𝐡𝐢𝐠𝐡 | 𝐫𝐚𝐟𝐞 𝐜𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐫𝐨𝐧

０１０．

Rafe didn't know when the last time had been that he slept that well.

He figured it was because he was physically exhausted. He and Ren had been up for hours after that first time, doing lines in between -- and sometimes even during -- each bout to chase away the need to sleep every time it came around. The sun had been near rising when they finally gave in to their exhaustion, falling asleep after a particularly vigorous round.

And it hung high in the sky, blindingly bright as it glared through Ren's open windows, when he finally blinked awake.

He looked around her room as he readjusted. It was a sprawling space, all white walls and white furniture; it would feel sterile, almost, if not for the absurd amount of plants placed in every windowsill and on every flat surface.

Rafe stretched, willing the sleep out of his muscles, as he rolled over. Ren wasn't where she'd fallen asleep next to him, and as he sat up, he heard the tell-tale squeaking of the shower turning off. She slipped out of the bathroom a moment later, a towel tucked around her slim frame.

His gaze slowly traveled up her legs, impossibly long as she crossed the room. He held a hand up to his face, pretending to rub at his eyes to hide his smirk at the memory of one of those legs hooked over his shoulder the night before.

She yawned her greeting as she shuffled through a drawer in the massive dresser beside her window. Rafe watched wordlessly, assessing the trail of hickeys coloring her skin from her jaw down to her collarbone with a degree of satisfaction.

He hadn't given a girl a hickey since he was in high school. He wasn't sure what had motivated him to do it, but the thought of getting under Cain's skin one more time, of showing him just how easy it would be for Ren to ditch his ass and get whoever she wanted -- Rafe couldn't resist. And he didn't try.

"Shower's open if you want it," Ren rasped, her voice entirely spent.

Rafe's smile grew.

"We could have saved water, you know," he said, "if you would have woken me up."

She glanced over her shoulder at him, dropping her towel shamelessly as she tugged on a pair of underwear and a cropped t-shirt. "I tried. Like, for several minutes. You were dead to the world. Are you always such a deep sleeper?"

No, he wasn't. Not at all. But he hadn't felt safe enough to truly sleep in so long that it must have all caught up to him at once.

The thought that he felt safer in a stranger's apartment than in his own home disturbed Rafe enough that he shoved the blankets off of him and stood, offering her little more than a shrug by way of answer as he strode into her bathroom. He needed a cold shower.

                    ______________________________________

The frigid water did very little to ward off the dread he felt with no small amount of shame when he thought about returning to his family.

He didn't know why he felt that way. The last moments with his family before he'd left the night before had been the best they'd shared in years, comfortable and warm and maybe even loving. He should have been glad to go back, to see them again.

But he knew what waited for him there. Tense talk about the cross and the gold, the repetitive thud of Ward's limping paces as he lamented over his missing daughter right in front of the son who had never left him.

A whole lot of shit that most people never had to worry about, especially not when they were only twenty-one. Shit he was willing -- no, ready -- to take on if it meant proving himself to his father.