Chapter Text
For the first hour, Hux liked his new job. They had him in at five in the morning, opening the little boutique cafe alongside another employee temporarily repurposed as a teacher for the new trainee. Her name, read off the scrawl on her nametag when she refused to volunteer any information about herself, was Phasma; Hux's polite inquiry as to where a name like that came from was met with an indifferent shrug and a throwaway comment of "Not here." They worked in relative silence until six, Hux putting his minimal experience with his father's flashy coffee machine to some use whenever his coworker took the order of some barely-conscious businessman who had wandered in. At six, the cafe finally started to hum with activity, and on Phasma's request--indifferent to the faintly incredulous look he shot her--he shifted from the coffee machine to the register.
After the first hour, Hux hated his new job.
He hadn't really realised what it was like having to pretend that you cared about everyone who came through the door. He'd never worked retail before--he'd barely worked at all before, unless doing his father's filing every month or so counted--and he found himself totally unprepared for how deeply infuriating the customers of boutique cafes could be. Hux was supposed to know what a triple-shot hazelnut-caramel macchiato latte was. Hux was supposed to care what a triple-shot hazelnut-caramel macchiato latte was. He didn't, of course--in fact he was pretty sure it was physically impossible for him to care less than he did--but he did his damnedest to act like that order was the most interesting thing he'd heard all day. He took orders with a chipper smile plastered onto his face, marked names on paper cups in neat letters, and seethed away in silence on the inside.
Hux took his coffee black, strong, an inch of water barely diluting a hit of espresso. When he was finally granted leave to take his break with a wordless gesture and thumbs up from Phasma, he skipped the water, doubled the coffee, and downed it in one, perched on the edge of his seat at the furthest table from the counter he could find. The constant buzz of conversation and the deafening whirr of the grinder died down to a tolerable hum at this end of the cafe, giving Hux some relief from the headache he'd been nursing for about an hour now. God. So this is why Starbucks baristas always looked like they were barely holding on. He'd hoped that the First Order would have been different, tucked away on a side street out of sight of the usual crowds, but instead of impatient businessmen almost late for work it drew the college kids with early-morning arts classes, gathering fortitude in a brooding haze before making their way to their painting workshop. Young adults wearing too much black, looking too cool to be caught dead in a cafe chain, and carrying a general air of not giving a good god damn about their future.
Hux was, of course, also a college kid taking arts classes, but he figured they balanced out the heavy dual load of business and economics he'd forced himself to shoulder this semester. And besides--it was the attitude, not the content of their education. Hux may have been taking drama for the better part of two years now, but he wasn't going to be a tool about it.
"Kylo Ren?"
The name carried itself above the cafe's usual buzz. Hux picked up on the cool, steady drone of Phasma's voice, but there was a different note amongst the practiced disdain that Hux could hear even from his seat at the back--the kind of edge to her voice that meant she'd called this particular name out about five times now and was damn sick of it.
"Kylo Ren? Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren ."
The chatter around Hux was turning to judgmental tittering as the owner of the (frankly ridiculous) name refused to step forward. If he craned his neck he could see his coworker staring flatly at a man three tables away from Hux, broad shoulders hunched up around a cloud of black hair as he slammed away at his laptop keyboard. Phasma shot Hux an exasperated look, waved him over with the hand that wasn't holding a coffee cup aloft. Hux raised an eyebrow; he wasn't due back from his break yet and he wouldn't call himself the kind of person that helped out on his time off, but the sharp stare he got in return brooked no argument.
Holding back a sigh, Hux made his way back to the counter, collecting the paper cup from his coworker's outstretched hand. The name KYLO REN was scrawled in black marker on the side, the O a solid circle where Hux assumed an E used to be. Kylo Ren. It didn't sound like anyone's real name. It didn't even sound like a believable fake name. What it sounded like was a high-and-mighty arts student with fewer prospects for his future than he pretended he had, who'd just discovered punk rock and thought it was a pretty good replacement for parental guidance. Those taut shoulders and that furious tapping definitely belonged to someone who had slammed a few doors in his lifetime, Hux decided as he stepped up to the man's table.
He'd had one of those phases, too--he knew what he was talking about. He'd dyed his ginger hair solid black and listened to too much Escape the Fate and written embarrassing poetry that had never seen the light of day, and then he'd turned thirteen, and now he was a well-adjusted human being.
"Tall decaf butterscotch latte for Kylo Ren," Hux announced in a clipped, cold tone, placing the coffee down next to Kylo Ren's laptop with more force than was strictly necessary (taking great pride in the single drop that escaped the mouth of the cup and splashed down by the touchpad). “Pay more fucking attention next time.” And he turned on his heel in one practiced motion, heading to the safety of the employee break room to enjoy his last few minutes of freedom before he was forced to learn the hard way that actions have consequences.
