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Chirrut’s hands are in his hair, long, clever fingers separating the strands, combing the waves to glossy perfection, massaging idly at his scalp, and the press of them is something to fall into, to lose himself in as surely as they drift into the Force together. Although, Baze thinks, that this is better. It is blasphemous and material, a small, worldly thing that he should not linger on, not pile hopes and dreams and futures on, but Baze has only very recently allowed himself to slip back into the fold. And, as he told Jyn, Chirrut is the Force for him in a way that is difficult to name. So if Chirrut will allow open worship and adoration, which he does, which he always has greedily, almost wantonly with both hands open, the Force will as well.
The love for one does not eclipse the love for the other. If anything, it makes each stronger. His heart is a flower, and there is room for many petals. This is a truth that he has spent too many years denying, shuttering his heart away, convinced that it had turned into a stone, a stump, the twisted remains of a sick, felled tree sitting at the core of him, Chirrut’s name written in the whirls of its years. Once it bloomed. Once it rose great and tall, swaying in the breeze. Sturdy enough to shelter any who found their way beneath it. Before he learned that it was not enough, his great heart, and that he, by extension, was also not enough. Not enough to protect everything he wanted to. So it fell. It burned. It toppled to the ground to rot and sink into the mud.
Now it blooms again, slow and shy, but a flower is a start. Baze can name the petals, can name the stalk even if some of the things behind the names no longer stand. Jedha, fallen, razed, taken, stolen, burned, can still speak to him, can still provide strength and wonder. The Temple of the Whills, his status there, his fellows, wiped away by time and sorrow are still marked by the unfurling. As much as Chirrut. Or Bodhi and Jyn. Even Cassian, though he is the hardest of them to love, trapped in his cage, steadily inching his way out of their orbit.
Chirrut’s hands are in his hair, and it is so hard to focus on anything other than that. That and the ever present knowledge of what else those hands can do, nimble, quick, strong fingers that have marked him in deliciously hidden places before. Lingering on that idea flushes warmth throughout his body, and draws a chuckle from his husband’s lips as it winds into the Force that loops around them, a sash with enough slack to hold, join but never stifle. Baze has only ever suffocated under the weight of his own despair.
“What are you wearing?” Chirrut asks, the fingers of one hand freeing themselves from his hair, which pulls a noise of discontent from Baze, to pluck at the harsh Rebel fabrics. Baze does not even need to look at him to know that he is pulling a face, still mourning the loss of what was familiar, all the steadying presences of their life on Jedha. Chirrut can be reckless and brash and flighty, but he has grown to like reminders of things. And Baze is certain that this longing for scraps of fabric is as much because of what those robes meant, how Jedha and the temple were tucked into them, as it is about how the ones provided by the Rebels can be uncomfortable. He understands the need to find comfort in objects, which is why he just endures the complaining with smiles and huffs.
He would endure far worse if he needed to.
Truth be told, there are times that he misses his flight suit. Not the clothing itself because it was never that comfortable just utilitarian, but he misses the pockets, which he used to fill with small things for Chirrut, bags of tea and spices, small shiny rocks, beads. Even with a war around them, even with death constantly hovering outside of their door like a guest waiting to be invited in, Baze could never stop himself from carrying things that might make his husband smile alongside all of the thousands of burdens and bad memories that he had saddled himself with. Those little things made all of that weight worth it.
“Shirt. Pants. Shoes.” Shoes only because everything in the ship is stark metal, cold, unexpectedly sharp. On Jedha they were often barefoot whether in the temple or, later, in their small rooms after the fall, but there is a thick scar across the pad of his left foot to remind Baze that ships are not home. He learned that lesson when he took his first job, when he left Jedha and was rewarded with a cut almost down to the bone when he roamed the ship halls, unable to sleep without the weight and warmth of Chirrut next to him, barefoot one night. He had taken it as another act of penance for what he had done.
Chirrut pushes at his shoulder with a huff of annoyance and a click of his tongue that Baze meets with a chuckle. “That isn’t what I wanted, and you know it.”
In the safety of their room when no one else is listening, all their words are Jedhan because it is familiar, it is easy. Easier than Basic, especially for Baze. Also it is the language they grew up in, the language they fell in love in, and it makes him feel as close to home as he can, especially when Chirrut’s hands are in his hair, and his voice is teasing, chiding Baze about one thing or another. He relents, of course, for he can never deny Chirrut anything for long and this game is easy to manage even if he does not have much that is interesting for this round. “The pants are simple, gray, the color of the Jedhan sky before the rains. The gentle ones. Not the torrents. The ones that came when it was warm, and you would catch my hand in the marketplace, and we would stand in darkened doorways in the alleys.”
