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Thom/Beck	By : VinylTap Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Radiohead Views: 2950 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not know Beck or any of the members of Radiohead. This story is a work of fiction, and I make no money or profit from it.

Chapter List
- 6
- 7
- 8
Jonny had wanted to meet Beck. There wasn’t much remarkable about him, really, as far as he could tell— he looked more or less like everyone else did nowadays: long, straight hair parted at the center, torn jeans, flannel. Acoustic guitar. Also, Beck looked like he definitely wasn’t old enough to be snogging Thom, and Jonny wondered if he wasn’t mistaken. It was irritating, because Jonny had always felt he’d been too young to ever fit into Colin’s group of friends, but there was no way the third act was over twenty at all— Beck looked about sixteen.
He looked like he should be at school, and not hanging out backstage, tuning his guitar.
Beck, himself, was still somewhat overwhelmed with all that happened the night before. He wasn’t sore the way you always hear about in jokes, where they say the guy wasn’t able to sit down the next day. His legs dangled over the edge of an incline, jeans torn at the knee, one shoe partway to untied, in his mind he was making fun of himself. It’s what musicians do, isn’t it, that’s what you always hear, and considering the exhausting schedule of recording and touring that left you completely deflated, a night spent experimenting with some English musician would be the least of your worries.
Could’ve been heroin or something. Could’ve been coke; all they had was sex. It was a stupid thing to wonder, but he wondered anyway if anyone could tell just by looking. Out the corner of his eye, he saw Jonny approach, then change his mind, pivot, angle toward the place where they kept the power cables as though he’d been meaning to go there all along— then act like he was really interested in the cables there.
Hands still on his guitar, Beck snorted to himself, brow furrowed. It was almost painfully awkward, watching Jonny there, because you could tell he was helpless, he couldn’t just casually walk back. Beck could’ve written the book on being awkward, but he wrote a song about being a loser, instead. But it was what everyone was preoccupied with, Kurt and Eddie were on about it, too.
Beck was emotionally preparing himself for the moment that may or may not come, when this dude who was obviously from Thom’s band would confront him way too directly about how he had sex with Thom. Which obviously this other dude shouldn’t know anything about, but why else would he be hanging around him all weirdly like that?
Look, it was a drunk thing, it was an after-show thing, not like it was that big a deal, why are you even asking me?
But Jonny hadn’t asked him.
It became disquieting, to the point where Beck would rather they’d exchanged some kind of conversation, because the air had gone too thick with tension that may not even have been there, but might have, and not knowing was aggravating, too. Which made things even worse when Beck finally made eye contact, deliberately, only for Jonny to immediately look away and then make a beeline out of the room.
Beck felt compelled to drop his guitar and rise to his feet, then call something after him about how it’s not his fault that he and Thom had sex.
This is stupid. He wouldn’t even know. You’re just being an idiot. Not like it’s anyone’s business, anyway.
Jonny felt infinitely safer when back in the company of the rest of the band, when they were practicing for the show that night. He was able to hide behind the swing of his hair, bent over his tele, he looked cool like that. He cringed when he thought back to when he almost spoke with Beck, it was very embarrassing, he should never have tried; he wanted to ask Thom if that guy wasn’t a bit young, but there was no way to do that without looking like he cared.
Either way, Jonny liked when he played with the band. He thought he could remember down to the very detail the times Thom had smiled at him, complimented him, challenged him to play something harder, laughed when Jonny kept up. Gazed up as to say not bad when Jonny surpassed him. He’d hoped so much it would mean they had some kind of mutual bond, but even when Colin had missed practice altogether, Thom seemed to get on much better with him after the fact.
Nigel was on about working with them for their next record. Thom had joked about whether Nigel wasn’t sick of their songs by then, because, frankly, Thom already felt sick of them, himself— but Nigel had said he was serious, even if he was partly wrestling with Thom at the time.
Jonny watched how naturally they had joked around, he also wanted to be like that with Thom. But he’d never pull it off. He was far too self-conscious, Thom would say he was weird.
Those days, Radiohead didn’t have roadies. They carried their own stuff on stage before shows, and they used to carry stuff up for the Beta Band before that. If Colin knew what Jonny had wondered, he might have humored him with stories of what Thom and Steve Mason had got up to before Thom met Rachel—except it didn’t seem like it would do Jonny good to know.
