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Dreamwalker

Summary:

In which Legend came back from Koholint changed and now spends his nights traveling through others’ dreams.

Chapter 1: It’s a Blur

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Legend sat on the dark grass and enjoyed the sensation of phantom rain falling on his skin. Nobody gets rain right in their dreams, and this one was no exception. There were the visuals, the soft noises of rainfall, but when it came to the actual drops hitting his skin, all he felt was pinpricks and static fuzz. Like touching his finger to Wild’s Slate when the screen was off. 

And there was no wetness, no water pooling down his nose. Hell, if he was awake right now, the butt of his tunic would be uncomfortably soaked through from sitting in the grass, but instead he was perfectly dry.

The grass itself could barely be called that. Rather than the blades of plants pushing their way up through the soil, all that lay beneath him was a fuzzy green mass like a massive blanket spread across the ground.

Everything in this dream was blurry and muted. Like looking at the world through a thick fog. You might be able to make out shapes, general impressions, but it was difficult to tell what was going on. Ahead of him, a red smudge and a blue smudge were moving around a large black and red blur, but it was difficult to tell what was happening beyond that. Muffled voices could be heard, but not clearly enough to make out what they were saying. Like overhearing someone speaking from another room.

This was why Legend liked spending the night in Wild’s dreams. They tended to be based on the kid’s old memories, but he didn’t remember enough to fill out all the specific details that made it meaningful. It was just a vague, impressionist’s painting of something that may or may not have happened. Something that would already be slipping out of the kid’s mind by the time he woke up, so Legend wouldn’t have to feel like he was intruding.

And besides that, it was so peaceful and calm here. It was somewhere he could let his guard down, just stop thinking for a while, and actually get a good night’s rest for once.

Legend couldn’t sleep in his own dreams. That was a one way path to waking up gasping and clawing for breath or spending the whole day in a haze, unable to connect with reality. No, spending his nights in other peoples’ dreams was better. And Wild’s were the best.

Green-blue light danced in the corner of his eye, more clearly defined than anything else in this world. He didn’t even have to turn to know who it was.

“Mipha,” he greeted. In front of him, the red blur lunged forward in a sudden burst of speed, and the large black and red blur dissolved into nothingness. 

The ghost of the princess sat down next to him, her legs tucked under herself politely. They both watched in silence as another, much smaller, blur crept forward. Red, in the exact same shade as the first one. Its larger color-pair knelt down to embrace it.

“It is nice to see you back again tonight,” the princess said, her voice ringing clear over the more muffled words sounding from the distance.

“There’s nowhere else I’d rather be.” he said truthfully, laying back on the false grass, keeping one eye on his companion and one eye on the unfolding scene below.

The blue smudge moved forward, put an ill-defined appendage on the red being’s shoulder. Next to him, the ghost of Mipha tracked them intensely with her eyes. “How has he been doing lately?”

Legend snorted. “He’s been pretty good. Today, him and Wind accidentally burned all the old man’s hair off. He tried to do his ‘disappointed face’, but it was difficult without eyebrows.”

Mipha chuckled lightly behind a hand. “That must have been amusing.”

“Yeah.” They watched the scene play out before them in silence for a few more minutes before Legend finally asked, “do you miss him?”

Mipha’s eyes were distant as she gazed at the blurs in front of them, like she was seeing far more than what was visible in their ill-defined shapes. “Every day,” she said, her voice heavy with longing.

“Yeah. Me too,” Legend responded quietly. They both knew he wasn’t talking about Wild.

Finally, the colors around them swirled and warped together, forming a twisting kaleidoscope of indiscernible shapes.

“The kid’s waking up already?” Legend groaned, “I barely got any sleep! I might need to hang out in Sky’s dumb cryptic dreams if he keeps shorting us both on rear like this!”

A transparent hand landed on his wrist, and Legend looked up to meet wide and pleading eyes.

“Promise me you’ll take care of him?” asked the Zora princess, her grip tight on Legend’s arm.

“Always,” he promised, as the world melted away around him, along with the ghost of a girl he never met.

