Six months later.

The Mist explosion in the Pharos had left everybody charged and on edge. Fran had needed to be carried back to the Strahl after the Sun-cryst had been destroyed, and Balthier could barely pilot his ship, his hands were shaking so much on the controls. Of course, Balthier's tremors could have been caused by any number of things, the fact that his viera co-pilot was half dead with Mist and he had just committed patricide notwithstanding.

On the unsteady flight back to Balfomheim, Vaan had sat next to one of the ship's back portholes, watching the magnificently tall spires of the Pharos disappear beyond the horizon. And when the Pharos had gone, he stared intently at the monotonous vista of sea and sky.

The intense waves of Mist that had dissolved Dr. Cid and Reddas' bodies had left the six survivors oversaturated with sensation and sense. The imperfections in the Strahl's hull had never seemed so obvious to Vaan before, nor the endless patterns in the sea's waves below so vivid. Vaan had been afraid to reach for his magick – even a simple spell might prove uncontrollable.

Another disconcerting side effect was the overwhelming feeling of presence that the Mist had wrought: he could tell that Basch was brooding darkly in the corner, likely over his brother and wondering whether he would have to walk the same path as Balthier, become not a kingslayer but a kinslayer. Ashe was cold, brittle as ice, second-guessing herself as to whether destroying the Sun-Cryst and defying the Occuria had been the right choice, if she had permanently lost her kingdom by giving up the ultimate weapon.

Penelo was busying herself with practical musings: where they would stay when they got back to Balfonheim, how best to break the brutal truth to the city about Reddas. Vaan smiled – she always turned to the practical when the metaphysical or untenable troubled her overmuch. Fran was mostly unconscious and unreadable – her mind, being of a different species was completely alien to him. All Vaan could discern was that she was floating through distant forests and meadows, thick with Mist.

Balthier had been a dark tangle of emotions, his hands still trembling on the controls, eyes set on the horizon, mouth a thin line. Vaan had been about to probe deeper with his newfound ability of presence when he checked himself.

What am I doing? he asked himself, half horrified. This isn't even any of my business!

With effort, he curbed the probing power of his excess Mist, though he couldn't help sensing flashes of emotion from his companions occasionally: money worries from Penelo, icy fear and doubt from Ashe, something altogether darker from Balthier. Vaan had rested his head against the Strahl's hull and closed his eyes – but even the trusted darkness of his eyelids gave no succor, as gold patterns of Mist swirled lazily about behind them.

Seeking port in Balfonheim had gained their group a lot more notoriety than any of them wanted: the entire town had been aware of the Mist explosion at the Pharos and that Reddas had flown off with them. Vaan had been the first to stumble off the Strahl, into a crowd of wide-eyed pirates and wenches who looked at him silently.

Vaan's mouth opened to say something, anything to them, but before he was able to get a word off Balthier nearly bowled him over, still visibly shaking, carrying a lax Fran in his arms. The way she dangled unconsciously from Balthier's hold reminded Vaan immediately of the way Balthier himself had looked in Basch's grasp, all those months ago in the Tchita Uplands.

"A room," Balthier demanded to the milling crowd, which had broken out in a low murmur at the sight of Fran. Basch appeared at Balthier's shoulder and gently touched his arm, but Balthier shrugged the touch away; Vaan was assailed with another violent burst of darkness from Balthier's emotions, so intense Vaan felt vertigo overtake him. "A room," Balthier repeated, frustration and anger lilting the words.

Out of nowhere a pair of viera appeared at the front of the crowd, one dressed in Wood-Warder black, one in Salve-Maker white. Vaan knew both of them well: their group had assisted the black-clad viera in slaying a monster, while he had seen the white one gazing pensively out over the ocean during his previous stays in Balfonheim.

"She burns," they both said in unison, their long ears pricking at the sudden influx of Mist their group had brought to the Aerodrome.

Balthier opened his mouth and Vaan was expecting another cutting request, but all that came out of the pirate was an unsteady breath. The Salve-Maker touched Fran's forehead, and said something to the Wood-Warder in a language Vaan didn't understand.

