Chapter Text
The first day she walked into mass, a cataclysmic storm outside ripped the polished mahogany doors off of their hinges, busted in the stained glass windows, and let its shrieking wind give sermon.
Well, not really. She wished there was a storm that could do such a thing, because that would have prevented her from wearing an ironed dress and pantyhose that itched and awful heeled shoes that weren't clogs, but could have easily been their distant, far uglier cousin.
She hadn't realized upon entering the building that the real storm was lingering inside, simmering in the guise of a boy.
She hadn't realized many things.
Religion had never been a part of her life. She knew it like she knew math formulas--faintly, and with not much interest. It had never occurred to her that one day she might have to step foot into a church. It never occurred to her because her father was so adamantly against it, and that was enough for her to steer clear of the thought. But her mother...her mother had been raised in a Catholic household with Catholic teachings and had always longed for her daughter to see that distant, dusty part of her.
Aurelia didn't have the same longing.
She had spent twelve years of her life just pushing to survive, struggling to believe in herself. She didn't have room inside of her to believe in someone else. She had tried that before. Adam's eyes followed her sometimes when she hung up her family's clothes to dry outside because of their finicky dryer, but he never breathed a word to her. Noah had given her a snow globe and hope to go along with it, but then disappeared afterward like he had never even existed. She didn't do well believing in people because when she started to, they vanished.
She was afraid that if she believed in God, He too would surely fade away and take everything good left in the world with Him. It was better to just let others have Him.
She wanted to say that to her Aunt Celine, who had taken it upon herself to drive to Henrietta to try to save her niece's soul. Aunt Celine was a tall, thin woman with a narrow face and pretty green eyes and honeyed hair that she always curled. She worked as an elementary school teacher in West Virginia, which, in her mind, made her qualified to handle all children and their souls. She was the sister of Aurelia's mother, but they weren't very much alike. Celine was happily married and had a nice house and money to burn. She felt like it was her duty to give Aurelia some structure in her life, so she had announced her impending visit the day before she came, and she then she appeared toting an outfit that made Aurelia cringe.
Needless to say, she was miserable as soon as they walked into the church late, and hyperaware of everyone's eyes on her. As she walked down the center aisle, her not-clogs making an obnoxious amount of noise as she went, Aurelia began to wish that she hadn't been so difficult in the car. They could have possibly avoided all of the staring if they had been on time.
The only problem was that no one was staring outright. She could feel their gazes resting on her, assessing and guessing, but only after she had passed the pews where they stood. It was more unsettling than someone glaring daggers at her. She figured they thought it was the more polite option, but she didn't care much for polite.
There was one person, however, that seemed to have thrown that etiquette to the wind. Or, perhaps, was the very wind that swept all etiquette away. The boy was around her age, with dark, wild hair that curled at the ends and cobalt eyes framed by thick lashes. He lounged halfway in the aisle and halfway in the pew, those odd eyes of his narrowed in her direction as she walked by. There was something vicious about the set of his mouth, the sharp angles of his jaw and his cheekbones. The longer she looked at him, the more dangerous he became. He wasn't a storm, but a hurricane. Not a hurricane, but the apocalypse, fantastic and horrible. A world-changer.
Aurelia was convinced that the thing in front of her wasn't a boy at all.
He had his sleeves shoved haphazardly up his arms and his necktie loose in between his slim fingers, and that should have eased the whirring in her mind. But with one glance over at his mother, a woman with an affable expression on her face and gold-spun hair, and his brothers, one tall and dark and haughty and the other plump and fair and shining---Aurelia knew. She knew that he was not the same as them, and that he very much did not want to be the same. He was boy-shaped, but so much more than a boy.
She wasn't sure how one long look could tell her this, but she knew it now like she knew her own name. She got inklings, and they were always right. She knew Adam Parrish was destined for something terrible and grand. She had known Noah Czerny would be lost or had already been lost.
And she knew that this boy had the ability to bring the world to its knees or rebuild it. She should have been terrified of him, but as Aunt Celine guided her into the pew in front of the apocalypse-of-a-boy and his mismatched family, she realized that she wasn't.
She was curious.
