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Chirrut finds Cassian in no time at all, which pulls a long suffering sigh from Baze when his husband flashes that too broad smile at him along with familiar, sparkling words, “I told you so, Baze. Believe, and the Force provides.”
If he did not love him so much, Baze thinks that it would be quite easy to understand why so many people over the years have been tempted to punch Chirrut in the jaw for his remarks. As it is, though, he only feels that familiar, soft uncurling of affection that never ceases to overwhelm the twinge of irritation. However they are outside of the shelter of their room so he responds with a gruff grumble and a squeeze of his hand where it rests on Chirrut’s elbow, more for his sake than his husband’s because Baze is always the more cautious of the two and Chirrut has taken no real time to map out the Rebel ship, preferring to linger in their room or venture to the mess and never alone, never without him close beside, instead of a more overt act of affection.
Baze isn’t even sure where they are in the ship because they have turned down so many random twisting corridors by this point. Oddly Chirrut never runs into the problems that he did when he tried this task on his own. No one tells them that they are not allowed in certain areas or that they need to go back, there are no dead ends or locked doors. If he didn’t know that it was an impossibility, Baze would swear that the ship alters itself, changes in order to better accommodate Chirrut’s wanderings, but since it is a ship this is impossible. It is made of metal and powered by engines. Even if the Force winds around it and through it, suffuses it in the same way that it permeates both of them, it is not as if it can reach out and twist the hull, change the rooms around, create doors where they were not before. This is not how the Force works. He believes in it, yes, he feels it, the weight and the shift and the tug, the infrequent splashes of color and the strange little murmurs of words, the undeniable thread that twists around both their wrists, but there is a limit to what it can do.
Even for Chirrut. Who is still no Jedi even if Baze would no longer call him a dreamer as he did on that fateful day they met Jyn and Cassian and Bodhi, the day that so much of his life was taken away, though he realizes now that a lot more was given.
The room that they have ducked into is packed full of bits and bobs, only some of which Baze can identify. It seems to be a cross between a storage room and a tech station, and it reminds him of some of the miscellaneous stalls that existed in the Jedhan marketplace, the ones that were not truly dedicated to any one thing but sold whatever happened across the hands of the proprietors. Sometimes those were the most useful stands of them all though he had to be prepared to take his time sifting through stacks of items that not even the seller could identify but would be quick to put a hefty price on and then put up a fight when he attempted to haggle them down. Baze had found that it was easier to haggle with a repeater cannon on his back, though Chirrut’s smiles and blind, seeking eyes sometimes managed even better than his growl.
Honey over vinegar, his husband would whisper to him in those moments, grinning and handing over whatever piece of machinery Baze had been eyeing after thoroughly mapping it out with his fingers to try and determine its purpose. On a good day Baze would just let him trace the whorls and the cogs, as long as the item itself was not dangerous, until curiosity eventually overtook him and he would hand it back, saying that he wanted to know what it was or proclaiming his suspicions about its use and demanding to know whether he was right. On bad days, the days when the press of their world, of the life that had been forced upon them due to the incursion of the Empire, Baze would get short and grabby, explaining the item in quick bursts before Chirrut had enough time to look at anything at all. Chirrut never held it against him. Much. Sometimes his husband would repay him by demanding a sparring session later in the evening so that he could, once again, soundly prove his ability to knock Baze down a few pegs when needed. And then, ice broken, they could talk about the weight, about the black clouds, about the never ending crush of the world outside of their door, admit to all the little frightening things that seemed easier to handle when shared.
Cassian does not seem to have noticed their entrance into the room, still sitting at a long bench, various broken pieces of what look like droid limbs spread out on the table in front of him as his hands work, picking at the boards and the wires. Baze is not sure, but it sounds like he is muttering to himself in something that is neither Basic nor Jedhan, just soft little noises in a tone that betrays exhaustion and agitation as well as anything. He’s a cold, dark smear on the Force, a subtle shade of gray that bleeds into black, and tired. His shoulders are hunched, a protective wall around himself and whatever he is working so fervently on, and that is a position that Baze is familiar with, having spent long nights twisted into it himself whether caving in around his own body or keeping watch over Chirrut after his fool husband had performed one insane feat or another in the marketplace that might have drawn the attention of the Imperials to them.
