Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Wild’s first thought when he wakes up in the morning is, well, it’s been a while since this happened.

It’s been a while since he’s felt the pins and needles at the end of the stump that’s left of his left arm, the bone-deep ache that’s settled into his entire body, the fever that courses through his veins, the weakness that makes it a pain just to roll over in bed, let alone stand, move around, do anything. He isn’t sure what makes it worse this time. The fact that it’s been so long since his last flare-up, or the fact that it’s more than just a little bit of muscle aching this time.

He breathes out deeply, staring at the ceiling and wishing he were asleep. The best thing he can do is just… hunker down. Hope it passes quickly.

Paya rouses beside him some twenty minutes later, blinking wearily at him when she sees him still laid up in bed. Then, it’s the sad smile she wears when she traces her fingers along his forehead, her fingertips sliding down to his jaw. Wild has the strength to tilt his head, to kiss those fingers he loves so dearly, but he doesn’t have the strength—nor the energy—to really do much more than that.

“I thought this was over,” Paya laments.

“Me too,” Wild agrees, and his voice is hoarse.

She leans in, kisses his cheek. He wants to kiss hers, but scarcely has the strength to get up.

“I’ll bring up some water,” she tells him. “Do you want to try breakfast?”

He shakes his head. “I’ll get up if I have to.”

Her face pinches into something dismayed at the prospect of him moving, but she doesn’t argue, instead moving to get the promised water, and a large bowl filled with warm water that she uses to dab his forehead before she lays a lukewarm cloth over it in a vain attempt to quell his fever. He closes his eyes so the water doesn’t dribble in his eyes, and barely manages a weak, “Have a good day,” before she’s leaving for the day, Miphon in tow so that the six-year old doesn’t cause too much of a ruckus while Wild’s down for the count.

Wild hates flare-ups.

But all that hateful energy can’t even go anywhere, not right now, not when his body is making him too miserable to even move, so he sighs instead and closes his eyes and hopes—prays—it’ll be over when he opens them again. He knows it’s a useless hope, but he hopes nonetheless. Wolfie curls up tighter into his side, whining mournfully, but the warmth at Wild’s side slices through the cold lacing his muscles, and the weight helps distract Wild from the ever-crushing weakness in his veins.

Wild sleeps for—well, it can’t be long before he hears the door open again and unfamiliar footsteps downstairs. Wolfie is still pinning him down, though the old wolf lifts his head as the footsteps meander toward the stairs (built, infuriatingly, when Wild couldn’t climb a ladder anymore. Due to this damn illness, no less. He appreciates and hates the things in equal measure). It’s an odd gait, one Wild can’t quite place. Impa is a little slower, and no one else he knows uses a cane—

Wait.

It’s been six months since they’d reunited, since Wild bribed Purah into making a means for them to see each other across time, and sometimes Wild still forgets his brothers can absolutely drop by any time. And they do, semi-regularly in Hyrule’s and Twilight’s cases. The others are a little more sparse with their visits, but in the past six months, Wild has had each of his brothers and their families over individually for dinner at least once. That doesn’t include the times they’ve had giant get-togethers, or the times when one of them had invited them all out together so the nine of them could enjoy just being with each other again.

“Your wife mentioned you weren’t doing so hot,” a voice—older than Wild remembers, older than Wild necessarily expects, and not unwelcome, but also not welcome either. Wild had hoped his brothers would never have to see him like this, but one of them is standing at the mouth of his bedroom, looking at his horribly pathetic state. “Didn’t expect this, though. You look like shit, Wild.”

Wild hums. He can only guess what he looks like from the other times he’s flared up, and had the strength to look in a mirror (the physical and mental strength, two things that rarely collide when he flares up). Sunken-in eyes, pale-as-a-sheet skin, bags the size of the Depths under his eyes…

It’s a wonder Wild doesn’t start looking like a whole damn Stalfos.

The silence hangs awkward in the air. On a normal day, Wild can fill the silence for four people. On a normal day, this wouldn’t be an issue at all. But it’s not a normal day, and Wild barely has the strength to acknowledge the brother lingering unsurely in the corner of the room.

