Fic: Never Did Run Smooth, Part 2/4
Never Did Run Smooth
Part 2/4
Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine/Bret (Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: she_burns1
Beta: lordstarfish
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: 1,494
Warnings: None really, save that this takes place after ‘The Third Conchord’
Brief summary: The course of true love never did run smooth-William Shakespeare
Thanks to Dave and his own inner musings, Bret had made up his mind about the whole Jemaine situation. Basically, he was gay for Jemaine and Jemaine alone and now he merely had to confront the issue.
The only problem with this was that he was absolutely terrified to do so.
Every time Bret thought he was ready to broach the subject with Jemaine something either distracted him or he chickened out. It didn’t help that he couldn’t think of a good way to go about it. No opening appeared in any conversation they had where he felt he could casually slip the topic in.
He even tried to re-create the events that led him to this situation in the first place. He thought that maybe if they were in a similar position, the topic would be easier to bring up. A kick-boxing tournament was on and Bret made sure Jemaine knew about it, inviting him to watch it with him.
Jemaine was eager to see it, but things weren’t going exactly as planned. Bret propped himself on the couch exactly as he had been last time but Jemaine strategically chose to sit in one of the chairs from the kitchen.
Bret licked his lips, trying to seem informal, “You know, you can sit here on the couch if you want, man. Plenty of room.”
“Nnh,” Jemaine grunted in response. He eyed the couch with narrowed eyes, and then returned his gaze to the TV.
“Come on, that chair can’t be all that comfortable.”
“It’s fine.”
“You sure? Might be bad for your back-”
“I said its fine.”
“Yeah, but that’s a kitchen chair and we’re here in the living room, so, might be better to sit on living room…furniture.”
“What?” Jemaine looked at Bret in confusion, “Dave sits here all the time when he comes. What does it matter where the furniture comes from? ‘Sides, the whole apartment basically runs together.”
“I’m just saying-”
“I know what you’re saying, a bunch of weird stuff. Look, don’t worry about it. If I wanted to sit on the couch, I’d sit on it, but I’m good where I am. Let it go and let me watch the match.”
And that had been the end of that. Bret kept trying to think of other ways to start the ball rolling. Dave had said he thought Bret should be aggressive, but Bret just couldn’t think of a way to do that. In reflection, it was a shame things had gone so badly with Lisa; she seemed like the perfect person to ask for advice in that arena.
He could have just gone off from his experience with her, but he wasn’t eager to just rush out and touch Jemaine on the penis. He felt he needed to be a little cleverer than that.
Bret was the type to try something more subtle and romantic but he wasn’t quite sure that the same romantic things that worked on girls would work on guys. He thought of buying Jemaine flowers, but didn’t think they would have the same effect. In his mind he could just see Jemaine’s incredulous look, asking Bret why he had bought him flowers instead of something more useful, like a new toothbrush. He just knew flowers would go over his friend’s head.
Then he had thought to write him a song. He had found their note pad, frowning when he had seen some scribbled lyrics in Jemaine’s handwriting. Bret read them aloud under his breath, “Tastes like apples and sunlight? That doesn’t make any sense…you can’t taste sunlight…can you?”
Bret went to the open window and leaned out a bit. It was a sunny day in New York. Bret stuck his tongue out in the air, waiting a few seconds. The sun bathed his tongue but he didn’t think he tasted anything…it was just warm. Then his thoughts shifted to that night on the couch, the hot darkness and Jemaine’s mouth over his.
His tongue returned to its’ rightful place and he came back in, fidgeting a little. Maybe you could taste things like that. He flipped a few pages on the pad and sat on his bed. He wrote the song for most of the rest of the day and when he was done, he realized it would never work because the song was double the length of the song he had written for Coco, as there was a lot more to say.
Then he thought maybe he’d just write him a letter but, again, like the song, proved to be futile as the letter ended up being just short the length of a novella. He was running out of ideas. Part of him almost wanted to give up; maybe he and Jemaine should just stay friends and never examine it. Maybe it was better that way. It was certainly safer.
But Bret couldn’t think of himself going out with other girls. He just wasn’t interested. And when he thought of Jemaine with someone else, something nasty twisted painfully in the very center of him.
At the moment he was at an impasse.
He was sitting in the bedroom, mulling over all that he had written when the phone rang. He rose and picked it up, “Lo?”
“Bret?”
“Speaking.”
“It’s me. Murray.”
“Oh,” Bret put the notepad aside, “Hey Murray, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much I,” Murray stopped and made several choking noises. Bret frowned, “Murray? Are-are you crying?”
“No, no, I,” This was cut off with more pathetic crying noises, “Yes! Oh, Bret!”
“Calm down, Murray, what’s wrong?”
“The Crazy Dogggz, they’ve - well they’ve dumped me.”
“…You were dating them?”
“What?! NO! They dumped me! As their manager!”
Bret nodded, and then realized Murray couldn’t see him, “Oh, I see.”
“I’ve really hit bottom this time, Bret. They dropped me a couple of weeks ago. Thought I could bounce back but now…I mean, even Alanis Morissette won’t return my phone calls! We used to be so close, Bret, she and I…we had a thing…”
“Really?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. She won’t talk to me. No one in the music business will. I’ve been blackballed.”
