Chapter Text
A little heartbreak, a little soul pain
I been up all night on the cheap cocaine
Tryna make it better but
It's always the same
Rafe stared into flames he'd sat in front of many times before, though it had gotten empty around that little fire down at Barry's trailer, these days, that he wore the word traitor like a noose around his neck and addicts rarely searched him out in desperation; only one was still around.
It weren't the same flames he'd stared into back then, back when he was something close to innocent and just a little less of a man and would offer insightful thoughts like "what is a flame? I mean, where does it end?", before passing the joint back to his snickering dealer. "Oh you high high"
It had never felt embarrassing to share those thoughts with Barry, when he was too high to make sense of them; Rafe had liked it when they made him laugh, and even more when Barry leaned into it, started philosophizing. He always looked a certain kind of pretty, the way the light of the fire fell onto his features when he tilted his head to think, warmly reflecting off his golden teeth as he laughed.
One flame looked deceivingly much like the next, swallowing it's little brother whole, though even when Rafe stared without blinking, he couldn't catch the moment they changed places. These days, Rafe longed for those meaningless conversations that shifted shapes and stayed just the same, but it had been a long time since he found them drunk around Barry's bonfire.
Barry had sat there all by himself when Rafe arrived, without his father this time around, though the false deja-vu made his stomach ache when it hadn't been him his fathers boots had kicked—just Rafe knew they had been directed at him, and he'd experienced them like it.
"How are you not sick of the heat yet", Rafe had announced his presence and found a seat in one of the empty chairs around the fire. They'd spent enough time sweating on liquid gold and watching flames dance on the metal just yesterday, to last for a lifetime. The heat had been so dizzying at times, in combination with the scotch they shared, Rafe felt almost high when blackness threatened his eyes.
"I'm microdosing hell, bro", Barry had replied dryly, and leaned back in his chair, welcoming his uninvited guest with a grin. Rafe had offered a short chuckle. Isn't that all of life, though? He'd wanted to say, and drop right into the deep talks they'd spent nights to mornings with, but it felt out of place these days. "Got some' for me?", he asked instead.
Resting his phone on his thigh, Rafe had cut a line with the powder Barry threw over, telling him to keep his cash, there'd be enough of it once the cross was sold and Rafe had stayed to talk business, though there wasn't much they left unsaid meeting on his yacht earlier, and their conversation soon slipped back into the same banter they'd shared before, when it had been different flames dancing between them, and life had been lighter, or at least seemed like it, looking back.
"You know what's, like, super embarrassing?", Rafe slurred his drunken words. He'd snatched the bottle Barry left in the grass by his feet earlier, and almost mumbled the question into it, before tipping it against his lips to drink.
"Wearing those golf shoes in public? Nah? Shit, nevermind", Barry joked dryly, nodding at Rafe's feet.
"It was a rhetorical question, alright", Rafe clarified sharply.
"Ohh, alright then, cause I was gonna guess that polo sh-", Barry played dumb.
"You actually think I'm taking insults from a guy dressed like a trash can?", Rafe interrupted him sourly and Barry offered a warm grin.
"Aww, when'd you come up with this one, huh? Kindergarden?", Barry mocked his poor excuse of a clap back. Rafe didn't reply, just glared at him over the fire and put the stolen bottle of whiskey to his lips again. Barry sighed.
"Aight, bro, what's so embarrassing, huh?", he offered, cocking his head.
"Nah", Rafe made, petty as shit, pushing his chin forward. What was embarrassing was saying the very thing out loud now, after Barry'd drawn it into ridicule.
"Uh-uh, you can't start shit and not finish it, Country Club", Barry lectured and that tone of voice did something to him, always fucking did when Barry put it on so effortlessly; bittersweet mixture of a demeaning order and gentle reminder that attacked all the right parts of Rafe. He figured it was a remant of his time in the army, though something in Barrys disciplinary voice was too sweet to fit a soldiers lips.
