Running (FOUR SWORDS FANFICTION!)

Blue's Point of View

"Vio, are you sure  you want to be here?" Green asked him, looking around the ruins of one room.

"What makes you think I'm not?" He asked. His tone was cool, but it had a certain chill to it that made it sting.

I looked at him and said in a voice so soft it surprised me, "Last time we were all here, you nearly died and we destroyed Shadow Link."

He swallowed. "If I'm ever going to see him again, I need to be here." he took a deep breath. His tone wasn't as chilled as before, now he just seemed...numb, like he had spent forever applying ice to this particular wound until he couldn't feel it and yet was still painfully aware it was there.

He stood still for some reason, staring at something. 

"Vio?" Red poked him on the shoulder and his head snapped towards him, he looked shocked.

And I remembered Vio telling me stuff about it.

He called it dissociating, and said it was a response to trauma, he talked about it when he caught me rocking back and forth while--I thought--everyone was asleep. He also pointed out that I had a tendency to focus on some small, unimportant things, go numb, etc. he suggested it because of that one time I nearly froze to death. I had shrugged it off, thinking I could tough it out.

Vio looked really out of it. Staring at us like we weren't real, and whenever we said something, he failed to remember what we talking about and for a brief moment when he didn't respond and we were all--fine, when I was shouting his name over and over again, he looked at me like he didn't remember what he was doing or what I was saying.

When Red and Green weren't listening, I pointed it out to him.

"...I can't believe you remember that conversation," he said, shaking his head.

"I can't, either."

"...I'll be fine."

"Something happened...something more you haven't told us."

He didn't reply and Green gave the brilliant suggestion of spitting up to cover both halves of the temple in a slightly more reasonable time. meaning, I was left alone with Vio.

He stood perfectly still for a minute. 

"Vio?"

"Come on." He threw me a look and started running through the building. I decided to follow him. It was shocking how empty the fire temple was, nothing more than a few rodents, a couple of spiders, we came across two keese total, but nothing else.

And when Vio stopped it was right in front of a door that he stared at silently before opening. 

The room didn't contain much, but a bed with purple and black covers, though the mattress was pretty small, and a table with a couple of objects on it.

I looked at the bed. Vio glanced at it, his look almost longing.

"I thought it was too small for what we always did on it, but he would always say it meant he got to be closer to me." He swallowed.

"What did you guys do? Anal?"

"No, he wasn't ready..."

"I was joking, I didn't want an actual response." I wasn't necessarily eager to think about Shadow and Vio fucking each other's brains out, but goddesses, was I thinking about it now.

"There's holes in the blanket." I picked it up and looked. It almost looked like moth holes, but I realized that the blanket was purple and the edges of the hole were black and rough. And there was a red stain.

Vio looked at me sadly. "He self-harmed. Cut his arm open, burned his skin, stuff like that."

"That's not good..."

"He heard voices, they wanted him to hurt people and himself. He used to be half-asleep in bed clinging to me so tightly he'd leave bruises on me." He shook his head. "He really just needed a nudge in the right direction, when all he got was shoved in the wrong direction. I could have been that nudge."

I saw something poking out from beneath the bed.

I made the mistake of getting on all fours and looking. "Think one of these sex toys belonged to him?"

Vio's entire face went red. "We are not gonna use one of Shadow's cock rings to summon him from the afterlife, Blue."

"Did he use them on you?"

"...no..." His nose started bleeding.

Over on the desk was a book, a knife, a box of matches and...

Vio looked over the objects, holding his sleeve to his nose before gasping. "His hat! He has a spare hat right here! This belonged to him!"

"What's with the book?"

Vio looked at it. "Oh. he uh...gave that to me. Ugh, I never got a chance to finish it because of..." He picked it u. "I'm taking this with us too."

He frowned at the matches. 

I always assumed he hated fire because of his precious books, but with the thought of Shadow burning his skin, I realized that Vio might have hated fire for a totally different reason.

All of a sudden, he was on the bed, head in his hands.

"Vio?"

"Why didn't I just...talk to him?"

I sat down next to him while he went on.

"He wasn't unreasonable, I could have explained it to him, explained that I had no intention of staying and every intention to defeat him, but I had honestly fallen in love with him and couldn't, I could have told him I loved him and that he was good, and that I wanted his help in returning peace to Hyrule. I could have joined up with you guys and let him meet you, he was so damn lovable when he wasn't being evil, he could have been good, and he could have lived."

"I'm sure he understands now."

"I don't want him to understand, I want him to be alive, I didn't want to hurt him." He ran his hands through his hair. "What kind of a hero am I? Maybe he was a villain, but he was also a victim. I could have helped him, but instead, I made everything worse."

"Maybe you could have helped him, but you didn't."

"Wow, thanks, Blue, that makes me feel a lot better, let's just g--"

"Everything is already done with, Vio. And yeah, this all sucks, and it's probably all scarred us for life, but we can't change this. We can't change what we already did. But we can still save him."

"You know...when you aren't being a douche...you're a good guy, Blue."