There were some nights that Baze could not sleep at all because he was petrified, stuck, convinced that someone would kick the door in at any moment, eradicate the last point of light in his life. It never came, though there was more than one occasion when he caught would be thieves in the night and taught them a lesson. Of course there had also been a couple of times when he caught shivering, starving children trying to pick their way into the relatively safe and warm rooms they shared, and he always gave them food and any credits that he could spare, never telling Chirrut of the deeds, though the next day his husband would alternate between deep sighs of concern and gentle smiles that let Baze know he knew. Knew and chose not to say anything, not wanting to call attention to Baze’s heart, his habit to pick up strays that had never fully sunk into disuse no matter how hard he tried, no matter how much of a stone he turned into little by little. And Baze, for his own part, tried not to learn the faces of the children that he helped because he did not want to recognize them if--when--terrible things happened.
The room is haphazard at best, difficult for Baze to navigate with his working eyes, but Chirrut manages to pick his way through it easily without even the cane or the echo box the Rebels provided. Baze watches him, and is unable to hold back the brush of memories, the images from Scarif as Chirrut walked steadily across the beach, away from him, and nothing could touch him. Hurt hammers a fist into his chest that makes it hard to breathe for a moment and then relaxes as Chirrut brushes at him through the Force. Chirrut remains, doesn’t he? They both do. The Force sheltered them, supported them, and the bacta healed them, though Baze has run his tongue over new scars, trying to kiss them into non-existence when they are alone. He hates hurt emblazoned over any part of his husband’s body, though he knows that this is simply another part of their lives that will not end anytime soon. Pain is part of the Force, too. One of the many parts that he, even in his rediscovered, blossoming belief, has not been able to fully embrace just yet.
Baze follows him cautiously, trying to be soundless and very nearly failing because no matter how he turns, his form is too big for the narrow corridor that Chirrut just eased down without even a hint of difficulty. He nearly topples entire towers of what, to him, looks like nothing more than metal garbage at least three times before he hears Chirrut sigh and click his tongue against the roof of his mouth in a clear indication for him to be silent. Baze grumbles because this is not easy, and he is clearly trying very hard so Chirrut should cut him some slack. Cassian, still bent over the table, does not seem to notice, and Baze wonders whether the younger man has fallen asleep or whether his hearing was impacted on Scarif and did not heal properly.
He settles fingertips on Chirrut’s elbow when he reaches his side again, and is rewarded with a hiss in Jedhan, “Now I’m unsure as to whether you need your eyes checked or the captain needs his hearing checked.”
Before Baze has time to say anything in return, Chirrut has turned his attention back to Cassian, his arm slipping from Baze’s grasp as he starts to cross the remaining distance. “Captain,” he says loudly in Basic, as much a warning of their presence as a greeting. They are both familiar with the fact that some people, especially those in the middle of wars, do not take kindly to being startled. “We have been looking for you, but as I told Baze you cannot hide from the Force forever.” His tone is lilting, friendly and high, the same voice he would use on tourists and pilgrims and the random passersby in the alleys when he sold fortunes and stories for credits. The show voice is meant to capture attention and put people at ease in the same breath, and Baze doubts that this will escape Cassian’s notice.
Normally Baze would linger several paces behind Chirrut, let him take the lead here, especially after their conversation the previous day, the warning for Baze not to cling to these not children when they might end up losing all of them, but the room is close, packed tightly with things, and Chirrut is only working under his own senses, which, while formidable, cannot protect him from everything. So he follows him until his fingers are ghosting the back of the blue robe that Jyn found, tucking its folds into his grasp before he is even completely aware of the simple action. He leaves his other arm at his side, and it is once again strange to not have the gun to settle his hand on so he ends up shoving it in his pants pocket to avoid feeling awkward.
