#if anyone actually read or cared what noel gallagher was saying then

[oacest]

that he said this, sober, the day after 9/11 lol

[crossovereddie]

Thoughts on 11x06

I had to come back to type this after the episode. I was gonna wait to post until more people are active but everyone’s safety is more important than notes. This was really hard for me to watch. It took me two hours because I kept needing a break. It’s a tough one yall. It’s heartbreaking and really brought out issues I didn’t know I was still dealing with until I reacted so badly to some stuff. Take care of yourselves and I’m here if you need to talk. I’ll have timestamps for major tws in another post coming right after this. I just gotta go back and get the end of those scenes. I only go the time they started.

Okay. So. There’s some trigger warnings that I’ve reblogged earlier. This recap WILL have thoughts about those triggers. If you think you’ll be triggered just message me or send me an ask and I’ll give you the non triggering recap. Stay safe please.

Kev and v intro. They’re having sex behind the bar

I’m extremely nervous for some reason I might not be able to get through this

Bike heist!!

LICKEY RIGHTS

LIP CALLS HIM MICK

MISSION IMPISSIBLE

Mickey is unimpressed

Lip telling Mickey what to do yes please

Fucking Mickey omg

HE LOOKS SO GOOD

THE WAY HE SAYS BRAD

Again Mickey is unimpressed

Lip :(

MICKEY CONCERNED ABOUT LIPS SOBRIETY

AGAIN I SAY LICKEY RIGHTS

Frank is falling the chick he’s boning Monica

Not sure that’s her real name

Wait yeah it is

Frank??? Has to get to work???

Wait her name isn’t Monica

Oh shut now I get what’s happening

“Can I speak to Pope Francis please” LIAM 😭

Poor baby

Lip cooking breakfast. Hot.

I forgot about camis baby

I actually beep bad for lip and Tami

We already heard this argument with Mickey and Ian get new material writers

PRODIGAL THEIF

PINK BOX HES SO CUTE

HE LOOKS SO CUTE GOTTA SQUEEZE HIM PLS

Yeah don’t tell Carl that traitor

MICKEY BROUGHT DONUTS PLS

HES SO CUTE

ITS TOO MUCH

I LOVE HIM

HIS SMILE!!!!!!!!

GALLAGHER YOUTH

THAT MEANS MICKEY TOO BYE

CARL CALLING HIM MICK TOO PLS

I CANT TAKE IT

Poor Liam he’s terrified

“I was hoping the fucker would just die” :(

Shut up Debbie

Mickey is beautiful

Leave Mickey out of it debbie goddamn

I cant fucking stand her

Frank just observing his kids and smiling

Same frank

SHUT UP DEBBIE

OH MY GOD HIS LAUGH IS THIS WHAT YOU HEAR WHEN YOU FIRST GET TO HEAVEN????

“And the smartest” lol

Someone save Liam

“I want Sandy”

We all do kid

Fucking manipulative little I CANT STAND DEBBIE

Sandy deserves better

I hate the Milkovichs!!!!

How did smart sensitive sweet beautiful loving Mickey come from this disgusting family????

MICKEY IS THE BOSS

My heart hurts so him

“Homo sexy” dear god

Mickey is too good he deserves so much better

I love him so much

Let him be happy

Mickey has the biggest heart

They’re actually talking and not fighting

CHAPO STFU

You’re so funny and smart and beautiful don’t forget that baby

SUGAR TITS

And no one is fazed lmao

“He’s actually my uncle and my dad” I fucking hate this show

I forgot Carl makes legit money now

Wtf kinda school is this

This is so fucked up

The twins are so adorable

SHUT UP DEBBIE

“You guys” I hate that but also she’s acknowledging Mickey as “hers” and he’s family :(

Okay this horrifying comment

I hate that it’s just nonchalant

Debbie just keeps talking.

Let’s move on

Mickeys face when she says “butt naked”lmao

LIP CALLING HIM MICK AGAIN

“Talk to you for a minute?”

“Yes. Please”

I LOVE IT

Mickey is unimpressed by lip once again and I’m smiling

They love each other they’re secretly best friends ITS A FACT

HAND SHAKE SO CUTE

MY BABIES

“Blue like my balls” fucking frank lol

They’re going in on Frank’s storyline now

Boss Mickey at it again

Terry’s home

The way his face falls im sick

SANDY BABY

My heart is racing

Mickeys face is breaking my heart

Great now I’m crying

Mickey got emotional

Ian sensed it and touched his neck all fucking sweet

Okay I had to take a little break because I started crying

I love him too much

Fucking Noel is so damn good

My heart is fucking breaking

“Frank’s not a homophobic psychopath who tortured you for years”

Please Mickey deserves better

I don’t wanna hear any Ian slander either.

In this house we protect my son and my son in law I will fight you

“Let’s get the fuck outta here. Lip you coming?” 😭

That was so hard to watch yall. I’m not gonna lie to you. My parents weren’t half as shitty as terry but growing up feeling unloved your whole life fucks you up anyway and that brought out some emotions and feelings I didn’t realize I still dealt with. I had to pause for a good while and cry.

Leave Sandy alone debbie

Terry is disgusting

Okay the homophobic language he uses is definitely triggering so I’ll time stamp that too

Debbie you selfish bitch

Everyone leaving terry outside it’s a yes from me

I honestly can’t concentrate on the other scenes now I’m sorry y’all

I try to cover everyone’s scenes but it’s hard for me today

I’m not okay

Liam is too innocent poor kid

MICKEY LIP AND IAN THE BEST TRIO

We need more scenes

I PAUSED TO TYPE AND THE FUCKING LOOK HES GIVING HIM STOP

They’re besties

Mickey is beautiful

MY BABY BUSINESS BOSS MAN I LOVE YOU

he really hasn’t called him Philip the entire episode wtf

Ignoring Debbie

Now I want fries

Carl is cringy

Mickey drove them home and pulled a gun

Honestly again another heartbreaking scene

Ian’s trying to make him stop

Terry is disgusting and also a coward but we’ve been knew

Noel is the most amazing

Mickey gets teary but doesn’t cry bc I cried enough for the both of us

He’s the strongest bravest ever and I’m so proud of him

I need a hug

My heart hurts so much y’all

I just want him to be happy

I’m a fucking mess

I can’t handle Lip being emotional too

Oh I thought lip wanted to sell the house for himself only but at least they all get their share

Horrible music choice

I wanna tuck Mickey in with his favorite tv show on(911) make him his favorite food to eat in bed and not let anyone but Ian around him for a good 72 hours

The way Ian is looking at him

“Would you take care of me if I was paralyzed?”

“....yeah. Yeah”

“Top you whenever I wanted” “asshole”

His smile is back that’s all I need in life

MICKEY IS TOO GOOD FOR THIS WORLD

RIP DOWN THAT FLAG YES BABY

“That was big of you” “he’s an asshole...I wanna be better than that”

WHEN I TELL YALL I LOST IT I MEAN FULL ON SOBBING

YOURE ALREADY A THOUSAND TIMES BETTER THAN THAT PIECE OF SHIT

YOURE SO KIND AND BRAVE AND BEAUTIFUL INSIDE AND OUT

Ian’s like “back of the head? Gotta grab and hold my boy”

“You are so much better than that” IAN MY SWEET SON IN LAW I LOVE YOU THANK YOU FOR LOVING OUR BOY SO WELL

IAN IS THE MOST SUPPORTIVE HUSBAND

V spitting truth

I want terry to fucking suffer

Don’t do it frank

“Nah” LMAO

Frank loves his son in law

Sandy I love you

I need to hold her

No debbie I LOVE HER

NO SANDY LOVE ME INSTEAD

DEBBIE DOESNT DESERVE YOU

Carl scene was so awful I feel so bad for him this girl is a fucking psycho

That was an actual rape scene what the fuck

Mickey making frank laugh

Debbie explaining? Really?

I hate her

“How long is this gonna take? I’m fucking starving Lip” WHY WONT YOU CALL HIM PHILIP

“We could get on with our lives” well that hurt more than it should’ve

It’s really the end soon huh? 😢

According to captions Ian says “we’re in”

Frank reads his diagnosis

Carl goes to report his rape

That took me nearly two hours to watch. Yeah I usually pause to type but I had to take long breaks after the hard scenes. It was a really hard episode to watch. A lot darker than it has been. I’m not really okay right now. It was emotional but a really good episode overall.

[calumcest]

i took a walk with my fame down memory lane (i never did find my way back) - chapter three

[ao3]

hello i’m back on my bullshit aka britpop au 

@tirednotflirting you are never not getting a shoutout in these a/ns i’m sorry for the constant adoration but i truly do adore you and love you for reading through this entire thing and patiently talking to me about it every day you are a trooper and basically at this point a co-writer of the fic so credit to sam for being a wonderful person and friend and beta 

credit also to noel gallagher for being fit i’m so far gone on him now it’s not even funny i need an intervention can someone please fix me actually no don’t i like fancying him he’s cute. listen to hello so the little twat can pay his bills  

Liam, despite - or maybe because of - the various substances coursing through his system, is the first to react. 

“What the fuck?” he says, sounding somewhere between perplexed and outraged. “You fucking know this bloke?” 

“I fucking knew it,” Noel says, fierce and furious and edged with humourless glee. “I fucking knew. Soon as you fucking asked me about them, I knew.” He laughs, hysterical and bitter. “God, you’re an absolute fucking cu- ” 

“Hang on a minute,” Damon interrupts, looking from Michael, who’s staring at his feet, to Calum, and back again. “That’s your Calum?” 

“He’s not my Calum,” Michael mutters to the floor. 

“Fucking sounds like he is,” Graham remarks coolly. 

“How the fuck do you know him?” Liam demands hotly, rounding on Calum.

“Why didn’t you fucking tell us?” Damon says to Michael, voice dangerously calm. “How long have you known?” Michael shrugs uncomfortably, and his right hand comes up to fiddle with his earlobe, and it fucking hurts, because Calum remembers that, remembers how Michael would nervously tuck an errant strand of hair behind his ear and play with his earlobe while his eyes flicked from Calum’s eyes to his lips and back again. 

“You fucking cunt, ” Liam spits, and he sounds like he actually fucking means it, and Calum’s heart drops. 

“Eeyar,” Bonehead says sharply, and puts an arm on Liam’s bicep. “Let’s not do this here, eh?” Fucking hell. Bonehead, of all fucking people, being the sensible one. 

“No,” Liam says, trying to shake Bonehead’s hand off, “let’s fucking do it here. Right fucking here, Calum. You fucking tell me right fucking now why the fuck you never told me you were mates with one of the cunts from Blur.” Damon raises his eyebrows at that, looking somewhere between incensed and amused. 

“Noel,” Bonehead says, pleading, and Calum watches Noel’s expression change from fuck Calum, fuck him, to shit, Bonehead’s right. Not in front of Blur. 

“Liam,” Noel says, and Calum’s never heard him sound so fucking serious in his life. Liam looks at him furiously, a silent conversation happening between the two of them that nobody else can understand, all furrowed brows and twisted lips, ending only when Liam throws his hands up in the air, shoots Calum one last glare, and stomps out of the room.

“Mr Gallagher-” the photographer calls after him, and Liam spins on his heel, fists already balled, and Calum barely has time to think oh, shit before Noel’s running after him and physically manhandling him out of the room as Liam starts shouting random strings of curse words that don’t even make any fucking sense. 

Not for the first time, the Gallaghers leave a stunned silence in their wake as their shouting and yelling gets further and further away, broken only when artists start sending each other uncomfortable looks and murmuring under their breaths. Calum barely even registers it, though, too busy staring at the door Liam and Noel have just barged out of, heart in his mouth. Fuck. 

“Well,” Damon drawls, tone a little too casual, jolting Calum back to reality. “Think you’d better go after them.” 

“Fuck you,” Calum grits out. He throws one final, desperate look at Michael, who’s still steadfastly not looking at him, and then, steeling himself, sets off in the direction of the door. He hears Bonehead and Tony echo similar sentiments at Damon  as he jogs through the door, looking left and right until he sees Noel and Liam at the far end of the corridor, Liam waving his hands in Noel’s face as he refuses to listen to whatever Noel’s trying to tell him. 

“...right fucking cunt, is what,” Liam’s saying as Calum gets closer, sounding indignant. 

“I know that, Liam, but-” Noel breaks off as he spots Calum approaching, and takes a step back, putting a hand on Liam’s arm without even thinking about it. 

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Bonehead demands, catching up with Calum. Calum’s not entirely sure who he’s directing the question at, so he just shrugs uncomfortably. 

“What the fuck’s wrong with me? ” Liam says, sounding enraged, and jabbing a finger at Calum. “What about what’s wrong with this cunt, eh? Didn’t fucking think to mention that he knows one of the pricks in Blur .” 

“Is it that big of a fucking deal?” Tony says, and then immediately shrinks back under the weight of a double-Gallagher withering stare. 

And Calum gets it, he does. If he found out Liam knew Damon, a member of their main competition, and never thought to fucking mention it, he’d be beside himself. It’s the principle of it, he thinks, guilt making his stomach roll. You choose your band first. You don’t hide things like that from your band. 

“Look,” he says, and Liam and Noel both turn to glare at him. 

“No,” Liam says, and makes to take a step forward. Noel’s hand tightens on his arm - a warning - and he stops halfway, still glowering at Calum. “You’re a right fucking git, you are. Why the fuck didn’t you tell us? Why didn’t you tell me? I’m your best fucking mate, I am.” Calum swallows, but the guilt doesn’t go down with the saliva. 

“I know,” he says. “I- fuck. I haven’t known for long.” It’s a poor excuse, and he knows it as the words trip off his tongue. He should have told them as soon as he found out. 

“What the fuck d’you mean, you fucking arseho -” 

“Liam,” Noel says sharply, and Liam huffs, but shuts up, fuming silently as Noel turns to fix Calum with a hard stare. Fucking hell. Calum fucking hates their bad-cop-worse-cop spiel. 

“You’d better have a good fucking explanation for why you didn’t tell us,” Noel says, in that same dangerously calm tone that Damon had used on Michael earlier. It makes Calum’s heart constrict, because when Noel’s angry at him it’s hot bursts, heated words and blazing eyes, never this, this fucking coldness. There’s something behind it, something more to it, and he doesn’t know what it is. 

Calum meets his gaze and holds it for a moment, searching through all the righteous anger and fury, watching rage and indignation and bitterness flit through those baby blues until he catches it. It’s just a snippet, just the tiniest fragment that Noel’s let slip through his scowling armour, but it’s there. 

Hurt.

It makes Calum’s stomach curl up into a small ball and then unroll itself ungracefully, twisting almost nauseatingly when his gaze flits to Liam, to the same blue eyes on a different face, and he sees the exact same storm of emotions - incensed, livid, hurt. That’s what this is about. He’s hurt them. 

“I do,” he mumbles, a little apologetically, and Liam throws his hands up in the air and turns his back on Calum, walks a good five steps away muttering oh, this should be fucking good, before turning back around, hovering in place, like he doesn’t quite trust himself to get any closer to Calum.

“Go on then,” Noel says coldly, and Calum sees his hands ball into fists at his side. Calum takes a wary step back, tripping on Bonehead’s foot, and holds his hands up. 

“I’ll tell you,” Calum says, eyeing Noel’s fists, “but don’t you fucking deck me.” Noel considers that for a moment, just a split second, and then cocks his head. 

“You’ll get decked if you fucking deserve it,” he says evenly , and Calum has to concede that that’s kind of fair. 

“How the fuck d’you know him?” Liam demands, still about six feet away. Calum hesitates. He can feel everyone’s eyes on him, can almost feel the curiosity in Bonehead and Tony’s eyes boring into the back of his head and the hurt and rage in Liam and Noel’s gazes, and he swallows again. 

He could tell them Michael’s his childhood best friend. It’s not a lie, after all. They’d never stopped being best friends, not when they kissed, or when they fucked, or when they fell in love. It had always been there in the background, a soft hum under Calum’s fingers in Michael’s hair, under Michael’s lips on Calum’s throat. It wouldn’t be a lie, as such, just an omission of some of the facts. 

But Calum knows it wouldn’t explain everything, wouldn’t explain why he hid it for so long and why he’s acted so fucking weird about it, and he knows if he doesn’t tell the rest of them everything now, they’re fucking finished. And it’s not the band he cares about - fuck the band, give a fuck, he’ll go back to Manchester and fucking fix garden walls for the rest of his life - it’s his friendships. 

Liam and Noel have been everything to Calum since he moved to Manchester. It had been sheer fucking luck of the draw that Gallagher and Hood were next to each other in the register, so, four days into his new school and completely friendless and alone, he’d been shafted with quite possibly the worst Chemistry partner anyone’s ever had. Although, he has to concede, he’s probably the second-worst Chemistry partner anyone’s ever had, and it didn’t matter anyway, because they were both interested in other types of chemistry, other chemical reactions that could be obtained with money or flirting.  Once they’d figured that out, worked out that neither of them cared about school and both of them cared about getting high and having a laugh, it had been a pretty small step from eeyar, my mam’s out at work, d’you want to bunk off and nick some of her booze? to you’re the only cunt in the world I care about, you are. The only fucking one. 

Noel hadn’t been in the picture, then, too busy on the road with the Inspiral Carpets (much to Liam’s endless fucking pride), and when he’d come home a year later in the middle of the night he’d scared the absolute shit out of Calum, who’d been sleeping in his bed, by leaning over and peering at him with an exhausted, irritated, and yet intrigued expression on his face. 

(“Eeyar,” he’d said mildly, and Calum’s eyes had flown open as he’d shot bolt upright in the bed. “That’s my fucking bed, that is.” Calum had just stared at him, lips parted in shock, eyes wide, still too groggy to process that the eyes staring back at him were the exact same eyes as Liam’s, and then Liam had stirred, mumbled something, opened his eyes and grinned wider and happier than Calum had ever seen before. 

