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Declan Lynch does not, as a rule, cry.
Even as a child, ‘breaking’ did not seem to be a luxury given to the eldest Lynch brother. When Ronan and Matthew were incendiary and impulsive, Declan was level-headed and rational. Someone had to pick up the pieces they left behind, after all, and Niall Lynch had long ago made it clear that he wouldn’t be that person.
When Declan was eight, their father had announced that they would be selling some of the dream cattle that littered their fields. Something about how they weren’t doing much good just being looked at, and anyway, he had already started designing what he wanted the next batch to look like—really, it had been the losing of some contracts with some very powerful people. The type of problems only money could solve.
Niall was forever making promises he couldn’t keep.
Declan wasn’t an idiot, and hadn’t gotten to be naïve for long, either, so he knew that the cows were being sold for slaughter. Ronan had apparently been smart enough to figure this out too, but not wise enough to keep his mouth shut about it.
That afternoon had ended with Matthew sobbing into Aurora’s shoulder, and Ronan yelling through his messy tears as he pushed a vase off the living room’s end table in his fit. Aurora had sent him to his room, and followed soon after with Matthew on her hip.
Declan was the one left behind. Never-mind that one of the cattle being sold was the one Declan had gotten to name all by himself. Never-mind that Declan, too, felt like a little piece of their dream world was being stolen away from them. Because Ronan and Matthew’s grief was so loud; who would bother to listen to Declan’s?
He wouldn’t make a scene about it. Wouldn’t cry like Matthew, or tantrum like Ronan. Later, when Aurora came back out to the living room, she smiled tiredly at Declan. “Thank-you for taking it so well,” she said, ruffling Declan’s hair. “Our brave boy.”
Our brave boy. Except Declan wasn’t all that brave, not really. He was as scared as Ronan was, but all that screaming about it would do is force his parents to look at him, too. Nothing would actually change anything. So Declan stared up at his ceiling for a long time that night, but his eyes remained dry.
When Declan was eighteen, Niall Lynch died. Niall Lynch died. Their father died, or was murdered, and no words that could be put to the sentiment made it seem any more real. Declan had thought that after a lifetime of living amongst dreams, he would be well versed in dispersing them from reality, but his world was blanketed in a thick haze he couldn’t seem to wake up from.
Matthew’s eyes were bagged and hollow, his breaths always a hitch away from a sob. Ronan had retreated into himself, and Declan realized that he had never really known how to deal with the visceral emotions his brother seemed to possess. Ronan was all shout-sobbing in the fields in the dead of night and white-knuckle grips on the countertop, and nothing that could be reasoned away or expunged. He was an inferno lit that could not be doused.
Aurora’s grief might have been the worst, though. If Ronan had retreated upon their father’s death, then Aurora had disappeared. Declan resented their father all over again that Aurora could never be anything without him. She was still a solid presence for her sons, sure, but her smiles were weighted and empty, when they appeared at all, and the ever-present spark in her eyes had dulled. Her suffering, like Declan’s, was quiet, but only a fool could miss it.
So Declan stood straight-backed in the pew next to his mother and brothers as the priest spoke to the small crowd, and did not allow himself to think about how the life he had known was over, or how a part of him desperately wished for Niall Lynch to be here telling Declan what to do with all the secrets he had left behind, or how every word he wanted to yell at his father would now and forever be stuck in his throat.
Declan did not scream like Ronan, or cry like Matthew, or slip away like Aurora. Someone had to carry the burden of the Lynches, had to keep moving forward before this killed them all as well. Declan would not make their burdens heavier with his tears, so he stood, and he prayed, and he didn’t let himself think.
When Declan was eighteen, just a few days older than he had been the day they had buried his father, Aurora Lynch fell asleep, and did not wake up. The realization was a lead coating around Declan’s heart, but he could not find it in himself to be surprised. He had hoped, when she managed to outlast Niall, that she would be different. That she would break the rules as surely as so many things at the Barns did.
But Declan had been hoping for things to be different than they were for so long, and everything was always the same. So Declan made the calls, and spoke to the lawyers, and signed the papers, and forced his brothers to move from the only home they had ever known, because someone had to hold what was left of the Lynches together, and there was no one else left alive to do it.
So he learned how to hold Matthew when he cried in their cramped Aglionby dorm room at night, and he learned how to compromise with Ronan to keep him from going off the tracks entirely. He learned how to adopt the motions of both his parents, even though he felt he wasn’t particularly suited to either, and even though Ronan sneered at him whenever he tried.
And he learned how to suppress all of his own grief inside himself, so that no one else would see him bleed. After all, his brothers were doing enough of that already.
Aurora and Niall Lynch were gone, and they were not coming back, and that was that. There was no point in shedding tears over something that couldn’t be changed. (There was no one left to comfort him if he did, anyway).
