Archive of Our Own

The hallways of Hux manor are clean, disturbingly so, as if nobody has ever even lived in them. All traces of life are carefully wiped away, however, Hux knows it’s not true: he can see through the lie, he can still see the ghosts.

His shoes squeak against the floor as he hurries away from the disembodied hands that want to keep him here, clutching at his clothes and skin; the tiles are a sea of black and white beneath his feet and Hux has to resist the urge to hop neatly from one to the other as he had done as a child. After all, he has more pressing concerns at this moment, than childlike whimsy or the neatness of his gait.

The air is thick and heavy, a tomb of cloying bleach. Only the squeak of Hux’s boots breaks the deafening silence that hangs eerily over every inch of the manor; he is as impetuous as ever, Hux thinks as his father’s voice rings in his head: his very existence here seems to be troubling to the place, bending and breaking the careful rules that have been put into place.

And, indeed, there is nowhere that he would like to be less than here, his childhood home; even just the atmosphere of the place is abhorrent to him, demonstrating over and over to him his fundamental weakness.

A winding staircase takes him upstairs, the carpet crimson like a trail of blood into the lion’s den. Here the wooden floorboards creak and shift beneath his feet as Hux hurries to his father’s study.

‘Armitage,’ his father says with surprising warmth as Hux steps inside the expansive room. After a lifetime of chill, it is as scolding as if Brendol had thrown him into the fire.

Unlike the rest of the house, the study isn’t a paragon of military precision. It appears almost bloated in contrast; the rich, dark-wood furniture cloistered together making the room feel small and airless, the shelves bowing from the weight of their overflowing books as if containing all the knowledge in the Galaxy, the walls all lined with his father’s trophies – medals, holo-pictures, heirlooms gathering dust.

Across from his father, another man sits at the intricately carved, dark-stained desk, whom Hux doesn’t immediately recognise. His hair is just as meticulously kept as both Armitage’s and his father’s, sweeping to one side and slicked into place with heavy, clear gel. It is as grey as a cliff-face, his forehead rising to meet the front of his hairline where it is thinning like a flurry of seafoam. The man’s uniform is also immaculate, dark and with a less taxed belt and buttons than his father’s.

Where once Hux had only been impressed by rakish Generals who were all pressed corners and sharp voices, now it turns his stomach. His mother had called jealousy ‘the green-eyed monster’ and though he doesn’t believe in superstitions, Hux can’t help but feel that he’s always been cursed: his eyes are two emeralds, revealing his true nature to the world.

‘Sit down boy, for kriff’s sake!’

Hux jumps to obey, sliding into the free chair at the end of the table and not missing the look the other two men share. Kriff, kriff, kriff… The embarrassment of still being but a boy, cowardly and insufficient, to his father sends a surge of uncomfortable heat to his face.

‘Father,’ he says, his voice cowed into politeness. ‘And…?’ He inclines his head towards the other man, who simply stares, unsmiling. Not that Hux had expected any different. It was better than being sardonic, he supposes.

‘General Pryde,’ Brendol says and Armitage nods his head, recognising the name at once. He knew the names of all the officers of the First Order, but he would wager even the most disinterested of Privates from some backwater world, would know that name. Pryde was famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) for both the prowess of his record and the callousness with which he had enacted it.

‘I’ll cut to the chase,’ Pryde says, leaning forward so that he can pillow his chin on one palm. He must be used to cutting things, Hux thinks. ‘I have an important mission for you, for the glory of the First Order. I simply cannot stress enough how vital it is, Armitage. The entire future of the First Order depends upon it.’ Suddenly, in almost of blur of motion, Pryde is on his feet, his fist slamming down with a crash onto Brendol’s ornate desk, so hard that Hux winces. ‘It will certainly be dangerous, should you be caught. But that’s not going to happen to Brendol Hux’s son, is it Armitage?’

Hux shakes his head, mutely.

‘The First Order rewards great loyalty handsomely, however,’ Pryde continues, his pale eyes glinting like an ocean. ‘Do you accept?’

Hux’s heart pounds loudly in his ears, the pictures in his minds-eye are as clear and bright as the stained-glass windows he’d seen in the pauper’s church as a child; his own army to command, the looks of respect on his peers faces and the looks of fear on those lesser than him, the stripes of a General worn proudly on his arm for all to see.

‘Yes,’ he says after a moment, not needing any longer. His fingers scratch over the barren spot but not for long, not for longer… ‘What do I need to do?’

He will do it! Anything, anything…

Pryde leans forward, smirking as he laces his fingers together. ‘Perfect.’

Hux shivers under the weighty gazes, a warmth spreading through his chest. To have their approval is more than he has ever known, but something righteous swells alongside it – of course, he deserves it. Finally, finally they could see what he has always known about himself; that he is simply superior.

Hux begins to wonder, however, what it could be exactly that they have in mind for him. It would be something tactical; no doubt. His scores had been the highest of his intake in his final year of the Academy. Surely, they would not forget…

‘Naboo is thought by some to be a great power in the Galaxy,’ his father spits, demonstrating his opinion of this. Hux schools his features into those of cold disgust. Of course, he agrees. Of course. ‘The centre of the Republic’s power, the jewel in the crown. If we are to move against them

‘This is your job,’ Pryde interjects, barely looking at Hux. ‘You must infiltrate the palace and gather as much information on the Resistance as you can. Particularly the heirs; twins. We have information that the Queen will be stepping down soon and we must know who will replace her and when. That is when we will strike, when the Republic fools are caught up in their coronation. Pathetic.’

His father and Pryde laugh. Hux manages to choke up something from the depth of his chest that’s almost a laugh, as close as he can manage when his throat is thick with humiliation. Of course, of course… they would never trust him with a mission that was truly important, a way to show his military prowess. He’s to be nothing but a pretty face: a porcelain doll, more than a man, to be put on a shelf and admired rather than seeing any action, anything real. He had just wanted to finally prove himself…

The sting of disgrace is enough to brings tears to his eyes.

‘I will do it.’ He says, his eyes fixed upon the sky. I will make you proud, Father is left unsaid.

The stars look different from Naboo, as if the whole universe has turned on its axis. Or, Hux imagines that they must anyway; he can’t see them from his place in this tin can, sandwiched as if he were an actual sardine, between two other humans. Hux can’t risk getting up to look out of one of the viewing ports, doesn’t want to risk doing anything that might draw attention to himself before his mission has even started. So, he forces himself to stay still, running over his briefing once more and trying to ignore that this was the most physical contact he’d had in years. 

Only a few short days ago, Hux’s life had been so different. Called into his father’s study from the dead-end, pencil pushing job he’d been stuck in for the past few years – bearing the weight of the frustration at his father’s denial of the strength, the greatness that Hux knows to be inside of himself.

Soon it will all be worth it and Hux resolves it in this moment, crammed into a transport ship, sweaty, tired, dirty and with his false identity in his pocket. He will not fail. He will make his father proud.

The ship shudders around him but Hux does not mark it with anymore than a passing thought, he does not look up from his reverie. He knows that beneath them, as they enter the planet’s atmosphere, the great oceans with their clear water are fed by the spiderweb of rivers that amble through green pastures of lush grass and delicate wild flowers towards its great cities with their pale, curved architecture. Hux can almost imagine the feeling of the sun on his skin; yet another reminder of how wrong this all is, so different from home.

Naboo is practically paradise while Arkanis is grim, wet and foreboding; a place where only the strong would survive. Hux imagines that the people here, especially the Amidala’s, must be weak indeed.

The small mercy of this is that it means his mission will be easy. The inhabitants will be slow-witted, without the resolve that Hux has built up from years of toil. They will hand him over all the information he needs with just a flash of his smile and some class, as if it was truly a burden for them to carry it in the first place.

His hand tightens on the rickety metal bench he’s seated on and he closes his eyes. The craft comes to land with a jolt and an almighty groan, both of which shake the occupants to their cores and send them flying in all directions, shattering like a shoal of fishes into deep water.

It’s a relief to disembark, to leave the unsteady death trap and disappear into the city. As soon as Hux is out onto the street, his meagre pack on his back and the shuttle ticket swallowed by the machine at the exit of the spaceport, the hoards of Naboo people seems to swell like a great wave and swallow him up.

Swiftly, he is swept along by the tide of people, barely able to catch his breath. They appear to be dragging him in the correct direction, up the wide and lazily winding streets towards the spiritual centre of the city and therefore closer to Theed Royal Palace. Theed itself is like no city Hux has seen, although he is not exactly well travelled, he had studied many holofilms of the glorious victories of the First Order and before it Empire against lesser worlds. It is undeniably beautiful, though, and Hux wishes for one errant moment as the crow swells around him, seeming to thin out a little as the street widens

Buildings spread like mushrooms beneath the wide canopy of the trees, their leaves hanging low overhead, green and waxy. Sometimes they are in small clusters and sometimes there are great gaps between them, as if they had really grown there. Hux thinks that he spots a couple of shops; their doors are brightly painted and their window boxes lined with their wares: veritable rainbows of colourful fruits and vegetables, small hand painted trinkets, elegant curving furniture in the planet’s preferred style set out on the streets and racks of data chips sorted by their content.

The palace itself sits atop the slope, its bulbous towers rising toward the heavens. Even Hux finds himself, craning his neck to take in all of it. In the distance, birds chirp and call to each other in a kind of gentle, lilting music, the noise of the busy streets the eternal bassline.

So, this is the supposed nerve centre of the government, of the Republic? Hux scoffs beneath his breath. It would be so easily cut, he thinks. Despite his bluster, he feels a little shaky inside, a trembling that he can’t quite stop. This all finally feels real, now that he’s standing in the mouth of the lion’s den.