She didn't dare turn around to look at him, though. Celine was frowning delicately. It didn't suit her face. Her aunt leaned down and breathed: "We missed the gloria. They're having silent prayers right now, so close your eyes and repent."
Aurelia closed her eyes, but she wasn't sure what she was really supposed to be doing. She could pray for her dad to stop hurting her, for the ability to escape her home and her life. She could pray for something better than all of this. Tears pooled behind her closed eyes, and she fought back an ugly sob. This wasn't the place for it. This isn't the place for it,she reminded herself.
There was a firm tug on her dress from behind. She turned, startled, and looked down at the cherub boy with the golden curls. He was maybe around eight or nine, but his disposition made him seem younger. His innocence was a brilliant thing, resting on his shoulders and the dimples on his cheeks. "Are you okay?" he asked in a stage-whisper. He was gazing at her so earnestly that she couldn't even be angry.
A single tear slid down her cheek in rebellion. "Matthew," came a horrified hiss a moment later. The eldest of the impossible brothers looked embarrassed, his eyes narrowed in scorn. "Now is not the time for conversation." Their angel of a mother hummed, but whether it was in agreement or simply a part of her prayer, Aurelia didn't know. By now, several people were staring at her again.
It was overwhelming. She wanted to scream. The boy-who-was-more had stopped glaring and was now simply frowning, his hand resting on his younger brother's shoulder. There was something questioning in his eyes, though he tried to hide it. It was too much.
She bolted. Down the aisle she had walked not even ten minutes before, out of the main room in no more than a couple seconds. She didn't know where she was going, but that didn't stop her from running. Away was good enough for her. Her not-clogs made a hideous scraping sound against the ornate floor, and in her haste, one of them tripped her up and sent her sprawling. Her head cracked against a stair, making her see an explosion of red and purple stars. She didn't know why she had run, really, because now things would be so much worse. Aunt Celine had pitied her, at least. Now she would simply look at her with contempt because she had ruined mass.
Aurelia bit her lower lip until she tasted blood. It steadied her momentarily, long enough for her to try to gather her bearings. She looked around dazedly, taking in the long, warped wooden staircase in front of her and the narrow hallway she had stumbled into. She was somewhere at the back of the church, by the looks of it. Some small part of her hoped that she wouldn't be found.
She wasn't so lucky.
"Why the hell are you on the floor?"
Her whole entire body tensed. The voice should have been unfamiliar, because she was sure she hadn't heard it before. But it pulled at her heart, painful and known. She blinked sluggishly. The apocalypse was standing behind her when she looked over her shoulder, bathed in the glow of the light from the stained glass window at his back. It cast purple and green hues across the planes of his face and the slope of his shoulders, rendering him statuesque and terrible.
He didn't look impressed to see her sprawled out on the ground, and his question was more of a demand. She tried to summon anger to wield, but it wasn't there to grasp.
She simply licked the blood off of her bottom lip, wincing at the irony tang, and tilted up her chin to meet his gaze levelly. She felt ridiculous. She probably looked ridiculous. "I fell and hit my head," she told him with as much dignity as she could muster. It wasn't much.
The boy's lips curled back in what could have been a smirk or a snarl. She couldn't tell in the dim lighting. "Prayer really scares you that much?" he asked, his hands deep in the pockets of his dress pants. "I'd hate to see you in confession."
He was teasing her. Her anger suddenly surged, found, and she pushed herself to her feet. The boy was only a few inches taller than her. She wasn't going to let him make her feel small. "Isn't the point of confession privacy?" she pointed out coldly, adjusting her horrible shoes and dusting off her dress. Her head was throbbing. The boy came closer, still wearing his dangerous smirk.
"Sure. If you have something to hide, maybe. Everyone sticks their nose in everyone else's business around here. They love bullshit." He said the words with relish, as though the curse was the blackest thing he could have said in church.
Something about him was infuriating. And it wasn't his words. She squinted and rubbed her head. It was that voice.. "Whatever. Have we met?"