“Noely G!” he’d said, all soft and sleepy, and Noel had rolled his eyes and huffed, but his lips had twitched in a tiny, fond smile. 

“Don’t you fucking call me that,” Noel had warned, two seconds before Liam had flung himself into Noel’s arms and they’d both toppled to the ground, Liam laughing and Noel grumbling but reaching up to pet Liam’s hair all the same.) 

Noel hadn’t wanted to spend much time with them, at first. Why the fuck would I want to hang out with my eighteen-year-old brother and his weird fucking Aussie mate? he’d say derisively, scoffing, but Liam always knew how to play him, knew how to wheedle and whine and praise and insult at just the right levels until Noel would break, sigh, put his magazine down and pick up his guitar and play with them.

That had been it, really. Calum couldn’t remember ever having that much fun before, ever feeling so at home before, ever feeling so safe. The three of them had just clicked, just fallen right into a routine like they were made to slot into each other’s lives. Noel and Liam felt like jigsaw pieces that nestled neatly against him, completed parts of him that he didn’t even know were incomplete. Calum and Liam were rarely apart, and Noel dipped his toe in more often than he took it out. It was Calum Liam would turn to when he was having nightmares about his dad, or when Noel had fucking breathed wrong, or when Noel had decided to move out and Liam had been so furious at him that he’d sat sobbing on Calum’s floor for a whole night. It was Calum Noel would turn to when Liam threw a tantrum, or when he wanted a hand moving furniture into his new flat, or when he wanted someone to go for a few pints with. 

And so it should have been the two of them Calum turned to when he found out about Michael. 

It’s not like they don’t know about his bisexuality, either. He’d come out to Liam before he’d even come out to his mum, blurting it one evening when they were headed to the pub, and Liam had just shrugged, put an arm around him and said hard not to fancy blokes when you spend a lot of time around me, eh? 

Noel had been a little different. Noel had sent him looks from under lowered lashes that had made Calum’s stomach fizz in a way he’d never quite felt before, an echo of something he’d only ever felt with Michael. Noel’s hand would linger on the small of Calum’s back, or around his waist, or on his forearm, making Calum’s skin buzz with something he’d never quite been able to place. It had culminated in one night when Liam was at some girl’s house and Calum had spent the night at the Gallaghers’ anyway, listening to the new songs Noel had written for their brand new band, singing soft and sweet and clear with plump lips and darkened eyes until one of them had snapped. Calum could never remember whether it was him or Noel that had lunged forward first, pressed the first desperate kiss to the other’s lips, but it didn’t really matter, because the end result was the same; frantic kisses, fumbling hands, and pretty, really fucking pretty sounds from Noel that made Calum dizzy with want and made him think God, this is what fucking music is. 

And so, Calum thinks, as his chest aches uncomfortably from the guilt pumping through his veins with every beat of his heart, he has to tell them the whole truth. They’ve been everything to him for the past four, five years, and they deserve to know.

“Well?” someone prompts - Noel, Calum realises as he’s jolted out of his racing thoughts - and Calum swallows. 

“He’s my ex,” he says, and his voice cracks on the last word. 

The words sit between all of them for a moment, nudging at them, testing their boundaries, pushing at the thin lines tying the five of them together, before Tony frowns, like he’s not getting it. 

“Your ex? ” he says, a little sceptical, like Calum’s having him on, and oh, yeah, shit . Tony doesn’t actually know Calum’s into guys. Fucking hell. This is the last way he wanted to come out to him. 

“Yeah,” Calum says. He’s not sure how to elaborate on that, so he doesn’t. Tony just frowns, like he’s still not sure whether to believe Calum, but doesn’t say anything else. 

“When?” Noel says, and there’s an edge of something to his tone that Calum can’t quite place. 

“Before I left,” Calum says, which is the best answer he can come up with. They’d never quite started anything, never quite stopped it either. It just was, and then it wasn’t. “We never, like. There wasn’t a conversation, or anything. We just...were. Together, I mean. He was my best mate since I was seven, so.” He shrugs again, terse and awkward. “And then I moved here.” 

“Why the fuck didn’t you say?” Liam explodes. 

“Because he’s in fucking Blur!” Calum says. “I didn’t even fucking know until that magazine-”

“ That’s why you-”

“ Yes , and-”

“So you’ve known for, what, three fucking mo- ”

“Hang on,” Noel interrupts. “What fucking magazine?” 

“Cunt nicked a magazine from the dentist’s,” Liam says derisively, waving a dismissive hand in Calum’s direction. “Wouldn’t tell me why.” 

“It had a picture of Michael in it,” Calum says. 

“So, what, you nicked it for your wank bank?” Noel says irritably. 

“ No, ” Calum says emphatically. “Just-” he cuts himself off. He’s not really sure what he was doing with that magazine, really. Taking it had just felt like the natural thing to do.

“I wouldn’t’ve fucking cared if you’d said it then,” Liam snaps. “I don’t fucking care that you shagged someone in Blur, how the fuck were you to know? I care that you didn’t fucking tell me.” Calum swallows.

“I know,” he says. “And I’m sorry.” Liam doesn’t say anything to that for a moment, just stares at him, blue eyes wide and angry, and then scoffs and stomps off. Noel throws Calum a look, a look that says you’ve fucked up and I’m fucking furious and a little bit of how fucking dare you upset my brother like that, and then takes off after him. Calum watches them go, watches Noel put a hand on Liam’s arm and Liam shake him off angrily, and then Bonehead clears his throat. 

“Well,” he says nonchalantly. “Hope the shag was fucking worth it, mate.” 

  -------

  The fallout from the argument is sort of what Calum had expected, and sort of isn’t. 

Bonehead and Tony don’t care all that much, predictably. Bonehead’s more concerned about whether Calum wants tickets to the United Champions League qualifier in August (which of course he fucking doesn’t, meaning Bonehead’s just looking for a way to tell him we’re alright without having to say it), and, once it’s been established that yes, Calum does actually date blokes, they’re not just having him on, Tony doesn’t see what the big deal is. 

(“Who fucking cares?” he says, sounding bemused. Calum puts his head in his hands. 

“D’you understand either of them at all?” he says into his fingers. 

“No,” Tony says. “Do you?” Calum’s silent for a moment.

“Fair point.”)

Liam snaps at Calum for a day or two, throws furious looks at him and tries to goad him into fights, but he’d been more upset when Calum had lost his favourite earring a few years ago, so Calum just waits it out. When Liam stops scoffing at every suggestion Calum makes about the Glastonbury setlist, stops making loud, derisive remarks whenever Calum enters or leaves a room, Calum takes it as his cue to sneak up behind him and wrap his arms around Liam, rest his chin on Liam’s shoulder and whisper don’t fucking knock my teeth out, alright? I’m sorry I didn’t tell you. You’re my best mate, and I should’ve said. Didn’t mean to make you feel like I don’t care about you. I love you, and I need you. Liam’s over it in a flash after that, tilting his head to the side to send Calum a brilliant grin and pressing a quick kiss to Calum’s temple. Liam’s like that, Calum thinks, laughing and ducking from Liam’s attempts to keep pressing sloppy kisses all over his face. He’ll blow up, he’ll scream and shout and burn hot with anger for a few days, and then the fever breaks, and Liam can barely remember why he was so pissed off in the first place. 

Noel, however, is a different story. 

He doesn’t even look in Calum’s direction for three days, which is longer than they’ve ever argued, even when Calum had kissed Noel’s girlfriend last year. Which, in fairness, wouldn’t have happened if Noel had been a bit more forthcoming about exactly which ‘fucking gorgeous blonde girl’ was his girlfriend, but whatever. The point is Calum’s not used to this kind of animosity from Noel, and especially isn’t used to Noel harbouring resentment against him for this long, and to the fucking coldness of it. He’s used to Noel snapping, making snide comments, laughing loudly and spitefully when Calum fucks up, not this frostiness, this icing out. 

Rehearsals are tense and uncomfortable. Bonehead and Tony refuse to take sides between Calum and Noel, which Calum had expected - he refuses to side against either of the Gallaghers if he can ever help it - but Liam refuses too, which takes Calum by surprise. 

(“No,” he says sharply, when Calum sends him a look after Noel snaps at him for idly playing a bass riff while he’s waiting for Tony to finish setting his drums up. “You made your fucking bed, Cal.”

It’s true, and it’s fair, but it still feels like a kick in the teeth that Liam’s not taking the opportunity to take Calum’s side, because it means he’s taking Noel’s.) 

After about a week, when the Glastonbury gig is looming over them and Noel still won’t say a single word to Calum besides can you fucking play in time? Is that really so fucking hard?, Calum’s had enough. 

He waits until one rehearsal is over, when Noel’s thrown his hands up in the air and said you’re all fucking shite and stalked out of the room - their cue to pack up and go home - shaking his head when Liam slings an arm around his shoulders and asks jovially whether he wants to go to the pub. 

“Nah,” Calum says. “I’m going to try and talk to Noel.” Liam raises an eyebrow, removes his arm from Calum’s shoulders, and pulls a face. 

“On your own head be it,” he says, and jogs off to catch up with Bonehead. 

Calum heads out of the practice room and into the corridor, heading for the room Noel often locks himself away in to write or when he’s had enough of Liam. He can hear strumming from inside, gentle humming accompanying it, and he hesitates for a split second, letting the unguarded Noel that no one ever sees wash over him for a moment. The only thing besides Liam that can break any of Noel's barriers down is a guitar, which is why Noel locks himself away when he's writing, can't stand to let anybody see him without twelve layers of defences up. It feels like Calum's intruding, though, standing here listening to Noel be at peace when he's always so turbulent, so he raises his hand and knocks on the door. The humming and strumming stop abruptly, and an annoyed voice calls: “What?”

“Can I come in?” Calum says. There’s a pause. 

“No.” But there was a pause, and if Calum obeyed every single one of Noel's impulsive commands he’d be riddled with more inconsistencies than the fucking Bible, so he pushes the door open anyway. 

“What d’you want?” Noel says irritably, but it’s the first thing he’s said to Calum that isn’t shut the fuck up in about two days, which is a start. Calum steps into the room and shuts the door behind him, and Noel sighs, all long-suffering, and turns back to his guitar, plucking a few strings tunelessly. 

“Can we talk?” Calum says. 

“Yeah,” Noel says. “Fuck off. Talk over.” Calum bites back a snarky retort and sits down on the chair opposite Noel. 

“Look,” he begins, and Noel holds up a hand to stop him. 

“I don’t want to have a big fucking talk about our feelings,” he says curtly. Calum sighs. 

“How the fuck do I make it better, then?” he says. Noel shrugs, tight and tense. 

“Time travel,” he suggests, and Calum’s lips twitch in spite of himself. 

“I said I was sorry,” he says, because he did. He’s said it a hundred times, a hundred ways, through apologies and through beseeching looks and through leaving Noel the last custard cream. 

“What’ve you been apologising for, though?” Noel says shrewdly. “For the fact you did it, or the fact we found out?” Calum holds his gaze, feels the blue burn hot into his brown, like Noel’s trying to tease out the worst bits of Calum’s soul. 

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” Calum says plainly. Noel blinks, a fleeting look of surprise passing across his face. He wasn’t expecting that, clearly. 

“Who said that?” he says, aiming for contemptuous and coming off defensive. Calum just fixes him with a hard stare, one that says it’s written all over your face, and I’ll fucking say it out loud if you want me to. Noel blinks back at him for a moment before looking away, pursing his lips. He’s considering his options; Calum can see it in the way his eyes narrow slightly. Calum hopes Noel can't come up with any more options than Calum can - keep stewing or forgive but don't forget are all Calum's got, so there's a fifty-fifty chance he'll get what he's looking for.

“Fucking fine,” Noel mutters eventually, and Calum’s eyes flutter shut in relief, the pressure that’s been weighing on his chest for the past week suddenly disappearing. Fuck. “You’re still a cunt, though,” Noel adds, because he can’t stand not having the last word, and Calum nods, leaning back in the chair. He can live with that. 

“What’s that?” Calum says, nodding at the guitar to indicate the song Noel had been playing, testing the waters. Is this a truce, or is it forgiveness? 

“That?” Noel says, looking down at the guitar. “Just playing around.” A truce, then. For now. 

“For the next album?” Noel shrugs. 

“Maybe,” he says. “Depends. Got a lot of other fucking brilliant songs already written for it.” Calum huffs out a laugh, rolls his eyes, and Noel smiles back. 

“You sorted out the Glastonbury setlist yet?” Calum asks. The smile slips off Noel’s face. 

“Yeah,” he says. Calum cocks his head. 

“What?” 

“What?” 

“You look all fucking mardy, is what.” Noel rolls his eyes. 

“Mardy, fucking hell,” he says, shaking his head. “You’re a right fucking Manny boy now, you are.” 

“Nah,” Calum says, grinning. “Fucking true blue, I am. Why d’you think I support City over United?” 

“‘Cause Liam would’ve fucking nailed your balls to the front door if you hadn’t,” Noel says, which is, in fairness, at least half of the reason Calum had decided on City. 

“He hasn’t nailed Bonehead’s to any doors yet,” Calum points out. Noel pulls a face. 

"Would you wanna touch Bonehead's balls?" he says, and Calum snorts. He's got a point. 

They lull into silence for a moment, Noel's fingers twitching on the strings of his guitar like he's itching to play but doesn't want to in front of Calum, but he's not told Calum to fuck off yet, which is a start. Calum's going to take every inch Noel gives him, claw as many centimetres out of them as he can, so he sits back a little, eyes Noel and says: "What's the setlist, then?" Noel looks at him, like he thinks Calum’s asking him a trick question. “What?” Calum adds, a little self-consciously. 

“You know Blur are playing the same day as we are?” Noel says, and his tone is flat. “Same stage, too.” Calum’s stomach plummets.

“Oh,” he says, and he can see from the sour look on Noel’s face that he’s not doing a good job of hiding the way his heart is pounding in his chest at the fucking prospect of maybe, just maybe, seeing Michael again. 

“You going to talk to him?” Noel says harshly. Calum hesitates, and then shakes his head. 

“You’re my band,” he says, even though it leaves a bitter taste in his mouth. “You know where my loyalties lie.” Noel considers him for a moment - a long moment - and then exhales, and smiles. 

That was a test, Calum thinks, as he smiles back. It was a test, and he passed. 

(But his heart might not have.) 

  -------

  Glastonbury comes around a lot fucking faster than Calum had expected. 

Noel takes a few days to mull their truce over and then seems to decide that he’s extended it into a full on peace, passing Calum an unfinished song at two in the morning when they’re both high on something Liam had picked up somewhere. Calum doesn’t say anything, doesn’t want to break the fragile understanding between the two of them, just pockets the piece of paper and offers Noel a grin and another bottle of beer. 

The days pass in a blur of travelling and rehearsing, and they get a week off between their last show somewhere down south and Glastonbury. Noel’s definition of a week off, though, seems to be very different from everyone else’s. Calum’s looking forward to going home, eating some good food, not being woken up by Liam going for a run at seven every fucking morning, maybe even getting around to fixing that wall, but Noel’s having none of it. 

(“Did you fucking hear us in Glasgow?” Noel demands, when everybody drags themselves into the tiny, cramped practice space in the basement at ten a.m., Liam still absolutely fucking steaming and clearly not having got round to going to bed yet. 

“We sounded fucking fine,” Bonehead says. 

“We sounded fucking shite,” Noel corrects. 

“Speak for your fucking self,” Tony says, and the rest of them round on him in disbelief. 

“Hang on a minute-” Bonehead starts. 

“Eeyar, I sound shi-” Noel says indignantly.

“That’s a bit fucking rich-” Calum begins. 

“You’re the worst fucking drummer I’ve ever heard,” Liam says, grumpy and disdainful, which about sums it up.) 

Calum’s sort of glad, though, because it keeps him busy. In the little moments he does get to himself - half an hour between dinner and Liam ringing his house and demanding he comes down to the pub with him, twenty minutes when Noel’s on the phone arguing with Marcus at the record label about Live Forever again - all he can think of is Michael. 

It gets worse the closer they get to Glastonbury. The first few days, when Glastonbury’s still about a week away and still doesn’t quite feel real, he can push Michael out of his mind, distract himself with laughing at Liam telling some story about Noel pushing him in the road when they were kids, ‘cause he knew I was gonna be fitter than him, I reckon. Michael crosses his mind, but it’s fleeting, and Calum doesn’t dwell on him. By the fourth or fifth day, though, Glastonbury’s looming over them and they’re being told every three seconds not to be late for the fucking bus, bus call’s at fucking six, did you hear me, that’s six, and William fucking Gallagher if you’re a second late I’ll give Noel special dispensation to murder you. It starts sinking in then, in brief moments of panic where Calum realises that fuck, in forty-eight hours, in thirty-six hours, in twenty-four hours, he might see Michael again. 

A million different scenarios cross his mind. Michael screaming at him, Calum screaming back; Michael kissing him, Calum kissing back; Michael walking past and not even looking at him, and Calum’s heart breaking. He’s glad for it when Noel rings and asks him to make sure Liam gets to the bus call on time, because fussing over Liam gives him something else to focus all of his nervous energy on. 

They drive through the night, and Calum doesn’t sleep. The rest of them don’t either, though, drinking and smoking (except Liam, on Noel’s orders, and much to his chagrin) and snorting what Liam claims is coke but Noel’s pretty sure is just crushed caffeine pills. By the time they’re all coming down from their wired highs, around four or five in the morning, Calum’s so exhausted that he slips into an easy, dreamless sleep, and it feels like no time has passed at all before he’s been shaken awake gently, blinking up at solemn blue eyes. 

