#please just disengage and stop following my content/sending me asks - and maybe watch some of the videos and stuff or go to | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icewindandboringhorror · 3 years

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Okay, here’s a final answer, just for clarification -

Firstly, please understand that I’m not angry, and I’m not upset. I just tend to speak very matter of factly, I guess? If I seem cold or something when typing this response, it's not a personal attack towards you or some display of aggression, that's just how I word things sometimes, I don't mean for them to be misinterpreted or want you to think I’m like getting mad with you or etc. Me disagreeing does not inherently equal me being mad about something, it merely means that I disagree, which is an emotion neutral action. If someone said 2+2 = 6, I would disagree, and openly so, but that doesn’t mean I’d also be like, crying about it or upset with them or something lol.

I actually even stated so at the end of my tags last time -

So, I apologize if you interpreted my tone as being mean, but I was simply trying to be firm and direct in how I said things so you understand that it's a very serious matter, and I didn't want to be light about it.

There was a bit of jokiness/sarcasm/exaggeration as well I suppose, but again, that’s not an inherent indicator of upset, just the way I speak - especially when your question can be seen as rude to begin with (which usually leads people to care less about faking positive emotions or seeming polite to others. If a person is not polite to you, you’re not likely to watch how you communicate as much or attempt to display high politeness back). My default state is a neutral flatness as I have a very shallow emotional range (shout out to schizophrenia spectrum negative symptoms and other various issues lol), any excessive positivity or “perkiness” or something that I display is just an attempt to be polite and communicate with others in a simple and kindly manner (in real life I’m often seen as too stoic, blunt, detached, cold, etc. lmao, so in general communication with strangers I tend to overcompensate to being excessively polite instead) - but that also means I can accidentally drop that sometimes if I’m being “real” or whatever.

Anyway, now that concerns over my tone have hopefully been explained, I’ll address this issue about your previous ask in a numbered list. Please read ALL of this, if you are actually taking this seriously. If you don’t actually read, in detail (no skimming), this entire response, then this is not even a discussion since you’re not willing to genuinely engage in the first place. -

Firstly, here is the original ask, for reference ----

As for how your question can be rude:

(1.) In my initial response (in the tags of your answer), I asserted various things, mostly that the question was rude, and that it’s not appropriate to ask people, for a variety of reasons. I’ll explain those in more length here.

My main point is that even asking the question in the first place is rude. It doesn’t matter how specifically you word it, it’s not appropriate. Just like any personal issue. At least in my culture, it’s typically thought of as inconsiderate and inappropriate to ask random strangers personal questions. for example, it would be rude to approach a random stranger on the bus that you’ve never even seen before and ask them why the have the haircut they do, who their sexual partners are, if they’ve just had a death in the family, how well their marriage is going, what their gender is, etc. etc.

(2.) On top of this personal boundary issue, another concern would be that the nature of the question itself is baseless --

Would you ask a cis woman why they're a woman? Or a cis man why he chose to be a man? Would you ask a straight person why they chose to be straight?

Would you find it acceptable and polite if a random stranger approached you on the street and asked you for an explanation as to why you're the gender you are? Imagine that exact scenario happening to you, and if you would find it odd or overstepping boundaries at all.

I doubt you ask this same gender identity question to everyone in your life, to your parents, friends, the cashier at your grocery store. Why is it only certain groups that need to explain or justify their identities to you? Only certain groups that you feel the inherent need to question? It's a double standard which further serves to prove the question itself is unnecessary.

(3.) Additionally, in case you're genuinely unsure of tone (maybe you have difficulty reading social cues or something, that’s understandable) I will explain - the way in which the question was asked has certain implications.

The statement “Why are you nonbinary? You seem like a pretty girl to me”, implies that - due to your beliefs about me/how you see me, you find it confusing that I could have a certain identity that you see as not matching your perception of me, or that you see as an invalid label, and are asking for me to justify or explain myself/my identity to you because of that.

Even if this implied meaning was not intentional, it is what most people will interpret upon reading the question, and would be a commonly held understanding. There are other ways you could have asked the question which would be less condescending, yes, but again, the other points still stand (like that the question in itself is impolite to ask to strangers, etc.)

Again, revisit the imaginary scenario of a stranger approaching you on the street and asking you why you’re the gender you are - would there not be some of this implication present? For example, say you’re a man - would it not feel as if someone were questioning your manhood, or implying you weren’t truly a man, or must not be a man ‘correctly’, or that ‘man’ is not a valid label for how they see you? Why else would they approach you and ask you in confusion for you to justify your identity to them? The implication is that they don’t see you as a valid man, or at least not how they see a man, and thus are having a hard time accepting that someone like YOU could ever be a real man - that it’s hard for them to believe you are what you say you are, because they see you differently.

(3.a) As an additional sidenote (one which I addressed in the tags replying to you initially), your ask (as well as this more recent one) also made certain assumptions. There are plenty of people who ''look like girls'' or 'look like boys' but aren't as they “seem”, even if you're someone who only believes in a “binary biological sex model” (I’ll include some links at the end about this). It's strange to assume someone's body parts or identity just based off of pictures you see on the internet (which often have specific lighting, angles, or in the case of many people are even edited and etc. I don't do this but it's really common nowadays with phone editing apps and stuff). Just because I appear a certain way to you, in no way implies that I have the physical form and traits you assume I have Consider how you may feel invalidated or uncomfortable if people sent you messages assuming personal things about you that are incorrect or that they have no way to possibly know.

Your standards and perception are also not universal, various cultures and groups have different ideas about what outward traits would make someone considered a “man” or a “woman”, so making your judgement of someone else’s identity based only on your own (extremely shallow, since it’s only from online pictures) perception of them, is also inherently a bit flawed.

(3.b-ish side tangent) In extension to this, your ideas and how you view me are likely incorrect. Just as it is similarly true that, from afar, any assumptions I make about you would likely be inaccurate as well. We are strangers.

For example, if you really knew me, you would know that I don’t pride myself in costumes and makeup - It’s a fun creative activity for me definitely, but I feel no pride over it, I don’t do it to look good or seem a certain way, and actually I resent it in a way, because often it feels like people mostly only pay attention to blurry pictures of me looking silly in cheap wigs, but don’t give that same level of engagement to the other more important things I do that I personally care about 100x more, like my worldbuilding and other projects lol. Absolutely nothing against the people who like my costumes, I appreciate them of course!!, and I still love doing costumes - BUT, to imply that it’s a primary source of pride in my life or a characteristic that defines me over other things, would be a mischaracterization.

