The kid didn't know he was there. Yet. And Dark studied him through the sheet of glass separating them, watched the kid kick his feet to and fro in the too-big chair he sat in, clutching a worn, fluffy little kikwi backpack to his chest. He was alone in the waiting room, untouched coloring books and paraphernalia lying on the short table beside him. His head was bowed, resting on his backpack, and strands of pale blonde hair bounced into his face with every movement. He didn't look sad. Maybe scared, just a little bit sick. Tired. But not sad.

Paramedics had found him clutching their mother's hand, trying to wake her up. They'd said he might have nightmares, be a little unstable. That he should take him to a psychologist.

They'd had to cremate the bodies. They had been in too many pieces to not.

The thought writhed in the back of his mind, as the woman smiled at him and nodded towards the door, blended flawlessly with the sheet of glass save the protrusion of the handle.

The kid looked up when he stepped into the room, sapphire orbs going wide and round at the sight of him. His legs stopped kicking and he got sort of still, not so much as a blink giving him away.

This had been a bad idea. But he couldn't…there was no one else to take him. And Dark knew how fucked Termina's foster system was….he couldn't imagine how bad Hyrule's was.

"…What's your name?" Dark asked quietly, kneeling in front of him and looking the kid in the eyes.

He knew, of course. That they'd chosen to name him Link, though…

"Link." And his voice was tiny…

"I'm Dark."

The kid's face scrunched up, after a moment, but his gaze flickered up and his expression smoothed out in an instant, more subdued and quiet than he'd been before Dark had entered the room.

He craned his head around, saw the social worker standing in the doorway.

"Did they tell you who I was?"

He got a shrug in response, so slight of a movement that he barely caught it.

"Did Mom and Dad ever tell you who I was?" That got a response, a shake of the head.

"I'm your older brother. And you're…gonna come live with me from now on."

The kid looked like he wanted to say something. Had his mouth halfway open before he closed it, arms wound tightly around his backpack. Gaze flickered from him to the woman again. Dark waited, but the kid just slowly shrank inwards, deflating beneath the silence.

"C'mon, then. Your stuff's already at my place. Are you hungry?"

The kid slowly slide out of the seat, nodding with those big, watery eyes of his—for a moment, Dark froze, thinking the kid was gonna cry, but…

He stood up, pressed a hand to the kid's back. He was wearing the kikwi backwards, and kept his arms wrapped firmly around it while he shuffled forward.

Link didn't say a word until they got outside and the doors to the building closed behind them, which had Dark concerned. It was rather obvious he didn't like them, but…

"I don't look like you." Dark glanced down at him, at the fingers tangled in the hem of his shirt.

"If you looked like me, we'd have bigger issues on our hands, kid." And his blue orbs crinkled, just a little bit.

But it was true. Dark was rather tall, and though he was by no means big—Midna was always pissed off at him for being skinner than she was—he was mostly muscle. Coupled with his tattoos and piercings…

Though his parents would have rather died than let their six-year-old do anything remotely like that.

They'd probably have rather died then let their six-year-old meet him, though, and…

"But aren't brothers s'posed to look alike?"

He bent down, scooped the kid up. Link let out a squeak, eyes going wide again, and clutched at Dark's head. It took a little bit of wrangling to get the kikwi out of his face—and, more importantly, from suffocating him—but Link seemed satisfied squeezing Dark's throat instead.

"Tell you a secret. But you can't tell anybody, okay?" He said, voice pitched into a hushed whisper. A flash of excitement shot across the kid's face, and he leaned forward just a touch.

"What?"

"I'm blonde too. I dye my hair."

"Isn't that bad?"

"Not if you do it right."

"….Do you dye your eyes too?"

That startled a laugh out of him.

"No. I was born with these. Red eyes aren't that uncommon here, you know. Termina's pretty different from Hyrule."

"But isn't—" A flash of movement caught his eye, and Dark shifted his arms slightly, lowering the kid a little.

"Hold on, Link. I don't—a lot of people in Termina don't have cars, okay? So my friend's giving us a ride. His driving might be scary, but I promise it's safe. It's just different, here. I'm sitting with you in the back too."

He barely managed to get that much out before Ferrus shrieked up to the curb, vehicle rocking before settling into the spot.

Dark couldn't breathe, the kid was holding him so tightly.

"Dark! Sorry I'm late! Midna got pissy about me leaving for lunch and the boss came by so I just upped and left when she was distracted so—"

"Just watch your language, Ferrus." Dark sighed, swinging a leg over the door and dropping down into the back seat. Ferrus' convertible had seen much better days, as per the usual, but he'd made an effort to clean the backseat. All of his shit was piled in the passenger seat instead of scattered everywhere.

