"Hold still, alright? This may feel a little funny at first," Link whispers.
"I know how this goes, silly. It's not like this is our first time." Zelda twines her fingers into her partner's hair absentmindedly, and closes her eyes. Waits for his touch.
"Yeah, but it's our first time doing this to each other, rather than just doing it ourselves in the same space. I just…don't want to mess up."
She laughs, endeared, and opens her eyes to give him a comforting smile. "You won't mess up. Worst case scenario, we'll just make a mess, and we'll have to clean it up later."
Link bites his lip, and Zelda's eyes are drawn to the crescent moon indent his teeth leave in winter-chapped pink. She'll do something with that mouth later—if he wants, of course. "Okay, I'm going in, then…!"
She feels him crouch closer over her body, and then: the first tentative touch. Cool and sweet and gentle. Sticky, but that's to be expected. "That's good," she encourages, and feels his movements become more confident.
"How is it?" he asks. She smiles. He's ever the conscientious lover.
"Best Valentine's Day idea ever," she hums. "So glad we decided to stay in and—oohh—"
The place he caresses in that moment brings more blissful relief than any touch prior, and if her eyes weren't closed she swears they might roll back in her head a little.
"Ahh, and do skincare. Honestly, we do our routines together every night, why haven't we thought of doing it for each other before?"
Link's fingers, coated in The Potion Shop's newest enzyme exfoliator, continue to rub obligingly at the point where her jaw meets her temples. "You've got a lot of tension here," he says disapprovingly. "They're working you too hard again."
She can hardly argue. With it being election season, half of the actual work in the mayoral office has been shoved squarely on her shoulders while her boss gets to frolic around campaigning. It'll be me someday, she swears, not for the first time. Then she unclenches her fist and reminds herself: Link. Here. Now. Be in this moment, Zelda.
This moment is absolutely stupendous. She's heard of a 'lavender haze' before—a lovey-dovey, honeymoon delirium. Right now, she's floating in a papaya haze; the scent of the exfoliator perfumes her senses even more with her eyes closed like this. Link's hands worship her skin intimately, tracing carefully below her lower eyelids, working the gel across the expanses of her cheeks and forehead with loving care. The massage soothes the delicate muscles with just the right amount of pressure.
After a few minutes, the indulgence of this little facial still hasn't ceased, and Zelda realizes that Link would just keep touching her this soothingly forever if she—or a hand cramp—doesn't stop him sooner. She opens her eyes a crack and taps at his wrist.
He stops immediately, hands lingering against her cheekbones. "Something wrong?"
"Yes." His eyes widen in concern, but narrow into a half-moon smile when she continues. "I haven't gotten to ease you yet."
They trade positions. Link lies on their bed against the towel-covered pillows, and she straddles his thighs for better access to his face. He settles back and closes his eyes, but they blink open again after a moment. She cocks her head at his furrowed brow, and then laughs when he holds up his hands—still coated in papaya-enzyme gel—with a pout. One hand towel later, he's decently clean and nods his readiness.
"You still want the—" Zelda turns the surprisingly hefty little glass container around in her hand to reread the label. "—Dangoro Charcoal Mask?"
Link nods enthusiastically. "I want to try it out! And my t-zone has been really oily lately."
"I'm aware," Zelda teases, and Link makes a face at her. "Okay, going in!"
She and Link both cleansed their skin with their preferred products—jelly cleanser for her, to remove her office-appropriate makeup, and micellar water for him—prior to this mask stage, so none of the aforementioned oils are present on his skin when she reaches out for a hesitant first touch. It's odd; she and Link have been intimate many, many times, in both sexual and non-sexual contexts, but it's still new and almost a little scary to purposefully handle his face. It takes a few more strokes of grey-black goo across his forehead for her to get in a groove, but once she does, she finds herself enjoying herself immensely.
