Family Drama

[sevenyearsasleep]

Who: Link, Clef, and possibly Shadow (Closed)
Where: Cinema Carriage
When: 19th Merriment
What: A long needed discussion.
Warnings: Family drama.



Link was taking some time to whittle while in the very back of the cinema carriage. His chores for the day were complete, and he was taking advantage of the break. He was working on a Deku Baba for Zelda, trying to see if he could hinge its mouth simply by cutting. He thought he had a plan figured out, and was hopeful he could get it to work by having someone press the top of the plant's "head".

He was still hurt and confused by the lack of contact from Clef. But, he firmly believed that since he and Shadow had returned for Clef, his adoptive father should do the same for Link.

There was a bit of a gap between should and would, however, and by this point, Link wasn't sure it was going to happen at all.

Comments

[guru_clef]

Clef was still not okay. Very not okay. But he needed to check on his son. Or at least let Link know that while he was still very hurt... he still did love him. And... he needed to see how Link was doing in the face of the revelation that Shadow hadn't actually been there.

Clef wasn't aware of how long it had been since they returned. He'd spent most of the time wrapped in an invisibility spell in a locked private car as lost in his pain as he usually was in his studies.

He wrapped that invisibility around him again and tried to look for his son, floating over the heads of most passengers. He had tried first the Garden car. Then the greenhouse. The most outdoorsy places he could think of on the train. Nothing. He tried the gym. No.

He wandered around, not sure where else to try when he spotted a shape in the... well he wasn't sure what car this was, honestly. Some sort of movie screen, perhaps? He had been passing through but the shape and then the motion caught his eyes.

Link.

He looked around. No one else here. All the same, probably best to put a sound sphere around them.

As soon as he figured out what to say.

For a while he just sat there, hovering silently, trying to figure it out.

Finally he realized that the perfect words just weren't going to come. So he took a deep breath and floated lower, creating a sound spell around them even as he dropped his invisibility.

Clef... did not look good. He wasn't trying to hide it or to look better than he felt. He looked like someone who had spent the last who knows how long not eating, not really caring for himself other than the absolute bare minimum.

He took a deep breath.

"I am still hurt, Link," he said softly, trying to will his voice not to crack. "But I wanted to make sure you knew that even hurt, I still love you. Even if you no longer want me for a father I will always see you as my son." Nope, his voice cracked. He started to turn away, hesitated.

"I'm sorry, it must have hurt.... realizing he wasn't really there. But... if I had stayed..." his voice broke. "I wanted you to have the comfort of the illusion as long as you could..." His floating was wobbling now. He thought he had been strong enough for this.

He wasn't.

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link looked up with a hurt expression.

As he listened his expression froze into one of pained confusion.

“We managed to get you out of being brainwashed and you immediately left us on a dying world, full of people who needed help. Why?!”

Link shook his head. “Shadow was there, and for the love of Nayru, don’t tell him you thought he wasn’t real, you hurt his feelings already. He's on the train now, Blue Team, like me.”

A deep breath. “You hurt mine too. You promised me you’d never ditch me. When I first agreed to be adopted. You promised me!”

[guru_clef]

"I LEFT YOU?!" WHAT? Just... what?!

"YOU LEFT ME! I just went back to the train, expecting you would be following a few minutes later! It was clear you only came back for me at the end because you had saved everyone else already! You were the one who left me! I was trying desperately to understand and you kept jumping around! I begged you boys to stop and calm down so we could talk about it more reasonably and you refused, and then you stopped calling me dad! You stopped wanting me to be my father, and then YOU LEFT ME! I was on the ground begging you to come back, desperate and hurting and you WALKED OUT. You didn't come back until the world was literally falling to ruins around us! You would have come back for ANYONE because you're a good person. You wouldn't abandon anyone to that. But if the world hadn't been falling apart, you probably would have never come back! YOU. LEFT. ME. And there was nothing I could do! I couldn't catch up to you! I couldn't ask for help for fear you would get hunted down as a voidtreker. I called you boys absent out of school and then there was NOTHING I COULD DO! I had no way to find you and even if I did? What then? You made it clear that because I was not capable of doing what you could do that you no longer wanted me around!"

So glad he shielded the area for sound.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I had to leave because you were hurting Shadow! I couldn't help you at that moment because you kept ignoring everything he had told you and everything he had shown you! Even I couldn't help you! Your home, your friends, nothing mattered to you! So, yes! I took Shadow and left. It wasn't an easy choice, but, it was the right choice. If I hadn't made that choice and let you go on ignoring him, I don't think he could've handled it."

Link was officially angry. He set his knife and project aside, eyes narrowed. "You know full well that sometimes I call you dad and sometimes I call you Clef, it depends on the day. You've never minded before!"

His fists clenched as he tried to reign in his own anger. "You are supposed to be the adult! And instead of staying by our side, to help the people who remained, you left us. You had your memories and you chose to go off and sulk."

[guru_clef]

"I was trying to listen and understand! But you two kept jumping from topic to topic so fast that I couldn't follow! I was TRYING! If we had sat calmly and talked it out logically, then no one would have had to be hurt! And I never minded enough to say something because my temper hurts you and I've been trying to keep it under control! But you changed to calling me Clef then like you were trying to make a point. Like you were trying to prove you no longer were effected by a Storm that made you think you were my son by more than choice! Like you were choosing NOT to see me as your father any more! And then you left!"

