Dameron smiled at him, slowly nodding. He looked proud, or maybe vindicated. Hux felt his cheeks heat, but he otherwise weathered the positive regard as stolidly as he could. He didn't think Dameron had maneuvered him into involving himself with the New Republic. It seemed more like it was just coincidental that Hux's best course of action was the one Dameron thought he should take. That was what happened sometimes when people had the same goal, right? Dameron led the way inside. Thoughtful, Hux followed.

The aroma of the mess hall hit him the moment they left the lift. It was savory, with a more varied mix of smells than Hux was used to in an eating place. It was loud, too, as they were there for the dinner rush. The hall itself was a rectangular room with rows of fixed, backless benches, all facing the inward wall. Before the benches were equally narrow platform that passed as a long table, so that all seated persons were on the same side. There was no sign of the stage implied by the amphitheater or lecture hall arrangement, although the inward wall was equipped with a floor-to-ceiling screen. It was currently showing rescue efforts in some flooded area.

Dameron picked a spot where they didn't have neighbors right next to them, and sat. Hux asked, "Are you right-handed?"

"Yeah."

Hux settled in to Dameron's left, inwardly congratulating himself that he could stab Dameron more easily with his own dominant hand, on Dameron's unguarded side. Not that he had any intention of it. It was just an amusing mental game of his. A person came by on the opposite side of the platform that acted as their table. Her eyes slid over Hux with a pleasing lack of recognition. She asked, "What'll ya ave?"

Dameron looked to him like Hux was supposed to answer the question. He had barely made it out through the accent. Hux's meal experiences fell into three simple categories: taking his assigned tray in a cafeteria, receiving his allotted meal at formal dining, or scrounging for himself like a savage. None of them involved talking to people about what he wanted, although he had a vague awareness of the process. "Food?" A very vague awareness.

"Bring us a sweesonberry ryshcate," Dameron said. "Just one. We'll split it."

She nodded and made a note, then looked to Hux. "Anythin' else?"

He tried again. Maybe being specific was the trick. "Dinner?" From her expression, that wasn't the right word.

"Do you have a special?" Dameron interjected gently.

"Oh yaw. Bantha-cheekeroot stew."

"Sounds great. Bring two."

She made another note. "Drinks?"

Dameron looked to Hux again, who exhaled tensely. Now the question was whether he was expected to order something alcoholic, caffeinated, or something else. He had no idea what was available, so he went with simple. "Water?"

She looked at Dameron, who held up two fingers. She made a note and said, "Aight." Hux relaxed slightly. Apparently, the beverage choice was acceptable.

"Finn had the same issue," Dameron explained after the server left.

"What issue?"

"Not knowing what to order. Or how to order. Or how to fly things. But he was a fast learner. Just like you."

Hux pressed his lips together tightly for a moment, holding back his comment. Then he asked anyway. He had to know. "What advantage do you think you will gain from complimenting me?"

Half a sultry smirk climbed onto Dameron's face before he wiped it off and looked away. "I can stop."

"It's a serious question."

Dameron looked over at him out of the corner of his eye. "Serious?"

"Yes."

"First off, it's true. Secondly, I don't mind buttering you up."

"Why?"

This got Dameron to turn and look at him full on. "Why?!"

Oh. Yes. The 'attracted to him' part. Hux looked down and blinked at where his left hand rested on the table, half-turned as he was in Dameron's direction. Lodged in the details of Dameron's propaganda screed had been a noticeable familiarity with the basic events of Hux's history. He might have fabricated a few key acts and completely missed the motivations, but he obviously had his facts straight on everything that was public knowledge. One would think that, by itself, would be enough to send him running in the opposite direction.

"It tends to work better than insulting someone," Dameron said finally.

"You're flirting with me." Hux moved his fingertips slightly on the smooth surface of the table, caught between making it an accusation or an observation. He could feel Dameron's eyes but didn't meet them.

