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"So what did you think?"
Liam followed Noel down the hallway, eyes full of that expectant pleading he used when he wanted something. This time it was praise, which he was far from guaranteed to receive. They'd just finished their third performance at the boardwalk, to a room of about twelve total people, half of whom were friends of theirs. In spite of the turnout, the gigs were going well. At the very least, they were real fucking gigs, and Liam was obviously intent on being recognized for his role in that accomplishment. Noel glanced over his shoulder briefly. There was that pleading look. His eyes flicked back down quickly to search through his key-chain for the key to his flat. He unlocked the door and stepped inside, flipping on the lights.
"Hello?" he said, already knowing no one would respond.
Louise was out, with her mates in Glasgow for the weekend, or something like that. He hadn't really been listening all that hard. He wished she was there though. He needed a distraction. And for his brother to fuck off.
"I said what did you think?" Liam repeated, more insistent this time.
"It was fine." Noel said.
He walked over to the kitchen and stuck his head deep into the fridge to rummage for a beer. He was dreadfully, painfully sober, and was never going to make that mistake again. He had no intent on listening to a word Liam was saying until there were at least two substances in his system. Thankfully, there was a little cube of hash stuck somewhere in his pockets, and way in the back of the fridge was one last bottle of Guinness. Fucking godsend. He grabbed it, and turned to–
"Shit!"
When he turned around, Liam was standing directly behind him. They were practically nose to nose. Noel flinched back and sucked in a breath, startled at first, then irritated that Liam had managed to startle him. Fucking ghost, our kid. When Noel tried to move to the side, Liam blocked his way.
"I am not going to fucking share it." Noel said.
Liam always acted like everything Noel owned was half his. Noel thought when he moved out of their bedroom that might finally change, but it hadn't. Not even a little bit.
This time, however, it wasn't the Guinness Liam was after.
"Fine?" Liam said, "It weren't fuckin' "fine", we were mint, we were dead fuckin' fantastic."
"Move."
Liam did not.
"Admit it." he continued, "That was the best we've done yet."
Noel stared at Liam, face even. He focused on an unshaven point between his eyebrows, avoiding looking directly in his eyes.
"Could've been better."
Liam's visible disappointment allowed Noel to push past him and into the living room. He collapsed into the sofa, doing his best to let the day slide off of him. The weight of his guitar still made his shoulder sore – his punishment for spending all the rehearsals sitting down. At the vert least, it was another welcome reason to drink. Shutting his eyes, he raised the bottle up to his mouth to take a swig. Nothing came out. Shit. He'd forgotten to take the cap off. For a minute he struggled futilely with it, but not even his calloused fingers could get the damn thing off.
With great hesitancy, Noel stood up to go get the bottle-opener from the kitchen. Liam was still standing there, shoulders slumped. He was rubbing one foot on the tile, like a kid who's mother told him he couldn't have a pony.
"Is it worth it even?" Liam asked quietly as Noel rummaged through the drawers.
"What?"
"The band. If you don't believe in it, how's any of the rest of us cunt's supposed to?"
Noel closed the drawer he had open and turned around. Liam looked at him with those puppydog eyes again, and this time Noel made the mistake of meeting them. His heart skipped a beat. He decided to attribute it to annoyance. The sincerity is what pissed him off most. The thing was, Liam was being entirely sincere. There was no manipulation in what he was saying. No matter what he'd done or said before, in that moment he truly believed that Noel couldn't care less about the music. That was how much sway he had over Liam's mood – barely a word he was reduced to this. For a moment Noel wondered if there was something else he could say that would push Liam over the edge and make him cry. Now that would improve his mood. Liam always looked so picturesque when he cried, Noel mused, like a painting in some posh museum. Something else, however, out-competed this tempting train of thought: a jolt of panic in his chest at the mere suggestion of breaking up his band.
"Don't be daft." Noel said, real acid in his voice.
Liam straightened up a little, feeling the need to defend his own dejection.
"The way I hear it what's the fucking point? We're never gonna get nowhere. That's what you think yah? Might as well split now, spend our lives digging holes and changin lightbulbs."
Noel scoffed loudly.
"Do you honestly think–?" he started.
He had to set the bottle down on the counter. He could feel his ears redden.
