Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

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Armitage Hux was a man well-practiced in the art of control. It was not just how he led, it was how he breathed.

Like all ambitious men clawing their way to command, he had fought for every inch, every ounce of authority, until he’d carved himself a throne at the top of the First Order. Nothing aboard the Finalizer moved without his permission. Every system, every officer, every breath of protocol flowed according to his will. That relentless control was his pride. And his burden. Discipline was not optional; it was oxygen. But over time, that pursuit of order had become something deeper, hungrier.

And Armitage Hux was not a man who knew how to starve.

Maintaining his grip on power was exhausting. Though his rule over the Finalizer remained intact, his ongoing power struggle with Commander Ren gnawed at him, an ever-present thorn veiled in black robes and adolescent rage. Ren’s insubordination had grown bolder with each passing week. He spoke out of turn during briefings, dismissed Hux’s orders with the flick of a gloved hand, and had even dared to strangle one of Hux’s commanding officers in the middle of a council meeting, as if daring someone to stop him.

Hux had reported the behavior, of course. Filed every slight, every comment, every deliberate breach of decorum. The Supreme Leader hadn’t responded. Not once.

And so he endured it, seethed through it. He watched as lower officers glance nervously between them, their loyalties switching in real time, calculating which man they feared more.

On the worst days, buried in a tide of unread reports and unpunished defiance, he imagined seizing Ren by the cowl and slamming him face-first into the command deck. Just once. Just long enough to remind the ship who really held the leash.

A satisfying thought.

But reality offered no such indulgences. Reality demanded restraint. Discipline. Emotional deprivation, for the sake of the Order.

As if his daily workload weren’t already monumental, Hux now found himself burdened by a matter that insulted him far more deeply than another stack of unsigned reports, insubordination from within his own ranks.

Two junior officers -naval crew, barely out of training- had made a spectacle of themselves during peak dining hours, erupting into a near-brawl in the middle of the canteen over what was later revealed to be a personal affair. The fight itself had been brief but loud: trays overturned, chairs skidding, and one unfortunate trooper catching a half-spilled bowl of mystery gruel to the chest.

But the true offense came later. Upon reviewing their communications, it became clear they’d been using The First Order’s internal systems for unauthorized messaging, dozens of them, some explicit enough to make even a medical droid pause.

Hux had read every message. Not for interest. For principle.

There had been no hearing. No appeal. They were stripped of rank and shipped out on the next outbound vessel, nameless and forgotten.

The stain however remained. That his ship, his crew, had become so lax as to allow such filth to fester under his nose? Unacceptable. The very next morning, Hux ordered a full system-wide communications audit. Every message. Every ping. Every unauthorized signal.

He would find every leak.

And he would cauterize them.

By week’s end, the new automated surveillance program had flagged dozens of infractions, some petty, some predictable. Missing inventory reports. Falsified maintenance logs. The usual crop of illicit romances slipping through encrypted messages and late-night terminal access.

Each offense was reviewed. Offenders were disciplined. High-priority cases, those with unusual routing, unauthorized encryption, or repeated violations, were funneled directly to the General’s personal datapad for immediate evaluation.

And that was exactly how you came to land on his desk.

Tensions aboard the Finalizer were high.

With yet another bureaucratic nightmare looming, the General had once again barricaded himself in his office, alone, late, and simmering with irritation. He was triple-checking the navigational charts for the upcoming hyperjump, and as usual, they were wrong. The trajectories were slightly off. Not catastrophic, but enough to flag as suspicious. Whether due to laziness or incompetence, this was precisely why he insisted on overseeing these details himself. He recalculated the entire route manually, adjusting for the damaged engine they’d lost earlier that evening.

Another report. Another delay. Another example of why no one else could be trusted.

With a weary flick of his fingers, he sent the corrected data through for analysis and leaned back, the low hum of the console the only sound in the room.

The blinking alert on the corner of his datapad had been pulsing for the better part of an hour. Non-urgent, but persistent.

He sighed. Finally, he tapped it open.

Unauthorized transmission detected.

DATA BREACH: holo-feed.novagirls/cstream/7786-5548283404

“Oh kriff! I’m so close!”

Had he been in worse health, the sudden appearance of sixty-two inches of ass, projected in full resolution across the entirety of his office display,  might’ve given him a coronary.

A strangled laugh punched out of his chest as he scrambled to mute the breathy, keening moans echoing from his office speakers.

His face burned. A wave of heat rolled through him as he stared, helpless, for one dizzying second. You were touching yourself with practiced ease, fingers gliding through slickness, circling your swollen clit with every roll of your hips.

He exhaled sharply, dragging a hand down his face. After a pause to collect what remained of his composure, he reached back for the controls… and unmuted the feed.

At a far less jarring volume, of course.

You were on your hands and knees, positioned like an offering, an image crafted to be admired. The soft sheen along your thighs, the perfect curve of your hips, the way your body moved with each slow, deliberate motion… It was hypnotic.

Hux watched with a devouring gaze, for the purpose of the investigation, of course. No other reason.

He studied every detail with the precision of a man used to inspecting schematics, not bodies. And yet… the way your fingers disappeared between your thighs, the way your back arched with practiced ease. 

It made his pulse thunder in his ears.

The red-tinted glow of the holo-feed shimmered in his eyes, painting them unnatural- too wide, too sharp. There was something feral in the way he stared, motionless, devouring every flicker of the broadcast. A familiar tightness coiled in his chest, mirrored by a deeper pull low in his abdomen. He forced himself to breathe through it, to push it down.

He wasn’t here for that.

He was aroused. That much he could not deny. But that feeling came secondary to the fury twisting in his gut. This was a gross breach of protocol. Unauthorized transmissions. Misuse of internal comms. First Order bandwidth, no less, corrupted by filth. And worst of all…

He hadn’t been able to look away.

Your face was hidden, but everything else was unmistakably regulation. The white durasteel walls. The standard-issue cot. The unmistakable geometry of First Order housing. It could’ve been any crew quarters on any ship in the fleet.

He felt his jaw clench. A quick scan of the metadata showed that whoever you were, you weren’t a fool. The signal had been bounced through multiple relays, scrambled across systems, exported to the Nova Girls netfeed through a string of anonymized proxies. It was elegant. Efficient. Untraceable. Which that made him furious. Not just because you’d violated the Order’s communications integrity, though that alone was enough to warrant court-martial, But because you’d done it well. So well, in fact, that it would be almost impossible to find you.

And that was unacceptable.

Theway89 (★ Patron) tipped 75 credits and chatted: How about a couple more of those fingers, sweet girl?

You smiled at the message, a sly curve of your lips dipping just into view.

“So greedy,” you purred, a hand slowly running down the curve of your side. “Didn’t even say please.”

The embedded chat bar fluttered with new messages and flashing tip alerts. Praise. Requests. Demands. All of it rolling past like a digital tide, and you met it head-on, unfazed.

You shifted, your body arching with practiced ease, every motion deliberate but never robotic.

Then, almost casually, you leaned closer to the camera.

And your face came into view.

It wasn’t dramatic. There was no sudden flash, no gasp, no fanfare. Just the confident tilt of your head, the soft gleam of sweat at your temple, the slight curl of your mouth as you read another donation scroll across the screen.

Your eyes, sharp, clever, impossibly alive, flicked upward for a single second.

Hux went completely still.

His heart knocked once, hard, against his ribs.

You weren’t familiar. Not exactly. But you were real. A face. A body. A voice. And you were on his ship.

“I’ve got ten fingers and so little time,” you teased, letting your gaze flicker toward the camera. “Convince me.”

The confidence in your voice was intoxicating, a perfect blend of warmth and challenge. You met every message with dry humor and effortless poise, you didn’t just play along, you wrote the script.  The longer he watched, the clearer it became: every movement was intentional. They couldn’t take their eyes off you.

Neither could he.

User65467 chatted:Show us how you play with those pretty tits

User65467(★ Patron) tipped 100 credits and added: i wanna see ur face when i finish

Kybercrawler, Knightsof10inches, and eleven others tipped 20 credits.

In response to the influx of requests, you shifted onto your back, stretching out across the crisp white sheets like some beautiful, fucked-out goddess.

You looked smug.

Hair tossed over one shoulder. Lips parted, entire body laid bare for anyone with a netlink and enough credits to watch.

Your eyes flashed toward the camera. Your breath hitched, short and shallow, as you resumed your careful, practiced touch, this time from a new angle.

The chat blurred with increasingly explicit demands, each one sending another shiver of heat down his spine, straight to his cock

And yet, through the haze of arousal, something sharper cut through.

That expression, wide-eyed, breathless, lips parted just so… familiar. Too familiar.

His body reacted on instinct, but his mind was already moving, tearing through every stored image and personnel file he could recall.

That look.

He’d seen it across a console. In a corridor.

Somewhere on this damned ship.

Your fingers dipped back into the tight, velvety heat of your cunt, clearing every other thought from his mind.

With your free hand, you cupped your breast, dragging short manicured nails across your skin until your nipple tightened into a stiff, aching peak.

You didn’t speak.

You didn’t need to.

You waited, poised, for further instructions, letting the audience believe they were in control of your pleasure.

He groaned, taking one sharp breath to steady himself.

Then he undid his belt.

His slacks dropped just enough to free the straining length of himself to the chill of the office air. A few slow strokes, measured, restrained.

But the restraint didn’t last.

The ideas of how he could punish you, kneeling in front of him, spread across his desk, tied to his bed, made his hand tighten, his pace turning brutal.

You wanted to be seen? Fine.

He could have you in his office. Wrists bound and raw. Could keep you there until you begged and thanked him for it. 

Or maybe he’d drag you out in front of the entire crew. Let them watch you tremble under the weight of your own exhibitionism.

Give you the audience you so clearly craved.

Whatever the method…

There would be consequences.

Theway89 (★ Patron) tipped 200 credits and chatted: Good girls beg to come. Aren’t you going to behave for your master?

Hux choked off a moan, just in time to hear your voice, breathy and trembling.

“C-can I finish for you, Sir?”

You looked up at the camera with a soft smile, sweet, submissive, before it curled into something sharper. Feline.

“Thank you, Master,” you purred, eyes gleaming as a fresh stack of credits dropped into your tip jar.

You spread your legs even wider, pressing your knees flat against the mattress.

He could hardly breathe. His fist moved faster now, frantic, wet sounds filling the room alongside your soft, desperate gasps echoing from the speakers.

“Just for you, Sir. I’ll be such a good girl.”

Another influx of encouragement had your back arching off the mat in a dramatic sweep. It was a bit showy for his taste, but it looked real, the way your hips writhed, rolled, a strangled whimper slipping past your lips.

He narrowed his focus, letting his gaze sweep over every inch of you, the rise and fall of your chest, the curve of your hips, the soft, full swell of your ass. His eyes caught on a small healed burn along the curve  of your otherwise unmarked collar.

His breathing quickened. His pulse pounded.

You were beautiful. And every second brought him closer to the edge.

“Fucking degenerates…” he muttered.

He’d like to say he put a stop to it.

It would have been the proper thing to do.

The logical thing.

He knew that.

He should have shut down the feed. Filed the breach. Traced the signal. Found you and hurled you out into the cold vacuum of space without a second thought.

But even as that thought passed through his mind, his body betrayed him, every nerve alive with want, every instinct coiled with heat.

He couldn’t reconcile it.

The protocol.

The punishment.

The need.

And in that moment, it became painfully clear,

He was not nearly that strong.

Instead, he came hard into his fist, spilling in a wet, humiliating mess across the stomach of his uniform.

He shut off the entire desktop system with a single motion, the room plunging into sudden silence.

Shame settled over him like smoke, acrid, choking.

As his arousal dwindled, rage bloomed in its place. Not only had you violated First Order protocol, you’d dragged him, General Hux, into a moment of weakness.

He had compromised his control.

His discipline.

His integrity.

And the worst part was

He couldn’t wait to find you…

And do it all over again.

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Chapter Text

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The Finalizer never really slept. Not in engineering.

You weren’t woken by an alarm, you’d disabled it months ago. Instead, it was the sharp pop of a power coil frying somewhere down the hall that pulled you out of whatever shallow sleep you’d managed.

You dragged on your coveralls, still faintly stiff with old coolant, and wiped yesterday’s grease off your fingers with the inside of your sleeve. No breakfast. No shower. Just the same dull hiss of fluorescent lights and the low mechanical whine of overworked servos.

Routine.

You lived in it. Slept in it. Repaired its broken metal guts six shifts a week.

As the years passed, your skills sharpened like a vibroblade.

You earned a reputation, Senior Droid Specialist aboard the flagship of the Imperial fleet. The title looked good on paper.

You were fast with your hands and faster with your mind. You could coax life back into dead scrap with a fusioncutter and a handful of wire.

Now? You were crammed into an overflowing workshop, hip-deep in broken astromechs and overclocked labor units. Your team was small, efficient, and constantly overwhelmed, responsible for maintaining the entire droid fleet with barely enough rations or sleep to function.

You lived on chalky bars, bitter coffee, and the occasional stim tab.

The pay? Abysmal.

The hours? Borderline criminal.

But the machines? They made sense. Unlike people, they didn’t lie. They didn’t ask questions. They just needed fixing.

And you were good at fixing things.

Still, a girl’s gotta eat. And some of the things you liked? They weren’t covered under military rations. So you started pocketing side gigs. Quiet ones. Dirty ones.

At first, it was harmless stuff. Running unofficial diagnostics for other techs. Swapping out expired ration cards. Salvaging droid scrap that wasn’t technically assigned to you. You learned which lockers held real coffee, which comm panels looped back into secure systems, and how to keep your name off the logs. Occasionally, someone would slip you credits for making a problem disappear or a camera go dark. You weren’t proud of it—but you weren’t ashamed, either. Survival wasn’t free, and comfort sure as hell wasn’t included in the standard issue.

But quiet credits only stretched so far. And no matter how many corners you cut, the galaxy had a way of reminding you you were still broke. Still stuck. Still sleeping under buzzing lights with oil in your hair and your loved ones light years away. You weren’t looking for something bigger—you didn’t have the time. But one night, long after your shift had bled into the next cycle, something found you.

It started, like most bad decisions do, after a long shift. You were alone in your bunk, scrolling mindlessly between network layers when a pop-up caught your eye:

NOVA GIRLS

Live. Intergalactic. Babes.

Initially, the idea seemed outlandish. Shameful, even. But the longer you thought about it, the more viable it became, especially with your finances stretched to the breaking point.

It was disappointingly simple to jailbreak a spare datapad and reroute a signal through the ship’s underused comm relays. In no time, you’d carved out a neat little backdoor into the Finalizer’s networks. Just enough to stream from. Just enough to stay invisible.

The credits started flowing. Slowly at first, then steadily enough to breathe again.

But it wasn’t long before enough didn’t feel like enough.

You wanted more, more reach, more credits, more control. And if you were going to draw a wider audience, you knew you’d need to stand out.

As a mechanic, you didn’t have much that set you apart.

But your looks?

Your looks could build empires.

You didn’t hit it big right away, of course. But with consistency, and a little creativity, it became a slow, steady rise through the intergalactic cam scene. Your following started small but loyal, and your earnings crept up with every stream.

What little planetary leave you had was spent digging through skeevy bazaars and back-alley booths, picking up outfits, props, and tech to spice things up. Each addition cost a small fortune, but it paid off. The more outrageous your getups, the more attention you drew, and the more credits poured in.

Your audience didn’t just like you. They were obsessed. Tips, gifts, voice messages, you were flooded with them every time you went live.

It felt good. To be wanted. Watched. Desired. And for once that attention didn’t feel like a threat.

You were used to being looked at. Not respected, just looked at. Every tech floor and maintenance hangar came with its own quiet brand of scrutiny. Long stares. Offhand comments. The kind of praise that always ended with a hand on your back or a joke at your expense.

You got good at shutting it out. Keeping your head down. Outworking everyone twice over just to be left alone. But it left a mark.

That’s why this felt different. The streams weren’t about shame or attention, they were about choice. You controlled the lens. The angles. The pacing.

 Let them stare, you owned the feed. 

You were elbow-deep in a box of spare processors, blinking through a mid-shift haze, when May, your favorite source of chaos, came skidding to a halt just outside your door.

“Another one!” she hissed, breathless and beaming.

That snapped you out of it. You practically dropped the lot as you whirled around.

“Who this time?”

“Stormtrooper. Big guy, E-something, I dunno, they dragged him out of the barracks mid-cycle.”

“Reconditioning?” you guessed, already grinning.

May gave a dramatic little nod. “Probably. The General’s on some kind of purge streak. Started with that couple in logistics last week, remember?”

“The ones caught sexting on the command line?”

“Mhm. Didn’t even get a hearing. Just poof. Gone.”

You let out a low whistle, already itching to spread the update. There was nothing like a bit of military drama to liven up the droid bay.

“Stars,” you muttered. “What crawled up his command chair?”

“Who knows,” May smirked. “Maybe someone offered.”

That made you snort, nearly choking on your own laugh.

“Can you imagine?” you said, voice low and wicked. “Some poor trooper bent over a tactical console, taking one for the Empire.”

“Honestly? I’d salute her.”

You both dissolved into quiet cackling, the kind that only came from working too many hours under too many fluorescents.

May wiped a tear from her eye. “Anyway, heads up. Word is he’s got his datapad on him at all times now. Direct feeds. Full audits.”

That made your pulse stutter, just for a second.

But you masked it with a grin. “Guess I’ll keep my extracurriculars extra encrypted.”

“Girl, same.”

You hadn’t been in the cafeteria at the time, hardly ever were. Actual meal breaks didn’t exist in your section. But the whole ship had been buzzing.

Some kind of love triangle in Navigation. A fistfight right in the middle of the meal line.

Isolated as you were in your little corner of the Finalizer, you were always grateful for May. Other people’s drama was a hell of a way to pass the time.

“It was so wild,” she continued, eyes wide as she shifted her weight onto one hip. “Even the troopers in Security were talking about it. Supposedly the Commander came in and busted them up himself. Just force-ripped them apart in front of everyone.”

She paused, gulping in a breath. “I was in the galley at the time, and I could still hear the screaming.”

You winced, glancing over at one of the droids piled on the shelving unit nearby—cleanly sliced through the chestplate, as if by, say, a lightsaber.

“Yeah,” you muttered. “Commander does have a tendency to get a little… worked up.”

“Understatement logged,” a dry voice piped up from between your legs.

You rolled your eyes. “Ayema, mute.”

“Acknowledged,” the bot said, synthetic voice just smug enough to be irritating.

AE-MA: Adaptive Engineering-Modular Assistant. Originally designed to help manage work orders and diagnostics. Now used primarily for backtalk and unsolicited commentary.

You’d patched her together from two half-functional systems, rewired her speech modulator, and given her just enough personality to keep you company on the late shifts.

Some days, you regretted it.

Most days, you didn’t.

Ayema’s chassis skittered up the workbench edge like a metal gremlin, all sleek angles and servo joints. Her eyes glowed a soft cyan as she settled beside your datapad, tail sensor curling lazily behind her.

“Maybe if Commander Ren learned to communicate like the rest of us, we wouldn’t have so many bisected coworkers,” May hitched a thumb toward the half-melted droid on the shelf. “Pretty sure that guy was a service unit yesterday.”

You nudged her with your elbow. “You’re supposed to flag diagnostics, not judge war crimes.”

“I multitask.” She grinned.

Ayema made a soft whirring sound, something halfway between a purr and a processing cycle, as she tapped into your terminal. 

The two of you laughed and chatted a bit longer, trading stories and jabs until May finally checked the time.

“Stars, I’m late! Again’!” she groaned, slinging her toolkit over one shoulder.

“Tell your supervisor it was Ayema’s fault,” you smirked.

May waved as she backed out the door. “I’ll tell him your emotional support toaster tried to crawl ip my ass again. Honestly, you need to get her fixed, or spayed. Or both”

You snorted. “She’s modular. And mildly homicidal. That’s the charm.”

With May gone, the workshop fell into familiar silence, save for the soft mechanical hum of repair drones cycling nearby. You slipped back into your routine, replacing a faulty motivator core and rewiring a scorched logic board. The next hour and a half passed in a blink.

Finally, your shift timer chirped. Punch out.  Forty Five minutes to spare before your second job.

You moved fast, snatching your pack off the bench with one hand and scooping Ayema off the worktable with the other. She let out a mechanical chirp of protest but didn’t resist, curling her tail-cable around your wrist as you walked.

“Don’t start,” you muttered. “You’ve got just as much to do as I do tonight.”

You took your time in the bathroom, scrubbing away the last stubborn traces of grease from your hands and face. The water ran grey for longer than you’d like to admit.

Once clean, you moved to the mirror with practiced ease, layering on foundation, shadow, and your signature dramatic eyeliner, sharp enough to kill a man, if not seduce him. You finished with long, flirty lashes that ghosted across your cheekbones.

Satisfied, you ran a quick brush through your hair, taming it just enough to look deliberate. Then you crossed to the locker tucked into the corner of your room.

Inside: lace, mesh, satin, and your favorite set of thigh straps, what you jokingly referred to as your “work attire.”

You slipped it on piece by piece, not rushing. The outfit wasn’t just for them. It was for you, too.

Your time was tight. No room to waste a second.

You dove deeper into the wardrobe and dug out your gear, jailbroken datapad, encrypted relay unit, and the camera rig you’d soldered together from a busted targeting lens and an old drone mount.

Ayema hopped onto the desk with a practiced leap, her tail-sensor already plugging into the feed port. Without needing a word, she powered up the system and ran through the pre-stream diagnostics.

“Lighting is three percent cooler than optimal. Do you want drama or seduction tonight?” Ayema trilled

“Seduction. Duh.”

“Then move three steps left. You’re ghosting your jawline again.”

You adjusted, catching your reflection in the monitor. Lashes sharp. Lips glossed. Bone-tired eyes disguised with just enough glitter to pass.

Everything loaded smoothly, thank the stars.

You exhaled as the Nova Girls homepage lit up your screen, familiar banner glowing in seductive tones, feed scrolling with the galaxy’s hottest performers. Your own profile flashed by: a deceptively sweet photo, chosen specifically to lure in the desperate and the curious.

A few quick taps launched your streaming suite. Ayema adjusted the lens angle without needing a prompt.

“Backlight intensified. If they can’t tip for this shot, they’re dead inside.”

You smirked, angled the cam a little lower, and tugged your neckline just enough to suggest trouble.

Then, with a swipe, you hit “Go Live.”

The chat exploded the moment you went live, notifications flying past in a blur of emojis, credit tips, and thirsty commentary.

Your regulars were there, as always. That tight-knit little pack of loyal degenerates who showed up for every stream, spamming hearts and fire reacts like it was religion. Normally, they were chattier, but tonight? They were focused. Hungry.

You scanned the feed, fingers flicking through new follows and flashing tip alerts. Each ping sent a little thrill through your chest. Your ranking ticked higher.

This was going to be a good night.

And then—

TheGeneral0504 has entered the chat

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Chapter Text

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It felt, at times, as though you didn’t truly exist unless someone had their eyes on you.  That persistent itch, like a lens hovering just behind your shoulder, never left. Every movement rehearsed. Every gesture calculated. You told yourself it was all part of the fantasy. Part of the act. But deep down, you knew the truth. You didn’t know who you were without it. Even in the silence of the workshop, you felt them: Hundreds of artificial gazes, bearing down on you from behind your own eyes.

When you joined the First Order, the pressure to perform only solidified.

That imagined audience you’d lived with for years? Replaced with something far more literal,  security feeds, biometric scans, cameras tucked in every corridor. The veil between fantasy and reality dissolved almost overnight.

Maybe that’s why you took to the lens so naturally. Why slipping into the persona of Aurora felt less like play and more like muscle memory. Your viewers loved you for it, for the ease with which you obeyed the script. Take a seat. Lay down. Roll over. You didn’t just play the role. You’d been trained for it.

“Hello, ‘General’ , welcome back.”

Your heart skipped at the sight of his name in the chat. You giggled, stretching out on your stomach with your chin in your hands and your feet kicking behind you, sweet, inviting. A practiced gesture. But this time, it was almost sincere. What hooked you first was the attitude, clever, cutting, just cocky enough to make you curious. Every message had you laughing, biting your lip, or both. 

Every interaction was a game of cat and mouse, one you never quite knew who was winning.

He was confident, but playful. Dominant, but generous. Arrogant in that way you couldn’t help but admire. Commanding in ways that made your skin flush and your tips skyrocket. He knew exactly how to push your buttons. And before long, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say you had a bit of a crush.  You never knew what to expect when TheGeneral0504 dropped into your stream, only that you’d end it breathless, and your view count nearing the top of the board.

“Hiiiii boys,” you sang, resting your chin in your hands with a sugar-sweet smile. “Missed me?”

The chat exploded.

“Mwah!” You blew a kiss straight at the lens. “Missed you so bad. Now tell me how your day was. Be honest, I bet mine was worse.”

A chorus of replies. And just like that, they were all yours again.

“Ugh, it’s been such a day,” you sighed dramatically, letting your lower lip jut out in a practiced pout. “Can’t give too many details, or I’ll get in trouble…”

You leaned closer, whispering like it was just between you and a thousand strangers. “But let’s just say, things got real messy.”

A heavy, theatrical sigh followed. You reached off-camera to grab something from the floor, and in the process, let the angle shift just enough to reveal the intricate crisscross of your lingerie stretched over the curve of your ass.

The room lit up. Comments poured in.

You popped back into frame in a whirl of silk and smug satisfaction, cheeks flushed, hair mussed like you’d just rolled out of someone else’s bed.

“You’ve all been good while I was gone, right?” you purred.

BigTool69: Define good 😇

KyberCrawler: Not yet. But I’m about to be.

MechaMouth: Nope. I’ve been very bad. Better punish me.

You shifted onto your knees and held the object up to the lens, slow, deliberate, letting the anticipation build. A thick, wicked curl of silicone, ridged and glistening under the lights. Molded like a beckoning tentacle. One of your favorites. A signature piece.

“This little guy,” you cooed, giving the head a gentle pull so it bounced in your grip, “needs no introduction.”

You smirked as the messages scrolled by, heart eyes, unhinged emojis, 'holy kriffs'.

“Oh? Looks like most of you remember how tipping works,” you teased, already watching the credit count climb.

You gave the tentacle a cheeky  little wiggle.

“Star Patron gets all the control.”

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His eyes were heavy with fatigue and whiskey. Sleeves rolled to his elbows, forearms corded with tension, he rubbed at his temples, trying to soothe the throbbing pulse behind his eyes. The weight of him sank deeper into the buttery leather of the sectional with a bone-deep sigh. Beside him, a service droid clicked to life, dispensing another pour of amber liquor, the third since returning to his quarters.

He didn’t protest. Just took the glass in a steady hand and stared at the screen.

Here, in the low amber light of his quarters, he was no longer the polished, untouchable General. Here, he was just a man. A man yearning to unravel.

The whiskey worked slowly, smoothing out the edges of his exhaustion. The tight coil of tension in his neck began to ease, sinking lower, pooling in his chest like a serpent ready to strike.

Another day of tedium behind him. Another cycle of meaningless political disputes, squashed uprisings, and reports from nameless outer-rim settlements that barely warranted his attention. All handled. All quiet, for now. The galaxy could wait. The drink softened the noise in his head, dulled the razor of responsibility just enough to let him focus on what he truly craved.

Her .

His secret indulgence. His project, as he liked to call it.

Aurora.

A stage name, clearly.

Twenty-seven thousand men and crew aboard the Finalizer, and somewhere among them… his own little starlet. Just out of reach. There was a certain thrill in it, the chase. The silent power of hunting someone so clever, so careful… and so utterly unaware of how close he truly was.

He would never call it indulgence. That wasn’t his style. But that’s what you were. An obsession. A distraction. A constant pressure at the base of his skull, and lower. 

Wookiesnoosnoo chatted: Take your clothes off already. 

A subtle bead of sweat trickled down his spine as he watched you show off your choice of prop for the evening. 

Tontononme (★ Patron) tipped 50 credits

Tontononme (★ Patron) chatted: show us where you’re gonna put that, bby

His focus was entirely on you.

You were art in motion, every curve deliberate, every angle sharpened by years of labor. There was strength beneath that softness. Discipline beneath the allure. Your smiles were always subtle, provocative in their restraint. Every tilt of your chin, every flicker of your lashes was calculated, a performance measured to the second, and he devoured it.

He often wondered what it would feel like to be in your presence. To run his fingers through those tousled locks. To tear those flimsy scraps of lace from your body with no ceremony, no hesitation. Sometimes, when the whiskey hit just right, he liked to imagine you in uniform. One of his officers. Back straight. Skirt tailored. Lip caught between your teeth. His hands ached to relieve the pressure building in his slacks, the weight of his cock pressing hard against the seam.

But he was studying you.

Every movement. Every breath. The way your eyes flicked across the screen like you were tracking prey. The faint shimmer of sweat on your skin, made luminous under the soft glow of cheap fluorescent lighting.

