A/N: Wow, I wrote them both as boys! This is a blue moon occurrence for me.
Warnings for: Kylo/Hux in some kind of weird established enemies-with-benefits thing, referenced past child abuse, implied past child neglect (of the emotional sort), offscreen minor character death, alcohol abuse (+ hints of alcoholism), inability to cope with feelings, daddy issues. #justkyluxthings
This is set ambiguously pre-canon. The title comes from "Numb" by Marina and the Diamonds.
Hux doesn't realize Kylo is in his father's house when he breaks in – or even when Kylo opens the door to what turns out to be a surprisingly modest parlor, where Hux sits by a large window. The storm outside rages so violently that Kylo finally must clear his throat to be noticed. At the sound, Hux twists in his chair to face Kylo in a brief but undisguised panic.
"Ren?" Hux says, catching himself in the process of reaching for the bottle of rum sitting on a side table, presumably to throw at an attacker. "Fucking hell, I'm not that drunk."
"I'm not a hallucination," Kylo says, reaching up to remove his sodden hood and then his helmet. His head and hair are quite literally the only parts of him that aren't soaked through. He's never been to Arkanis before now, and quietly hopes that he will never have reason to again. "But yes, I believe you are that drunk."
"Have you lost your fucking mind?" Hux hisses, outraged. He lurches to his feet but, once properly upright, maintains his balance quite well as he stalks toward Kylo. "What could have possibly possessed you to follow me here?"
Kylo ruminates on this for a moment. "Curiosity," he says finally.
"Curiosity," Hux repeats, incredulous. His cheeks have gone a ruddy shade most commonly associated with Kylo's presence, whether it be in a bedroom or on the bridge. "You followed me halfway across the galaxy out of curiosity."
"Your father is dead," Kylo says. "I'm interested to know what that looks like on a man like you."
"A man like me?" Hux says disdainfully. "Don't thrust your personal family melodrama onto me, Lord Ren. I still haven't quite recovered from the lunacy of you stalking me all the way to Arkanis."
Kylo rolls his eyes. Hux accuses him of being melodramatic on a near-daily basis, and yet Hux is the one yelling and furious for no reason at all, tipsy off of what is most likely his father's liquor. Ben Solo died before he reached the heights of petty teenage rebellion, but Kylo is fairly certain this is what it would've looked like. Melodrama, indeed.
Hux watches, still thrumming with outrage, as Kylo drifts to a nearby couch and sits upon it. It's oddly stiff, as couches go – built to be imposing rather than comfortable, like a great many dusty Imperial relics. Kylo deems it neither wise nor necessary to comment on interior decorating at the moment.
"I suppose you actually plan to stay here. That is, assuming you ever plan anything at all," Hux snipes.
"I only just got here," Kylo says, keeping his tone mild because that will aggravate Hux more than anything else, and even now Kylo cannot resist that temptation. "Surely Arkanisian hospitality will not allow you to throw me out into the rain."
Hux stands there glowering for a moment, jaw clenched as he attempts to find a way out of this situation. Hux knows that he stands little chance of talking Kylo into leaving, and even less of a chance at manhandling him into it. Finding no other alternative, Hux sits stiffly down on the far end of the couch, resigned to his fate. "There's no such thing as hospitality here," Hux says finally. "Besides, it always rains."
"It is unpleasant," Kylo agrees. The sky outside is a dismal gray, tinged with the purple-black of oncoming nightfall. Rain thuds against the windows, and periodic bouts of thunder make everything rattle slightly.
"Surely you didn't come here to talk about the weather," Hux mutters, still annoyed. Kylo senses it when Hux realizes he's left his rum out of reach. Before Hux gets the chance to stand and fetch it, Kylo summons it with the Force, calling both the bottle and Hux's half-finished glass to his hands.
"That's a clever party trick," Hux says, watching as Kylo tops off his glass and then accepting the drink when it is offered. "Perhaps you came here hoping to find me drunk and depressed, then."
"I don't need you drunk and depressed to do what I please with you," Kylo reminds him, and Hux glares over the rim of his glass.
There's a long pause while Hux nurses his drink. Kylo sips from the bottle once, and Hux's disgusted grimace almost outweighs the unpleasant burn of the rum as it slides down his throat. Kylo has never been fond of the taste of alcohol, any alcohol, but Hux enjoys it. Right now, he even thinks he needs it, though the rum is rapidly losing the steadying, fortifying effect that Hux so craves.
