Work Text:
Easy days are rare on Starkiller Base, so much so that they seem sometimes to be legends, something shimmering dreamed of once when one was young. Most days are monotonous, work-filled, wearying. Bearable, but barely. Hux can deal with that. He is here for work, not for pleasure. But by far the worst are the days like these, when the filter-thinned air scratches at his lungs, and the small patches on his arm have long since run out of tabac.
Meal times are usually reserved for a discreet return to his quarters to change the patches, but today, Ren stole that small relief from him at both the morning and afternoon meals. The Knight had had some tantrum. Hux hadn’t asked why; he hadn’t cared. He doesn’t ever care anymore. He merely collects Ren from the scene of the disaster, orders his troops back to work, dispenses just a few of the razor-edge words that leap to the tip of his tongue whenever Ren is nearby, and leaves. He has other work to do.
Except this time, as JLR-2938 makes her report to a room full of unmasked Stormtrooper officers, updating the attendants on the details of her troops’ progress. All Hux hears is that the construction of Starkiller Base continues according to plan. A team of statisticians calculated precisely the least amount of time required; they remain on schedule. Yet JLR-2938 talks, and talks. Beneath the table, Hux fidgets. His fingers tap, curl, uncurl. An officer to his right raises a hand, asks a question. An ache begins to grow behind Hux’s eyes.
“—General, sir?”
He is suddenly, sharply aware that all eyes have turned to him. “Well then,” he says, voice kept steady. “There seem to be no concerns with the JLR division. Well done, Lacy.”
“Thank you,” JLR-2938 says, and sits down, hard. On another day, Hux might have been amused at how his use of the ‘trooper nicknames for one another never fails to earn a kind of – he isn’t certain what the emotion is. Embarrassment, perhaps. Or shyness. Phasma would have warned him if it was an unpleasant reaction, at the least.
Today, however, he is already standing, eyes on the door, hiding the wince he knows better than to let creep onto his features. “We’ll take a fifteen-minute break and reconvene.” Hux nods to Phasma, then leaves the officers there, the ends of his greatcoat flicking at his heels as he rounds the corner into the hall.
To say that anyone in Hux’s position knew every inch of his base would be a gross overstatement. His base is a planet. But he knows as much of it as possible – and certainly knows enough to locate the nearest refresher to the conference room, then pass it by. He passes the next nearest, too, fighting to keep his pace even. Two refreshers later, he allows himself to stop. A long stretch of corridor lies between him and the conference room. Hux stops, takes a breath, and steps inside.
Not for the first or even tenth time, he is glad of the locking mechanism on refresher doors. Still, he keeps the entrance in his peripheral vision as he takes a disposable towel to the countertop, rubbing it clean.
The greatcoat goes first. Shrugging off its warm weight, Hux dips into the inside breast pocket, draws out a flat metal case, and lays the jacket, folded, and the case on the dry counter. Then, one by one, the buttons of his uniform shirt come undone beneath black-gloved hands. Regulation uniform sleeves are cut too narrow to roll them up; it is an inconvenience, but not one he has cause enough to complain of. Particularly since the uniforms are of his own design.
Climate control engages almost as soon as the uniform leaves his hands, chill against his thin undershirt. Hux tugs off each glove, folds them, sets them down. Only then does he allow himself to grab for the silver case. Most days, it weighs more than it does now; most days, he has not had to have used the few emergency patches he keeps inside it. Kylo Ren saw to it that today would be an exception.
While the left side of the case is empty, however, three neatly-rolled tabac cigarettes stand at attention in their respective pockets, beside a small lighter. Hux selects one, lights it, sighs, and allows the scentless smoke to fill his cheeks. It rolls out when he opens his mouth a moment later, a wave of pinkish grey.
Already, he imagines his headache receding. Turning the delicate skin of his inner arm up towards the light, towards the air vent, Hux sets the cigarette between his teeth, digs a nail under the first adhesive patch, and tears at it. His lips twitch. He sets the empty patch adhesive-up on the counter. His fingers drift over the red marks left on his skin to the next patch, and he tears at that, too.
After that, he has, perhaps, a heartbeat’s worth of peace before the door impossibly, infuriatingly opens, and Kylo Ren steps inside.
Hux is, for a moment, without words. Then he finds them again – not particularly elegant ones, but functional words, suited to the moment: “Get out.”
Ren stares at him, chewing his lower lip.
