lye

A Day in the Life (Flight of the Conchords, Gen fic)

2008-10-30T00:40:37Z

Title: A Day in the Life
Author: lye
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Character(s)/Pairing(s): Bret, Dave, Murray, Mel, Jemaine, Doug, Greg.
Rating: PG-13, for swearing?
Warnings: None.
Summary: Just some little bits and pieces.
Notes: Ummmm, I don't know. I don't know how much of a Fstory is in here, but I wanted to play around a bit.

Bret opens his eyes two minutes before the alarm is set to go off. It’s a weird thing that has been happening lately, probably because he’s been getting up to go to work at the same time for weeks on end.

He rubs his sleepy eyes and pulls the curtain back a bit, looking out the window without getting up. Looks pretty sunny, maybe T-shirt weather. He’ll bring his tiger jumper just in case it gets cold. He likes that one, the inside his soft. And tigers are awesome, but that goes without saying, really.

He walks barefoot across the floor towards the bathroom. Jemaine is still sleeping, his face lost somewhere in the pillow. He would be worried about Jemaine’s breathing but he’s really, really got to pee.

At the toilet he yawns so wide that he feels his jaw crack and he looks momentarily disgusted. It doesn’t hurt, but it sure sounded gross. He kind of wonders what it looks like in there. He ponders the idea of looking inside there, seeing what’s going on. He imagines a bunch of little guys trying to fix whatever is causing the cracking.

He hears his alarm go off in the next room, beeping obnoxiously though the relative silence of the apartment. He sometimes forgets it hasn’t gone off yet before he gets up, but he never feels bad about it because Jemaine should have to get up, too. Nevertheless, he runs into the room to turn it off, amazed that Jemaine hasn’t moved a muscle.

Every time he opens or closes a door he checks over his shoulder to see if Jemaine’s woken up. It’s kind of a game, and he likes those. Maybe they can play Crazy Eights when he gets home later.

He slams the bathroom door. No luck.

He walks loudly across the floor. Jemaine doesn’t stir.

He says, “Jemaine” at various levels of loudness from a number of different places in the flat. His roommate sleeps on.

Bret eventually loses interest in this game and wonders what sign he’ll be holding today. Last week he saw a guy on the street dressed up like Boba Fett, with a sign about free comics. He was amazed. And then later, when he went back, the guy was dressed up as Darth Vader.

The costume was so real looking that when Bret turned the corner and was face to face with him, he actually became startled. It was like he was a little kid again, watching the movies for the first time. He realizes he hasn’t told anyone about it yet, and figures he should remember to. Jemaine will be totally jealous.

He checks the time, and things are going ahead of schedule. He debates between watching an episode of The Dog Show and getting a tea on the way to work. He purses his lips in thought, scratching at his beard.

“Tea,” He decides aloud.

“Ugh,” Jemaine’s voice filters out from the bedroom. “Keep it down out there!”

Bret smiles to himself and ties up his shoelaces, gabbing an apple heading out the door. He takes the route past Dave’s store to get to work, so he can get that tea he wants.

---

Dave’s been awake for like a fucking hour, but the day is already well on its way to being a piece of shit. Someone ate his last toaster strudel, for starters. His waking thought had been, Shit, I still have that one toaster strudel left, but by the time he got downstairs it’d been gone. He suspects his mother and her evil sweet tooth.

On top of that, he didn’t even get a hint of action last night when he went out. He thought for sure his new grey bandana would cause some kind of interest from the ladies at the bar. Nada. Zilch. Fuck all. Which, more accurately, means fucking nobody.

He stirs his cup of tea absently, watching the hot women in their little business outfits hurry by on their way to work. He sometimes wishes he worked in a job that offered a little more female interaction. He’s pretty sure all those business ladies in their outfits just want to screw around in the photo copy machine rooms, anyway. Why else would they dress so hot?

The bell on the door rings and Dave looks over to see Bret walk in, halfway through an apple. He’s got some retarded tiger on his sweatshirt and pieces of apple in his beard and yeah, Dave is pretty much the nicest dude alive to be friends with this guy.

“Hey dude,” he greets him, though he has zero enthusiasm for his weird little friend. He looks at him for a second but then sees a hot woman stroll past the window, and he’s distracted again.

“I was wondering if I could get a tea, Dave,” Bret takes a huge bite out of his apple and looks around the store. Bret is always interested in the shit he carries.

“Yeah,” Dave says, and pours another cup of the tea he made a few minutes earlier. He wonders sometimes if he’s the coolest person Bret and Jemaine have ever met, and he’s pretty sure he is. “I banged a redhead last night,” he lies easily, handing the cup over. He doesn’t tell stories like this to be a dick or anything, he just feels like it’ll uphold his cool image if he tells a few stories every now and then.

“Really?” Bret asks, and there is quiet amazement in his face. Dave can see Bret asking himself why he wasn’t with a redheaded lady last night.

“Yeah,” Dave nods, taking a sip of his tea and swallowing. “And the carpet matched the drapes, if you know what I mean.”

Bret nods like he knows what he means. “That’s good. My mum used to have purple drapes and orange carpet,” he says, seriously, “Drove her nuts that they didn’t match.”

Dave is literally speechless.

“Anyway, I have to get to work,” Bret picks up his browning apple and his tea and heads towards the door, opening it with his back. “See ya, Dave,” He waves the apple and walks outside. A hot business lady checks out Bret’s ass as he strolls past and all Dave can do is curse out loud.

---

He wouldn’t normally do this, but Murray has called in to work to tell them he’ll be late. Of course he takes his role at the New Zealand consulate very seriously, and he is in charge of a great number of very important things, but he’s got an issue he needs help with. He simply can’t go to work just yet.

He’s a thorough man, so he’s asked around before hand. Tested the waters among his closest friends, trying to decide who is the one that can help him out the most. He always does his homework, that’s just the way he operates.

He parks the car in front of Dave’s store, checking the doors twice each to make sure they’re locked, and gets out. He thinks he sees Bret a block or two away, but that can’t be because according to his schedule Bret should be at work already. Before he goes into the shop he pulls out his trusty notebook, and writes Bret late for work?, he pauses and looks at it, before adding: needs firm talking to later.

He opens the door to Dave’s shop and is pleased by the little jingle that announces his arrival. Dave looks up and notices him and Murray immediately feels like Dave’s having a bit of a bad day. He looks quite angry, but there is a little bit of disbelief in his eyes, too. He’s got that look on his face that says I can’t believe you of all people are in my store right now, and Murray is a little bit pleased he could be a surprise.

“Hello David,” He greets him with a smile. After all, a smile might just be the trick to cheering Dave up.

Dave grunts at him and leans back over the counter, flipping through a magazine. Murray feels briefly like maybe he should leave, but spots a recording device in the corner of the room. It’s small and black and it has one of those tiny tapes inside. Suddenly he’s thinking about phasing the notebook out all together, just making notes on that thing instead. Ohh, now that would be exciting. He could put it in his pocket and have it at the ready whenever he had an important thought. He could be driving, walking, speed walking….

“Hey,” Dave interrupts his train of thought. “Are you going to buy anything or just poke around my shit all day?” Murray picks up the recorder and walks over to the counter, setting it down.

Dave looks at the item and says, “Ten bucks.”

Murray pulls a crisp ten from his wallet and hands it over, and after the transaction is done he sees fit to go back to the real reason he’s in the store. “I was wondering if you could help me with something,” Murray leans in. There isn’t anyone else in the store who could be listening, but he feels better this way, “Regarding some personal business. My personal business.”

Dave stands up straight, his face scrunched up into an expression Murray can’t quite decipher. “What kind of business…” he asks.

“Bret and Jemaine told me you were the go to guy to go to for advice – of a romantic nature,” Murray says. This is really his last chance, and he hopes Dave will have something for him. Shelly has left again and he really needs to get back on the horse, as it were. “You know,” He lowers his voice, “Romance. To romancing a woman.”

Dave seems to think about this for a moment. “You need your nut busted,” he says.

Murray can’t believe Dave has misunderstood him. While Dave is hands down the coolest American he and the guys know, he sometimes has trouble understanding things. He wouldn’t make it a day in New Zealand.

“No, no,” He waves his hand dismissively. “I have one of those little wooden men with the enormous hat at home for that.” At the confused look on Dave’s face, Murray elaborates, “He uses his mouth.” Murray bares his bottom teeth and opens his mouth a few times, trying to show Dave what he meant.

“Sick,” Dave says, under his breath. “So you need a woman?” Dave picks up his cup and takes a sip of his drink.

Relief floods over Murray. He’s finally getting through to Dave, and this will definitely help. Dave’s been with all kinds of women; Murray knows this because he’s heard about it through Jemaine and Bret. “Yes,” he says, nodding, “I need to find--”

“You’re getting a ticket, Murray,” Dave points past him, out the window. Well heck, it would only make sense that the moment he’s on the road to results when something like this would pop up.

He grabs his new recorder and heads for the door. “Thanks, mate! We’ll finish this conversation later, aye!” He pushes open the heavy door, heading out into the street. He feels pretty secure in the knowledge that Dave will later help him find a nice new woman.

---

She’s feeling a little sick today, but Mel isn’t going to let something like her throat swelling closed stop her from doing what she has to do. It’s Friday, so she’ll have to go to the university in the afternoon, but the morning is entirely hers.

The alarm goes off at six, and the sweet sounds of her Flight of the Conchords demo fill the room. Doug is missing from the bed, so she stretches out and listens to the song. Bret doesn’t wake up until around seven on the days he works, so she’s got time to get ready and be outside their place before he leaves.

She listens happily to the song, her thoughts drifting to delicious places. Like that time she got a glimpse of Bret’s hip. Oh, it was so perfect! Or those glorious few days when the webcam was still set up. There was no sound, but she had seen Jemaine do a rather enthusiastic strip dance once while Bret was out. She sighs dreamily to herself.

“Mel, your breakfast is ready,” She hears her husband call from downstairs. Ugh, it’s almost like he knew he would ruin a perfectly good train of thought. What is his problem?

She gets dressed and she and Doug eat their scrambled eggs and toast in silence. He’s reading the paper and she’s wondering what Bret is having for breakfast. She wonders if Jemaine still faces Bret’s side of the room when he sleeps, or if that’s changed recently.

She checks her watch, and it’s later than she thought. “Come on, Doug,” she says, standing up, suddenly feeling very urgent about getting out on time. Doug clears the remains off of their plates and puts his coat on. She bounces impatiently while he looks around the kitchen for something. “Come on,” she’s losing her patience now. What if Bret’s already gone?

She hops out of the car when they pull up in front of Bret and Jemaine’s place, trying to find the most casual area to place herself in. Maybe if she waits around the block, she can run into him on his way to work. She’s a little bit worried, because she’s running late, but sometimes Bret sleeps in and he’s late, too.

It’s a nice sunny morning, which makes having a sore throat feel a little bit odd. She rubs at her neck, as if that can help at all. Maybe she’ll get Bret sick with her germs! They’ll have something to talk about in a few days. She could offer to nurse him to back to health…. It’s only fair.

Feeling a little but sluggish, she takes a seat on the stoop of a building around the corner. Maybe if she says she has a hurt ankle, Bret will help her out. She holds onto her left ankle just in case he comes around the corner. It has to look realistic, obviously.

“Hey lady, you okay?” Some random guy has stopped in front of her. “You hurt yourself or something?”

“Nooo,” she can’t help but roll her eyes. She wants him to leave. It would be just her luck that Bret would come around the corner, see that somebody is already taking care of her, and walk on by the work. “I’m fine, go away.” She waves her hand, motioning for him to keep on walking, keeping her eyes on the corner.

The man looks confused, but walks away.

That was close. That guy almost ruined everything. Now all she has to do is sit here and wait for Bret to go to work. She’ll have her hurt ankle, he’ll be her white knight, she’ll give him her cold and it will all be just perfect.

She pats her hair down and tries to look distressed.

---

Luckily, Jemaine fell right back asleep after Bret’s tea outburst this morning. He gets another three hours before he really wakes up, feeling very hungry. His blankets are all twisted around his legs and he lets out a grumpy groan and kicks his feet until his legs are free.

He scratches himself and walks through the bathroom into the kitchen, stopping for a pee on the way. He looks at the bath tub briefly and decides he’s too lazy for a shower just yet.

Even though nobody is there to see him, and the webcams have been disabled, he drags his feet like a pouting child. It’s lonely without Bret around. What if he has a question about something? There, that’s a question right there. Who is going to answer him?

He makes himself a pot of tea and sits down at the kitchen table. He could play Battleship, but that’s no fun when you’re by yourself. Solitaire is always an option, but he never remembers how to set it all up. He could always read the newspaper, but he hates reading, so that’s out. Maybe that Star Trek puzzle they got for a dollar a few days ago? They’ve been picking away at it since they got it. Captain Kirk is on it, which is kind of cool. Oh no, Bret had made him promise they would only do it together. After the band meeting, maybe?

He takes his tea into the living room and slides in a tape that Murray’s mum sent a few months ago. He’s already seen it a few dozen times, but he doesn’t really see any other option. He’s not very imaginative, but he thinks that someone who is imaginative would be painting a picture or something right now. He tries to picture what sort of thing he would paint, but his mind comes up blank.

He takes in an episode of The Dog Show. He remembers the dog his mum has, and how loud it is. It always wanted something or other, and she would always yell at him to take it on walks. Pfft, well those days are long gone. He’s in America now, and he walks dogs for nobody.

Eventually he grows tired of the tape and there’s nothing to eat in the flat, so he gets dressed and heads outside. Going outside is always a bit of a gamble, since Mel has gotten exceptionally good at lurking around. Jemaine sees her husband Doug in the car, but there doesn’t appear to be any sign of Mel, since he’s been on the front steps for at least fifteen seconds and she hasn’t popped up yet.

“Hi Doug,” He walks over to the open window, looking over his shoulder as he does. It could very well be a trap.

Doug is inside the car putting numbers into boxes on paper. Jemaine can’t really make sense of it, and he doesn’t really like numbers all that much so he doesn’t ask what that’s all about.

“Oh, hey Jemaine,” Doug has a pleasant smile, but there is something odd about it, like it’s not real. Jemaine only smiles when he’s really happy or something really funny has happened.

“What’s uh…. How are things?” Jemaine does another sweep of the area, looking out for Mel. He sort of regrets coming over now, since he is pretty bad at conversations.

“Good,” Doug says, looking up at him now. They are both silent for a long moment. Jemaine sticks his hands in his pockets and looks around again. “Mel’s just around the corner there,” Doug points in the direction he means, Jemaine follows his hand.

“Oh. I’m going the other way,” Jemaine says firmly, nodding in that direction. Doug nods. “Well, nice seeing you, Doug,” Jemaine waves at him and hurries away, leaving Doug to his numbers and his weird smile and his crazy, crazy wife.

---

Jemaine disappears around the corner and out of sight, looking over his shoulder every few steps, as if making sure he isn’t being watched. Doug is on his seventeenth sudoku now, and, he feels strangely proud of himself every time he finishes another one. It’s a little bit of a relief to have something he’s good at again, since he feels so terrible at doing everything else. He even let Mel sleep in a little too late today, which will probably prove disastrous later on.

He confidently places the numbers in the boxes where they belong. He doesn’t even need to do them in pencil anymore, he’s so good. He times himself with the car clock. Two minutes for that last one. He is a sudoku machine. He’s the sudokumeister. If only marriage was a little more like a sudoku. He would definitely know where the numbers went.

He moves the car every half hour or so, just to keep people from asking questions. He’s feeling a little bit adventurous today, so he takes it around the block once before parking it right in front of the guys’ building again. Mel doesn’t like him to leave his post; he’s supposed to keeping an eye out. If she knew he let Jemaine take off like he did, phew, he would be in big trouble.

Mel comes around the corner after waiting for a few hours. She looks stressed and annoyed. Doug puts his sudoku book away in the glove compartment before she gets into the car.

“Where to now?” He asks, because its sort of his job as a chauffer slash husband.

Mel shrugs and buckles up her seatbelt. “I guess the university,” she says, looking past him at the doorway to the building. Her voice sounds all scratchy from her sore throat. “You didn’t see anything?” Her eyes flicker to him briefly, and he shakes his head.

“Nope,” He says, and starts up the engine. “How about we go get you some candies for your throat so you’ll feel better,” He says, because it’s just sort of his job as a husband slash chauffer.

He pretends not to see her blow a kiss to the building as they drive away.

---

It’s been a long day at the New Zealand consulate, and Greg has been watching the arms on the clock ticking away for the last hour. They get one casual Friday a month, and he’s opted to wear his Flight of the Conchords T-shirt today.

When Murray came in late and saw it, his face lit up. “Oho!” He said, excited. “Nice one, Greg!”

The day hasn’t been anything special. He makes his calls, he writes his reports, he Googles party tricks when he should be working, and he answers to Murray’s constant paging.

“Hey Greg,” Murray’s voice comes through the old speaker in the corner of his desk. “Do we have any of those highlighters that are a different colour on both ends?”

They do. He brings him a couple.

“Hey Greg,” The voice comes through again, later on. “Could you come in here, please?”

He goes in. Murray’s chair feels a bit low, and he doesn’t know which knob will make it taller again. Turns the knob that does it is the only knob on the chair.

Evidently Murray is having a band meeting today. Jemaine comes in first, sipping on a Big Gulp from 7-Eleven and looking thoroughly unexcited, as usual. He offers a wave to Greg on his way into Murray’s office.

Bret comes in about five minutes later, holding a huge sign that advertises a sale on coffee tables. Bret’s a little more talkative than Jemaine, at least offering an awkward smile and a hello before he disappears into Murray’s office. Greg is a little bit tempted to ask about the coffee table sale, but he goes back to Googling.

Murray’s office isn’t that far from Greg’s desk, so he’s been an unwitting member of almost all of their band meetings so far.

As usual, Murray begins with the role call. He reads their names.

“Here,” says Jemaine.

“Yep,” says Bret.

"Annnd Murray," Murray finishes.

Greg listens as Murray goes through the agenda. His first topic is something about Bret being spotted outside of Dave’s when he should have been at work. There is a long pause before Jemaine speaks up, sounding defensive. “It wasn’t me,” Jemaine says.

“We’re not naming names, Bret!” Murray speaks up. “It was an anonymous tip, alright?” Greg judges by their silence that the Conchords have let it go. “Anyways, Bret, what are you doing being late for work? Never mind, I don’t want to know, just don’t let it happen again. Item two-” Murray’s voice pauses. “My new recorder! I got this from Dave, it should make me far more efficient, and we’ll have more items and things because of it.”

A coworker walks by and Greg picks up the phone, as if he’s about to call somebody important about something. He watches them retreat around the corner and puts the phone back in its cradle.

He hears Bret say, “It’s not doing anything.”

Jemaine’s voice follows, “Maybe it doesn’t work.”

“No,” Murray says, “it has to work. Dave just sold it to me today. The red button, Bret, press that one down.”

“It’s not doing anything, Murray,” Bret says.

“Maybe you need some batteries,” Jemaine suggests.

Murray’s voice crackles out of the speaker on the corner of his desk. “Greg, could you come in here, please?”

He’s actually pretty excited. He likes being called into these band meetings, however briefly. In a weird way he craves the proximity.

“What can I get you, Murray?” he leans in the door. Bret and Jemaine turn around in their chairs to look at him. Jemaine takes a loud sip of his Big Gulp.

“Greg, do we have any fresh batteries around here?” Murray asks, holding up an ancient looking tape recorder. Murray should have just gone digital, it would have made a lot more sense. Maybe he’ll get that for him for his next birthday, if he’s invited again.

“I’ll take a look,” Greg says, and Murray nods his thanks. Bret and Jemaine turn back around.

“Alright, next on the agenda,” Murray looks down at the page in front of him. “I’m trying to get you guys a gig at a country and western bar. Do either of you own a leather vest?”

Greg sets off on his mission. He knows there aren’t any batteries in the office, but it gives him a way to kill five minutes. He walks down the familiar halls, looking at carpet stains that have been there since before he even came here. Some of them are in the shapes of things… like the big black one near the water cooler looks like a decapitated teddy bear.

By the time he gets back to Murray’s office, the band meeting is coming to an end. He tells Murray the bad news that there are no batteries in the office and goes back to his desk. He’s a little bit sad that he didn’t hear about the country and western bar item.

He hears the chairs moving a little bit and Bret and Jemaine walk out the door, pausing outside Murray’s office for a moment.

“Should we play Crazy Eights tonight?” Bret suggests. His sign is resting against his shoulder, his arm wrapped around Jemaine’s Big Gulp because its simply too big for one hand. He takes a huge sip of it and adjusts his hold.

“Ehhhh,” Jemaine says, fixing his jacket. “I thought we could finish Captain Kirks face tonight.”

“Oh,” Bret shrugs, “That’s okay too.”

Before they take off home, they turn and realize Greg is there, pretty much just watching them.

“Cool shirt,” Jemaine comments, nodding at him. Bret finally realizes what he’s wearing and smiles almost as wide as Murray did earlier. The two of them fall into sync and head off towards the elevator and Greg feels a little bit jealous. They’re pretty much the coolest guys he knows.

“Have a good day, Greg,” Bret tries to wave goodbye from outside the elevators.

Bret’s request of him is pretty late in the game, because the clock is almost at five and the day is almost over. But he figures, yeah, he’s had a pretty good day.

“Greg,” Murray’s voice comes loud from inside his office, interrupting his thoughts. “Greg, I think the intercom is broken!”

It was an ordinary day, at least. Nothing really wrong with that.

Cold (Bret Mckenzie/Jemaine Clement, RPS)

2008-10-27T04:14:55Z

Pairing(s) in the story: Bret Mckenzie/Jemaine Clement, RPS
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I don't own Flight of the Conchords, they own themselves, and in my dreams they own each other.
Title of story: Cold
Rating of story: PG-13, I guess. I HATE RATING THINGS.
Word count of story: Just shy of 2,000
Chapter: 1/1
Brief summary: The weather is getting cold, and Jemaine is feeling it.
Authors note: I don't know about this one. I was bored and it's better than nothing....... or is it? Haha, no, it is. I think.

The city of New York is starting to get colder. Nothing too bad, just a sharp coldness in the breeze that makes him wish he was back home in Wellington. To think, he used to think New Zealand winters were tough. That is all very laughable, now.

They’re on break from filming for a few weeks, and he’s finding it tough to fill his days without a schedule telling him what every minute is for. Without wardrobe fixing his outfits, he wears the same trousers for days on end. He wonders if maybe he’s depressed for some reason, but highly doubts that, considering how well things are technically going.

When he isn’t sneaking some work in with Bret and James, he wanders the city with no agenda. He likes the hustle and bustle; he relishes the anonymity he gets when he and Bret don’t go places together. The problem with that is most places he goes he wishes Bret were there with him.

He’s long suffered an unrequited affection for his partner in musical comedy, and for the most part he’s dealt with it by pushing it aside. He buries it, and hides his longing under a veil of regular friendship. Every now and then it bubbles up in him, threatening to explode. And then he goes on a walk or something. Anything to give him the space he needs to get his head clear.

It’s late at night and he’s one of about seven people on the subway car. He likes to sit at the back of the train and watch the insides of the tunnels, or the passing traffic, or the old buildings. Everyone else in the car is wearing headphones, putting up that invisible wall that says, ‘I don’t fucking want to make friendly small talk.’

He prefers to think about things when he’s on the subway. Right now he’s thinking about Bret.

His friend is out tonight, doing some drinking with a couple of friends he’s made on the crew, which is typical of him. As long as he can remember, Bret has been very gifted at making connections. Jemaine’s feels more gifted at missing connections. Of course he’s invited out with them as well, but he wasn’t feeling up to it. A quiet night in to top off a week full of them.

He lets himself into the hotel room he’s living out of. It’s considerably nicer than the one HBO put him up in for the last series, but there is a sterile coldness that comes with living in pristine conditions.

Lazily he opens and closes the cabinets in the small kitchenette a few times before giving up, standing in the middle of the floor. He doesn’t know what he wants, only that he wants something. He’s about to run through the kitchen again when he hears the strum of an acoustic guitar filter out from the bedroom.

