#again... as cringe as actually having a moving gif in your header...

[fireinmoonshot]

CONTAINS SPOILERS FOR THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR | PART FIVE | PART SIX | PART SEVEN | PART EIGHT | PART NINE | PART TEN Summary: Armitage Hux finds himself strangely fascinated by you, a Resistance fighter and pilot, even though he knows he shouldn’t. You know that there’s much more to him than you see on the surface. Pairing: female!Reader x Armitage Hux Fandom: Star Wars Word Count: 2624 Warnings: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER SPOILERS A/N: Ooh, this part has a fancy header because, as I’m sure you’ve seen if you follow my account, I have gotten back into gif making for the first time in several years. I’m kind of obsessed with how this turned out. Anyway, this part – it’s been very anticipated, and I’m very happy with how this part turned out. I feel like this is where all the real fun begins... and I hope you won’t hate me too much for it. This chapter is a puddle of pure angst with a lil bit o’ happy thrown in the middle. I promise I won’t keep you waiting too long for Part Twelve. Read it on Ao3 here.

When he wakes up the next morning on the ship, his neck a little sore from sleeping so fitfully and uncomfortably, you’re already awake. You’re sitting across from him, a book open in front of you, eating something you’d brought from home.

Home. Is that what Ajan Kloss is to him now? Home?

The word doesn’t sound right anymore.

And after last night… he’s not sure what feels right.

He pushes himself up to sit straight and wipes his eyes with his hands to try and wake himself up. He’s tired – sleeping on a small, uncomfortable seat was worse than his makeshift bed back on Ajan Kloss. And he’d had trouble falling asleep in the first place. You’d seemingly fallen asleep easily. He had been awake at least half the night.

Armitage had thought he could never feel more ashamed than when the two of you were kicked out of the bar yesterday morning. But he had been wrong – he could feel more ashamed, and he did.

He sniffs, and you look up.

“Oh, you’re awake. It’s already mid-morning. I was waiting for you.”

You close the book in front of you and finish off your food. He looked so peaceful sleeping, and you didn’t want to wake him. For two reasons – you wanted a moment to yourself to pretend you were reading but to really ponder last night and because he had looked rather tired when you’d eventually come inside to retire for the night.

“You could have woken me. Aren’t we supposed to be working?”

You shrug at him, and things feel different all of a sudden.

He doesn’t like how different things feel. He wishes he hadn’t gone to sleep. He wishes he hadn’t tried to kiss you. But most of all, he wishes he hadn’t failed so miserably.

Then, you stand up from your seat and grab your coat from where it’s laying on the seat beside you. You’re shrugging it on, and all Armitage can do is watch you. He can’t hear the rain outside, nor can he see it, but he knows that’s what the coat is for. That and you’re doing it to make him actually get up and do something.

“You can go without me,” he offers as he stands. “If you tell me where you’re going.”

“No,” you’re shaking your head. “No, we’ll go together. And that woman last night, Sira, she’s organising a meeting down by the markets this morning with a few others who want to talk to us. You should be there for it– for all of it.”

He looks at you then. Really looks at you. Those same feelings from last night stir impatiently in his chest, and he stands up a little straighter. Squashes them down. It’s the only way he’s going to get through today without feeling so ashamed he combusts.

“You’re right,” he hums in reply, and grabs his own coat. “I’ll meet you outside. I need a moment to wake myself up, and then I’ll be with you.”

You watch as he nods at you and then walks out of the room, disappearing into the main corridor of the ship and down towards the small washroom. Your heart is beating fast in your chest, and you let out a shaky breath of air as you follow after him, but make a detour down the ramp just as he’d instructed.

He had no idea that you had barely slept a wink all night. That the book you’d been reading when he’d woken up had been finished hours ago because you’d chosen to try and occupy your mind with anything other than sleep or thoughts of what if?

You intend for him to remain unaware.

During your sleepless night, you’d constructed a plan – a plan to just move on. To go about your day on Arkanis as you’d planned to, and to hopefully get some more information and be able to help those on the planet that wanted your help after all. You only have two more days here, and you want to make them count.

You don’t want your mind to be clouded with what you may or may not feel for Armitage Hux. And you’d thought that, if he is to mention it, you’d be okay with that too… though you wonder now if he even remembers it at all.