"We shall take her," the Wood-Warder told Balthier gently, reaching out a hand to touch his arm when Balthier's grip tightened on Fran's body and he shook his head in denial. "She will be fine," the viera soothed the pirate. "She just needs rest and proper care, both of which we are able to give her."

Balthier wavered, and Basch reached forward to touch Balthier's shoulder again. "Let them nurse her," Basch said in a low voice. "They can do it better than any of us can. Do you even know what ails her?"

Balthier swallowed hard, which caused the knot at his throat to bob down and up again. With obvious reluctance, he let the Wood-Warder assume possession of Fran's limp body, and made to follow, but the Salve-Maker shook her head.

"You are too dark," she told him, pressing a hand against Balthier's forehead, as if feeling for a fever. "In her, the Mist burns, in you it… festers. You cannot be around her now."

As Balthier's face fell visibly, Ashe stepped out of the ship, her face lined in creases that hadn't been there before. She looked sadly over the waiting group of pirates. "Reddas is no more," she told them, filthy and strained and yet still regal as the princess of the blood she was. "He sacrificed himself to rid the world of the Sun-Cryst…" she bowed her head, throat choking up and Vaan felt only sadness from her, sadness that the ghost of Rasler had been no more than an illusion from the Occuria, sadness that now there was no destiny, only her fallible will and what she made of it. "I am sorry," she managed after a moment, before the ensuing din from the disbelieving pirates swallowed everything in noise and chaos.

Thankfully, while the lot of them stood paralyzed and unthinking, Penelo had apparently already planned their escape. "Come on," she said tersely to Vaan, grabbing his hand and heading for the least-congested exit. Vaan's hand shot out automatically and grabbed Balthier's elbow. He was half-expecting the pirate to put up a scene about being torn from Fran but Balthier came quietly, Ashe and Basch not far behind.

They wound silently through the backstreets to avoid most of the town criers relating the news of Reddas' demise to the incredulous citizens of the port. As the city was being consumed in rumor and fear of probable Imperial takeover, Penelo lead them all to the Whitecap and rented rooms near the back of the tavern, overlooking the sea.

That night, though exhausted to the point of insensibility, Vaan lay awake on the clean sheets of his bed, body vibrating with Mist. It was getting to the point where it was almost painful, his hyper-awareness of his surroundings. There was a family of mice in the wall, the sea crashed against the beach with the sound of plate armor striking itself over and over again, the thick sea air moved slowly over his body like a constant caress from the open window.

He was sharing a bed with Penelo. Though she also hummed with Mist power, it was apparently affecting her differently, as she didn't appear to feel wound up like a clock. Her breathing was even and steady, her emotions and thoughts hazy and distant in sleep. Vaan studied the back of her head, the curves of her body, he was over aware of the smell of her skin.

I am going to marry her someday, Vaan realized, with all the clarity of a bell through a cloudless night. There was nobody else for him, now: he could hardly see himself settling down to a normal life in Rabenastre after this. Even assuming that there was an after, given that their next mission to board the Empire's prized weapon and destroy it was the most folly yet. Chances were probably high that they'd all end up dead, or worse.

Suddenly, the thoughts of both marriage and death made him unbearably restless; he couldn't imagine lying down for another minute. Carefully he extricated himself from the bed so as not to wake Penelo, and left the room.

They had rented three rooms and had bedded according to their usual setup: Vaan with Penelo, Ashe with Basch, and Balthier, this time alone since Fran was in the care of other viera. With his heightened senses, Vaan was able to say that Basch and Ashe were asleep, but Balthier, a constant tangle of dark emotions ever since the final battle in the Pharos, was still awake.

Winding down the narrow creaky hallway to Balthier's room, Vaan couldn't quite explain to himself what he was doing, and why exactly he was seeking the pirate's company in the middle of the night, but then decided that any explanation he had probably wouldn't account for aught as it were. He was wound up with Mist and the knowledge that all that was left for the future was victory or death; explanations seemed meaningless. Balthier's room was the last one on the left, and when Vaan reached out his hand for the doorknob, Balthier opened it for him, standing fully dressed at three in the morning, haloed by a single candle guttering behind him.

