Work Text:
General Armitage Hux prepared for the last day of his life as he had with each one beforehand: with quiet dignity and an impeccable appearance. He refused to give anyone aboard the Steadfast the satisfaction of picking him apart during his execution. He would stand tall in his pressed uniform with his boots shined, not one strand of red hair out of place, as he faced his end with cool appraisal.
Allegiant General Pryde summoned him. Hux lacked Force sensitivity, but it wasn’t required in this case. Hux knew that Pryde knew. If Pryde knew, it certainly meant that Ren knew. His superiors were intent on sniffing out the mole within the First Order feeding valuable intel to the Resistance. The curt message Hux received on beginning his work cycle delivered a long message in so few words. The trek from his private quarters to Pryde’s ready room would span the remaining minutes of his existence.
Nonetheless, Hux set out to meet his fate with expediency. No need to pause for tender goodbyes to any colleagues on board. Phasma was gone, as was Mitaka. The one person he wanted to speak with before dying, unfortunately, he couldn’t reach in real time. Hux gave a deep sigh as he left his quarters, hoping the recipient of said encrypted message understood.
“General Hux.” Pryde’s greeting lacked warmth. Appropriate. He stood in the middle of his ready room with a helmeted Kylo Ren. If they intended for the sight of them side by side to intimidate Hux, the gesture failed. Hux returned his salutations with stiff posture to match his expression and waited for the inevitable.
“Allegiant General,” he said, nodding at Pryde. He flicked his gaze at the masked knight and held back the disgust in his voice. “Ren.”
Pryde clapped his hands behind his back and slowly paced a circle around Hux and Ren. “Thank you for joining us, general. We will dispense with awkward pleasantries. Time, after all, is precious,” he said. Hux winced at the man’s sneering tone. “Our Supreme Leader wishes to test a theory with regards to outing the spy lurking in our midst. Ren, if you please.”
“Thank you, allegiant general.” Ren raised a gloved hand, aiming for Hux’s throat. Hux wanted to close his eyes, if only to keep Kylo Ren from being the last thing he saw before death. Yet, he suspected his superiors might chide this as a weakness. He fixed on the eye shield of Ren’s red-veined helmet while the knight raised his other hand and conjured a holovid screen.
Hux felt a tug in his forehead, a pressing sensation that wasn’t painful yet somewhat distressing. To Hux, Kylo’s Force gesture equated to his large hands surrounding Hux’s skull and squeezing as though to split open a hard-rinded fruit. When the floating screen flickered to life and Hux saw the first image, a pit formed in his stomach.
The scene played out in a first-person POV. Hands typed on a digital pad. Hux caught his own reflection in the screen of the antique monitor he used for this particular deception. Confidential intel scrawled past, revealing the First Order’s secrets in the blink of an eye.
Kylo was using the Force to draw out his memories, projecting them like a holodrama for Pryde to watch. The three men watched in silence as Ren exposed Hux’s deceit for about one standard minute until Pryde announced he’d seen enough to convict.
“Have you anything to say in your defense, General Hux?” Pryde sauntered slowly up to him, close enough to spit and land directly in Hux’s eye.
Fuck you. He remained silent. What good was it to declare any noble last words in the privacy of Pryde’s ready room? These men would likely spread a different tale of how Hux fell to his knees and sobbed like a child for mercy.
Pryde sighed and gave an evil smile. “Very well. You will be terminated immediately,” he said. “As I refuse to sully my workspace, Ren will escort you to a proper detention area to carry out your execution. I, of course, am needed elsewhere for more important business.” Pryde got up in Hux’s face again. “Last call for last words… Armitage.”
Hux, still mute, leaned forward and pressed his lips to Pryde’s in a dry-mouthed kiss. He imprinted the look of shock on the allegiant general’s face in his new memory, determined to take it to his grave.
Pryde’s face reddened and the man shook. “Get this… person out of here.”
Hux swore he heard Ren snicker through the vocoder.
~*~
They exchanged no words on leaving the ready room, or in the lift to the detention level. Hux kept his mind a blank slate, and that hurt him more than anticipating his death. He feared Ren might attempt to probe his mind again. As much as he wanted to focus his final thoughts on the love he was leaving behind, Hux refused to give Ren any more secrets.
So he watched the lights flicker in front of them, counting the seconds toward their arrival. When the lift stopped and the doors opened to reveal a seldom-used hangar, Hux blinked.
“What is this?”
“Move,” Ren ordered, and pushed Hux forward. Hux complied, walking side by side with Ren as though going about a normal work cycle. Stormtroopers and other personnel marched past with purpose. Hux noted a few grounded TIE fighters, each in various stages of repair. A lieutenant approached them but Ren waved his hand and the young woman turned and walked away.
“What is your game, Ren?” Hux demanded in a harsh whisper. “A simple Force choke hold isn’t enough? You mean tear me limb from limb with our own equipment?”
“I mean to jettison you into space,” Ren said. Through the vocoder, it sounded sinister. What Hux deserved, the man no doubt believed. Ren would blast him into space where he would suffocate and die. He’d float like garbage until the gravitational pull of a planet took hold of his corpse and fried it during entry.
Hux would have preferred a blaster shot to the heart, quick with a brief surge of pain, but he ceased caring at this point. “Very well,” he said, resigned. He followed Ren behind a line of TIE fighters and stopped abruptly in front of a single-user escape pod. Coffin-shaped, built for long-distance space travel, it had a transparent lid which slid upon when Ren waved his hand.
“I need your coordinates,” Ren told him.
