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Hux’s shoulders are heavy with exhaustion when he taps in the passcode to his chambers; it’s the sign of a good days work, yet the day is long gone and hardly over.
With a despondent breath falling from Hux’s lips as the door slides open before him, he steps inside, heading straight for his desk, remembering the multiple reports waiting that require finishing before the night is over. Hux adds briefings to his list; emails, too.
As well as dinner and a shower, but that can wait.
Silence flows steadily in the room, filling up the air, and Hux ignores the jolt of alarm that races up his spine. He freezes. It’s welcoming after the hours of chaos he’s spent on the bridge, yet when Hux realises quickly that he’s all alone, basking in this quiet, it’s also terribly disarming. Where is he? Hux wonders, abhorring the way his breath catches dangerously in his throat.
Most nights, Kylo doesn't last much longer than this in his own chambers. Most nights, Kylo is already waiting—a rare moment of patience—for him, sitting on the edge of Hux’s bed, sometimes even at his desk.
His helmet gone, discarded on the floor, and if Hux doesn't indulge him quickly, he’ll beg.
Hux forces himself not to think about it—not to think about Kylo Ren and why he’s absent from his quarters—because he most certainly should not be.
Hux shifts his energy, pushes himself to avoid lingering and strides towards his desk. He slips his greatcoat off of his shoulders and onto the back of his chair, sliding into it, and everything seems empty around him. His chambers, despite being the luxurious compartments afforded to those of the order’s highest ranks, are sparsely decorated with only essential pieces of furniture. It looks bare, and it is, but it’s practical, and that’s all Hux cares for.
The whole room is shrouded in shadows, the only brightness coming from Hux’s data pad, and he leaves the lights at zero percent. It’s so late his eyes are hardly coping with the device as it is.
Hux knows well that keeping to hours as late as this is an awfully unhealthy habit, and yet it’s quite recently been the norm. Commanding and overseeing what’s left of the First Order and assessing the damages and loss of Starkiller Base requires nothing less.
He sits stiffly, uniform tight, and currently the only thing keeping his posture as straight as it is. Hux’s eyes are close to fluttering shut when he brings up his reports, but he forces his attention to the words, forces himself to read.
It’s paperwork that doesn't technically have to be managed by him, but is much too important (and Hux much too careful) to have anyone less than capable handle it. But he needs something to busy himself with while waits anyway, and it may as well be something productive. Something in favour of the Order, especially in the wake of their near destruction.
But really, that’s all this is anyway—a waiting game part of a much larger plan. Kylo Ren’s plan.
Hux can dress it up any way he pleases—he’s just finalising military documents; conducting attack plans; signing off on reports—yet at its heart, these late nights filled with documents and silence and empty and waiting are just small, intricate pieces of a plan that Kylo Ren has somehow managed to toss Hux headfirst into, no way out.
Hux sighs, and it bounces off the walls, right back to him. Even that feels like too much of a lie when he thinks about it. He is no mere piece of this plan anymore, no pawn for Kylo Ren to play with, like the silence or the waiting—he’s the salvation.
The salvation from an enemy in the form of Kylo Ren’s nightmares.
It is horrifying in its own right—that the master of the Knights of Ren was so damn weak—even more so by the fact that Hux wasn't entirely unwilling.
After all, he was simply following his orders.
“Leave the base at once and come to me with Kylo Ren,” Snoke had said. “It is time to complete his training.”
And Hux had.
He had carried Kylo Ren’s shaking, bleeding body back to the safety of the shuttle, quickly escaping the destruction of a weapon that he had dedicated years of his life to perfecting. It had felt far too familiar to feel Kylo Ren’s head resting against his chest, to hear breath of air as they passed his lips, heavy and laboured and so, so soft.
Hux had waited in the med bay, too, back upon the Finalizer, for the doctors and the droids to finish tending to his injuries. It had been far too settling to watch them leave, and to see Kylo Ren lying across the bed with bandages around his body and his chest falling and rising in steady movements.
Hux had told himself it was Snoke’s orders that kept him by his side, that it was simply his responsibility to watch over the Order’s last hope, even throughout the night. But he didn't truly believe it.
