Archive of Our Own ^beta

Sky’s relationship with sleep has always been… complicated.

Growing up, his mother had a similar dilemma, but he knew she’d always tried her best because of him. Sometimes he wondered if he’d inherited it from her. He wanted to be mad about it. He couldn’t.

It hadn’t been bad when he was a kid. A couple of nights spent tossing and turning every month for no particular reason other than his own unrelenting thoughts here, a few occupied with peeking out from under the blanket and wondering if the thunder was going to break down their door there. The only difference was that he was a little more tired in the morning, which was of little cost to his daily activities as a whole. 

That’d changed soon enough. 

Three days before he turned eight, the night before the annual Wing Ceremony they watched together, she’d fallen off of Skyloft while he was waiting for her to come home. She didn’t, of course, and he was left to wonder if maybe she’d jumped, and if maybe it was because of him. Their shared bed was empty and cold and for weeks he couldn’t bring himself to disturb the messy blankets that she’d tossed aside or the soft dent in the mattress she had been in not long ago that was surely gone by now but he couldn’t. 

 Even years afterwards, he still had trouble. Either it was a difficulty going to sleep at night or a difficulty staying awake in the day.

Most days he was frustrated with himself. Everyone else was doing just fine. Why was he the only one with bags under his eyes? Why couldn’t he just sleep? It couldn’t be that hard, if every other kid his age had no problem.

He’d admitted this to Zelda once, a year or two after they’d become friends. Back then it’d seemed like the most meaningful conversation he’d ever had. Nowadays he could hardly remember how it’d gone. 

And it continued like that for years. It was hard, it was always hard, but he had her for the ups and downs and she had him for when everything became too much. 

Until three days before his seventeenth birthday, the same night nine years ago that his brain had almost completely locked away all memory of, even if sometimes he really wished it hadn’t. Unfortunately, his mind had decided to let him keep the memory of the dream that had foreshadowed so much and so little just so he could relive it as often as the other shitty things that came after. 

He hadn’t known what The Imprisoned was then, of course. How could he have known it would become the bane of his existence for the next four months back then? That along with the image of his best friend being pulled into a massive whirlwind on what was supposed to be one of the best days of his life would burrow itself deep into his consciousness until it was all he saw when he closed his eyes at night.

That had only been the beginning, though. Looking back, sometimes he couldn’t believe how he used to think his issues with sleep were at the lowest they could be. Sometimes he couldn’t believe he’d gone through so much and this was one of the biggest things he was still having problems with. Most of the time he resented his own mind for it. It made it feel like he never would escape completely. All that and he still couldn’t get away from things that’d merely made his childhood a bit more bleak. 

He often forgot he was still technically in his childhood, but that wasn’t important.

The further he got into his journey the more the concept of sleep drifted to the back of his priorities until it was such an inconvenience he actively avoided it instead of desperately trying to chase after it. It became an obstacle instead of a human necessity.

 That was just how things were for those months. The first few weeks had been difficult, most of his nights spent furiously working towards finding Zelda as he’d believed that as long as he got through that area or that temple he’d have her back in no time. He’d been naive. But at least then he’d had something to look forward to that he believed would be soon. That feeling had started to melt after his first encounter with Impa. 

Too slow. Unworthy. 

His efforts had nearly doubled after that. It was strange when he thought about it. Impa’s words had made him feel like he was better off splattered into bits on the surface alongside where his mother’s corpse probably rotted, and yet it intensified his raw determination to keep going and find Zelda to a point it was the only thing keeping his legs moving and his mind focused.

So naturally, sleep became something to resent, solely because of how the need for it slowed him down.

A month ago Zelda would’ve helped him through such an intense phase. But she wasn’t here. And he had to find her, exhaustion be damned. He was going to keep moving through the fatigue that followed him like a weight chained to his ankle even if it killed him.

(It almost did, at one point. Fi had only managed to talk him into resting in his own bed during a potion refill at Skyloft after he’d hallucinated his mother falling off the island and he’d tried to follow her. 

Sleeping is essential to your health, Master, she’d said. Lack of it will kill you before the monsters do. I shall wake you once you get what is necessary, if that is what you request. 

He wished he’d been in a good enough state to thank her for helping him not accidentally kill himself before she was sealed away.)

And then Groose had followed him to the Surface, and suddenly he was running around collecting sacred flames like he’d collected bugs as a child. Being able to see Groose whenever he had to go to the Sealed Temple was nice, and having his help with The Imprisoned was something he’d be grateful for forever. Even one familiar face to run into for the remainder of his journey was of great comfort (even if said familiar face had been picking on him for years). 

It was a bit easier to allow himself a few hours of rest from time to time then, knowing that if something were to happen to him there would at least be somebody else to do something to help Zelda. 

And then, after he’d opened the gate and was hugging her for the first time in what felt like years- he thought for a second- that maybe it was over, that it was all going to be okay.

But things could never be that easy for them. 

