Chapter Text
What-would-Ward-do. WWWD. They should put that on a T-shirt and sell it to all the up-and-coming criminals of North Carolina. It’s gotten Rafe this far.
He actually likes his dad, for what it’s worth. After all that’s happened, all the bridges burnt and bodies buried. Somebody has to.
***
Rafe always wonders, instinctually, in every situation, what his dad would do. Probably yell. Scream. Materialize out of thin air like some kind of haunted-house Halloween monster, teeth and fangs and too-much hair. He’d grab Rafe by the shoulders and shake, shake, shake until all the water in his blood has evaporated into, like, acid or something. Whatever water turns into.
And then he’d cry, at the top of his lungs, “Rafe, goddamnit, what the hell is wrong with you?” because, really, what the hell is wrong with him?
So, the car’s totaled. Like, totaled-totaled. Crushed, crashed, smashed. Summed up to shrapnel and shattered glass, folded in like a failed origami project. He rammed it into a tree. Right in the center, head-first, fifty points if you’re playing darts.
“Fuck,” he says to no one in particular, slamming the dashboard. He slams it again. “Fuck!”
Rafe stumbles out of the driver’s side, pulling his hair and swearing. There’s hot, wet blood trickling down the side of his head, sticky like spilled orange juice, and now he’s stranded on the side of bumfuck nowhere about a quarter mile out from Barry’s.
Ward always told him he’d die in a DUI, if he kept this up (whatever ‘ this’ is). Something, something, irresponsible, reckless, clinically psychotic, etc. etc. It’s just something you tell your headed-for-the-floor heroin-addicted sex-and-drugs demon-possessed child to scare them into straightening up or something. They never do, though. They never do.
‘You’re going to crash so hard you’ll die before you hit the ground, and your organs will spill out on the concrete, burst from your body like a water balloon, intestines and kidneys everywhere.’ Rafe wasn’t dead yet, but he hoped that Ward would shed a tear seeing his dreams so close to coming true.
The funniest part is that he wasn’t even drunk. He wasn’t high, wasn’t half-asleep or off-the-walls on pain pills or weed or whatever the hell Barry gives him nowadays pretending it’s cocaine. He just crashed. Right into a tree. That’s it.
The whole what-would-Ward-do rhetoric falls short there, anyway, because he’s never fixed a car in his life, and he sure as hell never taught Rafe to. So he kicks the tires, cusses, throws everything in sight, and then, for good measure, goes back inside and punches the wheel ‘til his knuckles bleed and the horn jams. Rafe would like it to be made known he’s a proactive type of guy.
What are you even supposed to do when you crash a car? Like, do you call the police or something? Highway patrol?
Rafe sits on the roadside for a while, cussing, swearing, occasionally chucking stones at cars that don’t stop for him. One lucky throw and some water-damaged piece-of-shit pogue-mo-bile passing by ends up with its windshield shattered, splintered, smashed in like somebody’s head. Somebody who pushed Rafe a little too far.
Ward always wanted him to do sports. The only thing Rafe ever liked throwing was his fists. Go figure.
***
Rafe hates . It’s one of the things he’s best at.
He hates the Cut, the Figure Eight, the dogs always barking wherever he goes, like they just know somehow, instinctually . This guy’s bad news, he’s fucking insane, an accident waiting to happen– full of explosives and IEDS and gunfire all ready to ignite at a moment’s notice. Take everyone down with him, go out in flames.
So, there’s that, and then there’s…
Barry.
The way Barry’s trailer always smells like warm liquor and a future Rafe never thought he really had, at least, not like this– where the sun comes up all orangish and yolky in the morning and there’s fingers trailing softly through his hair. He hates it. Hates it down to a scientific level, with each and every molecule in his body all dedicated to being decidedly, democratically, diametrically opposed to– to whatever the fuck it is that Barry’s been doing to him, making him feel. Hate’s a strong word, but it’s the only one that fits.
Because hate is definitely what’s racking his bones when Barry bends over sometimes to pet his hair, (and Rafe tries not to act like a fucking dog and lean into it– he really tries – but, for whatever reason, he just can’t help himself.) He hates the way Barry looks at him, too, and worse; the way his heart starts squeezing because of it, like – like it’s a mouse in the clutches of a serpent, twisting around and tightening ‘til his eyes pop out.
Rafe hates the shuddering and stabbing and fluttering in his heart every time Barry fake-compliments him, every time he slaps Rafe’s shoulder or asks what he wants from the store.
It’s fucking embarrassing. And, beyond that– Ward would be so disgusted if he knew.
***
Sometimes Rafe thinks, of all the words that exist in the world, of all the sentences spoken in a single day, that only a tenth of them are worth listening to. And, if that’s the case, then, logically, the rest aren’t even worth being thought out in the first place. Everything is a shot in the dark at meaningfulness. And– well, the point is, he really wishes they’d just shut the fuck up already.
