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So, I did in fact end up writing more of the fic where Hux allies with Leia, and I still didn’t finish it. Touch wood, this may mean that my fic writing block is over and I’m writing a multi-chapter story again :)
Refuge, Chapter Two
( Chapter One here on Ao3 )
In which Poe gets to learn more about First Order culture. Hux gets to explain how he got out from Kylo’s thumb for long enough to run to Leia, and apparently there is a plan.
Hints of gingerpilot. Is it requited? IDK yet ;)
~*~*~*~
“Man, I hate this smell,” Poe muttered to Rey as they followed their new ‘ally’ through the Star Destroyer’s corridors. Hux was still leaning on his aide – whose name, according to brief introductions, was Mitaka. The kiddies still flanked him, a solemn little pair known as Cadets First Class Kaleo and Brond. Brond was the girl, who’d been eyeing Rey’s stola and slouch boots with a mix of disapproval and fascination whenever she thought no one was watching.
“Smell?” Rey asked as they crammed into an elevator to ride up to the bridge.
Poe tried not to notice how Hux breathed in sharp at the tiny shift of gravity as they began to ascend. The whole thing was reminding him of torture, and that wasn’t a memory he wanted to encourage.
What had happened to the man? Had he been in a fight with Kylo Ren? No, he wouldn’t have survived that. Had he too been tortured by Kylo, by Leia’s son, Ben? Unwelcome sympathy made Poe’s chest ache. Torture buddies, he thought, looking to Rey for reassurance. Sometimes it seemed everyone in the universe existed just to be tortured by Ben.
“Star Destroyer smell,” Poe said, trying to keep his mind on the present. There really wasn’t a better way to sum it up – that stench of disinfectant, boot polish, ozone and blood.
“It’s fresher here than in the ones on Jakku,” Rey observed, snuffing the air. Brond and Kaleo exchanged a narrow eyed glance behind her back.
The First Order contingent kept their silence, but Poe thought he detected a minute increase in total sneering. They were used to the stench, probably, but it made Poe’s spine want to creep up out of his mouth and hide. “It doesn’t remind you of death?”
“I suppose it does,” she agreed. “The ships I worked in were full of bodies. But they were dried out, mostly. It was only in the less damaged areas that you got blood or decay. Unkar used to sell the uniforms to collectors. A full set with the blaster and the hat was three whole portions. It was always a lucky day when I found a–”
The elevator door hissed open. Poe tried to flee from the aura of increasing disapproval only to be shoved aside by a man barrelling in. Poe hit the wall, turned. The incomer raised a blaster, aiming for Hux.
What the–? Poe struggled with his instincts. The part that told him he should watch this happen with pleasure met the part that said, “but we had plans.” In that moment of doubt, Brond hurled herself forward. She set one small foot on the attacker’s knee, grabbed his blaster arm for support and plunged a small dagger into the sinews of his wrist.
His hand opened. The blaster fell. But Brond continued her movement, swift and practised, setting another foot in the crook of his elbow, climbing him until she could get a grip on his head with her thighs. He tried to pry her off, but it was already too late. She twisted until his neck broke, fell with him, landed in a neat and prissy crouch, as the body voided its bowels behind her.
Hux had not moved during the whole incident. Now he smiled. “Good. I thought for a moment you were going to slash the throat. It would have been quicker.”
“No sir. I didn’t want to get our uniforms dirty before the call, sir.”
The smile broadened, almost indulgent. “Excellent,” Hux said, his voice even rougher than it had been when he spoke to Leia. “One should always be neat.”
Brond blushed like a fourteen year old being complimented on her dress, attempting to smooth down her face but radiating glee. Hux lifted his fond smile over her shoulder and met Poe’s horrified eyes.
“Perhaps there is something to be said about the smell, however.” Motioning for Poe to leave the elevator, Hux stepped over the body. As he passed, he brought his heel down firmly on its outstretched fingers and ground until they snapped. The children were less delicate about it, eeling past Poe to kick the corpse across the corridor like a ball, their spotty faces alight with enjoyment.