He watched as your little sycophants fell over themselves to win your attention, groveling, tipping, begging. Pathetic.  He let them have their fun. Let them fall into a frenzy of lewd desperation, outbidding each other in a spiral of digital lust.

And you, gorgeous, knowing thing, preened beneath it. Thrived in it. You gave them exactly what they wanted, all honeyed smiles and filthy promises.

But they didn’t see you. Not like he did.

TheGeneral0504 (★ Patron) tipped 100 credits stealing the top patron slot. 

Knightsof10inches chatted: from behind? 

TheGeneral0504 (★ Patron) chatted: Take the top off.

Slowly, you reached back to unclasp the wispy lingerie, inching it down with deliberate grace. Hux’s mouth watered at the sight. You grinned into the camera, teasing your fingers over the stiff peaks still barely visible beneath delicate burgundy lace. Then, with a practiced flick, you shed it completely.

For a breath, you simply sat there. Bathed in red light, bare and unhurried, you let their anticipation build. Your smile was slow. Knowing. Not shy, never shy. But in control. And just like that, the tone shifted. From playful to reverent.

The hand holding your favorite toy dipped lower. Every motion was slow, intentional.

You ghosted along the contours of your stomach, drawing invisible lines down to the apex of your thighs. When your fingers met your own skin, slick and glowing under the soft studio light, even the air around you seemed to pause.

A few others tried to reclaim the star patron status, scrambling to win your attention back with desperate tips and sloppy flattery. But the cheap fucks never stood a chance. Not against him. With cold precision, he doubled their offers. Then tripled them. One by one, the others fell silent, the Star Patron badge shining stubbornly beside his name.

TheGeneral0504 (★ Patron) tipped 500 credits.

TheGeneral0504 (★ Patron): Show them what belongs to me.

There was no doubt now who held the upper hand. Achingly slow, you spread your legs, an open display, equal parts defiance and invitation. You ran the pink, pointed tip of the toy along the dark patch of lace stretched over your center, dragging it up and down with deliberate teasing strokes. Then, slipping the fabric aside, you pressed the toy against your slick entrance, rocking your hips forward with a soft, aching mewl.

The pace was slow. Torturous. Deliciously controlled.

Each motion said: I know you’re watching.

Each breathless sound begged: Don’t stop.

Oh, how he wished it were his cock instead of that insufferable piece of plastic. He leaned forward in his seat, fingers digging into the armrest, knuckles gone white. His eyes stayed locked on the screen, on the way your soaked cunt clung to every sculpted ridge as you withdrew the toy, slow and slick and maddening. Heat curled low in his gut, snaking up his spine. His breath hitched.

The measured pace of your movements, so deliberate, so fucking confident, was pushing him to the edge.But still, he didn’t touch himself. Not yet.

Leather creaked as he shifted closer to the screen, the glow of the display catching the sharp edge of his jaw. His fingers twitched as they hovered over the keys, unrestrained intensity bleeding into every motion as he typed out his next command.

TheGeneral0504 (★ Patron) chatted: you’ll regret ever being careless enough to let me lay my eyes on you.

Your tempo stuttered, faltered.

Breath caught in your throat as you mouthed the words back to yourself, eyes flicking uncertainly across the chat. It was in moments like these, unscripted, unguarded, when he found himself the most undone. Not the moans. Not the poses. But this. The hesitation. The flicker of confusion. The brief, accidental glimpse of you.

So raw. So real. The sound of your quiet, bewildered whimper was everything to him.

TheGeneral0504 (★ Patron): Did I say you could stop?

At your scoff, a sly smile curled his lips. That gleam in your eyes, half defiance, half surrender, was all the confirmation he needed. You understood exactly what he wanted. His breath hitched as you resumed, slowly fucking yourself on the pink toy, hips rolling with deliberate grace. Your gaze stayed fixed on the camera, searching, as if trying to find him.

With a trembling hand, you slid your fingers down to your swollen clit, circling it in slow, aching spirals. The sound that tore from your throat was half moan, half plea. You were a string pulled taut, vibrating under the pressure. Each breath hitched higher. Each movement pushed you closer.

Until finally, your body shuddered, the heat cresting in a wave, and you came undone. When you come, you’re a warbling mess, sloppy expletives spilling from your mouth like the slick between your thighs. Your breath hitches, body tightening, muscles locking as the climax crashes over you. It’s overwhelming in the best way, hot, shaking, real, a release so intense it steals the air from your lungs.

On the other side of the screen, his jaw clenched. He was so hard it hurt. So close, it was nearly pathetic. One more second, one more moan, and he might’ve lost it just from the sight of you unraveling.

As the climax faded into a trembling afterglow, you lay there panting. The barrage of notifications slowed to a trickle, and you sighed contentedly, pulling your one stuffed animal, a large, fluffy bantha, to your chest with surprising modesty. Dopamine buzzed in your veins, your limbs heavy and twitching with residual pleasure. You collapsed back onto the mattress, scrolling through the flood of messages with a sugary smile and practiced ease.

On the other side of the screen, it made him seethe. That fake smile. Those sweet, empty words. Chatting up bottom-feeders who weren’t even worth your time.

With a sneer, he closed the window. He had no interest in watching you pander. Not when every word, every look, should have been reserved for him. He tipped back the last of his whiskey, the burn doing little to smother the smug satisfaction curling in his chest.

Whatever.

His plans were already in motion.

And soon, everyone would know exactly who you belonged to.

Chapter Text

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He crept closer, the dim lighting catching the sharp planes of his face as his grip on the crop tightened. You were bound, just as ordered, laid out and waiting.

He inhaled slowly, savoring the scent of your skin. Warm. Sweet. Tainted by sweat and arousal. His gaze swept down your limp form, drinking in the sight of your spent, vulnerable body. You looked so perfectly ruined, flushed and trembling, your lips parted in a shallow gasp. But it was your eyes that held him. Sparkling, defiant, bratty to the last.

That challenge stirred something dark inside him.

Oh, how he loved the sight of you like this, sloppy, fucked out, and still unbroken.

He reached for your face, and this time, his touch was almost reverent. Fingers ghosted across your jaw with aching care.

It was jarring. After everything, the punishments, the discipline, the fire in his voice, you hadn’t expected tenderness. Not from him. Not now. And yet it came, quiet and slow.

The relief hit you like a sob you didn’t have the strength to release.

You were too exhausted to fight it. Your body slack, your mind swimming. He had been so cruel since your capture, each mark on your skin a remnant of his rage. But this, this gentle touch, somehow made you feel more owned than anything else he’d done.

“What gives you,” he hissed, voice low and venomous, “the right to defy me?”

The words landed like a slap, and yet his hand never moved. Just that voice, sharp, intimate, electric against your skin.

You were caught in the undertow of him, whiplashed between worship and wrath. One moment, his touch was soft enough to lull you into safety. The next, his fury scorched through you like a wildfire, leaving your body trembling and your heart pounding.

It was a dangerous game.

He kept you in a state of constant tension, flying high on the euphoric glow of his affection, only to be dragged down moments later by cruel taunts and punishing words. You never knew what would come next. Praise or discipline.

And still, some twisted part of you craved the unpredictability.

You whimpered as he flipped you onto your stomach, face pressed into the sheets, breath escaping your kiss-bruised lips in quick, panting gasps. Your muscles tensed as you felt his hungry gaze rake over the bruises blooming across your ass.

A strangled sound escaped your throat as you writhed, testing the cold bite of the cuffs digging into your wrists. Useless. You weren’t going anywhere. Not while he had you like this, laid bare and bound, completely at his mercy.

And he knew it.

He savored the sight of you squirming beneath him, powerless, desperate, obedient.

“You’re mine. To take. To keep. To play with.”

His palm smoothed over the tender marks he’d left, deceptively gentle. But his expression had darkened into something crueler, more possessive.

“You’re mine, Aurora .”

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A strangled gasp tore from his throat as he jolted upright, the remnants of the dream clinging to him like static. His nightshirt was soaked through, plastered to the sweat-slicked curve of his spine. The sheets tangled at his waist, twisted by his restless thrashing.

He groaned, low and guttural, as his fingers clenched the mattress in white-knuckled frustration.

So fucking tired.

And still, still, he couldn’t find rest.

Every night was the same: he’d shut his eyes only to see you. Not the sanitized holo-version, not the flirtatious mask. But your face. Your real face. The one he’d seen twisted in pleasure, flushed and radiant and goddamn unforgettable.

It haunted him.

You haunted him.

He cursed under his breath, swallowing the taste of his own desperation. Pathetic. How had it come to this?

He was furious, with himself, with you, with the weakness clawing its way through his chest. He had never experienced anything like this before. Not lust, not obsession, this was something worse. A need that rewrote itself in his blood, that refused to be ignored no matter how many layers of control he tried to wrap around it.

A single person. A cam girl. A whore with a stolen frequency and a clever mouth, yet she haunted him like a phantom. The thought alone made his skin crawl with shame.

And still, he ached.

His strength, his power, his discipline, all of it was slipping, crumbling beneath the weight of his longing. The fortress of control he’d built around himself had fractured. And you were the crack that split it.

“Fuck…” he whispered, the sound of his own voice startling in the quiet.

His hair clung to the sweat on his forehead as he pushed up on shaking elbows, the remnants of the dream still hot on his skin.

It had been a good dream.

Another breathy groan escaped as he rolled over, pressing his flushed face into the pillow in hopes of returning to sleep. Be patient, he reminded himself, fingers twitching where they gripped the sheets.

Soon enough, he’d have you wrapped up with a pretty bow.

Just for him.

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Chapter Text

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You stayed late again. You always did if you had no prior engagements. Not because anyone asked you to. But because this was one of the only places that still felt… yours.

The others had cleared out hours ago, their laughter fading down the corridor, replaced now by the low thrum of cooling fans and the occasional creak of an aging servomech shifting in its harness. The overhead lights had been dimmed to half-brightness, casting long shadows that moved eerily across the floor.

Your music played low from a speaker tucked under your workbench, more rhythm than melody. Just enough to fill the air. Just enough to keep the ghosts quiet.

Ayema’s voice sliced cleanly through the haze, smooth and clipped as ever.

“Diagnostics complete. One severed joint cable. Two false positives. And a request from Unit M-3 to be recycled rather than endure another update cycle.”

You didn’t look up. “Tell M-3 that if I have to survive another update, so does he.”

“Sending condolences.”

Ayema drifted overhead, her sleek chassis gliding along the ceiling track with practiced indifference. She moved like a feline in low gravity, silent, self-assured, always watching. Technically, she was a multi-environment diagnostic AI assistant, outfitted with sensory scanners, memory storage, and a charming lack of tact. In practice, she was your second pair of eyes, your personal firewall, your discreet late-night camera rig, and the only one you let talk back to you without consequences.

She liked to perch on high beams and pipe casings, like a cat waiting for a reason to pounce, if not physically, then verbally.  When she wasn’t assisting with repairs or sniping at your soldering technique, she was scanning logs, filing reports you didn’t have time for, or feeding you live diagnostics in the driest tone she could manage. Her processors were top-tier, but her bedside manner was entirely self-programmed.

At some point, she’d become the unofficial mascot of your division. Engineers from adjacent bays would stop in under the pretense of checking a part, only to angle their gaze upward and ask if Ayema was “around.” Even gruff senior mechanics, the ones who barely made eye contact, had been caught offering to clean her lenses, as close to a pet as she’d allow, or muttering greetings under their breath. She never responded. But she always remembered.

You were halfway through coaxing a power coupler back to life when footsteps approached from the open bay door, tentative, too light to belong to anyone with seniority.

“Uh- Specialist?”

You glanced up from your work. Ryke. Young, sharp, always a little too worried he was one screw away from getting spaced.

He held a datapad like it might bite him. 

“Sorry to bother you, but I think I might’ve miswired the T-09 joint actuator. I ran the check twice, but the diagnostics keep looping, and I can’t tell if it’s the input or,”

You waved him over. “Take a breath. Let’s see.”

He exhaled like you’d just given him permission to exist. You slid your current project aside and pulled up his schematics on the main console, your fingers already mapping out the interface. Ryke stood beside you, nervously bouncing on his heels.

“Good catch on the loop,” you said after a moment. “You didn’t miswire it, the node’s just feeding back into itself because someone forgot to disable the default sync protocol.”

His eyes widened. “So it wasn’t me?”

“Not entirely. You wired it right, just didn’t override the auto-link. Easy fix.” You nudged the interface aside, motioning for him to take over. “Go ahead. Walk it through.”

He hesitated, then moved in beside you, hands steadier this time. You guided him through the adjustments without grabbing the tools from his hands, without crowding him. Just enough to make sure he didn’t fry anything critical.

When the system lights finally blinked green, Ryke let out a breath like he’d been holding it since boot-up. Relief flickered across his face, tempered by the same hesitation that always lingered with junior techs, like he wasn’t sure if success meant safety or just the next opportunity to screw up.

“You don’t get fired for making mistakes,” you said, guiding his fingers away from the exposed panel with the tip of a screw driver. “You get fired for pretending you didn’t.”

That earned a small, genuine smile.

He stood a little straighter, gave a sheepish half-salute, and gathered his tools. “Thanks, you’re the best!”

You nodded toward the bay door. “Go finish your rounds. And Ryke?”

He paused.

“You’re doing fine.”

He left without another word, but the change in his posture said enough. A little taller. A little steadier.

You returned to your bench once Ryke was gone. You smiled and rolled your eyes, reaching for the next component. But the warmth of the moment had already cooled. Ryke’s relief, his eagerness to prove himself, it hit too close to home.

You used to feel that way, too. Hungry to be seen. Eager to impress. Willing to do anything for the right kind of attention.

You rubbed a smear of grease from your wrist, then caught your reflection in a darkened monitor screen, hollow eyes,  the faint shimmer of last night’s liner still clinging to your lower lid.

You should’ve wiped it off this morning.

Your mind drifted, uninvited, unwelcome, to him.

Your high roller. 

He didn’t have a real name. Not on stream. Just a user handle and that avatar: a close-cropped shot of a man in a black dress shirt, stretched tight across well-built shoulders, the top buttons undone to reveal just enough skin to make your breath catch the first time you saw it.

You weren’t supposed to have favorites. You definitely weren’t supposed to have patrons who dominated the feed so much that others started to drop off.

But he had a way of filling the screen. His messages were always fast, clever, calculated. Generous with his credits, yes, but not just that. He watched you like he knew you. Called you things no one else dared. Told you to show less, talk more. Called you his. And sometimes… sometimes you liked it.

Other times, it made your skin crawl.

You told yourself it was fine. You told yourself you were still in control. But your stomach still flipped every time his icon popped into the corner of the feed.

And whether it was anticipation or dread… you didn’t let yourself think too hard about that.

You shook yourself out of it with a breath. Sharp. Shallow. Enough to clear the fog.

It was late. Past late.

Time for closing rituals.

You wiped down your tools, sorted what could be salvaged from what had burned out. Tidied your station, even though you’d be back at it tomorrow. The music faded with a final synth pulse as you powered down the speaker, and the bay felt a little emptier without it.

“Night, D-44,” you murmured as you passed the still-sparking unit, giving the dented dome a tap. “Don’t explode.”

You waved at K-07, who had settled back into his charging station like a sullen old man in a recliner.

And finally, looking up, “Night, Ayema.”

“Logoff acknowledged,” she replied. “Get some rest.”

It was as close to affection as she ever got.

You lingered at the threshold for just a moment, letting your eyes scan the darkened workshop. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t clean. But it was yours. And for now, at least, that was enough.

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Chapter Text

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At precisely 0500 hours, the lights in General Hux’s quarters began to rise.

First, a gentle gradient of simulated daylight crept across the ceiling. Then came the soft swell of classical music, an orchestral suite by some long-dead composer he couldn’t remember choosing. It had been part of a curated algorithm: psychologically optimized to promote composure, clarity, and efficiency. The kind of thing that used to matter.

He lay still for a moment, staring up at the immaculate white ceiling. The sheets beneath him were crisp. Hospital-cornered. Scentless. Pressed so tightly that even his own body had failed to wrinkle them.

His breath moved in and out with mechanical precision.

0501.

He exhaled through his nose and stood.

The room responded to his movement immediately: overhead lights adjusting to his posture, temperature climbing a fraction of a degree, a soft chime alerting the droid attendant to begin heating water for his tea.

He didn’t speak. He didn’t have to.

This was a space engineered for order. Each task preloaded. Each step accounted for. Every detail meticulously controlled.

Or at least, it had been.

He moved through the morning sequence like a man rehearsing a role: shower, shave, uniform. Everything perfectly timed down to the second. But today, the razor nicked the underside of his jaw. Just a hair’s width, but enough to bead red against the stark white of his collar.

He stared at it in the mirror. The smallest imperfection. The tiniest, most infuriating flaw.

He closed his eyes. Inhaled. Exhaled.

And then ripped the undershirt off with a growl, already heading for a replacement.

This was not how the day was supposed to begin.

He threw the soiled undershirt into the disposal unit with more force than necessary, his reflection flickering slightly in the mirror’s surface. Blood still dotted the corner of his jaw. The razor sat where he’d left it, perfectly aligned with his comb, cuff links, and his one indulgence, a dark bottle of luxury cologne.

Everything in its place. Everything but him.

He braced both hands on the counter and leaned forward, letting the cool light bleach the color from his skin. Sharp jaw. Pale eyes. Not a single hair out of place. It should have reassured him.

Instead, he saw you.

Not in the mirror, of course not. But somewhere behind it. Felt your presence, ghostlike and vivid, just over his shoulder.

He imagined your fingers on his collar, straightening it. Slow. Deliberate. The silk of your voice coiling into his ear like a secret.

“Tidy little thing, aren’t you?” you might tease.

“What would they say if they knew how weak you are?”

His throat went tight.

The phantom image of you blurred and fractured in the polished glass, shimmering like a signal breaking through static. Too close. Too familiar. Too smug.

He snapped upright, eyes hard, breath flaring through his nose. The moment passed, but not before leaving a pit in his stomach and a tremor in his hand.

The cuff link clattered once against the counter before he caught it.

“Enough,” he muttered, as if the word itself might anchor him.

He forced himself through the rest of his morning routine with mechanical precision. Shirts, gloves, boots, each item smoothed and secured with ritual efficiency. A practiced armor. Nothing felt right against his skin.

The breakfast tray had arrived at exactly 0545. As always. He ate it alone at the glass table in his quarters, the view of space vast and uncaring beyond the window. Egg protein cubes. Rehydrated greens. A triangle of toast so crisp it fractured on contact.

He chewed slowly. Methodically.

Bland. Efficient. Like everything else.

The utensils clinked against the ceramic, too loud in the stillness. He didn’t taste any of it. His datapad pulsed with new messages, fleet status updates, pending approvals, a reminder to review crew rotation rosters. He scrolled through without seeing a word.

The day had begun.

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He arrived at the tactical meeting two minutes early, as always. The officers rose instinctively at his entrance, murmured greetings falling into line.

He gave a clipped nod and took his seat at the head of the table.

Admiral Tross began his report with the same dull cadence he always used, supply allocations, logistics, cargo efficiency from the last quadrant. Somewhere down the line, Lieutenant Kincaid tried to flag a discrepancy in the docking manifest, something about fuel siphoning from an auxiliary cruiser.

Hux didn’t care. Not really.

He should’ve. He used to.

But his focus snagged on the subtle flick of Kincaid’s eyeliner. A passing glance at the angle of Commander Veera’s crossed legs. The way Captain Haldra’s voice dipped naturally at the end of her sentence.

It wasn’t them, of course. None of them were you. But his mind, traitorous, starving, was drawing comparisons all the same.

Another hand went up. Another datapad slid across the table. Another problem needing his oversight.

He leaned back slightly, folding his hands in his lap. 

“Resolve it internally,” he said, voice sharp enough to snap the thread of conversation.

A beat of silence. Then a flurry of nods and movement.

He wasn’t interested in inefficiencies today.

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By 1100 hours, he was back in his private office. The doors sealed behind him with a hush of compressed air. He exhaled for the first time all morning.

His hands moved with practiced ease, gloves off, cuffs rolled, datapads unlocked with authorization codes only he had clearance to use. The lights dimmed automatically as he settled into his chair, the artificial daylight shifting to the cool neutral tone of his “review mode.”

Two screens illuminated before him. One for Finalizer operations.

And the other: a secure file labeled only with a single character.

A.

His thumb hovered over it for a second too long. Then he opened it.

Dozens of tabs unfurled like petals, classified personnel records, archived stream clips, still images captured mid-laugh, mid-moan, mid-whisper. The image quality varied, but it didn’t matter. He’d watched them all enough times that he could reconstruct every frame from memory. Your mannerisms. Your voice. Your tells.

To an outsider, it might appear clinical. Strategic.

But the small details betrayed him.

A red line connecting timestamps from Aurora’s streams to the Finalizer’s security logs. A column of names, maintenance crew, tech support, low-level comms specialists, all female, all matching fragments of your profile. He’d filtered by height, voice, probable skill level in encryption, possible access to hardware sophisticated enough to mask her location.

Thousands still remained.

Thousands.

He rubbed his temple. His jaw ticked.

He knew you were here.

You had to be.

His eyes flicked to the chat logs on the right-hand panel. His own messages sat there like little monuments to madness, each credit tip catalogued, each reply from her indexed and tagged.

Sometimes, he swore, your eyes paused just a second longer when you read his messages. Your smile twitched at the corners like you were holding back something. A private joke. A hidden shiver. Once, you’d even moaned his screen name, breathy and mocking.

He’d replayed that moment more times than he cared to admit.

At 1400 The command deck hummed with its usual quiet precision, officers manning their stations, data streams flickering, the faint hiss of pressurized doors in the distance. Hux stood at the central console, posture ramrod straight, hands clasped tightly behind his back.

Then, barely audible, a laugh.

Stifled. Sharp. Quickly swallowed.

His head snapped around.

“Who was that?” His voice was low, lethal.

Silence.

He took a slow, deliberate step forward, eyes narrowing as they landed on a junior technician near the rear bank of monitors. Lieutenant Clark. The boy looked like he’d just been caught smuggling a thermal detonator.

Hux closed the distance in seconds.

“What’s so amusing, Lieutenant?”

Clark shot to attention, datapad clutched awkwardly to his chest. “Sir, nothing, just a comm delay. I apologize.”

“Let me see it.” Hux’s palm was already out.

Clark hesitated half a second too long.

Fatal.

Hux yanked the datapad from his grip and scrolled through the open tabs. Engineering updates. A half-watched speeder highlight reel. Local feed from Victra markets. No explicit footage, nothing damning, but it didn’t matter.

His blood had already gone cold.

“You think I don’t notice when protocol is ignored?” he asked, voice like dry ice. “You think your downtime grants you access to unsecured feeds?”

“N–no, sir.”

“I’ll be verifying your full comm log history. If I find even a trace of encrypted traffic or entertainment media from non-cleared sources, I will ensure you are reassigned to waste reclamation detail for the remainder of your career. Am I understood?”

“Yes, General.”

Hux leaned in, just enough for Clark to see the veins threading at his temples.

“If I ever hear you laugh on my deck again, Lieutenant, it better be because I said something funny.”

Clark’s nod was mechanical.

Satisfied, but only barely, Hux turned and returned to his post, datapad still in hand. The rest of the room had gone stiff with tension. Not one officer dared glance up from their console.

And yet even as he stood tall, outwardly composed, Hux’s knuckles blanched white around the date pad, still trying to convince himself that the sound he’d heard hadn’t been your voice.

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His quarters were dim, lit only by the muted gleam of the cityscape screensaver playing on the far wall, a pale imitation of atmosphere. He didn’t bother switching on the main lights. He preferred it this way. Quiet. Controlled.

Alone.

The clink of ice against crystal cut the silence. He swirled the whiskey once, watching the amber swirl like molasses before taking a slow sip. No bite. No burn. Just warmth.

Across the table, his datapad sat propped against a serving tray, his dinner untouched.

Aurora’s last stream replayed in silence.

No music. No tipping sounds. No moaning fanboys clogging the screen. Just you. Your image, Your movement. Your eyes half-lidded and mischievous, Your body draped across your bedding like a carefully curated sin. He had scrubbed the recording clean, enhanced the frame, filtered the feed until your every pixel was crystal sharp. You were mesmerizing. As always.

But tonight, it didn’t bring pleasure.

It brought ache.

He tightened his grip on the glass. Something about the video, the intimacy of it, the way you moved, smiled, laughed, set his teeth on edge. That laugh. His laugh. It wasn’t meant for the others. Not for the mongrels in your chat, those faceless, grubby-handed degenerates who threw cheap credits just to hear you speak.

It was supposed to be his.

He rewound the stream with a flick of his thumb, back to the beginning. That moment when you greeted them all, your tone bright, teasing. Like you knew them. Like you liked them.

You laughed.

He watched it again. Rewound.

Again.

Rewound.

It didn’t feel like control anymore. It felt like punishment. His jaw locked, muscles tightening.

“I could give you everything,” he muttered, almost too quietly to hear. “Why do you waste yourself on them?”

You didn’t answer. You never did.

He shoved the tray away, appetite gone, and let the feed keep playing.

Not because he enjoyed it.

Because he couldn’t stop.

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Chapter Text

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By the time you made it home, the hallways were quiet. Just the occasional drone rolling past on its night route and the distant thrum of ship systems cycling into low-power mode. You keyed into your quarters with a flick of your wrist, and the door slid open on the second place in the galaxy that truly felt like yours.

Barracks G204. Small by most standards, tucked away in a quiet corner on the far side of Deck 17. It hadn’t been yours originally. You were relocated after your first year—some administrative shuffle following a minor chemical leak on your old floor. Temporary, they’d said at the time. But no one ever followed up, and you never asked. You didn’t mind the privacy. It was rare. You held onto it.

Warm light spilled over familiar details, soft textures, rich colors, a set of shelves stacked with things that made you feel like a person: books, a few old holozines, the pressed flowers your mother had given you the day you graduated the academy.

The air smelled like jasmine and tea. The walls were sound-dampened, one of your first upgrades, and the silence was perfect. Gentle. Complete.

You slipped off your boots by the door and exhaled like you’d been holding that breath for days.

Peeling off your coveralls next you dropped them in the reclamation bin, and padded barefoot across cold floors already drifting toward your waiting luxuries. 

The shower hissed to life with a comforting burst of steam, the lights dimming automatically to a soft golden hue. You let the warmth soak into your skin as you stepped under the spray, rolling your shoulders back for the first time all day.

Your soaps weren’t ration-issue. They were real. Imported. Chosen carefully for scent and texture: one citrusy and sharp, the other creamy with notes of sandalwood and something floral you could never quite name. You lathered them both, one after the other, taking your time. First cleanse, then again, cutting through the layers of grime across your skin.

Your conditioner was thick, indulgent, something with silk proteins and a price tag you didn’t let yourself think about too often. It made your hair fall soft and smooth, like it belonged to someone who never set foot in a repair bay.

And just because you were feeling a little fancy tonight, you reached for the sugar scrub. The expensive one, tucked behind all the others. You worked it over your arms and shoulders, watching the shimmer catch in the light before it rinsed clean away.

The water, however, was standard-issue, and cut straight to cold after fifteen minutes, like clockwork. You hissed through your teeth but didn’t move, letting the icy shot hit your shoulders.

You endured it, partly because you had to, and partly just to prove you could.

“Good for the systems,” you muttered, like that made it a choice.

After toweling off you pulled on your favorite pajamas, the softest credits could buy. Slippery, breathable, and ethically manufactured, or so the tag claimed. You’d paid extra for that part, not because it mattered here, but because it still mattered to you. They glided over your skin, cool at first and then deliciously warm.

At the vanity, you began your skincare ritual. Not rushed. Not practical. A full several-step routine, curated through several years of trial and impulsse buying: cleansing mist, resurfacing serum, a little peptide booster for good measure. Creams in little glass jars that clicked softly when you opened them, cool under your fingers, smooth across your cheeks and jaw.

To someone else, it might have seemed excessive. But this was what the money was for. Not for status or spectacle—just this. A kind of quiet magic. Each step a spell, each texture a reminder that softness didn’t mean weakness. That you were allowed to take care of yourself. It was how you put yourself back together. How you remembered what strength felt like when it wasn’t being torn out of you.

You weren’t doing it for anyone but yourself.

Which, honestly, made it feel even better.

You let the serum sit while you moved to turn on the wall-mounted water kettle. The kitchenette was barely more than a shelf, a sink, and a power port, standard dorm-style, no frills. But you’d made it yours.

Ceramic mugs in colors that made you happy. A tiny tin of real tea leaves, rationed like treasure. A sticky little jar of honey from a market on a moon you barely remembered. The essentials. The indulgences. The things you’d promised yourself you’d keep, no matter what else fell apart.

The heater clicked to life with a quiet hum. 

Tonight, maybe, you’d sleep.

But not before the tea. And not before checking on your socials. 

