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rahmiTitle: The Empty Skies Above
Pairings: Pre-Balthier/Vaan
Warnings: Nudity, but not sexuality.
Title ganked from Desert Rose - Sting.
Vaan really, really hates the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea.
"Quit your bellyaching," Penelo snaps from behind him. She's huffing and puffing enough that Vaan kind of keeps forgetting she's there and thinks a Seeq's following him instead; she's still sort of pissed off at him about that. "Nobody likes the Sandsea."
Vaan scratches at the back of his neck, rough where his skin's started to peel and the sand's sticking to his sweat. "The Urutan like it," he says defensively.
"And an Urutan, then, are you?" Fran asks.
"Well, no."
"Humes live in Rabanastre, and the Empire behind her," Fran says. She's dejectedly picking sand out of one of her ears when Vaan looks over, but she's doing it so that it looks polite. Kind of. Vaan's pretty sure if he tried the same thing Penelo would hit him over the head and apologize for him having no manners. "To state the obvious is an annoyance I would do without."
Vaan huffs out a breath. "Sorry," he sighs. He takes a swig of his water skin and then weighs it experimentally in his hand. Probably half a skin left, maybe a little less. They'll have to fill up soon.
He's gotten pretty good at conjuring water out of the air, but it always tastes like dust and kind of fishy. Gross.
"Stop making faces," Penelo says. Vaan turns around and tucks his hands behind his head so he can pull another, more horrible face at her until she sighs and says tiredly, "Your face is going to stick that way, Vaan, and then you'll never be a sky pirate."
Fran nods her head. "Quickly remembered, are unsightly sky pirates, and so as quickly hung."
"Dalmasca doesn't hang pirates," Vaan points out reasonably. "What?" he asks when he receives two flat stares. "They don't!"
"No, we behead them."
"Not particularly well either." Vaan remembers watching one of those back before the Empire came. Not a pretty sight; it took three strikes before the guy stopped screaming and another two before his head actually came clean off. He shrugs. "It hasn't happened in a long time."
Nobody feels like pointing out that it's because the Empire came and Dalmasca wasn't allowed to have capital punishment anymore. Vaan shrugs again and rocks back on his heels. It's hot out here, but not like it is in the Estersands, or even the Westersands. It's kind of sticky hot. Makes it easier to pull water, but it's really, really gross, even standing around in the shade.
He's pretty sure the metal walkways don't help, but try telling that to Ashe. She'd bitten his head off when he suggested taking a break down on the ground level; the lizards were stupid lookin', it wasn't like they were gonna suddenly come after them if they decided to take a break down on the ground, where it was shady and cool.
Speak of the queen, Vaan thinks morosely. She's hauling herself to her feet again, smoothing down her skirt and shaking sand out of her hair. "Break time is over," she says.
Balthier catches his eye when he wobbles. Vaan takes another absentminded sip of his water while he watches and almost chokes himself when he realizes that while the back of Balthier's neck is bright red, his shirt isn't see through yet.
In fact, it doesn't even look wet.
Vaan eyes Balthier's clothes then looks up at the sun. It's half-set, another hour or two of sunlight, easy, before they have to make their way by feystone light, but that's not gonna help much out here.
It doesn't feel like the temperature drops like it does in the Westersands. Too muggy. More like Giza during the rains, where it's still hot even though it's wet and kind of gross. They probably won't get much use out of the fire magicite they've got stowed in their packs.
"Pen?" he whispers.
She shoves her bangs out of her face and sighs. "What, Vaan?"
"Is Balthier sweating?"
Penelo's head snaps up and around so she can stare hard at Balthier. Vaan waits patiently, plodding along behind Basch and stealing looks at Balthier every step or two. The more he stares the more sure he is that Balthier's not sweating at all.
That's not good.
"No," Penelo finally says, "He's not."
They exchange a look.
"I'll tackle Ashe and Basch if you want to deal with his snootiness," Penelo offers. "That way you'll have Fran to help you cool him off."
"Why do I have to do it?"
Penelo stops and puts her hands on her hips. "I know it escapes your notice a lot of the time, Vaan," she says his name in the exact same tone that Reks used to when he did something stupid, which makes him cringe, "But I'm a girl. Balthier's Empire, you can hear it in his voice."
