I know that I'm supposed to be writing Baby of Mine and The Game, but I wasn't feeling it at the time...sorry. They're still on though. Enjoy!

1wildrose1 .. x

Rating: T
Pairing (s): Balthier/Vaan
Spoilers: Lots and lots: the fact that the party reach several places late in the game and about Balthier's past.
Disclaimer: I don't own Final Fantasy XII or any of the characters in it, nor do I make profit from these works.
Summary: He so badly wanted this to be real, but all the signs seemed to be telling him he was deluded. Him, a Dalmascan street rat with the mighty skypirate, and not to mention Archadian, Balthier. Or was that Ffamran? How could he stay when so many things told him to go?

Warnings: Shounen-ai (Male/male relationships) and slight OOC-ness.

For the life of me, I can't remember whether Vaan sees the apparition of Reks and Rasler before or after the party reach the Stilshrine of Miriam in the game so the order of events in this may be inaccurate. It's been a while since I played it.

Surrender

Perhaps it was to do with the fact that so much had happened on their quest that had Vaan feeling like he should be rethinking all of his decisions – after all, hadn't he started this whole journey with revenge in mind? But he had had...a revelation of sorts about himself after the princess saw her late husband and he had seen Reks after they had departed the Stilshrine of Miriam...Did he just need a purpose? Was only he here to fill the void his life had become? He didn't know...

Surely his frame of mind would have influenced the choices he had made since leaving Rabanastre – about joining the princess' entourage; about putting his life on the line for a cause that, really, was not his to fight for; about putting his trust in these friendly strangers...About Balthier.

Had his judgement been wrong? It didn't feel like it when the two were intimate, but he always had strong sickly churns of paranoia low in his belly afterwards – it didn't matter that the pirate's arm was always wrapped tight around him or that he would automatically shift the blankets to cover his feet during the night whenever they escaped, no words needed.

Were the looks they received from both Penello and Fran jealousy or intrigue? He couldn't trust himself to tell. Their relationship was no secret, nor was it clearly outspoken – did they believe them to be hiding it from them? He couldn't bear it if he was causing them any kind of pain.

Vaan groaned and sunk deeper into the hot water of the first decent bath he had been fortunate enough to encounter in a long while – not that he had been so lucky even before he set off on this adventure, but staying in inns and on the Strahl so frequently in recent months had spoiled him. He let the steam seep into his mind as he thought about how many weeks it had been since then – they were already at Balfonheim, staying on the Strahl again after many nights of sleeping on edge in predominantly Archadian territory.

Speaking of which – the things he had learnt about Balthier...shouldn't he have known about those things before? Dr. Cid being his father; him being a Judge before going into piracy; heck, he had only recently discovered that Balthier wasn't even his real name! Ffamran mied Bunansa – his name reeked of nobility, casting him even further out of Vaan's reach of worth.

Yet Vaan still stayed in Balthier's bedroom. He still used his luxury bathroom. He still slept in his huge bed and was intimate with him in said place...Should he be doing that still? Vaan cursed his mental loop taking his thoughts all the way back to his main question: was it a mistake being with Balthier?

He hoped it wasn't. Really hoped.

"Penny for your thoughts?" Vaan jumped and tilted his head backwards over the edge of the porcelain tub, bringing the upside-down image of Balthier – or should that be Ffamran? – into view. The usually suave man seemed...dishevelled, almost. His eyes were heavy with a lack of sleep and his shirt was untucked with a few buttons in the wrong holes. It seemed that, though his teeth showed with his usual smirk and he approached Vaan with his characteristic arrogant swagger, the death of Cid had shaken him.

Vaan frowned and relaxed his neck as Balthier sat on the short wooden stool beside the bathtub. "What do you mean?"

Ringed fingers skimmed the surface of the warm water as their owner watched the ripples spread with a far-away looking smile. "You appear to be preoccupied."

"I do?" A tanned hand appeared from beneath the water to hold onto the paler one, bringing Balthier to look at him properly. "I'm just...relaxing I gue-"

"No – not just now. I mean that you haven't seemed yourself recently." Balthier's eyes narrowed minutely, fingers tightening around Vaan's own. "You have barely brought yourself to look at me since the incident at the Ridorana Cataract."

Vaan winced at the tightness of Balthier's grip – for all of the bravado that Balthier liked to portray, Vaan knew that he meant more to him than he let on. Even knowing such a thing doesn't stop me from believing that he will leave as soon as this is over. "Incident? Is that what it was?"

Balthier lowered his eyes and sighed. The silence between them stretched, only filled by the gentle slosh of the bath water as Balthier ran the cloth that had previously been folded on the bathroom counter across his lover's skin. "Do you remember the first night we slept together?" Vaan rose his eyebrows a small way, indicating that the answer was obvious. "Of course you do..." Balthier smiled bitterly and shook his head. "Well, that night we played a game that I had learned during my travels and the princess told us all that she had never ignored the call of duty, right?"

Vaan could still picture the deep scowl that had appeared on Balthier's face at the statement; how reluctantly he had taken a drink from that bottle of good Bhujerban Madhu. "Duty...you mean to Archadia?"

