Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The Lynch brothers, the brothers Lynch. Glory to their maker, for they were something spectacular. Matthew the angel, Ronan the dreamer, Declan the liar.

Made spectacular.

Matthew  was made, in every sense. Made by a young Ronan, who wanted a kinder brother. A softer brother. A brother who laughed. One day he was not, and the next he was. A smiling cherub of a child, dimples and fair hair. Like a story book. There he was, nestled in a rocking basket, pastel blanket tucked around him, teddy bear by his side. Ronan laughed, and smiled. Declan looked to Niall and saw his lips already forming the lie.

The lie.

When Matthew was born, it was an ordinary day. At-home birth. As average as they come. Natural brother. Not dream. Never dream. Never replacement. Easy.

When Ronan was born, the heavens wept blue flowers and blood rain. The earth tremored and trees seven miles in every direction felt it. When Ronan was born, the world was blessed with a dreamer, and the ley lines all breathed Yes. This one . When Ronan was born, Niall dreamed something special for the occasion, lightning bugs that flocked to the walls and never dimmed, never fled. The barns was alight with the celebration and the joy. Here was a dreamer. Here was a son. Aurora was glowing. Ronan was already waving around his tiny baby fists, and Niall said, “Oh, he’s going to be a fighter.” When Ronan was born, Niall said, the world slotted into place. A little more magic.

When Declan was born, Niall wasn’t there.

* * * * 

On a beautiful blue Sunday afternoon, Declan Lynch was taken from the parking lot outside his apartment. It took four men and a set of brass knuckles. (He knew how to box.)

And the brothers Lynch? The rest of the world?

A week to realize.

Chapter Text

Sundays were the only days Ronan allowed himself to be holy. At least, in the way he was supposed to be holy, according to God and scripture and Aurora. The rest of the time, he was holy in a very Niall way— hands in the earth, farming and dreaming and kissing.

But Sundays. Those were for pressed clothes and washed hands and no dirt under your fingernails, Ronan, come on, try.

That last bit was Declan, because if there was one other thing consistent with church and Ronan actually trying, it was Declan. The brothers Lynch, gathering once a week for church, when the only thing Ronan had ever believed in was his father, the only Matthew had ever believed in was Ronan, and Declan had never believed in anything. There was something awfully ironic about it all.

Ronan pulled up the BMW Sunday morning with very distinctly un-holy music pumping, to the sight of an empty parking lot. Which was very not right. Sundays were for clean clothes and for actually trying and for pulling up to see Declan's sleek Volvo, Matthew leaning against the hood, Declan standing a few feet away, typing something on his phone.

No Volvo.

No Matthew.

No Declan.

Ronan screeched the BMW to a stop and got out, slamming the door for good measure. Which wasn’t very holy of him. But whatever.

He hated phones, but he pulled out his phone and called Declan anyway.

It rang, and it rang, and it rang, and it rang, and then it hit his boring voicemail. You' ve reached Declan Lynch. if… Ronan shut it off and called again. It rang and rang and rang. He texted: hey dbag ur late for church

Then Ronan called Matthew, who picked up instantly, because of course he did. Screenager.

“Ronan?”

“Matthew, where are you?”

“My dorm, durr.”

Ronan resisted the urge to parent; that was Declan's thing. He leaned against the hot hood of his  car and closed his eyes. “It's Sunday. Mass starts in like. Soon.”

“Oh.”

Frustration and concern were starting to bubble up. Ronan ignored them. He was an expert at ignoring his emotions. Especially concerning ones. “Are you guys not coming?”

“Well, Declan's not here, so i guess not.” Matthew's frown was audible. “Are we not doing it today? He's usually here by now.”

Danger danger fuck fuck bad. “No,” Ronan said. “Guess we’re not. See you later, bro, okay? Go do your homework.”

“‘Kay, mom.” Matthew hung up.

Ronan threw his phone.

***

Ronan was not feeling very holy today. He threw the BMW down roads like he had nothing to lose, like he was racing Kavinsky and not a ghost, like he wasn’t deeply afraid of what a missing Declan meant.

It meant nothing, right? Even though it was Sunday, and Declan hadn’t missed a Sunday since the day Niall died. Even though it was Sunday, and Matthew was in his dorm, and Ronan was in his car, and Declan wasn’t answering a single goddamn text.

He hadn’t missed mass even when he’d been on a trip with his internship in Barcelona. He'd left the trip early, Sundays were that important. They were the glue that was keeping together the very fragile Lynch brothers. Ronan had even started to maybe enjoy them, once he’d graduated high school and so Declan became slightly less of an asshole just because he was able to get off Ronan's back. A little.

Especially after Aurora died (A permanent death this time). A day to be holy had been… helpful.

But now Declan was missing, and Ronan's mouth tasted like nightwash, which didn’t make sense, because he’d dreamt last night, so there was no reason for the black goo.

He flicked down the rearview mirror and checked. Sure enough, no goo. His mouth tasted like nightwash, only there was none, which just meant it tasted like fear.

He couldn’t drive fast enough.

***

Adam was working on his college application essays, trying to decide between trauma-dumping like everyone else in this goddamn country did for their essays, talking about the values of working three jobs at once and getting underpaid for all of them, or waxing poetic about tarot, when his boyfriend practically broke down the door to his own house.

The barns was a cozy place. Adam had a record playing and a mug of chai by his elbow and a computer perched on his knee. Chainsaw sat on a perch in the corner. She went with Ronan everywhere, except church. Hulking, screeching black birds were not the most holy of things.

The barns was a cozy place, until the front door crashed open like the apocalypse itself was on the doorstep, and Ronan's thundering boots woke Chainsaw. She screeched and burst into flight. Adam couldn’t tell if it was because of the loud noise, or Ronan's anxiety. Probably both. He snapped his computer closed and turned.

“Ronan? You're back early.”

Ronan was already pacing. The front door hung gaping. “Yeah, no church today! Fucking shock am I right.”

Adam racked his brain for a reason the church wouldn’t be having mass today and came up short. “Why's that?”

“National holiday. Close the schools. Throw a party. Or maybe a national tragedy.” Ronan thunked over to the kitchen and started opening and closing drawers. Probably just for the sound and feel of it.

“Ronan, come over here, that’s gotta be bad for their wheel tracks.”

“And I’m glad, right, more time to work on this fucking place! Maybe I can get the attic cleared out—”

“Ronan—”

“Because who needs church? Everyone wears white, which is stupid, white is like the worst color, it gets stained the literal second you put it on—”

“Ronan.”

“ Stop , Chainsaw, you get a treat when you damn well earn one, maybe you should go to church, bird church, is there a bird god?”

“ Ronan !”

Ronan slammed the last drawer closed and spun to Adam. His chest heaved. He looked on the brink of an actual literal panic attack. “ What , Parrish?”

Adam unfolded himself from the chair. “Get over here. Tell me what happened.”

Ronan didn’t move, even though his love language was touch, and he was touch starved 24/7, exactly like Ada, even though his entire body was trembling now, all that bravado drained out. Shock to the system. Lightning struck.

“What happened?” Adam said softly.

Ronan closed his eyes. The truth had probably been pressing at the back of his teeth this whole time. Now that he was still, it had room to escape. and escape it did, hanging like a cloud in the air. Adam didn’t even think to doubt it, because there was no way Ronan would have said it if it wasn’t true, not just because of who Ronan was, but because of everything.

“Declan's missing.”

The air was electric. It was not a holy day.

Chapter Text

Many things were learned at Niall Lynch's knee, as his son. As his eldest.

Irish music and folklore and which creatures to watch out for in case that folklore was ever actually real. (Declan still wasn’t sure, sometimes).

How to feed a cow, and milk a cow, and help a cow give birth. Miracle of life, Niall said, like he didn’t create things in the palm of his hand.

How to take a punch. How to throw one. Put your feet here, fold your fingers like this, lighter on your feet, Declan, don't tense up.

What being the son of a dreamer meant. The dreamt things go. The people in those kinds of places. How to lie to them, with a smile on your face. How to lie to everyone. The reasons you have to.

One thing that was not learned in the years of being Niall Lynch's son was that being abducted was such a hassle.

Hassle meaning a broken phone, meaning two bruised or broken ribs, meaning multiple days in a cold, dark basement. Declan wasn’t sure how many days, exactly. It was getting hard to tell, what with the broken phone and the possible concussion.

(Oh yeah. Hassle meant that, too.)

Declan hadn’t seen much of the people who kidnapped him. Mostly he just felt their hands. The fight was quick. It was a blur. He hadn’t had his gun on him. Didn't know how much good it would’ve done anyway. There were a lot of them, and he didn’t much like shooting. Then he mostly just saw the bag over his head.

They'd come on a Sunday afternoon. He had just dropped Matthew off after a relatively peaceful church morning. Ronan had behaved. There had even been talk of a zoo visit next week. Maybe.

