Chapter Text
The decision came slowly but surely, building itself up over the years until he decided that it was time. He couldn't ignore it any longer and they had to finally stop—anything and everything, all together and immediately. There had always been that sick, underlying need throughout their entire lives, tainting, eating away at the corners until there was nothing left but a love and hate that ruined everything. He hadn't ever been safe from it, from him, not even those five blissfully painful years before him that he pretended to remember when, really, they were entirely empty before he came barreling into the picture.
Anaïs was born twenty three days ago—that was three weeks and two days, 564 hours and 15 minutes, a fucking eternity ago and yesterday. His baby girl, his world, all the good he had was in her. They had been right about that immediate love you felt for 'em, the world suddenly turning another way entirely.
The day she had been born had been the most marvellous day in the fucking world, that. She was tiny, so tiny, so gentle and perfect. He had never felt so happy, couldn't stop smiling, couldn't stop gushing to every journo that would fucking listen because yeah, every cunt in England should know that she had been born, fucking second coming of Christ or summat.
They had sneaked her to Peggy's, back home in Burnage. Home. Well, home but a lot quieter because Liam hadn't been there to cause a ruckus and ruin everything which made it less home than he would like to admit. No, he hadn't been there because Noel hadn't told him owt, hadn't told him shit in weeks at that point. After tea he had caught Mam on the phone, calling up the fucking Devil himself and Noel had them out of the door in less than five minutes.
But now, twenty three days, three weeks and two days, 564 hours and 15 minutes later, there was a knock at his door and he knew who it was without even having to take a look. The sound of knuckles on wood was soft but insistent. Insistent in the sense that the knock kept knocking, knocking, knocking, for bloody ages before Noel ripped the door open so hard that he could have sworn that he pulled summat in this shoulder along with it.
There he stood, the fucking cunt. In a matter of months, Noel had pulled so far back from him, had talked him down so much to anyone that would listen, that he was surprised to see his baby brother in front of him instead of the fucking nuisance he had made him out to be inside his head.
His hand was still raised in mid air for the next knock while the other was fisting the bottom of his jacket like he used to do when Noel caught him doing something he shouldn't as a little 'un. He looked sheepish, his hair so long that it almost reached his shoulders, currently blowing wildly over his eyes, his face slightly pink from the cold wind. Liam shuffled a bit, ducking his head and Noel knew what he was doing—throwing himself down, growling, so that Noel might find it inside his heart to let the mutt inside his house.
"'ello, Noel," he said, fidgeting with his hands now. A slight pout, big puppy eyes and a soft request of, "Might ye let your little brother inside?"
Noel sighed but stepped sideways. He couldn't deny him when he was like that and Liam knew it well enough. He could work him over easy and there was a prickle along Noel's neck that he couldn't stand because he knew exactly what it meant. Liam brushed past, standing and shuffling about in the corridor uncertainly as if he hadn't been in that exact spot a hundred times before.
Noel didn't like that—didn't like that it seemed like his brother knew of his distaste for him, didn't like that he was timid and obedient when it wasn't asked of him, didn't like that he must surely know that Noel had decided to end it between them for good.
"Ta," mumbled Liam, rubbing his hands together. Noel watched, tired and somewhat ridged because what did Liam ever want but make fucking trouble for him? "For lettin' us in, I mean, and, uhm, the thing at—,"
"What the fuck do you want, Liam?" said Noel, crossing his arms. An accusing finger pointed at his brother from the crook of his arm. "'cause I know it ain't just to thank us for opening the bloody door. If you think you can fuck with me—,"
"No! I mean, no, I ain't here to do anythin'," his hands raised, his face heating up from being accused of anything. Noel knew he hated that. That was why he did it, aye? "Just... I, uhm, I didn't—didn't catch ya at Mam's. I wanted to see you, y'know what I mean? How ye were doin' an' all that."
"How I was doing? Since when do you give a toss about how I'm fuckin' doing, mate?" Noel scoffed, trying to push past to go to the kitchen or the telly room, anywhere really to get away from his brother. But Liam caught his wrist, turned him right back around, easy as that.
"I care! Y'know I care," big, pleading eyes staring right into his. Noel reckoned that Liam probably thought he could see right through to the hollow core of him. "Let's not have a row, yeah?"
A laugh bubbles out of him, cruel and twisted. Let's not have a row, eh? There had been a reason why Noel wanted him gone. Weeks ago, still on tour, Liam was shagging any and every bird that flew his way while coming head to head with Noel. Every single fucking day was the same spiel—Noel's face, a word he said, not enough praise for the princess. He couldn't look to his left or right without Liam snapping at him, without a venomous fucking comment to tear into him. They fought, black eyes and bruised ribs, angry sex that felt punishing in the sense of hate instead of pleasure until Noel had stopped letting him near him all together. Noel hadn't recognised him anymore, no, all he had seen was that old geezer that would haunt him no matter how much money he had, how far he fucking ran. All he had felt were those old scars tearing back open under his brother's hateful fucking hands.