Curious, he walks towards the sound, peeling his coat off on the way. He steps into the room and finds Bret there, sitting in the middle of his bed. Jemaine’s guitar is cradled in his lap and he’s toying with the strings absently, watching an episode of The Simpsons on mute. He’s dressed in a pair of old sweatpants and a T-shirt, and Jemaine has to swallow down the urge to be annoyed with him. He loves it when Bret wears those stupid sweatpants, he finds it disgustingly adorable.

“Hey,” Bret says, finally realizing he isn’t alone anymore. His smile is relaxed and his eyes are shiny. He’s definitely had a few beers. “How you going?” He asks.

“I’m good,” Jemaine lies, because he really doesn’t have an answer. He feels sort of shut off, lately. A combination of too much work followed by too little.

The room is quiet for a moment. Bret is momentarily distracted by the TV, and Jemaine takes his chance to slip out of his shoes and over to his dresser, pulling out his own night garb, long cotton pants with The Blues Brothers on them and a white shirt. He changes into them unnoticed by Bret, who is still transfixed by the TV.

It’s funny, when those little moments happen. He knows if it had been the other way around, he wouldn’t be able to look away. He’s seen Bret change in the past and it always leaves him red faced.

The sound of the guitar picks up again and he looks over to the bed, where Bret is watching him. “Where were you all night?” He asks, reclining onto the pillows.

Jemaine offers a shrug and walks over to the bed, sitting down on the side Bret left empty. The minute he feels that body heat beside him, whatever has been bothering him immediately starts to disappear.

“I went for a walk,” he says, grabbing the remote control and starting to flip through every channel. It’s really a manly instinct he can never ignore. He just has to flip flip flip through the channels, just incase he’s missing something good. “I thought you were going out with the guys?” He sneaks a look at his companion, who is watching the screen again.

“No,” Bret turns his head quickly enough that they catch each others eye, before Jemaine looks back to the screen. “I went, but you seemed sort of down when we talked on the phone earlier so I thought I’d come see you.”

Jemaine is warmed from head to toe by the thought of his friend worrying about him. He doesn’t say anything, just keeps flipping away at the TV.

“You sure you’re good?” Bret asks.

Jemaine takes control of his facial features and puts on the best smile he can, looking over to his friend. Bret’s face is openly worried, his eyes wide and bright. “I’m fine,” he lies. “Better than, I’m superb.”

Bret’s eyes skim his face with an analyzing glint. “Yeah,” he says slowly. “You’re definitely lying to me.”

Jemaine is momentarily flabbergasted. “What? No, I’m not,” he looks away briefly.

“You are,” Bret nods, and climbs off the bed, shuffling across the room to put the guitar back where he found it. Jemaine really can’t help but sneak a glance at Bret’s sweatpants clad butt. He looks guiltily back up to his face when Bret turns around, hitches the pants up a little, and rests his hands on his hips.

“You’re not good,” he says, an accusing edge to his voice. “You’re not yourself and you haven’t been for a while, so I want to know what’s going on.”

Jemaine manages an attractive few seconds of opening and closing his mouth, searching for a good lie. He is reminiscent of a fish out of water, and decides to just keep his mouth shut and give his friend a pleading look. Don’t pursue this, his eyes beg.

It appears Bret can’t care less what Jemaine wants in this situation, because he comes back over to the bed and climbs onto it, crawling over so he is as close as he can be to Jemaine. He sits back on his feet and plants one hand on Jemaine’s knee, the other on his shoulder, and suddenly it’s very hard to breathe.

“Tell me,” Bret pleads, his hands squeezing a little. When Jemaine doesn’t respond he shuffles a little bit closer, his knees touching Jemaine’s hip. “Come on, Jemaine. Maybe there’s something I can do.”

When Jemaine finally musters up the courage to look his friend in the eyes, he realizes the mistake he’s made. He can’t lie like this. He can’t lie to a face that is so open, so earnest. It’s written on Bret’s face how much he cares, and how badly he just wants to help. Jemaine feels like an asshole for being so guarded with him.

His heart begins to thud thud thud hard against his chest and he can almost feel it in his throat. He stares into Bret’s face for a moment longer before taking a chance and resting his hand over the one Bret’s left on his knee. It’s warmer than his is, and he has to fight against the immediate urge to warm himself with it.

He thinks maybe its time for an all or nothing approach. He needs to be brave and maybe start feeling again. Feeling anything, except for this damned cold. Because he can’t blame the New York weather for it anymore. Because this coldness has been coming from inside all along.

“I’m in love with you,” Jemaine finally blurts. His heart speeds up and his stomach drops and he watches, horrified, as realization washes over Bret’s face. He lifts his hand from Bret’s and doesn’t know where to put it, so he lets it hang in the air. “I’m sorry,” He adds, matter of fact.

Bret’s face has gone blank, his eyes unfocussed and Jemaine is pretty sure he’s just fucked everything up. But he finds he doesn’t mind, he’s almost giddy, like a huge burden has been lifted from his shoulders.

“You’re sorry,” Bret repeats, his tone eerily neutral. His hands twitch a little on Jemaine’s knee and shoulder. “You’re in love with me and you’re sorry.”

“Yes,” Jemaine confirms.

“Why?” Bret’s eyes focus again, locking with Jemaine’s. He shifts a little, but stays where he is.

Jemaine ponders this for a second, before speaking up. “Well, your butt looks really good in those sweatpants, for starters-”

A smile twitches in the corner of Bret’s mouth and Jemaine is hit with a wave of comfort. He somehow knows that no matter what, this is going to be okay.

“Why are you sorry, I meant,” Bret asks, his face is serious again, his eyes searching.

Jemaine is silent, trying to find the words to explain how badly he doesn’t want this to mess anything up. He’s sorry because he’s put Bret in a terrible position. He’s sorry because things will never be quite the same again.

“Don’t be,” Bret says, lifting his hands from their previous positions and firmly grabbing the hand Jemaine’s left hanging in the air. “Don’t be sorry you’re in love with me,” he squeezes the hand tightly and smiles a little. “It hurts my feelings,” he adds, and with that they share their first kiss.

Their first kiss evolves quickly into their first makeout session, which leads to some rather pleasant touching and rubbing. Jemaine quickly finds out that while Bret’s butt does look amazing in those sweatpants, it’s actually way better up close and unclothed.

They put a pause to their exciting new development a few hours later, when it’s finally decided upon that they need sleep. They shift around, searching for their clothes.

Jemaine lays back against his pillow, contentedly watching Bret hop around the end of the bed, trying to get everything in order. He’s tucking sheets back under the mattress and trying to make everything line up. Eventually he gives up and gathers what he can, making his way back up to Jemaine. He tucks the blanket around him and then tucks himself under Jemaine’s arm, letting out a long yawn.

There is so much to say, but they have tomorrow for that.

“Night, Bret,” Jemaine turns his head and kisses a mess of dark curls. He closes his arms around him and smiles to himself.

“Night Jemaine,” Bret’s voice is sleepy, and his hand moves slowly across Jemaine’s chest. He lifts his head a little bit, looking at him through the dark. “You’re not cold, are you? I can look for that comforter.”

He almost laughs at the question. “No,” he says, his smile becoming impossibly wider. “No, I’m not cold.”

Balls (Bret Mckenzie/Jemaine Clement, RPS)

2008-10-06T08:13:04Z

Pairing(s) in the story: Bret Mckenzie/Jemaine Clement, RPS
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I don't own either of the Conchord men! But I do own a blanket with a wolf on it.
Title of story: Balls
Rating of story: I would say PG-13? I don't know.
Word count of story: 1,100
Chapter: 1/1
Brief summary: Bret and Jemaine have a disagreement.
Authors note: Wow, it's been forever since I've written anything! I'm extremely rusty, so this is too, but I wanted to sort of get back on the bandwagon. This isn't really anything, just me trying to get comfortable again. I'm not sure if it worked, haha.

“I’m just saying I like the fuzzy blanket with the wolf on it, is all,” Bret says, typing nonsense onto the laptop screen and then watching it project onto the larger screen on the wall. They’re in Burbank, working on the second series for the TV show. The room has become a sort of prison for them, with HBO acting as the warden. It’s not as bad as some other prison portrayals HBO has had, though. Nobody has been shanked or anything.

“I don’t like it,” Jemaine replies, elbow resting on the table and chin resting against his clenched fist. When Bret doesn’t respond right away he starts to turn around in his chair a little, bored. “I don’t know why you’re so keen on it. The sheets and the blanket we have are fine, Bret.”

James has left the room, taking a phone call. He’s left them to their own devices for the better part of fifteen minutes. For some reason when that happens in this room, disagreements happen. For the most part they are the perfect partnership. After years of friendship and collaborating, they are well tuned into each other.

Bret lets out a sigh and leans back in his chair, sliding so far down he thinks briefly that he won’t even be able to get back upright. “The sheets are the T-shirt kind, and they wrap around me and force me into a cocoon.” Jemaine gives him a look of disbelief, so Bret forces himself to get back up, leaning forward. “They are stretchy. It’s like a cling wrap, I don’t like it.”

“What are you suggesting?” Jemaine huffs, annoyed, tapping his fingers on the table and waiting for James to come back and distract them with work.

“I’m suggesting we ditch the top sheet,” Bret says with a form nod. “It’s the only logical way.”

“No it’s not, Bret. Think about it,” Jemaine says. Bret does think about it, and responds a few moments later with a confused shrug. “Would you rather we wash just the sheets every time we--” Jemaine looks to the door, then back at him, voice quieter, “you know? Or would you prefer we wash the entire comforter. That thing takes a decade to dry!”

“Oh, it does not,” Bret pulls a face, frowning. “And that’s what I’m saying! The wolf blanket is fuzzier, but it dries much faster, I bet. We’ll be just as warm and we won’t need that stupid stretchy death trap anymore.”

“It’s not a death trap,” Jemaine remains firm, shaking his head.

“It is, though,” Bret enthuses. “I woke up the other morning and I couldn’t even move my arms. I had to kick you in the shins to wake you up, remember? You got mad at me because my toenail cut you.”

“Well, if you trimmed them more often,” Jemaine lets out a long suffering sigh.

“Then you would have bruised shins because I would have still been stuck! Why can’t we just use the wolf blanket? We haven’t even given it a proper try.”

Jemaine rolls his head around on his neck dramatically, wiping his hands over his face before slapping them down in the table. “The wolf blanket makes my balls sweat, Bret. You know that! Who wants to wake up in the middle of the night with sweaty balls?”

“It’s not my fault you’ve got sweaty balls, Jemaine,” Bret folds his arms across his chest and looks around the room. It feels smaller in there than usual.

“No? Well it’ll be your problem when you come face to face with them later,” Bret looks mildly appalled. Jemaine shrugs and adds, “I’m only looking out for you.”

“With an attitude like that, your balls won’t be my problem for some time,” Bret says, shortly. It’s Jemaine’s turn to look appalled.

“Who’s got sweaty balls?” James comes in at the end of the conversation, flipping his phone closed and taking his seat at the table.

Both Bret and Jemaine sit up straight and forget their argument, going back into work mode. Another good element to their partnership is the ability to focus when the time calls for it.

“Nobody,” Jemaine says, getting up and walking over to where Bret is sitting, patting him on the shoulder so he’ll vacate the chair. They take turns being the note keeper during these brainstorming sessions. “We were thinking we should bring back the hair helmet,” Jemaine suggests. James is enthusiastic, and they get back to work.

Things are a little bit tense during the drive home, but neither of them likes fighting in traffic, so they are pleasant during the drive.

They go about the evening in a sort of silent war. Bret takes out beef to make burgers for dinner, and while he’s watching Wheel of Fortune Jemaine puts it back in the fridge and takes out chicken.

Jemaine goes to have a shower, and Bret waits until he is in the middle of it to do the dishes. He smiles a little to himself when he hears a scream coming from the next room.

Jemaine is fixing them a snack before bed when Bret finally gets sick of their little fight. He slides up behind Jemaine (who is busying himself with a can of peaches), wraps his arms around his chest and squeezes. Bret feels Jemaine’s whole body go from tense to relaxed, and he smiles against the back of his shoulder.

“I didn’t mean what I said about your balls,” Bret mumbles against the warm fabric of Jemaine’s T-shirt. He slides a hand down Jemaine’s front and gives his crotch a fond squeeze.

“I know,” Bret doesn’t have to see his lovers face to know that he’s smiling. “They’re irresistible; they’ve got magnetism to them that you can’t resist.”

Bret offers a sleepy snort and kisses the side of Jemaine’s neck, before standing on the tips of his feet and seeing what Jemaine’s getting up to. “Peaches, aye? Good choice.”

“A bloody good choice,” Jemaine affirms, and hands Bret a bowl.

They stand side by side against the kitchen counter, eating their peaches. Their silence is an amicable one, now, and they hold hands on their way to bed. They leave the dishes for tomorrow.

They are warm in their bed after a few minutes of sleepy kisses. Jemaine’s chest is starting to grumble a little, which means he’ll be snoring in no time. Bret lies snuggled against him, fighting against the weight of his eyelids.

“Jemaine,” He mumbles.

“Mm,” Jemaine shifts a little. “What?”

“What if we used the T-shirt sheet with the wolf blanket?” Bret yawns and finally closes his eyes. Jemaine doesn’t respond right away, and Bret thinks maybe he’s fallen asleep and missed out on his stellar plan.

“Then we both win,” Jemaine says sleepily, getting the idea. He gives Bret a kiss on the top of the head.

“Yes we do,” Bret smiles, snuggling just a little bit closer. "I like it better that way, anyhow."

Coffee and Tea (Bret Mckenzie/Taika Waititi, RPS) R

2008-07-26T19:06:33Z

Pairing(s) in the story: Bret Mckenzie/Taika Waititi, unrequited Bret/Jemaine and Taika/Jemaine.
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I own nothing! I wish I owned Taika, though. What fun that would be.
Title of story: Coffee and Tea
Rating of story: Rish
Word count of story: 3,200
Chapter: 1/1
Brief summary: Bret and Taika use each other to deal with the unattainable.
Notes: Don't really know how I feel about this one, but I'm hoping you guys like it!

It goes unspoken, this thing they share. Not for the normal reasons, of course, because neither of them as people is fundamentally worried about what is right, wrong, or shameful in the eyes of complete strangers.

They don’t talk about it because there is nothing to gain from looking their situation in face. Nothing good could possibly come from putting a name on it, or trying to figure out the mechanics. It can’t last forever, surely, but it’ll have to do until they’ve both stepped far enough back to finally move on. The problem is, as long as the other is there to keep up their end, there can be no giving up. No admission of defeat.

Beneath it all they are still just rivals, and their shared interest is, as always, completely oblivious.

---

“Tea?” Bret offers, ever the dutiful host. The mornings after almost always start this way. He’s always the first to wake, and it gives him a chance to covertly slip back into his boxer shorts and put the kettle on.

The other man offers a sleepy groan in response, still lost somewhere beneath the sheets.

Bret is tidying his bedroom, keeping his hands busy. Keeping his feet from taking him back to the bed, ensuring that he doesn’t crawl back into the situation he saw himself in the night before.

“I’ll take that as a yes,” He picks up the other mans boxers and throws them at the human shaped mass on the bed, satisfied when they land on what looks to be the head. As soon as the garment makes contact a dark arm reaches out from the depths of the sheets and the underwear disappear inside.

There is moderate shuffling, some bouncing, and a muttered ‘shit’ before the sheets are thrown back and dark, squinting eyes first meet the light of day. He groans again, before draping an arm across his eyes.

“Why don’t you ever just have coffee?” His voice is rougher than usual, he’s still half asleep.

Bret turns his back on him and swipes a hand across the dusty screen of the broken TV he’s been too lazy to move from his room. “Because, Taika, I am a tea man. Why would I need coffee if I get everything I need from tea?” he smiles good naturedly over his shoulder at his friend, who is still laying there with his arm over his eyes.

He almost suggests that Taika leave a tin of coffee at his flat for next time, but decides against it. It’s not how they operate.

They are both silent for a moment, lost in their thoughts, before Taika finally lets his arm fall and props himself up, his elbow digging into Bret’s pillow. The sheet falls and pools around his waist, unveiling a toned chest that almost always makes Bret feel a little bit inadequate.

“Come over here,” he suggests, lifting the sheet in offering.

“The tea is on,” Bret replies. He wipes his dusty hand on his boxers and leaves the room.

Taika slumps back down into the bed, running a hand over his tired face. “Okay,” he says, more to himself than to Bret, who couldn’t hear him from the kitchen anyway.

The older man collects his rumpled clothes from the floor and joins his host in the kitchen. Bret is in the corner fighting with the toaster, oblivious to his arrival until he feels a hand sliding down his bare back.

He jerks just slightly in surprise at the contact, but continues to fiddle with the toasters one setting. He can’t help but feel a little annoyed that Taika has taken it upon himself to bring last night into this morning.

“Sorry about your back,” Taika says, running his hand across pale skin, skimming over tracks of raised red flesh. “I should really invest in some nail clippers.”

Bret shrugs away from the contact, carefully avoiding his face, and grabs a mug and a tea bag before relocating to the stove.

Taika finally takes the hint and goes to sit down at the table, grabbing the newspaper and starting to flip through it quickly. He’s clearly not even reading it; he just wants something to do with his hands.

They eat their toast, Bret drinks his tea, and Taika’s foot bounces frantically as he pretends to read the paper. Bret is about to cave and suggest they go back to bed when the phone rings.

They know who it is. After all, who else could it be? Their eyes lock for a moment before Bret gets up and walks to the phone, picking it up. “Hello?” He says, and their silent prediction on who is calling is clear by the look on Bret’s face.

It is confirmed by his first true smile of the day. The one that reaches his eyes and stays there for the entire duration of the phone call, and Taika tries (though not very hard) not to eavesdrop on Bret’s end of the conversation.

When the phone clicks into the receiver, Taika looks over at him. The smile is already gone; his entire existence seems to have darkened. Bret sits back down at the table and Taika takes it upon himself to initiate some conversation.

“That was him?” He asks. Bret nods, taking a sip of his tea.

“He’s coming over in a few minutes. To practice,” Taika nods and gets up, looking around the kitchen, trying to remember if he brought a jacket last night.

“That’s right, you two leave for Edinburgh next week,” His smile looks forced as he walks over to Bret’s side of the table. “I’ll get out of your hair, which you should take a look at, by the way,” He looks as though he is about to lean down to kiss Bret goodbye, but Bret shies away just enough for Taika to recover and head straight for the door.

“Say hello to him for me,” He says, closing the door behind him. His jacket hangs forgotten on the back of the door.

Bret combs his fingers through his hair once, twice, and then retreats to the bathroom to wash away the night before.

---

While the two of them are away in Scotland making people laugh, Taika finds other uses for his time. He paints a little, because it soothes his soul. It took him putting his brush to the canvas to realize just how battered it had become as of late.

He’s not happy with burying the situation anymore. They’re not young men now, they’re grown men, and this game they’ve been playing has grown old. His biggest regret in the situation is there is nobody to blame it on. If he were feeling like being an illogical prick, he could blame the entire thing on Jemaine. He could yell at him, tell him to stop leading them both on.

He can’t, though, because it’s not Jemaine’s fault that he is both of their sun, that they are warmed by his mere existence. That just being there is essential to both of their survival. They are both stuck in the same orbit, circling him but never getting close enough. That’s what started the entire thing between them. Meeting and fucking and forgetting what they can’t have until next time.

Then he thinks about Bret, who is his rival and only ally in all of this. They have never talked about it, which is generally more Bret’s doing than Taika’s, but he doesn’t fight with him about it because it would do no good. Neither of them stands a chance, anyway.

He wonders if maybe he’s a little bit in love with Bret as well, and thinks that might be true. Maybe he is adapting. Maybe he’s finally on the verge of just giving up on Jemaine. Maybe he’s settling. He knows he could never leave Loren, because she is his best friend and the closest thing he has to a real soul mate. She is his partner in almost everything, and he thinks he might he devastated without her kind soul around. He doesn’t want to see her cry, and he certainly doesn’t want to be the cause of it.

Bret, however, is not quite as adaptable as Taika has made himself. His relationships with women are short lived and unenthusiastic, and it saddens Taika to see that, because Bret deserves a little happiness. He knows he’s certainly not giving him any, but wonders despite himself if he even could make Bret happy. Because if he could, he thinks maybe he would, because Bret is really something when he smiles.

Loren is fast asleep against him when the phone rings. He checks the clock first, twelve midnight, and reaches for the cordless phone. “Hello,” he speaks softly, trying not to wake her. Loren shifts a little but otherwise doesn’t stir.

“Kia huritau ki a koe!” Yells a voice, and despite himself Taika feels his heart warm at the sound of it. “How old are you now, forty-three?”

“Still younger than you, Jemaine,” he smiles, playing distractedly with a piece of Loren’s hair for a moment before feeling a bit guilty.

“I guess you’ve still got that going for you,” Taika hears the phone being moved to another ear, and some voices talking in the background. “Having a good birthday?” He asks.

Taika checks the clock; it’s two minutes after midnight. “Two minutes in and it’s already the best twenty-eighth birthday I’ve ever had. Loren went all out, she got me some drool and quite possibly a head cold.”

“Always outdoing the rest of us, it’s almost unfair,” Jemaine sighs.

They talk for another half an hour and Jemaine is filling him on the Fringe festival, telling him how it differs from the year before when the two of them took their own comedy show there. How the living arrangements that Flight of the Conchords were dealt turned out to be so shitty that he and Bret were staying with some friends who were also there performing.

“How’s Bret doing?” Taika asks before realizing he was even wondering.

“Sleeping under the pool table,” Jemaine laughs. “He flat out refused to share the pull out with me. I think he’s making some kind of statement about rug burn, or posture, or something. Actually I should get him up, it’s half past one already.”

“Have a good show,” Taika tells him.

“You have a good birthday,” Jemaine orders.

He turns the phone off, sets it on the night stand and kisses Loren on the top of the head. He can’t decide of he’s jealous that Bret is with Jemaine right now, or relieved that it’s not him.

---

For Bret, Edinburgh is both a blessing and a curse. At first the notion of being away with Jemaine was a welcome one, but the more time he spends with him, the heavier his heart feels. He’d forgotten how exhausting it was, this unrequited love thing. No wonder they weren’t flatting together anymore.

It only took one night in the room they had been given for Bret to realize that it wasn’t going to work. Jemaine’s bed was just a foot from his. His warm presence filled every nook and cranny of the small room. It was overwhelming, and the close proximity only drove home how unattainable his friend was. He could see him, touch him, laugh with him, but he could never have him.

It didn’t take much to convince Jemaine that they should go and crash with The Naked Samoans, friends of theirs who were also performing there. “It’ll be way better, tons more fun,” he enthuses.

It’s better than it was before, but he still feels uneasy. He can’t find a sense of comfort. He can’t decide the right distance to keep between himself and Jemaine. He tries to act natural, or his version of it. He feels wound up, very tense, and he betrays himself by simply wishing Taika were there to help him with that.

“Bret,” Jemaine’s voice wakes up from an uneasy sleep. The floor is not as comfortable as he’s making it seem. He lifts his head and it connects with the bottom of the pool table for the seventh time in as many days. Jemaine grimaces on his behalf and lays down his front so they are level.

“What time is it?” Bret grumbles and puts his face back down on the floor.

“Half past one,” He answers, picking at the carpet. “I just gave Taika his birthday phone call. We should get him something to bring back.”

Bret finds himself disappointed he didn’t get to hear their friend’s voice.

“Yeah,” he says, lifting his face again. Jemaine laughs and grabs his chin, turning his head to the side.

“You have half a beard made of rug indent,” Jemaine’s thumb grazes his cheek a few times and tries hard to pull his face away, but finds he just simply cant. Jemaine smiles at him, hand still resting on his cheek, and his heart just aches.

For the first time in forever, he thinks he might want this to end. Thinks maybe he can’t handle it like he used to.

---

Taika goes to pick them up at the airport, holding a bright green sign that reads Plight of the Camcorders and wearing a smile. They shuffle into view a few minutes after he gets there, looking tired from the trip. Jemaine gives him a warm smile and takes the sign, inspecting it. “Nice use of glitter,” he says, handing it back. Bret hangs back a little bit, and Taika notes how out of sorts he looks. He notices Bret is wearing his forgotten jacket, but doesn’t say anything.