Sunday afternoon. They'd done their research, whoever they were. They must have known Declan didn’t have any appointments or engagements for a week. Still, he thought. He couldn’t just disappear off the face of the planet. He had school. He had a job. People would worry.

Or they’d just think he’d ditched. Slacked. He was a twenty year old college student, after all. These things did happen. He was already depressed thinking about all the schoolwork and people work to make up for it. Yes, you can depend on me. No, it won’t happen again. Yes, I'm sorry.

Declan probably should have been worrying about other things.

He would have thought by now there would be demands. Calls to loved ones for ransom. Someone holding him at gunpoint for information. Something. Anything. That , he could handle. but this? The cold and pain would be fine. Declan was no stranger to cold and pain. The hunger would have been find—school’s food was bad enough, he went without three meals a day more often than not.

It was the not knowing. Where he was. Why. Who. That's what was killing him. That's what was making this hell. And he was sure they knew it. Whoever the hell they were.

It was a fair amount of time before they came back, but eventually they did. A door in the distance—somewhere vaguely above —slammed and then footsteps. A closer door, and then flick. Light flooded in. Fluorescents. Declan was instantly blinded. Squinting, he tried to gain his bearing, saw stone walls and stone floor and rusty pipes, before a man’s face filled his view. scrawny and red and freckled. A mop of curls, a sad imitation of Declan's own—though Declan supposed his hair, sweaty and dirty—probably didn’t look the most ideal at the moment.

“Alright, mister, you’re going to spill,” the man said.

“Hello,” Declan said. “Have you never heard of personal space?”

A blow landed on his ribs. He was being stupid. He was angry, and he was acting like Ronan. He could see more now, though, his eyes adjusting. A few figures behind this one. Yes, these were the ones he had fought.

“Tell us what we wanna know,” the man said.

"I don’t know what you want to know.”

“Magic,” he spat.

It was always going to end like this, Declan thought. “Magic isn’t real,” he said.

Another blow. The man drew back. “Ey, fellas, what was it the boss called it? Wheel something? Gray well?”

Boss. Okay.

“Greywaren,” one of the others, standing farther back, said. “Ask him where the Greywaren is.”

Fear was an insidious thing. It slid its way into Declan's gut and seized his heart, and he cursed  Niall Lynch for the dozenth time that day, this one even more savage. A solid, heartfelt, fuck you dad . Niall made this, in pretty much every way possible, and then he shattered it. and here Declan was, per usual, to pick up the pieces. Or maybe this time he was one of the pieces. Maybe he always had been.

It was a dangerous question. It was a dangerous word. 

How did they know?

“Listen when we’re talking to you, asshole!”

Declan remembered the first and last person who had come looking for the same thing. A hit man in a gray suit who had killed Declan's father. Declan almost wished he was here instead. At least the hit man was efficient. Declan would have been released or dead by now.

“No,” he said. He had to talk through a fair amount of blood in his mouth and wondered just how terrible he probably looked right then.

“No?” The red faced man reared back for another blow, and Declan sighed.

“Please. Let's be reasonable, shall we?” He wasn’t not sure they knew the meaning of the word. “You have gotten nothing from me this far. Do you really thing you’re going to?”

“Everyone has a breaking point,” Red said.

Declan was trying so hard to be patient. “Yes,” he said, speaking slow. Clear. Crisp. Pretend they are just some stupid polititians. You have the power here. Your ribs do not burn with every breath you take. “But the facts are, I simply do not have the information you’re seeking. I’m a college student who wants to study for my finals. Even if I do break—which I'm sure I will, don’t worry—there’s nothing for you to learn. I. Don't. Know.”

Lies, every one of them. But Declan was a firstborn Lynch, and lying was his first language, as easy on his tongue as the air he breathed. The men were nodding, slowly. "Hm," one of them said. "Makes sense."

Declan had to fight the urge to roll his eyes. It couldn't be this easy. He should have insisted this on his first day here. He wondered why he didn’t, until he remembered that he was unconscious and drugged for the better part of the first day and gagged for the second. Also, the buffoons waited until now to tell him what they were looking for.

Greywaren . Fear was an drug and Declan was high on it.

“Let's call the boss,” one of the men said, and that cold, determined terror dug a little deeper.

They left then, muttering under their breath to one another. Brainless animals. Declan decided then that they posed zero threat to him or anyone else. It was their boss. It was whoever they were going to call. Whoever had told them the word Greywaren. That was who Declan had to worry about (and worry he did).

He stared at the ceiling and waited and tried to think of everything, and nothing.

Chapter Text

Aurora was making pancakes. The smell filled the kitchen, drifted into the living room and onto the porch, where Ronan and Matthew played with little toy cars and trains that made actual sounds, vrooms and chugs too realistic to be anything but dreamt.

Declan was in the kitchen with Aurora. Faint music played from a record in the corner. Declan and Aurora didn’t talk, but he was fine with it, content to just sit in the quiet and watch her move around the kitchen, skirts swishing gently, humming a tune he only vaguely recognized. Something Irish.

 They weren’t talking, just sitting and baking and humming and feeling generally content with the world, until Aurora turned around, and said, “Why did you let Ronan die?”

Declan was frozen in place. His tongue was glue. “What?”

 “I said, do you want chocolate chips or m&ms in the pancakes?”

 “I… don’t know.”

Her smile was a cheerful thing. It always was. “Why don’t you go ask your brothers?”

Declan slid off the chair—his legs were still too short to reach the floor when sitting—and ran out to the porch. “Do you guys want…”

Ronan and Matthew were gone. On the floor of the porch, instead of toy cars and trains, were the shattered remains of beer bottles. Stained glass figurines with heads snapped off. Broken light bulbs. Blood.

“Declan?” 

The scene changed. He stood on a cliffside. An ocean raged below, choppy waves a blanket of blue and green and white. Five foot tall waves. Ten feet. Fifteen. Twenty.

And then he was drowning.

 “Declan!”

A shot of pain rustled through the suffocating ocean as Declan whipped around in search for the source of the sound. The pain felt unusual. The voice felt unusual. Out of the ordinary. It meant danger. But he was still drowning, water eating its way into his lungs, vision flickering black, chest screaming, and something definitely not right was happening. Distinctly wrong. Was this how it felt for Ronan? No, because Ronan’s dreams were him . This was strange. This wasn’t Declan. 

Declan was drowning in the ocean, and drowning in the certainty that this wasn’t supposed to happen to him . That was Ronan, that was Niall, that was not Declan. He didn’t feel things like they did. He didn’t do things like they did.

Breathe, Declan, what do you see?

A mouse.

Just a mouse?

It’s dead. A dead mouse.

  Look closer.

And he’d felt it, the sluggish heartbeat of the mouse that was not dead, but asleep. Asleep because Niall, its maker, was dead. Only that wasn’t right, because here was Niall, holding the mouse, cupped in careworn hands—

Here was Aurora, sleeping, sluggish—

Here was Matthew, curls falling careless before closed eyes—

Here was Ronan, crouched in the dirt, eyes closed as if in prayer, chest heaving, ground around him littered with dead mice—

“Declan!”

Declan’s eyes flew open.

He was in a field. The field, the grass, the sky, the clouds, the sun, they were all shades of gray. Looking down, so was he. His clothes. His skin. The bloody knuckles from when he’d fought—

“Oh, good.”

 Sitting in front of Declan, in full color, was Adam Parrish.

 Declan blinked. Adam remained. He sat cross-legged, hands on his knees, palms up. Eyes half-lidded, he said, “Hi, Declan.”

Declan took a moment that he didn’t have to formulate his thoughts. “I’m dreaming,” he said eventually.

“Yes.”

How much of that did you see, Declan wanted to ask, but didn’t. “And you’re, what, scrying?”

“Yes. Where are you?”

Basement. That was all Declan knew. “I don’t know,” he said. “Where are you?” Where is Ronan? Where is Matthew?

“Barns.”

Of course. Where else? “Ronan?”

“With me. Worried.”

Declan sighed. Even in the dream, he remembered the situation clear and crisp as day. Clearer and crisper now that Adam was here, now that he knew he was dreaming. (Niall would be disappointed. He’d told Declan all the signs of dreams since he was two years old.) Declan remembered the thugs saying greywaren, and everything that meant.

“Well, un-worry,” Declan said. “Don’t engage. Stay out of this, whatever you hear. Get as far away as you can safely, understand?” You mostly meaning Ronan. Declan knew Adam would understand. “Don’t come looking,” Declan said. “I can handle this myself.” Whoever the boss was, if they could identify dreamers by sight, greywaren by sight, Ronan would be fucked if he came anywhere near.

To Declan’s relief, Adam didn’t argue right away. If it was Ronan, it would be a different story.

“What do they want?” Adam asked.

Declan looked around. This was a dream. If it was a phone call, Declan never would have dared, but…

“How safe is this?”

 Adam understood immediately. “Safe as life,” he said drily. It almost sounded like he was quoting someone.