Link let go gingerly, but stayed pressed against his side with no sign of moving. Dark sighed, sat in the middle seat and made sure the kid was buckled up carefully.

"Oh, yeah! You got the kid with you now. 'Sup, little Dark!" Ferrus twisted around in his seat as he spoke, grinning widely, goofily, as he looked at the kid.

"Wait—the fuck, Dark! He's nothing like you! Midna's gonna—"

"Language! And I don't give a—don't care what Midna thinks, she's not babysitting him."

"Well, you can call me Uncle Ferrus, kid. Fastest taxi and delivery service in all Termina, fuck what the Deku say. Sorry, Dark. And I've already called dibs on teaching you to drive. But only when you're older 'cuz Dark will kick my ass—sorry! Jeez!" Ferrus yelped, barely jerking out of the way when Dark swatted at him.

Link giggled, then buried his face in the kikwi, as if horrified he'd made a noise.

"Just drive, please….Link, you said you were hungry, right? Does—"

"No need! I brought food!"

"If that's Midna's cooking—"

"Relax, it's greasy, cancer-causing fast food from The Milk Bar."

"Thank the gods." It was said a little too vehemently, as he took the offered bag from Ferrus and started going through it. Ferrus laughed, as he settled back into his seat and pulled out.

There were two wraps in the bag, along with a water bottle and some fries. He gave the kid a wrap—Ferrus' driving and fries were not a good combination. And, the wraps were still warm, which was awesome.

The kid looked up at him, skeptical, and waited until Dark had unwrapped his before doing the same. He did the same with eating, waiting until Dark had taken a bite before nibbling at it.

His face scrunched up again, and Dark watched him carefully.

The Milk Bar was run by the Gorman brothers, and their wraps were famous around Clock Town. Gerudo, Deku, and Terminian cooking made for an interesting mix, and though it did take some getting used to, it was fantastic when one was in a hurry. Ingo had given him some cooking lessons, though mostly out of pity, when he'd first arrived. Dark couldn't cook anything else for shit.

If Link didn't like it, he had no idea what the fuck he'd feed the kid. Cia had forbidden him from letting the kid eat cereal three meals a day. Might be fine for him, but not for a child, she'd claimed.

"So we're going home, right?"

"You're dropping us off at home. Then you are going back to work." Dark said, gripping the back of Ferrus' seat as he took a sharp turn. Link pressed against his side, and took another bite of his wrap.

"Taste good?"

The kid shrugged, burrowed into himself again.

Maybe he was just shy. Dark prayed to the Three, the Deity, and the Trickster that that was the case. He could handle that. Probably.

Right?

"I didn't take the day off, it's not like I'm going to skip out on work, Dark." Ferrus said reproachfully, shooting him a look through the rearview mirror.

"You know I didn't mean it like that."

"…I know. Um, you are coming to work tomorrow, right?"

"Yeah. Malon's watching the kid."

"….Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"When she's not being a little shit, she's a good kid. F—sorry, sorry, hold on."

The kid giggled when Dark put his hands over his ear, careful not to pinch the long, slender tips. He remembered how sensitive his ears had been, when he'd been little. Mostly a Hylian thing, but partially a Temple of Hylia thing, and the kid had probably undergone one or two 'treatments' already for it.

But the kid didn't hide himself away again. Just kept eating. Maybe because he thought they hadn't heard, over the sound of Ferrus cackling in the front seat?

"Look, I'm not saying she's evil or careless or that she'd hurt the kid, but—"

"Neither am I." Dark said firmly, and Ferrus fell silent.

Nobody had known what exactly to say, when Dark had heard the news, told everyone he was taking the kid in. It had taken a while for him to adjust to life in Termina, with his clan, and he'd been willing to learn. The kid was Hylian through-and-through, and he hadn't done anything close to what Dark had done before leaving. They assumed.

"Can you pull the speed—" Dark started, slowly lowering his hands.

"Oh, shit, sorry! Yeah!" The kid giggled again, this time so softly it was almost inaudible. But he was still eating, so…Dark wasn't too concerned. Ferrus let off the gas, if only marginally, and Dark felt himself start to relax.

The rest of the ride went by quickly. Ferrus didn't talk, and neither did Dark, but Ferrus eyeballed the kid curiously while he sang to himself as he drove.

The kid was just finishing his wrap when Ferrus pulled up to their building, and Dark thanked him by telling him very clearly that if he told anyone that they were welcome to just show up at the apartment, he would kill him.

