FIC: Givin' It a Shot is Good Enough, Right? [4/4]
Title: Givin' It a Shot is Good Enough, Right? [4/4]
Author:![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif)
dmitchell1985
Betas: misumisu84 and polaris_etoile
Summary: And then there was condiments and Keystones. . .
Rating: PG-15 (??) - for some language.
Pairing: Cloud Strife/Barret Wallace
Warnings: Game spoilers for the second visit to Gold Saucer, but it follows my own line of what the evening/storyline entailed, with the exception of the canon character/secret reveal bit. And, er, the language.
Disclaimer: We all know the drill. I don't own the characters or canon information included in my fic and I agree to give the characters back when I am doneruining them beyond repair playing nicely with them.
Chapter Word Count: 3,435
Total Word Count: 8,181
Author's Notes: Well, this little series is over, since it was mostly finished about two years ago and it took me this long to both tack on the ending (last year) and find betas for it (this summer). I definitely thank those who read this fic and enjoyed it. As always, thanks goes to my betas, misumisu84 and polaris_etoile, for double-checking my work for me. Also, all "Star Wars" mentions belong to George Lucas. See the end of the very last chapter for a few extra notes that address Canon Correctness (Copyright rights on that?) and such.
Crossposting: my InsaneJournal, ffvii_yaoi, barretcloud, and ffvii_yaoi
Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
-
They moved through the milling groups of winners and losers that were lamenting their losses or boasting about the speed of their winning chocobos. Barret smiled to be among the winning crowd and nodded his head at several men who acknowledged him from the earlier round of celebrations by the track railing.
Cloud ignored all of the chatter around them and stayed close to Barret. He didn't want anyone attempting to step between them again. There were only so many times that he could grab his friend's shirt without the action becoming amusingly strained at best, and downright weird at worst. The last thing Cloud wanted to do was to destroy the euphoria of their shared win.
When they had successfully made their way back out through the gate and into the open area just outside of the race track, Cloud looked from side to side and contemplated whether they should ride the gondola again or simply walk to their hotel. He glanced over at Barret and saw that he appeared to be pondering the same thing.
"Do ya' want to walk back or do ya' want to take tha' gondola?" Barret asked, just as Cloud was about to raise the issue himself.
"I think that walking would be okay," Cloud replied and motioned toward the path that led off to the left.
"All right," Barret said as he turned and began walking in that direction.
Cloud walked next to him in silence, fervently scraping around inside his head for things to say. He didn't want to sound scared or weak, not to mention give their group away by talking about Sephiroth and their pursuit of the murderer, but he couldn't think of anything else to drum up at the moment.
"Man! That sure was some race," Barret said fondly, a moment before he stepped in front of Cloud to weave through the thickening crowd of the more populated areas of the path they were walking along. "I'm glad you picked up that tip about Spark. Where'd ya' get it, anyway?"
Barret returned to Cloud's side when they finally passed a mother and father who were attempting to wrangle their brood of offspring.
"A friend. It seemed like a good idea to take him up on it," Cloud answered evenly, knowing all the while that he was telling Barret a half-truth. Could he honestly tell Barret that Dio himself had told him which chocobo would win, or that the races were rigged from the moment the chocobos are born? He wasn't sure what that would do to Barret's sense of joy and good fortune at having 'chosen' the right bird to bid on.
"Yeah, I know what ya' mean." Barret nodded slowly and smiled over at Cloud. "Hey! Why don't we get some of that?" Barret pointed ahead of them at a sidewalk vendor, whose stall sent plumes of enticing steam, laced with the tempting aroma of cooked meat, into the surrounding crowd. Barret rubbed his hand over his stomach in anticipation.
Cloud spotted the long line that curved through the foot traffic around them and considered passing the vendor by. They could surely get something back at the hotel without waiting nearly as long, but even Cloud had to admit to himself that the roasting meat smelled wonderful.
"Smells good. Let's get in line."
Barret joined the line behind three chattering women that were standing in a semi-circle as they gossiped about the latest celebrity rumors they had read or heard. One woman assured her peers that someone by the name of Danny Warbeck was the hottest thing that she had ever seen and that he was newly divorced; therefore, they all had a chance with him. The women around her tittered at the prospect of one of them getting together with such a man.
Barret rolled his eyes at the women's clucking and turned to face Cloud. He found that Cloud's eyes were already on him and immediately gave him a look that clearly showed his own annoyance at the women's insipid conversation. Neither said anything more beyond their occasional shared glances as the line slowly crawled forward to the vendor's stall.
