Liam has not seen his younger brother in years, not since the day the lad had followed him anxiously about their small cabin, watching with bright but hooded eyes as he packed his meager possessions into the leather messenger bag that had once belonged to their mum.
"Why're you leaving me alone?" He'd asked carefully, slowly as they ate dinner that night—gaze trained meticulously on the hard bread in the bowl in front of him. The ship taking recruits would arrive in the morning, long before sunrise—it was their final meal as a family.
It did not surprise either of them that their father never managed to show up.
"You aren't alone, Killian," he'd answered, sounding haughtier than he'd meant and sighing when the young boy's shoulders tightened and jaw clenched. He softened his tone. "Father is still here, and as soon as you turn 16 you can join the Navy as well. I'll find you, brother. Always."
He prodded at the bread with a finger, and Liam bit his tongue back from scolding him for playing and not eating.
"Perhaps I don't wish to join the Navy, brother."
The murmured words nailed deep into Liam's thudding heart and he swallowed his dry bread hard, watching Killian with piercing eyes until his brother's gaze finally flickered up uneasily to meet his, and then all Liam could see was the little lad he'd practically raised. See his wide tearful eyes as he called for a ceasefire in a household mission to kill the mouse that routinely found its way into their flour supply, shoving his elder brother bravely from the little creature before coaxing it quietly into his little hands and letting it free in the forests on the outskirts of town. The little boy who couldn't cross the beach on the way to the schoolhouse every morning without being late, too intent on making sure every seastar washed up in the early morning tide was tossed deep back into the churning sea before the sun could come out and burn them crisp.
And he still was just a boy.
"Mum said you'd care for me, Liam."
His voice was small and fragile and his eyes were now trained completely, widely on him in a final plea. Liam knew his brother well enough to know he was quite adept at concocting expressions with nearly magical properties, capable of guilting and convincing nearly anyone of nearly anything. The lad had turned the abilities of his Jones-Clan baby blues into a bloody art.
But this was no act.
"This is our best option," he told him, even though his mouth was dry in protest of the words.
And it is not until he finds him, really, that he knows it was not.
It is in a random port in a city he has never before been, after they have unloaded their shipment and he has just stopped in the marketplace for a blessedly fresh lunch before returning to the Jewel to head onward. He is passing an ally when he catches a hint of movement within—and he stops.
He squints as he peers into the shadows, towards where he'd seen the twitch, and can slowly begin to make out the huddled shape of a scrawny young boy—all sharp elbows and raggedy hair slopping messily over his eyes. He can tell by the hollow of his cheeks that the lad has not had a meal in quite some time.
He steps closer to the ally, state of the boy tugging at his heartstrings, willing him quietly to stop hiding, to allow himself to be offered the help Liam knows he needs. He is not certain why he is so drawn to the boy—but he knows somewhere within him that he must be whatever help he can be.
"Alright, lad?" He calls after a moment, quiet enough to not give away the spot he surely does not wish to be found. "Perhaps you would allow me to offer you a meal?"
The boy moves then, snorting sarcastically and shifting more deeply into the shadows.
"Offer to turn me in, more like," he mutters, "The guard does love collecting us street rats."
Liam's brow furrows, familiarity of the voice biting at the back of his mind; but no. No, he cannot let his imagination run, not with something important as this.
"I'm no snitch, boy. Allow me to help you."
He cannot see the lad's eyes behind his black hair, but he is certain that they narrow.
"Apologies, mate, but I know better than to trust Naval officers."
It is the distaste on his tongue that accompanies the hiss of Navy that does it, really, Liam's breath catching sharply in his throat, still hardly allowing himself to believe it, because it simply cannot be.
Perhaps he just does not care to believe he may have let it be.
The name slips from his tongue nonetheless.
"Killian?"
From there it is a rush of shaking words and clinging hugs and Gods he smells like death, but Liam still cannot manage to let him go. His body is sharp and thin and he reaches to mess his already hopelessly tangled hair with a hand before shifting his bangs from his eyes and smiling through the disbelieving breath that blows past his lips. The lad is practically unrecognizable, passing years changing him from a conniving young boy to one on the precipice of becoming a young man.
His eyes are not as bright as they once were, edged with darkness and distrust and lined with a compilation of new tales and adventures and life.
And Liam has missed all of it.
"You're bloody strangling me," Killian chokes through his smile (one Liam is not certain he deserves, not when his brother has been left like this).
"You are going to have to become used to it, brother, because have no plans of letting you go."
It takes Killian time to become accustomed to life upon the Jewel, and Liam can see in his every careful, dedicated movement how determined he is to please him, despite Liam's belief that the approval ought to be working the other way around. He takes on extra chores and befriends as much of the crew as he can, and though they act annoyed to have the eager lad underfoot, Liam does not miss the way they smile when they think no one is looking.
He is seasick every afternoon for the first week and Liam has never seen someone prouder to announce to him one night that he has not been ill in three whole days. He is hurt when Liam laughs, and it takes allowing him a heart-stopping go at the wheel to return the crooked, gleeful smile back to his face.
"I never imagine you'd grow to love the sea so much as you have, brother," he tells him one night as they sit on the deck, pointing out the constellations and identifying the stars.
Killian's eyes fall on him then instead of the skies, head tilted to the side in clear confusion.
"I don't love the sea." He tells him blatantly, and Liam's brow furrows, his turn to stare with confusion.
Killian shakes his head slowly, and Liam is pleased to see the hollow bits of his cheeks beginning to fill out—and notes that perhaps there is even a shadow of the beginning of stubble at his chin.
And it could just be the reflection of the moon, but he thinks that his eyes have grown brighter again.
"You seem to quite like it to me," he finally says with a soft smile.
He sighs, looking out at the ocean as he does and for the first time, Liam can see a shadow of the man he is becoming overshadowing the boy he is still outgrowing.
"I do like it, I suppose." His voice is quiet and contemplating before he turns his attentions back to Liam. "But I would be glad to be anywhere, brother, so long as I was with you."
"I told you, Killian," he answers quietly, still reveling in the blatant honesty of his younger brother's breaking tones. "I have no plans of letting you go."
(It is a promise he cannot keep and when he is gone, whatever bit of the hopeful boy that was still left in his brother seems to have gone permanently with his body into the depths of the sea.
That is until a woman with a golden hair and heart drags Killian out from the pile of bodies that he has buried himself beneath, when his eyes land on hers-that an echo of the boy lost at sea long ago finds his way back into his smile).