Chapter Text
As unbelievable as that is, when he first came aboard the Finalizer as co-commander Kylo Ren tried to make friends with Armitage Hux. Back when Ren was still the new kid who was much too awkward even while wearing a glorified black bucket over his head that apologized when stumbling into mouse droids and Hux was the frightening figure looming over the bridge in his underdeveloped pre-growth-spurt glory of five foot seven.
Obviously it's a wasted effort, because this goes as poorly as can be expected.
The thing is, Hux is not great at making friends. Not even halfway through to decent at it. Especially with people close to his age range. He gave up on gaining that ability somewhere between forcibly entering the Academy without having a choice in the matter and escaping from Arkanis on a shuttle with his father when the New Republic invaded, may the old man rest in pieces.
Rax giving him, savage orphan per excellence in all but name, a bunch of savage orphans to raise probably had a part to play in it too. Sloane tried to salvage the damage where she could, bless her heart, but she had to cut her losses fairly early on and admit that while she could teach him the basic skill he'd never be good at it.
What Hux is good at, however, is pulling people into his orbit - whether through necessity or through work - and keeping them there through blackmail and death threats until they develop stockholm syndrome. (Phasma is a fluke, Hux's thought about it, there’s no practical reason Phasma should've stuck with him for this long, she could've just killed him.)
So it goes to show that the only positive interaction he has with Ren that properly qualifies as such, beyond screaming matches about broken equipment, is when Ren almost dies and Hux is forced to save his black-clad behind from Starkiller Base as the latter is crumbling in on itself. Years after Ren comes on board and they have settled into a hesitant, somewhat hateful camaraderie based on petty rivalry.
It's a really short interaction too, to boot. Because Ren falls from halfway through to incoherent to completely unconscious after babbling something or other ominous nonsense about the galaxy coming full circle because a son had murdered his father instead of it being the other way around.
Which, alright. That was almost distressing to hear, honestly.
Then again, Ren's lacking day-to-day ramblings didn't so much waver while standing on the blurred line between nearly coherent and ravings bordering on lunacy as they stepped all over it until they'd stomped it to non-recognition. Superficially, he should've been used to the general madness of it by now.
… … …
He watches Ren sleep, afterward. When their lives no longer hang on the line. Not in a creepy way per say, but in a making-sure-he’s-still-breathing way.
Hux doesn't fully comprehend this strange need he's developed to make sure Ren is alright. It's something that predates Starkiller by a long shot, though Ren hasn't really been out of commission before so maybe that's why it hadn't reared its ugly head until now.
Something he'd rather not examine too closely beyond the fact that Ren is an asset to the First Order that has yet to outlive its usefulness and Hux would rather not have more blood on his hands at the moment after staining them with a star system's worth of it, thank you very much. Not Ren's rebellion-stained blood specifically.
Of course it could also be because the potential for experimental studies that comes with said blood is indispensable. As personal of an excuse as that one may be.
See, beyond the instinctive hatred of Force users drilled into him by his disciplinary beatings courtesy of Snoke and his father's impression of them as indecisive and fickle degenerates (ironically enough a fitting description for Ren) together with his own lasting impression of irritability and annoyance at damaged equipment lost due to temper tantrums, Hux was also more than a little fascinated with Ren's power. At first. Many years pre-Starkiller. Back when he and his ship hadn't been on the receiving end of it quite as much.
He'd tried making sense of it, at first. (Wondered who wouldn't, having the frustrating answer thrust upon him in the form of the pre-existing data on the subject's nonexistence.) Of how Ren can somehow wrap the space around something or someone to simulate a physicality that isn't present. (Ren had still been trying to be his friend back then and so had begrudgingly cooperated with being poked and prodded, even whilst loudly complaining about the unnecessariness of it all and the need to maintain a certain mysticism.) And he thought it might've had something to do with controlling the molecules of the artificial air on a ship or the atmospheric whims of a planet.
…At least he thought so. Until he witnessed it used in the vacuum of open space. (He muffled his screams into his hat for about a quarter of an hour after the crisis had passed.) He slaved away his scarce free time to scientific research settled before the impossibly nonsensical readings of all the available ship sensors for hours on end afterward trying to make sense of that.
(Ren of all people had been the one to drag him away from them, oddly enough - since Phasma had been on a mission and he'd arranged Mitaka's shifts parallel to his own with the express purpose of deterring from interruptions. It'd been on Supreme Leader's summons most often than not, but when not Ren's method was just plain annoying attention-seeking by destroying something unarguably important someplace else.)
