And here we go for the last chapter of the fic ! :D
Next to be translate is gonna be "First Time Of Armitage: String Theory". It gonna took me a moment, because it's dealing with Shibari and i wanna be sure to not explain it badly ehehe
Several days had passed since Kylo returned from his catastrophic mission and Hux had had time to defuse the situation towards the other commanders of the First Order. So today he was confident. In a few moments, some of the commanders of the ships under his orders would enter the meeting room in which he was already, so that he could explain to them his plan for the offensive against the Rebels. Mitaka had just sent him several holonotes specifying that the shuttles who bringing the four commanders aboard the Finalizer were soon to arrive.
He wore the same firm and strict expression on his face and the same upright posture, his hands firmly held behind his back as when he was inspecting his troops or standing on the deck of his ship. The General saw his datapad vibrate as the screen turned on, but as he leaned over to see Mitaka's note warning him that the commanders were arriving, he heard footsteps in the hallway. He then stopped his movement, firmly maintaining his upright posture.
The officers finally entered and greeted Hux one by one before settling around the table in the middle of the room. The only one who was missing was Snoke. While the Supreme Leader deigns to show himself, Hux strummed on his datapad to bring up the information he needed to explain his plan, on the screen suspended on the opposite wall. Thus a map of the Outer Border with a description of resources, negative and positive points of each of the planets in the sector, a list of the men made available by the commanders present as well as their quality but also a map of aerospace traffic in the space they were going to have to cross was displayed one after the other.
Hux quickly reread his notes and finally the Supreme Leader agreed to show himself. A sizzling sound was heard from the middle of the table followed by the appearance of a bluish image sometimes jumping to the rhythm of the waves; Snoke was now connected, sitting on his great throne.
Hux cleared his throat and then launched into his presentation.
"Supreme Leader. I would like to summon you here at this moment to inform you of our next action. Indeed, during the resumption of the Endornian space valiantly led by Captain Phasma and myself, we were able to annihilate all rebel force still massed on the spot. We did very few captives, only Re- Lord .. Lord .. Ren questioned as you asked Supreme Leader. So we were able to get some information. Another rebel base is installed on Ryloth. I therefore propose a raid on the spot to destroy this place, he launched firmly.
-I expected nothing less from Lord Ren. Neither of you, General, replied in his slow, raucous voice, Snoke whose image kept jumping. That said, I dare to hope that there were no survivors. It would be very unfortunate if the base of Ryloth could be informed of our next actions.
-No, I can assure you that no rebel was able to escape alive, thanks to .. Lord Ren, spat Hux who was still reluctant to call Kylo "lord".
-Well. Where else is he? Snoke asked, stretching his last word to the limit.
-He .. I don't know. He very rarely has his datapad on him and I suspect he did not see the summons.
-So make him fetch, I took you. "
Hux nodded to Mitaka who was quietly waiting behind him to tell him to go get Kylo. The poor young man was shivered; he was afraid of the knight and he knew it was not good to disturb him. But he tightened the grip of his sweaty hands on his datapad and hurried towards the exit.
The General didn't know at all if Mitaka was going to be able to bring Kylo, the latter having taken it into his head to recover information on a lost language or he didn't know what and the former Jedi had not made ends meet nose for several cycles.
But a few moments later, when Hux was going to ask if he should wait for Kylo or if he could continue his talk, heavy and powerful steps were heard in the corridor. Hux tensed, recognizing there the steps of Snoke's apprentice.
Kylo opened the door with a hand gesture, making Hux look up at the sky, the latter not supporting when he used his "sleight of hand" tricks as he called them. Contrary to what Hux and the other members of the meeting could expect from him, Kylo seemed to think he was alone in the room, and as he entered it, Ren brought his gloved hands to his head, pressing on the side wedges which released the front of the helmet, allowing the wearer to remove it. Ren slowly lifted his helmet under the surprised look of the commanders present.
"You're late you moro- launched General Hux, exhausted, fists clenched, before stopping dead."
