Chapter 2

WARNING! THIS CHAPTER CONTAINS NSFW CONTENT!


It had been easy to return Link home without detection. One cannot be found unless looked for, and so very few will linger on the shadows of things.

Sheik stood beside Link's bed, his thin, golden brows mangled into a scowl as he watches over the sleeping Hylian, fingernails biting into his palm as he grips them into fists, his whole body trembling.

The assassin had forgotten just how young the hero was in this time. A mere child with a kind and trusting heart forced into adulthood, cruelly twisted by fate to save a dying Kingdom from corruption.

Sheik is startled out of his thoughts when Link suddenly bolts upright from his bed. The poor thing is wheezing, his shrunken irises piercing dead ahead until a searing agony forces him to lie back down.

On instinct, Sheik bounds away to the darkest part of the room.

"You're awake."

Those same terrified eyes whip around, landing on the lithe figure veiled in shadow. The forest boy tries to crawl away, reminded of reoccurring nightmares and ghosts trapped inside a well. His back collides against the wall, injured hands patting at the bed for anything to use as weapon.

"W-who are y-you?" Link stutters, pain throbbing in his wrists.

"No one you need to fear."

The illusive figure walks into the boundary of light separating them, illuminating part of himself to the boy in good faith, while the other still remained cloaked in darkness.

"I am the one who saved you from those degenerates you call friends."

The stranger explains as he crosses his arms, shifting his weight onto one agile foot.

Link is about to protest, but he can't help feeling a little tormented by the stranger's single red eye as it gazes at him from beneath a crown of bandages and wild blond hair.

"Try not to move too much. A few of your ribs are cracked, your nose is broken and your wrists are severely bruised."

Link investigates the truth of the stranger's words. Turning his hands palm up, he discovers deep red rings coiled around his wrists.

"My dream...," Link starts, shaking his head incredulously.

"Wasn't a dream," Sheik finishes.

Link looks up at the Sheikah, sad blue eyes about to tear.

"You … why are you helping me?" the vulnerable child warrior asks.

Sheik is silent for a time, knowing Link was going to cry no matter what answer he gave him.

"Is it so uncommon for someone to help you?" Sheik returns.

Link stares at him, incredulous, and just as Sheik predicted, Link starts to sniffle; though, the young boy admirably tries to hold it in.

"May I see your wrist?" Sheik asks delicately.

"Why?" Link counters distrustfully, clutching his hands to the cavity of his chest.

"They'll heal faster if you treat them properly. I've prepared a salve to help alleviate the pain. If you'd like, you can apply it yourself," Sheik's lone eye curls up into the guise of smile, his outward stature posing less of a threat.

"I can do it..." Link says, stubbornly.

"Very well, but if it becomes a hindrance, I will take over, agreed?"

"Mnn." Link nods. "Umm..." He scrubs at his nose, cringing when he rubs over a particularly tender spot.

"…There's a stool over there," Link gestures, pointing into the darkness behind his mysterious guest.

"I'll get it then," Sheik says, managing a light chuckle.

Sheik brings the stool next to the bed, his movements honest and obvious to read. He knew Link was a perceptible boy. His instincts would warn him of any treachery and the shinobi was forthright in proving his good intentions.

Hesitantly, Link shifts closer when Sheik places a roll of white gauze and a stone mortar on the wooden seat. Link tests the ointment against his fingers, a viscous green paste with an earthy smell and cool, soothing properties. Deeming it safe, he applies a modest amount to the sores on his wrist, an angry, burning sensation following soon after. The forest boy hisses, waiting for the sensation to dissipate before dipping his fingers in the salve again.

Link reaches for the bandages next, his actions much more awkward and troublesome as he attempts to wrap the dressings around his arm. He growls, frustrated, but determined, fumbling over a difficult expanse of skin. In the midst of amending his mistake, a sharp, stabbing pain cripples him, the bandages bouncing out of the boy's hand and unraveling unto the floor.

"Ahh! Ss—Sorry!"

Sheik says nothing to this apology, retrieving the runaway bandages, winding them back around the spool as he returned to sit next to Link. He extends his hand, waiting for Link to accept his invitation.

"Don't worry, I'll be careful."

Sheik assures the forest boy, his charming expression enough to lower Link's defenses so he could inspect the rumpled dressings on his arm. The forest boy watches in mild fascination as practiced hands care for his wounds with a feather-light touch and silent devotion.

"There. Finished. How does it feel?" Sheik asks, tying the bandage off.

Link blinks, flexing his arm. They were done? That quickly? The stranger had been so adept at patching up his wounds he hadn't felt much discomfort at all. Link brushes his hand over the neatly wrapped bandages, his brows knotting as he tries to remember why this feel so familiar.