As he joins you again and the two of you start the trek down from the ship to the markets, your heart flutters again, and you have no choice but to push your own feelings down – entirely unaware that he’s doing the same.

When your feelings for the man came along, you’re not sure. What they are exactly, you don’t know either. What you do know… is that last night you really wish you hadn’t been interrupted when you were.

–

Armitage really doesn’t know what to say to the people of Arkanis, so he stands back and watches. He waits for someone to say something to him, but secretly wishes that they don’t. You’re doing all the talking, and you’re not paying attention to him, which gives him the perfect few moments to just watch you. To try and figure you out in his mind. To figure out the sudden feelings that have been bugging him all morning.

He bristles a little as a man, about the same height and build as him and definitely not as intimidating as the man in the bar yesterday, sidles up to him with a smile.

“She was saying before that you both grew up here.”

He nods. “Her more than I, but I did spend a few years here.”

“And then you joined the First Order.”

Armitage lets out a small breath and turns to the man. “If you’ve been talking to her,” he nods towards you, “then you ought to know that I am not First Order any longer, and nor do I wish to talk about my decisions behind joining.”

He wasn’t going to admit that to anyone - much less a stranger. This man, he didn’t need to know about his horrible father, and his even worse mother. About his fathers horrible friends and the way he’d been treated as a child likely causing him to become the man he was trying so hard not to be now.

Hell, you barely knew about that.

The man, though, surprises him and holds his hands up in surrender. “I’m not judging, I’m really not– I was a Stormtrooper. I escaped about… two years ago? I think it was something like that. I remember seeing you there. When I was still there too,” he explains. “You did… I saw you do some terrible things.”

The tether inside Armitage snaps, and his good mood from watching you interact with the locals so casually and easily and beautifully is gone. He knows this. He doesn’t need to be reminded when his own mind does a good job of that itself.

He turns, glares at the man, and speaks. “I am certain that I am not the only one to have done wrong on behalf of the First Order. If you were a Stormtrooper as you say you are, you would have done so too. I did not come to Arkanis to be lectured.”

And with that, he walks away and disappears from the markets entirely.

–

You notice that Armitage is gone only a few minutes later. He’d been stood talking to a man you’d met briefly but hadn’t exchanged many words with, but then he was gone. You carefully excuse yourself from your conversation with a few of Sira’s friends and wander over to the man.

“Would you mind telling me where Armitage went?”

Thunder cracks overhead, and the man looks slightly shell-shocked, but you have a feeling it’s not from the scare of the thunder. You’re worried before you even have a reason to be.

He points to his right. “I was just trying to tell him that I think it’s great he managed to get out of there– that he managed to get out of the First Order and make a life for himself here– and he thought I was lecturing him or something– he just– he just he just walked away.”

Hesitantly, you squeeze his shoulder and give him a reassuring smile. “He’s still getting used to life here without the First Order. But I’m sure he didn’t mean to hurt your feelings. I’ll go and see what’s wrong– don’t let it worry you.”

Before he can so much as say anything else, you’re following where he pointed, looking for Armitage. People run past you as they rush to shelter, the rain starting to become a little heavier now, but all you’re worried about is finding him.

–

You find Armitage standing under a small awning, staring out at the mountains in the distance. He looks a little shaken, and his light brown shirt is dotted with rain, his hair wet and drooping over his forehead.

“Oh– finally. I’ve been looking for you. What happened?”

He looks up and cringes as he sees you. He missed the brunt of the rain. You did not. He feels even worse for making you have to search for him in the rain.

“That man,” he shakes his head, “was insulting me.”

You raise your eyebrows. “That man, if you’d stayed and listened, was actually just trying to tell you that he thought it was great you managed to get away from the First Order and begin living a real life.”

Armitage pauses, looks at the mountains again, and then back at you.

“Well then why didn’t he get to the point earlier?”

Your lips twitch up into a smile. “I don’t know, but I do know you owe him an apology, Armitage. He looked like he’d been slapped when I asked him where you were. I don’t think he was expecting you to be so cold.”

“Is that what you think I am? Cold?”

“Armitage, that’s not what I said.”

