maskormenacelogs | Chasing leaves in the wind // closed

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Chasing leaves in the wind // closed

WHO: Declan Lynch

dauntless_son + Ronan Lynch and Kylo Ren
WHERE: the Meadows
WHEN: January 9th-ish
WHAT: meeting the... family?
WARNINGS: Lynch Family Trauma, violence

I. The birds all left my tall friend

Declan doesn't ask Ronan for a car. It doesn't even occur to him to ask a dreamer for anything. He rents one in the city and follows memory out to the Meadows. He shouldn't have any memory of how to get there, but Ronan said it was where the Barns should be. So he knows. Declan doesn't know if he's disturbed or relieved when he finds it. There's flickers of familiarity - some of the out buildings that he can see from the driveway, fields of cows (none of them sleeping as far as he can tell), the shape of things.

But the house is different. That's the first jarring thing that disrupts any sense of deja vu. Declan slides out of the car and just stands there for a moment, taking everything in. He's just come from work and his staid black pea coat covers an equally staid gray suit. Black gloves, black scarf to ward off the familiar evening chill.

He's about to head toward the house when a flash of light through the trees catches his attention. Ronan's always dreaming light... Declan follows the flash and realizes that there's more than one and that the way they move is very deliberate.

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Kylo might, possibly, have even less patience for smoothly delivered lines than Ronan does. Unimpressed with Declan's attempts to placate and manage him, Kylo holds him with a piercing stare before dismissing him completely, turning his attention back to Ronan.

Pained, winded but obedient, faithful Ronan.

"If he does that to me again," he murmurs in a low, dangerously steady tone, "I will kill him. You wanted him spared. So you tell me. Do you want him here. Now. Or can whatever it is you want with him wait until he's learned some control. To listen, when I tell him to leave."

It's a warning, not a threat. Ronan understands that. If it happens again, the consequence won't be a decision Kylo makes. It will be a reaction. There's no negotiating with it because it's a reflex. Ronan can't get on his knees and beg him to reconsider when consideration doesn't even come into play.

"I think that's the wrong question," Ronan replies, his voice straining with every labored breath. "You'll have to kill me before you kill him. I promised I wouldn't put you through that again. So it's not about what I want. It's what has to happen until one or both of you can stop yourselves."

Is there a reason Ronan won't tell Declan to leave? Kylo's eyes narrow in irritation. Behind him, still hovering despite having been warned, threatened, attacked and shown in every possible way that his continued presence will not be tolerated, Kylo can feel Declan— he's practically radiating a particularly wet, miserable concern. Can't Ronan see it? Can't he tell that Declan, for whatever reason, is still here because he's waiting to hear Kylo's command come from his brother's mouth before he'll accept it?

He's growing increasingly tired of the blatant disrespect.

"I've told him to leave," Kylo says, tightly. "He's still here because he thinks you want him here. That you need him here. That's why he's risking another accident. He wants to hear it from you."

Declan hasn't demonstrated the slightest interest in listening to anyone or anything else, after all. And for what? What is he hoping to gain? What is he hoping to achieve?

I wouldn't put you through that again.

Again? Declan takes a deep breath and lets it go slowly. How could he not be concerned for Ronan's safety when he hears that? When he can see how reactive Kylo is?

But contrary to Kylo's claims, Declan doubts that Ronan wants him here anymore. And Ronan might drop dead before saying he needs anything from Declan. He's under no illusion there. But neither has stopped him from trying to protect his brother. Declan isn't sure how to stop.

Ronan and Matthew are all he has left.

And as far as he's concerned, there's no risk of any further accidents should Kylo manage to control his temper. But he waits. Part of him thinks he should just be the adult and excuse himself, but--Kylo isn't wrong on that end. He needs to hear it from Ronan.

I need you to be safe, Ronan.

Ronan does want Declan here. That's the thing. He can't say he doesn't, because he wants it very badly, but the entire matter is out of his hands. He refuses to make their home unsafe for Kylo. He also refuses to reject his family. Their decision to cooperate with each other isn't a choice he can make for them.

He holds Kylo's gaze a moment longer, then returns his attention to his brother. "Kylo's right," Ronan tells him. "This is his home. It's our home. It's the place he won't feel powerless. Where I'm safe, because he makes it safe for me."

