A full soul loathes a honeycomb; but to a
hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet.
Proverbs 27
The few meetings Rafe had set up for the morning went smoothly, and the cash left them both with a sweet feeling of euphoria in their stomach, the subtle twist you get with the taste of molly or acid on your tongue, awaiting promised ecstasy.
For Rafe, the feeling soon faded into anxiety though, once Barry stopped the car by the side of the road in front of Tanneyhill, indicating clearly, he had no intention of going back in with him.
Rafe sat quietly for a while, cheek sucked in between his teeth and biting on it, his brain only able to grasp a single thought with the distracting pain to set it straight. His gaze stuck to the house, while Barry waited for him to get out, or for him to say-
"I don't know if he's still in there", Rafe commented, eyes fixed to the white walls as if he could look through them if he tried hard enough, before he turned over.
"I wasn't coming in anyways, man", Barry shrugged, not up for the same discussion twice. Thinking, like an addict in recovery, after he'd thrown out his new made rules last night, he could still do better, still try again today. "I got shit to do, bro"
"Really?", Rafe asked. "What kind of shit? Maybe I can help.."
"You wanna help me shopping?", Barry laughed loudly, picking up a bundle off cash from the console and shaking it. "Come to the barber with me? That where we at?"
Rafe sucked in his cheek. "Nah-", he made and collected his bag of cash from the floor.
Only with the second nervous look over to the house Rafe threw, hand hesitant to reach for the handle, Barry realized what this was about, damned himself for talking shit too quickly, ruining Rafes way out.
"I mean..we still gotta celebrate sealin' the deal, right, bro, we could go back to my place, if you're..you know, scared to g-", he offered.
"I'm not fucking scared", Rafe hissed. "The fuck. Go do your shopping, bitch. And leave the celebrating to me, yeah, you pogues don't know how to"
Barry raised his eyebrows before he let out a low huff. "'Course". That's what you fucking get for giving a shit, trying to help, that's why Barry was here, in the car, and Rafe was getting out.
He quietly watched Rafe walk over to the house, addict in recovery, thinking tomorrow he'll stop, tomorrow he'll stop caring, stop offering, tomorrow for real.
Now that Rafe had just completely fucking changed the game, by deciding he was gonna stay in the obx, Barry felt helpless around him.
His plan would've worked fine, with Rafe across the ocean and Barry didn't know if he could bear him here. How the fuck to go on, now. It was either end it or...the scary fucking opposite, Barry just knew they couldn't stay in this weird transition phase that was supposed to waste the time, until Rafe left again.
Even with a key, Rafe had always felt like an intruder in Tanneyhill, and hadn't dropped the nasty feeling yet. When he walked in and the rest of his family was together, on the couch or at the dining table, he felt like a creep sometimes, who'd walked in on this family's perfect life. Like it was somehow just wrong to be there, like it was criminal to exist along side of them. Sneaking in in the mornings drunk and coming down didn't help the feeling, when he paced through hallways as if they weren't his.
Rafe walked through the house, hesitant to cut every corner, take any step, yelling down hallways: "Dad?"
It's not that he was scared. He really wasn't.
He was stronger than his dad—had taken only a month of coma and a few dead nerves to get there, but he was stronger now and had easily pushed his father out of the way.
There was no reason to be scared. Shouldn't be.
It had always been Rafe, desperately trying to elevate —or more precisely lower— their relationship to a physical level, one he understood and was well versed in, an area of life he'd found himself dominating in, when he couldn't do so in any other.
Violence was the one thing Rafe was good at, and when he could, he tried to escalate an argument into a fight, something that had a precise start and end, a winner and a loser, and only warranted the kind of pain that was easily treated with a cold can of beer or a simple pill, as opposed to the feelings his fathers words could invoke in him.
It was the only kind of attack Rafe knew to defend himself against, and his father didn't always play into it. Much preferred the more subtle kind of punishments, treating Rafe like thin air for days or sometimes just diminish him with a sigh, or a mean comment—I always wondered if your mother cheated 20 years ago.
Something you couldn't hit back against, and do nothing else to defend yourself. So when Rafe took his relationship with his father as a simple question of physical strength, it got easier for him. Grossly reducing their relationship to nothing but that, it felt for the first time he might have a chance at winning.
His heart beat increased, once he traveled from the bedroom to the study, hand on the handle sweaty, when he twisted it. "Dad?"
He cautiously pushed the door open, peaking into the room with his breath held. Empty, his dad not in sight. Impulsively, Rafe hit his head into the wooden door frame. "Damnit man, get yourself together", he hissed, and hit it again, the short pain felt like necessary punishment for his ridiculous fears.
