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Hux collapses just outside the clearing.
Panic seizing his chest, Kylo breaks his fall with the Force on instinct—manages to catch Hux’s head, the rest of his body hitting the ground with a thud that echoes in Kylo’s skull. Kriffing hells. Be conscious, be conscious, please you infuriating—
Hux is conscious—thank stars he is, lying there with his eyes wide open and face pinched tight in his agony. He might not be breathing.
Placing Hux’s head down gently, he drops on a knee next to him. “Hux?”
Hux closes his eyes and empties his lungs on one, long exhale. “My knees gave way,” he mutters, irritation and anger underlying his tone at his body’s apparent betrayal. “It’s all right. Just give me a moment.”
Stark relief courses through Kylo, the grip around his heart loosening.
Hux takes minutes on the ground, working his body—rolling his ankles, clenching and unclenching his hands, turning his head. Once satisfied with his findings, he pushes himself up to a half-roll, then a sitting position. Kylo helps him with a hand between his shoulder blades—Hux hisses at the pressure, flinching away from his touch. No. It must be the fall; it can’t have already—
Stomach at his feet, “Let me see,” Kylo says, tugging at Hux’s sleeve. Exposing more of Hux’s skin might not be smart, considering; but he needs to see for himself—needs to know how much longer they have left.
At Hux’s questioning look, “We should keep track of how far it’s developed,” he adds. A half-lie, at worst. “The research team will need the data.” Useless as it will be, with no way to capture it without their datapads.
Hux frowns deeper, sizing him up through the corner of his eye—weighing Kylo’s sincerity. Kylo steels himself against the sting of Hux’s distrust—justified as it may be—and tugs again.
Releasing another long sigh, Hux shifts into a steadier position, raising his knees. His hands are trembling as he makes short work of his belt and the hidden clasps of his tunic—lightly enough to dismiss, if it were anyone else. The tight undershirt comes off last, pulled carefully away from Hux’s skin.
Blood freezes in Kylo’s veins.
The rash has spread from the bug bite high at his nape, the purple boils extending to Hux’s upper arms and halfway down his torso in thick cords, the skin around some red and broken where Hux must have scratched them behind Kylo’s back. No signs of development up or around Hux’s throat; but gut feeling says it’s a matter of yet.
They need to get Hux into the medbay before that happens.
After the first sun’s set, fever and nausea enter into the equation.
They were expecting it. The insect, whatever it might be, injected some sort of toxin into Hux’s system. Logic follows that the body will want to fight it through whatever means necessary.
If only he could make it easier on Hux.
Left up to him, he would have just thrown Hux over his shoulder instead of letting him exert himself further, the general’s useless pride be damned—better yet, they wouldn’t have had to rescue themselves from this backwater planet in the first place. As it is, his options are limited to pushing water into Hux’s hands and biting his tongue as Hux’s steps slow down the longer they go.
He doesn’t let himself ask to see the rash again, either. He just watches Hux’s hand drift lower and lower.
Without a map and unfamiliar with the terrain—Hux’s unnecessarily extensive dossiers would have come in handy here, were he given the time to prepare one before they were dropped planetside for a fool’s errand—he relies mostly on the Force’s guidance to find their way out. Much to Hux’s displeasure. Hitting flowing water like Kylo said they would put an end to the snide comments; but Hux still won’t try the berries the Force deemed safe.
Not that there would be a point to it, now.
Hux is on his knees next to a tree again, dry-heaving. Kylo’s own stomach aches with how hard Hux’s body is trying to cough up nothing; even river water barely stayed down long enough to count as success.
Once done, Hux practically drops against the tree trunk. His skin is dotted with sweat; he wipes it on a clean corner of the tunic he didn’t put back on. “That’s it,” he chokes—clears his throat. “I need a break.”
They both could use one. Kylo could keep going if he had to; but they’re playing the long game here—he needs to save his energy just in case. He won’t be any good to Hux if he exhausts himself unnecessarily.
They can’t afford to linger long, though. Hux’s breathing has been growing shallower since the third sun’s rise, his skin losing what little color it had; every minute is against them.
“We can take ten minutes,” he allows. “Then we have to get back on the road.”
