#baze mablus

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He heard the crack of his head more than he felt it. Not for the first time, he wondered if there would be blood leaking through a wound but that seemed a distant worry compared to a more urgent danger. Still dazed, he felt the man mount him, and those rough fingers close around his neck, driven by murderous intent. He choked, but those thumbs only pushed in further to ruin his windpipe. Maybe this time, maybe this time he would actually do it.

“Jedi scum!” Words of hate filtered through the mouthpiece of a helmet.

Chirrut grinned in spite of his pain, a laughter wheezing through his teeth. “Are you blind, as well?” he rasped. His words tasted the same as when he’d first spoken them: his blood and the dirt on his back. “You should get your eyes checked.” He felt the tension in his muscles as he pulled his lightbow free. It fanned out.

Heat burst at the pull of a trigger, a cruel hand ripping it from his belly. He gasped sharply, a man drowning. Numbness surrounded him like a heavy blanket. He felt disconnected all of a sudden, a vessel lost in the cold, dark void of space, floating untethered. He heard nothing, saw nothing.

Felt nothing. Not even the fingers still attached to his neck, or the dead weight pressed to his own. No fire, no empty coldness.

There was nothing.

⚭

Panic roused him from his nightmare. It took him a second to realize that he was awake—him being blind—until another one ticked and he discovered that no, not yet. He was still trapped within the phantoms of his mind, one of those cruel, endless dreams like a twisted torture machine. Horror seized him anew, coursing through his bones with an electrifying urgency as he struggled free from the arms that confined him and beat the body that suffocated him back. His breaths came in rapid gasps. He had to escape.

“Chirrut,” someone called to him. “Chirrut!”

He stopped just when a hand snatched both his wrists from their flight. He listened to the echoes of the room, the soft buzzing in the air like the wings of a tiny insect, acquainted his breathing to that one next to him. He knew that pattern, could play the sound of it even in his sleep.

“Baze…?” he whispered feebly, scared to get it wrong.

Baze exhaled a great sigh. “You’re awake,” he said in his deep voice that sent a comforting shudder down Chirrut’s spine. “You’re safe. No one will harm you here.”

A wave of relief washed over Chirrut, his limbs turning to gel. Recollection followed swiftly and surely as he sank back to the rough face of their one pillow. It smelled strongly of naphthalene and cold stone, the way the rest of their windowless, narrow apartment did. The way home smelled like.

Baze had practically dragged him there after the encounter near the market and stayed with him except for when he had to go and scout for dinner or use the communal bathroom, which always left Chirrut half-mad with anxiety. The only way he could fall asleep then was to be pressed up to Baze, nose to skin, both of them stripped to the waist and covered in layers of thin blankets up to the neck. Chirrut leeched off the man’s warmth and odor, languished in them. Baze kept his hands and arms where Chirrut could feel them.

“You had a nightmare,” Baze said, freeing his wrists. It was both a question and an answer.

Chirrut considered the silence a bit longer, though empty thoughts were all he had, before he replied, “You haven’t been sleeping.” He felt not unlike a child, meeting accusation with even more accusations in a desperate effort to come off cleaner and more worthy of forgiveness.

Baze shifted slightly beside him. He still smelled of sweat, sweet musk, the heat of his skin and warm metal. “I managed a bit,” he admitted. “I woke up again when you got all tensed. And then you started hitting me.”

Chirrut’s eyes fell, drawn by habit. A careful hand alighted Baze’s shoulder, its muscles coiled tight from carrying his armor and his ammo tank day in and day out, and then followed an invisible map down to his solid chest. Baze’s hand, rough, but warm and familiar, sealed it to his flesh. “Forgive me. I’d thought you were…” The corpse, still trapping him to the ground, immovable. He could not say it, not out of good manners, but simply that it was a thought he could not fathom. Baze’s corpse. Not even his nightmares could be so powerful as to draw for him something so…unreal. Baze’s non-presence, his inexistence. How could that be when he was always around? Just there, within arm’s reach.

Baze didn’t chase it. Chirrut knew he knew what he meant but was grateful for the silence all the same. “What time is it?” he asked softly, seeking another subject.

Baze shifted again. He felt the bed sink a little beside him, as it would if Baze braced his weight on an elbow. The answer didn’t come quickly. “Three hours past midnight,” he said. Chirrut knew then that the tenement’s power supply was scraping the last of its dregs again, and that the single light panel on the ceiling was probably not performing at its optimum. That would explain why the air buzzed when there were no windows to speak of. Baze had said, when they’d moved in, that it was like the color of a fierce sunset when turned on. Now Chirrut imagined it was closer to mud than an everyday miracle, and that it was flickering besides.

“Three hours past midnight,” he sighed. Just three hours…and he still had an entire darkness to sleep through. He couldn’t take this.

He pushed down their covers and rose; his head felt a little heavy. In the soft silence, Chirrut sat, elbows on his knees, staring at nothing. The sheets rustled as the mattress bounced and creaked. Baze must have rearranged himself now that he no longer had to share their pillow. “I’d killed a man,” Chirrut began quietly to break the silence, turning a little to where he imagined Baze was lain, “hadn’t I?”

