Chapter Text
It happens on a Wednesday afternoon.
Noel’s sat in his office, ostensibly reading through some emails but not taking in a single word on his screen, when there’s a sudden crash behind him. He whips around, ready to shout at Donovan for coming into his office without permission, but instead of a whining twelve-year-old, he comes face to face with-
Liam.
But it’s not just Liam. It’s not the Liam he sees in the news now, weathered skin and salt-and-pepper beard, crow’s feet framing his still-brilliant blue eyes. It’s Liam as Noel remembers him - smooth, supple skin, full lips parted in shock, brow furrowed over his long, dark lashes.
“What the fuck?” Noel says, more to himself than anything, as he scrambles to his feet, heart beating wildly. He’s not even fucking high, or drunk for that matter, so why the fuck is he hallucinating?
“What the fuck? ” Liam says, and he sounds angry, like it’s Noel’s fault that he’s hallucinating what looks like a twenty-two year old Liam standing in his office in 2020. At least the Liam in his hallucination is realistic, he thinks.
“What the fuck?” Noel says again, thinking maybe he’s just been reading boring emails for too long, and squeezes his eyes shut. When he opens them again a few seconds later, Liam’s still there, looking incensed, arms folded.
“Where the fuck am I?” Liam demands. “What the fuck is this? Is this some kind of joke? Like, what, oh, let’s pretend Noel’s aged forty fucking years , ha fucking ha. ‘Ere, how the fuck did you get them wrinkles?” Noel stares at him. What the fuck?
“What the-” Noel cuts himself off, and blinks at Liam. “You’re not here.”
“Fuck off, Noel,” Liam says, sounding annoyed. He takes a step in Noel’s direction, and Noel inadvertently takes a step back, making Liam stop and frown.
“What?” he says irritably, like Noel’s being a fucking nuisance and Liam doesn’t have the time for it.
“You-” Noel doesn’t even know where to fucking begin. Liam just rolls his eyes, never one to be particularly patient, and strides over to Noel, a challenge written all over his face. Noel, barely thinking about it, reaches out and pinches Liam’s arm through his shirt, hard enough to make him squeal.
“ Ow, you dick,” Liam says, flinching away and rubbing the spot Noel had just pinched, warm and flesh and real under Noel’s fingers. “What the fuck was that for?”
“You’re warm,” Noel says, almost unthinkingly, mind too busy running in circles. Liam can’t be here. He especially can’t be here looking like he’s just dropped out of nineteen-ninety-fucking-five. That’s just not fucking possible. There’s absolutely no fucking way that a scowling twenty-something Liam Gallagher is standing in Noel’s office in 2020.
But Noel’s had hallucinations before, drug-and-drink-induced, even lack-of-sleep-induced, and they never feel warm to the touch. They never look like his fucking little brother, either, and they’re never that sharp around the edges, never that opaque, never smell like fucking stale beer and sweat and an undertone of something Noel’s never quite managed to place besides Liam and want . So what the fuck is going on here?
“Fuck off,” Liam scoffs, and reaches for Noel’s face to retaliate. Noel bats his hand away automatically, and flinches when the back of his hand makes contact with Liam’s, warm and soft and God, again , so fucking real. Fucking hell. Jesus fucking Christ. This cannot be happening.
“Fuck me,” Noel says, a little faintly. “How old are you?”
“You’re my fucking brother,” Liam says, sounding outraged that Noel doesn’t know, like the bastard doesn’t forget his own birthday every single year.
“How fucking old are you, Liam?” The name is foreign on Noel’s tongue, sounds robotic when he forces it out.
“Twenty-two, you cunt,” Liam grumbles, and rubs at the spot on his arm Noel had pinched again, almost absent-mindedly.
“ Shit ,” Noel says, and it comes out weak and a little shaky. Twenty-two. That’s, what, ninety-four, ninety-five? A quarter of a century ago. Fucking hell.
“What?” Liam says grumpily.
“Liam,” Noel says, slowly, still not entirely convinced he’s not dreaming. “It’s 2020.” There’s a moment of tense silence, and Liam blinks at him, like he’s deciding whether to humour Noel or not.
“Right,” he says after a pause, disbelieving. “Yeah, and I’m fucking Eric Cantona. Give over.”
“I’m not fucking joking,” Noel says. “It’s 2020. I’m fifty-fucking-three.”
“You’ve been fucking fifty-three since the day you were born,” Liam says blithely.