"I'm serious, Noel—," pleaded his brother. Something soured inside Noel. Maybe it were the fact that he was trying to use those eyes he used to make at him when they were kids—dirtying something sacred—maybe it were because their father was wiped from his brother's features, maybe it were the fact that he sounded so small, so young, just like the kid brother that Noel missed like a fucking lung. Maybe it were the way that he felt himself give in because of all of that.
"Serious? You? Right fuckin' laugh that," Liam ducked his head even further and he looked like a fucking beaten dog. It took everything in him to stay mad, to loathe him as he should. He had no right coming here and expecting forgiveness for owt. "You should leave. I ain't in the mood for you to have a go at me."
"I ain't tryin' to 'ave a go at you, man!" and his voice crackled like he was trying hard not to cry. Noel ain't never been one to cry but Liam was. Seemed like he cried all the tears that Noel had held back and then some. He was a storm of fire and violence, his brother, and yet he cried like a baby whenever he saw fit. Not a pound of shame in him.
"Why else—," a little hiccup of a cry from upstairs froze them both right up. The hand around Noel's wrist tightened, twitched once like it was going to pull him closer but restrained itself before actually doing so. Liam's eyes were fixed on the top of the stairs when Noel looked at him. He ached, all of the sudden. Fucking—being human, right? Suddenly he wanted Liam to see her, this miracle that he had been hiding away from him as if he don't have a right seeing her—his niece, his blood. Liam's eyes blinked upstairs and Noel hated himself, he fucking hated himself when he said, "You fancy seeing 'er, then?"
Liam must not have expected him to say that because his head snapped to him, all open mouthed like a fish, before looking back up the stairs and nodding silently, almost as if he were under some spell that finally kept his gob shut.
"C'mon then," he said softly, more carefully than he had been with him in months. Liam's fingers let him slip free but he stayed so close to his back that he could basically feel him wrapped around it. At the top he let his brother in front, guided him towards the right door and inside the small nursery. The sun was shining gently into the room and Liam halted. Noel waited but a minute passed and Liam didn't take another step towards the crib. Noel nudged him and said, "No need to be afraid, lad. She's just a baby."
And it was supposed to mock him but it came out weak, rewritten with so much silent love that it was loud in the space between them. This was new, something they had never experienced before because even when Lennon was born there had always been people running about. The missus or Mam, or some other knob that Noel couldn't bother remembering. Now it were just them, and Liam seemed so quiet and uncertain that it tore at Noel like a fucking saw.
He touched his shoulder, pushed him forward and watched him like a hawk from his place at the door. Not because he didn't trust him—because he did, fucking hell he did—no, he watched him because he wanted to see every reaction, wanted it burned inside his brain. The moment when his brother saw that he could make something good, too. When he saw that Noel could do anything beside ruin.
Liam went around and stood sideways to peer inside the crib. His face opened up then, went blooming from that horrifically sad expression he had been wearing since the moment Noel had pulled open the door to something so beautiful that it caught Noel's breath. His brother's eyes went wide, his mouth dropping open before a smile snagged at its edges.
He put a hand towards her, stopped, gripped the edge of the crib instead. "Hullo there."
Noel saw it clear as day. The way his eyes shimmered, the tremble of his hand. Liam loved kids, was good with them like nobody else.
"You can touch 'er," Noel didn't mean to say that. It had just slipped out from a place that he didn't want to think about. Liam's eyes flickered to him. Noel cleared his throat, leaning against the doorway to feign nonchalance. "If ya wan', I mean."
Liam breathed out an answer that he couldn't really hear. So he went on to touch her, Noel could see the way his finger traced over her little forehead, feather soft. He remembered the way that his brother used to do that to him when he pretended to be asleep. In the moonlight, when he was too lazy to kick him out of his bed at home or a hotel, he'd trail his finger along Noel's features for minutes on end before kissing his cheek or temple and tugging himself back into the hollow of Noel's throat.
"She's beautiful," whispered Liam. He looked enamoured, as he should be, mind. All that love he had been trying to store away, to quell and choke out, was thumping through his veins just like it had from the moment his little brother had been born. "She's so quiet."
"Opposite of you," said Noel before he could stop himself. He shouldn't invite him in, shouldn't let him burrow back into Noel's heart but it were a lost cause, weren't it? His brother would always be there no matter how hard Noel fought against it. Brother shaped holes were impossible to fill in without the fitting piece. "Ye used to scream yer head right off."
"Only when I weren't with you," Liam smiled, soft like it were a beautiful thing and not bloody devastating. "Mam told me that."
Noel hummed because what else was there to say? "You came here to see 'er, didn't you? Should've said."
"No! I mean, yeah, but I'm 'ere to see me brother, y'know what I mean? Nobody, uhm, nobody but you asked me how I were after Lennon was born so I figured...," he trailed off. Noel ached. "I just wanted to see you."
"You saw me." he said, trying to cut him out. One last desperate try to cut him out and kick him to the streets.
"Y'know what I mean, our kid." mumbled Liam, looking at him almost shyly before looking back at her. Noel went to him then, the crib between them as a distance that he wanted to keep for life but knew he'd never be able to survive for quite that long. Noel stroked her soft baby hair, watched her squirm a moment before settling again. Liam trailed a finger over her little knuckles and gasped when her soft hand latched onto it. A smile, warm and airy like the first day of spring. Noel didn't want to think about what he felt for him, what was pressing so urgently against the back of his eyes.