"I can stop."

Hux looked up at him then. Dameron hadn't looked away this time. He was looking at him intently, wearing an uncertain expression, just a tiny bit vulnerable. For all the stars, he looked sincere. Which was just kriffing ridiculous, but there it was. Even if it was an act, the very fact that Dameron thought he was worth the subterfuge was … engaging. Hux's breath seemed to catch in his throat, but he got out, "No. Don't." Because what did it matter?

Dameron gave him a long look. The uncertainty faded. The vulnerability turned to hope. There was something soft in his expression, something that sent Hux's mind scrambling as he struggled to characterize what was happening with Dameron's features to give that impression. He gripped the edge of the table, his heart beating faster. His other hand rested nervously on his knee.

He was interrupted by the arrival of the server. She delivered two glasses of water and a flakey pastry striped with a purple glaze. If she had an opinion about the two of them making eyes at one another, she didn't volunteer it. She just dropped off the food and left. Barely taking his eyes off Hux, Dameron took the pastry in both hands, tearing it in two. He handed half to Hux, who took it. The filling was purplish, too, and had nuts in it. It smelled good: sweet, piquant, and alcoholic.

"This is very strange," Hux said quietly. He had this feeling inside him that had no precedent. It was like a nervous wanting with a side portion of dissociation. He was pretty sure he liked Dameron. Or was feeling like he liked him. Which called into question why he hadn't felt this way with all the other people in his life that he'd had positive associations with. He'd 'liked' plenty of people. Why was this different?

"You haven't even tasted it." Dameron, for his part, was licking the purplish glaze off the heel of his palm where it had smeared as he'd torn the thing into two parts.

"I wasn't talking about the roll."

"What makes you think I was?"

Hux blinked. He hadn't even tasted … what? Dameron? He found himself struggling to get air again. The man flashed a sudden grin and took a big bite out of his half. He leaned away and looked around the room, looking very pleased with himself. Hux watched the man be insufferably happy and couldn't bring himself to be upset about it. No, he had never, ever had this feeling about anyone he'd worked with before. 'Has no one ever told you that?' ran circles in his head.

He turned to his portion of ryshcate. It was delicious, just as he'd been told – buttery, flakey, crisp pastry around a honey-sweet spiced fruit and nut mix, with a liberal splash of Corellian brandy to back it up. It was definitely flavorful. The First Order did not serve anything remotely like this. He ignored Dameron's behavior and his own weird emotions in favor of devouring the half he'd been given.

As he finished, a bowl was placed before him, with a matching one for Dameron and a plate with two soft flatbreads on it between them. The stew was more like a porridge, so thick that the spoon, placed upright in it, would remain in place. Hux moved some of the stuff about. What he took to be broth was cloudy and gelid. It smelled good, though, and was the source of the savory component of the room's atmosphere. Dameron dug right in. With a shrug, Hux did as well.

The thick paste was more appealing than the contents of the 'stew'. The umami component of the dish was almost overwhelming, with the whole thing tasting of roast meat and caramelized onions in every bite. Getting the actual meat and onions was more intense than his palate could take. However it had been prepared had not evened out the flavors. Hux picked his way around the chunks once he figured that out.

The screen was now showing a heavily-furred creature gesticulating expansively as it answered questions put to it by a human journalist. If there was audio with the projection, it was lost in the hubbub of a few score conversations in the noisy room. Subtitles revealed the topic of conversation to be planetary independence and the creature's lack of faith in the New Republic's ability to govern. Hux's brows drew together. He looked over to see if Dameron was watching the same thing. He was.

"Your government doesn't censor the news?"

Mouth full, Dameron shook his head.

"It should. The political agenda of your media will dictate that of the citizens."

Dameron shrugged. Hux looked back to the screen. Who controlled the holonews? Was the New Republic was going to come apart at the seams? Were they going to go right back to being the ineffective laughingstocks they'd been before? Just now without any decently organized military? Who had been organizing the disaster relief that had been on earlier? He'd been too busy staring into Dameron's eyes to know. There were a lot of things he didn't know.

