Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The station was falling apart.

The air smelled faintly of ozone and decay - old wiring exposed to time, dry coolant hanging in the air like ghosts of engines long since silenced. The temperature fluctuated unpredictably, cold in one corridor, stuffy in another, as if the station itself was unsure whether to shiver or sweat. Light filtered dimly through cracked fixtures above, casting skeletal shadows that danced along the corroded walls with every flicker. Somewhere, something hissed - steam or warning, Poe couldn’t tell.

It was the kind of place that made even trained soldiers glance over their shoulder. The kind of place where footsteps felt too loud and breathing too obvious. A forgotten limb of a dead empire, hollowed out and left to rot at the edge of the galaxy.

Poe Dameron ducked beneath a low-hanging pipe, stepping over a loose panel that sparked faintly underfoot. The walls around him were a patchwork of rust and forgotten code, long since abandoned by any governing power. The Outer Rim bred this kind of decay - and secrets. Just the kind of place you would send a Resistance pilot to meet a ghost.

He adjusted the collar of his jacket, one eye on the blinking navpad that led him deeper into the structure. The corridors grew quieter the further in he moved, the sounds of ship traffic and distant mechanical hums fading behind sealed blast doors. Here, in the bones of the station, he was alone.

Almost.

The silence wasn’t quite perfect. Now and then came the creak of stressed metal, the faint whisper of energy in the walls - old systems, maybe, still alive out of habit. Or something else.

He still wasn’t sure why they had sent him, of all people. Maybe it was trust. Maybe it was a test. Maybe the Resistance simply had no one else willing to walk into the shadows for a ghost’s whisper. And yet, they had insisted on Poe. And eventually, he’d agreed - though what he really wanted right now was a break.

He had been given no name. Just a contact ID, a vague profile. Someone with high-level intel, formerly embedded in the First Order. Defector. Extremely valuable. Dangerous. Probably paranoid as hell.

He expected a scarred ex-officer. Grizzled, maybe. Someone broken in the way that makes them useful but unpredictable. Someone who smelled like smoke and slept with a blaster under their pillow.

He didn’t expect him.

Poe stepped into the meeting chamber - an old security room, stripped of tech but not tension - and stopped dead. It was colder here, the air still and heavy, like it remembered better days.

There, standing with precise posture and a coat that still looked too neat for someone on the run, was Armitage Hux.

Of course, he wasn’t introduced as such. The man turned toward him slowly, his expression unreadable. Every line of him was composed. Controlled.

"Dameron," he said. No rank, no courtesy. No warmth.

Poe blinked. Then a low whistle escaped him, humorless but alive with disbelief. "You’ve got to be kidding me."

Hux didn’t respond. He simply raised an eyebrow, gaze sharp enough to slice through hesitation.

It took Poe a beat to rein in the surge of memories: shackles, cold steel, the Finalizer’s sterile lights. Hux’s voice, clinical and dispassionate. But this man looked different now. Paler. Tighter. Like something held together too long by pure force of will.

There was wear on the hem of his coat. The lines around his eyes looked deeper. His hands were folded behind his back, but Poe noticed the tension in his shoulders.

"You remember me," Poe said finally, folding his arms. "Then you know how tempting it is to walk away right now" He paused, his brow furrowed as the doubt surfaced in his voice, one hand on his weapon

"What is this supposed to be, some kind of game?"

He let the words hang in the stale air between them, sharp as a drawn blaster. Poe remembered the sting of humiliation aboard the Finalizer, the way Hux had stood above him like a statue carved out of contempt. That memory alone should’ve been enough to turn on his heel and leave or simply raise his gun and shoot.

But this wasn’t the Finalizer. And this wasn’t quite the same man - or was he? The idea of Hux as the defector - the Resistance’s newest, most dangerous asset - felt absurd, like a line from a bad intelligence briefing Poe hadn’t fully believed. As if.

Hux didn’t react - no twitch, no shift of expression. If he was surprised too, he was very good at not letting it show. Just that blank, frigid stare.

Poe sighed and shook his head, the corner of his mouth twitching with disbelief. "Honestly, I didn’t expect you, of all people. Still dressing like a recruitment poster," Poe added quietly and more to himself.

Still, nothing from Hux. But Poe swore he saw a brief flicker - just something tired maybe, behind the eyes. A flash of exhaustion, although no indication of any emotion.

"If you’re done," Hux eventually said, his tone even, "we have work to discuss."

Poe leaned back slightly, one hand still on his weapon, a sharp edge creeping into his voice. “As if someone like you suddenly had a change of heart. Who’s supposed to believe that?”

Hux didn’t respond right away. He held Poe’s gaze, calm and cold, unflinching. Then, with a clipped finality: “No one. I don’t care what you believe. I have my own objectives.”

Poe let out a quiet scoff. “Yeah. That sounds about right.”

Poe studied him. He wasn’t sure what made him stay.

Maybe it was the echo of old fear. He still remembered the cell on the Finalizer - narrow, sterile, with lights that never dimmed. The way his hands had cramped in the binders, the cold bite of durasteel against his skin. He remembered the way Hux had looked through him, like he was a malfunctioning datapad, something to be fixed or discarded. It had left a mark deeper than he'd ever admitted.

But this man standing before him - this ghost in a perfect coat - looked like someone who had been broken in a different way. Not with violence, but with time. Disillusionment. That unsettled Poe more than he cared to admit. Yet he was still sharp-edged, unreadable, the cold calculation in his eyes intact.

So why should he stay and entertain this farce at all? Curiosity? Instinct? The awareness that Hux must be important - too important for the Resistance to ignore that came with the knowledge that he must be of significant value to them - the kind of man who knew too much, who had been the machinery of the First Order himself from the inside. Maybe that was why Poe stayed. Not for sympathy. Not for trust. But whatever had driven Hux to suddenly stand against the First Order, - they now stood, more or less, on the same side. For whatever reason Hux had turned, did it even matter? They had a shared enemy. And that, for now, had to be enough. The former general might just be the weapon the Resistance needed most.

That realization settled in Poe’s mind like a weight - uncomfortable, unwelcome, but undeniable. He was staring at a man shaped by the enemy’s inner workings, someone forged in cold strategy and brutal command. There was no telling what damage Hux had done - besides the genocide on the Hosnian system—or what secrets he might still carry.

Poe let the thought go, filing it away under too many questions and not enough time. There were bruises at Hux’s throat, half-hidden by his collar. Poe didn’t ask.

He stepped forward, slowly. "Fine. But I swear, if this is a setup -"

"It isn’t," Hux interrupted. Too fast. Too practiced. He didn’t move.

The silence stretched. Poe could feel the station breathing around them. Ancient. Hollow. Watching.

Poe narrowed his eyes, but he took his hand off his weapon and folded both arms in front of his chest

"You’re a long way from the Finalizer," he said quietly.

"That life is over."

Poe almost believed him.

Outside, the stars burned silent.

Inside, two men who should have remained enemies prepared to become something else entirely.

Chapter Text

The station had gone quiet again.

What little power remained buzzed through the wiring in uncertain pulses. The ceiling panels overhead glowed dimly, offering just enough light to distinguish the scattered crates and half-collapsed shelves that made up the skeleton of what had once been a supply hub. Poe leaned against a rusted console, arms crossed, eyes flicking between the datapad in his hands and the figure opposite him.

Hux stand unnervingly still. With his hands folded neatly behind his back, he stared at the same blinking datafeed as Poe with that impenetrable mask of cold detachment. His posture was composed to the point of unnatural – back straight, shoulders tense, like a man bracing against something only he could see. Poe watched him for a beat longer than necessary, trying to decide if Hux was actually focused – or just pretending not to fall apart. He forced himself to look away, fingers tightening around the datapad. Now wasn’t the time for doubt – not with what was at stake. Poe inhaled slowly, grounding himself, and brought his attention back to the screen. He had a job to do.

