Archive of Our Own

Bursts of laughter sync with the crackles of fire, and the ghost sensations of hands on his own warm his skin better than the flames ever will.

The fabric of Warriors’ scarf catches on the bark of the log Legend sits on, and the vet loops a hand underneath to gather it all in his lap instead. He pretends he doesn’t feel Wind’s teasing gaze on him as he wounds it all closer to himself, stuffs his cold nose in the warmth of it.

There’s movement around him, happy shouts and shadows interrupted by embers and pops—the vet watches silhouettes move in the grass, his family catching the orange hues from the fire before it can ever touch earth. The dark patches dance and weave, lightless hands coming up to ruffle hair, to nudge a shoulder, to pour somebody another cup of tea.

Warm hues pour around the smiles in their shadows, trunks of nearby trees pulling them up to cover their bark. Booming laughter trickles through wood, nestles in the grain of it, digs into the burrows carved under birch roots.

It swirls and Legend’s soul sings, skin tingling. He doesn’t laugh with them, but he feels the warmth ebb the pain away from his joints nonetheless.

Thumbing the golden embroidery stitched into Warriors’ scarf, Legend searches for its owner in the small crowd. Between wolf fur slung over shoulders and seafoam lobster tunics, he sees the Captain already across camp, strung between three conversations at once and two items in his hands. He’s swamped, and yet he’s grinning, lopsided and happy, eager to talk and help.

Even without the scarf—wrapped around Legend without hesitation when he’d started shivering—he looks bright. It’s usually a bit like seeing someone with their glasses off; a bit naked, and smaller, and the way it usually drapes even makes his jawline look a little different on versus off. But right now he’s beaming, and he looks just as lively without it.

Laughter overshadows the crickets in the grass, Warriors’ in the mix as he’s surrounded by requests to fix a buckle on a bag, teach them how to tie a knot. Somebody’s telling a story to him while he multitasks and he’s nodding along, throwing his head back and giving little chortled responses all the while, silver windchimes in his laughter. Legend doesn’t understand how he splits his attention between so many things so efficiently. His Captain always shows through, even in the little things.

Everything is made of oranges and greens, cinnamon and pine licking at the fire, grain lightening dark crevices in the woods. The leaves above them shiver from the biting chill, breeze tugging at flames, at clothes, at hair. The safe colors and the biting cold collide and mingle, arguing yet holding. Bickering, then resting.

There’s yawns somewhere in the cacophony of giggles and acted-out battle cries, heroic stories on his family’s tongues that are interrupted by internal clocks—it’s getting late.

The orange of the air and of the Captain's scarf curls around his hands though, inviting and loose. The spot beside Legend’s seat is still warm, still occupied by the echo of Warriors’ presence; still radiating that loving, concerned stare that had rested on his back the entire afternoon.

He thinks of the steady pad of boots following him along, persistent and ever-present. He thinks of that pitiful little face Warriors makes when he’s worried—furrowed brows, droopy ears; the epitome of a sad puppy, really. His hands play with the braids in the back of his hair, his feet shuffle like he wants to approach, like he’s itching to help. It all makes the vet want to simply put him out of his misery, let him fret and fix and reassure just so he doesn’t have to deal with the turmoil in his chest when he sees that stupid fucking pout.

Legend thinks about questions spilling from the knight’s mouth, heightened are you okay s and let me see s warping the vet’s resolve, the worried face and the downturned ears lending to the tragic killing of his walls. He thinks about ghosts of worried hands still reaching for the vet’s stiff ones, coos slipping from lips as a scarf comes unwound from a neck and tucked around another, just as soft as the fabric.

The sensitive skin in the divots of Legend’s scars trap the heat once pressed there, phantom touches massaging at taut muscles. His bones still ache, the cold that nips at his cheeks still soaking into marrow, but it feels okay; like you’re miserable and couch-ridden with fever, but there’s a bowl of soup on the coffee table and your favorite person is telling you to rest. It feels cared for. It feels warm.

Legend runs his hands over the fabric, slides his palms together, plays with the rings on his fingers while his ears twitch at chuckles and pops from the flames. The warmth in his chest is promptly blamed by the fire; the safety and coziness blamed on the weapons by his feet, the extra, sunny layer around his neck. He’s throwing logic at something he can’t comprehend in a poor attempt to wrap his head around the feeling.

His eyes trail down, following leather straps nestled in grass, twigs strung across dirt. His gaze lands on Warriors’ sword, propped up against the log Legend sits on, metal catching the fire and distorting its colors. It’s not sheathed—that sits next to its tip in the grass, orange illuminating ornate steel decorations. His bag rests nearby, a rag used to polish lying abandoned on top, only part way through the job.

The Captain’s plate of food balances on the bark of the log as well, only half of it eaten before he’d offered to help and to listen and to teach. The food has long-since gone cold—Warriors has been strung between several conversations for a while now.

Something sits in his chest, not quite heavy, not quite obvious, but it makes itself known by the weight on each of his ribs, by the subtle wave of pain through his knuckles. It tugs at him, makes the space behind his eyes hurt—Legend stares after the Captain, notes the way he leaves a conversation and immediately throws himself into another, offering advice, placating worries, trying to help. Not taking a second to rest, to breathe.

Legend swallows down the weight that bubbles at his throat, takes care to keep his eyes away from the abandoned sword maintenance and the barely-eaten dinner.

The warmth in his hands decays—there’s something unnaturally cold about it.

+

Atop the rough roll of his pencil etching lines into paper, the sound of the ranch’s front door opening soaks into blankets and soft fabric.

Footsteps pad through the kitchen, the clunking of boots turning muffled by the worn rug once they make it to the living room. Legend looks up from his sketchbook, subconsciously tapping the eraser of his pencil to the paper as he watches Warriors pause in front of the coffee table, brows furrowed, eyes focused.

The Captain stares at the chessboard between them, doing that thing where he taps his collarbone in random patterns while he thinks, scarf folding under the touch. His eyes flick back and forth between pieces, routing paths, cooking up strategies. He lifts his curled up hand from his chin but then rewinds, second-guessing.

The sound of the others’ muffled laughter reaching through the walls fills the thoughtful silence. Warriors reaches a hand down and wiggles his fingers for some fucking reason before he grabs his rook and takes it a few spaces across the board.

Nodding to himself, he turns back the way he came and is out the door again like clockwork; it closes behind him, and Legend taps his pencil in the familiar rhythm of his footsteps careening across the porch outside. His pace hasn’t slowed for hours, in and out and back and forth, and in and out again.

Legend taps his pencil harder, frustration biting at him as his gaze follows Warriors’ silhouette outside through the curtains. Back to the barn the Captain goes, doing chore after chore until Malon calls them all for dinner and the setting sun forces him to finally turn in for the night. The energy in that man is astounding.

Concerning, his mind corrects, but he flicks his eyes back to the coffee table and the chessboard for a distraction. He’s nestled into the couch, a system of pillows holding up the sketchbook and his arms just right with blankets strewn about, pooling over cushions. He stares at the board and mourns his comfort when he has to lean forward and ruin the carefully built wall to take his turn.

They are playing a prolonged game of chess, Legend making his move seated comfortably on the couch, and Warriors making pit stops to the house to come in and make his own before he leaves again. The Captain is, predictably, losing; it’s not because he’s distracted with multitasking, he’s just famously bad at literally every game.

Legend sighs at the warm light trickling through the windows of Time and Malon’s living room, the smell of apple cinnamon clinging to the furniture. Everything here is made of wood and fabric and safe colors, soft things. There are rings burnt into the coffee table where cups were laid over the years without a coaster—the edges are rounded out from age, cuts and nicks in the wood grain from use.

The rug has dulled in color, but the fabric there is soft. The red of the brick fireplace is warm, little explosions of ash marking the hearth. One of Sky’s wood carvings sits proudly on the mantle, polygonal loftwing perched to protect all the other little homemade decorations. There are marks on the floor where the couch legs sit; years of tired farmers and tired heroes collapsing into the cushions and pushing it back an inch or two.

It is all lovingly worn—lived in, and peaceful. The feeling of security and safety is soaked into the very skeleton of this house, built with it from the start, and there is something infinitely more inviting about that than any fancy castle guest room.

It’s easy to relax here—the cushions seem to call you, and the food seems to ease your mind, weigh you down until you’re thoroughly curled up under sunlight warming you through windows. Once all the chores are done, crops tended to, animals fed, it is utterly effortless to sink into the chairs and the beds and talk and laugh until you drift off, the safest you have ever been.

The rest of the chain have winded down—Legend can hear a few of them giggling down the hall, the rustle of leaves in their laughter. He knows Twilight and Wind are out in the backyard, probably roughhousing. Time’s deep tone drifts to him from the other end of the house, out on the front porch with Malon; little chuckles, a rhythm of syllables and tone shifts that suggest light teasing, and there’s warmth in his chest at hearing the smile in his muffled words.

Everybody is settling and letting their worries trickle to the back burner for now. Everybody but Warriors, he supposes.

Footsteps hop up onto the porch and the front door opens again, boots clunking against kitchen tiles and padding over old rugs. They pause, and Legend watches him tap at his collarbone again, thinking, reading the board. He puts on a fake little dramatic pout when he notices his rook has been killed.

Light from the window lets Legend see the sweat beading at Warriors’ temples, chest rising and falling with breaths just slightly too labored for the sheltered indoors. He dimly wonders when the last time he had a drink was.

That familiar feeling crawls back up his spine and rests heavy on his shoulders, joints flaring.

Warriors perks up and wiggles his digits once more—maybe it’s for good luck—before plucking his remaining knight and advancing it toward Legend’s queen. He nods again, pleased with his (poor) choice, and then flashes Legend a smile before he’s spinning around and out the door again.

The door shuts and the vet’s ears flick, straining to listen when the footsteps don’t continue over wood. Time is speaking, something like break and rest making it through the walls. The tendril of hope that had spawned in his chest is dissolved away at the response he gets, Warriors’ slightly higher timbre casting almost done stubbornly.

A beat passes, worry pulling the air tight even from inside, and then the footsteps are padding back to the barn.

Legend loosens himself, unaware he’d gone tense trying to listen. He doesn’t even know what chore Warriors has stuck himself to—some random problem in the barn that had been on Time’s list for a long while, maybe—but it doesn’t matter what it is. Warriors will put his all into the simplest of tasks just to busy himself. Just to be useful, perhaps

Legend wonders where the Captain’s mind goes, when he’s not drowning it in distractions.

His gaze flicks to their board, debating on killing his knight and risking his own queen in the process; it’d land him right in the sights of a simple pawn of Warriors’, danger of being killed in the stupidest way possible, but the chances of his best friend completely missing this detail is astounding and the vet goes for it.

He leans forward and plucks his queen up, carefully switching the Captain’s knight for it. The front door opens, and Legend looks up as Time and Malon file inside; a kiss on a cheek is their tiny goodbye before Malon heads for the cupboards to start dinner and Time catches the vet’s gaze.

He strolls into the living room as Legend attempts to get comfortable again, shimmying back into the cushions and fixing his blankets. Time studies the board while Malon calls for Wild to help with preparations; there’s excited footfalls and a blur of blue zipping past the living room doorway before the Old Man speaks up.

"Bold move," he murmurs, eyeing Legend with a little mischievous spark in his gaze. He chooses the word bold and not bad —maybe knowing that the vet wouldn’t make a mistake like that.

Legend lets a grin loose, sharp and amused and a bit lazy. "Not to talk bad about the Captain behind his back, but," he drawls, dragging lines across the sketchbook in his lap, "he’s absolute dogshit at this game."

Time chuckles, doing that little amused nod he does, cheeks pushing his eye up into a crescent. "Oh, I know. He knows, too."

The vet grins, eyes loosely tracing his sketch lines while his pencil follows. Warriors never seems to deny a game of any kind, and he never really does get upset when he inevitably loses—a good sport, laughing and beaming no matter the winner. Legend thinks he plays for the experience and the company, rather than the result.

