Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“Don’t like crowds?”

Zelda toyed with a strand of her hair and waited for a few seconds before answering. She could tell he liked them shy. She gave him a small smile. 

“I’m tired of it, you know? This is the third one this week.”

“Fourth”, the guy said, pointing at himself. 

“Aren’t you popular.”

At that moment, she couldn’t tell if she really wanted him to like her, or if it was just being bored out of her mind, what made her bleed the sarcasm out of her voice and widen her smile for him. It was getting to her, enough to get a little distracted.

“Well, it runs in the family.” 

He said it a bit self-deprecatingly, with an asymmetrical smile, which made Zelda respect him more. Most guests at these events were heirs and heiresses anyway. Just like her. Neither of them would be smoking on the rooftop of that building, hiding out for a few minutes, if it weren’t for their respective fathers. 

Zelda accepted a second cigarette from the stranger. She was feeling rebellious. She wondered how much longer she had before the bodyguard found her. He was green, still. She could get away with sneaking off two or three more times like this in the following days, maybe even four, and after that, she guessed, she would have to start getting inventive. He wasn’t the first one, or the last one. 

The man offered the lighter up, and she let him cup a hand inches from her cheek to light her cigarette for her. It was the part she loved: She felt the harmless warmth of the flame near her face and the whisper of his fingers brushing her neck while falling back down, as if by chance. She held his gaze through her eyelashes and exhaled smoke in his face, playful. His nostrils flared and he gave her a mock chastising look. Exaggerated, almost a pout. She laughed. Zelda had decided she liked him enough to ask for his name.

“What should I call you?”

“Jack?”

Was it a question?

“Jack…?”

“You want to know how much of the city my family owns?” It could have been rude the way he was avoiding the question, but she was in the mood for cynicism. She shrugged. 

He ran his fingers through his hair, as if pondering something, and the gesture made his sleeve ride up a few centimeters. There, in the place she’d least expected it, she saw it. Snaking around his wrist, archaic lines that made an eye. She glanced away and hoped he hadn’t seen her looking. Or would it be even more suspicious to not ask about it? 

“What if we forget about all of that, just for tonight?” 

He seemed so sincere. Would she have fallen for it, under other circumstances? Was it really that easy?

“Fine”, she sighed. It was very easy to pretend like she wanted to run away from herself. Fall right into his arms, be anyone else. His eyes were so dark, it made her breath catch. He was good. “Where should we go, then?”

“You want to leave?” 

His surprise seemed genuine. He was very good. It was a good thing she was getting herself kidnapped on purpose; they could split the credit. 

“I didn’t mean to be forward. Just, hard to forget from up here. We’re surrounded.” She lowered her voice, conspirationally. He was charmed, too. Would he be apologetic when the situation escalated, or was he hiding a whole other face?

“I know a place.”

So they laced fingers and followed each other down the stairs. He was tipsy. Maybe an act, maybe not, but he stumbled on the last few steps and it gave Zelda a chance to send a text she’d typed beforehand. She put the phone back in her handbag and left it forgotten on a table by the front door. If the new guy was smart enough to figure it out, she would be fine. She had left it all tied up and spelled out. If he wasn’t, though, at least he would get fired. Win-win.

She had expected the slick black car. The hand on her knee. Then, the zip ties and the hood over her head. She didn’t fight, and she didn’t have to fake the trembling in her breathing. It was quite dark all of a sudden, she was losing feeling in the tips of her fingers, and she could still see in her mind a handsome dimple on his left cheek. It was hard to reconcile the image with the kind of man who would join some kind of terrorist organisation. What she hadn’t expected was the fear, pressing down on her chest and making her mind race. She couldn’t help picturing how stupid it would all look if she got herself killed. 

“Please don’t hurt me,” she whispered to Jack despite her pride, despite him not really being called Jack. She heard him shift in the leather seat. Maybe hesitating, maybe getting more comfortable. She was glad that he did’t reach out to touch her this time. 

“Oh, just shut up.” Now, he sounded sincere, and she could finally tell the difference in his voice. She pressed her mouth closed and focused on breathing. 

It was a short ride before they slowed down and she was led out of the car. She dragged her feet, careful not to break an ankle on her high heels, until a hand between her shoulder-blades shoved her forward. 

“Don’t take all day.”

This was another man. Maybe the driver. She hadn’t considered the driver could be someone, not just a faceless worker. She couldn't catch her balance with her hands behind her back, but something solid steadied her. This had to be Jack, but she couldn’t be sure, because he stayed silent. Zelda let herself be pushed and pulled, until she was sat down inside.

It smelled strongly of alcohol and smoke, and more faintly of vomit. Zelda wanted badly to check if her dress had anything on it. Panic was jumbling up her priorities. A bottle against wood. Glass against glass. There were many people around her now, both men and women. She wondered, weren’t they worried about getting involved in a kidnapping? And not just any kidnapping, but hers. If they weren't worried, what did that mean for her? This seemed bigger than she’d thought. The Beatles was playing beneath all the noise, which seemed stupid. It was an early song, one of those everyone knew by name, but she couldn't seem to bring it back into her head. She needed to focus on something other than the blood in her ears. 

“That doesn’t mean we need to kill her right now,” she made out. It was a deep voice, a woman’s.

“It’s the plan. We’ve been over this,” a man said. It could be the one that shoved her, or a different one.

“I just think we can get more money out of it if we do it properly.”

“That’s your problem, isn’t it. It’s always about money.”

That got a rise out of the woman and she raised her voice:

“Easy for you to say.”

Against her better judgement, Zelda spoke up. She asked,

“What else would it be about?”

At least a couple of them laughed at her.

“If you’re going to kill me, you might as well tell me,” she insisted, less sure. No one spoke, until the woman said, like it was an argument repeated a hundred times over:

“It’s not supposed to be today.” 

That was helpful, Zelda thought. And then she heard the wasp sting shots of a silenced gun. Oh, no. That was it. 

“Jack?” 

Nobody answered. Some people were screaming. She let herself slip from the chair to the floor clumsily. By her side, something hit the floor with a hollow sound. She put her head between her legs and waited. There was some grunting, rapid footsteps everywhere, and more screams. This time, screams of pain, not just fear. Bodies fell onto tables, onto other bodies. Someone gargled up blood. At least, she imagined it was blood. Then, a warm hand on her shoulder.

“Zelda?” It was him, or so she thought. The bodyguard, his voice was quiet. “Are you hurt?”

Was she? She was breathless, hyperventilating on the fabric over her face. She shook her head and let herself be helped up. How was he here? There had been at least ten people in the room, if not more. Now, there was an eerie silence. He touched her arm again, presumably to lead her outside.

“Wait. Take these off.” He stopped. It was clear disobeying her made him uncomfortable. Still, he told her, “Not here.” She wanted to protest, but something in his voice made her let it rest. They turned a corner and stopped again. He freed her hands first, and let her lift the hood herself. She felt numb all over. She let the hood fall to the floor, but he picked it up. He had a ragged cut on his face that made it very easy to imagine someone sweeping at him with a broken bottle. She winced in sympathy pain, and he ignored her. 

“Try not to leave anything behind. We weren’t here.” 

“Where aren’t we?” They were walking out of the building, which looked like just any bar downtown. She craned her head to look at the street name, trying not to think about the unnatural quiet of the night around them. He didn’t answer, just waited for her to get in the car. Another shiny black car to take her back home. After just a few minutes, his silence began to unnerve her. 

“That easy, to cover up a massacre, huh?” 

The bodyguard stared right ahead into the night and kept driving, his pressed lips the only sign that he had heard her speak. 

“Oh. That is yours.” He gestured with his head to the backseat. Her purse. 

She took her phone out and saved the location of the shoot-out. Then she enabled the fingerprint lock on it. Thank god she’d thought of disabling it for him. It took him long enough as it was. 

“Where were you?” She was still scared, which made her be even more frustrated with him. 

“You planned this,” he said, stating the obvious. With how little he spoke, she didn’t take him for that kind of person. When she didn’t reply, he gave her a look, and asked, “Why?”