Indeed, the knight had finished removing his helmet, exposing to the view of all his tuft of hair which he had carefully combed with a bun, as the evening when he had met "Domhnall" at the Hutt Enchanté, as well as his face, his mouth too wide, his ears too protruding, his nose too large and his multitude of moles which had so fascinated the General when they met that evening.
Hux suddenly turned pale. Even paler than usual. So pale that it could have become transparent. His fists clenched together, so much so that he would have blessed himself to have worn gloves so as not to sink his nails into the palm of his white hands if his mind had not been taken over by the image of Ben the evening they met at the Enchanted Hutt, with his falling tank top, leaning on the bar. Ben, smiling at him while drinking his glass. Ben, naked above him. Hux felt rage rising inside him, his whole face turned red, from the chin to the tips of his ears. He couldn't get over it. It wasn't possible that he was fooled by this idiot! Not him ! It was NOT possible!
But thinking about it, it was perfectly logical and the General blamed himself for not having made the connection. Ben, smuggler, Force user. Throughout the evening, this idiot had let pass lots of clues that could alert Hux. But no, the General had been too busy spreading his thighs for the man he hated the most in this Galaxy.
"Um? Sorry, I thought the room was unoccupied, Ren said casually, before walking through the door again which slid down again just by the use of Force."
Kylo had to take it upon himself to let no emotions pass over his face. Hux's reaction had been beyond all he could have hoped for. The General no longer knew how to resume his presentation, eliciting comments from his subordinates as well as from the Supreme Leader. He had finally managed to make him close his valve. He, the Grand General Armitage Hux, no longer knew what to answer him. What he would have liked to also see Phasma's reaction. But he couldn't wait any longer. It was now two weeks since they had had this famous evening at the Enchanted Hutt and Kylo feared that the redhead would forget his conquests too quickly. He had therefore chosen to act more quickly than he had anticipated. During these two weeks, he had taken great pleasure in torturing his lover overnight, dropping a few innuendo sometimes innocent, sometimes less, here and there, provoking reactions often disorderly in the General yet so meticulous and precise.
Hux had even had paranoid tendencies, thinking that Ren had spied on him; but the General had been far from imagining that Kylo could know history simply because he had lived it too.
Ben walked along one of the corridors and while he was lost in thought, his helmet stuck under his arm, he didn't see Mitaka running in the corridors and the young man stopped in extremis to avoid him.
"Lord Ren! General Hux .. and the Supreme Leader make you ... ask in meeting room 3, he managed to articulate as he hardly caught his breath.
-Hun yes ? However, your General didn't seem very happy to see me when I arrived in the room earlier.
-Except your respect ... Lord Ren but ... But I doubt that the General .. haven't already been happy ... to see you once ... Succeeded to answer the intendant still struggling to find a rhythm correct heart.
-Ooooh that I can tell you the opposite. Anyway, this isn't the subject. What did they want with me?
-I don't know. The Supreme Leader wanted you to attend the meeting.
-Hum. "
It was the first time that Mitaka had managed to speak to Kylo for so long without finding an excuse to run away, but it was also the first time that Kylo didn't want to scare him. He was so proud of himself that he almost felt compassion for the terrorized and breathless young man.
Ren was going to ask the subject of the meeting in question, but footsteps rang out in the corridor. Someone was walking very fast, refraining from running. Ren had no trouble guessing; he knew that Hux was going to look for him after he came into Room 3.
"REN! REEEN! I KNOW YOU ARE HERE! I HEARD THE SOUND OF YOUR RIDICULOUS VOICE! Howled a voice at the corner of the corridor behind Mitaka and the knight.
-Oddly enough, it wasn't what you said the other night, Kylo replied in a sweet voice. "
Hux didn't answer. He just walked up to them, his face red with anger, his fists clenched and his eyes black. Kylo had never seen him in such a state but he didn't saw. Mitaka, on the other hand, took several steps backwards, he too had never seen his superior like that, and that didn't inspire him anything worthwhile.
Kylo expected Hux to yell at him, giving him one of his harsh aftershocks of which only he had the secret, but the General's reaction was quite different. Indeed, despite its much less impressive build than that of the knight, Hux didn't slow down when he arrived in front of him, grabbed him by the edge of his shawl and pressed him violently against the metal wall behind them. Mitaka jumped, clutching his datapad against him. He had already seen the two men face each other, it happened even every day, but never had the confrontation been so virulent, usually just turning up the volume and sharing a whole quarter of the ship with their verbal jousts.