"Rest now. Your body is weak and needs time to absorb the drugs. I will remain here and see to it that no further harm will come to you."

Sheik explains as he journeys to the other side of the tree-house to put away what's left of the remedies.

"Have we met before?"

Sheik goes rigid at the unceremonious question, his red iris blown wide open, grateful that the fairy child can't see his face.

"You ... you look familiar." Link continues, trying to make sense of the jumbled memories flowing back to him. There were words scattered and warped, faces blurred and distorted, but nothing definite or whole.

"I know ... I know your name ... your name ... it's-"

"LINK! LINK, ARE YOU HOME?"

Startled, both boys look towards the modest sheet of cloth that passes for a door.

"Saria …" Link whispers, recognizing her voice.

Link trudges towards the balcony despite Sheik's warning to take it easy, his still healing ribs making it difficult for him to walk. The shinobi let's the boy go, silently vowing to keep a watchful eye on him from a safe distance away. He couldn't risk leaving Link alone, not after what happened to him only hours before.

Saria is staring up at her friend from the bottom of his tree-house with distressed, glassy eyes, her fairy in toe.

"Oh, Link! Thank the goddesses you're OK! Mido told me what happened! I am so sorry! I wasn't there to help you. What Milo did was horrible! That stupid boy! I told him if he ever does that again I … I-!"

She stops, rivers of tears overwhelming her as she sobs into her hands. The forest girl's head snaps up at the sound of Link's painful gasp. The injured boy is attempting to descend the ladder, undoubtedly on his way to comfort her.

She blinks away her tears, her worry turning into fierce desperation.

"Link, wait! Don't try to come down! I'll come to you!"

Link nods, stepping back from the edge of the ladder to lean against the railing. Saria makes her way up, sitting herself in front of him once she reaches the top.

"How bad is it," she asks quietly, assessing his many cuts and bruises.

"Not bad."

Her head is downcast, a stray tear dripping down to land on the back of her hand. She clenches her fingers, balling them into fists on her lap. She doesn't believe him.

"I am sorry."

"It's not your fault. I know you would have helped me if you could."

With her so close to him, Link could see the remnants of dried tears on her cheeks, new fresh streams coaxing them back to life and reddening the skin.

- The Sage is a girl you must know. -

It's another fragment of something, a memory of Saria in trouble, sealed inside a Sacred Temple by a phantom.

"Link?" Saria calls, "What's wrong? Are you okay?"

Pulled from his thoughts, Link shakes his head in affirmation.

She smiles then, holding out her dainty hands in offering.

"I wanted to return these to you."

It's his slingshot, ocarina and dagger.

"Thank you," he says.

She wipes the tears on her sleeve, smiling sincerely.

"Well, I guess I should let you rest. I'll come by tomorrow to see how your doing."

She leans in, placing a chaste kiss on his cheek. She doesn't try to hide the flush when she pulls away, wearing it like a flower in full bloom.

Link is frozen, his own cheeks ripe with embarrassment. He timidly touches the spot where she kissed him, the skin still tingling.

From his perch in the trees, concealed from their sight, Sheik prickles with jealously.

"See you! Feel better soon, alright," she teases.

Sliding down the ladder, Saria bids him a wave of farewell before running for home, already anticipating tomorrow.

When Link returns to his room, a presence approaches him stealthily from behind. The forest boy springs to the offensive, his blade pointed at the intruder.

"You're recovering quickly." Sheik approves, never flinching in the face of his sword.

Link withdrew his weapon, sheathing it.

"I am sorry! I-I thought you were—"

Sheik waves the incident away with his hand.

"There's no need to apologize."

The shinobi stares wistfully toward the balcony, recounting the events he just witnessed.

"She cares for you," comes his blatant accusation.

"Oh," Link turns away, rubbing at the blush on his neck, "You saw that?"

Sheik nods, trying to shake off his irritation of Saria's young love.

"And you..., "Link eyes are shining, full of hope, "... we … the ocarina ... you taught me a melody."

Sheik's expressive crimson eye betrays what remains of his reserved demeanor, his own quick-witted mouth defying him.

"How … how do you know that?"

"I am not sure. I can't remember it all clearly, but you ... I remember you."

Link sighs in frustration, his head aching as he tries to recall what he's lost. Retrieving the ocarina from his pocket, Link relies on his body to play the notes of a song long forgotten. It doesn't come out perfectly, he fumbles over the composition trying to get the order right, but soon a familiar tune fills the air and Sheik recognizes it to be the Minuet of the Forest.

Bewildered, but not about ignore this auspicious moment, Sheik plays along, plucking the cords of his harp in tandem with his partner's. The two of them are entranced, floating inside the music, their conscience being swept away in a rush of magic.

