Disclaimer: I don't own The Legend of Zelda
The genre for this fic says "general" because they did not give me slots for "an unrepentant mixture of shenanigans and feels"
I really really like Sheik's battle-harp magic in Hyrule Warriors, so I totally retconned it for Ocarina of Time as well because um yes I do what I want
"the time that everyone was homeless together" actually
Five Times Link Was Homeless
three
Navi says that if Link stays out in the rain for One Second Longer he's going to catch a chill, and then he'll be too sick to get out of bed, and then monsters will attack because the future's a really messed-up place like that, and he'll be sorry. Link is tempted to prove her wrong—and warp to the Temple of Time and put the Master Sword back in its pedestal and crawl into his own bed in Kokiri Forest if he proves her right instead—but to be honest, his boots are as soggy as the rest of him, and he hates the way the cold rainwater sloshes around in them as he walks.
So since Impa told Link that if he ever needed a roof over his head while he's in Kakariko her house is always open to him, he squelches up the steps to her home and ducks inside.
Inside it's dark, and Link drips on Impa's rug and stumbles into a chair as he follows Navi's light to the fireplace. She bobs inside the grate and says, "Oh, good! Look, there's already wood here, Link. Go ahead and light it."
He kneels at the hearth and summons a bit of Din's Fire—well, more or less a bit, anyway, not an entire wall of flames, and somehow trying to raise only a candle's worth always drains him more than an entire inferno of magic fire—until the kindling sparks and catches and licks at the wood.
Then he pushes his wet bangs out of his face, tries to blow a drop of rainwater off the tip of his nose, and wraps his arms around his stomach while he waits for the fireplace to get warm.
Outside, the rain drums steadily on the roof.
"Hey, I wonder if Impa's left any spare clothes here!" Navi says. "I'm sure we could find something that fits you, just for tonight. Then you won't have to sit around shivering in those wet clothes."
Link wrinkles his nose. He doesn't see why he couldn't just change into one of his other tunics. Impa is really cool, and probably the most awesome grownup Link has ever met, and it's a shame he couldn't grow up into a Sheikah instead of a Hylian. But she also happens to be a girl, so all of her clothes are by definition girls' clothes, and if he puts them on they'll give him cooties. Really awesome Sheikah cooties, but cooties nonetheless.
Besides, he's not shivering anyway. The rainwater's dripping from his hair and trickling down the back of his neck into his tunic, and running down his face, and into his ears, and it tickles, and that's making him shudder.
"Don't be such a boy," says Navi, and she zips off to the upper level of Impa's house. Link watches the shadows rear up and lunge across the walls as she looks around. "And your pouch is soaked through," she calls down, "so the Goron and Zora tunics are probably just as wet. And even if you change your tunic your undershirt and your leggings are still going to be all damp and cold."
Link thinks this is a sacrifice he's willing to make, as soon as the fire gets going strong.
"Hey! You should come open this wardrobe, Link. I can't do it myself!"
He shifts around on the now-wet floor in front of the fireplace to sit on his bottom, and tugs his soggy, squelchy boots off. He lines them up in front of the hearth, and then Link follows Navi up the stairs in his bare feet, one hand pressed against the wall in the dark.
When he lays a hand on the knob of the wardrobe, the door creaks open all by itself—not the wardrobe, but Impa's front door, down below. Navi dives under his sodden hat, and in the darkness she whispers, "Look out! It's an intruder!"
Link lies down on his stomach, as the door latches shut again, and crawls to the edge of the upper landing to squint into the flickering firelight below, to see if it's monsters or maybe thieves he needs to draw his sword on and defend Impa's house from. It has to be, because the storm's been pouring steadily for hours, but there hasn't been a breath of wind driving the rain.
There's enough glow from the hearth now to make out the partial outline of a dark shape near the door. It moves closer to the fireplace.
Link takes his hand off the hilt of the Master Sword, because it's just Sheik. He can see his profile in the firelight, and nobody else would be breaking into Impa's house wearing Sheikah clothes and so many unnecessary bandages covering his face.
Which Sheik is reaching up to unwrap, because they're as sodden as Link's boots.
Navi peeps from under the brim of his hat, gasping, at the same moment that Link tries to haul himself even closer and ends up bashing his shin against Impa's bed. So it's both their faults, really, that Sheik's head whips around to stare at them.
And he lowers his hands, very deliberately, back to his sides.
"Damn," whispers Navi.
Link rubs his aching shin through his wet leggings while Sheik reaches behind his back instead—his face still turned towards them, though between the cowl and the darkness Link can see what it looks like even less than usual—and unslings his harp. Cradling it in the crook of his arm, he plays a rippling chord.
"Oh, wow!" Navi breathes. All of a sudden Sheik's bangs aren't dark and heavy with rainwater anymore, and his clothes are dry, and even the puddles that glinted by his feet in the firelight have vanished.
There's a bit of Link that feels cheated, now that Sheik's all dry and definitely not going to take off his cowl and show his face. But mostly it's drowned out by all the other bits of Link that wish he could do cool magic like that, without having to get gifts from the Great Fairies, and what else can Sheik do with that harp that he doesn't tell Link about.
Navi almost knocks Link's hat off his head as she zips out from her hiding spot, crying, "Link next, Link next! That's so cool, Sheik, do the magic on him too!"
Link tugs his hat back on and pushes himself away from the edge of the floor, and to his feet, and Sheik definitely has to do the harp magic on him because it's too neat not to, and also it would be terrible of him to just let the hero stay wet and cold and probably get sick and then it would take him even longer to awaken all the sages.
