Work Text:
Chirrut is, quite possibly, the best assassin anyone has seen, and it is not just because he is fast, not just because his strikes are always sure--he never misses, the other mercenaries whisper when they think that he cannot hear them, which is ridiculous because he hears everything, knows everything--but because he can move from one thing to another quickly, can smile and laugh fast like lightning right after pulling the trigger of his lightbow, right after striking with the strange staff he carries with the retractable dagger in its tip. Nothing ever seems to make him linger, nothing ever seems to make him stick, pulling him into the mud and the mire and the muck of their work. It always seems to just roll right off him. If it makes a mark, if it presses something like regret onto the lovely set of his shoulders, he never shows it, hides it carefully away under his quips and the never-ending prattling, in his talk about the Force.
The other mercenaries find it strange for religion to have a home in the heart of a man who kills for credits, but they don’t ask questions. They have learned the hard way that if you start asking Chirrut questions about the Force, he will keep you sequestered in the mess all day, talking, practically lecturing, pacing the floor and making ridiculously large hand gestures to prove his point, wasting rations by opening them to paint a better, literal picture of certain concepts.
It does not take long for the rumors to start. Rumors are not uncommon on mercenary ships, almost seem to serve as just another fuel source as well as a way to pass the time, to ease the tedium between one mission and the next. It surprises no one that Chirrut quickly becomes a topic of stories, tales so absurd that they surely cannot be true, are just strange flights of fancy to take up space even with the lectures on the Force, even with the meditation that they have all caught him in, muttering to himself under his breath in some ancient form of Jedhan that the other speakers on the ship either cannot or will not translate.
His husband is a Jedi.
He is a Jedi.
The dagger is his staff is made of kyber and that's why it always strikes true.
He never misses because he uses the Force.
He's hiding out from the Empire.
He's a spy for the Empire.
He kills because he likes it.
His husband is blind.
He's a monk; that's why he prays.
He's a fool.
There seems to be a new rumor every day during the newest mission, which is a long running one that involves members of their party infiltrating and gaining the trust of someone who works in an engineering lab on a Core world. It is the kind of mission that involves finesse and diplomacy and restraint until the final blow so only a small percentage of their number are involved in it directly, leaving the rest of them milling about on the ship finding new ways to pass the time. There are only so many games that can be played, only so many times equipment can be cleaned or training can be done. And while cooking up monstrously large and complex multi-course meals can eat up a lot of the time, it only works for the handful of crew members competent enough to know what they’re doing in the kitchen. The rest of them, the majority of them, are left with nothing but time on their hands. Time is good for rumors. It allows them to grow.
The crew eventually makes a game of it, puts the top twenty most plausible rumors up on the mission board in the conference room and then start taking bets on which ones are true. They don’t bother really deciding how they will know which ones are true; they haven’t gotten that far. This seems like a game that will be played for the long term, and they have to make an intricate set of rules that allows them to add rumors or exchange them and determines how people will be paid out if they discover one rumor is true at one point but then another is proven to be true afterward.
It never crosses their minds that they have become somewhat obsessed with the streak of smiling lightning that lives in their ship but rarely interacts with them outside of their objectives. It never crosses their mind that they could just ask, and the man himself might tell them the truth.
Chirrut is from Jedha.
This rumor is not allowed because it is thought to be too obvious, considering that Chirrut speaks several forms of Jedhan.
He is a fool is also discarded for many different reasons. For one most of the mercenaries say that he is just that. It has almost become a nickname, a joke around the ship that they each call him “fool” in their home language, and he just grins that grin at them, that big, gleaming flash of teeth, all of them, with his gums showing. They argue about what it means, this smile, because it doesn’t quite reach his eyes, which is not that uncommon in and of itself. Most of the mercenaries don’t smile much, don’t smile true, what have they got to smile about, after all? This life is not easy, and their pasts, the reasons they are here, are typically harder still.
So they disagree about why it is that Chirrut will smile at them like that, why he will laugh when they call him “fool” as though he is amused by the comment, as though it could not be seen as a condemnation rather than praise, rather than an award. This man is strange, and they cannot understand him. He answers things in riddles, he answers things in quotes from scripture that only a few of them know and none of them, save him, believe. So they can’t parse any of it, they are left adrift with their rumors and their board and their disagreements and the strange gravity of him drawing them ever in.
He smiles like that to disarm us. He smiles like that to bare his teeth and express dominance, to show them that he can and will destroy them all if they give him a reason to do so.