“Can you be serious for one fucking minute?” Noel snaps, trying to quell the panic rising in his chest. Liam isn’t here. He just fucking isn’t. He can’t be.
“Can you?” Liam counters, eyes flitting around the room. “Where the fuck have you taken me, anyway, eh?”
“It’s my house,” Noel says, and Liam grins, raises his eyebrows, and whistles lowly.
“Yeah, you fucking wish,” he says, and strides over to the window, peering out into the garden. “What’s this, London? Looks fucking southern to me.”
“Liam,” Noel says, like saying his name is either going to make him disappear or make Noel process what the fuck is going on. “How the fuck did you get here?” Liam looks at him over his shoulder.
“How the fuck am I meant to know?” he says.
“What were you doing?”
“Eh?”
“Before you got here.”
“Sleeping.” Liam turns back to the window, seemingly unbothered by the conversation. “Who’s that?” He jabs a finger at the window, and Noel leans a little to the side, looking past Liam’s shoulder to see Sonny running around the garden.
Shit. Liam - the real Liam - has never even met Sonny. Is that what this is, some kind of cosmic joke from whatever fucking deity Noel’s just discovered might exist, punishing him for not falling for any of Liam’s ever-more desperate bait in the past decade? Or is it some kind of sign from his subconscious, hallucinating the prettiest Liam it could possibly muster to make him break?
“My son,” Noel says, when he finally remembers Liam had asked him a question, mouth dry.
“Fuck off,” Liam says, without even turning back to look at him. “Why’s there a kid in the garden?”
“He’s my fucking son,” Noel says, a little sharply. Liam stiffens, but still doesn’t turn around.
“You don’t have a fucking son,” he says, and it’s a little colder, a little harsher.
“I have two.” Liam finally whips around to look at him, something that Noel can’t quite place in his eyes - confusion, anger, indignance, sadness, all mingled together with something else that looks a lot like jealousy.
“No you fucking don’t,” he says flatly. “Stop it, Noel, it’s not funny. Let’s just fucking go home. You can tell ‘em all you got me, I don’t give a fuck.”
“I’m not fucking-” Noel cuts himself off, breathing heavily, and puts out a hand to steady himself against his desk. Jesus fucking Christ. What the fuck is going on? “Fucking hell, Liam. You’re not fucking real.” He’s half-willing the words to make Liam break, disappear in a puff of smoke or something, but Liam just frowns at him.
“Why d’you keep saying that?” he says, half-bemused, half-annoyed. “How much have you snorted, eh?”
“I’m not fucking high,” Noel says. He wishes he was; at least then there’d be an explanation, something about this that would make sense. “You’re just- you can’t be here.” Liam looks down at himself, spreads his arms, and shrugs.
“Looks like I can,” he says, and then he frowns, and points at something behind Noel. “What the fuck is that?” Noel turns around to see his MacBook, still open on his emails.
“My laptop,” he says, and Liam’s brow furrows further.
“Where the fuck’d you get that, then? Fucking James Bond?” His tone is aiming for casual, derisive, but Noel can hear the undertone of uncertainty.
“It’s just a normal laptop,” Noel says. “In 2020,” he adds, and Liam hesitates for a split second, just the briefest of pauses before rolling his eyes exaggeratedly, but Noel catches it.
“Fuck off,” Liam scoffs, and in two strides he’s closed the gap between himself and Noel and is peering at the laptop, half in intrigue, half in trepidation. “Fucking hell, this is fancy. How the fuck is it so thin?” Noel’s about to answer - with what he doesn’t know; does he look like a fucking engineer? - when Liam hums in interest, and picks Noel’s phone up.
“What the fuck is this?” he says, turning it this way and that in his hands, like he’s trying to figure out how to work it.
“My phone,” Noel says.
“D’you think I’m fucking stupid?” Liam says, pressing the volume buttons. “What is it? What’s it do?” Noel pulls the phone out of Liam’s hands, and presses the home button. The screen lights up, and Noel types in his passcode, and turns the phone to Liam, who’s staring at it, lips parted slightly.
“Here,” he snaps, and opens the app for calling. “It’s a phone.”
“No it fucking isn’t,” Liam says, sounding strangely strangled. Noel raises an eyebrow, pushes the phone closer to Liam’s face, and Liam hesitates before pulling it out of Noel’s hands, holding it carefully in his thick fingers. He taps at the screen experimentally, pressing first a zero, and then a one, and then frowns as he taps faster, six one five nine four-
Noel’s old Manchester phone number.
