Archive of Our Own

Chapter Text

Hux’s finger hovers over the ‘SEND [COVERT]’ command transmission that would order the assassination of Dr. Patrin Wetherkirk. The man is eighty-four years old, retired and living on Bledsoe-9. Hux has not been a patient of Dr. Wetherkirk’s since he was a cadet, and when he was under the doctor’s care he’d had no complaints.

Now he has a complaint so significant that he’s poised to do murder by proxy. Dr. Wetherkirk, kind and reassuring and surprisingly free of judgment or derision when it came to Hux’s non-human genes, told him that this wasn’t possible. That no child of a half-Dissonian with a full human father could end up in this situation.

But here Hux is, now undeniably. In this situation.

He exits the assassination command protocol without sending, deletes all related files and shoves his data pad away. With his head in his hands, elbows on his desk, he tries to regain control of his breathing first, then his wildly fluctuating impulse to do something dramatic, violent and irreversible. It’s normally not a challenge to avoid lashing out in ways that are unbecoming of his rank and logically inadvisable, but he’s not normally pregnant.

As far as Hux is aware, there is no one in the galaxy other than Wetherkirk who knows of his biological complication. Brendol is dead, and when he was alive he never spoke to anyone but Hux of his involvement with a Dissonian servant who seduced him and robbed him blind shortly before leaving him with a child who was far too human to be accepted in the land she escaped to. Hux supposes his mother might be aware that she left behind a child who has the biological capability to harbor life, but he has never spoken to her and doubts she much cares.

So he’s alone with this, as he has been with most things. The other father is a man Hux slept with on his last shore leave, now on the other side of the galaxy, someone tall and broad and blandly good-looking whom Hux has no interest in ever seeing again. The sex wasn’t even all that satisfying. The man had called him red and had pinched his ass cheek hard enough to leave a bruise, as if to mark Hux like territory. Hux had sincerely considered murder on that occasion as well, but it would have been a logistical mess, and he had been so long without a thorough fuck that he fell asleep directly even after that mediocre one.

He’s been considering his options for weeks that have now stretched into several months. Terminating the pregnancy would be far too delicate a process to trust to a droid, and it’s difficult to find specialists who will work on patients with genetic profiles as complex as his, let alone one competent enough to also be trusted with the high security clearance involved. The process of discreetly finding such an individual would be itself almost impossibly time consuming, and the risk of lifelong blackmail would thereafter always be hanging over his head, barring a successful murder that he would have to personally perform while in recovery. Droids could probably be counted on to deliver the full-term baby, meanwhile; Hux’s research indicates that a standard surgical process involving an incision in the abdomen would suffice.

Then there would be the matter of what to do with the infant. Acceptance into the stormtrooper pre-training facility would be easy enough to arrange, with no official link to himself on record, but every time Hux considers this he experiences a nauseous surge of hatred for the idea, and a phantom sensation of increased weight at the seat of his belly, which is neither visibly larger nor heavier than it was two months ago.

His miserable contemplations are interrupted by a message from the bridge. A shuttle has requested permission to dock. It’s Ren’s.

“Fuck,” Hux says. He feels as if he’s speaking to someone who will agree. To the baby? Certainly not. He grants permission for Ren’s shuttle to dock with the Finalizer and stands, telling himself that if Ren didn’t sense and remark upon his complex genetic makeup in all the years they spent fucking and fighting and sharing a bed, he won’t do so now.

But Ren told him something once about life and the Force. Hux had been half-listening at best and can’t recall the details. It was to do with the sharpest Force senses centering around the end and the beginning of life. Maybe Ren was only spouting shit, as he so often did when they were together. Maybe he’ll take one look at Hux and laugh. Regardless, it’s none of his business. Ren has been gone more than a year, doing his mystical duties under Snoke’s command and answering to no one else in the Order. Hux has moved on, from Starkiller’s destruction and otherwise. He’s grown.

He touches his stomach as he comes to the front door of his quarters, scowling. Perhaps he’ll go directly to his office and avoid contact with Ren. It’s possible Ren has lost all interest in getting under Hux’s feet in the old ways. Ren has completed his training now, presumably. Surely that has changed him. Certainly they have no reason to prop each other up and tear each other down the way they did when they were younger. The galaxy at large has taken over in that department, for both of them. Whatever they once had was so small and feels so far away now.

And still Hux is standing in place, staring at the door that leads out to the main hallway and unable to move, because it also feels suddenly much too close.

**

Hux only manages to avoid Ren for three hours, barely able to think about anything but the distracting hum of his presence onboard. He’d forgotten how intrusive it can be when Ren is freshly returned after a long absence. When he’s unable to ignore his need for a fresher after hiding in his office for most of his shift, Hux marches toward the nearest one, keeping his eyes down and feeling hunted. As he rounds a corner he nearly crashes into a wall of black that seems to emanate an angry heat. It’s Ren: masked, hulking, standing in his way.

“Ah, you’re back,” Hux says, feigning casual acceptance as he stares up into Ren’s new mask: identical to the last one, except that the dents are in different spots. “Has Snoke given you any instruction that I need to know about?”

Ren says nothing. He’s seething, his shoulders moving with heavy breaths that crackle through his vocoder when he exhales.

“Have you taken a vow of silence?” Hux asks. He can feel his face heating. Worse, he can feel Ren moving through him in the old way: seeking the truth of him with the Force, giving himself time to gather intel while Hux grimaces against the intensity of this examination.

“What is this,” Ren says, growling behind the words.

“I don’t understand the question,” Hux says, though he’s afraid he does.

“You-- What happened--” Ren steps back, and there’s something like real fear in the gesture, as if he just realized that Hux has explosives strapped under his greatcoat. Ren looks down at Hux’s knees and then back up to his face. “There’s a--” he says, gloved hands twitching. “You’re--”

“Don’t say it!” Hux hisses, holding up a gloved finger. “It’s none of your concern.”

“What, but-- How--”

“It’s not yours, obviously! And if you have even a modicum of nostalgic concern for me you’ll pretend you don’t know about it and move on with your own life.”

“Who?” Ren asks, pronouncing this word as if it’s been punched out of him when Hux tries to walk away.

“Nobody. Someone I’ll never see again.” Hux looks up and down the hallway, relieved to see that it’s empty as usual. Guards at both ends keep random passerby away from his office.

“Hux,” Ren says when he takes another step away.

Hux doesn’t turn back. “What?”

He feels Ren’s attention on him again: a particularly sharp scan, Ren trying to make sense of what he’s encountered, checking and rechecking his initial impressions. There are sensations beyond confusion and mild horror mixed in with Ren’s curiosity, and Hux experiences an old familiar pride at being able to read Ren, too, when they’re connected like this. Ren is feeling something dangerously close to sympathy for Hux. There’s a protective edge to it that makes Hux’s lip curl up.

“Stay out of it,” Hux says, half turning to bite this out from over his shoulder.

Ren says nothing more, but Hux can feel Ren’s attention on him like a blaster’s guide-light even after he’s turned the corner. In a rush of discomfort he remembers his intense need to piss and grits his teeth in regret when he realizes that he’s already passed the fresher on this hall. He keeps going until he’s made it all the way to the one in his private quarters, where he makes an undignified noise of pained relief as he empties his bladder, settling his palm over his gut in a kind of apologetic gesture as he does, as if his body isn’t entirely his own anymore.

**

For two days, Ren stalks Hux indiscreetly but also keeps his distance, lurking on the bridge during Hux’s shifts and appearing suddenly whenever Hux’s presence is required in other public spaces. As usual where Ren’s presence is concerned, and even after all this time, Hux is chiefly annoyed but also somewhat buoyed by the attention. Hux was always fond of the idea of holding someone who wields such great power in his thrall. His success at actually doing so was mixed; Ren is fickle, and when the Force called out to him he would drop Hux like an afterthought and dash off to do whatever Snoke required of him. But when Ren wanted something from Hux, he burned like a beacon, and Hux happily warmed his ego by that particular heat.

This is different. Ren feels sorry for him at best, overcome by disgusted fascination at worst. Hux is not flattered by Ren’s concern and doesn’t feel empowered by the glow of Ren’s interest. He feels like he’s being monitored for some weakness that Ren intends to exploit. There’s no other explanation for Ren keeping just out of Hux’s reach as he watches him move about the ship.

“I need to speak with you,” Ren says when Hux emerges from his quarters to accept a delivery of personal sundries from a droid. Ren is standing right behind the droid, looming like a thunderstorm ready to engulf a quiet countryside, as ever.

“Has Snoke sent you?” Hux asks hopefully, hugging the sundries package to his chest as the droid flees the scene. He hasn’t had any transmissions from Supreme Leader for weeks.

“Snoke is unaware of this-- Issue.”

“Which issue?” Hux frowns, already getting hot around his collar, and not in the fun way that once preceded sex. “Is it to do with the strike on Grantif?”

“What the hell do you think? I’m coming in.”

Hux steps out of the way, not interested in having this conversation in the open doorway. It’s strange to have Ren in his room again, away from the eyes of potential onlookers, and strange to watch Ren remove his helmet. Hux’s heart starts to hammer as he watches Ren toss his matted hair back with a flick of his chin. The pinch of Ren’s brow tugs at the scar that’s now slashed across his face. It’s fainter than Hux expected, and thinner. Hux treated it with bacta pads himself in the aftermath.

“Your mother wasn’t human,” Ren says.

“She was half-human. I’m surprised you’re just now picking up on this. I assumed you had thoroughly insinuated yourself into every crevice of my mind years ago.”

“You have to go looking for something. It’s not a free for all. There has to be a thread of suspicion already. I had no reason to think-- I mean. You look human. Feel human.”

“I consider myself human, if you care to know my opinion on the matter. But I also have this-- Biological feature, through my mother’s contribution. I was told it was dormant. The doctor who said so was wrong, apparently.” Hux has considered that the pregnancy might spontaneously terminate at any time. The idea makes him dizzy with dread, and he tells himself this is because he might die from the complications along with the baby and not because he particularly wants to bring this infant into the galaxy. “What do you care?” he asks when Ren just stares at him, mouth tight. “The gestation period is the same as that of a human’s, so you can rest assured that you’re not responsible.”

“Regardless,” Ren says, lifting his chin. “I’m your co-commander, and your romantic partner has abandoned you.”

“He didn’t abandon me, and there was nothing romantic about it. I didn’t want anything to do with him after we fucked, I was on shore leave--”

“Regardless,” Ren says again, more sharply. “He is not here to help. And I am.”

Hux scoffs. “Help with what? Infant care? You’re an expert?”

“I looked after my foundling cousin quite often as a boy.”

“They had you changing diapers in the Republic? No wonder you slaughtered your way out of there.”

Ren takes two swift, heavy steps forward, eyes darkening. Hux gives him a dry stare and holds his ground, unimpressed.

“You need me,” Ren says when he’s close enough that Hux can smell the protein sludge he gulps down for almost every meal. “This is massive, Hux. It’s not something you can keep in the corner of your rooms with a droid to tend to it.”

“Oh no? That’s how Brendol kept me.”

“Yes, that much I’ve sensed. You’re going to foist that on the next generation?”

“Why should you care?” Hux’s face is blazing now. “And why should my upbringing be something you went looking for, according to your claims about needing a thread of inquiry?”

“Why do you think.”

“I can’t possibly imagine.” He can, he did, but he’s spent the past year reminding himself that hoping Kylo Ren truly cared for him in some capacity beyond the integrity of his tight arsehole was an even bigger mistake than his miscalculations with Starkiller’s design. “If you really expect me to believe you’re going to take an interest in my child’s upbringing beyond this whim you’re currently indulging, you must think I’m the biggest fool in the Order.”

“Maybe you are, since you think you can continue serving adequately as General while looking after a child with only the help of droids.”

“Adequately!”

Ren grabs Hux by his shoulders and breathes into his face. He’s angry, probably more that Hux let someone else fuck him than anything else, even after Ren left without a goodbye and without laying a hand on Hux for months prior to the disasters that separated them. Hux regrets it, too, but what’s done is done, and he has entertained a few late night fantasies about having an heir, someone who looks up to him and is open to learning all he knows, and he has told himself, maybe, once or twice, that he would be kinder to the child than Brendol was to him. But only just. Brendol wasn’t wrong to preach that there is no room for softness in the Order.

“Together,” Ren says, his eyes burning down into Hux’s. “We could raise your child to be strong, having learned from all the mistakes and missteps we endured from our guardians.”

“What exactly would you get out of raising my child? He won’t have the Force. You can’t hand him over to your master.”

“I would never--” Ren breaks off there and frowns. “I desire allies on your side,” he says, squeezing Hux’s shoulders in a way that Hux struggles not to find arousing. “You’ve always known this.”

“Have I? Sometimes I feel like all I’ve ever known about you is that you like fucking my arse and sucking on my nipples.”

Hux shouldn’t have said that. The sensation of being overheated spreads. Ren exhales in a choppy rush and looms closer, his belt pressing against the box of sundries that is wedged between their bodies, keeping them apart.

“I became involved with you in a time of great confusion,” Ren says. “Prior to the completion of my training. Now I am stronger, and I’ve gained real confidence in the wake of past failures. I have the freedom to choose allies of my own.”

“We’re already allies, as you said, we’re co-commanders--”

“I want it to be deeper than that. I want to raise your child as if he was mine, too.”

“Well, you can’t, because he isn’t! Is it-- That is-- Why do you say ‘he’? Can you tell already?”

“You said ‘he’ before I did.”

Ren smiles a little, at the corner of his lips. Hux scowls.

“I can’t even imagine it,” Hux says. “You with an infant. The very suggestion is absurd.”

“I might say the same about you.”

“Why? I’m extremely dependable, and I helped design the nursery program for our future stormtroopers--”

“Yeah, exactly.”

“What do you mean by that?”

Ren groans and releases Hux’s shoulders. For a while they just stare at each other, Hux reeling from the proximity of Ren and alternating between wanting to collapse against the familiar heat of his chest and to kick him in the balls for leaving without a word, as if Hux meant nothing, and for now attempting to stake some claim on Hux’s unborn child. As if it’s that easy; as if Hux has been sitting obediently in place all this time, awaiting Ren’s return.

“Why did it never happen with us?” Ren asks. He glances down at Hux’s belly. “I came inside you-- A lot.”

Hux’s mild scowl becomes a full-on glower. “Yes, I remember. I can only assume this individual I slept with on shore leave has recessive Dissonian genes like I do. It’s not uncommon in certain parts of the galaxy.”

“What does your doctor think?”

“I haven’t got a doctor. No one can know about this. You know how people are in the Order. Anything that sets you apart is considered a weakness, and I-- I can’t afford to show even the slightest weakness, not until I can claim a post-Starkiller victory of significance.”

