#its hot garbage

Warnings for gender swapped Hux and Brendol being a bad parent, I guess?

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The scissors are cold against the back of her neck as they slide through her hair. It’s almost a thrill feeling the sharp blades slide across her soft skin, so close to breaking it. Especially with who is holding them. But she doesn’t flinch away as it’s become a routine for her now, the rhythmic snip, snip, snip takes her back to her childhood.  

She doesn’t blame her mother for it, she’d done what she thought was right to give Hux a better life. Telling Brendol that his illegitimate child was a boy meant that Hux wouldn’t have to go hungry anymore. That she could have a future beyond working in the kitchens of Arkanis’s Upper Classes. Brendol Hux would only accept a boy, so that is what Hux must be.

‘You were not made to serve,’ she had whispered into Hux’s hair, pressing a kiss to the back of her head. Hux had smiled in a soft childish way, humming a servant’s song until her mother had started to cut her hair. She’d cried and cried at the time as her long locks had fallen to the floor until her eyes were swollen.

But when she’d looked at herself in the mirror she’d smiled at her own image. The new haircut did suit her, brought more attention to the thin elegant features of her face evident even through the childish chubbiness. It’s more comfortable as well, she had spent a few minutes shaking her head from side to side in wonder at how much easier it was to move around without the weight of her curtain of hair.

‘Pretty!’ She’d said, blowing her mirror self a kiss and looking to her mother for approval.

‘Yes,’ her mother had laughed even though her eyes didn’t smile, ‘always so pretty.’ She looked tired, her face lined and bags under her eyes. ‘I love you.’

‘What do you think?’ Kylo’s voice is quiet and soft as he tilts her head up with one large hand.

She examines herself in the mirror with a critical eye, turning her head from side to side to get a look at the back. Her pale ginger hair is cropped short in the style that she likes, parted slightly to one side. Still, she doesn’t quite feel like herself.

‘Shorter!’ She demands, her lip curling back to reveal a row of straight white teeth. She watches in the mirror, the tall vicious creature bearing her teeth and the darkness beside her. ‘Shorter, Ren!’

‘Shorter!’ Brendol had shouted and Hux had flinched even though it had been at the barber. The Barber’s hands had been gentle, far gentler than Kylo’s hands are now, too afraid to leave a mark upon her skin. As if she was an overripe fruit. As if she was fragile.

Father to Son, Father to Son. That is the way of the galaxy, the way the great legends are carved even if she doesn’t agree with them herself. Armitage is the name she is given. It’s awkward on her tongue, but she wouldn’t dislike it if it wasn’t for him. Even when she tries to be everything he wants – a perfect heir, a perfect son, he hates her.

Still, she tries even as he rejects and ignores her, to earn his respect. She can see now how pathetic she seemed, what a weak grasping creature. It teaches her to be intelligent and ruthless as much as to hate Brendol Hux. To keep her hair short and slicked back, to deepen her voice and wear clothes just baggy enough to hide her slight figure. The picture of androgyny. She makes people uneasy, but that works to her advantage.

But her Father is dead and buried now. She had visited his grave, worn stiletto heels, a skirt and a blouse underneath her greatcoat to lay flowers. Definitely not regulation, even for female officers, but she’s feeling particularly petty. She knows Brendol would’ve hated it, revealing his secret and disobeyed his orders, and that’s the only thing that lets her keeps her head high.  

‘I am your daughter,’ she had whispered to the headstone, as she crouched down to lay down the bunch of synthetic flowers. She hasn’t been back since but the disgust she knows he would feel about her, fuels her ambition, so in a twisted way Brendol Hux is always with her.

‘That’s enough,’ she commands with a snap of her fingers. Ren stills with a grunt, a chunk of Hux’s hair still running across the blade. But he obeys her command as he always does when they are in private, even if they are at each other’s throats everywhere else.

She turns in her chair, captures his chin between her thumb and forefinger tilting his chin down to capture his lips in a kiss. Kylo’s mouth is soft and pliant against hers, opening sweetly for her as she slides her hands up over his shoulders. The blade slides along her scalp and she moans, pulling him closer by the grip she has on his tunic.