They were trying to make sense of a mess – scrambled coordinates, intercepted transmissions, fragmentary access codes that had no clear origin. It was raw data, dumped from a stolen First Order archive, encrypted and deliberately corrupted. Somewhere in this storm of numbers and signals might be the locations of black sites, supply chains, even defectors in hiding – or traps laid by loyalists still embedded in the crumbling hierarchy. And hidden within it all was something far more critical: partial coordinates and internal directives tied to a rumored weapons facility, one believed to be constructing a second planet-killer – a contingency echoing the terror of the Death Star. If this intel was correct, dismantling that project before its completion could prevent another galactic-scale atrocity. Poe's job was to sort signal from noise. Hux’s job, apparently, was to ensure that none of it killed them.

"These aren’t Resistance codes," Poe muttered.

"Obviously not," Hux replied without looking up. "They’re First Order shadow relays. Internal clearance, but buried. Someone wanted these hidden."

Poe narrowed his eyes. "You’re sure they’re real?"

"If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have dragged myself to the edge of the Outer Rim to hand them over."

There it was again – that bite of superiority. Even now, stripped of his rank and command, Hux wore his intellect like armor.

"You ever consider being helpful without the smug?"

"You would never recognize me."

Poe exhaled slowly and returned to the screen. Of course not. Hux had probably trained himself to sound clinical and impossible to read. But every human being left its echoes, and Poe couldn’t shake the sense that something about this man didn’t quite fit anymore. The whole situation reeked of theater. Here he was, locked in some half-lit ruin with the architect of half the galaxy’s misery, trying to sift through lies masquerading as truth. He wanted to curse, wanted to laugh, but all he managed was another tight breath and a muttered, "Figures." The data didn’t make sense, and that made it dangerous. Dozens of coordinate strings flickered across the display – some repeating, others corrupted. A list of locations that meant nothing to him, but probably everything to the man beside him.

"This one," Poe tapped one of the lines. "Coordinates near the midrim – what is that?"

Hux leaned forward, but only as much as he had to – his movements controlled, reluctant to break the tight frame of composure he maintained. "An old refueling station. Shut down years ago. It was reactivated covertly. Probably for weapon transfers."

"And now?"

"Abandoned again."

"You’re sure?"

"As sure as I can be."

Poe frowned. It felt too convenient. "And you just happen to know where all these little First Order secrets are buried."

"I never claimed to know them all."

Poe shook his head, muttering more to himself. "It’s like trying to follow a trail where every step was deliberately covered up." He rubbed the back of his neck, the datapad suddenly feeling heavier in his hands. What the hell was he supposed to do with this? For all he knew, Hux could be feeding him misinformation, playing some long game no one else could see. And yet… some part of him – the stubborn, reckless part – wanted to believe that this meant something. That this was real.

He scrolled down further. More fragments, more interference.

"This data could be a trap," Poe said finally. "Or it could save a lot of lives. And I can’t tell which it is."

"That is why you need me," Hux replied simply, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, as if stating a logistical fact rather than a stake in life and death. Patterns emerged, then vanished. Signals pointed in multiple directions. Some paths overlapped, while others contradicted each other entirely. A few led to empty sectors in deep space – likely decoys. Others hinted at movement: ships rerouted, supply manifests altered, encrypted orders sent from shallow signals. Poe could feel his frustration mount. It was a web spun to confuse and mislead, and every time he thought he had found a thread to follow, it unraveled into static. If Hux wasn’t lying, and this really was tied to a second weapon, time wasn’t on their side.

"They might have tracked the packet," Hux said suddenly. "We don’t have long."

Poe looked up, brows furrowed. "How long?"

He hated how fast the unease crawled under his skin. There was no real way to know if Hux was exaggerating, or downplaying, or flat-out lying – but the dead calm in the man’s voice didn’t help. His mind flicked through possibilities: ambush, trap, signal trace. If this station had already been compromised…

"Hours. Maybe less."

The weight of that sunk in.

They moved quickly.

There was no choice. The moment Hux had pointed out the shadow relay signatures in the data dump – those laced with traceable pings – Poe knew their window had started closing. Fast.

The First Order might not have fallen entirely, but what remained of it had become more paranoid, more brutal, and in some cases more unpredictable. Loyalist cells were known to sweep former outposts and relay stations, tracking any sign of breach or defection. If even one of those fragments had pinged back, they were already vulnerable. Hux’s expression had changed – not with panic, but with grim certainty.

They had to move.

“Was this your plan?” Poe asked, fastening the last seal on a portable encryption case as they locked the doors behind them. “Hand over just enough intel to draw fire, then bolt?”

“I didn’t expect fire so soon,” Hux replied evenly. “But I expected it.”

That was the difference. Poe had expected more time. Hux had expected nothing but the worst.

Their objective now was simple: extract the data, reroute through secure Resistance channels, and reach the fallback point where reinforcements – or at least a listening outpost – might still be operational. The fallback wasn’t a military base, just a quiet system with a deep-space array – neutral territory, if such a thing still existed. It would take at least a day of travel through sketchy, unpatrolled sectors.

The airlocks groaned with age as the two men worked to seal off the room behind them, disabling any easy tracebacks. The corridor lights flickered. Somewhere, metal clanged with distant finality.

Their shuttle – barely more than a freighter hull with engines – was docked two levels down.

"You realize," Poe said as they descended, "that you’re acting like someone who has a death wish."

“It’s unregistered,” Hux countered calmly. “Untracked. And unlike a Resistance X-wing or a First Order TIE, it won’t raise any alarms the second we leave atmosphere.”

Poe ran a hand through his hair, glancing back toward the sky. “So we go from high-speed stealth fighters to flying a tin can held together by hope?”

“It’s called subtlety, Dameron. You should try it.”

In the end, they both knew the truth: neither could risk using their own ships. Poe’s X-wing had been rerouted elsewhere—standard protocol to protect Resistance assets in case of capture. And Hux? Whatever vessel had brought him here had either been burned, hidden, or never existed in the first place.

Poe had grumbled the entire way down the ravine trail to the old shuttle.
“And here I thought villains were supposed to have style,” he muttered, eyeing the rust-flaked hull with visible disdain. “

“There’s no black and white here, Dameron. Just necessity.”

Poe gave him a long look.

The boarding hatch hissed as it opened. Poe hesitated for the briefest second at the threshold, catching the stale scent of neglect and cold metal. Inside, the shuttle was dim and cramped, the kind of space that had seen too many long-haul flights and too few cleanings. Faint glowpanels flickered weakly overhead, casting a dull light across scuffed walls and patched wiring. The cockpit, barely large enough for two, was a claustrophobic array of outdated switches and auxiliary ports – functional but clearly retrofitted on a budget. A cracked monitor blinked sluggishly from a side console, and a rusted thermal blanket had been stuffed between two bulkhead seams to keep the cold from leaking in. It smelled faintly of old coolant, ozone, and something metallic – like recycled air through overworked scrubbers. Poe ran a quick diagnostic while Hux took the co-pilot seat, already accessing navdata with practiced efficiency. The hum of the console’s reactivation masked the quiet tension between them. Hux moved like someone accustomed to command but stripped of purpose – his hands steady, his focus sharp, yet his face gave nothing away.

Poe couldn’t help but glance sideways. For all the contempt he held toward the man, there was something undeniably precise about him – something that suggested the act of control was the only thing keeping him stitched together. The cramped cockpit made everything feel more immediate, more fragile. Poe tapped through the shuttle’s systems, trying to ignore the tight knot in his gut.

“You’re awfully quiet over there,” he muttered, not expecting an answer.

Hux didn’t offer one.

The tension settled deeper. As the navdata loaded, Poe’s thoughts wandered to the implications: if even half of what Hux had brought was true, they weren’t just running – they were the last line holding back something catastrophic. And somehow, it had fallen to the two of them to stop it.

"Any sign of pursuit?"

"Not yet," Hux said. "But they will come."

Hours passed. The stars streaked outside, blurred lines of hyperspace.

