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Kylo Ren did not throw tantrums in front of General Hux. Of course Hux was well aware of the younger man’s infamous temper – did he not have to sign off on seemingly endless requisitions for new equipment to replace that which Kylo had destroyed in some fit of pique or another? But Ren had always been remarkably restrained around him, preferring to throw snide remarks and petulant sulking Hux’s way in lieu of smashed consoles and frightened bridge officers.
As Hux typically only dealt with the financial and logistical aftermath of said tantrums, it came as something of a surprise when a stuttering, obnoxiously wide-eyed Lieutenant skidded to a stop before him, bent over and breathless with anxiety.
“General Hux, sir,” he panted. “It’s Lord Ren, he – ”
“Where?” Hux demanded, feeling his blood pressure spiking already, his hands clenching into fists.
“Outside, sir, with the snow speeders.”
Hux brushed him aside, striding down the hallway with the Lieutenant on his heels. He resisted pinching the bridge of his nose as he went, increasing his pace and forcing the Lieutenant to jog to keep up with him. Where was Mitaka, anyway? Surely there was someone else who could deal with this – couldn’t Phasma…? He pushed all of these thoughts away. Regardless of how it was supposed to go, it was his problem now and he was damn well going to deal with it.
Hux burst out into the harsh whiteness of Starkiller base’s exterior, squinting against the brightness of the snow. It didn’t take long to follow the sound of that crackling lightsaber, and the unmistakable sounds of choking. He sped his pace.
One of the snow speeders was in smoking, sparking ruins in the snow, a second well on its way to being a total write-off. Ren himself was hunched over, his lightsaber in one hand, his other raised into a claw while a very unfortunate young officer spluttered in his grip, her face nearly purple.
“Ren!” Hux barked. “Stop this at once!”
Ren turned, that damnable silver and black mask obscuring whatever expression he had painted on whatever deformed or hideously scarred face he was hiding beneath it. Every line of his body was tense with fury, and Hux took a step back despite himself under the heat of that invisible gaze. But he was not afraid of Kylo Ren, this petulant child who couldn’t keep his temper from spilling onto the First Order’s delicate and expensive equipment. He would not be intimidated on his own kriffing base.
Hux scowled, lifting a finger to continue shouting, and he was already so tense with anger that it took him a second to register the tightening of his throat as the Force closed in around him. His eyes widened in horror – how dare he – when all thoughts fled in the blackness crushing in on his consciousness. He was barely aware of his boots leaving the snow, too late in registering the rush of the snow speeder as the whole base seemed to come flying towards him.
Oh. Oh.
There was a sickening crack and a lightning-hot flash of pain, and then there was nothing but the dark.
~
The red fog parted in an instant at the sight of Hux’s body crumpling to the snow. A spike of agony reached Kylo Ren through the Force, radiating hotly up his arm as though it were his own splintering under the pressure instead of Hux’s. The intensity of the feedback staggered him backwards, and it was enough to wash the rest of the anger from his system, shocking him back to himself. Beneath the security of his mask, he took in Hux’s limp form with wide eyes. Blood was already staining the snow from where his head had hit the side of the speeder.
Kylo blinked, his head snapping to the still-coughing Lieutenant kneeling in the snow beside the ruined speeder, her hands clutched around her bruised throat. “You,” he growled. “Call Phasma.” Through the helmet’s vocoder, his voice sounded impressively steady to his ears. “Now!”
The officer stared up at him blankly, and he raised his lightsaber again until she scrambled to her feet, comm in hand, rushing through the door with the other lieutenant on her heels.
~
Kylo Ren approached Starkiller’s medbay under a stormcloud of emotions. First, there was anger, of course, that Hux had interfered in the first place, that he had gotten in the way even though Kylo exercised so much of his self-control to avoid lashing out at the general. Then there was fear – yes, he was afraid the Supreme Leader would reprimand him (or worse) for injuring him. There was another, more indefinable emotion – also a kind of fear, he thought, but perhaps a different kind. This was the kind that made his stomach feel like he had swallowed a blaster bolt, the kind that turned his palms sweaty beneath his leather gloves. Then anger again, for having to feel all the other nonsense emotions that could have been avoided if Hux had just left well enough alone.