Wolfie makes Wild’s decision for him, and hers his brother over to the bed. Wild tilts his head and though he recognized Legend’s voice, he’s still surprised to see the veteran being herded like a sheep toward the chair next to the bed. Legend gripes, but not unkindly (he has two dogs of his own. Actual dogs. Not semi-intelligent immortal wolves, mind you, but he treats Wolfie the same way he treats his dogs, and gripes at him good-naturedly in-between giving pets galore), and tells Wolfie to go back to being a lapdog once Legend sits himself down in the chair, leaning his cane against the wall behind him.

Well. At least one of them is acting normal today.

Wild figures he probably should say something. “What’re you doing here?”

It comes out more pinched than he expects, and Legend looks a little startled by his tone, and looks away as he answers, face a little red with embarrassment. Age may have made him more openly affectionate, but sometimes Legend still struggles with the actual showing affection part of that. “I came to ask for… you know what, never mind.” And now Legend is glaring, not unkindly but in a way that says I am the least important factor in this equation right now, don’t you dare try to deflect (and Wild wonders when Legend had the time to learn that expression from Time), and he says, “I can come back later when you’re not feeling like shit.”

“It’s fine—” Wild gripes tiredly (and definitely not good-naturedly), and moves to sit up. Pain and weakness clench the muscles at his waist and he groans, moving his left arm to…

Oh. Right.

He doesn’t have a left arm anymore. He hasn’t for years.

Wild falls back down to the bed in defeat, using his right arm to scrape his hair out of his face, miffed, embarrassed, annoyed at his body—at this whole situation, really—for doing this to him.

“I’m serious,” Legend says, voice stern like he’s talking to one of his kids who fell out of a tree, and not his brother who is laid up in bed because his stupid body is too weak to do anything. Legend looks away, voice softer when he adds, “I know what it’s like. For your body to make life a living hell. Happens to me all to often these days.”

This catches Wild’s attention, and Wild drops his arm to look at Legend, who isn’t looking at him anymore, but has found a rather interesting spot on the wall to stare at instead.

Wild looks back to the ceiling. “I’m sorry,” he says earnestly, because yeah, this sucks.

Legend shrugs. “I’m… getting used to it. It comes and goes anyways. Haven’t had a flare up in six months.” He rolls his eyes with a snort. “It’s a new record.”

Wild snorts. “This is my first in three years.”

Legend grimaces. “Fuck, Wild. That sucks. I’m sorry.”

Wild sighs. “I should know not to hope that it’s gone, but it’s easy to do that when things have been good for a while.”

Legend nods sagely. “Yeah. I get it. I’m so scared I’m going to wake up tomorrow and just… not be able to move.“

“At least it doesn’t last long,” Wild says, not entirely sure who’s comforting who right now. “I should be fine in a few days. Hopefully.”

When he feels like this, it’s hard to hope for anything.

“Lucky.” Legend grumbles. “I once had a flare-up that lasted two months.”

Wild thinks he would rather die than deal with that. No Link likes being cooped up. Wild’s especially bad with it—he thrives in the sunlight—but all of his brothers have their quirks. He remembers from their journey that Legend would get especially irritable if he was out of commission for too long.

Poor Ravio, Wild thinks. That merchant must be a saint. A rupee-stealing scamming saint, but hey one can’t be too picky these days about who their saints are, Wild supposes.

“But whatever,” Legend sighs. “It is what it is. I wouldn’t wish my illness on my worst enemy, and that includes Ganon.”

Wild hums. “I think I’d like Ganondorf to get a taste of his own medicine, personally. He’s half the reason I’m like this.”

“What’s the other half?” Legend asks.

“The ghost of a sentient goat.”

“What?”

Wild snorts, but decides he’d rather leave Legend hanging, and so he doesn’t bother to answer. He tries to sit up again, and is mildly more successful than last time. Legend pouts about not getting an answer—and Wild will forever be all the more ecstatic that Legend wears his emotions on his face more now that he’s ten years older—and then shakes his head, unsurprised.

“You really don’t need to sit up, Wild,” Legend says when he sees Wild trying—and halfway succeeding—to sit up. “I really just came to check-in when Paya said you weren’t feeling well.”

Wild shakes his head. “You came for something. I want to help. Besides, I’ll feel like shit if I lay here any longer.”

Legend sighs, but his face says that he understands completely, so instead he just grabs his cane and asks, “Do you need help?”

