Marlene had pointed it out long before you ever noticed it yourself. “Daddy's arm hurts again... he holds it funny.” Back then, in the warm clutter of Seventh Heaven, it had seemed like a small child’s observation. You hadn’t understood the full weight of it then. But now, in the dim quiet of an inn far from Midgar's steel plates, you recognized it instantly.

Barret tried to hide it around the others. He always did. But when the evening fire dimmed and the rest of the team drifted off to their rooms, he lingered at the edge of the lamplight, rolling his shoulder with a tight, controlled breath as his gun-arm rested heavily—too heavily—across his lap. The breath he forced out wasn’t loud, but it wasn’t the kind of sound someone unhurt would make.

You watched from the hallway, recalling the way Marlene had tugged your sleeve months ago, whispering her worry with all the seriousness a child could muster. He holds it funny. And now he did—favoring the joint, the muscles strained from the constant weight, from years of recoil slamming up through bone and scar tissue that never fully healed. The kind of pain that didn’t shout, just lived under the skin and lingered.

When he finally found himself alone, you approached him. Barret looks up sharply, as if ready to insist he was fine before you’d even opened your mouth. Pride came before everything else with him. Before comfort, before rest, before admitting that even a man like him had limits.

He’d gotten used to pushing through it. Pride made it easier than asking for help.

But when you quietly offer—gestures simple, unintrusive—he doesn’t snap, doesn’t bark, doesn’t tell you to get out. He studies you for a long moment, sees no pity in your gaze, only intent. Something steady and respectful.

He exhales slowly. “...Alright.” He mutters, as if the word weighed as much as his arm itself.