"Dinner will be ready in about an hour," Time tells him, meandering his way around the coffee table. "Tomorrow’ll be your favorite, she said."

A hand comes down to ruffle his hair and Legend grins against it, hands idly pawing at him to stop without much gusto. There are chortles above him, fingers leaving his head in exchange for pulling a blanket farther up his shoulder, gentle as he tucks it under a pillow to keep it there.

Time leans down, presses a kiss to his riled-up hair, and then he’s off to the kitchen again, helping Malon and Wild with the food, no doubt.

The vet is left warm, bones soothed by the heat in his chest and the cotton in his head. He looks down at the book in his lap, realizes he hadn’t lifted his pencil during the movements and now there’s a dark, jagged line etched across his picture.

He blinks, tsks, flips his eraser down to remove it, and yet he finds that he’s not even remotely mad.

Footfalls carry a silhouette on the porch, and then the front door is opening and there’s greetings from the kitchen, warm laughs and hello s echoing off the tiles. The newcomer then beelines for the living room once again, boots on rugs, focused eyes, stopping to study the board.

Warriors is wiping sweat off his ungloved hands, palms rubbing the lower part of his overcoat, and Legend can see the back of his hair is starting to stick to his neck, a little shiny and wet. He’s breathing a bit heavy, obviously hot and worn out, but the vet knows he won’t remove the scarf even to cool off.

He watches him stare at the board and pop his mouth open dramatically at his mercilessly murdered knight, like he thought this was some sort of outrageous outcome, unforetold by science, completely unexpected. Legend thinks he hears Warriors whisper out a breathy blasphemy to himself—smile lilting his tone—before the Captain looks up at the vet.

"Need anything, bud?" Warriors breathes out, has the gall to beam at him, jabbing a sweaty thumb over his shoulder. He swallows before continuing, the gap in his words making his breathlessness all the more apparent. "Anything t’drink? Tea’ll be done in a few."

Legend studies him, watches the way he pulls his scarf down a bit to let some of his skin breathe, cheeks flushed from the heat outside. He’s slouching a bit, and while Legend is often gently berated by Time for his poor posture, Warriors is never the type to slump unless he’s too tired to correct it.

He hasn’t taken his boots off. The Captain sometimes even sheds that precious scarf when in this quaint little ranch house—safety ridding that nasty anxiety in his head that clings to the fabric—but he has yet to take it off even through the stifling heat of it.

Legend glances out the window, peaks around the gap in the curtains to eye the barn across the ranch; its doors are still wide open, work still to be done inside. Warriors isn't planning on staying indoors.

The vet looks back up at his friend, studies the way bright eyes are dulled, just a shade, by exhaustion, and yet he's so ready to help, so eager to aid.

"Yeah," Legend answers, lifting his sketchbook up from his lap and plopping it on an end table. He hears his pencil roll off only to hit the hardwood floor and he internally winces—he'll be cursing up a storm crawling under furniture to try and find it later, he has no doubt. "There is somethin'."

He motions for Warriors to come closer, as if this new mysterious task of his is top secret, and the Captain perks up, falls for it gloriously, skirting around the coffee table to lean over and listen.

Legend leans forward, grabs Warriors' sweaty wrist, and pulls him down so that he's toppling into the couch face-first.

The Captain yelps and the vet revels in his struggle, Warriors flailing a bit to roll over and already smiling into the pillow his face landed in as he whirls his top half around and half-heartedly glares at his best friend.

"Wh-"

"Thanks," Legend sighs casually, plopping his arms down on top of the Captain's stomach and making a little show of shifting and settling back into the cushions.

Warriors chuckles, always good-natured, even as he struggles and dramatically kicks his legs off the side of the couch uselessly. He's stiff on top of Legend, still dead set on continuing work, fighting against a solid break. Stubborn bastard.

"Ledge I'm not done yet," the Captain chortles, twisting around fully to face him. "I still have to-"

"Mmh, no you don't," Legend hums in one quick little breath, fixing the pillow around Warriors' leg to accommodate an extra person, support for them so they don't fall off the side. "You can finish that tomorrow."

Legend peeks back at him slyly and Warriors is jutting his jaw out in that angry face he makes, but he's terrible at hiding that crooked smile and it ruins the expression. He eyes him with a look and then nods, mostly to himself, juggling around Legend's intentions in his head and playfully rolling his eyes once the thoughts settle.

"You agree, then?" Legend prompts, brows up, grin impish. He leans more heavily atop Warriors' legs to really drive the message home.

Warriors' gaze softens, something warm in the look he gives him, something fond. He shifts, and for a moment Legend is afraid he'll simply wiggle out of his lap and go back outside, but then he settles again, getting comfortable.

"Yeah yeah yeah," he mumbles, tone knowing, and if Legend isn't mistaken, a bit grateful. He shifts a bit more, fixes a pillow or two under his back, and then he sinks.

Legend watches the moment he lets go of the tension in his muscles, and he visibly loosens and sinks a bit further. There's a sigh he holds and then lets out all at once, chest slowly sinking with the rest of him; he stares up at the ceiling as the tautness all evaporates, head following through as he plonks it down into the pillows. And then he's finally still, for the first time in hours, and simply catching his breath.

Warriors is hot and sticky, and it's not the most comfortable to have his sweaty backside pressed up against his lap, but Legend doesn't have it in him to care too much. The weight on him feels nice, pressure comforting—and the vet would never admit it aloud, but Warriors always feels safe to him.

The Captain hums and when Legend's attention flicks to his face, his partner's eyes are slid closed, a hint of a crooked smile on his lips. The sound is pleased, comfortable, and yet the twitch in his brows and the returning stiffness to his spine says otherwise.

The next breath comes slightly trembled, stuttering out while Legend can feel him attempt to loosen overworked muscles. That heavy feeling nips at the vet's chest, and he swallows to push it down.

Warriors' eyes come open in that manner where they want to stubbornly stay closed, almost too heavy to move them. He watches them flutter and lag, and when they're finally dragged open he stares at the ceiling tiredly before he flicks his attention to Legend. He doesn't miss how the Captain perfectly fixes his expression, blinking away the weariness in half a beat so he can smile at him.

"What happened to your hair?" he asks, quiet and fond, eyes amused and grin crooked as an arm comes up to tend to it.

Legend blinks, and then as Warriors loops a finger around a stray strand and attempts to lay it flat, he smiles back. "Time," is his simple answer.

His friend chuckles, all made of warm tones and soft grins. "Yeah, he'll do that."

The Captain hums again, fingers coming up closer to his face, brushing his bangs to lie neater. He fixes strands that have looped on themselves, organizes chunks that have settled wrong, all touches featherlight and careful, methodical and practiced.

Legend lets him, can't help but lean his head into the touch just a bit. Warriors is busy fixing his hair and the vet's hands have nothing to do, so he hooks one around his friend's other, gentle and tentative.

Fingers willingly intertwine, Warriors accepting it instantly and easily, and there's massages against the meat of the Captain's thumb and fingers tracing scars before they settle for a simple hold. Their hands rest atop Warriors' stomach, rising and falling with his even, relaxed breaths, and Legend fondly runs his thumb over the freckles hidden on his friend's hands, always covered by gloves otherwise.

There's a beat where the echoed clanging of dishes is muffled in his ears, voices from the others faraway, and they're just in their little bubble. A gaze then pokes a hole in it, and Legend looks up to see Deity markings gazing at him from the kitchen.

Time is looking at them in that fond way he does, half-smile pulling at the jagged stripes along his cheek. His gaze flicks between Warriors sprawled along his lap and Legend underneath him, and the vet can feel his face turn warm, feet shuffling.

The Old Man glances at the Captain, finally still and finally relaxing, and something impossibly warm crosses his face, softens the edges of his figure and loosens the stiffness in his bulkier shoulders.

His gaze moves back to Legend and he gives him a single nod, something knowing in it, something relieved, grateful. Legend gives him the tiniest nod back, relief reciprocated.

"Oh—" Warriors perks up, shifting in his lap, and Legend blinks down to see his attention turned to the chess board in front of them, "I never took my turn."

The Captain scoots closer to the edge of the couch and reaches for the board, Legend lurching forward to reign his torso in so he doesn't fall off the side. Warriors groans unnecessarily, long and loud as he stretches his hand out, slowly but surely—eventually—reaching the piece he wants.

He lifts another knight of his, takes out one of Legend's bishops. Warriors collapses back into his lap just as the vet eyes the board and hums thoughtfully, flat and disapproving.

"What?" Warriors eggs him on, tone playfully daring Legend to defy him and his expert chess skills.

The vet smiles, coy and minute. He doesn't say a word as he surveys the board—not only had Warriors predictably missed his opportunity to kill his queen with a simple pawn, but he'd also moved the only piece that had been in the way of Legend's immediate victory. With his partner's knight moved, the vet had a straight shot at taking out his king.

Legend quietly leans forward, picks his queen up, and replaces Warriors' king with it.

The Captain, their mighty and reliable sort-of-leader who has created hundreds of battle strategies over the years and yet cannot play chess for the life of him, promptly throws his head back and lets out a dramatic cry of defeat, arm over his eyes in mock distress.

His big, goofy fucking smile is seen clear as day, and Legend can't help but copy it.

+

There are six containers laid out on the table—hair sprays; cream tins; shampoo and conditioner bottles; other things he's never seen before in his entire fucking life—and Legend hopes the horror shows on his face when Warriors adds another bottle.

"You are not putting all of that in my hair," Legend gapes and gulps as Warriors pauses pulling out another tin from his bag.

They stare at each other for a moment, laughter and rustling of the others from the hallway seeping through the inn walls and pouring into the hole the silence digs. Apparently the vet's suffering is funny, because Warriors blinks at him and then bursts into giggles.

"Aw c'mon, why not?" Warriors chortles, putting the last tin on the table and finally tossing his bag to the foot of Legend's inn bed; he was about to lunge for it if the Captain took even one more thing out.

"That's a goddamn vat of weird magic going into my scalp—how are you not dead yet?" He gestures to Warriors' head of hair, but Legend will admit it's usually nearly perfect; his hair isn't wiry and dead either, so he must be doing something right.

He just has a hard time believing this is his secret formula—these kinds of products are known to be riddled with strange and unearthly spells.

"No no no no, these are all natural products I promise," Warriors grins, smile tightening when his gaze flicks to one of the bottles on the table. He plucks it from the selection, blindly sits it on the nightstand behind him and nearly drops it when it hits the edge, cheeks stiffly forcing his smile to stay. "Except that one."

There's a beat, silence reigning between them where Legend lets him get it out of his system, and then Warriors lurches forward and removes another one from the hoard. "Also that one," he whispers sheepishly.

Legend stares at him, expression deadpan. "Any more exceptions?"

Warriors is always terrible at matching Legend's empty, unimpressed stares and his crooked smile leaks through his hardened face. "No," he answers, the single word trembling with a chuckle halfway through.

A fond roll of his eyes lands Legend's gaze back on Warriors' little collection. "You use all of this?"

A nod comes, and there's a hand tapping on the lids of different bottles as he speaks. A candle flame flickers nearby at the movement. "Most of the time, yeah. I mix these two myself, so as long as I have the stuff to make them—all in Wild’s slate—then I'm golden. All animal fat and wood ash, mint for scent."

His hand makes a swirly motion, gesturing to them all, and Legend takes care to hide his shock that Warriors makes his own soap—really, he shouldn't be surprised, considering who Warriors is.

"This is all natural stuff. Proper hair care! You gotta take care of yourself or else this—" there's a hand coming for his locks and Legend bats it away with flailing arms—"will become a rat's nest. A pig sty."

When he’s done fighting for his hair’s life, Legend picks a bottle and reads the words printed along it; ingredients in no particular order written across it in Warriors' perfectly loopy cursive. There's a fleeting thought there, somewhere in his head, something like how does he find the time to mix this stuff together in between all the other shit he does, but the bottle in his hands is light and almost empty. Maybe he simply doesn't.

"I have some unscented ones if you'd prefer those," he offers, and Legend dimly wonders the ratio of soaps to actual supplies in this man's bag.