He knew, of course. He’d known since he pulled the trigger of his lightbow and blew a hole through his would-be murderer’s belly. As a youth, he learned that death was a part of life as much as birth was, and that killing for the defense and preservation of one’s ideals cannot be condemned if it must be done. He had no regrets, but he could not have been less prepared to take a life. This was only the first time he’d done it.

He remembered again the great, black weight pushing the air out of him, the smell of scorched flesh and burnt air mingling with metal. He could still taste them in his mouth, bitter like poison. Baze had come to rescue him before he threw up lying down, practically flinging the corpse off him as he gathered him in his arms, clawing him from the dirt. He might have been sobbing. He might have been retching over his shoulder, he couldn’t remember that part too well.

Only this: Baze’s voice hissing to his ear, “Remember what you taught me? When we were kids. I am one with the Force,” he inhaled, “And the Force is with me,” and exhaled. “I am one with the Force…and the Force is with me. Breathe with me, Chirrut! I am one with the Force…”

It was a breathing technique he’d discovered to aid with their exercises when they were still initiates. He never imagined then that Baze would use it to save his life.

He waited in silence for the man’s response…

“That’s about the size of it,” he said.

Chirrut snorted, smirking a little. “That’s one way of putting it,” he agreed. He returned slowly to his feet, toes wiggling and flexing as if he could see them play. The muted buzzing of the light filled the space again. An unchanging rhythm, the music of a private world.

He opened his mouth. “I…” he began uncertainly, looking for a discernible path through his labyrinthine thoughts, a way to punch through the crowd, to make it give. “…felt him. Baze,” he finished, flicking a tongue across his lips. “He was…there.” His hands rose to hold a shape between his shoulders. “A black mass, coiling and shifting. He would have killed me. I would have suffocated. It felt…” His brows twisted with the pain of remembrance. It was difficult to find the words to describe something that was…much more than all of them. The Force was never meant to be pared down to such simple words, but he persisted. “Heavy,” he said. “I felt its crushing weight on my chest, expanding. It was…” His features writhed again. “like dread. Cold and hot at the same time. Like you perspired,” he tossed a hand somewhere to his right, “but inside, you felt cold. I never thought I’d meet anyone who could be filled with so much anger. And hatred and abhorrence. And bask in them.”

His shoulders fell, and he shuddered. His stomach felt hollow inside him. “And then he was…gone. I, I pulled the trigger and he…” His hands flew up. “Shattered. Torn to pieces. To…” Non-existence. “Nothing,” he said. “I…” His hands fell on his chest. He felt restless with confusion and shock, both of them etched deeply on his face. “felt him. He was there, alive, breathing with so much…intensity!” He tossed his hands up. “I, I just…” He frowned at his feet. “I just don’t understand how something so…big, so powerful and…so present…alive could suddenly be nothing. He was alive, he was bearing down on me but all that could not have preserved him from nothingness. How could there be nothing in spite of it all?” he demanded of Baze, turning to him. “If that’s how it all works, if that’s how it all ends, then what are we worth? We’re supposed to be connected to the Force of others. All of us!”

Baze said nothing. There might have been a time when the man—when he was still a boy—might have shined some light on the will of the Force but that boy was gone, and it was not the boy or the man’s fault. Chirrut could not and would not take it against him. He never expected Baze to attempt an answer, just to hear him out.

But when the sheets shifted and the mattress moved, Chirrut waited with eager patience, holding himself still. Baze’s warmth filled his back, and then those arms engulfed him, anchoring him to the man’s energy, connecting them again. He shuddered with relief, embracing those arms, wearing them like a scarf. He inched backwards. He wanted to be closer still, closer than their flesh allowed them to be.

“I’m so glad you’re still alive,” he sighed, shaking while Baze marked his bare shoulder, the crook of his neck and the side of his head with kisses, his beard and mustache scraping lightly at his skin. These reminders of Baze’s life, his presence, his warm, large, familiar presence, became his shield against his nightmares, against trauma. He filled himself with them, breathed them in. He wanted to focus on Baze, and only him. He was the safe world where nothingness did not exist. If Chirrut had to compare him to something else, he was like a burning hearth. Light, warm, safe, golden. Within his circle, he was protected from the darkness that surrounded them.

“You’re just saying that to congratulate yourself,” Baze mumbled between his kisses.

Chirrut laughed with his breath. “You don’t sound happy,” he said. That was how it all started, after all, being in the wrong place at the wrong time. No one expected an incursion of stormtroopers in a sprawling marketplace and when it happened, all he and Baze could think of was saving the civilians from the crossfire between the Empire and Saw’s rebels. Baze had stayed close to him as he charged forth, throwing and kicking down anything that could block the fighters and pave a safe exit until a child, a young aqualish, had run out into the open despite his mother’s warnings to stay inside. Baze rushed to pick him up, saving him.