She paints large swathes of charcoal over his cheeks and forehead, massaging as she goes, and the mask blooms in loose swirls across his skin. She traces wide dark circles around his eyes, which he keeps peeking open to watch her instead of remaining closed. Every flash of steel blue is a thrill, even as she teases that he can't keep his eyes off of her. The first time she goes around an eyebrow, she accidentally plasters the upper hairs with goo, and they both giggle. The second brow, she messes up on purpose, just to hear him laugh again.
It's all the childish joy of fingerpainting, combined with the adult desire to love, serve, and admire. She wants to touch as much of him as she can, for her own selfish sake. She wants to melt away all the worries he carries under his skin, for his.
Eventually, she surrenders to the demands of the mask; it has to sit still to dry well and perform its purifying duty. With nothing to do now but wait, Zelda suggests that they finish off the chocolate-covered strawberries Link made earlier. They munch happily next to the bouquet she surprised him with after work, and chat about the video game they've been playing through together.
When the alarm goes off, marking twenty minutes since Link finished applying her mask, they trundle back to the bathroom. He perches on the closed toilet lid while she rinses off the half-dried papaya goo, and when she goes to towel off, he rises and gently takes the soft cloth out of her hands.
"Let me take care of you," he murmurs, as the towel glides over the planes of her face.
"I think you do enough of that already." She can't keep a smile off her face at his words.
"You, too. We take care of each other."
"That we do." She proves it when his own alarm goes off a couple minutes later, and she dries his face in turn. Little flecks of product Link missed in the rinsing come off on the clean towel, but it should wash out alright.
"I'm really happy we did this instead of going out," Link admits, as they scavenge through a drawer for their nightly moisturizers. She finds his tried-and-true—The Potion Shop's Water of Life—first and passes it over, just as he comes across some of her usuals. "Guardian Retinol Potion, or Heart Quenching Potion?" he asks.
"Mm, Heart Potion." She snags the frosted red glass bottle and twists open the cap. "It is Valentine's Day, after all. And also—I had a really good time staying in too, Link. Maybe we should make this an annual tradition," she jokes.
"Want me all to yourself, do you?" He throws her a teasing glance in the mirror.
She finishes patting the moisturizer under her eyes before giving him an over-the-top smarmy smile. "Obviously."
"Can I do one more thing?" Link meets her gaze in the mirror again. It's ironic that he works as a vet tech when he has such effective puppy-dog eyes.
"'Course you can."
Link plucks a tin of lip balm from their skincare drawer and untwists the lid. The scent of honey wafts into the air. A swirl of his finger into the product, and then he traces her lips again and again, massaging with a focused, softly desirous look in his eyes that makes her a little weak-kneed. By the time he finishes, her lips are soft, warm from his touch, and rather excessively doused in balm.
"Can I do one more thing too?" Zelda asks, cupping his chin. She swipes her thumb across his own lips slowly, ardently. After all, she had wanted to do something with them back at the start of all this. Link nods twice, a galaxy in his eyes.
Her mouth meets his in a deep, loving kiss: a wordless thank-you for the care they show one another, the intimacy of this night they shared, the pleasure she feels just from being around him. He returns it with absolutely spine-melting passion. By the time she pulls away, his lips have been thoroughly coated in lip balm as well.
"Now that's the proper amount of product to use," she says breathlessly. "We'll have to put it on this way every time, just to be sure."
"Maybe you should show me again," Link suggests, innocently. Too innocently. "Just to be sure."
She smirks, and takes him by the hand. "Bedroom."
"Bedroom!"
The night is still young, after all.
Author's Note
This was written for the lovely Alkturos for the Loftwing Letters event held by the zelinkcommunity discord server and Tumblr! Al, I truly hope you enjoyed—and of course, that goes for everyone else reading as well! Be sure to care for yourself and your loved ones this Valentine's Day, whether or not that involves skincare 3
Thank you to my beta bahbahhh over on Tumblr as well for your work and kind words!