[Poe]

"I think we need to make sure everyone has the same information." Poe looked to Kylo and Rey. Rey nodded. Kylo didn't, but Poe cared more about her buy-in than his. Poe slapped the button for the forward compartment to loop the guards into the conversation. "Stay at your post, guys, but you need to hear this, too." C'ai did the same for Finn and Rose in the rear compartment.

Poe scanned over the stormtroopers in the room – the ones who had earlier drawn blasters and had been poised to shoot him out of concern he was involved with whatever harm was befalling Hux. He couldn't blame them for that – they didn't know. Communication, sometimes, was key.

"I don't know who knows what, or how much information makes it to average stormtroopers, so I'm going to start with things I figure everyone knows. The Battle of Crait – a few weeks ago, more or less?" People nodded. "Snoke dies. Kylo Ren becomes supreme leader. A week later," he waved back at Hux, who was still on the floor, "Kylo is convicted of assassinating Snoke, committing treason, and whatever the other charges were. But he escapes."

Now Poe gestured at Kylo. "He comes to the Resistance. He and Rey have a vision in the Force they describe as 'the end of it all'. They say they see the return of Darth Sidious, some old … Sith, who comes back and possesses General Hux." The stormtrooper's expressions were mostly confused. He tried to explain, "Like, spiritual possession."

"Magic?" One of them asked. Without the rank insignia (other than the first sergeant, they were still in black under armor and nothing else), Poe wasn't entirely sure which one she was. It was disturbing how quickly he'd found himself depending on their armor and relative heights to identify them, rather than, like, their faces.

"The Force," said another.

"The Force doesn't do that," said a different one.

"How do you know?"

"Isn't the Force just another word for magic?"

CL-0745 said, "Shut it. Listen." She turned to Poe. "Go on."

"Where was I?" Poe asked.

"Darth Sidious," Threnalli said in Abednedo.

"Right. Darth Sidious. I don't know where he came from, by the way. He just showed up."

"The Hosnian Cataclysm," Hux said from behind him. He was still sitting on the floor.

"What?" Poe asked, turning somewhat to see him.

"The destruction of the Hosnian system," Hux said in a tired voice. "It caused a disturbance in the Force. Some kind of 'wound' that caused him to manifest. Or return."

"How do you know that?" Kylo asked softly.

Hux said, "He told me."

"Snoke?" Kylo asked, though he seemed as aware as anyone that the logical inference from Hux's statement was that he meant Sidious. Poe assumed Kylo didn't believe it.

"No. Sidious. Earlier, in my head." Hux gestured at his skull. "I said he spoke to me. He offered me information. He might have been lying, though."

"If he wasn't," Kylo said with a sneer that Poe interpreted to mean there was pre-existing baggage on this subject, "then you created him. Fitting that you're the one who has to deal with him." Hux rolled his eyes in a slow and exaggerated fashion to show his opinion of whatever ongoing feud they had over this. Kylo added, "You also said he made promises. What were they?"

Hux's voice turned defensive in a quick change from how dismissive he'd been before. "That's personal. And irrelevant." Hux fiddled with the comb that was still in his hand, flicking his thumbnail up the teeth of it several times in quick succession as he glared at Kylo.

Now Kylo rolled his eyes. "He offered you something, something that matters. 'Bribes', you said. I know a few things about being seduced by the dark side."

"As do I!" Hux said, getting to his feet and approaching Kylo. "But there was no need to 'seduce me' since I was never in the light to start with! They are lies. They are all, always, lies. He could promise to make me the rightful ruler of Coruscant and I would not be the least tempted because I know it's false. Did Snoke ever deliver on anything he promised you?"

Kylo looked sulky. "A few things."

"'A few things'," Hux mocked. "You should have known better than to believe him about anything! You're too gullible."

"You followed his orders, too!" Kylo snapped. "You're too jaded!"

