Archive of Our Own

The flat is quiet in a way that feels as if it has decided to behave now that it was being observed again by its owner.
Damon stands in the doorway longer than necessary, keys still in his hand, listening. Just listening. There is no television murmuring, no kettle screaming itself awake, no other presence breathing in the background. Just him. It should be familiar, it is his flat, after all. Same walls, same smells, same cluttered corners he had learned to navigate half-asleep years ago, same everything.

Yet it feels wrong anyway.

Quietly, he shuts the door behind him. So quitely, it is as if he thought there was someone still asleep inside and he doesn’t want to disturb them. The thought comes and goes before he can catch it properly, leaving behind a faint irritation. He shakes his head once, as if that might dislodge it, and toes his shoes off by the mat. This doesn't even make sense.
Physically, he is better, that much is undeniable. The fever had broken sometime yesterday afternoon, leaving him wrung out but upright, shaky but lucid. His head still feels too large for his body and stuffed with cotton, but the worst of it is gone. No more burning skin, no more half-dreams where the walls breath and voices slip in and out of focus. Just exhaustion now. The honest kind.

He moves further into the flat, surveying it like a stranger might. The living room bears the evidence of interruption: a mug on the low table, a blanket folded too neatly over the arm of the sofa, cushions rearranged into something that suggests care and thought. He stops short when he notices the armchair.

Empty.

It is ridiculous, really. A chair is a chair. It isn’t as though it had been custom-built for someone else, hadn’t been dragged there at the insistence of a stubborn, sleepless presence who refused to leave the room even when told, no, stop. That is already too much detail. Damon turns away and walks into the kitchen instead.
In here, the air smells faintly of antiseptic and instant soup, and Damon only now realises he's hardly been in here. Whatever. Without thinking about it more, he opens the window, letting cold morning air flood in, reminding him of... uh-oh. It makes him cough once, a shallow, irritated sound, but he doesn’t close it again. The chill feels deserved, corrective.

On the counter sits a mug, ringed with the pale brown tide marks of tea left too long to be drinkable. He picks it up, sniffs it, grimaces. Cold. He can’t remember pouring it. He can remember being told to drink it. That distinction matters. He tips the contents down the sink and rinses the mug, watching the liquid spiral away.
Just someone doing the decent thing, he tells himself, scrubbing harder than necessary. That is all it had been. Someone turning up because someone else was ill. It isn’t rare. It isn’t special. People do it all the time. Bands are full of people who look after each other when it matters. He has done it himself, hasn’t he? Sat by hospital beds, waited out hangovers, carried friends home when they had gone too far, made sure someone had everything they need when sick of hurt. This was no different.

The mug clinks a little too loudly as he sets it in the rack. Annoyed at himself, he winces, then rolls his shoulders as if he can roll away thoughts.

Out of habit more than desire, he makes fresh tea and carries it back into the living room. Weirdly enough, the sofa looks unfamiliar, and as if expecting it to object, he sits down gingerly. The blanket slips a little, revealing the indentation where someone, he, had slept. Damon folds the blanket again, tighter this time, smoothing it until there is no sign of disturbance.

There. Gone.

Sipping his tea, he finds it too hot, then too bland, then too much effort altogether, setting it down and leaving it untouched.
The flat had been like this yesterday morning too, he realises. Quiet, bright with winter light, full of the sort of careful movements that come with being watched over. He remembers hands adjusting the curtains, a voice muttering about drafts, the sound of his kettle being filled without asking. He remembers being irritated by it, by the lack of control, by the way his body had betrayed him into needing help, by Liam Gallagher being there.

He doesn’t remember asking for it, a fact he clings to like a lifebuoy. He hadn’t asked. Which means he hadn’t invited anything further. Which means there is nothing to follow up on, nothing to acknowledge.

The fever had made everything feel larger than it was, he knows that. Fever does that, fever turn mundane sensations into revelations, fever turns touch into significance. He had been out of it, drifting in and out, half-delirious. Of course things felt intense. Of course he remembers fragments with odd clarity, like the scratch of stubble against his knuckles when he had turned his head or the weight of a hand on his shoulder grounding him back into himself or the way a voice cut through the fog when nothing else could or someone making him drink and eating and simply... being there.

That doesn’t mean anything now.

Restless, he stands again and paced for no other reason than just having to move his legs. His body feels like it doesn’t quite belong to him yet, limbs lagging a fraction behind intention. He pauses by the record shelf, pulls something out at random, then puts it back without playing it. The silence presses in again, insistent. He doesn't know what to do. Normally, he would have filled it. Music, noise, people, anything to keep his mind moving forward. Today, everything feels slightly muted, like the world has turned its volume down without asking. He catches sight of himself in the darkened television screen, still paler than usual with his hair sticking up at odd angles. Unsurprisingly, he looks like someone who has been ill, someone who has been seen that way.

He doesn’t like it.

And he doesn’t like the quiet either, but the only sound that would feel right right now is Liam’s voice, or his breath, or his presence that somehow speaks for itself. In no way did he ever expect to think that way, not about anyone’s presence, really, not even Graham’s. It is an odd sensation. Maybe the fever came back and made him delusional again.

Intending to change the sheets, Damon goes into the bedroom, stripping them off and balling them up under his arm to carry them to the washer. The movement sends a brief wave of dizziness through him, and he leans against the counter until it passes. His heart thuds a little too loudly in his ears.

Fine, he tells himself. He is fine.

Intending to work, he sits down with his notebook, pen hovering over the page. However, nothing comes. No lyrics or melodies, not even the half-formed nonsense that usually fills the margins. His mind keeps circling the same unhelpful loop. The quiet, the chair, the mug, the folded blanket.
He flips the notebook closed with a snap and stands back up.

This is stupid and he is indulging it. Overthinking a situation that doesn’t deserve the attention. Someone helped him when he was sick and he is grateful, end of story. There is no need to complicate it, no need to assign meaning where there is none. The fact that the flat feels different today is just that, a byproduct of illness, of disrupted routine. Things will settle, they always do. Stupid Gallagher for daring to occupy his mind like that.

On a whim, he decides to go out, pulling his coat on as he steps into the hall. The cold air outside hits him harder than he expected and he takes a second to steady himself. The city moves around him, uncaringly and solid. People pass without looking twice. No one knows what his flat had looked like last morning. No one knows what it looks like now.

Good.

He walks for longer than necessary, letting the rhythm of his steps ground him. By the time he returns, his head feels clearer with the edges of his thoughts less sharp.
It shouldn't shock him as much as it does, to find the flat is still quiet, still wrong. Though the wrongness feels duller now, and he figures he can live with it, he can and will get used to it again.

Damon hangs up his coat, kicks his shoes off, and moves through the space with pretentious normalcy. He puts the kettle on and breathes in the familiarity of having to wait an eternity for his water to boil, as he picks up the mug he washed earlier this day.

When the water is finally ready to be poured, he fills the mug, adds the tea and goes to sit on his sofa, careful not to look at the armchair.

Just someone doing the decent thing, he reminds himself one last time, staring at the steam rising from his cup until it blurs his vision and with enough repetition, the words almost sound true.

-

Rehearsal rooms always smell like the same mix of dust and stale coffee with the faint metallic tang of sweat baked into the walls stemming from a bunch of men being stuck together in an overheated room, especially in summer. Despite the odor, Damon has always found it rather comforting in its predictability. As are the motions of the room, the routines. Walk in, plug in, make noise, leave a little deaf and a little more certain of who you are.

Today, it feels like something he can hide inside.

Arriving earlier than necessary with his keys jangling too loudly in his hand as he unlocks the door, he takes a deep, deep breath. The others won’t be in for another half hour at least. Graham is usually punctual, Alex whenever he feels like it, Dave reliably last. Damon likes the empty room best anyway. No eyes, no commentary. No one but him and instruments waiting patiently to be told what to do.

After dropping his bag by the amp, he immediately starts rearranging things, moving stands an inch to the left, coiling cables more neatly than required, adjusting the mic height only to adjust it again. His hands need something to do. If they are busy, his head will follow. And this is all this is about, focus, just focus.

The first chord he strikes rings out too sharply, echoing off the concrete. He winces, then strikes it again, cleaner this time, adjusting the amp settings with quick, irritated twists. Better. He plays through the opening bars of a song they had been working on, then stops abruptly, dissatisfied.

No, wrong.

Altering the rhythm slightly, he starts again, even adding a pause where there had not been one before. He scribbles something in his notebook, crosses it out, scribbles again. The song is fine, has been since last week. But fine doesn’t seem enough today. Today, it needs to be exact.

By the time Graham arrives, Damon is already on his third version of the same bridge. Guitar case slung over one shoulder, Graham pauses just inside the door as he is taking in the scene of Damon hunched over his notebook with his hair falling into his eyes as he mutters to himself. “Morning,” Graham says cautiously.

Damon doesn’t look up. “That bit after the second chorus,” he starts instead. “It drags. We need to tighten it. Maybe cut two bars.”

Graham blinks. “I'm fine, thanks.”

“Sorry,” Damon says automatically, though he still doesn’t lift his head. They have known each other so long, Graham knows better than to expect pleasantries when Damon is like this, and they both know Graham knows. He plays the section again, faster this time, fingers moving with precise urgency. “Hear that? It’s cleaner.”

“It was clean before,” Graham mutters as he sets down his case.

“Yeah, but it’s better now.” That became Damon’s refrain a while ago.

They run through the song together once, then twice. Damon stops them midway through the third run. “No, no, hang on. The timing’s off.”

“Is it?” Graham frowns.

“Yes.”

“It feels alright from here.”

Finally, Damon looks up, eyes sharp. “Trust me.”

And Graham does, holding his gaze for a moment before nodding. Damon can tell he is irritating Graham (and quite frankly, himself too), but he has a feeling about it, and Graham usually knows better than to stop him in this state. “Alright. Again.”

By the time Alex and Dave arrive, they are engulfed in it in a way that leaves Damon with hope for the song and he feels grand enough to launch straight into the next song, then another. No warm-ups needed, no easing into it. Repetition, revision, control, distraction.
Dave exchanges a look with Alex over his drum kit as Damon stops them yet again.

“Sorry,” he apologises, pacing now, running a hand through his hair. “Tempo’s slipping.”

“It’s not,” Dave says mildly.

“It is,” Damon insists. “We’re losing momentum.”

Alex leans back against his amp. “We’ve been playing this one for months.”

“And it can still be better,” Damon shoots back. He turns to Graham. “Play that riff again. Slower.”
Graham does, watching Damon closely as he does. There is an intensity there that hasn’t been present before, something taut and restless. Damon listens with his whole body, head tilted, eyes narrowed, as if daring the notes to disappoint him. “Again,” he orders and Graham does as told.

“Faster.”

Again.

“Okay, now straight into the verse. No pause.”

They play through, and this time, Damon doesn’t stop them, feeling satisfied at last, once it ends. “There,” he smiles but despite him genuinely being content now, it feels off, even to him. “That’s it.”

Dave taps his sticks together lightly. “You alright, mate?”

“Fine. Why?” Damon automatically deflects.

“Just… you’re on one today.”

Turning away, Damon busies himself with the mixer, trying to collect his thoughts. “We’ve got a lot to get through.”
They really do, in all fairness and to his defence. The band is gearing up for more shows, more recordings. There is always pressure, always expectations pressing in from the edges. Damon tells himself that is all this was. Professionalism. Dedication.
Still, the joy is missing today and if he is honest, it had been before the fever as well. Far before it actually.

Normally, rehearsal come with its own kind of giddy pleasure, with inside jokes shouted over feedback and ridiculous riffs that turn into songs by accident and the general thrill of something clicking into place unexpectedly. These days, everything is all too engineered. Damon allows no accidents, and neither does the management. It isn't the same.
Between songs, the others chat as per usual. Alex complains about his train, Dave makes a joke about Graham’s shoes. Graham laughs, but Damon feels his eyes constantly drifting back to Damon, who is hunched over his notebook again, rewriting lyrics they had already signed off on.

“You’ve changed that line,” Graham said eventually.

Damon doesn’t look up. “It was weak.”

“It was fine.”

“It was obvious.”

Graham sighs. “What’s wrong with obvious?”

That pauses Damon and for a moment, he believer he might answer honestly. Everything is wrong with obvious, obvious is not what Blur is about. However, he ultimately doesn't say any of that. “Nothing,” he just answers. No need for a discussion. “Just want it right,” as he crosses out the line.

They take a proper break an hour later. Damon doesn’t sit. He paces, drinks water, adjusts knobs that don’t need adjusting. Graham watches him from the edge of the room, guitar resting against his knee. “You’re productive, I’ll give you that.”

“High praise,” Damon snorts.

“I mean it,” Graham insists. “You’ve rewritten half the set.”

“Improved it.”

“Maybe,” Graham allows. “But you look miserable doing it.”

Fuck Graham and his observing eyes and his extensive knowledge of Damon and his antics. He stiffens. “I’m not miserable.”

“You haven’t smiled once.”

“That’s not true.” Or is it? Not like it has any correlation to what is going on, now. "Besides, I don't need to smile, I need to work.

At first, Graham only studies him, until sighing. “You don’t have to run yourself into the ground, you know.”

But he has to, for Blur, for his carrier, their carriers. Damon’s jaw tightens. “I’m not running.”

“Sprinting, then.”

There it is again, that sense of being seen when he hadn’t invited it. Damon turns away, pretending to tune his guitar. “I’m fine. Can we just play?”
They do. For another two hours, they play. Damon drives them hard, pushing tempos, cutting sections, adding harmonies, stripping them back again. The music sharpens under his hands, edges honed until it gleams. He is good at this. This is good. They are good, no denying that.

Once done for the day, sweaty and hoarse, there is a moment of collective acknowledgment that this was some of their best work in weeks.

Alex grins. “See? Worth the pain.”

“Yeah. Sounds tight,” Dave agrees.

Graham glances at Damon. “You happy now?”

Ears still ringing faintly from the rush of creating and playing music, Damon considers the question. He should feel satisfaction. Triumph, even, just like that ringing suggests. But there is only hollow steadiness, instead. "It’ll do,” he shrugs, hating the way they all flinch ever so slightly.

They pack up slowly, banter having returned, tentative at first, then easier. Damon finds himself laughing at something Alex says and for a brief second, it almost feels normal. Like in their beginnings when they were still Seymour and there was no label at their (his) necks. Like pre-Leisure, pre-Modern Life is Rubbish, pre-Parklife success.
Then Graham catches his eye again, expression thoughtful, and the feeling slips away.

As they head out, Graham falls into step beside him. “Pub?” he asks. Damon hesitates. The idea of more noise, more people, feels both tempting and exhausting. Control would be harder there, less contained. “Maybe next time,” he answers. “I’m knackered.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah.”

They part at the corner. Damon walks alone, guitar case bumping against his leg, the evening air cool against his face. His head buzzes insistently. He replays the rehearsal in his mind, cataloguing every adjustment, every improvement. Proof that he is fine again, proof that he is functioning.
He doesn’t think about the quiet flat waiting for him, doesn’t think about chairs or blankets or mugs. He focuses on the songs instead. On the lines he has rewritten, the rhythms he has tightened. On the fact that if he keeps moving, keeps shaping things just so, there would be no space for anything else to intrude.

Control, he thinks, turning his key in the lock, is just another word for discipline.

And discipline has always kept him afloat.

-

By the time Damon reaches the interview, he already feels like he is putting on a coat he has outgrown.
It is a familiar enough routine. A bland office dressed up as a “creative space,” posters blu-tacked to the walls, a tray of untouched biscuits sweating under cling film. The journalist, young and eager and already rehearsing clever questions in their head, stands to greet him with a hand extended a fraction too enthusiastically. “Damon, thank you so much for coming in.”

“No worries,” Damon smiles easily, slipping into it without effort. That smile is more than just muscle memory, always arriving before he even decides to use it.

They sit, a tape recorder clicking on. Somewhere nearby, a photographer adjusts a lens, asking him to tilt his head slightly to the left. Damon obliges, crossing his arms, angling his body just enough to look relaxed rather than guarded. He has learned that trick years ago.

The questions start safely. The new material, the direction Blur is heading in, how it feels to be in the rehearsal room. Damon answers smoothly, articulate and quick, framing ambition as curiosity, restlessness as growth. The usual. He talks with his hands, leans forward when it counts, laughs in the right places. Perfectly curated.
He sounds like himself. Or at least like the version of himself people expect.

“And how does it feel,” the journalist asks, eyes brightening, “to be sharing festival bills again with certain… contemporaries?”

There it is. Damon doesn’t need the name said out loud. He doesn’t hesitate, aiming for casual. Hesitation makes it look thoughtful. “It’s funny, isn’t it?” he shrugs lightly. “Everyone acts like it’s a boxing match. We’re just making different noises at the same volume.”

Delighted, the journalist laughs. “So no rivalry?”

“Oh, I didn’t say that. Just different priorities, maybe. Some people like shouting the same thing louder. Some of us get bored.”