Noel has to swallow back a bitter taste in his mouth and a lump in his throat at that, at the fact that the one person Liam wants to call in this fucking situation is Noel. If this had happened with present-day Liam the first number he would dial would probably be the police.
“Didn’t know you knew my number,” Noel says. Liam looks up at him, eyes wide, a little disarmed, like he hadn’t been expecting Noel to recognise it.
“‘Course I fucking do,” he mutters, and Noel can see from the way he averts his gaze back to the phone that he’s embarrassed.
“It’s not going to work,” he tells Liam, and hopes it comes across as kind and not patronising. “Haven’t lived in Manchester in decades.” Liam’s finger hovers over the call button.
“Can’t hurt, then,” he says, under his breath, and presses call.
In the silence of the room, Noel hears the number ring - once, twice, three times - and then there’s a click, and someone picks up.
“Hello?” they say, muffled and tinny over the phone line. There’s a brief moment of silence, just a split second as Liam’s eyes widen and his lips part slightly as realisation dawns across his face - this is a phone, fucking hell - and then he pulls himself together. Noel watches the whole process, the shock to forced concentration, and it tugs at his heart. Liam’s so young, so inexperienced, so Liam.
“Is Noel there?” Liam says. There’s a beat.
“Noel?” the person asks. “Noel who?”
“Gallagher.”
“Are you taking the fucking piss?”
“Is he fucking there or not?”
“Fuck off, mate.” There’s another click, and then the call’s ended. Liam wrenches the phone away from his ear and stares at it, then at Noel.
“It’s not 2020,” he says, but his voice wavers a little. “I’m not in fucking 2020. What, I fucking time travelled? Fuck off. That’s not- that-” he stops, seeming to struggle with the words. “No,” he says, after a moment, like he’s trying to convince himself, grasping for an explanation. Noel can fucking relate to that. “I’m just high. Really fucking high.” Well. He might be, but Noel isn’t, so that doesn’t explain fucking anything.
“It’s 2020, Liam,” Noel says, but it’s a little softer, because this is his little brother - his little fucking brother, twenty-two, Jesus - and Noel’s struggling to come to terms with whatever the fuck is happening, so he can’t even imagine how it must be for Liam, ripped out of wherever the fuck he’d fallen asleep and waking up twenty-five years in the future.
“Fucking isn’t,” Liam says, and Noel can hear the anger swelling in his tone, the only way Liam’s ever known how to deal with anything he can’t understand. “It’s not- it can’t be. Just- just fucking give over, Noel. Let’s go home.” Noel swallows down the biting remark on the tip of his tongue, because if he rises to Liam’s bait it’s going to end in a fistfight, and he’s got to be the adult here, he’s got to look out for Liam like he’s always fucking had to. He takes a deep breath, and turns to Liam.
“Right,” he says. “This is what we’re going to do.” Liam opens his mouth indignantly, ready to argue, always has something to say when Noel tries to boss him about because he hates the fact that they both know he’ll do whatever Noel says, but Noel shoots him a look, and he closes his mouth again. “You’re going to stay here, and go back to sleep, and see if-” he cuts himself off. See if what? If Liam wakes up back in the fucking ‘90s? “See if you wake up normal,” he settles on eventually. “And I’m going to go outside, bang my fucking head against a wall, and see if that helps.”
“I’m not tired,” Liam says stubbornly, folding his arms.
“I don’t fucking care,” Noel says. “I’ll knock you out myself if I have to.” Liam pouts, and Noel tries not to let his eyes get drawn to his lips, full and pink and God, Noel’s going to fucking hell, he really fucking is.
“Fuck you,” Liam says, but it’s petulant rather than angry, and he stomps over to the sofa in the corner of the office and throws himself down on it. Noel doesn’t move, just watches him go, and Liam turns his head to look back at Noel. “Happy?” he says stroppily, and Noel feels the ghost of a smile on his lips, immediately followed by his stomach churning, because fucking hell, this isn’t real.
“I’ll be happy when you’re fucking unconscious,” Noel tells him. Liam rolls his eyes, flips Noel off, and then turns onto his other side with a dissatisfied hmph, and Noel watches his eyes flutter shut.