When Ren had woken in a fit of screams only hours later, eyes blown wide, he’d been trembling and shuddering and Hux was certain he’d aggravated at least one of his wounds in the struggle. It had terrified Hux, much more than any tantrum he could possibly have. And Hux hated it. The Knight had ended up stretching the stitches in his shoulder and reopening his hip by the time Hux had shushed him and fixed it all up, shooing the droids away.
He remembers the tears in Kylo Ren’s eyes, then, so many emotions swimming within the darkness that Hux was drowning in the attempt to pinpoint one. Hux remembers staring back, staying silent at the edge of the bed. And most of all, he remembers how Kylo Ren had gently slid an arm around Hux’s waist, tugged him the slightest bit closer. It had rested there for some time, simply grasping on to whatever sanity he had left, and Hux had let it.
After all, it was a trying day for them both, each broken and battered and all sorts of ruined. They were both failures. Hux could hardly blame him for wanting comfort, despite how much he should have despised it.
And there was nothing to prove to either of them, when Hux had leaned closer in, halting for a just second to hold his gaze, and, careful of the bacta-covered slash running across his features, had kissed Kylo Ren. That little bit of weakness within them both had risen to the surface and taken control, and it had felt right, strangely enough, like they finally belonged.
Of course it was wrong—so, so damn wrong, and Hux had expected Ren to come to his senses, wrench himself away and push Hux back from his bedside. But whatever he had expected, it hadn't been Kylo Ren kissing him again.
Harder. Fiercer. Possessive. Desperate.
Ren had pulled Hux close, pulled him in, and the single little med bay bed hadn't fit both their frames even slightly, but when Hux’s lips were dragging moans and breathy little sighs from Kylo Ren, nothing else seemed to matter.
And somehow, they’d ended up falling asleep like that, bodies tangled and resting on each other, attempting to fit. Hux supposes he should have felt regret when he woke, Kylo Ren’s arms around him and face buried in his neck. He didn’t.
So it had become a routine, each selfish in their desires. Ren needed comfort, and Hux was able to provide. He supposed he needed some comfort of his own.
Snoke wouldn't be pleased if he had known—god, he’d be absolutely livid. But until they reached his planet, he wouldn’t. Despite that awful part in the back of Hux’s mind that reminds him again and again, Snoke always knows, leaving something akin to fear lingering in his gut because he could easily lose his life for this. He still hadn’t been punished for his defeat on Starkiller, nor Ren for his defeat from the scavenger girl.
Hux takes a breath. It comes out shaky, echoing in his quarters. He looks around at the darkness, the emptiness, and he hates it.
He knows what’s missing, and Hux has never abhorred Kylo Ren more than he does now, the taint he has on Hux’s quarters far too apparent. He also abhors the fact that he doesn’t really abhor Ren much at all, simply the absence of him. Hux wonders how he allowed it to get this far—how feelings and attachment had become involved—and he’s at a loss for an answer.
As the minutes tick by, his attention on his reports slowly wanes, and it’s terribly unlike Hux to lose focus. With a berating tone in his head, Hux reminds himself that he is not the general of Kylo Ren. He is the general of the First Order, and, currently, that’s all that should be his current concern.
When Hux realises how easily the lie crumbles, he swallows thickly.
+
Kylo Ren does become his problem, in fact, less than half an hour later.
It’s when the door of his chambers slides gently open. Hux lifts his head at the smoothness of the sound and the brief flashes of light from the hallway that slashes across his room in strokes of red and white and blue. The brightness tears across the figure that enters, and the door slides closed just as smoothly.
Hux sits back in his chair when Ren steps forward, his heart doing unpleasant things in his ribcage. He’s won the battle he is always certain to win once more, but the title becomes quite useless when the loser doesn't even care that they’ve lost.
Ren comes to a standstill a few metres from him, gently placed in the centre of Hux’s bed and his desk, a position he’s used to now—a position Hux is used to seeing him in. He's almost certain the carpet has marks now, where Kylo Ren’s boots have sunken in and left indentations.