“Nutmeg and ginger.” Chirrut adds another layer to the memory.
“Coriander.”
The free hand slips under the loose neck of Baze’s shirt to settle on his chest, over his heart. “Yes,” Chirrut agrees, pulling the word out in a soft, wistful sigh. “Sometimes I wonder if they have ever even heard of spices.” Then he hums, an almost sad note, fingers idly tracing patterns where they sit on his chest, in his hair, and Baze could slip to sleep like this because it is peaceful. Even with the slight pall, the shadows at the edges of things, it is nice. All of life is stained with sorrow, he knows, all of life is good and bad. They have lived through so much bad that he thinks they should be allowed to wallow here in the good as long as the Force will let them.
He considers whether to comment on the state of the food, but decides against it. Chirrut knows. They exist on war rations. This is what an army eats. Things that last for a long time, things that provide nutrition and are quick to make. Time here is better spent on repairs and strategies than seasoning. Yes, he misses the scents of the marketplace and the food, the noises, the spice that would get into the air until it seemed like the only thing you could breathe in. Until it seemed like your lungs had been suffused with it as well.
Chirrut’s fingers tug at his shirt, insistently, as though to remind him that he has not finished their game. When he laughs, Chirrut presses his warm palm flat against the skin again to soak up the noise and the vibrations, and Baze does not even need to look to his face to know that Chirrut has closed his eyes to pay attention to him better. “The shirt is a green that is almost brown,” he starts and then has to pause for a moment to try and find something he can feed to Chirrut to help. “The shade on the bound texts of Master Omay, the ones that had the silver scroll work on the sides.”
“The ones I pushed you up against when I kissed you?”
“Yes,” Baze settles his hand on top of his shirt over where Chirrut’s is pressed to his skin underneath.
The hand in his hair twists just a bit, tugging at him, and Baze growls his approval of it even though he knows that it likely heralds another question, which is soon to follow. “What about me? What terrible thing did you select for me today?”
“You dressed yourself, fool,” he says pleasantly and then hums for a moment as though debating whether to answer the question any further. “They’re blue.” Somewhere, somehow Jyn managed to find robes. They are not the right sort of robes, but Chirrut has taken to wearing them over the plain pants and shirts, and it makes him look more like himself. “Not blue like the kyber.” The color of dense, thick ice, the color of his blind eyes. “Darker. The color of the edgings on the tapestries in the dining hall. An almost completely night sky color before it goes to black. It makes your skin glow, and your smile brighter.”
“I see. You make me sound quite dashing. I think I remember you once commenting on how much you liked me in blue.” Chirrut clicks his tongue against the roof of his mouth as the fingers over Baze’s heart start to tap out a small rhythm, unable to be completely still for too long. “I think it was supposed to be a compliment, though I distinctly recollect you growling the words at me and then running out of the dining hall as though someone had set your robes on fire.”
Baze chuckles at the memory, at the idea of having been so young and so lost in love once, that fleeting, terrifying feeling of just not knowing whether it would be returned, whether it would last, being frightened that it would drop his feet out from under him, but now it is steady, he is steady. No longer young and bumbling. Still just as mired in the thick of love, though. He looks up from where he leans against his husband to steal a look at his face, which is bright and soft and smiling. “I like you in everything.” But no more red. Even though it looks lovely on him, goes well with the rose gold of his skin, the shine in his eyes, Baze cannot bear the sight of more red, splashed heavy and somber, on Chirrut.
The grin that pulls Chirrut’s lips up is wide enough to show off his teeth and the pink of his gums, blazing enough to blast all the dark little thoughts that hover at the edge of his mind always, and Baze is pretty sure he can predict what is going to be said before he says it. “You like me best in nothing at all, though, yes?”
Yes. The acknowledgement hums through his head, bright, firelight and starlight and everything in between, but he doesn’t breathe the admission into the air. Chirrut doesn’t need him to. Chirrut just twists the hair in his hands a little more, draws another slight moan from Baze’s lips at the sharp, pleasant tug. In response, he fists a hand into those robes, dark blue and glorious against the beauty that is Chirrut, to pull him forward for a kiss. It is a little awkward due to their positions, but Baze cannot be bothered to give a shit because Chirrut’s tongue dances across his lips and his teeth worry at his flesh and that is all he needs. That is all he needs from the whole great wide universe. The rest of it is just extra.