Jonny had been on his way to carry in a couple of amps for their practice session when he noticed the third act some distance away, completely taking apart what looked like a vintage turntable. He was totally into it. You could tell that here was labor of love, whatever the hell he was trying to do. Jonny felt caught between a smile and a scream, because taking apart something like that seemed somehow criminal, like digging up sacrosanct ground.
He stopped in place, aware suddenly of the weight of the amps— and put them down very slowly, already blushing because he could be easily caught staring now, and he had no idea how he would handle it if he was. But he had a lot of questions.
It wasn’t that he’d meant to be rude so much as that he didn’t really know how to approach it in way that was more tactful or polite. His first words to Beck had been about whether he was aware what a travesty it was to completely destroy a Marantz 6100. Beck looked up very slowly from under his hair, long fingers still in the device.
When Thom and Nigel found them a half hour later, they were deeply engaged in conversation, neither looking up, both tinkering together with a million tiny parts. It was safe to assume the subject of what Beck had done with Thom never came up.
Thom remained still, regarding them curiously, one hand scratching his head. “I didn’t know those two were acquainted,” he murmured, and Nigel looked on while trying to decide on the best joke to make about last night.
Jonny’s opinion of Beck had improved dramatically. He was willing to forgive him what he’d done to the Marantz, because Beck let him work on it, too, and appeared very interested in what Jonny knew about it and vintage equipment on the whole. Turned out they were exactly the same age, so there was no reason they couldn’t hang out. Thom had meant to make some comment on how Jonny never got them those amps and they’re supposed to be practicing, but he didn’t want to intrude on whatever was going on— they seemed to be playing together so nicely.
It was a relief to Beck, really; this was way more chill than how he'd felt this morning.
“Right,” Thom said to the others when he returned to them quietly, he and Nigel carrying the amps in, “Don’t say anything to Jonny when he gets back. No teasing, no jokes…”
“No jokes about what?” Colin looked up suspiciously from over his bass.
“Apparently Jonny’s best mates with the third act now,” Nigel smirked, and Phil raised his eyebrows, already grinning. “The third act Thom's been snogging last night?”
“Yeah, the third act I’ve been snogging last night,” Thom replied, fighting too obviously to hide a smile as he plugged his amp in, unwinding the cables.
“More than snogged, obviously,” Colin murmured while coming to help him arrange the amps in place, “Anyway, what’s he doing talking with Jonny?”
“Fucked if I know,” there came the reply, “they’re…” he stopped in order to consider, then turned to Nigel curiously. “What the hell were they doing?”
“Building something, looked like.”
“Well, he getting back here?” Ed asked, “We need to practice.”
“Couldn’t be arsed to interrupt,” Thom said, now cross-legged on the floor and tuning his guitar. “We can go a few runs without him, if he’s not back in, say…a half hour…we should probably go get him.”
Jonny was aware he was supposed to go back, but he didn’t really fancy it. He loved vintage equipment, he could talk about this stuff for hours, and Beck was all ears. Beck loved anything mechanical. He loved taking things apart. He loved learning about the history of things, his eyes glittered with life as he relayed animatedly to Jonny how his friend Justin had all this crazy shit, like this 48-channel Yamaha production console like this, he demonstrated the dimensions with his hands, like he could never properly convey to Jonny how whack that shit was.
Everyone had things they couldn’t talk about. Not everyone knew what it was to have to keep a major part of your life to yourself, though, and how profoundly you had wanted to be rid of that burden. TV and books and general popular opinion would tell you you can’t keep stuff inside, but anyone who’s been through it would know better. Yeah, you could tell. But everything came at a price, and the question remained as to whether you could afford to endure your life crumbling after the fact. At the age of 24, you might still not know what that was, but Beck knew enough not to talk about it.
His love for music had been genuine. His love for people had been, too— at the end of the day, he was human, after all, and there’s only so much you can endure. Jonny had also only been 24, and innocent emotionally in many regards— but he could see, as well, that whoever this bloke was, and whatever he had done with Thom, here was genuine passion for instruments, for music, for art—
—the way Beck’s eyes lit up when he talked, you couldn’t fake something like that.
When finally Colin had come to claim his little brother back, Jonny rose to his full height with a timid smile, apologizing shyly about having to leave, and Beck was taken a little off guard.
“Right, yeah, thanks for the help—” he said, waving, grinning at both Jonny and Colin.
“You’ve made a friend,” he could hear Colin say to his brother, and Jonny laughed, leaning toward Coz as they walked. Beck could tell by the way he was gesturing that he was telling Colin about the turntable.
(On to chapter 8)
- 6
- 7
- 8
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Thom/Beck