Unsurprisingly, his first bare-bones hypothesis proved false. Then, out of desperation mostly, he theorized dark matter.
No idea how someone could inherently control dark matter, either, or of how the ability to do so could possibly relate to the oh so distinctive Force-user mind tricks. But among Ren's unscientific jabbering there was the mention of a Dark side, and Hux had immediately linked that to the theoretical concept of dark energy and a lack of the understanding thereof. And it'd been a start.
There has to be a scientific explanation for Force magic and Hux likes to think he was getting there before he deserted his efforts and stopped giving a kriff to stop from going raving mad. (Once again courtesy of Ren, who had by then tired of trying to be friendly and started his full-blown sabotage campaign on all useful equipment known to mankind.)
Now, however, would be a good time as any to resume his studies. Although Ren would regrettably not be awake to be uncooperative about it.
…He might've been obsessing over harassing the med droids with checking over Ren's vitals on the bacta tank for signs of an awakening more than he'd realized though. Because at the dawn of the third alpha shift of uninterrupted vigil during his breaks with no sleep in between Phasma came like the morning glory to drag him back to his quarters from his impromptu insomniac vacation plan in the med bay.
(Telling him - in no uncertain terms - that she thought his post-lifesaving obsession with Kylo Ren was narcissistic and unhealthy and made no sense whatsoever. Yet probably just happy Hux was spending time with someone that wasn't her or Mitaka for a change. Even if that someone had been unconscious the entire time.)
… … …
After that shit show is over and done with and Ren appropriately returned to commission without the infamous black bucket and with a brand new facial scar to show for it that Hux pointedly makes sure to check for infection every now and then, Snoke for some bizarre reason seems to be under the couldn't-be-more-wrong impression that Hux is Ren's self-appointed glorified babysitter. (Or well, even more so than he'd filled-in for the role before.)
Interrupting Hux's vital, important, relevant work just as much as his precious personal time almost on a daily basis to ask that he go snap Ren out of whichever mood the Knight is struck by. Telling Hux to ‘know his place’ whenever he complains, the absolute bastard.
Regrettably, he gets a prime introduction to Ren's living quarters during this period of respite from the Resistance. The fact that those quarters are all the way out of the officers' lounge, to the opposite side of the ship, notwithstanding. (Hux most literally can't complain. He'd been the one assigning the quarters.)
It usually goes like this:
Hux turns up uninvited on Supreme Leader's orders or because Ren hasn't been destroying anything aboard the ship lately and Hux is, dare he say it, concerned about that fact if not necessarily wanting it to change. He opens the door with his personal override code, because like hell would Ren let him in willingly.
Ren is sometimes sleeping or distracted or, dare-Hux-say-it, meditating (Ren's words not Hux's). And sometimes this means Hux stumbles into the ashes of Ren's enemies or other knick-knacks of the forbidden Sith variety that range from fairly inoffensive beyond the unhealthy supernatural feelings of dread they cause (Darth Vader's mask comes to mind) to elaborate magical traps that almost get Hux eviscerated whilst walking around that death trap of a disgracefully disorganized bedroom. Which, what’s a little disemboweling between friends really?!
And sometimes Ren will be tired enough or relaxed enough to let his ever-present guard down if only by the slightest inch to seriously admit he is not doing great. But mostly he'll be broody and stonewalling and at those times more than ever Hux truly gets why no one likes Ren or wants to put up with him. Ren is downright exhausting.
Hux is not a field-assigned therapy droid, he wasn't trained or programmed for this shit, and he shouldn't have to make do. But when he'd been having a particularly tiring day and tried to subtly leave the one with the highest success rate in Ren's quarters and call it a day, job done, it slammed against the door to his personal quarters completely wrecked barely an hour later.
So, he is stuck as a therapist, message received.
… … …
Ren has the rare decency to look mildly ashamed and slightly apologetic when Hux barges in on him mid-break shift in what Hux has personally dubbed Ren's ‘brooding room’ half an hour after such a rude awakening. But Ren’s the kind of dense that isn't good with apologies. Which Hux gets, shockingly.
(Worse is, Ren's quarters are way more spacious than his, by virtue of not having their previous primary purpose be that of housing human beings. Ren has a whole three roomfuls not counting the separate bathroom while Hux's living room connects to the kitchen in such a way that it might as well be part of the kitchen, which must've been Snoke's idea of a tasteless joke. He's barely got a bedroom as it is. And Ren is simply wasting all that space.)