Suddenly, they were propelled forward, thrust ahead seven years into the future. When Sheik comes to, his vision is spinning, the all-seeing eye of a gossip stone greeting him as he regains his bearings. It seems they had landed deep in the Lost Woods, outside the Forest Temple.

"Sheik …"

It's Link voice, but gruffer, a tone of maturity honing the quality to fine edge.

Before he knows it, gauntlet-clad hands are hoisting him up, guiding him to his feet and it dawns on the shinobi that the Link before him now was older, taller, the legendary Hero of Time.

"I wanted to tell you before..."

Link grasps Sheik's hand and places it upon his chest, a sigh of contentment falling from his lips as if finding something very precious.

The Sheikah is utterly captivated, Link's heart in the palm of his hands, the rapid thump he finds there unmistakable. The hero smiles then, knowing that Sheik had heard the unspoken message that cried out within him.

Sheik's gaze is lifted, guided by the callous fingers curled under his chin. He swears Link's eyes are the most beautiful ocean blue he had ever seen. There was an radiance, an emotion just above the surface, a light that connected them throughout the spans of time.

"I love you, Sheik survivor of the Sheikah."

The minstrel's ruby eye broadens, gasping out in surprise despite himself. He had always imagined Link would feel as strongly, but never did he think it would hold true.

"Link I …"

He can't falter now. He's been waiting, yearning to say it for what felt like forever.

Link takes the lead, using action to speak the helplessly complicated passion of his heart as he pulls the cowl down, exposing the shorter man's nose and mouth to his view. Sheik instinctively tries to flinch away, to conceal himself, but Link anticipates as much.

He pulls the sleuth closer before he can run away, savoring the shape of the limber body pressed up against the length of his. Link winds his arm tighter around Sheik's thin waist, leaning forward to rest his forehead to the other man's brow.

"I always wondered, what it would be like..."

Comes Link's breathy muse, drifting slowly like a gentle tide until his lips press to Sheik's own. It was soft, delicate as if a trained veteran of the shinobi arts might break apart by the slightest touch alone.

Such a sweet gesture was all it took to crack Sheik's inhibitions, duty and logic pushed to the farthest reaches of his mind. He melts deeper into Link's kiss, pressing back firmly, willingly and whatever experienced he lacked, his partner matched him with enthusiasm. Time was not cruel, not to him, not for this moment.

Link gladly opens his mouth to the harpist exploring tongue, mapping him out, pushing further inside to savor the taste. Sheik's arms are an encouraging weight around his neck, bandaged fingers burying themselves into his hair, yearning for them to be closer.

The pace is too fast, the heat is dizzying, blinding and he wants this to last.

Link pulls back, giving their breath time to catch up to the hammering pulse in their veins.

They're both panting, bodies shaking with arousal, faces flushed vermilion.

"It's really you." Links says, enchanted by the beauty of the Sheikah warrior's face.

He shifts to hold Sheik's fevered cheeks in his grip, brushing back golden locks of hair only to find an obscured tattoo at the corner of the shinobi's right eye. He wonders why Sheik would keep such a thing a secret as he memorizes the inky black shapes with his fingers, treasuring the discovery just as much as the rest of him. The hero's thumb trails down, tracing over the healed nicks and scars etched into his skin, down to the ones marring his lips.

"Who else would I be?" Sheik scoffs, impatiently kissing the hero once more. Link's green cap drops to the grass when needy hands refuse to let go, a nimble leg rising up to hook around the hero's torso, coaxing a friction between their legs as much as standing would allow.

The both groan at the feeling. Link's hips jerk with an involuntary thrust, the insistent need in his stomach growing beyond his control. Forsaking patience, the hero's hands were all over him, trying to touch every possible inch he could reach, never once finding a place to stop.

The Hylian's leather-bound hands scroll down his lover's sides, over the sharp curves of his hips, settling there. There's only a thin layer of fabric separating him from the bare skin of the Sheikah, but it's not close enough.

"Hmm, how do I ... ?" Link trails off, unsure of how to continue.

Sheik laughs in understanding.

"Allow me."

Sheik wiggles free of the hero's embrace much to his lover's displeased whine. The shinobi shows off his back, the ripple of the wiry muscles stretching as he strips down, unbinding what's left of his bandages, letting the disguising garments drop to the forest floor.

Sheik wiggles free of the hero's embrace much to his lover's displeased whine. The shinobi shows off his back, the ripple of the wiry muscles stretching as he strips down, unbinding what's left of his bandages, letting the disguising garments drop to the forest floor.

