give me gin n' tonic
pairing: 1994!Liam Gallagher x reader genre: slow burn • 90s tension • fluff + angst light • pre-fame chaos cw: alcohol/drugs (90s Manchester), smoking, strong language, heavy sexual tension, Liam being a menace, suggestive vibes. word count: 4,1k summary: Your life is stuck on pause until this band flashes on your crappy TV and something shifts. a tiny gig, a look too sharp to ignore, and Liam Gallagher deciding you’re his new favourite problem.
Chapter 1
1994 was slipping through my fingers, and I was wasting yet another friday exactly the way I wasted all the others: locked inside my tiny flat in the centre of Manchester, smoking cheap weed, drinking warm beer, flipping through channels on a TV that really should’ve been retired years ago.
My life was a loop. Working as a cashier in a shop I hated. Studying on my own, hoping that someday—somehow—I’d make it into the world of live music. Missing my friends and family back in London. Sometimes it scared me how bored I was of my own existence.
That friday I wasn’t expecting anything from the world. I just wanted a half-decent song to drown out the week. And then it happened. On one of those dodgy late-night music channels, a band of young lads appeared—longish hair, arrogant attitude, distortion so filthy it somehow sounded good even through my dying TV speakers.
But what actually froze me in place was the singer’s voice. Rough, melodic, insolent. Hypnotic.
I stopped breathing for a second, watching that band burn through a performance with a confidence that felt too big for a group I had never even heard of.
When they finished, the presenter tossed their name out almost carelessly: Oasis.
I repeated it in my head like I needed to memorise it for an exam. Oasis. Oasis.
Something electric ran through me—some instinct I didn’t feel very often. I needed to see them live. I needed to know if that feeling was real or just a trick of late-night television.
On Monday, still carrying that strange energy in my chest, I told my mate from the shop—one of the few people who actually listened when I talked about music. “I found an incredible band,” he looked at me. “Oasis. Do you know them?”
He looked at me like I’d just announced I’d discovered water on Mars. “How d’you find Oasis?” he laughed. “They’re from Manchester! I know a guy who’s mates with Paul—one of the lads who plays with them.”
My heart jumped like life had suddenly remembered I existed. “Can you get me a contact?” I blurted. “I want to meet them. Or see them live. Or—I don’t know. Anything.”
I didn’t know if it was fan behaviour, boredom, or some weird gut feeling, but something in me knew that whatever was coming next… mattered.
Jonatan—my coworker, my reluctant emotional support human, the only thing keeping me sane at that miserable shop—showed up the following tuesday with news that hit me like lightning:
he’d gotten us two tickets to a realease party of their upcoming album.
I just stared at him.
I didn’t even know bands like that did private shows. Or that Jonatan knew anyone remotely interesting.
“A mate of mine knows Paul like i said,” he said, puffing up with pride. “He’s letting us in. And we can stay after the gig. Meet them. Have a drink. Whatever they’re up to.”
I looked at him like he’d just handed me the keys to heaven.
That day I begged to leave work early. It was a Wednesday.
I ran home, tore open my wardrobe like it was a dramatic third act in a rom-com, and put on the most suggestive outfit I could find in five frantic seconds.
I threw on some makeup, grabbed my bag, and practically sprinted toward the pub on the corner of the theatre—where Jonatan was waiting for me.
“Jon! I’m here,” I gasped, collapsing onto the stool beside him.
He laughed and handed me a pint that looked freshly poured.
“Why are you in such a rush?”
“I thought I wasn’t gonna make it,” I admitted, taking a sip. “Didn’t even have time to think about what to wear —just threw on whatever was lying closest.”
Jonatan looked me up and down and clicked his tongue dramatically.
“If that was the first thing you grabbed… Jesus. You’re gonna split Manchester in half, love.”
I laughed, pretending I wasn’t blushing.
One hour and six beers later, we were officially buzzed enough to attend an intimate gig without embarrassing ourselves —or, more realistically, buzzed enough to embarrass ourselves beautifully.
We walked in just as the lights went down.
The theatre was small, almost cozy. Maybe sixty people tops. Friends, cousins, people who looked like they worked at the neighbourhood record shop. Not a single camera. No press in sight.
To the side, I spotted a woman in her fifties chatting with a guy in his twenties. They were laughing, but he had that nervous laugh —the kind people get right before something big happens.
Everyone else was scattered in small groups, drinks in hand, warm chatter filling the room. No pushing. No suffocating heat. You could walk to the bar without busting a lung.