Notes:

Will there be more? Who knows! Certainly not me! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Chapter 2: Dumb Cryptic Dreams

Summary:

Legend steps in on one of Sky’s dreams and has an unpleasant time.

Notes:

Me posting chapter 1: Idk if I will do more
Me 10 minutes later: has a brief outline for at least 5 more chapters. (The next two should be Downfall Duo, then Ravioli)

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Tree trunks stretched up endlessly into the sky, their smooth faces free of branches and rising too tall to see the leafy canopies. The forest floor was completely bare of undergrowth, only grass so short and manicured it could have been mistaken for a garden. Through this, Sky wandered with hazy and unfocused eyes, almost seeming to be sleepwalking despite already being asleep.

Legend trailed uncertainty after him. He knew this was a dream, that no harm could come to either of them in this state, but he felt a deep need to stay close to his brother and protect him from whatever danger may come.

The woods shook with a low rumble. Legend latched a hand onto Sky’s tunic to keep him from stumbling and falling while the ground below them vibrated as if beset by an earthquake.

Creatures moved in the darkness between the trees. At first distant and, then becoming more distinct. A herd of cows burst from between the reaching timber, bellowing loudly and thrashing their horns every which way, gouging large chunks out of the bark. Their eyes were wild and crazed, rolling about in their heads.

Legend thrust Sky behind him and raised his arms protectively in front of his body. They would be ripped by those sharp horns as easily as the points split apart the trees, but it was better than nothing.

Except the cows didn’t run him through. Instead they parted around the two heros, flowing to either side like the water in a stream avoids a rock. It was hard to make out any features of the beasts like this. They were just a solid mass of muscles and spots and frenzied, thrashing heads. A solid bovine river rushing around them.

When the stampede finally cleared, run off to parts unknown, only a small calf remained behind. Pure creamy white, with a coat like milk, and staring up at them with baleful brown eyes. Sky stepped out from behind Legend.

Legend put a warning hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Sky-” he started before the hero shrugged him off.

Sky stepped forward to place a hand on the calf’s cheek. It nuzzled lovingly into the appendage, soft fur brushing against fingers.

When Sky pulled his hand away, it came back with a layer of the cow’s skin. Gooey flesh stretched from the animal’s face all the way to Sky’s reaching hand. The calf collapsed to the ground. Its expressive eyes gone dull and gray.

The flesh bloated, expanded, filling with gas until the skin stretched shiny and taut. Then it melted. The muscles and sinew and flesh dissolved into a wet goo that spread in a circle around the rapidly exposing skeleton.

The rot flowed out, more than was possible from the small, fragile body of the animal. It flooded the pristine forest floor, oozing out to lap at the two heros’ boots. More and more the liquid decay rose, an ever expanding tide. Up to their waists, their shoulders, over their heads.

Legend took a quick gasp of air before he went under. He tightly clung to Sky’s arm and looked for a way out, a way to escape the deluge of decomposition. But the brown-gray sludge blocked his vision in every direction.

He tried to swim upward, to outpace the rising flood, but no matter how high he went, he could not breach the surface. Finally Legend’s lungs burned too much to hold his breath any longer, and he reflexively opened his mouth.

Only to find that he could breathe normally. Because this was a dream. Right.

He wasn’t drowning. He didn’t need to rescue Sky, who was limp and contemplative in his hold, also breathing normally. Whose eyes gazed far into the distance, beyond anything Legend could see.

He let the other hero go, and just let them both float, weightless in the false ocean of decay.

Legend took a breath, real air into his lungs, closed his eyes…

And opened them to stare at the roof of Malon’s ranch house. They had been staying while visiting Time’s Hyrule.

The dream only felt like it lasted a few minutes, but his eyes were greeted with the brightness of mid-morning light, far later than he would normally prefer to sleep in.

Legend hastily hastily dressed and shoved the door open with his shoulder while still pulling one if his boots on. The door next to him opened as well to reveal a half-dressed Sky wandering out of his room. Except where Legend almost felt too well-rested, Sky was stretching and yawning, still partially caught in the throes of sleep.

“Sleep well?” Sky asked drowsily. 

