Chapter Text
Kylo Ren spent a lot of his time thinking about proportion, symmetry, and form. He knew that his own face subverted generic handsomeness, but it drew the eye diagonally and delivered visual harmony through the repetition of his dark hair and eyes. He found the result satisfying, but reflected in Hux’s mirrored Ray-Ban Clubmasters, it appeared to be pouting.
He squinted and leaned in, smoothing one of his eyebrows with a knuckle.
“Excuse me,” said Hux, “Narcissus. Did you hear what I said?”
“Not the specifics. Something about Chipotle?”
Hux crossed his arms. “Ren, I am one hundred percent serious, we’re running too close to the line to afford guacamole right now, and if I catch you again it’s coming out of the interior budget.”
“So it comes from the interior budget. Speaking of which, where are we on the pool tile?”
“Your choice. One-by-one slate, or one-by-one blue blend.”
“I wanted --”
“I know you wanted to hand-pattern a five color modern honeycomb, but I just told you we couldn’t accord guacamole, so what do you think the answer is?”
“I thought we were sacrificing the guacamole so we could afford the tile.”
The small, mid-construction LA yard was quiet for a few moments. Kylo heard the dry sound of palm trees in the wind.
“I am going to have a stroke,” said Hux. “Right here. And it will be your fault.”
“Fine,” said Kylo. “I’ll use my power of attorney to pull the plug on you and order five colors of tile. Then I will work through my grief by hand-patterning a modern honeycomb in the pool.”
“Excuse me,” said Rey behind Kylo’s right shoulder.
“I’m going inside,” said Hux. His voice was quiet and tense, the way it was last year when he had taken the keys to Kylo’s Cayenne and thrown them into the ocean from Justin Bobby Brescia’s yacht.
“Sorry,” Rey said again. They ignored her.
“Go,” said Kylo. “Have your stroke inside. No one will ever find you, because I’ll be out here trying to transform one-by-one blue blend glass tile into something modern if I have to spill my blood into the grout in an atomic pattern.”
“Hi,” said Rey for the third time, and waved a little. “So I’m driving into town to buy gravel, and I was going to pick up lunch, but … it can wait.”
“It can’t wait, you have an appointment. I’m not paying you in experience to learn that most marital disputes are about money,” said Hux.
“They're also about control. Can you stop at Chipotle?” asked Kylo.
Hux’s Clubmasters flashed.
Rey hadn’t survived more than half her internship by being an idiot, so she started to back away, but answered honestly: “Yeah.”
“I want,” said Kylo, “a burrito bowl with extra--”
“Don’t,” said Hux.
“We can’t waste her time, can we? Extra guacamole.”
“So the good news is that the door you ripped off the hinge was going to come out anyway,” said Rey the next morning.
The door was lying halfway inside the foyer. The rubber seal had drawn a dark black line on the patio concrete.
“That’s why I ripped it off,” said Kylo, shaking the ice cubes in his iced americano.
Hux stepped wordlessly around him and opened the refrigerator, noticing there was no coffee for him but frostily not remarking on it. He took out a bottle of Dasani water and rearranged the remaining bottles so there were an even six in the front.
Kylo watched him in disgust.
“So,” said Rey. “I scheduled gravel for 11.”
“Fine,” said Hux. “I did ask for 10:30, didn’t I?”
“They open at 10, and it’s a 45-minute drive in the truck,” Rey replied.
“That’s why you have to bargain with them.”
“On their opening time?”
“On anything you possibly can. So, fine, Rey, you stay here. Ren and I have a showing at Outpost at three, so tell Finn to be there at 10 to start cleaning up. I’ll be coming straight from the bank, so I’ll take the car. Ren, that’ll give you enough time to finalize a flooring plan. I want to put an order in before close of business today. When the showing is over I want Finn to drive to Paseo del Serra and we can have our check-out meeting here. He can pick up Millicent from the vet on his way.”
“And then,” said Kylo, narrowing his eyes, “Hux will end the evening doing his nightly Scrooge McDuck backstroke in the pool of pennies he’s saved by limiting our creative resources, while the cat and I share a tin of Fancy Feast.”
“You’ll be lucky,” said Hux, “if it is Fancy Feast.”
Kylo bit his straw.
“Do you ever wonder how two guys like that end up together?” Rey asked. She had driven to meet Finn at the vet with the cat’s crate, and Millicent was yowling horrifically as they tried to stuff her into it.
“Do you honestly want me to not say Grindr?”
“They got married in like 2008,” said Rey. “Your face is bleeding really bad.”
“Well, I don’t know, grab her -- by the -- Jesus! Get her arms.”
“Arms?”
“Some of the limbs, Rey, limit the number of limbs that are slashing at me if you want me to be bleeding less.”
Rey grabbed for the cat, and it riposted across her forearm. “Ow!” she said. “Did you know this thing just got acupuncture?”