Naturally, we grabbed another drink.
Then the lights snapped into colour, and the stage lit up like someone had flipped a switch on reality.
And they walked out.
They played with an intensity that bordered on uncomfortable —like they didn’t know how to hold anything back, even for a crowd of sixty people. The distortion buzzed under my feet. Their shouts, the way they looked at each other, the tension in the air.
It felt like watching something that didn’t yet know it was destined to become massive.
When it ended, there was no rehearsed applause, no protocol. They simply jumped off the stage straight into the crowd, hugging people like they were at some chaotic family reunion.
I watched two of them go straight to the woman in her fifties, pulling her into a hug that looked like gratitude and relief rolled into one.
Jonatan leaned toward me.
“Those two? Singer and guitarist —they’re brothers,” he whispered. “That woman’s gotta be their mum. She’s got the look.”
“And what are their names?” I asked, still half-buzzing from the show.
Jonatan pointed with the elegance of a happily drunk man.
“The one with the guitar is Noel,” he said —the older one, serious, short hair, that posture of don’t bother me unless you want a classic written on the spot. “And that one,” he added, pointing at the pair of blue eyes and dangerous smile, “that’s Liam. Word is he’s a walking nightmare.”
I laughed —part alcohol, part thrill, part disbelief that this was happening.
The house lights flicked on.
People drifted toward the bar, toward the band, toward anywhere the energy pulled them. I watched strangers congratulate them, watched them respond with messy hugs, loud laughs, playful shoves.
Then a guy appeared out of nowhere and threw his arms around Jonatan.
“So glad you came, mate!” he said, still buzzing from the show.
“Thanks for inviting me,” Jonatan replied. “This is Y/N —the one I told you about… the reason we’re here, actually.”
I froze.
The guy —still nameless, still cheerful— slid an arm around my shoulders like we’d known each other for years.
He guided me toward the cluster of boys who’d just jumped offstage, still buzzing with leftover adrenaline.
“Wanna introduce you to the band,” he said, steering me forward. “Jonatan told me about your… enthusiasm.”
I laughed nervously. “Don’t think I’m some deranged fan,” I lied, badly.
“Noel!” shouted across the room, lifting a hand like a dad calling his kid off the playground. “Mate, where’ve you been?”
Noel turned, eyebrows raised, expression equally amused and suspicious.
And then —traitor absoluto—announced loud enough for half the room to hear:
“I want you all to meet our potential first fan.”
My soul left my body.
I felt like a twelve-year-old who just got outed for having a crush on the boy in her class. I swallowed hard and forced myself to extend my hand.
Liam looked at me like he was dissecting a strange insect — not hostile, just… sharp. Present. Curious. I couldn’t tell if he was annoyed someone had dragged a “fan” backstage… or if he was simply too high to register reality properly.
“I’m Y/N,” I managed, my hand still mid-air.
“Liam,” he said, finally taking it — not looking at my hand, only at me.
Before I could process whatever the hell that stare was supposed to mean, Noel swooped in like an older brother on damage control.
“Noel,” he added, gently prying our hands apart so he could shake mine himself. “Can I get you a drink? Since my brother seems determined to be rude tonight.”
I laughed, tension dissolving like sugar in hot tea. Jonatan reappeared at my side with a beer in hand, eyes wide, watching everything like it was his favorite soap opera.
“Yeah… I’d love a gin and tonic,” I said, trying—and failing—to sound casual.
Liam spoke for the first time since shaking my hand.
“I’ll get it,” he muttered, already turning away. Short and simple.
But the way he said it—low, careless, thick with that Mancunian edge—sent a shiver straight through me.
He didn’t wait for a reply. Just walked toward the bar with that swagger that wasn’t really swagger at all — just the natural way he moved, like rhythm lived in his bones and attitude was oxygen.
And God help me… I watched him go.
There was something about him… something intoxicating and magnetic, this feral sort of charm that clung to him like smoke. It was too much. And still, I couldn’t stop staring.
He returned with two drinks, walking with that natural arrogance of someone who has never doubted a single decision in his life.
“’Ere y’go, luv,” he said, handing me the glass.
“Thanks, Liam.” I took a sip, praying it would steady me.
The room had shifted. Noel was deep in conversation with a group on one side, Jonatan was laughing with George and Paul on the other.
And suddenly, somehow, it was just him and me.
“You from ’round here?” he asked, leaning his shoulder against the wall.
“I’m from London,” I said. “Moved to Manchester two years ago.”
