“Call it what you will. I am not interested.”
Hux opens his eyes, blinking against the sudden light, studying the face of the man charged with his care. He wonders whether this doctor drew a short straw in a lottery to be assigned this duty, or whether the man had wanted it from the start. The latter seems most likely. He lets his eyes slide away.
The part of the room he is in has been isolated, it seems, by way of a curtain that looks like it had been someone’s bed linens, once: embroidered with a floral border someone shoved hooks into to hang the sheet from. Sloppy work. Embarrassing.
Beyond the curtain, the place looks as one would expect a poorly funded terrorist base to look. Without sitting up, the best Hux can do is tip his head, which rewards him with a glimpse of a door. What little else he can see is quickly obscured by the doctor moving to him with a cup of water, offering it; Hux takes it, lips pursed, and rests it and his hand against the mattress without taking a sip. His eyes linger on the arm he had raised for it, and for the small IV tube that is, in fact, present. Licking his lips again, he finds that his throat is scratchy, uncomfortably so, but he still does not drink the water.
“Stop,” he says at once when the doctor takes his other hand. Hux tugs at it, and regrets it immediately as the motion pulls at something in his shoulder that ignites into pain at even the thought of moving. Unfortunate, given that the chances of an escape being made without the proper use of one arm are unacceptably slim. No point in trying it. Ren will come for him, or someone else will, and he must wait for that arrival.
If it comes. Hux knows that it may not. Snoke has no patience for failures.
He lets the doctor take his pulse. “I am fine,” he says to the suggestion, and he turns his head away. A soft, cool pillow meets his cheek, and Hux presses against it, taking a steadying breath. Patience can be worn down, and tempers frayed; with time, and with the stubbornness that has seen him this far in life, Hux can break this doctor down. Can convince him to give him up so this can end.
Closing his eyes again, Hux curls his fingers over the blankets covering the better part of him. On a ship, they would have been welcome. This planet’s atmosphere, however, is warmer than standard First Order climate control, and to Hux, raised on ships, stationed on ships, and most at home on ships, it approaches stifling. Not that he will deign to ask for it removed. Or to scrabble at and struggle to throw it off on his own time. He is watched, he is certain of it, from all corners, and he must act according to his rank, must act befitting the ——- the First Order, whom he failed the moment he fell into enemy hands. He’s oddly numb to the thought; either the pain of that realization set in before, or it has yet to arrive. None of those prospects are good ones.
“It’s a real good thing I didn’t ask if you were interested, then. You’re on bedrest whether you like it or not.”
Belligerent patients are nothing new. He knows any number of thickheaded pilots around here that thing they’re going to be up and about and good as new quick as they like after brushes with death. All this bravado, and what does it get them? Climbing out of a wreckage, holding the torn parts of themselves together, blood in their mouths and in their lungs. If he sees one more man smile at him with red on his teeth and that look of hope on their faces, almost manic --- well.
He’ll do what he’s always done. He’ll patch them up as best he can and try to get them on their feet again. There’s nothing else to do. He can see the man eyeing the place up with a look that is nothing short of disdain. No doubt the medical facility on their big ol’ ship up there is a fancy, shiny thing. Doesn’t matter to him, any. Everything here is clean, sterile, and the people are good, and they care. He does, at least, and he’s striving to make sure everyone under him does, too. He’s got run of this medical outpost, and he’s not going to have anyone disrupt that, no matter who might be lying in here. It still irks him, those idiots storming in here thinking they could try and drag a patient from his medical area. It’d take twice their number and live ammunition before McCoy let a thing like that happen.
“If you don’t stop floppin’ around like a fish out of water, you’re going to tear the stitches in your shoulder. Just calm down and let me care for you.”
It’s a curious choice of words; much more personal, much more human than ‘let me do my job,’ might have been. He shakes his head, muttering to himself about people trying to tear themselves apart before they’ve even finished mending the first time. His eyes slide up at the man’s assurances that he is fine, a frown crossing his face, stern, but not unkind.
“Like hell you are, kid. Drink the water. You sound parched.”
Truthfully, he thinks the General is only a few years younger than himself, but somehow he’s still got that fresh-faced, young look that some of the pilots wear when they head out in their X-Wings to fight the good fight. It makes him ache, in a tired, sad way.
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