#cf stray

His face scrunched up as he padded over to the bed. There were two problems with that request. First-

"We've been over this, Zel, no studying at bedtime," he said as he climbed onto her bed, settling cross-legged on the duvet.

"It's not studying! It's a normal fiction book," Zelda replied from where she rested against her headboard, a pile of pillows cushioning her back. 

The second problem still stood in the way.

"I'm bad at reading. You've said it yourself!"

He didn't really like to think of himself as bad at reading - he was, after all, one of the best readers back home - but compared to Zelda… and tons of other people at the castle and in Castle Town, he wasn't all that great at it. He had gotten a little better, with more opportunities to practice being available to him, but still, surely she'd prefer reading it herself.

"I like to hear your voice," Zelda said, shifting onto her side a little to face him better as his cheeks warmed. "I don't mind if you take it slow."

Lips bunching in embarrassment and hesitation, there were a few beats of silence before he sighed and held out his hand. "Fine."

Brightening, she turned and grabbed the book from her nightstand, handing it over. Taking the book, Link shifted closer, settling against the pillows as well as he found an angle that gave him more light to read by.

"Starting here," Zelda said, pointing to a paragraph.

Putting a finger under the first word to help him work his way along each line, he began, words slow and occasionally halting as he sounded out words he hadn't read before. So focused on reading correctly, Link didn't absorb the actual content until…

"'All at… once, he took her… face in his hands, press…ing… his-'" Abruptly, Link cut off, staring at the next word.

"What?" Zelda asked in a tone a little too innocent for his liking. "What happens?"

His head lifted, cheeks aflame. "What do you mean, what?! You absolutely know what happens! You did this on purpose, didn't you?!"

"Did what? I've never read this book before. How am I supposed to know what happens?"

"You read ahead, didn't you? That's why you picked this part!"

"What part? I won't know unless you read it to me," she said, the corners of her mouth twitching. 

Link tossed the book back onto her lap. "Absolutely not! You're not getting me to read a- a-"

"A what?"

"A kissing book!" he squawked, glaring at the book with the urge to pick it up again just so he could chuck it down one more time.

Zelda burst out laughing. "Aw, don't tell me you're allergic to a little romance. What's wrong with a kiss? I think it's very sweet."

"You tricked me!"

She continued laughing, sinking down into her pillows as she held her stomach. "Sorry!" she said, not sounding sorry at all. "But I knew you'd make the best expressions over it!" 

"I'm never reading for you again!"

Drawing in a calming breath and letting it out in a sigh, Zelda sat up. "Oh, don't be like that. I really do like hearing you read. And watching you read. You get this really focused look on your face. It's cute."

"Stop teasing me!" Link squawked, shoving at her arm as she burst into laughter again. 

"I'm telling the truth!" she insisted between giggles, letting him push her over. The book started to slide off the covers and she snatched it before it fell off the bed, opening it and flipping through the pages to find the spot from before so she could read it aloud.

"'-pressing his lips to-'"

"Stop!" he screeched, lunging for the book.

Zelda slid further off the side of the mattress, hanging off as much as she could without falling. Her arms hung low enough that the book almost touched the floor, keeping it out of reach as she continued to read, voice becoming squished as Link scrambled atop her, weight pressing over her back as he reached desperately for the book. "'-hers. Within her rose a flame-'"

Unable to reach from his current position without risking falling off entirely, Link resorted to making noise, trying to drown her out. She tilted her head away, wincing as he cried, "Nope! Nope! Shut up! Nope!" right beside her ear, but simply began to read louder.

"'-a flame that coursed through her veins and across her skin until-'"

"What in Din's sake are you two doing?!"

Both froze at the hissing voice, Link turning to peer over his shoulder at Mila, who had popped her head through the door with a glare that likely would have made anyone else shrivel up.

Link, however, said, "She's reading bad things! I'm-"

Zelda bucked under him, trying to make him fall off. "I am not!"

"-trying to stop her-"

"You're just mmf-!"

"Hush!" Mila interrupted their layered argument as she stepped inside the door, hand on her hip. "You two are so loud! What have I told you?!"