Cassian turns to look at them slowly, one hand rubbing at his forehead as though this is the last thing that he needs right now, and Baze feels a slight pang of pity for the man because he understands how overwhelming Chirrut can be at the best of times. This certainly does not look like the best of times for Cassian. The other man is paler than normal with an almost green cast to his skin, deep circles under his dark eyes, which are bloodshot, and his lips are pressed in a thin line as though in some slight semblance of pain. Not for the first time, Baze wonders whether or not Cassian has been taking proper care of himself after the injuries on Scarif. He still does not know the extent of them, but he knows that it was not good. Rest is important for the body, needed for it to heal properly even with bacta treatments. They told him as much when he surfaced, coughing, sputtering, hands flailing for “Chirrut, Chirrut” and not able to listen to the words of the doctors until the familiar fingers were in his own.
Cassian looks like he surfaced from the bacta and then immediately started running as soon as his feet hit the floor. Cassian looks like he has not stopped running a moment since, and his body and soul are both bowing harshly under the weight of it. Baze presses his fingers lightly against Chirrut’s back, trying to impart information through the touches alone, hoping that his husband follows what he is attempting to get across, that it is important to take things slowly with Cassian Andor, to be gentle, because the man in front of them has certainly not learned to be gentle with himself.
“Masters,” Cassian says, accent thicker than normal, dragging the word in a new way that is not unpleasant.
Baze wonders where Cassian is from, what planet he used to call home before the Empire decided that the galaxy could not stand as it used to and started to lay ruin to everything their cold fingers could reach. And then, belatedly, he catches the fact that Cassian has used the plural and huffs out a bit of a growl because, well, neither of them are technically guardians or masters anymore. There is no temple left, and Baze had relinquished his title on his own, tossed it into a ditch, stomped away from it before it rose to haunt him like a cold drenched ghost. And yet. And yet the word does not feel wrong. It strikes a chord inside of his chest, starts a strange trilling inside of him that bubbles into and through the Force. It is not wrong, and it is not done. It is not over. He can still reclaim it if he wants to, if he reaches out and snatches it from the air, another petal unfurling.
Baze can see the hint of Chirrut’s face and watches as his smile quirks upward at the edges, easing further into actual mirth and away from his showmanship. “No, please, no formalities. We are all the same in the Force, and we are friends. Might we trouble you for a few moments?”
There is a long beat as Baze watches Cassian look from Chirrut to the workstation to him, back to the workstation and then back to Chirrut. The range of emotions that plays over his face is undeniable yet he voices none of them and Chirrut, ever smiling, gives no indication that he has caught on to the other man’s distress. Baze considers intervening for a moment before he remembers Jyn’s words, her actions in the mess, the piece of sunlight that Cassian Andor undoubtedly is at the heart of him if someone would just lead him away from the cloud cover. So Baze says nothing, merely taps his fingers, one at a time, against his thumb inside his pocket and waits.
“That would be,” Cassian’s eyes twitch back to the table and then up again. “A few minutes. That’s fine.”
“What are you working on?” Baze asks before Chirrut can launch into whatever long speech he is sure to have prepared for this moment, and he can hear his husband click his tongue in irritation at having been so unceremoniously cut off. The hand in his robes, against his back through layers, presses gently to still him for a moment as Baze waits for the answer. Judging by the state that Cassian is in, whatever is happening here is sure to be important and might play a part in the larger picture.
When Cassian looks at him, Baze thinks there is a subtle joy in his eyes, some kind of quiet, sparking hope before it gets trapped away again. Yes, this is important to the man. This might be important enough for him to have pushed the others away, which is why Baze really considers the situation. Cassian has sequestered himself in a room full of discarded droid parts, and his eyes look like he has not slept in weeks probably because of working himself down to nothing. To retrieve a friend. The only one of their core group who did not make it back. And his heart hammers for a moment because he can imagine a little of what that must feel like. Over the years, he has interacted with droids but never relied on one, never trusted in them or became attached to them, but he has seen the way the pilots and their droids interact, the companionship that goes beyond what one would expect between a person and a machine. He never considered how lost Cassian might feel without K2 until this moment, until he sees the pall of his flesh and the lines around his mouth, on his forehead. Here is a man worried and stretched taut and adrift without something that had been a constant in his life. That kind of loss is something that Baze can definitely relate to.
