Rafe, looking down at his lap, nods before he lifts his head to look over at you. He’s at a rough place with his dad, and you know he’s always seeked that validation and acknowledgment from Ward, and when things get real bad, he stays with you. You’re someone he trusts, even though there’s a seed of paranoia in the back of his mind that you’ll screw him over just like everyone else.

“I was gonna be better, y’know?” He starts, his voice that low rasp as he sits on the edge of your bed, his head facing you but his eyes avoid yours as you’re sitting beside him. “I was—I was planning on getting... clean,” He breathes, as if he’d been holding those words to himself, because even though he feels that you won’t believe him when he says that, he wants you to. He needs you to believe that he can get clean from his addiction, even when nobody else does.

“I know,” You whisper as he nods, his eyes moving from anywhere else to you, then back at the furniture in your bedroom, trying to distract himself because your eyes make him nervous. He feels uneasy around you, because deep down he somehow feels his guard lowering without him knowing. You make him feel like he’s not such a fuck up, and that scares him just as much as it relieves him.

“No, but I—I... I know you don’t believe me.” Rafe begins to shake his head just slightly, his eyes half lidded as his lips curl into a smile for a brief moment, as if hearing you say that you know he was planning to get clean amuses him. Because he thinks that isn’t true. That you’re lying to him. Nobody believes him. Everybody lies to him. But not you, right?