Bathing the Cat

Rating: PG
Category: AU
Pairing(s): None really
Warnings: None
Summary:Barret learns to never assume.
Notes: I’d been editing for six hours, I was cranky, I needed some fun. Nyah.

Barret watched Reno and Cloud sit together on the grass, arms about each other, content just to bask in each other’s presence. Privately, Barret was glad for ol’ Spiky. He was one screwed-up little dude, and Reno seemed to ease a lot of Cloud’s emotional distress. They fit together like two halves to a whole, or more like two broken bits to the same pot. Maybe that was why they worked. They understood each other. And, much as Barret hated to admit it, they were kinda cute together. But try as he might, Barret could not figure out why Cloud would be interested in Reno’s lean lanky frame when he could have Tifa. What the hell was up with that?! A beautiful woman in a short skirt with boobs that could double as a floatation device throws herself at him, and he would rather swap body fluids with a tall skinny house cat!? Well, that was fine. Cloud could keep the cat. Barret had decided to go after the lioness.

They were currently up near the Icicle Inn area, hidden in a small valley so Cid could do a few minor repairs on The Highwind. That was another great example of true love; Cid and that damned airship. Didn’t men pay attention to women no more? What was wrong with these people?

Barret watched Tifa walk by, swinging a towel. “Gonna go play in the hot spring,” she said to Nanaki, making sure someone knew where she was and would come looking for her if she was away too long. The great red creature yawned.

“Call if you need help,” he said.

She gave him a scratch behind the ears. He curled his lip, but there was no hiding the way the back leg kicked. Silly mutt. He could protest all he liked; he wasn’t fooling anyone.

Barret watched Tifa walk into the cave, where a series of small hot springs had been worn into the stone floor over the centuries; five altogether, though only two were large enough to use as a bath. They had all been enjoying them; hot baths were a luxury these days. Barret kept watching Tifa, and blinked in surprise when she cast a quick glance over her shoulder at him; a look that very much implied he was welcome to come wash her back if he felt like it. Well, well, well! Things were looking up! Cloud’s apparent lack of taste was Mr. Barret Wallace’s gain.

He waited a few minutes. No point in being obvious. Cloud and Reno snuggled in the late winter sun. Aeris, Yuffie and Cait were finding tiny fossils of plants and snails in the loose shale that had once been river mud. Nanaki dozed while Cid swore and smoked and tinkered with his engine. Vincent was nowhere to be seen, but that was nothing new. The boy was about as social as a boa constrictor. Just hang him from a tree limb and he was fine.

Barret rose to his feet and began casually strolling towards the cave, walking into the dimly lit interior, smelling the scent of heated mineral water and chamomile shampoo. Barret grinned and walked further into the cave, pausing as he spied someone ahead of him, standing waist-deep in one of the pools. Hot water fell in a soft shower from an upper ledge, spraying down onto the person in the water, caressing slender shoulders, licking its way over the soft fair skin, turning the dark hair to watery silk. It was Tifa, it had to be Tifa. Who else in this crew used a luffa and chamomile shampoo and… oooooohhhh…. those bath oils that smelled like vanilla and musk? Definitely Tifa. He would know that combination of fragrances anywhere! Unlike the other boneheads in this organization, he paid attention to how a woman smelled. Especially one put together the way Tifa was.

Barret walked up to the pool, dropping clothes as he went, grinning like a fool. He set his clothes on a rock and waded into the pool, coming up behind her, resting his large hands on her slender waist, pressing close, leaning forward to speak softly into her ear, his huge, partially-erect penis resting against finely-sculpted buttocks

“Hope I didn’t keep you waiting.” He reached up to stroke the long, dark hair. “You have no idea how long I have been wanting to get you all to myself. I know these other jackasses don’t appreciate you, but you are the finest thing I have ever seen.”

He moved some of the hair aside to kiss the slender neck, and paused, puzzled, as his real hand met with a large and well-entrenched matt. Where had that come from? He slid his artificial hand around to stroke the flat stomach and felt hard, well-defined muscles, and a fine line of hair starting at the belly-button and continuing down.

Oh this couldn’t be good.

Barret froze, and watched in horror as the head of the person he was embracing slowly turned, and he found himself staring into eyes like demonic rubies, jewel-red and narrowed. The upper lip curled, revealing a glimpse of white teeth. Barret caught a whiff of sulphur, and he was sure he heard a low, threatening growl start somewhere deep within that slender body; a growl that surely must have originated in Hell. Oh…. shit. Barret swallowed nervously.

“I think I got in the wrong pool. Uh, I’ll just be… SHIT!”

Vincent turned violently to face him, uttering a snarling roar that absolutely could not be made by a human. Barret leapt back, only the barest tips of the formidable gauntlet reaching him, leaving four thin, shallow scratches that leaked fine lines of blood. He turned, scrambling hard and fast out of the pool, feeling the quick swipe of brass claws across his butt. He didn’t even bother grabbing his clothes; there was no way in hell he was worrying about being butt-nekkid with a pissed off whatever-the-fuck-he-was right behind him. Barret fled the cave, running into the sunlight, only to be greeted with shrieks of horror, save for Cid, who howled with hilarity.

“What do you think you are doing, ya numbskull?”

“Just… don’t go in there,” said Barret. “You don’t wanna be in that cave! Trust me.”

Cid snorted, then tossed him a wind sock. “Here, cover that thing up before it freezes and snaps off.”

Barret snorted. “You’re all heart.” He began marching towards the airship, humiliated, four long, deep slashes in a diagonal line across both butt cheeks.

Back in the cave, Tifa stepped up to the pool, long hair tied back, wearing a blue bathing suit. She looked at Vincent in bewilderment as he stood on the edge of the pool, clad in his breeches as he lacked a bathing suit.

“Did I hear screaming?” she asked, setting her towel down on a rock.

Vincent smiled, very, very faintly. “I certainly did.”

***

General consensus is that Vincent's reaction would be very different
if it was Cid that walked in on him - check out the eyeline!