#( hiiiii [drops this here and slinks away]

[balladetto]

     He doesn't realise how long it's been since he's seen his reflection in full until it happens.

     Link catches glimpses, sometimes. Has been catching more of them the less hard it becomes to connect a thought to an act: in the cups of tea he's beginning to hold again, along the polished edges of Granny Thera's plates when she guides his fingers around spoon handles, outlined by the fixed shadow he casts when Verley sits the both of them down by the hearth. On the days where Link's head doesn't feel so much like a sheet of glass all fogged up, he can see these flashes of what must be him in everyone's eyes, too. It's an image he's been trying to piece together longer than anyone knows.

     Peering back at him from the sun-washed waters of the village pond, marred by endless ripples, it's an image he finds he can't recognise.

     This should bother him, some faded, isolated part of him thinks. Then the idea twists into something that feels easier to touch: should this bother him? Link traces the blank face coloured paler than he thinks he's ever remembered it, observes the dull flatness of the overgrown hair. There are hollows in the water where those eyes have sunken in. Those narrow shoulders are hunched lower than he feels they are. Beside this mess of pieces stands Granny Thera's reflection, gently holding its hand.

     Something within his chest aches, suddenly; sharp, and cold, and distantly familiar.

     It knocks him back into her side with a choked gasp, fingers squeezing tight and eyes snapping shut. The shape lingers on his eyelids, warping at the seams, and he compulsively pushes a palm against them in an attempt to chase it away. A whimper rolls in his throat because it hurts, and it keeps hurting even when Granny Thera tugs that hand off to pull him into a hug.

     "Oh, dearie," she frets. "Dearie, what's the matter?"

     Link shakes his head against her collarbone and grabs fistfuls of her shawl. Nothing. Everything. I don't know. I don't know who that is. The awful feeling beneath his sternum builds and builds and builds: the words sit somewhere he can't reach them, somewhere he can't reach any of them, the way memories of the experienced Before have been slipping through his grasp. I don't know who that is. I don't know who that is.

     Suspended as he is, he doesn't register moving. Isn't aware of stumbling along Granny Thera's shuffling steps as she leads him back the way they came. He is following a thread his body can't remember how to put down, afloat in that crushing current — then the quiet of his home, thick and stagnant, cuts through the echo of the pond's purling. The sun leaves. The smell of something staler than everything beyond these walls returns. Link swallows, and feels the work that takes.

     The thread snaps.

     Here, where he can only see himself mirrored in half-fractions, the calm is muffling. Thoughts of things lost, of things taken, of things he can't comprehend — the overwhelming too much of it all wanes against the soft comfort of apathy that blankets him once more.

     "We'll try again next time," Granny Thera murmurs as she runs a tender hand through his hair, patting a rhythm that he breathes to on his back. She carefully sits them on his bed.

     Link leans his head on her shoulder. He closes his eyes.

     He wants, with all that is still able to want, to apologise.

[ajokeformur-ray]

I was thinking maybe if (J x Pat x Reader) made/had dinner together?

Katieeee ~ 🥰💛🥰 hiiiii, darling!!!!😊 I had so much fun writing this! I hope that you enjoy it. It’s been a while since I wrote for the Ledger!OT3 so you’ll have to forgive anything rusty.

Please send @loveletterstoledger some love, she was so kind to read this over for me while it was being written and to tell me if these men were in character. I love you so much, angel!💙

Word count: 1, 714.

When you had somewhat jokingly said to J several days ago that you liked to live dangerously and that you wished you could do it more often...

... This hadn’t been what you had had in mind.

In fact, if you had known that this was what J had been planning, you would have backpedalled so fast out of that conversation that you would have slipped off the proverbial cliff.

You had been exhausted lately; everything was just too much and so overwrought were you that you barely had the energy to even think about making dinner for the three of you, let alone to actually do it.

You opened the freezer, sifted the contents around, and tried to concentrate on making a list of what you needed more of. 

You liked to do multiple things at once to at least give yourself the feeling of being put together,

But control is an illusion, this you knew, as did J.

So when you dropped the bag of frozen peas because the grip in your fingers suddenly went slack and you didn’t respond to Pat’s gentle calling of your name, J knew that you needed to give up the illusion for one night.

Enough was enough and if there was one thing J didn’t tolerate, it was you suffering in any kind of way.

“Y/N, are you okay?” Pat tried to get your attention once more and you seemed to finally register him as you nodded.

“What? Yeah, just - tired, is all. M’fine.”

You relinquished your grip on the bag of peas and Pat scoffed, his dark brows furrowed.

He, too, couldn’t abide even the idea of you suffering. Keeping you safe and healthy and happy was the one thing which held he and J together, most especially because you knew how to break through Pat’s tendency to jump to the defense quickly, and you could see through J’s attempts to put those very walls up in the younger man.

And love... Oh, there was so much of it between the three of you that sometimes did it feel like a fourth presence in the room, watching over the three human inhabitants and giving them a safe and homely feel when they three were all together at the end of a long day.

Pat shook his head in disbelief. He shot J a look over your shoulder and the elder man shrugged. 

Despite his casual attitude, however, J’s chocolate gaze was pinned on you. He didn’t like this. not one bit.

“You’re not fine. Come here, love.” With one hand on your elbow, Pat reached across the room and somehow grabbed a chair. He pulled it towards you and looked at you expectantly.

When you didn’t immediately react, Pat huffed again and pointedly - but with care - pushed down on your shoulder with the hand that had been wrapped around your elbow. “Sit down before you fall down, Y/N. You’re exhausted. When was the last time you went to sleep?”

