Chapter Text
He couldn’t recall where from, but Ren had once heard that the thirty seconds following climax granted a man the clearest, most rational thinking he could ever experience. So why did he always feel so drowsy and content, with his head pleasantly muddled as if he’d been drinking?
The effect was heightened when he experienced extra orgasms, it seemed. His joke to Hux was a fluke, really, and he couldn’t come up with anything equally witty in response to Hux’s sigh and barely repressed eyeroll, turning his languid attention to Hux’s freckled skin instead. Pulling out with a low groan, he continued to move down his body, licking until no trace of his seed remained. He tried to keep his touch light when he reached Hux’s spent cock, with its sensitive, vulnerable head exposed to the elements unlike his own, but his careful efforts still resulted in a shockingly high pitched noise from Hux and another slap that made Kylo ache, nostalgic for the blessedly short refractory periods of his youth.
“Ugh. Well I, for one, would rather bathe myself properly rather than entertain your antics right now. You do have a real shower, right? Not just a sonic?”
Kylo nodded, cheek resting on Hux’s hip.
“Right. Well that’s where I’ll be, if you need me.” He unceremoniously pushed Kylo away and stumbled into the fresher. Within a few seconds of the taps being turned, Kylo could feel Hux’s elation as the hot water massaged his sore muscles, despite the absence of a link between their minds anymore.
With the flimsy excuse of bringing Hux a towel, Kylo invited himself into the fresher, joining Hux in the shower stall in semi-companionable silence. Using the Force to clean himself gave him the opportunity to better study the pale, flawless expanse of Hux’s back from where he stood before Kylo, muscles flexing as he washed his hair. He thought of himself as being woefully out of shape, but it was an inaccurate self-assessment. Hux was a little soft around the edges, true, but beneath that beguiling physique lay a framework of strong, wiry sinew that not even the cushiest administrative career could erase.
Perhaps sensing his staring, Hux looked over his shoulder, snorting at the sight of the soap spreading across Kylo’s body on its own.
“That is by far the laziest sight I’ve ever witnessed, Ren.”
“I prefer the term ‘efficient,’ General. I’m investing less energy this way. Surely you can appreciate that?”
“Mmm. Well we wouldn’t get very far in this war if we always picked the easiest route, would we? For example, I could have spared everyone on board a good deal of trouble by refusing to host a Knight of Ren on my ship when I was first asked, but then where would we be?”
“You wouldn’t be nearly as successful without my considerable efforts, and we’d both be utterly, entirely alone, each of us an isolated man of power with no peers to interact with beyond idle chitchat. At least this way we have someone to bond with over our mutual dislike.”
“Speaking of bonds…Care to explain what the hell was happening from your perspective when I burned myself and you charged in to heal me? You called it a Force bond, or something...”
“Oh...well, it happens to a lot of Force-sensitives. Bonding, that is. Masters and their apprentices easily form bonds with one another, but it still typically takes years of training together, and it just grows with their relationship. I’m not sure what happened between us.”
“What is a bond, though?” Hux turned to face Kylo, concern pulling his lips into a familiar frown.
“It’s like a permanent connection between compatible minds, where the two can quickly share thoughts and emotions if they want. It can be useful during battle.”
“...Permanent?” His eyes narrowed and his mouth became a flat line. Not a good sign.
“They usually go hand in hand with a strong personal relationship and deep caring for one another, so breaking it would be like losing a loved one, I assume. You can move on, but you’ll always feel the loss.”
“Yes, but in case you haven’t noticed, there’s no personal relationship or ‘deep caring’ involved here, so how the frak did you permanently connect our brains, Ren?!”
Feeling properly chagrined by Hux’s ire, Kylo replied, “I...I don’t know. I wasn’t expecting it to happen even in the long run, just because the Force isn’t very strong in you. It’s not a voluntary process though, I think. I can’t remember how my bond with Snoke came about, but ours feels different anyways.”
Hux stayed silent, one eyebrow raised, waiting for further explanation.
“That...thing in your head you kept feeling before today, I never had anything like that. That was more like...a strong pre-bond? You were sensing my emotional state through it, in a way, especially when I was offship on my mission. Can you still feel it?”
“No...There’s still something there, and I can actually tell it’s connected to you, but it doesn’t feel as unnatural anymore. It’s as if it has a proper home now and it’s wedged firmly in place in my brain instead of lurking in the corners. I haven’t felt that since you did your mind melding trick back there. Should I be concerned?”
“That sounds like a proper bond, but I know these things are hard to analyze and put into words, and studying your own bond isn’t that effective anyways...may I?” He held up his hand, gesturing at Hux’s temple. The man was clearly wary of letting him in his head again, but relented nonetheless, mostly just because Kylo actually asked.