They stared at each other for a moment. "You feel it too?" Vaan asked, wiggling his fingers next to his head in the Dalmascan slang-gesture for "magic."

Balthier nodded, crossing his arms and leaning against the doorframe. "It's a torment," he said, and Vaan noted the creases next to his eyes and the hollows beneath them. "I can feel… everyone, everything. It's… too much."

Vaan nearly slumped with relief that he wasn't the only one. "Can you feel everyone else's emotions?" he asked. "I've been constantly aware of what everybody else is feeling ever since… we got on the Strahl."

Balthier's head cocked, and his eyes darted up and down the hallway before stepping aside to let Vaan inside. "No," he said, after he'd closed the door behind Vaan. "I can't."

Vaan sighed. "The viera was right when she said you festered," he said, crossing the room to look out the window. The night was so dark it appeared to press up against the glass of the window, without stars to pin it back where it belonged.

"You think I fester?" Balthier asked, a note of curiosity in his voice. The darkness inside of him roiled to Vaan's senses, defensive.

Shaking his head, Vaan turned away from the window. "Listen, I know you're supposed to be this untouchable ideal of the swashbuckling sky pirate, but you hurt. You just killed your own father!"

Balthier crossed his arms over his chest and his eyes glittered darkly in the scant light from the candle. "I'm hardly the only orphaned person in the world," he said stiffly. "And good riddance. You think he would have shown us any more mercy had we not gotten to him and his damn nethicite toys first?"

"It doesn't make any difference," Vaan shot back, irritated at his bravado. "Sure, my parents and my brother died, but I didn't kill them."

Balthier flinched and turned away.

Vaan pressed his advantage. "I don't know how long that Mist explosion is going to affect us like this – but you are dark, and you fester, and I know that like I know my own name."

"What do you want me to do, then?" Balthier asked, irritated, still facing away from him. "Fine. I'm dark, I fester, according to the laws of the land I'm anathamized ten times over before breakfast, I killed my father and I'm likely going to have to help Basch kill his twin. I'll probably have to kill Vayne, who's technically my emperor. Assisted fratricide, patricide, regicide, treason – what difference does it make? I've done it all and I haven't even seen twenty-five years gone yet."

Vaan's eyes locked on the intricate brocade patterning on Balthier's vest, his gaze tracing the spirals and twists of color over and over again. The Mist inside of him hummed so loudly in his ears that it blocked out the sound of his breathing, all other sounds but the counterpoint thump of his heart against his ribcage.

He didn't realize that he had walked up so close to Balthier until the other man turned around and Vaan found himself staring at Balthier's cravat. This close the Mist between them swirled and deafened them both and Vaan suddenly felt filled, filled to bursting, the way his body reacted when great waves of Mist overtook him and exploded towards his foes in red and white whorls of destructive color. Balthier's Mist expulsions had always been far earthier in nature, fire and water, in seeming direct contrast to the refined nature of the man, the wildness beneath the polished exterior. Mist and body heat radiated in the scant inches separating their bodies, and Vaan found himself entranced by the lightly fluttering pulse in Balthier's neck.

Balthier held his hands up and level with his shoulders as if in surrender, wavering uncertainly in the space between them. His lips parted to speak, but instead his tongue nervously darted out to wet his lower lip.

To hell with it, Vaan thought suddenly, his eyes flicking up to meet Balthier's. Whatever Vaan was feeling Balthier was obviously well on his way: his gray irises had retreated back to allow for wide dark pupils. Looking into them was like looking into a great stone well.

"Remember," Vaan started, voice unusually hoarse, "the Tchita Uplands?"

Balthier nodded. "As much as I'd rather not."

"After, I said you owed me a debt and you said that you hoped I'd call you in on it?"

Again, Balthier nodded, his wide pupils so dark that Vaan could see himself reflected in them. "As any good sky pirate should call in a debt."

"Well, I'm calling it in now," Vaan said tersely, a distant, sane part wondering what in the world had gotten into him but the larger part intent and honed like the business end of his sword.

His hands still suspended in the air, Balthier wiggled his fingers, causing his rings to catch the light. "At your service," he said.

"Strip," Vaan commanded, and had the pleasure of seeing Balthier jerk back in surprise.

