for him, it’s like yesterday. yesterday that the blood red of salt stained the inside of his eyelids, leaving him fixated upon the earth as an artist’s are upon their masterpiece. but when he sees him; still as gruesomely apparent, still a fixture of bleakness & a reminder of all that he cannot be, he is not elated. there is no happiness there, no relief. he doesn’t thank stars for their doing, nor does he thank fate for entwining them both together once more. he curses. silently. with narrowed eyes and a twitching lip.
the word is like a slur, dirty and unwanted.
“ your tone. “ he hisses. command means everything, even now. even here. the events of the past are like tattered, flickering flames. he can barely forget it, the day kylo ren had assumed control. the day everything seemed to grind to that shuddering hault. “ i could ask the same of you. “ he bites his tongue. his mouth tastes like iron & resentment. he refuses to call him leader, refuses it so much his face blotches into an array of ugly pink and white. a sickly disposition, to say the least. “ are there any others i should know about? “ he doesn’t care about any of them, save phasma. save for the few officers he almost liked. perhaps snoke— no, foolish. he’d seen the evidence. the clear cut which could only belong to that of a burning saber. the violence of it, the horror. it had scarred him in some private, emotional manner.
>he brings his hands behind his back. smart and tidy, neat and organised. he is the personification of cool and calm despite the rage tickling within his chest. he’s the underwater stillness below the raging storm of kylo ren, after all. harmony at its worst. it had always been that way. but he was hungry— desperate. he watched every angle of ren from where he could, waiting. he kept his thoughts as guarded as ever, his feelings more so. he was used to the presence of two force-manipulators after all. it was a natural habit, to raise the gates as he does, to cloak himself with a shield of firmness.
THE loathing was mutual-- always had been. As constant as the struggle he fought within himself. The man had always looked to Kylo with scorn, what with his own rise to power parallel to the general’s own, competing for command and bickering over decisions like children, stopped only by the oppressive glare of their Supreme Leader. Even now, he can feel the familiar, scathing disapproval of Hux, more palpable than ever.
YET something seemed amiss in all the animosity they cared not to hide from one another.
“NONE.“ Plain, simple and unfortunate. Ah, save for one other outside their Order, but Kylo doubted Hux would care about a single scavenger girl. It was personal when it came to Rey and beyond Hux’s grasp as to why that girl would be of any importance. So Kylo omitted that fact. Besides, he entertained the idea that should the two ever meet within the Hive, the First Order’s general might experience being humbled by her, so to speak.
“BUT I HAVE GATHERED SOME WHO BELIEVE IN THE ORDER’S CAUSE. PERHAPS YOU’LL MAKE YOURSELF USEFUL THEN, INSTEAD OF STANDING AROUND?“ Oh, there was the snark. Something they exchanged often, full of vitriol and devoid of any respect. While Kylo tolerated Hux, he knew the man would be wise enough to not step over the line, lest he be choked or thrown across a room.
