#mattlan

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.

Five times Matthew caught Jordan and Declan having sex, and one time they invited him to join them. - i am so deeply offended that there are no fics for this threesome, or for Matthew/Jordan on their own, that's so so silly and absurd to me cuz they're SO MUCH FUN. i've been on an absolute roll with writing these last two weeks just because they're fucking fun, so i'm really hoping i can keep up the momentum and get it done in a timely manner 💖 | Jordan/Declan/Matthew | E | 1/6 chapters | Post-Canon | Sibling Incest | Voyeurism | Car Sex | Trapped In Closet | Dirty Talk | Threesome | ... (also on AO3)

. CHAPTER ONE

Soccer practice got rained out. Matthew didn't mind. He wouldn't have minded playing in the drizzle either, but most of the other guys weren't as easygoing and willing to find the fun in being wet and cold and yucky as he was, so that was that. Three people offered Matthew rides home and, this time, he picked Patrick, because Patrick had an awesome CD collection and he always let Matthew pick what to listen to. Hootie and the Blowfish was the lucky winner today!

So it was in very good spirits that Matthew mounted the steps to the apartment an hour earlier than he was scheduled to, hood up against the rain and head still bopping to It's Hip To Be Square. Maybe if he'd been paying a little more attention, he would've heard it before he saw it, but attention-paying had never been Matthew's strong suit. It didn't register what he was hearing until he stepped through into the living room.

He just saw hair at first. An enormous ball of tight brown curls hanging over the end of the couch, and another mop of darker but looser curls over top of it. By the time he'd recognized those as Jordan and Declan, respectively, he'd noticed the noises. Squishy wet noises, and squeaky couch springs, and moans.

He stopped dead in the doorway, duffel bag falling to the floor with a thump. "Oh my god."

Declan's head jerked up. He looked more panicked than Matthew had ever seen before, and they'd faced gunfire together. "Matthew?"

Jordan squeaked, the puff of her hair wiggling around on the couch arm as she tried and failed to turn far enough to see. She muttered, "Crumbs, he's not supposed to be home yet. I thought you said he was—"

"He was! I didn't think—"

"Are you guys seriously having sex on our couch?" Matthew yelled over them. "I sit there!"

There was a lot of cursing then as Declan rolled off of Jordan, and Jordan's hand scrabbled madly across the floor looking for her shirt, and Declan hastily pulled his pants back on, and Matthew turned his eyes toward the heavens and prayed for a swift and merciful death.

"You," Declan said, accusatory, as he yanked his own shirt back on, "were supposed to be at practice until 5:30."

"It's raining." Matthew refused to be apologetic. They were the ones defiling a communal space. This was definitely their fault.

Jordan, now at least mostly clothed but definitely still disheveled and noticeably flushed, rolled her way off the couch to face him. Her smile was very white and only a little bit repentant. "Sorry, bruv. We were gonna febreeze the couch after. Scout's honor." She held up three fingers in a boy scout salute. Matthew scowled at her.

"No couch sex!" he declared. "I eat on that couch!"

Declan made a face and opened his mouth, no doubt to point out that Matthew wasn't supposed to eat on the couch, but Jordan elbowed him hard in the side and he closed it again with a huff.

"Fine. No more couch sex," he conceded.

Matthew glared at them both for another minute, suddenly feeling very much like the stern parent to recalcitrant teenagers—a role reversal if ever there was one—until he was sure they both felt appropriately sorry about what they'd done. Then he snatched up his duffel bag again.

"Good," he said. "Now, I'm going to shower. Think you two can keep it in your pants that long?"

Declan made another bitchy face, gearing up to snark, and Jordan elbowed him again, ignoring his exasperated look. She said, "We'll be perfect angels."

for the prompts: matthew taking care of migraine adam or tummy ache declan (forcing you to choose because i can’t sorry ugh)

ily byeee <3

hiii baby, thank you smmm 💞

i Am gonna do both of these, jsyk, but this one happened first (and also it’s not quite as involved as i like to get about this kind of content and it’s kind of less matty Taking Care of declan and more just like Being There but that’s………maaaybe because it sent me on a spiral and now i’m writing a Whole Entire Ficlet that fits the prompt better hehe oopsie) so here it is For Now:

| Jordan/Declan/Matthew | Explicit | 24k | Post-Canon | Sibling Incest |Polyamory | Threesome F/M/M | Voyeurism | Car Sex | Trapped In Closet | Semi-Public Sex | Dirty Talk | Blow Jobs | Cunnilingus | Catholic Guilt | Shameless Smut | Fluff and Humor |

"It's 5:35 in the afternoon, and you knew I was gonna be home by now, and you said you weren't gonna have sex in any more communal places." Jordan bit her lip. There was a wayward curl stuck to her forehead where it was damp with sweat. "Did we say that?" she asked, innocently musing. "I think we just said the couch." "I also sit in this car! The same arguments apply!" It occurred to Matthew then, in a way it hadn't the last time, that they were having sex. Like, really and actually having sex. Like, right now! Declan was inside of Jordan! Jordan had Declan's penis inside of her body right now, while she was talking to him! The only thing preserving even a sliver of their modesty was the drape of Jordan's skirt over Declan's hips, and that wasn't nearly enough when Matthew knew what was happening under there. His face burned with sudden embarrassment, or anger, or—he didn't know what. -- Five times Matthew caught Jordan and Declan having sex, and one time they invited him to join them.

which one of you little Shits went anon w this somebody better confess in a dm 🤨

hhhhh Anyway

bc i Know this was somebody i know and therefore it is somebody who knows my proclivities, we’re getting lynchcesty with it, so. here.

also so interesting that you mention the matthew-aurora comparison. they were both essentially created to love and perhaps because of that, declan had a harder time accepting that it was real. while declan had no power to stop aurora from deteriorating, he has the power to do so for matthew.

also i do love the trope where a person finds it easier to express their feelings and wants to someone who isn't awake to hear it.

