There were certain qualities one needed to posses in order to become a Lynch. Declan had listed them in his head, on paper; walls and any other surface that could be easily seen by him. To be a true Lynch you needed to be partial to bending the truth, to having a love for materialistic objects, to receiving Niall Lynch's approval.
Unfortunately the only quality Declan didn't possess was the most important. It didn't matter that he was a great liar—truth bender or that he loved glittering bourbons and fast cars just as much as his father.
Niall Lynch didn't approve.
All of Declan's hopes and goals were nothing in the wake of a man who could create a world just by closing his eyes. He learnt at a young age not to use the word dream to describe his aspirations. One time when Declan was five he proclaimed to his father, "I dream of becoming an astronaut!"
His father had responded with, "Close your eyes and when you awake bring before me an entire universe."
Several other statements like that one had surfaced whenever a young Declan used the word dream. Niall Lynch was a scoundrel; by nature, by employment. He seemed to enjoy telling Declan that he was different.
He was neither dreamer nor dreamt. And of course Niall didn't approve. He loved to be surrounded by his dream world. Declan didn't belong in it and by extension also The Barns; a museum of dream artefacts. To his father he was simply Declan, a two syllable word that rhymed with Ronan.
Ronan was the important one, he was more than syllables. When Niall said his name there was strength, a story told from multiple perspectives of fractured truth. Declan's parents would argue for hours about the true origins of Ronan's birth but when he asked about his, all he got was, "Don't know, wasn't there."
Declan was not a dreamer and therefore by extension also not a Lynch. He was a realist. He had quickly learnt that reality didn't belong inside The Barns. So when he woke up one morning to a little boy the spitting image of his mother; he didn't question it, when Ronan awoke with strange objects in his bed; Declan accepted it as a normal occurrence.
All the lying and acting had twisted him up inside. He became a scoundrel; another trait associated with Lynch men, however this fact seemed to be redeemed by the ability to dream. Declan could dream; not like Niall, not like Ronan; but he could also create worlds within his mind. A better father, a better person. Yet he could never take the step further, his fingers would graze the proverbial utopia but he couldn't conjure it into reality. There it was again, reality. Maybe Declan was different because he could differentiate the two. Maybe when Niall had his head bashed in by a tyre, Declan was more accepting of the situation than Ronan because he had dreamed of a similar situation. No that was a lie. Declan had hoped and expected that Niall would get killed. That wasn't the same as dreaming but, it was the closest he ever got.