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Not many people love their job.
没多少人真正热爱自己的工作。

In fact, it’s one of the things Noel hears the most. I envy my coworker, he’ll hear, or more often I slept with my coworker, or most often, I hate my boss. It seems to be a universal truth that people don’t like the careers they’ve chosen for themselves, feel stuck in a rut, resent the place or the work or the people that occupy the majority of their waking hours. 
事实上，这是诺埃尔最常听到的抱怨之一。有人会说"我嫉妒同事"，更常见的是"我和同事睡了"，而最频繁的莫过于"我恨我的老板"。这似乎成了放之四海皆准的真理——人们总厌恶自己选择的职业，困在窠臼里不得脱身，怨恨那些占据他们大部分清醒时光的地点、工作或同事。

Noel’s never had that problem. He’d chosen to enter the priesthood out of faith, because he believed, and because something stirring deep in his soul had told him to. He’d wanted to listen, to help, to provide the same comfort for people that the Father provided for him from dawn ‘til dusk and a little further, from cradle to grave and then beyond. He’d known it from the very first time he stepped into the confessional as a boy, the first time he’d told the priest all the things weighing down his little mind and felt the pressure lift, the burden lighten as an invisible pair of hands picked up brick after brick labelled I hate my dad and I hate my life and I hate myself off his shoulders; that was his calling, even if he’d strayed from that path for a while. He owed his life to God, and so his life he would give. 

No one else in his family has ever been a great believer. Paul stopped believing the first time their dad beat him so badly he’d almost ended up in hospital, and Liam stopped believing the first time he saw it happen to Noel. Noel doesn’t even know if their mam was ever a believer, because he’d never once seen her take the Eucharist or step foot in a confessional, but she’d herded them all along to church every Sunday like a good Irish Catholic as long as she was able to nonetheless. Paul would grumble and slouch alongside her moodily, and Liam would kick up a fuss and try and squirm out of her grip to run away, but Noel always looked forward to Sundays. It was his few hours of freedom, his few moments of peace, the only time that no hand would come wrapping around his neck to try and choke whatever it could - faith, happiness, life - out of him. 

As time had worn on, Paul and Liam had grown too big for their mam to drag to church, and when they’d moved, their mam had stopped going too. Noel, too, had stopped for a while, too many memories of bruises littered on his skin and desperate thoughts that became bitter with the blood in his mouth as he’d silently cried help me, please, help me, and no help came. The Lord works in mysterious ways, the priest at their new church had said, which Noel had thought was a fucking bullshit response to why did my Dad beat the living fucking daylights out of me, and the more he’d thought about it, the more bitter he’d become. Wasn’t God supposed to be omnibenevolent? Noel wasn’t sure he wanted to worship a being that would stand aside and watch a child get abused like that. 

So he’d gone a little off the rails for a few years. Drugs, sex, alcohol, more drugs (many, many more drugs), and it had filled the void for a while. He barely remembers those years, really, just remembers the elation he’d feel when he’d dulled the constant ache between his lungs and the way he’d wake up the next morning with his chest just as cavernous as it had been before he’d filled it with the drugs and sex and alcohol. Maybe that was what God was, he’d thought to himself once, high as a fucking kite, heart beating so wildly he thought it might beat itself out. Maybe God was just a drug. 

But it had been the drugs that had led him back to the church. One night, half-high, half-sober, he’d found his way back to the church he used to visit as a kid. He’d only been intending to cut through the graveyard to stumble back to the girl he’d been seeing at the time, but instead, he’d found the church door slightly ajar, and not being in possession of a single one of his senses or thoughts, he’d simply pushed the door open and stepped inside. 

Lots of people tell Noel about their moment of realisation as though it were a crashing wave, but it was never like that for him. Nothing changed as he crossed the threshold; he was still half-high, half-sober, still drunkenly wandering around the pews with little aim or intention, until he’d flopped down in one of them, staring up at the huge wooden depiction of Jesus on the cross, and trying to stop it swimming in his eyes. It had been dark, no candles or lights, just the dim glow of the moon broken up by the stained glass windows washing over Jesus’s bare torso, but it had felt like the clearest sight Noel had ever had of Him. Maybe it was the faint silvery light of the moon, or maybe it was the drugs (it was definitely the drugs), but Noel had felt like Jesus was almost there, like there were ragged breaths coming from the figure hanging above him. 

And, for the first time since the last time he’d been in a church, he’d felt peace.

That had been the moment he’d known, deep down, that this was the path for him. A piece of his heart, which had been MIA since God knows how many years before, had been handed back to him, like the Lord had known he hadn’t been capable of taking care of it so had stored it in his own hands for a while. The cavern in his chest had felt a little less hollow, and the blood in his veins had felt a less thick, and the thoughts in his mind had felt a little less like they were pressing in on him from every side, trapping him in spaces so tight he couldn’t even take a breath to cry for help. 

His mam had been pleased when he’d told her he was going to enter the ministry. That’s nice, Noel, she’d said, almost absent-mindedly, drying a bowl with a tea towel. You’ll be a good role model for your brother. It’d do him a world of good. He hadn’t needed to ask which brother she meant. 

If Noel had gone off the rails, Liam had taken the tracks apart completely, burning up the sleepers as he went. The kid was fucking uncontrollable, wouldn’t listen to anything or anyone unless it was to do the exact opposite of what they’d asked, couldn’t sit still for more than ten seconds at a time, and couldn’t keep himself out of trouble for even less time than that. Noel could swear their mam had gone grey overnight as Liam had entered puberty; the police were round at least once a week, dragging him out of the back of their car with a happy grin on his face, and he’d been expelled from two schools, and more than once Noel heard their mam lamenting about the closing of borstals. The kid was a fucking hurricane, and nothing and no one seemed like it would ever be able to battle its way to the eye. 

Noel sometimes felt like he could come close. There were fleeting moments, lingering glances and flashes of hesitation when Noel told Liam to do something and Liam very nearly obeyed, that all added up to give Noel the sum of maybe it’s different with me. But then Liam would tear his gaze away or grin wickedly and do whatever Noel had told him not to, and the moment would pass, and Noel would be back to including Liam in his nightly prayers, hoping that He could give Liam what Noel apparently could not. 

So when the very last person to sit in his confessional on one bright spring Sunday clears their throat and mutters, a little reluctantly: “I don’t remember how to do this, Noel,” in Liam’s distinctive voice, Noel’s head turns so quickly he thinks he might have broken his neck. 

“What?” Noel says, before he can help himself. “Are you taking the piss?”

“No,” Liam says defensively. “I just- I don’t remember how this goes. Do I tell you shit, or d’you ask me questions, or what?” Noel opens his mouth, brows knitted, ready to say get the fuck out of my confessional, Liam, this isn’t a fucking joke, but then he snaps it shut again just as the words are on the tip of his tongue, his mind catching up with his heart. Isn’t it part of his job description to listen to any and all confessions, no matter whether or not they’re his fucking annoying little brother mocking him? He’s Liam’s priest, now, not his brother. 

So he takes a deep breath, and for the fifth time that day, he asks: “What are your sins?” 

“My sins?” Liam snorts derisively. “I don’t believe in that rubbish.” Noel has to bite his cheek to stop himself rolling his eyes. What the fuck is the cunt doing here, then?

“Then why are you here?” Noel’s expecting a quick answer from Liam, something maliciously mocking about Noel’s chosen career and don’t you miss sex, man, I’d miss sex so fucking much, can’t go a day without it, like he always does, but Liam’s just quiet for a moment. 

“Got something to say, but ‘s not a sin,” Liam says eventually, an edge of defiance to the words, like he’s daring God Himself to contradict him. Noel blinks at his tone, and casts a quick glance through the dividing grate between the two of them. It’s dark in the confessional, obviously, but even in the darkness he can see the dim glint of Liam’s blue eyes staring right back at him. They must be a mirror image right now, he thinks, what with the rest of their faces being obscured by the lack of light. They have the same eyes, after all, and Noel's not sure he'd like to know what he looks like in a moment like this.

“Alright, then,” Noel says carefully, still not entirely convinced this isn’t a massive pisstake. “What is it?” Liam’s silent for a while - a long while, actually, like he’s really trying to put whatever he’s thinking into words - and then he sighs. 

“Dunno how to say it,” he mumbles. “Not good with words, and that.” 

“I’m here to listen,” Noel says, in what he hopes is a kind tone, and not the stern older-brother tone he seems to be almost unable to avoid slipping into around Liam.

“Yeah, but-” Liam cuts himself off, and sighs. There’s a noise from the other half of the confessional that sounds like he’s slouching down in the seat, the sound of clothes dragging against the old wood. Noel just waits, knows the sounds and signs of a soul battling with itself all too well by now, and eventually Liam sighs again.

“You’ll laugh at me,” he says sullenly. 

“I won’t,” Noel says. 

“You will.” 

“I’m a priest, Liam,” Noel says, even though he’s not supposed to acknowledge that he knows who’s giving the confession. It feels a bit silly to pretend, with Liam. “I won’t laugh.” 

“You’ll hate me, then.” Noel has to suppress a sigh of his own. 

“I won’t hate you.” 

“You can’t promise that.” 

“I can,” Noel says. “Nothing you tell me here will ever leave, including being carried with me.” 

“You don’t know that. What if it’s really bad?” Noel can picture Liam right now, chewing on his lower lip, fuse lit and a fifty-fifty chance of it taking the fork in the string to an explosion or to an implosion.

“If someone confessed to putting a time bomb under my bed, I wouldn’t be allowed to look,” Noel says. “‘Can’t change my behaviour based on a confession.” Liam’s quiet for another moment.

“That’s fucked,” he says after a while, brusque and matter-of-fact. Noel has to try not to pinch the bridge of his nose. This is the most annoying confession he’s had to deal with all day, including Mr Brown, who spent at least five minutes trying to justify the fact he wants to shag his secretary rather than accepting his prescribed penance for it.

