Chapter Text
October 2, 2025
Four days after the last show at Wembley and Noel was starting to even out a little bit. He was on self-imposed lockdown for the first week of their month-long break before the next leg of the tour started up in South Korea. Even the two weeks he’d had off between the North American leg and the final two Wembley shows had been filled with business … shit that he wasn’t able to take care of at home while on the road. And the tour itself, which was jam-packed with … people. Friends and partners and kids and exes and Paul bleeding McCartney taking pictures of the stage like a fanboy—Noel had been texted the photo approximately five thousand times it felt like and he still wasn’t close to processing that yet. Fucking Macca, old geezer up on his feet snapping piccies while all those lazy cunts sat on their arses in their luxury boxes.
The gigs had been mind-blowingly good. To be embraced that way … particularly in the States … he hated to admit that it was healing a private wound that he’d kept hidden for decades.
And they did it together, he and our kid. And of course, Bonehead, Gem, Andy, and Joey, and the considerable army of people behind the scenes who made all the logistics happen. Made the travel arrangements and hotel bookings and built up and tore down their travelling circus night in and night out.
Kept the Gallagher brothers out of their own way. It was simply the best way to ensure a successful tour while he and Liam tried to get their feet underneath them as brothers again.
Brothers. We was never normal as brothers, like. Not even sure now what we’re heading for now, but it’s just been good to see the lad again. Smile at each other now and again.
If he kept telling himself that, he just might believe it. Ignoring the old electricity and heat that still existed between them. When Liam put his hands on Noel on stage; like the old days, but also different. Better. He wasn’t trying to sabotage Noel, which he often did back in the day when they went on stage already furious with each other.
Noel sipped his tea and thought, We fuckin’ did it this time, yeah. Ain’t over yet, but we covered half of the world, man. Half the fuckin’ world.
Suddenly he heard a sound of swelling trumpets coming from his phone; a sound of dread that made his heart leap. The fuck … when did it start doing that when I get a text? He picked it up and saw the preview text before he swiped his thumb up to unlock his phone. Liam.
We did it chief
(Christ, he’s reading my mind.)
We did.
We need to celebrate man
Aren’t you knackered? I know I am.
Oh come on I gave you 4 days to kip before txting I bet you’re bored already
Am not Noel typed, then deleted. He tried again. Too interesting to be bored … He deleted that too, getting annoyed because he knew Liam was watching the three dots on his phone, indicating that Noel was typing and he was taking too long to respond.
Sure enough, his brother beat him to the punch.
UR BORED MAN ADMIT IT
Still can’t sit still for five fucking minutes?
Let’s have a slumber party
What?
Lemme come over man
Noel’s brow furrowed even as he felt a spark of … something … flutter in his groin.
What for?
For whatever. Wanna see ya
Noel chewed his lower lip.
Think that’s a good idea?
All my ideas are fucking sound man
Fuck off
You miss seeing my face every night ADMIT IT
I refer you to my previous text
Ill keep texting ya and torture you with the evil trumpets man
Fuck Liam, that was you?
Was our Anais. I told her to nick your phone and change it to something deadly for when I ping ya
Fucking hell
WHEN I PING YA
How’d she even get into my phone … Oh, there was no point in pondering that. The kids … they knew more about shit to do with their bloody phones than Noel even knew about the Beatles. And the kids already gave him a hard time about his supposedly too-easy passwords. Always some combination of their birthdays and important Beatles dates. But bloody hell, it seemed like you needed to create an account and a password just to check the fuckin’ weather report now. How was anyone supposed to keep all of that straight?
“People are gonna steal your data, Dad!”
“My ‘data’? They’re welcome to it, kid. I won’t even miss it, me.”
Blowing out a breath through his nose, he typed, If I say yes will you stop saying ping ya? Stop texting me altogether?
Aye
Fine then. Want me to send a car?
I can send for my own car man. I’m flush like I just sang for half the world and everyone emptied their pockets to come and listen
All right moneybags
Just gotta get my sleeping bag and nite lite
Get to fuck
C U SOON
Noel rolled his eyes and put the phone down. It spoke to Liam’s eternally childish nature that he thought the iPhone was the greatest invention since football and Wotsits. Loved texting instead of talking on the phone, stupid emojis (he wasn’t sure if he’d received more poop and vomit emojis from Liam or from both of his boys combined), and of course … Twitter. Fucking Twitter. Or X or whatever the fuck that Musk twat renamed it. He let his people take care of that shite for him.
He stood up with a sigh and looked down at himself, deciding what he had on was fine. No food spilled on his jumper or nowt. He opened the fridge and peered inside, not sure what Liam may or may not want, but his housekeeper had made sure everything was well stocked before he came home for the month.
He thought about having a drink, then decided against it. Via text it was hard to tell sober Liam from drunk Liam—autocorrect fixed the most egregious of his spelling errors, capitalized the first words of sentences, but deep down he knew that Liam would know better than to get pissed and turn up at his place.
He hoped. Wasn’t really in the mood for any of that.
Liam had promised to stay sober for the tour, but of course he was free to do whatever he pleased during the four-week break before the machine started up again. Hell, Noel had gotten sozzled after Wembley because, well, fuck, he’d well earned it, hadn’t he? He’d half expected Liam to join the festivities, but he begged off, heading home with Debbie to feed the dog.
So this sudden request for a visit—at this time of night? It wasn’t exactly the middle of the night, but it was not far from the bedtime he’d done his best to observe on tour in order to keep his strength up for the long shows and demanding schedule.
The doorbell rang about forty minutes later and Noel opened the door to a grinning Liam holding a toothbrush. Noel shook his head with a chuckle and a sigh, letting his brother in and closing the door before turning to see Liam with his arms held open in the same kind of request for an embrace as he’d been doing on stage practically every night.
Welcoming him home.
He hadn’t expected that. Any of that. They hadn’t really talked about it when it came down to how they’d start each show. They agreed that they should always come out on stage together, at the same time, side by side. If they came out from opposite sides it would give ammunition to the naysayers who said they were just doing it for the dosh and in reality they still despised each other.
But other than that, they hadn’t discussed or made any kind of plan. It seemed trivial when they were facing what would have to happen when they took their places on stage. When they had to breathe life back into Oasis for the first time since it all went to shit in ’09.
What did it matter for the few steps it took to get there?
But when they stepped out in Cardiff and were struck by the seismic wave of love and welcome from the crowd, Liam went for Noel’s hand but missed the target slightly, instead wrapping his fingers around Noel’s wrist and hauling their joined limbs up into the air in a triumphant, defiant gesture.
Noel’s knees had turned to jelly as they claimed their stage, and the energy coming off the roaring crowd continued to hit him in waves, each one stronger than the last. For the first time, perhaps ever, he was truly aware of being part of something that was so much bigger than just himself. Or Liam. Even both of them together.
Liam was right to feel triumphant. He’d gotten what he wanted, hadn’t he? Little shit hadn’t stopped agitating for it from day one.
That night in Cardiff, Noel realized he was getting what he wanted, too. Just hadn’t known how much he’d wanted it; needed it until then. And for once, it didn’t rankle so much that Liam was right.
