his drink. Jemaine eyed the can he held suspiciously, “You know, I don’t think you should drink that.”
Bret looked at the can; his eyebrows knitted together, “Why not?”
“Well, it’s got a bull on it.”
“I know. Dave gave it to me. He said he knew how I liked animals. He also said it would ‘give me wings’ or something. I don’t feel like I have any wings yet…but I feel like it could happen soon.”
“Yes, but, I mean, it seems to be…charging you up. Think it has too much sugar-”
“No. It’s good. Tastes ok. Not great, but ok. And ‘sides, Dave also said it would give me energy. It’s an energy drink - he said in America people are crazy about them.”
Now Jemaine looked at the can covetously, “Can…Can I have some?”
Bret seemed to think about it, “I’ll pour you a bit in a glass if I can have some more popcorn…some yellow pieces too, not just the dark ones.”
“Thought you said you liked it dark.”
“I do, but I like it light too.”
Jemaine pouted and thought about it.
“Alright,” he sighed.
Bret rushed to get a glass as the movie began, Kenny Loggins’ ‘Danger Zone’ ringing out. Bret put Jemaine’s glass down near Jemaine’s feet and quickly deposited himself back in his seat, taking another greedy handful of popcorn, “I tried to hurry. The remote’s still missing so I can’t pause the movie. Didn’t want to miss anything.”
“What’s to miss? Haven’t you seen this before?”
“Yeah, so?”
“So if you’ve seen it, you know what’s going to happen. You won’t miss anything.”
“You don’t know that for sure. Something could change.”
Jemaine frowned, “Seems unlikely.”
“Or I could miss a good part.”
“That’s more plausible.”
Jemaine put the popcorn bowl down on the floor between them and sipped his drink. It was strong and kind of syrupy, but pretty good. He watched the jets with some confusion, not really sure of what was going on. He let out a labored sigh, “This is boring.”
Bret’s face was a cross between shocked and wounded, “What? How can you say that?”
“Well, I don’t know what’s happening.”
“They’re flying their cool jets.”
“And?”
“…and it’s cool.”
Jemaine put his drink back down on the floor and rested his elbow on the couch’s arm rest, his fist propping up his head, “It’s more fun to watch cars.”
Bret shrugged and sipped more of his drink, “I really like this stuff. Makes me feel all…jittery.”
“You getting hyped over there?”
“Hm?”
“You know…hyped up, like the way people get when they take drugs.”
“Oh, um, no. No, we took illicit drugs before, remember? This isn’t like the acids.”
“Yeah, okay,” Jemaine muttered, unconvinced, while he watched Bret shake.
He pointed at the screen, “What are their names? I could only kind of hear them.”
“Oh. Well, there’s Maverick, naturally, he’s the main guy. Then there’s Cougar, Goose-”
“Goose? What kind of name is that? Which one is he?”
Bret pointed at the screen when the tall, skinny man came on screen, “That’s him there. He’s Maverick’s best friend.”
Jemaine’s eyes narrowed as he studied him, “He doesn’t look like a goose.”
“It’s his call sign.”
“His what?”
Bret rolled his eyes, his sugar-charged brain was going a mile-a-minute now and it was frustrating that Jemaine’s thick mind couldn’t keep up, “The pilots have call signs - it helps them hide their identities.”
“Like super heroes?”
“Kinda,” Bret’s lips screwed up to one side, “But cooler.”
Jemaine didn’t see how being a pilot was cooler than being a super hero. Super heroes could fly without planes. He was about to point this out when suddenly the jet in the film turned upside down in the air. Jemaine grinned, “Ok, now, flying upside down there - that is cool.”
“See? Told you. This movie is the best.”
“Wouldn’t go that far,” Jemaine muttered under his breath but Bret caught it and scowled at him, even more so when Jemaine let out an indignant grunt, “They’ve all ready played this song.”
“What?”
“This song they’re playing now - the one about danger - they played it at the beginning and now they’re playing it again. They should let another song have a go.”
“It’s a cool song. I like it,” Bret mumbled.
He tried with some difficulty to keep his attention on the movie. With every sip of his drink, he increasingly wanted to just jump up and run around in circles, which wasn’t the best position to watch Top Gun from. He gave his head a few shakes and gripped the couch arm to focus.
The scene had now changed to Maverick’s induction to the Top Gun school. As their commander discussed different planes and tactics used in war, one of the students commented, “This gives me a hard on.”
Jemaine snorted.
“Bet that’s why you like this movie so much, huh, Bret? Giving you a hard-on, too?”