“Last night. Haven’t been sleeping well, but I have been sleeping. I’m fine, Pat.”

J had been watching this exchange quietly. He said nothing, but he took in Pat’s tender frustration, your exhaustion and your obvious want for a night for your two loves by your side, where they belonged.

“You, ah - ya’ still want a taste of danger, doll?” 

You eyed J warily but he remained undeterred.

“Why don’t, ah - why don’t the kid and I make dinner, hm? Ya’ can sit and - “ J waved a hand around like he was trying to conjure the words up out of nowhere, “look pretty.” You sat there staring at J in disbelief and he nodded in approval. “Ya’ a natural!” 

You felt your face heat up in a blush at the easy compliment and J’s eyes seemed to deepen as he stood there looking at you, exhausted but still trying to function at your usual level.

You were a strong one; he had taught you that, and he was proud of you.

If J got his way, then dinner would be some paper takeaway menus and a phone call.

But Pat was a natural caregiver and you were worried enough as it was.

The last thing the younger of the two men wanted you to worry about was where the money for the takeaway was going to come from, and so he resolved to make you something.

It had been J’s idea and so the clown was going to help, whether he wanted to or not. 

There was nothing Pat wouldn’t do for you and in truth was J much the same. 

Though the two men were quite different, you were their common interest and the glue which held them together. 

This night was your comfort paramount, so exhausted were you and so desperately did you not even want to have to worry about even the small things.

With the decision made, J began to open cupboards, his eyes scanning the contents before he moved onto the next cupboard, not shutting anything, and Pat swore under his breath and began to move up behind J.

Pat pulled bits and pieces from the cupboards as he went, “J, will you stop? We’re meant to be helping, not create more mess!”

J grunted in acknowledgement that Pat had spoken and the younger man correctly translated the noise to be one of agreement, though J went no further.

He did, however, pointedly slam a cupboard door shut, making Pat clench his jaw against saying something as he began to put a meal together for the three of you. 

The peas you had grabbed earlier, some pasta (catered to any dietary restrictions or choices you had), some spices... a few more things from the freezer...

It had meant to be a group effort to make dinner but what ended up happening was that J leaned against the counter beside the oven top and made sassy comments with his arms folded over his eccentrically covered chest, and you approached Pat once steam began to curl up from the various saucepans and frying pans to wrap your arms around his waist.

You curled into Pat and he hummed, tipping his head back distractedly to awkwardly press a kiss to the nearest parts of you he could reach. 

Pat was fully focused on making dinner and his dark brows were furrowed as he taste tested and then chucked the used teaspoons into the sink. A double dipper he was not.

“Dinner’s ready. J, can you - “

Before Pat had finished speaking, you pulled away from him and J had, already in his hands, three plates. 

And so it continued that at the point where Pat would ask for something, J had already done it, and you realised that J hadn’t just been tormenting Pat.

He had been keeping the younger man company, observing how he cooked and how he preferred his food, and making sure that Pat didn’t hurt himself as he prepared dinner.

J cared and it made your heart swell in your chest at how subtle J’s affections were unless one knew how to look for them.  

Pat noticed, too, and as he grabbed two plates to take them over to the table, he casually kissed J’s cheek. “Getting soft in your old age, J?”

“Care-ful, kid-do,” J’s words were soaked in amusement - he enjoyed the banter as much as Pat did. “This old man’s not slow.”

You three sat at the table and Pat kept an eye on you as you both ate; J, for his part, was more preoccupied with keeping an eye on his younger partners. 

He wasn’t all that hungry, anyway, and he had seen some poptarts in the cupboard... 

To J’s relief, his younger partners had eaten, and he felt a part of himself, a part he liked to hide and otherwise deny even to his own self, become relieved to know that the people he chose to spend his precious time with were taking care of themselves - even if your own hand had been forced.

“Thank you for dinner, Pat,” Instead of simply getting up and starting with the dishes, you sat further forward and wrapped your arms around Pat’s neck. 

“You’re welcome, Y/N.” Pat kissed the side of your head and then you turned to the side, slowly unfurling your arms from around Pat and throwing yourself at J, who let you clamber onto his lap before his arms slinked around your waist like a sleepy boa constrictor; ensnared were you by all that the clown was, all that he had ever been and all that he would ever be.

“Someone’s sleepy, hm?”

You nodded, wanting to just... sink into royal purple and charcoal grey and to never again resurface. 

The heartbeat which pounded strongly in your ear was the lullaby which was sending you closer to a threshold consciousness, and you jolted upwards.

You had gotten so good at catching your own fall over the years.

J’s large, hot hand smoothed over the expanse of your back. He didn’t want to let you go, but he knew that you were close to giving in to your exhaustion and the dinner table was not the place for it.

“Here, Pat - let me do the dishes because you cooked.”

You made your way over to the sink with the dishes in your hands and once again did it seem as though Pat and J had a conversation over your shoulder, for the decision was not yours to make.

“A-ta-ta, no.” J seized the plates from you and dumped them in the sink. “Leave ‘em.”

You knew what J was trying to say: the dishes could wait. You, J’s greatest priority alongside Pat, couldn’t.

“Don’t be shocked, but - “ Pat wrapped an arm around you and tugged you into his side, “I’m with J on this one. Dishes can wait.”

Your eyes turned from one chocolate gaze to the other as exhaustion truly swept you up into its current.

Only Pat’s hold on you prevented you from being carried away by it and all you could say was, “cuddle pile?”

Pat’s grin made your heart drop to your stomach and J’s smirk made it melt.

HL OT3: @tsukiakarinobara    @1-800-dead-inside  @antonija89  @hotpacino @call-me-harley-quinn @devilshyenaaa