iprotectyou | OOM/IM: The Ankle

"Wait, what?" Baze says, his confusion evident in the Force. He frowns again, as if the corners of his mouth are drawn down by tiny hooks, and tries to parse what he said that set off that reaction. He can't make heads or tails of it, until--oh.

"It's a little bit of an inopportune time, isn't it?" Baze says, with a small smile. That Chirrut can joke must mean he's not in incredible pain--though a broken ankle is nothing to sneeze at. Baze turns away from him and hunts through the drawers for bacta.

"You'll need to stay off your ankle for the next few days at least. And keep it elevated. And use ice. I can hear you plotting to move around--but I'm telling you right now, you can't, you monkey."

"I won't use my foot, promise." He retorts, though he makes no similar promises about the rest of his body. A few days is a long time to sit still - he could manage it, just about, in meditation, but in keeping his ankle elevated achieving the proper posture is rather compromised. "I have done this before, you know."

"Yes, I know. I remember, Chirrut, that you did everything you could to move around, and almost reinjured yourself," Baze grumbles. He hasn't found the bacta he seeks yet in all these damn drawers, and that gets his hackles up. Where is the bacta?

"I'm not letting you out of my sight this time," he promises. Or is it a threat? It's probably a threat. "We can watch Disney movies and read romance novels and not kriffing move."

Chirrut makes a face at the idea of staying still for so long, even with distraction, and flops back against the bed, wrinkling the paper further.

"Only if you read with proper voices and everything." He retaliates as he folds his hands behind his head. "You know that makes it better."

"I will," Baze says, promising again. He finally finds the bacta, and carries two of the patches over to his friend. "I'll use the bone fuser on you, and apply these patches, and then we can get out of here."

The larger man locates the bone fuser next to the scanner's place. He holds the fuser over Chirrut's ankle, and presses the button. After a few minutes, he checks the bone with the scanner again and nods, pleased. "You'll be sore for a while. Do you need any painkillers?" Baze asks, gently sealing the bacta patches over Chirrut's bruised, swollen flesh.

"Most likely - eventually I'm going to lose focus." He's no Jedi, he knows this, he can't just... do whatever hoodoo they do so well and heal himself. When he can't maintain his focus anymore, whatever's going on in his ankle is going to hit him like a ton of bricks.

Besides, it's not as if they're in NiJedha, having to be wary of Imperial interruptions at all times. He can afford to be medicated, here.

Oh, Chirrut. Baze nods once more, and then, when he realizes his friend can't see the motion, speaks. "Then I'll get you some. I know you can't take some types painkillers because they interfere with healing or increase the risk of bleeding, but I'll make sure to get some appropriate ones from bar. And extra bacta."

He runs a hand over his face, and then uses that same hand to cup Chirrut's cheek. "Are you hungry, my friend? Do you think you can eat? We can have food sent up to our room."

"After I take the painkillers, yes." Chirrut replies, giving Baze a gummy smile. He's... not really hungry, but he never is when he has to focus this much. Besides, it will make Baze happy if he eats... so he'll eat. Just so long as it isn't vegetable testicles.

"All right, good," Baze says, his heart rate finally settling while his worry ceases curling in his belly. Chirrut seems amenable to treatment. This is good. This is awesome.

Baze knows it's not going to last.

"I'm going to pick you up and take you to our rooms now," he says, and scoops Chirrut up into a bridal carry again, mindful of the staves rattling together on the larger man's back. He cradles his smaller friend against Baze's armored chest, hauling Chirrut up the stairs as gently as possible.

Once they reach their rooms, Baze's knees feel like water. He shuts the door behind them with a kick, and has to fight not to collapse onto the floor while holding his friend. His apprehension about Chirrut's injury was sharp and painful itself, and now that Chirrut is willing to be a good patient--ha! maybe just a patient--Baze's relief is palpable.

Somehow, he carries his friend to their beds, which are still pushed together. Baze lays him down on top of the blankets. "I need to find a wait rat to order ice and food. Don't move."

Edited 2017-07-27 07:39 (UTC)

"Take the elevator, you ridiculous bantha." Chirrut orders, worry seeping into his tone. Baze sounds tired. He regrets his promise to eat - if he hadn't, Baze could stay up here for a while, and rest, before deciding he needed to venture out.

"I will," Baze says, and sets their staves down in their places. He returns to Chirrut's side, and props his foot up on three pillows. Not one, not two, but three. Baze wasn't aware they even had that many pillows, and Chirrut still has one behind his back. "Poor Chirrut. You didn't even get a chance to stretch. I'll give you a rub down later, so you hopefully won't be as sore."

