salvation sequel [rafe x barry]

eternal suffering

"Do you lose your temper easily? I don't on the whole, but when I do, I really feel closer to God than at other times."

Good twelve years of experience and Barry had pretty much mastered the drug game. He'd always seen more in drugs than a simple distraction; they were like cheat codes to life, really.

Made everything easier, long as you were still high, long as you never came down, but then there were pills to help with that, too. There was just simply a drug —or dangerous combination of a few— for everything you could ask for. Even love sickness, or maybe in particular, love sickness.

A line in the morning to get him out of an otherwise empty bed, then just keeping himself busy, drinking and doing lines, cleaning the trailer or the lawn in front, fixing a friends car or working on his bike. Another line. Visit a client that hadn't payed for too long. A welcome distraction. If he had to work at the pawnshop, he'd just smoke a shit ton, go out every now and then to light another joint or hit his pipe, keeping himself comfortably numb.

Sales had been shit, lately, to the point Barry wondered if there was some new hot shit in town he hadn't heard about. It couldn't all be blamed on word spreading around the Cut, he was a fucking homo; as if these goddamn crackheads talking shit didn't switch up their sexuality merely based on the amount of cash in their pockets, sucking cock down at the summer winds motel.

So his days had already been lonelier, but it only really got scary in the evenings, when Rafe should've been bothering him on the couch and Barry found himself reaching for a stupid shirt he took from Tanneyhill, but he had pills for that, pills that made you blissfully sleepy and stopped your stupid thoughts for once. Pills he never offered to Rafe.

The days since Rafe left passed easy like that, well, maybe not easy, maybe they just passed and that was enough.

Barry's promise of waiting for Rafe seemed ridiculous in hindsight, the posters of missing children smiling at him all over town. He saw in their black and white printed eyes the reason Rafe had reacted so extreme the night he left, why he wanted Barry to come so desperately.

Maybe it was good Rafe didn't tell him if he went full mass murderer and killed them all. Cause if he had, my god, Barry might've gone with that psychopath for real. Love, and what else they say.

Some nights, Barry wished he had. Some nights, Barry sat with a knife over his No regrets tattoo and thought about cutting that stupid lie out of thigh. Other nights, he took pills and was fine.

Woke up and went to work the next day. Like life had been before Rafe crashed his world.

"You got fan mail", Claudia said when Barry walked into the pawn shop, a whiff of weed scented air following him through the door. "And you're late. Might have to award employee of the month to myself again next month", she joked dryly.

"Fan mail? You mean summons?", Barry asked, completely ignoring her second statement and Claudia chuckled. "No, far more charming"

She nudged her head towards the back office, with a smile on her lips, assuming Barry would follow as she picked up the phone on the desk and Barry almost didn't dare to hope, but there was one thought and one thought only on his mind, had been, since.. ever, it felt.

After a few pushed buttons, and Claudia holding out the phone in between them, his hopes were met.

"Hi", Rafes voice came through the speaker, the drunken softness to it already evident through just one syllable.