Title: "New-Archadia"
Author: PotatoCrumbs
Summary:
A mist explosion sends Balthier and Vaan into an alternative universe where Dalmasca is no more, and New-Archadia has supreme rule.
AU drabble. Angst.
Balthier
All it takes is an explosion of colours, light and hurt. The world is changed. Balthier is thrown several meters into the air and all he can hear is Penelo's screams in-between a high-pitched note that seems to never end.
When he wakes up, his hearing is almost gone and he is met by people he should know but doesn't: history has been changed and somehow, someway Vaan had something to do with it. Him and that habit of his picking up things from the ground.
There is no Vaan anymore.
This history's Vaan makes Balthier sick to his stomach with no reason but being himself. There is no infernal struggle to make him stop talking about everything, no intense looks on Balthier when he mentions something to do with airships, no teasing, no stupid questions, no whining about "Balthier! Hands off! I can do it myself!", no touches, no-
But somehow he can't leave him. This Vaan. This "New-Archadian" who has a mother, a father and a brother who is still alive and a life where picking up a sword has no reason. So Balthier occupies that same table, every day, in the tavern the family owns in feeble hope that he will someday be able to see Vaan again. His Vaan.
Because when this Vaan smiles at him, this Vaan laughs at his stories…he can see a flicker of his own. And even if he feels sick and deranged, he keeps coming back for it. To bring him back again.
Vaan
The world is changed. Vaan is nothing but a prisoner, a slave when he wakes up delirious and aching. They are all gone: Penelo, Ashe, Fran, Basch, Balthier…and he has no faith in seeing them again until he's met by both Ronsenburg twins in a sick twist of fate on a market, chained for sale. It only takes Vaan a minute to realize that what he's seeing is real, but yet not. This Basch isn't his Basch, the man who taught Vaan how to impress Balthier with a particularly difficult aero spell: this is Basch the judge of the New Archadian Empire.
Basch looks him straight in the eye and doesn't recognize him and it sends Vaan into a sudden fit of desperation and frustration that has his "seller" pulling him back by the chains and hitting him across the face.
It's the fit that has Noah laughing and buying him for the mere fact of him thinking Vaan is "feisty".
They have him trained.
Trained like some dog they bought off the streets. Vaan soon learns why as he is presented as a present to somebody he would have given anything to meet again.
Like Basch and Noah, Balthier is nothing like his Balthier. His Balthier is suave, calm and gets on every nerve Vaan has and some he didn't even know he had. His Balthier kisses like it's the last kiss they would ever have and touches like they will never touch again.
So every time this Balthier, this Ffamran, this judge, has his hands on him, Vaan gets the urge to cry and hit and punch and kick. Make him give his Balthier back, make him tell him he's going to see Penelo again, make this Balthier go away.
But he doesn't.
Because if he closes his eyes, it's not this judge's trembling hands on his body, but Balthier's. And those few smiles he gets when he does something right is almost like the ones he got from the mirror image. So he waits, and waits, and waits for his Balthier to re-appear.