When the last of the gossiping women had been served, Barret approached the counter and asked the vendor what was being sold. The vendor ran through the list of roasted meats, cold canned beverages in the ice chest on the counter beside him, and the sauces that he had available to accompany each meal. The vendor's assistant hovered near the back of the stall as the vendor ran through his offerings, listening for the next order to come in.
Cloud moved closer to the counter and eyed the turning spits over the open flame of the portable grill. He considered purchasing the chocobo meat that Barret had mentioned wanting to eat earlier, but silently opted instead to try the lamb-filled pita bread. He told the vendor what he wanted and waited for Barret to do the same.
Apparently, Barret's thoughts were not so dissimilar from Cloud's, because he, too, ignored the available chocobo meat in favor of a pair of large, mixed kabobs consisting of chunks of lamb meat, thick slices of pork sausage, hunks of juicy beef, melting cubes of animal fat, and fresh, grilled vegetables. He ordered cold beers for both himself and Cloud and asked the vendor which sauce he recommended for each of them.
The vendor suggested a spicy, honey-based sauce for Barret's meal and a deep red sauce that neither Barret nor Cloud could pronounce for Cloud's pita. They nodded their assent to the vendor's suggestions and began digging out money to pay for their meals when the vendor quoted them their total price.
Cloud instinctively moved to the side of the stall to wait for his food once he handed over his money and looked on as Barret counted out his Golden Points directly into the vendor's hand. The larger man smiled down at Cloud and shifted away from the line to join him once his meal was paid for.
"God, that smells even better up close," Barret said enthusiastically as he stared longingly toward the back of the stall at the vendor's assistant, who was putting the final touches together to create Cloud's pita.
"Yeah," Cloud said wistfully. It had been too long since the last time he could remember indulging in such a meal. When he tried to press deeper into his memories to conjure up the last time that he had enjoyed a meal this good without worrying about imminent danger crashing down upon him at any given second, Cloud's mind came up blank. He pressed harder still and a sharp pain behind his eyes was his reward for his insistence. Cloud winced slightly and mentally scuttled away from the past. If the memory did not wish to make itself known, he wasn't going to continue pushing tonight. He figured that there were some memories that were best left to their own devices.
Barret caught the note of pain that flickered over Cloud's face momentarily. Worried that Cloud had not quite recovered from the last of their conflicts before reaching Gold Saucer for a second time, he leaned in close to ask what was wrong.
"You all right there, Spiky? Somethin' the matter, because I've still got a potion on me from yesterday," Barret offered in a low voice.
"No," Cloud forced out, glad to hear that his voice was mostly calm. "Must have been upset stomach or something. I'm starving!" Cloud hoped that the half-hearted smile he managed actually appeared to be cheerful, instead of strained. Even though the last of the sudden pain had fled, its memory was enough to cause him a sharp twinge of lingering discomfort.
"I know what ya' mean." Barret looked up to see that the vendor's assistant was standing in front of them with Cloud's pita and his kabobs, which were much larger than Barret had expected them to be. He was glad for it all the same, because he had only intended for the kabobs to be a snack to tide him over until they reached the hotel.
Accepting the pita in one hand and selecting a beer from the open ice chest on the counter with the other, Cloud looked around for the sauce that he had been promised. "The vendor said something about sauce. . ." Cloud began.
"It's inside the pita, sir," the vendor's assistant informed Cloud. "If you want more, I can get some for you."
Cloud nodded his head that he would like a bit more sauce to spread over the top of his food as he saw fit. He glanced over at Barret, who had also selected his favored brand of beer from the ice chest, but was now licking a wayward trickle of a light yellow-colored condiment from the side of his hand. When he saw that Cloud was watching him, he finished up and grinned.
"It tastes too good to let any of it get away, ya' know?" Barret's smile never wavered.
Cloud nodded his head and bit into his pita. He set his can on the counter and used his free hand to open the beer. Barret shifted his kabobs to the crook of his thumb and forefinger before imitating the maneuver and awkwardly drinking a large gulp of the cold liquid once the tab popped up with the crisp snap of thin metal. Cloud took a much smaller sip of his beer before he set it down to accept the small container of red sauce the vendor's assistance was handing to him. He emptied the container over his food and threw it into the trash hold situated to one side of the stall.