“If you have anything to say, I’m here to listen,” Noel says, as patiently as he can, because he knows Liam well enough to know he’s on the brink of seizing the opportunity to go on a tirade about how fucked up Noel’s job is, channel whatever he’s feeling that’s compelled him to come here into a well-blazed trail of anger rather than letting Noel see a piece of his soul. 

(Noel’s not sure whether Liam knows, but Liam’s soul swims in the blue of his eyes every time Noel looks at him.) 

Liam seems to war with himself for a moment, the inevitable desire to disregard whatever Noel says squaring up to whatever’s led him into Noel’s church for the first time in his life, and then he sighs, sounding defeated. 

“I think I’m in love,” he says quietly and a little bitterly, in the same way that Noel gets people saying I’ve cheated on my husband, like it’s something he regrets, and Noel frowns. That’s nothing bad, certainly nowhere near top of the list of things Liam should be confessing for. The Lord rejoices in love of all kinds, promotes it, even, as Liam would have known if he’d ever bothered listening on Sundays or read even one verse of the Bible. 

(Well, maybe more than one verse. And maybe best off sticking to the New Testament.) 

“What brings you to confess?” Liam’s silent again, which is oddly unnerving. The phrase calm before the storm was invented for Liam being silent. 

“I-” Liam cuts himself off before he’s even finished the syllable. Noel simply waits, listens to Liam’s uneven breathing, the way his breath hitches when he almost gets the courage to say what he wants to say, and then eventually he just exhales, long and unsteady. 

“Can’t say it,” he says. “Can’t tell you.” Is he embarrassed? Liam doesn’t usually express emotions, unless it’s with his fists and expletives. Maybe he’s feeling uncomfortable telling Noel, when the last time he talked about his feelings to Noel was at three in the morning on a Tuesday when he was drunk out of his mind and rambling something about love you, Noely, y’know that? Don’t want you to go. Don’t become a fucking priest, man. Stay here. With me, and Noel proceeded to leave the next morning without telling Liam. 

(Noel wouldn’t have been able to leave if Liam had had a chance to ask him not to again.) 

“Love is a beautiful thing, Liam,” Noel says, a little delicately, trying to feel his way around the conversation, because he’s still a little nonplussed as to why Liam’s confessing to being in love, and Liam snorts derisively. 

“Yeah?” he mutters. “What if you’re in love with your brother?” 

The confessional has always been quiet, the air still enough that Noel can hear every intake and exhale of breath on the other side of the grate, but the silence suddenly feels suffocating. It feels like the world stops spinning for a moment around the confessional, God’s hands wrapping around it, stilling it and stifling Noel’s breathing in the process. He can’t mean that. He can’t mean-

“Told you,” Liam says, and there’s that edge to his voice now, that bitterness that comes before the glint in his eyes that says I’m going to destroy everything. Every fucking thing. “You hate me.” 

“I don’t hate you,” Noel says, voice calm and controlled despite the way his heart is beating like it hasn’t done since the last line he snorted all those years ago. “And I’m not laughing.” 

“Not saying fucking anything, are you?” Liam says churlishly. He sounds defensive, and he’s not taken it back, not snorted and said fucking hell, Noel, ‘m not being fucking serious, am I?, and it’s all adding up to a number Noel doesn’t know if he can look at. Noel’s desperately wishing he would, hoping for the first time in his life that this is one of Liam’s elaborate jokes to mock Noel’s career path, aching to hear the acrid tone of his voice when he says fucking priest, fuck’s wrong with you, but it doesn’t come. 

“Well, it’s an...uh...unorthodox situation,” Noel says carefully. “I mean, ordinarily I’d give you penance, but you don’t believe in God, do you?” Liam snorts. 

“Ain’t believing in a God who let him do what he did to you,” he mutters, and Noel’s heart, still midway through trying to use up its entirely daily heartbeat quota in the space of a few minutes, leaps for a moment, followed immediately by his stomach, which lurches sickeningly as it realises what that leap of his heart might have meant.

“Well, then, I’d recommend introspection,” Noel says. “Maybe- maybe think about it.”

“I’ve thought about it,” Liam says, still sounding surly. “Think about it all the fucking time. Can’t get it out of my fucking head, can I?” 

“Think on it a little more,” Noel says. “Without the drugs and alcohol. Sit with yourself, and the Lord, and let him-”

“I don’t fucking believe in that shit,” Liam says fiercely. 

“He’s with you all the same,” Noel says simply. “Take comfort in that.” Liam laughs, short and bitter. 

“Take comfort in the fact he’s made me want to shag my own brother?” Noel’s stomach twists, and he swallows down the bile that rises in his throat as he realises he’s not sure what kind of a twist it was. 

“Is there anything else you want to confess?” The rubric’s kind of gone out of the window, now, but he desperately wants to get away from this conversation, wants the blood pounding in his ears to return to its rightful place in his lungs and stomach and heart, which are all currently suspended in time. 

“Nah,” Liam says, and there’s a shuffling sound, like he’s getting to his feet. “Nowt else I need to confess for.” Noel can think of a good five hundred reasons Liam should be confessing, but he stays silent. 

“You promise you don’t hate me?” Liam says after a moment, and it’s quiet, hesitant, the most vulnerable Noel thinks he’s ever heard Liam sound. It makes his heart ache a little, the sound of his little brother being so uncertain, so unsure, before a sharp, bitter taste in his mouth reminds him of the reason for Liam’s unease.

“I promise,” Noel says, with as much sincerity as his racing mind will let him muster, and he means it. He wishes he did hate Liam, somehow. It would make more sense than not hating him, wouldn’t it? 

“You coming round for tea next Wednesday?” Liam asks, cutting through Noel’s panicked thoughts like he’s not just said what he’s fucking said, all conversational, and Noel closes his eyes, inhales deeply. He’s always struggled to keep up with Liam’s propensity for switching moods, but this feels even more jarring than usual, makes the usual urge to grab Liam by the shoulders and shake and yell pick a fucking frame of mind almost irresistible. Noel, though, has spent years resisting temptation, and catches himself on the precipice of saying something like how the fuck can you act like everything’s okay after telling me that? Fucking insane, you are. 

“Yeah,” he says, because time bomb, bed. 

“Alright,” Liam says, almost flippantly. “I’m going to go take drugs and have sex now.” With that, Noel hears the curtain being drawn aside, Liam’s heavy footsteps hitting the flagstone outside, and then disappearing in the direction of the entrance to the church, each step of his slow swagger hitting Noel in the chest like a rubber bullet, not doing enough damage to kill him, just enough to wind him and make him wish it had. 

He has no fucking idea what he’s meant to do with that. Part of him is still hoping, desperately, that Liam was joking, that he was winding Noel up, but there’s a sick feeling deep in his soul that tells him you know that was real. You know Liam. You know it was real. But- it makes no fucking sense. Liam’s spent most of his life trying to make Noel’s as miserable as possible. He’s not- he’s never-

Or has he? Were those lingering looks a little more than Noel had brushed them away as being, the brief moments of almost-acquiesence a sign of something Noel had never seen? Noel was the only one Liam would ever listen to, after all, even as a kid, the only one who could get Liam to sit still, shut up, smile. He’s always been keener for Noel’s attention than he has been for anyone else’s, no one could deny that, but Noel had never assumed anything other than sibling jealousy from those years Liam spent trailing after him, getting angry every time he brought home a new girl, getting angrier when he started bringing home boys. It could still be sibling jealousy, Noel supposes, but for what Liam’s just told him, making memories that he’d never thought twice about - Liam staring at Noel’s lips while he spoke, Liam playing up any moment Noel’s attention was anywhere other than on him - resurface, a new spotlight shining so brightly on them that it hurts Noel’s mind’s eye. And, he thinks, with a horrible sinking feeling, what reason would Liam have to lie about this? Liam’s always worn his heart on his sleeve, never minded who could see it, and he’s not one for extended practical jokes, wants the rush of the ball dropping far too soon, so if he hasn’t taken it back by now-

Fuck. This hits him like a wave, like a fucking tsunami, nothing like the smooth lapping at his spirit that rediscovering God had been. Liam’s- fucking hell, Liam’s in love with him. Noel knows Liam like he knows - fuck, he feels sick, because there’s no metaphor that fits, nothing like the back of his hand, or whatever, because the metaphor he’d use is like he knows Liam. Noel knows Liam like he knows Liam, and he knows that that’s- that’s what it is. That’s what it has to be, can’t be explained in full by anything other than those five words: Liam’s in love with him.

It can’t be, Noel thinks desperately, even as something deep inside him sighs and says but you know it is. Liam cannot, simply can’t be in love with Noel . It must be lust, must just be confusion, must be some sick, fucked-up consequence of whatever they went through with their dad. The kid’s still young, after all, only in his early twenties. But Noel knows Liam’s been in love before, knows it from the heartbreak he watched him go through when she left him, from the slew of partners and drugs and police cells he’d gone through in her wake, so he knows what love is, knows what it feels like to be in love. And after all, a little voice in his mind says, didn’t Liam go through a similar volume of women, drugs, arrests after you left for the seminary?  

No, fuck, Noel thinks, squeezing his eyes tightly shut like the pressure will force the thoughts out of him. It’s got to be whatever the fuck they went through with their dad, then. That’s got to have consequences, has to explain why Liam’s always been so desperate for Noel’s attention, somehow. But, that fucking voice in his head says, plenty of fucking people grow up with a dad who did what yours did, or without a dad, and don’t want to- (Noel’s stomach rolls) -don’t feel the way Liam says he feels, so that doesn’t make sense either. Fuck. Maybe- he’s running out of maybes, but there’s got to be more. There’s got to be something, anything, that isn’t what Liam’s just told him it is, even though the words ring true and clear through his spirit like the bells of his church. He’ll just have to pray on it, hope the Lord can guide him to the truth and Liam to a path away from the sin he’s just confessed to. After all, that’s Noel’s job, isn’t it? 

