Chapter Text
It’s been a week since that day they went to the coffee shop– which could honestly not mean anything less because every day plays out practically the same; a blurring heap that Jonny feels like might genuinely just be one, very long day.
He wakes up at around 10 A.M.. Dark mousy hair scattering about as he blindly reaches for the alarm clock… why he still sets an alarm when there isn’t anything happening in the day to wake up for with necessity, he doesn’t know. He’d probably say that he loves routine: ‘it’ll help your nervous system, I read!” he enthuses to a groggy, shaken Thom, who couldn’t care less for the daily routine of a ding ding ding to start his morning. No, instead Thom prefers to be woken up physically by Jonny at 11:30, noon… 1:30… maybe even again at 3 in the afternoon. Jonny also might say, rather in the back of his mind than aloud, that he enjoys the time when he knows Thom is just asleep, curled so preciously into a tiny ball –maybe like a ginger cat– that Jonny can leave to go do other things. Writing melodies or musing over Thom’s chicken scratch of new ideas for songs that he wouldn’t let Jonny look at when he’s awake. He used to. He used to ask for the younger boy’s every opinion, but now he would rather throw it all away than let the boy see it. Good thing for Jonny, though, Thom never takes out the trash. Today, whatever day it might be; a Tuesday, Jonny presumes, he stares at a new sheet of paper as he stands in their make-shift music room. When they got the ground floor flat, they decided the best place to put all their instruments was into one basement bedroom, farthest away from disrupting any edgy neighbors. Though, since Thom loves to live adjacent to a hobbit, he got the other basement bedroom, leaving Jonny with the one upstairs… which he really didn’t mind, he liked waking up to sunshine. The sheet of paper he holds is slightly wrinkled, as if the frustrated red-head had crumpled it, only to flatten it out and continue to write on it again. The front of the paper had penned-on drawings– disoriented stickmen dancing around the bottom half, all different shapes and unhuman-like positions, some honestly a little funny- making Jonny laugh softly at the obscurity. A little house on a hill, so simple it looks like a grade-school child’s doodle. And finally random… monsters?... interesting figures floating about on the top of the paper, the sky of the strange little project. He flipped the paper over, “ah lyrics!” he whispered as if Thom was right there and he had to be secretive as to not get caught. He read the words hastily written,
Don’t get any big ideas
They’re not going to happen
You found it now It’s gone
You feel it now you don’t
You’ll go to hell
Hell hell….
He scanned the words, trying to read through them as if they were a doorway to pry open the mind to the one who wrote them. He felt a little cold suddenly, nervous at what the lyrics could be about, or rather who. You… he wondered, You, who? The sound of the question in his brain snaps him out of his thoughts. He lightly sets the paper exactly how he found it, padding out of the quiet room.
Usually, after spending some time in their little music cellar, the man makes his way back upstairs- changing, washing up, and getting ready for the day, all being very mindful of the sleepy-time-Thom below. He prepares the kitchen for breakfast, not fully committing to making it just yet, because he doesn’t think Thom’s gonna wake up, but he goes and tries. He shuffles down the dark hallway and creaks open the wooden door. Most days he stands there for a while, watching the other boy sleep. He’s so lovely, Jonny’s heart filling with a warm ache. And he really was lovely. His auburn hair, so delicately spiked, fluffy from hours of sleepily tossing and turning. His black duvet is pulled up to his ears, dipping slowly to reveal his face. Jonny smiles looking at him. Thom’s lips are pouted, eyes tightly closed shut, a faint blush flushing across his cheeks from the warmth of the room. The brunette boy goes over and presses a soft kiss to the sleeping boy’s forehead, getting down on his knees to sit close and study his sweet face. He taps his finger on the boy’s hand, which is curled into a loose fist by his face.
“Thom Thom” He whispers, just loud enough to wake the boy up without startling him. Thom stirs, waking out of his dreamlike trance. Jonny utters his name one more time before he finally opens his eyes, an immediate grimace finding his puffy face. Jonny counters Thom’s grumpy face with a tender smile. “Good morning, I have breakfast ready to be started soon.”
Thom huffs, some unintelligible mumble leaving his mouth. After years of practice, Jonny knows to translate that to ‘Go away, I want to sleep more.’
Usually after 3 times of leaving him be, cleaning up the house, waking up Thom, leaving him be, running errands, waking up Thom, leaving… Thom grumpily gets up finally. Jonny always makes breakfast while Thom takes his time to come to consciousness, always trying to get Thom to eat. Neither of them are really known to be foodies, really, but Jonny still tries to make breakfast and dinner every day in hopes that Thom will eat one of them– I mean you gotta get hungry sometime in the day, right? The older boy never finds his way upstairs himself usually; the younger boy, feeling like a mother to a distractible child, walks down the stairs, following the sound of mindless, quiet strums of guitar to remind said child “It’s time to eat”
He pulls Thom up the stairs, “I’m not hungry, Jonny”
He seats Thom down at the barstool at their kitchen island (who needs a table), “Thom, you said that yesterday too.”
He sets the plate he carefully curated in front of Thom, “And I’ll keep saying it because it’s true.”
“You have to eat. I don’t like seeing you get all frail like this.”
“I don’t have the appetite, do you not understand?” He sighs and walks off, back down the stairs to his guitar, faint strumming starting again.
But Jonny does understand. He sits himself down, slightly defeated. Staring down at the room temperature pancakes, a disoriented face made of strawberries staring back at him. He pushes the plate away, he’s lost his appetite too.