He turned to Dameron. "What forces do you have at your disposal?"

"What?"

"The forces you're using in your anti-piracy efforts – is just the Resistance? And if so, what does that entail? What does the New Republic have in the way of a fleet?"

"Um … that's kinda classified." He straightened and leaned away, regarding Hux with furrowed brows. "But if you're going to help us …?" Hux didn't say anything. He hadn't said he'd help. He'd said he wanted to be involved. Which probably meant helping, but that was yet to be seen.

"Well," Dameron said anyway, picking his words with care, "as you know, the majority of the New Republic fleet was in orbit around Hosnian Prime when it was destroyed. The fleet went with it. Then you blew up nearly everything the Resistance had over Crait. The ships that showed up at Exegol were civilian. They don't work for us." He fell silent.

"Then … what do you have?"

Dameron grimaced. "We have, uh, your ships."

"That- that's it?"

"Pretty much. There are a few New Republic ones that weren't summoned to Hosnia, but not many."

Hux looked around the room, taking in the lack of uniforms in the repurposed space. "That's why you're stealing ships from the Mining Guild. But these don't have weapons. Or shields. At least not better than would be required for navigation." They probably had pea-shooters and deflectors – enough to get around in asteroid belts.

"True. One other thing - on Finn's advice, we've left the crews intact on the First Order ships. So far, we've avoided sending them against anything we think will turn out to be their own guys – you know, other First or Final Order ships."

"What do you use them for then?"

"Escort duty. Humanitarian efforts." He waved in the direction of the screen, implying the earlier flood rescues might have involved them. "The implication that they'd fight for us if ordered is doing a lot to bring everyone together, but I'm really hesitant about putting it to the test in combat."

Dameron's focus on winning hearts and minds made more sense. He'd had to find a solution that allowed him to use the First Order troops he'd subverted. "You shouldn't call it the New Republic," Hux told him. "The goal of the First Order was always to restore the Republic. If you want to bring over the imperials and the younger generation as well, then that's how you signal it."

Dameron blinked at him, then shrugged. "Okay. I'll pass that along. I know a few people have been talking about the name already."

He wondered if there was some way to parlay his reputation as a hero to get him access to whoever was controlling the news media. He'd had at least a half dozen offers of interviews, but since he hadn't accepted any of them, that had (likely) only increased his value. He might be in a better position than he knew to dictate the script.

"Hey, can I trust you?" Dameron interrupted his thoughts.

"No. Of course not. Why would you?" He was, after all, scheming about how to take over the galaxy again. Just this time with less shooting.

Dameron looked momentarily flummoxed, like a person who asks, 'How do you do?' and gets a literal answer. Then he waved it off. "No, listen. I want you tell me what the real story was if the propaganda was wrong."

"What? No." The last thing he needed, if he was going to exploit his reputation, was for the truth to get out.

"Please?"

"Why would you want to know? Your interests are best served by me reinforcing the story you've already released." He glanced around. Although a few people more than he'd expect were looking their way, there was no one close or obviously eavesdropping.

Dameron shook his head. "This isn't about the story or serving my interests. It's about you."

Hux bit back his immediate reply and gave it a moment of thought. Dameron had leaned close to him, looking at him, his eyes alight and so intent on Hux that it almost stole away what thinking he'd managed to do. But not entirely. It was enough for Hux to let his guard down just a little. "There is no 'me' aside from how I'm useful to you." It was almost a question.

Dameron blinked a couple times, but didn't otherwise move. "Yeah, there is. And I want to know."

There was little dangerous blackmail to be had in Hux's history, what with the principals involved being dead and most or all those inclined to prosecute him - the imperials in the First Order – also dead or without any organized power. Even if he broke down every incident in his past, there was not much Dameron could do with it. Except maybe change his mind about letting Hux be thought of as one of the good guys. "Why do you want to know?" he asked again.