“So what are you going to do when the baby comes? Smuggle diapers onboard through the black market?”

“It wouldn’t be the first time I used unorthodox methods to get supplies aboard.”

Hux goes over to the room’s side table and sets the box of sundries down. It opens when he applies his fingerprint to the lock mechanism, and he unfolds the duraplast lid. Ren hesitates for a few petulant seconds before coming to Hux’s side to survey the box’s contents. Only then does Hux register another familiar scent, beyond the protein shake that’s always on Ren’s breath and the hint of something burned that lingers on his clothing: this is softer, also tart, a little bit like sun-baked stone but not so clean. It’s the smell of Ren’s skin, his hair, the warmth and closeness of him. It’s been months since Hux was this close to another person. The man who impregnated him mostly smelled like booze, but once on top of Hux he’d also had a wildly appealing musk that made Hux feel heady and reckless. Probably some pheromone. Something that the Dissonian in Hux recognized.

“Are these helping?” Ren asks after he’s examined the packets of vitamins and herbal supplements inside the box.

“Yes,” Hux says. “The nausea was what made me catch on. I had a droid do a mediscan. Then I dismantled it, just in case.”

“The scanner or the droid?”

“Both.” He also put their parts out an airlock.

“And these?” Ren says, lifting out a package of massari gummies.

Hux shrugs. “I ate them when I was a boy. Something put me in mind of them recently--”

“You had a craving.”

Ren has the nerve to smile.

Hux recoils. “Is this some kind of fetish for you?” he asks, stepping backward. Ren has an unsettling light in his eyes that Hux associates with possessive behaviors after sex. Hux once interpreted them as evidence of Ren’s fondness for him: an unwillingness to let Hux escape the bed for a shower, humid kisses all over Hux’s cheeks as they both regained their breath, soft fingers through Hux’s hair. Ren likes caring for things, but only in small doses. Within the hour he’d be back to gutting Hux with some thoughtless comment, such as describing his performance as General as merely adequate.  

“I’ve had time to think,” Ren says. He’s staring down at the packet of gummies, pressing his thumb against the squishy shapes inside. “Things have changed for us both. This feels right.”

“What does?”

“You being-- The idea of-- A child. A family, but on our terms. We share the same goals.”

“Not entirely,” Hux mutters, trying not to think too specifically of how much he’d like to get rid of Snoke and his influence on the Order, not to mention his influence on Ren, who will be singing a different tune the next time Snoke cracks a whip over his head and demands he come running.

“You might be surprised,” Ren says, also muttering.

“By what?”

Ren shakes his head and sets the gummies down.

“And how could you tell I’m expecting?” Hux asks, before Ren can make more cheap promises. “You said you have to be looking for something when you go scavenging around in people’s minds, that you need to start with some thread of questioning. Surely you weren’t seeking to find-- This.”

“I came back because I sensed you needed me.” Ren swallows after he’s hurried this out. “So. When I encountered you, I investigated the source of that need. And I sensed the baby’s life force.”

Ren seems flustered by this confession. He ducks his gaze away from Hux’s and puts his helmet back on.

“I don’t need you,” Hux says, thrown sideways by hearing the word life force in that context. “I’ve got it all under control.”

“Have you.” The vocoder makes this sound sarcastic.  

“Yes. I’ve determined that it’s too dangerous to try to terminate, but if I manage to carry to term I’ll have a standard delivery procedure performed by droids, and then-- And then I’ll raise the child as my apprentice. I may have to do more work from my rooms, but so be it. Snoke rules comfortably enough from his hidden fortress, via hologram.”

“You would model yourself after Snoke?”

Ren sounds infuriated by the suggestion. Perhaps it’s a kind of sacrilege.

“Only in the sense that I can command the ship from the privacy of my rooms if necessary,” Hux says. “It wouldn’t be difficult to fake an illness that requires quarantine.”

“You just said yourself, any sign of weakness is dangerous for you right now. A General ruling from his sick bed? You’d have a mutiny on your hands within days.”

“Mutiny is the stuff of Republic culture! That would never happen in the Order.”

“Don’t lie to me,” Ren says, stalking closer. “You know this plan is doomed to fail. You can’t hide the child, not forever, and you wouldn’t need to if we told everyone it belongs to me. It’s not so outlandish to suggest we had him together, intentionally, to combine my powers in the Force with your-- Leadership abilities.”

“I have desirable qualities beyond my ability to lead!”

“Yes.” Ren takes another step toward Hux. “You do.”

“Don’t menace me with sexual innuendo. That’s all over.”

“Why, because you’re pregnant?”

“Just get out!” Hux can’t stand being called that, least of all by Ren. “This is my project, alone. You have no claim to it. Sorry your seed wasn’t special enough to knock me up, but I’m not going to pretend to have a Force-using child for the sake of your ego.”

“If people believe I’m the child’s father, he’ll be protected.”

“What, by you? I seem to recall you being the one who needed rescuing, last time we saw each other.”

“You’ll be a shitty parent,” Ren says, and he turns to go.

This statement is almost funny, delivered through a crackling vocoder by an overgrown child whose parents never saw fit to beat the entitled tantrums out of him.

But Hux isn’t laughing when Ren is gone. He’s shaking all over, with rage and delayed shock at Ren’s interest in his predicament. Like everything Ren does, it’s only an impulse: a whim, not something that can be built upon.

Hux goes to the box of sundries and digs out the packet of gummies, crinkled by Ren’s clumsy hands. He doesn’t think of those hands on him, how they might soothe the tension that has ached between his shoulders since he accepted his fate as a person with an occupied womb. Ren thinks he’ll be a shitty parent? Ha. Ren would be the shittest of all time. Hux doesn’t need his help. He’s never needed anyone.

“Don’t worry,” he mumbles, feeling mad as he settles his hand over his stomach. “I’ll provide for you in all respects. No Republic-tainted guardians will have any say in the matter.”

He eats the gummies, takes a supplement for his back pain and stretches out in bed with glass of fizzing vitamin water that will help him sleep. He got all of these things for himself, and made sure they came onboard undetected, off the record. He’ll show Ren. He can do this according to his own design.

He falls asleep worrying that Ren won’t be around long enough to be shown anything of the sort. And why should this worry him? It shouldn’t. Doesn’t. It’s irrelevant and a waste of his concern, like everything to do with Ren.

**

Two things persist unexpectedly over the weeks to come: Ren’s presence onboard the Finalizer and Snoke’s lack of communications or even instructions delivered by Ren. Hux begins to worry that Ren is withholding some essential command information just for the sake of avoiding him, which would be characteristic of Ren’s disastrously emotional decision making process. Hux gathers himself, for the sake of the Order, and seeks Ren out after two weeks of hearing nothing from him.

“I need to know the status of your current assignment from Supreme Leader,” Hux says when he finds Ren in the officer’s gym, his massive arms coated in a sheen of sweat as he grunts through a series of push-ups. Ren paused only briefly when he sensed Hux’s approach and is either pretending to ignore him or determined to finish his reps before conversing. Hux is tempted to sit on Ren’s back, which he once did for fun and at Ren’s invitation. Hux had laughed as Ren trembled through ten push-ups beneath his weight, swearing that he wasn’t using the Force.

Ren does twenty-five more push-ups while Hux stands staring and waiting, trying not to let his gaze linger on the way Ren’s tank sticks to his broad back or the tendrils of damp hair that have come loose from the ridiculous little bun he always pulls it into while working out.

“You know you could do this in your room,” Hux says when Ren springs to his feet as if he’s ready for a fight, chest heaving and face flushed.

“I used the weights,” Ren says. “And the track. And I don’t have a steam room in my quarters.”

“I’m sure you think you deserve one.”

“Was there something you needed?” Ren narrows his eyes and uses the Force to swipe a thermos full of water off the ground near the mats. He drinks from it, keeping his eyes on Hux and somehow managing to swallow theatrically, with more enthusiasm and noise than strictly necessary.

“I’m sure you heard my question,” Hux says. He sighs, feeling tired and wishing it hadn’t come to this. He’s not too prideful to ask for needed information, but considering everything else he’s dealing with at present it feels inordinately cruel that he’s forced to consult Ren of all people. “Since you’re apparently intent on making me repeat myself, I’ll ask again. What is your current assignment? Why has Snoke stationed you back on the ship? Did he give you some instructions for me that you’ve failed to share? Out of spite, perhaps?”

Ren throws the water bottle down. Hux flinches, but at least manages not to bring his hand to his still-flat stomach, an annoying instinct that he tries to suppress in the presence of others.

“I came here because I sensed you were in trouble,” Ren says, speaking in a low, threatening murmur as he moves closer. “Only to find that you had compromised yourself by spreading your legs for some scoundrel on shore leave, and still I offered my help. And now you accuse me of withholding things from you out of spite?”

“Leave all the personal shit out of it, Ren, and tell me what the hell is going on! Why haven’t I heard from Snoke? The strike on Grantif was a success, and I’ve been going forward with plans to occupy the settlements on Blan-Tek, but Snoke has no comment whatsoever? I find that odd, and your presence here is just as troubling, without any stated purpose.”

“I’ve stated my purpose. Your rejection of it doesn’t change my objective.”

“You’ve-- What? You’re just here to torment me with offers of help that I don’t need? Snoke granted you leave to do so? I doubt it. If you want to help me, tell me the truth. I’ve known you since you were twenty-three years old. I can tell when you’re hiding something.”

“Why should I share anything with you? You can do everything alone, I’ve heard.”

“Ren, this is different!” Hux feels himself getting flustered: not just overheated but overloud, and there’s a shake trying to climb into his voice. He hasn’t been sleeping well; nightmares have rolled in like summer storms, and none of his supplements have been able to blow them away yet.

“Relax,” Ren says. His eyes soften, and he reaches for Hux. His hands are sweaty on Hux’s jaw, too warm. Hux moves away and takes a deep breath. “Don’t get upset,” Ren says. “I’ve got it under control.”

“You’ve got what under control?”

“My current assignment.”

“You had better not be talking about my--” Hux lets his hand flutter over his belly as he checks to make sure no one has entered this part of the gym. As he suspected, everyone is giving Ren a wide berth.

“It’s beyond that,” Ren says. He reaches up to adjust his bun, gathering the loose tendrils of hair and emitting a not-unpleasant gust of sweat-heavy body odor when he lifts his arms to do so. “But that’s part of it. Whether you want to accept it or not.”

“Does Snoke know?” Hux asks through gritted teeth, hating the question so much that he can’t bring himself to meet Ren’s eyes after he’s asked it.

“Of course not.” Ren sounds offended. “How would he? Do really you think I went running to him with the news of your condition?”

“Well he is your fucking master, I assume you serve him above all.”

It’s in the job description, as far as Hux can tell. He startles when he feels Ren’s fingers on his chin, and looks up just as they nudge him to do so. Ren is breathing sharply through his nose, looking desperate.

“Hux,” he says, whispering. “I made mistakes. We both did. But I’m here for you now. I came back. You’re going to have a child. What else matters?”

Hux stumbles backward, away from Ren’s touch. Ren sounds like he’s reciting a poem. It’s all so abstract, and Hux’s head is spinning. He wants to explain to Ren that when he considers the child he’s carrying as something that is his alone, the thought is manageable. When he tries to picture Ren at his side, accepting a swaddled infant into his arms when Hux needs a break to take a piss or run the ship or whatever, it seems like an impossible fantasy that will ruin what’s left of both of them. It’s too much.

“Your thoughts are tormented,” Ren says.

“Stay out of them,” Hux says. He hurries away, feeling trod upon. Ren tramples over everything in stomping range, even when he’s trying to help. Maybe especially then.

**

On Hux’s next rest cycle, the nightmares are worse than ever. Snoke is involved, and he’s got his hands around Hux’s throat, squeezing, laughing, then suddenly Hux is across the room and the person that Snoke is attacking is Hux’s child, who is also Ren, or at least looks exactly like him. Hux wakes up sweating, heart pounding, a cramp developing low in his gut.

“Oh no, please--” he says, without thinking, before he shouts a vocal command that turns the lights up.

On shaking legs, he leaves the bed. He’s not quite three months along and cramping is unusual, never a good sign, but there’s no point thinking about that. Whatever’s going to happen will happen in due time, and that time could be tonight or months from now. It’s out of his control. This is not the kind of philosophy he normally accepts, but he can’t deny it’s the case now. He tries to take what paltry action he can, at least: fills a glass with water, manages to measure out a dose of vitamin powder with his shaking hand, drinks from the glass in tiny swallows. His eyes are burning and the room feels impossibly cold.

Ren, he thinks when he closes his eyes, and then he banishes the impulse to summon him, rejecting it before it can be Force-sent, which he was never very successful at doing anyway, at least not intentionally. Did Ren really sense his baby and related distress from wherever Snoke had him stashed? It seems like a convenient lie that Ren came up with after he got here and realized Hux had been with another man. There’s some kind of stale jealousy at work here, nothing more complex or dependable than that. Ren only wanted him again when he scented another man on him, someone who had left his mark in a way Ren couldn’t. Hux thinks of the bruise that man left on his ass and bares his teeth at the memory. When he sets the glass down he realizes with a cooling rush of relief that his stomach cramps have lessened to a mere rumble. He’s hungry.

Nothing in his room seems appetizing, so he dresses in uniform and attempts to make himself presentable. The greatcoat helps, and the shadow of his command cap over his face. The officers’ lounge is blissfully empty at this odd hour. From the droid on duty he orders the creamed vegetable of the day and a plate of bland noodles with extra butter. He liberally salts both and digs in, washing it down with blue milk. When the lounge’s door opens he hurries to wipe the butter from his lips, but it’s just Ren.

Ren looks only half put-together himself, maskless and hooded as he makes his way toward Hux’s table. Hux is stuffed but considering a muffin; he can smell the ones they serve with breakfast baking in the attached kitchen. Ren sits down across from him and gives him a searching look from beneath his hood.

“You were distressed,” Ren says, mumbling.

“Just a bad dream.” Hux is proud of himself now: he handled it. Under the table, he settles a hand over his belly. “I’m quite all right, as you can see.”

Ren grunts as if to contest this, but Hux is confident in his self-diagnosis. He rubs his thumb over his stomach, glad as ever for the shield that his greatcoat provides. He doesn’t normally wear it while eating, but he might as well get into the habit of never taking it off in public.

“I’ve been reading about Dissonian pregnancy,” Ren says, delivering this information with a pitiful look. Like he expects Hux to feel sorry for him.

“Shhh!” Hux checks over his shoulder. The droids in the kitchen are busy with their muffin-making. “Not here,” he says, teeth grit.

“Then perhaps back in your quarters.”

“You can’t tell me anything about this condition that I don’t already know! I’ve read the same materials.”

“I have intuition through the Force. It’s useful.”