“Ronan,” Declan said. “They want Ronan.”

Adam flickered. It was a strange thing to see, when everything looked and felt so real.

“Just a minute,” he snapped. “Not you,” he added to Declan.

 “Can you do it?” Declan pressed. “Stay away? Stay out of it?” Can you keep him away.

“He won’t like it.”

“I don't care.” Declan didn’t give a damn what Ronan did or did not like. Ronan had long since lost all sense when it came to his own well-being. He couldn’t be trusted with it.

“Fair enough.” Adam closed his eyes. “I have to go. Scrying is… energy. Try to get hints to where you are. Who it is. Okay? I'll see what I can do from afar…” His voice was fading fast. “After…good… luck…”

 And then he was gone, blinking out of the gray field as if he’d never been. For a moment, everything sat, calm and peaceful. A storm on the horizon.

Then the ocean was back, and Declan was drowning once more.

He drowned until he woke. A second or a minute or a year. When he opened his eyes to the cellar, to the faint flicker of the lights above, to rust speckled ceiling pipes and bound wrists, a woman was leaning against the wall, arms folded, watching him.

“Hello, mate,” she said.

Chapter Text

The woman leaning against the wall across from Declan was tall and certain, the way she held herself. Stoic and watching. Her attitude was precisely that of the boss that Declan had been anticipating.

Her appearance was not.

A youngish Black woman, hair in a high bun, jean jacket with iron-on patches, tall slick boots. Leather pants. Her manner of dressing said that she had style that she was keeping cooped up behind a fence in favor of practicality.

Young. Maybe Declan’s age. He couldn’t be sure. Vaguely smirking.

Was this the boss? Everything was uncertain. Also, she had a British accent. Hello, mate .

“I suppose you’re the person in charge around here,” Declan guessed.

“You know it.”

He recalculated everything he knew about the situation. “I see. Thanks for the welcome.”

Her eyes skipped over his bloody knuckles, the dirt matted in his hair. “You’re so welcome, mate. You going to tell me where the greywaren is?”

Okay, then. No preamble. Fine.

Why do you want to know? Declan wanted to ask. He knew the question would get no answer. No one involved in stuff like this gave straight answers, ever. He wondered how she got involved in stuff like this. He highly doubted she too had a scumbag dreamer father who dragged her to black markets filled with demon things for “take your kid to work” day.

What would it be, to tell the truth for once?

He was Declan Lynch, and the truth was not for him. Greywaren was a forbidden word.

“What's that?” he asked, as bland as possible. A confused tilt of the head. A little exhale-laugh, like he thought she was being ridiculous, saying words that weren’t real things.

She smiled, singsonged, “Liar, liar…”

Declan supposed his usual methods for blending in and staying out of danger weren’t much good now. Boring didn’t work when he was already abducted, bloody, and tied up in someone’s basement. Someone who knew greywaren . Not much boring about that, and anyway, she already knew. How did she know? He’d been careful. He’d been so goddamn careful, from the moment Niall died and Aurora followed and they left Declan with a broken, jagged Ronan and a hollow, smiling Matthew.

I hate him , Declan thought for the hundredth time that day even as he smiled his empty politician smile and said, “If I knew, you’d know.”

The woman tilted her head and watched him. Just watched. There was something unnerving about it, but also something deeply, eerily familiar. Who was she?

Then she took a step forward, sudden, and Declan flinched. Involuntary. His ribs flared with pain, and he gritted his teeth.

“You’re one of them,” the woman said. “You aren’t just some middleman, are you? You’re close to this. You’re in it.”

Declan said nothing. He had a feeling any and all pretty words would just make this worse.

Keep your mouth shut and your head down, son. He’d forgotten the cardinal rule. He didn’t know how or where or when, but somewhere, somewhen, he’d not kept his head down enough, he’d slipped up and now here they were. The very demons he’d been tasked with keeping away from his family. From Ronan.

“You know,” the woman said.

Never told me what to do when they already know everything, dad, Declan thought. But in a way, he had. Niall’s death was as much instruction as his life had ever been.

“It doesn’t matter,” Declan said. “You aren’t finding out. Do what you want with that.”

Declan wasn’t ready to die. He certainly wasn’t ready for Ronan to. But his head hurt, and his ribs hurt, and he didn’t know how to talk his way out of this one.

For a long moment, the woman just looked. That terrifying similarity to something he couldn’t place. Then she turned on her heel and left.

Declan closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the chair.

Wherever you are Ronan, I hope you’re staying out of this.

Chapter Text

“I don’t give a fuck what he fucking says, we’re going after him.” Ronan paced the length of the Barns’ backyard for the billionth time; Chainsaw flapping and screeching on the ground nearby was a testament to how he was feeling. Adam could relate.

“We’re not,” Adam said.

“Fine,” Ronan bit, “then I am .”

“No.”

“I'm going. They’ve got him because of me.”

Adam ran sand through his fingers. “Precisely.”

“Fuck you.”

“Not right now.”

Ronan whipped around and glared at his boyfriend. “Har har Parrish, you’re a real jester. You see me fucking laughing? Not the goddamn time.”

“I thought you hated him,” Adam said.

Wrong move. This seemed to just remind Ronan that he didn’t. “I do,” he said. “but I don’t want him to fucking die . Imagine Matthew if that— Jesus fuck, Matthew .”

Yes, Adam thought. Jesus fuck. Good reaction. It was only because Ronan was losing it that Adam was not. One of them had to be calm. But inside, Adam was tearing apart. He felt useless. Worse than useless. Declan had seemed so sure . How much of that was truth, and how much of it was just Declan being Declan?

“He can't die because of me,” Ronan said, his voice quiet now, like a plea or a prayer. “He can't.”

Again, he didn’t need to say for Adam to know he was thinking of another Lynch. Another dead body.

Adam remembered the look in Declan’s eyes when he said to get Ronan away. And Adam agreed. But he also knew that Ronan was right, too.

“We need more information,” he said. But that wasn’t exactly right. What they needed was help. More information. An expert.

Ronan must have read it in his face. “No,” he said.

“Ronan—”

“ No .”

Which would win? Ronan’s fear for a brother he hated? Or his hatred for a man he feared?

Adam wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing here at all, only that this whole thing was Ronan’s choice. Ronan’s brother. Ronan’s murdered father. Ronan’s demons. And Adam couldn’t make the choice for him, but he could be the common sense. And it would hurt Ronan to hear this, maybe, but maybe he had to.

“Ronan,” Adam tried again, hating this, hating himself. “Your father is dead. Declan isn’t yet.”

And yes, that did it. Adam saw the change, Ronan weakening when he didn’t want to weaken. The slope of his shoulders tightening, loosening, giving up, giving in.

“Fuck!” Ronan snarled, whipping away and pacing harder, boots thunking into the ground. “I won’t talk to him,” he said. “He looks at me and I'll kill him.”

I thought you didn't lie, Adam wanted to say. Instead, he nodded and picked up his phone.

“Okay.”

***

They decided on 300 fox way as neutral territory. With Orla and most of the other cousins out for various reasons, it was as calm as it ever got. Maura was there, a kind of mediator, even though Blue was already off on her road trip. Ronan had been loathe to ask for even more outside help, but Adam insisted. He would not get stuck as the sole person between Mr. Gray and Ronan.

The two sat across from each other. (Well. Mr. Gray sat. Ronan stood, Chainsaw a vulture on his shoulder, Ronan’s whip thin smile a razor, a shield ready to draw blood.)

Adam felt like he might as well not have been there. Like an intruder. He flipped feverishly through Persephone’s tarot deck (his now) as if muscle memory would turn up answers. Would fix this. (It didn’t.)

“I don't need you,” Ronan said. “Declan doesn’t need you.”

Mr. Gray looked as polite and professional as ever. A little homey, even, with his hands closed around a mug of Maura’s tea. (Ronan’s and Adam’s sat untouched).

“Then why am I here?” he asked mildly.

“ He called you,” Ronan said, jutting his chin towards Adam. Adam didn’t take it personally.

“You let him. You stayed.”

Ronan was going to explode out of his skin at any moment, Adam could tell, and Ronan exploding was never a pretty sight for anyone within a ten mile radius. Especially Ronan.

“Can you help or not?” Adam asked.

Mr. Gray turned to him. Ronan didn’t, but Adam thought he saw relief in the line of his jaw anyways.

“It's difficult to know,” Gray said. “It would be even if we had all the facts about your brother’s disappearance, which we do not. We don’t know who took him, or why—”

“We fucking do,” Ronan said. “People like you. Same reason as—”

Dad , he didn’t say.

“The same people as my employer,” Mr Gray corrected mildly. “And yes, that is a fair guess. Even so—”

“Can you help,” Adam asked again, “or not.” He flipped another card. The Tower. He replaced it, feeling vaguely nauseous, and set the deck aside.

“I will try,” Mr Gray said. “Like I said, Ronan, I owe—”

“Don’t finish that sentence,” Ronan said, lower and more dead than anything yet. “Don’t you dare.”