He looks at Bret, and for the first time he’s a little mad at Jemaine for not noticing what he’s doing to them.

He drops Jemaine off at home first, since going out for drinks didn’t seem to be in the cards. Jemaine wanted to see his girlfriend and Bret just didn’t seem up to it. As soon as Jemaine is out of the car Bret relaxes, tipping his head back against the seat and promptly passing out.

Taika parks the car and Bret stirs from his sleep, blinking over at the driver’s seat. He makes no move to get out, and Taika doesn’t rush him.

“Do you have to get home?” Bret asks, looking out the front. This is how the game always starts, and Taika finds himself relieved they are still playing it.

“No, Loren’s away for the weekend.”

Silence. Bret fiddles with the lock on the door for a moment before turning to him and asking, “Do you love her?”

“As much as I can,” Taika answers, immediately and honestly.

“Do you want to come up?” He finally looks at him. His eyes are tired; his face is pale, his shoulders slouching.

“Sure,” he says, opening the door.

---

The door to Bret’s flat isn’t even closed behind them before Bret is all over him. Taika fumbles with the bag he’s holding and lets it drop to the floor after Bret grabs his head, driving their lips together. He instinctively grabs Bret by his slim hips, pushing at him until he is pinned against the counter.

Bret is moving against him, and the soft grunts and moans echoing through his ear only cause him to get more excited. They kiss frantically, tongues sliding and teeth grazing. Taika grinds against Bret, keeping him pinned against the counter and Bret’s head falls back just enough for Taika to turn his efforts on his neck. He sucks lightly, teeth grazing the skin, and Bret shivers against him. He lets out a wanton moan and Taika can’t wait anymore, he pulls back.

“Should we-” he begins his suggestion, but Bret cuts him off.

“Yeah,” he nods, breathless.

Tugging and pushing at various pieces of each others clothing, they trip and stumble from the kitchen into the bedroom. Usually there is some degree of laughter and playfulness to their actions, but Bret’s usually bright eyes are dull and focused. They managed to rid themselves of their shirts before they get to the bed.

They stand facing each other, and Taika reaches out, smoothing his hands down Bret’s chest. He runs his fingers over his collar bones, across his shoulders, down his arms. Bret watches him with dull eyes and Taika again feels a fleeting bit of anger at Jemaine.

He has to ask, “Are you okay?”

“You know,” he starts, cracking a little bit of a smile. “I don’t think I am.”

Taika’s stomach drops and something in his chest tightens and he draws Bret close, giving him a slow kiss on the lips. His apology for everything they’ve suffered together. They keep kissing, Bret’s arms hanging limply by his side.

They finally part to catch their breath, keeping their foreheads together. Bret keeps his eyes trained carefully on the ground and asks, “Do you think you love me at all?”

Taika kisses him again, pulling back only to speak against his lips. “I do,” he says, sneaking another kiss, “as much as I can.”

Bret swallows hard and nods once before kissing him again with a new vigor. There is the tiniest trace of the light back in Bret’s eyes, and Taika is relieved to see it. They shed the rest of their clothes and fall down onto the bed.

They kiss and touch and stroke and fuck, bringing each other over the edge and for the first time neither of them call out for the unwitting member of their little club.

Afterwards, they lie side by side on the bed, chests rising and falling rapidly as they fight to catch their breath. Bret swipes sweaty curls from his forehead and drops his hand to rest on Taika’s forearm.

Neither of them says anything, but something has changed.

---

The air of change hangs until the following morning. Taika wakes up and is confused at first as to where he is. A slight figure is sleeping against him, and he thinks he might be at home with Loren. It’s not until he opens his eyes to a mass of curly brown bed head he remembers he’s with Bret.

But this is wrong, because Bret is always awake and out of reach when Taika wakes up here.

He pulls his head away to sneak a look at his face, and is surprised to find Bret is awake, still hanging on to him and staring straight ahead at the wall. Bret suddenly catches his eye and gives him a smile. It is a genuine one, perhaps the first Taika has seen on him in years so he smiles in return.

“What, no tea?” Taika says, eyebrows raised.

Bret burrows his face somewhat shyly into Taika’s neck, inhaling long and hard before propping himself up so he can look down at him. “I thought I’d give coffee a try. It might be just as good, I just never wanted to give it a chance.”

He realizes with certainty that now he can make Bret happy. Now they can make each other happy.

The Date (Bret/Jemaine, Flight of the Conchords) PG

2008-07-13T20:19:58Z

Ones (Bret/Jemaine, Flight of the Conchords) PG

2008-06-24T22:28:21Z

Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine/Bret (Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I do not own Flight of the Conchords, just some miscellaneous merchandise.
Title of story: Ones
Rating of story: PG
Word count of story: around 4,200
Chapter: 1/1
Brief summary: Jemaine has three Ones, and Bret only has One.
Notes: So this fic is totally the fault of my boyfriend. We were watching 'Sally' together and during the scene where Bret is all lonely and Jemaine is off having dates with Sally, he said to me, 'Jemaine is his one? Thats a little sweet.' It could have been that he was on his sixth beer, but I like to believe he secretly digs the slash.

So you can blame him for this! Onward!

Edit: When you are done, check out taconaco's lovely art here, as she was rad enough to draw one based on this fic. <3

He hadn’t really thought about the One thing until his conversation with Jemaine about Sally being his bandmate’s third One was turned around on him. “How many have you had?” Jemaine inquired.

Bret fidgeted with the coils of his fake robot arms for a moment while he considered his answer. “Just one,” he admitted. I think it’s you, his brain added silently. “Just one,” he looked pointedly ahead as Jemaine remained quiet, reflecting perhaps on the past love he received from almost every female branch on the Fitzpatrick family tree.

Behind them, Murray continued to load up the car.

-

He tried to push the entire thing from his head, but as Jemaine and Sally became more involved, Jemaine became scarcer, and Bret found it harder and harder not to focus on how much he missed his roommate’s company.

To say he was glad when they broke up would be a gross understatement. He knew the way to ensure it would never happen again was to just become a little more interesting. That way, Jemaine would have no reason to stray into the arms of some girlfriend that would evidently leave him hurt anyway.

He remembered a bit of advice his mother had given him when he got his first girlfriend, his first year of high school. “If you want to keep a girl interested, you have to be intriguing, spontaneous, and sympathetic to her needs. Most of all,” she told him, “be thoughtful.”

Sure, Jemaine was by no stretch his girlfriend, so the advice was a little bit out of context. But, he reasoned, a roommate/bandmate was the closest thing out there to a girlfriend, right? Bret had a great deal of faith in the wisdom of his mum, so he decided to follow her advice.

-

He would first introduce intrigue into their friendship. Bret was well aware that he wasn’t a very intriguing guy, especially to Jemaine, who knew pretty much everything about him anyway. He felt predictable, and so he sought out ways to change that.

Jemaine was popping out to get them some lunch when Bret planted the seed of intrigue.

“See ya, Greenjeans!” He called, his view of his friend obstructed by the cartoon section.

Jemaine’s footsteps hesitated for a moment, and then he responded with a bewildered, “Uhh…… See you in a bit.”

This is totally going to work, Bret grinned and flipped the page.

For the next two weeks, Bret referred to Jemaine only by his new nickname (“Morning, Greenjeans!”, “Have you seen my eagle jumper, Greenjeans?”, “Hey Greenjeans, did you see the size of that pigeon? Flippin’ huge!”). Jemaine, for his part, took this confusing turn of events in stride. Bret felt a twinge of excitement every time the use of the name resulted in a confused look in Jemaine’s face. Bret could tell from Jemaine’s expressive face that he was trying to piece together the puzzle in his head. What he didn’t know was that Bret was hiding some pretty key pieces.

“Goodnight, Bret,” Jemaine climbed into his bed, adjusting his blankets and laying down, waiting for Bret to turn the lamp off.

“Night Greenjeans,” Bret yawned, flicking the switch and cloaking them in darkness.

Jemaine waited a beat. Then, “You know, I’ve been thinking about this new nickname.”

Bret stayed quiet, trapping a fingernail nervously between his teeth.

“I just don’t understand it, Bret. I mean,” Jemaine sighed, and Bret heard the springs in his bed squeaking in protest as he situated himself. “All of my jeans are the blue kind… except the black pair. I don’t even have a pair of jeans that are remotely green.”

“You don’t really have to,” Bret said, grinning despite himself. Jemaine had been thinking about it. Maybe he’d even been thinking about it at great length. He could visualize the confusion on Jemaine’s face at this very moment; the wheels in his head turning, trying to figure this whole thing out. Trying to figure Bret out.

As quickly as it had become, the nickname Greenjeans ceased to be. It simply wasn’t necessary.

-

What was it his mother had said to do next? Be spontaneous? He sat alone at the table in the kitchen, chewing absently on a slice of cheese while he brainstormed his next plan. He searched the room for inspiration. Realizing the apartment didn’t hold much for him; he popped the rest of his snack into his mouth and set off to see the most inspirational person he could think of.

“So, let me get this straight,” Dave interrupted. Bret was in the middle of explaining the situation at hand. He had left out some details, like the fact that the entire thing was based around Jemaine. After all, Dave gave some of his best advice when he only knew half of the situation. “You want to be like, all spontaneous and shit? Like, full of surprise?”

Bret nodded eagerly, leaning across the counter towards his friend.

“That sounds like a lot of work,” Dave said. “Do you realize how much work it is to keep that shit up, bro?”

“I think so,” Bret nodded again, paused, and came back with a more enthusiastic nod. “Totally, I do. It’s a lot, right?”

“A lot,” Dave nodded. “So, what were you thinking about doing for this chick?”

Bret quirked his lip, thinking hard before shrugging, “I was thinking maybe something shocking, you know? Like, they would be shocked. It would be something unforgettable.”

A slow smile crept across Dave’s face, and Bret felt slightly nervous all of a sudden. “Shocking? Oh, man! I have something perfect.”

“Tell me,” Bret leaned forward, eager to take what knowledge he could.

Dave leaned in, conspiringly, “You give her the shocker, bro!” Bret shook his head, uncomprehendingly. “The shocker! Trust me, it is unforgettable.” Dave repeated, with zest. When the look on Bret’s face remained blank, Dave followed up his explanation with a hand gesture. He held his hand up, index, middle and baby finger’s sticking out while the thumb held down the ring finger. Bret’s mind naturally went first to ‘botched finger puppet attempt’ then straight to ‘some Star Trek thing’, but it quickly changed when he saw the confident grin on Dave’s face.

Bret raised his eyebrows skeptically. “Is that some kind of gang signal? Because Murray told us-”

“No, you silly Indonesian shit,” Bret settled with a silent New Zealand for himself before Dave carried on. “The shocker! It shocks her, bro. It is not just a clever name. Totally fucking spontaneous.”

Bret leaned forwards, engaged. “How do I do it?”

“Two for the friend, one in the end,” Dave smiled, knowingly. Bret did a confused half shrug. “Two in the junk, one in the trunk?” Dave tried again. Bret nodded once like he understood before pausing and shaking his head. “Two in the place, one in the ace,” Dave said enthusiastically.

“I don’t think I know what you’re talking about,” Bret admitted.

Dave paused for a moment, as if trying to think of a way he could explain it on Bret’s level. He put his hand back into position. “Two in the moose,” he spoke slowly, pointing with his other hand to his index and middle fingers. Bret’s face lit up at the mention of an animal that he was quite fond of. “One,” Dave pointed to his pinky finger, “in the caboose.”

He did a violent, twisting, plunging sort of stabbing motion with his hand, looking expectantly at Bret, who nodded like he understood even though he had no idea what Dave was referencing. “Right,” Bret said, nodding. “Good one, yeah. That’s… perfect.” He nodded again, stupidly. “I can’t believe I didn’t think of it myself.”

Just then, a customer came into the store. He strode up to the counter and set down a large box. “How much can I get for these?” Dave peeled open the box and Bret stood up a little taller to peek inside, discovering it was a box full of lawn gnomes. Bret saw in that box his opportunity for spontaneity.

“Uh, nothing,” Dave looked at the guy in disbelief and annoyance. “’Cause they’re fucking Smurfs.”

“Gnomes,” Bret and the customer corrected at the same time. Bret turned to the guy, “How much do you want for them?”

-

He’d just finished putting his plan into place by the time Jemaine got home. Bret had seated himself on the corner of the couch (where he could watch the proceedings more easily), sipping on a cup of tea and twisting a Rubik’s cube around in his hands.

The bassist wandered around in a late evening daze for a few minutes, putting his bike away and taking off his jacket without noticing anything in the flat being amiss.

Jemaine opened the fridge, leaning down and disappearing from view. “I’m going to make something to eat,” He began, voice raised so Bret could hear him. “Do you want-” He stopped, and Bret stopped trying to solve the cube, anticipation high. “Why do we have a gnome in our refrigerator?” His head popped up over the door, looking at Bret in confusion.

Bret averted his eyes, back to the Rubik’s cube. “Hmm?”

“A gnome. We have a gnome in here, and I can’t see past him.” Jemaine disappeared behind the door again. “How am I supposed to find the cheese, with this guy in here?”

“The cheese goes in the door,” Bret lined up some blue boxes and smiled at his progress, adding as an afterthought, “And his name is Fly Guy Roy.”

Jemaine, cheese in hand, backed away from the fridge and let it close slowly on its own. “He gives me the creeps, Bret.” He turned to his roommate, looking displeased for a second before turning around to the counter. Just as he turned around, Bret braced himself for the inevitable scream that would follow.

“Auugh!” Jemaine yelled, backing into the table.

“Don’t worry about Bargain Bill,” Bret spoke up cheerfully. “He won’t touch the cheese – vegan diet.”

Jemaine snatched up his sandwich supplies and moved to the table, keeping an eye on the gnome standing on the counter out of the corner of his eye. Bret watched closely and smiled as he went back to his cube. I’ve definitely surprised him. He can’t forget this, he lined up some more blue pieces, feeling mighty pleased with himself.

As the night continued, Jemaine stumbled across more and more of Bret’s new additions. There was one waiting for him in the shower, on lying on its side across his favourite part of the couch, one set up to guard his bass and a couple others just scattered about in random places. Jemaine spent the evening eyeing them all suspiciously.

“Where did you get them?” Jemaine walked into the bedroom, speaking around his toothbrush.

“The Swanks?” Bret finally set down his unfinished Rubik’s cube, snuggling down into his bed. “They just found me, I guess,” Jemaine stared at him blankly for a moment before returning to the bathroom to spit.

Jemaine came back in a moment later and peeled the blankets on his bed back, stopping abruptly when he noticed an older looking gnome staring up at him from his pillow. It was the oldest gnome of the lot by far, with chipped paint and no pupils. Jemaine turned to Bret, eyes wide in disbelief.

“That’s Hilary,” Bret yawned and stretched out before curling on his side. Jemaine remained standing beside his bed. “She’s the mom.”

Jemaine stared at Hilary Swank, confused and a little annoyed. Hilary stared at nothing, eyeless and chipped. Bret watched Jemaine, nervous and excited.

“I don’t really know what to say,” Jemaine said, pushing the gnome over to the wall and getting into his bed.

“You don’t really have to,” Bret turned off the light, rolling over again and facing the window beside his bed. “Goodnight, Jemaine,” he added.

He fell asleep secure in the knowledge that Jemaine found him at least a little more spontaneous than before.

-

It took a great deal of intense pondering for Bret to figure out how he could be sympathetic to Jemaine and his needs. Frankly, he hadn’t understood that bit of the advice the first time around. Was he supposed to track down things Jemaine needed and bring them back for him? Did it make more sense for him to discover what Jemaine needed, and if it was weird or something, act understanding about it?

“We need some milk,” Jemaine commented one morning, after pouring the rest into his bowl of cereal. Bret was momentarily excited, thinking maybe he’d figured it out, before he realized that was something they needed. It actually turned out that Jemaine was more likely to say ‘they’ needed something before ‘he’ needed something.

Bret became all consumed with trying to figure something out, and evidently Jemaine noticed a change in him.

“Hey Bret,” Jemaine waved a hand in front of his face. They were in the middle of band practice, even though Bret had continuously forgotten to keep playing along. “What are you doing?”

“Practicing, man, same as you,” Bret tuned his guitar a little bit to show how serious he was.

“You keep just --” Jemaine put on a dull face and stared off into the distance. “Just zoning out. What are you thinking about?”

Bret thought quickly, answering with the first lie he could think of, saying, “Baguettes.” Jemaine looked confused. “I was wondering how many baguettes I would have to make somebody before they gave me a car.”

Jemaine seemed to ponder this a second. “Baguettes as a new currency,” He said, interested. Bret nodded. They finished up their practice and had macaroni from a box for their dinner, before heading off to bed.

“It’s no good, this baguette currency thing,” Jemaine concluded as he set his glasses down on his nightstand. Hilary Swank’s beard clinked against the wall as Jemaine got comfortable. “We would be even poorer, because you would just eat our savings.”

Bret pouted to himself and drifted off to sleep, without any idea how to be sympathetic to the friend who just crushed his new dream. He awoke a couple hours later to the sound of shuffling feet and the bathroom door slamming shut.

“Jemaine?” He mumbled, still half asleep as he propped himself up on one elbow. Across the room, Jemaine’s bed was empty, and a sliver of light from the bottom of the bathroom door spoke to his whereabouts.

The guitarist padded softly across the floor, rubbing his tired eyes slowly and letting out a single yawn before he pressed his ear against the door. His stomach turned in sympathy when he realized Jemaine was in there being sick. Usually in this situation, he would pour his friend a glass of water and stay at least a two meter radius away, being that Bret was famous for lacking the stomach to deal with others who were being sick.

Be sympathetic to his needs, a voice in the back of his head reminded him. Bret sighed and went to get the water.

He committed to an entire night of sitting on the bathroom floor with his sick friend. He kept a hand placed soothingly between Jemaine’s shoulder blades, tiredly rubbing circles with his thumb whenever the older man leaned back over the bowl to empty his protesting stomach. Numerous times Bret felt the nauseating urge to throw up himself, but he reminded himself that he was here to be sympathetic.

“I’ll never eat macaroni and cheese again,” Jemaine told him, anguished.

“Don’t say things you’ll regret,” Bret frowned, patting him on the back.

Eventually Jemaine slid from the toilet onto the floor, clearly content to pass out right there. “Put your head here,” Bret suggested, patting the outside of one of his bent legs. Jemaine let out a pitiful groan and slid over to him, crawling almost completely into his lap. Jemaine wrapped his arms around Bret’s left leg, clinging to it and finally letting his head fall.

Bret looked longingly out the bathroom door towards his bed, where he could see the sun was coming up outside. “Night night,” He combed his fingers through Jemaine’s hair once, letting his hand rest there.

-

“Are you still at three, then?” Bret blew on his tea before taking a sip, flipping to the comic section of the paper. He’d been thinking about the One thing again.

“What?” Jemaine sounded mildly confused but basically uninterested.

“Three Ones?”

Jemaine looked up, mumbling, “Three what?” Bret looked at him expectantly. “Oh, my Ones, yeah,” he turned his attention back to his empty crossword. “Still at three. There have been a couple hopefuls, but yeah, still three.”

Bret stared at him blankly, “Hopefuls? There have not been hopefuls.”

“What do you mean? Of course there have.” Jemaine protested. “You haven’t seen them because --” He sputtered for a second. “You aren’t around me all the time, you know. I can have hopefuls you don’t know about.”

“I’m around you a lot of the time,” Bret put his finger down on the paper so he wouldn’t lose his place in the comic.

“Are not,” Jemaine mirrored Bret’s example and marked his own place with his finger.

“Am too!”

“You are not!”

“I am too!”

They carried on with another minute or so of that before Jemaine stood up, chin high. “You are not,” He said with finality, scooping up his paper and tea and moving to the couch, where he kept his back to his friend.

Bret’s shoulders slumped and he looked miserably down at the cartoons. He was still pretty sure that Jemaine was his One (and was rapidly coming to terms with what that might mean) and it made him surprisingly sad to think that the final two slots that added up to his friends Five Ones could be filled by someone other than him.

Deciding he didn’t want to fight anymore, Bret sought out something that might cheer them both up. “Jemaine,” he said, carefully bending his hand into the ‘shocker’ position Dave had taught him. Jemaine shot him a grumpy look over his shoulder and Bret lifted the hand, showing him.

Jemaine was hardly intrigued by it. “It’s too bright in here for shadow puppets,” he reasoned, turning away again.

Bret frowned and went back to his cartoons.

-

The whole being thoughtful thing took a lot of time and work. He and Jemaine had always had kind of an autopilot friendship. It didn’t really take much work for them to get along. They coexisted quiet easily, and what fights they did have never really withstood the test of time. So, to go out of his way and do extra nice kinds of things for his friend was a definite change for Bret, since he always thought he’d been nice their entire friendship..

It started simply enough. He began to make Jemaine’s bed for him every morning. It wasn’t much, but Bret remembered how much he missed his Mum making his bed for him every day after he moved out of his parent’s house. If Jemaine noticed the change, he didn’t say so.

Next, as painful as it was for him to do, he got rid of the Swank family. Jemaine grumbled often about how creepy he found the whole thing. Bret had become rather attached to them over time, learning each of their personalities and monitoring their progress around the flat. In an effort to keep them all together, and still close enough to keep an eye on, he packed them into his favourite box and gave them to their landlord, Eugene.

Jemaine only noticed that night, after he got into his bed. “Where’s Hilary?” He asked, lifting his blankets and looking around.

“The Swanks are gone,” Bret rolled away from him, facing the window.

“Oh,” Jemaine said. If Bret didn’t know any better, he’d say Jemaine sounded a little bit sad.

He kept up with the subtle thoughtfulness for some time. He would always make sure the toothpaste was easy to squeeze out, that Jemaine’s favourite tea cup was clean, that the fridge always had his favourite juice (orange tangerine), and he even took one for the team a few times by distracting Mel while Jemaine made a getaway.

He started to make dinner more often. Tonight, Bret decided it was time to reintroduce macaroni and cheese into their diet. Jemaine poked at it with his fork for a full ten minutes before popping a forkful into his mouth.

“Still standing at three?” Bret asked, sipping his glass of water. Jemaine had become used to this question, since Bret seemed to ask it pretty regularly.

“Yes,” Jemaine poked at his food some more. “Why? Why do you ask?”

“Just, you know, making conversation,” he piled some noodles onto his fork, looking across the table. “They won’t make themselves, you know. Conversations.”

“You ask me that a lot, though. Murray said you asked him, too. Asked him if I was still stuck on three.”

“I didn’t say stuck,” Bret grumbled, taking his bite.

“You’ve been acting weird, man,” Jemaine stabbed his plate, picking up some of the macaroni and shoving it into his mouth before continuing. “Are you sad because you only have one One, and that one One is gone?”

Bret sat up a little straighter, feeling slightly defensive. “Who says my one One is gone?”

“She’s gone, Bret, she dumped us both,” Jemaine sipped his orange tangerine juice.

The guitarist was confused for a second before he realized Jemaine was talking about Sally. “She’s not my One, man,” he set his fork down.

Jemaine shrugged and returned his attention to his plate, filling his fork to capacity and shoveling it into his mouth before giving his attention back to his friend, chewing slowly. Bret looked down at his plate.

“The one One is you, kind of,” Bret admitted, sighing in defeat.

Jemaine choked, sputtered, pushed his chair back and emptied his mouth full of macaroni and cheese into his napkin. Bret looked up at him with wide eyes, shocked by his own admission.

“Not in a gay way!” He added, “Well, not really in a gay way.” Jemaine’s eyes grew to the size of saucers. “Just a little bit in a gay way,” Bret put on an apologetic face.

Jemaine’s mouth opened and closed a few times, and he gave a few false starts before he finally responded with, “But I’m not even a lady.”

“That’s why it’s a little bit gay.”

When he realized Jemaine wasn’t going to say anything, Bret took another bite of his dinner. And another, and another, until it was gone. Jemaine remained stoic throughout. His eyebrows didn’t even move at all.

“You don’t have to say anything-” Bret piped up.

“I wasn’t going to,” Jemaine snapped, then seemed to consider his tone and took on a guilty look. “Sorry,” Realization seemed to dawn on Jemaine’s face. Bret had finally shown his pieces to the puzzle, and Jemaine had realized what it all meant. “Is that why you’ve been acting so strange?” Bret shrugged. “It’s just; it doesn’t really make sense, does it?” Jemaine tried.