The fact that Chirrut’s breathing is a little heavier than normal when they break does not escape Baze’s notice, and that strikes a happy chord that reverberates through his body as well. Baze settles both of his hands over his stomach, and Chirrut goes back to threading his fingers through his hair with one hand, and drawing patterns over the skin of his chest with the other. They are sacred symbols of the temple, as though Chirrut is blessing him as well as adoring him. He hums while his fingers move, and Baze has to stop himself from naming every symbol, repeating every chant that goes along with it in his head with the movements. Until it comes to him that maybe this is Chirrut’s way of preparing him for their next journey, this temple dream of his because someone will need to make manuscripts anew, after all, and unless there is a hidden repository, an off-world knowledge bank of their teachings, he and Chirrut are the sole bearers of the information now.
“What will you do?”
There are several ways that Baze could take the question so he waits a beat to see if Chirrut will make it more plain. When he doesn’t expand, Baze sighs. “About?”
Chirrut shifts like he is going to move, and Baze raises himself up slightly so as not to hamper his movements more than necessary. The hand on his chest presses down, firmly, and he settles back. “About Cassian.” The words are fine and thin like the threads that some of the masters used in their weaving, the ones that Baze never wanted to touch or even breathe on because he was worried about breaking them with his limbs and his body that felt too big and out of place for so many years, like his ears.
Baze sighs, a long rumble of air because of course Chirrut would ask after this now. It has been several days since his conversation with Jyn, several days since he started trying to locate Cassian, but the Force does not seem to be aiding him in the quest and he comes back with empty hands each time. Asking the Rebels has not gathered him much other than curious looks or the same excuses about clearance that Jyn mentioned, though everyone always makes sure to apologize to him when they are unable to help. Chirrut likes to tease that this is because Baze is big and growly, a surly, bearded man who frightens the children, but Baze has always thought his husband to be so much more intimidating, especially now. Chirrut is a weapon of bone and blood and flesh even without his staff, but Baze is only starting to sink back into that kind of existence. He can take a punch, can land one as well, but he is far from the glorious, laughing, whirlwind of destruction that is Chirrut. Without his repeater canon, he is just a disheveled man who stomps and scowls, the only things about him that could be frightening are twisted into thick coils on the inside where eyes cannot see.
“I have to find the man before I can do anything, Chirrut.”
“Perhaps,” Chirrut starts and then trails off, his fingers gentle again as they brush through Baze’s hair, and Baze wonders what he was going to say. It is unlike Chirrut to still himself. He normally chatters on even past the point that he originally set out to make. Baze brings his hand up to tap against the one Chirrut has not moved from under his shirt to prompt him to continue, which pulls a sigh from him. “I worry, Baze.”
“I thought that was my job.”
“Old fool.” The word smears color across the Force, bright swirls of orange like flowers in the temple garden, and then it fades, smudges a little at the edges. “I do worry, though, Baze.” The fingers are out of his hair now, ghosting on his cheek, and he closes his eyes so that Chirrut can look wherever he wants. “You get so intertwined my love, and we will eventually leave them.”
Baze doesn’t need to ask who Chirrut means by that, and it does twist his heart a bit. They have settled into a routine here that is as dear to him as the ones that ruled his world inside the temple. Patterns, routines have always soothed him, always helped to guide him. Every morning they train and meditate with Bodhi, meals are spent with Bodhi and Jyn normally, though she can be a bit harder to pin down because she is always a flurry of some sort of activity even if she has not fully throw her lot in anywhere. Baze swallows, and Chirrut’s fingers brush his eyelids, soothing.
“You’re the one who wanted to fix it,” Baze says. It could almost be an accusation if said differently, but on him it is merely fact.
“Yet I am not the one attempting to fix it, am I?”
“Do you want me to stop?” Baze asks, and he knows that his tone is sour, wrong at all the edges even though he doesn’t want it to be. This is not Chirrut’s fault. If anything it is his own for having failed to make the connection that perhaps he is getting too involved, for not guarding some small part of himself in order to protect it from the eventual outcome of this situation. Instead he has barreled right into it with his arms open. He has embraced Bodhi and Jyn in his heart, sheltered them there, and it will hurt him to lose them even if it is only to distance.
He shudders as Chirrut’s fingers trace his lips, every touch tender. “No, my love, I just want you to be careful. Your husband is blind and one day he is going to lose your pieces before he can put you back together again.”