Legend grimaced, the uncomfortable imagery of Sky’s dream still fresh in his mind. But at least he wasn’t tired. “As well as could be expected,” Legend finally settled on. “How about you?”

“I slept great!” Sky replied brightly, with a sunny grin.

They entered the kitchen to find Four and Wind thankfully still eating breakfast, meaning the other two weren’t as abysmally late at rising as they could have been. The kids were discussing something in hushed whispers, which based on the few snippets Legend could catch sounded like a prank on Warriors. Legend ripped off a hunk of bread from the loaf on the counter and sat down to join them. Whereas Sky continued on so he could rummage through the cabinets.

“Milk’s gone bad!” Sky called out as he passed by the table, not even looking at or coming within three feet of the pitcher sitting in front of them.

Legend slapped his hand on the table in sudden understanding. So that’s what the dream was all about!

Notes:

I didn’t realize when I started writing that this makes yet another story where I attempt to drown Legend. But I love dunking Leg in liquids. Getting him all soggy and sad. So I just went along with it. I don’t have a problem, I swear.

Chapter 3: Nightmare

Summary:

Legend helps Hyrule through a bad dream.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

Legend was abruptly woken by a foot colliding with his stomach. He hissed in pain at the way it jarred a gash in his side that was not quite fully healed, despite a liberal application of Hyrule’s healing magic. All of them were badly injured in that last battle with the shadow, even their healer who was always so careful to avoid even a paper cut, and it had taken all their potions and abilities just to get all their members stable. Not better, just stable.

Which was why it was so important to get his goddess-damned sleep right now, and if he was being kicked awake for anything short of Ganon himself attacking their camp right now, he was about to rip someone a new one.

Legend forced himself upright, ready to ream out the next person he saw—

Only to see that the entire camp was still fast asleep, aside from Time keeping a silent watch.

The old man raised an eyebrow at the sight of Legend staring at him, and legend ducked his head, breaking eye contact.

So it wasn’t an intentional kick. Okay. He was still somewhat pissed. Or at least he was, until he found the source of the intrusion. 

Hyrule had somehow wriggled several feet closer to him across the bare forest floor in the hours since they’d retired for the night. Even still, he could see his successor lightly thrashing, threatening to remove himself from his bedroll entirely.

Legend could feel the way his expression softened. No matter how he tried, he could never truly be mad at his successor. The kid deserved the world from him, and Legend had a lot to make up for with the state of the world he left in his wake.

Legend tried not to interfere when the others had nightmares. With a group like theirs, there were just too many bad memories that lead to dreams to keep up with, and inserting himself only led to two of their members feeling like shit the next day instead of one.

But… Rulie had overexerted himself badly that day. He needed his rest more than anyone. And… Legend was willing to help out. Just for his successor. Just this once.

Legend scooted his bedroll over the last few feet still separating them, inserting himself firmly into the younger boy’s space. He wrapped both arms around the teen - way too skinny from years of not enough food - and held him close against his chest, his fluffy hair tucked neatly under Legend’s chin.

Even just the proximity seemed to help calm Hyrule down some. Legend could feel his successor’s breath steady out and matched his own breathing to it, letting the steady rise and fall lull himself off to sleep.

He could enter most people’s dreams without much difficulty (except Wind’s, for some reason), but physical touch always gave him an easier path to follow. Like letting himself drift peacefully down to the ocean floor, rather than groping around blindly in the dark, desperate for anything to cling onto.

When Legend next opened his eyes, he found himself in a great crowd of people. All of them were wearing identical robes, and when Legend looked down at his dreamself, he found that he was wearing them too. It was likely the dream just neatly slotted him into the place of a figure that was already there. The others around him looked Hylian at first glance, but there was something not quite right. A flash of too-long teeth, a gleam of too-bright eyes.

Not to mention the chanting.

He couldn’t quite make out the words, if there even were real words to what they were saying. All he got was the feeling. A sacrifice. A ritual. A demand for blood.

Legend felt a shiver travel down his spine. He could understand why Hyrule’s sleep had been restless.

Legend pushed forward through the crowd of not-Hylians, not caring if anyone was in his way. They didn’t make any effort to arrest his progress. He wasn’t really part of the dream, after all. At least, not yet.