Inside the cramped cockpit, tension settled like dust. Poe had been in tighter quarters with more volatile people, but something about Hux's silence felt more suffocating than a prison cell. The silence wasn't peaceful – it gnawed at the edges of his focus, filled every empty second with questions he didn't want to ask. The air felt stale, heavy with unspoken things. He leaned back in his seat, boots on the edge of the console, and exhaled sharply through his nose, as if trying to expel the building pressure in his chest. Every glance at Hux, perfectly composed and silent, only added to his frustration. He was tired of trying to read a man who refused to be legible.

"This is the part where you say something human."

Hux didn’t move.

"Nothing? No regrets, no explanations, not even a dramatic sigh?"

Hux glanced over, gaze cold.

"I’m not here to perform redemption."

"Could’ve fooled me."

"I’m here to dismantle what I built. That’s all."

Poe let that sit. Then: "That’s not nothing."

"It’s not sentiment."

"Doesn’t have to be."

A pause.

Then the lights flickered. A low whine built in the aft section, a mechanical protest that crawled beneath Poe’s skin.

He was up in a flash, fingers flying across the diagnostics panel, heart ticking faster with every second of delay. The readouts blinked erratically, feedback loops spiking.

"We’ve got a power drop. Backup cells just kicked in," he said, voice taut.

Hux leaned toward the screen, brow furrowed. "It’s a proximity issue," he muttered. "We crossed something unstable."

Before Poe could ask what, the lights failed completely.

Darkness swallowed the cockpit like a closing hand.

The sudden void was suffocating. Every shape disappeared. Only the faint, humming throb of backup power buzzed in the walls like distant thunder.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Poe's fingers curled tighter around the edge of the console. He hated not seeing. Hated the unknown pressing in like vacuum. The shuttle's cramped interior seemed to shrink further with every heartbeat. A sudden fluctuation in the energy core had made the lights stutter again – short bursts of dim illumination fractured by complete blackness. For a few suspended seconds, Poe could hear only the shallow cadence of their breathing and the soft creak of metal cooling around them. The cockpit was too small, the air too still, the proximity between them almost claustrophobic. In that suffocating space, he could sense the heat of Hux's presence – close enough to touch, but emotionally unreachable. It made everything more intense. More uncertain. And it stirred something Poe couldn’t name, let alone trust.

And next to him, Hux remained perfectly still. Like a statue carved from ice.

It wasn’t fear that Poe felt – it was frustration, a boiling sense of helplessness that this entire mission, their safety, was one bad spark away from disintegration. And Hux, infuriatingly, wasn’t reacting at all. Poe ground his teeth, tension coiling in his chest. Wasn’t this the kind of situation a high-ranking general should have under control? Shouldn’t a man who had once commanded starfleets at least flinch, curse, give some damn indication that he was aware of the danger? That he wasn’t just some unshakable statue with a private death wish?

He wanted to shout. Or hit something.

Instead, he clenched his jaw and waited.

The lights blinked back – dim, emergency glow panels casting the cockpit in blood-red light. Not much, but enough.

Poe inhaled, slow and hard, and turned toward Hux.

When the lights returned seconds later, it was dim emergency glow.

He watched Hux in the soft red lighting, taking in the stillness that had returned to his features. That eerie, calculating calm. Part of Poe wanted to shake him – force a crack in that perfect shell. The other part, the part still on edge from the blackout, knew better.

But he didn’t say it.

Chapter Text

The worst of the damage was behind them, thanks to Hux's sharp diagnostic work and Poe's quick rewiring.
They had rerouted key systems through secondary relays and stabilized the power core – barely, but enough to regain limited engine power, just to be able to limp toward the nearest planetary system marked as habitable.

It wasn’t elegant, but it worked. And that was what mattered. For now.
Though the situation bordered on absurd, they had managed to maintain a fragile peace – each aware that survival depended more on cooperation than comfort.

Aside from that, Poe found himself watching Hux more closely than he liked – how his gloved fingers moved with practiced precision, how he never faltered, never paused to reassess. It was unsettling, how calm he remained. No yelling, no barking of orders, not like on the Finalizer. Just a cool, measured control that somehow weighed heavier than volume ever could.

Hux’s tone during the repairs had been too commanding for Poe’s taste as he was issuing quiet directives like he still expected to be obeyed. And somehow, despite everything – or maybe because of that authority – Poe found himself moving in rhythm with it. It was mechanical, almost automatic, a sharp contrast to his usual defiance. As if his instincts had defaulted to following orders, even ones unspoken.

He had noticed it too late – the way his hands matched pace with Hux’s clipped movements, how he let the man’s silence take up more space than it deserved. It wasn’t fear, no. It was the reflex of command, the residue of structure, and Poe hated how instinctively it settled into him. The realization made him bristle inwardly, but his hands kept moving, steady and methodical, as if refusing to question the moment too deeply.

And yet, under all of it, there was tension. Not loud or explosive, but coiled, like a fuse waiting for the spark. Poe wondered if Hux felt it too, or if he'd simply buried it beneath years of practiced detachment. He had to feel it – surely he did – but if so, he gave no sign. Why would someone like him care? What could possibly disturb a man who’d once held an entire fleet in check with a single command and never flinched as planets burned?

Before that, the unease had thickened into a heavy, mutual silence – too thick to ignore, too fragile to break without consequence. They had kept their hands busy, their focus on stabilizing what systems they could, pretending that effort alone might insulate them from the truth of their situation.

Three to four hours, according to the navdata. They both knew they couldn’t rely on this patched-up relic for much longer. The plan was simple in theory – reach the planet, assess its viability, and find something that wouldn’t fall apart under pressure. Legally if possible. Otherwise… they'd improvise, ideally without drawing unnecessary attention, which was a luxury they could not afford. They’d also need supplies – food, at the very least – and some kind of strategy beyond survival mode. Drifting wasn’t a long-term strategy, and they both knew it.

But for now, they were left with time. Too much of it. And not enough noise to drown out the fact that they were trapped in the same fragile vessel, both with nowhere else to go, and with the tension between them still simmering beneath the surface.

The soft vibration of the engines was the only constant beneath the tension. The cockpit was dim, lit only by the low pulse of instrumentation and the occasional flicker from a diagnostic display. Poe had never been fond of long hauls – too much time to think, too much space to fill with questions he didn’t want answers to.

And Hux wasn’t helping.

Poe had managed to hold out nearly an hour without speaking, letting the hum of the engines fill the void. But now the silence felt unbearable, pressing in on his chest, needling at his nerves like static. It was too much. He needed words, friction, anything to break the stifling stillness.

"You're really not much for conversation, are you?" he muttered at last.

Hux didn’t look up. "I speak when there's something worth saying."

“Right. Barking orders, even when no one's left to obey?”

Poe drummed his fingers on the edge of the console, the dull rhythm the only movement in the still air. He knew he was pushing – provoking – but the silence grated, and the way Hux sat there, composed and superior, as if nothing could touch him, made it worse.

"You say you’re not First Order anymore," Poe said, his voice low and pointed, "but you still talk like one."

For the first time in minutes, Hux’s gaze flicked toward him. Not sharp. Not angry. Just … flat. Like the interest hat bled out of him long ago.

"There’s not much left to be anything else."

It wasn’t the answer Poe expected. And it wasn’t a lie. He looked away first, annoyed that he had expected anything else.

Hux didn’t move. But his eyes lingered a second longer than they needed to. Calculating, not confronting. Then, with surgical indifference, he returned his gaze to the console as if Poe hadn’t spoken at all.

Not a flinch. Not a blink. Just that one, deliberate pause – sharp enough to register, quiet enough to pretend it hadn't.

Poe blinked, jaw tightening slightly. The man beside him had orchestrate planetary genocide, commanded fear like a weapon – and now he sat there, every inch composed, but held together with tension instead of certainty. Clinging to structure not from fragility, but as if it were a weapon still within reach.

Poe exhaled. He didn’t know what he wanted to hear. Maybe an apology. Maybe just… something human.

But instead, he asked the question that had burned since they’d left the station.

"Why now? Why leave?"