The sad, vacant smile returned to the Archadian's face – wow...Archadian. Never thought I would end up with one..."Not really. When Ashe made me drink to that, I hardly believe that she thought there was more to it than my being a sky pirate and such – there was no way she could have known of my true lineage. However, her definition of duty must differ to my own. I have forever felt...guilty, in a way...for not remaining loyal to my father."

Vaan furrowed his eyebrows. "But your father-"

"Yes, Vaan. I know what he was and what he did – the countless lives he ended with his use of the Midlight Shard on Nabudis. But you must understand that the society which I grew up in was heavily dependant on family loyalty and duty. I may have betrayed them, but it was not without a heavy heart."

Vaan nodded, surprised and grateful to be privy to this side of Balthier – that, though the walls were still fully intact, he was fortunate enough to be on the other side to most, helping to battle the memories with him rather than having them hidden away from sight. Smiling softly, Vaan caught the hand that was washing his skin and brought it to his face, leaning his cheek on it and closing his eyes. "You could have told me."

Balthier reached down to brush damp blond hair behind Vaan's ear and cup his chin gently. "You mean why didn't I tell my beautiful Dalmascan lover who has a grudge against Archadia that the man he is sleeping with is from the very country he hates?"

Vaan sighed and squeezed his hand comfortingly. "I see your point." He leaned his head back, soaking his hair. "But for future reference, I don't bear a grudge. Not now, in any case."

"Oh?" Balthier passed Vaan the soap for his hair – a special blend which Fran had concocted after Balthier had complained about the barbaric excuse for soap he had been forced to used since leaving Archades. "What changed?"

Vaan frowned, pulling his hands out of his now foamy hair. "I don't think that you will believe me."

The sky pirate lifted one side of his lips in a twisted half-smirk. "Right now? I shall believe you if you tell me that you were born the crowned prince."

"You would?" Squeezing the last of the water of his freshly rinsed hair, Vaan frowned, feeling a familiar knot of unease twist his stomach. The Balthier he was talking to now was so unlike himself – since when had he ever been this openly affectionate? Or even willing to listen to Vaan when he was about to say something that he would usually perceive as ridiculous. Something was terribly wrong here. "My brother appeared to me and...he looked happy. Just...happy. I realised then that what happened to Reks was not personal – it was war and that is all. He happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time."

Balthier held up a towel for his smaller lover as he got out of the tub, long past his embarrassment of Balthier seeing him naked. "Your brother appeared to you?" His voice was not sarcastic...at all.

Vaan nodded slowly and wrapped himself in the large towel. "Yes...it was a while ago..."

"After the Stilshrine?" Balthier opened his arms for Vaan to step into, pulling the towel over his shoulders to rub his arms dry.

"How did you know?" He pressed his cheek to his lover's chest, noting that the hard leather armour he usually wore was absent.

"That place appears to be abundant with ghosts of the past – stranger things have happened there." The arms that were working to dry the blond wrapped themselves around the boy in question, encasing him in a warm cocoon of silk and cotton as Balthier pressed his face into his thick hair. "I'm glad that you have found your peace at last."

A warm sensation ached in Vaan's chest at the words, hardly believing that Balthier had been the one to say them. "...it has really shaken you, hasn't it." There was no need to clarify – he was speaking of the death of Cid.

The arms around Vaan tightened a little, making him hold Balthier closer, knowing by now that such an action meant that Balthier wanted comfort. "It shouldn't have."

"Of course it should." Vaan pulled back and cupped Balthier's face between his hands, waiting until the reluctant man met his eyes. "He was still the man who raised you."

"I suppose..."

"Don't." Vaan's eyes turned a hard grey, like steel. "It's only you and I here, Balthier – don't try to brush it off. Your father died. Died."

"I..." Balthier looked stuck – like he didn't know what to do. Had no one told him to let it out before? Had he always bottled it up? "I..." His lower lip drew in between his teeth slowly; his eyelashes fluttering in a way that was only visible to Vaan at this close distance.

When the lone tear was finally shed, Vaan didn't see it. He was too busy closing his eyes and pressing his lips to Balthier's – not to initiate something and not a distraction; just a simple comfort, yet another thing that Balthier was not used to.

Decisions...perhaps he had made a few wrong ones. Perhaps he wouldn't have joined Ashe and the others if Reks had not died. Perhaps he wouldn't have gotten to this point in his life, here, laying on Balthier's bed, with the sky pirate staring blankly into the distance, his head on Vaan's chest. But Vaan couldn't help but feel that, as he sat there running his fingers his lover's hair, thinking vaguely that it was high time for him to get a haircut, maybe it wasn't such a bad thing.

Through the pain of loss and the unfamiliarity of giving and receiving comfort, it was a nice thought to have that the memory of Reks had led him to the man that...maybe he could love. Just a little, at least.

Only a short one, but vital to developing their relationship. I've made Balthier really OOC in this, but losing his father must have made him crave human contact, right? Ah well – it makes sense to me. There is going to be a sequel to this called See Who I Am which will have multiple chapters and an actual plot – look out for it ;)

Please tell me what you think .. x