Fic titles: I Was a Teenage Hand Model
Man. I just. Hmmmmm. I don’t even know the best way to approach this one.
Although maybe. So maybe. Modern Spiritassassin AU. Baze and Chirrut both as models. Chirrut is definitely more of the model personality. And he goes all in for it, photo shoots, runways, the works. Baze is not nearly as confident. Baze doesn’t want his face shown. (His ears are too big.) Or much of his body. (His thighs are thick and his ass and his torso.) But they like his hands. His hands are very nice. So he becomes a hand model for watches and gloves and things like that. Things where you want nice, strong hands.
And sometimes their paths intersect. Chirrut, of course, is lovely. Chirrut is the type of model that Baze would like to be but isn’t. Chirrut has long, dark, fine hair that looks like a waterfall. Baze’s hair is too wavy and misbehaves and gets everywhere. Chirrut has fine features and a winning smile and his ears are not too large. Chirrut is slim but not to the point of looking like a wisp. Chirrut looks like he could easily kick your ass but also looks fucking great in all of the lean model outfits. Baze is built for a different kind of power, but he’d love to put his hands on that waist, on those arms, on that ass. Chirrut, of course, thinks the same exact thing and flirts.
But Chirrut flirts with everyone. So Baze is convinced it means nothing. And since Baze flirts with no one, Chirrut is convinced that Baze is not interested.
Baze gets out of modeling, goes into baking or art history or literature or painting, something he enjoys. He gardens. He cooks. He throws clay on the wheel. His hands are no longer just for show, they are for doing. They are not the same kind of lovely anymore.
Chirrut stays in modeling until his eyesight starts to go. The endless parade of different runways frustrates him. Age gets to him. The agency no longer wants him even though he is still as beautiful as ever. He starts a dojo. He starts a flower shop. He looks for harmony and beauty and power in everything. (He has never really forgotten that young man he knew when he was modeling even though he has dabbled his way through affairs with beautiful people in the years since.)
Baze watches a friend’s daughter for them. The daughter takes classes at the dojo.
This is how they meet again. Baze already knows who it is because the image of Chirrut was burned into his mind long ago. (And he saved clippings. It’s wrong and base, but he looks at them sometimes at night when things are lonely. He has muddled poorly through relationships that never worked, never lasted long. He is not a man for people. But he keeps thinking back on Chirrut, how he looked, how he laughed, how he was. Effortless. And how it felt to talk to him. And that means more than the physical presence any day.)
They meet again. Jyn, the friend’s daughter, makes Baze meet Chirrut. And Baze is fifteen shades of red and glad that Chirrut cannot see him because here is the man he has been fantasizing about for years in front of him. In the flesh. Lovely as ever. Blind but in no way ruined. And Baze is not surprised because Chirrut would never let himself be ruined.
And when Chirrut takes Baze’s hand, he knows. He knows him. He remembers. Even though the hands are rougher now, covered in nicks and scars, not nearly as well taken care of, he remembers.
“The soul is in the hands,” he says.
Baze just blushes and grumbles and shifts his weight around.
“I know you,” Chirrut says.
“I was a teenage hand model,” Baze admits. “Our paths crossed. Sometimes.”
“I remember you.” Chirrut’s hand reaches out, up, to try and find Baze’s face. “The handsome one.”
Baze hesitates for a moment before guiding the fingers to his cheek. Chirrut trails his fingers through his unruly hair until he curls his hold around an ear. Baze cannot help smiling. “I think you have mistaken me for someone else.”
Chirrut tweaks the ear. “I would never forget these.”
And it is not mean. It is not cruel. Baze smiles.