Rafe stared silently, for a while, unsure whether to hold a petty grudge, drop the topic in hopes it would piss Barry off, or if he should spill his feelings over the dancing flames, that teased him to lay himself bare and talk with a coke-loosened tongue about things he was too drunk to regret in the morning, the way they had back when, back when, back when Rafe slurred stupid shit over the fire. 'Is it weird, that I trust you?', he'd asked one day before sharing company secrets his father would sure rip his head off for, but what did it matter, to some drug dealer on the cut that gladly took the weight off Rafe's heart. Only much later, the memory of that careless question would resurface and cement itself in Rafe's mind.
Nah, he wanted the other man to know.
He wanted Barry to know, and if just for the off chance that it'd hurt him, somehow. It was stubborn in the same way Rafe liked to flash the scar on his wrist in front of him, did so when it was still fresh and bright red and hurting to the touch and did it still, now that it was a spot of delicate white skin in contrast to the rest of him; by all means separat—not his. He'd caught Barry's eyes on it once, looking up and into them as a grin spread on his face just a little too wide over the prospect of Barry feeling sorry, even if he didn't say a word, or just batted an eye at the wound. His eyes lingering there for just a moment had been enough. Rafe acted stubbornly blunt in the way he tried shoving his wrist into Barrys face at times, holding his arm awkwardly just to make sure the scar was out for him to see, silent accusation, though never subtle. See what you did? This is how you hurt me.
Rafe lifted his gaze to look into Barry's eyes, miss out on not an ounce of regret he might catch, some fraction of compassion, or at least the acknowledgement of Rafe's pain, even if he did not care for it.
"What's embarrassing is I actually...I actually started seeing you as a friend, the night we got beat up together, alright", Rafe told, and scratched the back of his neck as he spoke, nervous tick, one of many, and Barry noticed how intimately he knew each one of them, right that moment.
Rafe tried a smile, a self deprecating one, showing how ridiculous the idea had been, how he no longer thought that way, knew better these days that he looked back on those thoughts like cringy pictures from the past. Despite the occasional delusions and getting into his head just a little too deep at times, Rafe wouldn't have been stupid enough to take just any of it as more than normal, almost mandatory interaction between dealer and client. He wouldn't have dared.
He'd known not to think too much of Barry's smiles or jokes, not even the times when he offered him some of his home cooked dinner or the couch to stay the night. Rafe was almost certain he didn't treat every client like it, still, he wouldn't have made the mistake of ever hoping Barry as a friend. That guy was his dealer, untouchable, effortlessly cool, entirely out of reach and sure not one looking for friends, especially not the ones hoping for discounts.
Just after what Rafe referred to inside his head as 'the fuck up', after breaking down at Barry's feet, after that man pulling him right back up, after chasing pogues all over the island; no, precisely after getting beat up by 'em, Rafe had thought a shy idea so hopeful, it was almost perverted in times like those—they were just anything close to friends.
Barry had laughed with mocking admiration, upon finding out the bad something Rafe had done, careless act that had meant the world and more to Rafe, during a time he felt like he'd shot not her, but himself out of it when he pulled that trigger, didn't think he'd ever fit back into anymore, or there was a place for him, when Barry showed him there was, in his world there was.
Barry silently stared back. Rafe wouldn't offer such a vulnerable truth without gain; he wanted him to know this.
Know the pain, his pain.
And what was he supposed to say to that? Sorry I wasn't?
"Why?", Barry asked instead.
Maybe because he genuinely was wondering. They were so unalike, and Barry had met Rafe's friends, briefly so, when threatening him at the golf club, when delivering cargo to a party, or in the stories Rafe told—unlikeable rich kids and surely nothing Barry could be for him. They'd spent a lot of time together, yeah, but it was always coke in between, til it was murder, til it was gold.