His eyes lit up.
“New mancunian, eh? I like that.” He drifted closer to the bar, half-leaning against it, gaze flicking down to the fingers wrapped around my glass. “So what dragged ya to this charming shithole o’ a city?”
“Work. Studying. Boredom,” I answered. “The ideal combination.”
He laughed —that rough, teasing laugh of his that sounded like trouble warming up.
“Born ’n raised, sweetheart,” he said, thumbing his chest with mock pride. “Manc lad till they bury me.”
Then he shifted again, leaning forward with that dangerous posture of his, like he was about to tell me a secret… or take a bite.
“So…” he continued, voice dropping, “if you’re kinda new around here… who dragged ya to an underground Oasis gig? Love for music… or were you hopin’ we were as bonnie in person as on telly?”
I choked on my drink.
“Are you always this full of yourself?” I asked, raising a brow.
“Only when it works, luv.” He winked —slow and shameless. “And I reckon it’s workin’.”
I rolled my eyes. He stepped closer anyway, just a breath away, invading my space without laying a finger on me.
“Come on, tell me the truth,” he murmured, voice dipping lower. “Did ya come for the tunes… or for me?”
Heat rushed up my neck.
“I didn’t even know who you were.”
He grinned like he’d just won something important.
“Even better.” He clicked his tongue. “Means I’m impressin’ ya in real time.”
“Liam, please.” I said rolling my eyes.
“What?” He tilted his head, all mischief. “It’s true, love.” He braced his hands on either side of me against the wall —not touching, but caging. “You’re lookin’ at me like you can’t decide whether to kiss me or launch that drink at me face. And honestly? Both sound dead flattering.”
I opened my mouth but nothing came out.
He smirked, leaning in just enough to make my stomach flip.
“What, cat got your tongue? Ran outta insults already, London girl?”
I bit my lip —completely involuntarily.
And he noticed. Of course he noticed.
His eyes dipped, slow and hungry.
“Oi, there it is…” he murmured, that slow, dangerous smile tugging at his mouth. “Knew I’d find your weak spot.”
“I don’t have weak spots.”
“Sure, love.” He stepped back, lifting his glass with a lazy shrug. “Keep tellin’ yourself that.”
I hated him. God, I hated him. And at the same time, I wanted him to keep talking forever.
Someone called his name. We both turned.
It was Noel again.
“Stop harassing the poor girl,” he laughed, completely unbothered. “Come on, there’s people who actually want to talk to you.”
Liam rolled his eyes dramatically, but before walking away he sent me one last look —slow, indulgent, too confident for his own good.
“This ain’t over, sweetheart,” he said, swaggering off like the world’s most arrogant saint.
My stomach twisted in a way I did not want to examine.
I found Jonatan in the crowd and slipped back into his group like I hadn’t just had an interaction that bordered on illegal with the band’s frontman.
The night moved fast —drinks that refilled themselves, laughter rolling from every corner, glances exchanged across the room that felt like electricity.
The musicians drifted into their own pockets of people, and the rest of us formed a kind of improvised afterparty: free drinks, hazy voices, strangers bonding over nothing.
I was just about to leave with Jonatan —he always insisted on walking me home— when I heard my name being yelled, slurred but unmistakable:
“Y/N!”
I turned around.
Liam was walking toward me, stumbling but somehow still radiating that arrogant confidence of his. A contradiction wrapped in leather and intoxication.
“We’re playin’ somewhere bigger on Saturday,” he said, pointing at me with his empty glass. “Bring your boyfriend. We’ll be expectin’ ya.”
I wanted to evaporate on the spot.
“He’s not my boyfriend,” I blurted out way too fast. “He’s my friend. And yes, we’ll go.”
Liam’s smile spread slowly, satisfied.
“Good. I’ll put ya on the list.” He grabbed my arm, pulled me closer and planted a wet kiss on my cheek —leaving me frozen and burning at the same time.
When he walked away, Jonatan stared at me like he’d just watched a ghost have sex with a leprechaun.
“I cannot believe you pulled the singer from Oasis.”
“I did not,” I snapped, offended. “One: I didn’t ‘pull’ him. We had a warm conversation, that’s all. Two: until two weeks ago we didn’t even know Oasis existed.”
“You didn’t. I did,” he said smugly. “As you see, I have powerful connections. Friend of the friend of the guitarist.”
I rolled my eyes, laughing.
“So… you’re coming with me to the show this Saturday?”
