Story Title: One Man's Responsibility
Disclaimer: I don't own TP.
Author's Notes: Between work and some major writer's block on the next chapter of "Wind", in which I possibly need to rewrite a large portion, I decided to dust off this plot bunny just to write something. Only way I know to push through writer's block is to step back and/or write something else and then the plot bunny exploded into nearly the length of two "Wind" chapters, mostly because I expanded Link and Shad's interactions. It's less so much a short story than a short novel…As such, I've separated the story into two parts. I couldn't evenly half if but it's not as large as it would've been whole.
I also altered Shad and Link's personalities a little for this Modern AU. Link is far more coarse, impish, and essentially is/was a delinquent. To Shad's usual depiction, he has shades of being a Type B Tsundere—sweet most of the time, harsh when provoked by their love interest—but Link's actions aren't exactly conducive to inviting Shad's warmth and good favor.
Finally, seeing how I'm not sure how well Little Debbie is known outside of America, Little Debbie is a popular snack foods company, as is Hostess. Not to be confused with the well-known fan nickname for Ghirahim. Shad is not a little Debbie. He's only fabulously adorkable.
As always, thanks for reading. I hope it provides some entertainment, especially since I have delayed the next chapter of "Wind" yet again by hopping onto this story.
-o-
Story Title: One Man's Responsibility
-o-
Hours after his act of neighborly assistance, Shad realized he had left a bag of groceries in his backseat as he proceeded to make a sandwich and discovered his purchased bread nowhere to be found. Thankfully, his misplaced bag only contained nonperishables—by Nayru's mercy, he hadn't left a gallon of milk out in this sweltering humidity.
But to put an end already to his constant, grating worry, he hurried down the stairwell—once again the elevator was inoperative—and crossed the street and found his unfortunate little compact resting at the end of the third floor. Younger, more expensive models surrounded his car and their presence seemed to spotlight its age, wear, and his status as a bachelor med student barely maintaining his self-sufficiency. Shad performed all his own basic mechanics and located his own parts and so far there had not been a repair he could not make by himself without time and tinkering.
His car had its quirks, moments of unexplainable phantom radio trouble easily remedied with a bit of percussive maintenance, and Shad wished he could afford to paint it any other color than its orange-red-brown-rust blend, but it was reliable, far less likely to get broken into—he had personally seen a thief turn his nose at his car—and it was secretly named Epona.
Once again, the light above his parking space was broken out. Shad unlocked the back, reached a hand into the dark and gripped not a crackling brown paper bag but what his mental reference was positive was bare skin. Taut, muscular skin. Of the upper thigh, perhaps even the buttocks.
Shad froze. The shock of discovering an intruder within his car was enough to stunt his stream of thought to slow drips. The very potential possibility of having to contend and perhaps even have a row with said intruder was enough to cease all flow of commands from his brain. Shad was not a brawler. He did not even play Smash Bros. Brawl.
Warning alarms shot through him as the chap or lady groaned and stirred from apparent sleep—heaven forbid he have to deal with an angry drunkard or a junkie. Swiftly and wishing to see the soul he was about to run from, Shad pressed on the interior lights, blinding the sandy blonde fellow with not a scrap of cloth covering his short, built body as he turned away, covering his eyes, and hissed mild curses. Shad stumbled back in shock and trepidation and tapped the neighboring car, setting off its strident, shrieking alarm.
"Why the—" his unwanted passenger's strained shouts were barely audible over the siren, "—did you do that for?"
"It is not as if I intended to," Shad shouted back, hands over his ears. "Why in heavens are you illegally squatting in my car?"
"What?" he called, face twisted in agony, as he squashed his hands over his ears. Shad had noticed the slightly elongated, softly rounded points of his ears marking residual Hylian blood. It was a beyond rare trait. Only one person out of a billion was born with the diminutive remnant of the long ears once marking the once chosen people. Traditional Hylian aesthetics only survived through trend and fashion and cosmetic surgery nowadays.
In time, a pair of bored police officers came by to investigate the noise and soon the car owner was brought into their shouting circle and shut off the alarm.
"Ah, finally!" the blonde chap shouted in joy and relief, raising his arms above and behind him, arching his back, spotlighting his chiseled pectorals and abs. He did not appear to possess an ounce of shame and more than likely would not believe he had anything to be ashamed about. Muscular fellows tended to abstain from shirts whenever possible. And when one possessed the kind of body magazines photoshopped their models vigorously and viciously to achieve, one also abstained from any sort of pants, so it seemed…
With no dents or any true attempt to thieve from the neighboring car, the owner left but the police did not leave the scene, not with Shad vehemently requesting for his car's unwanted occupant to be arrested.
