#spiritassassin week 2017

[anagrammaddict]

Small Messages (bou din waa zuk)

Last fic for SpiritAssassin Week. Late as usual, because I kinda burned out yesterday & the day before, lol

Thank you everyone for reading. & many thanks to @fyeahspiritassassin for hosting. I had great fun doing this but man I’m so relieved it’s over. this was hands down the most difficult writing thing i’ve done lately.

SpiritAssassin Week 2017 Last prompt: celebrations

There are ghosts in Chirrut’s eyes.

He sees:

colour mostly, or the memory of colour. Jedha City, or the memory of it. When his eyes were still functional, when the world pin-bright broke into seven colours and flipped upright on the screen of his retinas. And that was sight for him.

Nowadays the only eyesight he has are old visuals. He sees with ghost eyes. Useless.

He remembers:

when he was still a novice at the Temple, when the Temple still stood, when his eyesight worked fine, and yet he kept missing things. Muddling up. And Baze would tell him where everything was, where to look.

Where are my prayer beads? In front of you.

Where is the datapad? You’ve been looking right at it for ten minutes.

Where did I put my shoes? You’re practically stepping on them.

I know I left my prayer beads here! You did, and they are still there. What is that saying you always use?

Gwai am ngaan! Ghosts covering  eyes.

When Chirrut lost his eyesight, he said: “Remember what I used to say?”

Baze never found it funny again.

***

The holopad powers up. A buzz. The harsh phosphorescence of the screen makes shadows spatter onto his grey featureless vision. Incoming message.

There is a crackle of interference and then the steady hum of a line. Connection. Nobody speaks. The silence is heavy with a familiar presence.

“You can start,” says Chirrut gently, “by telling me the time.”

“It’s early,” Baze answers. “Your time, that is.”

It’s strange that they’re far enough apart that they can split time between them. Yours and mine. Your half and mine.

“Have you eaten?” says Baze.

Chirrut remembers that he hasn’t. He hums a note in both reply and dismissal.

“Just because I’m not there,” says Baze, testily, “doesn’t mean you can forget to eat. Don’t pine too hard for me.”

“I was going to meditate,” Chirrut says. “There are other types of hunger besides the one that you speak of.”

“Who said anything about hunger? It’s basic self-care. But I forgot you know nothing about that.” There is a clatter of movement from the other side. A hiss and a sputter. Clacking. Something being dismantled. For cleaning. Perhaps a weapon. A shush of air, like an exhaust pipe.

“The Force--,” Chirrut begins.

“--will not feed you. You should eat something.”

Chirrut sighs. “It’s been three years. And you’re halfway somewhere across the galaxy. And you've gone right back to your nagging self.”

“I’ve lost count of the years,” Baze says. There is a lie in the falter of his voice. A flinty note of defiance.

“I’m going to meditate.”

“Wait,” says Baze.

Chirrut waits.

“Leave the connection running.”

“I don't talk much when I meditate.”

“You don’t have to.”

***

There is a festival (there is always a festival) going on in Jedha City and people have begun lighting tapers and burning sticks of incense in the many street braziers.

You’re supposed to do acts of compassion. Pray for the dead. Feed the hungry. People bake bread, boil vats of porridge, distribute food to the homeless, to the pilgrims, to anyone who asks for food.

Chirrut sits beneath an archway on a back lane, running his fingers along the worn beads of his prayer necklace. Sandals shuffle, the scrape of fraying leather. The hems of robes touch his knees and ankles, stray butterflies of fabric. The crowds move and he feels their wingbeats and their edges. The wake of their movement. The rotund vowels of a muezzin’s call. A minaret in the distance. The wind snapping the tarp. The souk, a heaving organic entity of commerce.

There are more unwelcome sounds now. Heavy boots. The presence of Imperials, their conversations in staccato, voices standardised into a nasal flatness by the inbuilt vocoders in their helmets.

Someone presses a roll into his hands and a flask.

“Eat and drink, uncle,” someone says, performing their act of compassion for the day.

Chirrut thinks of Baze. Of course he does.

***

“Are you asleep?” says Baze.

“What do you think?”

“Sorry,” Baze says. “I need sleep.”

His voice is thick, like textile, as though he’s lying in bed somewhere, one corner of his mouth pressed against rough sheets. Perhaps he has lain awake all night. Is it night where he is?

“Will you tell me where you are?”

“On a planet. There’s a lot of water here. Marshes. The speeders here are shaped like dragonflies. I haven’t been dry in days. When I took the job I didn’t know I’d have to become amphibious.”

“The job?”

“Like any other job,” Baze says, evasive.

The connection sputters. But it holds.

“Night time on this planet is longer than Jedha’s nights. About three times as long. People sleep three times as long, too.”

“You should get some now.”

“What is that?” Baze says suddenly. “There, on the side of your face. Turn your face to the left.”

It’s a cut. Healing, though. It must have been just a thin smudge in the holographic display of his face, but Baze’s sharp eyes had caught it.

“I was cornered,” Chirrut admits. “In a cul-de-sac. By five Imperials.”

Baze swears. “You took on five Imperials without backup?”

“The Force was with me.”

“Of course it was.” Baze scoffs. “So you had no backup. You idiot.”

“So says the true fool, who is faithless,” Chirrut shoots back. “So gwaa.”

***

Chirrut passes through the forms of zama-shiwo, ghost-eyed, with the slow silk movement of his arms and legs. There is no end or beginning to the forms. Perpetual transition. Keep your mind still. Absolute. Nucleatic. The body is not yours. The body is your environment. You are part of a larger body. Only the negligible pinprick of Chirrut’s mind shimmers, edged with feelers, hungry for messages, for a grid of sense.

The sun, he remembers, is frail and dewy, angling away like errant vapour from the domes and the glittering mosaics in the murals. Useless light:  the city’s solar dishes had to coax heat out of it, old, old dying light.

But now that his mind and his body are sharp with the recent practice of zama-shiwo, he can feel the sun’s heat, amplified. The sun is a hot salty coin at the back of his throat when he tips his face upward. Sunlight is swallowing metal. The scrape of thirst.

Where Chirrut is standing on this rooftop, he should not be able to feel this much warmth. Not at this time of the day, because this time of the day, the shadow of the Temple would have stretched over it, blotted out the sun.

The spire of the Temple is no more, though. And its shadow fled with it.

***

The holopad buzzes as Chirrut puts the porridge to boil on the portable stove.

“Look,” Chirrut says when the transmission comes through, “I’m eating. Or at least I’m going to.”

Baze makes a noise of approval on the other end. There’s silence for a bit.

“There was--” Baze begins. And then changes his mind. “This marshland planet, it’s got a very high evaporation capacity. Whole lakes can vanish in days. Then it will rain and rain somewhere else until there are floods, and there’ll be a new lake. All within such a short span of time. They call this the planet of Leaping Lakes.”

Chirrut imagines it. The transient landscape of it. The lakes leap faster in his mind, faster than Baze, slogging through marshes that dry out as he walks, his skin old and cracked from sand. Unamphibious. Dragonfly speeders zipping over dead reed beds.

“I had to--the job involved--,” Baze begins.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Chirrut says. “About the jobs that you do. I can hazard a guess. Or three.”

“What if I want to talk about them?”

“Then tell me how you’ve changed. How they’ve changed you.”

The porridge boils over. Chirrut hisses and Baze lets out a long, slow sigh. Too long and slow to be sincere.

“Your fault,” says Chirrut testily. The porridge has thickened into a layer that clings to the bottom of the pot. A skin of rice. Carbon bitter.

***

Baze fled not long after the Temple was sacked.

“I will never put on those vestments again,” Baze told Chirrut all those years ago. “They have been burnt.”

Chirrut reeled. He’d known the slow crumble of Baze’s faith. But still. “I won’t let you. You can’t go. You are the most devoted of all the Guardians.”

The words broke out of him, splinters of pleas.

“Then come with me,” said Baze. “The Temple is gone. The kyber crystals are gone. There’s nothing sacred here any longer.”

“The Force is still here.”

“Yes it is,” Baze started to walk towards the gates of the Temple. Across the half-uprooted courtyard. “The Force is here and there and everywhere and it is dead. We breathe in its deadness every day. We celebrate its death in the deaths of everyone else. So. Are you coming?”

Chirrut steeled himself. “A match.”

Baze laughed. “I’m not a Guardian. I don’t play with sticks any longer.”

“If you beat me, you can go. You can leave.”

“And you’ll come with me.”

Chirrut didn’t say anything.

“Fine. Just to humour you, then,” Baze said.

They sparred in that ruined courtyard and Chirrut won.

He brought Baze to the ground, kicked his knees in, elbowed his throat and slammed his staff into Baze’s abdomen.

Baze lay on the ground, panting. How Chirrut would have liked to straddle him, lick away the blood from his teeth. He’d hit Baze on the jaw.

“Well,” said Baze. “I guess I stay, then.”

Chirrut hated the hostility of his laughter. He put the end of his staff at Baze’s neck, tipped his chin upwards.

“No,” Chirrut said.

***

“Are you still angry at me?” Baze asks. The sound of thunder in the background. But not thunder. Just a downpour in the marsh planet, in some distant corner of the galaxy.

The generator in the room that he lives in is old. It rattles. It smells like breath. There are probably small dead things caught beneath its casing, things like rodents and moths, fossilised inside.

“No,” Chirrut says. “Are you?”

“Not at you. Never at you.”

***

There are countless things to be celebrated in Jedha City. Apart from the big festivals. There are weddings, births, engagements, various milestones of growth. Deaths, sometimes, depending on what you believe in. Seasonal shifts. Phenomena like rain.

The Imperials have put a damper on many of the Holy City’s festivals, and declared that permits need to be granted for the rest.

But here’s the thing about people: they remember. They remember when celebrations are due, when rituals start calling to them, feast days notched into their internal calendars. The secret way which they measure time within themselves.

And so people find other reasons for celebration. New acquaintances. Extra rations. Finding lost things. Finding lost people. And so on.

The reasons for celebrating anything become smaller and smaller. Until Chirrut finds himself rejoicing at coins on the street. Or coins in an alms bowl. A call of a bird far out beyond the city walls. Clean washing brushing against his face as he wanders through the alleyways and courtyards. A day without the sound of blaster fire in some quarter of the city or other. A memory, an old visual of the inner sanctum of the Temple, stored in his ghost eyes. Still vivid. Preserved even after the destruction of the building.

He goes home in the evening, his stomach a whorl of hunger. The pot with the burnt crust of porridge is still sitting on the stove. The smell is thick and disheartening. Outside, wind. Sand scours the window.

The sting of saline. There are ghosts in his eyes. And sometimes they weep.

But then. Then he remembers something. He reaches for the holopad. Trusts in the Force. Prays for connection.

A crackle and a hum. There is transmission. There is a line, the thinnest thread across the galaxy, but steady. It feels like a celebration.

***

“I was finally getting some sleep,” Baze grumbles. But it’s a glad sound. Relief to be woken from the lonely press of sleep.

“So,” says Chirrut, “when are you coming home?”

.

.

.

bou din waa zuk - literally translates to ‘boil telephone porridge’. means when you talk for hours on the phone. except there are probably no phones in R1

[itsybitsylemonsqueezy]

2017: A Year

It is an indisputable fact that 2017 was, indeed, 365 days here on Earth. There were highs, there were lows, there were each of these things in turn as no year is without its sorrows or its joys. Not even 2016. And yes, for me, 2017 WAS better than 2016. So there’s that.

I was going to use the tumblr generator Year in Review thing that everyone else uses, BUT, as I find every year, that generator does not take into account text posts and this blog is a solid majority of text posts, so bugger that. I shall instead go through my own archive personally and attempt to catalog my most popular posts by hand.

January: Nygmobblepot Meta (51 notes)

February: Some headcanons about Spiritassassin (268 notes)

March: A Catalogue of Ideas about Ben and Caleb (Turn) (33 notes)

April: Nygmobblepot Hallucination Ficlet (22 notes)

May: All My Recommended Posts are Nygmobblepot (44 notes)

June: Hannibal, “I don’t want to go” (41 notes)

July: Vague Anime Reviews (1,131 notes)

August: Kastle Radio Week (15 notes)

September: Take Me Back To The Night We Met (93 notes)

October: Experiences I’ve Had Since Coming Out (6 notes)

November: Loki, King of the Identity Crisis (52 notes)

December: Kastle Appreciation Week Day 4 (34 notes)

...in case you were laboring under any delusions that I am a popular blog: I Am Not. If I missed out any of your favorite posts, feel free to tell me! I’d be happy to talk about them xp

But anyway, this is a recap of the year and, for me, 2017 was a year of health. I battled two stress fractures, the return of my hip dysplasia, and pre-diabetic blood sugar. I’ve been in physical therapy for a good third of this year and I’m now stronger, healthier, and more comfortable. All good things. I weigh almost 15 pounds less than I did last year. And I hate putting numbers on that because happiness is not measured in weight. And fuck the numbers. I ain’t here to bodyshame no one, including myself. I only bring it up to say that I have NOT lost weight because I was unhappy with my body image, but because I was unhappy with the state of my blood. I was, in that sense, unhealthy. But I was in no way unhappy with my body in any other way. So, just a reminder, you are not the numbers on the scale and you deserve to be as happy as you feel. Don’t go changing for nobody c:  

This was not a stupid productive year in terms of writing, mainly because I have a girlfriend now and I’m trying to get my career together ^^; And on that front I kinda sorta maybe am qualified to get a job now ^^; Haven’t... haven’t actually got a job yet, but I finished a practicum in teaching, I got my Masters, I got my sub certification... I have done a lot. I have accomplished a lot. I’m so close now. But i have to keep moving forward. Which is agony, but... you know, like the Elric brothers and Luke Cage, gotta keep moving forward.