Rafe seemed caught off guard by the question. Why? It sounded like the worst of accusations, though maybe Rafe was just used to it; his father managed to fit a lifetime of insults into a single sentence, or a simple glance, so heavy with annoyance it forced Rafe's head down at an instant. It sounded like Barry called him stupid, though he usually didn't hold back on saying it out right.
Rafe could've laughed at stupid. He could've barked back. Why felt hot like that interrogation room Rafe sat in after the fuck up, deep inside his head on whether the cops cranked up the heat as manipulation or if it was just himself, if he'd make himself look guilty if he pointed it out, or rather guilty if he didn't, if it was a test maybe, or his mind playing tricks, if he was overthinking it, or under thinking it, if they were steps ahead, and how to catch up.
"You were there for me", Rafe shrugged. "I guess"
Barry wanted to defend himself, somehow. He was just being nice. He'd do that for anyone. It was about the money.
"I know it was just about the money", Rafe added, tilting his head to the side to reveal another pained smile in the glow of the flames. "I know that now and..I'm cool with that. I'm cool with money, yeah—totally cool"
He tapped his pointed finger on the armrest of his chair a few times, as if signaling about their business operation. Lifting his head, his smile at Barry's silence was almost genuine this time, seemed to enjoy the dealer scrambling for words.
"You don't need to say anything", he clarified, and made a throwaway gesture with the bottle in his hand before raising it to drink again, downplaying all he said to nothing more than drunken rambling, or trying to, anyways.
"Nah, bro, I-", Barry started.
"Nah, nah, I know you're not saying anything cause you'on got nothing to deny it, so don't— just don't", Rafe interrupted him. That familiar smile crept onto his lips again, a sad grimace that had turned dull with acceptance. In pain, yet knowing he deserved it.
"I don't care", he said, and felt a certain sense of pride over it, became inevitably aware of the effects of that line earlier in his veins, working hard in his little heart. Short sense of bliss; he interrupted it himself: "I don't want you defending yourself right now, bro, I just mentioned it because I thought it was funny, okay?"
"What's funny about that?", Barry asked.
What's funny was that Rafe actually thought someone would see all of him, the murderer, the coke addict, the rich kid, the little bitch that cried on his floor, the cruel fuck that smiled with blood on his teeth, the dark and the broken, see and somehow be cool with it. Like him.
"I never had a friend", he replied, answered Barry's question well enough—nothing was.
Barry hid his face in a hand, sighing, before reaching out. "Alright, gimme the bottle"
"No", Rafe said.
"You're drunk as shit", Barry said, poor attempt at getting Rafe to come to his senses and shut up, stop crying to a man that wasn't his friend.
"So?", Rafe made.
Barry sighed again, falling back into his chair. Rafe felt good with the bottle still in hand, like he'd won something. He felt good with Barry's slight unease, anxious to stop Rafe before he could escalate inside his mind.
"I never had friends", he went on. Barry opened his mouth to protest, but Rafe already clarified. "People that care about me, I mean"
"Emo Rafe, huh?", Barry mocked.
"I never even had a girlfriend", Rafe said, dramatically glanced up at the stars. "I don't think I'm cut out for shit like that.."
Women? Barry wanted to ask but he stayed silent, in fear it'd come off sounding like another joke, once he said it out loud. Care, Rafe meant. Love, he meant. Just any sort of connection, with another human being. Though the feeling had intensified, no, confirmed itself after the fuck up, it had always been there, ever since Rafe could think—a sense of not belonging, not on figure eight, not between his sweet little sisters playing dolls, not inside his fathers house, not anywhere else. He'd turned cruel, for it.
"You think I'm a psychopath?", he asked. Oh the drama, it was genetic, for sure.
"Sure, give me the bottle now, big boy", Barry replied tiredly and reached out once more.
"Ask again and I'll smash it in your fucking face", Rafe snapped, relaxing as soon as Barry leaned back in his chair again, a skeptical eyebrow raised in subtle amusement.