“Soundcheck,” is all Liam says, not looking tired or hungover in the fucking slightest. Calum groans, mouth dry and throat scratchy, and struggles into a seated position to find Liam’s got a cup of water and two paracetamols in his hand. 

“I fucking love you,” Calum says hoarsely, and Liam laughs as Calum grabs the water and pills. 

“Fucking right,” he says with a grin, and then walks away. 

Calum downs the water and pills, and then hears Bonehead shout for him and yells back I’m coming, I’m coming, rolling out of bed and pulling on the first clothes he sees. By the time he’s made his way into the lounge area, rubbing at his eyes blearily and sending up prayers to various gods that the paracetamol kicks in quickly, everyone’s ready to go. It’s probably for the best that Calum doesn’t have time to eat breakfast; his stomach’s flipping like crazy, and Liam’s far too fucking buzzing to stay in the bus a minute longer, hopping from foot to foot with that kind of childlike energy that he’s always inexplicably got, counterbalancing Noel’s stiff, tense posture. 

“Are we doing Walrus?” Liam asks, as they file off the bus and are led in the direction of a tiny room.

“Did you read the fucking setlist?” Noel snaps. 

“You changed it seven fucking times,” Liam shoots back. 

“I fucking showed you the final one this morning,” Noel says. 

“Oh, fuck off,” Liam says, rolling his eyes. “What’s all this, then?” Their instruments are set out, mic stands and all, and three techs are hovering by the amps. 

“Quick soundcheck,” one of them explains. “Don’t have time to do a full one for every artist. Just need to see how you want it, then we can set it up on stage when you’re on.” Liam stares at her in disbelief, and then shakes his head and turns to head out of the room. 

“Eeyar,” Noel says sharply, catching him by the elbow. “Where the fuck d’you think you’re going?” 

“What the fuck is this?” Liam demands, gesturing at the whole setup. 

“What, you thought we’d have a full fucking half hour soundcheck?” Noel says. “It’s a fucking festival, Liam.” Liam stares at him for a minute, because he clearly had thought they were going to have a full soundcheck, and then shakes Noel off and walks back out the way they’d come in. 

“Uh-” one of the techs says, but Noel sighs, loud and exasperated, and turns back to them with a shake of his head. 

“Fucking let him go,” he says contemptuously. “He’s just the fucking tambourine player.” 

The soundcheck only lasts ten minutes, and Noel insists that he’ll sort his own amps out anyway, because he’s a fucking control freak, and then they’re told to fuck off and come back at five. 

“Well,” Bonehead says, as they file out of the room. “I’m going back to sleep.” Without waiting for any of them to say anything, he turns on his heel and heads straight back in the direction of the bus.

“The Inspirals are playing today,” Noel says, already looking over Tony’s head and craning around Calum to see if he can spot them anywhere. “Gonna see if I can find them.” 

“Think I’m going to get a drink,” Tony says, and Calum sighs, because that leaves him with the job of finding Liam. 

“Fine, fuck you both,” he says, and receives a middle finger and a two-fingered salute for his trouble. 

He heads halfway with Noel, who peels off abruptly because that’s fucking Johnny Cash, that is, I’m fucking watching that, fuck the Inspirals, and then gets lost on the other half of the way because there are people in black running back and forth and shouting at each other and Calum keeps following them thinking they know where they're going only to end up at a portaloo. 

The artists’ area is just a small tent selling incredibly overpriced beer, but Calum buys one anyway, because the paracetamol’s only half-dulled his headache and Calum’s a big believer in hair of the dog. He sips it as he wanders, eyes flitting left to right to try and spot a loud Mancunian in an oversized jumper. He can’t seem to find Liam, but sees two of the blokes from Radiohead in the distance, one of whom raises a hand at him a little hesitantly. Calum raises his beer in return, because it feels like the polite thing to do, and the guy seems to waver for a moment  before heading over, and Calum groans internally. Fucking hell. Maybe Noel and Liam have the right idea, being absolute cunts to everybody in the business. 

“Calum, right?” the guy says when he gets close, and bloody hell, he’s even fucking shorter than Noel. 

“Yeah,” Calum says. 

“Thom,” the guy says, holding his hand out. Calum stares at it for a moment, trying to process is this twenty-something musician trying to shake my hand like we’re fucking businessmen, and Thom retracts it, a little awkwardly. 

“You’re from Radiohead,” Calum says, more of a statement than a question. 

“Yeah,” Thom says. 

“Creep’s a good song,” Calum says, taking a sip from his beer. Thom cocks his head, like he’s trying to work out if Calum’s taking the piss. 

“Thanks,” he says eventually, a little suspiciously. It’s fair enough, Calum thinks, when he remembers the last time they’d crossed paths; a few weeks ago, Calum cackling as Noel and Liam screamed but I’m a cock, I’m a willy as Radiohead traipsed onto the stage to collect their award. It is a good song, though, although Calum sort of prefers the Gallagher version. 

“You seen my singer, by any chance?” Calum says, figuring it can’t hurt to ask. “‘Bout this tall, mouthy northern lad. Probably getting into a fistfight, or something.” 

“Liam,” Thom says, and really, Calum should have known Thom knew who Liam was. Who the fuck doesn’t know Liam Gallagher? 

“Yeah,” Calum says, “him.” Thom nods.

“Yeah, saw him about ten minutes ago,” he says. 

“Where?” Thom turns, points in the vague direction of a tent in the distance. 

“He was having a go at the barman for the price of the beers,” Thom says, and Calum snorts. 

“Sounds like fucking Liam,” he says, and can’t help the fondness that edges his tone. Thom grins at him, like he's finally finding his footing. 

"They're almost three quid," he says. "It's daylight fucking robbery."

“Fucking festivals,” Calum says, a little derisively, and takes another sip from his extortionately-priced beer. 

“Fucking festivals,” Thom agrees. “Anyway, I’m on in a few, so I’d best get off.”

“I’d better go and save the rest of Glastonbury from Liam,” Calum says. Thom nods, and takes a step back. 

“Oh, by the way,” he adds, as Calum turns to head in the direction of the tent Thom had pointed out. “One of the guys from Blur was looking for you.” Calum’s stomach drops.

“What?” he says, a little too quickly, spinning back around. “Who?” Thom shrugs. 

“Blonde one,” he says. “Don’t know their names.” 

Oh, shit. 

Shit.  

“Cheers,” Calum says, glad for how steady it comes out, and jogs off in the direction of the tent Liam was supposedly last seen in, stomach churning. 

Out of all the fantasies he’s had about this day, about seeing Michael somehow, none of them had involved Michael seeking him out. It had all been chance encounters, Michael watching the Oasis set or Calum watching the Blur set, or bumping into each other backstage, or seeing each other across the small stretch of grass outside the artists’ tent. He’d never stopped to think that maybe Michael would want to speak to him, not after how he’d acted at the awards ceremony. 

“Cal!” he hears, and he whips around with a racing heart, thinking that for a moment it was Michael, the easy way the nickname would drip off Michael’s tongue, but when he turns, he sees Liam, grinning widely, holding up a can of beer that he’s clearly nicked off the tour bus and making his way over to Calum. 

“You’re fucking drunk,” Calum states, when Liam gets within four feet of him. Liam raises an eyebrow, eyes hidden behind dark sunglasses, and nods. 

“Yep,” he says happily. “How was soundcheck?” 

“Noel’s not happy with you,” Calum informs him, and Liam shrugs. 

“When the fuck is he?” he says carelessly. "I'm arsed. The tit doesn't want anyone to have any fucking fun." Calum just sighs and shakes his head, palms still slick with sweat, eyes flitting over Liam’s head every three seconds just in case Michael’s magically appeared behind him. Liam’s not as drunk as he smells, though, because he catches it, twisting around to look at what’s caught Calum’s attention. 

“What?” he says, when he’s confronted with absolutely nothing. 

“What?” Calum says, defensive and deflecting. Liam turns back to him, both eyebrows raised now. 

“You looking for Mike?” Liam says, a little too knowingly. 

“Michael,” Calum corrects, without thinking. 

“Well, the Blur lot call him Mike,” Liam says. 

“He hates being called Mike,” Calum mutters. 

“Well,” Liam says, with a nonchalant shrug, "not anymore." There's no malice behind the words but they still hurt, because it reminds Calum that he doesn’t know Michael anymore, doesn’t know Mike. 

“Thom from Radiohead said he was looking for me,” Calum says, and he watches Liam’s eyebrows disappear back under his sunglasses, his lips twisting in a frown. 

“You told our kid you wouldn’t talk to him,” he says, and it comes out a little petulant. 

“I haven’t,” Calum says, and hopes Liam doesn’t catch the evasiveness in his tone. Technically, if Michael talks to him, he’s not lying. 

“Good,” Liam says, and then grins brightly. “Want to go and laugh at Radiohead?” 

“Are they on?” Liam shrugs. 

“Think so. Heard some whiny shite out there, ‘s gotta be them, innit?” Calum snorts, and shakes his head. 

“Yeah, go on then,” he says, and Liam’s grin widens. “Anything to make you smile.” 

“Soppy cunt,” Liam says, but his eyes are soft and fond, and Calum laughs as he follows him in the direction of the stages. 

Anything to get Michael off his mind, too. 

  -------

 Noel’s still furious at Liam by the time their set rolls around, and Liam plays into it, refusing to sing the second verse of Fade Away and demanding they shuffle the setlist to play Supersonic first. He cackles when Noel glares at him, grins gleefully when Noel shouts a string of curse words and stomps off, and takes an idle sip from his beer with twinkling eyes when both Bonehead and Calum throw him exasperated looks before following after Noel with ten minutes to go until they’re on stage. 

They manage to convince Noel to come back - or at least to make him feel like coming back is something they’re begging him to do rather than something he was going to do anyway, because Noel always loves feeling like he’s doing them a fucking favour. He kicks Liam in the shin when he passes him on his way to the stairs leading to the stage, hard, and Liam scowls and hurls his almost-empty can of beer at him, missing by a few inches and hitting Tony instead. 

The set passes in a fucking blur. The crowd actually cheer them onto the stage, which makes Calum’s stomach twist and attempt to make its way up his oesophagus in a way that’s strangely pleasant. Liam sings his fucking heart out, looking lazy and bored and effortless, but Calum can see the slight tension in his shoulders, the way his fingers are clenched around his stupid fucking tambourine. They sound fucking good, they all know they do, and when Noel and Calum both head for the beers at the back of the stage at the same time they share a quick smile, a fuck, can you believe this is real? smile. 

Calum tries not to scan the crowd for Michael, he really fucking does, but he can’t help himself, and he also can’t help the little pang of disappointment when he can’t spot Michael’s telltale unruly blonde hair anywhere. It’s probably for the best, he tells himself, looking back down at his bass and really focusing on the song. He probably wouldn’t be able to concentrate if Michael were there. 

Noel’s on a fucking high when they get off, kisses Bonehead square on the lips and pulls Liam into a fond headlock, rubbing his knuckles across the top of Liam’s sweaty head as Liam protests but doesn’t try to pull away. 

“That was fucking mega, ” he says, grinning widely as he releases Liam, who stands up straight and shakes his hair out. 

“Fucking was, and all,” Liam says proudly, slinging an arm over Noel’s shoulders. “Me and me little brother-” 

“Eeyar, watch it,” Noel says, but he’s still grinning. 

“-playing fucking Glastonbury,” Liam finishes. “Fucking hell. Wonder if Mam was watching.” 

“‘Course she fucking was,” Noel says, a note of reassurance in his voice. “Wouldn’t miss the opportunity to see her most handsome son play fucking Glastonbury, would she, eh? And you, I s’pose.” He ducks out of Liam’s arm as Liam makes a noise of outrage and lunges for him, laughing, but Liam’s laughing too, chasing after Noel as he skips out of Liam’s reach, and the two of them start shrieking like fucking madmen and tear off in the direction of the artists’ tent, earning themselves strange looks from everyone they pass. Tony, Bonehead and Calum watch them as they disappear into the distance for a moment, each of them thinking the same thing - who, how, and what the fuck are the Gallagher brothers? 

“I reckon if I ever understand those two I’d deserve a fucking Nobel prize,” Bonehead comments, and Calum and Tony both murmur their agreement. 

Tony’s mate’s is in some band playing on the fucking Jazz World Stage, of all things, so he says he’s going to go and see if he can catch the tail end of their set. Calum tells him it’s a good fucking thing he kept that to himself until after the brothers had left, because he wouldn’t hear the end of it otherwise, and Bonehead grins and says gives me the pleasure of telling them, too. Tony just flips them both off as he walks away, and they return the favour.  

“I’m fucking rank,” Bonehead says, not sounding all too unhappy about it, as they approach the tent. 

“You are,” Calum agrees, and ducks the inevitable swat Bonehead aims at the back of his head. 

“You’re not all fucking roses yourself,” Bonehead tells him, and Calum shrugs. He can live with that. 

“I’ll shower later,” he says. 

“You fucking will,” Bonehead says. “Not fucking getting on a bus with you smelling like that.” Calum scowls, because he knows he doesn’t smell that bad, and Bonehead throws him a winning smile as he ducks into the tent ahead of Calum. 

Liam and Noel are at the bar, shouting loudly at the bartender and each other and anyone who comes within three feet of them, and Calum decides to steer well clear of that and head out of the back of the tent to the little stretch of grass. 

“I fancy a beer,” Bonehead says, already halfway to the bar, and Calum shrugs - clearly Bonehead’s not seen the fucking prices - and steps out on his own. 

There are a few people milling around, a few people Calum thinks he might have seen at afterparties and a few people that are clearly hangers-on, and he heads for an empty spot by the fence in the corner, not wanting to go through a conversation with any of these people. He digs around in his pocket for a cigarette and puts it to his lips, cupping his left hand around it as he fumbles with his lighter in his right, and his eyes flutter shut as he inhales the first delicious drag and holds it in. 

“They’ll kill you, y’know,” a low voice says, and Calum’s eyes fly open as he chokes on the smoke currently in his lungs. 

A blonde, Thom had said. A blonde from Blur. 

Not Michael. 

Damon. 

“Gotta die of something,” Calum says, when he recovers, noting the amused expression on Damon’s face. 

“Good for the nerves, too,” Damon agrees, and brings his own cigarette to his lips. Fucking hypocrite. 

“What d’you want?” Calum says. Damon takes a long drag of the cigarette, eyeing Calum shrewdly. Calum’s had enough of shrewd blue eyes, fucking hell. 

“To talk about Mike,” Damon says eventually, and tilts his head up to exhale a cloud of grey smoke. Calum watches it swirl for a minute, separating into wisps that the wind catches and carries away from them. 

“What about him?” 

“What happened with the two of you?” Damon sounds curious. Calum shrugs jerkily. 

“Shouldn’t you be asking him that?” he fires back. 

“I did.” 

“So what are you here for?” 

“Your side of it.” 

“What the fuck d’you want that for?” Damon shrugs, and takes another drag of his cigarette. It reminds Calum of his own, burning right down to the filter in his hand, and he brings it to his lips. Damon has a point about it being good for the nerves. 

“I care about him,” Damon says simply, after a moment. He doesn’t add anything else, but the threat is clear: if you’ve fucked with him, or if you ever fuck with him again, I’ll fucking kill you. Calum would like to see him try, because he’d have to get past both Noel and Liam first.

“Well, whatever the fuck he told you is probably true,” Calum mutters. Damon cocks his head. 

“You dated?” Calum tries not to squirm. 

“Yeah.” 

“You fell in love?” 

“Guess so.” 

“You dropped him the minute you moved to the UK?” Calum’s head whips around to face Damon. What the fuck has Michael been saying? That's not true, not really. He'd kept sending letters for a year and a half, or so, hadn't he? What was he supposed to do when Michael stopped writing as often? 

“Not exactly,” he says, and Damon raises an eyebrow. 

“You didn’t start ignoring his letters?” he questions. 

“Well, yeah, but he stopped sending as many,” Calum says. Damon’s eyebrows stay raised, and his lips quirk up in a small, almost sad smile. 

“You don’t see a correlation there?” he says. Calum shrugs, and takes another drag from his cigarette before dropping it to the ground and grinding it out with his shoe. 

“He never told me he was coming here,” he says. “Never told me he was in Blur, either. Way I see it, we’re even.” They’re not even, they’ll never be fucking even, but he’s not going to tell Damon that. 

He starts heading back in the direction of the tent, intending to go straight to Noel and tell him Damon’s just tried to get in his head about Michael, but Damon catches his arm as he steps away. Calum turns back around and yanks his arm out of Damon’s grasp with a scowl.

“How long have you known?” Damon asks. 

“What?” Calum says irritably. 

“About Mike. How long have you known?” Calum stares at him. 

“How long has he known?” he asks. 

“A year,” Damon says, and Calum’s heart clenches. Michael’s known Calum’s in Oasis for a fucking year, and never once tried to reach out. 

“Well?” Damon prompts, and Calum clenches his teeth.

“Three months,” he says shortly, and then turns on his heel and heads in the direction of the artists’ tent before Damon can say anything else, heart in his fucking mouth. 

A year. A fucking year. Michael’s known what Calum’s been up to, known about him and his band, probably even known where he’s been on the odd occasion for a fucking year, and he’s never said anything, never even mentioned it to his own bandmates until his arm was twisted. 

Well, Calum thinks bitterly, as he ducks into the tent to see Noel, Liam and Bonehead all laughing and grinning at the bar. At least he knows where he stands with Michael, then. And at least he’s somewhere with Liam’s drugs and overpriced booze to drown his sorrows. 