Hux’s posture remained almost rigid, as if maintaining physical control would anchor his authority. His hands were still, but his eyes scanned the navigation data with sharp, assessing movements.

"It's personal."

Poe stared.

“You say it’s personal,” he said, voice edged with skepticism. "What does that even mean for someone like you?"

Hux’s gaze didn’t shift, but something tightened in his jaw.

"It means that things have changed for me."

Hux said it in a tone that left no room for further questions – a low, clipped finality that made it clear he wouldn’t elaborate.

Poe studied him for a moment, unsure if he believed him – unsure if he wanted to.

The silence that followed was weighted, not with accusation, but with something quieter. Like a ceasefire agreed upon, but with weapons still in reach.

Time passed.

Not quickly, and not easily – but it passed. Poe, to his credit, didn’t provoke again. Not with words, anyway. His silence now was alert, not idle. He watched Hux from the corner of his eye – measuring, not understanding.

The man sat with the kind of composure that didn’t calm a room, but claimed it. He looked less like someone shaken, more like a commander weighing outcomes – his control not broken, only refocused.
There were signs, though. Small ones. His posture hadn’t shifted in what felt like hours, but his fingers flexed once, barely. Not restlessness. Calculation. As if he was rehearsing some unseen next move.

Even that sliver of humanity had a blade’s edge to it. Poe could admit that much. Hux looked pale in the dim light, his hair slicked back in exact order, his features still sharp and impassive. And yes – he was handsome. Too much so for someone who had worn power like a uniform and wielded fear like doctrine. It was a cruel sort of irony.

Poe pushed the thought away before it could land. He had no business lingering on that. Hux must’ve noticed the glances; of course he had. But he gave nothing in return. No flinch. No shift. Just tension, perfectly contained – command, not compliance.

Eventually, the navigation console blinked: final approach.

Poe leaned forward and tapped a sequence into the flight controls. The panel blinked to life beneath his fingers, casting a pale blue glow across the cockpit. The coordinates of the planet flickered on-screen – dry terrain, breathable atmosphere, it would have to do. He ran a brief systems check, ignoring how the shuttle groaned in complaint with each diagnostic ping. Their trajectory was locked, descent rough but manageable. At least for now. It wasn’t elegant, but it would get them down in one piece – if they were lucky.

Poe glanced at the console, then back at Hux with a dry smirk. "We’re coming in hot. And by hot, I mean hold-on-to-something-or-you’ll-break-your-neck," he said.

Hux gave him a sharp look but said nothing. He made a move to grip the edge of his seat, as if bracing instinctively for the impact, an unconscious gesture that betrayed a flicker of unease beneath his usual control. His hand hovered for a second before curling around the seat’s edge, his grip white-knuckled in the flickering dark. It was subtle, but Poe caught it and didn’t comment. But he didn’t look away, either. There was something almost human in that gesture, tucked beneath all that practiced composure. And he filed it away.

The descent wasn’t graceful. The atmosphere grabbed the shuttle like a storm pulling a leaf out of the sky. Metal groaned, the hull rattled, and alarms blared weakly from the overstressed system. Poe wrestled with the controls, shoulders locked, hands firm.

Just before the final impact, Hux’s hand gripped the console. His eyes snapped shut for the briefest moment, jaw clenched – not in fear, but as if bracing for something only he could sense. And then, impossibly, the shuttle’s descent evened out by a fraction – enough to make the difference between a crash and a hard landing. Poe didn’t have time to question it.

The landing was sudden and harder than planned. The shuttle bucked once, slammed into uneven ground, and lurched to the side.

Poe’s shoulder slammed into Hux’s as the shuttle struck ground with bone-jarring force. The jolt threw them against each other, Poe’s arm pinned awkwardly between their bodies, Hux’s side unyielding beneath layers of dark fabric. For one suspended heartbeat, they were pressed close – too close – held there by the wild tilt of gravity and chaos.

The breath caught in Poe’s throat wasn’t just from the impact.

He could feel the sharp line of Hux’s frame – all hard edges and tension, like drawn wires, coiled and ready to snap. He didn’t yield, though Poe noticed his breathing had grown slightly heavier under the sudden weight pressed against him. As if his body couldn’t help but react – even if his face remained unreadable.

Stillness, it seemed, was his default, but it wasn’t effortless. The fabric of Hux’s coat was smooth and cold beneath Poe’s arm, his body radiating a kind of controlled intensity that felt almost unnatural. For a split second, Poe wondered what it must cost to hold oneself that tightly all the time. That close, he could smell something faintly metallic – like ozone and absence. Cold, antiseptic, like a place never meant for touch. It should have made Hux feel less human. More distant. But instead, the awareness hit Poe with a strange intimacy he hadn’t anticipated. Hux’s body was warm. Not cold and clinical, like Poe had assumed. Solid. Alive. Uncomfortably real. And it left him shaken in ways he wasn’t ready to unpack.

And then it passed. Neither of them moved. For a moment, their eyes met – just a flicker, brief and tense. A breath held between two men who refused to acknowledge what had just happened.

Hux’s face was unreadable, set like glass. A strand of hair had come loose from its rigid order, and a red mark bloomed where Poe’s shoulder had struck him. Still, he didn’t speak. His jaw remained tight, and for a second, Poe could’ve sworn he saw a flicker of reassessment – strategic, not emotional.

Poe shifted first, easing himself off with a muttered breath. The pressure between them broke, but the closeness lingered for one beat longer than it should have.

Eventually, Hux moved too – disentangling himself with that rigid grace of his. He straightened his coat in a single, practiced motion, brushing off the moment like it had never happened.

Poe cleared his throat. “Could’ve been worse.”

It was barely a joke. Hux didn’t correct him. Didn’t sneer. Just adjusted his cuffs in silence. And somehow, that silence still said too much.

After a pause, Hux added, tone like sandpaper, “Apparently I’m not the only one with a death wish.”

Poe wasn’t sure if he meant the shuttle’s brutal landing or the landing Poe had made on him. Either way, the dryness in his tone made it impossible to tell. Typical, Poe thought. Just vague enough to be dismissive. Just sharp enough to linger.

Silence settled again – heavier now, but changed. It wasn’t hostility that hung between them, not quite. More like an uneasy understanding wrapped in exhaustion and dust.

Poe leaned back slightly, eyes on the cracked viewport. The planet outside was barren. Unfamiliar – just like the man beside him. And yet, both were things he’d have to figure out – one way or another.

He blinked, trying to steady the spinning walls of the cabin. For a moment – just a moment – he’d felt something strange. Not turbulence. Not fear. Something else. It was gone now, buried in smoke and adrenaline. But Hux’s focus just before the impact lingered in the back of his mind.

“We need a plan,” he muttered, mostly to himself.

Hux didn’t answer. But this time, his silence didn’t feel like dismissal.

It felt like agreement.

Chapter Text

Hux registered the smoke before he registered the pain. It clung to his senses – burnt ozone, coolant residue, the low whine of overstressed systems failing in sequence. None of it unfamiliar. None of it intolerable.
What unsettled him was the aftermath of stillness. Not the impact, but the moment after – where proximity had lingered too long, where composure had thinned just enough to be noticed.

The insufferable pilot had spoken – lightly, of course, as if wit could mask the chaos he regularly manufactured – and Hux had said nothing. That had been the correct choice.

A familiar throb flickered low in his back – deep-set, exact, the kind of pain trained into the body rather than earned in battle. It flared under pressure, dulled under posture. He ignored it. He always had.

And yet, lower in his chest, something else lingered – not pain, but an echo of imbalance. Something beneath the sternum that felt... imprecise. A fault line.

He drew a slow, exacting breath, adjusted his cuffs, and prepared to leave the wreckage behind.

Whatever had just happened, it was irrelevant. And he would not carry it with him.

The heat outside hit like a wall – dry, sour, full of static. The kind of air that made you taste the planet before you even stepped off the ramp and it wasn’t an improvement. Poe squinted into the pale horizon. Nothing but fractured stone, dead brush, and sky the color of old metal.

