#poor twi

Without missing a beat.

Twilight clenched his jaw. It could have just been a coincidence, right? Chili is a normal thing to make on cold nights. A completely normal answer with no comedic value at all. But Twilight knew his predecessor too well and when he glanced at Time’s bloodied face, there was that undeniable glint of mischief in his single eye.

Not again, Twilight thought while suppressing a sigh. The best thing to do was to ignore him and not give him any encouragement or satisfaction. So they spent the last minutes walking to the camp in silence.

Finally they broke through the tree line into the camp.

“What the hell happened to you guys?” Warriors was the first to spring to his feet.

“Monsters,” Twilight grunted and gently eased Time to the ground next to the fire.

“I gathered that much,” Warriors said while helping Time sit.

“Didn’t we agree to be extra careful since we ran out of potions?” Four chided.

Hyrule rushed over with the medical bag and began pulling supplies. “We can at least get him patched up for now. The map we got shows there should be a town a day’s hike from here. He’ll be okay.” He pressed a cloth to the deep wound on Time’s leg and the elder hissed at the sudden pressure. “Sorry. Just rest and lay down, we’ll take care of you in no time.”

“I’m fine…” Time barely managed to say through slurred words and stubbornly remained sitting upright.

“Time, you’re bleeding out and you have a concussion. Lay down,” Twilight demanded.

“No.” Despite his protests, Time’s gaze seemed to fade out of focus and his body wavered with fatigue.

“You’re being stubborn, Old Man.”

Time’s eye refocused and slowly drifted to meet Twilight’s stern glare. “Stubborn,” he repeated weakly. “One might even say I’m…resisting a rest…”

Warriors and Twilight exchanged a pained look. Twilight though he had stopped Time’s onslaught earlier, but it was apparent Time was only just beginning. Don’t react, Twilight’s frown read. He turned his glare to Time and forced him to lie down with an unrelenting hand.

“What caused this?” Wind asked, innocently cutting through the tense atmosphere. The Sailor scooted closer to Time and Twilight eagerly.

“He took a lizalfos spear to the leg,” Twilight indicated toward the persistently bleeding wound under Hyrule’s hands. “And a stalfos got him in the head with a club.”

Hyrule removed one hand from his task to rummage through the medical bag, handing Twilight a cloth to dab at Time’s bloody face. “I’m just glad you guys got here when you did. Any later and things would have gotten critical.”

“Then you all would have been Timeless,” came a mumble from their stoic leader’s mouth.

Somewhere behind Warriors, Legend sighed heavily and Twilight cleared his throat loudly to get the Veteran’s attention. When they met eyes, Twilight shook his head with a fierce scowl in warning.

Sky joined them with a bowl of water to help clean Time’s wounds.

“Thanks, Sky,” Twilight said and took the bowl.

“Anything else I can do?” The Skyloftian asked with concern written in his features.

Twilight shook his head. “Let’s just give him some space.”

“Wouldn’t want too many of you working over-Time,” the Old Man added quietly from the floor.

It took every ounce of strength in Twilight to remain passive as he continued to dab at Time’s wound with a wet cloth.

“That must have been a pretty nasty blow to the head,” Wild commented from his place by the cook pot. Twilight couldn’t tell if Wild was commenting underhandedly about Time’s crappy puns or if he was just making an innocent observation. Either way, he wished everyone would keep their mouths shut so they wouldn’t fuel Time’s bad jokes.

“That stalfos was just trying to kill time,” Time continued, sufficiently egged on by their lack of acknowledgement. “But he didn’t have the guts.”

Twilight closed his eyes, trying to maintain composure. “Enough ‘time’ jokes. Just rest and save your strength,” he growled.

Time placed a feeble hand over Twilight’s. “Forgive me, Pup,” he relented. Maybe he was tired enough to concede with ease, Twilight hoped silently. “I didn’t intend to make you feel second-hand embarrassment.”

Up until now, Twilight commended his companions for remaining unresponsive to Time’s jabs in an effort to stem the flow of nonsense spewing from his mouth. He didn’t fault Wind for letting out a snort, it was a miracle the kid even lasted this long.

Unfortunately, Wind’s reaction allowed Time to zero in on him. “Hey, Sailor. I’d like your expert insight on something.”

“Yeah?” Wind was practically trembling in anticipation.

“Wind, I swear to the Goddesses.” Twilight didn’t hold back his stinging tone as he glared at the teen.

Time paid no heed to his Pup’s heated warning. “Where do boats go when they’re sick…?”

Before Twilight could snap at either of them, Legend groaned from the far side of the camp. “If you say ‘to the doc’, you’re dead to me.”

