Chapter Text
Kylo is alone when he wakes up.
He rolls over under the sheets, stretching out from his fingers to his toes and revelling in the smoothness of a high tread count and the coolness of the controlled environment after burning for so many days.
He strains his ears for any sound of the general moving about in the refresher of the outer chamber, but it's all silent.
Kylo is used to Hux running off after their ruts or heats, or even disappearing in the midst of them when he feels like he needs a time-out. It never quite stops bothering him in that niggling way he recognises as a biological discomfort rather than a rational one.
Everything hurts when he gets up. It isn't necessarily a bad pain, but he still has to support himself with a hand on the wall when he slowly makes his way to the refresher. The skin on his back feels like it's two sizes too small, pulling every time he moves, and he's acutely aware of the limp.
He dials the lights up as high as they will go and turns his back to the mirror; admires the welts and stripes over his skin; pink and purple and blue and still holding their distinctive shape. There are two thin raised lines high up on his back, criss-crossing over his right shoulder blade, where the skin has broken. He traces the line, feeling the rough start of scabbing under his fingers.
The belt is too wide to break the skin efficiently, really. It'd take a switch.
Bruises in the shape of fingers and teeth stand out on his hips and shoulders - a lot more than there usually is, and he feels some disappointment that Hux isn't there to compare with.
Hux isn't there, but his bathtub is. Kylo hasn't had a bath in longer than he cares to remember. In space you count yourself lucky if you don't have to regulate yourself to sonic showers, and Starkiller Base has hardly been built with comfort in mind.
It fills up quickly from the many vents on the sides, instantly steaming, and he sinks in slowly. He submerges himself down to his shoulders, then to his nose, his knees and toes rising out of the water like islands, and feels like a child again for a moment.
He leans his head against the hard brim of the tub. It's very quiet, and when his ears drop under the surface all he hears is blood and air moving through his body. He opens up his senses to the thrum of the ship around him, almost like a living thing, and meditates.
When he hears the hiss of the door opening in the outer chamber he can tell it isn't Hux, and when he opens his eyes it's the sight of a droid that greets him. It's standing over him with three of its many limbs extended a few inches above his head. There's a sponge in one, a towel, and something that looks like a flask of bath salt.
It's a domestic droid with a sort of salmon-pink paint job that's probably supposed to look disarming. It has a frustum-shaped body and a dome-shaped head and a middle section full of retractable arms and appendages between them. It looks vaguely familiar; it's hard to forget a colour like that.
"Wait," he tries to say when the flask starts to tip to the side, but it's too late and he grumbles at the grit of the crystals at the bottom of the tub before they dissolve.
In moments his nose is filled with the chalky scent of minerals and vormur and something else that he can't quite put his finger on but calls to mind some of the worst backwater dens he has ever had the misfortune to visit. Almost immediately he feels a dulling of the ache in his muscles and his skin.
"What was in that thing?"
The droid rattles off a list of chemical components that make little sense to him. Not even when it helpfully projects them onto the wall.
"No," he says more sharply when the droid produces the bacta next and approaches him with its creepy roll-on appendage. "I don't care if it goes against your directives," he maintains at its exasperated beeps and boops. "Your objection is noted. You are no longer required. Leave."
The droid fails to move. "What do you mean you can't? ...I am not going fall asleep and drown!"
The droid's stony silence is impregnable.
"Go- go stand in the corner," he orders. The droid rolls away and wedges itself in between the sink and the towel rack. Kylo sinks back into the water and tries to regain some of the peace he felt before he was interrupted. It doesn't come easily.
The next time the door opens it's the general.
Hux pauses in the doorway to the refresher, fully dressed in his uniform and carrying the scent of fresh-ground caf and baked goods with him. He doesn't avert his eyes and Kylo doesn't make any effort to cover himself.
In the light of day it feels like they haven't seen each other for ages, and he can't help looking now, at the clenched jaw and the creased brow and the hair; at its most orange under the stark refresher light.
"I received a notification about overuse of water," is the first thing out of Hux's mouth.
Kylo wriggles his toes in the warm current from the vent at the foot of the tub.
"I was off the ship for two weeks," Kylo reminds him. "I didn't want my share to go to waste."
"I see that your grasp of reality hasn't improved during your absence."
"What's the point of having a tub if you don't use it?"
Hux's lip curls up over his teeth. There's nothing but condescension and disdain on his face when he looks down his nose at Kylo, and it's ridiculous how that makes his heart beat faster. "I use it when the water supply allows for it."
"When would that be?"
Hux's mouth makes a moue of discontent. "Last week," he says, and Kylo smirks, delighted to have caught him in a lie.