It makes his heart twist in on itself, suddenly, when Liam’s face relaxes from the slight tension he’s been holding in his brow, lips parting slightly, eyelashes casting dark shadows on his cheekbones, because he looks so fucking beautiful. Noel had both hated and loved it back then, hated that he was just a fucking shard of glass next to this brilliant, shining diamond, hated that nobody gave him a second glance when Liam was around, but loved that Liam never cared about any of the attention as long as he had Noel’s, and loved that Liam was his. It’d make him giddy, sometimes, when they’d be playing onstage in front of hundreds of thousands of people, and Liam would be positioned at a forty-five degree angle, unable to stray any further from Noel, like north drawn to Noel’s south. It’d make him feel invincible, drunk on power and influence and love, because Liam needed Noel more than he needed cigarettes or alcohol or drugs or water or air.
But now, when he hasn’t seen this face since half his lifetime ago, it just hurts. It just reminds Noel painfully of how much Liam had needed him, how much he’d trusted him, and what Noel had done to him. It reminds him of the vicious fights they’d had, the barbed words and stinging comments that slashed so deep that Noel was still nursing the wounds decades later. It reminds him that he doesn’t, and can’t ever, have Liam like he did when he looked like this again.
Liam opens an eye, and looks over his shoulder at Noel.
“Creepy bastard,” he says.
“Cunt,” Noel says automatically, because even if it’s a twenty-two year old Liam, it’s still Liam. Liam gives him a two-fingered salute and then folds his arms against his chest, curls his legs in on himself, and he looks so fucking young that Noel just wants to press a soft kiss to his temple, and murmur something too metaphorical for either of them to understand that’ll make both their hearts slow down with calmness all the same. He doesn’t, though, because he’s not sure what his fucking place is with this Liam, just checks to make sure Liam’s actually got his eyes shut and then heads out of the office, shutting and locking the door with a click behind him.
Fucking hell, he thinks, resting his forehead against the door. He needs a fucking drink.
~~~
Noel does, in fact, bang his head against a wall, after downing a glass of whiskey in the kitchen. It fucking hurts, and he only realises retroactively that it might have been a better idea to hit the side of his head, where a bruise or lump could be easily hidden. Whatever, he thinks, as he pours himself another glass, and pretends not to notice the way his fingers are trembling slightly. Not exactly the first time Noel’s got an injury because of Liam, is it?
He stays in the kitchen for far too long, staring at the wall and running his finger along the rim of his whiskey tumbler as thoughts race through his mind at the speed of fucking light. What if Liam’s still there when Noel gets back? What the fuck is he supposed to do? Should he tell Sara? Twenty-two-year-old Liam wouldn’t be able to go outside, would he, because he’s one of the most recognisable faces in Britain, but if Noel knows anything about Liam, he’ll go fucking insane stuck inside all day. And how would he get back? He can’t stay here indefinitely, can he? Noel can’t fucking play Mr Rochester, with Liam as Bertha and Sara as Jane.
But the other option - that Liam’s not there, and Noel had been hallucinating - isn’t that much better either, he thinks. He doesn’t need a fucking medical degree to know that having such vivid hallucinations of his little brother from twenty-five years ago isn’t a good sign for his mental wellbeing, and he really doesn’t have time for that, not between the album cycle and trying to raise his fucking kids. And, he thinks, raising the glass to his mouth to get the dregs of whiskey, regardless of whether or not it was a hallucination, the most concerning sign for his mental health is that he’s not entirely sure whether he wants Liam to be gone when he gets back or not.
Eventually, when he notices the sunlight bathing the kitchen wall turn from a brilliant shine to a softer glow, he sets the glass down, steels himself, and heads back to the office.
There’s no sound as he approaches the office, and Noel finds himself hyperaware of everything, of his fucking breathing and blinking and fumbling fingers, missing the hole as he tries to push the key into the lock. Eventually, though, he gets the key in, turns it and hears the door unlocking, and inhales deeply as he pushes the door open with sweat-slick hands to find-
Liam.
He’s still there, curled up on the sofa, breathing deep and even.
Shit.
Shit.
Noel squeezes his eyes shut, breathes in deeply, exhales heavily, and opens them again.
Liam’s still there.
Almost as though he knows he’s being watched, Liam stirs, rubs his eyes, and rolls over, blinking blearily at Noel. Noel watches the confusion, realisation, shock and fear all cross his face in a matter of seconds, and can’t do anything but blink back at him, knowing similar emotions are flashing across his own face.
“You’re still here,” Liam says stupidly.