"These are fine, thanks," Legend settles, amused as he skims the writing on his other store-bought concoctions. He senses Warriors move away and he glances up, sees his friend rifling deeper through his bag he picks up and sits atop Legend's mattress.

Someone’s high giggle down the hall makes its way through the thin walls, heavy, clomping footfalls following after them and muffled speech overlapping it all. Legend should hurry to the bathhouse before the rest of the chain steals the opportunity.

He reverts his gaze back to Warriors, horror resurfacing when he watches him pull out three different fucking combs. Legend fears what he had gotten himself into when he'd accepted the Captain’s offer to help do his hair. "How many fucking combs does one man need?"

Warriors whirls around and throws his hands up dramatically, candles on the nightstand swaying. "What?! This one is for evenly distributing oils, this one is for detangling—"

"All combs are for detangling, idiot," Legend remarks, and even before he finishes his sentence, he watches Warriors' smile come back right on queue, like he knew the comment was coming.

"I am using all three and you can't do anything about it." The Captain sticks his chin up, looks down the bridge of his nose at him like he's some measly peasant. Legend has the urge to flick his throat. "How about you get your picky little ass to the bath while I get this last stuff ready?"

Their mock glares push against each other, sizing the other up, and Legend calmly nods toward the combs laid out on the mattress. "How long will this take?"

Warriors opens his mouth, but Legend butts in quickly. "And if you say you can't rush art I'm going to rush you to the infirmary."

"My my, you're snippy tonight."

Giggles tint the words, and their tight little bubble bursts when they both smile again. The air loosens and unfurls, weight no longer leaning on his heart like it's been doing lately, and Legend thinks it's a shared feeling. He swears he sees Warriors visibly lose some of the tension he's recently adopted, shoulders relaxing.

Legend shakes his head, meanders to the other side of the bed where his own bag is. He digs through it for a pair of clean night clothes and is dimly reminded that as soon as Warriors finishes doing his hair, it will likely get ruined during sleep.

Neither of them have mentioned it, and maybe it's because it doesn't really matter. Warriors had come up to him, spare hair clips in his hands, asking if he could treat his hair tonight, give it a trim and a good wash, style it all nice.

It had come out of the blue, but Legend had accepted partly because his hair was indeed getting a little long and shaggy; it usually goes down to his shoulder blades, that's where he likes it, but it has reached his mid back now and his bangs are starting to get annoying.

There had been a moment of hesitation from him, though, and at the time he didn't really know why. He'd thought it was the whole styling part at first—it seemed useless, since he'd likely conk out in bed a few hours later and ruin the neat braids Warriors will put in it. But he finds that he doesn't really care and apparently neither does Warriors; it's a chance to spend more time together.

No, it wasn't the flawed logic that had stopped Legend from immediately saying yes. There was something else there, tugging at his heartstrings, and now that Legend raises his gaze up again and really looks, he suddenly knows what it had been.

Warriors doesn't have his make-up on, and he looks tired underneath it. Legend knows that's not the usual—he's seen Warriors with his make-up off nearly every night (and the fact that he's just as attractive without it annoys the hell out of him) and the Captain has very rarely looked this… worn out.

The curve of skin under his eyes is a shade darker, subtle indents suggesting the beginnings of bags, and Legend suspects the concealer he uses conveniently hides that away. Some of the liveliness has ebbed even more from the green in his irises—mascara and eyeliner will brighten all that up for sure.

Even his hair doesn't look as shiny and perfect as it usually does—a little tousled and unkempt, stray strands sticking out and looping oddly. There’s wrinkles in his outfit and Legend doesn’t think he’s ever seen that before; the Captain seems to religiously flatiron his clothing like it’s a fucking law he has to abide.

Warriors yawns while he rummages through his bag and Legend can't help but feel a tug somewhere in his middle; the Captain's very being seems to droop just a bit, lids a little heavier, shoulders a little burdened. The warmth that always radiates from him has cooled somehow.

There's a pinprick of guilt there in his gut about dragging him here, even if Warriors was the one who offered this.

Legend moves to pull out an outfit and stops somewhere in the middle, hesitates, and then he reluctantly follows through and plops his bag by his feet. He sees Warriors move to sit on the bed and fiddle with his scissors and his combs, legs halfway off the mattress and bag leaned open against his legs.

“Use those three in the bath,” Warriors instructs, scissor blades in his hand as he gestures to the bottles across the room with the handles. “Keep em’ in for a few minutes each, don’t rinse them out immediately. You gotta let em’ work their magic. Uh, metaphorically speaking.”

“Aye aye, sir,” Legend quips, the handle of a comb lightly smacking his arm while he passes him. He grins and takes the bottles off the table, balances them in his arms and heads for the door.

He hesitates once he opens it, a soft burst of air and noise hitting him while he looks back at his friend. There’s laughter from Four and Hyrule and lighthearted shushing from Time in his ears and they flick at the sounds, at the way it all bounces against the walls. The vet squeezes the latch on the door, clenches his teeth until they ache.

Legend finds that he cannot move his legs over the threshold until he says something.

“Wars?” he pipes up, and the Captain blinks up at him and does an attentive, concerned little hm? —perhaps brought on by the way Legend’s voice wavered there, wobbled like the word almost couldn’t come out.

The vet eases the door back so that it’s only open a sliver behind him, the outside bustle muffled. “Are you okay?”

Warriors blinks, straightens up just a tad from where he’d slouched against the headboard of Legend’s bed. The vet sees the moment enlightenment crosses his face, sees the sudden fixing of his posture and the blinking away fatigue from his eyes. He sees the stiffness return to his shoulders, sees the hand dart back to his bag from where they were aimlessly, thoughtlessly thumbing the teeth of a comb.

The smile Warriors gives him is lacking something. It’s not exactly fake, but Legend would hesitate to call it real.

“Yeah, of course,” he answers, and Legend thinks it’s just a single beat too quick. Just an octave too high, where Warriors tries to lift his voice to match what people think of high spirits. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

Legend holds his gaze for a moment, and the Captain gives him that innocent look he’s so good at that sometimes the vet thinks that maybe Warriors is genuine in it. Maybe he really doesn’t see it—the concerning part, here; the offer to do something nice for a friend while you promptly ignore your own needs.

The vet forces his head to nod, distantly aware that he’s been staring, and he mechanically steps out into the hallway and shuts the door behind him. The bundle of clothes and bottles tucked under one arm feels heavy on him, even though he knows every container there is nearly empty.

He takes a bath, makes sure to let the soap in his hair sit for a few minutes, wraps his too-long hair up in a towel and soaks up the water. He makes his way back to the inn and down the hall, considering telling Warriors that they can do it another day, but he’d just used some of his precious products and it feels like a waste, like he’s somehow stealing if he doesn’t see it to the end.

The wood underneath his socked feet creaks as he nods to the innkeeper and heads past them. Golden rings glint in candlelight as he pushes his door open—Warriors hadn’t latched it shut and the vet decidedly does not dwell on that—and he steps into his room while fumbling with the bottles and the used clothes under his arm.

Legend opens his mouth, looks up at his partner still on his bed, and the single syllable that’s croaked out catches in his throat, something else in his core snagging right along with it.

Warriors is dead asleep.

The vet blinks and blindly—quietly—eases the door closed behind him, watching the Captain as he fiddles with the latch, metal whispering along metal. He pads, ever light on his feet, over to the table and returns the bottles, discards his used clothing next to them with careful hands.

And then Legend stands there in the silence that presses in on his ears and makes his wet hair feel colder, and he watches Warriors’ chest rise and fall in a slow, peaceful rhythm.

He must’ve decided to read a bit while Legend was off in the bath. There’s a novel resting in his lap, limp hands loosely holding it open, and his reading glasses are still perched on his nose, candles and dots of orange sitting in the lenses’ reflections. Warriors’ head is lolled back, wood frame of the bed the only thing catching it. 

Somehow, he looks even more tired when sleeping. Maybe it’s the way his bangs fall into his eyes, or how he’s not consciously lifting his expression up every moment. His closed lids weigh on the bags forming underneath, making it all seem… heavier.

Legend’s chest aches as he closes the distance between them, listens to the soft and even breathing. Warriors has never snored and it simply lends to the silence—even the noise on the other side of his door has seemed to dim despite it still being rather early in the evening.

There’s a roar in his ears and something like a whimper in his soul, both only growing in the lack of sound.

Warriors’ bag is still resting against his leg, the scissors still out and on the nightstand, the combs still scattered along the bed, bookmark from his novel joining the mix. 

The vet flexes his fingers, unsure and a bit lost, and then he reaches across his friend’s legs to take the bookmark from the spread-out pile.

He’s ever so gentle in the process of removing Warriors’ book from his hands, careful not to bend any pages or mark the cover, and when he finally lifts it from his friend’s palms he lets a little breath out, hushed and victorious. He slides the bookmark in between the pages and sets it on the nightstand like it’s a treasure in a lost tomb, nudging the scissors and leftover bottles to make room.

Legend holds his breath while he removes the glasses, and remarkably Warriors doesn’t stir. It sparks a bit of concern in him, as he carefully folds them and places them atop the book.

The vet dimly thinks about what would happen if Warriors did wake up—he knows exactly how it would go down. He’d spew apology after apology for falling asleep, promise to make it up to him somehow, hop right out of bed and be instantly ready to style his hair, even while still blinking sleep from his eyes.

He knows the Captain well enough by now; he can even picture the face he’d make when repeating his sorries—ears flattened down, eyes wide and so genuinely apologetic, so eager to completely ignore a possible reason why he fell asleep in the first place.

Legend knows him, can cite the exact words he’ll use in the exact order. He can get a haircut another day.

The vet packs the scissors and combs back into Warriors’ bag and gently sets it against the nightstand. The bed is a twin, but they’re long past being bothered by the small size; one of them almost always ends up in the others’ inn room one way or another and they’re used to squeezing to fit.

He blows out the candles and does one last thorough rake through his hair with the towel before discarding it next to his own bag. Very, very carefully climbing into bed, all slow sinks and soft shifts, the vet reaches down into his supplies.

He doesn’t bother with the blankets that are half trapped under his best friend; he tugs a spare one out from his pack and tosses it over them both, making sure it’s tucked around Warriors before he gets comfortable himself.

Legend quietly curls up under their blanket and presses his forehead against Warriors’ thigh, sighing and settling. It’s still early, but he’s not one to deny some extra sleep.

When he drifts off, he chooses to listen to his mind instead of his chest—shoves the worry away, replaces it with the knowledge that Warriors is getting rest. It lulls him to a steady, comforting nothing, and he floats.

The next morning, Warriors apologizes over the entirety of breakfast.

+

Fog settles into the trees around their camp, hugs the branches and makes everything damp and sticky. The smell of copper overwhelms the expected petrichor.

Legend eases Wind back down into his bedroll for the fourth time this evening with a gentle hand to his chest, mumbled complaints from the kid barely even reaching the vet’s ears, much less anybody else’s. The words slur together, and Legend wishes—nothing personal against Wind—that he’d just be quiet and go to sleep. The kid needs it.

“Ar’ ya sure Twi’s okay?” the sailor mumbles out, giving up his little endeavor to scramble out of bed and easing back down into the blankets. He’s scrunching his eyes shut, light no doubt searing his concussed head.

Legend lifts his hand from Wind’s chest from where he’s stationed next to his bedroll, plucking his hat off and flattening it out in his lap. He vaguely wonders, as he hears far away speech across camp, if the chain can hear that he's been telling Wind the same thing for the past thirty minutes.  

“For the sixteenth time, sailor, yes, he’s okay.”

The vet feels the urge to be snippy—he hates repeating himself—but the small, calloused hand wrapped around his wrist has him biting his tongue, softening his words out instead. The kid’s grip is tight, clenching up when Legend moves even an inch away, and the vet has made no move to shake his touch off. He’s not that much of an asshole.

