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Chapter Text

The bus rocked back and forth as it crawled forward in city traffic, brakes groaning each time it lurched to a stop. It smelled of damp upholstery and sweaty bodies and impatience. Outside the window, the colorful lights of Termina floated past like fireflies on a July night, their reflections distorted by thick raindrops that zigged and zagged down the glass. The air conditioning was much too cold, but the cool window glass eased some of the sting on Twilight’s cheek. 

Nothing could really ease the sting in his eyes, though, nor the fierce ache in his chest that throbbed each time he was jostled by the road. Not for the first time that evening, Twilight sighed as he closed his eyes, drawing the barest glance from his silent Zora seat-mate.

He thumbed the corner of his phone restlessly in his lap. The red circle over his messenger app proclaimed that his number of unread messages was in the teens, but there was only one message that made him jump to attention at this hour. 

     Time - 10:38pm

     You are always welcome here. 

     When should I expect you? 

Twilight pressed his lips together tightly, feeling the sting in his eyes as he considered his reply. 

“Oh, he’s always been like this.”

Twilight counted out place settings as his mother stirred a simmering pot on the stove. In the den, the drone of the television was loud enough to drown out their quiet conversation. Some things were taboo to talk about in their house, but he was so curious to know why his favorite Aunt Malon and Uncle Time wouldn’t be there for the family’s big holiday dinner this year. Twilight was fourteen years old. 

“Your uncle’s solution to every one of his problems has always been to run away.” His mother sighed as she set the pot lid back in place. “When he had disagreements with our family, he ran away to go live as far as he could possibly get from us. When things in his marriage got tough, he ran from that commitment. When he was younger…”

Uli’s voice trailed off, sad and thoughtful for a moment. Twilight knew better than to pry. He continued to quietly set the table as he waited her out. 

“Your uncle spent much of his youth in a detention center,” Uli continued in a voice just above a whisper, avoiding Twilight’s gaze as she wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Until one day he just… ran away. It was like he vanished without a trace. We didn’t hear much from him after that, only for him to turn up a few years ago with a lot of money and a pretty girlfriend.” 

The way Uli snorted and rolled her eyes, turning back to the stove, let Twilight know just what his mother thought about that. 

“We all thought Malon had tamed him,” she shook her head as she tended to a pot of boiling pasta, “but Time will always just be a runaway.” 

That airy disapproval in his mother’s voice echoed in Twilight’s mind as he typed his response with shaking hands.

     Twilight - 10:43pm

     Is tomorrow morning okay?

It had been years since he’d seen or spoken to his uncle. Twilight was honestly kind of surprised Time remembered him at all. But in spite of his quiet demeanor, Time had always been kind and generous to his nieces and nephews, especially at the holidays. He and Malon had been the ones to gift Twilight with the soft stuffed toys his own parents would never get for him, and who would listen at rapt attention while Twilight told stories about school or talked about his favorite books. 

And Twilight never forgot the year that something said at the dinner table made him cry. When his father had yelled at him to ‘man up’, Time had replied with something low and sharp that made Twilight’s father silent for the rest of the night. 

Twilight watched his phone screen as three little dots appeared and vanished a few times. Eventually he had to look away from the screen, his leg bouncing against the floor as the bus crept into the dark terminal. He shuffled off of the bus with the other sullen-faced city folk and watched them all scatter to the streets like dandelion seeds. And then he was alone, fidgeting with the backpack strap over his shoulder, save the man sleeping on the bench near the terminal entrance and the tired-looking Goron still waiting for their bus to arrive. 

Twilight jumped a mile as his phone vibrated in his pocket. 

     Time - 10:57pm

     That’s fine. I’ll see you at 9:00am.

Twilight breathed a shaky sigh, slouching back against the corner of the building and pushing his hand through his hair. He’d have to make a good  first impression. He’d have to earn his keep, have to get a job. He’d have to figure out how far from here his uncle lived. 

But for right now, Twilight needed a safe place to sleep.

Chapter Text

The first time it happened was very early on. 

Hyrule was good at a select handful of things: rote memorization, choosing the correct answers on a multiple-choice test, keeping his head down to doggedly pursue his goals no matter the cost, functioning somewhat normally on four hours of sleep or less. These were things that came naturally. 

“Is this all you have?”

Taking care of himself was not one of those things. 

He hadn’t quite appreciated how tiny his apartment was until Legend stood frowning into his refrigerator. As he leaned down, Legend took up about half of the available space in the kitchen, blocking Hyrule’s access to both the sink and the bathroom. 

“Um, I have some cans of soup in the pantry,” Hyrule tried. 

When Legend turned to check the tiny shelves, Hyrule quickly ducked past him to the kitchen sink and turned on the water. He wasn’t sure how long these dishes had been sitting there — at least two weeks, considering how long he’d been stationed in Koholint, although it could easily be more. “Sorry about the mess,” he muttered as he began pawing around on the counter for a sponge. 

Legend dismissed his concern with a grunt and a wave of his hand. 

“Listen, I have tutoring until about six, but then after that I can grab something on the way home. Do you like pizza? Or there’s this decent Gerudo grill that’s not too far from the library, if it’s open I—”

“I can go to the store for us.” 

Hyrule glanced up from his frantic scrubbing to find Legend squinting at one of the soup cans in his hand. 

“Just tell me where it is,” Legend continued, picking up a second can. 

“Legend, you don’t have to—”

“Please,” he scoffed, gesturing to the room around them, “you’re letting me stay here for free ‘til I get back on my feet. The least I can do is help.”

“Oh.” Hyrule’s posture eased a bit as a smile softened his face. “That’s very kind, thank—”

Legend set the soup cans heavily on the counter between them. “These expired seven months ago.” 

Hyrule was only a few minutes late for his tutoring gig that afternoon. One hour of AP bio and three hours of organic chemistry later, he was feeling a bit fried, but there was still more to do. The bus ride home was a blur of flashcards and memorizing ascending and descending spinal tracts. He became so engrossed in his own studies that he’d nearly forgotten to expect someone in his apartment until he blindly opened the door.

The apartment was brightly-lit, the shoes he’d left piled by the door neatly arranged, there was soft music coming from the kitchen, and something smelled incredible. Hyrule cautiously followed his nose into the tiny kitchen to find Legend peering into the oven. Legend glanced up briefly and nodded his greeting. “Hope you’re hungry.” 

“I’m always hungry,” Hyrule replied as he curiously glanced around the kitchen. The sink was empty, a few pots and pans were drying on the rack, and there was a handful of fresh fruit on the counter. The pantry was restocked with boxes of cereal and canned vegetables and soups.

When the timer went off, Legend pulled a bubbling crock of macaroni and cheese from the oven. Hyrule’s stomach was audibly growling as he watched Legend spoon two heaping portions for them. They settled in across from one another at the flimsy card table in the corner. “Cheap and cheerful,” Legend said reflexively, seeming like he didn’t really hear the words as he said them. “Hope it’s not bad.”

When the first hot, gooey, savory spoonful hit his tongue, Hyrule was instantly in love. He hummed in appreciation as he set his spoon down on the table, leaning back in his chair to balance on just two legs. 

“Marry me,” he garbled around a mouthful of pasta. 

Legend glanced up at him through his bangs. “Pardon?”

Oh shit. Why did he say that?? Hyrule abruptly sat up, the legs of his chair loudly clacking onto the linoleum floor. It was a stupid thing, something he said without thinking, but he hardly knew this guy, he shouldn’t joke with him like that. Legend hadn’t even been here an entire day and Hyrule was already making it weird! 