"I know you don't wanna hear all this right now", Rafe offered, leaning his head to the side with a crooked, knowing grin. Not that he was tone deaf to the uncomfortable situation he kept pulling them deeper into, knew damn well Barry didn't know how to handle his angsty ramblings, or respond to premature ideas of alienation; sad ideas you'd at best expect from his little sister, not the grown man Rafe claimed to be.
"You don't care", he noticed. "But I don't fucking care about that, alright?"
Barry pushed air out of his nose, another empty excuse already on his tongue. His disinterest in Rafe's sad antics was blatant; desperate attempt to make him stop; spare him. Rafe didn't care, he kept talking.
"You know, this..this is actually kinda nice? Knowing you're just hanging out with me for the money.", he shrugged. "I don't gotta try anymore"
Pointless anyways, getting people to like him. He tried plenty, for all his life. He tried with Barry, desperately so, tried acting cool and hard, tried impressing the man with a new bike or new scar, with scabs on his knuckles, with wealth that wasn't his and violence that wasn't either.
"Feels...", Rafe tried to think, a small smile creeping on his lips again, genuine, for the first time this night. "..light, you know?"
It was good not constantly doubting what was between him and Barry. If he was just that dealer or yet a friend, or what Rafe didn't dare to hope. Easy, not constantly questioning whether a smile or touch had been too much. Whether he should trust, though Rafe never really asked himself that.
Now, he knew he couldn't trust. Now he knew they were all business, no more, no less. And through all the pain it took for Rafe to get there, to realize, there was comfort, for all was like it had always been, and Rafe alone, still, though free of foolish hope any of that would ever change.
"Like a therapist", Barry noticed.
"Like a whore", Rafe replied with a smug grin over the fire.
Barry chuckled into his beer. "Yeah, right, Country Club"
Rafe chuckled too, softly, turning the bottle of whiskey between his hands. The liqour looked golden in the shine of the fire, and just a few weeks back, the tiniest exchange of laughter like this would've had his heart pound with hope, now it was just the coke working there, tight and cruel in his chest. Barry chipped the label of his beer with the nail of his thumb, cleared his throat.
"Well I hate to break your fantasy, Rafe, but I do like you", he said. Looking up from the golden bottle, Rafes eyes narrowed down on him.
"Don't piss me off right now, a'ight", he slurred low and dangerous across the fire, not that intimidation ever worked on Barry, Rafe just bared his teeth to show. Wasn't in the mood to fight, and hoped Barry'd back off, he was here for sappy monologues and a pretty face to tell sad stories to, not a response back. Never handled those well, anyways.
"Just said that I like you. My bad", Barry defended himself carelessly. He bit into a grin, too greedy to share it with Rafe, who caught it anyways.
Barry the traitor. Barry the rat. Barry the fucking liar. Barry the cruel cruel man.
"You think this is funny or what?", Rafe barked.
"I do like messing around with you", Barry shrugged, ignoring Rafe's angry glare. "Ya, I like your tough act, and I like when you can't keep it up"
Cold blooded soldier that never made it past the cover of sarcasm, hid behind it to keep a coward head out of scope, lived and laughed in it, seemed cold through it, wrapped a fragile heart and patched it up, sarcasm so thick and ever present it was hard to catch a truth in it, though Rafe had heard it clearly, frightened by the unusual tone in his voice.
"Fuck you", Rafe simply said. "Think I wanna hear this shit right now?"
"Well you're right. I don't wanna hear about your bullshit either, Rafe. Cause that's what this is, some bullshit.", Barry harshly replied. "You think you're unlikable? So what. Everyone does, and you don't see me crying about that shit"
The roughness of Barry's words brought back a comfort Rafe had found missing just moments before, his heart racing with unwarranted fear at Barry's claims, and the passing off of them as truth. I do like you and all he'd built was gone, and nothing light or free. Wasn't just Rafe's fantasy that broke there—the fairytale that he did not care what Barry thought of him, not anymore—it was all he had to keep himself together, these days.
"You think you're unlikable?", Rafe laughed in disbelief.