"She look like me, don't she?" said his brother and Noel would jump over the crib and murder him if it weren't for the way he had said it, so serious and breathless, as if he couldn't quite believe it himself. Genuine, not just something to wind Noel up with.
"Yeah," he breathed instead, surprising them both. Liam looked up at him, then. His eyes were teary, of course. Noel looked away and back towards her, desperate to keep them separated, let his daughter be a person instead of an extension of his brother that he was clinging onto. "Think she's the only thing I ever gotten right."
"Nah, she ain't," Liam said softly. "You done right before as well."
Noel scoffed but Liam was still looking at him, he could tell. "No, I didn't. I don't want 'er to... to be a first try, y'know? I don't wanna fuck her up, man."
"But she ain't a first try, is she?" the birds outside chirped, his heart was thumping with a sadness lodged so deep inside of him that it felt ancient. "She's yer second. You done well enough with your first."
Jesus fucking Christ. Noel looked at his brother because he knew that Liam needed him to, because he tried talking to him without saying anything, just like they used to be able to do so effortlessly.
"I fucked you up, kidda," he heaved and Liam seemed torn between that soft gaze and pity. A mix that always meant I love you without burdening Noel with the actual words. "You—... you were just a kid. My kid. Fuck, I—..."
"Stop that, Noel," Liam sounded fed up, that voice that often took over when someone other than him dared to criticise his big brother. "Ye did everything you could, yeah? You protected me, you were always there for me. Look at me! Fucking Rock'n'Roll star all 'cause me big brother is the best songwriter in the world."
"I always took—," started Noel. Liam freed his finger from Anaïs. He did look like her, was the thing. So small, so beautiful, and she looked like she had been Liam's all along.
"What I wanted ya to take," he rounded the crib, turned Noel by his elbow so they faced each other. He could be soft, lovely, when he wanted to be. Just like he used to be. He sounded choked up when he said, "Don't take—don't take yourself away from me, Noely. I need you, y'know I need you."
"You shouldn't, kid. Not like this." he couldn't help but grab onto him too, holding his arms in the same way that his brother was holding onto his.
"I love you. It's never gonna change," Liam stepped closer slowly, as if afraid that Noel would bolt if he weren't careful enough. "It's never gonna change no matter how hard you push me away, lad. I'm always gonna be yours."
"I don't want you to be." and that was a lie, alright, because he did. He wanted nothing more than Liam to belong solely to him. It was sick, deranged, and yet he couldn't bear when others took him away which was why they were so turned around in the first place. They needed their birds, needed the gentleness of a woman, and yet all Noel looked for in each of them was his brother.
"But I am," Liam stepped even closer, letting their foreheads touch. Noel closed his eyes, couldn't take looking at him up close. He let Liam put his hands on his waist, felt his brother's biceps under his own palms. "I'll always be. I'll be whatever you need me to be, Noely."
"I need ya to be normal," he forced out. "I need you to stay away and—and maybe then we can be normal brothers. Maybe we can fix it. Make it right."
"Is that what you really want?" Liam's thumb brushed under the sweater he was wearing. Not suggesting, just touching. "Because I'll do it. I'll give that to you as long as you don't fuckin' disappear on me no more."
He couldn't answer. Of course, he didn't want it. Bleeding headcase, his brother, but sometimes Noel couldn't help but indulge in his talk of destiny and fate, of the way the universe had made them specifically for each other.
Liam exhaled against him, his hands squeezing his hips before slipping off him. A hair breath of distance between them and Noel's eyes snapped open to a crumbling mess of his brother. Had he really forgotten how to read Noel? Liam was pulling away, his shoulders sagging, a crack in his voice when he said, "Alright."
"You fucking know I don't want that! It's fucking," he gestured around, positively cacking it. "It's fucking all of this, innit? Fuck's sake, we got kids, Liam! We got families—,"
"You're me family, Noel."
"Shut up! I mean your fuckin' wife, your son! We got the band, the whole fuckin' world is watching us. I just—I can't stop thinking about it blowing up in our fuckin' mugs, man. It's doing me bloody head in." he wiped a hand over his face, went to turn when Anaïs made a small distressed sound in her crib. He rocked the bed, patting her stomach. She calmed easily, too fucking easy, but he calmed alongside her.
"Y'are making her right upset, y'are," said Liam, shuffling closer to wrap his arms around him in such a slow and familiar manner that Noel's heart thumbed wildly in his chest. He hooked his chin over Noel's shoulder, slotting against his back like he had never been anywhere else. His dumb baby voice in Noel's ear when he leaned a bit more heavily on his back to look inside the crib, "Da is making you upset, innhe? Yeah, he is. Pretty sure she wants you to give yerself and ye baby brother some grace, mate."
Noel scoffed. "There ain't no more grace left for us, kidda."
Liam stayed quiet, impressively, then he started swaying them left and right so slowly that Noel wondered if he even noticed himself doing it.