He straighened his back, walking into the office and dumping the bag of cash on the table, slowly gaining confidence. His intimidation had worked, his father had listened to him, but somehow it was still him sweating fear into a light Versace shirt. His gaze dropped to the note pad with Cameron development stamped into the corner.
Still here when you need me. You know where to find me.
Rafe scoffed, ripping the paper off to throw it into the trash.
Barry tried to enjoy the new riches he'd come to by buying a whole bunch of stupid shit, and it was good that Rafe didn't come with him, and ruined the fun. None of these things were special to him, the money from the cross merely a nice little add on to the rest of his wealth.
To Barry, it was life changing.
"Man, we got infinite cash now", Barry had commented and Rafe had looked over with a wrinkled nose. "Bro, what the fuck are you talking about? This isn't infinite. You can't even buy a fucking car with it. Tz". Rafe kind of dragged the mood with these statements, and to Barry, anyways, it did feel infinite to walk through stupid kooky grocery stores and pick whatever item he liked without looking at a price tag.
It was to no surprise that Rafe didn't share his excitement over a bunch of overpriced organic vegetables, but after Barry got home, had bought food and clothes and perfumes (tried to pick one he hadn't smelled on Rafe before and got into such a bad mood just thinking about it that he bought 10 to choose later), a gold chain and finally a new ventilator, filling that trashy little trailer with shiny stuff, he slowly started to understand the kook.
Because after all, the feeling of satisfaction Barry thought was lurking just around the corner once you bought everything you ever wanted, never set in. And he couldn't even think of anything more he wanted, although maybe with more of the cross sold, and more time spend around Rafe, he might get new ideas, and those new things could be the key then, those would be enough, then.
Barry was trying out the perfumes, when the message came in.
Country Club
Wanna party like a kook?
It's on
Sometimes, when either the pay was good or Barry was feeling particularly kind he'd answered to Rafes house calls, desperate words slurred with a liquor heavy tongue. We ran out of shit, you have to come. You have to. Like it was Barry's problem if Rafe and his kook friends couldn't plan accordingly. But sometimes he'd been kind enough to help Rafe out, had seen those kind of parties for a good five minutes passing through, or meeting Rafe in the parking lot full of rich kids cars, witnessing the fun from afar.
In his new clothes, Barry didn't even really stand out from the mass of kooks at the party, their party, if you wanted to look at it that way, although it was Rafes place, and Rafes people, sure as hell was cause Barry...wouldn't have invited the waitress.
It stung like a blade between his ribs when he saw the two of them standing at the balcony. Just, that Barry had thought she was a one time thing, maybe a mean little move to trigger an reaction out of him, or maybe, if Rafe really didn't care as much about him, at least just a fun distraction, a girl to be tossed after one time use. It felt like he could've lived with that.
Whatever game this was anyways, Barry didn't know how to beat it. He'd confessed his love and pain over the stupid girl, what more was to get out of him with this now? Rafe was sure desperate to hear it over and over again, getting affirmed best every second, to stop his self hatred and doubt from taking over, but Barry was tired of it. Of giving, giving and giving, exactly what he'd swore to fucking stop, and was getting punished for now.
Either Rafe wanted to hurt him, or he cared too less to notice he did, and Barry didn't know what was worse, felt awfully pathetic to wish for the first one.
He'd spent the morning torn, by Rafes new revelation of staying, had tried to figure which option to play into, contemplated which choice to make like picking scents. The fact that Rafe put an end to all options should've felt like relief, instead of whatever this pain was.
Barry pulled himself together. What else was he supposed to do, turn around and leave?
"Don't go running", he drew attention to himself, tearing him away from the cunt.
Rafe let himself get pulled into Barry's handshake, couldn't help but be confused. He looked at the door where Sofia had just left through, back at Barry, seemingly unbothered by it, almost disappointed.
"Not bad, I gotta say", Barry said, picking up a bottle from the side. "Good liquor, hookers-", nodding towards the door.
Rafe nodded. "She's not", he grinned.
"Oh", Barry shrugged. "My bad"
"Hey, fuck off, yeah", Rafe hissed at the people on the couch, quickly getting up to leave.
"Still a nice party, bro" Barry said. "That shit really did work, huh?"
It was almost a kind of fun to play it, prove to Rafe that whatever game he wanted to create, Barry was better in it. Hurting each other with smiles and 'bros', Barry found himself desperate to turn the pain against him.
He didn't know what urged him to be so mean. Maybe the light bruises under his new expensive shorts, maybe it was Rafes perfume, just a tad bit too much to make it classy although the sweat toned it down, made it sweet and intimate and tempting to bury your face in his warm neck. Maybe it was his stupid smile, and Barry just couldn't look at it anymore, and couldn't look away either, rather stared, and just had to do something to take it off his lips.