The room reacts on cue. Laughter, scribbling pens, the photographer snorting quietly as he takes another picture. Damon smiles again, a little sharper this time, letting the edge show without cutting too deep. It isn’t cruel, it wasn’t kind. Calibrated, that is what it was. He has made a career out of that balance.

They move on with the moment lingering. Damon feels it settle in his chest, waiting for the familiar rush, that quick spike of satisfaction something having landed cleanly. Usually, it comes with a fizz, a private thrill. A reminder that he is still sharp, still dangerous if he wants to be.

This time, however, there is nothing.

Just a hollow space where the impact should have been.

He answers the rest of the questions on autopilot, hearing himself being clever, self-aware, slightly aloof. He watches the journalist nod pleased, the way they always are when he gives them something quotable.

When it is over, they thank him again, promising to send over a copy before publication. Damon stands and shakes hands and is more than just glad when he finally gets to step outside with the city noise rushig back in around him. He pulls his coat tighter around himself and starts walking, not bothering to call for a car. The manager shrugged when he had told him so, but he had let him go anyway, which means he was satisfied with Damon, and that accounts for a lot these days.

As he walks, he replays the jab at Oasis in his head. Not the words themselves, but the absence that followed them, the lack of charge. It unsettles him more than if it had stung.
Once, that rivalry had been a kind of fuel, a way to define himself by opposition, by friction. It had given him shape and urgency, even when it was ridiculous and ugly, it had made him feel vivid. Should still make him feel vivid. It doesn't however, not anymore. Now it feels… tired. Like telling the same joke long after everyone knows the punchline.

On his walk, he passes his own face staring out from a magazine cover in a shop window. The headline promises both insight and drama. Damon barely recognises the man looking back at him. Not because it is inaccurate (if anything, it is too accurate), but because it feels incomplete. That version of him is all angles and wit, armour polished to a shine. Useful, certainly. Effective.
But it feels heavy now.

Back at the flat, he drops his keys into the bowl by the door and shrugs off his coat. The quiet greets him again and he stands there a little, simply listening to it.
He makes tea out of habit, then forgets about it as he drifts into the living room. When he returns, it is already cooling, a thin skin forming on the surface. He stares at it, then pushes it aside, untouched. What is wrong with him?

His mind keeps circling back to the interview, to that moment of laughter that had left him cold. To the realisation, unwelcome and persistent, that the old ways of bracing himself against the world aren’t working like they used to.
The armour still fits well enough to wear in public, it just doesn’t protect him anymore. It is as if in the time Liam spent here, he switched the heavy metals of it for soft cotton that somehow looks the same. Damon must be going mad.

He stares up at the ceiling. Somewhere out there, stories are already being shaped around his words, rivalries neatly reinforced, narratives kept alive out of habit, all while he lies here with his hands folded over his stomach, thinking, not for the first time, that maybe, the most unsettling thing isn’t that things were changing, it is that he doesn’t want them to stay the same. Not anymore.

-

He goes out because that is what this life is all about. Or at least that is what he tells himself before the night even begins, thinking it while pulling on a jacket that already (still) smells faintly of smoke and spilled beer, and again while checking his pockets for keys and cigarettes, and one more, reassuring time, while locking the door of his stupid flat.

Going out is practical. Sensible, even. People expect it of him. Blur are visible again. Damon Albarn does not disappear quietly into his own head.

So he goes.

Unsurpisingly, the club is loud. Bass hits first, then light, strobes, coloured flashes, sweat-slicked bodies packed too close together. Someone claps him on the shoulder almost immediately, even shouting his name directly into his ear. Damon simply smiles and lets himself be pulled further inside.

It’s easy here, that's the point.

There is no space to think as music fills every gap. Heat presses in, bodies move without asking permission. Someone presses a drink into his hand before he has to order one. He doesn’t know what it is, just that it burns on the way down and loosens something behind his eyes.

He drinks more.

People lean close to talk, mouths brushing ears, hands resting on hips, shoulders, backs. Familiar faces drift in and out, musicians, hangers-on, journalists pretending not to be journalists. Everyone looks a little unreal under the lights, softened at the edges, briefly kind.

Damon laughs easily. He tells stories he has told before, he exaggerates where it gets a better reaction, he sharpens the punchlines. He feels the old reflexes kick in, the way he knows how to perform even when he doesn’t step on a stage.
Someone asks how he has been. “Good,” he shouts back automatically. “Really good.” No one questions it. Why would they anyway. Why should they.

Hours slide by in fragments. Another club, another bar, a car ride with the windows down despite the cold, music blaring, someone singing off-key in the backseat. Damon leans his head against the glass and watches the city smear itself into streaks of light. Rock ‘n’ Roll.

He drinks too much, a fact he registers in a distant, abstract sort of way. Each glass feels like a reset button, erasing the last half-hour or so while smoothing everything flat.
Someone kisses him outside the club, sudden and sloppy, tasting of gin and cigarettes. Damon kisses back because it is expected, because it is there. Hands roam confidently, void of tenderness. It is over as quickly as it starts, and they part smiling, already forgetting each other’s names. That is if they ever knew it in the first place.

Back inside, he doesn't feel like hunting down the next drink or kiss. Dance, that is what he wants to do. And dance he does, or something close to it. Loose movements, swaying shoulders, nodding head. Sweat gathers at the base of his neck. His shirt sticks uncomfortably to his back. He feels present in his body in a way that is almost aggressive, like he is daring himself to notice anything else.

A woman he vaguely recognises, someone’s friend, someone’s girlfriend, leans in close, shouting over the music. "You look knackered.”

He grins. “Occupational hazard.”

“You been ill or something?”

A casual, thrown away question. Damon opens his mouth to answer without thinking. “Yeah, I...” but the words stop as his flat flashes in his mind uninvited, with the curtains half-drawn against morning light and the armchair pulled closer to the sofa than usual. A glass of water on the table, a presence that doesn't belong to the room anymore.
He swallows. Fuck this.
“Just working too much,” he finishes instead. “You know how it is.”

She nods, already distracted by something over his shoulder and just like that, the moment passes. Damon feels an unexpected jolt of relief as he decides to order yet another drink after all.

As the night deepens, conversations get thinner. People repeat themselves, laughter come too loud and too fast. At one point, he realises he started to feel oddly separate from it all, like he is watching from behind glass, kinda. However, he keeps moving anyway, new faces, new rooms, new noise, refusing to let the stillness catch up to him.

Someone pulls him into a bathroom, locking the door behind them. It is cramped and smells faintly of bleach and stale perfume. They kiss harder here, more insistently. Damon presses back, lets it happen, lets hands fumble at buttons and waistbands. It is urgent but careless, all friction and no weight. All distraction and no meaning. He doesn't enjoy it much.

Afterwards, they straighten their clothes, share a quick, embarrassed laugh, and part with no names exchanged. No reason to, anyway.
Back out on the dance floor, Damon feels colder than before.

Near dawn, the crowd continously shrinks just ast the music slows into something softer, stranger. Drink balanced on his knee, Damon sits on the edge of a sticky sofa, watching people sway instead of swaying with them. His head throbs dully now, the beginnings of tomorrow’s consequences tapping at his skull.
Someone sits beside him, close enough that their thigh presses into his. “You alright?” they ask.

“Yeah.”

They study him for a moment longer than necessary. Damon can feel their gaze tracing his face, lingering at the shadows under his eyes, the tension he hasn’t quite managed to smooth away.

“You don’t look it.”

Why would they care? He laughs quietly. “Must be the light.”

They smile, unconvinced, but let it drop, talking about music instead, about records they love, shows they have seen. Damon engages just enough to be polite, the confusion about this sudden intrusion growing with each word spoken on either side. A low restlessness hums under his skin. Maybe he should get out.

When the club finally does spit him and the last attendees out into the early morning, the sky is pale and washed-out, a cold sort of light. Damon lights a cigarette with shaking fingers and inhales deeply. The smoke scratches his throat.

Someone suggests breakfast, someone else suggests carrying on somewhere else. Damon demurs, claims an early rehearsal, a meeting, anything that allows him to step away without questions. Then he walks home alone.
The streets are quiet now, littered with the remains of the night in form of discarded cups and flyers trampled into the pavement.

At his building, he fumbles with the keys, cursing softly when he drops them. His flat greets him with the same wrongness as before. Too still, too clean.
Eager to destroy the uneasing, off-putting calmness of a place that should feel domestic above all, he shrugs off his jacket and lets it fall where it lands, a childish act of rebellion. His head spins slightly as he moves, the room tilting just enough to be disorienting. He steadies himself against the kitchen counter and laughs under his breath. God, he really has to get a grip.

Pouring himself a glass of water, he drinks half of it too quickly, then sets it down to let the other half warm on the counter, already forgotten.

In the bathroom, he catches his reflection in the mirror. His eyes are bloodshot, his hair is a mess. There is a faint bruise on his neck he doesn’t remember earning. Without it, he would look like he did when he had the fever.

For a moment, he considers sitting down, letting the quiet have him. The thought however makes his chest tighten, so he runs the tap instead, splashing cold water on his face, finding the shock a necessary distraction. Gripping the sink, he waits for the room to settle.

When he eventually manages to reach the bedroom, he collapses onto the bed without bothering to undress properly. The sheets are cool and smell faintly of detergent. He stares up at the ceiling, heart still racing, ears ringing with phantom music, thinking, fleetingly, of mentioning the fever to someone next time. Of making it a joke, a story, something safely distant, something to deflect, bury, forget. Something that doesn't mention him because maybe, maybe it wouldn't feel so real then.

Yet the thought slips away as quickly as it had come and clinging to the excess of the night like a shield, exhaustion quickly drags him under. Anything to keep from touching the quiet underneath.

-

It is three in the morning and Damon is awake in a way that feels permanent. Well, not in a permanently permanent way, but in a the night is over and the day has begun early-permanent way, unable to cross whatever invisible threshold separates thinking from sleep rather than either alert or restless.
He sits at the keyboard with his jacket still on, not even remembering deciding to come in here. One moment, he is standing in the hallway, keys in his hand, and the next he is seated, staring down at black and white keys that look unfamiliar despite the years he has spent with them.

Pressing a single key, the sound blooms and dies quickly, too clean, too exposed. He grimaces and lifts his finger as if the note has burned him, rubbing his hands together, before trying again. This time a few notes, tentative, probing, the melody stumbling almost immediately.

God.

Stop. Start again. Stop again.

It isn’t that the ideas aren’t there. They are there, everywhere, pressing in from all sides, crowding his head until it feels swollen with them. But every time he tries to pin one down, it shifts, softens, turns into something else. Something he doesn’t want.

He reaches for the notebook instead, flipping it open to a blank page. The paper is crisp, unmarked. Too much potential. He grips the pen tighter than necessary and starts to write. Words come faster than music does. Short phrases, half-formed thoughts. Images he doesn’t bother interrogating yet. So he writes, pauses, crosses something out so hard the pen nearly tears the page.

No, no, no.

He flips to another page and starts again, more... careful this time, keeping sentences sharp and angular and clever and the essence of Blur. The kind of thing people expect from him, the kind that keeps a safe distance between himself and whoever eventually hears it.

Halfway down the page, his hand slows. Without him noticing, the words have shifted into something more observant, if that makes any sense, he supposes. There is less posturing in them, less armour. Staring at the line he just wrote, he feels a flicker of irritation spark behind his eyes. That's not what this is. So he draws a heavy line through the sentence. Then another. Then, because that did not feel like enough, he rips the page out entirely, folds it once, twice, and tears it down the middle. The sound is loud in the stillness of the room, satisfying in a brutal sort of way.
He tosses the pieces aside without sparing them another glance.

For a few moments, he just sits there, breathing shallowly, jaw tight. His chest feels oddly full, like he has swallowed something too big and it has lodged itself somewhere uncomfortable.

Mechanics it is then, something tangible to put his focus on, something neutral. Chord progressions, structure, craft. He plays a few notes again, then a few more, forcing them into a shape that makes sense. It works, technically. The melody behaves itself. It doesn’t wander off into dangerous territory.

And yet.

Frustrated, he stops again.

His gaze drifts, to the corner of the room, to that stupid, plain, unremarkable armchair he never thought much about and suddenly can't seem to be getting out of his mind anymore. Stupid. And yet his eyes snag on it, linger on it. Perhaps he should just throw it out at this point. Put it beside the street for someone to take. Or maybe he should just burn it down, give it to his parents as firewood.
But of course, (again) all he can think about are snippets of service. The weight of a blanket being adjusted, careful not to wake him. A hand steady at his back when he swayed. The quiet efficiency of someone moving around his space without judgement, without fuss.

He squeezes his eyes shut. Stop.

He hasn’t said the name, doesn’t need to. The presence lingers without it, persistent as an afterimage.

Damon stands abruptly and runs a hand through his hair until it sticks up at odd angles. He opens the window a crack to let the cold night air spill in sharp against his overheated skin. Inhaling the fresh air deeply, he leans his forehead against the glass. The city smells damp and alive, honest in a way he hasn't been.

When he turns back to the keyboard, he feels a little steadier. Enough, maybe, to try again and this time, he doesn’t aim for clever, he aims for accurate.
The notes come slower, but they fit together in a way that feels inevitable. There is a restraint to them, a kind of quiet patience that makes his throat tighten unexpectedly. He plays through the progression twice, then a third time, fingers moving almost without instruction now.

He hates how easily it comes.

Before he can attempt to stop himself, the notebook is open again, his writing following with hardly no real overthinking needed. He doesn't let himself pause long enough to second-guess.
Halfway through, he realises what the shape of it is. A memory. He is writing a memory, or from memory, or whatever. That lands with a sickenly soft thud in his chest.
Stopping his writing after all just to stare at the page, he finds the words aren't explicit, exactly. They don’t say anything outright in a diary or retelling sort of way, but they don’t need to either. The gentleness is there, threaded through every line. The attention, the care. The being looked after.

Damon swallows hard.

No.

Using way more force than necessary, he flips the notebook closed and pushes it away from him. The chair creaks as he leans back, pressing his palms flat against his thighs so they will not dare pick up pen and book again. This is ridiculous. He is romanticising a few days of weakness, that is all. He is tired, overstimulated. He is coming off too many late nights and too little sleep. Anyone would read too much into it under those conditions.

Restless energy remains buzzing under his skin as he stands again and pours himself another glass of water, drinking it slowly, forcing himself to notice the sensation of it moving down his throat. When he sets the glass aside, he makes sure it is somewhere he can see it.
Control, that is the key. Control is how he survives this.

Back at the keyboard, he deliberately steers away from the earlier melody, choosing something brisker instead, something more detached. It sounds fine. Good even. In a hollow way, he supposes he is indeed satisfied.
Still, his hands keep wanting to soften the edges. To linger, to leave space where space isn’t strictly necessary. That, he fights with all his tired might

Minutes tick by, maybe hours. Time loses its shape entirely. Eventually, his shoulders start to ache, tension settling in deep and familiar. His eyes sting from staring too long at the same points. He rubs at his face. The room feels heavier now, as if the night itself has leaned closer. The cold air from the window brushes his ankles.
When he turns off the keyboard, the sudden silence is almost shocking, the absence of sound feeling louder than the music ever did.

-

Damon treats his body like a rumour he doesn’t fully believe. One day he wakes late, than earlier than he means to the next day, then not at all, allowing time to fold in on itself in a way that feels productive if he doesn't look to closely. A rested mind is a working mind, or whatever. He skips breakfast without noticing, survives on cigarettes and coffee that goes untouched until it is cold, then drinks it anyway out of stubbornness. There are rehearsals, meetings, phone calls that stretch too long. Always something that feels more urgent than stopping. The manager is putting up more and more pressure with each passing day.
His body keeps score quietly.

At rehearsal, he stands too long without shifting his weight, knees locked, shoulders hunched forward in concentration. He argues about an arrangement, then rewrites it himself, fingers moving too fast, brain racing ahead of what he can physically keep up with. Graham glances at him once, twice, then opens his mouth like he might say something, which he ultimately never does, as Damon is already talking again, already moving on.

By mid-afternoon, the room feels too warm. Or maybe that's just him. Sweat prickles uncomfortably at his temples. He shrugs out of his jacket, then freezes when the room tilts slightly to the left, briefly so, almost nothing. The floor doesn’t move, exactly, it just seems to step back half a pace. Damon steadies himself with one hand on the keyboard stand, the metal feeling cool and solid under his palm.

“You alright?” Dave asks, already half-turned toward him.

“Yeah, just stood up too fast.”

No one pushes it, thank God, and the moment passes as sudden as it came. Damon forces himself to laugh it off, makes a joke about surviving on caffeine alone. The others grin, shake their heads, and normality snaps back into place. His chest, however, feels tight in a way he doesn’t like.

