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Thom/Beck - Part 2	By : VinylTap Category: Singers/Bands/Musicians > Radiohead Views: 1973 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not know Beck or any of the members of Radiohead, Sonic Youth, or REM. This story is a work of fiction, and I make no money or profit from it.

Chapter List
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(Continued from the story Thom/Beck; this part takes place in 1995)
Sonic Youth did very bad things to guitars. It would make you cringe, but it also would make you trip out, because something between morbid curiosity and reverence would have you suspended, and you were overcome with badass before you ever meant to be. They had this whole menagerie they’d haul along of the mutilated outcomes of what they’d done to instruments, and there was all this mutilated sound that came out after that.
Freaking Kim Gordon who was built of pure awesome, and her husband, Thurston Moore, freakishly tall, both shouting and screaming on stage like no one was watching. They were your friends from next door in New York, they were both chill as fuck, you’d almost go hang out with them till you remembered they were this big band.
You’d wanna ask them what they had against guitars, but you somehow liked how it sounded when they screwed them all up that way.
They and the rest of the band didn’t cry about touring anymore at their age, Kim at forty-two and Thurston at thirty-seven, both looking a lot more like twenty-five. Michael Stipe didn’t cry about touring now, either, he might cry about other stuff, so don’t get too concerned about that. Either way, if you got to see that tour, with REM and Sonic Youth together, you were pretty stoked— which was why it was so mental that REM chose Radiohead after that.
That’s what Thom thought, anyway. Why the hell us was at the tip of his tongue, but he didn’t dare say it, he fidgeted dumbly in place and rocked in his seat, rubbing one hand through his hair, then two, like it was better to get it messier that way.
Don’t say anything to make him take it back, Thom thought, painfully aware of this daft idol worship, Stipey was curiously gentle in a way Thom didn’t expect. He’d expected older and experienced and used to the routine, like this would be nothing, and Thom would be no one— and that Thom could take it or leave it, but it would be of little significance to the great REM.
Stipey didn’t fidget the way Thom had, but looked quietly down at his wrists, softly meeting Thom’s gaze now and then when they spoke, like Thom wasn’t wholly overwhelmed by his presence.
Thom didn’t tell him about how much he’d hated touring, he didn’t ask whether Stipey had heard all he’d said to Greaves on the line, because he was certain he had; he wasn’t certain if he and the rest could sustain an extension of their tour, but here was something beyond his control to turn down. His eyes shot briefly to the cheesecake, for a transient moment, he actually wondered if he could help himself to just the littlest slice—
But he’d said nothing of it and put the thought out of mind; out the corner of his eye, Stipey had momentarily gazed at it, too.
Through the course of the hour, they’d relaxed slowly to timid conversation, both tentatively mindful, neither wanting the other to slip away. Thom had been boyish, dreaming, he shyly caught glances of Michael’s hand, of his arm, the way the bony forearm gave way to his wrist, the light hair on his skin; he’d lose every other word Michael said, still too stunned to acknowledge all this was real.
This is dumb, he inwardly scolded himself, I’m agreeing with everything the guy says. But it couldn’t be helped; everything Michael said just happened to be something Thom wanted. They slowly dared closer deliberation, passing forms across the desk, Thom going up on his knees on the chair so he could lean over the table to read. Michael quietly pointing out statements and blanks to fill on the forms, clearing his throat, looking up coyly to see whether Thom understood.
He’d never actually seen Radiohead live. He’d wondered whether he should admit this.
Either way, it wasn’t like Thom to be so reserved, but he tended to act on whatever emotion had filled him, like he wasn’t capable of really appearing as what he was not.
They’d got to bashfully talking, about how their tours had been, and recording, Thom told Stipey a bit about recording The Bends— but there was so much to tell, and Thom didn’t know how to convey everything. So many interviewers had asked him about it already he’d wondered if the mechanical responses he’d all but memorized by now really described how it was.
Neither had said so aloud, but both felt it with almost juvenile anticipation: let’s do this together already, this mutual tour— like they couldn’t wait till July.
The fact remained that, at the meeting’s conclusion, the cake on the desk stayed completely untouched.
--
Someone had told Leigh at work, I don’t want to see you give up your goal just yet; by that point, though, she wasn’t certain in whom to trust, but the empathy of it was touching. She wasn’t certain what she was meant to change; she told no one about the work she did at home for Beck’s set in July. She’d got sick of looking at her own sketches and ideas, but she forced herself through, because she had to go back and look at them. All around, it had become common knowledge and a thing of entertainment to others, how bad she’d screwed up, you walked into a room and you knew everyone already had formed an opinion about you, and had waited with quiet anticipation to see what you’d screw up next.
