"Hey, are your parents home right now? F—fuck, sorry, your grandma, I was going to call Zel and then I started panicking and just called you. Your sisters? You?" Link blinked for a moment. Sheik sounded more than a little rushed, panicked, and nervous—which he never was. Sheik was the most chill person Link had ever met, except for maybe Midna, and it took a lot to get him upset, or even worried. Easy to piss him off, but…
"…I'm home. Linkle's in the den with Aryll and her friend. Grandma too. Why? What's wrong? You okay?"
Sheik let out a slow, shaky breath, and Link felt his blood run cold. He swung his legs off of his bed, leaning forward, and jabbed the remote with his free hand. The television went black, the chatter of whatever the fuck he'd been staring at for the past twenty minutes going silent.
"…So don't freak out. Well, no, freak out, I'll be pissed if you don't, but—okay, so, firstly, I'm staying on the phone with you 'till I get there. So do not hang up and I swear to the fucking Three if your phone dies I will fucking kill you, got it?"
That made him frown. Sheik usually called Midna when he knew he was being paranoid about things, or thought it safer to be talking to someone instead of not.
"Sheik—"
"No, Link, if this call drops or whatever the fuck, you call the fucking cops. The Hero, I don't fucking know—somebody. 'Cuz I'll probably be dead."
"What the fuck is going on, Sheik?" It wasn't really a question, more of a demand, and Link was on his feet before he knew it, gaze darting to his closet and the box he kept hidden at the bottom of it because Sheik sounded terrified and if he was in danger Link was going just fuck it and go down there without his—
"I have a stalker."
….what?
"What!?"
"A week ago I got this letter. Unaddressed, just a blank envelope. Wasn't really thinking, so I opened it when I got upstairs. Just had this notecard, completely blank except for the word 'hello'. Typed, like, with ink—typewriter, not computer. So, you know, whatever. Linkle's always playing around with those mystery things so I figured she was just being herself. Threw out the rest, because you know I don't have time for that shit with exams coming up. Then I got a few more, and they started coming more frequently, then finally this envelope arrived, also unmarked."
There was rustling, Sheik's voice shifting as if he was moving a lot while speaking. Packing, Link realized. He was still at the apartment?
"Sheik—"
"No, just—just listen, okay? I mean—I'm not stupid, I changed all the locks and shit and—deadbolts, okay? Blew my paycheck on that shit, started setting shit up in my apartment because I'm a paranoid fuck."
"Wait a minute, Sheik—"
"There was a bunch of pictures, Link."
"…I'm grabbing my keys."
"No, I'm already out the door. Pictures aren't what's making me leave."
"How's that—"
"They weren't of me in the apartment or anything. In class, at the café, walking places, and going into the apartment, but that was it. I was still thinking it was Linkle, so I grabbed the rest of the notes—'cuz you know recycling never comes, so they were still hanging out in the bin—and read through them. Weird shit."
"Like?"
"Asking a bunch of questions. 'Is your favorite color blue?' or 'Is your favorite drink a smoothie' and shit like that. All right—or, you know, as right as they can be, with me—but all posed as a question. Like, what? Am I supposed to respond to that shit? Fuck that! Fuck no!"
"So there's someone—"
"They were in my apartment last night. Or this morning. I woke up really late."
"…Where's Midna? Is she—"
"No one's with me. That's why I'm going to your place. Probably wouldn't have noticed, but the asshole sat in the squishy chair. Rolled over and saw the ass print and called you."
And Link realized why Sheik wasn't calling the cops. No one would take that as evidence, or notes asking seemingly innocent questions without threats seriously. And they wouldn't take anything Sheik said as the truth, either. But he would. Midna would. Linkle would. Especially because of the squishy chair—they took anything to do with it very seriously.
Zelda, too, but she'd try calling the cops first thing and that would put them back at what they were trying to avoid. Or, Sheik was, anyway.
"Did they threaten you or anything?" Link asked, and he closed his bedroom's door behind him quietly, squeezing his phone tightly as he waited for a response.
"N—no. That's the issue. Part of it, anyway. I take the breaking into my house as a threat, y'know, but…"
"And you changed your locks before you woke up?"