You brought your mug over to your bunk, curling your legs beneath you as the warmth seeped into your palms. The blend was floral and faintly sweet, real leaves, steeped just long enough to bloom. One of the last tins you’d imported before the platform tightened their shipping policies.

You reached for your datapad and flicked it on, the screen bathing your face in cool light. Notifications were stacked in neat rows: new messages, tip alerts, view counts. The usual noise. A few familiar usernames. 

You told yourself you were just skimming. Just making sure everything looked normal. But your eyes still paused when you saw him.

Same icon. Same handle. No messages.

You’d written and rewritten one to him three times this week, never actually hitting send. You weren’t even sure what you’d say. Thanks for the tips? How's it going? Where is all this money coming from? Too personal. Too real.

Which was ridiculous.

Usually, patrons like him were eager to monopolize your time. To send paragraph after paragraph, asking for off-hour streams, private messages, something more. 

But he hadn’t. Not a single word. You told yourself that was a good thing.

That it meant he was losing interest.

That it meant you were safe.

So why did it still bother you?

You stared at his icon a moment too long, thumb hovering over the message box. Maybe it was just curiosity. or something lonelier than that.

You typed, 

[You]: Hey. Just checking in.

Then deleted it. Typed again.

[You]: You’ve been quiet. Everything alright?

Deleted that, too. The third time, you kept it simple.

[You]: Hey.

You hit send before you could overthink it. A few seconds passed. Then a minute. You took a sip of tea and forced yourself not to stare at the screen.

Then:

[THEGENERAL0504 is typing…]

Your heart stuttered.

The message came through:

[TheGeneral0504] : That almost sounds like you miss me . 

You smirked, just a little. The kind you’d never let show on camera.

[You]: You wish

[TheGeneral0504] : I don’t wish. I expect.

And just like that, the quiet unraveled.

[TheGeneral0504]:Are you checking on me or fishing for compliments?

[You]:Why not both?

You’ve been quiet.

Didn’t think silence was your style.

[TheGeneral0504] : I like to observe.

Sometimes the best moves happen when you’re not on the board.

You raised an eyebrow. Cryptic. Vaguely threatening. A little hot. Unfortunately.

[You]: That sounds like something someone says when they’re losing.

[TheGeneral0504] : And yet here you are. Messaging me first.

You rolled your eyes. And typed:

[You]: Don’t let it go to your head.

[TheGeneral0504] : Too late.

There was another pause. Longer this time. You sipped your tea and set the mug down carefully, half afraid the adrenaline might make you fling it across the room. Stupid. Overdramatic.

But your heart was thudding like you’d just crossed a live wire, and you were grinning like an idiot.

[TheGeneral0504] : What are you like off-camera?  

You considered that one. Too long.

[You] : Wouldn’t you like to know.

[TheGeneral0504] : I would.

Your fingers hovered over the keyboard.

You didn’t reply right away. Instead, you closed the chat window. Not forever. Just for now.

 You liked the way he waited.

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Chapter Text

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When you were a kid, your mother used to fix everything with duct tape and spite.

Wires, roof panels, scrapped knees, she treated every problem like it was mechanical, like if she could just get the right leverage, it would bend. And most of the time, it did.

“We’re not rich,” she used to say, a socket wrench clenched between her teeth. “But we’re not helpless.”

You’d watched her fix things long before you understood how they worked. You learned to be resourceful. Quiet. Capable. The kind of person who didn’t wait to be saved, who didn’t ask for help. The kind of person who could survive anywhere, even here.

That was the idea, anyway.

You hadn’t seen her in years. Could barely remember the last time you heard her voice without static. The First Order allowed one outgoing halo letter a month, monitored, of course, and scrubbed of anything resembling truth. 

The first order called it morale. You called it PR.

It was easy, most days, to pretend that kind of distance didn’t hurt. To file it away under “necessary,” next to things like rations and sleep. But some mornings, before the lights kicked on, before the station noise came back, you missed home so sharply it felt like being gutted.

The last message from your brother came over three weeks ago.

The transmission delay garbled the audio and made his face flicker in and out of focus, but it was him. Too thin. Smiling too fast.

“We’re okay,” he said. “Don’t worry about us. Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

He didn’t mention the medicine. Or the blackouts. 

Didn’t say whether their generator had held through the last freeze, or if their neighbor was still willing to barter extra rations for diagnostics work. He didn’t have to. You knew the signs. The way his eyes didn’t quite meet the camera.

“Just keep doing what you’re doing.”

That was the deal. You earned it. They managed it.

Every credit you made was routed through encrypted relays, scrubbed and split. Most of it never touched your First Order account at all, just a modest, believable stipend, transferred monthly from your family’s end, like a perfectly normal support arrangement.

A little tight, but not suspicious. A little poor, but not suffering. Enough to keep up appearances. Not enough to get flagged. 

The rest paid for everything else. Your mom’s medicine. Power. Connectivity. Safety.

You didn’t spend much on yourself. A few comfort luxuries. A soft towel. A bottle of something for the hard days. Little things that made survival feel slightly less like enduring. It wasn’t glamorous. It wasn’t even safe. But it worked.

And if anyone ever asked?

You were just a mechanic.

You told yourself it was better this way. Safer. Fewer variables. But the distance still ached. And if anything happened to you,  

You didn’t let yourself finish that thought.

Instead, you peeled yourself off the cot and got moving, slowly, stiffly, new stress knots built up on top of the ones you’d earned the hard way.

The lights in your bunk clicked into full brightness as Ayema chirped awake, scanning the room with a polite whirr. You ignored her. Grabbed your coveralls off the hook., pulled your hair back and didn’t bother checking your reflection. No one was looking.

You even ate breakfast for once.

If a jelly pouch and most of a protein wafer counted as breakfast.

You tore it open with your teeth and tried not to think about how long it had been since you’d tasted anything real. The flavor was allegedly “tropical.” You weren’t sure what planet that was supposed to mean.

The walk to the hangar felt longer than usual. Maybe it was the gravity shift. Maybe it was your head. Either way, you took the back corridor, past the coolant lines and supply crates, just to avoid the mess of morning personnel. Just to stay quiet a little longer.

By the time you reached your bench, your tea had already gone lukewarm.

And that’s when he showed up.

Chief Rennick. All bark, no interest in who he bit. Every time you crossed paths, you had the sudden, undeniable urge to chew glass.

“Mechanic. You’re on the Trident unit this cycle,” he barked. “Team rotation.”

You looked up. “Sir, I’m still logging the damage report on, ”

“I didn’t ask for a report. I gave you an order.”

Of course. You should’ve known better than to argue.

You clocked the team as he gestured across the hangar: May, good. Quiet, careful. Easy to work with. A guy named Brenn, neutral, decent. And then… Torrek.

You resisted the urge to groan out loud.

May entered the hangar still shrugging on her uniform the remnants of a what you can only assume to be one of the cafeteria breakfast croissants still clinging to her cheeks

She caught your eye, raised her eyebrows, and mouthed, “You too?”

You gave her a flat look and made a slashing motion across your throat.

She grinned.

Whatever this shift had in store, at least you weren’t facing it alone.

May dropped into step beside you as you crossed toward the Trident unit, muttering just loud enough for you to hear, “I swear if Torrek tries to explain ion capacitors to me again, I’m gonna pull his tongue out through his nose.”

You snorted. “If he’s explaining ion capacitors to anyone, we’re already doomed.”

She handed you a datapad with the initial diagnostics without even being asked. You took it. Familiar rhythm. Efficient. No drama. No ego.

What are you like off camera?

The question bubbled up again, uninvited.

You hadn’t answered. You weren’t even sure what answer wouldn’t feel like a lie.

The air shifted just behind you, footsteps, louder voices. You recognized Torrek’s nasally drawl before you saw him. Brenn was with him, polite enough to nod as they approached.

“, told you,” Torrek was saying, “you just gotta bypass the security flags and ping through an outer-ring proxy. They’re not even encrypted half the time.”

Brenn gave him a skeptical look. “Pretty sure that’s how you end up flagged.”

Torrek smirked. “Only if you don’t know what you’re doing. Nova Girls isn’t just random porn, either, it’s high-end. Like curated and stuff”

That made your stomach drop.

“Bet you wouldn’t even know it was amateur,” Torrek went on. “Some of ‘em are practically pro. Filters, lighting, the whole deal. Real convincing.”

“Yeah,” Brenn said flatly. “Sounds legit.”

May shot you a look. You forced a shrug.

Just keep doing what you’re doing.

Focus.

Coolant pressure. Seal integrity. Diagnostic latency. Anything but that name.

You swallowed it. Filed it. Let it burn a neat little hole somewhere behind your ribs where no one could see it.

The datapad blinked, one error, two. May muttered something under her breath nearby. Torrek laughed at his own joke like he hadn’t just said the most disgusting thing you’d heard all week.

You kept working. Because that’s what you were good at. Because correcting men like that didn’t make them stop. It just made them louder.

The Trident unit was a mid-sized freighter, supposedly “combat-capable” in the same way chainsaws were technically “surgical tools.” Too loud, too bulky and nowhere near precise enough for the job. It had taken a hard beating on patrol, scorch marks across its belly, fried navcon array, and at least one blown atmospheric regulator. Someone had clearly tried to improvise mid-flight and failed spectacularly.

The internal systems were a mess of crossed lines, misaligned buffers, and half-slagged power couplings. A few onboard droids were still jittering from the surge, one of them kept attempting to reboot mid-spin cycle and had already hit its head twice on the cargo bay wall.

You were a droid tech by trade, not a freighter technician. But circuits were circuits. Machines broke the same way people did, poor maintenance, faulty logic, too much pressure.

You could fix this.

You just weren’t thrilled about having to.

You were an hour into the rebuild when May yelped, jerking her hand back from the open panel.

A blast of steam hissed out, followed by a thin spray of overheated hydraulic fluid. It caught her glove and soaked through fast.

“Shit!” she gasped, cradling her hand, already reddening beneath the fabric.

You dropped beside her, already reaching. “Left side’s misaligned,” you muttered, shifting the seal into place and holding the release valve steady with one hand. The connector clicked. Hiss. Done.

May gave you a grateful glance. “You’re a lifesaver.”

You didn’t answer. Just reached for her hand, tugging the glove off carefully.The skin beneath was already flushed, irritated and pink at the base of her thumb.

“That’s gonna blister,” you said quietly.

She winced. “You think it’s bad?”

You leaned in, squinting at the edges. “You’ll live. But you’re not touching another panel until it’s wrapped.”

May huffed a laugh. “So bossy.”

“So injured.”

You reached for the med patch in your toolkit

Across the hull, Torrek grinned lewdly.

“Look at that,” he whistled, eyes dragging over the curve of your backs as the two of you kneeled in front of the access panel. “ You two want some privacy, or…?”

You ignored him.

“Seriously though ladies, you’re wasting your talents. Should’ve gone the Nova Girls route. Life’s easy for women, right? Flash some skin, get rich fast. Hell, even you could probably-“ 

“Excuse me?” May snapped, standing up so fast her toolkit clattered to the floor.

Torrek didn’t flinch. If anything, he looked pleased.

“I’m just saying, some girls know how to work the system. You?” He gave you a once-over. “You’ve got the body, if not the face.”

You smiled. Not a nice one. The kind of smile you saved for right before you started reaching for blunt objects. 

May opened her mouth, but didn’t get the chance. Brenn stood up.

“Torrek,” he said, voice flat. “Shut the fuck up.”

Torrek raised his hands in mock innocence. “What? The ladies love the attention. I’m just saying, ”

“No.” Brenn cut in “You’re being a dick. And you’re embarrassing yourself.”

The silence that followed was heavy.

You stood as well , wiped your hands on your coveralls, and added, calmly:

“If I wanted someone’s attention, I’d pick someone with a rank higher than ‘irrelevant grease stain.’”

Brenn snorted. May stifled a laugh. Someone else outside the bay even shouted “Damn!”

After that Torrek had the decency to take himself outside and start scrubbing the hull. 

Chapter Text

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By the time the last diagnostics came through clean, your hands were aching and the pressure at the base of your skull had gone percussive.

The three of you meandered down the ramp taking your first fume-free breath in hours.
The bay was still crowded. Too many people lingering. Not working. Talking just a little too animatedly.

Engineering ran on gossip. Always had. Around here, speaking loud enough to be heard was the same thing as giving permission to listen.

You weren’t necessarily trying to eavesdrop. But the words found you anyway:

“, what did he say it was called again?”
“Nova something. Nova Babes?”
“Bet I could find a backdoor into the feed scrub.”
“Seriously? I heard it was paywalled, ”

You didn’t turn around.

Just dropped your tools back in the kit a little too hard and locked the latch.

May gave you a sidelong glance. “You okay?”

You nodded. Once. But you didn’t meet her eyes.

You wanted to tell her.

Not everything. Not the details. Just enough to not feel so alone with it.

You weren’t ashamed, not exactly. But there were lines you couldn’t afford to cross. Talking was dangerous. To anyone.

Especially May.

You loved her. Trusted her, even. But you were a gossip too, and you knew how it worked.

If she’ll talk to me about them… maybe she talks to them about me.

So you kept it in. Tucked the secrets close to your chest and smiled like you always did.

You peeled off from the group at the transport junction, offering a vague excuse and a half-hearted wave.

You detoured for a quick stop at the pharmacy kiosk on the way back to your barracks. Nothing dramatic. Just the usual supplies. Chocolates and preventative measures. A quiet nod to the fact that your body had its own calendar, and it never once cared about your schedule.

The cramps hadn’t fully started, but you could feel them gathering, low and dull, behind your spine.

You always took the week off.

Not officially, of course. But you planned for it. Adjusted your rotation. Scheduled extra streams and photo sets ahead of time so you could disappear without losing numbers.

Even Aurora deserved time off.

And honestly, the idea of squeezing into latex and pretending to purr while your uterus tried to kill you? No thanks.

You liked to rest. Nest a little. Put on soft clothes and let Ayema cycle through old movies while you drank tea and pretended you were somewhere safer. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere far.
Back in your quarters, you checked your socials again.

Still no message.

You’d left him on read, technically. But the way he hadn’t followed up? Not even a second attempt? That felt like something.

Not rejection exactly.

But enough to keep you chewing on what to say next.

You tried to think of a few clever responses while you got ready.

Something flirty, maybe. Aloof. The kind of thing a girl like Aurora would say without blinking.
After what happened in the hangar, you weren’t taking any chances.

Tonight’s look was extra.

Heavy lashes. Heart-shaped eyeliner. A full face of that hyper-feminine, high-gloss egirl aesthetic, weaponized cuteness. Even dusted off the long, pale pink wig you hadn’t worn in months.

You smoothed the blankets across your bed, draping them just so, rumpled, but artfully. Like you’d just been lounging, and not obsessing over the curve of every wrinkle.
Pillows fluffed, framed, stacked at a flattering tilt. Your little bantha plush tucked half-behind one shoulder, visible enough to catch the light, subtle enough to seem accidental.

Ayema blinked to life from her perch on the shelf. One optic adjusted. Then the other.
Without a word, she lowered herself into her track and docked with the rigging port.

“Scene loaded.”
“Light balance: standard flare. Subject framing: recalibrated.”

She rotated the lens, adjusted the angle by a hair, then dimmed the background lights until the bantha plush hit its mark in the soft blur just over your shoulder.

Perfect.

You settled onto the bed just outside the frame, heart ticking a little too fast. Thumb hovering over the stream controls. Waiting for exactly 2100.

You started the stream like nothing was wrong.

Flirty smile. Chin tilted just right. Voice warm with just a hint of teasing. Giggled. Winked. Let the tension drip off your shoulders like the silk of your robe.

Aurora, in full.

The viewer count climbed, slowly at first, then all at once.

Regulars filed in, dropping comments and tips. A few new names, too.
Aurora was soft tonight. Sweet. Just a little suggestive.You read the messages, played the game. Did the voice, the look, the laugh.

But you kept checking.

Just a glance here and there. Casual. Performed indifference. The list of active viewers. The tip queue. The chat logs. You didn’t see his handle.

The tips came in fast after that.

But none of them were his.

Instead, the top spot went to someone new.
[L0verb0y420](★ Patron): has tipped 400 credits

[L0verb0y420] (★ Patron): spin for me babygirl

[L0verb0y420](★ Patron): bet you taste like strawberries

You smiled. Automatically. The way you always did.

But your jaw was tight.
Something about him, about the cringey username, the language, rubbed you wrong.
Too familiar, too fast. No finesse. No build up. Just… sweaty desperation.

He tipped again.
Then again.

It didn’t matter how polite you kept it. How light the tone. He just kept pushing.

[L0verb0y420] (★ Patron): bet that mouth could make a man forget his name.
[L0verb0y420] (★ Patron): lemme see those pretty little knees

[L0verb0y420](★ Patron): has tipped 50 credits

You’re knees? You shifted the camera slightly. Pretended not to see. Tried to redirect.
But the chat followed his lead. Like sharks circling a drop of blood.

You knew this game. You’d played it before.
Make the top tipper feel special. Reward the credits. Keep the energy high.

But your skin crawled.

The General was always there. Not just regularly, always. Every stream, without fail. You’d built entire routines around him, half-consciously shaping moments just to catch his attention.

Which was flattering. Sort of. A little weird, maybe, but-

He’s probably just rich and bored.

But rich guys didn’t usually show up this consistently. They dropped in, sent a tip, said something stupid, left. They didn’t sit quietly. They didn’t observe.

And yet, there he was. Or would be. Or should be.

Why does someone with that much money always have time for you?

The thought slid in sideways. Uninvited. Inconvenient.

You pushed harder. Amped the tone. Slipped out of the robe. Bit your lip in that way you knew he liked. It didn’t matter.

He wasn’t coming tonight.

You ended the stream ten minutes early, with a tight smile and a cheery goodbye.

The moment the feed cut, you collapsed onto your back and reached up to peel off one lash, then the other. Set them carefully on the nightstand

For a long time, you just lay there, breathing in the quiet, eyes tracing the soft flicker of the lights overhead.

Thinking.
Not about the stream.
Not about the credits.
Just… the question.

What are you like off camera?

You turned your head toward the screen.
It was still there. Unanswered. Waiting. You typed.

[You]: Tired.

And sent it before you could change your mind.

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Chapter Text

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He’d written five replies. All terrible.

You should get some rest.

Your tone was concerning.

What do you need?

Good.

As am I.

Each one deleted. Each one worse than the last.

It was just a word. Tired.

Not flirtatious. Not incriminating. Not even personal, really. But somehow, it gutted him. More than all the streams combined. Because it wasn’t Aurora who sent it. It was you.

And what was he supposed to do with that?

What response was appropriate, when you were the reason someone was tired in the first place? He’d considered ignoring it. That seemed dignified. Above it all. He was very good at being above it all.

He could recite the military history of four star systems from memory. He could draft foreign policy in two dialects, argue defense logistics in his sleep. But somehow, this, 

Tired.

left him paralyzed.

With quite a bit more force than he intended, he threw down the datapad.

It clattered against the edge of the desk and skidded across the floor. Not enough to break it. Not quite. But the sound was sharp enough to make Lieutenant Corven jump where she stood, datapile clutched to her chest.

She didn’t say anything, knew better than that, but he could feel her flinch like a shockwave in the air.

“Do you need something, sir?” she asked carefully, eyes downcast.

He looked at her.

Too young. Too timid. Entirely forgettable.

“Dismissed,” he said flatly. “And do something with your face next time you report in. I find it…aggressively uninspiring.”

Corven stiffened. She didn’t argue. Just turned on her heel and left with her chin trembling and her eyes fixed firmly ahead. The door slid shut behind her. 

He drew in a breath through his nose. Let it out slowly.

Corven hadn’t deserved that. Not really. She was unremarkable, yes. But she wasn’t incompetent. And cruelty, while often effective, was rarely efficient. It invited retaliation. Complications. Paperwork. He’d spent his entire career avoiding unnecessary trouble.

Lately, though… it kept slipping out.

Barbed words. Cutting glances. That sour twist in his gut that had nowhere else to go.

It wasn’t meant for them.

He didn’t mean to be a cruel man.

But the quiet was so much louder than it used to be. And this, this aching, humiliating obsession, was eroding the edges of his discipline.

He straightened his cuffs. Smoothed a hand over his ginger hair. When he left the room, it was with his usual precision, boots silent, spine straight, expression unreadable.

The corridors were quiet this late in the cycle, lit by the cool, sterile glow of the overheads. Officers passed him with quick nods and sharper silence. No one lingered. No one questioned why the General was walking the command deck at this hour.

He liked that.

He needed that.

Here, everything was where it belonged. Data flowing through terminals. Orders obeyed. People falling into line. The churn of machinery and discipline like a second heartbeat beneath the station’s steel skin.

One officer stepped into his path, too slow. He didn’t raise his voice. Just looked.

They moved.

The walk helped. Not much, but enough. The tightness behind his eyes began to recede. He paused at the viewport. Cold stars blinked back. The darkness of space always felt honest in a way people never did. He folded his hands behind his back.

A soldier should be above this, he thought.

Desire. Fixation. Weakness.

But no amount of airlock silence could smother the fact that somewhere on this station, she was moving through her day, unaware that her simplest words had reduced him to nothing. And he hated her for it. 

He let the silence stretch.

Out there, stars burned in quiet violence. Cold, unfeeling. Exactly as they should be. He watched them for a long time, letting the weight of space press down on everything useless, his thoughts, his impulses, her.  Focus. Precision. Control. These were the things that mattered.

“I thought I smelled cheap cologne”

The voice came from behind him, deep and distorted through the vocoder.

Hux didn’t flinch, but his jaw set tight. He forced his shoulders back, spine straight, the crisp edge of his uniform pressing against his collarbone.

Ren’s boots struck the floor in slow, deliberate rhythm, each step closer, each one unwelcome.

“I didn’t peg you for the brooding type,” Ren said. “Or is this what passes for battle strategy now?”

Hux gave a short breath through his nose. “I find moments like these useful. You should try it sometime, reflection.”

“Is that what you call it?” Ren stepped up beside him at the viewport. “Looked more like pouting.”

This time Hux turned, sharply. “You mistake discipline for self-pity. Understandable, given your history.”

A low hum rumbled through Ren’s mask. 

“I’m not the one unraveling,” he said, voice dropping an octave. “There’s something off about you.”

Hux’s shoulders tightened.

Ren tilted his head. “You’ve always been a bastard, but lately… you’re distracted.”

“I’m busy,” Hux snapped. “You wouldn’t know what that’s like.”

But Ren didn’t move.

Didn’t leave.

Didn’t take the hint.

Instead, he let the silence stretch, then reached for the edges of it.

The Force brushed Hux’s mind. Cold. Intrusive. Sharp claws dragging against the steel interiors of his mind.

“You’re hiding something,” Ren said softly. “I can feel it.”

Hux turned fully, eyes sharp, voice low and dangerous. “Get out of my head.”

His presence surged forward, unseen but undeniable, pressing inward. Past the anger. Past the polished surface. Digging deeper.

And it burned.  

Pressure bloomed behind Hux’s eyes. like he was being pried open from the inside out. His skull throbbed with every beat of his heart. 

He could feel Ren there, in the seams of his thoughts, sifting through his memories with clinical detachment. His secretary's stricken face, the plush set of your lips, the way your hair curled against your collar, the curve of your ass, the taste of whiskey as he sat in the dark replaying your laugh over and over and over. Every detail he’d tried to compartmentalize was cracked open and examined like evidence.

His knees went weak, jaw locked tight as if it could hold the flood at bay. But it didn’t matter. Ren was inside now, dragging it all out, need, guilt, obsession, parsing each thread with casual cruelty. The stolen hours. The fantasy. The sick ache of knowing exactly what he was doing and being unable, unwilling, to stop. The harder he fought to shove it down, the clearer it became. There was no hiding it. Not from him.

“Pathetic,” Ren murmured into his ear, the word low and crackling through the vocoder. “All this control, all this posturing, and for what?”

Hux couldn’t speak. Couldn’t breathe. His fingers twitched at his sides, fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms.

 The image burned at the edges of his vision, forced there by Ren, your body laid bare, lips parted, eyes glazed with obedience. No performance. No pretense. Just surrender. Not stolen, but given. And Ren, claiming you like it meant nothing at all.

“What would you do,” Ren asked, pulling back, voice almost curious, “if I got to your little toy first?”

The pressure snapped. Released all at once like a gun shot. Hux buckled, one knee hitting the floor. Breath ragged and vision swimming.

“Would you watch?”

Kylo turned without waiting for an answer. His cloak swept behind him, boots echoing as he strode toward the lift.

Hux rose to his feet, unsteady but upright. He wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand and returned his gaze to the stars beyond the glass, jaw locked tight.

He didn’t dignify the thought with a response.

But the ache in his chest said yes, he would.

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Chapter Text

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Working for the First Order was, in most ways, abysmal. Soul-crushing bureaucracy, militarized micromanagement, and an unspoken rule that if you smiled too long someone would assume you were hiding something.

But the benefits?

Surprisingly solid.

Full dental. Comprehensive physical and mental health coverage. And, most importantly? A 24-hour gym.

The kind with cryo treadmills, anti-grav resistance rings, and adjustable gravity settings so you could literally run uphill both ways, if you were into that sort of thing. You liked the machines, straight forward, repetitive. And you liked that no one bothered you here.

Well. Except May.

You were mid-rep, breath steady, music loud enough to drown out the grunts of a nearby trooper attempting single-arm presses, when a towel hit the mat beside you.

“Guess where we’re stopping next,” May said, already talking before you could pull out your headphones.

You gave her the universal I have headphones in look. She didn’t care. She never did.

“Victra,” she said anyway. “Fueling stop. Few days. You remember, right?”

You paused the machine, then the music, tugging one earbud free. “The one with the blood-colored skies or the one where we almost got eaten by sand leeches?”

“Neither,” she said, grinning. “ the shopping one.”

Ah. That Victra.

Victra had become a destination. Not for tourists, but for taste. Luxury shopping lined the inner tiers, cosmetics you couldn’t get on ration routes, clothing from pre-war designers, droid tech from every corner of the galaxy. Even the food was renowned. Real meat. Real fruit. Nothing freeze-dried or shelf-stable, just dishes with color and oil and warmth.

It wasn’t just that everything was better.

It was that everything was just out of reach. Just rare enough. Just expensive enough to make you feel like having it meant something.

“I’m so getting my nails done,” May said, flopping onto the mat beside you like she hadn’t just derailed your perfectly good set. “Full chroma. The kind that glow under UV.”

You gave her a sidelong look. “They’ll chip the second we get back to the workshop.”

“I’ll just get them redone on the next back water hellhole,” she said sweetly, already pulling up a saved list on her datapad. “Victra has six salons with real techs. And two fusion dessert bars. I’m hitting both. Maybe at the same time.”

You rolled your eyes and resumed your reps.

“Come on,” she added, nudging your boot with hers. “Don’t act like you don’t have a list.”

You didn’t answer right away. Just focused on your breathing. On the machine’s rhythm. On not releasing any less than lady-like grunting noises.

“I need soldering tips,” you said eventually. “Good ones. Not the ones they’ve been issuing. And maybe a new pressure gauge.”

May stared at you like you’d said you were hoping for a new toothbrush.

“Okay,” she said slowly, “but you do realize you’re also getting that lip tint you liked last time. And the lashes. The nice ones, not the bulk packs. Oh, and tea! You drank all the last stash you swore you were saving for me. You need more.”

You blew a controlled breath out your nose. “Maybe.”

“Not maybe,” May said, kicking lightly at your machine. “I will physically drag you planet-side if I have to.”

You didn’t look at her, but the corner of your mouth twitched.

“Fine,” you muttered. “But only if they still have the spiced lychee one.”

“That’s the first one we’re getting.”

She grinned like she’d won a prize, and you let her have it. Let her think she’d cracked something. Maybe she had. You could never tell with May.

You adjusted your grip, refocused your breath, and dropped into the last round of leg presses. The weight bit, just enough to make your eyes narrow. Repetition. Resistance. Something predictable. Something you could control.

A voice behind you broke your focus.

“Didn’t think they let techs into this part of the gym.”

You flinched, startled just enough to lose the last rep. The weight clanked back into its cradle with a sharp, metallic slam.

You sat up, heart thudding harder than the set warranted. Brenn stood a few feet off, hands on his hips, sweat-darkened collar clinging to his neck.

“You were moving some serious weight there,” he said, a little impressed. Maybe surprised.

You swallowed. “It’s leg day.” you said for lack of any spare brain power.

“Clearly.” He laughed. He glanced at May, who was openly grinning. “You two training for something?”

“A shopping spree,” she said before you could stop her.

His smile widened. “Ah. Priorities.”

He didn’t bother with a towel, just grabbed the hem of his shirt and wiped the sweat from his face, lifting the fabric high enough to flash a stretch of lean, sweat-slicked abdomen.

Casual. Unbothered. You weren't looking.

