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He’s waiting for him outside the temple, like he knew he would be, and they don’t exchange any words – there are never any words. The Hero is wounded, badly, the white of his tunic and of his pale skin making the blood more vivid, his eyes more blue. It doesn’t matter. He crushes the smaller man to him, ignoring the screaming protest of his aching body, the call for rest, the faint desire to collapse into a senseless heap on the twilight-damp grass - because he needs this more.
There’s life trembling here against his dying resolution, the taste of the sheikah’s fear for him on his tongue, the cat-like strength flush against his collapsing limbs, the butterfly pulse racing beneath his destructive fingers. He leaves smears of blood – his and others’ – wherever he touches, but they’re both past noticing, past caring. One of them is dying, in need of the other’s strength; neither is sure which one is which. But they both know that they’re running out of time.
Sheik’s hands retain their firm grip on Link’s forearms, even after the rest of him pulls away, and they both try and pretend it’s not because the Hero will collapse if he lets him go. Navi hovers above them uncertainly, knowing that they’re letting precious seconds slip through their fingers – or so she thinks. They know the truth, though. They’re hoarding the time, not wasting it, clutching to it tightly, guarding it jealously, afraid to let it go.
Link is used to change; it’s the sum and compilation of everything he’s ever known. He embraces it, rides it, accepts it. But Sheik knows that things weren’t supposed to turn out this way. They were never meant to speak, to touch, to know. They both have jobs to do, and anything else is a deadly distraction that costs precious minutes, could cost precious lives.
Link takes a deep breath, steadying himself, gently pulling free of Sheik’s worried grasp. “Okay,” he rasps wearily, blinking a few times to regain focus. “Tell me what I need to do next.”
They don’t embrace again. They don’t say ‘I love you’. There are never any words. There is never enough time.
They never see each other again. Sheik dies in a dungeon cell far beneath the castle walls; Link returns to the childhood that was taken from him. The world’s in a hurry to return to normal, busy with restoring, healing, rebuilding. The obligatory happy ending.
No one stops to wonder if it’s what the Hero would have wanted.
After all, there isn’t any time.