Later, alone again, the coughing starts, catching low and sharp in his throat. Instinctively, he bends forward with one hand braced on his knee and the other pressed flat against his sternum as if he can physically calm his lungs.
It is over quickly, too quickly to warrant concern, he tells himself. Just irritation. Residual nonsense. Nothing to write home about. This isn't that again.

Get it together.

He hates this part most, the reminder that his body is not a machine he can simply override, that it remembers things even when he would rather it didn’t. That it keeps insisting on limits.

While washing his hands in the bathroom sink, he stares at his reflection. His face looks thinner than he remembers, cheekbones sharper, shadows pooling under his eyes. Slightly off-key, that is what he looks like. He turns the tap off harder than necessary.

Back at the flat that evening, he realises he hasn’t eaten since sometime yesterday, a thought that lands with dull surprise rather than alarm. Some time early into living alone and having to take care of himself, he accepted that eating simply is a thing he can’t remember to do regularly. He opens the fridge, stares at its contents without really seeing them, closes it again. There isn’t much in it, nothing that awakes his appetite anyway.

Later, he lies on the sofa instead of the bed, shoes still on, jacket folded over the arm like he might need it again soon. The television murmurs to itself, light flickering across the walls. Damon doesn’t follow the plot, content to just let it wash over him, a stand-in for company.
His body feels heavy now, exhaustion finally catching up, limbs aching. Desperate to get comfortable, he shifts, though no position quite works. For a moment, just a moment, he imagines how this would look from the outside. To someone noticing the way he has gone quiet. To someone clocking the little food, the dark circles, the way he winces when he stands too quickly. To someone saying, without accusation, “You don’t look great.”

The thoughts slip in uninvited, accompanied by something like shame. It isn't fair to anyone involved (or not involved) to expect them to notice when, realistically, the only person he himself would notice changes like this about is Graham.
Although to be fair, someone has notice before, and he hates how immediately, his mind supplies the image. A presence in the room. A chair pulled closer. A voice telling him to sit down, to drink something.

No, that’s not it, can’t be.

Dependence is a trap, he knows that, has built his life on the careful avoidance of it. On self-sufficiency, on staying upright no matter the cost. Letting someone else see the cracks, let alone tend to them, feels dangerously close to losing control.

Still, his body betrays him again as he stands, dizziness flaring briefly before settling. He grips the back of the sofa until it passes, breathing through his nose, counting under his breath. When it fades, he straightens slowly, pours himself a glass of water, and forces himself to drink all of it. The effort feels monumental and faintly ridiculous. Fine, that is what he is and all his mind needs to remember.

But later, lying awake in the dark, heart thudding too loudly in his ears, the fear creeps in quietly anyway. Not fear of being ill again. Fear of how easily he let himself be looked after. Fear of how much his body remembers that softness, and how quickly it misses it. Like a drug, like an addiction.

Sleep drags him under despite himself, with the thought settling in his chest uncomfortably and unresolved.

-

“Your timing’s a bit frantic,” Graham mutters without looking directly at him. He plucks a string absently, listening to the way it decays. “You rushing somewhere?”

Damon scoffs. “I’m allowed to be energetic.”

“Didn’t say you weren’t.”

Irritated, Damon glances over at him. Graham’s expression is mild, curious in the way that feels more dangerous than confrontational. He has always been good at that, asking questions that sound like nothing and letting the answers do the damage themselves.

“I’m fine,” Damon says, unecessarily.

“Right.”

Dave wanders past the doorway then, saying something about tea before disappearing again. The interruption should break the spell. It doesn’t.

Straightening fully, Graham finally looks at Damon properly. “You just seem… wound a bit tight,” he claims, tone an observational sort of gentle. “That’s all.”

“Comes with the job,” Damon shrugs it off. “You know me.” Maybe a light laugh about it will ease this... chat, whatever it is.

“Yeah. I do.” And that is the problem, Damon supposes. He can't hide from Graham, he can't hide from the one person who knows him in and out and who knows this industry as good as he does.

Thankfully, Graham doesn't push further, and they soonreturn to the song, or at least the outline of it. As per usual, Damon calls out changes disguised as suggestions and tweaks that are precise yet relentless. Adaptable as ever, Graham follows, but something has shifted. The ease is gone, replaced by a faint tension that hums under everything. Damon hates it. Hates how a single, casual question has thrown him off balance. Hates that his body reacted before his mind could intervene, heart rate spiking, shoulders drawing up defensively, words firing off like a reflex.

Nah.

Later, during a break, Damon steps outside for a smoke. Compared to the rehearsal room's noises, it is mercifully quiet out here. He lights up, inhales deeply and prays for the nicotine to steady him.
Across the street, someone laughs loudly. A car door slams. Life continues, indifferent. The only thing changed, the only wrong component, is him, really, isn't it. These are normal city noises, hell, normal lived in area noises. His brain has no need to point them out like this, jesus. It isn't even as if anything fundamental happened to him, yet his whole being acts as if he were a new person, a reincarnated version of himself only because he had a fucking fever. Only because Liam...

He exhales smoke slowly and tells himself, again, that it doesn’t mean anything. That Graham’s question was idle curiosity at most. That he answered honestly. Mostly.
That all this bullock, all these redundant observations are just that, unecessary. Perhaps he simply accientally grabbed for the wrong kind of smoke, and he closes his eyes to avoid checking. Not like he can't taste that that is just tobacco. If he imagines tasting weed and being high rather than loosing his mind over a fever, maybe it will be true. Nothing changed, neither with him nor within the world. He is high, that is all. He is stoned, loaded, smashed, pie-eyed, tripping, off his face, blitzed, chemically impaired, blasted, anything but thinking about him. Think it and it will be true. Illusory truth effect, or whatever.

The sound of Graham laughing at something Dave says drifts outside through the open door. Damon flicks ash onto the pavement, irritation curling tight in his chest. Why does it matter if Graham notices? Why does it matter if the question lingers?
He stubs out the cigarette and goes back in careful to keep his expression as neutral and unfazed as possible, as the rehearsal resumes and the music swells, offering him something solid to lean into. Something he knows how to handle.

-

The phone sits on the corner of the table like it has always done, looking entirely ordinary. The cord loops in on itself twice before trailing down toward the wall, faintly tangled. Damon hasn’t thought about it all evening, has had no need to.
It is nearly one in the morning. The flat is dim, lit only by a lamp near the keyboard and the orange spill of streetlight bleeding in through the curtains. Damon stands in the kitchen, staring into the open cupboard as if expecting it to offer him something new. Unsurprisingly, it doesn’t, and he shuts it gently before leaning back against the counter and rubbing at his face. Perhaps he should go out for groceries tomorrow.

The day has been long in the specific way days become when he doesn’t stop. Rehearsal, then a meeting that went nowhere, then two hours rewriting something he already knew was fine, then another two convincing himself it wasn’t.

He drifts back into the living room, only to pause by the table, fingers hovering over the phone until he eventually picks it up.
He doesn’t dial, doesn’t even lift the receiver all the way to his ear. He just stands there, holding it. The urge is simple, which is the worst part. All he wants is to hear a voice, to confirm something still exists outside his head. All he wants is to make the last few weeks feel less like a strange, contained dream he has been refusing to name.

Staring at the small scuffs and scratches marking where it has been used too often, Damon finds he knows the number he wants to dial the most, and hates that he knows it. Can’t even recall ever learning it, yet there it is, right at the front of his mind.

Don’t be stupid. They aren’t mates. They don't ring each other late. They don't do check-ins. Well, he kind of did, didn't he...

Damon sets the receiver back into its cradle and steps away abruptly, irritation flaring at himself. He doesn’t need this, he doesn’t need anyone. He has been fine on his own for years, hell, he is better on his own, sharper and less compromised. But the thought doesn’t settle the way he wants it to.

His legs carry him back to the keyboard instead, and he flexes his fingers after sitting down. They tremble faintly, almost imperceptibly so, and he clenches them into fists until the shaking subsides. Focus, that is what he needs. Trying his best to do just that, he starts to play, notes coming out more clipped than he intended. Oddly enough, something he has done practically his wholed life, suddenly doesn't come easy to him. It doesn't sound good. Fuck. He is a musician, what is wrong with him.
Pushing harder, moving his fingers fast, he leans into it, trying to make it sound a poetic kind of angry, at least, as if volume might drown out the other noise, the low hum of what-ifs, the ghost of a presence he refuses to acknowledge directly. Nothing fucking works.

This is discipline, he tells himself. Choosing not to pick up the phone is maturity rather than fear of being rejected and told to sod off and to stop acting like a clingy dog over a situation that insignificant.
The lie barely holds.

Minutes pass. Minutes in which his shoulders creep higher as tension settles in deep and his jaw starts aching from how tightly he has been holding it without realising. But he doesn’t slow down, can’t afford to. Every so often, his gaze flicks back to the table where the phone sits and each time, he stubbornly drags it back to the keys.
He plays until his wrists ache, until the melody starts to blur, until his hands are steady again, if only from exhaustion. He plays until his brain stops telling him how he is alone with the sound he is producing as well as the one he is refusing to make. Stupid phone. He should just throw it out. Who needs a phone anyway...

-

Absence turns out not to be empty. Damon learns this slowly and in pieces. There is no single, dramatic moment where it clicks into place, no sharp intake of breath, no internal confession. It is quieter than that, infinitely more irritating.
It is there when he wakes up. Not in the sense of missing someone, he would recognise that, would push back against it, name it, dismantle it. No, this is something else. This is an awareness, faint but persistent. This is waking up and reaching for the side of the bed without thinking, only for his fingers to brush cold sheets and for the motion to startle him enough into freezing with his hand hovering in the air, before withdrawing it as if it just touched something way too hot.

Ridiculous.

Perhaps he's just been single for too long. Perhaps he just needs someone to hold, or someone to hold him. Touchstarved or whatever. He's always been a touchy person. Usually, he would seek out Graham for some cuddles, but that doesn't feel right, somehow. Which is odd, seeing how it normally does, but this ache simply doesn't feel like one Graham can solve, one someone platonic can ease.

Yeah, ridiculous.

Naturally, the day moves forward regardless of his internal resistance, and he gives in to it sooner rather than later. He showers, he gets dressed, he eats half a piece of toast and leaves the rest untouched on the counter. This is progress. This is evidence that he is back in his body, back in control.
The awareness following him is easy enough to ignore. Sure, it might be there when he reaches the end of a session and feels an odd, fleeting disappointment that there is no one unexpected in the room, no unfamiliar presence leaning against the wall with its arms crossed, observing without comment.

But just because the awareness is there, doesn't mean that he has to entertain it. And it doesn't mean he has to think the name either (not like it doesn't follow him around anyway).

He repeats his usual mantra, telling himself firmly, that this is just the aftermath of being ill. That anyone would feel strange after being temporarily dependent and after their routines were disrupted. It is muscle memory, nothing more. The body adjusting back to solitude. Besides, they didn’t even spend much time together. His body and mind are clearly being dramatic and overly sentimental and taking way too long to recover, an explanation that should satisfy him and it does, almost.

In the evenings, he goes out again and again, less desperately than before but still often enough to avoid the flat for too long. He meets people, talks, laughs, lets himself be distracted. Yet, there is a new layer to it now, a faint sense of comparison he doesn’t invite but can’t quite shut down, one that is neither better nor worse. Different, is all.
He notices how quickly conversations turn toward performance. How easily people want something from him, attention, wit, validation, proximity to whatever they think he represents. And he gives it willingly enough, he is good at that. But there is a thinness to it that he can’t ignore anymore.
That first time he went out after the fever should have let him realise for good that it doesn't help at all, shouldn't it?

One time while mid-sentence, he catches himself thinking about how he wouldn't be impressed by this, a thought that irritates him so much, he loses track of what he was saying.

One time while walking home alone, he realises the awareness has changed shape. It is no longer tied to specific memories or physical spaces, it is looser now, more diffuse. He stopped replaying moments, stopped indulging hypotheticals. He simply… notices, unsettling himself. And it occurs to him then, as a simple, inconvenient truth, that he is thinking about him more now than when he was actually there. Not longing. Not yearning. Not forgetting.

Alright.

Maybe longing. Perhaps even yearning. Definitely not forgetting.

Shit.

-

The pub hasn’t changed. That is Damon’s first thought when he pushes the door open and steps inside, the familiar weight of warmth and sound settling over him like a coat he forgot he owned. The floor still sticks faintly near the bar, the air still smells like spilled beer and old wood, and the lights are low enough to blur edges while seeing just enough of the person opposite one.
In here, it has always felt like neutral ground, a place where things don’t follow him in quite so aggressively. Somewhere where he can simply be another body leaning against a table, another voice lost in the noise.

Tonight, it feels slightly… wrong.

At first, he can’t name why. He orders a drink on autopilot, exchanges nods with the bartender, slips back toward the table where the others are already gathered. Normal. Alex is mid-story, something about a taxi driver and a wrong turn, gesturing too broadly, knocking his elbow against Graham’s arm.

“Oi,” Graham exclaims, amused. “Watch it.”

“It adds realism,” Alex replies.

Listening only half, but with a genuine, albeit small, smile on his lips, Damon starts scanning the room, something he does more often than not. Map exits, count faces, register movement. Habit more than paranoia.
Today, his eyes land on something rather intriguing, and he has to rub his eyes and pinch himself discreetly just to make sure his mind isn't making up what his eyes are seeing. Across the room, near the far wall by the window that always fogs up no matter the season, stands a familiar posture, unmistakable even out of context. Broad shoulders, weight shifted back on his heels, one foot hooked lazily around the leg of a chair.

Gallagher.

Liam.

Liam Gallagher.

The recognition is instant, hitting before thoughts or logic do. A clean, sharp jolt. Damon stills, his glass halfway to his mouth, frozen there only for a fraction too long before he lowers it again without drinking, his heart giving a stupid, unecessary kick against his ribs.
He did not expect this, him. Not here, not now.

Liam is turned slightly away, laughing at something someone beside him must have said. The sound doesn’t carry across the room, but Damon knows it anyway, knows the shape of it, knows the way it starts low and then cracks upward. How? Why? They aren't matess.
He looks the same while also looking completely different, an observation as unsettling as confusing. The haircut is familiar, the clothes are familiar, the stance, loose, claiming space without trying, is exactly as it has always been. But there is something else threaded through it now, a subtle shift Damon can’t quite define and fair enough, maybe it is just distance, maybe it is context, maybe it is the simple fact of seeing him again after so long, out of nowhere, without warning, without preparation. After all, before the fever-thing, they have only ever seen each other in a performing-context, if even. On a screen, on a corridor backstage of Top Of the Pops. Never in a comfortable setting, never in a pub with friends, relaxing, enjoying the evening. Odd. They never tried to get along, everyone just accepted the rivalry as it is (was?).

God, why is he thinking about him like a bloody ex? Friendship. Ex-friendship. Ex-friend. Not like ex-ex. Ugh. Ridiculous.

Damon feels suddenly, irrationally exposed, like he has been caught mid-thinking out loud.

He tells himself not to stare and promptly fails, which of course is when Liam turns, scanning the room just like Damon did and fuck, their eyes meet. A second too long to spark hope that Liam hasn't registered who else is here and staring at him. A second long enough for recognition to settle on Liam’s face. There is a flicker of surprise, albeit quickly masked. Interest, maybe, or something that looks an awful lot like it. Damon feels his stomach tighten.

They don’t smile.

They don’t wave.

They hold eye contact for a beat longer than necessary, then Liam dips his chin in a nod. Acknowledgment without invitation. Damon returns it automatically and with that, the exchange is over as quickly as it began, as Liam turns back to his group. Damon exhales shakily.

“Well,” Alex sighs, dragging the word out. “That’s unfortunate.”

“What?” Damon attempts to focus back on his friends and appearing as if he has been aware all along.

Graham jerks his head subtly toward the far side of the room. “Looks like we’ve got neighbours now.”

So they noticed too. Oasis are clustered around two tables pushed together, with drinks everywhere and their voices loud, even by pub standards.

“They’ve moved studios,” Dave explains, not looking particularly pleased. “Just down the road. Apparently this is their new local.”

Alex groans. “You’re joking.”

“Wish I was.”

Interesting. Damon takes a sip of his drink. It tastes flat.

“This has been our pub for years,” Alex groans indignantly.

“Doesn’t mean we own it,” Graham tries to sound reasonable, though to Damon, his tone suggests he is far from thrilled himself.

“I don’t fancy switching,” Alex adds. “I like it here.”

“So do they it seems,” Dave mutters.

Damon stays quiet. And he knows that is unusual for him, especially given the situation, but if he is lucky, Graham is already tipsy enough not to question it. There simply is nothing that he can think of saying that doesn't make him feel exposed, a sentiment he is not used to and he prays it sticks only for today.
He now is aware of Liam’s presence in a way that throws everything else slightly out of focus. Every time he hears bursts of laughter from across the room, he has to stop himself from turning around.