  -------

  A few hours later, a little high and a lot stoned and even more drunk, Calum’s wandering around outside when Liam catches him, slips an arm around his waist and pulls him in for a warm, sweaty hug. 

“Want to go and heckle Blur?” he asks, grinning into Calum’s shoulder, sunglasses pressing uncomfortably into Calum’s collarbone, and Calum’s heart skips a beat. 

“Are they playing?” Liam pulls back and nods, and Calum shrugs as nonchalantly as he can. 

“Sure,” he says, wishing Liam would take the sunglasses off so Calum can see what he’s thinking. Liam doesn’t, just grabs Calum by the arm and starts steering him in the direction of the stage they’d played all of six hours ago. 

They pass by one of the other stages, a smaller one, where what sounds like a country duo are playing, deep voices booming while middle-aged men tap their feet thoughtfully to the acoustic guitars, and then the sound of guitars and a faux-Cockney accent start to drown them out. They turn the corner and then they’re there, squinting at the tiny pinpricks on the stage about a fucking mile in front of them. 

“Fucking hell,” Liam complains. “Can’t even fucking see the pricks.” Without waiting for a response from Calum, he starts shoving through the crowd, shouting watch my fucking beer at anyone who jostles back against him, and Calum follows close behind before the crowd can close around the path he’s created again, until they’re about five rows from the stage. Calum’s been so focused on his feet the whole time, not wanting to trip up and spill the the fucking £2.50 beer that he’d shelled out on, that he’s not actually looked up, and when he does he’s startled by how close they actually are, by the fact that he can see the beads of sweat on Damon’s throat, the vein on his neck as he sings. 

Calum’s eyes, like they��re magnets and Michael’s fucking north, immediately find Michael, who’s staring down at his guitar and nodding along to the song - something about there being no other way, if Calum’s making out the lyrics blasting out from the speakers correctly. It’s sort of catchy, but they’ve come in towards the end and it’s winding down, and it’s only about twenty seconds before the final chord rings out and Damon stands back, breathing heavily. 

“Is there anyone who’s French out there?” he asks, as the other guitarist - Graham, Calum thinks idly, as some of the crowd cheer - plucks out a few random notes. 

“Really?” Damon says, sounding surprised. “How many, put your hands up, let’s have a look.” He pauses. “How many Germans? Oh, that’s too many French. I don’t believe you.” He pulls the mic off the mic stand and looks down at his feet. “Okay, well. This is for you. Mon amis.” 

A synth and drums start up, something slower than the last song, and Graham and Michael start playing chords on an offbeat and an on-beat. Calum watches Michael, bathed in the soft disco-ball light they’ve got going on at the moment, fingers moving lazily across the fretboard, and his heart aches. He remembers Michael struggling to switch from a C to a G back in the music room at school, remembers how he had to show Michael where to place his fingers for an E at least six times before he got it, and now Michael’s here, playing the fucking NME stage at Glastonbury like it’s nothing. 

He’s not even listening to what Damon’s singing, too focused on the little crease between Michael’s brows as he nods along to the song, until Michael looks up for the first time, and looks straight at Calum. 

Calum knows Michael’s looking at him, no one else, from  the way he freezes, by the way his shoulders tense and his eyes widen and his lips part a little. It’d be easy for him to pretend that he hasn’t seen him, for him to look away and scan the rest of the crowd, but he doesn’t. His eyes stay fixed on Calum, half in shock, half in something that looks like grim determination, Damon’s voice providing the soundtrack to accompany Calum’s racing heart. 

“Well, you and I, collapsed in love,” Damon sings. “And it looks like we might have made it; yes, it looks like we made it to the end.” 

Calum’s stomach drops. 

That’s about him. He knows it is, can’t put his finger on why but he knows it, and he knows when Michael sees that Calum’s realised it because he blinks, slow and sad, but doesn’t stop looking at Calum. 

“What happened to us?” Damon asks, but it’s Michael’s words. “Soon it will be gone forever.” Calum can’t make out the next two lines, but it doesn’t matter, because he can see Michael swallow, can see the way his left hand is clenching the fretboard far too tightly, and knows it’s because of him. 

“Well, you and I, collapsed in love,” Damon repeats, and the crowd sings along with him, and Calum’s heart feels like it’s going to splinter when Michael shifts a little, takes a step to the left, but his eyes don’t leave Calum’s. This is for you, he’s saying. This is for us.  

Some kind of string instrument is playing in the background, and Damon sits himself down at a piano and plays something that Calum can’t even make out, and Calum can tell the song’s coming to an end but he doesn’t want it to, doesn’t want the moment to be broken. Damon stands back up again, grabs the mic, and heads back to the front of the stage, pulling on the wire so he doesn’t trip over it. 

“Well, you and I,” he sings again. “Collapsed in love. And it looks like we might have made it; yes it looks like we made it to the end.” He lingers on the final note, and the strings swell, and Calum knows he’s only got a few seconds of Michael left, of having Michael to himself in front of thousands and thousands of people. He blinks up at him, wonders whether Michael can see whatever tangled web of emotions he’s feeling reflected in his eyes - regret, maybe, grief,  definitely, yearning, possibly. 

Michael’s still playing, those off- and on-beat chords, and the dim lights on the stage fade out, leaving Calum to gaze at Michael silhouetted in only the disco-ball lights. He can’t see Michael’s face anymore but can still feel Michael’s eyes on him, locked with his own, and just before the song finishes, just as they start to slow down and head into the final bar, a light crosses Michael’s face for the briefest of moments and Michael, eyes on Calum, offers him a tiny, sad smile. 

The song finishes, and the crowd cheer, and Michael takes a few steps back on the stage, bending down to pick something up, and then they’re heading into the next song, an upbeat, guitar-heavy track that has everyone jumping up and down except Calum and Liam. 

“This is fucking shite,” Liam shouts halfway through the song, sounding annoyed, like the fact that Blur’s music isn’t to his taste is a personal attack. 

“Yeah,” Calum says, a little dazed.

“ This is our competition?” Liam’s got his arms folded, beer resting on his elbow. “There’s not even a fucking competition. We’re fucking rock ‘n’ roll, we are. What the fuck is this wank?” 

“Dunno,” Calum says. Liam scoffs. 

“Pricks,” he says derisively, and turns to Calum. “‘S not even fucking worth heckling. Let’s just fucking go.” Calum nods numbly, and Liam starts shouldering through the crowd again, shoving two of his fingers up at anyone who dares call him a cunt for doing so. 

A third song’s started by the time they get to the back of the crowd and manage to slip out and get to the path leading back in the direction of the artists’ tent, and Liam scoffs again as he takes a long swig of his beer. 

“ Parklife ,” he says mockingly, along with the crowd, and shakes his head. “Fucking insulting, that is, that we’re being pitted against them. How the fuck are they rock ‘n’ roll, eh? How the fuck?” Calum just shrugs, scuffing his shoes against the dirt path. 

“What was that with you and Mike, then?” Liam says, almost conversationally, as they turn the corner. Calum’s head shoots up to look at him. 

“What was what?” he says, too quickly, and curses inwardly, because he’s given himself away. 

“That,” Liam says knowingly. “Fucking staring at you for the whole song, he was.” Calum looks back down at his feet, steadfastly counting the number of times his laces criss-cross on his shoes. 

“Damon came and talked to me earlier,” he mutters, because he hasn’t had a chance to tell any of them yet. Or, he has, but drowning his feelings had felt more urgent, and he didn’t want to mention Michael’s name to Noel when he looked to be in such a good mood. 

“What the fuck?” Liam demands. “I’ll fucking deck him, I will.” The ghost of a smile crosses Calum’s lips. 

“You don’t even know what he said,” he says, but something warm is spreading through his lungs at the fact that Liam’s that willing to defend his honour. 

“Don’t fucking care,” Liam growls. “Been fucking gagging for a chance to deck him. Fucking posh prick.” Well. Maybe defending Calum's honour is at least amongst the reasons for that.

“Just wanted to talk about Michael,” Calum says. 

“Cunt,” Liam says venomously. “Why?” 

“I don’t know,” Calum admits. “Said he wanted to hear my side of the story.”

“What the fuck for?” Liam says. “I don’t fucking care what Mike has to say, do I?” Calum shrugs again. 

“He wanted to know how long I’d known about Michael,” he says. 

“Did he say how long Michael’s known?” Calum hesitates. 

“A year,” he mumbles. 

“A year? ” Liam says, sounding outraged. “A fucking year? And he never fucking told them?” Calum shakes his head, and Liam makes a scornful noise. “Fucking wanker.” 

“Yeah,” Calum says, trying to quash the guilt that rises in his chest and tells him you might not have told them, either. 

“Why the fuck was he eyeing you up that whole song, then?” Liam asks. Calum swallows. You know where my loyalties lie, he’d told Noel, and he’d meant it. Oasis are his band, Noel and Liam are his best friends, and Michael’s a part of his past. It doesn’t matter that his heart might still be seventeen years old; he’s got to be here, in 1994, not 1989. 

“It’s about me,” he says. Liam stops. 

“What’s about you?” 

“That song. That’s why he was looking at me.” It’s dark, and Calum can’t see Liam all that clearly, but he can make out the way his lips twist in a thin line. 

“How d’you know?” 

“Just do.” 

“Well,” Liam says, slinging an arm around Calum’s shoulders and pulling him in possessively. “You’ve got us. We’re not going to fucking let that bastard do anything to you.” 

Privately, Calum thinks he might actually want Michael to do something to him, but he just forces a smile and wraps an arm around Liam’s waist as they head into the tent for a drink and maybe a few lines. God knows Calum fucking needs it. 

  -------

  At about two in the morning, off his head on coke and expensive beer, Liam decides it’d be a great idea to insult one of the singers in Chumbawamba, which leads to a scuffle that Liam’s all too happy to get in the middle of and ends up dragging Noel into too, leaving them both with bruises flowering high on their cheeks and tongues probing to make sure they’ve still got all their teeth. Neither of them seem to care that much, though, probably both too fucked to feel it, and Calum watches them get shepherded away to the medical tent by their manager Alan, swaying a little as they go. Bonehead’s long gone, disappeared with some pretty ginger woman on his arm, and Tony still hasn’t come back from his fucking jazz band, so Calum’s left on his own, sipping his beer and trying to make himself as invisible as possible in the corner so that bloody Thom Yorke won’t come and talk to him again. 

He gets through a few more pints, watching the crowd thin as the night wears on, before his bladder starts to kick up a real fuss at the amount of liquid he’s consumed in the past few hours and he slips off to the toilets. 

The door’s locked when he tries it, and he can hear two male voices inside but can’t make out what they’re saying, and decides it’s probably for the best that way. He takes a few steps back, just in case they start fucking or fighting or whatever the fuck it is they’re doing in there, because he doesn’t want to have to listen to that, and rests the back of his head against the wall, taking deep breaths as he realises that shit, he’s a lot fucking drunker than he thought he was. 

He lets his eyes flutter shut as the room starts to swim a little bit, making his stomach roll, and sags back against the wall, focusing on his breathing - seven in, eleven out, Liam always says to Noel when he’s having a bad trip, or maybe it’s eleven in, seven out? Fuck it, he can’t remember, but he’s breathing, and that’s probably what matters. 

He’s so focused on inhaling, exhaling, in, out, that he doesn’t hear someone come up behind him until they make a small noise of surprise, a tiny gasp, that makes him open his eyes. 

It’s Michael. 

“Oh, fuck,” Calum mutters, and squeezes his eyes shut again. Maybe Michael will be gone when he re-opens them. M aybe this is just a drug-and-lack-of-sleep-induced hallucination. 

Michael’s not gone when Calum opens his eyes. In fact, he’s a little clearer, not so fuzzy around the edges anymore. He’s standing about two feet away, face set in a mask of shock, staring at Calum like he can’t quite believe he’s there. Even in the dim light of the corridor Calum can make out the new lines on his face, concrete evidence of the years without Calum. He’s lived, breathed, aged without Calum, documented in the crow’s feet at his eyes, the way his laughter lines have deepened, and it makes Calum’s stomach lurch, makes bile rise in his throat to see the irrefutable evidence of a life Michael’s led without him. 

“You look old,” he blurts, without meaning to, and Michael blinks at him. There’s a moment of silence, a moment where Calum’s heart skids to the brink of shattering, thinking fuck, this is it, this is fucking it, and then Michael opens his mouth. 

“So do you,” he says, and Calum’s heart shudders to a halt, torn between taking that last step over the edge and giving out altogether. His voice is soft, a little tentative but with an edge of firmness that Calum’s not used to hearing from Michael, the same, familiar Australian accent now a little muted, diluted by southern English. 

They stare at each other for a moment, and Calum blinks hard, trying to focus his eyes and his mind and to wade through the mist of inebriation to find that little part of him that’s sober, the part that’ll tell him how to conduct himself in this first conversation with Michael since 1989 without embarrassing himself. Liam’s weed was a little too strong, though - or maybe it was the coke, because it definitely can’t have been the exorbitantly priced beers - because Calum’s mind stays firmly foggy, no rational thoughts getting through the mist of drugs. Tomorrow, he’ll blame the next words he says on that, he thinks vaguely, as they’re already tumbling off his tongue. 

“You knew,” he says, and it comes out as an accusation. Good, he thinks, a little venomously, a little dazedly. It is an accusation. 

“What?” Michael says, a little defensive. He knows what Calum’s talking about, but he doesn’t want to give it away. Well, Calum thinks spitefully, thank fuck him and his singer aren't on the same page about that.

“You knew,” Calum repeats. He sways a little on the spot, and puts a hand on the wall to steady himself. “Damon said. You knew.” Michael frowns, a little crease between his brows that Calum’s itching to reach up and trace with the pads of his fingers. He clenches his fist against the wall instead, and sees Michael’s eyes flit to it, and then back to his face. 

“Yeah,” Michael says, carefully even. “I knew.” 

“A year.” Calum just wants the confirmation. Say it, he thinks, just in case this brand new Michael’s developed telepathic abilities on top of his confidence and guitar skills. Say you didn’t want to talk to me. 

“Yeah.” Michael says it calmly, coolly, like Calum’s supposed to just take it and feel nothing. Maybe Michael feels nothing, Calum thinks wildly, and the thought almost makes him retch. 

“Why?” 

“Why d’you think?” Michael says. He folds his arms and stares at Calum, more confident than Calum’s ever seen him before, and it makes him feel small, pathetic, drunk.  

“Because I stopped writing.” Michael doesn’t say anything to that, but Calum sees the way his lips twitch in a tiny grimace. 

“Stopped caring about me,” Michael says, and Calum realises it’s supposed to be a correction. 

“No,” he says.

“No?” 

“No.”  

“Did a pretty convincing job of acting like you did.” Michael’s tone is all hard now, diamonds and steel, and it makes Calum flinch a little. Or maybe his words do, Calum’s not quite sure. Or maybe it’s just Michael. 

“Well. Thought I did,” Calum admits, because in fairness, he had. He hadn’t thought about Michael in years, really, had been too busy or too high to let any thoughts of Australia cross his mind, and that had sort of equated to well, I guess I don't care that much anymore, then.

But the fucking state of him now, and the state of him the past three months, should be all the proof Michael could ever want. 

“Right.” Michael’s not convinced. Calum tries a different tack. 

“Who the fuck is Mike?” he says. It makes sense in his head, he thinks, a little drunkenly. I know you, he’s trying to say. Are you still there?

“I am.” 

“You hate being called Mike.” 

“I’m not seventeen anymore.” Michael holds Calum’s gaze with his own hard stare, face carefully blank and guarded, and Calum feels something simultaneously bitter and delicious unfurling in his stomach. He’s not quite sure what Michael’s trying to say with that - I’m not yours anymore, maybe. Calum’s glad he’s drunk enough to pretend he can’t hear it. 

“Why the fuck were you talking to Damon?” Michael asks after a minute, and his tone is still even and calm but he’s given himself away with the question. He doesn’t want Calum to talk to Damon, and he wants to know what was said, and Calum’s stomach flips as he thinks that’s something. There’s a reason he doesn’t want me to talk to Damon. I've just got to find out what that reason is. 

“He talked to me,” Calum says. 

“Why?” 

“Ask him.” Michael’s eyes narrow, but Calum doesn't tear his eyes away, brown searching green. It’s unnerving, he thinks, not to know what’s going on in Michael’s head. It’s unnerving not to know Michael anymore, jars with something deep in his soul, like he should always know Michael and it's wrong like this. 

“Your bandmates are cunts,” Michael says, like he’s testing the waters. “The brothers.” 

“Yeah.” Both pride and guilt swell in Calum’s chest - pride, because those are his fucking best friends, and guilt, because he shouldn’t be talking to Michael. You know where my loyalties lie, he’d said. And they are with his band; he hadn’t been lying, but his loyalties are hidden somewhere in the murky depths of regret and love and unfinished business right now. 

“You don’t care?” 

“They’re my best friends.” Michael raises an eyebrow. 

“For now.” The implication rings loud and clear between them - yeah, until you drop them, just like you dropped me.  

“I’m not seventeen anymore either,” Calum says. I’m better now.  

“Good.” 

They stand in silence for a moment, and Calum shifts his weight from one foot to the other, trying to find a position that he doesn’t feel dizzy and light-headed in, but to no avail. 

“You look drunk,” Michael says. “Thanks,” Calum says, like he doesn’t want to cry. God, he’s too fucking high for this. “I am.” Michael hums, green eyes flitting from Calum’s face to his chest and arms and back again. It’s no different to how girls look at him, how boys look at him - how Noel looks at him, sometimes - but under Michael’s gaze he feels like he’s burning up, like he’s suddenly ten times drunker than he actually is. 

“I liked your set today,” Michael says lowly, like he shouldn’t be saying it. Calum blinks at him. 