"Please, by the law, apprehend this man for trespassing and breaking into my car—"
"You left it open," the fellow cut in. "It's not really breaking in if you can break into it too."
"That does not permit you the right to invade my property," Shad snapped back and then swiftly averted his eyes while the fellow opened his legs in an effort to scoot himself toward the edge of the backseat. "And please, locate your clothing and clad yourself. You are indecent."
"Yeah, put some clothes on, bud," the younger-looking officer said. "Why'd you take them off in the first place?"
"Duh, it's hot. The air is water," the fellow said, feebly groping around the backseat in search of his clothes with the urgency of a patrolling Moblin. "I imagine you blue boys feel like you're in a wet suit. Can't blame a man for wantin' to strip and unstick, right? My boxers stuck in between bits of ball skin I never known reachable."
"Heavens," Shad muttered in disgust. "Must you be so crudely graphic…"
The cops were grinning and chuckling between themselves.
"Look, this isn't what it looks like," the guy said, plucking his crinkled, sweaty mass of clothes from Shad's grocery bag. Distaste flooded Shad's mouth as he imagined the stink and salt of his body sweat permeating his bread loaf. "I had to sleep somewhere for the night. I've got nowhere else. It was there or the shelter. I chose someplace familiar."
"Familiar?" Shad's eyebrows rose in alarm. "Do you sleep in my car?"
"Only when I have to," he said, boxers on and working on his cut off jeans, peered up and grinned coquettishly at Shad before adding, "…sweetheart."
Shad stared wide-eyed in shock at the unabashed fellow as a spark of disbelief and affront raced up the back of his neck and sent his hair standing on end. "It would be most appreciated if you rephrased your response omitting the term of endearment post haste," he said sternly, his jaw tight and twitching.
"He's just angry," the fellow told the cops, fanning his hand dismissively in a disregard-him-right-now manner. "And he has the right to be. I messed up."
"I do not even know you!" Shad replied in utter disbelief and aghast, his pitch rising. "Officers, I swear on the Goddesses that until I caught this man squatting in my car, I have never once in my life met this man beforehand. He is a stranger and a liar!"
"One moment you're their sugar pumpkin, the next they don't even know you…" The fellow grinned at the cops, sporting knowing smiles. "Ain't that the truth?"
"It is not the truth because I do not know you," Shad shot back, peering down on him as the fellow hopped back up to sitting, his jeans slid back on.
"I get it. I'm an idiot," the fellow said, still grinning but with an apologetic edge, as he climbed out of Shad's backseat and stood beside him. He was mildly surprised to see they were closer in height than he had previously estimated. He was more so surprised as the fellow drew close to him and wrapped an arm around his shoulders, the back of his hand brushing across the fine, standing hairs at the nape of Shad's neck, sending shivers rushing all around.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart," he said, leaning in and softening his voice. Shad's eyes darted between his put-on charming face and the unresponsive cops. He was aware uncomfortably of the fellow's unzipped cut-offs and how unfortunately a step back meant setting off the neighboring car's alarm again. "I'm ungrateful. You do so much for me and I don't know what I've got…but I know you're the one for me."
Head turned to the side, Shad continued to insist, "Y-You do not possess anything w-with me—"
"Please, it's all gonna change. It's all been worked out," the fellow said, all smiles and charm, as he tried to hold Shad's hands. "You're not going to be alone anymore."
Protesting and fending off and avoiding the fellow's hands' advances toward his own, Shad found himself taken aback when the fellow stated he wasn't going to be alone anymore. He did not know if it was just the peculiarity of an absolute stranger stating so or if his attractively-persuasive and amiable smile belied sincerity and inadvertently touched on an inner wish of Shad's but it startled him enough to find his hands caught and wrapped up in his.
"You two okay now?" the older officer, who probably wasn't that much older than his partner but his thick moustache aged him greatly, said with an edge of impatience in his voice.
"No, we are not!" Shad insisted, breaking his hands abruptly out of the fellow's hold, his paper-worn palms prickling from brushing over tough calluses and raised scars. "We are not toge—"
"Calling all cars," the officers' walkies shrieked, silencing Shad, "instruct all civilians to remain within their homes. Evacuate the streets immediately, excluding authorized personnel only. City is in lockdown, I repeat, city is in lockdown."
The officers looked at one another, alarm and urgency in their eyes. The older officer quickly assumed authority. "Look, this has been…something, but you two gotta work this out at home." Shad opened his mouth but the officer raised his hand and silenced him. "I get it, buddy, you're cheesed, but whatever happened between you two, he's sorry. Let him back in. Give him the couch. He just can't be out in the street tonight, got it?"
