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"Ren," Hux whispered, instinctively pulling his head between his bare shoulder blades.
He tried to push himself away from the larger man looming over him, but the strong, broad hands pressing him firmly onto the mattress made this impossible. Murmuring, Hux tried to find a way out in his foggy brain.
And yet everything had begun as usual, if one disregarded the previous comforts. They had agreed on a humane time, casual and whispering. Just a brief encounter in the corridors of the massive ship, which required few words, yet it was an act they both knew so well. He had emerged from a simple idea, grown in the thoughts of both, and blossomed in clumsy gestures, irritated conversations, and destructive outbursts. Plucked in the form of a forced kiss, surrounded by destroyed and smoking ship parts, illuminated by a red, swirling, and lurking lightsaber and the flickering ceiling lights above them.
On that evening, the lightsaber user and the general found themselves in his sleeping quarters. As so many times before, routine and well-rehearsed. It began with a simple touch, the feeling of slowly revealing layers of skin.
Hux bit down on his swollen and nearly split lower lip. For just a moment, the illusion of monotony had been maintained, but then Hux became aware that it was not the same as before.
Something had changed in the dark, oh so dark eyes of Ren. They looked down at him with unfathomable depth, and each time it sent the most beautiful shivers down Hux's spine, for it was the gaze of a lurking predator, just waiting to find a weakness. But this time it was different. The played-up threatening situation over him had escalated into something worse, something more serious. A dark glimmer had spread in the onyx eyes, feeding second by second on their humanity.
Hux had neither seen nor perceived or felt anything comparable. It was, he swallowed and closed his eyes, like an illness. As if he had seen with his own eyes how a virus had thickly and slowly seeped through Kylo's self, thus poisoning him.
And yet he lay there and had observed it. Confused and without a real explanation, he had watched and calculated. Had felt the hands on him, which had lost their warmth, and the muscular body above his, as if it were just a hologram.
If Hux was not only honest with himself but also with Kylo, then he didn't want to see it at all. He could dismiss the other person's daily outbursts of anger as a normal farce of the power user, as something that had already become normalized. He could dismiss the altercations and the disappearance of his subordinates as mere madness. And he could enjoy their connections just as he did in earlier days.
A trembling hand rose and rested on the broad shoulders of the dark-haired man, digging into the otherwise so human skin. He narrowed his eyes and tried to see his former lover as exactly that once again. As the dark and sweet temptation that Kylo Ren now presented. The forbidden thing that he had grasped and never let go of, despite his position.
But when he saw those distant and shadowed eyes, from which all warmth and sweetness had flowed away, Hux could not help but recognize reality, like a targeted punch to his consciousness, and then inevitably perceive it.
Tears of disbelief and loss shimmered in the corners of his eyes, but it was forbidden to leave the harbor. He would not subject himself to this disgrace. He would not mourn someone who had left such deep craters of destruction and chasms of loneliness in his heart, mind, and body.
One last thrust, gentle movements and fading sounds, before Hux lost the weight above him and, blinking, stared at the seemingly infinitely distant ceiling that now revealed itself to his view. The pressure of the shadow above him had lifted, and he could exhale and allow something that he had only permitted himself in his inevitable and forced privacy all these years.
He gave the decisive command, weighed anchor, unfurled the sails, and let the ships set out, propelled by a wave of despair, fear, and ignorance. Softly and quietly, they ran down his cold cheeks, yet Hux stubbornly and rigidly kept his gaze straight ahead. He did not dare to look up, blink, or take in the other figure in his space.
"Is there another one?"
The smoky dark voice of the other resonated, causing Hux to almost flinch, but he would not allow this to further diminish his personal fee of pent-up humanity. There was no reason to be frightened by the looming danger that lurked beside him at the edge of his bed. He had already brought the devil into his house and was fully aware of it.
Hux only responded once the ships had settled on the receding sea and their presence had dissipated. Slowly, he pushed himself up in his bed until his sunken and dented pillows supported his back, allowing him to sit up.
Closing his eyes, exhaling, and bracing himself in silence, he looked over at the crouching figure there. Kylo had buried his strong hands in his silky black hair, arms resting on steel-hard thighs, his shoulders carelessly drooping toward the ground, and his back slightly arched under the being that had settled there.
It was as if the many skin defects, wounds, scars, and moles were converging to form a stubbornly devilish image. From birth, it was destined for this man to walk a dark path. The evil, the dark, and the unclean had already taken root in his genes and were just waiting for that one decisive moment when they had enough strength to break free and rise again.
"This agreement was solely intended for the physical, Ren," Hux reminded the other with a thin but composed voice. "Personal relationships were never a-."
But a simple movement, performed so many times before, halted the general's sentence, fading in the glow of a fire-red sacrament that now materialized hot and unyielding, deadly beneath his throat.
This seemed to astonish Hux for a moment, but then he watched indifferently. He didn't even dare to blink as he saw the trained figure of the other kneeling over him, the lightsaber raised and ready.
The oh-so-dark eyes now had an additional red glow, blazing with a rage that Hux couldn't even comprehend in a clear state. What a fitting expression, as Hux found. The devil illuminated by hellfire, with a furious and wild expression, ready to deliver the final blow and drag another soul into the darkness and infinity of hell.
"Your body," hissed Kylo, running his free hand down it until he stopped at the narrow hip, already flushed from previous pressure. "Belongs to me."
Hux's eyebrow furrowed for a moment as he felt the renewed diabolical pain in his hip, but he maintained eye contact with his downfall.
"My body, yes," he began. "But my soul will remain my own."
The air between them began to vibrate strangely. The eyes of the Greater seemed to darken by almost a shade, if that was even possible. Hux felt something trying to capture his mind, to chase after him and take him over. But he knew how to behave in such a situation.
A power user like Kylo would prove to be an Olympian of his actions in every conceivable situation. An opponent would not only obscure his vision but also contest the price, the overarching power. Who had the advantage, who had the intellect, and who ultimately carried away the victory? Who could survive?
If Hux had learned anything in his long, miserable, and difficult life, it was to adapt and to tell people, regardless of their rank, what they truly wanted to hear.
"I belong only to you, Supreme Leader," Hux whispered, narrowing his eyes slightly, letting his hands slowly wander up the broad arms of the other until they could wrap around the muscular neck of the other. "Only yours," Hux murmured submissively, feeling internally dissatisfied, yet with the conscience that he would continue to live.
He could almost taste the relaxation of his muscles as Kylo leaned down to him and, with closed eyes, finally lifted that suffocating weight off him, pulling Hux into a deep, intimate, and yet so wickedly dark kiss.
Hux kept his eyes open, vigilant and calculating. What was once a shady pastime had now developed into something dangerous, and he had to do well to appease the danger until a hiding place opened up for him again. But Hux could wait.
With a hiss, the heat beside him vanished, the lightsaber was carelessly tossed aside, and the hands—those icy hands, so full of strength—once again roamed over Hux's almost shamefully disfigured body.
As Ren pulled away from Hux's lips, began to work on his neck, and Hux once again recognized the dark blanket in front of him, felt the tickling soft hair beside him, and noticed the pressure on his body, he knew what to do and what was expected of him.