Masquerade [ Ft. Banks & November ]

Well, those options were terrible. But so were the odds that Snoke would turn away his favorite little angry Jedi, even more so to send him to be so heavily scrutinized by people other than him. Turning slightly to completely lay on her back, Phasma let her eyes crawl over the ceiling. " Well. . I guess this could be worse, " Pausing now to look at him, she shrugged softly, " We could be dead. . Or blasted out of our fucking minds. "

After saying that last night, and agreeing to make the call in the morning, Phasma was half tempted to take whatever remained on Hux's shirt. That thought cast to the side as she escorted him out of the clear line of vision, an odd sight to see in the background and definitely something she wasn't going to explain to anyone who hadn't been there. " How do you feel? " Sitting him up near the kitchenette, her brown eyes watched his pupils dance in size, momentarily surprised that he was clearly still riding the drug's figurative wave. " I've never been more hungry in my life. "

Sounds about right.
 
There was no way he wanted to talk to the Supreme Leader from a bedroom. It wasn't just absurd, it was the sort of thing that invited... questions. And none of those questions were ones he was comfortable answering. He held the robe up with both hands, stretched the fabric underneath his thumbs. Damnit. This thing had speckles of blood running all over the front. He hadn't noticed in the heat of things. Of course, communicating by holo washed out a lot of the color, but even then... Snoke was so...

Attentive.

Kylo grumbled and swished the thing round his shoulders. He still hadn't been to the back of the ship, but if it was like most ships this size (especially ones like this that seemed built more for impressive women than getting from one point to the other), he was sure there was some cargo hold or storage locker that was suitable for this kind of conversation. He heard the steady padding of his own soft shoes against the intricate steel mesh of the floor, he slid open the back door (again, with another cool-sounding swoosh), opening the door to the cargo bay.

Damn. Now Kylo was interested in who could possibly have owned something like this. The room was lined with large, impractical leather couches that would probably need to get reupholstered by the year. In the air above was a curved roof with a religious-looking mural painted on, slowly rotating with some other gimmick. There was an area for actual cargo, with bolted chain fixtures and a practical steel grate, but it looked like something that had been added at the last minute at someone else's insistence. Kylo looked at it out of the side of his eye, huffing and going to the opposite side of the room. There was a narrow concave canopy that almost looked like a confessional booth. How appropriate. He pulled out his personal holoprojector - there was another one nearby, but he wasn't anxious to create a security issue with what was, essentially, a loaner craft.

As if he hadn't messed up enough today.

He pressed a handful of buttons on the side of the transponder, followed it with his own access code, and waited for the link to be acknowledged. A few seconds passed... and they turned into a few minutes. Kylo scowled and started walking across and back the tight corridor. It made sense - Snoke had to be working on a thousand different things, and right now -

Before he could finish the thought, Snoke's twisted image blared to life in front of him, a life sized projection that dominated the small room. The Supreme Leader blinked down at him, his expression a worrying mixture of bemusement and weariness.

"Lord Ren. What a relief to see you before me safe and sound after the... incident on 0626. The reports I'd heard were... worrying. Hm. Yes. Very worrying indeed."

Kylo looked down and took a breath. Now or never. "That is actually the reason I'm contacting you. I -"

"Have you... been eating?"

He'd had a speech lined up in his head, brisk, honest, confident. And Snoke had scrambled his plan and dashed the scrambled bits to the ground. "Supreme Leader."

"It's only that that you seem a bit... haggard. Since you promised me that you be less... conflicted about your duties in the future. And since I know that you nearly always keep your promises... my mind points me towards some sort of... nutritional defect."

The man spoke so slowly that you had to give every word your utter, rapt attention. Kylo smiled, a nervous chuckle escaping from his lips. "I'm... fine. Physically speaking."

"During your mission on Chandrila... you were assigned a partner of sorts." Snoke looked away for a moment, as if confirming the name, but Kylo knew this was theater. Snoke was nothing if not attuned to details. "Commander... Phasma, if I recall correctly."

"Ah, yes. And she's been very... helpful for -"

"The main reason she was given this commission was to prevent you from taking reckless actions that endangered our larger goals. I'm troubled to learn that she's failed in this respect."

This conversation wasn't at all going the way he'd planned. Mostly because he was letting Snoke do all of the talking.He needed to grab hold of it with both hands and steer it in a favorable direction. "Supreme Leader, recklessness is a title given to risks that don't have even rewards. We've uncovered a ring of piracy originating from the Ord Mantell system -"

"I know of those men."

"Using a new weapon that disables the ships internal systems in the middle of space and leaves them vulnerable to an on-board assault. While this doesn't have the destructive power of a traditional weapon, I think it could easily turn the tide of a battle."