But, as for writing, there will be something Big(ish) soon in the new year. As soon as I can fucking get it together, I swear. And I’m looking forward to that. I’ve really enjoyed working on this secret thing and I hope it shows in the final product. Thank you to everyone who’s been helping me, you know who you are.

P. S.

Today my uncle asked me what the best part of my year was. I said my girlfriend. This is immutably true.

[emeraldembers]

Fic: After the Rain (Baze Malbus/Chirrut Imwe, NC17)

Title: After the Rain

Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Pairing: Baze Malbus/Chirrut Imwe

Summary: Baze has depression, and while Chirrut knows he can’t fix this, he knows taking Baze out on one of his better days for a frolic in a hot tub won’t hurt matters.

Author’s Notes: Written for the prompt “Baze and Chirrut fuck in a hot tub” for @lionmettled in the 2017 spiritassassin fic exchange. The original draft was a hot mess but had some ideas I liked - this is the belated, bettered, and beta-ed version (thanks @thenyxmidnight, love you as always <3, and @only-1-a for also being a legend).

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11953089

* * *

Baze's hair was filthy.

The fact it was filthy was no real surprise. Chirrut could not remember the last time Baze had showered, and deodorising powders could only do so much when masking Baze's scent.

It wasn't idleness or a disregard for hygiene that kept Baze from showering, but the same illness that had bound Baze to their quarters for days at a time, practically rendered mute by his suffering. Sickness of the mind could be as cruel as sickness anywhere else in the body, and Chirrut’s help could only go so far.

Times like this had been part of Chirrut's life with Baze for as long as they had known each other; times when the lessons passed down by masters, and tinctures brewed from the temple's garden were not enough to soothe Baze's wounds. Even Chirrut's hands, lovingly tending to sore muscles or tangled braids, were not enough.

Baze's worst enemy was not something Chirrut could fight with his fists, no matter how hard he trained, but Chirrut had endurance as well as strength, and meant to wait out each episode at Baze's side for as long as Baze would let him.

Easier days with the illness were marked by Baze talking without being prompted, bad days by fits of anger followed by crushing sorrow or stubborn silence. After two easy days in a row, Chirrut knew it was time to make Baze wash with him, for his health alone if nothing else.

Bringing up Baze's need to wash without wounding his pride could be tricky, but luck in the timing of Baze's better days and Jedha's fleeting wet season had created a perfect opportunity for Chirrut to exploit.

The flash floods had been kind this year, filling reservoirs in the city and its outskirts to the point of spilling, and several tourist hotspots had taken advantage of the waters to provide facilities Jedha could rarely afford.

Hot tubs were a rare luxury on Jedha, but Chirrut saw no harm in making use of them while they were available. All wastewater would find its way to farmland in the end, and Chirrut had friends enough to gain cheap access to such facilities when the floods had been generous.

That Baze would accompany him went without saying. Where Chirrut walked, Baze followed, and this had been understood long before their relationship turned romantic.

"You didn't have to do this," Baze said, the powdery scent of soap leaf pouring off him as Chirrut rinsed it from his hair.

"What fun would it be if I needed to?" Chirrut asked, combing through the wet locks with his fingers to make sure they were free of lather and tangles. Washing in preparation for use of the hot tub was a matter of courtesy as well as hygiene, and Chirrut was glad of the excuse to get his hands on Baze.

Not that he needed one, but he was glad to have it nonetheless.

"You feel presentable," Chirrut said, resting his hands on Baze's waist and pressing a quick kiss to his shoulder. "How do we look?"

"Wet," Baze said, straightening up and taking hold of Chirrut's wrist. "Lead the way."

It was a short walk through the inn's corridor to the room with the hot tub, short enough that Chirrut opted for holding a towel over his groin rather than wrapping it around his waist. He dropped it gladly as soon as he heard the door close behind him, enjoying the alien cling of humidity to his skin.

"There's no lock."

"I don't care," Chirrut said cheerily, walking over to the hot tub with carefully extended hands and smiling when he found its edges. "Do you? Help me in."

There was a hushed sound as Baze dropped his own towel, then Baze pressed up against him from behind, skin hot and sweat-sticky. "You asked."

Chirrut squawked as he was lifted and dunked without ceremony into the tub, and glared in what he hoped was Baze's direction once he'd surfaced and found a seat. "Found your sense of humour?" Chirrut muttered, listening as Baze climbed in.

Baze grunted in agreement before climbing into Chirrut's lap, clutching his head in both hands. "Here it is."

"Your sense of humour?"

"The reason I laugh," Baze said, snorting at his own joke, and Chirrut couldn't help but laugh in turn, wrapping his arms around Baze's waist loosely as Baze did the same.

The laughter settled into a not quite comfortable silence, and Chirrut chose to break it first. "I've missed this."

"I know," Baze said, his hands warm and heavy on Chirrut's back, and Chirrut tilted his head up for a kiss.

Chirrut hadn't intended much by it, but after sharing a relatively chaste peck, Baze kissed him again, open-mouthed, and Chirrut was happy to respond in kind.

Baze's hands were greedier than his mouth, moving quickly to grab Chirrut's ass, and Chirrut smiled at the contradiction. Baze rarely sought out Chirrut's tongue unless Chirrut had first toyed with his, but his hands rarely needed that same, unspoken prompt.

"You want my hands on you?" Chirrut asked when they took a moment to breathe, forehead to forehead and belly to belly, unable to get enough of each other.

The treatments for Baze's condition sometimes left him unable to take pleasure from Chirrut, though he rarely hesitated to give it if Chirrut asked, and it was both flattering and a relief for Chirrut to feel Baze stir under his touch. The feel of him swelling, growing hard and rocking into Chirrut's touch, was something Chirrut would never tire of; the sounds Baze made as Chirrut stroked him were a pleasing bonus.

"This is your fault," Baze panted as he closed a hand over Chirrut's own, bracing himself against the hot tub's edge with the other.

"I should be ashamed of myself," Chirrut deadpanned before kissing him again, feeling a smile on Baze's lips that mirrored his own. It didn't matter much that his own erection was unattended. Not when it had been weeks since he'd last heard Baze's breathing grow ragged and desperate, since he'd last felt Baze rocking against him, thighs trembling with exertion.

"Chirrut," Baze said, "I -"

That was as much warning as Chirrut got before Baze shuddered against him and came with a low grunt, the slick texture quickly washing away to nothing in the water, and Chirrut brought both hands up to Baze's shoulders, drawing him close while his breathing settled.

"You can sleep if you want to," Chirrut said, curling Baze's hair loosely around his fingers. "I booked an hour."

The quiet as they dried and dressed each other afterwards was the sort Chirrut wished he could live in always, tender and weighted with affection.

He let his hands speak for him, catching Baze's face between them and tracing over his features, mapping out the ways relaxation had smoothed them soft.

Kind eyes under a thoughtful brow, soft cheeks and softer lips, and Chirrut kissed each in turn, finished by nipping Baze's nose.

"Troublemaker," Baze muttered.

"Fool," Chirrut countered, and hugged him tight, enjoying the moment of peace while it lasted.

Those moments seemed to come fewer and farther between as of late, but they were still worth fighting for, would always be worth fighting for. Baze was worth fighting for.

Baze was worth everything.

[dailyspiritassassin]

Greetings Rogue One fans! To celebrate that it has been six months since Rogue One and these Iconic Space Gays™ graced us with their love, you are invited to participate in dailyspiritassassin​’s summer 2017 fanworks exchange! Interested? Read on!

HOW TO ENTER 

you don’t have to be following us, but it would be nice! 

reblog this post before Friday, June 23, 2017

fill out this form by June 23 so we can match you with a gift giver 

as long as it’s still June 23 somewhere, we’ll still be accepting applications

have your inbox or IM open so we can contact you with info!

SCHEDULE

Sign-ups: June 1 - June 23

Assignments out: by June 30

Drop out deadline: August 1

Assignments due/posting date: August 15

MORE INFO

please do not reveal yourself to your recipient until the posting date! 

when you post your gift, please tag us either in the body of the post or in the first five tags so we can reblog it here! 

feel free to tag any posts related to this challenge with #spiritassassinexchange so we can keep an eye on what’s going on and catch any issues as they arise! 

feel free to contact your recipient on anon if you’re having a hard time brainstorming ideas or if you just want to get a better sense of what kind of content they like! it’s generally nice in gift exchanges to send your recipient a nice anonymous message or two anyways! 

if you have to drop out, please notify us ASAP or at least two weeks before August 15 - there is no penalty for dropping out, but please let us know as early as possible so we can find a pinch-hitter for your recipient 

another post with posting guidelines will be posted closer to the posting date!

if you have any questions or run into any problems, please feel free to direct them to dailyspiritassassin or the admin via ask or IM

EVEN MORE INFO: WHAT’S A FANWORKS EXCHANGE/WHAT AM I COMMITTING TO?  (below the cut)

1. What’s a fanworks exchange? What do I have to do? In the next few weeks, interested parties will sign up. Everyone who signs up before June 23 is in! During sign ups, you indicate your preferences for what you’d like to give and what you’d like to receive, and after that, in the following week, everyone will be matched with someone to give to and receive from based on likes and requests. Then, you’ll have the next month and a half to put together a fanwork for your recipient. On the posting day, August 15, with much fanfare and excitement, everyone will post their fanworks publicly so they can officially give their gift to their recipient! And all of us will cheer and rejoice because there will be more fanworks for the world to enjoy, and who doesn’t love that?

2. Are there any minimum requirements? What’s expected of me? Everyone has to make at least one fanwork for their recipient. Of course, if you want to make multiple things, that’s up to you and you’re certainly encouraged to do so! We ask that fics be a minimum of 1,000 words long (though they can be as long as you want) and if you’re making anything else (art, graphics, etc.) we ask you to make at least one piece. And of course, since this is a spiritassassin fanworks exchange, the main focus of your fanworks should be spiritassassin, though you can always include other characters or ships if that’s what your recipient wants! 

3. What counts as a fanwork?  Almost anything! Fics, art, gifs/graphics, and fanmixes are all welcome! If you’re unsure about whether something is considered a fanwork in this exchange, just ask us!

4. Can I get in touch with my recipient? Yes - but only if you do so anonymously. Remember that this is an anonymous fanworks exchange (think secret santa or whatever holiday gift exchange of your choosing), so it’s fine if you want to ask clarifying questions of your recipient to really nail down their likes and dislikes, but don’t reveal yourself to them before the posting date!

5. I have a WIP that would be perfect for my recipient's prompt! Can I just write a new chapter of that fic? Unfortunately no. If you write a fic, it must be new and complete by the posting date. If you have an unposted WIP that you'd like to dust off for and spruce up for this exchange, that might be fine, but double check with us! The general idea is everyone should receive something that's tailor made for them and their interests, so completely new works are preferred.

6. What happens on the posting day? What do I do? This is the day everyone reveals themselves to their recipients! This is when you publicly post your fanwork wherever you'd like - here on tumblr, on ao3, livejournal, etc. And of course you'll make a post on tumblr about it so we can reblog it here and spread the word about your amazing piece! DON'T post about your fanwork beforehand - remember that this is supposed to be anonymous until the posting date! More detailed info to come about posting guidelines when we get closer to the posting date so keep an eye out for that!

7. What if I sign up now but later something comes up and I have to drop out? Will I be penalized? That's totally fine! We totally understand that unexpected things come up sometimes. You will not be penalized, but we do ask you to let us know as soon as you know that you'll have to drop out. Please try to let us know by August 1, because this will give us enough time to find a pinch-hitter for your recipient, but if something comes up last minute, that's fine! Just shoot us a message!

8. What's a pinch-hitter and how do I sign up to be one? A pinch-hitter is basically a last-minute replacement. If anyone has to drop out, we’ll find someone to substitute for that gift giver so that everyone receives a gift! If you’re a relatively quick fanworks maker or you’d just generally like to make your services available to save the day, should we need pinch-hitters, there’s a place to check yes or no in the sign-up form to let us know! 

Please remember that as with all fanworks exchanges, our number one rule is don’t be a jerk! No character or ship bashing, and just all around be respectful of each other. We’re all here to have a good time and that should be our priority!

Any other questions? Shoot us a message! And HAVE FUN!

[sarkastically]

Smaller Than Himself

Spiritassassin Week 2017, Prompt 1: First Impressions

Baze Malbus is little more than one giant bruise when he is brought to the temple. A giant bruise and a mess of tangled, dirty hair. He has five broken ribs, a black eye, a split lip, and a twisted ankle that he limps on, hissing pain with every step but refusing to lie down, refusing to take it easy. He doesn't want to be coddled, he insists. He is not an invalid, not a child. He is just hurt. It is evident in the way he says it, quick, slapdash with no modicum of shame at all, that not only has he been hurt before, but that he is used to it, so used to it that he doesn't understand why the masters make tutting noises, why the healers frown and turn their heads when they find the seemingly never-ending collection of scars across his broad body. He just scowls at them, obviously annoyed by how much they care, unused to the that feeling, and repeats that he is not a child.