"Move over." Hux sighs. Kylo pulls his feet up to make room for him at the other edge of the tub.
It really isn't designed for two full grown men. Water goes splashing over the brim and there's no avoiding touching each other as they crowd for space, not that Kylo tries very hard not to.
Hux allows the droid to approach him with its abundance of helpful tools and attachments. He sits passively as it pours a pail of water over his head, slicking his hair to his scalp until he shakes the water off like a child, looking perfectly at ease with domestic droids. Kylo watches him from behind his knees.
"You were raised by droids, weren't you?"
"They were present. What of it?" Hux asks, and he sounds neither offended nor defensive.
Kylo shrugs. He doesn't ask what a childhood without the touch of your parents is like, nor does he dwell on memories of his mother's hands or his father's arms.
The droid in question helpfully supplies the general with a sponge which he approaches Kylo with, encroaching on his side of the tub.
"Turn around."
Even the soft texture of the sponge feels like needles pulling under his skin, but he still curves his back into his touch, stretching the skin taut so all the marks stand out.
Hux inspects his work, the press of his fingers on the welts occasionally startling moans out of Kylo's mouth, and he doesn't once threaten to heal them.
He traces the length of the two cuts; softened by the water but still ragged, and Kylo hears him holding his breath even as his own shudders out of him. He wonders if the water masks the scent of his arousal or if Hux can already smell it on him.
When Hux's hand trails up to his neck he tilts his head to the side, bares himself to his touch without a second's thought. Hux's bare fingers pressing down on the tender spot in the junction of his neck and shoulder has him shivering.
"You wouldn't let me-" Hux trails off, uncharacteristically hesitant. "I want you to consider it."
"I can't have two masters."
Hux scoffs. "Are you planning on being obedient?" His hands keep wandering. There's a lazy indulgence to his touch that makes Kylo drowsy; Hux's thumb pressing down under the edge of his jaw so his palm envelops his neck.
Kylo shrugs, uncertain, suddenly. Snoke hasn't exactly educated him on relationship courtesy, and he can't tell whether the fairy tales he was fed as a child have any bearing in the world he lives in.
He doesn't even really know what Hux looks for in an partner, now that he thinks of it. Most of his previous assumptions have been disproved by the baffling fact that Hux thinks Kylo fits any of his requirements.
"Snoke isn't your alpha."
Kylo isn't sure what Snoke is. Something that transcends gender and designation. The truth is that no one has held that distinction since his mother. It's a space she vacated and he has failed to fill since.
"No," he says, and it's as much agreement as it is rejection.
He turns around. Hux doesn't move back so they're tucked together closely in his end of the tub, some wariness in his eyes that dissipates when Kylo leans forward, gaze dropping down to Hux's mouth before he kisses him lightly on the lips. "Are you going to prove me wrong, General?"
There are bracelets of bruises on Hux's arms and finger-shaped dots trailing down his chest and his sides; dark marks on his neck. He wonders if Hux's back is lined with welts from his nails.
This is mine, he thinks, trying it out in the confines of his own mind, and there's a satisfaction that goes with it. Everything from the wet-slicked hair on his head to his soft, well-tended feet and the cock that rests between his legs, looking deceptively gentle since Kylo has seldom seen it when it isn't being put into immediate use. All the same it feels like a pity not to when it's right there.
Hux's fingers grip his jaw and forces his head up to meet his eyes.
"Stop that."
"Why? You can look but I can't?"
"Don't be crude about it. It's unbecoming."
Hux's wrists are slender under Kylo's hands when he pins them to the edge of the tub and slides his legs over his lap to straddle him, skin smooth and slippery in the water.
Kylo leans down over him, enjoying the way Hux's eyes dilate under his shadow and how he rises up to meet him. His mouth warm and wet and a little demanding. He moves slowly, grinding his ass over Hux's cock while it hardens, his face burning, but it's worth it to see the flush over Hux's cheeks and the way his eyes flutter closed and his lips part.
He has to let got to steady the alpha's cock under him, Hux's free arm wrapping steadying around his waist as he starts sinking down on it. He braces himself for the sting, chewing on his lip as he slowly takes in more until he settles down flush on Hux's lap with a groan.
He's enraptured by the look on Hux's face; the colour of his lashes, darkened by water but fluttering when Kylo slowly rolls his hips forward.
"Do that again," Hux gasps.
He coaxes Kylo's abused lip from his mouth with his thumb and Kylo presses his teeth down on the digit instead, traps it between his molars until Hux hisses and pulls it free, tapping his cheek one in warning.
His hands settle on Kylo's hips, following their motion without making any effort to direct him. There's none of the urgency or ferocity from before and Kylo is satisfied just to watch him when he drops his head back against the wall with a groan. The beads of water clinging to the line of this throat drip down when he swallows, and he looks more relaxed than Kylo has ever seen him.