Bret didn’t even look at Jemaine, “Not answering that.”
Jemaine thought about teasing Bret some more, but turned his attention back to the screen and found himself fidgeting slightly. For some reason he found he had nothing to do with his hands. They floated about his lap idly and he rested them firmly on his knees. After a few more minutes of intent not-movie-watching, his hands still wanted to move, so he started rubbing his legs, which only elevated the problem.
The movie, however, was not helping his distraction problem. On the screen, Maverick stared intently at a pilot, who stared back just as hard.
Jemaine rubbed his legs a little faster. “Are they flirting?”
“What?” Bret did look at Jemaine now, stunned by this question.
Jemaine pointed at Maverick on the screen, “He’s just staring at him, looks like he wants to kiss him. Actually…he’s kind of scoping out all the guys now.”
“He’s trying to figure out who the best is,” Bret said this at the exact same time that Maverick said the same thing in the film.
“The best what?”
“The best pilot.”
Jemaine looked doubtful as he eyed the screen.
“Are you sure? Because now he’s looking at that other guy again, a lot.”
Bret shook his head, “Are you going to keep commenting on the movie or are you going to watch it?”
Jemaine crossed his arms and huffed, “I can’t help it. I’ve got questions. I’ve never seen this movie. How am I supposed to know what’s going on?”
Bret tried to remember if he had seen a movie before with Jemaine and whether or not Jemaine had been this annoying through it.
The movie now cut to a scene of a bar and Jemaine frowned, “What’s wrong with these girls?”
“Hmm?”
“I thought you said this movie had hot girls. These girls have weird hair and clothes.”
“Oh, it was the 80s, man. And these girls here are window dressing. The hot girl comes later.”
“Hot girl? I thought you said girls, as in more than one-” Jemaine cut himself off as he suddenly got caught by a bit of dialogue in the movie between Maverick and Goose as they scoped out the 80s girls in the bar.
“This is what I call a target rich environment.”
“You live your life between your legs, Mav.”
“Goose, even you could get laid in a place like this.”
“Hell, I’d be happy to just find a girl that would talk dirty to me.”
Jemaine nodded. “Yeah, me too.”
“Movie back on track for you, then?” Bret asked, slightly smug and irritated at the same time, bouncing in his seat as he tried to work off some of the energy from the drink.
Jemaine made a non-committal sound in his throat and reached down to snatch up some more popcorn. Bret suddenly felt super focused and the movement distracted him from the film as he watched Jemaine toss the kernels into his mouth. Jemaine had a way of eating food that was totally obscene. His tongue crept out to catch the food first instead of the food just going into his mouth like a normal person.
Bret had always thought it was pretty disgusting, like a frog or something, and normally avoided looking at him when he ate, but this time Bret looked at Jemaine, then at the movie, then back again. Jemaine kind of had Tom Cruise-features going on. Or, not really. Actually the only thing they had in common was dark hair. And nice lips.
Now he was comparing their lips, looking at Tom Cruise and then back to Jemaine again. Bret hadn’t really noticed Jemaine’s lips before, not even when Mel had been shoving a picture of them in his face, but now he found himself looking less at the screen and more at Jemaine’s lips. They were full and soft looking and Jemaine’s tongue was sneaking out to wipe butter off his bottom lip.
Bret shook his head and directed his eyes back to the screen. For some reason watching him eat wasn’t as gross as it usually was. It was…confusing. Jemaine’s lips, his tongue, his mouth…Bret stopped bouncing up and down but did begin to drum his feet on the floor, wrapping his arms around himself because he felt like they needed to be somewhere.
He had sat with Jemaine on the couch many times before but right now, for some reason, it felt…funny. Maybe they had just never sat next to each other on the couch for this long? Bret became aware that Jemaine was talking.
“…ok, so that blonde girl is hot. And - wait, he’s following her into the ladies room? I thought you couldn’t…but he is, so…man, why haven’t we tried that?”
“What?”
“Following hot girls into the ladies room.”
“Don’t think it would work.”
“Suppose it is rude. Mel tried to walk in on me once when I was - she almost saw my - yeah, no good - you’re right.”
“Didn’t work for him either. See?” Bret said as Maverick had no luck with the hot blonde.
Jemaine nodded and rose to his feet, “Pause the movie, will you? I need to use the toilet.”
“I told you the remote is - forget it,” Bret muttered, since Jemaine was already gone, and got to his feet to stop the film while he waited for his bandmate to return.