Work Text:
Liam circled John, like a cat begging for attention. John chatted with a roadie in his typical languid, half interested tone, as if he wasn’t even aware that Liam was curling around him. The indifference clearly wore on Liam, his expression pinching and posture gaining tension, a fucking rubber band about to snap, and his paces around John got tighter and tighter. Sure enough, Liam sprung forward, slinging his arm around John’s neck with enough force to make him sway and let out a surprised grunt. Despite the uncharacteristic lack of grace, John showed no sign of caring and straightened, shook his head until his fringe was back in place, and continued his conversation as if Liam wasn’t wrapped around him like a clingy girlfriend.
Noel watched with furrowed brows and sharp eyes. John didn’t throw Liam off, like Noel or anyone sane would’ve, not that that was suspicious necessarily, John was famous for his stoicism afterall, but nobody but Noel knew what they were really looking at. After a handful of minutes of studying Liam’s restless posture and John’s bored expression, Noel saw the subtle shift he’d been waiting for—John’s mouth twitched into a smile when Liam’s face pressed into his neck a bit too tightly to be an accident. Noel gritted his jaw and narrowed his eyes. Predictably, John’s face relaxed after a blink of an eye and he bowed his head so that his hair once again hid half his face. Liam let go, evidently having won the reaction he’d wanted, and strutted across the stage to Noel.
“Alright then?” he asked, grabbing Noel’s beer and taking a swig.
“What you hanging on to John like that for?” Noel said. “Trying to make Patsy jealous?”
Liam narrowed his eyes. “What you on about?”
Noel let out a sharp exhale through his nose. “C’mon,” he grumbled, taking his beer back from Liam and throwing it over the edge of the stage. “We’ve got rehearsing to do.”
John effortlessly sailed through his solo, as usual. In any other circumstance, Noel would be watching intently so he could pick up a few licks for future use, but Liam sitting intently in the corner of his eye kept dragging his focus away from John’s fingers. He crouched in the shadows to the side of the stage, a cigarette he’d somehow managed to light in the minute after stepping away from the mic dangling precariously from his gaping mouth, and stared with eyes fixed on John. Liam staring wasn’t anything new, he was shockingly good at it in fact, but his face wasn’t an expressionless mask or lit by a mischievous grin. He wasn’t even smirking smoothly like he did when he saw a fit bird. Instead, his eyes were wide and soft as they religiously stayed centered on John and his mouth remained curved fondly even while sucking his cigarette. He looked transfixed, fucking staring lovingly at him. As Noel tried his best not to gawk, John lifted his head and smiled when his eyes locked with Liam’s. Not his typical tired, lopsided grin, but a warm smile that took up his entire face. Noel hadn’t seen that much emotion from John in hours. Maybe he never had at all.
“Fucking hell,” Noel stuttered as he fumbled and fell completely out of time.
-
“Hello? Anybody in there?”
Noel scrunched his face up and ripped his gaze away from Liam and John. “What?”
Bonehead’s satisfied grin broadened as Noel glared. He’d been in an obnoxiously good mood since Noel had made a mess of the last go round. Noel never choked during rehearsals and God help the cunt who dared to make the same mistake. The last band member who did had gotten sacked. “The stage manager wants to know if you want to do another run through?” he asked. “Since you, y’know, fucked it.”
“Piss off,” Noel huffed, tightening his arms across his chest. Bonehead raised an eyebrow.
“Everything alright?” he asked.
Noel grinded his jaw and flicked his gaze back to Liam and John. John tossed his head back and laughed loud enough that it carried across the stage. Noel had never seen anyone make him laugh like that, except Liam. “Does summat about Liam and John strike you as a bit odd?” he asked, nodding in their direction.
Bonehead followed his line of sight and squinted. “How do you mean?”
“They just seem…” Noel waved his hand and grunted. “Close.”
“They’re mates, yeah.”
“Nah, I mean, really close.”
Bonehead balked and turned to Noel with furrowed brows. “What the fuck does that mean?”
Noel shook his head and sighed. Of course no one but him had even begun to guess, and now he was beginning to sound looney. Noel felt a hot flush of frustration as John leaned forward and said something that made Liam laugh softly and glance away, like he was fucking embarrased .