"... I see." That was as close to surprise as he'd thought to ever hear from him, but he didn't seem prepared to invest either way. That was good. Now Kylo needed more.

"I also believe that these pirates are preparing to sell the weapon to the Republic."

Snoke was still for a long time, staring into the distance, weighing the implications. Kylo could feel his heart leaping inside of his chest.

"With your approval, I would like to -"

"Tell me, Lord Ren. Are these pirates planning to sell these weapons to Luke Skywalker personally? Or will he be receiving them at some later date?" Kylo clenched his jaw and said nothing - whatever hope had risen in his stomach had fallen now. Snoke cleared his throat and continued. "I think our conversation has been very... revealing. I would like to speak to Commander Phasma."

"What?"

"She is there with you, is she not? Bring her to me."

Kylo nodded (his neck feeling stiff as a board), and spun on his heels, worry written all over his face. It was the first time he could feel himself breathing since he'd turned that projector on.
 
The male had taken a rather gloomy expression over his face, eyes left with faint signs of red from a slumber that left him waking up to debate whether or not he was real, anything he had imagined was real, things of that nature. She had gone over several moments of reminding him of what was real and what actually had happened, confirming and denying as though he hadn't just lived through them the night before. " So why am I not wearing a shirt? " Really, she was using this conversation as a means of distraction, raising a brow at him when he patted his chest as though attempting to feel for the fabric. Phasma had no intention of letting her mind wander off into the deep end of what could occur from the conversation happening further in the ship, sighing softly as she tilted her head, eating a piece of Hux's dried fruit pouch. " You don't remember? I'd think you'd remember what happened, since you know. . What you said. . I knew I shouldn't have, since you were, you know, messed up. "

Fucking with him.

The redhead's blue eyes grew large, inspecting her blank face as though there were answers written on it, why he had been on the couch with his shirt off and his face plastered into the leather. His eyes shot around the room when he caught her grin, searching for something, someone, " Where is Ren? " He needed some truth, some kind of confirmation. There was a pause, folding one of her legs beneath her as she took a drink of the sealed blue liquid that she had pulled from the small refrigerator built into the kitchenette, " Speaking with the Supreme Leader. " It was then that they both seemed to grow tense, the name rendering a sense of discomfort between the two of them, she watched his hands shifted back through his hair as he straightened up, smoothing his hair back as though it would stay in its signature look. As though he was preparing for himself to be called into question, pulled aside when he looked like a speeder had smashed into him.

It was like clockwork though, both turning their heads when the male entered the room, looking around as though he had left something before setting his eyes on the blonde. " Snoke. . He uh, " For a moment, there was an inkling of hope that the conversation was short because it had gone smoothly. He had bat his eyelashes and pouted and whined a little bit in that deep voice of his and there it was, the help they needed. " Wishes to speak to you. " Nails attempting to dig into the table, the air suddenly got so tight she could have sworn she stopped breathing, when it was quite possible she had. She felt light headed, and never once stopped secretly wishing she had a helmet, had her armor to hide the shiver that rolled down her neck and over her shoulder blades. Had a helmet to hide how she closed her eyes and wished she could be launched far out into the atmosphere in an escape pod, maybe even to have it shot down.

Phasma knew this was coming, but she had prepared for it to be. . A few days from now at least, putting it in its own separate corner of her mind like a child in trouble. Even Hux looked tense, thankful it wasn't him but still knowing that this could potentially be a - a handicap. Flattened palms pushing her up as though her body were working without her mind, the way a trooper of several decades would, the woman had only ever felt like wanting to die this much maybe once or twice in her life. The sound of the door of the cargo bay sounded ten times louder than what it actually was to her, eyes searching the floor for a moment before raising them to the projected image. He wasn't even here and she wished she could breathe.

" Commander Phasma. "
 
He noticed that she was falling back on the basics in his presence. Her heels were together, chin up, chest out.

"Supreme Leader. I should say that it's a -"

Kylo's mouth twisted, but not exactly into a smile. It sounded like something Hux would say.

"My expectation," he interrupted smoothly, "was that your presence here would prevent things like this from happening. That you would be the one to tell him no. Your record showed you as a very rational and... disciplined soldier."

This was already going terribly. "I needed her help to track down the Litari - that's what they're calling themselves, by the way - I needed a pilot and I didn't trust anyone else with that kind of danger. So I told her that I would take full responsibility for her actions."

"Kylo," he said with a grandfatherly tone, "I was not speaking to you."

Kylo inhaled sharply, but stopped himself before sighing outwardly. He looked to the side, giving Phasma a guilty look as Snoke narrowed his eyes, looking them over as if searching for some defect. When he next spoke, it was with a tone that felt like he'd already made a conclusion.