Wild considers it. He really wishes he could say no, but down one arm (and there’s no way he’s wearing his heavy prosthetic, not when he can barely sit up without falling over) and already trembling from weakness, he knows he can’t afford to say no. “Probably,” he says, which is as close to a yes as he’ll allow.

They must be sight, though, trying to make it down the narrow staircase to the ground floor of the chief’s home, Wild leaning heavily against Legend and Legend struggling to keep Wild totally upright on the way down, nevermind also trying not to slip down the stairs. Wolfie sits at the top of the stairs, making a sound that almost sounds like laughter, and Wild glares at the wolf over his shoulder as they make it safely—but not steadily—to the floor. It’s an easier walk to the kitchen, where Legend drops Wild into the first chair at the table and hobbles over to the stove by himself. Wild keeps the kettle on the stove at all times, and though Wild braces to stand, Legend’s scathing look keeps him from doing more than readjusting in his seat instead.

“Out of the lot of us, you know only you and I are capable of using a stove,” Legend reminds Wild, and turns on the stove to begin boiling some water for tea. “Let me handle this.”

Wild does, and thanks Legend for the tea—he had needed to direct (pointing only!) Legend to where they kept the tea brews. Legend had chosen one blindly, not recognizing any of the plants, and Wild’s pleasantly surprised to be tasting that fine, definitely high-end and exotic blend Yona had given them recently, a blend that came from her home country up north—as the other man settles down at the table across from him with the same blend.

“This is good,” Legend remarks conversationally.

“Thanks,” Wild answers. “It’s from some other country. Can’t think of the name off the top of my head. A friend gave it to me recently.”

Legend hums, and they sit in silence for a good, long while. Wild’s eyes trace the pictures hanging on the wall behind Legend—memories from his first journey, the Chain, his second journey, and reconnecting—as he sips his tea.

His cup shakes a little as he lifts it, and at least once Legend has to rescue it from falling, and Wild tries not to get too embarrassed by that.

“So, a sentient goat, huh?” Legend asks, probing. “Can I say that’s not the weirdest thing I’ve heard?”

“I doubt it is,” Wild admits. “And he wasn’t technically a goat. He was a Zonai but…” He frowns into his mug of tea as he takes another wobbling sip. “My second adventure sucked. I think I’m allowed to be a little mean about it.”

“That you are,” Legend agrees. Then he nods to Wild’s stump of a left arm. “Is that how you lost…”

Wild shrugs. “Yes and no,” he answers. “Like I said, Ganondorf injured it—ate it, really—and goat-man healed it. But, it must not have been all the way because it began hurting and making me sick.” Wild lowers his cup, rubbing the slightly-aching stump. “Almost all the time, really. Then, it started going numb. And… and that went on for months. Years, maybe. Then…” Wild sighs. “Then a few months before my son was born, my arm started going black.”

Legend’s eyebrows raise in alarm. “Corruption?”

Wild shakes his head. “No. Dying. My arm was dying.” He sighs heavily, his eyes lingering on a picture of himself and the Sages hanging right behind Legend’s head. “I looked everywhere for a cure, but it just kept getting worse and worse so, eventually, I just had to get it cut off.” He tears his eyes from the photo and picks up his cup again. “But Purah made me that prosthetic I have and I’m alive, so I can’t complain too much. Even if sometimes the weakness still messes with me.”

“Wild, that’s…” Legend rubs a hand through his hair. “That’s horrible,” he says. “I’m sorry.”

Wild shrugs. “It’s not like I’m the only one dealing with this. This whole mess started with this stuff called Gloom that made people sick and weak. Apparently it has long-lasting effects, even though it all disappeared when I defeated Ganondorf.”

“Still, Wild, that’s just…” Legend shakes his head. “I can’t even imagine dealing with that.”

Wild hums. “So I’m guessing your illness isn’t caused by some dark world amorphous mass that leaks off of Ganondorf?”

“No.” Legend shakes his head, laughing a little. “No. One day a few years ago, I collapsed in the kitchen and couldn’t get up because I was in so much pain. Come to think of it, I think that’s the only time my daughter saw me cry.”

Wild stiffens. “I think that’s worse, honestly.”

Legend huffs. “They’re both bad, it’s not a competition,” he grumbles, and takes a swig of his tea. “We’re both sick and it fucking sucks.”

Wild smiles. “It does.”