Which probably seems like a ridiculous statement to make, as Ronan stands here with the bruises Kylo gave him, covered in the mud Kylo threw him down into. Without a thought. Without hesitation. Ronan was the very last thing on Kylo's mind when his power was at stake. Declan doesn't have to say it.

"But you're the one who changed that for us. And I know you were just fucking trying to help me, but I never asked you to. If you want me to be okay, then don't make me have to get between you and him again."

Declan doesn't say it, but he can't unsee it. Given the way he's breathing, he's quite sure that Ronan has broken ribs, hopefully not a punctured lung. And he's defending someone that Declan doesn't doubt would have killed him and possibly hurt Ronan further.

Ronan levels blame so effortlessly that Declan almost misses the small concession. No, Ronan didn't ask him to. Of course, it was his responsibility to keep this from happening, to avoid putting Ronan in this position. How careless of him.

"Answer your phone more often," he says quietly. "I did try to tell you that I was coming." Several times since yesterday. And he has no idea if Ronan has even seen the messages. It doesn't matter now.

He wants to be here, but he doesn't see how staying will work. Ronan's chosen partner is still seething.

"Maybe we should call it a night. Try some other time."

Edited 2020-01-14 05:52 (UTC)

Kylo watches the exchange in irritable silence. He certainly can't see the appeal— why would Ronan want anything of the way Declan feels when he looks at him? But he can feel that tug of longing. He doesn't have to ask to know that Ronan was the one who invited Declan here in the first place, or that try some other time means that inevitably, Ronan will.

He'll just have to find a way to neutralise Declan's threat without destroying him, before some other time happens.

The mention of his goddamn phone drags Ronan right out of exhaustion and back into outrage. It wasn't the fucking notification that was the problem. This isn't a disagreement about decorum. Declan showed up and sucked the life out of the Meadows, cut Kylo off from his senses, severed the sacred connection between them. He didn't drop by the house, he tracked them into the woods and terrified them.

Ronan doesn't have the strength to voice all of that, so it comes out of him in a snarled, "No. No, we won't try some other fucking time."

There. That hollow feeling of going too far, of Ronan slipping away. They've never been particularly good at communicating with each other, but he should have known better. He knows Ronan.

Declan lifts his hands in a small surrender. He doesn't want to leave Ronan. He doesn't want to lose whatever tenuous bonds still hold their family together. But he also can't see anything getting better if he stays. To them, he is a hostile invader. As if he somehow did this on purpose. He's terrified for Ronan and his grasp on this power he has is tenuous.

He believes that Kylo would kill him if he loses control of it again. Ronan has seen enough family die.

"I'm going," he says quietly. Better to announce it than try to walk off otherwise. There's a few heartbeats, then he says, "I'm sorry."

And that is real.

Declan manages to find his keys in his pocket and he's sure he has a bruise or something where they dug into his leg on impact. He gives Ronan and Kylo a wide berth and his mind fills with all the missed what-ifs and prayers that he's not sure will be heard. That Ronan will be safe, that somehow they find a way back from this. In that moment he misses Matthew like a limb. It'd be nice to go home to someone that smiles at him. He thinks Jordan. Maybe she'd call him an idiot, but it'd feel good to be with someone that sees him.

Edited 2020-01-14 07:11 (UTC)

Kylo doesn't speak up— partly, because yet again, Ronan's managed to surprise him with the strength of his allegiance— but mostly, because he's busy keeping his senses alert. He doesn't acknowledge Declan's assurance or apology, but keeps him right at the centre of his focus, dark eyes tracking his movements until he disappears back through the trees and out of view.

Then, with his will following the reach of his senses, he tracks him right to the waiting car, tension only releasing when he feels the decision of the key in the ignition. Declan, peeling away from the Meadows.

He exhales, turning back. Smoothly, unflinching from the pain waiting for him there, he pours his focus back where it belongs— stretching out through his connection to Ronan as if needing to remind himself of its strength. It wasn't ever really gone. It never disappeared, and Declan didn't take it. He just rendered it invisible.

But not to Ronan.