She did look like Liam. Mostly when she was like this, swaddled and asleep. The round cheeks, the blonde eyebrows and sweet lashes. He had thought that when she was first born and washed by the nurses—weren't even shocked when he looked at her and seen his baby brother right there, handed to him a second time in his life. Maybe it was to make up for the first time 'round.
"You'll be a good dad, Noel," said Liam so confidently that Noel leaned a bit more willingly against him. "It's fun, you'll see. All those things you'll see for the first time, it's bloody crazy, that."
Noel hummed. "Nah. No first times for me."
"Hmm?" said Liam, turning his head on his shoulder to look at him. He was frowning, probably upset that Noel didn't thank him profusely for his motivational speech. Instead he turned in his arms, took his brother's face into his hands in a way that was too soft for the afternoon sun. Liam's face opened up, blinking at him with those pretty eyes of his.
"You were right," Liam perked up like a called dog, straightening a bit. "I did have me first baby already. Saw all his firsts, didn't I?"
There was so much love flowing from his brother. It waved from him over to Noel, embracing him just as tightly as his kid always did. Liam melted and Noel couldn't help but let his anger go. Jesus, he really had no bloody backbone.
Liam leaned forward with so much caution that Noel couldn't help the quirk of his lips. He let him, was ready for the kiss, but it didn't come. Liam brushed the very corner of his mouth before sliding sideways and pulling him into a hug. While Noel stood dumbfounded, Liam wrapped himself around him, his hands around his back and face pressed to the bend where Noel's neck slumped into his shoulder. His brother sighed like a satisfied dog when Noel raised his own arms to wrap them around his shoulders, a hand in his hair and slipping to scratch at his neck. Liam shivered happily.
"I love you," Liam's mouth kissed into his skin. "I want our kids to grow up together, man, just like we did. I wanna sing your songs and go on tour... But I want you more, y'know what I mean? I would give it all up if it meant we could, like, sleep in the same bed for the rest of me life of summat."
"Just for the rest of your life? What 'bout me, eh?" huffed Noel, only teasing him because he felt too vulnerable to say anything else. He patted his shoulder and hoped his brother didn't notice when he tried shifting closer even though there wasn't any space left between them.
"Well, I'mma kick the bucket first, yeah? I ain't living without ya like some fucked version of McCartney. Or we go together, y'know what I mean, like—No, whatever, me fuckin' point is that I'd rather be with you than anywhere else," Noel couldn't keep the snort contained, earning a slap to the arse from the freak. He would be more floored if Liam hadn't been obsessed with him his entire life. "What 'bout you...?"
'course he couldn't go a second without hearing some kind of reciprocation from Noel. It had always been like that but got especially bad after things got serious with their birds, more so when Liam and his missus were expecting their first baby. Liam had gotten proper clingy then, almost scared if Noel didn't know any better. He would come over constantly, would make Noel arrange trip after trip for their birds so they could be alone for longer than a few hours without Patsy suspecting that Liam was cheating on her. It was like he were right back with Louise, the constant unannounced barge-in that his brother was. Clinging to Noel during rehearsals, during gigs, during sex that had turned sickly sweet and slow—he had taken Noel like he were worshipping him, had kissed all over his face and muttered the most senselessly sweet things into his skin. He had begged, begged, and begged Noel to tell him that he loved him, that he needed him, that he would never cast him aside.
"'course I want ya to be 'round." is all he managed to croak out. He let himself fall further into his brother, hoping that he could read something, anything, in the way that Noel tried giving himself over.
"Mega," muttered Liam. He hated being away from him, he admitted to himself willingly even when he would never say it out loud simply for the way that it would inflate his brother's already insufferable ego indefinitely. But he hated it. He missed living under one roof with him, to have him right there across the space in a bed that would creek in the middle of the night to announce his sneak over to Noel's. He missed waking up to his face, his annoying fucking voice, missed fighting in the kitchen over the best piece of sausage. He missed having to fight for the telly remote, missed watching footy together without having to co-ordinate visits, missed putting an arm around him and heaving him closer when his brother fell asleep on the couch, already pressed against his side but never quite close enough.
Noel missed him in all these trivial, boring moments that he now spent with his missus or by himself instead of with his brother. He missed when Liam had been soft inside that bony, sharp, boyish body of his. He missed when he had been kind without Noel silently begging for it. Oasis was the best thing that could have happened to them and yet it took away the only thing that had ever really belonged to Noel and nobody else.
"Sometimes..." he faltered. Liam pressed their cheeks together, hummed. Noel took another breath, "Sometimes I wish the band never happened... that it were just us. That nothing had changed, y'know what I mean?"
Liam was quiet for a second which made Noel's blood fucking freeze, alright. He never opened up like this, not ever, and when he finally did his knobhead brother wouldn't say anything. He just... He just needed a sound, right? Something, anything, to validate this fucked up fantasy, those fucked up feelings eating him up.
Noel tried to struggle from his grip, kick him right out of the door and continue to be mad at him like he had been the past months. But Liam had a grip on him and pulled him so close that the air momentarily left his body completely. His brother burried his face in his shoulder, rubbing left and right like a pushy fucking dog.
