Chapter Text
When Kylo Ren first learned that General Hux was an omega, he thought it had to be a mistake. He couldn’t reconcile the cold, collected, stiff-backed officer who had once forced him to fill out a requisition form in triplicate just to use his own command shuttle with the image in his mind of the sexually voracious omega. But there it was, plain for all to see on the general’s official personnel file.
Primary Sex: Male
Secondary Sex: Omega.
It had to be a computer error.
He knew all about omegas. When Ben Solo was a child, he’d found a holonovel under one of the access panels on the Millennium Falcon. It was called Lonely Space Vixens, and it gave detailed (too detailed, especially the part with the Wookie, Ben had thought. He couldn’t look Uncle Chewie in the face for weeks) information about many of the different romantic encounters a male humanoid might expect in the Outer Rim territories. He’d found it invaluable. Especially the part about the two omegas in the shuttle with the waterbed.
It didn’t sound like Hux at all. He couldn’t even picture him owning a waterbed.
Later, when Ben Solo was discovered to have alpha characteristics at fourteen (which mostly consisted of crying a lot and smashing things when he got mad, so it was understandable that it took everyone a little while to notice that anything was out of the ordinary) his Uncle Luke had stammered some things at him that Ben didn’t entirely understand, avoiding eye contact the whole time. As best as Ben could figure out, it was a lot of talk about waiting until the right person came along, always treating your partners with respect, and then something he only half-caught about always finding out who their parents were first, just in case.
And staying away from the omegas when they were in heat. That was, according to Uncle Luke, very important.
All this did was confirm what Ben already suspected: that omega humanoids were sexually ravenous beasts who would rip his clothes off as soon as look at him. At fourteen, with his Uncle’s injunction to ‘wait for the right person’ rattling around in his head, the thought had seemed duly terrifying, and he had dutifully avoided Idris, the only omega at the Jedi Academy, for a few days out of every quarter.
At nineteen, with the strain of an ascetic lifestyle starting to chafe (both literally and metaphorically), he’d prayed to the Force every night to allow him to ‘accidentally’ encounter an omega in heat. Just for an hour. Half an hour, even. He wasn’t picky.
It never happened, although Supreme Leader did slip some very enlightening ancient paper medical pamphlets under his door one evening. The diagrams got him through the next few years of frustrated celibacy.
When Supreme Leader deigned to take control of the First Order and installed Kylo in his rightful place of command aboard their flagship, he expected to meet at least some omegas. The First Order was smaller than they liked their opponents to believe; they didn’t have the luxury of barring able-bodies crewmembers from their ships just because of some pesky secondary sex characteristics. Their solution, Kylo learned, was hormone suppressants. Every humanoid who presented with a secondary sex was required to take suppressants, which tamped down their mating drive and enabled the ship to run smoothly.
Still, Kylo likes to think that even with the suppressants, he would just know, as an Force-sensitive alpha, if he were to meet an omega. There would be some kind of spark. Some attraction. Something.
He dismisses the outrageous idea that Hux is an omega. Puts it out of his mind entirely, until he happens to overhear a conversation between the general and Captain Phasma in the Finalizer’s officer’s training toom.
Hux was practicing Echani, completely oblivious to Kylo’s attempts to discretely show off his skill with his lightsaber, his focus centered on the large padded target Phasma held in both hands.
“Those idiots in medical are insisting I need to start cycling my suppressants again,” Hux was saying, completing a graceful spin and landing a solid kick on the target. Echani suited him, Kylo thought privately. It was elegant. Beautiful. Like Hux. So graceful and orderly that, watching it, you forgot it was deadly.
“You would think they had never encountered an omega before,” he continued.
Ren pauses, floored, but luckily neither of them are looking at him. So it was true.
“Are you going to do it?” Phasma asked, stepping back with the target, evading Hux just as he tried to land another solid blow.
“Well I don’t have much choice, do I?” he countered, irritated. He redirects his frustration, gracefully strikes the target two more times in quick succession with the heels of his hands. “It’s nothing I can’t handle.”
“You say that now." Phasma sounds almost teasing. "I’ve seen you in heat.”