“It’s not about you.” What did he think, that she was testing him?

“Obviously.”

“Then what do you care?”

He kept calm despite her rudeness. His knuckles, bloody, were relaxed on the steering wheel.

“Would make my job easier,” he said without heat. Like it didn’t really matter if it was easy or difficult, because he would do it one way or the other.

“Do you think my father likes a snitch?” Now she was bluffing, because her father loved a snitch, as long as he was snitching to him. “Find a better way to climb the ladder,” she advised, condescending. 

“Whatever.” If he had sounded cross, she would have felt better about it. The unaffected tone of his voice just let her know she was wrong, even though she knew she wasn’t. Whatever, her mind echoed. She stared out the window, trying to tidy her thoughts while she traced her fingers along her wrist, where the cable ties had bitten into her skin. 

Was it worth it? What had she learned, really? That the Yiga weren’t just following her to scam her dad out of a few hundred thousand. That they had infighting issues and sounded like fanatics. There were more of them than she expected, but that was before her new bodyguard wiped out a full room of them by himself. 

Should she be frightened by him? She positioned herself so she could see him without facing him directly. Now that he’d taken his sunglasses off, she could see that his eyes were blue. He watched the rear view mirror and his right hand fell down to shift gears. They picked up speed seamlessly. Then, the streets were familiar enough for her to notice him making a wrong turn. He looked back again. She tried to see what he was seeing without outright turning in her seat. 

“Where are we going?” she asked offhandedly. 

“We’re being followed.”

“Huh.”

This late at night, there was no traffic to lose them in. The bodyguard built up to 70 km/h and then swerved off the avenue they were on to snake through a series of smaller streets. There was a deep thud, followed by a rattle that shook the entire car. Because now she was outright watching him, Zelda could see a whisper of a frown on the bodyguard’s face.

“Are the windows bulletproof?” she asked with imposed calm. He nodded, but something in his expression told her this was no guarantee. The streets they were speeding through were narrow, full of parked cars. They passed by the window one after the other, like they could never run out, in a blinking flicker of streetlights. They led into a roundabout and crossed it straight through. Zelda clamped her mouth shut and gripped the handle. 

The bodyguard kept checking behind them, so she did too. She spied into the left-side mirror and saw no one, just as his arm reached out across her body to press her against the seat as he stepped harshly on the breaks. Both of their heads rocked forwards, backwards. He changed into reverse and the engine roared as the car shot the way they had come. Somehow, the other car had made it in front of them to cut their way off. 

Someone stumbled out of the car, a man holding a gun. Zelda recognised him through the blood running down the side of his face and into his right eye, as the man she had been flirting with on the rooftop. His eyes were glazed from bloodloss, from determination. She let out a breath, knowing what was coming but unable to do anything about it. A bullet lodged itself in the glass between her two eyes. 

Zelda saw the bodyguard's fingers twitch over the gears, hesitating. He was thinking about shifting into first and ramming into him. She breathed a horrified “no”. Another bullet, right over her cheek. They exchanged a look, her breathing heavy; him, tense. He punched the gas pedal and they shot backwards out of the street. The tires screeched when he turned and he shifted out of reverse. The man kept firing at them, one of the back windows exploded open. Then, they sped back into the night, leaving him behind. 

The bodyguard took a long way back to the apartment, through the ring road and then a spiderweb of alleyways, to be sure they didn’t still have someone on them. Neither of them spoke when they got out of the car and into the building, until Zelda let them inside the door and they stood together in the dark. The blood in his white shirt looked black

“You're still bleeding,” she noted. He nodded. She felt like she had to say thank you, or I’m sorry. In silence, she went to the bathroom and took out the med kit. When she came back to the kitchen, he had switched on the lights and taken off his tie. He was bent over the sink, washing the cut on his face with dish soap. His fingers were light, but still, Zelda winced. She handed him gauze to dry it off and some more to press into it. Then, she took out a numbing spray and a sewing kit and slid them his way.

He lifted his eyebrows. She didn’t move.

“I can’t do it myself. Not on my face”

“Do you want to go to the hospital?” 

He shook his head. It wasn’t safe for any of them to walk out now, but then what?

“Don't worry. I’ll talk you through it.”

He slid the supplies back to her, and something in her stomach jumped and fell. She thought about protesting, but now that he had the first buttons of his shirt undone showing dried blood on his neck, and strands of fair hair falling out of his unmade bun, he looked no older than her. 

She frowned. It wasn't her fault he was here, he was a condition for her to be able to live in that apartment, away from his father. But she did feel a little responsible after the night’s events. Besides, he seemed to know something she didn't about the Yiga, so it couldn't hurt to play nice. She got up to wash her hands. 

Zelda brought him a handheld mirror and sat down next to him. From so close, she could see a scar over one exposed forearm, another one along his neck. He gave her quiet, direct instructions while watching her from the mirror, and she worked with very steady hands. 

“You’re good,” he complimented her when she was done, and her pulse picked up. She went over each stitch again, just to look busy. They looked like tiny blue flies sitting on his cheekbone. Her eyes skipped over to his, and he was already looking at her through blond eyelashes.

“Yeah, whatever.” She bit back a smile. “You look awful.”

Chapter Text

Zelda woke after just a few hours of sleep to the light of dawn. Cold, pale. Which alerted her to the fact that she wasn’t in her room, with her blinds drawn, but somewhere else. She let the events of the previous night creep into her head. It had been just hours before, but she remembered it like a dream.

Because she couldn’t stay still the night before, she’d busied her hands with the task of reheating leftovers. Yes, they were steady, had been for the whole ordeal, and this felt so dissonant that she couldn’t help but fear what’d happen to her once she stopped moving. So she didn’t.  While the leftovers were being reheated, she made it out of her night gown and methodically removed her jewelry and her make up. She got comfortable, and her bodyguard, who up until then had been invisible in her own home, did too. 

He was wearing shorts and a T-shirt. Surely, she wasn’t supposed to see him like that, but they ate together and, when she began to play cards on her own over the coffee table, he temptatively joined in. They only exchanged stray words about the game, an excellent distraction that prevented her from having to admit out loud that she didn’t feel like she would be able to sleep by herself that night. Suddenly, the naive, unassuming look on his face annoyed her.

“Hey, are you just humoring me?” she asked. 

“Hm?” He looked sleepy, which only deepened her suspicions. Then, her question seemed to click into his head, because he replied, “I guess this helps with all of that.” A hand gesture to indicate “before”. 

“Yeah, it does.” Her tone softened, to her embarrassment. His hands were steady, too, and she tried not to stare at his fingers too much, and to not think about the broken skin of his knuckles and his silenced gun inside her apartment, which must be warm with fresh blood. He didn’t look like someone capable of murder. He was tan over his scars, and the slant of his eyes made him look not tired, but lazy. 

Sleep had caught up with them right there, it seemed. They had rested in each one of the two couches and, what was even more worrying, Zelda had a blanket over her body. In the morning light, this all seemed very inappropriate, if not outright dangerous. He was her father’s hire. 

Link. She had asked him for his name, half asleep, as he spread the blanket over her. 

The other couch looked slept in, but, to her relief, he wasn't there anymore. Her phone chimed with an e-mail. Her dad wanted to see her. She stalked back to her bedroom to shower and get dressed, formal and clean, although she had to wear a pair of thick bracelets to cover the marks over her wrists. They were frivolous for the occasion, but, if it would rile her father up, it was just as well. 

When she was ready, Zelda paused by her bedroom door. The apartment seemed empty. Living with Link was like having a ghost, but over the last few weeks she had learned to listen for him: calm breaths, light steady footsteps. He wasn't home. Good. She didn't want him to come along for this. Meetings with her dad were humiliating enough without an audience. So she grabbed her bag and took the elevator down to the garage. 

In the daylight, the image of the broken down car was even more striking. It looked ruined; the back riddled with bullet holes and the inside full of glass. The door to the driver’s seat was open and Link was sitting half in, half out, speaking on the phone. He looked up when he heard her arrive. She should have taken a cab. 