Gathering a few napkins from a basket on the counter, Cloud picked up his drink and turned to leave. Barret selected several napkins of his own, tucked his beer against his chest between it and his gun arm, wrapped his fingers around the bamboo skewers of his kabobs, and turned to follow Cloud. They strode along the crowded walkway in silence as they ate their respective meals and took in their surroundings. None of them really had a chance to truly sightsee on their first visit to Gold Saucer, but Cloud had figured that they had seen enough. However, after tonight, he wasn't so sure.
He knew now that he wouldn't have refused the opportunity to leisurely walk about the Saucer as though he were merely a park visitor like anyone else. He wouldn't have refused the chance to enjoy a meal worth swallowing, for once. Nor would he have refused the company he was currently keeping. He didn't mind spending his days with Aerith and the rest, but he found that he and Barret never really got the chance to talk, to sort through things and just be.
It was an enjoyable change of pace from the fear and the panic and the driven sense of duty that forced him onward through each battle and all of Sephiroth's mind games. It was this same line of unwavering focus that pushed him to emotionally close himself off from a mind that wanted to recover what it had lost. Part of him still wondered about the holes in his memory that refused to fill themselves in as each day unwillingly passed. His own predicament wasn't as he had always heard amnesia cases went. He still wasn't entirely sure how he knew as much as he did about certain people and places, but he did know that with most instances of scattered memories, things tended to slide back into place after enough triggers had been tripped. Usually.
Cloud wondered glumly just how many triggers would have to be set off before it all came flooding back to him. He bit into his pita and chewed the bite slowly, savoring the way the rich tang of sauce and the succulent juices of the lamb meat mixed together at the back of his throat. In his reverie, he could not help but wonder if he even wanted those missing moments from his past to resurface.
The way he saw it, he knew enough of his life to be satisfied that he knew exactly who he was. But at times, when he listened to Barret talk of Marlene and the games she played with the neighborhood children, he wanted to know if he himself had once played those same games of hide-and-go-seek or hopscotch or Fort. Had he climbed trees with friends that he had known for years, or had he gleefully played dress up in his father's clothing? He always had the vague impression that he did, but he was never able to pinpoint details of how high the trees grew around his childhood home or the names of his childhood friends. On the worst days, his memories could not be counted on to even supply him with the faces and names of the parents he knew that he must have left behind somewhere in the world.
Those days worried him the most, but he had dutifully set them to the side to concentrate on the never-ending missions that lay before them. They always served as an unpleasant distraction previously. Now that he was walking side-by-side with a man that he would have never thought it possible to harbor any shade of romantic interest in, Cloud knew that vaguely remembering 'happier times' would no longer be enough. He understood that those faded memories would have to do, but he was no longer so content in that knowledge.
Barret polished off the last of his kabobs before inhaling the last swallow of his beer and crumpling the clean napkins in his hand. He hummed loudly to himself in blissful satisfaction at having consumed a meal worth writing home about. That was, if he had a home to write back to, which was something he hoped to permanently have once this was all over.
He deposited the kabob sticks, his used napkins, and his beer can in the nearest trash bin they came across as they neared their hotel. Barret glanced over at Cloud to see if he had finished his food as well. He watched as the blonde pushed the last two bites of his pita into mouth and crushed both his napkins and his empty beer can with the same hand. The trash was mindlessly dumped into the next bin that they reached without Cloud so much as appearing to have noticed.
Barret furrowed his brow and considered asking Cloud what was obviously troubling him. He thought better of it, for if Cloud wanted him to know something, he knew by now that the kid would tell him. Despite the fact that Cloud was well known for holding his tongue on many an occasion, he was just as capable of spitting out what he had to say when it was his intention of doing so. Granted, this did not happen often, but Barret found the event to be worth the wait, as it tended to be his best opportunity to find out more about the evasive man beside him.
As they reached the front entrance of the Ghost Hotel, Cloud abruptly turned away from the door, wordlessly signaling that he was not ready to call it a night yet. Barret frowned at Cloud's actions once more and opened his mouth to ask where they were now headed.
"I heard about this great place that I wanted to show you. I forgot all about it until now," Cloud supplied, smiling up at Barret and appearing to have shaken off his funk, at least on the surface.
Barret warily smiled back and idly wondered if he should feel alarmed at Cloud's sudden shifts in behavior. He thought back over their evening and tried to pick out anything that might have caused Cloud any form of distress. He loathed to do so, but part of Barret wanted to chalk Cloud's hot-and-cold behavior up to a continued hesitation about dating another man. As Cloud had readily accepted Barret's invitation, Barret figured that minute detail would not be an issue between them. Realization that the opposite might be true insisted that he had been wrong to make that particular assumption; and, that he should say something light or funny or both to distract Cloud from whatever had set him off into a lull of tense silence.
