Chapter Text
Hux remembers with mixed emotions the day of the battle of Crait. He remembers the panic, and the rage, and the stress. He remembers seeing Ren on the floor as the worst of omens, and he remembers how spotting Snoke’s body cut in half on the throne made the situation even worse.
He and Ren have buried the hatchet for now, ignoring the several sore spots in their bumpy professional relationship to ensure the future of the First Order. It is not without distrust that they’ve settled into their new dynamic, dynamic in which Ren is, much to Hux’s chagrin, above him in every sense. The good of the Order comes first, though, and Hux is set to give his collaboration for its survival, no matter the cost.
Losing Snoke has been a hit for morale. Nobody trusts Ren yet, but he doesn’t seem interested in being perceived as a stable ruler, nor in what the public thinks of him.
What is curious is that Ren himself seems to be doing better since Snoke’s death. He still looks tired – Hux suspects the bags under his eyes wouldn’t go away even with weeks of deep rest after all this time – but he doesn’t look haunted anymore. Not to mention that his bursts of anger are now sporadic and only resulting in some indentations on walls or furnishings.
Ren has also adopted a formal attire now. It’s not properly a uniform, but the thick tunic he sports as daywear looks more military than his usual raggedy ensemble. The contrast between the tight collar wrapping around his throat and his wild hair, plus the scar snaking down his face, is chilling and alluring at the same time. Hux has found himself staring more than once.
Ren radiates a certain energy that Hux doesn’t know how to describe. It reminds him of water, of a flood, and at nights Hux dreams of being swallowed by a thick, black ocean, a pair of eyes staring at him from the sea-bed as he gets drawn in.
The walls of his meditation chambers are drenched in liquid. It’s oozing from the corners, sliding down the walls. Kylo can’t move. His feet are anchored through the floor– he turns, prompted by a noise, and–
Hux is behind him. Naked and covered in grime, hair a mess, eyes bright green– his lips part in a smile. He raises his chin, a lock of orange hair falling on his forehead, and Kylo moves a step towards him.
Hux moves a step back, and Kylo moves a step forward again, then another, and Hux walks backwards, graceful and unbothered, until his back hits one of the walls. The dark ooze sliding along the surface contours Hux’s body, slicks along his shoulders and chest.
Kylo moves another few steps forward, and Hux raises a hand to drag him closer, finally– Kylo is naked, suddenly as it happens in dreams, and Hux is naked before him, and the press of his body feels so real– this is a dream–
Kylo wakes up in a puddle of sweat, sheet tangled around his legs. Heart racing, he rises to a sitting position, wincing when he takes notice of how hard he is. His bedchambers are swallowed by darkness, empty, silent.
This is the third time this week that his mind is troubled by dreams starring one annoying, entitled ginger, and as he did on those other two nights, Kylo snakes a hand lower, takes himself in hand and starts stroking.
It’s been six months since Snoke’s demise, and one month and a half since the first dream featuring Hux. What a curse.
Kylo drops back on the bed, closes his eyes, and imagines pink lips wrapped around him, glossy green eyes staring at him from below. He wonders if Hux would be hot and tight to fuck, or loose and pliant. If he would moan and whimper, or if he’d try to muffle the sounds with a hand on his mouth.
Kylo would tear it away, pin it to the mattress with the Force, compel him to come undone– right on cue, his furniture starts shaking, and he thrusts harder in his fist, tightens the grip around his head, quickens the pace.
He should be above these lowly impulses, he chastises himself, frowning when the thought does nothing but bring him closer to the edge. His other hand darts down to cup his balls, then higher to stroke himself with both, one around the base and the other on the head, fingers sticky with precome and sweat.
This is dirty. He’s been taught to control these impulses as much as possible, and now he’s completely subdued to them. Sometimes he catches a glance from Hux, and he feels compelled to stand a bit taller, fill as much space as he can, hoping to be seen.
Hux’s eyes on him are electric. He’s natural to want, natural to desire, and sharp, and attractive in curious, dissonant ways, and Kylo feels like an animal– is one. He’s a Force Master, he shouldn’t be driven by the need to press Hux against a wall and fuck them both into oblivion.
He’s suddenly overwhelmed by the need to be freed of this need, purified of the urge. The Force surely wants all of Kylo’s focus for itself, and he’s wasting it by obsessing over–
With a quiet, muffled groan, Kylo comes all over his hands, white splattering up to his chest almost to his chin. He turns face down on the sheets, whimpers in frustration. He needs to take care of this, in one way or another.