Anyone who knows me in real life would certainly list a million other stand-out traits to define me, rather than ‘pretty make up woman’ (most people I know in real life would also not describe me as ‘pretty’ or as a ‘woman’, just for reference lol).

Your one sided perception of me (which I’ll address in the next section) may allow you to have a shallow idea of me as some sweet pretty costume girl or something, but just know that the reality is more like: I haven’t had much time lately to do costumes because I’m working on a game and other art which I see as much more important, I haven’t bathed or brushed my hair in weeks because of mental illness/functioning issues, 99% of the time I’m not ‘’dressed up’’ - I wear the same pajamas and cardigan that I’ve worn for the past 3 years and barely wash to the point that it’s disintegrating and leaves fabric scraps around the house lol, I have a little moustache right now and a unibrow and other “””non-womanly”””” traits (at least by common media western standards, which is what I assume you go by), I’m excessively analytical, detached, and in real life you would probably see me as blunt and cold and cynical (also commonly missing social cues) - as well as being hugely asocial/ a hermit and mostly lacking the ability to form attachments to others (So definitely not ~pretty and cute and approachable~ ghgg), I have obsessive compulsive disorder and am regularly so anxious that I’m throwing up and have various other issues - I’m also not Fun or Cool or Spontaneous because I’m too busy being rigid and high strung lol (even before the pandemic, I don’t like to leave the house or interact much at all with others, I’d rather be in my little controlled environment where I don’t have overwhelming sensory information and distractions raising my anxiety constantly),, and my favorite activities are literally all just stuff like pacing around my home alone talking to myself in different voices creating gods and fake religions for my fantasy worldbuilding while I eat boiled cabbage and light little pieces of paper on fire over a candle to help me think - not doing makeup and other Pretty Woman Things.

Which I don’t want to be too harsh or focus on this tangent too much, since obviously as you don’t know me in real life, these are all things you couldn’t possibly be aware of, and it simply comes with the territory of posting publicly online - so I absolutely don’t blame you for perceiving me incorrectly. If “pretty” pictures are all you see, then that may very well be the only impression that you have. I just personally dislike this certain interpretation some people have seemed to have of me (you’re not the first person to think of me as a Pretty Makeup Girl or whatever lol), since it’s so completely opposite from the truth of who I am, I feel the need to explain it like this sometimes. Just accepting the false perception some people have of me without any argument feels disingenuous and like supporting a version of myself that doesn’t exist.

So anyway, no issue with you personally, but just trying to set the perception of me straight a little more accurately lol.. now, back on topic --

(4.) Lastly, and here’s the main thing I’d like to stress, there's the issue of personal boundaries. Again, you're a complete stranger to me, I don't know who you are, and you have no idea who I am. Even if you've followed me online for years and read every post I've ever made, you still have no idea who I truly deeply am, only a vague scattering of snapshots over time.

Here are some definitions for Parasocial Relationships:

“Parasocial relationships are one-sided relationships, where one person extends emotional energy, interest and time, and the other party, the persona, is completely unaware of the other's existence. Parasocial relationships are most common with celebrities, organizations (such as sports teams) or television stars.”

“Parasocial interaction (PSI) refers to a kind of psychological relationship experienced by an audience in their mediated encounters with performers in the mass media, particularly on television.[1] PSI is described as an illusionary experience, such that media audiences interact with personas (e.g., talk show host, celebrities, fictional characters, social media influencers) as if they are engaged in a reciprocal relationship with them. The term was coined by Donald Horton and Richard Wohl in 1956. “

This is all anyone can ever have with people they follow online. You can perceive them, but you cannot know them or truly understand them. I think this is very important to remain cognizant of in such a massive social media age, as often times people are fostering one sided concepts that are inaccurate or unhealthy (no so much with just you sending me a simple ask, but in a broader sense, how people act towards celebrities, other bloggers, etc. etc. seems to have little boundaries, and often results in a similar manner with people forgetting to maintain acceptable boundaries with those they follow or know about from afar).

-- This next part is very important, I think it’s a super valuable way of thinking about this sort of stuff, so if you take away nothing else from this, at least remember this next portion --

A very good way to think about online boundaries that I heard someone mention in a post once (though I can no longer find the post), is to take whatever you're going to say to someone online, and imagine saying it in person, in real life, to a barista. Before you send an ask or make a comment, think about if it’s something you would really genuinely say face to face to a stranger.

Would you walk into a random Starbucks and ask the dude at the counter a bunch questions about their gender identity? Or about his personal life in general? You probably recognize that that would be strange and socially inappropriate. It's similarly inappropriate in a case like this.

Even though you may feel a sense of familiarity with someone online from reading their social media posts, or even speaking to them once or twice through asks and etc. etc., at the end of the day you don’t really know each other much more than you’d know a random stranger.

Unless someone is inviting personal questions (like by reblogging those ‘ask me anything’ posts or etc.), or has the sort of blog where they are commonly asking people about/discussing their own intimate personal experiences or etc. (mine is not this way), then questions like this are very out of the blue and similar to asking a random person working at a store things like that. It can be seen as rude and inappropriate in general to give those sorts of questions to people who are complete strangers, and typically comes off as crossing personal boundaries. Again, think about a random stranger asking you these questions, and how you may perceive it.

In summary:

1. The question itself is borne from an double standard and isn't very good to ask in the first place. 2. The way you asked the question was worded with certain implications. 3. Your ask is also assuming certain things that you don't know are true, which can be uncomfortable for some people. 4. Even were it not for the three other things, it's commonly considered rude in many cultures to ask serious questions about the personal details of complete strangers, even if it's online. It could prove useful to utilize the ‘barista test’ to better determine this in the future.

Final Thoughts:

Anyway, I wasn't mad and I have no beef with you or whatever lol. Hopefully you can understand what I mean. I've also explained myself as well as I think I can though, so I don't feel like discussing it any more and won't respond to further asks about this. I have a lot of things going on in my life right now (as I'm sure everyone does given the pandemic and everything, you probably do too, so hopefully you can empathize with that), so I’d like to limit my time spent online, especially discussing topics I already don’t like to discuss or am not open to accepting questions about (I just want to talk about cats and elves and stuff lol).