“Victra’s technically a fueling stop,” he said. May elbowed you and both sets of eyes snapped back up to his face. “but I think half the crew is treating it like shore leave.”

“Because it is shore leave,” May said. “With better outfits.”

He laughed. “I’m just saying, maybe don’t let anyone talk you into the Tier Six bathhouses. That place gave two pilots fungal infections.”

“Gross.”

“I heard it was something worse than a fungal infection if you know what I mean” May quipped. “Soooo, Brenn.” She drew out the last part of his name and  wiggled her eyebrows suggestively.

“You going to one of the red zones?” 

Brenn hesitated just a beat too long, then glanced at you. His expression shifted, half sheepish, half thoughtful.

“Not really my thing,” he said.

“What is your thing?” you asked, genuinely curious.

“I don’t know,” he said with a shrug. “Quiet stuff, mostly. Decent drinks. Good music.” He rolled  his shaker bottle and took a slow sip. “Actually… there’s something happening tonight. Some of the officers are putting together a small thing. Nothing formal. Just drinks and downtime in the hangar.”

“Oh?” May perked up immediately.

“Deck Six,” Brenn added. “Starts late. You should come. Both of you.”

“We’ll see,” you said automatically.

May was already grinning. “We’ll be there.”

Brenn’s datapad buzzed. He glanced at it, then gave a half-apologetic shrug.

“Duty calls,” he said, backing away. “See you tonight?”

You shrugged “could happen”

He gave a small smile, something just shy of smug. “Hope so.”

You watched him go, bag slung over his shoulder, sneakers echoing as he disappeared around the corner.

“Soooo,” May said, grinning as she leaned into your peripheral, “that little eyebrow twitch you just did, was that ‘I hate him’ or ‘he’s kind of hot’?”

“That wasn’t a twitch.”

“It absolutely was. Like, a full on micro-expression. Don’t lie to me.”

You rolled your eyes and wiped your face with your towel, letting the heat in your cheeks pass for post workout glow.

“He’s fine,” you said, noncommittal.

“He is so fine!” May said. “And that party is about to be the highlight of my week. Stars, I’m going to wear sparkly gloss. Oh! You should wear that black top, the one with the mesh sleeves that makes your arms look stupid good.”

“You think I’m going?”

“I know you are.”

You didn’t argue. You could’ve. You almost did. But instead, you glanced back toward where Brenn had disappeared, then down at your own datapad. No new messages.

May bumped her shoulder against yours.

“Mesh sleeves,” she said, already walking away. “And tight tight pants!”

You shook your head, but the corner of your mouth betrayed you.

Just a couple hours. Just a couple drinks.

Just… something to look forward to.

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Chapter Text

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The catwalks above the hangar weren’t officially open to personnel anymore, but that never stopped anyone. Deck Six Lookout had become a half-sanctioned secret, just far enough from command to feel private, just public enough to be safe.

Someone had dragged up mismatched furniture from decommissioned breakrooms. A flickering string of lights hung crooked along the beams. The air smelled faintly of coolant and cheap alcohol.

It was a place for blowing off steam. For drinking too much. For kissing people you probably shouldn’t.

Everyone knew it.

The railing on the far end, half-rusted, waist-high, and overlooking the empty expanse below, was practically notorious.

If you found yourself leaning there with someone after your second drink, chances were high you’d end up with their tongue in your mouth before your glass ran dry.

So of course you were here.

Looking hot. Having fun.

May had glitter on her collarbone and a drink in each hand. You’d pulled out the black mesh top after all, tight sleeves, sharp liner, enough lip gloss to catch the light when you smiled.

You weren’t here to get kissed at the railing.

But you didn’t mind being seen near it.

The music was low and rhythmic, the kind that hvibrated through the bones of the catwalk and echoed just enough to make you lean in when someone spoke. It was already getting crowded, officers, a few troopers, the kind of people who drank too fast and laughed too loud the second they felt off-duty. You even thought you saw Ryke across the room, letting loose with some of the academy kids.

May pulled you into the center of it with zero hesitation, already scanning for potential flirtation targets like it was a tactical mission.

Your datapad buzzed in your pocket.

[TheGeneral0504] :I keep thinking about your answer.

I know the feeling.

“You’re doing that thing,” May said, pressing a cup into your hand. “The thing where your face goes all emotionally constipated.”

“I am not emotionally constipated. I am very emotionally regular, thank you very much.”

“Sure.” she said, raising an eyebrow. “Just a couple fiber supplements away from healthy attachment.”

You took a sip, made a face. “This tastes like ass.”

“It’s supposed to be a Bespin Fizz.”

“Same thing.”

You took another sip. Too sweet. Too pink. May’s signature heavy pour.

“Come on,” she said, tugging your arm. “You are not spending this party sulking in the corner all night. We’re making bad decisions. Let’s dance!”

You let her pull you in.

The crowd shifted around you,  half drunk personnel orbiting the dance floor like planets knocked slightly off their axes.

You focused on the rhythm. The way your boots pressed against the steel. The weight in your hips. The way your body moved without asking permission. The music thudded low and constant all bass and friction and sweat.  Lights stuttered above, bouncing off the glitter on  May’s cheeks like static.  

 One body feeding off another. No order. No pattern. Just motion and breath and heat.

The beat got under your skin in the best way, shaking something loose inside you. Your shoulders dropped. Your jaw relaxed. For the first time in days, maybe weeks, you weren’t calculating anything. Just moving. Just here, the sway of your hips, and your best friend beside you 

May whooped, spinning once, hair slipping from her two carefully constructed buns. She reached out, grinning feral, and you took her hand without thinking.

You laughed, sharp and breathless, letting her spin you around, and around, before pulling you back in. Her grip was solid, grounding.

The music surged, and you moved together like you’d done this a hundred times. May mouthed the words to the chorus, dragging you deeper into the crush of bodies.

 For a while, it was just the two of you.

 Hands linked. Faces flushed. Now burned into the memory of a night you almost didn’t let yourself have.

You pulled back first, breath shallow.

“I need water,” you said over the music.

May nodded, still caught in the rhythm, already being pulled into another spin by someone you recognized from commissions. You slipped out through the edge of the crowd, weaving around tangled limbs and half-finished drinks, until you reached the makeshift bar.

The air was cooler here. Less movement. More talking. More people pretending they weren’t watching each other.

You were glowing, loose. The buzz of the Bespin Fizz still humming in your chest like static. You felt warm, beautiful, off the leash. 

Until you saw him.

Torrek.

Like a wet napkin in human form.

He was huddled with two other officers in the corner, heads bent low over a screen. One of them made a crude gesture, hands out like parentheses, tongue wagging, motorboating. The whole group laughed.

You didn’t have to hear it to know what they were watching. He’d been dropping it into conversation all week. 

If you weren’t already so deep, you'd have reported it.  Broadcasting restricted content across first order airspace wasn't just inappropriate. It was a violation.

Probably rule number one actually. 

Only a few had the clearance, or the skill, to access those kinds of sites. But some had managed. And recordings of other girls’ streams were already being passed around like sabacc cards. Laughed over. Rated. Exchanged.

Not yours. 

You hoped.

But it was only a matter of time.

Your fingers were already reaching for your datapad. Just a quick check. Just to see if there’d been an unexplained spike in views. If someone had posted a link. If the worst day of your life had already started.

You hadn’t even unlocked the screen when- 

“Hey. You okay?”

You looked up.

Brenn.

Leaning against the wall, drinks in hand, watching you.

Too casual. Too easy.

You clicked the screen off and slipped the datapad back into your pocket

“Didn’t peg you for the anxious type,” he said, tilting his glass toward your pocket.

“Not anxious,” you lied. “Just thirsty.”

“Lucky you,” he said, offering you one of the two drinks. “I brought the good stuff.”

You hesitated.

“Oh, uh, sorry.” He raised both cups in mock surrender. “No open drinks from strangers, right? I get it. We can go grab you a fresh one if you want. Or I’ll drink first and let you inspect me for signs of poisoning.”

You tilted your head slightly, letting your gaze linger just a beat longer than polite.

He held the cup out again, gentler this time. “No pressure.”

You took it.

“Relax,” you said, fingers brushing against his.“I trust you.”

The crowd surged behind you, louder now. you caught a glimpse of May across the floor getting pulled deeper into the music.

Brenn leaned in slightly. “Too noisy?”

You nodded once.

“Come on,” he said, motioning with his chin. “There’s a better view.”

He led you through a narrow break in the crowd, past a stack of empty drink trays and a half-collapsed curtain someone had tried to hang for atmosphere. The music faded behind you, replaced by the mechanical hum of the hangar far below.

This level was quieter. dim. Set apart behind a locked door propped open with a case of beer. Only a few others had made their way up, couples mostly, tucked into corners, talking in low hushed tones.

The floor here was worse for wear. Warped metal. Rusted fringe  grates that rattled when you stepped too close to the edge. 

Definitely not to code.

Brenn didn’t seem to mind.

He dropped into a sprawl by the railing, arms loose over his knees like he’d done it a dozen times before. You hesitated only a second before joining him, legs dangling over into open air.

Far below, tiny lights blinked along the hangar floor, droids on rotation, the slow crawl of a lift carrying equipment into storage. From here, the scale of it was massive. Cold. Indifferent.

Brenn exhaled beside you, drink cradled between both hands. “Almost peaceful from this angle.”

You didn’t answer, just kept marveling.

But you didn’t disagree.

He bumped your knee lightly “Let me guess, power systems?”

“Droid mechanic, actually.”

He tilted his head “Damn, I should’ve known. You’ve got that quiet, brooding, ‘I spend all my time with robots’ going on.”

You snorted. “Is it that obvious?”

“A little.” He said watching you sidelong “But in a good way. I prefer machines to people these days too.”

“Machines don’t over complicate things,” you nodded.

He hummed in agreement, then glanced at you again. “So, what kind of stuff do they have you working on? Just repairs?”

“Everything.” you said with a shrug  “Repairing units, service mods, recon data retrieval. I’ve even got a couple I built myself. Just scavenged part and stuff”

You looked down into your cup. That admission felt bare. Too personal. Too close to the truth.

“You make droids?” he said, something in his tones brightened in genuine surprise.

“Well,” you said, tapping the rim of the cup, “sort of. Sometimes it’s like… I can feel when the pieces want to fit. Like they’re pulling toward each other.. I usually know what’s wrong before I even run diagnostics. I patch them up, reprogram them. It’s not polished like the off-the-shelf models, but they’ve got personality.”

You shrugged again. “ Close enough.”

He laughed. “That's hot.”

You giggled, cheeks warm. Took a slow sip, and let yourself glance over at him.

“And what about you?” you asked.

He looked out over the hangar for a moment, gaze distant like he was weighing the version of himself he wanted you to see.

“Security systems,” he said eventually. “Access control, comm locks, surveillance reroutes. All the stuff people only notice when it stops working.”

You raised an eyebrow. “So, like…a digital locksmith?”

He smiled. “Something like that.”

And just like that, the air between you shifted again. Not tense exactly, just closer.

“I always liked watching from up here,” he said. “Feels like nothing can touch you.”

You nodded, legs swinging lightly over open air.

“When I first got assigned,” he added voice quieter now. “I didn’t know anyone. Couldn’t sleep. I'd come up here just to breathe. It felt like… whatever bullshit was happening down there couldn't reach me here.”

You looked at him then, the shape of his profile in the low light, the soft way his voice curled around the memory.

“I get that,” you said.

His eyes found yours.

“You’re not what I expected,” he said.

You tilted your head. “No?”

He smiled, slower this time. “No. But I’m glad.”

And then-

The music cut mid-beat.

A voice echoed from the stairwell, sharp and absolute. “This is an unauthorized gathering. Disperse immediately.”

The party shattered like glass. Chairs scraped. Boots scattered against the metal. Dozens of bodies moving frantically in different directions.

You turned instinctively jumping up to go look for May, but she was already gone, swallowed by the stampede toward the opposite catwalk.

Fingers closed around your wrist.

“Hey, this way.”

Brenn.

His voice was calm, urgent.

“Come on,” he said, tugging gently. “I know a path. Barely any cameras.”

You hesitated. Just for a second.

Then followed.

The back route Brenn led you through spilled out two levels down, behind a maintenance stairwell no one ever used. You made it back to your sector without running into anyone official, the buzz in your blood slowly giving way to exhaustion.

By the time you reached your sector, your limbs felt heavy. The hallway outside your quarters was dim and quiet. Brenn stopped a few paces away, shifting awkwardly on his feet.

“Guess this is me,” you said.

He nodded “Yeah. I’m… like five decks that way,” he gesturing vaguely in the wrong direction.

You smiled. “Thanks for getting me out.”

“Anytime.”

A pause. He scratched the back of his neck. “So, uh… maybe I’ll see you around?”

“Maybe.”

He smiled at that. Not smug. Just enough.

You slipped inside and let the door seal behind you. The silence was immediate. Your boots came off with two lazy kicks, your drink still ghosting the edges of your tongue. You didn’t bother turning on the light.

You were halfway to your bed when your datapad buzzed, once, quiet, still tucked safely in your pocket.

You fished it out without thinking. Tossed it onto the bedside table and rolled over. 

You didn’t open it.

You were already drifting.

Too tired.

Too warm.

But for the first time in a long time, not entirely alone.

[TheGeneral0504]:

I’ve been thinking about what you said.

I know the feeling.

More so now because of you.

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Chapter Text

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He did not soak.

He immersed.

The tub itself was a feat of architectural design, indulgent, imperial, and utterly unnecessary. Nearly three meters of black-veined stone, cut from a quarry no longer charted on public maps. It sat sunken into the floor like a reflecting pool, the edges perfectly beveled, the heat calibrated from beneath to maintain a precise temperature hour after hour.

Steam drifted lazily toward the vaulted ceiling, caught in the soft golden light of the sconces recessed into polished obsidian alcoves. The kind of decadence permitted only to men who never used it. But tonight, he’d carved out the time. 

Rest, after all, was a component of discipline. 

He inhaled, slowly. The scent of bergamot and filtered water and sterile tile. Clinical, controlled, soothing in theory. 

His eyes fell half-shut.

She was gone.

Not gone, he reminded himself, just on hiatus. She’d said it, casually, on stream. Just a throwaway line. “I always take the week off.” Like it was nothing.

Like she hadn’t rewritten the cadence of his entire cycle.

He could have messaged her again. He hadn’t. She’s resting, he told himself. You should too.

It was time to give it a break.

A breath dragged through his chest, deeper than before. Something eased in his shoulders, not quite relaxation, but the nearest approximation his body could manage. He sank lower into the water, until the heat pressed in over his collarbones and up the sides of his throat.

Only then did it rise to the surface.

The ache.

Sharp at first, across his chest, his calves, the pull along both forearms. Familiar. Expected. But this time, unshakable.

He’d gone too hard. Again.

The bruises this time were internal. He’d adjusted the training droids, ordered new protocols, rerun the sparring sequences with increasingly aggressive parameters. Not because he wanted to improve. He didn’t need to improve. That wasn’t the point.

He hadn’t been eating enough to keep up.

Hadn’t been sleeping enough either.

But the pain was honest. It cut through the fog. It gave shape to the vacuum she’d left behind.

His eyes dropped to his hand beneath the surface. The skin along his knuckles was reddened, split at the seams. He turned it slowly, watched the joints flex. The water was clear, hot and stinging at the edges of him.

Another breath. His chest tightened against it.

No more for now, he told himself.

Just the bath. Just the silence. Just the one act of stillness.He would let himself have this.

Just for tonight.

He stayed like that for a while. Reflective. Silent. Letting the heat do its work.

He stayed like that for all of twelve minutes. 

And then eventually, he reached for the datapad resting on the ledge. Not because he wanted to, but because stillness could only last so long before it felt like weakness. He’d queued up a selection, economic forecasts, leadership memoirs, military analysis. Things he could normally read without effort.

He opened one. Scrolled a few lines. Nothing stuck. The words slid past him, sterile and uninspiring.

Another. Then another.

He tossed the pad aside. Let it fall heavily into the basket of plush towels.

The ache in his arms hadn’t subsided. If anything, the water was pulling it closer to the forefront. Muscle tension bloomed down his spine, settled deep in his thighs. He shifted slightly. Let his hands drift beneath the surface, palms dragging along his own skin.

At first, the touch was clinical. Practical. He pressed into the muscle at his hip, then his abdomen, searching for relief. But the movement lingered. Slowed. Wandered. Drifted where it had so often these last torturous weeks.

He closed his eyes.

It wasn’t working.

Not like it used to.

He exhaled through his nose, steady and deliberate. Forced his hands to still.

Even this had become hollow. Frustrating. Predictable.

He let his head fall back against the ledge, neck straining against the cold stone. Maybe he should have one of the droids sent up. The ones his officers whispered about when they thought he wasn’t listening. State-of-the-art. Pre-programmed with a dozen voice packs. Warm to the touch.

He’d never indulged in such things. Not because he was above it, but because they all came with the same problem.

Their touch felt like theater. All cues, no connection. The mechanics never failed, but the meaning did.

And lately, that mattered more than he wanted to admit.

He understood the function of intimacy. Had engaged in it when it served a purpose, diplomatic obligations, strategic alliances, the occasional lapse in judgment. But it had always felt like simulation. Mimicry. A choreography he could perform flawlessly, without ever stepping into the feeling beneath it. He could give pleasure, could receive it, could even fake softness when necessary. But none of it stayed with him. None of it ever touched the part of him that mattered. 

Until now. Until you. 

And the worst part, the part he couldn’t look at directly, was that you hadn’t even touched him. Not really. Just a voice. A laugh. A flicker of light across a holo screen. And somehow, it had carved deeper than flesh.

He reached for the control panel and shut the jets off. The silence deepened. Unforgiving.

His body floated in it, suspended. The water no longer soothed.

He rose slowly, water sluicing down his body in long, deliberate trails. Heat clung to his skin, condensing in the hollows of his collarbone, sliding in rivulets along the defined lines of his abdomen.

He did not reach for a towel.

Let it drip, he thought. Let it linger. The chill against his shins was grounding, a reminder that he was still flesh and blood.

He crossed to the mirror, leaving wet footprints on the tile. Stood there shirtless, water still trailing down his ribs, arms loose at his sides.

He looked good.

Better than he had in months.

Every muscle was defined. Tight. Clean lines carved into his torso from weeks of obsessive repetition. There was discipline in this, at least. Something to point to. Something visible. He could track the changes in the mirror even when everything else felt frayed.

But it wasn’t satisfaction he felt. It wasn’t pride. It was that same cold hunger. Twisted into something bitter and corrosive that rose in the back of his throat.

He watched a droplet trace the curve of his sternum, over the notch of his stomach. Watched it fall, slow and steady, until it disappeared into the deep crevice of his hips. He exhaled through his nose.

Still not good enough.

He braced his hands on the edge of the sink, water dripping from his fingertips to the porcelain below. The reflection stared back, statuesque and hollow. Sculpted down to the bone, but unfulfilled. As if the shell of him had improved, but the man inside had only rotted further.

His body ached. His chest burned.

And the silence pressed in.

The porcelain had left marks across his palms, shallow and red. He flexed his fingers once, then reached for the towel hanging by the door. The cotton caught along his forearms, dragged across the sore line of his spine. He didn’t rush. There was no where to rush to.

He dried himself in silence, methodical, precise. Then pulled on a pair of sleep pants from the drawer beside the bed. Dark gray. Soft from years of wear. They clung low across his hips, waistband loose, fabric hanging just enough to remind him he’d lost weight again.

He didn’t bother with a shirt.

The sheets were cool against his skin as he lay back. The room held its breath.

Then, the faintest sound.

A light pat of paws across the floor.

Milicent appeared beside him without hesitation, leapt lightly onto the mattress, and stepped across his chest like she belonged there. She made a small chirping noise and pressed her cheek against his, her whiskers brushing the edge of his mouth.

“You’re not supposed to be on the bed,” he murmured.

She didn’t care.

He reached up, fingers sliding through her silky orange fur, slow, methodical strokes that soothed them both. 

The rise and fall of his chest grew more even.

His breath deepened. The ache in his limbs dulled. For the first time in days, his thoughts didn’t spiral.

She stretched once against his hand, then settled in, warm and quiet.

And he let himself stay there.

Still.

Just for a little while.

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Chapter Text

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As the snaking queue inched down the docking ramp, you hugged your coat a little tighter, shoulders hunching against the artificial breeze.

The half-stale protein bar you’d choked down that morning turned sour in your gut, and the scorched caff you’d washed it down with had done nothing but deepen the pit in your stomach.

Beside you, May was already buzzing. Chattering about which shops she wanted to hit, what cafés had the best foam-to-syrup ratio, which market stalls were still rumored to sell knockoff Kyber pendants if you asked just right.

Normally, you’d match her pace without missing a beat, offer a snarky comment, link arms, turn the whole day into a whirlwind of cheap thrill shopping and secondhand gossip. But today?

Today, your head was clouded. Maybe it was just the burnout, your brain stuck on low power mode, still running work diagnostics while your body was supposed to be on break.

“Wow, okay. Didn’t even get a pity laugh for that one?” May pulled a mock-wounded face. “I killed that joke in bay nine.”

You blinked, realizing you hadn’t heard a word of it. Just the shape of her voice, familiar and distant.

“Sorry,” you murmured. “Just… fried.”

She softened. “Yeah. You look it.” Her gaze trailed over your slumped posture and the dark crescents beneath your eyes. “You need to do something fun today. I mean it. No thinking. No fixing. Just something dumb and frivolous and borderline irresponsible.”

You smirked faintly. “Frivolous is my middle name.”

In an effort to push aside the gnawing anxiety, you cast your gaze over the docking concourse.

Organized chaos. That was the only way to describe the rhythmic disorder unfolding around you. Crates were being offloaded in tight, efficient rows. Officers barked orders over the din, sleeves rolled and tempers flaring under the artificial lights. Nearby, a pair of navy-clad engineers were arguing over a half-burned datapad, while a cleaning droid wheeled around the mess without acknowledgement.

Then there were the pilots, leaning lazy and golden against the matte hulls of their fighters, exuding that particular brand of swagger reserved for people who regularly outran death. Their helmets sat at their feet, boots scuffed, dog tags swaying on loose chains as they laughed too loud and too easily. You could feel their gazes sweep your way, quick, appraising, not quite subtle.

“Maintenance division out in the wild ,” one of them whooped, nudging his elbow into a fellow pilot’s side.

“let ’em off leash for one day and they forget how to walk.”

Another one whistled low, eyes trailing the line of personnel.

“Ten credits says they’re headed straight for Sector six.”

“Where else?”a waggle of thick set eyebrows. 

The tallest among them, broad-shouldered and sun-weathered, shook his head and smacked the nearest dreamer upside the back of theirs.

“Nobody here makes enough for that kind of fun.”

Their laughter followed you like static. Not cruel, exactly. Just… ambient. Like part of the terrain. You weren’t surprised. The uniform didn’t exactly erase the curves of your body or the swing in your hips. And no matter how many grease stains you scrubbed from your coveralls, some men always saw a woman in the same division and thought it meant easy access.

You glanced down at your boots, then back up at May, still rattling on about pastries filled with real fruit and “this boutique with actual handmade perfumes” She was trying. And maybe today you could try too.

The departures line, which notably consisted of far more female officers than men, buzzed with excitement as those fortunate enough to land a day of leave continued their march to the gate. Normally, security wasn’t this tight. As the General’s flagship, Finalizer crew was typically waved right through. Today, though, they’d brought out the stops, full scans, extra troopers, stricter face-checks. You weren’t sure if that made you feel safer or not.

Even from the docking ramp, the air felt different, warmer, thicker somehow, like the whole atmosphere was steeped in perfume. Bright holo-ads flickered against the smoggy mid morning sky, promising everything from same day laser enhancements to “exclusive companions” in winking neon.

You could already feel it in your gut. That sharp, sour twist of unease buried somewhere beneath the buzz of anticipation. Victra wasn’t dangerous because of its weapons or war, it was dangerous because it promised to give you everything you wanted. No questions. No rules. No consequences.

Certainly an odd choice for a standard refueling stop.

May practically vibrated beside you, already halfway to planning the day’s itinerary with her usual enthusiasm. But your mind was still on the security checkpoint, where black-helmeted troopers scanned every face just a little too carefully.

As you neared the security station, unease prickled at the base of your neck. There was no usual fanfare, no salutes, no easy waves through for imperial crew. Instead, each person was funneled through a sequence of machines, the last of which made your stomach drop: a full-body dimensional scanner.

You’d seen them used before. Mostly for high-risk prisoners.

With your ID chip already prepped, you stepped onto the designated markers, heels clicking against the metal plates. A low hum vibrated beneath your boots as the scanner powered up, light crawling over your body in a slow, deliberate sweep. The warmth radiating from the machine wasn’t comforting, it was clinical. Peeling. Like invisible fingers pressing beneath your skin to catalogue every hidden detail.

No contact. No wires. And yet it felt horribly invasive.

By the time the light dimmed and the hum faded, your palms were slick with sweat. You exhaled, only now realizing you’d been holding your breath.

A sharp shout from the customs officer snapped you out of your thoughts.

You stepped forward, presenting your identification chip with a half-hearted smile. As the screen lit up, you winced. There it was: your younger self, frozen in time with that regrettable haircut and the acne scars you swore were temporary. The photo had been taken during your first week with the Order, wide-eyed, stiff in your uniform, trying so hard to look serious.

Despite the secondhand embarrassment, a strange wave of nostalgia washed over you. When had that girl disappeared? Somewhere along the way, she’d been replaced with someone sharper. Quieter. Harder.

You really needed to update your ID.

The customs officer barely looked at you as he handed it back. “Return for departure by nineteen-hundred. All goods subject to inspection upon reentry.” His voice was flat, already moving on to the next in line. “Enjoy your time on Victra.”

You lingered just past the checkpoint, leaning against a rail while you waited for May to clear inspection. The dimensional scanner always seemed worse on tired days, like it was peeling you apart just to reassemble you wrong. You rubbed your arms, resisting the urge to shake it off like a wet coat.

Finally, May emerged, looking no worse for wear and already scanning the crowd for somewhere to get caffeine. With a shared sigh of relief, the two of you stepped out of the spaceport and into the city proper.

The effect was immediate.

Warm air hit your face, dense with a heady blend of perfume and exhaust, sizzling meat and strange spices, ozone and sweat. Your ears rang with sound, music, shouting, haggling, laughter, and your eyes took in the chaos of a true borderworld bazaar. Towering buildings leaned over narrow streets. Neon signs flickered in a dozen languages. Beings from every edge of the galaxy brushed past you, their clothes glittering with color and purpose.

As you moved toward the heart of the open-air market, vendors began to call out, their voices rising above the din like songbirds in heat. Hands waved trinkets in your direction. Cloaks shimmered on racks in impossible fabrics. One stall boasted perfume distilled from meteor orchids. Another promised mood-altering lipstick, “banned in six systems.”

You slowed, unable to help yourself.

This, this was what made it worth it. The long hours. The shit pay. The second job, the secrecy, the stress. It was for moments like this, surrounded by beauty and chaos and things you weren’t supposed to want. Luxury wasn’t practical. But it was lovely. And lovely things didn’t come cheap.

In your pocket your hand tightened around your credit chit, already calculating what you could get away with spending.

“Fresh produce! Finest in the sector!” one called, waving a gleaming red fruit under your nose.

“Beautiful silks! Come and see!” another crooned, lifting a bolt of shimmering fabric that caught the light like liquid.

“Domestic droids! Top of the line, guaranteed satisfaction!”

You were engulfed almost instantly, the swarm of merchants closing in with eager voices and grasping hands.The smells, the noise, the sudden press of bodies, it hit you all at once, turning the vibrant market into a sensory overload. Your pulse spiked as colors blurred and voices stacked atop each other, each one louder and more insistent than the last. A slick sheen of sweat broke along your back as the crowd began to close in.

 It was May, of course, who stepped into the fray with a soldier’s resolve. With a firm grip on your sleeve and a withering glare for the nearest vendor, she yanked you out like she’d done it a hundred times before.

“No time for junk,” she muttered under her breath, barely breaking stride. “You linger in places like this, you leave lighter. Purse or organs.”

You cast one last look over your shoulder at the glittering fabrics and artful displays, already aching for the kind of luxury your day job could never afford. Then you turned back toward the shining towers ahead, following May’s lead as the streets gave way to Lycos, where the real money lived, and more importantly, where no one asked questions about how you got yours.

May, blissfully unfazed by your sudden willingness to splurge, wasted no time playing stylist-in-chief. She darted between racks and displays with gleeful abandon, tossing you lip pigments in colors you’d never dare wear on shift and holding up outfits with the shameless glee of someone shopping on someone else’s dime.

“You’re getting this for me,” she declared more than once, already halfway to the register before you could protest. And on the rare occasions she hesitated, glancing at a price tag a beat too long or quietly setting something aside, you’d gently nudge it back into her hands with a smirk. “Don’t make me put it in your basket myself.”