Hyrule pulled his bowl a little closer to himself as though someone might come by to snatch it from him. “I said it’s great, thank you,” he mumbled, already shoving another spoonful into his dumb, stupid mouth. 

Chapter Text

Legend and Hyrule spent several months in that first apartment before the eviction notice came. The building was purchased by a new owner who, with no reason or explanation, gave them thirty days to get out. The notice unfortunately came at the worst possible time during Hyrule’s clinical rotations. 

“This is fucking bullshit.” Legend paced the tiny kitchen back and forth, throwing his arms in the air as he ranted and cursed. “I love how the lease gives the stipulation that we have to give three months notice and we get hit with penalties if we cut out early, but they can just tell us to get the fuck out with no warning?”

Hyrule sat at their little card table, his head in his hands as he stared at the notice in disbelief. He’d be done with his emergency rotation in two more weeks, and for that last week he was mainly on overnights. But he could probably look for new apartments during the day instead of sleeping. After that was eight weeks of internal medicine, and he knew he’d have on-call shifts at all hours…

Legend smacked the front of the refrigerator in his frustration. “Where the hell are we supposed to go!? Every apartment around here is already rented by this point in the semester! Anything else is going to be across town, we don’t have a car…”

No, he could make it work. Once his emergency rotation was over, his internal medicine shifts shouldn’t be so long, maybe only ten hours a day if he could keep up on his paperwork. And he could work it out with his rotation-mates to take most of his on-call shifts later on in the rotation so that he’d have time to pack and move… although, he really needed to start studying for boards around that time, too…

“This can’t be legal.” Legend was in his phone now, snarling as he tapped away at the screen. “Not like we can afford a lawyer or anything, but there has to be something we can do.”

Hyrule had… he’d never been evicted from a place before. He’d never really gotten ‘in trouble’ before in his life. No detentions, no bad grades. Hell, he had perfect attendance all through high school. This wasn’t something that happened to him. He’d never—

A soft tap darkened a spot on the eviction notice. Hyrule sat up, sniffling as he wiped at the dampness on his cheeks with numb surprise. He was so tired that he hadn’t even realized he’d started crying. 

When Hyrule lifted his face, Legend stopped in his tracks. The emotions passed through his eyes rapid-fire: shock, worry, anger, sympathy. “Hey,” he set his phone aside and quickly slid into his chair across from Hyrule. He reached out toward him, and for a moment Hyrule thought Legend was going to hold his hand. Instead, Legend set his palms over the letter, covering the words. 

“It’s okay, it’s not a big deal. We’re gonna figure this out.” 

“I don’t… I don’t know when I’ll be able to pack.” It seemed like a small, silly thing to get hung up on, but Hyrule was too tired to think beyond that.

“Don’t worry about it.” Legend’s voice was uncharacteristically soft. “I can pack up our stuff. That’s the easy part.” 

Hyrule couldn’t bring himself to argue, feeling his tired brain just sinking farther and farther into misery.

“Listen, I know you’re busy with school right now, and I can’t help you with that. But I can handle finding us a new place. I want you to focus on the important stuff. Let me worry about this, alright?”

Hyrule was so tired that his pride didn’t even argue. “Alright,” he sighed, rubbing the back of his hand across his eyes. 

***

One week later, he got a text from Legend while at the hospital. 

   Legend - 10:47pm

   Hey, I found us a place

   Can I start packing up your room?

Hyrule glanced up and down the hallway, finding none of his attendings in sight. He hovered close to the corner of the nurse’s station, setting down his clipboard so he could use both hands to type. 

   Hyrule - 10:49pm

   yea sure

   when do we move

   Legend - 10:49pm

   Tonight

Hyrule stared at his screen in disbelief for a few moments. The nurse sitting nearby watched his face become drawn and worried.

   Hyrule - 10:51pm

   im on an overnight tonight

   Legend - 10:51pm

   I have a few people who can help me get everything moved tonight

   It’ll be fine

Over the loudspeaker came the announcement that always made Hyrule’s heart race: “Code one, room three, all available personnel, code one.”

He didn’t have any time to argue. He didn’t have a moment to even think about Legend’s message again until he walked out the hospital entrance the following morning to find his friend there waiting for him. Legend explained how he’d met someone out at the bar who had a friend who knew this guy whose uncle owned this huge townhouse that had tons of available rooms. The bus ride across town was quick, the walk from the bus stop a couple blocks longer than he was used to, but when Hyrule opened the door to his new bedroom and saw all the boxes full of his belongings properly-labeled and organized, his relief was immense. 

He sank face-first into the pillows — the sheets smelled like Legend’s laundry detergent — and groaned at the pleasure of being horizontal. Legend reached to pull the door closed, but before he could, Hyrule called from the bed, “You didn’t have to do all this.”

Legend paused, lingering in the doorway. “You gave me a place to stay when I needed it most, ‘Rule. This is the least I could do.” 

In his gratitude and exhaustion, Hyrule couldn’t stop the admission from bubbling up: “I could marry you, y’know.” 

With the light from the hall silhouetting him in the doorway, Hyrule couldn’t make out Legend’s expression. But he could appreciate the smile in Legend’s voice. 

“Goodnight, Hyrule,” he replied before pulling the door closed. 

Chapter Text

The sun was setting earlier these days. The promise of autumn was crisp in the air, but Twilight was impervious to the cold. He walked along the city grid, winding his way around Termina and trying to not make it look too obvious that he kept glancing into his phone every block or so. He wasn’t lost, Twilight just wanted to be sure that he knew where he was going. And that his wallet and key were still in his pocket. And that no one weird was following him. 

He walked past a few bars, some too populated for him to feel comfortable squeezing into, some too dead for him to feel comfortable sitting alone at. He was starting to doubt this errand — maybe he should just go back home, spend the night in his phone like usual — but he’d come to Termina to avoid doing exactly that. He’d come here to live! To see what the world was like. 

“Hey Fi,” he spoke into his phone as he turned a corner, “find clubs near me.” 

Three dots circled on the screen for a moment. 

“There is a 97% chance this is what you are looking for.”

He’d expected Fun Fun Island to be some sort of kid’s play palace, but Fi didn’t let him down. He could hear the music bumping from outside on the sidewalk, and when the bouncer opened the door enough to let patrons in, fog and the flash of colorful lights spilled out of the establishment. 

After letting the hulking Goron at the door check his ID and forking over 35 rupees for entry, Twilight found himself awash in blacklight and the stench of cheap beer. He froze in the doorway, his eyes darting around to take in the stage and the bar and the motley crowd of mostly Hylian and Rito patrons, all covered in stickers and beads and clad in outfits that reflected brilliant neon in the blacklight. 

Twilight sucked in a breath. This sure as hell wasn’t no honky tonk back home. But his white t-shirt shone brilliant blue in the club, so maybe he could get along just fine—

He grunted as he was shoved from behind, and the splash of something cold left a splatter down the front of his shirt. 

“Ugh, sorry,” muttered a tall Zora as they side-stepped past him, all decked out in brilliant luminous jewelry. 

Twilight just stared in silence. 

Were they all that tall?

Once he’d wrung out the ends of his hair and buttoned up his flannel, Twilight decided to just dive right in. The dance floor took up about half of the venue, from what he could tell, and it was packed shoulder-to-shoulder with people dancing along to the beat. Twilight sandwiched among them, muttering his excuse me’s and so sorry’s as he passed. No one spared him a second glance. But the whole crowd moved together to the beat, leaving him with no choice to begin moving along with it, too. It helped him loosen up pretty quickly, and with no one here to impress, Twilight found it easier to just let go. 

The air was electric in the middle of the crowd, the bass thumping in his chest and the beat making goosebumps rise on his arms. He looked around in the crowd as he moved, looking like he was searching for someone. 