If you still can't at least kind of get where I'm coming from then it's perfectly fine to just agree to disagree. If aspects of myself upset you or cause you discomfort, then there's no harm in just unfollowing me or something! Or if you don't even follow me, I would encourage you to block me so my posts no longer come across your dash (or block/unfollow me on whatever other social media you may be seeing my posts on ,etc)., etc. That way you don't have to see content or hear from someone who makes you uncomfortable that way, and there also won't be any need for this to come up in the future. Part of using the internet in a healthy and productive manner is to know when to disengage with certain content and just cut it off/unfollow/block people/etc. if it’s causing you unnecessary conflict or distress, or makes you uncomfortable or etc. to look at. Thank you for the question! Hopefully this response explained things a little better.

Links and Further Info:

On the off chance that you were genuinely curious, here are some resources where you can learn more about people of different gender identities and also hear them explain their experiences, etc. Since these people are actually openly discussing their experiences/making educational content and are obviously actually open to talking about it, that would be a better place to field any further questions or learn about things. :3

Here’s some reading -

Understanding Nonbinary People (link)

Gender Variance Around the World (link)

12 Questions About Nonbinary Gender Answered (link)

About the Sex Binary (link)

Ask LGBT subreddit (link)

one ‘ask a nonbinary person’ blog i found (I don’t know if they’re still active, it’s one of the first ones that came up for me lol, but I guess could be helpful) (link)

And here’s some videos with people talking about their experience, or being educational -

(NOTE: I just did a quick google search and did not deeply research these people and their entire histories and etc., so I can’t say I stand by literally everything they say or know what type of people they are, but it’s just a general place to start~!)

A video examining the idea of gender in general and how it even exists and nonbinary people (definitely interesting to watch) (link)

video about nonbinary gender/explanations (probably at least watch this one too) (link)

What is a nonbinary gender? (shorter general info) (link)

answering all your nonbinary questions q&a (link)

Video about binary sex/gender/etc. (link)

5 nonbinary people explain what nonbinary means to them (link)

another video about similar stuff (link)

#Please stop sending me asks about this now. I just want to talk about elves and cats and fantasy writing and stuff #No personal questions unless I specifically comment on something/initiate the discussion or they're about my art or something else I'm doing #lol... especially with everything going on this year #just a big Let Me Relax I Will Deal With Anything Even Remotely Stressful Later mood #ANd anon if you're still here - go listen to 'And the beat goes on' by The Whispers #no real reason gjhgjhg it's just a good song and I had it playing while I was proofreading #(also for context - it hasn't just been two asks - I'm pretty sure this person sent me others. If that's not true then I apologize anon -#but I definitely got multiple asks that were mentioning similar things/of a similar tone (intentionally referring to me as a 'girl' 'woman'#consistently and in a kind of agressive way or etc. (which you can block asks even if they're on anon (i think it's just an IP block) so if #it was indeed this anon sending them then they may be blocked from sending any more asks already because I blocked all those weird ones #I got lol. if it wasn't them then they should still be fine though- but anyway. there were other messages being sent #etc. consistently - which only happened after the first initial ask and would happen regualrly so. etc. etc. Just wanted to mention it since #the 'stop sending me asks about this now' comment doesn't make much sense if you think there was only two asks lol. I'm preetty sure #there were more - though of course they're all anon so I can't confirm. ANYWAY - again.. i have no beef with you but if we don't agree then #please just disengage and stop following my content/sending me asks - and maybe watch some of the videos and stuff or go to #other reasources if you really want to know about this stuff because I'm just not the right person/in the correct mindset to explain it to #you. I can barely do basic daily functions like making sure I eat 3 times a day lol.. I don't have the mental energy to write educational #essays and etc. but SOME people do - which is why pursuing other resources is important. ALSO - listen to The Whispers. that is my #final advice.. put on some good music and just dance and eat some cheddar cheese or something. this will soothe every issue )

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caiminnent · 4 years

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your hand, my knife [kylux, rated T]

Prompt: insomnia (@badthingshappenbingo, 4/25)

Summary: On the nights his skin feels stretched thin over his bones and the voices in his head sound truer than his own, Kylo comes to Hux for comfort. It will be the downfall of them both.

Fandom: Star Wars

Tags: Post-The Last Jedi, Non-TROS Compliant, Pining, Hurt/Comfort, Sharing a Bed, Non-Sexual Intimacy

3K || Also on AO3.

On the nights his skin feels stretched thin over his bones and the voices in his head sound truer than his own, he wanders.

Technically, there’s no night on a ship. It’s all cycles this and shifts that, systems built strictly to make the well-oiled machine that is the First Order even more efficient. Even the layout is designed specifically to direct rotations through the routes where they would be most valuable, not a square inch left unmanned in any given moment.

Not a square inch to fucking breathe is what that truly means.

He doesn’t realize there was purpose in his stride until he finds himself at that door. Third time this week—Hux will revoke his access again. This time for good. His palms are already sweating in his gloves at the thought of being locked out here with half a dozen officers still mulling around, their consciousnesses threatening to seep in through the cracks of his failing mental barrier—

That’s absurd. He’s the Supreme Leader. He has nothing to fear from an access panel; he could blast it into a million pieces if he so wished.

Ripping his glove off, he presses a thumb on the panel. It beeps, blinking green once before the locks disengage with a hiss that hides his sigh.

Past the narrow entrance hiding the rooms from the immediate gaze, Hux is—

Hux is sprawled across that awful couch in his robe with a datapad in hand, petting a sleeping Millicent on his lap with his other, strands of damp hair framing his face. The sight is… soft, almost, impossible to reconcile with the vicious, ruthless face of the First Order prowling the bridge. General Hux wouldn’t be caught dead looking halfway human, let alone at home.

Armitage might, though.

Unease rolls off Hux, a low wave that sends Kylo’s skin crawling. His fingers tingle with the need to soothe it away—he’s not here to leech off Hux’s comfort, only to find some of his own—but Hux would sooner throw him out than accept the peace offering. The marks around his neck, down his side that he wore like a fuck you for weeks were proof enough.

Kylo hates everything. Especially himself.