Legend leans over him, lets his shadow sit over Wind’s figure, and when the kid peeks his eyes open the brilliant blue he’s used to seeing is a thin ring around only one of his pupils, the other out of sync. He holds his hat up above his head, a silent question.

Wind nods and then cuts his following groan out mid-way, the sailor’s iron grip around him tightening during all the dizzy spells. Legend lowers his hat down, is careful and methodical in his process of flattening it out and avoiding the bandages as best as he can. It lays over Wind’s eyes to block most of the light, the vet adjusting it a bit to make it comfortable.

“M’not t’red,” the sailor claims even as he loosens a little, the hat hopefully stopping some of the waves of agony Legend knows he’s experiencing. “Let m’ up.”

Wind makes no move to stir, and Legend is no longer pressing him down to stop him from doing so. The vet raises his brows at him, and even though the kid can’t see it, he hopes his tone conveys the expression well enough. “Sure you aren’t,” he drawls, “I’m sure you’re completely exempt from the symptoms of getting smacked in the head with a Time-sized moblin club.”

“C’mpletely,” Wind mumbles back, voice a bit far away. The bustle of the rest of camp melds into it, makes Legend’s ears twitch at the higher beats.

He hears somebody moving through the wet grass, the rhythm of the footfalls and the clank of chainmail denoting Warriors with somebody quieter—Hyrule—trailing behind. Boots tread around Wind’s bedroll at a quick pace, but they slow and the Captain eases into a crouch next to their sailor, Hyrule joining on Legend’s side.

Warriors asks Wind something, voice lowered to that gentle, warm hum he tends to give, and Wind mumbles back, smile pushing his cheeks up despite his condition. Legend’s attention is yanked somewhere else, though, his heartstrings tugged a bit along with it; the conversation in front of him blurs and swirls in his ears, movements blending into the metaphorical static at the edges of his mind, and he ends up simply staring at his best friend across the bedroll.

The Captain looks pale. Paler than he ever should be, skin tone matching the dull mist thickly blanketing the trees behind him. Legend sees those bags even atop his make-up, and while it does serve to lift his face up and brighten his features, there’s only so much that thin, simple layer Warriors always puts there can hide.

Legend thinks of Twilight, how that spear had ripped through flesh and sprayed blood at the shrubbery, and he thinks maybe all the gore and the stitches had whitened Warriors’ face, but the Captain has never shied away from these less appealing parts of the job. A quick glance to Hyrule crosses that off the list—Hyrule looks like he’s managing things, and other than Sky, he’s the most squeamish one here.

The conversation comes back into focus, the edges of their words sharpening into syllables, and Legend tunes back in as Warriors runs his fingers through Wind’s hair—they’re dirty and his gloves are stained, but blood has dyed the kid’s locks a messy, sticky garnet hue anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.

Legend watches it, watches his fingers card through curly blond, and swallows when he sees they’re shaking. Warriors’ hand trembles like his wrist can’t lift it, like a string about to snap, but the Captain’s voice is steady, strong, confident. The complete opposite of how he looks.

“Twi’s okay, kiddo,” he relays warmly, and even though Legend knew he would be, he still feels his insides sag a bit in relief at the promise. “‘Rule already stitched him up. He’ll be alright.”

Legend sees Hyrule stir next to him, and he lifts a hand to hover it over Wind’s head for a moment; seafoam blue leaks from his palm, seeps into his hair, and the sailor seems to sag nearly instantly, parts of him unfurling that the vet didn’t even know were tense.

He feels the bubbly magic from here, knows the sensation well—healing magic will do nothing for a concussion, but it will ease the pain, and the way Hyrule’s seems to trickle in between every atom, seems to bubble in between every joint and nerve, he’d say Wind is in good hands for pain management.

“Rest, kid,” Warriors hums kindly, oh so gently, voice steady and fingers so incredibly not. “Get some sleep.”

It takes a moment for Wind to respond—they’d all hoped he’d be asleep instead, but they lean in to listen anyway. “Pr’mise y’ll wake m’ when he’s up?” he manages, sleep taking him and his words and Hyrule’s soothing magic simply speeding up that process.

The hand wrapped around his wrist squeezes him, and Legend blinks when he realizes he’s asking him specifically.

“Promise,” he blurts out before the others get a chance to, moving his wrist and wrapping his own hand around Wind’s, squeezing it back.

The little smile on the kid’s face is quickly loosened as soon as it forms, and he’s out in seconds, hand going limp in the vet’s hold. Nobody moves for a moment, and it’s because nobody wants to—Warriors stays to play with his hair a little longer, and Hyrule keeps the magic flowing, thumbing his forehead where there aren’t any bandages.

Warriors manages to tear himself away eventually and Legend doesn’t miss the way his legs tremble when he stands. He’s blinking harshly, still and stiff and eyes an odd look to them, skin still paler than it should be, and then he’s back to running around camp, always helping, never stopping.

“Check on him,” Hyrule speaks lowly, and Legend whirls his head around to stare at him, blinks at the piercing look in his usually bright, freckled face. “Please. Maybe it’s an injury he’s hiding, maybe it’s something else—I don’t know—but something is wrong.”

They hold gazes for a moment, Legend not used to the dark tone in his voice and perhaps frozen for a beat because of it, but then he’s nodding. He gives Wind’s hand one last little gentle squeeze before he’s standing on creaking knees and on the hunt for Warriors, who has already disappeared from his sight.

After a moment of searching—asking Time where he went and the old man making a troubled face before gesturing to a corner of their camp—he finds him. He’s sat on a log and fiddling with something in his lap, hunched over and quietly cursing into the mist. The vet cautiously approaches, slow in his steps.

Eventually he sees that the stuff in his lap is Twilight’s chainmail, and there’s a bag of spare little golden rings lying by his feet in the grass. He holds pliers in one hand, the other trying to flatten out the mail and pinpoint a spot to start on the edge of the new hole in the armor.

Legend watches him open a ring with the pliers, drop the tool in his lap while holding a little tiny piece of steel in his shaking fingers, and attempt to loop surrounding rings back into it. He tries a few times, hands shaking far too much to steady much of anything, and Warriors whispers a curse and reaches into his bag, pulls out his glasses—as if that’s the problem.

The vet takes a single step forward just to scuff a pegasus boot across the grass, and Warriors looks up at the noise, adjusting the glasses along his nose. “Oh—hey bud,” he greets nonchalantly, squinting back down at his work. “You alright? Need anything?”

His voice is distracted as the Captain reaches into the bag of rings and pulls one out, attempting to loop a new one in there instead. His trembling fingers drop it into the grass beneath him and there’s a shit that spills from his lips, looking down around his legs to look for it.

Legend comes forward, hurries to crouch down in front of him. “Hey,” he breathes, and it’s not a greeting. It’s more of a look at me—what’s going on with you?

The Captain pauses as Legend settles his arms in his lap, purposefully over the chainmail, purposefully over the pliers he reaches for. “Yeah?” he blinks, like he doesn’t know, like he’s not aware of his trembling being, his ghostly complexion.

That, or he’s ignoring it.

Legend frowns and reaches up to press a hand to Warriors’ forehead. His friend predictably brushes it aside, giving him a loose smile wrapped up in a warm, almost-convincing chuckle. “What’s goin’ on with you, bud? I’m fine.”

He’s not too warm… The vet frowns harder at him, gaze scanning Warriors’ figure. The Captain’s hands are fidgeting with the mail in his lap, fingers running over the rings and tracing the patterns, and Legend halts his searching eyes right over them, zeroes in on how they’re shaking even without doing much.

Legend moves his own hands to scoop them up, Warriors’ skin clammy and concerningly white against his. They quiver in his palms and his friend gives him that pitiful, worried look—just like him to stress over other people while he’s literally trembling.

“Where is it?” Legend asks darkly, and Warriors blinks at him, gaze blank.

“Where is what?” he shoots back, ears tipping down and brows furrowing. “Buddy, are you okay?”

Legend clenches his teeth, just barely manages to not snap at him just for that. “Where is the injury,” he forces out slowly, enunciating every syllable and squeezing Warriors’ hands a little—partly a don’t you dare lie to me, and partly a please just tell me what’s wrong.

Realization crosses Warriors’ features, ears flicking up. “Oh—no no, buddy, I’m not hurt,” he shakes his head and Legend stares him in the eyes, studies every little emotion that crosses the window panes, “You know me, Ledge, I don’t hide injuries. I’m okay, really.”

The vet narrows his gaze and Warriors is forced to lean back a little from the weight of it. It rolls across his figure again, sharp and searching, and Legend starts to deflate when he realizes Warriors is correct—he’s not the type to hide injuries, especially ones that would make him this weak and pale. The Captain is smarter than that.

Legend leans back, and once Warriors has workspace in his lap again, he digs another ring from the bag and is back at it. “Really, bud. I’m okay,” he repeats as he squints down at the mail, like it’s a mantra Legend will somehow eventually believe.

There’s a beat of the vet silently scrolling through solutions and approaches while Warriors desperately tries to loop rings into rings. Legend watches the sad show of steel clicking together, shivering in and out of its place, and his throat feels tighter and tighter by the second.

Warriors drops another ring into the grass. He curses and starts bundling it all up in his arms instead.

“Four’s better at repairing mail than me,” he mutters mostly to himself, leaving the pliers on the log he sits on and rising to his feet, “I’m sure they won’t… min—”

He stumbles. Legend’s heart is yanked to his throat when Warriors somehow becomes a shade paler, eyes glazing over, and he starts falling.

The vet lurches up to catch him, a woah woah woah being yelped from his lips, and it’s a bit of a blur of limbs and shaky balance before Legend has him lowered to the wet grass. He senses heads turn, questions leaving the others from across camp, but the vet focuses on the Captain and how he’s blinking harshly and trying to correct himself.

Somewhere along the way the chainmail had been dropped and Warriors seems to realize his hands are suddenly empty. He uses them to push himself up and get all his weight off of Legend, but he goes back too far and nearly falls again until the vet has both hands on him to steady his figure.

“You okay?” he blurts out, manages to keep his voice steady, but just barely. Warriors nods, but Legend can tell that makes the apparent nausea worse when his form sways in his hold.

Legend hurries to get his face in front of Warriors, the Captain still blinking through him, dazed. Worry wraps its tendrils in between his rib bones, but Legend swallows to push it down and he cups his partner’s face instead, searches his eyes.

“Yeah, m’... I’m okay,” he mumbles, because of course he does.

The last couple of blinks seem to do it, as he finally looks up at Legend and sees him. He gives a crooked smile, because of course he does, all nonchalant and placating. “Just… stood up too fast, I guess.”

He hears footsteps hurrying to them, but he pays them no mind, even when Warriors’ ears perk up and he looks around his shoulder to see what’s coming. Something dawns on him very suddenly, and he gently tilts Warriors’ head to look back at him.

“Wars, when was the last time you ate?”

The Captain blinks and says uh and then proceeds to think for entirely too long for such a simple question. Legend watches the gears churn, clunking and scraping rust away as he retraces his steps. Anxiety wells up in the vet’s chest the longer he has to wait for an answer.

“Wars.”

Warriors leans himself free of Legend’s hands, his own coming up to rub his eyes and pinch his nose. “Uhm…” he says intelligently, “I think maybe… I don’t remember when it was? Last thing I had was uh… an omelet.”

Legend’s mind stalls. “Wars that was yesterday’s breakfast,” he grits out, hands coming to squeeze his best friend’s shoulders. “It’s six in the afternoon.”

Warriors makes a noise in the back of his throat as he raises his eyebrows. “Mhh. It… is, isn’t it?” he mumbles lamely, eyes a bit blank.

Legend hears a goddammit behind him, and he looks back to see some of the others looming over them, Wild the closest. There’s various whats and hylias exclaimed over each other, but Legend ignores them all in favor of helping Warriors to his feet.

“You’re eating. Right now,” he commands, and Warriors doesn’t seem too against the idea, stumbling a little as they slowly rise until he rights himself and is able to stand without hands on him. He blinks a bit, nodding.