He crosses to the door, opens it, and peers at his friend. "Don't. Move."

Then he heads downstairs to order food, ice, bacta, and painkillers.

Chirrut is very, very good.

For about five minutes.

Then the whole situation starts to become boring.

At least he has to maintain some form of focus, to keep the pain of his ankle at bay, but the bacta smells and the gel is clammy against his skin. He first tries to reach his reader with their latest book still inside of it, but he's too far away from the side table to reach, and when he stretches the tower of pillows threatens to fall. He freezes. Knowing Baze, there's some tell to the pillows - something like color, which is cheating, that will give him away if they fall and he has to re-stack them.

He then tries to figure out where the sounds of NiJedha that get piped into their rooms was recorded from, but gives it up as a bad job when minutes go by and he hasn't heard any of the main identifiers yet - the temple bells, the spaceport, the city market at mid-day.

Baze isn't back yet.

It's warm in their rooms. Baze wouldn't want him to be uncomfortable. Carefully he starts wiggling out of his outer robes, carefully balancing his injured foot on the pillows and re-adjusting every time they sway.

Folding the robes takes another few minutes.

Sorry, Chirrut. Baze isn't back for a few more minutes yet. First, he had to figure out what painkillers you could take. Then he had to order the rest of what he came for. Then He had to track down a rat to help him cart the food and ice and painkillers and bacta patches back up to the room. He did take the elevator, as instructed, but he's still balancing a couple of bags of ice in his hand with a bottle of pills when he palms open the lock.

When he sees the somewhat stripped-down Chirrut, Baze bursts into laughter. "You stripped?" he says, incredulous. "That counts as moving!"

He sets the tray of food--fish and chips and sapir--on the bed, and dismisses the rat. Next, he opens one of the ice bags and scoops some out to place inside a washcloth. Then he clears the beer out of the fridge to place the rest of the ice into it instead. Soon, he carries a the ice in the cloth to Chirrut, along with an appropriate dosage of painkillers.

At this point, Baze has largely divorced himself from his worry. He moves mechanically, completing each task with robot-like efficiency. But when he sees Chirrut sitting helplessly in that bed, Baze's heart twists.

No. No.

He can't afford to worry now.

"Here," he says, pressing the pills into Chirrut's hand. "Take these, and we can ice your ankle."

"Foot on pillows, as you left it." Chirrut retorts to the accusation, but he smiles as he does so - it's good to hear Baze laugh. That relief fades as Baze moves through the room. Baze is still so worried, despite their safety here, despite the fact he is not deeply hurt. Chirrut takes the pills and swallows them dry, making a face at their bitterness.

"Put the ice on and come down here. Without that armor, if you think I'm going to let you cuddle with that armor on you're confused." He orders, still as imperious as a lord.

Baze does not object to cuddles, even if the ordering around is annoying as kriff. Still, he shouldn't have expected any less; this is Chirrut, after all, and he knows Chirrut only orders people around when he's trying to get a handle on a situation.

"Yes, your majesty," Baze says, stripping of his armor. He takes his time, knowing that the longer he makes Chirrut wait, the more irritated he'll be. Baze doesn't want him to be too irritated, just a little. It's like slamming a cup down on the counter hard enough to annoy Chirrut but not hard enough to break the mug, which Baze used to do all the time.

Baze also strips of his boots, curling his bare toes. He ambles over to the bed, feeling both more comfortable and more exposed without his armor, and curls up with his friend. "So, food first, then novels, then movies, then rub down?"

Chirrut huffs irritably when Baze finally decides to settle down, but pulls Baze's arm closer and tucks himself neatly against his larger friend. The painkillers are beginning to bite in, letting him relax his focus and sink into their faintly floaty embrace.

"That will be fine." He allows, the chill of the ice contrasting oddly with the heat of Baze's body.

Baze doesn't go for their food at first. He simply holds his friend, feeling the weight of him against the larger man's collarbones. He leans his head on the smaller man's, feeling his soft, short-cropped hair against Baze's cheek.

Eventually, he realizes that he did promise food, and pulls away just enough to collect their dinners from the tray and press Chirrut's plate into his hands. Baze climbs out of the bed momentarily to change Chirrut's ice, and then returns to his side.

"So, Bar said this is fish and chips, which are potatoes fried in oil," Baze says, picking up a French fry and nibbling on it. The chip is delicious, so he stuffs it into his mouth. Apparently Baze is starving! Who knew? "You know what we should do? We should try fruits. I've been told watermelon is delicious."