Then Hux proceeds to notice, faintly through his rapidly decreasing righteous fury, that other than his First Order issued undergarments Ren isn't really wearing anything. Which, also shockingly, hadn't really ever been the case before.
It takes him a shamefully long while to properly register this.
So, while marching himself a straight paced line through the floor of Ren's brooding room purposefully avoiding the clutter into a mouthful of a tirade about the sacredness of private First Order issued property and how unbecoming of anyone never mind a commander it is to baselessly and carelessly destroy it like the forty pages worth of filled paperwork requesting further budget to cover the damages grows on trees, Hux's one-person argument withers ever so slowly unto nothing until he just stops and stares. And stares some more, face flushed but unreadable. Eyes traveling at hyper speed from Ren's bare chest to Ren's bewilderedly flustered expression. Growing increasingly uncomfortable with the situation.
"I'll uh, leave you to it, then." He says, because while he's got half a mind to he can't very well lecture the Knight on the value of proper public decency while performing an unannounced intrusion into the man's private quarters. Much less standing in the middle of them, proverbially gaping like a fish at their unruly owner. Though he does gain enough of his bearings to issue one final warning in the form of: "Don't make me repeat myself." (The ‘don't you dare or you'll regret it’ left implicit notwithstanding.)
He all but runs away afterwards. Not even exactly runs, really. Just speed-walks through the corridors slightly faster than usual and makes it back to his post in record time twenty minutes before his shift is due (thanks to Ren's quarters being the furthest from it) and without the proper uniform gear.
Not an abnormal occurrence at all, slanderous claims to the contrary be damned, that he happened to get the hour wrong despite all standard clocks on board being synchronized or that he happened to have foregone his hat for the first time in the history of his career.
If anyone with the proper clearance not to get shot for insubordination ever asked (which, Phasma did, and she apparently also told Mitaka too) he'd give them the abridged version, call it a practical retreat from a no-win scenario and leave it at that.
No one would dare question him on the matter, and he doesn't know why exactly, but that's a relief in and of itself.
… … …
Of course, Hux had expected that would be the end of it. Like any sane reasonable person would.
There, done, they wouldn't need to talk about it and would probably just pretend it never happened. And surely, with Ren now wised up to what it entailed having someone barging uninvited into his rooms at odd hours and apparently not wanting that fact to change, he'd always be somewhat decent.
It wouldn't happen again.
Oh, how wrong he'd been. How very naive, to believe that Ren would ever be anything resembling a sane reasonable person.
… … …
The next time Hux turns up, Ren has just destroyed an entire control room's worth of consoles on a whim. Bitching all the while about the stubborn scavenger girl.
Hux gets through the most of his own angry tirade before noticing nearing the end of it that Ren is wearing tights, and also lacking a shirt.
Which is still jarring, because but for the one exception Ren had always been dressed in full gear before.
He can't help but make a disturbed face so wound up that it would probably make Phasma question if he's constipated.
Stupid, honestly, but while he'd known in theory that that was the case he hadn't had the chance to think about Ren as a human being with a chest made off of flesh and bone beneath the pretentious robes for a long time now. Even if he's long accepted the fact that there's a face under the dumb-looking helmet and it is somewhat attractive, facial scar and all.
Unfortunately, he's so distracted by the realization that he forgets his train of thought mid-sentence and the ending to his argument falls a little flat.
Ren smirks at him afterwards. It's downright infuriating, so he takes to the road and doesn't even look back for a last minute threat this time.
… … …
It happens a third time, of course. Third time's the charm and all that.
Hux enters and Ren is once again clad only in black boxers, this time flushed by the heat of flexing muscles on a clean break among the crowded floor instead of barely awake halfway under the bed covers because of course he is naturally doing pushups. Doesn't even acknowledge Hux's presence as he continues.
Not that Ren isn't prone to ignoring Hux like this but now with the way Ren tensed up before forcing himself to relax the lackluster people-skills feel more purposeful than anything else.
Not that Hux has any ground whatsoever to stand on. With the way he promptly gains a myriad of colors at the display, doesn't even enter the room properly, calls out a very strong warning to leave the tech of the science department the fuck alone and turns tail.
By then Ren had been fully dressed at least twice so Hux, while still wary, had wrongfully let himself be led into a false sense of security at the fall back into routine. That mistake had been his and his alone and he'd forgone the tarine tea and petting Millicent for three days as self-purported punishment.
(He relented on the second by the first hour of the first day though, because poor Millie had looked so chastised at the perceived rejection. His beauty of a cat didn't deserve to believe she'd done anything wrong just because he'd gone and been an idiot about something.)
