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They were always laughing at him. Hux could feel their eyes when they bored into the back of his skull as he passed; his fingers pressed into his palms, almost wishing his gloves weren’t there to protect his skin from the tearing his nails were sure to inflict. Perhaps Hux couldn’t actually hear them, but he knew their snide remarks and snickers were there, each one slicing through him wherever he went. His expression was always arranged into grim determination, eyes still as icy as ever whenever he met with another, ignoring how his left eye was squeezed shut by the swelling.
Hux swallowed down the despair that once again threatened his composure. Even just that movement of his throat caused a twinge of pain flare through his face. His reflection stared back at him, mocking him, stomach threatening to revolt against the image. Although he was in private, he couldn’t let this take control of him, of his life. Nothing should be able to affect him like this. Breaking down was not an option.
It was a monster that looked back at him from the mirror. A vaguely Hux-like monster, but one all the same. His hair had mostly managed to escape damage, but otherwise, the entirety of the left side of his face was hideous, disfigured. The skin was bright red, blistering, though with several spots of whiteness across his cheeks. Swelling around his eye caused his eyelid to droop; the light hairs of his eyebrow above it burned off. Only the corner of his lips were burned, but still painful, each movement of them pulling at his skin and sending new waves of pain through him.
Gloves had been removed some time ago, his nails pressed hard into palms, sinking into the skin. Otherwise, he was sure they would claw at his face, pulling at the deadened skin, popping the blisters. He wanted it to all go away, all the pain, all the emotion, all the ugliness. Hux couldn’t take much more of this. It was too much, too overwhelming. Anguish filled him, pushing through the barrier he’d built himself.
Falling to the ground, his arms wrapped around his middle seemingly automatically, nails once more embedding themselves into his palms. His body shook, pain shooting through his face, his sobs pulling at his burns. Despair filled through him as he leaned against the wall. Hux had nothing left. Sure, he still technically had his command; he was still General of the First Order, but for how long? Starkiller had fallen, he was sure to be in disgrace. The ruin of his face was just icing on the cake.
Hux wouldn’t have called himself a vain person, necessarily, but he was aware that he was not an unattractive person. The burns ruined that, of course, but it wasn’t just that he mourned the loss of that (though he wouldn’t lie and say he wasn’t affected by that as well). It was the looks, the sneers, the laughs. The humiliation after everything, after getting to where he is-- was . The respect any had for him previously was sure to have been burned away just as his skin had. One moment there, in the next, ripped from him. What was the point of his position as General if he had nobody on his side, nobody to revere him, nobody to be afraid of him and his power? He was essentially a laughing stock now; the jester of the First Order.
A jolt of surprise shot through him as he felt warm arms encircle him, falling around his own arms, clasped hands meeting in the middle, pressed against his belly before pulling him against something solid and warm.
“Hux,” a deep voice came at his ear. Before, that voice would fill him with warmth, with deep feelings he still had trouble acknowledging. Now, it only filled him with dread and even more despair, perhaps stronger than that he felt with the idea of losing his command.
The shock that had held him in his place dissipated with the words and Hux began to pull away, his breath coming quick--too quick. He was hyperventilating, but the knowledge of it didn’t help his panic, especially as the arms tightened around him, trying to keep him still and perhaps calm.
It didn’t work. Hux only started to panic more. He couldn’t do this, he couldn’t let that man see him like this, see this hideous thing he’d become. Hux was no longer the same man he had been, if he could even feel comfortable calling himself a man; there was certainly nothing for the man behind him to care for, much less like, or--though he hardly dare think it-- love . All he was was a shell of a person; he was nothing without everything he had attained in his life thus far, all that was sure to be removed from him before too long.
Nails scraped at arms, hands scrabbling to pull them away. He needed out, out, out . This...he couldn’t do this, not anymore. This wasn’t him, this wasn’t for him, not for what he was now. The man had belonged to a General, someone who had everything, not this creature of devastation. If the world had been kind, perhaps he would have been tossed to the ground before the other had recovered, been able to escape. Instead, the confrontation had to happen, the world deciding that Hux had not had enough pain in his life and he was to face more, to face this man as he was, disfigured and pitiful, nothing to his name.
The arms wouldn’t relent, holding him within their circle as he continued his escape attempt. He’d nearly rather die than have to face him. This just...this just couldn’t be. Hux had might as well lose this along with everything else.
“Shh, Hux, calm down. It’s me, it’s okay, just calm.”
Gasping in air, he worked on calming down. But only enough to spit out words. “Let go of me, Ren.” There was as much venom in the words as he could manage, lips stiff and painful, skin tugging as he spoke.
Ren’s arms tensed, but did not pull away as Hux had intended. It had been quite a while since he had used his surname in quite that fashion, in a way meant to hurt, much as he had when they first met and for a while after, but it had been months since he’d last used it. Or had it managed to be a year or more? With everything that had happened within the last month or so had him losing track of time. Though, he was sure the lack of sleep didn’t help with that either.