Really, he was just surprised that he'd made it almost four whole hours without any snide comments whatsoever--and quietly triumphant at the fact that the unbridled disgust he'd been saving up had been spent on someone who really looked like they deserved it.
To everyone's surprise--mostly his own--Hux did not get fired on his first day.
He had had to piece together the aftermath from glimpses caught through the break room door, Phasma's sly jabs and his impromptu disciplinary meeting. Part one: as soon as he'd made a break for the back room Kylo Ren had stormed over to the counter and kicked up a fuss.
By this point Hux had run over his break but a warning look from Phasma when he hesitantly stuck his head back out into the cafe proper was enough to keep him from returning to the fray. The offended young man had complained emphatically enough that Phasma had had to call in the manager--Snoke--on his day off; much to his displeasure, if the pained expression on his coworker's face as she paced around the break room was anything to go by.
Part two: Snoke arrived after half an hour of Kylo Ren looming threateningly by the register, chasing off any customers that dared to approach with the aura of bitter indignity that radiated off him in waves.
Hux had returned to work when Kylo Ren had had his back turned, and he took some small pride in the fact that the flustered red that had almost managed to fade from the man's face reappeared in force as soon as he realised. The manager arrived, told Hux to clock out and wait in the break room, and escorted Kylo Ren to a more private table.
Snoke was not a tall man, nor particularly powerfully-built, but he had a hard look in his eye and a savage twist to his mouth that, Hux assumed, could make even the most bull-headed customers turn into stammering messes. Hux had become intimately familiar with that intimidating face over the course of his interview, almost a week before. He'd applied with a reference from his father, so the interview was more of a formality than anything, but that didn't stop Snoke from exposing each and every one of Hux's weaknesses through a series of hypothetical scenarios. Hux had, quite frankly, been terrified. So it didn't come as a surprise when Kylo Ren backed down almost as soon as their conversation started.
Part three: Kylo Ren stormed out of the store, realised he'd forgotten his laptop, stormed back into the store, and almost tripped over a chair on his way back out.
That part was Hux's favourite.
And now Hux was sitting at the break room table, alternately staring at the grain in the wood and a point just past Snoke's head as the manager explained to him in cool, professional tones what an enormous fuck up he'd made. He'd managed to maintain eye contact for most of the lecture thus far, up until the point where Snoke brought up the subject of disciplinary action; at which point Hux had realised how fascinating the construction of this table was. Plain varnished timber, probably handmade, and arranged in such a way that made it look like the craftsperson had done more than just nail together some planks they'd found on the side of the road.
Snoke was saying how he couldn't abide by First Order staff behaving this way. Hux wondered if it was the sanding that made this table look so presentable.
Snoke was saying how something like this really couldn't go unpunished. Hux thought about how the nearest hardware store was an hour from his house and wondered if handcrafted furniture would really be a viable career choice for when this had all finished playing out.
Snoke was saying how Hux would have to sign that he'd received the written warning he was about to be given, and then Snoke would cover him for the rest of his shift while he went home and thought on his mistakes.
Hux stopped thinking about wood for a moment.
"You're still letting me work here?" he asked, hating the incredulity in his voice. His father had always suggested that a single slip up in the working world meant you were out on your ear, no matter how extenuating the circumstances--and these circumstances hadn't even been particularly extenuating. As soon as he got home, Hux was going to have a word with him about fear-mongering.
"Yes. But I expect you to improve your attitude before tomorrow, or this is a conversation we will be having again. Go."
It was a command, not a request. Hux leapt to his feet with a nod and a 'thank you', hoping he'd managed to keep the desperation out of his voice while still sounding appropriately appreciative. With all his planning for his eventual career as a carpentry critic, he hadn't even bothered to consider the possibility that after his outburst at Kylo Ren he'd still be employed. It left him at a disconcerting loss as he changed out of his uniform, and as he left the store with a half-hearted wave at Phasma, and as he drove the twenty minutes from the First Order to his father's inner city office to have a serious word with him. It wasn't until he pulled up in the carpark of Thanisson, Hux & Associates that he decided he'd had enough time to process things.
One part of him insisted that keeping his job was just a matter of course. He was Brendol Hux's son, after all, and he'd practically been raised for--well, mostly for law, but customer service was an important first step on that life path and he'd been bound to succeed at it. Even if what he'd done so far barely counted as succeeding. Even if he'd made a terrible impression on someone that Phasma had gleefully informed him was a regular.
The other part was a movie-length compilation of all the times he'd been told he was unfriendly and unapproachable, and that Hell would freeze over before he could ever be considered a 'people person'. Hux had heard it from teachers, peers and on occasion his own father (in a way that Hux interpreted as brutally honest instead of downright mean), and understood himself well enough to know that they were right. Hux was an asshole; it was something he was fully aware of, which is why he considered this job a personal challenge. One that he'd so far managed to succeed at.
And tomorrow he was going to fix up that fake smile, throw himself into his work with enthusiasm, and show everyone just what an asshole like Hux could do.