When he finally pushed through the densest part of the throng of bodies, he broke out into open air.

In front of him lay Hyrule, bound to a stone altar too tightly to move a single inch. Blood poured from numerous cuts all over his body, probably more than enough to kill him if any of this was real. Legend almost half-wished it was just so he could hunt down and murder someone for doing this to his successor.

Instead he took a deep breath and strode forward, into Hyrule’s view.

“Legend?” the traveler gasped, practically choking to draw air in through panicking lungs. “What are you doing here? You— You need to get out! They’ll get you too!”

All around them, the crowd moved with increasing agitation. One figure stepped forward as if to make a move against them.

“Hey,” Legend said gently. He leaned forward and ran a hand through Hyrule’s hair, still soft and fluffy, even when matted with blood. “It’s okay. I’m here now. I’m going to get you out.”

The figures stilled around them, but Legend knew that wouldn’t last for long. Cultists would carry knives on them, right? Legend could convince himself of that. He reached deep into the folds of his robe and pulled out a dagger with a wicked-looking edge. Score.

He got to work trying to saw through the ropes holding Hyrule in place, but no matter how hard he cut, he couldn’t make any headway. It was like the bindings were made of iron rather than simple rope. Legend swore in his head, careful to keep his frustration out of his expression, instead keeping his face confident and kind.

A single finger tilted Hyrule’s face away from where he was staring at the cultists, his eyes blown wide with fear. “Hyrule,” he said, “I. Am. Going to get you out, do you understand me?”

Hyrule nodded dumbly, but Legend could see in his eyes that they still weren’t on the same page. He sighed internally. Fine. He could bring out his trump card.

“I am the Hero of Legend. I defeated Ganon three whole times, I’m the hero you heard bedtime stories about as a kid. I can do just about anything, and I am here to rescue you.”

A warm smile spread across the kid’s face as he practically melted into the stone slab in relief, like it was a comfortable bed rather than hard rock. This time, Legend barely had to touch the blade to the ropes before they all snapped apart as one, leaving their captive free.

Legend pulled Hyrule up to lean on his shoulder. His successor clung to his tunic with trembling fingers like he never wanted to let go.

With that completed, Legend stepped forward and firmly stated, “and now I am going to defeat all the enemies with one sweep of my, uh, mighty sword.” It was a dagger, but whatever.

Hyrule nodded shakily and buried his face in Legend’s sleeve. Legend swung the blade in a wide arc through the open air, and all the cultists vanished around them.

Legend gently elbowed his charge. “Hey Rule, look, you’re safe now.”

Hyrule peeked one eye open to look around them. It was quickly followed by the other and then a relieved grin slowly spreading across his face. He still did not let go of Legend’s tunic.

“And now I’m going to take you somewhere safe,” Legend told him gently.

Their surroundings dissolved around them and reformed into a sparsely furnished cave. It wouldn’t have been Legend’s first choice, but whatever. He wasn’t the dreamer, here.

He gently lowered the both of them down onto a threadbare rug. The kid practically collapsed onto his lap.

Legend ran his hands through his successor’s hair in a motion meant to soothe. All the blood was gone now, along with the cuts that caused it. Vanished like they never existed as soon as the mind focused on something else.

Trembling arms came to reach around Legend in a hug. “Thank you for saving me, Mr. Hero, sir,” Hyrule said, his voice now much younger, his body much smaller. 

It pained Legend to have this small child in his lap, still falling apart despite being safe now. “Hey, don’t worry about it, kid,” he said, drawing the child close in a warm and reassuring hug. “It was all you.”

Notes:

Legend’s trump care is weaponizing Hyrule’s latent hero worship for him.

Also, Legend continues to fail to beat the softness allegations.

Chapter 4: Half-Awake

Summary:

Four’s weird powers mess with Legend’s weird powers.