“You must excuse our temporary disorder.” Hux caught Poe’s swallow of disgust and raised his eyebrows. “There is a little mess still to clear up. When the 'Supreme Leader’ took his 'knights’ to Mustafar to chase down some ghost, he intended to take me with him – to prevent me from moving against him. I was forced to provoke him into incapacitating me before he would leave me behind.”
He bit off his own smile, his eyes warming – perhaps at the thought of how clever he was. He was a beautiful man, but it was hard to forget the little crackle of joints bursting under his boot. Poe liked to look at him but felt unclean when he did.
His Supreme Leader did this to him? Had beaten him until he could barely walk, until he sounded like his ribs were in his lungs, until he winced at the jolt of an elevator floor? Poe hated his own sympathy, and hated that he hated it. He wanted a target, wanted his mind to be clear. But even if these people were monsters, it was obvious now that these monsters were also people. And stars, that just made his flightpath so jinked he was afraid to do anything at all.
“I gave orders to be taken out of the bacta the instant the Rens departed,” Hux continued, smug despite his bruises. “And we came to you immediately afterwards.”
He shot the corpse a reproachful look. “Some of my crew were unhappy with this decision, however, and the process of their retirement is ongoing. I believe a few scores are also being settled. Youthful high spirits—you know how it is. But we’ll have the place hygienic again in no time, and you will no longer be troubled by the smell of our honoured dead.”
“What will happen to them?” Poe found himself asking. He didn’t know why this was what he blurted out, out of all the choices open to him. Maybe everything else was too huge, too monstrous to process.
There were a million things he’d wanted to know about how the Star Destroyers worked. What it was like being in the First Order. What the enemy really thought and believed, when they were at home and unmasked. But Finn went damp and grey when he was forced to think about it, so Poe had left it alone. He was glad Finn had been given the chance to stay in the Falcon with Leia and Rose—to get to the rendezvous outside the belly of the beast. Kriff, if this was Finn’s life, no wonder he was scared to come back.
“What will happen to our corpses?” Hux’s self-satisfied expression faltered, like he couldn’t see what kind of move this question was in the game of power. Like he wasn’t used to simple curiosity. Or maybe like he was just wondering if Poe was asking this to make some kind of joke. “They go in the nutrient tanks to be recycled into food, of course. We are not savages.”
We eat our dead, Poe heard. We’re not savages. “See that just breaks my brain.”
What was Leia thinking, making an alliance with these people? What good could ever possibly grow out of a soil so poisoned as this?
“Not an uncommon occurrence, I’m sure.”
Poe huffed, startled into bleak laughter. After watching the Resistance being mown down behind him, decimated because of his actions? Yeah, that was fair.
“I guess I have been known to make a bad call or two at that,” he conceded, wishing he could learn to like Holdo now she was a hero. Wishing good decisions came easier. He raised his hands. This was all too much for him. He was going to trust Leia. Even if it meant—on some level—trusting these human rathtars too, “Okay then. No tricks, no jokes. I’m still on board with the plan. Let’s go do this thing.”
The sound of approaching stormtrooper boots made the kids scurry back to Hux’s side, straightening their tunics, looking prim despite the blood on their shiny boots and gloves.
Hux nodded. He coughed blood into the centre of his palm.
“Whoa!” Poe’s mouth ran away with him again. “Are you going to stay upright for this?”
“Of course.” Hux seemed to take the concern as criticism. He levelled a gaze on Poe that could have stripped skin, holding out the damp hand to the other cadet. “I am not weak.”
Kaleo passed him a handkerchief and then an injector, which he applied to his throat.
I never said you were, Poe thought, tapping his foot with the jitters. Okay. Okay. Time to either take over the First Order fleet or alert them all to where the Resistance was. Time to find out what kind of a ruse this was.
Hux took a deeper, easier breath, a haunted expression coming into his eyes. He raised a hand to toy with his collar, then pulled his shoulders back, turned and strode out onto the Finalizer’s bridge.