Hux lowers the datapad and slowly sits up, keeping a hand on Millicent. “Supreme Leader,” he says smoothly, nothing in his tone betraying his anxiety. “Pardon my state of undress; I wasn’t expecting company at this hour.”

Of course he wasn’t. No one dares disturb the General for anything short of an emergency during his off time—no one but Kylo.

“Don’t call me that,” he rasps, heart high in his throat. “Not here.” He never comes here as the Supreme Leader. He doesn’t even look supreme right now—in a single glove and the first clothes he’d found on his floor, cape forgotten in his hurry to get out, he feels more like a giant shit stain on the pristine rugs.

Hux’s assessing glance says as much as he scans Kylo from head to toe, trying to pinpoint what broke him this time. “Very well,” he says with a small dip of his head. “Ghosts?”

“Yes,” Kylo lies. Ghosts. Demons. Nightmares. All good reasons to excuse away why his feet won’t stop carrying him here. Simple. Dismissible.

He’s worn them thin by now, though. Hux must not be looking closely to miss how see-through they’ve become. Maybe he stopped caring about it, for all he still asks; what does the reason matter when they all mean Kylo is here to ruin his night?

Releasing a put-upon sigh, Hux glances at his datapad like it pains him to part with it. “I used to get so much work done during rest cycles.”

The knot in his stomach unfolds. “Sorry.”

Hux only rolls his eyes, stretching to the side table to put the datapad away—nearly tips his caf over before Kylo steadies the half-full mug with the Force.

Millicent jerks her head up, tail and ears prickling up as she scans the area. Hux smiles at her—a warm, lopsided little thing that takes ten years out of him, a new gleam to his eyes. Kylo is struck by an image he’s never seen: Hux half-naked in his bed, blinking sleep out of soft, blue-green eyes, his lips curling into that sweet smile for Kylo.

Pathetic.

Scratching between Millicent’s ears, who settled on Kylo as the source of curiosity, “Stop staring and go get cleaned up,” Hux says, a note of amusement lingering in his tone. He turns to Kylo and it disappears. “I’ll be a moment.”

------------

Cleaning up is the part Kylo dislikes the most.

He’s not a beast, like Hux likes to insinuate often; he knows how to clean himself—but Hux has him wash with scented soaps until his skin is red and his scalp is hurting before allowing him into the bed. Punishment for all that he’s done to Hux on Crait—or power play, Hux exerting his will where he’s allowed to.

Or maybe, whispers that voice at the back of his head, he simply doesn’t want your smell on his sheets. He doesn’t want to remember that you’ve been there.

The thought cuts deeper than it has any right to.

Once he’s up to Hux’s standards, he steps out and into his old clothes—on second thought, takes the shirt off again and hides it at the bottom of the hamper for a cleaning droid to find. Hux will have a fit when he finds it neatly folded among his uniforms.

Part of him hopes Hux has already fallen asleep, so that Kylo can skip to the comfort of lying next to someone already, but the energy in the dim space is too off for that. He follows it to the bedroom, where Hux is enjoying a cigarra on the steps leading down to the full-height viewport, the pretentious bastard. The smoke detectors overhead are conspicuously passive.

Watching Hux watch the galaxy out there is far from a new experience. Kylo has seen that particular shine of red against the backdrop of stars a thousand times by now; the novelty has long worn off. The weight in his chest, the aching desire to card his fingers through that silky hair and slip the shoulder of the robe just that much lower have no place between Hux and him.

None at all.

Too tired for more games, he drops his gloves on the dresser and gets into the bed without waiting for express permission, burying himself under the plush duvet. The shower wasn’t enough to stave off the chill in his bones, nor is the wasteful warmth of Hux’s rooms. Nor will the duvet be, but Hux makes no move to even acknowledge him, let alone join him, so it will have to do.

Sleep hasn’t been a part of Kylo’s nights for quite some time. He stopped expecting it to be, trying to be content with drifting on the edge long enough to keep his head during the day. Still, irritation spikes in him when he’s drawn back from his rest, Hux’s barely considerable weight shifting the mattress underneath.

“Oh, hush,” Hux says even though Kylo didn’t make a sound, sliding under the covers. He’s dressed again, in a dark shirt that looks too big on him and matching pants. Kylo is already missing the robe. “Turn around.”

Kylo faces the viewport and closes his eyes, his body already growing lax in anticipation. No matter his words, Hux’s touch is always gentle as he combs the strands falling on Kylo’s face away, the lingering reek of smoke on his fingers sharp enough to sting.

Kylo grimaces. “Did you have to smoke the entire pack?”

The grip in his hair tightens in warning, not enough to hurt. “Do you or do you not want this, Ren?”

Kylo presses closer in answer.

Confusion and surprise rise in Hux like dust kicked off the ground, leaving a bitter taste in Kylo’s mouth. So Kylo is needy tonight, big deal. He’s not about to apologize for it. Shouldn’t Hux be glad to have more to throw in his face?

Hux carefully, almost experimentally, runs his fingers over Kylo’s scalp, through his hair, down a shoulder blade—pulls away at the shiver that elicits. Shame spreads through him, sudden and burning. Hux’s hands never really warm up, no matter the temperature of his surroundings or how long he keeps them under hot water. Poor circulation. Can’t do even that right. Weak, thin, useless—

It’s not Kylo’s thought.

Heart hammering in his chest, Kylo rolls over. Startled, Hux scuttles away, fear flashing over his face before his expression shutters into a guarded mask. The shame that coats Kylo’s insides is all his own this time.

Doing his best to pitch his voice low and soothing, “Give me your hands,” Kylo asks, extending his own with the palms up. Trustful. Open.

Hux frowns, eyes flitting down at Kylo’s hands on the duvet. “What—”

“Your hands,” Kylo repeats, trying to hold onto the thin threads of patience he’s never had for anything. He has to comfort Hux—doesn’t know why, doesn’t know how, but all his instincts are screaming at him to do something and by stars, he will. “Please.”

He doesn’t need the Force to sense the mix of distrust and curiosity oozing out of Hux as Hux cautiously places his hands on Kylo’s, allowing him to take them under the covers. Kylo tucks them against his chest and starts rubbing Hux’s wrists, palms, each finger—moving back up.