“I don’t know the coordinates for eternity, Ren.” Hux didn’t believe in an afterlife or world between worlds, or any such places as acknowledged by the various mythologies. “As I have no family left, I see no point in your shipping my body—”
Ren silenced him with a sharp gesture, then brought his hands to the sides of his helmet. He depressed a latch and the helmet disengaged with a pneumatic hiss. Ren lifted his head, his dark hair spilling over his ears and brushing his shoulders. Hux stared him down, trying to read his rival’s expression. He hadn’t seen the man’s face in some time, and it struck Hux as odd to detect a hint of sadness in Ren’s features.
“I’m helping you escape, you half-wit,” Ren told him.
Liar. “Why?”
“Because one of us deserves a chance at happiness when this is over.”
And Ren simply handed that opportunity to him? What bantha fodder. Ren expected him to input coordinates to where the Resistance currently laid low. Track the pod, ambush the rebels, and claim victory. Not a chance. Hux had one excellent reason for resisting.
“It’s not like that at all,” Ren said, confirming that he probed Hux’s thoughts. “I could find the Resistance base without your assistance. This is about getting you to safety and me coming to terms with… recent truths.”
“I see.” Hux had no patience for riddles. If Ren truly wanted him dead, he realized, he’d have accomplished the task in front of Pryde. Nonetheless, his sense of loyalty heightened his apprehension. “I have nowhere to go from here, Ren.”
“Then I will set coordinates for Arkanis. We aren’t far.”
Hux watched Ren enter the data, and soon the knight ushered him into the tube. He relented; he was a dead man either way. As soon as Ren jettisoned the pod, the Steadfast would blow him away as a cautionary measure. He said nothing to Ren as he lay back and the lid closed tight over him.
Shooting away from the Steadfast, Hux closed his eyes and waited for the blinding white to explode behind his eyes and rob him of his breath. He waited, and waited.
~*~
There is so much I wanted to say to you, in person. It hurts me that I have so little time now to talk. They know what I’ve done, and I am about to pay the ultimate price for it.
The holo image of Armitage Hux flickered and blipped. His voice crackled in places but otherwise rang clear. To General Poe Dameron it was the sweetest sound, and at the same time heartbreaking.
The minute he received the transmission in full he locked himself away for privacy. Heads everywhere turned in his direction. Finn, Rose, Kaydel, Leia… they knew an incoming message from the spy delivered, but what their mole had to say offered no further assistance to them. The words barely gave Poe comfort.
Please know I died as bravely as possible, Hux told him. I want to say the end came with no regrets, but of course I have them. I am sorry not to have provided more valuable intel than what I sent. I am sorry not to have better planned an escape…
Poe fixed on the angles of Hux’s face. In holo form he took on a cold appearance, like a droid with skin. Nothing like the man he knew and loved.
Hux didn’t meet the camera for his next words. I wish I had sent more communications, even when I had no First Order intel to share. I wish we had made love more often…
“Me, too,” Poe whispered, and wiped his tears with the back of his hand. He wished they had spent more time in the same systems to help love along.
The holo turned his head, presumably hearing his fate paging him. Hux met the camera again and Poe locked on Hux’s eyes, flickering and soft. Goodbye. I love you. Please know my final thoughts were of you.
End transmission. The holopad fell dark and Poe buried his face in his hands to muffle his weeping. If anybody lurked outside this private space, they were gracious enough to let him mourn Hux in peace. Hux had apologized, and Poe wanted desperately to forgive the man’s absence. Why he resisted initially confused him, but as he contemplated Hux’s last message Poe decided holding back might allow him to hold onto happier memories a while longer.
To forgive Hux for staying with the First Order longer than necessary, and therefore putting his life in danger, would remind him of said danger. Poe didn’t want to forgive Hux in a sense; he wanted Hux back.
“May I come in?”
Poe stood at the sound of Rose’s gentle voice. He took a deep breath and blinked before facing her. Her eyes were rimmed red. Vicarious mourning, he guessed. Not everybody within the Resistance was thrilled to know the identity of their spy, but they didn’t know Armitage Hux as Poe had.
“I would rather be alone,” Poe began. Rose ignored the plea and sat beside him.
“I think you’d rather be with Hux.”
Poe’s face and neck heated at that. “Goes without saying. What do you want, Rose?” What he wanted was for her to deliver her news and leave.
Rose showed him a communication on her pad, transferred in from a different system. “How long ago did Hux send that message?”
The holovid bore a timestamp from approximately two standard weeks ago. The circuitous path around the galaxy through which Hux set the encrypted message caused the delay. Hux had been dead for two standard weeks without Poe’s knowledge, during which time he waited and hoped for better news.
“This is more recent, received just now.” Rose pointed out a simpler encryption process for the two-line message. The first, a set of coordinates, looked familiar to Poe. The second consisted of two words that grabbed Poe by the throat and robbed him of his breath.
Poe touched Rose’s chin and turned her face so that they locked gazes. “This is from a reliable source, yes?” he demanded. “It’s not a ruse, or a trap?”
“It isn’t. The channel is secure. Poe, you’re smiling. It’s good news, yes?”
Poe kissed her, eliciting a surprised cry from her lips. Good news, kriff. Rose had handed him the best news short of the Resistance possessing a button to end the war once and for all. “I have to go,” he said and rushed about the room collecting what he needed for the trip.
“Poe, wait.” Rose blocked the exit. “What does it say? You’re not the only one here who can read Arkanisian, but these words aren’t known to us. If it’s pertinent to–”
“It’s pertinent to me,” Poe cut in. He got up in Rose’s space and leaned down to whisper the rough translation of the message. Select Resistance crew knew the modern language of Arkanis, yes, but likely not the lesser-used dialects of the coastal towns. The so-called dead languages maintained weak pulses thanks to natives who moved far through the educational systems there.
Poe knew the meaning of those two words by virtue of a certain former Academy student, and the memory of the first time he whispered them in Poe’s ear.
Hurry, husband.