Okay, so, firstly and most importantly, thank you. Thank you for clicking on this. Thank you for considering reading this. Thank you for being an all round swell human being. Thank you if you've never read anything of mine before. Thank you if you have. A colossal thank you if you've reviewed or favourited or what-have-you-ed. Secondly, I hope you enjoy this, I really do.
Freckles
Waking up is a blessing to him now. Now that he gets to wake up warm and safe and wrapped around someone else. No matter how they start the night, by the time that the sun light is coiling around the curtains they've turned into some multi-limbed mess. He loves it. He loves trying to extract himself from all the arms and legs that aren't his without waking the other. He loves that he never manages it.
He's almost free, so close to being able to pad out of the room to go downstairs and make tea. He hears a gentle groan from beneath him. He stops, hovering, as still as he can be, above what is honestly the most beautiful face he's ever seen. Pale eyebrows draw together. A tanned nose scrunches. Eyelashes flutter. And, just like every morning for the past six years, he finds himself looking down into eyes that really had no business being so clear, and so wide and so stunningly red.
`Fuuuuuuuck yoooooooou'
and, of course, there it is, the only words he ever wants to hear first thing in the morning.
`Good morning oh light of my life, my world and all my shining stars.'
He can't help grinning. He just can't. It's happened so many times and it never gets old. Sheik makes a disgusted noise at him before tugging a pillow over his face and out from under Link's hand. His morning extraction routine had left Link twisted awkwardly, holding himself over his partner. The sudden loss of stable pillow under his hand wasn't something he could correct for. His other arm buckles and he ends up face to pillow to face with Sheik.
Muffled irate noises make their way through the cotton and eiderdown. Everything flips. The pillow falls by the wayside and he gets an unobstructed view of Sheik straddling him and shaking his fists at the ceiling.
`Why? Why do you do this to me?'
Link slides his hands up the thighs either side of his body. He slides his eyes up the excellent expanses of skin on display above him. They look at each other. They're both desperately trying to look serious. Bitten lips quiver trying to hold laughs in. Sheik snorts first and that's it, they're both gone.
'I'm sorry kitten.' Link's words squeeze out breathlessly between fits of laughter.
Sheik reaches down and threads his fingers into Link's hair. It's all haloed out around him on the bed, bright yellow gold against the white sheets. Sheik was quietly very pleased when Link grew it out. If anyone asks he says he likes the way Link looks when he does different things with it. Which is true, he does. He loves it loose, like it is now, or twisted into a messy bun. He likes it just as much when Link's concentrating on something and has to pin the bangs out of his face. What he doesn't say is that he loves that he can run his hands through it. That he can twist it between his fingers or grab handfuls of it. He doesn't even admit to himself how much he enjoys touching it. Link knows though and now that, more than anything, is why he keeps it long.
Link turns his face towards the hand gently carding through his hair, pressing kisses to its palm. He still has his hands resting on firm thighs, thumbs rubbing circles on the skin. Sheik's hand comes to rest on his chin,
`You are so beautiful.' He leans down and tilts Link's chin just enough to put their lips almost together.
`Not compared to you kitten.'
They've kissed before, plenty of times, and will kiss again plenty more and even though the butterflies and palpitations and sweaty palms are gone now it doesn't make it any less perfect. Now they fit together with practiced ease. A well-rehearsed symphony of lips and tongue and just a flash of teeth when one knows it'll make the other moan. As exciting as new love is there is something to be said for love that has grown into itself.
Link runs his hands across Sheik's back settling one on his shoulder and the other at his waist. He's never found anything that grounds him, comforts him, more than being able to feel Sheik under his fingers. He'd ached for it. Wanted after it, for such a long time and the thought of being able to do so had kept him sane when everything was conspiring to fall apart. So, now he can do it so casually, it's the perfect reminder that all of that is behind them. He pulls Sheik closer to him, cradling him against his chest before flipping them over again. He turns the attention of his kisses to Sheiks jaw line and neck, searching for collar bones to leave marks on.
`Now then sweetness,' he traces fingers across sensitive skin, deliberately touching places that elicit a reaction, `how about I wake you up properly?'
`Oh Goddesses yes'
`Excellent, I'll go put the kettle on.'
An unholy cacophony of curse words and feral noise escape Sheik. Link bounces from the room dodging soft furnishings and stray clothes as he leaves. Only after exhausting his vocabulary of profanity Sheik yells down to him,
`I want pancakes you fucking tease'
He's honestly not particularly mad mostly because he knows he's done the exact same thing to Link, more than once, and if he really wanted he could go downstairs and get Link to fuck him ragged on the kitchen table. They've done it before and it's really very good. This morning however, he just lies there for a bit longer before sliding off the bed and dragging on the barest minimum of clothes. It's hardly cold this time of year. It's likely that, by midday, the sun will have baked the dunes around their house into white hot hillocks and they'll have all the windows and doors thrown open hoping to catch the slightest sea breeze.
The stairs creak as he walks down them. You have to skip the eighth, eleventh and twelfth treads if you don't want to make a noise. He watches the aftermath of another night mostly spent not sleeping slide into view. It's nothing terrible, just a mug, a few pencils, a lump of charcoal and paper but it's enough for Link to have guessed that Sheik hasn't really slept again. On a good night, he can get a solid six hours, and that happens more often than it doesn't now, but sometimes it's still a struggle.
Link is stood in what counts as their kitchen. The ground floor of the cottage is just one big room sectioned off in a mostly thought out way by furniture. The kettle is already on the stove, the first wisps of steam spewing from the spout. The pancakes are about half way to being a reality. A gentle snow of flour graces the worktop. Link is not a tidy cook and it used to drive Sheik insane. Now it just mildly irritates him but it's okay because he knows Link tries to make less mess, he just doesn't always manage it. He's glad they learned that the other one isn't perfect, and that they don't need to be perfect themselves either.
