Firey's Pairing Counseling – Balthier

The sun is shining beautifully outside the office window, the birds are chirping, and the distant laughter of children rings in the air, welcoming everyone to play in the beautiful weather. But young Firey Chronicles is oblivious to its calls, no, she is sitting in front of the TV indulged in Final Fantasy XII and blasting monsters back in to digital numbers – or in this case, working as a counselor in Rabanastre.

Knock. Knock.

"Come in." She called. The environment once again magically puffed back into the old counseling room.

"Hello," In walks Balthier with a troubled expression. "I heard your reputation as a member of fandom, so I'd like to clarify a few things." He grabs a chair and sits down.

"Oh good," Firey reached for her doodling pad. "At least I don't have to explain my role to you like Vaan."

Balthier paused. "Vaan?" He gave a nervous glance.

She looked up from her desk. "Yes, he just came last week. If I'd known any better, I'd say you came for the same issue, am I correct?"

"Y-yes."

"Well let's get down to business." She makes a gesture. "Spill the beans."

"From the way you acts, you're not an professional." Balthier frowns.

"I know," Firey grimaces "I should have called my profession lawyers or informers or something. I'm only doing this of because of this fic."

"This fic?" Like Vaan he doesn't know this is just another fic also.

"Never you mind. Do go on please."

Balthier sighed and put his face in his hands. "It's like this, I know I'm popular in this fandom. And fans and making me paired with Fran and Ashe and all, although I prefer not to be tied down to anyone if you know what I mean… but Vaan? He's a, he is a male. I'm being paired with him more than I do with Penelo."

"Well, I don't know about your fics with Fran and Ashe because I only read a few of them. But one thing's for sure; your popularity is completely your fault." She smirked as Balthier gaped. "You call yourself the leading man. You being the sky pirate and the only playable character with charismatic looks and attitudes, Haha. Girls dig you. At least… one of my friends does. Of course you being the handsome man and all, some fans dig you with other guys."

"But that's completely against my belief!"

"Tsk, tsk" She waved her forefinger, "You should know… it's not about you, it's about the fandom!"

"but,"

"It's the down side of popularity. Everything has a price dear,"

"And I have no way to escape it?"

"No, not unless you go unpopular, which is too late now." She grinned. "Come to think of it, the whole pairing thing with you and Vaan is completely your fault. The top three, according to my judgment, is taken by you! Just wait until Vaan finds out, I'm sure he'll attempt to kill you." She did the evil laugh.

He shuddered at the image of Vaan going berserk and charging at him with the Zodiac Spear, which is able to fell him in one shot. Even though he and Vaan (and Fran) are both level 55, Zodiac Spear has advantage of 60 attack points compared to Deathbringers. They both have the same attack points, and even though Balthier is 1 point faster than Vaan, the boy has much more magical potential then him and even the viera. (everything is according to my game play, I don't know about Ashe, but most likely she has the best magick out of the group)

"So… where are you now?"

He snapped out of his thought, "Almost finished the great crystal, just in front of the last boss."

"sigh, all the BalthierVaan hints ended before the Leviathan!" she gave another exasperated sigh, "There is pretty much no character development in this story at ALL. The only good thing is that everything is open to interpretations."

"…Are you a--"

"You know Basch?"

"Yeah?" Her quick attempt to change the topic did not go unnoticed by the cunning pirate, although her last remark made him quite nervous.

"If either one of you didn't exist, the replacement will be Basch."

"What do you mean? Vaan and Basch? Or me and-"

"Both, in your case you will become an uke."

He can't help but gag. Basch …and he? He, the great sky pirate, become an uke?

"It can't be helped, some people HATE het pairings, so they always had to make a yaoi pairing in every fandom. Personally I go for the cutest and not sappiest." Firey gigged. "If not Basch, then… Vossler, or Larsa"

"Larsa?"

"Ya"

He made no move to question further.

"Well, since I am your pairing counselor, I might as well as educate you (and the fans) about seme."

Just like previously, she magically summons are white board out of thin air. (chalky black board does not agree with Firey) (Materials quoted from wikipedia of course) "You might as well learn them right?"

(Just go back to the previous chapter and think everything opposite of Vaan XDDD)

"And this is all according to…"

"The fans, unless you would rather have Basch…"

Balthier reads the stuff in absolute horror. There is no fing way that he's going be an uke.

"You sure you want Vaan gone?" She started writing a note in her clip board. "Well, if you're sure of becoming an uke, then I'll go tell the yaoi FFXII committee to find…"

He jumped, "No no, I'm absolutely fine." The thought of him becoming an uke is beyond horror. "In fact, you have solved all my problems. Thank you for your time, and I'll be leaving right this minute."

He quickly shut the door behind him.

Firey smiled evilly. There is no such thing as FFXII Yaoi Committee, she knew very well. For once she done her job right rather than scare them away. At least one of them will be content about their fate – even though it's through oppression. Now back to video gaming.

WMWMWMWMWMW

No doubt he rather stick with the current situation rather than making it worse. And without a doubt that counselor is definitely in favor of he and Vaan being together.

It's already too late to ruin his own reputation, he thought. All he can do is make sure the uke never finds out that it's 'partly' his fault that the boy is in their situation – and still in this situation. But just in case the boy ever knows about the truth, to avoid the death match that Balthier is smart enough to get out of, the next time he gets stuck in bed with Vaan, he's definitely going to steal the goddamn spear. He's even going to take extra measure to 'borrow' the dawn shard to suck up all of Vaan's magick points.

Ukes are supposed to be vulnerable… right? Balthier reasoned.

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Hehe, it's super late, but please REVIEW. Tip to yaoi writers, when you guys put pairings in your summaries, like BalthierxVaan, ALWAYS put the SEME before the UKE. Otherwise, some readers will get confused. (According to one of my friend, NarutoxSasuke is driving her nuts XDDD)

Oh yeah, I probably have at least one more chapter left!