“Yes,” Mr Gray said. “Very well.” He set down his mug. “I'll do what I can. I can’t promise more than that.”

“Fine.” Ronan rocketed to his feet. “You do that. We’re leaving.” he slammed out the front door.

Adam exchanged a glance with maura before following. His said sorry . Hers said i understand. I’ll handle it from here. W ith the combined power of the psychic and the hit man, for the first time that day, Adam’s nerves were beginning to settle. They were doing what Declan asked. Staying away—physically. On the way to getting information. This was good. This was action. This would work.

If only Ronan agreed.

Chapter Text

When Jordan was younger (recently made, but she didn’t like to think about it that way), she’d imagined all the things she could do with her life. (Before she knew she’d die young.)

Artist, of course, was high up there. Sometimes she thought she’d been made unable to dream of anything else. Other times she was able to identify thoughts like that as Hennessy’s, pervasive self-hatred from her maker, and put them away.

Artist. Forger. Thief. Businesswoman. Museum curator. Flight attendant—see the world. (Except that she was afraid of heights).

She’d never particularly considered crime lord supreme. Thief had always meant petty, fun, side gig, and had mostly been Hennessy motivated and driven anyway. But Hennessy wasn’t here right now, and Jordan was.

With a prisoner in her basement.

She hadn’t wanted to do this by herself. She’d wanted Hennessy here.

And she hadn’t wanted to do this at all. It was distasteful. The concept. The reality. Seeing him down there. There was more blood than she’d bargained for.

But it was real. The truth was there, tangible. He did know things. Her digging had found enough, and he’d confirmed more. He was versed in the fairy market. He dabbled in dreams. (Which meant he was tough. Which meant he could take a hit or two. He was fine. Would be fine. Right?)

Hennessy had always done the dirtier, weird jobs, when possible. Hennessy was more fucked up, or so she’d liked to claim. C an’t get any worse, can I? S he’d always said. M ight as well. Already going to hell.

Jordan didn’t know if she believed in hell. Not for her, at least. Or maybe not for anybody. She did believe in good people, though, and bad. She’d liked to think she was one of the former. Did this change that? Maybe.

Then again, she would let him go, when she had what she needed. And was it so terrible to want to live?

First, though, she had to take care of the fact that he was fucked up. And that she hadn’t wanted that.

She dialed the most recent number in her phone. The guy picked up after the first ring, and the sound of his scratchy “Hello?” already made Jordan want to strangle him.

“I told you to get the information,” Jordan snapped, gripping her cell so tight she thought she might lose feeling in her fingers. “Not fuck him up! Did you see the boy?”

“Fucking people up is kinda what you get when you sign with us,” the scratch on the other end said. “Sorry if you didn’t get the results you wanted, missy. We can go back in—”

“No.” Jordan pressed a palm to her forehead. “Don’t do that. I will handle it myself from here on out. Thank you.”

“We still getting paid?”

“Yes,” Jordan said. “You are still getting paid. Is there anything else?”

“Naw, nothing. Except that…”

“Yes?”

“Well, I reckon that’s a man, not a boy, missy.”

Jordan didn’t have the time or energy for this. She hung up, and turned her mind to the puzzle of the man in her basement. Young man. Her age? Ish? He had looked afraid, when she asked him about the greywaren, though he’d hid it well. Jordan knew fear.

It was a puzzle. She approached it the way she did the beginning of any forgery. Look at it from all angles. Learn as much as you can. And then, once you’d done all that, at some point you just had to jump in.

He knew something. She knew he did.

She had to push more. Find out more. Something made her hesitate, though. Maybe it was that Jordan hadn’t been made for violence. She didn’t like it. She just wanted to go, live her life. But that wasn’t possible until Hennessy could live hers.

Jordan found herself dialing before she could think, really.

After four rings, Hennessy picked up.

“Jordan, mate!” There was the loudest ruckus on Hennessy’s end of the phone that Jordan had ever heard.

Jordan, mate , as if it hadn’t been a year. Jordan, mate , as if Jordan hadn’t given up her life in the hopes that Hennessy would be able to live hers. (Survive hers.)

“Tell me it’s gotten better,” Jordan said.

There was silence. Or, as silent as it could be on Hennessy's end, with the clink of chips and the distant rattle of the roulette wheel among shouts and cheers and drunken laughs. Jordan imagined the smell of cheap beer and cigarettes.

“Hennessy,” she prompted.

Quiet. Then, sounding very unlike herself (and so much more like herself than before), Hennessy said, “You know I can't do that. Unless you want me to lie.”

Afraid. Hennessy sounded afraid. Jordan knew fear.

Jordan had called to talk herself into action of one sort or another, and she hated that it was fucking working .

“Okay,” she said. She rapped her knuckles against the desk.

“What?” Hennessy’s voice, sharper. “Have you found…” Sharper, but still so dull. They had both learned long ago that hope hurt.

“Maybe,” Jordan said, and she hung up.

Chapter Text

When Declan was eight years old, Niall taught him what to do in the event of a kidnapping. He never thought he’d have to use it. He was always prepared to.

From eight years old, from earlier, Declan was raised on the idea that he could be used to get at the more important members of the family Lynch. Matthew, who was a dream thing and couldn’t protect himself anyway. Ronan, who was dreamer. A near perfect replica of Niall. Who was danger and drugs and something sharp Declan didn’t think even Niall understood.

Greywaren .

Ronan. It was always going to be Ronan.

Alright. Well. This was momentously absurd, just sitting here feeling sorry for himself. I can handle this myself, he’d told Adam, and he could. So it was time he actually did. The “boss” clearly wasn’t going to listen to him. Not when they were talking on her times.

So it was time to talk on his.

Use your surroundings. Keep your wits. Declan could never seem to get Niall’s voice out of his head, no matter how much he tried. At least today it was useful. With painfully slow hops and shifting his weight, he scooted the chair he was tied to over to the wall, to one of the rusty pipes. He’d noticed while the woman was talking that one had a jagged end jutting out, and that was what he positioned by the ropes binding his wrists. It was an awkward contortion, getting it at just the right angle, and his ribs were not pleased with him, but eventually he got it and started sawing.

He wondered if Ronan would believe him. That he could handle this. He wondered, if he didn’t know himself, had been watching from the outside, if he would have. Declan very much did not look like he was capable of this. Of anything but faxing documents and making phone calls. Looking at him, he didn’t think anyone would guess that he was a connoisseur of magical, dreamt goods, an expert navigator of black markets, or a brother to multiple supernatural beings.

And that was the entire point. Declan Lynch was boring. There were no layers to him. There couldn’t be. Ronan might not believe that he was capable, and Declan couldn’t say that he would blame him.

After a lot of sawing and too much thinking, the ropes fell to the ground, and Declan stood. For the first time in too long, he stretched. His muscles ached. His ribs screamed protest. He was sure he looked like shit. But he was standing. He was alive. First step, bathroom. Clean up. Feel like himself again. Second, find the boss. Third, convince her to leave this whole business alone.

Easy. Declan took the stairs out of the basement two at a time.

And beyond the basement, he found a shockingly gorgeous home. He’d been expecting a warehouse. Something industrial, dark and shady, fitting for keeping someone locked up beneath. Filled with armored guards, or maybe barred windows. Instead, he found a house with contemporary decorations–stainless steel countertops, state of the art appliances–and dark wood floors. It wasn’t all boring, though. It wasn’t boring at all. Nothing like something Declan himself would own.

It was, in fact, probably as far from boring as Declan had ever seen. He walked into it and suddenly couldn’t breathe, and not at all because of his ribs.

The walls were white. At least, the base color was. But they were covered in paintings. Abstract in some places, shapes and colors like something straight out of a Kandinsky or Rothko. Other walls showed entire landscapes, fountains and rivers and trees. The ceiling in a little half-bathroom was Monet's starry night.

Portraits in the hallways, painted directly on the walls.

Flecks of paint on the otherwise pristine floors and countertops.

A mug of dirty brushes by the sink.

Declan stood in a museum, without a frame in sight.

He walked through it like a dream. Kitchen. Living room. A studio, which was just more of the same, to an extreme. An explosion of color and delight.

And on the back porch of the house, beneath a ceiling that was a marriage of O’keeffe and Van Gogh, Declan found the boss. She’d let her hair down, a cascade of dark curls. She sat on a table in the corner, scribbling something in a notebook. She didn’t notice him right away.

He leaned against the doorframe.

“I like the Laurentz Jensen above the sink. I’ve always loved how he does flowers.”

She looked up, eyes flying wide. He held up his hands in surrender.

“Hey, I'm not going to do anything. Just wanted to stretch my legs.”

“Get back in the basement,” she said, all edges, and something else. Something wary.

“I'd rather not.”

“You don’t get to come into my home and be a snob about my painting job.”

She painted them. Declan forced down the extremely unwelcome thoughts and feelings that prompted. “You kidnapped me.”