Shad gazed back at the officer and blinked in disbelief, his mouth slightly ajar. "You are telling me to harbor a complete stranger and a criminal, mind you, for the night?"
"Actually, I believe that's an order," the older officer said, eliciting Shad's immediate protest.
"You work a lot?" the younger officer leaned toward the now-mostly-covered fellow. "Not home enough?"
"Yea, I'm pretty much a professional nomad," he said, pulling his shirt over his head.
Overhearing, Shad looked toward his car's unwelcomed guest and glared sharply at him. "That is because you do not live with me at all."
"My brother had the same gripe from his wife." The younger officer grinned and laid a hand in accordance on the fellow's shoulder. "Look, take off, head for the islands. Rent out your own beach house, chill some Corona, champagne, whatever gets you giggling, and enjoy yourselves."
The fellow grinned and ran his hands through his scruffy blonde hair in pretend sheepishness. "Well, it was going to be a surprise but…"
"Wonderful, good to hear it," the older officer said as dry and uncaring as a sand dune in the Gerudo Desert. "Now go home and pack."
"But I don't know him…" Shad whined, his face glazed in absolute shock and disbelief. "He's not my…"
"Go pack!" the older officer as he and his partner, turning around and sporting a cheesy grin and a thumbs up, headed back to their patrol car.
Shad pinched the bridge of his nose and released a long slow breath, all the while cursing profusely in his mind. He should not have placed much hope that the city police would do anything resembling their occupation to assist a civilian. When they were not posturing for the cameras saving a kitten from a tree or running a charity fundraiser, most units patrolled aimlessly around in their squad cars. Any and all real threats to Castle City were usually taken care of by the Presidents' peacekeepers, dubbed unofficially as "The Knights of Hyrule".
If little else will be accomplished, I will complete the task I set out for and return the safety of my residence, Shad decided, still frowning in disfavor and frustration, as he leaned into his backseat and grabbed a corner of the brown paper bag, only to obtain a peek inside to find his bread loaf reduced to a half-loaf, an empty chip bag, and a large portion of his peanut butter generously scraped out and pocketed with little bits of left behind bread crumbs.
"You possess absolutely no shame, do you, old boy?" Shad said, outright glaring at the fellow as he grinned in high amusement.
"I got hungry and the Goddesses provided," he said, laughing softly, as he shrugged his shoulders casually. "Hey, you left your doors unlocked."
Shad snorted haughtily and stormed off in the direction of his apartment. He was glad to be done with the trespassing, thieving fellow and with any favor of the Goddesses, he would never cross paths with him ever again.
…Except he appeared to be following him with a duffle bag slung casually over his shoulder.
"I say, you have already wormed your way out of apprehension," Shad said as the fellow walked along beside him. They nearly walked hand in hand if Shad would have permitted the fellow to take hold of his hand once more. "There is no requirement for you to maintain your ruse and proceed to stalk me all the way to my flat."
"This? Stalking? A little dramatic, aren't you?" the chap said, still with that carefree-to-life-and-the-laws grin of his. "You heard the cops. I've got to go somewhere."
"That place can be anywhere else but my home."
"Come on, sweetheart, one night." He wrapped an arm around Shad's shoulders and gently pulled him closer to him. In the heat and humidity, his bare arm clung not only to his light dress shirt but to his back. "That's all that needs to be between us."
For more than a second, Shad did not know how to respond to that. The shock and flutter in his chest sent him wiggling out of his touch. "I-I say, must you phrase your request in such a suggestive manner?" The pink deepened on his cheeks as he averted his eyes and held on a little tighter to his grocery bag in his crossed arms. "And do not refer to me as your 'sweetheart'."
"What can I refer to you as?" the fellow asked. "The name's Link, by the way."
"Link, you say? Only you and about a million other fellows share that as a given name," Shad scoffed. "What might be your real name, old boy?"
"I told ya. It's Link," he said and gazed expectantly at him and batted his eyelashes comically, "and you haven't given me yours yet…"
"Liars and criminals like yourself aren't worthy to possess the historic name of Heroes," Shad replied, head raised haughtily, as the crosswalk light turned green and he and Link crossed together. "You are not a Hero."
"Yea, I get that," he said and then leaned toward Shad. "But you better give me a name, or you'll be 'sweetheart' or whatever amuses me most, duck-butt." He pulled the back of Shad's tucked in shirt out.
Shad gasped in indignation and then hurried across the road so he could restore his shirt to proper order in a scramble. "My name is Shad and it has not been a pleasure to meet you one bit."