He gave her a once over, as though he was just now noticing what she was wearing, taking in the cheap, thick material of her dress and her ugly shoes. Her cheeks heated up in embarrassment. He didn't even need to say anything about her appearance---she could feel his judgement weighing on her heavily. "I don't think so," he finally replied. It was the very particular way he said it that made her stomach clench. "You look the trailer park," her aunt had fretted before they went shopping. "Not just your clothes, A.J. You have that look to you, honey. Just smile more. Stop slouching."
This boy had driven a stake through her chest too easily. She was normally much harder than this, granite craved into the shape of a girl. She whirled around and took the steps two at a time, wanting desperately to get away from him. He wasn't natural, and the knowledge of this curled in the pit of her stomach. She felt like she was trapped in a nightmare she would never escape. The stairs groaned under her weight as she ran up them, and she was left panting when she reached the top. She flung open the door at the end of the stairs and nearly toppled inside the room it had been hiding. She was startled by the easy give of the wood, and it took her a second to straighten herself and look around.
The room in front of her was tiny and very nearly barren--there were a few items of furniture underneath musty sheets that hugged each wall, and a rocking chair in the far right corner that looked like it had seen better days. She rubbed her nose, glaring at the dust motes that swirled around her head. The light streaming in from the lone window opposite of her made them evident. The boy, in all of his disdainful glory, ran up the stairs after her and emerged in the doorway looking slightly flushed. "I didn't know there was a room above the rectory," he said wonderingly. For a moment, there was very much something like his younger brother, Matthew, in his eyes. But it winked out of existence as soon as he crossed his arms over his thin chest and trained his gaze on her.
She wished he would go back to the service and leave her alone. She told him so, vehemently.
"Why?" the boy countered with a sneer. "So you can fall down these stairs and crack your head open?"
"What do you care?" Her voice was so loud and trembling that it made the boy blink in surprise. "Why would it matter?" Her words were shrill. "No one would give a shit anyway!" She let her hands ball into fists, a terrible anger thrumming through her now. It was an ugly, familiar thing. Her father wore it like an expensive coat, but she buried it deep, deep within her. She wanted to believe that she was different, that she had a great destiny like Adam or a heart like Noah's or even the otherness of the boy in front of her. She wanted to believe that she had a place in all of this.
But wanting something did not make it real. Dreams couldn't be turned into reality that easily.
She buried her face in her hands. Weak. She was weak. She didn't know why she had let her aunt drag her here. There was no repenting for her. Her father had given a nasty laugh when Celine told him that his daughter's soul was in peril.
"Soul?"he had snorted. "What soul?"
"Just leave me alone!" she sobbed, hands still covering her face. She didn't want to let him have this sort of power over her, but she couldn't stop the misery spilling out of her like a dam had burst. "I--I don't need this. I don't need you to be here." She was breathing raggedly. It felt like glass was wedged in her throat. "What are you?" she choked. The words skittered out of her mouth before she could control them. Her own demand.
There was silence, and it seemed to stretch out endlessly. She peeked through her fingers, her chest still heaving. She was lightheaded and heavy-hearted. The boy stood there, motionless and pale. He was staring at her as though he was seeing her in a new light, as though all the words they had exchanged thus far had been wiped away. He didn't look so much like an apocalypse, then. He looked desperate for an answer, as though her question was the same one he asked himself every night before he went to sleep.
Vulnerability was something of a noose around his neck, stilling him, choking him. His raucous energy was hushed, and then she could see him--a boy. A boy who felt fear and had an overwhelming desire to understand. "I don't know," he finally sighed, his long lashes scraping his cheekbones.
They regarded each other again carefully, trying to gauge the other's willingness to listen. They had both been underestimated. "I'm Ronan," the boy-who-was-more admitted, as if this too was one of his greatest secrets. She figured he didn't often let his name grace other's lips, if he could help it. It was hard to put a name to a face like that, a title to something as incomprehensible as him. It made him more human, somehow.
She realized that he was offering to show her the real him, not just the razor-sharp mask he wore.
It terrified and thrilled her.
"My name's Aurelia," she said slowly, searching his open expression for signs of insincerity. Too often had she tried to make connections only to have them ruthlessly ripped away. "Why did you come after me?"
