Chapter Text
The Bahamas were shit.
Rafe had decided that almost immediately and he was bored.
God, he was so bored.
The whole gold situation began to get very boring, too, the minute he realised that nothing he would ever do would make his dad love him.
Not really.
It was Sarah that fell at the top of his priority list, not him, and he was finally giving up on the hope that anything would ever change.
And he was sad.
So fucking sad and lonely and empty.
An entire ocean separated him and Barry, him and the one person who both consecutively understood him and betrayed him.
He was so hurt but being away from Barry for so long hurt more. Hurt so much it ached heavily in his chest.
The events run loops in his head, those months preceding his arrest, the intimacy that twined the two of them together and the home that Rafe had found in that little trailer.
How had he been so stupid to believe that it would last? That something so good would stick with him for very long.
Remembering the events after his arrest had hurt even more, not long after his dad supposedly blew himself up and Rafe had been angry and needed to get drunk.
And he knows exactly how it would have panned out if he still had Barry. He would have gone straight to his trailer, park his bike right up beside his own and let himself be fucked into forgetfulness for the next couple of hours.
Hopefully for the next couple of days.
But he couldn’t do that, could he? Because he wasn’t his anymore, and maybe he never really was.
So he let Kelce take him to the bonfire party in hopes of drinking some of the anger out of his system but it only seemed to slide away into something worse. Something more pathetic.
He wasn’t even through his first beer when he spotted Barry through the flames, surrounded by some people he didn’t care enough about to recognise and sipping slow on his own beer.
He looked relaxed as if he hadn’t newly torn Rafe’s whole life apart. His whole heart, or whatever.
His hair was shorter now, like real short, and it made Rafe sad.
Because he looked good, he always did, but it’s as if he’d cut his hair off just as easily as he did with Rafe, as if they hadn’t spent the last three months completely infatuated with each other.
And he’s fucking laughing now, at some bitch beside him, rolling a joint with the same fingers that used to press bruises into his lips.
The same hands that kept him somewhat steady.
Rafe wanted to scream, and maybe he should, he didn’t have anything to lose anymore.
Everything he lost was right in front of him.
Barry then decides to have the audacity to walk up to him whilst he’s grabbing himself another beer, all five foot eight of him still feeling impossibly bigger and stronger than Rafe. Always so damn sure of himself.
“Country club,” he starts. But Rafe doesn’t stay around long enough to hear what he has to say.
Just shakes his head with an even shakier laugh and shoulders past him, the rims of his eyes stinging and fuck this had been such a stupid idea.
“Don't.”
That had been last month and now here he is, getting drunk in some bar on whatever alcohol will ring up his dads bill the highest.
And he’s still so fucking lonely.
But now he’s drunk and lonely and if that isn’t the most dangerous combination he doesn’t know what is.
He feels tempted to toss his phone into the ocean, knowing it’ll stop the inevitable from happening.
But his thumb is already hovering over the call button. Has been all night, damn near needed to ask Wheezie to keep it hidden away from him.
But it was late now, too late to keep lying to himself and he just needed to say how he was feeling.
Cos he never did that, never with anyone apart from Barry.
Barry who had made him softer and kinder and all the sorts of things that he kept a tight lid on around everyone else. But Barry had his ways, he always had his fucking ways.
“Hello?”
The voice broke through the phone and right into Rafe’s skull, his chest, his fucking veins.
He couldn’t even remember pressing the dial button, but here he fucking is, staring at his phone and the name Barry and the clock reading 4:09 and, fuck, he hopes he didn’t wake him.
“Rafe.”
And it's that fucking name, that name that quite literally belongs to him but sounds so much sweeter rolling off Barry's tongue.
The drawl of his voice is heavy with sleep and Rafe remembers when there was a time when it was the only thing that could wake him in the morning.
He doesn’t doubt that’s probably still true right now.
He can’t speak. He doesn’t know how. Doesn’t know how to put into words the way he’s feeling, the way he’s been feeling and what the fuck he’s going to do about it.
He hears him shuffle somewhere on his end and Rafe still doesn’t know how to speak but he knows he has to.
“I-“ and shit he sounds a lot drunker than he realised. “Hi.”