“Did you sleep?” Noel asks, a desperate hope that maybe that’s the reason he’s still here, even though he knows the answer. Liam hesitates, clearly seeing the look on Noel’s face, and then nods, and Noel’s stomach sinks. “Fuck.”
“What the fuck do we do?” Liam says, pulling himself into a seated position, and hugging his knees to his chest. He looks so disarmed like this, clothes rumpled, still soft and sleepy around the edges, and Noel’s heart does a strange acrobatic move that he hasn’t felt in - well. Ten fucking years.
“I don’t fucking know,” Noel says, hating it, because Liam’s always looked to him for answers, and Noel’s always provided them, always been the dependable older brother that Liam can rely on. Liam rests his chin on his knees, looking somewhere between contemplative and unhappy.
“What the fuck’s the band going to do without me?” he says, staring at the wall. “‘S not like any of the rest of you can sing.”
“I can sing, you cunt,” Noel says irritably, because this is the last fucking thing they should be worrying about. Liam waves a hand dismissively.
“Not like me, you can’t,” he says.
“You’re unbelievable,” is all Noel says, shaking his head and sinking down into his chair.
“I’m hungry,” Liam says, resting his chin on his knees. A disparaging comment is on the tip of Noel’s tongue - are you fucking serious, maybe, or can you get your fucking priorities in order for once - but then he glances at his watch and sees it’s already gone seven, and the kid’s probably not eaten since last night, if he’d only woken up when he’d arrived in Noel’s office. How the fuck is Noel meant to get him food, though? He can’t exactly trot Liam out at dinner, plonk him down between Sara and himself and ladle a serving of stew onto his plate.
“I can get you a takeaway,” Noel says eventually, pulling his phone out. Liam frowns at it, like he doesn’t trust it. “What d’you fancy?”
“What d’you mean?”
“Well, y’know, Chinese, Indian, Thai, Italian, a burger, fish and chips-”
“A burger.” Noel nods as he pulls up his Deliveroo app and picks out the first burger place he finds.
“C’mere,” he says, and Liam hesitates, like he doesn’t want to get too close to this new, foreign Noel. It shouldn’t hurt, especially not after the last eleven years, but it does. “C’mon,” Noel tries again, trying to soften his tone a little. “You’ve got to tell me what you want.”
“I just want a fucking burger,” Liam says, but he gets up and pads over to Noel, peering over his shoulder. He smells so fucking intoxicating, so much like the nineties and like stolen kisses in dark alleyways and like quick, desperate fucks in hotel rooms, and it makes Noel’s stomach flip in a way that he can’t quite identify as either pleasant or unpleasant.
“This is the menu,” Noel says, hoping the thickness of his voice is only audible to him, and holds the phone up to Liam’s face. Liam bends down and squints at it, like he needs fucking reading glasses or something, and then presses on the screen.
“Is that it?” he says, sounding singularly unimpressed. “This place has only got six things on the menu.” Noel realises, with a jolt, that Liam doesn’t know how to scroll.
“You’ve got to scroll,” Noel says, demonstrating by scrolling a little further down and then back up. Liam frowns, and tries to scroll, a little clumsily. Noel holds the phone as still as possible, pushing back against the force with which Liam’s pressing on the screen. It feels sort of fitting.
“The American with chips,” Liam says, straightening up again. Noel nods, and adds it to the basket. Liam watches him do it, and frowns again. “Aren’t you going to call them?”
“No,” Noel says. “It’s all online.” Liam’s frown doesn’t let up, but he doesn’t say anything else.
As Noel’s confirming his card details, Liam still watching with a furrowed brow, there’s a knock at the door. Both of them jump, eyes finding each other immediately, and Noel watches the shock and fear cross Liam’s face as they both think shit, shit, shit, how the fuck do we explain this?
“Dinner!” the person outside the door calls - Anais - and then there are footsteps leading away, heading down the corridor and down the stairs. Noel exhales shakily, and watches Liam do the same, chest rising and falling a little more rapidly than it had been before. Thank God Noel’s spent the last three years insisting his office is his private space, his one space to himself in the house, yes he knows he has that shed in the garden but that’s not in the house, is it, Sara.
“Okay,” Noel says, finishing off the order and seeing that it’s going to take half an hour to arrive. That’s not too bad; he can be done with tea in half an hour. “I’m- I’m going to go and have tea, and you’re going to wait here. The food’ll be here in half an hour, and I’ll be back.”
