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A storm had moved down from the mountains and brought with it a fierce chill, strong enough to send them all scurrying inside for cover once night had fallen—everyone except Kratos. Lloyd found him standing outside on the balcony of Dirk’s house, hands clasped behind his back. He was watching the storm or thinking. Probably both.
“Geez, it’s cold out here,” he said to announce himself.
Kratos turned. “I’m sorry; I should have come in earlier.”
He made to duck back inside; Lloyd held up a hand. “—No! No, if you want to stand out there, that's fine.”
Kratos shrugged as he returned to his silent watch. Lloyd bounced on the balls of his feet, debating whether he should leave. The problem was his conscience wasn’t letting him. It was getting annoying these days. Kratos was his dad, but really, Lloyd had only known him for a few months, and most of those, they'd been enemies. The whole talking thing, not to mention the family thing, was still awkward, as much as Lloyd wanted it. He knew Kratos wanted it too. Once they made it past the weird, guarded statements or the vague, one-word answers, he had a lot to say if he was feeling in the mood. But he was out of practice. They both were.
Remember, his conscience chided, you're the one who wanted him to stay.
"Damn it!" Lloyd muttered and nearly tripped over a planter as he dragged himself out onto the balcony. He told himself to play it cool. He was just trying to get to know Kratos. Trying to connect with his dad. That was all.
“What’re you looking at?” he asked. It was a great question.
“Nothing,” Kratos said.
“Uh…”
“I was thinking,” Kratos added.
“Yeah?” Lloyd leaned against the wooden rail and tried not to look too interested. “Okay. About what?”
“Nothing important.”
And there he went…Lloyd groaned. “C’mon, Kratos, don’t brush me off like that!”
Kratos stiffened. Still, he refused to break: “It doesn’t matter.”
It was probably something about his mom again. It was always about Mom or Mithos or some other distant regret that Kratos was still carrying around after four thousand years, regrets that somehow, Lloyd couldn't say anything about. Or hadn't lived long enough to, he guessed. “Ah, alright…” He turned back to the view and slouched over the railing, letting his head rest on his arms. It was dark. The clouds had covered up the stars. “Never mind.”
He just couldn’t give up, though, so he hung around even though it was freezing and dark and Kratos was dead silent. He was being stubborn, but damn it, this was his dad! If he was going to be around for good, they were going to figure this out.
Suddenly, Kratos said, "What do you think I should do?”
Lloyd blinked at him. “Huh?” That was a new one.
“Now that I’m here.”
"You mean…like…"
“…for a job,” Kratos prompted, and what he’d meant by “here” became clear. He’d meant “here" as in “now that I’m in stuck here and I have no idea what to do because my entire life purpose for the past four thousand years is gone now”, “here”. Kratos always made things smaller than they were, but Lloyd felt that weight. It certainly wasn’t “nothing important.”
"…you’re going to get a job?”
“Something like that.”
Lloyd rolled his eyes at this latest, completely unnecessary deflection and nearly said, you can do whatever you want, but that wouldn’t be helpful. “Want” and “Kratos” were two words that never fit neatly together anyway, he was learning. No matter how hard he (and even Colette) tried, everything always ended up back at “What do you want, Lloyd?”, as if Kratos had no say and never had one in the first place. He supposed that was…a little fair, given all Kratos had done, but just as people deserved to live, so they also deserved to have some say in what that meant, by Lloyd’s estimation. “I guess…you could be a mercenary? Again?”
“No,” Kratos said firmly. “I will set aside the sword for a while.”
“Oh.” Then what were all those forms in the morning for? Actually, that was a stupid question. Lloyd knew exactly why Kratos drilled every day starting at the crack of dawn: it was routine; it was like breathing. “I mean…well I guess you could, uh…”
A sudden, brilliantly stupid idea struck him, one of those ones that were so bad, so outrageous that they worked. It kind of took his breath away how good and yet how stupid it was. It was scary too. If Kratos didn't think this was a good idea, it would kill him, just a little bit. But he had to put it out there because it was so good, and honestly, he really wanted it to happen, even if there was no chance it would. “…I mean…well, I could always teach you, you know. Crafting. And stuff.”
Silence. Lloyd cringed and tried to find a particularly interesting knot in the wood. He was already preparing himself for a lecture, though knowing Kratos, it would be a single, pithy sentence that would still devastate him to the core: Are you insane?
“I know, that’s the dumbest idea ever, and yeah, if you don’t want to even—”
“I wouldn’t mind.”
Lloyd turned slowly on the spot. His brain seemed to have exploded in between trying to save face and hearing Kratos—Kratos—say three little words that totally defied everything he’d been expecting. “What? You—did you just—you really want…?”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Kratos repeated. And then he went further: “In fact, it would be an honor.”
This was too much. Lloyd stumbled back as if he’d just been punched in the gut; he grabbed the rail to steady himself. “You’re serious,” he said.
“Yes?”
Why did Kratos always do this? How could he just casually drop world-shattering statements and then act like Lloyd was the weird one?
“You really want me to teach you.”
“I didn’t make that clear earlier?”
And he sounded genuinely confused, too. Did he—did he not realize?
“No, no, you did, it’s just that…you know, I didn’t really think you’d…” Lloyd hung his head. It was one thing to doubt Kratos; it was another thing to actually admit to it. “…want to do it, that’s all.”
Kratos shrugged again in that practiced, careless way of his. “It seems to bring some monetary success, and I have no other ideas. I don’t see why I should refuse.”
His explanation made perfect sense yet was so absurd that Lloyd could not help but laugh. “That’s not really what you thought, right? Because you not being able to do anything else is a total lie. I saw you during the Journey of Regeneration: you can do everything.”
Kratos sighed and shook his head. “Fine. An alternative: fathers ought to find excuses to spend time with their sons, should they not?
He did it again! He—he did it again! Lloyd stared. “…yeah,” he finally admitted. “Yeah, they should.”
“Then does that suffice as an explanation of my motivations?”
Past Lloyd would have gotten angry, wondering why Kratos could not just say what he meant or at least put some feeling into it like a normal person. Current Lloyd at least had some understanding—that was just his dad. At least he was working on it, sort of; at least he’d admitted the truth. That meant something. "Yeah, it does." Still… “But you could’ve just said that first.”
He could see Kratos’s smile even in the dark—no teeth because that would be weird, but it was visible and it was wide and it was certainly not the tight, strained smile he gave when he was trying to be polite.
“Point taken. We’ll start in the morning?”
I gotta tell Colette, Lloyd thought giddily. She would be so proud of him, maybe Kratos too. “Sounds good to me.” He took a breath. Kratos deserved this one; he really did. “Dad.”