Hux spends an awful amount of time avoiding Ren whenever it’s possible, but he also spends an awful amount of time on his datapad. The First Order has a website of sorts, a private place for updates, chatting, and info sharing. Not everyone has access to it, but there’s a common database where one can consult historical notions, and Ren – signing the pieces as Supreme Leader, no less – has started updating entries about the Force.
Hux isn’t proud to admit he has read each and every one of those entries. More than once each, in fact, and there’s more than fifty of them by now, on various topics revolving around the Force. Temples, artefacts, theories on the occult supported by strange scientific connections– Ren’s texts are an admirable mash up of knowledge coming from various fields, worthy of a proper scholar.
Interesting. There’s no other word for it. They’re elegantly shaped, and clearly written by someone who knows literature, but at the same time in a style lean and martial enough to be a pleasant read for Hux, who prefers manuals to narrative.
The files don’t have a linear narration. Sometimes they go in depth about the mystical aspects of the Force, and other times they’re mundane. One of Hux's favorite passages is about impressions from objects, in which Ren explains how he extracted the memories from the mummified corpse of a young Imperial Officer by touching her blaster. The way Ren describes the clarity of the vision is enthralling, and the pictures he paints touching.
This side of Ren clashes heavily with the image he projects in person. How can such a temperamental, hot-blooded man have a literate side?
Hux takes a lazy sip from his glass and mulls over an imaginary picture of Ren typing down the entries on a datapad. Better yet, Hux’s brain supplies him with the wonderful idea of Ren dictating these dark, vaguely mystic and deeply philosophical texts to a vocal recorder not dissimilar from the one Hux uses himself for his speeches.
Maybe Ren walks back and forth just like Hux does, with that imposing stride, and focused stare, uniform tight on him – maybe it’s a bit open, instead, and he’s slightly disheveled – now that’s a thought.
That’s a thought that Hux blocks immediately. He pinches the bridge of his nose in annoyance, scowls at empty air. Ren has become vaguely more tolerable recently, and he’s easy on the eye, but this is ridiculous.
Fear is the enemy of the Dark Side– for fear generates anger, and anger is a false leader. The Force needs clarity, control and confidence to be deployed effectively.
Hux remembers one of Ren’s lines, and there is no sense in denying how enticing it is.
Rites can be performed to enhance the connection to the Force. Several paths lead to the same destination: a better grasp on the All. Just as energy, the Force is of finite quantity– it requires an exchange. Ideally speaking, an offer. Raw, untamed feelings attract the midichlorians…
Hux knows what midichlorians are. He has a remarkably normal level of them, 2400 per cell, exactly to average. Ren? He always refused to get himself tested, for some reason. It must be because if the number turned out to be lower than Vader’s – possible, considering the Dark Master had the highest one ever registered on sentient beings – Ren would have felt hindered by the notion.
Competition with the dead is rarely won.
Hux opens his datapad, abandoning his glass of liquor on the caf table for a moment. He leans on his sofa, moves around until he’s comfortable and logs into the database. He received a message on his private address earlier in the cycle that notified him of a new entry added.
Yes, he turned notifications on. Sue him.
This time, Ren’s entry is about the Force and lifting or binding objects. It tethers on the edge between physics and mystical journey, and it reflects on how everything exists in the simple gesture of calling a cup of tea to oneself.
Apparently, Ren drinks tea. He spends a handful of paragraphs talking about the leaves, where they’re from, how they’re harvested and why he favours them. He even makes a little joke, saying that the perfect cup of tea can restore the Force like five hours of meditation, and Hux feels utterly charmed.
He is tempted to leave a comment of sound agreement about the tea, but stops mid-track to think about the text itself. Feeling in the right to own something and claiming it for yourself is such a foreign concept in the military, where everything belongs in one of multiple chains.
Without thinking too much about it, and with the pleasant buzz of alcohol in the back of his head, Hux types down a long, articulated answer (in which he doesn’t forget to add a note on the delight of enjoying a hot beverage after long hours of work) and posts it in the comment section, miraculously left open by Ren. Hux has a pseudonym, something anonymous about water, plus a number, and he shouldn’t be recognisable-
What has he done.
Nobody ever leaves comments. It’s a feature rarely used on this type of entries, it’ll stick out like a sore thumb.
He picks up his credential, enters the back end of the website and checks the data. The comment is there, but the IP code is cripted and it would take a very knowledgeable coding mind to trace it back to Hux.