“To the doc?” Wind ventured as if he didn’t hear Legend’s threat.

Time closed his eye and nodded sagely. “To the doc,” he repeated in affirmation.

The man was delirious. He had lost so much blood that all fronts of authority and seriousness fell away and he resorted to his inner childish impulses. Once a Kokiri, always a Kokiri, Twilight thought and sighed sharply.

“I wonder…” Time was far from done, it seemed. He continued his focus on Wind. “If we call gulls that fly over the sea ‘seagulls’, then wouldn’t it stand to reason that gulls that fly over the bay be called ‘bagles’?”

Wind burst with laughter and Twilight seethed.

“He could at least make them good jokes,” Four muttered across from them.

Twilight needed to distract Time not only from his jokes but because his words were slurring more and his eyelid kept threatening to fall. He shouldn’t sleep with a concussion this soon, so Twilight diverted Time’s focus to his two favorite topics: Malon and sweets. “Tell me something, Time.”

His mentor turned his head slightly to shift his attention to his protégé.

“You never told us about the cake you and Malon had at your wedding. What flavor was it?”

Time hummed with a soft smile at the memory. “Vanilla with strawberries. Simple, but it’s her favorite. I didn’t think she could look more beautiful,” he rambled. Twilight silently celebrated his success in deterring more jokes. “But when she walked out with that dress…and her hair was like fire…and the cake…” Time trailed off, so Twilight gently jostled his shoulder. “Mm…She was so beautiful that the cake…was in tiers…”

“Merciful Din,” Twilight cursed. Another distraction- he needed to keep throwing distractions at him.

Four seemed to have caught on to what Twilight was attempting to do, so he offered another question. “Did you mean it when you said you fought the moon once?”

“Mmhmm,” Time nodded.

“What was that even like?”

“It was out of this world, Smith.”

Four, Farore bless his heart, pressed on. “That must have been pretty tough.”

Time shrugged, like fighting the literal moon was no big deal. “It was weird, if anything. It had a face.”

“Whaaat!” Wind exclaimed and rocked back in disbelief. “Did it have hair, too?”

“Nah.”

A strange question to ask, Twilight thought. He glanced up at the Sailor and saw a devious grin spread across his face. “Wind, whatever you’re about to say-”

“If it did have hair, how would the moon get it cut?”

Time’s shit-eating grin mirrored Wind’s. “Eclips it…”

Twilight was so close to throttling the kid, but he resigned to changing the subject again. “Anyway,” he shot a glare at the Pirate.

“Twi, just give up,” Legend groaned. “He’s too far-gone.”

“Your ocarina,” Sky piped up, pausing his work on a new carving. “How long did it take you to get the hang of playing it?”

“Well,” Time rubbed a hand over his tired eye. “It wasn’t that hard. I had people teach me the magical songs and I had to play it by ear.”

“Wow, that’s some talent,” Sky said. The poor knight didn’t know what he had walked into.

“Yeah, playing by ear isn’t easy by any means. But now I just use my hands…”

“Okay, enough with the dad jokes, already!” Twilight couldn’t hold himself back any longer. This had to end.

“They aren’t dad jokes.”

“Yeas they fucking are. Now please would you just-”

Though his voice was weak, Time plowed on and interrupted him without hesitation. “I don’t have kids, so they aren’t dad jokes.”

“Fine, whatever, I really don’t care. Just stop-”

“Anyone who makes dad jokes without actually being a dad…it would be a faux pa…”

“I am literally about to murder you, Old Man.”

“Hey, Captain.”

“Please leave me out of this,” Wars grumbled.

“What do you call a smart clock?”

“Now is really not a good time. You’re bleeding out, you have a concussion and we have no potions and you’re making puns.”

Time didn’t care. “Clock-wise…”

Warriors threw his hands up in defeat.

“Magic can do a great many things, Traveler.” Time aimed his next barrage at Hyrule, who nodded in agreement with Time’s statement. “But I know a way to make a handkerchief dance without imbuing it with magic.” He paused for dramatic effect. “You put a little boogie in it.”

Wind was in stitches on the ground and Twilight was seeing red. He envied Hyrule for his strength because the entire time, the Traveler wore a passive smile while continuing to bandage Time’s leg without a single complaint. Four groaned and plopped his head on Sky’s shoulder, who couldn’t help but chuckle at the scene. Wild was biting his lip in an earnest attempt not to laugh. Legend pressed his hands together as if in prayer and bent his head down with his eyes closed. Perhaps he was pleading to the Goddesses to end their collective suffering.