CW: chronic illness, chronic pain, anxiety, nudity, implied sexual intimacy
Ao3 Link
★★★★★★★★
You wake when you hear his speeder pull into the garage. You’d been at your desk, working on a spreadsheet for the upcoming weekend market, making sure your inventory was accurate and your supplies were ready to go. But it had been a long week, and at some point, you’d laid your head down just to rest your eyes, and fallen asleep.
He’s in the doorway staring at you when you finally look up from your work. You hate when he sneaks up on you. But you do love to see his face.
“You fell asleep at your desk again,” he says. “This is no good.”
Baze enters your office and helps you up from your chair. You lean into his chest. Long gone are the days of his heavy armor, the khaki overalls, the weapons he carried when you first met. Today he wears his dark red leather jacket with the fur-lined collar—a jacket with the symbol of the Rebel Alliance on one shoulder and that of the Guardians of the Whills on the other. A parting gift, he’d told you, from an Alliance tailor. One of many colleagues who had taken to calling him Uncle.
For all Baze’s gruff exterior, he seemed to befriend almost everyone he met.
With one arm around you, he guides you to the living room and brings you a heating pad for your back. On the living room table is a steaming container of dumplings—a favorite from Baze’s restaurant. He brings in dishes from the kitchen, takes off his coat, unpacks several sauces from an insulated bag.
“Here, little bird,” he says, handing you utensils. “You have to take better care of yourself. Eat.”
You put a plate together, inhaling the comforting aroma of this dish—not only a favorite but the first thing Baze ever cooked for you, long before a fellow Jedhan veteran had suggested opening a restaurant. Now, waiting for your dumplings to cool, you ask him, “How long were you walking around on a sprained ankle last week? Trying to pretend nothing was wrong every time I caught you limping?”
Baze shrugs, opens a bottle of seltzer and fills both of your glasses.
As you eat you think about the early days when you were slowly learning who he was, trying to figure out what he saw in someone so his opposite, back when the little voice in your head was still telling you that he would leave as soon as he felt inconvenienced by your disabilities. But he never did. He saw your heart as much as you saw his, and you learned that he loved you as a whole person—the only way he knew how to love.
You smile, sitting on this sofa that you’d chosen together not long after you’d moved into this little house on the edge of town. “Well, everything is ready for the market,” you say. “Tomorrow I’ll be resting. You should rest, too.”
“Perhaps,” he says, placing the last of the dumplings on your plate. “Perhaps I will.”
He rests one of his large hands on your thigh for a moment, tender, before returning to his meal.
*
You’d come to Chandrila only a year before the Battle of Endor, barely making it off of your home planet before Imperial occupation would have made it impossible to leave. Now, with the destruction of the second Death Star you had hope that some of those still suffering under the Empire would find some of the relief you had found—but you knew the war wasn’t really over. Chandrila had become the seat of the New Republic government and as such more and more Rebels were arriving, both as refugees and as recruits for the New Republic Navy. You felt safe here. Chandrila was well-defended, and Hana City had become your home.
But you were also aware that when you came here you’d done so with quite a bit of privilege. While you were living with chronic pain and anxiety, you were lucky to have an old friend in Hana City who helped you get set up in an apartment, and introduced you to one of the admins who ran the weekend market where you could sell your handmade goods. And you knew that so many others were not so lucky—especially the children who arrived on Chandrila alone.
Your health had made you unfit for combat, and there were times when it had been hard on your heart to not be able to contribute in that way. But, now, as you settled into your new home, you had enough energy to commit two days a week to the orphanage in your neighborhood, reading with the kids, braiding hair, kissing boo-boos, welcoming little ones to a cozy, safe home.
It was one such day when you were waiting on the landing dock with warm, new blankets and soft, cuddly tooka dolls that you looked up expecting to see children with your usual Alliance liaison, but instead you saw him—a large man with a broad chest and thick arms, dark curls falling just past his shoulders, and the saddest eyes you’d ever seen. His armor was imposing—bright red and battle-worn. But in his arms was a tiny, half-asleep Rodian boy. A Twi’lek girl who couldn’t be older than eight clung to his leg.
You knelt on the landing dock, told the little girl your name, asked her if she’d like to pick out a doll. She looked up at the man and he nodded to her.
“You are safe here, little one. These people will take care of you.”
“Are you leaving, Mr. Baze?” the girl asked, tears in her eyes.
Baze knelt, put the sleepy Rodian boy down. “I have to go now. But I’ll be back.” He looked straight into your eyes and repeated, “I’ll be back soon.”
While you distributed toys and welcome kits to the new kids, the orphanage director pulled Baze aside. Requisite forms were filled out, more children accompanied by Alliance soldiers filed out of the transport onto the dock and you greeted them all with smiles and open arms. But in the back of your mind, all you could think about was the man with the sad eyes. Baze.