Hux rests his head against the trunk with a sigh, closing his eyes. Without the strength to keep his mental shields up, his thoughts are laid out in front of Kylo—and what a glorious minefield it is. Hux thinks in stark visuals: of his father, rank stripes they shared, Phasma, his vibroblades, an orange tabby Kylo had thought to be just a rumor; of Hux himself on an unfamiliar throne and Kylo standing next to him, of Kylo’s broken body on the snow, Kylo floating in a bacta tank with an oxygen mask covering most of his face—circling back to Brendol Hux in that same tank, dissolving too slowly and painlessly for Hux’s liking.
Kylo wanders a little deeper into Hux’s mind and finds those tendrils of tenderness and affection again, gently redirecting Hux’s thoughts to the cat. Her name is Millicent, apparently—Millie, who likes to sleep behind Hux, in the crook of his knees. Millie, who costs a small fortune to feed, without taking Phasma’s treats into account that Hux pretends not to know about. Millie, who won’t show herself to any of Hux’s visitors but Mitaka.
Millicent, whom Hux might never see again.
Breathing deep to chase away the tightness in his chest, “Time’s up,” Kylo says, pushing himself off the ground. Hux watches him slap dust off his robes and heft what remains of their supplies with misty eyes. “Come on, Hux. You can sit around as much as you want when we get back to the base.” Just watch anyone besides the medical personnel try to come twenty feet near him.
“If we get back to the base,” Hux corrects him through a hoarse throat, not unkindly. “Are you sure we’re headed in the right direction?”
“Yes.” Mostly. Individual Force signatures are nearly impossible to identify from this distance; but they are headed towards a large group of people. Even if it’s just locals, they might know something about the venom flowing through Hux. With any luck, they might have an antidote or at least some relief to provide for Hux while Kylo figures out how to send a message to the base. It’s better than what they currently have, at any rate.
Hux raises a brow in disbelief, the heat of his glare diminished by the slackness of his face as his expression fails to tighten into its usual lines. He tilts his head up, pulling his knees up to his chest and resting his folded arms on them. “How much farther?”
Kylo anchors his senses on the strongest signature, a wildfire among torches and candles. By their progress so far, he would estimate… longer than what they have left of daylight. Kriff. If only he had his helmet.
“A couple hours,” he lies. Hux will have his head when he realizes it; but he’s suffered a lot more for a lot less. “Less if we pick up the pace.”
Hux nods slowly at the sky, making no move to get up. “Certainly you realize,” he starts, a new weight to his measured tone. “I don’t have another couple hours’ trek in me. Let alone picking up the pace.”
Dread fills his guts, dark and heavy. “Come on, General,” he tries with a low chuckle, aiming for mocking. “All your scheming, all your grand plans of ruling the galaxy—was it all just so you can waste away in the middle of nowhere?”
An image of snow flashes in Hux’s mind—blindingly white and oppressive, vivid enough to send a shiver down Kylo’s spine. The remains of the Starkiller Base shakes under their feet as Hux half-carries, half-drags Kylo’s barely conscious bulk across the snow, taking stumbling steps towards safety.
The slash across his face burning anew, Kylo flees from Hux’s mind, not brave enough to face Hux’s account of Kylo’s biggest failure.
Hux grimaces, sending him a look that says careful, Ren. “I appreciate your efforts,” Hux continues in that same, carefully neutral tone. “Truly, I do. Not many would have lasted this long. With a dead weight on their side—” Bile rises in Kylo’s throat. “—not many would have even tried.” Hux meets his gaze, steel in his eyes. “Thank you for having tried, Kylo Ren.”
No. No, that can’t be Hux. General Armitage Hux is a survivor before anything—he would have stared death down than sit and wait for it. “I don’t know what the hells has gotten into you,” Kylo spits, the words leaving a bitter taste at the back of his mouth. “But I’m not returning alone.”
“You weren’t given a choice in this matter.” Hux sighs—in his usual, bone-weary exasperation. Kylo latches onto the Hux-ness of the gesture in the middle of this foreign everything. “It is not failure to accept what you couldn’t have prevented, Ren. You are just cutting your losses. I’m sure Leader Snoke will understand.”
“Shut up, Hux,” he hisses, his hands curled into trembling fists. His insides are liquid fire, churning and boiling like lava.
“Not even you can win against nature, Ren. Leader Snoke—”
“Damn Snoke to the void!”