“Why can’t I eat with you?” Liam asks.
“Are you fucking insane?” Noel hisses. “What the fuck would I tell my wife, my kids?” Liam shrugs, and there’s a hard edge to his eyes.
“Not my fucking problem,” he says, even though it definitely is.
“Fuck off,” Noel says, because it’s all he can say, and pushes his chair back. He stands up, glares up at Liam, and adds: “Don’t make any noise.” Liam’s eyes glimmer for a moment, like he’s considering whether the consequences of disobeying Noel will outweigh the fun of doing it, before he takes a step back, letting Noel pass.
“Or what?” Liam asks, as Noel’s halfway to the door.
“I’ll fucking kill you.” Liam just grins, eyes still shimmering.
“What’re you going to do, bite my fucking kneecaps?” he says. There’s a slight challenge in his voice, something mocking and taunting, and Noel knows what this is. He’s looking for a rise out of Noel, wants to goad him into something he knows it takes Liam prodding and poking for Noel to give in to.
But it works, Noel thinks, as he hesitates. It’s always worked. It’s the one thing that’ll get Liam to shut up, to be pliant; at least, the one thing that Noel has time to do.
“Just be a good boy for me, kid,” Noel says, a little too softly, a little too hesitantly, none of the sureness and confidence with which he used to say it twenty-five years ago in his voice.
(He can tell from the way Liam swallows that it still works.)
~~~
Tea is a fucking ordeal.
Anais is in a mood, Donovan and Sonny are fighting, Sara wants his opinion on the new carpet samples she’s picked out, and Noel has to grip his knife and fork so hard he thinks they might bend out of shape to stop himself from screaming at any and all of them.
The doorbell rings as Anais is halfway through arguing with Donovan about whether or not he’d used her toothbrush this morning, because it was definitely wet, and Noel shoots to his feet, hitting the table with his thigh painfully as he stands up.
“I’ll get it,” he says, as Sara shoots him a weird look, but then Donovan threatens to throw some of his mashed potato at Anais and her attention is drawn elsewhere.
The delivery driver seems a little star-struck when Noel opens the door, but Noel doesn’t have any fucking time for that, just takes the food and throws him a smile and hurries upstairs before Sara can come out and ask him what he’s doing or smell the burger in the paper bag. Fucking hell, he thinks, as he takes the stairs two at a time. He feels like he’s harbouring a mistress in his own house already.
Liam’s sat at Noel’s desk when Noel comes in and locks the door behind him, frowning at Noel’s laptop as he clicks around the screen.
“What’re you doing?” Noel says, tossing the paper bag on the desk next to Liam.
“Looking,” Liam says.
“Don’t,” Noel says, and slams the laptop lid down. Liam jumps, just about managing to pull his hands out of the way in time, and swears loudly.
“Fucking cunt, what was that for?” he says, wincing like Noel had managed to cut off a finger.
“I don’t think you should know- y’know. About the future. Your future.” Noel’s not sure what he’s saying, but it might, like, rip a hole in the space-time continuum if Liam finds out that Oasis split up, or something. Or maybe it’ll hurt Liam, somehow. Maybe that’s what he’s really afraid of.
“Too late,” Liam says, leaning back in Noel’s chair and blinking up at him, a mix of emotions swimming in his blue eyes. “Why aren’t there any pictures of me on there?”
“Why would there be?” Noel deflects.
“You’ve got pictures of Paul,” Liam says, a little accusingly. Noel swears under his breath; he shouldn’t have left Liam alone in here, really. Except his laptop had been locked, hadn’t it? How the fuck had Liam got in?
“How the fuck did you know my password?” Noel says. Liam grins, childlike and wicked.
“‘S always something about me,” he says, and it makes Noel’s stomach churn because it’s true. He’d tried changing them, for a few years, after 2009, tried making it the place him and Sara had met or the first song he wrote for Anais but after one too many trips to the shop because he’d forgotten his password again (he could’ve sworn him and Sara met in Glasgow), he’d just changed them back. It didn’t mean anything, he’d told himself, as he changed his password back to the name of Liam’s Year Three form tutor. It never meant anything, if it was Liam.
“You shouldn’t’ve looked,” Noel says, flopping down on the sofa in the corner with a sigh and pressing the heels of his hands into his eyes. He feels exhausted, all of a sudden, the day’s adrenaline slowly making its way out of his system. He’s too fucking old for this.
