When his mother dies, Kevin grieves. He misses her smile, her careful hands as she cleaned a scraped knee, her passion for her calling in life. "You've been born to privilege, Kevin," she'd tell him sometimes.

"You have a home and and education and enough to eat and a family that loves you. You've been given so many gifts. That is why we travel, to ( Read more... )

Kevin is mostly used to living in small spaces, growing up, though he doesn't like it. His childhood memories can be summed up by a blur of poky little caravans stuffed full of the Jonas boys, their parents, and all their worldly belongings, and the customary tents or huts of undeveloped areas they visited, or tiny apartments in the cities. The ( Read more... )

A lot of things happened to Kevin without him intending. He didn't set out to be a streetwalker; he'd been clearing glasses at some hole of an alehouse for pennies and as many scraps as he could steal, and sometime a customer would flash some coin and make a suggestion that made Kevin's cheeks flush. But as the weeks wore on, and Nick got skinner ( Read more... )

Normally, if the weird clothes and the unkempt hair and the job didn't scare them off, the scowl and the "go away" did.

"He's still staring," Kevin said, laughing at him as he handed Ryan his half of the bread he had acquired for their supper.

Ryan tried his most exasperated sigh. "He's a whelp. A puppy dog. A doomed romantic."

"Oh, so you have that ( Read more... )

Nick wasn't stupid - uneducated in a formal sense, but never stupid. He was smart, quick on the uptake, could make a heel of bread last the weekend for four, pick a gent's pocket in front of the police, knew every alleyway and backdoor exit in the slums. He could count and handle money, and he could remember instructions and knew when to follow ( Read more... )

Kevin's not sure if Brendon's leaning against the wall of his building, teaching Kevin's brothers to spot an easy mark as a convoluted part of his ongoing campaign to woo Ryan, or just something he's undertaken out of the goodness of his heart, but Kevin's finding himself to be, grudgingly, extremely grateful.

He's always known that it's possible ( Read more... )

So maybe the first time he attacked a press-gang, he had personal motivation. No one lays a hand on Kevin's brother, alright? If Nick had wanted to go on an airship...well, Kevin's pretty sure Nick would tell him. But when he'd heard shouting in a familiar tone, Kevin had seen red, hadn't even considered how thoroughly outnumbered he was.

So yes, it ( Read more... )

The rats are creatures that Brendon can talk to about whatever's on his mind, and, being rats, they don't get frustrated if that happens to be the same thing day after day, don't get irritated when he won't shut up. Maybe he runs his wooing strategy by them, even, or comes down to the sewers one day and tells them, "Guess who I just met?" the first ( Read more... )

Nick really ought to be used to it by now. Three months since the first night he worked the floor, and it's not always possible to avoid Kevin's eyes anymore. They work near each other and for weeks they don't say a word until they're home, but the fragile silence only lasts until that night when there's a bar fight.

Fights aren't that uncommon but ( Read more... )

They're sitting down to a meagre meal, a stew barely more than a soup, some day old bread. Kevin ladles out the portions carefully as the conversation moves from Brendon's latest gossip about some gent who went back to the City with a broken arm to the new (and slightly disgusting) ailment Gerard had shown Joe.

Kevin handed a bowl to Brendon. ( Read more... )