The Little Sister
Main Theme- I'm Just a Sucker For Your Love by B.A. Robertson
Hux brings back a girl from his forced vacation. Her hair and eyes are brown like raw umber. Her face has a roughness that can only be a product from living on a desert planet. She wears a red sweater, black tights, and ruby boots. She's wrapped around Hux's left arm and has her head on his shoulder during the announcement.
"Rey is my sister. Her mother died recently, so I've become her legal guardian. I do hope all of you make her feel welcome." There's clapping, but not from Kylo Ren. The Lord of the Knights of Ren can feel something off about the girl. He can't sense the Force from her, but he can't hear any thoughts from her.
She's like sixteen; teenagers are thinking so loudly all the time. She's not even whining about how boring this party is, or how there's no one her age. I get nothing from her. Maybe she's trained like Hux to shield his thoughts? No, even Hux's shielding isn't that perfect. He likes to think about my nose every so often.
Hux and the girl go around the room, letting the inferiors mingle with them, their social betters. Wisely, Hux waits until the last minutes of the party to bring his sister over to him. There's no handshake like she gave to the other officers, but it's not out of fear.
Her eyes laugh at him.
"Rey, this is Lord Ren. He's my co-commander."
"If he's your co-commander, then why do you do all the flimsi-work?"
"Lord Ren prefers active duty over deskwork." Hux smoothly defends him, making Kylo's heart skip a beat.
"You're quite active yourself and still have time to do your reports." She points out.
"General Hux, may I have a word with you in private?" Hux looks down at his sister who finally relents and allows him to depart with Kylo. Her eyes follow them as they leave the room. They disappear into a nearby storage closet. Kylo removes his helmet and hands it to Hux.
"How come you never told me about your sister?"
"I didn't think this would ever happen, let alone her wanting to live with me in the First Order."
"Is she a criminal on the lam?"
"No! It's just…I don't like talking about my family." Hux looks sad, not enough to cry, but sad enough to get lost in the past.
"I've told you all about mine. Even the time when Uncle Lando got me a night with Zeltron twins for my sixteenth life day." Hux chuckles, and Kylo feels like he's accomplished something today.
"Kylo, you've always wanted to get away from them, but they keep coming after you. I'm the exact opposite. I wanted them to stay, and they left." Hux has made allusions to his father—the so-called kitchen woman was really a mutant in drag—and his sire, Brendol Hux, but he's never outright admitted that they abandoned him.
"And you're hoping she'll stay." Hux nods without shame. Kylo pulls him close and embraces him tightly.
Kylo sits on Hux's ice blue couch. He and Hux will watch a holo and cuddle together. He hopes there will be more tonight. More than cuddling. More than kissing. Maybe a blow—
CRASH!
Kylo hears something from Rey's room, and the girl emerges with a scowl. He thinks that she knocked something off her desk and broke it, or he hopes so. But it sounds more like something hitting the floor far harder than it naturally would in a fall.
"…..What's the matter, Rey?"
"Why are you here, Lord Ren?" She says evenly.
"I have something very private to discuss with Hux." Kylo tries to lie the best he can, but Rey's dark eyes cackle at him.
"Do you always dress so casually for private discussions?" She looks him up and down like a nexu assessing a half-dead prey's worth. Kylo almost wishes that he was wearing his knight attire instead of a simple robe.
"Don't you have school?" He snaps.
"I've already graduated university."
Of course she has! Hux's family are filled with prodigies. Well, except the Commandant, unless finding counts as a prodigious skill.
"Are you looking for any jobs?"
"I assist my brother."
"That's what a lieutenant does."
"Lieutenant Mitaka does an admirable job, but I'm afraid there are some things he can't do."
"Such as?"
She smiles mysteriously and eyes the entrance. Hux arrives in time of their appointed hour. He's smiling like the goof, completely oblivious to the tension between his two favorite people. He turns his green eyes on Rey.
"Rey, FN-2187 just finished his shift." Rey heads back into her room the moment her brother finishes his sentence.
"What does she want with a trooper?"
"She's tutoring him. But I think it's just an excuse for her to hang out with him." Hux raises a leather-clad finger to his lips and wink. Rey returns with a bag slung over her shoulder and heads out of the quarters without another word like a normal teenager.
"She has no idea that we're dating." Until now. Kylo suspects.
"I was going to tell her about us when her feelings for you….weren't pure hatred."
"She talks bad about me constantly."