“I have to go”, she heard him whisper. Silence. “Yeah.” He sent a furtive look her way and, before hanging up, “Love you too.” His expression didn't change when he got up and faced her, so she tried to pretend like she hadn't heard, too. Like she wasn't speculating about who it was on the other side of the line. If it was her, she wouldn't like her boyfriend to be a live-in bodyguard for another girl. Or to go on killing-sprees, for that matter. How much did he tell her? How much did he even know?

“We can’t take it to the shop,” he told her regretfully. He was talking about the car. 

“Why?” 

“Well, there would be questions.”

“I know that,” she scowled. “What the hell do you care?” 

His mouth opened at her swearing.

“I was assuming that you don't want people to know about last night.” He meant her father.

“You work for him.” 

“I’m assigned to you.”

She scoffed at that. Yeah right. The way he spoke was still so tame, matter-of-fact, but she wasn't falling for it.

“Tell him whatever you want. I'll take care of the car.”

Zelda walked past him to get in the driver's seat. It screeched when she sat down. Had they blown a tire getting home? She took it a short way, over to another gate. Not the one that opened to the street. Behind this one was her own workshop. She had a few projects going on, but she probably could get this one into shape in a few weeks. 

She walked out, to her motorcycle. She popped the little trunk on it and threw one of the two helmets at Link. It hit his chest, then his hands. She put hers on. Link looked around, to the other seemingly functioning cars she had in the front of the garage.

“I'm not getting in a car with you today.” 

He shrugged, put the helmet on and climbed on behind her. His hold on her waist was so faint that it gave her goosebumps.

Outside, she took a breath of fresh air. She wasn't rusty, she was just reckless, and she let the engine make more noise than it was necessary as she made her way along the avenue. She let herself fantasize about just driving away, but there were only so many times she could circle the neighbourhood before she was called out on it. She had made the fifteen minutes of the drive into thirty when she felt Link pinch her. Zelda sighed and she drifted onto the sidewalk to park crookedly across the front door. She didn't plan to be inside so long that she'd need to go into the parking garage. They walked through the doors without stopping at security, even though Link exchanged nods with the door-woman, and took the elevator up to Rhoam’s office. 

Zelda hesitated by the door, sensing Link behind her. She was unsure whether she wanted a witness or not. But, of course, it wasn't her choice. So she knocked and, without waiting for an answer, opened the door. Link went in after her. The click of the door closing already made her feel claustrophobic.

“Good morning, my daughter. Your manners haven’t changed.”

“You called for me?” 

“I did.” Link’s head was bowed, his hands clasped before him. “What did you do last night?”

Zelda’s expression didn't change, even though she felt her stomach close off.

“Like you wanted, I was at the—” He didn't let her finish.

“Because my people tell me that you left early. With someone.”

Zelda clenched her fists, torn between anger and relief. He didn’t know? If even he didn’t know, she must’ve found something really, really dark. 

“I don't see the problem, seeing how I’m an adult.”

“Are you?” She hated that he sounded much more composed than her, grave and slow. She didn't answer, so he kept going, “I give you the simplest tasks I can, and you still manage to embarrass me.” 

Through the knot in her throat, she answered, “Yes sir.” 

“It’s all you have to do, seeing as you never come to work.” Zelda simmered. He didn’t use to like it either, when she worked there full time before he bullied her off the floor. Cold, she replied,

“Could I get a copy of yesterday’s guest list? Let me make it up to you.”

Rhoam eyed her suspiciously. 

“Talk to Linda.”

“Thank you.”

“Zelda, before you go… What did you do to your bodyguard’s face?” 

“Bar brawl. With respect, you have to start being more careful of who you hire.” 

He hummed at that. She couldn't tell if it was a good or a bad sign.

“You are dismissed. Not you, Link. Stay.”

Zelda nodded. She closed the door carefully behind her, leaving Link to fend for himself, and went to get the guest list from the secretary. She was as quick as was polite, and then she rushed to take the elevator down, hop on the motorcycle and speed away. 

She didn’t go home, she wanted to be alone. She drove through the city centre, scouting the crowds. There was Jack, eye bloody, on a park bench. Yiga clan tattoos peeked under collars, socks and sleeves, all looking at her. She couldn't shake the feeling sticking to her skin, of being watched. 

Zelda didn't stop until she crossed the open gates of her junkyard. Technically it wasn't hers, it was Prunia’s, but she could go in and out as she pleased. She didn't stop to say hi, or even to check if Prunia was working that day. All the way in the back, she started sorting through pieces of scrap metal. 

Two hours later, she had two neatly organised  piles, dust in her hair and grease on her blouse. On one of the piles she had pieces she could take home and use to fix Link’s  work Toyota. The other one was discards. She did this sometimes, after she had a meeting with her father. She fixed something carefully, methodically picking out what she could make useful, stacking up what not even she could. 

Then, Zelda tidied the loose hairs from her ponytail behind her ears and she took a bat to the second pile until she was hoarse and red in the face, and she had blisters in the palms of her hands. Prunia never mentioned it and, in exchange, Zelda let her have most of her fixed projects.

She lowered the bat, already feeling the soreness in her arms. Her suit jacket was off, thrown over the front half of a car. Her hair was in her face. Link was sitting on one of the work benches, staring at her through his sunglasses. Even though he was in the shade, his neck was flushed. He was lucky she had just spent the better half of an hour bashing aluminium in like a maniac, because she sensed inside herself a newfound patience, and threw the bat to one side. 

“Came to get payback after getting fired?” 

His suit was a bit crumpled, but he still looked sharp, more so beside her. Maybe the stitches would have made him look tougher if he was a few years older. As it was, they made him look a little of a trouble-maker. In an elf-way, with his long nose and ears that poked through his blond hair. It was so stupid that he had blond hair. And long, too. Didn’t Rhoam have something distasteful to say about that?

“I’m still on duty.”

“Oh. Right.”

That could only mean one thing, really. He’d told on her, which she already expected. To be fair, she had put him in an impossible situation. She checked, but there were no new e-mails on her phone.

“How did he take it?”

“Take what?”

“Come on.”

Link’s eyebrows furrowed. 

“I told you I work for you, not him.” She hadn’t heard that edge in his voice yet. Weary, almost mad. She had managed to offend him. Something about it thrilled her. 

“Remind me who pays you.”

He turned around and started walking. She was done anyway; she needed to take a shower and get her clothes to the dry cleaner’s. She would have someone deliver the pieces she’d chosen to her garage. 

She liked being the one looking at Link’s back for a change. The muscles in his neck, tense, the hint of his shoulderblades through the fabric. But, when they got to her ride, he let her get on before him to drive them home. 

Whatever it was that had gotten into him, he had reeled it in by the time they got back to the flat. It had been so quick, only now did she see the missed opportunity to poke at it with a stick. 

“How did you find me, anyway?”

Zelda was doing the zipper on her jumpsuit, eager to start working downstairs on the car.

“I got a ride.”

“From who? Girlfriend?”

“Excuse me?” 

“Oh, sorry, forgot you're probably wearing a wire. But I heard you on the phone this morning.”

She knew this was self indulgent. Inappropriate, too. But she couldn't help herself. 

“Oh, that was my mother. And I’m not wearing a goddamn wire,” he said, exasperated, though the swear rolled off his mouth so gently, almost as much as the word mother. He untucked his dress shirt and unbuttoned three, four, of the top buttons. He opened it for her to see. On one of his tangled fingers, she caught a glimpse of a tattoo. It was the wrong shape for an eye. Then she stared at his bare chest. Christ. His mother? 

“Paula dropped me off.” At her puzzled look: “That's the security employee on the ground floor of your building.” She didn't like his tone, but she let it go because his shirt was still unbuttoned.

“Get dressed, will you. I'm going downstairs to work on your car.”

Zelda didn't mention it again, but he hadn't really answered her question at all.