"Did he seduce you?"

Now it was Kylo's turn to want a mask on. He felt his skin turning hot with embarrassment.
 
Now more than ever did she wish she had kept her word to herself to stay away from him. That first time had sealed things a bit differently, and now she was paying the price for it, the inevitable. It was crashing down on her and she wanted to go sit in a room and brood somewhere. If the Supreme Leader spoke to Ren like this on a regular basis, it was no wonder he preferred dark corners to wriggle his hands in. Though his tone was calm, eerily reminding her of her own but from a different perspective, the woman silently breathed out through her nose, eyes wavering slightly. At once, Phasma wanted to tell him that she wasn't to be a grown man's babysitter, to slap his hand when he reached for the hot stove top, that not even Lord Vader had a babysitter in the Emperor. How was he supposed to step out of such a large shadow by having her tell him to mind his manners.

But.

Her eyes welled up almost immediately, breaking eye contact and looking up to the ceiling, dancing over the ornate painting as it was unclear whether she was about to burst into tears or laugh. . Or both. Seduce? Why was this the first question he'd asked. The answer she had to give. " I. . Seduce? " Why was this to be her first interaction with the Supreme Leader. Why.
 
"Hm. I'm suitably chastened. The word does have certain connotations. Implies a level of skill." Snoke's volume hadn't changed, but his tone become more whimsical, and he no longer seemed to be addressing either of them at all. "A level of skill I'm not certain our young master has."

This coming from a man with half a face. Kylo sulked and looked downwards at the ground. No one spoke for what must have only been a few seconds, but felt like an eternity. He'd already been told about interrupting, but he'd gotten Phasma into this unholy mess and he felt like he needed to do something to get her... out of the depths, if not out entirely.

"If you mean seduction from a moral viewpoint, I suppose I... made our excursion seem like the practical choice. This was a time-sensitive issue."

"What if I'm not talking about a moral viewpoint?" It took a few seconds for him to even understand what he was talking about. Snoke had a way of attacking you during a conversation without raising his voice. "Did the two of you indulge in any kind of congress in the... week or so since I've introduced you?"

Kylo's mouth felt like a desert. "I..."

"I did take that possibility into account. Of course, the two of you are... biologically compatible. I only thought that if it did happen, it would make you more likely to emulate her and not the other way around."

Kylo screamed.

Internally, of course.
 
Well, this was beyond mortifying.

Even with cute little quips to Kylo, it was still going to leave a traumatic scar in her head, one that was going to sit and replay over and over again like a broken hologram. Had she- Had she been called in here to be questioned about whether or not she was sleeping with Snoke's personal favorite? This could not be happening. But it was, and it had only gotten to be a deeper pit of embarrassment when specific viewpoints came into view. Oh god. It was almost like an added push to the willpower to not die on the spot when he mentioned it had only been a few days over a week since they'd met, eyes no longer taking great detail in the ceiling and instead closing, fists clenched at her sides.

I have never felt so dirty in my life.
Oh so you didn't feel dirty after fucking on the floor of that shi-

Alright, so he knew. No need to confirm or deny anything. No reason to specify viewpoints and positions and the when and where's of it all. No no no. No. Biting her bottom lip harshly as her body's way of telling her to react, her eyes opened and fell to the hologram because really, Phasma was still trying to convince herself that this wasn't happening. Nope. " Biologically compati. . gross. " Releasing her bottom lip when she felt she had contained any attempts to scream, the blonde's voice emerged in a different tone, " But about the Litari, " Airy voice to make up for her once watery eyes, Phasma turned and looked to Ren now, silently demanding that he get this shit over with.
 
"I very much agree. Despite your personal... foibles. We need to move forward with the situation as it has presented itself." Kylo swallowed. That was the most reasonable thing Snoke had said yet.

"The pirates aren't just... pirates. They have a research wing, they do smuggling, they buy the services of scientists and engineers. It's all very... political."

He told Snoke the full story, everything that he remembered, but he wasn't expecting a very excited reaction from Snoke. His voice represented potentially thousands of years of chaos, of training, of preparation. Sometimes Kylo wondered if the long succession of pirates, soliders, ships, Jedi... wasn't all just a lengthy, exhausting blur to him. "The First Order will deal with them when you give me the coordinates. I can only assume you've gone to such lengths to ask if you can lead the strike team personally."

Kylo nodded. "I'm embarrassed. I want to... solve the problems that I've caused. And I've fought them before. I know what they're capable of."

"That you do." Snoke raised his hand, almost touching the voids over his jaw. "Did you know... Lady Paulik just crawled out of a bacta tank a few hours ago, I think she would be... excited to assist you. And I recall you enjoying her company...?"

