milliways_bar | (no subject)

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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.

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Ibani starts crying, sobbing, actually. Relief, anger, grief, and pain pouring out.

Later, she'll be mortified. But for now, now Baze is HERE and she can feel him in the Force, and she holds on with all her might.

Chirrut tucks himself into the space between Baze's side and his armor, knowing it too well from so many years of co-existing with the hated item. Here, he can smell Baze, even if he still can't hear Baze's heartbeat, and he can share warmth, even if it's just a little. He's quiet, shaken by the loss and recovery in rapid order. He can't quite believe his good fortune yet - he's just soaking it in.

Baze holds his distressed friends, pressing kisses to both their cheeks. He cries right along with Ibani, pouring his soul wounds out into the open air. Pressing cheek to cheek with her and cuddling them both close, Baze shudders, swaying on his feet.

Ibani feels Baze shudder, sway. That, at last, snaps her somewhat out of her grief.

"You need to rest," she says, pulling back a little. "I can feel you're not injured, but whatever happened has taken a lot out of you."

Chirrut's arm comes up to brace Baze, his own sturdy strength there to take some of the load.

"Ridiculous bantha." He mutters, refusing to let his worry unhinge his knees.

"I'm fine," Baze murmurs, despite leaning heavily on the two of them. "It's just the illness."

He does, however, take the first unsteady steps towards the bar, draggng their little party along. It's slow going; he can't drop Ibani, or Chirrut. They're counting on him to be here in the moment, to be present. He doesn't want to let them down again.

"The claws," he says, wincing. "We were hunting monsters."

"Sure you are," Ibani mutters. Ibani is quite capable of helping support Baze, so she does.

"Monsters about your size, or a little larger, yes? Very sharp claws?" Wait, how does Ibani know that? "Felt sharp, anyway, when they clawed you."

There's a list of things Chirrut doesn't need to know. It's a short list, because in general Chirrut feels he needs to know everything, and doesn't mind being known as the nosy one.

Knowing how his best friend, his... other half, died, exactly, in any detail beyond that he did so?

That's on the list.

Chirrut doesn't make a sound, mostly because he doesn't want to lose what breakfast he ate this morning.

Baze has only seen that look on Chirrut's face a few times before, but the larger Guardian knows what it means. He tightens his grip on the smaller one, pressing a quick kiss to his brow.

"Let's get inside," Baze says, shivering. "It's cold out here."

It doesn't occur to him that he might be the only one cold. What does occur to him is that Ibani must have felt his death in detail. He knows he doesn't deserve forgiveness from them for getting himself killed, but he certianly doesn't now, given that they both felt it.

Ibani has felt worse deaths where physical pain is concerned. And she can feel how Baze feels about the whole situation, which helps with the forgiveness angle. (Besides forgiveness isn't about 'deserving' it.)

"Sorry, I think I forgot where normal is again," Ibani says to Chirrut.

"Inside sounds good, and we can get some hot tea in you to warm you up."

Chirrut waves a hand, dismissing the need for apology.

"Do we need the infirmary?" He asks, braced under Baze's shoulder and fully prepared to drag Baze to the nearest healer, if necessary.

"No," Baze says, staggering to the bar with their support. "It's just a cold, Chirrut. I am not otherwise injured, as Ibani said. I don't know why this illness has knocked me on my ass."

Baze is a little perturbed about that, too, though he tries to brush that off, and act nonchalant. He's leaning on his friends, though, so he can't hide.

Baze releases them to shoulder open the door to the bar, and steps inside, holding the door for both of them. "Should we go to our rooms, or drink tea here?"

Technically, the nearest healer is Ibani, so Chirrut wouldn't need to do any dragging!

"I'm up for wherever you two will be more comfortable." Because like HELL is she going to leave the two of them right now.

"Maybe it's a knocking you on your ass because it's a magic cold?" Ibani suggests. "I mean, there's no way something that makes you sneeze glitter is natural."

"Baze?" It's only a word, again, but it speaks volumes. He will go where Baze leads, but if Baze thinks that he is in any way getting out of being buried in blankets and forced to drink enormous amounts of tea and soup, he is a very confused man.

Oh, so the decision is up to Baze, is it? He sees how it is. He opens his mouth to say something, and another sneeze interrupts him, this time with sky blue glitter.

"Ugh, maybe, Ibani," he says, squinting at the mess through the haze of his headache. "Aren't you sick, too?"

Baze nudges Chirrut. "Our rooms, then."

"I am," Ibani grumbles. As if to emphasize this, she ends up sneezing pink glitter into her elbow.

"Shall I ask the rats the bring up some soup and tea for us?"

"All of it." Because if certain people think they are going to wander away from where Chirrut can put hands on if needed... well.

Lots of confusion going on, evidently.

After the rats have been suitably instructed, Baze leads their little party upstairs. The trip is slow going, but they make it to the room eventually.

Baze pulls away from Chirrut and Ibani, turning to face them both. The larger Guardian sinks to his knees, and then presses his face to the floor. "Please forgive me!"

Ibani is going to be surprised if she's included in the fussing, because that's never happened to her before.

Ibani crouches down, sneezes purple glitter into one elbow, then places a hand on Baze's shoulder. "Of course, Baze." Not that the emotional fallout is over, yet, but she can't imagine NOT forgiving Baze.

Chirrut knows the shape of the motions based on the sounds he hears, even without the kyber's help in knowing where Baze is - he's done a similar thing more times than he really cares to count. So he kneels, so he can reach out and start straightening that mass of hair that always seems to go wayward.

"You are forgiven, my heart."

The 'silly bantha' part of that goes unsaid.

The floor bites into Baze's palms as he presses them down into it, tears soaking the brown stone. He can't believe Ibani and Chirrut have both forgiven him so easily; he can't forgive himself, so why should they?

But now he's keeping Ibani from enjoying her tea and soup, so he pushes himself up off the floor. After standing, he embraces them both, trying to show how grateful he is through his actions alone.

"I'm so sorry."

Ibani hugs him back tightly, trying not to sneeze on him. "Just try not to do that again, please? I don't know that my poor old heart can take it."

Chirrut shoves his shoulder, carefully (just in case).

"You should be lying down, we can bring tea and soup and whatever else you need while you're resting." He's not going to get better standing around, and he still has the dratted armor on. Chirrut's a tiny bit over it.

A lot bit over it.

Whatever.

Baze finds it within himself to giggle at Ibani's joke. It's a soft laughter at first, but then he realizes that laughing feels good, so he gives into it more fully. Besides, the joke is funny. So is Chirrut's mother henning--though Baze would never say so to his friend's face.

The only problem is, once Baze starts cackling, he finds it difficult to stop. He's home, and safe, and is sick but no longer in pain, and his friends have forgiven him--with the latter part being the most important to Baze. He laughs himself to tears again, while shedding his armor and weapons to give his hands something to do. Eventually, the giggles are interrupted by a sneeze, with red glitter making an appearance, and he finds it easier to stop after that.

"All right, all right," Baze finally says, setting his armor and gun and staff and shockstick in their places. He crosses to the beds and settles on them in the lotus position, feeling very small indeed without the red carapace. "I'm resting, now. Good enough? Ibani, you should rest, too."

Baze's laughter lightens Ibani's heart, and she's glad to see him take the armor off and sit down.

"I'm fine," Ibani protests. Then she sneezes silver glitter into her left elbow. Ugh.