Behind him, the shuttle groaned as it cooled, creaking like an old man settling into a chair he hated.

Hux emerged a moment later, precise as ever. Not limping. Not wincing. But Poe caught the smallest hitch in his steps as he stepped down from the ramp – just long enough to register. Just off enough to notice. Not an injury, not officially. Not the kind of thing Hux would ever name. But Poe had flown with wounded men before. He knew how pain looked when someone refused to admit it.

He said nothing. Just watched as Hux straightened, refastened his collar with exaggerated care and scanned the horizon like it might answer for the planet’s offense.

"Well," Poe muttered, pulling his scarf over his mouth against the dust. "Cozy."

No reply, of course. Just wind and silence and the faint crackle of cooling metal.

Poe squinted into the horizon again – then back at the wreck behind them.

"We're not walking off this rock empty-handed," he muttered.

He turned, ducked into the heat-warped hull, and felt Hux’s quiet footsteps follow a beat later.

The inside of the shuttle smelled worse now that the dust had settled – burnt insulation, singed plastic, and whatever component had melted during descent.

Poe stepped back inside first, ducking beneath a warped beam. Panels hung loose. A display screen flickered once and gave up. “Yeah,” he muttered. “Definitely totaled.”

Hux followed with clinical detachment, lips pressed into a thin line from focus, or something held tightly just beneath the surface. His eyes swept the wreckage, already scanning for salvageable parts. He moved like he was inspecting a failed experiment rather than a wreck that had nearly killed them.

Poe watched him kneel beside a blown panel, pulling it open with gloved precision. “You planning on fixing it?”

“Planning on not dying,” Hux replied evenly. “That requires components. Power cells. Possibly nav data. The exterior is compromised, but the core may still be intact.”

Poe crossed his arms. “Right. No sentimental value, then.”

Hux didn’t answer. He detached a casing with calculated force and tucked it under one arm.

Poe shook his head. “You know, for someone who blew up planets, you’re weirdly good at survival.”

A pause. Just long enough to suggest Hux heard him – but not long enough to be an answer.

Then, without looking up: “Survival requires competence. Destruction requires vision. I excel at both.”

He said it like fact. Like weather. Like it wasn’t even worth debating.

Poe exhaled through his nose, “Charming,” he muttered, then stepped over a half-melted panel, watching Hux extract a second power cell without a word.

“You planning on sharing any of that, or am I just your pack mule until you can ditch me for something better?”

Hux didn’t look up. “You assume I need you long enough to ditch you.”

Poe barked a quiet laugh, but it didn’t sound amused. “Right. So that’s the deal? Teamwork until it’s inconvenient?”

Hux closed the panel with deliberate finality. “Survival isn’t about sentiment, Commander.”

Poe exhaled sharply. “Right. Wouldn’t want sentiment to get in the way of all that glorious efficiency.”

He stepped over a half-melted panel, jaw set, gaze fixed on Hux.

Then, Poe bent over a half-collapsed junction near the back wall. “Looks like this thing still has a signal booster – low range, maybe, but we could patch it.”

Hux crouched beside him, hands already on the housing. “Don’t touch it. If the relay’s unstable –”

“Yeah, yeah. I know how not to fry myself, thanks.”

Poe flipped the outer panel. A spark jumped, sudden and hot. The metal hissed.

Reflex made him yank back and in the same breath, his arm shot out toward Hux. It wasn’t graceful. Instinct.

Hux’s spine snapped taut at the contact. His eyes cut to Poe, flat and cold.

“Touch me again,” he said, “and I’ll assume it’s an attack.”

Poe let go, his mouth twisting with dry amusement. “Didn’t want you frying your fancy coat. That thing probably costs more than a starfighter.”

Hux made no reply. Just adjusted the panel, slow and exact.

A pause. Then Hux said, tone clipped: “We’re aligned for now. That doesn’t mean I trust you.”

“You wound me,” Poe muttered subtly theatrical.

Hux turned back to the console, adjusting a small dial with surgical precision. “But we agree, then.”

Poe folded his arms, eyes narrowing as Hux continued. “No sabotage. No surprises. No knives in backs.”

He didn’t look up. “Unless provoked.”

“Naturally.”

A beat.

“Charming arrangement,” Poe added, stepping back as Hux worked.

“You said you weren’t sentimental,” Hux replied.

They worked in silence after that. Only the soft ticking of the overheating panel filled the space between them.

The heat outside had only gotten worse. The air felt thinner now, sharp with minerals and static charge, like a storm building somewhere beyond the ridges.

Poe adjusted the strap of the salvaged pack on his shoulder and scanned the horizon. Nothing but fractured stone, rising heat haze, and the distant shimmer of cliffs. There was no sign of infrastructure. No movement. .Just heat. Just silence. The kind that makes you think you’re being watched, even when you’re not.

Whatever signal this place puts out, it won’t carry far,” he said, eyes on the dead ridges. “Maybe there’s a relay out there. Or at least a better view. Maybe those rocks.”

Hux said nothing at first. Just checked the readings on the scavenged power cell with fast, efficient movements. Then, flatly:

“Elevation won’t matter if the interference is local.”

Poe resisted the urge to snap. “Yeah, well – sitting here won’t conjure up a clear signal either.”

He turned, walking a few paces across the cracked terrain, boots crunching against dry stone. The ground shimmered slightly – maybe from heat. Maybe not.

Something about it felt wrong. Shallow. Like something had been taken. Or buried.

Hux followed after a beat. His stride remained crisp, but Poe didn’t miss the almost-imperceptible tension in the way he shifted his weight – too upright, too even.
Pain, maybe. Pride smoothing over it.

He didn’t comment. Not yet.

“You picking up anything?” Poe asked.

Hux lifted the scanner. “Residual energy. Low-level EM disturbance. Possibly mining-grade infrastructure.”

A pause. “Could be pre-war. Could be yesterday.”

Poe exhaled, tense. “So something was here.”

“Or still is,” Hux replied, already turning. Then, almost as an afterthought: “We should move.”

Poe frowned. “Since when do you take suggestions?”

“No one’s suggesting anything,”Hux said, already walking. “Just uninterested in dying next to your corpse.” He didn’t wait for a reply. Just kept moving like he already knew where.

Poe narrowed his eyes, watching the path Hux had chosen.

He moved like someone who’d already made this trip once… and wasn’t planning on explaining why. That was what set Poe on edge.

“You got a better idea where to go, or are you just picking the least dusty death?”

Hux didn’t break stride. “If you’re lucky, both.”

They moved in silence for a while, broken only by the brittle crunch of stone underfoot and the occasional hiss of wind slicing between the broken rock.

Then, without warning, a jagged outcrop gave beneath Poe’s heel. He caught himself against a rusted support beam that jutted from the ground at an unnatural angle, half-buried infrastructure, the bones of some old outpost. He cursed, low under his breath.

Hux glanced back – briefly, disinterested.

“Careful,” he said. “Gravity still applies.”

Poe straightened, brushing dust off his hands. “No thanks to the damn planet.” His gaze swept the horizon, then fell back on the other man. “You’re not just guessing your way through this.”

No response.

They kept walking. The ground began to slope downward now, the rock darker, more compact. Burned once, maybe scorched in old exhaust patterns.

They came to the edge of a steep decline, where old framework jutted from the stone, half-collapsed and heat-warped. Beyond it, nestled in shadow, a narrow cut in the canyon wall revealed what might have once been a service hatch. Half-buried, but intact.

Hux paused only briefly, then began descending without waiting.

Poe’s voice dropped, suspicious. “This was your plan all along, wasn’t it?”

Hux didn’t answer.

He pushed. “A contingency. For me.”

That made Hux stop. Then he turned slightly, just enough to meet Poe’s eyes.

“No,” his voice came quiet. “Not for you.”

Poe stepped down a level, boots skidding slightly on loose rock. “Just your escape plan. In case everything else burned.”

Another beat.

“My contingency,” Hux said quietly. “Not yours. It wasn’t designed for two.”

