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5.
“You’re not ready.”
“That is not your decision to make, General.”
“I control the movements of the Finalizer and your shuttle; my decision is the only one that matters.” Hux watches Kylo from the other side of his desk, still seated while Kylo tries his best to lord over him. One gloved hand braces on the desk between them, his voice filters dark and low through his mask, and his robes and hood cut a figure that would have scared a lesser man into submission.
“I told you before,” Kylo starts, words careful and measured, “that I would not have you interrupting my training.” The hair at the back of Hux’s neck stands on end, but he remains unmoved.
“You can barely swing your saber in a full arc,” Hux points out blandly and watches Kylo recoil, standing tall again with his hand fisting at his side. “Your wounds are only just healing, at my insistence.” Kylo starts to pace his office now, and Hux continues to watch, noting the tightness in his hip, the slightest change to his gait. “And you have yet to regain the weight you lost during your recovery. Three kilograms to go, I believe.” Kylo pauses, and looks at him, and Hux meets his gaze, less than impressed. “What makes you think you’re in any condition to join Leader Snoke?”
“This is your own fear speaking,” Kylo rebuts, moving to--slowly--lower himself into one of the chairs in front of Hux’s desk, arms stretched out on arm rests and legs splayed apart. It’s not regal, it’s not formal, but there’s a powerful self-assurance there, even if Kylo himself lacks some of his power. “You’re afraid that he’ll hold you accountable for my state, or maybe it’s losing the base--”
“Don’t shift this issue to me, Ren.” Hux interrupts, his own voice cold and sharp, and Kylo’s mask turns away from him towards the window, watching a pair of TIE fighters cross the stars on their patrols. “I completed my missions. You are the one who is going to him empty-handed, without that scavenger girl. Why you think going to him both failed and wounded will benefit you, I haven’t the slightest idea; do you think he’ll be more merciful if you’re lying crippled at his feet? What good are you for training like this?”
Kylo’s hands clench into fists, and Hux feels as if he should brace for something--until Kylo relaxes again. “You can’t keep me here indefinitely. He’ll start to wonder what’s taking so long.”
“I know that.” Hux sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose. It’s been a long day, and this hasn’t even been the worst of his meetings. “But it will not be tomorrow.”
“The day after.”
“It takes three days to travel to the citadel.”
“Then three days.”
“Seven, we have to trade resources with the Leviathan.”
“Four, we can double back.”
“Five!” Hux yells, and Kylo’s looking at him again as Hux takes a breath, then stands from his chair. “Five days, we’ll go to the citadel. And it will allow us time to gather supplies for your stay,” he says as he moves around the desk.
“Supplies?” Kylo echoes, sitting up in his chair as Hux draws nearer, but still out of reach: he stands by the window with his back to Kylo and the rest of the office.
“I suppose he didn’t send you the logistics of your stay, thinking you would have come to me directly, anyway.” The proto-planet below rotates slowly, lifeless and puckered, dotted with mining operations but not much else. “We’re to give you food rations for sixteen weeks.”
Hux barely hears it -- a soft inhale of breath obscured by the mask; he keeps looking straight ahead, hands folded behind his back. “I see.”
“Have you ever survived off of rations alone?” Hux asks, thinking of officer’s survival training, of remote assignments, of the first time he saw Starkiller base as a commander when all they had was virgin taiga and a burning desire to destroy the New Republic.
“I don’t recall.”
“You realize a new appreciation for flavor.” Hux turns, looks at Kylo looking at him. “I’ll call for dinner, if you’re done arguing?”
“...I’m not hungry.” Kylo pushes himself to his feet and starts for the door.
“Ren,” Hux says, raised voice, but more tired than angry; it’s enough to make Kylo stop. “At least stay for a drink.”
Kylo’s fist clenches and relaxes again. “What do you have?”
“Sarcorrian rum.”
Kylo snorts. “It’ll do.”
He regrets the rum, but not Kylo’s mouth, or his hands, or the soundproof, anti-espionage walls of his cabin.
4.
Hux wakes to a splitting headache, his mouth dry; he blinks up at his ceiling and wonders if he has any meetings that morning, and if he can’t somehow cancel it all until noon. Touching base with the Leviathan. Recruitment results. Officer promotions.
He sits up and looks over to see Kylo sitting on the square rug at the center of the bedroom, leaned over with his elbows on his knees, hands folded together, eyes closed, completely nude. The burn wounds stand out, now purple, on his skin, bandages eschewed for ‘getting in the way’. He’s likely deep in thought in mindful meditation.
Hux clears his throat. “Good morning.”
