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“Okay” is all Noel says before he turns around to mess around with his stereo. His sister, er, well, his brother now, is mildly stunned.
“What, that’s it? Just an ‘okay’ and then you’re gonna carry on like nothing happened?” he says.
“Well, yeah” Noel replies. He hears his brother scoff. He drags a palm down his face with an air of exhaustion, “What do you want me to say?” He turns to his brother who, now that he stopped and looked at him, was shaking like a leaf. He probably has been since Noel walked in the room and he blurted out that he’s not a girl and he’s actually a boy and that ‘you better bloody respect it or else I’m destroying all your records’.
It wasn’t the welcome home Noel was expecting. And now he’s just standing there.
“I, um, I don’t know” is what Noel gets in response and it's the first time he’s seen his younger sibling ever seem so unsure about anything. Fuck, guess Noel will have to do the heavy lifting here.
“Look kid, I don’t care. An’ I won’t tell nobody ‘til you’re ready either,” Noel says. “I’ve seen way weirder shit on the road than a girl realising she’s a lad. I s’pose you always were a bit too brash for a girl, eh?”
The words hang in the air. Noel’s about to sigh and move on before suddenly there are arms wrapped around his midsection and wow now his baby brother is crying in his arms. Typical. Despite the kid being an annoying little fucker, Noel’s never been able to resist the tears, always manages to make him a little softer.
A wet and muffled “thanks Noely” comes out of the lump in his arms.
He pats him on the back. “‘S all right. But, one thing’s really bothering me about this” he says and immediately his brother pulls away from him. It's like all his tears have dried up in an instant.
“Is it the hair? ‘Cause don’t worry, Bonehead’s gonna cut it for me”
“No, not the hair–”
“Is it mam? Don’t worry Noel I’ve got a plan–”
“No, it's not mam,” although maybe it should be. Noel makes a mental note to bring that up with him later.
“It’s me clothes then, right? Well, look most my clothes are from Paul or you anyway and since you’re always off with those magic carpets blokes I figure I could borrow more of your stuff and–”
“Inspiral Carpets you mean and look I’ll lend you maybe one shirt but you’ve got enough boy clothes as it is, kid.” He’s met with an eye roll at that one. Noel sighs. “Look, I really just wanna know what I should call you. What’s your new name?”
“Oh. Uhhhh,” this fucking kid. He really hadn’t thought about it?
“You really haven’t thought about it?”
“No, of course I have you dick I’m just not sure if it’s like, ‘me’, y’know what I mean?” he looks shy as he says it. Noel really doesn’t understand how a name can’t sound like your own, especially considering most people are given a name at birth and just put up with it. But, he takes pity on the kid and nods.
“Well, let’s just hear it then. Let’s see if it's ‘you’”
“Alright, here goes…” the boy takes a deep breath, “...William.”
Noel snorts. He doesn’t mean to, it just happens. He just really can’t believe the kid chose something that’s not John or even Paul. ‘William’ is furious at him now.
“Fuck off you dickhead, this is why I don’t tell you nothin’. I knew you’d be a total twat about thi–”
“Oh, shut up. It’s fine, honest.” he says with as much conviction as he can. His brother looks like he doesn’t believe him. “I’m not calling you fucking Bill, though.”
Another eye roll. “Well obviously not. I was thinking er, Liam. For short.”
“Liam? Not bloody bad, kid. It kinda suits you” and his brother smiles so Noel thinks right, that’s done then but then he’s got an armful of brother again. He hears a barely audible murmur into his shoulder that he’s pretty sure is ‘love you’ though he knows the kid would never admit it.
Noel smiles to himself. Liam. Not bad at all.