"Yeah? What sort of place is this? Tha' kind where guys come over to serenade us or a fortune teller will reveal our future?" Barret grinned and gave an exaggerated wink in Cloud's direction.
Cloud chuckled for a moment before he answered. "No, nothing like that. But we already have a fortune teller. Perhaps you've met him." Cloud arched an eyebrow and shot Barret an amused glance. For all that Cait Sith had been proven correct in his predictions from time to time, the feline had been completely off base more times than Cloud could count.
"You're not seriously referrin' to Sith, are you? I'm still waitin' for tha' "grand treasure" and "lifetime of good fortune" that he promised would show up any day now." Barret snorted lightly and waved his hand in the air. He caught himself before he uttered something embarrassing and overly sentimental about Cloud possibly being his 'good fortune' and 'grand treasure'. Even he did not want to hear such trite proclamations this early on, be they from Cloud or anyone else. In Barret's opinion, there was a limit to how much dignity a person should sacrifice right off.
Cloud pursed his lips and a frown creased his forehead as he thought over Cait's prediction. For a moment, Barret was certain that Cloud had invariably stumbled upon the same line of thought. Before the itch of panic crawling over his skin could grow into anything more than a mild concern that they were going to head down a sappier route than he was hoping to travel, Cloud laughed out loud as something clearly dawned on him.
"So, what, are you saying that getting the chance to chase Sephiroth all over the continents is not what you consider to be a "grand treasure" or sheer "good fortune" for you? Some people could only be so lucky, like us." Cloud tilted his head and lowered his voice as he spoke the first of his taunt. Though smaller the crowds may have been around them, the name of Sephiroth, and anyone attached to him, was as good as swearing using the most vulgar terms one could conjure. Few things a person could utter would be considered worse to say aloud, save for admitting to murdering your entire family or raping baby goats. And even then, it was nearly too close to call.
Barret chuckled and shook his head. "No, not normally. But I guess that I've got my definitions of "good fortune" and "grand treasure" all mixed up."
They shared another laugh as the Gold Gate came into view. Seeing now where they were headed, Barret's eyes shot over to Cloud. Were they going to check the listings for another event? As much as he had been enjoying their night out, they were going to be heading onward early tomorrow morning.
Barret opened his mouth to speak and got so far as uttering Cloud’s name before the sight of the Keystone gleaming in the darkness before them caused his words to die on the night air.
"What-?" Cloud murmured, moments before the shadowed thief took off down the cobbled pathway.
Cloud felt his body lurch into motion before he truly registered what was happening. Although the details of his own movement were a blur to him, Cloud found that he was hyper aware of Barret barreling head-first toward the retreating thief. They dove around people and skimmed around corners within inches of one another, yet they never collided once. Their strides automatically fell in line, right up until their bodies jarred to a halt.
There before them, in the light of Chocobo Square, was Cait Sith handing both the Keystone and their fate over to the Turks. Neither Cloud nor Barret could breathe or give voice to any words that would adequately express the feelings of betrayal consuming them. After they had given in and taken the annoyance along, this was how their kindness had been rewarded.
In the split moment before all of hell greedily devoured them, Cloud had the fleeting thought, And here I thought this was supposed to be an honest-to-goodness date, not yet another battle waiting to be fought.
-
The End
Author's Note: Okay, so yes, I did change a few canon details, but I did try to stay well within what happened and who did what overall. Since I've had such a bad experience with my fandoms and deviating from strict canon accounts, I try not to do that often, but I really couldn't help myself in this case. After all, "Loveless" can't be the only epic-poem-turned-play that the FFVII world has going for them. I do hope that my alterations didn't make my fic any less enjoyable for you, the reader. If it did, what can ya' do? How a does comforting pat on the back and a swirl of cotton candy sound?
And yes, if you recognize that bit about men who do other men like women, you'll know where that's from. ; D *cough*Gay porn!*cough*
Either way, I hope that I tackled this pairing well enough for those who like it.
As a show of support for the ship that I have come to sort of like and find interesting in general, I am including two eerily similar icons. I tried to do them up with wording, but I couldn't quite get it right. So, you're free to customize the icons as you see fit. The only guidelines for usage are the following:
Credit me, dmitchell1985, along with yourself for any alterations you make.