He is fourteen, still a child despite his size and his declaration, despite the bright flares of his eyes that show, in all the worst ways, that he knows things that children should not know, but this type of knowledge is common on Jedha. Jedhan has many words for child, many words for adult and all the layers in-between. They follow a range of innocence, a marking of how much one has seen and endured and felt. No one knows where to put Baze on the scale yet, and all he does is snarl, all bite, all teeth like something backed into a corner over and over again, like something that has never known a kind touch once in its life. He is so large for fourteen. He is so tall, and he is so broad. There are trees in the temple garden smaller and frailer than this boy who claims he is not a boy, never has been a boy, doesn’t even know what that is because he is just him. He is just him. And that is what the masters go with. This is Baze, they say and little else because everything that he is screams at the world around him in his clenched fists and his clenched face and the way he hisses words through his teeth as though they will be stolen from him otherwise.

He is a not a candle flickering low in the wind. He is not fragile. He is a blaster bolt in the night lighting up the entire city with its brilliance born of pain and heartbreak and anger.

The masters know that they are going to have their hands full with him. It will go one way or the other. They will heal him, tame him, uncurl his fists, unbreak his heart, lighten his soul. Or they will heal him and watch him slip back into the night to blaze the world around him with the fire spilling out of his chest, unfurling from his eyes, a streak of ruin, to burn himself out. They have seen it before, but there is no way of knowing which way the scales will tip. All is as the Force wills it, after all. All is as the Force wills it. It becomes a hard statement when they watch the burning children, the ghost fire children, limp into their circle and then rocket back out to meet what is likely to be an untimely end.

All is as the Force wills it sometimes becomes a hollow, sad mantra, a way of dealing with the fact that sometimes there is nothing that can be done, nothing that can be changed, sometimes even the softest hand, even the most well meaning attempt can fail if the person on the other side doesn’t want to accept it, doesn’t want to try. You cannot force someone to be saved.

All is as the Force wills it, they tell him, and Baze, bright eyes, sad heart, burning, a brush fire, a high pitched scream caught in the wind and echoing in the valleys, looks at them as though he doesn’t understand any of the words they are saying, as though he doesn’t know the Force when he drips with it, as though he doesn’t understand the concept of will as though he lives from one moment to the next without considering how, without making conscious choices, bouncing off the walls when he hits them to change direction.

It is a hinge point. It is a crux. It is a marking.

Something may rise or fail on this point.

When he speaks, he speaks in rumbles, the shake of the ground, the way that sounds reflect off the walls of the kyber caves and grow and swell until they are the only things that can be heard. Baze sounds like that. Sounds like someone meant for talking. Sounds like someone meant for prayers and holy scripture. He sounds like a Guardian.

Or a gun. Or ruin. It is so hard to tell, and there are so many ways in which the world can turn that they will never know until they know, until it is too late for it to be anything else no matter how hard they may wish for another outcome.

“What’s the Force?” he asks. For a moment there is a lull. For a moment there is a gleam. It is hope and sparkly bright and altogether everywhere like kyber dust in the air of the cutting room, everything illuminated. Until it dims. “And if it wills everything, why does it will the bad things as well?”

The masters dare not ask for definitions. They have them in droves, in the set of his eyes, in the scars across his body, in the three breaks the healers found that never set right but cause him no pain so they did not want to consider breaking them again, in the way that he holds himself smaller than himself and away, in his hair which looks like no one has ever combed it. In the way that he looks like no one has ever cared for him, ever loved him. Not once.

He is one of the cases that make even the most devoted of the masters wonder why the Force would will things like this even though they know better. They know better. But it still hurts, still rolls doubt over them like a wave of cold water crashing, sucking at their feet; undertow those from worlds with oceans explain when they sit around together and talk about the day.

Baze Malbus is an undertow. Strong, deceptive, dangerous, lurking and unseen until it is too late, until you have been pulled under.

They begin to believe that he will flee, fly again on the winds, as soon as he can. This is no Jedha bird rising from the ashes. This is no resurrection. This is just another lost cause child who will burn himself out. They begin to say farewell prayers in the night. They begin to make a bundle that maybe they can persuade him into taking with him, one that might keep him alive a little bit longer.

He is fourteen, but he is much older.

Chirrut Imwe is thirteen, but he is much younger.

Born of the temple, raised in the temple, soft in the Force, which is not the same thing as weak. Chirrut is not weak, never has been, scraped in the temple gardens when he was six years old and scrawny and small for his age, fought with the older, bigger children to prove that he could match them, that he could best them, that he was not to be looked over, passed over. Soft in the Force, a phrase used for one who sits in it, surrounded by it, a rock in a stream, hands in the water, feeling everything, disturbing nothing. Chirrut is Force inundated. It flows in him, around him, through him.

Soft in the Force people cannot be Jedi, cannot bend the universe’s energy to their will because they are more cognizant of it, of the way it works, flows. They understand where it needs to be, what it needs to do. They let it be what it is instead of what they want it to be.

Baze Malbus, the masters know, could have been Jedi, could have been Sith. Everything about him screams wanting, a need to make things different by any means possible, and his energy is strong enough it crackles into the air around him. He makes everything too bright or too dark or too loud. Static. Thunder. Lights behind eyelids. Earthquakes.

Their meeting is inevitable. Their meeting is the crash of a drum in the middle of silent meditation. Their meeting is a mountain falling down, a city burning, a sea pitching out of its bed.

Their meeting is two boys in the middle of a garden.

There are flowers on the tree in the center. Baze stands under it and stares up as though he has never seen flowers before, and his eyes are wide with something like awe, something gentler than everything else he has ever been before. It is a rare moment. It is a young moment on the face of someone who has obviously not had many of those. He stands, dirty face tipped up, hair a tangled mess on his shoulders, mouth open and stares as though trying to memorize every petal, every leaf, as though trying to absorb it all inside of himself so that he never loses it because he knows that it too will soon disappear as everything lovely disappears, sucked away into the giant hole of wanting that is the world.

Soft soft soft. He is soft in this moment. He is rounded edges. He is a dirty giant with flower petals in his hair, and joy in his eyes. He is all those layers peeled down to the heart of him, to the quick, to something that he has never been before. And this is the Baze Malbus that Chirrut sees. This is the moment that burns itself into his mind, that never fades, that lingers on the tip of his tongue for years to come like a word that can never be fully remembered, like something that can never be spoken.

Chirrut is thirteen and very young, but he loves this boy under the tree in a way that he doesn’t understand. It hits him like a foot to the chest in training, it knocks all the wind out of him like a fall he did not quite prepare for because he was laughing, it makes his head spin like dipping his fingers too far into the Force. He doesn’t understand it. He will not understand it for years to come.

(In truth, he will never quite understand it because those who think they can fully explain love know nothing. He will never quite understand, but he will always trust in it. The same way that he trusts in the Force, he will trust in it, because it surrounds him, and he can feel it. Even when his sight wanes, dims, disappears to leave him in a world of Force sense, he will know it. He will see it. And this memory, long distant, long over, never to be repeated because there is no longer a temple, no longer a garden, and this tree burned--he remembers it burning, remembers the tears in the thick of Baze’s voice when they found it and he howled like something very large wounded, something that would never be healed again--will always be there, will always be in his mind and before his eyes. His Baze, dirty, forgotten, harsh, covered in petals and looking up in awe. So very much a child for a moment. That boy who never learned to be one, who was never given the chance. Who seemed to have crawled out of a hole in Jedha with his fists clenched and blood on his face from the start. That boy not a boy never a boy, smiling.)

All of that is to come. All of that is the future, a future that tugs at his hand, fingers twined around his own, waiting to see if he will close them, if he will hold it or let it fall.

It is a hinge point. It is a crux. It is a marking.

May the Force of others be with you, it rises unbidden to the front of his mind.

There are many mantras in the temple. There are many lessons. There are the hard ones, the training, putting his body through form after form, getting faster, getting stronger so that even though he is lean, even though he is all arms and legs and skinny, he cannot be caught unless he wills it, can defend himself against anything, against everything. He might not win, but he can fight. His body is like kyber, hard and strong.

Chirrut likes the hard lessons; he likes the training. The Force is just a thing that is there for him. It has always been there, and he feels that it always will be, lurking, questing, bumping into his ankles in the middle of the night because something, something is happening somewhere and it needs to tell him. The Force is a lot like the younger initiates in this way only Chirrut cannot shoo it away when it gets too annoying. He has to listen to it and the way that it prattles. And if he talks a lot sometimes it is only because he is tired of listening always, wants someone else to listen for once, wants the sound of his voice, his own thoughts to be prevalent.

May the Force of others be with you is buoyant, a bouncing ball on the stone streets, falling but always rising again. It speaks less of the great universal power in everything and more of the way in which that energy manifests itself through others, through everyone, everything that lives. You are not alone in the Force, and the Force is not only in you, it preaches. Learn to see the Force in others, learn to see their beauty and their darkness and the way they fit into the pattern. Learn to look beyond yourself.

It is Chirrut’s favorite mantra, the one that spins from his lips when he has done something to displease the masters, when he is in trouble, when he is being, as they say, a child and not serious at all. He says it flippantly, lightly, as though the words are of no consequence at all, as though they are as weightless as his own great heart in his chest which fills and empties inside the cage of his body without him even considering that it happens. His heart is a truth. His heart is a constant. Like the Force.

(Baze Malbus is an undertow someone will warn him in two years when he is fifteen and pining painfully without realizing the truth behind the feeling. He will suck you down, he will drown you in the dark waters of himself without even realizing it. You will never rise again. Chirrut, you’re a bird, and you won’t survive that. You won’t swim to the surface. You’ll just sink with wet feathers, slip beneath the surface and no one will see you again.

There are birds that pluck fish from the water, Chirrut will answer, fifteen and head over heels and unable to listen to sensible suggestions. There are birds that swim. There are birds that rise again. I’m a bird, but I’m the Jedha bird.)

That, too, is part of that future in his hands, on the tips of his fingers, still not quite clenched, still not quite decided.

The Force of others.

Baze is still struck by the petals, standing still, eyes closed, flowers all over his face like he could just stay there forever, like he could turn into a tree himself and be happier with his life than he ever has been so far. In this moment, forgotten, peaceful, carved out of something that is not rock, that is not stone, that will not cut his hands to ribbons, that will not hurt like so much else has hurt in the past, like so much else that will hurt in the future. Baze is full size, not curled in on himself, not lurking, not hiding. The Force on him is bright, which he cannot see, cannot feel, cannot know, has never known really except that he is lucky. He is Baze, and he is lucky because no matter what happens, no matter how bad the situation, no matter how hurt, he always gets better. He always gets away before it gets worse. Luck is sometimes the Force in disguise. Luck can be how it bestows itself to those who do not have the eyes or the knowledge to know it for itself.

(I don’t need luck; I have you.)

Everyone’s Force is different. Different on everyone the way that ears are different and smiles. Unique and pleasant and wonderful to look for, wonderful to spot the subtle ways in which they are not the same. Chirrut learned that early on as a child with Force eyes, with Force sense, soft in it, surrounded by it. All he had to do was look or listen or feel. It was just. There. Always. Like his heart, like his feet, like his hands. Taken for granted and underappreciated.

There are flower petals falling, there is a soft breeze in Jedha, there is the sound of the city rising over the stone walls and the scent of jasmine heavy in the air, and it is serene. There is no drum. There is no avalanche. There is no fire. There is no heavy sea. There is nothing hard or harsh or broken in the moment. Just two boys, one lost in the first real softness he can remember, the other lost in watching him.

Their meeting is inevitable.

His hands clench and now everything is decided. “May the Force of others be with you.” Chirrut knows nothing else to say.

Baze curls inward, shoulders hunching reflexively, defensively, everything in his body tensing as he looks toward the sound. But there are flowers in his hair, stuck to the dirt on his face, trapped in his collarbones, and he does not look menacing. He looks frightened. He looks like everything he has been hiding.

Their meeting is soft.

[kitsune-sam]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus Characters: Baze Malbus, Chirrut Îmwe Additional Tags: baking and fluff, Spiritassassin Week 2017, Love Confessions Summary:

It's 2am. Finals are fast approaching. And Baze's brain won't shut off. Solution? Stress baking.

[rainbowstarbird]

Spiritassassin Week Day 1: First Impressions

When Chirrut overhears a younger initiate expounding on the virtues of Baze’s features, he reminds his friend that he has never seen his face. Baze corrects this immediately.

Words: 1379, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types

Rating: General Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: Gen, M/M

Characters: Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus

Relationships: Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus

Additional Tags: Pre-Slash, Pre-Canon, spiritassassin, Spiritassassin Week, 2017, Day One, First Impressions, Friendship, Flirting, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Chirrut “Seeing” Baze, Also Teasing Baze Mercilessly, They Don’t Know They’re Flirting Yet

[ao3feed-bazechirrut]

Lost in Translation

Read it on the Ao3 at: http://ift.tt/2q6Ujlh

by necromancy_enthusiast

Who said that English was the only human language that made it into space? Not Chirrut and Baze, that’s for sure, and they’re not above using this to their advantage in tight situations.