The workplace was a lot like kindergarten sometimes.
Then folks loved to tell you, but what do you care what other people think, except that it altered the entire environment around you, and everyone’s treatment of you had altered with that.
But I want to do this, she told herself, because this really is my passion. It’s just the social aspect that sucks.
But I want to do this, Beck told himself, because this is what I like. Even when others gazed with vast concern, dangerously filled with compassion for the grave this dude clearly didn’t see he was digging for himself.
Someone sat him down with visible determination not to let emotion get involved, because it was for the best, cause this was tough love— and told Beck he couldn’t afford to inflict something like Novacane and especially High 5 on the listening public; and Beck had heard it so many times before about so many of his songs that he thought he’d learned to block it out— but it always did hurt. He’d spent three weeks with the Dust Brothers just on all the sampling that went into High 5.
Channing would love to tell Beck his songs all sucked, as well, except he couldn’t very well mean it; he thought everything Beck made was awesome. He couldn’t really tell him that, either, so he settled on telling Beck he was stupid, which seemed pretty good at the time.
“You’re stupid,” Beck replied, but Channing had listened to him about flying to Germany, and now he was gonna go. It made Beck inexplicably jealous, even though it'd been his idea in the first place, he said, “Good, you should go,” though he possessively wanted time with their grandfather to himself.
“Good, cause I am.”
“Yeah, good, you do that.”
“I am.”
“Go already.”
“I’m going.”
“Yeah, go.”
Beck found himself wishing for once he wasn’t tied up with obligations; Chan taking off had really got him thinking about seeing Al, and he was distracted from working at the studio that afternoon. He showed up at Leigh’s like a wet, homeless dog, she gave him a bath and complained about how he’d ruined his hair, in a way that was really affection.
“I didn’t ruin my hair, how did I ruin my hair,” he muttered, and she gently batted his hand down from where he was reaching to fix it.
“You’re not scrunching,” she said, “it’s too flat.”
“I’m scrunching,” Beck said, but she batted his hand away again, “not now, now I’m washing you.”
He asked her about work, but she was deliberately quiet about it; it was too humiliating to go into detail. She said it was fine, and he understood, and he wanted to tell her she’ll really do well, but he knew how it felt to be told that you won’t. He didn’t tell her everyone thought his record would suck, either, cause none of that was new; either way, she could tell he was down.
“What’s wrong, punkass,” she asked, making him hold his head back so she could shampoo him, he closed his eyes and squinted, he told her about how Channing could go and he couldn’t. It was juvenile, really— he didn’t want to go as bad until it became how come he gets to go and I don’t. “You can go after the festival, can’t you?” Leigh asked, now running the showerhead over his hair.
“I guess, but that’s not until the end of August.”
“That’s cool, go in August, he’ll understand.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
Her hands were maternal in his hair, determined and tender, confident where she didn’t suspect she might be doing something wrong. Beneath her bent legs, the carpet was damp with bath water, just barely enough room to sit down; she wanted to cheer him up. She told him about the work she’d recently done for his wardrobe, and it did make him happy— when he asked to see, she timidly smiled and murmured not yet with an inadvertent note of pride. She said, let’s go get Subway, and Beck grinned, because he’d gotten his ten stamps there, and now he was gonna get his free six-inch sub and bag of chips.
(On to Chapter 2)
A/N: This story is a work of fiction. It is based on much I know to be true; much I suspect to be true; a whole bunch of fantasy; and speculation somewhere in-between. It goes, I believe, without saying, that it is written all along the way with love.
A/N: This work does not reflect the author's personal views on Scientology. It does not intend to pry, criticize, or hurt, and means utmost respect to all real people involved and implied. I believe fan fiction is a means for writers to resolve and indulge in fantasies harmlessly, and this essentially is the purpose behind stories like this.
A/N: The mods have added the F/M tag to this story, but there are not and will not be any females in sexually graphic situations. This is intended largely as a homoerotic M/M story, though the significance of existing heterosexual relationships could not be neglected and they have been included for the sake of realism. In these cases, the relationship aspect has been emphasized as well as the humanism behind female characters, including their normal sexual urges. They have not been involved in graphic sexual situations here beyond very light implication, and the explicitly erotic parts of the story remain uniquely M/M.
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Thom/Beck - Part 2