"Hey, hey!" Poe interposed himself between the two men. "Calm down, you two. Next step after this is name-calling, then pushing and shoving. Next thing you know, someone gets hurt. Anyway, he's perfect." He looked to Kylo and said, "You're fine." Poe put an arm around Hux's upper back. "But he's perfect."

"Perfect?" Threnalli snorted, still in Abednedo.

"He is," Poe insisted. He turned to Hux, who was blushing again. "You're the best."

Hux gently pulled himself free and moved to Kaydel, extending the comb. "Thank you for this."

"No problem," she said very quietly.

Hux returned to the wall where he'd started, saying to Poe as he passed, "I can't tell if you're tooling with me or not."

"I'm not. Not this time. Do you want me to give you the list again? Like last night? All the things I like about you? I might have some new stuff for it."

"No!" Hux looked scandalized. He blushed even harder.

Poe grinned, his mouth hanging open. "Yeah, probably a good idea. We'd be here a long time." He turned back to the rest. "Okay, where was I?"

There was a moment of silence in the room, broken only by Kaydel trying very hard not to laugh and a single suspicious-sounding sniff from CL-0745.

Threnalli helped him again, this time in Basic so others could understand him. "Sidious came from elsewhere and now he's …?"

"Yeah, yeah. So he's going to try to possess Hux here. At some point."

Hux said, "You've skipped the important part that my father, Brendol Hux, was a clone of Emperor Palpatine, which was the public name of this Sith, Darth Sidious."

Several of the stormtroopers gasped as the pieces finally fell together meaningfully. Apparently imperial history was not a subject their possibly abridged education skipped. Poe said, "Oh. Yeah. That's, that's important." He looked around at people, particularly the First Order ones who seemed to be taking this fine, though it was startling news. "And since Sidious has discovered that his son, grandson, nephew, or whatever the proper word is, has escaped, he's been using Force powers to try to force your general to turn himself in and betray all of us. Which is why he's sleeping badly."

"We have two Force users," Threnalli said, turning to Kylo and Rey. "Powerful ones. Can you block Sidious somehow?"

Rey smiled awkwardly. Kylo studied the floor. Threnalli made a confused noise at their expressions.

"Yeah, about that," Poe said, looking at Rey. "Your turn."

Rey sighed. "We … have elected to temporarily cut ourselves off from the Force, because otherwise Sidious might be able to track us by our presence in the Force."

"You can't use the Force?" Hux asked sharply, stepping up next to Poe.

"No. Not … right now. It's a simple process to-" She shook her head, looking at Hux and the odd expression on his face.

Hux said, "You're telling me that right now, I could have every one of you shot and he, and you for that matter, couldn't stop it? You'd just die?"

Silence descended over the compartment, quiet enough that you could hear Kylo swallow and Poe could hear the rub of fabric against his own bristly neck as he turned his head to look disbelievingly at Hux. "That's why you haven't had us killed?"

Hux looked Poe up and down with thinly-veiled desire. "One of the reasons."

Poe raised his brows, pleased beyond measure that Hux wanted him, Hux was admitting it publicly (sort of), and Poe had been right all along that jumping the guy's bones (or trying to) would save the galaxy.

Hux laughed, turned, and walked back to the wall. Poe didn't miss how CL-0745 tracked his movements, poised, like she was waiting for the order. Poe looked over his shoulder to track Hux as well, not sure if he should be grinning or worried. He knew there was something wrong with him that he liked how dangerous this guy was. Hux made a dismissive hand wave at the troopers, who released a collective sigh and relaxed. They shifted in place a little in what looked like a subdued version of their 'laugh' movement.

Strange sense of humor – the whole lot of them. Poe turned back to the rest. "So. We're all good here. We're all friends. We have a common enemy."

"And I need the wing installed," Hux said. "So you're safe for now, Force or no Force."

"You're just a ray of sunshine," Poe said, smiling broadly.

"Fear not," Hux said. "As you told me – I need you."

This time, Poe was the one who blushed.