Vaan would have guessed that he was the first one up the next morning. After all, he hadn't actually slept so much as had occasional brief periods of his brain shutting down in-between long periods of lying around trying to really drift off before finally giving up altogether when the sun started to rise.
But when he staggered sleepily through the ship and into the cockpit, not having anywhere better to go, he discovered that Balthier was already there. He stopped dead in his tracks, their positions mirrored from when Balthier had been similarly startled at the sight of him the day before.
Balthier didn't seem to have noticed him coming in, too absorbed in pouring over a map in the early morning light. Vaan took Balthier's distraction as an opportunity to stare openly at the changes to his features. The scars really weren't that bad, for burns, aside from the one below his ear. Vaan had known a few unfortunate former soldiers who had gotten caught in blasts from imperial ships from just barely far enough away to survive, and it was difficult to look at them without thinking that they'd have been better off if they had been standing just a little bit closer. Some of them had faces that looked like they'd melted; Balthier looked outright pretty by comparison. They were mostly noticeable because of their vivid color, each splotch of scar tissue raised and reddish-brown in a way the eye couldn't ignore even from a distance.
"Are you through gawking yet?" Balthier asked, though he hadn't given a sign before then that he'd even noticed Vaan was there.
"Yeah, I guess," Vaan said, and walked over to lean against the back of Balthier's chair and look at the map he was examining. It wasn't of any place that Vaan recognized, and he was quickly distracted by Balthier's cane leaning against his armrest. He reached out to grab it just under the knob at the top, idly spinning it back and forth in his grip with his thumb. "What happened to your leg anyway?" he asked, then bristled at the look Balthier shot up at him. "What? Like you wouldn't be curious? Come on."
Balthier finally sighed, and put his map down. "Let's just say that you should take a lesson from it; never attempt to set a broken bone on your own. Or, if you must, be sure to take it to a doctor before it has a chance to heal badly."
Vaan stared at him. "You're kidding me."
"I'm afraid not."
"That is really dumb, Balthier," Vaan said, moving to the chair beside Balthier and plopping down into it while still staring at him disbelievingly. "I mean, even I know that's dumb, and Penelo practically has to drag me to get me to go to the doctor every time I really need one. I know walking on a broken leg sucks, but you couldn't have sucked it up long enough to get to somebody who knew what they were doing before it started going back together wrong? The Bahamut was only, like, fifteen miles away from the city!"
Balthier squeezed his eyes shut and pinched the bridge of his nose tightly, like he was trying to fight off a headache. "Fifteen miles through a desert, and the monsters within it, with next to no supplies, while in a state of constant agony and dragging a Viera as Fran received a head injury in the crash that left her unconscious for... long enough to get very worrying. Flattering though it is to know you believe I have the fortitude for such a journey, it remained beyond me for longer than I care to remember."
Vaan could tell that Balthier wasn't happy with this topic, and quickly decided to change the subject now that he had his answer. "So, is that the map for the place you think the Cache is at? Where is that anyway?"
"Honestly, Vaan, did you retain nothing from the note I left?" He flipped the map back up, turning it so Vaan could look at it again. "This is Bervenia. We believe that the Cache is hilly section to the north-east, but we hope to pin down a more precise estimate of its location before going in now that we can travel freely to gather information again."
Looking at the map, Vaan hoped they could too. The 'hilly area' Balthier mentioned took up a good quarter of the land, and if they went in with no other clues about where it could be and their luck ran bad they could spend ages searching those hills without ever finding anything.
"Hey, if you need to head back to Rabanastre when you're doing that information gathering, could we not stop to pick up Penelo? I sorta think she might kill me the next time we see each other."
"Pardon? I don't seem to recall inviting you to join us."
"The good thing about friends is that you don't need to ask for help when you need it!" Vaan said, flashing him a cheeky grin. "Anyway, I've gotten good at sky pirating! I mean, I don't get to do all that much actual pirating, but it's not my fault that we kept making friends with the leaders of places so I wouldn't feel right stealing from them."