It’s not an issue. He just has to cancel it–
The counter has one view. Hux checks it, hands shaking, and of course, of course–
1 view – Supreme Leader Kylo Ren
Hux can’t cancel it now. It would be like hanging a neon sign directly above his head. Besides, even if Ren could break codes he would need access to the website, and Hux is almost sure he doesn’t have it. He would be given access if he requested it, but the process could buy Hux some time to solve the problem.
1 new comment – Supreme Leader Ky…
Hux scrambles to open the window view of his account.
Your angle is quite interesting, and it spurs thoughts. I never considered that life in the military could be more curbing than the one I’ve led, but now it seems only logical to assume…
Hux reads the answer twice over, almost childishly excited about the attention. Then he remembers he’s a thirty-five year old General on top of the chain of command of one of the most ruthless military organisations in Galactic history, and he calms down.
Nonetheless, he’s smiling though his next sip of brandy as he starts typing down his answer.
Meetings have a way of running late, or be scheduled at improbable hours. Despite having lost track of time while trying to collect his thoughts about his next entry on the Archive – something mostly for personal use that ponders over the connection between Force-wielders and the Force – Kylo manages to be ready earlier than expected. He walks through corridors wiping out the minds of every patrol he meets, still subject to a paranoia that started when he was a teenager.
People who know about his movements make him feel weary. He’s heard you can’t hide’s for most of his life, and even though his head is blissfully empty now – no threats, no screams, no cries, no sirens luring him towards the abyss – he dreads the threat still.
It’s a small blessing that he still manages to channel the Force this way despite the recent lack of interactions with it. It takes him more effort to govern its energy, yes, but the contact isn’t severed. It gives him hope.
Kylo thought that Snoke’s death would have finally freed him from the shackles of guilt and regret, strengthening his powers, but the effect has been the opposite. He’s now often distracted, and doesn’t devote the Force enough thought and attention. He’s failing his only faith, and because of some inconvenient bodily urge no less.
Kylo meditates daily, trains daily. He’s sought his Knights’ advice, he’s even started reorganising his knowledge on the Force in the hopes of finding a solution laying hidden in the notions. He tried abstaining from self pleasure too, but he has found it worsening– if he doesn’t take care of it, it festers in his brain until he can think of nothing else and his bed starts shaking with repressed energy. Even if the guilt eats at him.
His nights are tormented by dreams of black ichor and Hux.
It’s an obsession. He doesn’t know what to do, he’s lost and without guidance. Snoke preached abstinence from attachments, Luke from any form of physical interactions. The Knights don’t give much thought to it. He doesn’t know where to find his answers.
When Kylo commands the meeting room’s doors open, he falters and stills at the entrance– Hux is sitting at his place, the only person in the meeting room already. He and Kylo are both fifteen minutes early, or so it seems, and even if it is perfectly in character for Hux, it’s uncharacteristic of Kylo. It’s a consideration that surfaces at the forefront of Hux’s mind – Kylo can sense it – and manifests with a raised brow.
“Supreme Leader.” Hux’s tone is affected, strictly professional. Kylo answers with a nod and strides to his seat at the head of the table. He pulls out the chair, and it makes a loud, screeching noise against the floor that makes them both grimace.
Hux keeps tapping on his datapad, head buried in it, focusing on whatever is going on on the bright surface and ignoring Kylo entirely.
“General,” Kylo says, wincing at his own voice– it sounds cranked, stiff. He can make a bit of small talk, can he?
People make small talk with their collaborators. It’s common practice, really. He’s not sure people make small talk with the collaborators they dream about fucking every time they close their eyes, but– A bright vivid flash of his latest dream superimposes with the placid room’s surroundings, making his blood flow speed up.
Hux plastered on the floor, Kylo pressing into him–
“Supreme Leader?” Hux snaps his head up, his focus zeroing on him. His interest is pleasant, sharp, refreshing. Kylo feels a surge of energy rising in him, legs to head, and he hastes to answer.
“How are things going?” Stupid question. Kylo has no business inquiring after Hux’s personal life, and besides, he isn’t even interested. Why would he? “With the provisions?” He adds to make the question sound normal, referring to some vague issue he read on a report a week prior.
“We have a new supply chain coming from one of our contacts on Canto Bight. The armoury will be replenished soon. After the–” Hux hesitates to continue, and after he finishes the sentence, it’s no wonder why. “Battle of Crait, we’ve been dangerously low on fuel and equipment.” Kylo doesn’t like to remember Crait. Neither of them do.
“I trust your judgment. If the lead is safe, then–” What is he saying? Trust isn’t a thing happening between them. They don’t trust each other. “Show me the report.” Better.
Hux frowns, then taps on his datapad again and a ding follows from the speakers. “I sent you a copy, Supreme Leader.”