“Must’ve uh… forgotten,” he chuckles emptily, voice worryingly distant, but Legend hopes getting food in his system will give him back the energy to function. “Silly me.”

The vet has a hand pressed between the Captain’s shoulder blades as he starts to walk, another hovering just outside his friend’s peripherals just in case. The others are hurrying to help Wild cook something, worry and bafflement on just about every face he looks at, and Legend thinks he sees a bit of guilt in there too.

Legend’s eyes meet Hyrule's, his hands hovering over Warriors’ pale figure telling him more than the vet ever could himself. They hold each others’ gazes, something strung between them, heavy and knowing and scared.

“Yeah, silly you,” Legend swallows just as emptily, voice wavering right along with his heart.

+

Legend blinks awake to the stars, a dying campfire, and snoring in his ear.

He jerks away at the hot breath tingling one side of his face, grumbling and cracking open bleary eyes. Sky’s sleeping head lies inches from his nose, arms and legs hooked around the vet like a koala. His cheek is squished up against his shoulder, another snore rumbling from his throat, and Legend gives him the grumpiest face he can manage with his eyes half shut.

He attempts to scoot over, unhooking his ankle from Sky's big feet and wincing as he gives it a roll or two, bones cracking. Not too worried about waking him—Sky is the heaviest sleeper Legend has ever met and he's been to many places—he wiggles his shoulder out from under his head, but he has the kindness to ease the fall it takes with a pillow underneath him.

The vet finds himself shuddering at the nip in the air, chill making its way even through his thicker night shirt. Over the sounds of soft breathing and crickets, Legend sits up halfway and only hears whispers from the fire nearby; the logs sit red and hot, wood grain glowing, but there are no flames licking at the bark.

Legend blinks at it tiredly, muddled and a bit concerned. Head swiveling around to look for the person on night shift, he pictures wolf fur and face tattoos, searching for a bigger figure that houses broad shoulders and a silhouetted crossbow along his back.

Within the messy pile of sleeping heroes strewn around the fire, though, Legend spots him still splayed out in his bedroll. His face markings have a slight glow to them at night, and he’s still, legs starfished and tangled in blankets that aren't even his, sound asleep.

Legend turns his head and finds Warriors on watch instead.

He sits with his back turned to the camp, hunched over sitting on a log with his sword laid flat in his lap and hand around the grip. Moonlight traces his messy hair, highlights stray strands that stick up and wave in light winds. The glow drapes down and follows the slump of his shoulders, the droop in his figure, lands on his beloved sandstone scarf that's strewn behind him in the grass.

From where Legend is, he can see part of his face. The moon spreads her lunar hands over his skin, pours dark hues under the eyebags, seems to drag his face down with the shadows. It droops just like the rest of him, and most concerning of all, Legend thinks, is the occasional sway of his figure, the jerk in his muscles, the slow dropping of his head.

Warriors is nodding off.

He never nods off. The Captain is known to diligently and loyally watch his family's back while they rest, form perfect, ears perked, eyes sharp until the sun says her hello s. He's never faltered, never slacked, and he's always been particular about this part of the job; hands on the pommel, chin up, eyes forward, shoulders squared. Alert, at a minimum.

But his eyes are sagging, lids shut and hand slack against the grip of his weapon. He balances between vigilance and total unconsciousness, body correcting itself to stay upright, but his head keeps lolling to the side and the rest of him drifts with it.

Legend watches him tilt, tip over, and he nearly jumps from his bedroll to catch him before he sees his friend jerk awake from the fall. He catches himself and straightens instantly, body springing up in one swift, painfully tense movement. His hand tightens around his sword until his knuckles go white, ears flicking and twitching to hurry and catch any intruders he may have missed, and then he's blinking harshly, head dipping down while he runs a hand over his face.

The action screams fatigue, palm dragging down skin that's already wilting and puffy above the cheeks. Legend hears a quiet sigh escape him, huffed out and frustrated while he rubs his eyes and blinks the tired glaze away. The Captain shakes his head, tries to free the cotton from his skull, and then he's staring forward again, scanning the trees with an underlying debility in the motion that has the vet tired just looking at him.

That heaviness creeps up, pours over his soul until it starts filling his veins with something cold. His mind seems to quickly convert it all to anger, because that's easier, that's louder in a dry, rough sort of way, but gentler on his heartstrings, not weighing on them until they snap but plucking them until they throng.

Legend swallows down the lump in his throat that he's quickly come to know lately as worry, and he slowly tears himself from his bedroll.

"Wars?" he whispers, voice gravelly from sleep. When he doesn't respond right away he debates calling again, but then Warriors' ears twitch, swivel back, and he's turning to look at him with moonlit eyes.

Something in him twists a little at the delayed reaction.

"You okay, bud?" the Captain whispers back, brows upticked in that concerned manner, and Legend has just enough self-control to keep his fists from clenching. "Nightmare?"

Carefully tiptoeing around sleeping bodies and stretched out limbs, the vet comes to sit down next to him. Warriors shifts the grip of his sword to make room for him, moves to snake an arm around his middle, but Legend moves his own to block it and speaks up before his worried gaze can hit his walls.

"Why are you still up?" His gaze flits up to his friend's, tone low and forced flat, but Legend thinks a little bit of unease leaks through his voice.

Crickets fill the gaps in between words, practicing their song and dance while Warriors blinks at him. "I'm on night watch," he says.

"Taking the ranch hand's shift?"

His face falters, if only a little, but it's enough to matter. "Well… he seemed tired," is his excuse, and Legend grips the tree bark underneath him, minutely hears the crackling sound it makes.

"And you aren't?" he growls.

They stare, Legend's eyes sharp despite just having woken up, Warriors' whittled and tired, but stubborn as all hell.

"I'm fine."

"And running on how many hours of sleep?" Legend nips at him, words quick and terse.

Warriors doesn't answer. Something grips him in the center, squeezes tighter the longer silence takes up his response.

"Wars?"

His best friend tightens his lips, stares ahead in that dead tired, weighted and yet empty gaze, but beyond that, it's all unreadable. He fixes his fingers around the grip of his sword again, tightens the hold.

Frustration is starting to boil under his skin, but he tamps it down the best he can. The low heat of the dying fire against his back keeps it just hot enough to still simmer there.

"What has been going on with you?"

The question is soft, searching, a bit desperate. It's barely whispered above the crickets, but the way Warriors flinches under it makes it seem like it was a hurricane. Legend doesn't dwell on the way his own voice wobbles.

The moon highlights every little move the Captain makes, and Legend watches every shift in his face, every twitch in the muscles, every gear churn behind dull eyes. He watches him ignore his words, then pour over the question, then consider his options, and there is so much entangled in that gaze that Legend can’t even begin to decipher a single emotion behind any of it.

The air hangs heavy, strained in its effort to pull Warriors' words together just as he is. He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again. There are silent letters shaped by his tongue, beginnings of sentences that fail to make it past some barrier in his head.

For a moment, Legend thinks he'll actually work through his own walls and give him a solid answer, something he could work with.

And then Warriors retreats, and that's all burnt down.

"Nothin', bud," he claims, says it so casually, so flawlessly high-spirited. He tilts his head up and gives him a smile that seems to be happy, the correct amount of teeth showing through lips, not too small and not too wide, and yet Legend knows for a fact that it's all bullshit. "I'm fine, really. Just a bit short on sleep. I'll take a nap tomorrow and be good as new."

Legend clenches his fists until there are bleeding crescents in his palms.

And then he releases them. Because as much as Legend wants to shake Warriors around until all the hurt falls out of his fucking ears—as much as he wants to grip him by the shoulders and growl out every single good thing about him that he's never had the guidance to know how to say—he knows that won't help.

He thinks the most infuriating part about it all is that Warriors constantly preaches to them to take care of themselves, be gentle, take breaks, know your limit. He constantly checks on everybody, constantly asks if everything's okay, if he can do anything, and yet Warriors doesn't seem to know his own limits; so concerned about everybody else that he simply ignores himself. So dead set on being useful that he'll destroy his own body in the process.

The most worrying part of that is that, somehow, at some point, Warriors seemed to have gotten it in his head that he doesn't count in that equation. He'll remind people to eat, and then get sucked into a million other tasks and skip two meals somewhere in the middle. Complete disregard for himself—in the same way he's so very obviously trained to fight against hordes and not in one-on-one battles, he seems to be trained in prioritizing productivity over health.

He doesn't know where he got that idea, but Legend would love to meet whoever is responsible for it.

He manages to swallow down the white-hot burn in his throat, manages to settle his soul and stop it from jittering. The vet's teeth threaten to crack from the pressure he's clenching on them and he laxes his jaw, unfurls his aching joints from burrowing into his skin.

Instead of letting the anger drag him along, he leads with a gentle hand along the grip of Warriors' sword. Clammy knuckles run under his palm, but they near-instantly flip up to reciprocate, fingers lacing, wrapping, surrounding. The Captain moves his weapon to make space, slides it off his lap and lets the tip dig into the dirt.

Legend plops his head on his shoulder, nudges his cheek against the fabric of his scarf, a silent offering. Warriors takes it, lets his tired head fall the rest of the way and lean on Legend's own, half of his face hidden in hair as he turns to press a kiss to rose locks.

The vet scans the trees while they sit idle—while Warriors, curiously, traces the triforce marked into Legend's hand—and he mentally shuffles through the words that are stuck in his throat. He rearranges the sounds in his head, flips it all around, replaces words in an attempt to swerve around the ball in his throat that always stops these sort of sentences.

He wills them, forces them to pour out, and he cringes at how it sounds so hesitant and strained when he couldn't be more sincere.

"You… You know you… can uh… talk to me, right?" he manages, and even though it's slow and croaked and his voice cracks in the middle of it, he hopes Warriors knows how he meant it.

He does. Even though Legend isn't looking at him, he can feel the sunny smile kissed into his hairline. "Yeah, buddy," he whispers, genuine and fond and melting. "Of course I know. I will, if I need it. I promise."

A hand squeezes his own. Legend squeezes back, and doesn't comment on how Warriors starts dozing off again two minutes later.

+

Almost all of the chain is typically grateful and excited when the portals deposit them in their own eras—Wind practically jumps into the fucking ocean when they're suddenly surrounded by the Great Sea; Sky is absolutely ecstatic and a mushy, lovesick fool when they're dropped in Skyloft; and Time is always, always practically melting in Malon's arms when they get to the ranch.

They all love something about their home, whether it be the area, the scenery, or the people. Even Legend, while his Hyrule still has knights snaking along the roads looking to rough up a kid who saved their asses, he still loves and misses the people who are kind to him in it.

Warriors, concerningly, seems to be an exception to this rule.

They had stood in front of a wattle and daub house, second story looming and cantilevered over the street where people and horses bustled, pulling cargo along. The jingling of keys sang in their ears as Warriors fished them out of his bag.

"With how fuckin' fat your money pouch is, I shoulda' guessed you'd live in a mansion," Wind had teased, having to crane his neck to see the peak of the neatly shingled roof.

"It's not a mansion," Warriors had drawled in that quick, exasperated way he does. Knowing the comment would be coming, having the retort supplied on the tip of his tongue preemptively.

The Captain had swiftly unlocked the door and gestured them all to file in ahead of him, torches along the walls instantly igniting themselves as Legend had careened through the doorway; magic, by the way something rough and grainy bounced from the door and trickled through the cobblestone flooring in its haste to give them torchlight.

Expensive silverware and cutlery in the kitchen had been the first thing Legend noticed, besides the refined cobblestone under his boots—they reflected the new firelight in little gleams of orange and bronze, and the cookware had been no different, hung along the wall neatly and orderly, polished and clean. Legend knows for a fact that Warriors cannot cook much of anything beyond butter noodles, so he had found it curious that he owned a full set of kitchen supplies as costly as they looked.

Ornate carvings along tables and furniture had been the second detail to draw him in, fine patterns in wooden legs and the steel trimmings fitted around them lending to the elegance of it all. The rugs on the floor matched the tapestries on the walls in their detail, meticulously crafted, colors kept bright and eye-catching.