The afternoon blurred into color and chatter. Boutique to boutique, vendor to vendor, the two of you floated through the neon-slicked streets of Lycos with arms growing heavier and hearts lighter. You even hit the holo-guide café May had been raving about for weeks. It was absurdly trendy, hanging planters, digital koi swimming under transparent tabletops, foam art shaped like little stormtrooper helmets, but the pastries were warm and flaky, and the iced drink buzzing on your tongue tasted like joy.

For once, you didn’t think about your balance. Or your bandwidth. You just laughed. Laughed and sipped and let the sunlight pool across your thighs like you were any other girl in any other city, and not someone with one foot dangling off a ledge. 

It felt indulgent, dangerously so. But when you caught May eyeing the bottom of her drink like she could will it to refill itself, you found yourself blurting, “One more stop?”

She raised a brow. You waited for the teasing, the judgment.

To your surprise, she didn’t even flinch when you sheepishly proposed you head into the city a little deeper, toward a lux boutique you’d seen advertised on holo boards.

May just gave you a sly side-eye, then gestured dramatically. “After you, commander.”

It wasn’t exactly on the main strip. The deeper you wandered, the slicker the architecture got, buildings turning sleeker, windows glossier, and the pedestrians noticeably more styled and discreet. Neon signage dulled to minimalist logos, storefronts gleamed with quiet wealth, and even the street vendors seemed to whisper instead of shout.

When you finally reached it, the boutique barely announced itself. Just a curved doorway tucked into the base of a marble spire, framed in backlit script and the faintest shimmer of sensor glass

Étoile Noir- secrets stitched in silk
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Chapter Text

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Étoile Noir

The bell above the door chimed softly, a delicate tink that contrasted the weight of your steps as you crossed the threshold. Inside, everything was light and curated and expensive enough to make your skin prickle. The air smelled like almond and musky perfume, warm and sweet, 

A sharply dressed attendant appeared almost instantly, her dress a seamless sheath of black, her expression tighter than the bun pinned to the crown of her head. She greeted you with a practiced smile and eyes that swept across your heavy ladened bags in a way that told you she was already calculating her commission.

“Let me know if you need any help,” she chirped, waving you into the store. 

May leaned in as you stepped past her. “We are so out of our tax bracket,” she whispered. But you caught the glint in her eye. She was enjoying this.

And you? You were busy imagining the red light of your next stream catching the soft shadows of something gauzy.

Despite the attendant’s heady gaze, you pressed forward, pretending not to notice the subtle upturn of her nose. The boutique was quiet, cool, and cozy in its luxury. As you drifted deeper between sleek glass racks and tastefully lit displays, your fingertips grazed over the different textures, lace and silk sending a little thrill up your spine. You didn’t let yourself linger too long on any one piece, just enough to savor the look, to imagine how they might make you feel. 

May trailed beside you, her earlier enthusiasm fading into quiet observation. Her eyes flicked to the price tags, then back to you. Once. Twice. A third time. Her brows pinched ever so slightly.

You didn’t meet her eyes. Just kept tossing panties into the dainty little shopping basket like they weren’t each worth a full week’s pay. A matching bra followed. Then a garter set. She didn’t say anything until the sheer thigh-highs made their way into your hands. 

“So,” said May, a single finger lowering the package in your hands back down to the table, “Who are you fucking, the Supreme Leader or what?”

You snorted, louder than you meant to. Too loud. It cracked through the hush of the boutique like static.

May grinned like she’d found a live wire.

You blinked. “What?”

She gestured to the overflowing basket, incredulous. “Yeah there's just no other way. Did you get a secret sugar daddy when I wasn’t looking? Because I blinked and suddenly you’re shopping like a senator’s mistress.”

You gave a breathy laugh. The sound echoed off the high ceilings and reverberated somewhere deeper in your chest. 

She was joking, obviously. But she’d landed closer to the truth than she realized, and the laugh sat wrong in your chest.

May stepped in, grin fading when she noticed the stricken look on your face. “Hey,” she said, softer now. “I was just kidding…”

You didn’t look up.

“I’m not, not….” You sighed realizing once again that May was always paying closer attention to your emotions than anyone. 

She blinked. “Wait, what?”

“I’m not seeing anyone. I’m not being kept. But… you’re not wrong. I’m doing something. Something that pays.”

“Something dangerous?” Asked May.

You didn’t answer.

Her brows knit in an obvious display of concern. “Are you in trouble?”

You shook your head. “Not yet.”

She exhaled hard, one hand pushing back through her hair. “You’ve been off for weeks. You barely sleep. You flinch when ever I ask about what's going on. And now this?” She gestured wildly at the quickly overflowing basket, waiting for you to contradict her. “If you’re not going to tell me, fine. But don’t pretend nothing’s wrong.”

“I’m not pretending,” you said, and your voice cracked right down the middle. “I’m just….”

That did it.

She went quiet, her eyes searching your face with something between fear and . “Then let me help you. Whatever it is, just tell me.”

“I will.” You dragged in a breath. “Just not here.”

May held your gaze for a long moment. “Why not?”

Despite her good nature and years of friendship, you couldn’t shake the nagging feeling that some things were better left unsaid. Since your academy days, May had always looked out for you, making sure you ate, covering for you when you mistakenly dyed your hair that crazy non-regulation color, sitting beside you through every bout of homesickness. She was your closest friend, full stop.

 It wasn’t a matter of trust, not really. You knew she cared. But the idea of saying the words aloud, admitting what you’d been doing, made your stomach twist.

At first, it had been fun. Addictive, even. The anonymity. The attention. The power. You carried it with you everywhere, the confidence of it bleeding into every part of your life. But over time, that thrill had changed. Not into shame, no, never that. Just… pressure. A low, constant hum of expectation. To be bolder. Sexier. Smarter. To keep the streams fresh, the fanbase engaged. All while balancing a double workload and never letting anyone see the cracks.

You weren’t sure when it had stopped being a game and had just become you.

And there it was again, that gnawing weight, settling deep in your gut. The creeping fear of what you’d been doing and what it might cost. If anyone ever found out, if the First Order discovered your little backdoor into the network, it wouldn’t just be a matter of demotion or discharge. No, it’d be a tribunal. A full-scale military trial. 

Public disgrace. 

They’d write entire new sections of the protocol manual just to name and shame you. If you were lucky, maybe you could make it to the front end of a blaster before it went that far.

“This is not really the place.” You cautiously flicked a glance to the myriad of security cameras mounted across the room 

She swallowed, visibly working to rein herself back in. “You’re scaring me.”

“Good,” you whispered. “Because I’m scared too.”

The silence that followed wasn’t angry. It wasn’t even awkward. It was heavy. Real. Shared.

Then May stepped closer, her voice barely above a whisper. “When you’re ready… I’m here” and then louder “ But you better actually be ready. Because whatever you’re holding onto? It’s gonna crush you if you keep carrying it alone.”

You nodded, barely.

“Okay,” she managed to pull in a leveled breath. “Okay.”

Then she plucked a pale lilac set off the rack and tossed it into your basket without breaking eye contact. “You’re still buying me this, though. Emotional tax.”

Your mouth twitched. “Fine.”

“Good.”

A pause.

“Also, if you are fucking the Supreme Leader… I will never forgive you for not recording it.”

You rolled your eyes, and she bumped your hip with hers, just hard enough to remind you that she was still on your side.

By the time you boarded the return shuttle, your spirits were higher. The weight in your chest hadn’t gone away, but it dulled under the comfort of May’s chatter and the heavy shopping bags resting against your calves. You even managed to laugh, genuinely, when she asked if the real reason you’d insisted on the boutique was because you “expected her to model them for you”.

Back on board the Finalizer, the rest of the re-entry process went smoothly. Scanners. Clearance. The usual stares from people. unlucky enough to be stuck on the ship, who watched your bags longingly.

You parted ways with May in front of her door, directly across from yours. She blew you a kiss and called over her shoulder, “Don’t think I’ve forgotten, you still owe me answers. I expect a full debrief”

You watched her go. Then you exhaled, made your way back to your quarters, to collapse into the familiar embrace of your bed.

Punch in. Power down. Safe. For now.

“Ayema, status report,” you muttered, stretching out in your bunk cubby. your toes brushed one wall, your knuckles tapping the other.

Her voice came softly through the embedded speaker near your pillow. “Five standard units received for decommission. Two salvageable. One, less so. Diagnostics on queue six complete. New calibrations uploaded. No major flags.”

You yawned. “Anything else?”

A pause.

Then, almost too casually:

“User alert. Unusual activity detected: attempted access to encrypted sublayer at 13:47. Source: internal. Masked credentials.”

You froze mid stretch, arms still raised above your head.

And then you sat up, heart stuttering like a jammed gear.

“Repeat,” you croaked.

Ayema didn’t need to. You were already across the room, snatching the datapad and practically ripping the cord from the wall 

Unknown Sender:

Smile for the camera, sweetheart. You’re not nearly as anonymous as you think you are.

A slow, corrosive heat crawled its way into your throat. You stared at the words reading them over and over and over again.

Your grip tightened. The screen trembled in your hands.

No encryption. No traceable source. Just that message.

Short. Confident. Certain.

Whoever it was, they wanted you to know they’d been watching.

Not guessing. Not suspecting.

They knew.

Whatever this was, it was finally starting.

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Chapter Text

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You weren’t hyperventilating. You weren’t having a meltdown. 

“This isn’t not a melt down,” May offered helpfully from your bunk. 

You fished another tangled handful of tights from the drawer and hurled them into the growing pile at the center of the room.

“This is a perfectly normal reaction,” you muttered, just as a rather sizable purple rabbit vibe joined the chaos with an accusatory thud. 

“By all accounts,” she added, “this is the calmest I’ve seen you in weeks” 

Thirty minutes earlier you had been attempting to sort out exactly how to broach the subject with May in a way that didn’t end with the unmistakable implication that you would be depositing yourself into the nearest airlock. That’s when May walked in mid-purge.

She stopped just inside the doorway, one hand still on the panel, the other holding a small tray with two to-go cups and a paper bag that smelled like cinnamon.

Her eyes swept the room.

Clothes everywhere. Drawer after drawer emptied onto the floor. Lingerie, latex, mesh. A frankly alarming number of battery-operated devices forming a kind of obscene constellation across your bedding. 

She bent down slowly, setting the tray on the nearest flat surface, and picked up a leather flogger that had fallen too close to the door.

She turned it over in her hand once.

“Are you starting a sex club?” she asked.

You groaned and sank to your knees, hands in your hair. “God, I wish it was a sex club. Sex clubs have rules.”

May didn’t move. “I was coming here to stage a mild drug intervention. I brought pastries.”

“I’m not on drugs,” you muttered.

“I can see that now,” she lifted a pair of glittery pasties with all the solemnity of a scientist examining alien tech. “Unfortunately, this appears to be much worse.”

And so you told her everything. 

Sitting cross-legged in the wreckage of your life, you started to explain. How it started. How it spiraled. How it all went so terribly, stupidly wrong.

You told her about the first time, nervous, masked, thinking no one would even watch. About the name you’d picked, the setup you’d hidden in plain sight, the filters, the fans, the ways you thought you’d protected yourself.

You told her about the messages. The money. The slow, poisonous thrill of it. The way you started measuring days in credits, in tips, in unread DMs. How you kinda-sorta had a crush on one of your patrons. How it started getting darker, and weirder, and personal.

And finally, you told her about the message. The one from last night.

You’re not nearly as anonymous as you think you are.

May was quiet for a long moment. Then:

“So we are hiding a body, then.”

A laugh escaped you, too loud, too sharp, but real. “Not yet,”

She nodded solemnly, setting the pasties down on the top of the pile. “Okay. But we’re establishing that as a firm plan B.”

You wiped at your face, only just realizing you’d started to cry.

May sat down next to you without asking, using the toe of her shoe to clear a spot.

“I should be mad at you,” she said eventually. “For not telling me. For putting yourself at risk. For making me sit on the same bed after all… that” she gestured vaguely at the pile “without consent.”

You gave her a watery smile. “You can be mad. Just… maybe later?”

She nodded. “Deal.”

The two of you sat and ate the pastries. An odd tableau, two women cross-legged in a minefield of underwear and sex toys, sipping lukewarm tea like this was just another Tuesday.

It felt less like cleaning and more like crime scene decontamination.

May moved with surprising efficiency, rolling cords, stacking toys, stripping your sheets without judgment. She paused only once, holding up a cherry red lace set with matching thigh harnesses.

“Ooo,” she said, admiring the stitching. “Can I keep this one?”

You blinked. “Uh. Yeah. Have at it.”

“You sure?”

“Trust me,” you said, hurling a metallic corset into the nearest bag, “I’m not gonna miss it.”

To her credit, May didn’t flinch. Not when she found the ball gag, not when she uncovered the bag of faux pearls, not even when she held up the tail plug between two fingers like a used tissue.

“Well,” she said dryly, dropping it into a burn bag, “at least you have taste.”

You made a strangled noise, half-gasp, half-hysterical-laugh. “Oh my god, I’m going to die.”

“Not before we bleach this entire room,” May said. “Twice.”

You did hold on to a few things.

Your daily riders. The basics. The new pieces you’d picked out just yesterday, still with the tags on, too pretty to torch. And, of course, the maximum number of toys a woman in her mid-twenties could reasonably be expected to own.

The rest?

The wigs, the props, the elaborate sets and signature lingerie. Even your fuzzy bantha plush. All of it went into the bags.

And then the bags made their way to the incinerator.

Back in your quarters, the room felt hollow. Stripped down. Sanitized.

Like Aurora had never lived there at all.

You sat on the edge of your bunk, the smell of ash still clinging to your clothes. 

Ayema’s interface flickered quietly on your desk. The pulsing blue light of her idle loop rhythmically blinked. 

One last piece of evidence. You swallowed.

“Ayema,” you said gently.

The screen hummed, then bloomed to life with her familiar voice, soft, clipped, round-edged.

“Yes?”

You hesitated, thumb rubbing the edge of the data chip in your hand.

“I need you to transfer your core protocols to external storage.”

A pause.

Then, quieter:

“Is it time?”

You blinked hard. “Yeah. It’s time.”

A soft click sounded as Ayema opened the access tray, her interface blinking patiently. With shaking hands you slid in the data chip and pushed the tray closed. The transfer bar began crawling across the screen. A quiet chime echoed in the room, soothing and final.

May turned around and finally seemed to register what was happening. “Wait,” she said. “Is that… is she…”

You nodded. “She’s the encryption key. Every comm bounce, every layer of masking I used. It all went through her.”

A soft click sounded, and the access tray slid open. 

Ayema’s voice again, this time a little slower:

“I did well?”

That cracked something within you.

You pressed your hand to your mouth, barely holding it together “You did everything, Ayema. You kept me safe.”

“I liked being useful.”

May looked like she might cry too, but instead she stepped forward and held out her hand.

You removed the chip and placed it in her palm like a relic. “Hide it. Deep. Somewhere no one will ever find it.”

She nodded once, fingers closing over it.

Ayema’s screen flickered one last time.

“Goodnight.”

And then she was gone.

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Chapter Text

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Mid-morning on the day after the Victra detour, General Armitage Hux returned to his office with the kind of sharpened sense of purpose he hadn’t felt since he first found you.

The stop had raised eyebrows, Victra wasn’t exactly a strategic fueling location, but the whispers were easily quelled. Officially, it had been a logistics decision. Unofficially… well. No one questioned the General when he made adjustments. Not if they valued their assignments.

He moved through the polished halls of the Finalizer with something akin to anticipation in his step. Precise. Efficient. The pieces were falling into place.

The fueling schedule had been rearranged. Orders placed. Packages rerouted. Requests discreetly handled.

He had what he needed.

Hux stepped into his office and keyed the door shut behind him.

There were reports to read. Directives to approve. A meeting in two hours he should prepare for.

He made himself sit.

Made himself work.

Every minute stretched. Every page reviewed twice, not out of necessity, but because he refused to give in too early.

When the final file closed, he allowed a breath. Tapped the corner of the screen. Switched to the page he hadn’t stopped thinking about since you’d gone dark a week ago.

Only to find it gone.

Aurora’s profile had been wiped.

Not locked. Not suspended.

Erased.

His hand hovered, disbelieving. Then tapped again. And again. The server returned nothing. No broken link. No archive. No trace.

The chair creaked beneath him.

This was you. You’d done it. Cut the cord.

Without warning. Without permission.

His jaw locked.

He stared at the blank screen until his vision blurred, until the heat behind his eyes turned sharp. Then he opened the backup files. Every saved recording. Every frame. Every soundbite. Archived.

You weren’t escaping.

Not from him.

He started looking in earnest.

Nova server logs. Firewall breaches. Proxy pings. Nothing.

Floor layouts next. Bunk assignments. Access logs. Docking records. Dozens of cameras. Hundreds of faces. No sign of you.

He searched employee bank records.

A few red flags. Increased spending. One anonymous transfer that almost fit.

Not enough.

He cross-referenced every name on every sector’s personnel list. Then the next ship over. Then the entire engineering registry. Flipped through files until they blurred together.

Eyes. Ages. Ranks. Records. He followed the threads until they looped into knots.

You hadn’t transferred, he would’ve seen the request. You hadn’t been discharged. Or detained. Or killed.

You had to be here.

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The orders were signed by morning.

A full-tier security audit. Immediate. Comprehensive. Unrestricted.

They’d call it a spy hunt, because that’s what he told them it was. A breach in communications. An external leak. Protocols compromised.

He didn’t even flinch when he said it aloud.

The men and women he assigned knew better than to ask questions. Not when Hux’s voice dropped into that particular register. Not when he used the word traitor.

He watched the operation unfold from the command deck monitors, hands clasped behind his back, mouth tight.

He did not blink.

Stormtroopers moved through the dormitory halls in coordinated waves. Bunks flipped. Datapads confiscated. Lockers dumped. Storage bins overturned.

Every room. Every hallway.

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Down on Subsection G, May was jolted awake by the sharp knock and immediate override. She sat up groggily, blinking against the hallway light pouring in.

“What the hell?”

Two troopers entered without speaking. Another lingered at the door, scanning.

“Remain seated,” the first one barked.

May stiffened. “Okay, but maybe try asking next time instead of kicking in the damn-”

Her voice cut off as one of them yanked open her locker, dumping its contents to the floor. The other crossed to her desk and grabbed her datapad.

“Hey! That’s mine!”

No response. The soldier swiped through her messages like she wasn’t there.

May’s pulse kicked up, but she didn’t move. She followed directions, kept her hands visible, didn’t argue.

Still no reaction. Her mattress was lifted. Her storage bin cracked open.

She glanced across the hall, at your room. Untouched. Still sealed.

Her stomach dropped.

They weren’t looking for a spy.

They were looking for you.

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Hux paced his the deck like a caged predator, the live feeds rotating across his monitors. Officers reported in at intervals. No leads. No suspicious activity. A few encrypted chips. One unregistered AI core flagged, 

“Salvaged, sir. Not operational.”

He deleted the report without reading further.

Rubbed his temple.

“Sir,” Mitaka said gently from the terminal behind him, “if I may… we’ve searched half the ship’s quarters. Nothing’s come up. Should we begin the interviews?”

“Not yet,” Hux snapped. “No one speaks to anyone. Not until we finish the sweep.”

He leaned over the desk, breathing hard.

“She’s here. I know she is.”

The silence that followed felt pointed. Unbearable.

Hux’s eyes flicked to the surveillance display, flipping rapidly through quadrant feeds, hallways, bunks, mechanical bays, mess halls.

Nothing.

Nothing.

Nothing, 

And then, 

Subsection G. Dormitory deck.

Body cam footage from Unit 438.

The view jolted slightly as the trooper stepped through a cramped corridor, the HUD blinking with room identifiers. Section tags updated along the edge of the screen.

G-201… G-202… G-203…

The image stuttered, then refocused. Another room torn apart. A woman, dark hair, startled expression, sat tensely on her bunk as troopers rifled through her belongings.

Hux narrowed his eyes, mind immediately conjuring her file. 

 May McClean. Tactical systems reparations specialist. Close-knit with other crew. A little too clever. A little too friendly.

Not who he was looking for.

But then the camera shifted, just slightly, and caught the door across the hall.

Still closed.

Still untouched.

He straightened, pulse kicking up.

That room, unsearched. Unlisted. No name on the overlay. Tucked into the corner like an afterthought. Easy to miss.

Or easy to hide.

“Unit 438,” Hux said sharply, tapping the comm. “Room across the hall. G-204. Clear it. Now.”

A beat of static.

“Sir, it’s not on the primary manifest, ”

“I know,” Hux snapped. “Do it.”

His eyes never left the screen as the feed jolted forward.

The troopers moved. The door loomed. The entry code was keyed in. The panel light flashed, 

And then it began to open.

The light blinked green.

You were brushing your teeth.

Not in any hurry. Not expecting company. The hum of the sonic brush filled the small space, and the mirror, slightly warped from age, reflected only fatigue. A loose shirt. Bare feet. Tired eyes.

The door cracked open behind you.

A mechanical hiss.

Rubber soles.

Movement.

You turned, mouth still full of foam.

“Do you mind-?”

The words didn’t land. A trooper was already inside. Another followed. Then a third.

You spat reflexively, wiped your mouth on your sleeve, and stared.

The lead trooper raised his blaster.

“Remain still.”

Your heart didn’t race. Not yet. It dropped. Like a sinking weight.

Because you already knew,

Not the details. Not the why.

But you’d been waiting for this.

You thought maybe it would come quietly. A message. A summons. A polite little administrative note tucked into your inbox, citing violations of First Order code.

Unauthorized transmissions.

Inappropriate content.

Network misuse.

You could have argued those.

Could have written a statement, requested counsel, pled ignorance.

But this, 

This wasn’t a warning.

This was a raid.

And suddenly you weren’t a clever girl boosting off a signal. You were a traitor. 

On the other side of the surveillance feed, Hux didn’t blink.

Your hair was unkempt. No makeup. The lighting was awful. You were simply… ordinary. And somehow that made it worse.

You looked like you’d just woken up.

You looked real.

He watched the image flicker slightly, poor resolution from the hallway relay, and studied your reaction frame by frame.

Not terrified.

Not confused.

Just… resigned.

You thought you knew what this was about.

And you were wrong.

He’d prepared for this moment a dozen different ways. Fantasized about it, even, how he’d confront you, what he’d say, how you’d look when you realized who had been watching.

But not like this.

He should have felt triumphant. Vindicated. Even cruel. Instead, something colder took root, a precise, sinking awareness that this was the wrong moment to strike.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go.

He stepped away from the monitor, hands twitching behind his back. The silence in the room was suffocating.

Not barefoot and bleary, no persona in sight. Not looking so… vulnerable.

So small. So human.

This wasn’t Aurora.

This was you. The mechanic. The problem.

Problems were meant to be dealt with on his terms. 

And now he had the confirmation he’d been searching for, the room, the schedule, the face, and he could end it. He could drag you in, rip the story out of you piece by piece, ruin you entirely.

But he didn’t.

He stepped back from the monitor. Hands behind his back. Breathing measured.

“Stand down,” he said.

Mitaka blinked. “Sir?”

“Unit 438. Leave the room intact. Return to sweep rotation.”

“But, ”

“It’s not her.” Hux’s voice was clipped, final. “I’ve seen enough.”

A pause.

The weight of it hung thick in the air.

Mitaka gave a tight nod, already logging the override.

Hux watched the feed one last time.

You sat on the edge of the bed now, silent, motionless. Still braced for the crash that never came.

You could keep waiting.

Chapter Text

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It was disconcerting, the way hours could cool into days and then solidify, quietly, inevitably, into rapidly accumulating weeks.

Even then, the habits never fully left. You still hesitated before opening doors, still paused for the wrong voice to call your name. Still woke, sometimes, to the sound of phantom boots outside your bedroom.

But nothing came.

No knock. No summons. No second sweep. No signs that the raid had anything to do with you at all. 

Ayema stayed silent. Her chip remained buried, safely out of rotation. Reinstalling her felt too final, like inviting the past back in through the front door, so the silence lingered, and you let it.

Time passed differently now. It no longer fractured into panicked moments or scraped-together schedules. It stretched. Smoothed. Began to resemble something like a life again.

Sleep returned first. Uneasy, then deeper. Unbroken. Your hands stopped shaking. Your breath didn’t catch every time the lights flickered in the corridor.

Then came the meals, shared, forgettable. The cafeteria food was as bad as ever, but you found yourself talking again. Listening. May filled the silence with updates from her shifts, her cousin’s engagement, the tangled mess of a love triangle in some pirated novella. You listened. Sometimes, you even laughed.

There was a day, maybe the third week in, when you stayed late in the workshop just because. No deadline. No assignment. Just a melted relay and the quiet satisfaction of doing something right. Your hands moved with practiced confidence, like they’d never forgotten how. Like they’d simply been waiting for you to remember you could.

You didn’t notice the time until Brenn appeared in the doorway, two mugs in hand, wearing that tilted half-smile he always wore when he wasn’t sure he should be there.

He didn’t mention the sweep. Didn’t ask where you’d been. Just handed you the caf and leaned against the wall like it was the most natural thing in the world.

You should’ve been suspicious. But the warmth of the mug made your hands ache.

He came back the next day.

And the day after.

Eventually, it stopped feeling like a pattern.

It just was.

But some nights, you couldn’t stop thinking about the files.

The ones you’d deleted. The ones you were sure you’d wiped clean. The ones Ayema had buried beneath layers of bounce and interference before you tore her memory out like a rotten root.

You told yourself they were gone.

But data was stubborn. It lingered. In caches. In fragmented backups. In servers you forgot you’d touched. Waiting to be opened by the wrong hands.

And there had been the viewers.

Hundreds of thousands of them.

People saved things. People passed them around. You’d wake sometimes with the image already in your head, your body, your voice, your hands, caught mid-frame in someone else’s archive. A copy of a copy of a girl who no longer existed.

When was someone going to recognized you?

It was tempting to believe it was all just paranoia. And then Torrek started making comments again.

Nothing direct. Just the way he looked at you in the corridor, too long. The way he waited outside the lift like he just happened to be there. The way his voice shifted whenever May wasn’t around.

“You’ve been quiet lately,” he said one morning, lingering too close at the caf dispenser. “Guess we all need our rest, right?”

You didn’t answer. Didn’t stop walking.

He wasn’t important.

Just another tech who thought he could get away with staring. Just another man with too much time and not enough consequence.

And yet, there was something about the way he said it, 

like he knew something.

like he wanted you to know he knew.

It took you two days to decide to ask.

Not because you didn’t need it.

But because asking meant admitting the silence wasn’t working anymore.

May was hunched over a bench in her workshop when you found her, goggles pushed up in her hair, sleeves rolled to her elbows, a half-dismantled servo splayed open under her palms. She looked up at the sound of your boots but didn’t say anything.

You didn’t make small talk.

Didn’t circle the subject.

You just said, “I need the chip.”

For a moment, she didn’t move.

Just blinked. Looked at you like she wasn’t sure she’d heard right.

Then, 

A soft breath.

A nod.

She didn’t ask why.

“Give me a minute,” she said, brushing her hands on a rag and disappearing behind one of the tall storage units.

You heard the scrape of metal. The sound of a chair being dragged. May climbed up onto it like she’d done it before. Pulled the ceiling grate open. Reached blindly into the dark.

When she came down, the chip was taped inelegantly to a small hunk of metal. Safe. She handed it to you like it might break. Like maybe you might.

“Didn’t even touch it,” she said. “Didn’t want to risk activating anything.”

You nodded. Tried to thank her.

Didn’t quite manage it.

May didn’t press. Just gave your shoulder a squeeze and went back to her bench, muttering something about rusted torque rings.

You left without saying goodbye.

You sat with it for an hour.

Then two.

You told yourself you were tired. That you’d do it after a meal, after a shower, after you cleared the work orders from your datapad.

But none of those things happened.

You ended up cross-legged on the floor, back against your bunk, breathing like you’d run a mile, fingers clenched tight around a chipped connector.

When the port lit green, your throat closed.

A soft whir. A flicker of code. A static pulse through the room.

And then, 

That voice.

“Systems online. Hello.”

The relief punched through your chest.

Ayema’s core was running a default scan, slow, methodical, just as you’d programmed her. Her tone was neutral. Empty. 

You swallowed hard.

“Ayema?”

“Active.”

“Do you know who I am?”

A pause.

The screen blinked once. Then twice. A processing delay. And then, 

“Yes.”

The tears came before you could stop them. Not loud. Just steady. A quiet, ugly undoing. You pressed the heels of your hands to your eyes and tried to breathe around it.

“Are you… Are you angry I shut you down?”

Another pause. Then:

“I experienced a lapse. I did not interpret it as abandonment.” A beat. “You were afraid.”

You laughed, half-broken, wiped your face on your sleeve.

“Yeah,” you whispered. “I was.”

“Am I needed again?”

That did it.

You folded forward, her metal hull whirring against your chest, and cried like you hadn’t since the night you locked her away.