So, I did in fact end up writing more of the fic where Hux allies with Leia, and I still didn’t finish it. Touch wood, this may mean that my fic writing block is over and I’m writing a multi-chapter story again :)
Refuge, Chapter Two
( Chapter One here on Ao3 )
In which Poe gets to learn more about First Order culture. Hux gets to explain how he got out from Kylo’s thumb for long enough to run to Leia, and apparently there is a plan.
Hints of gingerpilot. Is it requited? IDK yet ;)
~*~*~*~
“Man, I hate this smell,” Poe muttered to Rey as they followed their new ‘ally’ through the Star Destroyer’s corridors. Hux was still leaning on his aide – whose name, according to brief introductions, was Mitaka. The kiddies still flanked him, a solemn little pair known as Cadets First Class Kaleo and Brond. Brond was the girl, who’d been eyeing Rey’s stola and slouch boots with a mix of disapproval and fascination whenever she thought no one was watching.
“Smell?” Rey asked as they crammed into an elevator to ride up to the bridge.
Poe tried not to notice how Hux breathed in sharp at the tiny shift of gravity as they began to ascend. The whole thing was reminding him of torture, and that wasn’t a memory he wanted to encourage.
What had happened to the man? Had he been in a fight with Kylo Ren? No, he wouldn’t have survived that. Had he too been tortured by Kylo, by Leia’s son, Ben? Unwelcome sympathy made Poe’s chest ache. Torture buddies, he thought, looking to Rey for reassurance. Sometimes it seemed everyone in the universe existed just to be tortured by Ben.
“Star Destroyer smell,” Poe said, trying to keep his mind on the present. There really wasn’t a better way to sum it up – that stench of disinfectant, boot polish, ozone and blood.
“It’s fresher here than in the ones on Jakku,” Rey observed, snuffing the air. Brond and Kaleo exchanged a narrow eyed glance behind her back.
The First Order contingent kept their silence, but Poe thought he detected a minute increase in total sneering. They were used to the stench, probably, but it made Poe’s spine want to creep up out of his mouth and hide. “It doesn’t remind you of death?”
“I suppose it does,” she agreed. “The ships I worked in were full of bodies. But they were dried out, mostly. It was only in the less damaged areas that you got blood or decay. Unkar used to sell the uniforms to collectors. A full set with the blaster and the hat was three whole portions. It was always a lucky day when I found a–”
The elevator door hissed open. Poe tried to flee from the aura of increasing disapproval only to be shoved aside by a man barrelling in. Poe hit the wall, turned. The incomer raised a blaster, aiming for Hux.
What the–? Poe struggled with his instincts. The part that told him he should watch this happen with pleasure met the part that said, “but we had plans.” In that moment of doubt, Brond hurled herself forward. She set one small foot on the attacker’s knee, grabbed his blaster arm for support and plunged a small dagger into the sinews of his wrist.
His hand opened. The blaster fell. But Brond continued her movement, swift and practised, setting another foot in the crook of his elbow, climbing him until she could get a grip on his head with her thighs. He tried to pry her off, but it was already too late. She twisted until his neck broke, fell with him, landed in a neat and prissy crouch, as the body voided its bowels behind her.
Hux had not moved during the whole incident. Now he smiled. “Good. I thought for a moment you were going to slash the throat. It would have been quicker.”
“No sir. I didn’t want to get our uniforms dirty before the call, sir.”
The smile broadened, almost indulgent. “Excellent,” Hux said, his voice even rougher than it had been when he spoke to Leia. “One should always be neat.”
Brond blushed like a fourteen year old being complimented on her dress, attempting to smooth down her face but radiating glee. Hux lifted his fond smile over her shoulder and met Poe’s horrified eyes.
“Perhaps there is something to be said about the smell, however.” Motioning for Poe to leave the elevator, Hux stepped over the body. As he passed, he brought his heel down firmly on its outstretched fingers and ground until they snapped. The children were less delicate about it, eeling past Poe to kick the corpse across the corridor like a ball, their spotty faces alight with enjoyment.
