so, the “pretending we’re married/together” trope is a great one but i think in chirrut and baze’s case, reversing it could end up in some of the funniest shenanigans ever
baze and chirrut, the most married couple to every marry - undercover and pretending they’re NOT married
maybe they’re trying to infiltrate the gang of an imperial stooge arms dealer on jedha, go in together and act as if they’ve never seen each other before, and bring down the operation from the inside. they’re working together because honestly, you need two people to do a job without even needing verbal communication, even when one of them is blind? you go to baze and chirrut
but asking them to act like strangers is impossible. they keep slipping and calling each other pet names. almost forgetting to sleep in separate bunks, and unable to sleep when they do so. freezing halfway through absent-minded displays of affection, before hamming it up and pushing each other away, “uhh what are you DOING” “GET OFF OF ME, YOU’RE NOT THAT IRRESISTIBLE” “SINCE WHEN!?”
having one of their normal arguments at a critical moment during an ambushed weapons drop when one of the marks roars in frustration, “would you two just FUCK and get it over with”
without thinking chirrut says, “that never works when he’s in a mood like this” and there’s a pregnant moment’s silence. then their contractor arrives and baze has never been more glad for a firefight to kick off
they agree never to take another job like it again. too damn difficult
MY G O D IT WAS A BLESSING AND A GIFT UNTO US ALL.
In all seriousness, though, I loved it. It couldn’t have been better designed for me if they tried. Brutal honesty about Doing What Needs To Be Done, desperate people fighting desperate wars, shouting matches between allies with laser-targeted accusations and grief-driven sharp tongues, bloody hands and buried sins.
Basically, look, okay, here: if you read and liked the entire Animorphs series, this will be your jam. If you prefer your heroes to be unsullied and clean (which, no judgement), maybe not. But seriously, give it a try.
A couple other things:
“Fiercely competent anti-fascist space Latinx with a robot best friend” is my new favorite weirdly specific trope, see also: Poe Dameron
Jyn Erso grows so much over the movie she’s my daughter and I love her
I want to wrap Bodhi Rook in blankets and put him down in front of Fantasia and cuddle him and feed him chocolate until he’s Happy, I’m a simple woman with simple needs
Darth Vader is so hilariously Extra
Krennic’s cape is a fucking tragedy
“Welcome home” *bawls*
Baze and Chirrut are married and have been for like thirty years, sorry I don’t make the rules
As much as I love mutual pining and using it for every ship ever, I really don’t picture it applying to young, pre-relationship Baze and Chirrut
Because I imagine it as Baze being completely lovesick, head over heels pining, “I would die if he found out how much I love him but also he keeps accidentally flirting with me and doesn’t he know it’s killing me?”
meanwhile Chirrut never feels like this because he’s under the impression they’re already dating
Chirrut can tell Baze loves him and he can also tell something is eating Baze alive but because he thinks they’re already dating (what do you mean, we didn’t actually have that conversation?) he doesn’t realize it’s unrequited love
so he keeps asking what’s wrong and Baze keeps saying “nothing,” and of course that’s a lie but there’s obvious pain and shame behind it, so Chirrut doesn’t want to push
finally Chirrut gets Baze alone and says “listen, I know something is bothering you and I think you need to talk about it. don’t worry that I’m going to judge you; you’re my boyfriend and I love you and I’m not going anywhere.”
it probably takes a good two-three minutes before Baze can say anything but “what” and he’s been cranky ever since
“I say eighteen years,” Jyn, perched on the edge of the
table.
“What? No way,” Cassian, leaning forward, focused.
Leaning back on his chair, Bodhi cleans his goggles.
“Well, they were Guardians before the Republic fell, weren’t
they?” Jyn is insistent, “They must have had some sort of code against emotional
attachments, like the Jedi.”
“Even so,” says Cassian, “It has to be longer than that.
Looking at the way they interact, the subtlety of the touches, the shorthand…
I say twenty-four, twenty-five years.”
“You’re not using your intelligence-gathering skills for
this, are you?”
