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There was nothing Barry hated more than being woken up unannounced, which was funny, because he rarely slept through the night – a leftover habit from his army days.
But this time, when he jolted awake on his ancient box-spring mattress, there seemed to be an actual, tangible threat. He heard something just outside the trailer, rustling around. At first he thought it was the stray cat he'd taken up feeding, but then the murmuring started.
Barry grabbed the handgun from under his pillow and slid out of bed, feet meeting the floor without a sound. Another army leftover.
He crept from his room to the door and put an ear against it. There was definitely someone out there. He'd been jumped twice before: once by Ward, obviously, but when he'd first started moving coke he'd gotten beat pretty good for not meeting a deadline. Dragged out of his trailer in the middle of the night and everything.
Barry didn't fuck anything up after that. Quick learner. Which made the presence outside the door all the more disturbing.
It got quiet for a spell. Barry's free hand slipped around the door handle, clutching it so tight his knuckles blanched.
Don't be a pussy now. Open it.
Barry swung the door open and aimed.
Somebody fell back with a yelp, landing on their ass in the dirt. They jerked their hands up in surrender.
"Barry," they sputtered. "It's me, man. It's Rafe."
It was, in fact, Rafe Cameron.
Barry certainly preferred dumbass Rafe to a vengeful narcotrafficker, but that didn't mean he was stupid enough to put the gun down. He kept aiming it directly at the kid's head.
"The fuck you doin' here?" Barry demanded, and Rafe blinked dumbly in the moonlight.
"It's my birthday."
Barry studied Rafe a little closer. He was wearing a white button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, probably once pristine but now untucked and unclean. There was a bloodstain down the front – too much coke, no doubt. Looked like he'd come straight from his richie-only party on Figure Eight.
"Congratu-fuckin'-lations," Barry huffed at last, cocking the gun for emphasis. "Now get off my damn property."
"I'm drunk," Rafe announced, so earnest it made Barry snort.
"Shit, you think?"
Rafe blinked again. "Aren't you gonna tell me I shouldn't ride my bike? Like, when I'm drunk?"
"I ain't your mama, Rafe," Barry pointed out, eyes narrowing.
"No," Rafe said with a slow, sly smile. "You ain't my mama."
It was at that point that Barry seemed to give up. Slowly but surely he lowered the gun, pinching the bridge of his nose like he felt a migraine coming on. Rafe had that effect.
"You wanna come in?" Barry said after a beat, because he was up and awake now, and it's not like Rafe would leave otherwise. Might as well offer.
"Yeah!" Rafe said, struggling to his feet. "Yeah, I wanna see you."
So Barry rolled his eyes and moved aside, holding the door open for him. "C'mon, then. Move your wasted ass."
Rafe grinned like he'd won the lottery and clambered past Barry into the trailer. He smelled like booze and weed and expensive cologne. Barry shut the door behind him.
It was one in the morning, meaning the trailer was pitch black, meaning Rafe crashed into various things on his trek to the couch, meaning Barry had plenty of opportunities to swear at him.
(Yeah, he could've turned on a light, but this was funnier.)
Eventually Rafe found the couch and tried to sit down, but miscalculated and landed on the floor directly in front of it instead. This seemed to be good enough for him, because he stayed put.
"You're a real fuckin' dumbass, you know that?" Barry grumbled, planting his ass on the actual furniture.
"Yeah," Rafe said, shrugging. Then: "I like it here."
"Don't you live in a damn mansion? With maids 'n shit?"
"I like it here," Rafe repeated, firmer. Barry could see him smile softly to himself. "It's just better."
Something about it made Barry's chest tighten. He crossed his arms over it self-consciously. "Yeah? Lemme know when you wanna trade."
They sat in silence for a moment. Barry swore he could hear the gears turning in Rafe's inebriated head – chk, chk, chk. He was somehow the simplest and most complicated person Barry had ever met. It drove him fucking nuts.
At some point Rafe's simply-complicated self resolved to pull himself up from the floor and onto the couch next to Barry. Barry thought it would end there, right there, just the two of them sitting together on the bong-water-stained cushions.
But then Rafe was putting his head in Barry's lap.
"The hell you doin'?" Barry sputtered. "Get offa me."
"Don't wanna," Rafe replied simply, snuggling in even closer. Barry considered shoving him away. Of course he considered it. He was just too tired to bother.
Yeah. Too tired.
"How old you turnin', anyway?" Barry asked, doing his best not to sound genuinely interested in the answer.
"Twenty." Rafe blinked, the gears turning yet again. "Yeah. Twenty."
"Twenty and still livin' with your richass parents. You've got it pretty damn good."
"How'd you have it?"
Barry laughed, thinking of boot camp and beatdowns and getting spat back out on the Cut with nothing. "Not so good."
That seemed to trouble Rafe, as if he couldn't even fathom it. And maybe, as a Figure Eight native, he really couldn't. But he seemed determined to make up for Barry's not-so-good experiences anyway. Rafe looked up at him, deathly serious, and said, "We should run away together."
A long, stunned pause on Barry's part. Then, finally, "The fuck?"
"Yeah!" Rafe insisted. He struggled to sit up, getting excited. "You 'n me. I'll steal summa my folks' money and we'll go to Mexico. It'll be awesome. People do cocaine there, too, don't they? We'll start our own drug cartel."
Barry could only stare and say, "You're fuckin' crazy."
And it was fucking crazy, because this was Rafe, and Rafe was fucking crazy. But it also made Barry's heart twist, because nobody had ever wanted to run away with him before. He'd always thought he just wasn't worth running away with. Too poor. Too rough. Too mean.
And yet here was richass, crazyass Rafe, who grinned and moved to straddle Barry's lap. And Barry let him.
Here was Rafe, who tilted up Barry's face with his hands to kiss him.
Barry let him do that, too.
He slid his hands up the back of Rafe's shirt, nails digging into unmarred skin. The sting of it made Rafe gasp against his mouth, and Barry reveled in the sound, the way Rafe was practically shaking with want. Barry pressed a trail of open-mouthed kisses along his throat, making Rafe whine and squirm in his lap.
Giving Rafe hickeys was Barry's favorite pastime next to smoking a joint and reading a good book.
Eventually Barry couldn't tolerate Rafe being on top anymore and grabbed him by the shoulders. He wrestled him off his lap and onto the cushions, pinning Rafe's arms tight above his head. And the way Rafe looked up at him – flushed, glassy-eyed, delirious with desire – was enough to make Barry grin.
"Happy birthday, country club," he murmured, and leaned down to kiss Rafe's needy mouth.