“Technically not me. Personally.”

“And I do like jensen. Though I think he could have taken himself a little less seriously.”

“Less seriously?” she scoffed. “If you can’t see the love behind his work, you’re blind.”

Declan’s chest ached. Not because of the ribs.

“What's your name?” he asked. She narrowed her eyes. “Come on,” he said. “I'm sure you know mine.”

“Declan Lynch. Son of Niall Lynch.”

Of course. “See?”

She chewed on her lower lip. “Where's the greywaren?”

“I'm not telling you that.”

“Why not?”

“Why do you paint?”

She stilled. “I beg your pardon?”

“Why do you paint?” He was edging into dangerous territory here. He couldn’t forget that she’d had people abduct him. He was in her house. She was looking for his brother. But he couldn’t help feeling like there was a puzzle here. And he really, really wanted to crack it. “And why are they all copies of others?”

“I…”

Because you love it, Declan wanted to say but didn’t. Because there are bigger things in this world than you and me. Because you need it. And because you’re afraid. Afraid of what you’ll be without that lifeline, that safe familiarity.

Declan couldn’t spend his entire life surrounded by people who loved too much and too hard without picking up some of it. Without being able to recognize people who had too.

“That's why,” he said. “I'm sorry, but you’ll have to look somewhere else.”

“Jordan,” she said.

Victory. “Hm?”

“My name's Jordan, alright?”

Don’t do this, Declan. Don’t do this. Don’t be stupid. Just leave. Get out. Don’t–

“Can I have a tour?”

Chapter Text

They ended up compromising. Between a Ronan who didn’t trust the gray man farther than he could see him, who wanted to burn the country down and overturn the ground in search of Declan, and Adam who wanted to wait, see, trust.

They didn’t go on a manhunt. They didn’t track down Declan and try to single handedly take on his kidnappers. Ronan didn’t dream any bombs, like he had seriously contemplated.

But they did agree to go to Declan’s apartment and search for clues. Maybe a letter left behind. Something.

Adam wasn’t surprised in his years of knowing the Lynch brothers that he’d never been to the place Declan lived. He was surprised, though, that Ronan hadn’t.

Then again, maybe not.

He watched Ronan’s face as they got out of the BMW, felt the car door slam shake the entire frame, and contemplated that beneath the love and worry, Ronan really did hate his older brother. It was hard to tell which was stronger.

“Piece of shit neighborhood,” Ronan grumbled, mounting the steps to the apartment, even though it wasn’t.

“Piece of shit propaganda,” Ronan said, kicking Declan’s welcome mat when they arrived at his front door. That one Adam didn’t disagree with.

Then they entered the apartment after some deft lock picking with a dream tool on Ronan’s part (Adam didn’t ask) and Adam was not surprised by the inside in the slightest.

It was drab. It was dull. It was boring and predictable in every single way. Exactly like Declan himself.

All the decor matched. Adam was almost surprised that there wasn’t plastic wrap or something on the matching set couch and chair.

“Damn,” Ronan said. He sounded almost awed. “He sucks.”

Adam had to concur.

“Alright, well.” Ronan swept a pile of hand towels off the counter and onto the floor. “Let’s fuck shit up.”

“Look for clues,” Adam corrected. He imagined Declan coming back from his abductee stint to find his apartment trashed, and the hell that would be raised then.

“Same thing,” Ronan said, and then they were off.

***

They found nothing but more and more boring, drab, Declanness for forty minutes, until Adam was snooping around Declan’s bedroom bookshelf and Ronan shouted from down the hallway, “Shit damn!”

Adam jumped up, discarding the copy of The Odyssey (in Greek) he’d been inspecting. “You find something?”

“Yuh huh.”

Only, ducking out into the hallway, Adam didn’t find Ronan holding a ransom note, or anything like that. He’d found the attic. The trapdoor hung down on open space and a ladder between.

Ronan was staring up at it, almost reverently.

“What?” Adam whispered. 

“I can feel it,” Ronan said.

“What?”

“Dream things. Dad.”

“Wh—”

But Ronan was already climbing the ladder. Adam followed, apprehension and sudden guilt at snooping a second heartbeat. “Should we be—” he stopped. He and Ronan stood in a treasure trove of dream things, artwork, papers, and junk. And Adam realized for the first time, that they had no idea who Declan Lynch really was.

Adam looked to Ronan for a reaction—any reaction. Because with Ronan, everything was a reaction, a map on how to deal with things, with him. Slamming or cursing or breaking.

But he was uncharacteristically quiet, crouching to brush his fingers against a picture frame.

“Why does he have all this shit? Why isn’t it at the Barns?”

“That's a question for him when we find him,” Adam said. He crossed to a row of crates and picked up a folder that lay across it. Opened it, because his curiosity had always been stronger than his morals.

It was a seller’s record. Names and dates and prices sold for. Buyer information. Every name of everything listed was just a jumble of numbers and letters, nonsensical to Adam, but he would have bet anything they were dream objects.

“The fuck,” Ronan breathed next to Adam’s ear, pering over his shoulder.

Adam snapped the folder shut. Somehow, finding all of this felt more dangerous than finding a ransom note.

“We'll ask him when we find him,” Adam said.

“Yeah,” Ronan said darkly. “Sure will.”

***

And then, Ronan thought, sitting on the floor of an attic filled with questions and betrayal, as if things couldn’t possibly get worse, Matthew figured it out. It was almost inevitable, Ronan realized in retrospect. Declan was an imbedded fact of Matthew’s life, going to parent-teacher meetings, driving him to doctors appointments, and of course corralling the brothers Lynch to church every sunday. Matthew was bound to notice his disappearance. Even though he didn’t often try to think about things more complicated than necessary, he was bound to put two and two together.

It happened when Ronan was lying on his stomach, playing with a dream object he distinctly remembered Niall showing him one sleepy morning at the barns when he was younger, a little chair that turned inside out three different ways. He was trying to figure out why Declan would have this, why , and when his brother had become un-boring, when Adam climbed up from the floor below with a plate of sandwiches and a ringing phone.

“Matthew’s calling.”

Ronan looked up. “What? Why is—”

Oh.

“Fuck.”

“Yes,” Adam agreed, handing over the phone.

“Why didn’t you tell me,” Matthew asked. It was the first thing he said. Ronan knew what he was talking about, because of course he did.

And what could he say?

Because I didn’t think you could handle it.

Because I didn't want you to know.

Because I thought I could fix it.

Because you don’t hate him like I do.

Because you believe he’s infallible and I know he can bleed.

“I don't know,” Ronan said.

I thought you didn’t lie, Adam’s voice played in the back of his mind. “I'm sorry,” Ronan said. As close to the truth as he was willing to come.

“I don't accept your apology,” Matthew said calmly. Ronan could picture his furrowed brow, his tongue sticking out in concentration. It didn’t hurt, because Ronan knew that Matthew was hurting. Somehow, that helped. And made it so much worse. “Where is he? Why did they take him?

I don’t know hovered and tripped on the edge of Ronan’s tongue. “We have some theories. He’s okay, though. He’s not hurt.”

“How do you know?” plaintive, that was Matthew.

“Adam did some… stuff.”

“Oh. Okay.”

Ronan was miserable. “Do you want to come stay at the Barns until he gets back?”

“Don’t do that,” Matthew pouted.

“What?”

“Talk about it like he’s on vacation. He’s probably getting hurt.”

Ronan remembered his encounter with the people wanting to hurt him. The cold certainty that if he’d wanted to, the gray man could have ended him right then.

“Okay,” he said. “yeah.”

He played with the chair with one hand. Phone pressed between his shoulder and cheek to hold it up, he took a sandwich that Adam offered him. He wanted to blame Declan for this. This mess. But he had a feeling it really wasn’t his fault. Not this time.

“Are you okay?” Matthew asked.

Ronan turned the question around slowly and looked at it from all angles. 

“I don't know,” he said.

“Oh,” Matthew said again.

And that was that.

Chapter Text

Declan was sunk. He knew it when Jordan’s grin widened at his question, and it felt like a victory, or a gift. He knew it when she brushed her fingertips against this painting or that one, and it was so obvious that she was greeting an old friend.

And Declan tried so hard, he did, to be dull. To be ordinary. To let it slide off him. To stuff all this feeling down. To just look, soak it up but not open his goddamn mouth and give himself away. Any of himself. Soon he would have to go back to the dullness that his every day had become, and the more he let himself slip now, the harder it would be.

It was hard now.

Just this once, for twenty minutes, he didn’t want to be boring. Anyway, she already knew. She knew . What could it hurt?

(Everything, the Niall in his head whispered, and Declan shoved him out a window.)

“Can you forge anything?” he asked, finger trailing the stems of a classic Jensen flower.

Jordan shrugged. “Dunno. Haven’t tried everything yet, have I?”

