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It was one of those escapes that wasn't thought out beforehand. More of a heist, really.
Thom retreated to that big house by the sea with only the essentials: his journals, various tape recorders and equipment, and Jonny. He wasn't sure when his world seemed to narrow down to only those three things, past friends and family and his fucking girlfriend, but it had. Perhaps it had always been that way.
He seemed to be trapped in a cycle; get caught up in the life he was leading, fail to notice that he was running towards the edge of a cliff, then go right off the edge, plummeting into the freezing water below, before dragging himself back out and starting over.
It was important to him that he got away, just for a bit. Maybe he could pretend that the four walls of the house and the things it contained were all that was there, that the last two years of his life hadn't happened, that his soul was still intact and hadn't been slowly eroded like the rocky cliffs not too far from his front door.
"I think there's a ghost here, you know."
Jonny gave an amused sigh, glancing over at Thom from where he was sitting next to him on the plush sofa. A lit fireplace sat opposite them, and the warm flickering light illuminated the harsh angles of Jonny’s face, making them shift and stutter like an optical illusion.
"Oh, yeah? What makes you say that?"
"I dunno, I just… feel it," Thom shrugged. "It's an old house- there could be." He thinks back to the echoing rooms in the mansion where they recorded Ok Computer. That phase of his life sprawled out behind him, landmarked by unfamiliar voices in his head, shadows in the corner of his vision and a penknife held in shaking hands.
"Well, if I see anyone walk past me with a white sheet over their head, I'll be sure to let you know," Jonny replied dryly, turning back to the book in his hand.
A small smile graced the corner of Thom's mouth for the first time in a long time. "For someone as creative as you, Jon-Jon, you're awfully sceptical."
"Forgive me for not immediately assuming everything that goes bump in the night is a vengeful spirit." Jonny relaxes on the sofa, his muscles loosening from the whiskey they were both nursing. A freezing bitter wind outside stops, then picks up again, a reassuring constant. If Thom closes his eyes, he can picture the house being ripped off the ground, spinning away into the sky like in The Wizard Of Oz.
"Surely you must've believed in some of it as a child? Fairies?"
Jonny grinned, a rare undiluted sight that wasn't hidden away behind the back of his hand. "Ha! No, I shouldn't think so."
"Vampires? Werewolves?"
"Definitely not," Jonny replied primly.
"Well, what about the more realistic stuff? True love's kiss. Soulmates, that kind of thing."
An exasperated look graced Jonny's face as he took another sip of his drink, trying not to wince as the liquid burned down his throat. For a brief moment, Thom saw a glimpse of fourteen year old Jonny, the boy who could barely get past his shyness to talk to Thom and had trouble getting through a single beer. The memory made something warm unfurl in his chest that he chose to blame on the alcohol.
"More realistic stuff? I wasn't aware you were in the habit of waking sleeping princesses in glass coffins, Thom." He sets his book aside. "No, I don't believe in that either. I think we choose our paths- I don't like the idea of a predetermined destiny."
Thom frowned, eyebrows scrunching together. "Isn't the idea of having someone out there who's perfect for you sort of comforting, though?"
When moving schools as a small child, on the occasions he felt especially alone, he liked to fantasise about what his future spouse was doing out there in the world. Were they lonely, like him? Did they know the same dull ache that he was already familiar with? Maybe they could make each other's aches go away. Wasn't that what grown ups did?
Thom didn't know then, and he sure as fuck doesn't know now.
He snapped back to the present as Jonny scoffed. "That's bollocks. No one is completely perfect for anyone, anyways."
"The ancient Greeks beg to differ. There's a myth where all humans were born conjoined to their soulmate before Zeus split them in half because they were too powerful," Thom rested his cheek against the back of the sofa, turning his body towards Jonny. "Those poor sods spent the rest of their lives trying to find their other half- the person who would make them whole again."
The two of them were far closer together than Thom could recall them being earlier; a voice in his head says he should really move back a little, but it sounds far away, as if underwater. Like the thought was thrown into the sea with a weight strapped to it, banished to the ocean floor with the rest of the things Thom's always been too afraid to confront.
Jonny was looking up at him intently from where he was slumped on the sofa, and Thom could see the warm brown colour of Jonny's eyes, wide and holding the sharp light from the fire. That was another thing Jonny had in common with his fourteen year old self; he'd always looked at Thom like he'd hung the moon. He could see younger Jonny and the Jonny in front of him merge, overlapping into each other, the last fifteen years converging in on itself.
Frowning, Jonny said, "But surely you can see what a miserable existence that must be? Knowing you're never complete on your own, that you're only half of a whole- always reliant on the other person?"
Thom scoffed a dry, bitter sound. "Sounds like us."
That was apparently the wrong thing to say, as Jonny stilled.
"You think that's us?"
Suddenly very aware of Jonny's focused stare, Thom mumbled, "Well, I dunno. I mean- sort of, yeah," He broke eye contact. Jonny's gaze always had a way of stripping him bare, shining light on the parts of himself he tried so desperately to hide.
Thom continued, "We tend to function like a unit, don't we? I write the lyrics and sing the songs, you pull the rest of it together and complete me," Thom cleared his throat, "Uh, complete the songs, I mean. We know what the other is thinking without it having to be said, and I know that when I need you, you'll be there. That doesn't sound like a miserable existence. Not to me, at least."
A silence filled the room, broken up only by the sound of rain hitting the windows.
Jonny's lips were pressed against his before he could process it.
His mouth was soft and warm, yet had the bitter taste of whisky coating it. An alarm bell went off in the back of Thom's mind, and he got the feeling that this was a Very Bad Idea, but he didn't stop. Couldn't stop. As he returned the kiss and weaved a hand through silky dark hair all he could think of was how nice it was to be warm again, as if the harsh, cold water and the salt air of the cornish coast had rusted a vitally important part of him, and he didn't realise it hadn't been working until now.
His hands went to Jonny's waist like they belonged there, and he pulled the younger man onto his lap. Was this what it felt like when the people in the myths were finally reunited with their other half? Did they look at the arms and legs of the other person and feel phantom sensations, in the same way that Thom felt an integral part of him had just slotted into place whether he wanted it to or not?
He felt Jonny's smooth, lithe hands slide under his shirt, as the other man broke the kiss to softly ask, "Is this alright?"
No, Thom wanted to say. I don't think I'll ever be alright again after this, because I know once we both finish, I'll have to experience being cut in half again. Severed. Two parts of a whole.
Breathless, he replied, "Yeah, Jon-Jon, it's alright."
He could feel himself falling off the cliff again, back into the water.