Yet this does not seem true, either, because he has never injured any of them, never even really fought with them. He offers to train them, to teach them to become whirling clouds of shifting garments and legs and arms that can strike out with a speed greater than something a body can normally achieve. He offers to school them in the use of a staff instead of a blaster--he will never take a blaster, just the lightbow, just the staff--but the idea of twirling a wooden or even a metal rod through the air, of being that close to a target worries them. Most of them are decent shots but not great fighters. There is a reason why they have guns, blasters, repeater cannons, all the heavy artillery they can carry. There is a reason they do not fight hand to hand, do not come close enough for someone to touch them, and this is because of fear and lack of training and the security that comes from standing in the shadows to get the job done. Chirrut does none of these things unless he is gravely outnumbered, which seems to mean ten or more because he manages to fell whole groups on his own, prefers to be in the thick of it, a tornado lashing out at whatever he can reach while they stand back, gaping.
He is a father.
No one knows who starts this one. It circles the ship in hushed whispers for the better part of a week and never changes, which is rare. The rumors are normally a game of additions, people adding and subtracting what they like until it turns into something so ridiculous that no one will believe it like the time it turned into, “Chirrut is a loth-cat hidden in human form by a Force curse.” Although sometimes when he stands, sometimes when he smiles, something when he strikes, they wonder whether that idea was actually so ridiculous after all because he doesn’t really seem made for human skin, does he? He seems like he should be able to push out of it, push past it, become something more, something else.
He is a father who has lost all his children.
When this rumor grows, it becomes bitter and painful because here is one they can all relate to, here is a story that is not far from any of them. They have all lost someone. Everyone has lost someone these days whether it is to death or to the Empire or to another mercenary ship. No one has a family that is whole anymore. What is whole anyway except hole with a w stolen from a we that no longer exists? A hole. Family becomes a hole that you lose yourself in if you look at it too long.
No one wants to bet on either of these rumors. No one wants to even put them on the board. They just exist in the back of everyone’s minds, a low rumbling, a way that makes them look at him just a little bit differently when he swings his staff around in the mess hall, deftly avoiding striking anything as he shows off for the fifteenth time that day. Doesn’t he look like a man who would stand in front of children and teach them things? Doesn’t he joke like a father and hover over the youngest members of their group to make sure that they are okay? Doesn’t he care sometimes too much?
When the mission is finally over, a mission that required the skills of so few on board and took so much time, the board is full, the bets are chaotic and hard to keep track of, the rules are jumbled and convoluted such that they could almost be their own religion, but the crew is determined not to let this go. They have let go of many things over the years, more have been taken from them by force, but this is a line in the sand. Maybe they will never know. Maybe they will never be able to tick all the boxes and say yes or no to all the suggestions, but they still have it. It is theirs, and it is nice--in a world where they own so little--to have something that is theirs, something that unites them together other than death and espionage neither of which are trustworthy things, neither of which help them to get to know each other, get them to trust each other. This, then, is a common thread. This, then, is a sort of binding, a shaky kind of friendship built on the back of trying to discern what it inside one man among many. And if any of them find this strange, they do not voice it because they do not want to lose it.
Sometimes in life, even on a mercenary ship, they are small rewards, they are respites. The ship goes to Jedha. No one asks why. There is no reason to and not reason not to. Jedha is a market moon, Jedha is full of all sorts of things and means different things to different people. Jedha is home to the holy city and, once, the temple of the Whills, though they know that it has fallen to the Empire as so many things and places have across the universe. Yet they think nothing of it because NiJedha has a busy, thriving marketplace and is a good place to meet contacts, to get jobs, to buy things in back alleys when the Empire forces that occupy the moon are not looking, and they are normally not looking, too busy making sure that no one is stealing kyber to bat an eye at the darker dealings that happen.
They are given leave, told when to come back, and set loose on the streets of NiJedha. Most of the mercenaries flock to the market or the bars, glad to be free of the ship, determined to forget themselves in something, somewhere. A handful of them, however, are home, have families or friends or enemies to connect with. Chirrut seems to be one of those, disappears down the alleys, twisting and turning through them, sometimes climbing up the sides of buildings to jump from rooftop to rooftop, his lightbow and his staff both haphazardly strapped to his back but giving him no pause at all as he hurtles through the air, looking as pleased as they have ever seen him.
Below him, on the ground, frantically struggling to keep up, to keep him in her sights, is one of the other mercenaries, small, young, too inexperienced to have enough credits to even throw her hat into the betting game, but she has heard the rumors just the same as the rest of them. And she thinks, she thinks that it would be lovely, that it would prove her place if she could answer some of them, if she could bring them truth wrapped like a present with a bow, which is why she follows. And Chirrut, who misses nothing, lets her, though she is unaware of this small fact as she ducks and bobs and makes her way deeper and deeper into a city that she has never seen before, altogether surrounded by scents and words and languages that she does not know but still insistent on her goal.