… … …
These first few times he chalks it up to coincidence. But it keeps on happening and happening and honestly he always thinks at some point he'll desensitize himself to it, but that point in time reeks of ‘not soon enough’ and the last few times he doesn't even say anything. Takes one look at Ren to gauge his varying state of undress, finds it wanting, then leaves.
He stops trying to remain in denial once he's established a pattern.
Stops himself from spending more time in the room than necessary once Ren stops bothering with a shirt.
Stops going altogether unless explicitly ordered otherwise once Ren stops bothering with the pants and just exhibits himself freely in his underwear for an irrational fear that that too will at some point be gone.
… … …
Ren walks out of the bathroom in only a towel once. Seemingly put out at first before grinning mischievously at the notion of getting under Hux's skin in such a minuscule, inoffensive way as public exhibitionism.
Thank the stars, the towel stays in place.
Hux closes his eyes, clutches his nose, shakes his head in exhausted exasperation, sighs - and exists the room not being able to remember what he'd come to complain about.
… … …
He fills the paperwork for the incident he didn't talk to Ren about. Fills the paperwork for all further incidents. Sends a therapy-droid each and every time Snoke orders him to go himself. None come back. He doesn't retrieve them himself. He doesn't go back.
About a standard week and a handful later there's an awfully loud knock on his door. He checks the security feed. Rolls his eyes. Doesn't answer it.
… … …
The next shift he coincides with Ren is spent with Hux barely able to get anything done, because the Knight seems set on invading his personal space and staying there, always somewhere in the vicinity of ‘too close for comfort’.
Mitaka eyes Ren dubiously, Hux mouths a plea for help his way but while the Lieutenant does conspicuously find and nervously suggest Hux things to do all about the bridge that day the Knight dutifully follows him everywhere like a personal bodyguard with too much free time and nothing else to do.
Not at all the attitude of someone who should be on duty, if you asked Hux, but then again this is one of those rare occasions that Ren's shown up on the bridge of his own accord instead of being dragged there by Hux as fitting equivalent to a young cadet's time-out.
(And Ren's duty basically consists of standing around looking menacing anyway; there's, sadly, no rule saying he can't harass Hux while doing so.)
… … …
Hux mouths an even more pronounced order for back-up Mitaka's way when Ren's persistence lasts the first two standard hours. But the Lieutenant just eyes him pityingly, eyes Ren warily, and conceals a mildly apologetical shrug - having deemed the madman nonthreatening enough today not to risk anyone's safety by doubling his efforts.
Phasma lifts a blond eyebrow beneath the chrome armor when she comes to report their cadets' progress (it's in her tone, he's certain of it, even though he can't see it) but otherwise doesn't comment on things. Thank stars for small blessings.
Everyone else on the bridge must be as weirded out as he is, honestly. But they know their place so they too don't seemingly comment on it. Either that or they're all much too desensitized to Ren's… Ren-ness by now. Hux sincerely can't tell the difference. (Thinks he himself might have the same problem, because he's certain he's not as uncomfortable or paranoid about this development as he would've been pre-Starkiller. As he should be, for his own sanity and safety.)
…He loves them all and hates them all just a tiny bit more for their silence. (Wishes someone would say something, mostly. But has absolutely no idea what he would do if they did.)
… … …
The first week of this interlude passes swiftly on. He doesn't talk to Ren at all. Has yet to address him directly for anything, going as far as talking of him in third person to other officers to get his orders across when strictly necessary. (Mitaka gave a disapproving stare once he caught on and every time since then.) Or simply delegating dealing with the childish Knight to someone else, anyone else, whenever possible.
Preferably anyone who's particularly annoyed him with their mediocrity that day.
(It's ever so slightly petty and certainly beneath him but it's also cold, sweet, sweet vengeance and he's never been above delivering payback.)
It becomes the new normal but direct Phasma won't stop asking intently and concerned Mitaka won't stop waiting patiently for him to breach the subject on his own and the rest other than his bridge crew won't stop gossiping about it. Horrifyingly enough, they're calling it a break up. Hux pointedly does not allow himself to dwell on that.
… … …
Two more weeks of this and then one more of Ren stalking him off-shift once Hux goes through the necessary channels to change both their schedules so that they never coincide (and Ren questioning angrily how in the galaxy Hux was allowed to do that but Ren wasn't, all the while being given the continued silent treatment that had started the day of the towel) find Hux in his quarters, midway throughout filling out a form requesting an official investigation for active harassment.
He makes sure the security feeds have a plain view of exactly what he's taking to his office the next alpha shift.