“Don’t lie,” Declan said. No spite, or mockery in the statement, just fact. If he wasn’t lying for once in his life, he’d be damned if she did.

He was watching her profile, watching the turn of her smile.

“Yeah,” she said. “Probably could.”

In that moment, she reminded him of Ronan. Could create the world.

They left the kitchen and meandered down a hallway, Jordan leading, Declan trailing after, trying and failing to talk himself out of being such a goddamn bleeding heart. 

She turned, and then they were in the bedroom. Declan might have thought it was suggestive, and maybe it was meant to be, if he hadn’t been instantly preoccupied by the painting by the window, illuminated red golden by the slowly setting sun.

It was the only original work in this entire house. A woman in a white and black dress of soft feathers. Half person, then, half bird. She was taking flight, and clearly torn, halfway between two worlds. Above her light, pulling hair and fingers up. Below, feet rooted in dark. A heavy, gaping chasm.

Declan felt Jordan watching him, and suddenly he knew she’d brought him to this on purpose. A point.

The only original work.

Why do you paint? Why are they all copies?

“Who did this?” Declan asked. He didn’t look at her, but looking at that torn woman, the fear and hope two factor on her face, he felt he didn’t really need to.

“The person who painted that,” Jordan said, “is the reason I need the greywaren.”

Ronan would make something like this, Declan thought. Not the painting, but the feeling. The fear. The reverence.

What, he thought then, would lead a person like Jordan to kidnapping and dark secrets?

“They’re dying,” he said. Not a question.

Jordan said nothing. She didn’t need to. P lease was heavy in the air. Thick with defiance, the refusal to beg. Refusal to admit she needed to.

Now he did look at her. She wasn’t watching him anymore, eyes instead on the painting. She stood so very still.

Declan hurt. Everywhere. He so hated this world he’d been left in. A world where Matthew was a dream and it was a secret. A world where Declan had to tell Ronan to stay out of his own kidnapping. The one where Ronan hated him, because Declan hated Niall, and Ronan had always been too much like Niall anyway (except for the lies. Ronan only ever lied to himself.)

A world where Niall was dead. That a hypothetical one where he wasn’t was even worse. A world where Ronan was in danger for existing and living even when Declan had thought that was over, because apparently it was never fucking over.

A world where he couldn’t (wouldn’t) help a beautiful girl standing next to him, looking at artwork of someone she loved, dying.

Declan could so imagine himself in her shoes. It could so easily be him. He imagined Ronan, or Matthew, on the brink of death. Everything and anything he would do, if he could. If he wasn’t a goddamn normal person in a family of wonders. Because there was never anything he could do.

It was too easy to imagine. It had been. I t was deja vu that cut.

Declan hated a world where helping Jordan was dooming Ronan. Hated himself for making that choice. For always, always making that choice.

Declan was a Lynch. He was raised at Niall’s knee, and if there was one thing that Niall Lynch taught above all else, for better or worse, it was family. It was Ronan.

“I'm sorry,” Declan said, and those two words said everything.

Jordan didn’t look at him right away. That look on her face. Deja vu that burned.

“I get it,” she said. “I figured.”

She didn’t sound like she hated him for it, which was almost worse. She sighed. “Want a ride home?”

Declan looked out at the darkening sky and wished, suddenly and irrationally, that he didn’t have to go back. That this didn’t have to end. That he didn’t have to pretend again. Then he thought of Matthew, and Ronan.

“Yes,” he said. “Thank you.”

Chapter Text

It was a quiet car ride. Declan didn’t feel that she was angry about the outcome, only that there just wasn’t much else to say. He tried not to feel bad. Convince himself that there wasn’t anything else he could do, that years of living only to protect his brothers wasn’t work risking for a woman he’d met that day. (Who’d abducted him.)

Still, there was no ignoring the quiet disappointment that hung heavy. 

At some point between Declan giving directions, Jordan turned on the radio, and of course they had the same taste in music.

Declan stared at the night streets passing by and with every breath, built his walls back up.

it was an unpleasant surprise, when the car crawled its way down the street towards Declan’s home, to see the BMW parked in front. Niall’s BMW. Ronan’s. The new inheritor of their father’s car (if inheritor was synonymous with thief) stood by the hood, distinct even as he was only a dark silhouette by the shaved head, and the shoulders, and the way he held himself like the world was a war. He was joined by a slighter silhouette. Adam Parrish, because it would be no one else. The two had seen the car, Declan saw by the turn of their heads, and though Jordan had given up on Declan, though she felt safer now (not safe, nothing was ever safe), Declan couldn’t afford to trust it.

“Let me out here,” he said, and she did.

He walked the rest of the half block to Ronan and Adam. He took his time. He did not limp (though his ribs were fire and he was so very tired) and when he arrived, the first thing he said was, “what the hell is this?”

“What the hell is this?” Ronan was bristling as only Ronan could bristle, practically spitting.  “What the goddan fuck is this ?” a hand waving at Declan.

“Is what,” Declan said coolly. The stars glittered above, as cold as he felt. The street lamps cast a dull glow, and he was in no mood .

“You! Fine, walking free, unkidnapped! You didn’t tell us? You didn’t fucking call?”

“I told you to stay out of it,” Declan said. “It's not my fault if you didn’t listen.”

“Bullshit.”

“I'm tired, Ronan.”

“And I was worried .”

Both Lynch brothers stopped dead. Even Adam looked startled. Ronan looked like he hadn’t been expecting himself to say that, either. Declan contemplated the truth in the statement. What was the proper response, to a brother who hated you, a brother you kind of resented, a brother who you would do anything for, saying he was worried?

Avoidance. “I'm sorry to hear that,” Declan said. “As you can see, I'm fine. We can discuss this in the morning, if you wish.”

Ronan was all rage. It was obvious, painfully so. Declan looked at Adam Parrish, almost instinct drawing him to the more reasonable person in this situation. Adam just shrugged.

“Go to bed, Ronan.”

“What's with your attic?”

Fear, and dread, and anxiety, and hot anger collided on an epic, cinematic level scale. It all rushed up and tickled Declan’s throat, the back of his nose, pressing at his eyes until he had a near migraine in the span of a second. He needed water. He needed sleep. He needed Ronan to not be asking that .

Dream things. Niall’s dream things. Paperwork. Secrets. Lies. Everything that Declan was built on, and here Ronan had gone in and fucking snooped.

“You–” Declan started, but he didn’t finish, because right then, Ronan’s phone rang. The ringtone that meant Matthew. Because of course. For a solid second, two, three, Declan couldn’t breathe. Not because he was afraid, or anything. Just that it was all so much .

Ronan handed Declan the phone, silently. Because of course.

Declan flipped open the phone and answered as easily as if it was any day. “Matthew.”

“Declan?” Matthew sounded surprised. On the verge of tears.

“Yes,” Declan said. He looked at Ronan and raised his eyebrows. How much does he know?

Ronan shrugged sullenly. Declan contemplated punching him. Hypothetically.

“Are you okay? You were– Ronan said you were missing!”

“Yeah. I’m okay. It was all just–” walls of paintings and greywaren and cold basements and Jordan’s piercing gaze– “a misunderstanding, kid. I’m good.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. I’m sure. It’s late, you should be sleeping.”

“I… couldn’t. I was…” Matthew trailed off. Probably he didn’t have the words for worried, anxious, fear eating him up inside. So far his life he’d been spared from most of that. Declan couldn’t imagine.

“Try again now,” Declan said. “Call me again if you can’t in a little bit, okay? We can go get ice cream tomorrow.”

“Yay! Okay. I’m glad you’re okay.” Matthew hung up.

Declan snapped the phone closed.

“Are we going to talk about this?” Ronan asked. Shockingly mature, Declan might have thought, if he wasn’t still furious.

“No,” Declan said. “We are not.” He shoved Ronan’s phone into his chest and stalked up the pavement towards his apartment. He didn’t even give a damn if they saw him limping, right now. He just needed to get inside. Get away. Get alone, before all of this broke and came crashing down on his head. Before his chest got too tight to breathe, for real.

Ronan and Adam didn’t follow. And Declan didn’t look back.

Chapter Text

Declan was fine, he was fine , he was able to breathe, he wasn’t hurt or hungry or tired, until he was alone. Until the apartment door closed behind him (he locked it and checked it twice). It closed, and blocked out Ronan, and Adam, and Matthew, and Jordan, a woman he shouldn’t have been still thinking about but was.

It shut them out, and Declan couldn’t help it. He let everything else in. The fear that he had been trying to keep at bay all day. Everything. He was filthy. He was famished. He was wounded. He was exhausted.

First things first, Declan told himself, trying to force everything scrambling in his mind into some semblance of order. Food. That was important, right?

He limped into the kitchen, pulling off his sweaty, dirty shirt as he went. Grabbed a container of leftover chinese food and sniffed it. It was not… the most disgustingly horrible? It was probably a week and a half old now but by this point, Declan didn’t even care. He grabbed a spoon and slid to sit on the ground, leaning against the wall.