For spiritassassin week 2017

Words: 3143, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply

Categories: M/M

Characters: Chirrut Îmwe, Baze Malbus, Cassian Andor, Bodhi Rook, Jyn Erso, K-2SO (Star Wars)

Relationships: Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus

Additional Tags: Team as Family, Family Bonding, Chinese Language, Foreign Language, Bilingual Character(s), Space Mandarin, yeah that's a thing now, Outer Space, Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Minor Original Character(s)

[20thcenturyvole]

I did a Rogue One fic exchange!

I participated in @twentyeightghosts i don't need luck i have the 2017 spiritassassin fic exchange, and reveals go up today, so have some links!

What I got: A Place Between (1199 words, T) by Pisan_Zapra, in which Baze Malbus considers philosophy. I requested a look at daily life in Jedha pre-movie, and this has a neat, squalid, kinda Blade Runner-ish feel that I enjoyed.

What I wrote: A Pool Among the Rock (11028 words, T) for theplushiegirl, in which nobody likes shopping for the holidays and Chirrut wants to live beyond his means. I dodged having to spent a week on Wookiepedia by making a medieval fantasy AU, and then ended up agonising over the longest fic I’ve ever written. (Look, 11000 words is long for me.) Dragons! Witchcraft! Men at arms! Sheep! 

[threecrowsinatrenchcoat]

Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016) Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Chirrut Îmwe/Baze Malbus Characters: Baze Malbus, Chirrut Îmwe, Bodhi Rook, Lyra Erso Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, musician au, Fluff, Spiritassassin Week 2017, Single Parent Chirrut Series: Part 2 of Spiritassassin Week 2017 Summary:

Day 2: Alternate Universe

Guitar: check.

New apartment: check.

Cute neighbour: ... check.

[anagrammaddict]

About A Plant

Still chasing the prompts. ^.^ This one is dialogue-heavy.

For SpiritAssassin Week 2017, hosted by @fyeahspiritassassin Prompt is: confessions

Baze is a skilled fighter, fast and tenacious, but there are too many ravagers in the fray.

They knock away his knives and the pair of blasters he’d surreptitiously brought to the mission. The Temple Elders had sent him to bring resources to an outlier settlement that had been plagued by ravager raids, but instead, he’d run into the ravagers themselves.

One of the ravagers strikes the back of Baze’s head with the butt of a blaster rifle; another kicks his knees in, and the third smashes their boot into his jaw. Baze hawks out a gurgled stew of blood and curses.

“Throw him in with the other one. We’ll decide what to do with him later,” sneers the first ravager.

He’s hauled off to one of the crawler units in the middle of the ravagers’ caravan, the rustiest, dankest unit of all, smelling of piss.

“You’re in for a good time with your new cell-mate.” The guard at the doorway of the prison unit bares fangs at him. “Fuckin’ Force-botherer.”

They put restraints on his wrists and slam the door behind them. Light slants in from the barred skylight in the ceiling. The locks click and seal. They don’t sound too secure; if somehow he can free himself, he’ll be able to kick the door down and escape this shithole.

Baze’s eyes adjust to the rank gloom of the unit, and it is then that he realises that there’s someone shackled directly opposite him.

Wait. He knows that silhouette, that chuckle–

“Well,” says Chirrut, “Fancy seeing you here.”

“What,” says Baze, struggling (and somewhat failing) to draw a deep calm breath, “in the name of all things holy are you doing in here?”

“Waiting for you.”

“I will--ignore the implications of your last statement for awhile. I’m sure I’ll understand things better the longer I sit here in the dark listening to you.” Baze grits his teeth, tries to move his wrists within the cuffs. He’s still seeing the odd star from the blow to his head. “And how did you know I was going to wind up here in this cell? And no cheating answers!”

“I didn’t. But The Force did.”

“I said no cheating answers!”

“The Force,” says Chirrut calmly, “does not play by your rules. There are no cheats in the Force.”

“Chirrut.”

“Fine,” snaps Chirrut. “If you must know, I’m here because you owe me something.”

“I owe you something?” Baze raises an incredulous eyebrow. Good thing he’s all shackled up secure like this, or else he’d have leapt across the space between them and given that entitled bastard a good shaking.

“Yes. A confession.”

Baze breathes. “What do I have to tell you that I haven’t already told you? You know that I don’t keep secrets from you.”

“We’ll see.” Chirrut shifts in the dark. Baze can hear him moving his neck, straightening the cricks out of his bones. “In our shared quarters in the Temple, there is a single window. Do you remember what used to sit on the windowsill?”

Baze is really wondering if he’s indeed having this conversation. Sometimes talking to Chirrut can be such a surreal experience. Not always in a good way. “Yeah. I don’t know. Some old carvings from the souk. A plant.”

“That’s right. Think about the plant.”

“Still don’t where you’re going with this.”

“The plant.”

“I’m thinking of the plant, Chirrut.”

“What kind of plant is it?”

“Uneti seedling. Found it growing somewhere and put it in a pot and gave it to you.”

“Describe the plant to me. And just do it. Don’t ask why.”

Might as well play along. “It’s green. Ish. Long leaves. Actually no. It’s dead.”

“Ha!” Chirrut shouts, suddenly. “Have you got anything to confess?”

“About the plant,” says Baze, deadpanning.

“About the plant.”

Baze breathes deeply. His headache is getting worse. The smell of the place isn’t helping, and he’s really straining his eyes trying to see Chirrut’s expression, trying to see if Chirrut has been hurt by the ravagers.

“I killed it,” he says. “I spilled battery acid on it by accident.”

The unit begins to rumble as the engines start firing. The ravager caravan is on the move.

“Thank you,” Chirrut says. “For confessing.”

“That’s all you wanted to know.”

“It is.”

“Good,” says Baze. “Now. Would you please tell me why. The fuck you are locked up in this shithole cell? I thought you’d gone to visit the Cadera Monastery.”

“I was on my way there,” Chirrut answers. “But the Force pulled me off my path. I felt disinclined to go to the monastery. I just kept being bothered by something. Then I thought of you. Then I remembered something I wanted to ask you. So I went to find you out in the desert. I came across the ravagers and decided to wait with them until you arrived.”

Baze tries to process the nonsense of Chirrut’s story. He can’t quite manage it. But then again, this is Chirrut. The more he tries to explain something (and he does it in a way that makes his logic sound like the only obvious thing in the galaxy), the less sense it actually makes.

He will make a good candidate as future Venerable Master Guardian of the Temple.

“So the thing you wanted to ask me was about the plant.”

“It was,” Chirrut agrees. More silence. “Baze?”

“I’m here.”

“You’re hurt. I can hear your breathing. They hit you hard.” Chirrut’s voice goes tight. “They won’t get away with this.”

“And the ravagers didn’t hurt you?” says Baze.

“I didn’t fight them. While waiting for you, I thought I’d talk to them about the Force, and how we are all equal in it, and that there is purpose to be found if we sought it in the Force. Sadly, they were less than eager to listen.”

“So you went up to a bunch of bandits and started preaching at them. No wonder they called you a Force-botherer.”

“I was making small talk,” says Chirrut indignantly.

“Next time,” says Baze trying to be conciliatory, “next time you want to go out and preach the scriptures of the Whills around the desert, I’m coming with you.”

“Why?” Chirrut’s voice is suddenly sharp. “Why is it so important that you go where I go?”

“What d’you mean ‘why’? Why even ask such a stupid question?”

“Because apparently I am a stupid person and a fool,” snaps Chirrut. “So tell this fool why.”

“Because.” Baze is going to need a lot of air in his lungs for this. So he takes the deepest breath that he can, like he’s preparing to enter into a deep meditative state. Except he is nowhere close to meditating. Then the rant blows out of him. “Because I care. I care about you and what happens to you. Do you honestly think that I enjoy being such a nag? It goes against my very nature, and my god, Chirrut, sometimes I wish I can just abandon you to all the ravagers of the world. But I can’t. Because I can’t. So instead I wish a sinkhole will open at my feet and then I’d get flushed down and out through the asshole of the galaxy. I wish I’d get eaten by wolves because because because. Because you’re so fucking infuriating sometimes. You know why? Because! That’s why!”

“You can just say,” Chirrut’s voice is unperturbable. A serene note that somehow makes some of the anger leach out of Baze. “You can just say that you love me.”

“I love you,” says Baze. “And I always have. That’s why. Because I love you.”

The minutes inch past like flies. The ravager caravan must be crossing stony terrain, because the unit jerks and jolts and worsens Baze’s headache.

“Baze,” says Chirrut.

“Still here.”

“About that plant. I really liked that plant. I know you grew it specially for me in the back garden of the Temple. When it flowered you transferred it into a pot and gave it to me. You didn’t just find it. You grew it and tended to it.”

“It’s just a plant. I’ll grow you another. Takes a long time for the seed to germinate, but I’ll manage.”

“I am glad that you are here with me. And I love you too.”

The unit begins to slow down. The ravagers are stopping.

“I think,” says Chirrut, “that the Force is done with us being here. It’s time for us to go home.”

There is a clink of metal, the sound of unlocking. And then Chirrut shakes the restraints off his wrists and crosses the unit to where Baze is. He holds up a tiny device that looks like a many-pronged star. It’s an old unlocking gadget that is only ever handmade these days. An antique. But it will definitely be able to unfasten the cuffs.

“You had an escape means all this time,” says Baze in the deadest, flattest tone that he can muster.

“Surely you didn’t think that I wouldn’t have a backup plan.” Chirrut works the mechanism on Baze’s cuffs. They click open and Baze drops his arms to his side in relief, rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck.

“One day you’ll be the death of me. Mark my words.”

Chirrut kisses the chafed parts of Baze’s wrists. Wipes Baze’s face with his sleeve. “Until then, I’ll be your life.”

“Let’s go,” says Baze.

As the unit grinds to a halt, he kicks down the door and they burst out, the pair of them, into sunlight.

.

[emeraldembers]

Fic: Your Love Rubs Me Raw (Baze Malbus/Chirrut Imwe, NC17)

Title: Your Love Rubs Me Raw

Fandom: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

Pairing: Baze Malbus/Chirrut Imwe

Summary: A tale of young guardians making very little effort to keep their relationship a secret, a happy reunion, a good helping of hair adoration, and an even greater helping of laughter in the bedroom.

Author’s Notes: Written for the prompts “Awkward first time(s) (frottage and between the legs loving, or awkward blowjobs, anal not necessary)", "Young guardians trying to keep their relationship a secret and completely failing at it", and "Body Hair???? Just... general beard and hair appreciation? idk..." for Bjorncrantz in the 2017 spiritassassin fic exchange.

AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/10539981

* * *

Baze was coming home.

The Force was a home in and of itself, but Chirrut knew there were many different homes in his heart. The Force was home, the temple was home, but the home Chirrut loved best was the one formed wherever he and Baze walked together.

And two standard months without Baze had left Chirrut feeling decidedly homesick.

News of Baze's return reached Chirrut's ears long before Baze's footsteps, laughter spreading through the temple about how he had almost fully transformed into a wookie, and Chirrut burned with curiosity, wondering what his sighted friends meant.

He had suspicions, but life would have been easier if he could confirm them for himself without touching Baze's face in public.

Chirrut kept his arms firmly at his sides when he heard those beloved, familiar footsteps making their way across the courtyard towards him, but tilted his head up and grinned, needing to show his excitement somehow. Propriety and respect for Baze's sense of privacy had Chirrut well-practiced in keeping his hands to himself, but his fingertips still itched sometimes with the urge to reach out and explore, regardless of who else might see them.

"Did you have a safe trip?" Chirrut asked, patting the space beside him in hopes Baze would join him on the bench, and grinned wider when Baze did so, holding his hand for a few brief seconds, likely to avoid sitting on it.

Chirrut wouldn't have minded much if he had.

"So safe as to be almost boring," Baze said, nudging Chirrut's shoulder lightly with his own. "But I'm grateful for that." Baze was quiet for a moment, before correcting himself. "I will be grateful for that, eventually."

Chirrut let his grin slip, hoping it came across as a move of relaxation rather than disappointment. "Two months working on your eulogy, and I didn't get a chance to use it."

Baze snorted quietly. "You'll get your chance someday."

"Am I that lucky?" Chirrut asked, catching himself just before angling for a kiss, turning his head tilt into a solemn nod. "It would have made everyone cry."

"I don't doubt it," Baze said, scratching at either his beard or his scalp. "I should go shave this off before anything tries to nest in it."

"Don't!" Chirrut snapped, louder than intended, and he covered his mouth in apology. "I meant - I haven't seen you with a beard," he explained, straightening up a little and putting his hands back down. "It isn't fair if they have and I haven't."

Baze went quiet for a moment - holding his breath quiet - before laughing. "Shaving can wait. I'll see you after dinner?"

"Dinner and a sonic," Chirrut said, elbowing Baze in the side. "You smell like a bantha in heat."

"I'll try not to act like one," Baze teased, squeezing Chirrut's knee as he stood up, and leaving Chirrut a little light-headed thinking about the night ahead.

