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If anybody asked, he’d say that he had always been spiritual, but it was not true.
When Noel was around, there was no time to think about eternity. He drank it from his brother’s lips and swam in it when he was wrapped around him. What was the point of trying to comprehend the way his brother’s hands felt on his skin when he could feel them instead?
He had tried, he read here and there, he listened. But no religion, no prophet had words for what he and Noel were. Cain and Abel, right? Even they had it wrong. Cain didn’t kill his brother out of hate.
When Noel left, it was then that he saw the vast void of the universe for the first time. It started seeping at the edges when he first walked out, and then suddenly, along the years, it was everywhere.
He talked to a shaman about it. He talked to a therapist about it. He talked to a priest. All they could offer was stupid fucking nonsense about forgiveness and promises to save his soul.
How the fuck was he to save his soul if his soul called for Noel?
He tried the incantations, and the meditation, and the fucking moon magic.
He prayed. God, how he fucking prayed.
God may have listened but still gave him nothing, and he would hold it against Him but he kinda understands. Noel loved him more and he also gave him nothing. What did he expect the geezer would do?
He gets audiobooks and he plays them and he does the exercises, and the rift in his heart that pours out the darkness still seeps over everything.
He thinks there must be something he can do, some combination of words, something he can say that will bring Noel back. Because nothing makes sense if he never comes back.
He’s been certain that he’d come back like he was certain he loved him and he was certain they’d be the biggest band in the world and he was certain they’d live forever. His joints creak now and then. And the remaining two out of four are looking wobbly now.
He reads about space and wormholes, he dreams of speeding up through life and getting to the point where Noel comes back. He dreams of going backwards, stopping his damn younger stupid self from letting Noel go.
He dreams of zapping himself into another universe where he wasn’t too young for Noel when he loved him first, a universe where Da’ didn’t hit them or maybe he also hit him or just something was different, anything, that made Noel hurt a little less.
He’d even be willing to live in a universe where they weren’t brothers, as long as he could have him. Or a universe where Noel didn’t love him back, as long as he stayed.
Liam wakes up and he does his yoga and the universe keeps pouring out of his heart.
Liam goes to bed and he’s still Abel.