The next show, Liam reached for his hand and caught a few fingers. He could never take his eyes off the crowd at first. He had to take it all in for a moment, while blindly reaching for him.
So, now Noel knew to grab for Liam’s hand as he reached back for Noel’s, and they held hands tightly, both thrusting arms high into the air, acknowledging the moment. The bloody fucking miracle that had the Gallagher boys together on stage together again.
And it hadn’t gotten old. Not one bit. Not when every night featured a crowd who apparently had been waiting all these years for them to do exactly what they were doing. Birds weeping; blokes, too. Every other show he found himself trying to comfort these inconsolable people from the stage if he was able to catch sight of one. Particularly the birds. Couldn’t stand to see a bird cry. Whether it was his mam, his Anaïs, or some young girl in the crowd off stage left who was soaking her brand-new tour shirt with her tears. And those were just the ones that he could see.
He and Liam knew had obviously known the tour was going to be big, but neither of them had predicted this level of big. In the year 2025, blimey.
Liam started getting increasingly more physical with him on stage right away. It wasn’t a surprise and Noel let it happen, as usual. They were minimizing the amount of time they had together between shows—times when nerves would start to fray from boredom and long hours of travel … that’s when the rowing could start.
It was good. It was fine. It let them follow the schedules that worked best for them.
So, really, on stage was their only real time together. And the welcome side effect was that Noel found himself really looking forward to seeing Liam for the gig. And the few minutes they had before they took the stage.
And Liam seemed to as well. He started lingering for a few moments at Noel’s spot after they let go of each other’s hands. It was reverent bow one time that caught him off guard and he managed to offer a small one in return, but after Liam had turned away to take his place at centre stage and missed it completely.
And then the hugs and the pats on his shoulders. And then when Liam left stage to let Noel solo out at the end of “Champagne Supernova,” it was more hugs, touches, fist bumps, always a warm smile and sometimes a comment quiet enough not to be picked up by his mic.
“That was top, man.”
And then he was gone. Whisked away until the next show when they’d do it all again. They didn’t talk or text much via the phone. This recent exchange was the longest they’d had in a while, really.
Maybe to some it seemed slightly eccentric. And that perhaps the brothers weren’t getting along at all, if such draconian separation tactics were needed to keep the show on the road, but that was far from the truth. Anyone who believed that bollocks didn’t get him and Liam at all.
Because it was perhaps the first time that the Gallaghers truly put Oasis above themselves.
He and Liam used to think that Oasis was the Gallaghers and vice versa, but in reality, Oasis seemed to have become eternal. It existed outside of them now.
Because they both saw Oasis continue to live and grow even after they weren’t tending to it anymore. Weren’t feeding it no more. Noel had pumped enough songs into it that it had become self-sufficient.
Oasis lived with them in their houses and followed them around the world, nipping at their heels like a naughty puppy. Oasis would not be left behind or forgotten or ignored, no matter what they did.
They could do a murder and Oasis would be there with them in the courtroom and then prison.
Oasis would follow them to the grave like a faithful companion. And yet it would persist long after the Gallagher brothers were gone.
They owed Oasis everything—especially after the shitty, undignified ending it was given in 2009. So this tour was about that. It was about bringing everyone together and singing together and thanking the fans.
Together.
“Oi, I’m just leading a campfire singlong out there each night, yeah?” Liam had joked, seeming quite delighted with the idea. “My voice is the loudest, course, ’cos I’m the leader, but it’s just a big singalong in the end. It’s fucking biblical, man.”
This was the best way that he and Liam had figured out how to do it. Make it idiot-proof.
“Now we’re just destined to fuck it up if we say that,” Noel had said to Liam.
“Naw, man, we’ll make it unfuck … unfuckupbabble … wait … un-fuck-up-able!” Liam sounded out the syllables. “Unfuckupable, man! Impossible to be fucked up!”
“You’re mad, you are. You do understand that, yeah? It’s quite crucial that you are aware of this,” said Noel.
“Aye, and you’re just as mad as me, like. You know it’s true. You just”—Liam grimaced, made a fist over his chest and vibrated it there—“keep it all inside!”
“Well, except for the songs,” Noel quipped.
“Of course, the songs. How else are you gonna tell me I’m a pathetic wanker, eh?”
“I considered a skywriter, but …”
“Aw, get to fuck!”
And they’d laughed. There was a time when an exchange like that would have gone very, very differently.
He stepped into Liam’s embrace—always the man under layers of parka and god knows what else—and clapped him on the back a few times.
“Hiya, big man,” Liam murmured, pressing a kiss to his temple that made Noel remember the walk-on where Liam dipped his head and pressed the sweetest little kiss to Noel’s arm, his mouth there and gone in an instant.
“All right, our kid?”
“Aye.”
Then Noel had a moment to look his kid brother over. His eyes passed over the parka but then took in the striped pyjama bottoms and … fuzzy house slippers.
“Oi … did you really come here in slippers and your jim-jams?”
“I said slumber party, didn’t I?” Liam said. “Innit what they do at them kind of thing?”
Noel shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. We had the same childhood, man.”
“What about the kids? Anaïs? Little girls love a slumber party, I’m told.”
“Fuckin’ eejit,” Noel said, leading Liam deeper into the house and into the kitchen. “You hungry?”
“Naw. Debs fixed me up with some top scran earlier.”
“Tea?”
“All right.”
Noel raised an eyebrow. “Could get us summat stronger if you like. We’re on ‘holiday,’ after all.”
“Naw, I’m sound,” Liam said. “A cuppa will do me right, though, ta.”
“What you playin’ at, anyway?” Noel remarked as he filled the kettle and set it to boil before moving to fetch the teabags, a clean mug for Liam, and milk.
“Huh?”
“Take off your parka, stay awhile,” Noel said. “I mean … you come round for summat, right?”
Liam shrugged before tugging his parka off and laying it over a chair, revealing a worn jumper about three sizes too large for him and a ratty tee underneath that partially exposed his clavicles, not that Noel was really looking all that much. “Do I got to have a reason to see me own brother?”
“At 10:30 p.m. on a Thursday? Odd visiting hours, I’d say.”
Liam shrugged again, his voice a little smaller. “Right about now … we’d be kicking off ‘Champagne Supernova.’”
“Yeah. And we will again. Sooner than you think. So?”
“Don’t you … don’t you ever feel it, man? After a tour. When you just stop. You … your body knows what time it is and what’s supposed to be happenin’ but then when it doesn’t happen, it gets a bit confused and all that, y’know what I mean?”
Noel nodded. “Yeah … reckon I do. I’ve been trying to keep to our … schedule. Gonna be a bitch of a time adjusting to the jet lag after the flight to Seoul, Jesus fuck.”
Liam shrugged. “Just chuffed that we’re goin’, man. Especially back to Tokyo, fuck yeah.”
The kettle clicked and Noel lifted it to pour it over the tea bags in the mugs. “We coulda had this conversation over the phone, kidda. Or even text, which I know you prefer.”
