#keean

The night after that whole event, Jacqui was sitting at his desk in his quarters, journal open in front of him, lamplight flickering across his face. He was trying to calm his racing thoughts by writing some of them down, and he planned on writing an additional letter to Saoirse just to fill them in on everything that had happened, but he was starting to get a bit of a headache, his left eye still covered by bandages from the cut down his face.

A quiet knock at his door startled him, and he got up from his desk. Louis was standing outside, a tired look on his face, and the boy, Keean, hiding behind his legs.

“What’s wrong?”

Louis sighed, glancing down at Keean, his hand in the boy’s hair. “He can’t sleep. I tried to give him some tea, dusted his pillow with lavender, the whole thing, but he won’t sleep. I’m sorry to wake you, but he asked to see you.”

“I wasn’t asleep, don’t worry.” Jacqui knelt down until he was at Keean’s eye level. “You want to spend the night with me, kid?”

Keean nodded, large, brown eyes watering.

“Okay.” Jacqui stood, stepping back so Keean could detach himself from Louis’s side and enter his room. “I’ve got him. You should get some sleep.”

Louis didn’t even try to argue, turning back to head to the infirmary, where his quarters were, and Jacqui closed the door behind him. Keean was still standing there, looking around the room curiously. With a sigh, Jacqui went over to his desk and put away his journal. Kicking off his boots, he sat down on his bed, and gestured to Keean to join him.

“You were giving Louis a hard time, hm?”

Keean shrugged, gingerly sitting on the bed next to Jacqui, pulling his knees to his chest. “I don’t want to sleep.”

“Okay. We don’t have to.”

Keean’s head lifted at that. “You’ll stay up with me?”

Jacqui nodded, resting his back against the wall, and after a moment, Keean joined him. “I’m not tired either.”

That wasn’t entirely true, Jacqui was certainly feeling tired after the past day and a half of excitement, but he could tell Keean needed company. And, as he expected, after barely a minute of silence, the boy began to speak.

“My parents are… they’re gone, aren’t they?”

Jacqui looked down at Keean, but he was focused on his feet. “Yeah. I’m sorry.”

“It was my fault,” Keean said, his voice breaking, words spilling out faster than he could breathe. “I told my dad I wanted to go out and even though I knew it was dangerous we still did, but then the—the sirens came, and the boat turned upside-down, and he and Mom managed to get me on the boat but they—” He cut himself off with a choked sob, and Jacqui put his hands on Keean’s shoulders gently.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Keean looked up at him, tears streaming down his cheeks, and Jacqui slowly pulled the boy into his lap, wrapping his arms around him. “Your parents knew the dangers, and they wouldn’t blame you for the sirens. They would be happy that you survived. It sounds like they cared about you very much.”

Keean sniffed, his hand clutching at Jacqui’s shirt. “I wasn’t very nice to them, all the time.”

“But they still loved you, didn’t they?”

Nodding, Keean buried his face in Jacqui’s chest. “What if they—they thought I didn’t love them?”

“They knew.”

“How do you know?”

“Parents just…” Jacqui sighed, thinking back to a time—many, many years ago—when his father would hold him close, braiding his hair out of his face, saying the same things to him. “Parents just know.”

“I miss them. I miss my family,” Keean whispered, his shoulders shaking, and Jacqui tucked a messy curl behind his ear.

“I know. You’re allowed to miss them, and I’m sorry to say that you’re going to miss them for a long time, probably. But you have me, have the rest of the crew even, as your family—your next family. And we’re going to care about you just like your parents would have.”

“Even Rodrigo?”

Jacqui laughed through his nose. “Yes, even him. Just, don’t listen to him too much, okay?”

That earned him a small giggle, Keean wiping at his eyes. “Okay.”

They both fell into silence, Keean still wrapped in Jacqui’s arms, and just when Jacqui thought he might have fallen asleep after all, Keean spoke again.

“I’m sorry you got hurt.”

Jacqui could still feel the phantom sting of the siren’s tail lashing across his face, the cold terror that rushed through his veins as his blood ran into the water around them. But he was lucky, Louis had said so. It missed his eye, only grazing his skin. It would most likely scar, but Jacqui didn’t care about that, and he explained as such to Keean.

“Besides, if me getting hurt was the price I had to pay to make sure you were okay, that’s not so bad. I would do it again.”

Keean was quiet for a moment, playing lightly with one of Jacqui’s locs, twisting it around his fingers. “I was really, really scared out there. But I felt… less scared when you saved me.”

“Good.” Jacqui shifted further down the wall until they were lying down, Keean curled on his chest like a cat. “Do you feel scared now?”

Shaking his head, Keean’s eyes started to droop. “Not anymore. Well, I’m kind of scared I’m gonna have a nightmare, but—”

“I’ll be right here if you do.”

“Good,” Keean echoed, his voice trailing off into a hum. “I guess I am tired, a little bit.”

Jacqui smiled softly, one of his hands coming up to pet Keean’s hair gently. “Go to sleep then.”

His eyes slid shut. “Can I… can I come in here again tomorrow?”

“Yeah. Yeah, you can.”