They lapse into silence again, peacefully drinking their tea, watching the daylight out the windows. Part of Wild wants to throw open the screen doors so he can at least still smell the outdoors, but it’s hard enough to stay sitting up, let alone try to move. He could ask Legend but…

But right now not being alone is better than any reprieve some fresh air will give him.

“So,” Wild pipes up again, once his cup is empty. “What did you come here for? I don’t want to keep you…”

Legend shakes his head. “It’s fine, really. Uncle has the kids today anyways.” He sighs. “Really, I only came to ask you for a recipe.” He rubs the back of his neck, somewhat self-consciously. “It’s just… Ravio’s and my anniversary is coming up soon and I want to do something nice for it. Between the kids and the shop and everything really, we haven’t had much time to just ourselves so I just… I want to make it nice. I was wondering if you knew any recipes that I could borrow.”

“Oh,” Wild realizes. “That’s so sweet.” He gestures toward one of the shelves on the wall. “I have a book over there. You’re free to look through it.”

Legend gets up, foregoing his cane for the short trip across the kitchen and back, the thick book bundled under one arm. He opens it as he sits down again, peering through the hundreds of recipes Wild had collected over the years. Recipes from his first journey, the ones he remembers from his childhood, ones his brothers have given him, recipes from his second journey, and any of the others he’d managed to collect in the time since.

“I’m surprised you don’t keep these in your slate,” Legend remarks.

Wild shrugs. “It’s nice to have physical things sometimes.”

Legend hums an agreement, and continues flipping through the book.

“Is there anything you’re thinking of?” Wild asks. “Does Ravio like dessert, or savory things, or spicy—”

“Absolutely not spicy,” Legend snaps, pointing one figure at Wild accusingly. “I know you. You’re addicted to Goron Spice.”

Wild lifts his hand in surrender. “I have no clue what you’re talking about.”

“Mm-hmm. And the Goron Spice just so happened to spontaneously appear in our food whenever one of us pissed you off. Got it,” Legend teases. He shakes his head. “But to be serious, no. Ravio can barely handle garlic.”

“Neither can you.”

“I’m allergic,” Legend gripes. “Which also rules out strawberries, too, by the way. Akal’s allergic to those too.” He grimaces. “That wasn’t fun to find out.”

Wild winces in sympathy. “That’s never fun,” he remarks. “Miphon’s allergic to nuts, and we found out from him eating an entire bag of them.”

“Fuck, I can’t imagine that,” Legend winces too. “I would have been a mess. Was a mess, actually.”

Wild nods. As someone who can eat rocks without issue, it had been terrifying. He’d watched everything he cooked for a good month after that—and even now, nuts are entirely banned from the house. “I bet Ravio was a mess too.”

Legend shrugs. “Not really. He keeps a much cooler head than you’d expect when people are in mortal danger.” He flips a page in the cookbook. “To be fair, he had to deal with me long before he had to deal with kids eating things they shouldn’t from the garden.”

Wild snorts.

“Speaking of Ravio, do you think I could borrow this recipe?” Legend asks, gesturing to the page.

Wild glances at it. It’s a recipe full of carrots—which is unsurprising knowing his brother, and knowing his brother’s husband—and Wild nods. “Go for it. There should be some extra paper in the back of the book.”

Legend pulls one of said sheets out and works on transcribing the recipe, his handwriting leagues better than Wild’s ever will be. Once he’s done, he shoves it into one of his pockets—he apparently hadn’t brought a bag today, which is a rarity for the Hero of Legend—and stands up. “I’m sure Ravio’s in from the shop for lunch, so I should probably be heading back. Do you… need anything else?”

He shifts uncomfortably as he asks, evidently not as used to taking care of people as he is swinging a sword or raising a shield for them. Wild smiles gratefully, though.

“Just… if you could open the screens, I’d really appreciate it,” Wild answers. “… and help me get to the living room.”

“Done and done,” Legend agrees readily.

It’s once more an awkward five-legged (if you count Legend’s cane as a leg) dance to the living room, where Legend deposits Wild onto the low couch there and moves to wrench open the screen doors that face the waterfall behind the house. Part of Wild just wants to go sit on the deck right outside the room, but the last time he’d done that in this condition, he’d gotten a cold from it, so he refrains from moving beyond lying down on the cushions.

Legend goes the extra mile to force Wolfie into laying across Wild’s legs, and then… that’s it.

