⋆.ೃ࿔*:･

They mostly stay at Barry’s place. Sofia’s house is a no go because of her family, and there’s an unspoken rule that Rafe’s house is just meant for him and Sofia…Barry feels like he’s intruding on them whenever he goes around. So naturally they gather at Barry’s, which feels like neutral territory for all three.

They’re all jealous of each other. There’s a bubbling resentment which underlies their interactions. It manifests as possessive and passive-aggressive behaviour where they’re all vying for each other’s attention in a bid to gain the affection of one whilst making the other jealous….e.g Barry flirting with Sofia because he wants her to like him more than Rafe, but also because he gets off on humiliating Rafe.

Whenever Rafe and Barry get to scrapping, Sofia can either operate as peace keeper or she intentionally makes the situation so much more worse. She can gauge the level of seriousness in their threats and plays it to her advantage…either nipping it in the bud so they don’t hurt each other (physically and emotionally) or instigating further because she finds it hot (and nine times out of ten it leads to sex where Rafe and Barry essentially play tug of war with her).

Rafe is in two minds about the whole situation: on one hand, he’s relived he gets to have both and keep both in his life, but he also can’t stand that Barry will lord his past over his head, potentially ruining Sofia’s perception of him forever. Except, Barry never does lord it over him. Rafe’s just constantly on edge whenever Barry and Sofia are alone together because if he was in Barry’s place, he’d for sure throw the other guy under the bus to keep Sofia to himself.

Sofia wishes they’d treat her as rough as they are with each other. She feels left out when they can fuck and hit and bite each other completely unrestrained while she’s on the sidelines of it all. Rafe and Barry listen to her demands, but only minimally.

Rafe lowkey gets in his head about how differently Barry treats them both. He wishes Barry would sometimes be gentler with him, especially in bed, when he sees that Barry is more than capable of acting that way with Sofia.

Barry sometimes resents the both of them so much he has to isolate himself. He hates that he’s the jagged piece of the jigsaw puzzle that doesn’t really make sense. He hates how he has to baby both of them sometimes. Occasionally, when he’s alone, he’ll imagine Rafe and Sofia together on Figure 8 and gets so upset he thinks he’s going to be sick.

It’s not all bad though. They each act as a buffer to the problems in the other’s dynamics, all together getting on surprisingly well. When it matters, they show up for one another. Shitty customer causes Sofia some problems? Rafe and Barry are on their case. Rafe’s spiralling again? Sofia and Barry calm him back down. Barry’s shouldering too much stress and keeping it all in? Sofia opens him up and Rafe does the rest.