"Because I want to know about you." When Hux just looked at him blankly, Dameron exhaled. "I have a file of your life – all the details, a few interviews with people who knew you – but it's missing something. It was always missing something, which is why it was easy to make up who you were, who you really were. You're right – I could have made you up as a villain. That's pretty much what had already happened. There's more to you than that. I know there is. You have made decisions throughout your career that most people wouldn't. I want to understand those. I want to understand you."

He sounded a little obsessive. But there was a long and storied history of military commanders on opposite sides trying to get inside the minds of their counterpart. Hux could understand that. Even if the battle was over, he could put himself in Dameron's shoes and understand how perplexing it must be to track Hux's career and try to make out what had made it different from that of thousands of other officers. It was flattering to be that interesting to someone.

"And what will you do," Hux asked finally, "once that veil of mystery is lifted?"

Poe chuckled and glanced away for a moment with a brief shake of his head. "You know, I think I already know the worst things you've done."

"No, you do not."

Dameron lowered his voice. "You killed your father. Some of your classmates. You blinded another cadet. There were a lot of deaths on your first and only field mission. You designed Starkiller Base knowing what it was going to be used for and you personally gave the order to destroy an entire star system."

Hux swallowed. His mouth was dry. Not all those were true, but some were. How did Dameron know about his father? Cardinal. It must have been Cardinal, that lickspittle.

Dameron tilted his head and asked, "What do you think the worst thing you ever did was?"

"I did what I was told." The words spilled out without introspection or filter, just a slip of something he'd never told anyone or had anyone to tell. It was true. He should have disobeyed. He should have killed his father earlier. He should have died on Jakku or hell, Arkanis. With his mother. He should have been such a useless child that his father didn't bother to take him with him. There wouldn't have been a boy in the dunes practicing with a sniper rifle all alone. That would have been the best thing possible.

Dameron's expression was hard to read at that. Contemplative, maybe, but not repulsed. Hux said, "I'm not sure whether to be alarmed by your continued interest in me, after knowing all that, or simply made wary of it."

"I was hoping you'd go with charmed."

He started to issue some hopefully witty rejoinder, but found himself lost in the fine details of Dameron's expression – the tiny crinkle at the corners of his eyes that lent it a sparkle even in the washed out lighting of the dining room. There was the hooded nature of his eyes, which on someone less handsome might have looked sleepy, but on Dameron looked intimate and relaxed – 'bedroom eyes', although Hux wasn't familiar with the term. He knew what he was seeing was attractive, though.

"You gonna eat that?" a woman interjected, snapping him out of it. It was their server.

He looked at where she was indicating his forgotten, half-full bowl. "No."

She grunted and took the bowl away. He wondered if the unfinished food would be logged against him as some kind of demerit. Dameron didn't look alarmed, but he'd straightened. Their moment was broken. "You didn't like it?"

"It was fine. Some of it was too strongly flavored to eat."

"Food where I come from is usually a lot spicier than this. Hot spices, that is. But I guess if you're putting it with bread the next day, that would tone it down."

"The next day?"

"It's a Corellian thing. I don't know if they actually do it. They only serve the stew here."

Hux wasn't making sense of the information, but he doubted it mattered. He nibbled on one of the pieces of flatbread. It was buttery. 'Corellian food', if this was representative of it, was uncommonly fatty. He returned it to the plate. "Where do you come from?"

"Yavin IV."

"I know very little about you." He'd skimmed Dameron's file a few times, but never with the concentrated study it seemed Dameron had put into him. He remembered he was the child of Rebellion heroes, his father still lived, and he'd served in the New Republic before defecting to the Resistance. That was really about it, though.

"I can fix that," the man promised.

