A/N: I decided to post the Kratos POV as a second chapter. The Kratos/Yuan is a lot clearer here, but it's still implied because in this fic Yuan is twelve and it is VERY rare for someone to think/know/suspect they are gay at twelve.
"Mom, I'm home." I walk into the kitchen, puzzled by the lack of greeting. Instead of Mom, Dad is sat at the table, head in his hands, shoulders shaking. It only takes a moment for me to realise that he's crying.
"DAD!" I shout distressed. I am only six and a half, so it is easy for Dad to pick me up and sit me on his lap, cuddling me close, even though he knows that cuddles make me feel uncomfortable.
"Dad, where's Mom?"
"Kratos, Mom isn't coming home."
"You mean she's dead" I say; blunt already even though I am so young.
"Yes. But don't worry. Daddy will look after you." I want to tell him that it's ok, I'll help him by looking after myself, but I look at his face, at his broken lost expression and realise that he needs me to need him.
I wake with a jolt and shake my head in disbelief that I'm still having these nightmares almost ten years later. I try to remember all the nightmare evasion strategies, the only one that really seems to work is thinking of something nice that has nothing to do with your nightmare. Sadly, nice and me don't go together.
But I do know someone who's very nice and has nothing to do with my nightmares. Yuan.
Yuan's three years younger than me. He's good-natured and friendly, but being despised for being a half-elf has made him shy. He has long, blue hair that he likes to wear in a loose ponytail. Once he tried pigtails. Not when he was little, last year when he was eleven. I thought he looked really cute, but of course I didn't say so. You don't bring up the fact that you have a gay crush on your best friend in high school. Not ever. Especially not when that friend is still pre-teen, and you're fifteen, going on sixteen.
I really wonder how long a crush lasts and how intense it needs to be before you can call it more than a crush, because I'm starting to come up to a two-year mark and, for me at least, the emotion is kind of alarming in strength.
At that point, Noishe lands on my window sill. Noishe is the protozoan my family cares for. Right now he's in his air form, but Dad reckons he's going to change into Aeshir soon. I remember when he told me that I was really excited, thinking I was going to get to see it. Then Dad had to let me down gently, telling me that in Protozoan terms "soon" was almost a thousand years.
He's tapping at the window, so I get up to let him in, however as soon as I open the window he flies off, I frown and look out the window, trying to see if there's anything that could have spooked him. My blood freezes in my veins.
There is a house on fire in the distance. To the North of town. Yuan's house. I yell for Noishe as I yank a shirt and trousers over my pyjamas, and grab the sword dad's been using to teach me swordplay. I can still just about fit on Noishe's back, but it's hard to balance. But with Noishe's wings carrying us we're at the house in minutes rather than two hours, an hour and a half if I'd sprinted the whole way instead of long-distance running.
"Yuan?" I call out, scanning the clearing, and then I spot him, through the flames. He is cornered, trembling and crying and unaware of his surroundings. With a cry of rage, I release a powerful double demon fang, knocking the attackers temporarily away. I still have just seconds to get Yuan moving.
"Yuan! Move Now!" I yell, fear making my tone harsh as I grab him and haul him away. It seems to snap him out of his terror and he starts sprinting, impossibly fast. He's so much smaller than me, the top of his head only three quarters of the way up my torso when we are stood next to each other, yet he runs like the wind. After a while we reach a safe spot, a place I know they won't come, so I catch hold of Yuan, stopping him before he tears off into Tethe'alla.
He scares me half to death when he suddenly throws himself into my arms, sobbing from the fear. I gently wrap my arms around him, try to comfort him. I tell him not to be scared anymore, promise him that he'll be okay.
"How can you say that?! My home is burning as we speak. My parents are probably dead; maybe if they're lucky they've been captured as mine slaves. It was me they came for. How the hell can you promise that I'll be ok!?!" He shouts, his beautiful sea-coloured eyes misted with overflowing tears, slim frame still racked by tremors and sobs.
Before I was angry. That anyone would dare to try something so cruel, so obviously deliberately. Now, looking at how effectively they'd destroyed his life, his home, family and peace of mind, I was fuming, I could physically feel the throbbing urge to turn around and hunt down the violent, racist psychopaths. To tear them apart. But there was another even stronger urge. To stay and protect Yuan.