"So?" Vaan scratches his eyebrow.
"So he's not going to want a girl stripping him naked!"
"Fran's gonna see it anyway, what's the big deal if another girl's there?"
"Fran's his partner," Penelo snaps. "They're probably intimate anyway."
"An erroneous assumption," Fran says mildly. She's suddenly right there, flicking her ears and twitching her nose. She's so weird. "You are discussing the best way to make Balthier see reason?"
"Yeah," Vaan says. "Well, that, and which one of us has to peel him out of his pants." Balthier calls him an idiot, but he's not the one who decided to wear leather pants in the desert.
Fran's outfit is kind of ridiculous too, but at least she's taking care of herself. It's kind of funny to watch her pour water on her ears, though.
"Shy as a hare without his accouterment," Fran says. Her mouth curves into a half smile. "Vaan? You will help?"
Vaan blows out a breath. "Fine," he says.
Vaan's pretty sure it's not a good sign that Balthier doesn't even seem to notice them splitting up. He makes one last rude gesture at Penelo's back before he holds out an arm to bar the way.
Balthier runs smack into it. "Apologies," he huffs breathlessly.
Yeah, that's not a good sign either. Vaan catches Balthier's hand when he goes to walk by; it's dry and way too hot.
"Have you ever been out in the desert before?" Vaan demands.
"I'm in the desert now," Balthier says peevishly. “It’s beastly hot.”
"Yeah," Vaan says, "I can see that." It's probably not nice to laugh, but nobody's ever accused Vaan of being nice and lived to tell the tale (well, except Penelo), so Vaan lets his laughter bubble free.
He ends up doubled over with one hand on his knee and the other still clutching on to Balthier's.
Balthier blinks a few times before his face twitches. "Vaan," he says, "Why are you grasping at my person?"
It's kind of cute, Vaan decides, and pulls Balthier's hand up to his face. "You aren't sweating," he says bluntly. His skin's even hotter against Vaan's cheek.
"Come again?"
"You are addled," Fran says. She puts a hand on Balthier's shoulder and firmly steers him towards the ramp that'll lead them down to the sandsea. "Follow quietly now, Balthier."
Shade, Vaan thinks longingly, and follows behind, still holding Balthier's hand. If he's not going to ask for it back, Vaan doesn't see why he should offer it. Besides, this way if Balthier falls, Vaan can just use that hand to pull him along.
He's not going to pick the guy up, he thinks mutinously. It's bad enough that he's going to have to strip him with Fran standing there judging him in her weird Viera way.
"Do not dawdle," Fran says.
"I'm not dawdling," Vaan says, hanging back and staring around, "I'm trying to find the best place to do this. There's no water around."
"That shall be my onus."
"I wish you guys wouldn't use words you know I don't know."
He catches the edge of Fran's smile out of the corner of his eye.
Vaan pushes Balthier into the nearest patch of shade that seems like it might be cooler than burning. He does stoop to touch his hand to the sand after a second though, 'cause he might not be thrilled about this, but he still doesn't want Balthier to end up with sand-scald on his butt.
It's really creeping him out how quiet Balthier is being. He knows what heat sicknesses does to people, but it's still kind of weird.
"I don't suppose you can take off all your clothes by yourself?" Vaan asks helplessly.
Balthier stares up at him like that mooncalf the Imperials killed a few months back. Vaan had always had a soft spot for that guy, so he pats Balthier on the head and sighs. "I want lessons," he says, "Lots of lessons on how to fly your ship."
"This I pledge," Fran says.
"Good."
He decides he should probably start on the shoes. They're almost as ridiculous as his pants in the desert anyway. Vaan has to be gentle peeling them off his heels because those are definitely sand-scalded; they're hanging out of Balthier's stupid shoes.
Balthier's feet are as hot, red, and sweat less as his hands were. The heartbeat Vaan can feel in Balthier's ankle is still strong and already starting to even out, though, so they caught it early. That's good. Stuff like this can go bad really quick.
Water splashes across his hands and Balthier's feet. The air feels drier immediately but Vaan knows how to treat desert sicknesses, so he doesn't complain about it. He just stares up at Balthier's waist and sighs.
"Do you have any suggestions?" he asks.