"Your daddy didn't kill sheriff Pete, alright, you did"
The liquor was a bad excuse, the few sips with Rafe the first he had that day.
Maybe Barry just needed to bring it up, remind Rafe of what he knew and that girl in his room didn't, couldn't ever, but he did, he knew, and he still fucking loved him and that bitch would never.
"Sooner or later he's gonna realize it's you or him. What do you think he's going to do?"
And who was gonna be there for Rafe if he got into this war? Some stupid girl? Would he be able to talk to her about this, cry into her shoulder? Could he depend on her help to fight the threat?
"But that's just me. You do you, Country Club", Barry added, casually.
Rafes cold features revealed little, but Barry was used to watching him closely, and he knew with pained certainty where every muscle of his face had to sit, where his skin stretched over them or exactly how far that small scar was from his eyebrows, he knew so precisely, he feared, he might never be able to forget. It was easy to read, therefore, that his words had found nutritious ground to grow on.
It was quiet for a while, as Barry let Rafe think and sit, let his malicious words seep in, before he started fumbling with his pocket.
"You know, I got a lady waiting inside for me and I don't know if she'd be up for you joining us, so, I'm just gonna-", Rafe said about to get up, when Barry finally managed to get the baggy out, dumping the coke right onto the glass table. He sat back down.
"Wouldn't want to, bro", Barry replied, wearing a mask of utter disinterest as he bend forward to lay a line.
"Hey, spread me one too, huh, real quick?", Rafe quickly threw in. He was so painfully predictable.
Barry silently cut the coke into two, while Rafe kept talking, a dirty smirk on his lips that would've usually made Barry's blood go either up or down. "Why not, tho? Sharing's caring, man"
Barry shrugged ever so carelessly, rolling a note between his fingers. "I'm just not into pussy unless it's called Rafe Cameron, bro", he smiled, handing Rafe the straw.
Rafe chuckled coldly and did his line, before watching Barry do his. Pretending not to feel his stare, Barry leaned back and sniffled a few more times.
Why didn't he get on his fucking knees, for another confession of love? Beg for Rafe to kick the girl out. Embarrass himself.
„Okay I'm going", Rafe said. He didn't know how to make it any clearer, he had told Barry: just force me.
Drag him with an arm around the shoulder in front of all these people, showing them who the man actually was, you not going anywhere, bitch, grab him and tell him what to do, handle him around, kick the bitch out of Rafes room himself and tell him to shut up when he complained. Embarrass him.
Barry nodded. „Okay"
He'd told Barry when breaking up with him. He could make his own decisions. And he needed Barry to trust that he could. That he was capable of deciding for himself.
So even if Barry thought Rafe was fucking stupid, and wrong, and could easily be set right with a hand around his neck and orders barked at him, he wouldn't. He wouldn't try again. It ruined everything, when he got too rough last time.
„To fuck my girl", Rafe said again, desperate attempts that only hurt the both of them, Barry, for Rafes vile ignorance, and Rafe, for Barry didn't react like he fucking should've, in fact, not at all.
„Okay, bro", Barry said.
Maybe not even grab him, maybe just yell or insult him. It wouldn't need much, although Rafe would be fine with a lot, especially something crazy and impulsive, that Barry didn't have the balls for.
Rafe pushed his jaw forward, shaking his head. He hesitated, waiting a second longer and Barry didn't seem interested in the opportunity—dig his fingernails into the flesh of Rafes thigh, enough to keep him down, before tracing his pants up.
Rafe got up and walked, and waited for Barry to yell after him. "You kidding, Babyboy?". Peoples heads turning at the nickname and Rafes cheeks blushing. "Get back here".
Barry didn't say a word. Maybe the call was right on his tongue, but he swallowed it anyways. What if he did, and Rafe walked anyways? It was an impossible risk, and Barry not drunk enough to take it.
He leaned back in the cushions, thinking he needed some stronger shit than that stupid bourbon anyways, when a black guy let himself fall into the couch next to him.
"You a tourist?", Kelce asked.
"What?", Barry made. "Nah, bro, Kildare born and raised, bro"
"Oh, my bad", Kelce apologized. He glanced around the balcony, the make shift vip section Rafe had proclaimed, and paid two high school kids in black polos a case of beer to protect the entrance of.
He knew everyone up here, and if just by their parents name, either close to Rafe, or rich and powerful enough that Rafe wanted them close. The guy on the couch was the only one he hadn't seen before.
"Kelce", he offered his name.
"Got a problem with tourists?", Barry asked instead of introducing himself.
