I just had in my head the idea of Declan coming home from work, maybe early, maybe he was just going in for a meeting but was gonna work from home the rest of the day, whatever, but he puts his keys in the bowl on the hall table and looks up and sees Matthew standing at the kitchen counter, frozen, looking at him.
And the two of them have not seen each other for years.
Matthew looks different.
Older.
Hair pulled back into a messy little tail that sticks straight out, curls falling into his eyes.
Like a silent film projected across a scrim between them, both of them see Declan ripping the sweetmetal from Matty’s throat and getting out of the car, stopped in traffic, retreating, watching his youngest brother through the windshield for the moment he slumps, unconscious, hanging like a puppet with his strings cut against his seatbelt.
All the breath leaves Declan’s body at once.
His fingertips go numb, and his heart squeezes so hard he wonders faintly for a moment if he’s having a cardiac event.
Matty speaks first.
“I let myself in. Figured you still kept a key under the rock around back.”
Declan didn’t say anything. Didn’t say that he left that key in flagrant violation of everything he’d been taught, everything he’d learned at the end of a fist or a gun for exactly this reason: In case his brothers ever needed to come home.
He just stared, drinking in the sight of his youngest brother.
He looked different, gaunter. Still that same cherubic face, still smooth and unblemished, but haunted around the eyes.
Declan realized with a pang that for the first time in their lives, he and Matthew would truly appear to any passerby to be brothers.
“Why?” Declan’s voice rasps in the quiet kitchen.
Matthew dropped his gaze, fidgeting with the pile of unopened mail on Declan’s counter, his face a moue of pique, and Declan found himself automatically bracing for the familiar temper tantrum. But it didn’t come.
Instead, Matthew took a couple of deep breaths, and when he spoke, his voice was hard and steady.
“Do I need a reason?”
Declan didn’t answer. No. Yes. I don’t know. There was a hole in him that’d never healed since his brothers had walked out of his life. If you don’t need a reason, why now? Why not sooner?
I’ve missed you the most.
Matthew was watching Declan through his hair. “I’ve been thinking about you.”
Still, Declan didn’t say anything.
Matthew inhaled raggedly and dropped his gaze again, shaking his head. “Fuck, D, you always do this. I’ve tried, y’know?”
Declan half-turned and began removing his coat, hanging it neatly in the hall closet.
“We’re not like other people.”
Still Declan didn’t respond.
“God damn it, Declan, can you say something?”
“Language.”
Matthew looked stunned for a second but the look quickly calcified into anger. “Fuck. Shit. Piss.”
“Are you done?”
Matthew was red behind the eyes, like a bull that’d sighted an unfortunate matador. Declan knew better than anyone which of his brothers was the worst when he was angry.
“I love you.”
Declan yanked savagely at his tie. “No you don’t.”
Matthew gaped for a second, trying to form words, and Declan pressed his advantage, letting his tie slither from his fingers to pool around his shiny shoes. “Thirty-one months. Two and a half years. You skip out your third semester of college and just,” he mimes with one hand, poof. “Where did you go? Where have you been?” Was it my fault?
“Home.”
The Barns. Ronan. Ronan that little shit. He’d never told—
“Not for long though. Please don’t be too mad at Ro. I made him promise not to tell you.”
And Ronan would never break a promise to their younger brother. Fuck.
“After.”
“After?“ Matty shrugged. “All over. I went out to the West coast for a while. Looked up Gans and Blue. Remember them? From there, I just.” He stopped. Shook his head.
“Why?”
Matthew’s mouth twisted.
“You know why.”
Declan’s stomach lurched, and he was clutching Matthew’s arm, probably too hard, without remembering crossing the floor to get to him.
“I need to hear you say it.”
Matthew’s eyes were impossibly blue. Declan should have realized from the beginning that nothing but a dream could have eyes that blue.
“Because I told you I loved you and you told me you didn’t feel the same.”
“Do you still—?” Fuck, he couldn’t even say it.
Matthew looked like he wanted to laugh or cry. He heaved against Declan’s hold on him. “Couldn’t stay away forever.”