Ronan's brows furrowed. His mouth was doing something difficult. "Matthew wanted me to," he finally grumbled. "He would have thrown a fit if I said no. Declan tried to tell me no, but I told him to piss up a rope, so." And there was that dangerous, feral grin of his again, erasing his vulnerability in one fell swoop. Ronan crouched down and then sprawled out of the dusty floor, placing his arms behind his head and looking up at her expectantly once he got situated. The judgement was gone from his eyes. Acceptance rested in them instead, reluctant and eager all at once. He wanted someone who could know him.
She sat down beside him and fiddled with a piece of her hair. It was waist-length now, and the years had made it thicker and darker, more honey-blonde like her aunt's. Ronan watched her for a moment, his fingers trailing absentmindedly through the grime collected on the floorboards. He drew some sort of flower there in great detail. "What do you dream about?" he asked her softly. The question should have seemed out of place, but it wasn't.
"Terrible things," she replied. There was no hesitation in her answer. Ronan seemed to value the truth because instead of pushing her to explain, he simply nodded sagely and went back to drawing. Anyone else would have pushed her, she knew. But Ronan was not like anyone else.
Sometimes when she slept she saw the tree where Adam stored his books running with her blood. Sometimes she saw the road where Noah had almost hit her doing the same. Sometimes she dreamed of Adam holding a mask that was too big for him, something that could swallow him whole. Sometimes she dreamed of Noah grinning, but then his flesh would peel away to reveal a bleached skull underneath and the skull would give an echoing, gutteral cry. Sometimes another boy would trade places with Noah on the road they normally walked, a boy with quizzical hazel eyes and glasses. He was always covered from head to toe in sting marks, and he pointed in the distance to something she could not see.
But mostly, she dreamed of her father. Those were always the worst nightmares. Terrible things...
Ronan's eyes were closed when she looked back over at him. The hard edges of his face had softened considerably, and his dark eyelashes fanned out over his cheeks as he slept. The soft light streaming in through the lone window bathed him in its golden glow, and Aurelia knew, in that moment, that somehow, somewhen, Ronan would return to this place and look the very same.
It was a comforting realization.
She lay down beside him silently, her own eyelids heavy. Pillowing her head on her arms, she tried not to think about how furious Aunt Celine would be when she saw her dirty dress and drifted off into a fitful sleep.
When she awoke, Ronan was still beside her, but the drawing of the flower that had been between them was not. Puzzled, she examined the floor closely. The dust there was perfectly untouched. She turned to Ronan, questioning, but her words died in her throat when she saw what he was clutching to his chest.
The flower. Completely tangible and most certainly not a drawing. It was the most bizarre thing she had ever seen, with its petals shimming iridescent and its stem as purple as a plum. The thorns of the flower leaked some thick, silvery substance onto Ronan's fingers that looked like mercury. It was impossible, but it was there, resting in his hands. There were none like it, and yet, if Ronan wanted there to be, there could be millions more. The flower was only as impossible as he was.
"I dream of things like this," Ronan told her. His eyes didn't leave the flower. There was a tiny smile tugging at the corner of his lips. She stared at him in awe, leaning toward him so she could get a closer look. He laid the flower in her hand when she held it out tentatively.
Suddenly, Aurelia's reality didn't seem half as real. But it also didn't seem half as bad.
**************
She had know Ronan Lynch for half a year now. And in those six months, time changed her into someone she could barely recognize. She became bolder and less afraid, and she was quick to laugh and spout sarcastic remarks. And it was all thanks to a stubborn boy.
After her first horrendous mass service, she continued going every Sunday with her mother, practically begging to attend. He father had sneered at the idea, but her mother had been thankful. But she also didn't know that her daughter had been more taken with a boy and his impossible dreams than the word of the Lord.
As time passed, Ronan grew, too, in ways she hadn't been expecting. He was open with her to a degree--at least to the point where she could say he was her closest friend. Still usually incredibly caustic, and wild in the times he was not biting, Ronan was hard to know. Or rather, for others, it was hard to accept all that was Ronan. He was multi-faceted in the best of ways--complicated when it came to putting his feelings into words and easy when it came to turning his feelings into actions. The wonderful thing about knowing Ronan Lynch was the fact that once you knew him, all other things seemed knowable.