While it wasn't Chirrut's turn to do the dishes, he happily took over from an acolyte who had fallen sick, glad to make himself of use and to buy himself time to unwind after dinner.

Anticipation had made a mess of his first time with Baze - a fun mess, but a mess nonetheless - leaving him embarrassed when he came untouched while sucking Baze's cock, soaking the front of his pants and preventing Baze from returning the favour.

One happy side-effect of that embarrassment was how Chirrut had woken up the next day to a kiss on the forehead, and Baze pressing cloth into Chirrut's hands that turned out to be clean pants.

Chirrut knew in that instant that Baze Malbus was the man he would marry someday.

Even with the clatter of dishes and vague thoughts about someday proposing to Baze distracting him, Chirrut easily caught the soft padding of Baze's feet on the kitchen floor. Barefoot, from the sound of it, but still not enough to escape Chirrut's hearing.

"Someone's eager," Chirrut said, not bothering to turn from the sink as the sooner his work was finished, the sooner he could retire to Baze's room. Coarse hair and wet lips pressed a kiss to his neck, sending a shiver down his spine that rattled the dishes, and Baze laughed before wrapping his arms around Chirrut's waist, squeezing him none-too-gently. Baze smelled faintly of mouthwash and nothing else, having clearly taken Chirrut's suggestion of a sonic shower to heart.

"The sooner these are done," Chirrut muttered, leaving the sentence unfinished and allowing Baze to fill in the gap.

"The sooner I can throw you over my shoulder and carry you off to bed?" Baze asked, biting Chirrut's ear lightly before letting him go. "Let me dry these for you."

"If you insist." Chirrut shook the worst of the water off his hands in Baze's direction and laughed at his offended grunt, before opening the sink-side cupboard and feeling around for a dry towel. "Now you have an excuse for keeping me company."

Baze grunted again before the echoing whisper of flannel on ceramic signalled he had started drying the dishes. "I don't need an excuse," he said softly, and Chirrut nudged him in the side before resuming the washing up.

"I know."

Baze's need for privacy had nothing to do with shame. If Chirrut had ever suspected otherwise, they would still be friends, but not partners; Chirrut had spent too long learning to accept his disability to waste time on partners who felt shame on his behalf.

Baze's need for privacy had more to do with how difficult he found it to express his feelings. He would rather not speak of a subject at all than speak about it incorrectly, and others sometimes mistook his hesitance and quiet in public spaces for ignorance.

Intoxication had loosened his tongue once, and Chirrut had fond, if somewhat guilty memories of Baze sitting him down and lecturing him about love with the earnest conviction known best to very young children and very drunk adults.

 "People talk about love like fireworks, all spectacle and noise, but it's not. It's my best friend. It's knowing I can bear anything with you beside me. Laughing until we're sore, talking until we fall asleep. It's you, Chirrut."

Chirrut had waited until the morning after to say, "I love you too," finding the words easier to deliver alongside painkillers and a large glass of water.

After a brief spell in the refresher to clean his teeth, Chirrut made his way to Baze's room, waving aside apologies for the apparent mess in favour of locking the door and throwing himself into Baze's arms as soon as possible.

Chirrut had missed kissing him more than anything else, and while Baze's facial hair had texture he looked forward to investigating, it was enough for now just to have his lips on Baze's again.

That first kiss was the longest, broken only when Chirrut stopped to laugh and rest his forehead against Baze's nose.

"I missed you," Chirrut said, smiling as he reached to stroke his fingertips over Baze's jaw, his chin, the space under his nose. Baze's facial hair had grown in thick and even, and was much more pleasant to touch than Chirrut had expected. He and Baze were both careful about maintaining the temple's standards when it came to personal hygiene, and as such he had felt at most a day, perhaps two days' worth of stubble on Baze's chin before.

Baze's beard felt less like the spikes of day-old stubble and more like the thick, soft hairs found trailing down his stomach, and the comparison only made Chirrut smile wider. "A shame I can't get used to this."

"You should be thankful," Baze said, leaning in for a quick kiss while his hands worked on the ties of Chirrut's robes. "I've already scratched your chin red. A few days of this and people might think you infected."

"Infected with love for you?" Chirrut sing-songed, loving Baze's laughter in response, and eagerly fumbling with Baze's own robes, though their folds were somewhat less familiar. Thankfully, travelling gear was designed for simplicity, not presentation, and a lack of familiarity did not cost Chirrut much time in getting his hands to where he wanted them, the broad planes of Baze's chest and shoulders, thinned little by weeks of travel.

"An incurable affliction, I hope," Baze said, dropping his arms to his sides so that his robes could fall from them, and helping Chirrut do the same.

Jedha was a cold planet, but Baze and Chirrut both ran warm enough to make up for it.

"How do you want me?" Chirrut asked, tucking his fingers into Baze's waistband. "I assume you missed me too."

Baze's hands linked behind Chirrut's neck, and Chirrut leaned back into them, closing his eyes.

"I've missed every inch of you," Baze said, pressing a kiss to Chirrut's forehead, his nose, his lips again. "But especially your mouth. And I hope you've missed mine."

Chirrut shivered and nodded, pulling away only to take one of Baze's hands in his own and lead him over to the bed. Choosing a position wasn't difficult; Baze's bed was an ideal height for this particular activity, and Chirrut sat down happily, guiding Baze to stand before him.

Chirrut stroked Baze's flanks idly for a moment to help slow his breathing, only pulling his pants down once he felt sure Baze had settled. He knew so many ways to make Baze come quickly, so many of Baze's weaknesses and sweet spots, but it seemed a shame to rush any part of their reunion; Chirrut stroked the lines of his hip bones, the soft, almost hairless skin on his inner thighs where friction had rubbed them bare, leaving Baze's cock for last and flattered when he found it hard.

"You did miss me," Chirrut teased before leaning in and taking as much as he could in his mouth, running his tongue over everything he could reach to wet it, pulling back only when he started to drool.

Baze had gone quiet again, thoughtful, and Chirrut smiled as he started stroking Baze's cock, twisting gently over the head every few strokes. It didn't seem right to prompt Baze for more words; it was enough to hold him, to feel the slow, careful thrusts into his hand. It was enough to take care of Baze, and to be taken care of in return.

When he leaned in again, it was to take time exploring Baze's cock with his tongue, gripping it firmly in one hand while bracing the other on Baze's hip. He didn't want to lose track of his progress as he learned Baze's textures and tastes all over again, determined never to forget them.

Baze's breathing stuttered when Chirrut carefully, gently licked along his foreskin, taking advantage of how clean the sonic shower had left him, and a hand grabbed Chirrut's shoulder, signalled for Chirrut to pull back and give Baze a moment's rest.

"You can come in my mouth," Chirrut said, returning both hands to Baze's hips and squeezing them in reassurance.

"Please," Baze said, and Chirrut nodded before grasping Baze's cock once more, trailing his fingers down its length to tickle at his balls, then taking the head of Baze's cock in his mouth and sucking hard until Baze pulsed wet and hot across the back of his tongue and down his throat.

Swallowing was easy. He'd never disliked Baze's taste.

Baze dropped to his knees afterwards, warm, rough hands drawing Chirrut into a kiss, and Chirrut laughed when Baze started kissing down his neck, his chest, the soft scratch of his beard ticklish on Chirrut's skin.

"Oh no," Chirrut said, gesturing widely at what certainly felt like newly reddened skin. "My mysterious rash has worsened. Whatever will I do?"

His playfulness was rewarded with Baze laughing against his stomach before blowing raspberries on it until Chirrut was squirming helplessly, backing up on the bed to escape. It didn't work for long; Baze wrestled Chirrut onto his back and pinned him down for more raspberries, sloppy and wet all over his chest and stomach until Chirrut was gasping for air and weak from laughter, shaking with it by the time Baze finally relented in favour of a long, lazy kiss.

"I missed your laugh," Baze said, nuzzling Chirrut's nose with his own while slipping a hand inside Chirrut's pants, gripping him tight and reminding Chirrut why his own had made a poor substitute during Baze's travels. Nothing could compare favourably to having Baze's hand on him, Baze's breath hot on his skin, Baze so focused on him Chirrut could feel it, even without his sight.

Chirrut shoved down his pants, kicking them off the bed and thrilled when he found Baze's legs equally bare, wondering only briefly when Baze had finished stripping.

"Baze?"

"Mm?"

"If you want to suck my cock, you had better do it soon," Chirrut said, not sure if he meant to be scolding or apologetic, and even less sure how his tone came across. "I don't have much patience left in me."

Baze stilled his hand, pressed an off-kilter kiss to the side of Chirrut's mouth before shifting down the bed and deliberately rubbing his jaw up and down Chirrut's inner thighs. As ticklish as Baze's beard had been on Chirrut's stomach, it was outright blissful between his legs, making already sensitive skin burn for more contact in the best of ways, and doing little to help Chirrut's efforts not to come.

"Baze," Chirrut warned, getting a quiet huff of laughter in response before Baze's lips were on his balls, kissing them gently and making Chirrut whine, unable to be anything but bratty in response to that kind of teasing. "Baze, I swear -"

Chirrut couldn't finish the thought with Baze's mouth wrapped around the head of his cock. It was almost too much to bear, all of his focus suddenly on that one point of contact, his heart pounding loud enough to muffle all other sounds in the room.

Chirrut reached with shaking hands for Baze, losing himself in the additional sensations of Baze's hair, grown soft and thick across his scalp, rough across his jaw, and barely any on his hollowed cheeks.

The thought of why they were hollowed made Chirrut buck up involuntarily, though Baze's hands were firm enough to keep him pinned down, keep him from choking Baze by accident.

"That's so good, that's so good," he murmured, running his fingers through Baze's hair both as thanks and to enjoy the unfamiliar but wonderful texture of it. "If I ever meet the master who insisted on shaved heads, I'll -"

Baze's tongue pressed flat against his slit interrupted that thought too, Chirrut arching up harder this time and Baze letting him, all the heat that had pooled in his stomach finding release as he came in Baze's mouth.

"I wish you didn't have to shave," Chirrut said, moving one hand so he could trace his fingers over Baze's dampened beard and moustache. "You suit this."

"I think it suits you more," Baze teased, voice a little rough, and Chirrut bit his lip at the thought he was responsible for that roughness. "Are you staying tonight?"

"Are you letting me?" Chirrut asked, stomach twisting until he felt Baze nod. "And the gossips?"

"Let them talk," Baze said, dragging his blankets out from under Chirrut to make use of them; their combined body heat made a decent defence against Jedha's cold, but the blankets turned a bearable temperature into something comfortable.

After a few moments of shifting about, grumbling about who was taking up too much of the blanket and who was trying to shove the other off the bed, they settled on sleeping back to back, maximising both skin contact and freedom of movement, with Chirrut facing the bedroom door. That much was only fair - a lack of visual context for night had left Chirrut plagued by occasional attacks of insomnia, and if he needed a midnight walk to settle himself, he didn't want to have to wake Baze in the process by climbing over him.

"Baze?" Chirrut asked after a moment of listening to his breathing, determining whether he was still awake.

"Yes?"

"If either of us wakes early tomorrow, do you think we could fit in another round before you shave?"

Baze laughed, reached behind himself to pat Chirrut lightly on the hip. "If we wake up early."

Chirrut thought about adding, you just gave me reason to, but kept the words on the tip of his tongue. Baze had more than earned the last word in their conversation.

He could steal it back in the morning.

[anagrammaddict]

Help a blind man cross the road

I’m a day late with this but here we go:

For  SpiritAssassin Week 2017. Day one. Prompt is: first impressions

There is a blind uncle at the edge of Vatta Street. Not ten paces from where Baze is sitting on the footpath, chewing on melon seeds.

The man is old and hunched, a warped staff in his hand. He’s wearing dark-tinted optic lenses and black robes, his face hidden by a large hood. Either a holy man or a beggar, and there are plenty of both here on Vatta Street.

Baze looks away, disinterested. They all flock to this part of the city: the blind, the deaf, the ones who’ve lost limbs, or the ones afflicted with episodes of holy paroxysms. Nothing to do with him.

“Hey, you!”

Baze’s head snaps up in attention. The blind man hasn’t moved, or turned his head to face him. Nearby, there is a small group of chattering devotees in veils, coming from the nearby Temple, having finished their midday prayers. A protocol droid with the ends of loose wiring peeping out from behind the plates of its external covering. None of them look like they had just addressed him.

“Yes, you! The good-for-nothing taking up the whole footpath! Do they not teach you manners at school?”

It’s definitely the blind man.

“You talking to me, uncle?” Baze says.

“Slow-witted as well as ill-mannered!” The blind man taps his crooked staff on the ground impatiently. His voice is croaky and strained, as though he’s speaking from the depths of his throat. “I asked you, what did they teach you at school?”

Baze curses inwardly. Just his luck to have some grumpy blind condescending uncle strike up convo with him.

“I don’t go to school anymore,” he growls. He lights a clove cigarette, the last of his stash.

The blind man has now turned his head slightly toward him. Most of his face is hidden by the shadowy cowl of his robes, but his optic lenses are round black holes eyeballing Baze. “But you used to. Didn’t you learn any basic Moral Studies at school? Or has the Jedhan education system gone down the drain? That most certainly explains why the youth of today are such a worthless lot.”