Two medical officers scrambled to attention when he swept in, masked and robed and impenetrable, with none of this uncertainty visible to them.
“Lord Ren,” one stammered, holding up a wilting hand as though she meant to stop him. “You can’t –”
Her counterpart stepped forward. “General Hux is –”
Kylo tilted his head, “Stand aside,” he said, waving them out of the way. He didn’t need to put any of the Force into it – just the turn of that masked head was enough to rob them both of their courage. They scattered and wheeled like birds flocking out of reach of a raptor, fleeing the medbay and leaving him in silence.
With a hiss of its latching mechanism, Kylo removed his stifling helmet, tucking it under his arm as he approached the general’s private room in the medbay with uncharacteristic hesitance. He wondered idly if Hux had been sedated, because he couldn’t imagine him agreeing to stay in the medbay when he could be in his own quarters, or back at work.
Seeing General Hux now, unconscious against the crisp white linens of the bed, Kylo thought he might be closer to understanding that other kind of fear clawing at his nerves. The word sorry (inadequate, understatement) chased itself around his head, but he shoved it away. This whole business had been Hux’s fault, after all. The Master of the Knights of Ren was definitely never sorry.
But the general looked so small, red hair tousled against the white pillow, spilling from beneath the bandages wrapped around the back of his head. The delicate skin beneath his eyes and at his wrists was so pale it was almost translucent. His left arm was splinted to his chest, his hand lying limp against the sheets. Kylo took another step closer to the bed, the helmet clutched in sweating hands.
Hux’s eyelashes were a pale orange. Why had he never noticed that before?
He had only done it because he knew Hux would be annoyed at having his normally-impeccable hair out of place. He hadn’t meant anything by it, when he reached out and brushed a stray lock of ginger hair from the other man’s forehead, smoothing it back into place. When he took off his glove so that he could test the softness of that red-gold hair beneath his fingers, he told himself that it was because it was unsanitary to wear his gloves in the medbay anyway, that Hux would snap at him that they were probably dirty.
When he brushed the backs of his bare fingers down the curve of Hux’s cheekbone, he told himself it was only because he wanted to see if he could sense his pain through the Force, to reassure himself that he hadn’t damaged him too badly. And there was pain, beneath the veneer of sedatives and painkillers the medical officers had administered, but there was also a kind of floating calm, an endless galaxy of stars like the view from the bridge of the Finalizer. Was Hux dreaming? Kylo had not expected anything like this from his mind, where he had anticipated spreadsheets or budgets or endless speeches. This was...well, this was something new. Something beautiful, a word he had not yet had occasion to associate with his distant and prickly co-commander.
Now Kylo had no excuses left for pressing the pads of his fingers against Hux’s unnervingly soft mouth, nor for sliding the hand against his cheek when the general leaned into the touch in his sleep. Kylo kept his fingers against the warm skin of Hux’s face, drinking in the swirl of galaxies in his mind, the void between the stars of his thoughts, while Hux pressed his cheek back against his palm. A sigh escaped his slightly parted lips.
Kylo sank down onto the edge of bed, wetting his own suddenly very dry lips and placing his helmet to one side. Without the sour sneer he was so fond of, Hux was actually quite –
“Lord Ren, sir.”
He jumped back guiltily, snatching his hand back from Hux’s face and dropping it to his lap like a child caught sneaking sweets before dinner. He turned, forcing the sheepish expression from his bare and entirely too exposed face, to see the chrome blankness of Captain Phasma standing in the doorway. He looked away from her with an internal wince, willing the flush from his cheeks. “What.”
“The medical staff were concerned for the general’s wellbeing, sir,” she said. Beneath the vocal modulator of her mask, her voice was cool and distant as ever, but Kylo thought he could detect a glimmer of amusement that he did not appreciate.