Suddenly he was right where he’d been after Impa, except this was worse. He absolutely could not stop for anything until Ghirahim and Demise were dead in the ground and Zelda was finally safe from all this. He ran off of pure adrenaline for what might’ve been days, tirelessly working and fighting without even considering sleep until Demise crumbled into ash. And he did, the bastard. Though not before uttering words that, at the time, meant nothing to him.

And it was over.

It was hard, adjusting back to a normal life. Well, it couldn’t exactly be called normal. It was the exact opposite of his previous routine on Skyloft, because now he lived on the surface and everything was different. But he managed. He had a new goal to work towards. Establishing a brand new kingdom down below. 

Sleep was something that continued to evade him constantly for months afterwards. At times he couldn’t fall asleep even when he felt dead on his feet, and even when he did all he found were nightmares of the horrors he’d encountered on his journey. He was taking naps in the middle of the day more often than not and he hated how it interfered with the things he wanted to get done but he was just always so tired down here. The surface air sapped his stamina and took away his breath sometimes, and although he knew his energy would likely be just as low back on Skyloft, it was always easier to attribute his surprise naps to something so large and out of his control.

So sleep was still just as complicated as it’d been on his journey, if not more so. But there was just one difference.

It was getting better. 

It was an agonizingly slow process with ups and downs, and at times the downs were so devastating it felt like everything may as well have reset, but now he had people. Zelda and Groose both supported him every second, and it meant the world.  

Every passing month the concept of sleep was a bit easier to grasp and a bit less surrounded by the feeling of failure and weakness. The journey still plagued him more often than not, but the nightmares began to deplete in intensity and frequency. For the first time in a long time he knew with a satisfying certainty things really were getting better and he really would be okay. The journey was behind them for the most part, and he and his friends were moving on into a future full of life.

And then, one day, he met a man with his name that claimed to be from another time. 

Everything changed, and Link became Sky.

Sleep became something to be cautious of around this group of powerful strangers. Despite their kindness, the kindness that he did his best to return a few times over, he could not bring himself to let his guard down entirely. But eventually it grew easier. After months of travel together, the nine of them became brothers, and sleep became something to ease into. 

But of course something had to happen. Of course. 

It was supposed to be a normal enough day. It was supposed to be a rest day spent in a lovely town to recuperate after the previous day’s battle. It was supposed to be a day he spent carving a wooden minifigure of the Goddess Statue on the surface. Wild had taken notice of Sky’s activities and apparently recognized it from his own time. And it’d gotten him thinking. A path of thinking that led him to the question of Ganon’s existence and why he’d never heard of the man, of why they were all called Link after some hero or other but he himself had never heard of any hero called Link, why they had all been claimed to have the ‘spirit of the hero’ at one point or another.

And everything clicked. 

Demise’s dying words had never truly left his mind. He was still able to recall them well enough, even if all this time he’d been shrugging them off as a mere bluff in the heat of the moment.

He almost wished he couldn’t remember it at all. Selfishly, he knew it would be so much easier if he’d never figured out why his brothers all seemed to have suffered so greatly. 

His sleep once again became plagued, this time with nightmares of false realities where they all found out his own incompetence was the reason their loved ones had died or their childhoods had been stolen, and if not that he found himself hardly able to sleep at all underneath the constant and crushing guilt. It didn’t help at all that he knew he was slowing down the group even more with his constant daytime sleepiness.

It didn’t get better this time.

There were a multitude of reasons why. He chose to ignore the ones like how he was the only one who knew, that he could never tell anybody and he’d just have to deal with the knowledge by himself, that he was surrounded by so many lovely people and yet he was so alone- and instead entirely focused on the sure fact that it was because he simply didn’t deserve for it to be better. 

He deserved these sleepless nights of agony where his own thoughts ran wild and devolved into repeated chants of self-hatred. He deserved every second of the exhaustion and fatigue that nearly kept him from pulling himself out of the bedroll each morning. Hylia, he knew he deserved much worse, but at the same time couldn’t bring himself to tell the others that somebody they’d trusted and relied on so much was the indirect bringer of so much trauma and destruction. He couldn’t do that to them. Not on top of everything else.

Once again, sleep became even more complicated.

As more months passed, he was able to put it in the back of his mind- though the guilt never left him for a second. It wasn’t better. But it was bearable. He needed it to be bearable, for the sake of everybody else. He couldn’t afford to be a liability because of this. 

Things almost started to feel normal again. The Chain’s bond strengthened with each fight and campfire discussion, and he enjoyed visiting all the different timelines even with how difficult it was to see the damage Demise’s curse had caused. 

And then somewhere down the road, Twilight almost died. 

It was difficult for everybody, he knew that. For days he was constantly lending a shoulder for them to cry on, and he hated knowing how little he could do for Twilight, but at the very least he could help the others. He had nightmares of the incident, but it was fine, because even if he needed somebody to comfort him instead of vice versa he didn’t deserve it anyway. 

Things went on. Twilight got better. They continued. He didn’t know what he’d expected- for everything to what, stay like that? But it surprised him nonetheless. It always caught him off guard, how even when things were at an all time low they could just get better and continue like normal with minimal changes.