“What show?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“The one Liam invited us to. Just now. Did you not hear him?”
“Nope. But of course I’m going. Maybe I catch a leftover groupie.”
“You don’t have those band perks yet,” I teased. “First we need to get some kind of job with them. Don’t you think? We quit the shop, go on tour, live a more exciting life…”
I said it jokingly. A bar-fantasy. A teenage dream dressed up as sarcasm.
The days flew by. Wednesday’s show felt like the beginning of something. I didn’t know if it was something good or a brewing disaster… but it was movement. A shift in the air.
Saturday hit like a tsunami.
It was already two in the afternoon and I still couldn’t decide what to wear, how to do my hair, whether the weather would be warm, cold, or all four seasons at once. We had about an hour and a half of travel ahead of us and Jonatan wasn’t here yet, so I wandered around my flat like a ghost with anxiety.
At some point I realized I was accomplishing nothing.
I cracked open a beer. Lit the last bit of a joint left over from earlier in the week. And repeated to myself: Don’t expect anything. Nothing’s going to happen.
A knock at the door.
Jonatan.
I handed him a beer before he even said hello.
“You ready, Y/N?” he called from the living room, exasperated, while I was still locked in the bathroom fighting my own reflection.
When I finally stepped out, Jonatan whistled from the couch. Between impatience and alcohol, he defaulted to flattery.
I’d picked black leather shorts that were borderline illegal, a black bra, and over it a mesh top that left absolutely everything to the imagination and somehow nothing at all.
“Shall we?” he asked from the door, praying I wouldn’t retreat back into the bathroom again.
“Ready,” I said, grabbing my bag.
The trip was pure excitement: warm beers in his backpack, ridiculous delusional plans about “how we’d get hired by the band,” jokes about quitting the shop and becoming backstage legends. Completely absurd. Completely necessary.
When we arrived, there was a massive line wrapping around the venue. We had no idea how a bunch of Manchester lads barely starting out could pull this many people.
And that’s when panic hit me. What if Liam forgot? What if we weren’t on any list? What if we came all this way for nothing?
“Sorry… we’re on the list. Could you help us?” I asked a security guard.
“Ask over there,” he said dryly, pointing toward the box office.
I swallowed and approached.
“Hi… is Y/N +1 on the list?”
The girl smiled instantly.
“Yes, of course. Here you go.”
She handed us two wristbands that said BACKSTAGE.
“You can head in.”
I breathed for real for the first time in ten minutes.
We went inside. Still early, but already busy.
Then we spotted George, Jonatan’s friend. He waved us over and led us backstage.
The room was a beautiful disaster: low tables with half-finished bottles, mismatched couches, a buzz of pre-show nerves, instruments being tuned, voices warming up, laughter, chaos, life.
“You made it!” Noel said, pulling us into a hug like we were old friends. “Thought Liam was hallucinating again.”
“Hi, Noel. Yeah, we came. We loved the show the other night,” I said, smiling uncontrollably.
“Fantastic. Thanks for coming,” Noel said, giving me another quick hug before disappearing back into the chaos.
And then I heard a voice behind me. A voice that unhinged me before I even turned around.
“What you havin’, luv?”
I recognised it instantly. I turned, pretending I wasn’t stupidly excited.
“Gin tonic, luv” I said with a smile — and for some reason, I wrapped an arm around his neck, as if greeting him like that was the most natural thing in the world.
The hand he placed on my waist turned me to dust.
He stepped away for a second, then came back with a beer for himself and a glass for me, handing it over as he dropped onto the couch beside me like that was our designated spot.
The moment I sat down, he scanned me head to toe with absolutely no shame.
He talked. And he talked like there wasn’t a band about to go onstage in forty minutes. Like the world wasn’t spinning around him. Like he had all the time in the world to devote to looking at me.
“You look fuckin’ mental tonight, luv,” he said, throwing an arm over the back of the couch. “In a good way. Don’t get all shy on me.”
“I’m not shy,” I lied.
“Aye, ’course you’re not. Your cheeks say otherwise.”
I took a sip to hide the embarrassment burning up my neck.
“And you? Shouldn’t you be… I don’t know… focused? You’re going on in half an hour.”
He pointed at me with his bottle.
“I am focused. I’m lookin’ right at the thing I wanna think about.”
My breath stuttered.
“Stop saying things like that.”
“Why? You don’t like it?” He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, those sharp blue eyes digging straight into me. “Or you like it too much — that the problem?”
“Shut up, Liam.”