Yes, you are free to use these icons on other sites besides InsaneJournal/LiveJournal. Still, credit me.
Enjoy the icons and spread the Cloud/Barret and Barret/Cloud love! = D
That's it! = D
DownAuthor:
dmitchell1985Betas: misumisu84 and polaris_etoile
Summary: And then there was condiments and Keystones. . .
Rating: PG-15 (??) - for some language.
Pairing: Cloud Strife/Barret Wallace
Warnings: Game spoilers for the second visit to Gold Saucer, but it follows my own line of what the evening/storyline entailed, with the exception of the canon character/secret reveal bit. And, er, the language.
Disclaimer: We all know the drill. I don't own the characters or canon information included in my fic and I agree to give the characters back when I am done
Chapter Word Count: 3,435
Total Word Count: 8,181
Author's Notes: Well, this little series is over, since it was mostly finished about two years ago and it took me this long to both tack on the ending (last year) and find betas for it (this summer). I definitely thank those who read this fic and enjoyed it. As always, thanks goes to my betas, misumisu84 and polaris_etoile, for double-checking my work for me. Also, all "Star Wars" mentions belong to George Lucas. See the end of the very last chapter for a few extra notes that address Canon Correctness (Copyright rights on that?) and such.
Crossposting: my InsaneJournal, ffvii_yaoi, barretcloud, and ffvii_yaoi
Chapters:
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
-
They moved through the milling groups of winners and losers that were lamenting their losses or boasting about the speed of their winning chocobos. Barret smiled to be among the winning crowd and nodded his head at several men who acknowledged him from the earlier round of celebrations by the track railing.
Cloud ignored all of the chatter around them and stayed close to Barret. He didn't want anyone attempting to step between them again. There were only so many times that he could grab his friend's shirt without the action becoming amusingly strained at best, and downright weird at worst. The last thing Cloud wanted to do was to destroy the euphoria of their shared win.
When they had successfully made their way back out through the gate and into the open area just outside of the race track, Cloud looked from side to side and contemplated whether they should ride the gondola again or simply walk to their hotel. He glanced over at Barret and saw that he appeared to be pondering the same thing.
"Do ya' want to walk back or do ya' want to take tha' gondola?" Barret asked, just as Cloud was about to raise the issue himself.
"I think that walking would be okay," Cloud replied and motioned toward the path that led off to the left.
"All right," Barret said as he turned and began walking in that direction.
Cloud walked next to him in silence, fervently scraping around inside his head for things to say. He didn't want to sound scared or weak, not to mention give their group away by talking about Sephiroth and their pursuit of the murderer, but he couldn't think of anything else to drum up at the moment.
"Man! That sure was some race," Barret said fondly, a moment before he stepped in front of Cloud to weave through the thickening crowd of the more populated areas of the path they were walking along. "I'm glad you picked up that tip about Spark. Where'd ya' get it, anyway?"
Barret returned to Cloud's side when they finally passed a mother and father who were attempting to wrangle their brood of offspring.
"A friend. It seemed like a good idea to take him up on it," Cloud answered evenly, knowing all the while that he was telling Barret a half-truth. Could he honestly tell Barret that Dio himself had told him which chocobo would win, or that the races were rigged from the moment the chocobos are born? He wasn't sure what that would do to Barret's sense of joy and good fortune at having 'chosen' the right bird to bid on.
"Yeah, I know what ya' mean." Barret nodded slowly and smiled over at Cloud. "Hey! Why don't we get some of that?" Barret pointed ahead of them at a sidewalk vendor, whose stall sent plumes of enticing steam, laced with the tempting aroma of cooked meat, into the surrounding crowd. Barret rubbed his hand over his stomach in anticipation.
Cloud spotted the long line that curved through the foot traffic around them and considered passing the vendor by. They could surely get something back at the hotel without waiting nearly as long, but even Cloud had to admit to himself that the roasting meat smelled wonderful.
"Smells good. Let's get in line."
Barret joined the line behind three chattering women that were standing in a semi-circle as they gossiped about the latest celebrity rumors they had read or heard. One woman assured her peers that someone by the name of Danny Warbeck was the hottest thing that she had ever seen and that he was newly divorced; therefore, they all had a chance with him. The women around her tittered at the prospect of one of them getting together with such a man.
Barret rolled his eyes at the women's clucking and turned to face Cloud. He found that Cloud's eyes were already on him and immediately gave him a look that clearly showed his own annoyance at the women's insipid conversation. Neither said anything more beyond their occasional shared glances as the line slowly crawled forward to the vendor's stall.