That’s how he spotted her. 

He could tell from behind that she was gorgeous. Pale golden hair spilled over her shoulders as she danced alone, her body swaying like a graceful Gerudo dancer. Her outfit was bright neon in the blacklight: jeans full of holes, a green neon fishnet top, and as she pulled her hair up and off of her neck, he was a little startled to realize that she might not have anything on underneath that revealing top, either. 

But she was thin and blonde and pretty, the exact kind of girl ma would love to see him bring home. So Twilight pushed himself further out into the sea of bodies, making his way toward her with determination. 

When he was close enough to her, he called, “Hey there.”

She didn’t turn. She didn’t even pause in her dancing. 

Twilight pursed his lips, glancing around in embarrassment. Okay, nobody saw that. So he cleared his throat and called a bit louder, “Hey there!!”

She lifted her arms in the air as the beat changed, dropping low to the floor before slowly rising again. She couldn’t hear him. 

Twilight’s face felt furiously warm as he leaned down closer toward her ear, still feeling like he was shouting, “Hey the—”

And that was the exact moment that she swung her head to the side, cracking him directly in the nose.

Twilight clasped both hands over his face as he doubled forward, cursing inwardly as pain radiated across his face. His dance partner stopped and turned, holding the side of her head, but she reached out right away to grab him by the shoulders with panic in her eyes. “Oh shit!! Are you okay!!?”

Twilight glanced up at her, too afraid to take his hands away and reveal his face. His vision swam — oh fucking Hylia, his eyes were watering because it hurt, not because he was crying, fuck — and he briefly wondered whether he could make a run for it. 

But before he could break away, the girl was ushering him toward the edge of the dance floor and into a dark corner near the bar. He could hear that she was talking, but he couldn’t understand a damn word over the music. 

“—didn’t even see you, I’m so sorry!!” She ushered him onto a barstool and bent down to look up into his face, reaching up to take his wrists. “Come on, let me see.”

Twilight slowly let his hands drop away, still too shy to meet her gaze. His eyes hovered around her waist, noticing now how the elastic hem of boxers peeked out above her jeans. His eyes trailed up gradually, fixating on the bare chest beneath that fishnet top, flat with jutting collarbones, on the hint of blonde stubble that had been missed along the cut of a squared jaw, and the bright blue eyes that were clouded with concern. 

Oh fucking hell, he came all this way to find himself a girl and he couldn’t even do that right—

“Well, it’s not bleeding.” Twilight’s companion glanced over the bar and, finding the bartender busy, reached over to help himself to a plastic cup of ice. He had to heft himself up onto the bar to reach that far, and Twilight floundered as the young man teetered forward dangerously across the bar top. 

“Th-that really isn’t necessary,” Twilight started, but the cup was shoved into his hands. 

“Just ice it for like five minutes! Then we can go back out.” He smiled brightly, pleased that he now felt like he’d helped. “What’s your name?”

“Link,” Twilight lifted the cup to press against the bridge of his nose, “I go by Twilight.” 

“Oo, I like that! I go by Wild Man, but all my friends call me Wild.”

Chapter Text

“So, what’s your story?”

Legend stared from beneath his bangs at the hulking shadow that darkened his doorway. It was impossible to see the man’s face, backlit by the hallway as he was, but he cut an imposing profile. Must be Twilight’s uncle. Legend subtly shrank into his cardigan a little bit more, furtively rubbing his thumb over the necklace he’d been in the middle of cleansing. 

Welp, this was it. He knew this arrangement was too good to be true. 

“You don’t care,” Legend replied drily. 

There was only a half-second pause before the man shook his head, taking a step backward and out of the doorway. “You know what? You’re right,” he said as he pulled the door shut. “Electric candles only, please. That’s a fire hazard.” 

“Whatever.” 

The candles surrounding Legend flickered as the door closed. He stared at the door, his ears perked and shoulders tense as he listened to the man’s footsteps fading back down the hall and vanishing down the stairs. He stared into the middle distance as he focused on listening to the voices in the kitchen: low, conversational. No yelling or fighting. 

Alright, then.

Legend carefully set his necklace on the floor in the middle of the circle he’d laid out, spreading out the chain and carefully moving off of the rug. It took only a few minutes of digging through cardboard boxes to find the black velvet satchel he sought. The act of shuffling his tarot deck was automatic, the softened edges of the cards soothingly familiar in this unfamiliar place. 

This had become a habit of Legend’s: when he wanted to know more about someone, rather than ask them directly, he could always ask his cards. 

Open shuffle, cut the deck, riffle it back into one. He spent several minutes in quiet focus, just listening to the voices downstairs and picturing the man’s profile. Open shuffle, cut the deck, and riffle — again and again, staring forward without really seeing, concentrating on what it was he wanted to know, on who he wanted to learn more about. 

He snapped the deck back together as soon as it felt right, and he swiftly drew three cards and laid them face down onto the carpet. Setting the rest of the deck aside, he turned them over one by one.

So, what did he need to know about this asshole?

The Three of Swords. 

Well, he could have called that just from looking at the guy. The entire townhouse reeked of dust and heartbreak and malaise. This guy was probably some old divorcee with a handful of kids who didn’t talk to him anymore. One could see it on the bare walls littered with tacks and the shadows of old picture frames, in the furnishings too large and too numerous to have been for a bachelor alone, in the cold and empty bedrooms that Legend and the other squatters had claimed for themselves. 

Alright, tell me something I don’t know.

The Wheel of Fortune in reverse.

Legend rested his elbows on his knees, his chin on his hands as he contemplated this card. When upright, it was a sign of good luck, of destiny and the cycle of life. In reverse, however, it demonstrated a refusal to set things in motion and move on, causing stagnation and frustration. Once again, could have called that without pulling out his damn deck; he could see “stubborn” written all over the way this guy pretended that his was a normal way to live. Feeling somewhat frustrated, Legend turned over the last card, expecting more of the same, but his heart sank as he set it down on the carpet. 

The Ten of Swords. 

This was one of the more grisly illustrations in his deck: the image of a man lying dead on the ground with ten swords driven through his back. Legend used to be startled when he would pull Death, but with knowledge and experience came a greater wariness of this card in particular. It heralded the beginning of the end of some trial and was marked by a painful transition. 

Like an act of violence, or a cataclysm, or a death. 

Legend sat staring at the spread for several uneasy minutes. It wasn’t like him to feel such empathy for a stranger. It almost made him regret consulting his deck in the first place. 

Once he felt he could think on it no more, Legend shuffled the cards back into the pile and cinched his velvet satchel snugly shut. He blew out his candles one by one, listening for the front door to close before he deigned to emerge from his room. Rather than heading down the stairs, though, he quietly crept up to the third floor instead.

Perhaps it was time to do a little bit of hands-on research, and what better way to start than going through the old man’s trash.

***

       Months Later                                

When he returned from the ranch following his Yuletide visit, Time was vainly hoping for some peace and quiet so that he could get to work on the logistics of relocation. Instead, he was set upon by the boys rather quickly. After surprising each of them with their own thoughtful Solstice gift, they each were eager to thank him in their own way. And well, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing to be distracted by, he supposed.

Twilight was the first to welcome him home. He gave Time a hug about the shoulders and an awkward but sincere request for help earning his motorcycle license. 

Wild wasn’t far behind, and his hug around Time’s middle was entirely too strong and too long. He promised, or perhaps threatened, to give Time a copy of every single mixtape he made from that point onward. 