"Hardly a subtle seduction," Balthier quipped, his hands lowering slowly from their raised position.

"Doesn't have to be," Vaan retorted. "You owe me. And you're supposed to be the consummate ladies' man, not me."

Balthier raised his eyebrow. "If I'm disrobing for the pleasure of a young man, it hardly makes me a ladies' man."

For the first time since the ability was forcibly bestowed upon him, Vaan was grateful for his sensitivity to others' emotions. "And it's not the first time you've done so, is it?"

Balthier threw his hands up in the air again, before he started divesting his fingers of rings. "This is almost as bad as sleeping with Fran."

"You've slept with her?" Vaan asked conversationally, as Balthier dropped a handful of jewelry on the nightstand and started undoing the clasps and buttons at the back of his heavy, tight-fitting vest with precision born of repetition.

"Of course," Balthier replied, as if it was the most obvious thing under the sun. "And she always knows what I'm feeling, and half of the time she knows my thoughts."

Vaan wondered at all the times the viera had given him a small enigmatic smile over their travels throughout the months… it was usually when Vaan was thinking of something sexual or vengeful. He sighed. "I don't know how she puts up with it," he admitted. "If it's even half as intense as what I'm feeling now, I would have gone insane a long while past."

Balthier draped the vest over the back of a chair and sat on the bed to remove his boots. "I assume she's learned how to manage," he said, dropping first one boot and then the second to the floor.

"Quite," Vaan replied. He hadn't moved from near the door all while Balthier had been removing his clothes; Balthier leveled him with a smirk while undoing the laces and buttons of his cuffs and pulling off his shirt.

"Are you joining me?" Balthier asked, standing up again to remove his belt.

Vaan shrugged, letting a devil-may-care smile grace his own features, leaning his back against the wall.

Balthier shook his head, divesting himself of his leather pants and undergarments. When he was finished he stood upright again, arms crossed against his chest. Another burst of emotion radiated from him – the ever-present darkness still lingered, but was now laced with something a little more fiery, like anticipation and curiosity. "Give a child some control," he said lowly, "and they act as if they rule all of Ivalice."

Vaan smiled blithely, bending a knee so that the flat of his boot rested parallel with the wall. Balthier waited, on point, as Vaan surveyed his naked body. Vaan had seen the other man nude several times by this point in their travels, but this was something else entirely, the first time he'd ever actually looked. Balthier was lightly muscled, lithe and willowy rather than strong and stocky like Basch, even less thick-bodied than Vaan himself. The guttering candles lent yellow and brown tinges to Balthier's naturally pale skin: in the uneven light he was graceful and still, like a wild animal at its ease in the night. Vaan would have called him beautiful – not in a delicate, feminine way, but in an archaic, artistic sense of the word. Balthier was all planes, sharp angles, and flat surfaces like a mathematician's dream.

"Well?" Balthier asked after a moment. "Are you attracted or repelled?"

"I don't know," Vaan said truthfully. He used his boot to push off from the wall and cross the room. Closer, the imperfections of Balthier's skin that had been hidden by the sparse light and the distance showed truer: long scars from past battles mottled the pirate's arms, stomach, chest, and legs. He reached out and touched one soft white scar that started below Balthier's left collarbone and stretched downwards, angled between his nipples and ended near his right hip. Balthier said nothing at the long caress, but Vaan noticed the pirate's skin pebbling in his finger's wake, as well as a slight pink flush rise on his chest.

When Vaan lifted his hand Balthier reached out and caught it, surprisingly quick. Vaan looked up into unusually intense eyes and raised his own eyebrow, questioning.

"Stay or go," Balthier said brusquely, not releasing Vaan's hand, "but don't toy with me. I won't abide it. Not now. I don't care how many debts I ever owe a man: I won't be toyed with."

The tide of resentment that welled up in Balthier at that shocked Vaan in its intensity. "You think I'm toying with you?" he asked.

"I don't know," Balthier said flatly, "and you clearly have the advantage over me since you can read my emotions like a book and I don't have the ability."

Vaan reached up his free hand and curiously ran a finger along Balthier's sharp jaw line; Balthier released a shuddering breath and closed his eyes.