(It hits him, when he finally steps out of the confessional an hour later, still in a daze, that he hadn’t had to ask which brother Liam was in love with. He’d known, just like he’d known the leap of his heart and the twist of his stomach weren’t disgust.) 

~~~

Next Wednesday comes around far too soon. 

Noel’s been praying on it morning and evening, and somewhere in between, too, and he’s not yet come to any conclusions. He hadn’t really expected to, given that it’s only been a week and a half, but as Wednesday evening draws closer and closer he finds the prayers becoming more desperate and despairing, begging God rather than asking for guidance. What’s he supposed to do in this situation? He can’t change his behaviour, can’t change how he feels for Liam, can’t change how he acts with Liam, because that would be breaking the seal of confession, but how is he supposed to go on like that knowing what he now knows? Should he confess himself, go to one of the churches in Bolton where no one knows who he is and tell them that his brother has confessed to being in love with him and he doesn’t know what to do from here? He should, really, knows he should, should lighten his own load and seek spiritual guidance, but he can’t. 

He can’t, because there’s a second problem. 

Part of Noel’s job is sitting with himself, self-reflection, deep introspection, and he’s grown very good at it over the years. At first, he’d resisted, hated thinking about the deeper reasons for his pain and anger and bitterness, but slowly, as each painful thought became a little less barbed, as he allowed the Lord’s love to wash over him and cancel out his own self-loathing, it became easier. It’s something he likes to do, now, likes to check in on himself and see how he’s feeling before he prays, likes to ruminate on what he’s feeling and why he’s feeling it, and it’s become almost second nature to him, fuelled by the years of listening to confession, his growing understanding the psyche of others helping him to understand his own. It’s served him well over the past few years, helped him become calmer and more rational and less prone to lashing out and making harsh, biting remarks just to make others feel a shard of the anguish he was feeling himself. He’s grown to enjoy it, even; that is, until now.

The second problem is precisely what had previously been a virtue. Noel’s too good at understanding himself now, and for the first time in at least five years, he wishes he weren’t. He wishes he could be like everyone else who wanders into his confessional with mental blinkers on so they can’t see the neon signs mapping out their every issue. It would all be easier, he thinks, if Liam were the only part of this problem he had to contend with, one simple equation uncomplicated by anything else. But if Liam’s the numbers, Noel’s the letters, and he’s never been particularly good at algebra. 

The problem, in other words, is Noel’s not repulsed by the idea of his little brother being in love with him. In fact, if he’s truly honest with himself, if he allows those deepest thoughts to rise to the surface and break on the shores of his mind, he almost likes it. It’s a little difficult to tell, really, because the guilt and horror and disgust at himself mix and mingle with the butterflies in his stomach, but when he’s lying awake at night in his parsonage, covered in a thin sheen of cold sweat and gazing up at the ceiling, nothing but too much adrenaline and too little God in his veins, he can tell. A part of him, a large part of him - he’s loath to admit that it might be most of him - likes that Liam’s in love with him. A part of him, a much larger part of him than he’d like, sometimes even dares to materialise and tell him maybe you feel something for him too. I mean, if you’re not against it, then you must be for it, in one way or another. He is pretty, after all. You’ve always thought that. 

(Abstaining from masturbation has never come so easy to Noel. He doesn’t know what he’d do with himself if an image of Liam flashed across his mind, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself at the fact that he’s afraid it might.)

When Wednesday evening finally draws around after a week and a half, and Noel’s knocking on the door of his mam’s house, because Paul still hasn’t got anyone round to fix the doorbell like he said he would, he’s still not figured any of it out. He’s been occupying himself - perhaps preoccupying himself - cleaning the church, reading the Word, praying and praying and praying. And though he’s prayed for strength, prayed for the stamina to see this meal through as though the last time he’d seen his baby brother hadn’t been sat a foot apart in a confessional booth as he told Noel I’m in love with you in so many words, his stomach still drops to his feet when the door is yanked open by a five-ten twenty-something with long lashes and full lips - right up Noel’s alley, if it weren’t for his eyes, the exact hue of Noel’s own.

“Ey up,” Liam says, all casual, but Noel knows him well enough to catch the way his eyes search Noel’s, looking through every fibre for a hint of trepidation. 

“Let me in, then,” Noel says, and shoulders past Liam, mostly so he won’t have to look at him any more. He’s not sure if he can even make it through the meal; his stomach’s already churning. 

“Mam’s in the kitchen,” Liam calls after him, like Noel wasn’t heading in that direction already, and Noel nods curtly, still not turning around, and rounds the corner to see his mam hovering over the hob. 

“Alright, mum?” he says, giving her a kiss on the cheek, and she makes a requisite fussing noise. 

“Oh, don’t go messing up the chicken, now,” she says, like he’s gone anywhere near the chicken at all, and Noel has to suppress the urge to roll his eyes, but moves away anyway, leaning against the counter next to her. 

“Need a hand with anything?” he asks, because he’d rather not go into the living room and be in close quarters with Liam if he can help it, and it’s not like he doesn’t ask every week anyway. Just like every week, though, his mam shakes her head, and then jerks it in the direction of the living room. 

“You’ve been working hard,” she says. “Go and rest, and make sure your brother’s not causing any trouble.” Noel’s stomach sinks. 

“Is Paul here yet?” he asks, as innocently as he can, and his mam shakes her head again. 

“Did Liam not tell you?” she says. “Paul’s up in Bolton tonight. Just us three today.” Noel’s stomach sinks further. Great. 

“Oh,” he says, a little weakly. “No, he didn’t mention.” 

“Ah, well, you know Liam,” his mam says, stirring the sauce she’s currently hovering over. “He probably forgot.” Noel just nods, and then, because he can’t put it off any longer, pushes himself away from the counter he’s been leaning on and heads into the living room. 

Liam’s lounging on one of the settees, draped across it in the most inelegant way Noel could possibly imagine yet somehow managing to look artful and oddly alluring, and Noel has to close his eyes just a fraction of a second too long to shove that thought away. 

“You didn’t tell me Paul wasn’t going to be here tonight,” Noel says, sitting himself down on the other settee, and trying not to look too stiff. 

“Didn’t I?” Liam says innocently, which means it was entirely on purpose, the fucker. “Must’ve forgot.” 

“Right,” Noel says, arching an eyebrow to show he knows Liam’s lying, and Liam just tips his head back onto the arm of the sofa and grins at him. 

“Reckon it’ll be a while ‘til Mam’s ready,” he says, a little too casually, like Noel’s supposed to take something from it. Noel, though, refuses to bite. 

“Probably,” he says, and sinks back into the settee a little. “What’ve you been up to this week? Found a job yet?” 

“Nah,” Liam says. “Still on the dole, me. Dropped some mental acid the other day, though. Ended up in a forest somewhere. Or maybe I was imagining it, dunno. Could’ve just been Sale.” Noel rolls his eyes, drums his fingers on the arm of the settee to try and stop his heart beating so fast. It’s a good thing Liam’s got tinnitus from all those nights at the Haçienda he’d begged Noel to sneak him into, because Noel’s pretty sure his cardiovascular system isi currently approaching legal decibel limits. 

“You should be out looking for work, not giving mam grief,” he tells Liam, who raises his head again, looking affronted. 

“Who said I was giving her grief?” he says indignantly. “Been perfectly well-behaved, me.” 

“Who brought you back from the forest?” he asks, and Liam’s face melts into a cheeky grin. 

“Police,” he says, and Noel raises both eyebrows and looks at him pointedly. “Mam was asleep, though. And it’s not illegal to be high, just to have drugs on you, innit? ‘S fine.” Noel rolls his eyes, but doesn’t say anything. His list of things Liam could and probably should have confessed for is growing by the minute. 

“What about you?” Liam asks, and Noel blinks at him. 

“What about me?” 

“Well, how was your week?” Noel stares. Liam never fucking asks him that. Beyond the fact he never cares, there’s no reason for him to ask - every week is the same, with Noel - unless- 

“Fine,” Noel says, stomach bottoming out, because he knows what Liam’s really asking. “It was fine. Cleaned the altar, which needed doing. Think tomorrow I’m going to get some more incense for the thurible.” 

“For the what?”

“The incense-burner.” Liam wrinkles his nose. 

“You were far less fucking boring when you took drugs,” he remarks, and Noel rolls his eyes again. 

“Far less happy, too,” he says. 

“Sex didn’t make you happy?” 

“Not as happy as I am now.” Liam cocks his head, and Noel tries to hold his gaze, but he’s never seen blue eyes blaze like that, and it kindles something deep in the pits of his stomach that the bile that immediately rises in his throat successfully quenches before Noel can identify what it might be. 

“Maybe you weren’t having the right kind of sex,” Liam says innocently. Noel raises an impassive eyebrow, not willing to entertain Liam, but he barrels on anyway. “Maybe you weren’t doing it with the right people, y’know what I mean?” he says, and Noel clenches a fist out of Liam’s sight, fights to keep his breathing even and steady. 

“And you’d know?” Liam opens his mouth like he’s going to say something else, but then their mam bustles into the room and asks them to lay the table, and Liam, get your feet off my bloody sofa, you’ll be cleaning that later, you will. Noel briefly wonders whether she’s God in disguise as he pushes himself off the settee and follows her into the kitchen, given her impeccable timing, but that thought is quickly pushed aside when he remembers she gave birth to Liam, so if anything, she’s closer to the Devil. 

Tea’s a pretty standard affair, bar the way Noel’s heart is pounding in his chest, the way he can feel Liam’s eyes on him, and the way he has to force himself to chew and swallow every bite and not just shove the plate away, because time bomb, bed; he usually finishes his meal, so he has to now. His mam asks how things are going, he tells her fine, how he thinks there might be mice in the church again, and steadfastly ignores Liam’s gaze, won’t even let his eyes stray in that direction. He offers to wash up before his mam can start collecting their plates, shouts her down when she fusses and tells her no, mum, you put your feet up, and heads over to the sink, which is piled to the fucking brim with pots and pans, never mind all the dishes still over on the table. Liam, thank God, follows their mam back into the living room, halfway through a story about some guy he seems to be friends with called Bonehead (Bonehead, really) who’s got a band and has asked Liam to join, telling her I could be a rockstar, mam, and getting an idle that’s nice, Liam, now fetch me the newspaper, would you? It feels like the first time that whole evening that Noel can really breathe, and so he does, exhales heavily and inhales deeply as he starts to fill the sink with water, searching for the scourer and sponge. 

Half the pots could probably do with a soak, but Noel’s enjoying the mindlessness of washing up, the sounds of the TV floating in from the other room making him even more aware of his solitude, so he scrubs at them until his fingers are raw from the scourer and wrinkled from the water. He empties and refills the sink before starting on the dishes from the table, and he’s halfway through washing up the dish his mam had served the potatoes in when someone saunters into the kitchen, blocking the light from the hallway and making Noel look up. 

