cw: non-graphic mentions of suicide & self-harm; some cursing
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It gets easier.
That's what surprises Link the most: that the people who picked him up out of the darkness weren't just saying it to be nice, weren't just saying it because it was the sort of thing you were supposed to say to someone who had just tried to kill himself.
It gets easier. No, really. Sure, there are bad days, hard days, days where he's so tempted to believe the part of himself that tries to convince him he's worthlessbrokenemptyunwantedleftbehindabandoned. There are days the pain is too big a burden to bear and the old scars on his wrists wink up at him, not quite begging to be reopened, but if he wanted to they wouldn't mind. There are days he hurts himself and days he doesn't, days he swears his mind and his body are conspiring against him, days he despairs that he'll carry this pain with him always.
Those days happen and they are real, and yet it still gets better. For every bad day there's a good day, and for every good day there are three not-bad-not-good-just-ordinary days. There are days he lies in the sun and sleeps and sleeps, deep and dreamless, and wakes up with the most horrible sunburn. There are days he sits in the shade by the river and lets his feet trail in the cool water until the fish start nibbling at his toes. There are days he gets ambitious and bakes way too much bread using the pumpkins that weren't sold or canned or turned into soup, and when he delivers some to Rusl and Uli's front door Colin answers it and he doesn't flinch or look away.
Colin, who was there that night five years ago. Colin, who wasn't supposed to be there. Colin, who was still just a kid when he found Link lying in the grass waiting for his life to bleed out of his arms.
It took Link so long to learn how to look Colin in the eye after that day. What do you say to the person who thwarted your chance to escape your life and all its horrible burdens? What do you say to the person whose childhood you definitely ruined by adding on to the trauma that already keeps him up most nights? What do you say to the person who's basically your little brother, who loves you and thinks the world of you, after he witnesses the part of you that you so desperately tried to keep hidden from him?
Turns out there's a lot of crying involved. A lot of crying, and a lot of hugs, and it's messy and hard at first but like everything in this life, it gets easier.
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It doesn't get easier.
It's easy to wax poetic about progress and hope on good days. On bad days, Link looks back at his optimism and laughs—part of him is cynical, jaded, and another part of him wonders desperately how to get back into that sweetly naive mindset because anything is better than the hellscape his mind is today.
There's so much he's supposed to do and he just… can't. Can't drag his ass out of bed. Can't feed Epona, much less exercise her. Can't make it to the ranch to help Fado. He knows he'll get chewed out later, because it's nearly kidding season and the pregnant goats are stubborner than ever, and of course Ilia will have something to say about Epona's mistreatment. It's not that he's doing it on purpose. Or maybe he is, because on days like this, everyone finally has a reason to treat him the way he ought to be treated: like dirt. He's so fucking pathetic, so useless. Just a stupid self-destructive asshole. He hasn't eaten today and he stinks, literally. He's still in bed, wearing yesterday's clothes because he was too exhausted to take them off, and his bedsheets are twisted and sweaty from last night's requisite nightmare. His dreams mock him, twisting his memories into grotesque reminders of everything that's wrong with him: he gets his ass handed to him by the skeletal Hero's Shade (you're such a disappointment), nearly has his face chewed off by a ReDead Knight (fucking coward), watches frozen as an ethereal teardrop drifts toward the Mirror of Twilight (idiot, how could you ever think she'd want to stay with you when all you ever do is fall apart, you worthless piece of shit).
Rumor has it, the princess wants to build a statue of him. The thought makes Link laugh so hard he cries. A statue! Of him? If only she could see him now. Is this the hero she wants the people to remember? Sure, send the artists out to get a sketch, let the sculptors render his glorious breakdown in marble, capture his exquisite inadequacy for posterity. Erect him in Castle Town Square so the people can see the price of their salvation. This is the cost of a kingdom! he wants to scream. One life for thousands. Sounds like a great deal until you're the one paying the toll. He'll carry this with him for the rest of his life, and a pretty statue is the only compensation he'll get.
He hopes the gods are laughing, wherever they are.
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How do you tell the people who love you that their love isn't enough?
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It gets easier, it doesn't get easier, it gets easier. It swings from one to the other, changing day by day like the ebb and flow of the tide, the phases of the moon.
He never gets the chewing-out he so dearly desired. Colin takes his shift at the ranch. Ilia comes over to get Epona, promises she'll take care of her for him. Uli brings food, patiently insists until he eats it. They'll help him as long as he needs.
What hurts the most is that they're not doing it out of pity. They do it because they love him and they want to see him through this. Kindness spills from their hands so easily, so readily. They forgive every wrong without question, without blame. Link knows they're not deluding themselves, either, not just doing it for an imagined version of him that's better, more worthy. They've seen his hurt, they see it now, and they're not looking away. They look at him, all of him, even the parts he despises, and they decide they love him anyway. They love him, not despite his badness, but because it is a part of him. He has always seen it as a disease, a swath of rotting flesh to be cut off and disposed of, but instead it is like the shadow that naturally exists alongside light. Two sides of the same coin, he remembers. One cannot exist without the other. There are days he wishes so desperately that they could, but that's not how this works. He will carry this with him always, but he will never have to carry it alone.
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A/N: part 1 of 2, to be concluded.