"Nah, just, tourists usually got shitty coke, bro", Kelce explained his thinking, nodding towards the baggy on the table in front of Barry, who snorted an approving chuckle.
"Suit yourself", he answered the question never asked and Kelce didn't need more to eagerly shift forward and start cutting lines on the glass.
"Got this from Rafe?"
Barry chuckled. "Nah, man"
"You should fucking try his coke, man, he's always got the best shit in town", Kelce told him.
"No shit, huh?", Barry made and hid a grin in his glass.
"Fucked up, isn't it?", Kelce asked, leaning back. "Heard a kid down there say, Rafe got lucky"
He circled his finger in the air as if to point at everything around them.
"Me? I wouldn't trade my family for all the money in the world", Kelce continued.
Barry realized it must be a kook thing. Or maybe just a rich asshole thing. Over sharing what no one wanted to fucking hear.
He held back on pointing that he really didn't care what Kelce would prefer, or if other people were envious of Rafes new life, that they knew barley anything about but what the news put out—his father a murderer blown to pieces, making sure his son got a spot on Forbes nonexistent 20 under 20. It would almost be alright, if that was all there was.
"Course not. You got both", he shrugged instead.
Barry happened to know. Rafe talked a lot and sometimes he even listened to his endless rants.
Kelce was too coked out to make sense of it, thought maybe the confusion was on him and he was supposed to know the same about Barry.
"Oh, yeah, what's your name, man, should I know your parents?"
Parents made it easier to put the person across into a drawer in his brains, to place a value on their heads, and know how to treat them moving on.
"No", Barry said. "You shouldn't"
He didn't mind the awkward silence after, and left Kelce hanging in it just a while longer, before he was kind enough to finally offer his name. "Barry"
You could see Kelces brain working. "Nahhh, not Rafes Barry, though, right?"
Barry blinked a few times, quietly looking back.
Rafes Barry. He wondered what Rafe told his kook friends about. Maybe just he was his source, maybe joked about the trailer he lived in—Rafe was vile to his face and sure even worse behind his back—probably not about the afternoons he spent in the hot sun in front of it, or the nights inside, who knows, he'd sure dropped his name, some time, maybe many times, his Barry.
"No", Barry said. "Not Rafes Barry."
Rafe kicked the door open with his foot so impulsively, that it made Sofia flinch. She'd been eyeing the photos on a sideboard, when Rafe drew attention to himself with his little outburst.
„Everything okay?", she asked.
"Yeah, yeah, just business", Rafe said. "Sorry"
He sat down on the bed to lean forward into his hands to hide his face in them. Sofia followed gently, kneeling down on the bed next to him and placing a cautious hand on his hunched shoulders.
"Handling all that business must be so stressful for you", she said in an understanding tone and gently massaged his shoulders, Rafe started to draw back.
"You couldn't imagine", Rafe replied, and felt warm about someone acknowledging how fucking hard he had it, being a semi-billionaire and shit.
"God, you're tense", Sofia noticed. Rafe tried to think of the last time someone touched him like that, caring, but not sexual and all (everyone) he could think of made him tense up even more.
"You can tell?", he asked.
"I studied to become a physiatrist, you know", Sofia admitted.
Rafe laughed a little. "Right", he chuckled. "That what they hire you down at the yacht club for?"
He knew the second the words left his mouth the comment had been less than appropriate, and got affirmed once Sofias comforting hands left his shoulders.
"I had to drop out", she said, almost too quiet to hear and if she still had her fucking hands on him, she would feel him even more tense, over the uncomfortable silence.
"Sorry", Rafe said, turning his head over the shoulder. "I'm-"
"Stressed out", Sofia finished. "It's okay"
"Yeah, just-"
Rafe never finished the sentence and had no intentions to. Wondered for an awful second there if that's what the rest of his life would be, staying silent and swallowing sentences, for he'd never be able to show his whole self, not the weak or the murdering, never show all of him again.
Sofias hands found their way back to his shoulders, massaging gently. "You know", she said, voice so close he could feel it at his ear, warm and soft. "I know a few ways to release tension they don't teach in med school"
Rafe chuckled sweetly, leaning back into her, pretty fingers traveling over his shoulder down his chest to unbutton his shirt. Business man Rafe Cameron it was, stressed business man; and maybe he should start being content with it, being less than just him, Rafe Cameron, for ever now.
notes
Sorry for the cut but there's enough straight Rafe smut out there. There won't be too much Rafe x Sofia in this story, but maybe check out the new part I posted in my drabbles about them. (Or the even newer part about Rafe and Barry, it's a deleted scene from this story)
Next chapter we'll take a break from this endless frustration and have a look into the Cameron family tree before we move on to Rafe trying to cut the very branch that he sits on (idiot)
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