Liam fidgeted with his fingers. “All right, all right, I’m working up to it, me.”
Noel raised his eyebrows. “Working up to what, mate? Should I be concerned? You’re not backing out of the tour because you just said—”
“No, no, no,” Liam interrupted, pulling a face. “Don’t be daft. The tour is everything, man. Well … almost everything. G’wan, finish making the tea and let’s go sit on that massive fuck-off sofa of yours. Christ, you could seat a football team on that thing.”
“That’s the idea.”
They fell quiet for a bit as Noel went about fixing the tea. He didn’t ask Liam if his preferences had changed … god knows he’d let Noel know if they had. Probably after the fact, but he wasn’t making the twat another cup because he needed special wheat milk or whatever the fuck they were putting into boxes and passing off as milk these days. His girlfriend Sally loved oat milk in her tea. How the fuck do you milk an oat? No one had been able to adequately explain that to him yet.
“Here …” Noel handed Liam a steaming mug and their eyes met briefly when their fingers brushed, also as Noel challenged him to find something wrong with the offering. “Quit being so fucking mysterious, man …”
“Ta very much.” Liam took a careful sip, deemed it acceptable, then headed into the living room, setting down the tea on the coffee table—Christ, he’s even using a bloody coaster … remind myself to give our Debbie a hug next time I see her—and patting the spot next to him. “Come ’ere, our kid.”
Noel sat and sipped his tea, then set his mug down as well and faced his younger brother. “So, what’s—”
“We’re doin’ all right, aren’t we?” Liam interrupted. “You ’n’ me? Been takin’ it slow and careful, which is good, but so far so good, yeah?”
Noel pursed his lips. “Yeah, I’d say so, yeah. I mean … keeping things pretty separate has been helping. When we don’t have time to …”
“Bicker about the stupid shit?”
“Yeah, s’pose.”
“Talk shite about each other’s birds?”
Noel frowned, wondering if Liam was lobbing an accusation at him. “What? Liam, I’ve said nowt bad ’bout Debbie, I swear down, I—” He was surprised to feel a stab of panicked adrenaline. Some traitorous cunt on the take, pouring poison in Liam’s ear, feeding him lies to turn him against Noel for fucking headlines? He knew this was going to fucking happen, fuck! Even the no-press rule to maintain their privacy and give their fragile reconciliation a chance to strengthen and take root … all for shite.
This all flew through his head in seconds and he was about to well and truly lose it when he finally focused on Liam, who was looking at him with wide, alarmed eyes, waving his hands lightly.
“Oi, no, Noel, no, no, man. I didn’t mean it like that. I know you haven’t said nowt ’bout Debs. It’s all right, I promise.”
“… oh.” Noel took a breath, cleared his throat.
Liam grinned. “Lookit ya, man. Face like a slapped arse for a sec there. Absolutely ragin’. I’m dead touched.”
“Piss off,” Noel grumbled.
Liam ignored him and continued, “What I meant was … I … I … I’m over it, man.”
“What do you mean? Over what?”
“Us hating on each other’s birds like we done before. I … think we’re past that now, y’know what I mean? I like Sally just fine. Maybe more than fine if I get to know her a little better. And you like Debs all right, yeah?”
Noel nodded. “Aye. I … I think she’s good for ya, man.”
Liam nodded in return with a soft smile. “She is, that. And, uh … you know I’m sorry about that shite I said back then about Sara and your kid and—”
“Liam, we don’t have to go over that again.”
“’Cept I think I do, man. I do. It were bang out of order and I just … especially your kid, man. I love your kids to bits. You know that, right? Our Anaïs and Donny and Sonny. Lovely, lovely kids.”
He didn’t mention Sara again and Noel was grateful for that.
“Yeah, kid, I know. The boys, I …” He trailed off, unable to express how it now pained him in retrospect that his boys had gone so many years without getting to know their uncle Liam and his kids. Anaïs was different … she was older when it all went down and had formed bonds with her cousins, so Noel had never discouraged her from visiting with them, and Liam and Nic, if she wanted to, and Meg had always been on board with that, even if she wasn’t exactly a member of the Liam Gallagher fan club herself. Weren’t his daughter’s fault that everything went to shite between them. He never wanted his kids to hurt from his choices—it was hard enough on them that he couldn’t seem to make his marriages work.
But with Donovan being just a wee lad when Noel split from Oasis … from Liam … Sonny not even a gleam in his eye yet, and the situation between Liam and his now ex-wife … it had played out different. Now his boys were sprouting up like trees, coming to some of the Oasis shows, and really getting a proper idea of what their daft old fella had been up to in those heady years before they were born.
So much time lost, bloody hell.
Liam, recognizing the shadow that had passed over his expression, gently nudged Noel’s shoulder with his own. “Hey. Don’t go there, man. I get it … now, I get it. You were tryin’ to keep the missus happy … doin’ what you thought was best for them boys, and I got mad respek for that. And we’re making up for lost time, yeah?” He fixed his gaze on Noel’s and he knew he wasn’t just talking about his boys.
Noel snorted softly. “These words we’re usin’. ‘Sorry’ … ‘respect’ … it’s mad.”
“Res-pek!”
“Fuck off.”
“I just think it’s time, man.”
“Time for what?”
Liam shrugged carelessly, but his expression didn’t match. He looked at Noel gravely. “What the fuck do you think? Why does anyone invite themselves over to someone’s gaff well after dark?”
Noel closed his eyes for a moment. There it was. Of course Liam wasn’t just coming over for a hangout … or even to crash overnight. Of fucking course.
He wanted to … spend the night. He felt another spike of adrenaline … a mix of fear and … something else. The same something else that had plagued him since he and Liam had started crossing lines so many years ago. Crossed them and re-crossed them and trod upon them until they blurred so much that they weren’t even lines anymore.
But with the passage of time, he’d somewhat managed to redraw those lines again in his mind. Chalk it up to youthful indiscretion. Extreme indiscretion. The madness of their lives back then. When the rules applied to other people, but not to them.
“Liam, are you mad?”
“Like I said before … no more mad than you, mate.”
Noel rubbed his temples, looking hard at Liam, desperate to get him off this track. Because, as always, he wasn’t sure he could be strong enough for both of them. He’d failed again and again in that regard. “We can’t go down this road again …”
Liam let out a puff of a laugh that was almost pitying. “Mate, we pulled over and built us a little treehouse in the forest at the end of that fuckin’ road years ago.”
Noel decided to go with Liam’s metaphor. Wasn’t a bad one, really. “… haven’t been up to that treehouse in close to twenty years, man. And that should be a good thing, yeah? Why mess with things now?”
The last wretched few years before Noel finally put Oasis out of its misery … he and Liam were barely speaking, let alone … any of that. At the time it had felt like the one silver lining. Finally being disgusted enough by the state of his life and the state of his brother to not want to do disgusting things with and to his brother anymore. “Disgusting” things that he still thought about far too much. Especially when he didn’t have enough to keep him busy.
Thinking’s not the crime. It’s the doing that is …
Liam snorted, picking up his mug again, and sipping, as always far too casual and comfortable with the subject matter. Tea and incest, why not? “Mess with it? You mean with what we have right now.”
