6. Chapter 6 #2
“Open," he commands and the authority of it has me obeying without a second thought. I stick out my tongue for him to tip two drops of the bitter tasting liquid into my mouth, a small chuckle slipping from his lips at the disgusted wrinkle of my nose .
“It tastes like shit but will help," he says softly. I stand there uselessly while he steps closer and starts undoing the buttons on my shirt. His movements are slow, like he’s afraid I’ll spook if he goes too fast.
Rylen helps me out of my clothes, letting them slump to the floor until I’m standing before him naked.
He never shys away but he also doesn’t touch more than necessary, and his eyes never leave my face.
He guides me forward, fingers light against my wrist as he leads me into the shower.
The spray hits, scalding at first, then settling into a comforting warmth that soaks into me, and turns the trembling into something steadier.
My head presses to the tile as I sink to the shower floor.
I focus on the water. The music. The faint beat of a theme I can picture like it’s the very first time we played it together, sitting on a weathered old couch in the group home; it was made of scratchy tough fabric and the pattern looked like someone had thrown up into a bowl of potpourri.
We stayed up for so many nights in that dingy room trying to complete the water temple, Ry even threatened to take a pillowcase full of rocks to one kid’s face if he didn’t stop distracting me while I was trying to defeat Morpha with my hookshot.
Through the fogged glass, I see him sit down outside the shower, back against the same glass panel my shoulder rests on. For a while, we just stay like that—him on one side, me on the other, our bodies lined up so that our sides touch through the barrier .
The glass hums faintly with the vibration of the water and our breathing, which I try to match to the rhythm of the music, and even though the panic is still lingering somewhere deep in my chest, it’s quieter now. More manageable with the knowledge that I’m not battling it alone.
“Still with me?” His voice is muffled through the glass.
“Yeah,” I croak, my throat struggling from not speaking for a while. "Always.”
“It wasn’t your fault you know…” he confesses tentatively. I scoff, already building my walls back up. He pushes on anyway. “You deserved the chance to be a child. You should never have had to hold secrets for adults who knew better.”
“Don’t," I growl in warning.
"Maddox–"
"I said, don't, Rylen!" I shout, my voice growing more agitated with each syllable.
“I’m just fucking saying, you need to stop blaming yourself for shit that happened when you were a kid!
” He roars, breathing ragged. I pull my knees up to my chest, his outburst knocking the air from my lungs.
He sees the anguish written across my face and his entire body slumps in defeat, no doubt internally chastising himself.
“Why are you so full of rage all the time, Rylen?” I muse, legs starting to jitter from the uncomfortable tension of arguing while naked. He exhales deeply, taking the space to weigh up his response. When he next speaks, his tone has lost all its fight .
“The same reason you’re so full of grief," he retorts, raking his fingers through his unkempt hair to push it away from his face. His eyes drop to the tiled floor, he looks tired, as if he’s barely holding it all together.
It needn’t be said out loud, we both knew what he meant.
That the people who were supposed to love us the most, are the ones whose actions turned us into the broken men we are today.
I reach out and twist the handle, the sudden silence ringing in my ears.
I stay there for a moment, letting the steam cling to my skin before I finally stand up, my legs still feeling like lead.
I crack the door open and grab the towel he’d draped over the top.
Stepping out of the stall, the cool air hits my damp skin, making me shiver.
Rylen is already standing, leaning against the sink.
He’s spent the last thirty minutes piecing me back together—the meds, the music, the water—and I know I should say something.
Except we don't do thank you's. We don't really know how to handle gratitude without it feeling like a weakness.
He pushes off the counter, his presence suddenly looming, overwhelming and heavy in the cramped room.
He doesn't look away as I tuck the towel around my waist; his eyes tracking the movement, expression unreadable, masked by the shadows of the dim bathroom.
I lean my damp shoulder against the doorframe, watching him. "We're a pair of fuckin' headcases. "
Rylen's gaze draws its way up to mine, a ghost of a smirk pulling at the corner of his mouth—the first bit of light I've seen all day.
"Yeah, well. At least they can put us in the same ward.
" He laughs at his own ridiculous joke and the way his eyes crinkle at his own amusement has my stomach in knots.
Rylen takes a step closer, invading my space until I can smell the cigarette smoke clinging to his hair and feel the heat coming off his body.
He doesn't look at me with pity, he looks at me like I'm something he owns—something he feels responsible for keeping put together.
"I don't think you're a headcase, Mads," he starts, voice dropping to a dangerous, protective hiss.
"I think you've been carrying too much weight for people who didn't deserve your strength.
From now on, you give that weight to me. All of it. You hear me?"
His hand hovers just inches from my bare chest, his knuckles blanching white with restraint. He looks like a man who can't decide if he wanted to shield my body or sink his fingers into my skin, just to make sure I wasn't a figment of his imagination.
A sharp breath gets stucked into my lungs at his proximity, which seems to break whatever trance Rylen was in. His hand immediately drops to his wayside, the sleek mask of indifference sliding carefully back into place.
"Anyway, if you're all good now, I'm gonna make more toast." He chimes over his shoulder, already swiftly exiting the bathroom.
I realise then that the panic in my chest had been replaced by a different kind of trembling—one that had nothing to do with my father, and everything to do with the man walking down the hall.
The one who always picks up the pieces of my crumbling heart when it's laid out on the floor; no matter what is going on between us, he's my one constant in this life.
I'd walk through every painful part of my life again if I knew he was waiting at the end of it.