Kylo takes a deep breath, slowly sitting up before he looks at Hux. “I wasn’t sure you’d recover by morning,” he says, and his gaze falls from Hux’s face, and Hux looks down, seeing the flushed marks on his hips, the inside of his thigh. He smiles faintly, but the angle makes his headache hit right behind his eyes, and he hasn’t got time for this.
“I’ve had worse,” he says, getting up from bed, “or should I say, better?” Hux moves to step around (or over) Kylo, but he catches Hux by the calf, anchoring him there in the middle floor, standing over Kylo with the stars at his back.
Kylo noses at his thigh, breath hot against his skin, while his hand cups the back of Hux’s knee. It’s too early for this, Hux thinks as he cards his hand through Kylo’s hair, and then he has to close his eyes, because Kylo’s lips drag over a fresh mark on Hux’s thigh, too close and too distracting. “...are you going to get me a glass of water?” Hux asks. “Not all of us can detoxify so quickly.”
“I can,” Kylo answers, the murmur warm against Hux’s skin. “In a moment.”
‘In a moment’ turns into ‘twenty minutes on the rug’ but Kylo does get him a glass, holds Hux against his chest and tilts the cool drink against his lips until he’s had enough and water drips down his neck, his chest, carving a path that Kylo follows with his thumbnail down, down, down. Hux presses back against Kylo’s shoulder and revels in the way he hisses when Hux presses just like that against the healing burn. It’s an equal trade.
3.
The Leviathan is nearly the size of the Finalizer with a sizable complement, but she is not the flagship. She is not allowed to have more TIE fighters while the Finalizer’s hangars look bare from action with the Resistance. She is not allowed to carry relics mined from across the galaxy to Snoke’s citadel, because that is a singular secret for one navicomputer and one man.
Kylo sits for hours in the office admiring the holocrons on the auxiliary table in Hux’s office; Hux spends his hours writing reports, resolving transfer issues, reviewing command requests. Kylo doesn’t bother him, but occasionally, he will pick up one of the cubes or pyramids and examine it intently from all sides before putting it down with a quiet, disappointed sigh.
“Not what you were expecting?” Hux asks, not quite looking, finishing the second draft of a communique.
“I can’t tell; I’ve been told not to activate them.”
“Through the Force?”
“Yes.”
“And if you do?”
Kylo doesn’t say anything as he slowly sits back in his chair, then slumps into it, so low as if he could simply disappear into the leather. It’s enough to make Hux pause and watch him more carefully, but he can only see the back of Kylo’s head and the stiffness of his shoulders.
“I...I don’t know,” he says, his voice wavering; the lie surprises Hux more than anything else. “But I don’t feel the need to find out.”
2.
Hux wakes to Kylo leaving the bed in the middle of the night to instruct navigation on how to get to Snoke’s citadel, and then he returns just as Hux lies on the edge of sleep again. He almost thinks Kylo’s a dream, hard muscle and pale skin climbing into his bed, callused hands sweeping across his chest, but he really does fall asleep to the sensation of lips against his cheek, murmuring something he doesn’t quite hear.
When he does wake up, Kylo is gone, and Hux doesn’t see him until the afternoon, when he’s overlooking operations on the bridge and Kylo steps in, mask on and hood up, hidden head to toe from the galaxy. Hux turns towards the window, looking out across the expanse of the starship towards its peak.
Kylo steps up beside him; he walks quicker now, more like his normal pace. “I trust the rations will be in order by the time we arrive.”
“Of course. They’ll be ready by tonight.”
“Good.”
“Is there anything else you need for this visit, Ren?” Hux asks, looking over, and he sees the smallest twitch of hesitation, something that makes Kylo pause.
“No, nothing,” Kylo finally says. “I still have the storage from when I boarded; as my belongings are the same, they should suffice.”
“They should. But if you need any further assistance--”
“Thank you, General,” Kylo says, turns from him, and leaves the bridge.
Kylo doesn’t visit that night; he says he’s packing up his cabin. One book at a time, apparently, but Hux tells himself he’s grateful for the full night’s rest.
1.
The first time he sees Kylo, all day, is when he’s about to get ready for bed and Kylo has allowed himself into Hux’s cabin. Once the outer doors hiss shut, he scrambles to take off his helmet, his fingers fumbling with the catches on the sides. Kylo takes it off with a deep breath, as if suffocating, and lets it roll off his fingers with a heavy thud as he looks at Hux, sitting in a plush armchair underneath a single reading lamp, his jacket unzipped and his belt discarded.
