thecopperriver:

So last week I was walking to the far grocery store to get the good bread, and Stranger Things have Happened by the Foo Fighters came on my playlist. It’s such a kylux song, and I was helplessly inspired. I hope you enjoy the result.

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goddamn this dusty room, this hazy afternoon
I’m breathing in this silence like never before
this feeling that I get, this one last cigarette
as I lay awake and wait for you to come through that door

Seven months after leaving the First Order, and Hux still hasn’t accustomed himself to the dust motes that drift through the air in his small bedroom.  Even the dilapidated Star Destroyers left to the Imperial Remnants hadn’t dared to accumulate something as organic as dust.  It’s an odd sort of charm he’s found in the hazy afternoon light on Rothana.  

But the silence…  Hux has woken in a panic more than once, certain that something has gone catastrophically wrong on his ship.  Engines on Destroyers never stop.

Sure, he’s been on planet before.  But Hux is a sniper, special forces deployments are rarely longer than a week or two.  And even then, he’d have a constant comm-link in his ear to his backup.  He can’t think of a time in his life when he’s been surrounded by so much stillness.  

Rothana has been largely forgotten by the Galaxy.  Its shipyards had been abandoned in the wake of the Battle of Jakku.  With the New Republic uninterested in building warships, and the First Order still in its formative stages, the shipyards were left to rust.  Much of the population had decamped for greener pastures as well.  Forgotten, off the major trade routes, it was the perfect place for an ex-General to wash ashore after the Battle of Crait.  After all, Hux had been created for war just as much as the ships.  Force knows he often feels akin to one of those hollow skeletons, echoing possibilities left unfulfilled.

Leaning back into the corner of his bed, Hux wriggles, luxuriating in the softness of the pillows he can now indulge in.  It had been his first purchase upon finding this tiny bungalow, searching out the most comfortable mattress he could find.  And then adding half-a-dozen pillows to the bill.  On the table beside him rests another rare indulgence.  He reaches for it, flicking the case open and pulling out a thin cigarra along with the sparkstick.  A deep inhale fills his lungs with the rich flavour of tabac and clove.  The smoke streams from his mouth to join the dust motes, curling grey in the beam of late afternoon sunlight.

This indolence is highly uncharacteristic.  Hux often feels disgusted by the laziness and lack of purpose he’s shown since finding this small retreat.  But there’s a sense of anticipation that’s kept him from seeking something more than this to occupy himself.

Will Ren care enough to look for him?

If this had been before the tensions of the search for Skywalker, before Starkiller’s fall, before Crait, Hux would have been able to predict the answer.  Or, he thinks so, anyways.  Perhaps what all that had seen is that he‘d never really known Ren at all.

After all, Hux had thought there was something true between them.

When he made the decision to leave, it was with the hope that Ren at least had enough fondness for him to allow his departure.  To allow him the first freedom he’s ever had.  And the longer he goes without Stormtroopers breaking down his door, the more he believes it. 

Yet…  The thing that keeps Hux in this state of limbo is the thought that Ren might come himself.