Link scowled as he continued to press Zelda's face into the fluffy blankets hanging off the edge while she swatted blindly at him with one hand. She found his hair and yanked until he released her head.

Zelda huffed, then grumbled, "That if we're going to do this, we need to be quiet."

"And I could hear you two all the way down the hall. Now, can you two keep it down, or do you need to be separated?"

Zelda's lips pulled into a pout, cheeks pink. "We'll be quiet."

"Sir Link?" Mila said expectantly.

"We'll be quiet," he parroted with a similar pout.

"Good. And get off of Her Highness. It's highly inappropriate." With that, Mila left, and Link remained exactly where he was.

There were afew seconds of silence, and then Zelda started reading again, this time in a loud whisper. 

"'-until she was sure he'd consume her whol-'"

With a much quieter screech, more air than sound, Link pressed his hand into the back of her head as he tried to inch further over her shoulders to reach the book. Chin getting shoved more firmly against the side of the mattress, Zelda's voice became a little more muffled-

"'-being, st'rting wif her mouf-'"

-but audible enough that Link continued grabbing her wrist, trying to yank her arm up closer so the book was within reach. She merely let go of the book with that hand, tilting her head to follow the page as the one side dropped that final half inch to the ground. When Link shifted to the other side of her head, iliciting a grunt from her as he clambered without any care for where his limbs and joints jabbed, she scooted forward to try and grab the book again with her free hand, hoping to swap which side she held it on. 

"'Wh'n his ha-AH-!"

Before she could grab the book with her other hand, Link shifted forward a little more, and suddenly he was slipping off, his tumbling weight dragging her with as the two toppled off the edge of the bed, landing in a painful heap on the floor.

Link spat hair out of his mouth, brushing her locks off his face as she groaned. He rolled onto his stomach, shoulder aching from the fall, pushing onto his elbows as he checked on Zelda. One of her legs rested up against the mattress, and he pulled his eyes away before they had the chance to linger on the newly exposed skin of her thigh.

"You okay?"

He heard her shift, heard fabric ruffling, and peeked from his peripheral to find her sitting up, clothes smoothed back into place.

"Enough," she replied, rolling her shoulders before sitting back against the bed with a heavy sigh. "You?"

"Yeah," he said, eyes catching upon the corner of the book on the ground just behind her, peeking out from under the bed.

Somehow, her own gaze seemed to catch his intent just as he dove across her lap for it, and she twisted to grab the book with one hand while planting her other hand against his front to push him away.

So, rather than attempt to take it for himself, he shoved at it, pushing the novel further under the bed before her hand could land on it, letting out a breathless, victorious laugh as his forehead plunked against her shoulder in relief. Zelda let out a huff, fingers unwinding from the front of his shirt and dropping to her lap.

"You're such a scaredy cat," she declared.

His head lifted, nearly nose to nose as he glared at her. "Am not."

"Are too."

"Am not."

"Then explain why you can't handle a kiss scene, hm?"

"I'm not afraid of it!" Link insisted. "It's just…!"

He wasn't sure what. Embarrassing? Weird? 

"It's just?" Zelda prompted, eyes glinting with an amused challenge, as she leaned forward. It was just a fraction - but that was all it took for her nose to brush his, and he jolted back, eliciting another laugh from her.

"Scaredy cat," she repeated.

"I'm not," he grumbled. His heart hadn't stopped thundering since the tumble had made it pick up the pace in a startle, and the nerves were starting to curl into his stomach. "I'm not scared."

"Then what are you?" Her smile was still there, challenging, entertained, and he wanted so terribly to wipe it off her face. "Aside from cutting off the circulation in my leg."

"Oh-!" Link hurried to shift his weight off of her, shuffling to settle next to her legs instead. Her head turned to track his movements before she pulled her legs towards herself and to the side, resting a hand on the floor as she tilted back into his view. 

"Well?"

"Well what?"

"What are you? If not a scaredy cat."

His mind spun, searching for some sort of clever response, something that would shut her down and earn him a win.

He couldn't think of anything.

"…Maintaining proper decorum?" he tried lamely, and Zelda was bursting into laughter before he'd even finished his sentence. 

