onlyeverdoubted | TLV Inbox

He nods a little along with all of it, giving a grin at the mention of cats.

The smile fades into something more real when that last part is mentioned. Hux, carefully, shifts in his chair.

"...My home planet rains all the time. I haven't been back there since I was five, but if you ever wanted to visit it. Figure out if it's a planet you'd like to settle..?"

Like he hadn't been making serious plans on the side for an eventual future together.

The beginnings of tension fade away, though he's definitely flustered himself. Hux doing him the kindness of zeroing in on the rain part earns him some fresh gratitude. "It's funny, rain feels like... like a luxury? I can't take heat o-or bright sun, so it's not just, um, the opposite of what I'm used to." He reaches the end of his spine's tolerance for being coiled around Hux like a spring and reluctantly straightens up, hands settling on his shoulders. "But listening to a good storm, in... good company, that sounds like home."

He gives a warm look back.

"You're in luck, then. Most beings born on rainy planets can barely stand to be in the sun of deserts, because our complexions can't take it very long. On Arkanis you hardly ever see the sun for the rain. And it could be cozy."

It wasn't very, from what he remembered of his distant childhood. But with Bodhi and the cats, it might be.

He could make a few pointed remarks about Hux and sunburns, but the moment doesn't seem right. Later. He can almost believe there'll be plenty of laters to do it in. "Perfect. Now how're the cantinas, or is one of us going to have to learn to cook properly?" It takes a little effort to keep his hands still. It's hard not to be suffocating, especially right now.

"How are the cantinas? You did remember the part where I told you I was five the last time I set foot there, correct?"

A pause.

"There are a few pubs in the villages. Nothing extravagant, most of the trade and food come from the seas."

Well, he could have answered that question. Hmph. "I just thought we'd both had enough of military rations to last a dozen lifetimes, that's all." Having stretched out a bit, Bodhi can no longer resist hugging him again, resting his chin on Hux's shoulder. Even tumbling into endless cascades of conversational nonsense with him is so good. "Close to the ocean, then?"

He stretches out a long arm to curl around Bodhi's chest, bringing him in closer.

"Yes. Of course. Unless you fancy yourself herding nerfs across the plains."

"I can't even herd cats." Bodhi is once again very nearly in Hux's lap. Good. "That much surface water. It must be incredible to have it just... be there."

"I remember the rain." He muses. "It was hypnotic. That was one of the things I missed when I was in space all the time."

Bodhi nods. "It was rare. Once a year, sometimes. But when it came, everyone had their windows open. The smell of it, too, even in the city..." Bodhi isn't a poetic soul. This comes out sounding silly. He probably should have kept his mouth shut, but he doesn't regret it as much as usual.

"No, I understand. You don't...appreciate something fully until it's gone."

He hugs Bodhi closer to him.

"It rains about two to three times a week on my planet. Five or six isn't even that unusual."

Bodhi curls around him cooperatively. "Well, that ought to be enough," he teases. "What else should I know going in?" Which is is way of asking Hux more about his previously unmentioned homeworld. He's sort of never imagined the man much of anywhere but the deck of a very brutalist, efficient ship.

"Going into the atmosphere of my planet?" he says, just to jokingly clarify.

"Well, it's small. And I think I likely have an estate somewhere I inherited but it was bombed in the last few days of the old Empire. It has a lot of local fauna. Ah, what else...rolling grass hills, lots of herbivores."

An estate. Wow. (Even a bombed-out estate. He's got some experience living under those conditions, after all. Depending on the degree of bombing.) "And that's our view? From... the estate?" Alright, he's a little stuck on it. It's funny, in a way. Hux does not read as a rich kid, for plenty of very good reasons Bodhi knows of and no doubt more that he doesn't. It's also a little weird. Picturing telling anybody at home where he was going--It's not like there is anybody left from home, but if there were.

He waves a hand vaguely, so-so.

"From what I can remember. Honestly I don't know what kind of repairs it may need, or if there are new owners, or if I technically was stripped of property after becoming a war criminal. I suppose we'll have to find out."

"I can do repairs," Bodhi says lightly, trying to keep in the spirit of the thing. "Well, maybe. I have no idea what an estate actually consists of." It sounds more like something out of a bad holodrama than anything real.

He smiles, trying not to be condescending.

"Not by yourself. I know part of it was being five since I saw it last, but part of the estate was a huge building. Served as one of the Imperial academies back in the Empire's day. It was shelled over a long period, so there are likely pockmarks and cracks in its foundation. Then there are the lands surrounding it, the farms and smaller dwellings rented out for the people needed to live and work there. It's a lot to manage, and that's assuming I'm even welcomed back."

It's probably hard to not be condescending about the literal castle you used to live in. Bodhi is very tempted to tease him about this forever, but in part that's because he's a little overawed despite his better sense. "Somewhere, deep in the harmony of the Force, my mother just regained enough consciousness to tell all the other remnants and ghosts that her son landed an engineer with an estate."

Hux claps a hand over his eyes in embarrassment.

"It's not my estate, it was my father's." He murmurs a weak protest. "And technically it belonged first to the Empire who may have had to turn it over after losing a not-insignificant war."

"Teasing," Bodhi says in reassuring tones, even though it's only mostly true. Sometimes he still needs to gentle Hux along a bit. "It's strictly in the maybe category, I promise. The cats would have a good time, though. All that space to ruin."

"They would be able to ruin a bedspread a week and still not run out for years." He says, slightly jostled out of his mood by talk of destructive cats.

"All the places to pop out of and attack our ankles," Bodhi agrees, backing off easily into this perfectly neutral territory. Later, about the estate.

"Precisely." Hux calms down from his ruffled feathers, sitting back and smiling at the idea of it. Cats were always the easiest subject for him, even before coming here and meeting Bodhi.

It does seem to be an automatic pressure release. Bodhi almost feels guilty for using it, but teasing has to be carefully portioned out. "Speaking of which, I don't know about Huck, but Dio takes up about three times the surface area of bed that his actual volume explains."

"Cats splay themselves out to show both dominance of space and that they're comfortable." He explains, happy to lapse into tutor mode.

"Dio likely wants to claim ownership of your bunk."

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