Worried Chirrut is always like this, Baze knows, soft and lovely, as delicate as the scent of jasmine tea in the air, just as clean on the palate. Chirrut has learned to comfort, learned to nurture over the span of their years together, though it is a side of him that rarely surfaces and only does so when necessary. Like on Scarif. When the sand turned red. And Baze’s breath hitches in his throat as he pushes the memory back and away, thrusting it into a dark corner that will hopefully just swallow it up, disappear, leave him blissfully unaware of its existence.
“I am yours, here and in the Force. You will always find me there. You will always find them there. Separations are not permanent. Separations can be overcome. Distances can be crossed.” As he goes over each mantra, twisting them subtly, perfectly, Chirrut runs a finger across Baze’s face, still mapping him out as though he thinks something may have changed, worried about missing any small impact that the passage of time has on him.
“Bodhi may come with us,” Baze says, the idea bright on his tongue, and he knows that Chirrut nods even though his eyes are closed because he can hear the rustle of the fabric. He nods but does not comment. Baze does not need him to comment because the alternative hangs in the air at the end of his own words: Bodhi may also stay here with the Rebels. Close on its heels is the fact that Jyn most certainly will, especially if they do manage to fix the tenuous threads between her and Cassian that are currently close to breaking.
Instead of pulling that out into the open, Chirrut does something different, something unexpected, which is the loveliest color on him by far. “Be careful with my heart,” he commands, palm pressing against Baze’s chest again. “I don’t know where I would find another one. This one is so old and worn. It fits perfectly in my palm. I am quite fond of it even when it is foolish and stubborn.”
Baze opens his eyes to gaze up at Chirrut, who has tilted his head slightly down in a gesture that, on someone else, would mean he was looking at him. “Then stop being so reckless with mine,” he counters, lifting his hand to brush his knuckles across Chirrut’s cheek, and Chirrut responds by turning his head, his lips bestowing a faint kiss to the skin.
Their words echo a story from Jedha, one as old as the temple itself, about lovers whose families did not approve of their bond. Thinking the only way to prove to everyone that they belonged together was to perform a grand gesture--such is the way of young love--they decided to transverse the sands of the moon to bring back a double kyber crystal. Once they had proven themselves worthy of the kyber, they thought there was no way anyone else could deny them, deny their love. The trek to the cave was dangerous, far more so than they had ever imagined. It was long and fearfully cold at night with nothing to protect them from the winds that buffeted them from all sides. By the time they reached the cave, they were exhausted, weak from exposure, on the brink of death itself.
And the story said that the kyber reached out to them, spoke to them, whispered in their ears, an offer. “The Force can heal you, but you must agree to one thing.”
“Anything,” the lovers had agreed.
“You must trust in the Force, you must trust in each other, enough to allow the Force to switch the hearts in your bodies so that you no longer carry your own. Is your love strong enough to take on the weight of the other’s life?”
“Yes,” the lovers had said without a moment’s hesitation.
(Here Baze would sometimes grumble, when he was in a foul mood, that the lovers were both almost dead anyway and probably would have agreed to anything to continue surviving. Chirrut would always chide him because, of the two of them, Baze was the romantic, after all, and so it was his role to get doe eyed and sappy at the story.)
So the kyber switched their hearts and sent them back across the desert with no proof of their love, no bit of crystal to show for it. The trip back was easier. The lovers were more careful, stronger, more protective of themselves and each other when they carried the weight of the other’s heart within their chests. By the time they had gotten back to the city, they no longer cared about the quarrels of their families. They knew that they were meant to remain together and so they did until their dying days.
It is--was--a common thing for spouses and lovers on Jedha to bid one another to “keep my heart safe” on parting. Baze wonders if he will hear anyone, other than himself and Chirrut, invoke those familiar words ever again. This also bothers him because it is a beautiful story, a lovely tradition. Just one more reason for the temple. Just one more thing to teach. It cannot just be another Temple of the Whills, though. It needs to be so much more than that, a testament to everything that has been lost, the stories and the sights and the sounds, all the good things snuffed out by the Empire.
“Sometimes it is easier to be strong for others than to be strong for yourself,” Chirrut calls him back, giving voice to one of the teachings evident in the story. “I only wish you had not learned that lesson quite so well.” His fingers rap against Baze’s head as though he is knocking at a door, the smile on his face a little more wistful than normal considering the jest.
