Chapter Text
and i'm talkin' to myself at night
because I can't forget
back and forth through my mind
behind a cigarette
...
Kylo Ren is in his way again.
The Knight is a headache, a great big mess of energy that Hux doesn’t quite understand, and doesn’t exactly care to. He hadn’t planned on this, on sharing power— the Supreme Leader hadn’t spoken of a co-commander when he’d offered him the position. He hadn’t prepared Hux for this Force-magic, either, or his cult of oddities. And he had certainly never mentioned Ren, serving as Hux’s equal despite— everything. His horrid temper, his disgusting habits, his disregard for regulation.
And now this.
This strange pattern he’s fallen into, of intercepting Hux mid-route, without rhyme or reason.
It has become a daily routine: Ren scouting him out, ambushing him the moment he turns from the bridge. Sweeping into his path and simply staring. Waiting. Eyes and intentions hidden, always, under his ugly behemoth of a mask— a ridiculous thing. Hux has never seen him without it. Whatever Ren is or is not, he must be quite hideous, for him to constantly hide beneath the helmet the way he does.
Today the Knight has planted himself in the middle of Sector 4D’s corridor. Standing between Hux and his destination, uncomfortably close. The rasp of his breath is audible, distorted from behind the vocoder.
Hux stares up haughtily into the metallic blank features. “Ren,” he says, annoyed when he shows no signs of moving. “Ren,” he says again, when his first attempt yields nothing but silence. “Let me pass, I have somewhere to be.”
“Yes,” says Ren. The word crackles. “A meeting. With the Supreme Leader. I know of it. Although why he has asked for you remains a mystery to me.”
He looms ever closer; Hux steels himself. He’s not afraid of Ren— how could he be? The Knight is outrageously melodramatic, a spoiled monstrosity. He’s hardly threatening, leaning over Hux with his head cocked to the side, mere inches away. Like he’s trying to pick up a scent, Hux thinks, wondering, not for the first time, what kind of creature he would find underneath Ren’s mask, under those dark robes. Some bizarre animal, surely.
Ren huffs slightly, the sound grating mechanically. “You don’t think I’m human?”
“I think,” Hux snaps, fighting the urge to shove him away, “that you’ll make me late, if you attempt to stall me any longer. And I think you’ve yet to learn the concept of privacy— you wouldn’t want me in your head, would you?”
“No,” says Ren. His tone is impossible to gauge.
“Then stay out of mine.” Hux smooths down his greatcoat, tugging at invisible wrinkles as he side-steps the Knight. “Good day.”
Ren catches Hux’s arm as he passes, gloved hand tight around his thin bicep. “Hux,” he says, before Hux’s anger and indignation can spill over into words; his voice, even grating from the vocoder, is quieter than Hux has ever heard it. “You. Intrigue me. That’s all.”
Hux rips his arm free, pulse spiking in his throat, teeth bared in wordless warning.
Ren does not reach for him again.
…
Hux arrives still flustered and set on edge. Snoke’s hologram is already projected up onto his throne.
“Apologies for my lateness, Supreme Leader,” he manages to bite out, bowing. “I would have arrived sooner, if it was not for— well. I was— delayed.”
“By my apprentice.”
His intonation does not appear to be phrased as a question but its directness throws Hux for a bit of a loop, and he finds himself searching for words, unsure of how to proceed. “Yes,” he says, at last. “It may not be my place to say more—”
Snoke inclines his head in invitation, and Hux’s frustrations get the better of him.
“He is unreasonable,” he finds himself blurting, “crude-mannered— Master of his Knights or not, he is a terror to my crew and gives no thought for the Order’s safety, or sanity. He has taken to prying into my mind and cannot seem to restrain himself from meddling in my affairs— I cannot move through my own ship without him trailing after me like a dog, interfering with my schedule, wasting my time. I should not be required to tolerate this, him! I may find it difficult to continue to.”
Silence hangs heavy through the room, when he has finished speaking his mind; the echoes of his words ringing faintly back at him. For a moment he is afraid he has gone too far, said too much.