Poe didn’t answer at first. His boots crunched over debris, the remnants of something half-buried. It might have once been a landing marker.

“But here we are,” he muttered. “Sharing oxygen.”

Hux made no reply. But the silence had an edge to it.

They moved in silence again. The wind had shifted – stronger now. Less dry. The kind that warned of pressure systems changing.

Something’s coming.

As they reached the narrow path, Poe’s gaze swept the sky. Still no ships. No movement. Just the sense that somewhere, eyes had already found them.

“We’re being followed,” he said.

Hux didn’t refute it.

Poe cut a look sideways. “You don’t seem surprised.”

“I’m not.”

Poe frowned. “If we’re working together, we share intel. You don’t get to keep the exits secret.”

Hux paused at the edge of the entrance, gloved hand resting on the frame.

“I didn’t plan to use this route,” he said. “It was fallback protocol. Meant for emergencies. Not guests.”

Poe looked at him for a beat longer. “Then congratulations. It’s an emergency.”

No answer.

“From here on out,” Poe added, “we talk. Full comms. No shadows. You want me functional, I want answers.”

Another long beat.

Then Hux stepped through the hatch first.

“Functional,” he echoed, with faint disdain. “We’ll see.”

Poe’s voice followed him, sharp now. “If we’re working together, you don’t get to be the only one holding the map.”

Hux didn’t stop. “You’re not the only one who hates blind spots.”

“Then quit creating them.”

That made Hux pause. His back still turned, his voice level low:

“This place was a fallback. Mine. One I never intended to use… not like this.”

Poe exhaled slowly. The wind was picking up again - dry and full of grit.

“But you brought us here.”

“I rerouted us here,” Hux corrected. “There’s a difference.”

Another beat.

“Good,” Poe said. “Then let’s survive the day.”

He stepped past Hux, firm and deliberate, adding without looking back:

“After that, we move forward together. No more solo contingencies.”

Hux said nothing. Just adjusted his coat with habitual precision and followed.

The terrain held its silence. But the feeling of being watched did not.

Chapter Text

The hatch closed behind them with a hollow clang – sharp, metallic, final. The sound vanished almost instantly into the thick, dead air ahead.

The corridor was narrow, the light thinner. Ancient conduits lined the walls like exposed veins, some snapped, others fused to rust. Wires sagged in loose arcs from the ceiling, half-devoured by dust and time. Emergency lights hung overhead, drained and dim – little more than glass husks now, like dead stars left behind by a vanished sky.

Poe’s boots echoed with each step, the sound flat and too loud in the pressurized silence. It wasn’t peace. It was absence. Not the kind built by design, but the kind left behind when something leaves in a hurry and doesn’t plan to return.

"Cheery place," Poe muttered, adjusting the salvaged pack on his shoulder. “Let me guess –First Order design?”

“No,” Hux said, barely glancing at him. “Imperial. Early era. The architecture predates Endor by at least a decade. Abandoned before the war was even close to over.”

Poe raised a brow. “Of course you know that.”

Hux didn’t bother to reply.

They moved deeper. The passage sloped downward, subtle at first, then more pronounced. Dust thickened into sediment. The walls narrowed where the rock had shifted over time, pressing inward like the facility itself was trying to collapse back into silence. A few panels gave underfoot with a hollow clang. Poe flinched at the first one, hand drifting toward his blaster.

Hux didn’t react. He stepped lightly, purposefully, as if the route was already mapped in his head.

A flicker of motion crossed a connecting corridor ahead – fast, fluid. Not mechanical. Not normal. Poe halted mid-step. “Did you see that?”

Hux didn’t break stride. “If I had, I wouldn’t be relying on your commentary.”

But something shifted – barely. A flicker of tension at his shoulders, like a wire pulled just a fraction tighter. His pace slowed just slightly, eyes scanning the dark. When he spoke again, his voice was flatter. Controlled.

“We’re not alone.”

It wasn’t panic that Poe felt. It was confirmation. That crawling certainty – the one he'd felt since the ridgeline – had grown teeth. He didn’t speak again. Just followed.

They passed through what might have once been a security checkpoint – scanners dead, consoles blackened with age. And ahead, just for a moment, barely visible behind a partition of shattered durasteel, Poe caught a glimpse of something unmistakably sleek. Angled plating. Reinforced hull.

A ship. Or the corner of one. He didn’t say it out loud.

Behind them, something metal shifted in the darkness.

“Great,” Poe muttered. “Love it when things creak in total darkness.”

Hux didn’t look back. “Keep moving.”

The corridor was narrow, half-collapsed, and lined with scorched cables that had long since lost purpose. Their boots echoed over metal grated flooring, the sound too loud in the stillness. Dust hung in the air, catching the filtered light like ash.

Poe moved ahead with caution, blaster loose in hand. “Place feels like it’s holding its breath.”

Hux didn’t respond. His eyes moved over the walls – not searching, exactly, but tracking something invisible. There was a tension in his posture that hadn’t been there outside. Not pain. Not alertness. Just a quiet dissonance – like something under the skin didn’t fit quite right.

They passed a section of the corridor where the air felt colder. Poe paused.

“You feel that too?”

Hux’s reply came without looking at him. “Environmental failure. Nothing unusual.”
But his jaw was tight.

The next bend came too fast. A sound met them – brief, high-pitched, like interference trying to find a signal. Then a red flicker blinked to life above a sealed bulkhead.
Movement. Mechanical. Heavy.

The panel burst open with a hydraulic hiss, and a half-functioning Sentry-Unit dragged itself into view. Its left arm sparked violently; its optical sensor flickered erratic red. What remained of its programming scanned them, processed them, and misread the threat entirely. It raised its weapon arm, aiming low and wide.

Poe barely had time to shout. “Down!”

They split – Poe diving left, Hux pivoting sharply right. A bolt scorched the wall behind them, hissing against metal.

“You said this place was dead!” Poe snapped, crouched behind a crate.

Hux ducked behind the opposite support beam. “It was. The unit is damaged – automated override loop. It’ll fire until it overheats.”

“Great,” Poe mumbled. “Do we wait to die warm, or what?”

“No. Distract it. I’ll disable it.”

“You’re assuming I won’t get fried!”

“Calculated risk.”

Another shot sizzled overhead. Poe gritted his teeth, then shouted, “Fine! But if I get shot, I’m haunting you.”

Poe broke from cover at an angle, sharp and sudden – blaster raised, not to hit, just to make himself seen. A bolt lanced past his cheek, searing the air close enough to sting. He didn’t flinch. Kept moving. He moved fast – deliberate chaos, the kind that scrambled auto-targeting just long enough. The turret adjusted, swung his way, then jerked back, hesitating like it couldn’t decide who to kill first. He could feel it hesitate. Split attention. That was the plan. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught motion.

Hux was moving – low, economical, threading the machine’s blind zone like someone who’d designed it. No panic. No wasted breath. He reached the panel, braced both arms, and wrenched it open. The metal groaned in protest. Then he vanished behind the housing, limbs tight, deliberate.

Poe ducked again as a second bolt exploded near the ground, shrapnel biting into his jacket.

“Now would be excellent,” he muttered, crouched behind a scorched crate, heart pounding.

Then –

A burst of white static and a sudden electric shudder. The turret spasmed, lights strobing. A pulse surged through its frame – violent, final. It jerked once, as if resisting its own shutdown, then folded in on itself with a metallic crunch. Motionless.

Poe lowered his weapon slowly, the tension still buzzing under his skin. “You okay?” he called.

Hux emerged, brushing dust from his coat with one gloved hand. His chest rose a little too quickly to pass for unaffected. “I’m fine.”

Poe stepped out from cover, still breathing hard. The quiet still felt tense. Cautious. He looked the machine over, then glanced at Hux.

“That thing would’ve cored me in two seconds.” A beat. Then, quieter: “Nice timing.”

Poe lowered his blaster. “But please remind me never to let you pick our vacation spots.”