"Course", Barry shrugged his shoulders.
"Bro, everyone likes you. You got coke and shit", Rafe argued. Barry raised his eyebrows, looking back at him.
"Yeah", he laughed then, genuinely. "Right"
Rafe remembered thinking he could get people to like him if he sold. He always knew it wasn't real, like happiness snorted up your nose or put under your tongue, but it felt good enough at the time, to have people's eyes hungrily glowing at him when he pulled out yayo at a party. He'd bathed in the attention, starved for it, a thrill almost as addicting as the shit he was selling.
Though things were different for Barry. He was actually a cool guy, kind one—people felt comfortable at his trailer, they felt comfortable with him; he was skilled in effortless and light conversation, he was funny, he was lifting people up and they liked him for it, or at least Rafe knew he did.
"You know, I felt bad..", Rafe started again. "On the boat"
Funny. Barry felt bad on the boat.
"Like...like I finally made a friend and now I gotta leave? I kept hoping like, God, let something happen so I can stay", Rafe told, and gestured heavily with his hands.
Sure pathetic to admit, though none of that had put Barry off before, none of Rafe's weakness had, none of his cruelty, none of him, a fever dream too good to be true, hope too fragile not to be crushed.
"Always be careful what you wish for", Barry pointed out, lazily shaking a pointed finger as if he was lecturing. Always, always back to sarcasm and empty phrases, he carried them on his hip like a loaded gun, violent in his self defense.
Rafe stared back silently, tried faking anger in those glossy eyes.
"That's what you're gonna say?", he breathed.
Barry had plenty, plenty to say, shit that rested heavy on his heart, though he carried the weight with a soldiers endurance, not for it felt safer than letting anyone hear, no, for it felt like the only way, for it's what he'd always done. There was no use in telling Rafe how he felt on the boat—bad—for he jumped anyways, and there was no use in telling him how he felt after, for it didn't fix what he broke.
"What else you want me to say", Barry shrugged carelessly.
Sorry. Fucking sorry.
"I wished I could stay. For you", Rafe repeated. Like that damn scar on his wrist. The urge for Barry to understand, even just know, all the ways he broke Rafe. To really really get it. Obsessed, almost, with showing him.
He stared at Barry, hard and merciless.
Maybe he wanted an explanation. Maybe he wanted Barry to tell him all the ways he was a horrible person, and why he'd never be enough for anyone to care about, not even some morally crooked drug dealer from the cut. Maybe he wanted Barry to say it out loud, just once. I don't care. I don't care about the damage, I don't care about the hurt, I don't care about you.
"That why you told your dad you're not going back to Guadeloupe?", Barry asked and raised his chin at him. His smarts were a waste in the army, waste on the cut.
Rafe let his eyes travel over him. Did Barry know? Despite his carefree tone throughout all this conversation. Did he hear? How incredibly fucking lonely Rafe was. How he was barely anything else anymore, barley murderer, barley kook, barley man, and fully and entirely lonely.
"No", he replied coldly. "I know better now"
Better than to hope, better than to believe he deserved to be just anything else.
"Well...sorry", Barry said. Rafe thought he misheard.
He visibly flinched at the word, and wasn't sure if he'd imagined the satisfaction on Barry's face, the expression ran quick over his features like the shadow of the dancing flames, too restless to be caught. Something in him wanted to get angry again, though he didn't know what for, Barry wasn't making fun this time, and Rafe almost wished for the cold and comforting sarcasm again.
"For not wanting to be your friend", Barry added, laid it out there like a simple truth.
Rafe nodded. That's what he wanted to hear. That's all he'd been waiting for and he had a feeling Barry knew, Barry knew and had cruelly withheld it from him all that time talking, had made him wait.
"I liked you, Rafe, and just a little too much at that to, err-", Barry dug the tip of his sneaker into the dusty ground, grinding it into the soil. Acting fucking shy as if he ever was.