And then Chirrut came in to smash his lightbow onto a stormtrooper who’d aimed at Baze and the child. He would later pay for that with his neck.

“You haven’t even thanked me yet,” Chirrut reminded him when he paused from his kisses to breathe in his thin hair. He raised a hand to slip his fingers between Baze’s thicker locks, idly pressing on his crown like a lazy masseuse.

“You sound like a tax collector,” Baze said and they laughed. Briefly.

It felt good to laugh, but it felt as if he’d forgotten how to do it. There seemed nothing to laugh about. There was nothing to laugh about. He’d killed a stormtrooper. He’d killed a stormtrooper.

Baze pressed a kiss to his ear. “You’re not cracking any jokes,” he whispered.

Chirrut turned slightly towards him. “Do you want one?”

“If it’s black humor, I don’t want it. You don’t do black humor well.”

Chirrut smirked a little. “Shame that,” he said quietly. And then those arms slipped away from him. And then he panicked. His connection to the Force of others. Baze’s presence, they were both leaving him again. Alone. He sat in complete paralysis, hardly breathing, straining his ears to follow Baze’s movements even when the man’s warm hands fell on his arms and pulled him gently around.

“What?” Baze asked, the slightest tension ringing in his voice, although he may as well have screamed and shaken Chirrut, and he would have heard it no differently. “What? I’m here.”

Baze was here. And of course he would be. Where else would he go? What was he thinking? Even in the past, Baze would not have left if Chirrut had stopped him, no matter that they parted ways in bitterness then.

He felt his face burning. He couldn’t even look up to Baze in his embarrassment. He raised both hands to his head.

“Hey,” Baze beckoned to him, tilting his head up a bit. “You’re in shock. You’re traumatized.”

“What did you feel when you’d first killed a person?” The question spilled out of Chirrut in one breath, hands falling to the space between his crossed legs. “Was it this? Did you feel the life go out of them? Did you look for it? One second, it was connected to yours and then it wasn’t. Was it like that?”

“It should have been,” Baze answered carefully, a tinge of sadness in his voice. In the confines of their four walls, Chirrut heard it loudly and clearly. He felt it in his being, where it resonated. “But…you know…it wasn’t. I don’t see…and feel the Force the same way as you do anymore.”

Chirrut’s brows met. “So it was just…nothing. You felt nothing before you killed the person…and you felt nothing after you killed them.”

A pause…but Chirrut already knew what he was going to say: “That’s about—”

“—the size of it,” Chirrut finished with him. He was surprised to feel the familiar tugs of a smile on his face. “That seems awfully convenient.”

“If disrespectful.”

Baze knew the concepts, of course, even though he’d lost faith. He was raised in it, it had been his life, the air that he breathed. It was how they met, what pulled them together.

He felt Baze’s rough fingers stroking the tips of his. His hands fanned outwards, turning over, and Baze filled his palms with his. They folded their fingers around each other, a habit that had survived years of separation. Something that came back to them as easily as a happy memory.

Something slammed against the wall, and then the entire place thrummed deeply. The heating had come on, a clunky old thing that kept the tenement’s residents half-alive somehow. There was a soft clink overhead. Chirrut imagined that the light had gone out. Thankfully, neither of them needed it.

“What are we going to do?” he asked, seemingly bolstered by the cover of the generator’s motors.

“What do you mean?” Baze asked.

“I killed a stormtrooper.”

Baze snarled. “They had it coming.”

“Baze,” Chirrut shook their combined hands, “we talked about this. This was not supposed to happen!”

“So you should have just let him kill me and then kill you.”

“That’s not what I meant!” Chirrut snapped. He never did pull back even when Baze was starting to show a little of his temper. He always figured that was part of why they worked so well together. “We have tried to oppose the Empire and look at what happened. Look where we are now!” He shook those hands again. “We were supposed to stay low. To find an opportunity to strike. Let me be clear on one thing: I may not like what Death felt like but I do not regret killing a stormtrooper when he was asking for it.”

Their walls jumped again and the heating changed pitches, moving a notch lower.

“But if the Empire finds out what happened—”

“That stormtrooper,” Baze responded with a slow, low, and careful tone, with just a hint of his natural grumble, “could have been killed by me, a rebel, or one of their own, caught in a misfire.”

“That’s the thing about this place!” Chirrut protested. “There are spies everywhere. Imperial spies, rebel spies, Saw’s spies. There are spies for spies of spies!” He broke a hand free from Baze’s grasp, flinging it behind him to the approximate direction of the door. “Those stormtroopers would never have found the marketplace if no one told them it was one of Saw’s strongholds.”

“You think Saw’s rebels, his ragtag crew, are actually professionals, don’t you?” Baze asked with a note of surprise.

“If they knew about the marketplace long before, then why didn’t they attack it then? Why now?”

“I won’t say I know the Empire’s reasons,” Baze said, “but I won’t be surprised if they’d known about it all this time and simply chosen to strike now.”