“Make me.”
I pushed him lightly in the chest, laughing.
“Are you always like this?”
“Worse,” he said instantly. “But I’m bein’ dead charmin’ for you tonight.”
“Oh really?”
“Yeah. Don’t get used to it, though.” He shot me a wicked wink. “I’m only sweet when I want someone.”
“And now you want someone?”
He inched closer. Barely. Just enough for the air to thicken.
“Aye. Thought it was obvious, luv.”
And then — of course — the backstage lights flickered. Showtime warning.
Liam stood up.
“I gotta go, babe. See you there.” He gave me that dangerous half-smile before disappearing down the corridor like smoke.
The show was an eruption. A storm.
Liam was possessed by the devil of rock; he moved like the stage had belonged to him long before he was even born, sang like he was throwing knives at the ceiling. He was a steamroller. A magnetic, dangerous figure — impossible to look away from.
And when they introduced a song called Slide Away, something in the air shifted.
The lights dipped, the band sunk into a more intimate pulse, and he… he searched for something. Or someone.
But when that line came — I dream of you and we talk of growing old / But you said please don’t — he lifted his hand and pointed directly toward my section.
Not the crowd. Me.
My heart slammed against my ribs. Jonatan shrieked like he’d just been gifted front-row tickets to Bowie.
Everything ended too fast. The adrenaline, the music, the screams. The theatre burst open in sound and then dissolved into that echo of What the hell just happened?
We stayed off to one side, talking about everything and that moment in particular until a security guy told us we either went backstage or got out. We hesitated — but then George peeked his head from behind the curtains, whistled, and jerked his chin for us to follow.
Up we went.
George, who never spoke directly to me, looked at me like he’d just walked into a secret:
“They’re looking for you.”
My stomach clenched. And it wasn’t fear. It was something else entirely.
I walked to the room we’d been in before the show — and there he was.
Liam. Sprawled on a couch like a decadent king, legs spread in a way that should have been illegal, head tilted to the side while he laughed with Noel and the others. The thick smoke, the smell of alcohol, the exhausted laughter, guitars tossed anywhere — it was a calmer, dirtier, softer chaos than the pre-show frenzy.
Perfect.
He lifted his hands when he saw me, as if asking to be picked up.
“Ey, ya luv, I saw you out there.”
Jonatan shot me a told you so look.
“Yeah, I saw you too,” I laughed, sitting beside him.
Jonatan dropped onto a seat across from us with Paul and George, already holding another beer.
Liam looked at me out of the corner of his eye. Once. Twice.
Then he let his head fall back against the couch, sliding his knee until it brushed mine — subtle, intentional.
“Looked fuckin’ gorgeous from up there, ya know,” he murmured, voice rough from the show and the whisky.
“I was in the third row, Liam. Doubt you could see anything.”
“Course I did, luv.” His gaze dropped, slow. “Saw you walk in, saw you movin’… saw you singin’ that part.”
“What part?” I asked, pretending not to know.
He smiled — slow, lethal.
“But you said please don’t.”
He held my gaze with such shameless intensity my cheeks burned.
I rolled my eyes. “Not everything revolves around you, hun.”
He let out a low, warm laugh.
“It will, babe. Sooner or later.”
“Oh yeah? Pretty sure of that?”
“Aye.” He leaned in, his arm brushing mine. “You look at me like you wanna ruin me.”
“Maybe I do” I murmured, nudging my knee into his — a challenge.
He clicked his tongue.
A soft, teasing, absolutely dangerous sound.
“Don’t tease me, love. Not tonight. Been thinkin’ about you since wednesday.”
“Thinking what?” I raised an eyebrow.
He licked his lips, eyes dropping briefly to my mouth.
“Thinkin’ how fuckin’ good you’d look on top of me.” he said directly in my ear.
Heat detonated in my chest.
I refused to show it.
“You’re a disaster, Liam.”
“And you fuckin’ love it.” His grin was pure sin. “Don’t pretend.”
“Not sure love is the word I’d use.”
“No worries, sweetheart. I’ll teach ya.”
“Oh, you’re gonna teach me?”
“Aye.” He leaned close enough that I could smell sweat, beer, cigarette smoke, something purely him. “Lesson one: don’t look at me like that unless you want somethin’. That stare’ll get you in trouble.”
My pulse jumped.
“And what if I want trouble?” I whispered.
His smile darkened.
“Then you’re sittin’ next to the right fuckin’ bloke, aren’t ya?”
Chapter 2