It’s Liam, of course, leaning against the edge of the kitchen counter closest to the door and sending Noel an interested look that looks like it’s edged with some kind of hunger that Noel doesn’t want to think about. 

“I want a drink,” Liam announces. 

“You can wait ‘til I’ve finished,” Noel tells him, and Liam shakes his head.

“I want it now,” he says, like he’s fucking five years old again, and reaches for the glass he’d left on the table and Noel had placed on the side to be washed up, covered in his mucky fingerprints. 

“Go fill it in the bathroom.” 

“Doesn’t taste right.” Noel rolls his eyes, and puts the potato dish in the drying rack. 

“I’ve only got a few more plates to do,” he says, reaching for one of said plates and dunking it in the water. 

“Let me have a drink,” Liam says, sidling up to Noel. Noel, though, doesn’t budge. 

“You can fucking wait,” he says, as Liam nudges against him, trying to push him out of the way. Liam pouts, and reaches for the cold water tap anyway, leaning further into Noel to try and get to it, and Noel slaps his hand away. 

“You’ll fucking wait, Liam,” he says sharply, turning to give Liam a stern look, but finds Liam’s face is a lot closer to his own than he’d thought, what with him trying to get to the cold water tap, and all. It makes his heart skip a beat, to see Liam’s eyes so close to his own, still burning with that fire that was ignited at birth and seems inextinguishable, no matter how hard everyone tries. He watches as Liam’s eyes flit across his face, from his eyes to his lips and back again, and Noel wants to look away, wants to look at anything that isn’t Liam, but he can’t, because he wouldn’t have before, so he can’t now. 

“What you looking at?” Liam says, but it’s soft, quiet, tinged with a little curiosity. 

“Get out of the fucking kitchen,” Noel says coolly, but he still doesn’t look away. He’d hate to see what Liam sees right now, thanks God that Liam’s no good at reading anyone’s emotions, because he’s fairly certain he’s got stricken written all over his face, every molecule in his eyes fraught and painted with agitation that even he can’t quite place. 

“Let me have a fucking drink,” Liam counters, equally calm, and he blinks, and Noel can’t help but notice the way his lashes sweep across his cheekbones, long and thick and God, was he always that pretty? Fucking hell, no, Noel thinks sharply, jerking himself back to reality and shoving at Liam with his shoulder, hard, to try and get him out of the way. Liam, though, plants his feet, uses the two inches and Lord knows how many kilos he has on Noel to his advantage, and tilts his chin up defiantly. 

“Just want a fucking drink,” he says, and he manages to make it sound like it means something else. It probably does mean something else, if he’s kicking up this much of a fuss for it. Liam drinks from the bathroom tap all the fucking time. 

“You drink from the bathroom tap all the time,” Noel says. 

“Don’t want it today, though,” Liam says, like that’s that, like it’s better and easier for him to get in an argument with his brother all over a fucking tap. Noel’s fairly sure they both come from the same mains, anyway. 

“You’re being a fucking cunt,” Noel tells him, not bothering to keep any of the acid out of his voice - fuck it, he can apologise to God later - and Liam just shrugs. Noel should know better than to expect him to care about that. 

“And what?” he says, and reaches for the tap again. It’d probably be easier to just let him have his fucking drink at this point, but something in Noel doesn’t want to let him have this, doesn’t want to let him win, not when it feels like it might really be more than the tap Liam’s after, so he slaps his hand away again, harder than strictly necessary. 

“I’ve got two more fucking plates and some cutlery to do,” he says. “You can wait three fucking minutes.” 

“Can’t,” Liam says solemnly. “I’m thirsty, y’know.” Noel rolls his eyes, and shoves at Liam again. Liam, though, doesn’t budge, and Noel has to try and ignore the jolt of electricity that comes at the feeling of Liam’s chest against his shoulder, hoping Liam doesn’t catch the tiny shiver as it forces Noel to acknowledge just how fucking close they are, almost no inches between their bodies, only a few between their faces. If he were to tilt his head up, stare Liam and his set jaw down, he’d probably be able to feel Liam’s breath on his face. It sends a shock of adrenaline coursing through his body, licking at every nerve as it goes, and he jerks back from Liam like it was Liam that had shocked him. He supposes it was, actually, but then he realises that stepping back from Liam has just meant that they’re angled towards each other now rather than being stood shoulder-to-shoulder, and from the gleam that enters Liam’s eye he’s realised the same thing too. Before Noel can correct himself, though, move back to where he was before, Liam’s closing the gap himself, standing so close to Noel that he swears he can feel the heat radiating from underneath the oversized jumper Liam’s currently got on, one that Noel could almost wear used to belong to him. 

“What the fuck d’you want?” he says, and he intends for it to come out biting and scathing but it falls so far flat that it ends up somewhere around a murmur. He swallows, hoping Liam doesn’t catch the movement, but Liam’s too preoccupied staring at something else. Noel’s lips. 

“You know,” Liam says. 

“What?”

“I told you.” Noel’s heart skips a beat. If he means the confession, Noel can’t acknowledge that he knows, can’t mention-

“A drink,” Liam says, interrupting Noel’s panicked string of thoughts, but he’s not reaching for the tap now. Instead, he’s leaning down, tilting his head slightly, and Noel’s frozen to the fucking spot, doesn’t know what the fuck Liam’s playing at, until he does, because Liam’s lips are pressing against his own, soft and warm and setting something that feels just like a flame from the fire in Liam’s eyes alight in Noel’s stomach. Noel makes a strangled noise, can’t tell if it’s fear or anger or the brief flash of realisation that this feels like when he’s on his knees in his chapel for the Lord, and he doesn’t mean to do any more than that, means to pull away and spit some vitriol at Liam, throw barbs and poison his way, but somehow it takes his muscles a moment to catch up with his mind, which means he lets Liam kiss him, even kisses him back a little as he feels the fire in his stomach crackle and burn. It takes maybe five seconds from Liam’s lips pressing against Noel’s to Noel yanking himself back and staring at Liam, chest heaving, lips parted, hoping that there’s something other than bewilderment and horror and sheer, blood-curdling disgust in his eyes for Liam to see, but it’s too late, because Liam had felt Noel’s lips moving against his own, had felt the slight pressure of Noel kissing back, and there’s a glint in his eye that Noel knows all too well that makes him feel even sicker than he already does. 

“Get the fuck out,” he says, and his voice comes out so low and dangerous that Liam falters for a moment, and then he shrugs and heads out of the room, setting the glass in his hand down on the counter unceremoniously as he goes. 

“Eeyar, mam, where’d you leave the Radio Times?” Noel hears Liam saying as he heads back into the living room, offhand as anything, like he hasn’t just kissed his fucking brother, hasn’t just set Noel’s heart beating a million miles an hour, his palms sweating beneath the sheen of dirty water, his organs trying to rearrange themselves like standard human anatomy is going out of fashion. 

What the fuck was that? Liam he can almost excuse - Liam’s always doing fucking insane shit, doesn’t think anything through before he does it, let alone after, and seems to attach completely different meanings to actions than other people - but what the fuck was Noel doing? He let his brother kiss him - for all of five seconds, okay, but it had taken five seconds for him to pull away, and he’d kissed back a little. What the fuck was he thinking? Clearly he wasn’t thinking at all, because he’d never let Liam kiss him normally, never even entertain the fucking idea of kissing back. And yet he’s standing there, their fucking mum all of two rooms away, fucking hell (he has to steady himself on the sink, knees feeling like they might buckle at that thought), lips still tingling with the pressure of Liam’s on them, the vague sensation of Liam pressed against him still setting his skin alight. 

What the fuck? He must be going fucking insane, he thinks, closing his eyes and inhaling deeply and biting his lips to try and get the sensation of Liam off them. It must be all those nights with so little sleep he’s had since Sunday before last. Or maybe it’s the thoughts that have been chasing themselves around his head since then; maybe he’s managed to gaslight himself into reacting that way instead of the way he would’ve done before, or something. Or maybe that is the way he would’ve reacted. Christ, he doesn’t fucking know, and he’s so fucking confused, and he still has two plates and some cutlery to wash, and he just wants to get back to his church and pray, seek the guidance and help that he so desperately needs. 

He washes the last dishes in a daze, almost smashing the final plate as he tries to slot it into the drying rack with slightly-trembling fingers, and almost forgets to drain the sink, and then he takes a few deep breaths to try and steady himself, try and wipe whatever is on his mind off his face, at the very least, and heads back to the living room, hovering in the doorway. 

“I’m heading home now, mam,” he says, and his mum twists in her armchair to look around at him, brow furrowed. 

“You won’t stay for Corrie?” she asks, and Noel shakes his head. 

“I’m not feeling great,” he lies, which may be a sin but is infinitely better than telling her the truth, and she just nods. 

“Ah, well,” she says. “I hope you feel better soon, pet. Call me when you can.” 

“‘Course, mam,” Noel says. “See you soon.”

“Alright, see you soon, love,” she says, turning back to the TV. Noel heads out of the room before Liam can call something after him, shoving his feet into his shoes without bothering to tie the laces and putting his coat on as he slips out of the front door to get out of the house as quick as possible, walking up the drive and down the street as fast as his legs will carry him, like it’ll make what happened not have happened if he gets far enough away from it. 

His church isn’t far, maybe fifteen minutes’ walk away, but Noel manages it in just under ten this time, not even bothering to head to his house and take his coat and shoes off again, just making straight for the main building and kneeling down in one of the furthest pews at the back, as far away from and close to the altar as he thinks he can get. He’s not in a state of grace, he knows that, but as he starts to pray he can’t even form the words to ask for forgiveness, can only plead for help and guidance, and that in itself chokes him up, because why can’t he ask to be forgiven? Is it because he feels that disgraced, that out of His favour, or because- no, he doesn’t want to entertain that thought, he thinks fiercely, squeezing his eyes shut like darkness will drive it out of his mind. It’s not because there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to be forgiven. He’s just fucking confused; he’s confused, and he’s overthought it, and he’s convinced himself of things that just can’t be true. 

It takes a good twenty minutes of prayer before Noel’s thoughts start to slow down, before he’s able to breathe evenly again, heart returning to a semi-normal pace, and it takes another ten until he feels ready to open his eyes, to rock back on his heels, and to gaze up at Jesus, hanging from the cross and looking solemn in the pale light of the evening sun. He didn’t die for this sin, Noel thinks. The Lord will set him fucking straight again, will stop him straying from the path He’s set out for him. That’s his whole, like, thing, isn’t it? Lead us not into temptation, Noel hears his congregation chorus every Sunday, and that’s what Noel needs right now, what he needs to believe. The Lord won’t let him down that path. 

(It’s not until he’s lying in his bed that night, awake at three a.m. again, that he realises the fact he’d automatically gone for lead us not into temptation rather than deliver us from evil might be saying something.) 