"You don't mean that…" Link pretended to be affronted, putting on sad puppy eyes.
"I say, I absolutely do," Shad assured tersely. "I do not typically befriend a chap that I discover squatting in my car."
"Squatting… Sounds so dirty, don't it?" Link said, face scrunched up in displeasure. "Like you're accusing me of relieving myself in your car. Which I didn't do, mind you."
"Though your private parts have pressed and ground against my backseat," Shad replied, his tone cool.
"My, that sounds suggestive," Link said, grinning through his laughter.
Upon reviewing his last words, Shad's heat-flushed face deepened in redness as he picked up his step. "A-Are you twelve? You know exactly what I was referring to!"
"Yea, but that's not what it sounded like out of context," Link half sang back, hastening in tow.
"I say, if you kept your mind in our present conversation and perpetually out of the proverbial gutter, you will never misconstrue my words," Shad said over his shoulder as he opened the front door to his apartment building and marched up the stairwell.
"You know how fun it is to hear you talk?" Link said, overly chipper. "Especially when you're riled up since you talk faster, your face scrunches up, and your ears get red first, then your cheeks… Just like that!" He pointed and laughed.
"What affront I committed against the Goddesses to deserve being temporarily chained to this millstone personified I will never know…" Shad grumbled not at all underneath his breath as he hastened down the fourth-story hall to his apartment.
As soon he unlocked his door, the fellow pushed by him, haphazardly dropped his trainers by the door, and strutted unabashedly right on in. Shad supposed he at least had the decency to remove his muck-streaked footwear before he proceeded onto his impeccably white carpet. He had not the courtesy, however, to place them in the shoe rack located by the door specifically for the purposes of housing all occupants' footwear.
"Damn, not a bit a dust around, I bet…" he said, smirking as he looked around and dropped his duffle bag on Shad's plush chair. "You really live here or is this the showcase?"
"Yes, this is indeed my residency," Shad replied," and it would be most appreciated if you place these on your feet."
"What, no bunnies?" the fellow replied, putting on a pout. "I'll settle for keaton."
Unaffected and indifferent toward his childish behavior, Shad handed him the plain black house slippers. Entertained by his own game, Link nonetheless did what he was asked. Shad supposed he was not completely incorrigible and did indeed seem to possess a grain of salt's worth of manners. Whether he utilized them was another grain entirely.
The probability in which he shall comply or rebel with one's requests appears to balance entirely on which avenue he deems more entertaining, Shad considered as he removed his own shoes and slipped on identical black slippers, foregoing choosing between his hidden and boxed bunny and keaton slippers as his coming home ritual typically entailed.
Meanwhile, in that short amount of time, his forced upon houseguest had made his way into his kitchen and was perusing through the contents of his refrigerator, mingling preserves with jams and throwing his labeled and dated leftovers into chronological chaos.
Shad quirked an eyebrow in disbelief. "What in heavens are you—"
"Ah, sweet, beer!" Link was absolutely beaming until he turned the bottle just a hair to the left. "Oh, root beer…" His disappointment was short-lived. "Hey, I haven't drank this since I was a kid. It still comes in glass bottles. Cool."
"Not exactly, old boy. The glass bottles are a specialized variety cashing in on their nostalgic appeal and thus run in limited stores, which results in it being rather costly for the consumer…" Shad explained as Link opened one bottle on his countertop corner and grabbed another bottle for later. "For me, however, it is not simply nostalgia but taste preference that draws me toward glass rather than plastic or aluminum cans. I have yet to partake of a soda that did not taste superior in a glass bottle."
"I swear they get colder too," Link said in concurrence as he swung over the back of Shad's loveseat and landed between two cushions and propped his heels up on the coffee table.
The young scholar stood slack-jawed, his owlish blue eyes ever the more wider in shock. It was the kind of disbelief he speculated would have been elicited only by the fellow grinding dirt into his clean carpet after insulting his mother. There were just things civil people did not do. Civil people expressed respect, gratuity to a stranger's hospitality. They did not promenade about as if they laid claim to others' property.
Anger cut through his disbelief so sharp and swift he could slice through tomatoes, file off steel, and go right back to slicing tomatoes just like those late-night infomercial kitchen knives. Shad snapped his fingers. "No, I say, feet down now!" he ordered. "And do not ever again plop your full weight down like a sack of potatoes on my loveseat ever again, old boy, am I understood? And one more thing, my countertop edges are not a bottle opener—"
Trying to assuage and charm him with his carefree, careless grin, Link fanned a hand lazily about. He nonetheless also promptly removed his feet from Shad's coffee table. "Hey, relax. Get any more tightly wound and that curl on your head will pop those baby blue eyes right out." He paused to take a drink and then asked as he took one more look around, "So where's the old lady that lives here too?"