"Get on the bed," Vaan said, when he had finished.

Balthier laughed softly. "Gods, Vaan, you have such a way with words-"

"Somebody here has to be to the point," Vaan interrupted him, stepping back.

Balthier held his hands up in surrender and lay on the bed, propping himself up on his elbows. "And then, my lord?"

Vaan sat on the edge of the bed, not even bothering to remove his boots. He felt sick with giddiness – he had never done this before. And then, an idea.

"I want to watch you bring yourself off," Vaan surprised himself by saying.

Balthier blinked. "You… what?"

"You heard me."

Balthier rolled his eyes and shook his head and Vaan smiled – that was always what Balthier did when he couldn't think of anything to say. "Go on," Vaan encouraged, happy to have the pirate on the defensive for once. "You don't seem to be too put off by the idea." It was true – the other man was already half hard.

"Very well," Balthier said loftily, after a moment. "The leading man loves an audience, you know."

"Mmhm," Vaan said distantly as Balthier licked his hand and closed his eyes, breathing deeply and sinking into the pillows, tilting his neck back. His dry hand came up and ran gentle fingers over his own throat and clavicle, stopping to encircle a nipple and pinch; a tremor ran through Vaan's body as if it were his own skin being teased. Goosebumps rippled down Balthier's torso in waves and his spine undulated with the rush of sensation.

As Balthier's left hand stroked and danced across his chest, his right hand started to run down the flat planes of his stomach where his belly was starting to hitch slightly along with his breath and down the sparse hairs arrowing to the junction of his thighs. Vaan's eyes followed the path of hair: Balthier was fully hard by now, cock angling firmly upwards, long and lithe, just like the man himself.

When Balthier finally wrapped a hand around the base of his cock Vaan almost echoed Balthier's strained noise of relief. The pirate pulled slowly upward, inhaling on the stroke and running a thumb over the tip before slowly pushing back down, his hips rising unconsciously to meet his hand. Vaan flicked his eyes back up to trail along the pronounced red flush that consumed Balthier's torso and up to his swollen, parted lips and closed eyes.

Balthier's left hand that had been toying with his nipples grew jerkier as his hand on his cock sped up. With a long exhale Balthier slid his left hand down his body and between his legs to cup his balls, which elicited a muffled exclamation.

Vaan was vaguely aware that Balthier was putting on a bit of a show – he himself had masturbated in total silence before. But the show was effective, as any lingering doubts he harbored about doing anything remotely sexual with another man had been firmly banished by his own arousal; Vaan squeezed his thighs together but stubbornly kept his hands to his sides.

"Slow down," Vaan ordered thickly, when Balthier's breath hastened in earnest and the tip of his cock was weeping fluid freely.

With a noise that sounded rather undignified Balthier slammed his hand down and squeezed the base of his cock in an effort to bide time, and quickly removed his other hand from his testicles. His eyes flew open, crystalline with effort and tinged with annoyance. His body arched off the mattress like a bent bow, heels digging into the sheets. "Gods damn it," he said hoarsely, and Vaan could feel waves of barely controlled desperation radiating from him, which made Vaan smile – however the pirate might have embellished the actual act itself, his desire for release was no farce.

"I'm enjoying the show," Vaan said, as evenly as possible.

"Vaan…" Balthier started, hand still tightly gripping his cock, which was swollen and red with effort. Rolling his head on the pillow, he turned a beguiling gaze upwards, which Vaan meet with an innocently blank look.

"What will you give me in return?" Vaan asked, somewhat amused at his own bravado, incredulous that this had gotten as far as it had. He leaned forward to brush a fingernail across Balthier's hardened nipple, which caused the other man to gasp and curse. "If I remove you from your debt?"

Balthier's wanton, open gaze met his again, and a slow honey smile spread across his features, causing something very akin to lust to build in Vaan's stomach. He ran the thumb of his free hand across the head of his leaking cock and, very deliberately, slid the thumb in his mouth. "I can be of service," the pirate purred, showing Vaan his clean hand, "to men who very kindly let me free of debt. I am no charlatan."