"Yeah. After I saw the pictures. Like…two days ago."
"Did you call Zel?"
Sheik let out a slow breath, and Link could almost hear him shaking his head.
"No. I don't…before this shit started she walked in on Midna trying to take my pants off, and Midna…" Sheik trailed off, voice dropping as he nearly mumbled it.
Oh.
Oh.
Midna would've been…absolutely crushed. And Zelda mortified.
"To be fair, we weren't fucking or anything. She'd been playing around and dumped one of those stupid juice boxes on my lap, and freaked out because she hadn't intended to go that far."
"Sounds about right. So, what? Zel's been avoiding you since?"
"My sister saw my junk, Link. I don't really want to see her right now either."
That made Link blink, his face heating as the image came to mind.
"Thought you said she was trying—"
"Well when I saw Zelda standing there I sort of stopped trying to hold my jeans up and Midna had grabbed my—I can't keep talking about this. It was bad. Just leave it at that and don't ever mention it again."
He laughed, though the sound was strained. Sheik was trying hard to alleviate the tension in the air. He was upset, scared…but it wouldn't be much longer before he arrived, if he was running. Link would stay on the line with him the entire time, but…it was good, that the subject was being changed. Talking about it would stress him out more, until he was safe.
And Link was going to murder whoever was scaring his best friend that badly, once Sheik was safe.
"You guys really gotta pick a thing to go with, though. Sister or cousin." Link said, forcing his tone to be lighter than it was, and he leaned back against his door. Sheik let out a sound that was halfway a noise of protest and halfway a laugh.
"No, it doesn't matter."
"Yes, it does. Oren came into the restaurant yesterday and was asking about it, I thought she was damn near ready to start yelling incest."
"Then just tell people she's like a sister. And tell Oren to stay the fuck away from her."
"You're mistaken, my friend. She was fishing for you." She had also accused Zelda of being a whore, but Link had put a stop to that pretty damn quickly. Unfortunately, working as a waiter meant that he couldn't tell her to get the fuck out of the diner, but Yeto was kind enough to do that himself.
"I'm not going to even dignify that with an answer."
"You just did."
"…Somebody spray painted our wall. More of that Hero shit." Sheik muttered after a moment, sounding irritated.
Link winced, inwardly, but was glad he was that far already—Sheik was fast when he wanted to be.
"You really don't like him, do you?" He asked, and congratulated himself on keeping the tension in his voice to an absolute minimum.
"I know you think the guy breathes rupees, Link, but seriously. You let one kid start a fire and everybody's doing the same damn thing and now look. We've got the Shadow and the Chaos Witch and the Dark King and the Usurper and that sadistic diamond fuck, and none of them are sitting around playing nice with Castle Town or its people. I swear to the Three, most of them are just around because of the Hero or the—shit, what's her name? The Twilight Queen? And the other one?"
"You know more bad guy names than you do superheroes. That's a problem, Sheik."
"Because they go around murdering and killing and stealing and blowing shit up! The rest of the suckers aren't an issue because they don't do anything!"
"They try to stop them, succeed most of the time—"
"Yeah, yeah, I know, please don't lecture me. Got nothing against the dumbasses, but they're stupid. And you'll help me spray paint over that shit, right?"
Link winced again, out loud this time, and sighed.
"Yeah. What color? I think we've gone through the entire rainbow alre—no, don't even ask—"
"We haven't done all the colors! Let's do it!"
"We're not painting a rainbow—"
And then Sheik said two words that pretty much shut down any argument Link could have had.
"Splatter paint."
"…Doing this tonight or…?"
"…I'll call Zel. Gotta do that soon anyway, I haven't checked in with Syrup in a while. Unless you want to…?"
"Not happening."
Sheik had refused to move in with Zelda, after his aunt had died. He wanted nothing to do with his other aunt, Zelda's mother, even though she'd made the offer—which had spoken volumes for her character. He respected her, Link thought, but…he was strange.
"But she'll—shit, we can't tell her about this. The stalker. I finally got her off my back about the morgue!"