"Pardon?" Shad said, eyes still sharp. "No one else lives here but me."
That appeared to surprise the fellow. "Really?"
"Indeed."
"No family?"
"At one point in my life, there was," Shad said, lowering his voice and his stare. "However, they are no longer with me. I do possess a brother and a sister but as the age differences between us is quite considerable, they prefer associating more with their families and between one another than with their oddball runt of a sibling."
"Goddesses, how plain and boring they must be if they consider you the wild one…" he tilted his head back and groaned.
"No, that was my father's designation," Shad corrected. "Though of all his children, I shared the most similarities and interests with him. I would be more accurately categorized as the strange one."
"I get ya…" Link said and then burped, though he had the bare decency to keep his mouth closed. "The sisters found me at a month or two old in a padded box by the dumpster. Cameras showed a Hylian woman but she was never found. The sisters raised me. They always thought I was special, in more than one way." He chuckled through his proud grin.
"That is…positively appalling, old boy," Shad said, his face softening. "I cannot imagine what it would be like to have been abandoned similarly."
Link blew a derisive snort. "It is what is it. After a while, you stop wanting to meet the mom that dropped you in the trash to die and move on," he said. "I like to think my father was Gerudo. Skin's not right but I've got the long nose, don't you think?"
Tilting his head up and resting a finger by his nose, Link grinned at his joke as Shad almost gave his astute analysis on the genetic differences between his nose and the traditional aquiline features of the Gerudo. He did not explain the distinctions, however, though not for realizing Link was kidding. No, he had been struck speechless by his concentrated examination of Link's…pleasant facial anatomical structure—and the young med student simultaneously wished to figuratively and literally kick himself and also wished he could hide himself in the maze of a library as was his typical solution in similar events.
His nose was a bit long but it made for a strong profile. Overall, he possessed a youthful face on the verge of but holding its own against maturity and age. He possessed a sharp jaw line and his eyes, which Shad could observe were blue now in the light when they had appeared green in the shadows, were markedly world-worn and severe even at rest and provided a particular dissonance to his carefree, even flippant grins and attitude. He also possessed rather thick, unkempt eyebrows.
I say, I know not how many young ladies he captivated and ensnared with ease, Shad thought, averting his eyes and peering toward his kitchen and contemplated pouring himself a glass of water to wet his suddenly parched throat, but I am not so gullible. I will not be swayed by sweet words and sultry stares.
"So what happened?" Link asked, simply curious.
"My family met their end at the hands of thieves. My father owned a small but rather lucrative business. As the only two employees, they were gunned down and robbed as they closed down the shop."
"The cops got them, right?"
"At last I have inquired the investigation is still on-going," Shad said, as he indeed entered his kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. "Correction, to be most precise, I overheard it was classified as a cold case."
"Figures," Link snorted in contempt. "The cops in this city do jack and there are only so many Knights. I'm sure a lot of basic crimes get unsolved."
"It appears to be a long-standing tradition for the military forces and lawkeepers of Hyrule to be utter inept at their job, often leaving the heavy work on the shoulders of a few, occasionally solely on the shoulders of one man, the Hero of the age."
"Those poor sorry bastards."
Shad raised an eyebrow. "The soldiers or the Heroes?"
"Yes."
A rather interesting response, Shad considered, taking a drink of water as he grabbed a coaster, one for himself and another for Link, from his glass cabinet. Even those who scoff at the Heroes' existence and demote them to mere legend never speak in any other regard but positively of their courage and tenacity… I have never before met anyone who did not consider their Hero status as anything but a great honor. I say, I deem it curious.
"Might you be kind enough to elaborate on your…" Shad looked toward his loveseat but did not see the splash of sandy blonde hair peeking out over the back.
"So…what do you got to eat around here?" Link said, passing by as he immediately began to open cabinet doors and rummage through their contents, having viewed all that which his refrigerator had to offer earlier before.
Shad's eyebrows pinched sharply. "Must your pilfering persist? Heavens, my groceries were not enough already…"
But Link was not listening and shook his head when he found anything but food and muttered to himself as he sorted through his pantry supplies and opened door after door. Not very long after his search began, however, he found something that would suffice him.
"Twinkies!" he shouted gleefully and then realized how full and plenty the cupboard was with snack cakes and pastries and cookies and miniature pies. "…Damn, you've got a problem."