"Fuck off, you aren't going anywhere and you know it, so stop fucking whining with your tail between your legs. Have you fucking heard us? We're gonna take over the world! We're gonna be bigger than Jesus and the fucking Beatles! They'll never know what hit them, we're–"
Noel cut himself off before he could finish. On the turn of a dime, Liam's whole expression had changed. He was beaming. Angels fucking singing from on high beaming. No taking it back now – Noel had let the optimism slip out. In one impressively fluid movement, Liam jumped, clapped, and spun around. Noel could practically see the champagne showering.
"Now calm down" Noel said, "We've still got a long ways to go before we–"
"You think so?" Liam asked, not listening, "You think we're that good?"
Noel mouth twisted into an odd shape, like the truth had to physically struggle its way out. He leveled his shoulders proudly.
"....I think we're the best band in the whole fucking world."
Liam went utterly still. The starstruck look in his eyes remained, but just imperceptibly, something in his expression shifted. The room felt suddenly far too silent. Desperate to fill it with anything at all, Noel began to say something about rehearsals. Before he could form a syllable, however, Liam approached him, grabbed his face in his hands, and pulled him deep into a kiss. It was not an innocent peck on the cheek, nor the sort of cartoonish smooch that a brother could get away with, nor anything else that could be mistaken for fraternal. No, Liam's intentions were very clear.
For the briefest millisecond, Noel's eyes fluttered. Then his mind caught up with his body, and he shoved Liam away like he was on fire.
"What the fuck you done that for!?" Noel yelled.
"I don't know, you tell me."
Liam no longer had his tail between his legs. Well. At least not that kind of tail. There was a hooded look in his eyes, and the tone of his voice was as unmistakable as the kiss itself. Noel's face went beet red.
"You're wrong in the head." he said, "Mam must've fuckin dropped you as a baby."
Liam cocked his head to the side, like he was genuinely confused that Noel was not on the same page as him. Persistent, he stepped towards Noel again. The galley-style kitchen walled Noel in on three sides, preventing him from making a getaway.
"You don't have to keep hiding it." Liam said, "No point anyway. You can't. Not from me. You don't think I hear those songs you've got me singing?"
Liam began to sing a a line from "Up in the Sky", in a soft and husky sort of voice. How does it feel when you're inside me? He stepped in closer to Noel, right up against him, and reached for one of Noel's hands. Noel drew back quickly.
"Get the fuck away from me." he said, frozen in place and voice strained with rage. "The song's not about you you lunatic."
It sounded true, so it was true.
"You've been settling for second best, getting down and dirty out behind the Hacienda." Liam continued, "But you don't have to settle. I'm telling you. You want to me? I've been fucking waiting."
Noel could not hear his own thoughts, if he was even having any. His ears were ringing too loudly. Mustering through on pride alone, he managed to maintain stony eye contact with Liam and did his best to feel nothing at all. Whatever twisted fucking battle this was, he would win it. Liam stared back. Pointedly, his eyes flicked down, then back up again. Noel's attention shifted elsewhere in his body. In an instant, his face went from red to white. He was hard as a rock.
"Like I was sayin'...." Liam said, "You tell me."
A switch flipped. Noel lunged forward and tackled Liam to the floor, intending to strangle him, possibly to death. Liam, however, interpreted the gesture differently, and within seconds, the wrestling shifted into something else entirely. Liam smashed his lips into Noel's face, and Noel, no longer in control of himself, kissed back like a wild animal. Taking the cue, Liam wrapped his legs around his brother and began to grind against his hips, so that their cocks were rubbing against each other. Both of them were throbbing. They could smell the heat on each other's bodies, and it quickly became unbearable. On instinct, Noel leaned back slightly and began to unbuckle his belt.
Then, once again, reality hit him like a brick. He pulled himself away, falling back onto his hands and shuffling away across the kitchen floor. Tears welled in his eyes, and Liam snapped out of his daze to crawl over to him.
"Hey hey hey, 's alright." Liam said, petting his shoulder reassuringly.
Noel jerked away.