Ridiculous. They aren’t friends. Haven’t been, really, not ever. Yet they aren’t enemies either, not anymore. Though that doesn't mean there is reason this should matter beyond mild awkwardness. A shared space, that is all. A pub so good, it lures in two of Britain's biggest groups. A testament to Blur's taste, innit, the fact that Oasis like it here too? Might present as a nice argument to throw at them if they ever try insulting their poshness again.
Still, his body hasn’t gotten the memo, muscles feeling oddly keyed up, nerves sparking under his skin for no clear reason, like he is about to go onstage without realising it. Like he has forgotten something important and can’t remember what.

Seriously, what is wrong with him?

Finally, he forces himself to lean into the conversation at his own table, chiming back in by making a dry comment about territorial musicians and pubs becoming battlegrounds. It lands, the others grin, Graham cheers. He feels hollow.

At some point, Liam moves. Damon doesn’t see him go, just notices the absence like a shift in pressure. He tells himself not to look and looks anyway. The space by the window is empty. Something loosens in his chest as something else tightens.

“Another?” Graham asks, gesturing to Damon’s glass.

“Yeah, I’ll go,” Damon answers, a beat too quick.

At the bar, he waits longer than necessary, staring at the taps without really seeing them. He is acutely aware of his own posture, of the line of his shoulders, of the way he stands. The awareness being back might as well drive him mad (that is if he isn't mad already).
The bartender slides the drinks toward him and Damon thanks him, turns, and nearly collides with Liam. Instinctively, they each stop short of each other, and while Damon did suck at physics, he can't help but think of magnets repelling at the last second.

“Oh,” Liam says, a simple sound that lands with surprising weight.

“Alright,” Damon replies, doing his best at casual and landing somewhere pretentious, he supposes.

There is a half-second where neither of them moves, both staying in their positions, standing too close for strangers and too far for anything else. Damon catches the faint smell of soap and smoke, something clean threaded through it. Liam looks at him properly now, something in his eyes twinkling. "You lot here often, then?" he asks, nodding vaguely toward Damon’s table.

“Yeah,” Damon nods. “Been coming for years.”

Liam huffs a laugh. “I see... We ain't tryin’ to nick it, y'know? Just convenient.”

“I know,” Damon says and he does, that is the problem. It is convenient for them too, close to the studio and all, which is how it came to be their regular pub in the first place.

Another pause.

“Well,” Liam starts, shifting his weight. “See you ‘round, I s’pose.”

“Yeah,” Damon replies, again. “Yeah.” Once upon a time, he used to be eloquent.

Liam steps past him then, their shoulders almost brushing. Almost.
Damon watches him go, feeling the echo of proximity linger longer than it should. They haven't touched, but he feels oddly warm anyway. This really, really isn't good.

When he gets back to the table, Graham gives him a look. “You alright?”

“Splendid,” Damon responds automatically and for most of it, that is the truth.

They stay another hour, maybe two. Damon remains aware of Liam’s presence, even more so when Oasis filter out in a loud, messy wave. Liam doesn’t look back.

Damon watches the door swing shut behind them and feels something settle into place. Certainty, perhaps, rather than relief or disappointment. Certainty that tonight wasn’t a one-off. They will be here again, tomorrow, next week, whenever. They will be crossing paths without planning to. They will be existing in the same orbit whether they like it or not.
It doesn’t annoy him like it should, doesn't annoy him in the way it so clearly annoys Alex and Graham, and even Dave, it seems. Instead, it sits in his chest, warm and unsettled, like recognition he never gave permission to.

Ridiculous.

And just as was to be expected, they soon see each other again. It is Tuesday (not like the days of the week have much meaning in his life, really), on a dull, ordinary evening where the pub smells more like a cleaning solution than sweat and where the jukebox hums quietly in the corner with people actually sitting instead of leaning.

Damon clocks Liam the moment he and the rest of Blur walk in. Not because he is looking (he tells himself he isn’t), but because some part of him has recalibrated, whether he wants it to or not.

Liam is situated at the bar, elbow hooked over it, jacket half-off, talking to the bartender like they have known each other for years. He looks relaxed, too relaxed, like this has already become routine for him, and Damon feels a flicker of irritation that has nowhere sensible to go. He keeps walking.
Blur claim their usual table. Alex complains about the lighting, Dave mentions a session tomorrow morning, Graham drops his jacket on the back of a chair and glances around the room, eyes sharp. “They’re early,” he mutters.

Damon hums in response, shrugging his coat off, draping it over the same chair he always uses. He doesn’t look at the bar again, doesn’t need to.

They exist in parallel for a while, separate conversations, separate laughter. Damon sips his drink slowly, aware of how deliberate he is being about everything, posture, pace, tone. He feels like he is holding something fragile inside his chest and pretending it isn’t there.
Eventually, proximity does what it always does. The pub is small, people move, chairs scrape. Someone bumps into Damon’s shoulder hard enough to slosh his drink even while siting.

“Sorry, mate,” the guy apologises, already moving on.

Annoyed, Damon stands and turns toward the bar to replace it, nearly colliding with Liam as he does so. Again. Inevitability, Damon thinks, is a funny thing.

“Christ,” Liam grins, stopping short. “We’ve gotta stop meetin’ like this.”

It is meant lightly, Damon can tell. A joke offered as a bridge, not a push. “True.”

They stand there, too close, the bar pressing at Damon’s back now. He can hear the low thrum of conversation behind Liam, feel the heat of the room between them.

“So,” Liam begins, rocking back on his heels. “You lot recordin’?”

“Rehearsing,” Damon replies. “Mostly.”

Liam nods. “I wish. Studio move’s a nightmare.”

“I heard.” A pause. They are both very good at pauses it seems. Professionals, really. Years of indirect media training, of saying just enough and not a word more does that to one.

“Weather’s gone to shit again,” Liam offers.

Damon almost smiles. So they are on that level of terrible smalltalk now. “London, innit?”

“Yeah. Miserable bastard of a place.”

Another pause. This one stretches, one that forces Damon to realise how, unexpectedly enough, Liam's voice still does something to him, cutting through the noise without effort and soothing him in a way he does not fancy examining. His focuses broadens onto Liam’s mouth, on the way he speaks around his words, on the way he bites off consonants. Vexingly enough, he has a pretty mouth.

“Anyway, we’re not gonna be too loud, if that’s what yer wonderin’.”

“I wasn’t,” Damon immediately answers. Then, because it felt too abrupt: “But thanks.”

Liam shrugs. “Didn’t want it gettin’ weird.”

“It’s not,” Damon replies, too quickly yet again, which Liam thankfully doesn't comment on with more than a twitch of his eyebrows.

“Good. That’d be daft,” he says then. It is clear they both know what is missing from the conversation, what sits between them like a third presence, uninvited and unacknowledged. Neither of them looks at it. It, the fever, stays unspoken. Well, not exactly the fever itself, but the flat, the armchair, the hands, steady and sure. All of it stays locked away behind polite sentences and a chat about the weather. Damon can feel the effort it takes not to reach for it, not to acknowledge that there was a before and an after in this... this acquaintanceship (he refuses to let himself think relationship, even if he usually throws around that word rather loosely, hating the term acquaintance).

“Well,” Liam says finally. “I’ll let ya get back.”

“Right, see you.”

With that, Liam turns and walks away, Damon watching him go this time, not bothering to pretend otherwise.
When he returns to his own table, Graham looks up from his drink, clearly confused and to his luck, clearly drunk. The other two aren’t doing any better. “You two makin’ peace?”

“Something like that,” Damon tries shrugging it off. He hopes no one will start a why Oasis suck conversation tonight. He seems to be in luck, as the topic is dropped right after, and he allows himself to sit back and let the noise of the pub wash over him. The conversation with Liam meant nothing. Just an exchange of words, civil and empty, that's all.
His pulse takes a while to slow down anyway. He can’t quite believe it.

-

It isn’t planned, that is the thing Damon tells himself, over and over, until it starts to feel like a rule. It isn't planned, they don't seek each other out, they don't arrange anything. There are no calls, no messages passed through managers or mates. Nothing intentional. It just keeps happening. Same pubs, aside from their local one. Same after-hours corners. Same... everything, more and more.

First, it is a mutual friend waving Damon over because there is room at their table. Then, it is someone calling Liam’s name and clapping him on the shoulder, pulling him into a conversation Damon is already standing in. Then, it is a cigarette offered, accepted, lit from the same lighter because it is easier than digging through pockets.

Damon notices the pattern before he admits it exists. He clocks it the third time it happens in a week, in three different places at three different nights, and yet somehow the same configuration of bodies, with Graham to his left and Liam across from him. At least it is loud enough that no one expects sustained conversation.

They share silence the way other people share jokes. Strange how easy that part is.

The part with the cigarettes becomes routine as well. Unlike most in the industry, Damon doesn’t smoke constantly, though it is different with Liam. The offer comes wordlessly and in form of a pack tilted open and a brief glance. Whenever Damon takes one, their fingers brush more often than not. Never lingering, but always long enough to be noticeable.

More often than not, they stand outside pubs together, leaning against brick walls while watching people pass, talking only in fragments. Small talk technically, but it doesn't feel like it.

“Cold tonight.”

“Always is.”

Or,

“Label still drivin’ ya mad?”

“Nothing new.”

Sometimes, Liam hums under his breath. Sometimes, Damon watches the smoke leave his mouth and feels oddly tethered to it, like if he follows the trail long enough he will understand something he has been circling for weeks. Sometimes, he catches Liam watching him from across a room and a feeling settles in his chest afterward, one that isn’t fear. It is gravity. It is gravity and it is pulling whether he wants it to or not.

The others help without meaning to, without knowing what they are doing. Alex drifts away mid-conversation. Dave gets pulled into a story at the bar. Graham disappears to flirt or brood or both. Noel, when he is around, keeps his distance, watchful but quiet.
They all leave Damon and Liam in the gaps.

Damon notices himself timing things, his own arrival to the pub, for example. Not consciously at first, just an instinctive sense of when to arrive, when to linger outside for another minute before going in, when to leave so it doesn’t look like he is staying for anyone in particular. He tells himeslef it is a coincidence, until he realises he is doing it every time, and how he feels a faint, irrational disappointment when Liam isn’t there yet and a strange relief when he is. That is when he starts recognising Liam’s jacket hanging near the door before he sees Liam himself, or the sound of his voice over others, even when he is not listening for it. His body reacts before his mind catches up, a subtle tightening, a readiness that feels almost like nerves.

It shouldn’t be like this, none of it.

Liam, for his part, does... nothing. Well, nothing special. He doesn’t close the distance, doesn’t corner Damon or demand attention. He lets the room do the work and it works.

When Damon drifts closer, Liam stays. When Damon hangs back, Liam doesn’t follow. It is infuriatingly patient and he hates it.

One night, they are outside a pub in Camden, the air thick with late-summer humidity. Damon is halfway through a cigarette, watching the end burn brighter with each drag.

“Ye always smoke those too fast,” Liam comments casually.

“Do I?” Damon glances at him, curious as to where this is going.

“Yeah. Like yer in a rush to finish.”

Both subconsciously and consciously, he knows he definitely isn’t. Still, this is Liam, no matter where their... connection is going, he can't just outright admit it now, can he? He wouldn't to Graham either. “Maybe I am.”

Liam studies him for a second, expression unreadable. Then he nods, like that answer makes sense, like Damon doesn’t know how obvious his voice betrayed his words.

They don’t talk after that, don’t need to, and later, when Damon leaves, he realises he is lighter than he was when he arrived. Not happier, just less tight, less closed in.
He hates that too, but the pattern continues, no matter what he thinks of it.

Next time they smoke together, it is after Damon stepped away from the bar because he needs some air, or space, or whatever other excuse that doesn't sound like the truth (even if it is just in his own head).

Liam is already there with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.

They acknowledge each other with a glance. No nod this time, only plain recognition. Liam flicks the lighter, shields the flame from the wind, then offers it without comment. Damon takes it.
Now they stand there, side by side, without facing each other. The wall is cool through Damon’s jacket.

This is it, he thinks, this is the moment. He has rehearsed it, little half-sentences that float up when he is tired or distracted. Things that begin with about the other week or thanks for, and then trail off before they are fully formed.

Thanking Liam would be the decent thing, the adult thing. It doesn’t matter he did it that day, it doesn’t matter Liam doesn’t want to hear it again. Damon needs to do this, wants to do this. It simply is the way he has been raised.
It would also make it real. Maybe that is the main reason he wants to do this, the real reason.

Damon clears his throat. “Busy night.”

“Always is in here. Like moths, innit,” Liam huffs a quiet laugh.

“Mm.”

Liam doesn’t look at him, doesn’t prompt. He just smokes, patient as ever, as if he understands that some things have to come on their own. As if he understands what Damon is trying to do, a thought that makes Damon’s chest tighten, yet he considers it anyway. Just once more.

Thanks for not leaving.

Thanks for staying.

Thanks for seeing me like that and not making it into a joke.

The words get as far as his tongue and stop there as he swallows them back down. It is Liam who breaks the silence instead. “Ye lot rehearsin’ much?”

“All the time, basically.” Damon stumbles over the words a little, but he doubts Liam noticed.

“Figures.” Liam glances at him then, brief and assessing. “Sounds good though. From what I’ve heard.”

Damon smiles. Coming from Liam Gallagher, that is somewhat of a huge compliment, he knows. “We’re… alright.”
It is a safe topic, neutral-ish. Nothing that can’t be undone. Liam smiles too, like he knows exactly what Damon is doing and is letting him do it.

Then something else happens, or well, doesn’t happen. No 'y'alright'? or feel better now? Nothing that reaches backward toward the thing they are both pretending isn’t there.
The absence of the question lands heavier than the question itself would have, and Damon doesn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed. He has been asked that question so much by Graham, Alex, Dave, friends, label people, people he hardly knows. All the people who do not know anything about the fever, about what happened. Everyone looked at him and felt inclined to ask if he was alright, yet the one person who know he isn't, wasn't, stands here in front of him, seemingly not caring one bit.

He tells himself it is good. It means Liam isn’t trying to drag anything out into the open. It means they can keep this where it is, contained and manageable.
Still, something in him sinks. Shame on him, but he wants Liam to ask. And not just on this ridiculous small talk level.

“Well,” Damon eventually starts, because the silence is stretching again and this time it feels like a risk. “I should… head back in.”

Liam pushes off the wall. “Same.”

Neither moves immediately. There is a beat where they are standing too close, the space between them charged with everything they aren't saying. Damon feels the words surge again. He could still do it, could still turn, he could still meet Liam’s eyes and let just one honest sentence exist between them.

But he doesn’t, stepping away instead.

As he reaches for the door, he hears Liam speak. “Oi!”

Damon turns to find Liam hesitate, his expression is unreadable. “Good to see ya out so much, Blur-boy.”
It is nothing and everything at the same time. The nickname warms something inside his whole body.

“You too.”

They go back inside separately, all the pub noises resuming as if nothing has happened. But Damon feels heavier than before, carrying the unsaid with him for the rest of the night, letting it sit in his chest, brooding there uneasily like something alive.

When he leaves hours later, walking home alone through streets gone quiet, it is still there, the weight of knowing how close he came, and how he purposefully stepped away. Unsure if he can even pretend to believe that, he tells himself it is better this way.

-

The phone rings in the middle of the night. Damon startles awake, heart jumping straight into his throat before his brain catches up. The clock glowing an accusing red on the bedside table tells him is is half past two. No one decent calls half past two.

For a split second, he is scared. Something must be wrong. Properly wrong. Band emergency. Family. One of those calls that splits a life cleanly into before and after.

He lies there, staring at the ceiling, listening to the ringing slice through the quiet.

Christ.

Dragging himself upright, he fumbles for the receiver, both fear and irritation already flaring. “Hello?”

“Alright?” That voice is unmistakable. Damon closes his eyes.

“What is it?” he asks, sharper than he meant to. “Do you know what time it is?”

“Yeah,” Liam says easily. “Couldn’t sleep.”

Of course not.

Trying to clear the fog from his head, Damon rubs his face with his free hand. He is nervous, thrilled, embarrassed, excited. Liam had the guts to call, the guts Damon was clearly missing for no reason at all. If Liam seems so relaxed calling him up in the middle of the night, he likely wouldn’t have minded Damon calling him at all.
Now he just has to be normal himself. “That’s not usually my problem.”

“No,” Liam agrees. He doesn’t sound offended, if anything, he sounds… careful. “You can hang up if ya want.”

The line goes quiet again. Damon realises Liam is waiting, refraining from pushing or filling the silence himself. It unsettles him.
He exhales slowly. “What do you want, then?”

Another pause, shorter this time. “Y’alright these days?”

The question is simple, almost casual. Like he is asking about the weather or the traffic (again). It lands anyway. This is exactly what Damon was so pathetically hoping for. His heart starts racing. So he does call.

Suddenly wide awake, Damon finds he is a big idiot. All the time spent thinking about how he wants Liam to ask him just that, and not once did he think about what to answer. Fever must have fried his brain. All he can come up with is a simple, “I’m fine.”

