By Candlelight
Missing Scene from Sunset part 14
OR
Pure self-indulgent angst because I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO THINK ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE BUT THOSE HYRULE AND TIME PANELS FOR 12 HOURS and have no self control
(782 words)
Twilight turned his head restlessly on his pillow, dry, cracked lips mouthing silent words. White light flared again from Hyrule’s hands and before Time’s eyes Twilight stilled, his breath deepening and coming slightly easier.
Then Hyrule swayed and grabbed at the bedpost to hold himself up. Time crossed the room in an instant, gripping his shoulders from behind to steady him. Hyrule flinched, and Time was reminded for the thousandth time how little he understood the traveller’s limits.
“I’m fine,” Hyrule insisted, but his voice was weak. Dark circles ringed his eyes. “I can do this.” Time nodded, trying for a comforting smile, and gently steered Hyrule into the chair beside Twilight’s bed. It was impossible not to be worried when Hyrule didn’t even fight him, but only slumped over, gripping his hair with both hands, fingers digging into his scalp.
“I’m not giving up.”
“I know,” Time said softly, crouching down in front of Hyrule. “But you need to rest for a little bit now, okay? You can’t help Twilight if you collapse on us.” Hyrule’s eyes widened as he registered his hands trembling in the candlelight. Time wordlessly handed him one of the bottles of green potion from the table and watched as he obediently downed half of it.
“Hyrule,” Time began, then stopped. For Hyrule to take on the entire responsibility for Twilight’s life was so wrong. He was too young. They all were.
But that’s how it always is for us, I guess.
“How’s he doing?”
Hyrule rubbed roughly at his eyes. “He’s hanging in there. He’ll pull through. He has to.”
Oh goddesses. He’s trying to protect me. Time kept his voice determinedly gentle.
“Can you tell me the truth?”
Hyrule stared at him, shocked. “Time…”
“Please,” Time said quietly. “Please just tell me.”
Hyrule looked away, wrapping his arms tightly around himself. “I… I’ve never seen a wound like this. It doesn’t feel like an injury, more like… a shadow, tearing him apart from the inside. Something rotten and old and full of hate and… and sadness, Time. I keep trying to fight it out of him but it’s like it slips away from me and then creeps back up on us from behind…” He stopped, steadying his hitching breath as a shudder went through him, and looked up again, stubbornness blazing out of exhausted hazel eyes. “I’ve fought shadows before. I can do this.”
“I know you can,” Time told him, because he thought it was what Hyrule needed to hear. Then, as Hyrule managed a small, weary, determined smile, his eyelids drooping as if he was struggling to keep them open, Time wanted to take the words back, because what if he was wrong? What if what Hyrule needed, actually, was to be told that it was okay if he couldn’t? But Time couldn’t say that, couldn’t even admit it to himself as a possibility, because it wasn’t okay, it never could be.
Because without Hyrule and his absolute, reckless refusal to admit defeat, Twilight would already be dead.
Or worse than dead. What are you, shadow full of hate? What do you want from us?
Time shook his head to clear it. “Your Life spell is something else,” he murmured. “I’ve never felt anything so pure.”
Hyrule folded his arms on the table beside him and put his head down on them, as if he was too tired to hold it up anymore. “Holds life together.” His words were slightly slurred. “All the threads… in the right places…” His voice trailed off. “Not giving up,” he mumbled again.
Time straightened and turned back to the bed. Twilight lay so, so still. His tattoos stood out starkly against ashen skin. Time reached out to brush a strand of hair out of his eyes, though he knew Twilight wasn’t even aware of his presence.
There’s so much you still have to tell me.
By the time he looked back at Hyrule he was asleep with his head pillowed in his arms, his breathing deep and slow. Raw despair was etched across what could be seen of his face under his untidy hair. Time picked up one of the spare blankets and tucked it gently around the traveller’s shoulders. Usually so light a sleeper, Hyrule, completely exhausted, didn’t wake, but only nestled instinctively closer into the warmth.
This isn’t his responsibility. It’s mine. They all look to me as a leader. Sometimes, he thought, more than just a leader. Usually it moved him, when Wind or Twilight or even sometimes Wild looked at him as something closer to a father than anything Time himself had ever known. Now, that kind of trust just felt terrifying.
I can’t lose him. I can’t.