Four was so amazed that Time was able to get his hands on a circular saw in that size. In his travels about the first floor unpacking and settling in, Time could see that Four simply wouldn’t stop talking about it to anyone who would give him a minute. 

When he made it to the second floor, Hyrule caught him to give his thanks before he left for the day. The student was shyly grateful for the access to Time’s rental property and promised he would make time to get away for a vacation after boards were out of the way. 

Warriors simply sent him a text that afternoon: “Are you going to tell me the limit on this credit card or do I need to find out for myself?”

Sky and Wind would have to wait to return to the house to be given their gifts. One person he didn’t hear from right away, though, was Legend. 

Later that evening, Time sat in his study alone. Hyrule was busy at the hospital, the other boys were down on the first floor talking over a movie they were supposed to be watching, and that gave Time a chance to look into real estate listings. Finding a big enough townhouse to fit everyone would be impossible. He needed to look for something that could reasonably be renovated to his… unique specifications. 

Time wasn’t expecting the knock at his study door, but it wasn’t entirely unheard of these days, either. “Yes?” he called, turning in his desk chair.

The door creaked open slowly, and in ducked Legend. He kept his face downcast as he closed the door behind himself, leaning against it for a moment as though he debated whether or not he really wanted to come in. Eventually, Legend lifted his head.

Oh, no.  

Legend wasn’t the warmest of the boys. He had a mouth on him like an angry old drunk and he often walked around the house looking pissed off about something or other. But Time was certain he’d never seen a look on Legend’s face like that before. He didn’t know Legend well enough to know what the crease in his brow meant, or why his lips were pressed together in a tight line.

Legend’s gift was the most involved and most personal of all the boys’, although certainly not the most expensive. Time knew that Koholint was a touchy subject for both him and for Hyrule, and understandably so. He had seen firsthand just how painful that memory was. And he thought that giving Legend the choice whether or not he wanted to see all the water-stained photos and documents and public records Time had collected, that leaving a note in his stocking him telling him where to find the envelope stuffed full of information, was the best way to go about it. It would give Legend the chance to decide whether he wanted to see the pictures of him and the red-haired girl whose portrait sat on his Morterra altar — photos of them all waterlogged and sitting on the edge of a cliffisde or crammed into a booth at a diner with three other kids their age or walking hand-in-hand along the beach — was the right way to do things. 

But maybe not. Maybe the shock of seeing the contents of that folder was just too much for him. Legend must be here to tell him that he’d gone too far, that he’d invaded Legend’s privacy. Time must have pushed a boundary.

Time swallowed as he stood from his desk, watching Legend hesitantly approach before he stopped in the middle of the study. Time took a step toward him but hesitated to reach out. 

When enough silence passed, Time quietly tried, “Legend?”

Legend opened his mouth, closed it again. His face twisted for a half-second before he hid behind his hair. Time startled as Legend threw himself forward, grabbing onto Time and taking big handfuls of his sweater and holding onto him tight.

And he cried. 

Time stood stiffly with his hands raised, unsure what he would do at first. Cautiously, he laid his hands down on Legend’s shoulders. When Legend didn’t flinch away, Time slowly encircled him with his arms and held him in silence. 

Because in that moment, he wasn’t Time. He was the owner of a cafe in a sleepy little resort town who looked out for Legend in subtle, quiet ways. He was a kindly uncle with a boisterous laugh who didn’t know the first thing about kids but took Legend in anyway and raised him as his own. He was the face next to Legend’s mother in a photo on the mantle, a voice Legend could never remember no matter how hard he tried to. 

Because in that moment, Time became someone else that Legend might miss someday. 

Eventually, Legend unlatched himself from Time’s sweater, stepping back and rubbing at his cheeks with his sleeves. “Sorry.” 

“No, it—”

“I shouldn’t have just barged in here like that—”

“Legend, it’s fine.” 

The two of them stood in silence for several seconds. Legend’s face was red and blotchy, and he avoided Time’s eye at all costs. Time wanted to comfort him but was at a loss for just how he should. Eventually, he ventured to ask, “Do you want to talk about it?”

Legend appeared to consider this for a moment before shaking his head. 

Time nodded once. “…Would you like to come and sit?”

Legend glanced up as Time gestured to his couch. 

“Hyrule won’t be home for a few hours, and I know I wouldn’t mind the company.” 

A few hours later, when Hyrule did return from his hospital shift, he crept quietly up the stairs. He bypassed the second floor on his way to the third, figuring he could easily get in an hour of study before he felt tired. The light was on in Time’s study, as it usually was at this hour. Hyrule knocked softly and didn’t wait for an answer before cracking the door and peeking in. 

Time glanced at him over the back of the couch, lifting one finger to his lips as he smiled. Hyrule wasn’t quite sure who he expected to find here as he stumbled in, letting his backpack thump to the floor by the wall before sneaking over to have a look. 

But he was quite sure he didn’t expect to find Legend, stretched out on his belly and breathing softly in sleep, his nose still a bit red and his hat pulled down over his eyes.

Chapter Text

The sun was just sinking below the horizon as Time rolled into the garage that evening. He put the car in park and cut the engine, and his ears rang in the silence. 

Three and a half hours in the car. Time closed his weary eye and let his head fall back against the headrest. He was sorely in need of a hot shower, some clean pajamas, and a good long sleep. 

He gathered his suitcase from the trunk and stood back to survey the townhouse as the garage door rolled shut. Well, looks like the boys hadn’t burned the place down after all, although the yard was looking worse for wear. He’d have to remind Wind that mowing the lawn didn’t take long, and that the cost of hiring landscapers would be passed directly on to his renters. Time eyed the gnarled rosebushes as he climbed the back porch steps and opened the door to enter his house. 

“No no nonono—“

“Wait!!”

“Stop, stop!!!!”

The door thumped to a halt just a few inches in, and Time took a wary half-step back at the eruption of panicked voices on the other side. “Boys?”

“Sorry, Sir!” came Wild’s cheerful answer, although he sounded much higher up than Time expected. “Just a sec!”

Time’s surprise was giving way to skepticism. He pushed the door open again only to be met with the same firm resistance. “What—”

“We’re in the middle of something!” Legend sounded like he was struggling to heft something twice his own weight. “Can you go around!?”

“Go aroun— Can I go around what?” Time’s mild annoyance turned to a fulminant frown. He winced as he pushed his face into what little opening he had, just a half-inch too tight to accommodate him comfortably. “What are you—”

“Woah, woah, easy!!”

“Steady there, Legend stop shaking.”

“Oh why don’t you try being on your knees down here, Sergeant Stuck-up!?”

“Because I’m the only one tall enough to hand Four the battery. Being bitter just takes another half-inch off of your height, you know.” 

It took Time a moment to make sense of just what it was he was seeing. His eye followed the pile of bodies up from the floor one by one: Legend on the very bottom, flanked on either side by Sky and Twilight, the three of them on all fours on the hallway carpet; kneeling on their backs, Wild and Hyrule wobbled as each of them tried to remain upright, each of them holding one of Wind’s feet to keep him secure to their shoulders; above them, Wind bent his knees and put his arms down at his sides so that Four could finish climbing to the top of their preposterous human pyramid. Barely audible over the cacophony of groaning and shouting orders was the slightest little chirp of a dying smoke alarm. 

“What in Farore’s name are you doing!?” 

“Isn’t it obvious?” Warriors snarked, keeping his eye toward the ceiling. 

“S-Sorry, Sir,” Twilight grunted beneath the weight of his friends that was transferred directly to his kidney courtesy of Wild’s bony knee. “The smoke detector battery was dying, and we wanted to replace it before you got back.” 

“Yeah, bad timing I guess!” Wild half-laughed. The rest of the pyramid swayed with the motion. 