"Good." Clearly, the answer didn't convince Liam, yet he doesn't challeng it. “Just thought I’d check,” Liam adds as an afterthought. “Ye sounded knackered last time I saw ya.”

Damon’s mouth tightens. “I’m always knackered.”

“Yeah, well, still.”

That is it. No lecture. No follow-up questions. No obligation attached. The care is offered and then set gently down between them, untouched. Damon swallows. They need to cut the tension. “You ring everyone at this hour or am I special?”

Liam snorts. “Don’t get ahead of yerself, Blur-boy.”
There it is, a familiar rhythm sliding back into place.

“Where are you?” Damon asks, surprising himself.

“Home, starin’ at the ceilin’. Same as you, by the sound of it.”

Instinctively, Damon glances up, as if the ceiling might look different knowing Liam is doing the same somewhere else in the city.
They talk for a few more minutes about nothing important. About how impossible it is to sleep. About a song Liam heard on the radio that annoyed him. Damon offers a half-hearted defence of it, Liam scoffs. It feels easy, unforced. Like sharing a cigarette, just in bed, over the phone, seperated.

Eventually, Liam clears his throat. “I’ll let ya get back to it.”

“Alright.”

There is a beat, a moment where Damon thinks, briefly, dangerously, about saying more. About admitting that the question mattered, that it has been echoing in places he hasn’t let anyone see. About finally saying his thanks.
He doesn’t. Chicken.

“Night,” he says instead.

“Night.”

The line clicks dead. Damon remains sitting there for a long moment, phone still in his hand, listening to the sudden quiet rush back in. Sleep doesn’t come back to him easily that night, the question lingering, the simple act of checking in, the expectation Damon had in Liam to do just that being deflated, just for him to ask it after all.
It follows him into the morning, drifting through rehearsals, through interviews, through idle moments he usually fills without thinking. It is there when he pours coffee and when he steps outside for air.

By the time evening comes, Damon realises something that makes his chest feel tight and oddly warm all at once: Liam didn’t call because he had to, he called because he wanted to know and that, more than the question itself, is what stays with Damon.

-

Watching Liam on a stage is a side to behold. Not in fan typa way (though Damon reluctantly has to admit that he can see the appeal), but just in a performer-watching-another-performer typa way. Both on- and off-stage, Liam's got this walk of his, the loose-libed, shoulders slightly back, chin tilted just enough to dare the room to look away, one. And the crowd responds to it, a collective lean forward, chasing him rather than Liam chasing them.

Something about the controlled, calculated way in which Liam stands and crosses his hands behind his back and occaisonally adjusts the timing of his singing or the lyrics he sings, is so refreshing and simple, almost, yet Damon knows it doesn't just come that easy, especially not in front of a crowd like the ones Oasis attract. Really, he is far more clever than people give it credit for.

Though to be fair, there are some crackes there, too. Not flaws, rather tiny habits that prove he is human after all, like the way his hands flex when he is waiting for the band to kick in, or the slight pause before he speaks to the crowd between tracks, as if he had to check in with himself before letting the words out.

Whenever Damon happens to watch Oasis play these days, which has been increasingly more often, both on purpose and on something akin to accident or chance, Damon realises how many versions there are of Liam that he has already been allowed to see.
When on stage, for example, it naturally isn’t the man outside pubs, leaning against brick walls, sharing cigarettes in silence. It isn’t the one who listens without interrupting, who lets Damon arrive at things in his own time. On stage, it is performance, armour. And while that is only healthy, and Damon supposes they all do it and it should be entirely unremarkable, he still can’t stop tracking the differences.

Differences like Liam’s voice shifting when he talks to the crowd versus when he talks to people one-on-one. Differences like how the bravado loosens when the lights dim between songs, or how Liam glances back at the band like he is checking they are still there.

Damon finds himself cataloguing details he has no use for. Hands, mostly. How Liam’s fingers curl around each other, how they relax when he laughs at something shouted from the crowd, how he occaisonaly brings them in front of him just to wipe his palms against his jeans with.

Pub-Liam is performing too, he supposes, although he likes to believe it isn't quite as excessive as on stage. Likes to believe it is even less when it is just the two of them, that Liam feels safe enough to just let himself be with Damon. Well, in all fairness, expecting that, wanting that, might be a little hypocritical.

Pub-Liam is usually surrounded by a loose ring of people hanging on to his every word while talking. Pub-Liam is animated, able to make the same story land three different ways, depending on who is listening.
Lately, Damon has been listening in on all those stories from the edges of the group, close enough to listen in, yet far away enough to successfully look like he isn't nearly as intrigued as he is.

Pub-Liam leans in when someone speaks quietly. Pub-Liam steps back when the space gets too crowded. Pub-Liam laughs with his whole body, his head tipping back slightly more often than not, as if he is surprised by his own jokes.

Once the realisation, that he now knows that laugh better than he should hits, Damon realises he isn't just watching Liam, he is comparing. Comparing the private moments to the public ones, comparing the silences to the noise, comparing the man who waits versus the man who commands.

Pub-Liam becomes... becomes what? Damon's-Liam? Outside-the-pub-Liam? Cigarette-Liam? Now that one works. Pub-Liam becomes cigarette-Liam when outside for their semi-secret smoke together, and Damon likes to believe cigarette-Liam is yet again closer to Liam-Liam than pub-Liam, which is a confusing way of reinstating, that he hopes Liam doesn't feel that much of a need to pretend around Damon, which, again, leaves Damon feeling like a big, fat, hypocrite.

Cigarette-Liam stands beside him with a shoulder against the wall and a cigarette between his fingers. Cigarette-Liam breathes slowly, steadily. Cigarette Liam's face is relaxed, unguarded in a way that Damon recognises now. Cigarette-Liam doesn't seem restless, doesn't fidget or check the door behind them. Cigarette-Liam has a warm sort of present, one that doesn't crowd. Cigarette-Liam seems to be at ease, and cigarette-Liam is easy to mirror.

When with cigarette-Liam, Damon becomes less of a hypocrite, finding he hardly ever feels the need to check his expression or say something sharp or deflective. When with cigarette-Liam, Damon doesn't perform, not for a room, or the moment, or Liam, or even just himself. Scratch that less of a hypocrite, he becomes no hypocrite at all. When with cigarette-Liam, he isn't stage-Damon or detached-Damon or son-Damon or mate-Damon. He is Damon-Damon.

He has built his entire public life on performance, on knowing how to angle himself, how to speak, how to stay half a step ahead of being seen too clearly.
Even with people he trusts, there is always an edge of presentation, always a version of himself being curated in real time. When with cigarette-Liam, who come to think of it might actually just be Liam-Liam, that edge is gone. And Damon doesn't know at which point in their arrangement (fuck this, in their relationship), it has started slipping away.

When with Liam, discomfort doesn't arrive. When with Liam, Damon feels... at ease, safe. Which is funny, because safety is not something Damon associates with ease. Safety implies rest and rest implies letting go of control, which, to him, means no safety. Ease, the loss of control, implies unguarded trust. Terrifying prospect, that is.

Suddenly hyperaware of his own stillness, the instinct to sabotage the moment flares up. Say something flippant. Make a joke. Reassert the distance before it closes in too far. But also don’t. Enjoy the moment. Enjoy Liam. Enjoy the peace he brings.

He doesn't move.

Dimly, he understands that this is more dangerous than the rivalry ever was and ever could be. Rivalry gives them rules, lines, a script to follow.
This, this lack of friction, this quiet allowance, offers no structure at all. It asks nothing and everything at once.

Eventually, Liam flicks his cigarette away, grinding it out under his boot, yet he doesn't leave, not yet. He remains leaning there with his hands in his pockets and his gaze forward.

With a jolt, Damon realises that he could stay like this. That the thought doesn’t exhaust him. That it doesn’t feel like effort. Yet again, something terrifyingly comforting to think.

All good things must come to an end, Damon supposes, when someone calls Liam’s name from inside after a while. A laugh, loud and distant. Liam turns his head slightly, looking at Damon, eyes seemingly asking for permission to leave and thus pop that small bubble of calm they share out here. Damon nods. “Be right there,” Liam calls back, his eyes remaining fixed on Damon.

"Didn't bring a coat today, did ya?"
The observation throws Damon off. Does Liam track him too? Because he is right, Damon didn't, a decision he started regretting halfway to the pub, although he then had already been too far away from his flat and too stubborn to do something about it.
It has become even colder since then, and Damon is very much aware (and hopeful), that he is about to become the character of some melodramatic movie.

“Here,” Liam offers, already shrugging out of his jacket before Damon can respond. "Yer shiverin'." He drapes the jacket over Damon's shoulders, hands brushing Damon's collarbone as he adjusts it. Naturally, it is warm. The fabric holds the faint scent of smoke and detergent, and something recognisably Liam.

“I’m fine,” he finally manages, not yet having moved and adjusted the jacket himself.

"Course you are. Just figured you'd stay out here a little longer like ya always do, so just take it."

That is so on point, genuine gratitude overrides any leftover protest. Thanking him for that simple act comes easy, at least. Besides, this is solely practical, Damon tells himself. Nothing more. People offer coats all the time, it means nothing. “Cheers."

"Any time."
Liam pushes off the wall then, heading back inside, morphing back into pub-Liam. Damon watches him go, aware of the space he leaves behind. His presence lingers even after he is gone.
He doesn't shrug off the jacket once he is warmed up, keeping it on, even tucking his hands into the pockets.

No doubt something has been and still is shifting within him and if he had to guess, he would say that it did in Liam too, not just him. He might not have the language to explain it yet, not to anyone and least of all to himself, but he knows being seen as an opponent was easy, while being seen as he is, without armour, feels an awful lot like standing on the edge of something deep and unmarked, and he doesn’t know whether he wants to step forward or not, only that he already has, just a little.

When the night crawls closer and closer towards sunrise and people start drifting home, Damon, who had eventually gone back inside himself, hands the jacket back the second he manages to catch Liam in a quiet corner. Embarassingly enough, he does it reluctantly so, fingers lingering on the sleeve for a fraction of a second too long. Probably for the best however, since it was only a question of time until his friends started realising, even through the alcohol haze, that that jacket did not belong to Damon.

“Don’t get ill again,” Liam grins lightly.

Damon’s chest tightens. “I won’t.” It is a promise he shouldn’t make, one that is, mostly, out of the range of his abilities to keep. Feels appropriate anyway.

Lying in bed later, staring at the ceiling, Damon becomes uncomfortably aware of how his body reacts to the memory. How certain moments replay sharper than others, how the sensation of warmth and closeness refuses to fade, how he wishes they could have talked longer, or talked inside, drinking a beer together, leaving together, anything. Anything that isn’t hidden in shadows and tells Damon Liam wants a little more too, even if it's just friendship.

-

He starts writing at odd hours again and for once, it isn't because he has to. There is no deadline breathing down his neck, no producer asking for something shiny and loud, no. He writes because the words won’t leave him alone otherwise, as they sit there, patient and irritating, waiting for him to stop pretending he is fine.

It is late. Or early, maybe. The flat is quiet in a way that feels as if even the walls have agreed not to interrupt him. A lamp is on in the corner, throwing a small circle of light across the keyboard and the notebook beside it. Everything else stays dim. His usual writing atmosphere.
He doesn’t sit at the piano straight away, making tea and forgetting to drink it instead, flipping through a notebook full of half-finished things instead. Old instincts, old armour, big ideas, clever angles, irony doing most of the heavy lifting. None of it fits.

When he finally does sit, he doesn’t think about songs. He thinks about space. About how it feels when someone stands close enough that he doen’t have to raise his voice. About how certain rooms feel calmer just because a particular person is in them. About the strange, grounding weight of quiet that doesn’t need to be filled. About the wall outside a pub and-

He starts writing. Not lyrics, not really. Observations. Fragments. Sentences that feel more like notes to himself than anything meant for an audience. He writes about proximity. About how closeness isn’t always loud. About how the most unsettling moments lately aren’t the thrilling ones, but the steady ones. About voices that lower his shoulders without trying.

God, this is rubbish. He should tear the page out, would tear it out, if it weren’t so real and comforting. It should make him uncomfortable how easily it comes once he allows it.

There is no way he will write down the name of the person no doubt behind this, he is too careful for that. Careful in the way someone is around something breakable, not out of respect, exactly, but fear of what happens if it shatters. Plus there is always the risk of someone finding his book, or taking it. People are vicious.
Yet even without a name, images and sounds creep in uninvited. A pub doorway. Smoke curling between them. A hand steadying him without fuss. A voice asking a question in the middle of the night and meaning it.

Technically, he still hasn’t thought a name, so technically, none of this is about anyone yet. It's just his mind making stuff up, just his imagination.

The lie doesn’t land properly.

When he plays a few chords of nothing recognisable, the sound is quieter than usual, exploratory. He listens closely, adjusting pressure, tempo, letting the notes breathe instead of pushing them somewhere impressive. It doesn't demand attention, it rather... offers it. That' new.
Faintly, he realises that whatever this is, song, feeling, problem, it doesn’t arrive with the rush he expects. There is no spike, no adrenaline, no sharp edge that screams this matters. It just sits with him, settling.

Damon stops playing. He must be loosing it, right?

Flipping through the notebook again, he rereads what he just wrote. Luckily, it doesn’t necessarily sound like a love song, nor rivalry or obsession or want in any obvious way, for that matter. Noticing, that is all it sounds like, and Blur are all about noticing, so he should be fine.

No, he doesn't know who this is about…

So he writes another line instead. Then another, crossing one out, keeping the next. The usual. He lets the page fill in a slow, uneven way, like he is mapping something rather than inventing it. It feels different now, less like an act, more like a by-product, albeit a slightly frightening one.
When he finally stops, the sky outside has shifted in colour. The edges of the world are lighter, softer, and he decides to close the notebook and set it aside. He doesn’t feel triumphant, rather exposed, actually, and as he lies back on the sofa with one arm over his eyes, his mind keeps returning to the same thought, circling it without landing: Whatever this is, it already is in the work, and once something gets there, it doesn’t usually leave.

-

The invitation doesn’t arrive dressed up as anything important. It doesn’t come with a grand gesture or a careful preamble. It comes the way most things between them do, quiet and almost accidental, slipped into the space between two moments like it belongs there.

Damon is in the pub, not the crowded front room but the side bit where the noise dulls into something manageable. He has been there long enough to forget why he came in the first place. A pint sweats on the table in front of him, untouched. Graham is talking to someone at the bar. Alex has disappeared outside. Dave hadn't been with them to begin with, marriage oblications and stuff.
It is one of those evenings where time feels loose, unstructured, like it could tip either way.

Liam is here too, not close, but close enough, and it is mid-thought, staring at the condensation sliding down his glass, when Damon hears Liam's voice cutting in from his left. “Y’know, we could grab a drink sometime. Properly. Just us.”

Never in his whole life has Damon looked up this fast. Liam isn’t looking at him, standing instead half-turned toward the room. It is an offer designed to be easily refuseable. Designed not to trap. Entirely undemand and opening. Damon feels it like a physical sensation, a subtle shift somewhere behind his ribs. Big step, going out just as a duo, or well, going out at all and for more than just a smoke secretly together.
“Yeah?” he checks, because he can’t quite believe Liam wants more.

Liam shrugs. “If ya fancy. Or we could go for a walk. Or you could come over and we listen to summat. Whatever.”

Whatever. The word lands heavier than it should. It contains too many options, too much permission.Whatever. Anything, as long as it's something.

His instincts tell him to flare, to deflect, to joke and delay. He feels it rise up automatically, the familiar armour clicking into place. He could laugh it off, could say tell him maybe another time and then never come back to it, could say we will see and mean never. But that is a level of self-sabotage he, thankfully, doesn't find himself to be on. Besides, why lie to the both of them, especially when his heart picks up pace whenever he does so much as think about Liam. Especially when he has been wanting to spend more time with Liam since the fever, because really, that is exactly what he has been craving, isn’t it?

He could keep everything as balanced yet unresolved as it is, or he could be like Liam and have some bloody courage. “Yeah. Alright.”

Alright.

Liam properly turns then, surprise flickering across his face before he can smooth it away. It is brief, but Damon catches it, the look of someone who offered something without expecting it to be taken. “Yeah?” Liam reassures, a faint grin tugging at his mouth now. “Sound.” There is no follow-up, no scheduling, no specifics pinned down. Though honestly, that seems intentional. The invitation isn’t about logistics, it is about willingness.

Suddenly, Damon becomes acutely aware of his own body and how still he is standing, how carefully he is breathing. He notices the heat of the room, the low thrum of conversation around them, the clink of glasses behind the bar, and with a jolt, he realises that he is nervous. Not the sharp, exhilarating nerves of performance or confrontation. Anticipation, rather, nerve-wrecking anticipation of hanging with Liam some undefined time and day in the, hopefully, close future.