A little old man opens the pitiful, little servant’s door at the back of the palace when Hux knocks. He is stooped over, his clothes neat and smart although his body looks as withered as the trees that had lined Hux’s path to the palace. Dutifully, with the practised ease of a born liar, Hux hands over the datapad containing his documents.  

‘Armitage Lus? That doesn’t sound like a name from the core worlds.’ The old man at the door squints, adjusting his glasses as he examines them.

Hux tries his best to look innocent, even though he can feel the gentle trickle of sweat running down his neck, beneath the sensitive line of his collar.

‘Yes,’ he says with a quick, nervous nod. The words come easily, right on the tip of his tongue thanks to his briefing and the spidering backstory that had been made for him. ‘My mother was from Arkanis before she moved to Alderaan to escape the Empire and met my father. She always said she missed home, though. I wish she hadn’t, it didn’t exactly make me popular at school,’ Hux continues, giving the man a wry look, his lips pinched together and his eyebrows raised.

Hux has found that the best lies always have a single grain of truth. It hurts, to employ his mother in such deception. She doesn’t deserve it but Hux knows that he must, for the sake of the mission. He cannot fail.

The old man chuckles but does not relent, his spindly fingers pouring over the datapad.

‘We were sent word that you’d be coming. Your references were immaculate, or so I’m told,’ the old man chuckles again, a hollow sound like a spice-runner’s ship venting air, as if he is not often trusted with information. Hux files that away for future reference.

Then why in karking hell have you made me stand out here to sweat for ten minutes, when you knew I was coming, thinks Hux all the while smiling even wider.

‘Come in then, Mr. Lus. I’ll show you to your quarters.’

It turns out that quarters is rather an overstatement for the broom closet they seem to have given him.

‘You’ll be assisting Mistress Rey,’ the old man, Egav it turns out, says as he sweeps his hand across the room as if it is something to show off.

Hux sets his pack down on the bed, the springs squealing in protest as the movement. He sets his jaw. ‘Excellent.’

Egav, thankfully, takes his leave then and Hux truly surveys his surroundings. The room being so small does, at least, have the singular benefit that surveillance will be easy to monitor. Swiftly, he climbs onto the cot, the springs creaking uneasily beneath his feet and sets the tiny, grain-like recording device into a crevice in the wall. It’s rough against his skin as he tries to attach it, sucking in a sharp breath as it forces its way stubbornly beneath his nail instead of sticking to the wall with a sharp prickle of pain.

After he has rigged up his surveillance, Hux packs away his few items into the bureau. Most are impersonal to him, items that aren’t his sent merely for reasons of cover but Hux had allowed himself one single indulgence and this he treats with reverent care. The first edition copy of Tarkin’s Strategy of War sits proudly upon the rickety nightstand. Then, Hux turns his attention towards the outfit that has been lain out for him. It’s the same as he’s seen the other servants wearing, only slightly different from the handmaiden’s outfit; flame-like, flaring at the sleeve.

Hux strips out of his simple tunic with his usual military precision, mindless by now, and begins to pull on the other. He stands for a moment, examining himself in the mirror; twisting his body this way and that, extending a leg just so that the delicate silk flutters around his form, embracing him in a way that is just shy of coy.

Hux’s hands stay curled across the sharp rise of his collarbones, trembling. His mouth is dry and he has to force in a careful breath of warm air, feeling his chest expanding. Around him the world seems to shift on its axis even though the ancient tiles never move a nano-meter.

Although when Egav comes to collect him again, Hux has schooled his features into calm impassiveness, he still feels unbalanced. They set off again through the maze of hallways in search of the Princess, Egav talking and Hux nodding at reasonable intervals as he gazes down at the bustling city from atop the anthill.

It's perhaps why Hux doesn’t notice the man approaching them, he’s distracted by the city below, by the strange feelings that the robes had ignited in his chest, by the impending delicacy and pressure of the mission.

‘Sir,’ Egav says, coming to a stop.

The man looks at him, not dropping his gaze for a moment. His eyes are incredibly dark, as if they have their own gravity, entrapping all light around them as well as Hux’s attention. It sends a shiver through him; Hux can’t help but feel that the man can see right through him, right down to the core.

‘Who is this?’ The man’s voice is somehow lower than Hux had been expecting, rattling through his very bones and leaving him feel hollow.

‘Lus, sir,’ Egav says, his head bowed in respect. Despite the importance of this mission, Hux can’t quite lower himself to this feat, instead staring back at the man mulishly. This means that he doesn’t miss the arrogant tilt of the man’s chin.

‘Lus?’ The man says, his voice rumbling as if he’s rolling the name around in his mouth; testing it out. Hux represses a shiver; it feels far too intimate, too personal, this little grain of truth. ‘Doesn’t look like much.’

Hux can’t stop the way his lips twitch into a sneer, anger vibrating through his veins as if he is alight with electricity. He doesn’t have a moment to say anything, as usual being denied the opportunity to prove his worth as the man sniffs, continuing down the wide, looping corridor.

‘Who was that?’ Hux scoffs, turning to Egav whose face is contorted into an expression Hux can’t name.

‘Kylo,’ Egav replies, slowly.

‘The prince?’ Hux asks, his stomach sinking. He’s seen images of the twins, of course, but even the Republic has their secrets; case in point being Hux’s current assignment.

Somehow, those shaky holoprojections that Hux had poured over in his father’s study, had failed to do the prince justice, rendering him almost unrecognisable in the flesh. The hologram had softened the line of his nose, until it curved – elegant and celestial – as well as leaving his skin smooth, his cheeks plump and boyish, the bow of his lips accentuated with waxy, red paint.

He'd seemed unreal, ethereal almost; here and now, Kylo Ren is all too real. This Kylo Ren is all solidness and unerring lines, there is nothing ethereal about him. And yet, out of all of it, the thing that had caught Hux’s attention was the way Kylo’s eyelashes had fanned out against his pale, gaunt cheek. He shifts, uneasily, at the way that image sticks in his mind.

‘He can be… difficult,’ Egav says, as if sensing Hux’s discomfort, his voice tight with restrained emotion.

Hux nods in understanding, starting to piece together the delicate balances and political nuances that fill the palace in overflowing, unspoken peculiarities.

Hux had been given a spinning-top as a child, outdated and hardly engaging but it had entranced him; his only carefree indulgence. But it had surely been different for Kylo, Hux thinks; having the seat of power of the Galaxy as his childhood home, wealth and fame beyond imagination, a father and a mother who surely…

Pain stabs quickly through him, blanking his mind, as Hux bites down on his tongue; swift and vicious.

Princess Rey, too, undermines his expectations. She’s delicate beneath her powdered makeup and slick, red lipstick; it seems to steal all of the colour from her, leaving her dull and drained. Her robes nip around her slender waist and shoulders, cascading like a waterfall from her arms to her waist, but Hux can see the slender, corded muscles moving beneath the skin as she hurls a vase across the room.

It smashes in a way that is entirely unsatisfying; a delicate plunk, like the note of a piano. Silence falls across the room, hushed and drawn tight as a bowstring.

‘I don’t need yet another servant fluttering about me.’ Rows of straight, white teeth appear from between parted lips, smeared with crimson. ‘I can look after myself.’

‘Your highness-,’ Egav begins, looking unphased by the events unfolding before him.

‘Look at him! Really? What exactly can he do that I couldn’t do a hundred times better?’ The Princess exclaims before having the decency to look abashed. ‘No offence.’

Hux grits his teeth. The anger is quick to boil within him as usual and the sting of humiliation isn’t exactly unfamiliar either but Hux restrains them, the ropes of his self-control creaking under the effort.

Eventually, the Princess acquiesces to Egav’s demands – seemingly only for his own sake, as her shoulder’s remain tightly drawn. Hux reluctantly helps with the pandemonium of getting her ready for the afternoon: the two heirs, it seemed, were expected to take part in the political workings of the state – at least, the pettier, less important ones.

The chambers for planetary matters, relating to only Naboo and its people, are certainly ostentatious and gaudy. Civil servants flutter about like butterflies, replacing the brown-tinged bunches of flowers with fresh one until the air is overburdened with their cloying, floral sweetness.

Hux's never been religious; his religion was a blaster nestled in his palm, the shine of his standard issue boots, the thrum of his pulse echoing in his ears. Power. Control. Order. And yet, he can’t help but believe just for one slow, syrupy second. Hux can only breath and stand, blinking up at the high arches above his head, curving up and up as if in benediction. The ceiling rises like hands reaching out and Hux can’t help but think that they truly could touch God or Gods.

Heat seems to gather here, the humidity suffocating, and as the proceedings begin, the room is filled with the flapping of the large, flat-leafed ferns used as fans, like the fluttering wings of hundreds of lethargic butterflies.  Hux forces his shoulders to relax, projecting an impassive image even as the sound rattles through his very bones like static, leaving only irritation in its wake. He can feel a single drop of sweat cutting a meandering path down the back of his neck, until it rolls beneath the collar of his robes and is hyperaware of all the places where they stick to his skin.

He shifts uncomfortably, trying desperately to keep as still and unnoticed as he can beside his mistress; the humiliation, the discomfort is almost too much to bear. If he didn’t know it would be doubled, should he return without completing his mission, Hux would rip the dreadful, delicate robes from his skin and leave them in a pool of opulence on the marble floor.

All this softness, this delicacy; Hux can’t stand the feel of it against his skin. Or rather, the feelings that it brings to the surface. He longs for the rasp of the heavy wool and the sharp, impersonal lines of his uniform; it feels like a lifetime ago, when he had stood in the courtyard at the Academy, his skin warm under the humidity that always gathered over Arkanis, between the star and the thick layer of clouds. His fingers twitch at his sides and he stills them with a thought.

