I: Allegiances
The day dawns hot but not sticky, and as the sun ascends to the peak of the sky, someone shouts "Water fight!" and it's exactly what everyone was thinking.
Link and Midna team up, of course (they're winning, the perfect team, totally in sync with each other when they're into it; although they're usually not, Midna's often seen chasing after Link pelting him relentlessly with her squirt gun, and he's laughing with his hands in the air, saying "Quit it!" but not really meaning it).
Zelda joins forces with Link's little brother Colin and his friend Luda (they're hiding in the bushes, sniping people strategically, exchanging high fives after every victory; they're the ones actively trying to take down Link and Midna and arguably the best ones for the job; they eventually make a treaty with the other teams to take Link and Midna down but get ambushed from the treehouse with water balloons and are forced to retreat).
Talo and Beth, two of Colin's other friends from down the street, formed an alliance (trying to be stealthy but failing pretty badly, they get chased from their hiding places every time, shrieking with laughter, and then they choose another bad hideout, and Beth's giggling the whole time and Talo just smirks).
Talo's little brother Malo and the Gordon brothers Ebizo and Liggs, who live on the corner, are more whispered about than seen (waiting just around every corner. There is no escape. The Gordon brothers are towering over you, pointing their water guns at you; somehow they got ahold of the biggest, most expensive brand of water gun out there. You shrink back with fear and Malo smiles darkly. "Pay up or die," he says, and you drop your tiny pathetic squirt gun to empty your pockets. Once the money has been safely received, they blast you anyway and laugh at your retreating back).
Finally, there are Ashei and Shad (nobody invited them, but Ashei smelled chaos and dragged Shad into the fray. They're doing well and everyone's trying to avoid them; they're formidable, a good mix of brains and brawn, and Shad gets surprisingly into the game. He ties his soaked t-shirt around his head as a headband and charges after Talo and Beth with a war cry. Ashei just laughs behind his back).
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II: Truce
Everyone calls a truce when Rusl lugs a cooler full of popsicles into the yard, and Uli follows with lemonade and her daughter Sarah balanced on her hip. Eventually the famished troops demand sustenance, and she makes a plate of sandwiches. After the second round, however, she gives up and leaves out the bread and the ingredients, letting them make their own sandwiches until they finally eat their fill. They all hang out until dark, when they push Link to get permission to light the fire pit. Ashei and Shad go on a run for s'more ingredients and glow sticks, and they stay up past midnight, probably, just enjoying themselves. (Well, with the exception of Luda, who has a curfew, and Malo's team went home long ago to split their earnings: Malo gets 70% and the Gordon bros. can split the remaining 30% between them). Beth falls asleep on Talo's shoulder and somehow Zelda has glow bracelets all up her arms and two glowsticks are linked in a circlet around her head. Midna pops two orange glowsticks around her ankles and Link puts a green one around his neck and they chase each other around the yard in the dark, their glowing adornments blurring in the shadows, their laughter distant and gleeful.
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III: Sleepover
When one a.m. hits Uli orders everyone home, but the clamor of complaint is so loud eventually Zelda invites them to camp out in her basement for the night, provided they don't make too much of a racket. Uli wants Colin and his friends to stay at home, but Zelda assures her nothing bad will happen, so she reluctantly agrees. They stay up all night watching movies (Flushed Away, Shrek 3 and some weird documentary on sea turtles make up the extent of Zelda's DVD collection she's willing to share). In the middle of the second movie Ashei and Shad notice the GameCube collecting dust beside the Wii and hook it up to the smaller TV in the corner, and soon there's a way-too-involved game of Mario Party 7 going on, and the movie is mostly forgotten by all but Shad and Zelda (who are the ones who put in the turtle documentary until the chaos around the other TV becomes too loud and they give up on it). Zelda eventually gives up on her guests going to bed at any decent hour and falls asleep on the couch. Link sits at her feet and makes sure no one tries to bury her in stuffed animals (because apparently that happened once, at a prior sleepover). Midna proceeds to wreck everybody at Mario Party, and they're determined to get revenge, so they challenge her to a round of Monopoly. She wins that, too, at which point the ruckus gets so loud Zelda half wakes up and mutters in an eerily quiet voice that she's going to murder them all if they don't shut the fuck up, right now. Startled by the princess's use of profanity, the mob shuts the fuck up, right then, and gathers a pile of blankets, pillows, and stuffed animals (no one tries to bury anybody, thankfully) to make an awesome fort in which to bed down and tell ghost stories. Link opts out of the storytelling and takes up residence in an old but still mostly comfortable recliner, keeping a watchful eye on Zelda until Midna emerges from the fort to check in on him. At this point the recliner is no longer comfortable (it's old, and there are weird hard places where the cushion is worn out), so Link finally follows Midna into the fort and falls asleep in a tangle of arms and legs. Everyone eventually nods off, except for Ashei, an experienced all-nighter, who sits in the corner on her phone when everyone falls asleep. (It ought to be noted that Midna would ordinarily rival Ashei in her ability to stay awake, but Link fell asleep on her shoulder and he was so soft and warm and stupidly adorable that she leaned her head against his and eventually succumbed to sleep herself.)