“Anyway,” Liam clears his throat then while stepping back, giving Damon room to retreat if he wants it after all. “No rush. Just, yeah. Thought I’d ask.” And with that, he walks away, merging back into the low chaors of the pub, easy as ever.

Damon stays where he is, picking up his glass to take a big sip of his usually flat beer that right now, tastes like sugary, sweet heaven. Like a win he wasn’t brave enough to aim for but got anyway. Yet, his mind starts doing what it always does when faced with a choice: cataloguing risks, drafting exit strategies, rehearsing explanations. He thinks about what it would mean to say yes in practice, not just in theory.
He thinks about the fever without letting himself name it. About the nights since. About the way Liam’s presence has shifted from nuisance to background to something closer to… constant. Then, he tells himself it is just a drink. Or a walk. Or listening to something (at Liam's flat, that is).

Small things. Safe things.

Yet there is a line here, one he can feel under his feet, thin but undeniable. Saying yes doesn’t cross it outright, but it acknowledges its existance.

Graham returns to the table and starts talking about something Damon doesn’t register, and Damon is more than just glad about it, nodding, smiling, prompting, engaging. Anything to keep him going and get distracted through innocent conversation with his best friend. But no matter how hard he tries, a part of him stays fixed on the moment that just passed, replaying it with forensic attention. The ease of it, the lack of pressure. The fact that Liam didn’t push, didn’t linger, didn’t try to sell it as anything other than what it was.

A choice. He could still back out, nothing has been set, nothing has been promised. The door remains open in both directions.
That knowledge should comfort him, though he finds there is no need for comfort, as he is oddly steady about the whole thing. If anything, the thought of spending real time with Liam, planned and all, almost overexcites him. Both of them will tkae the time from their schedules, official and all, just to hang around the other. In secret, sure, but as official as it can get between the two, Damon supposes. Something properly tangible to not tell others about. Now that is something to look forward to.

-

After the invitation, nothing immediately changes. No sudden calls. No accidental run-ins engineered into something more obvious. The world keeps its shape. Blur rehearse. Oasis very likely do too. Interviews stack up. Nights pass in their usual way. But Damon finds himself noticing the spaces between things differently, notices how his days seem to subtly tilt toward a future point that hasn’t been decided yet. A drink. A walk. A listen. Whatever.

Whatever.

Right, patience.

A few days after the invitation, Damon is back in the pub again.
Liam arrives late. Damon knows without looking up, there is a particular shift in the room when Liam enters it, one he registers in his shoulders first, then his chest. This time, Liam comes over right away. Thank God none of the Blur guys are here and Oasis are… scattered, hopefully? No hesitation or awkward pause to negotiate whether it is allowed, not on Liam’s part that is.

“Alright?”

Damon nods and hums, smiles. It is a small exchange, ordinary, one between buddies rather than public rivals. Something inside Damon loosens. They stand near each other, not touching, not trying not to touch, which perhaps is a difference that matters. Neither of them is pretending this is nothing anymore, but neither is naming it either, something Damon feels like a quiet agreement.

Consent without language.

They talk in fragments then. Bits of schedules, a complaint about the noise level, a half-formed joke about the state of the toilets. Not quite back to the weather-level of small talk, exactly, but not necessarily much of an improvement either. Yet, Damon notices how little effort it takes now to stay in the conversation.
At one point, someone brushes past them, and Liam’s hand comes up automatically, resting for half a second against Damon’s back to steady him and pull him away from the passerby. The touch itself is brief, unremarkable to anyone watching, far from unremarkable for Damon himself, who still feels it ten seconds later. Neither of them move away from each other. Damon realises something fundamental then, something he now knows to be real and finite for sure:

This isn’t happening to him, this is happening between them.

The thought doesn’t exhilarate him the way he expects, instead steadying him. It makes the past weeks rearrange themselves into a shape that finally makes sense, simply by realising Liam wants this just as much. The careful distance, the waiting, the way Liam never pushes, never crowds the moment. The way he offers, then steps back, the way he watches, but doesn’t demand to be seen. Damon has spent his life learning to read rooms, to gauge desire and threat and opportunity. He knows the difference between being wanted and being watched. Between pursuit and patience.
What is happening between them now sits in a third category entirely.

They still haven't made plans, yet when Damon gets home that night, he doesn't immediately feel the need to reach for his notebook to rid himself of his thoughts or put on the telly to drown them out. He sits on the edge of his bed and stares at the floor, allowing the quiet to engulf him. They still haven't made plans, yet Damon finds this remains a conncetion free of the feeling of a cost attached, free of feeling obligated to repay a debt in visibility or vulnerability he didn't ask for. He has lived inside performances and rivalries and personas and armour and he is happy to have done and remain doing so, but it also continues to feel different, that thing with Liam. Fragile, yes. Unnamed, certainly. But shared, agreed.

They still haven't made plans, yet Damon finds that doesn't destabilise him. It doesn't make him doubt the fact that it, whatever it will be, will happen

The next time they speak on the phone, it is brief, practical. Liam asks about a time, a place. No elaboration. “Still up fer it?”

“Bet,” Damon answers, just as simply, glad to not do this in person because he is smiling like an idiot. Ridiculous.

“Good.” Damon can hear his own smile mirrored in Liam's respons.

After the call ends, Damon doesn’t move for a long, long moment, holding the receiver like it might say something else if he waits long enough. He thinks about fear, about how it has always been easier for him to frame it as arrogance, or disinterest, or control. He thinks about how much energy he has spent avoiding the vulnerability of being met halfway, because being met halfway means giving up the narrative where he is alone in this, a truth that scares him more than longing ever did. Though it doesn't scare him to know he will be doing it with Liam.

With Liam, it feels… held.
Still delicate. Still untested. Still something that could fracture if handled carelessly. But no longer imaginary. No longer something Damon carries by himself.

Whatever this is, it exists because both of them are allowing it to, both making a promises that doesn't require either of them to say it out loud.

-

By the time Damon arrives, the house party already seems to have gotten a little out of hand.
It is one of those places that feels temporarily borrowed from someone sensible, too many coats piled on a bed and empty bottles lining the windowsills. The air is warm, crowded with bodies and perfume and the sweet-sour smell of spilled drinks.

Unsurprisingly, Damon clocks Liam almost immediately. He stands in the middle of the main room with a beer in hand. People orbit him all around as he is talking, telling some story with exaggerated timing, his hands cutting through the air as if conducting the room. And the room, of course, listens.

Damon hangs back near the doorway, watching without interrupting or announcing himself (really, why would he anyway). From here, Liam looks entirely at ease, comfortable in the chaos going on around him, being encouraged by him, even. Alive in it.
This is Liam as everyone knows him, and Damon feels a familiar flicker of admiration. Liam commands space in a way Damon never quite does. Where Damon shapes rooms by observation and irony, Liam storms them by presence alone.

Someone claps Liam on the back a little too hard. Liam grins and fires off another joke. The crowd roars again. Damon watches the moment pass and sees what follows it, the brief blankness in Liam’s expression when no one is looking directly at him. That is the cost with which being Liam Gallagher comes, he supposes, though the expression is gone in an isntant.

The admiration sharpens into something else then, something warmer and heavier.

Care.

Figuring he can't be caught staring at Liam at a party, Damon moves deeper into the house, collecting a drink he doesn’t particularly want on his way and exchanging half-greetings with people he vaguely knows. His attention however, keeps drifting back to Liam despite his best efforts, tracking him through the room without effort.

Liam drifts too, circling, engaging, disengaging. Always moving, always on.

At one point, someone shouts for music to be turned up louder. Liam obliges with a theatrical bow toward the stereo, like he is responsible for the entire atmosphere. He doesn't even own the place, and yet, he owns it. The crowd cheers again. Damon smiles.

When the music swells and the room grows more chaotic, Liam doesn’t move closer to anyone, Damon notices. He stays in the open, in motion, never settling. As if stopping would mean something.
Yes, he knows he shouldn't watch Liam with so many industry people around, but yes, he is doing it anyway, watching Liam argue good-naturedly with someone about something inconsequential. Liam’s voice rises. He looks invincible from the outside, sure enoug, though Damon sees the strain beneath it, even from here.

Then, Liam sees Damon, their eyes locking, and Damon's heart skips a beat. He watches as Liam extricates himself from the conversation he is in, in order to weave through the room with practiced ease. A few times, he stops to greet people and exchange jokes. By the time he reaches Damon, his energy has shifted, turned down just a notch.

“Didn’t know ya were comin’,” Liam slurs, voice still loud enough to be heard over the music, but no longer performing for it.

“Neither did I,” Damon replies honestly. He really didn't.

Now they stand shoulder to shoulder near the kitchen counter. Someone bumps into Liam, apologising profusely right away, which Liam waves off, all charm. When the person moves away, Liam exhales quieter. “Bit mad, innit?”

“Your kind of place,” Damon response something stuck between statement and question.

Liam snorts. “Don’t know ‘bout that.” The admission is small but unmistakable. He is tired.

The party's chaos unfolding in front of them feels different from here, distant.

“You alright?” Damon asks, carefully casual. His turn to show concern.

Clearly surprised, Liam glances at him before he shrugs. “*Course.”

Damon doesn’t push. Sure he would like to, it would feel right to, but he doesn't. The answer has got to be enough for now.

Finally still, Liam leans back against the counter. His posture changes immediately, something uncoiling in him, almost, and Damon feels a strange, quiet satisfaction at being the reason. Well, somewhat of the reason. Someone shouts Liam's name then from across the room, calling him back into the noise and eliciting an odd kind of déjà-vu within Damon. Liam seems to sense a similar sensation judging by the way he closes his eyes for half a second before responding.

“Go on,” Damon nudges him gently. He seems to need it. “They’ll riot if you don’t.”

Liam grimaces as he calls back: “Gimme a sec.”
Yet he doesn’t move right away, staying next to Damon instead and for a brief moment, the house party feels like it belongs to someone else entirely.

“Ya ever get tired of it?” Liam asks suddenly. “Being… this.”

Damon considers the question. He thinks of masks and personas, of cleverness and survival. He thinks of how easily Liam fills rooms, and how alone that can be. It is awfully deep for a party like this. “All the time.”

Relieved by the answer, Liam smiles weakly, before reluctantly pushing off the counter. “Be back,” with which he then disappears into the crowd again.

Watching him some more before going back to try and enjoy his evening (even without Liam), Damon notices someone talking over Liam and Liam laughing it off with his jaw tightening. Damon notices Liam draining his drink too quickly, then apparently forgetting about the next one entirely. Damon notices Liam continously checking the door, like part of him is already leaving. Or perhaps, and he hardly even dares thinking so, perhaps he fears Damon might be leaving.

But Damon isn't even thinking about it. Or well, he is, but not until he talks to Liam again. Not until he at least gets to say his goodbyes. So he stays where he is.

Thankfully, it doesn't take long for Liam to find his way back to him and when he returns, and he looks and sounds so honestly relieved, it is a little adorable. "Thought ye'd bail."

Never. Damon shakes his head. "Nah."

They drift off then, ending up standing slightly apart from the party. Damon offers him his drink without comment, and Liam gratefully takes it. For the first time that night, Liam looks genuinely at rest, and Damon feels something settle into place inside himself, too, something protective and undeniably steady.
He sees Liam clearly now,and not just the icon or the rival, but the cost beneath it, the loneliness threaded through the noise. And Damon knows, with a certainty that surprises him, that he wants to be someone who notices, someone who stays.

They end up in a quieter part of the house by accident. Or well, that is how it feels, anyway, like something incidental rather than chosen. A gradual drift away from the kitchen and then the main room, from the press of bodies and the heat and the noise. Suddenly, Damon and Liam are standing near the back staircase that leads nowhere important, where the music reaches them only in muffled fragments. The air here is cooler, the light dimmer, yellowed by a bare bulb overhead. Private, without being hidden.

Liam leans back against the wall, one foot braced behind him, shoulders loose in a way Damon hasn’t seen all night. He looks tired, the quiet fatigue of someone who has been “on” for too long.

“You alright?” Damon asks again, softer this time.

“Mhm. Just loud out there.”

Damon hums in agreement. He stands closer than he needs to, close enough that he is aware of Liam’s warmth through the thin barrier of their clothes. It registers immediately, instinctively, before he can decide what to do with it. Neither of them moves away. Quite the opposite, actually, as Liam shifts his weight closer, brushing their shoulders, completely on purpose now.

At once, Damon becomes acutely aware of everything. Of the way Liam breathes, of the faint smell of smoke and soap clinging to his jacket (the one Damon once wore), of the subtle tension in his posture that eases when he realises Damon isn't stepping back.

“Gonna head out soon,” Liam says in a quiet tone, barely audible, even in this concluded space.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Early one tomorrow.”

Damon nods. He doesn’t ask where, or why specifically.

Someone squeezes past them then, apologising loudly. Liam laughs automatically, the sound softer than it was earlier. He puts a hand out, palm flat against Damon’s chest for balance, and Damon freezes, not outwardly exactly, but inside. Though his breath does catch in a way he doesn’t quite manage to hide. He feels the contact everywhere at once, like his nervous system has lit up all at the same time.

Liam’s hand drops immediately. “Sorry,” Liam apologising quickly.

“It’s fine,” Damon replies, just as fast.

For a beat long, they don’t look at each other. It really is like a cigarette break in a way, isn’t it. Just that things feel… different, for no other reason than the fact that they decide to meet up one-on-one sometime. Funny, really, not like they never had alone time before, but the prospect of actively hanging together, purposefully, planned, it changed everything, didn’t it?

The heavy awareness that brings settles under his skin, in his chest, in his hands. He doesn’t know what to do with it, only that ignoring it would be dishonest and useless.

Liam removes his hand and leans back fully into the wall, closer still. Damon lets it happen, tilting his head slightly, resting against the wall as well. Their shoulders touch fully now, a shared, more constant point of contact that feels both grounding and destabilising. No one speaks.

Damon feels like if either of them moves too suddenly, something fragile will break. Distantly, he thinks that this is how it starts. Not with declarations or grand gestures, but with the body quietly recognising something the mind hasn’t caught up to yet.

“Y’ever feel like your body’s ahead of ya?” Liam asks eventually, staring at the opposite wall, and Damon's throat tightens. There is no way he is already drunk enough to have spoken his thoughts out loud.

“More often than I’d like.”

That earns him a faint smile from Liam, one that lets Damon believe that answer meant something to him. He doesn’t look over, but he doesn’t pull away either. Another wave of noise surges from the main room, laughter, shouting, music spiking yet again. Whoever the neighbours of the owner are, they have a lot of patience. The party continues, oblivious.

Here, in this narrow pocket of quiet, Damon becomes painfully aware of how much he wants to stay exactly where he is, how much effort it would take to step away now. His skin hums where they are touching, where they have touched, and his thoughts scatter. His body seems to hold onto the memory of contact as if it is something necessary.

When they finally separate after deciding they can't be missing for too long, it feels like waking up from something unfinished. Nothing has happened and yet, his body knows something his mind remains afraid to name.

The party thins the way these things always do, by degrees, not announcements. People peel off in twos and threes, coats pulled on, goodbyes shouted that no one really listens to.
They find each other again without trying to. Or at least Damon doesn't try, and Liam doesn't seem like he did either. Most of the chaos has burnt itself down to embers, by now, though it isn't quite over yet.

Somhow, they end up standing side by side near a window in a seperated room, away from the rest of the attendees yet again, looking out at nothing in particular. The street below is slick with rain. As if under a quiet-spell, neither quite dares speaking yet. Not until Liam breaks it first, that is. “Ye been alright? Properly, I mean.”

There it is. Not casual this time. Not tossed off. And not about just the fever either, Damon doesn’t know how, but he can tell. He considers lying. It would be easy, it has always been easy. Though he ultimately remembers, that this is Liam, which oddly enough means, this is the person he can be the most honest with. “I’m getting there.”

"Same," Liam is quick to agree, as if that answer made sense to him.

They turn toward each other, bodies angling in without discussion. Damon notices how close their feet are, how little space there is between them now. He could reach out and touch Liam without even leaning. The thought lands and doesn’t leave.

“Y’know,” Liam starts again, voice quieter now, “‘t’s weird seein’ you 'round so much.”

Damon’s chest tightens. “Weird how?”

"Don't get me wrong, good weird. Just… still new. ‘N I mean, the others don’t even know we talk, ‘ts weird.”

Weird. Despite the explanation, the word sits between them unfinished.
Damon swallows. He feels hyper-aware of his own body, of how alert he is to every small movement Liam makes. The way he shifts his weight. The way his gaze drops to Damon’s mouth for half a second before flicking back up again. Woah, alright, that one's new.

Or maybe it isn’t, and Damon’s only just letting himself see it.

He can hear his own heartbeat and wonders, absurdly, if Liam can hear it too.

Liam steps closer then, enough that Damon has to tilt his head slightly to keep their faces from brushing. “This alright?” Liam's voice dropped impossibly lower. Damon doesn't even let himself think about it before he is already nodding. No need to say something, nodding should suffice as permission, he knows. And he knows that Liam knows. Besides, words right now, feel a lot like they would only lead to a confession sober Damon would never so much as think about.