"You've become especially close friends with the Rozarrian royal family since last we met, from what Fran and I have heard," Balthier said, returning his attention to the route planning he'd been doing when Vaan came in. "Rumors of your dalliances with one of the princesses even reached us."
"Huh?" Vaan asked, before he realized what Balthier was getting at. "Oh! You mean Rabia, right? Boy, was that embarrassing." He leaned forward toward Balthier, excited to be the one with a story to tell for a change. "Penelo and I went there with Ashe to be her bodyguards, since she doesn't have many soldiers who aren't either brand new or out of practice and we weren't going to trust any of them with keeping her safe. I mean, Al-Cid's fine and all, but we didn't know if his family would be the same way, you know? So we get there, and it turns out that Al-Cid's told everyone stories about everything that happened to all of us, and somehow one of his baby sisters decided that she has a giant crush on me."
"It must have been flattering, to know you'd caught the eye of a princess," Balthier said flatly, marking something that didn't make any sense to Vaan on the map.
"You'd think so, but not really. I mean, it's kind've hard to care that much when Ashe and Larsa are worth ten of any other royal person I've met each, you know? Anyway, she was just a kid. It was like having Filo following me around. It would've been fine if it had stayed like that, but then her dad stuck his nose in." Vaan made a face when he remembered what had happened next. "He called this meeting with Ashe, and told her that if she just granted me some land and a title he'd be glad to marry Rabia off to one of the 'saviors of Ivalice'. Turns out that Rozarria has a bunch of princes and princesses, and after Gramis went around overthrowing every little nation he could get his hands on there aren't enough living nobles left around to marry them all off to. Rabia's way down the list--she's only the sixth daughter and her mom was a concubine instead of a wife besides--so he decided that as long as they called me a earl or something one of the people who everyone knows killed Vayne would be good enough. Can you imagine me as an earl? It's the dumbest idea in the world."
He slumped back in his chair and raked his hand through his hair, his cheeks starting to burn with remembered embarrassment at being haggled over like he was some type of commodity. "Penelo was lucky; she got to excuse herself as soon as he'd explained his plan, and she was still laughing herself sick by the time we finally got back to our rooms. All I could do then was sit around with my mouth shut while Ashe did the talking because I'm no good at diplomacy. You wouldn't believe how afraid I got that she'd agree to it when he started hinting that he'd stop pushing for her to get married to one of his sons to 'improve diplomatic relations between our two countries' for awhile. Then I felt like a giant jerk about hating the idea so much because she is a sweet kid, and the king was being way nicer than you'd think he'd be... though I kinda think he was just happy that he might be getting one of his kids out of the house. Palace."
"My, how the lowly have risen," Balthier said, and the strange distance Vaan had noticed the day before was back in his voice again. "Nothing more than a common thief when we met, and now look at you; almost betrothed to a princess."
"Almost ran screaming from the country if Ashe had decided to go along with marrying me to her, you mean." He shoved himself to his feet with more force than necessary, the thud of his shoes against the floor echoing dully through the room. His voice rose as he went on, though he struggled to keep it below a yell so there'd be no risk of him waking Fran. "Even if I didn't think having a little girl for a wife would be insanely creepy--and, I don't care what royalty thinks, it is--I never forgot that I wasn't available to begin with, even if it looks like certain other people have." When Balthier didn't make any immediate response, Vaan closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and forced himself to calm down. This wasn't the way he wanted things to go between them. His temper found, he leaned over the back of Balthier's chair again and clasped the man's shoulder, careful to make sure that the contact couldn't be mistaken as anything but friendly. He blinked when Balthier's entire body seemed to jerk for a split second at the touch, but didn't comment on it. "I'm gonna go find something for breakfast. It is nice to get to talk to you again, Balthier, even if I kinda hoped it would be going a little differently. Really."
And then he turned and left.