Usually, Noel was proud, or even perhaps a bit smug, that his creativity made him much more observant than any other bastard he’d come across. He was always on the lookout for new phrases and music lines to inspire him, and perhaps steal if the original author was so lucky, which opened his eyes and ears up to all sorts of details that most other people missed—forgotten lyrics and stray chords buried in old songs played on the radio late at night, random lines half heard on the telly or read in magazines Meg left out, even rhyming bus ads or grave warnings on cigarette packs could strike his fancy. But the downside to this particular skill was that sometimes he noticed things he’d rather not.
Initially, Liam’s fixation on John hadn’t been all that surprising or interesting. They’d all been starstruck by John afterall, reverently watching him play and trying to bypass his shyness with jokes and attempts at thoughtful questions, except Noel had tried to play his fervor off by avoiding topics involving the Stone Roses and giving him room to breathe while he was working. Even so, it was impossible to get John worked up enough to speak above a languid mumble and earn anything more than a chuckle. It almost did Noel’s head in. He could get the band pissing themselves laughing most days.
Liam on the other hand had taken the opposite approach to Noel’s coolness by following John around and constantly trying to get his attention. Annoyingly, it’d seemed to work, judging by the fact that John had humored Liam butting into all of his conversations and dragging him away to private corners without inviting anyone else. At first Noel felt bad for John, since he didn’t know the moment he gave in to Liam it would only make him twice as unbearable, but then he started to notice John’s bright smirk once Liam walked through the door and the near whispered in jokes between them when everyone had their back turned. Not to mention John’s lingering touches—hugs thinly masked as tackles, waist grabbing, and squeezing the back of Liam’s neck. Liam took them all in stride, with even the occasional blush that Noel could spot from miles away.
Still, if it hadn’t been for the party the week before, perhaps he wouldn’t have thought much about any of it—
He’d been fucking pissed. Everyone had been. Liam and John had their faces inches apart in the darkest corner of the room, not that that had been surprising. They’d been orbiting around each other all night. Noel sipped from his drink and tried to make sense of it. What did they have in common? Liam was boisterous and oafish. John was reserved and intellectual. All they had was music and Manchester, but Noel had that too, and John didn’t give the same fuck about him. Noel was grinding his jaw when John leaned forward and whispered close enough to Liam’s ear that his lips brushed over his skin. Liam drew back and widened his eyes, his mouth gaping open. That gave Noel pause. He wasn’t even aware Liam could be shocked anymore after all the things he’d seen and done since the rise of Oasis. John grinned slyly and grabbed Liam’s hand to lead him out of the room.
Noel stared at the empty space they had left and tried to think of what John could have said to make Liam react like that. For a moment he almost considered following them to see what they were getting up to, but decided that they’d gone off to do lines in private, like anyone with sense would do.
He woke up a few hours later face down in his mattress and groaning as his hangover made itself known. He turned over and saw knotted strands of blonde hair sticking out from the top of the duvet.
“Hey,” he said, poking Meg’s sleeping form, “how about some scran, yeah?”
A hand emerged from the sheets and swatted him. “Fuck off.”
Noel chuckled. He rose from the bed as the duvet shifted and Meg’s eyes peeked at him. “I don’t think Liam left last night,” she said. “I heard his voice through the wall after you passed out.”
“Fuck’s sake,” Noel muttered. “If he doesn’t get himself together and move in with Patsy I swear to fuck–”
Meg grunted and disappeared again under the duvet. Noel sighed and stuck his head out of the door to look down the hall. Sure enough, the door to the guest bedroom was cracked open.
“Fucking hell,” he grumbled, stalking down the hall and hoping that Liam was sober enough to make his way down the frontsteps without cracking his head open on the pavement. He pushed the door open wider, ready to hand out a very rude awakening, but then caught himself when he found Liam and John asleep on top of the duvet. Liam’s cheek was pressed on top of John’s chest, his drool dampening the shirt’s cotton as he snored softly. John in turn had his arm around Liam’s shoulders and was sighing contentedly in his sleep. For a few moments Noel stared, trying to make sense of what he was looking at, like John and Liam were optical illusions. They didn’t look post-coital exactly, but it certainly was cozier than anything he’d done with someone who was just a mate. But Jesus, John and Liam? He’d sooner believe that John was a fucking Martian.
