Chapter 4

I don't own characters.

Trembling Hands Weave Disaster

Balthier was fuming. Past fuming, he was furious. He butchered the pumpkin head before him that was preparing an attack on Penelo. He wanted to shout but those damned pumpkin heads!

Silence was one of the ailments the sky pirate hated the most. The only way this could be any worse, was if he was suddenly –

"Balthier, look out!" Penelo's girlish shrill hit his ears a moment too late, and in that moment, Balthier's world went black.

He hated those goddamned pumpkin heads.

The brunette struck blindly at his attacker, wishing he'd learned the technick Vaan had stolen from the shop in Rabanastre; had something to do with an attack specifically for blind people. After three misses and one hit he heard a body hitting the rotting wood of Salika Wood's ancient paths. He sincerely hoped it was a pumpkin head.

He felt forward with his pole and finally found something that felt slightly squishy.

"Shit Balthier!" Vaan panted. He must've been fighting his own pumpkin. He continued poking in other directions.

"Balthier the pumpkin head is dead! Come over here and help me kill this King Malboro."

Balthier stood still. He wasn't about to go and get poisoned too.

"Come on Balthier! If I faint you're fucked, Penelo's out and the other's are ahead of us." Vaan sounded rather desperate. Balthier finally gave in and thanked the gods for a pole and not a gun.

Several minutes of blind jabbing passed before Vaan exclaimed them victorious. Balthier stood still, waiting for Vaan to heal him and give him some eye drops. He knew a spell to cure silence but that was real help when he couldn't cast spells. Not that it mattered, even if the two were out of potions, Vaan was quite proficient in healing and magick, oddly enough. He waited but the spells never came. Had Vaan ditched him in favor of treating Penelo first?

He poked around with his pole but stopped because he felt like an old man when he did that.

"Balthier?"

Finally.

"Ok, I just went through my pack and I don't have anything. I even went through Penelo's stuff. Do you have anything?"

Yea asshole, that's why I'm just standing here, using my pole as a cane.

Balthier tried his hardest to send that last thought to Vaan using telepathy but it wasn't working so well.

"Shit…ok….ummm…"

That sounds like a wonderful plan Vaan. Heal me already! What is he waiting for?

He tried his hardest to send Vaan that thought too.

"You think you can carry Penelo?"

Apparently Balthier's hardest wasn't enough.

He sighed mentally and kneeled on one knee, hopefully signaling to Vaan that, yes, he was able to carry Penelo.

Vaan got the message this time. He perched Penelo on the pirate's waiting back and Balthier stood, eager to find Fran and have her heal him.

"Ok…where to next…" He heard Vaan mutter to himself. This was very discomforting news to Balthier.

After almost falling to the floor of the Salika Woods countless times and dropping poor Penelo once or twice, the sky-pirate and thief happened upon a little forest house. Several days earlier a bunch of lazy moogles had been sitting in it. Balthier wished the craftsmen were still there now.

"Ok, walking around has helped, I have enough strength to heal you now, but…" He heard Vaan and quickly realized the brat could be up to something. He tried to make his face look menacing but upon hearing the lightness in the brazen boy's voice he realized the face, however scary, had only encouraged the little devil.

"Now Balthier, I've been thinking a lot lately and, well, I'm really curious about…you know…that time in the treasure room at the palace." He could feel the blush rolling off of Vaan's person. It was curious how Vaan tried to act all macho and tough when underneath his facade was a gullible, inexperienced boy who probably acted more suave than he felt. Balthier suspected the street rat was even a virgin. Well, unless some rather unholy events had taken place several days ago. Why did he have to be so attractive?

He smirked despite himself. He definitely hadn't seen this one coming. He set his things down softly and felt for a wall to slide down into a sitting position. Once comfortable, he waited.

Better to settle this now than later. He probably wants to confirm that it was just two men being drunk and get on with life.

Balthier imagined Vaan as someone who was very uncomfortable with the idea of homosexuality and bisexuality. The pirate decided this was the perfect time to lay his own infatuations and curiosities to rest.

As he sat and waited, he wondered what was taking so damn long, the boy couldn't be that nervous. He raised a questioning brow and was about to stand when he was suddenly straddled by the street urchin and felt a tickling, warm breath at his ear.

Sparks flew up and down the pirate's spine. If Vaan was attempting to clear up any misunderstandings he was certainly going about it the wrong way.

"I just wanted to finish what we started back there…or at least continue it…cause to be honest it's nowhere near being over." Vaan's voice was thick and sultry and it was all

Balthier could do to not rip the adolescent's clothes off his solid build. Where the hell had he learned to be so damn sexy?

The teenager had most assuredly already felt the hint of excitement in Balthier and was responding with his own excitement. Only Vaan was far more excited. Where Balthier was halfway there Vaan was all the way and then some.

The thief nibbled on the pirate's ear and ran his practiced fingers through the man's hair, making it stand on end. Balthier's hesitation was quickly overridden when the boy's hot tongue stole over his bottom lip, gaining access to a passionate kiss instantly.

The blindness and silence was working for both parties by now.

For Vaan, it meant Balthier could not verbally protest, although he'd been half sure the man wouldn't anyways, he'd wanted it to be perfectly sexy and steamy. The blindness gave him an element of surprise which he intended to utilize.

For Balthier, it meant sex now, questions later. It meant every pleasure intensified by his blindness, his sense of touch heightened by the loss of sight. He writhed under the boy and stroked circles on the back of his neck and chest. He couldn't help letting his mouth curve upwards in an animalistic grin when he felt Vaan's body tense under his fingers. The practiced thief's hands had managed to skillfully strip Balthier to his white undershirt when they stopped abruptly.

Balthier gasped when Vaan's fingers fluttered over a huge gash across his chest. All too quickly his sight returned as well as the ability to speak. A groan was the first thing that escaped his lips when he looked down and observed the skin around the wound was blackened, almost charred looking, and thick, crimson blood gushed out slowly. The hut shimmered green for a brief moment as Vaan attempted a healing spell that failed.

"Shit, Balthier I'm so sorry, I…shit hold on a moment. It must be cursed or…something"

He bustled to the other side of the hut where he promptly examined Penelo's pale body and mumbled a rushed spell. Balthier frowned when he saw Vaan's hand shaking violently over the other orphan's face as he tried to cast the spell to awaken the girl from unconsciousness unsuccessfully for the second time. He frantically pulled a phoenix down from his pocket before gently tilting Penelo's head and pouring the serum down her throat to no avail. His sun-kissed treasure turned panicked, maroon orbs in his direction, pleading silently that he knew what to do.

"Balthier…?"

For a moment the youth was frozen and his shaken voice trailed off, but when he realized the spark of lucidity in Balthier's eyes had faded he snapped into action, gathering his two friends and their things before casting a spell to teleport the three of them to the meeting point the party had decided on earlier.