Those same supple fingers return to the criss-cross of ties binding together his form-fitting suit, loosening and unlacing the fabric down his arms to pile around his waist, then discarding it to the grass, rendering him completely unmasked. The teeming mess of scars scattered across the shinobi's bare back are bigger in both number and in size and Link reminds himself to ask about each one of them later.

"I often imagined what you looked like under there."

Link's breath is hot against his neck as he hugs Sheik's naked frame from behind, burying his face into the nape of Sheik's neck and kissing there.

The Hylian's mouth is tame at first, dotting closed-mouth tokens of affection near his ear before a tongue joins in to massage the sensitive skin. A sharp bite of teeth has the minstrel singing in appreciation, Link's hardness a constant pressure against his backside.

Sheik spins around to face the hero, rubbing his own arousal against the rough texture of Link's clothes.

"Then perhaps you wouldn't mind sharing the view?"

Sheik's dexterous hands are twirling in the laces of his white tunic, tugging at them suggestively. It was only right the hero play fair and strip as well.

Link laughs nervously, a heat coloring his pale skin.

"I won't look nearly as impressive as you."

"Try me."

The hero starts off with unbuckling his gauntlets, casting them aside to the grass below before kicking off his boots in the same direction. His actions are quick, efficient as he tugs off his belt, gripping the hem of his tunics, throwing them both off, the chiseled expanse of his abdomen there for Sheik to see. Link's moves lower to deal with the suffocating tights squeezing his thighs, the very telling outline of his erection shaping them.

"That's enough," Sheik commands and Link stops, curious as to what the minstrel has planned.

Sheik advances with a sultry strut, putting skilled hands on his partner's newly exposed chest, possessing the allure of those sculpted muscles under his hands until he reaches the barrier of tights straining to contain the hero's hardness.

Sheik's hands dip below the waist band of the taunt fabric, sliding down Link's toned thighs, peeling it away.


Sheik awoke. The same darkness from behind his eyes greeting him with a flicker of torch-fire in the dimly-lit dungeon. His trained hands reach for a kunai and was cruelly reminded that his wrists were shackled to the wall in heavy black irons.

He had been foolish once during a mission and knew the dread of being captured. He knew the feeling of being eroded away by famine, beaten to the brink of annihilation by savage beasts and somehow, he still ended up like this.

As if in answer, a guard's lantern illuminated the stairs, making the descent to his cell. Even if Link came to his rescue, it probably would be too late. Sheik prays for a dream, a place where the two of them could be together again.

"Sheik!"

That voice! No, it couldn't be. He must be hallucinating. But then it came again, louder this time, and Sheik almost dared to believe it was real.

"Sheik!"

The jail cell rattled open and Link ran to his side, unlocking his restraints in a panic, cursing when he couldn't get the key to fit through the rust of the lock. Sheik collapses in the hero's arms, weak from atrophy and dehydration.

"Thank the goddesses I found you!"

He hears the words vaguely, groggily as if through a haze.

"Link," he tries to say, but he doubts it's a discernible sound as it croaks past his cracked lips.

"Here, I need you to drink this."

Link holds him close, supporting his head as he uncorks the bottle, a mist of invigorating vapors filling the Sheikah's lungs. The hero guides the liquid to his lips, the potion coating the shinobi's dry throat, warming him from the inside. Sheik's bloody hands latch onto Link's, titling the bottle sharply, greedily, as he takes long draughs of the potent concoction, his tired, limp body slowly gathering back it's strength.

"Careful, not too fast!" Link protests, forcing him to ease up and drink slowly.

Sheik disapproves, but allows it, finishing off the last of potion at a more manageable pace. He licks the sticky residue from his chapped lips, feeling the tingle of energy there. Link returns the empty bottle to his pack, brushing Sheik's bangs from his face, his thumb running along the soot marking his pale cheek.

Even if he's feeling better, the captured shinobi is incapable of words. Instead, he settles into Link's soothing embrace, surrendering to it completely.

"You're safe now," Link coos, pressing a kiss to the top of his head.

Sheik knows it to be true.

FIN


A/N: Sorry to cut the NSFW bits off there abruptly, but I started the draft for this chapter over 10 years ago and with just a few sentences to go off, I improvised until I ran out of steam. Originally, this story was supposed to end in tragedy (hence the title), but I decided to change it just slightly so no implied character death! Yay! I'd really like to go back and edit the first chapter to make things flow better, but I'll save that for another day.

Also, for the purpose of this story, Sheik is his own character, completely separate from Zelda. I hope everyone can suspend their belief and just roll with me on this. No offense to anyone. Sorry if it's annoying. Anyway, it's rare for me to actually complete something so I am glad I could finally post this despite how long it's been! Who knows, there might be a few people out there who were looking forward to the ending so to you guys, I hope you enjoy!

Thanks for reading!

Story Completed: 6/6/22