"I think she should be given time to fully recover," he said stiffly.

"It's interesting that you feel that way." Snoke raised an eyebrow, but didn't give any indication of what he felt in either direction. "The ISD Majestic is only four hours away from your rendezvous point. An older ship, but I suppose it can be spared. We'll also attempt to have a team board the ship, but provided we can't, it will be your job to steal whatever... valuable prototypes are on board."

Well. Despite the very awkward lead-up, he'd eventually given them... practically everything they wanted.

"How are we going to get on board?"

Snoke paused. Looked at Kylo. Then Phasma. Then back again. "I trust you'll figure something out."

"Supreme Leader, I -"

Before he could get anything out, Snoke waved his hand, and they were in darkness once again. Kylo leaned against the wall and slid down, feeling a numbness sliding through his legs. It was as if they'd been beamed to another world to speak with him and suddenly beamed back.
 
Phasma had silently been deciding the options in this. He could outright embarrass the both of them for their foibles and give them every bit of help they needed. Or, he could embarrass them and simply shrug at it all, tell them to return to the Gauntlet for even more finger wagging. She could feel herself growing light headed in the conversation, the sharp tingles in her fingertips of her hands going numb from being clenched so tightly. But, he had offered some relief without actually aiming to be of comfort, agreeing that it made sense for them to be of action where they currently were, and that there would be assistance. Sighing softly, that didn't release the clench out of her hands, her eyes returning to the hologram with a faintly raised brow.

Not particularly was the question of 'Who.' plastered on her face for the Supreme Leader, clenching her jaw and clicking her tongue behind her teeth lightly. There it was again, Kylo asking how as though they needed to drag anything out within this conversation any longer, shaking her head just as eye contact was made and the simple answer was given. The light in the room disappeared, and Phasma remained still, fists still clenched tightly as she turned her head, thin lines of amber staring down at him. " Who? " Ignoring the sound she heard on the other side of the door, her eyes finally broke menacing contact with him, finally shifting her fingers with the faintest wiggle, hands void of real color for the moment. She had to get out of this room. Had to get off this ship definitely, but out of this room, as far away from that holoprojector that she resisted the urge to kick into a wall, turning sharply and slamming a hand against the door.

The awkward turn the male made as though trying to appear as though he hadn't been eavesdropping, the coughed ahem that caused Phasma to push him against a wall in the small hallway, moving past him with a stifled sound of frustration. Tapping his hands together for a moment, he noted the dark room and looked down at the slumped Ren, the faint smile he offered clearly still a product of his accidental huffing, " May I suggest. . Surrender? " Looking up as he heard the faint sound of a scream and something smashing from the other end of the ship, coughing again as he nodded to confirm his suggestion and moved back to the living area up front, passing the bedroom that Phasma had locked herself in.
 
Kylo paused, and both of them listened to the temper tantrum across the ship. He turned back to Hux, as if he didn't want to engage with any of... that. "Surrender."

"You need to get in place quickly. Stage a fake attack, get overwhelmed quickly, break out when the reinforcements arrive."

"What would make you think they won't immediately kill us?"

"Because of their politics, Ren." Hux rolled his eyes. "Liberals are relics of a bygone age. They're stupid, they're greedy, and more than anything else, they believe in providence. That the universe is one long, inexorable slide towards spoonfeeding them exactly what they want." Kylo didn't entirely agree. The universe was a horrible place sometimes. "These pirates won't question a lucky victory until it's too late."

He sure seemed confident about it. But that was the best idea available. He clapped Hux on the shoulder and stepped around him. The Major General cleared his throat. "Ren, I've got a pack of cards and some fruit snacks. I say we play poker for a few..." he looked over Kylo's shoulder... "hours, maybe. Because I'm worried the Commander will... hm. Physically destroy you. Which would imperil our mission to say the least."

Kylo nodded sympathetically. Damn. He did like fruit snacks, and yet. "I should do... something about this."

Before he knew it, he was knocking on the door. "Can I seduce you into opening this?"
 
The one time. The one time an interaction like that was ever granted was simply because she had let some stupid, handsome manchild get his way of things. Chest rising and falling softly, Phasma's hands reacted quickly, smearing away any traces of a deeper emotion from her cheeks as she leaned against the door. The damage to some piece of decoration for the room had been done, bits of it on the floor and another dent from another thrown object elsewhere. Sitting in the silence, her legs folded beneath her, closing her eyes when the physical part of her frustration subsided enough for her to calm down. It wasn't enough to be outright embarrassed about being sexual, it was sitting on a base of her being irresponsible, and up until this point, she wasn't irresponsible. She wasn't irrational or without discipline, but here it stood that she was.

