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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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.

Chirrut scowls at the pair of them, decidedly unimpressed.

"You are not fine - there is nothing that you need to do right now that can't be done sitting down." He grumbles, sternly. There's a knock at the door, and Chirrut goes to open it, warning them off with a wave of his staff. "Sit."

At Chirrut's scowl, Baze is contrite, but turns to Ibani with a smile. "He's right, you know. You should be sitting. There's a lot of room over by me."

His smile becomes a touch more wicked--but only a touch. "Chirrut can handle all the tea and soup himself, since he seems so insistent."

Edited 2017-09-18 04:11 (UTC)

"I suppose I can sit for a bit," Ibani replies. Ibani sits on the end of the other bed, legs dangling off.

She sniffs. "Don't know why you're fussing though, I haven't even died once yet and I'm not injured."

"But yes, if he's going to be so bossy he can carry everything himself."

Chirrut snorts, letting the waitrats in to set up soup and tea on their combined bedside tables, and bows to them politely as they leave.

"You're both being impossible." He informs them, as if he wasn't the one who spent much of his younger life dodging visits to the infirmary. Despite his declaration he starts bringing over soup - the tea needs more time to steep.

Baze opens his mouth to say something expressing his incredulity--really? Chirrut says this?--but sneezes brown glitter instead. The larger Guardian pulls a handkerchief with a yellow smiley face embroidered on it out of one of his many pockets, and wipes his nose.

"You say this? Really?" Baze says, accepting his soup with a murmured thanks. "You, who had to be dragged to the infirmary and spoon-fed soup once you were too exhausted from fighting illnesses?"

Ibani sneezes purple glitter. "I am not being impossible," she grumbles.

Ibani latches on to Baze's statement about Chirrut. "Hah! Those who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones, Chirrut."

Then she breaks into a coughing fit.

Chirrut stands, holding a bowl of soup, waiting for her to finish.

"Do you want to argue, or do you want soup?" He asks Ibani, dryly. "I'm not the one insisting that that is fine."

Baze gets to gripe, he ... did put up with a lot of healer-dodging.

Baze is just going to sip his soup. Yup. No reason for Chirrut to turn on him; he's not the one insisting that he's fine.

Luckily for him, his soup is delicious--what he can taste of it through the glittersnot blocking his nose and coating his throat, anyway. There are noodles, and some sort of meat, and the broth is salty and yellow, and better than a lot of things he's tasted before. Mmm, soup.

"The soup is delicious, Ibani," Baze says, trying to smooth things over. "I'd highly recommend trying it. At the very least, it might soothe your cough."

Ibani sighs. "Soup, please," she answers. "Is this level of concern...normal for a cold?" She's genuinely a bit puzzled by this.

"It is normal for a friend." Chirrut corrects, pouring out tea and setting it within reach before settling next to Baze with his own cup of tea.

Baze pokes Ibani in the shoulder, gently. "We are concerned for you because we enjoy your company and don't want you to be sick and suffering. Having a cold is never fun, and if we can do anything to speed away the symptoms, then why not let us?"

Ibani flushes, both pleased and slightly embarrassed. "Oh. Thank you." For their friendship, their care, for being THEM.

"Did you really have to be dragged to the infirmary, Chirrut?"

"Ask him, he evidently knows." Chirrut snorts, hooking a thumb at Baze. "Evidently I was usually unconscious at the time." Or half-conscious, or concussed... dragging was done, make no mistake.

Baze laughs softly. He slurps his soup. "I probably shouldn't embarrass him more than I already have," Baze demurs, beaming at Ibani. "Suffice it to say that Chirrut was... Never the best patient. Kind of like us."

"Seems like it," Ibani agrees. Then she also laughs softly.

"We could have been a terrible trio if we'd met earlier."

"Such optimism that we aren't terrible now." Chirrut notes, wryly. He is more settled now, with Baze at his side and a cup of tea in his hands.

Baze grins and takes a drink of his tea. "Are we no fun now that we're old? We were hellraisers when we were younger, it's true, but we haven't changed all that much."