Chapter Text

It has been three days of Zelda holing up in her workshop with the beaten down Toyota. There is only so much standing around he can do before Link gets curious to see what she’s doing, maybe lend her a hand. He’s been getting closer to her work station. First, trying to see. Then, fidgeting with the stray tools that lie around. A screwdriver. Some sheets of sandpaper. 

On the third day, Zelda asks him to pass a rag. He doesn’t go back to his place after handing it to her, but stays near her. She is so focused that Link startles her the first time he asks about the way she’s hooking up the new window. When she explains to him how it works, it’s nothing like the hostile prodding way she usually speaks to him. She’s calm instead of smug, she’s analytical instead of paranoid. Her fingers move like she doesn’t even have to look to know where the pieces are. Link nods along and asks small questions that make her look pleased with him. He tries to not let it get to him. Then, he says “Can I try?” She starts assigning him simple tasks. 

On the fourth day, he comes down in jeans and a t-shirt he doesn’t mind dirtying. Her overalls have dark stains of varying density on them. Her hair is up, tangled in a high ponytail. His too. He smiles to himself, because maybe they look a little alike, now that he’s seeing more of her without her make-up on, in looser-fitting clothing. Except that she still looks so elegant like this, with grease under her fingernails and frowning in concentration. Her hands long, her eyes clear.

She keeps both of them busy. The workshop is filled with the mixed sounds of metal and flesh: the scraping, the labored breathing. Link catches Zelda peeking at him sometimes, and she acts like she’s checking that he does his chore a certain way. When he gets bored, he sweeps the floor and goes back upstairs. 

Helping Zelda makes him hungry, so he cooks them both dinner and makes sure to stretch the process out so that he’s finishing when she’s ready, even on the days when she takes a shower before sitting with him. He does this very nonchalantly, like the domesticity of the new routine isn’t out of place. It’s a similar silence, the one from the workshop and the one from dinner. Warm, fragile. 

On the seventh day, he makes his mother’s stew. It’s the day Zelda’s composure finally breaks. She burns her tongue, closes her eyes. He knows it's that good. She keeps avoiding his eyes, pointing her attention at one of his hands. Link fights the urge to squirm. Then he catches on, and he faces his palm towards her so she can see the tattoo on the inside of his left middle finger in full. It's old, fine lines faded grey. A sword. Not his choice, but she doesn't need to know that.

“How many people have you killed, anyway?” she asks, trying hard to sound casual. He thinks maybe he can follow her train of thought, from the stew to his hands to this. She scrunches up her nose, like the smell of blood is back there with them. He doesn't want all this to spoil the stew, but she's clearly been thinking about it for a few days. The look he fixes her with is steady.

“Five, six. Depends on how many of them made it last week. I don’t shoot to kill. Just doing my job”

“Hm. Only to maim, then.”

“Well, it could have been a lot worse.”

She hums again and looks away. She doesn't like being reminded of her fragility, but she really doesn’t know what those people are capable of. He can't help but asking,

“Does it scare you?”

He expects her to reject the question to protect her pride, but instead she says: 

“What, you?” 

He nods. She brings another steaming spoonful to her mouth and really savors it. He does the same. She hasn’t said anything about it, but Link can tell she loves it. 

“I know I’m safe,” she tells him with a fake, taunting smile. She never seems to display any guilt after sneaking off alone.

“Even from them?”

“Uh-huh.” She’s acting, again, like she doesn’t care, but now it comes off less sure. 

“Then why haven’t you used the guest list you got at the office yet?”

She keeps eating, and waits to have swallowed before answering. 

“In case you haven’t noticed, I’ve been busy. Your car is ready, by the way. You’re welcome.”

As if it really were his.

“Thank you. Want me to drive you somewhere tomorrow, then?”

“Maybe.”

“I guess I'm just good with names and faces.”

“Careful.”

“If you kept still.”

Zelda grabs his chin and jabs at his face with her eyeliner stick. His sunglasses are keeping her hair out of her face, and his suit on her is just loose enough, and just a little bit short on her legs. When she's happy with her work, he’s able to stop holding his breath, and look at her from further away.

“You have to tidy your hair.”

“I did!”

“Tidier. Yeah, that's it.”

He takes a better look, then. Something’s off. 

“Take off the jacket.”

He’s serious now. He doesn't raise his voice or move towards her, but Zelda catches his tone and does as he says. Hooked on a holster around her shoulder is Link's gun.

“You're not taking a gun.” Nevermind her going through his stuff to find it.

“Don't be mad.”

He isn’t. He extends his hand wordlessly. She rolls her eyes and shrugs the whole thing off. It's warm from her body against his chest when he straps it on beneath her biker jacket that he’s burrowing.

“Go over it with me again?”

She takes pity on him and talks slower this time.

“Claire was at that party. We’re not friends, but I’ve seen her around. She was whispering with Jack for a long time that night. That's the one you almost ran over, you know.”

His name isn't Jack. Link nods.

“Her lover,” she eyes him with a little smile and Link tries to avoid looking at the way her mouth hugs the word, “Nico, he plays guitar tonight in this club called The Desert. That's why you have to look cool tonight.” 

Link feels like a doll she's been trying outfits on. He glances in the mirror, then at her, impassive. 

“And then?”

“They know how to have fun. It’s a party. Wait for them to take something. Talk to them.”

It sounds so easy. This is the moment in which Link should tell her everything. The hair on the nape of his neck stands up. He hasn’t seen them in years. He can’t believe Mipha was at that party and he missed her. Maybe her hair is darker now, dull with the years that have passed. It was like fire when he knew her. 

He shouldn’t go. What would it take to back out of it now? If his mom knew he was purposefully making contact with them again, she'd kill him. She wouldn’t care that it was Zelda's idea. She’d see right through him: Zelda’s or his, it’s the same thing. 

Maybe it’s safer if she lets him participate, even if it means she might find something she’s not supposed to. If he were better at his job, he would refuse to play spies and lock her in. But, then, she would just find a way to get herself into a complicated situation on her own. 

In the car, he rolls down the window. Zelda drives. Something is awakening inside him. The night pulls him towards it, the summer is over and his lungs fill with cold, humid air like it’s going to rain. His stomach twists with fear, but it’s an easy sensation to confuse with excitement. 

This is what he’s been avoiding for a little under a decade, getting mixed up with the same crowd again. What were the odds that he'd end up working for someone they were targeting? “Odds”, Jack would make fun of him for that. He catches himself calling him Jack in his head too because it's easier to think about him that way. It's all fake anyway. But Jack, Sidon, would take any coincidence and weave it into something colossal. 

“I think I might have worked for her family before,” he muses to Zelda. He hopes he’s a better liar than she is. Because they're at a red light, she reaches out to tuck his hair behind his ear, so that his piercings are showing. Normally, they’re off when he's working. He lets her tug playfully on one of them. His heart pounds in his chest. 

“She won’t know it's you,” she reassures him. The light turns green and she steps on the gas.

Link picks at the fraying rips on the knees of his jeans. Tonight is a mistake but it's very hard to say no to her. Maybe he never really got out and the Yiga are right about it all. Maybe. Right in front of his face, the windshield looks as clear as water, no trace of the bullet holes meant for Zelda's face. 

“Stay where I can see you.” He says when they enter the club together, knowing she’ll do as she pleases. But, for now, she's steady behind him. Her hand hovers over his lower back, protective, and Link affects disinterest when he scouts out the crowd, eyes glazing over it. 

They aren’t too early, so the club is already buzzing with people, clearly on their second or third drink. Link isn't used to being noticed, he usually falls behind into the anonymity of his profession and it frees him to watch without being seen. Someone’s hand jiggling cash inside a pocket. A worried look towards the door. 

Tonight, people look back. He makes eye contact with someone, a girl. Her skin flashes pale under the blinking lights, and her hair doesn’t reach her bare shoulders. She smiles, nodding for him to approach. He manages not to turn to look at Zelda, who has fallen back a little bit, and she chooses this moment to speak into his earpiece, You’re too good at this. And he’s blushing. He smiles back at the girl, shy. Link accepts a drink from her, and she asks if he’s alone. 

“I’m looking for some friends.”