Right, Vaan thought dourly, body piqued by the invitation nonetheless. "You are a charlatan," Vaan reminded him, voice unsteady. He swallowed. "The worst kind."

"Vaan, please," Balthier said, eyes closing. "Do you want me to beg?"

"No," Vaan replied at once. "There'd be no shame in it for you, so I'd as soon not have you waste your breath." Gathering his courage, he nodded his head towards Balthier's hand, still desperately gripping his cock. "Take your hands off yourself."

"Bastard," Balthier managed through clenched teeth, slowly removing his hands to clutch at the sheets. Vaan admired the picture for a moment: Balthier completely undone, fingers scrambling for purchase at the sheets, cock straining, every muscle in his body taut, chest heaving, head tossing back and forth against the pillow as if in denial, cheeks flushed like he'd been running through the Westersand at midday.

"But I'm so nice to you," Vaan said sweetly, reaching forward and wrapping his own hand around Balthier's cock. He didn't even have to stroke – Balthier's eyes flew open in surprise as he found his release, inhaling sharply and biting off a cry as he came in long, sticky ropes that covered Vaan's hand and Balthier's torso.

When Balthier at last settled limply on the sheets, breathing heavily, Vaan removed his hand, half shocked at what he had just done.

Balthier's eyes slit open lazily, ignoring the mess on his stomach in favor of smiling wanly up at Vaan. "I never knew you had it in you."

"Nor did I," Vaan admitted, his voice still shaky, body still on fire with arousal. Silence hung between them for a moment, making Vaan wonder if he should take the opportunity to escape to the necessary to take care of his own problems.

Balthier didn't give him the chance. In one impossibly quick movement the pirate lunged forward and pinned Vaan back on the bed, causing Vaan to gasp in surprise and almost struggle, before the look in Balthier's eyes stopped him. It was as if the pirate wanted to eat him alive, and the intense emotions that the Mist assailed him with were overwhelming: desire, lust, want, hunger, desperation born of the same awareness of mortality that had troubled Vaan earlier, grief.

"Now that I find myself fully removed from your debt," Balthier said in a low rumble, planting his knees on either side of Vaan's thighs, stomach still glossy with his own semen and not appearing to care, "I feel I am at liberty to make my own way."

Vaan's breath caught in his stomach, looking up at the pirate who appeared like the cat who had just gotten all the cream, naked and impossibly tall in the flickering candlelight. "Balthier-" he started, before Balthier's hand cupped the back of Vaan's head and he brought his swollen lips down on Vaan's, hard, demanding.

"Mm!" Vaan said in the back of his throat when Balthier's tongue invaded his mouth, seeking the dominance that had been denied him earlier. Vaan let him have it – what else could he do? – and found that the next sound emanating from his throat was embarrassingly like a moan.

When Balthier broke the kiss, it was with an altogether different kind of gleam in his eye. "You've never had a man before, have you?"

Vaan fisted the sheets at his side. "I've never had anyone before," he retorted.

That earned him a surprised look. "And how old are you now? Gods, boy, what were you waiting for, marriage?"

A watery chuckle bubbled from Vaan's throat. "Actually, yes. Originally."

Now Balthier's smile was purely predatory, less cat with the cream and more cat with a juicy mouse in its claws. "Well, then."

Pushing himself back Balthier deftly loosened the drawstring around Vaan's waist and pulled the thick gray trousers down. Vaan met Balthier's second surprised look with a stony challenge when it was obvious he didn't wear any underwear.

"Couldn't afford 'em," Vaan said flatly. "And when I could, I had already gotten used to it."

Balthier's eyes lingered on the patch of coarse blond hairs that curled around the base of Vaan's cock, which was already standing at attention with arousal; shiny beads of wetness clung to the head.

Shrugging, Balthier pulled back to quickly remove Vaan's scuffed boots, carelessly flinging them on the floor. "Less fabric that I have to bother with," the pirate said, removing the trousers entirely and letting those drop to the floorboards as well.

When Balthier lay on top of him Vaan gasped – the heat generated between their chests was almost oppressive. Their second kiss was considerably gentler than the first, with Balthier's tongue probing softly against Vaan's palate. Vaan could feel Balthier's long earrings softly tapping against his cheeks and he liked the feeling, reaching up a cautious fingertip to trace along the shell of Balthier's ear and down the spiral of the wooden jewelry.