There are easier ways to do this. He could use the Force to help redirect Hux’s blood flow, no touching necessary unless Hux wanted it. He won’t ask, though. The trust Hux is—has been—placing in him is still fragile, tentative; it wouldn’t do to risk it by stirring up bad memories.

Hux’s eyes are trained where he can’t see their hands under the duvet. “What are you doing?” he asks on a low, bemused laugh.

“Warming you up,” Kylo says simply, starting on Hux’s forearms under the sleeves. The skin is smoother here, not calloused or scarred like his palms or fingertips, save for where his blade usually sits. “I hear I’m a human furnace. Might as well put it to good use.”

“Right. Can’t let your security blanket become an ice block.”

A security blanket. That’s what Hux believes himself to be. A kriffing child’s kriffing comfort toy.

Which one of them does Hux intend to insult?

Either way, Kylo’s not going to rise to the bait. “Something like that,” he says, shrugging his free shoulder. Humor drains from Hux’s face.

He makes his way down from Hux’s elbows, following the long, angular marks with his thumbs—Hux takes his hands away before he can get to the wrists. Kylo lets him, feeling oddly emptied in his guts—robbed of something he doesn’t even own.

“That’s quite enough,” Hux bites out, pulling his sleeves down sharply. “Let’s put your good work to test, shall we?”

Kylo grudgingly turns again, not bothering with the duvet. The backs of Hux’s fingers are only marginally warmer, but Kylo manages to suppress the shiver this time as they slide down his nape, between his shoulder blades, to the middle of his back and back up—like soothing an agitated animal. Soon enough, his eyes are drooping low despite himself, tension he hadn’t realized he carried slipping from his shoulders, his forehead.

“Where’d you learn to do that?” he mumbles, too boneless for more—stiffens again when his brain catches up to his mouth. Pillow talk. He’s trying to have pillow talk with Hux. As if Hux would ever tolerate that.

The hand has stilled on the curve of his spine. Kylo bites his tongue to keep from saying never mind. Hux might run this show, but he doesn’t call all the shots; Kylo can ask a stupid question without wanting to kick himself for it. He’s allowed to.

Hux takes a long breath, his touch caressing up Kylo’s body again. “Medbay,” he says on the exhale. Kylo wills himself into a statue, lest he do anything that makes Hux reconsider. “During my first years on the Finalizer—before I made it into High Command—I often had… causes, for extended stays. I couldn’t fall asleep in such an exposed, accessible place, however, nor would I accept sleeping aid for fear that I might grow dependent on them. This was a… tolerable solution, at the time.”

Kylo’s head is buzzing. Why had Hux had to spend so much time in the medbay? Do any of the personnel at the time remain on board, so that he can reward them and then banish them to a backwater planet for having touched Hux so intimately? Does Hux ever think back on those nights when he can’t sleep and wish for someone to soothe him like that?

Might Hux ever consider Kylo for the task?

The questions are like beetles in his lungs, scratching at him to get out—Hux radiating anticipation and regret behind him. Before, Kylo would push on regardless, stealing the answers from Hux’s mind if he has to, the urge to sate his curiosity winning over the risk of having Hux retreat back into his shell.

He doesn’t even remember when before was.

Swallowing hard against the words trying to crawl up, “Thank you for telling me,” he whispers. Maybe, in some far, unlikely future, Hux will tell him the full story—willingly. Maybe Hux will want to share things with him.

Until then, Kylo will hold his tongue.

------------

He’s fallen asleep without intending to, he finds when he wakes up to an arm circling his waist and warm breath tickling his nape, Millicent at their feet.

He’s never felt safer in his entire life.

Closing his eyes, he allows himself to pretend, just for a bit. To imagine that this is just a regular morning in their shared quarters, nothing he hasn’t experienced before, nothing out of the ordinary. That Hux won’t be displeased to see Kylo has lingered past his welcome.

The alarm blaring from the side table shatters the dream.

For all his no-nonsense efficiency in everything, Hux wakes up slowly. Kylo can feel every shift against his back as Hux’s body resists wakefulness—sends a prayer to every deity he can think of that Hux can’t feel his heartbeat in return, evening out his breathing to feign deep sleep.

Hux’s whole body stiffens against his, that chalk-dust feeling rising again.

Instead of jerking back in horror, Hux pauses as he takes in the situation, the gears in his head turning almost audibly. He’s probably making that face, with the pinched mouth and lines cutting across his forehead. Kylo’s memorized it over countless simulations and battle plans, strategy meetings he only attended to appease the General.

Hux tends to radiate murderous intent by the end of those, though, not—not fucking contentment.

The thought sinks into his stomach like a hot stone.

The temptation to look into Hux’s mind and see for himself is overwhelming. He must be wrong. There’s no other explanation; he must be reading things wrong or—or the Force must have anchored on someone else passing in the hallway, in other quarters—hell, Millicent. Hux isn’t capable of feeling anything but contempt and dissatisfaction.

A thumb brushes against Kylo’s stomach and his heart skips a beat.

Hux pulls away. The alarm shuts off a moment later, followed by the refresher door.

Kylo rolls onto his back as if pulled in by gravity, staring at the ceiling. The room looks exactly the same as last night. As it should. He’s the one thrown off-kilter between then and now—the one with stupid, dangerous desires that will only see him dethroned, if not killed. The one that gets undone by a stray brush of skin.

Swallowing against the lump at the base of his throat, he pushes himself up and out of the bed, reaching for his boots in the corner. He doesn’t know what Hux’s morning routine entails, but Hux must want some alone time for it, to put on his uniform and his general face and the stick up his ass. Kylo’s already pushing his luck; he should leave before Hux comes back and kicks him out.

Hux appears before Kylo can get to the second boot. Kylo keeps his eyes on the task, not eager to face the General’s displeasure full-on.

Pausing in the doorway, “Oh,” Hux says mildly. “You’re awake.”

“Yeah,” Kylo says, trying to tug the boot up. He should’ve just used the Force and be done with it, but that would have woken Millicent up again. “I was just leaving.”

“Don’t.”

Kylo looks up sharply enough to hurt his neck—catches only a flash of Hux’s expression before Hux moves briskly past to the closet. Nothing but rows and rows of regulation clothing, jackets hanging without a speck of dust visible on them.