Bret looked absolutely crestfallen.

“It doesn’t have to make sense,” Bret offered a brave smile and got up from the table, disappearing into their room. Jemaine shifted guiltily in his chair, trying to ignore the dejected slouch in his friends retreating shoulders.

-

Bret woke the next morning and was cheerful for about a second, until he remembered what had happened the evening before. He chanced a look over to Jemaine’s bed, and felt slightly better after noticing it had been slept in. Something blue and football sized in his peripheral vision caught his attention and he looked over towards it, where Hilary Swank was sitting in the middle of the doorway. She was bearded, chipped and expressionless as ever.

Bret grinned despite himself and clambered out of bed, scooping the gnome up and looking it over.

“She’s fine,” Jemaine said, appearing as if from nowhere. Bret let out a startled, ‘flip, Jemaine!’ and looked back down at the gnome. “She’s fine, but Eugene chipped the Fly Guy’s hammer.” Bret awkwardly avoided Jemaine’s stare, which felt like it was burning a hole in him.

“Eugene’s flat is no place for gnomes,” Jemaine said. Bret realized then that Jemaine was holding a few of them in his arms. “So I got them back for us.”

“They creep you out, I thought,” Bret finally looked up.

“They’re alright,” Jemaine shrugged a little. Bret went back to inspecting Hilary for any injuries, and Jemaine cleared his throat awkwardly a few times before speaking again. “I’m sorry about the One thing.”

“It’s okay.”

“You aren’t one of my Ones, so I can’t really lie and tell you you are one,” Jemaine continued, and Bret nodded in understanding, eyes fixed again on the gnome. “But, I mean,” Jemaine let out a dramatic sigh. “There are five of them, anyway. You’re more like-” he looked away, a little embarrassed. “Something else. Something there is really only one of.”

Bret smiled weakly.

Jemaine’s mouth twitched like he wanted to say something, and he shifted awkwardly for a few moments before pulling Bret into a half hug, keeping the gnomes between them. They stepped apart and Bret smiled genuinely while Jemaine stared at the ceiling.

“I guess you’re like my Best One,” He rolled his head back on his shoulders for a few more seconds before finally looking Bret straight in the eyes. “Or my Optimal One. I haven’t decided.”

Bret smiled and pulled Jemaine into another gnome packed hug. He would definitely live with any title Jemaine wanted to give him.

Kisses (Bret Mckenzie/Jemaine Clement, RPS) PG-13

2008-06-14T19:18:45Z

Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine Clement/Bret Mckenzie (RPF, Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I do not own Flight of the Conchords. I don't own any people, actually.
Title of story: Kisses
Rating of story: PG13
Word count of story: around 2,000
Chapter: 1/1
Brief summary: Neither of them can agree on their first kiss.
Notes: Hi again! This is unbetaed and written all in one sitting so I hope its okay.

This thing between them began in college. Bret found it difficult to pinpoint when exactly, but he imagined it was about thirty seconds after fate divided them into the same group for their drama exercise. It couldn’t really be defined as ‘love at first sight’, but he did remember Jemaine said something so obscenely hilarious that there was an aching reminder of his laughter in his stomach muscles the next day.

If there was one thing he knew for sure, it was that he needed that guy around.

-

A bunch of them moved into an old house on the edge of the campus with the intent of putting on a show there. It was drafty, there was always a lot of noise (from their house and the surrounding ones), and Bret’s door was warped enough from time and weather conditions that it never really closed. Jemaine’s door rested off of its hinges, just beside the doorway, rendering it pretty much useless.

It was here the two of them grew accustomed to the kind of late night jam sessions that would bleed into the late morning. It was not uncommon for their roommates to wake up for class and find the two of them squeezed together on the couch, surrounded by a sea of beer cans, deeply involved in some song they wouldn’t remember come afternoon.

Jemaine liked how Bret’s leg rubbed against his when it bounced dutifully along to the music. It never stopped, and he liked it that way.

-

Neither of them can agree on their first kiss. This is a disagreement they get into every now and then. Jemaine remembers it as happening in the kitchen, during one of the house parties they and their flat mates hosted. Some of end of term thing that had had a fairly decent turnout. He doesn’t remember what he was wearing, but he knows for a fact Bret was wearing some ill fitting hooded sweatshirt, his jeans with the knees worn out, and mismatched socks (one black, one white). His hair looked a little wild, and Jemaine thought he was still the most beautiful person in the house.

Halfway through the night he walked into the kitchen to find the bottom half of Bret sticking out of the fridge, one leg on he ground and one stuck straight out behind him for balance. The crashing sounds echoing out of the freezer box were not promising.

“Bret?” The older man spoke around his beer bottle, taking a final swig and watching his friend curiously.

Bret jerked, startled at the sudden company, and smashed his head on something heavy sounding before immerging from the refrigerator. “Jemaine,” he responded, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

Jemaine just smiled fondly, unspeakably glad to have his friend all to himself for a minute. At these kinds of things Bret usually spent the whole night making the rounds, socializing with everybody he could. Jemaine tended to be a little bit shyer, preferring to let the fruits of the party come to him.

The messy haired man bumped the fridge door closed with his hip and hoisted himself up on the counter, continuing to rub furiously at the back of his head before looking his hand over. “Feels like it’s bleeding,” he announced in a drunken slur after about a minute of silence.

Jemaine crossed the room, worried about his friend but thrilled at the opportunity to get close to him. “Can I see?” he asked, reaching out cautiously. Bret nodded and Jemaine rested a hand on either side of Bret’s head, pulling him enough so that he was bent forward and Jemaine could inspect the back of his head.

He ran his fingers slowly through the dark curls, being careful not to press too hard against the tender patch. He knew it wasn’t bleeding, but he continued to inspect anyway.

“I’m gonna fall,” Bret mumbled, holding tightly to the edge of the counter, balancing at the end of it to lean towards Jemaine. He released his grip with one hand and moved it to rest on Jemaine’s shoulder, to keep from pitching forward. He let out a drunken little titter.

“You’re not going to fall,” Jemaine moved in closer, stopping when his legs bumped the counter. Bret’s legs had spread obligingly to make room for him, and Jemaine nestled himself in there, hands still resting on Bret’s head.

They stared at each other silently for what felt like an eternity. After a while Bret began to slowly move forward, with the intent of resting his swimming head against his friend’s broad shoulder.

“Did you have fun?” Jemaine finally broke the silence, startling Bret back into his previous place.

“What?” Bret’s face exhibited only drunken confusion.

“Tonight. The party,” Jemaine clarified. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah,” Bret answered, starting to move forward again, eyeing Jemaine’s shoulder like it was his pillow.

“Drink a lot?” Jemaine nudged him back away gently, watching his face.

“Yeah,” Bret laughed again, leaning against Jemaine’s restraining hand.

“Are you going to remember this tomorrow?” Jemaine asked. Bret didn’t seem to be noticing how serious his voice sounded.

“Tomorrow?” Bret blinked again, thinking hard. “I don’t-” Jemaine relieved him of attempted coherency by grabbing the front of his hoodie and bringing him in for a bruising kiss.

Bret didn’t respond immediately, but Jemaine soldiered on regardless. If this was a bad thing, and Bret wanted to hate him forever for it, he figured he should at least get the most out of the situation that he could. Jemaine moved one hand to the back of the younger man’s neck, holding his head firmly in place as he continued his devouring kiss.

Eventually, Bret caught up with the situation, and after letting out a muffled moan into Jemaine’s mouth he responded with equal enthusiasm. Their tongues battled and their hands roamed, and Jemaine was just about to rid Bret of his large sweatshirt when a female voice (which Jemaine recognized as Bret’s current girlfriend) called from the living room, “Bret, where is that beer!?”

Jemaine pulled back and Bret, with eyes still closed and lips still moving, tried to follow him.

“One second!” Jemaine called back on his friend’s behalf, pushing Bret back with one hand and reaching towards the fridge with another. After making sure Bret wasn’t going to fall forward he let go and sought out two beers, setting them on the counter.

Bret watched him, swaying slightly with drink, rubbing absently at his lips. Jemaine ignored the sick feeling in his stomach and grabbed Bret’s face, pressing a quick kiss to his lips and grabbing him by the waist, helping him down to his feet.

“Take this-” He muttered, picking up one of the beers again and shoving them into Bret’s hand, “To her.”

Bret didn’t make a move to leave; his previously clouded gaze seemed sharper all of a sudden.

Jemaine shifted impatiently. “Go,” he prompted with a slight push. Bret didn’t move. “You should go,” His tone softened, but still there was no result. “We’ll see each other later,” He tried, eyes pleading, and Bret nodded slightly.

“I’ll see you later,” Bret said, turning hesitantly. He looked over his shoulder once more before disappearing out the door, where his return to the party was met with a roaring applause from the rest of the guests.

“Later,” Jemaine sighed and picked up the remaining beer, heading out the back of the house.

-

To Bret’s recollection, their first happened in the same house, but a different room. It wasn’t a regular occurrence, but one of their flat mates was having a girl over and he’d requested the living room and ‘some quiet’ in the house. They hid out in Bret’s room, since it had the closest thing to a functioning door, and held their silent guitars dejectedly in their hands.

Conversation flowed as naturally as it usually did, but what few inhibitions they may have had drifted farther and farther out of their minds with each beer.

The two lay side by side on Bret’s glorified bed (a single mattress tossed haphazardly in the corner of his room). Bret stared at a large crack in his ceiling, and Jemaine snored softly beside him, having passed out.

The breath tickling his neck was driving Bret crazy. Jemaine being so close was, frankly, quiet distracting. It also elicited a certain response that his normally inquisitive mind didn’t really want to delve further into. His heart was beating faster than normal and shifted uncomfortably, turning to face his friends sleeping face. His brow was relaxed, his eyelashes resting peacefully against his cheeks, and his lips were parted and in a soft, sleeping sort of pout.

“Hey Jemaine,” He whispered, watching for a response. When he got none, he tried again, a little louder. “Jemaine,” Bret shuffled just a little closer.

Jemaine let a half moan, half groan in response, which Bret was certain meant his subconscious was trying to make Bret think he was paying attention, when he was clearly still fast asleep.

Bret brought a finger to his own mouth, rubbing it along his lip as he stared at his friend. If he were to kiss those lips, just once, there was no way Jemaine would have to find out. He could just do it, appease his curiosity, and that would be that. He rubbed lips again, gave himself a brief nod, and pressed his lips against his sleeping friend’s. Jemaine’s lips remained lax as Bret’s carefully moved against them, but as the common sense part of Bret’s brain was replaced by the lust fueled part of it his end of the kiss became more hungry. He wasn’t aware of what he was doing until he realized Jemaine’s lips (and, good God, his tongue) were responding in kind. Jemaine moaned once, shocking Bret into breaking the kiss and rolling over, pulling the blanket up to his ears and forcing his eyes shut. He listened to Jemaine shuffle about for a while, too afraid to roll back over and look at him. He may have felt a hand on his back, but his entire body was buzzing so much he could have imagined it.

The next morning Bret was sipping his tea and flipping through the paper when Jemaine walked in, stopping just inside the doorway. “I had a really weird dream last night,” he said, scratching his bare stomach and looking pointedly at the younger man.

“Oh?” Bret offered a noncommittal reply, eyes not leaving the paper.

-

Neither of them is really right about the first kiss thing, and if a third party had been privy to this information they would have probably pointed that out to them. Bret’s recollection of Jemaine’s first attempt is a fragmented and drunken blur, and Jemaine’s memory of Bret’s first try extends only to the part where Bret chickened out and rolled the other way.

Luckily, first kisses don’t matter as much as all of the amazing ones that have followed. Kisses intended for good luck before a gig, soothing kisses after some of the bad ones. The ones in the rain, or on the beach. The first kiss of the day, and the last kiss of the week. The thankful kisses, and the apologetic ones.

Bret likes the ones that fill the lazy days off, though they don’t really get days off anymore. Jemaine has become partial to the traveling ones, celebrating the crossing of each border.

He sits down next to Bret on the couch in the bus’s lounge. Bret is distracted by the television, but unconsciously leans into his partner anyway. “Bret,” Jemaine gets his attention with a pat on the knee. “For Pennsylvania,” He grins and catches Bret’s lips before he can respond.

“But we’re in West Virginia,” Bret says, leaning up and adjusting Jemaine’s glasses a little bit.

“Are we?” He chews his lip for a second and shrugs, leaning back down. “For West Virginia, then,” he smiles, and Bret returns it.

They kiss again, simply because they can.

--

Feedback would be much appreciated!

Here (Bret/Jemaine) PG-13

2008-06-07T20:28:28Z

Pairing(s) in the story: Jemaine/Bret (Flight of the Conchords)
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I do not own Flight of the Conchords.
Title of story: Here
Rating of story: PG13
Word count of story: 1,534
Chapter: 1/1
Brief summary: Jemaine and Bret arrive in America, finding some things very different and some things the same.

Edit: Check out taconaco's lovely illustrations here, one of them is even based on this fic!

As it turns out, packing up your limited personal assets and moving to America on a whim is a little more complicated an adventure than originally assumed. Nobody they knew from home had ever really gone anywhere, so they became sort of the local buzz. Their going away party had a great turnout (eighteen people), but that could have been largely due to the box of complimentary erasers they had at the door.

Bret drank almost as much as he had at his moms sixtieth birthday, despite the fact that Jemaine had warned him that flying with a hangover probably wouldn’t be the best feeling in the world. He stopped on his second glass of champagne, but unfortunately for him, that was two glasses too many. Bret had never really had the stomach for drinking.

“I told you,” Jemaine muttered from his spot outside the bathroom door the following morning. He heard another of Bret’s dry wretches and checked his watch, looking miserably at the pile of their luggage stacked beside him. Jemaine was certain they would never get to America at this rate.

Luckily, Bret had made a bit of a recovery and they made it to the airport in the nick of time. They were the last ones to be seated on the plane, collapsing into their cramped seats and gasping for breath. Jemaine was still pretty upset that Bret had jeopardized their big plan, but he couldn’t stay that way with his friend grinning excitedly beside him, chest rising and falling quickly, looking ashen faced and like he might throw up again at any moment.

“They’ve got bags for it,” Bret informed him, somewhat in awe, holding up a folded bag that was evidently there especially for mid-flight vomiting emergencies. Jemaine cringed at the thought and pulled out his walkman.

They arrived in America after almost a day in the air. Bret hadn’t needed the barf bag, but kept it anyway as a token. America rattled Jemaine at first, though he kept it to himself. He and Bret walked side by side through the airport, guitar cases slung over their backs and luggage bags dragging behind them across the floor. “We went back in time,” Bret pointed at a huge world clock looming above them. Jemaine grunted in acknowledgement and turned a cautious eye to the people bustling around them. They were quiet for a few minutes, taking it all in. “Where should we go?” Bret asked. Jemaine wasn’t sure he was ready to leave the airport just yet.

After a terrifying couple of nights on the living room floor of their old flat mate’s distant cousin, they found a flat of their own. The cousin-woman (a forty-something single mom named Amanda) had been terrifyingly interested in Bret. She followed him around and took every chance she could to touch him, flirting relentlessly with him and even offering to let him sleep in her bed. Bret politely declined and remained oblivious to the attention for the whole three days they stayed. Jemaine noted for the first time that things in America weren’t so different than they were back home. It was somewhat comforting, but somehow disappointing.

Their flat was small, but they were pleased with it. “Which side of the room do you want?” Jemaine asked absently, as he rifled through his bag for pair of clean shorts. He looked up a few moments later when he hadn’t heard a reply. Bret was surveying the room from the wide doorway, hand on his chin and eyebrows furrowed in deep concentration. Jemaine stared, waiting for a response.

“The window side, I think,” Bret said slowly, turning to Jemaine for confirmation that his decision was okay. Jemaine nodded in agreement, even though he secretly wanted that side, too. He didn’t have it in him to deny Bret his choice, though. “Doesn’t really matter right now anyway, though, does it?” Bret continued, finally stepping into the room. “We don’t have beds.”

They spent their first night curled together on a bed made of dirty laundry and damp towels. They tried unsuccessfully to keep some space between them, but the makeshift mattress was too small for such a luxury.

“I didn’t think it would be so cold here,” Bret’s voice pierced through the relative darkness. “For May, I mean,” He added. The streetlamp outside their window illuminated the room just enough to emphasize how completely empty it was. They slept in Bret’s corner, under the window, just so they wouldn’t feel so exposed. It’s not like they believed masked shadow monsters with ninja capability would be attacking them in their sleep or anything, but it just never hurt to be careful.

“Yeah,” Jemaine offered, pulling an old t-shirt up over his shoulders. He wasn’t cold, but it felt strange to him to sleep without a blanket. Bret shivered once, a long shuddering one, and Jemaine responded instinctively by turning onto his side and spooning up behind him. He pressed his face into the damp towel underneath them to keep from awkwardly breathing down his friend’s neck. That wouldn’t have been an issue if Bret’s hair was longer, or perhaps if he had a wig or something on. Jemaine mused about the possibilities.

The room was silent for a few more minutes, until Bret spoke up again. “Do you like it here, Jemaine?”

Jemaine wondered if he meant here in America, here in New York, here in this flat, or here on this soggy towel bed with Bret. He knew the answer to all four. “Yes,” his voice came out muffled by the towel, so he turned his head away from it and repeated himself. “Yes.”

“It’s a bit loud. Louder than New Zealand, at least.” Almost on cue, a car alarm started going off outside their building. The sound seemed amplified inside their empty flat, resulting in an uneasy feeling in Jemaine. He rested a hand on Bret’s side, just to comfort himself.

Bret yawned and shifted a little before carrying on. “How do you think everyone’s carrying on back home?”

Jemaine realized with sudden guilt that he hadn’t even thought about their friends and family back home since they boarded the plane. Bret had been dominating most of his thoughts. Well, and the band of course, though technically that included Bret as well.

“They’re fine,” Jemaine answered with conviction. When Bret didn’t respond, Jemaine snuggled in closer and rested his chin on his friends shoulder. “We’ll call your Mum tomorrow and she’ll tell you.”

The car alarm stopped and silence hung over the room again. Jemaine became distracted by his hip digging into the floor. The towel bed was almost completely useless. He wondered fleetingly what time it was, how long they had been laying there. They should have bought a clock, maybe.

He had just about drifted off to sleep when Bret turned himself over, violently and ungracefully, and pushed Jemaine flat onto his back, before draping an arm and leg across him. Jemaine winced as Bret’s boney chin dug into his chest. He waited for some kind of explanation from his friend, but none came.

Jemaine was, if possible, more uncomfortable than before. His T-shirt blanket had bunched up and was now just sort of lying across his neck and Bret had half pushed him off the bed, so his entire right side was freezing from the floor.

“Do you like it here, Bret?” He asked, trying to casually move them into a more central part of the towel bed.

“Yes,” Bret answered sleepily.

“Here in America?” He elaborated.

“Uh huh,” came the reply, accompanied by another big yawn. Jemaine could feel it through his shirt.

“Here in New York?” Jemaine shoved him a little bit, nearing success. He felt warmer already.

“I like New York,” Bret snuggled into him more, if possible.

“And you like this flat?” Jemaine had made it completely back onto the bed now, and began adjusting his T-shirt blanket.

“S’a great flat,” Bret scratched at the side of his nose before resting his hand on Jemaine’s chest.

“And you like it here?” Jemaine asked, realizing his voice sounded a little bit strange.

“I already said that,” Bret shifted to look at him.

“I meant like, here, on this soggy towel bed.” Jemaine paused, gaining the courage to elaborate, “With me.”

The silence returned. Jemaine half wished the car alarm would start up again.

“Yeah, man,” Jemaine felt a wave of relief wash over him. Not only because Bret had stopped stabbing him with his chin, but because his friend was smiling down at him. “It’s my second favorite part of America.”

“Second?” Jemaine arched a brow, a little bit hurt that he came second to something.

“The puke bag,” Bret offered as an explanation, laying his head down again, this time his cheek lay against Jemaine’s chest.

“Technically those are world wide. And you got it in New Zealand, anyway.” Jemaine countered, getting comfortable again, too.

“Oh,” One final huge, cat-like yawn on Bret’s part. “I guess this is my favorite thing, then.” Jemaine felt a hand rub carefully back and forth across his chest.

“It’s mine, too.” Jemaine smiled, resting his hand over the moving one.

--

Feedback would be much appreciated!

lye @ 2008-05-13T08:10:00

2008-05-13T15:18:30Z

Pairing(s) in the story: John Lennon/George Harrison
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Disclaimer: I do not own The Beatles. Sigh.
Title of story: A Goal Attained
Rating of story: Rish
Word count of story: 4,108
Chapter: 1/1, but a follow up to Busy Hands.
Brief summary: George struggles for some security in his newfound relationship with John.
Notes: I wrote this as a follow up to Busy Hands. It is betaed by the extremely lovely aneuhaus, so this goes out to her for her hard work.

George Harrison wasn’t always the quickest learner, but he was a patient and thorough one. Unlike some, things he didn’t get the hang of right away didn’t typically put him off. If he wanted to know something, or do something, or have something, he would work at it until he attained his goal. Presently, that goal was to have John Lennon, in whatever way he could.

It had been weeks since the two of them had stopped playing games with each other and finally acted upon their concealed desires. After the tear gas incident had triggered their second (and far more successful) kiss, George’s confusion regarding the nature of John’s feelings towards him transformed from wondering exactly how the other boy felt about him to why he felt that way, as well as the depth of the emotion. Would it last? Were they only going to act ‘like this’ (as George so verbosely referred to their situation in his mind) in Germany, or would they carry on in Liverpool?

They hadn’t gone far. Due to time constraints, exhaustion, paranoia, and sheer naivety, it had been impossible for them to get passed a few hurried snogging sessions, the odd hand job, and one overly toothy blowjob given by George to John. John had proposed a few times that they go further, but George had told him firmly he wasn’t sure he could yet. It seemed an awfully frightening direction to move in.

Though it was abundantly clear that they saw each other as more than just mates, caring for John Lennon had never proven an easy venture – for anyone. John was elusive and sometimes cold, and his moods could change at the drop of a hat. Nevertheless, George had worked hard after they’d first met to win his friendship, and he would work hard to ensure this new level of their relationship was successful.

“What do you look so miserable for?” George was brought out of his musings by the very person he’d been thinking about. George had been somewhat enjoying a rare moment alone in their room, puffing away distractedly on his cigarette has he tried to put the pieces of the Lennon puzzle together in his mind. John leaned against the doorframe, arms folded across his chest, with a piece of paper in his hand. It was filled on both sides with John’s scrawl, and George could guess to whom it was going to be mailed.

“I’m not miserable,” George took another pull of his cigarette and tipped its ashes into an empty can beside his bed. “I was thinking.”

John finally walked into the room and busied himself searching through his belongings. “Were you thinking about something that makes you miserable, perhaps?”

George eyed the letter in John’s hand before looking away, “It sometimes does, yeah.” He stood up and looked around the room for something he could busy himself with; adding in what he hoped was an offhand way, “Writing to Cyn again?”

His attempt at nonchalance had failed, and John ceased his search and turned around, looking at him.

“Yes,” he said, eyeing him.

George instantly regretted bringing it up in the first place, but John’s relationship with Cynthia baffled him, and made him wonder exactly what his place in John’s life could be. George hadn’t brought it up thus far, as Cyn was a very particularly passionate subject with John.

“Do you want to see it?” John added, walking over and holding it out.

George shook his head. “No, I was just asking.”

“I think you should read it, George,” John persisted, holding it up to his eye level. He knew he had no choice but to take it and read it over, so he did so, with John watching him closely. The page was covered from top to bottom with I love you’s. He swallowed; forcing any emotion he could from his face before handing it back.

“Lovely,” He shoved it back, perhaps more harshly than he intended to. “I’m sure she’ll love it.” At a loss for what to do next, he twitched to the left, then the right, before deciding to just leave the room.

“She’s my fucking girlfriend, George. I won’t have you acting like a jealous twat about it, alright?” John yelled after him. George kept walking, slamming the door behind him. He wasn’t mad about Cynthia, not really, but he was upset that, for whatever reason, John was out to hurt him.