Keean’s lips twitched up into a sleepy smile. “Yay,” he murmured, almost too soft for Jacqui to hear it, and then he was asleep.

Jacqui slowly reached over to his desk to put out his lamp and settled back into bed as the moonlight shone through his room’s porthole. Glancing down at the top of Keean’s head, he wondered if he was really doing the right thing, looking after him. He could have left Keean at the inn in Hinode, left him with the Koizumi twins. At least he would have a better chance at a safe, quiet life. Here, Jacqui was afraid he wouldn’t be able to protect him or raise him the way he should be raised. He couldn’t go to any kind of school or meet kids his own age except when they stopped at seaside towns and cities.

But he remembered the terrified look in Keean’s eyes when he thought he was being left behind, the way he had grabbed onto Jacqui and refused to let go. Jacqui couldn’t have left him after that. And he supposed he just had to be the one to teach Keean. He, and Louis, even, as another past scholar, could make sure the boy grew up with some kind of education. It was what he deserved.

Keean shifted in his sleep, reaching out, and when Jacqui took his hand in his, Keean stilled again. His hand was so much smaller, Jacqui thought, wondering if he was ever that small. At times it felt like he had always been too big, too strong, too paranoid to do anything right. But Keean didn’t think so.

He had sought out Jacqui, had fallen asleep in his arms, not worried that he would hurt him.

Sighing quietly to himself, Jacqui let his own eyes close, willing his anxious thoughts away for once. He could figure out what to do tomorrow, for now, his body was crying for rest, and he wouldn’t be surprised if he slept in the next morning.

***

As the years went by, Keean became a part of the crew as if he had always been there, and the rest of the crew adored him. He soaked up everything everyone taught him like a sponge, and was always hungry for more things to learn, more things to do.

He also was hungry to fight, to join the crew on their raids, but Jacqui was strictly against it. Keean wasn’t ready, he wasn’t strong enough or skilled enough with a particular weapon, and if he was being completely honest Jacqui never wanted him to be ready. But, recognizing that wasn’t fair, he simply set a deadline, and watched as Keean would train with some of the other crew members like Jade or Louis until the time he was allowed to fight.

However, that meant that during raids, or surprise attacks from other pirate crews that weren’t under the Queen’s Code, Keean had to hide below deck. Paulina’s kitchen was the safest place there was, as Rodrigo had carved barrier protections into the walls around it years ago, and Keean often hid there with the cook until the fighting was all over.

Every once in a while, though, he took after Rodrigo more than Jacqui liked, and tried to charge ahead with the rest of them.

The crew of El Corazon Sangrante was fighting a rival pirate crew, one who had tried attacking in the middle of the night against them, and though the rival crew was smaller, they were vicious, and the fight dragged on for longer than Jacqui would have thought. He could hear Rodrigo’s grito carry through the night air as he cut through the other crew, the steady beat of drums leading his steps. Dimitri’s cutlass was cloaked in flame, and he flanked his sister, Laila, as she whirled her maul above her head, diving forward. Jade was nowhere to be seen, as was Louis, but that was the point, the both of them moving in and out of shadows as they fought, weaving back and forth. The rest of the crew seemed to be faring well, though they were all getting a bit tired.

Jacqui hadn’t even realized Keean wasn’t below deck until he heard his voice crying out above the rest of the noise, high and desperate and afraid.

“Dad!”

Jacqui wasn’t sure what part of him knew, instinctively, that Keean was calling for him, but he still whipped his head around, looking for the boy. He saw him pinned to the railing of the ship, one of the other pirates poised to strike, and Jacqui’s vision went red.

He whipped his gun towards the pirate and shot them in the head, and as they crumpled down and over the railing, he ran up to Keean. The boy’s face was splattered with blood, but none of it seemed to be his, and he was holding one of Paulina’s knives in his hand. Jacqui cupped his face in his hand, looking him up and down. “Are you hurt?”

Keean shook his head quickly, his eyes widening at he pointed over Jacqui’s shoulder. “Look out!”

Jacqui shoved the pirate advancing towards him, sending them stumbling back to the deck. Trapping them under his foot, he turned back to Keean. “Go to my quarters.”

“But—”

“Now!”

Keean nodded, lips tightly shut, and bolted past Jacqui to get below deck. Jacqui lifted the pirate up and over his shoulders, tossing them into the sea with a grunt, looking behind him just long enough to see Keean disappear below deck, and a small bit of the tension in his shoulders disappeared.

Rodrigo appeared at Jacqui’s side, his dagger dripping with blood, sweat running down his face. “What was he doing out?”

“I don’t know,” Jacqui said, shooting another pirate before they could sneak up on another crew member. “How are we looking?”

“There’s only a handful left—” They both watched as Laila and Dimitri shoved three pirates off the bow of the ship, and the remaining few pirates either jumped overboard themselves, or swung back to their ship to try and escape. Rodrigo’s eyes glinted, and he spat on the deck. “Oh, I don’t think so.”

He whistled to signal the crew’s attention, and he pointed at the other ship. “Bleed them dry!”