“You weren’t there,” he says stupidly. Michael frowns.

“I was,” he says. 

“I didn’t see you,” Calum says, and then feels his eyes widen, because shit. He’s essentially just told Michael he was looking for him. 

“Oh,” Michael says, sounding distant, and Calum thinks he might be sick because Michael knows, knows Calum wanted him to be there. Fuck. Fuck.  

He closes his eyes again, breathes in deeply again, tries to focus on something - anything - that isn’t his churning stomach. 

“Are you alright?” Michael asks, sounding a little curious and a little concerned. 

“Yeah,” Calum manages to get out. 

“You look like you’re going to be sick.”

“Might be.” 

“Oh.” 

Calum sinks to the floor, thinking somewhere in the depths of his mind that sitting on the ground and not throwing up on Michael is better than staying standing but throwing up on Michael, and tries to even out his shaky breathing. In, out, Liam always says, in, out. That’s all you need to do. 

“D’you want some water?” he hears, soft and hesitant, and he cracks open one eye to see Michael crouching at eye-level, looking a little worried and a lot pained, like he doesn’t want to be letting his guard down but just can’t help himself. It makes Calum’s stomach flip, but not unpleasantly. It counterbalances the nausea still swirling in his stomach and throat, settles it a little bit. Fucking typical that Michael's both the poison and the antidote.

“D’you have any?” Calum says, and Michael shakes his head. Calum can’t help the slightly hysterical laugh that bubbles out of him at that, and he puts his head in his hands. 

“What the fuck is this?” he mutters into his fingers, more to himself than to Michael, but he hears a small sigh from his left and knows Michael’s heard anyway. There’s a rustling sound, and then a thump, and Calum’s eyes fly open to see Michael sat next to him, cross-legged, looking a little sad. 

“Water never helped you anyway,” he says, which isn’t at all an answer to what Calum’s just said, but it is, at the same time. I remember you, is what he’s really saying. I remember us. It's a concession, giving Calum something in return for the I was looking for you that his tongue had torn from his heart and offered to Michael. Calum thinks that probably means something, that Michael's admitting he remembers Calum like that, but he's too fucking drunk and high to work it out. 

The words hang between them for a moment, and Calum’s stomach settles a little, and his vision sharpens again. He tries not to think about the fact that Michael's admission  is responsible for the fact that he can focus on Michael now, can see every crease in Michael’s brow, every lash on his eyes, every freckle on his skin. 

“You’re still pretty,” Calum says without thinking, and Michael sits back on his heels, huffing out a laugh that sounds a little surprised. 

“Cheers, mate,” he says, tone unreadable, and stands up again. Calum’s eyes follow him as he goes, tilting his head up to keep his gaze trained on Michael, and Michael stares down at him, making Calum’s heart flutter strangely in his chest as a memory of the last time Michael had been staring down at him from that angle flashes in his mind. He can see it cross Michael’s mind too from the way his lips twist a little, but then it’s gone, and he’s just blinking down at Calum, and holding out a hand. 

Calum looks at it for a moment, looks at the soft, pale skin that doesn’t look at all like it belongs to a fucking guitarist, before his brain registers what Michael’s offering and he reaches out himself with cold, clammy fingers, wrapping his hand around Michael’s. Michael pulls and Calum lets himself be pulled, stumbling to his feet and trying his best not to think about the way Michael’s hand feels against his, like it’s fucking made for him. 

Calum sways for a moment, the room spinning, and he lets go of Michael’s hand to steady himself against the wall, blinking like it’s going to clear his vision. After a few deep breaths, though, it slows down, and Calum feels safe enough to chance looking over at Michael again. He’s still looking at Calum, and now that Calum’s feeling less woozy he can see the glaze of alcohol over his eyes, the glassiness of them, and it makes him feel somewhat more secure. Maybe Michael won’t remember this tomorrow, he thinks, pretending not to notice the edge of wild desperation to the thought. 

They stand in awkward silence for a minute, and then Calum can’t take it anymore, bangs on the door of the toilet, because who the fuck is spending that long in there? 

“Piss off!” he hears someone - Liam, even his drink-and-drug-addled mind can tell - yell. “Some of us are taking fucking drugs in here.” 

“Without me?” Calum yells back. 

“Yeah, fuck off,” Liam shouts, but two seconds later the door clicks open and Liam’s face appears, eyes hooded and pupils blown. 

“Thought you were with the paramedics,” Calum says. Liam blinks at him, and then a second face appears, craning to see over Liam’s shoulder. Noel. 

“We were,” Noel says, grinning toothily. “And now we’re not.” Fucking hell, wasn’t Alan supposed to be keeping an eye on them? Maybe they should have hired a teetotal manager. 

“Well, fucking let me piss, then,” Calum says, making for the door, and Liam steps aside obediently but Noel blocks his path. 

“Give us a kiss,” he says. Calum scoffs, trying to disguise the way his heart’s plummeting, because he can see out of the corner of his eye that Michael’s still fucking there, still standing a few feet away, a little in the shadows, sober enough to realise that making the Gallaghers aware of his presence wouldn’t be a good move. 

“Fuck off,” he says, and tries to shoulder past Noel. The bastard’s stronger than he looks, though, one hand on each side of the doorframe to steady himself. 

“I’ll let you in when you give us a kiss,” he says. 

“I’ll fucking piss on you if you don’t let me in,” Calum counters. Noel just cackles. 

“Don’t you want to kiss your favourite bandmate?” he says, eyes glittering with mirth. Calum scowls at him. 

“Liam, give us a kiss,” he calls. Noel laughs again, bright-eyed and happy, and Liam waltzes over to the door, staggering a little, and presses an exaggerated, sloppy kiss to Calum’s lips. 

“Now let him in, eh?” Liam says imperiously, turning to Noel, and Noel rolls his eyes, but he’s grinning as he steps away from the door. Calum almost trips over himself in his haste to get to the urinal, but, even in his desperate and inebriated state, he can’t help shooting one last look over his shoulder at Michael. He still can’t make his face out, can’t see what he’s thinking, but he hopes that maybe Michael can see what’s going through Calum’s head - sorry, sorry, sorry, even if Calum’s not quite sure what he’s sorry for; the conversation, kissing Liam, the fact he’s getting to piss and Michael isn’t, or everything else. 

“What’s up with you, then?” Noel asks curiously, as Calum rests his forehead against the cool tiles behind the urinal, exhaling shakily. 

“Just drunk,” Calum mutters, closing his eyes. 

“Drunk?” Noel says, a little incredulously. “Off the fucking water they sell here? You'd need about fifty pints. Must be fucking broke, you.” Calum shrugs. 

“Nah,” he hears Liam say from behind him. “‘S the fucking coke, innit? Told you that was quality, didn’t I?” Noel scoffs.

“You wouldn’t know quality coke if it bit you in the arse,” he says derisively. “You’d snort fucking anything.” 

“Aye,” Liam says, “that’s why I know that was quality, that.” 

Calum’s glad for it when they start bickering, voices rising as they start arguing in earnest, because it covers up his unsteady breathing, the way he’s still having to fight back the urge to retch. 

(Privately, he thinks it was neither the coke nor the beer nor even the weed that did it, but Michael.)

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chapter four

[deanie1987]

THE WEDDING POST!!!!!!!

Okay, I have now watched the episode in full like 8 times and it has been absorbed into my bloodstream and I feel stable enough to finally comment on it. For the most part I loved it and it delivered nearly everything that I wanted, even if it was delivered differently than I hoped for/imagined. There were definitely some missed opportunities I thought, but there really was nothing that I outright hated and I was pleasantly surprised for the majority of the episode. Here are some random thoughts as I was watching:

- I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again - Lip chewing gum is hot as fuck

- I knew I was in for a special episode when Ian showed up in a towel followed shortly by Mickey in a towel. They have been hiding Mickey’s thicc sixpack all season and unveiled it here as wedding gift to the viewers.

- Cam’s line reading of “Mickey” when Liam asked who was going to wear white, sweet baby jesus. Why does it always sound so good coming out of his mouth?

- I love all the brother scenes. Carl clipping his toenails, Ian griping and then Carl wiping them on the floor was hilarious. Although considering it was his room, what does Ian care? But I love that he did. Very anal (no pun intended) big brother vibe there. Liam hightailing it out of the room the second Mickey walked in and headed toward Ian was a mood. The shit this poor boy has seen.

- I also loved everyone asking Ian about his meds, especially Carl. That really got to me for some reason, as did everyone giving the reason that it was going to be a stressful day. Like they weren’t asking to be assholes, they were just concerned and wanted him to have a good day. Little did they know how stressful. I liked that Ian didn’t get made, but you could still sense a tiny bit of annoyance.

- My second notice that this would be a different kind of episode was Mickey asking if Ian took his meds and then touching him gently under the chin and saying “good” in a very, very deep and low voice. Um....holy shit that was beyond sexy to me for some reason. Like I almost felt like I was intruding. The way Ian’s eyes were fixed seemingly on his chest/tattoo and then the way Mickey forced him to look up at him.  Wow. Ahem.

- Ian obviously thought it was sexy as fuck too because he yanked him by the hips and grunted and pulled him in for some more caresses. So yeah, this was a lot different than the “hey what’s up bro?” scenes we had been getting. I mean there wasn’t a tongue kiss, but I appreciated it. I also appreciated that Mickey and Ian had no problem not only seeing each other before the wedding but showering together and messing around too. Poor Carl, he needs to take not of Liam’s reaction. 

- Along these sexy lines, there is no way that anyone should find the violent biting/hitting scenes sexy. Like no way that Ian saying “you gonna make me hit you again?” and manhandling Mickey’s wrists to the ground and saying “you done?” in a softer voice while straddling him and then throwing the gun to Carl and telling him to get the cuffs, was sexy. And it definitely wasn’t sexy that Mickey finally calmed down and looked right into Ian’s eyes and nodded. Like, no way, we shouldn’t be romanticizing that shit. Okay? Ok. Ahem. Ha Ha 😅

- I could not survive Kev’s keg boot camp, but I will take his comment about Depeche Mode-loving Gen Xers” as a personal shout out because I put their song “Somebody” at the very top of my Gallavich playlist. It is the cheesiest, sappiest song known to man and my girlfriends and I would play it on repeat and get weepy in high school. And it fits Ian and Mickey perfectly and even out cheeses that Ed Sheeran song. See Gen X can do more than irony.

- Obviously I loved Mickey’s handcuffed speech, but I wish that there had been a reference to that terrible cursed episode in season 3. Not the rape, but the fact that Terry forced Mickey to marry a woman and that it basically ruined their lives and set Ian and Mickey on a destructive course. Nearly everything that they went through started with that terrible day. It was definitely subtly reference and I definitely think that Ian was thinking of it, but I wish it had been stated more clearly.

- I love that Sandy was wiling to go to jail to get Mickey his wedding. I love that Debbie was possibly willing to marry Mickey to get him his wedding as well. I definitely loved all of the Gallaghers rallying around to help.

- The tie scene was beyond cute and this was the kind of scene we have been waiting for and both Cam and Noel delivered. I love how sincere Mickey was in this episode and how straightforward and reverent this conversation was. The kid conversation, Ian telling Mickey exactly what he wants and Mickey revising his statement in response. It was a perfect statement and this scene was so intimate. I truly didn’t think we would get this before the wedding so I’m thrilled that we did.

- Why does everyone keep referencing the combination of Mickey and Ian’s genes? Do they know where babies come from? Have they read too many Mpregs? 

- I loved the shot of them first arriving and the mention of the chairs. Mickey’s “I like how the gold captures the light” made me giddy. Then the long shot of them sort of taking in their surroundings and the impact of the day. The other shot I liked was them at the alter with a bit of the “deer in the headlights” look. You got me John Wells, you sneaky bastard.

- I loved everything about Kevin this episode even if it is beyond tacky to propose at someone else’s wedding.

- I had to mute the Gay Jesus crows singing “We Shall Overcome” because ugh and cringe, but Ian having a cult at his disposal may come in handy someday. I hope he thanked them and let them glory in his presence for a little bit. I also liked that Carl and Geneva were so familiar with one another. Lol.

- All of Ian’s interactions with his siblings were perfect. I wanted but didn’t get a scene of Ian asking Lip to be best man and also a best man speech (or any speech for that matter) but the “soft motherfucker” scene was adorable and very moving. I love that the only person besides Mickey that we have every seen Ian say ILY to was Lip.  That is pretty appropriate and the kisses were sweet too. I, too, am a soft motherfucker and that swell of music to At Last got me. 

- I liked how nervous Mickey was walking down the aisle, and I was happy that Sandy was there for him. But I sort of felt that him walking down the aisle on someone’s arm was a little too “bride” for me and I think I would have preferred to see him walk down the aisle by himself while grinning and walking his patented BDE Mickey walk. But his solemnity and serious was an unexpected choice and I appreciate them going with it.

- FRANK!!!!  Oh my god that’s where my tears started. I was really hoping for a Frank/Ian scene but his tears will have to do. Wow, I just wish that Ian could have seen them. The utter disdain the two have for one another usually makes me laugh, but it felt wrong to me in this episode, at least from Frank’s side, so I was glad that it seemed that Frank’s emotion got the better of him. I definitely think that the spectre of Monica had something to do with it, but it was there.

- SPEAKING OF MONICA...wahhhhh!  My favorite scene I think. It is no surprise that it comes when Ian is watching Frank and is sitting next to Debbie. I”ve already said this before but Debbie was the perfect person for Ian to talk to about this. I love how Ian still calls Monica “mom” and Debbie still called her Monica. And she was right, Monica would have loved everything about that day. Emma Kinney did a remarkable job in that scene, and she looked beautiful. The chemistry of the actors was palpable and it was just so nice to see. I also loved Ian’s slight laugh as he felt himself tearing up and then his choked voice as he said he should dance with his husband. Waahhh. Followed by Debbie’s sweet, sweet smile and then Ian finding Mickey, who had been dancing adorably and looking around for his boy. Then the way that Ian clung to him and collapsed into him, while the perfect and cheesy song played.  WAHHHHH!!!

- Also can we give it for Debbie yet again. Not only did she miss the ceremony in order to save the day, but she missed Franny walking down the aisle.  That is commitment and sacrifice and we appreciate it!

-I had hoped for personal vows, but I am at least glad that they recited them and didn’t just say “I do.” Once again, Mickey’s earnestness and seriousness surprised and delighted me, 

- I loved Ian grabbing Carl on his walk down the aisle. As I mentioned, every scene of Ian and his siblings was character appropriate and I loved this one too.

- Them having 120 people at the wedding was kind of dumb and ridiculous, but I did appreciate how true to life the variety of outfits was at such an event. From ripped jeans to gold lame dresses LOL. 

- That last scene of them was cute too. The hand holding, the nudity, the TATTOO again and Ian’s hand hovering near it. Mickey caressing and pinching Ian’s arm, their TWO rings, the hideous room and their tired, happy, sleepy voices. Perfection. I don’t love how Terry’s murderous rage is somewhat played for laughs, but I admit that I did kind of chuckle at their expressions when they heard the tires screech and then the last shot of them looking at one another while the jaunty music cut in. It was very, very, very much like a rom-com.

So there was a lot to absolutely love this episode, but there were a few missed opportunities as well.  I mentioned the lack of personal vows/family speeches and lack of any significant Frank/Ian interaction, but other than that the only thing that really bothered me was the lack of any Fiona or Mandy mention. That was actually a huge missed statement and it would have been easy to do. I find it more believable that Fiona would miss the wedding than Mandy, but to not mention either of them was a bad move, IMO. I liked Sandy and the role she played, but she doesn’t make me forget Mandy, show. And the lack of Fiona mention just makes me think JW was being petty toward ER.  But beyond that, THEY ARE MARRIED AND HAPPY AND SUPPORTED BY A LOT OF PEOPLE!!!  HALLELUJAH AND PRAISE GAY JESUS!!!

[koganphrancis]

Ernie & Bert Are Planning A Wedding

OR: My thoughts on Episode 11

Everything just hurts.  Let me start with the “previously on” segment.  Yeah, we finally get an Ian/Mickey intro, but it’s just like so many of the other intros-random characters outside yelling at viewers.  Since there’s been little to none intimacy for this couple this season we couldn’t have caught them in bed?  Or in mid-kiss?  Nope.  Ian can be drinking yet another beer tho.  Pretty sure those meds we saw when Sandy grabbed Mickey’s dick all those episodes ago now was Mickey’s gerd medication.  Ian’s clearly not being written as taking medication at all (yet again).  

But as usual, I digress.  The show starts with a somewhat cute reminder of how the Gallavich house is within running distance of the (now torn down in real life, RIP) Milkovich house.  Unfortunately it’s Terry who reminds us.  Ian’s watching Terry screaming up at the house while Mickey’s...off doing something without Ian.  Seriously, whatever the opposite of “joined at the hip” is, that’s what these epic soulmates are this season :( 

Anyway, Mickey walks downstairs and Ian unhelpfully informs him, “Your dad’s here.”  Mickey says yeah and goes out to see Terry.  Ian gives one more peek thru the curtain but must decide that Mickey’s in no danger, since next we see him, Ian’s sitting in the kitchen casually chatting with Lip about something that’ll never happen (Lip moving to Wisconsin).

Outside, Mickey and Terry draw guns on each other while Terry’s just now (?) trying to figure out where Mickey went “wrong” and turned out gay.  Um, I know Terry’s been busy with prison and running his illegal enterprises (whatever they might be), but he’s just now trying to catch up on what he learned literally years ago when he walked in on Ian and Mickey having sex?  