Baze catches his hand and runs his thumb over the back of it. Chirrut’s hands have always been deceptively soft considering the power that lies coiled there in the tendons and the muscles, dormant even in the cells. “Ah, but then you might love me less, and we cannot have that.”
“Love you less?” Chirrut’s tone has taken on the lilting quality it always does when he is going to tease softly out of the sight of others. In public they banter boisterously and constantly, a hurried patter of words designed as much to distract potential enemies as well as confirm that the other is still there when they move too far apart. The softer teasing reminds him of days spent lounging on the sun warmed stones of the higher landings of the temple, fingers laced, their only point of contact, trading quips, as delicately as first kisses, between observations about their studies and their fellows.
“You say that as though this is not merely a marriage of convenience. The Force told me that your ears would shelter me from even the greatest of blows, and I decided that was a good enough reason to say yes. Had it been more forthcoming about your flaws, I might have reconsidered.”
He chuckles, and Chirrut’s hand pushes more soundly against his chest as though trying to bid the vibrations to curl into his palm. “It is not too late to reconsider. You could find yourself another husband. For one as dashing as you it would not be difficult. Though, word of advice, stay your mouth lest you run them off.”
Chirrut pulls a slight frown that does not reach his eyes. “No, there are all the embroidered towels to consider. It would be quite wasteful.”
“Yes, do consider the towels.” Baze raises a hand to settle it against Chirrut’s cheek, still looking up at him, adoring the way he tilts his head and how his lips pull, the way the smiles and the joy run rampant across his features, all the way up into the lines around his eyes. Once upon a time, Baze remembers how those eyes would linger on him for long, long moments that made him shift, bashful and shy under the adoring, hungry gaze. He misses the purposeful weight of Chirrut’s stare, though the man has lost none of his intensity, none of his glow. His eyes still speak volumes even if it is in a slightly different way. Still it is one of many things Baze would change about their world if he could.
Chirrut pulls his ear slightly harder than normal considering the situation, and Baze knows that he has let some modicum of despair drift into their connection. He clears his throat. “So. Cassian?”
“No,” Chirrut replies without missing a beat. “Too young even if he does seem like he might otherwise be accommodating to the proposition.”
“Fool,” Baze breathes in the same tone as someone else would say dear or love or here is my heart, here is my entire world, you hold everything now because I can deny you nothing. “What are we going to do about Cassian?” Part of him is fearful that Chirrut will continue on this idea that Baze should relinquish the quest, relinquish the not children that he wants to protect, the newly unfurling petals on the flower of his heart, but he also knows Chirrut. For all his bluster, for all his worry, his husband is just as attached to these people, though separations have always been easier for Chirrut.
“The Force will provide,” is the calm and easy answer that falls from his lips.
It makes Baze sigh and grumble, though he is relieved that Chirrut is falling so quickly back into his old habits. His frustrating old habits as well as the good ones. “So I will walk the halls yet again tomorrow morning looking for him. It is at least good exercise.”
The pads of Chirrut’s fingers have started to trace temple symbols over his skin again, and Baze hums. “We shall go together. I think perhaps your inability to locate him is an indication that this one is not as necessary for you.”
“I thought you hated wandering the ship.” The ship is large, its space hard to track, the metal makes the echo box react oddly, and the Force moves darkly around a lot of the Rebels because this is a war and things have to be done that hang heavy on people. It clamors a lot, and Chirrut is more sensitive to it, unable to let it dissolve into the white noise buzz that Baze hears so often, a nagging at the back of his mind but nothing overwhelming.
“A small price to pay to protect my heart.”
“There are flowers in it.”
Even though it is slightly awkward for them both, Chirrut leans over until his lips ghost on Baze’s when he says, “I know. I have seen them. They are almost as lovely as you.”
Baze fists a hand into the material of the robe again, tugging, and Chirrut slithers, almost bonelessly to his side with a minimal amount of effort, dislodging the hand settled heavy over his heart for only a moment before it is back. Side by side, Chirrut fixes a leg securely over Baze’s hip, and they are both probably going to feel this later because the floors of the ship are hard, but Baze does not care. All he cares about is cupping Chirrut’s face, slotting his lips against his husband’s and the soft sigh that he earns in return. When Chirrut’s other hand tugs perfectly at his hair, Baze moans into the kiss, and Chirrut wastes no time in deepening it. If Baze is growing flowers in the heart beating inside his chest, he thinks that Chirrut must be fostering stars because he can taste them as they burn on the tip of his tongue and swirl in endless whorls of color behind his eyes.