He doesn't actually file the thing.
Nevertheless his supposition that Ren's not only been limited to tracking his movements physically proves true when the automatized double doors to his quarters slam in their hinges at roughly the start of his first break shift with the force of the knocking.
Hux actually deigns to grant Ren entry this time, pushing in his code on the datapad resting in the nightstand next to the big light blue armchair he'd been comfortably lying sideways over with a tiredly theatrical put-upon sigh. Briefly musing on why Ren didn't think to try and use an override code even though Hux made sure that none but his own would open his door.
(He decides to pin it on Ren's budding idiocy and lack of foresight instead of dwelling too long on the fact that Ren might just know him well enough to know it wouldn't be that easy.)
He deems it necessary to sit up appropriately before he risks being seen. Then stands up altogether - because with the non-padded, casual attire he's wearing he'll look vulnerable either way.
From her place atop the kitchen counter that acts as an island in what's roughly the middle of his living room slash kitchen, Millicent meows soothingly. Hux thinks she might just be questioning his sanity. He can't keep from questioning it himself.
His early death, he muses darkly as the doors swiss open, will be no one's fault but his own. He'd known from the start that being exposed to Ren and his Sith paraphernalia (even though the Knight explicitly claims not to be one, which is bantha shit, discount-Sith is still Sith) was a sanity and health not to mention security hazard. Did his best to conserve the second and third relatively intact. Yet apparently hadn't stopped visiting on time to save the first.
He'd been expecting many things, of course. Mainly, a grand entrance. Because Ren is a dedicated fan of grand entrances on principle alone whereas Hux prefers to just appear. (Out of nowhere preferably, whenever it isn't a necessity to make a point of his being there.)
Expecting many other things too, things that make him suppress a flinch. To be slammed against the wall, for one. To be angrily demanded an explanation of. To have his neck snapped clean off in a fit of rage, whether on purpose or by accident yet to be determined. Not precisely in that order, either.
What Hux hadn't been expecting though was a shirtless barefoot Ren clad in black leggings with his head bowed down, dark hair falling over brown stormy eyes cast downward. Hesitating on setting foot inside Hux's quarters once provided the proper means, suspecting foul play. As though the Knight were an unstable poltergeist demanding penance of the carpeted floor he'd yet to step on.
A shirtless Kylo Ren who must've made the whole treck over to Hux's quarters from his own at the other side of the ship, through the very busy corridors during the start of a shift, in that very state of undress.
There is no grand entrance. This is still dramatic enough to qualify.
Hux can feel a migraine brewing. Preemptively, he snatches the bottle from were Millicent is dangerously close to knocking it over the edge and takes the appropriate amount of muscle relaxant pills he'll need to have this conversation. It's at least double the dosage recommended. Millicent meows in disapproval. He washes them down with a mug of tea he'd prepared ahead for the occasion, maintaining cat-to-owner eye contact.
You don't deal with him on a daily basis, he thought in resignation towards her general direction, you don't know what it's like.
She meows again, dubious. Clearly having her doubts but deciding to take his word for it. She blinks once, slowly. He gives her ear a proper scratch as an ‘I love you too’.
Ren glares incredulously at the medicine bottle before his eyes widen as they fall on Millicent's feline form while she headbutts Hux's arm where it's leaning over the counter. Hux briefly stops to keep petting her before he starts to regret ever getting up, moving again to collapse on the armchair. His stylish, comfy light blue loveseat that Ren is staring at like it were something foreign and alien.
Regrettably, Millie doesn't follow. Takes to observing Kylo with an assessing glance as he hesitantly strolls into the room. Granting the intruder a judgemental once over. The Knight visibly fidgets before extending a hand towards her.
She hisses a warning.
The hand retreats.
"You have a cat." Ren says, in a vaguely accusing tone that speaks of betrayal. He's staring at the cup now, trying to determine what was in it.
"Indeed I do." Hux deadpans, setting his empty mug on the nightstand as if to shield it before his gaze flickers wishfully to the hidden wine cabinet concealed in plain sight.
Millicent moves casually to block his view, sitting in front of it in that adorable authoritative way that cats have. Phasma taught her that, he thinks, equal measures rancor and begrudging respect mixed with something warmer.
He heeds the warning and his eyes flicker back to an emotionally stagnant Ren, who's feeling hurt for some bizarre reason and doesn't seem to know what to do with himself now that he's being listened and answered to.
"…A ginger cat." Ren says, after a pause, managing to sound chagrined about it.
Hux is stiff on the defensive before Millicent can think to scratch Kylo.