“Oh,” she sounds disappointed. “Do you know the band?”

“I know the guitarist, but this is the first time I see them play.” He’s too quiet, or the music is too loud, so she has to get closer to hear. Her hair brushes his chin. 

“Then you have to come say hello!” She twists around and mouths something into another girl’s ear. Link can’t stop watching her, she moves like a snake. He has the same urge again, to twist around and spot Zelda in the crowd, but he can’t, without giving her away. He knows she’s watching, and it makes him all the more self-conscious when the snake girl grabs at his biceps to lead him further into the club. 

In the back, there’s a storage room with a little agglomeration by the door. Inside, a man is tuning his guitar. Nico. His dark hair reaches his chest, tangled, his fingers are thin long spider legs, curling and twisting. He’s staring right at him, even over other people’s heads, like he recognises him. Link approaches him as if pulled by a magnet.

“Oh, hi. You’re Mipha’s.” It’s not a question. Link shivers. Before he can answer he’s pointing his chin to his left. 

You are? Zelda’s voice has a mocking edge to it. Am I?, Link wonders irrationally.

In an obscure corner just outside the door to Nico’s storage room, there's a low table surrounded by a mismatched seating arrangement. A booth, a couple of stools, some chairs. It's dark except for the firefly flashing lights that crawl along Mipha’s face, that set her hair on flames. It's not duller than when they were kids. He's been taking small sips out of his glass but he takes a big gulp now. There’s a bitter taste in his mouth he can't get out. Snake girl is smiling sweetly, knowingly, giving him space. It's a smile that shows fangs. Before Link can make anything of it, he's swept up in a hug and his nose is buried in Mipha’s hair. She smells like vanilla and like cigarettes. She didn't use to, but it still fills his chest with nostalgia and, without meaning to, he breathes out a soft greeting for her. In his earpiece, there's only static. He tries to picture Zelda's face at this.

“You're back!” Back? “I knew it couldn't be true, what Sidon was saying about you.” The blood in his eye. It hasn’t even been a month since Link wanted to run him over with the heavy carcass of the ruined car. He finally looks over his shoulder, searching for Zelda’s head of fair hair. 

“No, I-, it's true.” 

Mipha’s smile turns condescending.

“It's not.” 

“Were you there? At the bar, that night?”

“I wasn’t, but I know you. You want to fix things with us, and I’ll help you.”

You worked for her family, huh. 

“That’s not why I’m here.”

“It is. You brought her to us.”

That should’ve cleared his head, but, suddenly, he feels hot in the back of his neck, and a wave of nausea crashes through him. He stumbles. 

“Who?” He lets a note of panic into his voice. 

“Her.” 

Zelda is nowhere to be seen, but she says, Link? His voice comes out strangled,

“No.” Soothing, impatient, Keep going.

“You don't know who she is, do you?”

A knot in his throat says he does know, even when all he wants to do is turn around and run. 

“Aw, you don’t look so good. Come and sit with me.” Mipha’s voice is almost maternal, and, for the first time tonight, Link is aware of the age difference between them. 

He tries to step back, but there’s bodies everywhere. Someone who’s pushing through towards the stage makes him stumble forward, instead. He isn’t steady on his feet anymore. Mipha catches him and eases him onto a chair. He’s fighting for his eyes to stay open, and he locks eyes with snake girl in realisation. He shouldn’t have been drinking at all, but he was too worried, so nervous he wasn’t thinking. His glass, still only two-thirds-empty, slips from his sweaty palm to rest on the table. 

“Now, are you willing to help? We already have her.”

They don’t, She tells him. 

“She’s not here anymore,” Link returns her bluff. He hopes Zelda can take the hint. Leave.

What are you doing? Ask about what they want. 

“You can’t lie to me.”

“What are you going to do to her?”

“We just want to talk.”

“You can’t lie to me either.”

He lets his gun rest heavy where it is. Not really a great idea to bring it into this situation, when he's drugged up and surrounded. Maybe all he can do right now is give her time and information. She can still get out.

“Who’s out looking for her?” Link sends a weary look at snake girl, who hovers now clearly ready to hold him down if he tries to get up.

“You wouldn't know them, would you? Except for Sidon, of course. He said she was easy.” 

Link bristles at this, for some reason. His teeth bare. He's too helpless to even get properly angry.

“He's alive because of her.” He adds, for Zelda, “Jack,” and it comes out weak, as a dry laugh.

“I'll make sure he thanks her properly, then.”

“And me?” Link is digging his nails into his knees to stay awake.

“You can watch. Take your punishment and you can stay.”

“Is that why you drugged me, because you think I wanna stay?” he slurs, more for Zelda's sake than Mipha’s.

Oh. 

“You don't know what you want.” The girl that looks like a snake digs her fingers into his shoulders from behind. 

Tell her I'll make a deal.

“No,” he says again, voice ragged, turning his head to avoid the rim of the glass, which Mipha is pushing into his mouth. Glass clicks against his teeth, but he keeps it out until she grabs his chin to pin his head back. One of the women is pinching his nose so that he opens up. Then he sees her.

Zelda's jacket is off and, with her hair hidden beneath a baseball cap, she looks like one of the waitresses here. Except for the blood around her mouth. She's panting, but she looks to be in one piece. It's the last thing he sees before everything goes black.

Chapter Text

Zelda carried Link out like a backpack. His weight grounded her enough to keep going. Enough to distract her from her sore muscles, from the way she couldn't get enough air in her lungs, from the metallic taste in her mouth and her spinning thoughts. Just his limp arms over her shoulders, her stiff fingers under his knees. The gun still hung from two of them. She took the darkest possible streets in the least intuitive path, only guided by her paranoia. Every few minutes, she stopped to see if Link was still breathing against her. She waited to feel the faint tingle of his breath against the back of her head before picking her pace back up. 

She couldn't know how much time passed, or where she was anymore. She regretted abandoning the car at The Desert, but she couldn't risk a repeat of last time. Her driving skills weren't like Link's. Not with someone on their tail. Easier to hide in case they changed their minds. She turned the corner into a dark alleyway, the kind of place she normally wouldn't set foot in that now offered the protection of darkness. 

Zelda tried not to fully collapse against the wall. She used it to slide down to the floor, where she was able to detangle herself from Link's limbs and prop his body up. She stayed on her knees in front of him. She wanted to hit the right words out of him. Crack him open to see what they were talking about back in the club. To understand how he fit in tonight’s events. As it was, all she could do was stroke strands of hair off his forehead, out of his closed eyes. She pressed two fingers under his jaw to feel for his pulse. 

It felt wrong to touch him like this, her tentative and him absent, when only hours ago she'd been wrestling make-up onto him, the same he was still wearing. She touched her fingers to his lips, thinking about sticking them down his throat to make him puke. That's when she felt him stir. Only a pinch of his eyebrows and a downturn of his mouth. She wouldn’t feel sorry for him, he'd done this to himself. She pressed him against the wall with a hand fisted in the front of his T-shirt. He looked at her through his eyelashes, fighting to open his eyes. His fingers hung themselves weakly off her wrist. On his mouth was a question, but all he managed was the shape of the “w”. What? Where? 

“Shut up,” she hissed before he found the strength to utter a word. “Who are you?” She could hear how betrayed she sounded. “How does she know you? What else are you lying about?” 

His eyes were fixed on her other hand, the one that wasn’t manhandling him: The one she still held the gun in.

“What did you do?” he whispered.

She held it against him then, to see his eyes move. He was disoriented and afraid, but still his mouth made a stupid kind of ‘o’ shape that betrayed he was truly drunk and drugged off his ass. She should feel bad, but maybe it was her one chance at finding something else out.

“I asked you a question.”

Something changed when she pointed the gun at him. The look in his eye became harsher, hollow like an animal’s. His hands scrambled on the pavement. Still, it seemed he found it hard to keep his head up. She pressed the barrel of the gun against his forehead, pushing it all the way back, and he huffed. He didn’t complain any more than that, though, he didn't answer, he just stared at her expectantly. His breathing was heavier. His lips chapped. He looked so vulnerable, she was suddenly out of breath too. It left a faint round mark there when she lowered the gun. Zelda cursed under her breath. Fucking hell.