“Yeah.”
Liam gestured at Noel, tea sloshing dangerously. “And what exactly do we have right now, Noel? Huh? Five minutes backstage. Joke around, getting psyched for the gig … ‘together’ on stage for a coupla hours, then I gives our kid a hug and off I go … back to me enclosure until it’s time to do it all again.”
“Liam, I thought we—”
Liam set his tea down again, shaking his head and his hand, palm out, at Noel. “Yeah, we did agree and that’s fine, man. That’s fine. It’s working. I’m sound on that. It’s working for Oasis. For fucking Oasis.” His blue eyes burned into Noel’s. “But that’s Oasis. That’s not us. And you know it’s not. That’s the other part of the picture, man. And we’ve come this far … more than half the dates behind us, and I wanted to sort us out before we take off again.”
“Sort us out?” Noel exclaimed. “The fuck, Liam? You think ‘sorting us out’ is cheating on our birds again … committing crimes against nature and all?”
Liam rolled his eyes. “It ain’t like that, drama queen.”
“I beg your pardon, but it very much is. Ask anyone!”
“Like who?” Liam’s eyes flashed.
“Jesus. You know what I mean. You wanted Oasis back, kidda. You whinged and cried about it for years. You fucking got it, yeah? We’re taking it around the world for everyone. What the fuck more do you want?” Noel felt the building hysteria behind his tone and hated himself for asking an obviously stupid question.
And Liam knew it. “Fuck off … you know what I want! Fucker. I want you back, Noel! Fuck … that’s all I ever wanted. Oasis was an added fuckin’ bonus, man! Beyond me wildest dreams. But I’d chuck it all today if that was what were on the line to have me brother back proper. Just try me.”
Noel stared at him, feeling both miserable and ecstatic at the same time. This was Liam declaring his love and part of him wanted nothing more than to accept it, but …
“Proper …” he said softly, bitterly. “Ain’t nowt proper about us, man. And what you think us being ‘back together’ actually means.”
Again, the old Liam would be proper wound up by now, but this Liam is calm, calm, calm. Noel would almost suspect he were on drugs if he didn’t know what his kid looked and acted like under the influence of practically every substance out there.
“Don’t wanna screw up your life, Noel,” he said gently. “That’s not what I’m about. You know that, right?”
Noel looked at his brother. No, he wasn’t entirely sure of that. Not at all.
Liam chuckled softly again. “You absolute mug.” His eyes and face shone with affection and Noel realized he had to get used to this version of Liam. An older Liam who seemed much more comfortable with his place in the world. Or the universe, as he would put it. There was a sense of Zen about him that Noel both envied and slightly resented.
“I just want good things for ya, man. Maybe we do more Oasis stuff, maybe we don’t. Maybe we do Knebworth again, maybe we don’t. But I’m glad we’re wrapping this up right. As we shoulda. And … fuckin’ hell, man … above all, I just wanted me brother back.”
“You have me back,” Noel said softly. “And I’m not goin’ anywhere, promise.”
Liam paused for a moment, seeming to come to some sort of decision, and carefully slipped off the sofa onto his knees. Noel watched, askance, as he shuffled slowly and moved himself in between Noel’s legs, resting his forearms on each of Noel’s thighs, which tensed in response. He looked up into his older brother’s face, like a penitent in the confessional.
Bless me, Father, for I have sinned …
“You can’t be surprised by what I’m askin’ for, our kid,” Liam said softly. “What’d ya think when I grabbed two big handfuls of your arse in front of everyone … where was it … back in Dublin?”
Noel shrugged, avoiding his gaze, looking down at Liam’s hands on him, wanting to touch them, even the little red patches from his persistent psoriasis. His pretty, perfect Liam not exempt from the mounting cruelties and indignities of aging. It was oddly comforting.
“You squeezed me tighter than ever. Because you fuckin’ want it … you’re gagging for it … but you won’t let yourself have it. Won’t let yourself be fuckin’ happy like you deserve, man. You say I got you back, but I mean all the way back, Noel. You know it weren’t ever just about the fucking band, or us bein’ brothers like regular people. Goin’ to a footie match once a month and sending each other birthday cards if we remember. Fuck that. We ain’t regular people. Ain’t never been and never will be. We’re us. We’re LiamandNoel and people think they get us, but they don’t. They never, ever will. And I like it that way.”
His eyes burned into Noel’s … eyes so much like his own. Fathomless bright blue eyes he’d been getting lost in for as long as he could remember. “I been good, haven’t I?” Liam said, his fingers digging insistently into Noel’s thighs, leaning in a little, his breath sweet and milky. “Just like I promised? I’ve been so good, Noely. It’s not even that hard, to be honest. Easier to be good at fifty-summat than twenty-nothing, yeah?”
“Yeah … yeah … ’course y’have. ’Course. You’re a good lad, you are,” Noel said, his voice suddenly too thick and scratchy at the back of his throat, undone by Liam’s use of the nickname only he could get away with using … well, him and Mam, of course. Oh god, he was done for, wasn’t he? Didn’t stand a chance with our kid kneeling before him like that. Just asking to be loved … to be reclaimed. The living embodiment of every song he’d wailed to Noel over the past eight years as he put out record after record … Come back to me … come back … all is forgiven, I love you … one of us …
And Noel’s songs: It’s too late … leave me alone … we can’t go back …
His marriage disintegrated and he was writing about the pretty boy he wished he could forget, but also doors opening and the future and the distant past, and then phone rang, with Liam on the other end. Just Liam. No lawyer or manager or “representative.” Just Liam finally giving in and calling Noel on his bluff. Showing Noel his underbelly like a dog looking for a scratch.
“Don’t really matter to me now who done what said what threw what left first … fuck that. It means nowt, Noel.”
“You really mean that?”
“Aye. Test me if that’s what you need, man. But I can’t be mad about this shite anymore. It’s poison, yeah? Don’t you think so?
“… aye.”
“Me kids think I’m a right muppet for letting this drag on so long.”
“… aye. Mine, too. Anaïs gives me a regular bollocking about it.”
“Good girl.”
“Piss off.”
“Noel?”
“… yeah, kid?”
“… I’m putting down me fork. You got a spare spoon somewhere for your wee baby brother?”
And Noel had laughed. Truly laughed. And then remembered the only time he’d nearly called Liam was about six years ago when Liam posted a video online of him trying to eat soup with a fork as he promoted a gig in Scotland. He hadn’t slagged off Noel and the entire bit was so disarming, so damn funny … so Liam … he’d nearly caved. But then he decided to hold firm.
And for what? Six more years of us sniping and snarking and pining … him right out front, ’cos he don’t know any other way … me all the way inside behind a locked door, screaming into a pillow?
So it felt right that Liam had referenced “the man with a fork in a world of soup” in that moment.
Upon hearing Noel’s agreement that indeed he’d been as good as gold, Liam’s eyes widened as his face shifted into a So??! expression.
