The Bars Between (MxM)

6

It was several days of visiting him before Ryion actually stayed awake after eating long enough to talk to him.

At first Adren had thought that he'd fallen asleep again, his eyes closed and face pressed up against the bars like always, one spot on his cheek lighter than the rest due to Adren trying to clean him up a little bit each time.

He got his fingers wet again, gently bringing them up to his cheek again, softly rubbing circles. It didn't make that much of a difference as it did the first few times, but Adren still did it. He still wanted to try.

After a minute of doing it, he decided it was time to stop. As he was putting his hand down, his eyes flickered up and he nearly stopped breathing.

Ryion's eyes were open, half-lidded, staring at him. "That feels nice."

Adren felt his cheeks get hotter, his eyes falling in embarrassment. He saw dirty fingers come into view and come into contact with his chin, the cold almost making Adren flinch away, lifting his head up until he was looking at Ryion's face again.

Fingers gently moved against his skin, and he saw Ryion looking at where his hand came into contact with his skin. "This is the first time I've touched someone in years."

Adren slowly lifted his own hand up, moving it past the bars to gently touch Ryion's cold face, mirroring the position of the man's hand with his own. "How does it feel?"

Ryion leaned into it. "So nice."

Adren held his black eyes with his own. "I couldn't imagine being alone for so long. I don't know how you do it."

"It's worse than anything I've ever experienced. I used to spend every second of every day wishing I was dead. I would sometimes imagine that someone was in here with me."

"Who?"

Ryion leaned further into his hand. "It would vary from day-to-day. My mother, brother, past partners, old friends, even my sister a few times."

"Your sister?" Adren asked, confused why it would be odd to picture her.

"She died before I was born."

"Oh." Adren suddenly felt awkward. "I don't have any siblings."

"You aren't missing out." Ryion said. "My older brother would always push me around and then left as soon as he found some girl to live with. Never saw him again."

"Did all of your family have magic?"

Ryion shook his head. "My mother used to tell me stories of what a great magic-user my father was. Apparently my sister was too. I was the only other one who got it."

Adren nodded, Ryion's story seeming to get sadder with each question. "To what extent does your magic keep you alive?"

"I can live without food or drink for years. Time or most diseases won't affect me much. It will take an outside force or stronger magic to end my life."

"Time?" Adren asked, thinking about what that meant. "How old are you?"

Ryion laughed lightly. "I don't know how much time has passed since I came here, but before that I had 64 summers."

"64!" He didn't look past the mid-twenties.

Ryion nodded. "I look good for my age, don't I?" Adren gave a short nod. "Magic users age differently, slower, I'm about as through with the average magic users life span as one of your people would be at, I think the closest would be 29." Adren barely understood what he was saying. Ryion smiled at his confusion and turned the topic to something he would more understand. "And how old are you?"

"15 summers." He answered, feeling embarrassed again.

Ryion nodded, his thumb tracing Adren's jaw, which Adren took immediate notice towards, but not moving away. "I remember when I was around 15, I was causing trouble all the time in my village. They could always trace it back to me because I was the only one who had magic."

"That sounds like fun." Adren wished his life could be as simple as that. He wished he could just run around and cause trouble without that much consequence. "Do you think of your childhood often in here?"

"I think about a lot of things." Ryion said as he nodded.

"Do you still wish for death?"

He shook his head. "Not anymore, you being here is the greatest gift I could be given."

Adren smiled and leaned his forehead against the bars. He knew then that he would keep coming back for as long as he could.

They stayed like that in a comfortable silence for a while. It wasn't until Adren noticed Ryion's breaths even out and his hand fell from his face that he left.