Instead of taking the opportunity for what it is, a chance to share, a hand outstretched in understanding, Cassian shuts the door on his prison. Again. How many walls has this man hunkered behind over the years, how many locked doors stand between the person he presents to the world and the one inside, the one who has undoubtedly been hurt many times over the years? “Nothing,” he says, finger pushing gently at one of the droid arms that is stretched across the workstation, its fingers curled at odd angles that speak of something in the housing unit being broken. “It’s just a side project I’ve been picking at as I can find the time.” Unsaid is the fact that this time is hard to come by and they are infringing on it.
Baze had hoped that Cassian would share with them if they simply held out a hand, though he should have known better. Of the three, Cassian is the hardest to understand, the most difficult to touch. Bodhi is the easiest. The bright, sparkling boy painted over with nerves and determination, stronger than he seems to be at first glance, but more than willing to share, especially when the sharing can be done in Jedhan, about Jedha. Baze is not sure that they would have such an easy time drawing him out if it weren’t for the fact that they all call the same moon home even if it is a home to which they can never return. Jyn can be a fire of rage and stubbornness herself, but she seeks them out on her own, she actively takes it upon herself to help and keep in contact the way that grown children will fawn over elderly parents, not wanting to confide but doting. She shares little pieces amid jokes and pestering. He reminds himself again that these people are not children, and they are not his even if he would take them, even if his heart has already taken strides towards that inevitability.
Cassian, however, is a man behind a wall, a man in a cage, a man taught to put on an unending series of masks and to pull a trigger for the good of the Rebellion. Baze knows what it is to kill and the types of things that a man sometimes has to tell himself in the middle of the night to make those kills feel lighter. There is a difference between killing in a fight and killing from afar, striking someone down when they have no knowledge of the thing that is coming. Or twisting the knife in the belly of one who might have called you friend, them never knowing exactly who you are. And yet, despite all of that, Cassian has not lost the face of a friend. There is a thing in his eyes and a glint in his heart and the way the Force folds around him as though trying to touch him, trying to console him, that speaks against all of the bad. It says, it confirms, that here is a man with hope blazing brightly at the heart of him. Hope, like fire, is catching.
“An important side project, yes?” Chirrut starts forward before Baze can catch him, and now he has no idea how this will play out. Wary of hampering his husband, Baze lets his fingers drop from the folds of the robe, crosses his arms over his chest and looks somewhat apologetically at Cassian as Chirrut inches ever closer, hands out, fingers questing as they brush against the edge of the table.
The look that Cassian aims at him is fleeting despair, an unspoken plea to catch Chirrut and lead him away, but Baze just shrugs and quirks an eyebrow because what can he be expected to do. It is Chirrut, after all. He may as well try and stop the movement of celestial bodies in the sky. He may as well try and stop the Force. What he does do, however, is incline his head just so in order to indicate that Cassian might not want to let Chirrut just blindly grope everything on the workstation because some of the items look sharp, and the last thing he wants to do is have to listen to his husband complain loudly while he wraps his hands.
“Oh, here,” Cassian says after a moment, fingers lightly touching Chirrut’s, tension as clear as glass to Baze even where he stands, as he guides the hand over to a safer part of the table, away from the cutting torches and the unsheathed blade, to the droid arm itself, which does look somewhat better to Baze’s eyes, though he wishes he had the chance to examine it first just to make sure.
Baze huffs a grunt of thanks as a reply, and Chirrut clicks his tongue at him. Cassian’s eyes flit between them in confusion. Chirrut, who must have sensed it, claps the man on the shoulder with his other hand and leaves it there. “Everything is fine, Cassian,” and Baze thinks that Chirrut is not only speaking of everything in the moment itself but so much more, everything left in life itself. “It’s a droid arm, Baze,” he calls out as if he needs to narrate, though they both know the gesture is meant more to bring the issue to the forefront for Cassian, a subtle but firm push to tell them, to speak the thing so that it can stop running circles in the pit of his stomach, stop keeping him up nights.