“Hey,” Wild says as Legend reluctantly goes. “Thanks.”

Legend smiles, openly, warmly. “No problem. I know how much days like this suck.” He hesitates, just a moment, on the threshold. “And if you need anything, don’t hesitate to get me. Or send someone to get me, okay?”

“Okay,” Wild agrees, and Legend goes.

Wild hears the front door open and close, and then he’s alone again.

His condition—the pain, the weakness—is not nearly as frustrating as it was this morning, though.

Chapter Text

When Legend wakes up with a terrible ache in his entire body, he knows exactly what this means, and fights down the miserable chuckle that tries to claw its way out of his throat. Sage—his lovely service dog—whines sadly and rests her head on his chest, and he mentally laments that he barely has the strength to even scratch behind her ears.

Instead, he sighs, stares at the ceiling for a while, and wonders when Ravio is going to come looking for him. Ravio is usually the earlier riser, and rest assured, he’s already up, while Legend is stuck in bed. Outside the door, Legend can hear the kids—Marin and Akal, one nine and one eight—running about the front room excitedly.

Right… Uncle was taking them into town today.

And Ravio is working his shop today, after a long four-day weekend of having it closed. They can’t (can, but Ravio is a different breed of greedy and always will be) afford to lose another day of business, especially with summer winding to a close and applies finally coming back into season. They have to refresh the shop and—

Legend’s head is pounding just thinking of everything that he’s sure his husband is handling with more care than Legend ever could. The business is as much Ravio’s pride and joy as their children are.

The apples are Legend’s, and he wishes he could get up, pick some. Surprise Ravio with a tart or something for lunch but…

Legend tries move, to roll onto his side, and pain flares across his body. It’s going to be a chair day, if he can even get out of bed.

And wheelchairs are too short to pick apples with.

Legend swallows down the tears that try to escape his eyes. Man up, he tells himself. This isn’t any worse than you’ve dealt with before.

He’s still trying—and failing—to sit up when he hears the pitter-patter of little feet outside his door, and then Marin and Akal are bursting in, smiles on their faces. Their excitement is enough to draw a smile across Legend’s face, even when they leap onto his bed, jostle his aching, tired joints, and screech as loud as they can in his ears.

They’re both still too young to even understand the pain Legend is in. They probably think he’s just sleeping in.

Marin is probably too young to even remember that day he’d collapsed on the floor, unable to move. That day that he’d been in tears and had, begrudgingly, trusted his three-year-old daughter to get Uncle. That day that he’d had to be carried to the couch, because he couldn’t even stand on his own.

“Have fun,” he bids them tiredly, and Uncle urges them to get their shoes on.

It won’t distract them long, but it distracts them long enough for Uncle to step toward the bed and rub a hand across Legend’s brow. His eyebrows crease upon feeling the fever, and Uncle sighs, in that same way Legend himself does when one of the kids are sick.

It’s weird, his tired brain murmurs to him, that he’s making the same sounds as Uncle does.

“Do you want to move to the couch?” Uncle asks, because there usually comes a point in the day where Legend does.

But Legend doesn’t, not right now, so he shakes his head. “No,” he rasps. “Just want to go back to sleep.”

Uncle nods, humming, and Marin (impatiently) calls from the living room. Legend can hear her stomp her foot, and scribbles down somewhere in his mind that he needs to teach her her manners, but the clouds in his brain are thick enough to hide that note behind a haze after only a minute or so. Oh well, he’ll remember again the next time she stomps her foot.

“I’ll let Ravio know,” Uncle promises on his way out the door, and then Legend is alone.

Legend sighs, and resigns himself to his iron entrapment of bad health, and closes his eyes.

He ignores the loneliness that settles in his chest as he drifts off, into a dreamless haze of not-quite-sleep, not-quite-wakefulness. At some point, he thinks he hears Ravio’s harried footsteps. At another, he thinks he hears the door opening again. Yet again, he hears words exchanged just outside the door, the tip-tapping of a pen, and he nearly opens his eyes to look but—

Tired.

—his mind drags him back into a deep sleep, and the next time he wakes up, he hears things rattling in the kitchen. Which, depending on who’s in there, could spell disaster. Ravio, somehow, stole the “bad cook” trait from Legend when he was born, apparently, because Ravio could burn a salad, and it’s that thought that lingers in the back of his mind as Legend tries—and nearly fails again—to sit up. He does, painfully—earning a wheezing episode and a pounding headache for his efforts—and has to spend a moment catching his breath before he sets his sights on the wheelchair that they keep tucked in the corner for bad days.