~~~

When the next Sunday rolls around, Noel barely manages to sit through all his confessions, jittery and nervous every time a new set of shoes steps into the booth. Liam doesn’t show up, though, maybe got the message that Noel’s not fucking doing this, and when the end of the allotted confession time rolls around and Noel gives it the ten extra minutes that he always does in case anyone wants a last-minute confession and there’s still no heavy footsteps on the flagstone floor, he breathes a sigh of relief, and pulls the curtain aside. 

The same thing happens the next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, until by the fifth Sunday since Liam’s initial confession, Noel can fully concentrate on his congregation’s confessions again. He’s had to pray on it, ask the Lord to send him strength to focus and be the priest his parishioners deserve, and he’d trusted that God would guide him back onto the path in time. He has, as Noel had always had faith he would, and that’s something, but it’s not quite- it’s not everything, yet. 

Because Noel’s still not asked for forgiveness for kissing his brother, and with every passing day, he finds himself thinking about it more and more often. 

It starts off with fear. He fears the thoughts when they come, fears the disgust and abhorrence and sick feeling that comes with them, so he quashes them when he feels them rising, pushes them back down with all the force in his mind and his lungs and his heart. He prays for the strength to keep them at bay, for the ability to focus on the thoughts that tell him of course you don’t want to kiss your brother, of course you don’t want to shag your brother, are you fucking insane? He’s your brother, your baby brother, the kid you half-raised, and you’re not like that. You’re fucking insane for even thinking it.

After the fear, though, comes anger. He’s furious at Liam for kissing him, furious at himself for not stopping him, and, although he hates to admit it, he’s furious at God for allowing it to happen. It rises in him like a wave of acid, crashes on the shores of his soul, lapping at its edges and making it hiss and recoil inside him. He’s so fucking angry that Liam would dare do this to him, irate that he could even entertain the thought of humouring Liam and giving him ideas, and that the Lord gave him that test in particular to withstand. It’s fucked up, and Liam’s fucked up, and he’s fucked up, and he hates it all. 

After that comes what Noel would call desperation. He tries to convince himself that maybe it wasn’t so bad, maybe Liam didn’t mean what he meant when he said what he said and did what he did, maybe Noel just did what he did out of shock, confusion, whatever it fucking was. Maybe none of it actually means anything at all, really; maybe it’s just a misunderstanding, or a big fucking joke, or anything that isn’t- that isn’t Liam being in fucking love with Noel, and Noel feeling something that isn’t repulsion at it.

He almost wishes it would have ended with that phase, but it doesn’t. He spends a good few days fucking catatonic after that, staring up at the ceiling in his bedroom with a blank expression, barely able to get out of bed and brush his teeth, because it’s not a joke, and it’s not a misunderstanding: his little brother’s in love with him. His little brother is fucking in love with him, and he kissed Noel, and Noel had kissed back, and it’s all real and Noel doesn’t fucking know how to deal with any of it. And the worst part of it is, he realises, that even though he might not be in love with Liam, he still can’t ask for forgiveness for what he did. Because in order to ask for forgiveness, in order to repent, he has to be truly sorry, feel it in every nook and cranny of his spirit. And he doesn’t, because he isn’t. 

After that comes the final stage. He makes peace with it. It’s okay that he wants to- to, God, to kiss his brother, maybe even more that he can’t quite admit to himself yet - because it’s just a thought. It’s just a notion, just an idea, just something that lives in his mind, and it might be sick, it might be fucked up, but it’s just like all the other temptations that sit in his brain. He still misses sex, and he still wants to take drugs sometimes, but he doesn’t. They’re all temptations, aren’t they? The Lord sees inside his mind, sees the purity of his soul, and as long as Noel’s trying, that’s all he can do. He can’t help the thoughts being there, but he can help how he responds to them, the same way he stops himself fucking the pretty woman who sits in pew four on the right without fail every week and the same way he stops himself calling his old dealer on a cold, boring night. It’s okay, because it’s just another test. 

By the fifth Sunday, Noel doesn’t even wonder whether Liam’s going to show up to confession or not. It seems to have been a one off, and Liam seems to be avoiding him, anyway, because when he’d gone round for his fortnightly tea, Liam had been out with this Bonehead bloke playing a show, or something. Privately, Noel thinks it’s code for taking drugs, because when the fuck has Liam ever showed any great musical talent, but he just nods along and sips his tea as his mam tells him all about how Liam’s been rehearsing five nights a week, how his voice is always shot the next morning and she’s running out of ginger and lemon to make tea with. 

Confession lasts longer than usual on that particular Sunday, because Mr Brown has cheated on his wife again and won’t accept the penance Noel gives him, tries to bargain it down, and Noel has to explain the concept of repeated sin and repentance to him very patiently, so by the time he steps out of his confessional booth and stretches, relishing the way his back pops, the sun is almost setting. 

Being alone in the church after a service is always the greatest peace Noel can know. There’s something about the routineness of picking up Bibles and hymn books and placing them back in their rightful place, slotting the numbers out of the hymn boards and folding up the altar cloth that’s oddly comforting, repeating the rituals of his religion that hundreds of thousands of people have repeated before him. He always loses himself in it, in the habit of it all, and today is no different, Noel humming hymns to himself under his breath as he gathers up the last of the Bibles and turns on his heel to bring them back to the box at the back of the church, and then stops, blood running cold. 

Someone’s sitting in the second pew from the back, staring up at the big figure of Jesus hanging over the altar with big, curious blue eyes. 

Noel carefully sets the Bibles down at the end of the pew he’s currently in, and heads towards Liam. Liam must hear him, because his footsteps echo in the silence of the church, but he makes no indication that he has, just keeps blinking up at Jesus. 

“What d’you want?” Noel asks, hovering at the end of the pew Liam’s sat in, and his voice feels too loud, reverberating off the walls that have kept so many secrets before his and Liam’s, yet feel like they might crumble under the weight of them. 

“Did he really look like that?” Liam says, nodding up at Jesus. Noel casts a glance upwards. 

“No,” he says. 

“Well, why’ve you got him hanging in your church like that, then?” 

“Came with the church,” Noel says. “It’s been here for two hundred years.” Liam shrugs, and tears his gaze away from Jesus to look at Noel instead. 

“Nothing to stop you taking it down,” he says, blinking at Noel. Noel’s fairly sure his own eyes never blaze like Liam’s do, but today he finds he doesn’t mind it, the heat thawing the ice that had formed in his veins at the sight of Liam. 

“You come all this way just to insult my furnishings?” 

“No,” Liam says, but doesn’t say any more. Noel sighs. 

“Liam-” he starts, not sure how he’s going to finish the sentence even as he speaks, but Liam beats him to it. 

“Don’t,” he says fiercely, like he knows what Noel’s about to say, even if Noel doesn’t. Noel just sighs again, a little more defeated this time. 

“Why’re you here?” he asks, and it comes out weary. 

“Miss you,” Liam says. “You’ve not been around.”

“I was,” Noel says. “Came round for tea, as usual. You weren’t there.” 

“Yeah, well,” Liam says, and looks down at his feet. “Didn’t think you’d want me to be there.” 

“‘Course I do,” Noel says. “You’re my brother, aren’t you?” Liam looks up again, forward, at the altar, but doesn’t say anything, even though Noel watches about fifteen emotions flash through his eyes, each too fleeting to catch. 

“D’you want to be alone?” Noel asks, when Liam’s been silent for at least a minute, and Liam shakes his head. 

“I want-” he starts, and then stops, and turns to Noel. “Want to confess.” Confession’s over, has been for a while now, even before Mr Brown took an extra twenty minutes in there, but it’s Liam, and Noel’s never been all that good at telling him no when it really mattered. And this feels like it’ll really matter, this first interaction since they fucking kissed, feels like the two of them are hanging in the balance and the confessional might be the arena where the balance gets tipped, so Noel nods curtly. 