The old aphorisms of long-forgotten Moral Studies classes seep back into Baze’s thoughts. Some generic, some ridiculously specific.

Be considerate. Be responsible. Be hardworking. Respect your elders. Plant trees in barren spaces. When you see a blind man, offer him help to cross the street.

“You can cross the street by yourself, uncle,” says Baze. “There’s no traffic.”

“Insolent!” cries the blind man in outrage. He strikes the ground harder with his staff. “You will not help an old man who is in need?”

“Vehicles are not allowed on Vatta Street! It's pedestrian-only!” Baze yells back. “You’re not going to get run over by anything!”

The blind man purses his mouth into a thin angry line. He raises his staff and begins to shout. “Thus I have heard that this world will be ended not because of any cosmic disaster, but from the collapse of modern society. And a most disturbing symptom of this impending collapse is how apathetic and uncharitable and discourteous our youth have grown!”

The uncle has started preaching. Passers-by have begun to stop and listen to the blind man’s street sermon.

“Have none of you heard of the fable of the blind man and the arrogant wealthy son of the bantha farmer?” He lifts an accusing finger at points it straight at Baze.

This is far more attention than Baze likes.

“Okay, okay!” He jumps to his feet, upending his pouch and scattering melon seeds. He grinds his unfinished cigarette with his heel. “I’ll help you cross!”

An old woman hisses at him as he passes. “No shame! Won’t even help that poor blind man.”

“After I help that uncle, I'm going to come back and carry you on my back, grandma,” Baze says threateningly.

He takes the blind uncle’s elbow.

“At last,” says the blind man, and Baze starts.

The blind uncle is not an uncle at all. In fact, he looks younger than Baze. And he’s smiling. It’s a nice smile, dimpled at the edges, and there’s a genuine pleasance to it.

He would appreciate this smile a bit more, if he weren't feeling so aggrieved.

“You--!” Baze splutters.

In response, the other boy raps his instep with his staff and Baze curses in pain. “Come on, come on. I want to get to the other side. What’s the hold-up?”

People are still watching from the footpaths, so Baze takes a deep breath and guides the blind boy across Vatta Street. Which is completely empty of any vehicle, speeder, or cart, by the way.

“That wasn’t so hard, was it?” says the blind boy. His optic lenses glint enigmatically at Baze.

“Why are you pretending to be some old uncle? Spouting shit about the ‘youth of today?’”

“The soul needs to be constantly nourished by acts of compassion and goodness. I am helping you fulfil your spiritual quota for the sake of your soul.”

“My soul was getting along fine without you,” snaps Baze.

“Then yours is but a pitiful and undernourished soul,” says the blind boy. He straightens the false hunch out of his shoulders and pushes the hood off. Then he thrusts his staff into Baze’s hands. “Hold this.”

The staff is smooth and polished. Heavy. Good for breaking bones, Baze thinks, vaguely.

This stranger is in the garb of the Guardians. Not a beggar after all.

He takes a handkerchief out and blows his nose, loud and trumpeting. Baze winces. He’d always thought of the Guardians as a dignified, intimidating lot with graceful but brutal fighting skills. He’d seen them take out robbers and armed gangs preying on pilgrims with ease.

“I’m allergic to sand,” says the boy. He balls up the handkerchief. Gestures to Baze to move aside.

Perplexed, Baze steps to his left. The blind boy tosses the snotty balled-up handkerchief forwards and it lands in a discarded basket by a rubbish heap, a good distance away.

“How did you do that?” Baze says. His eyes narrow. “Are you even blind?”

He starts forward and pulls off the boy’s optic lenses.

“Oh.”

Pale, milky eyes stare back at him. The blind boy smiles and holds his hand out for his staff.

“So, where’s the nearest cantina?” he says.

“What? Aren't you a Guardian of the Whills?”

He lifts his staff and uses it to point at Baze’s pockets. “You’ve got credits in there. And I’m thirsty.”

Baze is speechless for a moment. Then: “You want me to buy you a drink? I don’t even know who you are!”

The blind boy begins walking away. “Don’t you want to find out, then? Come on, humour a blind person, will you?”

Baze looks around. Vatta Street is quiet, the crowds dispersed, and his melon seeds are all gone, trampled into the dirt by the passers-by. Hell, even his last cigarette is gone. Nothing to do. Oh, well. He runs after the blind boy.

Buy a blind kid a drink. Huh.

He definitely did not learn this at any Moral Studies class.

[anagrammaddict]

The Greatest Show

Wow, I am really running behind on the prompts lol. Wrote this one ine a hurry, so it’s a bit abrupt.

For SpiritAssassin Week 2017 by @fyeahspiritassassin. Day 2. Prompt is: AU

The visitors to the Circus Kyberus arrive long before the show starts. Their ships rumble into the  Circus’s vast docking port, attendants waving fluorescent batons at the guests and directing them along the prismatic passageways, to the central auditorium at the heart of the massive starship.

Come and catch the Greatest Show in Space: that’s what they call the Circus Kyberus, the best galactic entertainment there is -  witness daredevil acts and simply stellar performances, excuse the pun (poor advertising from Ringmaster Chirrut Imwe).

But the lights and the glam and the death-defying acts have all but lost their novelty for the star of the show: the High Voltage Acrobat, Baze ‘Blaze’ Malbus.

He’s been here fifteen years; he’s seen the lot; he knows the tricks even though the other circus folk guard their secrets jealously. But after awhile, one trick is the same as the next, anyway. He’s seen the supersonic chariots, the strong man(droid) performances, the laser pyrotechnics, the electrothaumaturges, the rocket booster trapeze, the trained troupes of giant sklatha salamanders, extinct everywhere else in all the charted systems of the universe, except here in this galactic freakshow.

God, if there’s such a being at all, knows why he even stays. Actually, God just might be the biggest, most grandiose circus act of all.

“And now!” a voice booms from the arena. It’s Ringmaster, in his usual brilliant scarlet overcoat with a trailing bridal train and an equally scarlet top hat. He cracks his whip and sparks fly, rising in a hissing cloud to temporarily engulf him, and the audience cheers. “The star of our show, the one and only High Voltage Acrobat in the entirety of the universe, ‘Blaze’ Malbus!”

The crowd howls and stamps.

The cube-shaped electrical grid that had been assembled quietly during intermission now lights up. Brilliant blinding blue. The crystal shaped spotlights swerve around to direct the full intensity of their beams upon the vast and non-symmetrical lattice, which crackles with electricity. Techno music pounds from hidden speakers, bass rhythms amplified by the arena’s subwoofer network, so it feels like the whole starship is pulsing, a gigantic metallic heart in the vacuum of space.

Baze mounts the platform at the top. Notes the positions of the insulated handholds, the mid-air micro-coordinates where he’ll have to twist his body and avoid the wavy parallel rails. Sets a rhythm deep within his body.

But even this is dull for him. Fifteen years of this crap. He’s old. He ought to retire. Maybe go to this faraway idyll called Earth, the native world of coffee and adorable alien feline creatures known as cats.

He glances down, way down past the bottom transmission bars to where Ringmaster is standing, fire-whip still cracking up a frenzy. If he’s not careful, he’s going to set himself on fire again. And then Baze will have to stop his act and douse him with a canister of coolant. Not for the first time either.

As if sensing Baze looking down at him, Ringmaster turns his face upwards. White-blue unseeing eyes, their colour and their blindness magnified by optic irradiator implants, catch his stare. Ringmaster smiles a lazy toothed smile at him. Baze can see the indents of his dimples from high up here.

For a moment, he pauses, disoriented by the recent memory of Ringmaster in his arms, of that smug smile wiped off his face, replaced by the openness of his mouth, slack, moaning, spit curling out of the corner of his lips as Baze fucked him against the walls of his own quarters.

No, he has to concentrate. Or he’ll fry himself pretty in this grid.

He closes his eyes, tries to find that point of calm deep within.

Then he leaps off the platform, calculating all the way, every nano-second of his freefall. Fizzing strings of electricity leap off the bars and try to attach themselves to his skintight conductive suit, try to connect into the circuit of his own flesh and blood, and the electrical impulses of his own heart. Lightning pursues his trajectory through the grid. The crystal-spotlights start strobing in technicolour. It makes for a spectacular display and the crowd grows more feral with the applause and cheering.

Personally, Baze thinks that some of them would just  love  to see him slip, see what happens, never seen a man fry on electricity before.

He makes a grab for the handhold and his aim is true. Then he undoes the hasp of the swing, calculates, concentrates - and swings across the grid, spinning, eeling, until he gets to the next handhold.

Then he finishes his whole circuit, spends all his moves. It’s banal like that.

He starts to descend, when a tremendous crack comes from below.

Ringmaster has held up his hand for silence from the crowd. Baze stops and stares. Now what?

“You have all seen the magnificent Blaze! Now for the next part of his act…”

The  what  part of  what  act? No, no, fuck this shit, his act is over. What is Chirrut up to?

“..I, your humble Ringmaster and host for tonight, will now ascend to the platform and enter the grid…”

“You will not!” Baze thunders from where he’s standing. But nobody hears him.

“...and I will leap off, without a safety harness or a protective suit…”

“And fall to your death! And then I’ll have to extract your sizzling, charred meat off the rails.”

“..and our one and only High Voltage Acrobat, Blaze Malbus, will catch me…”

“What if I don’t?” Baze shouts, only to be ignored.

“...or maybe he won’t…”

The crowd howls louder than ever. It sounds like they’re baying for blood. Wishing the excitement of mishap upon the performers.

“...and if he doesn’t catch me, then well, let me thank you all for being here with us. You’ve been an exceptional crowd and I am truly honoured to have been your host for tonight.”

With that, Ringmaster sheds off that six-foot bridal train of his robes, and his scarlet overcoat and top hat, wearing only a shirt and red harem pants. He scales the ladder easily to the platform opposite Baze, on the other side of the grid.

He smiles at Baze. “I’m ready when you are.”

“Chirrut, this isn’t in the script.”

“Well, this is an unscripted performance.”

“I’m not doing it.”

“We are already in the middle of the performance, whether you like it or not. Besides, what have you got to fear? You’re going to catch me, aren’t you?”

“You,” growls Baze, “have far too much faith in me.”

Chirrut spreads his arms, tilts his blind gaze to the ceiling. “And  you need to have some faith in me. You need to have some faith in the fact that I have faith in the fact that you are going to catch me, no matter what.”

“I think if your brains get fried on the grid, it’s not going to affect your twisted sense of logic.”

Chirrut laughs. Then he straightens all the mirth out of his face and looks directly at Baze. When he speaks, there is iron in his syllables. “Catch. Me.”

Ringmaster steps off the platform. He hurtles downward, straight as a calm arrow, electricity fizzing in his wake, but never seeming to touch him.

Baze forgets to calculate. He leaps off without thinking, seizes the swing and arcs downward, a hand outstretched, sweeping through the charged air, to lock around Chirrut’s elbow. He hears Chirrut gasp as Baze nearly wrenches his arm loose of his socket, and then twists them safely around to a lower platform.

The audience nearly erupts.

Later, once the show is over, and Baze goes to Chirrut’s quarters.

“Right,” says Baze. “I quit. I’m leaving.”

“Think before you do anything,” Chirrut cautions.

“Says the Ringmaster who jumped off the platform straight into waiting death.  Why would you do something so stupid as that? Don’t you know the risks?”

Chirrut is carefully storing away his ringmaster jewelry and overcoat. “Don’t you feel different?”

“Feel what?” Baze growls.

“All this time. All these years you’ve been working here. You’ve been here far longer than I have. I know your discontent. Boredom. You’re bored with the whole act. Everything is just one shiny routine to you. So why not change things up a little? Spontaneity is the salt of life, they say.”

Baze takes a deep breath. “Just because I’m bored or discontented doesn’t mean I want you to risk  any  part of yourself for me. I can’t - I don’t know what I’d do if - if -”

He trails off.

Chirrut doesn’t say anything for a moment. Then: “I’m sorry.”

Baze is incredulous. “Did you just - say you’re sorry? That’s a first.”

“I’m sorry to have caused you much distress.” Chirrut looks thoughtful. “Though all that distress is unnecessary, if only you’d believed in the both of us a bit more.”

“I knew that apology wasn’t going to last long.”

Chirrut puts his arms around him from behind, kneads the muscles of his shoulder. “Please don’t go, Baze Malbus.”

“Say that again,” says Baze roughly.

“Please.” Chirrut unbuttons Baze’s shirt.

“Again.”

“Please. Stay.” Chirrut’s mouth presses kisses on the nape of his neck, stutters a line along his bare shoulders. "With me."

“I’ll think about it,” says Baze. Then he turns to face Chirrut and kisses him, a deep bruise of a kiss.

***

Later, Baze sits up in Chirrut’s bed. Chirrut is asleep, his body flushed and bare, his sleep unbroken and rhythmic.

Baze thinks of another show he’ll have to do the next night. And the night after that. And after.

He thinks of anchoring himself to some planet, preferably one with an ocean (that Earth place sounds so good in all the ads), where he can learn how to surf. How to fish. How to look at the stars and all the universe from a fixed point, instead of constantly swinging through space in some big flamboyant circus starship.