Cassian pushes a hands through his hair, which looks like it has not been washed in several days, and shifts a little, though not far enough to duck away from the lingering hand on his shoulder. Baze watches him, the way his mouth pulls into a tighter line, and the way his eyes twitch as though trying to figure out how he should speak of this, how he can spin the tale to avoid letting them get to the heart of the matter. Cassian is a man whose world has been built on pretty words. He has had to do this in order to survive, in order to get people to trust him.
But Baze knows stories, knows lies, from the lilting, jovial tone of Chirrut’s voice in the marketplace to the sad, broken tales he himself would drag out at night, shoddy, but just enough. Just enough of not being the truth to protect the both of them for a little longer. Baze wonders if there are any lies Cassian can create that he and Chirrut cannot see through, whether there are any that Chirrut will allow. Chirrut likes stories, always has, whether it was when Baze was repeating them to him or whether he was sitting in the alleys and calling his own into the air. The thing, of course, is that Chirrut loves stories, the soft and pretty, the gleaming silver tales of adventure and love and loss, but he seeks the truth at the heart of all things as well. It is another reason why other people can find him taxing, but Baze has always appreciated that about him, this need to get to the core, to understand what lies beneath. Baze thinks it helps his husband understand him better when sometimes all Baze can do is make himself small and unseen, hidden, lost inside the bulk of his own body. Chirrut does not need his sight to find Baze; he has proven this fact hundreds of times over.
Baze thinks that Chirrut does not need his sight to find Cassian either. Cassian who wavers at the edges more and more, who seems like a man who is so tired of the play, of the lies, of all the pretty words. A man who doesn’t want to live inside a cage anymore. Chirrut has always enjoyed dismantling things for fun.
“I know, Chirrut,” Baze says because if he doesn’t answer in some way his husband is liable to just repeat the information, getting louder each time, until he gets some kind of acknowledgement.
Baze watches as Chirrut tips his head toward Cassian. “Even if you make him another shell, will it be him?” The question is not as gentle as it could be, and Baze frowns, especially at the way Cassian’s face flushes with something that could either be anger or embarrassment.
“I have backup drives,” he protests, his accent thicker on the words, and pushes a hand through his hair again and the gesture is equal parts frustration and desperation, loss, things that Baze is not used to seeing on the man because of his carefully crafted countenance. “He.” And then he stops himself, a door slams.
He doesn’t need to explain this to them. Of course he doesn’t. Baze watches the realization flit across his face and settle in the bags under his eyes.
Chirrut tilts his head further toward him, the hand on Cassian’s shoulder curling to offer more comfort if wanted, which Cassian has still not shaken off or moved away from, and Baze can see that the expression on his face has changed, melted into something softer and more understanding. “Perhaps Bodhi and Jyn would be willing to offer their assistance. I am afraid that Baze and I would be in the way more than anything. Unless you just need someone to shift things around in which case he might be able to assist you with that. Just remind him to lift with his knees because he is quite useless to me if his back is out.”
Baze covers his face with both hands and sighs even as he hears the slightly surprised intake of breath from Cassian as the other man tries to figure out how to respond to the rather blatant innuendo. Chirrut is either trying to purposefully fluster the captain or he is simply getting more open about referencing their relationship in public. Or both. Chirrut has always been a master of multitasking. “Ignore him,” Baze manages to say when he crosses his arms over his chest again, face only lightly flushed and that will fade down quickly without Chirrut next to him to comment on it, tell him how lovely he thinks it is, how precious that his words can still make Baze blush as though they were still young and fresh to love and its praise.
Cassian clears his throat and shifts his weight, seemingly unable to decide what to react to and how to go about it. Finally he taps the tips of his fingers against the bench, eyes on the droid arm that Chirrut is still exploring, slowly, carefully, being much more mindful of it than Baze would normally consider him capable. “Jyn won’t help. She’s upset with me.” He sighs, letting out a long breath and sags noticeably. “I can’t say that I blame her. I told her welcome home and then split. As if I even know what a home is anymore.” He laughs, but it sounds like metal twisting out of shape. “Pretty words. Home. Hope.”
“True words,” Chirrut says, and Baze knows that tone, formal and heavy, scolding as though Cassian is an initiate who has done something wrong, spoken out of turn.