Hux sent Ren a second time against the wall. His eyes were black and a few drops of sweat were pointing on his forehead. His jaws clenched more than he thought possible, Hux managed to articulate a few words.
"You are just a miserable little piece of waste! What right do you dare to do that? Do that to me ?!"
Kylo didn't know what to answer. On the one hand he wanted to throw a sharp remark at him but on the other he preferred to avoid making the General scream even more, risking bringing all the staff of the Finalizer to them. Hux raised his fist and as he was about to knock it on Kylo's helmet less face, a loud voice echoed in the corridors and the steps of two running people were heard. In fact, after Hux had pressed the knight against the wall, Mitaka had run away to find the only person who could have calmed his superior. So they both saw the head of Phasma's tousled blond hair coming towards them at high speed.
"HUX! WHAT IS HAPPENING?"
She didn't have time to say more; the General's fist had crashed on the knight's cheek without Kylo even reacting. It only took him a few moments to pull himself together and hold back the redhead's second shot without even touching it. Hux's fist got stuck in the air, a few inches from Ren's now marked face.
The top of the cheekbone of the old Jedi turned visibly from red to purplish. Kylo felt a pain throwing him on the back of the head, where his head had hit the wall during the blow sent by Hux. Ren gave the general a cold look, while Phasma grabbed the redhead's wrist to hold him back as he tried to get rid of the knight's invisible grip.
After Phasma managed to calm her friend down, she took them aside, forcing them like a mother annoying her children, to enter the nearest meeting room to explain. Leaving poor Mitaka completely lost, still firmly holding his datapad against his chest, alone in the dark and cold corridor of the Finalizer.
She made the two former lovers sit around the round table enthroned in the center of the small room before she even came to rest on a swinging armchair, opposite the two men.
"Explain, she ordered firmly to Kylo's attention.
-He played with me! Hux intervened, visibly still as reassembled.
-Hux. Shut up. This is the version of Ren that I want to hear. "
The young woman's reply was final and Hux was immediately silent. The brunette gave him an admiring look, he who had been trying for years to silence Hux, he had to sleep with him and reveal his identity to him in the middle of a meeting while a simple sentence from the imposing blonde had been enough.
"Do you want with or without the saucy details? Kylo said with a teasing look.
-The saucy details, I already know them. Thank you. Come on, hurry up, we don't have all day.
-Ok ok, well ! I see that you hastened to go and tell your diary about this night, Armi! Ren said, looking at Hux."
The redhead preferring not to react, obviously interested in knowing his version of the facts.
"Okay fine, I'm going. So the evening we landed, I went to Awas, he too is one of my former lovers, dear Hux.
-FINE ! It's ok, we got it Ren! We slept together ok, well! No need to repeat it every four seconds! The redhead man got angry.
-Calm down .. Anyway. I put my things down and I changed into civilian clothes. On the ship, I prefer to keep my face hidden because .., he suddenly hesitated, because most of them don't know that I was Ben Solo, he continued, taking care not to specify that the main reason wearing his helmet was above all to hide his face, which he knew was childish and absolutely not conducive to instilling fear and terror. I asked Awas to come with me to the place we usually go out, at the Hutt, but he had a job that evening. So I prepared and headed alone, to the bar where we had spent most of our time when we were barely twenty years old. Then I leaned on the bar and you arrived. "
Kylo was silent as if to say "the rest you know" but Phasma encouraged him to continue.
"Well, ok. I'ill be honest with you Hux, when you came to see me I didn't immediately understand what was going on. I even stayed for a few moments without making the link between this young man quite made charming in front of me and the .. General drawn to the nines, too clean on him and with his face too serious that you are usually. Then when I understood who you were, I thought that you recognized me also but I had to notice to the little smiles that you threw at me, that you had no idea who I was, that even without having seen my face, you had not recognized my voice or my build. Then you introduced yourself ; "Domhnall". Seeing that you weren't playing fair, I did the same and then anyway, the people in the bar knew me from before, at the time of Ben so I couldn't make myself call Kylo. It might have seemed obvious to you who I was, but obviously Ben was not enough. So I thought it was funny get into your game and pretend I was taking my life back where I left off before ... Before the First Order, all that. So I became Ben the smuggler again and it seemed to please you. What could I do there?