“You must excuse our temporary disorder.” Hux caught Poe’s swallow of disgust and raised his eyebrows. “There is a little mess still to clear up. When the 'Supreme Leader’ took his 'knights’ to Mustafar to chase down some ghost, he intended to take me with him – to prevent me from moving against him. I was forced to provoke him into incapacitating me before he would leave me behind.”
He bit off his own smile, his eyes warming – perhaps at the thought of how clever he was. He was a beautiful man, but it was hard to forget the little crackle of joints bursting under his boot. Poe liked to look at him but felt unclean when he did.
His Supreme Leader did this to him? Had beaten him until he could barely walk, until he sounded like his ribs were in his lungs, until he winced at the jolt of an elevator floor? Poe hated his own sympathy, and hated that he hated it. He wanted a target, wanted his mind to be clear. But even if these people were monsters, it was obvious now that these monsters were also people. And stars, that just made his flightpath so jinked he was afraid to do anything at all.
“I gave orders to be taken out of the bacta the instant the Rens departed,” Hux continued, smug despite his bruises. “And we came to you immediately afterwards.”
He shot the corpse a reproachful look. “Some of my crew were unhappy with this decision, however, and the process of their retirement is ongoing. I believe a few scores are also being settled. Youthful high spirits—you know how it is. But we’ll have the place hygienic again in no time, and you will no longer be troubled by the smell of our honoured dead.”
“What will happen to them?” Poe found himself asking. He didn’t know why this was what he blurted out, out of all the choices open to him. Maybe everything else was too huge, too monstrous to process.
There were a million things he’d wanted to know about how the Star Destroyers worked. What it was like being in the First Order. What the enemy really thought and believed, when they were at home and unmasked. But Finn went damp and grey when he was forced to think about it, so Poe had left it alone. He was glad Finn had been given the chance to stay in the Falcon with Leia and Rose—to get to the rendezvous outside the belly of the beast. Kriff, if this was Finn’s life, no wonder he was scared to come back.
“What will happen to our corpses?” Hux’s self-satisfied expression faltered, like he couldn’t see what kind of move this question was in the game of power. Like he wasn’t used to simple curiosity. Or maybe like he was just wondering if Poe was asking this to make some kind of joke. “They go in the nutrient tanks to be recycled into food, of course. We are not savages.”
We eat our dead, Poe heard. We’re not savages. “See that just breaks my brain.”
What was Leia thinking, making an alliance with these people? What good could ever possibly grow out of a soil so poisoned as this?
“Not an uncommon occurrence, I’m sure.”
Poe huffed, startled into bleak laughter. After watching the Resistance being mown down behind him, decimated because of his actions? Yeah, that was fair.
“I guess I have been known to make a bad call or two at that,” he conceded, wishing he could learn to like Holdo now she was a hero. Wishing good decisions came easier. He raised his hands. This was all too much for him. He was going to trust Leia. Even if it meant—on some level—trusting these human rathtars too, “Okay then. No tricks, no jokes. I’m still on board with the plan. Let’s go do this thing.”
The sound of approaching stormtrooper boots made the kids scurry back to Hux’s side, straightening their tunics, looking prim despite the blood on their shiny boots and gloves.
Hux nodded. He coughed blood into the centre of his palm.
“Whoa!” Poe’s mouth ran away with him again. “Are you going to stay upright for this?”
“Of course.” Hux seemed to take the concern as criticism. He levelled a gaze on Poe that could have stripped skin, holding out the damp hand to the other cadet. “I am not weak.”
Kaleo passed him a handkerchief and then an injector, which he applied to his throat.
I never said you were, Poe thought, tapping his foot with the jitters. Okay. Okay. Time to either take over the First Order fleet or alert them all to where the Resistance was. Time to find out what kind of a ruse this was.
Hux took a deeper, easier breath, a haunted expression coming into his eyes. He raised a hand to toy with his collar, then pulled his shoulders back, turned and strode out onto the Finalizer’s bridge.