A book sits open in Hux’s lap, his fingers pinched on the ear of a page, but it’s all forgotten as he focuses on how hard Kylo’s breathing, as if he ran here, as if he fought his way here, as if he’s afraid. Fear gives Hux a terrible power: to either soothe it or magnify it.
“The holocrons are Sith,” Kylo says, a little breathless.
“You looked at them.”
“I looked at them.” Kylo says, feebly; he clears his throat, searching for a stronger voice: “I’ve already failed him, you said, so I thought: activating the holocrons wouldn’t affect that, it would be so minor a crime--”
“But they aren’t minor.”
“No! They’re not minor. They’re magnificent.” For a brief moment, excitement defeats the fear on Kylo’s face, and he looks so young. “I’ve only watched them once, but the wisdom there, the power…” And then he looks crestfallen and anxious again, running one hand through his hair, and he’s pacing the length between the bedroom door and the sofa, right in front of Hux. “Leader Snoke will--”
“He’ll have your neck,” Hux supplies pleasantly, because that’s what has always happened to his own predecessors (and if he’s honest, will probably happen to him, too).
“I know,” Kylo snaps back as he continues to pace, “and he’s always talking about my weakness, and burning it out, and what if this is it, what if he wants to leave me a burnt husk, so the pain will flow through me just as he wants--”
Kylo’s gesturing wildly with his hands now, and Hux will have none of it: he grabs Kylo’s wrist and wrenches hard, pulling the man out of his reverie and off-balance so that he falls to one knee in front of Hux’s chair. “You’re speaking nonsense,” Hux tells him flatly. “However the Supreme Leader wishes to change you, you’ll change, won’t you? Isn’t that your oath to him? What difference does it make if you are all ashes or not? You’ll have your power.”
As Hux speaks, Kylo stares at him, his eyes wide and lit by the reading lamp; Hux thinks he sees gold flecked in brown, now, but maybe that’s just a trick of the light. Kylo swallows, then whispers: “But will I have you?”
The question hits him like plasma cannon, and Hux finds himself floundering, sarcastic remarks and flippant realism alike dying in his throat. This was all a mistake, he realizes, from the moment he invited Kylo Ren to dinner and every subsequent kiss, every touch, every moment stolen from an otherwise simple and accomplished future where he would be a decorated general of the First Order, ruler of the galaxy, and nothing more. Only now does he realize how far this has spun out of his control, even if he is the one sitting here, holding Kylo Ren on his knees, surrounded by a ship that is every inch under his control.
“You know I cannot answer that,” he says, sounding a little defeated even to his own ears. “I don’t have any say in what you become.”
Kylo moves closer, fitting snug between Hux’s legs and pressing his hands along Hux’s sides, desperate touch and his gaze, never looking away from Hux’s face. “If you did?”
“Ren.”
“Tell me.” Kylo is looking at him so intently now, Hux thinks that if he doesn’t answer soon Kylo will simply reach into his mind and pull the fantasies straight from his thoughts, and that is the last thing he wants, not while he realizes the depth of his mistakes.
Hux moves his hands up along Kylo’s arms, then cups his face, bare palms against his cheeks. “You would be another weapon for me, for the First Order,” he says quietly, his thumb brushing across the freshly-healed scar. “You would destroy planets like my Starkiller; you would be more terrifying than Vader; you could bring planets to heel for me with a thought--a wish.”
He pulls Kylo closer and kisses him softly, lingering: Kylo wants more, he can feel it in the stiff impatience of his shoulders, the way he fists his hands in Hux’s jacket, but he doesn’t fight for more--controlling himself, isn’t that a novelty, Hux thinks.
When Hux draws back, Kylo takes a shaky breath. “I don’t know if I can…” he trails off, his brow furrowing, maybe trying to find the right word for the transformation Hux is proposing. The attempt makes Hux smile, one that doesn’t quite reach his eyes; it’s dangerous to indulge in fantasies.
“I know, so I won’t ask.” Hux leans back in his chair, and his hands sweep back, one settling on Kylo’s shoulder, the other in his hair. “I can’t even ask you to stay.”
Kylo sucks in a quiet breath, then bites his lip right before he presses his face against Hux’s stomach, hiding against the black fabric of his undershirt. If only he’d go a little lower, Hux thinks, then maybe they could both forget about this.
Eventually, Kylo does, nuzzling lower, and Hux forgets--but not before he feels a damp spot on his shirt, and wetness on Kylo’s cheeks, still there even when he kisses Kylo again afterward, tasting the salt on his lips.
0.
