Chapter 10: Unlikely Brotherhood

Fox was sitting down on his bed with Leon and Marcus in front of him. Both of the boys looked ashamed while Fox lectured them.

"Honestly," Fox began, his voice stern, "I know you two like to fight, but this is unacceptable! I leave you two alone for the first time, and you come back looking like this."

"I'm sorry dad." Marcus said, his ears dropping in shame.

Fox had to try his best not to smile at him. The kid was adorable looking when he felt guilty, and it was hard to get angry with him. Fox closed his eyes and sighed heavily.

"You two have to be more careful." Fox began again, this time with more concern in his voice, "Any other kid, and I wouldn't care as much, but you two are way too strong."

"Thanks Dad!" Marcus said, his ears popping back up, but they quickly went down again when Fox glared at him, and Leon gave him a look telling him to shut up.

"I'm being serious," Fox said, now much sterner, "you two are strong, and you could really hurt each other without intention."

"Are you gonna keep us from fighting now?" Leon said. He looked more worried than he did ashamed, and Marcus would probably cry if Fox kept them from fighting.

Fox shook his head.

"You two can still practice, just be more careful." Fox said, "I don't want to take your training privileges away from you, but if you come back this badly hurt again, you won't leave the house at all, understood?"

Marcus's ears perked up and his tail started to wag, and a huge smile beamed across his face as he hugged his father.

"Thanks Daddy! Ow." Marcus pulled away from his father, realizing his chest still hurt. Fox grabbed his son and lifted him off the bed and back onto the carpet.

"Go see your mother to get that wound properly cleaned and bandaged, okay kiddo?" Fox said with a half-smile.

Marcus nodded and left. Leon was about to leave until Fox stopped him.

"Just a moment Leon, I need to talk to you. Can you close the door son?"

Leon nodded and did as he was told. When he sat down and looked at Fox, he noticed how tired Fox looked. He stared at Leon, and then starred at the floor with his eyes closed, still half smiling.

"Leon," Fox started, "you know I don't hate you."

Leon was baffled. He didn't know what Fox wanted to talk to him about, but he was not expecting that.

"What are you talking about?" Leon said, sounding confused, "I know you don't hate me. I've known that for a long time."

"Then why did you attack Marcus?" Fox said, looking at Leon still with that half-smile.

Leon got even more confused. He didn't see how that was relevant in any way. Fox started again.

"Do you still feel like you need to prove something son?" Fox said.

Leon starred at him for what seemed like an hour. He knew exactly what Fox meant. He was talking about Leon's father and was wondering if he still felt like he had a destiny or something that he needed to follow, and that killing the son of his father's worst enemy would somehow fulfill it, even though Marcus was the one who wanted to fight.

"It's not like that at all." Leon finally said, "I didn't even intend on fighting Marcus. He wanted to fight me first and I was surprised by it."

Fox gave a sigh of relief and then chuckled.

"I'm not." he said, now fully smiling at Leon, "Marcus isn't afraid of anything and will fight anyone who wants to."

"Yeah, he's not very smart that way you know." said Leon, now smiling as well, and both of them started laughing. When they stopped, Fox walked over to Leon, half-smiling again. He rested his hand on Leon's shoulder.

"But you know I love you, right kiddo?" Fox said with a warm voice.

Leon smiled and nodded.

"I love you too Mr. McCloud." he said, and the two hugged each other.

It was odd that Leon would still call this man "Mr. McCloud". It was so blatantly obvious at this point that Leon had accepted him as his father, but he still wouldn't call him that. In a way, Leon wondered if he really did see Fox as merely a friend.

"Now let's get your eye patched up." Fox said.

Over the next two months, things began to change in the McCloud household. Fox went back to work, Krystal began homeschooling both Marcus and Leon and the boys spent all of their time in the forest, fighting and training with each other. The two fought a lot, with words just as much as fists, but they did begin to grow on each other and strangely enough, a brotherly bond began to manifest itself with the two boys. Marcus always looked up to Leon as a big brother, and although Leon did think that Marcus was annoying at times, he did admit that he had a lot in common with the vulpine. The two began forming an unbreakable friendship, and it was on a camping trip that the boys took that Leon finally accepted his new brother.

"We'll only be gone one night." Leon said to his mother, who was worrying about sending her kids away for so long. Leon was wearing a white shirt with blue shorts and some brown hiking boots, typical wear for a camping trip.

"Just be careful." She said to Leon. Marcus was packing the rest of the equipment for the trip, and Leon was trying to talk about the plans with his mother.