"Red is a nice color. You should try it." He gestures widely to the room as a whole, a rainbow in comparison to Kylo's bare-bones quarters. "Or anything that isn't monochrome black, for a change."
Ren's pained frown deepens.
Millicent knocks the silver bottle from where it had been set back down on the counter after its use. He'd forgotten to put the cap back on. Clever kitty, too clever.
Light grey pills scatter about to places unknown where they'll be indistinguishable from the fluffy white carpeting that had muffled the deafening sound of the metallic bottle hitting the ground until he happened to step upon them. Mitaka taught her that, he thinks. Equal parts fondness and frustration, with the latter turning the tide.
At this point it'd be an understatement to further visually convey how much this situation is both eerily tense and awkward.
"You never told me." Ren says. Or rather, growls.
(And there it is, out in the open.)
"You never asked." Hux mutters, shrugging. Eyeing the licor cabinet once again even through Millie, who'd sat right back down in front of it. Eyeing his plush non-regulation carpeting. Eyeing everything that isn't Ren.
"You didn't either!" Ren yells. And, oh, oh. Apparently they're not talking about the cat anymore. Alright.
Hux blinks once, twice. Doesn't open his eyes again as he snaps to his feet. Inhales. Exhales. Glares right back at the man who's once again invading his personal bubble. (When did Ren get closer than he already was?)
"Seriously, Ren. You want to talk? Talk. Tell me." He huffs to keep from scowling. Not entirely certain it works. "What is it that you want from me?"
Ren growls again, an unintelligible yet fiercely violent noise. Like Hux ought to be a mind reader too, to instinctively know, and Ren finds it faulty for him to pretend otherwise. For a moment, Hux thinks Ren will just slam him against the wall anyway. There. Conversation over. (But of course Ren doesn't do that. He probably never intended to since he got here. Since Hux let him in.)
"S'rry." Ren says. Fast and jumbled but clear and clean-cut, like stripping a band-aid.
Which, Hux ought to have heard that wrong.
"What."
"…I'm-sorry." Ren repeats at last, cringing like admitting to something as simple as that could be physically taxing.
Which, for Ren? It just might.
In all the years that Hux has known this man, and there's been many, Ren has never apologized. For anything. To anyone.
(The kid that Ren had once been though? That one apologized an awful lot.)
He blinks, again. The slightest bit blindsided. Makes eye contact with Millicent again. Makes eye contact with Kylo right after. It doesn't last, Kylo averts it.
Huh, would you look at that? There might yet be…
"Are you apologizing for all the things you've wrecked in the past…?" He's wary, cautious. Searching Ren's troubled expression for the barest hint. Dancing around the edges of whatever it is this is, now. His voice reflects that. "Or should I take this as a blanket apology for something that you're going to wreck in the future?"
"I'm sorry," Ren says, his expressive face still pulled into that awful frown. As if the word tastes like bitter defeat and he'd like nothing more than to spit it. "Sorry that I pushed you away. There, I said it. I won't do it again, alright? Just… just don't leave."
Not you too, Hux hears. Everyone left already, not you too.
It strikes him harder than expected. Which is to say that it lands at all. It lands and hard. Like a punch in the gut. Kriff, he'd probably feel better if he'd been physically punched instead. At least that would fade. He feels like doubling over.
(It's surprising to hear it from this Ren. The Ren that has closed himself off. The Ren that had tired of trying. It does things to him. It makes him want to- makes him think that- makes him hope, maybe. He'd half forgotten how that felt like, he doesn't want to remember.)
"Kriff, Ren…"
His tone, although soft, was probably too neutral though. Because Kylo takes that entirely the wrong way. He's reaching out but not quite, certain that if he did he'd be rejected. Certain that he wouldn't be allowed to.
(Maybe Hux, too, has continually kept on trying. Reaching out, always, in his own twisted way. But, stars forbid, he didn't ever dare think he'd get that kid back - the one that Ren had been - hadn't stopped to think that he might actually want to.)
"I know I've been an asshole. Hux, I know I've been an asshole but if you just let me- I just- I didn't-" He breaks off into a tangent, averts his gaze. Hux can almost hear it, the choir of useless useless useless going off in Ren's brain. Can see it in the way Ren's expression closes off but the facade cracks. Has seen it in the mirror a few times before. "I was just messing around with you. You're very easy to mess with, so…"
"Ren what are you getting at here?" Once it looks like Ren will keep up the charade, he hastily adds: "And stop lying through your teeth, you're absolutely awful at it."