John suddenly lifted a limp hand to rub his closed eyes, startling Noel out of his gaping. “Mmmph–” he murmured quietly. Noel quickly closed the door and retreated down the hall before John woke up fully, telling himself all the while that nothing he’d seen meant anything. Not as if he’d found them with their pants down or anything, Noel thought with a nauseated wince. They’d just fallen asleep together is all, nothing out of the ordinary with that. But he’d found it difficult not to notice the way they treated each other after, John’s soft fondness and the shy looks that Noel had never seen Liam give—
“See, did you see that?” Noel said, pointing at them wildly.
“No,” Bonehead answered, raising an eyebrow and glancing at John and Liam.
“John grabbed Liam’s hand.”
Bonehead frowned wearily at Noel. “I think you’ve gone off your head, lad.”
Noel fumed as he glowered at John and Liam. John’s face was warm as Liam smiled and grabbed his elbow to lead him backstage. “Liam sure as fuck only pulls that face at pints,” Noel muttered. “And John never looks at me like that.”
“You jealous Liam can pull John fucking Squire and you can’t?” Bonehead said, breaking into a smug grin. Noel bore his teeth at him.
“Go tell the fucking stage manager we’re done,” Noel said curtly.
Bonehead shrugged and turned away. “Whatever you say, chief.”
-
Noel wasn’t sure how long it had been since the concert had ended. He’d been too focused on basking in the exhilarated afterglow and making sure his lines were cut well to keep a handle on time passing. Now the adrenaline was nearly depleted and the band’s antics were turning into a progressively annoying buzz in his ear. Bonehead screamed a deafening “WAHEY” and popped open a bottle of champagne to spray a grunting Guigsy attempting to take shelter in a corner.
“Bonehead,” Noel shouted after snorting a particularly thick line from the coffee table. “Will you stop fucking wasting good booze?”
“Sorry, chief, we’re just celebrating,” Bonehead replied with a toothy smile. “You and Liam weren’t the only cunts up on stage, or didn’t you notice?”
Noel glared and leaned back into the couch cushions. “Where’s our kid anyway?” he asked, flicking his eyes around the green room.
Bonehead shrugged. “Does it matter?”
“It does actually,” Meg spoke up. “We’ve got to leave for the afterparty soon.”
“I’m sure Liam’s having an afterparty of his own,” Bonehead snickered.
Noel groaned. “Fucking Patsy isn’t with him, is she?”
“She went to ring James to say goodnight,” Meg said, shaking her head.
“I’m going to go find him then,” Noel sighed as he stood from the couch, “make sure he’s not trying to set fire to the place.”
“Suit yourself,” Bonehead said before taking a swig from the champagne bottle.
Noel went down the backstage corridors and carefully listened for any hints that Liam was around. The one upside to the fact that Liam could never shut up for more than a handful of minutes was that it made him easy to find, even in a labyrinth like Knebworth. Sure enough, the sound of Liam speaking softly wafted in from a cracked door towards the end of the hall. Noel listened carefully in case Patsy was with him and he was at risk of repeating a recent incident of walking in on something he would have gladly given his first born to never see. But instead of Patsy’s bright chattering, he heard John’s low drawl.
He halted immediately and held his breath. They were quiet enough that Noel couldn’t make out what they were saying, but the warm tone in John’s lilt was easy to pick up. He nearly jumped when Liam laughed loudly a moment later. As his heart rate slowly attempted to even out, he took a few quiet steps forward. A flailing thought that annoyingly sounded like Bonehead reasoned that he could be misconstruing everything he’d seen, that John and Liam were just mates, but Bonehead didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about. Noel knew Liam better than anyone on the planet, and he could feel in his bones what the affection in their hushed exchanges meant.
Their voices continued, speaking in tones laced with breathy laughs and happy humming. Noel finally reached the door and peered through the crack.
John and Liam were sat on a couch shoved in the corner of a dressing room. John’s arm was curved around Liam with his fingers fiddling with the ends of Liam’s hair. Liam leaned into him and rested his head on John’s shoulder while he smoked a cigarette. The ease in their posture and the graceful way they were locked around each other gave them a calm, soft aura, as if they had fallen into the same position a thousand times before.