They all got closer, after the incident. He had sort of become the person people went to when they had problems, the person who was always available after a nightmare and such. It made him feel nice, however selfish that sounded. That even though he could never make up for what he’d caused he could at least help support them. He let himself daydream of being able to somehow fix what the curse had done to these people. Those were always the worst to snap out of.

Then one night, for the first time since discovering the curse, he’d found himself being the one supported. 

It had started out as a normal enough day. They’d just gone through a portal, which was disorienting and nausea-inducing like normal, and had been lucky enough to not run into any monsters on their first day in the timeline. Speaking of the timeline, it had taken him about two minutes to realize exactly where they were:

In front of Skyview Temple in the deep Faron woods.

The sun was low in the sky as the dark began to overtake the forest, and he’d known that they weren’t going to be able to make it to where his and Zelda’s little houses by the Sealed Temple were before dark, so he’d had no choice but to tell the others this was probably the safest place to camp. Strangely, when they’d arrived he’d been on high alert for nearby Bokoblins and Deku Babas, but there were none in sight. That probably meant the small monster committee Zelda had put together to keep the woods clear had recently left. 

He hadn’t let himself be disappointed. It didn’t matter anyway. 

He knew camping inside the temple was a bad idea, so they began to set up camp by the back where they could be more boxed in. Wild fixed them dinner, and Sky took the first watch.

He sat there in silence for what might’ve been hours, staring at the wall of the temple through the darkness and trying not to think of what’d happened in it. 

Too slow. Unworthy. Useless.

And when he finally nudged Four awake for his turn, sleep found him within minutes. 

Somehow he had convinced himself it would be a nice sleep. That he wouldn’t dream or wake up in the middle of the night and be unable to fall unconscious again, like ending up right next to one of the places with one of his worst memories was unfortunate enough that nothing else would happen. He was wrong.

The nightmares that night had been the worst he’d had for months. He remembered bolting upright with a scream just escaping his throat before quickly devolving into sobs. He felt like he couldn’t breathe or speak or do anything but just… be. In the back of his mind, he knew he should shut himself up. That he was disturbing the others. But at the same time, even though what he’d seen in his dream was already fading, he was just so frustrated. 

He was so sick of being tired all the time. He was sick of nightmares and sleepless nights and fatigue and everything. He hated how he’d had to deal with this for so long and how no matter what he did it felt like there was always something that would come and fuck everything up. All of his bitterness had been building up for so long that when his brothers inevitably awoke from the commotion and asked him what was wrong and if he was okay- Goddess, it felt like it’d been months since somebody asked him that and he’d felt like he could answer-  and it all just… came flooding out.

Pretty soon he found himself spilling his guts about his… What'd Legend called it?

(“We have a name for something like that where I’m from,” the Vet had said when Sky calmed down a bit more. “People who have trouble with sleep. Insomnia.”

“Insomnia,” he’d tried the word out. The one word that explained the issue that’d plagued his entire life. “That’s what… I have.”

“Which would make you an insomniac.”)

Insomnia. 

Such a simple word, yet it held so much weight in his life. He felt like he should be happy that he could define it just like that. That there were others with the same affliction. He wasn’t. 

It was all so strange, now. After that interruption, he was able to fall asleep a bit easier. Of course, he’d woken up hating himself entirely for making something that he’d been able to deal with for so long other people’s problem, but just for once? He let himself ignore that. And it was… nice. Really nice, in fact. It was like a portion of baggage had been lifted off of him. A small portion, but it was freeing nonetheless. 

And it had… continued after that. He’d expected it to be over after maybe a week or so. For the extra care the others took with him regarding sleep to slowly dissolve. Expected how much easier it was to drift off recently to stop. It’d all seemed so temporary. But to his surprise, it hadn’t. Obviously his insomnia didn’t disappear just because he had support. Though, surprisingly, it was a lot better than it had been for months.

Just like after his adventure when he had Zelda and Groose’s help, things actually started to get better. 

(He hadn’t told anybody about the curse yet. He never stopped feeling guilty. But over time it drifted to the back of his mind even when he lay awake at night, and the times it took over his dreams began to decrease. It was getting better. He was getting better.)

Sometimes he had bad days and bad nights, but more often than not he had good days. And when things did get difficult, somebody would typically notice, and he would find himself in a pile of comfort and warm bodies that softly rose and fell around him until he was lulled to sleep.

(“I call them cuddle piles!” Wind explained. “I always used to cuddle with my little sister when she couldn’t sleep and vice versa. They help, I promise.”

Sky wasn’t doubting him anyway, but the reassurance was appreciated.)

Things went on. They went on, he went on. 

He still had a complicated relationship with sleep. He didn’t think that was ever going to truly change, and… he was starting to be okay with that. The support of the people around him made him think that he would be okay even if things stayed this hard.

(Though, with how different things were compared to before, who could say?) 

And he was hopeful. Maybe that didn’t matter in the end. But he stopped worrying about whether it would, and hoped anyway.

It helped.