Nursing his forehead in his palm, all Cillian could do was stare at Jesse in disbelief as he processed everything he just said. 'Total mess' didn't seem to begin to describe it. He had encountered all sorts of people in his life, so he wasn't of the mind that everyone was inherently good and just had bad things happen to them. He had fought in a war, he knew that wasn't the case. Some people were just naturally arseholes and nothing you could do or say to them will alter that. But what he couldn't fathom on any level was being so wrapped up in your own bullshit, you effectively harmed your kids, whether physically, mentally, or emotionally... or all of the above. It was giving him the worst sort of skeevy dirty feeling that he had slept with a person who did this to two kids she conceived through her own bullshit. It did sound like Merlin well and truly dodged a bullet with the adoption but Jesse hadn't, and her actions with Merlin deprived Jesse of having his little brother in his life from day one. Instead, he grew up as someone else's little brother right under his nose. Plus on top of that, to keep her creep behaviour under wraps to hide behind the veil of faux devout Christianity, she shoved the kid she kept into fucking conversion therapy, which engaged in 'treatment' that risked his life. He actually felt faintly nauseous listening to it all, so he could only imagine how Merlin and Jesse felt finding out both their lives were lies. Then to go through all that, to this, what Jesse just revealed to him? "No..." he murmured, shaking his head sadly. "That poor kid. Of course, I read a wee bit o' what is out there in the public sphere when I was tryin' to find Merlin. It nearly beat him the first time and Merlin was his bone marrow match? That's incredible. But he'd still be on frequent screenin's so they got it early? Still, that isn't always a valid hope when it's aggressive, I know. Are they okay? Bloody hell. It does explain why Brandon was lookin' so poorly. My timin' with this couldn't be worse. Do ya' think it's best I just go home and leave the ball in his court if he wants to reach out?"

He closed the photo album and put it aside, forgotten and put his hand on Jesse's shoulder. "Ya' don't have to reassure me, mate. I appreciate ya' for it but I'm not here to really resolve how it happened. Figured it had a lot to do with booze and bein' a young military lad at the time. We had a lot o' wild times, to say the least. For sure, I don't remember more than I care to admit. I'm very glad those days are well behind me. There was a time I thought I was bi but it was more o' the fact I loved - still love - my high school sweetheart as a best friend, so it confused my comin' out a wee bit. Eventually did acclimatise to the fact I was gay but there was a period, aye, right 'round when Merlin would've been conceived that there was a kind o' anythin' goes period, if enough booze was involved. I'm Irish, what can I say? That all is by the by. It happened and it's how Merlin came to be. I don't have any expectations for this. I'm not even goin' to assume he'll meet me but I'd really like to, even if it's only once, so he knows it wasn't by choice that I'm not in his life."