They are standing too close now for any of this to be accidental. Damon can feel Liam’s breath warm against his cheek when he exhales, can smell the alcohol way stronger than before, a fact he perhaps should find a little more repelling than he does. He can see the small freckles he never knew existed on Liam's cheek and nose, as well as the faint shadow of stubble.
Liam's hand comes up, not touching yet, simply hovering near Damon's waist, as if checking whether this is real or not, whether he really is allowed to touch, to hold. Damon doesn't pull away, doesn't step back. While his mind does start offering him exits and warnings and carefully constructed reasons why this is a bad idea, he doesn't care, not at all, not even a little bit. His body is already leaning in, responding to something older and quieter than logic. Instinct.

Distantly, he thinks that this is the moment. This is where it changes, with their faces inches apart and Damon’s breath stuttering against Liam's. He feels suspended, balanced on the edge of something he doesn’t know how to name but knows he doesn’t want to lose.

And then: “Oi! There you are!” The door opens without warning. Light floods the room, harsh and sudden. A friendof Liam's, Damon recognises, too cheerful, too loud, leans in, beer in hand.

“We’re headin’ out. You lot comin’ or what?”

Just like that, the moment shatters. Liam steps back instantly, hand dropping, posture resetting like a reflex. Damon does the same, heart hammering even more now, lungs burning like he has just come up for air.

“Yeah,” Liam answers. “Yeah, in a sec.”

Blissfully oblivious, the friend nods, then disappears again, swinging the door shut behind him. Now, the room is left feeling larger, somehow, exposed. They stand in it without looking at each other.

“Well,” Liam rubs the back of his neck. “Timin’, eh?”

Damon lets out a shaky laugh. True that, sadly. Sadly? Sadly.

Neither of them mentions what almost happened. Neither of them pretends the thing that almost happened didn’t almost happen. But the tension created from the thing they don't pretend didn't almost happen, doesn't dissolve.
Silently, they leave the room together, slipping back into the party like nothing has changed, like the air between them isn’t still humming.

Liam leaves with a group of people Damon doesn’t recognise. Not that that is surprising, it isn’t exactly like Blur and Oasis move in the same circles. If anything, it only serves as a reminder of who they are and who they aren't. Leave it to the universe to pull a reminder like this right after a moment like that.

He then decides to leave as well, slipping out without saying goodbye. He's pretty sure he doesn’t even know the host and as far as he could tell, the people he did know and considered close enough to be worth goodbyes are already gone anyway, so it should be fine. So he quietly slips his coat on in the hallway while someone else is laughing too loudly in the kitchen. No one notices, or if they do, they don’t comment. It feels fitting, somehow, that his exit goes unremarked, unchallenged.

The night air hits him cold and sharp. At least that will always stay the same.

Hands shoved deep into his pockets, he stands on the pavement for a moment, breathing in slow and deep, like that might reset something inside himself. His heart remains beating a little faster than would be usual, but he blames that on the sudden switch in temperature rather than anything, anyone specific.
Without a destination in mind, he starts walking. Going home doesn’t feel appropriate yet, he needs some minutes of mindless wandering. London at night offers itself up easily, with streetlamps glowing amber, and damp pavements reflecting light. It is familiar enough to be comforting while being anonymous enough to be safe for someone like him. Damon lets the rhythm of his steps take over

Wether he wants it to or not, the almost replays itself over and over.

The way Liam stepped closer. The reassurance. This alright? The space between them collapsing into something charged and undeniable. The stupid interruption.

Damon presses his lips together. This is dangerous, the biggest danger of them all. Because if something is going to destroy him, it won't be the papers or the whispers or the rivalry being repackaged for a new headline. It will be this. It will be the fact that for a moment and just a moment, he forgot everything else. It will be the fact that his body responded before his mind could intervene. It will be the fact that the interruption didn't feel like relief, but like loss.

Get a grip.

Years spent mastering the art of distance. Emotional, intellectual, performative distance. He knows how to want things abstractly, how to channel feeling into sound, into person, into something repeatable. Now Liam comes along and everything he built, every wall, every coping mechanism, every way of deflecting, it all leaves him. Liam’s voice, Liam’s proximity, Liam asking without pushing, it all unnerves him in the best and most exciting ways possible, free of force or demand or expectations Damon has to meet immediately. Liam waits, Liam observes, Liam leaves space, and Damon, Damon keeps stepping into it with full intention.

If this ends, it won’t end cleanly, that is a truth impossible to ignore. If this ends, it won't be with some dramatic scenario or explosive argument attached to it, it will be through absence, that is all. It will be through the quiet removal of something that has become part of the air he breathes, even though it is so, so small. The moments they spent together have been so, so small, but so, so real. So, so important.
He knows himself well enough to understand what that would do to him. The rivalry has never had this power. The rivalry is loud, external, easy to perform. It gives him something to push against, it sharpens him. Even when it stings, it never hollows him out.

This would.

He imagines a future version of himself weeks from now, standing in another room, scanning for a familiar shape that doesn’t appear. Imagines the way the silence would settle then, heavier than before. The idea tightens something in his chest.

For his own sake, he tries to dismantle the feeling the way he dismantles arrangements: Identify the components, strip it back to something manageable. What exactly is it that scares him? It isn't wanting, he has wanted before.
It isw being seen without performance. It is how little effort it takes now, how natural it feels to fall into orbit with Liam, to adjust his timing and attention without conscious thought. It is the risk that this is no longer something he can opt out of without consequence. That is new.

Eventually, he does reach his flat, unable to rememb when his legs started walking in the right direction. It greets him with its familiar quiet as he drops his key into the bowl and flicks on a lamp. Somehow, the silence feels different tonight, and he ends up sitting on the sofa with his elbows on his knees, staring at the floor, thinking about the interruption yet again. About how close they had been. About how easily it could have tipped into something undeniable, a direction it no doubt was heading into. And then what? It isn't like there is a script for this, let alone their specific situation. There is no precedent that feels safe, no version of the story where everyone walks away intact.

Damon runs a hand through his hair, fingers snagging slightly and he lets them rest there, gripping lightly, as he suddenly realises one thing with startling clarity: He doesn’t want it to end. Or well, the almost and the nerve wrecking tension may end, by all means, but he doesn't want him to end, them. He doesn't want the version of himself when he is with Liam to end.

That comes with fully formed fear, fear that is far from theoretical or distant.

So few shared moments, never true, never with real privacy, nothing real one could talk about, not in the traditional sense. But if this ends, whatever this is, it will hurt. Properly. Deeply. In a way he can’t song-write his way out of, and he does not fancy going through that. It terrifies him more than any headline ever could and as his chest aches he realises that this is what risk feels like, like a quiet knowledge that something matters enough to be lost, even without chaos or spectacle.

Somewhere in this city, the party continues without him. Somewhere in this city, Liam exists completely unaware of the exact shape of thoughts he has left behind within Damon and not just tonight, but in general. Damon closes his eyes. No need to make any decisions tonight.

-

By the time Damon realises something is wrong, the pub is nearly empty. Oasis have already peeled off one by one, Damon heard them call it a night and leave, save for Liam, who stayed behind. Quiet. Very quiet. He is slouched sideways in the booth, with one arm draped over the backrest and his head tipped forward just enough that his fringe hides his eyes. An untouched pint sits in front of him, which on itself is enough to ring alarm bells.

Damon watches him a little, weighing options he already knows.

Drunk-Liam is a known quantity, even louder and more magnetic, reckless in a way that pulls rooms toward him. This version of drunk-Liam is different, heavier. It is the kind of drunk that has burned past the fun part and landed somewhere tender and unsteady and fully realising that, Damon sighs, pays his tab, and walks over. "You good?"

Slowly, like the world takes a second to come back into focus, Liam looks up at him before smiling softly and in that unmistakably Liam-way. “There ye are.”

It takes a lot within Damon to resist the urge to read into that. “You’ve been abandoned?” he asks lightly, playfully, he hopes.

As if only now noticing the absence of his band, Liam squints around the room. “Bastards.” Then, after a pause: “You still ‘ere?”

“Looks like it, right? Which is why I’m now regretting several life choices,” he grins and Liam laughs, even reaching out, his fingers brushing Damon's wrist in a clumsy, yet no doubt intentional touch.

“Don’t go.” As if Damon could even so much as think about it.

His chest tightens in a way he is becoming uncomfortably familiar with. “Don’t worry, wasn’t planning on it.”

He gets Liam to his feet with more effort than expected, and Liam immediately leans into him, his full weight now settling against Damon’s side like he has found the right place by instinct. Damon stiffens, then relaxes, adjusting his stance to support them both. “Christ,” he mutters. “You’re like a sack of bricks.”

“Strong arms, though,” Liam says approvingly, head tipping briefly against Damon’s shoulder before lifting again. “Always thought that.”
Damon pointedly ignores that.

Getting him out of the pub is a slow process. Liam keeps stopping to comment on things, the streetlight, a poster, a song drifting from somewhere else, like the world has suddenly become fascinating in its smallest details. Damon answers when necessary, hums when it isn’t.
There is no calculation about taxis or hotels in his mind, let alone with Liam. Damon's flat is close anyway, so there is no way he will even just consider alternatives. Plus, he has no clue where Liam himself lives.

Arriving at his flat, he gets Liam inside, kicks the door shut behind them, and immediately feels Liam relaxes as the noises of the city are replaced by domestic stillness He sighs, before sluring: “You smell nice,” vague and sincere, which has Damon rolling his eyes while unable to stop the smell tugging at his lips.

“You smell like regret.” Because really, he does. Regret about drinking too much, too alone.

“That tracks.”

With no further incidents, he gets Liam to the bedroom, though Liam does insist on narrating the journey like it is an adventure the whole time. Damon sits him on the edge of the bed and crouches to tug his boots off. “Lie down,” he orders, and Liam complies immediately, flopping back with a contented sigh.

When Damon pulls the covers up, Liam’s hand comes out of nowhere, catching the sleeve of Damon’s jumper. “Stay.” It is a... a desperate request, of some sorts, rather than a demand.

Damon freezes. Liam’s eyes are half-lidded, unfocused but earnest. There is no edge to it, no implication beyond proximity. He is drunk enough to mean it simply. “I’m not going anywhere,” Damon says carefully. “Go to sleep.” It seems to be exactly what Liam needed to hear, as he nods satisfied, his grip tightening only a little before loosening. Damon straightens, steps back, then hesitates, staying seated on the edge of the bed for a moment longer than necessary. He isn't going anywhere.

Already asleep, Liam shifts unconsciously, rolling slightly onto his side. He looks at peace and eventually, Damon stands, turns off the light, and retreats to the sofa. Liam is drunk, so who knows how a sobered up Liam would like Damon sleeping next to him, or even just sitting beside him and watching him...

Sleep came in fragments. He woke once to the sound of Liam mumbling something unintelligible carrying over to the living room, then again at dawn with light bleeding through the curtains. For a brief, disorienting moment, he forgets where he is. Then memory settles.
He makes coffee, strong one, deciding today simply isn't a tea day. Liam is bound to have a hangover, so Damon cooks the only way that feels appropriate, something greasy and hearty and unapologetically English. Eggs, bacon, toast, the works. He is halfway through plating when Liam appears in the doorway, hair a disaster, eyes squinting against the light.

“Bloody hell, is that… food?”

“Sit down before you fall over,” as Liam looks awfully wobbly.

He complies, collapsing into a chair with a groan and watching Damon for a moment with his chin propped in his hand. “Yer good at this.”

“At cooking?”

“At… this,” Liam gestures vaguely, encompassing the room, the care implicit in it all. Ignoring the comment, Damon sets a plate in front of him. They both know who the real caretaker is, the one that actually had to do active caretaking.

Liam eats slowly, like each bite requires negotiation with his body. Well, it likely does. Halfway through, he suddenly grins and looks up. “Love ya, mate, yer a real lifesaver.” He says it free of weight or expectation, Damon knows that, yet his heart skips anyway.

“Eat your breakfast,” he says, doing his best at a neutral expression. “You’re unbearable.”

“Still love ya,” Liam grins on, eating in silence, until pushing his emptied plate away and stretching. “Funny thing,” he begins. “Last night? Felt like a bit of a role reversal.”

Damon raises an eyebrow as if he didn't know what he is referring to.

“Me bein’ the useless one. You doin’ the lookin’ after," Liam continues. "Déjà vu, innit?”

“Something like that,” Damon hums. So they have both thought it...

Expression calm but unreadable, Liam studies him a bit, before he stands up and pats Damon’s shoulder on the way past. "Thanks,” he says, more grounded now. “For not lettin’ me be an idiot.”

“Any time, Liam, any time.”

Now the guy got to say his thanks before Damon got around to it one last time.

-

After that first night, it is as if everything happens all at once.

It is a few nights after the night Liam woke up in Damon’s flat, when Liam offers it.
Naturally, expectantly, they meet outside the pub sooner rather than later, standing there, letting the smoke curl up into the air. Liam flicks his lighter closed and shoves it into his pocket. “Could just go back to mine,” said as if it was an afterthought. “Quieter there. 'N we still need to hang, y’know. Didn’t ask just to ask, asked to do it.”

Damon looks at him to find neither grin nor provocation. A shy smile, if anything. It simply is an option laid out plainly, a reminder of an agreement that makes Damon a little nervous each time he thinks about it. He smiles. "Yes." Please.

That is how it starts. Not every night, of course, that would be too obvious. It is intermittent, instead, casual. Liam’s flat, then Damon’s. Where they end up tends to be random more often than not, their feet simply tracking them into one direction while talking.
They don’t tell anyone because there is nothing to tell. It is a simple, natural and long overdue development from their short shared smoke breaks, that is all. First, they sit on opposite ends of their sofas. Share cigarettes by the window. Put on records. Talk about until dawn. About music, mostly. And about new things, old things, things they pretend not to care about but clearly do. Or don't talk at all and simply... be, together.
Sometimes, Liam leaves early after clapping Damon on the shoulder like it means nothing. Sometimes, Damon offers coffee in the morning and Liam stays and the first time that happens, Damon realised, with an inner peace that scares him more than panic ever could, that this isn't drifting anymore, this is attachment, attachment setting without asking permission. By the time he admits that to himself, it already feels inevitable.

Soon, Damon realises that he anticipates Liam now. He knows when Liam will interrupt him mid-thought, not to derail but to sharpen the point. He knows when Liam will go quiet instead of loud. He knows when the pause before Liam speaks means he is choosing his words deliberately.
Tension is still there. It lives in the space between them when they pass each other in narrow hallways, in the way Damon feels Liam’s presence before he hears him, in how silence stretches without snapping.

One night, at Damon’s flat, Liam kicks his shoes off and immediately flops down on a spot on the floor, back against the sofa, legs stretched out, which is when Damon decides to share an observation of his. “You always sit there.”

“Yeah. ‘t’s good.”

Good, huh. Damon hesitates, then sits next to him instead of his usual place on the sofa. Neither of them says anything. Their shoulders touch.
It really is somewhat... nice down here.

Another night, Liam falls asleep halfway through a record, head tipped back against the sofa cushions. Damon doesn’t move him, simply turning the volume down and watching the city lights flicker against the ceiling. Harmless, this is harmless, he tells himself. This is what happens when rivalry burns out and something more neutral takes its place. This is détente. This is friendship, or something like it, even if his body tends to react to Liam in a way that does not suggest just friendship.

Eventually, they add food to the routine, though Damon supposes they are simply expanding on the hungover-breakfast he had cooked for Liam. It adds yet another level of comfort, of domesticity. When one of them starts feeling hungry, they go get food, simple as that. Take-out rather than cooking. Eating together on the floor or couch or sometimes, shockingly, the table, simple as that.

One night it is burgers, the next night it is something Chinese reheated badly and eaten straight from the pan. When Damon does try to cook for them, opening the cupboards and reaching for things he keeps forgetting to buy, Liam watches him with mild curiosity, like this isn't new information nor surprising one. “You’ve got nothin’, mate,” he snorts, peering into the fridge.

“You’re welcome to leave,” Damon automatically replies.

Liam grins and stays.

Tea becomes a thing without ever being declared one. After all, they are English.
Damon is halfway through tuning a guitar when he smells it, black tea, strong, milk added at just the perfect time. Damon is quite particular about his tea (when he isn't sick). He looks up to see Liam in the kitchen with his back turned, moving like he has done this before.

“You didn’t ask how.”

Liam shrugs. “Ye always want it like this.”

Damon opens his mouth to argue as he finds there is nothing to argue about. He does always take it like that, the taste test only validating it further.

“Yer kettle still sucks by the way.”

The jacket too happens by accident.

It is cold, unexpectedly so, the kind of night that seeps into bones. They leave the pub later than usual. This time, it is Liam who didn't bring a coat, which Damon realises halfway down the street, irritation flaring first, concern following close behind, then a déjà vu. “You’ll freeze.”