Curiously, there had been no weapons hung on the walls, but Legend does consider that the Captain is a gentle soul at heart. Despite his shiny armor and stainless scarf, he's never been one to brag about weaponry.

It had made him wonder why he has tapestries singing the praises of the Hero of Warriors decorating the wooden framework. The carefully woven fabric depicts a story of his time as a knight, portals opening where they shouldn’t have, a woman who went crazy, a fight with a shapeshifter, the end of a war. The Captain likes to tell tales from battles that are lighthearted enough, but Legend knows better than to call him self-congratulating. Legend isn't a liar, and Warriors isn't the prick people say he is.

"Hoowee, this is fancy," came from their rancher, hands on his hips and grin off-balance as his voice reached one of its higher notes. "It somehow smells like absolutely nothin' in here."

Legend had been inclined to agree; with all the fabrics draping over tables and the costly looking couch, he'd assumed they'd all soak in something from the air, permeate the space with at least some type of smell, good or bad.

Instead there is a distinct lack of anything in the atmosphere, and maybe that's what had put Legend off at the start. Despite the exhaustive effort clearly put into decorating this house, it still felt empty. Every table was dotted with perfectly placed flowers and pretty knick-knacks, (and paperwork… lots and lots of paperwork, which Legend will most certainly be discussing with him soon) but it all feels… forced. Too deliberate. It lacked even an ounce of personality, much less Warriors' personality.

It felt soulless. That's the word. Soulless.

"Well, this should house us quite nicely," Warriors had spread his arms out, but the action had lacked any energy. There had been no warmth in his gaze when he took in the oddly sterile state of his living quarters. "And it's mighty cheaper than an inn. I don't have more than one bed, but make yourselves at home. And yes, Wild, you can use the kitchen."

He'd been off shortly after that, claiming to be needed at the castle, which was the norm when they visited his era; it seems he's needed everywhere twenty-four seven, actually. It had pained him to watch him leave, and Legend couldn't quite put his finger on why. Maybe it was the dread buried under that fake, bright gaze; or maybe it had been the way Warriors hadn't given a real smile since they were dropped here, and that perfectly constructed beam he gave them before he left had felt just as hollow as the house they stood in.

It had been early morning when he'd left. He doesn't return until well over nineteen hours later.

Now, Legend sits across Time at the coffee table, midnight having passed ages ago. The bulk of them had attempted to stay up—some unknown, unnamed worry gnawing at their souls until Warriors returns—but one by one they had all drifted off until only the old man and the vet were left, playing cards to pass the time.

The torchlight is all they have to see their game splayed out on the table. The others lie sprawled out along the couch and the chairs, snuggled atop each other, the smaller ones curled up together on one single couch cushion miraculously. Sky's head lies in Time's lap, and Legend doesn't comment on the fact that the old man hasn't removed his hand from his longer locks since the kid fell asleep there.

Time, remarkably, hasn't nudged the vet to go to bed either. He thinks it might be because the old man knows it'd be a fruitless endeavor, and that Legend can be needlessly, defiantly, agonizingly stubborn if he sees fit. Time must also know that anything involving Warriors brings that unmatched stubbornness to the surface.

So they wait together, calm, companionable silence their specialty. Warriors hadn't given them a set time to expect him back, but they had assumed it'd be before midnight at least. The vet's legs had long since cramped up and he spends the gaps in between his turns stretching, promptly making Time tighten his lips in knowing sympathy when pops and cracks fill the house.

Legend's ears twitch and swivel back to the front door when, over the crickets and breathing of his family, he hears footfalls climbing up the stairs to the front door.

It finally opens, and they both swivel to smile and greet him, and then both of their faces fall.

Legs wobbling underneath him, Warriors has a hand clutching the side of the door, slowly twisting to shut it behind him with sluggish, shaky hands. He stands there for a moment, staring through the stone floor as if he's relishing the thin slice of silence, and then he drags his gaze up like it weighs half the earth to look them in the eyes.

Something in them makes the vet jump to his feet. He's glad he did, because as soon as he does, Warriors' legs give out underneath him.

He senses Time jerk up behind him, stopped by Sky halfway in his lap. Legend catches the Captain and they don't quite fall the full length, ringed hands messily grabbing at fabric, gloved fingers sluggishly wrapping around limbs for support.

Warriors makes an effort to stay up, clinging to whatever part of the vet gives him the most leverage to stand straight; there's a moment of pulling and pushing, hands under armpits in case his footing is lost, and then the Captain blinks and shakes his head.

"I'm—I'm fine—"

"Like hell you are." Surprisingly it's Time who lets that slip, not Legend. His voice bellows in a muted way, softened by the need to keep quiet, but the frustration lets it snap and lash like a whip. "Lie down."

Warriors flinches under the bite in his words, and even though Legend shares that same anger in his chest, it's quieted and turned to cotton when he feels his whole body flinch with him.

He senses Time soften too. He knows the old man immediately regrets the harshness.

"Where are you hurt?" Legend decides to redirect, eyes raking his exhausted form.

"I'm not," Warriors breathes out, "Really, I promise I'm not.

"I just… was swamped with paperwork and I had to go to like fourteen different meetings, and every time I finished a pile of papers another new one would take its place and—and every single job I tried to do got interrupted with a thousand different people needing me for something and everything took three times as long to do because I kept having to do other shit —

"—and… I didn't get a lunch break. Or… any break—was too busy. And dealing with all the stuck-up rich brats is always a pain in the ass and I…"

Warriors slumps more with every sentence, like the words are dredging up the last droplets of his energy supply before he finally gives in to the lack of it. Legend watches his dead eyes stare through the vet's collarbone, bags puffy and drooping, hair disheveled, skin pale. Legend has to lend more strength to his arms when the Captain unknowingly starts leaning into him more and more.

"I'm just…" he mumbles, barely above a whisper, voice fragile and cracked.

Warriors finally plops his head down on Legend's shoulder, face hidden in the crook of his neck. "Tired," he admits, utter defeat wilting his tone until it fizzles out like a dying ember, and he is left half held up by his best friend while he sags into the hold.

Legend ignores the knowledge that the hurt on his face is very apparent; he lowers them down until they're both sitting on the cobblestone, and Warriors doesn't seem to mind or notice. His face stays tucked in his collar, and if the vet isn't mistaken, judging by the vague sway of his figure, he thinks the Captain may be nodding off right here.

The air has thickened into some orderless mass of tension and horror, and as Legend finally swivels his gaze over to Time, it all seems to crash down on him.

The old man's eye churns up slowly to meet his, like it's a process he has to undergo, build up the scaffolding to get there. When it lands on him it is instantly far too heavy for his lungs and they hitch, indistinguishable from the quiet breathing of the others, but there all the same.

They stare and they trade the horror in their chests, and even though their worries are different brands—worry for a best friend he'd love to grow old with, worry for a child that's not his own but loves like a dear son—it is the same shade of heartache.

The thumping of his core makes a lump in his throat, blurs his vision until there's water warping shapes, and Legend finds himself curling around the Captain, cupping a hand around the back of his head, lips to tousled blond. He stares at the cobblestone and wills the tears not to drop—not in front of Time of all people.

A big hand comes to brush hair behind Warriors' burnt ear, gentle as can be around the old wounds and the marred skin.

"Let's get you to bed, son," is all Time says, but it's the gentlest he's ever heard him, the softest voice he's ever used, and the raw worry and the pure care that drips from it is almost enough to suffocate him.

They stir from the floor they've all settled on, and when Legend leans back and sees Warriors fast asleep against his shoulder, they both take great care in exchanging him off to Time, who is a much better fit to carry him to bed. The old man is very much like a gentle giant, big and tall and broad, but touches featherlight; he carries Warriors bridal style, slow and steady so as to not disturb him, gentle and methodical in quieting his clunky footfalls.

Legend hurries ahead, pads down the hall and up the stairs and lets his fingers run over the elaborate wainscoting lining the walls. Warriors' bedroom door is pushed open, magic trickling along the house's structure to follow and ignite the torches; he hears Time a pace behind him and what suspiciously sounds like a kiss to blond hair.

The Captain's bedroom is just as soulless as the rest of the house, and for some reason that shoots a pang through his heart even though he was expecting it. Even the end tables have paperwork piled on them, one or two knick-knacks dotting shelves held up with complicated and twisted iron, but there is nothing else to speak of. A big bed, expensive sheets, expertly embroidered curtains, a million fluffy pillows—and then everything else is hard and steel and barely lived in, not a trace of Warriors' personality left in the oak furniture.

Legend tosses all but two pillows off the bed; he pictures Warriors grumbling about the very existence of throw pillows and how they're not even pretty and even less functional and hides the smile playing along his lips. He kicks them aside to make a clear path for Time, and then he's pulling the blankets back.

The old man eases the door shut with a boot behind him and makes his way to the bed, the only sound being fabric rustling as Warriors is gently lowered down into comfortable sheets. They work to make him comfortable, adjusting pillows, fixing bunched up clothing, and as Time carefully removes the Captain's boots, there is a beat where Legend stares and thinks.

And as soon as he starts thinking, that familiar anger returns.

It lights the inner walls of his chest ablaze, soaks it all in oil just to be set ablaze again, and the heaviness pours into his gut until it weighs on him so much that he has to lower himself to the mattress too, slow and cautious.

A ringed hand comes to play with golden hair, wavy and a little curled from sweat and lack of styling lately. Its brushed from baggy eyes and a pale complexion that's been missing make-up entirely, and Legend stares at the scars riddling his skin, the tired face they're etched in.

Warriors leans just a little into his touch, expression that is tense even in sleep finally settling.

Legend's own wobbles when a big, warm hand rubs his shoulder from behind.

"He was already exhausted," Legend whispers, thumbing Warriors' temple, "And they saw how tired he was and still worked him to the ground."

"I know," comes from the old man, quiet and defeated and solemn, and he moves around the vet to stand by the bed, hand sliding from one shoulder to the other.

"We both know he can never refuse a request," the vet mutters, tone bitter, but the way he runs his thumb over the Captain's unscathed cheek dampens that crudeness, "He's never learned how to say no. Hylia forbid he politely declines to help a stranger to save himself from death by exhaustion."

It's sarcastic, and Legend senses what he's saying is perhaps a bit misguided, his anger misdirected. He should be mad at the way his era treats him, not Warriors himself—because Legend knows how this era treats their Hero.

Warriors has never spelled it out for him, and that's purely because he doesn't know it's a problem. But with the way the Captain speaks of his Impa and Artemis, of the higher-ups and the lower tiers, it always sounds as though they only speak to him when they need something. They only invite him to things he's legally or socially obligated to attend, they never speak to him outside of work, they never even look at him until he's dressed in uniform and saluting to their higher authority.

Legend gets a nasty, broiling sensation in his chest when he sees the very obvious pattern of people using Warriors for their own gain. He knows that it's politics and business, and that's just how it works sometimes, but it feels cruel to treat a so-called friend like that—especially Warriors, who has done more than enough for them already.

"He's a people-pleaser," Time murmurs, hand coming down to card fingers through the Captain's locks, "That's for sure."

And they take advantage of that, he scowls to himself, tears his attention away from his best friend's face.

Time's gaze, while Legend can only see a sliver of it, is equal parts tender and mournful. He looks at Warriors like he looks at the rest of them—like they're all the world—and it's such a potent, doting thing that Legend feels like he's intruding on something personal.

"He likes to be useful, I think," the old man continues, "Needs to be, he thinks. And all that on top of that workaholic habit he's got…"

Time trails off. He doesn't finish the sentence. He doesn't need to.

The room is quiet, the crackle of torches along walls distant in his ears. Legend feels the tug of sleep along his eyelids, and he leans against Time's side where he stands next to the bed. His temple rests there on his waist and the hand on his shoulder adjusts to the movement, hugging his head and thumbing his cheekbone.

"I wish he'd talk to me," Legend says a bit numbly, admittance booming against the walls even though it's only a whisper.