Hux isn't sure where the Knight’s gaze lies, if it’s at the floor and his feet or Hux’s face, or even if he has that stupid bucket on, and it sends a shiver down his spine, particularly disconcerting.
“Lights at 40%,” he says, voice softer than he intends. Hux squints at the brightness for a second before he adjusts; it’s more than enough to see the shadows dancing across Ren’s features under his robes, enough to see the jagged scar across his nose and between his eyes.
Kylo Ren stares him down like he’s the barrel of gun, dangerous and deadly, yet a twisted form of liberation. Hux shifts.
Ren says nothing. Neither does Hux, and it stays like that for minutes.
Until Hux breathes in finally, conceding. “I wasn't informed that the doctors had released you yet,” he says. He cocks his brow, placing his data pad down, flat against his desk. His reports are almost completely done, if he abandons the last, few, minuscule ones now it will hardly matter. Leaning back again, Hux intertwines his fingers, resting them in his lap, eyeing Ren’s body where the injuries beneath his robes lie like he can see the scars right through those layers.
“They didn’t,” Ren admits, but Hux knows this already. Shifting his gaze fast, he looks down to his feet, hiding something that Hux thinks may be either guilt or discomfort. He looks more like a terrified, lost child than a fearsome Knight of Ren. Everything about him is dishevelled, Hux notices. Hair matted and damp, clothes creased and loose in some places yet too tight in others. Despite being a few inches taller than Hux, Ren seems smaller than ever before, consumed by his robes. “But I can’t sleep.”
Hux nods a little in gentle acknowledgement of Ren’s soft voice. He expects this—the hushed admission of blatant weakness from underneath thick, dark layers that Kylo Ren seems none too regretful for. Only he, Hux thinks.
Hux inclines his head gently, “I know.”
After all, he has been expecting it for hours, now, and wonders why Ren waited so long tonight, wonders how long he survived without Hux’s arms around him.
Hux inhales a heavy breath, almost shaking his head; if there’s any way to describe Kylo Ren, it’s unpredictable, and Hux knows this better than most. He pushes back his chair and stands. Ren’s eyes follow him as he rises (is that appraisal, he can see, twinkling away?) and Hux gestures the Knight to his bed with another nod. As Ren begins to undress, Hux takes off his gloves, tugging them off and tossing them to the floor.
Kylo Ren steps forward once he’s removed all his robes, tossed on the floor haphazardly, clad only in his underwear, and he’s almost uncomfortably close to Hux. He notices Ren’s shoulder, then glances down to his hip. Both wounds are red and angry and practically screaming.
A shiver rolls up Hux’s spine when Ren’s hands move to lift Hux’s undershirt. They're both flush against each other when Kylo Ren’s fingers meet his skin, and Hux gasps at the cold touch like he always does, cheeky and thrilling against the planes of his stomach.
Kylo Ren silences his breath with a kiss. It’s soft, unlike a great many things about the Ren, and Hux kisses him back just as easily, gasping once more as Ren's fingers catch on his skin, and lifting his arms so he can peel the shirt off Hux’s torso. It falls somewhere on the floor like everything else has. Hux calls for the lights to dim.
“Bed,” Hux murmurs against Ren’s cheek. He receives a soft nod in reply.
Kylo slips into it first, moving to the far side and resting his head on Hux’s pillow. His dark hair is stark against the ivory sheets, even in the darkness. When he looks up at Hux, almost quizzically, and wow, that’s a sight, Hux thinks breathlessly when Ren gestures him into his own bed.
Hux slips in under the covers and they float gently down to swamp them both. He shifts over as close he can to Ren, as close as he can get to the warmth and comfort he desires too. Ren’s arm is quick to grasp his hip and pull Hux towards him so he can bury himself in Hux’s chest. Hux allows it, like he always does, and settles his head on his other pillow, a heavy breath escaping his lips with all of his remaining effort. It really has been a tiring day.
They lie there for a few moments, Hux’s fingertips dancing across Kylo Ren’s skin, rummaging through his hair, Ren’s breath tantalising and tickling on Hux’s collar. Their legs tangle with each other, generating warmth.