Here, because she had followed the one she was supposed to be telling no every second, that she was all those things. Hissing softly when she felt the knock on the other side of the door, her hands shot up again to her cheeks, wiping away any remains of her tearful outburst as though the door wasn't locked. How about I seduce my foot up your ass. " Don't pretend you've never broken open a door before, " Glaring at the floor, her body shifted to the wall nearest the door, in case he did start tinkering with the thing, " What do you want. "
 
He was expecting her to force the door open, grab him by the neck, and start slapping him. That, he would have... expected. But her tone now was oddly stoic, and he couldn't say he liked that. He'd come to remind her about this ticking clock and put her back on something resembling her task, but...

Now that he was here, there were more pressing issues. "That's... what Snoke is like. You have to understand that he already knew where to... go digging around. It's not a wonderful experience, talking to him."

Of course, that wasn't really the thrust of why she was upset. No matter how much she admired Snoke and his ideology, she wasn't having a tantrum because of what he'd said, but because what he said rang true to her.

"Smoke was so busy chewing us out that he didn't understand the situation. All right? Hux got dozens of ships captured, you helped break it up. In days. You were bold. And like you said, nobody died, right?"

Of course that was only half of the issue. "This is a really... shiny door. But I'd rather talk to you."
 
Audibly sighing when he began with making excuses, she would have had a million conversations with Fedorre before she ever willingly wanted to do that again. She had never in her life just made a plan to weasel her way up the ranks to be close to the Supreme Leader, comfortable with her distance and now within a week of sleeping with big ears, she was being asked by the man himself whether or not she was sleeping with his golden boy. He had gone from quaintly acknowledging that she was top rank to asking if she'd been seduced. Seduced like he had whispered something lush into her ear.

Well, to be fair, she had gotten quite warm after that incident on Chandrila.

But that wasn't done for her, as an act to make her weak in the knees for him. Hell, he hadn't known about it until he did that thing, after all. Clearing the wells of her eyes with faint blinks, her hand raised to the small screen to the left of the door, soft clicks of the mechanism unlocking before the familiar swoosh was heard. Remaining in her position of sitting on her knees, the blonde slid her hand back into her lap, murmuring, " Foibles. Ugh. "
 
"You should actually be glad you got stuck on foibles." Kylo stepped into the air of the bedroom, feeling the texture of the floor change just a little as he crossed over. He walked past her and turned around, sliding down close to her. "Every time I see you now, I'm going to have to hear an old man saying biologically compatible."

He shuddered. And actually saying it aloud made it more real, like it wasn't some freaky shared hallucination they'd both had. This whole situation reminded him of getting on that ship for the first time, the situation so mortifying and absurd that you could either laugh or cry.

"You can't obsess over what other people think. Even discipline and professionalism are... means to an end, you don't do it because it's what everyone else is doing and it feels good to confirm. You do it to be prepared for situations like this one. If you had stiffened your jaw and quoted some regulation, that's what would have been disappointing."

God knew the Order had enough of those sorts strutting around Star Destroyers across the known galaxy. She wanted to be in the field so badly, why be upset at having instincts for the field? He twisted to the side and fell backwards, stretching his back onto the ground.

"I feel weird giving you a pep talk about... feeling guilty for liking me. It's strangely... manipulative." He put on a sing-song, fatherly voice. "Kylo Ren. He's a great man. You should trust him."
 
The underlying question that so easily bounced around her mind was whether or not any of it was worth it. Was going past the first incident worth it, to go beyond that first romp as though it were silently confirming things they didn't necessarily need to say outloud. Things that Snoke had said in the worst phrasing possible, cringing when Ren said it himself. " Don't. " It would take a few thoughts of reminding herself that there were bigger things at hand before Phasma disregarded the clear awareness that Snoke knew, trying to decide if that meant it was acceptable or to stop while they were ahead. In all fairness, she had tried.

But it was that stupid hair of his, and the way he could just creep up behind you, and god those hands were just so- biologically compatible. Sighing softly as she leaned back against the wall, keeping her stomach from lurching up for a moment when he began his first try at being consoling. " It's not like that, Kylo. " It wasn't necessarily what other people thought of her, clearly not giving anyone who called her an HRD or a clone the time of day, because really that was just childish of them. It was that she hadn't necessarily thought deeper into the fact that maybe there were certain little things changing in her because of something she hadn't completely thought through. Phasma made sure she hadn't had the time to stop and think about any lasting feelings toward Ren.

Raising her eyebrows slightly as she looked at him, the woman shifted against her legs as she spoke in her usually cool tone, " Well, I don't like you, so it doesn't matter. "
 
"Uh huh. All right. If you say so."

