birds flying high

chapter three

↳ november 24, 1970, 3:34 pm

as life would have it the so called lenny rogers, sometimes referred to as michael, wasn't as scary as declan had imagined. he found out that douglas mckinnon, the professional man, was a lawyer recently out of law school. douglas had painted the older man out to be a handful and someone he wouldn't want to meet, but when the guy walked into the house declan was met with a surprising sight.

lenny was about 5'8 and holding little to no muscle. he had a kind face and wore a suit that was almost too big, and when he spoke he sounded tired. not upset, just tired. though the bags under his eyes led declan to assume that the man was always in lack of sleep.

"mister rogers." douglas stood from where he had been seated and greeted the man. lenny's eyes scanned the room, curious as to where the voice was coming from before seeing the younger lawyer. he sent a soft smile towards him as he dropped his brief case and entered the house further.

"mister mckinnon. it's always a pleasure to see you."

there was very little truth held in what lenny said, though it sounded nice. it sounded genuine and brought declan to believe that the two could stay on civil ground outside of work. he assumed that the two were lawyers for opposing sides.

lenny walked into the dining room where the two young men had been seated and gave douglas a quick and firm shake of the hand. he then turned to declan, who was still sitting - however that changed rather quickly as he realized there was a weird difference of power between a standing and a sitting man, and he really hated it. he sat once douglas did, leaving lenny the odd one out.

"i'm michael rogers, but you can call me lenny. are you receiving legal advice from doug or are you stopping by? i've never seen you around here before."

declan blinked a couple of times, not sure what to say. he had always been somewhat intimidated by men old enough to be his father, and he was now conflicted. lenny seemed to be as harmless as a fruit fly.

"uh- hi, yeah. i'm declan pattersin. i'm stopping by. mckinnon and i were just chatting about some stuff." he gave an awkward smile to the man, not sure what else to do. thankfully the redhead -who he earlier found out was named antonio- walked into the room and saved him from having to continue with the painful conversation.

"he's gonna be staying with us for a couple of days, len. we were gonna tell you but you called and said you'd be coming back tonight so there was no point." as antonio spoke he placed serviettes and cutlery onto the table, eventually making his way to where declan was seated. He then crossed his arms on top of the back of his chair, standing with an air of nonchalant.

lenny nodded. "alright then." he looked back to declan. "are you the head of some other group? we've got quite a few leaders here, but i'm sure you already know that. we're always looking for more people to help the cause, even if these guys are like madmen who can't seem to stay out of trouble."

"oh- uh- no. i'm just staying for a few days. i'm not anyone special." declan gave a crooked smile as his mind ran with the new information. he didn't know there were so called groups inside the building. if he were being honest, he hadn't really thought about why there were so many men under one roof.

"yeah, well. you know how it is, lenny. the doors are open to anyone - even me, which is saying a hell of a lot." douglas picked his pen off of the tabletop and clicked the end. "declan and i were just going over some things that happened last night and what he was planning to do in future time."

the somber tone spiked lenny's interest.

"what happened last night, if you don't mind me asking?"

a proper train of thought barely went through declans mind before he was speaking again. "i do mind. it doesn't fucking matter and i don't need a bunch of people knowing."