“So nowhere is safe,” Chirrut said with a finality. His face crumpled at his ghastly conclusion. “One day, at their fancy, they could just…grab us and that would be that. There’s no telling what will happen after.”

“Chirrut, what are you saying?” Baze asked, sounding incredulous. “Do you mean…are you saying we should leave NiJedha? Do you hear yourself?”

Chirrut didn’t know if that was what he’d meant, but he couldn’t say it wasn’t what he’d meant either. Could he really do it, though? Leave the world that he knew, leave the life he was constantly being forced out of to maybe find a new one. He thought about the Temple of the Kyber, his old friends and those that have shown charity to him and Baze. He thought about the streets he could walk blind, even without Baze by his side. The familiar spices, how the earth used to smell when it was still rich.

In spite of himself, his lips made an upward twitch. “We could go and make our own nomadic crew. It’ll be fun.”

“I guess you’re feeling better now.”

Chirrut offered a small smile. “I try,” he said.

Shyly, the light clinked again. Chirrut didn’t ask if it was back on, or how bright it was.

“So what are you really saying?” Baze asked after a moment.

The answer came to him with surprising clarity: “I just don’t want us to be separated again.” He didn’t want the stormtrooper’s nothingness to happen to them, and the dreadful future of the Empire storming into their tiny room, ripping them apart with no hopes of reconciliation. Baze was his comfort when the Temple fell. He had protected him all this time, and he’d saved him earlier when he’d killed the stormtrooper and succumbed to his shock. He cared for him after…where would he be without him? What could, and would, he do without him?

“I could kill,” he continued, “a thousand stormtroopers…I could tear down the entire Empire with my own bare hands, for as long as I know that you will never be gone from me.”

“And where do you think am I going?” Baze asked. He thought he heard the softest laughter under his breath. He wondered if Baze was smiling.

He should burst out in happiness if he wanted to. Chirrut would love it. He understood why—a world without both of them together, whoever thought of something so stupid? But for now, he couldn’t join Baze in his certainty. He just had to say one more thing, one last thing before he would allow himself to be returned to the darkness and sleep, to Baze’s arms and reassuring presence. “Somewhere I can’t follow,” he replied earnestly. “Somewhere I can’t find you. Where you can’t find your way back.”

If that place existed, they didn’t want to think about it just now. Chirrut knew that if it ever came to a point where they had to be parted, they would fight to find their way back, no matter how ruined that might leave them. Scars were old friends to them. Wounds and broken bones, they know how to mend. But without each other, these struggles, all that they’d been through, would mean nothing.

“Hey,” Baze said. “Look at me.”

“Really, Baze?” Chirrut chuckled even as Baze commandeered his face to look at him. Baze clicked his tongue. Chirrut suddenly, and finally laughed.

“Blind fool,” Baze muttered. His hands came off Chirrut’s cheeks. “Remember that game we used to play when we were young?”

“Now you’re making us sound our age.”

“When you’d just gotten blind? You didn’t like being touched because you couldn’t see who was touching you. Your ears were still weak…it became a problem because you were having trust issues.”

He remembered, of course. That had been a trying time. But Baze never left him, even when he’d given him every reason to do it. Even then, he was always beside him.

“So I thought, how do I get you back? I couldn’t just let this go on and leave you in the dark forever. Do you remember how to play it?”

Softly, Baze’s hand alighted his face, tips on his forehead, palm on his nose and lips…it was hard to fight off a smile when nostalgia reached out to you. Those sweet old days when all he worried about were his duans, or being caught by the Abbot outside his curfew.

“Where am I?” Baze asked in a whisper, his voice rough.

That was how it always began. Chirrut knew where he wanted him to start, too. He took Baze’s hand and moved it down, until those fingers touched only his lips.

Baze obeyed readily, coming forward with a kiss. His breath shook upon contact, and he might have sighed in sweet bliss, shoulders falling slightly. He remembered that when they started this game, the young Chirrut had been so frightened to kiss back, at that point already uncertain of Baze’s motives for all that he’d done to make him comfortable. The game moved quickly in those days.

This time, he could not let Baze go without catching his face, trapping his fingers in his oily hair and running the others down a familiar route of scars, wrinkles, the rough mat of his beard, once an irritation, but now something closer to an obsession. He might have trembled just at the feel of it, knowing the places it would go.

He felt Baze’s smirk and he chided him for it, wiping it off his lips with his own kiss. They slipped and parted, and met again in an unhurried state, sucking lightly. Baze’s lips were chapped. At any other night, he might have scolded him gently for it but the rules of the game had no room for such domesticity. Instead, Chirrut welcomed himself to nip at Baze’s lower lip as they parted again. Baze rested his hands carefully on the back of Chirrut’s bare shoulder as an anchor of sorts. In the past, he never did that. In the past, he touched only when asked.