Notes:

Four chapter just kinda… happened. And then it took me four days to do the necessary editing to actually post it. XD
Ravioli should still be next. :)

Chapter Text

Here was the thing about letting your brain continue to run almost full capacity all night every night: no matter how much you let your body rest, you still don’t recover as much as you should. On top of that, Legend always woke up when the dreamer did, but he had to fall asleep later than them to enter their dreams. So he found himself chronically getting half an hour less sleep than anyone else in the Chain, and he chronically got bad quality sleep. And every single one of them had a habit of waking up in the middle of the night, forcibly dragging Legend awake with them. All this to say: he was getting tired. He’d been tired, had exhaustion dragging on his heels for years and years now, but it was getting worse at the moment, and he knew before long, he would need to just buckle down and give himself a good-quality, deep, real sleep.

Didn’t mean he was happy about it. And in the meantime, anything he could do to sneak in a little extra shuteye, he would.

And this is where Four came in.

You see, Four was the single worst member of the chain about falling asleep in a timely fashion. He would toss and turn for hours before finally settling into a steady breathing pattern. You would think he was fully unconscious, only for him to mumble out a response to something you’d said, unaware he was still listening in. He was the complete opposite of Sky, who could already be off in dreamland within minutes of sitting down.

But Sky wasn’t asleep yet today. He was in a very enthusiastic conversation with Wild about their closest near-misses in skydiving. If Legend wasn’t so exhausted right now, Sky talking about making a game of trying to figure out how close he could get to the ground before he opened his sailcloth without dying would have kept him awake in horror for days. As would the look of intrigue on Wild’s face at the concept. As always, Legend reminded himself to replace their potion stores at the next sign of civilization. And maybe catch a few fairies, just in case.

But that was a problem for Future Legend, who was hopefully less tired than Current Legend.

And for Current Legend, he had only one option to relieve his tiredness, and it was less than ideal. 

It was barely after dinner, and every single person was still up and about except for Four, who was still very clearly not fully asleep yet, and likely wouldn’t be for a while. But what the hell, Legend was exhausted and this was his only choice for the moment. And anything was better than experiencing his own dreams.

So he pulled his bedroll close to the tiny hero, closed his eyes, and mentally reached out in the dark.

A large door creaked shut behind him, vanishing as soon as it closed. Endless darkness surrounded him on all sides, broken up only by a few bright spots of color. There were three more doors, in red, green, and blue, and sitting in front of them was the diminutive smithy. Only instead of his usual multicolor tunic, he was dressed entirely in purple.

Legend looked at the darkness, looked at the more darkness, looked at the doors, looked at the empty void, and then looked at the smithy. “Is this it?” he asked, thoroughly unimpressed.

The purple-tuniced hero raised a single eyebrow at him. “Now this is unusual,” he remarked. The hero got up from his place sitting on the invisible surface of the formless void to walk around Legend, staring him down with a discerning eye. The scrutiny made Legend feel distinctly uncomfortable. “I wonder how you got in here.”

Legend shrugged awkwardly. “Weird things happen in dreams,” he offered.

The purple Four took a step back and stared, nonplussed, at Legend with his arms crossed across his chest. “That would make sense, if I were in a dream.”

Legend scoffed. “You’re asleep, of course you’re dreaming!”

The smith rolled his eyes. “No. They’re asleep.” He gestured to the colorful closed doors behind him. “ I’m still awake. I was trying to figure out how Dark Link makes his portals when you came in.”

“They’re asleep?” Legend asked

Purple Four nodded.

“And you’re still awake?” Legend continued.

“I’m more of a night owl than they are.” Purple Four stated blithely.

“Well this is awkward.” Legend shuffled his feet uncomfortably. “I think… yeah, I’m just gonna go.” He made his way to the three closed doors.

“Be my guest,” the other hero said as he returned to his spot sitting on the nonexistent floor.

Legend hesitated with his hand resting on the handle of the red door. “Is it possible I can convince you none of this was real?”

“Not a chance,” came the serene reply.

“Will you promise not to tell anyone about this if I don’t tell them about… you know,” Legend waved a hand to encompass everything about the black void and the three doors resting in it.

A non-committal hum was all he got in response, which, yeah, was probably the best he was going to get.

Legend opened the door and walked through.

Chapter 5: Cuddle Bunnies

Summary:

Legend gets a night in his own bed.