-Be honest. You knew very well who I was and I didn't, said Hux bitterly.
-Hux please let him finish, cut Phasma before Kylo couldn't answer him.
-Honestly Hux, we had a good evening, right? "
Hux didn't reply, preferring to cast an exasperated look at Phasma.
"Hux don't give me that kind of look now. You told me yourself that you had a very good evening, answered Phasma annoyed, so now you're going to stop acting like a child! Without messing around Armi! I thought that the more mature of you two would be you!
- Ah I knew it! Ren replied with a big smile on his lips, not seeming to pick up on the young woman's last remark.
-Okay ok, I spent a decent evening.
-Hux .. she continued.
-Okay that's good ! I had a great evening ! That's it ? You are happy ? I said, there you go! He dropped to the knight's attention. And you Phasma I would have believed that you would be on my side and not that of this .. This idiot! Hux replied from red to the tips of his ears. "
In his outburst of anger, he got up from his chair and leaned on the table in front of him to face Ben, who supported so glance, now sporting an arrogant smile.
"Anyway, it was just a blow like that. Nothing more, he concluded his coldest glance planted in the brown eyes of his opposite.
-You know Hux, I think that if it had really been a "blow like that" you wouldn't take the situation to heart as much, the young woman sermonized in a calm tone, still sitting across from them. "
Realizing that what Phasma had said wasn't entirely wrong, he sat back down and concentrated on showing his closed, expressionless face again.
"I prefer when you smile Armi, you know.
-I don't care what you prefer, dropped the general between his teeth.
-Fine. Listen, I did what I could, I'm hungry so I'm going to eat. Try not to kill yourself! Hux you have a meeting to reschedule i think, announced Phasma before heading to the door which slid after she activated the control on the panel attached to the entrance. "
The young woman took a step in the corridor before passe again her head through the half-opening of the door which had not yet closed.
"And you also have a Mitaka to reprogram I think. Finally it seems to me that he froze, like the datapad of Yaell yesterday! She laughed before disappearing in the corridor."
Kylo watched Hux a victorious smile on the bottom of his strange face. The general's white skin was still pink between his little freckles and although he tried to keep a closed expression, the knight unsealed some glances fleeing towards him.
They remained thus several minutes, Kylo looking at the redhead, as if to record the smallest detail of his face and Hux trying to ignore it without much success.
Suddenly Kylo got up, if the redhead didn't mean anything, he wasn't going to stay here indefinitely, he too was hungry and if the man didn't want to grab the poles that he had just thrown at him, then he wouldn't insist no more. Well, not immediately. As he walked with his tall, flowing strides toward the now-closed sliding door, he felt a hand tighten on his forearm. Hux grabbed it and turned it over before pressing its lips against the dark man's. Surprised, Kylo didn't know what to do when the General pulled away from him.
"If you talk again about what just happened, to Phasma, Mitaka or even to ... Awas, I will expel you without survival suit in space through the airlock, he whispered to his ear before passing it and crossing the corridor. "
Kylo stayed there for a while, standing by the door. He remembered the whole scene in his head a second time, then a third before understanding what this kiss meant. Then he started walking again, his big mouth stretched into the biggest smile he had ever made. Ren hurried along the corridor and picked up his fallen helmet when Hux had first pressed him against the wall before Phasma intervened. He cast an amused look at Mitaka who hadn't moved from when he and the young woman arrived. The teenager was still straight, his datapad hugged, but now his gaze seemed lost. Kylo understood that he had overheard the whole conversation. So he had the answer to the question he asked himself when he returned to Awas's house after his night with Hux. Learning that the man who terrorized him the most in the galaxy had slept with the man he most admired had the effect of causing his brain to stop working.
Letting out a laugh, he pulled on his helmet again and folded his hood over before finally turning back to his apartments.