But then again, he’s already got his fixed point, his anchor.

He gets up from bed and gets himself a glass of water. But he stays.

[anagrammaddict]

Oblivion

I am so tired o.O

I have gone back to lesbian spiritassassin this time. ^.^

For SpiritAssassin Week 2017, hosted by @fyeahspiritassassin Prompt 3: hurt/comfort

Baze doesn’t remember exactly what happened on the day of Zhongqiujie. The festival is a fractured mirror in her head, shards of consciousness coming together at all the wrong angles and it’s messy, there’s fire, houses in flames, houses in great blooming sunflowers of fire.

Like the flowers in the greenhouse that her family used to grow. The greenhouse is gone.

Half the street levelled by a series of grenades to incinerate the insurgents, never mind the civilians, never mind Baze’s family that she abandoned anyway, all those years ago when she left to join the Guardians.

Stupid stupid girl, her auntie would say. Too late. Far too late.

Her mothers would be kinder, softer, have more indulgent words for Baze - if they weren’t already dead. No sign of either of them.

Baze runs through the shelled street, eviscerated buildings with their crumbled innards spilling around them. She scrapes through debris laden with body parts, limbs both flesh and cybernetic, pulling off slabs of shrapnel-embedded rock until her hands are red with blood and her eyes raw with sand.

Good. The blood and the sand are cleansing.

She passes snapped strings of lanterns on the ground, most of them shredded. The sanctification prayers written on their insides mean nothing. Lanterns everywhere, remnants of them, fluttering dirt red and dirt yellow on the ground, on the rubble piles, like ripped flags.

That’s how she knows it’s Zhongqiujie today.

***

Baze storms into a tea house where there’s a trio of off-duty Imperials drinking what they call desert piss-tea and she doesn’t know what she’s doing. The rage that impels her is a live, vicious force and it snaps her hands and feet into savage motion, wrings curses out of her tongue as she upends the Imperials’ table. They draw their blasters but she’s quicker than that. She dodges and kicks, disarms one of them and seizes his blaster, blows a smouldering crater into another. As for the last Imperial, once she slams his face into the wall, she takes his head in the lethal cradle of her hands and snaps his neck. She is strong enough for that.

She looks at the carnage around her and does not understand. Somehow, vaguely, the thought occurs to her that she’ll understand less and less each passing day.

***

The patrol finally comes for her. Six troopers surround her as she crouches behind a low wall, as blaster fire decimates that remaining barrier.

She bites her knuckles until her teeth puncture skin, spits on both her palms, takes handfuls of sand and rubs the spit-moistened granules on her filthy scalp. She doesn’t pray. She’s forgotten all the chants of strength, all the inward journeys of peace, the supplications for specific times of need. She forgets the Temple and the Guardians and the family that she abandoned and the gutted city around her.

All she’s aware of is that she’s a body strung into being and movement and mad purpose by the live wires of her veins, by the toxic fuel of her blood.

That’s all Baze has been for weeks, prowling the wrecked areas of the city alone.

She leaps out from behind the wall, rolls on the ground, firing the last of her ammo at the troopers. Two go down. Then she gets shot in the leg and fire sears her hip and she can’t get up and she knows she’s done for.

Except.

Except there is a sudden swish and a whirl of movement as somebody lands before her, shielding her from the remaining troopers. Black and red. A staff. A voice whose familiarity pulls her out of the sunken chambers of her mind.

There is a brief scuffle. It doesn’t last long.

The person kneels before her, and Baze knows that face, the downturned mouth and the creases knifed into her forehead. The span of her hands on Baze’s cheek. The slow thumb moving along the route of Baze’s cheekbone. The eyes that do not see.

“I’ve found you at last,” says Chirrut.

***

Chirrut carries her home. Home to the attic room on the roof of a squat block of apartments where they had both been staying at before Baze ran off.

Chirrut peels off Baze’s clothes, disinfects and bandages her wounds. Then she cleans Baze, cleans all the filth out of her skin, washes her scalp and her growing, unkempt hair, combs it, twists it into braids. Chirrut boils rice water for Baze and feeds her, spoonful by spoonful.

Baze opens her mouth and fumbles for words. It’s like waking out of a dark, overwhelming slumber.

“Don’t speak,” says Chirrut. “And I won’t either. There’s no need to say anything. I’ve found you, and that’s all that matters.”

There is no banter between them, none of the usual laughter. It’s okay, though, Baze is thankful.

***

They don’t leave their attic lodgings for awhile. For many days, they lie on their shared mattress, listening to broadcasts on pirate frequencies, using a holopad salvaged from the Temple. Chirrut gets up to recite her prayers, to meditate, to change Baze’s bandages. Her daily routines in their limited space quietly, carefully orbit Baze.‘s needs

Baze sits up one day. Her body aches dully, but the pain makes her want to laugh.

“Chirrut,” she says.

“Yes, my love?”

“My family are gone.”

“I know.” Chirrut’s large pale eyes are sad. “I went looking for you as soon as I heard.”

“How long was I gone for?”

“Three weeks.”

“When I was out there in the city, I lost all sense of time. And any measure of control. I forgot everything. Everyone.” Guilt slithers its way through her thoughts. “You were worried.”

“I was. But it is of no consequence now. As I told you, all that matters is that I’ve brought you home.”

Baze closes her eyes, basking in the gentle confidence of Chirrut’s words. Chirrut kisses her eyelids, both of them.

She reaches for Baze’s hand and kisses Baze’s fingertips, one by one, and then presses her lips to Baze’s knuckles. “I’m here for you. As I promised to be, when I took you to be my wife all those years ago.”

The edges of her mouth diffuse into a smile. She rises to her feet but Baze doesn’t let go of Chirrut’s wrist.

“I’ve got to boil the porridge, if we plan to have a meal sometime today.”

“The porridge can wait,” says Baze. She traces circles on the insides of Chirrut’s wrist. “Stay in bed with me for awhile.”

And Chirrut does.

Outside, the city carries on. They won’t see much of it for the next few days.

[sarkastically]

Something That Lasts

Spiritassassin Week 2017, Prompt 7: Celebrations

(Slightly nsfw, some mild self-esteem issues. Also this probably only counts for the prompt if you squint. Mostly this fic is a Hot Mess much like Baze himself.)

There are lights on the water, a soft, barely there glow that still manages to make it look like the heavens have been tossed out onto the pools tucked deep beneath the surface. The kyber caves are a strange place, heady and intoxicating, thick with Force sense that can be as cloying as walking through incense clouds in the temple on holy days, and always humming. The caves are never quiet because of the kyber there, the way it sings and sighs and murmurs, a constant susurration that has been known to drive some sentients mad because they cannot decipher what is being said and has resulted in many more accidentally drowning as people chase the words, the voices into the deep pools that linger inside the caves, water deathly cold and inky black and deeper than anyone knows, as deep as the mystery of the Force itself. Some of the initiates are intimidated by the caves and the kyber and the still waters that never seem to move even when someone dips fingers or toes in, the waters just seem to part, sliding around the object but not creating waves, not undulating. Baze has always found the caves to be beautiful. He has always enjoyed stealing down into their depths whenever he can to just sit and watch the lights on the water, the reflection of the constant glow that comes from both the kyber and the equally luminescent kyber worms that make their homes in the caves. Everything here is silent and still and slow. It helps him think. It helps him relax and find himself, sort through all the clamor of the day and locate his own heartbeat, settle his own breathing, drift among his thoughts and return.

Chirrut chides him that he gives too much of himself away, stretches himself thin like a garment worn until it becomes soft to the touch but ready to rend apart at any moment. “Will you rend me then?” Baze had teased because worry on Chirrut was strange and he didn’t wish to see it, didn’t want himself to be the reason for the furrows on his brow. Be light, stay light, stay exactly as you are and do not let the chains of me wear you down. I can carry those myself. I can carry them always and yours as well if you let me. If you only let me. I’ll carry the chains, and you carry the lightness.

__

“Why do you love him?” one of Baze’s friends had asked with a sniff as though they could find no reason it in, no sense at all, as though the very thought was foreign and strange and disdainful.

Baze had followed their gaze out to the courtyard where Chirrut was, twirling his staff in the air with one hand while performing various kicks and jumps all to the delight of a group of younger initiates who kept laughing and shouting out suggestions of what he should do next, and just felt like his heart had melted right out of his body, that joy was weeping from his pores the same way that a workout would call forth sweat. Chirrut laughing, dropping the staff to fall into a tumble and then springing up again, hopping from hand to hand while the group of children cheered and giggled and loved every single moment of it. “How can I not?” He answered. A question for a question.

It made his friend sigh in frustration and push away from the table. “That’s not an answer, Malbus. He’s a nuisance, he’s a menace, he’s a clown.” The meaning behind the accusations, which were all true but not the entire truth of the matter, never the entire truth of Chirrut, was plain, was obvious. You are so much more than him. He does not deserve you. He is a fool. He is not worthy.

And Baze ever cognizant of meanings, always good at reading and understanding words even if he couldn’t always make them work for him, looked up at his friend with stormy eyes and a hard mouth, with set shoulders, became a stone in front of their eyes instead of his normal soft heart and said, “No one can judge the worth of another. You should remember that. All is as the Force wills it, yes?”

“And the Force willed you to love Imwe?” Their tone was suddenly bitter, harsh and wounded at the reprimand even if it was small, even when they had deserved something much more strident, though Baze, as always, had held back in an attempt not to hurt their feelings.“I think you can’t answer me because you don’t know. You don’t know, and you don’t want to say it because then you’ll be forced to admit that it’s just lust over his stupidly perfect body and that dumb toothy smile and then it won’t have been the Force at all. It will just have been your prick. Which is making a terrible decision. He will hold you back. He will stop you from being what you could.” Then they had whirled on their heel and stomped away, robes swishing violently against the ground with the quickness of their stride.

He watched the robes for a moment before pitching his voice up, almost to a shout, to say, “Or he will make me better than I ever could have been on my own.”

There was the smallest jerk in the set of his friend’s shoulders as though they were considering coming back to continue the argument, but then they must have thought better of it and hurried away. It was the last day they were friends. Not through any choice of Baze’s but because his friend avoided eye contact, walked off when he tried to speak, avoided him so entirely that it seemed like they had simply left the temple. It should have hurt more than it did, but while he could forgive the things that they had said about Chirrut, he couldn’t forget them. Those words would have always cast a pall over their interactions, they would have risen from the depths of his mind any time they spoke, coloring everything they said, making him doubt them. A failure of his own character to be sure, but still a truth that he could not get away from.

“Jealous,” Chirrut had said when Baze told him about the interaction a week after it occurred. It had taken him that long to wear Baze down, to convince him to talk about it instead of holding it inside the way he held everything too close to his heart, too deep inside his mind, cupped in his great hands, leaching into his skin until it was indiscernible from the cells of his own body. Chirrut, sitting behind him, kneading great knots out of his shoulders and neck and back because Baze had made a fortress of his body and then filled it with everything in the whole universe.

(“The Force did not make you strong for this,” Chirrut said the first time he did it, his hands smoothing down the length of Baze’s back, gentle, soft, getting a feel for where things were hidden, which old pain to start with and how all of them were intrinsically linked, the path his caresses would need to follow. “The Force did not make you for this,” he had said, and Baze had heard the clot of his voice, the wetness, as though there were tears there but had not turned to face him because he knew that Chirrut disliked being seen when he was vulnerable, preferred to be given a moment or ten.

“What did it make me for?” Baze asked in the feeblest attempt to change the topic of a conversation ever uttered, but he couldn’t help it because he wanted to know what Chirrut thought. The Force was. So much. So great and so everywhere and so big that he didn’t think it would have the time to put any particular effort into what he was, who he was since he was just one person in a sea of all the living things across the universe. One person. Surely not grand enough to be seen at all. But the idea of knowing what Chirrut thought the Force had made him for was intoxicating.

Chirrut pressed a kiss to the nape of his neck, right below his hairline, that made him shudder. “To carry love.” One of his hands reached around Baze to settle over his heart. “Stop clasping your hands around everything that comes within your reach, fool.” Said in the way that they said fool to each other as though it were a different word altogether or fifteen different words, all the words one could find to express what they meant to each other. But Baze didn’t think there were enough words to actually do that. Not in the whole universe. “Just because you can carry them doesn’t mean that you should. It’s no good for you at all.”

Despite his madcap antics, despite his daredevil leaping, despite his falling asleep in lectures and disappearing during training, despite the fact that he would sometimes laugh in the middle of meditation sessions convincing everyone that he was not serious at all, Chirrut was the sensible one of them. Chirrut was logical and calm and settled once all the layers of frivolity were peeled back. It was the outermost layer, the one that most people didn’t bother to look past, the one that Chirrut didn’t really want them to. “Everyone underestimates the fool,” he’d said once when Baze asked him about it. “And I love when you laugh. When you smile. I like to make everyone happy, but you most of all because you seem set on not seeing that life is actually very silly; you make it so much heavier than it has to be, fool, and I cannot figure out why.”

Baze settled his fingers over Chirrut’s hand, stroking the back of it, wanting to kiss it, wanting to kiss him, wanting to trace his tongue across the planes and the valleys and the forests of him, to discover every continent and ocean and mountain of his form, but stilling himself because there would be time for that. Now he settled himself into the touch of fingers against hand, hand against chest, lips against neck where Chirrut continued to press them when he was not talking. “Is it good for others though?” he asked.