“Augh, Murray, maybe you should report that to the authorities-”
“No, it’s - they’ve shut me out, Bret! I’m a nobody!”
“That’s not true-”
“No, no it is! It is! I think…I think I’m going to jump off the roof again!”
“Come on, Murray, it’s not all that bad. Don’t do that.”
“’S just…I got nothing now, you know? I’ve got no friends, no wife, no job-”
“You’ve got your dog.”
“No, I haven’t! He’s run off with Todd!”
“Your dog left you?”
“Yes! Oh god…”
“Look, where are you?”
“I’m at my old office. On the roof. I’m going to jump, I tell you, I’m looking off the edge now and…oh. My. Um. That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?”
“Murray, don’t do anything rash. Jemaine and I will be right over.”
“Will you really?!”
Bret shrugged, “Yeah. Not much else to do.”
“Bret, that’d - you all would really do that for me? Despite what I did-”
“Sure, be there in a bit,” Bret hung up and walked out to the living room where Jemaine sat, quickly explaining the circumstances.
Jemaine was pointed, “I’m not going.”
“What? But we have to. I promised him-”
“Well, you shouldn’t speak for me. I don’t care if he does jump. Bastard abandoned us.”
“Not really.”
“He left us for that stupid dog band. Stopped getting us gigs.”
“Yeah. But. I mean, he didn’t mean it, you know.”
“Besides, he wasn’t a very good manager anyway.”
“Oh come on now, that’s not true. Remember when he got us those gigs when we took the car tour? And when he paid for our rock n’ roll suits. And what about that time we lost our passports?”
Jemaine crossed his arms, and shrugged, eyes narrowed.
“Come on, man, we can’t leave him-”
“Why not? Looks like everyone else has. And he deserves it. Abandoning bastard.”
“Well, you don’t want to be an abandoning bastard, do you?”
Jemaine looked at Bret now, “How so?”
“If we leave Murray up there, after I said we’d be there, aren’t we abandoning him? That would make us no better than him, right?”
“You mean, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Jemaine scowled as he got to his feet, “I hate when you make a point.”
Bret grinned, “So, you’ll come then?”
Jemaine reached for his jacket, tossing out a grumpy, “Stop smiling.”
Well, I drove Steve to the airport early this morning. He'll be gone for 5 days for his work conference in Las Vegas ! :(
All ready, so, so lonely! *sigh*
Part 2/4
Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine/Bret (Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: she_burns1
Beta: lordstarfish
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: 1,494
Warnings: None really, save that this takes place after ‘The Third Conchord’
Brief summary: The course of true love never did run smooth-William Shakespeare
Thanks to Dave and his own inner musings, Bret had made up his mind about the whole Jemaine situation. Basically, he was gay for Jemaine and Jemaine alone and now he merely had to confront the issue.
The only problem with this was that he was absolutely terrified to do so.
Every time Bret thought he was ready to broach the subject with Jemaine something either distracted him or he chickened out. It didn’t help that he couldn’t think of a good way to go about it. No opening appeared in any conversation they had where he felt he could casually slip the topic in.
He even tried to re-create the events that led him to this situation in the first place. He thought that maybe if they were in a similar position, the topic would be easier to bring up. A kick-boxing tournament was on and Bret made sure Jemaine knew about it, inviting him to watch it with him.
Jemaine was eager to see it, but things weren’t going exactly as planned. Bret propped himself on the couch exactly as he had been last time but Jemaine strategically chose to sit in one of the chairs from the kitchen.
Bret licked his lips, trying to seem informal, “You know, you can sit here on the couch if you want, man. Plenty of room.”
“Nnh,” Jemaine grunted in response. He eyed the couch with narrowed eyes, and then returned his gaze to the TV.
“Come on, that chair can’t be all that comfortable.”
“It’s fine.”
“You sure? Might be bad for your back-”
“I said its fine.”
“Yeah, but that’s a kitchen chair and we’re here in the living room, so, might be better to sit on living room…furniture.”
“What?” Jemaine looked at Bret in confusion, “Dave sits here all the time when he comes. What does it matter where the furniture comes from? ‘Sides, the whole apartment basically runs together.”
“I’m just saying-”
“I know what you’re saying, a bunch of weird stuff. Look, don’t worry about it. If I wanted to sit on the couch, I’d sit on it, but I’m good where I am. Let it go and let me watch the match.”
And that had been the end of that. Bret kept trying to think of other ways to start the ball rolling. Dave had said he thought Bret should be aggressive, but Bret just couldn’t think of a way to do that. In reflection, it was a shame things had gone so badly with Lisa; she seemed like the perfect person to ask for advice in that arena.
He could have just gone off from his experience with her, but he wasn’t eager to just rush out and touch Jemaine on the penis. He felt he needed to be a little cleverer than that.