Chirrut ran the tip of his tongue lightly under Baze’s lips. His heart was pounding. When Baze moved in to kiss him again, he stopped him to ask, “Where are you?” He caught the edge of Baze’s lips with his thumb just as the man smirked again. In response, he found himself biting his lower lip. He couldn’t say if he did that on purpose or not.

Baze rose; something about the bed felt lighter and steadier. A young Chirrut might have started to panic at this point but now, he was hard-pressed to keep his smile to himself, even when he bowed his head to hide it. Practiced ears kept track of Baze’s footfalls to his right, soft and heavy. Quiet—but never to him. These were the steps of a trained predator, but to Chirrut that word just meant something different.

He’d almost told him, I can hear you, you know? but swallowed the jab before he broke the rules. For a time, Baze was silent. He’d stopped, but Chirrut knew he was somewhere behind him.

Baze? Chirrut imagined himself asking, even turned his head slightly to his shoulder.

Those hands fell carefully on his back again, fingers folding to hold him in place. Chirrut was grinning where Baze supposedly couldn’t see him. That was when he sank into the mattress again; by the weight, Chirrut could tell that he was on his knees. Anticipation built up in him, his breathing coming out louder but still controlled.

Tender lips met the base of his skull. Chirrut arched his back slightly with a delightful shudder. A hand fell lightly on his crown to guide him sideways. Chirrut craned his neck happily to his left to welcome Baze to his open right. He took it with tender kisses, mustache poking softly, scraped his teeth lightly on the empty flesh which made Chirrut laugh. He left a trail of wet patches all along his shoulder that only seemed to frustrate the blind man. He swallowed a little and flicked his tongue briefly over his dry lips. He wanted those lips again, but he would be patient. He knew he would get more of that later where it came from.

He followed Baze on his way up to his neck, the edge of his jaw and finally his ear. He kissed it, and Chirrut shuddered. Could he do it again?

“Where am I?” Baze asked. He did it again.

Chirrut felt happy. There were so many places he wanted explored now, so many places he wanted Baze to touch. He turned, shifting and wiggling until he was facing his general direction again. His pants had gotten rather twisted up around him in all that movement.

He raised a hand, and Baze took it. Chirrut smiled. Now where could he put that hand? He could finish the game now and move on to the next, but he figured they had all night to play.

He carried it, slowly, to his throat, swallowing so Baze’s thumb could feel the bobbing movement keenly. Baze responded by tracing the shape of it with his own fingers, careful and light. Chirrut breathed deeply, smiling wider. When he went to sleep tonight, he knew this would be what he would dream about then: rough fingers cupping the column of his neck tenderly.

Hands drawing a path down to his chest, those calloused pads scraping lightly. Chirrut barely bit back a whimper of disappointment when they slipped down to his tummy but Baze whispered shushes. Promises that Chirrut hung onto. They would get there soon—but for now, his fingers slipped to the sides of his waist and pulled forward slightly, holding him in place once more.

Chirrut obeyed happily, a marionette in the hands of his master, and a quiet one at that even when it seemed like Baze was going to make him wait forever for his kisses. Even though his chest was bursting, and he could hardly breathe at the suspense. Baze felt absolutely still, steady—stubborn—as a rock. He was like a void that melted into the humming of the walls, and Chirrut would have been driven mad had it not been for Baze’s solid grip around him, the one thing that anchored him to everything. He could hardly feel his own fingers curled over his knees, tensed. Please, his entire being seemed to beg.

He almost leapt with joy when Baze’s lips closed into the skin of his throat, nipping lightly. It made him laugh again. He loved it. He tucked his fingers into Baze’s tangle of hair to pull him closer, trapping him before he got any smart ideas again. The bastard knew how to play this game he made, after all. And he laughed, too, the ass.

Baze’s lips moved up and down his throat, his kisses wet, erasing the trauma from the fight. He traced his path back to the skin under Chirrut’s chin with the length of his tongue and Chirrut sighed, his breath shaking.

“Where are you?” Chirrut breathed.

Baze rose. Chirrut held his breath. Those hot hands released him, callous brushing, and scaled his back up to the pits of his arms where he held him again. Chirrut’s chest expanded. He waited in expectation.

When Baze kissed him at the tip of his nose, Chirrut sent a sharp kick out to Baze’s thigh, easily displaced when the man knocked it sideways with his knee. He was barking in delight, Baze with him, a full-blown laugh that filled their entire room, bounced off the walls where once there was only dread and silence. This was not what he was promised!

“Where are you!” Chirrut demanded, face split sideways with a mean beam. Baze had given him the wrong answer, but he loved him for it. It felt good to laugh, to worry about nothing except…except nothing. What was there to worry about when he was safe? Baze answered whenever he asked, ever-present.

Now the silence that passed between them was the kind of silence shared by lovers. Soft. Comfortable. A secret language only they could decrypt. Their foreheads met in a single motion. Chirrut breathed in Baze’s scent—the oil in his hair, NiJedha on his skin, his breath. He wanted to be covered in them, swathed, soaked. His fingers traced the shape of Baze’s jaw, fell lightly on his shoulders to bend and knead. Baze groaned contentedly. One day, he’ll have to look into those tightened muscles, but not tonight.

