You fucked us, Rafe.

You fucked everything.

Maybe if he was Sarah, or even goddamn Wheezie, the words wouldn't latch on like that fucking hook Dad kept on the Druthers. Maybe if he was like those kids, those fucking pogues, he could just shake it off with a laugh, tell the powers that be toget fucked the way they always did.

The way Barry seemed to be able to.

But Rafe, Rafe wasn't built like that. Rafe was breaking apart at all the edges. Rafe was a car on a rain-slick highway, spinning out with no one to rein it back in.

Rafe needed some fucking cocaine.

No matter what, no matter what he fucking did, he always ended up back here. He always fucked things. He thought, some days, that he had made Dad proud. Sarah, Sarah was the favorite, he knew that, had always known that, but he could accept, most days, that his role was valuable too. He was a weapon. A protector. He kept his family safe.

He had saved Dad.

Except that wasn't how Dad saw it, apparently. Not when he shoved Rafe against the wall, hit him across the face, said you fucked us, Rafe, you fucked everything.

So he always ends up here, staggering out of his truck on Barry's doorstep. Slamming open the door, tossing his shit on the couch with no care for Barry, no care for himself, no care for anyone.

Barry was lounging in his chair, blunt held idly between the fingers of his left hand, book in the right hand. The Infinite Jest. "Sup, trust fund?" he raised one eyebrow at Rafe, perpetually unbothered by the noise and chaos Rafe carried with him everywhere he went.

"I need"—Rafe opens his mouth to say cocaine, because he does, that's why he's here, but then he shakes his head. "I need a place to crash for a night."

Would Dad even notice? Would he care that Rafe was gone, or only to be worried that Rafe was off fucking more of their lives up? Rose would be fucking relieved. Maybe Wheezie, too.

The memory of her that day when he was squatting in their neighbor's house after Dad had kicked him out, when Wheezie brought all her life savings in her backpack for him.

So maybe Wheezie would care. A little.

But she'd be the only one.

"You get lost, pretty boy?" Barry's on his feet now, that small, unperturbed, almost mocking smile on his lips. He snaps his fingers in front of Rafe's face, so close Rafe flinches. "You coked out or is this just your usual shit?"

"Usual shit." Rafe bats at Barry's hand, but Barry withdraws it before Rafe can touch him.

Rafe is surprised to feel disappointed.

He wonders, wonders sometimes the way his family looks at him, the way the pogues look at him, the way Dad looked at him today—he wonders if he exists at all when he isn't in front of them fucking things up, when he isn't breaking everything around him.

"Just need a place to say," he repeats.

It isn't supposed to sound like begging, because he's Rafe fucking Cameron, and he solves shit, he is proactive, goddamnit.

Barry lifts an eyebrow at him. "You gonna ask me nice, trust fund?"

Rafe swallows hard.

Barry's standing too close to him, and that smirk on his lips is unbearable.

"Please," Rafe says finally. "Can I please stay here?"

Barry grins at the word and steps back, finally, shrugging one shoulder. "Alright, boy," he says. "But I'm putting you to work."

"What the fuck?" Rafe says.

Barry shoves by him, jostling one shoulder as he does. "You gotta earn your keep," he says. He reaches into a drawer beside the easy chair and pulls out a fairly substantial bag of weed. "I know better'n to trust you with anything else. You can make a run for me. And if you skim any off the top, you and me'll be having words."

"I don't want your weed," Rafe snaps. "And I'm not gonna skim any money, either. You know who"—

"Who your dad is?" Barry's hand drifts to his ribs, his eyes darkening with memory, an expression that reminds Rafe that behind that easy grin is something more dangerous than Rafe Cameron has ever been. His hand snakes out and closes over Rafe's forearm, over that barely-healed burn.

Rafe gasps.

It's the realest thing he's ever felt, Barry's fucking fingers and the pain of that burn, so fresh. And Rafe—Rafe wants more.

"And you know who I am," Barry hisses.

His breath is hot against Rafe's jaw, and that's more than Rafe can handle.

So Rafe closes his fingers over the front of Barry's shirt and tugs him forward, kisses him once, sharp and hard and daring.

Barry shoves him backwards into the wall so fast Rafe's feet come off the ground. His head snaps back as he hits the wall, thumping against the shelf hard enough he sees only stars for a moment.

Stars, and then Barry, who is inches from his face.

But he doesn't look surprised by the kiss, or angry. He just looks—

Dangerous.

And Rafe, always, always, always wants more.

"Barry, I"—

"Yea, trust fund?" Barry asks softly, but it's a brutal kind of softness, it's not tenderness, not anything close to it. His hand closes over Rafe's jaw roughly, pinning him in place so Rafe is forced to meet those ravenous eyes. "What is it you want? Some of this, huh?"

Rafe nods his head as best as he can, trapped as he is. "Yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Yes," Rafe grits out. "Yes, I want you."

Barry tips his head back, eyes raking down Rafe's face and then his body, long and lazy and slow. "Alright, then, trust fund," he says finally. "Then you better get on your knees for me."