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IV: Morning
They wake up to the smell of pancakes, and they stumble groggily into the kitchen to find Zelda at the stove, muttering a bit to herself, a few dying glowstick bracelets still dangling from her arms as she flips pancakes, cinnamon and blueberry and chocolate chip (she draws the line at those three options, and no, she's not putting cheese in them, god, that's awful, who suggested that?). She provides four kinds of syrup to appease the masses (maple, chocolate, blueberry, and strawberry) and eventually claims a seat by the window to eat a pile of chocolate chip pancakes, leaving Link to struggle with the cooking until Colin rescues him (proving rather skilled at culinary arts; everyone agrees that, no offense, he's a better pancake flipper than Zelda, and he should be the team's official cook from now on). Midna digs around in the fridge and finds a package of bacon, which no one knows how to cook, so they send the package to Uli with Colin, who returns some minutes later with a plate of bacon. Midna claims all the crunchy pieces and snags the chewy ones for Link, declaring that as champion of both Mario Party and Monopoly, she has first dibs to the breakfast meat. Beth sits at an empty plate for a while before Zelda notices, disappears into the pantry, and returns with a box of cereal for the unlucky girl who doesn't like pancakes (or this recipe, at least).
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V: Music
As everyone's finishing their meal, Zelda leaves the room and a few moments later the sound of piano playing drifts in from the living room. Everyone bundles out there, they didn't know she could play, and soon they're requesting songs left and right. She blushes and protests that she can only play by ear and she doesn't know all these songs, so Ashei queues them up on her phone so Zelda can pick out the melodies on her piano. Some songs she's familiar with and she can improvise the left hand harmony, and she's surprisingly good. Meanwhile Midna's taken control of the Wii U she noticed sitting by the TV across the room, casually playing Smash Bros. against some poor schmucks on the Internet. "Take that, Mewtwo," is often heard from her direction when Zelda's playing doesn't drown it out.
The atmosphere is a cheerful one, still heavy with sleep, and the smell of pancakes hangs in the air. Colin's on his phone texting Luda updates since she couldn't sleep over. Ashei perches on the end of the piano bench watching Zelda intently, while Shad instructs Talo (with Beth watching) on how to escape the Chinese finger trap they found under the couch. Link admires Zelda's extensive amiibo collection (where the heck did she get a Marth? and he could've sworn Zero Suit Samus wasn't even out yet), and then he wanders over to the couch and watches Midna play Smash and marvels at her ability. Eventually she gets bored and just contents herself with listening to Zelda's playing until somehow two o'clock rolls around (which isn't that surprising when they remember they got up around noon) and Uli's calling, wondering where her bacon plate went and will someone tell her son to come home already, and send his friends home, too, their parents called.
With that the party's over, and everyone reluctantly files out of Zelda's house. She gets up from the piano bench to see them go, and they make her promise to host another sleepover sometime soon. She seems a little surprised but smiles and accepts, her face red with a blush of embarrassment and pleasure. Midna and Link are the last to leave; Midna scoops Link up in a bridal-style hold and bounds across the street to deliver him to his door (which a surprised Rusl answers). A brief kiss and she's dashing down the street, going home, waving, and there are orange glowsticks on her ankles.
Link smiles, a bit overwhelmed by it all, and goes right back to bed.
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A/N: Surprise! I wrote another one!
I've decided to turn this into a collection for all the drabbles I write for this AU. And since JimmyDANj2 inspired me with some great reviews, there will probably be a good number of these before summer ends. Ganondorf might even show up. Who knows. Just prepare for a lot of shenanigans, and maybe even a little angst. I have a lot planned for these three.
As for this chapter, I actually wrote it shortly after writing You, but I wasn't too sure about posting it until, again, a couple reviews inspired me to clean it up a little and put it out there.
Thanks for loving these goofy kids as much as I do!
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Eternally yours,
godtierGrammarian