“Yeah,” you finally managed, between sobs. “I think I need you more than ever.”

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Chapter Text

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You’d been half inside the auxiliary lift console for the better part of twenty minutes, knees hooked over the lip of the access hatch, your torso swallowed by the narrow crawl space behind the paneling. 

Heat from the coolant lines pressed against your ribs. You had one arm threaded awkwardly past a tangle of fiber conduits, the other braced against a pipe as you coaxed the relay from its mount. Just one more twist, just one more adjustment,

The dizziness hit without warning. A sudden spin, like the space itself had rotated ninety degrees. Your grip slackened. The relay blurred in your vision.

You swallowed against the nausea and tried to breathe through it, forehead grazing the piping. The angle was too tight to straighten fully.

“Almost there,” you muttered to no one.

The tool slipped from your hand, clattering somewhere deep in the console. From far away, muffled through the paneling, you heard Brenn’s voice. “You good in there?”

You opened your mouth to answer, but the shadows crowded in fast.

By the time your knees unhooked and you started to slide forward, Brenn was already reaching in after you, one arm around your middle, hauling you out into the bay

The deck came up under you hard enough to jolt the breath from your chest. For a moment you stayed there, flat on your back, the ceiling a bright blur above you. Treads moved past in quick, purposeful strides, voices clipped and low, a relay was down, work orders were stacking, no one had time to stop.

The buzz of it all pressed in from all sides, steady and deafening, and you couldn’t tell if the vibration in your bones was from the floor or your own pulse. The edges of the room kept tilting, sliding in and out of focus.

Brenn knelt beside you, blocking the worst of the overhead glare. There was a line between his brows you’d never seen before, his jaw set too tight.. He didn’t speak right away, just stayed there, his hand still braced against your ribs like he wasn’t sure if you’d try to sit up too soon.

“Easy,” he said finally, the word low enough that it almost got lost in the noise around you.

Consciousness returned in fragments,  a glare, the low mechanical sigh of air recyclers, the faint beeping of equipment humming somewhere just out of sight.

The cot under you was narrow and rigid, its synthetic cover catching faintly against your skin when you shifted. A partition curtain bisected the space, half-drawn, its fabric unmoving in the still air. Beyond it, shadows crossed and recrossed the far wall as med staff passed between stations.

Your first thought was of the relay, half-installed, wires exposed. If Brenn had to call someone else in, it would go on your record as incomplete. The thought of falling behind made your stomach tighten harder than whatever had just happened.

A medic stepped into view, eyes on a portable monitor in their hand. “Low blood pressure,” they said, scrolling with a gloved thumb. “Iron deficiency. Dehydration. Elevated cortisol levels.” Their tone was even, impersonal, numbers and systems, not people.

“Have you been under any unusual stress?” they asked without looking up.

“Yes,” you said, because it was quicker than explaining. There wasn’t a single person on board who wasn’t. 

That was enough. They tapped something into the datapad, reached into the cabinet, and set a dark green bottle on the tray beside your cot.

“A low-dose anxiolytic,” they said. “Benzodiazepine class. Take one as needed, no more than twice daily. It’ll keep your system level until you’re back on rotation.”

No questions about why the stress was there in the first place. No suggestion of rest beyond the mandatory. The military kept you functional. It never cared to look for the root of the problem.

They logged the prescription, marked two days off in your file, and were already moving toward the next cot before you’d touched the bottle.

The medic was replaced almost immediately by a nurse droid. It rolled to your bedside, optical sensors blinking in sequence as it recited your discharge instructions.

“Drink two liters of water daily. Engage in fifteen minutes of controlled breathing exercises. Avoid high-stress situations.”

The last part would’ve been almost funny if it weren’t impossible.

It pressed a confirmation pad into your palm, waited for your thumbprint, then wheeled away.

Your quarters felt heavier when you stepped inside. Two days off sounded generous until you pictured the work orders stacking in your absence. You dropped your tool belt just inside the threshold. It slumped against the wall, a dead weight. 

Ayema’s frame stood in her usual place beside the desk, indicator light steady, silent. 

The bottle from the med bay waited on the small table, its plastic catching the overhead glow casting the pills inside in candy colors. You pulled out the chair and sat. Elbows on the table. The bottle turned between your hands. The pills shifted inside,  tiny, pale, harmless-looking.

You knew exactly what they’d do. Slow the heartbeat. Blur the edges. Make the next forty-eight hours feel manageable, even if nothing changed.

Your thumb hovered over the compression lid. One could take the tightness out of your chest.

But it wouldn’t finish the relay.

It wouldn’t stop the pile from growing.

It wouldn’t keep the other shoe from falling.

You set the bottle down without breaking the seal.

“One personal message,” Ayema said.

The sound cut through the quiet like a dropped wrench. You looked over; her indicator burned brighter now, a steady, deliberate beat.

“Priority designation,” she added. “Two days in holding.”

You leaned back in your chair. Messages held that long didn’t happen by accident. They were flagged, copied, dissected by review officers before release, if they were released at all.

“Show me.”

Ayema’s indicator pulsed once. Twice. Processing. You felt your pulse match it, each beat heavier than the last. There was a faint delay before the feed resolved, long enough for your chest to tighten.

Then your brother's face filled the frame. The angle was slightly off, like he’d started recording before the cam was settled. A shadow cut across one side, deepening the hollows under his eyes. His left arm was clamped to his ribs, every shift of his shoulders tight and deliberate.

“We’ve fallen behind again,” he said quietly, the words a condemnation. “And they’re done talking.”

His jaw tightened, a flicker of something dangerous in his eyes before he looked away, as if even saying it aloud risked too much.

A door opened somewhere off-screen, a brief wash of light, the faint edge of voices. His gaze tracked it, then came back to the lens, sharper now.

“They’ve started asking about Mara,” he said, voice steady in the way it always was when he was holding it together for you. 

“And making plans” 

Your stomach turned before your mind caught up, the words sliding into place with a weight you didn’t want to name. Mara was only seven.

He hesitated, then: “Just… whatever you can do, do it soon.”

The feed cut.

The table between you and Ayema felt wider than it had a moment ago. The bottle sat in its center like an accusation.

Your hands  moved before you’d decided. Thumb on the release. One pill slid free into your palm, smooth, chalk pale.

You turned it over once. Thought of your brother’s busted lip, the shadow in his voice when he said her name. Shook out another.

They sat in your hand for a moment, weightless, harmless looking. You tipped them both onto your tongue, swallowed dry.

You leaned back in the chair and waited for the edges to blur.

⋆˙⟡⋆｡°✩

Chapter Text

⋆˙⟡⋆｡°✩

You weren’t supposed to be here.

Two days off meant stay in your quarters, rest, drink water, take the damn pills, stay out of sight. Instead, you found yourself walking the familiar route to the workshop, the quiet between shifts amplifying every step.

Twenty thousand credits. You’d turned the number in your mind until it lost all meaning, until it was just a weight pressing against your ribs. There were ways to make that kind of money, at least in theory, but you were already on thin ice as it was. Nova Girls wasn’t the hidden corner of the galaxy it used to be, every week it felt like more eyes were finding their way in, and fewer shadows were left to hide behind.

No detours. No pretense of checking a parts manifest. You went straight to Bay 3, where you knew May would be, half-buried in some stubborn project.

She looked up when you crossed the threshold, pushing her goggles onto her forehead. “You’re supposed to be off,” she said.

“I need to talk to you.” The words came out flat. No jokes, no excuses. Just the truth pressing at the back of your teeth.

“Is this about your fainting?” May leaned back on her stool, wiping her hands on a rag. “You’re not pregnant, are you?”

Your head snapped up. “What? No! I’ve never even- no.”

May smirked, tossing the rag aside. “Had to ask. You’ve got that look.”

“It’s not that.” You could already feel the heat in your face. “It’s… something else.”

The smirk faded. May straightened, bracing one elbow on the workbench. “Alright. What’s going on?”

“I’ve told you before I was sending money home,” you said.

“Yeah.” Quiet now. “Your family.”

You nodded. “I didn’t get into why.” The words sat heavy, but you forced them out. “My brother’s been holding everything together, work, the house, the girls. Without him…” You swallowed hard. “There’s a debt. Not the kind that takes payment plans.”

May’s hands stilled, her eyes narrowing just enough to show she understood exactly what you meant.

You stared at the floor before pushing the rest out. “They’ve said… if the debt isn’t paid, they’re going to take her.”

“Her?”

“My niece, Mara.” The name lodged  in your throat. You’d never even gotten to meet her, born after you’d left on your first assignment. Only images flickering on a comm screen. Big eyes. Dark hair. A laugh you’d heard once before the signal cut. “She’s seven. And they mean it, May. They’ll do it.”

The air between you seemed to shrink. May leaned forward, her voice low. “How much?”

You told her. Her eyes widened. “That’s way more than we could scrape together.”

“I know.”

“You could ask-”

“I’m not asking anyone,” you cut in. “Even if I did, it wouldn’t be enough. Not in time.”

May’s gaze held yours. “So… what’s your plan?”

You exhaled, the words tasting like iron. “Just one more stream.”

May blinked. “You don’t mean just… the usual?”

You shook your head. “No. I mean enough credits in one night to cover everything. Which means…” The next words stuck, refusing to come out. You pushed them through anyway “I have to do like… real hardcore porn.”

May’s eyebrows shot up, but her face stayed steady. And then, because she was May, her mouth ticked up. “So… who’s gonna do you? I’m free in twenty min-”

“I was thinking Brenn.” Brenn, who caught you when you fell. Who never pressed for more than you were willing to give. Whose glances carried no edge of leering calculation only that disarming steadiness you’d come to rely on. You’d begun to trust him. Enough, maybe, to give him this piece of yourself. 

“Oh. Yeah. Brenn.” She nodded too fast. “Totally Brenn. Good choice.” The smile cracked into a grimace.

Silence stretched. Too long for May, who never let quiet linger if she could help it May rubbed at a grease mark on the bench that wouldn’t come off. 

“You’re serious.”

You nodded.

She blew out a slow breath. “Alright. Then my job is to make sure you don’t get yourself killed before the credits clear.”

You managed a thin smile, but the weight stayed. Heavy and unmovable.

May had been the one to set it up. “If you’re serious about this,” she’d said, “you should talk to Brenn. He’s on security detail, knows his way around the ship’s blind spots. I’ll tell him to meet you somewhere quiet.”

Which was how you ended up in one of the secondary server rooms, tucked deep enough into the ship’s belly that the corridors leading here were almost always empty.

The room was narrow, lined with banks of servers that rose taller than both of you, their faces alive with constellations of green, amber, and blue diodes. Light fractured across the walls in jagged geometry, catching the dust motes mid air. The effect gave the whole space a shifting ethereal haze. 

Brenn was already there, leaning against the far wall with his knees drawn up, a coil of patch cable resting in his lap. He looked up at you with mild curiosity. “May said you wanted to talk.”

You nodded and crossed the room, dropping down to sit beside him. The floor was cool through your coveralls, the light from the racks washing across your boots in fractured color.

For a while you just listened to the fans cycle. Then: “It’s about my family.”

You told him everything.

Not all at once, not cleanly,  but enough for him to piece it together. Your brother’s injury, the debt, the fate that awaited your pretty little niece.

His eyes sharpened in curiosity, but he didn’t push. You looked down at your hands, turning your thumbs over one another until the skin felt raw.

“I’ve been doing something,” you said slowly, “off-shift. It’s… a side thing. Online.”

A beat. The servers clicked softly in the dark.

“It’s… cam work,” you finished. The words landed flat in the space between you. “Streams. For credits. Enough to make a difference.”

You forced yourself to glance up, bracing for, what? Disgust? Questions?

Instead, Brenn’s expression didn’t shift much at all. A faint crease settled between his brows, like he was running calculations in his head.

“People… pay to watch you… do what?”

The way he said it wasn’t mocking or lewd,  more a quiet confirmation, like he was making sure he understood you correctly.

You exhaled through your nose. No turning back now.

“Touch myself. Talk to them. Pretend they’re the only one in the room.” The words felt strange out loud, clinical in your own mouth, like you were describing a job you’d only observed, from afar. 

Brenn gave a slow nod, his gaze fixed somewhere on the floor between you. “And you think one more of these streams could cover what you need?”

“Not just any stream,” you said, pulse ticking faster. “It has to be bigger. Different.”

His head turned toward you, interest sharpening. “Different how?”

You stared at the pattern of colored light shifting over your boots. “I’m… a virgin.”

The fan noise seemed louder in the space that followed.

Brenn didn’t move right away. Then he shifted, stretching one leg out, his shoulder brushing yours in the narrow space against the wall. “And you want the first time to be…” He trailed off, leaving you to finish it.

“On camera. For enough credits to clear everything.”

You turned your head toward him, searching his profile in the shifting light. “I want you to be the one.”

That got him to look at you fully. Not a snap of surprise, just a slow shift, as though weighing the request before reacting. “Me.”

“Yes.”

A short silence. His mouth curved, but not into a smile, more like he was testing how the words tasted before saying them. “That’s… a lot to ask.”

“I know.”

Another beat. His gaze dropped to the floor between you, then back to your face. “You’re sure you want to do this?” A pause, softer. “With me?”

You blinked, startled. Who else would it be?

“I wouldn’t be asking if I wasn’t.”

Brenn gave a small nod, like he’d reached the end of some private calculation. The colored diodes flickered across his face, breaking his expression into pieces you couldn’t quite read.

He didn’t move away. If anything, his shoulder pressed a little more firmly against yours, the warmth of it grounding you in the cold, dry air of the server room. After a breath his arm can up, tentative at first, then steady across your back. Not a cage, just a quiet weight drawing you in.

“Alright,” he said quietly. “We’ll figure it out.”

Chapter Text

⋆˙⟡⋆｡°✩

Every morning, a summary packet appeared on his private terminal,  just another thin folder in a queue of dozens. Your folder.

It was a neat little digest of your existence:

The assignments you’d closed the previous day, timestamps for completed work orders.

Every door you’d badged into, mapped in order.

How many minutes you’d spent in each location.

He read it the way other men might read the morning’s reports from the front, eyes flicking over the lines, marking trends. The week you stopped going to the cafeteria. The two days you never left the lower decks. The return to your workshop after a long absence.

He hadn’t missed the notation from Medical.

“Syncope episode. Iron deficiency. Hydration deficiency. Prescribed anxiolytics. Two days leave.”

The clinical phrasing did nothing to blunt the image of you crumpling in some narrow, overheated corner of the ship. For a moment, he’d been almost… concerned. Irritating, how quickly the feeling passed.

He’d already seen the family message before it reached you, of course, your comm traffic had been flagged for weeks. He hadn’t needed to listen to the whole thing to understand the leverage it offered.

He had let you go.

Not because he couldn’t take you, but because victory without sport was hollow. Ending it in that cramped little room, catching you bleary-eyed and barefoot, would have been… unsatisfying.

A hunter didn’t spring the trap before the prey had wandered past the bait, far enough that retreat was no longer possible.

Now, the board looked exactly as he wanted it.

Every piece in motion, every move recorded. You could walk the length of the ship or vanish into the quietest corner of the lower decks, it made no difference. He would know.

The alerts were his own addition, buried so deep in the network that even the Nova moderators wouldn’t notice. Anything that so much as hinted at her account—a login attempt, a transfer of credits, an unlisted stream title—would route directly to him before anyone else.

It had been weeks since the last one worth opening. He’d come to expect the monotony.

Until this morning.

The notice appeared midway through an otherwise dull security digest, tucked between a reactor inspection report and a routine badge audit. His hand stilled on the datapad when he saw the source. Nova.

He opened it.

A single frame filled the display, you, but not you. The image was calculated, deliberate. Lighting and composition chosen to leave the suggestion sharper than any explicit act. The kind of thing meant to be passed around, dissected by thousands of hungry eyes, the caption promising something you’d never offered before.

A commercial.

He studied it for a long moment, the faint curl of his mouth almost, but not quite, a smile.

The thumbnail opened into a slow, deliberate frame. You sat at the edge of the bed,  not the warm, cluttered set he knew, but something pared down to its essentials: black sheets, low light, shadows pooling around your bare thighs.

The lingerie was familiar. He remembered the first time you’d worn it, a coy, almost careless choice then. Here, it was deliberate, every strap adjusted, every line clean.

A caption glowed in stark white: “One night only. No rewinds.”

You leaned toward the lens, your gaze locked and unblinking. “You’ve been patient,” you said, voice low, unhurried. “You’ve been… loyal.” A pause. Your lips parted, the faintest catch in her breath. “It’s time I gave you everything.”

And then, a hand.

A man’s hand. Broad, veined, the tendons shifting under the skin as it came into frame, settling over your shoulder with a quiet claim. You didn’t look at it, didn’t flinch, but the strap of your lingerie eased down under his thumb in one smooth, practiced motion.

The video cut to black.

29:59

A countdown clock bloomed in the center of the screen, pulsing with each passing second. Beneath it, a single title:

‘Aurora: First & Only’

The countdown burned into his vision, each pulse louder in his mind louder than the last. Thirty minutes.

Your eyes had been on the lens, but the hand, that man’s hand, had been the true message. A claim, a trespass. 

Who? Who had been granted what was his by right of obsession? Ren? An officer in his own command? A wretched enlisted man barely worth his boots? The possibilities multiplied like vermin, each one more unthinkable than the last. He felt the skin of his palms strain against the gloves, leather protesting under the violence of his grip.

He keyed in the trace without thinking, pulling up Nova’s routing map. The first hop appeared instantly, then the next. He followed them in sequence, slicing past firewalls like they were nothing.

Nothing.

Every path dead-ended in noise, deliberate interference, bounces so clean they might as well have been designed to mock him. He tried again, forcing the network to bleed raw data onto his screen. Scraps of locations, packet fragments, enough to prove the signal existed but never enough to fix a point.

Twenty-seven minutes.

He flipped to shipboard logs, badge swipes, security cam feeds, maintenance rosters, looking for her face, her build, her gait. No match. Not in the last hour. Not in the last day.

Twenty-five minutes.

Mitaka’s voice broke over the comm. “General? We’re due in the-”

“Not now.”

He dropped the line and dove back into the trace, his fingers striking the keys too fast, too sharp. The path splintered again, dissolving into static. Somewhere, a script ran just to wipe the trail clean every time he thought he had it.

Twenty-two minutes.

He sat back for the briefest moment, jaw tight, eyes fixed on the timer. If she was still on board, she was behind a shield he hadn’t seen before. Either way, the game had changed. And thirty minutes was not long enough to change it back.

Twenty minutes.

The trace bucked under his grip again, dissolving into white noise, until something caught. A ping, faint but stable. He seized it, following the signal back through half a dozen jumps, each one pulling him closer.

It wasn’t her quarters.

Not the workshop.

Not any sector she had reason to be in.

The map resolved. He knew the location instantly, the back tier of Deck Six, the one with the locked service room behind the observation gallery. 

Thirteen minutes.

He stood so quickly the chair rolled back against the wall. “Keep the channel open,” he snapped, brushing past a bewildered Mitaka without so much as a backwards glance.

The corridors blurred past in long, dark stretches, his boots striking hard against the decking. Every turn shaved seconds off the timer burning in his mind.

By the time he reached the lift, his hands were clenched so tight the leather of his gloves creaked.

Eight minutes.

He wasn't going to make it.

Chapter Text

⋆˙⟡⋆｡°✩

The room was quieter without the throb of music bleeding up from the hangar below.

You’d been here once before, during the party, when the air was warm with bodies and the corners smelled faintly of smoke. Now it was colder, the shadows stretched longer, and the only movement came from the slow pulse of colored light through the railing at the far end.

Someone had dragged a mattress up here long before either of you claimed the space. You tried not to think about how many things went down in this same spot, how many people had left a piece of themselves behind. You’d done what you could, clean sheets, a thin throw, a single lamp clipped to the wall. Small touches meant to make it less like an abandoned metal room and more like… the place you were about to lose your virginity.

Brenn joined you on the mattress, the springs dipping under his weight. He’d tossed his coat aside, his shirt rolled at the sleeves. He looked different without the usual edge of his uniform,  younger, almost. He followed your gaze to the screen, smirked a little, and then leaned back on one hand like he belonged there.

The live monitor glowed in front of you, throwing soft light across your bare shoulders.

It was almost distracting, the way you kept catching your own reflection in it. The curve of lace against your skin, the slow rise and fall of your breathing. You’d worn the lingerie you’d picked up on Victra, black shot through with threads of deep bronze that caught the light when you moved.

Ayema’s lens slid along its mounted track, capturing every angle in a slow, deliberate sweep. You’d told yourself the stiffness in your spine would ease once you got started, and maybe it was.

You leaned toward him, tentative at first. His hand came up to the side of your face, fingers warm against your skin, and then his mouth brushed yours in the lightest pressure. Your first kiss.

It deepened by degrees, his hand moving to the back of your neck, your own sliding to the top button of his shirt. You worked it open, one at a time, until you could ease the fabric off his shoulders. He let you, the lean lines of his torso catching the light as you pushed the sleeves down his arms. His gaze was steady on yours.

In the corner of your vision, the monitor caught everything.

Comments flared up in the feed:

[CorellianDreamer] : damn she’s gorgeous

[Iron_Sights]: look at his hands omg

[BanthaBoi420] : i’d give anything to be them right now

Brenn glanced at the scrolling text, a ghost of a smile flickering over his mouth before he turned back to you.

“I’m glad you picked me,” he said, voice low.

Your fingers stilled against the warm skin of his shoulder.

“Well… it was only ever going to be you,” you said, the words heavier than you meant them to be. “I trust you.”

Something in his expression shifted. A flicker, there and gone. His thumb brushed over your jaw like he was committing the moment to memory.

“That’s good,” he said, almost absently, as if the words had been sitting in his mouth for weeks, just waiting for the right moment to be spoken. His hesitance could be mistaken for tenderness if you ignored the way his eyes kept flicking, to the live monitor, to your mouth, to the slow reveal of skin between you. “I’ve seen the way they all look at you.”

The sentence hung there, not an accusation, not quite a compliment. Something heavier. He leaned in, close enough for the warmth of his breath to brush your cheek. “I’ve always wanted to protect you.”

Your pulse tripped. Protect you. That’s what he was wasn’t he? Your protector. Your friend. Something more, though you’d never dared to name it out loud. He was the one who stayed when others drifted away, the one who caught the snide comments before they reached you, who made the worst days pass faster just by leaning against your workbench with that crooked smile.

And now he was going to help you save your family. 

“That’s why I sent you that message.”

The words didn’t land so much as detonate, quiet but total, and somewhere behind you, the live monitor gave a faint, stuttering flick.

You stilled. Your hands, midway through undressing him, went slack. “What message?”

“The one…” He drew in a breath, jaw tightening as if bracing for impact. “The one that said you weren’t as anonymous as you thought you were.”

His gaze didn’t waver, and that was the worst part.

It took a moment for the meaning to settle. 

“I wasn’t trying to hurt you.” His tone had softened, but there was no apology in it, only a strange kind of certainty. His mouth curved, almost tender, almost loving, but hollow, a smile meant to soothe a child.  “I just wanted to scare you. Make you quit before someone really dangerous figured it out.” He caught your wrist again, guiding it back to his chest, moving your fingers as if he could puppet you into keeping the show going for the camera. “And now, now you’re doing so much better.”

Your first instinct was disbelief, but it was quickly overtaken by something sharper. “You lied to me…”

“What was I supposed to do?” He gave a short, humorless laugh. “Pretend I hadn’t figured it out? Just stand there while every creep on this ship looks at you like some- I couldn’t do it. You would’ve shut me out before I could even explain.”

Your breath caught, more in confusion than anger. “Explain what?”

“That I liked you,” he said simply, and there was something in the way he looked at you then, not pleading, just expectant. 

The room felt smaller. The camera’s red light pulsed in the corner, steady and unblinking, recording every flicker of your expression.

It hit you all at once, what this meant. Not just for you, but for them. For your family, already half-drowned under debts you could barely shoulder. For your job, the thin thread of stability you’d managed to keep. For every hour you’d bent yourself double in that workshop just to stay unnoticed. And for this, for the thing you’d told yourself you’d guard until you chose otherwise. That choice had slipped out of your hands, left dangling above an audience who thought they knew you. 

“I think… we should call this off.”

“Hey, no. Come on.” He reached for you, quick and certain, his hand closing around your wrist. “We’re doing this.” He lifted your hand toward his mouth, pressing a kiss against the knuckles as if it were devotion. The contact stung, wrong, leaving your skin damp in a way that turned your stomach. He was still playing to the lens, still trying to sell it as love, even as he refused to let you go.

You tried to pull back, to make space between you, but his grip didn’t loosen. The heat in his voice was changing, sharpening.

“Everyone already knows.” The words dropped like a stone, and when you met his eyes, there was nothing soft in them anymore. “They’re not saying anything, but they all know. You think you’re hiding something, but sweetheart, half the tech deck’s got your vids bookmarked.”                                                                                                                                  

Your mouth went dry.

“You’re lying. There’s no way…”

“Am I?” He leaned in, the corner of his mouth twitching up. “You should be thanking me! I could have started passing your vids around like all the others, but I told them off.” 

“So what?” You started to move, pull back, untangle your legs from his, but he followed you to his feet. “You think I owe you something for not being an obvious piece of shit?” 

“Don’t leave me hanging here. You said you liked me too,” The words came out like a threat, but his hand was already smoothing over yours, angling your body toward the lens, forcing tenderness into a moment that wasn’t tender at all. Still trying to sell the illusion of devotion, 

You shook your head. “I can’t do this.”

“Why not? You’ve already done everything else.” The heat in his tone curled into something meaner as he prowled closer. “Don’t act like you’re too good for this. I’ve seen what you do. I know how you like it. And I know you want something real. All those slutty little moans. You need it.”

The live chat exploded across the corner of the monitor:

[BanthaBoi420]: wtf is happening

[DeepCoreLurker] :is this part of it??

[L0verb0y420](★ Patron) : ngl kinda hot

[HyperlaneDaddy] : nah she’s not into it stop

[TorrekPrime] : Ayo?! I know that guy, my boy BRENN alpha af rn

[L0verb0y420](★ Patron) : do her already.

The comments blurred as your pulse spiked.

You shoved at his chest, but he didn’t move.

“Hey, you wanted this,” one hand gripped your wrist as the other reached up to stroke your cheek. “You wanted it to be me.”

You flinched away from his touch, disbelief curdled in your chest. “You’re supposed to be my friend.” 

He chuckled softly, leaned in close, and kissed your cheek. You froze. Once, you’d wanted this, imagined it in the quiet corners of your bunk, where no one could see. His lips on yours, his hand steady at your back. Something private. Something real. But here, with the camera’s red eye unblinking, it wasn’t yours anymore. Even this, the thing you’d held apart, the thing you’d never given away, was being stolen in plain view. It should have felt good. Instead, it burned.

The heat of his breath stung your ear.

“Let go of me. Brenn, please. I don’t want to do this.” You begged hoping this wasn’t about to take a turn for so much worse. 

“You think you can act like a tease and then back out? Friends don’t walk away when it matters. Think of your family, this’ll help them too.” His grip tightened, dragging you half a step closer to the mattress. ”It’ll be okay.” 

“I said let go of me! ”

Something inside you thawed and split. No thought, no plan,  just a blind, snapping recoil.

One second his hands were on you. The next, space. A violent emptiness where his weight had been.

The railing screamed under the impact, and he was gone.

The sound of his body hitting the lower deck was sickening. A sharp, wet crack. Then nothing. Only undeniable silence.

Your breath didn’t catch, it vanished. Stolen from your lungs like a plug had been pulled.

You didn’t mean to.

You didn’t mean to.

You didn’t mean to.

You just stood there, heart hammering in your ears, staring at the empty space where he’d been.

Then: the red light. Still on. Still rolling.

The blinking holorecorder on its fixed rig. Still streaming.

[Iron_Sights]: DID SHE JUST, 

[Tontononme] :WHAT THE FUCK

[TorrekPrime] : OMG SHE KILLED HIM

[L0verb0y420] (★ Patron) : holy shit holy shit holy shitttt

[Knightsof10inches] :Is this part of the show?

The sound of donations filled the silence.

Ping.

Ping.

Ping.

The bile rose before the horror did.

You moved on instinct. The nearest thing, his jacket, tossed across the back of the chair, your hand was already closing around it. You pulled it on with shaking fingers, the thick regulation fabric swallowing your bare shoulders. It reeked of cheap cologne.

Your feet were bare. The cold of the deck seeped into your bones. You moved.

There was no time to think, only move. Out of the spotlight. Away from the blinking red light of the recorder.

But then came the sound.

Boots. Marching in rhythm. Getting closer.

You’d barely made it three steps into the corridor when the side door hissed open.

Black-armored troopers. A gloved hand raised. And behind them General Hux.

His eyes swept the room in a single, precise scan. They landed on the broken railing. Then the open camera. Then, you.