Sheik glances over to the fireplace, at Link's soaked boots and the puddles of water on the floor, and then back to Link and his grin and his dripping and clingy tunic. Then he raises his hand and strums the chord again.
There's no puff of warm air billowing against Link and fluttering his clothes or his hair, but when he inhales it smells like the wind that blows across the canyon from the Gerudo Desert, so much that he can feel the breeze on his face anyway. He turns his hands over, looking at his newly-dried gauntlets, and grins at Navi.
"Sheik, you're amazing," she says. "When are you going to teach Link to do that kind of thing?"
They both know that Sheik isn't, actually, not that it stops them from asking. And Sheik knows that they know—or else he's just tired of telling Link and Navi off all the time—so instead of responding he just turns his attention to mopping up the rest of the water in front of the hearth while they come back down the stairs.
"So what are you doing here anyway, Sheik?" Navi asks as Link sprawls on his stomach in front of the fire, folding his arms under his chin and wiggling around to get comfy.
Sheik sits as well, the firelight glinting in his eyes and catching the red of his irises. "The same as you," he says. "Taking shelter from the rain."
Link guesses that must be true. Usually they run into Sheik because Sheik is following them around—even though he says he's not—but if he were he would've known they were in Impa's house.
Come to think of it, Link hasn't seen Impa in a while. She hasn't exactly moved back into her old house—though she stays there from time to time, she said, after she and Princess Zelda fled the castle—but Link's used to seeing her most times that he's in Kakariko. He hopes she's well, wherever she's gone.
"Get some rest, Hero," Sheik murmurs, still staring into the fire. "I doubt this rain will let up anytime soon."
Link scrunches his face into a frown, and squeezes his eyes shut, but he's not sleepy. Sheik usually hardly ever sticks around for long—usually he just pops in out of thin air, tells Link and Navi something mysterious and poetic, plays a song, and then vanishes right before their eyes when he's done—but he doesn't look like he plans on leaving anytime soon tonight. And coming through the front door like that is weird—for Sheik.
And he almost uncovered his face.
Link's too curious to sleep now, maybe for days, and Sheik probably only wants him to so he and Navi won't ask lots of questions.
Well, they're on to him.
Link rolls onto his back, tucking one arm behind his head and watching the shadows flicker across the ceiling. Navi nestles down into his hair—more or less tucked under his hat, which is her usual sleeping spot—while he listens to the rain drumming on the roof and the fire crackling. The cow lows in its pen in the corner.
Link needs to see if there's any way he can get Malon to give him one of those. He definitely needs a cow for his—for Link's—house in Kokiri Forest, for when all of this is over.
Sheik says, after a moment, "What do you need a cow for?"
Link cranes his head back to look at him, but Sheik's face is still turned to the fire. He settles back down and shrugs. Who doesn't want to own a cow? Except for maybe Sheik, but Sheik is weird, so that explains a lot.
"I bet the other kids would love helping take care of it," says Navi. "You know, while we're busy awakening sages. Oh, I bet Mido would let us put it in your—I mean, Link's—house if we say it's a present for him and everyone to share when Link comes back. Like a thank you for letting us stay there a while!"
Link nods. That's a good idea, and that's exactly what they'll do. Malon gave him Epona, so he'll probably have to work hard to earn a cow. But it shouldn't take him too long. And it'll probably count as training, anyway.
He's excited already just thinking about it.
There's a slight rustle of fabric as Sheik shifts his position. "When Ganondorf is defeated and the Triforce is restored to the Sacred Realm," he says, "you plan to return to the forest?"
"That's right," Navi says, and Link doesn't see why not. He only left in the first place because the Great Deku Tree asked him to help Princess Zelda and stop the evil. Once he's done that... well, everything will go back to normal, won't it, just like it used to be. And he can go back home again.
Only now he's got Navi, and they're going to stick together forever, so he really belongs with the rest of the Kokiri and everything. It'll be perfect.
Of course, he'll have to leave the forest again sometimes. Link's made a lot of new friends out in Hyrule—like Sheik—so he'll have to visit them plenty. Luckily it's not as bad outside the forest as the Great Deku Tree always warned the Kokiri it was.
"I wonder if that was because of that war we heard about, don't you think?" says Navi. "I bet it'll be okay to leave the forest now, though, after we get rid of nasty Ganondorf." She gasps, and Link feels her tug a little at his hair. "Saria could come with us! I bet it would be okay if we asked the Great Deku Tree Sprout first! It'll be great!"
Link grins, wide enough to split his face. He's looking forward to that, even more than the cow. He's missed Saria. He can still talk to her while she's in the Sacred Realm, of course, but it's not the same. Even with Navi it's still kind of lonely exploring Hyrule, just the two of them.
Sheik chuckles quietly. "That sounds nice," he murmurs. "It's unfortunate the Goddesses called you to give up that life for seven years."
Link shrugs. It's been weird, and the future is pretty awful and creepy, but it hasn't been all bad. And at least he and Navi got to sleep through most of it. Sheik probably had to be awake all those seven years while Ganondorf was taking over Hyrule and messing things up.
Sheik doesn't say anything, until he says, "Don't you think it's time you went to sleep again, Hero?"
Link sighs, and then he rolls on his side and curls up, facing Sheik, his eyes closed. His eyes mostly closed. His eyes closed enough that maybe Sheik will think he's asleep if he breathes deeply, and won't notice him peeking from beneath his eyelashes to see if Sheik will sleep too. Link's never caught him at it before.
Link doesn't notice when he falls asleep for real, but the last he sees of Sheik he's still staring into the fire, silent and awake.