“And why didn’t one of you think to get the ladder?” The annoyance was beginning to edge through Time’s voice.

“Ladder’s out in the garage,” Wind’s arms were shaking now too with the effort of keeping Four steady on his shoulders, “this is faster.” 

“This is not— Whose idea was this!?” Time glared up at the apex of the pyramid. “Four, I thought you were supposed to have the most common sense here!!”

“Nope,” Four answered nonchalantly, stretching as tall as he possibly could to open the smoke detector battery door, “but I am the lightest.” 

“And the fucking slowest,” Legend griped through gritted teeth. 

“Yeah, not to complain,” Sky’s voice wavered with the effort it took him to remain upright, “but could you move a bit faster up there?”

“Almost done,” Four assured them, reaching down to accept the new battery from Warriors.

Time’s gaze moved down the tower from one face to the next until finally, his darkened eye landed on Twilight. 

Twilight, who was Time’s intelligent, friendly, kindhearted nephew. 

Twilight, who was smiling with entirely too many teeth, the apology plain on his face.

Twilight, who got Time into this mess with eight unwelcome renters in the first place. 

Time sighed through his nose. “I should be surprised that you would come up with something so needlessly dangerous—”

“I know, I know.”

“—but somehow, I’m not. Somehow, this is perfectly in line with what I’ve come to understand of your critical thinking skills.”

“See nobody was actually sure where the ladder was—”

“Actually, no. This is a total lack of critical thinking skills, isn’t it.”

“—and Four just sort of mentioned that he could probably stand on someone’s shoulders, but nobody’s tall enough on their own—”

“It’s a wonder any of you get along in your day-to-day lives with how often you endanger your well-being. This household is singlehandedly keeping Hyrule General open for business.”

“—and by the time Warriors and Legend made the bet, Wind was already on his way upstairs to get the rest of the guys—”

“Hey, ‘Rule?” Warriors sounded concerned. “You alright there? You’re shaking a lot, buddy.” 

Hyrule’s answering silence was awfully suspicious. The pile of Links went quiet as they awaited Hyrule’s answer. 

“Rulie, talk to us,” Legend grunted, his arms shaking as they threatened to give out. 

“Mmm—” Hyrule’s face was pale and shiny with sweat, his knuckles white where they gripped Wind’s left shoe. “‘M afraid of h-heights…”

“It’s okay,” Wild tried to nudge Hyrule, making the rest of the pyramid shift to compensate, “just do what I do and close your eyes—”

“Oh for the love of Hylia, no! Don’t close your eyes, you’ll lose your balance!!”

As everyone started shouting at once, Hyrule’s panic escalated. He began to wobble on his knees, putting Wild off balance and making Wind and Four sway above them all. “Just one more second!!” Four shouted, stretching to his full height that was still just shy of him being able to snap the new battery in place. 

Time could see it coming from a mile away, and he grimaced as he watched Hyrule fold inward like a weak point in a house of cards. He couldn’t bear to watch, pulling his face out of the doorway and shutting the door as the entire pile of bodies came down like an avalanche behind it. 

Yes, perhaps Time should have just listened to Legend and gone around.

Inside, Warriors had safely retreated to the kitchen and was struggling not to laugh until after he’d confirmed that his friends were all okay. Twilight and Legend had been flattened beneath the rest of them, Sky having been spared most of the others’ weight when Hyrule fell away from him. Wild was yowling about his hair being caught under someone’s limbs as he struggled to push himself up. Hyrule swayed on the floor with his head in his hands, trying to get the ringing in his ears to stop. Wind was laughing loudly as he picked himself up off of the carpet; he’d somehow landed farther down the hall than everyone else. Four had landed on his feet like a cat at first, but in the effort to avoid stepping on anyone else’s toes or fingers, he’d stumbled backward and landed on his bottom with a startled oof!

And far above the pile, another soft chirp came from the alarm. 

“What the hell?” Warriors leaned into the hallway, staring up at the alarm and squinting against the glare of the ceiling lights. “It looks like you got the battery in it.”

Four stared in similar disbelief before beginning to pat himself down. He found what he sought in his breast pocket: a small square nine-volt battery. He turned it over in his hand before his shoulders slouched in defeat.

“Oh fuck,” Four sighed, “I put the old battery back in.” 

Chapter Text

Time sank into his seat, hunkering down like a pouting child as though all six feet of him could hide behind the passenger door. To his left, Malon’s face was periodically illuminated by street lamps as she guided their sedan onto the entrance ramp headed north, back toward home. The plink of rain on the roof and windshield was the only mercy in the otherwise tense silence of the car. Above them, the long evening darkness of Solstice yawned in the sky.

After about eight miles, Time finally cleared his throat. “I’m sorry for making a scene.” 

Malon sighed through her nose, glancing at him from the corner of her eye. Time was still scowling into the footwell, his arms folded across his chest as a storm brewed behind his eyes. 

“You didn’t make a scene,” she tried to soothe him. 

“I did.” He grunted as he sat up, running his hands first down his face, then up through his hair. “I just… I just can’t believe them sometimes.” 

There was a biting sort of bitterness in his tone. Malon waited quietly while Time gathered his thoughts.

“I just think that within reason, kids of his age should be able to pick things out for themselves. Things like what they want to wear for the day or what sort of toys they want to play with.” Time flexed his hands restlessly, like he needed to grab and squeeze something. “It was on his Solstice list. It’s not ‘weird’, there’s nothing dangerous about it, he’s a kid.”

“He’s just a kid,” Malon repeated softly in agreement.

“And did you see how happy he was when he opened it?” Time’s voice softened. “It was like he’d never seen a baby doll before.” 

Malon smiled as she exhaled the ghost of a chuckle. The way Twilight spent the rest of the day carrying around his soft stuffed doll, going so far as to sit with it in his lap at the dinner table, had warmed her heart.

“Maybe Rusl is just pissed off because he doesn’t want Twilight to grow up to be a better father than he is,” Time snapped. 

“Well, all the same,” Malon gently tried, “I’m not sure you should have argued the point when Rusl insisted he was too old for it.” 

“He’s three!!” 

“Honey,” Malon set a hand on his arm. Time grumbled an apology for shouting. He shifting in his seat as he stared out the passenger window, falling silent as he gathered his patience.

“Uli did pull me aside.” 

Time’s head snapped to look back at Malon. “Did she?”

Malon nodded grimly. “She apologized for Rusl. She said that they didn’t want Twilight to grow up having ‘girl-toys.’ When I asked her why, she didn’t have an answer.” 

Time shook his head as he turned back toward the road. “It’s not harming anyone, is it? Just Rusl’s fragile masculinity.” 

Malon snorted.

“It’s just so… They have such a beautiful family. He’s… Twilight is such a nice kid.” If Malon didn’t know better, she would swear Time was beginning to tear up. “It’s just not right—”

“Sweetheart, I know.” 

Her hand on his thigh was a gentle, grounding weight. 

“I know you’re upset. And I’m so sorry.” 

Time let his arms fall heavily into his lap. “You do not need to apologize—”

“No, I— I get it. I’m disappointed too.”

Time turned toward the window. The line of his shoulders was tense. 

“This is just awful timing, isn’t it? This was going to be a hard Solstice no matter what.” 

The fabric of Time’s coat shifted as he lifted a hand to his face. She could tell he was holding his breath. Malon reached up to squeeze his shoulder, regretful that she couldn’t pull over and pull him into her arms. 

It took another three miles before Time found his voice again, reaching down to squeeze Malon’s hand in his lap. “I shouldn’t even be letting you drive right now—”

“Please,” Malon shook her head, keeping her eyes forward, “I had a miscarriage, Link, I’m not helpless.” 