“You should’ve made your password harder to guess,” Liam counters, and there’s a rustling sound. Noel opens his eyes again to see Liam unwrapping the burger impatiently, taking a huge bite out of it, eyes fluttering shut in pleasure. “This is fucking mega,” he adds.
“Good,” Noel says shortly. He’s glad Liam’s fucking enjoying himself, too busy with his fucking burger to think about the gravity of the situation.
“Won’t hurt to take the fucking stick out of your arse for a minute,” Liam says, rolling his eyes, with a mouthful of burger.
“Can you take fucking anything seriously?” Noel demands. “You’re- you shouldn’t fucking be here. You’re twenty-two. You’re from nineteen-ninety-five. ” Liam shrugs.
“What good’s it going to do to get all upset about it?” he says, taking another bite of his burger. “Nowt I can do, is there? No point crying about it.” Noel inhales deeply, bites the inside of his cheek, and exhales heavily.
“What the fuck are we going to do?” he mutters, more to himself than anything.
“Cuh muh,” Liam says, muffled by burger. He swallows, and tries again. “Call me. The older me, I mean. He must’ve been through this all already, right?”
Noel swallows. Shit. He’s got a point.
“What?” Liam says, seeing the look on Noel’s face. Noel averts his eyes, gazing at his feet.
“What if he hasn’t?” he says. “Liam. You. The other one.” Fucking hell. This is the weirdest conversation he’s ever had.
“Can’t hurt to ask, can it?” Liam says, wiping his oily fingers on his jeans and reaching for the bag to get the chips out. Fucking pig. “Just call him and ask.”
“I-” Noel cuts himself off. He’s not sure how to - or whether he even should - tell Liam that he and the older version of Liam aren’t exactly on speaking terms. He doesn’t even have Liam’s number; he’d have to ring Mam first. And it’s pushing on for time - both Mam and Liam go to bed early.
“What?” Liam says again, a little more suspiciously. “Am I dead?”
“What?” Noel says, taken aback. “No, you- what?” Liam shrugs again.
“The look on your fucking face,” he says. “Just fucking call me, what’s the big deal?” Noel squeezes his eyes shut, pinches the bridge of his nose.
“Alright,” he says, because he’s got literally no other ideas. “Fine. I’ll ring.” Liam grins at him, clearly proud that Noel’s okayed his idea, and shoves four chips in his mouth. “You’re disgusting,” Noel adds, as he pulls his phone out of his pocket and stands up. Liam frowns up at him as he chews.
“Where’re you going?” he says. Noel hesitates. He can’t exactly call their Mam in front of Liam, can he? What the fuck will Liam say to can I have Liam’s number, please? He can just imagine the litany of questions that’ll follow, the incensed expression on his face belying the hurt bubbling underneath the surface. Then again, though, Liam’ll find out at some point, won’t he? If the older Liam, the real Liam does know anything about it, their frosty relationship will become obvious fairly quickly. It’s probably better to tell him before he sees it himself.
“Look,” Noel says, sitting down again, finger hovering over his mam’s contact details. “I- Liam and I, we don’t talk.” Liam’s lips part slightly, brow furrowing in a deep frown. He’s trying to figure out how bad it is, whether it was Liam or Noel who caused it, how long it’s been, trying to gauge whether it’s temporary or permanent.
“How long?” Liam says. Noel swallows. The longest it had been in this Liam’s lifetime was probably a few days.
“Eleven years,” he says quietly, and Liam lets out a tiny gasp, eyes widening.
“Fuck off,” he says, but there’s a slight tremor in his voice, because he knows Noel’s not fucking around.
“I- it’s complicated,” Noel says. “But. You should know. Before we call him.” He’s not sure when I became we, but Liam doesn’t seem to notice anyway.
“Eleven years?” he says, voice breaking on the second word, making Noel wince. “What the fuck happened?”
“It’s- I don’t- it’s complicated,” Noel says again.
“Fuck off,” Liam says again, automatically this time. “I- we- eleven years? What fucking happened?”
“It’s complicated, Liam,” Noel repeats. He doesn’t have the time or energy to go into it all, to infuriate this young, impassioned Liam, because it’ll likely end in a fistfight that Noel no longer has the stamina for.
“D’you not love me anymore?” Liam asks bluntly. Noel blinks at him.
“Of course I do,” he says, although the words take him by surprise.