The sudden and unexpected thought of Hux in heat- cold, elegant Hux turned needy and sweating and desperate for an alpha to fuck him- goes straight to Kylo’s dick. He’s nearly at full attention just from the mental images alone. And there would be noises too, of course there would be noises… Hux begging, whining, moaning his name-
He makes his escape from the room quickly before his situation can attract any attention. The last thing he hears as the door slides shut behind him is Hux’s voice, “It’s only for a few days. It’ll be hard, but everyone will just have to put up with it.”
After the door closes, Phasma glances at it curiously. She was certain she heard a pained whimper from the other side.
Which is how, ten years after the fact, Kylo Ren stands poised at the entrance to the bridge, prepared to get his wish and encounter his first omega in heat.
He knows what to expect. He spent the last week scouring the First Order’s restricted HoloNet access for everything to do with alphas and omegas, weeding out the most egregiously outrageous examples (he really didn’t think Hux was going to suddenly invite two of his friends to join them, even if he was a ravenous omega) and patching it with his remembered knowledge from Supreme Leader’s helpful pamphlets. Kylo feels like he has a good idea of how things will progress.
Secondary sex characteristics seemed to depend a lot on smell. As soon as Hux, in his heightened state, became aware of Kylo’s manly alpha scent (he had eschewed using the shower this morning just in case) he would become aroused. He would probably resist, because it was Hux and Hux never wanted to let Kylo have anything nice, but within a few minutes his mating instincts would take over, his pupils would dilate, his lovely pale skin would flush, and he would throw himself straight at Kylo’s cock (he had eschewed underwear as well to make it easier), while making flattering comments about the size and impressiveness of Kylo’s erection. At which point it would be Kylo’s responsibility as the alpha to lift Hux bodily over his shoulder, ignoring his needy whimpers and roving hands, and carry him back to his chambers where they would fuck like horny loth-cats intermittently for the next 3-4 day cycles.
Kylo is quite looking forward to all of this.
It had occurred to him, with more glee than remorse, that doing all of this on the bridge, in front of their command staff, is going to cause Hux no end of embarrassment once he regains his senses. But Hux has made himself impossible to find lately. Kylo had tracked the days since he went off his suppressants, counting down the average time before a reactive heat could be expected as his hormones righted themselves. But as the days ticked down, Hux became scarcer and scarcer. Now, Kylo thinks he’s barely left the bridge all day.
It is not- technically speaking- necessary for either of them to be on the bridge. Hux may be the highest ranking First Order officer aboard, but they have captains to handle the dull, everyday piloting of the ship.
Kylo suspects that he may be hiding out. The bridge crew are all betas.
The first thing Kylo notices as he steps onto the bridge is that it is half-empty. The radar technicians, the auxiliary pilots, all non-essential crew seem to be absent. Those that remain are… afraid. Kylo reaches out through the Force, taking a measure of the room. There’s a palpable sense of anxiety in the air. They’re scared of something.
“Lieutenant, have you completed that sector scan?” Hux snaps, striding into view across the catwalk that covers the recessed computer banks. His normally perfectly slicked hair is breaking out in frizz.
“Yes, sir!” a small voice chimes back from the pit.
“And?”
“N-nothing, sir!”
“Did you check for sub-atmospheric frequencies? They may be hiding on one of the planets.”
“I- no, sir.”
“Why not?” Hux grates out.
“…because you didn’t tell me to… sir.”
Everything on the bridge goes deathly quiet.
“How old are you, officer?” Hux says with sinuous calm. He hovers on the catwalk above the cringing petty officer’s workstation
“Twenty-four, sir.”
“So for twenty-four years, you’ve managed to survive without me to do your thinking for you?”
“I- yes, sir.”
“Do you think, if you try very hard, you can manage the next ten minutes?”
“Yes, sir!”
“What are you going to do? Now think very carefully- that’s when your brain starts making all those funny little noises that sound like words. I’m sure you remember how. ”
“…Run the sector scan again, this time checking for sub-atmospheric frequencies?” His voice trembles.
“Congratulations, officer, at this rate you may one day mentally outpace a dianoga.”
There is an audible sigh as a dozen people collectively let out the breaths they had been holding. Hux stalks over to one of the pilots, his movement whip-quick and agitated, bending his long frame at the waist to lean over the back of her chair. The pilot points one shaking hand at a hovering section of a holo star chart, clearly hesitant in asking the general for some kind of input.
Kylo takes this as his cue to approach.