Hux rolls his eyes. He almost feels guilty when Ren’s posture slumps.

“I’m sorry I said that,” Ren says, tugging the side of his hood against his cheek as if he wants to stifle this apology. “The other day. About your parenting potential.”

“Ren,” Hux says, pretending not to be pleased with this retraction. “You don’t seem altogether right in the head. I know I’ve said so before, but I’m serious this time. Whatever feelings you’re having about my situation are likely coming from some more general dysfunction. Just know that I’m fine, and please feel some relief that you don’t need to gallantly offer help or what have you. I basically raised myself, even when I still toddling. I can certainly handle the care of someone else on my own, with all the resources I’ve accumulated. I didn’t have them when I was young.”

“You had Brendol.”

“Right.” Hux feels his stomach lurch, but it’s not a cramp this time. It’s anger. “And he was more of an obstacle than a resource, as I thought you understood. Excuse me, I need to get some rest before my shift.”

“Can I come?” Ren asks when Hux stands and throws his napkin down. Hux boggles, but Ren misses it. He’s staring at the tabletop.

“Are you asking to come to bed with me?” Hux wants that, oh. Not even for sex so much as for the weight of Ren’s body on the mattress beside him, Ren’s contented sighs when he rolls over in his sleep, Ren’s big hand creeping up under Hux’s nightshirt, his knuckles stroking along the length of Hux’s spine. But Hux can’t risk it. He’s in a fragile place, as loathe as he is to admit that. Leaning on Ren only to take a bad fall when he’s suddenly gone again would be disastrous not just for his own health but for that of his child. “Of course you can’t,” Hux says when Ren finally looks up. “That’s in the past, Ren. Let it stay there, where it belongs.”

“I know I hurt you,” Ren says, lip raising. “But--”

“Oh, be quiet! You don’t know half as much as you think you do.”

Hux rushes away, essentially confirming that of course Ren hurt him. He can’t seem to keep a cool head in his current condition, but it’s pointless where Ren is concerned anyway. Hux waits to feel Ren’s lingering attention as he hurries back to his room, and he tugs his greatcoat around himself as if experiencing a sudden chill when he can detect no tendrils of even the faintest Force-sent curiosity from Ren.

So Ren has actually respected his wishes. Good. Excellent. Perhaps he’ll be gone again by the start of the next cycle.

**

The following month goes well for Hux and for the Order. The effort to occupy Blan-Tek is smoother than they forecasted, with most of the population glad to accept the organized rule of the Order after suffering under warlords and kingpins who’d enslaved them. Several unanticipated raw material resources are discovered once they have stormtroopers on the ground, providing a boon that lifts morale. Hux has been channeling his trouble sleeping into feverish off-shift attempts to design a new weapon, something less grandiose than Starkiller but more effective at this stage of their quest to conquer the galaxy. Some of these designs are judged impractical when he reexamines them after passing out in bed, but a few represent the start of true inspiration, and he feels he’s on the right track.

Further, and a bigger comfort than he’d like to admit: Kylo Ren is still on board the ship, still skulking around and taking up space at the gym, watching Hux from across the bridge before departing with angry swirls of his cape. He’s also still refusing to say what Snoke is up to, and Hux has had no transmissions from Snoke or any other indications that he has plans of his own for Hux’s fleet. It would be highly against protocol to reach out to Snoke as opposed to the other way around, but Hux has begun to consider it.

After an especially long shift he stands in front of the mirror in his fresher, trying to determine if his stomach is rounding out yet, or if he’s only gained weight due to the recent increase in his appetite. His comm buzzes on the counter near the sink. It’s a high-security channel, and he’s expecting word from Snoke when he grabs for it, but the message is from Ren.

    K.REN: I found some obscure literature on Dissonian fertility.

Hux snorts and feels a flush spreading across his cheeks. He’s still waiting for Ren to depart without a word at any moment, but as the weeks pile up he’s also started to entertain a dangerous suspicion that Ren might actually be determined to stay for the duration of Hux’s pregnancy. He responds to the message before he can think better of it, his undershirt sliding back down over his stomach.

    A.HUX: Anything I should be concerned about?

The response comes instantly, and Hux feels he should have expected its content.

    K.REN: So you admit I might actually be able to help you.

    A.HUX: On second thought, you’re probably just lying to get my attention.

    K.REN: When have I ever lied to you

    A.HUX: Have you heard of lying by omission? Look into it. Goodnight.

He throws the comm down harder than he should have, then inspects the screen for cracks. Cursing Ren, he turns for the tub, a feature of his extra-large fresher that he once never thought he would use. The hot water helps with his muscle aches, and lingering bonelessly within it after his shifts sometimes helps him fall asleep after getting out. He doubts that will be the case tonight, since Ren has just riled him up.

He’s soaking in the tub and stewing in his lingering rage when he hears what sounds like the front door of his quarters sliding open. He shoots up from his recline and grabs the rim of the tub, panicked until he recognizes Ren’s stomping gait.

“What the hell are you doing!” Hux cowers in the tub when Ren comes to the open fresher door. He’s wearing his helmet. “Get out!”

“There’s something I need to tell you.”

“I’ve heard your fucking apology-- Fine, thank you! Consider the matter dropped!”

“No-- Not that. It’s something I read.” Ren reaches into his robe and pulls out a saggy package wrapped in brown paper. He holds it out as if Hux is going to hop out of the tub and take it from him.

“What the hell is that,” Hux asks, teeth grit.

“Sallo fish. Considered good for fetal development in Dissonian culture. They’re hard to find. I had to send two of my Knights to get these for you.”

“You didn’t have to do anything, I’m perfectly healthy without some fish that-- Ugh, I can smell it from here. Is it rotting?”

“Of course not. It’s just pungent.”

“Put it in my conservator and get out! Actually, wait,” Hux says when Ren turns to go. “What does Snoke think of you ordering the Knights to pick up nutrients related to my pregnancy?”

There’s a pause that feels significant. Ren looks down at the bag of reeking fish, then up at Hux.

“The Knights are mine to command.”

“And they have no objection to you sending them on tasks such as this?”

“No. They are loyal to me, unquestioning.”

“That seems rather like an abuse of your power, Ren.”

“Don’t tell me how to use my own powers!”

Hux is taken aback by the sudden venom in Ren’s voice. He sinks down into the tub and slides a protective hand over his belly. Ren is breathing louder now, the bag of fish trembling in his fist.

“I’m naked,” Hux says, reaching down to cover his cock with his other hand. “Have some respect.”

Ren turns and leaves as if sincerely chastised. Hux doesn’t actually feel bashful about being seen like this; being naked in Ren’s presence still feels normal, even after all their time apart. He listens to Ren open the conservator, throw the fish inside and shut the door hard.

When Ren is gone, regret spreads through Hux like an uncomfortable mist, damp and cold. He gets out of the tub and puts on a robe after drying and again studying himself in the mirror, searching for changes. It’s strange that he’s come to want to see some sort of physical evidence of his child’s existence, as complicated as that will make his life when he starts to get really big. He suspects this desire has something to do with wanting company in his predicament. He thinks of Ren, frowns and goes out to examine the fish.

There is something appealing about the fish once he’s unwrapped them, despite the strong smell. His stomach gurgles; he was busy during his shift and only had time for a light lunch. After a cursory search on his data pad yields nothing, he comms Ren, not sure what sort of attitude to expect in response this time.

    A.HUX: Do I eat these raw, or…?

A few minutes pass. Hux brings one of the fish to his lips, something primal in him wanting to bite the little creature’s head off whole. He hears his comm buzz and puts the fish down.

    K.REN: I was going to offer to prepare them for you in the traditional way. Then you threw me out.

    A.HUX: Dare I ask what the traditional way entails?

    K.REN: For ease of the expecting mother’s digestion they are often ground into a paste with salt and oil.

    A.HUX: Disgusting. And don’t ever call me that again. I’m this child’s father. His only father.

Predictably, there’s no response. Not wanting to bring the sallo fish to the kitchens for droid preparation, Hux uses a sharp knife to cut one open, pleased to see that the bones have already been removed. Did Ren do that? One of his Knights? He strips off a fleshy section and eats it. The texture is nice, plump with a slight chewiness, and even the scales dissolve on his tongue. He ends up finishing all of the fish in one sitting, and feels pleasantly sleepy and full when he’s done.

Something about the sensation reminds him of being fucked by Ren. This should perhaps alarm him. He washes his hands and studies his comm, wondering if he should send Ren a thank you message.

    A.HUX: How difficult would it be for you to get more of these fish?

    K.REN: So you liked them.

    A.HUX: Assuming I don’t die in the night of food poisoning, yes.

    K.REN: I would never give you poison.

    A.HUX: I know, hence my consumption of this gift. That was a joke.

    K.REN: I’ll never hurt you again. Intentionally or otherwise. I swear it.

    A.HUX: Ren. Where is Snoke?

There’s a long wait before the next message. Despite the suspense, Hux is yawning and rubbing at his eyes. He’ll sleep well tonight.

    K.REN: What kind of question is that

    A.HUX: A logical one, I should think. Never mind, I’m going to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.

He didn’t really consider that last part of the message before sending it, but now it’s too late to retract.

    K.REN: Yes. I have more information from my research to share, if you’re not too stubborn to hear it.

Hux rolls his eyes and puts his comm on its charger. He brushes his teeth, washes his face and opens his robe to stroke his hand over his belly again.

“Did you like those little fish?” he asks, and then he feels so stupid that he goes to bed directly.

**

The following day, Ren sits at the end of the table where Hux has his evening meal in the officer’s lounge. Hux is in the middle of a discussion with Unamo and Ventra about the risk versus reward of attacking a planet near the Outer Rim where some supplies for a weapon design he’s working on are located. Hux glances at Ren from time to time, watching from the corner of his eye as Ren gulps down one of his protein shakes. Ren seems content to wait until Hux is finished speaking to his officers before interrupting, at least.

Hux dismisses Umano and Ventra after they’ve decided to table the discussion until further research is done. If any of his inferior officers are wondering about the lack of communication from Supreme Leader, they haven’t let on. Snoke mostly dealt directly with Hux even when hailing him to the chamber for a holocall, and half the time the summons from Snoke came via Ren. Hux glances down to the end of the table when Umano and Ventra are gone. Only a few officers remain in the lounge, talking quietly on the other side of the room.

Ren looks up from his glass, empty now except for a coating of protein residue. Hux doesn’t mind the taste of the stuff, but only when he’s getting it secondhand, lingering on Ren’s lips and tongue during a kiss. Something shifts in his gut when he thinks about kissing Ren. They’re holding each other’s gaze from opposite ends of the table. Hux stands first, and Ren gets up, too. He looks lost, but also eager and expectant.

“Follow me,” Hux says when he’s close enough to keep this command quiet. Ren puts his helmet on and obeys, trailing Hux through the hallways and back to his quarters.

There’s a charged feeling between them when they’re alone together, and Hux almost expects Ren to surge forward and kiss him after he’s removed his helmet again. Instead, Ren reaches into his robes and produces a little black sachet with a drawstring tie.

“Gornish flightwing bone powder,” he says when Hux takes it from him. “Mix it into that stuff you drink at night. According to ancient texts, it helps give the expectant father energy.”

“The expectant father.” Hux can’t suppress a smirk. Ren has amended his terminology according to Hux’s wishes. “I suppose there are plenty of those in Dissonian culture.”

“Yes. There are customs recommended for Dissonian men who carry children in particular. I’ve saved all the data for you, if you’re interested in perusing it.”

“Aren’t these just superstitious rituals, really? I’ve read all the accredited medical journals.”

“What some brush off as superstitious, others know to be true and powerful.”

Ren’s expression tightens, then relaxes. Hux pockets the powder.

“You’ve already sent your Knights out on my behalf again?” he says.

“No. They collected this along with the fish, and some other goods that I requested they find.”

“How many little presents do I have coming?”

“They’re not presents. I’ve told you, I’m interested in this child’s welfare.”

“Why?” Something in Hux still curdles, hearing this. The baby is his alone.

“Because it’s yours,” Ren says.

An awkward silence descends. Hux feels uncomfortably warm under his clothes, though he’s also longing for a hot bath.

“Have you experienced prostate sensitivity yet?” Ren blurts, as if this question follows his last statement.

Hux sputters and grows hotter across his chest, the flush rising along his throat and coloring his cheeks. “I’ve always had that,” he says, as dryly as he can. “As you’ll recall.”

“No-- I know, but I read that it can get particularly sensitive during a Dissonian male’s pregnancy. In need of stimulation, in fact.”

“You’re making that up.”

“I’m not. I’ll show you my source material. I’ll go get it right now.”

Hux waves his hand through the air. “Never mind,” he says. “I’m going to lie down, my feet are swollen. Then I might take my bath. If you want-- That is-- I wouldn’t mind company if you felt like hanging about. But my prostate is perfectly fine without your attention, thank you.”

Hux’s ass clenches with an involuntarily spasm as he says so. He hasn’t thought about sex much at all since he discovered he was pregnant, or even since that one night stand with the baby’s other father. Trust Ren to needlessly introduce the idea that it might be enjoyable even in his current state. Or perhaps especially. Hux will do his own research on the subject later, if time permits.

He goes into his room to undress, not sure what Ren will do next, and sets the bone powder on his bedside table with the rest of his bedtime ritual tinctures. They're becoming disordered. He’s been busy, and maybe a bit lazy when it comes to keeping his environs perfectly tidy. When he’s down to just his briefs and undershirt, he stretches out on the bed and reaches for his data pad. At this hour it will be choc full of reports that need his attention. Ren lurks in the doorway.

“Do I have a bulge yet?” Hux asks, settling his hand over his belly. “I can’t tell if I look any different.”

“It’s a little-- You look softer.”

“I fear how bad it will get before the end. At least people are accustomed to seeing me in my greatcoat. But I’m already sweating more than ever.”

“Can I--” Ren flinches and shifts his helmet to his other hand. “Do you need, uh. Other types of physical stimulation? I know you like having your shoulders rubbed.”

“You’re just trying to work your way down to my prostate, aren’t you?”

“No!”

Ren scowls when Hux laughs. Of course he took the bait.

“Come here,” Hux says. “Put the bloody helmet down, take your robe off. I’m not making any promises, and I don’t want to hear any more from you. But if you’re going to be on my ship, engaged in some kind of unclear mission, you might as well keep me company.”

Ren moves uncertainly toward the bed. Hux returns his gaze to his data pad and pretends to give the report he’s opened his attention. He wants Ren relaxed and trusting before he broaches the subject of Snoke again. Something has happened, or changed, but Ren is dodgy and Hux has put him on the defensive so far. Even if Ren deserves to be treated that way, or worse, Hux won’t learn anything unless he eases away Ren’s misgivings about confiding in him.