He stares out at the mountains once more, and this time keeps his eyes on them. He can feel the shame sinking back in the longer he’s alone with you. It was better back at the markets – better when he could watch you and not have you watch him in return. Better when he felt like you didn’t remember the night before.

Without taking his eyes away from his view, he speaks again – but softer this time, not as accusatory as before. He’s changing the subject. He has to. “I remembered something about Arkanis while I was walking here.”

“Yeah?”

“I think the reason I don’t remember much is both because I was too young and also because there wasn’t enough good to remember. My family, they weren’t the best of parents. I am a bastard, so my real mother, I never met, and Maratelle… despised me more than my father did, which is certainly saying something. But whenever my father was busy, they would leave me with a woman meant to take care of me – and I remembered the place she’d take me sometimes when my father was particularly… nasty. I think I thought it was the most beautiful place in all of Arkanis.”

“Does it still exist?”

He nods. “As far as I’m aware, it’s six floors above where I’m standing right now.”

You turn and look at the door behind you. “Do you want to go up?”

He surprises you by shaking his head. “We can’t. There’s a key card slot right there, and we don’t have access. I imagine it’s only for wealthy people of Arkanis now. But this view… this view is good enough.”

The mountains are clouded in fog and mist from the rain, but behind them you think you can see the hint of sunshine – a rarity on Arkanis. You hadn’t seen any since you’d arrived. There are trees swaying in the breeze, and thunder rumbling overhead, and rain still dripping down from the awning above your heads, and you know why the woman used to bring Armitage here.

You don’t think you’ve felt this calm since you arrived.

Armitage is smiling weakly as he takes in the view. It’s not the same from so low down on the ground… but it does the job. It makes him calm enough, and after the conversation he’d had with the man earlier… calm was what he needed.

Never mind the fact that his heart felt like it was beating out of his chest with you so close to him, his mind slightly marred with memories of last night once more. Never mind all that. For now, all he would mind was the fact that yesterday, you’d taken him to your old home in Arkanis… and today, he had taken you to the equivalent of his.

–

It’s quiet when you both return to your ship for the night.

The day had been successful – you, mostly you and not Armitage, had spoken to several people from Arkanis city who had been more than happy to get the answers they’d been looking for or to ask questions they’d been waiting to. You hoped that tomorrow would be even more successful, considering it was your last day.

After finding Armitage, and after he’d showed you his place, the both of you had returned to the markets, though most people had crowded around inside a bar close by – a different one (luckily) to the one you’d been kicked out of yesterday. You’d all spent the afternoon eating, talking and drinking.

Armitage had spent the afternoon drinking, thinking and watching.

You hadn’t forced him to do anything else. He’d apologised to the man he’d gotten angry at, who had been grateful for the apology, and then he’d shrunk into himself.

Things were slowly becoming more and more complicated.

And you feel you’re only about to make things more complicated when you finally say the words that Armitage has been dreading all day long.

“I think we need to talk about what happened last night.”

He freezes in the middle of unfolding the blanket for his bed. No. No. No.

“Nothing happened last night.”

His words are predictable, and you nearly smile at them. “No, but something was about to when we were interrupted. You and I both know it, Armitage. We’ve been dancing around it all day. We may as well just talk about it.”

Armitage says nothing. He continues unfolding his blanket in silence.

You stand up and hesitantly walk over to him, standing beside him so that he can see you out of the corner of his eye. “Armitage, come on– please, let’s just talk about this. Let’s be adults. You’ve been acting strange all day, and I don’t think it’s just because of what made you angry this morning. I don’t know what you were thinking last night but–“

He spins around and stares at you, cutting you off instantly.

“I don’t know what I was thinking either. All I know is that it was a mistake, and I am ashamed to have embarrassed myself in front of you last night. It was nothing but a lapse in my judgment. I hope you’ll accept my apologies and allow me to find an alternate sleeping location tonight so that I may not bother you any longer.”

You try and stop him, but he’s grabbed his blanket and fled from the room before you can get a chance to. The door closes in your face, and you stand facing it, unable to bring yourself to reach down and open it to follow him. You feel like the wind has been knocked out of you. And you have no choice but to let him go.

–

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