( #002 ) FAKE MARRIED AU

[chatona]

the 'fake married' meme

be it for a job, in order to get your inheritance or to fool your nosy neighbours, you are pretending to be married. now the question is, do you want it to be real or can you hardly wait for it to be over?

Comments

[sagacities]

[once, Hyrule had been a land of strife, plagued by an evil king who sought nothing but unlimited power for his own personal gain. that time has long since passed, though, since said king had been vanquished by a hero who disappeared just as suddenly as he'd shown up. for all the turmoil it's been through, the kingdom has finally started to revert to its normal state of peace.

for the crown princess Zelda, this naturally meant finding a suitable husband to help her rule the land and its people. she, however, has no interest in settling down in any fashion. having been on the lam and in disguise for the better part of seven years has given her a sense of adventure that's rather unladylike. it soon became sort of a pastime for her to slip past the castle's guards in order to explore the land without having to worry about the day-to-day affairs of running her kingdom.

it was purely by chance that she ran into the man who insisted on calling himself Star-Lord one day. on one of her romps as her alter ego Sheik, the two had been after the same thing: a vaguely described treasure that was claimed to belong to an offshoot of Hyrule's Royal Family. it was bogus, of course, but during their time together in search of the treasure, Zelda saw something in him that the both of them could benefit from... (this may have perhaps been the first time her innate wisdom had steered her slightly off course. but does she care? not really. he's not a terrible guy; he's no Ganondorf, and anyone in the world is preferable to that jerk.)

this was the proposition she had made him: agree to be her husband (only on paper and for show, of course) and allow him join the Royal Family in order to quell the gossip hungry subjects and advisers ("why hasn't the princess married yet?" "are her standards too high?" "is she really that much of a tomboy?"), in return for letting her live a free life and maybe even gaining a partner in borderline-but-mostly-harmless crime. how could anyone resist?]

Did you know that you're the youngest king in all of Hyrule's history?

[nostalgiabomb]

Huh. Am I really?

[ He shrugs at that bit of information – and the title still has a sort of funny ring to it. He definitely understands why Zelda would want an arrangement like this; he’s only been the public eye for, like, ten seconds in comparison to her, and he’s already chafing under all the scrutiny. ]

[ At the moment, they’re still going through the show of a courtship, sitting together in the courtyard of the castle. Peter’s had a lot of jobs that involved a whole lot of lying, and one of the first things he had said when he agreed to this was, “We need to make this look convincing.” So there had been a lot of chaperoned visits and gifts and holy hell it was the most tedious thing, and he’s sorry that they didn’t just up and announce the union out of the blue, like Zelda had suggested. The only silver lining is that they had pretty much finished going through the motions (the only thing left, now, was to make it official, at least on paper) and were provided some breathing room to themselves – in public, anyway; it’s not hard for a thief like Peter and practiced ninja like Zelda to sneak their way on and off the castle grounds.

(Naturally, when they snuck off to work a job, the assignments tended to be nothing too bad. Usually a lot of “retrieve this item that was stolen from me,” or “these guys are a-holes, please take away their magic ruby” or whatever. Peter’s not a total dick, after all.)

And aside from the accolades and the idea of, you know, being a goddamn king at least in title if not in responsibility, Peter knows that Zelda’s skills are seriously useful, and the idea of being partners was extremely tempting. His area of expertise is in lying to people to their faces with a charming smile, in switching out trinkets or divesting people of the goods in their pockets. It’s Zelda who has all the espionage skills, the stealth skills, who could slip in and out of a room without so much as a whisper or a breeze. And for a thief? Those are some seriously invaluable talents.

Still, the whole thing is—really fucking weird. Will he have to call himself Star-King for the sake of accuracy? Do they really expect him to, like, do parades and wave at people and perform charity work? Will they cotton on to the fact that he’s little more than a pickpocket and the marriage is basically a sham when he accidentally pilfers a ring off some dignitary’s finger? (Because he’s not a kleptomaniac by any means, but sometimes he just does that shit.)

Meh. They can worry about the particulars later. Peter’s always been the sort of person who lived in the moment, anyway, and at the moment, this has been a pretty sweet deal.

Which is why he favors Zelda with his most charming smile, eyebrow raised, looking every bit the roguish conman that he really is. ]

Pretty sure I’m the most handsome, too. I’m a serious catch, you know. You’re gonna have a lot of jealous women to contend with.