“I can feel you plotting,” Ren says, pausing in the removal of his boots to give Hux an accusing stare.

“And what am I plotting, Ren?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been harder to read in recent weeks. The baby’s presence is like static interference. He can’t think the way we do yet. He just feels things, bluntly.”

Hux hasn’t cried since he was perhaps two or three years old, so it takes him off guard when he feels his eyes blurring over and burning at the corners. He lifts his data pad, completely failing to make the gesture look casual. Ren comes to the bed, puts one knee on the mattress and stares at Hux as if he can’t decide whether to gather him into his arms or offer him more obscure ritualistic cuisine.

“I’m fine,” Hux says, waving Ren off when he crawls across the bed. “Just. The idea that he’s feeling things. It’s eerie, is all.”

“My mother--” Ren starts to say, and then he squashes it. He drops onto his back and stares up at the ceiling.

Hux sniffles as quietly as he can and blinks away the haze of tears that threatened to come. He’s had some mood swings, but until now they’ve mostly ranged from annoyed to livid to murderous.

“What about your mother?” Hux asks, staring at his data pad.

“Nothing. The Force-- She claimed she could feel me, before I was born. Discernable traits, even. I just think it must be strange not to have that. Even I can feel your baby’s presence more clearly than you can.”

“Like hell! Maybe you can sense a spark of life or whatever, but you don’t know him better than me. How dare you.”

Ren smiles. Hux wants to throw something at him, but only the data pad is available. He tosses it onto the bedside table instead.

“Where are you going?” Ren asks when Hux leaves the bed.

“To bathe. Do not disturb me. You’re not invited to this part.”

As annoying as Ren is, Hux enjoys the idea that he’s out there waiting in the bedroom while he showers. He had planned on a bath, but decides he’s feeling too hot or tired or something for the whole routine, and he keeps his shower quick. When he returns to the bedroom he’s irritated to realize that he’s experiencing a certain amount of anxiety, wondering if Ren will still be there.

He is, snooping through holo-mapped designs at Hux’s workstation.

“Make yourself at home,” Hux says, sarcastic, though he’s actually pleased that Ren cares enough to look through his recent work. Hux is proud of it. He’s getting close to something brilliant.

“This would be incredible if you could make it work,” Ren says, gesturing to Hux’s favorite design. It’s a machine that would disable all spacecraft within a wide range, leaving every Resistance fighter and cruiser useless and free-floating while Hux’s fleet enjoyed protection from the disabler, specially designed shields keeping the weapon’s crippling signal out.

“It’s a bit of a blunt instrument,” Hux says. “Lacking the majesty of Starkiller. But on a practical scale, if we could install one on every Star Destroyer and keep the enemy from deciphering my immunity method, I think it could win the war once and for all.”  

Ren closes the holo design files and swings Hux’s desk chair around to face the bed. Hux doesn’t protest when Ren watches him go to his bureau and select a pair of underthings: some of the nicer ones, a sleek, black pair he hasn’t worn in a long time. He turns his back on Ren and frowns when he pulls them on and finds they’re a bit tight.

“Hux,” Ren says.

“What?”

“I don’t know. Your ass.”

Hux glares at him, though he’s also flushing with the compliment, if that’s even what it was. Ren used to worship his arse, with his tongue and cock and fingers and also more spiritually, commenting on it often and sometimes seeming to speak to it directly.

“Yes, it’s still here,” Hux says, with more bitterness than he intended. He goes to the bed and plants his arse on the sheets, depriving Ren of the sight. Ren joins him in bed as if an invitation to do so is implicit, looking both wistful and mildly hypnotized. He’s taken off his belt and tunic.

“Are you going to sleep now?” Ren asks when Hux rolls toward him, drawing up his knees like a shield.

“Not yet. Prepare my vitamin water for me.” Hux waves his hand in the direction of his bedside table. “Add the bone powder, too.”

Ren hesitates, then seems to remember that he swore to be of service to Hux’s unborn child. There’s no doubt in Hux’s mind that Ren will grow bored of this before long, certainly before the baby comes, but Hux might as well enjoy Ren’s fascination while it lasts. He accepts the fizzing drink from Ren and expects to wince at the taste of the Gornish bone, but it actually elevates the flavor with a bite of salty tang. Ren watches him drink the whole thing before returning to the bed himself.

“Lights,” Hux says. “Ten percent.”

He always used to put them at fifteen when Ren fucked him and keeps them at five when he sleeps. This compromise represents his uncertainty about just what the hell is going on here.

Ren doesn’t seem poised for a seduction, but he does reach across the bed to touch just his fingertips to Hux’s knee.

“Tell me about your mother,” Ren says.

“Why?”

“Because I’m curious. I’ve never met a Dissonian.”

You’ve met me, Hux thinks, but he’s never felt like one.

“Half-Dissonian,” he says, meaning his mother. “She was beautiful and cold. A con artist, and Brendol was her mark. I never met her.”

“Of course you met her. You were inside her.”

Hux grimaces at the phrasing. “You know what I mean,” he says. “I’ve not the slightest memory of her. I didn’t know her as a person. I was only a helpless lump she delivered and dropped into the arms of Brendol, child-rearer extraordinaire.”

“That’s what Brendol told you. Maybe it’s not true. Maybe she wanted you and he wouldn’t let her have you. The Empire needs children, as they say.”

“Why don’t you tell me about your mother? And then I can rewrite history according to baseless speculation. You’ll enjoy that, I’m sure.”

“You know about my mother. Everyone does.”

“I know her as a General. Not as a mother.”

“I don’t want to talk about that.”

“Of course you don’t. But I’m expected to make my childhood memories available to you? Typical.”

Ren holds Hux’s angry stare and rubs his thumb over Hux’s knee. It’s like an apology, but what about Ren isn’t when he’s not raging or leaving. Hux tries and fails not to shiver with pleasure at the soft touch, at being touched at all.

“She thought she knew me,” Ren says when Hux’s eyelids have grown heavy. “But she didn’t.”

He’s talking about his mother. Hux shifts his knee slightly, moving it just a bit closer to Ren, who goes on stroking Hux there until he falls asleep.

Hux has strange dreams again, but tonight they’re less alarming. He’s eating fruit on a planet he doesn’t recognize, picking it from a tree, and though Ren isn’t present Hux knows that he’s doing this because Ren told him that this fruit will be good for the baby.

When he wakes, Ren is gone. Hux sits up, hating how this feeling of loss and betrayal is still somehow surprising. Ren never promised he would stay: not last night, not last year. Never, at any point, did he claim he would always be around.

He did say that he wouldn’t hurt Hux again. Hux hadn’t believed it, but he feels freshly hollowed out by the lie all the same.

**

Hux waits a week to investigate the situation with his prostate. This hesitation feels like something he’s doing to spite Ren, who continues to haunt Hux’s steps as if he’s waiting for another invitation into Hux’s bed. There haven’t been any more gifts, and Hux has been cold to Ren whenever they interact, despite his plans to get to the bottom of the mystery of Snoke’s lack of contact. He’ll need to butter Ren up to get the truth, but at present he’s still too raw from the memory of waking up to find Ren gone. He can’t fake niceties as well as he’d like to, especially where Ren is concerned.

Away from Ren, in the sanctity of his room, Hux realizes that he’s not just avoiding sticking his finger up his arse because Ren suggested he might particularly enjoy it right now. He also feels strange about being alone with the baby, technically, and pleasuring himself within the silence of their companionship. He wants to reject the idea that this would be easier with a partner, but he can’t deny that having someone else to do the pleasuring for him would take his mind off the baby’s existence. Of course the baby doesn’t care or know either way, but Hux is overly aware of its presence when he’s alone, especially since he’s developed an embarrassing but insuppressible habit of muttering little observations and questions while resting his hand over his belly. Though he knows he’s being stupid, it feels wrong to even tease his fingers over his cock through his sweatpants.

In the days that follow his initial attempts to get past this, he is hyper-aware of his arse: every twitch and point of contact when he sits, and the sensation of all his muscles, arse included, being too tight. Everything seems to be pinching in around him. Meanwhile Ren hovers almost constantly in his peripheral vision, brooding. Ren doesn’t understand what he’s done wrong, but he’s too prideful to ask. If their relationship had an epitaph, that would be it.

“You’ve been toiling,” Ren says when he corners Hux near the commissary, where Hux had been planning to complain about the delayed delivery of his latest package of above-the-board sundries. “At what, I can’t be sure,” Ren says when Hux just stares up at his mask, unwilling to give Ren so much as a scowl. “But I sense that I can help.”

“You must need to adjust your antenna, because you actually can’t.”

“Why do you reject my contributions? You should think of your child above your own pride.”

“Pride!” Hux mashes his lips together, regretting the volume of his voice. He tries to move away, but Ren steps sideways, blocking him. “It’s exactly for the sake of my--” Hux glances back to make sure the commissary window is still empty. “Of my child,” he says, jaw clenched, “That I’m adhering to self-preservation rather than reckless indulgence. You were only ever the latter.”

“Call me whatever you want, but admit that you need me.”

“Never!” Hux shoves Ren away, embarrassed and then furious when he hears how loud Ren has pushed him to get, again. The clerk has come to the window of the commissary. Hux leaves without lodging his complaint. He makes a mental note to penalize the clerk for not having been attentive to his post, but by the time he gets back to his quarters his head feels fuzzy and he needs to lie down for a moment before doing that or anything else. He glances at the Gornish bone powder on the bedside table, wondering if he should take a little more for energy. Ultimately he rejects the idea; Ren’s parlor tricks will likely bring him to ruin if he counts on them to actually help, like Ren himself.

That night, the dreams of being fucked by Ren begin.

Hux is accustomed to them, but he’d thought he’d trained his mind not to have them, or at least not to remember them as vividly as he does when he wakes. Now they’re back, and differently: in the old days, and particularly when Ren was still lurking about Starkiller base but ignoring Hux suddenly and without any discernable reason, Hux would dream that Ren stormed into his quarters or office and took him hard, like a dam bursting. Hux would moan encouragement and sometimes even babble gratitude in these dreams, asking what had taken Ren so long, why he’d waited. Ren never answered. Hux often woke up with sticky sheets.

Now the dreams are of softer, slower sex, the kind they didn’t often have unless they were completely exhausted and taking as much comfort as pleasure in the act. There was a warm familiarity that had matured from what was once only excitement, a sense of trusting surrender, and it’s there in the dreams. Ren is on top of Hux in almost all of them, all around him and huddled close like a tent, his robe billowing around them both. He fucks Hux with leisurely, gentle thrusts, maybe thinking of the baby. Hux whispers delirious praise, freely offering things he would never actually say.

“You always fucked me so well,” Hux says in one dream, murmuring this against Ren’s cheek with drowsy worship. “So well, Ren, ah--”

“I know,” Ren says. The close, low rumble of his voice makes Hux come-- in the dream, and also in reality. He wakes up panting, his cock still throbbing with aftershocks.

Afterward, in the shower, Hux is just muggy enough from the remaining haze of the dream to lean his arm onto the shower wall, hide his face against it and finally reach back to feel his way down through his crack and to his hole, probing tentatively with one fingertip. He’s rattled enough by the dream to feel almost as if he’s checking to make sure he wasn’t just actually fucked open nice and slow by Ren, that he isn’t dripping and loose.

He’s tight, untouched there since maybe a week or two after that one night stand, whenever he tried to recapture the feeling alone and was too depressed by the effort to do it again. He’d always depended on Ren in this area: Ren was shameless and filthy and Hux had to only arch his back and get what he wanted. Hux groans and pounds his fist against the shower wall, all of his nerves lit up just from the sensation of his own cautious fingertip rubbing circles around his rim. His spent cock twitches hopefully and he humps the wall a few times, feeling crazed.

The haze lingers through his shift, and Hux goes tense when he sees Ren on the bridge. He returns to his quarters for his mid-shift meal and uses this time to stuff a sweet, meat-filled bun into his mouth while he scrolls for information on his data pad with his other hand, feeling feverish. After some poking about he’s able to confirm what Ren told him, more or less: heading into the middle stages of pregnancy, most Dissonian males experience an increased sex drive and heightened sensitivity in erogenous zones.

So it’s a scientific fact and not Hux failing to resist Ren’s temptations. He closes the data files, clears his history, eats a second sweet bun and plots. His course of action can be two-fold: satisfy physical urges in order to keep his mind clear for duty, and seduce Ren into discussing the situation with Snoke while they share a pillow, possibly in the post-sex hours when Ren sometimes wants to whisper together as if they’re boys sharing secrets in a blanket fort. Republic-bred nonsense; Hux never should have been taken in by it, but at least now he can use it for tactical purposes. He sends Ren a comm message before returning to his shift:

    A.HUX: Meeting at 22:00, my quarters. If you’re agreeable, bring an offering.

He puts his comm away, washes the sweet bun residue from his fingers and brushes his teeth. By the time he returns to the bridge, he’s got a new message from Ren.

    K.REN: What sort of offering

Hux tries to ignore the message. Then Ren shows up on the bridge and stares at him through the mask, keeping his distance but making no pretense of being here for any purpose other than to torment Hux with his proximity. After busying himself with a lieutenant who requested a coordinate consultation, Hux deigns to reply.

    A.HUX: Something savory and salty, if you’ve got it.

He might be imagining things, but he thinks he hears Ren huff a sort of gut-punched laugh as he reads his comm.

    K.REN: I may have something that fits that description.

Hux doesn’t respond. He’s been foolish enough already, but at least he’ll get what he’s after, eventually. If he has to share his bed with Ren again in order to do it, so be it. At least he knows now not to expect the arrangement to last very long. Hux only needs it to persist until he gets the information he needs. It’s all for the good of the Order: even the baby, whom Hux has begin to think of as a future Emperor, perhaps taking Hux’s place on the throne someday. Hux is unsurpassed when it comes to weapon design, and his child could be the real jewel in the Order’s arsenal if he’s raised properly, which of course he will be, in Hux’s care. No weapon is more valuable than an excellent leader, after all.

Allowing this to preoccupy his thoughts puts Hux back in mind of Snoke and his current status. There are two options, as Hux sees it: Snoke has disappeared for some reason, possibly having to do with Ren, or he’s sent Ren back here to evaluate the situation in preparation for a surprise attack that would put the Force users solely in power. While Snoke certainly always planned to get rid of Hux, for a long time he also needed him: Hux was the face of the Order, also its most valuable weapons engineer. Snoke saw the value of Starkiller above all and therefore wanted to keep its architect close at hand. Hence the promotion, and the fact that Snoke let Hux give grand speeches and put his face on recruitment posters. It wasn’t as if Snoke’s gnarled, obtuse presence would inspire confidence in Order personnel who had grown up with the glory of the Empire. Hux had always been waiting for Snoke to try to get rid of him, and had also been waiting for an idea about how to thwart his efforts. For a long time, Ren seemed like Hux’s best bet in that regard, but Hux never could pry Ren’s true loyalties from Snoke’s grip. All the arse worship was just that: sex, a diversion, nothing that ever kept Ren at Hux’s side when he was needed most.