The last thing he needed was one of the girls showing up and scaring the kid shitless, or worse, everyone showing up. It'd overwhelm the kid, and frankly, it would overwhelm Dark.

He held the kid's hand as he led him into the building, and upstairs.

It was an old building, had been abandoned when Ganondorf had bought the place and started renting it out to his employees. Cheap, dingy, but it wasn't in danger of collapsing, was sizeable, had a working roof, four walls, and a halfway-decent security system. It was more than a lot of Dark's clan had, more than a lot of Gerudo had, and though it didn't compare to his parent's house, it worked just the same.

The kid was mute, eyes wide and fingers clutching his tightly, as he watched Dark unlock his apartment door.

Four locks. Not overkill, when two of them were deadbolts. Sheik still managed to get in without a key every damn time, but it kept everyone else out. Cia just came through the window, these days.

"This is your new home. Your…I asked everyone to not come over tonight. They'll probably overwhelm you. Your room is the first one to the right…the one across from you is your aunt Cia's, and the one next to hers is mine. The bathroom is at the end of the hall." He said quietly, waiting until the kid had stepped inside and inched his way out of the doorway to step in behind him and close the door.

The apartment wasn't very big, but it was enough. The door opened into a joint living room and kitchen, the living room larger than the kitchen, with a hallway that had four doors. Originally there had been one bedroom and a laundry room, but he and Cia had changed that—split the bedroom into two and turned the laundry room into an office. When he'd decided to take in Link, they'd turned that into the kid's bedroom.

Living with her, as frustrating as she could be, had its perks. Cia had a knack for renovating buildings. When Ganondorf could afford it, he hired her to help redo the buildings he owned—she'd been studying interior design, before the hurricane had hit.

"…Are you married?" It took a moment to process what the kid had said. He was looking up at him with large, round eyes and face drawn and serious and—

"N—No! No, we're—Cia's my sister."

"I have a sister?!"

Dark sighed, and scooped the kid up.

"Did anyone explain to you what 'clan law' or 'clan rule' means?"

"No."

"I was adopted, when I moved here, into a clan. There are a lot of different races in Hyrule, and there are a lot of different races here in Termina too. The Gerudo run things through clans, and have since Termina's creation."

The kid just looked confused, face scrunched up and hands fisted against Dark's chest as he leaned back, staring at him.

"You know how the Royal Family runs things in Hyrule?"

"Yes."

"Clan heads rule things for the Gerudo. Gerudo have really big families, and each family is run by a clan head. The clan heads get together and agree on decisions, and elect one of their own to be a spokesperson with the Terminian government." The kid still looked lost, and Dar was quiet for a moment, struggling to think of how to explain it to him.

"Well…do you know that Gerudo don't usually give birth to boys?"

"Yeah. Mother Ceres says that they made Her Grace mad and she cursed them."

Well, shit.

"No, that didn't actually happen."

"But—"

"Anyway, when a boy is born he's trained and taught to be the next clan head. All of his sisters and mothers and aunts and cousins and grandmothers are then under his care. Like a father."

"Okay." Though the kid hadn't looked happy about being told that the priestess had lied to him, he seemed to understand what Dark was saying. Which was good. He loathed likening it to anything related to the Temple of Hylia, but the kid didn't know anything but the Temple. It would help.

"So the head of my clan, Ganondorf, officially adopted me into his clan. So when I say Cia or any of the other members of my clan are your aunts, it's not because I'm married. It's because that's what they want you to call them." Link frowned.

"Are you going to be the next head then?" That startled a laugh out of him, and Dark finally moved, arms aching as he set the boy back down.

"No. Not at all. C'mon, let's go see your room."

He'd unpacked a little bit of the kid's possessions—set up the dresser, bed and toy box like he knew they'd been set up at the kid's house. Made the bed and unpacked his clothes, too, but most of his toys remained in cardboard boxes stacked neatly in front of his closet. The furniture was all very plain, very simple wood. His blankets, too, were all white or grey, devoid of even the smallest stains.

Cia and Cremia had decorated the room with a little Gerudo flair. The whole idea was to ease him into their way of life, or else the kid would suffer terrible culture shock, so she'd been sparing in it. Painted the walls in blues and whites and greys, the colors swirling and blurring into one another, reminiscent of ocean waves, and pasted sticky glow-in-the-dark constellations on his ceiling. Colored scarves ringed the walls where they met the ceiling, laced with string-lights, and a pair of potted cacti and a small triangular fish-tank with a pair of brilliant, jewel-toned seahorses floating around lazily in it decorated the rest of the room.