In some far corner of his mind, he realizes that maybe it's an odd thing for him of all people to say. In the beat after his words slip out, there is a brief twinge of panic in him; it's sated by the way Time's side hug squeezes him a little, tightens its hold.

"I know, kiddo," Time coos, somber tone thrumming in the same time as his heartstrings, "He will. I know he will—he trusts you."

They stay there for a while, raking fingers through gold, tracing triangles on hardened hands. Warriors doesn't move save for the occasional lean into their touches, and Legend thinks he likes this face more—the peaceful one, where his brows aren't taut and his shoulders aren't stiff, hands not twitching up into a salute that seeps through muscle memory. He misses that Warriors.

It hurts to think that he misses somebody even when they're right in front of him.

He doesn't quite know when it happens, but he finds himself lolling; the fingers sifting through his hair feel like they're sorting through his head too, picking out the thoughts that overwhelm him, the details that won't quiet, and plucking them from his train of thought. His lids slide closed at some point, and he doesn't find it in him to care. Time is right next to him—nothing could ever touch him with the old man around.

He drifts, and distantly he feels himself stand, move around the bed and slide under thick blankets. The vet's head settles in an unfamiliar pillow, but a very familiar face comes to nuzzle against warm skin, shifting in his much-needed sleep to be closer.

Arms snake around figures—Legend still feels his friend's scarf wrapped around his neck—and they settle in each other's holds, skin against skin, chests rising and falling in matched waves. Time fixes their blankets; bids them a fond goodnight with kisses to heads.

The vet presses lips to Warriors' hair, but he doesn't remember finishing it. He thinks he falls asleep there, half-done with his task, arms around tired shoulders, and face buried in tangled honey.

When he wakes the next morning in the same way, neither of them having moved an inch and Warriors still sound asleep, Legend shifts and finishes it, chest warm.

+

It'd been an entire day of carefully avoiding knights that still have dark magic lingering in their skulls before they finally saw Legend's house. They had crested the hill, seen the warm red of the shingles, and the vet sensed the entire chain behind him slump in relief.

Metal buckles and sheathed weapons clinked against packs as Legend led them in a loose circle around soldier paths. Boots padded along grass, then dirt, then autumn leaves, thumping and stirring up dust as they followed and trusted their vet.

Every space between the thud of his boots hitting soil housed three heartbeats, hammering in his chest and leaking from his hands in sweat that coated skin. His shoulders perched atop it—his heart—scrunched and tight and slowly working on creating a kink in his neck.

Old scars had flared, memories of soldier marches and spear throws raking at his composure, and he fought to keep a steady pace, footsteps even and confident in their strides. They occasionally hesitated, turning on heels to follow his whirling mind before he set them back on track; hands twitch upward, fingers itching to wrap around a sword grip at the slightest noise.

He had thought he'd be able to make this trip without any of the others commenting on the tension in every atom of his. He almost did—but Warriors always notices.

"Are you okay, buddy?" he'd asked, lowered to a whisper meant for him alone as he'd quickened his pace to match Legend's strides.

"I'm fine," he'd answered automatically, hands flexing to wring out phantom pains.

"You're tense."

"I'm always tense," a distracted reply, eyes focused on narrowing through trimmed hedges to spot metal armor.

There'd been gloved hands wrapping around his own, violet and baby blue eyes darting down to greet them. Apricot fabric encompassed scarred, stiff joints, thumbing unscathed skin and pockmarks all the same.

"Not this tense," he'd prodded, and goddammit did the something in his tone pluck at his heartstrings to make such a horridly good sound. Something benign and firm, wriggling its way up his arteries by force.

Legend had looked up at him, met a gaze that housed a fraction of the life in them a few weeks ago, and the good sound in his head turned vacant and haunting, like a violin echoed against stained glass.

The vet took his hands back, fixed his expression to something he had hoped was unreadable, but he knows something shows through. Warriors always finds something—it's like he knows every chip in Legend's labyrinthine walls.

"Worry about yourself," he forced out through his teeth. He stifled the wince at his own frigidity in the syllables.

His soul clenched along with them when Warriors had tipped his ears down, looked a bit like a kicked puppy in the moment. He'd backed down, stepped away and nodded and held his own hand like it had been burned.

It hadn't felt like the small victory it was supposed to be.

They'd pressed on, weaving between guards and paths and buildings, and eventually, they'd seen the red shingled roof atop that little hill. The vet beelined for it, eyes never straying from the front door.

When Legend's boots had hit the first stone of his property's walkway, all of the tension in his soul spilled out like a faucet.

Ravio had burst through the front door and was quick to greet them, all excited waves of his hands and sweet smiles that show crooked teeth. The little menace bird that follows him—Sheerow is always stealing his rings—weaved between the Heroes and pecked at the ones he didn't like, which is a seemingly random selection each visit.

The merchant had wrapped Legend up in a warm hug he'd admittedly been missing lately. His friend bounced on his heels a little even before the hug ended, and then he'd been dragging him to the door by the hand and beckoning the chain to follow.

They filed in, Ravio shaking their hands as they entered and addressing them all by their ridiculous nicknames he'd cooked up prior— Mister Hero's Hero Before Him; Mister Hero's Weird Cousin; Platonic Love of Link's Life: Hero of a Thousand Misters (a very stretched, barely recognizable play on "Hero of Warriors.") Sheerow, like clockwork, tried to nab something out of each and every one of their pockets just for the hell of it.

The sun is already hovering just above the mountains by the time they get there, the warmth of the house hiding them from autumn chill and clanking armor. There's already a fire flickering away under the chimney, already blankets messily strewn along couch cushions, and Legend takes a moment to simply breathe in the smell of pinecones and old books.

They're all clustered together in the entryway for a moment until Legend shoos them off with aching hands, tells them to get comfortable in the warm browns and greys, make themselves at home by the fire and the golden light filtering in through the kitchen. Now that they're sheltered and safe and promised warm beds for the night, most of them are able to rest easy.

Murmuring suddenly buoys the underlying peace, and there's something about seeing his family nestle into his couch cushions and settle by his fireplace that makes his mind sing.

Their laughter and friendly murmurs soak into the woodwork of his house's frame and the marrow of his bones, and despite the tension coiling his muscles and the mild paranoia nipping at his shoulder blades, he feels his home and his chest is warmer than it's been in years.

Ravio announces a Lorule specialty for dinner and Wild jumps at the opportunity to learn a new recipe, grin pulling at the scars along skin. A few of them slump into the couch and are out within minutes, some of them start a rock-paper-scissors war over the coffee table for Hylia-knows-what. Time and Twilight are left to do damage control for… whatever they're planning.

 Legend settles down into the cushions of his favorite chair, pent up breath of air trickling out as his muscles attempt to untangle bit by bit. The vet lies his head back, feels the fabric underneath him contort and mold, and he finally settles, letting lids slide closed and limbs dangle.

It's nice. It's tranquil.

And he gets about two seconds of peace before he cracks his eyes open at the sound of Warriors' voice in the kitchen, asking if they need any help with the food.

It's barely audible over the laughter, the murmur of the others, and the clanking of dishes, but Legend's ears swivel to the kitchen doorway like they'd been waiting for the other shoe to drop. Even from here, his voice sounds tired; he thinks he hears Ravio start to say yes before his words cut short for a beat—Legend can perfectly imagine the face he's making, blinking up at Warriors' frame that occasionally sways and trying to fix his expression into something less appalled.

Legend grips the armrests of his favorite chair, joints flaring for an entirely different reason than the strain of it. The heat is back in his chest, simmering and bubbling and gurgling over the rim of his mind.

Dinner does not come soon enough, especially on the account of the fact that when Wild calls them in for the meal, Ravio yanks him aside and gestures to the Captain, who looks like he's just now catching up to the fact that dinner is already done.

Away from the bustle of the others building up their plates, they exchange wild hand gestures and ugly faces that only mean something significant to the two of them, Ravio very obviously concerned, Legend very obviously fucking jaded.

"He's fine," Legend hisses out under his breath, zipping at the air with two fingers to pull it all to a stop. "Leave it be. I'll handle it, just eat."

He feels a bit guilty for his terse tone, but Ravio seems to see the signs of everything getting to him. He leaves it be, as requested. Legend could kiss him on the mouth.

Dinner goes smoothly, miraculously. That is, up until the point where Legend raises his head and sees that Warriors is scarfing down food like he hasn't eaten in six days.

He's being reasonable about it—he's had dinners with the Queen, he knows manners—but regardless, he's stuffing sizable chunks of Lorulian bread down his gullet faster than he swings his sword in battle and Legend thinks he's just about given up on chewing.

He gulps down the tea Ravio had made as well like he's been in the fucking desert for the last month. Everybody is talking around him and he's oblivious to most of it, eyes on his food and absolutely nothing else.

His cup is empty after one swig, several long gulps down his throat in an instant. Most of his plate is gone in under a minute.

The rattling of everybody else's dishes and the loud hum of conversation suddenly digs into his eardrums a little too violently; his world is abruptly ringing, the heat in his chest overwhelming from the inside out. The fucking flaring ache in his bones almost hurts worse than the worry, and it all happens so suddenly that Legend feels like it had spun him in his seat.

He hears a clatter, and he only realizes it had been from him when he notices he's up higher, chair pushed back, suddenly at a stand and looming over the table while he stares through the cloth adorning the top. He can't tell whether the voices around him disappear because of the sudden movement or the static in his ears. His own plate is nearly untouched, a few pieces of meat apparently already eaten. Legend doesn't even remember what it had tasted like.

It no longer looks appetizing. He feels eyes on him, but he doesn't particularly care. There's a beat of thick silence and then the vet beelines for the back door, swerving around somebody who's just sitting down. He distantly feels his mouth move, something like thanks for the dinner leaving his lips in a growl before he's already yanking the back door open.

The indoor hum vanishes, along with the overbearing heat that was once comfortable. It's replaced with the rustling of leaves and the autumn chill that nips at him; it's a cooling thing, though, eating away at the simmering mass in the pit of his stomach.

His orchard is still as he left it. The door shuts behind him when he's already several paces out into the yard and a breeze licks at his hair, grabs at the hem of his undertunic while he trudges through grass. He traces the line of apple trees until he starts stomping along yellow leaves, either side of him blanketed by gold that rustles and filters sunlight. 

The sun practically drips through the branches, brilliantly marigold and coating the ground in its runoff—the leaves crunch under his soles, and he finds each footfall calms the heat rattling his ribcage. Little by little, his soul stops jittering; the ache in his knuckles quiets to a dull roar. He stops walking so fast and takes his strides slow, smelling the distant smoke of a campfire from another house.

The door opens behind him. Legend clamps his eyes shut.

"Buddy?" is called out, tone lilted with an apprehension that is rare for the Captain, "What's wrong? Is everything okay?"

Legend lets the words sit along the inner rim of his ears, lets words of his own coalesce and play along his tongue that he's currently trapping between his molars.

Incessant.

"Are your hands bothering you? A headache? You didn't eat much—are you still stressed about the soldiers?" His voice is drifting closer, the air between them seemingly compressing in the space as he moves, tighter and tighter the longer he goes on.

Legend stops walking, stares ahead at the olive and the honey that speckles the orchard. The words become significantly harder to hold down—they thrash, and he bites his tongue with enough force to make it bleed.

Ceaseless.

"Do you need anything? Do you wanna be alone? Please, buddy, what can I—"

Downright hypocritical, with the pitifully bruised skin under the Captain's eyes and the utterly pale complexion beneath cheery orange fabric.

Something inside Legend clicks into place.

The gears in his head halt, restart, churn, and whirl so fast that the vet's whole body whirls with them, and he knows he's about to make a mistake. He knows he's about to fuck it all up with the jaggedness in his cold words, knows he's about to see Warriors flinch away from him , and Legend is actively trying to hold back what the dam had been keeping dormant, but it all floods through the holes in his walls anyway.

He fixes his best friend with a glare that must be cold enough to make the Captain's mind lock up, because Warriors immediately stops mid-stride and seizes up, eyes wide, ears down. Even under all the white-hot frustration coating his stomach lining, Legend internally apologizes for his harshness before it even pours out.