“I don’t have my datapad on me,” Kylo says. Before Hux can answer, Kylo stands, circles the table until he reaches Hux’s chair, and leans over his shoulders to peek at the screen.
He’s gone crazy. What is he doing– he can smell Hux’s aftershave. The Force sizzles at the top of his spine, pours in his limbs like it hasn’t in a hot minute. He instinctively leans closer, body seeking that energy like a starved shell– Kylo looks at the datapad, tries to focus his eyes on something in the hopes of distracting himself–
On the screen, a familiar page gets hastily closed by one flustered General, who’s thinking loudly about not screwing up he can’t know I shouldn’t have-
Hux goes entirely rigid. He taps on a few folders, picks one file and opens it. He tilts his datapad upwards, so that Kylo can take a better look at the swiftly offered report. Kylo doesn’t even try to read it, but pretends to while the only thing on his mind is the curl of Hux’s lean, gloved fingers around the device.
Turn aside he’s right there turn aside turn turn turn
Kylo wants to lean closer. He wants it so much. He can’t explain why he feels so strongly pulled to Hux’s personal space, but he is. He’s never felt like this– not in years, and not with such visceral intensity. And even when it was close to this, he wasn’t so desperate. He gave in a few times, but to nothing of this magnitude, and he could usually perfectly control himself even in the presence of far more tempting sights than a bare neck.
Kylo is a Dark Master, not a scoundrel picking up a stranger in a Cantina, nor a scared Padawan who doesn’t know anything about life. He’s not attached to the scripts anymore, and he doesn’t have Snoke preaching chastity in his head or playing tricks with his memories. He’s– he’s alone. He can choose.
Ap’lek saw right through him when Kylo sought her for advice. She mentioned that maybe Kylo needs to unwind some tension of the physical kind before dedicating himself to the mysteries of the Force. The stress of leadership can hinder even the strongest of men, Ren, she said through their Force-connection with a smile perceivable even at light years of distance.
“Did you file it yourself, General?” Kylo must come to accept that he doesn’t know how to small talk. He’s never done it. He’s never been pleasant, hasn’t ever had interest in being pleasant before. He’s been trained in isolation, these banal interactions are mental pauperisation of his skills-
“I’m the one communicating with the lead, so, yes. Anything you want me to change?” Hux’s thoughts have a vein of fright mixed with the familiar annoyance.
They weren’t always like that, certainly not when they first met each other. Kylo regrets more than a few things. He’s regretting letting Snoke have such control on his mind, he's regretting losing said control the first time he fully had it in his hands. He is still discovering the extent of Snoke's hold on him, every day, and the persistent, utter contempt at each and every one of Hux’s actions seems to have been mostly handcrafted by Kylo’s former master, only to isolate him further.
“No,” Kylo remembers to answer, and then, to quench Hux’s evident confusion, “Good job. I’ll take a closer look at it once the meeting is over.”
The attraction he had for the girl – the scavenger – was equally transitory, constructed, as was their connection in the Force. Kylo felt it disappearing from the back of his mind as soon as he cut the old raggedy bastard in half.
It’s why Rey left. She, too, must have sensed that something had changed.
It makes sense. Snoke wanted to turn her into a new acolyte, and he was trying to lure her in using Kylo and their connection to the Force as bait.
Kylo has been standing next to Hux in silence for more than a minute now. He has dismissed the conversation way too soon, he’s aware, and he spots the hair at the back of Hux’s neck– raised. Of course. He was supposed to move back to his seat instead of looming over Hux in complete silence.
Find something to say come on he’s right here
The meeting room’s doors slide open once more, and Kylo is certain he’s never been happier to see Lieutenant Mitaka in his whole life. Mitaka is followed by General Pryde and Captain Peavey a second after, and their faces are almost not revolting either. Glad for the diversion that puts an end to the moment of awkward silence, Kylo goes back to his seat.
Slowly, all the participants pour in the room, and the meeting begins. Kylo goes through it without paying attention to a word, his only focus Hux and his Force forsaken fingers that never stop fidgeting.
The Force feels strong again for the first time in weeks. It lasts until Hux leaves the meeting early due to some vital assignment he apparently can’t overlook.
Nobody has ever dared to walk out on Kylo before now that he’s Supreme Leader, but Kylo finds himself relieved by Hux’s parting, feeling as if he could breathe for the first time since he entered the conference room.
Hux leaves, and Kylo doesn’t say a word.
