OOM: The Healer

[iprotectyou]

The raiders came with a small army. Baze wasn't quite sure what had happened until it was over. A visiting Jedi, Taza Madowki, fought for the Guardians, lightsaber flashing. Baze fought for the kyber, staff swinging. Chirrut fought for...

Oh, Force. Chirrut. Chirrut was injured.

Now, Baze is curled up next to his prone friend on the stones of the courtyard, trembling. Baze shouts at him, pleading, and Chirrut struggles to keep his eyes open, to keep his grip tight on the larger man's hand. The smaller man coughs up more blood.

The Jedi touches Baze on a cold shoulder, and he barely even feels it. He glances up at her, only to see her pink lips moving, but hears no words. She moves to Chirrut next.

Comments

[idontneedluck]

"No." Baze gets the truth, automatically, and quickly. Chirrut is clinging again, leaning heavily against Baze and revising his 'grabby starfish' impression. "Don't let go, I can't..." Can't anything, his senses in tatters and unreliable.

[iprotectyou]

Baze is tempted to carry his friend, but he's not that injured, not anymore, and Chirrut's damnable pride would suffer. Baze clings to him anyway, hobbled as he stalks down the halls to the infirmary.

The infirmary is in chaos. The sole bacta tank is occupied, and the oberworked technicians flit about from patient to patient, harried and hurried. Baze finds an out-of-the-way corner to tuck Chirrut into, in between the machines which constantly hum and click away. The larger Guardian chafes the smaller one's arms.

"Are you in any pain?" Baze asks, trying to leash his temper and keep the anger from bleeding into his voice.

[idontneedluck]

"No, I'm not... she dealt with that." Chirrut reports tersely, "Baze, I can't..." Hot panic tears at the calm he's trying to enforce. He can hear the machines and their mechanical hum, and the flurry of movement in the room... but he couldn't say where anyone was, the dimensions of the room. He can smell blood and bacta and machine oil and a dozen other things, but their order is muddled, confused. He relies on touch, grasping Baze's robes, feeling the heat of him under his fingers.

And the Force...

Oh the Force.

Away from the Jedi, he cannot sense it at all.

[iprotectyou]

Baze embraces his friend again, cupping the back of his head. The larger Guardian wishes beyond hope that he could drive away everything bothering the smaller one, that Baze's presence would be an anchor for him, the eye of the storm.

"What? What can't you do?" Baze says, rubbing Chirrut's back. "Let me help you."

[idontneedluck]

"Everything is just... I..." He clings desperately, panic ratcheting up the pitch of his voice.

"Alright, Guardian Imwe, lets see what you've done to yourself this time." The technician, familiar with Imwe and his injuries, someone who has spent enough time in Chirrut's personal space to automatically be considered safe.

Chirrut recoils hard enough to slam back against the wall, sucking in a startled breath.

"Baze?"

[iprotectyou]

Baze approaches his panicked friend cautiously, as if he's a wounded animal--which he sort of is. The larger Guardian takes the smaller one's hand in his own, dragging his thumbs across Chirrut's palm.

"It's Farki, the infirmary tech," Baze says, trying for a soothing tone of voice. "You remember Farki, don't you?"

Farki raises her furred hands. "I don't want to cause him any trouble."

[idontneedluck]

He could bristle, but right now he deeply does not want to fight with Baze.

"Yes, I know Farki, I just... didn't realize she was there. I'm.. fine. Getting a headache, but otherwise fine." He avows, ignoring the blood staining his robes and assuming everyone else will too.

[iprotectyou]

"I'd still like to scan you, Imwe. You're all bloody," Farki says, brandishing the handheld scanner she had tucked under her arm.

"Let her scan you," Baze urges. "If you truly are fine, she'll tell us so, and then we can go back to our rooms for tea."

[idontneedluck]

"Fine." Chirrut should let go of Baze entirely, but he keeps a hand looped around Baze's wrist, his fingers firm against Baze's pulse. "I will hold you to that."

[iprotectyou]

Baze's pulse is rapid, ratcheted up with the panic he's been feeling over the last half hour. He draws a breath through his nose, willing himself calm. He'd pray to the Force, but that seems like a bad idea at the moment, for some reason.

Farki runs the scanner over Chirrut's head and body, and whistles. "It looks like you're in late-stage recovery. There's a lot of bruising, and you'll probably feel some residual pain later when you've calmed down, but other than that, you're okay. Get out of here, Imwe, there are patients worse off than you."

Baze takes Chirrut's hand and drags him out of the infirmary. The pair stops by the deserted kitchens, where Baze starts preparing a pot of tea, while still holding on to his friend.

"I'm sorry," Baze says, once the kettle's on the burner. "I should have stopped her."

[idontneedluck]

"No!" Chirrut barks, half startling out of his seat in panic. "Don't go after her, she..." He doesn't want to even think about Baze going through that, the sense of self disappearing under a wave of power that should be so familiar, but was so painfully, coldly foreign.

[iprotectyou]

Baze cups Chirrut's cheek, and presses a kiss to his brow.