"You don't follow your own advice very much, do you?"

It's snarled, grinded between the little gaps in his teeth to make it all sharp and pointy, and there's a  viciousness  in there that makes Warriors visibly shrink. He's baring his teeth like a fucking dog, and when he sees a spark of hurt in his best friend's eyes, he wants to whimper like one too.

Legend's heart aches. He can't stop this, though, not when the alternative is watching Warriors slowly kill himself.

"I—what—?"

"You're always preaching to us about how we should take breaks, pace ourselves, take fucking care of ourselves, and then you go and practice not a single fucking thing from that!" He's shouting, he knows he is, and he knows Warriors doesn't like his outbursts. He's sorry. "Just look at yourself, Warriors!"

The Captain, alarmed eyes flickering down to his wrinkled uniform and shaky hands, stands there like a scolded child, somehow looking smaller than Legend, even when they're a full head apart in height. The vet hopes the words stop flowing from his disconnected mouth. They don't.

"You barely sleep, you skip meals all the fucking time, you work yourself to fucking death even while you're staggering and stumbling from it all— fuck, Wars, you barely even smile anymore—"

Legend's voice cracks at the end there. And that's where it all starts crumbling.

"It's like you think you can just… keep going," he growls out, but he's losing steam. His volume dwindles rather pathetically, like the stringy remains of a feather falling, and the snarl along his lips fizzles out when they start trembling. "It's like you think you have to."

Legend's ire-fueled mind had brewed up a very angry, very lengthy rant over the past few weeks, but he's only able to spout a fraction of it before he wilts.

"You always go out of your to make sure the rest of us are taking care of ourselves." Tears are pricking his eyes, and he desperately tries to swallow down the lump in his throat that's tainting his voice. "Why do you seem to think you're exempt from that?"

His own hands run through his hair, and he chooses to distance himself from the utter guilt etched into Warriors' face. He ignores it. He ignores it.

He runs out of words, because really, he can't ignore it, not when it's Warriors, not when his partner's wide, stunned expression is physically yanking the syllables from his mind. There's suddenly nothing there except an ugly, twisting anxiety in his gut, and maybe one other thing to say.

"I miss you, Wars," Legend croaks even though he's standing right in fucking front of him, and he feels like his voice suddenly booms even though it's now only a sad, little frustrated wobble.

It bursts and echoes and bounces back off the apple trees, off the walls of his own skull, and the next little hitch of Legend's breath booms with it, unfortunately.

"Where the fuck did you go?"

There's heat along his cheeks, dripping and trickling to his chin, and he tries to stop the hiccups that come too, but he couldn't stop the outburst, so why does he think he can stop this?

The vet stands there for a few beats, the orchard utterly silent save for the rustling of leaves and his pathetic little sniffles, and then leaves crunch and there's familiar arms coming to wrap around his middle, slowness forgotten in favor of a visceral need to placate and touch.

Legend immediately plops his head down onto the shoulder that blocks the sunlight from his eyes, hiding his face in the crook of the neck that comes to cradle him. Loving hands thumb the small of his back and rake through his hair, lips coming to press to his hairline; arms squeeze, hold him with a gentleness that makes Legend cry harder—the vet hugs back, a bit desperate and starved.

He's being lowered, Warriors guiding him down to sit in the grass and the leaves, and Legend follows, their hug never parting even when they have to situate legs in laps. His best friend shushes him slowly, gently; he rocks him a little and plants a kiss to his head again, thumbs his temple that tilts up into the touch.

Frustration ebbs back in. Legend should be the one comforting him.

"I'm so sorry, buddy," his friend croaks out, voice broken and split and devastated. He whispers the words into his hair, quiet and remorseful—something wet drips into Legend's scalp. "I—I'm so sorry…"

"I didn't mean to—to make you upset, I…" He pauses, in his words and in his rocking, and the vet can feel his chin tremble where it grazes his hairline. The hug is tightened and all resumes. "You're right. You're right, bud, I know you are. I know I've been… overworking myself. I'm sorry."

It's always painful hearing Warriors apologize. It's even more so when his voice is crackling and withering and there's tears running over old burn scars.

"I'm sorry I've been distant and—and…" A gulp, and then a little squeeze around Legend's middle. "I don't quite… know why I've been overdoing it so much. I guess I'm just…"

There's a beat there where he goes quiet. There's a gap in their soul-spill where leaves overtake sound, and cool breeze and warm skin overwhelm sensation. Smoke from the vet's chimney rolls up in a column along his peripherals. There's yellow leaves sticking to the Captain's scarf, blending into the pumpkin-yellow gradient.

Legend rolls his temple along Warriors' shoulder to look up at him, watches the sun's fire catch in basil eyes; they stare ahead and let his gears churn through the thoughts. They look heavy. The vet wishes he could lighten the load even a little bit.

"A people-pleaser?" comes Legend's small tone, mournful smile turning his lips up as he watches the sun dance in the Captain's irises.

Warriors blinks, the gears stop churning, and he swivels his head to look down at him, noses inches apart. He lets a little chuckle loose, amusement buoying the higher notes, a certain dry bitterness disquieting the whole thing by the end.

"I suppose that's a name for it," he grins; it's that sad one, that one where his words tilt down into the red zone while his face tries to hide the wince. The one he uses when recounting the more gruesome stories of the war—trying to lighten the blow the entire room will take with a contrived laugh and a grin that just makes everything more dreary.

"I don't know, I… I get into these mindsets where I just… have to keep working?" He phrases it like a question. He's staring at the leaves that flutter atop the grass like he envies their weightlessness. "I have to keep… being useful."

There are hands fiddling with the ends of Legend's belts, fingers running over leather as eyes go through earth. His words are chosen carefully, slowly, like he's afraid of going too fast, saying the wrong thing.

"There's been times when I didn't do enough and people… left. I suppose I…"

Something in his chest sinks. Something heavy climbs up the back of his throat, clogs his ears, scrapes at the inner sides of his teeth. He lifts his head from Warriors' shoulder, as slow and as careful as the Captain's words, and when their gazes meet—wide sky and orchid against bracing pine—it's like everything outside of them pauses.

"You thought we'd do the same?"

It's whispered, and Legend hadn't meant it to be, but he feels as if he had said it any louder it would've ripped his vocal chords apart. The weight in his stomach rolls like a storm, crackles like a thunder cloud. He waits.

Warriors says nothing. He moves his gaze away, shrinks a little into himself, holds his lips in that tight sort of line and furrows his brows into worried slats. Legend feels like he might vomit.

"Wars—"

"I—I know , Ledge, I know, it's—it's silly—"

"No, it's not. It's just wrong," he nips back, and it's what makes Warriors force his gaze up, half shrunken into himself like he's still preparing for some sort of backlash. Legend swallows the sick feeling in his esophagus.

"We'd never do that. Not in a million fucking years would we ever just abandon you— especially not because you don't 'do enough,'" he says, quotes marked in the air with ringed fingers. Startled eyes watch him. Shoulders slowly but surely unfold from themselves.

Legend's tone is an odd mix of gentle and snappy, but he's more angry at Warriors' mind than he is at the Captain at this point and they both know it. Warriors doesn't flinch at his punctuated syllables anymore; he simply watches, face a terrible flavor of disbelief.

"If you're worried about not 'doing enough,' you're fine. You're more than fine; you work yourself nearly to death every day to keep this group organized and functioning—and don't get me wrong, we're grateful—but you don't… have to do all of it."

Legend deflates a little again, easing into his unorderly half-into-Warriors'-lap seat. "There's nine of us for a reason, Wars," he nudges, face kind, tone kinder. He lets all the soft notes linger there, lets them soak into his partner's stubborn skull like water to soil.

Legend tucks his middle finger behind his thumb, flicks Warriors in the forehead. "Get that capitalistic horseshit outta your brain, it's poisoning you." He keeps his tone light, but somewhere in his middle he is begging. The shaky laugh at the end announces that to the world.

"We love you because you're you, not because of how much work you do."

It seems to click. Warriors' wide eyes blink, take that last bit in, and then his ears tip down, his lips wobble, and the last golden light of the evening sets on the water in his eyes. There's a little hitch in his breath, his own hands coming up to wipe at his cheeks, but it turns into a half-sob part way through and his whole form melts.

Legend wraps him up in his arms, his best friend leaning into the touch and half-sniffling, half-sobbing into his neck. They settle and the vet rocks them, a hand playing with the braids in Warriors' hair, hums and it's okays getting kissed into his bangs.

"I'm sorry—I didn't think—I'm so sorry—"

Legend shushes him, tone featherlight; he thinks neither of them know what he's even apologizing for anymore. "I know, I know, you're okay, no apologies. I'm… sorry I yelled."

Warriors laughs, all broken and hiccupped into his collar. "It's okay, buddy," he smiles, squeezing him, burrowing farther into warmth. 

Legend holds him just as tight, combs fingers through honey, rocks them until his sobs morph back to sniffles. He watches the last rays hit the top of his chimney, gold on warm red and smoke, and then he watches the sky repaint itself—the colors of gems overlapping, melting to watercolor.

There's anger still in his chest, anger over what morphed Warriors' mind into believing such dismal fucking things. In all likelihood it was a combination of factors, and he already knows he'll be lying awake tonight thinking about it. Maybe it was the rough treatment in the army, the soulless way in which the castle tends to run things, the people who spout death threats at him during parties, the higher-ups always demanding every ounce of his attention and energy.

It was likely all of them, whittling Warriors down over the years until he became a man that works out of fear. Until they created a Captain who thinks he's only worth the paperwork he completes and the jobs he finishes; erasing any sense of self-worth he might have had once upon a time.

Legend wonders who had left him because he "didn't do enough." He wonders if they regret the decision.

His partner's breathing is mostly settled by the time a grey coats the sky, little hitches few and far between. Legend shifts, removes his face from where it was buried in his hair; he leans back a little, peeks down at him and where he lies against his chest.

His eyes are shut, breaths steadily deepening into longer ins, relaxed outs. The arms around Legend's middle lie limp half-way in the leaves, face mostly restful. The vet's gaze traces the tear tracks that travel down the length of his cheeks; his heartbeats turn painful in tandem.

Legend whispers his name. Warriors' eyes drag open, half asleep gaze flicking up to his friend's and blinking the exhaustion away. The vet tries not to let the ache in his chest reach his face when he smiles down at him.

"Let's get you to bed early tonight, yeah?" he prompts, and Warriors lets the words filter through his head before he tiredly blinks and nods, reluctantly pulling away.

They slowly stand, hands hooked and never leaving each other. Legend guides him to the back door, pulls him along the hallways, up the stairs and along the railings. Legend's bedroom door is opened, shut, and the chain members are bid a good night and an it's okay look when they worriedly motion to their beloved Captain's puffy face.

Legend lie with a sleeping Warriors curled up against him in his bed, breathing peacefully, face tucked into the crook of his neck while arms grip around his middle. He stares at the wall while fingers distractedly comb through blond, mind whirring and ticking over top the quiet murmur from downstairs.

He wonders how long Warriors has been dealing with this. He knows it's been longer than this journey; even at the start, he did this—prioritized the others over himself to the point of exhaustion. This instance had been an all-time low, but still.

It hurts to think about Warriors being afraid of something so impossible. It hurts to think that Warriors thinks about family as something he's not entitled to; something he has to work for to not be thrown out of. It hurts, honestly, that Warriors would ever think they'd even consider abandoning him.

A million other questions lodge themselves in his head, thoughts opening up possibilities that force Legend to remind himself to breathe again. He tamps them all down, knowing he'll delve into something uselessly stressful and worrying if he keeps letting his mind wander.

He just has to hope this problem is at least a little reversible. He has to hope that, over time, and with enough effort from all of them, they will eventually dislodge that ideology that's been drilled into him possibly from the start.

And if it takes his entire remaining life to help Warriors unlearn it all, then he'll consider that a life well-spent.