Edited 2017-07-27 08:32 (UTC)

"You and your sweets." Chirrut laughs softly, idly picking up one of the chips and gnawing on it. The world is getting more and more soft, and he rolls with it. "Alright, alright, we'll try your fruits. We'll try everything. We have time."

"It's not like I asked to try desserts or chocolates," Baze grumbles affectionately, in between stuffing his face with breaded fish filets. "Surely fruit won't be too sweet for you. There are vitamins in fruits that you're not getting from sapir. And as far as I understand, they're mostly water, so they'll hydrate you, too."

"I said I'd try them, you bantha." Chirrut giggles, his nibbling becoming an increasingly lazy affair. "Always so worried about me, eh?"

"Of course I worry about you," Baze says, huffing as he wraps his arms around his friend. The larger man breathes in the spicy, earthy scent of the smaller one, catching notes of soap and tea--and bacta, ew. "It's an old habit, and I'm very good at it. And now you've broken your ankle and given me actual cause. Hmph. Hmph! You're ridiculous, of course I worry. I love you. I don't know why, but I do."

"I am very lovable." Chirrut agrees drowsily, relaxing into Baze's hold. Baze is so warm, and he can hear that steady heart so well with the armor gone.

"Love you too, Baze."

Chirrut doesn't even make it through dinner before the painkillers knock him out. Baze is only half-pleased; on the one hand, Chirrut sleeping means that he won't be moving his busted ankle. On the other, Chirrut is still too thin, and needs to eat as much as possible. Ah, well. Baze isn't about to wake him up.

Two days pass with Baze methodically drugging his friend into a stupor. The larger man has found that the smaller one is much easier to handle when he's blissed out on high dosages of pain meds--no matter how guilty it makes Baze feel. But despite the drugs, Chirrut has still tried to get up to stretch. They ran out of movies, and Baze left the room to get more. When he returned, his friend was in a handstand, protesting that that was elevating his foot.

Baze was displeased.

Now, they've run out of both movies and romance novels, and Baze is loathe to leave the room to acquire more entertainment. Chirrut still has two more days of this.

Force help them.

Baze stares at his friend. "If you have any suggestions as to how to keep you entertained without moving, I'm all ears."

"My foot feels much better, you are being ridiculous." Chirrut retorts, "I'm not going to go kick people in the face, I just need to move."

Possibly the Force answers Baze's desperate prayer, because there's a familiar presence at the door and a knock.

"Hello? Would you mind some company?" she asks from the other side of the door.

"No," Baze says, leveling a stare at his friend. He's about to tear into him, to tell him exactly why moving is a bad idea--and it's not like Chirrut hasn't heard it all before over the past two days--when there's a knock at the door.

"Oh, thank the Force," Baze says, and bolts over to the door. He flings it open, and, without another word, wraps his arms around Ibani and drags her inside. "Chirrut, Ibani is here!"

"It is my foot you claim is still broken, not my ears." Chirrut complains, shifting towards the edge of the bed so he can get up and greet Ibani properly. "Hello Ibani, please, take him out for a walk, he's going crazy."

"I'll come to you, or else Baze will give himself apoplexy," Ibani calls as Baze drags her inside.

Luckily, maneuvering Baze over to Chirrut so that she can wrap one arm around each of them is easy!

"Going stir-crazy?"

"We've watched all our movies and read all our romance novels," Baze explains mournfully, relishing Ibani's hold. "And we still have two or so days where he can't move."

"I can move, I just need to be careful." Chirrut huffs. "I have been up and about with worse." He knows Baze is worried (and he knows he's being drugged), but there's only so much of this he can stand.

Or sit, as the case may be.

"Would you like me to take a look at your foot, see if I can finish the healing process?" Ibani offers.

She can feel their frustration.

Baze should not have drugged his friend. The larger man knows this, knows it deep in his soul--and he did it anyway. Chirrut was so much easier to handle when he took the meds, but that doesn't make it right. Guilt twists Baze's heart. He rests a hand on his chest, drawing deep breaths through his nose.

The past two days have been hell. Chirrut has been stupidly stir-crazy, and Baze was tempted on more than one occasion to shake his friend.

And now Ibani has offered them an out. It would be so easy, wouldn't it, to just take it.

"Chirrut?" Baze says, and doesn't say anymore. This is Chirrut's decision.

His reluctance is immediate and strong... and irrational. The desire to bolt, almost as old as he is, has be driven down before he can breathe.

Ibani isn't going to hurt him. Ibani hasn't hurt him. And if she can fix it, Baze will stop fretting.

"You, stoppit, now. I wouldn't take the medication if I wasn't perfectly alright with what it does." He growls at Baze, fiercely. "It made this somewhat bearable."