“I … I …” he stammered helplessly, looking down at Liam, his hands twitching, desperate to twine fingers with Liam’s calm, gentle hands resting on his thighs, but casting out his last, admittedly pathetic, argument against giving in to Liam yet again. “Liam … fuck’s sake … I’m an old man. What’s a gorgeous thing like you want with the likes of me in that way now?” He’d never, ever, understood it at all. Bad enough that he fancied his own brother. But his brother was one of the most stunning creatures to walk God’s earth. It was just a fact. He could have quietly dealt with that, but then his beautiful brother fancied him back? How? Why?
He’d at least been younger then … fitter … when teenaged Liam started throwing himself at him. Like throwing himself at a locked door, or a brick wall, over and over, not caring if he bashed himself bloody in the process. Just stubborn enough to keep trying until he got what he wanted … what he needed. Because he knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Noel needed it, too.
He could never hide from Liam. Pretty, pretty Liam.
No, he was never pretty like Liam—there was no cunt alive as pretty as Liam were in his prime—but he was told he was sexy in a rough kind of way. Sally said he still was and then some, but he just didn’t see it. At best he tried to maintain a kind of dignified confidence.
Liam smiled softly, canting his head to one side. “Yer my old man, Noely. And I’ll always want ya. You know that. You’ve always known that.”
“Liam …”
Liam leaned in further, raised his arms and looped them around the back of Noel’s neck and he brought his face in close, lips nearly brushing his, murmuring. “C’mon, old man … take what’s rightfully yours … you need a fucking engraved invitation or wha?”
Noel shuddered, feeling the last bricks of the last wall crumble into the last bits of powder. He cradled Liam’s angular face between his hands and … finally took what he was being offered. He kissed Liam’s mouth fiercely and felt his cock immediately start to harden in a way he didn’t know he was even capable of anymore in response to Liam’s needy whimper, and then his tongue was in Noel’s mouth, and it was them and it was as wrong-yet-right as it had ever been. Every contact point between them crackled with electricity and he felt faint as the blood rushed from his head. Liam … god … his Liam …
Liam devoured his mouth, pawing at him almost frantically, his kisses sharp and clumsy in their desperation, just like when he was a young man. “Missed you, Noely, god, I missed you so much,” he panted.
He stroked Liam’s back, ran blunt fingernails over the back of his neck, causing him to shiver, trying to gentle his kisses a bit. “Slow down, our kid … easy … if you eat me all up now, you’ll have nothing left for afters.”
“Eating … yeah …” Liam gave Noel another blistering kiss, then eased back down to lift the hem of Noel’s jumper. Noel cringed, suddenly painfully self-conscious about his soft belly and the way it hung a bit over his belt, which he had to keep cinched tight to keep his trousers from falling down off his flat arse. Meanwhile Liam was back to looking like he was cut from glass; lean and angular and spectacular.
I really do look like a fuckin’ potato in comparison.
“Naw, naw, kidda … fuck … you win, all right? You fucking win. As per. But let’s … let’s go upstairs … c’mon now …” We can dim the lights more there. I’d turn ’em off completely, but Christ, I wanna look at him …
Liam shook his head stubbornly. “Havin’ some of you here and now … I’ve waited so long, Noel … and even longer to smooch that Buddha belly of yours, man. It’s hot as fuck. I raise our arms up when we walk on stage together because it looks mega, but also … get a little peek at that tummy.”
“Stop,” Noel scoffed, blushed scarlet, but stopped resisting as much, and then gasped as Liam lifted the fabric and pressed lips and tongue to the belly in question. “Liam … god …” he whimpered.
“Not god, just godlike,” Liam murmured hotly against his skin. “Noely, how could you ever be shy around me? Me! C’mon … don’t be a lazy cunt and help me get your clobber off. Can’t do all the fucking work here, can I?”
Noel felt faint as he pulled the jumper over his head and Liam’s hungry lips and mouth were on his chest, and he cried out softly as Liam tugged at a nipple with his teeth in a way he knew Noel loved as his hands nimbly unbuckled Noel’s belt and opened his trousers.
“Mmm, love the music you make for me, baby … just for me …”
“Just for you,” Noel gasped as Liam licked a line down his chest, then let out a louder, shuddery cry as he pressed his mouth against Noel’s hard cock, still covered by his pants.
He bit his lip hard, willing himself not to come in his pants like a fucking teenager as Liam licked and nuzzled and smelled him through the increasingly damp fabric of his pants, murmuring, “‘So get your head down, pretty boy …’”
His baby brother whispering Noel’s lyrics at him. He was obscene and he was perfect and he was Noel’s. His pretty boy. Of course the bloody song was about him. Anyone with ears and half a brain could figure that out, so Noel hadn’t needed to say it out loud.
You know you can’t have it, yeah, yeah … bullshit … turns out you can have it all, kid. And then some.
“Liam—” he gasped, then another shuddery cry as Liam uncovered him and took him deep into his mouth, sucking hard, letting out a groan of deep satisfaction that vibrated through every nerve ending Noel owned below the belt.
It was like Liam was sucking the air out of Noel’s lungs with each strong, hungry pull of his mouth. Like a fucking starving man.
Noel felt his eyes roll back into his head and a cocaine-sharp hit of pleasure spiking into him. It took at least a minute before he could even form a word or two.
“Aw, kid,” he groaned finally, pushing a shaking hand into Liam’s hair. “Kidda … is that what ya needed? That make you feel good?”
Liam hummed in the affirmative, eyelids fluttering, then blue eyes searing into his own as he expertly worked Noel in his mouth, keeping up the pressure as he let Noel slide between his lips, a hand reaching to play with his balls. Noel moaned. Fuckin’ hell … no one knows how to touch me the way he does …
“Lee—” he gasped, the name cut off by another shuddery moan. “Kid … not gonna last long … m’sorry …”
Liam let him slip from his mouth and grinned wolfishly at him, lips wet and pink and beautiful, slick hand moving over him, keeping him hard and on the edge. “Good. Trying to decide if I should swallow you down or toss you off and let you spunk all over that belly so I can lick it up.”
“Liam … fuck …”
“After, Noely. After, I’m taking you to your nice bed and shagging you silly. The way you need to be fuckin’ shagged, yeah? No one can do it for you the way I can.” His voice was fierce and possessive. “Fuckin’ no one.”
Noel came then, pressing his head back into the sofa and letting out a broken cry as Liam jerked his cock, lowering his head to lick and taste his spunk even as it kept shooting over Noel’s belly, Liam’s fingers, and Liam’s face.
So get your head down, pretty boy …
He watched, dazed, as Liam, who hadn’t gotten off yet, greedily licked Noel’s spunk off his belly, wiping it off his face, licking his fingers, making a real show of it.
“You’re obscene, our kid,” he sighed. “Fully dressed and all. How come I’m the only one with his cock out, huh?”
Liam snorted. “You know where mine is located, yeah? Come and get it?”
Noel looked at Liam, his eyes hooded, barely open, shook his head a little. “Just wanna see ya, our kid. Haven’t seen you out of those bloody parkas since … well, now.”
Liam met his gaze and nodded, slowly getting to his feet with a soft hiss of something that wasn’t quite pain, but different from the young Liam who seemed to be made of rubber and elastic. Flinging himself around without a care in the world.