Princess Rey sits at the front of the assembly hall, her back ramrod straight. Hux can feel the discomfort rolling off her in waves; for all her righteous anger and opinions that sprout like outcroppings of rock, ancient and immovable, Hux is surprised that the political sphere fills her with such apparent dread and distaste. He reaches over to one of her ringlet curls, which has wilted a little in the heat, twirling it around his finger with forced gentleness to reform it once again; he’d learnt how to use the curling irons that afternoon, his palms are burned with the proof, shaking with tremors of emotion. 

However, he's been a tool before, blunt and forceful, and he can very well be one again, no matter how it rankles him. His thoughts turn to the future, which seems to spill out before him – vast and immaculate, each thing in its proper place, and Hux knows he must fight for it with every ounce of his being.

‘I hate these things,’ the Princess says to him, as he smooths a near invisible wrinkle from the shoulder of her gown. For once, his own fastidiousness seems to be paying off. ‘So many old men telling us what we should think or arguing amongst themselves. Never deciding anything.’ He watches her hands clench into fists at her sides, the skin on the digits surprisingly rough and calloused.

I want to take action hangs in the air between them, unsaid.

While Hux can admire the spirit, at least, (which is more than he had thought he would have been able, of such weak-willed, chaotic people) he can’t help but feel that Princess Rey has a rather naïve outlook. Surely, she can’t think that she alone can solve all of her perceived wrongs with the Galaxy. For that she would need an army.

Hux smirks, relief flooding through him. This mission is going to be easy, with people who are so soft and trusting. The knife will sting doubly.

‘Your time will come,’ Hux finds himself saying. Rey smiles, faintly, behind the thick layer of makeup and Hux blinks. He wasn’t saying it for her, he realises.

The proceedings are about as exciting as Rey had made them out to be, even for Hux who thrives in the political sphere; the thinly disguised insults, the verbal sparring, the careful, meticulous order. However, the foolish nature of the Republic is no more evident than in this; they argue in circles for what seems like hours about how best to care for the citizens of the Galaxy, what amounts of aid is both appropriate and tenable, what opportunities can be provided for these people.

Hux bites his tongue until he tastes the metallic tang of blood; freedom is truly a burden. He can’t help his minding wandering; if he were up there, he would cut through the sideways talking easily. What could be given? What should be given? That was what was important.

Life wasn’t about simply having things handed to you, that he well knew.

Eventually, the discussion draws to a close, although Hux is sure that they all have a few more grey hairs than when it had begun. Hux shifts in his chair, thinking that surely there was no way that any more can be said in the entire universe.

That’s when a familiar figure steps up to the podium and Hux almost misses Rey’s sharp intake of breath to his right, the air whistling between her gritted teeth. A strand of dark hair curls, rakishly across a pale forehead before it’s pushed back to join it’s brothers in a softly curling mass behind over-large ears. Prince Kylo sets a stack of papers down on the podium, his dark robes swallowing up his body like a swarth of the night sky.

It all catches in Hux’s throat, sticking there like a lump of porridge. It’s annoying; Kylo is annoying, with his ridiculous pretentiousness and self-aggrandising. Who can afford paper nowadays except, of course, for a crown Prince? What would be the point in using it anyway? The easy show of wealth is sickening, precisely because Hux knows that he will never…

Still, he can’t help but lean forward in his seat, running his tongue across his lips as he studies Kylo. The whole thing is confusing; what can Kylo have say that is worthwhile? He’s a spoilt brat, born into money. What could he know about life? Hux misses the way Rey’s eyes shift towards him, sweeping across his skin. Whatever she finds written there, in every crease and groove, she does not share as her thoughts.

Kylo’s dark eyes flick up towards the audience, a muscle ticking in his jaw before his gaze meanders back down to the pages in front of him. Hux feels a smirk slowly unfurling across his lips; he can’t help but feel some kind of sick-satisfaction at Kylo seeming nervous, when his confidence has been so overpowering.

‘Chancellor,’ he begins, his voice low and surprisingly quiet. Hux has to lean even further forward in his seat to hear, as Kylo nods towards the Chancellor. Maddingly, the movement knocks the stray strand of hair free again, so that it curls impudently over Kylo’s forehead once more, drawing Hux’s attention. The Chancellor’s own hair is bone-white, his robes hanging about his frail form like a spectre. ‘Delegates of the Senate. For too long we have allowed ourselves to become complacent. This meeting itself is proof of it. Tell me. How many decisions have we come to? How much change have we wrought?’ 

Hux loses track of time as he listens to Kylo speak; it flows by him like dac honey falling from a spoon, slow and syrupy.

‘That, Chancellor, is my proposal,’ Ren finishes, his hand striking the centre of the lecturn and sending his papers flying. ‘We need to unite the power. Abolish the senate. Give the Chancellor absolute power. Show the Galaxy Naboo’s power. Make them respect us.’ 

The silence is deafening.

‘So…,’ one of the senators finally pipes up. Hux’s head snaps towards the man, his gaze alighting on the man’s halo of white hair; old and set in his ways. Hux feels his lips curve upwards into a smirk. ‘You’re saying it should be you, then?’

It’s as if a dam has been broken and the silence is shattered, as the chambers erupt into laughter.

It’s not as if he agrees with what Kylo had said. Kylo’s reasoning is flawed, totally flawed, like some kind of juvenile scheme. And yet… and yet it was so different from the flimsy indecisiveness he’d heard all day, even from the parroted rhetoric he heard back home from one ancient officer to the other. Two types of rose-tinted nostalgia. 

Kylo was neither of those things. He was so different. He was obviously so full of feeling, overflowing with fanaticism and passion where for others it was just a dimly lit memory. It mirrored itself in Hux and he felt something shifting in his chest, his own anger and righteousness answering the call. 

He has to get away. 

‘Lus,’ Princess Rey cuts across his thoughts, her voice a gentle balm that breaks him out in hives. ‘Are you okay?’

Her hand is cool and inoffensive on his arm but Hux still flinches away, as if burned. 

‘Just a little tired. From the journey. Your highness.’ He manages to grind the words out, each weighing more heavily on his tongue than the last. Maybe he truly was tired - maybe that could explain the strange warm, twisting thing currently inhabiting the area of his stomach - because the shackles of a pretence of civility to these people rancour him more than it had before. 

Her eyes soften, only minutely. ‘Get some rest then. I’m sure I can survive the rest of the afternoon by myself. Sipping tea and having candied fruit forced upon me is quite a trial. Anyway, you’ll be useless to me like this.’

Hux barely catches his grimace. The twins are certainly interesting.

Hux bows just enough to be polite before he makes a dash, just slow enough to be reasonable, towards the exit. The robes he wears billow around him, dragging against him like a parachute and uncomfortable in their unfamiliarity. Freedom, to decompress in his room, is just a breath away when a tall figure steps in front of him, blocking his path.

‘Lus,’ Kylo says, his eyes narrowing, ‘wasn’t it?’

Hux ducks his head, childishly avoiding Kylo’s gaze. Just who he had wanted to avoid; surely this must be the Universe’s idea of a joke? His hair has been loosened just enough by the humidity from the grips of the pomade, that it falls haphazardly across his face, tickling the jut of his cheekbones.

Up close, Kylo smells dark and earthy with the faintest tang of sweat beneath it. Hux is suffocating.

‘Yes,’ Hux says sharply, with a pointed look over Kylo’s shoulder.

‘What did you think?’ Kylo asks. Hux doesn’t miss the way Kylo’s muscles seem to tense, drawing himself up and together, his shoulders reaching for his oversized ears.

‘You had good ideas, sir,’ Hux says, biting his tongue. As much as he wants to say more, to tell the spoiled Prince exactly what he thinks, Hux’s loyalty to his mission is greater.

‘Tell me the truth,’ Kylo says, very slowly. As if Hux is a kriffing dull-headed nerf herder. 

Hux sets his jaw, rolling his shoulders back with careful precision and refusing to tilt his head back to look at Kylo. 

‘Simply believing in your own ideas isn’t enough. You need to have a plan, supporters, ways to put these things into practice. You need to h-‘

‘All right, all right!’ Kylo spits, harshly interrupting him. However, when Hux risks a glance, he sees that Kylo’s eyes are still bright with emotion instead of cold and shuttered. A debate then, not a mere dismissal. ‘But you don’t think it’s too… authoritarian? Too,’ Kylo winces, face contorting as if just saying the thing conjures up painful memories, ‘unhinged.’

‘You sounded passionate,’ Hux settles on, not quite ready to drive in the dagger and twist. He does have a mission, after all. ‘If entirely naïve.’ 

It rouses a surprised snort from Kylo, making the warmth in Hux’s stomach simmer. 

‘I’ll take it as a compliment,’ Kylo says and finally, finally, turns on his heel to leave. 

Hux turns too, fishing his handkerchief from his pocket to dab ineffectually at his brow which is thick with nervous sweat. He’s beginning to wonder who easy this mission really will be when there’s suddenly hands in front of his face. 

‘Nice handkerchief,’ Kylo says with a smirk, plucking it from Hux’s fingers which have gone quite slack. ‘Hmm, what’s this? AH?’

Hux stares, watching as Kylo’s over large thumb strokes across the bumps of the swirling embroidery. AH. AH. AH.