"We will be Mrs. McCloud, honest." Leon said, smiling at Krystal, who closed her eyes and hugged Leon tightly. She had already began looking at Leon as her own son, and acted as a mother towards him just as much as she did towards Marcus.

"Just don't doing anything unnecessarily dangerous alright?" she said, looking at her son and putting both her paws on his cheeks.

"We won't, promise." he said, blushing from embarrassment. Leon loved Krystal's motherly love and affection. Like Fox's fatherly love, it was something entirely new to him.

Krystal smiled, and kissed her son on the cheek.

"Now go help your brother pack," she said, "you know he'll forget something."

Leon nodded and started helping Marcus with the packing. Marcus was wearing black hiking boots and a green shirt, along with thick, brown shorts. Not to Leon's surprise, Marcus had forgotten many important items to pack, including the tent.

"Where on earth were we gonna sleep at night!?" Leon said loudly at Marcus.

Marcus shrugged.

"I don't know," he said with a blank expression, "I figured we would just sleep in a tree or something."

"How does that even make-

Leon stopped, realizing it wouldn't be worth the argument. He just groaned and told Marcus to get his gear. With that, the two boys left for their camping trip.

"Be back before lunch tomorrow boys!" Krystal hollered at them as they left.

"We will!" they both yelled back.

Marcus led Leon into the forest. He stopped when he reached a small lake, about four miles away from the house. Marcus smiled and set his gear down, tired from carrying it.

"This will make a great place to fish!" he said with an excited voice.

"Yeah," Leon said in agreement, "get the tent out so we can pitch it. This will be a good place to make camp."

Marcus obeyed and pulled out the tent while Leon went to work actually setting it up. Marcus began getting out the rest of the supplies, including snacks, sleeping bags, water bottles, the fishing equipment, and the radio transponder that his father gave him.

"How did your dad get this anyway?" Leon asked, as Marcus gave him the small radio device.

"He used it on his ground missions to talk to other people he was working with." Marcus answered, "Mom has the other one."

"Why do we need this if you can use your telepathy?" Leon asked.

"I don't need it. You do! You don't have telepathy, remember?" Marcus said with a smile.

"No, thank you for reminding me." Leon answered with a sarcastic tone, "Get the fishing equipment ready, and please don't mess anything up okay?"

"I won't!" Marcus said jubilantly. He was really excited about the fishing part. He was never able to do it since none of his other camping trips with his father had a lake they could fish with. Finally, Marcus could actually fish.

After the camp was set up, Leon went over to the edge of the lake were Marcus had already set up all the equipment. The two struggled with the bait, wondering how to get the worm around the hook. In all honesty, neither one of them had any idea how to fish and were really just improvising. Although Marcus knew how to cast a line, his father hadn't really been able to teach him anything else. After finally getting a crude representation of bait on a hook, the boys casted their lines into the lake and waited for the fish to bite.

Hours seemed to pass, and neither boy had any luck. Marcus groaned, starting to become impatient with the fish.

"This is booooriiiing." he whined, "I thought this would be fun."

Leon sighed. Although he would usually get mad at Marcus for being a whiner, he had to admit that it wasn't a very entertaining activity.

"Yeah, this is ridiculous." he said, "We must have done something wrong with the bait."

"But I don't know what else to do with it." Marcus said, still whining and landing on his back, "There are so many fish in the water. Why can't we catch any?"

Leon looked down into the lake. He could see all of the fish who weren't bothering to catch the line and got an idea. Putting his rod on the ground, he pulled his transponder out of his pocket and set it right next to the rod. He then got on all fours and eyed the water, looking for a fish to target.

Marcus noticed his brother's sudden change of movements and asked him what he was doing but before he could get an answer, Leon quickly plunged into the water.

"What the…" Marcus said, quickly going over to the water, "Hey what are you doing you dummy!?" he yelled, "You'll scare the fish off!"

As soon as he finished, Leon surfaced with a fish caught in his jaws. Marcus gasped and smiled, quickly getting what his brother had in mind.

"That's a great idea!" Marcus said, looking excited with his tail wagging.

"It's so much easier," Leon said right after he climbed out of the water and spit the fish out onto the ground with a smile on his face, "and we'll catch way more."

"I wanna try!" Marcus said eyeing the water.

"Whoever catches the most fish wins, alright?" Leon said, turning the activity into a competition. Almost everything these two did now became a competition.

Marcus nodded with a smile on his face. With that, the two hunters caught their next targets and pounced into the water.