“Hi, country club.”
He thinks he can hear a smile in his voice. He hopes he’s not just imagining it.
“Uh,” Rafe pushes his stool away from the bar, motions to close up his tab and steps outside into the dark sky.
The air is humid and his skin feels too tight against his thumping pulse and fuck he’s so nervous.
Always so nervous when it comes to Barry.
“You good, baby boy?”
Rafe quickly replaces his sadness with rage as suddenly he finds the strength to speak.
“Is that a joke? Of course, I’m not fucking good.” Rafe tries not to yell but knows it’s not going to work and instead walks down to the beach. “How the fuck do you think I’m supposed to be good and when you’re calling me that? Shit. You’re not allowed to do that anymore, remember? You can’t fucking-“
He knows he’s rambling, it’s what he does best, Barry used to say.
“Breathe, okay?”
And for some reason he finds himself listening to him, and breathing, not very well but his hands aren’t shaking as hard anymore and Barry is drawling in his ear and he almost feels normal for a second.
“Country club,” Rafe wants to cry now. This is so familiar yet it's not his. Not anymore. “Where are you?”
“I dunno, the Bahamas or some shit.”
“Or some shit?” Barry is laughing now and the sound of it is so painfully sweet.
Rafe huffs out a response of nothing and bites into his lip, hard.
How did he ever think he could do this?
“Are you drunk?”
It's not accusing or mean or judgemental, not like when his father asks him that same question.
Something in his voice makes him think Barry cares. He hopes he cares. He used to care, a lot.
“Probably.”
Rafe isn’t trying to be difficult but I mean, fuck, of course, he’s drunk. Has been drunk or high or both almost every day for the past how many weeks.
Barry goes to speak again but Rafe cuts him off.
“Yeah I’m fucking drunk,” he’s slurring and can hear a lighter flick on the other end of the phone. “But that’s none of your business anymore, is it?”
A sharp inhale around a joint is heard on Barry’s end, or at least that’s what it sounds like, and then an exhale.
“You called me, therefore making it my damn business.”
He likes to imagine Barry now, sat up in his bed, their bed, with a joint between his fingers and smoking through the darkness.
Dread fills his stomach as he considers the bed not being empty, someone other than himself occupying that space next to Barry and he suddenly feels sick.
“What's going on, Rafe?” He uses his name again, knowing how it makes him weak and vulnerable and Rafe hates him so much.
“I don’t hate you.” He says instead. “I don’t fucking hate you and I should, I should come down there and blow your head right off or I don’t know, slit your throat-“
“But you won’t.”
Nail on the head, Barry is right, once again.
He won’t.
“Nah,” Rafe can feel how sad he sounds, how pathetic and lost but he finds himself beyond the point of caring. “I wish I hated you.”
“How poetic, pretty boy.”
“Fuck you.”
The silence is heavy between phone lines and Rafe groans just to fill it, runs his hands through his hair and then he imagines Barry again.
Barry, who evidently doesn’t give two fucks about him. Barry, who has probably up and moved on yet here he is on the phone to his ex-boyfriend shit-talking him on the phone.
Does he even have the right to deem himself his ex-boyfriend? Christ, it sounds weird.
“Shits so fucked up, and I hate it here.” Rafe finds himself sat on pebbled steps now, dragging his fingers through the sand. “I hate it here and I hate my dad and the stupid gold, I don’t care about any of this shit anymore. I don't even know if I ever did.”
“Anything that you do care about, country club?” Barry sounds sarcastic but Rafe knows what he's fishing for, he just wants to hear the words.
“You,” Rafe says far too quickly, he knows he sounds desperate but he’s nothing if not honest.
Barry breathes deeply, “Yeah?”
Rafe nods, almost frantic, even though Barry can’t see him.
He thinks he understands anyway.
“You wanna come home?”
Rafe heart almost thuds out of his chest, the air around him becoming unbelievably warm and the smile that etches across his face is utterly ridiculous.
He knows that when Barry says home he doesn’t mean the island, or Tannyhill, but his shitty trailer. And Rafe has never been so happy.
“Please, Barry.”
“Come home, baby boy.”