He must look like the fish he’d seen the curved-backed fishermen hauling from their ships in the harbour; slimy, pale, mouth-gaping wide. His first day and he’s already made a fatal error, all in the name of sentimentality. Kylo is going to realise… he’s going to…

‘My… my…,’ the more Hux thinks about himself stammering, the more he does it. His mind isn’t even blissfully blank, instead conjuring images of the inside of a Naboo jailhouse, his own slender body, prostrated before a jeering crowd.

‘Your girlfriend?’ Kylo says, face blank. Hux isn’t sure why he notices that in particular nor why it bothers him so much, when he has more to worry about.

‘Something like that,’ he manages to say, voice coming out strangled. Hux can feel the ensuing rush of heat to his face, like he is the centre of his own solar system. Why is he being so honest to Kylo? About that of all things?

He’s never told anyone before; as much as he feared his father’s judgement (and really, did he need more of that?), the bigger issue was one of convenience.

But it’s like he can’t help it when Kylo is around, like he really is a fish because he can’t help but cough up every salty, briny thought that fills his form to Kylo as if he’s floundering on the dockside. Hux clenches his jaw around the feeling, aiming a glare in Kylo’s direction – lest Kylo tease any more truths from him.

Kylo raises an eyebrow but the explanation seems to satisfy him as he hands back the handkerchief without further comment before stalking away down the hallway. Hux stares after him, his heartbeat slowly returning to its usual rhythm.

That was… interesting, to say the least.

Behind him, the doors open, and within moments Hux is swept up in the crowd of people who burst forth from the chambers like a changing tide around a lonely island, jostling him with their shoulders and the sharp points of their elbows in their haste.  Hux rolls his shoulders back, forcibly ignoring the knocks as he starts back towards his quarters.

He can’t there soon enough and the feeling of the cool, wooden door against his back seems to sap his energy as Hux collapses in exhaustion and relief. Even if it is just his hiding place behind enemy lines, it feels like his sanctuary, the one place where he can peel back the disguise of Lus and just exist in his skin.

At least now, Hux knows what he must do; he must get close to the Prince, no matter what.

The night seems to drag on, languishing in its own splendour. The fashion here appears to be for the windows to remain undressed, allowing in every last drip of light and, unlike Arkanis, these were not in short supply. Still, Hux lets the light spill over his skin and feels as if he is reborn in the sallow glow; his first night beneath a different sky. His mind begins to wander across the wide, swarthy stretch of space – a weary traveller searching for… for…

He snaps his mind closed on that, his thoughts spiralling into the void until they are gone. It will do him no use to think of home; the familiarity of the grim, rain-soaked days and bitterly chilled nights, empty and hollow in their loneliness.

Everything here is so foreign to him, so alien: there is warmth in the air, the bed beneath him is soft and his skin is painted with a thin sheen of sweat, it is making him soft, his mind losing it’s resolve. He longs for the harsh chill, to shake some will-power and determination back into himself. There is only a thread – one single strand of gossamer – that remains hanging on, tying him to his

Finally, the morning breaks and the shadow flee, seeping into the cracks in the ancient walls. Hux dresses mechanically but without his usual precision, a wrinkle or two still persisting at his elbow. Before he is able to eat more than a single bite of his breakfast - an overly sweet fruit with pale, delicate skin, and swallow down a mouthful of a honey-like nectar - Hux is summoned to Princess Rey’s chambers, to prepare her for the day.

As soon as he arrives, a jewel-encrusted brush is forced into his hands and he dutifully steps behind Princess Rey’s slender figure. In the reflection, her expression is prickly and her dark eyes examine him intently. Hux’s gut lurches uncomfortably, as if he’s aboard a space-cruiser; what a spoiled brat, unable to see the unimaginable privilege she has, the power that lies in her lap.

(It’s not because those eyes are so close and yet not the ones Hux finds that he wants upon his skin. Most definitely not.)

The brush catches in a snarl of hair, as fearsome as it’s mistress, and Hux yanks without thinking, pent up energy spilling into his hands.

‘Careful!’ Princess Rey snarls as one of her other handmaiden’s steps to his side and neatly plucks the paddle brush from his hand before Hux is even able to form a thought.

The Princess is on her feet in a moment, the silver of the foil she uses in her fencing lessons a mere flash before Hux’s weary eyes. He only has the reaction speed and the energy to recoil back sluggishly and Princess Rey’s hand closes around his chin, pincher-like, holding him in place.

He’s trapped – a grub wiggling beneath a microscope.

‘What is the matter, Lus?’ She asks, her gaze roaming his face. Hux must once again look into those eyes.

So close and yet…

‘I didn’t sleep well, your highness,’ he says, each word tasting like bile. It hurts, to admit such weakness, but Hux is already realising how much he must sacrifice for the mission. He bows his head, not quite in submission but a kind of shadow of it.

He really does feel sick now, the weakness clambering at the back of his throat.

‘Why didn’t you say so? We’re all allowed sick days here. Take the rest of the morning off and feel better soon, Lus,’ she says, her eyes sparkling – brimming with kindness and gentle understanding when he deserves neither of these things. Even with her foil at her side, her hand is warm and gentle upon his face.

She’s touching his skin. Hux can’t remember…

‘Swear to me that you’ll rest. I get the feeling that I shall be in need of your wit at the dinner tonight.’ She laughs with such force that her eyes crinkle at the edges and she dislodges several rollers that a second handmaiden has neatly coiled into her hair.

Princess Rey certainly cuts an intimidating figure, even if Hux has to stifle a laugh at her naivety – not everyone can be (nor deserves to be) saved, despite her noble intentions. She is almost the same as the caricature of the Republic that Hux has been fed since he was a small boy, with skinned knees and grey woollen shorts; righteous and sickeningly full of goodness.

The pillow is a wall of welcoming coolness and Hux sighs as he feels himself sink into it; he’s getting far too accustomed to this excessive softness. And yet, even as his body begs him for rest, it eludes him.

Failure, the stench of it, keeps his mind achingly awake. Still, he rationalises, at the very least he has convinced the Princess that he is some sort of slow-witted fool.

And when he finally does sleep, Hux’s rest is not peaceful. He is plagued by a dream, that makes him twist and yank at the sheets in confusion, gasping and breathless, pulse leaping in his throat as sweat beads on his skin.

Dark eyes like endless pools, the strange creatures of emotion swimming beneath their surface. Dark whirls of hair, unruly and untamed. Broad, strong hands that reach out toward him.

Their touch is a pomegranate seed - sweet but temporary - that much he knows. It will doom him.

He wakes, flustered and painfully hard, the dark claws of the not-quite-nightmare letting him slip through their clutches.

***

If Hux had thought the council chambers to be ostentatious, then the ballroom is truly sickening. He has never wished for dark, sleek minimalism more than he does now – shining durasteel surfaces and cold impersonal technology. Even his father’s stuffy study would be a pleasant change, archaic wallpaper, dusty tombs and all.

Everything is bright, in a warm and welcoming way that is just as cloying as the odour and taste of the blossom wine they are liberally serving. They don’t even have the decency to display the vintage, although Hux is sure that it must certainly be impressive. What is the point, after all, to having wealth if not to use it to your own betterment? To raise yourself above others and make them remember their place?

‘Ugh, it’s disgusting,’ Rey says, the very stuff sparkling away happily in the elegant, flower-like flute. ‘Here, Lus, you take it. You could use loosening up a bit.’

Before he knows it, the foul stuff is passed into Hux’s hands and he is faced with an expectant look from Princess Rey. While Hux and the other servants still where their usual pale, flowing robes, Princess Rey and the other elite are wearing colourful robes, made of material so light that it floats around their bodies like a cloud.

It makes Hux long for home, as if he needs anything more to make him feel out of place; for the practical and, most importantly, impersonal lines of a good, well-tailored uniform designed for action rather than for beauty. To shine his standardised boots, favouring the spots where they pinched his feet.

Still, whenever Princess Rey looks away, Hux can’t help but crane his neck to look around the room, his eyes searching for something he can’t even help to admit to himself.

It’s for the good of the mission and nothing more. Nothing.

Princess Rey seems unimpressed by the affair too but for different reasons than Hux. A few polite people – from wealthy families, politicians, military leaders – try to engage her in conversation but she is stand-offish and seemingly bored by their attempts. Hux burns with it, right there amongst the ethereal music, the scent of fresh fruit and the twinkling lights as day slips into evening, slips into night.

His father never allowed him to attend the rare dinner parties they held or were invited to; he was also unafraid of telling Hux exactly why not. The embarrassment. The weakness. The illegitimate child.

Rey has everything he had ever desired and yet she denies it, throws it away like trash. She could network; she’s beautiful and Hux won’t deny that she’s intelligent (at least, in some areas), she could have the Galaxy at her feet by now. But, more than anything, Rey being invested in the political affairs of the state would be an easy way for Hux to glean valuable information. After all, it’s not as if he can ask these people himself; he’s a good enough spy to know that much.

Soon enough, Hux catches his first glimpse of the Queen. Leia sits at the head of the table, her face painted in a mirror of Rey’s, her hair hidden beneath the heavy orb of the crown – like the disc of the sun, its golden surface reflecting the twinkling lights of the candles. Her robes look heavier too, the fabric a rich deep red that reminds Hux of home, inlaid with precious threads of gold that are embroidered into delicate patterns.

‘First, I wish to welcome all of you.’ A mummer goes up around the room and a few people raise their glasses, sending up a flurry of floral scent into the air. ‘This dinner is for all of us but most of all, it is for our people. Since our last gathering, we have managed

‘Don’t pretend that you care about them!’ A familiar voice bursts forth, low and outraged; Kylo is like the oncoming storm, his crimson robes billowing around him. The dainty glasses tremble on the table, the fruit turning brown as if a storm really is blooming on the horizon. Hux’s gaze flicks to the sloping windows but outside the evening is fine and clear. ‘You let them rot in their idleness, like fruit waiting to be picked over by flies.’ Around the table, porcelain clatters from the impact of dropped morsels of food. ‘You allow yourselves to be taken advantage of by them! To grow weaker, day by day even as our enemies grow stronger! You are leading them to their destruction like willing cattle!’