"I-I say! I do not!" Shad stammered and briefly flitting his stare away in embarrassment, his cheeks red. "Now cease your blasted pillaging at once!"
Tearing through the plastic wrapper and chomping one in half in one bite, Link stuffed the box under his shoulder and proceeded to open two more. "You ever deep-fry one of these bad boys?" he asked through a mouthful of cream-filled yellow cake and then Shad watched as a flash of epiphany sparked across his face. "Hey, let's do it! Where's your fryer?"
"No, no, no, we are not," Shad replied, closing cabinet doors in the wake of Link's plundering. "Do you have any idea how damaging fried foods are to one's body?"
Link's stare and voice leveled in disbelief. "Little Debbie, don't lecture me on health food after I've found your secret stash, which is pretty much a bunker supply." And it was so tightly compact and organized the removal of the Twinkies box simply left a box-shaped hole within the otherwise undisturbed sugar cornucopia.
"It is by no means a secret stash sitting in an unlocked top cabinet," Shad replied in his defense. "And for the record, Twinkies are a Hostess product."
Smirking, Link laughed to himself for reasons not understood by Shad as he proceeded on unwrapping his fourth cake in succession.
"I say, you shall not consume the entire contents. Hand them over." Arm outstretched, his stern request was ignored. And even though nerves and uncertainty strongly advised him against the action, Shad proceeded to reclaim the box for himself.
He did not wrestle so much with Link for the box as much as he merely advanced toward him and rapidly found himself pressed and pinned against his countertop in a very blurry and ill-defined haze of speed and motion. He was not hurt, just very confused and taken back. He had not expected…actually he was not sure what he had expected a juvenile but crafty fellow he had just met to do once he attempted to retrieve his snack cakes. He supposed he had expected to be given his box back after an immature round or two of keep-away. Instead, he had been detained.
By his rather smirking smile and his unspoken challenge to Shad to free himself blazing in his eyes, it was obvious that Link was enjoying this turn of events. Shad, however, was not. His heart and breath quickened in uncertainty and the peculiarity of matters, Shad attempted to break free, only to find his right wrist and left arm immobilized in Link's hands and no amount of force he summoned could free him from his hold. He supposed the fact that Link utilized no force himself as he gripped Shad counted for something. Clearly, he did not intend to hurt him. He merely could not get away.
Link laughed deep in his chest as he leaned in toward Shad, their chests pressing together as Link stretched forward. Shad felt the vibrations of Link laughing along with every dip and curve of his tight abdominal muscles. He felt the brush of his leg sweep across his inner thigh as Link stepped closer.
"Take them from me," he murmured close to his ear, still sporting that damnable, devil-may grin of his. Either his warm breath or his cheek skimmed across the top of his jaw, Shad was not positive which. To be more accurate, he was not positive of much. Through either the flutter in his chest staggering his breath or his heartbeat sounding, Shad held his gaze upward and observed very little beyond his ceiling.
This is…ridiculous, Shad thought. I am not afraid nor do I perceive to be in any danger so why is it that I tremble and falter in his proximity? He enjoys…embarrassing me, yes, and frustrates me for his own pleasure but it is not anger that courses through and agitates my last nerve.
…And why is it even more peculiar that I possess not the inclination to draw away from his advancements? His literal definition of stepping forward toward me, not the other sort of flirtatious, amorous variety of the word.
Link was, after all, miles beyond the bubble's edge marking Shad's personal space. Even if he could and were to free himself, no matter where he stepped, Shad would in some regard brush up against him. Not as if they were not already intimately drawn together, with Link still leaning toward him, his blue-sometimes-green eyes searching, perhaps waiting for a certain response. He raised a rugged eyebrow in what Shad interpreted as an inquiry into his next action but truthfully could signify a variety of answers and the more he considered, the light prickling his coarse eyebrow hairs would induce against his cheek would not be a terrible feeling at all.
Wait, what? Shad sharply realized the sudden and abnormal detour his line of thought had diverted. His cheeks more than warm, he quickly canted his eyes down and off to the side.
"…A-As you w-were," Shad replied.
Against his better judgment, he looked back and saw Link's victorious grin as he turned away and drew the slightly crushed-in Twinkies box out from under his arm and proceeded with yet another cake back to Shad's loveseat.
His breaths strained and rapid, Shad remained in the kitchen for moment to settle his nerves. Feeling as if his tie was knotted too tight, he raised his hand to his neck to loosen the knot, only to be instantly reminded that he had not worn a tie.
He most certainly is an agitating chap, Shad decided, his composure mostly restored.