When the last of the gossiping women had been served, Barret approached the counter and asked the vendor what was being sold. The vendor ran through the list of roasted meats, cold canned beverages in the ice chest on the counter beside him, and the sauces that he had available to accompany each meal. The vendor's assistant hovered near the back of the stall as the vendor ran through his offerings, listening for the next order to come in.
Cloud moved closer to the counter and eyed the turning spits over the open flame of the portable grill. He considered purchasing the chocobo meat that Barret had mentioned wanting to eat earlier, but silently opted instead to try the lamb-filled pita bread. He told the vendor what he wanted and waited for Barret to do the same.
Apparently, Barret's thoughts were not so dissimilar from Cloud's, because he, too, ignored the available chocobo meat in favor of a pair of large, mixed kabobs consisting of chunks of lamb meat, thick slices of pork sausage, hunks of juicy beef, melting cubes of animal fat, and fresh, grilled vegetables. He ordered cold beers for both himself and Cloud and asked the vendor which sauce he recommended for each of them.
The vendor suggested a spicy, honey-based sauce for Barret's meal and a deep red sauce that neither Barret nor Cloud could pronounce for Cloud's pita. They nodded their assent to the vendor's suggestions and began digging out money to pay for their meals when the vendor quoted them their total price.
Cloud instinctively moved to the side of the stall to wait for his food once he handed over his money and looked on as Barret counted out his Golden Points directly into the vendor's hand. The larger man smiled down at Cloud and shifted away from the line to join him once his meal was paid for.
"God, that smells even better up close," Barret said enthusiastically as he stared longingly toward the back of the stall at the vendor's assistant, who was putting the final touches together to create Cloud's pita.
"Yeah," Cloud said wistfully. It had been too long since the last time he could remember indulging in such a meal. When he tried to press deeper into his memories to conjure up the last time that he had enjoyed a meal this good without worrying about imminent danger crashing down upon him at any given second, Cloud's mind came up blank. He pressed harder still and a sharp pain behind his eyes was his reward for his insistence. Cloud winced slightly and mentally scuttled away from the past. If the memory did not wish to make itself known, he wasn't going to continue pushing tonight. He figured that there were some memories that were best left to their own devices.
Barret caught the note of pain that flickered over Cloud's face momentarily. Worried that Cloud had not quite recovered from the last of their conflicts before reaching Gold Saucer for a second time, he leaned in close to ask what was wrong.
"You all right there, Spiky? Somethin' the matter, because I've still got a potion on me from yesterday," Barret offered in a low voice.
"No," Cloud forced out, glad to hear that his voice was mostly calm. "Must have been upset stomach or something. I'm starving!" Cloud hoped that the half-hearted smile he managed actually appeared to be cheerful, instead of strained. Even though the last of the sudden pain had fled, its memory was enough to cause him a sharp twinge of lingering discomfort.
"I know what ya' mean." Barret looked up to see that the vendor's assistant was standing in front of them with Cloud's pita and his kabobs, which were much larger than Barret had expected them to be. He was glad for it all the same, because he had only intended for the kabobs to be a snack to tide him over until they reached the hotel.
Accepting the pita in one hand and selecting a beer from the open ice chest on the counter with the other, Cloud looked around for the sauce that he had been promised. "The vendor said something about sauce. . ." Cloud began.
"It's inside the pita, sir," the vendor's assistant informed Cloud. "If you want more, I can get some for you."
Cloud nodded his head that he would like a bit more sauce to spread over the top of his food as he saw fit. He glanced over at Barret, who had also selected his favored brand of beer from the ice chest, but was now licking a wayward trickle of a light yellow-colored condiment from the side of his hand. When he saw that Cloud was watching him, he finished up and grinned.
"It tastes too good to let any of it get away, ya' know?" Barret's smile never wavered.
Cloud nodded his head and bit into his pita. He set his can on the counter and used his free hand to open the beer. Barret shifted his kabobs to the crook of his thumb and forefinger before imitating the maneuver and awkwardly drinking a large gulp of the cold liquid once the tab popped up with the crisp snap of thin metal. Cloud took a much smaller sip of his beer before he set it down to accept the small container of red sauce the vendor's assistance was handing to him. He emptied the container over his food and threw it into the trash hold situated to one side of the stall.