Bret was the type to try something more subtle and romantic but he wasn’t quite sure that the same romantic things that worked on girls would work on guys. He thought of buying Jemaine flowers, but didn’t think they would have the same effect. In his mind he could just see Jemaine’s incredulous look, asking Bret why he had bought him flowers instead of something more useful, like a new toothbrush. He just knew flowers would go over his friend’s head.
Then he had thought to write him a song. He had found their note pad, frowning when he had seen some scribbled lyrics in Jemaine’s handwriting. Bret read them aloud under his breath, “Tastes like apples and sunlight? That doesn’t make any sense…you can’t taste sunlight…can you?”
Bret went to the open window and leaned out a bit. It was a sunny day in New York. Bret stuck his tongue out in the air, waiting a few seconds. The sun bathed his tongue but he didn’t think he tasted anything…it was just warm. Then his thoughts shifted to that night on the couch, the hot darkness and Jemaine’s mouth over his.
His tongue returned to its’ rightful place and he came back in, fidgeting a little. Maybe you could taste things like that. He flipped a few pages on the pad and sat on his bed. He wrote the song for most of the rest of the day and when he was done, he realized it would never work because the song was double the length of the song he had written for Coco, as there was a lot more to say.
Then he thought maybe he’d just write him a letter but, again, like the song, proved to be futile as the letter ended up being just short the length of a novella. He was running out of ideas. Part of him almost wanted to give up; maybe he and Jemaine should just stay friends and never examine it. Maybe it was better that way. It was certainly safer.
But Bret couldn’t think of himself going out with other girls. He just wasn’t interested. And when he thought of Jemaine with someone else, something nasty twisted painfully in the very center of him.
At the moment he was at an impasse.
He was sitting in the bedroom, mulling over all that he had written when the phone rang. He rose and picked it up, “Lo?”
“Bret?”
“Speaking.”
“It’s me. Murray.”
“Oh,” Bret put the notepad aside, “Hey Murray, what’s going on?”
“Nothing much I,” Murray stopped and made several choking noises. Bret frowned, “Murray? Are-are you crying?”
“No, no, I,” This was cut off with more pathetic crying noises, “Yes! Oh, Bret!”
“Calm down, Murray, what’s wrong?”
“The Crazy Dogggz, they’ve - well they’ve dumped me.”
“…You were dating them?”
“What?! NO! They dumped me! As their manager!”
Bret nodded, and then realized Murray couldn’t see him, “Oh, I see.”
“I’ve really hit bottom this time, Bret. They dropped me a couple of weeks ago. Thought I could bounce back but now…I mean, even Alanis Morissette won’t return my phone calls! We used to be so close, Bret, she and I…we had a thing…”
“Really?”
“Look, it doesn’t matter. She won’t talk to me. No one in the music business will. I’ve been blackballed.”
“Augh, Murray, maybe you should report that to the authorities-”
“No, it’s - they’ve shut me out, Bret! I’m a nobody!”
“That’s not true-”
“No, no it is! It is! I think…I think I’m going to jump off the roof again!”
“Come on, Murray, it’s not all that bad. Don’t do that.”
“’S just…I got nothing now, you know? I’ve got no friends, no wife, no job-”
“You’ve got your dog.”
“No, I haven’t! He’s run off with Todd!”
“Your dog left you?”
“Yes! Oh god…”
“Look, where are you?”
“I’m at my old office. On the roof. I’m going to jump, I tell you, I’m looking off the edge now and…oh. My. Um. That’s a bit steep, isn’t it?”
“Murray, don’t do anything rash. Jemaine and I will be right over.”
“Will you really?!”
Bret shrugged, “Yeah. Not much else to do.”
“Bret, that’d - you all would really do that for me? Despite what I did-”
“Sure, be there in a bit,” Bret hung up and walked out to the living room where Jemaine sat, quickly explaining the circumstances.
Jemaine was pointed, “I’m not going.”
“What? But we have to. I promised him-”
“Well, you shouldn’t speak for me. I don’t care if he does jump. Bastard abandoned us.”
“Not really.”
“He left us for that stupid dog band. Stopped getting us gigs.”
“Yeah. But. I mean, he didn’t mean it, you know.”
“Besides, he wasn’t a very good manager anyway.”
“Oh come on now, that’s not true. Remember when he got us those gigs when we took the car tour? And when he paid for our rock n’ roll suits. And what about that time we lost our passports?”
Jemaine crossed his arms, and shrugged, eyes narrowed.
“Come on, man, we can’t leave him-”
“Why not? Looks like everyone else has. And he deserves it. Abandoning bastard.”
“Well, you don’t want to be an abandoning bastard, do you?”
Jemaine looked at Bret now, “How so?”
“If we leave Murray up there, after I said we’d be there, aren’t we abandoning him? That would make us no better than him, right?”
“You mean, two wrongs don’t make a right.”
“Something like that, yeah.”
Jemaine scowled as he got to his feet, “I hate when you make a point.”
Bret grinned, “So, you’ll come then?”
Jemaine reached for his jacket, tossing out a grumpy, “Stop smiling.”
Well, I drove Steve to the airport early this morning. He'll be gone for 5 days for his work conference in Las Vegas ! :(
All ready, so, so lonely! *sigh*