Hux keeps this firmly in mind when Ren arrives at his quarters that evening. This encounter has established parameters, and it’s a limited engagement, strategic and logical. Hux has bathed, and in cleaning himself thoroughly he managed to become aroused to the point that his cock isn’t entirely soft when Ren stalks toward him in the front room. Hux is wearing baggy sweats and a sleeveless tank that sags over his chest. He hasn’t combed his hair, which is still damp from his bath. He doesn’t want Ren to think he made much of an effort.

“I brought you something,” Ren says.

“Good. Show me.”

Hux half expects Ren to take out his cock then and there. Instead, Ren removes the helmet, sets it on the floor and reaches into his robe to produce a colorful packet of something that looks like it could be purchased at a junk food stand in a trashy space station. Hux is almost ready to take this as an insult when he recognizes the packaging and gasps.

“Are those--”

“Rocket Snaps.” Ren grins when Hux hurries forward to grab the packet and examine it more closely. “I read that they were big with ex-Imperial children after the war.”

“Yes, they--” Hux is so flustered by holding this object in his hand that he has to gather himself before continuing, swallowing some of his boyish enthusiasm down. “They were the only treat we had, really,” he says, lifting his chin and attempting to appear stoic. “They were stashed aboard ships with the emergency rations, because of their long shelf life. Imperial leftovers, like us. I’m sure they’re not manufactured anymore. Where did you find these?”

“I have my ways. Crack them open, let’s see if they’re still edible.”

“Later,” Hux says, though his mouth is watering. He so loved these things as a boy, and they are indeed salty and savory. Ren must have had those gummies in mind when he sought these out, rather than some folk wisdom about the health of an expecting parent. Cravings, he’d called them. Hux sets the snacks aside. He doesn’t like to eat directly before sex. Ren might know this about him if he’d ever paid any attention. “I’m sure you know what else I require from you,” Hux says when he meets Ren’s eyes again.

“Yes.”

Hux can see Ren just barely managing to swallow down an I told you so. He’s wise to judge that it wouldn’t get him far right now.

“Follow me, then,” Hux says, turning toward the bedroom. “I’m on a strict sleeping schedule, for my health.”

“This will help you sleep,” Ren says, hurrying after him.

Hux rolls his eyes, though he suspects Ren is right. It might at least stave off the sex dreams for a while.

When he clambers onto the bed and watches Ren undress, Hux thinks of their first time together. It was nothing like this: not planned, not in the privacy of one of their rooms, and neither of them took the time to undress. It was frantic, almost like an extension of the fight they’d been having when Ren grabbed the back of Hux’s hair and kissed him to shut him up. Hux had known it was coming, that Ren wanted him and that, like Hux, Ren felt like he was unraveling from it after all their years of dancing around each other. Still, he’d been taken off guard by how much he liked Ren’s big hand on his throat, and by how good it had felt to spread his legs and moan when he wanted it that much, enough to lose himself to it, which had never happened before.

“You’re thinking about the past,” Ren says. He sounds pleased. He’s tugged off everything but his leggings and is peeling those down slowly, as if he expects Hux to savor the sight.

“I’ll get the lube,” Hux says, annoyed by Ren’s posturing, his mind-reading, everything.

In the fresher, Hux is embarrassed to realize that this is the same bottle of lube he used the last time Ren fucked him here, over a year ago. He hopes that Ren won’t mystically sense this, and gives himself a stern, judgmental look in the mirror.

You’re about to get fucked, Armitage, he thinks, fingers squeezing in around the bottle of lube. It’s going to feel as good as it always did with him, and you’re going to make some unfortunate noises at an extreme volume, but that’s as far as any of this goes. No hand-holding in the aftermath. No drifting off to sleep with some kind of pathetic, subconscious belief that he’ll be there when you wake. Keep to the plan.

After giving himself this mental pep talk, Hux returns to the room. Ren is nude, semi-erect, and reclining on the bed in a way that is probably supposed appear casual. Seeing this, it occurs to Hux that Ren likely hasn’t fucked anyone since leaving him, and that he might have been as lax in the self-care department as Hux has been recently. It can’t have been satisfying to masturbate in Snoke’s fortress. Hux saw it only briefly, when ferrying Ren there after Starkiller was destroyed, a trip they both endured in horrible, heavy silence. Snoke’s residence was damp and decrepit, a tomb-like palace fit for a ghoulish king.

“Make room,” Hux grumbles when he climbs onto the bed, shoving Ren over. Ren’s gaze sweeps down along the length of Hux’s body and then up again, hungry and unashamed. Hux passes him the lube and sits back against the pillows, red-faced and strangely nervous.

“Have you touched it yet?” Ren asks. He’s hovering close, sitting up on his elbow. He smells freshly cleaned and seems nervous, too.

“Touched it?” Hux says, knees twitching back together when he attempts to spread them like he used to for Ren.

“Your prostate.”

“No, I-- I’ve been busy.”

Ren laughs. Hux shoves him, chewing down the impulse to laugh, too.

“You’re so cute,” Ren says.

Hux recoils. It’s not the kind of thing they ever said to each other, and he can’t imagine Ren has ever said this about anything before now. Ren seems undisturbed by Hux’s reaction, or maybe pleased to see that he’s alarmed.

“Just get to work,” Hux snaps, not even sure why he feels insulted. Brendol used to torment him for being underweight and he’s heard more stupid comments about his hair color than he cares to recall. He’s never liked the way he looks, but he used to bask in the way Ren looked at him: like this, as if Hux is a source of light and warmth after too much cold, lonely wandering in the dark.

“Can I kiss you?” Ren asks, hanging back like he already knows the answer.

“Absolutely not.”

“You assume I meant your mouth.” Ren pops the lid off the lube and drags the tip of the bottle along his finger. His signature move, perhaps; he’s always done it this way when they start out calmly rather than in a frantic rut. “Maybe I want to kiss you here,” Ren says when he brings his slicked finger down between Hux’s legs, easing them apart more widely with his other hand.

“Ah,” Hux says, watching. He’s already breathing harder, and his cock is nearly full just from the building pressure of anticipation. His knees flinch when Ren’s slick fingertip begins to circle his hole. Hux moans and lets his head fall back, his shoulders relaxing onto the pillows behind him. That’s it, that’s it, already-- everything in him feels lit up and reawakened, and he’s grinding his hips down, eyes closed and mouth open.

“Fuck,” Ren says. “Hux. You need it so much.”

“Tell me something I don’t fucking know-- ahh, yes, oh--”

Hux takes two handfuls of the sheets when Ren’s finger slides into him, slowly but not tentatively. This is territory that Ren knows well; he’s an expert in this particular activity. Hux whimpers when he feels Ren getting close to his prostate, his hole clenching up in almost fearful anticipation around Ren’s finger. When Ren makes contact with it, Hux screams and sits up as if electrocuted, blindly grabbing for Ren, needing something to hold onto.

“Shit,” Ren says, easing off. “Sorry, shit, are you--”

“Again,” Hux says. He’s drooling onto Ren’s shoulder, curled around his arm, shaking all over. “Fuh, fuck, Ren--”

“Are you sure?” Ren still has his finger halfway in, somewhat awkwardly now that Hux is sitting up and clutching at him. “That was-- You sounded like you were in pain.”

“Did I?” Hux shakes his head and lets his lips bump thoughtlessly against Ren’s jaw. He’s panting, still thrumming from the intensity of that touch. He’d thought it would be-- He’s not sure what he thought, now. “It felt like dying and coming back to life at the same time,” Hux says, digging his fingertips into Ren’s arm. His bicep is so fucking solid, there’s almost no give. Hux wants to hump his cock into the crook of Ren’s elbow, or really against any part of him.

“Maybe it’s too intense,” Ren says. He glances down at Hux’s nipples and licks his lips. “For the baby.”

“Did your-- Your reading on this, did any of it indicate that?”

“No. Everything said it was a healthy, uh. Activity to engage in. It helps the mated pair bond.”

Hux groans. “We’re not a--”

“I know we’re not! Lie back, I’m going to do it again.”

“No.” Hux hugs himself around Ren’s arm. “Do it like this, I need to-- Like this.”

Ren obeys. Hux screams again, and bites Ren’s shoulder this time. Ren grunts but doesn’t otherwise protest.

“Fuck!” Hux shouts, scrambling up onto his knees so he can ride Ren’s finger, which isn’t nearly thick enough but perfectly precise.

“Feels good?” Ren asks.

Hux laughs crazily in answer, throwing his head back. “Careful,” he says when Ren moves his finger again, teasing.

“I could fuck you right here,” Ren says. He presses, circles, watches Hux scream and flex around him before retreating. “With my cock,” he clarifies when Hux comes back to himself enough to meet Ren’s eyes.  

“I’d lose my mind,” Hux says, nodding.

“You look so hot like this.”

“Like-- What, fuck, what do I look like?” Hux glances down at himself. He’s not surprised to see that the heat on his face has spread to his chest.

“Like someone who’s about to come,” Ren says. He nips a line of half-kisses, half-bites along Hux’s jaw, up toward his ear. “You want to?”

“Nuh, not-- Not until you’re in me.”

“I am in you.”

“All of you, fuck-- Ren, you know what I mean--”

“I know, shh.” Ren pulls his finger out. Hux cries and bites his shoulder again, then licks him there, beseeching. “Better get on your hands and knees,” Ren says, rubbing his nose on Hux’s cheek. “Or I’ll end up kissing you.”

Hux grabs Ren’s ears and kisses him hard on the mouth, already breaking one of the rules he made while giving himself a stern talking to in the fresher. Ren moans into Hux’s mouth and presses him down to the mattress, hands everywhere. It’s too much like one of Hux’s sex dreams, so he rolls over before Ren’s weight can settle onto him, clambering up onto his shaking limbs and offering Ren his arse.

“Fuck me,” Hux begs, already mindless. He can hear Ren slicking up his cock, the familiar squish of lube sliding over his shaft. “Please,” Hux adds, looking back over his shoulder.

“Hold onto something,” Ren says.

Hux grabs the top of his low headboard, but as soon as Ren starts to push inside he loses the ability to keep his grip. He drops his cheek to the sheets and arches his back, toes curling as he takes Ren in. He’s making some kind of choked noise of devouring relief, or maybe that’s Ren.

“Fuck,” Ren says, sounding like he’ll cry. “You’re so tight, Hux--”

“I forgot, hah, how big you are, oh--”

That’s a lie: Hux remembers every inch of this feeling, how he would let go of himself a little at a time, this fullness like floating. He’s completely in his body and almost out of his mind. Ren closes around him from behind, feeling enormous in all ways. He flicks his tongue over the back of Hux’s neck with teasing softness as he comes to a full seat inside him. It’s the purest good thing Hux has ever had: this simple, physical, warm sense of completion. Like something designed for him alone has been slotted back into place.

“Gonna angle you so I hit you right,” Ren says, both hands going to Hux’s hips. “Let me know if it’s too much.”

Ren adjusts carefully, moves slowly. Hux wails at the first brush of Ren’s cock against his prostate; it is too much, but he also wants more.

“You’re like a fire,” Ren says, sounding as if he’s losing his mind, too. “You’re just, you’re burning, Hux, you’re so fucking hot inside, all around me--”

Hux gurgles in agreement; he feels like he’s on fire, never wants to stop burning like this. Ren fucks him in long, steady drags, sighing with pleasure every time he sinks back in. Hux is boneless in his grip, his cock jumping as Ren pulls back enough to almost pop out, holding there for a moment so Hux can feel the wide-open stretch at his rim, and then there’s the perfect push back inside, both of them savoring it. Hux has lost his voice and is mostly making hoarse little croaking noises. As soon as he touches his dribbling cock, he’ll come. He wants to last, in part because he can’t remember the last time he felt this good, even with Ren, and also because he’s a little afraid of how intense his orgasm will be.

“I’ve got you,” Ren promises, breathing this out against the back of Hux’s neck.

I know, Hux thinks, and he sobs against the sheets. You’ve got me, haven’t you, right back where you want me, you fucking--

Ren grabs Hux’s cock and pumps him: rough, to contrast the otherwise gentle pace. Hux screams into the mattress, fucks himself back against the inward push of Ren’s cock and comes so hard that he’s crying, startled and undone. He’s still weeping with what he refuses to think of gratitude when Ren grunts and fills him with come, both arms wrapped high and tight around Hux’s chest.

Hux has already broken one rule by allowing that kiss, so it seems unimportant when he allows Ren to slump onto his side, still inside him, and hold him while they both try to recover their breath. Ren smells incredible, so good that it makes Hux hungry. He brings Ren’s clean hand to his mouth and sucks on one of his fingers, enjoying the way Ren whimpers, oversensitive, when Hux clenches his arse around Ren’s softening cock.

“I fucking love you,” Ren says, whispering this against the back of Hux’s ear and spoiling both the ease and the serenity of the moment.

“Oh, shut up,” Hux says. He lets Ren’s finger slip from his mouth and crawls forward, groaning with a feeling of renewed satiation as Ren’s cock tugs free from his hole, come pooling on the sheets already. “You love fucking me,” Hux says, keeping his back to Ren, eyes closed. “Mind the order of your words.”

Ren leaves the bed in a hurry, predictably. Hux feigns sleep and listens to the pound of his own unsteady heartbeat. He gasps when something cool and crinkly hits his shoulder and bounces onto the bed. The packet of Rocket Snaps: Ren has thrown them from the bedroom doorway. He’s standing there, seething, when Hux sits up and gropes for the packet.

“You know why you need my help raising this kid?” Ren asks. His cock is still red and wet, and there’s a smear of Hux’s come on the jut of his right hipbone.

“Please, tell me,” Hux says dryly, pulling the Rocket Snaps packet open. The scent of them is an instant comfort, but there’s something unnerving about it, too, like traveling back in time.

“Because you’re cold,” Ren says, pointing a finger at Hux. “And cruel. The kid will end up warped, like you are.”

“And you’re such a warm and joyful presence. Thanks for the fuck and the unsolicited advice.” Hux pops a Rocket Snap in his mouth. “You may go now,” he says, chewing.

“You have no idea how fucked you’d be without me.”

“Without you?” Hux says, letting weaponized rage rise through him. “Getting fucked is the one good thing about being with you! I’ve done just fine since you skipped off to train with Snoke, have you not noticed?”

“Yeah, getting pregnant by some stranger, great job.”

“It’s being handled!”