Hux stepped past the smoldering unit. “Keep moving. We’re not far.”

But as he passed what was left of the Sentry, his hand brushed the wall – brief, unintentional. He blinked once, sharp and shallow. And for a heartbeat, something moved behind his eyes. Like a frequency only he could hear. He blinked once. Then moved on, like nothing had shifted.

Poe followed – still armed, still watching the shadows.

They cleared the last corridor, ducked through a slanted bulkhead door and stepped into open air again.

The canyon widened, revealing a natural hollow sheltered by the curve of the rock wall.

And there it was. 
The ship.

Sleek. Matte-black. Predatory by design. It crouched low to the ground like a bird of prey at rest. Angular and compact, built not for display but for pursuit. The hull absorbed light rather than reflecting it, giving the impression it had been carved from shadow and intent. Less a vessel, more a weapon waiting to be used.

Poe slowed, eyes narrowing as he took it in. Then let out a low whistle.

“Well, look at you,” he muttered with a touch of admiration. Then, after a beat, with a shake of his head, “Stars. That thing yours?”

Of course Hux had a shuttle like that.

Hux didn’t need to reply. His posture stayed composed, expression still – but there was a flicker. Not quite a smile. More like quiet confirmation. The look of someone who didn’t require validation, but recognized it when it came.

Poe saw it, the near-shift in his expression, the subtle way his shoulders settled, straighter somehow. He filed it away like everything else.

Every meter closer made it harder for Poe to pretend he wasn’t impressed.

Dark plating, smooth and angular. No visible seams Modified engines recessed deep into the hull. The shuttle looked like it had been engineered not just for speed, but for silence. The kind that gets you in and out before anyone even knows you were there.

Poe let out a breath, low and nearly a laugh.

“I wasn’t briefed on this little luxury,” he said. “But now that we’re here – any chance I get to know what kind of bird we’re flying?”

Hux moved toward the vessel like someone approaching something he trusted more than people. A flick of his wrist activated the biometric scan – subdermal, seamless – and the ship responded with a soft hiss of recognition. The cloaking shimmer fell away completely, revealing sleek matte hull and recessed plating.

“Custom build,” Hux said, tone almost offhand. “Stealth class. Twin-fused core. Low-emission profile, sublight damping. Hidden armaments under the hull.”

Poe raised an eyebrow. “That’s not a shuttle. That’s an ego with wings.”

Hux stepped aboard without replying. But the edge of his mouth twitched barely noticeable.

Poe lingered at the base of the ramp, staring up at the sleek frame.

“No keys?” he asked, half-impressed, half-suspicious.

“No need,” came Hux’s voice from inside. “It only opens for me.”

Poe gave the ship one last look before following. “Well,” he muttered, “Locked to your DNA. That’s not unsettling at all”

At the top of the ramp, Hux turned. Fully. His eyes met Poe’s with that same cold clarity he’d used in command briefings, in interrogations – except this time, it was quieter. Measured.

“I told you,” he said. “This vessel was built for me. Not for a crew”.

A pause, almost imperceptible.

“And yet, here we are. I suppose it would be inefficient not to make use of the pilot I’m stuck with.”

He didn’t wait for a reply – just turned and disappeared into the ship.

As Poe stepped inside, the ramp sealed behind them with a muted hiss, cutting off the last trace of the outside world.
He lingered in the doorway. The air inside was cooler – still. Clean lines and sterile surfaces stretched before him. Nothing out of place. Nothing lived-in. Just … prepared. A slow glance swept across the console edges, the untouched surfaces catching faint reflections.

“This ship’s… something,” he muttered. Then added, more to himself: “Why the hell would you keep something like this out here?”

No answer from Hux – just the low thrum of systems warming up. Poe sighed quietly, shook his head, and followed the sound forward.

“Try not to touch anything unless you understand its function,” the former general said evenly.

Poe raised a hand to his chest in mock offense. “Guess I’ll just cry about it later.”

Hux didn’t look up. “Do keep it quiet”.

Poe rolled his eyes, then slid into the pilot’s seat., hands skimming over the controls like they belonged there. “You weren’t kidding. This thing’s built like a ghost knife. You sure it even needs a second seat?”

Hux took the copilot’s position without comment. His fingers moved with quiet precision across the startup sequence. “It doesn’t.”

He didn’t ask. He paused for half a breath, then extended a gloved hand – flat, expectant.

Your wrist,” he said.

Poe raised a brow. “We shaking on something?”

“Don’t be obtuse.”

Poe sighed, offered his arm. Hux gripped it with precise control, fingers settling just below the pulse point. A muted pulse passed between them – not quite a scan, not quite contact.

“Limited access only,” Hux said.

“You always this trusting?”

“No.”

He turned back to the console and released him. “That’s all it needs.”

Poe flexed his wrist once, as if to test that it was still his. It was. But there was something scientific about the whole exchange – like being cataloged.

He glanced over his shoulder, sighing again, taking in the interior from this new vantage point – sleek, compact, all edges and silence. The central corridor stretched back into soft lighting and military-grade minimalism. Not a single detail out of place.

“Guess I’ll try not to scratch the paint,” he muttered.

Hux didn’t look over. “For your sake, I’d recommend it.”

Poe snorted under his breath and turned back to the console, the faintest grin tugging at the corner of his mouth.

The engines purred beneath them. Clean, powerful, eager.

Poe eased the ship off the ground, eyes narrowed in concentration. The controls were dense with systems – layered and precise – but everything responded like it knew what he wanted before he asked.

“Damn,” he muttered, half to himself. “She flies like she’s reading my mind.”

His hands moved with practiced ease, adjusting the thrust profile, checking readings. “Whoever designed this thing had taste. And a control complex.”

From the copilot’s seat, Hux adjusted a dial. “I didn’t just supervise the build,” he said. “I designed it.”

Poe blinked. Then let out a breath that was almost a laugh, but without any malice. “Can’t decide if that’s impressive or terrifying.”

The ground dropped away beneath them. Pale ridges blurred past as the shuttle climbed, smooth and seamless. Poe let the ship settle into an arc, fingers light on the controls.

He cast a glance sideways. Hux sat still, gaze steady, hands moving with quiet certainty over the console. Composed. Unflinching. Not tense – just… settled. The kind of stillness that didn’t come from calm, but from knowing exactly what each system would do. And for the first time, Poe wondered if control wasn’t just habit for Hux, but refuge. Maybe this ship wasn’t just something he built. Maybe it was the only place he ever let his guard down.

The stars crept into view beyond the viewport, distant, quiet and indifferent.

Poe exhaled slowly, fingers easing from the controls as the ship slipped into a low orbit behind one of the planet’s dead moons.

They wouldn’t stay long. Just long enough to regroup, to rest – and to decide how best to go back. 

Safe. For now.

“Alright,” he muttered, eyes still on the black. “One thing at a time.”

Chapter Text

The door sealed behind him with a clean, quiet hiss.

A simple press of his palm against the panel. Confirmed. Locked.

Armitage Hux stood still.

The room was minimal. Compact and unapologetically functional, every surface chosen for utility, not comfort. The walls were a muted steel-gray, untextured, seamless. A single narrow basin sat beneath a matte metal fixture, engineered for water efficiency and nothing more. Above it, a frameless mirror set flush into the wall, reflecting without softness. To the right: a recessed cabinet, sterile and sectioned, packed with sealed compartments. At the back: a slim, capsule-shaped shower. Sensor-activated jets, pressure-calibrated. No curtain. No extras. Built for function. Every item had a place. Every latch clicked shut with purpose.

Not warm, but livable. Not welcoming, but ordered. A place meant not for rest, but for reset.
Exactly the kind of space Hux would design. Had designed.

He let the silence settle, let the lock confirm that no one could follow him here. No footsteps. No eyes.
Only then did he exhale. Not relief. Just release.

The mirror caught him at an angle. His jaw was tight, mouth drawn. Sleeves rolled to the forearms, his coat abandoned on a little cabinet. His skin looked bloodless under the ship’s sterile light. Wrists pale. Too thin.