‘Enough!’ Beside him, Rey erupts out of her seat like her own force of nature. ‘Be quiet, Ben. Before you make even more of a fool of yourself.’

‘That’s not my name!’ Kylo snarls back, his teeth-bared like a wild animal. Beneath the thick layers of his robe, Hux can see the way his great, powerful chest rises and falls with each gasping breath.

‘And you’re not my brother anymore!’ Rey cries out, slamming her palm onto the table. ‘I want to talk to Ben. I want to take his hand. I want to help him.’

‘Ben Amidala is dead.’ Kylo grits out, his eyes like granite.

‘Stop this madness!’ Leia finally interjects, her eyes looking wildly between her two children. ‘Both of you!’

‘Leia!’ The siblings are united at last, turning toward their Queen in echoes of frustration and anger.

Leia’s face twitches, the first crack in her formidable armour that Hux has seen. Interesting. It peaks Hux’s attention more than anything in the last couple of days; it’s insignificant enough to be important. Both children calling her Leia rather than mother, the obvious pain that inflicts upon her…

Hux stows it away for later.

‘Sio,’ Leia fumbles for her flute, her voice tired. ‘I believe you would like to make a speech.’

While the old man heaves himself to his feet, Princess Rey sits back down, her shoulders tight and drawn up to her shoulders. Kylo, on the other hand, slams his palm into the table once more – making the remaining fruit jump in place – before storming away. Hux watches the stiff line of his retreating back.

Nobody mentions what had happened but the tension is pulled as tightly as the string on a harp. Rey’s shoulders remain stiff throughout the rest of the speeches by various dignitaries and members of state, and Queen Leia seems preoccupied.

Hux tries not to examine his feelings about Kylo’s return, or lack thereof. Why should it concern him either way?

‘Lus,’ Rey says, her voice tightly restrained as the next politician, this time from near Gungan territory, gets to his feet. ‘Could you get my fan from my quarters?’

‘Of course,’ Hux says, bowing slightly. It’s difficult to keep the relief from flooding his voice; he’s been trying to look for an excuse, an opening, to get away all evening. After all, what better time to search for information when everyone – servants and all – are gathered away from the main palace.

The rest of the palace is plunged in darkness but blessedly cool, for once. Hux navigates the darkened hallways with more practised ease, brushing along the rough stone walls with the fingertips of his hand like he had done as a child, during that short time he had lived in the servants’ quarters of Hux manor with his mother. Brendol had not allowed them power at night and, as nights on Arkanis were equally harsh no matter the season, he had quickly become used to the darkness.

It's easy enough to find the Royal quarters belonging to Queen Leia and King Solo, and they’re thankfully silent and empty, allowing Hux’s chest to loosen just a little. The quarters manage to be somehow even grander than the rest of the palace and assault even more of Hux’s senses; the ceiling is somehow even higher, vaulted with clear glass right in the top so that the room appears to go on and on into space, the future is all guilded with delicate looking gold leaf, padded with plush, intricate fabrics.

The bed is a sprawling, four-poster affair, so large that it resembles a great, ancient tree that has forced its way through the centre of the marble floor more than a simple piece of furniture. In contrast, it takes Hux a few moments to spot the wooden bureau and so he heads over to it.

After all, something of real importance would never be left in plain sight, and in such an overcrowded room, there’s no space left for invisibility.

The drawers are stiff, locked with padlocks that are no-doubt centuries old. Hux’s mechanical lockpick, is though, state of the art and he manages to open them without too much trouble. Each and every sound seems a hundred times louder; Hux has to stop himself from jumping at each creak or distant sound of chatter, half-expecting to be discovered at any second.

Inside, there’s stacks and stacks of disordered paper, as if it had been shoved in hastily; Hux isn’t sure that he’s seen so much parchment together in his life. It’s all a bit much and Hux grunts in frustration; it’s not as if he’d been naïve enough to expect the Amidala’s to keep their secrets of national importance neatly labelled and filed, but well… maybe he had…

Hux is no filing clerk, after all.

He’s about to give up when his eyes catch on a document with what appears to be the careful lines of schematics drawn onto it. Hux pulls it out, disturbing the pile of documents atop it. It’s not exactly what he’d been searching for – no damning dirt on the Royal family themselves – but anything will be of assistance to his father. He takes quick scans of the information before carefully closing the drawer and sealing the lock back into place.

Quickly, Hux straightens his jacket, flicks a speck of lint from the crease of his elbow, and marches back towards his own quarters. He makes sure to avoid the other servants gaze and keep his back ramrod straight, as if they might be able to look into his mind and find evidence of what he’s done, what he’s found and now what he’s going to do with it.

Before he’d left, General Pryde and his cloying, musty aftershave, had shown Hux how to use the palm-sized transmitter, which would be able send the information back to the First Order.

‘All you need is a good signal,’ Pryde had explained, speaking so painfully slowly that Hux truly thought he might fall asleep, as if Pryde thought Hux entirely incompetent. ‘You will need to find somewhere that is not obstructed by any buildings or anything else that could block the signal.’

So, Hux clambers out of his window and onto the roof on unsteady limbs, the transmitter hidden away in the palm of his hand. The blood thrums through his veins, in equal measures from the fear of slipping and falling to his death as being caught.

There’s a small hollow where two different sections of the roof meet and Hux hunkers down there, wedging his body into the gap. It only takes moments to upload the scans onto the transmitter and enter the co-ordinates that are tattooed into his mind. Hux even allows himself to feel the smallest slip of satisfaction at the act, imagining the look of pride on his father’s pallid face.

‘Lus?’

Hux freezes, his hands jerking to a stop around the transmitter, so hard that he hears it crunch in protest.

The voice is achingly familiar. He swallows thickly, shoving the transmitter back into his pocket with fumbling hands, as if he was really trying to coax them back to life again.  

When he turns to look, the Prince looks less out of place than Hux would have expected, scrambling deftly across the roof in a dressed-down version of his royal robes. The headdress is gone and all that’s left of the makeup are some dark smudges around Kylo’s eyes, making them look even deeper set than usual. His long, jet-black hair looks almost wild, freed from the confines of the headdress, falling in a heap over one shoulder.

It makes something hot spread through Hux’s veins.

‘Call me Armitage,’ Hux says quietly, his pulse jumping in his neck. His stomach turns at the sound of that name, although he’s not sure why. Maybe he’s just not used to the difference. Still, there’s a feeling twisting up inside of his stomach, hot and desperate, that makes him want to tell Kylo. He can’t understand it.

‘Armitage?’ Kylo says, as if the word is a kind of wine instead of a name. ‘So, your AH is…?’ He gestures, with one of his great paws that he passes off as hands, towards Hux’s torso.

‘My mother,’ Hux says quickly, without thinking. ‘Hux. It was her maiden name.’

It’s not as if he necessarily suspects that Kylo would recognise it but still, he can never be too careful. 

Kylo sits down beside him, tucking his knees to his chest so that he can pillow his chin on them. Suddenly, Hux is struck by how small Kylo looks, how young and unburdened, tucked up against the slant of centuries old tiles. Centuries of his family’s history, Hux realises with a start. And, no matter Hux’s thoughts on the matter or the low opinion he may hold of this history, it still must be a lot for Kylo to bear.

Hux has no such qualms; his father has made it perfectly clear that he will never be his heir, in more than, grudgingly, name, at least. Hux’s heart sets alight, once again, with the desire to succeed in this mission. 

‘Tell me about her,’ Kylo says suddenly, breaking the tentative and yet, somehow, comfortable silence that has settled heavily between them. ‘Your mother.’

The pain is as swift as a knife wound and Hux bleeds just as much.

‘Why should I?’ He bites back, giving Kylo a sharp look. It’s like he’s watching himself from a distance, unable to control what he’s doing.

‘Kriff, what’s wrong with you?’ Kylo says, rearing his head back. Hux can’t help but watch the tick of Kylo’s jaw as he tenses it and the heavy slope of his brow. Kylo’s expressions are like a maelstrom, his emotions writ in heavy hands across every plane and rise of his face. ‘Can’t I ask a simple question?’

Just like clouds across the sun, all of the softness in Kylo’s face is gone. Hux almost finds himself missing the warmth of the sunshine on his skin.

‘You have no right,’ he says slowly, staring down at the tiles beneath his feet instead of Kylo. ‘You have no right to ask anything of me. You don’t own me. I’m not beneath you simply because…,’ his voice catches in his throat and Hux realises, with a pang, that he’s about to cry if he’s not careful.

Without a backwards glance, Hux swiftly gets to his feet and retreats across the roof, focused on the feeling of the smooth tiles against his palms.

‘Lus! Wait, Lus! I’m-‘ but whatever else Kylo has to say is lost to the night sky, as Hux slips back inside.

***

It turns out that it’s rather difficult to avoid a Prince, especially one who is evidently used to getting his own way. But, Hux does his best.

The next few weeks are painful. Their gazes meet across the dinner table, when Hux is stood awkwardly at Princess Rey’s elbow, should she need a new napkin or want the dish of roasted root vegetables passed or any other equally insipid task. They pass each other in the corridors, Hux ferrying trays of afternoon tea back and forth while Kylo goes off to do… whatever it is he does. Hux tries not to think about it too much. The memory of Kylo’s shoulder brushing his own is enough.