“Alright,” he says, and jerks his head towards the confessional. “Let’s go, then.” Liam nods, scrambling to his feet, always a ball of energy, and follows Noel over to the confessional. Noel pulls the curtain aside for him, and tries not to shiver as Liam steps in past him, and then heads around to his own side, settling in the well-worn wooden seat and sliding the grate so he can just barely see Liam on the other side. 

“What are your sins?” he asks, and it comes out lower than usual, a little quieter, a little more provocative than solemn, like he’s challenging Liam to rise the occasion. 

“I want to fuck my brother,” Liam says, blunt as anything, and Noel can’t help the sharp intake of breath that comes at the words. Christ. Whatever he was expecting - an apology, a justification, wheedling for more - it certainly wasn’t that.

“Liam-” he starts, but Liam interrupts him. 

“I think about it all the time,” he says. “Think about it when I see him in his fucking stupid priest’s collar, about just dropping to my knees for him, taking his cock in my mouth, showing him what God really is. Think about how much I want to be on my back for him, feel him filling me up, brother on brother, like Cain and Abel, and that.” Noel’s heart is in his mouth, stopping him from pointing out that he’s pretty sure Cain and Abel didn’t quite go that way, but Liam’s still talking. 

“I want him to fuck me while our mam’s at home, put his hand over my mouth so I don’t make any noise while he fucks me hard, deep, slow, maybe on the bed he used to kip on when he lived in that house, maybe up against the window so the neighbours could see,” he says, and then he pauses, and Noel swallows, and then swallows again, because there’s a lump in his throat that just won’t fucking budge. His palms are sweating on the cloth of his cassock, and his heart has jumped from his mouth back to his chest down to his stomach and back up again, beating so fast that it’s probably breaking the fucking sound barrier. He shouldn’t be listening to this, can’t be listening to this, definitely can’t be fucking encouraging it, and yet he knows what the silence Liam’s letting them stew in means. What’s it going to be? Liam’s saying. Are you going to admit it, or are you going to damn me to hell? 

Noel can’t do either, really. He’s a fucking priest, for God’s sake. He can’t have sex with anyone, let alone with his fucking brother. He’s not- this isn’t- he can’t. Even if he wanted to - and from the way blood is pounding in his ears and his cock is thick and hard in his boxers he thinks he might - he couldn’t. He’s a fucking priest. 

But, like he’s twenty-three still, like he’s high on drugs and sex and booze and not on God and Liam, he says: “What else do you think about?” 

Noel’s heard glass shatter quite a few times in his life, caused it at least half of those times, and it’s a sound he’s never liked, that cacophony of highs and lows and crashes, knowing that something’s just been irreparably broken, but this time, when this glass shatters, he finds he doesn’t mind. He’s just done it with his bare hands, punched right through the sheet of glass between himself and Liam, watched the shards fall to the ground and splinter on their way, so many pieces that can never be put back together in the same way again. No matter if the glass is ever rebuilt, there will always be tiny scraps missing, and the cracks of what Noel’s just done will never, ever fucking fade, but it doesn’t feel- it doesn’t feel wrong. It feels like a glass ceiling, maybe, like a barrier that wasn’t meant to be there has just been overcome, like they can get to where they’re supposed to be now. And Liam, for all his asininity, sees it. 

“Think about your fingers in me,” he says, and Noel barely even registers the change from third to second person. “God, I think about that so much. Try and do it myself, but it just doesn’t feel right. I know you’d do it better.” 

“Would I?” Noel asks, cool and collected despite the way his heart is pounding on his ribcage, begging to be released. Noel can’t really blame it, filled with the fucking desire for his own fucking brother that it is. Or maybe it’s just reaching out for the heart all of three feet away, made up of fifty percent of the same material as itself.

“Yeah,” Liam says, and it comes out a little breathless. “Know you would, Noely. You’re a guitarist, innit? You know how to use your fingers.” 

“Is that all you think about?” Noel says. “My fingers?”

“No,” Liam says, “‘course not. Think about you fucking me most of all. God, I wanna know what your cock feels like. Wanna know what you look like, what you sound like, wanna taste every fucking inch of you. I wanna ride you, wanna sit in your lap, feel your arms around me and you deep inside me, filling me up.” There’s the sound of a buckle and a zipper, and Noel frowns, just enough rationality left in his mind for him to say: 

“You’re not fucking wanking in my confessional.” 

“Aren’t I?” Liam says, and a hot shock of arousal makes its way from Noel’s cock to his mind, and he casts a quick glance at the grate, but it’s too dark for him to make anything out on the other side. “You’re fucking all I think about, you are. The number of times I’ve come thinking about you. ‘S fucking unholy.” There’s a shaky little intake of breath, and then he continues, a little quieter this time. “Just wanna be good for you, Noely. Wanna do what you want.” Noel’s the one that inhales this time, sharp and deep. I want you to stop wanking in my fucking confessional is on the tip of his tongue, but what comes out instead is:

“Are you close?” There’s a high-pitched keen, and Noel vaguely thinks fuck, it’s not like this thing is fucking soundproof, if there’s anyone else in the church we’re fucked, but somehow that feels tantalising, the idea of being caught egging his brother on to come to the thought of the two of them fucking making a spike of arousal rise so strongly that it blurs his vision for a moment. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, and it comes out almost a gasp, and if Noel had a little more wherewithal he might even mock Liam for being so close so fast, but then again, if he had a little more wherewithal he wouldn’t be listening to his little brother get himself off to thoughts of Noel. “Tell me to come, Noel. Please. Please, fuck, Noel, please.” Maybe it’s the begging that does it, reminding Noel of the way he’s spent the past few weeks on his knees with the same words tripping off his tongue, head raised to the heavens, or maybe it’s the sheer fucking arousal that Noel doesn’t think he’s felt in fucking years, but he says:

“Go on, then, kid,” all soft and low. “Come for me.” And by the sounds of it, Liam does, gasping Noel’s name once, twice, and then moaning lowly, a mixture of Noel’s name and expletives and God, please, God, like he knows exactly what’s going to go straight to Noel’s cock. It doesn’t take long - he’s a bloke, never does - and Noel can tell he’s done when he hears Liam panting, trying to catch his breath, and tries not to think about the way his chest must be heaving, the way his lips are probably spit-slick and red and parted, his eyes wide, pupils blown. 

“Noel-” Liam says, and then stops, still breathing heavily, like he doesn’t quite know what he wants to say. Or maybe he knows what he wants to say, but doesn’t have the words to say it. 

“Go home,” Noel says gently. “And don’t you fucking dare wipe your hands on the curtain.” There’s silence for a moment, and then Liam shifts, gets up, and Noel hears the sound of the curtain being pulled aside, and sinks back in his seat, head tipped back against the wall as he gazes up at the dark ceiling of the confessional booth, trying to get some blood back into his brain. It’s premature, though, because he realises belatedly that he hasn’t actually heard Liam’s footsteps disappearing in the direction of the door, but that thought comes at the same time that his curtain is torn aside, and he blinks at the sudden light, seeing Liam’s shadowy face set in it. They stare at each other for a moment, and Noel’s breath gets caught in his lungs, even though he can barely see Liam’s face, just the light streaming in from the windows behind him setting his hair alight, giving him a soft halo, and then Liam holds his hand out. Noel looks down, because he’s not holding it out like he’s going to shake Noel’s fucking hand or something, good job on making me come, mate, but he’s holding out the bit between his thumb and index finger, and Noel sees why. 

It’s covered in Liam’s come. 

He looks back up at Liam, who’s still looking at him, blue eyes dark and intense. It’d be breathtaking if Noel’s breath weren’t already fucking taken, he thinks. He’s never seen Liam look remotely like this, never seen such an intentness to his gaze, and when he prays the next morning, that’s what he’ll blame it on, the way Liam was looking at him, because Noel reaches forward, catches Liam’s wrist in his grip, brings Liam’s hand up to his mouth, and, without breaking eye contact, licks Liam’s come off his hand. The only indication that Liam’s even fucking aware of what’s going on is a sharp inhale on his part as Noel holds his gaze, sweeps his tongue over the salty skin again just to make sure he’s got all of it, and then drops Liam’s hand, pulls back and leans back in his seat. 

“Fuck,” Liam whispers, and Noel think that about sums it up, the way the panic is starting to well in his chest, arousal no longer sharp enough to keep all the guilt and fear and anger and desperation and confusion at bay. 

“Go home,” Noel tells him again, a little more firmly this time, and Liam throws him one last look that Noel can’t quite decipher before he drops his hand to his side, lets go of the curtain, leaving Noel in pitch blackness, and then heads off in the direction of the door, footsteps echoing as he goes. 

Noel waits until the door is closed before making a single movement, not even daring to breathe before Liam’s gone. It might have been better if he had, though, because it’s like the door swinging shut breaks the dam in Noel’s mind, lets the disgust and horror flood every synapse he’s got, makes him want to retch with the thought of God, I just helped my little brother get off, I just fucking licked my little brother’s come off his hand, I just fucking gave in to temptation. It’s almost a blessing, though, the sheer quantity of his emotions, because it means he can’t really feel any of them, too many swirling and vying for a place in his soul for him to privilege a single one. 

What the fuck has he just done? What the fuck has he just done? This is so much worse than kissing Liam back for a few seconds, so why the fuck did he just go along with it? This isn’t even just Noel’s sin, not just Noel helping his little brother get off; he’d let him do it in a church. In a place of God, in a house of God, in a fucking confessional, defiling every single thing that Noel holds close and sacred and blowing up every pillar of his faith at once, one detonation enough to send the past few years of his life tumbling down. This isn’t right, he thinks, getting to his feet, slightly dazed, and almost relishing the way the evening sunlight burns his eyes as he squints into it, trying to see his church and trying not to let his stomach lurch too hard at the sight of the Bibles, the hymn board, the hymn books, the pews, Jesus, the altar, all the articles and signs and artefacts of his faith. What the fuck possessed him to do that? God, he’s going to have to do penance for the rest of his fucking life for that. He’s not fit to be a priest. He’s barely even fit to be a person, barely fit to function in society, if this is what he’s going to do. 