He can feel Fran shrug behind him. "Do not get them wet," she advises. "Balthier always fusses so after we trek through water."
"Do not fuss," Balthier mumbles.
Vaan pauses with his hands on Balthier's waistband and figures this can go very bad, very quickly. "Uh, hey," he says loudly, "I'm, um, going to take off your pants now. I promise I'm not going to do anything weird."
He starts to peel the pants down before he can over think this. Peel's the right word for it and it takes him a lot longer than he'd like, but he manages after a couple of excruciating minutes. Balthier is a lot hairier than he would have pegged him for.
The pants are off. "You want to soak him while I get his shirt off?"
"The vest zips," Fran offers.
Vaan happily glues his eyes to that and not Balthier's feeble hand waving and mutterings. "Thanks," he says.
It's the work of moments to get the rest of Balthier's clothes off. He has to fend off Balthier's hands a few times and once he catches Balthier looking at him like he's suddenly turned into a chocobo. He gets Balthier on his side and ignores it.
Or tries to.
"Fran," Balthier pronounces carefully. "There is a chocobo abducting my vestments."
"It's really creepy that you're suffering from heat sickness and can still use words I don't know," Vaan says.
He squats down in front of Balthier while Fran chuckles and soaks them both, again. His water skin is still half-full, give or take a sip, so he slides a hand under Balthier's head, ignores his nattering about chocobos, and forces water down his throat.
"Drink," he says, belatedly, when one of Balthier's hands come up to circle around the neck of the water skin.
They're going to be here for another few hours, at least. Maybe even until nightfall. Vaan ignores the next wave of water that hits him in the chest and stares down at Balthier's skin. "He's going to be so sunburned," he says.
The image of Balthier peeling is almost enough to make Vaan laugh again. He settles for pulling the water skin back before Balthier can make himself throw up.
"You'll be okay," Vaan tells him, and then has to add, "The next time you say I'm an idiot savant or whatever it is you call me when you think I can't hear you, I'm going to remind you about this."
Balthier squints up at him and says, "It's meant as a compliment, for the most part."
Vaan stretches out his legs and waits for the sun to go down.
Pairings: Pre-Balthier/Vaan
Warnings: Nudity, but not sexuality.
Title ganked from Desert Rose - Sting.
Vaan really, really hates the Ogir-Yensa Sandsea.
"Quit your bellyaching," Penelo snaps from behind him. She's huffing and puffing enough that Vaan kind of keeps forgetting she's there and thinks a Seeq's following him instead; she's still sort of pissed off at him about that. "Nobody likes the Sandsea."
Vaan scratches at the back of his neck, rough where his skin's started to peel and the sand's sticking to his sweat. "The Urutan like it," he says defensively.
"And an Urutan, then, are you?" Fran asks.
"Well, no."
"Humes live in Rabanastre, and the Empire behind her," Fran says. She's dejectedly picking sand out of one of her ears when Vaan looks over, but she's doing it so that it looks polite. Kind of. Vaan's pretty sure if he tried the same thing Penelo would hit him over the head and apologize for him having no manners. "To state the obvious is an annoyance I would do without."
Vaan huffs out a breath. "Sorry," he sighs. He takes a swig of his water skin and then weighs it experimentally in his hand. Probably half a skin left, maybe a little less. They'll have to fill up soon.
He's gotten pretty good at conjuring water out of the air, but it always tastes like dust and kind of fishy. Gross.
"Stop making faces," Penelo says. Vaan turns around and tucks his hands behind his head so he can pull another, more horrible face at her until she sighs and says tiredly, "Your face is going to stick that way, Vaan, and then you'll never be a sky pirate."
Fran nods her head. "Quickly remembered, are unsightly sky pirates, and so as quickly hung."
"Dalmasca doesn't hang pirates," Vaan points out reasonably. "What?" he asks when he receives two flat stares. "They don't!"
"No, we behead them."
"Not particularly well either." Vaan remembers watching one of those back before the Empire came. Not a pretty sight; it took three strikes before the guy stopped screaming and another two before his head actually came clean off. He shrugs. "It hasn't happened in a long time."