No shirt. No shoes. No time.

He opened his mouth to speak, 

But you were already running.

You tore down the corridor, lungs heaving, heart trying to claw its way up your throat. You knew where you were going. You had to know. Brenn had shown you once, smug and secretive, a little hidden passage only a few engineers knew about. Cuts across through the auxiliary maintenance shafts. No cameras.

You found it. The grate was rusted, warped, barely clinging to its bolts.

You kicked it in.

The metal sliced clean across your foot, sharp, immediate, grounding pain. But you didn’t stop. You couldn’t. Blood marked the path behind you in ragged drops, bright and wet and damning.

The passage was narrow, dark, the air heavy with oil and ozone. Your breath echoed. Your steps staggered.

Somewhere behind you: shouts, the static of radios, Hux’s voice barking a command you couldn’t hear.

You turned the next corner. Then another.

Then, 

The light changed.

Too bright.

Too open.

Shit.

You thought you saw the exit.

You pushed harder, dizzy, the jacket flaring open with every stride, your body trembling and overheating and barely covered. 

And then, 

A wall.

A wall with hands.

You didn’t even see him.

Just the crack of impact as your momentum slammed you chest-first into something unyielding. An arm snapped out, driving you back. Something pinned you in place. The breath whooshed out of your lungs before the scream could.

Your vision fuzzed, blinking stars.

A shadow loomed. Taller than the others. Cloaked in black. Radiating pressure like a collapsing star.

You were still gasping when he knelt in front of you.

Masked.

Oppressive.

His voice, low and terrible:

“Guess I found you first.”

Chapter Text

It struck him mid-step, a jagged tear in the Force, loud as a blaster shot.

Rough. Untrained.

A raw, unshielded surge burning bright against the cold void of space. 

Kylo slowed just long enough to feel it again. Panic and anger sharpening into a jagged, splintered point. Wild. But the strength was undeniable. Raw. Once released, it would never be hidden again

He was already moving before the thought was finished. 

The corridors narrowed, funneling him forward as he followed a compass point only he could feel. It dragged him deeper and deeper into the ship’s service arteries, where the lights thinned and the hum of the main drives set the air vibrating in his bones.

Then came the flashes.

Rust on metal.

Blood sharp in the air.

Bare feet striking the grated floor.

Close.

He caught sight of you as you tore around the corner, jacket flaring out behind you, hair damp and clinging to the nape of your neck. Your stride was uneven, reckless, the kind of run that didn’t plan for what came next. Beneath the jacket, nothing but black lace, flashing with each step.

Recognition struck. This was Hux’s stray. The one he’d been keeping. Hiding. Failing to control.

And now you were here, unguarded, bleeding into the Force like a beacon meant only for him.

You didn’t see him until he was already there.

One moment, the corridor was empty. The next, it belonged to him.

You froze. Eyes wide. Body angling to flee.

He didn’t ignite his saber. He didn’t need to.

A single flick of the Force caught you mid-turn and slammed you into the bulkhead, the sound ringing through the narrow space like a struck bell.

He closed the distance, boots silent against the grate. Your breathing hitched, not recognition, exactly, but a deeper instinct. That instinct turned to certainty the moment his shadow touched you. There was no mistaking him now, the height, the mask, the gravity of his presence. 

Kylo Ren.

 And there was nowhere left to run.

He dropped to one knee, tilting your face toward his with a gloved hand, forcing your gaze to meet the dark pane of his mask. The split in your lip was fresh. His thumb hovered just above it, a breath from touching.

“Guess I found you first.”

You struggled, the small, human kind of resistance. It only confirmed what he already knew: it wouldn’t matter.

That was when his intentions shifted. Before, you had been a weapon, something to wield against Hux, to humiliate him. Now, you were something else entirely. Something to keep. To shape. You didn’t even know what you were.

The Force surged over your mind like cold surf. Your eyelids fluttered once before your weight collapsed into him, the jacket slipping from your shoulder in a slow, helpless fall. He caught you without breaking eye contact, even as your gaze went unfocused and dim.

He gathered you up, cradling you against his chest.

Hux will come for you, he thought, turning toward the lifts. Good. Let him.

He didn’t take you to the brig.

The brig was for smugglers, deserters, officers who had misjudged the patience of their superiors.

You were none of those things.

Even in sleep, you pressed against his senses. A throbbing steady pulse that reached for him without knowing. He would hold it. Hold you. Somewhere that was his alone.

The lift descended into a part of the ship scrubbed from official schematics, service decks remade for his own private use. He crossed the threshold, boots reverberating against reinforced steel, and placed you in the waiting chair at the chamber’s center.

The restraints weren’t gentle. He tightened them one by one, pulling leather snug around your wrists, your ankles, until the cold steel beneath bit through what scraps of your modesty you had left. Leaving only the lesson he wanted carved into you, that resistance was nothing more than the long way round to submission.

When you woke, you would learn the inevitability of your situation 

For a moment, allowed himself the indulgence of simply looking at you.

The jacket was gone now, folded on the table beside him. Your feet were bloodied,  small cuts along the arch from running barefoot through the grating. Your breathing was shallow, your head tilted to expose the long line of your throat. Fragile and defenseless. 

He lifted a hand, gloved fingers suspended just above your temple, and let the Force seep into you again. What he found was expected, almost comforting: fear, exhaustion. But beneath them, the spark. The kernel of defiance that refused to bow.

The more he touched it, the more it stirred, a coal coaxed toward flame, and he wanted to be the one to fan it, to decide how brightly it would burn, or how quickly it could be extinguished.

The door hissed open.

Hux strode in, boots clicking, uniform immaculate, jaw already tight.

“Remove her restraints,” he said, no greeting. “She’s a security matter. I’ll take custody from here.”

Kylo didn’t move. “She’s more than that.”

A muscle jumped in Hux’s temple. “She’s a liability. You intercepted her on my ship.”

“She isn’t yours,” Kylo said, calm, deliberate. More verdict than argument. “Not anymore.”

Hux’s eyes flicked to the blood on your feet, the faint marks at your wrists. He didn’t miss the empty jacket folded neatly on the table. His gaze came back sharper.

“What do you think you’ve found here?”

Kylo’s mouth shifted beneath the mask, not quite a smile, but close enough for the sound in his next word to provoke.

“Potential.”

The air between them thickened with the unspoken: Hux had brought you this far without ever knowing what you were, and Kylo had been the one to uncover it.

Hux stepped toward the chair. Kylo moved to meet him, positioning himself between you.

“She’s staying here.”

“That’s not your decision.”

“It is now.”

The silence held, a taut wire between them.

Hux broke first, a clipped pivot, the swish of his coat trailing behind him. The door sealed shut, and the weight of his silence was heavier than if he’d shouted.

Kylo waited until the sound of his boots had faded before crouching in front of you again. A strand of hair had fallen across your face; he brushed it back with two fingers, the gesture too gentle for what it meant.

You didn’t stir. That didn’t matter. He let the Force slide with his touch, into the shallow edges of your dreams, saw flashes of a farm, wide fields of gold, sunlight clinging to a home that had never known war. He pressed himself there, an intruder, a vouyer. Leaving his imprint where it didn’t belong. 

“When you wake,” he murmured, low and certain, “you’ll know I was the one who found you. And you’ll know the consequences of your actions.”

Chapter Text

You awoke with the distinct sense that the world was collapsing in on you.

Darkness pressed from every side, thick and heavy, broken only by the slow pulse of red overhead. Each flare bathed the chamber in blood-warm light, then receded, leaving afterimages seared into your vision. The air was hotter than it should have been, metallic and scorched, the tang of overworked machinery clinging in your throat until every breath felt suffocating.

The surface beneath you was no bed, curved, unyielding, meant to cradle without comfort. When you shifted, or tried to, nerves sparked back to life, a thousand pins firing at once, your only measure of how long you’d been left there.

Panic fractured slowly: a hitch in your throat, the bite of leather at your wrists, the sharp ache blooming at the base of your skull as your memory tore open.

Brenn. The railing. The fall.

The mask.

As if called forth by your thoughts a seam split in the wall. The room exhaled, pressure shifting with the heat. You knew this man by sheer force of his presence. The aura of the room had already reshaped itself around him.

Commander Ren ghosted at the periphery, his boots dragging soft echoes across the steel. One slow step, then another.

He did not speak. Did not announce himself. Only pinned you in place with the weight of his predatory stare.

You fixed your gaze on the ceiling, jaw locked against the scream coiled tight in the back of your throat.

The voice came closer than you expected, suddenly in your ear. “Do you know how loud you were?”

You flinched hard, heart slamming against your ribs, the restraints biting as you jerked against them. The words startled you, more for their curious tone than the expected cruelty. You tried to keep your expression neutral, tugged once more frantically against the bonds.

“Most people,” he went on, “burn out before the Force even notices them. A flicker. A spark. Then gone.” His shadow moved closer, swelling until it swallowed the light. “But you,”

He shifted into view, slow, deliberate. Mask blank, glinting. The red glow snagged on its featureless planes, warping your reflection. Your own eyes stared back at you, wide, feverbright, almost unrecognizable. 

“You detonated.”

He tilted his head, as if listening for the echo again.

“I had to see who could tear the force open like that..”

“I didn’t-” The protest ripped out of you, thin and desperate. “I can’t. I don’t-”

His silence made the denial worse. Mask gleaming, unreadable, he lingered long enough to let the words die in your throat.

“But it was you, wasn’t it?” he mused, slipping back out of sight. His voice carried, a low growl that crawled down your spine and rooted there.

You bit back sound, but the tremor in your chest betrayed you. 

“I wonder.” He slid one hand hard across the back of your headrest, leaning in from the side. The leather at his belt strained as he lowered himself, the hilt of his saber hanging inches from your hand, heavy, obscene in the glow.

 “Did you mean to kill him?”

The words struck like a blunt weapon.

Dead.

The railing.

The fall.

The crack you couldn’t un-hear.

Brenn.

Grief. Rage. A knot tightening in your chest. Your vision tunneled.

Ren’s hand rose, gloved fingers spanning the fragile line of your jaw. You felt him before he touched you, the cold slick of presence sliding between your thoughts. Not violent. Just there. Patient. Invasive.

He tilted his head, voice low, mocking.

“Bitter,” he said. “I can taste it. Your anguish curdling into hatred.”

Panic flared. You tried to throw up walls, blueprints, wiring diagrams, the precise length of every bolt in an astromech’s leg, anything to crowd him out. But your effort only betrayed what you were hiding, dragging the most dangerous thoughts closer to the surface.

He shredded through your hastily erected barriers with all the effort of teeth sinking into ripe fruit. 

Pressure bloomed behind your eyes, white-hot, a splitting headache that forced you mind wide open. He slipped through that fracture, and suddenly it was all there, raw and unguarded.

Your own face in the viewfinder, mouth slack with release. The smell of coolant and sweat and blood. Your mother’s face pixelated through a failing comm, never quite saying goodbye. The blackmail message, still fresh, words burned into your retinas. Smile for the camera, sweetheart.

Brenn’s lips on yours.

All the things you’d imagined doing after that. 

The cruel reality of what followed. 

You felt yourself laid bare, every memory dragged to the surface, each one a wound to be pried apart.

“That wasn’t chance,” his voice broke through, cool and precise. “The Force bent to you. Even untrained, it obeyed.”

You twisted against the restraints, trying to throw them off, but the visions only pushed harder, layering until they blurred together.

And then, 

a still point.

One image that held, too vivid, too damning to dissolve,

Caught in the act. Troopers flooding the halls and the General’s eyes on you. Cold, consuming, locked to yours across the span of a corridor. 

Ren lingered there. Pressing down, dragging the memory taut until you could feel the weight of it stretch and strain. He turned it over like a blade in his hand, savoring the sharpness.

But then, enough. The grief blistered, cracked, and what welled up beneath it was fury. It snapped you back into your body. Into now.

For the first time, you looked at him. Really looked.

The mask loomed inches from your face, gleaming, monstrous.

What kind of hideous thing was hiding under there?

His head snapped, as if you’d spoken aloud. The air tightened.

“You think me monstrous because I wear a mask. But at least I am honest about what I am,” he said, disdain bleeding through the vocoder. “ It’s your precious General who wears the real disguise.”

And then the pressure shifted. Not one of your memories. Not his. Something heavier, pried open and shoved inside.

The General. Armitage Hux.

The pallid blue glow of a monitor painted his skin in cold strokes, hollowing his cheekbones, cutting the lines of his mouth. His usually perfect uniform was open, insignia polished on his breast. One hand braced white-knuckled against the desk, as if sheer posture could keep him from breaking. The  other moved, ungloved hand pushing beneath the rigid line of his belt, stroking himself in short, stifled pulls. 

You remembered this stream. The bottle of body oil, your lithe slick fingers gleaming under the studio lights as you smoothed it over your stomach, your thighs, up the curve of your chest. You hadn’t thought much of it, just another night, another show, but he had. He looped the exact moment your hands slid between your breasts, catching the light, until nothing else seemed to exist for him.

He rewound it. Played it again. Again. Each repetition shorter, more frantic, until he was shaking with the effort to stay silent.

Shame bloomed hot in your chest, at first his, poured into you, thick and undeniable. But it tangled with something else, something rawer, a pulse you couldn’t dismiss. Heat stirred low, shame and want blurring until you couldn’t tell which belonged to you and which belonged to him. Watching him watching you, seeing him undone by the smallest movement of your body, it made you burn. It made you ache.

“Doesn’t it sicken you?” Kylo’s voice dragged close, barbed. “Is this how you imagined your biggest fan ?”

The words struck harder than the vision. Denial surged, absurd, grotesque, but the proof was already flooding in: the username glowing gold at the top of every stream, night after night. The clipped precision of his phrasing in the chat. The obscene amounts he’d spent just to keep you on screen. Two months of loyalty. Two months of ownership.

The General. TheGeneral. Your General.

The realization gutted you. Heat rushed your face, humiliation sharp enough to make you dizzy. How many times had you undressed, touched yourself, spread yourself wide, while his eyes devoured every second? Paid. Possessed. Always there. And you hadn’t seen it.

Dumb. Naïve. Exposed.

You wanted to claw Aurora from your skin, scrub until nothing remained of the girl he had watched. But Kylo only leaned closer, savoring the fracture.

You wanted to tell him he was lying, but the vision clung. You couldn’t stop thinking about the way you’d smiled into the lens, teased the screen, whispered sweetly to TheGeneral because you never imagined it’d have any consequence. You had encouraged him. Invited him in. And now you couldn’t stop imagining what kind of man sat on the other side, what he looked like watching you, what it meant that it had been him all along.

The mask filled your vision. “You think you have a choice?” His voice was low, invasive. “You’ve already been chosen.”

You flinched, but the pressure of him did not ease.

“Power. Discipline. Control. All of it breaks. I saw it break for you.” His tone sharpened. “The General. And soon, the rest.”

The air seemed to cinch tighter around your chest.

“I can show you how to wield it,” he murmured, almost reverent. “The strength in you. The hunger in them. I can make it yours, if you kneel.”

The red light pulsed once, flooding the chamber in heat.

“Or,” the vocoder rasped, “you can wait until he takes it from you.”

He rose, robes whispering across the floor as he made his exit, leaving you crushed beneath the echo of his words.

Chapter Text

Hux reviewed the report twice, not because he needed to, but because precision demanded it.

He called up your personnel file, such as it existed. The portrait was an outdated security still, uneven light, hair dragged back without regulation, a faint shadow under the eyes. He lingered for one beat, then scrolled. Assignments scattered across tiers. Anomalies in housing. Irregular repair clearances granted by officers who had no business signing them.

And there, jewel-bright, the financial trail. Perscriptions. Personal Loans. Payouts. Debts renewed under different names, always circling back to the same brother. A lever waiting to be pulled.

He could already see the gaps.

He could already see how to fill them.

The awareness slid into place like the final tooth of a lock.

He did not summon Ren. That would be a waste of time and position. Instead, he requested a private audience with a member of the Supreme Leader’s advisory corps, the kind of functionary who understood that Snoke’s attention should remain above the daily churn until the result, bloodless and complete, was ready to be admired.

The reply arrived within minutes. Conference room Aurek-Seven. Sealed channel. Bring documentation.

Hux arrived early and remained standing. Aurek-Seven was a room for decisions, no windows, no ornamentation, only a length of black composited stone surrounded by two dozen high back chairs. A  place where the fates of entire sectors were decided. 

Advisor Calais Venn entered without guard. Older than Hux by two decades, soft where he was severe, and therefore more dangerous. Venn did not offer a hand. Neither did Hux.

“General.” The advisor’s voice was free of courtesy. “You asked for a deviation from established custody. Explain.”

Hux slid a slim folder onto the stone. Not a datapad, paper, real, expensive. An old trick, make the ask tangible. He aligned the folder’s corner with the table’s beveled edge before he spoke.

“The detainee,” he said, “is a skilled mechanical specialist with broad access to systems. She has operated under irregular oversight for months. She is now in the hands of an unstable Force user with no documented interrogation proficiency and a history of… fixation.”

“Ren,” Venn said, entirely without surprise.

Hux did not look away. “Yes.”

Venn did not open the folder. He watched Hux instead, as if the truth might be written somewhere in the General’s posture. “And what is your proposed correction to this deviation, General?”

“Reassignment to Intelligence Handling under my authority,” Hux said. “Section 19.4.3 of the Custodial Chain permits transfer of high-value civilians when mishandling threatens output. Protocol allows temporary sequestration of assets with specialized knowledge.”

Venn’s mouth tilted. “You’ve been busy.”

“I am always busy.” Hux folded his hands behind his back. “Ren’s… methods… produce discrepancies. They do not produce results.”

“And yours do?”

“Always.”

Venn opened the folder at last. Inside: the report, the personnel fragments, the chain-of-custody lattice in neat columns, a single page of distilled risk: unregistered chamber; no interview record; absence of medical intake; lack of legal designation. Nothing in the folder betrayed his personal interest.

Venn flipped a page with one careful finger. “If I approve this transfer, Ren will throw a fit. The Supreme Leader tolerates a great deal from him.”

“Then make the approval present itself as a reduction in distraction,” Hux said. “I am not asking for a public rebuke. A standard routing, quietly executed. Ren is free to posture. I will be busy generating results.”

Venn’s gaze sharpened, pleased, perhaps, to hear his own language of bureaucracy reflected back at him. “This specialist of yours. Why is she valuable?”

Hux kept the answer ready. “She has repaired systems above her clearance level without alerting audit. She has moved between tiers for months without drawing any oversight. Even with my own personal resources at work she was untraceable” A fractional pause. “Those are rare instincts.”

“And yet she is now a civilian,” Venn said. “I have heard rumor of the… incident. A dishonorable discharge complicates matters.”

“She is an asset,” Hux corrected. “Complications are what the article is for.”

He did not mention the precise nature of her being able to reroute the systems. He did not mention that he’d been there the very night of the incident. 

Venn turned another page. “You assert mishandling. Provide particulars.”

“Unregistered holding,” Hux said. “Deviation from medical protocol. No intake interview on record. The detainee’s skillset suggests immediate exploitation of knowledge is preferable to Ren’s… shadow plays.” He let the words sit. “There is also a chain-of-command concern.”

Venn’s brow rose a fraction. “Chain-of-command?”

“Ren’s history with targets is not clean.” Hux let that hang.“I do not wish to present the Supreme Leader with another avoidable complication.”

Silence. Venn set the page down and watched the way Hux did not fidget. The Advisor had spent a lifetime sorting petitioners into categories: supplicants, liars, loyalists, and those rare predators who understood that the true violence of an empire was conducted in the grammar of its memos.

“Suppose I approve,” Venn said. “How will you keep Ren from tearing your door from its hinges and taking back his toy?”

Hux did not bristle at the word. 

“By making the door legal,” he insisted. “Temporary custodial hold order. Joint-oversight language on the face of the form. Ren may observe interviews. He may even sign a few papers, something ceremonial. He will find that… adequate.”

“You think Ren is soothed by ceremony?” Venn asked, amused.

“No,” Hux said, perfectly honest. “But he defers to the Supreme Leader”

A small sound, something dangerously close to approval, escaped Venn’s nose. “You are very certain of your verbiage, General.”

“Someone should be,” Hux said.

The advisor closed the folder and set his palm on its cover,“Ren will protest,” he said.

“He will,” Hux agreed. “I will be too busy to hear him. So will you.”

“And the Supreme Leader?”

“Will look at a finished table of contents and nod,” Hux said. “He values results. I can present them.”

Venn’s eyes narrowed, pleased by the neatness of that answer and irritated by it too. “There is still the matter of precedent. I will not establish a habit of moving assets out of Ren’s custody every time your rival offends you.”

“Neither will I,” Hux said, and did not blink at the word rival. “This is not precedent. This is a matter of correction.”

The advisor considered the folder a final time as if the ink might reveal an angle he had missed. It did not. The angles had been designed for him.

“Very well,” Venn said at last. “A provisional transfer. Joint-oversight language to keep Ren’s teeth out of our throats.” He slid the folder back across the table. “You will appear with Ren before the Supreme Leader to formalize. If your package is thin, General, I will return the girl to Ren myself and file the failure under your name.”

“Understood,” Hux said. He did not let breath betray him.

Venn slid the folder back. “One more thing.”

Hux waited.

“Your interest,” Venn said lightly, almost idle. “Is it professional?”

Hux allowed himself a small, contemptuous breath that could be mistaken for a laugh. “My interest is the fleet,” he said. “Always.”

Venn knew a lie when he heard one. He also knew when to let it stand.

 “See that it remains so,” 

Hux inclined his head but did not turn. He kept his back to the man, posture unbroken, mind already pondering his next move.

Chapter Text

They stripped you first.

Not violently, there was no need for spectacle here, but with the practiced precision of men who had done this a hundred times. Aurora was peeled away in layers: nylon, silk, the lingering trace of perfume. Gone. What remained was raw and ordinary, laid bare under the lights, wrists banded from restraints, the faint outline of bruises that would bloom later.

The guards handed you prisoner’s blacks in exchange. Fabric coarse against the skin, designed for utility rather than comfort. Boots that pinched in one place and gaped in another.  All meant to strip you down until nothing of your old life remained.

All except the jacket.

That they left, not a kindness, but a cruel punishment. A dead man’s jacket.  Its lining smelled faintly of oil and smoke, the warmth of the body it once belonged to. You pulled it tight, as if the borrowed weight might anchor you. Instead, it reminded you of the fall, the sound of bone against steel, the silence after. The certainty that you had killed him, whether by your own hand or by accident or by something else entirely.

The cell’s cold gnawed past the leather, past your skin, into the place where guilt had already taken root. You forwent the bed, too vulnerable, too unguarded, and curled up on the floor, back pressed to the seam of the wall as though it might split open and swallow you whole. 

Hours bled into themselves. Sleep came in shallow bursts, broken by the scrape of boots in the corridor, the clang of a tray shoved through the slot. Watery broth. A heel of bread that crumbled in your hands. You ate when hunger gnawed too sharp, pushed it aside when the nausea rose.

Time refused to keep shape. Sometimes you lay awake, staring at the overhead lights that never seemed to dim. Other times you dreamt.

When you drifted, it was worse. Your imagination, or what Ren had shoved into your head, bleeding into memory. Ren’s gloved hand at your throat, Hux’s mouth at your ear, the two of them pulling at you from opposite sides.  They circled, dragging you under, each fighting for purchase. Terrifying, obscene, and yet your body betrayed you, tightening around the ghost of their attention. 

You startled awake each time, jacket pulled tight, that ghost of oil and smoke clinging as though to remind you what was real. And then you dozed again. One meal, then another, then another. A day, maybe two. Enough for the bruises to ripen, for the raw edges of guilt to burrow deeper.

And then the footsteps came.

Two guards. One shadow.

Commander Ren.

He didn’t address you, only moved farther into your space until you were cornered. His grip closed over your elbow, inexorable, dragging you upright. 

The walk blurred, corridors spilling into corridors, each one colder than the last. Your pulse was the only measure of time, frantic and uneven, until the air itself shifted.

The chamber yawned open around you. Polished marble underfoot, reflective enough to catch the tremor of your mouth in duplicate. A red dais at the center, raw as an open wound.

Kylo shoved you forward.

You didn’t look up. Not even when the hulking doors slammed shut behind you with the hiss of hydraulics. Another figure approached from the wings. You heard him before you saw him: the measured cadence of boots, the indrawn breath of command.

Somewhere behind you, General Hux exhaled.

“The traitor, Supreme Leader.”

Traitor. As if you were important enough to betray anyone. As if your small, filthy life could tilt the weight of an empire.

You tried not to shake. You tried to breathe evenly. You tried not to think about how your knees still ached from being dragged across steel, or how everyone seemed entitled to your body. You’d been touched more in the last seventy two hours than you had in your entire life.

Above you, light bloomed like the beginning of a star, brilliant and brutal. You felt it before you saw it: the low-frequency hum of transmission, the faint sting of radiation against your skin, the pressure in your skull like something ancient leaning in.

And then-

“You,” the voice said. Crackling. Impossibly loud.

You flinched.

Snoke’s image towered, grotesque upon his throne. His ruined mouth curled. His robes dragged against the dias. And his eyes, sickly, omniscient, settled on you.

“A mechanic,” he said, almost idly. “A thief.”

A pause, his leer splitting wider.

“A whore.”

The word gutted you. Not an insult, not a guess, he knew.

He had seen. Somehow, impossibly, he had watched.

 Your chest caved in. Heat rose sharp in your throat, You wanted to vanish. To fold in on yourself until nothing remained.

“Is this the one you’ve been seeking, General?”

A beat.

“Yes, Supreme Leader,” Hux answered. His voice was clipped, precise.

You braced for the inevitable exposure. For him to recite every sin, every transmission, to strip you down into a list of violations. To turn you from person to liability.

But nothing came.

His silence was not mercy. It was worse. It left you suspended, naked in implication, as though even your condemnation wasn’t worth the breath it would take. You hated him for it, for the power he held in what he chose not to say.

Finally, after the air had thinned to nothing, he added,

“She is reckless. But not unintelligent.”

Snoke hissed, the sound like a blade drawn. “She has evaded your surveillance for months, broadcasting lewd transmissions. And yet  you defend her?”

The chamber held its breath. Hux did not answer. Only his jaw tightened, the faintest ripple of control over fury. His eyes revealed nothing.

Behind you, Kylo stepped forward. “The Force in her is untrained,” he said. “But it’s… reactive.”

Hux’s voice cut in. “Her outburst resulted in grievous injury of a systems specialist. The man is in a coma.”

The knowledge collapsed through you like gravity, dragging everything else down with it.

Relief bloomed, brief, treacherous, only to rot in the memory of the impact, in the realization that Kylo had left you drowning under the weight of guilt that was never yours to keep.

“Did you mean to kill him?” 

Your head snapped back to look at him before you could stop it, your glare heavy, raw with anger you couldn’t contain. He held the look, unflinching

Snoke hums, long and awful.

“So that was you.”

“I don’t- I didn’t- ” you turned back, voice cracking.

“You did,” Snoke insisted. “And that makes you valuable.”

Kylo doesn’t speak. You can feel him behind you, watching. Brooding. Breathing too loud. Or maybe that’s you.

Snoke leaned forward, light curdling colder. “Do you know what you are?”

Everyone kept asking you that. You shook your head.

“A weapon,” he said. “Fragile, yes. But not beyond use. Potential better served under discipline than indulgence.

His ruined gaze slides from Kylo to Hux. “General Hux will take custody. He will see to her… reconditioning .”

The words land like a closing cell door. The silence in the room rang.

Kylo stood motionless behind you. You felt the anger rolling off him, raw and untempered, and braced for the explosion. It didn’t come. The surprise cut sharper than relief when he finally spoke, voice low, certain.

“No. She’s mine. I found her. I should be the one to train her.”

Snoke’s head turned, slow as the tide. “You presume.”

Kylo pressed forward, the air tightening around his words. “Her power, it answers me. I found her. I felt it in her. That strength belongs with the Force, not locked in a cell, not with him,” he flung his arm out at the general “playing his sick little game.”

“Indulgence,” Snoke spat the word. “It has made the two of you weak.”

The air crackled. Kylo faltered.

His lips peeled back, the expression cruel as he twisted to look at the other man. “ General Hux… undone by lust.  Months of surveillance evaded. Unauthorized transmissions, pornography broadcast under your very nose. A mechanic has made a fool of you both.” Snoke’s mouth curled into something sharp and ugly.

His gaze cut to Kylo.

“I see why she interests you. A chance to wound your rival, to spite the General.” His voice dropped lower, poisonous. “But women… are weakness. Soft flesh. A waste of your time.”

He leaned forward, shadows stretching long across the floor.

“And you would train her?” Snoke’s laugh was a dry rasp. “You cannot even master yourself.”

Kylo said nothing. His silence reeked of weakness, louder than any plea.

“You have other duties,” Snoke said, final and merciless. “Do not be distracted.”