To ruin him. To do what he'd been craving to, what really wanted to do to the kook. And just enough to know it was better to stay away from that mess. To think he deserved just a little better than what Barry'd be able to give. What Barry'd take.
He knew that he could've had Rafe if he wanted to.
The man had this aura of incredibly loneliness since the first day they met, it seeped through his entire being, the whole rich kid act, a desperate play of pretend, facade of an arrogant kook who could not care less about the rest of the world—defensive act he grew into; avoid being crushed by the very realization that the rest of the world could not care less about him.
Loneliness that rested heavy on his broad shoulders, seemed to drag him down at times, same way Barry's wet sweatshirt had—the rough fabric hurt Rafe long before it was drenched with betrayal and water from the surge. On that boat, heading into Uncertainty, Rafe had thought little about escape, and all the more about Sarah's boyfriend shelf, a morbid collection of shirts and hoodies of her past victims, quite like a serial killers relics. Wheezie had pointed that out—and Rafe had relished one of those rare moments, where it was him and his little sister laughing, while Sarah stood by with crossed arms. "Why keep 'em?", he'd asked, and thought of Sarah's answer when Barry handed him the worn sweater. At the time, Rafe had felt bad, for the backpack, and the sweater, and the sandwich Barry prepared and wrapped in plastic foil like he did with his coke, who knows how long you'll be running, he'd said, and thrown him the pb&j with a loose grin on his lips, when he'd known, he'd known, he'd known by then.
Rafe's loneliness had always been awfully visible to Barry, it stuck to his skin, rotten under expensive perfume, it rested on the delicate features of his face, it vibrated through his laugh, it tempted Barry with the sheer ease it would've been for him, to make him fall like that.
Seemed almost hungry for it—just any crumb of attention—and ready to leap onto it if it was ever gifted to him. Barry could see it in the way he talked at just the slightest bit of interest, without pause and a shy excitement on his tongue over gracious attention, kind he didn't get, not at home, and not from his friends either, unless he tried his hardest to talked the loudest and have the most impressive story to brag about. Desperate attempts that left him empty, once the coke wore off. If no one paid attention, Rafe made them watch and shudder at sudden outbursts of violence—with blood on his fists, he had it easy catching stares.
Barry noticed soon how overjoyed Rafe got at the littlest of gestures, how he seemed to glow over the stupid nicknames, for they felt personal, and Barry crafted them for him, how excited he got over discounts and not for the money he saved, but the things Barry so carelessly told him, 300 for you, bro, for you.
Almost pitiful to notice, how very starved he was, of all the silver spoons didn't feed. Something so tempting, to just wrap an arm around his back when they briefly pulled each other in for a greeting, bumping at the shoulders. At times, when Rafe showed up at the trailer, Barry was certain he'd fold into the hug immediately, collapse against Barry's broad chest, and sink into his arms, if he offered them around his back just once.
He never tested it.
It wouldn't have been fair. To have him break and crumble when Barry wasn't that safe space Rafe so craved, only just wanted to see the boy weak, and feel strong and needed around him in return.
Barry knew all his interest in the kook was entirely selfish, he knew it in the way his dick twitched when he thought about making him his mess, he knew for he got hard over images of his hand under Rafes chin as tears streamed down his face, the puffy eyes and swollen face looked good on him in a way Barry could've never said out loud, or even admitted to himself.
He knew how bright Rafe's eyes flashed at lazy compliments, how his chest swelled and he drew his shoulders back; Barry'd called him a good boy as a joke just once, though none of it had been joke, and all hunger for Rafe's response, a blush to his nose, the shock in his soft features, like Barry'd revealed something he wasn't supposed to know.
Stupid shit like that had Barry contemplate Rafe's desperation, wonder how far he'd go to please, how easy it'd be to have him bend to his orders. Fantasies that left Barry feeling guilty when he came to them, fisting his own cock the mornings after Rafe left.
