(no subject)

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut spends hours tending the tea plants today, replanting groupings of three or four into individual plants, arranging and re-arranging the pots to best find the warmth (and supposedly light) of the sun, making sure the watering system would cover the new arrangement of plants... there was a lot to do. It is peaceable work and the time flies by.

Baze isn't in his brewery when Chirrut is done, so he meanders upstairs to get cleaned up. While he cannot see muddy fingerprints, he has it on good authority that they're highly annoying.

The pain catches him once he's inside. Sudden loss, sharp and aching as a stab through the chest turns any scream into a shocked breath of air, almost silent in its agony.

Baze.

That sense of knowing where Baze is, that he's alright... it's gone. He's gone.

Chirrut isn't sure how long he spends on his knees, frozen in that moment, too stunned to figure out what comes next. He can only barely remember a time Baze wasn't by his side, not too far away. He's still not, Chirrut knows in his head, but his heart doesn't want to listen. His heart is too busy screaming.

Finally he picks himself up, dusting himself off by habit. Downstairs, he should head downstairs, ask Bar, she'd... well, she'd have the best chance of knowing. Then maybe X, if he doesn't find his answer. Then... Too much, that's enough of a plan. He turns back to the door, but... no.

Muddy fingerprints are annoying. He's been told this.

Washing his hands doesn't take long. There's... there's no rush now.

When Chirrut gets to the Bar, he is greeted with a note, written on paper that would have been painfully precious in NiJedha. To anyone watching, his expression does not change as he reads it over and over again, tracing the raised ink with gentle fingers.

This? Baze died for this? So senseless. Baze deserved more.

Chirrut has a quiet word with the Bar, and is rewarded with a stack of books and a copy of his reader, which he takes to one of the chairs by the fire, a rat following behind with a cup of tea. Not Sapir - a surprise tea. For Baze. The books are on brewing beer and moonshine, a project he's wholly unsuited for, but he intends to master.

Comments

[is_the_motion]

"Chirrut? You okay honey?" Bonnie asks, approaching him cautiously.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut's hand pauses against the raised words of his reader, and he turns to greet her, his gaze still failing to quite meet hers, despite decades of practice.

"Bonnie, may the Force of others be with you. Would you like some tea? I just sent the waitrat for some." He replies, waving a hand in the approximate direction of the other chairs.

[is_the_motion]

"That would be lovely, thank you." Bonnie says.

"Is Baze feelin' better now? He was worried he'd give you that nasty cold that's goin' round."

[idontneedluck]

"Yes, Baze is feeling better now." Chirrut confirms, with an echo of a smile. "And he didn't give the cold to me, no matter how hard he tried."

[is_the_motion]

"You sure? You don't look too good." Bonnie says.

"I made a big batch of soup the other day, if you'd like some?"

[ooc: Bedtime for me, but couldn't leave the poor chap on his own <3]

[idontneedluck]

Baze would be upset if Chirrut didn't eat. However, food almost sounds abhorrent at the moment. He knows it was difficult for weeks after Eiko died...

"No, but thank you, that is very kind." Chirrut replies politely, because Baze doesn't get to have a vote if he can't be here to give it.

[cottoncandypink]

Oh hey. It's Baze's weird friend. The one that doesn't seem to like Wilford much. Maybe he knows where the big guy is.

Wilford powers through the headache that's not getting any better and heads over to Chirrut, completely unaware of what's going on.

"Where's your pal?" he asks, as if he hadn't been right there when everything went to hell.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut comes from a land of cold. Perhaps that is why his expression could be carved from ice.

"Wilford." His voice drips icicles, and he rises smoothly, abandoning books to sweep up his staff.

The staff that is decidedly not an aid for the blind, but a trusted weapon in the hands of a master.

"You should go."

[cottoncandypink]

Considering Wilford still doesn't realise Chirrut is blind, it doesn't even occur to him that the staff would be any kind of aid beyond an aid for causing someone pain.

"Okay," Wilford says slowly, not going anywhere. There's $2000 in his wallet, which he quickly pulls out. "I told your boyfriend I'd give him two grand if he helped me out with something."

He does not indicate at all that he is holding that two grand in his hand, and intends for Chirrut to take it and deliver it to Baze, if he ever decides to show up.

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut did once (sort of) promise X that he wouldn't beat people inside the bar anymore.

This would be why, when the man responsible for Baze dying (again) doesn't take the broadly written and underlined hint, he reaches out to grab for the man with the very clear intent of dragging him outside.

[cottoncandypink]

Oh, what the hell is this? Wilford's wallet and the cash both disappear into his inventory before he has the chance to lose it. He's slow and groggy from this headache that just won't go away (he is not getting sick, damnit), so it takes him a few moments longer than it should to realise that Chirrut is pissed off about something.

"Hey, hands off," Wilford says, trying to pull away.