They spent almost the entire day hunting down fish. It became harder over time, and the fish started to become cleverer, staying farther away from the surface. It finally came down to having to swim around near the lake bottom to find some. Luckily, Leon and Marcus were both natural hunters and very fast swimmers, so catching the fish wasn't too difficult for them, but it was tiring, and by the time they finished, both parties where exhausted.

Surprisingly enough, Marcus won, but only by a small margin. Marcus caught twenty three while Leon caught twenty. Leon wasn't too upset, seeing how Marcus had a very obvious advantage.

"You're way faster," Leon said, gasping for air and sitting down, leaning on his arms, "and you were using your telepathy, weren't you?"

"I thought we already agreed that I couldn't use that if you couldn't use your claws." Marcus said, looking at Leon. He was panting as well, but he didn't look nearly as tired as Leon did.

"That was only for battle you dope." Leon said, "Do you mean you weren't using your telepathy at all?"

Marcus shook his head.

Leon smiled

"That's impressive." He said with pride in his voice. Although he would usually be upset about something like that, he was glad to see Marcus was being as fair as he could. It also showed how fast the vulpine was.

Marcus blushed and smiled with his eyes closed tightly, looking at the ground as he always did when someone gave him a compliment.

Both of the boys stood up and realized a serious problem. Neither one of them bothered to take their clothes off and were now completely soaked.

"Here," Leon said, "let's take our clothes off and start a fire, they can dry out overnight."

Marcus nodded in agreement, and both boys walked back to their encampment with their fishing gear.

When they both took their clothes off, ironically enough, they realized they had made an even bigger mistake by only packing their swim suites for clothes.

"Well, that was really stupid wasn't it?" Leon said laughing at himself. Although he would almost always blame Marcus for something like this, he admitted that this particular error was his mistake.

"We can wear these." Marcus said, not getting upset at all, "They're not that different from real shorts."

Leon agreed, and the two decided to wear their swimsuits. After that, Leon used what knowledge Fox had given him on camping and started a fire. It was starting to get dark, and the boys decided it was time for dinner. Cooking some fish and taking out some snacks and drinks, the boys had a feast. They both had ten fish each with twenty three left over.

"Ugh, I feel kind of sick." Marcus said as he laid down on his back smiling, "Those fish were so good. I couldn't stop eating."

"Yeah, they were amazing." Leon said, sitting up. Both he and Marcus were close to the fire, and the temperature had begun to drop rapidly as it always did on Cornaria at night, regardless of the season (although some seasons were colder than others).

Marcus snuggled up closely to Leon and laid his head in his lap.

"What…what are you doing?" Leon said, looking down at Marcus.

"I'm cold," Marcus said, sounding tired, "and your coats thicker than mine."

"Get off my lap, seriously! Marcus I don't want to do this!" Leon said, sounding agitated.

"No…" Marcus said sounding even more tired as he curled up in a ball with his tail between his legs and closed his eyes.

Leon was about to protest some more, but seeing that Marcus was already falling asleep, he rolled his eyes and decided to just endure it. Leon starred down at Marcus, who he assumed was now sleeping. He smiled. Even he had to admit that the little pup was adorable at times. He put his hand on Marcus's head and began softly scratching it. Marcus smiled and spoke.

"Love you Leon," he mumbled, "you're a good brother."

Leon stopped scratching Marcus's head. His smile disappeared and he just starred at the vulpine with a blank expression. This was the third person to tell Leon they loved him, with Fox and Krystal being the other two. What surprised Leon more was the other thing Marcus said to him. He called him his brother.

Leon starred up into the night sky. He always thought of himself as Marcus's friend and nothing more, no different from a friend of Mr. or Mrs. McCloud. But as Leon thought about it some more, he realized it was different with Marcus. He was beginning to realize that it was more than just a friendship he had.

As Leon thought more deeply, he began to wonder if it was actually wrong to call Marcus his brother. He began to wonder if it was okay to be his friend. In his mind, Leon was still struggling with thoughts of his father. What would he think? What would he say? Would he really be okay with his son being friends with or, worse, brothers with his enemy's son?

But as Leon thought about it, he smiled, realizing how absurd the whole thought was. His biological father was not here right now and, as far as Leon knew, didn't care at all about his own son. Leon put his hand on Marcus's head and spoke softly to the vulpine.

"I love you too Marcus," Leon whispered, "and you're also a good brother."

Without needing a tent or a tree, both Marcus and Leon fell asleep at their campsite.