“Well, it’s not like I can just switch it off!”
“But it’s an unfair advantage!”
Cassian brushes her off and turns his attention to the
pilot.
“What about you, Bodhi? What do you reckon?”
“Thirty-two years,” he says calmly.
Then, seeing as the other two are looking at him with raised
eyebrows, he adds:
“Give or take. Probably dated for like… five years before
that? I’m just guessing.”
“Shit, they’re coming. Credits on the table, boys!” says Jyn
in a whisper.
Each of them throws a handful of credit chips on the table.
“Alright, spit it out,” says Baze, walking up to their
corner of the mess hall, “the three of you have been staring at us for the last
fifteen minutes.”
“I told you,” says Chirrut lightly, “their intentions are
pure.”
“I don’t trust your definition of pure. And , in any case, it’s annoying. So what is it?”
Jyn elbows Cassian in the ribs to get him to do the talking.
“Well, we were just wondering… How long the two of you
have been together.”
“Married, you mean?”
Jyn nods vigorously.
“Well, we became involved when I was sixteen, Chirrut was fifteen.”
“The bit about no emotional attachments was never really a
rule. More like advice,” Chirrut answers Jyn’s unvoiced question.
“Very strong advice,” says Baze.
“Well, we were always unorthodox.”
Chirrut smiles at Baze, who leans in to give him a quick
kiss.
“Anyway, we were married some five years later, so that makes
it… thirty-two years?”
“Just about.”
Cassian and Jyn’s jaws drop, and they apparently decide to
give up on hiding their secret. Both turn to Bodhi.
“What?!”
“How did you know?!”
“Unbelievable!”
The two wail and stomp off, grumbling about “two hundred
credits!”.
Meanwhile, Bodhi leans forward on the table and gathers his
precious winning.
“Guess that means these are mine now.”
“So,” says Chirrut grinning, “are you going to tell them you
were born and raised in Jedha City, and that the marriage of two Guardians of
the Whills made city-wide news?”
Like what if Baze adopts this really high-strung border collie/pit bull mix when he goes to the animal shelter kind of on a whim and they’re showing him all these adorable dogs and then there’s this one irritable dog with a broken tail and a squint in her eye and the shelter volunteers are like “…yeah be careful, she doesn’t bite exactly but she psychs people into thinking she’ll bite,” and Baze is like, “that’s hilarious, I want that one,” and the volunteers are like “oooooookay bro your funeral” and that’s how Baze adopts Jyn.
And at first they basically live at opposite ends of the apartment, like Jun will literally up and move every time Baze comes near her, but Baze is a Chill Dude Who Fought In Wars And Stuff, he knows from PTSD and figures as long as she doesn’t shit in his bed they’re cool. So eventually they become buddies and go on long walks through the city and when Baze wakes up this is what he sees:
But then one day they’re walking along in the park along the river and this great big fuck-off massive dog demon of death comes loping toward them and Jyn looks about ready to find a switchblade or something and Baze is like “what a stupid way to die” when from right behind said dog demon of death comes an EXTREMELY irritated looking poodle who takes one look at Jyn and makes this annoyed noise that Baze never knew dogs could make.
And that’s how Baze gets adopted by two more dogs, K2 and Cassian:
Walks at this point become a little more difficult, at least until Baze accepts their preferred way of walking: Cassian without a leash and more or less patrolling around them at all times to look for danger, and K2 and Jyn both on a leash – but sometimes K2 is the one holding Jyn’s leash, and sometimes Jyn is the one holding K2′s leash. Baze is just glad they haven’t tried ganging up on him and making him wear a collar, because he’s pretty sure they could swing it.