“Well she’s dishing out some … haphazard puncture,” said Finn, wiping blood from his eyes.
“I’m just saying, I think she’s still wound up. It’s probably because there’s tension in her home life.”
“Are you serious?” said Finn.
“I hope you don’t lose that eye,” said Rey. “It could get infected really easily. Cats get their claws in litterboxes, and who knows what’s at the vet. And Millicent walks on Hux and Ren’s sex sheets all the time.”
“Please help me get the cat in the crate,” said Finn, his voice breaking.
They shared a car on the way back, because if someone didn’t keep an arm on the cat crate, Millicent could influence Finn’s steering.
Rey read her findings aloud: “On June 12th, 2010, Kylo Ren, a design intern at Thomas Callaway, and General Hux, an associate at Hilton & Hyland, were married in a private home in Plum Island, Massachusetts. The wedding was attended, notably, by Adam DiVello and Liz Gateley.”
“Damn,” said Finn. “I didn’t think that was really his first name.”
“What, General?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ve seen his driver’s license. It’s General.”
“That explains ... something,” said Finn. When he stopped at a red light, Millicent stretched a paw out from the crate and raked his hand. He looked at her sympathetically.
“I’m going to keep reading. ‘The ceremony was performed under a trellis with white wisteria. Reading from prepared vows, the grooms promised love and patience, to share happiness and pain, and to support each other through good times and bad. The ceremony concluded with a local band playing “‘Round Midnight.” The reception was held at the historic Inn on the Beach.’ Well. That’s kind of sweet.”
“Too bad they’re assholes now,” said Finn. “They ruined their cat.”
“They’re not assholes all the time,” said Rey. “And the jazz thing is nice.”
“Sure,” said Finn. “Yeah, it’s nice. It sounds nice.”
He was stopped at another light, and the cat was quiet. The sun was sinking below the hills and into the city. Rey rolled down the window.
When they returned to Paseo del Serra, Kylo was throwing plates out of the broken doorframe and onto the patio. Hux was holding up his end of the argument from the stairs.
“I don’t care if you drink bottled water, you paranoid bean-counter,” Kylo was yelling. “I’ll poison your ear. Like Old Hamlet.”
Rey set the cat free at the front door. Once out of the crate, she went upstairs too quickly for the naked eye to follow.
“Hi,” said Rey. “I have Finn. The cat got acupuncture but she isn’t relaxed. I think it’s all the smashing plates.”
Kylo slowly set one of the plates on the counter top. “Now the cat has a problem with my creative process?”
“The uhm, cat acupuncturist--”
“Vet,” said Hux.
“The vet said you could make her listen to some jazz.”
Kylo raised an eyebrow. “The cat needs to listen to jazz.”
“In a calm environment,” said Rey.
Kylo put his remaining two plates away. “I don’t know why the vet thinks she isn’t doing that already. Finn, find somewhere else for your blood to go, we have to sell this place.”
Kylo and Hux lived in a five bedroom, four bath Mediterranean in Outpost Estates. It was a property they both hated, but it had been re-listed twice and languished for five months at an $800,000 general discount, so it was beginning to feel like home.
“You know what people say about this place,” said Finn, stopping by the office to check his to-do list. Kylo looked up from his drafting table, and almost smacked his skull against Hux’s chin.
“If you didn’t stick your face in my work,” said Kylo, “we’d have to take fewer trips to the ER to have your tongue surgically reattached.”
“If I didn’t keep an eye on your progress, you’d never get anything done,” said Hux. “It’s a retaining wall, not the Duomo.”
“And if you’d been around pedaling the mundane gospel of the bottom line in the fifteenth century, maybe we wouldn’t have that particular artistic precedent to refer to when you want to squeeze a couple hundred thousand dollars out of plaster in Beverly Hills.”
“Well then, Arnolfo di Cambio, you’ve got about forty-five seconds to decide if you want flowers or succulents in your masterpiece.”
Finn cleared his throat. “So like I was saying, you know what people say about this place?”
Kylo gripped his pencil in his fist. “Succulents.”
“Good choice,” said Hux. “There’s a drought. Finn, is there something you’d like to say? Since you are here instead of on the roof with a leaf blower?”
“Yeah,” said Finn. “So. I was reading about this place on Curbed--”
“Your first mistake,” Kylo muttered.
“And they were listing all the celebrities who’ve sent buyers here -- Taylor Kitsch, Brandi Glanville, Brandon Routh, Camilla Belle -- it’s like everybody in Hollywood whose expectations ended up disappointed. Curbed says brokers have started calling it Starkiller.”
Hux tapped his chin. “Not that I care what Curbed says, but I think there’s something to that. Taunting superstition appeals to the self-made sort of ... thing.”
“We need to have the house saged again,” said Kylo. “I don’t care about Curbed either, but, you know, just in case."
Hux sighed. “Finn, clean the gutters. Then schedule someone to come sage.”