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His body had never been his own, not even as a boy. A puppet for his parents, a puppet for Snoke, just a child hardened by war and choice wrapped in tendrils of string. He could say he never thought about it, that he didn’t care, that he didn’t spend hours at a time with his head in his hands and his fingers pulling and pulling at his hair. He could say all of these things, he would be lying, but no one would be able to tell anyways.
In a bed with a man he finds himself starting to care for, his fingers crawl across the space between them. They stop just before his flesh, only mere inches between them but with the darkness of night swallowing them and just the sound of their two beating hearts, it feels like much further. He shifts against the sheets, his own thoughts magnifying in the quiet of the room. Before he found himself bed by the general, his thoughts were his company, they were messy and loud and they seemed to scream and scratch at his skull but they were all he had, now only seconds into the unbearable silence he feels his hands clench into fists. He counts seven heartbeats before words are tumbling from his lips.
“I killed him,” a pause, then he clarifies. “Han Solo, on Starkiller.”
Hux shifts beside him, leaning his head against his elbow, staring down at him. He can’t see him, his eyes had yet to adjust to the dark, but his gaze is something familiar. Kylo blinks up at him, waiting, wanting to see his face. He could turn the lights on but something in the back of his mind screams at the thought. A moment passes, then another, and Kylo can feel his fists clenching tighter, eyebrows furrowing. Hux’s gaze is burning his skin.
“What?” A growl, ripped out from his throat, almost drowns out the words.
“What, what?” Hux asks, “Were you expecting me to say something? Okay? Good job?” He scoffs and falls back onto the bed. “Do you want a gold star?”
Kylo’s heart crawls up into his throat and he taste the blood against his tongue. Hux doesn’t say anything after that, and if it weren’t for the thoughts almost glowing behind his forehead, Kylo would have thought he had fallen asleep. He presses forward with the force, skimming the front of his mind. “It’s as if he hasn’t killed before.” Slides by but is gone before Kylo can dissect it further, “What a child, losing sleep over an order.” Kylo’s eyes widen and he’s bent over Hux in a matter of seconds, sweaty palms closing around the expanse of his throat.
“That’s what you don’t get.” He snarls, “It wasn’t an order, Snoke didn’t tell me do anything, I chose to kill him, I did.” He watches carefully as his fingers tighten, Hux doesn’t panic, his eyes show nothing but annoyance as they slide into slits. “I’ve killed more people than you have, Ren. Do you see me crying to you about it?” The words project loudly into his own mind and he has to tighten his grip around Hux’s neck to keep himself from jumping back.
“Don’t compare us.” Kylo says, “You gave the order to kill those people, you didn’t press your knife against their flesh and watch the blood well up. You didn’t watch as the life was drained out of their eyes. What you did was impersonal, General.” He loosens his grip and smirks as Hux swallows down air like drowning man.
“That may be so.” Hux tells him, voice raw. “But what is one soul to billions Ren, There is still blood on both of our hands. It doesn’t matter how it got there. All that matters is how we hold ourselves after it’s dried.”
Kylo’s lips curl into a snarl, he can feel the fire bubbling under Hux’s skin, he wants it out. He wants it among the sheets and limbs atop the frame holding their bodies, he wants it to lick the walls of the their room and engulf them. He wants it against him, to feel the heat from his fury. But it’s so well contained, beneath layers of discipline and something else, something Kylo could never quite figure out. He stares down at the small figure below him, his eyes were finally starting to adjust, after what seemed like hours. likes this, unkempt hair, bruises blooming like the flowers he never got to pick against his porcelain skin, he was something beautiful.
He doesn’t know what they are, lovers maybe, but love seems to far away. It’s something that can’t be grasped within this war, not with lives being so expendable. What he feels for Hux isn’t something with a name, so he’ll hide it away within his chest with everything else that seems to weaken him.
“I can feel you.” Hux tells him, and Kylo’s eyebrows shoot up. “I mean, I’m not like you, but, I can feel what you’re feeling? It may just be my own projection but,” His hand moves to rest against the knight’s bicep. “There’s nothing you can do to change what you’ve done, if it made you weaker then do something about it. I’m not here to listen to your whining.”
“It didn’t make me weaker.” Kylo tells him, voice barely above a whisper. Hux’s lips curl into a soft smile, his eyes somewhat sad, “Don’t lie to me.”
Hux withdrew his arm from his lover’s arm and rolled onto his side. Kylo carefully pushed himself off of him and retreated to his own side of the bed. His eyes drifted through the dark room while he listened to Hux’s breathing even out, finding the sound calming. His body had never been his own, he had been propped and used since childhood, He thinks about this often, until there’s blood beneath his fingers, or console’s ripped to their very seams. He eyes fall onto his lover’s sleeping frame, watching the slow rise and fall of his chest beneath the sheets. He knows what it’s like to tear this man apart, but he’s the only thing he’s ever been able to put back together.