Then Kylo looks up and remembers there's another presence in the room.
"Hux, the droid."
Hux's groan is the very definition of long-suffering. "Just ignore it."
At Kylo's extended silence he gives up and turns as much as he can to address the bot. "Droid, dismissed."
The droid stalwartly ignores the command, its innate programming to preserve human life overriding the direct command.
"It thinks we're going to drown because the water is drugged," Kylo says.
"The water is what?" Hux turns his accusing glare on Kylo whose hackles rise in response.
"It wasn't my idea."
"I never presume to make sense of anything you do," Hux spits at him, and Kylo would be more offended by the curl of his lip if he didn't find it so attractive. "Droid, come here."
The droid rolls closer and Hux flips a panel open on its side and inserts his own override code. It powers down instantly; a lifeless husk hovering next to the tub not an arm's length from then.
"That's not any better."
"Shut up."
Hux's fingers catch the hair at the base of his neck, pulling far too tightly on the tender skin there for comfort. He brings Kylo down to his level, flush against his shoulder while he thrusts up, forcing a startled groan out of Kylo with every snap of his hips.
"You know you're mine already," Hux pants, and Kylo nods and sucks bruises into the soft skin under his jaw.
It still feels like something is missing until Hux ducks down to his level and catches his gasping mouth. His tongue is rough, the inside oh his mouth soft, but it's his adulation that Kylo eats up with every press of his lips and wet swipe of his tongue.
Hux's movements grow jerky and impatient, and Kylo braces one hand against the bottom of the tub to keep himself from falling and wraps the other tight around cock. It's good but so frustrating - sensation softened too much by the heat and the water when he wants it sharp and hard, but it's difficult to articulate when he's already half gone with pleasure.
Hux seems to get it anyway and he comes with Hux's fingers digging into the cuts on his back, the heel of his hand pressing into bruises, and the other twined with Kylo's on his cock. Every shift and thrust of Hux's cock drawing out his pleasure and his hand squeezing out the last of his release.
The sudden onset of endorphins leaves him light-headed even bore he feels Hux coming, his knot swelling up to its full extent and locking them together, pressing sweetly against the walls of his passage even as he feels Hux filling him up.
The General's eyes are closed, his brow furrowed in exertion before the lines smooth out, and it's good, in some way that goes beyond sex or orgasms, just being close to him.
Kylo wants to touch him everywhere, and he does, hands trailing over Hux's shoulders and chest while he trails kisses over the side of his mouth to his ear. Hux meanwhile seems less interested in kissing than slipping down the side of the tub and almost drowning himself. He grabs onto the sides and pulls himself up, shoving Kylo upright.
"Are you trying to kill me? Lean back."
Kylo pouts but does as he says, lets Hux guide him back so he's sitting in the cradle of his hips rather than on top of him. He knows his eyes are closed but he isn't aware that he's listing to the side before Hux catches him.
"Are you even awake?"
He hums and opens his mouth when Hux's fingers slip past hips lips, curling his tongue around his index finger and sucking lightly, just because he can.
"Oh, now you're sweet," Hux grumbles, pressing down on his wriggling tongue. "Tongue out."
Whatever he sees doesn't satisfy him because next he's prying at Kylo's eyelids and making a nuisance of himself.
"Have you actually eaten anything today? You look even pastier than usual."
"No." When would he have had the time? "Stop moving around! You're ruining my afterglow."
"I am so sorry that you weigh a ton and I'm stuck under you," Hux grits out through clenched teeth. "This was a terrible idea, you're turning into a prune."
Kylo is barely listening to him. He lays his head down on Hux's shoulder and despite his curved back it's comfortable enough while he watches Hux try to reach the back panel of the droid again.
He eventually manages to re-activate it and it comes to with a querying noise, its domed head swivelling around to take in its surroundings.
"Bring us something to eat."
Now Kylo remembers it. Specifically he remembers it having a built-in heating storage while all the other droids were bringing him cold custard. He tries to remember if it drugged him last time.
The droid beeps stubbornly at Hux who splutters. "Of all the fucking- alright, see? I'm draining the water, now get out of my sight."
The droid rolls out of the refresher, finally, while the water around them gurgles down the drain. Under his head Hux's body heaves with short, aggravated breaths.
"You're supposed to relax," Kylo tells him helpfully.
Hux seems more likely to get violent. Kylo isn't opposed, but he's too tired to get worked up about it. He closes his eyes and rests until Hux gets the hint. It's not like he can go anywhere, anyway.
They do fall asleep. Kylo wakes up with a start when the droid zaps them.