It soured his stomach to hear, even if Phasma was being... whatever she was being right now. Maybe it wasn't noble to get upset at hearing that, but it was still a bit shit, wasn't it? Going to all these lengths just to watch someone indiscriminately vomit their emotions around. He felt bad, and he felt bad about feeling bad, which was somehow even worse. Kylo bit the inside of his cheeks and rolled his eyes.

"The only thing that happened in the last ten minutes is you being reminded of... the other half of your life."

Only half? That was being generous, for both of them.

"But regardless of what your personal feelings are." He sat up and looked her over. "We all need to work together, and we've got a limited amount of time. I'd rather be a successful hero with a couple of... weird moments than lie around here sulking and hating each other."

He didn't exactly feel good about his choice here. As soon as he transitioned to the Litari, she'd probably take it as an excuse to freeze him out entirely.

But he couldn't help but feel sitting here and trying to pry her brain open would make things worse.

Especially if he was talking about prying in the traditional sense.
 
It was something in the clouded look on his face that made her head tilt just slightly, examining him as though there was something she hadn't seen there before. A soft blink pulling her eyes away from his face, tracing the shards of some once detailed animal with tusks, a piece of decoration left in the over the top aesthetic of the ship. " The other half of my life? " She repeated, rolling her own eyes now as he again mentioned her personal feelings as though he was completely aware, the blonde looked to him again when he offered another set of words meant to give a push.

Sulking. Someone other than him sulking, it almost didn't feel right. It felt, out of place, just like the word 'hate' in that sentence. She didn't. . Fuck it. Pushing herself off the ground, the blonde stood and looked down to him now, " Well? " The shiny haze in her eyes gone by the time she stepped out of the room and moved toward the living space, looking at a sad looking Hux, only to see his face light up when he realized that no one came out of the conversation physically scarred. " Ah! Good. Now, surrendering to the Litari, hm? "
 
Kylo licked his gums and made a noise that sounded like a speeder taking off. Here was how he'd always thought of people working - if you wanted to understand them, it wasn't exactly a hard task. Sentients were mostly the same, everywhere he'd traveled. They wanted the same things and chased the same few impulses.

So you just thought about them, put yourself in their shoes, removed your own biases. And there you were. Some rough approximation of a persons desires and motives. All it took was a bit of... patience, and people were just shocked at how wise you seemed.

She hadn't gotten upset at him like he was hitting something too close to home, or opened up like he was saying something she needed to hear.She just sort've... looked at him weird. Like they were having two very different conversations.

Kylo drummed his fingers against the wall before joining them in the living area that took up most of the ship's center. He hated to admit it, but he was almost... glad that Hux was here, cutting the tension.

Even if the drugs were cutting into his mood and keeping him from making smug remarks about fraternization, he was happy for that too. Kylo cleared his throat and got his main objection out of the way.

"Nobody's going to believe us surrendering, right before their moment of triumph." Kylo pulled up a chair and looked them both over. Hux was grinning.

"You don't have my experience. I have to insist. Liberals are gullible. All you have to do is tell them a sad story and they'll move heaven and earth for you. It's how they're programmed." Hux snapped his fingers. Once. Twice. Again. "Tell them that the two of you are in true love, but the First Order won't let you be together. And when you learned that they had a chance to turn the tide in this war, you chose to defect."

Kylo covered his cheek, almost in shock from how maudlin it all sounded. "They would never believe that!"

"You might be right," Hux said, leaning forward and pointing a finger in a way that dredged up some depressing memories, "but they won't execute you on the spot, which is the goal of the whole thing. They'll lock you up and... bicker amongst themselves about whether you can be trusted. And by then - you turn the place into a killing field."

"We should at least put up some token fight. Make them feel like they've achieved something in bringing us in. There's just no way that..." Kylo looked at Phasma out of the corner of his eye, then turned to face her entirely. "You aren't thinking of going along with this, are you?"
 
It was as though that entire conversation with Snoke and what happened after had left both of them tense and uncomfortable, which was easily what happened when words were left unsaid between two people. They were both aware that they didn't have time for that sort of conversation, if they were to ever have one. How would they even go about it later? Phasma doubted she would be the one to bring it up, already deciding that she couldn't let it eat her up. She couldn't let it eat her up that Snoke had so subtly pointed out more things than she cared to sit and fuss over. So you shut him out instead. Phasma would place that off in a distant part of her mind for a while, looking to Hux make his claim, pointing with an idea at the two of them that left her with slight disbelief.