"Because I won't let you not be okay." I tell him, vowing it silently in my heart.
"How did you know?" If I didn't know Yuan, then I would find the question random, as it is, I know he's been quietly making sense of the nights events in the back of his mind, and he's finally realised that it isn't normal for me to be near his house at gone midnight.
I explain about Noishe, leaving out the fact that I had been daydreaming about him just before hand. Unexpectedly, he throws himself back into my arms. I hug him back, because he needs it, but I need to keep a huge amount of self control involved to stop myself from pulling him right into an embrace, intimate rather than comforting.
As suddenly as he started hugging me, he seems keen to stop, muttering about guys not being allowed to hug and trying to squirm free. I frown because I'm not ready to let go of him yet. I decide, seeing as we aren't going to be able to talk about tonight for years, I may as well talk freely.
"Y'know, you're wrong. For one thing, my Dad says that people who say you can't love someone the same gender as you are as stupid and prejudiced as those who hate half-elves. For another, you're allowed to hug someone if they're part of your family." His face becomes momentarily peaceful, satisfied with my explanation, but after a few seconds thought he says:
"But we aren't family." I look at his sad, little face. Right now I know I'd do anything to make him smile again. Even the one thing that I must never ever do, because it will make the nightmares worse than ever. I have to really think about and talk about Mom. I have to tell him the most important thing she ever told me.
"Mom once told me that everyone has two families. There's one family that you're born with. Sometimes you don't love them or like them, but you get them without trying or asking. Then there's a family that you choose. That's a family that never dies, because as long as you're alive you can keep finding new members." I manage to keep my face stoic at this point, although my breathing's become a little irregular and my eyes sting a little with unshed tears as I remember, so vividly, her face as she told me, glowing with the excitement of a shared secret, glittery violet eyes, so unlike mine, framed by unruly russet hair, so like mine.
"Am I a part of your chosen family?" He asks, obviously hopeful, eyes sparkling already.
I inhale deeply. Now is the best chance I will ever have. I could tell him the truth. I could tell him that he means more to me than anyone else in the world. I could tell him that he's the only person in my chosen family that isn't part of my born family. I could tell him that I love him. I could kiss him to prove it. Then I let the air out in a rush.
Because as good as that would make me feel, it isn't what I want. Yuan is twelve. He doesn't need a gay friend who is in love with him. He needs someone who will protect him. Someone he can legitimately claim comfort from. Someone who can look after him. He needs an older brother.
I could be his older brother. Any chance I had with him would fly out of the window once we started to act like siblings. But I could be exactly what he needed. I could protect him from the kids who try to beat him up on the way to and from school, because that's when I'm not with him. I could comfort him whenever he's sad, and if I was his "brother" it would be allowed. I could teach him how to look after himself in preparation for when he's all grown up by looking after him and showing him what I'm doing. I'm actually really good at flirting and reading people, even though I don't find it fun and it's not something I'd try on the person I'd want to flirt with, so I could give him advice when he starts to want to date people. I could teach him to fight. I could be the perfect big brother. If I just threw away my selfish instinct.
"You're my kid brother, okay? That means I protect you when you're going to get hurt and you come to me when you're sad or scared, or even just lonely." I told him. As soon as I see the way his face splits into a grin it's instantly worth knowing that I will never get kissed by him, or date him, never be intimate with him. Because he's happy now that I'm his brother. He's not so scared anymore.
He giggles at a private joke, but one look at him confirms that he doesn't want to tell me. I don't mind and I start leading him home, already wondering what Dad's going to say when I explain this to him and whether Yuan prefers cereal, toast or waffles at breakfast.
A/N: Well... I actually think that one ended okay. I know that Kratos is rather out of character, but my logic behind this is that although his base personality wouldn't change, he wouldn't be as jaded as four thousand years of evil and the destruction of his family would make him. Also the way he thinks of Yuan is based on my knowledge that people who are not naturally, freely affectionate tend to be protective to the point of slightly obsessive to those they do feel affection for. All in all, I'm pretty pleased with this chapter and I've finally made a multi chaptered fic!