“You’re not even showing yet. What you think you can handle has barely started. The hard part’s coming, and you’re sticking your head in the sand, trying to drive me off like I’m some inconvenience.”

“No, Ren, I’m trying to be bloody realistic! When you leave, I don’t want to have a giant Ren-shaped hole in the plan I made for myself and this child. Is that really so terribly hard to understand?”

“Why do you think I’m going to leave? Where would I go?”

“Back to Snoke!”

“I killed Snoke!”

Ren goes pale after shouting this. He turns and punches the wall.

“What,” Hux says.

“It was an accident,” Ren mumbles. He turns back toward the bed and drags his fingers through his hair. “Kind of.”

Hux’s stomach pinches up, and for a moment he’s sure he’s going to puke the few Rocket Snaps he’s eaten onto the bed. He puts the packet down and brushes the salty dust of them off his fingertips.

“Explain,” he says when he looks up at Ren again.

“I sensed you needed some kind of assistance,” Ren says. There’s color rising to his cheeks now, as if this is more embarrassing than a whispered love confession. “I asked for leave to go to you. For the good of the Order, I said. But Snoke saw through that. He was angry. I defied him for the first time in-- I don’t know, ever. And I didn’t mean to kill him, I just wanted to throw off this painful energy he’d focused onto me. It was the same punishment he’d always given me when I asked for something he didn’t want me to have. I just, I couldn’t-- Couldn’t accept it the way I always had, not this time, I wanted it off. I had some kind of a power surge when I thought about how you needed me, how he’d taken me away from you. It flooded the room we were in and hit Snoke like a thunderclap. He just crumpled. Like a pile of bones, bam. Dead.”

“Are you sure?” Hux asks. He wants Ren’s arms around him now, again needs something to hold onto.

“I’m sure. I brought the Knights in and confessed what I’d done. They were shocked, but not angry. I’m their master. They look to me alone for guidance. So because I killed Snoke, it must have been the right thing, in their view. Because I did it. It’s done.”

“Ren, this is-- Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was going to. But then you were pregnant.”

“I directly asked you what happened to Snoke! What the hell does my pregnancy have to do with it?”

“Here’s what I’m thinking,” Ren says, suddenly calm. He sits on the bed, just out of reach. “I think Snoke cut me off from my loved ones because they offer me a kind of power through rage, through the dark side. When I want to protect them, my power surges. Even enough to kill someone like Snoke. That’s why I’m excited about this baby. Well, one reason. If he’s mine-- Ours-- If we raise him together, I think my need to protect him will feed my power. And together, without Snoke, you and I can run the Order and, you know. Rule the galaxy.”

Hux stares at Ren, attempting to process this. It’s got to be some kind of trick, something still concealed beneath this story, but it also seems true. Hux’s instincts had already told him something had changed on this scale. He just needed the details, though of course the Force and its functionality resists explanation nonetheless.

“Well,” Hux says. “At least I know the reason for your interest in my child. I should have assumed it had something to do with getting more power for yourself.”

“What other reason is there to do anything? I love you because you’re the same as me. When you think about your baby, you consider him as an asset for your Empire.”

Hux grabs for the Rocket Snaps and angrily eats one. “Not all the time,” he says.

Ren takes the bag of Snaps and jams a handful of them into his mouth. He makes a face when he’s chewing.

“Gross,” he says.

“Fuck you.” Hux snatches the bag back and eats more of them, somewhat frantically. Their familiar taste is grounding him in this insane moment. “They’re good.”

“They taste like the floor of a theater.”  

“I’ll take your word for it, since I’ve never licked a theater floor. Not surprised to hear that you have. Can you get out? I need to think.”

“Why can’t you think when I’m here?”

“That’s a wonderful question, Ren. You can ponder it while you’re away. Now go.”

“How many times do you think you can reject me?” Ren asks, standing. “I’m a person, too. I have limits. There are only so many times I’m going to come back after you tell me I’m a worthless piece of garbage.”

“I never said that!”

Hux feels his eyes burning. Entirely against his will, he’s having some kind of emotion. It’s filling his chest like it wants to push something out of him.

“I’m pretty sure you said that, Hux.” Ren is gathering his clothes. If he’s noticed that Hux is suddenly, absurdly on the verge of tears, he doesn’t seem concerned about it.

“You abandoned me,” Hux says. His voice is shaking: fuck. Now Ren is looking at him, and looking surprised, his clothes hugged to his chest. “Even before we lost Starkiller, well before that, before you were called away for the training, you-- Oh, fuck it, never mind. Snoke is dead! This changes everything, and I have-- Work to do, so. Just go.”

“Things were different then,” Ren says. “When I left--”

“Right, I wasn’t carrying a source of power for you in my womb at the time. What if you only killed Snoke because it was the first time you’d really tried to fight his hold over you? It’s probably got nothing to do with me. All you sensed was that I’d moved on, because I’d been with someone else. You couldn’t abide that, so you threw a tantrum. That’s what killed Snoke, not some kind of love crisis.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about. And you don’t know how to accept love. I pity your child.”

“Get out!”

“I’m trying to!”

“Put your clothes on in the fucking hallway, I want you out now!”

Hux expects to start crying again when Ren is gone, out the door naked with his boots and clothes bundled against his chest, his helmet under his arm. Instead of tears, Hux is besieged with the sensation of plummeting down through some cold chasm. It’s a numbing, helpless sensation, and he hates it. He wants desperately to talk to someone, anyone but Ren, as if doing so would stop him from falling.

“Don’t worry,” he says, rubbing his belly. “That man is not your father.”

But saying so makes it feel like a possibility for the first time: what if Ren could be trusted, in this alternate universe they’re suddenly living in, with Snoke dead and the galaxy spread out before them like a buffet they can pick from as they choose? Hux has never had anyone he could rely on. He doesn’t know what that would feel like. There was a woman when he was young, a kind of mentor who once promised to keep him safe. Rae. The thought of her name makes his eyes burn again. She disappeared while he was away at the Academy. Missing in action, presumed dead. She wasn’t his first lesson in inevitable abandonment, but losing her was what made the truth stick: there is no one who can be counted on, not ever.

“Except me,” he says to the baby. “Whatever happens, you’ll have me.”

It feels like a hollow promise. Hux eats the rest of the Rocket Snaps and slumps into the fresher to clean himself up. Despite all his plans, he’s suffering the way he always does when Ren leaves. So throwing Ren out himself doesn’t actually make his absence any easier to bear: noted.

Hux gathers himself once he’s presentable and goes to his comm. He calls an emergency meeting with Unamo and Vestra, leaving the rest of his senior staff off of the message for now. Snoke is gone. The Order is free of his arcane rule at last. There is much to be done, and Hux’s strict sleep schedule will have to be put on hiatus for now.

**

Hux has always excelled at grabbing power in a vacuum, and until now he’s never been in such a prime spot already when seizing an opportunity to do so. Snoke’s secrecy and unwillingness to expose his grim visage to the general population of the Order, combined with Kylo Ren’s long absence and the Knights’ similar opaque presence outside the chain of command, have left people not only willing but ready to hear Hux tell them that he is the acting Supreme Leader while Snoke’s disappearance is investigated. Hux sends several officers on a special mission to Snoke’s fortress, and his only communication with Ren in the heady weeks following Ren’s confession to Snoke’s murder is to ask for an assurance that his officers won’t be harmed by any lurking Knights when they arrive to confirm that the previous Supreme Leader is dead.

Ren’s answering grunt seems to suggest that he’s agreeable to this.

“The way I’m framing it is that you and I are still co-commanders,” Hux explains while Ren listens in silence, still breathless from the mad pummelling he was unleashing on a punching bag when Hux found him in the gym. “But as you’re still outside the chain of command, and unless you’d like to fight me for the position, I’ll ascend to Supreme Leader, at least in title. Obviously, I’ll still value and respect your input for as much as you’d like to offer it. I’m giving you an opportunity to craft your own role in the regime, going forward.” Hux’s jaw tightens when Ren stalks back over to the punching bag and starts hitting it again. “Of course, if that doesn’t interest you, you and the Knights can always drift off and be monks together in some appropriately dreary backwater. If that’s what you want.”

“I killed Snoke,” Ren says. He’s not looking at Hux, still hitting the bag. “That makes me Supreme Leader. I would think.”

“Do you really want my job? The speeches, the tiresome dinners with political allies, hours spent approving command-level reports every night--”  

“I’ve told you what I want.”

A family, Hux thinks. He doesn’t dare say it, and leaves without saying anything else at all. Ren continues to wail on the punching bag like a teenage boy who has been told he must clean his room if he wants to use the family cruiser.

Another period of avoiding each other begins then and stretches on for a week. Hux is physically exhausted after cutting into his rest cycles for purposes of plotting and tying up loose ends in Snoke’s absence, making careful moves that won’t look like a greedy power grab. There isn’t a need for one, as far as he can see: Ren is sulking, obsessing over personal melodrama rather than prudent strategy, as ever. Otherwise, Hux’s underlings are loyal, or at least too nervous to try anything just yet. Operations are going well in general, and Hux has given the go-ahead for the mission to collect materials for his ship-destabilizing weapon. When his officers return and issue their formal report on Snoke’s demise from what they describe as an “apparent earthquake,” everything seems within Hux’s reach at last: the kind of galactic rule he always dreamed about. It’s resting, if not quite closed, right in his palm.  

The hours he does set aside for sleep are restless and haunted by bad dreams. It’s something to do with having everything he’s ever wanted so close: a path toward an Emperor’s throne, the sudden return of Ren amid insane promises of love and devotion, and even the prospect of having a little heir at his feet during this potentially most glorious time of his life. The combination of all these seeming windfalls is somewhat staggering after so many years of grinding scarcity, enough to plague him with irrational but near-constant doubts about actually being able to keep any of it. Hux often lies awake after murky nightmares that leave him coated in dread like an invisible grime, his hands pressed desperately over his stomach. His research indicates that if all is well he’ll feel the baby moving soon, and in these lonely stretches of sleeplessness he’s sure he wants that more than galactic domination or anything else.

During his working hours he has no time to be preoccupied with doubt, and he at least feels confident that he would know if something was wrong with the pregnancy, likely because he would be in tremendous pain. He’s also sure that Ren would come running if anything were amiss enough to be felt through the Force, despite their current determination to avoid each other otherwise. Hux is so busy that he can sometimes tell himself he’s forgotten why Ren is having a sulk this time, but during every solitary lift ride or stolen moment of peace under the blast of a sonic shower Hux again hears Ren whispering I fucking love you, and then comes the shattered-glass memory of Hux’s response.

He can’t deny that protecting himself from such post-fuck whisperings is the right thing to do. He wants to reunite with Ren at least physically, because part of his inability to sleep involves a dull ache to be filled that makes him feel itchy and pulled tight with need, but Ren has proven to be too sloppy to fit into the purely sexual role that Hux always should have cast him in. Hux will reevaluate Ren’s place in his life when things calm down, though he’s not sure what calming down will look like. There are weapon prototype simulations to oversee, extensive investigations into Snoke’s dealings with foreign governments that have to be very delicately navigated, plus the continued efforts to stamp out what’s left of the New Republic and the pestering presence of the Resistance that pops up in reports from time to time. When Hux feels his head spinning on the bridge, he tells himself this is normal, just a symptom of assuming new power and embracing his sprawling responsibilities more robustly than ever.

Then he blacks out in the middle of a conversation with Lieutenant Mitaka, right at the front of the command bridge, in view of everyone on shift.

He wakes up on his back in a bed with Ren looming over him. There’s a hazy moment when he’s sure he dreamed most of the events of the past year, or at least the past four months. He notices Ren’s faded scar, which seems like undeniable proof that he’s returned to reality, and sits up with a sharp intake of breath.

“Did I lose the baby?” Hux asks, shouting this in Ren’s face just as the other people standing in the medbay room come into view at the corner of Hux’s eye. But he doesn’t care, doesn’t care, because Ren looks heartbroken, wounded, something happened--

“The baby’s fine,” Ren says, and then he kisses Hux on the forehead with an awkward, audible smack of his lips. “Darling,” he adds as an afterthought, like he’s reading from a script.

“I-- What happened?” Hux is still holding onto Ren’s shoulders when he turns to take a tentative look at the others in the room. He recognizes the Chief Medical Officer and two members of her staff: a medic droid and a young woman who lowers her gaze respectfully when Hux meets her eyes.

“You lost consciousness on the bridge,” Ren says. “Extreme fatigue.”

“I don’t know that I’d use the word extreme,” the CMO says, stepping forward. She’s maybe twenty years older than Hux, stern-looking and almost as tall as Ren. “But the incident is alarming, sir, particularly considering your condition.”

Hux allows the full weight of reality to sink in around his ears like ice water. His condition. She knows of it. Hux has confessed to it himself, with that panicked exclamation. So this is the moment when all his careful scheming comes crashing down. He feels now like he knew it was imminent.

“He’s had trouble sleeping,” Ren says, sliding his arm around Hux’s shoulders. Hux resists the urge to violently shrug him off. Ren is using this moment to his advantage, of course. Cementing the story he’s been wanting to tell.

“The-- But everything’s all right?” Hux asks, his hand twitching with the need to slide across his belly. He clenches both hands in the blanket that’s draped over his legs instead.

“You’ve recovered optimally from the incident, sir,” the CMO says. Hux remembers her name as more of his mental faculties return to him: Captain Peregrin. “Fortunately, Lieutenant Mitaka caught you before you could hit the ground, so there’s no cranial damage or even bruising.”

“And the baby,” Hux asks, grimly now, having trouble with the words but unable to resist asking.

“The baby is perfectly healthy.” There’s a twinkle in Peregrin's eyes that Hux doesn’t like. Perhaps she’s imagining she’ll make a name for herself. Hux stares back at her with a look that he hopes will clearly communicate that he can and will have her killed if he likes. “I understand why you hesitated to seek onboard care, sir,” Peregrin says. “It’s a sensitive situation, of course. Also a miraculous occurrence, if you don’t mind me saying so.”

“We used the Force,” Ren says, and it takes every ounce of strength Hux has left to keep from grimacing and slapping Ren’s face. “So. There’s complexity involved that you may not understand.”

“I see.” Peregrin glances from Ren to Hux. “Of course, if you have another doctor, a private doctor, I defer to their treatment plan.”

“Treatment plan?” Hux says. “Why should I need one-- Do you predict complications?”

“Those are possible with any unusual pregnancy, but as of right now I don’t see any reason for special concern, beyond your exhaustion. Kylo mentioned that you’re taking supplements to help you sleep.”

Hux glances at Ren, not sure if Peregrin or the others will notice the hellfire in his eyes. Hux might be flattering himself, but for a moment he thinks Ren actually looks scared not for him but of him.

“Yes,” Hux says. “I prefer not to be medicated with anything that might compromise my mental function even in the slightest.”