It was an outrageous idea, perhaps something that was a result of Hux's drug inhalation, but Phasma couldn't deny that it wasn't. . Simple, and easy. Clean, even. Meeting his gaze when he turned to her, Phasma crossed her legs at the knee lightly before shrugging her shoulders, " I have faith in Hux's ability to surrender in situations that call for it, " Almost a compliment, almost. " And I trust his knowledge of the Republic. " Pausing for a moment as the redhead clasped his arms together, almost beaming as though he had been given some grand reward for being a good boy, causing Phasma to roll her eyes. " Anyway, I don't think we'll need to fight at all. If we know where they are, we go to them as though we're in hiding from the First Order. Let them capture us, split us up for questioning- "

Hux was nodding his head rapidly now, looking between both Phasma and Ren, " To figure out why you're running, to figure out any inside information. That should be just enough time for the ISD to arrive! " It seemed as though it had been settled without Ren really, Hux sitting up on the plush couch with his hands still holding on to one another as a curious expression on his face. " Ren, I hate to pry, but out of curiosity. . What happened with Lady Paulik? "
 
Faith in his ability to - well, that was a vote of confidence under narrow, narrow circumstances. It looked like they'd just made the decision without him. It seemed almost too easy and yet. He didn't feel strongly enough to insist they intentionally lose a skirmish. That sort of thing could go wrong in a thousand different ways, playing about with life fire...

He was at peace with the whole situation until Hux brought up one of his knights. He cringed. There had to be moments where curiosity took a backseat to prudence. He'd been so concerned about his getting physically destroyed, but now apparently all that was out of the window.

"Ashara Paulik serves Leader Snoke in a... similar capacity to me. Our paths cross sometimes." Kylo cringed and reached for a cup of water. "We worked together to... break a mining union in neutral space. One of the leaders was arrested. Long story. She apparently tried to kill her in prison. Didn't work out. Scalding oil to the face. I have no idea what she looks like now, but she was just a very -"

He paused, then felt stupid about pausing. "She was... a shorter woman with big eyes. Conventionally attractive. Very talkative. Very ah, intense. And the facepaint?"
 
It was right around the first sentence or two that Hux showed a sign of regret for asking, looking at Phasma out of the corner of his eye as though prepared to dodge a punch at any time. However from what he could see, she hadn't started to move from her position of leaning back against the couch, nearly getting out a sigh before his breathing hitched into his throat when Phasma spoke. " Like you didn't already read that in a file or something. " Her words were directed to Hux, having been staring at the side of his head with a thankfully calm expression, despite wanting to wrap her hands around his neck. But, there were answers, hm?

Coughing now to clear the air around him as Phasma stood, he offered the lightest of smiles, " Good to hear it from a true source, Commander. " Justifying his question, the man watched as she got a few steps distance away from him, again settling in comfort with her at a safe distance, he turned his head back to Ren, mouthing 'I'm sorry' before speaking to them both, " Moving right along, everyone is clear on the story hm? Escaping the clutches of the First Order, which presumably means I may be taking a backseat. " Probably best, considering he probably couldn't hold water given his current state, looking between the two of them for any sign of protest. None? Good. " Whatever little bits you two think up between one another, in case things go longer than planned, make sure your stories are the same. . So they don't immediately regret not executing you. "
 
Even when he was shaking off an incredible high, Hux had a way of phrasing things in just the right way. Kylo leaned back in the chair and clapped his hands, a slow smile spreading across his face. "You always have the best ideas. Regardless of how soft-hearted they may or may not be, they're still pirates. Uh... of a sort. We can only fall back on only speaking Basic so many times before."

Kylo held a couple fingers to his head and pantomimed a blaster's being pulled. And the resulting effect on his cranium.

They spent the next twenty minutes or so working out a story that was truthful enough that they didn't have to improvise everything, but vague enough that they weren't likely to get tripped up too much. That required some negotiation of course - and some considerable embellishment of their time together. A few heroic rescues, some intimate exchange of personal details (fictional, for the most part), more heart-rending struggles with the bureaucracy.

"You've been very confident about being able to contact the Litari."

"I know a lot about their operations," Kylo said, hunching forward and locking his fingers together. "it was right on the front of our friend's head. But I don't think we should try to catch onto them in space. Too many logistical issues."

Would the ship be docked somewhere? Would Hux have to hide under the floorboards? What if the conversation on the comm went sour?

"So you want to find them planetside."

"They have an infrastructure. We're going to need to go to The Trenches, in Cliffport."

Hux shuddered, and Kylo almost wanted to shudder right along with him. Worlport was the largest city on the planet, and the Order worked hard to keep that place clean and efficient (with mixed results). But Cliffport was a few hundred miles away, and the whole city was a gutter. And the Trenches were the brown muck on the bottom of that gutter. Anybody with credits to spare or hope for the future had cleared out of town years ago. All sorts of little horrors out in the open.