*
Baze puts his empty glass on the living room table and pulls you toward him. You snuggle into his warm body, the soft fabric of his long-sleeved henley, his muscular chest rising and falling with his breath. He smells of ginger and cotton and his herb-y shampoo. You reach to caress his bearded cheek, tuck his graying curls behind his ear.
He’s a quiet man, and there was a time when you thought you would drive him out of his mind with your constant chatter. But after a while you realized that he liked listening to your stories, your wild ideas, your long-winded rambles. Tonight, though, you’re quiet, too, a bit tired from your long hours of work.
Baze reaches down and tilts your face toward his. “little bird, how did I get so lucky?”
“I don’t know,” you say. “From where I’m sitting, I think I might be the lucky one. I’ve managed to snag not only a beautiful man, but an endless supply of dumplings.”
He kisses you then, his lips fitting perfectly to yours, a hungry embrace, the bristly hairs of his beard familiar and comforting.
You know he holds onto guilt—the loss of his faith, friends he left behind both on Jedha and on the battlefield, lives he took with his own hands during the war. You know he doesn’t believe he deserves happiness. But he still loves with his whole heart. And you are determined to give him all the happiness you can, to prove to him that he deserves it.
You take his face in both of your hands, gaze into his dark eyes. “Every single day,” you say, “I wake up grateful that I met you.”
What he can’t say with his words, he does with his kiss. And soon you are making your way down the hallway to the bedroom, leaving the dinner mess on the table, both of you knowing the tooka cat that’s currently peacefully sleeping in the window will get into the mess you’ve left the second he wakes up.
*
Two standard months after your first meeting, you’d begun to get used to seeing Baze on the landing dock when you went out to welcome the children. Today, he arrived with a human girl’s tiny hand in his. He’d begun to downgrade his armor, perhaps softening into this role as the war deescalated.
“Go on,” he said to the girl. “You will be safe here.”
She chose a blue and red tooka doll from you, and then turned to Baze, who—with another Alliance soldier—was guiding children off of the transport.
But like so many of the children Baze brought to the orphanage, this little girl was taken with him. “Mr. Baze, do you want a doll, too?” she asked, her eyes wide.
“No, little one,” he said. “But thank you for thinking of me.”
You laughed, and the girl was ushered off with a small group by another volunteer.
“The director said you make these?” Baze asked you. “So many of them. Every time I see you, your arms are full with soft toys.”
You’d heard whispers about him from other volunteers, about his participation in the Battle of Scarif, his history at the temple on Jedha. But you wanted to know his story, to hear it from him.
“A lot of children come through here,” you said. “Many of them arrive with nothing. But every child should have something soft to hold onto, don’t you think?”
He took your hands then, turned them as if to examine your palms, ran his thumbs over your skin.
“Something soft,” he said. “Yes.”
And then he filled out his forms and left.
You didn’t see him for a while, but some months later he arrived dressed mostly in plainclothes, without armor, and with a dark red Alliance jacket you hadn’t seen him wear before. He came out to the landing dock not only with kids but with luggage. And a man you’d heard about, but never seen—Chirrut Îmwe, who had also been a part of the ground team on Scarif.
“Taking a vacation, Mr. Baze?” you asked, using the moniker so many of the children did, nodding at his suitcases.
“His rank is Captain,” Chirrut said with a smile.
It took only a cursory glance at Baze’s new red jacket to see his rank pinned to his chest, but you could tell discussion of his military standing made him a little uncomfortable. The other man was teasing him.
“My rank was Captain.” he said.
You raised an eyebrow in response.
“He declined a position in the New Republic Navy.” Chirrut said. “I’ve been stationed at the Chandrila base, so one might even think that he’s following me.”
Ignoring his friend, Baze said, “Can’t go back to Jedha, so I came here.”
“Well,” you said, surprised. “Welcome home.”
The corners of his mouth quirked up into a smile, and you felt your cheeks warm.
“I have not seen Baze Malbus smile in twenty standard years.” Chirrut said. “But there’s something about you.”
“You have not seen anyone smile in twenty standard years,” Baze grumbled.
Two days later, he asked if he could make you dinner.
*
You wake in Baze’s arms, his chest pressed against your back. You will never get over the pleasure of his embrace, even on days like this when you wake with your whole body aching.
You stretch a little, trying to release some of the tightness in your shoulders.
“Are you awake, little bird?” Baze asks, almost in a whisper.
“Definitely not,” you say. “I am very much sleeping.”
He runs a hand just under the hem of your shirt, ghosting his fingers over your tummy before pulling you closer. His hand is a bit rough not only from the years of battle before you met him, but from his continued practice of martial arts. It’s therapeutic for him, not only a place to put some of his more difficult feelings, but also a way of keeping Jedha alive. Like the dumplings you had for dinner the night before.
