salvation sequel [rafe x barry]

soggy joint repairs

Maybe, they would've. Rafe didn't care to stand up for himself, his own body didn't deserve his protection as much as liquor did.

But no liquor was...insane.

It was not a thing, it was not a challenge, or a hardship, or something that the two of them would get through together with patience and endurance.

It was not a thing, it was simply not up on the table, wasn't an option, it was a no-fucking-way, and the fact that Barry had seen what the two of them had, and who he was as something else, something were it was; had judged Rafe as capable, proved even more so: he didn't know a thing, and the relationships they both expected from each other, were in a different universe, were two separate things but surley not something they could do together.

Barry'd expected of Rafe to live with himself. And as if that didn't already demand the impossible, he'd asked him to change. Expected Rafe to believe his unconditional love for him and told him that man he apparently loved was unacceptable, and needed to change to most stable and consistent part of himself he'd ever had: his habit. The liquor, the drugs, the numbness. Rafe had grown up in them and with each day that went by spent in the comfort of drugs, they'd woven themselves inbetween the loose strings of his developing personality. He didn't know what'd be left if you ripped them out now, and yet, Barry wanted to see exactly that.

Maybe, he just liked the mess. He liked Rafe taken apart to the point he could only hold himself together in his arms.

Barry's cousin was a nice guy, that was, to Barry, that was, he was less rough then the rest of his cousins had been, still he'd done his fair share in prison and he had few years on Barry anyways.

He helped him duct tape the worst of damages on his trailer and replace the window someone had managed to break with a dirty yellowed plate of plastic.

"At least they didn't take any cash, huh?", he offered, joint dangling from the corner of his mouth as he shot nails into the thin walls of Barry's trailer to keep the plastic in place.

"There was no cash, bro", Barry shrugged, holding the plastic until it was steady.

The last money he'd had after those pogues stole his savings went to appease his dealer who'd been looking for far more than the couple grand. There was nothing left but the clothes he owned, a few books and some old canned food in that dumb trailer.

„Man I'd love to see the bitch who was worth all this", David laughed once he let his gaze travel over the mess of Barry's home again. This is just how it went down at the cut. Leave your home unsupervised and the lowest of the low or their kids swarm it like flies do with trash you tossed in a second. He took a moment to wipe the sweat off his forehead and readjust the joint in the corner of his mouth. "Or son of a bitch, ya know"

He tended to smoke his joints like lollipops, meaning he sucked the shit out of them. Maybe just so no one took his stuff, wanted to put that soaky wet end to their own lips. Barry'd never told him, but news travelled fast in this town and maybe he'd always fucking known. He smiled lightly.

"There isn't", Barry shrugged

"Exactly", his cousin approved and slapped him onto the shoulder. „Thats what I'm saying, man"

Sometimes David still felt like Barry was the little boy under his care, hanging out with his other cousins and his friends at way too young, doing their drugs, doing their crimes, following footsteps that had all sooner or later ended in jail, or death, or addiction, as far as David was concerned, and he'd barley lived life himself, but none of them knew any better.

"He was a client..", Barry offered. He generously sealed the edges of the rough plastic they'd installed for a makeshift window with black duct tape.

It was the first time he said he, in front of his family anyways. It's not that he explicitly said she either, he just usually tended to avoid these conversations.