He would recompose himself and keep trying. John’s behavior, no matter how callous, would not persuade him to give up on something he wanted so badly.

-

In typical John fashion, it was as if the quarrel had never happened. Never one to apologize, or even deal with confrontation head on, John had simply carried on as usual, and George knew better than to bring it up.

After a particularly long set the day after, John cornered the younger boy in a hallway backstage. His smile was playful and his eyes were dancing, and George couldn’t help but be caught up in the allure of the older boy’s warm embrace.

“Well done today, Mr. Harrison, Sir,” John’s hands were all over him, gripping and rubbing and caressing, his lips traveling down George’s jaw before catching him in a wet kiss. George didn’t even bother trying to murmur his thanks for the compliment. As far as he was concerned, John was forgiven for any and everything bad he’d ever done.

John’s hand had just found its way to George’s pants when the clicking sound of high heels echoed their warning down the hall. John groaned in annoyance, muttered, “Bugger,” and did George’s pants back up before backing against the opposite wall. The lone girl walked between them, offering a confused look before carrying on. John whistled at her in appreciation and George cocked a brow at him, slightly annoyed. “Just for show, like.” He promised, offering a cheeky grin. “Don’t want her to think we’re a couple of queers.”

George didn’t bother pointing out the obvious.

-

It was days before they had another moment alone. George was forced to watch John from a distance, discovering with increasing unease that he was finding it harder and harder to focus on things not pertaining to John. He was also finding it harder and harder to watch John mail page after page of romantic babble to Cynthia day after day. John caught him once, staring at an unsent letter on the floor, and the warning glare he earned was enough to keep him from so much as glancing at the letters again.

But they were alone now, squeezed onto John’s bottom bunk, half drunk and touching each other all over. There was a chance one of the other lads could come back early, but with his body lying flush against John’s, which was naked from the waist up, George really couldn’t bring himself to care.

John moved his body rhythmically against the younger boys, his hand running across the smooth and narrow expanse of George’s chest, as their mouths devoured each other.

“Christ,” John muttered heatedly, taking his leave of George’s mouth for a moment, moving it instead to a protruding collarbone. “You still taste bloody fantastic,” He let out a short chuckle. “Like.. like lager, and something else.” He leaned up to catch him in another dizzying kiss. John finally pulled away and looked him in the eye mischievously, “I wonder if the rest of you tastes as good.”

Before George even had time to react to his words, John was kissing and nipping his way down the slender boy’s chest, his fingers hooking into his pants and pulling them down. George instinctively lifted his hips, helping his friend out, moaning wantonly as he felt the hot breath against his aching arousal. John took hold of him, offering a few preliminary strokes before easing George’s hardness into his mouth.

It was bliss, really. John’s technique was tentative and curious, and through his hazy mind George found comfort in the knowledge that this was new to John, too. George fought against himself, trying not to thrash and force himself deeper as John began to gain his courage, taking more into his mouth and allowing his tongue to explore the unfamiliar territory.

“John,” George moaned in approval, forcing his eyes open, to take in the sight of the brown head of hair bobbing above his groin. “Oh-” he groaned, raking a hand through the hair and taking hold. He took one last look down, catching a glimpse of John’s pleased face, and found it too much. George held firmly onto John’s hair as he found his release, his guttural moan bouncing off the walls surrounding them. To his credit, John rode out the entirety of George’s orgasm, taking down as much as he could in stride.

John clambered back up to lie down next to George, watching the younger boy’s face with interest as George gradually regained his wits. The younger of the two breathed heavily, his chest rising and falling rapidly as his eyes bored a hole in the bed above them. Finally, he swallowed, took a deep breath, and looked over to John with a dopey and pleased smile.

“That was quite something,” he sighed happily, snaking an arm around John’s neck and bringing him in for a deep kiss of thanks.

“You’re quite something,” John finally pulled away from the kiss, his dark eyes locking seriously with George’s. He lifted a hand to cup the younger lad’s cheek, adding a sweet kiss to his comment. George smiled in response and silently marveled at this new, tenderer side of John.

-

But along with the tenderness, harshness, and coldness, there were many other sides to John Lennon’s character.

George had noted in the past, from a distance, John’s jealous side, especially in regard to Cynthia. He had even confessed to hitting her once, after she had danced with Stuart.

“No other blokes, George,” John had warned him once, though George had thought nothing of it at the time. He had no interest in any other men, anyway, so it needn’t have applied.

It was a particularly average night in Hamburg. Drinks were available in abundance, as they were celebrating the birthday of one of their German friends, Klaus. After the boys got off the stage it was straight to the pints, and they didn’t let up until late the next morning. They were a parade of drunken, reckless abandon. John and George carried each other home, stopping occasionally to see that the rest of their mates were staggering after. Once they got into their room, they stripped and fell into their beds, as usual.

George was still sharing a bed with Paul, despite numerous complaints from John. John wanted him to trade and sleep in his bed, but George thought that too bold an idea. He didn’t want to display their relationship. Not only would it unleash a wave of trouble, George was never too keen on people knowing his personal business, anyway.

As a young lad in a band with his older brother, he would sneak out to his shows under the cloak of darkness, just to keep the neighbours from talking. He had often been told by those close to him that his face barely betrayed what he was feeling, and he preferred it that way.

On this particular morning, he made the drunken mistake of falling into his bed with a right side up Paul. He awoke in the late afternoon, his pounding head thankful, for once, that they had no windows. He was oblivious to the bare arm around him and the face pressed into the back of his neck until he opened his eyes and noted the savage look on John’s face, staring at him from the bunk opposite. It was clear that he’d been lying there, watching the scene before him, stewing in his rage for some time before George woke up.

George bolted out of the bed, throwing Paul’s arm off of him as quickly as he could. He half crawled across the room towards John, who sat up rigidly, glaring him down. “John, listen,” he started, attempting to keep his voice down.

“No, you listen, George,” John stood up, shoving George to the side and throwing his coat on before tugging on the first pair of trousers in his vicinity. “I told you no blokes,” He hissed the final part, before storming out of the room. Against his better judgment, George followed, hoping the impending fight wouldn’t take him outside in naught but his skivvies.

George followed him, sputtering apologies and trying to explain that nothing had happened, as John strode down the dark hallway. Just before John reached the door George found it in him to bellow out a, “Fuck you!” before folding his arms across his chest firmly.

“Fuck me?” John laughed and finally turned around, his eyebrows raised menacingly high. “Oh no, mate, fuck Paul,” John stepped back towards him, and George had to fight against his nerves to keep his place. The look in his friend’s eye was a dangerous one.

“That’s what you’ve wanted all along, isn’t it?” George was getting increasingly angry at his friends reaction.

“It’s not! I want you, you know that!” George glared at John severely, with increasing bravado, hoping to get his point across.

John, however, was not getting it. “It makes sense now. Why you refused to sleep in the same bed as me,” George couldn’t help but roll his eyes. John caught the gesture and his temper flared up, grabbing George by the neck and the shoulder and pinning him harshly to the wall, holding him there. “Think its funny, do you?”

“No,” George took hold of John’s wrist with both hands, trying to pry it from his throat.

Perhaps finally taking stock of the situation, John loosened his grip, offering George one more half hearted shove before taking a few steps back. His demeanor had softened from anger to hurt. “Why haven’t we fucked, George?”

George’s jaw dropped, and he searched his mind for a response. He was embarrassed to think about it happening, let alone talk about it.

John continued, “Cyn let me fuck her the first night we kissed.”

All George’s bravado was gone now, chased away by John and his vicious streak. He didn’t want to hear about Cynthia. He didn’t want to be compared to her, either.

“We kept at it for hours,” he took a slow step forward. “It was…. quite something,” The familiar phrase made George’s stomach drop. “Why can’t we do that?” He couldn’t help but shiver as John came closer, John’s cold hand on his bare shoulder suddenly making him realize how little he was wearing.

George didn’t answer. What could he say? That he was afraid to let his mate fuck him? There was no way. It might in some ways be easier to let him think it was due to lack of desire rather than lack of courage.

“Fine, I’m through with you, then,” John sneered and stomped off, slamming the fire exit door as he left the building.

-

For the next week or so they reverted back to the way they were before, carefully avoiding each other. Truthfully, George hated every moment of it. He hated those rare instances when he caught John looking at him sadly from across the room, and he missed their encounters (even the ones that weren’t so warm). Really, he just missed John. The band was doing great, though, and they’d even been invited to play the Top Ten Club.

Since that had been their goal from the very beginning, George couldn’t help bursting with pride at the invitation. But his happiness regarding the matter was to be short lived and, in some ways, eclipsed.

He came home early one night, after having his fill of feeling grumpy and dejected. When John ignored him, it felt like everyone else in the band was following suit. He found what he first thought was an unsent letter to Cynthia on his pillow that John had left there as a means to torment him (it was John, after all). He looked more closely, and picked it up when he saw his name scribbled across it.

“George,” it read. “I am a stupid, filthy, mangy, thoughtless, hopeless, witless, feckless, othernounless old thing, and I know it. I don’t know why I do the things I do, only that it is because that great monster of my emotion is sometimes so big and outrageous that tiny, washy, dumb old me can no longer beat him back into submission.

So listen up, old boy, because I’m only going to say this twenty times: I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.

And a thousand more, with an infinity on top.

Yours (again, maybe just maybe?)
John”

George read it over twice before folding it up carefully and sitting down. It shouldn’t have been enough, but it was. He knew he couldn’t stay mad a John, no matter how hard he tried. He – God forbid – loved him. It had proved a frustrating thing, so far, to care deeply for someone who pulled you in while, simultaneously, pushing you away. He couldn’t help but smile at the letter, though. If John wanted him back, he would go.

“Judging by the dreamy look you’re wearing, I’ll say I’m forgiven, then?” George jumped in surprise as John took a cautious step into the room.

“Yeah,” He offered a rare, beaming smile in John’s direction. “I can’t stay mad at you, you great fool.”

John sat down next to him, taking hold of his face, and they shared a sweet kiss, full of apologies and forgiveness.

-

The excitement of getting to play the Top Ten and having John back didn’t last long, as it was the very next day the lads were told that, in no uncertain terms, George was to pack up and leave Germany the next morning. He was underage and not allowed to work in Germany, let alone at a nightclub. The boys had an inkling that it was Bruno who had ratted him out when he found out they were leaving his club for another.

“It’s fucking stupid!” John bellowed, pacing the room as George packed his bag.

“I know,” George answered.

“Who does he think he is!?” John waved his cigarette around wildly. “He shacks us up in this piss drenched shit hole, overworks us, and has the balls to get pissed when we move on to better things?”

George shrugged, “Suppose so.”

John stopped, huffing and puffing and catching his breath, as he stared down at George. “Why aren’t you angry?”

“I am,” George answered plainly, holding up a pair of trousers and trying to decide if they were his or Paul’s. “I’m bloody fuming, actually.”

“Well, act like it! Bloody Hell, George,” John resumed pacing in circles while George quietly packed. “Or do you want to go and leave all of us behind here?”

He didn’t. There was no way he wanted to go home now, not when things were going remarkably well. But mad as he was, he was also extremely sad. Even though he and John had made up, he still didn’t feel like he really had him. John was unpredictable, and there was no telling how long they would have kept getting along before something else happened. He looked over at the older boy, who was watching him, waiting for a response. George shook his head ‘No’.

“You’re sure?” John sat down on his own bed, kicking a sock over to George after taking his seat. He couldn’t read the expression on John’s face, though that was nothing new. He so seldom could. “Because if you do, you should just say it, and that’s fine. You can be replaced.”

George couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He’d wondered, earlier, if John was upset that George himself was leaving, or if he was just mad that they were losing the lead guitarist for the band. George stood up, tossing a pair of pants down into his bag as he did. “Why do you do that, John?” John averted his eyes, taking the final drag of his cigarette, keeping his seat. “What makes you so bloody keen on hurting everyone?”

John remained uncharacteristically silent.

“Leaving is the last thing I fucking want, I’ll have you know,” George started to pace, yelling more at the walls than at John himself. “You think I’d rather be back home, thinking about you and the rest over here having a laugh without me? Playing the fucking Top Ten while I’m alone? You think I won’t-” He stopped, looking over at the cause of his distress. “You think I won’t miss you? I will. Despite your-” He waved a hand around, searching for a word that could adequately describe John. “Your sometimes wicked attitude. I’ll even miss that, even though I don’t know why you act that way.” George finally let up, slumping back down onto his bed. “I don’t want to go,” he finished, lamely.

John got up and walked over, taking a seat beside his friend. He wrapped a comforting arm around him, remaining silent as he rubbed a soothing hand up and down his arm.

“I just wanted to have you, really,” George confessed, his eyes downcast.

“You have to know why I act the way I do to you, George,” John finally spoke up, his voice low and serious. George looked over at him, uncomprehendingly. “I don’t know what to do with myself, when it comes to you. I’m just overcome with-” He stopped himself, clearing his throat and turning away briefly. “I guess the truth of the matter is you do have me.” He looked back to George, allowing his eyes to lock with the younger boy’s. He lifted a hand and cupped the side of George’s face, laughing despite himself, “I love you, you silly ponce.”

John grabbed him firmly by the face, reminding George fleetingly of the first they had shared, and kissed him. As wonderful as it felt, it almost made leaving worse. There wasn’t time for anything more before the rest of the lads came back, and the very next morning he was packed and gone, without a chance to say his goodbye to John privately.

-

He found Liverpool lacking, as soon as he returned there. His room felt different, his parents seemed different, and everything he really cared about was back in Germany. They would go on without him, he was sure. They would be a huge hit at the Top Ten and everything they’d worked for would happen, and he would be left behind. Perhaps worst of all, with no company except for his records, he was finding it increasingly hard to believe that John had meant what he’d said before he left.

He’d no doubt forgotten George. ‘Out of sight, out of mind,’ that was the old saying, right? For George it was the complete opposite. Without being able to see John every day, he found he thought about him more, and it tied him up in knots inside.

It was on the third day home that he walked into the house to find his mother sifting through the mail, sorting it into piles. “Hello, Mum.” He walked into the kitchen, grabbing a piece of bread and popping it into his mouth miserably.

“Hello, Love. You have some mail.” She handed him a thick envelope and he knew upon first glance that it was from John.

It had drawings all over the outside, which was something John was known for. He thanked his mother and took his letter up to his room, his eyes poring over the little doodles. Allan Williams’ van, Bruno’s couch, a lonely sock, the Bambi Kino, glasses of an unknown liquid (he guessed it was whiskey and coke), and other nonsensical things.

He couldn’t help but smile as he carefully opened the envelope. It was pages long, filled with what he guessed was typical Lennon stream of conscious insanity. He couldn’t wait to read it all.

The first line caused his smile to broaden, and as he read the words, he finally felt secure in the knowledge that he had John. He really had him. “Without Mssr. Harrison, Germany bores. Far away I remain, but still yours.”

--
As usual, feedback of all kinds is appreciated.

lye @ 2008-04-09T23:49:00

2008-04-10T03:56:49Z

Pairing(s) in the story: John Lennon/George Harrison
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Title of story: Busy Hands
Rating of story: PG 13ish right now.
Word count of story: 2,400
Chapter 3 of 3
Brief summary: George is agonizing about his reaction to John and his busy hands.
Notes: This is the final chapter. I didn't really want to end it so soon, but I'm moving in the next couple of days and won't have an internet connection for god knows how long. I wanted to have this finished before I left, in case I lost interest or something. I know I hate it when I read fics that aren't finished! Thank you so much to those who have read.

Tensions between George and John intensified as the weeks passed, though if John was bothered at all by it George couldn’t tell. For whatever reason, John had wormed his way under George’s skin, and the younger of the two lads was finding himself increasingly at odds with his friend. John acted as his usual self, doing whatever it was that pleased him, and taking the odd swipe at George and his ego whenever he could. It was unspoken; this strange power driven feud between them, and George was starting to wonder if it was all in his head.

“What’s going on between you and John?” Stuart finally asked him one afternoon on their way to lunch after playing all night. George didn’t know whether to be relieved that he wasn’t crazy, or worried that whatever was going on was noticeable enough for Stuart to pick up on. Though, since he spent a majority of his home life with only his mother and two sisters, Stuart had ended up a little more sensitive than the rest of them anyway.

“Nothing,” George replied, looking away. He paused for a moment before looking back, adding, “Why, has he said something to you?”

“No,” Stuart confirmed, looking at him curiously. “No, he’s just been acting rather strange when it comes to you, is all. I thought maybe two’d had a fight, or something.”

“Oh,” A desperate little voice in George’s head wondered what exactly Stuart meant by ‘strange’, but he thought it better not to ask.

Realizing George wasn’t going to divulge any information, Stuart elaborated. “He’s always ranting about you to me. About the girls you bring back, or that you’ve been giving him the cold shoulder.” He paused to light his cigarette, tossing his match away and looking at him pointedly, “That you’d rather kip with Paul than any of us.”

George laughed in disbelief. “I wouldn’t rather sleep with Paul than anybody! He was the only one that offered to share his bed.” George shook his head, losing his focus on the conversation. Why should John care if he brings the occasional girl back for a bit of action, or that he had to sleep with his head next to Paul’s stinking feet every night?

“I know. I’m just telling you what he said.” Stuart offered with a shrug of the shoulders, bringing George back to the present. “I didn’t know any better, I’d say he had a bit of a thing for you.”

George avoided Stuart’s eyes, stepping off of the pavement into the small restaurant. “That’s just soft,” He muttered.

-

The sheer youthful exuberance that got them through the first month or so of shows soon wore off, and was replaced with Preludin, a German dieting pill that gave them all the energy they needed to get through their sometimes grueling shifts at the Kaiserkeller. If they were appearing lax in their performance at all, one of the staff would simply give them a pill and a pint and they would be good to go for another few hours, at least. As a result of taking the pills, they were drinking more and more of that German beer, in order to quench the thirst that the drugs gave them, making them as drunk as the patrons of the club always seemed to be.

There were a few side affects of the drug, the first of which being an inability to sleep. George would lie in his bed, sweating, muttering to himself, wondering why it was he hadn’t been able to sleep yet. What annoyed him especially was that thus far Paul had resisted the drug, sticking to beer only, and so he was able to sleep like a baby beside him.

George lay in bed, elbowing his sleeping mate’s legs in annoyance as he listened to Paul snoring softly from the other end of the bed. He shifted and rolled to his side, hitching the blanket up over his shoulder and looking towards John’s bed. Something in his chest jumped when he saw that John was staring at him, unblinkingly.

George waited a beat before hissing, “Do you mind?”

John finally blinked, but didn’t say anything. A slow smile crept to his face.

Deciding he would just ignore him, George closed his eyes, reminding himself that even though he couldn’t feel it, his body was tired. A pregnant silence filled the room, and George battled with the urge to open his eyes again, to look at John. He heard the sound of sheets rustling, and the unmistakable creak the told him John was repositioning himself on his bed, and then silence took over again.

Minutes passed and the silence carried on, until he heard it. Heavy breathing, the rhythmic creaking of bedsprings, the sound of one those God forsaken hands pumping wildly against skin, and finally, a moan.

John was wanking. John was wanking five feet away from George. John was wanking five feet away from George and most probably staring at him.

Before the first stirrings of arousal could even kick in George was half way across the room, falling into his trousers and out the door, shoeless. He stormed out the fire escape, shaking with rage and increasing arousal. It wasn’t until he reached the street he realized it was raining. He felt a fleeting bit of rage for Bruno, making them live in a windowless pit, closed off from the world outside. Not wanting to stray too far from the Kino in just his trousers, he paced back and forth for a few minutes until the door banged open and John appeared, looking pale, rosy cheeked and quite disheveled. He’d apparently decided he only had time after his wank ended to throw on underwear, a shirt, his glasses, and one sock before following him out. George could only let out a short, crazed laugh at his expense.

“George-” He started, taking a step in his direction. George took a step back and held his hands up.

“Fuck off, John.” He warned. John ignored him and took another step towards him, and George took another back, continuing their bizarre dance. “Stay away from me.”

“Listen,” He soothed, finally standing still. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, alright? I was having a laugh. Come back inside.”

“Didn’t mean to upset me?” George let out a high pitched laugh, feeling now like he’d truly lost his mind. He combed his hands through his hair and pointed an accusing finger in John’s direction. “That’s all you ever mean to do!”

John’s apologetic face changed quickly into a furious one, “So I’m the cunt, am I? Looking in the fucking mirror, son!” He stomped over to him, his one bare foot comically splashing through a puddle as he grabbed onto George by the shoulders, almost shaking him. “You’ve made it your life’s fucking work to upset me!”

George brushed his arms away before shoving at John’s chest, pushing him against the wall. “I’ve not done anything to you.”

“Bringing those girls around! Bum-chumming with Paul day and night! Acting like I don’t even fucking exist to you!” The venom in John’s voice died down, “You know bloody well I fucking want you, do you have to rub my fucking nose in it?” He averted his eyes quickly, taking his glasses off and rubbing them on his shirt to busy his shaking hands.

So many thoughts exploded through George’s mind that he couldn’t even find one to hold onto. He shivered in the rain, staring at John blankly.

John cleared his throat and tossed his glasses back on, pushing George away with a cold firmness. “You’ll catch your death out here if you don’t come in soon.”

He disappeared back into the cinema, the door closing quietly behind him.

-

There was no excuse for them not to talk about their confrontation since neither of them was anywhere near drunk enough to play at forgetting it happened. Despite that, they went on for a while doing so. George guessed John was embarrassed by what he’d admitted, since he himself was embarrassed of the entire outburst. Despite having not really said anything, George felt frighteningly vulnerable, and so he and John continued to orbit around each other, never coming too close.

It was no secret that the Reeperbahn was full of rowdy, tough characters. The boys prided themselves on their Liverpool upbringing, which meant for the most part they were fine to deal with the violence that occasionally exploded while they were on stage, so long as it was at arms length.

George was alone on stage, eating vinegar drenched chips for dinner for the seventh night in a row when the fight broke out. John had left with a giggling girl minutes prior, and George tried not to have a reaction. He took a few lazy steps back as the fight approached, licking his fingers clean as he watched the brawl escalate disinterestedly. He found his whiskey and coke and took the few final gulps, setting it down on top of the piano. They were on a break, and he was about to try his charms out on his favourite young barmaid when someone fired off the tear gas in the direction of the stage.

“Oh, fuck,” He coughed, throwing his chips down and rubbing his fingers in his eyes. Common sense told him this was a stupid move, but it was the only way to instantly alleviate some of the pain. Leave it to the fucking Germans to spoil his supper. He tried through blurred vision to find the door in the back of the stage, cursing to himself under his breath as the sound of the brawl intensified. His eyes were burning, his nose was running, and he was starting to feel short of breath.

He fumbled for the door blindly until it opened in front of him, and he felt someone grab him by the shirt and yank him through before slamming him up against it. “Ow, what the-” He felt the hands he’d recognize anywhere gently take his face, thumbs ghosting over his closed eyes, as if to assess the damage.

“Bloody Germans,” He heard John grumble, before he was taken by the elbow and led away. “Come on.”

George complied, stumbling along beside his friend as he was led down a set of stairs into the basement. He figured John was taking him to the lavatory there. The door clicked shut behind them and moments later he heard the water come on. George blinked repeatedly, growing annoyed when his burning eyes started to water, tears streaming down his cheeks.

“Are you alright?” John sounded soft, but distant.

“It’s the gas. I’m not crying.”

“I know it's the gas, but I’m asking if you’re alright,” He felt a hand on his back, leading him towards the water.

“Brilliant, mate,” George coughed and took hold of the sink, allowing John’s hand at the back of his head to guide him towards the stream of water. He rinsed his eyes for a good ten minutes, until John allowed him back up. George sniffled, the gas still making his nose runny, and lifted his arm to dry his eyes with his sleeve. John grabbed his hands and forced them down.

“Don’t. It’ll still be in your clothes, I reckon,” George nodded and blinked repeatedly, his eyes feeling puffy and strange. John stepped towards him and lifted his own arm up, taking George’s chin one hand and starting to carefully thumb dry his eyes with the cuff of his sleeve on the other. The closeness and John’s hands on his face felt soothing, and how matter how hard he tried to push it way, it was also exciting. It reminded him of their kiss.