Hux’s heart is in his throat, his blood is flowing so fast in his veins that he’s starting to get dizzy. He ducks into a bathroom – the Officers’ ones, with single stalls – and leans on the sink. Hands shaking, he opens the tap and splashes a bit of water on his face, glad for the gloves preventing him from feeling it slide between his fingers.
The coolness is pleasant, and he focuses on his reflection to try and calm his nerves. He thought he was about to suffocate– he’s never felt this oppressed by Ren’s powers before. The (by now frequent) headache at the back of his mind suddenly sharpened when Ren entered the meeting room, then just as suddenly dissipated at Ren’s closer proximity.
Hux sets his jaw, trying to suppress a shiver when he relives the memory of feeling that pressure lift all in one go and being supplanted by raw, sizzling energy. Ren oozes danger, yes, and on top of that also–
No. No also. Hux doesn’t need this. He has more than enough problems as it is without putting on top of them some big mystic idiot with mental issues and poor temper.
Ren is tormenting him, and vexing him, and Hux doesn’t even know what he did to deserve such treatment. He hasn’t even had the time to proceed with planning his assassination attempt in months now, with all the work they’ve had to do.
He is behaving, Stars’ sake.
Why is Ren aggravating him so?
Form practice is supposed to help.
Form practice has always helped, since Kylo was an angry, melancholic youngling. He used to sneak in the training rooms at night, when nobody else was awake, and he practiced relentlessly with a cane. Alternatively, he ran the training tracks under a starry sky, over and over until he was exhausted. He would focus on his body to turn his mind blank and calm the voices in his head, silencing them into a whisper.
Now his body is a trap of burning want, and the voices are gone, and Hux rules Kylo’s thoughts freely like a kriffing mirage.
Combat training should give Kylo peace of mind. Instead, it doesn’t even function as a decent distraction anymore. When his skin tingles with adrenaline, he thinks of crowding Hux into a wall, and the times he taps into the Force, he only sees Hux’s dark outline surrounded by light.
A flicker of red light from his saber makes him think of flaming hair, and the pulse of the crystal nestled inside the hilt whisks him into the realm of his dreams, where Hux governs unpunished, mocking, all-encompassing. If Kylo focuses enough, lets the stream flow through, he senses Hux’s impression in every corner of his body, driving him crazy.
Kylo can feel Hux’s stare on him in the darkness behind his eyes.
It’s late in the sleep cycle, nobody is around besides him. He imagines Hux’s green, piercing gaze following his steps on the mat and every strike mid-air, each flourishing somersault. Kylo builds up his pace, the hunger oozing from Hux fuelling his movements. He pictures slamming Hux on the floor, pressing him in, drinking all that strength and power directly from the source– Hux would meet him halfway, surely, greedy for power as he is–
Powerful, as if out of a dream. No, a nightmare.
Kylo lands on his feet after a full body flip, striking in front of him with a slash that cracks and hisses through the air. He looks up.
Hux looks down at him, eyes wide open, hands tight on the rail. He retracts in the shadows of the unlit upper corridor without saying a word, but Kylo has seen him. It’s unexpected but not impossible. That’s one of the officers’ gyms after all, and Kylo is the trespasser, in a sense. He has his own private training rooms, he shouldn’t be there. For some reason though, the usually welcoming chambers felt suffocating that night, and the Force guided him on deck C-24.
Can’t escape him, he’s everywhere I go, I can’t sleep, I can’t sleep, I can’t go on like this, I can’t can’t can’t–
Kylo is shaking. What he just saw– what he felt was so much more than the last time he saw Hux one on one at the meeting. He carefully avoided any chance to meet from that moment on, focusing on himself and the needs of his mind, writing with diligence and focus.
He knows Hux has been reading his texts for a while now. Mitaka sent Kylo all the necessary passwords months ago, and one night Kylo got overcome by curiosity about who checked his documents. It had been surprising, but Kylo brushed it off as one of Hux’s ways to try and keep an eye on him. As if.
The real surprise happened the night Hux left an insightful, well thought comment about how a life of deprivation may lead to a rigid mind structure that pairs poorly with the Force. And then a long conversation followed.
Kylo didn’t sleep horribly that night. The mental confrontation tired him but restored him too, in a way that usually doesn’t happen when he interacts with other people.
He’s been raised with the way of the Jedi, who preach detachment, and then the Dark Side, which encourages fight and aggression as the preferred approach. This is neither, and is both at the same time, and it's also its contrary, and a combination of all the variants.
It’s an all Kylo has never touched before, never even contemplated could exist. There is purpose there, and strength, and determination, and desire. And power, so much power.
He needs to meditate, and to pick up some texts.