MONOCHROMATIC [A POE DAMERON X READER STORY]

part 3, chapter three

Hux had a stomachache. 

He often had a stomachache nowadays.

He couldn't bear to hear the sound of Ren plunking the decapitated head onto the table. The wet noise was enough to send his stomach twisting further. What little breakfast he had managed to eat threatened to reappear.

"We have a spy in our ranks," Ren said, walking around the long black table that seated the highest ranking officers of The First Order. "Who just sent a message to the Resistance. Whoever this traitor is... won't stop us."

Hux felt a pair of eyes on him. General Pryde. Of course. He nearly sneered, but he merely glared back at the old man. The man that had caused him so much pain in his life... the man that struck his cheek as a child, punishing him as a father might his son. But Pryde wasn't Hux's father, although he feared him as if he were.

"With what I've seen on Exegol... the First Order is about to become a true Empire."

Hux stared at the back of Ren's head. For the first time in weeks, his face was covered by his old mask. It had been pieced together absurdly; red cracks flowed from every space from the crown of his head to the line of his jaw.

Ren turned slowly. "I sense... unease about my appearance, General Hux."

Hux stiffened. "About the mask? No sir. Well done."

"I like it," the woman next to him said. 

Luckily for Hux, someone else decided to foolishly open their mouth. "Forgive me, sir, but these allies on Exegol... the sound like a cult. Conjurers and soothsayers." 

Pryde glared. "They've conjured legions of Star Destroyers. The Sith fleet with increase our resources ten-thousandfold!" He looked back at Hux. "Such range and power will correct the error of Starkiller Base."

"We'll need to increase recruitments. Harvest more of the galaxy's young."

"This fleet," Quinn said, "what is it, a gift? What is he asking for in return?"

Hux could sense the distaste that Ren had for these questions. He was glad that it was someone else and not him that was now choking on his own words, gripping his throat as he grasped for a hand that he could not feel. He barley flinched at the sound of the man's back slamming against the ceiling. 

"Prepare to crush any worlds that defy us," Ren said. "My knights and I are going hunting for the scavenger."

The scavenger again, Hux thought as he left the room upon dismissal. He wanted to express his distaste for the Supreme Leader's obsession with finding this Jedi scum, but he knew that would only get him where Quinn was currently. Besides, it wasn't as if Hux wasn't suffering from a mere woman. 

Some people might think that he was in love with ___, the woman that had left him behind and betrayed the First Order and joined them without a second glance. Some people might think that he was in love with her, but those that knew Hux best knew that he hated her for what she had done. He was now a fool. No one took him seriously anymore, and it all started when you left him. His life had slowly but surely crumbled, and now here he was, giving out top secret information, just to give the Resistance a slight reason to trust him one day --- just maybe --- and when he saw you, he would use his last breath to make sure you wouldn't be taking in another one, either. He would kill you with the palms of his hands. 

And then he would die peacefully.

/ / /

"I've never been to Pasaana," you said.

"Remember crashing on Jakku and getting trapped for hours?" Poe asked, handing you your blaster. You nodded. "Well, it's a lot like that, only about ten degrees hotter. You're gonna hate it."