“Everyone is already awake,” Hux points out as he pulls out his clothes. “You will only raise heads in your… current state. My job is difficult enough without having to snuff out rumors that I’m fucking you for my position.”

Right. This is where they stand: Supreme Leader and his devious pet general. General Hux and the attack dog he’s trying to keep on a leash. Two monsters vying for power—nothing more, nothing less.

Kylo would do well to remember that.

Hux glances over his shoulder with the stack of clothes in his hands, raising a brow. “Some privacy, if you will.”

“Yeah.” Kylo nods, already picking up his gloves and the boot he’s knocked over. “Sure, of course.”

Hux watches as Kylo limps back into the main area to wait out the morning crowd, closing the door behind Kylo. All surfaces are cleared out of anything remotely personal again, the robe nowhere to be seen. If it weren’t for that ice blue couch, Kylo could have been in anyone’s rooms.

The door opens again. “And Ren?”

Kylo turns, almost tripping over his feet in his hurry.

“I’m keeping my end of the bargain,” General Hux says, nodding at the unmade bed. “Make sure to keep yours.”

#kylux #Armitage Hux #Kylo Ren #Star Wars #Bad Things Happen Bingo #finished fics #Cai does words #here we go #I've been breathing this fic for a week straight #this has been a ride #hopefully formatting won't fail me this time #your hand my knife

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notbang · 5 years

Text

that cat’s something i can’t explain

read on ao3

“Rebecca,” Nathaniel says in surprise when he spots his girlfriend weaving through the Mountaintop lobby, flour-dusted apron and all, making a very determined beeline in his general direction. “What’s going on?”

As soon as he says the words, he expects her haughtiness—an affronted why can’t a humble pretzel maker visit her lawyer lover on the top floor, perhaps, or something equally colourful. The closer she gets, though, he can see she’s vibrating with something other than deliberately cloying indignation.

“What’s going on,” she says emphatically, dropping her phone on the front desk with enough force that its momentum slides it towards him, “is that if I had to be subjected to this monstrosity, then so you do you.”

He stops the phone before it can ricochet off the edge of the counter, eyebrows raised as he unlocks the screen.

“Now that we know a love of the theatrical arts is something which we both share—”

“Wouldn’t say ‘love’,” Nathaniel interjects.

“—we can have these very important cultural discussions together.”

He makes it approximately twenty seconds into the video before he turns it off.

This isn’t the first time he’s found himself completely miffed by one of Rebecca’s outbursts, but even in his bemusement it’d be disingenuous of him to paint it as one of her qualities he considers skewed towards the negative. There’s always been something so captivating in the way her feelings tend to command the entirety of her tiny frame, expressing endlessly outwards, always making her seem so much more than what she is.

Still, he’s at a loss for what to offer her in return for her obvious discontent, and he settles for stating the obvious, well aware she’ll hand him precisely the response she was looking for soon enough.

“Don’t see it?” he offers, tone tentative and polite.

Predictably, she scoffs at him, jabbing two accusing pointer fingers in his direction. “Ha. Don’t see it. I wasn’t planning on it, was I? But then they had to go and make it terrible, which is how they reel you in! And not just plain old terrible, either—it’s, like, the uncanny valley, haunt-your-dreams kind of terrible that cancels out how terrible the source material already is, because that’s how negative integers work, for some reason, and now it’s like this… furry train wreck I can’t look away from,” she finishes, gesticulating wildly and scrunching up her hands into frustrated little cat claws.

“Did Nathaniel finally admit he’s a furry?” Maya whispers with conspiratorial glee, popping up unannounced on Rebecca’s immediate left.

“Ugh, Maya, go away,” she groans.

“You don’t work here anymore—you can’t just boss people around,” Nathaniel says, before straightening his shoulders and adding pointedly, “Maya, go away. Please.”

Rebecca raises her eyebrows as the office assistant pushes her glasses up her nose, pouts and scampers away. She leans across the desk to give him a blatant up-and-down. “Wow, look at you—dolling out pleases like you’re Oprah or something. So cordial, yet commanding. It’s kind of sexy, in a Miss Manners kind of way.”

“Don’t you have a storefront you should be manning?”

“I’d be able to hear the fire alarm from here,” she defends, then pushes up on her tip-toes to plant a kiss on his right cheek. Nathaniel pauses in his photocopying, ears pinking, then reciprocates with a brief press of his open palm to the small of her back.

He clears his throat. “I’ll see you at lunch,” he calls after her, but he’s certain she doesn’t hear him, already having summoned Maya back, strangely intent on correcting her opinions on something involving, if he’s heard correctly, Taylor Swift.

When he makes his way down the hall back to her bedroom, still towelling his hair, there’s a message notification waiting on his phone from Rebecca.

“What is this?” he asks, waving his screen at her.

She doesn’t even glance up from the novel she’s reading, a stray lock of her hair looping around her finger in an absent spiral. He watches the movement for a moment, transfixed, until she disengages the curl to flick the page over and finally responds. “It’s Hermione after she messes up her Polyjuice potion in Chamber of Secrets. Obviously.”

“Okay.” Then, after a beat, “Why am I looking at it?”

“Because Paula doesn’t understand musicals or Harry Potter or memes, so it had to go to you by default.”

“Do you understand memes?”

“Plus,” she says, ignoring him, “you’re, like, romantically obligated to find every message I send you entertaining.”

He plugs his phone into charge before joining her on the bed, shuffling as high up on the pillows as he can manage to keep his toes from skimming the end of the mattress when he stretches out. It’s not entirely successful, but if he bends at the knees a little and curls on his side, he knows from past experience he can make it work.

“Am I, just. Even the ones composed entirely of emojis?”

She grins. “Especially the ones composed entirely of emojis.”

Rebecca ditches her paperback in favour of wriggling into his warmth, murmuring her contentment when he slips an arm around her waist to draw her close and drop a chaste kiss onto the crown of her head. Her hair’s still damp and smells vaguely floral, like her shampoo, and he lets his lips linger there, breathing her in.

His phone vibrates twice on the nightstand.

When pulls back to peer down his nose at her, she’s not-so-subtle in her attempt to conceal what she’s cradling innocently between their chests. He sighs, feigning exasperation. “You just sent me a cat emoji, didn’t you?”