Declan couldn’t remember deciding to back him up against the kitchen counter. All he knew was that his heart was beating like the wings of a hummingbird. That his youngest brother tasted like spearmint gum. That at any moment this could dissolve into water droplets, that he’d be standing in the kitchen listening to the front door slam and wondering if it’d be another two and a half years this time, or if he’d managed to ruin this permanently.
Matty shoved him so hard he nearly lost his balance, steadying himself against a chair.
Matty looked wild, like their middle brother, or one of the nightmare beasts to whom he was more closely related.
“What the fuck, D?”
“Stay.” Declan could taste blood. He felt dizzy. “Don’t leave again. Please.”
“You kissed me.” Matty raised his fingers to his lips in an unconscious gesture. “Why the fuck did you do that?”
Because I will do anything if it means you won’t leave me again.
“Because this is not a life. Not since you left.”
Matthew’s eyes narrowed. “You’re lying. Telling me what you think I want to hear.”
Yes. No. Maybe.
Declan wanted to scream. Wanted to beg for the right answer, the one that would stop him from leaving.
His fingers were knotted painfully into his hair and he felt a couple of hairs part company with his scalp. His jaw creaked, teeth clenched, his eyes hot and dry. A noise escaped him that he didn’t know he was capable of making.
“Hey,” Matty’s voice, an edge of panic, Matty’s fingers, prying at his. Through sheer power of will, Declan let go. He sank to his knees and rocked, hands over his face, and felt Matthew kneel beside him, just like in church.
He voice came out as a low moan. “I thought it was the right thing. We’d been through so much. I put you through so much, just trying to keep you safe. I never wanted to be like dad, but I didn’t know any other way to keep you both alive—“ He swallowed. It hurt. Matthew tried to interject, but he had to keep going now he’d started or he’d never be able to say it all. “I just wanted you to have a normal life. To be able to fall in love with—with someone else. Someone normal. I never wanted you to leave. I’ve played this over and over in my head, every day for two and a half years. What I could have done differently, what I could have said to make you stay, but in the end you always leave. And I am so, so tired. Tired of secrets. For a while now I told myself if you came back, we’d try. But it can’t be a secret. We’d move somewhere where no one knows us and just—try to be normal.”
Matthew doesn’t say anything. Declan doesn’t sit up, doesn’t uncover his face. He can’t. He’s counting seconds like he’s waiting for the thunder.
“I’m sorry. For all of it. For being the way I am. For pushing you away.”
That’s it. That’s everything.
“You told me,” Matthew said slowly, “That you didn’t feel the same way.”
“I lied.” It wasn’t the first time he’d lied to deny himself the one thing he wanted.
Matthew still sounded distant. “How will I ever be able to trust that you’re telling me the truth?”
Declan’s heart was beating very, very fast.
“I don’t know.”
Matty sighed, and Declan uncurled a little, lifting his head to see his brother scoot back to lean against the kitchen counter, empty hands hanging between the twin peaks of his knees.
He looked tired, and Declan felt a pang of sorrow. He was watching him.
“I’m watching the farm for Ronan for a few days while he’s away,” he said, finally. “Come with me. Stay with me.”
Declan laughed a little, a brittle sound.
“You really have grown up, huh, kid?”
Matty looked faintly pleased, tilting his head, a shadow of his old preening. “I guess this is your chance to find out.”
If there’s an epilogue it would be both of them at the Barns reliving their childhood, or in Declan’s case, living it for the first time, in some ways, talking late into the night, swimming, building a fire, cooking together and bickering playfully in the kitchen and lying tangled together wearing sweaters neither remembers whom they belonged to.
And then finally finally after talking and talking late into the night, sitting on the couch with Matty’s head in Declan’s lap, Matty drifting off, Declan staring into the fireplace, deep in thought, Matty would stir and Declan would smile and be like hey and Matty would smile dreamily and be like hey and Declan would lean down to kiss him, their real first kiss, and it would be easy, feel easy, and Matty would wrap his arms around him and Declan would Know in his heart of hearts that he wasn’t going to leave again.