And all this works out really well until one day Baze is taking his dogs to the vet and there’s a commotion in the back because apparently some purebred labradoodle (”I thought the whole point of those dogs is that they weren’t purebred,” Baze mutters to his seatmate, a cool dude named Bail who’s brought in a wildly antisocial cat named Wedge to treat for a torn-up ear) has shown up and the assistants aren’t sure what to do because he’s not microchipped or tagged or anything but he’s clearly ready to make friends and influence people, and they don’t want to send him down to the animal shelter because they’ve got a backlog and the poor guy might get put down. And Baze really wasn’t gonna do it except the labradoodle (”such a dumb name for a dog”) comes out into the waiting area with one of the vet assistants’ scarf around his neck and he looks dapper as fuck and immediately becomes BFFs with Jyn, who up until now has shown only like two feelings ever. So like, Baze clearly doesn’t have a choice, and that’s how he gets Bodhi:
It should be crowded - it kind of is, Baze makes pretty good living doing security consultation but it’s still just a one-bedroom and like, dogs take up way more space than all those lying obedience book assholes admit. But he’s not that upset about it; it’s kind of nice, especially since none of them are the yappy types or all that clingy except when it comes to mealtimes. They don’t even bark when the doorbell rings or someone walks past; instead they all take up strategic positions around the living room and stare intently at the door, Cassian making a very, very low growling noise.
(It probably should be more worrying than just barking, but Baze came home one day to see the lock busted on his front door. He’d rushed in, sick to his stomach, to find Jyn, Cassian and K2 sprawled out in various places in the living room, Jyn with a spot of blood on her muzzle and Cassian chewing on a shoe that definitely did not belong to him. There was a note that had been shoved under the door: ‘SORRY FOR BREAKING IN BUT FUCK WHY DO YOU OWN WOLVES.’ Baze found Bodhi in the kitchen, shaking like a leaf but looking determined to protect the honor of the food. Baze didn’t bother fixing the lock and he never had troubles with break-ins after that.)
Still, things are good; Baze sleeps well at night despite (because of) the sense of someone in the room, the comforting, begrudging lump of Jyn at the back of his knees. He doesn’t feel as ground down as he did; he smiles at the other people at the dog park (even though he can only really take Bodhi, the other ones try to start shit too often) and sneaking them all down to the river for some highly illegal dog swimming is more fun than a man his age should be having.
It’s great, except that he works long hours and can’t always get home during lunchtime– that grates on him a little, makes him guilty when he comes home after ten hours and the bed is pointedly not-peed-on. So he asks around and gets some references from the solemn-faced woman Mon Mothma who has an entire menagerie of corgis that she brings to the park every day. He gives one of them a call.
“Sure, I’m available. How about I come over and introduce myself?”
Baze blinks at the phone. “Uh. Sure, there’s a coffee shop–”
“No,” the man says, and Baze can tell he’s smiling somehow, “I meant so I can introduce myself to your dogs. I don’t care if you like me, but the dogs need to trust me, otherwise I wouldn’t be a good fit.”
So Baze gives this complete stranger his address and apartment number and spends the next two hours – who says they can be over in two hours? Baze was hoping for like a week to ramp up to this – trying and failing to de-shit-heap his apartment. He even downloads that stupid Unfuck Your Habitat app that his nieces showed him. (It actually worked really well helping him organize his closet.) But when the buzzer goes he figures this is as good as it’s going to get and he buzzes the guy up.
When he opens the door, it’s to a man who’s already (still) smiling, a pair of sunglasses pushed up onto his forehead and a white stick (folded-up cane, Baze had seen a few of them at the VA hospital for guys who’d been blinded by IEDs) in his hand. He’s wearing a leather jacket that somehow manages not to look completely pretentious, and he’s sticking his other hand out. “Hi,” he says, “I’m Chirrut, and I still don’t care if you like me. Where are the dogs?”
And that’s how Baze Malbus falls in love with Chirrut Îmwe and Chirrut Îmwe falls in love with Baze Malbus (and also his dogs).
the first time chirrut touches bazes face is before they even start dating and when hes done he kinda laughs and says “i didnt need to do that. i already knew you were handsome” and baze doesnt sleep for 3 days bc hes still thinking about it
full offense but the scene of baze malbus holding chirrut imwe and begging him not to go is a more iconic love scene than anything nicholas sparks has ever touched sorry i don’t make the rules
