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Writing Rainbow: Blue
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Published:
2019-07-25
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Between them gleamed blue infinity

Summary:

The First Order won, but Hux can't enjoy his victory, even with Leia as his prize, thanks to Kylo Ren ripping apart spacetime and getting them stuck here.

Leia just wants to solve the problems in front of them. Fresher access, for one.

Notes:

title from War and Peace, chapter 19
Filigranka, please (don't) stop prompting such intensely weird and compelling scenarios

Work Text:

Outer space, deep space, is far from empty. Space is flesh — tissue, meat, and tendon — and thus space can be ripped apart. Space can be exposed for what it is, the writhing carcass of a butchered dragon shrieking its agony, forever.

This may only happen, however, if you are unlucky enough to be on a dreadnought when a mad and desperate wizard seeks to end the universe as we know it. He fails, of course; reality continues as he is pinned like a pupa to the rended flesh. But the dreadnought remains with him, tethered to his madness, and bobbing in a stasis field strewn with cosmic gobbets.

"Meanwhile," Leia says when Hux turns his back on the grisly vision and motions for the viewport to be darkened, "We have yet to settle the question of freshers access."

Reclaiming his seat at the head of the conference table, Hux sneers. He considers that a more than adequate response to whatever it is she's prating on about. She continues to look at him expectantly, so he heaves a deep sigh. "Need I remind you whose captive you are?"

She inclines her head fractionally. "Of course, General. Such categories and divisions are of the utmost importance while we find ourselves trapped here."

"This is your son's doing!"

"Your leader's doing," she says firmly.

"And such divisions certainly are important. Without these definitions and proper categories, we might as well be savages. Alien scum mixing together in the cesspools of, of —"

He breaks off, hot in the face, to wipe the spittle from his lips.

"Yes," Leia says. She pats his hand. "So why don't we begin with the very pressing issue of who is allowed in which fresher, and when?"

Hux yanks his hand out from under hers and crosses his arms. Maternally-inflected condescension is never welcome, but most especially not from the person he violates every night (from behind, in the dark). "What is the issue?"

"Your Resistance guests —"

"My prisoner scum."

"— would like access to some of the other freshers on board. Sharing a single one has been very difficult."

"Which freshers?" He will not share his own. That's ridiculous; he has everything arranged just so and the very idea of some filthy rebel touching his things or pissing in his space is enough to turn his stomach.

"That," Leia says, "Remains an open question."

"And how would such access work in practice? I — that is, my people — would surely balk at being asked to share intimate spaces with —"

"Why, Armitage Hux!" She smiles at him, and he knows she is being rude, but she really is quite a lovely woman. Shame about everything else about her. "'Intimate spaces', you say? You're quite a poet."

"Shut up."

She cocks an eyebrow but purses her lips closed.

"So," he says, and smooths down the front of his uniform. "There are no actual solutions on offer? You merely bring me 'questions' and 'issues'." She nods, as the corners of her mouth deepen in a suppressed smile. He loathes being laughed at. When he continues, his voice is strained with frustration. "What do you propose, then?"

"Perhaps..." she starts, then pauses to glance at him. "Perhaps we speak with the interested parties, those who would be affected, and seek consensus on a solution that will, surely, emerge from these consultations."

"Democracy?" Hux nearly shouts in disgust. "On my ship?"

Leia manages a fairly mournful expression for his benefit. "We have all found ourselves making unexpected adjustments." Her tone is mild, but he knows exactly what she's talking about: every night, she adjusts to those indignities to which he subjects her. "After all, even BB-9E now informs us when surveillance is about to occur."

Hux draws himself up as tall as he can, taller than his father ever managed, as tall as Ren and far more sane. "Are you comparing me to a droid?"

"I wouldn't dream of that," Leia replies and folds her hands demurely on the table before her. He starts to nod, both pleased and surprised by her sudden good sense, when she continues, "Droids are capable of far more humanity."

He would backhand her, right across the mouth, but he'd have to get up to reach. Instead, he busies himself with several datapads. They cannot find that Jedi wretch, that handsome girl from Jakku, soon enough. Only she can possibly be powerful enough to free him from this torment.

That is, of course, he means, she will free this ship. Then he may resume the important business of ruling the galaxy rather than having to mediate trivial squabbles and take the abhorrent sass of those who are clearly his inferiors, in age, gender, and politics.