"I…" Ren starts. Aborts. Begins anew. "I just…" and yet can't bring himself to finish properly. "You were always around. I mean you've always been around, in a way. But not the same way you were, lately. And I guess I just thought…"
Ren trails off. Again. Shrinks in on himself like he's expecting…
Hux doesn't even know what Ren's expecting, he tells himself. (Though that won't stop him from assuming the worst.) But it can't have been nice, so he gives Ren a mildly encouraging verbal nudge instead. (Knowing he can't let this go or he might never have another chance to hear it.)
"You thought-?"
"I thought," Ren starts firmly, determined to finish this time. He's bitter, resigned. Staring at some space between the carpet and the far wall. "That if I got you to see what you'd be getting into then maybe you'd give me a chance."
The silence between them is thick and jagged. Hux didn't know what he'd been expecting, but it wasn't that.
Somebody did this to Ren.
(To Ren, who is confidence and self-indulgence and self-centeredness personified. Who shouldn't ever even have been capable of thinking that somebody wouldn't want him. Who shouldn't ever be this scared. Who shouldn't ever look like this.)
Hux is going to kill somebody. Once he finds them, they're going down.
He's felt this way before, faintly. When Ren would let that guard of his down the slightest bit and Hux could spot the clues that there was something there worth trying to find. That someone had hidden it away. But he's never felt so strongly about it. The surge of fierce protectiveness is almost enough to make his breath falter.
Kriff, he'd never seen the extent of whatever it is that happened to Ren to make him such a damaged drama queen until now. And he doesn't even find it satisfying, quite the opposite. He'd expected to find a weakness he could exploit at some point, with how much time he spend with the Knight, but this is-
Hux is going to find the nearest Resistance base and level it to the ground, mark his words.
Unfortunately, Ren seems to miss the direction Hux's anger is directed at entirely, because he takes a step backwards and shrinks in on himself even more.
"But I can clearly see that you're not interested General, so-"
Wait, what?
No.
No, Ren doesn't get to pull that off.
"What do you mean?"
Hux is going to behead somebody.
"I mean, I've never seen you with anyone. But now I'm certain Captain Phasma-" Ren must catch how something in Hux's expression instinctively darkens at that, because he repurposes. Changing directions. "So I am the issue- I mean then maybe you and that Lieutenant-"
"Mitaka?!" Hux wants to laugh, maybe. The kind of toxic laugh that might taste like cyanide if only he'd asked his father what that tasted like. "What are you, mad?"
Phasma is like the sister he wished he had when he'd still been at the Academy. Or back in Arkanis. Mitaka is more complex, different. He thinks maybe he is to Mitaka what Rae Sloane was to him, but he can't be certain because sometimes he feels too much like Gallius Rax.
"Then there's no one…?"
Ren's- Kylo's tone gives him pause. It sounds hopeful but sore in a way that says that he's already raised those hopes to the skies and outer space beyond just to raid them back down with a war cry. Hopeful in the cautious way of someone who honestly doesn't think they have something to hope for.
And yet…
"Kylo," he begins, has to begin somewhere or he'll lose it, because he has to ask since if he doesn't he might just burst. Ren startles as if he's been struck. That adds conviction to Hux's tone. "Kylo, tell me, what do you suppose will happen now?"
Ren backs away, hastily. A sloppy retreat if Hux ever saw one. One step, two steps, three. Hux's scarred, bare hand catches Ren's wrist in an iron grip before he can think to take a fourth or, Maker forbid, bolt for the door. Kylo let's a sound escape through grit teeth then, a pitiful cross between a desperate snarl and a whimper or sob. Hux's grip relaxes against his will, though not entirely yet. It can't afford to.
He muses, grimly, that if Ren deigned to take that wrist back there is little Hux could do about it. Nevertheless, Ren's cornered, corralled expression gives away that of course that particular scenario hasn't even occurred to Ren himself.
He thinks, darkly, on a paper he read once about how dangerous animals that have been kept in captivity for too long don't even contemplate escape anymore, as a real possibility. About how they give up tugging at the chain early on so that they can't break it once they're strong enough to manage it. Having resigned themselves to the fact that it's always been there. Will always be there. (He thinks about Snoke. And feels sick.)
He briefly contemplates backing up, giving into the satisfaction of smashing the cup near the armchair, for catharsis' sake. (Letting Ren go, clearing a way out.) But as always the urge is feasibly ignored.
Hux likes that cup. It was a gift from Sloane, the only keepsake of hers he's allowed himself to preserve. He won't lose it to childishness.