“I absolutely did not,” she says solemnly, then, dissolving into laughter under his scrutiny, confesses, “It was more like five. And I think maybe a llama by mistake?”

“It’s like they didn’t even try,” Rebecca announces loudly in the vicinity of Nathaniel’s ear, rudely jerking him back from the precipice of sleep.

“Oh good,” he sighs, blinking his eyebrows higher up his forehead in the darkness. “This again.”

He grunts out his disapproval as the bedside lamp clicks back on, casting half the apartment in dramatic shadow as it burns his retinas with its unexpected blinding light.

“And I’m just saying,” Rebecca continues, oblivious or in the very least unconcerned with his state of obvious discomfort, apparently immune to any such adjustment period of her own, “did anyone consult TS Eliot before reinventing his heartfelt poetry as a vaginal yeast infection in musical form?”

Nathaniel’s nose wrinkles to match the pre-existing scrunch of his face. “What?”

“Never mind, it was a whole a thing. My point is, no film is an island unto itself. People signed off on this. Multiple people looked at those designs and said, you know what’s gonna add a layer of appeal to a musical that already has no plot? Stripping it of its one redeeming feature—AKA the crazy 80s hair—and replacing it with horrifying, humanoid heads that somehow manage to look furry and bald at the same time.”

Even if Nathaniel felt remotely qualified to comment on the topic—which, for the record, oddly flattered though he is at Rebecca’s pervasive belief that he might be, he decidedly is not—it’s late, it’s a weeknight, and he really just wants to sleep.

“If you hate it so much, rewrite it,” he says before pointedly rolling away from her with a yawn and yanking the covers up over his shoulders.

She follows him, flicking him hard in the back of the neck where his nape’s still exposed above the blanket. “Not cute, dude. You don’t get points for that one anymore. And you can’t ‘rewrite’ CGI. Even if you could, a thousand rewrites isn’t gonna change the eyesore that I—nay, humankind—have been subjected to.”

Nathaniel buries his face in the pillow and groans something that resembles her name before it gets jumbled in its muffled pass through the cotton.

“Rebecca,” he says once he’s resurfaced, trying again, tone still undeniably clipped as he scrubs a palm across his face. “I have a deposition first thing tomorrow. Do we really need to have this conversation now?”

She wilts visibly, chagrined, eyes flicking to the clock at his bedside that may as well have ABSURDLY LATE splashed across its interface in red LEDs. “Sorry,” she says meekly, officially rebuked, sinking back into the sheets and switching off the lamp.

The room is blissfully silent save for the collective electronic hum of his appliances, but despite the stillness, Nathaniel finds himself unable to drift back off. Without opening his eyes he pats around beside him until his fingers connect with the phone he’d known with every fibre of his being she was still holding, confiscating and discarding on his nightstand, out of reach.

“Go to sleep,” he admonishes.

“I was just—”

“Sleep,” he repeats, voice gruff with exhaustion, enfolding her firmly in his arms as a preventative measure, practically able to hear her calculating the device’s retrieval in the dark.

“What are we dealing with, here? Minor song lyric alteration? Beloved song exclusion? Reinforced misogyny? Racially insensitive miscast?”

Nathaniel startles at the sound of the door opening, Paula spilling into Rebecca’s house like she lives there and depositing her bags in the entryway with a dramatic thud.

Rebecca, by comparison, is unperturbed by the intrusion, swivelling on a breakfast stool to look at her friend and shake her head. “We’re not talking misdemeanours here, Paula. We’re talking big league. Like, DEFCON-5.”

“Oh,” Paula says. She clucks in feigned sympathy and shoots a knowing glance in Nathaniel’s direction. “This is about the singing cats, huh.”

Even focused as he is on rinsing out her blender, he doesn’t miss the way Rebecca shrinks guiltily away from him in his periphery.

“Did you call an early morning emergency meeting of your girl mob to discuss a movie trailer you didn’t like?” he asks, careful to keep his tone light.

“It’s gurl group, but you know that, and no—Valencia is in town for her sister’s birthday and Heather’s working at this Home Base today and Paula’s new job means she has to like, actually do work now, so breakfast is the only time all of us were free.”

As if on cue, Heather and Valencia sidle through the open doorway.

“Oh, he’s here?” Heather drawls with an exaggerated grimace when she spots Nathaniel. “Looks like you’ve already found someone to rant about your dumb movie to, so I’m gonna just—”

Her attempt to pivot on the spot and leave is thwarted by the arm Valencia loops through her own, catching her before she can re-cross the threshold.

Nathaniel wastes no time in whipping his head around to aim an aha look in Rebecca’s direction, and she’s just as quick to defend, “Yeah, okay, so it’s on the agenda. Amongst other things.”

“Is that so. Like what?”

“Like… topics I don’t know about yet because nobody ever responds to my requests to send me their items for the agenda.”

“God, no more agendas,” Paula grouches, reaching for a mug from the overhead cabinet. “Or meetings. My entire life is meetings and agendas and scheduling conflicts. Can’t we just have a good old fashioned rendezvous? I feel like nobody ever rendezvouses anymore.”

“Ooh, or how about a tryst,” Rebecca suggests, waggling her eyebrows.

“Girl, you know I love you,” Valencia says, “but I’m not trysting with you. I have a fiancée.”

Heather hums, drumming her fingers against the countertop as she hoists herself up onto a stool. “So full disclosure, Hector and I saw the Cats revival with his mom last year, and I liked it. I think the lack of plot worked in Hector’s favour.”

“There’s no accounting for taste,” Rebecca says, wistful.

“You liked The Lion King,” Nathaniel feels obligated to point out. “That’s technically about digitally rendered singing cats.”

“I tolerated The Lion King because of my deep fondness of the original and because I knew I could bully you into seeing it with me because of its zoological themes,” she corrects. “Anyway, that remake’s issue was that it had no soul. This remake’s issue is that it’s, like, demonically possessed, or something. Which, to be fair, cats, as a species, generally are.”

“Rebecca,” Valencia begins, voice all saccharine and scathing, “need I remind you of one of the many occasions you broke up with this one—” She jabs a thumb in Nathaniel’s face, making him frown. “—with the intention of adopting an entire shelter’s worth of felines?”

“That was a different time,” Rebecca dismisses. “I was punishing a version of myself I wasn’t proud of by resigning her to the fate I believed she deserved.”