"I think it's good like this, innit? Us right now, together and fucking brilliant. We got everything we wanted, don't we?" it was a bit muffled, words soaking through Noel's sweater right into his skin.
"Do we? Got everything we wanted?" even he heard how pathetic he sounded, all cracked up and open.
"Sure, got money, music, drugs, we got the whole word in our hands, don't we? Mam's happy, I got Lennon and you got her. I got you and who else can say that, eh?" Anaïs made a sleepy noise and Liam came out of his hiding place to stick out his tongue at her like a jealous toddler fighting for his favourite toy. Noel knocked their temples together to get him to stop taking the piss out of his infant daughter. "Aye, I gotcha. I don't need nowt else if I've got ya."
"Really? That's a laugh 'cause I remember that nothing was ever enough for ya, lad."
"Couldn't really profess me love for me big brother when he was all angsty and twitchy, could I?" countered Liam, squeezing Noel like he might try pulling away again. He didn't. "Nah, you woulda legged it right quick. You did leg it. I ain't forget how ya left me all by meself."
"You had Paul—,"
"Fuck Paul! I love the geezer but I wanted me big brother, didn't I? I would've begged on my hands and fucking knees if that would've brought ya back to me. But I knew better, I did," Liam rubbed along his shoulder, placed another kiss there before pressing one to the side of his head and nosing his way behind his ear. It was tender, horrifically tender, the kiss he set against the shell of it. Such a simple gesture packed so full of love that Noel had to close his eyes against it, otherwise it might leak through him and out of his eyes. Liam's breath was warm against the side of his face when he said, "Nah, wouldn't have come back to us even if we were crying at yer feet, eh?"
Before Noel could scramble through a proper rubbish excuse his face was cradled in sure hands like he were something precious and not rotten through to the core, rotten so completely that it had leaked over to the one person he was supposed to protect in this world.
"Stop thinking that." said Liam, smoothing the back of his knuckles over Noel's cheek and he almost didn't recognise him anymore. When had his dickhead of a brother reverted back to himself? When had he become so kind and careful that Noel didn't ache for a fight but a warm bed so he could simply hold him, his quiet snoring that used to soothe him to sleep and the warmth of his limbs entangled with his own? Since when did he want to be his constant again—the protector, the giver, the big brother?
"Stop pretending to read me mind." huffed Noel in turn. Liam closed in, pressing their foreheads together tightly. It felt a lot more urgent, more desperate, than his otherwise gentle touches. Noel shivered he missed him so bad.
"Y'are thinking 'bout the way ye ruined me, eh. 'cause y'are always thinking 'bout it even after I've told ya a million times it ain't ever been like that," Noel swallowed down the need to make a fool of himself by trying to string together a coherent lie. Liam knew him, he did. "Aye, I know you, brother. Better than anyone."
"You wish." he said but it came out weak and they both heard the lie in it. Knew him inside out, he did, knew all his tweaks and all the buttons he had to push to make him explode. It felt electric when Liam finally brushed their lips together, just a touch to make Noel weak for it as if he hadn't been for years, decades. His brother also knew all the buttons he had to push to make Noel melt. Those were it: climpering eyelashes and gooey words, two hands to hold him and that never changing tone of his love when he opened his mouth. Devotion.
Just like that Noel were his again.
Liam pressed forward into another kiss. It was slow before Noel let him slip past his lips with a gasp. He held onto his arms, shivering when Liam wound them tighter around him to slot them together. Noel let himself be kissed because he'd always been a lazy cunt and because there was nothing better in the world than Liam's neediness dripping all over him. His brother lapped at him, kissing him so hungrily that it felt like he was being devoured. Noel let him map out the inside of his mouth as if he weren't on top form already, let him push his tongue to the very back like he was trying to reach his wisdom teeth. They panted into each other's mouths, trying to catch their breath without parting too far. Liam especially seemed unable to tear himself away from his big brother once he had him like this.
"I need you, Noel," whispered Liam against the side of his face, pressing messy kisses to his cheek and jaw. His voice trembled a little and Noel could only grab at his arms harder. "I need you, please. Please, Noel."
Then Liam was biting at his throat, sucking at the skin before kissing and licking over it. Noel arched into his grip, making them stumble a little. He ached all over, overwhelmed with the need to be closer. Liam was breathing fast against him, pulling and pulling at him. Noel couldn't tell if it were because of heady need or something else entirely, something terrifying that only they knew.
"C'mon, kid, calm down," he tried when Liam wouldn't stop shaking against him. He patted the back of his head, let his other arms slip around his brother's neck to pull him closer. Liam breathed shakily, still messing with his throat before eventually coming back up to press the tip of his nose against Noel's cheek. "Y'are sound, eh? I'm right 'ere."
"Yeah?" asked Liam, hot against the side of his face. "Tell us you love us."
"Liam..." he faltered when Liam pressed his crotch to the curve of his hip, 'course he was hard, never took much to get him going.
"Tell us. Please, Noel, just—I just needa 'ear it, yeah? Just once, I—," his brother let a sob slip and Noel sighed. That was that, then. "Noely."