“Where are you?” Chirrut asked quietly.

He was on his lips, sealing him with a full kiss, and then he was traveling down to his open chest—a violation of the rules of their little game but no one was keeping tabs anymore. Baze’s mouth opened up, warm breath tickling him, and swallowed one of his taut tips with a wet kiss. Chirrut arched forward with a gasp and a sigh, fingers weaving together at the back of Baze’s neck to keep them close. Not that Baze was going anywhere—he lapped and nipped, and then he suckled. Chirrut’s pleasure came out in half-made grunts, milky blue eyes rolling back. He missed the days he could still watch Baze. He used to get off at the sight of his lathering tongue, at those eyes looking up to him with a challenge. He thought about those eyes as Baze’s lips bit, and his tongue flicked. He thought about how soaked he was. He whined, writhing between his legs. Could he ask Baze to touch him there?

That thought flew out of his mind when a hand ghosted to his untouched nipple and pinched it. His shock came out with a cry but the hand was as relentless as the tongue, twisting and playing, stroking and pressing. A deep moan escaped him from his open mouth. His heart was racing and his form was sagging. Chirrut’s mind was torn between two pleasures, the pressure between his thighs and the heat within his belly.

It stopped all of a sudden, and he couldn’t be more relieved. He was done with this.

Baze climbed up to his lips for a quick kiss and the question he’d been waiting for: “Where am I?”

Everywhere. He wanted him to be everywhere.

“Take me home,” Chirrut asked of him, panting. That was the end of the game—and thank all that was holy for it, too.

Baze was quick to celebrate it with a crushing kiss, inelegant as compared to their earlier sweetnesses, one that was sure to leave a flowering bruise but Chirrut took it in its entirety, sucking him back. He braced his hands around Baze while the man looped an arm around the back of his waist and guided him down, back to the pillow. Their lips broke with a smack as Baze flew up. Chirrut growled out in frustration but he wasn’t one to waste a second on waiting uselessly. His ears followed Baze’s progress, his grunts, the sound of fabric sliding down flesh, as his own hands worked quickly to undo the cords of his trousers and shove down his bottoms. Baze’s hands came to help, and then they were throwing off their clothes and Baze was crawling up to Chirrut, who spread his freed legs wide open for the man. They kissed, wet and quick and repetitive. A pleasant shudder ran up Chirrut’s spine when he felt the familiar weight of Baze’s length on the inside of his thigh. Anticipation carried his knees up.

They shared the first of their long kisses for the night, Chirrut trapping Baze’s jaws with his hands again, when the man drew a line down his aching sex to catch its length. Chirrut gasped and moaned within their mouths. His toes folded themselves back while Baze measured him up and down the shaft, grip slipping easily with his first seeds.

Chirrut had to break the kiss to breathe and to ask him one thing, “Don’t make me come. Not just yet.”

“I know,” Baze assured him and kissed him quickly.

“You know how, and when, I want it done,” Chirrut groaned, raising his head to meet Baze on his forehead again. “I want to do it that way.”

“Don’t worry too much,” Baze chuckled. “You’re in good hands.”

Chirrut laughed at the pun, smiling widely. “Baze, I’m so glad you’re alive…”

Imagine his shock when Baze’s hand froze mid-stroke. It felt like a cold lake had been poured down his rising libido, catching his breath, filling his lungs with shaking nerves. He started to ask why but Baze beat him to it with a serious question of his own: “Do you mean that honestly or is that an innuendo?”

Confusion lasted Chirrut all of a second. With a sudden enlightenment, he burst out in laughter, shoulders shaking so hard, he had to fall back to the bed because he couldn’t carry his head anymore. Somewhere in the ruckus he was making, Baze was chortling. He kissed Chirrut’s chin, nipped him on his throat and proceeded to leave the same breadcrumbs down to Chirrut’s parted legs.

“Oh Baze,” Chirrut wheezed, breathing heavily in bliss. “When did you get so funny? Who are you and what have you done to my Baze?”

“I’ve always been here, Chirrut.” Those warm hands wrapped themselves around his fruits and Chirrut hummed in pleasure. “I never left you.”

“I know,” he sighed happily, fingers grasping for their sheets. “I know,” he repeated, because it was a joyful rediscovery. He knew. Chirrut had always known that about Baze.

He felt Baze’s breath on his waiting length. He hissed, and let out a moan too soon which made Baze laugh. He certainly knew how to take his time. A kitten’s kiss fell on his throbbing head and he shuddered. A wet tongue ran up the underside of the shaft and Chirrut whimpered, “Please.” He swore he was leaking, even before Baze had taken him.

Their walls thrummed as the heating came back on, a chorus to Chirrut’s sighs and moans, the soft exhalations of Baze’s name. He lost track of it when his moans came out in tight gasps and whimpers, cries of pleading that followed the rhythm of Baze’s sucking. He couldn’t remember what had led them to here. That heavy black mass that had encroached his waking hours suddenly seemed so insignificant to Baze’s warmth, his all-encompassing light and fire. Safety. Home.

