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Sooga had been getting little sleep as of late. Not that he got much to begin with, but this was even less than usual. His single eye held open at the earliest break of dawn despite his attempts to keep it closed. Rest wouldn't find him so easily. If it did, so did the dreams that plagued him. He just couldn't keep his thoughts away from what happened.
He'd failed to keep his daughter safe.
Over and over, his head repeated it. Whispered it to him in the day, shouted it in his ear during the night, not letting him rest because what if it happened again and he lost her?
Sooga laid on his back. From behind his mask, his eye was glued to the ceiling. Deathly still, as not to wake the sleeping Kohga beside him, but wide awake. He tried to reason with himself that he was just waiting up for Lara.
The past few days after the incident, she'd been reluctant to sleep in her own room. Kohga, naturally, snuggled her right between the two of them so she'd feel safe. She'd done this the next three nights since, but tonight, at last, was hopefully able to stay in her own bed.
Silly as it may have been, Sooga had missed her company. At least while she was here, he knew she was safe. That nothing would hurt her. He'd always let his hand softly drift across her forehead and brush back her brown hair that always seemed to be tangled somehow, and she'd sleep on knowing that her dads would protect her. And then his thoughts returned to the Hylian soldier's hand striking her.
Sooga's fist clenched the sheets under him, trying to ground himself. Remain calm. Remember the breathing from Master Kohga. In, hold, and out...
Sooga screwed his eye tightly shut when his mind dared to remind him of his own abuse. He vowed when she was still a baby that no one would ever lay a hand on her the way he'd been hurt, and yet it happened on his watch. He broke his promise to her.
Just six years old and she'd felt that unforgiving sting upon her face. Something she'd never forget, Sooga knew. He lived with that scar every day long after the pain had left.
Monster.
That evil voice in his head returned after so long of silence.
It wasn't gone. It hadn't completely vanished. But Sooga thought he had done well of silencing those purgeful reminders of his past. How weak he once was. Sooga did his best to stave off the voice when it tried to tell him how pathetic he still has been, but right now it blared loudly in his head and rung against his ears.
Master Kohga was often the one to help him out of these moments, but right now he was fast asleep. Sooga did not dare wake him. He did not need to waste his moments of rest when Sooga could easily calm himself.
Sooga sat up from his spot next to his master. This was a different feeling than he was used to. It clenched his fingers tight, wrapping hands around his chest and squeezing.
You could have killed him. You have the strength and you chose not to.
"No," Sooga whispered harshly. The voice did not quiet, and the feeling squeezed tighter.
She was hurt on your watch. An injustice. You let it happen.
Sooga pushed up his mask just under his nose and clasped a hand over his mouth. He breathed deeply, wound his eye shut tight, but this feeling, this burning in the pit of his stomach was not staved. He turned himself to the side of the bed, placed his feet on the ground, but he could not stand. He gripped the bedsheets with his other hand in desperation to stay on this plane of existence. Familiarity hit the warrior all at once, like a roar of thunder on a peaceful night.
Sooga needed out, he needed to get out of his head , but his legs would not move and his joints felt glued in place. His breathing labored against his lungs. The walls crept closer. The ground clawed at his ankles. Over and over he saw that Hylian man strike his daughter and that fire within yearned to destroy –
The warrior jumped when a hand grasped his arm.
"Sooga?" A faraway voice whispered through the darkness. Thrown from his thoughts, the Yiga whipped his head back around to see Master Kohga. His silhouette was darkened from a lack of light, but it didn't matter. Sooga could make out his done up curls and puffy cheeks anywhere. "Sooga, hey, what's wrong?"
The squeeze to his arm let up. Sooga suddenly remembered where he was, but his vision still blurred as the feelings simmered deeper.
“Master Kohga, go back to sleep.” Sooga said this without so much as glancing at the man beside him. It was cold. Harsh, even. Kohga frowned and scooted over to the edge of the bed to join him closer instead.
“What’s goin’ on? You’re shaking.” The gears turned in Kohga’s head, and he suddenly snapped in realization. “Was it another nightmare? Hey, just take a deep breath. Nothin’s gonna get to ya here, I promise.”
“It was not a nightmare.” Sooga’s voice wavered, keeping whatever emotions were trapped behind it at bay. Even Sooga wasn’t sure, he just knew that he’d felt it before, long ago, and that alone was enough to terrify him.
“Sooga, just take a minute and let it out, big guy, you’re not getting anywhere holdin’ all that back.”
And so he did. He took a breath. It was just Kohga. Kohga, who had helped him so much in the past, gave him a new life and a new purpose. Kohga, whom he would do anything for. Kohga, whom he…
Sooga nodded slowly. Kohga nodded back.
“I heard his voice again,” Sooga spoke. “I have not been able to keep what happened with the Hylians and Lara far from my thoughts. It was my responsibility to protect her. And I did not.”
“Sooga..”
“And now she lives with the memory of hatred in their eyes. I could not protect her from it. What they did to her…” Sooga’s gaze cast away from Kohga’s worried eyes. His own eye bore a different expression that Kohga hadn’t seen on him before. “You know it will not leave her.”