Settling on at least attempting to reclaim some semblance of his daily nightly schedule, Shad returned to his living room and put on the evening news. He nearly dropped his remote in stunned disbelief at the headline story. Gingerly, he inched his way backwards to his plush chair and simply sat on the edge of the seat cushion, eyes transfixed on the television and his hand covering his mouth in horror as the visibly shaken news reporter delivered the story.
'We continue our breaking news that the terrorist organization Followers of Demise have infiltrated the presidential mansion and their leader, a Gerudo man simply known as Ganondorf, is currently holding several senators, security personnel, international ambassadors and several of their family members, including the president's daughter, hostage. Little is known yet concerning their demands but the surrounding city has been placed under a total lockdown, with all civilians urged to remain in their homes."
"Turn it off," Link ordered once and then twice in a harsher voice.
"I say, why ever should I?" Shad asked, his tone matching his glare until he saw Link's concentrated fire fixated on the television screen. "This is terrible news, old boy. Until something happens, until the lockdown is lifted, we cannot leave, and if worse comes to worst, we should be informed."
"There's nothing anyone can do," he said dismally. "You know anything about that man, Ganondorf? He's had hundreds of assassination attempts throughout the years, survived them all, and publicly executed his attackers with his bare hands or that big ass sword of his. The man can't die."
There were regular reports on the evening world news about a video surfacing of Ganondorf graphically eliminating assassins, spies, world leaders, journalists, and civilians. Those videos were always edited and censored, if it was even possible to air, except for one video of elementary children slaughtered and set on fire with only the words, "The Future of Hyrule" titling the final screen airing over the hijacked airwaves during a popular daytime children's show. Throughout history and legend, Ganondorf's wickedness was without parallel. And now a man bearing his name sought to show the world absolute evil.
And then an even worse thought came to Shad's mind. He recalled a recurring sentence from his many, many, many reads of the old tales. "…No, he can only be stopped."
He noticed Link staring at him impassively. He seemed to be waiting for or gauging his words.
"There are stories…the old tales that always speak of an evil king named Ganondorf. Now perhaps this fellow simply chose the moniker to invoke the wickedness, fear, and power the name is infamously associated with but the legends state that every tale involving Ganondorf involves the same man. Time after time, Hero after Hero, the same evil king rises and threatens our world. Perhaps he has risen once more…"
Smirking, Link looked away and sharply snorted. "Well, sayin' I believe you and that we're looking at an immortal, super-powered, evil zombie king, what do the old tales say we need to put him down again?"
"We need a Hero," Shad said. "For every time a great evil falls upon Hyrule, a Hero is born and through his trials, he gains the power to vanquish evil."
"That's what you get for reading fairy tales," Link said, his voice as hard and cold as Snowpeak stones. "What we need is a sniper rifle and a good eye."
"I am positive the many assassins attempted that pursuit and as you stated before paid the price for their presumption," Shad replied. "He is no mortal man. Ganondorf can only be vanquished by the Master Sword."
"Oh yay, the fate of the world hangs in the balance of some idiot plucking some big ol' magic sword of Good out of the stone. That's realistic," Link said, his sarcasm thick.
"Yes, it has happened before, if the old tales are to be believed," Shad said in a level tone. "It is the only way."
And then much to Shad's surprise and panic, Link suddenly rose from his loveseat and rushed toward him with a fiery glower in his eyes. Shad instinctively raised his hands up and bolted out from the chair but Link simply grabbed the duffel bag he had dropped in Shad's chair and practically ripped the zipper open.
"Well, lookie here, we got one magic sword—" he said, drawing out a rather conventional, unimposing rusted sword with a cracked purple hilt. "One magic, unless, rusted piece of history."
"This…cannot be…" He had read the stories, the varying descriptions, the forging of the blade but he did not know until now that the old tales were truly historical fact and the blade of evil's bane was real.
"That's the way it looked when I pulled it out."
As his mind reeled and restored order, Shad slowly drew his eyes upward and settled on Link's grim, battle-worn face, his scruffy eyebrows pinched. "You are…" he said softly, "the Hero of our age."
Immediately, Link rolled his eyes. "Great, you think so too…" he grumbled and tossed the rusted Master Sword onto the loveseat and fumed about the room. "All these freaks and spirits I'm coming across keep sayin' I'm this Hero destined by the Goddesses to vanquish evil, save the world. I've wriggled down sewers, climbed the tallest buildings, nearly barbequed my ass inside a steel refinement factory, and knocked down corrupted spirits."