“D’you not love me like that anymore?” Liam says. His eyes are hard, jaw set, but his lips are twitching, betraying his fear. Rejection from Noel has always stung the hardest.
Noel swallows. He doesn’t know what to say to that. He’s tried to convince himself, over the years, tried to tell himself it was just a sick phase, it was the drugs, even when it was ten years after he’d stopped taking them. It was Liam, it wasn’t him. He was better now, wasn’t so fucking twisted and disgusting anymore, he didn’t want to get on his knees for Liam anymore.
But sometimes, even now, even after the decade that’s grown between them, when Noel’s got his hand wrapped around his cock in some grim hotel room in America, there’ll be flashes of bright blue eyes, full lips, long, dark lashes, a white throat tipped back in a laugh. He always comes quicker than usual at those images, quicker and harder, but the post-orgasm glow is replaced with a heavy, leaden, sick feeling in his stomach. He shouldn’t want it, he shouldn’t, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t.
“I don’t kn-” Noel stops himself. He does know. “I do.”
“So why?”
“Jesus, Liam, I’ve told you it’s complicated,” Noel says, a little less patiently, anger covering up the embarrassment and how fucking vulnerable he feels. “D’you want me to fucking call, or not?” Liam opens his mouth, ready to complain, and then closes it again.
“Fucking fine,” he mutters, but he doesn’t take his eyes off Noel as Noel presses the call button for his mam.
The phone rings twice, and then there’s a click, and she picks up.
“Hello, Noel,” she says.
“Hey, mam,” he replies. Liam frowns at him.
“Lovely to hear from you,” she says conversationally. “Little late, though.”
“I know, sorry,” Noel says apologetically. “I, uh. I need.” He clears his throat. “I need Liam’s number.” There’s a moment of silence at the other end of the line, and Noel sees Liam’s face drop.
“Alright,” his mam says after a minute. Noel loves her for not asking. He loves her for everything, really, except giving birth to Liam. “Here we go. Are you ready?”
“Yeah.” She reels off a number, and Noel scribbles it down hastily on the pad of paper he keeps next to the sofa, nodding as he goes. “Thanks, mam.”
“Oh, that’s alright, Noel.” She pauses, and then adds: “I’m glad.” Noel feels like a terrible son. He is a terrible son; he spent twenty years fucking one of her other sons.
“I’ve got to go, mam. I’ll call you soon,” Noel says, avoiding Liam’s hot, questioning gaze.
“Speak to you soon,” his mam says, and then she’s gone. Noel busies himself with typing the number in, hoping Liam’s not going to ask. His fingers are sweating a little, leaving marks on the screen, because fucking hell, what the fuck is Liam going to think? The real Liam, the older Liam, the one that Noel’s been making snide and biting comments about in the press for a decade, the one that sends Noel Christmas presents every year and hears nothing in return. What the fuck is he going to think?
“You don’t even have his number?” Liam asks, sounding strangely strangled.
“Obviously,” Noel says, a little icily. Liam doesn’t say anything else, but when Noel flicks his eyes up again, he’s leaning back in the chair, looking somewhere between hurt and afraid and bewildered, and it makes Noel’s stomach curl in on itself with something that he tries very hard not to identify as guilt.
The number’s typed, but he doesn’t want to press call. The button seems to loom at him, brighter and greener than he’s ever seen it before, like it’s challenging him, taunting him somehow. What if Liam doesn’t pick up? What if he picks up and then hangs up when he hears it’s Noel? What if-
His fingers have slipped as he’s been panicking, and the screen’s switched to dark grey, dialling the number. He can hear the dial tone from his lap, and he puts the phone to his ear hastily, pressing hard and turning the volume down, just in case Liam can hear in the silence of the room.
The phone rings five times, and Noel’s about to hang up, about to declare it a lost cause, when there’s a click, and Liam picks up.
“Who’s this?” he says, sounding a little grumpy. Noel swallows, mouth dry. This is the fucking last way he ever envisioned this going. He’d imagined Liam ringing him with a grovelling apology, maybe a few swear words chucked in, definitely more than a few innuendos, giving Noel the power and the luxury of deciding whether he would deign Liam with forgiveness or not. He’d never thought it’d be this way round, Noel ringing Liam, needing Liam. It’s just to get rid of the young Liam, he tells himself. It’s not a peace treaty, or even a truce. It’s just to get rid of the young Liam.
He swallows again, and opens his mouth.
“Hey, Liam.” There’s a pause.
“Noel?”