The lights were off in the whole apartment. It was just him. He’d spent so many nights like this, and not only had it been fine, but it had been downright enjoyable. Declan enjoyed being alone. Other people were stupid, and they were stressful, and they took so much work. Smiling, lying, placating. Being someone he wasn’t. (Was it really not him anymore?)

So no. Declan didn’t mind being alone.

But tonight?

Tonight, it was unbearable. His ribs hurt and his heart hurt and all the adrenaline that had kept him going was just gone. Ronan was safe, Matthew’s crisis was held at bay for the moment, so there was nothing to do. It should have been a good thing. Instead, Declan wanted to break something. Or cry.

He should get a pet, he thought. A cat or something. Weren’t they supposed to be good for this kind of thing?

Declan set aside his fork and buried his face in his hands. He was spiraling. He had to stop spiraling.

Knowing it didn’t help. His eyes closed, all Declan saw were rust flecked pipes, all he heard was greywaren, greywaren, greywaren, my dauntless Declan—

He sat there for he didn’t know how long. Trying to regulate his breathing. Trying to be normal again.

And then someone knocked on the front door.

A crisp, three times knock. Declan sat up. It was so unexpected it helped his probably-not-a-panic-attack almost immediately.

It didn’t sound like Ronan. It wasn’t Matthew.

Declan was too tired to be afraid, and he figured the odds of him being kidnapped twice back to back were fairly unlikely, so he pulled himself up and crossed to the front door. Pulled it open. Standing silhouetted by the streetlamp behind her, hair edged with silver, a grocery bag in hand, was Jordan.

“Oh,” Declan sad. He registered that he was wearing no shirt, that his hair was disheveled. That he held a container of leftovers in one hand. Jordan’s eyes skipped over all of this, rested on his torso, which was mottled with various bruises.

Everything Declan never showed, on display. He didn’t move, until she lifted the bag.

“I don’t like drinking alone,” she said. “And I just found a damn good sale of my favorite wine.”

***

Jordan had brought more than just wine, and as she dumped it all on his kitchen counter and he retrieved a new shirt from his bedroom, they both seemed to come to a silent, unspoken agreement to pretend that she hadn’t gone out and bought all of it for him.

Antiseptic and band-aids decorated with some kids cartoon. Declan raised an eyebrow at her when he got to them.

“Only ones they had,” she said, the corner of her mouth lifting.

“Liar, liar,” Declan said.

“Takes one to know one.” She rummaged through his freezer. “God, you don’t have any good ice cream.”

“I didn’t know I’d be hosting.”

“A man should have good ice cream for himself! Tut tut.” She moved to the fridge. “Ah, good cheese. At least you’re not completely depressing.”

“Thanks. I can’t believe you just said tut tut .” Declan found something else in the bottom of the bag. “What’s this?”

“Ah.” She spun around and leaned against the counter, elbows propped up and fingers intertwined below her chin. “Yes! That’s for you.”

Declan opened the envelope and pulled out a generic greeting card. Reading the front, he snorted. “My condolences? Who died?”

“Open it.”

He did. Inside were the factory printed words Sorry for your loss! Jordan had crossed out loss and scribbled beneath: kidnapping . The card read: Sorry for your kidnapping!

And the rest of the card… all around the words, in the margins and above and below and even some entwining the letters, she’d drawn flowers of all colors. In Jensen’s exact style. It could be a Jensen original, if it wasn’t done with crayola markers. And probably pumped out in like ten minutes, given the time between when he’d last seen her. 

Declan looked at her. “Impressive.” For the love of everything he had ever known, he could not be falling for her. But this art. Her smile. It was a cheery illuminating thing in the dark apartment, and she raised a glass.

“Cheers.”

He took the glass she offered him. His own glass. Her wine. And he felt it, like a magnet. Like a river, dragging him along by the ankles. And though he was Declan lynch, and it was safer to keep every last person at an arm’s distance or further, for once he didn’t resist.

Chapter Text

Jordan was drunk. So was Declan. They were lying on his too expensive rug, looking up at his boring white ceilings, and she was contemplating what mural would look best splashed across all that blank space, when he said,

“I can help.”

Lightning, a bolt of it, sudden and fierce. Jordan hadn’t come here to convince him to change his mind. That, she thought, had been set in stone. “I don't want lies,” she said.

“Not a lie.”

She looked at him. He looked terribly vulnerable right about then, like even though he wasn’t looking at her, he was giving away something of himself. And maybe he was.

“Not the Greywaren,” Declan said. “I don't mean just… handing you a solution. I don’t think,” he paused then, measuring his words. “I don't think that would even help the way you think it would. The Greywaren, I mean. But…” another pause. 

“You don’t have to,” Jordan said, even though she was afraid of what it would mean if he didn’t. For her. For Hennessy. She was afraid of what it would mean for him if he did.

“I want to. Do you know the Fairy Market?”

“Yes.” it had been a terrifying, tumultuous few visits. Very much out of her depth, though Jordan hadn’t wanted to admit it. It had been where she had heard talk of the Greywaren, but not much else. “People knew your father there.”

Declan’s jaw tightened. He didn’t say of course they did , though she could tell he was thinking it. Instead, he said, “How much did you know it?”

The Fairy Market, she knew he meant, and she admitted, “Not. Not very much.” New to that world. And that world was intimidating. It had been like there was a whole level, of secrecy and of talk, that she hadn’t even touched. That she’d never be able to understand.

“Yeah,” Declan said. He didn’t say I figured, and Jordan didn’t say You know it, don’t you. They were understood things.

After a very long minute, Declan said, “It’s in town again. I can take you. I don’t know how much that will help, but…”

But he knew it. She didn’t. But she could maybe reach that level, maybe find something for a problem she refused to put in words, even to him. But it was a chance. And that was far more than she had been hoping for.

“Yes,” she said.

***

Ronan refused to let sleeping things lie, a fact that in equal parts made him horribly frustrating and endearing. Mostly, Adam thought right about then, frustrating.

“He’s not going to tell you anything else,” Adam insisted, because it was Ronan, and it was Declan they were talking about.

The BMW idled half a block away from Declan’s apartment. It was the middle of the night, and they’d spent the better part of it going back and forth about this. Also because Ronan said he didn’t feel like sleeping right now, and Adam didn’t feel like leaving Ronan alone like this. Something frantic was moving under Ronan’s skin in a way it hadn’t in years. Since he’d figured out dreaming. Since kavinsky.

It frightened Adam.

“There's something he’s not telling me,” Ronan said.

“No shit. He was kidnapped and didn’t say why.”

“Because of me,” Ronan said.

Ronan. They want Ronan.

Adam didn’t argue. “Can we do this in the morning?” he said instead.

“You sound like him.”

“I'm not a liar,” Adam said. Sometimes he didn’t think Declan Lynch was either. Just that circumstances had forced his hand. Other times he thought the older Lynch was just as much a bastard as Ronan claimed. Depended on the weather.

“He’s up to something,” Ronan said. “I'm going to figure out what. Even if he won’t tell me.”

Ronan’s relationship with Declan was a fraught one that usually meant late nights pretending he wasn’t angry and fistfights. It had evened out in the past couple of years, once Declan stopped trying to parent Ronan, and Ronan stopped pretending he didn’t need it. Evened out, but not by much. Adam knew Ronan wasn’t going to be letting this go. He sighed.

“Okay,” he said. “I'm going to sleep. Wake me when something happens.”

Like something was going to.

Only, it did. Some unknown amount of hours later, Ronan elbowed Adam out of sleep.

“Told you,” he hissed.

“What?”

Ronan pointed. Declan’s car, sleek and quiet, was pulling out of the driveway. 

“It's four in the morning,” Ronan said.

Adam blinked sleep out of his eyes and squinted at the dash. “I see that.”

“ And why is he going somewhere at four in the morning?”

“I have a feeling we’re going to find out,” Adam guessed. In lieu of an answer, Ronan kicked the car into drive. They slid out in pursuit of the Declanmobile.

Dating Ronan Lynch, Adam thought only half ruefully, could never possibly be boring.

Chapter Text

It was luck, or maybe fate, or probably god playing an awful trick on Declan, that the Fairy Market happened to be in town. He hated it like he hated himself, like he hated Niall, and he hated even more that he was turning to it when he had promised himself to never look back, never become something like the people who frequented it.
Or maybe not. Maybe he hated it because it was so much of what he knew.
Either way, he focused on other things as they drove towards it. Things like Jordan in the passenger seat, feet up on the dash, one hand trailing out the window. A few rings glinted on her fingers in the light of the street, and he thought about what the stories could be behind them.
He focused on the road, gliding by. Almost no cars out, which was a blessing and a curse. Declan liked the flow of traffic, liked the easy way he slotted into it, the way it made him not have to think. Follow the car ahead of you. Watch the ones to the side. Look back, always look back.
He focused on the sound of Jordan’s breath. Another person in the car with him. He didn’t know how he’d gotten so tangled up in this. He could have walked away. He should have walked away.