“Of course, sir, and I wouldn’t recommend the regular taking of sleep aids, but I do have a stim that would be safe for you to take now, to help you recover some strength. I would recommend that you rest for a full, undisturbed cycle.”

Hux agrees to this mostly so he can escape the attention of Peregrin and her assistants. Ren helps him from the medbay bed with exaggerated care and accompanies him to his rooms with his helmet on, keeping silent and walking very close, as if Hux might collapse again at any moment. Hux feels shaky, cold, but he makes it to his quarters without needing to be swept into Ren’s arms.

“I’m sure you loved that,” Hux says as soon as the door shuts behind them, though he’s really too tired to fight. “Now you’ve gotten what you wanted. They all think it’s yours.”

“I had to make a swift executive decision when you collapsed on duty. Hux. Let me help you. You can’t afford to wear yourself down right now. Things aren’t as usual.”

Hux slumps into his bedroom without answering. He hasn’t taken the sleep aid yet but he already feels compromised, unable to put a logical thought process together. It’s as if he’s straddling several realities, unable to set foot firmly in any of them. Maybe once the baby is here, or once he feels more secure in his command, perhaps after a decisive battle, though lately their enemies seem to be running scared, which might mean they’re plotting something--

“I shouldn’t have allowed you to be stubborn after we argued,” Ren says, following Hux to the bed. Hux can’t pretend he’s not glad for Ren’s hovering, even if he can’t bring himself to be grateful for Ren’s machinations in medbay. He doesn’t want to be alone with this feeling of untethered possibility. “I could have been less stubborn myself,” Ren says when Hux gives him a look. “But you don’t make it easy. You push me-- You infuriate me.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

“I’m trying to be clear with you, I--”

“Being clear might have involved mentioning that you killed Snoke sooner rather than later.”

“Stop.” Ren kneels onto the bed, wielding the stim. “We can return to this later. You need to rest.”

Hux touches his belly and nods. “But I can’t just step away from command for an entire cycle,” he says, even as he watches Ren administer the stim to the fleshy part of his upper arm. Someone took Hux’s uniform shirt off in medbay; he came back in only his undershirt and greatcoat, which he dropped unceremoniously on his way into the bedroom. It’s unlike him. All of this is unlike him. Ren is right: things have changed.

“You do have a co-commander,” Ren says, speaking softly as he smoothes Hux’s hair back. “I can keep an eye on the bridge from here. I’ll watch your comm for anything urgent.”

“Ren.” Hux rolls toward him and shuts his eyes, wincing. “How will I do this? When people find out? When they look at me and see-- a Force user’s vessel.”

“That’s not what they’ll see. We’ll make sure of that. You’re a master of propaganda and crafting a public persona, are you not? When people look at you they’ll see me at your side. The child you’re carrying represents the future of a triumphant Order we’ll lead together. That’s what your people will see. New life and strength.”

Hux falls asleep with these words settling over him like a lullaby. Ren is close, warm, stroking his hair. After some blissful, shallow drifting beneath this feeling, Hux plunges into a much deeper sleep and stays there, held steady in motionless rest by the drugs from the stim.

He wakes feeling different, washed over and weak but also comfortable. It’s always been his instinct to immediately snap to attention and assess the situation when he feels like this, like he’s not quite sure which room or cycle he’s awakened in, but he takes his time now because Ren is still beside him. He’s reading from Hux’s data pad, the soft glow of its screen providing the only illumination in the room. Without looking up from whatever he’s reading, Ren reaches over to run his fingers through Hux’s hair, then down along his jaw.

“You scared the shit out of me,” Ren says. His voice is a low rumble, and the darkness of the room seems to hum around them like a security barrier, keeping the rest of the galaxy from encroaching. “I felt it when you dropped, like a light going out. It blinded me for a moment.”

“If we’re so connected,” Hux says, yawning. “I wish I could feel it, too.”

“You can. Stop lying to yourself. It’s inefficient, for one.”

Hux moans with feigned annoyance and wriggles closer. “How long was I out?”

“The full cycle, as prescribed. Plus a few hours.”

“Is the ship still intact?”

“Yes, look.” Ren scoots down and tucks his arm around Hux, hugging him to his chest so he can see the data pad’s screen. “There was a minor ventilator malfunction on systems subdeck C, and the officer who oversees that sector wrote you a little report about it. He’s very deferential and apologetic, swears it won’t happen again. We’re just two cycles out from Tition, and the materials pickup has been arranged with our contact there. Every precaution has been taken for maximum discretion, he assures you. Peregrin sent you a message saying that Lieutenant Mitaka came to medbay to inquire about your condition. She dismissed him and told him to mind his own business, of course.”  

Hux’s eyes are wet when Ren looks up from the data screen. He folds himself fully into Ren’s lap, tucking his knees to Ren’s chest and his face to Ren’s neck. It’s a deathblow to Hux’s efforts to protect himself from whatever happens next, but the war is lost and it feels too good when Ren’s arms tighten around him. He can’t even regret this surrender.

For a while they stay like that without speaking. Ren’s heartbeat is steady against Hux’s shoulder, and the room feels so secret and safe, far away from anything that might intrude. It’s an illusion, but Hux has learned through Ren that those can feel good, as solid as an embrace if just as ephemeral. Ren slides one hand down to Hux’s belly, his other palm pressed over the back of Hux’s neck. It’s the perfect trap for Hux, just as it’s always been, drawing him out toward a ledge he can’t topple over again. He won’t be plummeting alone this time, when he loses his footing.

“I’m not going to leave you,” Ren says. He’s either reading Hux’s mind or knows him well enough to understand why he’s trembling and clinging, hiding his face. “There’s no reason to now.”

“Precisely. There’s no reason now. But one will come, later. Eventually.”

“No-- Hux. I ignored you before we fired Starkiller for a reason, that’s true. But it was to do with Snoke, and he’s gone now.”

“You say that like it’s so easy for you.” Like everything. “Snoke’s gone, you killed Snoke. As if he was always some afterthought. He was supposed to be your master, you swore yourself to him. He counted on your devotion and was left for dead when you ripped it away from him, literally. How should I feel when I see you drop all that like it was another whim, like--”

“I could explain properly if you’d shut up.”

Hux sits back and glares at him. Ren smiles, though he looks kind of queasy and frightened, maybe only because of the odd lighting.

“It wasn’t easy,” Ren says. His voice is rough, suddenly. “Or maybe it was, in practice, but. Then I was left with what felt like nothing. After all I’d done, and given up.” Ren lowers his gaze and lets Hux touch his face, where some stubble has pricked up since Hux fell asleep.

“Tell me,” Hux says.

“Mmm, you’ll probably laugh.”

“I really doubt it’s all that funny.”

“I had a premonition. The closer we got to firing the weapon, the more intense it became. It was persistent, regular, trying to tell me something. To warn me. And I knew it wasn’t coming from Snoke, because it was about him. I was being warned that Snoke would ask me to kill someone I loved. And I thought, at the time-- I was sure you were the only person I loved. So I removed myself from your presence.”

Hux considers this in silence, still running gentle fingertips over the stubble on Ren’s cheek.

“But there was someone else?” he asks, feeling as if he’s missing something.

Ren nods. His eyes are shining when he meets Hux’s gaze, not quite wet. Ren can cry without the added humiliation of shedding tears, but his whole face changes, twitching into something vulnerable that’s maybe worse than weeping. Hux usually has to look away. He cups Ren’s face in both hands and holds his gaze now, sweeping his thumbs over Ren’s dry cheeks until he’s composed himself.

“My father,” Ren says. “Han Solo. He didn’t die during the destruction of Starkiller as assumed. I did it, just before. He was my test. I thought, because I’d kept you safe, that I’d fooled Snoke somehow, that he was trying to take something I’d already lost, or something I didn’t want. I thought it would make me stronger, like shedding the last of an old skin. But.”

Ren presses his face to Hux’s shoulder. Hux holds him and wonders if this is the time to confess that he killed Brendol when he was sixteen, or if that would constitute stealing Ren’s thunder. Perhaps it’s not the same, because Hux didn’t do it by his own hand. But he knew of a plan-- Rae came to him, out of respect-- Hux didn’t lift a finger to warn the old man. It was the right strategic move. Brendol would have done it to him, too. Maybe. Probably. He holds Ren tighter, trying not to dwell on the fact that he’s never had anyone to rely on who might not also stand to gain from murdering him. Ren included, really. He swears to himself that his own son will never feel that way. He’ll at least offer his child that basic security.

“That was what changed things,” Ren says. “I tried to get past what I’d done, but it burned at the core of me, until-- I think I must have sensed that you were going to become a father. I already missed you, Hux-- But this was unbearable, suddenly. I couldn’t be away from you. Everything in me screamed to return, even if it meant defying Snoke. So I did. And then I was lost-- I am lost, without you. Please don’t forsake me. Let me be a part of this.” Ren brushes his thumb over Hux’s belly and lifts his face. His eyes are still dry but also broken-looking, begging. “I need this,” he says. “Need you. Where do you think I would rather be, ever? This is where I belong, and you know it, I know you can feel it, too--”

“Shh, you’re babbling.”

Hux kisses Ren to quiet him. His heart is pounding, the haze of the sleep aid burning off and all of his analytical processes coming back online, alarms going off here and there. But Ren kisses so sweetly, and he’s so warm, earnest and sniffling. Hux is treading into dangerous waters, letting Ren deepen the kiss and sigh into his mouth as if he’s tasting relief and acceptance. Perhaps at the center of this emotional swamp there really is a fortified island where they can rule together. It’s a long shot, but Hux can no longer deny that he can’t shoulder all of this without help. It’s logical, on one level. Maybe he can’t trust Ren entirely, but he still trusts him more than anyone else.  

And, worse, horribly: he’s tired of being alone. It’s become so labor intensive to tell himself every day, all the time, that he’s fine with it. Even getting pregnant came with a flicker of hope, deep down but still burning, that someone might finally come into his life and stay there.

“When you’ve had to work as hard as I have, you build up a certain amount of fear of not getting what you want,” Hux says. “Perhaps too much.”

“That’s not where your fear comes from,” Ren says, mumbling.

Hux flicks Ren’s chin. “Do you really want to spoil the moment by lecturing me about myself?”

He’s joking. Mostly.

“Am I really what you want?” Ren asks, and for a moment Hux thinks he’s joking, too, but he’s searching Hux’s eyes like he sincerely needs an answer.

“You,” Hux says, nodding, and he settles his hand over Ren’s on his belly. “And this little one. And the entire galaxy on its knees at our feet.” He grins when Ren does. “That’s all.”

**

Time passes, and delicate routines take shape. Ren’s things gradually migrate to Hux’s quarters. Hux does less micromanaging and more sleeping, though only by small degrees. It still makes a difference: he feels less like he’s hurtling through an asteroid belt and more like he’s sailing across an ocean resembling the one he knew as a boy on Arkanis, rocked with storms some mornings and eerily calm on others, but usually somewhere between the two.

One benefit of allowing Ren and others to oversee certain operations is that Hux has uninterrupted time to devote to perfecting his weapon design. He enjoys the solitude of the work, and by the sixth month of his pregnancy he’s no longer stopping himself from absently rubbing his rounded-out belly while muttering nonsensical observations and inquiries in the baby’s direction, as if his unborn child is his laboratory assistant. Would this work better with a dexiplast coating? Hmm? Do you think? Let’s try it. He also doesn’t correct his tendency to smile like a lunatic whenever he feels the baby move. It feels like a commendation, as if he’s being told that he’s doing a good job, and he never could have predicted than an unborn child’s praise would seem like the highest he’s ever gotten. If Ren is present he’ll come dashing over to feel it, too, and Hux enjoys this, smugly: he’s sharing his special sensitivity with Ren rather than vice versa, at last.

In the realm of sensitivity, Hux’s prostate remains king, with his nipples serving as demanding courtiers. Ren fucks him too gently but also just right, playing Hux like an instrument with long, deliberate strokes of his cock. When Hux needs something harder he rides Ren, facing toward Ren’s feet so his stomach won’t distract him by rubbing between them while he bounces and moans.

“You’re glowing,” Ren says during one of these fucks. He strokes Hux’s back with one hand while he tweaks a nipple with the other, his hips lifting in a helpless stutter when Hux cries out for the feeling and clenches up around him.

“Shut up,” Hux says, coated in sweat and close to coming for the second time in one night. He can’t get enough and feels like a starving person when Ren walks into a room, his scent almost unbearably strong to Hux’s piqued senses but also so good, just perfect, enough to make Hux want to drink from Ren’s dick before climbing into his lap. He longs above all to wear Ren out, to drain him of every drop and see him conquered, but Ren is hard to exhaust and Hux is usually asleep within seconds of his climax, if only to wake a short time later and prod Ren for more.

“I’m serious,” Ren says now, bringing both his hands down to squeeze Hux’s tensed-up thighs. “Your imperial seal should have a sun motif. You’re the brilliant light that powers the new Empire.”

Hux laughs low in his throat, too giddy to pretend not to be flattered by this nonsense. He secretly loves how Ren refuses to shut up during sex; it’s probably not an actual secret, considering Ren’s powers and how he always keeps talking no matter what Hux says. Hux’s legs are beginning to tire, but he’s still not ready to climb off of Ren, or to stop feeling as exalted and regal as he does when they’re locked together like this. Every rest cycle is like this now: Hux gets precisely what he needs, turns to jelly and melts onto the bed, well-fucked, Ren gathered all around him and making contented growling noises because he’s insane, protective.

“Hux, ahh, yeah, ride that dick. I bask in your light, Emperor.”

“Shut up.” Hux laughs hard and grabs his cock, ready to evaporate into his orgasm while he feels like this, like he’s already on a throne of sorts. He comes with a shout when Ren’s hand covers his and pumps, milking him. Hux’s arse milks Ren’s cock in turn, and when they’re through Hux crawls onto the mussed sheets while come gushes from him, rewarding Ren with soft noises of approval when he does his best to clean Hux up as he drifts into sleep.

Hux should say I love you. It’s a dumb token, cheap and small, but Ren comes from the land of those and it’s important to him. Hux falls asleep, as usual, deciding he’ll do it later.

Even with Ren there beside him and no immediate doom on the horizon, nightmares come frequently. Hux dreams most often of his mother, who he’s only ever seen in a grainy old holo of kitchen staff registry. She’s a flicking hologram in his dreams, too, and he reaches for her, needing something from her and never able to get it. Dreams of Brendol are worse: he steals Hux’s baby, locks Hux up in the dark someplace, accuses him of betraying Rae to her doom when really it was Rae and Hux who did that to Brendol. Hux can’t speak in most of these dreams, which makes him feel more helpless than lacking a blaster ever has. He wants to cry out for Ren, and often he wakes doing so, humiliated by the tenderness Ren shows him in the dark of their bedroom but unable to push him away. Hux clings, and sometimes the baby stirs between them.

