Hux had extremely limited experience with Hutts. He had only ever seen one once or twice in his life, and he had to admit, it wasn't in the most flattering of circumstances for them.

Czeska had found a buyer just off of Nal Hutta, a local crimelord named Rotta, who had ties with the main crime syndicate.

"I don't want to tell you to stay on the ship." She said, absently running her fingers through Hux's soft, red hair as she stood behind him, looking at her comm pad in her other hand. "But I do think it's for the better that no one sees you until we're well out of the Y'toub system."

"I know." Armitage said, reaching up and smoothing his hand over hers and looking up at her. The contact was strange, personal, but not unwelcome. There was kindness in her eyes that made his throat tighten.

He knew she wouldn't intentionally force him to do something. He hadn't known her for very long, but he just had a feeling he could trust her implicitly. It was the same feeling that had led him to running out the door, to stealing the very ship that had brought them to this ragtag spaceport.

"If something happens, you need to take the Sabaton and get out of here. I have family on Ankus, they'll help you if you just tell them you're with me." She said absently. "I have a message automatically set to send in three days if I don't come back."

Armitage winced inwardly at the thought, of her being this prepared, this casual about the possibility of her own demise. She would have made an excellent officer for the Order, but for her tendency to push buttons. She had intelligence, charisma, and the capacity for calculation…

He knew her instructions weren't a request, nor a command. They were an offer more than anything, her eyes soft, almost pleading with him.

Keep yourself safe…

She was concerned for his safety, his wellbeing…his happiness…

Hux wanted to grab her, to pull her close and tell her that everything would be all right, to take her face in his hands and kiss her.

He had become addicted to contact with her, with the feel of her lying beside him on the nights his dreams caught up to him, with the scant, chance touches of skin-on-skin when they passed in the tight hallways. It was almost an addiction, a fixation. He hadn't taken it further than that, but the thought of anything more sent chills down the former general's spine.

Hux wondered of it was healthy: he had been reliant on his father, on the idea of the Empire, then the First Order, on other people's ideals for so long , that he wondered if getting emotionally involved like this with the first being that was remotely nice to him was the best idea.

But on the other hand, she was kind, maybe a little chaotic and certainly morally grey, but she seemed to want him to think and act for himself, which is more than anyone had ever done for him. And Hux wasn't sure he could make it without being told what to do in some way or another.

Maybe, if nothing else, she could help him establish himself.

Czeska's time away from the ship gave him a chance to reflect, but he couldn't help but feel nervous, pacing back and forth as he waited for her return. What if something had gone terribly wrong?

He sat in silence, listening to the local comm chatter, waiting for signs of anything running afoul, his fingers drumming nervously on the dashboard as he looked out across the small spaceport.

It had been cobbled together out of random pieces of other stations, some Imperial, some much, much older than that. It didn't even seem structurally stable, but from the reputations that hutts had across the galaxy, its disheveled appearance was no doubt deceiving.

There was a loud, metallic groan, followed by a crash and the screeching sound of metal dragging against metal. The ship shuddered, lifting a little before shifting sideways ever-so-slightly.

The pressure dropped for a moment, and Hux felt his ears pop painfully from the depressurization, panic rising in his throat.

Then the sounds of running footsteps up the hallway punctuated the panic, footfalls coming steadily towards the cockpit.

Adrenaline pumping, Hux forced himself into a little alcove, his hand instinctively going for his long-absent blaster.

Damnit, he was unarmed…

"Buckle up, hot stuff, we gotta go." He heard Czeska yell, her voice cracking from stress. She sounded off, her voice broken and hoarse.

Hux immediately followed the sound of her voice to the cockpit, arriving just in time to see the ship immediately jump into hyperspace.

"What happened?" He grasped the back of the copilots chair as the ship gave a lurch. Czeska didn't look up, her skin looking unusually pale in the bright, flashing lights beyond the windscreen.

"Czeska! What happened?" His voice was raised in panic and he could see her flinching away from him.

"Your shitty First Order buddies were there." She spun in the seat to look at him. He could see bruises on her neck, her eyes sagging with exhaustion as a cut trickled a steady stream of blood from her forehead. "That black-cloaked bastard got me. Your ship was a dead fucking giveaway."

Hux felt his stomach twist as he looked down at her.

Kylo Ren…

"I didn't know." He sat in the chair opposite to her, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressing it to her forehead. "I didn't know."

She leaned forward, her dark hair falling around him. He could see blood drying on her lips, a bruise forming beneath her eye. Her eyes had shifted to a color paler than before and he knew she'd been deprived of oxygen.