Kylo's eyes find Ronan's in the dark, his hand reaching for him. He can't find any of the right words.

Ronan doesn't say another word to his brother. He doesn't fully believe Declan's leaving, either, and waits in tense silence along with Kylo, listening. He waits for Declan to arm himself and return, to put up a stupid fight. But when Kylo exhales, Ronan understands it must mean Declan's really gone.

Ronan looks at him. He takes Kylo's hand and draws it to his heart, cradling it the way he always does. Everything hurts so much that he's shaking, but he can ignore it a little while longer. He can take a beating a lot better than he can take Kylo's doubt.

"Ronan," he begins, not really knowing what he wants to say next— but in the end, it doesn't matter. Ronan's trembling, and Kylo can't stand it. A strain or a struggle are one thing, and Ronan frequently makes his beautiful to watch, but this suffering is an unearned punishment. He draws in close, but not close enough to crush their bodies together.

"I know," he promises. And he does, now. Should have, all along. He lifts his hand to cup Ronan's face, cradling it with all the tenderness he forgot as he murmurs in unnecessary observation: "You're hurt."

Does he know? Ronan has never felt himself disappear so completely in front of Kylo, not even when his physical reality unraveled - because then, at least, Kylo had begged him to exist.

Is he nothing? Ronan Lynch without power. Did Declan make him nothing, even to Kylo?

"I've been worse."

It's not like he needs this body, anyway. Ronan leans into Kylo's touch, waiting for the invitation. It'll be easier to get back to the farmhouse as one, and anyway, the union will be a comfort to both of them. There's probably nothing Kylo wants more than the reassuring strength of Ronan's magic. And Ronan...

He would rather not be Ronan for a while.

Kylo's hand stills. Ripples of Ronan's misery spread through him, joining with the fear native to his own heart, his own nerves, adrenaline still surging through his blood.

He doesn't know how to banish either. The only thing he ever learned to do with fear and the pain of being nothing worth saving, of being nothing of value to counter the threat of his power, was to transform it into anger— and he is furious, still. Just not... not with Ronan. Declan did this. Declan blinded him, cut him off from everything beyond the hideously inadequate prison of his own physicality— a vehicle Kylo had never learned to pilot manually. Ronan could have been pulsing glorious with all the magic and power in the universe and Kylo wouldn't have been able to see it, let alone touch it.

It's frustrating, sensing the argument for his own worthlessness Ronan draws to himself when all Kylo can feel is how vitally important he is— not his magic, but his choice. How could he explain? How could he put Ronan back where he belongs, right at his centre? Perhaps only like this.

"Come back to me," he says, his thumb running lightly over Ronan's cheek, as if wiping away an invisible tear. He breathes out, slowly, his welcome a fully conscious decision. He needs to feel Ronan join with him, not to banish a lingering fear of powerlessness, but of abandonment. And maybe, Ronan needs it too. "Come back where you belong."

Ronan nods. A near-imperceptible movement, felt more than seen.

And just like that, there's no Ronan anymore. The scent of distant chimney smoke, the melody of a half-remembered song, and then the illuminated branches of Kylo's veins as magic courses through them. The dream nestles safely in Kylo's mind and all misunderstanding becomes impossible because this one is no longer separate from Kylo's thoughts. It's just another one of them.

There he is. There. Kylo's very favourite thought, sliding through the tangle of all his buried hopes and insecurities to curl into the hollow, desolate space Kylo had set aside for all the rescues that never came and declare it home. Ronan, shedding his humanity, becomes the life-giving relief of water to desperately parched lips. Air to burning lungs. Light in the darkness. Help for the abandoned. Change to the inevitable.

And as it settles into place, this beautiful idea that causes all Kylo's impossible struggles to shift their shapes until they can accommodate two, the certainty of Ronan's existence as a being who chooses to stand with him in full knowledge of everything he is becomes something Kylo had never been able to find on his own: a belief in a way out.

He draws in a shuddering, steadying breath, stoops down to retrieve Ronan's sword from the mud, then turns back towards the farmhouse. It won't be easy, no. But they can do this. Together, they can accomplish anything.

Edited 2020-01-15 02:11 (UTC)

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Chasing leaves in the wind // closed

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