By the time they pulled into the driveway back home, the silence between them was much more calm and understanding. Malon rolled to a stop and cut the engine, bathing the interior of the car in darkness. Above them, the townhouse sat framed among raindrops on the windshield. 

So many rooms, all still empty. 

Time leaned across the center console until his cheek rested against her shoulder. Malon laid her arm across his back, squeezing him gently as she pressed a kiss to his temple. Slowly, Time slid down until he could lay his head in her lap, closing his eyes with a wavering sigh. Malon looked up at the ceiling of the car as she stroked through his hair, fighting back the familiar sting. 

The two of them sat there for a long while, aching in the heavy silence of what could have been.  

Chapter Text

“Should we say something?”

Warriors followed Twilight’s gaze across the crowded bar. The pair sat clustered at a high-top table near the wall, chairs piled with their coats and half-finished drinks scattered across the tabletop. They shared the table with the newest of Wild’s ‘friends,’ Legend, who sat hunched over a dark glass of alcohol, his painted fingers splayed over the top like someone might slip him something the moment he looked away. It was Twilight’s third night in a row out in Termina. 

It didn’t take long for Warriors to find what worried Twilight. Near the stage, Wild had been dancing alone while the others took a moment to rehydrate. He’d apparently attracted the attention of a very tall, very broad Hylian man who was trying to talk to him over the booming bass. Twilight knew how futile that was; he unconsciously reached up to rub at the bridge of his nose, finding it was no longer sore where Wild had clocked him. 

Warriors frowned as he shook his head. “N’ah.” 

Twilight tilted his head forward in disbelief. Seeing his reaction, Legend deigned to look up from his drink and train his eyes on the dance floor. 

Wild smiled and shook his head at the stranger, making what Twilight could only guess was some excuse. Although Twilight didn’t know Wild half as well as Warriors seemed to, and maybe it wasn’t his business to get involved, he still couldn’t help the uneasy lurch in his stomach as the man set a hand on Wild’s shoulder, preventing him from turning away as he kept trying to talk with him. 

“Should we do something?” Twilight tried again, shifting in his seat. 

Warriors lifted his drink to his lips to take a pull from his straw. He shook his head. 

Wild put up his hand this time and shook his head more emphatically, even though the smile remained on his face. When he tried to turn away a second time, now the man grabbed him by the wrist. Twilight jerked upright in his chair, and the tabletop lurched as Legend used it to push himself to his feet, the legs of his stool scraping the floor. 

But Warriors grabbed Legend’s arm just as someone else’s hand fell on Wild’s other shoulder. From out of the writhing masses on the dance floor emerged Sky, not just awake and alert but fixing Wild’s unwelcome new friend with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. 

Twilight knew that Sky had a girlfriend. “Sunny,” Sky called her when Twilight had asked. Saying her name softened something in him, breaking through the perpetual cloud that seemed to hang over him since they’d met. So Twilight certainly didn’t expect to see Wild emphatically throw his arms around Sky’s neck, nor for Sky to wind an arm about his waist and nod a curt dismissal to Wild’s apparent suitor. 

It was one of Sky’s more direct tactics for defusing such situations, Twilight would learn. Sky would be more subtle in a few weeks time when Twilight’s manners would have him tethered to some chatty fella at the bar for too long and Sky would come up to interrupt and offer Twilight a drink. Or, on a night farther in the future in Castle Town when Four would be doggedly pursued, Sky would get in some stranger’s face and cause enough of a scene that the boys would have to leave the club immediately. 

As it was, this stranger got the hint. Sky and Wild moved away across the dance floor, and once they were far enough away Wild leaned up to whisper something in Sky’s ear. And then they pair were laughing together, hanging on one another briefly, a little friendlier than Twilight imagined they would be. But then they broke apart, and then Wild was dancing wildly again, and it was like nothing had interrupted his good time. 

“See that,” Warriors emphasized, setting down his now empty glass, “is why we don’t need to do anything. Another round, gentlemen?”

Chapter Text

The Yiga had gone above and beyond to prepare Champion for his mission. From the moment he’d been drafted into the infiltrative program, the physical and mental training he’d undergone had been brutal. There was hardly a time during his youth when he wasn’t bruised or bandaged in some way. He’d been beaten, starved, had broken more bones than he cared to count. He took his first life before he turned fifteen, all to prove himself worthy of the honor of serving the Demon King, all to help bring about His second Great Calamity.

The Sheikah would do this to him and much worse, he’d been warned, if it was discovered that he was a Yiga spy.

In spite of all this, the Yiga hadn’t truly prepared him for what to expect from the Royal Guard training program.

“Ready?”

Champion sank into a low, easy stance, leaning into his back foot and raising his wrapped fists to guard his face. Across the ring, a taller recruit with fair blonde hair and the whitest teeth Champion had ever seen—another Link, the third in their class, who went by ‘Warriors’—wore that same peculiar smile he always seemed to pin Champion with.

“Last chance to back out,” Warriors teased, but there was an undercurrent of warning in his tone. It might have made Champion uneasy if his opponent’s stance wasn’t too wide, his elbows far out to his sides.

Sloppy. He would make quick work of this one.

At the sound of the whistle, they were on one another. Champion only took a half-step forward, allowing Warriors to come at him and throw the first punch. His strikes were easy to dodge, he broadcast his intentions like no other, and he left wide enough openings that Champion could make quick strikes at his ribs and his chest and the soft parts of his middle. Each time Warriors missed Champion got another quick hit in, and each time those hits landed Warriors’s face would turn more and more red.

Champion took his time tiring the taller recruit out. Gradually, the confidence in Warriors’s smile soured to subtle uncertainty, then to annoyance, then to something more akin to furious desperation.

This would be easier than Champion thought.

Sparring sessions were common in both the Yiga’s training program and the Royal Guard’s. A practice borrowed from Sheikah culture, it pitted recruits against one another one-on-one to give them the chance to sharpen their skills on those of similar merit, if not equals. To the Yiga, it helped weed out those who could not perform. In the Guard, it helped instructors gauge the recruits’ physical prowess and discern which programs they might be more or less fit for. One’s desires played a role in their Guard career, but of equal weight and measure was their aptitude.

When Warriors lashed out with his fist aimed at Champion’s face, it seemed like he actually intended to follow through this time. It was the first real threatening strike he’d made during their entire spar. But he overextended himself, and Champion was much faster. He stepped to the side and grabbed Warriors by the forearm, using his momentum to send him stumbling beyond where he stood. Warriors reached back to grab Champion’s arm and pull him down with him.

Warriors aimed for his shoulder. Instead, he ended up grabbing him by the hair.

There was an unintelligible shout from the drill sergeant, but Champion moved like lightning. He took Warriors’s legs out from underneath him and dropped him flat on his back. Warriors cried out as the back of his head bounced off of the floor, reaching up to hold it and leaving the rest of his body open.

Champion fell to his knees as the first whistle sounded, straddling Warriors’s waist to pin him down. The first hit he landed drew blood. On the second, Champion cut his knuckles on Warriors’s teeth. By the third, two other recruits tried pulling him off with no success before the drill sergeant grabbed Champion and yanked him back by his shirt.

“What’s the matter with you!?” Champion stumbled into a standing position, straight and tall. Internally, his heart was pounding. What did he do wrong?? That was a clear threat—

“You are not to draw blood during a spar!” Wisps of Champion’s hair tickled his cheeks as his sergeant shouted in his face. Champion’s face was placid as he waited for the strike from their sergeant that never came. “You’re not here to settle any personal scores, and you are not here to kill one another.”