“Hux, please .” His voice was soft, pleading. Hux wanted nothing more than to melt back into his embrace, to fall into that which once was familiar. But he couldn’t. That wasn’t for him, not anymore. He wasn’t deserving of such attention, of such affection, even if his entire being was yearning for this, yearning for him after their week of separation, after the destruction of everything his life had been for.
“Kylo.” Voice nearly cracking, another gasping sob escaping his lips, he resisted the urge to bury his face in his hands, knowing the pain that would follow, not to mention the strong desire to claw off his face. Instead, he ceased his assault on Kylo’s arms to dig his fingernails back into his own flesh. “Let me go.” Hux’s words were weak, the sobs still wracking his body, but unable to truly fight.
Hux was exhausted. There had been so much emotional turmoil over the last week, he couldn’t stand this anymore, of trying to keep up his appearances, despite the whispers and the laughs. It was hell, and he wasn’t sure he could handle it any longer. Not on top of this disappointment, the disappointment that was sure to face him as soon as he turned around.
And yet, he slumped against Kylo, his chest warm against his back, the arms circling him relaxing just slightly. The man was obviously still alert in case of a sudden escape attempt, something that he was still considering. “Please,” Hux murmured, his hands raising to wipe the traces of blood from his nails on his undershirt before trailing fingers along the muscled arms that held him, arms that could so easily break him.
“Hux,” Kylo breathed, the sound coming from just behind his left ear, starting as a nose bumped against it. Hux tensed, his heartbeat picking up again, racing from the proximity to his damaged face. Did Kylo even know? His panic of the presence had thrown that thought out of his mind, but he’d most likely only just been released from his week-long stay in the medbay, the medbay he’d been refused at initially and couldn’t bring himself to return to. They’d had no time, no staff, and Kylo had been more of a priority. Hux didn’t resent him; the man had seemed very near the brink of death.
But he wasn’t sure if Kylo knew of the monster he’d melted into. Obviously not, the way his nose nuzzled against his ear, moving down to his jaw. Hux began to shake anew, tiny sobs running through him. This was hard enough, but having to see the repulsion that was sure to grace Kylo’s face upon the reveal...he wasn’t sure if he could take that. “Kylo, please just...please, go. I’m not…” Another shudder, another sob. He squeezed his arms around his middle, heart thudding hard within his chest, feeling as if it were going to burst. This wasn’t how everything was supposed to go, this wasn’t right, a nightmare. He was never supposed to have failed, much less fallen so hard, flesh burned as he searched a dying planet for one of the few things he might admit to finding joy in. “I’m not who you think I am. Not anymore. Leave me. Please.”
An arm relinquished its hold to brush against his right cheek, a gentle caress, more than Hux deserved. He held back the impulse to cry even more.
“Hux,” Kylo repeated, just as soft, hand tracing down his jaw, his neck, shoulders and arm, to his hand, finally, his fingers wrapping around Hux’s third. “Forever means forever. I won’t leave you.”
Hux couldn’t help as the dam that held back the lake of his emotions completely broke, overwhelming him, tears falling freely, his sobs wracking through his body, unable to hold them in, ugly sounds being ripped from his mouth. He’d never been a fan of his emotions, of how they caused his control to waver, but it was so much worse now, when he had been the maker of this, had started down the path to let this breakdown occur, to let himself be at his weakest point. Worse still was the originator being present as well, to see the wreck of a man he was. Kylo hummed softly, rubbing circles into his skin, one thumb at his hipbone, the other at his wrist. It had always been able to calm him down before, when the stresses of his job caught up to him, when he couldn’t eat or sleep, helped the whirlwind thoughts of his mind fade into a static.
It didn’t quite work as well as before. “Kylo...I can’t...go…,” he pleaded between sobs, his tears a mixture of the emotions ripped from him as well as the pain that filled him, face burning as the salty water fell down his ruined cheek. His whole being felt as if it were on fire once more, from the gouges of emotional pain as well as the physical. Perhaps he would simply burn up right here from the force of it all, allowing him to escape the overwhelming...everything.
“Shhh, Hux, you’re fine, it’s fine. I promise.”
Hux shook his head in protest, unable to form the words he felt he had to say, to refuse it all. He wanted to take it; oh how he desired for everything to be fine. But it wasn’t. He was this now, a creature far from the glory he’d imagined only a week ago, and this creature did not deserve what Kylo offered to him.
“Come on, stand up.”
Another shake of his head. He wasn’t sure if he could face that monster again, that monster who would stare back at him once more if he stood, that monster who would stare into Kylo’s face and see the disgust, the repulsion, the horror that would form there.
“Come on.” Hands gripped him and pulled him up, his legs automatically unfolding to hold his own weight. As his head drew even with the mirror, he shot his hands out to grip the sink and shut his eyes, refusing to see that monster again.
“Hux.” He could hear the frustration in that voice, hear how he toed the edge of Kylo’s patience, a point he usually fell quite short of in recent history, preferring to keep him far from the point in which he started yelling or destroying his things, his ship. “Look at the mirror.”