It’s the shit they’re saying on the TV, about Sarah and Ward and his family, about how they’ve all died or skipped town or something. It’s bullshit. Rafe can hear it from outside Barry’s trailer as he comes up on it, because the walls are wafer-thin and Barry likes to play that shit at top volume. He’s annoying.
The porch is messy with lawn chairs and junk dragged in. Smells like expired cannabis and motor oil and that soda Barry likes to mix in with his alcohol.
Rafe slams the door like he owns it, just because he likes getting on Barry’s nerves. On a good day, he’ll get slapped or punched or talked at all demeaningly until he inevitably ends up shoved into a wall or a mattress or something. It’s kind of like playing pool, though– you have to poke Barry at just the right angle. Wait ‘til you hear that satisfying clunk-clunk-clunk and can taste the warm, metallic blood pooling inside your mouth.
Sometimes Rafe’s glad he’s not in any substantial relationship with Barry, because then they would have to have a sit-down on domestic violence. That’s a part of his life he isn’t so ready to give up.
“He is risen,” Barry says when he comes in. He thinks he’s so fucking funny. He watches Rafe storm through the trailer, dragging blood all over the floor.
“Give me a break, Barry,” Rafe tells him, kicking off his shoes. “And turn that shit off,” he adds, because he feels like pushing his luck. Barry doesn’t listen anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
“Lookin’ like you in need o’ a mercy kill there, kook.”
“If only you’d do the honors.”
Rafe opens the freezer and puts a box of expired ice cream to his forehead. His hair is stiff and hot with sun-dried blood. The crash turned out to be farther from Barry’s than he initially thought, anyway, and he’s got a shit sense of direction, so, yeah. A quarter mile turned into three and a half pretty easily. Sweat drips down his back.
Barry stares from over the counter, and Rafe can feel his eyes wander, and– yeah, he hates that too. The way he knows what Barry’s doing without looking, first of all, but also what he’s thinking and what he won’t say. Rafe bites the inside of his cheek.
“I crashed, alright?” he says.
“Shit, Country Club, the bike?”
Rafe shakes his head. “No, not the bike, the car. The piece of shit one.” It’s technically Sarah’s, but since she skipped town, Rafe decided to put it to good use. He’s a saving-the-earth type of guy like that. Recycling and shit.
Barry leans in real close, touches Rafe’s face where it’s cut. His breath hitches. “Playin’ bowling with pedestrians for pins?”
“Jesus, Barry,” Rafe breathes. The shit Barry says...
His thumb curls into the gash along Rafe's cheekbone, burning and white-hot. So unbelievably unfair. Rafe has to physically extract himself from the touch before it turns into something more. “It was a tree ,” he says.
Barry starts laughing, loose and lightweight and crackling like those bonfires they sometimes have in that cut-off propane tank out back. It really shouldn’t make Rafe feel as gutted as it does. “A tree ? Come on, bro.”
Rafe blushes a little. “Look, it was a really big tree, alright?”
“Mmmhmm. I bet it was.” Barry leans on the counter, still giggling a little. “You sure you ain’t like, concussed, or sumn’?”
“I’d know if I was concussed, Barry,” Rafe says, but he wouldn't really. He just likes to argue – it’s a trained response at this point. Mostly because it tends to end with him shoved face-down into a mattress, collarbone all bitten up. It’s just sex, though. Good sex, but, at the end of the day, meaningless.
“Mm,” Barry says.
“No.”
“Ay, I dunno, bruh, I heard all them serial killers snap after gettin’ hit in the head.”
Rafe opens his mouth, shuts it. “I’m not a serial killer.”
“Yet.” Barry gives him a smile with all his teeth. Rafe wants to turn them into beads on a bracelet. Maybe a necklace if he has enough. Not really helping with the serial killer thing, but whatever.
***
Three days later, Rafe wakes up with the sun in his eyes, and listens to the police jaw off over the phone about that stupid, god-forsaken car he left out on the side of the road. Apparently they thought it was a lead on Sarah, but Rafe let them know it was his now. It got towed, anyway, and they’re looking for someone to fine for it. Rafe swears beneath his breath.
***
It’s hot out– hot like someone left you in their car and forgot about you. Hot like the sun thinks you’re just another piece of meat it's meant to cook. Maybe you are.
Rafe sits outside on the porch, smoking in between his lips while Barry messes around. It smells like sawdust and burnt grass out. There’s a fire going in that cut-off propane tank Barry found. It’s the butt end of it with bricks aligned around the outside, so it actually looks like a proper fireplace now. Barry’d been watching those home remodel shows.
“Hot as fuck,” Barry says aloud. He’s sweating down the back of his neck, onto that wifebeater Rafe jerks off sometimes just thinking about. Barry comes up and takes a sip of the warm beer Rafe had put in between his legs.
