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The fight starts innocuously enough―Hux thinks that Ren should at least own a coffee machine―but quickly careens off course. Hux is feeling particularly vicious for some reason, and Ren has moved from frustrated to aggravated. They’re not quite yelling, but it’s only a matter of time.
“Like I said, I’m going to be moving out after the lease is up.”
“If only there were a way to take your things with you. Can you imagine what that would be like, Ren?”
“Fuck you. I just don’t want to lug more random junk across town.”
Hux scoffs. “Oh? I was under the impression that moving around miscellaneous goods ran in your blood, Solo. ”
His body knows that Ren is going to hit him before he does, instinctively recognizing the sudden tenseness and flinching away. He has a moment to think so this is how we end this, and then—
...and then?
Hux opens his eyes in time to see the basement door swing shut.
The quiet leaves him disoriented, a surprise so visceral it’s almost disappointment. An erratic pattern of thwap s begins from downstairs.
Because apparently Hux doesn’t have much in the way of self-preservation, he opens the door and pads down the stairs. He knows which areas on the steps don’t creak, though he’s only been in the basement a few times. There’s not much down there, just the laundry room with Ren’s weights, and the unfinished room with nothing but a punching bag…
...which Ren is currently hitting with an aluminum bat.
Hux stops halfway down the steps to watch him thrash it with abandon, grunting occasionally. He always knew that Ren’s one of those horribly unstable people, a morbid part of him wondering how much, what would make him snap, how far he would go.
But he can’t decide if leaving the room to go beat the shit out of something is impressively unhinged or impressively restrained. This, the empty room that he’s never bothered wondering about―Ren’s practically an ascetic after all, it’s not like he has anything to store in the basement―it feels like symbolism. A metaphor that exists because Ren knows exactly which kind of fucked up he is. An empty room to minimize the damage.
Or maybe Hux is reading too much into this. A pause, one last blow, and then the bat clatters to the ground.
“Kylo,” he says once the ringing fades.
Ren looks up, miserable, defeated, and not at all surprised. “Yeah.”
He doesn’t actually have anything to say, but Ren continues staring at him. Hux may be a proud asshole, but he’s a proud asshole that can recognize when he’s been especially cruel, so—
“I’m sorry for the name, and the smuggling comment.”
“You don’t have to say―just because I got angry —”
“I knew it would upset you, and that’s the only reason I said it.” Fuck, admitting he’s done something wrong is awful. This is why he never does it.
“Oh.” Ren blinks. “Well. Apology accepted.” And then, face suddenly unreadable, he adds, “If you want you can go now.”
The way he says it, Hux can’t tell if it’s a choice or a dismissal. He turns back up the stairs, pauses in the doorway. There’s a single small, wet sound from below, like some maudlin idiot trying to muffle a sob.
This time he doesn’t mind the creaky spots.
“You imbecile. I don’t want to leave,” he mutters, dropping to his knees besides the pathetic lump that is Kylo Ren. Ren seems to take this as invitation to throw his arms around Hux and cry loudly onto his shoulder. Hux awkwardly pats him on the back. Okay. So this is what happens when you provoke your unstable boyfriend and he doesn’t react in a way you can feel self-righteous about later. Great job.
After a few minutes his shirt is soggy, his knees hurt, and the sobbing has died down to softer blubbering. Hux lets out a small sigh.
“‘m sorry,” Ren mumbles.
“Hm?”
“For being this way.”
Hux doesn’t say I have a type, or I actually expected worse. “It’s not like I’m a pleasant person, either.”
Ren gives a very wet snort in reply. He tries not to think about what he’ll have to wash out of this shirt.
Hux’s knees are fucking killing him and Ren’s been quiet for almost a minute when he mumbles, “Someone’s hit you before.”
“Yes.” His father, mostly, and some exes later on. “You’ve hit someone before.”
“Yeah. Not for a while, I’ve been trying to...yeah.”
Hux shrugs, half as an excuse to shift his weight. “I would leave if you hit me.” He always does, no matter how well things had been going or what his partner says afterwards.
...and the fact that there’s an always in there says this is a pattern. He should probably ask why he eventually finds a way to provoke, to needlessly escalate. It’s not like he wanted those relationships to end, or that he wanted someone to strike him. Maybe he’d just needed confirmation that he has the power to leave, now.
Dammit, if he wanted to ponder his daddy issues he’d get a fucking shrink.
“I’m not...good at being a decent person. I still fuck things up and I’m running out of ways to try harder than I already am,” Kylo admits. “Maybe you should leave anyway.”
“Do you want to hit me?”
Ren pulls away to look him in the eye. “No, but Hux, that’s not—”
“Shh. I wasn’t being serious.” Just deflecting from the second uncomfortable epiphany of the day, which is that he’s made a vast miscalculation and started dating someone who deserves better than him. Not much better, maybe. But Hux has never had an empty room.
Another long silence, and he can’t stand it any longer. “Kylo? The floor’s fucking concrete.”
“Oh yeah.” Ren rises with the ease of someone immune to physical discomfort, and offers him a hand. Hux doesn’t let go once he’s upright. “So. Coffee?”
“Sure.”
Hux changes his shirt and grabs his wallet, and they wander down the block to the dingy cafe with the broken record player, where Hux orders his usual cappuccino and Ren gets the house blend. He attempts it black, makes a face, and dumps an obscene amount of sugar in it.
And fuck, for a moment Hux imagines what it would be like if he wasn’t so awful. Not nice, but good enough to keep this idiot. Sand off the sharpest edges, curb the cruel impulses, figure out how to fucking communicate, and maybe he could only hurt other people.
When they get back, Ren will talk about who he hit and Hux will talk about who hit him. Ren will describe being sent to his uncle for the summer and running away and getting worse and worse until the only thing he could do was get better. Hux will admit that he should probably see a therapist, and Ren will have far too many recommendations. Hux will ask about the red baseball bat. Ren will show him the scars on his knuckles.
Later, years later, someone will comment that they bicker like an old married couple and one of their friends will respond with they used to be a lot worse, if you can believe it.
But for now, they listen to Eleanor Rigby playing for the third time in a row and drink their coffee.