(Gif credit: jackorowan)

The scene at least gives us an iconic Mickey line, “I definitely love one,” but is it too little too late?  It’s enough to send Terry on his way for now, after one last threat.  Mickey calmly goes back inside, says “mornin’” to Ian and Lip, and starts to make himself a bowl of cereal.  I list all that out to stress how non-stressed he seems.  Ian says, “So, how’s your dad?”, and just like the, “Hi, Mr. Milkovich” and “Was Mickey adopted?” conversation Ian had with Terry in S9, so far everything is being written to show how this is just normal family life when it comes to Terry.  But by the next scene the show will want us to buy that something entirely different is going on and I just don’t understand why they can’t find a narrative and stick to it.  In the days since the episode aired, I’ve read so many head canon posts about how understandable it was for Mickey to flip out after seeing Terry, and how that brought all Mickey’s past trauma to the surface and of course it turned him into a groomzilla, but I just can’t agree that that’s what the show either set out to do or accomplished.  Mickey’s been working for Terry, he’s been around him-it’s one of the few things about Mickey’s life the show has shown us since he’s been out of prison.  Everyone in Terry’s world that they’ve shown is perfectly comfortable talking about the fact that yes, some people are in fact gay.  Terry’s peers in prison, Terry’s own relatives-why suddenly in Episode 11 is this “a thing”?  

Anyway, the scene continues after Mickey quips that he doesn’t think Terry will be his best man.  Liam joins the scene and there’s very cute, well executed banter where Ian, Lip, and Mickey tell him they can each forge Frank’s signature.  It’s a tantalizing glimpse of what the season could’ve been if these guys were allowed to all be in scenes together.  

Mainly thanks to Myles’ AV Club review, I know that for whatever reason, the show decided to do a one month time jump between the engagement episode and this one.  WTF?  It doesn’t even make sense-it means somewhere that woman holding Frank captive was feeding him and clothing and bathing him?  That Liam hasn’t been to school in a month because Frank hasn’t been around to sign him in?  As if that wouldn’t have had CPS showing up at the Gallagher house (that has to be red flagged in the system by now)?  Debbie being toyed with by that mother and daughter has been going on for weeks at this point?  The only thing the time jump did that I care about was rob us of seeing Mickey and Ian telling people they were engaged.  We deserved a little scene of Ian and Lip talking about it at least-give Lip the opportunity to ask Ian what changed his mind about marriage and give the audience the opportunity to hear some sort of explanation.  “I heard some guy I know Mickey didn’t care about putting him down and I just knew then and there I had to marry him,” doesn’t quite cut it.  

But so much for what should have been.  In the next scene, Mickey slaps down a pile of wedding magazines and drops the news on Ian (as he hands him a beer) that they’re going to have a “wedding wedding”.  Mickey needs a headcount for the reception venue-clearly money is no problem, so working for Terry all those intervening weeks must’ve been lucrative.  

In a rare instance of the show actually cluing us in on someone’s thought process, Mickey says flat out that he now wants a “real” wedding because his fuckhead dad threatened to murder him-again-cuz he’s gay.  So, see?  AGAIN.  What’s different this time?  It’s like the show NEEDS there to be a reason, a mitigating circumstance, for two men to want to get married.  They can’t just let Mickey and Ian have the natural progression of their relationship leading to a lifetime together.  It’s so offensive.  And again, for viewers that have been invested in this relationship for so long, it just hurts.  Mickey’s doing this as a big FU to his father rather than as a big ILY to Ian.  That’s OOC for sure-Mickey’s always put loving Ian first in his life.  

In planning the wedding, Noel does get some great moments.  Talking about the “little shits that light the candles”, and his choice of wedding song, and confronting the homophobic old bitch at the florist.  And the literal scenery chewing he does at the wedding chairs rental place was, I’m sure, quite fun for Noel as an actor.  BUT-the only moment we get where Ian seems on board/with Mickey in any of it is at the florist before the bitch sets Mickey off.  Otherwise Ian’s like a casual bystander in all this-and that’s just not in character either.  Why can’t they both be into making these decisions?  Why, even if Ian truly couldn’t give a shit about seeing Mickey happy about these little details-why can’t they at least be affectionate with each other?  I don’t expect Schitt’s Creek level adoring looks, but I do expect Gallavich level.  Ian used to look at Mickey with awe even when Mickey was being his Mickey-est.  Why aren’t they allowed to show that anymore?  

I will say, I did love the stargazer lily thing-altho it’s all the more frustrating to realize this week’s writer must’ve watched at least the fan compilation video of Gallavich to know that detail was a very sweet throw back-why couldn’t they also write some kisses and hand holding in too?  But anyway, “Beyond Blue” and Mickey looking touched when Ian said he liked the blue ones-we needed a lot more moments like that this season.  Why everything’s getting crammed into these final, rushed episodes is beyond me.  

Now I have to bitch again about what was wrong with the florist scene.  Yes, I’m sure there are plenty of people like that woman in the world.  But there are also plenty who don’t oppose same sex marriage.  Why is it always such a big deal on Shameless?  Either everything’s gay or nothing is.  They’ve given us an entire squad of fire fighters who are gay.  Debbie clearly can’t walk five feet in any direction since the show decided she was gay without her finding a woman DTF her.  Ian had-what was the ridiculous number?-7 million Instagram followers when he was Gay Jesus.  So ONE homophobic old lady in a flower shop means disaster?  Ian knows how to look shit up on his phone, he proved that looking for wedding statistics.  You mean to tell me he doesn’t know how to check Yelp reviews to somehow find a gay-friendly florist in a city the size of Chicago?  

Mickey did get a couple of funny lines in that scene (killed me when he called her Grandma), but, again the show is throwing too much in the blender.  Is the scene supposed to be that funny?  If Mickey is dealing with past trauma, this is just adding to it.  And Ian, who is supposed to know Mickey better than anyone (including the viewer) isn’t acting worried about him, he’s acting like he’s being dragged all these places against his will.  So where’s the comedy in that?

Next there’s a scene of Mickey walking down the sidewalk and glorious natural light, looking like he’s glowing.  It immediately gets ruined by Ian stopping in front of a store window full of bride mannequins and looking at them and then after Mickey, with the visual implication strongly suggesting that Mickey’s the “woman” in their relationship which is so outdated in 2020 that the show and the network should have to pay a fine.  

Then we get the chairs meltdown, which gives us the truest line, “Why does everything always have to SUCK?”  You’re singing our song, Mickey.  Then the show proves that point for the millionth time by having Mickey call the chairs guy the R word-twice. 

In the next scene, Mickey’s called in the always reliable important character of Mand..um, Sandy because Ian’s of no use to him.  WTF?  Mickey is still talking up grandiose wedding plans and Ian’s still trying to figure it all out.  He tries to ask, “This is still about Terry, right?  You don’t give a shit about weddings...” Mickey interrupts him to ask where his ring is.  Ian has to stop and think and realizes he must’ve left it on the sink.  He runs off before Mickey can tear him a new one.  Mickey throws his pen down and says to Sandy, “I can’t even.”  Sandy replies, “I can see why you called,” but on Twitter fans have pointed out her lips appear to be saying, “Is he even into this at all?”  WHICH IS ANOTHER THING.  After all Ian’s marriage issues, why is Mickey bulldozing ahead and not noticing what Ian seems to be feeling AT ALL.  (Which appears to be that he’s once again regretting this whole marriage thing.)  Why does the show make the two of them so blind to each other’s feelings now?  WHY?  Now that Lip’s living in the RV, do they even share a room anymore?  They act like they never, ever talk now.  There is such a disconnect hanging over the short time they are shown together in every episode.  Not to mention they’ve been desexualized to the point of being a couple of Ken dolls.  John Wells must be so thrilled he doesn’t have to sit thru dailies of them physically touching anymore.  I’m willing to believe he hired someone to Jeff Giloolly Cam’s leg so he could have Mickey and Ian get engaged and married without any love scenes at this point.

In the last scene, Ian and Mickey are at The Alibi and Ian’s (having a beer) making one last attempt to simplify the wedding.  After another “it depends who’s the bride and who’s the groom” eye-rolling moment, Ian asks, “Can’t we just be Ian and Mickey?”  I guess not, when it comes to this show.  In the past Ian would’ve loved Mickey’s tension away for him-letting Mickey find his release in multiple orgasms, not in wedding planning.  Now all he can do is hire some guy with a guitar to show up at the bar and sing Mickey’s wedding song-and “sing” is a very generous term here.  Props to the show for not having an amazing singer just show up out of the blue, but, for the love of my bleeding ears, couldn’t they have found less of a screecher?  

Mickey is, at first, freaked out by this guitar playing weirdo coming near his booth, but when he recognizes the song he asks, “How the fuck did you know that?”  The guitarist replies, “Little bird told me” indicating Ian, and then unfortunately goes back to the song and soon finds himself way out of his range.  Mickey gives Ian a soft look, Ian gives Mickey one of the smiles he only ever has for Mickey, and Silver Tree becomes JW’s favorite director ever by not even letting us see them holding each other’s hands-that’s below the camera line.  For all we can prove, maybe Ian and Mickey were just reaching for the salt shaker at the same time.  Personally, I would’ve ended the episode with Ian and Mickey metaphorically and literally getting on the same page-they go back to the house, their double bed is covered in Mickey’s wedding magazines and color swatches and seating charts and whatever other wedding prep detritus.  Ian, seeing it all laid out like that says softly, “Are you really doing all this for Terry?” and Mickey says, “Course not, it’s all for us.  We deserve it.”  Then they flop down on the bed together and get to kissing, right on top of it all.  

But no, can’t have them intimate or even on the same side of a booth.  So, you’d think that happy-ish ending we did get means Mickey’s out of his Terry-induced panic, but scenes and stills for the season finale will disabuse you of that hope.  

My final thought is: I’m wondering how much, if any, of these wedding details we’ll see.  The show is too cheap now to spend money on a church wedding with those gorgeous stargazer lilies and the little shits that light the candles.  Plus why would you have Living On A Prayer sung again when you used it in this episode?  Will one of them-or both of them-walk down an aisle?  They’ve already got their rings and have been wearing them-I don’t see them wearing multiple rings each.  If the show had any guts at all, it’d have them exchange cock rings at the ceremony ;P  Will we even get to see the wedding part or will they go straight to some sort of brawl/reception?  And, sadly, I’ve felt from the first time I saw pictures of them driving off in the Mercedes that we’re not going to see them get to consummate the marriage.  I hope I’m wrong about all of it, but I won’t be surprised to be let down utterly-either by what they don’t or what they do show :(  See ya on the other side!

[martakepite]

Music Talks Tonight

*Here’s a piece from a larger project I’m working on. Would really appreciate some feedback on this.*

Oasis have a song called “Talk Tonight”. It was the first song that Noel Gallagher sang by himself, letting people know that both Gallagher brothers have amazing voices. But that’s not the reason, why that song is so special. It was the song Noel wrote after the first huge fight with his brother.

The story goes, that after one of the band’s shows that went really badly, Noel had had enough of the industry, the band and his brother. They were touring in America at the time and he just went across the country to get away from it all. He ended up staying with a girl, whose name he didn’t even know and couldn’t remember later on, but they talked, listened to music, went to a park to clear his head, and eventually she talked him into going back to his band and keep the Oasis going. This time, he did, but he also wrote a song about those talks and it was “Talk Tonight”.

Julie thought it was a beautiful story. It made her sad and happy at the same time. She wanted to have someone who would talk to her at nights. Instead she only had her trustworthy Brain FM, and ever since Sam had appeared on it, she was looking for ways to shut it up.

Julie slept in her bed and listened to Noel singing about a girl, who “saved his life”. It probably was Julie’s favourite song on her “TUNES” playlist. She had read stories about this song, listened to interviews with Noel speaking about it, and, although it seemed like a true love story, she had one big problem with it: why didn’t he look for her later?

If you listen to any of his interviews, where he talks about this song, he claims that he still doesn’t know her name and that he was trying to look for her not long after he reunited with Oasis after their first “break-up”, but he couldn’t.

But you knew where she lived! Julie thought. Just go back there, knock on her door, ask her name, say thank you for everything she did and then marry that girl. For fuck’s sake, relationships shouldn’t be so complicated!

But then again, what did Julie know about relationships, and, more honestly, didn’t the song perfectly describe her own love life in the end?

Guys come in her life without even noticing her, most of them not knowing her name. She just always sort of admires them from a safe distance, and if she tries to get closer, they talk to her for a while and then leave, never coming back again. Only years later she hears that there’s a guy talking about her, saying how he once had this amazing conversation with this girl he can’t remember.

Noel finished his song and a voice, accompanied by cheers of a crowd, said: “Martha, it’s only love.” It was Brian Adams starting his song “It’s Only Love” in one of the live versions of the song, recorded at Bare Bones. Julie didn’t know who this Martha was that Brian talked about, but she imagined, that if her name would be Martha and she would listen to this song, she would most likely always respond with: “Fuck you, Brian!”

What did Brian Adams really know about love? How can you say “only love” as if it was something so simple and casual as brushing your teeth or making a morning coffee? If love really would be like coffee, it would be like the cup of coffee that tastes the best when someone else makes it, while thinking about how you will drink it and hoping that you would enjoy it. It’s fair to say, that every person can make coffee for themselves that they will definitely like. But it will always taste better, if that other person made it. And the reason for that is as simple and easy, as saying “only love”, because it’s made with nothing BUT love. But since Julie didn’t have anyone who makes her coffees for her, she just drank the black, bitter bean water and thought: “Fuck you, Brian, you have it easy!”

Her hand reached out for her phone and the game of “Shuffling until I find that one specific song” had started.

Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb”? – Don’t think so! Supergrass’ “Alright”? – Not me. The Black Keys’ “Lonely Boy”? – Only a lonely girl here. The Verve’s “The Drugs Don’t Work”? – Love it, but too depressive. The Proclaimers’ “Let’s Get Married”? – To who? The Verve’s “Love Is Noise”? – To me it pretty much sounds like silence. KISS’ “I Was Made For Loving You”? – Too bad, nobody’s made for loving me back. Jet’s “Are You Gonna Be My Girl”? – I’m trying to, you’re not letting me! Ramones’ “I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend”? – Said no one ever. The Smiths’ “Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now”? – Does it? The Rolling Stones’ “This Place Is Empty”? – Said Mick Jagger walking into my heart. Ron Gallo’s “Young Lady, You’re Scaring Me”? – You and everyone else probably. The Clash’s “Straight To Hell”? – Is where I’ll be going after I die. Oasis’ “Stop Crying Your Heart Out”? – Don’t tell me what to do! Ozzy Osbourne’s “Crazy Train”? – Is the thing I’m riding. David Bowie’s “Be My Wife”? – I wish. The Rolling Stones’ “Fool To Cry”? – No need to call names. Counting Crows’ “Accidentally In Love”? – The story of my fucking life. Cheap Trick’s “I Want You To Want Me”? – The story of my life, vol. 2. The Cure’s “Friday I’m In Love”? – It’s Monday. The Beatles’ “Martha My Dear”? – If Martha can’t remember guys like you, she doesn’t deserve you. Moby’s “When It’s Cold I’d Like To Die”? – Not tonight, Moby, I’m not that depressed. Stereophonics’ “I Wanna Get Lost With You” – No… Actually, you know what? This can stay.

You were running around in my brain, Then you sent me a message, It said… I wanna get lost with you, It’s the only thing I wanna do, Get out of my mind with you, So come on over.

The acoustic version of this song is so beautiful, every time Julie heard it, she made a promise to herself to learn it on the guitar. She didn’t know how to play the guitar, but nine years of musical education should give her some leverage to learn it. She was also determined to learn Oasis’ “Wonderwall”, because she wanted to live up to the meme, that read: “There’s always that one wanker at a party: Anyway, here’s Wonderwall.”

Without giving it any thought, Julie started crying. She didn’t really understand why, but sometimes her tears just had their own way of being. Maybe it wasn’t just one thing that got to her. Maybe it was one of those times when a lot of things just had piled up and finally caused her to burst.

She was thinking of Sam, her mother, how Peter and Monika – her Czech friends – didn’t have time for her lately, how she felt like she wasn’t doing enough with her life, how her colleague had called her boring – he was just kidding around, but what he didn’t know was that he was actually right about it; and a part of her also cried, because Noel Gallagher never went back to the nameless girl, who made him go back to his brother and bandmates and keep going till Oasis became one of the most iconic rock bands in the music history. She cried because Noel Gallagher didn’t care or try hard enough to reunite with this girl, and somehow it felt, like, all her life she had only talked to bunch of Noel Gallaghers.

[usashirtstoday]

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The quality t-shirts for young people to walk around the city shirt and the comedian talked about how his Universal movie was pushed, ruining old movies at home, and why ‘Billy on the Street’ was the perfect isolation program. With production stalling in the face of the novel coronavirus, the entertainment industry has found itself navigating unexplored territory. To give a better sense of how, Hollywood Reporter is running a series that regularly focuses on how writers, actors, directors, executives, and others are living and working in this time of challenge.

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Billy Eichner, known as Billy’s street host, maybe a New Yorker throughout, but he is spending time in isolation in his home in Los Angeles, where he lives alone. To keep his spirits up, he forced himself to exercise. “I guess one of LA’s advantages, unlike New York City, is that no one really walks around anyway, even under normal circumstances – my neighborhood is like a town. The quality t-shirts for young people to walk around the city shirt and the ghost, so I wore a mask and I went for a run, “Comedian, who recommends it to anyone who feels a bit stuck right now. Here, he talks to THR about his new normal.

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The quality t-shirts for young people to walk around the city shirt! When the first course was announced, I only knew that I was in my apartment and tried to take advantage of it by helping with any type of fundraising event I was asked to attend – and then. For the rest of the time, just use it as a time to connect with friends, watch movies, and relax in the way that everyone else with the relaxing privilege is currently trying to do. And then over the past few days, amid this fact that has been going on for a while and also reading articles for the past 48 hours talking about how much time it actually takes to get things back, I begin to deal with the perception that we can be in this position for months and months – and maybe longer.