"I feel sorry for you."

Kylo sighed. "It's fine. We should dock. No need to be inconspicuous. We just wait around, order lunch, wait for word to spread."

"And I'll say in touch with you by comlink -"

"Until they take it, anyway." He'd have taken some kind of tracking device and swallowed it, but they weren't intelligence operatives, and their toybox wasn't quite so extensive...
 
" We couldn't have actually eaten before we got here? "

Although she hated to be the one to make the first complaint, it was a very reasonable question. The smog wrapping around them immediately, Phasma grimaced softly despite the not so natural gray appearance of the sky above them, she remembered the almost saddened expression on Hux's face when they left the ship. Not necessarily a sign that he didn't want to be left alone, rather another quiet acknowledgment that he didn't want to be in either of their shoes in this predicament. But how could he be? A Major General with a reputation such as his, not to mention whatever traces of spice were left in his system, Phasma knew he probably couldn't be counted on for too much.

At least he was back with the ship he could be of more use other than another person to have to tell to hush. Though in this case, walking through the grime it didn't appear as though there was a need to stay somewhat stealthy, instead, just walk. Walk around the other a bit closer than normal, offer the occasional light touches that went along with subtle displays of affection that neither would admit to being truthful or part of the act, and sit around and wait. It was all so simple that she knew it made them both uncomfortable, even more so with the events that had previously occurred. Upon finding what appeared to be the cleanest, by a long stretch, establishment in the slum city, sitting next to one another to again, keep appearances. Her eyes ventured out the open window next to her, almost laughing immediately because of how it seemed as though they were trying to offer some grand view of filth. Amazing.

" I guess this could be worse. "
 
"Might not be the best time to say that." Kylo scowled and watched the crowd out of the corner of his eye. "It's like you're calling a curse on a precarious situation. If I could count all the times I heard it could be worse, followed by things immediately getting worse..."

Kylo looked around the place as if waiting for a cue. The place was some weird combination of bar, restaurant and - saloon, that was the word he was looking for. There was some woman singing and playing jazz music intermittently over in the corner with a trumpet. The woman was talented enough, he supposed. But there was something about that combination of the environment and the rust on the instrument, and the woman playing songs that were clearly meant for an ensemble...

It made the whole place seem pathetic.

"Don't worry about looking nervous. We're supposed to look nervous."

But they'd passed the window for things immediately getting worse, at least.

"You don't want anymore freeze-dried anything, Phasma. I'd honestly rather chance the food down here. Even if it's a little grungy, it'll be fresh and warm."

He picked up a faded yellow menu (a simple looking thing with five menu items and four languages) and smiled. "Even better. Small menu. You go to a place like this where they make twenty different things to drum up business and it turns out they can't make anything right."

Even in the dirtiest place on the planet - most of the people walking around weren't criminals. Kylo turned his attention toward the little crowd that had gathered. There's still bartenders and sanitation workers and mechanics. Junk dealers and the unemployed. The desperate blood that the city's very worst suck away. Mostly minding their own business and thinking about their own problems.

Of course, that wasn't always a good thing. It was hard to point out a dangerous, sullen person with a blaster in a room full of sullen people with blasters.

"Let's say they were to find your... service record." He held up two hands. "Which seems impossible. But you must have some wild stuff filed away down there."

Wild being a euphemism for horrible, of course. But you had to talk about something.
 
One really couldn't blame Phasma for her slanted optimism, especially considering there wasn't a trooper in her memory that had ever simply surrendered. Death, before simply surrendering out in the field. Eyes following a Dug as he walked to the bar, mentally reminding herself that she might as well relax. They were here to be caught, not to fight their way out, even if her instincts made her sit next to the window. " Oh? You don't want to die in a slum? " Sarcasm, of course.

Everyone knew Kylo Ren wanted to die with a firm grip on the universe.

Sighing softly in agreement to what they'd both rather be eating, with a lean she let her eyes run over the menu. Simple enough, eyes taking notice of the tired looking Jenet making his way over to them, noting his apron at least eliminated him up front. Once he had left with their decisions in mind, Phasma raised a brow softly when he mentioned her. . Record. A part of her doubted he was as nosy as Hux, glancing down for a moment. Clearly he was just simply aiming to make conversation, and he deserved no punishment for that, even if things were somewhat tense from their last private conversation. After all, that wasn't entirely his fault. Turning her vision toward the table, Phasma shook her head faintly, " My first mission out, I got swallowed by a Hutt and my squad left me for dead. "

Traumatizing really.

" Which, I can't say I blame them. I probably wouldn't have gone back for me either. "

So really, things could have been a lot worse.
 
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