"Yeah, but she does it so subtly like a spider spinning a web. She would make an excellent politician or an actress."
"She wants to help you."
"I know. Isn't that great?" Hux grins so cheekily. Kylo kisses his boyfriend silly.
Armitage and Rey have a bedtime ritual. It started the night after Armitage met Rey. The little girl went into his room and begged him to brush her hair like a princess. And like the good older brother he desired to be, he brushed her hair.
Darth Sidious based the false memory on a distant time when he was just a senator serving his new queen.
"How did your lessons go with FN-2187?" Armitage asks as he carefully removes the hair pins keeping Rey's hair as twin spirals.
"His name is Finn now." Sidious corrects and counts fifteen hairpins spread out on Armitage's quilted comforter.
"Where did you get the name from?" Armitage selects the silver brush with gualaar bristles, a brush worthy of a Theed princess.
"There was a Sith Lord named Finn. It was one of the few stories that our father left behind." Finn the Sith Lord was a terrorist during the New Sith Wars; it was the only notable thing about him. Finn the Stormtrooper will be more than an obscure footnote in history; Sidious has foreseen it.
"Finn's a lovely name." Armitage brushes his hair so softly like he's dealing with a newborn.
I did this once for my son before I sent him away to the Prophets of the Dark Side. He was only a few hours old and so pale. I had to make sure not to poke him in his third eye. Armitage is treating me so similarly. He looks so much like that man, but he has his father's soul.
"What's got you so down, Rey?"
"It saddens me that you choose to freely associate with Lord Ren."
"The heart wants what the heart wants."
Yes, and look how well that did your father! He could've been my Eye and not playing house with a married man. It's all the Prophets' fault! I should've raised the boy myself. He would've never fallen for whatever tricks that man used on him. But then Armitage would've never been born, and I—
Sidious tightens his grip on his youthful knees.
"You can do better."
"Many would say the same of you, but I won't. I have faith in you." Hux kisses the side of his head with all the noxious innocence that shouldn't be part of his lineage. It makes Sidious's skin crawl in a not completely unpleasant way.
"And I you." Rey boldly lies.
Author's Comments- Here are the links:
For Sheev!Rey's casual outfit I got it from Sailor Mars because I figured Sheev would be into red and black while also being something a teenage girl would wear, except he's wearing boots because they go better with the outfit: a href=" . "Link/a
You know there was something about Rey's appearance in RoS that I didn't like, but I couldn't figure out why until I looked back on pictures of her for the movie. It's her hair. I hate her hairstyle in that; it looks so damn greasy like someone left too much gel in her hair and then took a hot iron to it. So I went with Wicked Lady's (Black Lady in the original Japanese) buns but without the long hair because there's no way Sheev's going to grow out that much hair: a href=" . /sailormoonenglishanime/images/c/cb/Wicked_ /revision/latest/scale-to-width-down/340?cb=20140301233110"Link/a
The Discord server for Palpatine has made me interested in the "what-if" of Palpatine successfully possessing Rey's body. However, in this story, Palpatine decides to possess Rey's body when she was like sixteen instead of the presumably twenty she is in RoS. Also, Palpatine doesn't have that ridiculous as hells massive "secret" Sith army; he's got maybe like twenty acolytes who does his bidding when he was ruling the Netherworld/Seven Sith Hells.
I finally figured out what I want to do with Finn in my stories. I want him to be a battle medic. Part of it is because of Adventure Time, but most of it is because of the MedStar duology. Those two books, from what I can tell, are the only books that devote time to medics and a Jedi healer by the name of Barriss Offee during the Clone Wars. I haven't seen Finn with interest in medicine, but he likes helping people, particularly his friends. Also, I buy him becoming a medic more than him becoming a general in flipping year (which is how long the Sequels last). Because Palpatine is in Rey's body, he is subjected to her hormones and attractions, so he would develop a fondness for Finn. And maybe such fondness could lead to marriage but no kids because Palpatine never wants to go through that beautiful horror. They'll probably have a couple of cats and two Sith hounds because two there always are.
Of course, Hux and Kylo will have sex at some point, no matter how hard Palpatine tries to stop them, and conceive a child. Kylo will insist on marriage, while Palpatine will be all for murdering Kylo. Hux will be sighing a lot, while Finn is there to support his girlfriend but also trying to convince her that murdering a superior officer is bad.
Merry Revenge of the Fifth everyone!