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Hux knew death in many forms—Snoke’s fate, though gruesome and rather unexpected, not to mention undignified given the man’s status, was no worse than a thousand others. Hux spared the crumpled remains no more than a moment’s consideration, although something about the sight, disconcertingly, brought his own late father to mind.
Hux shook that off; he turned toward Ren, instead.
Ren: Snoke’s leashed beast, a monster born of ancient power and fresh wounds. Intimately familiar disgust made Hux’s skin prickle. How dare the boy look so unremarkable, in sleep? How dare his chest rise and fall with breath like any other human’s? Hux’s hand shifted towards the blaster at his hip, and he thought to make Ren’s breathing stop.
The First Order needed a new leader.
Ren stirred, in that moment, and Hux instinctively abandoned the reach for his pistol; feigned scratching at a nonexistent inch on his leg, instead. He had due faith in the rapidity of his draw, but the stakes were far too high. If Hux were going to bet his life on a thing, the odds would have to be rigged quite definitively in his favor.
Doing his best to look concerned, he asked, “What happened?” as Ren recovered himself.
“The girl murdered Snoke.”
Hux had watched Ren long enough—and in close enough quarters—to know when the boy was lying. It doesn’t really matter if she killed Snoke, or if you killed Snoke, or even if the both of you fripping killed Snoke together, he thought, slightly annoyed. Of course the girl murdered Snoke—that would be the story, and everyone in the Order must believe it, no matter what happened from this point on. But he wasn’t everyone, and Ren should know that.
After checking and finding that Snoke’s escape shuttle had been commandeered—by the scavenger, clearly—Hux examined Ren. He seemed terribly unbalanced, shaking his head as if disoriented, and Hux wondered idly if he could have simply shot Ren right where he lay.
“We know where she’s going,” Ren snapped. “Get our forces down to that resistance base. Let’s finish this.”
Hux indulged in a moment of disdain. Ren was dangerous, certainly, too dangerous to take on directly, but Hux thought himself similar in that regard. “Finish this? You presume to command my army?” And it was his, as indelibly as the bizarre magics of the Force belonged to Ren. “We have no leader. The Supreme Leader is dead.”
What now? Hux thought, seeing emotions flicker across Ren’s face. We have no leader. How will you respond? A strange heat built in Hux’s belly, looking at Ren—un-tethered, now, from his fusty, molded master. Raw. Powerful. A weapon. A beautiful weapon. We have no leader, but we remain.
Then Ren extended his hand, and Hux felt his airway close off. He choked, tried to breath and was unable. Anger—but also fear, the crippling sort of terror borne of desire to not die—dumped like adrenaline into his blood; he stared into Ren’s bestial eyes as he sank onto his knees.
We remain. We, until I kill you, Ren, as you killed Snoke.
“The Supreme Leader is dead,” Ren said.
Hux knew what the correct answer was, what would earn him the privilege of breathing once again. He opened his mouth to force out the words, but all at once the pressure was gone—he gasped, crumpling forward, and then coughed as he fought to get his breath back.
Ren didn’t move, at first; simply stared down. A wild thought of drawing his blaster crossed Hux’s mind, but that would be insanity. Instead, he simply watched Ren in the stillness that followed. Though their eyes met, Hux felt as though Ren was looking into some entirely different reality.
“I’m not the Supreme Leader,” Ren said, abruptly. Hux sat up a bit straighter at that; wondered if he should try to stand. That anyone would so quickly forfeit their claim to that title bewildered him; his eyes narrowed, seeking the slightest insight into Ren’s thoughts.
But when Ren didn’t speak again, after a long moment, Hux ventured, “We have no leader.” There is no one to command us. No one to direct us. No one to misuse us.
Ren stepped towards him, and Hux tensed. He cursed the reaction—the reflex of a wiped dog, a kicked child, a mistreated slave. And yet, his throat still ached.
Ren went down onto one knee. “I’m not the Supreme Leader. I’m no good, for that. That’s you, Hux.”
Hux’s mouth dried; his tongue turned heavy, and his aching throat closed up. Supreme Leader Hux. He’d whispered it to himself in stolen moments of privacy, and he’d dreamed of it on his most restful nights. But never had he spoken of such things, least of all to Ren. He’d said foolish things to Ren before, certainly, things about his father and things about super-weapons and things about himself, but never that. And yet Ren’s dark eyes shone, backlit with warmth, his expression open. He looked as though he’d just uttered some vaunted and long-lost secret of the galaxy.
“That’s you, Hux. Supreme Leader Hux,” he said again, and it was the very first time anyone besides Hux himself had said those beautiful words. Ren sounded sincere. “That’s your dream. And it’s yours, now.”
The ship gave an unsettling lurch around them, and Ren bounded to his feet. Hux, reflexively, scrambled up beside him, but then they were once again staring at one another, lost, unbalanced, ungrounded.
Ren’s hand rose again, and Hux flinched—hatred himself, for it. But Ren used no trick of the Force, nor did he strike out. Instead, he cupped Hux’s face; stroked his cheek with one thumb.
“The Supreme Leader of the First Order will fear nothing,” he said. “I’ll see to that. You can stop flinching, then. Finally.”
Hux sneered, mistrust like writhing worms beneath his skin. “Mock me and I’ll end you, Ren.”
“I would never.” Ren’s eyes seemed almost pleading, now, like he was the one abused and left bleeding. His eyes said, Don’t deny me, and Hux swallowed.
The feeling of Ren’s hand against his cheek stirred memories of friction and stolen heat, of touch-starved bodies mashed together in frustration and desperation and infatuation. Hux felt desired, when they coupled, and he allowed himself that feeling. To be feared was a marvelous thing, but to be desired was decadent.
Don’t deny me. Hux was certain Ren was sending that out through the Force, whatever the Force might actually be. Perhaps that was how Ren had known about his dream—perhaps Hux had unknowingly broadcast it one night, sleeping curled up again Ren’s broad back.
“Command your army, Supreme Leader,” Ren said, and Hux felt a thrill at the words that electrified his mind and his sex at once. “Let’s finish the rebels. The galaxy belongs to the First Order, and the First Order is yours.”
Hux tried to call up bitterness or vitriol, but he found them mysteriously lacking. He kept expecting Ren’s touch, his powerful hand, to lash out and to hurt, but it didn’t. He almost wished it would, if only because it would allow him strike out out in return. But Ren didn’t hurt him again.
Ren lowered himself onto one knee, then, and Hux saw—saw that Ren was right, that he was no great architect of men or conqueror of worlds or Supreme Leader. He was a scarred beast, a child who’d wandered into darkness and never re-emerged. He was a weapon to be wielded.
Ren picked up Hux’s hand; kissed the back, then grazed the knuckles with his teeth. He growled, almost imperceptibly, and Hux’s body thrummed with the sound.
To be desired... Ren was looking up at him in the way that always made him agree to stay, when he had fully intended to return to his own quarters to sleep. “Stay,” those eyes begged. “Stay with me.”
And then, as though Ren was reading his mind again—and, Hux thought, maybe he didn’t mind that habit after all—he said, “Stay with me, and keep me beside you, Supreme Leader. Let’s reshape this galaxy to suit us, and no one else. With your armies we’ll wipe out the Resistance, destroy what’s left of the New Republic and we’ll—we’ll build. We'll live.”
Hux gazed down. Ren is... truly beautiful, like this, he thought, and sneered. “Rise, Ren.”
Ren stood, keeping Hux’s hand lightly in his own; Hux allowed it. And when Ren kissed his lips, Supreme Leader Hux allowed that, as well.