A little too much, probably, but the awe in the kid's eyes was…worth it. Cia would be delighted.

"It'll take some getting used to, I think, but there was no telling Cia and Cremia no."

"I've never seen so many colors before."

Dark winced at that, but the boy was too enraptured with the seahorses to notice. He'd even slid his backpack off, set it at his feet so that it leaned against the dresser.

"We'll get you settled in today…we can talk tomorrow, alright? I've got to work, I'll drop you off with your…cousins tomorrow morning." That got the boy's attention.

"I have cousins?"

"One of your aunts, Cremia, has some daughters. Romani is your age, and Malon is a bit older—she's sixteen now. Cremia has to work tomorrow too, but Malon will watch the two of you."

The kid's eyes grew anxious, suddenly.

"You're not going to watch me?"

Dark frowned at him for a moment, wondering what exactly had the kid so upset, and then it dawned on him.

What the Temple taught, and…

"They're family, Link. Mine, and they're going to be yours. Would…you like to meet them, first? I can invite them over for dinner, if that would make you feel better. But they're perfectly safe. As long as you don't tell Romani aliens don't exist." The joke fell flat, but the kid nodded slowly and then hurried over to his side, taking his hand again and pressing against his leg.

Dark regarded him for a moment, squeezed the kid's hand gently.

"They were…they did their best, you know. They weren't bad people. And I know they did everything for you. They loved you, Link. And I don't—I don't want you to think it's bad that you're here." Link was quiet for a moment, and Dark tilted his head back, looking up at the ceiling.

He didn't feel like he had the right, to try to comfort the kid. He was a stranger, in a strange place, telling the kid all manner of weird things the boy probably understood their parents wouldn't want him to know.

But he wasn't lying. They weren't bad people. What he'd done, to them, had been unforgivable. And they'd acted accordingly. But they never would have hurt the kid, or him…and even when his parents had been furious with him, they had never hit him. Never struck him.

"Why didn't they ever tell me I had a brother?"

And for the first time, the kid sounded like he was going to cry.

"I left the Temple." It wasn't as hard to say as he'd thought it would be, but it still stuck in his throat, clogged on his tongue.

"They couldn't accept that. So I left."

"Why?" The boy pulled back as he asked, eyes wide and watery and confused, so very lost…

Dark's lips twitched upwards into a humorless smile, if briefly.

"It's different, here. And it'll be hard, Link. But I think it will be very good for you. I wouldn't have brought you here if I thought it would be bad."

"But why?" The kid pressed, still clutching his hand. Dark leaned down, scooped him up again.

"I wanted to do sports. At first. And that made them very angry. I was supposed to go into music, and I knew how to play all sorts of instruments. But I didn't like it. And I made friends with some kids who weren't from the Temple…they showed me gymnastics, parkour…you've probably never heard of those, have you?" The boy shook his head slowly, eyes still huge.

"I'll show you what they are, sometime—and you won't have to do it if you don't want too, kid. But from there I learned how to fight. All different styles, all different types…not to hurt people, but because I enjoyed it. I felt bad about it, so I went to Mother Ceres. Asked her about why the Temple teaches it's bad, why I liked it, why it was a bad thing to do in the first place."

"Co—counseling?" The kid asked, eyes lighting up. Dark nodded, and the kid mimicked the movement.

"I do that. After services."

That was…well, it sucked, for the kid. An overreaction. But if they seriously thought the kid was going to turn out anything like Dark…

"Well, instead of talking to me or answering my questions, she called Mom and Dad, and told them I was going to the Dark Realm. So they sent me to a month-long camp. They wouldn't talk to me, or let me ask any questions—they said even thinking about it was bad—and were…very mean." Total understatement, but…

"So I left. Told Mom and Dad that I couldn't do it anymore, and if that was what the Temple was, I wanted no part in it. And they got very angry with me, and then they told me I wasn't their son anymore. So I came to Termina."

The kid stared at him, confused—probably understanding only a fraction of what he'd said—but he didn't look scared, or nervous, or anything like that. Dark shifted the kid into a more comfortable position, stepping out of the kid's room and heading to the kitchen.

"Do you want to help me make dinner?"

"What is it?"

A smile, a real one, flitted across Dark's mouth.

There was a lot of bad things he could say about the Temple, but it gave the kids who grew up in its environment a huge appreciation for the little things people took for granted.

"Frozen pizza."

The awe in the kid's face was well-worth it.

"Yes!"