He knew all that was wrong with Rafe, or at least how much of it, he'd heard it seen it felt it, and knew he was no one to fix, no one to give the boy a gentle love and all the things he lacked. Was just a stupid soldier with rough hands that couldn't comfort the kook the way he needed it, wanted to grab and and slap and choke instead, wanted a soft heart to beat under them at the pace of coke, and to have it calm for him.
Wanted impressionable blue eyes on him, pleading to be of any use in exchange for just an ounce of attention, and overwhelm him with it instead, worship the boy in ways that made him flustered and unable to speak, shower him with all the affection he'd starved for till he ached from it, trembled and begged, of just a break from Barry all on him. Sweet to imagine, how hard it'd be to handle for the boy, when Barry didn't ask for anything but he let him please, with nothing in return. How fun it'd be, to force his love on him, and have Rafe overwhelmed with all he ever lacked.
Was surely that very loneliness, that made Rafe sacrificial, made him willing to give all of him, if it'd be enough to look at him, made him ready to lay his life down, if it'd be seen, too worthless anyways, to hold onto for himself.
And Barry couldn't take all that.
He liked Rafe too much.
"To?", Rafe asked.
Barry made a throw away gesture with his hand, as if it didn't matter all too much.
"Can't start shit and not finish it", Rafe repeated with a thriumpant grin. Felt great to use Barry's bullshit against him.
"You're right, I never wanted to be your friend", Barry said and nodded to himself. They had established, or at least, Rafe had noticed that. "And it wouldn't have been fair to..have you any other way"
Rafe stared back, face open with disbelief. He understood nothing and all that Barry had just said, no matter how vague that coward of a soldier tried to be.
"Wow", he made.
Telling him this? After everything Rafe had confessed, after Rafe just told him now, he felt comfortable in what they were.
He liked what they had now.
He was safe in hate and mistrust. Surely, lost in it at first, but he'd spent enough time wandering the inner landscapes and vast fields of mistrust and resentment that they're relationship had been thrusted into, to become well versed, knew how to navigate through them now, had found slow and shy ease in all that distance, knew where he stood now, or at least where Barry stood, and found great comfort in just that. Keeping it strictly business. Strictly practical and no feelings to be hurt in the middle.
After Rafe literally just told him how liberating that felt—liberating like that step off the ledge, for all the time it took to crash. How the pressure was gone. The aching. The desperation, to be liked—defeat, though at the very least, the end of a war.
What a bullshit fucking excuse. Saying he liked Rafe too much, it wouldn't have been fair. Was this fair? Was never acting out on it fair? Was not even giving him a fucking chance fair? Ratting him out? Was any of that fair?
"You're like the meanest fucking person I've met", Rafe noticed, pushing his chin forward.
"Yeah", Barry agreed. "You don't wanna be my friend, Rafe"
It's not like he left him a damn choice. Belittling tone of voice that made Rafe wanna put a dent in his face, for that last little push, to mock after all Rafe just told, show that he listened, heard Rafe's request for friendship, and made fun of it, and meant it, still. It was almost remarkable, how Barry roughened truths with sarcasm so sharp it made them sound like a lie.
Rafe wasn't even sure Barry's claim was true—he liked him, no, liked him too much, even. Could be a lie like all the others, or just malicious joke. If not, Rafe had been clueless to it. Either way, it was cruel to bring it up. Like it would change a thing. Like it would make just any of it better. No I don't wanna be your friend, but it'd hit that. Maybe Barry had just said it to take the ground under Rafe's feet. To be a little meaner. To have him sway and fall. To fuck his brains, mess with his heart.
Rafe sighed, pushed himself up from his chair and carelessly let the empty bottle slip from his hand into the grass.
"Going home", he announced, accepting defeat and ending a conversation he could only lose—his opponent more cruel, or maybe he just more hurt. "We got a ferry to catch tomorrow morning, alright", he added like an excuse, or maybe just desperate attempt to go back to all he'd praised earlier: just business. Walked slow, on the way to his bike, and Barry watched in silence.