For days like this—or simply bad pain days. More and more often, it’s been this pain, though. This rash that spawns across his cheeks, the breaths that struggle to come, the ever-present ache deep in his muscles, the fever, the headache.

Today is one of his worst days, he realizes, as he swings his legs off the bed. Usually, he can manage the few steps it takes to get to his chair, even if he regrets all of his life’s choices once he gets there.

Today, he falls flat on his face.

“Fuck!” he shouts automatically, breathing heavily into the rug. He slaps a hand over his mouth a second later, glancing cautiously at the door. He can’t remember when Uncle said he’d be back with the kids—some sort of pre-fall festival is in town, and should keep them entertained until afternoon unless one of the kids acts up, but Legend doesn’t even know what time it is—and he doesn’t want to risk Marin or Akal shouting swears when they shouldn’t even know what a swear word is yet.

Unfortunately, there are footsteps outside the door.

More unfortunately, they belong to the last person in Hyrule that Legend would ever expect to be here.

Legend manages to throw himself against his nightstand into some sort of sitting position, but unfortunately, he has already totally, completely embarrassed himself in front of Wild.

Wild smiles awkwardly from the doorway. “Need some, um, help there, Ledge?”

Yeah, where’s a bomb? Is Legend’s gut-wrench answer, but he bites his tongue, reminding himself that he can’t be joking about killing himself. He’s finally gotten down to not even thinking of it for weeks at a time—he’s not about to undo his progress over a little bit of embarrassment. Instead, he grumbles. “Yeah, where’s something that can erase someone’s memory?”

Wild snorts. “’fraid I won’t be losing mine again any time soon.”

He strides into the room, hooking one of Legend’s arms over his shoulder. Wild is doing most of the work, here, but Legend tries. Even if trying is just grasping onto the nightstand so he doesn’t topple to the ground again.

“You sure about that?” Legend teases. “You’ve already lost hearing in your right ear and your arm.”

Wild lifts one of his hands—ironically, it’s the prosthetic that Legend still asserts is very, very cool—in surrender. “Hey, I’m not the only one of us missing those things.”

Legend snorts. “No, you’re just the one of us who lost them in the most extravagant way. I don’t think anything tops being Ganondorf’s snack.”

Wild nearly doubles over in laughter, but just barely contains himself. “Touche, vet. Touche.”

Legend mock-bows as best he can with a swimming head, pounding headache, and legs that refuse to work right. He stumbles, as he lifts himself up, and Wild grasps onto his hip tighter.

“The bed or the wheelchair?” Wild asks.

Legend huffs, glaring at that knot in the wall that he already hates, but really hates when he’s feeling this crappy. “… I was heading to the wheelchair. Thought Ravio was burning down the house.”

“Nope, it’s just me,” Wild chirps, but helps Legend stumble over to his wheelchair. It’s about as graceful as their dance down Wild’s stairs a few weeks ago, and Legend very much is going to be asking Maple about something to seal his memory of this moment forever.

He’s still deciding if he’s going to seal his memories or Wild’s when Wild deposits him in his wheelchair. Legend can at least get his feet in the right place, and move his arms—even if it is painful—to get the chair rolling, and he testingly rolls it back and forth to reacquaint himself with the device.

“Do you need help?” Wild asks, anyways, and it strikes Legend suddenly that none of his brothers have seen him in his chair before.

They’d seen him bloodied, stabbed, bruised, barely clinging to life so many times during their journey together. They’d seen him only weeks after the wolf attack, with a still-healing knee injury. They’d seen him wrestling with a bad back (that same damn wolf attack), and using a cane. But he’d tried to keep the wheelchair a secret, if only because they already were giving Legend sad looks because he needed a cane, let alone a wheelchair.

Legend can’t imagine the looks Hyrule and Wars would give him, if they saw him like this today.

“I’ve got it,” Legend says, suddenly very glad it’s Wild who’s here instead. “Get out of my room.”

He says it as jokingly as he can, and Wild mock-salutes. “Yes, sir.”