“I didn't do anything to them. I just, uh,” she took a beat, so that the break in her voice wouldn’t show, “I threatened to blow my head off if they didn't let me take you and go.”

Something in her wanted to laugh hysterically. She had to look away from the confusion on his face.

“But I thought—” the phrase dissolved into an incoherent mumble. He tried again to focus. “Thank you.”

His eyes were shiny with relief. It was too much. He might be too drunk to stop himself from crying. She shrugged and looked away. 

“You would have done the same thing,” she replied mechanically.

His voice was too faint, she strained to make any sense of it. “—’s not the same. That’s what I— am… for.”

Zelda thought she’d misheard a couple of words along the way. 

“You mean it’s your job.”

He looked right through her. His eyes drooped. His breaths came slower. She pushed him again.

“Hey. We need to move.”

“Where are we?”

Good question. Zelda replied with another. 

“Can you stand by yourself?”

Link didn’t pause to think it over. The scar on his cheek looked like it was eating at itself, the stitches already out, exhaustion pulling on his face. He stood, leaning into the wall behind him and giggling breathlessly when he almost fell back down. He was pale and unsteady. She stood up with him. Even though he still followed the gun with his eyes, he didn’t flinch when she pressed a palm against his chest to part his jacket so she could return it to the holster underneath. She knew she didn’t have to do it like that, to get so close and press against him. She didn’t know where it came from, a need to poke and push at him and see what happened. Was it trust, the way he just let her? Or resignation? His mouth moved, but didn’t make a sound. 

He tripped on his own feet and she catched him before he fell. She took his arm to put it around her own shoulders, so that he could lean on her, and they made a slow way back into the light, too bright now for their eyes, which had grown accustomed to the dimly-lit alleyway. Link squinted up to see the street name on the corner. 

“Wait.”

“What?”

He looked around, mouthing something. He seemed spaced out, searching for something inside his mind. 

“I know someone who lives around here. A friend.”

“We just came from spending time with your friends,” she reminded him wearily.

“No. That’s not what they are.” Out of everything she’s done and said, this was the thing that got him to look hurt. 

“What are they, then?” 

He looked away before throwing her own words back at her.

“We’re moving.”

They advanced with uncertainty. He kept pausing to look around, maybe to get air, to find his footing. At one point, he made them do a circle around a block to end up in the same spot as before. Right when she was reaching her patience’s limit, he stopped again. He patted his pockets with his free hand until he found his phone. 

The night air bit at her cheeks. He was heavy against her like his bones were made from lead and still his body emanated enough heat to stop her shivering. Enough for her to think about his skin when he’d showed her he wasn’t wearing a wire, like that was a guarantee of anything. 

“Hey, man, remember that favour you owe me?” 

Zelda held her breath as if she could pretend she wasn't there. She hadn't heard him sound like that before. So casual, so oddly intimate, the way young men were with each other. His vowels were elongated by his state of consciousness. She wondered what kind of friend this was.

“Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry. I’m downstairs with a friend.” He snuck a look at her when he said the word ‘friend’, unsure. She understood. They weren't. It was just the easiest and quickest explanation. “Please let us up. Just for the night.” 

Link hung up and looked up at the third-floor window.

“The intercom doesn't work,” he slurred. 

Soon enough, a head of disheveled brown hair peeked out the window and, whoever it belonged to, he shot a bunch of keys at them. Zelda picked them out of the air, since Link just stood staring at them as they arched towards him. That conversation on the phone had took all he had left in him. 

“Nice catch!” came a stage-whisper from above, “See you upstairs.”

He waited for them at the door. He was scrawny and he looked tired, but his eyelashes stabbed up meeting the ends of a bowlcut that he weirdly managed to pull off. He was in his pyjamas: A Madonna T-shirt and plaid flannel pants. 

“Hey, have we met? I’m Beedle”, he greeted her before allowing himself to fuss over Link. His voice changed then, when he saw him leaning on Zelda with droopy eyes.

“Are you hurt?”

“Hi, it’s fine. Just need to rest for a bit,” Link replied casually, still too long on his ‘i’. 

Beedle took his other side and Link let himself be practically carried into the house. Zelda wondered how much effort it had actually taken for him to get there conscious. 

“I’m Zelda,” she told Beedle quietly over Link’s bowed head. She ignored his question from before, because it was silly and pointless. 

They lowered Link onto what was clearly Beedle’s unmade bed, in the only room the apartment had. He took off Link’s shoes. Only then did Zelda look around. 

“Are you a hoarder?”

Beedle frowned, still pulling the sheets over Link, who was out like a light. He whispered:

“Please. I’m a collectionist. Or a… procurer.” 

Zelda made a face. 

“Okay. Not like that.”

“Right.”

“You’re judgmental for someone who’s crashing my home in the middle of the night,” he pointed out without heat. “There’s a bathroom down the hallway. You have blood on your face.”

Zelda just nodded and left. The bathroom was a small room made of butter-yellow-tiled walls and lit by a naked lightbulb hanging by a wire from the ceiling. Like the rest of the house, it was packed with stuff. There was a birdcage in the corner and three clocks, each of a different kind; two on the shelf, one on the sink, which was littered with small bottles in every shape and colour. 

Zelda dragged her eyes to the tight-lipped wild animal in the mirror. Her bangs were stuck to her forehead and whole strands of hair had fallen out of her ponytail. Her eyes looked small, she didn’t know if she felt as lost as she looked. And, of course, Beedle was right that there was still some blood around her mouth, some smeared on her cheek. She touched her own lips, entranced, as she recalled the feeling of skin breaking on her teeth, and the horrified scream Jack, Sidon, whatever he was called, had let out before she took her chance to free herself. She bared them now, her teeth, in a secret, raw smile for herself, before opening the tap and washing her face clean. She pushed her bangs out of her face, combing them back with water and her fingers. She went back into the hallway and followed the light into the kitchen.

There, Beedle offered her a stool by his side. He had left the window open and was lighting what smelled like a blunt. 

“You want?”

Zelda shook her head no.

“What about a drink?”

She sighed a relieved “please”. It was a good start to calm her nerves, though, and to politely accept something from this man before deciding if he could be useful to her. 

So he made her a drink over the counter, which she stared at the whole time, barely blinking.

“What happened to him?”

“Roofied,” she said dryly. His eyes shot up to her. She felt the need to add, “I got him out before anything happened.”

“Was it one of them?”

He narrowed his eyes, not-so-subtly trying to gauge how much she knew. Would it be better to pretend like she did know? Or should she play dumb? Zelda drank to make time. The second swig was easier than the first one. Beneath the caution, the play, all he looked was concerned. When he'd taken Link's shoes off, he'd done it slow and careful. He'd whispered not to stir him. She thought about Link knowing the way to his apartment even in the state he was in. Maybe she could trust him. 

“He won't tell me who they are,” she finally let slip in a low voice. “The man’s real name is Sidon?”

He was listening to her in this attentive way, like he really understood what she was going through, like he could help. She found it unbearable. She stared at the floor.

“They're siblings. The woman's is Mipha, but you probably know her as Claire, in your crowd.”

“My crowd. Which is?” 

He shrugged, not giving anything away.

“Am I wrong?”

“No.”

She waved his smoke off her face. They sat in silence for a while. She was exhausted. 

“She talked to him like she owned him,” she seethed. 

“She does that.”

“But why?”

“Do you really want to get involved in this?”

“I am already involved. They want something out of me.”

He didn’t look surprised, more like she was confirming something for him. 

“Something.” His voice hid a dark edge that made the hair on her arms stand up. He shook his head.

“Right. So, keep an open mind, okay? Do you ever get deja vu?”

“I guess.” 

He hummed.

“Do you ever get that same feeling of familiarity about someone you just met?”

“What does this have to do with anything?”

“There is a group of people in this city who believe some of us used to know each other. A different place, different time. In another life.”

“So you’re in a cult.” Beedle sighed.

