Chapter Text
Have you got colour in your cheeks?
Do you ever get that fear that you can't shift
The type that sticks around like something in your teeth?
Watching the red/pink burn across his cheeks was worth the price his companion paid for the too strong liquor. The music bumped and the bodies clumped together on the dance floor writhed in and out of each others spaces like they weren't strangers anymore than the two men at the bar. Cloud watched them, a keen eye even through the haze of booze and something hot and heavy that hung around him he couldn't name. Barret just smiled into his drink like it held the answers to life and happiness.
Are there some aces up your sleeve?
Have you no idea that you're in deep?
I dreamt about you nearly every night this week
Cloud couldn't understand why Barret would suggest coming here, shoving alcohol he barely felt down his throat and refusing to move from his bar stool. Tifa made better food at her bar in Edge, and she was a bartender he trusted not to let something be slipped in his drink. This place was loud and crowded, and he was tired. Dreams of falling and flying and dying had kept him up for days, the same face always staring from a distance he couldn't span. The same face that was now grimacing at the bottom of another glass. Damn Barret and his cursing and damn himself for missing the brutish man.
How many secrets can you keep?
'Cause there's this tune I found that makes me think of you somehow and I play it on repeat
Until I fall asleep
Spilling drinks on my settee
Barret could see the angry shine in Cloud's eyes, and he had to suppress, the urge to scowl. How easy it would be to fall into that old pattern of subtle jibes and honest insults. They were angry men, in their own ways, and everyone who knew them could attest to their fights. Bruises and scrapes that wouldn't heal for days, dented tent poles and broken dishes. More than one misuse of Materia. They were volatile. Barret hadn't been so driven to fight with another person since before his wife got sick. He kept that thought tucked away under the heart that beat too fast in his chest when they stood toe to toe and screamed themselves hoarse. His sick little secret. His memories on repeat until he passed out drunk and denying what his real reasons for fighting with the swordsman were.
Ever thought of calling when you've had a few?
'Cause I always do
Cloud could see the wheels turning in Barrets head, see all the things he was about to say. He could read the words there like venom poured onto a page for ink, but they never came. The bigger man simply shook his head, and let his little smirk return, making Clouds eyes darken more. He would not be mocked by this man who swore himself a friend, who he had stood beside and bled for. He rose to leave and was surprised to find the room beginning to spin. Barret reached out with his flesh hand to steady, and Cloud knocked it away.
“Mad at you.” His eyebrows scrunched up at the sound of his own voice, warbled and slurred. Barret just shook his head and chuckled, reaching for Cloud again and catching him by the elbow.
“Lets get you somewhere less crowded, eh Spikey?” His voice wasn't slurred, and it seemed to boom over the music so effectively Cloud almost lost his breath. He nodded, his anger lost to the feel of a warm hand on his skin and hot breath on the back of his neck. 'When did he get back there?' Clouds mind was as tilted as his current view of the world, and he shivered against the sudden wind.
“No one touches me anymore. Since After.” Cloud was talking again, and he knew that, but he couldn't make it stop or make sense. “They think I might break, but I just miss it even though I say I don't. You're hand feels nice.” He stopped walking and leaned into Barret, humming slightly from the back of his throat.
“You're gone man. You ain't gonna remember none this in the morning.” When Barret spoke cloud FELT it, down to his bones and through his skin and he was turning before he could stop himself.
“Say something. Anything” He buried his head in Barrets chest and clutched him like he would fall if he didn't. He thought he might, and wasn't sure it was just the liquor.
“When I drink, I think bout' you. Almost called you a couple times.” Cloud gripped him tighter.
Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for somebody new
Now I've thought it through
Barret was trying everything he could think of to keep Cloud up off the ground and to keep him talking. He wanted to hear it. The drunken things he needed to say but wouldn't remember. Needed to her him say why he had done the things he had done recently. The need to know was a fire under his skin, and Cloud was so willing to talk.
“Why didn't you?” Barret almost jumped out of his skin and the sound of the smaller mans voice, just a little less slurred than it had been moments before. He was still clinging to Barrets jacket though, so that had to count for something.
“Didn't think you would want to hear what I had to say.” You made me truly angry when I used it as a mask to hide the numb parts of me, you made me want to be a better man, you enraged me so badly I couldn't let myself die even when by all rights I should have. You look at me and I know you never saw a monster. You stirred something in me I thought died with my wife. If only he could speak these things now.
So have you got the guts?
Been wondering if your heart's still open and if so I wanna know what time it shuts
Simmer down and pucker up
Cloud would say, were he sober and prone to blaming things other than himself for his problems, that the alcohol made him do it. Made him lean up and catch Barrets mouth with his own. It was chaste and short and a little off center, but Barret was smirking again when Cloud backed away.
“I'm listening now.” The slur was gone now, and the world had stopped pitching whenever he moved, so he stood back a bit and crossed his arms. Barrets eyes went dark, and Cloud feared for just a moment he had finally crossed a line with his large friend there was no coming back from. Barret shook his head again, and took Cloud by the shoulders, pulling him in and stealing a kiss of his own.
“I'm bad with words.” Was whispered against the smaller mans lips and there was suddenly too much space between them. Cloud was about to protest, opened his mouth to do so, and then Barret deepened the kiss. Cloud new he tasted like whiskey spiked with something that could get a SOLIDER drunk, but Barret tasted like cola and he really couldn't find a reason that they had never done this before.