"Main- Maintaining- pro-hah!"

"Shut up!"

Her words were barely there, breathless between laughs. "Since when have you ever-?"

He scowled at her until she calmed down.

Wiping tears from her eyes, she said, "Link, I hate to break it to you, but we hardly interact in any way that follows proper decorum in private. Honestly, we do a rather sorry job even in public."

Unfortunately, he couldn't argue that. Mila had just scolded him not even a half an hour ago for that.

"Well. Well maybe it's. Maybe it's, um." His words were halting, searching for a comeback he didn't have. "Maybe I just don't care for…" He grabbed for the word Mila had used. "Inappropriate books."

Zelda started laughing again, and he had to fight the urge to shake her about. 

"You talk like a ten-year-old." Her grin shifted into a thoughtful, yet humored smile, like she was pondering something funny. "But you don't always act like it."

As she spoke, her fingers slid forward, over his. 

"A ten-year-old boy wouldn't be able to handle this," she added. "You know, the stable boy acted like he'd perish when our hands touched."

A frown yanked Link's mouth down, voice sour. "Why were you touching his hand in the first place?"

"His hat fell off. I was handing it back."

"A hat is big," Link said. "Hands don't need to touch just to give a hat over to someone."

"I wish you could really hear yourself right now," Zelda said. "You sound wonderfully ridiculous."

"That doesn't even make sense."

"It would if you were me."

He stared at her hands as she flipped his over, tracing the edges of his fingers, trying to puzzle out what nonsense she was going on about.

Finally, she spoke again, drawing his attention back to her face, though her own eyes were on his fingers. "So is it just the written version that's the issue? Though, no, you freak out even when I say the word, so it can't be that." She hummed thoughtfully. "It's the words themselves, then."

Her gaze flicked up to his, and something about her eyes made the room around him promptly dissolve into nothingness.

"You've always preferred actions over words. So the real question, then, is: would the action embarrass you more, less, or the same?"

Something in her words seemed to flutter just above his head, just out of reach. Likely because his brain seemed to suddenly be running at the speed of molasses.

When she let go of his hand, reaching up to cup his face on either side, he stiffened.

"What are you doing?"

"Acting out the book."

If his cheeks hadn't already been warm, it now felt as though his entire face had been shoved in the fireplace as he sputtered out a, "Huh- Wha- The uh-"

His frustration ruffled back up as she started laughing again. 

"Stop teasing me," he said, voice low in a way that made her laugh peter out, smile fading.

"Sorry," she said, sounding a little more like she meant it this time. "I just like getting reactions out of you. But I guess I took it too-"

He grabbed her wrists as she moved to lift her hands from his face, refusing to let her pull back.

"I'm not a scaredy cat."

She blinked, then lifted the corners of her lips in a wobbly, unsure motion. "Um. I didn't really mean that. It's fine if that sort of thing embarrasses you-"

Heart in his throat, his ears, his lungs, stomach, toes, everywhere, Link leaned a little closer and repeated, "I'm not a scaredy cat."

Her gaze darted around his face, then away with a huff of a laugh, voice small and high. "Uhh, okay! I believe you."

When he let go of her wrists just so he could take her face instead, her eyes shot back to his face, sucking in a tiny breath and then stilling.

He, too, came to a halt, feeling his nerves starting to swallow up any of his frustration-fueled courage. Her skin was so warm under his hands.

"Wha…" Zelda said, and when he looked briefly at her lips, she swallowed hard and tried again. "What are you doing?"

He wasn't even sure what the answer to that was. Proving a point to her? Proving a point to himself? Teasing her back? 

It was more than any of those things, he knew that much, but he wasn't sure how to explain it. Did he need to? 

Like Zelda had said, he'd always preferred actions over words.

He drifted a little closer, not entirely sure when he'd started looking at her mouth again, but realizing it when she breathed out his name, a trace of uncertainty within the whisper. So he moved slowly, agonizingly slowly for his balled up nerves, giving her time to become certain.

Push him away, or let him keep going.

Her hands lifted, hesitated.

"Are you doing this just to prove you're not scared?" Zelda whispered.