He stepped closer.

The man looking back at him still resembled a commander. The outline remained. Straight spine, squared shoulders, clinical gaze. But it was off. Slightly. Like a structure under strain.

A bruise marked one knuckle, one he didn’t remember earning. Probably during impact. Or before. He flexed his fingers. Pain bloomed. Sharp. Clean. Real.

He could work with real.

The palm beneath showed a faint blister, raw where the grip of a panel edge had torn skin through fabric.

The ache in his back was worse. Deeper. More familiar. Between the shoulder blades. A dull throb seated in old memory. He knew exactly where it was. He didn’t need to touch it to feel it. From before the crash. From before the escape. From corridors that had never had doors with locks. He ignored it.

Armitage had stopped flinching at pain years ago. It was predictable, almost reliable, in a way most things weren’t.

He washed his hands, wrists. palms. Movements honed by repetition. The water was warm, but his skin barely registered it.

When he peeled back his sleeve, an old scar traced the line of his ribs. Faded. Raised. Meaningless.

Then, the mirror again. Hair flattened. Clinging wrong at the temples. Uneven across the brow. It shouldn’t matter. But it did. He stared.

Not at the hair. Not at the bruises. At the man behind the eyes. Some fracture between the officer they once called General and the one who now stood here, armed with nothing but contingency plans and a knife tucked out of sight.

He touched his temple briefly, as if the right pressure might restore order to everything beneath it. It didn’t.

His thoughts slipped where he never invited them. Snoke. Ren. The First Order. Shadows he refused to flinch from. The taste of them metallic, bitter, like blood in his teeth.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to end. Not exile. Not a scorched shuttle and an alliance built on mutual threats. Not with Dameron of all people sitting at the helm of his ship. The thought coiled. Unwelcome. Persistent. Dameron. The pilot’s voice still carried in memory. Too alive, too unguarded. Hux tightened his jaw, as if silence could erase the echo.

He held his own gaze a moment longer. His reflection gave nothing back.

Not fear. Not fatigue. Not failure. Just a man. And for Hux, that had always been the most dangerous thing to be.

He combed his hair, restoring symmetry stroke by stroke. The gesture was grounding, familiar. When the line was sharp again, he set the comb down and faced the mirror. Composed. Armored in posture, if nothing else. Order reclaimed, if only on the surface.

When the line was clean and the part razor-sharp, he set the comb down. His reflection looked back at him. Composed. Unflinching. Armored in posture, if nothing else. No breath. No nod. Just readiness. Just a man, now. But Hux had never let that be a weakness. Not outwardly.

Then, without expression, he opened the cabinet, retrieved a clean cloth, and stepped toward the water.

The stars ahead were quiet. Not that Poe expected them to offer answers but at least they weren’t asking questions.

He leaned back slightly in the pilot’s seat, one hand on the controls, the other curled loose against his thigh. The hum of the ship was steady and soft. Reliable. Not like its owner.

He glanced at the empty copilot’s seat. Still vacant. Good. Poe wasn’t in the mood to be studied.

What kind of man built a ship like this? What kind of mind prepared for failure so completely that it came with cloaking panels, biometric locks, and nowhere to sit but alone?

Poe scrubbed a hand over his jaw. “Contingency,” he muttered. “Hell of a word for paranoia.”

Then again… maybe that was the point. Maybe you didn’t survive as long as Hux had – on that side – without keeping one boot out the door.

And Leia… Leia had insisted he take this assignment. Not Intel. Not a strike team. Him. Poe Dameron, poster boy of the Resistance, flying getaway shuttle for the man who once signed off on planetary destruction. It hadn’t made sense at the time. Still didn’t, if he was honest. But Leia always played the long game. Maybe she saw something in Hux he didn’t. Or maybe… she just knew Poe wouldn’t shoot him mid-flight.

He let his gaze drift. The stars here were sharp and cold. Looking at him indifferently. Behind them: scorched rock, broken silence, something with a targeting matrix and a grudge. Ahead: no guarantees. Just black, and stars, and whatever came next.

He tapped a finger once against the throttle housing.

Poe exhaled through his nose. “Must be exhausting,” he muttered. “Being that wound up all the time.”

Then added, quieter: “Maybe that’s why he looks like he hasn’t smiled since birth.”

He paused. Thought of the look in Hux’s eyes earlier. Tired, distant, but sharp beneath it. Not broken. Just… brittle. Like stillness was the only control he had left.

The console lights blinked in faint rhythm, casting the cabin in soft pulses. Cold stars gleamed beyond the viewport, sharp as pins through black velvet.

His gaze drifted back. Corridor dark. Door sealed. He thought of the faint sound he’d heard minutes ago. The hiss of water, then silence. He didn’t know what Hux was doing behind that door. Rebandaging a wound? Scrubbing the day off his skin? Or just… staring at himself until the mask looked right again. Whatever it was, Poe knew it wasn’t rest. Hux didn’t strike him as the kind of man who let himself rest.

And then there was the question no one had answered yet:

Why had he turned? Of all people. Of all reasons. There had to be one. A real one. Personal enough to crack the mask. Not for the Resistance. Poe was sure of that. Something else had cracked the armor. Bitter. Personal.

Poe exhaled, the sound low. He’d flown through wreckage before, pulled people out of ash, heard their excuses and their regrets. But Hux? He didn’t ask forgiveness. Wouldn’t. That wasn’t who he was.

Poe tilted his head back against the chair, eyes closing briefly. He imagined the man behind that locked door, rebuilding symmetry in the mirror like it mattered more than blood. He should’ve hated him for that. But instead, all he felt was a tug he couldn’t name. Curiosity. Unease. Something heavier.

Poe intended to find out. Eventually. But not now. Now, the stars were quiet and for the moment, so was he.

He shifted slightly in the seat, stretching one leg out with a quiet exhale. The cockpit was dark except for the glow of the console and the stars beyond, sharp as pinpricks through glass. It should’ve felt peaceful. Instead, it felt like flying in a box of unsaid things.

His gaze drifted to the overhead panel, then to the faint readout tracking system activity. Blank, for now. No pursuit. No guarantees either.

And still, more question lingered.

Why this ship? Why that planet?

Hell, why him?

Poe shook his head slightly. There were plans, and then there were plans. This one had layers. Backup points. Sealed compartments. A getaway shuttle built like a surgical strike platform. Not exactly the average ride for a high-ranking officer. Unless you were never planning on staying.

But it wasn’t just fear. That ship had intent. And Poe had flown enough to recognize design with purpose.

Someone had built this thing like a scalpel. Not for war. Not even for survival.

For escape.

Poe tilted his head back against the headrest, let his eyes close for a second. How long had Hux been ready to run?

Not from them… the Resistance. From his people. From Ren. Poe’s jaw tensed at the thought of that name.

He'd seen the wreckage Kylo Ren left in his wake. He’d flown through the smoke, pulled survivors from the ash.

But Hux… Hux had enabled that. Had helped build it.

Poe glanced back over his shoulder again. The ship behind him was still dark. Still quiet. But it didn’t feel empty.

Something coiled lived in this place. Not something evil. Just something tired. And maybe that was the strangest thing of all.

Poe Dameron had hated a lot of people. Had hunted them. Fought them. Escaped from them. But sitting here, surrounded by shadows and quiet systems, all he felt was…

Curious.
And maybe –just a little – wary of what he might learn.

He hadn’t heard a word from the man since they’d lifted off. Just the soft hiss of the inner door closing behind him.

Poe hadn’t followed. Not that he cared. Not that he was thinking about it.

He shifted in his seat, adjusting the display for long-range sweep. Quiet sector. No sign of a tail. Still, that crawling certainty hadn’t faded. Something was tracking them. Or maybe just waiting.

He didn’t say it out loud. No point. Instead, he let his head tilt back, eyes tracing the edge of hyperspace just out of reach. They were flying.

The stars still looked cold and unreachable as Poe let his gaze wander up again.
And still, they were beautiful.