Kylo Ren yawns against him, and against all better judgement, Hux opens his mouth.
“Was it the same dream?”
Ren pulls back a little, cranes his neck up to meet Hux’s steady gaze. His eyes are a swell of darkness, but they're not violent, rather uncertain, worried, tired, and he shakes his head.
“No, it was different, this time. It always is. I was on the bridge, and Solo was there, too, walking towards me.” He stops to breathe, and his head lowers, words becoming half-incoherent, mumbled by Hux’s torso. “It was exactly the same, everything was exactly the same as before. Until I killed him. And all of a sudden I wasn't looking back at Han Solo anymore. I was looking back at me. The oscillator was on fire, and I didn’t even reach out as I fell. I just accepted it. And then I was just … gone, tumbling into nothingness.”
Ren licks his lips and sniffles his nose. Hux thinks he may be crying.
Tilting his head slightly, Hux shifts so their foreheads meet, and he takes a breath, eyes fluttering shut as he soaks up Kylo’s scent. The Knight is still.
“You do understand that they’re nothing more than mere dreams, don’t you?” Hux doesn't intend it to sound as condescending as it is. He regrets his tone instantly, and projects that hopelessly, wondering if Ren can feel it through the Force. “They’re not real, not even in the slightest.”
(There’s nothing for you to be afraid of, he wants to say, because the idea of Kylo Ren terrified terrifies Hux too.)
(He doesn’t.)
Kylo Ren nods, and Hux can feel the Force pressing at his mind, gentle and soft like waves of a calm river, washing over him like Ren needs Hux to know he’s there. Hux relocates his head, pulls it away and placing it back on his pillow.
“I do. It never changes how real they feel, though.”
Hux doesn’t have the words to reply to that. He knows himself what it is like to wake up shaking, screaming, nothing physical and only his own mind holding him under the terror that is pulling him down and drowning him. He swallows, hand moving to cup the back of Ren’s head, deciding a change of subject is the safest course of action.
“We’ll be arriving at Snoke's citadel in a few days,” Hux murmurs, looking down at Ren’s head, fingers running absentmindedly through his hair every now and then just to remind himself that this is all real. “He was never going to wait forever.”
He’s hardly waited long enough for you to heal properly, presses at his lips, but it goes unspoken, fizzling away on Hux’s tongue before it makes it out of his lips. They're both aware that Ren can hear his thoughts, and this one is calling out to him fiercely.
Faintly, Hux can feel Ren nod against his chest, and his fingers tighten around Hux’s hips. silence beats heavy across the space of Hux’s chambers, until Kylo Ren’s whisper shatters it.
“I know.”
It echoes in Hux’s head, too loud in his ears. He isn’t entirely certain if Ren is referring to the fact of his training, or their Supreme Leader’s disregard for his injuries, but he doesn’t voice the question.
“Do you know what your training will entail?” Hux asks, and he regrets it instantly. It’s none of his business. Kylo Ren’s training and Snoke’s teaching is nothing to concern himself with. He should be more worried about the future of the Order, planning their next attack in the wake of the resistance’s celebrations.
“No.” Kylo Ren takes a breath, hux holds his, and it seems as if centuries have passed before he speaks again. “Snoke’s told me nothing. But whatever it is, it won’t be easy.”
Hux’s fingers falter. Why?
The gentle massaging pressure he is now horrifyingly much to comfortable with turns into a prodding. Hux still allows it there.
“Because I failed,” Kylo Ren spits, like it’s a curse, and Hux recoils back from the fury he feels, electric and crackling the air around them. Ren’s unpredictable anger is rising back up once more. “I allowed a child with no saber training at all to almost kill me. And escape. I am weak.”
Hux leans down, fingertips trailing over Kylo Ren’s adams apple as he tilts up his chin and places a small kiss to his lips. “Yes, you failed,” he agrees, nodding defiantly at the incredulous look Ren gives him. “You failed your mother by murdering your father. You failed the Order by being bested by a scavenger girl and a traitor. You failed because you were weak. Snoke won’t stand for weakness, Ren. He will train you, and make you stronger.”