What the hell did he do now? He doesn't deserve this!

[iprotectyou]

Baze Malbus died in pain, but it did not last long.

Hours after Chirrut receives the note, Baze appears outside again, lying on his belly in the mud, his bloody injuries ghosting away as if they never were. His repeater cannon rests on his back, whole, and he clutches his staff in his hand. He tastes the mud, and is delighted to find himself in Milliways.

Chirrut.

Baze has to find Chirrut.

The larger Guardian pushes himself up from the mud, and stands still for a few seconds, momentarily dizzy. He's still covered in glitter, still sick. He pays that no mind. He stalks towards the bar

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut spills his tea.

He would be upset about that, but right now tea is the furthest thing from his mind, even as it soaks through his robes. He's abandoning tea and books, instead running for the back door as if his life depended on it.

It just might.

[iprotectyou]

Baze watches Chirrut burst through the back door, and starts running. The larger Guardian pumps his arms and legs and pushes himself to eat up distance with his powerful stride.

Chirrut is here. Baze is already sobbing, his heart caving in.

[idontneedluck]

He tells himself it isn't real, even as he scrambles across the grassy landscape. This is a hallucination, brought on by grief.

He hasn't run so fast since Scarif.

[iprotectyou]

Baze nearly bowls Chirrut over in a tackle-glomp-hug, clinging more tightly than the larger Guardian has ever clung in his life. He peppers his friend's face with kisses--first the forehead, then both cheeks. Drawing a breath through Baze's blocked, glitter-encrusted nose, he tries to inhale the grounding scent of Chirrut, warm and spicy and present.

Baze's heart beats so fast he's surprised it doesn't just burst from his chest. He's nervous; Chirrut's reaction can only mean one thing--that he felt the death--and Baze worries that he won't be forgiven.

"I'm sorry," he croaks, his voice still raspy from the cold--and from tears. "I'm so sorry."

[last_kallig]

Ibani nearly falls over when she feels a presence that shouldn't be, that CAN'T be, here.

It must be a trick, but she tears off toward Baze's force presence at top speed anyway.

If someone is trying to pretend to be Baze Malbus, they're going to be very, very sorry!

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut is left talking to himself for a moment. This is not an entirely unusual experience, as Baze long-ago learned that nothing, not even the ending of a world, will stop Chirrut mid-rant.

But Ibani is not Baze, and as far as he knows, she hasn't learned that particular trick yet.

And then he realizes.

That sense of knowing, of having a link, is back.

And then he's following hot on Ibani's heels, snapping Jedhan curses for anyone who gets in his way.

[iprotectyou]

Baze watches Ibani, and then Chirrut, burst through the back door, and picks up the pace. The larger Guardian staggers into a run, tears already streaming down his glitter-encrusted face. He eats up distance with his powerful stride, but he's not fast enough for his liking, so he pushes himself harder, sneezing multicolored glitter along the way.

Chirrut and Ibani must have felt the death, Baze realizes as he bolts towards them. If they sensed his coming back, they must have felt him leaving. Damn.

[last_kallig]

Ibani reaches Baze first by dint of cheating with the Force. She hauls Baze into a hug for a moment, then steps back and gives him the most evil stinkeye.

"What the FLARK were you thinking?! Being dead is not an excuse for not having survival instincts! What did you even get INTO, it felt like claws!"

She takes a breath, then makes a choked sounding sob and clings onto Baze like a limpet.

[last_kallig]

In a way, Ibani is lucky. She's upstairs in her room when she feels Baze die, feels claws rip through her (Baze's) throat. She's felt many deaths, but this, this HURTS more than the mere agony echoed in her flesh, because Baze is her FRIEND.

She shoves the urge to howl in rage and grief aside, because if SHE'S hurting, Chirrut must have felt it too. She can't lose both of them, she can't!

Ibani is a flurry of worry and grief as she pelts down the stairs, then skids to a stop within arms reach of Chirrut.

"Chirrut?" His name comes out with more of a questioning tone than she intended.

[idontneedluck]

"Ibani." Chirrut feels he should be crying. That is what Baze expected when Eiko died, but...

The won't come. They never have come when they should, leaving him hollow and useless. Baze would have wanted a hug, so he stands and offers one - she is hurting too, after all.

[last_kallig]

Ibani wraps her arms around Chirrut as tightly as she dares.

Chirrut may not be weeping, but Ibani can tell that he's hurting. "I felt it too. I don't.....is there anything I can do for you?"

She wants to scream, to rage, to weep for what has been taken, for WHO has been taken.

[idontneedluck]

"He is one with the Force." Chirrut replies softly, because it's the only comfort he has at the moment, and he's not going to let it go. "I will always find him there."

[last_kallig]

"Yes," Ibani admits, voice rough with tears not yet shed. "Are you, do you intend to...go?"

The words stick in her throat, the selfish desire to demand that he not leave her too.