Nobody feels like pointing out that it's because the Empire came and Dalmasca wasn't allowed to have capital punishment anymore. Vaan shrugs again and rocks back on his heels. It's hot out here, but not like it is in the Estersands, or even the Westersands. It's kind of sticky hot. Makes it easier to pull water, but it's really, really gross, even standing around in the shade.
He's pretty sure the metal walkways don't help, but try telling that to Ashe. She'd bitten his head off when he suggested taking a break down on the ground level; the lizards were stupid lookin', it wasn't like they were gonna suddenly come after them if they decided to take a break down on the ground, where it was shady and cool.
Speak of the queen, Vaan thinks morosely. She's hauling herself to her feet again, smoothing down her skirt and shaking sand out of her hair. "Break time is over," she says.
Balthier catches his eye when he wobbles. Vaan takes another absentminded sip of his water while he watches and almost chokes himself when he realizes that while the back of Balthier's neck is bright red, his shirt isn't see through yet.
In fact, it doesn't even look wet.
Vaan eyes Balthier's clothes then looks up at the sun. It's half-set, another hour or two of sunlight, easy, before they have to make their way by feystone light, but that's not gonna help much out here.
It doesn't feel like the temperature drops like it does in the Westersands. Too muggy. More like Giza during the rains, where it's still hot even though it's wet and kind of gross. They probably won't get much use out of the fire magicite they've got stowed in their packs.
"Pen?" he whispers.
She shoves her bangs out of her face and sighs. "What, Vaan?"
"Is Balthier sweating?"
Penelo's head snaps up and around so she can stare hard at Balthier. Vaan waits patiently, plodding along behind Basch and stealing looks at Balthier every step or two. The more he stares the more sure he is that Balthier's not sweating at all.
That's not good.
"No," Penelo finally says, "He's not."
They exchange a look.
"I'll tackle Ashe and Basch if you want to deal with his snootiness," Penelo offers. "That way you'll have Fran to help you cool him off."
"Why do I have to do it?"
Penelo stops and puts her hands on her hips. "I know it escapes your notice a lot of the time, Vaan," she says his name in the exact same tone that Reks used to when he did something stupid, which makes him cringe, "But I'm a girl. Balthier's Empire, you can hear it in his voice."
"So?" Vaan scratches his eyebrow.
"So he's not going to want a girl stripping him naked!"
"Fran's gonna see it anyway, what's the big deal if another girl's there?"
"Fran's his partner," Penelo snaps. "They're probably intimate anyway."
"An erroneous assumption," Fran says mildly. She's suddenly right there, flicking her ears and twitching her nose. She's so weird. "You are discussing the best way to make Balthier see reason?"
"Yeah," Vaan says. "Well, that, and which one of us has to peel him out of his pants." Balthier calls him an idiot, but he's not the one who decided to wear leather pants in the desert.
Fran's outfit is kind of ridiculous too, but at least she's taking care of herself. It's kind of funny to watch her pour water on her ears, though.
"Shy as a hare without his accouterment," Fran says. Her mouth curves into a half smile. "Vaan? You will help?"
Vaan blows out a breath. "Fine," he says.
Vaan's pretty sure it's not a good sign that Balthier doesn't even seem to notice them splitting up. He makes one last rude gesture at Penelo's back before he holds out an arm to bar the way.
Balthier runs smack into it. "Apologies," he huffs breathlessly.
Yeah, that's not a good sign either. Vaan catches Balthier's hand when he goes to walk by; it's dry and way too hot.
"Have you ever been out in the desert before?" Vaan demands.
"I'm in the desert now," Balthier says peevishly. “It’s beastly hot.”
"Yeah," Vaan says, "I can see that." It's probably not nice to laugh, but nobody's ever accused Vaan of being nice and lived to tell the tale (well, except Penelo), so Vaan lets his laughter bubble free.
He ends up doubled over with one hand on his knee and the other still clutching on to Balthier's.
Balthier blinks a few times before his face twitches. "Vaan," he says, "Why are you grasping at my person?"
It's kind of cute, Vaan decides, and pulls Balthier's hand up to his face. "You aren't sweating," he says bluntly. His skin's even hotter against Vaan's cheek.
"Come again?"
"You are addled," Fran says. She puts a hand on Balthier's shoulder and firmly steers him towards the ramp that'll lead them down to the sandsea. "Follow quietly now, Balthier."