Ronan reminded Declan so much of Niall. Whatever impossible stuff their father had been made of also sang in Ronan’s veins. The same fire and passion (and carelessness, always carelessness) underscored all of his actions.
There was never a thought to consequences, or how those actions might shape the lives of those around him, no. It was alway simply an exploration of what could be possible. How fast could one live their life, never-mind who they run over on the way.
It hurt, sometimes, more than Declan would like to admit. Not only was Ronan a constant reminder of the father they had lost, but also a reminder of the fear Declan had always lived with. Fear of being caught, of someone discovering the secrets of the Lynches, fear that one day that spark in their father’s eyes would turn into a wildfire too powerful to extinguish.
Declan never thought it would hurt more to see that spark that father and son alike shared go out.
Declan was still eighteen, forever eighteen, when he received the worst phone call of his life.
He had spoken to the police after he had found Ronan with their father’s body that day, and he had called countless doctors to inform them of what had befallen Aurora Lynch, and both of those had opened up wounds in Declan that he wasn’t foolish enough to believe would ever close, but nothing had prepared him for the all-encompassing fear that had accompanied this particular call from Ronan’s best friend.
Because Declan had known that Niall Lynch was reckless to a fault, and that one day his demons would catch up to him. He had known that Aurora was a dream they all pretended could belong in this world without her dreamer. But now, as shock rang through Declan’s ears, he was faced with the possibility that he perhaps had not known Ronan at all.
It was three a.m. when Declan finally rushed into the emergency room. He was belatedly glad that the phone had not woken Matthew, and that he was still safely asleep back in their dorm. Declan’s head was rushing with terror, and he didn’t think he had it in him to comfort Matthew when all he could think on was his exhaustion and fear.
He brushed past a rattled and tear-streaked Gansey as he stumbled through a half-coherent explanation of the night’s events. He went straight to the nurse, needing to know that facts of what had happened—of what still might happen, if his brother got his way one last time.
A suicide attempt. Declan didn’t think those words had ever truly felt real before this moment. Certainly not tangible. Not something close enough to be reached with a blade in an alleyway across from the park.
What could’ve happened, on today of all days, on some Tuesday that didn’t matter, that had no special meaning, to push Ronan to make that choice? To carve open his own skin like that? He didn’t know.
He didn’t know.
He had never known.
If he had, he never would’ve allowed Ronan to stay at that stupid factory with another teenager who seemed barely able to manage his own emotions. He would’ve fought harder to overturn their father’s will and keep them at the Barns, and keep the last semblance of their family intact. He would never have let Ronan out of his sight.
Declan locked the door to the bathroom behind him as he stepped into the cramped space. He gripped the edge of the sink, staring listlessly down into the porcelain. He had been inches away from losing his brother, tonight.
Not from some distant force that he could despise Niall Lynch for, that he would’ve been helpless to prevent, much as he was helpless in the causes of his own parents’ deaths, but from Ronan’s own hand.
Declan rasped in a heaving breath, vision spinning as the world tried to rebuild itself around him. Declan wasn’t an idiot; he knew what Matthew was, just as surely as he had known what their mother was. If he lost Ronan, he would lose Matthew as well, and all he could think was, I can’t be the last one.
Tears streaked down his face as his chest split itself open for breath. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real. He knew his father’s crimes were plenty, but what did we ever do to deserve this?
Matthew, who was only fourteen, and still managed to find joy in the world, even after it had ended. Ronan, who was only sixteen, and had been broken so throughly he was set on finishing the job of his own destruction. Declan, who was only eighteen, and an orphan, and a guardian, and who might not be a brother for much longer.
Declan, who was powerless, as always, and alone, as always, the rock for his family to lean on when they couldn’t stand themselves. It would never be enough.
Our brave boy.
Declan straightened, rising to meet his own gaze in the mirror. He turned on the water, scrubbing at his face until he looked exhausted and halfway to dead, but any evidence of tears had been stricken from his face. He wouldn’t break. Not when Ronan was breaking, and Matthew might be close to it, as well.
Declan thought that he himself might have been broken for a very long time.
He shut off the water, and stepped back into the waiting room. Declan brushed straight past Richard Gansey III, and didn’t miss the appalled look his apathy garnered from the other boy.
Declan pulled out his phone, listening to it ring until Matthew’s cheery voice greeted him on the voicemail. That’s okay—it doesn’t mean anything about Ronan, Matthew was asleep when he left, and will wake up in a few hours. Matthew will wake up in a few hours, and so will Ronan, because Declan has been strong for them his whole life, and if they meet the same fate as their parents, then the universe or Declan or some ghost from his father’s past would probably strike him down, too, because he would have nothing left to stand for.
The mailbox beeps. “Matthew. Call me when you wake up.”