“Kay was my biggest truth,” Cassian says, finally shrugging out of Chirrut’s touch, though he does it slowly, carefully, probably so that he does not disorient him. “Even I couldn’t lie to Kay, and I could lie to everyone. It was my best trait. For a very long time.” The room goes quiet as Cassian focuses his attention on the pieces of metal on the table, almost as if apologizing to them or waiting for them to rise up and chide him of their own accord.
Chirrut has settled his arms into the sleeves of his robes but remains close, head directed toward where Cassian is standing as though listening to unspoken words. Baze wonders what he is picking up in the Force. All he can sense is that shifting gray, those heavy clouds, and the exhaustion. The exhaustion is so thick he needs no Force sense for it as it crawls from Cassian’s every pore and movement, a blanket that will smother him into nothingness if he doesn’t address it eventually.
“And now?” Baze asks when the silence stretches on long enough that it is evident the other two aren’t going to say anything. “What’s your best trait now?”
Cassian looks up at him and the smile on his face is pained. His only answer is an exaggerated shrug, hands held out at his sides that then gesture toward the pile of discarded parts on the table. “Him. Maybe. I’m not. My place in the Rebellion is not the same now.” This information is not surprising.
“Warmth,” Chirrut says after a moment. “Words.” Baze feels the truth in both of those declarations resound around him like bells through their Force link.
“I don’t,” Cassian starts, likely on the verge of arguing with Chirrut, before he stops himself, changes direction, maybe trying to throw them off or maybe having relaxed into the idea that they are not here to get something from him, to have him do something for them, which seems to be how people have treated Cassian for most of his life, a tool to be used and forgotten. “How do you find your way back to something? How did you find your way back to the Force?”
The latter question is obviously directed at him, and Baze shifts slightly, suddenly uncomfortable with the weight of responsibility in answering the question. Chirrut has started to move backwards, slowly, carefully, and Baze reaches a hand out to guide him, steady him as he needs it until his hand is once against wrapped at Chirrut’s elbow. He knows it is as much for Chirrut as it is for him, the contact a steady, reassuring line between them as he mulls over the best way to answer. “It is not quite the same. The Force is always there. Even when I shut my eyes to it and stopped my ears, refused to believe, it remained, waiting. The Force is always ready for you to return to it, and it never stops knowing that it is part of you even when you cannot see that yourself.”
He stops to take a breath, long, shuddering suddenly as a rise of memory comes back to him, time spent apart, time spent rambling across the galaxy doing things he would rather not recall, trying to lose himself, trying to lose all the soft, warm, feeling bits of him that Chirrut loved best. The pieces that would ache at night constantly. Chirrut finds his hand and clenches tight.
“Finding your way back to things can be difficult.” As usual he resorts to modified sermons and religious mantras even when they are not exactly what or how he wants to talk about something; it is simply easier this way. “Roads remain open to you even when you can no longer see them. Let your heart guide you and apologize for pain you have caused. Apologize to others sincerely, and they will forgive you.”
“Most of all,” Chirrut prompts but will not finish the statement himself.
Baze sighs, deep and loud. It feels like it pulls the air from his entire body. It almost seems like his breath becomes the wind on Jedha. “Most of all apologize to yourself. Forgive yourself.” He does not add that this is the hardest part because it is plain on Cassian’s face that he already knows this part. Killers always do. Tools always do.
“There are many words for home, Cassian,” Chirrut picks up the thread of conversation, his fingers still tight around Baze’s, thumb rubbing against the back of his hand as if to tell him that he has done a good job, he has said the right thing. “And many definitions. Create your own.”
“Within the Force?” Cassian asks and there is a lightness to his words but also a depth, a hope.
The smile that drifts onto Chirrut’s face is one of the loveliest ones, and Baze watches as it turns from him to approximately where Cassian is located. “Always within the Force, captain. You can be as bright in it as you want to be. If you let yourself.”
Cassian passes a hand over his face, rubbing at stubble that is edging its way into a beard. “Jyn, huh,” he says, though the words are small, quiet, as if he is talking to himself more than anything else. He still looks exhausted, but there is something at the edges of it, light. Like a man opening a prison door finally after spending years in the darkness, only able to stand a little at a time as his eyes adjust.