Hux feels pressure around his throat first, his voice pinching off and his limbs growing stiff with instinctual terror. Ren’s rage floods him like a lightning-quick virus, poisoning its way along the back of his neck and setting off a cold sweat that trickles from his hairline down over his temples. He’s beginning to truly panic when the pressure at his throat relents, slowly, allowing him to take a gasping breath. The seething rage that remains belongs wholly to Hux: this is Ren’s way of telling someone to shut up. It is disgustingly unfair that someone so unqualified to wield any power at all should have this much at his disposal.