The words leave Hux feeling a little fierce and flushed in his gut, elated, like he’s in the midst of a rally, standing tall in front of his troopers. The concept is entirely the same, only he’s not attempting to inspire an entire army, only a single soldier.
Kylo Ren remains silent; he knows Hux is completely correct. “Han Solo isn’t my father,” he mutters after some time, and it’s stupid the way Hux feels the sudden urge to grin.
“Go to sleep,” he says instead. It feels safer.
Ren does, tangled up in Hux’s arms and pressed close into his chest.
+
Hux wakes with a jolt and he doesn't know what time it is.
And frankly, he doesn't much care. Because Kylo Ren is asleep beside him—sound, silent, save for those little wispy breaths that leave his lips. The both of them know how rare a sleep without terrors is, and Hux treasures it while it lasts, no matter how fleeting this moment may be.
Wrapped under the thick duvet of his bed, a shiver rolls down Hux’s spine, but it’s not from the cold. His hands slide lazily across silk sheets to reach for the body of warmth he knows lies only centimetres away.
He knows Ren needs this, given by the little mumbles and murmurs of words too incoherent for Hux to understand and the desperate need in his movements when Hux will indulge him.
(Hux will always indulge him.)
The thought should make him sick, make him shiver in horror and recoil in disgust at the weakness he allows himself and Ren to have—the weakness they willingly indulge in every night. But that doesn't stop him reaching out and wrapping an arm around Kylo Ren’s waist to tug him closer anyway.
“You’ll be the death of me, Ren,” he whispers, and the smile tugging at his mouth is the first sign Hux’s downfall has already begun.
Ren groans a little, and Hux stares across at him, wondering if he’ll wake.
He reaches out for hux, too, movements drowsy and filled with sleep and Hux leans in to kiss the tip of his nose, but retracts just too quick for Kylo Ren to catch him. Ren is persistent, desperate, insistent on stretching to find Hux, and the general shifts back just a little, for his own amusement. Ren pouts in his sleep, and it’s stupid the way Hux wants to laugh softly.
He continues moving back, away, then some more, until he’s out of the bed, standing over it and watching Ren’s body shift and writhe under the covers until it gives up trying to find him.
Hux almost smiles at it.
Kylo mumbles something that sounds like his name, and then there’s a pressure in the back of his mind, searching, seeking for something. It’s uncontrolled, and Hux wonders if Kylo Ren can sense his thoughts and steal his memories even when he’s asleep.
He scowls down at the man, who looks more like a boy, face youthful with a certain softness only sleep back bring, noticing how the idiot is sprawled out across the bed, no room left for Hux.
Hux scowls further, cursing. Getting back under that warmth means waking him, and it’s been so long since Kylo Ren had a decent sleep. Hux is most certainly heartless—there’s no doubt about it—but he’s not as cruel nor selfish to wake him.
Hux sighs, rubbing at his temples, and he shivers, remembering his lack of clothing. Finding his trousers (or maybe they’re Ren’s, Hux can’t much tell in the darkness), Hux tugs them on, and then his jacket. He can’t be bothered to find his undershirt; he’ll use his greatcoat if he gets too cold.
Stepping over to his desk, Hux remembers those last few reports he abandoned, and deciding he’s not going to get any more sleep for the night, he slips into his desk chair and nothing has changed when he lifts his data pad and brings up his reports.
Well, there’s a fool in Hux’s bed, captivating his attention every few seconds each time he shifts and shuffles around under Hux’s duvet. There’s a smile on his lips as he watches him, and Kylo Ren reminds him of a kitten, stretching long, lithe limbs out.
Hux smirks to himself, wondering how Ren would react if he called him as such.
Hux stops smirking pretty damn fast when he realises his mistake. Kylo Ren is most certainly not his. He is forced to come to terms with his own idiocy, and the fact that this has gotten much more intimate than either of them ever intended.
The thought is terrifying in his mind, but for all the wrong reasons.
+
Kylo Ren wakes screaming, and Hux freezes.
It jolts him to attention, sends his heartbeat racing, and he discards his data pad on his desk instantly.