He wraps his arms around Link from behind, taking the chance to press himself against Link's warm, broad back before the weather makes them too sticky to bear it. He watches breakfast slowly take shape over Link's shoulder. They disentangle when it's time to eat but their hands and knees and elbows keep brushing together. They don't need the constant reassurance the other is there anymore but they like it nonetheless. It's a quiet breakfast and when Sheik stands to clear the plates away Link presses a kiss to his temple before heading upstairs again to get dressed.
Suitably clothed for the day Link pulls on his heavy work boots and stumps outside. There's a garden around their cottage, a few flower beds and a vegetable patch that Sheik does a better job of keeping alive than Link. Around the edges the grass and soil of the garden give way to sand and scrub. Link's shed lies outside the lines drawn by the salt crusted fence they put up years ago. It's not always been his. When they first came here the cottage and the shed belonged to a Sheikah widower who Link will swear blind was eighty-five percent beard. Sheik maintains he was no beardier than the average aging craftsman. The old man initially let them stay as a favour between kinsmen to Sheik and somehow, they just never left.
Link hauls the doors to the shed open. There's a mostly finished boat taking up the length of the space. They live on the periphery of a fishing town and everyone there had assumed that, when the old man died, the fisherfolk would be left without anyone to repair the boats. Link had never intended to become a boat builder but his curiosity about what the old man did turned into a love for the craft deep enough to spend years learning it. He mends gunwales and booms and rudders alone now.
He's Goddess damn sweaty before too long, even with the doors wide open. He had to strip out of his shirt a while ago. At this rate, he's not going to be able to keep working during the height of the afternoon. Hopefully Sheik is staying at least a little cooler in the house. Even better, although unlikely, Sheik would be catching up on the sleep he missed last night. Link lays his tools down for a moment in favour of getting a drink and splashing some water on his face. Neither one of them walked away from what happened quite the same as they were before it started. He's just glad that time has made things more bearable for them both. Still, he doesn't want to think about what might have happened if he'd had to deal with this alone.
He sets himself to mending a couple of sails someone brought to him a few days ago. He's been putting it off for a while but now he'd much rather do stitching than sweat over woodwork anymore. He should probably head back to the cottage and find some food but he can see heat haze over the sand and it doesn't make heading outside very appealing. He's partway through mustering up the gumption to make a break for the house when a very welcome face appears around the door. Sheik walks into the shed, stepping over saw dust and tools that haven't quite made it back to where they should be. He's got an armful of what Link really hopes is lunch.
They settle on top of a pile of planks at the back of the shed and it turns out that Sheik has indeed brought food with him. He tears a chunk of bread in two and hands Link some cheese as well.
`How your morning been?'
Link makes a noncommittal squelchy noise, 'sweaty. I started mending those sails.'
`That bad huh?'
Link just nods this time and pushes the hair sticking to his forehead out of the way. He rifles through the fruit Sheik brought with him and ends up choosing an orange. `How about yours?'
Sheik's shoulders slump, `Just don't even. . . ' he huffs out a breath, `my reference sketches just aren't. . . they're just not good enough but it's a day there and back and. . .' another sigh, `I just can't do it.'
Link slides an arm around Sheik's shoulders. A couples of weeks ago they made the trek from the coast to Zora's domain so that Sheik could make some studies for a commission. He'd been so shy when Link had found his sketchbook on one of the nights they spent together back when. . . back when. . . they were younger. Sheik had no need to be shy. What Link found in it were beautifully careful pencil and charcoal renditions of people and places around Hyrule. He flicked passed Kakariko Village, Impa, what had to have been somewhere in the castle itself and Zelda. He saw himself, once, twice, more and more as the pages went by. They were both scarlet by the time he reached the end.
Now, between the boats and the commissions that arrive from time to time they live well enough to be happy. They had been offered more after it had all ended but everyone knew it wasn't what they wanted. They stayed until things had been rebuilt and the unpleasant dregs had been mopped up. They moved from place to place for a while before they ended up by the sea. Now neither of them can think of anywhere they'd rather have come to a stop.
Sheik brushes some crumbs off his knees. He gathers the remains of lunch together before pulling some paper out of his pocket.
`Her Majesty's infallible postal service brought this earlier. I'm pretty sure it's for you.'
Link takes the letter and frowns at it. It's not unusual for Zelda to write to them but she always addresses it to both of them. He turns it over and finds his answer. The dab of wax holding the fold of the envelope down doesn't have Zelda's usual personal crest. This one, well, this one has the crest of Hyrule. It's not Zelda writing to them this time, it's Her Majesty the Lady Zelda, Queen of Hyrule and all its territories and dependencies, Bearer of Light and Keeper of Wisdom. He hesitates a little before opening it, there is every chance he isn't going to like what's inside.
Sheik is polite enough and patient enough not to read over Link's shoulder. He does try to work out what's been written by staring at Link's face though. Nothing seems immediately wrong as far as he can tell.
`So, to what do we owe the pleasure of her madge's correspondence?'
Link sighs and rubs his eyes, `I don't know exactly, but we've been summoned'
Hello again! Right, so, I've got five chapters of this done and ready(ish) to go and the plan is to upload a new one every couple of weeks. Hopefully I'll manage to be consistent and get stuff out on time but I am woefully variable in how long it takes me to write things. Sometimes I can get a chapter done in a day (HUZZAH!), sometimes it takes a week and a half (BOO!). . . I'm hoping my buffer will mean that regardless of how well I'm doing or not you guys won't be kept waiting for new content. Please bear with me if you can, I promise I will do everything I can to make it worth it.
Cheers,
Freckles