“All right, Liam?”
“M’fine, Noely. Just fine.”
Liam stood before him and peeled off his jumper and tee in one motion and let Noel look at him. He was slender and firm, but not too muscled. He was a runner, not so much into weights and all that rubbish. His cock tented the front of the pyjama pants and Noel felt his breath catch when he slowly eased the waistband over his erection and let the loose trousers fall to his feet; he wore nothing underneath and there he stood, naked and glorious and hard, waiting for Noel’s validation.
“You gorgeous thing,” he whispered. “Just lookit ya …”
Liam bit his lip and flushed with pleasure. As if Noel would tell him he was an ugly cunt … though, he had done that before when the kid needed an ego check. Especially in the early days when Oasis was being touted as the most important band in Britain since the Beatles. He was just as bad in terms of having a swelled head, but seeing Liam strutting around like a fuckin’ peacock drove him around the bend.
“Fuck off, ya don’t really mean that.” Liam would already be pouting.
“The fuck I do. You’re ugly when you’re like this. Acting like you’re God’s gift to … what? You’re repellent to me, ya twat. Go ’way.”
“Get fucked.”
“If I’m lucky. And it sure won’t be by you. You’d make me willy shrivel up and fall off.”
“I hope it does, you fucking knobhead. FUCK YOU!”
But at night … when they were still sharing a fucking room, but in hotels now and if Liam wasn’t too pissed, or off with a bird, he’d crawl into Noel’s bed.
“You didn’t mean it, did you, Noely? You haven’t really gone off me, have ya?”
“Kidda … I’m dead tired … go to sleep.”
“Noel!”
The urgency in his voice. The fear.
“Fuck … c’mere, kid … haven’t gone off ya … don’t be daft.”
Liam would cuddle up to him, wrap around him like a vine, whispering, “You love me still, don’t you, Noely? You love me.”
“I love you, kid. No one’s taking that away. But sometimes you gotta pull your head out of your cute little arse.”
“You’re such a fanny.”
“Mmmf. Suck my cock, then. Fannies love that.”
And then Liam would disappear below the blankets, tugging Noel’s pants down.
“Oi, kid, I didn’t mean you really had to—”
“I want to, Noely. I really want to.”
It didn’t always go exactly like that, but it was always some version of it. Noel knocking the lad down a few pegs. Liam angry and hurt before picking himself up and using Noel to climb right back up again. Sometimes climbing right over him, which made him knock the kid down even harder. It was like they were both clambering up a ladder, fighting to get to the top first, kicking each other up and down the rungs, unaware of how their conflict was making the ladder wobble, threatening to topple over and take them both down together.
So Noel got off the ladder first. Left Liam alone up there, suddenly realizing that there was nothing left up there to fight for if he wasn’t fighting Noel for it.
Oasis—as the fucking entity he now knew it to be—would only accept the two of them together. And Noel wanted something of his own for once in his fucking life. So he walked away. Thought he was never gonna climb that bloody ladder ever again. Not while Liam was up there, whining for him to come back so he could fight him some more.
Not until Liam finally realized Noel wasn’t coming back, so he climbed down and wandered off to find something of his own as well. But he never, ever stopped angling to get back everything he’d felt he’d lost.
And now the lad stood before him, virtually naked as the day he was born … the day Noel was first handed that warm, blanket-wrapped squalling little bundle of a lad … laid gently into his arms. Looking into baby Liam’s eyes and he stopped fussing and stared up at him instead.
“He’s smilin’, Mam.”
“Aw, Noel, love, he’s too little to smile yet. Probably just a touch of gas. But look at him all quiet and happy. You’re a big brother now, and wee Liam loves you.”
“I love him, too, Mam. And he’s smiling. I know he is.”
“Maybe you’re right, love. What do I remember about being a baby? I just make ’em real good. My three boys. How blessed I am, yeah? God’s been good to us.”
There was a lot that Noel didn’t remember from his childhood. A lot he chose not to remember. But he remembered that. Meeting our kid for the first time. The perfect little lad to round out their perfectly dysfunctional family.
Now Noel saw the changes on Liam’s body in the past decade and a half. Particularly the long pink scars running down and over each hip. He’d of course heard about Liam’s double hip replacement two years ago—it made the national fucking news, of course—but Christ, it wasn’t like he was sick or having emergency open-heart surgery or owt. Plenty of punters got joints replaced. He wasn’t running to the kid’s bedside for elective fucking surgery.
“All that screwing around he does,” he’d once commented, drunkenly, inappropriately, not wanting to think about Liam laid out in a surgery theatre; drugged unconscious and helpless while some doctor took a scalpel to him and cut out parts and put new ones in before sewing him up like a garment. His perfect, beautiful lad. Couldn’t think about it for a moment, so instead he made terrible jokes. “Finally fucked himself out.”
Uncomfortable chuckles around the table and he’d sunk into a foul mood, muttering, “Aw, get fucked, the lot of ya. What do you know, anyway? Nowt, that’s what.”
Now he trailed light, callused fingertips down one of the scars, murmuring, “Our kid … Christ …”
Liam flinched a little. “Aw, don’t, Noel … I hate ’em. Love me new hips, ’course. More like I love being able to run and to sleep through the night without the pain, but … fuck. Thought if I were ever to have big scars, they’d be cool scars, like. Rock ’n’ roll scars. These? Jesus, and you say you’re an old man. These are old man scars, they are. Fucking grandpa shit.”
“You’re gonna be one soon, though.”
Liam grimaced. “Don’t remind me, man. Especially not right now … c’mon, you gonna do summat or do I just stand here and catch cold?”
Noel paused for a moment, then sat up straighter and leaned forward, pressing his lips to the scar on Liam’s left hip, then tracing it with his tongue.
Liam hissed, though not in pain … just at the intimacy of it all. “Noel … man …”
Noel’s hand reached out to feel the other scar, mapping it with his fingertips, learning this updated version of Liam. Bionic Liam. He chuckled at that phrase in spite of himself.
“Oi, what’s so flippin’ funny?” Liam said crossly, but more self-conscious than anything.
Noel shook his head and looked up at him, his left hand leaving Liam’s scar and moving to tease the base of his cock, moving fingers through his wiry pubic hair.
Liam made a little sound, hand drifting down to stroke Noel’s hair, as he murmured his name softly, unsure.
Noel kissed his hip again, resisting the urge to suck him off then and there. Instead he took a breath and heaved himself off the sofa, tugging up his trousers and pants and tucking himself back in.
Liam’s brow furrowed. “You’re not meant to be getting dressed again.”
“Calm yourself,” Noel said, patting his bare arse. “Just don’t wanna have me trousers down around me knees and tripping me up when I go upstairs … we’re going upstairs now. If you’re gonna shag me like you promised, then I want me own bed.”
Liam nodded with a small smile. He stepped out of the pyjama pants pooled around his ankles, kicked off his slippers and headed for the stairs, naked as a jaybird.
Noel snorted. “Brazen twat. Lookit ya. You never even been in this house before. Where are you going?”
