FicWad

At first, Auron had walked little Tidus home from school to guard him from fiends, because it seemed like a proper protective thing to do, and he'd promised Jecht that much. Auron was good at guarding people from fiends. He'd trained for it.

Later, after Tidus' mother had died, and long after it became clear that no fiends would attack Tidus on the way home, Auron kept on walking with him. He told himself it was dangerous to let such a young child play in an empty house alone. He was only doing what he'd promised to do. Someone had to look after the boy.

He'd tried to leave Tidus there, after checking the house for robbers and assassins. No matter how hard he tried, though, he couldn't get the idea of Tidus out of his head. A little boy, dwarfed by the furniture, crying over something or other. In Spira, children were adopted by other families, or taken in by the Temples. Zanarkand had no place for orphans.

Every day he came back, and prodded the kitchen machina into making something for dinner. They ate, watched blitz games and war movies on the sphere. Auron didn't tuck Tidus into bed, quite, but he stayed and told stories until Tidus fell asleep. He didn't leave until the small hours of the morning, when he was sure that Tidus wouldn't wake up.

After a while, he stopped leaving at all.