Kylo seems to make a speech at every major event hosted by the palace, much to the evident distress or even open disgust of whichever one of his family members is present; most often Princess Rey or the Queen, but even the King on one single (although memorable) occasion.

Even worse than being subjected to Kylo’s presence though, is the undeniable fact that the more Hux hears of Kylo’s ideas the more he is… well… convinced. Not of the correctness of Kylo’s principles, because he’s known them since the moment he was born, but of Kylo’s faith in these principles. Hux is sure that Kylo fully believes in the things that he says, so at odds with what his family and the rest of the Republic believe, that it seems to good to be true.

How could Hux have anything in common with any of these people? He resolves to get the mission over with so that he can return home as swiftly as possible, his head held high and these confusing thoughts well and truly buried.

So, he decides after a few slow weeks, to change his plan of attack.  He’s heard nothing from his father nor the rest of the First Order, so Hux can only hope that he managed to send the information.

All of this finds him in the palace kitchen, helping the servants to prepare Princess Rey’s afternoon tea spread.

‘Out of interest,’ Hux says, as he loads up a tray with tiny sandwiches and cakes that resemble clouds, ‘and not that I’m trying to fluff up my position or anything, but, which of the twins is set to inherit the crown?’

‘You shouldn’t ask such things,’ the man bows his head, as if embarrassed for Hux’s sake.

Hux smiles, wanly, trying to look as brainless as possible.

‘If I were to wager,’ the servant bites out, as if the words are liable to do him damage. ‘I should bet it all on Princess Rey. While she is not perfect, she has many of the qualities we think to be important in a Monarch. Surely, she will make great changes on Naboo and throughout the Republic.’

‘Rey,’ Hux splutters. ‘But she’s… she’s idealistic! Delusional! To think that the masses should be able to govern themselves… it’s… preposterous!’

‘Don’t speak of your mistress like that,’ the servant admonishes, softly. ‘But, yes, she is. Look at the history of our Monarchs. We hold all of those qualities – the clarity that comes from such purity – very dearly. To make decisions, surely the Monarch must believe in the essential goodness of all beings.’

They are far too kind and gentle with him, as if they can forgive most transgressions or strange behaviours because they know he is new, untested and alien to this place. It’s as if they wish him to succeed and Hux can barely bite back the snarl that’s forming across the bow of his lips; it makes him angry, Hux realises, that these people treat him so well.

It's not right, not right at all, Hux thinks even though he can’t help but preen a little; it’s totally undeserved and yet he can’t help but think that he’s always been deserving of it, really.

‘Thank you,’ Hux manages to bite out, after a pause that he knows has been far too long, turning to take the laden tray up to the Princesses’ rooms.

He wants to dismiss the thought entirely, the very idea of it is preposterous, but Hux can’t seem to stop turning it over in his head. Rey? The heir to the throne? The Republic would crumble if it’s citizens were given even more power, if they were not kept in check.

It's only a servant’s opinion anyway, Hux reasons as he steps carefully into Rey’s quarters. He glances over to where she’s sat at the table and promptly freezes, rooted to the spot as the cakes and sandwiches wobble precariously in his grasp.

‘Over here please, Lus,’ Rey says, seemingly unaware of Hux’s insides slowly turning inside out.

In the chair across from her, Kylo’s dark hair is mostly tamed into an intricate braid that wraps around the crown of his head but his eyes are as sharp and unreadable as ever, trained on Hux’s face as if… expecting something. The tension in Hux’s chest snaps tight.

Hux puts the tray down as quickly as he can, hands trembling and with a hasty bow, retreats out of the room.

Of course, though, it could never be that easy. He can hear the steady beat of footsteps behind him, the feeling of eyes on the back of his neck fizzing down his spine, and Hux realises that he’s not going to be allowed to escape this time. He turns sharply, instead of heading back to the kitchen, he slips inside an empty room, allocated for any guests who might come to stay; Hux doesn’t want to have to do this somewhere that anyone else might overhear.

Kylo follows him inside and they simply look at each other for a moment, a few paces apart, neither quite sure of the other.

‘What do you want?’ Hux says finally, deciding to speak plainly. He’s sick to the back of his teeth with all of this grovelling, this pretence. ‘Why are you following me?’

‘You’re different,’ Kylo says quietly, his eyes downcast.

Hux can’t stop the sputter of laughter that burst unbidden from his chest. ‘I should hope so!’

He tries, for a moment, to imagine life as one of them but his stomach protests in disgust; his very being cannot fathom it. Being like Egav, living his life under the rule of the Republic, is near unimaginable. Living without that itch for power, for more, instead his greatest worries being finding a suitable partner, settling down.

It's enough to send a shiver of revulsion up his spine. He leans a little closer to Kylo, without entirely meaning to.

‘You make me so kriffing angry. You challenge me on everything, you tell me I’m wrong when I’m very obviously right! Frankly, you’re kind of an asshole, Lus.’

Hux laughs despite himself and their shoulders brush for one searing moment. ‘A comforting lie. Children often tell themselves such things.’

‘You’re not afraid of me.’

Oh.

‘Everyone else is too afraid of me to… treat me normally. They never say it but I can see it in their eyes, in the things they don’t say. It’s like they’re scared of upsetting me as if I’m… as if I’m some kind of… monster.’ Kylo’s voice gets quieter and quieter as he speaks and Hux’s gaze is drawn to his face by some kind of morbid curiosity.

A muscle in Kylo’s jaw ticks, clenching, and when he speaks again, Kylo’s voice is hard with barely restrained anger. ‘Just because I don’t agree with their small-minded view of the Galaxy. Maybe I should give them something to be afraid of.’

A shiver runs through him; Hux can’t help but imagine exactly what that would be like. In his imagination, Kylo stands taller, unburdened by the constraints of the Republic. His robes are dark, as inky-black as the void of space, billowing around his form with his face as a pale, contrasting smear of gouache. Kylo’s arms flex powerfully beneath the swirling fabric but most of all, Hux’s attention is drawn by Kylo’s eyes. Dark, determined.

Kylo would be so powerful, Hux thinks, chilled to his very bones. It’s as if he has been blind all along to the very thing he should have noticed, too preoccupied with the fire Kylo stokes in him to see their kinship; Kylo shares the same hunger that he does, it eats away at him until he is but flesh and bone, rotten and empty inside begging for more to satiate him.

Power is not exactly something that Kylo lacks; all his life he has been the crown-prince of the most powerful and influential planet in the Republic. No matter Hux’s personal opinions of the Republic’s so-called power, it was not something to be sniffed at. Having all of the Galaxy’s people as a captive audience, a seat on the council as soon as he’d come of age as well as fleets of servants who bowed and grovelled and acquiesced to his every wish.

And yet, Kylo still obviously wanted more.

Hux sucks in a shaky breath. He feels warm all over, his skin faintly buzzing with energy, like electricity, hyper-aware of the slightest movement of Kylo and yet also dull to the rest of the world, the Galaxy. Like they are the only two beings whose hearts beat beneath a thicket of ribs.

‘Maybe you should,’ Hux says, a quiet sound that slips past dry lips. He wets them with a nervous dart of his tongue, finally glancing up to meet Kylo’s dark gaze. It feels like treason, even if it would be nothing of the sort back at home.

‘See!’ Kylo replies, jerking suddenly into Hux’s space. ‘You’re different! Anyone else would pretend I hadn’t said anything. Well, except Rey, she would tell me I was being rotten.’

‘I can hardly tell you that you’re right, can I? You’d be far too pleased with yourself. It’d be unbearable,’ Hux laughs, trying not to think about how easily he falls into teasing with Kylo. He should be more careful, should know better, after all.

Kylo grunts, shoving at Hux’s shoulder. Hux supposes it was meant to be playful – but then who can really tell with Kylo – but it’s strong enough to fling him to one side. There’s a protest burning on the tip of his tongue and a twin hot flush of anger colouring his cheeks, while Kylo’s overlarge palm lingers on the hinge of Hux’s shoulder; the heat of his palm seems to burn through Hux’s thin, servants’ robes, scorching the skin beneath.

‘It’s almost like you’re not from the Republic. I’ve never met anyone like you.’

Hux freezes, his heart stuttering in his chest.

***

Hux comes back to life all at once, like a puppet being picked up by its puppeteer. He feels flushed, his skin covered in a sheen of sweat, the sheets twisted up in his palms and the dream sliding out of his mind like water through his fingers.

All he’s left with is snatches of memory and the strange warmth in his chest; large hands bracketing his hips, a well-muscled chest littered with jewel, each like a spiralling constellation, pressed harshly against his own. Sensations, like echoes, of running his fingers hungrily through long hair, each strand as soft as spun silk against the pads of his fingers. Tugging it free with the confines of it’s strange, rolled hairstyle with a hot kind of fury. Pressing his mouth to the hinge of a strong jaw and inhaling…

He gets up with a start. What’s gotten into him recently?

Hux dresses with a kind of military precision he hasn’t practised since he left Arkanis. It’s just a kind of softness, he reasons with himself as he carefully slicks his hair into place Everything can be conquered with order, with discipline.

‘Oh, Lus. There you are!’ Princess Rey is bright-eyed, dressed in her training tunic, with a healthy flush to her skin that suggests she just come back from her morning run. Because, of course she has. ‘There’s going to be a guest visiting, could you get the guestbook from the library for him to sign? Mum and Dad have gone to greet him at the spaceport.’

A guest so important that the Queen and King themselves would go to collect him? Hux’s mind is racing with the possibilities, but also, the possibilities of information gathering to be had from the royal library.

‘Of course, your highness,’ he says, nodding his head obediently.