Nathaniel tilts his head, bemused. “Huh?”

“Oh, she wanted to be a crazy cat lady,” Heather translates, enunciating loudly, “because she couldn’t bone you in the stationery closet without feeling bummed about it anymore. Just, like. While we’re on the subject of trysts.”

“Heath-er,” Rebecca hisses, kicking her ex-housemate in the shin.

Parsing their less than stellar communal romantic track record with a group of women all too happy to gang up on him afforded the slightest opportunity isn’t high on Nathaniel’s to-do list for the morning, and a flick of his wrist to check his smart watch is all the excuse he needs to make a timely escape.

“On that note,” Nathaniel says, snatching his car keys off the counter, “I’m going to leave you ladies be.”

The conversation barely dips as he sees himself out.

“So in between your being typecast as our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, you didn’t happen to don, say, a unitard and leg warmers, did you?”

“What?”

He knows he should be used to this by now—this tendency towards unexpected tack-changing that he’d liken to a dog with a bone, if the cliche didn’t feel somewhat inapt, considering. It’s not like he’s unaccustomed, after all this this time, to Rebecca’s one track mind. It’s just that up until this point, most of the tracks she’s been fixated on treading have usually, admittedly, served his own interests as easily as her own.

“Just checking, because for the record, it’s kind of a massive deal breaker for me.”

She flops into his side, not entirely-unpleasantly sticky, or in the very least, skin virtually indistinguishable from the slick of his own. Rebecca’s ability to pick up intelligible conversation immediately post-coitus is a talent he does not share, and as the golden fog of afterglow suffuses through his bloodstream he takes his time meandering back towards the realm where articulation is possible, content in the knowledge his bedmate will happily barrel on without him until he catches up.

“Just kidding,” she seems to feel the need to clarify, even in the absence of any protest on his behalf. “The knowledge that you were a theatre kid is such an aphrodisiac to me that it well and truly trumps any potential feline faux pas.”

“Wasn’t a theatre kid,” he corrects, the response so automatic he’s not sure it counts as cognitive function.

“Agree to disagree,” Rebecca says, earning herself an exasperated sigh.

Once the drumbeat of his pulse has slowed in his ears, he cracks an eyelid, suspicious of the lack of movement and sudden cease in chatter from the woman sprawled out across his upper torso. Rebecca’s gazing up at him as if she’s been patiently awaiting his full attention, chin resting on her stacked hands, a lazy, satisfied smile stretched across her features.

“You know, for someone who claims to hate Cats,” Nathaniel tells her with amusement after stretching to peck her on the mouth, “you kind of talk about Cats a lot. Some might even describe you as off-puttingly passionate on the subject. Not me,” he backtracks at her incredulous glare, tucking her hair behind her ear with affection. “I find your aggressive diatribe charming.”

Suitably placated, she drops her head back down against his shoulder. “They do say there’s a fine line between love and hate.”

He skates his hand down the bare expanse of her back, letting it settle in the dip between her hips. She undulates with the caress, thighs parting and sliding to bracket one of his. If she’s gunning for a second round he’s still got his refractory period to contend with, but there’s always other ways to keep her occupied, his loose-limbed lack of focus notwithstanding.

She doesn’t push it any further, though, apparently content for now in her own come-down, and he’s just about to give in to the pull towards sleep when it occurs to him what he’s neglected to ask.

“Did you?”

Rebecca’s even breaths, which up until now have been fanning rhythmically across the damp of his throat, catch and falter enough that he takes note of their telling absence.

“Hmm? Did I what?” she deflects, and his eyes narrow at the way she doubles down on the suggestive patterns she seems intent on tracing across his pectorals.

Determined not to be swayed, he shifts beneath her, laughter rumbling through him and muscle mass quaking like tectonic plates beneath the surface of his skin. “Oh, you so did,” he grins, pleased to have been on the money with his flicker of suspicion, eager to bask, as always, in any correct insight he’s managed to garner into his girlfriend’s endlessly multi-faceted brain. “This whole time there’s been incriminating photos of you somewhere wearing tacky fake-fur and an unseemly wig. There’s no hiding your shameful history, now—the cat is out of the bag.”

Rebecca smacks him on the chest, unimpressed, and he can see every telltale corner of her mouth at which the scowl fails to conceal the twitches of her laughter. “So what if my vendetta is somewhat rooted in past trauma? It doesn’t change basic fact, which is that the mere existence of Cats—animal, musical or movie—is a plague against mankind. And for what it’s worth, I didn’t need the wig—my early adolescent frizz was unseemly enough all on its own.”

Where late-night exhaustion-fuelled irritation existed only a few evenings prior, Nathaniel finds himself suddenly capable of only overwhelming fondness. “I think you would have made a very fearsome cat,” he tells her seriously. “All feisty, and nimble.”

He takes two locks of her hair, twisting them up into faux-ears on the top of her head until she bats his hands away, failing miserably at stifling her giggles.

“Stop that. You’re one adjective away from me adding myself back into the Mountaintop text chain just so I can make Maya’s week.”

“Uh-huh. Because I’m the one between us whose levels of preoccupation are concerning.”

He rolls her beneath him, nuzzling his nose against hers in an exaggerated way he can tell irritates her to no end given the context, but muscle memory wins out and she melts into it, the frown lines easing from her forehead as she moulds her mouth against his.

It’s only a matter of time before she’s pressing insistently against him, appetite predictably reawakened, and every sordid pun he could torture her with right now tingles at the ready on the tip of his tongue. But then she sighs into him with a kind of giddiness that sends his mind shattering into static, and as he nips and noses his way down past her belly every teasing thought disintegrates into the ether as he touches her until she’s arching, unraveling, drawing out his name in what can only be described as a delighted purr.

#crazy ex girlfriend #rebecca x nathaniel #rebecca bunch #nathaniel plimpton #and a dash of #gurlgroup4evah #my fic #so this was meant to be a series of drabbles in an attempt to combat writer's block #and i feel like it's still a little stiff in parts but it's already way longer than it was supposed to be #(a victory i guess!)#and ultimately just a bit of silliness #alternate title: five times rebecca yelled about cats (2019) and nathaniel was confused about it #originally this was gonna be gen but sometimes when you just wanna WRITE you gotta indulge the id #ya feel?

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