While they were busy growing acquainted with one another, Ronan turned thirteen a few weeks before her and grew several inches taller than she was, becoming lithe rather than awkwardly fumbling. It seemed as though the Lynch boys were exempt from most of the woes that plagued newly-teenaged boys.
It some ways, that is.
It didn't take her long to notice that Ronan wasn't the only one who watched her when she sang hymns in church or jumped rope in the parking lot after the service. Declan Lynch, in all of his haughty and firm-jawed glory, had set his gaze on her too many times for it to simply be coincidence. And while Ronan seemed to stare because he felt like she would disappear if he didn't, Declan's gaze was far less concerned and far more intrigued.
Aurelia liked Declan well enough--he made pleasant conversation and talked about school work so emphatically that she couldn't help but grin. He was also fiercely protective of both Ronan and Matthew, though he would sooner be punched in the face than admit the former. But he lacked the greatness of his brothers--Matthew's gentleness and Ronan's otherness. Declan Lynch was good at many things, but he was only great at lying.
Yet that hadn't always been so.
She was the one who had made Declan a liar in the first place.
"Do you want to kiss me?" she asked him buntly one day after mass. The autumn evening was warmer than usual, so they were sitting in the shade of a maple tree at the back of the church, watching as Ronan hoisted Matthew into a sapling a few yards away. The younger Lynch brothers remained oblivious to their conversation.
Declan went pink at her question, the flush creeping up his neck and spreading traitorously to his pale cheeks. "No," he immediately snapped, looking down at his fidgeting hands. She had never seen Declan fidget before. It made her curious. She leaned closer until her breath was ghosting his face and she could see a light sheen of sweat on his upper lip. Declan's eyes seemed more black than blue in the dim light. He was built more solidly than Ronan, even though he was just a little bit over a year older than him. Declan's square shoulders and that winning smile of his were an invitation for conversation more mature than his years. People normally didn't see Declan's brand of dangerousness until it was too late, but she had keyed in on it early. There was no danger lurking in his eyes now.
Declan's lips pressed to hers much more gently than what she was anticipating. They were softer than what she had imagined, too, and she tried to slot her lips to fit his. She had never done this before. She'd never had the opportunity, in the past. Boys at school knew her too well, and they wanted nothing to do with her. They said she was odd, but she tended to take it as a compliment because that's what Noah had dubbed himself. But here, at the church, she was another creature. A girl who knew about the wonders of the Lynch family and remained unafraid. Declan wanted her, for unknown reasons. And she simply wanted to be wanted.
Declan's kissing was sloppy but careful, like he had been presented an equation that he was trying to puzzle out. His fingers cupped her cheeks reverentially, and she tilted her head to give him a better angle. The inexperience of the kiss let her know that it was his first one, because Declan only accepted being anything less than perfect if it was his first time doing it. Their teeth clashed together suddenly, inevitably, and it made her cringe and Declan pull away. His eyes were still dark, wanting, and his lips were swollen. His fingers traced her cheekbones with his thumbs, those hard eyes of his going incredibly soft. She had unraveled a Lynch.
The thought should have made her happy, but she had a sick feeling burning in the back of her throat. Declan had enjoyed the kiss, but had she? She had wanted him to kiss her, but only to quell her curiosity. She didn't long for Declan like he longed for her. But the kiss should have made her feel something.
But it didn't. She was left with red lips and an unraveled Declan and the knowledge that the kiss had done nothing and meant nothing to her.
"That was nice," she told Declan quietly, but something in her eyes must have have said otherwise because suddenly he was jerking away, and suddenly he was standing above her, and suddenly all the warmth of the evening was being pulled into the vaccuum that was Declan Lynch.
"Why did you ask me that if you didn't want to be kissed?" he demanded, hurt. It was etched into every line of his profile, and his hands balled up into fists as a response. "What, was that not good enough for you?" His tone made her flinch away, her back hitting the maple tree. Dried leaves crunched under her. "Do they do it better in the trailer park?" This Declan was unpredictable, wild in his hurt and anger. Panic thrummed inside of her, horrific and familiar. He almost looked like..."Or would you rather have kissed Ronan?" He shook his head in disgust when she didn't answer. He took a step back, and then another. "Of course. Well, then, go ahead. See if you can stomach him."