The library is in a separate part of the palace and so Hux has to duck out into the building heat of the day, to skirt around the grand fountain and thankfully back into the shade of the library. It’s been locked up since he’d arrived but today, perhaps in anticipation of Hux’s visit, the ancient door opens with only a little squeak of protest when he tries it.

Inside, even the air seems to be covered with a thick layer of dust and after a few disastrous lungful’s, Hux carefully covers his mouth with his sleeve. And then, as he’s getting used to his surroundings, something catches Hux’s eye.

A parchment, fixed to the wall but half-hidden behind a tottering

***

The information burns as much of a hole in his pocket as it does in his brain. He can’t help but turn the image over and over, the weight of the data rod like an anchor.

Old and wrinkled, as if from before time itself, and yet the parchment still bore its mark; ancient curling script in some kind of ink as dark as the great empty depths of the galaxy. Leia Amidala had almost looked like artwork rather than simply a name and next to her, Han Solo. Beneath them both had been a single stroke, only one branch connecting them; Kylo Amidala.

It’s true, then, what Hux had suspected; Kylo was the true heir, the only heir. The pride, the self-satisfaction feels warm in Hux’s chest as he hurries through the palace; he truly allows himself to feel the swell of victory for the first time, chasing away the lingering doubts of his own capabilities that dance like shadows in the back of his mind.

It’s almost over, after all. What could go wrong now?

The day seems to drag, on and on, with endless menial tasks until finally Princess Rey dismisses him. His feet feel light and swift, the anticipation carrying him across the lawn more than the tred of his feet. Hux pulls the thin, durasteel transmitter out of his pocket, sliding the switch on the side until it flashes orange, ready to transmit. It’s not like he hadn’t believed himself capable of it - of finding the information out – but still the relief feels like a rush to his head. There’s surely no way that his father can pick holes in his achievement this time.

Shakily, he readies the transmitter as he slips further out into the grounds, passed the barrier provided by the winding hedge maze. There’s not only better signal here, further from the overbearing shadow of the house, but also the most protection he can afford – with the hedges hiding him from sight.

Hux sets the transmitter into the flat of his palm-

‘Lus!’

Hux whirls around, heart pounding, to see the unmistakable figure of Kylo, approaching from the direction of the city below. He crams the transmitter back into his pocket, shuffling his hand to cover it.

‘Ren,’ he manages, clearing his throat. ‘What are you doing out here?’

‘I could ask you the same thing,’ Kylo says and even in the half-light, Hux can see the way his lips curve up easily into a smile. ‘But tonight I’ve been thinking-‘

‘That sounds dangerous,’ Hux says before he can stop himself, swiping his tongue across his dry lips. Kylo brings forth his very worst impulses but Hux can’t find it in himself to be

Kylo grunts but otherwise seems to ignore Hux’s comment, instead staring up at the sky, his hands clasped behind his back.

He’s dressed down compared to the other dignitaries, wearing what looks like only the lower, base layers – a long, flowing, crimson tunic that cinches around Kylo’s broad waist, a matching pair of crimson pants and discordantly, a pair of bulky, leather military boots. They make Hux wish for his own pair of jackboots, left in his storage locker back at the manor.

‘I’ve been thinking about all of it: my mother and father, Rey, the Republic. All of it. It doesn’t make sense, there’s no point in any of it. I should just… I should just give it all up.’ Kylo’s jaw tightens, muscles shifting beneath the skin.

Suddenly, the wind whips up around them, tousling Hux’s hair. He curls in on himself without realising, wrapping his arms around his chest as if he can hold in the warmth, too busy focusing on Kylo’s words. They make no sense; this isn’t the Kylo he knows, or as it seems now, thought he’d known.

‘I don’t know what’s happening to me,’ Kylo says, his voice wavering. ‘I feel like I’m losing control, like there’s… there’s something…,’ he grunts, scuffing his shoe across the floor. In the distance, there’s a crash, as if something has shattered.

Hux hadn’t even noticed the storm rolling in, in fact the sky had been clear and the weather balmy before he’d started talking to Kylo, but it must be getting pretty severe.

‘Ren…,’ Hux starts before Kylo cuts over him, his eyes screwed closed.

‘I really thought I could change their opinion… I thought that I could… no matter what they think of me… that I could change their opinion. That I could show them… oh kriff!’ Hux can feel that his own face is crumpled in confusion and he makes a point to flatten it back into neutrality. But Kylo is hardly making any sense.

‘I’ve been seeing visions, Lus.’ Kylo turns to him, his eyes wide and wild. In an instant, the wind drops, but Hux hardly notices.

‘Visions?’ The words feel as delicate as a snowflake in his mouth.

‘Kriff,’ Kylo stumbles to his knees, rocking backwards until he’s sitting on the grass. Without thinking, Hux crouches to join him. ‘I don’t know what I’m saying. Maybe I’m…,’ he wets his lips and Hux waits for him to continue but no words come.

Silence stretches between them, an endless void that leaves them as two lone planets, spinning on their own axis. Hux risks a glance at Kylo’s face before looking down at his own hands, still slim but his palms now roughened with work.

‘I think you’re right,’ Hux finds himself saying into the distance between them, pushing the words from his body. ‘I agree with your ideas.’

The worst part though, is that Hux realises it wasn’t entirely a lie created just to keep his tentative alliance with Kylo. Of all the people that Hux has met here, Kylo seems to be the one with the most vision, the most sensible ideas.

There’s a beat of silence before Kylo replies. ‘You do?’

‘The Republic has been too complacent for too long, unworried about the threats growing within it’s very boarders. Well, that’s my opinion at least,’ Hux says, a little wryly. After all, there’s nobody that knows the truth in his statement more than himself. ‘But I believe in you too, you’ll be a fine ruler.’

Kriff. Hux blinks, not quite registering what had come out of his mouth for a second

‘You…,’ Kylo seems just as shocked as Hux does, leaning a little closer as if to catch a hint of a lie in Hux’s face, ‘You really think that?’

For a moment, Hux can’t even speak. He’s vaguely aware that his mouth is moving - hanging open like a Bantha’s at feeding time – but Hux can’t quite get his mind to string together a few words, let alone a sentence. Maybe it’s the intensity in Kylo’s eyes, maybe it’s how close they’re sitting now, maybe it’s the energy that seems to be crackling between them, like a physical force; Hux isn’t sure but it’s stopped his train of thought straight in its tracks.

‘Yes,’ he breathes. He finds his gaze drawn to Kylo’s lips, the gentle bow of them, the enticing warmth. ‘I do.’

Time seems to slow down as Kylo leans in closer and Hux can hardly breathe. Kylo is looking at him, his gaze is intense, like he can see down to the very marrow of Hux’s bones. The energy that’s been building between them fizzes and sparks, as if it is alive.

They’re mere inches apart, Hux can feel Kylo’s breath – warm and steady – on his skin and he aches with it. He’s not sure what he wants except that he burns, he aches with it, with the need for Kylo like nothing else before – no food, no war, no glory. Just Kylo.

‘Can I?’ It’s almost funny (but Hux thinks it would rather break the mood if he were to laugh) how nervous Kylo seems; the same Kylo who had commanded the whole of the assembly hall with such confidence, seeming so shy.

‘Please,’ Hux finds himself saying, as if he is asking for nothing more than a refill of tarine tea rather than…

A kiss from Kylo Ren, the crown prince of Naboo.

Before he can breathe, Kylo’s lips are pressed tentatively to his own. There’s a long, stretched out moment before either of them moves and the air around them seems to crackle with static. Hux isn’t quite sure what to believe anymore; he feels like a bug, a big, round beetle, caught beneath the glare of a magnifying glass, squirming under the sheer weight of Kylo’s scrutiny, his undivided attentions.

They’re both obviously nervous and so Hux gathers his wits, forcing his shoulders to relax from the tight stance they’d forced themselves into, and moves his lips against Kylo’s, letting his mouth open freely. It’s ungainly; their teeth click together, their noses bump and Hux isn’t quite sure what to do with his hands, letting them rove between Kylo’s hair and the hinge of his jaw as if petting an overlarge dog.

When Kylo puts one of his big hands on Hux’s face, though, cradling it gently as his fingers span across Hux’s cheek, Hux forgets how to breathe let alone how to worry about his technique. Kylo’s mouth is warm and pliant, and Hux finds himself sighing against Kylo’s lips.

Without thinking, Hux leans forwards, grabbing fistfuls of the soft fabric of Kylo’s tunic across his broad chest, anchoring him to the spot.

‘I need,’ he’s saying, the words hardly registering in his own head as his own. ‘I need, I need…’

He can’t explain it any more than that, he needs Kylo so badly it hurts; he needs those broad hands, those strong arms, that muscular stomach, that commanding voice…

‘Yeah,’ Kylo says, having the audacity to smirk as if he is unsurprised that Hux, that anyone, would be so wanton for him.

‘Kriff,’ Hux groans, unknotting his hands from Kylo’s tunic. ‘Just get on with it.’

‘Get these off first,’ Kylo says, his hands tugging at the shoulders of Hux’s jacket.

They’re a tangle of impatient limbs, greedily unwrapping each other until both of them are naked, droves of unmarred skin to explore. Hux pushes his hands beneath the mane of Kylo’s hair, his fingers tangling in the soft, hidden strands right at the nape of Kylo’s neck. Kylo’s own deft fingers trace Hux’s skin, down the narrow expanse of his chest to the taper of his waist, and Hux feels like his veins are alight, every nerve ending ablaze wherever Kylo touches him.

The moonlight paints Kylo in such a delicate, almost ethereal light; it slues across the strong line of his shoulders, painting in his broad strokes of shadow and porcelain. Hux can’t tear his gaze away, Kylo fills his every sense; he’s entirely enchanting.

