T+ rating for dark themes.
The day that he sees Chirrut truly beg, Baze swears, is the day that Jedha will crumble to dust.
They are eighteen, both of them, just acolytes, two days away from being Guardians. Talking mindlessly on the Temple steps, they discuss in semi-serious tones what they will become after their duty is fulfilled. Their life is long before them, with nothing obstructing their visions. And nothing, Baze argues, is more important than the Temple, and to hell with the consequences.
"I will stay," he states, and the finality of the statement will not settle onto him until he is faced with the choice for real – when his first kill sheds red tears and he walks away, weighed down by another life. Then, he will remember this statement and think of a laughing man who fights like the wind and has long since forsaken his own for a Force that refuses to answer them. Not now, though. Now, they are both young.
Chirrut raises an eyebrow. "And, after the Temple refuses to house your old bones, will you beg on the streets next to the Temple so you can be close to it forever?" His words are tempered by an easy smile playing near the corners of his mouth, and the certainty that this, at least, will never happen. The Temple is ancient – everlasting – forgiving – the constant in every whirlwind of change.
Baze snorts and replies easily, "Perhaps. You'll be there too, and you know it."
Always so attuned to Baze's thoughts, Chirrut laughs and flashes a grin at the other boy. "Or maybe it'll be the other way around. Maybe you'll leave, and I'll be the one begging."
"Well," Baze starts, and already they are both laughing as they say simultaneously, "All will be as the Force wills it." The lesson, beaten into their brains by the endless droning of a Brother at the front of the classroom, is something they can afford to take lightly.
The laughter dies away, and between them sits a silence that Baze abruptly realizes he can't stand. He thinks of Chirrut, selfless Chirrut who can't take without giving twice over, grieving Chirrut who stood in the middle of the courtyard and saw for the last time, reverent Chirrut who learned to give himself over to the Force and believe without sight, and he can't stand to think of Chirrut at anyone's mercy. Baze thinks, There are mercies crueler than any punishment, and refuses to believe.
"No." His voice is gruff, full of conviction, just enough to puzzle Chirrut into listening.
Chirrut tilts his head, his blue eyes cast in Baze's general direction. "What?"
"You will not beg," Baze rumbles, his heart beating painfully, irrationally fast. "The day you beg is the day Jedha crumbles to dust." Chirrut smiles softly, and Baze truly thinks he means it.
The conviction stays with him as the Temple slowly starts to splinter, as for the first time the Temple gates are closed to visitors, each Guardian fearing the worst, and they two negotiate the ever-dwindling terms of each passing peace treaty, offered by each passing frigate of white-clad not-men. The two cleverest, people whisper as they walk by, and all Baze can think is that the Temple is not crumbling, the Temple is still strong and still standing.
The day the Temple falls is the day that Chirrut begs for the first time. Jedha does not crumble to dust, but the Temple gates are leveled by a single grenade. Millennia of history, of reverence and faith, of tears and love – destroyed by one hell-bringer with a dead heart and wild eyes. Baze strikes him down – the first man Baze has ever taken to battle – and cannot understand why there are songs about the glory of death when all that he can see are two staring eyes and a scrabbling hand, reaching for Baze's leg in the hope of some form of mercy. There are mercies crueler than any punishment, Baze thinks as he kneels down and breaks the man's neck.
As Baze looks around at the sudden silence around him, he realizes Chirrut, suddenly standing still in the chaos, has heard everything, knows everything Baze has done, can do. Baze takes one stumbling step towards Chirrut, and after one agonizingly long moment Chirrut grasps his arm and pulls him close.
Baze leaves the day after, spurred by a lost faith and a blind man sitting next to the Temple, bowl set beside him, pleading for coins, food, anything you can give me is fine. Baze leaves and cannot bear to look back, not at the begging man who reached out to Baze and whispered a promise of the Force, who recoiled as Baze wrenched his arm away and said that the Force was gone.
Nobody stops Baze from leaving. It is all too easy to steal a ship, to create an identity and pawn his meager possessions to buy his first gun. Although he's far off on his first try, Baze furiously trains and shoots and he kills mercilessly, thinking that each of his enemies are those first two staring eyes. There are mercies crueler than any punishment, he knows, and he shoots and kills and destroys until he realizes that perhaps his conscience is a mercy that he doesn't deserve.
Nothing stops Baze from taking a small, low-paying job on Jedha. Long since torn from his grief, Baze lands on the planet with only one intention in mind – duty. It's been too long, he thinks as he travels the old roads with new eyes. Each face is set with hard lines that he doesn't recognize, doesn't understand until he sees the first white armor and is besieged with reflexive hatred. When he comes upon the Temple – by accident, he tells himself fiercely – he is reminded once more of that sun-soaked afternoon, two days before their graduation, when he made those impossible promises to something he should have known he would never have.
There is a begging man sitting by the ten-years-since destroyed steps of the Temple, who had reached out to Baze and whispered a promise of the Force, who had recoiled as Baze wrenched his arm away and said that the Force was gone. Baze tightens his grip on his blaster.
It doesn't take long. Baze approaches Chirrut – not Chirrut, he thinks, but a stranger, a beggar whom he doesn't know. Baze approaches the man and asks, "Still here?"
Barely breaking his chanting rhythm that he uses to beg, the beggar smiles and says, "Hello, Baze."
And suddenly Baze can't stand to think anymore and tells him, "I'm going to stay," rushed and harried, words tripping over themselves to form even a mockery of a sentence that will fill up a decade of mistakes. Just like that, Baze breaks ten years' worth of promises and anger, all for a laughing man who fights like the wind and has long since forsaken his own for a Force that refuses to answer them.
Baze can think only of this as he stands beside Chirrut on a stolen ship, flying towards nothing but death. Subtly, Chirrut touches Baze's hand, and Baze lowers his head and understands. There is nothing left of Jedha but dust, but here, perhaps, the dust will be scattered among the sand to form a sandstorm that will destroy a destroyer.
Baze looks back at Chirrut, lying limp on the sand. Gently set down, his body lies as if he is simply sleeping. Now, Baze can think of nothing other than Chirrut, of what the Force can take from him if only it doesn't take Chirrut. There are mercies crueler than any punishment, he thinks, and closes his eyes.
The last thing Baze knows is of a laughing man who fights like the wind and has given his own a Force that has finally answered them.
I've had this piece gathering dust on my computer for a while now, but today was the day I remembered it exists and decided to tempt fate by posting it. Tell me what you think! Concrit is always welcome! :)