[comedy-cookie]

TMI tag tagged by @obsessivenostalgicbaby​ :)

1. what are you wearing?

Black jeggings and a burgundy roll neck jumper

2. have you ever been in love?

No

3. have you ever had a terrible break up?

No

4. how tall are you?

Last time I checked 5ft 4in

5. how much do you weigh?

Somewhere between 8 and 9 and a 1/2 stone

6. any tattoos?

No

7. any piercings?

I have my ears pierced, one on each ear.

8. otp?

Bender and Claire from The Breakfast Club

9. what is your favorite show?

The Comic Strip Presents is my favourite thing to watch, but on TV currently, Victoria, Britain’s Got More Talent, Cat’s does Countdown and I like my soaps, Emmerdale and Eastenders.

10. who are your favorite bands?

Queen, The Beatles, Blondie, Oasis, Noel Gallagher's High Flying Birds, Wham!, The 1975, I could go on...

11. something you miss?

I miss the routine of going to school, now I feel I have too much time on my hands. Being a kid and playing with my cousins, now a rarely see them.

12. favorite song?

Strawberry Fields by The Beatles, Cloudbusting by Kate Bush, Don’t You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds, Pure Shores by All Saints

13. how old are you?

21

14. zodiac sign?

Sagittarius

15. quality you look for in a partner?

A good listener, and has to make me laugh

16. what is your favorite quote?

It’s not my favourite but one of my favourites: “Darling, don’t ever be too shy to dance your heart out.” - Audrey Hepburn from the film Funny Face

17. who is your favorite actor?

Rik Mayall and David Jason

18. favorite color?

Lilac

19. loud music or soft?

Soft, in my opinion it has more feeling in it.

20. where do you go when you’re sad?

I either sit with my dog, or on the sofa, watching TV to try take my mind away.

21. how long does it take you to shower?

About 20 minutes

22. how long does it take you to get ready in the morning?

Probably just under an hour

23. have you ever been in a physical fight?

No, I’d lose, I’m weak :D

24. turn on’s?

Nice eyes (preferably blue), with a nice smile to match. Caring, understanding. Suits!, beards (like so-called designer stubble), confidence (because I’m not, I couldn’t be with someone who is shy like me, we’d never talk)

25. turn off’s?

Someone who never admits when they’ve done wrong, controlling, lazy, dirty finger nails, dirty shoes  

26. the reason I joined Tumblr?

Because I was obsessed with Russell Howard and found blogs dedicated to him.

27. what are your fears?

Failing, being rejected, being alone, snakes, spiders (big ones), job interviews (I hate job interviews), the dark

28. last thing that made you cry?

My great aunties funeral the other day

29. last time you said you loved someone?

This morning to my dog

30. meaning behind your Tumblr name?

I was trying to relate it to comedy and I thought cookie sounded kind of cute so it’s stuck. To be honest I’m not that keen on it.

31. last book you read?

Oh Dear Silvia by Dawn French

32. the book you’re currently reading?

Keep Smiling Through: My Wartime Story by Dame Vera Lynn and Virginia Lewis-Jones

33. last show you watched?

The Wright Stuff

34. last person you talked to?

My Mum

35. the relationship between you and the last person you texted?

The last person I texted was my Mum

36. what is your favorite food?

Ice cream and cake

37. place you want to visit?

The countryside so somewhere like Cornwall or Dorset, and Berlin in Germany

38. last place you were?

Front room

39. do you have a crush?

On numerous famous people but not currently on anyone I actually know

40. last time you kissed someone?

I kissed my mum goodbye this morning if that counts

41. last time you were insulted?

The other day when my dad told me to fuck off

42. favorite flavor of sweet?

Vanilla

43. what instruments do you play?

I don’t but I’d love to play the piano

44. favorite piece of jewelry?

A silver necklace that is engraved with my dog’s paw print

45. last sport you played?

I had my last dance lesson about 2 weeks ago, if that counts.

46. last song you sang?

Everything She Wants by Wham!

47. favorite pick up line?

“I’d never play hide and seek with you because someone like you is impossible to find” so cheesy but cute.  

48. have you ever used it?

No!

49. last time you hung out with anyone?

Last week, but it was more studying than hanging out

50. who should answer these questions next? @utterutterbastard, @kelseysaltysoftpunkbastard89, @heinzpilsnerbloody, @notoriousjohntaylor​, @marmalade-skeleton-gem​, @mr-flibble-says​

[kurkovab]

MY MEDIA INTERVIEW

One of my first-semester assessments was a media interview. We were given four scenarios and two questions to each one. Our instructions were simple: research each scenario and prepare for a five-minute interview. Needless to say, everyone was very nervous about this.

Scenario I. – TIMING AT AN EVENT

"The headlining act at your show on Friday night went on stage at 10.45 pm, more than 90 minutes later than advertised. This caused problems for the audience, many of whom had to leave before the end of the show in order to catch public transport."

For this, I started with finding similar cases that happened in real life. I was surprised with how many there were. So many artists from Madonna to Justin Bieber or Guns and Roses came late on stage for various reasons. One of the funniest things I read while preparing for this media interview was the reason why Axl Rose (Guns and Roses) once came late on stage. He was watching Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That was his reason. "Axl's attention was 100% on the movie and couldn't be bothered." (Young, 2015)

The first question asked about financially compensating fans who missed their transport and had to pay for a taxi to get home. For that, I researched whether music venues/event organizers had any responsibility to compensate the fans. I found out that there is no obligation from them as long as they don't state it online or anywhere else before the concert. (Of course, if a show is canceled they have to compensate the fans somehow.) I also found out that O2 was compensating fans on case by case basis, meaning that if anyone complained straight to them, they compensated them how they thought appropriate. That is what I mainly used as my answer.  

The second question was if I was aware of the curfew at the venue. For this, I started by researching curfews in general. I found out that if an artist goes over the curfew, he has to pay a fine. There has also been cases of artist's music and electricity being cut off due to going over curfew. After that I had to decide which approach I was going to have – do I claim that I didn't know about the curfew or do I say that I knew. After doing a bit more research on this topic I found out that curfews are usually stated in the Health and Safety regulations of each venue. So I decided to say that I did know about it.

With this being the scenario I ended up talking about I was given 2 more questions in the interview. The third question was about venue legislation and if venues are obligated to compensate fans. To answer this I partly used what I researched for the first question. I also said some ways fans could be compensated in other than financial ways (free merch, another concert).

The fourth (and last) question was if I wanted to add something to the topic. Unfortunately, I felt like I said everything that I researched for and didn't add anything. But now I'm realizing that there are many things I could have added. I could have said anything from the reason the artist didn't go on stage to the reason the venue has to have a curfew or I could have also mentioned the entertainment licenses every venue needs.

SCENARIO II. – SPONSORSHIP

"You are running a new festival in Lincolnshire this Summer and have agreed on a sponsorship deal with BP. This is a new venture for them and they are underwriting all of the costs for your event. However, local environmental groups are unhappy with BP's involvement."

I started my research to this question with finding out as much as I could about sponsorships. I tried to find out how it works, what are the benefits to each side and some famous cases where sponsorships worked well. After that, I researched BP as a company. In my initial research, I found the answers to the first question we were given. We were asked what the value of having a sponsor involved with our event is to us.

The second question was about BP being linked to environmental damage cases and if they are appropriate partners for our event. For this, I looked a lot more into BP's history and relationship with the environment. I found out that BP really is linked to so many high profile cases of environmental damage and so I started looking into what BP does to prevent causing, even more, environmental harm. I found out about their water cleanup projects. About their venture into reducing greenhouse gasses and their huge financial support of solar and wind technologies.

I also looked into reasons why festivals are not always environmentally friendly and how event organizers are trying to change that. I also found a lot of information about how we (festival goers) could prevent harming the nature while at festivals.

SCENARIO III. - DRUGS

"The residents whose homes overlook your venue have complained to the police that groups of youths are gathering behind your venue and they believe that drug deals and drug use are taking place. Syringes have been found in the car park during the daytime."

I thought this would be my favorite scenario because I thought there must be so many things online about it that it will be very easy. But as I started my research I found out that it is actually my least favorite scenario. It was hard for me to find a lot of things so that I wouldn't repeat my answers multiple times.

My first instinct was to research how people are trying to stop drug use and dealing at festivals and in music venues. I found a lot of articles and blog posts about the issue of drug use at festivals, overdoses, and deaths from drugs. I also found a lot of info about a "harm reduction" approach (companies giving out drug testing kits, water, and leaflets to try and make sure if people are taking drugs they are as safe as possible) which I thought was very interesting.  I also tried to find any legislations regarding drug use in music venues.

The first question was if I have taken any advice from anyone regarding this issue. I answered this by taking advice from the police regarding CCTV cameras and enforcing security around the venue. The second question was if I was aware of the problem with drug dealing at my venue. To which I answered by saying that I am aware and that we are enforcing the security and searching everyone upon the arrival to the venue. I also researched how music venues deal with drug use and what approaches they have towards it.

SCENARIO IV. – BIG MOUTH

"The artist you manage made a statement from the stage at last night's show where he stated that the new Pope was ‘probably' aware of child abuse by priests in his own country. That has been picked up by the media who now want to question your artist about that statement."

The fourth (and last) scenario was the one that I prepared most for. I started by watching the whole documentary about a similar thing that happened to the Dixie Chicks (one of the girls said that they are ashamed that the American president is from their state). The documentary was helpful because it showed how they dealt with the statement immediately after it happened. I have also researched celebrities such as Noel Gallagher who has the reputation of saying what he wanted and didn't care about the consequences. I watched an interview of Sinéad O'Connor who said a very similar thing on SNL stage once. That didn't really help me as much as I thought it would, even if it was on the topic of the Pope. I then tried to find information about the alleged child abuse by catholic priests in the USA and about how the Church reacted to the accusation. I then looked into the censorship of artists and found out that many managers/managements censor their artists' social media. With all of that information, I managed to answer both questions we were given beforehand.

The first question was if the artist apologized for what he said. I answered that by saying that not yet. I, as his manager, did apologize to public saying that he will issue a statement soon enough and that he is ready to face the consequences of his actions.

The second question was if the artist believes that the Pope knew of the abuse. I decided to say that I don't know. But that the matter is very close to the artist's heart. In my answer, I also included that there is a lot of coverage on the issue online and not all of it is true. And that the artist could have read something before the show that he just felt the need to share.

Overall I was quite surprised with how the interview went. I was so scared of it and I thought I didn't research enough. The thing that slightly helped me was doing research and practicing the interview with my friends. I don't know if I am 100% happy with my performance of the day but I can't say that I did a bad job. I feel like I answered the questions coherently and I also tried to come across as confident as possible. As I already said there were things I wish I said and I am sure there is plenty of space for me to improve.

[koganphrancis]

WE ARE FINALLY, TRULY CAMLESS!

Season 9 Episode 6 Recap

First and foremost, I want to single out Noel Fisher for being a truly class act and returning to this demon show to give fans what happiness he could-the ONLY happiness a lot of fans have found here, myself included, in a very long time.

Next a serious piece of appreciation to Cameron Monaghan.  I know he worked hard on what little they gave him to do in the past few years, and I’m thankful he had Gotham to work on to actually use his talent while mired down in the stinky swamp this show has become.  In another actor’s hands, I don’t know that Gallavich would’ve been as captivating as it was-without Noel I know it wouldn’t have been, but Cam does deserve credit for bringing the other half of the couple to life-when they were on screen together, they had an undeniable magic happening.

Finally to any of the “fans” that are thinking or posting that we got this actually pretty shitty prison endgame because people pestered the show producers, writers, and actors too much to “bring Mickey back” may I please direct you to watch the early episode (I believe it was in Season 1, but certainly no later than S2) where Lip tells Ian prison must be a gay man’s dream with all the tattoos and unlimited sex partners.  THAT is John Wells’ perception of gay men and it has been since long before he even thought of breaking Ian and Mickey up, let alone bringing Mickey back.  

Personally I’m supremely disappointed this gay couple, like so many others, did not get a free and truly happy ending in canon, even though my friends know I predicted this could very well be all we got in the end.  FFS it’s the year twenty gayteen-couldn’t ONE iconic gay couple be given a nice, normal happy ending?  John Wells is a fucking dinosaur.  He needs to go to a sensitivity training camp run by Dan Levy, Emily Andras, and Ryan Murphy.  

Anyway-my last recap (baring a miracle) of this shit show is under the cut

(screen cap credit: justmikhailothings)

This episode was brought to us by White Castle.  I’d like to think they gave every dime they got from them to pay Noel, but I’m sure it went to the other “big name” guest stars.

Also the show was (disappointingly) written by Nancy “Ratfucker” Pimental, so you know it’s gonna be bad.

The show begins with Ian putting his stuff away up in the attic and claiming he wants to eat a shitload of White Castle.  Sure, whatever.  Everyone is trying to offer ideas of what they should all do on his last day of freedom, but suddenly THIS Ian is talking and making decisions for himself.  WHERE HAS HE BEEN THE PAST 4 SEASONS?  He only appears when Mickey’s about...

Debbie offers to bring him to a gay bar to “get laid” (flashing back to Monica in S3, ugh-it was a bad idea then, it’s a bad idea now), Ian says, “Pretty sure I’ll get laid a lot in prison.”  He says it with a grim expression, but considering how they end the show/who his cellmate is, he should be so lucky.  

Frank pretty much ignores Ian in the scene, and they certainly don’t interact.  Frank recommends Ian should read James Joyce’s Ulysses in prison, but other than the fact that it’s by an Irish writer and it’s extremely long and dense to get through (aka it’ll take Ian some time to do it), I don’t know if there’s any significance to his suggesting it.  

This scene with just a throwaway send off from Macy seems to be in line with John Wells’ vision to have the series fade away with the characters going about their daily lives rather than end, but I really think both Cam and WHM were screwed out of not having a final scene together with just the two of them.  Their comedy timing was always the best out of Macy and all the Gallagher kids.  The lack of respect is just astounding-especially since the show wasted so much time on rando actors/characters we’re never going to see again.

The rest of Frank’s story this week takes place with Liam in tow again and it’s just dumb and boring.

The next scene shows Fiona and Bored looking at an apartment-they’re going to move in together (why?  And when was this decided?  Not that I care, but they could’ve cut a scene of them bickering to show a scene where they arrived at a decision together for once).  It makes absolutely no sense-they have Fiona’s whole place to themselves, why waste $3000 a month living in some other apartment all to themselves?  Just because it has two bathrooms?  Do they shit that much?

And then, ooh, bad news for Fiona-her business partners require her to kick in another 25 grand or their investment will be dead in the water.  I still don’t know how she went from having $50K to invest to $100K, so this new twist is just more bullshit that I can’t care about.  

Then there’s a scene where we have to see Carl’s new girlfriend’s head in Ian’s lap.  WTF.  We need to see Mickey’s head there-or better yet, Ian using Mickey’s perfect thighs as a pillow.  

There’s a couple of boring, unfunny bits of the nun and then the priest (is it supposed to be hilarious that the dad from Full House is spewing out sex scenario names Nancy must’ve googled?) from Kev and Vee’s kids’ preschool with a dildo.  Seriously, Nance, not even close to funny, probably time to put yourself out to pasture, old girl.  This show has used dildos as a sight gag so many times at this point there’s just nothing more to do with them except maybe shove them up the writers’ asses.

Lip’s storyline this week is something out of very, very bad fan fiction: A movie star comes to their house!  Cuz, that happens, okay?  I’m sure studios and billion dollar make up companies don’t run any kind of background check on people they hire to babysit their clients-why would they?  It’s not like a crazed fan would rape/maim/kill the object of their obsession or anything.  ANYONE can be a star minder for one day, surely.  

BORING ALERT: Lip has a couple more running scenes this week, because no one got enough of that last episode.  This week the least they could’ve done was play the Friends theme song over the endless footage where he’s chasing Courtney Cox around on location in Chicago.  

While watching, I was wondering if Courtney’s role was written for her or they just settled for her when Roseanne Barr was suddenly unavailable-the stuff they had her say and do (except for the sprinting) seemed like it was written for a more jaded motherly type-but I’m jumping ahead.  Since we DID get CC, here’s a couple of stray observations.  1. She looks like a rich man’s Emmy Rossum, and 2. was part of the purpose of her storyline to throw shade at Jennifer Aniston?  Her character is named Jen Wagner, and there’s this whole dumb thing where Nancy’s trying to make, “Face it, you’re gorgeous” happen as her make up commercials’ tag line-which was reminiscent of Aniston’s ads for L’Oreal that stated “I’m/you’re worth it”.  

Meanwhile, after Fi gets the devastating news that she needs to come up with more money she tries to get out of taking the new apartment with Bored by lying to him and telling him she smelled mold there-HE RESTORES OLD HOUSES/BUILDINGS FOR A LIVING why does Nancy think that was a clever lie for Fiona to come up with?  How stupid is Fi supposed to be?

Back at the Gallaghers, Ian is practicing self defense moves with Carl and Kelly to prevent someone from raping him at knife point.  Everyone’s flipping each other in these scenes and it just felt like they wanted to give their stunt coordinator (and Cam’s double) a lot of (boring) shit to do this week...Ian’s final scenes being played out with this meaningless newbie (who Carl will probably wind up killing or dumping or both) made me very sad.  I guess maybe it was to build dramatic tension for when Ian’s in his cell later and the door slides open before he turns around.  But it’s lame because the scenes play like he’s JUST realizing prison’s rapey.  