Noel didn't say anything and so Liam slipped free, falling to his knees in such a fluid motion that Noel very nearly expected to look down and see his brother's nineteen year old face looking up at him again, pink and eager to please him. This Liam was pink, too, but it was from the tears and not from warm, fucked up happiness.
His brother struggled with his belt, his hands shaking so badly that he couldn't get a right grip and kept slipping away from it. A frustrated, shaky sound left him and Noel's heart broke a little. He took his fingers into his, stubby and ugly to anyone but Noel. Just another mirrored part of him, eh?
"Stop, kidda, c'mon—," he said quietly. When Liam was like this, hysterical, it was only gonna be fixed by Noel's gentle words or a hard slap. He weren't in the mood for much slapping these days. "Get up."
"No!" snapped Liam. He softened a bit, taking Noel's hands and placing them at the sides of his own head then he leaned forward, burying his face in Noel's crotch. He could only gasp, grabbing his brother's hair a little tighter. Liam mouthed at him through his jeans, nosed along the obvious outline of his hard on. He rolled his face side to side and breathed him in so deep that Noel could only tug him closer. Liam blinked up at him beautifully, so beautiful that Noel's breath caught and he shook with such terrible want and love for his brother that he wouldn't have been surprised if his teeth started chattering with it. The feeling both innocent and rotten all at once. "Please, Noely. Ain't had you proper in months, I just—wanna make you feel good, yeah? You can shag me if you want, I don't care, I just need ya."
And it took everything in him not to let him get another try at that belt. No, no, not fucking here, not now. Noel looked up at the ceiling, took a big breath and pushed Liam away. A hurt little noise like a kicked puppy punched out of him but before he could feel bad, Liam was scrambling for his leg, holding on for dear life and almost whimpering. "Please, Noel, anything just—,"
"Are you mental?!" snapped Noel even though he didn't want to. A firm word was needed to smack through his brother's skull and get him to listen. Liam was a dog through and through, head down and pawing at Noel's leg. "My daughter is right there and you 'ave the fuckin' bottle to ask me that?"
"'m sorry, Noely. Sorry." mumbled Liam to the floor, rejected and bleeding all over with it.
"Get up," he didn't. Noel nudged him with his knee. Nothing. Softer now, careful, because Noel wasn't the only one that could pull away and freeze someone out. No, his brother had learnt the craft himself well enough, he had. Liam never could hold onto that anger for long, though, always crawling back to Noel. But the silence stung, the fact that he took his love away from Noel so willingly when he had been wrapped around his fingers since the day he was born. So he reached for him instead—a hand in his hair, scratching along the scalp. "Get up, lad."
Nothing except the shaking of his shoulder. Noel knelt, ignored the awe in his brother's eyes when they flickered up to his for just a moment before they went back to boring holes into the floorboards. Noel mirrored him now, his knuckles smoothing against the smooth skin of his brother's shaven face.
"Not here," he said, quiet like a secret, like Anaïs knew anything about what he was telling him. Liam shuddered, Noel tugged a strand of hair behind his ear then did the same on the other side before he smoothed the fabric over his shoulders out and ducked down to catch his eye, blood shot and all around wobbly. "Not here with 'er."
"I want you," Liam was shaking with it. The need, the heat in his stomach and under his skin. Noel felt it, too. After months of denying him it finally came crashing down. "Don't you want us anymore?"
All the time. He wanted him all the time. In his bed down the hall, the couch downstairs, in Liam's bed where his bird slept and the uncomfortable studio couch that stuck to one's skin. He had wanted and still wanted him in that shoebox room back in Burnage, where everything had started to fall apart and rebuild itself. He had run from there, from him, and yet he had always come back because it was home, it was Liam, and how could he ever leave him behind?
"'course." he said lamely because he couldn't well tell him that, could he? Ridiculous, how long and how often he had tried to run away from it when it was shining so clearly in his brother's eyes. Love. The only kind that Noel would never lose because Liam was a loyal dog to a fault and would never stop loving him, no matter how cruel he might get.
Cruel, that was all him, alright. Overprotective, possessive, and right fucked up over his own little brother who was almost worst than him. The only real difference was in which they showed the intensity of it to the other—Liam suffocatingly honest, his heart on Noel's sleeve, while Noel tried everything to mess with his brother's head and keep his own heart hidden away from him. It only made sense for them to cross all the boundaries that society may have set.
"I mean it, yeah. Ye can... y'know..." he was a lighter shade of pink now but his words were still trembling, his eyes still flickering away every now and then.
"I know." 'cause he did. Liam would let him shag him no questions asked, maybe a bit of grumbling but that was it. That was how it all had started, hadn't it? Too much touching, too much kissing, Liam begging and begging until Noel broke away underneath it. He had taken him in their room countless of times, pressing him into the mattress, swallowing down the noise he was making because he could never shut the fuck up. Had taken him in Louise's bed or on the couch, or the floor, so frequently, so rabidly that he was still surprised that they had never been caught out.
One day, after three rounds and even more snogging, Noel had been on his back trying to catch his breath for the first time in what felt like hours. Liam was glued to his side, his head on his shoulder and whining for a more engaged cuddle. At least hug us, ya fucking cunt.