Wild goes, and Legend painstakingly rolls out a few minutes later. He notices that the kids’ toys have been pushed into the corners of the room, giving Legend a safe enough passage around the living room that’s usually absolutely cluttered with junk—it happens, with five people in the house, although Legend is the worst about clutter—although all Legend does is make his way over to the couch.

Wild is already happily back in the kitchen, stirring something that smells divine, and Legend decides it’s not worth the pain—or embarrassment—to try to make his way over to lay down on the couch.

It’s probably not worth the pain to wheel over to the kitchen, either, but at least this way, Legend’s dignity is intact, even if his lungs aren’t.

“You sound terrible,” Wild remarks.

Legend groans, burying his face in his arms now that he’s moved over to the one empty space at the end of the kitchen table, reserved for days like this. “Don’t remind me.”

He keeps his head down, even as he hears a chair scraping against the floor (Uncle won’t be happy about the marks it makes, he still gives Ravio shit about when they ran the shop in their house), and doesn’t react when Wild nonchalantly plops himself into a chair, right as rain.

Legend suddenly feels a very, very powerful flare of jealousy. It hadn’t been so long ago that Wild looked like he was on the brink of death, pale as a sheet, shaky as a newborn foal, fever-addled and aching, but suddenly, it’s gone, forgotten. Maybe never to come back again for years, if what Wild said was true.

Three years. Fuck, Legend would kill for three whole years without this bullshit.

Instead, it’s been six months and it came back worse. Worse than he’s felt before.

Legend can’t quite bite back the frustrated groan that rumbles up his throat, and he scrapes his hands through his hair with a frantic breath. Wild, blessedly, doesn’t say anything at all, preferring to get up, get some honey tea (because he remembers that’s Legend’s favorite when he’s sick). He whistles all the while, some tune that Legend doesn’t quite recognize and doesn’t quite care to ask about.

Wild’s whistling breaks off suddenly, and there’s a cup of tea in front of Legend. Legend eyes it, but doesn’t trust his hands to be able to drink it. They shake like all hell when he’s in pain like this, and he isn’t going to risk Wild’s heavenly tea for it.

Legend lowers his head again, and Wild sits down. “… what can I do to make it better?”

“A new body, maybe?” Legend suggests humorlessly.

“That might be a steep order,” Wild remarks, only half-joking, which is about as terrifying a notion as the thought of Wild outright saying yes. “But I’m sure Purah could put something together.”

Right. His genius friend who figured out time fucking travel for them.

Legend lifts his head, shakes it side to side. Doesn’t touch his tea. “No. I’m just a bitter old man.”

Wild snorts. “You’re not that old. Give yourself some credit.”

Legend shrugs. “Doesn’t feel like I earned much with that credit, frankly.” He spins his wedding band around his finger idly, and wonders if any of his plethora of rings would help ease any of the pain. They do, sometimes, but it’s not something he’s even able to test.

They’re downstairs. He… can’t do stairs. Not right now.

“Can’t even fucking go down some stairs,” Legend grumbles, then shakes his head. “Sorry. I’m just being bitter. I’m alive—and it’s a fucking miracle I made it this long, frankly. Shouldn’t complain.”

Wild hums. “But it sucks. Trust me, I know.”

I know, Legend wants to say, but he can feel the words lingering between them anyways. Wild lifts his tea—he must’ve made some for himself, Legend had scarcely noticed—then sets it down abruptly to get whatever is on the stove. Legend would usually smile—Wild is flighty as a bird, most of the time—but he can only stare listlessly. Even feeling anything at all is difficult.

Legend isn’t sure if he’d prefer feeling despair, though. He knows what that emotion does to him. He’d rather not ever feel it again.

“I made some soup,” Wild says from across the kitchen. “I don’t know about you, but food always helps me feel a little better when I’m sick. You did… say this was an illness, right?”

Legend shrugs. “Something like that, at least.”

And he’d never say no to Wild’s food. Though he already feels bad for the inevitable wasteful spillage that’s going to be lost.

Wild nods, sets a wooden bowl and spoon in front of Legend. Doesn’t mention the untouched tea.

He sits down again in his claimed seat with a bowl of his own, digging in without fanfare, without waiting.

The lack of attention on Legend is… surprisingly refreshing. Wild doesn’t ask—doesn’t have to ask—and he just… accepts it.

Legend tentatively lifts his spoon, and tries to eat. His hand shakes more than he expects, and his fingers threaten to slip at any moment.