Notes:

I’m not dead! The AO3 author’s curse struck me, and I’ve had some health issues, but I have slowly worked on this chapter over the last year+, and now here it is. 👍

(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)

Chapter Text

Finally being home was far more of a relief than Legend expected. Don’t get him wrong, everyone’s different Hyrules had their own good qualities. Visiting Lon Lon Ranch was always a breath of fresh air, and Malon treated all the heroes as her own sons. Every time they visited Warriors’ Hyrule, the castle staff pampered them like nobody’s business and the softness of the beds there made every other bed feel like it was made out of rocks by comparison. He even found that Wild’s cooking was never quite as delicious as when he got to use his own kitchen in Hateno Village.

But nothing quite compared to being in his own house: working on his knitting by the fireplace in an armchair that conformed perfectly to his body, letting the mindless chatter of his brothers wash over him, and feeling the light breeze that floated in through the open window and carried the faint scent of apples with it. It was as if weeks of stress melted off his body all at once. He could easily nod off right here, lulled to sleep by the rhythmic clack of his knitting needles and the soothing voices of people he trusted with his life.

Not that he would, of course. He would rather stay awake forever than risk sleeping completely unbuffered by anyone else’s dreams. Especially around the other heros. 

But just the feeling of being in a place his broken-ass brain labeled as ‘safe’ was making it more difficult to stay awake with every passing second. Each blink seemed to take longer than the last. The knitting needles in his hands slowed to a halt, and Legend stared at them blankly, belatedly realizing he lost count of his stitches a while ago and had accidentally kept repeating the pattern for far too long, stuck in a loop of doing the same thing over and over again and only getting farther from what it was meant to be.

He was tired. Too many long nights, too much stress, not enough sleep. He gently touched the yarn running through his fingers. Tried to grasp at the fibers, like they could manage to tether him back to his body with just their stable solidity. A belated sense of panic bubbled up inside him at the idea of falling asleep accidentally. The emotion lacked the sharpness he felt it should’ve had; muffled and weighed down by his own exhaustion. It was just a blunted throb of wrongness. His hand slackened, and the ball of yarn plummeted far away from his grasp, tumbling end over end across the carpeted floor. He thought he heard a voice raise in a question, but it sounded impossibly far away, muffled by waves crashing in his ears.

Where was Ravio? He was supposed to be here, right? Legend let his eyes flick across the faces gathered in his living room one by one. At least one of them had their eyebrows scrunched in concern, but that didn’t matter right now. Legend screwed up his face as he tried to run back through his recent memories, but it was harder than it should have been. Sluggish and slow, like trying to wade through chu jelly. 

His mind finally alighted on the requisite memory, pulled it from the depths of his subconscious. A bath. It was getting late, so Ravio said he was going to go take a bath. The closed bathroom door drew his eyes. There was no longer steam coming out from under it, so he must be nearly done, right? The seconds ticked by slowly. The yarn continued to rest on the floor, just beyond his reach.

As if Legend’s spiraling thoughts called out to him, the bathroom door slowly creaked open, revealing Ravio silhouetted against the light pouring out from the door. He lounged against the doorframe, his sharp emerald eyes darting across the heroes assembled in the living room. He examined each of their faces, one by one, until his gaze finally landed on Legend, and a smile twitched up the corner of his lips.

“Mr. Hero!” he called out flirtatiously, leaning even more of his weight on the doorframe and batting his eyelashes at Legend, “I’m going to bed now! Aren’t you going to join me?”

The attention of everyone in the room snaped to him instantly, and Warriors was audibly sputtering. Abruptly, Legend realized exactly what Ravio was wearing. A completely sheer dressing gown fringed in feathers, like the kind you’d expect to be worn by a grieving widow who vehemently denied killing her husband for the money. The garment’s transparency allowed the entire assembled group to clearly see the cutely bunny-patterned boxers he wore underneath.

“What?” He asked somewhat stupidly, his brain still too exhausted to keep up.

“I said,” Ravio repeated, with a suggestive eyebrow wiggle, “come join me in bed. It’s been so lonely and cold without you here to keep me company.”