Champion’s throat bobbed as he swallowed, keeping his gaze on the far wall. “Yes, sir.”

“And you!” The drill sergeant turned on Warriors, whose hands shook as he wiped the blood from his upper lip. “There is no hair pulling here, this isn’t a fucking cheerleading competition!”

“Yes, sir,” Warriors replied miserably, sniffling as blood continued to pour out of his left nostril.

“Get yourself to the infirmary. You’re done for the day.”

*****

For such a fearsome force as the Hyrulean crown’s personal guard, their training regimen was pathetic. Early morning marches were carried out in full gear that protected them from the elements. Three square meals were provided each day along with soft drinks and often dessert. Their ‘surprise’ bunk inspections came at predictable intervals, and the only punishment for slovenly living was extra cleaning duty. There were no nights gone hungry, no sleep deprivation, and no corporeal punishment to be had. Internally, Champion scoffed when he was ordered to perform fifty push-ups for a single wrinkle in his shirt.

Alongside physical and didactic training, sparring was a regular occurrence with daily challenges among the recruits at the end of practice. The pairings seemed random, but Champion made careful mental notes of which recruits were pitted against one another. They seemed to be falling into unspoken ranks that were obvious to him. It was a few weeks after the bandage came off of Warriors’s nose that Champion was chosen to face another of his classmates.

“Low hits are one point, high hits are three. Nothing above the shoulders or below the belt. The two of you ready?”

Champion stood easy and relaxed, holding the bamboo staff he’d been given for training that day. The exercises had been familiar Gerudo drills, and he felt good by the end of practice. At the opposite side of the ring, one of his more unassuming classmates was busy dusting his hands with chalk. ‘Sky,’ they called him, was a Link from the windswept Tabanthan Frontier. Although he had aspirations of being a pilot, he was a daydreamer. There was more than one incident so far when he was called out in class for falling asleep in his textbook and sent for a brisk jog about the quad. Such punishments did nothing for his stamina; Sky struggled back into class each time, standing at the front of the room and heaving red-faced as he wheezed out his apologies to his classmates. Still, somehow Sky was popular. Unlike Champion, he was never without company when it was time for lunch, and even his one-sided rivalry with one of the largest recruits, a redheaded young man named Groose, didn’t seem to ruffle him.

Champion hardly gave their match-up a second thought. He sank into his ready stance across the ring, wringing his hands about the grips of his staff. As Sky took his own staff in hand, several of their classmates called out their encouragement.

“Get ‘im, Sky!!”

“Lay him out!”

“You got this!”

Sky mirrored Champion’s stance, sinking lower into his knees than Champion expected from someone of his build. As Champion took two steps to his right, Sky followed. Champion paused, his eyes narrowing briefly as he took two steps back. Again, Sky matched him pace-for-pace like a prowling dog.

Champion suppressed a grimace, his jaw tightening.

At the sound of the whistle, they both sprung toward one another, staffs raised in defense. Sky kept his weapon high, leaving him wide open for Champion’s naturally lower strikes, and Champion dared to be the first to lash out. It would have been a neat and easy strike to Sky’s thigh if his reaction time wasn’t so quick. The solid crack of wood-on-wood reverberated up Champion’s wrists to his elbows, and he hopped back briskly, surprised but not dismayed.

Much to his surprise, rather than resting on his laurels, Sky sprang forward. There was a fearless sort of concentration in his eyes as he lashed out, transferring all of his force from his back foot into his leading arm. Champion caught the strike without properly bracing for the weight behind it. Sky’s force sent him reeling back several steps. Unlike with Champion’s earlier sparring partner, there was purpose behind that strike.

Champion tossed his head to brush the hair from his eyes as he re-set his stance. He wasn’t going to win against Sky in a contest of strength.

Sky and Champion danced around one another for several rounds, successfully blocking one another most of the time and occasionally landing some solid hits. Sky wasn’t susceptible to Champion’s feint, although Champion was still quick enough that Sky sported a few bright red welts on his forearms. Champion picked up on the subtle signals in Sky’s stance—the cock of his head, which way his toes pointed—and often that was his only warning he had before his opponent struck. Although Champion was fast, Sky’s strength meant that he didn’t go unscathed. Several strikes to his shoulders and two crushed fingers later, Champion was actually starting to feel winded.

There was something to be said, too, about the way he felt with Sky’s eyes on him like this. Sky’s level of focus was so intense as to be unsettling. He didn’t react to the heckling from their audience, although Champion supposed most of those verbal barbs were meant for him. When Sky landed a particularly vicious strike, the cheer that went up from their class was met with a bark for silence from their drill instructor.

Riding on the sting from that last strike, Champion decided he was done with their dance. They had focused on simpler moves in training with these weapons, but Champion had trained on the spear years before under a vicious one-eyed Gerudo wench. So he played a bit dirty, twirling his staff in front of himself in a display meant to intimidate and distract, earning a few gasps from their audience.

But Sky’s attention never faltered. He stayed focused on Champion’s face as Champion spun forward, his feet leaving the ground as he wound his entire body to take advantage of the momentum. But rather than lunging upward Champion leapt forward, right into Sky’s range, and the move put his back to his opponent for less than a second.

The sound of bamboo whistling through the air warned Champion that he’d made the wrong call. But he was already airborne, and his head whipped around just as Sky lunged forward with his weapon outstretched and aimed not for his middle, where Sky was expecting him higher, but right for his head. Champion was spinning right into his strike, his arms too far behind himself to defend and no way to dodge. So Champion screwed his eyes shut, waiting for the crack against the back of his skull like a shotgun blast.

Instead, he felt the end of Sky’s staff tangle in his short ponytail before scraping down his shoulder and snapping against the wooden floor. Champion caught the whites of Sky’s nervous eyes, he knew what had almost just happened. Unlike Sky’s decision to falter, though, Champion continued his twist right into his swing.

But instead of catching his shoulder, Champion dropped his aim at the last minute and caught Sky in the leg.

The abrupt redirection cost him his balance, and Champion grunted as he hit the floor. He relinquished his hold on his staff as the whistle sounded again, reaching up to touch the back of his head in disbelief. Their drill sergeant was already addressing the class, talking about form and speed and reading their opponent. Before Champion could get his feet under him, someone stepped in much too close at his side.

“You alright?”

He snapped his head around so quickly that his neck nearly cramped. Above him, Sky was smiling down at him, holding out a hand.

Champion stared. He couldn’t find it in himself to open his mouth, but he did lift his hand to meet Sky’s.

Sky took ahold of Champion’s hand and pulled him right back onto his feet. “You’re so fast!” he exclaimed, clapping a hand on Champion’s shoulder gamely. “You really know your way around any weapon they give us, huh? Great job!”

Champion’s head bobbled on his neck as Sky jostled him. “…Yeah.”

If Sky was phased by Champion’s lackluster response, he didn’t show it.

As they were dismissed Sky was swallowed up in the sea of their classmates, and Champion moved mechanically along with the others, first to the locker room to shower, then across campus for dinner. Although he walked at a bewildered snail’s pace, he felt like he vibrated as he entered the mess hall alongside the rest of his class. As usual, he had no conversations to share with any of his classmates. He was busy monitoring his periphery and keeping an eye on the exits as he shuffled along in line with the others to be given food that they needn’t prepare themselves.

Champion murmured his thanks as the woman behind the counter put a fried egg on top of his burger. There was once, when he was on watch at the hideout, that he’d pilfered an egg and cooked it on a hot rock in the desert sun. Had he been discovered, he would be missing some fingers.