His ruined mouth curved again, mockery softening into something worse. “Let the General exhaust himself, if he must. Whatever fixation gnaws at him will burn itself out. A toy can only hold so much novelty.”

The words dropped heavy as chains, a dismissal and a sentence all at once.

The hologram flickered once, then was gone. Silence collapsed in its wake, heavy and echoing.

Kylo didn’t move. He leaned close instead, his shadow cutting over you, his voice a low, venomous rasp.

 “You’re not beyond my reach.”

Then he turned, fists clenched, cape snapping as he stormed from the chamber. The doors rattled on their hinges with the force of his exit.

Silence fell.

And in that silence, Hux stepped forward.

He didn’t rush; every movement was deliberate, savoring. His gloved hand lifted, almost tender, fingers grazing your cheek like he was verifying you were real. 

“You’ve caused me no end of trouble,” he murmured, thumb brushing your split lip as though to soothe you. “That ends now. You’ll make yourself useful.” He let the words settle, then turned to the guards. “Take her to the interrogation wing. Somewhere…proper.”

The guards moved instantly, chains and hands pulling you away, and Hux lingered just long enough to watch before turning on his heel. This was his triumph, and he would not squander it. You were his now, and there was still more work to be done.

Chapter Text

They don’t take you back to the same cell. The guards flank you close, blasters fixed low at their sides. You try to count the halls as they usher you in deeper, but the corridors knot and twist until you give up entirely.

Through narrow slits, you catch fragments of other traitors like yourself. Prisoners cast in sharp light, their faces hollowed by hunger. A woman with her hair shorn ragged, eyes sunken deep and bloodshot. A man with bruises blooming across the entirety of his throat. Soldiers, deserters, civilians, enemies of the Order, all alike in their ruin. They don’t speak, but their silence follows you, ghosts watching the procession.

For every step you take, you feel the weight of their situation. A reminder of what awaits if you stumble. A warning that this ship has endless ways of swallowing people whole.

At last, they stop before a door marked only by a seam in the wall. One steps forward, a code cylinder flashing. The lock disengages with a mechanical hiss, and the space opens into a small chamber: four grey walls, a single table fixed to the floor, and mirrored glass along one side. 

The light here is softer, filtered through panels overhead, and the pounding in your skull begins to ebb. Your wrists ache with a pulse all their own, raw and burning. You rub at them without meaning to, fingertips tracing the ridges. The pain calls forth the memory of that black mask, and the way he’d torn your mind open for him to pick through as he pleased. 

Your thoughts slide unbidden to Brenn. Alive, or not. Conscious, or not. You don’t know which outcome terrifies you more. If he lives, will he hate you? If he dies, do you even care?

Beneath the guilt something deeper seethed, betrayal. He chose to lie to you, to pretend not to understand when you begged him to stop. He’d cornered you so completely you had no choice but to defend yourself. Live in front of the whole galaxy. 

The stream . They saw. Everyone would see. It was no longer just a rumor. Now, there was undeniable evidence, and as you well knew nothing that happened on that ship stayed buried for long.

 Right now somewhere in the bowels of the first Order’s offices, the footage was being dissected frame by frame, timestamped, and catalogued. 

By next cycle Officers would be watching it over mess hall rations, They would scroll through your history, digging up your entire archive, comparing every angle, every costume, every moan until there wasn’t a single person on board who didn’t know exactly what you looked like when you cum.

If what Brenn said was true, some of them already did.

And May. May, who knew too much, who only wanted to help. Who might already be caught up in your dragnet simply for being a good friend. 

And then the voice turns inward. Cruel, relentless. Why couldn’t you have stopped? You could have kept it smaller. Quieter. You should have gone home. Any job. Any life. The thrill wasn’t worth it. Not the attention. Not the power. Not the control.

Every single one of your choices led you here. 

The door split your spiraling in two, the sound causing you to jump back in your seat. His voice cut through before he stepped inside, level and commanding. 

“Leave us.”

The sound of troopers retreating was abruptly cut off as the door glided shut in one smooth movement, the air being sucked out with it 

Hux did not sit right away. He stood, composed, a datapad and a small case set down with clipped precision. Then, without preamble, he tossed down something else.

The clang was obscene.

Horror was the first emotion.

Ayema. Or what remained, half a chassis, optics cracked, wires spilled out in ragged bundles. Scorched casing, pried apart.  

And now the tears finally came. Not for yourself. Not for your family. For her, sarcastic, silent, too knowing, Ayema. Now mute. Completely mutilated. 

He never looked it,he was looking at you, gauging your reaction. To him, this was simply evidence. To you, it was a body.

At last, he sat, and the incredulous tilt of his brows made your stomach churn. “You’ve made quite the spectacle.” He steepled his hands together as if this were simply  any other meeting. 

“I could say the same for you.” The words slip sharp from your tongue as you dragged the ruined shell closer. 

The metal was twisted, blackened grooves seared into the plating. The saber’s bite was unmistakable: slagged lines melted into ugly scars, leaving the surface puckered and warped. Irreparable.

Not Hux’s work. His insult was sharper, bringing the carcass here, laying it bare between you, reminding you whose temper had torn her open. A silent warning: Ren would break what you hold dear. Hux would only use it against you.

“Dereliction of duty, abuse of First Order broadcasting equipment, external transmission, solicitation. Nearly killing a fellow officer in front of an audience.” His gaze remains flat, as his clinically listed your crimes. “Shall we review the penalties?”

You grit your jaw, trying to fold your defiance onto the tabletop like a neat pile, quiet, contained.

A faint curve at the corner of his mouth. He leaned back slightly, reciting from memory. “Theft of encrypted transmissions: labor camp. Attempted murder of a comrade: execution. And as for the solicitation, there isn’t yet a statute fit to cover your… ingenuity.”

His tone shifted, amusement leeched away, leaving only the clipped edge of command.

“Effective immediately, you hereby are dishonorably discharged.”

You had expected it. You thought being prepared might blunt the blow. But the words still gutted you. Dishonorably discharged. Your years of service, gone in an instant. 

You could only glare, and cradle Ayema’s broken hull closer. But the silent edge in his tone, and the way he was watching you, sawed at your equilibrium.

“You understand,” he says, almost confiding, “there are few outcomes here that do not end with you and your entire family, of course, being wiped from the records.”

He leans forward just enough that you catch the clean bite of his cologne, his voice dropped to something quieter, the words meant only for you.

“The question is whether you prefer to be erased in a cell, ” His head tilts. “Or used for a better purpose.”

Your fingers dug into scorched plating. “A better purpose,” you echo, voice thin and bitter.  You almost stopped there. Almost folded yourself into the silence he offered.

Instead you lifted your gaze, steady despite the tremor in your hands.

“Strange” you said, tone edged with mock formality. “Here, I thought you and I already had an outstanding arrangement, General .”

For one glorious second his expression falters, mouth parted, you’d stepped clean off the script he’d written for you. He quickly gathered himself, the vulnerability gone in an instant.

“Desire is beneath me, as are you” His gaze flicks downward, to the place where the shapeless black uniform still sketched across the curve of your thighs. “Pathetic.”

You tilted your head, letting the motion draw his attention again. 

“Then tell me, General, what kept you coming back, night after night?”

His jaw tightens, a fissure in composure quickly smoothed. “You mistake surveillance for interest.”

You lean forward, voice low, vindictive. 

“Surveillance?” For some reason you felt the need to provoke him. ”Quite the deep cover. Had me fooled.”

“Still mocking me?” he muttered, voice flattening in warning. 

You held his stare, letting it stretch. “If it cuts, General, perhaps it’s because you know it’s true.”

He inhales, composure surfacing with effort. 

His hand flexes against the table, restraint stretched thin. “You will watch your insolent mouth.”

The laugh breaks from you, reckless, ragged, equal parts terror and defiance. “I thought watching my mouth was your favorite part!”

You can feel your pulse hammer under the fake poise you’re holding. You hold his stare a heartbeat longer, then let your voice slip, low and raw.

“You’re a fucking creep.” You seethed “Just like all the rest of them. Desperate, lonely, thinking I’m the one who’s going to fix it.”

Your words gather speed, the rhythm tumbling faster, louder.

“So you what, dangle my family over a pit? You think that makes you powerful? That it makes you any less pathetic than every other loser who thinks just because they pay-“

The crack of his hand split the air. Your head whipped sideways, cheek blazing, the taste of iron flooding your mouth. His palm still hovered between you.

“Do you feel better after your little outburst?” He brushed at his gloves as if you’d sullied them. “I hope so. Because the next time you spit on my generosity,” the leather creaked as his hand tightened into a fist “I won’t be so forgiving.”

Your breath rasped shallow, uneven, but you forced the words past your bleeding tongue. “What do you want from me?” 

His fingers tapped once on the datapad, deliberate punctuation.

“Loyalty. Discretion. Obedience.” He slid the datapad across to you, the screen dense with incomprehensible legal jargon.“And in return, your family remains untouched. Their debts vanish. Their lives continue.”

A laugh punched through your chest. “If you’re offering me a choice, that isn’t one.”

“Precisely.” His brows lifted by the smallest degree, satisfaction gleaming. “Which makes it easier, doesn’t it?”

You thought of the others, Kylo’s crushing silence, Brenn’s betrayal, May’s blind trust. None of them had the power to save you. Only this man.

“How long?”

“As long as I see fit.”

The mirrored glass swallowed your reflection. Ayema’s chassis lay between you like a corpse. This is theatre. You see it now. He’s set the stage, choreographed the players, convinced himself he was in charge here.

But ultimately you were a performer. You knew the rhythm of an act, the weight of a gaze, the way a man’s breath hitched when you pulled him exactly where you wanted him. 

And still the hook was set: family for obedience.

He produced a stylus. “Do you intend to continue to waste my time?” Hux said, voice low. “Or will you prove I was not mistaken?”

The weight of the choice hung like smoke in the air between you.

You didn’t answer him.

Instead, your left hand found Ayema. Fingers brushing cold metal you’d once lovingly forged together yourself. A whisper of touch. A silent I’m sorry.

Then your right hand lifted.

Your fingers hovered, trembling, and his eyes tracked the motion. You could have made a stand, could have hurled the hunk of metal beside you at the glass, and screamed until they dragged you back through the darkness.

But your niece’s laugh echoed in your mind.

Your mother’s coughing in the night.

Your brother’s tired voice saying “ whatever you can do.”

So you took the stylus.

And signed.

Chapter Text

There’s nothing more dangerous than a deal. Nothing more ruinous than the fate you choose for yourself. But how could this have ended any other way? 

The room felt smaller now, the walls closing  in like a trap long set. Camming was reckless. Yes. But it was the only place where you’d felt seen. In control. Now the illusion was shattered. Replaced by his gaze, his rules, his suffocating order.  It had all been so enticing, And now under the weight of his oppressive stare you realized you never even stood a chance.

 This arrangement, this bargain, was nothing more than the most natural consequence.

And if this was to be your end, you’d meet it on your terms. 

He watched you rise with cold calculating eyes. This was a test, it always was. You felt like a caged animal, your every move scrutinized, your very existence hanging in the balance. 

You circled the table, each step deliberate, tension coiling in your muscles like a spring. When you reached the edge opposite him, you didn’t hesitate,  perching atop the cold metal surface, the chill seeping through your uniform. Slowly you parted your knees, just enough to straddle one thigh in provocation, as you leaned forward into his orbit.

His hands reach forward, tentative at first before landing on your waist. The cool press of his fingers grounded you as his thumbs began to work small insistent circles into curve of your hips

“Go on, show me how you like it, General.” 

For one suspended breath, the air between you hummed. His gaze didn’t waver. For that one dizzying instant, it seemed as though he might meet you halfway.

Instead, his hand snapped into your hair, violently yanking you to the side. You grimaced as his fingers tangled in tighter, the pain radiating across your scalp. He used the leverage to tilt your head back, exposing your neck at a cruel angle.

“On your knees.”

“I’m sorry,” you whispered, one hand clawing uselessly at his wrist, as if you could keep him from hauling you upright. “I didn’t mean to- I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” The words spilled out in fragments, frantic. You weren’t even sure which of your sins you were confessing to. 

He yanked you down hard, your knees slamming into the floor. You gasped, more from the sudden power of his control than the pain.

“On your knees,” he repeated, “Where you belong.”

You trembled beneath his grip, your pulse fluttering in your throat as he held you there,exposed, undone. Your fingers twitched at his sleeve but didn’t dare push away. This was no act. No performance for credits or attention.

This was real.

“You think apologies mean anything to me?” he murmured, low and cutting. “You think I don’t know what you are? What you crave?”

A beat passed, just long enough for doubt to flicker across your eyes before he answered it himself.

“Obedience.” His thumb pressed against your lower lip, one silent order disguised as a caress. “Say it.”

Tears stung at your eyes, a mix of pain and humiliation as you repeated his words. You couldn't bring yourself to meet his gaze, instead fixing your eyes on the cold concrete tiles.

 A light pressure beneath your chin lifted your face. Your gaze locked on his, and you found him studying you. How imposing he seemed towering over you, committing every angle to memory, the curve of your throat, the tremor of your lip, the way his power reshaped you into something artful.

“At last,” he breathed. “Exactly as I’d imagined.”

You scoffed involuntarily as your spine snapped straighter. Not because he willed it, but because you chose to face him head on.

For a heart beast, the briefest fracture in time, the two of you hovered there, watching one another. Then his smile deepened, and he stepped back, reaching for the case he’d previously set on the table.

Your stomach dropped. A blaster that had to be it. This had all been an elaborate ruse, some sick performance under the pretense of giving you a choice, maybe you’d pushed him too far. Perhaps your real end would be much simpler, him pulling the trigger and savoring the intimacy of watching you fall.

The thought seared through you, merciless, as you braced for the shot.

Instead he drew out a camcorder.  Older and heavier than the sleek rigs you used. He handled it with an almost reverent care, thumbing the switch until it whirred awake. The lens cap dangled on its tether, swinging like a pendulum as he let it fall. Then he raised it, sighting down the barrel of the lens at you.

“Consider this the final performance of your career.”

The motor hummed as the zoom closed in, capturing every detail in merciless clarity: the smudge of kohl under your lashes, the lipstick smeared across your cheek.

“Look at you,” he murmured, the faintest flicker of delight in his voice.

Your mind spun uselessly, searching for a way out, a loophole, a chance to escape. But there was nothing, only the harsh reality staring back at you through the lens of his camera. 

You curled in on yourself, despair seeping into your bones. You were trapped, utterly at his mercy.

He crouched, one gloved hand catching at your shoulder, shoving the borrowed jacket off with a single, dismissive motion. It hit the floor with a quiet sigh, the other man’s claim, stripped away without ceremony.

Then his fingers found the hem of your top. 

In your streams, you had dreamed this moment into something else entirely, a nameless, faceless benefactor, his hands slow with worship, sliding up your body, patient and reverent. You had imagined him lingering, savoring each inch of bare skin as it was revealed.

But here, the undressing was brisk, fumbling. One handed he dragged the shirt up and over your head, leaving you rumpled, bare, exposed to the cold. 

Instinct pulled your arms across your chest, but he caught your wrist mid-motion, holding it firm. The order was quiet, absolute. No hiding.

So instead, you forced the gesture into something else. A slow roll of your shoulders, posture straightening, chin angling up. You let your hands fall back into your lap. And then you fixed your gaze on the lens itself, unflinching, and defiant. 

He rose again to his feet, his palm pressed at the back of your head, guiding you closer.

“Why don’t you give me a taste of what I’ve been paying for.”

You had never crossed this line before. A few hours ago you were ready to give it all up live on the holonet, but now it was no longer your choice. Everything was somehow inexorably more complicated than it had been before. 

Slowly you braced one hand against the slate grey of his trousers, the other moving to clumsily fumble at his belt. The metal was warm against your touch as you slowly edged the zipper down. 

His cock was already hard when you freed him from the confines of his pants. Hot and flushed, beading with precum. And large. You rock back on your heels, dread and anticipation washing over you in equal measure. 

His grip tightened at the base of your skull, forcing your head lower, erasing the pace you’d been trying to set. The shift was decisive, stripping away any illusion that you had a say in the matter. The camera whirred as it followed, drawing in close, making sure there was nothing left between you and his command.

You drew in a shallow breath and reached for what you knew, the pacing, gentle touches, the sultry glances up at him through your lashes. But those had always been framed, lit, and buffered by glass. A screen between you and anyone who might touch back. 

“Kiss my cock,” he said. Flat, uninflected. As if running you through a drill.

You froze, hesitation flickering in the space of a heartbeat. His fingers flexed, giving your head a sharp jerk as the lens dilated. 

Here, you faltered. 

Movements clumsy, half-formed. Your hand steadied against the weight of his thigh as you leaned in, pressing a tentative kiss to the head of his cock. Warm, unfamiliar, real. The sharp tang of him coated your lips, salt and musk invading your senses as you drew back to swallow, uncertain, before daring to lick them clean.

Breathe, you told yourself.

 Breathe.

One by one, you flipped off breakers in your mind. Sight dimmed. Sound receded. Only the press of his hand remained, the single anchor. You held to it, steeled yourself, and leaned in for another taste. 

You gave a long deliberate swipe of your tongue from base to tip, your eyes locked down the barrel of the camera.  

The heel of your boots dug into your thighs as you worked in earnest, body straining against the rhythm he demanded. Heat and salt filled your mouth, breath catching each time you took him deeper, jaw aching, throat raw. Your hands steadied on his thighs, nails biting through fabric as you forced yourself to keep pace.

When you could you watched his expression, paid careful attention to the shift of his breath when your tongue pressed just so. You weren’t even sure if you were doing it right, only that you had to keep going until you found whatever it was that pleased him.

“That’s it. You are a professional, aren’t you?  My own personal whore”

The word struck you like a brand. The title slid directly under your skin, threading itself through the raw knot of shame and desire tightening low in your abdomen.

It caused your to falter. You pulled back, sputtering, gasping, a thin line of saliva breaking between you. His brows lifted, his hold loosening just enough to allow you to catch your breath. 

“If you cannot even manage this much, we can stop here.” His imperial accent softened the words as he shifted, as though to set the camera aside. For a moment you thought he was offering you mercy, an out, until you sensed the underlying threat.

“No, ” Your voice cracked, the word tumbling out before you could dress it in pride. “Please. I can. Just, ” You swallowed hard, forcing yourself to meet his eyes. “Don’t stop.”

“Better, ” His smirk returned as you leaned forward, a hair’s breadth from his heat. “Almost convincing,” he murmured, his mirth deepening as the lens captured you, eye-level with his cock.

Then, with deliberate precision, he adjusted the camcorder, angling it to the side. The new frame caught the line of your profile, the hollow of your cheeks, the sharp descent of your throat as he pressed you down again.

You steeled yourself, throat convulsing instinctively to resist even as he guided you deeper. Every nerve in your body seemed to rebel, the muscles in your jaw straining against the stretch. 

You focused on breathing through your nose, counting your heartbeats, telling yourself this wasn’t any different than what you’d done before. But each movement forward scraped at the edges of the mental distance you’d built, pulling you back into the reality you’d been trying to shut out. The undeniable desire boiling in your veins at the erotic tableau. 

You tried to smother it, to cling to the wrongness of it all, but the ache only sharpened under his grip. Shame followed hard on its heels, heavy and suffocating, 

The camcorder whirred, unblinking. He changed the position, tightened the frame, angling you forward until the blunt heat of him pressed all the way to the back of your throat. You heaved for breath trying to create distance as he held you there. 

Tears ripped from your eyes, hot and stinging, spilling faster than you could will them away.

“I always did like seeing you like this,” His thumb smeared the wet tracks across your bruised cheek, salt and mascara smudging under the leather. 

“So pretty,”

As if the act itself weren’t brutal enough, he had to speak. 

It pulled you back to one of your earliest streams, back when TheGeneral0504 was only another faceless name in the chat. You’d been nervous that night, skin prickling under the cheap ring light. His messages had cut through the blur of comments, precise, insistent. Slower. Hold it. Not yet.

You’d obeyed, because that was the game. By the time your thighs trembled and your jaw ached from biting down on your own sounds, the tears had come. He told you to turn your face toward the camera. Let them see.

But here, there was no control. No curated light, no glass between you and them. Only the ghost of his hand along your jaw, and the salt slipping past your lips.

He allowed you only a moment to catch your breath before he was on you again. You allowed him to use you. Tears streamed hot and relentless, spilling faster with every choke. You pressed your mouth to him, felt the heavy throb against your lips, the obscene pulse of it. 

You had no sense of how long you knelt before him, your body reduced to rhythm and reflex. Seconds and minutes tangled into nothing, dissolved under the relentless press of his hand, the punishing pull of his hips, the unblinking eye of the camera. 

You clung to the smallest threads of yourself ,  the breath you counted between thrusts, the brush of your hair against your bare shoulders, the glimpses of Ayema’s twisted hull in the periphery of your vision when he wrenched you back. They were fragments, anchors, reminders that you still existed beyond his grip, beyond the framework of this sick game. 

You wanted to hate him, to burn with it, to let fury carry you through. But the truth was colder, sharper: you had done this to yourself.

You had set the stage, invited the audience. built the fantasy, brick by brick until he stepped right through the doorway and claimed it. 

When he finally pulled back, the sudden absence nearly toppled you. You swayed, catching yourself on trembling hands.

You stayed there, chest heaving, tears and spit and smeared makeup. Panic stirred beneath the exhaustion. You hadn’t even made him finish. Would that make him angry? Would he come back?

He said nothing. Only stepped away, adjusted the camcorder, widening the frame for one last shot of you, collapsed and sobbing on the floor. Your body degraded, absolutely undone by him.

He powered down the device with a quiet click, the red light winking out. 

No glance back, no final command.

He made no attempt to acknowledge your presence as he rearranged himself. He simply picked up his datapad, straightened his collar and headed for the door. 

And then you were alone.

Discarded. 

Erased.

Chapter Text

He left you in that cell, the taste of him still bitter and unfinished on your tongue, not for you, but for himself.

That part chafed.

He’d wanted release. To see his fantasy through to its inevitable end, but your eyes had cut deeper than he expected. Glassy and defiant. The flickers of fear. They had threaded under his skin, unmoored his rhythm.  Guilt coiled under the ache of arousal a reminder that, however carefully he’d crafted the arrangement, you had not wanted to be there.

The corridor swallowed him whole. His steps carried him forward, clipped and precise, but the air seemed thick with eyes. Officers shifted in the periphery, their gazes a shade too sharp, their silence a fraction too pointed. The usual deference felt warped, stretched taut.

It crawled across his skin: the thought that they could see it in him, smell it on him. Your ruin clinging to him like blood. 

His fingers curled tighter around the camcorder at his side. A steadying grip. A reverent one. The weight of it grounded him, solid and absolute, even as his pulse raced. Each step carried him closer to solitude, to silence, to the moment he could live it all over again.

Pathetic.

Now the port to his office sealed behind him, shutting out the low hum of the corridor. The quiet was total, pressing in on him like deep space. He crossed to the desk without hesitation, fingers already keying in the encryption sequence that unlocked the interface. The holofile blinked open, neat, labeled, waiting.

The key frame opened.

You.

Frozen in time, just as his hand had pulled the camera into view, your expression blurred by confusion. The curve of your shoulders, the tilt of your mouth, caught between instinct and realization.

He didn’t press play. Not yet.

Instead, he crossed the small seating area to the bar cart gleaming in the corner. Crystal decanters lined in precise order, the cut glass refracting the dim light into shards of amber and gold. He chose one without thought, unstoppered it, and poured heavy into a tumbler.

The liquid caught the light like molten fire. His hand was steady, but the motion was sharp, tight with adrenaline. Anticipation hummed through every movement, coiled and restless, until even the sound of liquor striking glass seemed too loud.

He swallowed half in one pull, the burn scorching down his throat, grounding him. Control. Ritual. He set the glass aside with deliberate care, turned back toward the waiting frame.

Only then did he reach for his coat. He peeled it off slowly, folding the fabric over the back of his chair, each motion exact, as if precision could contain the anticipation clawing beneath his skin. The black button-up clung beneath, heat still trapped against him. He released the top two buttons, exposing his flushed skin to the cool bite of recycled air.

The gloves came next. He stripped them finger by finger, leather creaking faintly before he laid them beside the coat, aligned to the edge of the desk as always, a ritual of order before his indulgence.

His hands then moved to his belt and stopped. The weight of it pressed heavy against his palms, the metal biting into his skin. Across the room his reflection in the darkened viewport showed his tension plainly.

He stood there a moment too long, guilt threading up behind the anticipation, hot and unwanted. Then, with a clipped breath, he pressed play.

“Look at you,” his own voice purred through the speakers, needy and breathless.

The image stuttered, then flared to life: his gloved hand filling the frame, stroking the side of your cheek. The sound of leather against skin, the way your face tilted in confusion, caught, framed, preserved.

His jaw set. One hand braced firm on the desk. The other returned to his belt.

This was better. Controlled. Here, he could pause. Rewind. Linger on what pleased him and cut away the parts that didn’t. Here, you couldn’t stare back at him and gut him with your eyes. 

And it was hotter,  infinitely shamefully hotter,  knowing you would hate him for it, that you knew exactly what his intention had been when he’d leveled that camera at you. And you’d risen to the challenge.

You wanted this. He told himself it was the truth,  not just because you didn’t fight, but because you’d been offering him fragments of yourself for months. Dressing for him. Performing for him. 

You would have ended up on your knees for somebody. And it was better, safer, that it was him.

Ren would have broken you. The Knights would have passed you around until  there was nothing left to recognize. He kept that from happening. That made him your savior, whether you ever admitted it or not. And if he was  your savior, then you owed him. 

Gratitude. Obedience. Your body.

The thought settled heavy and certain, a moral absolution tailored to fit him perfectly.

The belt came loose with a slow rasp, the sound nearly swallowed by the faint playback hiss. He let it dangle from one hand as the other traced the hard edge of the desk, knuckles pale. His gaze stayed locked on the frozen frame: your knees pressed to the tile, your hair twisted in his grip.

He thumbed the control.

You moved again. Lips parting. Breath catching in a stuttered apology that echoed through the speakers.

The memory of your heat, your scent, rose so sharp it hollowed him out. He had to brace a hand against the back of his chair, every muscle pulled taut as though the ghost of that moment had stepped into the room with him.

You jolted in the frame, a muffled gasp as his hand, the one currently inching its way below his belt line, closed around your jaw. His own voice followed, low and commanding. 

“Kiss my cock.”

The rhythm between image and touch tightened, collapsing space and time, until the room itself fell away. There was only the playback. Only you. And the aching need to finish what he had started.

On the holo, you finally leaned forward, tongue flicking tentatively against him, a first, nervous taste.

His hand followed without thought, syncing to yours as though tethered: tightening when your lips closed around him, loosening when you pulled back.

The symmetry was intoxicating. Every stutter of your breath echoed in the pulse of his own, every tremor in your throat reverberating through his grip

Then came the part he’d been waiting for. Your mascara smudged, lashes clumped with wet, soggy tears, your mouth trembling as you tried to keep him in despite the tracks streaking down your cheeks. 

His breath left him in a low, shuddering sound, hips jerking forward as though he could push himself straight through the image and into that moment again.

And you were right. He was a creep. A disgusting, perverted monster, aroused by your tears. The sight of them streaking down your cheeks, helpless, involuntary, only made him harder. It was shameful, vile, everything he despised in others. And yet it burned through him, hotter than anything else he had ever known.

He froze the playback mid-movement, the frame locking on your face, mouth stretched around him, eyes wet and glassy, a single tear balanced precariously on your cheekbone. Perfect.

His thumb dragged over the image on the holoscreen, smearing the pixelated track of it as though he could wipe it away himself. “So pretty,” he murmured, not for you, but for this version of you, the one imprisoned on his computer, the one who could never lift her eyes and condemn him again.

He started moving again. Faster now. The still frame his anchor, the only thing holding him steady as the rest of the world fell away. The office, the silence, even his own shame, obliterated until there was only this. Only you.

When his the finally release came it was sudden, ungraceful, a jolt tearing through him, leaving his palm slick and his lungs dragging in sharp overheated air. No slow comedown. No savoring. Only the the bitter taste of what it had taken to get there.

“You’re a fucking creep. Just like all the rest of them.”

He stepped back from the desk, tugging himself back into place with brisk, practiced motions. A folded cloth from the top drawer made quick work of the mess; his hands were steady again, as if they had never shaken. He shut off the entire system holding the button down to suffocate the still image of your face even as he refused to look.

Collar straightened. Cuffs adjusted. Jaw locked until the reflection in the viewport glass showed only a general again, impassive, untouchable, untouched.

The ship waited. Reports to sign. Orders to give. A thousand moving parts of the great machine, all demanding his attention. He would return to them, as he always did. He would sit behind this desk, issue commands, wear the mask of the general until the day blurred into another victory, another failure, another tally of lives.

But the thought was already there, unshakable. 

Tonight, you would be waiting too.