Someone knocks at the door-my heart started racing but it wasn’t Mickey.  A guy who wasn’t in the jail scenes tells Ian Joselito sent him.  Ian starts asking him about the guys he was in county lock up with-WHO CARES.  The guy tells him the couple he’s asking about broke up when one of them got out and Nancy throws in a line about long distance relationships not working.  Joselito sent this Antonio guy to give Ian an “in-depth safety orientation about Beckman Correctional” before they send him up.   

Antonio draws Ian a map of the facility and tells him the areas to avoid, then draws a big circle with Mickey Mouse ears on it and tells him that’s “Disneyland” and he can get all good things there-smooth blowies, weed, Snickers...I’m sure ol’ Nancy thought she was being clever, but it just took me out of the scene hearing Antonio say “Disney” at least three times-reminded me of Cam’s publicity stunt “coming out date” there last year.  

Fi comes in and asks if anyone has any money (shades of S4 when Ian gave her his Fairy Tail tips) and that she needs 25 grand.  She’s so stupid.  And she’s honestly that out of touch with the family that she thinks maybe one of them has thousands of dollars they could give her?  (although, if she had only gotten to Lip before he tried to buy Xan...)

Fiona tells Ian, “Don’t forget, I’m driving you to prison tomorrow.”  And that’s the last time they see each other.  So much for family, eh, Nance?

A huge time waster of a scene where Kev and Vee pack up all their sex toys and then another drawn out scene of them throwing the stuff off a bridge happen.  Seriously, these are Cameron’s final moments on this shit show-they couldn’t think of anything for him to do?  This was all screen time Cam and Noel could have had, SHOULD have had!

I have to recap this next bit because it was beyond belief unrealistic-Frank steals a bicycle and goes following Katey Sagal and her ex-husband when they leave the hospital in an Audi-and Frank manages to keep up with them all the way to their nice neighborhood that must be some distance away since it was daylight when they left and dark when they get to their door.  Frank.  On a bicycle.  Kept up.  YOU’RE SUCH A DUMB FUCK, NANCY.

Then there’s more White Castle with the money shot of the food and packaging all over the Gallagher kitchen table.  Courtney gets to make a bulimia joke Nancy wrote into the scene.  Hope you weren’t looking for a Guest Starring Emmy, CC.  

Ian tells a “Carl story” about him puncturing his scrotum (on purpose) with a screwdriver when he was a kid.  Carl must have the most mangled dick and scrotum on the planet between his several botched circumcisions and now this.  Kelly asks him if that’s why he has “that scar”.  You know what, Nance?  While some people do in fact find scars sexy, self inflicted ones on scrotums don’t make that list.  

Debbie comes in, recognizes “the chick from the make up ads” having dinner with them.  I’m sorry-having WHITE CASTLE with them.  Now everyone else sees it too, and Kelly insists that CC says “the” line that Nancy made up to make happen-why do they keep trying to make meaningless things A Thing?  

After dinner, Jen is giving Ian advice about prison: “Find a hobby, it makes time go so much faster.”  Ian asks, “Did you learn that from one of your movies?” and she says she did 48 hours for DUI (hey, just like Ethan, Nancy!).  Jen really needed to get into making TP paper mache to get through 2 days?  

Debbie, desperate to make shit about her says, “Maybe I should go to prison too.  It seems like the only way I’ll find a real relationship.”  WHY are they acting like Ian’s going away on a single’s cruise?

Jen says to Debs that’s not true and Debbie says it is, that she’s unlucky in love (when the fuck has she ever been “in love”?)...”men, women...”  

Jen tells her she’s a special woman (how the fuck does she know?) and that she doesn’t want just anyone, she wants somebody “who gets you” and then for the second time in two weeks an older woman, without determining if Debbie is of age, pulls her into a kiss and the others (Ian, Lip, Carl, Kelly) stare like, “WTF?”  The kiss ends and Debbie looks all amazed like she did after the Mel kiss, but then Jen looks at everyone and says, “I played a lesbian once in a movie.”  And that’s what your research into that role led you to believe lesbians do?  Kiss random teens when they’re whining?  Lip starts the “Face it” line and everyone else chips in with “you’re gorgeous” and everyone laughs and I don’t get why it’s funny or even why it’s supposed to be funny.  Seemed like they were trying to drive home the point that ACTORS only PLAY gay characters, but no matter how convincing they seem, they are in reality the much more “preferable” heterosexuals we can feel safe with and really want them to be.  Fuck you, Shameless.

Also, Courtney/Jen is three times older than Debbie-CC is 54 irl and Debs is forever 17 now, so more Kash vibes for anyone who was missing those.  Also perpetuates the writer room’s fantasy that hot young actors would find middle and past middle age folks suitable sex partners.

Fi goes to Patsy’s Pies and there’s another hysterically lame scene where she opens the office safe and is counting out money-I don’t know how much a place like Patsy’s rakes in (or keeps in their safe) but I would think it would take a long time to accumulate 25K in CASH in this day and age of debit and credit cards.  She abandons that bad idea and winds up going down to the docks and drinking with a Patsy’s employee and reciting all her “mo money” problems while he counters with the facts that his car’s been repossessed and that he and his moms are being evicted from the projects.  Then the guy kisses drunk Fi but she tells him she has a boyfriend and that she has to apologize for lying to him (although, really, the underlying implication is she has to apologizing for never seeing that he’s always right about her being a dumb woman who has no head for business decisions).  

Lip and Ian have their last one on one scene.  After the movie star mom for a day leaves, Ian’s fake smoking on the front steps and Lip joins him.  Lip gives him money for his commissary account and Ian says, “I’ll pay you back,” (but not thank you) and Lip says, “No you won’t,” and I’m at home saying, “Lip, why are you being such a dick?”  Ian goes to hand him the lit cigarette, but pulls it away when Lip reaches for it, but then gives it to him and rubs his shoulder.  I guess this is supposed to signal to us that they’ve said everything that’s needed to be said?  Except we’ve been watching and we know Lip is supposed to be a mouthy motherfucker and in the old days they would’ve had actual conversations that they DID NOT have at all-all their conversations this season have been short and awkward.  Ian’s been made into a fucking mute now, even in these final moments.

Their last scene should’ve been in their room, in their beds-Ian can’t sleep and they talk things out in the dark like the brothers they used to be, but no.  Can’t have that.  

The Fiona drama finding out Bored has a wife, kid, and house and then drunkenly smashing up her leased vehicle is so “bad soap opera” I can’t believe this show is still on the air.  If we were supposed to cry for Fiona as her make up  and fake blood ran down her face after her millionth time of being let down by a guy everyone else could see was an ass from the start-well, we just didn’t.  

Next day the Gallaghers are waiting in the living room for Fiona to take Ian to prison.  Kev steps up to drive them all in his truck.

They get there, get out, and Ian looks around, then says to his family, “All right.  I thought Geneva and some of the others would be here but...”  Thank christ they weren’t!!!  The show/Ian wasted too much time on those randos as it was.  However, credit where credit is due-the show got us all the way through this swan song arc without bringing up Terror once!  But I digress, back to our scene.  Carl says, “You can only count on family, dude.”  I scream BULLSHIT at my TV screen.  

Debbie says, “I’m gonna miss you.” 

Group hug.  Kev says, “Don’t get too raped in there, aight?”  Everybody breaks apart, the moment ruined.  Kev says he doesn’t know what to say in these situations (and clearly no one can improvise but Noel).  Vee says, “How about goodbye and I love you?”  

Kev says, “Goodbye, man. I love you.”  

Ian says, “I love you guys too.”  Wasting it on the wrong fucking people!  All of them-except Kev and Vee who never voiced an opinion-didn’t care if went to prison!  

Ian looks at Lip, walks over to him.  “Hey, uh, thanks for being my brother.”

Lip, still a dick, says, “Never had a choice.”  That’s right, bitch-you didn’t get to choose to play the interesting gay brother, you got cast as the dick know-it-all who never cared about anyone but himself.  

During this entire farewell scene I was sitting at home, strangely unmoved.  I felt nothing watching it, probably because everyone was such an asshole about Ian going to prison all season, plus never caring about what he was doing all last season, plus the fact that none of these characters are the characters we first got to know.  It hasn’t been a case of character growth and development, it’s been character assassination and retconning.  

Ian breaks the hug.  “All right.  See you guys.”  He goes to the gate, shows his papers, gets let in through the gate, waves to his family as he walks past the fence, walks into the prison, slaps his phone (wouldn’t he just give that to Lip to hold on to?  Battery’s gonna be dead by the time he gets out) and watch (probably ditto on the watch battery) onto a counter, strips down so we see one last quick shot of his naked ass (what, no cavity search?  And just how long has it been since we’ve seen his unclothed ass anyway?), and a glimpse of the boob tattoo.  

Next we see him in his yellow “I Love You, Philip Morris” jumpsuit, carrying his bedding through the GP.  He’s attracting “fresh meat” attention and Cam actually does a really good job of looking a bit scared while trying to look tough and “don’t fuck with me”-there’s a vulnerability there, but he’s not overplaying it, and he’s certainly not overplaying the fronting.  His acting was really powerful in that scene.  

They put him in his cell and slam the door and he winces a little at the sound, then he sadly looks at his 6X8 foot (or whatever the dimensions are) room, puts his bedding pile on the top bunk and leaves his hands up there and lets his head hang down.  He hears the door slide open behind him again and gets this, “Ugh, here we go,” expression on his face and turns around to see it’s Mickey standing there.

Me at home: Not what I wanted for end game but I’m still thrilled to see the man, the myth, the legend again anyway.  He’s all beefy still from when he was shooting Fonzo and looking good.  

Ian’s looking at him like he’s not sure he’s really there.

Mickey mildly says, “I rolled on the cartel I was working for and in exchange guess who gets to pick where he gets locked up?”  

Ian’s got tears in his eyes now and says, “Holy fuck.”

“Oh hey-I got bottom,” Mickey says as he points to the lower bunk.  Then he walks past Ian and says, “So...you’re on top,” in a bit of a sing-songy voice. 

He flops down onto the bunk, puts his hand behind his head-and check out the gifs closely, especially on Twitter-in the jumpsuit you can see the outline of his dick and it “twitches in interest” as the fan fics say (don’t know if Noel did it by adjusting his thigh, don’t know if it was intentional or what-but it was a sight to see whatever the case).  He does a lip lick/bite combination, Ian’s face lights up a bit and he gives a smile, he crawls onto the bunk on top of Mickey, pinning his hand down while Mickey smiles softly, they gaze at each other a beat, Ian gently strokes Mickey’s cheek, Mickey wraps his free hand behind Ian’s neck, their noses boop, and Ian sort of gently thrusts into a kiss (it was good-definitely had a bit of a sexual vibe to it), which Mickey expertly returns.  It was a very good kiss, tender and loving, but that scene needed words, needed Ian to say SOMETHING to Mickey-needed an “I’m sorry” and a “thank you for always being here for me” and exchanged I love yous.  Neither of these boys are ever told they’re loved!  JFC, nine seasons and the show couldn’t manage to work mutual ILYs in ONCE?  Fuck you, Shameless.  They didn’t even say each other’s NAMES!  

Mickey (and Noel) looked so fucking good lying there-relaxed and happy, finally back with his love where he’s always belonged.  Even when his eyes are closed, they’re perfect.  The angle the scene was shot at, we see more of Mickey’s microexpressions than Ian’s.  

An after the credits began scene of them lying in an afterglow embrace would’ve been nice.  Mickey could’ve mocked Ian’s hair (give us one last “Fire Crotch” you cowards!) and boob tattoo (or offered to fix that for him while they’re in the joint).  

Mickey’s got new ink on his forearm we never see clearly.  Until and unless we’re told otherwise, I’m saying it’s a big ginger root ;)  Bam.  

On a personal note, and not to rain on anybody’s parade, while I believe 100% in Drunk Crew Guy and what he said, I really don’t see us getting another scene in the finale.  This show’s attention span is down to nothing now, and I can’t see them dragging these guys back out now that they’ve given us (shitty) endgame. I don’t think enough time will have passed to let them out of prison by then, I think those final episodes are going to be about Fiona leaving and not Ian and Mickey getting to Mexico-and I can’t really see Mickey being able to go back there now that he’s crossed a cartel.  My feeling is the show filmed 2 possible endings using Noel to choose from-one ending with them in Mexico and the other being the one we got.  They probably ripped off The Shawshank Redemption too much with a Mexico ending and decided to go with this “original” idea instead.  I’d love nothing more than to be wrong, and to get one more scene of these two free and happy.  Cam’s question mark at the end of his farewell post and the fact that I do trust everything DCG said leaves a spark of hope burning in my heart, but hopefully I can back away from endless online speculation and theories about it over the next 5 months.  If it happens, beautiful.  If it doesn’t, at least we got one last look at Mickey and he’s getting dicked down and the love he’s always deserved, even if I hate the fact they’re locked up and will be in danger whenever they’re not in their cell-not to mention this is the shitty way gay love stories get handled in general, but I must not go down that path again in this recap.  

I want to add that Mickey didn’t sound all that “Mickey” in his scene, but maybe he didn’t need his swagger and was being more “real” to let Ian know he had a choice (as always, Mickey didn’t force himself on Ian-he let him come to him).  And kudos to Cam for not doing his hideous Chicago accent for most of the episode.  

There WAS love and chemistry in that final scene.  Just sucks that we don’t get it anywhere else in the show and they wasted so much time last night that could’ve been given to Cameron and Noel.  

But hey, I’m finally free of recapping ;)  While I’m sorry the Gallavich parts are now over, I’m not sorry I can finally quit missing what we used to get while watching what the show now does.  Mickey and Ian are back together now, so, fuck you, Shameless.  

[koganphrancis]

Sheila Did A New Periscope

I didn’t see it, but a person on Twitter did a good recap-potential spoilers and pointless speculation under the 

https://twitter.com/bucksawank/status/872695886886957056

FML about Terror coming back.  I don’t trust Sheila as far as I could throw her, so her intimating that he and Ian won’t be romantically involved doesn’t reassure me much.  The showrunners seem completely devoid of understanding that they never had anything with Terror to begin with, but then having Ian run off with Mickey without a thought for T boy just makes him a cuck if he takes Ian back.  And I’m sorry, that whiny, bratty, self involved drama junkie of a character is NOT the friend Ian needs in his life.  They should’ve made Sue and Ian friends-given them a bunch of scenes together where they just talk about life in general (and Sue doesn’t say stupid shit like there’s no such thing as platonic relationships)-and not brought Terror back.

The thing about Liam and her indicating there will be a time jump-since the Sims twins got the first script and didn’t get let go till after the table read makes me think the “jump” will just be from Christmas (remember all the pointless decorations around when Monica died?) to summer-I don’t think they have any plans to try to age Liam into a tween or teen, which would also age Carl and Debbie (neither of whom have the acting chops to play that they’re anything but teenagers)-plus that would make Fiona’s tits that much older too and the show can’t have that.  They clearly think their true fanbase is a silent majority of the coveted 19-34 male demographic that tunes in every week hoping to see Emmy topless.  Obviously they don’t think the Mickey/Gallavich fanbase is that big-I guess we’re just dismissed as the most vocal/annoying fans.

Also, they JUST let Ian go from 17 to 21ish, they can’t possibly let him act any older.  If anything, they’re probably going to retcon him back to his teens again.

A time jump to summer also means Carl would be out of school and back in Chicago for a while.

Snore (my new official name for Sierra) “only” being back for 7 episodes means, I hope, that Lip will do something involving her that finally makes him realize he’s hit rock bottom.  Since the show has turned into a really crappy soap opera, they might even kill her off in a way they think will upset the audience and really make us mourn her passing, whereas in reality there will be viewing parties and celebrations if they make that Lip’s wake up call.

“Ian and Carl content”-again, I’m not going to hold my breath.  When does Ian ever get treated like he’s actually part of the family?  They’re probably going to have one conversation or something-and what would it even be about?  “Hey, Ian, didn’t you ever notice Terror looks a lot like me?  WTF, dude?”  

Or they’ll just rewrite the fight Lip and Ian had back in the day about Ian not getting to have anything that wasn’t Lip’s first.  Now he’ll beat up Carl for taking the life he wanted and Carl will be fighting back and saying all the lines Ian had in the Lip fight about being the younger bro.  

And maybe there’s a new character?  Please don’t let it be another loser for Ian to fuck!

And “a touch point between two Gallaghers”-I have no idea what that means, but I REALLY feel like this season is going to revolve around Frank and Fiona to justify their contracts.  And no one cares/wants to see that, grrrr.

The only thing she said about Mickey is she misses him?  That’s the company line this year, obviously.  Emmy talked that talk at that live thing she and Macy did.  They’ve stopped trying to convince us he was “bad” and now just pander to us: “Ooh, we miss him too.  Wasn’t he swell?  Golly!”  

Love that Sheila, who is a producer in addition to a writer, doesn’t seem too clear on whether Ethan will be back for the entire season-or when they start filming (hopefully they’re all just hostages to when Emmy feels like going back to work after her honeymoon, LOL).  And, what about Cameron?  He still has two or three movies and hopefully Gotham Season 4 to shoot and maybe even more projects we don’t even know about in 2017-will he be around for the entire season?  Even if he is, will Ian be given anything decent to do?  Unless Mickey’s coming back, is anyone even going to be able to care what they do to poor Ian next?

tldr: Fans: We want Mickey back!        Noel: I’d love to come back, if walls couldn’t hold Mickey, neither can borders...        The Show: Terror and Snore will be back!  And we’re casting a new Liam (who will probably get more screentime than Ian) and you know what great casting choices we’ve made!  Since we haven’t gotten it right since Nichole Bloom, maybe we’re due for a win!