The crew rushed over like a wave to the other ship, cutting down the other pirates in their way, and disappearing below deck to raid whatever supplies they could. Jacqui started to follow behind, but Rodrigo stopped him.

“Check on the kid. We’re basically done here anyway.”

Jacqui wanted to argue, but Rodrigo was right. The other ship was small, and though that crew had put up a fight, it was finally over. Nodding, Jacqui turned away and went below deck to his quarters instead.

Keean was sitting on Jacqui’s bed, knees to his chest, face still covered in blood and the knife still in his hand. Jacqui handed him a rag to wipe himself off with and took the knife from him, setting it on his desk. He stood with his arms crossed and eyebrows furrowed as the boy cleaned his face. “What were you doing out there?”

“I just wanted to help.”

“I understand that. But both Rodrigo and I have instructed you not to come above decks during attacks, haven’t we?”

Keean wasn’t meeting Jacqui’s eyes. “Yes, sir.”

“What if you had gotten hurt? You can’t defend yourself with a kitchen knife.”

“If you gave me a real weapon, maybe—”

“No. No, that’s not what this is about, Keean, and you know it.”

The boy tossed the rag to the floor, face blood-free. “I’m sorry.”

“For?”

“For disobeying you.” He sniffed, and Jacqui felt his heart twinge in his chest. “It’s just… it sounded bad; you know? And I was—I was scared you were getting hurt, that any of you were getting hurt. And it just seemed unfair that I had to hide while you were fighting.”

“Did you hear the retreat call?”

Keean shook his head, burying his face in his arms. “No.”

“Then we were alright. You know that. If it was bad, if Rodrigo thought we were really, really in over our heads, he or I would have called it off.”

His voice was muffled as he replied. “I know.”

Jacqui sighed, picking up the rag from the floor, and used it to clean off his own face. “I’m sorry you were scared. It went on longer than we expected to, so I understand it must have felt worse than it was. But I need you to promise me that you won’t do that again, alright?”

Keean nodded, his eyes wet as he finally looked at Jacqui. “I promise.”

“Okay. Thank you.” Jacqui glanced out at the moon through his porthole, worrying at the piercing in his bottom lip. Keean’s desperate cry of dad still rang in his mind, and Jacqui uncrossed his arms, stepping closer to him.

“Keean, before… you called me ‘Dad.’”

The boy’s cheeks flushed, legs falling down to swing on the side of the bed. “Oh. You did hear me.” When Jacqui didn’t say anything, waiting for him to continue, Keean sighed. “I’m sorry, I won’t do it again. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable or anything.”

“No—” Jacqui knelt down, taking Keean’s hands in his. “No, you didn’t. You don’t need to apologize. I just… I just want to know why.”

Keean squeezed Jacqui’s hands, staring down in his lap. “I called you ‘Dad’ because… because that’s who you are. I mean, I know not literally, I do remember—” his breath shook. “Remember my real dad. Before he died. But it’s like you said, you can have more than one family in your life, and the crew is my new family, and you are… kind of like my new dad. And I was scared, and—and I thought you would come and help me. And you did.”

Jacqui’s chest felt tight in an unusual way, and he thought he might cry. Taking his silence as something bad, Keean turned his head away. “I don’t know. It sounds kind of stupid when I say it out loud.”

“No, it doesn’t.” Jacqui sat on the bed next to Keean, pulling him into a hug. “It’s not stupid.”

Keean hugged him back, pressing his face into Jacqui’s chest. “Can I… still call you Dad?”

“Yeah, of course. Just—” He pulled back slightly, looking seriously into Keean’s shining eyes. “Maybe only around me and the rest of the crew. If we’re fighting like we were today, and someone hears you call for me, that only puts a bigger target on your back. And I don’t want you to get hurt.”

“Oh.” Keean nodded, sniffing. “Okay. That makes sense.”

“We might have to get you a real weapon sooner than I thought, though.”

Keean’s eyes lit up at that, and he stood up quickly, a bright grin on his face, all sign of tears gone. “Really? I get to fight with you?”

“That’s not what I said.” Jacqui shook his head, but he was smiling too. “That deal still stands, until you’re 16, or—”

“—or taller than Rodrigo, yeah, I know.” Keean rolled his eyes, but he didn’t seem too deterred. “Can I use a gun like you do?”

“Hm.” That wasn’t a bad idea, considering it would allow him to stay a further distance from the fight. And if he sat in the crow’s nest— “We’ll see.”

“I know that means yes,” Keean teased, sitting back down next to Jacqui. “Or at least you think it’s possible.”

Jacqui raised his eyebrow. “We’ll see means we’ll see, kid.”

“Sure, right, of course.”

As the noise above deck started to swell, Jacqui figured that the crew had returned, having looted the other ship for all it was worth, and he stood with a groan. “Come on, let’s go see what they brought back.”

“Okay!” Keean paused, a nervous smile on his face as he reached out, taking Jacqui’s hand in his. “I love you, Dad.”

Jacqui had to bite the inside of his lip to keep tears from welling up in his eyes, and he squeezed Keean’s hand. “I know you do. I love you too.”