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