He's searching Ren's eyes now as they stare straight through him like they're seeing something, or someone, else entirely.
"Ren, what do you think I'll do, exactly?" He's snarling, tone crisp, bristling maybe. Patience visibly thinning. Straightening even though he knows, is aware that looking tall and threatening is counterintuitive and surely counterproductive, yet unable to help the instinctive response that this battered body of his (beaten to submission again and again and again) forces upon him. Much, he thinks, like Ren himself might be. "Report you? Have you executed?! Strike you down right here right now!?"
"I…" Ren growls back, pupils going haywire, examining to the minute detail what his lizard brain figures is a crouching predator ready to pounce him. "I-"
Inadvertently, he's the one to interrupt, fully conscious that he might later regret it. Nevertheless, Hux's patience's runs out much too soon and whitening knuckles collide with the kitchen counter he's also inadvertently very much backed Ren up against. Not good, this is all not good. Worse than not good.
The part of him that's been stretched to its breaking point for the past few months can't muster the will to care as it audibly snaps.
"What do you think will happen?!"
"I don't know!" Ren screams, barreling open palms first into Hux just enough to send him receding one begrudging step. "I don't know, alright?! All of the above maybe! Why do you think I didn't tell you!? I've absolutely no idea what you will do!"
A searing red part of him wants to cackle, to tackle, to bite down while Ren is at the most vulnerable, take the knife out then go in for the kill consequences be damned. The part of Hux that's good at compartmentalizing the real him. The part that's been there since he was five and he made a brainwashed child hit another one for… not for the fun of it, no, but for the statement of it. For the message it send. For the power it conveyed. The part that suppressed the maddening urge to scream with the hysterical one to laugh and most times let him do neither. Never let him do much but for the occasional sneer and scoff.
Sadly, the real him doesn't feel very much like cooperating, like being easily compartmentalized and tucked away for the evening within the cracks inside the darkest places of his psyche. No, it fights, much akin to Kylo it snarls. It claws itself a way to his throat and it doesn't seem to want out. Doesn't seem to want to do much of anything but to stay there, cutting, simulating broken glass. Choking him from inside himself. Crushing him with the weight of five inhabited planets bursting with life being blown up and the texture of ash and the smell of Arkanisian rain. Searing red like a deathly flash of light. Refusing to cede terrain yet not burning itself out.
Hux swallows, shallowly. Audibly. Tries to force it down before it manages to force him forward, but it's been a losing battle all along.
Armitage takes a purposeful step forward and Kylo Ren- Benjamin Solo takes a step further back, collides with the counter, tightens his fists willing to make himself a way out but Hux wouldn't let him. Armitage won't either.
Their foreheads are thrust together courtesy of Armitage's klutz. Their lips follow. It's savage and awkward and wildly messy all in one because rarely if ever has Hux ever felt the need to engage in activities such as these. Because he has been ashamed of the inexperience and such inexperience has been marred and furthered by that same shame.
Armitage would like to believe he's never been ashamed or afraid in his life, but truth be told expressing himself in this manner towards those deemed deserving is one of the very few things Armitage has never been afraid of. One of the very few remains of his mother that his father hadn't beaten out him. One of the reasons he'd had to be suppressed in the first place.
A ruthless, fearsome General couldn't be seen fraternizing. Indulging himself in simple touch, caresses, embraces. Drunk on human kindness. It'd be revolting, vile. He'd be reviled for this weakness.
Yet more and more over the years had Armitage managed to seep through the cracks. More and more had Phasma's visits for idle company or mourning vigil grown in number over the years as the number of soldiers in their armies that successfully came back depleted. More and more had Mitaka's extended in duration once they had started, together with his personal tuition. More and more had Millicent grown on him from a mere emotional support to a much needed crutch. It tastes like ash again, to realize this, all this.
Or it would. For Hux that is. Armitage is still himself though, still in control at the moment. And he's still too busy savoring the complicated mixture that's purely Ren to truly care for all of those other, pressing, troubling whirlwinds of surreal emotional things dragging him infinitely down.
Too busy reigning in the ravenous hunger for contact and touch and self that something undeserving within him so craves. That instills in him the need to draw impossibly closer even as he's panting for breath and seize Ren's chin to crash lips again and again while keeping the hand momentarily left unoccupied grounding Ren's forearm to the here and now and don't go until his breathing's gone even, again.
Until he feels like he can breathe at all.
The image of a distant ‘later’ is still fuzzy and unfocused. It's frightening but it's bright and it'll be all he has at some distant point. Yet, in the here and now, he can't afford to care less.