Chapter Text
You've got to be strong enough for love
Noel sighs and moves closer to Sara. Everything is perfect: comfortable bed, silk sheets, and the woman he loves in his arms. And yet…
"Are you upset about something?" she asks, covering his hand with hers.
"No, no. I'm alright," Noel replies and closes his eyes.
He hasn't been alright for a few months. Probably it's just the stress of producing an album on his own for the first time, but he's been getting more and more anxious, his mind swarming with unwanted thoughts — thoughts of Liam.
His brother has never truly left his head, always lurking in the shadows. Sometimes he's only a silhouette, at other times he's too real, the way Noel remembers him from the last night in Paris. Yet lately, this fixation has turned into mania. It's not just thinking about him or wondering whether things could have worked out better, but something far worse — yearning for him. Irrationally, Noel wants Liam back. He wants Liam in his studio, moaning about him being too experimental. He wants Liam at his home, drinking tea and stroking his cat. He wants Liam in his bed, holding him and talking nonsense in a sleepy voice.
Noel wishes Liam were here with him right now, but as Mick Jagger once put it, you can't always get what you want.
*
The first time this happens, Liam has no time to grasp what's going on. One minute he's at home, drinking his whiskey, and the next he's in a bedroom he doesn’t recognise. His vision goes blurry, but he senses the coolness of silk under his cheek, the warmth of a body pressed up to his back, the familiar scent… He blinks and tries to turn around, but the illusion dissipates. He's once again sat on his sofa, excruciatingly lonely in the dead of night. "Fucking pissed out of my mind," he thinks. "Serves me right."
It's not until a couple of months later that it happens again. Liam's life hasn't changed since then: the same loneliness, the alcohol, the endless legal meetings, the creative impotence. It seems no one in the world remembers him except lawyers and paparazzi. On one such evening, when the pouring rain drums against the window, Liam finds himself in someone's living room.
He looks around. It's a bright spacious room, furnished with taste and a distinct female touch. It smells nice — some trendy oud scent that greets you in the shops on Regent Street. Lush green plants in big tubs by the panoramic windows create a garden-like atmosphere. Liam notices the photographs on the shelves and stands up to look at them, but suddenly—
"Honey, tea's ready," says Noel, appearing in the doorway.
"What the actual fuck?"
Liam freezes. His brain works at full tilt, and he can't decide what to do next. Should he run? Should he pinch himself? Is Noel having a stroke?
It's probably just some stupid prank, he concludes. There must be hidden cameras and a laughing crowd waiting to jump out. Everyone has done nothing but mock him and drag his name through the mud lately. Fucking Noel. Liam knows that their relationship is pretty much destroyed, but he never thought it was that bad.
"What the fuck, Noel?" he hisses, but stops abruptly, hearing his weirdly high-pitched voice. Actually, it’s not his voice at all.
Liam panics.
"How do I look? Noel, fuck, how do I look?"
Worried, Noel rushes over to him just as Liam catches a glimpse of his reflection in the dark window. He should've identified this voice sooner.
"Sara, what is it?" Noel asks, placing his hands on his shoulders and searching his eyes, but Liam can't tear his gaze from the vague shape of the person he hates the most — the person who destroyed Oasis and his whole life.
"Talk to me, love," his brother continues, and Liam turns to him.
Noel. He hasn't seen him in ages. He's different now. Stable. Glossy. A perfect husband to a perfect wife.
"I'm not your love," he mutters.
Liam pushes Noel away forcefully, the adrenaline boiling in his blood. In this moment, he doesn't care who he is. The only thing that matters is a sudden, all-consuming urge to vent his frustration and anger. Although he regularly slags Noel off on Twitter or in interviews, it never brings him any satisfaction. He's not sure his desperate rants reach his brother at all, so seeing him in the flesh is a game-changer.
But before he makes his next move, the surroundings change, and Liam is back home again.
*
"It was just a bad trip," Liam tries to convince himself the next morning, but he knows this is not the case, because he didn't take any drugs. "Or I finally lost my mind." The idea should really bother him, but it simply doesn't. Even becoming a lunatic and living in a dream world is better than being Liam Gallagher. He lost himself a long time ago — as if the foundation of his life collapsed in 2009 and left him hanging in the air, detached from everything and everyone. He used to be a brother, a husband, and a frontman once. Now he's just a sad drunk and a poor lover to Debbie. Sometimes he wonders why she still cares about him, even though he doesn't really give a fuck about her — or about himself, for that matter.
He takes a gulp of his beer and lets his mind drift back to last night. Noel always paints his life as cloudless in interviews, talking about his newfound creative freedom and his wonderful family that means everything to him. Liam remembers one night towards the end when they all hung out backstage, and Sara, a bit tipsy, suddenly leaned in and told him with a sweet smile, "He's not yours anymore." After visiting Noel's place, Liam can't help but admit defeat. It's the house of a respectable man, someone who puts comfort and stability first and wouldn't want chaos and toxic love back in his life.
"It's what every normal, grown man wants. Maybe I should just stop trying," Liam thinks. He's been pondering giving up and going away for quite some time now. Beady Eye is finished, and his court battles will eventually come to an end. Soon, he will be penniless but free, with nothing keeping him in London.
If Noel was able to erase the past and start over, why couldn't Liam do the same? He could move to the seaside, Spain or Italy, buy a small villa, adopt a couple of dogs, spend his days under the sun. He would throw away his phone, stop watching TV, and forget the blandness of London streets. He wouldn't think of Noel at all. The world would get better without their vicious circle of insults and hatred. Maybe it's the only way to break it.
Liam puts the half-full bottle of beer on the coffee table and stands up. For the first time in a long time, he feels something akin to a hope.