"I'm not going after her," Baze says, gently chafing his friend's arms. "I'm staying right here with you. I promised we'd have tea, remember? You need to hold me to that. Stay with me."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut huffs, but doesn't argue - he knows what Baze said, he just... knows Baze is unhappy about the whole thing. He doesn't want that unhappiness to turn into something more protective, more disastrous.

But he sits. And stays.

He'd pray, but that void-space where the Force should be, tenuous or not, is frightening. He'll leave it alone, for now.

Instead he taps on the countertop with his fingernails, trying to track the sound, to bring the world back. It's distracting, at least.

[iprotectyou]

Baze reluctantly leaves Chirrut in his chair, agitated because he is. The larger Guardian packs loose tea leaves into the metal balls used for steeping, and finds two earthenware cups in the cabinets. The kettle whistles, and he pours the hot water over the balls in the mugs.

The process of tea brewing is usually calming and centering, a meditative practice, but Baze is too keyed up to let the peace sink into his skin, his lungs, his bones. He stalks around the kitchen, pacing off the boundaries between the counters, burning off restless energy.

Eventually, he presses Chirrut's teacup into his hand. "They don't have sapir this time of year. I'm sorry."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut has a better idea of where he is, though really it's more because of tracking Baze's pacing and memory of the kitchens than any great recovery in his equilibrium. He drinks his tea slowly, hesitant to use the arm he knows full well was broken not long ago. It's weird and unsettling and he has this bizarre feeling that he ought to be grateful for it, though he cannot summon up more than 'vaguely tolerant'.

"It is still good. You made enough for yourself?"

[iprotectyou]

Baze pauses in his pacing. That Chirrut could even be thinking of someone else in this time is a testament to his character. The concern brings a smile to Baze's face, unbidden.

"Of course," he says, more gently, and settles in a chair across from Chirrut. Baze takes his free hand in both his own, and starts massaging his friend's palm again.

"Master Sheotar said there will be an inquest on your behalf. I didn't think she'd go against the Jedi."

[idontneedluck]

Baze's massage is soothing, and he tries to focus on that rather than the worry that drags his lips into a frown. It's not... quite working, but at least he stays put and drinks his tea.

"She should be careful. The Jedi are powerful, and some listen less to the Force than one would hope."

This is the polite version.

The less polite version of that statement, in his head, is that some Jedi are power-hungry status-seeking numbskulls with less control than a toddler on a sugar high.

[iprotectyou]

Baze snorts. He knows his friend's views on the Jedi, and knows he's being polite. The larger Guardian continues rubbing the smaller one's hand, continues easing out lines of tension and smoothing out soreness.

He hasn't touched his tea yet. He's too worried over Chirrut.

"You will probably be called to testify."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut tenses abruptly at this suggestion, hissing between his teeth as the movement pulls at bruises. He focuses on the pain of it, on the careful movement needed to put his tea back down, rather than on the urge to run as fast and as far as he can.

If only because right now any running is pretty much guaranteed to land him smack into a wall or down a flight of stairs.

[iprotectyou]

Baze hums quietly, a tuneless song. He switches to Chirrut's other hand, gently tweaking his fingers and brushing his knuckles. Baze will massage his friend's hands until he's calmed and boneless--and if that doesn't work, the larger Guardian will start in on the smaller one's shoulders.

Baze's tea has grown cold by the time he stops rubbing Chirrut's hands, and shakes out his own sore ones.

"I will be there with you," he says, and then hesitates. "Chirrut, that Jedi... We know her."

[idontneedluck]

"I know." Chirrut isn't boneless, but he doesn't look a heartbeat away from bolting either, leaning against the counter as the day's adventure starts catching up to him. "If I'd realized who she was sooner, I would have stayed further away. The sensation is... difficult to forget."

[iprotectyou]

Baze stands, and crosses to Chirrut's back, starting work on his poor, abused shoulders. The larger Guardian squeezes tense muscles, dragging his thumbs up and down the smaller one's neck, and moves his fingers in small circles against his skin.

"By the time she came to us today, you already couldn't move," Baze says, and hesitates again. He licks his dry lips. "I don't... agree with what she did, and how she did it. But I am glad you're not dead."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut reaches up to grab one of Baze's hands, and leans back, trusting Baze won't let him topple over backwards.

"I am also glad to not be dead." He points out, wry, "You know I would never go far, right? I will always be there, in the Force. Someone would have to look out for you, after all."

He doesn't have a death wish, not by a long shot - life is a glorious thing. But Chirrut isn't afraid of death.

[iprotectyou]

Baze doesn't let him fall, merely guides him to rest his back on the larger Guardian's chest. He loops an arm around the smaller man, resting Baze's scarred cheek on Chirrut's temple.

"I know," Baze murmurs. "I know, you'd always be there with me. But I can thank the Force that... Well, that I don't have to deal with the pain of losing you to this life just yet."

[idontneedluck]

Chirrut hums agreement, peaceably listening to Baze's heartbeat for a few minutes.

"Lead a poor blind man back to his room? I should probably make myself scarce before the technicians run out of things to do and remember I got hurt." His excuse is a little thin, but he suspects Baze will let it slide for now. He just wants to let this day become the past, and hopes the world will become more navigable when he wakes up again.