"Ever consider getting an ear piercing?" Balthier asked when he pulled away, diverting his attention next to the sensitive skin beneath Vaan's jaw, teasing it with clever lips and tongue.

Vaan was rapidly losing capacity for rational thought, his body squirming under Balthier's of its own accord. "Never," he gasped, hands moving up to cup the back of Balthier's head, fingers clenching absently in his short hair.

"You should," Balthier advised, moving down to nip along Vaan's collarbone. "It drives the women wild."

That drew a laugh from Vaan, the thought of Balthier being concerned with attracting women when he was clearly quite well acquainted with the male form. Balthier's hands slid from alongside Vaan's ribcage to his hips, as his mouth closed around Vaan's left nipple, causing Vaan to jump slightly with an expletive.

Balthier chuckled in his throat and Vaan let him have his moment of triumph, particularly when one of Balthier's free hands pinched at Vaan's right nipple, doubling the sensation. But it was the heat and suction of Balthier's mouth that made his entire body pound with want, as if his heart had stopped beating for life of its own accord and now only desired this.

"Balthier," Vaan ground out impatiently between his clenched teeth, hips rolling up into Balthier's stomach for want of attention.

Now Balthier laughed, lifting his head from Vaan's chest, causing Vaan to shiver slightly as saliva cooled on his nipple. "Not so funny now that it's you who needs release, is it?" the pirate taunted.

"Bastard," Vaan cursed him, which only caused Balthier to smile again, but he obliged Vaan by moving lower down his body, earrings trailing against the soft skin of Vaan's stomach as Balthier repositioned himself, hovering above Vaan's groin, one hand braced against Vaan's inner thigh, so close yet not close enough.

Vaan embarrassed himself by throwing back his head with a whine, but was too far gone to care.

"Is this what you want, Vaan?" Balthier purred in a silky soft voice and Vaan was going to kill him, no death was too slow, he was going to kill him. "You want me to want you? Put my mouth to a higher task than it usually has the care to fulfill?"

Vaan's fingers were starting to cramp; they were clutching the sheets so hard. His breath came unsteady and fast, and he managed to open his eyes to level a glare that could have cut nethicite at Balthier's smug expression. "What," Vaan managed between unsteady, harsh breaths, "do you think?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," Balthier said, as innocent as a summer sky, clearly enjoying his revenge for Vaan's actions earlier.

Another undignified whine escaped Vaan's throat as he threw his head back, nearly delirious with want, his hormones, the Mist, his blood all pounding against him in an unbearable rhythm that would either end in pleasure or death, and Vaan was beyond caring about any of it. "Gods yes," he whispered.

Balthier hummed, clearly satisfied, before leaning down and swallowing Vaan's cock to the root, causing Vaan to howl. Vaan's hand unconsciously shot out and grabbed a handful of Balthier's hair, which made Balthier draw away with a glare.

"If you're going to choke me I'll stop," he threatened, and Vaan immediately released him, collapsing into a whimpering pile on the now sweaty sheets.

"I'm sorry," Vaan said mindlessly, words gumming up in his throat, the pleasure-Mist haze becoming unbearable. "I'm sorry, Balthier, just please, gods, please-"

Balthier quieted him with a gentle hand on Vaan's stomach. Vaan opened his watery eyes and looked down at Balthier's unusually kind expression. "If you must grab, grab shoulders," the pirate advised.

Vaan nodded obediently and Balthier returned to his task, one hand wrapping around the base of Vaan's cock and sliding his mouth down on top of it. Vaan knew he wasn't going to last long, not at all, not with the way Balthier's tongue slid along the underside, not with the tight grip of those long fingers and not with the hot suction of Balthier's mouth. The pressure built at a fantastic pace in Vaan's stomach, curling along his spine like lightning, and when he blinked Vaan saw red behind his eyelids laced with Mist-gold.