But then Snoke smiles, close-lipped and ghastly.
“Good, General,” he says. “This is the very matter I’ve called you here to discuss.”
“I’d be grateful for your counsel on the subject,” replies Hux, pleasantly surprised. He hadn’t thought that Ren’s skulking incivility would draw Snoke’s concern.
“I’m afraid my apprentice is prone to partiality,” Snoke says. “He has been known to form emotional attachments to various objects and items in this way— the helmet of his late grandfather, for instance. And the kyber crystal of his saber, even with its fractures, is a piece he refuses to replace.”
The Supreme Leader shifts, hunching forward; the movement reminds Hux of the Knight. It would be very like Ren, to adopt the same mannerisms of his Master. The same tilt of his head, curious, analytical. He imagines Ren as a gangly marionette, dangled from Snoke’s slim, knob-knuckled fingers, and feels a thin wave of disgust rise in him. Pathetic.
“Kylo Ren is not easily turned from his obsessions,” Snoke observes, that terrible smile touching the corners of his mouth once again. “You, General, are the first living thing to acquire his infatuation, but I have foreseen that this process will run an identical course: he will pursue you until he loses interest. And you will entertain him during this process, and indulge his whims.”
Hux feels every drop of blood in his body drain to his feet.
“No,” he says, automatically, forgetting himself entirely, and who he is talking to, and loyalty and respect and due order. “No, you— you must be joking.”
The Supreme Leader drums light, spindly fingers against his armrest— in thought, or warning, Hux can’t tell. “General,” he says, smoothly. “I would not dream of wasting your time. I’d advise you not to waste mine.”
He flushes. Squares his shoulders, presses his fist into his palm behind his back. “Kylo Ren,” Hux says, feeling humiliated as the words leave his mouth, “is not infatuated with me—”
“My apprentice is easily led,” Snoke continues, as if Hux hasn’t spoken. “He is driven by impulse, emotion. These fixations are distractions to his true path, and they are things I will break in him, when he is ready. In the meantime…” He waves a knotted, spider-veined hand toward Hux, as if in dismissal. “You will assist me, in sating his desires.”
Perhaps, if Hux was a less cautious man, a man with less clinical thought, and more backbone—
Perhaps if Hux was of the same breed as Ren.
But he is not.
And he values his skin, his life, his work and position, more than he values his pride.
“You will do as I have commanded,” Snoke says, eyes glinting.
“Of course, Supreme Leader,” Hux answers, between gritted teeth, nails breaking the soft skin of his palm. “It will be as you say.”
…
He has a meeting, 0200 hours later.
Conference room 7B. An officer is giving a report on viable planets for his proposed weapon. The presentation is well-done and the choices are viable; the meeting goes well.
Or well enough, he supposes. He actually doesn’t remember most of it.
Snoke has gone mad. Or maybe he has. Maybe the orders he was issued were tricks of the Force, a hysterical half-delusion planted in Hux’s mind. Maybe he had dreamed it—
Maybe it’s a trick of Ren’s. Perhaps it is Ren, manipulating his mind, installing this repugnant fantasy into his head in an attempt to weaken his grip, to take control of the Order for himself. He can imagine the Knight now, broad-shouldered and ever-looming, kneeling in front of Snoke’s throne saying there, look, do you see now, the weakness in him, how easily swayed, how useless—
Hux stops himself there, firmly, exhaling slowly through his nose.
His orders are authentic. The mission came directly from the Supreme Leader, and Hux is overthinking this, taking this apart to the bone. Letting his emotions rule over his resolve.
He’s acting like Ren.
If what Snoke says is true, if he has, indeed, become a distraction…
Then it will be simple. Sex is easy, no large matter. He’ll take Ren to bed, permit him to get it out of his system. The so-called infatuation will pass the way Snoke has foreseen, and Ren will be all the stronger for it.
If Hux wants Ren to be useful to him— to the Order— this must be his course of action.
The ordeal will be over, he thinks, by the end of this week’s cycle.