“’m fine.”

But seeing how he is shaking, Damon takes his jacket off anyway and shoves it into Liam’s hands. “Gotta repay the favour, right?”
Liam laughs and hardly protests anymore before giving in and slipping it on like it isn't a big deal after all. It hangs differently on him, wrong around the shoulders and the sleeves a bit too long. Damon can’t stop looking at it. That jacket has never looked this good.

When they reach Liam’s flat, the jacket comes off and lands over the back of a chair. Damon leaves without it that night, only realising so the next morning when he stands in his hallway and finds it isn't on his usual hanger. It takes him some time to remember where it might be and he does consider going back for it right that second, but ultimately doesn’t and two nights later, Liam wears it to the pub, a familiar shape moving across the room in fabric Damon knows better than he should.
The acceptance is the strangest part. Neither says, “This is new.” Neither double-checks. There is no pause where they renegotiate boundaries or expectations, things just… slot into place.

It transfers into all their other shared moments. Liam starts taking his shoes off at Damon’s flat without asking where to put them. Damon starts buying extra milk without remembering why.
Somewhere amongst it all, the silence between them changes texture as it stops being something to manage and starts being something they share.

One afternoon, with Damon stretched out on the floor and his notebook open but untouched, Liam, who is sitting against the sofa, of course, reading the back of a record sleeve like it holds secrets, suddenly asks: “Ye ever get tired of it?”

“Of what?”

“All of this,” Liam gestures vaguely at the music, the room, them.

Damon thinks about it. “No.”

Seemingly satisfied, Liam hums and doesn’t push. Only later does Damon realise how rare that is.

He notices other things too, just like in their early beginnings, he supposes. He notices how Liam washes his mug before leaving, how he folds blankets instead of tossing them, how he pauses in doorways like he is checking something invisible before going. He notices it all and tells himself it is nothing. Comfort, that's all. Familiarity. The natural result of spending time near anohter human being. But comfort has weight. Familiartiy has gravity.

Distantly, Damon thinks that this is what belonging feels like when it sneaks up and quietly arranges space. He doesn't say it, Liam doesn't say it, he, they, just stay, belonging.

-

It is late, and not the loud or drunken kind. It is late in the way the body starts insisting on truth because it is too tired to keep up appearances.
They are back at Damon’s flat again, waiting for the kettle. Tea again. always tea, especially at this hour. There is no music on, which is unusual enough that Damon notices it immediately. Must have forgotten to put something on.

Liam sits at the table, elbows braced, staring at nothing in particular. His energy is quieter tonight, and Damon can't help but imagine him thinking about something serious right now, as he moves around him constantly, rinsing plates and wiping down a counter that doesn’t need it. Finally, Damon sits down opposite Liam, close enough that their knees almost touch, albeit not quite yet.

“Knackered?” Liam then sighs.

“Always,” Damon replies, the word coming out way lighter than he feels.

The clock on the wall ticks loudly and briefly. Damon thinks about turning it off, though he ultimately decides against it. Let time be heard.

“Y’alright, though?” Liam asks next, his usual check-up, and Damon stares into his mug longer than necessary. Feels like he should be the one asking that this time, and here is Liam worrying about him. Perhaps rightfully so. They are both exhausted, it is one of those nights after all.

“I don’t know.” Damon swallows as Liam waits for him to go on. “I get tired,” Damon continues. It feels as if he is walking across ice with all this honesty, like he might break through it and drown and freeze simply because he shared too much of his thoughts and feelings. “Tired of... of being seen, all the time.”

A nod, no interruption.

“Not just seen,” Damon feels encouraged to go on. “Interpreted, reduced. Turned into something that fits better on a page than it does in a body. I don't know...”
God, he wasn’t even aware he had all these thoughts and feelings wanting to come out, waiting to be shared and eased. It feels good. “Everyone’s always so sure they know what I’m doing, what I mean, who I am.” Heart thudding, he interrupts himself, half-expecting Liam to jump in with a joke or deflect or try and make it easier or diminish it. He doesn't do any of it.

“That does yer head in,” is all he almost whispers instead.

Damon looks up then to find no grin or smile waiting him, only attentive understanding. Something in him loosens. “It makes me paranoid,” Damon admits, the words tasting wrong and right at the same time. “I start editing myself in real time, even when I’m alone. Even here...”

Openly cinsidering him, Liam leans back in his chair. “I get that.”

God, Damon hadn’t expected understanding to feel this disarming. He hadn't even expected understanding at all.

“I hate the feeling of being misread.” Slowly, the words come easier now and suddenly, it feels right to not stop, to share freely. “That someone’s already decided what I am and I don’t get a say.”
He hesitates, then adds, softer, “Or that, if they see the wrong thing, it’ll stick.”

Liam watches him closely. “Ya ever think maybe yer readin’ yerself too hard?”

“Rich coming from you,” Damon snorts.

“Maybe. Still true though.”

That is when Damon realises something with a flicker of unease: He hasn’t been performing, not even once since the conversation turned. He is just… talking.

“And you?” Damon asks. Fairness feels important. Especially now that he knows how good sharing felt. “You don’t get sick of it?”

“Course I do,” Liam's mouth twists. He stares at the table, tracing a faint scratch in the wood with his thumb. “Difference is I lean into it, let ‘em have what they think they want. Easier that way.”

“That works?”

“Sometimes. And sometimes it just means they don’t look any closer.”
Something in his tone pulls at Damon, a familiar loneliness only worn differently.

“I don’t think I could do that,” he admits.

Liam looks up. “No,” he agrees. “Ya couldn’t.” Simple as that and three of judgement. It is a fact said honestly and they both know it. It feels good to have someone be real with him instead of lying and pretending to believe Damon can do anything, can just decide to stop feeling this way and start coping someway else.

The clock keeps ticking.

Damon still feels tired down to his bones, but lighter too, like something has been set down at last. “I don’t say this stuff much,” he mutters for no other reason than feeling the need to voice out exactly how vulnerable he feels right now.

“I noticed.” Liam smiles, yet Damon still finds himself expecting a follow-up or tease. Neither comes. “Thanks for sayin’ it,” Liam adds instead, which leaves Damon's chest tightening. Since he doesn't trust his voice, he only nods.
Liam remains staring at him intently and Damon does the best to hold the gaze, finding Liam’s eyes are very much beautiful. “Ye don’t come across wrong to me.”

In order not to just start crying from a general emotional overwhelm, Damon has to look away, although his heart beats oddly steady. He realises, with a mix of fear and something dangerously close to relief, that he has just been seen, and nothing bad happened, which might be the most dangerous thing of all.

The night moves on. Unquestionably altered, positively so.
By now, Damon is on the sofa with his back against the armrest and one knee drawn up, while Liam sits close, turned toward him with his elbow resting on the back cushion. Their bodies don't touch fully yet, but the gap between them is small enough to make Damon's skin prickle.

As they talk, Damon keeps noticing Liam’s mouth. Noticing not in the way films would have him believe this moment should feel, but rather through an... an awareness that keeps returning uninvited. The shape of it when he speaks, the way it goes still when he listens. Dangerous. Perhaps he should stand up to make more tea or at least hurry the subject. Do something that reasserts the boundary they have been hovering at the edge for weeks.
Though he does none of those things, too gladly engulfed in listening to Liam as he finishes a thought with his voice dropping slightly at the end, as if uncert whether it really should be said aloud or not.

By the time they look at each other again, any remnants of smoking that might have still been there has slipped away for good, leaving something open behind. The feeling of being seen in a way that doesn't make him flinch hasn't left him yet. Damon is acutely aware of his own breathing, of how shallow it has become. Briefly, he wonders if this is what standing on the edge of something feels like. Not fear exactly, more like anticipation stripped of its usual noise.

As he shifts his weight, the movement brings his knee close to Liam's thigh. Accidentally, of course. The contact is light and incidental, sending a clear, undeniable signal through his body, which is when something actually physical loosens within Damon. He doesn’t lean in with purpose, he doesn’t decide. He simply doesn’t pull back when Liam’s hand lifts to let his fingers brush the side of Damon’s knee cautiously, as if checking whether the contact is welcome.

Of course it is, Damon feels that before he thinks it.

Looking up, he finds Liam’s face closer now, close enough that Damon can see the faint tiredness around his eyes, the seriousness there when he isn't performing. Close enough that the room seems to recede with its edges blurring. This is the moment where he could still stop it, and Liam too. But stopping it from tipping over into the direction this is taking is just about the last thing on his mind, and he supposes Liam feels about the same.
Whether he initiates or simply fails to resist becomes impossible to tell. He leans forward, or Liam does, or maybe they both do, drawn by the same quiet gravity. Honestly, really, this is long overdue.

The kiss is gentle, almost careful. Lips meeting tentatively at first, void of rushed hunger. Like a reward, kinda. Like they are both checking if this is real.
Damon’s mind blanks in the best possible way. His head's constant commentary falls silent, replaced by warmth and by pressure and by the slight tilt of Liam’s head as he adjusts. Sensations. Replaced by sensations.

Damon’s hand comes up without conscious thought, resting against Liam’s jaw. He feels the stubble there, the solid reassurance of bone beneath skin. Liam exhales against his mouth, staying just like that, not deepening it yet not pulling away either.

Ultimately, the kiss lasts only a few seconds. Long enough to be undeniable, short enough to remain unclaimed. When they part, neither of them moves far and opening his eyes, Damon finds Liam smiling a small, almost disbelieving curve of his mouth, like he is still catching up to what just happened. Damon is too.

“Well,” Liam quietly starts, clearly not meaning to go anywhere with the sentence. Damon huffs a laugh that hopefully mirrors the sentiment. There is nothing that needs explaining, the world hasn’t ended, narrowed, perhaps, but not ended.

Suddenly, Damon becomes aware of how late it is, of how unlikely it would be for anyone to interrupt this moment. Interrupt it like that time at the houseparty... It is a calming thing to remind himself of. Nothing and no one will take Liam away from him now (save for Liam of course, but Damon knows now he doesn't have to fear that).

Leaning back slightly, Liam gives Damon space without withdrawing completely, which feels intentionally respectful. “You okay, Blur-boy?” Liam asks far from anxious, simply checking, clearly (smugly) already knowing the answer.

“I am,” and he really, really is he finds, more than he expected to be, and he mirrors Liam's smile.

For a while after, they simply sit there without kissing again and possibly undoing what has been done, content to let it settle into place between them as the new and fragile and real thing it is. Undoubtedly there is no returning from this, no denying. The line has been crossed and Damon does not regret stepping over it.

Careful not to make it feel like inspection, Damon glances over at Liam. Liam's gaze is unfocused, resting somewhere on the opposite wall. He looks thoughtful rather than rattled. Comfortable in his own skin in a way Damon has always half-envied.

The urge to say something flickers and fades. Neither of them seems keen to label this yet. There is no need to rush to define what it was, what it means, what it requires of them, what it will change. For once, Damon is content to let a thing exist without interrogation. That too feels new. This changes things and yet the thought doesn't frighten him. He has spent so long equating change with loss, with exposure, with mistakes that can’t be undone. But this feels different. This feels like addition rather than subtraction. He wants it, the clarity of that realisation landing gently but decisively.

“Ya want some water?”

It is so ordinary Damon almost laughs before answering. “That’d be good.”

Unhurried, Liam stands and heads for the kitchen. Damon watches him go, taking in the easy familiarity of the movement. He has been here enough times now that it shows.
If either of them were younger or more desperate to prove something, Damon supposes this could have gone very differently, if it ever even had come to it all. He is grateful they aren't, grateful they are just... them.

Liam returns with two glasses, handing one over and sitting back down slightly closer this time so that their shoulders are in constant contact and when Liam finishes his water, he sets his empty glass down on the coffee table and leans back, one arm stretched along the back of the sofa. It is an open posture, an inviting one. Damon notices how carefully Liam remains not to crowd him, so careful in fact, it makes something sharp and sweet ache in Damon’s chest.
Shifting so he is angled slightly toward Liam feels like a statement Liam no doubt notices. Their eyes meet. “Alright?” he asks again, quietly.

“Yeah. I really am.” The truth of it surprises him all over again.

Gradually, conversation drifts back in, entirely unimportant in what they say. Stories they have told before, observations that don't need a punchline.
At one point, Liam laughs softly at something Damon says, and the sound warms the room, for which Damon feels an odd, fierce gratitude. This is nice, more than nice, even.

Later, and he isn't sure how much later exactly, Liam yawns, scrubbing a hand over his face., the gesture unguarded and intimate in its mundanity.

Though he doesn't actually want the night to end any time soon (or ever), he wants to ensure Liam knows he isn't being held captive by some weird sense of obligation. “Didn’t mean to keep you up,” in response to which Liam only shrugs.

“Ya ain't. And didn’t feel like keeping track of time anyway.”

Damon understands that, but he does stand eventually, knowing Liam wouldn't dare being the one to take a step towards ending the night. Liam stands up too, stretching a little, before they slowly move towards the door, pausing there, close but not touching. It feels light in its heaviness, and Damon doesn't know what to do with that feeling.

Hesitating at first, Liam eventually leans in to rest his forehead briefly against Damon’s rather than kiss him again. “Night, yeah?”

“Night,” Damon replies, and with that, Liam leaves, the door closing softly behind him.

For a while after, Damon simply remains standing by it, listening to the building settle back into itself, listening to London, unbothere. London, exactly the same.

He knows better than to romanticise it too much, yet realising he is still smiling, he does allow himself this small indulgence. It is a faint, unguarded sort of smile, which doesn't make it any less real. It isn't the kind of controlled or even defensive smile he deploys for mirrors or photographers or rooms full of people wanting to be entertained or even the rehearsal room, and the discovery of that small detail stops him short. Pressing his lips together doesn't erase it and he knows he definitely has it in deep for Liam.

Feeling a need for some sort of routine, despite the late hour, Damon grabs his jacket and moves through the flat to turn off lights before grabbing his keys from the bowl as well as the wallet. Fresh air, a walk. Freeing his mind.
He pauses in the hallway, glancing once, just once, back toward the living room where technically, nothing looks different yet practically, everything is.

After locking the door behind him, he heads down the stairs, uncaring about his footsteps echoing a little too loudly in the narrow stairwell with the speed with which he is descending. Every step he takes, the night air feels closer, more present, and when once he reaches the street, he breathes in deeply, content to let the cold clarify everything.
No destination in mind, he soon starts walking. His body carries a peaceful buzz with it, one he hopes he'll never loose. It is as if something has aligned inside him since the kiss, a long-standing imbalance having been corrected by a single adjustment.

Once, only once, does he allow himself to fully replay the kiss in all it's tenderness. Yet he doesn't want to flatten it by overhandling it, doesn't want to turn it into an object to be dissected. He knows that instinct too well, so he focuses on what remained afterwards, instead. On the ease. On the lack of panic. On the fact that nothing within him rushed to undo it, or even so much as thought about it.

Passing a row of shops with their shutters pulled down and graffiti half-finished on them as well as the brick walls, he realises that that is what stays with him as he walks, the restful acceptance stricken through all of tonight's events and the interactions that came before it. He knows these streets intimately, has walked them a thousand times in a thousand different states, wired, dulled, elated, empty, serene. Tonight feels none of those things, exactly. Tonight feels... settled.

For once, he doesn’t feel the need to be anywhere else, anyone else. With anyone else. Because Liam doesn't rush him. Because with Liam, there is no scramble for reassurance, no immediate need to define what happens next. Because with Liam, there is just presence, just allowance. Damon knows how rare that is, all of it. He knows how easily he could ruin it by letting old habits take the lead, distance, irony, disappearance. He has used those tools for years, sharpened them until they cut without effort.

Tonight, they stay unused.

In no way does he want to pretend tonight didn't happen, however, inevitably, there still is a moment where the old fear tries to reassert itself as he walks on over a crossing with its lights turned off due to the late hour. It isn't fear of being found out or causing a scandal. Somehow, those two don't bother him at all, in the sense that he knows Liam and him to be smart enough to work around those issues, to play the system or whatever. The fear is scary than that, one with teeth. Fear of loss. Fear of how much this could cost if it breaks. The usual stuff...

He doesn't know if he will be able to give himself to Liam fully and immediately just because they kissed after months of build-up, but he knows he will try for sure, no matter what that might look like or how long it will take for his stupid thoughts to shut up and give in to his heart.

Soon enough, he reaches the corner where he usually turns toward home, and as if checking in with himself, he stops walking
Whatever this is, it doesn’t belong to the part of his life that gets hidden behind press and persona. It isn't a story he is telling himself to pass the time. It isn't an accident to be rationalised away.
It is something that has happened, something that cannot be unhappened.

He feels the smile return then, softer this time, less surprised by itself, and he turns to head home, carrying the certainty with him. A truth that doesn’t need to be spoken to be known: There is no going back from this and for the first time in a long while, he is glad there isn’t.