Gathering a few napkins from a basket on the counter, Cloud picked up his drink and turned to leave. Barret selected several napkins of his own, tucked his beer against his chest between it and his gun arm, wrapped his fingers around the bamboo skewers of his kabobs, and turned to follow Cloud. They strode along the crowded walkway in silence as they ate their respective meals and took in their surroundings. None of them really had a chance to truly sightsee on their first visit to Gold Saucer, but Cloud had figured that they had seen enough. However, after tonight, he wasn't so sure.
He knew now that he wouldn't have refused the opportunity to leisurely walk about the Saucer as though he were merely a park visitor like anyone else. He wouldn't have refused the chance to enjoy a meal worth swallowing, for once. Nor would he have refused the company he was currently keeping. He didn't mind spending his days with Aerith and the rest, but he found that he and Barret never really got the chance to talk, to sort through things and just be.
It was an enjoyable change of pace from the fear and the panic and the driven sense of duty that forced him onward through each battle and all of Sephiroth's mind games. It was this same line of unwavering focus that pushed him to emotionally close himself off from a mind that wanted to recover what it had lost. Part of him still wondered about the holes in his memory that refused to fill themselves in as each day unwillingly passed. His own predicament wasn't as he had always heard amnesia cases went. He still wasn't entirely sure how he knew as much as he did about certain people and places, but he did know that with most instances of scattered memories, things tended to slide back into place after enough triggers had been tripped. Usually.
Cloud wondered glumly just how many triggers would have to be set off before it all came flooding back to him. He bit into his pita and chewed the bite slowly, savoring the way the rich tang of sauce and the succulent juices of the lamb meat mixed together at the back of his throat. In his reverie, he could not help but wonder if he even wanted those missing moments from his past to resurface.
The way he saw it, he knew enough of his life to be satisfied that he knew exactly who he was. But at times, when he listened to Barret talk of Marlene and the games she played with the neighborhood children, he wanted to know if he himself had once played those same games of hide-and-go-seek or hopscotch or Fort. Had he climbed trees with friends that he had known for years, or had he gleefully played dress up in his father's clothing? He always had the vague impression that he did, but he was never able to pinpoint details of how high the trees grew around his childhood home or the names of his childhood friends. On the worst days, his memories could not be counted on to even supply him with the faces and names of the parents he knew that he must have left behind somewhere in the world.
Those days worried him the most, but he had dutifully set them to the side to concentrate on the never-ending missions that lay before them. They always served as an unpleasant distraction previously. Now that he was walking side-by-side with a man that he would have never thought it possible to harbor any shade of romantic interest in, Cloud knew that vaguely remembering 'happier times' would no longer be enough. He understood that those faded memories would have to do, but he was no longer so content in that knowledge.
Barret polished off the last of his kabobs before inhaling the last swallow of his beer and crumpling the clean napkins in his hand. He hummed loudly to himself in blissful satisfaction at having consumed a meal worth writing home about. That was, if he had a home to write back to, which was something he hoped to permanently have once this was all over.
He deposited the kabob sticks, his used napkins, and his beer can in the nearest trash bin they came across as they neared their hotel. Barret glanced over at Cloud to see if he had finished his food as well. He watched as the blonde pushed the last two bites of his pita into mouth and crushed both his napkins and his empty beer can with the same hand. The trash was mindlessly dumped into the next bin that they reached without Cloud so much as appearing to have noticed.
Barret furrowed his brow and considered asking Cloud what was obviously troubling him. He thought better of it, for if Cloud wanted him to know something, he knew by now that the kid would tell him. Despite the fact that Cloud was well known for holding his tongue on many an occasion, he was just as capable of spitting out what he had to say when it was his intention of doing so. Granted, this did not happen often, but Barret found the event to be worth the wait, as it tended to be his best opportunity to find out more about the evasive man beside him.
As they reached the front entrance of the Ghost Hotel, Cloud abruptly turned away from the door, wordlessly signaling that he was not ready to call it a night yet. Barret frowned at Cloud's actions once more and opened his mouth to ask where they were now headed.
"I heard about this great place that I wanted to show you. I forgot all about it until now," Cloud supplied, smiling up at Barret and appearing to have shaken off his funk, at least on the surface.
Barret warily smiled back and idly wondered if he should feel alarmed at Cloud's sudden shifts in behavior. He thought back over their evening and tried to pick out anything that might have caused Cloud any form of distress. He loathed to do so, but part of Barret wanted to chalk Cloud's hot-and-cold behavior up to a continued hesitation about dating another man. As Cloud had readily accepted Barret's invitation, Barret figured that minute detail would not be an issue between them. Realization that the opposite might be true insisted that he had been wrong to make that particular assumption; and, that he should say something light or funny or both to distract Cloud from whatever had set him off into a lull of tense silence.