He would take it all. He would take Baze’s fingers slipping inside his entrance, the taste of Baze’s sex as he wrapped his mouth and tongue around the head. His rocking motions, his grunts and groans of victory.

They were an orchestra of pleasure, filling the room with the music of their union, banishing the nightmares that had once lingered. They passed the remaining hours of darkness hand-in-hand, their bodies entwined.

You pulled away one last time and watched as he and his droid counterpart prepared to leave.

“I’ll make sure he gets back to you.” You turned to see Jyn standing near you. Her eyes following your gaze on Cassian. You squeezed her hand, “You better come back too.”

She gave you a small smile and you knew instantly she was uneasy about this whole thing. Jyn knew it had to be done and she’d do it, despite the worry you saw on her features. “I’ll use the Force, to keep tabs on you. Help guide you.” You whispered, trying to soothe her.

“Can you even do that?” She asked, causing you to smile.

“I’ll sure as Hell try, my sister.” She grinned back at you and enveloped you in a bone-crushing hug.

“I love you, Sunshine.”

“I love you too, Stardust.”

The nickname sounded foreign on your tongue. You could only remember the names being said by Galen, with his rough voice. In that moment, it was a parting gift, a parting memory shared by you and you sister. Jyn pulled away, her eyes glittering with rebellion, and followed Cassian and K2 off the ship. You watched at they disappeared behind the cold metal doors, in their Imperial disguises and felt the knot in your stomach tighten with unease.

You felt anxious just waiting. Everyone was out there fighting, you feel their anger towards the Empire. With the Force you could see how valiant Baze and Chirrut were, acting as the distraction for Cassian, Jyn, and K2.

“If you keep pacing you're going to drive me crazy!” Aben said, her hands in her short brown locks. You stood still, to appease your friend. You reached out further with The Force, and felt Cassian’s presence; strong, brave and in pain. What had happened?! Jyn was still alive, but where…

K2SO.

The droid was down and Cassian felt helpless. Your heart broke as you opened your eyes. Tears traveled down your cheeks and upon seeing this, Aben walked towards you.

“What's wrong?” You let out a small sniffle, “Kaytoo.”

Aben’s face fell, despite her dislike towards the droid. She knew how much you cared for the Captain who owned him.

“Cas and Jyn are fine but I can feel,” you sniffles, “I can feel him pushing his feelings down. The guilt and pain.”

Before Aben could speak, Bodhi appeared out of the cockpit. His brown eyes were wild and his hands shook slightly. “You two have to go now! Troopers are heading here from the east beach!”

Aben quickly grabbed a large bag with grenades hanging from the sides and a large blaster. You grabbed the nearest weapon, which just happened to be a smaller blaster. You turned back to Bodhi, “What about you?!”

“I have to send the message,” he gave you a weak smile, “I'm the pilot.”

Aben hugged Bodhi, who carefully hugged back. “Be careful my friend.” Aben hit the button that lowered the ramp. The remains rebels in the ship readied to cover you both. You gave Bodhi one last look, “May the Force be with you.”

The Scarif heat was intense and you and Aben ran across the beach into the loading bay of another ship. You both were hidden in the bushes, watching the stormtroopers march past you when you reached out with the Force once more. You could feel Chirrut’s strong presence as he walked under a heavy rain of blaster fire. Your heart leapt to your throat when the blast went off. It felt like it was so close, you screamed. Aben slapped her hand over your mouth, stifling the cry but it was too late. Three troopers were heading towards your hiding spot. Aben pulled out her blaster, shooting one square in the helmet. The other two ducked for cover behind a cruiser that was docked on the landing bay.

They fired back at you, but you managed to shoot one down. Before the remaining trooper could call for back ups, Aben opened fire once more and delivered a killing shot. After you both scanned the area for any other troopers, Aben turned towards you.

“Why in Scarlacc’s name did you scream?!”

You swallowed hard, thinking about how to explain the empty, Chirrut-shaped hole in the world. You could only try to guess how Baze was taking it, he’d probably do something quite reckless. Your heart sank further at his pain. 

“I was checking on Chirrut, reaching out to him and I felt him…” Aben realized what you meant and her eyes fell to the ground. “Sorry.” She murmured, running her hand through her hair and looking up to the sky. She stood there, motionless, watching the sky.

“Aben?” You stood next to her now, looking up in the same spot.

The Rebel Fleet had arrived. A wave of renewed hope washed over you at the sight of X-Wings shooting down TIE fighters. You shook Aben who looked back at you with a small grin on her face.

