2016

1 year since Noel's most recent solo album was released. 6 years since Sonny was born. 9 years since Donovan was born. 11 years since Noel tied the knot with Sara after a couple of on and off years of dating and messing about. 15 years since the untimely end of Oasis.

17 years since Liam. Since Noel lost his little brother.

.

1999 had been a promising year, all things considered. Or, perhaps not promising, but hopeful. A chance for a new start. The gigs, the adoration, the fans were still in masse. Both of them struggled with their individual divorces, new relationships, and Liam having a new kid on the way. it all could've been the start of something good. If only they'd let it. But this was Liam and Noel, here. And as far as they'd come? Sometimes success cannot overcome the hubris of man. Or two men and one soul.

The two of them were special, see. Different. Wrong, maybe. Definitely. Brothers with a difficult relationship, only exacerbated by the eyes of the public, and money and fame and drugs. Because they were connected. Intertwined in an inexplicable way. Bound to one another in something more than just love, of any sort. An emotion that exceeds love and hate and revelry and family and lust and understanding. They'd struggled with that tension for years. Even before they'd made it out of Manchester with their dream. It only worsened from then out.

November '99 had been a fight taken too far. The whole band had been in Paris, working on putting together an album for the following year. Standing on the shoulders of giants. A slightly, more experimental electronic type of sound that Noel was directing everyone in. That work went along just fine. It was the downtime that got to them all. After one recording session, everyone decided to attend a French night club. Get proper pissed whole scoping out the local music. An argument escalated into shoving, which quickly grew into a more heated scrape. Bumping into the surrounding crowd until practically the whole venue was in on the action.

All Noel could remember was the heat of the club, and the red in his eyes. All basic animal instinct to fight and battle with no inhibitions- and he knew his brother was much the same. They still went at one another in between stray shots at outsiders. Worse and worse and worse. Liam threw a stool at Noel's legs with no coordination, hard enough to bruise. So Noel responded by knocking his brother over the head with some empty wine bottle which had made its way into his periphery. That was all. Liam had taken more blows to the head than anyone could count, in his time. Plenty from Noel himself. But this one? It downed him. He didn't get up from that like every other scrape of his. It perplexed a drunk Noel's mind, who stood and waited, swaying and being pushed about in the center of all that crowds mess.

Waiting. That bottle had fallen from his hands ages ago, getting trampled and shattered by the crowds feet into nothing. Then the police came to sort out the mischief. Arrest the rowdy and take the injured to hospital. Liam didn't get up, still. Noel couldn't remember much after that, once he himself was taken to hospital, and his brother was taken to the morgue.