In response to John’s caring gesture, he felt a wave of guilt about the last couple of months wash over him. “I’m sorry,” He swallowed, hesitantly lifting his hands and searching for John’s arms.

“Don’t worry on it, mate. Didn’t tear gas yourself, did you?” John chuckled, his breath dancing across George’s face. George shivered and shook his head once.

“No, not about that,” He pulled away a little, forcing his eyes open so he could look at his friend. “About,” He turned his head away and let out a choking cough, annoyed that the tear gas was still affecting him. “About the way things have been, lately.” He hesitatingly took John’s hands, “Between us.”

“Oh,” John’s hands twitched but didn’t pull away. His face went through a series of changes, as if he were trying to decide on a reaction. He eventually fell on sincere, which didn’t happen often, “I am, too.”

George coughed again, turning into his shoulder to keep from doing it right in John’s face, before turning back, “What happened to your bird, then?” John looked confused. “The blond one you took off with a few minutes before,” George clarified.

“Ahhh,” John nodded solemnly. “I, uh… it sounded like it was all going to shit upstairs. Thought you might need me.”

George was overcome with affection for the older boy, briefly forgetting that he wasn’t supposed to be acting queer or strange. He forgot about his normal family, his average upbringing, and the fact that he wasn’t supposed to kiss boys. He threw aside that it was wrong and supposedly disgusting and grabbed John by the back of the neck, drawing him in close enough to kiss.

After a startled pause, John kissed him back fiercely, snaking his arms around George’s waist and crushing their bodies together with a muffled moan against his lips. John pushed him up against the wall, his hands sliding down to grab George’s arse, lifting him slightly so he could grind against him with feverish intensity. George let out an appreciative moan and inhaled sharply before succumbing to a fit of coughs, his chest still tight from the tear gas. John patiently waited for him to catch his breath again, slowing his hips just slightly and nuzzling into the younger mans neck.

“You know,” He picked up the pace again, his hips moving in circles against the young guitarist. George's hips twitched and he let out an aroused whimper, which dissolved into a moan as John carried on steadily. “You taste like whiskey and coke.” He captured him in another kiss, tongue exploring excitedly before he pulled back and looked at him. George wondered how those eyes staring him down could have ever made him feel anything but fucking amazing. “It’s still bloody brilliant.”

-

Not the best ending, but I figure its still open for a follow up chapter or two if I'm so inclined later.

lye @ 2008-04-07T12:05:00

2008-04-07T07:09:28Z

Pairing(s) in the story: John Lennon/George Harrison
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Title of story: Busy Hands
Rating of story: PG 13ish right now.
Word count of story: 3,100
Chapter 2 of ?
Brief summary: George is agonizing about his reaction to John and his busy hands.
Notes: Here is chapter two. I really don't know how long this thing will last, but right now its a fun way to escape from exam preparations! I hope you enjoy.

George woke early the next morning to the sound of someone shuffling about in the kitchen. It had been a fairly restless six hours since the band had been dropped off at Bruno’s flat, with George frequently waking to find himself completely wrapped up in John. He spent a lot of the night focusing on trying not to move, lest he stir John from his sleep. He didn’t want John to think he was trying anything.

With a tired groan, he stretched his arms above his head and rolled into his back, noticing that John was absent from the couch. Rubbing at the crick in his neck caused by a distinct lack of pillow (John had hogged it, after all) he began to realize what had woken him up in the first place, and he rolled off the couch onto his knees before getting to his feet and investigating the banging sounds coming from the next room, wrapping the blanket around his shoulders as he walked.

John had apparently decided what was Bruno’s was his, and was searching through the cupboards, slamming the doors shut when the sparse contents inside didn’t satisfy him. He seemed to be mumbling almost inaudibly to himself, though George couldn’t make out what he was saying. He stood awkwardly in the door, his mind wandering as he watched John investigate. He was still in only his underwear, and his hair was a disaster, which George found quite comical before he reached a hand up to check the state of his own fringe. John was stretched as tall as he could make himself, standing on the tips of his toes and looking at one of the higher shelves when George decided he should make his presence known.

“You’d make a piss poor burglar, you know. You’re noisy enough to wake the dead.” He stepped into the room, grinning despite himself when John flinched and shot a scathing look over his shoulder in his direction.

“Well, you would know all about keeping quiet,” John turned his attention back to his exploration. “Like a bloody cat, you are.”

George adjusted the blanket on his shoulders and sat down at the table, yawning widely into the bit of it bunched up in his hand. John soon grew tired of looking through the cupboards and sat down across from him, shoving a dirty glass out of his way and resting his elbows on the table, his fingers idly stroking at his chin as he stared George down.

The eyes locked on him made George feel quite unusual. He attempted to keep his eyes locked on John’s (after all, there should be nothing strange about making eye contact with your mate) but found he had to look away, offering a lame half chuckle in hopes of masking his discomfort. From the corner of his eye he noticed a smirk develop on John’s face, and silently cursed him for it.

Whatever John was doing to him (intentionally or not) was already starting to take its toll on George. Being the youngest of four siblings, George had learned from a young age that there was no time for confusion. If he wanted something (be it his mother’s attention or his brothers records) he knew he enough to ask for it straight up, no mind games. If he had an opinion on something, he would share it (and quite bluntly, which tended sometimes to hurt people’s feelings). For the most part, he was quite comfortable in his own skin, and wasn’t really the type to mess about. This confusion John had instilled in him was something he’d never felt before. He wished to himself that he could just say what he was thinking to John, and put an end to all of it. The problem was he didn’t know what he was even thinking. He was even less sure about what he wanted.

George cleared his throat, after having enough of the silence filling the room. “Sleep well?”

“Well enough,” John shrugged, mercifully looking away and leaning back in the chair, lifting a leg to rest the ankle against the other knee before scratching at his stomach. “You’re a kicker, though. And quite squirmy, if you didn’t know.” John looked back at him again, and George responded by acting interested in the dirty glass on the table.

“Who’s squirmy?” George thanked his lucky stars when Stuart stumbled into the room, still half asleep. John turned his attention to the bass player, and George jumped out of his seat at the chance to get away from the kitchen and John.

-

“Well, isn’t this just lovely?” John deadpanned, turning to Bruno after taking a look at the room they were going to be calling home. The club owner had arrived home around 10am, and immediately brought them to a theatre called the Bambi Kino, informing them in broken English that that was to be their home. The room was a dank, windowless former storage room, and the entire thing and the corridor leading to it smelled like piss. It had absolutely nothing for it except two sets of rickety bunk beds, which meant there weren’t even enough beds for all of them. George blanched.

“Now,” Bruno spoke, his voice raised despite the fact they were already paying him all their attention. “You play at four.” He grabbed George’s wrist roughly, pointing to the watch there. He took their shocked stares (which more than anything were in response to their new living conditions) as confusion and shook George’s wrist, pointing again. “Four-clock, the Indra.” They all nodded dumbly and he hobbled away down the corridor.

At the sound of a distant door creaking shut they all exploded.

“It stinks!” Paul laughed, bemused.

“Where’re the windows?” Pete added.

“Never mind that, what’s that stain on the bed?” John scrunched up his face, pointing accusingly at one of the mattresses.

“Very nice of him to leave us the thinnest linens he could find.” Stuart offered a sarcastic sigh.

“And enough beds.” George added, and they all turned to him before turning back into the room. He realized the mistake he’d made in pointing it out after they all shoved him aside and ran into the room, claiming one each.

Jaw slack, he could only blink stupidly at the four matching smug expressions aiming in his direction. He noted that John’s was the smuggest of all.

-

They’d worked the sleeping arrangements out in the end, Paul finally offering to let George kip with him, head to toe. Despite their poor living conditions, the first two weeks playing the Indra were exciting (although extremely tiring). The glowing neon signs, abundance of flashily dressed prostitutes, gun toting mobsters and nonstop partying vibe was a complete contrast to life in Liverpool. George felt great satisfaction every time the band played until six in the morning, relishing the fact that if he’d been at home his parents would have had him in bed eight hours earlier.

They didn’t have much of a crowd at first, which gave them a fair amount of time to drink heavily and mess about on stage. The German bartender would arch a weathered eyebrow in their direction every time they burst into laddish giggles at a joke one of them had made. The stage quickly became their home.

John’s busy hands and calculating stares had eased a bit after they got settled, and George decided to just let it be. He wasn’t going to say anything to John about it, and didn’t know what he would say if he even wanted to. Somehow, ‘stop looking my way, please’ or ‘keep your hands to yourself’ didn’t seem like a logical thing to ask of a mate. Also, verbalizing his concerns would also mean admitting something was going on, and if it was all in his head then he would look plain stupid.

It was a typically quiet night at the club, and they’d decided early on in their six hour shift that since nobody was going to show up, they were going to drink themselves silly. With Bruno absent, they’d all abandoned their posts. Pete and Paul were leaning against the bar, talking with the bartender, Stu had wandered off to the gents, and John had passed out in the back of the stage an hour earlier.

George shoved the final bit of the hamburger he’d been devouring into his mouth and wiped his hands on his jacket. He sat still, enjoying the hazy feeling of being inebriated, feeling entirely contended with his life at the moment when he heard some movement from the back of the stage.

“John?” He called out, and after getting no reply fumbled his way to his feet and went back to investigate. He found his friend sprawled out behind the piano, his busy hands slapping away at the ground. George supposed that was his way of getting someone’s attention. “Alright, mate?” He stepped closer, nudging him in the side with the toe of his boot. John moaned and lifted his arms up, reminding George of a child wanting to be picked up.

He planted a foot on either side of John’s legs, intending to take the offered hands and help John to his feet. “Alright, on three,” He said, grabbing the hands and holding them tight, bracing himself to get ready to try and lift. “One,” He stepped back. “Two,” He repositioned his hands to hold on better. “Three,” He was completely taken off guard when John, instead of trying to get up, yanked George down on top of him. George collapsed against him, hissing in pain when his knees cracked against the hard floor.

“Ow,” He complained, trying to pull his hands away so he could rub some of the pain out. John was not letting go of his hands though, and that keen look in his eye had returned, though in an exceedingly more intoxicated form. Judging by his state, George wasn’t even sure John was all there. “Let go,” He ordered, trying to sit up.

“Shhh,” John soothed, holding tight to George’s hands. He leaned up and nuzzled his face against George’s chest, as that was all he could reach. “C’mere,” He murmured, letting go of George’s hands and grabbing instead to either side of his face, trying to bring his face down.

“John,” George’s heart was booming so loudly in his ears he wasn’t sure if he’d even said his friends name aloud. John ignored him, slurring what were supposed to be soothing words to him as he wrestled George’s face nearer to his. George’s mind was reeling; a million and one ‘what if?’ scenarios played out in his head before he threw caution to the wind and stopped resisting.

It started off a truly pitiful display. It took John three drunken attempts to finally bring George’s lips down against his own (they knocked foreheads the first time, and the second time John kissed his eye). George fully collapsed against him, kissing him back tensely at first, as he was still relatively new to kissing in general. He’d kissed a couple of girls back in Liverpool, and even that had been pretty nerve-wracking. Even in those situations he’d found it hard to shut off his brain, and that was nothing like kissing one of your best mates. Eventually John eased his lips apart, and George allowed John’s tongue to tentatively enter his mouth, exploring. They kept that up for a bit, John still securing George’s head in place with his hands, until eventually they broke apart for air. John’s eyes fell shut and he raked his fingers through George’s slicked back hair, licking his lips and letting his head fall back against the floor.

“Y’taste like whiskey and Coke,” John smiled, his murmured slur becoming harder and harder to understand. “It’s brilliant.”

He stroked George’s face once and passed out.

George stared at him for a moment in complete shock before taking John’s hands and removing them from where they’d come to rest on his shoulders. He shakily got to his knees, taking hold of the piano and hoisting himself to his feet. He couldn’t even bare to look back at John as he made his way across the stage. He couldn’t believe what had just happened, what he’d just done. A strange feeling had overcome his body, and he focused on ignoring it as he hopped down from the stage onto the floor. He’d kissed John. He could taste John on his lips. His face still felt bloody warm from where John had been holding it. He swallowed hard, rubbing at his face, attempting to rid himself of the feeling.

“George, you seen John?” Stuart intercepted him as he walked briskly towards the door.

“No,” He didn’t slow down, not stopping to see Stu’s reaction as he threw himself against the heavy door of the club, pushing it open and walking out into the neon lit night. With a wall between him and John, he finally felt like he could breathe. He followed his feet. His brain told him the outer edge of the Reeperbahn at night was perhaps not the safest place for him to be wandering alone, but he couldn’t go back to where John was.

He worried at his lip as he walked aimlessly into the night, trying to get a grasp on what was going on.

-

He’d arrived back at the Bambi Kino on auto pilot a little while before the others did. After mulling over in incident in his mind for a couple of hours, he’d come to no really solid conclusions and decided sleep was the best option he had going for him. His mind had a ton of questions, the first and foremost being, ‘Why?’ It wasn’t normal for a bloke to go around kissing his mates (though George was pretty sure John had never in his life been classified as normal) and George was feeling pretty put off by the entire ordeal. John may not be normal, but George certainly was. He had a normal family, he’d got average grades in school, he had typical hobbies, and he certainly didn’t go around kissing other boys.

Maybe John wouldn’t even remember. He had been pretty out of it, after all. George consoled himself with this thought as the rest of the boys crashed into the room, John being supported by Paul and Pete with Stuart trailing behind.

Stuart raised an inquiring brow in his direction, silently asking where he’d gotten off to, and George responded by pulling his tattered blanket up over his head and falling asleep.

-

It became abundantly clear in the weeks following that John had no recollection of the incident. The logical part of George’s mind was happy about this, as it meant he wouldn’t have to confront him about the issue any time soon, but the emotional side of his teenaged brain was a little bit annoyed by it.

Just as they were beginning to get a regular crowd round to see them play every night, the Indra was closed down, after getting numerous noise complaints from a bunch of crabby old nuns across the way. Bruno moved them to another place he owned, the Kaiserkeller. It was considerably bigger and had a far better atmosphere. More and more people would come to see them play, which pleased the lads greatly. George was especially pleased with the reaction they were getting from the females.

It felt good to flirt and mess about with the girls in Hamburg, who were much more uninhibited than the girls back home. In another way it was a bit unnerving, since he had such limited experience. He felt like he was holding his own, though. He’d even had a few blowjobs back stage. He often reminded himself that a blowjob from a girl far surpassed kissing John Lennon, who was currently taking the piss out of him for no reason.

“So you haven’t fucked her yet, then?” John asked, raising his pint to his lips. They had just finished six straight hours of playing and were having a few more drinks before making their way back to the Kino.

The others looked at him, waiting for his answer.

George busied himself by rolling a cigarette, silently fuming. He’d been out with a local girl a couple of times, and all of a sudden John was interested in making a big deal out of his sex life. “You know I haven’t,” George locked eyes with him firmly, licking the paper to seal the cigarette closed.

“Why?” John continued.

“Why what?” He brought the finished cigarette to his lips, striking a match and lighting it, exhaling slowly.

“Why haven’t you?” John leaned forward, drumming absently against his glass as he did. George kept his eyes locked with Johns, shrugging. He didn’t really feel like he had to explain himself, especially to John Lennon. Deciding the shrugging response wasn’t satisfactory; John turned his attention to Stu, who was sitting beside him looking confused. “I suspect he’s a little-” He lifted a hand and let it hang limply, wiggling his eyebrows. “You know.”

Stu rolled his eyes and decided to ignore him, turning his attention the other way, uninterested in getting involved.

“I’m not queer.” George spoke up, taking a drag from his cigarette and flicking the ashes away. He was starting to get annoyed now.

John ignored him, turning to Paul, who was seated on his other side. “If he weren’t, he’d have bagged at least one bird by now.” Paul offered an obliging half laugh, eyes awkwardly trained on his own drink. John finally turned back to George, locking eyes with him, “He must prefer a hard dick in his hands to a pair of tits.”

“I’m not a fucking queer,” He spat, standing up quickly, pointing a finger in John’s face as he leaned across the table. His chair screeched as it shot backwards, almost toppling over from the force. The others looked at him, shocked by his outburst.

John’s hardened stare melted away, and he offered a grin as he took another sip of his drink. “Alright son, alright,” His voice was mock soothing. To everyone else, the joke was over.

-

The next night he brought the girl back to their room and fucked her. He made sure they were all there, lying in the darkness, hearing everything. Her encouraging moans, his grunts of approval as she took him in, his hitched breathing as he found his release. He wanted John to hear it all. Part of him almost wished the room wasn’t pitch black, so he could see the look on John’s face as he moaned her name.

He walked her out soon after, and when he returned to the room he was met with a resounding applause. Pete, Paul and Stuart all beamed at him proudly, Paul even going as far as coming up and clapping him on the back.

“He most definitely prefers the pair of tits,” Pete laughed from his bunk. George grinned widely.

John sat silently in his bed, looking ashen faced and (George noted, with a bizarre sense of pride) quite despairing.

-

As usual, feedback is much appreciated!

lye @ 2008-04-04T22:14:00

2008-04-05T02:14:50Z

Pairing(s) in the story: John Lennon/George Harrison
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Title of story: Busy Hands
Rating of story: PG 13ish right now.
Word count of story: 2,900ish
Chapter 1 of (2, possibly 3)
Brief summary: George is agonizing about his reaction to John and his busy hands.
Notes: Trying my hand at a multi-chaptered fic. About half way through this I realized that all the pretty little things I was seeing in my mind wouldn’t fit in just one fic, so I’ll just spread it out a little, I think. Trying for more of a George point of view this time around, though for the next part I may switch to John. Opinions?

Thanks so much to those who commented and let me know what they thought of the last fic!

The excitement surrounding the small gathering of people standing around outside the Jacaranda club in Liverpool was almost palpable. George’s hands twitched in excitement, so he shoved them into the pockets of his jacket, trying to maintain some semblance of cool. A second later he pulled his left hand out, checking his watch before stuffing it back in, chewing his lip to disguise the excited smile that played his lips. His band would be departing for Germany in a little less than five minutes, and frankly, he couldn’t wait to be on the road.

He looked around at his bandmates as they bade their loved ones goodbye. John was attached to his girlfriend Cynthia by the lips, his roaming hands giving her a final once over. Paul, ever taking John’s lead, was in a similar state with his own girlfriend a few feet away. Stuart’s younger sister had come to see him off, helpfully holding on to one of his bags for him while the group waited. Like George, Pete’s mother had come to see him off, only Mona was considerably more laid back in the parenting department than Mrs. Harrison was.

“Now, love, promise me that you’ll write home as soon as you can.” She reminded him for what felt like the millionth time that morning. She paused, waiting for her distracted son to reply. “George,” She added; her tone slipping from slightly distressed to more than slightly annoyed.

“Oh,” George blinked and looked back at her, turning away from his friends. “Yes, Mum, of course. I promised, didn’t I?” He didn’t remind her that the promise had been one of the terms of letting him go in the first place, and was thus not really a voluntary one. She seemed satisfied with his reply, and he looked back to where John’s busy hands were continuing to bid their farewell to Cynthia.

Part of him felt a little jealous by the whole situation. After all, John and Paul were getting sent off by girlfriends, and here he was placating his mother’s nerves.

Finally, the familiar rumbling engine of Allan Williams’ van could be heard in the distance and all of the boys turned in time to see it come around the corner. Allan had been the one to secure them the gig in Hamburg, and had even agreed to deliver them there himself.

“There’s Allan,” George pointed down the street as the van approached, before looking back to his watery eyed mother, who had latched onto his shoulders and held him at arms length, looking him over as if this would be the last time she’d see him. “Aw, Mum,” George groaned, slightly embarrassed by her semi-emotional state. “Please don’t. I’ve been away before! I’ll be fine.” His mother responded with a sharp nod, holding a hand to her mouth.

They loaded their luggage into the van, trying with some of the bigger stuff to create sitting places, as there weren’t any seats in the back and they were being joined by Allan’s wife and a friend of theirs. They all bid a final goodbye to their loved ones (with George finally giving in and hugging his mother, giving her a kiss on the cheek) and set off on the road to Hamburg.

-

But the road, while exciting and full of amazing possibilities, was a little bit like Hell to George after a while. After six straight hours on the road with John shoved beside him (or on him, rather), George couldn’t help but admire Stuart for being able to live in such close quarters with him for so long. He was constantly poking and prodding, making silly faces and telling insane stories, and he clearly didn’t believe anybody was entitled to their own personal place.

“I feel like I’m bloody dying,” John complained into George’s ear, adjusting the bag he had sitting on his lap, for lack of anywhere else to put it.

“You’re not dying,” George mumbled in response, turning a page in the book he’d taken out after conversation had turned dull a few hours earlier.

“I am, though,” John insisted, groaning and resituating the bag again. “Me leg is all tingly, you see. Just here.” He grabbed George’s hand and brought it down to his leg, making him squeeze it for a moment, looking at him expectantly.

George eyed John’s hand resting atop his for a moment, thinking about where the same hand had been prior to them getting into the van earlier. He could see it rubbing, trying to sneak under layers of clothes, searching for skin on skin contact. A jolt of arousal (which wasn’t all that uncommon to him these days, as his wasted sex drive was at an all time high) coursed through him and he hesitated before looking up. John was still looking at him with the same expectant stare, and before he could reply, Pete cut in.

“Christ, John, you’ve not been gone from Cyn for more than ten minutes and you’re already chatting up every bird in sight,” John pulled his hand away and fussed with the bag on his lap again, laughing along with Pete at the comment.

“Insatiable, I am,” John guffawed, a mischievous look in his eye as he kept his gaze locked on George. “Such a pretty bird too, innit he?” He stroked George’s face teasingly and the rest of them all dissolved into laughter, and George resisted joining in for a moment before surrendering himself.

-

They drove into the night, Allan insisting they didn’t need to stop just yet. Every couple of hours the boys were allowed to stretch their legs, empty their bladders and have a cigarette, though never for as long as they would have liked. The seating arrangements stayed the same: Paul and Pete each sitting on an amp each, surrounded by Pete’s drum kit, Stuart was on his own near the front, where he could talk with the passengers in the front section, and George and John were sat side by side on their amplifiers in the back.

The sun had set and it became pitch black in the vehicle, and without a light to read by, George’s only option for entertainment was to fall asleep. He started off using his arm for a pillow, resting it on a stack of luggage beside him, but when he woke up he found that his cheek was resting against something considerably softer, and a whole lot warmer.

“Eh?” He blinked, his eyes trying to adjust to the dark. Whatever warm and soft thing he was leaning against felt to be almost surrounding him, and he continued to blink in confusion as his tired brain tried to remember where he even was.

“Good sleep?” John’s whispering voice broke through the relative silence and George bolted up straight, realizing that he’d been essentially snuggling up to the guitarist. He cleared his throat and inched away, nodding into the darkness, as if John could even see him.

“Uh, yeah,” His voice started off loud, but quickly died down as he realized everyone else must be sleeping. “Yeah. Sorry about, er-” He started, moving his hand around expressively, not quite sure how to apologize.

“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” John whispered again, and George realized it wasn’t very often he heard John speaking so softly. He was usually the type who spoke very loudly, very clearly. It was part of what made him such a strong (sometimes oppressively so) personality. “It’s getting cold anyway,” He added, and George let out an involuntary shiver as John slid close to him again, his arm still around his shoulder.

George stiffened for a moment, not knowing how to react since he couldn’t see John’s face. After a few minutes of easy breathing, John tilted his head and rested it against George’s boney shoulder. “That won’t work,” He heard John mutter to himself very quietly, before he felt John’s other arm reach over and coax his head back down against him, before John settled and rested his cheek against the top of George’s head, letting his hand drop and land atop George’s leg, where it began to rub tiny circles, almost subconsciously.

George’s heart pounded in his ears until he heard John’s breathing become even, and he knew his friend was asleep.

-

The trip didn’t get much more exciting after that. They did most of their leg stretching and smoking on the boat on their way to Holland, landing in the mid afternoon and shoplifting enough to get them to Hamburg. George wasn’t even sure how excited he was about Hamburg anymore, if it meant living with John and his ever busy hands day and night. It was bloody confusing, was what it was.

“Come here,” John hissed at him with a sense of urgency, flapping his arm about to imply George should follow him somewhere. The rest had gone on foot to look for lunch, and George and John had been told to stay within eyeshot of the van.