“Lookin’ for the biggest bedroom with the tackiest decorating job,” Liam tossed over his shoulder. “Can’t be that hard to find.”
“Twat,” Noel repeated softly, amusedly, picking up his jumper, and then Liam’s discarded clothes out of sheer habit and following his bare-assed lad upstairs … resigned to his fate. It was always leading to this, wasn’t it? If they were together, then they were together in a way that no one else could possibly understand. In a way they’d been only partially successful in hiding for most of their lives.
They’d both heard the comments and seen gossip online. Collections of photos of so-called proof of summat. Them kissing at on stage at Loch Lomond. Fucking photos he’d had to try to explain to his boys. (“This is your brain on drugs, lads. Stay away from the gak.”) People convinced they knew something. Something strange about those Gallagher brothers.
I could let Liam fuck me on stage in front of a sold-out crowd at Wembley and they still wouldn’t know what they think they know about us and how we are.
That thought made him chuckle aloud again.
“Oi! Again … the fuck is so funny, mate?”
“Nothing …” he said, climbing the stairs, “… everything …”
Liam’s bravado seemed to fade a little as he reached the top of the stairs, and he waited for Noel to catch up to him.
“Come on, then,” he said softly, reaching for Liam’s hand, feeling his brother’s fingers wrap around his own, and led him into the bedroom. He was glad the room wasn’t too much of a tip and he’d even made the bed when he got up.
Liam was suddenly unsure in this unfamiliar room that didn’t even have the neutrality of a hotel room. This was Noel’s territory. Noel threw their clothes carelessly out of the way, then pulled back the covers and gestured to Liam as he finished undressing, tugging down his jeans and pants, sitting to get them off entirely and plucking off his socks.
Seeing Noel disrobe seemed to shift Liam out of his hesitance and he approached the bed and climbed in, and then Noel climbed in beside him and they wrapped their arms around each other, skin to skin at last.
Noel had expected Liam to pounce on him like he had downstairs, but instead he felt the kid shudder in his arms, and then again, again, and then there was a choked sound, and sudden warm wetness against his shoulder and neck, where Liam had hidden his face.
“Aw, kidda,” Noel breathed, holding him closer. “What’s with the tears, huh? C’mon now, love …”
Liam let out a muffled, broken sob, clinging to Noel, beyond words.
“It’s all right, kid … it’s all right,” Noel soothed, stroking Liam’s hair, rocking him the way he’d done when he was a little lad. Had a bad dream or was scared after hearing Mam and Da fighting downstairs.
“You madman … coming over here and laying it all on the line like that … I know that must have been hard on ya.”
Liam trembled, grating out a sound that resembled “uh-huh.”
Of course it was. Liam was not nearly as confident and brash as he let on. That was his front. The people who knew him best … the ones he let in close … they knew that.
Of course he’d been terrified that Noel would reject him, and now that they were in bed together … the stress he’d been holding in was just letting out, was all. And it all just went to show how his kid wore his heart on his sleeve the way he did. Missed his Noel for all these years and now it seemed like they were back … fully back … the way he’d dreamed of.
He’d been daft to think he could ward this off.
Daft to think he could pretend he didn’t want it just as much.
Terrified to think about where this all might lead.
Accepting that he was suddenly overcome by a sense of peace and happiness that he hadn’t known to exist offstage in a very, very long time.
Liam finally started to calm after about five minutes and excused himself to blow his nose and sort himself out in the toilet, mumbling in embarrassment as he did so.
Noel decided to appeal to his vanity to help him past the awkward moment, giving him an appreciative once-over as Liam padded back to the bed.
“You’re well fit, kidda. My god. You hide all that under those bloody parkas … I’ll never understand why.”
Liam shrugged. “… maybe I don’t want them all to see all that. Maybe that’s just for me bird … and for you.”
Noel smiled, nodding as Liam got back into the bed and shifted into his arms, leaning in for a kiss. His kid had never been one of them rockstars who got their kit off onstage. Or pranced around bare-chested, or maybe just a leather vest or summat, like Roger Daltrey during the Tommy era. That was never Liam, even at his youngest and fittest. He liked nice clothes, but nothing too tight or revealing. Hell, he’d nicked his bird’s gigantic cable-knit jumper for one of the nights at Knebworth, swimming in it the entire time, fisting the sleeves and seeming to enjoy rattling around in the bloody thing.
A parka and a pair of shades … that’s our kid’s battle kit. His armour.
And now he was stripped of all of that, Liam melting into his arms as they kissed slow and deep. Just a short while ago, Noel had been expecting a frantic shag, but this was turning into something else entirely.
Something … lovely.
They kissed and ran their hands over each other, sometimes rolling over so Noel could press Liam into the pillows and kiss the places on his neck that he knew would make him moan and squirm, and Liam to tongue Noel’s nipples and rub his entire body along his, like he was marking Noel with his scent.
They were both hard and it would be easy enough to just rut against each other and get off that way, but Noel eventually reached into his bedside drawer for some lubricant, slicking Liam up, murmuring, “Naw, don’t bother with the fingers n’all that, kidda … but just go real slow, okay?”
Liam nodded, guiding himself between Noel’s spread legs, letting out a shaky sound as he slowly, slowly pushed inside. Just a little at first. Noel hissed with pain, but it was the good kind of pain at the same time.
Liam looked at him, a question forming behind his eyes. Was he just that easy to read or was it just Noel being able to sometimes read his mind?
Of course he knew the answer to that.
“Long time, kidda … at least since the last time with a bloke …”
He might have imagined a sudden flash of jealousy cross his brother’s face. “Can I go in a little more?”
“Yeah, all right. Slow, love … slow … ohhh, fuck …”
Liam trembled, dropping kisses over Noel’s face, the tip of his tongue tracing one of the crow’s feet spreading out from the outer corner of his eye.
“Laugh lines,” someone had told him. “Not crow’s feet … laugh lines!”
“Weren’t fucking laughing that earned me these, mate, that’s for certain.”
Noel shifted his hips a little, taking Liam in even more and our kid gasped, shaking with the effort to go slow.
“Noely,” he whined. “Oh god … you’re so tight … so good … Noely … I need you … gaspin’ for it, please …”
“I know,” Noel murmured. “I need ya, too. Just be patient for a tick more, yeah? Soon, love … soon …”
Liam kissed him desperately and Noel focused on that; Liam’s mouth on his, Liam’s body pressed up against his … Liam inside him. Sex aside, it felt like Liam had been trying to climb inside of him all of his life. Like they were supposed to be one person together.
He couldn’t believe they were back at this again … and he couldn’t even be sorry about it.
“C’mon, kid,” he said breathlessly. “Show us what you’ve got with them new robot hips, yeah? Just … take it easy at first?”
Liam chuckled softly at the robot comment and began to rock slowly at first, letting out an obscene moan as he finally seated himself completely inside, and drawing out again for another slow thrust.
Noel gasped and wrapped his legs around Liam’s waist, closing his eyes for a moment, finally giving himself over to this.