“At least shut the bloody door.” When Ren does not move, Hux curls his lip, shoving past Ren to shut the door. “I locked that,” he hisses, rounding on the Knight.
“I opened it.”
“You seem,” Hux says, forcing himself to speak slowly, “to have missed the point of me locking it. Which is that I am not interested in company.” Their shoulders brush again as he moves back to the sink, leaning against it. He closes his eyes. Listens through the silence for the soft crackle of the cigarette as he closes his lips around the filter.
A slow sigh escapes him. “Where’s your mask?” Hux asks at last, to fill the silence.
Ren says nothing.
The general lifts his gaze, studying a single scratch gouged into the otherwise smooth steel walls, oddly high. “Lost it, did you?” Taking a drag on the cigarette, he considers the blemish. “Threw it out of an airlock during a tantrum?”
“—I’m upgrading it.”
Dropping his eyes, Hux forces his eyes to focus on Ren’s pale face. “Then you should be in the shop, working on it, and not intruding here.”
Something like venom or vehemence creeps into the Knight’s voice as he says, coldly, “I came to check on you. You’ve been projecting distress at the top of your mental voice.”
“I am projecting nothing.”
“You can’t hear yourself. None of you can hear yourselves.” Shoulders hunching, Ren steps closer, glancing over his shoulders at the closed door. “You all walk around, shouting, not knowing there are people who have to hear it all. It’s louder, without the mask.”
“So don’t listen.”
“General, I am no more able to do that than you are able to close your ears.”
Hux frowns. Leaning back against the sink, he lets out a slow breath. “So you came to rescue the damsel in distress?” he says. “I’m not either. You’ll have to continue your search elsewhere, Ren.” Bringing the cigarette to his mouth, he meets the Knight’s gaze, his lips thinned.
The refresher is small enough that a single step brings Ren dangerously close. “Addictions are a weakness,” he warns. “A tool others can use against you.”
Leaning in, Hux blows the smoke out lazily in Ren’s face.
Ren kisses him mid-breath, trapping the rest of it between their lips. When they part, the smoke curls between them, rising, unhurried, into the air. Hux’s lashes flutter. Kylo’s lips part, and he leans in, sighing, as though for another kiss. “—You should stop smoking,” he murmurs, mouth brushing the general’s.
Hux pulls back. “Fuck off.”
“It’s true.”
With a growl, he shoves Ren away, one hand planted on the Knight’s chest, the other bringing the cigarette back up for a long, spiteful drag. Ren rocks back on his heels, frowning. Hux can just see the red of his mouth between those pale, parted lips. “How long have you been using tabac?” Ren asks.
The general’s cheek twitches. “You say ‘using’ like it’s a drug.”
“It is a drug.”
“You say it like it’s an illegal drug.”
Kylo Ren’s voice is low. “When did you start smoking tabac?”
Gesturing with the cigarette, Hux watches the grey gossamer ribbon of smoke that rises from its tip. “Seven months ago.”
The Knight seems to consider this. “—I arrived seven months ago.”
“So did my stress headaches.” The general’s eyes flick to the younger man’s face. He snorts, seeing Ren’s expression darken, and drops his gaze again. “Lord Ren, if you would – get out. I have one vice, and I’d like to enjoy it in peace.”
A gloved hand brushes Hux’s hip. It traces the ladder of his ribs, its palm warm despite the leather against Hux’s thin undershirt. Ren leans in, kissing the corner of the general’s lips. “It’s not your only vice—“
“Gods,” Hux says, staring. “That was horrible.”
A flush leaps into Ren’s cheeks.
“Honestly. That was awful.”
Ren straightens up, gloved hands quickly retreating beneath the folds of his robe, his jaw set and stony. Despite himself, Hux laughs. It’s breathy, smoke-soaked, and before it’s through Ren’s mouth is on his again, and his hands are on Hux’s hips and in Hux’s hair, his fingers as rough as his mouth. The kiss steals the laugh and smoke off the general’s tongue. Hux leans in, and gives just as good as he gets.
Ten minutes later, when the officers’ meeting reconvenes, no one mentions the fact that the crispness is gone from his uniform, or that a single lock of his water-smoothed hair has fallen onto his forehead, shocking red against the white. Hux takes his seat at the table’s head with a briskness that discourages any questions. But his scowl is gone, burned to ash and brushed away by Kylo Ren’s gloved hands where they stood, pressed against the restroom wall, the cigarette dropped and forgotten in a patch of its own ash.