“Can you tell me what he’s feeling?” Hux asks one night after a particularly bad dream, when he’s just past seven months along and unable to resist this question any longer. He’s withheld it until now because he doesn’t want Ren to know more about the baby than he does, but after a nightmare that he gave birth to an infant with a stormtrooper helmet for a head, he needs some intel about what’s actually going on in there. Something that even Peregrin with all her various scanning devices wouldn’t be able to tell him.

“He’s sleeping,” Ren says, softly and with reverence, his face close to Hux’s on the pillow.

“Lucky him. My distress didn’t wake him?”

“No. He’s used to it, I think, in this context. Hux. You have so many bad dreams.”  

“I doubt yours are better,” Hux says, feeling judged.

“They’re not so terrible with you here.” Ren sounds forlorn, as if he wishes he could offer Hux the same security. He kisses Hux’s nose and spreads his hand out over his stomach, which is fairly enormous now, the skin stretched tight. Hux already had to have his greatcoat taken out to allow him to button it over the bump, and he fears a further alteration will be required.

“Does he know who I am?” Hux asks when he’s just tired enough to voice the question, blinking heavily and allowing Ren to nuzzle at him.

“Not intellectually,” Ren says. He gives Hux an admonishing nose bump when he laughs. “But instinctually, sure. He’s knows he’s safe in there. With you.”

“Oh--” Hux grabs Ren’s ear and pinches his eyes shut tight, feels overcome with something that wants to overflow from him. It’s not tears or anything else so literal. “I really want him, Ren.”

“I know.” Ren moves his thumb on Hux’s stomach, exhales warmly against his cheek. “And you have him. He’s right here.”

“Of course, I know that, but-- It’s all so-- I feel like I’m fooling myself-- Sometimes, about all of it--”

“You’re just tired. You still work too hard. The doctor might recommend bedrest soon. It’s not uncommon for Dissonian males with narrow frames.”

“Don’t call me a Dissonian male! Or narrow.”

“You know what I mean.” Ren gives him a peck on the lips, a little apology. “We should think about making an announcement.”

“I want to wait until he’s here and presentable,” Hux says. Ren knows this already. They’ve discussed it. Hux trusts that Peregrin and her staff have kept their mouth shuts about his regular checkups and the situation in general, but in a perverse way he actually likes the idea of word getting around organically, behind his back. The thought of making a speech with a baby hugged to his chest is too bizarre, though probably necessary, if they’re to present this child the way they plan to: as a symbol of the Order’s healthy future.

“I know that’s your ideal scenario,” Ren says. He seems to be choosing his words carefully. “But, Hux. Surprises might come.”

“Surprises? Like what? Have you sensed something?”

“No. But new life is one of the most chaotic representations of the Force’s sacred energy. It can’t be scheduled around like an officer’s meeting.”

Hux doesn’t want to hear that, particularly because he has no rational argument against it. Ren is right, of course. Hux curls in as closely as he can to Ren’s chest and tries to sleep again. It helps to think that his baby is sleeping and that Hux is joining him in this activity. So they’re already doing things together, as a family.

He’s eight months along when they receive intel about the Resistance taking credit for an attack on one of their mining facilities in the Outer Rim. It’s an area used primarily for weapon manufacturing by droids. As he’s drawing close to a testable prototype of his ship-disabling weapon, Hux takes this assault on his resources personally. This will set things back, making the initial test fall uncomfortably close to his due date.

“It’s just a test,” Ren says when Hux is in his bath, fuming. “It’s not a battle. It can be overseen by others.”

“No. It can’t. It’s my weapon, my design, and we both know too well that the details that middling engineers won’t notice are everything.” Hux thinks of Starkiller and feels a mournful pang. It’s still like remembering a lost loved one. He pushes Ren’s hand away when he tries to continue cleaning Hux’s chest with a damp cloth as if he’s an invalid. Hux can no longer get into or out of the bath without Ren’s assistance, admittedly. He’s enormous, uncomfortable, too hot within his own skin. “And it might as well be a battle we’re preparing for, if they’re making strikes like this. I should have Manford killed for not stopping them. The damage done is extensive!”

“Shhh.” Ren puts his hand over Hux’s belly, where the baby is kicking as if he’s enraged, too. “Don’t get worked up. It’s just one mining operation, we have others--”

“And I’ve had about enough of you downplaying my concerns!” Hux says, not caring that he’s nearing a shout. “Since when are you so complacent? I’m trying to secure a future for my child here-- For all my children, really, the whole Order looks to me, they’re all my charges, every stormtrooper and officer and citizen, you don’t know what that’s like--”

“I do.” Ren is still stroking Hux’s belly in an infuriating attempt to soothe him. “I feel this way about the Knights. I worry I’m neglecting to foster their growth in the Force and strengthen their connection to the Dark. But one must find balance within his own tasks.”

“Don’t give me that Jedi shit right now, please.”

“It’s not Jedi shit. Balance is important for the dark side. It can consume you if you don’t tend carefully to your use of it. Or blind you to your own vulnerability, as it did Snoke.”

“I don’t see what good this lecture is doing me. I’m having a vent, can I not be allowed that?”

“You were getting all red with rage. Think of the baby.”

“He can take it! He’s mine, he’s made of strong stuff.”

Ren pulls his hand away. He doesn’t like it when Hux refers to the baby as solely his, which is absurd. Hux is the one carrying him. He’s doing all the real work while Ren dotes like a Republic-born nanny.

That night in bed, Ren is quiet. Hux continues grumbling, talking back to the reports that irritate him and asking the baby rhetorical questions when Ren refuses to participate in his grousing. Hux is aware that he’s being difficult, but he no longer cares about modulating his emotions when he’s out of the public eye. Ren has seen it all, and he signed up for this knowingly, voluntarily. The fool.

“I suppose you think I’m awfully cruel to you and that you’re some kind of hero for putting up with it,” Hux says when he can’t take Ren’s silence any longer. “You must be regretting this whole thing by now.”

Ren glances up at him with pleading eyes. Hux swallows something at the back of his throat, a scratch of discomfort that burns when it goes down.

“I could never regret you,” Ren says. “You’re home to me.”

“Home?”

“More than the Republic ever was, or Snoke’s teachings.” Ren looks away, up at the ceiling. He’s lying on his back. He needs to wash his hair, Hux notes, blinking rapidly and waiting to know what to do now. “You’re my family,” Ren says. “But I’ve never been good at those. So I’m probably doing everything wrong. I’m sorry, I-- Just wanted. I thought. If it was different, but--”

“Shut up,” Hux says, out of habit, his throat tightening.

To his horror, Ren does. Ren is silent and still, the corners of his eyes sinking as he keeps his gaze focused on the ceiling.

Fucking Ren. This drama. Hux wants to shove him or tell him off, wants to blame Ren for the way his nose and lips are twitching, a quiet but intense battle to keep from sobbing like an idiot.

I don’t know how to do this, Hux could say. Or I love you, cheap and easy, like patting an overworked lieutenant on the shoulder to keep him loyal. He doesn’t want to admit to either thing, and swallows painfully around all the admissions he might be making, like: my life began when I loved you and so you have the power to end it, you monster, you menace, and it’s a fatal flaw, we both know about weapons with one simple rotten thing at their core that could bring it all down, and you’re mine. And what the fuck am I, if I’m not a weapon?

The baby kicks. Hux takes a stuttering breath in and exhales as smoothly as he can.

“You know you stole my soul?” he says.

Ren finally looks at him then.

Hux nods. “I was doing fine before you. That was why your eyes followed me across rooms, because I was the kind of bitter cold that you wanted to be. Envious boy, you ripped that right out of me. Made me more like you, someone who would lean over and open up and-- I’d never let someone fuck me before you, do you even know that? Have I never told you? I was always-- I had to be in control, I had to-- And I never would have-- If I hadn't been warped by you, all those years, if you hadn't left me like that, wanting something I thought I would never have again, then I wouldn’t have gone looking for some random man in a space station bar, wouldn’t have found that one with Dissonian blood, and I wouldn't be-- And Snoke would have killed me, eventually, if you hadn't-- So, you see? It's all your fault, Ren, all of it. Everything I have, you put it in my hands. And that makes me incapable of hating you. So you took away my very soul. I had a system. It worked so well. I could hate anything, it made me powerful. But not you.”

A pathetic love confession, but Hux couldn’t do better with a blaster to his head. Ren will have to accept this. He must. His gaze is soft, maybe a little pitying. He reaches for Hux and touches his shoulder, his cheek.

“I’ve never heard a more beautiful description of the dark side of the Force,” Ren says, so sincere that his eyes gleam.

“What?” Hux barks, lip raising. “That’s not what that was.”

Ren leans over to kiss Hux on the lips. Hux bites him, but not hard enough to draw blood, then allows Ren’s tongue press into his mouth. Deflates beneath him.

“Nothing is more closely tied to the dark side than love,” Ren says, whispering this against Hux’s lips. “It’s selfish. It narrows you to caring for just a few people. The few you would do anything for. You understand that more than most. You wanted it for so long, so much. Like me.”

“You had it,” Hux says, thinking of Organa, Solo, Ren’s angst about betraying them.

“I couldn’t accept it. Love without understanding is torture.”

Hux groans and pulls Ren down, cradles him against his chest. Hux will always be worn thin by discussions like this. If Ren claims to understand him, he must know that. Perhaps he does, because when Hux only sighs and combs his fingers through Ren’s hair, Ren seems content to drop the subject.

“Just fucking stay with me,” Hux says when he’s not sure if Ren has drifted off to sleep.

“I will,” Ren says.

“I mean this very literally. Don’t even die or anything.”

“I won’t.”

“You-- Won’t?”

“Have you never heard the tragedy of Darth Plagueis the Wise?”

“No?”

Ren laughs. Hux pulls his hair and makes him explain why that’s funny. Even after he has, Hux doesn’t really get it, but he’s exhausted enough to give up, roll over, settle back against the plentiful spoon of Ren’s body, and sleep.

**

A month later, all the nightmares Hux had of his baby being born during a catastrophic battle aboard the Finalizer or on Starkiller while it’s deteriorating dissolve into nothing: it’s a routine work day, a full week after a test of his ship-disabler that was successful, if indicative of some needed adjustments. Hux is in his office when the pain starts, is marching briskly toward medbay moments later, and only needs to be carried to a bed there at the last moment, when a contraction rocks through him like a decisive blast and his legs give out.

Peregrin is there, along with her sweet-faced assistant who has far better bedside manner, also a droid. Hux screams at the droid to get out just before the sedative cuts off all feeling below his ribcage, then doesn’t protest further when the droid remains. Ren is at his side, sobbing silently and petting Hux’s hair, sniffling against his clammy cheek while the surgery is performed. Hux looks a few times, grimly curious, then looks away with regret. By the time his squalling child is being lifted from him, the gory sight of his own split-open body has no effect. He just reaches out, desperate.

“One moment, sir,” Peregrin says, with a practiced condescension that makes Hux determined to murder her while she watches her assistant give the baby a cursory wipe-down and exam. The droid sews up Hux’s abdomen in the meantime, then places a large bacta pad over it and babbles some inane, unneeded instruction about not removing it.

Roan screams his little lungs out, and Hux strains his shaking arms toward him, close to asking Ren to use the Force to recapture the baby by the time Peregrin finally brings him over, announcing that he’s healthy, seven pounds exactly.

“What does the name mean?” Ren asks, his voice still cut up as he watches Hux kiss Roan’s head over and over. Roan has some fuzzy red-brown hair, Hux’s nose, and intelligent eyes that claimed Hux forever, instantly, when they met his in a blurry, angry little blink.

“Nothing,” Hux says. His eyes grow wet again from the strain of the lie, but he’ll explain later. It’s his tribute to Rae. Not overt; nothing sentimental in the world of the Order can be obvious. She taught him that. Roan is a common enough name among ex-Imperials and their progeny. Rae would appreciate that it’s covert. She might even smirk a little, just at the corner of her lips. Really, Armitage? Making fun of him. But she’d like it, he thinks. He wouldn’t have named his son for her if he didn’t think so.

“He looks like you,” Ren says, so close to them both that he’s already shed sloppy tears onto not just Hux but Roan, too.

“Furious and red?” Hux says.

“Determined and cute.”

Hux snorts; it comes out more wetly than he intended, and he grins against Ren’s lips when Ren leans in to kiss him. Roan whines, fidgets. Hux breaks away from Ren and kisses Roan’s forehead, shushes him.

“We’re here,” Hux says, tears soaking his cheeks even while he’s sure he’s not actually crying: he’s grinning, content. The tears are some kind of aberration, and he doesn’t blame himself. He’s not weak, after all, whatever failures he’s known: he made a fucking person. “Don’t worry,” he says, whispering this against Roan’s forehead. “It’s not as bad as it seems out here. I promise. We’ll show you.”  

He looks over at Ren, wanting him to echo this. Ren shifts his eyes from the baby to Hux, takes a deep breath and nods.

“Now’s the hard part,” Hux says, mouthing this as if it’s a secret.

Ren looks confused. Hux will explain what he means later. Stay together, stay together. Ren thinks it’s easy, ironically. Because he had it once, discarded it and found it again. As if it can always be thrown away and reclaimed, and maybe for Ren it can be. Hux is finding it only now. He closes his eyes, nuzzles Roan’s sweet-smelling head and tangles a hand in Ren’s hair.

Hux tries to imagine where his mother is now. Ren’s mother, too. He’s not sure why it matters, but he wishes he had the Force at his disposal, that he could prod them both from a safe distance and say: look and he’s yours, too, then retreat.

“I’m proud of you,” Ren says when Hux turns to look at him again.

He’s sincere, probably the most earnest person Hux has ever known. Also a liar, but not at the moment. Hux kisses him, tastes the envy and the confusion and what Ren thinks is the great balance within the dark side: his love, the thing he’s chosen to do anything for. Hux grins against Ren’s lips and hopes Ren won’t feel it, that he won’t ask some question that Hux doesn’t want to answer. Even knowing almost nothing of the Force, Hux now feels certain of one thing, as if holding Roan in his arms has enlightened him in this discipline.

There is no Dark, no Light. Those are words that can be ascribed to almost anything, from the perspective of the person who wants to be one or the other. Death and Life would be better, but they’re also too broad.

“You’re glowing,” Ren says. He sounds a little worried about it this time.

“Yes,” Hux says. He buries his face against Roan’s fragrant head and feels, like he always hoped he would, briefly invincible. It’s double-sided: brief, nothing, instantly ready to be destroyed. But impenetrable, too. Unchangeable already, because he felt it, and it was real.

**