“No, you’re right,” Kohga sighed, “That’s..that’s gonna be somethin’ she remembers for the rest of her life, probably.”
“Beyond any doubt it will. And that scum lives on,” Sooga’s words dripped with venom. Kohga’s head snapped up in shock. “He did not see a child. He saw the dirt underneath his boot and just another creature to walk all over in the name of royalty. He breathes the same air, in the same body, thinking he can just get away with it!”
“Sooga!”
Kohga’s shout sprang the warrior out of it. At Sooga’s physical flinch, Kohga felt instant regret slice through him.
“Shit–I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to yell at ya like that,” Kohga said quickly, biting his lip, “I-I just wanted you to stop. That’s the same kinda talk that can get you all messed up about this, easy.”
In an instant, the rageful fire of earlier sizzled into nothing but cooling embers, flooded by the shame drowning Sooga’s thoughts out.
“...You are right.”
“Of course I’m right. I’ve been dealin’ with this shit for years, big guy, it can drive you crazy if you let it,” A sigh left the clan master’s lips, “I get it though, Hylians suck most of the time as both of us know and especially if they work for the royal dipshit himself.”
“I just cannot comprehend how such vile activities can occur to an innocent–”
Kohga cut him off and grabbed both his hands. “No one can. That’s the point. It shouldn’t have happened, and I’m mad as hell about it too, but what’s that anger gonna do, really? Nothing good, that’s for sure.”
Anger. Finally with a name to its cause, Sooga realized how engrossed he had been. So focused on the injustice of it, when really it was just about the pain of seeing his daughter hurt. Any father would know that.
“How…how can we make sure this never happens again?” Sooga squeezed their hands this time. At this, Kohga gave him a bit of a smirk.
“Exactly what we’ve been doing. We train her. We teach her she doesn’t take any shit from ANYBODY, and if they got a problem with it, we fuck ‘em up. There’s a lot of shitty people out there that wanna say we’re just killers and assassins, but she’s gonna be just fine out there because she knows the truth.”
Sooga nodded. “She comes from a worthy line. The Yiga have a strength like no other, and we will fight like none before us.”
“Mhm. And you know what she has that you and I never did?”
Sooga’s head tilted ever so slightly. “What?”
Master Kohga brought their joint hands close to his chest before continuing. Close to his heart. His fingers smoothed over Sooga’s knuckles, traced over the veins on the back of his hands, with thumbs carefully caressing the lines in his palms.
“Us.” He simply said. “She has us. She has Master Kohga, greatest clan master to ever live, and Sooga, my right hand man and most skilled warrior, and the most amazing dad that I’ve ever known.”
With the grace of a big smile protruding through his chubby cheeks, Kohga continued.
“You’re the strongest guy I’ve ever known, and I can’t wait for our kiddo to take after you. She already does,” His smile strengthened, as did his grip, “There’s so much hate and destruction in this dumb ol’ world, but there’s so much more love in it, too. You know why?”
Sooga’s chest tightened. Though he knew he shouldn’t, he felt all the flutterings in his stomach of a schoolboy. He turned his head away, overwhelmed by Kohga’s conviction, but Kohga grabbed the base of his chin before he could. Gentle, but firm. His eyes bore into the mask before him.
Three agonizing seconds passed before Kohga grasped the bottom of Sooga’s mask and slowly began to lift up. Slow enough for Sooga to stop him if he was going too far. He did not.
The fresh air of the bedroom brushed past Sooga’s cheeks and left a chill in the space where his left eye should have been. The soft candlelight shadowed across his face. Kohga just couldn’t seem to stop staring.
“Because it’s here, Sooga,” He spoke softly. Kohga placed his hand upon Sooga’s cheek and tilted his head down closer to his own. “I know there’s love because I’m with you.”
The oxygen seemed to vanish from Sooga’s lungs in an audible, though quiet, gasp. At his words. At his touch. And when Sooga figured just about everything in his world had stopped at this moment, Master Kohga’s lips pressed against his forehead in the most tender sensation he’s ever felt upon his skin. He’d kissed him. Hylia, he’d kissed him.
Kohga pulled back with crimson cheeks and wide, brown eyes.
“You don’t have to wear that around me anymore, by the way,” he said in a voice that was much too soothing for the speed of Sooga’s heart. “It’s okay if you still want to, but the man underneath is nothin’ to hide.”
Sooga’s expression, visible for once, must have been akin to a deer caught by a lantern’s light. He could only nod at Kohga’s words, to which his master grinned.
“Caught ya off guard, huh?” He chuckled, but anyone could tell there was a nervousness buried under that facade. He made no mention of it, of course. “C’mon, let’s get you back to bed. You must be exhausted.”
The smaller, stouter man scooted back over to his side of the bed and tugged the blankets back over himself. He patted the pillow next to him. Sooga took a deep breath, but found it…somehow easier to release than he’d ever felt. His head laid next t o Kohga’s with haste and settled into the blankets they shared. Being near him now felt comforting in a way he couldn’t place before.
It could have been safety. Or even just the comforts of familiarity. But now, Sooga thought…
He could call it love.