“So…”

It wasn’t until he hit the end of the line that Champion nearly ran face-first into his next trial of the evening. Warriors always fixed Champion with a smile that was a bit different from the one he showed to everyone else. Warriors took a half-step forward, directly into Champion’s space, forcing the smaller man to look up at him.

“How does it feel to have cheated your first spar without drawing blood?” The steely look in War’s eye had only worsened since their first—and last—spar.

“He didn’t cheat.”

Champion’s ears twitched upward in surprise. Both he and Warriors turned to find Sky approaching them from the opposite side of the mess hall. Although Sky had fluffy hair and soft, rounded features, there was something in the way he carried himself that exuded a quiet sort of confidence.

Warriors frowned as he folded his arms across his chest, giving Champion back some of his space. “Then what would you call that fancy footwork he pulled out at the last second?”

“I call it skill.” Sky stepped right up next to Champion as though they’d talked with one another since the first day of boot camp, like they knew each other since they were kids. “Is that not something you’re familiar with, coming from such a long line of knights?”

Now, Champion was never one to shy away from conflict on principle, but the frigid silence that settled between the trio as Warriors stared Sky down made restless tension gather in his lower back.

“All I’m saying,” Warriors’s voice had dropped an octave, “is that it’s a little odd that certain recruits seem so much more adept at sparring than others.” There was nothing friendly in the smile he sharpened at Sky, and Champion’s hackles raised as Warriors fixed him with the same look. “Where was it you said you were from, again?”

“You don’t need to answer that, come on,” Sky said to Champion as he moved forward, leading with his shoulder and forcing Warriors to take a step to the side so that they could pass. “Don’t tell me you feel threatened, Wars.”

“Threatened?” Warriors scoffed, setting his hands on his hips as he rolled his eyes up toward the ceiling. “Please! As if I can’t hold my own against you lot of backwoods enlistees.”

The petty jab didn’t land as Sky led the way across the mess hall. Once they were far enough away he veered to the right, and Champion instinctively followed. Sky moved to a seat on one side of a long, mostly-empty table. Champion, rather than taking the empty seat across from him, set his tray down right next to Sky.

The only hint that he’d done something odd was the half-second glance from Sky, but it was there and gone in an instant. “Don’t listen to him,” Sky said as he settled in, moving to give Champion a bit more space so that they could half-turn toward one another. “He’s just got a case on himself ‘cause he’s a legacy.”

Champion nodded, forgetting to begin eating, himself, until Sky took his first bite. He’d heard some of the other recruits use the term ‘legacy’ before. He still wasn’t sure what it meant.

“Name’s Link,” Sky nodded through a mouthful of food. “You are too, right?”

Champion paused in loading up his first forkful of meat and mashed potato. “Yeah.”

“Call me Sky.” He sat back, now finished with his bite, and reached out with a hand. For the first time in his life, Champion fumbled with his fork in one hand and cup in the other. He ended up reaching out with the wrong hand and awkwardly gripping Sky’s fingers in an attempt at a handshake.

“… Champion.”

Chapter Text

It had been a long, long night of work. It was one of Time’s first late nights in service to the Queen of Hyrule after his move to Castle Town. Thankfully it hadn’t been an especially violent one, but… the suspense. The waiting. The pressure of sitting with his thumb on a button, ready to call in a squadron of armed men to descend on a building that might be vacant or might be teeming with Yiga footsoldiers.

The fear that he was wrong about the whole thing. Frankly, the fear that he might be right.

In the end, five people were taken into custody with no blood shed. Once they were turned over to the Sheikah, Time could finally retire. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning by the time he turned the key in the back door of the townhouse. His lower back was aching, his feet hurt something fierce, and the tightness in his neck was second only to the yawning emptiness in his stomach. Gods, but he was hungry after a day like today.

The first floor was devoid of life at this hour. The nightlight over the stove softly illuminated the kitchen for him as Time dumped his work bag onto the floor and lumbered toward the fridge. He didn’t want anything that came out of a box, he wasn’t in the mood for leftovers, and even though he really wanted a hot meal he didn’t want to risk waking the boys by reheating something. He dug through the myriad of containers labeled with initials and threats, searching for something quick and easy to—

“Shhh! St-…”

Time froze as he stepped back from the refrigerator. His arms were full of condiments and cold cuts and the remains of some sad-looking lettuce. Slowly, the refrigerator door swung closed as his ears strained in to the darkness of the house.

He wasn’t alone.

But upon further inspection of the kitchen, he should have known. There was a bowl and a spatula in the sink and a used cookie sheet on the stovetop.

Wild wouldn’t have left dirty dishes out overnight. Not unless they were used well after the dinnertime cleanup, which usually meant that Wild wasn’t baking by himself.

Time shook his head as he turned and made his way toward the kitchen table, grabbing a loaf of bread along the way. He normally wouldn’t care that any of the boys were up so late aside from a passing remark, but the fact that they were hiding could only mean one thing. And sure enough, as he stood by the table and set about making himself a sandwich, he could smell the telltale proof that some of the boys were doing something they shouldn’t have been.

Time shook his head with an internal sigh. Not terribly slick, are they. He turned his blind eye—both literal and proverbial—to some of the decisions his boys made. He had known from the moment he’d met Legend that his grumpiest tenant had some dubious recreational habits. But Legend was a good kid who needed a safe haven. Time had decided long ago that he’d much rather them do that sort of thing at home, where they would be safe. Two tenants hiding beneath the kitchen table trying to stifle their laughter was much preferable to two boys unaccounted for.

So Time ignored them. He set out two pieces of fresh bread and began building his sandwich. He started with condiments, mustard for one side and mayonnaise for the other. But somehow Time lost his grip on the mustard as soon as he opened the bottle. It bounced to the floor at his feet, leaving an ugly yellow smear on the linoleum.

Quietly he groaned, stifling an unnecessary oath. Beneath the table, the soft laughter had gone silent.

Time leaned across the table to grab a napkin and wipe the spilled mustard off of his hand before bending down to pick up the bottle. But before he could reach to get it himself, a many-ringed hand was sneaking it back up onto the tabletop, already capped again.

Time paused, wiping off his fingers and waiting to see if they had a solution for the spilled mustard.

He couldn’t quite see them from his angle, but he could make out the swiftness of Legend’s hand gestures at Wild from the clinking of his jewelry. It carried on for a few seconds before slowly, with the careful urgency of a prey animal trying to cover its tracks, two thin arms snuck out from beneath the kitchen table.

And Wild proceeded to scoop up the spilled mustard bare-handed before retreating back to the safety of their hiding place.

Time’s head hung before he slowly shook his head in disbelief.

The kitchen remained silent as he continued putting together his late dinner. He piled slices of ham and Swiss cheese on the bed of half-wilted lettuce, ignoring the hand that snuck up to swipe a piece of lunchmeat before he could get the package closed. He settled in his seat at the table, tucking his boots beneath his chair so that he didn’t kick or step on anyone, and he took his time eating his dinner. Once he was finished he rinsed his plate in the sink and put all of his ingredients away, then took a moment to set up the coffee maker for the morning.

Once everything was back in its place he grabbed his work bag, ready to head upstairs and maybe get some pajamas on before landing facedown in his bed.

“Pssst!”

Time stopped in the kitchen doorway. He turned back to find that on the table, empty just a moment ago, there sat a plate.

On closer inspection, he found that the plate held three-and-a-half chocolate chip cookies, still warm and soft from having recently come from the oven. And no, they didn’t smell tainted by anything illicit.

After a considering hum, Time helped himself to the largest cookie, holding it in his teeth as he hefted his work bag up the stairs.

Yes, it was much preferable to have the boys at home.