Kylo nudged around, feeling for the telltale burning of a bond, embedded in an indelible niche carved to its exact dimensions. When he found it, it was nearly blinding in its intensity. While his own bond with Supreme Leader Snoke was more like the smoldering charcoal in his incense burner and its wispy smoke, Hux was housing an entire thrumming supernova in his skull, tethering the two of them to one another with a thick rope of incandescent plasma.
Rattled by this discovery, he withdrew with a shudder. He didn’t have to understand what that was or how it happened to know that his Master wasn’t going to be pleased about this. Was it worth reaching out to Snoke through their bond though? He had never dared to in the past, as it would be an inexcusable show of impertinence.
“Well?” Hux said, still managing to look the part of intimidating general despite his pruny fingertips and the water clinging to his pale eyelashes.
“It’s a full fledged bond now, possibly spurred by our Force meld like you said. By all measures, this doesn’t make any sense. We’re not close friends or family, we haven’t known each other all that long, we’ve barely started your training, and sharing minds isn’t supposed to be a catalyst for this sort of thing.”
“So...you convinced me to take part in your experiments despite my misgivings, rooted around in my head despite assuring me you wouldn’t, fused our consciousnesses together despite knowing something bizarre was going on with us, and now there’s something magically binding us for eternity, or some shit like that? Gods, Ren, can you do anything right? Or has your entire life just been a neverending series of royal fuckups? Maybe you should try acting like a normal human being instead of destroying everything you touch.”
He slammed off the shower’s controls, snatched up the towel Kylo had brought him, and stormed back into the bedroom, leaving a trail of water in his wake. The man was truly irate if he was knowingly making a mess and not cleaning up after himself, Kylo reasoned. Hux was far beyond his usual bad mood, and justifiably so.
Kylo, no stranger to self loathing, remained in the fresher out of something akin to shame. Normally he wouldn’t care what happened to others, especially Hux, but he had manipulated and coerced the man into this mess and made him a direct target for Snoke’s infamous wrath. It was enough to inspire both pity and remorse, even in a Knight of Ren.
After a few minutes of shivering and avoiding looking at his own reflection, he dried himself off, stepping into the bedroom. More than enough time had passed for Hux to have gotten dressed and left.
But instead, the man was sitting on Kylo’s bed with his cowlicked hair in his hands, towel wrapped around his hips. Kylo faltered, not knowing what to say or do to begin making amends. He couldn’t tell if it was just an instinctive need to look after his bonded apprentice or a genuine desire to make Hux happy, which was a worrying thought.
“Ren, could we...could this be used to our advantage in some way? You said it was good for combat situations, correct?” When Kylo just blinked at him, still at a loss for words, he sighed and continued, “Look, if it’s permanent, then it’s already said and done. There’s nothing we can do to reverse it, so there’s no sense in wallowing in regret and anger when there’s a war going on just outside this room. We need to find a way to exploit whatever resources are presented to us.”
“Yes...it should make it easier to train you, actually, and it will allow us to communicate without anyone being the wiser. It would be more useful if I were a better strategist or negotiator, or maybe if you ever got directly involved in a fight, but we may be able to collaborate in some way in the future. Whatever evidence we have that it’s beneficial and not distracting you from your job, the better. Master Snoke is unlikely to be pleased about our bond when he discovers it.”
Hux failed to suppress a nervous shiver. “Would it be better to tell him now rather than wait for him to find out and think we were hiding something from him?”
Kylo shook his head. “He can easily confirm that we weren’t trying to keep it a secret from him, and if I’m wrong about this being a concern, then disturbing him for a trivial matter might make things even worse.”
“Alright...So for the foreseeable future we’ll just continue with my training and work on utilizing this preternatural connection for our own purposes, and only worry about the repercussions if and when our Supreme Leader confronts us about it?”
“That’s about all we can do, yes.”
“Right, good. Well that’s settled then. Now, I don’t have a particularly early shift tomorrow, I’m exhausted, I ache all over, and I refuse to leave this stupid bed of yours until morning. You owe me that much for so thoroughly insinuating yourself into my personal life. You can join me if you deem it necessary, however.” He tossed his towel at Ren and crawled into bed, avoiding the pillow he’d wiped his hand on before.
By the time he had tossed their towels down the laundry chute, brushed his teeth, and returned to his bed, Hux was already fast asleep. Kylo carefully eased himself onto the bed and under the covers, trying to send soothing energy to Hux through their newly formed bond when the man started to stir a little. He tamped down the urge to touch Hux and instead put his back to the other man’s, not wanting to seem clingy or needy, but allowed himself a quiet “Good night, Bren,” before sleep overtook him.