Link didn't know what the issue was—Sheik did not like talking about his past or his family issues, and neither did Zelda—but he knew Syrup thought it was inappropriate for him to work with corpses, or to enjoy his work as much as he did. He and Zelda had considered it a triumph, when she'd stopped telling him to quit his job….mostly because Zelda wanted to be a police officer, and Syrup was set against that as well.
"Sheik, this is a serious issue. You've got to—"
"Do you know what she'll do!? She'll kick me out of the apartment—"
"You're an adult. You pay your own rent, and—"
"Do you really think that's going to stop her?!"
No. No Link did not. Sheik's aunts were terrifying, and they had connections. Zelda's mother especially. He left the hallway, waving a hand at Aryll when she started trying to talk to him and stopped in front of the front door.
"If something happens—"
"That's why I called you!" And that shut him up.
"I—Zelda will go to the cops, and I'm still kind of convinced Linkle's just being an asshole, and I do not want Midna to…you'll know what to do, if something happens, and I'm on your street right now anyway so it doesn't matter, but…I don't know. The—and I'm so pissed, but—"
Link pinned the phone against his shoulder, glancing up as Linkle stepped into the entry hallway, and pulled the door open.
Sheik stood there, hunched over his phone as he shifted his backpack over one shoulder, and his head snapped up so quickly, so violently—
His ruby eyes were huge, fingers clenching and unclenching around the phone and the strap of the backpack, expression tight and he was shaking—
Link put his phone onto the table at his side and Sheik fell into him, burying his face in Link's shoulder.
"Link—Sheik? Hey, are you alright?"
"You haven't been messing with my mailbox lately, have you?" Sheik asked, voice muffled by Link's shoulder, and though he was pressing as tightly as he could into Link, it didn't take much to get him to shuffle into the house and shut the door.
"Mailbox? You realize that that's a felony, right? And no, why? Did Midna subscribe you to the Milk Bar's mailing list again?" Linkle asked, lips quirking upwards into a grin.
Sheik shifted, lifting his head only enough so that his eyes peered out over Link's shoulder at her.
"You sure?"
"Yeah. What's wrong? Are you okay?"
"Can we not talk about it right now?" Sheik's voice was still muffled, but he sounded tired.
"Will you call Midna? And Zelda? Get them over here for the night? More people the better, I think." Link said quietly. Linkle nodded, knowing something was going on, and picked his phone up before going into the kitchen.
He had never seen Sheik that scared before.
Aryll spotted Sheik and bolted out of the living room, slamming into his legs, Agitha not far behind her.
"I wanna hug Sheik too!"
"Me too!"
"…Thank you, brats."
"We're not brats!"
And, slowly, the tension fled Sheik's frame.
"…We'll deal with this tomorrow, okay? Let's just chill tonight."
"'Kay. Thank you, Link. I just—thank you." He pulled back as he spoke, pressing a fist to his eyes and ducking his head. Locks of gold hair fell in front of his face, slipping free of a bun he'd tied on the back of his head.
"…So we're painting tomorrow, then." Sheik added, before Link could say anything, and dropped his hand as he forced a quick smile onto his lips.
Link swallowed, nodding as he looked away.
Link was going to make whoever was doing this to him wish he would kill them.
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
I KNOW I'M SORRY THE PLOT BUNNIES JUST KEEP COMING. I was on a Teen Titans binge and this was the product lol. I've sort of always been interested in superhero things and before I delve really hardcore into one I figured this was just a fun little thing to do. So in case you haven't figured it out: THIS IS A Superhero/Super Villain AU. (…Think more along the lines of 'X-Ray and Vav' with teenager drama and hormones and you get the picture lol).
Okay guys I don't know about this title but I couldn't think of anything else. I either read it somewhere or was planning on using it for a different story, SO. Apologies if it was read somewhere else.
Stupid Superhero/Super Villain Naming Rule for Fanfictions:
1) Decide an idiot of a character gave everyone their names and they just stuck bc everyone is as lazy as you.
So one thing you may want to keep in mind is that while coming up with the stuff that'll happen in this story, I was listening to Pacify Her by Melanie Martinez lol. It fits this story really well, and it's a kickass song.
This story will probably skip around lol. There will be a number of different stories and such going on at the same time, and I'm not sure where most of them are going to end up. DECISIONS ARE HARD.