Fuck, he needs to pray, he needs to say a billion Hail Marys, a trillion Our Fathers, and then pray a hundred times more, he thinks, as he stumbles for a pew, right at the very back of the church, doesn’t dare get any closer to the altar than that. He’s not in a state of grace, doesn’t know whether all the penance in the world will ever make him be that way again, and as he starts to pray, as he starts to open his heart and mind and soul to the Lord, to let the disgust and shame and guilt wash over him, he tries to let all the repulsion and self-hatred repel the little voice in his mind that says but you still can’t repent, can you?

~~~

After that, Noel doesn’t go home for weeks. 

He skips the first fortnightly tea, telling his mam he’s got a meeting with the bishop, and he skips the second, feigning a headache and calling her to say sorry, mum, I really need to lie down. I know, I know, it’s been ages since you saw me. I’ll come round another day. Liam doesn’t show up again either, but Noel knows better than to get comfortable with that fact now, despite the desperate hope he has that it’s a result of all his prayers, that the Lord has finally listened and taken pity and realised Noel isn’t strong enough for this particular test, and has put the intention of staying away in Liam’s mind. 

He drops in on his mam one weekend after Paul mentions offhand on a phone call that Liam’s going away for the weekend, got some gig with his alleged band in Scotland. He sits with his mam and listens to her talking about Janet down the road and Pauline at the corner shop and tries not to look at the pictures she’s got all over her walls, pictures of Noel and Liam as children, teenagers, young adults, posed and candid, irrefutable evidence of the two of them growing up together. She doesn’t seem to notice his lacklustre conversation, though, or if she does she doesn’t say anything, just says lately, Liam’s been a bit- well, you should speak to him.  

And it’s not like he can put it off forever; they’re fucking brothers, after all. They can’t just never speak again with no explanation, can’t avoid family gatherings and being in the same room for the rest of their lives, but Noel’ll be damned if he doesn’t try and string it out for as long as he can, give himself as much time for prayer and reflection and begging God for strength and mercy as possible. He fucking needs it, knows by now that he can’t be trusted to do it himself, doesn’t fucking know how he’ll react if he’s put in an empty room with Liam again. Or, well, he does, deep in his soul, and that’s the problem; it’s not the reaction he should have. 

Unfortunately for him, it happens sooner than he’d like it to. 

It’s been about a month, and he’s managed to avoid seeing Liam at all, not gone to the usual fortnightly teas and not called or dropped in unless he’d known or could hazard a fairly educated guess that Liam would be out, and Liam hasn’t shown up to any Sunday confessions, and it’s not even a fucking Sunday when he does show up. It’s a warm Friday evening, an hour before the church is due to close. Noel doesn’t turn around at the sound of someone entering - often people just want to sit and drink in the atmosphere of the church in peace, don’t want to be perceived doing so - just keeps busying himself with packing up the ornate Bible he’s had out on the altar, until a voice says: 

“You’re avoiding me.” 

Noel stiffens, and doesn’t turn around. He doesn’t need to; it’s Liam, which means he doesn’t want to. 

“Says who?” 

“You’ve not been to see mam in over a month,” Liam says, accusingly. 

“I have,” Noel says smoothly. “Saw her last weekend.” There’s a pause. 

“The weekend I was gone?” 

“I can’t help that, can I?” 

“You’re fucking avoiding me.” There’s an edge to Liam’s tone now, something that’s both hurt and angry, and that’s enough to make Noel turn around, to meet his gaze and level it. He’s hovering in the middle of the pews, a good ten metres or so away from Noel, like he’s not sure yet if he’s allowed to come closer, and Noel finds it gives him a rush, the knowledge that even when Liam’s angry enough to come marching down to Noel’s church to give him a piece of his mind he still defers to Noel. 

“You know where I am,” Noel says coolly. “You could’ve always come to me if you wanted.” 

“‘S not the same,” Liam says.

“How’s it not the same?” 

“Just isn’t.” He says it with such conviction, like he really believes it, the same way he used to say Father Christmas is real, Noel, mam told me, and it almost makes Noel smile. There’s not really fucking much to smile about, though, with the little brother whose come he swallowed a few weeks ago standing in the middle of his church. 

“So what’re you doing here now?”

“Looking for you.” Noel spreads his hands. 

“Found me,” he says, voice a little taunting, mocking in that soft, subtle way that really gets under Liam’s skin. It does this time too, makes Liam’s jaw clench and makes him take a good few steps forward until he’s at the bottom of the steps leading up to the altar, glaring up at Noel. It makes Noel feel a small surge of power, the way Liam’s blinking up at him, jaw set, eyes ablaze. He wonders if that’s how Liam looks up at God, too. 

“You’re a cunt,” Liam hisses, and he says that with conviction too, a biting edge to his tone that belies the fact he won’t swallow what he tears off. 

“Yeah?” Noel says, raising an eyebrow. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, and takes another step closer, emboldened by the fact Noel hasn’t sent him away yet, is still playing with him like food on his plate. “You’re a right fucking cunt, you are.” 

“What’re you doing in my church, then?” Another step, closer to the altar than Noel thinks Liam has ever been. He should probably stop him - Liam’s certainly not in a state of grace either - but finds he can’t, enjoys the electric feeling in his veins too much to stop it now. What harm can it do, anyway, he thinks vaguely, watching as Liam stomps up the steps to the altar and closes the gap between himself and Noel, fury etched into every single atom that makes up his pretty face. Liam’s already defiled the church and the Lord; it’s not like it can get any worse. 

“You’ve been avoiding me,” Liam says again. He’s so close now, almost eye-to-eye with Noel, if they were ever to be eye-to-eye, if Liam weren’t always looking up to Noel.

“And?” Noel says it softly, a little challengingly, doesn’t need to raise his voice to make himself heard with Liam. He fucking loves that, always has, loves the control it gives him, the dominance he has over Liam, always has had, always will. 

“And-” Liam stops, mouth open, and then closes it, and opens it, and closes it again, struggling with the words. “And I fucking hate you,” he settles on eventually, which does make Noel’s lips quirk up in a smile this time as he takes the final step forward to close the gap between himself and Liam completely. 

“You hate me,” he says, phrasing it as a statement. 

“Yeah,” Liam says, but his breath hitches on the word. “I fucking hate you.” Noel cocks his head, veins thrumming with the power that comes with every shaky inhale he hears from Liam. 

“That’s a sin, y’know,” Noel says lightly. “Matthew 5:22. ‘Anyone who is angry with his brother will be subject to judgement.’” He tries not to think about the fact he’d chosen that verse out of all of them, gently reminding Liam that they’re brothers, as if Liam needed any fucking reminding. Maybe it’s himself he’s trying to remind, his own twisted mind he’s trying to satisfy.

“I don’t believe in that shit,” Liam says, but he sounds a little more uncertain now, which bolsters Noel, who casts his eyes up at the cross, hanging almost directly above them, and then back at Liam, and raises his eyebrows. 

“Sinning in a church?” he says. “You’re going to have to seek forgiveness.” Liam tilts his head up at him. 

“I’m not asking fucking anyone-” he begins, but falters when Noel fixes him with a hard look. 

“You’ll do as I fucking tell you,” he says, and Liam swallows. “You’re not going to be asking for forgiveness. You’re going to beg.” He watches as Liam’s pupils dilate, more black than blue in his eyes for a moment, and he opens his mouth, and then closes it again. 

“Get on your knees,” Noel says. 

“I-” 

“Get on your fucking knees, Liam.” Liam only hesitates a moment longer, the side of him that wants to see what Noel’s thinking warring with the side of him that wants to disobey every fucking command Noel gives him, wants to spit vitriol in his direction and show his love with his fists, but the former wins out, and he sinks to his knees in front of Noel, not breaking eye contact at all as he drops down. It makes Noel’s vision white out for a brief moment, makes him have to clench his jaw to try to stop his knees buckling with the sheer fucking power, watching his little brother get on his knees for him, no questions asked. 

“Sins require penances, Liam,” he says, almost conversationally, and Liam just blinks up at him, long lashes casting soft grey shadows on his cheekbones. God, he really is fucking gorgeous, Noel thinks, and can’t help the way his hand comes up to cup Liam’s jaw, thumb stroking across his cheekbone before he forces Liam’s head up, forces him to hold Noel’s gaze.  

“Let’s see,” he says, bringing his hand under Liam’s jaw, holding it firm. “Ten Our Fathers, and twenty Hail Marys?” He cocks his head, and lets go of Liam, who just blinks up at him, pupils blown, eyes wide. 

“Go on, then,” Noel says, and straightens his fascia. “Start with the Our Father.”

“I don’t know it,” Liam mutters. 

“You don’t know the Our Father?” 

“No.” Noel purses his lips. 

“Try,” he says. Liam stares at him, like he’s not quite sure if Noel’s being serious, and Noel just holds his gaze, lets ice meet fire, until Liam swallows. 

“Our Father, who art in Heaven,” he says, a little unsteadily. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy- thy…” he trails off, eyes flitting to Noel’s again. The lust that’s been pooling in the corners of his irises is edged with something that looks almost like pleading, now, and it goes straight to Noel’s cock, already hard underneath his cassock. His mind is too full with Liam to register how fucked up that is, though, his heart injecting a burst of lust into every bit of blood that passes through it, ten times as intoxicating as the peace he feels when alone with the Lord.

“Thy will be done,” he says, and Liam swallows again. 

“Thy will be done,” he says, “on Earth as it is in Heaven. Lead us-”

“No,” Noel says, and Liam falters. 

“Deliver us-”

“No.” 

“I don’t know it, Noel.” Noel tuts. 

“Not good enough, Liam,” he says. “Think.” He brings his hand back up to Liam’s jaw, all fucking thoughts of God, give me strength gone, replaced by God, you’re fucking pretty, and strokes over the soft skin of Liam’s cheek again. “Don’t you want to make me proud, Liam?” 

“Yeah,” Liam says. “Yeah.” 