“I wasn’t going to hurt him,” he snapped. She tilted her helmeted head to the side, and Kylo’s blush deepened to a deep red. “You know what I mean.”
“If I may, sir.” Kylo heard the slight clink of Phasma’s armour as she shifted where she stood. He grunted noncommittally, keeping his face turned resolutely away. “If you wanted to touch the general, you didn’t need to break his arm – you could just have tried asking him. Face like yours, I daresay he might have been agreeable.”
Kylo’s head whipped around, his fist clenched in the air, but Phasma was already gone.
~
When General Hux returned to work in the following days, his arm stiff in its sleek cast beneath his uniform, his black gaberwool greatcoat slung over his shoulders, he said nothing of the incident. Not to any of the other command staff, and certainly not to Kylo himself, who watched him with an invisible trepidation, concealed beneath his mask and heavy robes. The reprimand from Snoke never came, and Kylo wondered if Hux had even mentioned it. He had expected him to go crying to the Supreme Leader the moment he woke up, but the hammer didn’t seem to be dropping. He found himself almost wishing it would. Perhaps this, this waiting, was the punishment Snoke and Hux had concocted for him together. If that were so, he had to admit it was working as intended.
~
Hux downplayed his injury to the crew of the Finalizer as much as he could, and by the time the cast came off, his arm aching and stiff but at least bendable, the whispers of what had happened had mostly stopped.
Now, he stared out the vast transparisteel viewport of the star destroyer’s command bridge, his hands clasped behind his back. Beyond, the scatter of stars in the perpetual night of deep space was oddly soothing. He came here often to think, and more so since the incident. His head was clearer here, calmer.
The medical staff on Starkiller had kept him sedated for two days in medbay, suspecting (not incorrectly, he thought) that he would have insisted on going back to work immediately. As it stood, he had buried himself in his work upon his return, catching up with paperwork and requisitions and construction schedules he was not even needed to oversee. But not even an interrogator droid could have pulled from him the real reason he had thrown himself back into work with such gusto.
It had been the dreams, more vivid and lasting in their imagery than he’s used to. An entirely unexpected diversion from the focus (and stress) of his position. When he closed his eyes he could still see his face – a man who looked his own age, but with something hesitant and boyish in the set of his features. A man who was beautiful, in some unconventional way that was both appealing and intriguing. A man who had sat with him, touched him with warm, soft hands, with a long mane of dark hair and a constellation of freckles across his face like the wheel of stars spread out before him now.
Hux couldn’t help but wonder how he had it in him to invent such a face, for he was not exactly known for his poetic imagination. He was sure that his ordered mind, with its preference for schematics and schedules, would have conjured up a much more symmetrical face, something more classically handsome, but perhaps also less striking.
He sighed. It was no secret that command was lonely. It was improper and against regulations for superior officers to fraternize with their subordinates, and General Hux had no time for such frivolity. And yet.
Hux shifted his weight imperceptibly to his other foot and rubbed a gloved thumb over the wrist of his recently-healed arm. It wouldn’t do to dwell on such things, and he had thought increasing his velocity at work would successfully distract him from the images that seemed burned into his subconscious. But he was only human after all, despite his designs to the contrary, and it had been such a nice dream.
He glanced over his shoulder to see Kylo Ren skulking in a shadowed corner on the opposite side of the bridge, that black mask watching him with all the blankness of a stormtrooper’s but none of the reassuring familiarity.
“Enjoying the view, Ren?” Ren jerked his head back and Hux let his lip lift in a grimace, glaring down his nose at him. He’d be damned if he’d let him and his relentless staring intimidate him. Let him see the general of the First Order would not be cowed by his so-called Force, that Ren could do his worst and General Hux would still stand proud and unbent before him.
Ren stared at him for a moment longer, unreadable as ever through his robes and mask, and then he turned on his heel and headed off. Hux hated him.