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Hux breathes.
A common occurrence one tends to take for granted. That is, until aboard a Sith Command Ship of a Resurrected Emperor while one’s Angry Boyfriend chases one’s Angry Girlfriend across the galaxy on some shared Force hallucination, an officer shoots you in the chest from across the bridge of your ship in front of your army, and you go flying across the bridge with the wind knocked out of you like a fist through Nabooian crystal.
Common.
Running lights blaze on the ceiling. The floor is cold and too hard. The air is indignantly reminiscent of being alive.
Rough hands grab the shoulders of his coat and pull him down the hallway.
Armitage Hux knows what it feels like to be tossed around the room like some sorcerer’s ragdoll. He knows what it feels like to have the invisible hands of mystics grab your collar and mop the floor with your dignity. To watch the threads of your life singe in perfect maddening silence before your face, while too-hot plasma melts the product from your hair, as a selfish child waves a super weapon around like a raving lunatic.
And, fuck it all, he knows what it’s like to be shot.
Of all the nerve.
Of course Ren couldn’t be present on the bridge. Of course Ren would be ever present and watching his every move in the ether. Of course Ren would just reach out and toss him a Force nudge like a souvenir for fucking groupie.
“Ren,” Hux croaks, anger erasing his confusion.
Fuck Kylo Ren.
Hux’s perspective changes, the horizon shifting upright. The officers manhandling him aren’t officers. They’re stormtroopers. His stormtroopers. And they are definitely not acting in formation. Their movements are confused, determined, forced.
His gaze drifts up to a face. Their eyes are the soft, brown, determined eyes of a scavenger.
Hux's eyes widen.
“I’m a little busy saving the galaxy,” the definitely-not-Rey trooper’s voice is strained and distant. He shoves him into an escape pod. “Please stop getting shot.”
“How dare you --”
The hatch seals, his demand dying on his shock-numb tongue. The pod is jettisoned with a dizzying whumf. Hux begins collating a mental check-list of all the bruises he’ll need recompense for when he lands. He is General Armitage Hux, leader of the First Order, and the most dangerous man in the galaxy. He does not need mystic babysitters.
This atrocity will not go unaddressed.
For now, Hux breathes.