Baze kisses the curve of your neck. “I thought I might draw you a bath,” he says. “But I guess if you're sleeping...”
Part of you wants to stay in bed all day long, to rest here, with this man touching you tenderly with his rough hands. But a bath would be so nice for your sore joints and muscles.
“I could wake up for a bath,” you say. “Perhaps if you join me. I could be persuaded.”
You turn over to face Baze, run a hand through his hair, and press your lips to his. He caresses your back, his fingers along your spine, and deepens the kiss. The sun has risen enough in the sky that you know you’ve both slept in much longer than normal. It is a day of rest, and when Baze gets out of bed, you can hear him going through the bathroom cupboard, jars of healing salts and fragrant soaps clinking against each other.
When you finally settle into the bath with him, and he’s rubbing the knots out of your shoulders, you feel a sense of relief that you’d once thought impossible. A relief that you have grown accustomed to since falling in love with this man—not just because his hands on your body are miracles unto themselves, but because in Baze you have found a home.
“Stars, I love you, little bird.” he says, pressing a kiss to your shoulder. “Do you know that? How much I love you?”
“I do,” you say, leaning back into his chest. “I hope you know that I love you just as much.”
“I could never doubt that,” he says. “Never.”
★★★★★★★★
Thank you so much for reading! I really just had to get this out of my system, but I have more ideas that I could build on if you wat more Baze stuff!
Tagging folks who might be interested in this: @princessxkenobi @zinzinina @galaxtic-writings @r1-sw-lover @laserbrains @waterpancakeao3 @strwrs @phoenixhalliwell @maul-ologue
CW: chronic illness, chronic pain, the medical industrial complex, implied sexual intimacy
Ao3 Link
★★★★★★★★
Baze took your hand as you left the clinic, possibly even more relieved than you were to be going home. You’d been referred to a new specialist, and having been through years of trying to find a solution to a possibly unsolvable problem, you were used to seeing new doctors without seeing any results. Baze, however, was not. So when you got outside and you told him that the doctor said they probably couldn’t help you, that the only treatment plan had more side effects than benefits, he was visibly upset.
“This just…happens,” you say. “I don’t know why everything hurts all the time, but it does. And I have to live with it.”
“What is the point of doctors if they won’t even try,” he says, helping you into the landspeeder.
“I don’t know that they’re not trying,” you say. “It just is what it is.”
Baze sighs, realizing perhaps that his anger at the doctors isn’t helping you, either. He reaches over from the driver’s seat and ghosts his hand over your cheek. “I’m sorry, little bird,” he says. “Let’s go home.”
The drive is short, and almost as soon as you walk through the door Baze has you set up with a heating pad for your back and a cup of tea.
“You don’t have to do this,” you tell him. “It’s not so bad today, I can take care of myself.”
“I don’t take care of you because you can’t,” he says, kissing your forehead. “I do it because I want to.”
He busies himself in the kitchen—you can smell sweet onions when they hit the pan. You have no idea what he’s making, but he’s never made anything you didn’t like.
During his time with the Rebellion, Baze spent any spare time he had cooking, taking what rations were available and making something that was not only appealing but would feed as many on base as possible. The restaurant he now co-owns started as a running joke between him and another displaced Rebel—a man who had owned a café back on Jedha. Baze signed on to the idea of a food cart assuming it would never happen. And then it did. Soon they went from having one cart downtown to having two carts to having an actual brick and mortar location. The business end he entrusts to his partner, but he’s at one location or another for several hours on most days, preparing and serving Jedhan comfort food, making sure his team has what they need.
You know that sometimes he keeps himself busy so that he doesn’t have to confront his more difficult memories, his big feelings. And sometimes you worry about that. But for now you know that you are both safe and at home. The tooka cat that adopted you shortly after you moved to Chandrila hops into your lap and you scratch his round head, his blue fur soft between your fingers.
You hear Baze put a pan in the oven. Soon, he’s joining you on the couch. The tooka expresses his distaste with an offended chirp, trots over to his bed by the window.
“How are you feeling?” Baze asks.
“I'm okay tonight,” you tell him. “The heat helps.”
“Good.”
“I know it frustrates you that you can’t make this go away.”
He kisses your temple, draws your body close to his. “It does.”
“But what you do?” you say, resting your head on his broad chest. “It’s enough. Loving me is enough, Baze.”
*
You’d been seeing Baze for a few months when you found yourselves in the back of a crowded café after a long day of wandering. Baze was new to Chandrila, and while you’d been in Hana City for over a year, it was a huge city—there was still a lot you hadn’t seen. So you’d gone together on his speeder bike to explore some of the spots that neither of you had visited yet. And as the sun set, you’d ended up here, sharing a booth, talking, telling each other little bits of your lives that the other didn’t know yet.