After a moment, Liam started moving against his hip. Noel had grumbled, I'm fucking old so spare me. He weren't that old, mind, but all the energy was drained from his body and there was no way that he could move even a little bit, much less get it back up to go for another tumble. But Liam was persistent if nothing else. And beautiful and so, so sweet when he wanted to be. Little kitten licks against Noel's throat, the underside of his jaw before kissing him on the mouth, deep and hungry, fucking noisy, too.
That was how Noel had ended up on his stomach, Liam plastered to his back and fucking his thighs which Noel tried clenching together with the last of his energy. Best big brother, weren't he? Letting his little brother use him when he were too tired to move himself. Liam licked the side of his face, biting into his shoulder when he came rutting against his skin like a mutt. I love you, I love you, I love you. He had rambled endlessly afterwards, right until he fell asleep against the curve of Noel's shoulder.
The rest was history, weren't it? Noel had taken him every which way still but Liam had become obsessed with his legs, his thighs, and it shouldn't have turned Noel on so bad but it bloody did, alright. Liam had been gagging for it, uncoordinated and drooly every time that Noel squeezed his thighs together for him to fuck.
It was only natural for Noel to let Liam take him fully at some point. It was hard to let go the control he had over the other but fucking hell if that weren't almost better than doing all the work. Liam was like a trained dog, rutting into him mercilessly but only chasing Noel's orgasm. Coming himself seemed all but second priority if he hadn't fucked Noel through at least two beforehand. He'd do what he was told—take him how he was told to take him, would be rough, gentle, would do anything that Noel asked of him. Coming prematurely like a boy with his first bird never stopped him from mounting Noel just seconds later to fuck into him again, almost always better than the first frantic time around.
C'mon, rkid, get me up the duff, will ya? he'd hold over his head when Liam wouldn't let up on pummeling him into the mattress. That always did it—binding them together, confessing his undying love, all that shite got Liam off faster than anything else. Mine, mine, mine. He would chant excessively into Noel's ear almost like he didn't even notice himself saying it.
He still let Noel shag him on occasions but he seemed completely taken with this opportunity of marking him his in some fucked way. Turned right stupid, he did, when his cock was inside Noel. Brainless, even more so than usual, only wanting to fuck, fuck, fuck.
"Noely?" asked the Liam in the now. The one that hadn't touched him in weeks, hadn't fucked him with anything but hatred in months. "I—,"
"Tonight," decided Noel, taking his hands into his and tweaking the matching ring on his brother's finger. He looked at him, hoped he heard everything that he was trying to tell him through that one look. "Yer missus is gone, I heard."
"Aye," breathed Liam, pupils fattening before shrinking before doing it all over again. The tears and emotional whirlwind of his brother fucking with them. "She 's."
"Yer gaff is free for me to come 'round, then." he promised just like that. Remember, he was easy like that, would always be easy like that for him.
Liam blinked rapidly, looking down to their hands before looking back at him. A smile, shy and barely there, one that told him you're a dickhead but I love you.
"Will you—," started his brother. He had become right fidgety about his arse. Noel huffed, turning Liam's ring back in the right direction.
"We'll see what happens when we're there, eh?"
Liam nodded, eyes sparkly like a little girl's would in a princess castle. He looked around like he was seeing the nursery for the first time, looked back down at their hands before shimmying just a little closer to him. Noel couldn't help but smile, cup the side of his face when Liam leaned in and touched his lips to Noel's temple just because, or maybe as an apology, to make up for all these weeks of when the mere thought of him turned Noel's stomach into knots.
"I love you," Liam said against his cheek like he did when he was teasing Noel for a row or a shag, or during that time period where he was around nine and wanted Noel close all the time and would go ballistic when his big brother refused him. Noel remembered how many hours he had spent just tangled up with him, breathing in synch, how many afternoons he had spent at home because Liam refused to be anywhere but plastered to his side or back, or sat in his lap. Now, his stubby little claws were in his big brother's shoulders when he scooted closer as if he were going to climb right into his lap just like he used to do all those times when he were little, and then later when he couldn't seem to go a day without snogging Noel's face off. "I love you more than anything."
"I know." he said, I love you, too.
"Promise? That you'll come?" a kiss pressed to his jaw, Liam's nose rubbing against the side of his. It hurt a little that he had to ask him that but Noel had bailed on him more than once, he did. When the thought of it had been too much, when the gear made him see ghosts of people around every corner instead of taking all his fears away, when Liam's love gripped him too tightly, too honestly, and scared him in the process.
"Promise," he was tired of being scared. Why in the world would he deny himself this when Liam looked at him with so much love? When the God of his world looked at him like he were the entire universe? "Someone oughta take care of ya."
"Aye," he was vibrating with love against him and all Noel could do was squeeze his sides, clutch at him like he were a lifeline and not his brother. He reckoned he had always been cold to him, distant even when he tried not to be, but Noel had always been afraid of the love he held for him. Had been afraid that there weren't anything else to life but this. Anaïs gurgled in her sleep and, yes, there was more to life, so much more, and yet he couldn't bring himself to care about anything or anyone but his little brother, the sprog that he had seen grow up right in front of his eyes. Fucking selfish that he had always wanted more when he had already had everything in the palm of his hand. "Me big brother, yeah?"