His nose brushed hers, just like before, but he didn't pull away this time.

"No," he whispered back, and her hands settled on his shoulders, eyes fluttering shut.

About a half-second before their lips touched, he realized he had no real idea what he was doing. It was too late to pull away now, and he was certainly not going to pause and talk that out, so he pressed his lips to hers for just a moment, then pulled away, staring down with burning cheeks as his heart and mind raced a million miles a minute.

He'd seen people kiss. It was just a touch of the lips. Surely he couldn't have messed up something so simple. But what if he had?

Zelda giggled, and his head snapped up, simultaneously horrified and affronted as he slowly pulled away from her cheeks. Her face was charmingly flushed, but she pressed her hands over her mouth, giggling again.

An embarrassed sense of devastation sank deeper into him. She was laughing. He'd kissed her, and she was laughing!

With a hurt scowl, he pulled back farther, but she caught his upper arms, shaking her head with a big grin, eyes squeezed shut and head ducked.

"No. No, it's not-" She giggled again, hands returning to her face like magnets, covering more than just her mouth this time. "Sorry! I just…"

Sucking in a breath, she lowered her fingers just enough to peek at him. "I'm not laughing at you, I promise. I don't even know why-" She let out another string of wobbly giggles. "I'm happy, I swear."

He stared at her, bewildered, as she started to sink deeper into her hands again with more of the same, funny little giggles. Offense turning into fascination, he tugged her hands from her face, ducking his head to look at her. She let out an undignified and admittedly very cute squeak, turning her head away.

"No, wait, don't look at me," she said, words bubbling with the same laughter as he shifted to follow, refusing to let her hide as a grin of his own started to grow.

She was embarrassed.

Hah!

"You're embarrassed!" Link said in delight.

Her hands pulled from his just so she could press them over his face, skin turning redder. "Shut up! I don't want to hear that from the boy who can't read a kiss scene!"

With a curious sense of enthrallment, he did his best to kiss the hand shoved over his mouth, resulting in a squawk as she pulled it to her chest, clutching her hand as though he'd bitten it.

"I can do a kiss scene though," he said, any embarrassment having fled by a pure sense of triumphant glee as he leaned closer again.

"Oh- You- Wipe that look off your face!"

"Nope," he replied, popping the 'p' with a smug smile.

Her fists curled into his shirt, yanking him into a second kiss hard enough for their noses to bump awkwardly on the way as his eyes went wide. Pulling back, she glared at him challengingly, while he stared back stupidly.

"I can do a kiss scene too. And obviously, I can also read them and talk about them just fine."

He blinked out of his stupor as she let go of him, leaning back with a haughty toss of her hair.

"That means I win," she added, crossing her arms. "Unless you think you can do me better?"

Several moments passed as she waited for his reaction.

"Give me the book."

Zelda blinked, arms unfolding slowly. "Huh?"

He climbed back over her, reaching under the bed. "I'm getting the book back out."

"Are you serious?"

"Yes! I'm going to read it aloud," he said stubbornly as he strained to grab the corner of it, slowly pulling it closer. 

"That's not what I-" she sputtered. "I meant for- Oh, for the love of… Forget it!"

"I'm going to read more of them than you ever have," he muttered as he twisted to settle next to her. "You'll never be able to get to me again like that."

He'd be un-flusterable, never again to be embarrassed by something as silly as a kiss scene.

"We'll see about that," Zelda scoffed. "I hope you'll be ready to test that statement."

"I'll be more than ready," he declared, before beginning to read again.

He got through about two more paragraphs before he had his burning face pressed into the pages. Zelda, similarly, had buried her face against her knees.

"Where did you even get this?" he asked into the fold of the book.

"Um, the library?" Zelda said sheepishly.

"And someone let you walk out of there with this thing?"

Her response was something akin to a verbal, embarrassed shrug.

"From now on… you… you ask about the contents," Link said, face sliding down the pages bit by bit until it slid off entirely, landing on his knees as the book rested upon his head like a hat where he held it. "And this…" He lifted the book slightly, despite the fact that Zelda wasn't looking, before letting it drop to rest on his head again. "We're returning this as soon as possible."