“C’mon,” you said, dragging her deeper into the mainland, “we have to find a ship close to the broadcast to-” You were cut off by a large explosion that was a few landing pads away. An explosion on landing pad nine to be exact. Aben was already running back, her short legs carrying her as quickly as they could. You followed, not far behind. The odds of Bodhi surviving a blast like that was very slim, and upon seeing the wreckage…

There was no sign of the loveable pilot anywhere. The sense of optimism you had felt only moments before, drained from your being. Not Bodhi; it was him that had lead all of you this far with his message from Galen, from papa. Somewhere deep in your heart you felt the overbearing pain of loss. You looked to Aben, who was firing at the remaining troopers.

“You monsters!” She screamed, hitting each trooper, more times than needed to kill them. When they were all laying motionless, Aben sunk to her knees. You rushed over to her, trying to get her up and moving.

“Bodhi didn’t deserve this! He was-” She was interrupted by her cries. Somehow you managed to get her up. “We have to keep going,” You said using your sleeve to wipe her tears away, “He would want the rest of us to get out safely.” She nodded, regaining her somewhat stony composure. She started to walk towards the tower, and you couldn’t help but feel like your friend had lost a part of her.

You and Aben had managed to find a usable Imperial ship at a loading bay closer to the broadcast tower. Aben was slumped against the interior of the ship, her arm across her face to hide her eyes. You knew that it was probably best not to press her about her feelings, you could see them clear was day anyway. You felt a tinge of worry when you thought of Cassian and Jyn. It had been a while since you all had landed on Scarif, but with so much loss a mere few hours could feel longer than normal. You found yourself standing outside on the ramp to the ship looking up at the sky. The Rebel Fleet was still fighting strong and the noise on the ground was overwhelming. Some of the fleet had managed to get past the shield and into Scarif, aiding in the soldiers on the ground. It was nice to see such unity amongst the rebels, but that only could lift our earth for so long.

Before you could turn around, you watched and saw the field of protection surrounding Scarif fade away. Two StarDestoryers fell, entangled with each other, heading towards Scarif’s surface. You ran back inside shaking Aben out of her trance.

    “The Rebels have broken through the shield! Come look!” Aben slowly got up following you outside on the ramp. You tried to get Aben more excited, but the frown on her feature didn’t go away. When outside she got outside, she let out a gasp of horror at the scene playing out in front of her. You covered your mouth with your hand, feeling stinging tears in your eyes.

      “No…..no….” You whispered, eyes catching the outline of the Death Star hanging in the sky. TIE fighters zoomed past towards the already aflame broadcast tower, but this wasn’t noticed by you. You eyes watched as the DeathStar unleashed a greenish beam of light that struck the surface of Scarif. A plume of dirt and smoke jumped up where the laser hit the ground, creating an ominous cloud of debris spreading out across the surface of the planet. Aben ran out and turned, beckoning you to follow. You did, and finally saw the wreckage of the broadcast tower. Immediately you reached out with the Force, searching for Jyn and Cassian.

      “They’re alive,” you said to Aben, “go back in the ship and start it up. I’ll yell when I see them.” Aben nodded and ran back into the ship. You stood at the edge of the ramp, waiting for them to enter your view. You heard the hump of the ship starting and sighed in relief. It would all be okay now; it had to be, after all of that. When you saw the two limping forms of Jyn and Cassina you shouted, getting their attention. You could see Cassian’s smile from the ship and they started to run over faster. You noticed Cassian’s limp and the worry you felt amplified. You stepped closer to the end of the ramp, reaching for Cassian and Jyn as they drew closer. With a jolt, you fell on the ramp and felt it start to close. “Aben!! Open the ramp!” You screamed, seeing Cassian and Jyn speed up their approach.

    “I’m not doing it, Y/N! It’s in like an autopilot mode. It’s...it’s heading to the DeathStar.” You could hear the malice in her voice when she spoke. Her itch for revenge growing with each second. You turned back and saw Cassian and Jyn reach the edge of the ramp.

“Y/N!” Cassian yelled, “What’s going on?”

      “Aben can’t stop it! It’s in autopilot and she can’t override it!” Cassian’s face fell as you still rose up in the ship on the ramp. Jyn came towards you, reaching her hand through the sliver of space. Her fingers brushed your cheek, and she placed her kyber crystal necklace next to you. You looked up into her eyes, peaceful and strong, “Trust in the Force.” She whispered, pulling away as the ramp started to close faster. You laid on your belly now, tear streaming down your face. Cassian leaned up and you grabbed his hand through the closing pocket of space.

    “Have hope Y/N, always.” He retracted his hand, sad brown eyes watching you. And as the space closed you shouted, “Cassian I lov-” You were cut off by the clang of metal as the ramp shut completely. You pounded your fists against the metal, screaming for Cassian and Jyn.

    Aben pulled you off the floor, but you were to overpowered by anger and pain. You threw yourself on the floor and you could hear the ship break through the atmosphere of Scarif.

    “Y/N, if we’re going into the heart of Imperial command, we need to be ready to attack.” Aben’s voice barely broke through to you as you grasped the kyber necklace and closed your eyes. Aben walked away, prepping the weapon you did have. You just sat on the floor, quietly weeping, praying.