"It's not!" Noel yelled, voice cracking. "You're my fucking little brother"
Noel hated the way that sounded coming out of his mouth. He wanted to be angry. He wanted to be angry so badly, but all he could feel right now was fear. The floodgates were finally opening. For years he had been torturing himself to avoid what had just happened. He loathed himself for what welled up in his subconscious when Liam looked at him a certain way. Any way really. If he were honest with himself, looking at Liam was like watching the fucking sun rise in the morning. Birdsong and hearts and rainbows – the whole pathetic load of it. He tried to convince himself that it was normal, but there were other feelings too, ones that took more work to repress under a well-lacquered veneer of indifference. He knew what he felt for Liam was much more insidious than sibling affection. Insidious. That's what it was.
Liam stared at him with an impatient sort of pity.
"Yeah, I am your little brother." he said, "No cunt the whole world that knows you better, fucking no one. I know what you want, you know what I want. Why not give what we've got, do you know what I mean?"
Liam leaned in for a kiss again, but stopped. Noel looked pale and sick.
"....Did I do this to you?" Noel asked quietly. "Did I break you?"
He didn't need to say anything else. Liam shook his head hard and laced his hand through Noel's.
"I haven't said nothing that didn't come right from here." He said, jabbing his free free pointer finger into his own chest.
Noel was silent for a long while. He felt like he was standing on the edge of a cliff above a raging sea, and Liam was telling him to jump. He should run while he still had the chance. If he turned away from that cliff-edge, however, he would have to jump from somewhere else – somewhere very real, and with a much harder landing. He couldn't conceive of any other option. Deep down he knew that now that he'd tasted it, if he couldn't have it, he would have to die.
And fuck, he really didn't want to die, did he?
Noel pressed himself against the back wall and stood up. Liam began to get up too, already beginning to piece together another plea for him to stay. Before he could, however, Noel put a hand on his head to stop him from standing. His eyes had gone entirely blank.
Something shifted in the air distinctly. Resignation.
Noel did not stop Liam when he finished unzipping his jeans.
====================
Liam wondered whether Noel knew how vulnerable he was. Sure, maybe later he'd tell himself that he was the big boss, the one in control – but his cock was in Liam's mouth, and that came with a certain shift in power, didn't it? He could bite the thing clean off right now if he wanted to. But of course he wouldn't. Not even a little tease with the edge of his teeth. No, he was going to be good. Liam was going to make sure that this wasn't just a one-off thing. He wanted Noel to think about tonight every day for the rest of his life.
This moment was all he'd been thinking about for months – longer than months. Noel. Just Noel. Noel Noel Noel. Well. There was also football. And music. And birds. And drugs. But mostly he thought of Noel. He'd been trying to get him to make a move ever since the first time he noticed the way his brother looked at him. The bastard would try to be sneaky about it, watching from the corner of his eyes as he got undressed at night in their little bedroom, hiding the tent in his trousers behind his guitar. He even thought he got away with it. But Liam saw. Of course he saw. The real give-away was the shame in his eyes that always came afterwards, like he'd stepped on a fucking butterfly or summat. Liam didn't really understand what he was so hung up about. If Noel could only get past it, he would see what they could have. So for the last who-knows-how-long, Liam had made a point to beautify himself as much as possible. Wore all the best clothes (which Noel himself had knicked for him), showered every day, even wore that cologne he always thought was for poofs. He wasn't a poof, of course, but Noel was, that was for certain. But no matter how thick he laid it on, no matter how many times he sang 'Take Me' loud and clear, Noel wouldn't look him in the fucking eye. Not like he wanted him to. Based on his reaction a few minutes ago, he hadn't even admitted to himself that Liam wanted him back. And Liam was supposed to be the stupid one? Blind as a fucking bat Noel was.
Liam had almost given up, even, when he ran away with the Carpets. Whatever the bastard had or hadn't caught on to, he was intent on escaping, and Liam worried he'd lost his chance for good. But then he'd gone to see the Roses, and his destiny came down upon him like a message from the universe itself. Or like a hammer. He was going to be in a band, and Noel was going to join him, and they were going to take over the world. Together. It was pure cosmic clarity of vision. The band was far from a mere ploy to get Noel back. The way Liam saw it, they were two sides of the same coin. He would have music, and he would have Noel. There was no other conceivable future. He'd had his moments of self-doubt of course, but now that Noel's cock was safely in his mouth, he was sure the world would be theirs any minute now. He always got what he wanted in the end.
Liam drew his lips down Noel's shaft, in the same perfectly-pressured way that always got him going when a bird was sucking his. He'd been paying better attention to their tricks lately, so he'd know how to get this just right when the time came. From the look on Noel's face, he was a good learner. His head was tipped back, with his mouth hanging open in a big O and his rather generous eyebrows all scrunched up.