Breathe in.

Breathe out.

"If you could, Ibani." It's not the most gracious of responses. He's trying.

"Thank you, Chirrut," she says, squeezing his shoulder gently. For facing his fear, for trusting her, for reassuring Baze.

Her gaze goes distant as she sinks into the Force and her hand moves from Chirrut's shoulder to his foot.

"The bone is mended, but you've got tendons damaged still," she says aloud, her voice distant as most of her concentration is elsewhere.

Gently, so gently, she eases a thread of the Force into Chirrut, encouraging tissues to heal, tendons to knit, swelling and pain to subside. She could do this much more quickly, WOULD do this much more quickly, if it were anyone but Chirrut.

But, thanks to his Force sensitivity and his past experiences, Chirrut requires a lighter touch. The Force is warmth and life and peace, seeping into Chirrut's body, making what has been damaged whole.

Chirrut's rebuke doesn't make Baze feel any better. It should. It really should. But Baze is still twisted with guilt. "I apologize, my friend," he says, which releases some of the tension in his shoulders. "I shouldn't have drugged you."

What will Ibani think of him, now that he's said it out loud? Baze doesn't want to know.

He's relieved--so relieved!--that Chirrut chose to let Ibani work on his foot. Baze was not looking forward to two more days of holding Chirrut down when all he wanted to do was climb the walls. Baze lays a hand on his friend's shoulder, offering reassurance that the larger man is still there for him, and always will be.

Chirrut hasn't wanted to fight, to flee, in his life or afterlife. When Ibani healed his headache, he'd been in enough pain for it to be distracting. He reaches back to wrap his hands around Baze's wrist, anchoring, trying to breathe.

It doesn't hurt. Actually, the feeling is pleasant, peaceful.

He wants to scream.

"I am one with the Force the Force is with me I am one with the Force the Force is with me I am one with the Force..."

Ibani doesn't feel Chirrut wanting to scream until she finishes the healing, the work demanding all of her attention.

She draws a sharp inward breath at the feeling and the Force is filled with contrition and sorrow. She hastily withdraws from Chirrut, pulls her power back tight around her body.

"A thousand pardons," she says quietly.

That feeling, the wanting to scream, is one she associates with interrogations past, with nightmares of torments she's inflicted on others. It stirs up things she would rather keep forever buried.

Baze chants the mantra right along with Chirrut, the larger man's powerful baritone folding over the smaller man's tenor and enveloping him. Baze slows down the litany, however, and adds the last part: "... And I fear nothing, for all is as the Force wills it."

He hopes Chirrut will follow and calm down, but he still seems gripped by terror. Then Baze sees the stricken look on Ibani's face, and his heart goes out to her.

He takes the pillows out from under Chirrut's foot, and tosses them to the floor. Then Baze starts dislodging Chirrut from the blankets. It's time to make a nest for cuddling.

Edited 2017-07-28 04:45 (UTC)

Chirrut rises, but isn't on his feet for long. The room isn't large, but it's large enough for this.

He goes down to his knees, the gesture graceful once again. From there he goes down entirely, prostrating himself flat on the ground, his face pressed against the rough tile of the floor.

"I have repaid kindness with pain, and have thus shamed myself and my brethern."

Ibani's face is confused and the Force echoes with it when Chirrut goes down to his knees, then prostrates himself. This is not a gesture she knows, its meaning is a mystery.

Then he speaks and she understands. "Oh, Chirrut, no. No, you have not shamed anyone." She kneels down to wrap an arm around him. "Given your past, it is perfectly understandable that you would feel like that when you were being affected by a Force user's power, however you feel about me as a person."

Baze has seen this gesture. He has seen it a lot, most notably after that horrible, nasty fight between him and Chirrut and Eiko, where the smaller man went berserk. The larger man tries not to think about that fight.

Baze joins in the snuggle pile, dragging Chirrut to his feet. The older Guardian notices that his younger friend's head is still bowed, that he's still subdued, and Baze wishes he could just clap his hands and fix this.

"Chirrut, Ibani, how about a sparring match? You probably need to move after being cooped up for two days."

"Far, far away from any rodent holes." Chirrut suggests, because if he ever has to do that again it will be too soon.

Ibani hugs Chirrut and Baze. "That sounds like an excellent idea," she replies.

The sorrow in the Force transmutes into mischief and joy. "Might even try a few new tricks I've been thinking up."

It won't take long for Baze and Chirrut to grab their staves so the three of them can head outside to spar....AGAIN.

OOM/IM: The Ankle

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