“It’s not—, I was. They still are. I dont agree with them on everything but I do believe them on that.”

Zelda didn’t want to seem an ungrateful guest, so she chose to ignore that last part. 

“What don’t you agree with, then?”

“They want to go back.” 

“Go back.”

“Yeah. I don’t think they can. But they have started messing with things you don’t wanna mess with.”

“Yeah? Like kidnapping people or drugging them?”

“I think you’re lucky that’s all you’ve seen.” 

She wanted to laugh at him, but it wouldn’t come out. Instead, what rose in her chest were nausea and dread. 

“And Link?”

“I didn’t think he’d ever go back there for anyone.” He looked pointedly at Zelda. Was she supposed to feel guilty?

“It’s my fault he isn’t assertive enough?”

“You’re someone to him.” 

“He thinks that?”

“I do. I told you, he’s done with all of it.”

Zelda’s gaze was weary. Beedle held it with dark, calm eyes. He looked laid-back enough, but he seemed serious about all this nonsense. She heard the rasp of his voice again in her head. You’re someone to him. Somehow, it pulled at a loose string she didn’t know was there. She needed to be alone now. She didn’t want to open her mouth again, just in case something that left it would expose her somehow. 

He stood up to give her space, like he sensed her discomfort. He shrugged again, all sharp shoulders and elbows. 

“You’re the one who asked. Zelda, right? Get some rest. You can take the couch.”

Chapter Text

The rain was getting heavier with every second, heavy to the point that it came up again with the force it hit the ground with. There was mud up to her knees. Her feet sunk into the ground with two bodies’ worth of weight. Link’s blood thinned and washed out as it seeped from his wounds, like it was never there. She knew there was somewhere she had to get him to. Thoughts scattered, senses dulled by the water rushing in her ears, seeping inside her eyes, her mouth. She only kept going forward. 

She remembered tearing the metal pieces of the armour off his body. She remembered touching his face, holding his head, shaking his frame, him limp in her arms. But, most of all, she felt an old grief in her chest. An irreparable loss, familiar deep inside her, like she’d known from before that it was meant for her. 

It was still with her when she woke up. She looked around to the piles of boxes by the door, to the spinning bike and the T-shirts and hoodies hanging off of it. Link’s odd friend had let her sleep on his couch. She took her hands to her hair and around her arms, trying to soothe herself. She was cold but dry except for her cheeks. She wiped at them, watching the closed door to the bedroom. 

Zelda let the cold light of the early hours pierce her eyes, unblinking. She wasn't going back to sleep, no matter how heavy her body felt. She clung to the cold, to the pain, willing the dream to fade away. She put her shoes back on and went into the kitchen to wash her face in the sink. She spotted the coffee maker easily. The coffee, not so much. She had to sort through half a dozen cupboards full of jars before she found it. Dry and wet ingredients. Tea, spices, jam, oils. She was pretty sure one of them held dead ants. 

At the smell of coffee, Beedle poked his head in the door.

“Make yourself at home, why don't you.”

She served him a cup. Peace offering. Zelda gulped down her anxiety to ask:

“How is he?”

“He's asleep.” After a long look, he added, “I made him drink some water last night. He seems fine.”

Zelda supposed they had both slept in the same bed, as the apartment didn't have any other room for it. 

Beedle was giving her the same knowing look as the night before. She heard herself say, in her head: I had a dream that he died. She took a sip of her coffee. 

“So who were you supposed to be in this past life?”

“You’ve given it some thought, huh?”

She turned away and stopped talking altogether. It feels like I know it's going to happen. Like it's already happened and I couldn't help it. The need to see him felt like an itch she couldn't scratch in front of this stranger. She couldn't give him reason to think he was getting to her. No. He might be Link's friend, but he wasn't hers, and she didn't know Link as anything but her father's employee. 

From the next room came the sound of something soft hitting the floor. Zelda was at the door before she could think about what her legs were doing. Link smiled ruefully up at her as he got up from where he had fallen off the bed. All of a sudden, she was by his side supporting his weight. She tried to leave him back on the bed but he clung to her.

“Hey,” she said, soft.

He looked at her mouth. Link traced a finger around it, searching. She had half a mind to inch away, but she couldn't find it in her. 

“Whose blood was that?” he asked. She felt as if she still had it on her face.

“Sidon.”

Link's smile, small, turned him into an elf once again. Her lips tingled. Zelda left him back on the bed.

Link’s memories are torn apart and stitched back together. Her mouth, her teeth. Can she still taste it? 

“I’m fine,” he tells her, and he manages to stay upright this time. His mind feels clearer this morning.

“Does that mean we can leave?” 

“Hmm. Maybe B can drive us back.”

It’s on her face for only a moment, but Link sees it. He asks,

“What has he spoken to you about," his voice weary.

“It's nothing.” 

Zelda won’t look him in the eye, and he already knows. He needs her to look at him, and his hand hangs in the air midway to touch her until he notices Beedle in the doorway. He lets it fall back down.

The drive back is silent. Zelda sits in the back among cages and boxes and jars that could fit two human heads. Link gives directions. He feels Zelda's questioning look in the back of his head when he leads Beedle to an address still a couple of blocks off her apartment. Link squeezes Beedle’s shoulder and thanks him sincerely. As they watch the van roll away, Zelda turns to him.

“I thought you trusted him.”

“I do. Doesn't mean you have to.”

Link's judgement isn’t at its best lately.  He’s feeling nostalgic, a dangerous thing considering where he comes from. He’s still slow on his feet from the night before. He’s trying hard not to let it show, but Zelda still slows her pace down to his. He wants nothing but to go back to sleep. The tension on Zelda's shoulders is evident, too. Snaking its way up her neck. Would she let him press two warm thumbs there and ease it? Shame burns in his stomach at the thought. He takes care of her, but he isn’t supposed to enjoy it. His body’s supposed to serve as shield and sword, to take on the violence meant for her. Not to feel tethered to her like a sail to the wind. She’s always in the corner of his eye. It just confuses him sometimes. 

Because he’s confused, because he’s tired, he fails to see the signs. They walk into Zelda’s house slump-shouldered, eyes dragging along the floor. They take off their jackets. He takes off his chest holster, that has been biting into his skin through the cotton of his T-shirt. Without it, he feels light. Just before his mind starts floating away from the relief of coming home, he hears it. Soft, barely-there. A brush of fabric, the lightest vibration. Maybe because he once knew the Yiga like brothers and he’d learned to tell them apart from their footsteps alone, from the way they breathed. Or because he’s never off-duty now. Him and Zelda cross a look together, and he puts himself between her and the door. His gun’s too far, but that may be fine. He doesn’t want Zelda’s home painted with blood splatters. Adrenaline sharpens his senses, his shoulders twitch with want. 

“Just come out. I know—” He’s interrupted by a knife to the shoulder. Zelda gasps his name. Maybe his attacker counted on him getting out of the way. He saw it coming, it’s just that his instincts are upside down. Shield. And now: sword. Now that he’s seen where the knife came from, he has him. 

Quick, no longer heavy, no longer tired, no longer feeling much of anything, Link brings his weight on the intruder. He pins one of his arms to the floor and hits his head with his other fist like a hammer. It makes a sick, raw sound. Then he rips the knife out of his own shoulder like it’s nothing and presses it to the other man’s neck. The blood that was being stopped by it oozes down on him in time with Link’s rushing heart. 

“Stop. Link, It’s me,” he pants. Is he crying? 

Link can’t recall his name right now, but he replies:

“I know who you are.”

“What do you want,” comes Zelda’s voice. 

Link doesn’t look back at her, just presses the knife harder threateningly like he himself has asked the question. 

The Yiga clan member locks eyes with Link. They’re warm, familiar. He’s dressed in all dark red. Link hasn’t worn that color for years. 

“You know what we want.”

“You do?” Zelda’s tone is hard, quiet, and Link turns to her only to find her too close, holding his own gun against him for the second time today. The Yiga struggles beneath him. Link shoves his forehead against the cold metal, pushing her away. He’s frustrated with both of them. 