The urge to jump forward, jolt and take the Knight into his arms and just hold him—tell him it’s okay—is damn near overwhelming, but Ren needs to do this himself.
He hates how it hurts him, how much it pains Hux to see Ren in such distress, but Hux holds back well, almost too well, when Kylo Ren is jerking his body up and he's almost halfway out of the bed before he freezes too. He meets Hux’s gaze straight on (it’s practically impossible not too) and simply stares for just a few moments. The room is silent, all for the heavy, imposing breaths and sobs that push at Hux’s personal space.
Ren is crying, he realises.
Hux hardly notices his hand has curled into a fist, until he feels the familiar wetness of blood running down his fingers. He glances down quickly. The pain hits him first, sharp and hot and making Hux bite his lip to stifle a gasp. When he opens his palm up, there’s red, and then there are three deep gauges in his skin.
Hux scowls, wiping it away on his thigh and he looks back up, swallowing.
“I thought you left me.” and Kylo Ren’s voice is hoarse, croaking, his eyes blown wide, red with tears. “You looked down at me in the snow bleeding and I thought you were going to pick me up, take me to Snoke, do something. B-but you just… walked away. You left me there. Alone. You abandoned me.” He chokes back a sob.
Hux is silent; he doesn't know how to respond to something of such sentiment. Perhaps maybe with a biting comment, had it been a few weeks ago, but something about the fear in Kylo Ren’s dark eyes and the beads of sweat on his forehead tells him this isn't exactly the right time for snark.
Ren sits up a bit in the bed, covers falling down his chest and Hux forces his gaze off the soft freckles and moles that litter pale skin. “Promise me, please, Hux, that you’ll never leave me.”
Hux doesn't know how to respond to that, either.
He breathes, rises from his desk, and pushes his chair back with more grace than is needed. Striding over to the bed, Kylo Ren's eyes are still on him, and it feels strangely like a performance.
Hux nods furiously—there’s just no other answer but yes yes yes, and his mind it’s a litany of the word, but Ren isn't satisfied.
“Say it,” he demands, voice soft yet firm and his eyes, marred with tears, trail over Hux’s lips like he wants to devour them. He bites his own, and somewhere inside Hux crumbles.
He allows his own eyes to fall, and Hux slides to his knees. Leaning halfway over his bed to pull Ren close, he cups the back of Kylo Ren’s neck, runs his hands through the strands of Ren's dark hair and it’s soft on his skin, tickling. He tugs the slightest bit, purchase to stop him from slipping over whichever cliff the storm that is Kylo Ren threatens to push him over.=
He wonders if Ren can tear the words from his mouth with the force, but it hardly matters much when they're falling from parted lips far too easily.
“Yes. Yes, I promise.” Hux leans over and places a kiss on Ren's forehead. Careful of his wound, he places one on Ren’s nose, then finally he captures his lips. It tastes like salt and a little of blood, and Hux breathes slowly.
“Now go back to sleep.”
+
Hux kept to his promise.
But three days later, Kylo Ren left him. It was expected; they had arrived at Snoke’s planet, and any more delay would be met with more punishment.
But Hux hadn’t expected it to hurt as much as it did. He hadn't expected to feel the apprehension bubbling away in his stomach when Ren boarded the shuttle, when he didn't look back. Hux hadn’t expected to feel the resentment rising up his throat like bile at Snoke’s hologram conference hours later.
He curses at the irony of it all—the fact that he grew so damn attached to the one person who was only certain to leave him.
It’s hours into the night when Hux realises it; he’s at his desk and there’s reports in front of him but all sees is an empty bed that Kylo Ren had once fit perfectly into.
Hux isn't entirely sure what races through his limbs as he comprehends the thought, it’s cold and electric, makes him feel awake, and he wonders just how blind he was.
Snoke had always known, he’d wanted it from the start, wanted them both to feel something, right before he tore it away before their helpless, weak eyes. This was their punishment. punishment for Starkiller and punishment for the girl.
It all isn't as heartbreaking as it seems.
Until Hux wakes with a jolt in the middle of the night; Kylo Ren is screaming, and he freezes.