But he gets it in his mouth. He counts that as a win.

“I’m sorry,” Wild says suddenly, somewhere in the middle of Legend trying—failing—to take his second bite. “That it’s this hard. When you said you were sick, I didn’t expect…”

“This?” Legend lets out a humorless chuckle. “Most people don’t.”

“Still. I’m sorry,” Wild says, earnestly, in a way that makes Legend pause and remember that this isn’t the same boy he’d known over a decade ago—this is a man now, who’s all grown up.

Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that he, himself, is grown up too. Like this, it’s very easy to pretend he’s still nineteen years old and bitter with everything. Like this, it’s very hard to be grown up when his entire body is screaming at him—and it makes him want to scream and cry in turn.

He has screamed. He has cried. He’s tried to die.

“You didn’t do this to me,” Legend says. “There’s nothing to be sorry about.”

“Still,” Wild says. “You should get to enjoy your retirement, not deal with—” He gestures up and down, vaguely in Legend’s direction.

Legend shrugs. Painfully. “It’s not—” He breaks off to catch his breath. “—not like it’s all the time. Just—a lot of the time. And you get used to it, eventually. Just—got to look on the bright side, right?”

The bright side—like sitting outside and painting with his kids when his legs won’t work quite right. The bright side—like Ravio holding him through the night when he’s too sick to move. The bright side—like a brother making him soup because he wants to help.

It sucks—but Legend can deal with it. Has dealt with it. Will continue to deal with it.

“The bright side…” Wild muses. “Sometimes I’ve got to remember that myself.” He chuckles humorlessly. “I came here to make you feel better, and here you are—giving me advice.”

Legend shrugs. “Yeah, well. I’ve been dealing with this way longer than you.”

“True,” Wild muses. “But… Hylia, Ledge. Yours is so much worse.”

Oh, no—they are not doing that!

“Hey,” Legend snaps, with that same tone that he uses when his kids are getting rowdy. It works every time—on brothers and children alike. “It’s not a competition. Yeah, I can hurt for months at a time—but when have I not hurt? You hurt once in a blue moon—and it kicks your ass. It sucks both ways, so stop with the comparisons.” Even if I’m jealous. So, so jealous.

Wild smiles, though he doesn’t look admonished in the slightest. Legend figures he doesn’t cut a very imposing figure, trapped in a chair after he wildly fucked up getting out of bed in the morning. Shame. He’ll have to remind Wild some other time.

That, too, gets tacked behind the tired haze in Legend’s mind.

“I’ll try,” Wild says, and goes back to his soup.

Legend doesn’t bother trying. His fingers refuse to curl that much, and sitting up is just making him tired. The longer he sits here—the more he just wants to be on the couch.

“You look exhausted,” Wild remarks, a few minutes later, after Legend has mournfully pushed his soup aside. “You can lay down, you know. Hylia knows I can entertain a room all on my own. Don’t—don’t feel like you need to play host or anything.”

Legend frowns. “I just—I hate missing whole days to this.” He scrubs his tired eyes, groaning against the migraine that pulses as he does so. “Not like I can do very much else, though. Feel like shit.”

“You look like it,” Wild remarks, something halfway between serious and humorous. He rises to his feet, reaches out toward the arm of Legend’s chair tentatively. “Can I help?”
Legend eyes him, then nods slowly. “Yeah. Just don’t bump me into anything.”

Wild nods.

He runs into the couch three times, and then it’s another awkward dance to get Legend lying down on it. Legend’s face burns—and it’s not just the blossoming red on his cheeks that’s making it burn—but… Legend can’t admit it’s not a little better now that he’s horizontal.

“… can you tell me more?” Legend asks. “About your second adventure? I saw those pictures on your wall.”

Wild can tell what it is—a plead to stay. To fill the empty silence. To fill Legend’s head with thoughts of other than how this sucks.

Wild obliges, though Legend notes tiredly that he only talks about the misadventures—the funny and lighthearted things—and Legend’s slowly-fading mind can’t decide whether it’s for his sake or Wild’s.

… he’ll remember to talk to him about it again. At some point.

For now, Legend lets his eyes drift close and the pain to flow away, at least for a little while. It’s not so bad after all, not with a brother here to keep the emptiness at bay.

And when Legend wakes up, the house is full again anyways.