Maybe it don’t make sense to anyone else, but this … always made sense and maybe I’m fuckin’ tired of pretending it doesn’t.
“Noel … come back …”
He shook his head and gazed up into Liam’s face. He was panting, smiling, moving slow still, but deep, sure thrusts, like he was remembering a dance.
“M’here, kid … here …”
“Missed you,” his brother whispered with a mischievous look, like how they used to whisper secrets to each other in that little room they shared back in Burnage.
“You’re mad …”
“You’ll go mad when I do … this …” Liam bit his lip and angled his next thrust in such a way that—god.
Noel’s eyes rolled back as Liam hit his sweet spot just fucking right. “Fuck … Liam … you …”
“I never forget,” Liam panted. “Never in a million years. Especially not with you, Noely …”
How could he argue against that? How could he say no to a lover who felt custom-made for him? Who wanted nothing more than to love him and bring him pleasure in a way that no one else ever had been able to do? Who could say no to all that?
A man stronger than him, apparently. He was lost. Done for. And for now … he didn’t give a toss.
After, they lay on their backs, panting, covered in a thin sheen of sweat, Noel feeling Liam’s spunk dripping out of him and he couldn’t be arsed to get up and clean up.
He was waiting for it. The regret and anger that often followed the ecstasy of what they’d done together.
The shame.
He could feel it in the distance, but it was more of an echo. A reverberation. It wasn’t jumping on him the way it usually did. Ripping his throat out. This was new. A lot of new things on this very strange night.
“It’s kismet, y’know,” Liam said suddenly, apropos of nothing, breaking the silence of the last ten minutes or so. “If ya think about it.”
Noel hadn’t smoked in a few years now, and but he’d murder a fag if one were around. Liam probably had some, but he wasn’t about to relapse on two fronts on the same fucking night.
“What’re you on about?” he asked.
“Nice word, innit?” Liam remarked. “Kismet. Like … like … kiss me …”
“I s’pose.”
Liam turned on his side to look at Noel, pillowing his head under his left arm. “When you think about it … I bet … secretly loads of brothers or sisters sometimes fancy one of their own. But it’s never given back, y’know what I mean? Bloke thinks his brother’s fit as fuck … or even his sister, maybe. Sibling don’t think nowt of him ’cept that he’s their mingin’ brother, end of. So the geezer just tucks it away somewhere or maybe he goes to some therapist, but he’s shit out of luck, yeah?”
“I sincerely hope this is not as common as you’re thinking,” said Noel.
Liam smirked, ignoring his comment. “But you and me … we fancy each other rotten. Always have. Dead lucky, I’d say. What are the odds, y’know what I mean?”
Noel snorted. “Lucky? Lucky to be bloody deviants who would lose custody of their kids forever, lose their birds, and possibly get locked up if anyone got enough dirt on us to really prove summat? Not to mention fucking destroying the legacy of our tunes forever more. Lucky, you say. Odds are definitely not in our fucking favour, mate.” He made a dismissive sound. “You and your bottomless bin of rose-coloured glasses, kid.”
Liam was utterly unfazed by his remarks. This was new, too. In the past, a comment like that from Noel would have gotten our kid right riled up. All Noel ever had to do to wind up Liam was to even vaguely imply that he was thick or naïve. “Yeah, fuckin’ lucky, man”—he poked Noel in the chest for emphasis … okay, maybe Noel was getting under his skin just a tick … good. He needed to know he still could—“I dunno if everyone has their perfect person put on the earth … I think maybe they do, but it’s toss-up if you ever find ’em. Could be on the other side of the world … fuckin’ … herding goats in Tibet or summat. But me … I was issued mine when I born, I was. And you was issued me. Sorry about the five-year wait. I’m worth it, though, ain’t I?” He smiled at Noel and batted his eyelashes.
Noel felt the words perfect person score into his heart in an explosion of pain and love. Loving and hating how Liam could do that … justify … this. Them. How Liam made him feel more loved than anyone in the entire bleeding world. Not even his kids. Because his kids didn’t know him like Liam did. Didn’t know what they were really about. When they were like how they were right now. And god willing they’d never, ever find out. He’d die first.
Liam let his fingers play in Noel’s greying chest hair, murmuring, “Weren’t our fault we ended up in the same family, Noely, yeah? Maybe some cock-up from the universe. Maybe we was supposed to be schoolmates instead, like. Maybe I was supposed to live with the family next door. Why I come so late after you and Bod. And then it would be okay, wouldn’t it, y’know what I mean?”
“But you’re not.”
“Naw.” Liam’s eyes flicked up to Noel’s as his hand settled over Noel’s heart. “Glad I weren’t. Someone had to look out for you, our kid. And I don’t want any other mam than the one we got.”
Noel sighed again, ruefully, patting Liam’s hand. “You soft sod. Dead soft y’are now.”
Liam leaned in for a slow kiss, murmuring against his mouth. “I’m hard where it counts, man.” He rolled his hips a little to let Noel feel his prick stirring back to life.
“Already?!” Noel exclaimed. “Oi, did you pop one of ’em fuckin’ little blue pills before you come over? Because if you think we’re shagging for the next twelve hours like we’re tripping on E in 19-bloody-92, you have another think—”
Liam looked affronted. “Me? I am godlike, man. I am all natural, man. I am BIBLICAL, man!”
“You’re something, man, that’s for sure.”
“It’s you, Noely … always you … you do it to me, man,” Liam said softly, leaning in to kiss beneath Noel’s ear, causing him to moan low in his throat. Our kid … fuckin’ hell …
“Not bad for fifty-two,” Noel murmured, stroking a hand through Liam’s hair, happy that he hadn’t gotten shorn again since they returned home. He wanted Liam to grow it out a little more. Maybe not as long as in the past, but … something to hold on to.
Again … fuckin’ HELL.
“Fifty-three, man,” Liam said. “As of what … two weeks ago or summat? You were bloody well there to watch me blow out me piles of candles. You forget already, you ancient geezer? You gettin’ a touch of the ol’ Alzheimer’s, yeah?” Then Liam blinked, tense for a moment, like he thought he’d said something over the line. It touched Noel a little, really. Liam upset by the idea of Noel actually losing his memory and forgetting everyone. Everything that mattered.
“S’all right, our kid,” he soothed, stroking his arm. “Still sharp as a tack, me. And your age … that’s just maths, innit? Just a number.” He nuzzled Liam’s temple. “You’ll be young forever. It’s in your soul.”
“Then I’ll make you young too, I will,” Liam murmured, kissing along Noel’s jaw. “You’re gonna wake up tomorrow feeling like a million pounds and with less grey in your hair, I swear down.”
Noel laughed. “Oh, so the fountain of youth has just been Liam Gallagher’s cock all along has it? Good to know, mate.”
Liam reached for the lube and nudged back in between Noel’s legs. “I said I’m godlike, yeah? You just need to let me do my thing, Noely. Trust.”
And then, later, as Liam sank deeply inside him again, and as Noel let out a sound that no one other person on the entire planet would ever be allowed hear except for Liam, he actually believed him. Maybe his mad baby brother really would figure out a way for them to truly live forever.