"How did you know?" Hux asks suddenly, startling Kylo from his morbidly curious examination of Hux's thoughts. "About my father, I mean."
"Captain Phasma."
Hux bristles slightly. "Phasma told you?" he asks. Hux has what amounts to a soft spot for Phasma, which Kylo finds oddly fascinating. They're hardly even friends – neither of them truly has friends – but they understand each other. Hux doesn't trust anybody, but he comes close with Phasma.
"No," Kylo says. "She didn't need to."
Hux looks a bit mollified by this reminder of Phasma's loyalty. "She offered to come to my father's service," he volunteers unexpectedly. "But I need at least one person on the Finalizer that I can count on to handle things properly. Namely you."
Hux expects Kylo to be insulted by this, and is sorely disappointed when Kylo merely smirks. Hux reaches for the bottle and pours himself another glass. "Did you at least announce your departure?"
"No one on your ship cares whether I come and go." The crew probably would've been thrilled, actually.
Hux frowns. "What if the Supreme Leader has need of us and we're both off-ship? He won't speak to anyone but you or me –,"
"He can reach me at any time," Kylo says, in an effort to cut off Hux's self-important dithering. "Or any place."
Hux stares at him for a long moment, seemingly assessing whether or not he actually believes this. "That's a bit creepy," he says finally, taking another sip of his drink.
"It's not creepy," Kylo says, irrationally annoyed even though he knows Hux has absolutely no idea what he's talking about. He couldn't, not without Force sensitivity or at the very least an open mind. "Together, the Supreme Leader and I are the most powerful beings in the galaxy."
"Sure," Hux says dryly. "But does this connection of yours go both ways?"
Kylo resists the urge to gnash his teeth. How foolish, to have come here thinking he could observe Hux at his weakest without also being endlessly needled in return. Hux uses veiled threats and wordplay the way warriors use shields: to deflect. Somehow Kylo had anticipated something different. Not that he'd expected to find Hux a weeping mess; Hux is many things, but he isn't the sort of weakling to cry over an attachment, a loss. He couldn't possibly be, not with the things he plans to do.
But Hux's father was not like other fathers, certainly not like Han Solo; Hux had never left him behind. Could never, truly, not in life with the First Order. His father's influence shadows everything he does.
It's possible Kylo may have sensed some psychic disturbance before Hux left. He'd been meditating, and hadn't actually known that Hux was leaving, but he'd felt – something. He'd recognized it. Upheaval.
"If you stare any longer," Hux says, "you might bore holes into the side of my head."
Kylo shifts his gaze, but there's really not much in the room to look at. It's sparsely decorated, although Kylo notes bits of Imperial memorabilia scattered here and there – one vase bearing an insignia looks like it actually might be worth something, to Kylo's admittedly untrained eye. Hux pours himself another drink. "You'll make yourself sick," Kylo comments.
"Did you need the Force to divine that, or have you finally learned to use common sense?"
"You're in a bad mood," Kylo says, only distantly amused by this. To Kylo's knowledge – which is limited in the firsthand, but he is a mind-reader – Hux doesn't often drink to excess. When he does drink, it's usually to relieve stress. Hux is always cranky, but this is different. Kylo has the most bizarre urge to press deeper, to explore the inner workings of Hux's mind and figure out what has caused him to act this way. Grief seems unlikely, given Hux's personality.
"You've shown up at my doorstep unannounced," Hux says. "I must admit my mood always takes a turn for the worse when that happens."
This is patently untrue; if it wasn't, Hux would've long ago stopped allowing Kylo into his bed. "You didn't like him very much," Kylo says abruptly. "Your father."
Hux blinks, unsure whether he should be offended. "I respected him," is all he says.
"You aren't mourning him," Kylo says. "So why are you alone in this dusty house, drinking?"
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Hux snaps, his ordinarily crisp accent suddenly in slurring ruin when he raises his voice. "Aren't you supposed to be psychic? Or is it more fun to hassle me?"
"You're drunk. The inside of your head is a mess." It's something Kylo is unaccustomed to with Hux, whose mind is generally as regular and organized as a filing cabinet, everything in its proper place. Right now, his vision is swimming, and each rumble of thunder startles him, though he tries very hard not to show it. He keeps telling himself that he's going to stand up, order Kylo to leave his father's house, and then get the hell out of here, this horrid little room where his father once striped his back raw with a belt –
"Ah," Kylo says. "That's it."
"Yes," Hux agrees. "That's it."