The show on the screen had changed again. Hux blanched to see his own face, two meters high, with subtitles relating the exciting news that General Armitage Hux, the spy who saved the galaxy and killed the last of the Sith, thus single-handedly ending the war between the New Republic and the First Order, had been found alive. A few people laughed as one would when the news was old and obvious. Quite a few turned and looked in his direction. He gritted his teeth and glared back at them.

'That's him over there, right?'

'That guy looks so much like him. Poor guy. Probably has everyone mistaking him for Hux.'

'I'd dye my hair.'

'Isn't that Poe he's with?'

'Do you think that's really him?'

'What's he doing here? More spy-work, you think?'

'What if he wasn't even really dead and was just off on a secret mission, and now he's here for debrief?'

'Ah, let the guy get on with his life, you know?'

'I'll bet I could sell a picture to the holo news.'

'How is it he isn't dead?'

'Well if he was dead, then that probably isn't him, you know?'

'Could be. Palpatine came back to life.'

'Huh. You're right.'

Hux sighed. The rank and file were ignorant. He shot a glance at Dameron, who said, "You want to get out of here?"

"Please."

Dameron nodded and pushed his nearly empty bowl to the opposite side of the table. He picked up the flatbreads, folded them over so the greasier side was inward, and stuck them in a pocket like he'd done this before. "Let's go." They did not pay, of which Hux understood only enough to know that sometimes one did and sometimes one did not. The server gave no objection.

As they left, he saw the woman who'd given him the shuttle ride earlier. He was pretty sure she'd pointed a recording device at them as they passed.

"Did she just take a picture of you?" Dameron asked.

"I think so."

Dameron scowled over his shoulder, touching Hux's back in the process of guiding him to the lift. It wasn't necessary, but Hux didn't complain. What Hux did say was, "We never discussed the terms of your employment."

"It's not that important. Tell you what – let's go back to the Spelterwerks and I'll tell you whatever you want to know about the pirate attacks and trade routes."

"What do you expect me to do for that information?"

"Uh … nothing?" The lift door opened and they entered.

"Then … what do you expect me to do with it?"

"Whatever you think is right."

"Why would you share that with me? What if I just take the information and leave?"

"Because trust has to start somewhere so it's going to start with me."

Hux scoffed. He looked around the lift, dissatisfied with Dameron's obvious intention to guilt him into good behavior or cooperation or something. Why did the man think that would work on him? Didn't he know Hux would betray him as soon as it benefitted him? But … he thought about his people. He needed to know their situation. The door opened and they stepped out on the landing platform of the Ferrule. "Fine. But you'll have to let me fly the speeder again."

Dameron looked off to the side like he was trying to think of why this was a concession. Then he cheerfully said, "Okay."

A/N: For those with an interest in world-building, the stew is a staple of Corellian factory workers. Cut meat and root vegetables or mushrooms into one-centimeter cubes (half meat, half non-meat). Coat with oil and herbs. Place under a broiler or in a pressure cooker. In a large pot, heat broth (usually meat-based) to boiling. Add whatever flour or thickening agent is available (potato flour is the most common) until the broth begins to scorch on the bottom. Turn off heat. Add a gelling agent and mix well. Remove the browned meat and vegetables from the cooker. Add them to the thickening stew. Serve immediately, with bread that the stew can be spread over, as it should be too thick to have any free liquid.

Leftovers are poured in a greased mold and chilled. In the morning, this will be a firm loaf which can be sliced as a hearty filling for sandwiches taken to work (or wrapped in wax paper and eaten without bread). If enough gelling agent was used, the loaf will remain solid at room temperature. In this way, one has two or more meals from a single preparation, with the second being transportable and not requiring heating or prep.

When this cuisine is exported elsewhere in the galaxy, it is marketed as wholesome workman's fare, but only the stew version is served. It is typically seasoned far more than poor factory workers would ever be able to achieve. It is considered especially 'authentic' when served with vitamin supplements.