OMG WRITER'S BLOCK HAS STRUCK AGAIN. :Attacks chapter 19 of TWC:
So I did this to try and get rid of it. It worked... a bit. So I'm gonna go a write 19 again.

Anyway, this is just a short thing a wrote at about 12:00AM last night. I really shouldn't have, since I have school. But I missed the bus, so I'm going in at lunch. Which is in an hour. Whey. So yeah, Kratos+Lloyd oyako ... kinda...

EDIT: OKAYZ. Drabble form wasn't that good, so I went around correcting mistakes and things that randomly got cut out and stuff. SO YEAH.

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"Daddy?"

The small, timid voice rang quietly in Kratos' ears as the older man held back a flinch. He still had trouble getting used to that new title … it was something he would probably never accept, even after three years of being a 'father'. Kratos steadied his writing hand, ignoring a long, messy streak of ink his trembling fingers had produced and lowered his quill. "You should be asleep, Lloyd." The answer was short, a little hint of gratuitous seriousness in the man's tone. His innate hearing allowed him to pick up the small, scraping shuffle of the boy's bare feet on the cold wooden floor of the inn.

"I can't sleep, and Mummy is already …" The small voice drifted off nervously. He had never really spent time around his father … the man always researching of 'cures' and 'Cruxis Crystals' every day and well into the night, and no amount of research could be neglected for Lloyd's own time. The boy was not close to his father, but he did love him dearly like a son should, even if it was just standing around him while small notes were jotted down on old crumpled scraps of paper, but Kratos treated each like a treasure while waiting always for a breakthrough in his precious investigation on crystals of some sort.

Kratos' time was for Anna. Never Lloyd, the one who craved his attention most.

But Lloyd never complained.

"Daddy, can I sit with you?"

Kratos considered the request without sparing a glance for his son. Even the simplest of predicaments could be the most awkward and uncomfortable one for some people, especially a neglecting father like himself. The small child on the other side of the room shifted uncomfortably, clutching the doorframe like a lifeline. Kratos would have thought, when he looked over, a bottomless pit would open up beneath Lloyd's small feet and swallow him up in a matter of seconds at the way his white knuckles clutched at the worn, damp wood.

"…Of course," he answered through the phrases declaring war in his mind, one side welcoming the boy to simply stand and watch the man he silently worshiped and the other demanding the boy to go back to bed for the much needed sleep required for a toddler, especially one as active as this one.

The boy's footsteps resounded around the small room as he walked to the desk pushed against the wall for more room space (which succeeded very little, seeing at the room was only a few meters wide). Kratos sat still hunched over his notes even as the footsteps stopped, replaced by a soft ruffling of clothes. Kratos' writing had ceased once again as his eyes darted to his left to find the boy sat with his knees tugged up to his chest, arms linked over them. He found it very hard to believe Lloyd would simply sit there in that position and watch him until sleep claimed the child's mind for the hours of the night.

With a sigh, Kratos lowered his quill for a second time and leaned down, scooping up the startled child from the damp floor and placing him in his lap.

Lloyd paused for a moment before beginning to fidget, seeking out a more comfortable position. After a few moments, he found comfort in sitting with his legs stretched over his father's lap and his side tucked into the crook of the man's right arm.

It soon occurred to Kratos that he'd never held Lloyd like this before and wondered vaguely if the boy found this as an opportunity to finally play out a moment he had wanted to share with his beloved father. The man reluctantly moved his arm around to support the boy snuggled into his chest, his hand resting on the small legs of the child.

After a few moments of silence, save for the soft breathing of the three year old in his lap, Kratos returned to writing, now using his left hand. The sentences were not as clear, but he wouldn't have trouble identifying them himself. Scattered about were notes of a dwarven blacksmith living on the outskirts of the small village of Iselia, the person they would soon be visiting for information on Key Crests and any other useful information on Anna's Cruxis Crystal and any way to keep it under control if removed from her. Kratos only hoped this man could help before –

"Daddy, what's a 'sin'?"

Kratos couldn't say he wasn't partly surprised at the question from the boy in his lap. How was he supposed to explain sin to a three year old boy, most likely too young to understand to concept of sin itself?

But the innocence traced in every word of that sentence made him wonder slightly.

A pause. "Sin is a very bad thing. Everyone will sin at some point in their lives, Lloyd … but most of them do not mean to. Some sins can be taken in a stride like anything else". Kratos attempted to keep his explanation as short and understandable as possible, and wondered if he should have just stopped after the first sentence.

"Have you ever sinned, Daddy?"

Kratos wondered back from the times up until the ancient war to now. Under the orders of Mithos, he had killed countless people for the boy's own twisted desires to see his sister once more, the boy he could not stop or save from the insanity that gripped him. He had extended his life span to a sickeningly long time with the use of Mithos' Exspheres. He had gotten the woman he loved involved with Cruxis' cruel plans, and her life was now in danger. He had robbed her of a perfectly normal life and had her thrown into the mess sprouted from his former student's grudge.

He had created this child that embodied innocence and brought him into this messed up world, and now he was caught in between Yggdrasill's Angelus Project and the couple's own desperate attempt to escape and hide him from it all.

"… Yes," Kratos finally answered quietly. Lloyd stared up at the man, eyes wide and unbelieving as he forced a smile and tucked his head underneath Kratos' chin.

"Daddy is still a good person. He loves Mummy lots and lots … and me … and Noishe …"

Kratos felt almost frustrated at the lack of thought put into his abrupt forgiveness, albeit he abandoned his work for the night and prepared to take his now sleeping son to his bed to sleep for the day ahead.

But he soon found he was more content with the youth breathing softly in his lap, snuggled to his chest.

Kratos never did get to bed that night.

---

The seraph watched his sleeping child from beside the uncomfortable beds that Asgard's second most expensive inn offered. Kratos marvelled in how much the boy had grown the past fourteen years without him, still not quite a man in spite of his age. He examined all of the things that had changed – his jaw was sharper, his chin was still curved just as it was when he was a child, his shoulders weren't as broad as his father's but still fitting for a swordsman (in training).

Kratos wondered vaguely if Lloyd still remembered their conversation about sins when he was still just a toddler, his forgiveness to a traitor who abandoned the search of his son and murdered his wife only a few days afterwards.

His fingers slipped gently down the curve of the sleeping boy's jaw line and he watched the way his face changed at the touch. He jumped slightly in his sleep and mumbled something, leaning towards that touch already moving away.

"Daddy …"

Kratos fled the room before his heart leapt from his throat.

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Sitting on the edge of his bed with his head in his hands, Kratos' mind wouldn't stop repeating that word over and over. He had hoped to never hear that word again from the same child, even if it was after several years.

"Sin is a very bad thing."

Kratos wondered to himself if unintentional innocence could pass as a sin.

His worst sin must have been bringing a poor, naïve child into a damned world like this.