The silence rings between them—or it might be Kylo’s ears. His breath tears out of his chest, coming in short puffs. Hux thinks—Hux expects that Kylo will leave him for dead and go back to the base by himself—the base with its mindless soldiers and stupider minions and no one to walk beside him through the endless hallways, no one to find him when he needs to not be alone the most and to put him back together—
Hux blinks at him, trying to school his features into a scowl. “Why are you fighting me on this?” he snaps. “I won’t find my way out of these woods, not alive—and you risk stranding yourself by trying to make me. There’s no reason for both of us to die here.”
“We will not.” Kylo won’t let it—by stars, he won’t, no matter what comes.
“I thought you would be relieved,” Hux says, his tone pitching higher in accusation—as if trying to save his kriffing life is one of Kylo’s bigger shortcomings. “You’ve been trying to get me out of your way since day one—and now that—” He draws in a shallow, effortful breath—Kylo’s lungs tense with it. “Now that you can without drawing Snoke’s ire, you try your damnedest to save me. Why?”
Because the future of the galaxy depends on you, Kylo should say—should stroke Hux’s ego enough to bring him back from whatever messed up, morbid headspace he’s fallen into. Because the First Order needs you. Because I— “Save your energy for the trip, Hux.”
“No,” Hux barks, every bit the stern general commanding his bridge, even half-undressed and sitting three steps from his own mess. “Tell me why you insist on keeping me alive.”
All too aware of his heartbeat, “What do you care?” Kylo snarls. “I’m making sure you’ll live to see your petty dreams through. Does it kriffing matter why?”
Hux looks at him intently, as if trying to see through him—to take him apart. His thoughts are so loud when he wants them to be, reaching; if he were Force-sensitive, he would have been screaming his thoughts into Kylo’s mind.
Taking it as an invitation, Kylo slips back into Hux’s mind—like a guest most welcome, instead of an intruder who found the door unlocked. Hux is thinking about the Starkiller Base again, but the memory is of Kylo lying on the snow this time, his breath ghosting over him the only sign he’s even alive. Fear fills Kylo’s—no, Hux’s heart at the sight, dizzying and amplified, coming from the center of his being. The bloodstain on the snow as he lifts Kylo’s torso off the ground with considerable strain, careful of his injuries. The medbay, watching Kylo float in the bacta tank with a heavy heart and raw palms. Seeing Kylo for the first time after his release from the medbay, in the Supreme Leader’s throne room, sans the helmet that still irritates Kylo’s facial wound—cold hit of relief that he quickly smothers, composing himself before approaching the two of them with sharp clicks of heels.
Oh.
“Yes,” Hux says, his unblinking gaze daring Kylo to look away—the many scenarios of potential humiliation at Kylo’s hands flickering just beyond his awareness. “As a matter of fact, it does.”
Kylo breathes—breathes again, mind reeling. He reaches into Hux’s mind again, just to make sure he’s not reading this wrong—but no, the feelings are all there. Buried deep, deep enough to escape Kylo’s notice unless he went looking for them—deep enough for Hux to ignore unless he chose to. That, more than anything, convinces Kylo of their authenticity.
Stepping closer, he sinks onto one knee in front of Hux, separated by Hux’s bony knees between them. He reaches to cup a careful hand over Hux’s face—sure of his welcome, yet no less hesitant for it.
“I’ll tell you at the base,” Kylo says softly, running a thumb over Hux’s hot, damp cheekbone. Disbelief rises in Hux—disbelief and suspicion and dangerous, dangerous hope. “How about that, General? Live for me and I’ll tell you why.”
The long look Hux gives him is the same as before, careful and calculating. Appraising. Kylo kneels and lets himself be judged, wishing deeply, desperately, to be found honest and true for once in his wretched life.
Something clicks in Hux’s eyes, his expression shuttering. Kylo doesn’t know what it means—but Hux is leaning forward in the next moment, putting his arm over Kylo’s shoulders and Kylo just doesn’t kriffing care.
Kylo wraps his own arm around Hux’s slim waist, keeping the pressure light on the boils he can feel under the thin fabric as Hux finally, finally helps himself up on shaky arms and legs. It takes two false starts to get him to stand by himself—and this time, when Hux’s knees buckle under him, Kylo is there to hold him up.