Hux wonders, at times.
It's a matter of course, naturally, for someone of his like. He thinks and dreams in General's terms, strategies—a thousand paths or more branching from every every conversation, every close encounter. Each one proliferating, seeding and crossing and lapping back on each other to generate an intricate map of opportunity. Hux has groomed himself a fine navigator.
He likes to think that he and Captain Phasma complement each other, that they function rather like a well-oiled machine. If all is well, he can envision the paths: his authority guiding her arm, designation of roles like Troopers except exponentially more indispensible. A weapon just for him, programmed in the language of efficiency.
He watches, too, at times. A general must mind his subordinates. She takes little interest in cartography, draws no mental paths, but instead walks each one on heavy-armored feet. He watches, but always hears before he sees her (crack-shot footfalls, step-one, step-two, step-going, step-gone). Rote movement, rapid calling of numbers, and Hux listening without speaking. Watching; wondering whether perhaps every close encounter, every conversation is a separate battle for her.
When she admits as much (after the pathways are all charted and again they are alone), he laughs heartily—hand to his chest and smiling in the way that he knows she hates. It's kind of like how Hux hates the way she sees him without seeing, inflects her voice just so—enough to twist his jaw without overstepping the line of authority that separates them. Conversation is but useless, when held against skill in battle—and it should be no more difficult to assess the Captain's intentions than it is anyone else's, should take no longer to sway her along with all the masses that have already fallen to Hux's words.
Except it is. Except it does.
"There is nothing so unmotivating as a motivation speech," she drones into his ear, not twenty minutes after the last one he gives. It's far from the first time.
"Wrong, dear Captain." Exhaling softly, slip-drip and a hiss of sound, watching Phasma slide the door to his chambers silently shut. "Speech-giving is an art, as much as conversation—something to be honed, a skill. It is practiced and mastered, just as the blaster or sword. Perhaps I might teach you—"
"Sir," she interjects; the sharpest weapon in her arsenal. Stares down at Hux's fingers, wrapped white around themselves; he can feel her eyes on him even hidden as they are, searching, violating in the way that only comes from wandering her thousand-or-more paths each day. And hears it then, power in her voice; today she'll fight on his terms as well, even as the helm and gloves come away and his fingers uncoil, past the caging hands to the brilliant gold web of her hair. Efficient to fault, just as Hux prefers, just as Hux hates—her precise grip on his wrists, her body closing him in—ever a contest, ever a threat. She doesn't fight fair.
"General," she tries again. Unfiltered voice like an infusion of valor, steeped in years of training, years of conditioning. Given to spilling over. Though it can hardly be what she intends, it has the same effect as the most rousing of orations. "General, sir, I—"
"No." Bucks up jagged against her, because he won't allow her this, won't have her beat him at words, as well. "You will not speak again, Captain, except on my order." And so there is nothing more save for the black blank walls and shattering-metal silence, what remains of her armor clanging to the floor—she makes a show of it each time, so he can feel her skin burning to him (flame-white and vicious like her eyes). And kisses her, all teeth. She kisses like a massacre, like vitriol, like Hux's got blood and entrails all over his immaculate uniform and none of it is his, like Hux's commanded it. Like it's all the simpler to defeat him with lips and tongue instead of words.
Against this, against her, he always loses.
"The lines always blur, perfect as they may be," he utters, just to remember that he is in command, to remember that he has a voice. Is this what it is to be rendered speechless?
They cling together where they stand—uniform dark mass in a uniform dark room, yet unmistakably human (flesh clawed white-red, hands stealing to hips, grasping waists shoulders sides until the last of clothing is shed). And they ache like humans, too, bruising as they hold fast and faster still, as if to bleed into each other and become one something—something real and organic and so much unlike the vulnerable shells that hide their organs.
He's heard that war crafts the most capable leaders, and he wonders at that too, at the way she scatters bodies like breadcrumbs (and she, too, knows to make the best use of what's at her disposal, the value of resourcefulness). And ceases thinking for a moment — to grapple unsuccessfully with Phasma's hair, capture the blue in her eyes, swallow down all the words that bear no chance of victory against her might. In time, he might know her by touch and by taste; and then, perhaps, he might be placated.
Against her, he always loses; but Hux finds he doesn't much care, this time.
And Hux likes to think they're a well-oiled machine (in this way as much as for the First Order), but the premise is flawed, because they're not machines. Even overthrowing his hated father—power and rage are most human traits. And there's nothing machinelike about her body on his, or how she would lay her life down for her cause. How her passion shines. How even if it were she alone against the full bulk of the Resistance forces, there's no question about who he'd be backing.
He remembers the first night, the raid on Hoth, the heavy losses—grasping her with unbloodied hands, trying to quell her rage, to ease her down. How she shuddered with every breath, how warm and soft she was beneath cold chrome. How she'd looked up at him with human eyes, and Hux realized all at once that he had somehow mapped the contours of her jaw without ever seeing her face. And though it's Phasma who wears the gleaming mask, Hux still questions, still asks himself (am I machine or man, in your eyes?).
It's not a thought that lasts, of course. Theirs was always an alliance of opportunity. Before long he knows they'll come apart and don their cold grey garments and go their separate ways, only to clash together again in another not-battle. His voice and her violence, seamlessly calibrated toward a goal shared in name only (rough metal scraps and ill-fitting cogs; words unspoken, arms unswung as they do and search and plan and try for an answer that might never come). They'll aim for satisfaction in each other, in the meantime.
And so Hux watches, and wonders, and at times loses his capacity for speech; but usually, he comes to his senses.