“Why?” George quirked a brow, arms folded in front of him, not budging as he leaned against the van.

“Because I said to, you daft git, now come on,” His eyes were comically wide, and he nodded his head to urge George towards him.

“We’re not to leave the van, Allan said.” George gestured to the van behind him, as if John couldn’t see it.

“We won’t be ten minutes, George, I swear. I just want to check out the sweet shop.” He pointed across the street.

“Go then, I’m not stopping you.” George couldn’t help but laugh, he lifted his arms as if to shoo his friend away.

John groaned and tilted his head back, appearing to ask the Heavens to deliver a more compliant friend. “I want you to come with,” He finally responded. George looked firm in his decision to guard the van, so John walked over to him before adding a sweet little, “Please.”

“Oh fucking Hell, John, fine,” He looked around for any suspicious characters before crossing the street with John leading the way, smiling wickedly.

The shop was fairly large, with high shelves filled top to bottom with various sweets. The two walked slowly up and down the aisles, with John winking at any cute girls they spotted, and George offering them polite smiles as he trailed his friend. Once they were in an aisle alone, John grabbed onto George by the collar and drew him close. George’s first reaction was to let out a flustered gasp, which John grinned at.

They stared at each other for a moment after John let go. George’s heart was pounding in his ears again, and his eyes were locked on John’s. He couldn’t decipher what the look on his friends face meant, but he felt like it was a little too all knowing for his liking. He felt something move against his hip and for some reason suspected it was John’s busy hands at work again. He finally looked down and realized that John was stuffing various things into his coat pockets.

His heart rate slowed at the realization but he felt something sink in his stomach, though he couldn’t say what.

“Help me out here, mate,” John grinned at him.

George just blinked dumbly.

“Alright, let’s get back to the van; if we’re lucky that lot will be back with our lunch.” John zipped up George’s coat and smoothed his hands down his chest, offering him cryptic wink before turning on his heel and leading them out of the shop, giving a friendly wave to the shopkeeper as they made their exit.

-

“I’m not sleeping in the van again,” Paul was almost yelling now at anyone who would listen. The rest of the group dispersed in reaction to his poor attitude and George watched John walk up to him.

“This is the place we need to be, Paul,” John pointed to the big elephant looming over the Indra, the club they would be playing at. “It’s the middle of the night and we’ve arrived early, but I’ll bet my left hand someone will be round to show us where we’re staying tomorrow.”

Paul wouldn’t budge and John just groaned in annoyance, turning back to where Stu and George were standing. “What do you think?”

“I’ll go see if I can find someone,” Allan cut in, stopping by the front of the van to tell his wife where he was going before heading down the street. The band stood in an awkward silence, all of them tired and half of them cranky, until Allan returned a few minutes later to inform them that the manager of the club would be around to take them to his place where they could spend the rest of the night.

Bruno Koschmider was not an overly pleasant man. They had imagined their new boss would be someone young, a rock’n’roller maybe like themselves, but in truth he was a grumpy old man who walked with an unnerving limp which he’d acquired during the war. He dumped them at his small flat and disappeared for the rest of the night.

Paul, Pete and Stuart all rushed to the only bed, pushing at each other and laughing as they fought for space on it, while John and George stared at the display, bemused.

“And what about us!?” John made full use of his voice, throwing his arms up in exasperation, throwing his bag at Paul’s head.

Paul ducked and missed it with a laugh, suddenly in a vastly improved mood. “Room for you here, love,” He patted the sliver of space beside him mockingly. John stalked over, grabbed his bag again, and gave his friend the one finger salute before storming out of the room.

Taking one last look at the man pile on the bed, George adjusted his bag on his shoulder and opted to take his chances with John.

-

George watched from the doorway of the small kitchen while John grumpily undressed for bed. He’d found a thin couch which he’d apparently claimed, though it was rather small and didn’t look much softer than the floor. He lifted his shirt up over his head and tossed it in the direction of his bag, catching George in the corner of his eye. “What?” He gruffed, not looking directly at him.

“Nothing,” George shrugged, not entirely sure why he’d spent the last couple of minutes watching his friend. John pulled the decorative blanket that had been draped across the back of the couch down, fluffing a small square pillow before lying down with a groan. After he was situated on his side, he turned his attention back to George, who was still dressed and standing in the door.

“Well? Are you just going to stare at me all night or are you going to get in your kip?” The younger man shrugged and rubbed awkwardly at the back of his neck. He didn’t want to sleep in the bed with the other three, but he didn’t know how to ask John if he could sleep in there, either. John, apparently more perceptive than he usually let on, let out a sigh and patted the spot next to him. “Come on, then.”

George felt strangely self conscious as he undressed, aware that John was watching him. If he didn’t know better he would say there was an appraising sort of look in his eyes. Finally he was stripped down his shorts and shirt, deciding since John was already shirtless, it would be weird if he was too.

He lay down with his back to John’s chest. It was only after they were both on the couch George realized how small the thing actually was. John started out with one of his arms under the pillow, and the other straight down his side, then he tried resting it behind him on the back of the couch, but that wasn’t happening. George listened as John shifted his arm around, before finally letting out a resigned sigh, whispering into his ear, “George? I need to, uh-” He let his bent arm rest down George’s side, his hand snaking under the other boys arm and moving up to hold his shoulder, almost hugging him. “Is this okay?” John shifted against him as he asked the question, and George squeezed his eyes shut, internally degrading himself for being a little bit turned on by the closeness.

“Yeah,” He croaked. John sighed against the back of his neck, and was soon asleep. He inhaled and exhaled at a steady pace, and George just listened. Soon John was deep in slumber, and he nestled his face into the back of George’s neck. Even in sleep, his busy hands roamed their way down George’s chest before resting against his stomach, his thumb finding its way under his shirt and pressing against the skin there.

It was becoming painfully obvious to George that there was beginning to be a problem here.

-

There will be another part, hopefully in the next few days. Let me know what you think!

lye @ 2008-03-21T16:59:00

2008-03-21T21:05:28Z

Pairing(s) in the story: John Lennon/Paul McCartney
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Title of story: The Best Medicine
Rating of story: I'm gonna say R.
Word count of story: 3,600
Chapter 1 of 1
Brief summary: John appreciates Paul's laughter.
Notes: Not entirely sure how I feel about this one. I wanted to give John/Paul a try, but the dynamic didn't come to me as easily as I would have liked. I sort of struggled though it, but I wanted to share anyway! Many, many thanks and kisses to those who have commented on my last stories.

John Lennon operated under a ‘laugh first, ask questions later’ mentality. This wasn’t because he was easily amused, or overly happy. It was because, as a young boy, he learned that the right kind of laughter could be a very effective offense. A laugh could be almost as painful as a physical blow, and could certainly linger a lot longer. John preferred to attack using his brains rather than his brawn (which was somewhat lacking, compared to some of the other boys).

He had an entire library of laughs. His favourites were the ones that appeared to make the people he was laughing at feel incredibly small, or miserable. He relished the ones that brought self doubt to the table especially as he himself wasn’t particularly self assured, though his personality certainly gave the impression that he was. Selfishly, he wanted those around him to feel the same (or worse) than he secretly did. He was jealous of a lot of people for a lot of things, really, though he would never own up to it. He wanted to be the best at things, and he wanted people to acknowledge that.

He had a powerful laugh, and he knew it.

It wasn’t until Paul McCartney walked into his life that he met someone else with a laugh as powerful as his. Paul laughed often and easily, as John had noticed from the dawn of their friendship. While John’s laugh was usually calculated, hurtful, and sharp as a knife, Paul’s was easy going, soft, and as warm as a blanket. John’s laughter was usually met with a grimace; Paul’s was embraced with a grin.

Against his will John fell for the boy, with his easy laugh and his aptitude for music. While he recognized Paul as the competition he was, he couldn’t resist inviting him into his life, and his band.

--

They became unimaginably close almost overnight, though to them it didn’t feel all that instantaneous. To John, it felt more like they’d known each other their entire lives. It wasn’t until Mimi pointed out with a raised brow after supper one night that he’d been spending a lot of time gallivanting with that Paul boy, lately. John responded with his evasive laugh, but Mimi was impervious to all of John’s laughs at that point. It was entirely possible that he’d learned them from her in the first place, anyhow.

It didn’t matter to him what she or anyone else thought about him and Paul, because John knew that he’d found something precious in his friendship with the younger boy. Paul made him happy, and not just fleetingly, like his other friends, but constantly. Even when they found time in their shared contentment to fight about something, John enjoyed having him around.

Paul was self assured, almost as much so as John pretended to be, and John silently envied him for it, though not in the aggressive way he would usually respond to such a feeling. It was a welcome thing when Paul mucked up his first guitar solo during a performance. Paul, embarrassed, had tried to slink away to the back of the small stage and the other guys visibly waited for John to rip into him. But John, relieved that his new friend was in fact fallible, could only laugh. It wasn’t one of his old hurtful laughs, but one of uninhibited glee.

“It happens, mate.” John had assured him with a squeeze of the shoulder afterwards, ignoring the slack jawed response from the rest of the boys. Paul responded with a weary smile and a slightly embarrassed laugh.

--

John often brought Paul to visit the owner of his favourite laugh of all; his mother, Julia. John was unabashedly fond of his mother, who was more of an older sister type, and when he first brought Paul around he was pleased to find that the two of them got on swimmingly. When John was in a room with them both, he was sometimes overwhelmed by how similar they were, with their blissfully enchanting laughter, charming personalities and innate beauty. Julia would crack jokes and Paul would laugh appreciatively and John almost felt like he could feel his heart swelling in response to the feeling of it all.

He felt lucky to have them both, and when the two of them laughed together, it was music to his ears.

--

With September came the Liverpool College of Art, and significantly less time with Paul. They saw each other routinely, meeting in the graveyard that connected their respective schools to share a laugh and a few songs. John missed their easy summer days, but reckoned he should at least try to put a little bit of effort into school.

John sometimes scribbled pictures of Paul holding his guitar and wrote nonsensical poems about laughter and twinkling eyes, but always tossed them in the bin at the end of class.

Stuart Sutcliffe came on the scene and John admittedly got a little bit distracted. Paul brought a kid named George Harrison around and John felt betrayed by the excitement with which Paul talked about the way he could play the guitar. He begrudgingly acknowledged the boys talent and let him in, talking Stu into purchasing a bass and joining them as well.

--

The following July stole Julia from him. He refused to look at her broken body, and was numb to all that surrounded him until Paul finally showed his face a week later. He needed Paul’s laughter the most then, but he knew from the wet and empathetic look in his friend’s eyes that he wouldn’t get it. Instead he was given a warm embrace and a shoulder when John finally really cried. Julia was gone, his sisters were sent away where he couldn’t see them, and all he had was Mimi’s chilling grief to live with.

He felt Paul’s warm breath shushing into the shell of his ear and in response held onto him tightly, desperately. John let out a sick, mournful laugh and Paul wiped away his tears without a word. John thanked him with a handful of wet kisses around his face before dissolving into a fit of sobs.

It felt like he would never laugh again.

--

After a number of name changes, a revolving door of band members, a haphazard tour of Scotland and a bit of elbow grease, his band (their band) found their way to Hamburg, Germany. They played their first show billed as The Beatles, and it was nothing to write home about. He and Stu still thought the name was clever, and John wished Paul would just laugh a little and acknowledge that. The first time he told him the idea, Paul only gave him a smile and John tried hard not to beg a laugh out of him.

Germany brought the two of them closer together than ever. Stuart was on the threshold of true love, their drummer Pete had women on the mind, and George had finally figured out how to use what he’d got going on down there and popped his cherry. They played eight hour shifts with the other house band, and with breaks as short as they were getting, they didn’t venture too far during the night.

Drink, pills and women were in abundance and while John and Stu had lived together back at college, it was the first time he felt really free to do as he liked. He felt liberated, which made the hours of playing bearable.

Sometimes at the end of the night, Paul would talk about missing his father and his younger brother a bit, “Not much, you know, but a bit,” and John would take firm hold of his hand until Paul would smile and laugh again.

--

Their girlfriends, Dot and Cyn, came together to visit them and it was coincidentally the afternoon they left back for Liverpool that the boys had their first real kiss. They put the girls on the ferry and waved their hands in the air enthusiastically as it got farther and farther away. Finally deciding Cynthia had had more than her fair share of goodbye waves, John stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned his back to the water, Paul following soon after.

“That was nice,” John stated, kicking a stone in front of him and watching it bounce and skid away into the street. John noticed after a few steps that Paul hadn’t said anything, and he turned to him with a quizzical stare.

“I think Dot and I will be finished when I get home,” Paul said, as if he’d had an epiphany. He looked up finally to meet John’s eyes.

“What do you mean ‘finished’? She’s alright, mate,” John tried to be encouraging, turning around and walking back towards Paul. “Not all the time you get one willing to travel great stormy lengths to bring you a bit of loving, aye?” Paul offered a half hearted shrug and John rolled his head around on his neck, slightly annoyed. “What’s wrong, then?”

“I just-” Paul started and then turned back to the still retreating ship in the distance, his bottom lip caught between his teeth. “I think I’m glad to see her go,” He looked at John, who looked down at his boots.

“Well you know, I’m a bit glad to see Cyn go as well,” He looked up again to meet Paul’s face. “But, that doesn’t mean I’m gonna-” He was cut off abruptly by Paul grabbing him by the face, crushing their lips together. John leaned into him fully at first, parting his lips and allowing Paul instant entrance. After a few moments lost in the taste of his friend, John struggled to pull his hands out of his pockets and grabbed Paul by his upper arms, pulling him off and holding him there. This wasn’t the place for that, or the time, what with their girlfriends floating away in the distance. That, and if he and Paul were going to be doing any kissing, John would like it to be on his terms. Namely, they wouldn’t be snogging each others faces off in public.

They stared each other keenly in the eye, silently trying to decipher if everything was still okay. Paul finally offered a half smile and John patted him twice on the cheek before they shared a laugh. A laugh devoid of any humour, laced with uncertainty and excitement.

--

Hamburg fell apart a bit for them. George had been sent home for being underage, with Paul and Pete following soon after, caught lighting up a condom in a corridor of the club they used to work at. John was furious at first, left alone with Stu, who still put up with John’s bullying friendship with no complaint. He was lovesick, though, and while the two of them did try to have a go of it, John missed Paul and home and left Stu behind in Germany, traveling home alone and cold. He felt like a dejected piece of shit for a while, with Mimi keeping him in the house to herself for days on end.

Finally John escaped Mendips and Mimi, slinging his guitar strap over his shoulder and taking the bus to Paul’s house. He couldn't place why he felt nervous, but it was the first time he ever hesitated before knocking on the familiar door.

When Paul opened the door John drank him in as quickly as possible, smiling at the shocked look on his friend's face and the letting out a pleased laugh as Paul threw his arms around him, his lips coming to smack against John’s neck.

They broke apart, jumping twice excitedly before Paul rolled his eyes at their boyish behavior and invited him in, pulling him by the cuff of his sleeve.

--

They tried another spell in Germany and a few months after they got back John turned twenty-one, a man, and an auntie gave him £100, which was more money than he’d ever seen in his life. He decided the first thing he'd do as an adult was blow it all as fast as possible.

“You got how much?” Paul asked in disbelief after they took a break from writing something new. John told him, grinning wildly. “And you want to hitchhike to Spain?” He nodded. “And you want me to come with you?” John nodded again.

“You and George have done it,” John explained, plucking a couple of strings absently. He looked down at his fingers, watching them move at their own accord. “And I figure, you know, as you’re my best mate and all, it only makes sense you should come.” John cleared his throat and allowed himself to look up expectantly.

Paul looked deeply touched by the invitation. “Come on,” John reached across their touching knees, resting his hand on Paul’s neck. “It’ll be shit without you, mate.”

“Of course I’ll go, Johnny,” Paul grinned. “You know I will.”

--

Spain turned out to be farther away than first imagined, and the two decided to try their luck in Paris. Without more than a lick of the French language between them, they bumbled their way around the sleeping city until a pair of prostitutes took pity and kindly showed them in the right direction. They got a room with one bed, deciding to sleep head to toe. That first night saw them exhausted, stripping down and climbing into the bed, happy to be on a soft surface. John slept with his head at the top of the bed, Paul with his at the bottom. John thought they felt miles apart when he said goodnight to his friend, getting nothing more than soft, even breathing as a response.

He woke the next morning to find that not only had Paul evidently decided to join him up at the top end of the bed, but also snuggled up to him. He tilted his head slightly; trying not to disturb the face nestled into his shoulder. Paul’s arm was stretched across his bare chest, his bent leg resting between Johns.

He decided, had Paul been awake, that would have been the perfect time to kiss him. They were alone, miles and miles from everything and everyone they knew. He could roll him onto his back, pin him, and just lay one on him. A real ferocious display, like he wanted to. He was getting turned on just thinking about it.

But Paul was sleeping peacefully, mouth agape with impossibly long eyelashes resting on his cheeks, and John didn’t have the heart to wake him up just yet.

John laughed quietly to himself, for he was an old softy.

--

As it turned out, they weren’t as alone in Paris as he thought they were. Jurgen, a photographer friend they’d met during their time in Hamburg, happened to be living in Paris. They ran into each other on the street and after a few minutes of shared laughter and excitement, Jurgen offered them a tour of the city the next day. They eagerly accepted, decided on where and when to meet, and headed off to fill their empty stomachs.

They didn’t mention the state they’d woken up in, though John could distinctly remember the dreamy smile that spread across Paul’s face as he woke up, and the hand that had rubbed slow circles across his chest as Paul slowly blinked open his eyes. He seemed completely unapologetic about having invaded John’s personal space during the night, which made John glad.

After a day full of terrible attempts at French, pretty birds with accents, and exploration, they made their way back to their tiny room. Paul was chattering away animatedly about a waitress with the hairy armpits as he undressed. “Just like that,” He let out a boisterous laugh, twisting his shirt up over his head and pointing to his own armpit. “You didn’t see, John?” John shook his head no, because in truth he hadn’t really noticed the waitress at all. Paul had been sucking delightedly on a milkshake and John had found himself rather distracted. “She was sexy as hell, though. That accent! Boy,” Paul added as an afterthought, hanging his shirt on the back of a chair and slipping out of his trousers. “Don’t think I could deal with hairy armpits, though.”

“Oh?” John spoke up without meaning to. “Not even mine, then?” He crossed his arms across his chest and met Paul’s eyes firmly. “Cause you were right cozy with one of them this morning, if I’m remembering right.” He laughed, and it was fond and challenging and just a little bit aroused.

--

Paul had been up for the challenge, seemingly. He’d responded with the sexiest, most wicked smile John had ever seen form on his lips and took a few steady steps towards him. They took hold of the back of each others heads at the same time, and from then on it was a battle to see who could kiss who first. John would swoop in, and Paul would avert. Paul would have the corner of John’s mouth for a moment, but John would twist his head away. Paul was still the best and only competition he never resented.

They erupted into playful laughter, pushing and pulling at each other until John finally had Paul pinned beneath him on the bed. He’d managed to wrestle Paul’s arms above his head and put all his weight into securing them there. He grinned down at him, sitting atop him proudly, victorious. “What now, my son? I’ve got you where I want you,” Paul responded by lifting his hips suggestively. “Ohh, you’re a devil, aren’t ya?” John wiggled his eyebrows and laughed.

He crashed his lips down against Paul’s for the first time in a year, feverishly and hungrily. John was starving for it, and maybe he had been since the day they met. Since the first time he laid eyes on Paul McCartney, who had turned another typical Quarrymen show into a milestone in John’s life. Since that first laugh had made his heart sing and he knew he would need that sound, that glorious laughter, for the rest of his life.

Paul was making different sounds now, letting out moans and groans of appreciation as he thrust his hips up against John, who responded in kind by pressing downward. They moved against each other, their shared arousal increasing with each press of the hips and hot, frenzied kisses.

--

Paul finally wiggled his hands free and set to work pulling Johns shirt off before turning his attention to his trousers. After a moment of fumbling unsuccessfully with the button he grabbed John by the shoulders and, mustering more physical strength than John would have pegged him to have, pushed John off of him onto his back before swiftly straddling his thighs. John could only blink in shock as Paul attempted to undo his trousers from his new perspective. John, feeling utterly useless, watched his friend’s intent face as he went about his task. He lifted a hand up to stroke Paul’s face and as soon as his fingertips met the soft skin Paul’s intent stare dissolved into a satisfied one. An instant later the button was open, the zipper undone, and Paul’s gloriously warm hand was circling him, stroking slowly.

“Oh,” Was all John could offer as encouragement, his eyes falling closed. Paul leaned down and pressed his face into John’s cheek, his lips moving against the skin there, his voice husky.

“I’ve wanted this,” Paul kissed him fiercely, as if to further prove his point, before pulling away. “Have you, John?” The quickening pace of his hand and the intent look in his eyes were almost enough to bring John over the edge right there.

“God, yes,” He arched his back, the building promise of release increasing with each stroke. “You know I have,” He grabbed onto Paul’s arms, lifting his hips to meet each pump of the fist, eyebrows knitted in concentration as he focused on the feeling of it.

Paul let out a particularly delicious moan into his ear and in the midst of his release, John wondered how he could have lived without that sound for as long as he had.

--

As promised, Jurgen showed them Paris the next day. They were gleeful, which he either didn’t notice or failed to comment on. They were seemingly excited by every aspect of the tour, but in reality were more excited about the new aspect of their friendship. To John, it felt like an electric current was surging through his body. When Jurgen showed them L’Opera, they clasped hands and burst into song, laughing and dancing before each throwing an arm around the others shoulders and carrying out the tour as the two headed monster those close to them knew they were.

“Jurgen, mate,” John spoke up on their way back to the Latin Quarter, where their German friend was living. “Give us a haircut like yours?” Jurgen agreed, and Paul looked at him, arching an inquiring brow.

“You laughed at George for days after he had Astrid cut his hair like that,” Paul pointed out.

“Aye, and just think how annoyed he’ll be when we come back with ones just like it,” John’s footsteps fell into sync with his friends, and he smiled into the October sky. “It’ll give us something to remember Paris by.” He shook his arm, crushing Paul against his side even more. “Not that we don’t have enough of that already, what with those hairy lady armpits forever engraved in our minds.”

Paul scrunched his face up, clearly picturing it, and dissolved into a fit of his angelic laughter, and John’s heart could only soar.

--

Feedback (good, bad and ugly) would be appreciated! I won't improve unless you guys tell me how.

lye @ 2008-03-16T02:04:00

2008-03-16T06:12:01Z

Pairing(s) in the story: George Harrison/John Lennon
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Title of story: In The Philippines
Rating of story: R?
Word count of story: 4,000 (I know, I know).
Chapter 1 of 1
Brief summary: The boys have a hell of a time in the Philippines.
Notes: Back with another effort. This one got long, but I'm hoping its interesting! Really, I just needed to put off homework for an hour. I would like to dedicate this to the anonymous reader of my first fic, as well as vanilla_sky320, revolution789, 749_penny_lane, beagle_agent and gereiheimer for their kind words.

As soon as their plane was in the air and the Philippines were beneath them, John made a silent vow to himself that he would never set foot in that wretched country again. With all that he cared about at the moment tucked snoozing under his arm he sent a glowering look out the plane window at the nation below. As much as he wished in hindsight that he had spat in the face of every thug that had intimidated them, he couldn’t really complain too much about the experience, overall. That didn’t mean he would ever go back.

-

It didn’t take long after their plane had first landed in Manila for things get strange. John reckoned he was a pretty adaptable man, given the places he’d traveled to and the different kinds of people he found himself dealing with on any given day, but here it was different. While he could butt heads with the strongest of personalities (given he had a pretty brawny one himself) he wasn’t an idiot, and his hard head was no match for whatever the thugs that greeted them upon arrival were packing. Just moments after his feet made contact with Pilipino asphalt, people were yelling at them and the little thugs with tempers as short as their sleeves ushered the four of them into a limo, and away they went. Were it not such a dreadfully confusing and tense situation, John was sure he would have found humour in the baffled look on Neil’s face out the window as they sped off.