Shade, Vaan thinks longingly, and follows behind, still holding Balthier's hand. If he's not going to ask for it back, Vaan doesn't see why he should offer it. Besides, this way if Balthier falls, Vaan can just use that hand to pull him along.
He's not going to pick the guy up, he thinks mutinously. It's bad enough that he's going to have to strip him with Fran standing there judging him in her weird Viera way.
"Do not dawdle," Fran says.
"I'm not dawdling," Vaan says, hanging back and staring around, "I'm trying to find the best place to do this. There's no water around."
"That shall be my onus."
"I wish you guys wouldn't use words you know I don't know."
He catches the edge of Fran's smile out of the corner of his eye.
Vaan pushes Balthier into the nearest patch of shade that seems like it might be cooler than burning. He does stoop to touch his hand to the sand after a second though, 'cause he might not be thrilled about this, but he still doesn't want Balthier to end up with sand-scald on his butt.
It's really creeping him out how quiet Balthier is being. He knows what heat sicknesses does to people, but it's still kind of weird.
"I don't suppose you can take off all your clothes by yourself?" Vaan asks helplessly.
Balthier stares up at him like that mooncalf the Imperials killed a few months back. Vaan had always had a soft spot for that guy, so he pats Balthier on the head and sighs. "I want lessons," he says, "Lots of lessons on how to fly your ship."
"This I pledge," Fran says.
"Good."
He decides he should probably start on the shoes. They're almost as ridiculous as his pants in the desert anyway. Vaan has to be gentle peeling them off his heels because those are definitely sand-scalded; they're hanging out of Balthier's stupid shoes.
Balthier's feet are as hot, red, and sweat less as his hands were. The heartbeat Vaan can feel in Balthier's ankle is still strong and already starting to even out, though, so they caught it early. That's good. Stuff like this can go bad really quick.
Water splashes across his hands and Balthier's feet. The air feels drier immediately but Vaan knows how to treat desert sicknesses, so he doesn't complain about it. He just stares up at Balthier's waist and sighs.
"Do you have any suggestions?" he asks.
He can feel Fran shrug behind him. "Do not get them wet," she advises. "Balthier always fusses so after we trek through water."
"Do not fuss," Balthier mumbles.
Vaan pauses with his hands on Balthier's waistband and figures this can go very bad, very quickly. "Uh, hey," he says loudly, "I'm, um, going to take off your pants now. I promise I'm not going to do anything weird."
He starts to peel the pants down before he can over think this. Peel's the right word for it and it takes him a lot longer than he'd like, but he manages after a couple of excruciating minutes. Balthier is a lot hairier than he would have pegged him for.
The pants are off. "You want to soak him while I get his shirt off?"
"The vest zips," Fran offers.
Vaan happily glues his eyes to that and not Balthier's feeble hand waving and mutterings. "Thanks," he says.
It's the work of moments to get the rest of Balthier's clothes off. He has to fend off Balthier's hands a few times and once he catches Balthier looking at him like he's suddenly turned into a chocobo. He gets Balthier on his side and ignores it.
Or tries to.
"Fran," Balthier pronounces carefully. "There is a chocobo abducting my vestments."
"It's really creepy that you're suffering from heat sickness and can still use words I don't know," Vaan says.
He squats down in front of Balthier while Fran chuckles and soaks them both, again. His water skin is still half-full, give or take a sip, so he slides a hand under Balthier's head, ignores his nattering about chocobos, and forces water down his throat.
"Drink," he says, belatedly, when one of Balthier's hands come up to circle around the neck of the water skin.
They're going to be here for another few hours, at least. Maybe even until nightfall. Vaan ignores the next wave of water that hits him in the chest and stares down at Balthier's skin. "He's going to be so sunburned," he says.
The image of Balthier peeling is almost enough to make Vaan laugh again. He settles for pulling the water skin back before Balthier can make himself throw up.
"You'll be okay," Vaan tells him, and then has to add, "The next time you say I'm an idiot savant or whatever it is you call me when you think I can't hear you, I'm going to remind you about this."
Balthier squints up at him and says, "It's meant as a compliment, for the most part."
Vaan stretches out his legs and waits for the sun to go down.