Hux wasn’t sure why he did it. A brief lapse in judgment, perhaps, though more likely was the tone Kylo used, the one that had him, though General of the First Order, falling to his hands and knees for him, the one that had him doing practically anything Kylo wished. Soft and sultry, yet firm, unyielding.
The monster was there, as always. Nothing had changed in the few minutes since he’d last seen it. Nothing but that Ren now stood behind him, hands now on his waist, chin resting in the divot between his neck and shoulder and…and…
Kylo was a monster too. Or similar. The right side of his face had obviously been torn open, though a bandage lay over much of it. It barely missed his eye, running from just over his left brow, over the bridge of his nose, below his right eye and down his cheek, looking as if it continued below his clothing.
Hux could only stare, surprised at the wound. He hadn’t seen Ren since before Starkiller had gone down, had known he was in the medbay, recovering from whatever had happened to him, but not that...not that this had happened. Perhaps it had been whispered about, for obviously someone had to have found him in whatever state he’d been in prior to retrieval, but he’d been too far in his own despair to hear of it, only whispers of his own face following him.
“Makes me look handsome, doesn’t it?”
Hux wanted to stop the ugly bark of laughter, but was unable. He felt practically an open book, the corners of his lips turning up in amusement despite the pain from the movement.
“Hux,” Kylo whispered, a hand tracing the edge of his jaw on his left side, fingers just centimeters from his damaged skin. He tensed again, disliking that he was so close to that horrid part of him, that part he wanted to rip off, that part which cost him so much, too much. Could cost him this. He couldn’t meet Kylo’s brown eyes, knowing what he’d see there, what had to be there. There was no way there would be nothing but disgust, dislike. How could he be anything but repulsed by his face? Perhaps Kylo had his own markings, but they were nothing compared to his blistering skin, to the patches of white, to the horrid scarring that was sure to mar the entire side of his face.
“Look at me.”
That tone again. Against his better judgment, he found his eyes drawn back to Kylo, to his eyes, those eyes which always held such emotion, the eyes that were sure to be the reason behind his mask; nothing could ever hide in them.
There was nothing there.
Or rather, nothing new. It was the same look Kylo had given him for months, big brown eyes shining at him with adoration with...with…
With love .
Tears again began to spill down his cheeks.
“Shhh, Hux, shhh. It’s okay.” Ren’s soft murmurs were accompanied by fingers once again rubbing circles into his skin. When he finally managed to stop, they carefully removed the tears that clung to his eyelashes, the fingers at his left eye even more careful of the burned skin.
“H-how? How can you even stand…” he paused and then gestured at his face, “this?”
The corners of Kylo’s mouth quirked up before he hid it behind Hux’s back, nose now resting in that divot, lips pressing against the skin of his shoulder blade. The dark-haired man rested there for a moment before looking back up, standing at full height now, just a few inches taller than Hux. He shrugged at their reflections, looking directly at him.
“Because while it’s a part of you, it’s not you.” Kylo lifted a hand to run through the flame-colored hair, fingers gently running over his scalp, another calming maneuver of his. “I won’t lie and say that your features are not part of my attraction to you, that is not all it is.” He smiled softly, a smile that was slightly different, as doing so pulled at his wound and obviously caused some pain. It was amusing how they were nearly mirror images of one another, his left cheek burned, Ren’s right marred by...something.
“It’s just temporary, love. It will fade. Perhaps scar a little. Nothing more. You’re still you, and it is you whom I love, not your face.”
Hux was overwhelmed once more, but he was out of tears. How could this man be so understanding, so loving? How could he have ever deserved such a person in his life? He knew he was not the kindest being to grace the stars, knew he had his own troubles that marred his being, made him difficult, and yet he had this, had a man who loved despite this, knew the words to say to calm him, to love him. And perhaps he still wasn’t fixed from all of this. Perhaps his skin would take months to heal, months to smooth, and perhaps he would devolve into this again, into this mess of a human, feeling broken beyond repair. Perhaps the whispers would continue to follow him and perhaps he truly had lost everything. Everything but this. But as long as he had this, perhaps he could be okay. Maybe not now, not fully, but eventually.
His only response was to turn, lock his arms around Kylo’s neck, and kiss him, ignoring the twinge of pain that shot through him once more as their lips met. Hux sighed into the kiss as Kylo wrapped his arms around him, one hand splayed across his back, the other gripping his waist.
“Forever?” Hux questioned softly when he pulled back, eyes falling downward, not trusting himself to look into Kylo’s eyes, feeling much too vulnerable then, nothing compared to the General he had been. But Kylo tipped his chin up, and he couldn’t resist the draw of those brown eyes.
“Forever.” The words were serious, no trace of humor or jest, though his eyes crinkled in amusement a moment later as his lips turned into a smirk. “And if anybody has a problem with you and your bravery in the face of major injury, General, you may refer them to me. They may have a change of mind. Or lack of one.”
Hux could only grin and kiss him once more.