In the limo Ringo let out a sharp, nervous laugh and Paul looked bewildered. George’s thumbnail had found its way into his mouth and he chewed on it distractedly, jerking forward in his seat every few seconds, as if he wanted to say something to the driver but thought better of it at the last second.

John looked out the window for a moment before turning towards Paul, who was seated across from him, two sets of nervous eyes meeting in shared worry.

“What do you thinks going on?” Paul finally broke the silence, speaking mostly to John. George shifted beside him, turning his head towards John as if he might actually have the answer. Ringo craned his neck to look through the window separating them from the driver.

John could only shrug before George spoke up, too, his voice much lower than Paul’s had been. “They’ve busted us. They had to’ve.”

“What do you mean?” Paul inched to the edge of his seat, folding his arms across his knees.

“You know,” George started, finally releasing his thumb nail and waving his hand around nervously, “busted us.” After another vacant look from Paul, George let out an impatient huff and clarified with a harsh whisper, “The reefer! The bloody reefer we had in our bags!”

Paul sat back in his seat and seemed to ponder this for a moment, Ringo looking at him anxiously. George rolled his eyes at Paul’s silence, seemingly too annoyed now to be afraid. John was about to join the conversation when the limo pulled to a stop and a group of men – dressed like the ones from the airport – opened the door beside him and pulled him out rather more forcefully than he would have liked by the elbow, another one fishing in and grabbing George. Paul and Ringo’s heads appeared on the other side of the vehicle and soon the four of them were led to a dock, the thugs looking at them and then nodding at the boat suggestively.

“I hope they don’t think we’re getting into-” John, worried by the increasingly hostile looks on the thugs faces when George spoke up, grabbed his friend by the hand and got into the boat, dragging George with him. George stumbled in after and John held him upright as Paul and Ringo followed suit. A group of the men got in with them and soon the boat was speeding over the water, the slightly surreal feeling of water splashing over his face distracting John from the fact that it was possible none of their people knew where they were.

It wasn’t until the yacht came into view John realized he’d been holding onto George’s hand the entire time. After a calculating glance told him George didn’t really seem bothered about it, John decided he would hang on. Just incase.

-

After being whisked away from the plane, driven to the harbour, taken to the yacht and locked in a room it was a whole lot of hurry up and wait. Not only did it feel like they were being eaten alive by mosquitoes, it was stiflingly humid as well. Once they were alone (or as alone as they could be with a wall of armed men surrounding the outside of the cabin) John let go of George and they all sat down, immediately set at loosening their ties and hypothesizing about what the hell was going on.

“Well if we’re not busted, what’s going then, Paul?” George said again, after ten minutes of trying to talk Paul into agreeing with him.

“How should I know?” Paul shrugged, flailing his arms to emphasize his complete and utter lack of knowledge before letting them fall onto the sides of his chair.

The entire thing was making John a lot tenser than he would have liked, and he just hoped his face wasn’t twisting around nervously like Ringo’s was. He pulled out a cigarette and placed it between his lips before fishing out his lighter, igniting it and holding it up. Embarrassingly, his hands were shaking so hard he couldn’t hold it still. George took notice and offered a warm smile, taking the lighter from his fingers and lighting it for him.

John wanted to say thank you, but all his ego would allow was a grunt of acknowledgement as he inhaled deeply, standing up to turn his back to the rest of them. He was scared, but they needn’t know that.

They waited. They waited for what felt like days for a familiar face, and when none arrived they grumbled to themselves in regret. Regret about the tour, regret about the pot, regret about not having Mal beside them to look menacing and strong. When Ringo piped up to suggest they ask someone what was going on, he was met with a chorus of resounding nos and when Brian finally showed up, flustered and yelling and ready to save them, John thought he could get down to his knees and kiss the mans impeccably dressed feet.

-

Once they were back within the familiarity of hotel walls, John finally let himself relax, slipping into his cotton sleeping pants and collapsing into the couch beside George, who had his thumbnail still nervously lodged in his mouth.

“Alright, George?” John exhaled and offered his half finished cigarette to the guitarist, who took it with a silent nod. John felt some unrecognizable feeling stir in his stomach at the sight of his friend, still so shaken up by the day’s events. “Brian said we’ve got tomorrow off.” John tried, hopeful that a little conversation and a happy topic would bring George back to earth. George just offered another nod, slower this time, and flicked his ashes into the ashtray John had balanced on his knee.

John searched his brain of something else to say, resting a hand at the back of his friend’s neck, giving it a comforting squeeze before twisting his fingers into his hair and scratching his scalp in what he imagined was a soothing gesture. When the guitarist’s shoulders slumped, indicating he was a little more relaxed, John kept at it and fell into a daze as he reflected on the day. George stole his attention back by letting his head loll back against his hand, letting out a deep sigh as the cigarette burned away between his fingers, forgotten.

He looked –well, John didn’t want to say fetching- but nice, when he was relaxed. His neck exposed and his dark eyes half lidded, with his scrawny legs splayed out in front of him. John had noticed that his toes were always wiggling, like he was tapping his feet to some tune nobody else could hear. John often wished he could hear the music in other people’s minds. He felt like he could sometimes, at least with Paul, but with George he just never knew. Frankly, he was intrigued by what went on beneath that dark head of hair.

He let go of George’s neck and slid his arm around him, cozying up to the other man against his better judgment. Soon George’s neck was in the crook of John’s arm and they were sitting, heads together. Even as it was happening John was aware this wasn’t really normal. He didn’t treat grown men this way: like a bird looking for comfort and other things. He pressed his nose into the side of George’s head and inhaled the day, discovering he smelled like water and sweat and some other mystifyingly delightful aroma that was unique to George. After a few moments George pulled away a little, and while he looked like he was going to say something, John was more interested in the fact that he could taste the other mans breath on his lips. With a jolt of excitement, he realized that if he wanted to, he could kiss George very easily.

“Something to drink, you two?” John and George both jumped at the sight of Neil in front of them. John removed his arm from around George’s neck, picked the ashtray up off of his knee and fumbled around his words for a few moments, clearing his throat. A voice in his head informed him that he was acting rather suspicious –guilty, even- and he wondered why that could be, considering he hadn’t really done anything.

“No, I’m good.” He paused, meeting George’s eyes awkwardly before setting the ashtray down on the table beside his friend. “Think I’m going to turn in, actually. Goodnight.” George watched him with eyes that betrayed nothing and John took off towards his room, struggling with the fact that for once he wished he wasn’t rooming with Ringo. And it wasn’t just for the snoring factor. If he was being honest with himself (which he rarely was, these days) he wanted to sleep near George. Shrugging the thought away, he began to quicken his pace.

“Night, John.” He heard George’s voice behind him. He gave a noncommittal wave without turning around and went to his own room, doing his best not to slam the door in annoyance and confusion and whatever else it was that was brewing within him.

-

John woke the next morning with a growling stomach and an oppressively heavy feeling he couldn’t put a finger on in his chest. Chalking it up to a lack of rest (his brain had been at it all night, about this and that and, of all things, George) and the entire weird vibe of the trip, he climbed out of bed and made his way into the area where the couches were. Paul and Neil were out shopping, which struck John as a mix of stupid and brave, and everyone else was bustling about.

He sat down, feeling miserable without knowing why, and rubbed at his face. His eyes felt damp, his cheeks felt clammy and his face felt scruffy, so he decided with a shower and a shave he would feel like a new man. A new man who didn’t stay up all night pining –no, that couldn’t be the right word for it- about his friend sleeping the room over.

He crashed into the bathroom, letting out some pent up energy he’d apparently been containing, and stopped abruptly when he found George already in there, halfway through a shave himself. He ran the razor over his skin slowly, letting out a deep, “’Lo, John,” as he swished it around in the sink. He seemed bright eyed, bushy tailed, and completely over the previous days nerve-wracking adventure. John almost hated him for it, because he wasn’t sure he was over it at all.

“Morning, George. You seem to be in high spirits this morning. One of our young gun toting lads bring you a nice local bird last night, or something?” He leaned against the door frame, making eye contact through the mirror.

George let out an obliging laugh, shook his head no and tilted it back, starting low and shaving upwards. The words fetching and jaw and heat flashed through John’s mind and he shook his head, bringing a hand up and pinching the bridge of his nose as he collected himself. George either hadn’t noticed or ignored it, continuing his task. John stood there awkwardly for a moment (and he hated feeling awkward, more than anything) tapping his socked feet on the floor, folding and unfolding his arms across his chest, and generally being fidgety before he looked back into the mirror to find George watching him. Startled and feeling strangely vulnerable for no reason he could ascertain, he mumbled, “Tell me when you’re done, aye?” and walked off, almost straight into the wall.

The word crush flashed before his eyes and he almost threw a tantrum at himself right there.

-

Paul and Neil were back, eating something they’d picked up and sitting in front of the TV. John planted himself on the couch next to Paul and helped himself to his friend’s breakfast, bracing himself for a verbal thrashing and raising an inquiring eyebrow when none came. “What, not going to tell me off?” He elbowed him lightly.

“We’re apparently supposed to be there.” Paul nodded towards the TV, where some kids were crying about something or other. Ringo came in and sat down beside Neil, looking longingly at the remains of his bacon.

“What do you mean we’re supposed to be there? It’s our bloody day off.” He gestured to the TV and then the room around them.

“I know, but the man on the telly keeps saying we’re supposed to be there.” Paul finally noticed the missing piece of bacon and gave John a disapproving look.

“Fuck the man on the telly. Fuck this entire mad place, we should leave right now.” John chewed on said bacon, looking pleased with himself.

-

John was starting to get deeply annoyed. Annoyed with the Philippines, annoyed with the hotel staff that was apparently refusing them food, and annoyed with George becoming more and more bloody good looking by the second. Mostly, he was annoyed with himself for thinking so.

Everyone had scattered. Paul and Neil were out for a drive, Brian and Mal were dealing with the promoter, Ringo was napping peacefully and John was staring at the television, intensely let down that his shower and shave hadn’t made him into a new man, only the same man with a smooth face and less body odor.

He’d been planning all day how to get George out of his head. Phase one involved getting out of this god forsaken barmy hellhole. Phase two involved a lot of girls and a lot of nudity. He was getting rather pleased with himself and was half way through phase three (which involved a great deal of thrusting and womanly curves) when George sat down beside him and smiled. He was sharp and angular and masculine and John shot him a mean look, which was ignored.

“Some day off this turned out to be.” George started.

“Yeah. My arse is asleep and I haven’t seen a pair of tits in thirty-six hours.” He cleared his throat and turned back to the TV.

“A real shame.”

“You’re not wrong, mate.” He was trying to figure out a new phase one, something a little more immediate, when George put his arm around John’s shoulders. He looked self assured and a little amused and John’s new phase one flew out the window. “So, you-” He reached out blindly for a new conversation topic, but George was having none of that.

“A real shame, indeed. A man needs a little bit of action on the regular, to keep him sane.” George licked his lips and John felt a shiver of arousal run through him, followed by a shiver of panic. Was George going to kiss him? Was he going to let George kiss him?

The answer was, of course, yes. Lifting a free hand up to secure Johns head in place, George brought his lips to Johns. They explored each others mouths, tentatively at first. The words soft and perfect and bloody finally flashed across the inside of his eyes and he embraced them, before he embraced George entirely, drawing the thinner man as close to him as he could manage.

The door in the next room slammed open and they sprung apart, catching their breath as they waited for whomever it was to enter, eyes locked on each other and hearts thumping dangerously fast. Neil walked in, followed by Paul, followed by a bunch of security that were harping on them for going missing or something. John wiped his lips on the back of his hand, George grinned, and when Paul asked “What?” they both answered simultaneously with, “Nothing!”

-

They had two shows. Two shows too many, if John had anything to say about it. The fans were typical: responsive, loud, and mostly female. They played their songs at the speed of light and escaped the messy dressing room as fast as their means of travel would take them. It was clear from the sheer size of the audience that ticket sales had gone well above what Brian and the promoter had agreed to. Everyone was tired and annoyed, but John could only think about that kiss.

George hadn’t said anything about it, and John was getting increasingly pissed off. He didn’t want to seem like a bird, letting his feelings get hurt over it, but he expected some kind of acknowledgement. He decided it was this wretched place fucking with him. Had he and George kissed somewhere familiar, like back in England, this never would happened. It was a strange logic, but it was all he had.

The night after the second show John decided he would ignore what had happened, as it was the only way for him to get back to sanity. He had a shower, got into a fresh pair of pants, and glowered at himself in the mirror as he brushed his teeth. The bathroom door opened and George let himself in, sliding through an impossibly tiny opening and closing it behind him. He offered a smile in greeting and John merely furrowed his brow and aimed his sullen expression at George, instead.

“Hello.” George continued to smile. John spat out his toothpaste.

“Yeah.” John turned back to the mirror, catching George’s confused expression before looking downward.

“Yeah?” George crossed his arms.

“Yeah.” John affirmed.

“Well, at least we agree on that.” George stepped towards him, still managing a smile, resting a hand on John’s shoulder. John shrugged it off and turned back towards him.

“Did you need something?” He was being snippy. George looked momentarily as hurt and confused as John felt, and a wave of uncharacteristic guilt washed over him before he sighed and added, “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.” He set down his toothbrush and ran his hands through his own hair, tugging on it in frustration he couldn’t quite place.

George reached up and took hold of Johns hands, carefully pulling them out of his hair and resting them on his hips before wrapping his own arms around John’s neck, peppering a trail of kisses along his jaw, murmuring into the shell of John’s ear, “Don’t be sorry, love. I did want something.”

John let out a groan of despair and confusion and arousal when George pressed against him, gyrating his hips slowly. “You like that?” John would have answered him, had he not found George’s tongue in his mouth moments after the question. He wasn’t complaining, though.

He was amazed at how assertive George was. Thrusting his obvious arousal against John’s, hands tangled in his hair, tongue lodging itself firmly down his throat. They moved against each other, John having no real sense of time, George letting out pleased little grunts and groans as they banged into various parts of the bathroom. John’s hip meeting the sink, George’s arse meeting the tub, and the back of John’s shins almost causing him to fall backwards over the toilet.

John grumbled an annoyed, “Bloody hell,” against George’s lips and George laughed softly into his mouth, pulling back far enough to rest his hands on John’s shoulders and urge him down, sitting on the toilet seat. John was confused for about as long as it took for George to slink down to his knees betweens John’s legs, and all he could do was smile wickedly. Assertive indeed.

-

It blew his mind. John had had his fair share of oral sex before (they did spend a great deal of time in the Reeperbahn in years past) but it was somehow different with another man. George certainly wasn’t shy about it, that was for sure. It was all satisfied groans, swirling tongues, and those intense dark eyes looking up at him. He finished with his own fisted hand shoved in his mouth, trying to stifle the moans, and watched with hazy satisfaction as George took it all down, a hand pumping furiously down below to finish himself off, too.

“Oh, Jesus.” John mused, legs splayed open and taking up most of the tiny bathroom. George was slumped down against him, his chin resting on John’s thigh, hugging his leg for stability, eyes closed. John’s mind was blissfully blank, no words flashed across it. He lifted a hand to rest it on the top of George’s head, making sure the other man didn’t fall asleep there.

George lifted a heavy hand and rest it against John’s other leg. “Mmm, I need a shower now. I’ve made a great mess of meself.” He looked up at him with an impish smile, tucking John away into his pants and starting to shuffle his way to his feet.

“That you have. I feel slightly responsible.” John grinned and reached out for George, returning the favor and tucking him away. “I should offer up my services in helping you get clean, as a gentleman and all.”

“I think it’s only fair.” George grinned and pulled him up to his feet, about to lay another kiss on his lips when there was a sharp knock at the door.

It was Neil. “Hey, George, is John in there? Cynthia is on the line looking to speak with him.” John’s eyes went wide as he tried to figure out how Neil was always there to muck up these moments.

They stared at each other a moment before John groused. “I should kill him.” He placed his hands on Georges face and pecked his lips quickly. “I should just bloody kill him.” He adjusted his pants and gave George a grin before letting himself out of the room.

-

Their escape from the Philippines had not been an easy one. They awoke the next morning, packed faster than ever before, and made for the airport. Every time they thought they were finally on their way to freedom, some obstacle got in their way, whether it was carrying their own bags or being hassled by more thugs. The more they tried to push John around, the more irritatingly compliant he became. He kept his hand clamped around George’s wrist the entire time. Just incase.

After a few stolen kisses behind a wall of bemused nuns, losing Brian, Mal and Tony briefly after boarding the plane, and paying their way out of the country, they were in the air. On their way to sweet freedom. Paul complained from a few seats over about the thugs, Neil complained about having not eaten for three days, Mal continued to kiss the floor of the airplane the further they got away. George continued to sleep under his arm, stirring occasionally and resituating himself against him.

John smiled down at him. He couldn’t really complain. He word love flashed before his eyes.

--

Feedback would be much appreciated!

lye @ 2008-03-10T20:16:00

2008-03-11T00:16:59Z

Pairing(s) in the story: George Harrison/John Lennon
Author Name/Pen Name: Lye
Author LJ Name: lye
Title of story: Cold Feet
Rating of story: I would say R, maybe.
Word count of story: 1,500ish
Chapter 1 of 1
Brief summary: Waking up is hard to do.
Notes: This is my first ever fanfiction, so here’s hoping you will be kind. I'm clearly not a writer, but this seems like a fun kind of procrastination. Feedback would be much appreciated. It is unbeated.

George wasn’t sure what woke him up first, the morning sunlight streaming (rather obnoxiously) through the window his hotel bed was facing, or the sound of John humming some unintelligible tune around his toothbrush in adjoining bathroom. The room was cold, despite the sun filling it, and he stretched as best he could under the covers before settling on his side, blankets pulled to his chin, trying to decide if he was willing to start the day just yet. His body made the decision for him, and he was on the threshold of renewed sleep when cold hands snuck under the foot of his blanket and latched themselves onto the tops of his feet, jolting him back to consciousness.

He let out a tired groan of protest and kicked his legs wildly; his only defense in this warm and sleepy state. “Ah, fuck off, John.” He whined into his pillow, curling his legs up close to him and covering his head with the blanket for a moment before realizing essentially blinding himself to his friend was likely a very bad idea. He pulled his blanket down until it was just over his nose and threw John the most put off glare he could muster with so much sleep lodged in his eyes. “I was sleeping you know.” He added, doing his under the covers stretch again and ending up flat on his back.

John offered him a cheeky grin and a waggle of the eyebrows before nodding. “I did know that, actually, but seeing as it’s such a bloody lovely day out I figured you should be awake to enjoy it. Get some sun on that sullen face, some fresh air in your nose, all that gob.” His hands were parked on his hips and George wondered to himself briefly how John could be standing there in just his pants and a T-shirt and not be freezing cold, since the idea of uncovering his own bare arms and legs was, at this point, out of the question. “And Paul and Ring went out shopping without us, so I was bored, you see.”

George let out another annoyed groan, this one with a little less heart in it. Really, he was just doing it for the sake of doing it, as he’d much prefer John think he was more cross than he was. “So you woke me up.” George grumbled, finally deciding to take care of the sleep in his eyes.

“So I woke you up.” John affirmed, in a voice that was entirely too chipper. “And now you’re going to get up.” He announced, shoving his hands back under the covers and making a go for George’s feet again.

George held his own for about thirty seconds, springing into action and burrowing himself in the corner of the bed, sitting up wrapped up in his blanket as best he could manage. John knelt on the bottom corner of the bed and every time the older man made the slightest movement in his direction George kicked a foot out, raising his threatening eyebrow a little bit higher. John raised his own brow in response and the two stared at each other until John, huffing in defeat, flopped down on the bed, shoving the pillow into George’s face and holding it there for a moment before shoving it under his own head and letting out a pitiful sigh, taking up as much room in the single bed as he could manage.

“Fine,” He sighed again, shoving the palms of his hands into his eyes and crossing his feet at the ankle. “But if you don’t come out from your cocoon there, you’ll not see what I’ve got for you, George.” He lowered his left hand from his eye and gauged George’s reaction, which was a difficult feat, considering the bottom half of George’s face was hidden behind the blanket.

“It’s quite something though, I’ll say.” He continued, hoping to earn a little interest. Cupping his hands behind his head, he stared at his band mate, resisting the urge to tame the unruly pile of bed head that seemed to have exploded out the top of him. “But if you’re not interested, I’m sure Brian will be. Or Paul, even. Not old Ringo, though, as he’s a pure sort of type, don’t you think?”

Finally catching on, George let out a quiet chuckle and tucked the blanket under his chin before saying, “Are you sure it’s not something that I can have in the cocoon? It’s terribly nice in here, John.”

John seemed to ponder this for a moment before shaking his head, mustering his most regretful gaze. “Afraid not, son. Y’see, your cocoon isn’t big enough for the both of us and what I’ve got for you… it needs to be hand delivered.” He tugged on the younger mans blanket suggestively, a familiar smirk forming on the sides of his mouth.

“Not by those icy hands, I hope.” George barked out a laugh and began to adjust himself under the mess of blankets, doing his best to remain covered whilst stretching out beside the other man, with John silently offering a helpful hand by straightening out the covers. George lifted an arm, silently inviting him underneath, resting his forearm against John’s neck and tangling his fingers in the hair on the back of his head.

They lay quietly for a few moments, George toying idly with John’s hair while John inched his cold feet towards George’s, his face the picture of innocence as they made contact, earning a quiet yelp and a half hearted dirty look. In a flash the look of feigned innocence transformed into a more devious one, and he lifted his hands up to his mouth, cupping them over his face and exhaling into them. George arched a quizzical brow and continued to comb his fingers through the brown tresses.

The hands disappeared back under the covers and moments later found their way under George’s shirt, rubbing their way up his chest, slowly. “Warm enough now?” He breathed the question, watching George’s face with interest as his thumbs ghosted over the smaller mans nipples, pressing his hips against him.

George responded with a soft moan, eyelids falling shut, and shifted before pressing himself against John more firmly, guiding his face towards him with the hand he’d placed on the back of his head. John resisted the kiss long enough for George to open his eyes, and then he caught his lips in a sweet kiss. The kiss was a languid display, tongues sliding and lips pressing as John snaked his arms around the younger man, hands rubbing and resting on his lower back, holding George firmly in place as he ground himself against him with increased excitement.

John ended the kiss, pressing his forehead against George’s and watching his face as he wedged his leg between the smaller mans, pressing it against him and grinning wickedly when he heard George’s moan, feeling the solid hardness against him. “Up now, yeah?” He teased, rolling George onto his back and pressing his lips against the exposed neck. “Let’s see to this.” John muttered against the skin, grabbing hold of George’s shirt and lifting it up and off, smiling in triumph when George shivered and writhed beneath him, pressing himself against John’s leg and giving him a look that distinctly implied he should hurry up and actually do something.

John silently vowed that he would make George more talkative during these sessions of theirs in the future, get him begging for it, while George silently vowed that if John kept taking his sweet time he would do something rather terrible that he couldn’t quite think of at the moment. They locked eyes briefly, each letting out a quiet laugh for his own reason and George reached up and pulled John down, crushing their lips together and lifting his hips off the bed in a silent plea for attention.

John gave it to him instantly, pushing his hand down the front of George’s pants and taking hold of him, feeling himself twitch in approval as George let out a deep moan and tilted his head back into the mattress, exposing his neck. He increased the pace of his pumping hand, experimentally rubbing his thumb over the leaking head and pressing his face into George’s neck, inhaling the familiar smell and nibbling his ear. George in turn ground the heels of his feet into the bed and lifted his hips to meet his friend’s hand, letting out a strangled moan as he found his release into John’s hand.

John rolled away from his friend, picking up George’s discarded T-shirt and wiping his hand on it before rolling back into place, nuzzling the dark hair fondly and wrapping his arms around him as the younger man caught his breath. Combing his fingers through the dark fringe, he pressed his own hardness against the boney hip, hoping to get the message across that he needed some attention as soon as possible without actually saying so. George merely let out a contented sigh.

“Not cold anymore, I bet.” John chuckled, lips pressed against the bed head. George let out a happy hum of agreement, lifting a hand to rest on John’s elbow, fondly rubbing his thumb over it. “Still mad I woke you?” He lifted one leg over George’s slim hips and moved against him.

“Livid.” A gust of George’s silent laughter danced across John’s face and he moaned as a warm hand snaked its way into his pants.