Legend’s cheeks heated in flaming pink indignation. He sputtered out something that might have been an excuse and rapidly made his way to his bedroom, Ravio trailing behind him. The merchant gave a cocky little salute to the assembled heros as the two of them departed.

As soon as they made their way into the bedroom, Legend quickly snapped the door closed and sagged backwards against it, allowing it to support his weight. “You can’t just say that in front of them!” he hissed out, “This is why everyone thinks we’re together!” 

“Aren’t we?” asked Ravio from where he settled on the bed, his eyes huge and round without his usual hood to hide his expression.

“Yeah, but I don’t want them to know that!” Legend groaned, flopping down on the mattress next to the merchant. “When they asked about my ring, I told them we were married for tax benefits!”

“But we don’t pay taxes!” Ravio shouted incredulously, loud enough to send a spike of pain through Legend’s aching skull. 

“Shhhhh!” Legend hissed, rolling over to straddle his husband and pressing a finger to his lips in an effort to quiet him. “Don’t let the others hear that. A bunch of them are knights and I don’t think they’d take very kindly to that.”

Ravio stuck his tongue out from between his lips and delicately licked Legend’s fingertip.

“Eww.” Legend fully sat up and flicked the saliva from the digit onto Ravio’s forehead. “You’re gross.”

“Shut up,” Ravio giggled. He half-sat up, only to lace his fingers behind Legend’s neck and pull him down on top of him. “you know you love me.” Legend lips connected with Ravio’s in a full-mouth kiss, the rest of his body soon falling downward to press every inch of available skin together

“Yeah,” Legend breathed. His lips curled into a smile without breaking contact with the other’s. “I do.”

They quickly fell asleep like that, with Legend laying fully on top of Ravio, squashing him into the mattress, and their pillows and sheets laying abandoned off to the side.

When Legend opened his eyes again, the bedroom was oddly blurry. Some isolated places were more in focus than others, and the room notably still contained a bookshelf Ravio had broken six months ago. Ravio tried to climb it in his endeavors to rescue every left shoe in the household from the nest Sherow made of them on top, and the shelf had snapped under his weight, sending him sprawling to the floor and the shoes tumbling down on top of him. Legend had laughed himself sick at Ravio getting defeated by a bookshelf, and bought him a stepladder for his birthday that year.

The bed remained exactly the same as when they fell asleep, however. With Ravio still lying under him, slowly coming to his senses as well.

He looked around the room, assessing it. “This alright?” the merchant asked quietly.

Legend didn’t respond out loud, just giving a light nod.

“What, you don’t want me to change the wallpaper or anything?” he teased.

Legend snorted. “In my defense, that wallpaper was hideous. Why in Lolia’s name you would think that eggplant purple patterned with your own face is a good interior design choice, I will never know.”

“It got you to smile, didn’t it?”

“Only under duress.” Legend grinned.

Ravio leaned up and kissed the tip of Legend’s nose. “So, we’ve got a few hours to kill. What do you want to do?

That seemed to unlock something in Legend, who went slack on top of his husband. His whole weight buckled in a collapsed heap, and he buried his nose in Ravio’s neck, breathing in deeply. “I don’t know. I think I’m too exhausted go do anything

Ravio wrinkled his nose confusedly. “But you’re already asleep.”

Legend just snorted. “Tell that to my body,” he said. “I’m just… I’m just really tired.”

Ravio ran a hand gently through his hair, “then why don’t you rest?” he asked.

His hands continued carding through Legend’s hair, stopping every now and then to pick out a tangle or lightly scratch a particular spot. From deep in his chest, he began to hum out a half-familiar lullaby from his youth; a few scattered notes with breaks between them where he couldn’t for the life of him remember how the tune was meant to go.

On top of him, Legend relaxed further and further. He would have surely been asleep and dreaming by now if he wasn’t in a dream already. He knew this was about the best he could manage when it came to sleep anymore. Even if it wasn’t quite truly recuperative, he still got to be calm and relaxed in a familiar place with someone he loved.

Not dreamless sleep, but peaceful sleep all the same.

Notes:

*runs the whole gamut of emotions in 5 seconds*