"Ic hose to leave because of the paradox! Because I saw it and my staying would have hurt you worse!"

[sevenyearsasleep]

"I was trying to make a point, trying to trigger your memory."

Link shook his head. "What paradox?"

[guru_clef]

"If the place was attacking us with fake memories... fake realities... things we wanted to believe that weren't real... Both of us being so desperate for Shadow to be there, both of us loving him as much as we do... it couldn't have been logically possible that he was actually there," he said, softly. "If I stayed, realizing that... all I could have done was hurt you worse."

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link stared at him.

"Clef. He was there. That place kidnapped all kinds of people from all kinds of places. We had to work hard to get them all home."

He had no idea how Clef's mind worked sometimes. "He's on the train now, it picked him up at the last platform. He's on the Blue Team, like me."

[guru_clef]

"What? WHAT?!" Just... what???? How... what....? That.... what?

Well, he has now been shocked and confused out of his pain for the moment.

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link sighed. "Why did you think we had been brought there in the first place?"

[guru_clef]

"I have no clue! Storms just happened, the train just brings us places! It only answered questions that once!"

"The train brought us there.... to pick up Shadow?!"

[sevenyearsasleep]

“…no. To get those people home.”

[guru_clef]

"....What people?" He was... so confused.

[sevenyearsasleep]

"The people who had been kidnapped like Shadow. Kidnapped and brainwashed. They needed help and you bailed."

[guru_clef]

"The.... other people weren't just part of the Storm?" He was so very very confused.

[sevenyearsasleep]

“No. They were real people who had been kidnapped and brainwashed just like us.”

Link bowed his head and took a deep breath.

“Do you even care how badly you hurt us? Either of us? Just a little?”

[guru_clef]

"Of course I care! I wasn't trying to hurt you! Either of you! I love you. That will never EVER change. And I never want to hurt you! I was trying to do what was best for you!"Even after you left him.

[sevenyearsasleep]

“Then why didn’t you listen to Shadow? Why did you ditch me, after everything I told you about what that does to me?”

Very quietly, he added, “Do you really know who we are?”

[guru_clef]

"I was trying to listen! And I didn't ditch you! I would never do that, Link! Again, I thought that you and I were the last ones out, that you were going to follow!" And again, you left him!

[sevenyearsasleep]

Clef, Shadow was going to snap, and it wasn’t going to be pretty.

“Do you know us? Really?”

[guru_clef]

"As much as the two of you let me, yes! I studied the book on Hyrule you told me to study, I listen when you both talk I talk and listen to Zelda. Do I know every last detail about you? No. I don't even know every last detail about myself!"

[sevenyearsasleep]

“That’s not…no. No. That’s not what I’m talking about. Do you know us? Our strengths? Our flaws? Did you listen to anything Shadow has ever told you about himself?”

Link took a shaking breath. “You can’t love someone you don’t know…”

[guru_clef]

"Of course I know you! And I just said I do listen! I did listen! I will listen! And how in the world do you think I don't know your strengths and weaknesses? You, Link, strengths including being strong, being very good morally. Skill wise being good with swords and shield, with animals. You are brave. You would save anyone who needs you, help anyone except apparently me," that last was muttered, and he hadn't even meant to say it. Sadly he always had control issues with his words when his emotions were riled. "You see the best in people, you have enormous confidence, you are friendly and easy to befriend. For flaws? When something doesn't interest you or is just for your own sake, you stubbornly fight against learning it or doing it. You hate when people make jokes while fighting. You can be dangerously reckless because you do not value your own life nearly as much as you should! You seem to cling almost proudly to your own ignorance in some cases. I know your strengths and weaknesses, Link. You're my son, of course I know!" He shouted.

As for Shadow...

"I try to know Shadow. But he doesn't want me to. He avoids me. I know some about him, not as much as I would like to. But that isn't the real issue, Link..."

"Love isn't just about what you know about a person." Why did this argument feel so reversed? "It is about emotion. No one gets to tell you how you feel, it is HOW YOU FEEL. So I can love anyone I love, even if I knew next to nothing about them. So yes I know you, yes I love you. But those are not as connected as you and Shadow seem to think they are!"

[sevenyearsasleep]

Link listened as Clef spoke until--

'help anyone except apparently me'

And then he stopped listening. Anything else Clef said became just a dull buzz. Those long Hylian ears had picked up one of the most hurtful things Clef could have thrown his way. Link started to shake slightly.

'-isn't the real issue, Link...'

The hurt melded smoothly with anger. "How dare you accuse me of not helping you. I have been trying to help you since you adopted me. Trying to make sure you notice people, notice before they leave because of how much you hurt when they're gone--and you accuse me of not helping you?!"

He stood up, gripping the seats on either side of him.

"I told you. I told you. I had to leave because you were hurting Shadow. I needed to get him away from that for his sake and yours. I came back for you, even Shadow came back, and you're still accusing me of not helping you?!"

Link took a few shaking breaths through gritted teeth. "You can't say things like that and then tell someone you love them. Do you even know how it sounds?"

[guru_clef]

"You didn't come back until the world was ending! You left me laying there on the floor, hurting, desperate, begging for help and then came back only when it was come back or let me die! You could have come back once he was settled and we could have figured things out together so we could have helped him and everyone else together! I begged you not to leave and YOU LEFT AND DID NOT COME BACK FOR DAYS!"