He kissed him just because he could, like. Then he got him up and made for the door. Liam bent over the crib, rubbing Anaïs tummy and tickling her chin, whispering to her. Noel used to do that to him when he was a babe—telling him all his secrets and petting him like a little puppy.
Down at the front door, Liam shifted around in his parka, stalling and always wanting more than Noel was giving him.
"See ya tonight, lad," said Noel.
"Yeah...," Liam didn't meet his eyes, hands bunched in the bottom of his jacket like it had been when he first came knocking on Noel's door.
"Liam," his brother glanced up and Noel nodded at him sideways, their little way of telling without saying. Liam lit up like a star, Noel's personal guiding light. Not even a second later, he had an armful of his brother who was slightly bending over himself to nudge his face into Noel's neck. He felt him breathe him in, let it go uncommented but couldn't stop himself from nosing behind Liam's ear as a reply. That was the place were he smelled most like himself, strong and like home. No amount of money, time or fame could ever change the essence of him.
"Love you, Noely." and that were the voice he only ever used around him. Quiet and with a higher tilt to it. Made the hairs on the back of his neck stand right up, that.
"I know, lad," he tugged him closer, rubbing his hand up and down his back. He could tell that Liam was struggling to let go, knew that he was in a place inside his head that he often slipped into when Noel was kind instead of cruel. Softer he was in those moments, almost fragile, so Noel tried holding him together without making him unable to leave without him. Fucking—Jesus, it were all a mess, weren't it? They were both grown up and yet Noel couldn't stop himself from seeing him as the little boy that used to hide under his covers when he had been naughty. Or maybe it were the passing of time that made him easier to love. "Love ya, too."
And Noel knew that if they were still twenty-five and twenty, he would be dealing with his brother jumping up into his arms, right that moment, to cling onto him like a bloody koala bear. But Noel was thirty-two years old and Liam was considered enough to just renew his efforts of merging them into one being by nuzzling further into him, making them fall back a step while Liam made happy sounds against his neck.
"Alright, la," laughed Noel, patting him like the puppy dog he was. He tugged at his hair and was greeted by the biggest smile he had seen on his face in months. A wet, fucking disgusting kiss was smacked onto his lips, his cheek, his temple, all over his face until he had to try and push him off of him, laughing so hard that his sides hurt. "Fucking stop it!"
"Missed you, Noely." their cheeks pressed together and Noel stopped pushing at him, just giving him time to let go by himself.
"Right here, ain't I?" he knew what he meant, 'course. Didn't mean he needed to tell him that.
"Now, yeah," said Liam a bit tense, a snark in his voice that Noel could hear from a city over. He sighed. "Couldn't be arsed to see us for weeks now, eh. Didn't even tell us what we done that—,"
"C'mon, not now, yeah?" his kid was wound up now even though Noel had him almost out the door. He turned his head, caught him in a kiss to swallow the fire down. Liam softened, a sigh and he gave over. Just like that, Noel was back in control. Against his lips he said, "You been good, let's keep it that way, alright?"
A shudder and his brother pulled away, his hands falling off Noel. He was nodding at the floor like a kid scolded. He snapped his pointer finger against Liam's forehead and huffed.
"Alright, Noel."
"Right. G'wan home, then, big man," smacked his shoulder and crossed his arms. It was funny, really, how fast Liam's moods switched. Well, funny until it hit him, right. Funny until Noel wasn't the center of his love but of his wrath. Funny until he wanted him dead instead of close, tugged under his arm where he belonged. "And put that pout away while y'are at it."
"Ain't fucking pouting, me," he said, pouting.
Noel caught his lip, laughing. "Right."
"Hands off my—my fucking mouth, mate," Liam slapped at him, grumbling. "Bloody minging, that."
"Yeah, yeah," he slapped his brother's cheek lightly, letting him go so he could watch him shrug around in his parka like Noel had messed it all up He couldn't stop himself from wondering, "What did ya tell Anaïs?"
"Wha'?"
"Me daughter. You was whispering to 'er 'fore we left," he only realised he had exposed himself to watching him when Liam's face turned smug. "Was just making sure ye wasn't messing with 'er is all. Cunt."
"Well," he tried wiping the self-satisfied smirk off his face to no avail, Noel saw it clear as fucking day. "She's cute an' all but we had to make sure she knew where she stood, yeah."
"That right?" Liam nodded, reaching for the doorknob. Noel's heart squeezed terribly at the sight of him leaving even though he had rather not seen him ever again just this morning. "And where's that?"
His brother shrugged, opening the door. It weren't all the way but it were open wide enough, alright, and Noel was surprised when he didn't freeze up when Liam stopped, turned and leaned in close to his face to say his last, never satisfied if he hadn't enlightened Noel with his fucking bullshite.
"Right behind me. You were mine first."
A kiss, chaste but firm. Noel let him because he would have let him do whatever he wanted, watched him pull away and hop down the stairs. He was gone without a glance back, knowing that Noel was watching him anyways.
He was right, 'course.