"Say it again." Liam said, slipping off for a moment.
"What?" Noel asked breathlessly.
"Say that we're the best. That I'm the best."
Noel nodded desperately, willing to say just about anything for Liam to start again.
"You're the fucking best there ever was."
"And you've always known it?"
"Yeah, yeah."
Noel grabbed Liam's hair and guided him back to his cock. He was too far gone to get another word out. What Liam was hearing, however, was good enough for him. Noel was making soft moaning sounds – involuntary, deep in the back of his throat and edging on feminine. Yes. Liam was the best. The best there was, and the best there would ever be.
Every time Noel made another noise, he felt another throb in his own cock. He wondered whether he could get away with giving himself a tug while he was at it. Dividing his attention carefully, he managed to shove a free hand down into his jeans. He almost couldn't touch it, he was that close. From the way he was shivering, he could tell Noel was too. Liam moved his tongue down to the very end of Noel's head, lightly licking the sensitive area just underneath the tip. It was the delicateness of the movement that finally did it. Noel shuddered and arched his back involuntarily. He swept his arm across the kitchen counter in search of a grip, and the bottle of Guinness tipped over and shattered on the floor. In perfect time with the spray of the shards, with one final moan Noel came into Liam's mouth. The taste of it was all it took for Liam to finish too, electricity zipping down his spine as the space between his legs grew moist and warm.
As soon as Liam released from him, Noel's knees buckled. He landed on the floor just in time to look Liam in his big pouty eyes as he licked his lips and swallowed.
"Fuck."
====================
Noel's shoulders slumped as he panted, his heart still racing. He felt something he didn't expect. Relief. Not sexual relief (although there was that too). Just relief. He felt as if he had been balancing that fragile glass bottle on top of his head for years, terrified that one day he would miss a step and drop it. Well now he had. He'd tripped down a whole fucking flight of metaphorical stairs and the bottle was in a million pieces. It could never be put back together again.
So he would never have to worry about breaking it again.
He began to laugh. Slowly at first, then so uncontrollably he buckled over and tipped into the growing puddle of beer and glass. His eyes teared up a little. It was hilarious, wasn't it. He was going to Hell. It was official. His little brother had sucked him clean off, and there was no denying that he wanted it. His soul – if he could even claim to have one – was now in Liam's hands. Or down his throat, maybe.
He accepted with a resigned matter-of-factness that this was going to happen again. Probably lots of times. To his surprise, it made him feel a giddy sort of confidence, usually only attributable to coke or E. Why shouldn't it happen again, now that the deed was done? He couldn't get any more damned. His costs were sunk, so might as well hold them down and drown them for good.
He looked at Liam, who was of course staring at him like a deer in the headlights. Fucking hell he was beautiful. He let himself think that now, without hiding it behind three impenetrable psychological walls. His brother was beautiful. His brother made him hard, even after just having been spent. He resolved to have Liam for himself next time, instead of the other way around. That's what he was always on about anyway, wasn't he? Take Me. Noel should've seen all this coming from a mile away. In retrospect, part of him knew exactly what Liam meant when he stared him down for every fucking word of that song. His brother was never one for subtlety. But up until now he couldn't even allow himself to conceive of its possibility.
In a way, it was still impossible. All of this would have to happen behind locked doors. Five fucking sets of locked doors, preferably. Now that he'd given Liam the go-ahead, however, he would despite being discrete. He would want his hands all over Noel every single moment of the day and vice-versa – as much as they could get away with. That was Noel's new bottle to balance on his head. Whether it was a better or worse one was yet to be determined. Regardless, he would have to keep Liam on a tighter leash from now on. Knowing him, he couldn't be trusted to keep his legs closed and his mouth shut. So someone would have to do it for him.
Pulling up his trousers on again, Noel stood back up and stooped over his brother.
"No one can ever find out about this." he said, grabbing Liam's chin with one hand. "Ever. You understand?"
Liam didn't say anything, just looked hazily up at him, mouth slightly agape. In spite of the teardrop of cum still hanging from his lips, he radiated total innocence. The shards of glass on the floor around him splayed out like a halo.
Noel took a breath and swallowed, lying to himself that he was the one in control.