“They don’t even know what they want,” he says through clenched teeth, scathing. He presses down harder. Some of his blood splatters on the guy’s face. His arm shakes. “Whose orders are you following today? Whose tomorrow?” It’s not a real question. 

“You could actually get him to answer.”

“Are you suggesting I torture this man?” Link huffs. 

“Who do you work for?” Zelda challenges.

Something coils tight in Link’s stomach. In his daze, he can’t tell shame apart from pride. They are the same. He realises he’ll do as she says. 

The Yiga frees the arm that isn’t being properly held down and pushes two fingers into Link’s knife-wound. Link screams out in pain, but he’s careful to slump forwards into him. He takes the knife off his throat to stab him in the stomach twice, while his other hand, messy with his own blood running down his arm, winds around his neck and lets onto it all the weight Link can’t hold up anymore. He slides the knife towards Zelda with a shaking hand and just holds the man from his wrists, knee to the fresh wounds in his gut. 

“I’m guessing they don’t want you dead, or your number from last night wouldn’t have worked,” he tells her. The Yiga snorts at this, trapped and grimacing, but still capable of turning his head to give Zelda a horrible possesive look. Link lets his knee push the man’s skin apart. “Maybe not,” he muses, breathless. “Maybe they just want to do it a specific way.” He turns his attention back to Link.

The shot comes so suddenly that Link wonders if it’s gone into him. It jerks them both, and he has never been so aware of what he is: Flesh. There’s a piece of skull on the floor. Not his. His vision swims, he’s breathing too fast. 

“That’s it,” Zelda says. She’s closer now, Link searches her hands for the gun but now it’s down on the floor next to the knife. Her hand rubs his back, solid. She holds onto the back of his neck. Her touch grounds him instead of making him dizzy. He can focus on the stark contrast of red and white on the wall.

“This is what I had been trying to avoid.”

“I don’t care. I’m not taking this anymore.” Her touch is as controlling as it is soothing. There’s the hint of fingernails on the soft skin of his nape. She’s still suspicious of him, but even then there’s satisfaction, ownership, under her touch. A breath rushes out of him when she prods at his right arm, that’s fallen limp against his side.

“You’re done for today.” He starts to protest, but she interrupts him. “I’ll take care of it. It’s my mess.”

Link’s teeth rattle at her choice of words. A mess. He remembers the man’s name, now, but it’s too late for it to be of any use. Zelda waits a beat, but he isn’t sure what she wants from him. He stays unmoving, so she instructs him. 

“Get up and go sit in the bathroom. Take off your T-shirt, if you can. I’ll grab the med-kit. Don’t let your blood fall on the floorboards.” 

Link notices the still-bleeding corpse is only staining tile, and wonders, if he’d jumped him in a different room of the house, would he be alive now. He has to brace himself on it to get up, careful not to trip on its legs. 

He does as he’s told, wrapping his good arm under the other one to catch any blood from dripping down. Then, he sits on the toilet and tugs on his sleeve, manouvering his bad arm into the T-shirt. Because he’s alone, he lets tears collect in his eyes and he doesn’t stop them from dropping down his cheeks. He takes a break to breathe, and he hooks his fingers on the collar to pull it off the rest of the way, so that he only has to let it fall down to the floor from his good shoulder. When he looks up, Zelda is watching him from the door. He moves to shove the tears off his face, only too late realising he’s making a mess, mixing them in with blood. He can tell, because the smell is more intense. Closer, suffocating. He refuses to look her in the eye, but she just approaches enveloped in a dissonant, seemingly genuine, calm. 

“It’s okay.”

She picks up the T-shirt from the floor and scrunches it up in her hand. Link lets her hold his neck with a light, unthreatening touch, just to steady him while she brings her other hand up to wipe his face clean. His chin is lifted toward her, his eyes flutter close beneath the cloth. On the cheek she’s just cleaned, she presses a small kiss. He has to look away, desperately afraid that their eyes will meet. He swallows so that his voice doesn’t come out like a whine when he says, 

“I can’t fix this one myself either.”

Zelda actually coos at him. He’s almost thankful for the pain, it distracts him from his embarrassment. 

“Be still now,” she tells him, and she takes to disinfecting his injury. He thinks, now that her hands on him shake off the numb feeling that was enveloping the area, that maybe it’s not so bad. He works out. Maybe the muscle stopped most of it.
“Can you roll your shoulder for me?”

Immediately, he does, even though it sends a stab of searing pain down to his fingers. Zelda grazes a piece of gauze against his arm to wipe off the new blood the movement presses out. 

“How does that feel?”

“Bad,” Link gets out. 

“More shallow or deep?”

He rolls it again with a heavy breath.

“Shallow.”
“Good. It doesn’t look too bad.”

He scans her face now, looking for condescension, for a lie. She’s focused on getting everything ready, with none of the hesitation she held the time before. 

“Oh. And take these.” Zelda drops three pills in his hand, one white and two blue. Then she holds a glass of water before him.

“It’s fine.” He rolls the pills around his palm with his thumb, like they’re spinach on a plate. 

It’s evident Zelda didn’t expect figh-back on the matter, because she stares for a moment, like she can’t figure out what the problem is. 

“Yes, you’ll be fine. I need you to take those now. It hurts, doesn’t it?” She’s being almost too sweet. Link is confused. He nods. 

“Will you let me help?” He thinks on it, remembering the heavy syrup of his thoughts last night, after the spiked drink was forced down his throat. He prefers the sharpness of pain.

“I don’t need them. I’d rather— I’d rather not. But thank you,” he finishes awkwardly, feeling very impolite to be disagreeing with her in this situation. 

Zelda pauses and he can almost see her thinking. Zelda’s babyhairs escape her ponytail around her face, but it isn’t messy or undignified. It’s like a halo. She’s looking, really looking, at him in a way that should make him uncomfortable, but he’s all caught up in her attention.

“I checked the rest of the house. You’re safe here. Link. Do you trust me?”

Link doesn’t think about it.

“Yes.”

“You’re off-duty. You can rest. I can stitch you up. I can watch over you, after, if it helps.

“Okay,” he sighs. 

He pockets the second blue pill and puts the other two in his mouth. Their fingers brush when he takes the glass of water from her, but he tries not to let it rattle him. When he’s done, he sets it down on the floor.

She barely asks for permission before starting out on him. A gentle tap of her finger, an encouraging look. As a response, Link starts breathing again and tries to relax. He nods. 

She is so competent. Brow furrowed, lips pressed and fingers precise. It’s so much easier to look at her when she’s focused on something else. Even after the painkillers start to hit, Link’s fingers keep shaking. It’s the loss of blood, and feeling the needle go in and out, or he’s just upset, cold. He feels really cold, wants to chase the heat radiating off of Zelda. He has to content himself with the small touches she gives him: steadying, absentminded. On his knee, on his arm. And she’s almost finished. She chooses this moment to speak again. 

“Link,” she calls.

“Hm?”

“There’s something else I promised in exchange for you last night at The Desert.” Last night. It feels like forever ago.

“What is it?”

“It’s Mipha’s wedding next month.” He’s already shaking his head, so vehemently she has to stop what she’s doing.

“No.”

“You’re invited.”

He screws his eyes shut and tries to calm down. He’s proud of the somewhat emotionless tone of his voice when he tells Zelda:
“But I don’t want to.”

“I’m sorry. I can accompany you.”

“You know it’ll be a trap.”

Zelda shrugs. He knows that isn’t an outright no, which is what he should have given her. She waits a few more seconds and, when he doesn’t say anything else, she resumes her attentions to the cut on his shoulder. 

Panic and pain have exhausted him out. He hates to sit still in moments like this, all he needs is to pass out or to keep going. Because, if he stops blocking it out, he can recall a hushed voice at the bar calling her the princess. Unfiltered, he can wonder who he was to her, if he dares assume they were anything to each other. Maybe he was a dragon, once. He can feel the fire in his belly. She strokes his hair out of his face when she’s done, and he thinks distantly: maybe not.