Work Text:
Zelda stole glances at her boyfriend, Link, as she sat on a stump in the clearing below his tree house nursing a splinter in her thumb. They, or admittedly at the moment only he, were putting a bed together she'd had special delivered from Hyrule when she discovered that he didn't have a proper sleeping situation for two.
"Enjoying the view?" Link's eyes twinkled at her when he looked over his shoulder and swung the mallet again. He hit the wooden peg, making a show of the loud thwacks and grunts accompanying his swings with the only goal to make her hot and bothered.
Zelda playfully rolled her eyes, but refrained from responding with a teasing comeback. She did enjoy the way his muscles flexed every time he swung the mallet. "What can I say? It's not every day a handsome hero uses his prowess to build furniture for me."
Link chuckled, waggling his eyebrows at her, but his attempt at flirting ended when, with his next swing, the mallet hit his thumb. He cursed, shook his hand out, and put his thumb in his mouth to ease the pain. "Wasn't this supposed to be a team-effort anyway?" he mumbled around the digit when Zelda shot him a compassionate look and patted the spot next to her on the stump.
"I've got another splinter. I guess I'm not doing enough work with my hands if they go in that easily."
A shadow fell over her when Link moved to stand before her, a line between his brows, eyes on the thumb she was pinching. "Let me look at it."
"It will work its way out, eventually," she said, brushing off his concern with a wave of her hand.
She couldn't help smiling when he caught it in his own. His own injury forgotten, he knelt and gently prodded the pad of her thumb with a fingernail. Then he brought it to his lips for a healing kiss. "All better?"
"Much." She smiled, reaching for the instructions beside her to scrutinize the directions and accompanying pictures. All teasing aside, he'd managed to attach the slats that would support the mattress, but the headboard was giving him more trouble than Fado's goats, and refused to budge. And he hadn't even started on the foot-board leaning against the ladder to his quaint home.
Since she had no experience in building things, she had been of little help apart from holding a piece of wood here and there. Link swore he didn't need the instructions to build something as simple as a bed, but his results looked…well, not like a bed yet.
Zelda cleared her throat. "Maybe we should ask Rusl for help?"
"What? No, I have this under control!" Link protested, snatching the directions from her. He scrutinized them with a scowl on his face, as if the sheer existence of instructions were an offense to his abilities as a self-made carpenter.
Gently, Zelda took the sheet out of his hands and turned it right-side up. "This way."
He huffed and crumbled the paper. "I think I need you to hold it steady, is all."
"I can manage that." Zelda chuckled and rose from her seat. She positioned herself to keep the headboard bearing the royal crest in one place while Link pounded in the wooden pegs. The more the construction became something that actually looked like a bed, the more his grin grew. Finally, they arranged the foot of the bed, and Link drove the final peg into the wood with a triumphant, "Hi-yah!"
He wrapped his arm around her waist to admire their work. "We make a good team, Zel," he praised, grinning widely. "With or without instructions."
"Indeed." Zelda leaned into him, breathing in his earthy scent. The shadows had grown longer in the hollow while they'd been working and soon it would be dark. "Should we get it inside before the sun sets?"
As always, Link possessed boundless energy and without further delay, other than to give her a peck on the cheek, went to work hauling the bed frame up the ladder using a crude pulley system. Zelda's job was to stay on the ground and keep it from taking damage on the way up and together they managed well enough.
Once it reached the landing, Link kicked the door open and shifted around the bed now standing vertically on the deck. Zelda winced when he tilted it and one of the beveled ornamental knobs scraped against the doorjamb. He tried again, from a different angle, and was met with the same result. After twenty minutes of heavy grunting, he gave up and shrugged helplessly.
Zelda had watched from below, biting her lips more with every passing minute.
Breathing heavily, he finally leaned on the railing, and gave Zelda a sheepish look. "Maybe I should have listened to you when you suggested we put it together inside the house."
Zelda sighed and stated what they both already knew. "It doesn't fit through the door."
Link chuckled, blue eyes twinkling. "Not even close."
"Maybe now is the time to finally get Rusl," Zelda suggested quietly. She didn't want to quash his humor, but she was getting tired and the situation promised another hour of work or two.
Link glanced at the evening sky that had turned from purple to obsidian while he had been hopelessly wrangling with the bed. "No…he and Uli are putting the kids to bed. I'd rather not bother him if we don't have to." He shot her a boyish grin. "But I have an idea. Give me five minutes. And don't look!"
Zelda frowned and with a sigh, slumped on the tree stump again. If Link had one of his ideas, it was pointless to try and talk him out of it. She just hoped his plan involved the soup that had been simmering in the cooking pot while they'd been working.
She heard a lot of heavy things being moved around and she half-feared he was removing the doorjambs to get the bed in, but then a single feather drifted to the ground in front of her and it dawned on her what he was up to. She grinned.
"You can come up now!" he called.
Zelda leaped up and climbed the ladder, to find the new bed with the beautiful royal crest sitting directly in front of her on the landing. Link had managed to squeeze the frame onto the narrow platform and had brought the mattress and their bedding outside, together with steaming bowls of soup and cups of tea on the nightstand.
He gave her a soft and inviting. "Ready to stargaze? It's a clear night, we should be fine outside. I'll unbolt the frame tomorrow, with Rusl's help, so we can bring it in."
The gentle night breeze toyed with Zelda's hair and she blushed. "I've never spent a night outside, but stargazing with you sounds lovely."
Link laughed and threw himself onto the bed in spread-eagle fashion. It made an alarmingly cracking noise at the impact but remained intact. He rolled over to make room when Zelda joined him with a little more grace but no less enthusiasm.
Smiling, she nestled against him, feeling the comforting heat of his body. Only Link possessed the ability to turn a failed plan into something amazing. His hand absently grazed her arm as they gazed up at the evening sky, dotted with twinkling stars. In that peaceful moment, Zelda knew there was no place she'd rather be.