#CJ would be in the throwing rocks tier

[stitchwraith-stingers]

whatever

[rockcandyshrike]

28 & 29 (Pride and Children) w/ Spiritassassin!

Jordan I love you and can always rely on you to give me the energy and inspo to write cute shit. Have 1302 words I spat out in between work (which is the reason this took me 2 weeks to fill bc clients are emotional vampires). I’m gonna throw this up on AO3 too after i figure out a fucking title

--

Baze had wept at the first Naming.

He would grumble into his sage’s beard that he was “too old to cry like a babe” whenever Chirrut brought it up, but on that bright Taungsday morning when Hegu and B’asia Vanwi pressed a tiny bundle of hopes and dreams and newborn wrinkles into his arms with a shy, “We named him Baze...”

Baze the Elder had teared up faster than a busted sprinkler and Baze the Younger, a sympathetic crier like his namesake, followed suit with a piercing squall that could shatter the heavens. Chirrut remembers the Force singing around them brighter than winter skies as B’asia took the cantankerous infant back, Baze turning his face to hide his sniffles into Chirrut’s shoulder as he wrapped an arm around his verklempt husband and teased the Vanwis about naming the next one after him.

Chirrut chuckles at the memory while he leans against the kitchen counter, rubbing green camphor balm onto his creaking joints. The weather on Ilthon, the small Outer Rim planet where the Jedhan survivors had settled and established Little Jedha, isn’t as harsh as it was on Jedha, but age is catching up with him and his body complains more than it used to—though not as much as Baze’s. He tilts his head and listens through the open lace-curtained window to his husband teaching Baze Vanwi the difference between weeds and borro shoots. A gaggle of neighborhood children that the two Guardians frequently babysit are playing Jedi on the other side of the backyard, clacking sticks against each other sharply and shouting “vvoom vvoom! Force push!” in loud, excited voices. Chirrut smiles with the purest happiness in the universe.

Hegu and B’asia had indeed named their next child after Chirrut, a healthy bouncing baby girl who had shot out of her mother so quickly, B’asia had nearly delivered her in the hospital reception room. Somehow, it had set off a trend amongst the other survivors, and now, almost a decade and a half after the founding of the New Republic, there are seven Bazes and six Chirruts causing havoc in Little Jedha, not including the originals. There’s also a Chirze and a Barrut, but they prefer to be called Qi and Bear. Most of the children go by nicknames, so when a person talks about Chirrut and/or Baze in Little Jedha, it’s generally assumed they’re referring to the Guardians who had helped lead and shape their enclave into what it was today. But Chirrut (Jaesa) Vanwi, AKA CJ, is indisputably the leader of the pack whacking each other with sticks at the moment; Chirrut can hear her hollering commands like a certain princess-general.

Baze comes inside for a drink, leaving Zee, Ace, Flori (not her twin sister Tori) Rook and CJ’s older brother Bao to theoretically “tend” the garden; though really, Zee is making triple-tier mud cakes, Flori is overwatering the tulips, Bao is preoccupied with counting seeds, and Ace is dueling snails with Della Gimm.

“Working hard or hardly working?” Chirrut playfully gibes his husband as he brushes past him to the sink, dropping a kiss to Chirrut’s temple as he snags his empty mug to refill with tea like the thoughtful, wonderful Force-blessing that he is.

“What are you smiling like a dope for?” Baze retorts, shuffling through the pantry for his favorite tin of tea. 

Chirrut quirks a brow, but his shit-eating grin doesn’t budge an inch.  “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean.” 

Baze snorts at him, equal parts exasperation and fondness as always, and Chirrut turns his ear towards it out of instinct, an instinct carved into his soul since their first meeting. “To answer your question, herding these children is harder than any duan trial I've ever endured. Leru tried to shove a rock up xer nose twice, and Bunny almost stabbed Ruto with a trowel after she threw some grass at her.”

“Ah, young love,” Chirrut reminisces, “I remember it well.”

“Hardly,” Baze scoffs in faux derision pouring the electric kettle into the Ewok mug Jyn had gifted him as a joke. “One of these days, she’s going to break Ruto’s nose.”

“She’s Vobati, darling, they don’t have noses."

“One of these days, she’s going to break whatever Ruto has that’s analogous to a nose," Baze corrects himself while he hands a steaming mug to Chirrut, settling next to him against the counter.

Chirrut laughs at his husband’s obstinance and lightly shoves him in the shoulder with his own. “They’re not so different from us, and you and I have been together for over 50 years."

“I have tolerated you for over 50 years,” Baze grouses behind his mug, but Chirrut can feel the gravitational presence of his husband’s dark eyes focused upon him, his aura in the Force going softer than powdered sugar on kiss-puffed lips, wrapping around him the way clouds embrace mountain peaks.

“And you will into eternity,” he chirps gaily and quaffs an obnoxious slurp of his tea.

Baze opens his mouth to respond but is cut off by an unholy blood-curdling screech from the backyard. Their heads whip around towards the sound on high alert, hands going to where their weapons would rest, but relax when they hear CJ yell, “I’M OKAY!”

“That child…” Baze mutters under his breath, soothing his racing heart with a sip of first flush silverio.

Chirrut laughs again, a wry tinge to the upswing as he rubs his husband’s back. “She's a weapons-grade firecracker.”

“Of course she is, she was cursed with your name.”

"I have the medkit right here for the inevitable bloodshed." Chirrut taps the recycled cookie tin next to him. “Stocked full of X-wing bandaids and tooth-rotting suckers.”

Baze takes another sip and sighs deep enough to open up a sinkhole beneath them. “I’m too old to be chasing after an entire legion of Chirruts.”

Light dances like a flurry of snow in Chirrut’s eyes as he trails a hand up Baze’s neck to his weathered face, drawing worshipful fingers along the aged crisscrossing lines, his sagging jowls pockmarked by shrapnel scars from shielding Chirrut with his body on Scarif, before giving him a gentle patronizing pat on the cheek. “I’m more concerned about the little pride of Bazes outside. If we’re not careful, they might just eat up all the dirt.”

“It’s part of a healthy diet,” Baze snarks on cue and Chirrut cracks up.

He’s caught slightly off-guard when Baze catches his chin in one hand and swallows his laughter with a kiss that resonates through his bones sharp and brilliant as kyber, a kiss that would have set him aflame when they were younger; Chirrut yields to it blissfully, the only thing in the universe he’ll surrender for.

A chorus of “Eeeeeeeewwww!” shrills behind them and Chirrut snickers as Baze drops his head to sigh into his shoulder, beleaguered yet amused. Chirrut hands him his mug and he takes it readily.

Chirrut gives him one more kiss, then flips his staff into his hand and turns with a roar, “Foolish little Jedi, your power cannot match a Sith’s!”

The children shriek delightedly as Chirrut stomps into the backyard with his shirt pulled over his head like a fool and Baze watches from the doorway, content as can be.

He glances at the calendar by the wall-chrono and smiles when he remembers what’s planned for next weekend. Althin had almost exploded with joy when he asked them to attend the Naming of his first child, the young man standing even taller than Baze but fidgeting like he was eight years old again when he handed them the invitation. Althin’s partner is also Rodian, but Baze has a gut feeling they won’t be giving their firstborn a traditional Rodian name.

Baze leaves himself a reminder to bring tissues.