Eventually he drops back to the street, approaches a small alcove that is near enough to be seen but out of the actual foot traffic of the marketplace. Inside is a man, huge across the shoulders, barrel shaped in the chest, curled, tucked almost impossibly into a lotus position that seems too small for him. His hair is intricately braided in a fashion that looks like it would take hours and many hands, and there is a scar that runs across one side of his face. The thing that catches her attention the most, however, are his eyes, which are blue, a bright blue that speaks of being sightless despite their beauty. His hands are in his lap, but they are moving, full of strands of multi-colored threads, weaving, and she has seen some of those symbols before when Chirrut draws them in the mess, using up various condiments as he scrawls them across counters and tables. Sacred symbols. Symbols of the city, symbols of the Whills, symbols of the Force.
She has no way of knowing that Chirrut knows exactly where she is, knows the game that she is up to as she scuttles closer, sticking to the walls, trying to blend into the press of people, though she stands out as much as if she had been dipped in silver to catch and reflect the sun. So she stands and watches, listens, and everything unfolds in front of her.
“Mr. Malbus,” Chirrut says as he approaches, the smile on his face bright as always but higher up, no longer just resigned to his lips; his eyes are twinkling now in a way that she has never seen.
And the man with the braids, the man with the kind face even with the scar and the sightless eyes, turns his head just so, inclines it a little and huffs out a noise that is endearment and frustration in the same breath. “Mr. Malbus,” he repeats, pausing in his words though not his work because his fingers fly as though they are not a part of him at all, “how long are you home this time?”
“Not long enough, husband.” Chirrut bends to press his face into the hair, almost disappearing into it, one hand on the other’s face, fingers brushing against the scar. And it is a tender moment, it is something that she should not be watching, but she finds that she cannot turn away. This man is a magnet, pulling everyone closer to him, making it hard to escape his pull.
His husband is blind.
The broad man, the man with the braids, the man with the quick fingers and the useless eyes, finally stops what he is doing to reach for Chirrut, to catch him and tug him so that they share a kiss in that small alcove while the city passes them by, while she watches, transfixed, and wonders how one gets a life like this? How one can be a mercenary on a ship, how one can kill and destroy and maim and then return home to softness, to love? She doesn’t understand. She doesn’t comprehend. It doesn’t seem like it should be possible for these things to exist at the same time. It doesn’t seem like something a normal person can manage.
He is a Jedi.
“Baba!” a chorus of voices ring out, young, high, gleeful, and, oh, here. This was one they didn’t want to know about, any of them. “Baba!” The children tumble, cluster, throw themselves bodily against the two men, arms twining and hands catching, and it is just a pile of people that she sees, high pitched voices and laughter. Chirrut’s laugh she is familiar with though not in this tone, and then there is the braided man’s, which is rich and warm like caf, like a hot bath, like something that cuts through darkness to soothe and comfort when everything is bad, and she wishes this was her family in that moment, wishes that she had any family at all.
“Baba, what did you bring us?”
And Chirrut, hands full, eyes gleaming, smile brimming with more light and life than normal, touches them, touches all of them, hugs them, pulls them to him, is surrounded and covered. She can’t keep track of arms or legs or other appendages because the children are all races, but she thinks there are at least four, possibly more, possibly all the children in the city call these men father and mean it.
“I brought myself,” he teases them while the braided man grumbles, tries to shift his weaving away from the limbs and the press of bodies, pulls Chirrut into his lap, which results in all the children spilling even further onto both of them. “Aren’t I the best gift of all? Aren’t you happy to see me?”
“No, Baba.” Every word is bright and full and happy.
There is more light here in this alcove than in the rest of the universe, she thinks, and turns because this is not hers. This is not hers to see, this is not hers to tell.
He is a father.
“My children have wounded me. My heart is bleeding. I will never recover. Baze, please, tell me you at least love me.” Chirrut’s voice is as big as the city itself, fills the entire alley, fills all of them, chases her out of the market and back to the ship with the knowledge of things that are and are not true.
“Never, fool,” the braided man, Baze, says, and his words are a ripple, an earthquake. Nothing can escape either of them.
She never says a word even though she can prove some of the rumors, even though she could win at the game. It would give her status, it would give her an in, but she finds she doesn’t really want it now, not after what she has seen. All she wants is a way to carve herself out something that looks like what Chirrut has, something that sounds like that, boundless joy and wanting and family, but she doesn’t know how to go about it, isn’t sure what to do.
When they take off again, bound for another system, another job, she finds him in his room, which is where he almost always is, meditating. He looks up the moment that she approaches the open door, smiling, and it is the marketplace smile, the Jedha smile, and not the normal one. Her shoulders sag a little as the tension drains, as she recognizes him. This is not Chirrut the assassin in front of her, this is the father of an endless amount of children, this is the husband of a beautiful blind man who weaves without his eyes. “The Force welcomes you,” he says, and she feels it.
Two months into their training, which is hard but she loves it, every moment of it, he confesses. “I started those rumors myself.” And she should not be surprised, but she is, and then their laughter echoes off the metal walls of the ship, throughout the ship, they buoy the ship on its journey.