“So try harder.” Liam nods, and inhales deeply, eyes fluttering shut for a moment, before he opens them, looks back up at Noel, and continues. 

“Give us this day our daily bread,” he says, “and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Deliver-”

“No.” 

“Ame-”

“No.” Noel sighs, like he’s disappointed. “Think, Liam.” 

“‘M fucking trying,” Liam says hotly. “You’re making it dead fucking hard.” Noel raises an eyebrow. 

“I’m only giving you your due penance,” he says calmly, and Liam grits his teeth, closes his eyes again, and doesn’t open them as he starts to speak. 

“Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil. Amen.” He opens his eyes, then, flutters his lashes all fucking pretty like he knows it’s going to bypass Noel’s brain entirely and go straight to his cock, and looks up at Noel hopefully. Noel can’t be having that. 

“Again,” he says, and Liam’s jaw would probably have dropped if Noel’s fingers weren’t still stroking over his cheek, hand cupped underneath his jawbone. 

“Are you fucking seri-”

“Do you want to add to your penance?” Liam’s mouth snaps shut, and he throws Noel a glare. 

“Our Father, who art in Heaven,” he says, a little more petulantly this time. “Hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Forgive us-”

“No.” 

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Noel,” Liam says, and Noel tightens his grip on Liam’s jaw, jerks his head upwards just so he knows who he’s really praying to.

“Again.” 

“Our Father, who art in Heaven,” Liam says irritably, “hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Give us this day our daily bread, and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil. Amen.” He says the Amen almost like a jeer, rolling the word around his tongue, but it’s good enough for Noel, this time. He can do his penance for that later. 

“Are you sorry for your sins?” he asks, quietly, mockingly, even though Liam’s only managed one Lord’s Prayer successfully. He watches Liam grit his teeth, watches the anger flash in his eyes for a moment before he swallows it down and bites out: 

“Yes.” 

“Do you seek absolution?”

“Yes.” Noel exhales, and raises his eyebrows.

“Well, only I can absolve you of your sins, Liam,” he says, taking a step back from Liam and doing a half-turn so his back is against the altar, the soft cloth pressing against the small of his back. “You’re going to have to convince me.” 

“How’m I meant to convince you?” Liam demands. Noel shrugs, feigning nonchalance.

“Think of something.” Liam glares at him for a moment, and then his eyes flit to Noel’s cock, level with Liam’s eyes, if now a few feet away, and then back up at Noel’s eyes, a little questioningly, like he’s asking if that’s what Noel was getting at. Noel leans back a little, rests both hands on the altar to support himself, and cocks an eyebrow at Liam, hoping Liam will understand what he means, because gone though he is for the angel in front of him, he doesn’t know if he’s lost faith enough to say it aloud. Liam, though, true to his role as seraph, understands, and moves closer, until he’s kneeling at Noel’s feet again. He gazes at Noel’s cassock, and then lifts his head to look up at Noel, an unspoken question in his eyes, uncertainty for the first time - if they do this, that’s it, and Noel will have to be laicised - and Noel just holds his gaze, lets Liam work it out for himself. And he does, like he always does if given enough time and encouragement from Noel, reaches up with one slightly shaky hand, and pushes up the cloth of Noel’s cassock. 

Noel’s never realised how cold his church is before, protected by the long cloth he wears whenever he’s inside it, and he barely realises now, despite the bare skin of his legs being hit by a cool gust of air, because all it makes him think is about how hot Liam’s breath is, dusted across his thighs as his other hand reaches for Noel’s boxers, fingers curling inelegantly around the waistband, one more moment of hesitancy, and then pulling. 

Noel’s cock springs free, and Liam’s so eager to get his hand on it that he lets go of Noel’s cassock, meaning Noel has to catch it before it falls, but it doesn’t even matter, because he’s looking down to see Liam’s eyes fixated greedily on his big brother’s cock, and feeling his little brother’s fingers wrapping around the base of his cock almost confidently, no shyness or hesitancy now. He strokes it once, twice, and Noel’s already dangerously close, something lethal about the combination of making his little brother get on his knees and recite the Lord’s Prayer in Noel’s church and then getting said brother’s hand on his cock while he rests against his altar, the altar he prays at morning and night, but it’s nothing compared to when Liam leans forward and takes the head of Noel’s cock in his mouth, flicking his tongue around it like he’s trying to map it out. It makes Noel exhale shakily, tip his head back and gaze up at the cross above them, because he’s going to fucking come if he looks down at his brother, barely holds on as it is as Liam works his way further down Noel’s cock, hot and wet and soft and God, God if Noel had known that Liam worshipping could feel like this, he would have forced Liam to his knees in a pew a long, long fucking time ago. 

“God,” Noel breathes, and he hears Liam inhale sharply, feels Liam’s tongue flattening on the underside of his cock as his lips meet his hand and then he pulls back just enough to suck gently on the head of Noel’s cock, lapping up the precum that Noel’s been leaking since he’d got Liam on his knees. “God, Liam. You feel so fucking good.” That seems to be the right thing to say (of course it is, the kid’s never wanted anything but Noel’s approval), because Liam moans around Noel’s cock, and the vibrations feel fucking delicious, feel like the first time Noel had felt the swell of an organ in his heart, or maybe the first time a choir had sent shivers down his spine. 

“Jesus,” Noel whispers, and then he dares to look down, and lets out a soft moan when he does, because the sight of Liam with Noel’s cock in his mouth, eyes dark, gazing up at Noel like he’s the only deity he’s ever known is almost too much, almost tips Noel over the edge already. He doesn’t want that, though, wants this to last as long as it can, even though it won’t last as long as it could and has already lasted far longer than it should, so he grits his teeth, closes his eyes for a moment, and breathes deeply. Liam pulls off as he does, hand still working on Noel’s cock, rough and uneven but Liam, and says, a little hoarsely:

“You can fuck my mouth, if you want.” 

“Fucking hell, Liam,” Noel groans, and then he’s reaching out for Liam, cupping his jaw and running his thumb across Liam’s cheekbone once, and his other hand is coming up to the back of Liam’s head and forcing him down on Noel’s cock, and Liam just fucking takes it, eyes fluttering shut, moaning a little like he’s the one getting off, not Noel. God, he must’ve been shagging more boys than he’d admitted to because he’s so fucking good, feels so much better than any other mouth Noel’s ever had around him just because it’s the one Noel’s been trying to get to shut up for the past twenty-three fucking years. Noel pulls him back by his hair, just to get a good fucking look at him, just to see the way his cock slides out of Liam’s mouth until only the head is still in there, Liam’s cheeks hollowed around it as he sucks on it lazily. 

“Christ, Liam,” he says, and he fucking means it, because Liam could well be Christ, could be the Spirit and the Father too, filling Noel with the kind of warmth and lust and love and whatever the fuck else is going on to make his heart feel like it’s going to migrate to his fucking cock, or wherever else Liam deigns to touch him. It makes Liam moan around Noel’s cock again, though, which drives Noel closer to the edge, makes him hiss and groan as Liam laps up more of the precum, tongue curling around his cock as he sinks down further on it again. 

“God, Liam, ‘m gonna come,” Noel says, and Liam just blinks up at him, eyes dark, pupils blown - I want you to - and that’s it, Noel’s not going to last any longer, so he tries to pull away but Liam won’t let him, follows his hips, and Noel gives in, fucks into Liam’s mouth two, three, four more times and then he’s gasping out Liam’s name, God’s name, expletives, Liam’s name again, coming down his little brother’s throat as Liam swallows everything like he’s been thirsting for it for years. And he has, God, he fucking has, told Noel all about it in the confessional, which makes Noel groan, makes him fuck into Liam’s mouth again, and Liam just fucking takes it, lets Noel’s cock slide down his throat until it’s a little too much and he has to pull out, chest heaving as he gasps for breath against the altar. Liam looks up at him for a moment, eyes hungry, and then he’s unbuckling his jeans, getting his own cock in his hand, pulling at it inelegantly, eyes still locked with Noel’s. Noel can’t look away, couldn’t even if he wanted to, not after the way Liam’s just showed him what devotion really is, just watches as Liam’s eyes roam Noel’s face, drinking in his eyes, lips, nose, eyes, lips, and then Liam lets out a stifled moan and his eyes flutter shut as he bites his lip and comes too, just to the fucking image of Noel, to the fact he’s just made his big brother come in his mouth. 

He wipes his hand on his jeans - fucking disgusting, honestly - and rocks back on his heels, and looks up at Noel, who’s still trying to catch his breath, cassock hitched up, hands fisted in the altar cloth that he’s just defiled by letting his brother suck him off on it. The church is too loud, now, filled with the sounds of the two of them panting, and Noel squeezes his eyes shut for a moment before looking back down at Liam.

He could get angry. He could yell, tell Liam to fuck off, call him sick, twisted, disgusting, evil, all the words that have flown through his mind every time he’s looked in the mirror for the past few months. He could mock Liam, taunt him for what he’s just done, let him know that he can never take back the fact that he let his brother fuck his mouth, that he let his brother mark him up as his. 

He doesn’t, though. Instead, he brings a hand up to Liam’s cheek again, and Liam leans into it, still gazing up at Noel, waiting for him to speak first. 

“Good boy,” Noel says softly, and Liam blinks. “I think you’ve earnt your absolution today.” Liam smiles, sweet and happy, and Noel feels something in his chest ache, something that he can’t quite place as either positive or negative, only knows is love. 

God is in everyone, they’d told him at the seminary, and he’d never quite believed it. God was in churches, in depictions of the Son on the cross, in the Word, in the stained glass on the windows and the wood of a confessional booth and the dotted notes of a hymn. But here, in his church, with the Bible behind him, and the confessional booth in front of him and the Father and Son above him, all he can think is that he’s found God in Liam.