Liam tilted his head up and said something inaudible into John’s neck. John whispered back as his face brightened with a cheeky grin that didn’t seem to fit his face. He stole the cigarette halfway to Liam’s lips and inhaled it deeply, prompting Liam’s expression to immediately sink into an indignant glare. Despite Liam’s pout and what were clearly a few sharp words, John’s smile only took on a deeper glow while he breathed out the smoke. John placed a hand in Liam’s hair and gently tugged to pull his head back so that he had to look at him. As their gazes connected and Liam’s expression eased, the air between them intensified into a painfully sharp and bright tension, like an amp with the gain turned all the way up, and it sent Noel’s heartbeat into his ears. Noel had to swallow down a gasp when John finally leaned forward and kissed Liam. It wasn’t a long or deep kiss, but Liam’s body noticeably loosened as their lips glided together, as if John had known exactly what kind of kiss would get him to relax.
Liam sighed contently when John pulled away and then placed his head back on John’s shoulder. The ensuing serenity broke Noel out of his stupor enough to remember to breathe and decide that he needed to leave now to scrub the mental image of Liam and John from his memory. Noel turned and practically ran down the corridor.
“You alright?” Meg asked once he reached the green room. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“No, erm,” Noel breathed, shaking his head and steadying himself against the wall by the couch. “Worse.”
“Did you walk in on Liam and Patsy again?” she asked sympathetically.
Noel snorted. “Something like that.”
Meg raised an eyebrow, but before she could ask more questions, Liam and John walked in. They didn’t even glance Noel’s way and went straight to the catering table. Liam followed closely behind John and gladly accepted the beer he handed him.
“Liam,” Noel called. Liam raised his head and smiled when Noel waved him over. “Come here.”
“Going to tell me how mega of a singer I am, are you?” Liam asked as he sauntered over.
Noel huffed and pulled Liam into the farthest corner, keeping his eyes on the back of John’s head, though he maintained an uninterested air. “You got anything you want to tell me?”
Liam raised his brows and shook his head. “No.”
“Not anything about someone ,” Noel said, leaning his head towards John. Liam’s smile fell almost unnoticeably.
“Patsy told you then?” Liam asked.
“Told me what?”
“I asked her to marry me.”
Noel eyed him, waiting for him to collapse in a fit of giggles, but Liam remained silent. “Are you joking?” Noel scoffed.
Liam’s face sunk into a glare. “What?”
“You can’t fucking marry her,” Noel said incredulously.
“Why the fuck not?”
Liam’s fists balled tightly, a good warning that he only needed a few more pushes until he threw a proper fit. Noel exhaled loudly, trying to decide if he was in the mood for an argument, but then he noticed John’s profile angle slightly in their direction, as if he was trying to gauge what they were talking about. “You haven’t started seeing anyone else lately?” Noel said, nodding in John’s direction. Liam balked a moment and quickly glanced at John. John’s face brightened when their gazes met and Liam’s expression softened into a grin that radiated tenderness. Noel watched their small exchange closely, feeling a moment’s sympathy. Liam hadn’t looked half as loving when he’d said that he was marrying Patsy, but what could they do? Not as if Liam could announce publicly what he’d found with John. It would kill them both. Liam seemed to have the same thought, because after another moment, his mouth hardened into a line and he turned away from John.
“No,” he said, fixing Noel with a hard look.
“You just seem to be in love,” Noel said quietly. “Proper this time.”
Liam nodded firmly. “I am.”
John suddenly appeared beside Liam, like he’d only been waiting for those words. His eyes seemed to be gleaming when he smiled and gripped Liam’s sleeve. “C’mon, I forgot there’s something else I want to show you.”
“Right,” Liam breathed, flicking a nod towards Noel as John began to lead him away. “We’ll be back in a minute.”
“Liam.” Noel reached out and grabbed Liam’s wrist, halting them both. “I’m happy for you.”
Liam looked taken aback for a moment, before he broke into a fond smile and handed Noel his beer. “Cheers.”
Noel let go and watched John’s hand wrap around Liam’s as they walked away. Before they disappeared into the depths of Knebworth’s back corridors, John glanced behind him and caught Noel’s eye, smiling so slightly that nobody else would have noticed.