"You hate it here," Kylo surmises. A cursory skim of Hux's thoughts tells him all that and more, now that the truth has come out at last. "You haven't been back since you left the Academy."
Hux drains his glass, then tosses it aside lazily, watches disinterestedly as it rolls across the carpeted floor til it comes to a stop by the window. "I'll be gone soon enough," he says. "The blasted funeral is tomorrow, and then I'm back to the Finalizer."
He doesn't say it, but Kylo hears the unspoken: back to normal. Back to the regimented order of his daily life – the only thing he trusts.
"This was meant to pass the time, I suppose," Hux continues, holding the bottle up by its neck to indicate his meaning. He takes a long pull, leaving only a sip or two more at the bottom. "But if you insist upon staying here, you could at least make yourself useful, Lord Ren."
Kylo watches Hux set the bottle down onto the floor, then clamber across the couch and attempt to fold his long, thin, overly-clothed limbs into Kylo's lap. Hux kisses him messily, almost violently, but Kylo suspects that has more to do with his inebriation than anything else.
Kylo permits this for a few moments, but Hux pulls back, dissatisfied. "Kiss me back," Hux snaps, petulant.
"You're no use like this," Kylo tells him. It's not a matter of scruples; it's a matter of avoiding the likely event of Hux either throwing up on him or passing out in his lap. "Get off."
Hux growls wordlessly, then practically shoves himself out of Kylo's lap. He wants to stand up and leave again, but somehow he knows he won't be able to walk with any kind of dignity if he does, and dignity is painfully important to Hux. A small part of him, a part Kylo barely can barely hear, thinks he'd rather spend the night in here than wander through the house in search of a suitable bed.
Hux stews in his own mess for several minutes, but for once, he seems to have run out of things to say. He doesn't reach for the bottle sitting discarded at their feet. Kylo, suddenly aware of how uncomfortably cool and damp his clothes still are, almost regrets what he's done, but he won't go back now.
"Is there any food here?" he asks Hux after a while. He'd meant to ask sooner, but Hux is distracting at the best of times and vexing at the worst.
Hux looks startled by this question. He'd almost relaxed into the silence. "Might be something in the conservator," he says, frowning slightly. It takes him a minute to remember where the kitchen is. "Down the hall to your left."
Kylo rises and heads for the kitchen, which he'd actually passed on his way in. The house is in total darkness, illuminated only by the occasional flicker of lightning. As Kylo stands at the conservator, searching for something even slightly appealing, he wonders – if he meditated in this house, would he sense the imprints of Hux's presence? Of his father, certainly, but of Hux as a boy, standing in this same room, probably waiting for a droid to serve him dinner which he'd then eat alone –
This idea settles uncomfortably in Kylo's chest, a familiar weight, and he slams the conservator door too roughly – something inside tips over with a clatter. Kylo doesn't stop to clean it up. There's probably a droid around for that, anyway.
Kylo makes his way back to the parlor, already halfway done with the fruit he's nicked from the conservator by the time he returns. Hux is still sitting slumped against the far arm of the couch, head propped up on one hand, his other arm curled loosely around his middle as though conserving warmth. He's already mostly out, unable to resist the siren call of sleep in his drunken state.
Kylo tosses aside the fruit's core without thinking, then steps forward, heavy footfalls muffled by the carpeting. Hux rouses when Kylo half-lifts him, and then struggles violently when Kylo arranges him so that he's lying neatly on his side.
"Kylo Ren," Hux drawls as he finally goes slack, half in simple acknowledgment and half in dismay. "What are you doing here, Kylo?"
"Shut up," Kylo says, smoothing Hux's hair from his forehead with one large, gloved hand. "If you vomit, try to spit it all out. Asphyxiation would be a very ignominious death for a man of your rank."
"Wake me before sunrise," Hux manages, grimacing. "I have to clear up this mess."
"Sleep," Kylo intones, and it takes only the barest hint of the Force in his voice to have Hux's eyelids sliding shut, his breath slowing, his mind quietening.
Hux doesn't rouse as Kylo fetches his helmet and puts it on, or when an ear-splitting burst of thunder booms as Kylo leaves the parlor. He won't stay on Arkanis til morning; Hux's father's funeral is not what he came here for. Besides, Hux doesn't truly need Kylo to wake him – a wormhole would have to rip open and swallow him up before he'd actually be late for something, and maybe not even then.
They won't speak of this later, back on the Finalizer. There's nothing more to discuss, and even if there was, Hux wouldn't want to. Just this once, Kylo will indulge him.