He felt the sigh more than heard it, felt it in the exhalation of breath against the back of his neck, felt it in the way that Chirrut’s hand seemed to clench a little against his chest as though it wanted to fight him because of the words, reach into his skin until he could lift his heart out and teach it another way to be. “Maybe. Probably.” Said like wringing water from a stone.

“Then I can’t stop, Chir.” Said low, barely more than a whisper, practically a thought stretched between them, thin as the glass blown in the temple workshops.

And Chirrut resting his head against Baze’s back, lacing his fingers into Baze’s over his chest. “I know.” The sadness in those words was almost enough to make Baze wish he was something, someone other than what he was, what he could never stop being. But then Chirrut kissed his back and gently recovered his hand to go back to working on the knots. “You continue to be foolish, and I’ll continue to lift it off of you when it becomes too much.”

“I love you.”

“Of course you do.” It almost seemed like there was something else there, behind the words, under the words, but Baze wasn’t sure what it was and didn’t ask for fear of knowing, for fear of breaking the lovely thing that they had, new and fragile and just starting, a thing to be tended even if they were both already so comfortable. Whatever it was, it never rose like a wall, never came between them. Had he asked, Chirrut would have said, slightly sad, mostly wistful, “You love everyone. You love everyone until it hurts you, and I can’t stop you. I wouldn’t ever stop you because it is you. It is just you. But I have to try and protect you from it if you won’t do it yourself.”)

Jealous. The word tickled, and it was strange because Baze didn’t understand what Chirrut meant by it, by the light, haphazard way it was said, almost thrown out like something he should have figured out a long time ago but also like it wasn’t important, was nothing at all. “Of me? Do you think they liked you?”

And Chirrut laughed. Pressed his forehead between Baze’s shoulders, hands stilling in their work, and laughed as though Baze had said the most humorous thing ever while he sat there confused, struck and unsure of what was happening. “No, my love,” Chirrut gasped out between giggles, voice muffled because he had yet to lift his head. “Jealous because they wanted you.”

Baze had never thought of anyone wanting him, had never noticed the lingering stares of any of the other initiates until Chirrut had pointed it out to him with a knowing smile, nodding his head at each in turn and tugging Baze’s head down by his ear so that he could then whisper into its offended shell all the things he thought the onlookers wanted to do to Baze--things that they had not even done yet, things that Baze wasn’t quite sure how to ask for or how to initiate, but Chirrut apparently was versed in, which was knowledge that made him achingly aware of every part of his own body, flushed and tingly and awake--who would just lower his eyes to the ground and try not to let his shock become evident on his face, though he could never hide it from Chirrut. Chirrut who would kiss him until he could no longer be scandalized by lips and tongue. Chirrut who would then start on to something else, piece by piece, until it was Baze who was the one backing him into walls, Baze the one tugging him closer with a hand in his robes, Baze the one setting hands on his thighs in the mess under tables. Baze had always been a quicker learner and desire was easy when it poured from Chirrut’s cupped hands into his mouth.

“Oh,” he said, suddenly uncomfortable because he had not been shy about his relationship with Chirrut around his friend, had been unintentionally pouring salt into a wound that he did not realize was open, and it was a cruelty that could have been so easily avoided had he just opened his eyes.

As though hearing his thoughts, as if he could feel them when they were skin to skin, Chirrut butted his head into his back as a reprimand. “Don’t, fool. It’s not your fault you didn’t see it. It’s not your fault they never made it known. Except to be ugly.” And then Chirrut had moved like lightning, faster than anyone ever, hard to contain--Baze had promised himself when all this started that he would never try, never keep Chirrut closer than he was allowed, never smother him, never be altogether too much, never be a weight, never be a burden--slipping into his lap, hands everywhere, lips everywhere, sighing into Baze’s neck and then they fell into each other with no time for anything else even well-meaning words of praise.

__

“You’re missing the festival,” Chirrut’s voice cuts through the stillness of the air with the same sound as his staff when he swings it, and Baze thinks that they are one and the same. Chirrut is a staff, lean and long and deceptively strong, able to stand up to repeated harsh blows, able to lift heavy things, quick and smooth and lithe and lovely. Baze is not quite sure what this makes him other than something else.

__

They played a game once, spread out on their backs on the roof of one of the temple buildings, Chirrut’s heads on his chest while Baze ran his fingers over and over his short hair, liking the way it felt as much as the noises that Chirrut would make, the way that he would smile or twitch his hips sometimes, small true reactions that were endlessly more seductive than some of the over the top actions that he dreamed up. Baze was enjoying the contrast between the sun warmed stones on his back, the weight of Chirrut on his chest, and the beginnings of the cold evening wind that was blowing up off the sands. He was fine with the endless stretches of silence, with sinking into thought and sensation and peace. Chirrut was the one who tended to get restless with being still unless he was properly worn out, and, despite his pleas, Baze refused to give in to the idea of fooling around on the roof, thinking it too public, too scandalous even for his daredevil.

“What would you be if you could be anything other than yourself?” Chirrut asked, letting the strange question escape like a bird into the air above them.

“Better,” Baze had answered automatically, earning himself the thump of Chirrut’s head against his chest, forcing out his air for a moment.

Then Chirrut clicked his tongue. “No, not. I didn’t mean like that, fool. I meant what else would you be. I would want to be a bird. I would like to fly. Can you even imagine what flying would be like?”

Baze shifted, letting his hand still on Chirrut’s head as he considered the idea of flying. “Yes. I think it would make me very anxious.”

“So what would you be then? Some trusty, load bearing farm animal?” It could have been a slight had Chirrut not caught his hand, pulling it forward to press kisses against each knuckle before sucking lightly on his index finger.

Baze groaned because now Chirrut was not being fair at all. “A stone. A mountain. Something solid, something steady.” Chirrut sucked harder, and Baze’s voice wavered, he had to close his eyes to focus on what he was doing, what he was saying instead of the fact of what was happening. “Or a river. Something that lasts, Chir. I would be something that lasts.”

At first he thought that Chirrut had taken pity on him because he stopped sucking on his finger, but then Chirrut’s hands were on either side of his face and, when he opened his eyes, Chirrut was right there, hovering inches away from him, something dark and wet and dancing in his eyes. “Force, how old are you? How many times have you traveled? Why won’t you just rest?” And Baze didn’t know if he was talking to him or something larger than him, something within him, something buried so deep that only Chirrut could feel it, only Chirrut could see it in that way that Chirrut had of just knowing things.

When he was together enough to say something, he managed to get out a strained, “Why don’t you make me?” even as his hands twisted into Chirrut’s robes, pulling him slowly forward until they were lip to lip, breath to breath.

“Oh, Baze Malbus, fool, I intend to.” And I get everything I want, went unsaid, swallowed up in the kiss, passed through the glass thin connection between them, soaked up into Baze’s bloodstream and carried through all of his cells, ingrained into the beating of his heart, filling up every sac in his lungs until it was the only thing he knew. Chirrut would get everything he wanted. Baze could deny him nothing. Not even sex on the roof while the stars watched them and Chirrut’s cries of pleasure were stolen by the wind, funneled out into the desert to fill the valleys among the sands.

__

“Now you’re missing it, too,” he states, eyes on Chirrut’s face, eyes on Chirrut’s lips and his eyes and the fine bone structure and just everything about him, all of it lovely. Baze is tucked between rocks, huddled into a familiar alcove of the kyber cave that allows him to see so much of it, lets him watch the field of stars above as well as below and all around.

(“It’s like being dipped in stars,” he had whispered into Chirrut’s ear the first time he took him there, his lips so close that they brushed the other’s skin, and Chirrut had shuddered against him with every word, his hand in his own clenching, a silent plea to keep talking. “Everything is stars. Sometimes I think I could become a star if I lingered here long enough, if I prayed to the Force long enough, I could melt into the kyber, into the stone, into the water. I could become Jedha and the holy city and the Force.” And Chirrut had made a noise that Baze wasn’t quite sure how to interpret before pressing him further into the alcove, straddling his hips, kissing him with a desperation, a ferocity, a longing that Baze didn’t often feel from him. It was a feeling that sucked him under as quickly as one could drown in the pools of water that littered the cave floor. Everything, everything, everything.)

Chirrut is careful around the pools of water in a way that Baze has never seen him be careful about anything before, as though he is anxious about them, about the depth of them, the stillness. It is strange to see Chirrut cautious, especially around something that Baze is comfortable with, but Baze has been coming here for years, since he was very young, stealing down into the caves in the middle of the night when everyone else was sleeping, when he could not find any solace in the upper world at all, stealing into the stillness of the caves to stare up at the kyber and the kyber worms, creating his own constellations in them and the stories behind the figures, which would move and change because the worms moved, crawling always toward another kyber crystal, to feed off the minerals slowly, slowly eating them to nothing. Given enough time the worms could completely consume the crystal altogether, glowing with it, leaving streaks of it in their waste as they moved.

When Chirrut clambers up into the alcove, Baze spreads his legs out so that Chirrut can settle between them, back against his chest, and Baze twines his arms about his waist and holds him close. “You smell like temple incense,” he whispers into Chirrut’s short hair.

“You smell like worm shit.”

Baze resists the temptation to bite his neck in retaliation mostly because he knows how much he would enjoy it so he just hums instead. Sometimes the best way to pay Chirrut back is to not react at all. “You could have stayed.”

Chirrut shrugs against him. “I could have, yes, but I wanted to spend the festival with you so here I am.” They grow quiet for a moment, and the only sound is the kyber as it sings and thrums, the living breathing heart of their moon. “Didn’t you want to stay and dance with me?” he asks when the silence has gone on longer than he is comfortable with. Baze wonders if Chirrut will ever become be able to bear the absence of noise, of constant motion and finds that it does not matter so much because on this man the trait is endearing, on this man it makes perfect sense. It is something he can gladly live with.

The question betrays something that Baze had not considered. “Did you want to show me off?”

“It is a lover’s festival.”

Baze has missed something. Chirrut’s voice is not harsh or cruel, but there is a strange flatness to it that gives away the fact that something is wrong. “Yes, but.” He strokes a hand across Chirrut’s neck, traces letters there, writes love over and over again because it seems like a good thing to do. He clears his throat and shifts slightly, unsure of what to do or how to proceed because sometimes Chirrut’s leaps of logic are beyond him. Baze moves differently, slowly, like water, like mountains, ever present, changing gradually and mostly unseen where Chirrut is wind and sand, things that people cannot keep up with because they are never the same. Chirrut is storms out in the middle of the desert and fire. “It is more a festival for those who married.”

And they are not.

“Are we not?” Chirrut asks, and Baze’s hand stills in its tracing as it feels like all the air has been pulled from his chest.

“I didn’t. I didn’t want to presume,” Baze stumbles through the words, and Chirrut clicks his tongue at this utterance as though he cannot believe he has to put up with this, though there is fondness in it as always. Five years of fondness, five years of this, and Baze would take so much more, so many more, all of them, but he cannot ask because it would be greedy.

The temple does not forbid marriage, but they also have no ceremony to mark it. People couple and uncouple all the time, as the Force wills it, as love wills it, and the idea of putting something permanent into place seems to be against the very ebb and flow of the energy that winds itself throughout the universe. So Baze has never dared breathe the word, never dared to even think it for fear of it lapping onto the shores of Chirrut’s consciousness and being rejected. In his heart, in his soul, there is only Chirrut, but he is steady, and Chirrut. Chirrut is more of the Force. And Baze would never dare to ask him to stop following it, to stop flowing with it. I will never hold you too close; I will never keep you, he thinks, and they may as well be marriage vows. He has said them over and over, so many times and in so many variations. He has made his promises and tries to keep them all.

Chirrut twists around then so that he can look at him, and Baze settles a hand on his cheek. “Aren’t you the one who wanted to be something that lasts? Why can’t that be us?” he asks, pulling that memory up, those words of the mountain, of the stream, and Baze doesn’t know why it makes his heart constrict tightly, flare brightly, inside his chest except that it means so much. It means so much. It means everything.

“I brought the lantern, and the matches, and the incense. I was going to do it at the festival, but then you wandered off down here so I guess this will do. Even though no one will know but us. And the worms you love so much.” Chirrut is talking, rambling, nervous. Baze can see it on his face and hear it in the way his voice slides slightly, little trips up and down his register, the same way he does when Baze is tracing his fingers down, down his abdomen.

“I don’t need anyone to know but us, Chir,” Baze says, leaning forward, one hand still on his cheek and the other in Chirrut’s robes, slipping into the fabric to touch his chest right over his heart, which is beating fast and hard. And he kisses him like he will never kiss anyone else, which is the point, which is the promise.

There under the ground, tucked into the core of their moon with stars above and stars below and the singing of the kyber and the pools of deep, deep water, there where everything about them is solid and steady, where there is no wind and no sand and just stillness and quiet, where there is everything that Baze is but kyber bright and kyber strong like Chirrut, they pledge themselves to each other, they light the lantern and let it drift out onto the pools until it slips beneath the surface to descend even further down into the heart of forever to stick and shine and linger, to become a thing that lasts.