Instead, he drove to the hotel the Fairy Market was housed in. There it was, subtle and gleaming. Pulling up, entering the near abandoned parking lot, was kind of like driving into Narnia, only more deadly and more dreadful. A whole different world, just an hour outside of Henrietta. It looked normal, and from the outside it was.
It still felt dangerous.
“Doesn’t open for an hour,” Declan said. He wouldn’t have come so early, except that they had run out of things to do in his boring apartment. (The prospect of Fairy Market had been thrumming too loudly to talk.) “So we wait.”
Jordan nodded. She was watching out the front windshield, her knee bouncing up and down just a little. Declan, sitting perfectly still and feeling like his skeleton was collapsing around him and leaving just a Declan blob of anxiety, could relate perfectly.

***

They never even made it in.
Perhaps, Declan thought when he contemplated the events of the night/morning in retrospect, it was always going to end this way. It had, after all, started the same way: with Ronan.
It was always going to be Ronan, no matter how hard Declan tried. Maybe it was time he stopped trying. It just brought them back here, in the end. And he was sick to death of lying.
It happened like this: Declan and Jordan, sitting in a quiet car, half an hour later. The Fairy Market was going to open soon, a fact they could tell because a few cars glided up and people got out. Went into the hotel. A few lights came on, one at a time.
And then Ronan’s BMW slid into the parking space beside them.
Fuck, Declan thought, at the same time that Ronan rolled down his window and made a rude gesture that clearly meant Get out.
“Stay in the car,” Declan asked Jordan, already opening the driver side door and stepping out.
“Please,” she suggested, and got out too.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck– “Ronan,” Declan said. His brother stood, leaning against the BMW, arms folded. He looked like he belonged here, at the Fairy Market, far more than Declan did, with his Niall face and his Niall eyes and his Niall shoulders and the danger that pumped through his blood.
Adam Parrish got out of the passenger side, like this night couldn’t get any goddamn worse.
Declan stood in a near abandoned parking lot, surrounded by the crumbling residue of Niall Lynch’s life, one he had tried so hard to hide from Ronan. One he had tried so hard to walk away from, for everyone’s good.
“This is about Dad,” Ronan said. “Isn’t it.”
Declan cursed Niall, out of habit, out of hatred. He didn’t have a moment to get a word in before Ronan barrelled on.
“This is about the attic. About the papers. His…” he shot a look at Jordan and restrained himself. “Stuff.”
“Very nice,” Declan said, sharp because he was angry, afraid. “Stuff. Very eloquent. Exactly right.”
“Fuck you, Declan,” Ronan said. “I know you wouldn’t be able to tell the truth if it was killing you, but you don’t even try. He was my father too.”
That was a funny thing to say, Declan wanted to spit. Like Niall Lynch had ever been as much of Declan’s father as Ronan. Declan was firstborn, but he was second son at most. Third if they were counting Matthew.
“Ronan—”
“Just tell me,” Ronan said. “You piece of shit.”
“Whoa, mate,” Jordan said. “Bit too early for that, isn’t it?”
Ronan wheeled on her. “Who are you?”
“I could ask the same thing,” she said, except her eyes were on Declan. Adam’s eyes were on Declan, careful, calculating. Ronan was glaring between Jordan and Declan.
Declan didn’t know how to get out of this. Fuck you, he thought to Niall, even though the man had never heard it even when he was alive.
“Your brother,” Jordan said, putting together the dots, because it wasn’t very fucking hard at this point, was it?
“Yes,” Declan said.
“So she’s your date to this creepy hotel?” Ronan asked.
Jordan grinned. “Something like that. Why are you here?”
Ronan raised his eyebrows and burned his glare into Declan. “For answers.”
“We’re going home,” Declan said. If there was one thing he was not doing, it was bringing Ronan into the goddamn Fairy Market.
“No, we’re not,” Ronan said, and Declan recognized the set of his jaw, the determination and something else in his eyes, and thought that driving away from this place without some sort of explanation would mean losing Ronan somehow. He hated Niall even more.
He didn’t know what to do.
And then, “We can help,” Adam said, sudden and unwanted, and the choice was taken from Declan’s hands entirely.
“No,” he said, at the same time that Ronan said, “Help with what?”
“She’s the one who kidnapped Declan,” Adam said.
Adam was watching Jordan. Jordan was watching Declan. Ronan looked at her.
“Oh yeah?”
Fuck. Fuck. “Ronan—”
“What’s it to you,” Jordan said, folding her arms. “I want the Greywaren, not Declan’s scowly younger brother.”
And there it was. Declan wanted to drive his car away, far, far away. He wanted to take Jordan with. He wanted to leave her behind. He wanted to put his fist through a wall. He wanted to never deal with this again.
Ronan’s mouth had dropped. For once, he forgot to look barbed. “You’re looking for–” he looked at Declan. “She’s— You—”
“Yes,” Declan said, even though everything in him was screaming Stop, screaming No, just plain screaming.
“Me,” Ronan said, because Declan didn’t think he’d ever understood the meaning of secret. Declan closed his eyes. He didn’t have to be looking to understood the impact the word made on Jordan. He heard her sharp intake of breath. Heard the pieces clicking together.
It felt terribly right.
“You,” she said. Very slowly. “The Greywaren is…”
A person, not a thing, Declan thought. My brother. My father. Yes.
“A dreamer,” Jordan said.
“Yes,” Ronan said. Simply truths. Dangerous ones. It hurt Declan to see them handed away so casually. It hurt less that they were handed to Jordan, even though it shouldn’t have.
Declan opened his eyes and looked at Jordan, the beautiful girl he had brought to this place without knowing what it would do. She looked surprised, and she didn’t. What did she know about dreamers? Why was she in this world?
“I have a friend,” she said, and here it was, finally, the truth, bare and raw. For Ronan. Declan would examine how he felt about that later, or not at all. “Another dreamer. She’s sick. Dying. Because of dreaming. Somehow. I don’t know.”
She paused, and here was the brink that she and Declan, Declan and Ronan, had been skirting all this time. Dreaming laid bare. No more secrets.
“Can you help?” she asked. Simply, and not at all.
Ronan’s eyes were furiously bright. Declan saw him process it, again and again and again.
Another dreamer. Another dreamer. Another dreamer.
Niall was the only other dreamer the Lynch brothers had ever known, and he was dead. Declan knew, then, before Ronan answered, that he would help. Of course he would.
It was like a second chance.
Was this losing his brother, Declan wondered, or saving him?
“I can try,” Ronan said. And it was as good as a yes.

Chapter Text

Three weeks later, things were not exactly good, but they were better. Maybe even on their way to good.

Declan’s ribs were healed (healing). He was back to classes, and internships, and driving Matthew to things. Matthew, who had forgiven him for being kidnapped, and forgiven Ronan for not telling him about it right away.

Ronan was having regular meetings with the dreamer friend of Jordan’s. He didn’t tell Declan much about it. Neither did Jordan, if she knew much, but Declan assumed she would. Eventually. If she didn’t… well, everyone had their secrets.

Ronan and Adam were still good, as far as Declan could tell. Maybe that would change in the future, maybe when Adam went to college, maybe not, but for now it wasn’t. 

And Declan. Jordan.

Well.

A week after the whole debacle, they met at a museum for their first proper date. And after that, things spun out of control.

Declan hated things that were out of control. Things had to be predictable, and organized, and expected, or it meant danger , it meant death , it usually meant Ronan dreaming things and endangering himself and everyone around him. Declan wasn’t used to unpredictable, and even less used to unpredictable not meaning danger.

But it did. It was good.

And it didn’t feel like before, like Ashley (or Ashley, or Ashley). Maybe it was because of the circumstances of their meeting. Maybe it was because of Jordan. Whatever it was, it was . His secrets didn’t feel like a thing to be pried away from closed fists, and hers didn’t feel so heavy.

They met at another museum.

Dinner.

Movie.

A walk in the park.

She painted him.

And every day, the terrible weight on Declan’s chest lifted just a little. Matthew was still a dream, and Ronan was still Ronan, but it all felt a little more manageable.

He even had a real talk with Ronan. It happened because Ronan kept cornering him, kept pestering him, kept goddamn asking , and with everything going on, it felt just a little bit pointless to keep clinging to his secrets. They weren’t even Declan’s secrets, they were Niall’s, and so finally Declan took Ronan to the attic and explained. Ronan seemed to forgive Declan for knowing about the dreaming all along—eventually.

And Declan didn’t believe in happy endings. He had seen his father dream a replacement for his mother, and seen both father and new mother die. He’d lived as a Lynch too long to believe, really, that anything could last.

But for once, Declan wasn’t really thinking about that. About the future. He wasn’t taking as many pills to sleep, with Jordan next to him. His stomach wasn’t quite as much a ruin.

Maybe, Declan thought, just maybe, things were better than good.