He knew that haggard look all too well; he had seen it on his own face too many times.

"I know." She reached out, touching his hair. She was shaking, though she seemed to be trying to hide it.

"Come on." Hux rose, taking her hands in his. "You need rest. It's my turn to take care of you."

She rose to her feet, avoiding his gaze with a strained smile. "I almost forgot…" She rummaged in her pocket for a moment, pulling out a debit chip. "Your share of the spoils."

Hux took the chip from her, pocketing it without looking at it before helping her back to the sleeping quarters.

xXx

In the hours that followed, Hux had a hard time trying to force Czeska to stay in bed. She kept getting up and tweaking the cloaking system, recalculating their jumps.

"The farther we can get away, the better." She was scared, he could feel the fear radiating from her. "We can't stay in one place for too long."

"What about Teth?"

"Fuck Teth. I can sell spice anywhere." Czeska spat, barely looking at him as she scratched her scalp nervously, her fingernails digging in viciously.

Hux sat in the copilot's seat, crossing one knee over the other and folding his hands in his lap as he looked at her.

"Czeska, I know what you went through." He began. Czeska dropped her hand from her head with a sigh, flexing her fingers as if she'd held them in place for a long time.

"Armitage…" She turned to look at him, her eyes tired.

"I know."

"He knew…about you. I kept as much as I could locked up…but he knew. He showed me things…"

Hux's mouth went dry and he put both his feet on the floor.

"What…kind of things…" Fear struck through him, fear that she would see the real him; the man that had ordered the Hosnian Genocide, the angry, insecure General who was never appreciated, never acknowledged. The hard man, who was callous and cruel, brimming with hatred.

Kylo had been inside his mind, as well…he knew all of Hux's weak points, and just how to exploit them. Just how to present them in a way that would make Czeska hate him.

Czeska was quiet, her normally vibrant personality subdued. It deeply disturbed him to see her like this.

"You know I can use The Force. I try not to but…when my life is in danger…when I feel my life is in danger, that is. I don't want to be like that. I don't want to be like him."

"You're nothing like him." He could sense she was avoiding telling him what Ren had shown her. In a way, he suspected, but he didn't want to bring it up.

"When he showed me what he had done to you…I lost it. I lost my temper. I attacked. I don't think he was expecting it. I think I caught him off guard."

Hux felt the lump rise in his throat, feeling his cheeks flush with embarrassment and anger.

"He knew... He blamed me for your departure. He said I called you away, that I had you under my control."

Hux wasn't sure what to do. He had never been good in intense emotional situations. Or situations with any sort of emotion at all. He wanted to pull her close and never let go. To sink himself into her, heart and soul.

Instead, he simply sat there, his hands against his knees, acutely aware of how dry the recycled air was. Even if she had called him away from the First Order, he had felt better here than he had ever felt in his entire life.

He finally had a degree of agency that he'd never been afforded before.

He stood, awkwardly scooping her up in his arms. She was heavier than he thought she would be and his knees buckled a little under the weight.

She was startled, but put her arms around his neck, leaning on his shoulder. He carried her back to the sleeping quarters and laid her on her bed.

"You are overthinking things. You're letting him get to you." He brushed strands of hair away from her face, his own hands shaking. "It's what he wants."

She was like an open book, her face betraying her emotions, but it made it much easier for Hux to understand her.

He wasn't sure how far the Sith had taken it, but he felt nothing but anger towards the younger man.

Hux couldn't have anything to himself without Kylo putting his hands on it, and Czeska was now no exception. The amount of animosity he had attacked the woman with made Armitage's hands shake as he bushed the hair away from her neck to look at the constriction bruises.

There were no fingerprints. There rarely were. Just a band of darkening flesh, almost completely even.

It looked like she had been hit in the face, or suffered some kind of impact, the blood pooling beneath her eye, her lip split. He wondered how far Kylo had taken it, his hand hovering at her waist. He didn't want to pull at her overclothes without her consent, but he couldn't help but feel nervous, terrified that the other man had gotten to her the same way he had invaded Hux…

It wasn't a fate he'd wish on anyone…

He leaned down, gently kissing the swelling flesh on her upper cheek, before leaning up and letting his lips trail across her temple, letting his fingers smooth across her firm shoulder.

She opened her eyes to look at him, that beautiful smile playing weakly across her features.

"Stay with me for a while? I missed that handsome face." She reached up, stroking his red hair softly. Hux finally let his own blushing smile break his careful façade as he leaned in, kissing her softly.