‘Let me touch you,’ Kylo says and then does the unthinkable. Through the limp, sweaty strands of his bangs, Kylo glances down into Hux’s face and says, ‘please.’

It’s ground-shattering, planet-destroying; as if Hux is at the button of some great weapon. And where Kylo’s vocabulary has apparently broadened to include the word please, Hux’s seems to have contracted quite severely because all he can manage is a whining, pathetic:

‘Yes, yes I want.’

Despite what Hux is sure must be a pitiful sight, Kylo’s hand dips lower, taking a moment to pet at the fine hair on the insides of Hux’s thighs before travelling to their apex. And finally, finally Kylo’s touching him. His palm is rough and he strokes Hux with a sure, steady grip that has him canting his hips in a shallow echo of Kylo’s pace, dredging a thin whimper from the cavernous depths of Hux’s chest.

He doesn’t last long, the heat and tension that’s been building inside of him breaking like the midsummer humidity storms on Arkanis, and he comes with a moan over Kylo’s hands. Kylo groans, low and guttural, as his thrusts grow more and more unsteady. Then, he tenses for a moment before his body shudders and relaxes, as he comes in shuddering ropes.

‘Lus!’ The shout is half-muffled by Kylo’s own fist, shoved haphazardly into his mouth, the knuckles white from the force of Kylo’s teeth.

The very sound of it, though, is enough to turn Hux’s blood to ice. Suddenly, the pleasure is all gone. Hux isn’t used to the feeling of remorse, it’s cumbersome weight in his gut, but he feels it now. It’s ridiculous, a small part of a much larger lie, and yet Hux knows, much more intimately damaging.

Hux catches his breath. In his pocket something beeps and Hux realises that the transmitter has done its job, even through his clothes; he’d forgotten all about it.

‘We can’t stay out here,’ Kylo says, wrapping one large, warm paw around Hux’s upper-arm. ‘Come back to my rooms.’

Hux swallows, nodding his consent and they manage to get to their feet. The palace has fallen silent as they slip inside, not even any servants flitting around the shadowy corridors. Still, Hux’s heart hammers in his chest, jumping at the slightest of sounds; the rustle of clothes, the creaking of a door.

Even once he’s wrapped up beneath the thick furs that adorn Kylo’s bed, Hux still feels the chill of the outdoors.

As if sensing it, Kylo rolls closer, his overlarge body spooning up behind Hux. He tries not to think about anything, about what he’s done, as if Kylo will be able to pluck the thoughts right out from his head.

‘Ren,’ he grits out, eyes still screwed so tightly closed that he can see stars. It feels like a dream.

Kylo hums his ascent and Hux aches at how soft and sleep he sounds.

‘I… I need to tell you something,’ Hux says slowly, the words sticking in his throat. ‘I haven’t been… entirely truthful with you. ‘My name… my name isn’t Lus. I’m Hux, Armitage Hux.’ He stares blankly forwards, towards the opposite wall, as he speaks.

Kylo is silent for a moment, the only sounds filling the room is their breathing. ‘Why would you do that?’ Kylo asks, voice blank, and Hux realises.

He’d thought, obviously presumptuously, that Kylo would have recognised the name, at least. The Hux’s had been high ranking members of the Arkanis military for centuries, fighting in many great battles, his father had been a greatly successful General with the Empire, how could…

He tamps down on the anger and starts to explain, the whole thing; piece by piece, letting it escape into the silent, midnight air. He’s not even quite sure why he’s doing it. It certainly comes from his feeble emotions, a misplaced sense of guilt, doing something dishonourable, but it’s more than that too. Deep down, he’s wanted to tell Kylo for a while, Hux realises. To reveal to him the glory which lays ahead, to have him as an ally.

The crown prince of Naboo fighting with the First Order; Hux’s pulse quivers in his veins at the very thought, the thought of his father’s face.

He knows too, as much as he knows his own lust for power, for status, that there’s a twin flame that burns in Kylo’s chest, a kinship there. Kylo would fit in. He’d agree with them; he’s proved that much already.

And once it’s all said and done, once he opens his mouth and finds that there’s no more to tell, it’s like a weight has been lifted; he’s free from the secret that has plagued his every moment here and yet he’s left strangely empty, coldly waiting for Kylo’s response. And, Kylo is silent.

‘Leave.’

Hux hesitates for a moment; he wants to reach out to Kylo, he wants to retract what he said. He wants the ache in his chest to stop.

Hux gets to his feet slowly, his mind going thankfully blank. It feels like a long walk back to his room but he can’t bear to look back.

***

Hux has never felt so conflicted before. It had always seemed so easy; both to lead and to follow the instructions of his elders. He’s proved it though, he’s been doing just fine on his own and there’s the image, burned so freshly into his mind as if it had really happened; his supposed glorious return to Arkanis, his father’s sneering face, taking the credit for Hux’s work. Hux, still in the shadows.

If only Kylo, would’ve agreed to… to come with him… to join together… to something! Anything but to send him away. Still, nobody has forced their way into his room to throw him out, during the night, which can only mean one thing: Kylo has, at least, kept his secret.

Princess Rey is taking tea with one of her many tutors in the sunroom today, Hux’s mind helpfully supplies him, as he forces himself out from underneath the thick, heavy covers. Morning is already breaking, sunlight beginning to creep beneath the shutters, and Hux knows that he should leave.

He's transmitted what he knows, after all, and Kylo can’t be trusted. Except… except that Hux wants to see him again, to try to convince him. Kylo would be a powerful ally and, a traitorous voice in the back of Hux’s head supplies, maybe powerful enough to overthrow his father and the rest of his stodgy ilk. To instate Hux as the rightful leader of the First Order. He has to try, Hux resolves, but getting Kylo alone at just the right moment is going to be the challenge.

It’s fair to say that Hux’s mind is pretty cluttered when he steps into the sunroom so it takes him a few moments to realise who it is sitting in the chair opposite Princess Rey. The figure isn’t immediately recognisable anyway, an ordinary enough outline – tall and slim – and an outfit that is entirely unfamiliar to Hux, an overlong military jacket and a wide brimmed hat.

‘Will you pour a drink for our guest?’ Princess Rey prompts and Hux picks up the teapot without thinking. It’s warm against the palm of his hand but not enough to be painful, and he pours a generous amount of the tea before he even so much as glances in the direction of the guest, to ask them if they would like milk or sugar, sir.

General Pryde stares back at him, an awful smirk playing around the corner of his lips.

Hux freezes. The teacup jostles in his hands but ultimately the tea stays in its rightful place.

‘Hello, Lus,’ Pryde says, cool and even. And then, Hux knows he’s truly fucked. Why would Pryde be here if not to check in on him, and not exactly in a friendly way. Hux is reminded of the doubts he’d had before, his father taking all the glory for Hux’s own efforts, except twisted somehow into something even uglier.

He has served his purpose to them, Hux realises. There’s not even room for fear in Hux’s chest, no time to cower and hide. For all that Hux has never wanted to serve on the frontline, for all that he has been called weak-willed and a coward, one thing is certainly true: that Armitage Hux wants to live, more than anything.

Dropping the teacup is but a momentary distraction, but it’s enough.

Hux is out of the room before Pryde can even shout, weaving his way down the familiar corridors. He has the advantage here, he realises, as his legs protest at the exertion; he is familiar with his surroundings now whereas Pryde is not.

And there’s only one place where Hux knows he can go.

He’s not been to Kylo’s quarters since the night that he dispassionately refers to as, ‘that night’, but they’re still easy enough to find and thankfully close to Rey’s. He’s aware the whole way of the few other servants in the hallways glancing at him in shock but Hux ignores them, his heart thrumming in his chest. 

When he pushes his way inside, Kylo looks up immediately at the intrusion, his mouth turned up into an angry snarl before it settles into surprise once he realises who it is.

‘Ren, we have to…,’ Hux stops himself before he can continue. Kylo hasn’t actually agreed to come with him, after all, even if Hux hopes…

‘I have to get out of here. Someone from the First Order is here and he wouldn’t be for any good reasons. His military record is more impressive than mine,’ Hux says, the words coming out in a jumble. He can feel himself coming apart at the seams, adrenaline pumping through his veins. He pushes a hand through his hair, hardly daring to look at Kylo and yet unable to look away. 

‘But, I,’ he pauses, wets his lips, ‘I wanted to know if you’d come with me. The First Order have a plan, the one I told you about, to take over the Galaxy. Except, I think… we could do that. Do it better. You and me. Ruling the Galaxy side by side. You’d be a powerful ally,’ Hux adds quickly, stomach churning. It had been starting to sound too… well… 

‘I have a ship,’ Kylo says, his brows still furrowed.

Finally, he looks towards Hux as if just remembering that he’s in the room.

‘You said something about ruling the Galaxy,’ he says. His voice is absolutely neutral and Hux itches with it. He can almost here them, Pryde and the guards he has no doubt managed to convince into helping him, coming to pull him away. More than anything, though, Hux wants to know what Kylo is thinking; to look inside that complicated head of his.

Hux nods tightly. ‘Side by side.’  

‘I don’t trust you,’ Kylo says and Hux hadn’t know it was possible to feel, to physically feel, your heart sinking; he had thought it was just some sort of overwrought, over emotional expression. But he feels it now, really feels it, the weight of defeat crushing in all around him. ‘But that doesn’t change what I said before. You’re different, Armitage. And I think you’d be a good ally too.’

And somehow, those words feel like something else. Like a promise. 

They run for Kylo’s ship, Hux’s hand enclosed by Kylo’s.