Snoke’s citadel sits on an abandoned mountain-and-ice planet, a little above the 40th parallel. There’s been history--the ruins tell them that much -- but even the Empire’s annals didn’t have much, except a single note: once known to be part of a Sith empire.
They take the bare minimum crew for Kylo’s shuttle, a complement of five, then there’s them: sitting side-by-side next to a large crate of rations and an unvarnished wooden trunk with Kylo’s limited belongings.
The wind makes for a rough descent, a constant howl outside the doors, but Hux has endured worse.
“This area, His citadel especially, is...is very strong with the dark side of the Force,” Kylo tells him quietly as the ship starts to slow, the gears folding up the wings with a soft hum. “It helps with training.”
How much does it help, Hux wonders, if Kylo’s hands are shaking, if this is the most he has said all day since sharing breakfast in Hux’s quarters.
“Thirty seconds to touch-down,” the pilot says over the intercom.
Hux takes a deep breath, looking up at the altimeter readings on the screen against the opposite bulkhead, and then looks back at Kylo. “Do you want to be here?” he asks. He watches as Kylo lifts his head sharply, but he’s still wearing the mask, protecting whatever emotions lie behind it.
Kylo looks down again, his trembling hands curling into fists in his lap. “...don’t ask me that.”
The shuddering winds dissipate as the shuttle gently touches down. When the ramp drops open, a long stone basilica stretches out in front of them, lined by broken stone columns covered in hard snow and black, withered vines. Kylo stands first, steps outside, and onward to the tall obsidian fortress ahead; the trunk and the box follow him, floating low to the ground. Hux turns to the crew, ready to follow with their rifles poised, and he says: “Stay here. Don’t leave until I return.”
“Yes, sir,” the captain says. Hux returns the confirmation with a nod, and then steps out to follow Kylo to the fortress.
The snow crunches under his boots, the only sound he can hear through the gently falling snow. The fortress and the surrounding town, tall spires cracking with the march of time, lie in a valley protected on all sides by steep peaks, so visibly impenetrable that Hux has questioned how anyone found this site to build in the first place.
He catches up with Kylo inside of a great, empty hall that rests at the confluence of four staircases. The archways that were once windows are lined with snow, too, and let in the hall’s only source of light, dimly illuminating a dusty tile floor inlaid with spiraling red geometries. Here, their steps echo; so does the servomotors of Kylo’s helmet as he takes it off.
Kylo sighs, his hot breath crystallizing into the air in front of him, and then he drops it to the ground with a loud, clattering thud on the floor. The box of rations drops at the same time, then his trunk, and the cacophony is deafening for a brief moment before the sound dissipates outside into the snow. “Let’s go,” Kylo says as he starts towards the staircase directly ahead of them. “He knows we’re here.” Of course he does.
Though he’s only been here a handful of times, Hux dreads the climb to the top of the fortress, a winding staircase that cuts through every abandoned floor, giving glimpses of a once-grand life through obscured mosaics, frescoes, sculptures, and dusty titanium light fixtures. They take the stairs in silence, Kylo a step or two ahead, pushing onward without break. At least it starts to feel a little warmer beneath this greatcoat, though soon even that will seem heavy and stifling.
Hux’s thoughts wander: to what Snoke will say at their report, to the political battles already waiting for his attention, to the way Kylo looked last night, stretched out over the sheets on Hux’s bed. The way his lips had glistened, wet with spit and the bottom swollen where Hux had bitten it--the teeth marks at the crease of his hip, when he had cried out and gripped Hux’s hair so hard--
He bumps into Kylo’s back, having not noticed him stopping, and Kylo spins around. Hux slips. Kylo’s hand darts out and grabs him by the arm, then pulls him forward into an circular antechamber, the walls lined with shelves of old books and disintegrating paper. It’s the last room before they get to see Snoke, but they can’t even open the door: the heavy stone-and-metal wall will slide aside when Snoke is ready, which could be now, or an hour from now.
They’re standing so close under the unlit brazier hanging from the ceiling, Kylo’s hand still tight on his arm. Kylo licks his lips. Hux watches, swallows hard. He doesn’t know who leans forward first, but now they’re kissing, desperate, as Kylo’s hands slide under Hux’s coat and Hux cups his hands at the back of Kylo’s neck...
The door groans as it slides open. Hux thinks he hears Kylo murmur I’m sorry against his cheek, and they pull away from each other. Hux straightens his jacket; Kylo pulls at his sleeves and smooths his hair back again. Through the opening into the hall beyond, they can see Snoke sitting in his great chair, sitting still and powerful like he was cut from marble, until he raises a hand and beckons them forward.
Hux glances to Kylo, catches his eye. They both walk forward.