Baze had been surprised to learn that even the staff at the orphanage where you volunteered had known his reputation within the Rebellion. How tidbits of his story had come to you before you’d even met.
“You know, the way people talked about you and Chirrut,” you said, “For a while I thought you might be together.”
“We were,” Baze said. “When we were younger. It was hard on Chirrut when I stopped believing.”
“I imagine it was hard on you, too.”
“It was,” he said. “Some days it still is.”
You took his hand in yours, ran your thumb over his. “I’ve never been religious. But someday, if you want to tell me about it, I’ll listen.”
“Thank you, little bird,” he said. “Someday, I’m sure I will.”
A server brought cups and a pot of tea—a local blend that Baze had chosen. You would learn eventually that tea was a great comfort to him, that it had become harder and harder to find in his last days on Jedha. This tea was minty and sweet, a relaxing flavor that you’d later ask the server about so you could write it down. Baze held his cup with both hands and, as he drank his tea, you watched as a sort of calm washed over him.
“All of this feels strange, sometimes,” he said. “I’m still learning who I am on my own. Chirrut and I grew up together, were Guardians together, and even after the temple fell, we pooled resources and rented a room together, spent our days protecting our neighbors and each other.” He paused. “And then Scarif, and the Rebellion. Everything about my life here—it’s new for me ”
These were more words than you’d ever heard Baze string together at once since you’d met. It felt almost like a confession. Like he was trying to warn you that what you had, what you wanted to have, wouldn’t be easy.
“I think, in a way, we never stop learning who we are,” you said. “For whatever reason. And so much is in flux in the galaxy right now. Sometimes it feels like every day I wake up to a world that’s completely new. ”
Baze nodded, placed his empty teacup on the table, wrapped a thick, gentle arm around your waist. “That makes sense,” he said.
“Regardless, you don’t owe me an explanation.”
“I just don’t want you to think—”
“I don’t.”
He kissed you then, right there in the café, one large hand at your back, his lips soft against yours. And despite your surprise, you couldn’t hold back, deepening the kiss with both hands in his hair, pausing only to catch your breath.
“You are a treasure, little bird,” he said, just above a whisper in your ear, pressing a kiss to your jaw. “Let me take you home.”
*
After dark, as the moon rises high in the sky, you take your tea to the back patio. There are insects singing in the trees and the air smells like rain is on the way.
Soon, Baze comes out to join you on the porch swing, “I need you to know that I don’t think you’re broken,” he says.
He drapes a knit blanket over the both of you, one that had been a wedding gift, handmade by a friend from the Rebellion.
“Why would you think that?” you ask.
“When you said you could tell I was frustrated—I don’t want you to ever feel like I wish you were different. I just hate to see you struggle.”
“I know,” you say. “But you’ve never made me feel that way.”
“Good,” he says.
He puts an arm around you, and for a quiet moment it’s just you and Baze and the insects and the moon. Everything else fades away.
“All those stars up there,” Baze says. “Sometimes it’s still hard to believe that I get to be here, under those stars, in peacetime, and in love with someone so perfect.”
“I’m hardly perfect.”
“You are to me.”
Tears well in your eyes as he places your teacup on a side table and takes your face in his hands. He couldn’t possibly know what this means to you after a lifetime of being made to feel like a burden. But you don’t speak as he brushes his thumb over your bottom lip and touches his nose to yours, his eyes closed.
“Kiss me,” you say.
And he does, pulling you into his strong embrace as he presses his lips to yours, your hands on his firm chest before wandering to the back of his neck, the angle of his jaw, his dark, silver-streaked hair. The way he touches you, you know you are treasured, his hands gentle as they slip under the back of your shirt and press warm to your skin.
“Can I take you to bed, little bird?” he asks.
You nod, bringing the blanket but leaving the teacup as you follow him to the bedroom. He undresses you and then himself as you both slide into the sheets wrapped in each other’s arms. In the dim light you look into Baze’s deep brown eyes and see your future together—a future of safety and love. You tell him this and he smiles before turning out the light and pulling you close in the dark.
★★★★★★★★
Thank you so much for reading! I hope this fic makes you feel seen and loved. I have gone down the Baze Malbus rabbit hole and I’m sure I’ll be writing more for Bodhi and Cassian in the near future, but I have really enjoyed writing Baze. I’m glad y’all are enjoying this, too.
Tagging folks who might be interested in this: @princessxkenobi @zinzinina @galaxtic-writings @r1-sw-lover @laserbrains @waterpancakeao3 @strwrs @phoenixhalliwell @maul-ologue @infinityrevengers