At last Vaan felt the inevitable coiling of his muscles and he took Balthier's advice and grabbed desperately for his shoulders, the other man warm and alive beneath his hands. When he opened his eyes he was half blinded by Mist streaking across his vision in tracks and blood spots; when Balthier flicked his eyes up in Vaan's direction, Vaan's world exploded in a cavalcade of sensation and pure gold.

When he recovered enough to open his eyes, Balthier was pressed as a warm weight to his side. "Good?" asked Balthier, still smug.

Vaan turned on his side, suddenly unbearably tired, rotating his shoulders into Balthier's chest. Balthier made a surprised noise in the back of his throat before obliging Vaan by draping an arm over him.

"Good enough," Vaan said sleepily, causing Balthier to snort behind him.

"The sun is rising," Balthier said, changing the subject. "You should probably get back to Penelo's bed."

"I'm not moving," Vaan said stubbornly. He felt empty, deflated, but content. Suddenly, his eyes shot open. "I don't have it anymore."

Balthier had settled in to his side, once Vaan had made his declaration to stay in the bed. "Don't have what?"

"The Mist. I can't sense what you're feeling."

"Well thank the gods for that," Balthier rumbled. "You were insufferable enough the few hours you could do it."

"Do you still have the Mist?"

Vaan felt Balthier's shoulders and chest heave in an irritated sigh. "I don't know what I have or what I don't have at all at the moment, I'm so tired I could sleep for a year. If you're going to stay in this room, for the love of all that's holy go to sleep."

Vaan's lip ticked up, before allowing his eyes to slide closed again. The sun rose, and both of them slept.

# # #

Three days was enough to get their party rested, restocked, and in good health. Whatever potions or rites Fran's viera kin had used to nurse her had put Fran back in top condition, her red eyes as sharp as ever as she checked fletching on arrows. They were all crowded into Ashe and Basch's room at the Whitecap, packing supplies and getting ready for the final voyage onto the Bahumut.

Penelo burst into the room, red-faced from running up the stairs. "The market here is an absolute disgrace," she fumed. "With Reddas' death, the merchants have all but tripled their prices! I had to use every trick in the book just to get a fair price on antidotes!"

"But I assume you were successful?" Ashe asked with a slight smile. By this point, the entire group was well aware of Penelo's skill at a market stall.

"Of course," Penelo sniffed, lowering her rucksack down for inspection. "It just took me the better part of an hour of arguing over two teapots of black tea. I hate that stuff – it's so dehydrating."

Vaan stood up, bearing three packs of restoratives. "I'll take these to the Strahl," he offered, eager to get out of the hot little room and go for a walk.

"I'll help," Balthier volunteered, standing up with packs of his own. Fran raised an eyebrow over her fletching, but said nothing as the pair of them escaped out of the Whitecap and into the streets.

Vaan and Balthier walked in silence toward the Aerodrome. They hadn't spoken much since sharing a bed; Vaan felt almost unbearably awkward around him in public, as if everybody knew. For all Vaan knew, everybody did know.

"Do you remember what I said when we were at the Pharos?" Balthier abruptly asked, juggling the packs absently in his arms.

"Uh," Vaan said, trying to remember.

Balthier leveled him with a look. "About you taking over the Strahl should something happen to me?"

It was on the tip of Vaan's tongue to point out that Balthier had said that at the Ridorana Cataract, but didn't see the point in arguing. "Yeah?"

"It still holds," he said shortly.

Vaan looked askance at him. "I'm honored. But… surely you know that if anything untoward were to happen to you, it would likely happen to me as well?"

"It's still good to make a legacy," Balthier said stubbornly. "The Strahl's too sweet a ship to have her without a loving master."

Now Vaan smiled. "I am honored."

Balthier turned to look at him and stopped in the street. "Vaan."

"Hm?" Vaan asked, turning around.

"When did you get your ear pierced?"

Vaan reached up with his free hand and fiddled with the plain metal stud newly embedded in his left ear. "Two days ago. I heard somewhere that it'll make me popular with the ladies."

Balthier chuckled and tilted his head up towards the warm Balfonheim sun. "Gods preserve us."

Vaan looked up at the sky too, in the direction of Rabenastre. "If we're lucky, they will."

Balthier nodded, and they both continued their walk to the Aerodrome.