“Maybe you shouldn’t be burning shit, then.”
Barry sets the can back down with a clink. “Alright, smartass,” he ends with. He nudges Rafe’s knee and makes him smile. It’s too easy. “You figure out what to do with all them sticks, then.”
Rafe shakes his head dopily. He’s not so sure Barry likes him around. He’s not sure anyone does, really. Not even the people who haven’t heard the rumors of what he’s done, the lives he’s ruined, the skeletons in his closet that, all too often, come out and crawl into his body, possessing his mind, making him do crazy shit. It’s something to be said about Barry, anyway, that he knows about Rafe’s past and just doesn’t care.
Maybe it's the sex. Who knows. Rafe drinks the rest out of the can in one go and pitches it into the propane tank from afar. It clangs when it falls in.
“Ohh, look at that. I’m a good shot, huh?”
Barry looks at it. “That ain’t gonna burn, dumbass,” he says.
“Yes, it will,” Rafe says. He likes to argue.
***
"We're not dating, right?"
Barry's in the driver's seat of that nice car he just fixed up, telling Rafe if he pukes on the seats, he'll curse Rafe's entire bloodline. Whatever. Rafe's bloodline is already about as cursed as they come anyway.
"Jeez, Country Club," Barry just says in response. Rafe's a ragdoll, high as a kite and barely able to keep his eyes open. He just takes whatever people hand him, drinks whatever smells like it's got some arbitrary percentage of alcohol in it. Shit's dangerous. There should be posters at every kook party with Rafe's face on them: 'Do not serve.' Otherwise, Barry has to find him puking into a potted plant or grinding down on some girl's thigh without the brain capacity to even ask her name. Bitten lips and hair all in his face. Barry's jaw feels tight.
Rafe slurs his words and shakes Barry by the shoulder, loose grip on the collar of his shirt. "D'you love me? Be honest."
Barry scoffs, pushes Rafe's hand away. Rafe tries to grab his focus again, pupils blown and lips parted. Barry tries not to look at him. His knuckles are white on the steering wheel.
"D'you?"
"Yeah, sure, Rafe," Barry says, finally, just to shut him up. He's such a pain in the ass sometimes. Eyes all red and doughy, hickeys up his neck and still acting like he can fuck whoever he wants. He can barely walk as is.
Rafe mutters to himself nonsensically, eyes half-lidded. "Knew it," he yawns.
"Bitch."
Rafe stares at him, leaning against the window lazily. He flips Barry off.
***
Later that week, when Rafe’s pressed face down into Barry’s mattress with come leaking out his ass and dripping down his thighs, he thinks maybe there’s something wrong with him. He has sex with other people, but Barry's just better at it than anyone else for whatever reason. It doesn't mean anything. Even if they're doing it twice a day-- bent over the kitchen counter, head shoved into the wall, splayed out on the mattress -- it's nothing. Really.
But now his mail's getting redirected to Barry's trailer, and the clients coming in all recognize him, and Topper keeps trying to give him a talk about how; 'I don't know if he's right for you, bro' and 'like, i support you, dude, but you could do better. You should let me hook you up.' Rafe's not going to listen to dating advice from the dude who went after his sister. And they're not dating anyway. Ward would lose it.
Barry rolls over on the mattress. There's sweat on his neck. Rafe licks it off. "Jesus, Country Club. "
"Mm."
Sometimes Rafe prays to Ward. He looks up at the sky, counts the stars, and asks Ward to show him which path to take, to come down in a burning bush and scream until he finally figures out what the hell he's doing. It's the only way he really learns. Rafe crosses the road and says a quick, 'Fear not, for I am with you,' every time. He sees Ward in the face of old Renaissance paintings with lambs and cherubs. 'Forgive me, father, for I have sinned,' every day, because when he looks at Barry, he wants to surgically split apart his ribcage just so there's more space for him inside.
Ward would make a shitty god, anyway, which is probably part of the appeal. No one likes a nice god.
“What’cha gonna do tomorrow, kook?” Barry's skin tastes like artificially sweetened coconut water.
Rafe hums, kissing down his throat. He feels gross, sweat and come everywhere. He never wants to get up. “Got a call about Sarah’s car," he says. "I think they towed it or some shit," Rafe grumbles and pulls off. He lights up and Barry pushes him off the mattress.
“Ay, you bring it here, I can look at it.”
Rafe opens the window and sits back on the bed. “Barry, it’s barely a car anymore. It’s closer to– to a fucking grill than it is to a car,” he says.
“Ain’t nothin’ too broken to fix, Country Club.”
Rafe scoffs, cigarette between his lips. Barry just says shit. It's kind of stupid, kind of beautiful. “Yeah, right," Rafe says.