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Standing at the edge of their doorway, Chirrut found himself wondering what Baze would be thinking if he caught him wondering what kind of joke he might crack for his entrance. On the dark side, he thought, it’s really, really dark.
But on the bright side, he went on, at least he no longer needed a pair of handsome eyes to see by!
Oh wait—he’s blind!
Chirrut imagined the sound of Baze’s groaning rumbling in the shadows, rolling with a snarl. The kind that normally followed a conversation, one- or two-sided, that made Baze wonder why he chose to stick by the old fool’s side when there were surely greener pastures elsewhere. But then, that was where it all stopped—after that telltale noise, he couldn’t imagine anything else to follow. Nothing but the silence that he was facing now.
That was how he knew that a joke would only fall flat, and he had no other choice but to face this darkness with a serious disposition. It wasn’t fun, not even barely, but Chirrut had never shied away from whatever needed to be done.
With a decisive tap of his walking stick, he determined that this was going to have to be the way it was, moving forward with all the purpose of a man with money in his pocket (which of course, he didn’t have—the money, that is, he had a vast array of pockets that were full of anything that wasn’t money). The darkness swallowed him up like an eager friend or a hungry demon, and he could feel it lurching at his belly, like soup made from a rotten mollusc.
But he never once lost sight of the man in the origin of it, who was sat on his bedroll, his blaster perhaps across his lap. Chirrut listened to the antsy slides and clicks from the machine that the whole song of it was starting to grate at his ears but he ignored that, too. As he ignored many things that caused him pain, to hide it from the world.
Even when it was much worse up close, practically in his face. Chirrut tucked his feet under his bottom as he sat across the quiet man who resembled now less one who is hiding in his cave and more the belly of a volcano churning for an explosion. Even the sounds of his blaster had taken a different tempo from earlier, hollow and weary when it had once spewed particle bolts charging one after another with great abandon. Baze had been roaring then, vengeance personified.
He wasn’t even the husk of it now. He seemed more like a boy who’d lost in a game of shooting and was sulking, getting ready for his rebirth.
“You’re going to break your 56th blaster if you don’t let it go out and play,” Chirrut advised him as lightly and as sternly as he could try. When Baze failed to acknowledge, Chirrut finally lifted his hand.
And laid it at the back of Baze’s armored glove; he hadn’t even made the effort to remove it yet.
But at least he stopped, and lingered, and for once true silence returned to their home. The Force still felt heavy as a quilt in the morning after a good night’s sleep, but it was still. Still as the air in a humid day.
His victories weren’t perfect, but he would take them nevertheless. Chirrut understood, of course. How many times had he gone to bed with nothing but the bitter taste of disappointment filling his tongue? Of dread gnawing at the hole in his stomach when a tiny bud of hope had been crushed out of existence? And the panic that bloated him when he began to forget the face of kindness? In this, he and Baze had always been the same. The difference is that one chose to pray while the other chose the path of blazing glory.
One chose to be patient, perhaps frustratingly so. The other chose to take his chance. Again. And again. And again. Until perhaps, he’d become too confident. Too brash, too…careless.
The mistake was his, but the blame was only his in part. If anyone could forgive a cornered animal for attacking, why not a man who only wanted to punch a hole through the injustice that was being done to them? Chirrut was blind, but he’d seen more than he needed to see. And knew too little about what he could do about them.
Fortunately for him, the galaxy had placed him at a rare occasion of knowing what to do this time. With sure fingers, he unclipped the locks that held down Baze’s armored glove, removed it, and placed his freed palm to his cheek. Baze hadn’t washed yet, and he could still smell the hot metal on his skin, feel the heat that came from the fight and his anger. He could tell at which point it turned to comforting warmth, when Baze’s hand softened and traced a line on his cheek with his thumb.
“I’m sorry,” Baze mumbled. “I know you hate the sound this gun makes.”
“I’m just jealous,” Chirrut said, smiling. “I’d much rather you be cocking someone else instead.”
Baze chuckled.
Chirrut’s smile brightened a little. “Made you laugh,” he said. He reached up to feel for Baze’s own face, his fingers finding fresh scars as surely as if he had sight.
“The day will come, Baze Malbus,” he assured him. “Have faith. Just have faith.” He had learned the hard way that there were times when the comforting Force only served to anger the man further, so he held his tongue against it. Chirrut wished one day that the Force would offer him a sanctuary from his troubles as it had once done.
Until then, though, there was only him. And Baze took him, wrapped his arms around him and buried his face on his shoulder while Chirrut found the mess that was his hair to comb through it with his fingers. The victory wasn’t absolute, and the darkness surrounding them only changed its shape, its temperature.
But Chirrut had never been one to complain about small miracles.