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They’re in the town car and she knows she’s drunk, sees the slight haze of everything around her and he, he looks so broken and beautiful and she wants to do something to make him feel better, so he leans over and kisses him.
It’s not a long kiss. It’s a short kiss. One that involves her grabbing his chin and pulling it towards her in a swift motion that seems calculated, staged. It’s a kiss they’ve shared a thousand times before, but always with someone watching them, directing their movements and basking in the warm glow of their chemistry. Now, however, things aren’t especially gorgeous or romantic or magical. The seafoam-painted nail of her pinky finger is digging a little into his chin and he obviously didn’t breathe beforehand – how could he have? She didn’t really give him any warning – so she’s afraid he might choke on his own spit, and she halfway missed his mouth, catching his upper lip between her two. Felicity’s too fearful to open her mouth, so she just lets them sit in the chaste kiss for a few seconds before pulling away.
“Felicity.” He breathes out in response when she finally parts her mouth from his, leaving behind a salmon stain. “There are no cameras here.”
Of course he’s thinking about the cameras. The press. The paparazzi. The stupid things that got her into this situation in the first place. “Oops.” She replies, able to let out a nervous titter to mask the mortification that is starting to overcome her at what she’s done because obviously he doesn’t feel the same. She should know that; it should be clear in the way he’s been staring at the nearly fogged-up windows of the car ever since they left the premier. Evident in the way his hands keep finding their way to the tie that Iris had adjusted earlier. He doesn’t care about her. Well not like that anyway.
“We can do the car swap earlier, if you want.” His tone is caring, and worried, but she knows it’s not really because he’s actually feeling any unease over her; Barry’s just being a good person, and her attempt at aiding his broken heart with a kiss only proved how drunk – buzzed, really, but it’s not like he’s seen her like this enough to actually know the difference – she is at the moment.
“Barry?” She asks, against her better judgement, but he already thinks she’s drunk anyway, so she might as well milk it while she can and tell him she doesn’t remember any of tonight in the morning.
“Yeah?” He responds, still leaning against the misty window, still not looking at her. Still not thinking of anyone but the one woman in his life who’s never looked at him as more than a friend.
“What if this was real?”
The silence after her question is too loud and too bulky, filling the car from the partition to the trunk like an oversized elephant. She’s still leaning slightly against his arm, but the distance between them could not feel greater. The need to fill the endless silence is there, and she takes it in before explaining herself.
“Like if this wasn’t some big elaborate setup by our managers and we were just costars who really fell in love and this towncar wasn’t going to an alley to drop me off in an inconspicuous black Honda so it looks like we’re going home together when we’re not and the first time I ever saw your apartment wasn’t because I’d just broken down about Oliver and… forget about it.”
“Felicity?” He asks her after a beat, and she wonders if he’s about to question the level of intoxication she is currently at because obviously her mouth’s gone out of her control again and she just shouldn’t have said anything in the first place and…
“Yeah?”
“Do you want it to be real? Because… I guess we could make it real…?”
And now, when it’s coming out of his mouth, is when it starts to sound like a bad idea, because now she’s remembering all the times she’s started something before and she can’t do that to him, not to Barry. Not to the guy who stitched up the gashes in her heart like it was a human right and not an immense kindness. Not to the one person who even noticed that something inside of her had been broken and went out of his way to find out what it was. Not to the one man whose company means absolutely everything to her.
“What if I ruin you?” She lets out before she can regain control of her lips. “I ruined Cooper and Ray and I probably would’ve ruined Oliver too if he’d let me and I can’t do that to you Barry, I just can’t, not when you’re everything and…”
This time he’s the one to lean over and grab her face and plant an impromptu, messy, unscripted kiss on her lips with all the grace of a drugged moose. Neither of them really wants to break it.
And this isn’t love. She thinks they both know it. This is something that was born out of heartache and alcohol and the dim lights of the car and the snowflakes outside and the way their bodies just seem to fit together like puzzle pieces in a set. She gasps into the kiss before deepening it, sliding her tongue into his mouth like she’s done a million times before except now it’s different because now it’s not being directed by anyone but her own desires and his hand slides up her thigh and grabs her hip from under the slit of her gold dress and yeah… It’s really good. They’re really good.
He smiles against her hair as her lips move down to his pulse point. “Do you think we should call off the other car?” Barry asks, but he’s pretty sure he already knows the answer.
Her teeth scraping against his skin is such an enthusiastic answer to his question that he almost drops the phone he’s been sliding out of the pocket of his dress pants, but quickly his slippery hands regain control of the situation and he sends the text and yells up to the driver and then… then they’re pulling in front of his uptown apartment and suddenly this feels real but he’s kind of too caught up to care. Iris doesn’t even cross his mind and that should be a warning sign in itself. He scoops Felicity up in his arms bridal-style, much to her protests, and carries her through the door before laying her down on the couch, arms almost collapsing.
“Do you want coffee or… I don’t know… water?” He says, gesturing to his kitchen and she sits up from the couch, where she looks like a beautiful mess; gold strap falling off her left shoulder and expensive sequin dressed that he’d helped her pick out starting to gather up around her waist, blonde curls disheveled.
“Did you just offer a drunk girl water?”
“So you are drunk?” Barry asks, letting the shock that this isn’t really Felicity at the moment and that he should just let her sleep on the couch and go upstairs alone, but then she starts laughing at his disheartened look.
“Not quite as drunk as you seem to think I am, Mr. Allen. Don’t look so let down; this is still totally happening.”
“You sure?” He asks, but now he’s just teasing her, smirking as she gets up from her seat on the couch to saunter up to him. “What’s sentence twenty-four on page seven of the script for season 2 episode 18?”
“Loverrrr,” She replies against his mouth, rolling her tongue, and he was joking but he racks his brain and it turns out she’s actually right and wow – she’s not as drunk as he’d thought, and he swallows the rest of the line and she jumps up on the counter and she can ruin him later. They just need this right now. He needs her right now.