"Yeah? What sort of place is this? Tha' kind where guys come over to serenade us or a fortune teller will reveal our future?" Barret grinned and gave an exaggerated wink in Cloud's direction.
Cloud chuckled for a moment before he answered. "No, nothing like that. But we already have a fortune teller. Perhaps you've met him." Cloud arched an eyebrow and shot Barret an amused glance. For all that Cait Sith had been proven correct in his predictions from time to time, the feline had been completely off base more times than Cloud could count.
"You're not seriously referrin' to Sith, are you? I'm still waitin' for tha' "grand treasure" and "lifetime of good fortune" that he promised would show up any day now." Barret snorted lightly and waved his hand in the air. He caught himself before he uttered something embarrassing and overly sentimental about Cloud possibly being his 'good fortune' and 'grand treasure'. Even he did not want to hear such trite proclamations this early on, be they from Cloud or anyone else. In Barret's opinion, there was a limit to how much dignity a person should sacrifice right off.
Cloud pursed his lips and a frown creased his forehead as he thought over Cait's prediction. For a moment, Barret was certain that Cloud had invariably stumbled upon the same line of thought. Before the itch of panic crawling over his skin could grow into anything more than a mild concern that they were going to head down a sappier route than he was hoping to travel, Cloud laughed out loud as something clearly dawned on him.
"So, what, are you saying that getting the chance to chase Sephiroth all over the continents is not what you consider to be a "grand treasure" or sheer "good fortune" for you? Some people could only be so lucky, like us." Cloud tilted his head and lowered his voice as he spoke the first of his taunt. Though smaller the crowds may have been around them, the name of Sephiroth, and anyone attached to him, was as good as swearing using the most vulgar terms one could conjure. Few things a person could utter would be considered worse to say aloud, save for admitting to murdering your entire family or raping baby goats. And even then, it was nearly too close to call.
Barret chuckled and shook his head. "No, not normally. But I guess that I've got my definitions of "good fortune" and "grand treasure" all mixed up."
They shared another laugh as the Gold Gate came into view. Seeing now where they were headed, Barret's eyes shot over to Cloud. Were they going to check the listings for another event? As much as he had been enjoying their night out, they were going to be heading onward early tomorrow morning.
Barret opened his mouth to speak and got so far as uttering Cloud’s name before the sight of the Keystone gleaming in the darkness before them caused his words to die on the night air.
"What-?" Cloud murmured, moments before the shadowed thief took off down the cobbled pathway.
Cloud felt his body lurch into motion before he truly registered what was happening. Although the details of his own movement were a blur to him, Cloud found that he was hyper aware of Barret barreling head-first toward the retreating thief. They dove around people and skimmed around corners within inches of one another, yet they never collided once. Their strides automatically fell in line, right up until their bodies jarred to a halt.
There before them, in the light of Chocobo Square, was Cait Sith handing both the Keystone and their fate over to the Turks. Neither Cloud nor Barret could breathe or give voice to any words that would adequately express the feelings of betrayal consuming them. After they had given in and taken the annoyance along, this was how their kindness had been rewarded.
In the split moment before all of hell greedily devoured them, Cloud had the fleeting thought, And here I thought this was supposed to be an honest-to-goodness date, not yet another battle waiting to be fought.
-
The End
Author's Note: Okay, so yes, I did change a few canon details, but I did try to stay well within what happened and who did what overall. Since I've had such a bad experience with my fandoms and deviating from strict canon accounts, I try not to do that often, but I really couldn't help myself in this case. After all, "Loveless" can't be the only epic-poem-turned-play that the FFVII world has going for them. I do hope that my alterations didn't make my fic any less enjoyable for you, the reader. If it did, what can ya' do? How a does comforting pat on the back and a swirl of cotton candy sound?
And yes, if you recognize that bit about men who do other men like women, you'll know where that's from. ; D *cough*Gay porn!*cough*
Either way, I hope that I tackled this pairing well enough for those who like it.
As a show of support for the ship that I have come to sort of like and find interesting in general, I am including two eerily similar icons. I tried to do them up with wording, but I couldn't quite get it right. So, you're free to customize the icons as you see fit. The only guidelines for usage are the following:
dmitchell1985, along with yourself for any alterations you make.
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