"But when did I sign up for this? One morning I'm skipping school, knocking the teeth out of a rival gang when I tripped down a basement stairwell, rolled through a door wrapped up in crazy exorcism-voodoo charms, and find myself in a moonlit lake a thousand miles talking to some wolf-goat-headed fairy woman saying I'm our only hope."
"I bust my ass for four years collecting rinky-old junk for people, gain magic, and learn how to fight with a freaking sword when I should be packing heat and all I've got left to do is bury this guy in the dirt but who says I'll even get to live after I take him down? What if I'm supposed to go down with him?" Finally, Link paused completely from his pacing about the room and stared straight into Shad's eyes. "I don't want to die. I done all this bull and if I'm gonna make the world a better place, I at least wanna be around to see it."
"It will never be a better place if you do not stop Ganondorf."
"I don't want to die," Link snapped back.
"You see what the obvious solution to your fear is, old boy," Link tipped his head to the side and raised an eyebrow expectantly. "Do not die."
"Real funny, duck-butt," Link growled. "Why don't you lay your pretty neck on the block and see if you feel the same…"
"Your analogy is inaccurate. A chopping block is a feature of an execution, which promises and generally provides a one-hundred percent death rate," Shad explained. "You are facing off in a duel, a test of one's skill and prowess with a sword, the sharpness and swiftness of one's mind and body, and the courage in one's spirit. You possess at least a fifty-fifty shot at survival. You must simply be better."
"Why should I?" he asked petulantly.
It was like living out a question he had always wished to propose to any and all of the Heroes. Shad had always wondered if every Hero had taken and accept their fate in stride or if any one of them balked against their chains, at least in the beginning. So it appeared, their Hero was fighting to the end—his trials having unaltered his juvenile state of mind or coerced him into maturing so abnormally he longed for and had regressed back to his relatively recent boyhood.
How fortunate are we… Shad sighed.
"You should because you were chosen by Goddesses for this purpose, old boy," Shad replied. "This is your destiny."
Link shorted like a Moblin. "Well, what if I want to screw destiny?"
Shad met his stern eyes with his own. There was plenty he wished to say in response, however none of which he could say in a level-minded state. In the background, the news continued, airing reports that the Followers of Demise promised to bomb various landmarks within the capital city until the country fell to them. Within the hour, the S.T.A.R Tower, the tallest skyscraper in the country, would be brought down.
"Can you deep down sit back and do nothing?" Shad said, his voice measured. "Are you willing to let Ganondorf win, let him kill all he wishes, and poison the land with his wickedness? Will you turn away from the men, women, children screaming and praying for a Hero as we speak?"
Canting his eyes, Link shifted his jaw and gnawed in the inside of his cheek in some form of guilt as he listened.
"There is one defining trait of all the Heroes that came before you. When the call sounded, they answered," Shad continued. "And if you do indeed refuse the call, I say, my assessment about you earlier will be irrefutably correct. That you are not a Hero and you are unworthy to bear their name."
Link stood scowling with his eyes closed for several breath-lengths, leaving the young scholar to wonder if he was weighing up his own fate over the world's. His subtle scars of world-weariness and severity breaking through his boyish features struck him again but then Link slowly reopened his eyes and a Triforce appeared on the Master Sword's blade and burned through the rust in a surge of liquid white-gold light and restored it to perfection.
"Irony, been told all my life I wouldn't amount to nothing and here I am the key to it all," Link smirked and snickered softly to himself as he took hold of the Master Sword. "My last meal might be root beer and Twinkies and I'm damn well happy with that."
"Pardon me if I am stating the obvious," Shad said, a little confused and surprised to see Link's sudden initiative as he picked up and slung his closed duffle bag over his shoulder, "however, are you going? To stop Ganondorf?"
Sporting that all too familiar easygoing grin of his, Link strutted up to Shad, his head tilted up proudly. "Now aren't you thankful I broke into your car?" His grin grew as Shad frowned in disapproval of the reminder, his cheeks warming. "There, had to see you riled up one last time. You're real cute that way."
"C-Cute?" Shad blinked. "W-What ever brings you to say that?"
Leaving with a grin, Link simply made his way to the door. "See you, sweetheart."
He was gone before Shad could properly reprimand him. His apartment was now far too silent, especially since the lead newscaster was leading a moment of silence to pray to the Goddesses for hope and rescue. He muted his television before the broadcast could begin again.
Shad did not know what to do. He was not even sure there would be a tomorrow. He supposed he could restore order to his cabinets and the interior of his refrigerator to distract himself, however he decided to allow the chaos to persist just a few moments longer.
He is the Hero of our age, Shad gazed out over the sparkling, quiet evening skyline and wondered how long it would all stand.
Godspeed.