PROMOTES RESPONSIBLE BEDTIME HABITS LMAOOOOOOO, YEAH, SURE, WHY NOT, THAT'S COMPLETELY REASONABLE

not Declan using his limp body as an incentive for Matthew to obey curfew like he's pspspsing a cat kdfljgh, pspsps come here boy, look here, there's a niiiiiiice warm unresponsive hole for you to fuck if you're in bed by 10pm

Declan's mommy issues about Aurora are off the fucking charts actually, they're so radioactive that canon only half explored them, and it didn't really get into the parallels between Aurora and Matthew much at all

(ps that should honestly put an equal amount of scrutiny on Matthew/Ronan, like, bro, your dad dreamt up a beautiful sweet docile obedient perfect blonde wife and you, your father's clone, turned around and dreamt up a beautiful sweet docile obedient perfect blond brother and we're not supposed to ask any questions about it??? we're not supposed to read aaaaanything at all into that??? ANYWAY)

Declan is undeniably insane about Matthew. and a lot of that insanity is a bubbling up of his forcibly repressed insanity about his mom. it's really interesting that Aurora and Matthew are so similar, both made to exude love, and yet Declan trusts Matthew's love in a way that he doesn't Aurora's. he thinks of Matthew as The Truth, as someone above the artifice and deceit of the rest of the family, while Aurora is the prime example and primary instrument of that artifice and deceit, despite them ostensibly being so similar and their love stemming from the same source, ie somebody else's dream design.

(thanks for the rec. it was so fucked up and so good.)

YEAH YEAH YEAH

Declan taking sleeping pills at all is interesting, cuz he is hypervigilant and he actually has very good reason to be (lmao), so the fact that he is willing to take the risk of knocking himself out and compromising that vigilance is a testament to just how badly he wants to escape his subconscious and avoid processing his emotions LOL cuz Matthew says specifically that they make him not dream

and ummmm YEAH!!! Declan has Matthew right there, unwakably asleep, a perfect living doll, just like mom was, and don't think i don't have thoughts about that too. both of them lakdfjhg. there is a point in this series specifically at which somno blurs the line with necro and this is it 😂🔥👏🏻 (i don't remember if physical creatures still has both the tag "necrophilic undertones" and the tag "wholesome if you squint" but it's literally my favorite combination of tags that i've ever seen lolololol)

anyway i like to think that Declan figures out at some point what Matthew's been doing. Matty isn't the most subtle or detail-oriented of people, after all. he's both very obvious in his horny tail-wagging whenever Declan reaches for the pill bottle and not very thorough in cleaning up after himself when he comes on Declan's face, so it only takes a few weeks for the pieces to get put together. but that doesn't mean Declan's gonna do anything about it. for one, it would be awkward to bring up and he'd just rather not have that confrontation. for another, i mean......well......maybe Matthew's been in a great mood lately and Declan doesn't wanna take that away from him, esp if other attempts at comfort/cheering him up haven't been particularly effective because Declan is bad at them. maybe knowing that Matthew wants him makes Declan feel good in a way he usually doesn't, even if it's not the same as being or feeling loved. and maybe the idea of having control taken away from him makes Declan HOT in a secret shameful way that he refuses to look at too closely.

of COURSE we have, my lovely anon, of COURRRSSSE we have

firstly, if you haven't read physical creatures, do so now

nextly, my favorite somno brainworm for them (though it is also technically noncon i GUESS adlkfjh) is the idea of Matthew accidentally pavloving himself into getting horny every time Declan takes his sleeping pills because that's the only time he can actually jerk off in his own bed and take his time, instead of rubbing one out as fast as possible in the dorm's communal showers. he didn't mean to do that!!! but now every time Declan pops a pill, Matthew is immediately vibrating with arousal, already halfway hard, watching Declan like a hawk waiting for him to fall asleep so he can whip his dick out

and he can't really help it if he spends his whole jerk off session with his eyes on Declan, can he? he's gotta make sure that he's still asleep, right?? it would be sooooo embarrassing for him to wake up and catch Matthew going at it like this!! lol!!!!!

so, like, jerking off just becomes fully associated with sleeping Declan

and after doing this a few times, especially when he really accepts that those pills knock Declan the FUCK OUT, he might get a little curious, ok? curious about just how out Declan is. how much will he sleep through??? Matthew stops being quiet, just to see if it wakes him up, and it does not. he stops being discreet and under the covers and that's very freeing and thrilling. then he feels the need to, like........poke Declan in the face. just to see. just to make sure. poke poke poke. and if he does this after jerking off with cum still on his hands, well, there's nobody there to know, is there??

he spends all semester edging his way closer to finally crossing the line and putting his dick in sleeping Declan's mouth alkdjfgh. because it's RIGHT THERE, ya know?? and he's never had his dick in somebody's mouth before, but all the locker room talk leads him to believe it's great, and it's not like Declan's even gonna know about it this way!!!! he doesn't even wake up!!!!! what's the harm?????

so that just becomes part of his routine and he gets so used to it that it's no big deal, so much so that he slips up and makes some offhand joke to Ronan about getting horny over Declan's sleeping pills and has to then explain why 😂