And then Declan was storming back to the church and Ronan was storming toward her, his eyes on Declan. Matthew watched on from his sapling, as golden as the evening sunlight. She only realized that she as crying when Ronan knelt down beside her and pushed his shoulder against hers. They were silent tears--she had learned years ago how to express her pain without a sound. It always made Ronan anxious to see her like this. His emotions were loud and agressive, which was the exact opposite of what she allowed herself to be. He didn't know how to handle her like this.
"Do you want to kiss me?" she asked him miserably. Tears dripped freely down her cheeks. Ronan gave her a level look, one hand in his dark hair and the other fisted in the grass. There was no discomfort in his eyes, and he didn't blush.
"The fuck would I want to do that for?" he scoffed, and his answer made relief pool in her veins. She knew Ronan wouldn't let her down. Ronan expressed his want for her company by simply interacting with her. He didn't need anymore than that, didn't want to kiss her or hold her or demand more than she was capable of giving. She had known that, deep down, but to hear him say it...
Her breathing evened out as she rested her head on Ronan's shoulder. They functioned fluidly after all this time, understanding each other in ways they couldn't have even fathomed a few months ago. "You want to kiss me, 'Relia?" he asked. Ronan's question was attentive, like he would consider kissing her if that's what she really wanted.
She shook her head slowly. Decidedly. "No. I don't like kissing all that much, " she admitted, and Ronan gave a laugh that could have warmed any day. She wanted to bottle it.
"Good. Because you're like my sister and that would be weird as hell."
She grinned, her tears forgotten, and shoved Ronan to the side. He gave an indignant squawk when several of his dress shirt buttons popped off after he hit the ground and rolled. His pants had grass stains to match. Ronan swore, still laughing, and was about to throw a wad of moss at her when Matthew's squeal pierced the air.
They both turned, ready to jump and run to his aid. But Matthew wasn't in trouble. He was sprinting toward them with his arms above his head, his dress shirt untucked and his feet bare. If her mother had seen him, she would have clucked her tongue. But her mother was busy conversing with Aurora, and Aurora only ever gave her boys easy smiles and told them to have fun.
Matthew was out of breath by the time he made it to them, but he was still delighted, his eyes crinkling at the corners to try to make room for his million-watt grin. "Put those dimples away before you hurt someone, Mattie," she told him teasingly, but Matthew paid her no mind. He was too busy directing his excitement at his brother.
"Ronan!" he finally gasped when he could breathe. "Dad is back! Mom said Dad is back! He's at home right now!"
Aurelia looked over at Ronan, her smile dropping. Ronan, on the other hand, had never looked more thrilled. He was trying to tone it down, trying to rein it in, but the news of Niall Lynch's return was enough to make him sit up straight and beam at Matthew.
The news was enough to fill her with apprehension.
She had heard amazing things about Niall--that his birth had caused monstrous natural disasters, that he created items that were impossible, that all of his baubles and trinkets had different, more fantastical functions than normal baubles and trinkets. That he could dream living beings into existence. But all of those feats were stifled by the fact Niall was gone more often than not, and he liked to stay that way. He had been gone for eight months this time.
She couldn't share Ronan's enthusiasm because while Niall's adoration for his middle son was evident, his acceptance of her remained to be seen. Ronan had said she was like a sister to him, but if Niall met her and disliked her, or worse, was indifferent toward her, who was to say that Ronan wouldn't act the same? Ronan had even said in the past that people that Niall didn't like weren't worth his time.
Out of habit, she clutched Ronan's shirt sleeve tightly in her grip. The happiness in his eyes made him something of splendor--the best parts of him were shining through. She didn't want to be the one to make his happiness fade away, but she was afraid.
But then Ronan whispered: "Come to the Barns with us, 'Relia," and she felt that fear ebbing away into the autumnal shadows.
The Barns. Ronan never invited anyone to come to the Barns. He never had friends come to meet his father. She felt overwhelmingly touched by his offer, whole in a way she hadn't felt in a long time.
She wanted to tell Ronan thank you; she wanted to cry again. But she simply dusted off her floral print dress and held out a hand to help Ronan to his feet.
"Please," she said.