Work Text:
Kylo Ren feels like he’s losing his mind.
This is a state he finds himself increasingly in since Snoke placed him on the Finalizer exactly a year and a month ago. It was the first assignment that placed Kylo directly in the structure and mechanism of the First Order. He had thought the assignment was due to two reasons. The most obvious was that the location of the Finalizer once it found a suitable planet for Starkiller Base would be a secure and secret location for Kylo and his knights to return to between searches for Skywalker’s map. Before, they had spent much of their time loitering around backwater planets. There was a freedom to that. Kylo knows that the freedom hadn’t sat well with Snoke.
Freedom from his master weakened Kylo. He should be grateful. Of course he is.
The second became immediately apparent upon arrival on the Finalizer. General Brendol Hux II, the Finalizer’s commander and head of the Starkiller Project, is an untrained Force-sensitive. For all his lack of training, however, there is no hiding that Hux has the type of power that Kylo has only faint impressions of from visions of his own far off potential. Snoke had not warned Kylo of this. It had taken him badly aback in their first meeting. It has become a thorn in his side since then.
Starkiller Base is now a year under construction. It is very much as stable, secure, and secret location as anyone could ask for. Hux, on the other hand –
“Do we have enough wool to build another settlement yet?”
It is alpha shift, which means that Hux is on the bridge. Hux is, at least in his shift routine, a creature of habit. Alpha shift is spent on the bridge overseeing issues of command, while beta shift is spent wherever else he’s needed. Hux regularly takes gamma shift for himself, usually engaging with Captain Phasma in the gym for a time, before disappearing into his quarters for delta and graveyard shift. Kylo is not sure what Hux does with that time. He sleeps rarely. Kylo can count the times he’s been on the Finalizer and been awake when Hux was not.
The first time it happened, Kylo had meditated with the intentions of watching Hux’s dreams. It was impolite even by his standards, but he had been curious. Surely Snoke had placed Kylo here with the intention of turning Hux over to his side. This assumption was a grave mistake. It took Kylo over three hours to claw his way back into his own body. Hux doesn’t dream. His sleeping mind is an open conduit for the Force. Kylo, if not for his grandfather’s grounding presence in his mask, would have been lost in that dark, empty place. Now, for self-preservation if nothing else, Kylo forces himself to stay awake when Hux is asleep.
It makes him irritable. Makes him make bad decisions.
“After this round, yes,” the navigator furthest from the east door where Kylo stands says, glancing over at Kylo in the doorway nervously.
“Hm,” Hux says, drumming the flat of his nails on the command console.
That is about all that Kylo understands at the moment. The main display does not show schematics for Starkiller nor any other reports remotely related to work. Instead, it shows a brightly-coloured game board, clearly being played against other live players if the trash-talk in the chat window at the bottom right-hand corner means anything.
This is not the first time that Kylo has walked in on this. On one hand, Kylo sympathizes. There is only so much one can do when sitting on a ship almost permanently in orbit around a half-built, top secret, planet-sized weapon. The only thing more boring is waiting around in the void of space.
Hux, from what Kylo has gleaned from his occasional but absolutely impossible to ignore projections, has a deeply engrained fear of the void. It’s how he perceives the Force: not as a source of strength but as a vast, gaping hole in which thoughts, emotions, and dreams rise and fall and die. It is far more mental than Kylo’s relationship with the Force. Kylo doesn’t know how to address that. Doesn’t know half the words for it. If they even exist.
“General,” Kylo says.
Irritation rolls off of Hux. Kylo resists the urge to shift, although he grimaces beneath his mask. Hux’s emotional projections seem to have two flavours where most people’s only have varying levels of intensity. Sometimes, Hux’s emotions have the normal fluctuations, usually when he and Phasma are interacting. More often, such as now, Hux’s emotions come out strangely flat. Muted. It’s unpleasant. Like trying to swallow a slug.
“Lord Ren,” Hux says in exactly the same tone as before; he does not take his eyes off of the game. “I see that you have returned. Empty-handed.”
It would be so easy to close Hux’s windpipe. Throw him against the command console. The last time Kylo did that, though, Hux lost control of the Force. He instinctively defended himself. He snapped Kylo’s control and nearly his own neck. His physical abilities are almost all entirely latent because Hux refuses to acknowledge them. It makes him a walking bomb.
Kylo used to be like that, back when he was twelve and clunkier than C-3PO and just starting to find Snoke in his head.
“Snoke has requested an audience,” Kylo says, not moving from his stance in the doorway.
“Has he,” Hux says.
It isn’t a question. He already knew, just as he was completely aware of Kylo’s presence. It should be more alarming how easily Hux snatches thoughts from Kylo’s mind. It certainly was in the beginning of Kylo’s time on the Finalizer. Now, Kylo is more unnerved when Hux doesn’t let on how much he gleans from Kylo’s mind. It means he’s formulating his own thoughts.
“Well,” Hux says, and it is flat, muted; Kylo’s stomach twists and turns; “it wouldn’t do to keep the Supreme Leader waiting. First Lieutenant Fon, postpone the game with my apologies to General Faro. Colonel Orovax, you have the conn.”
He stands up. Turns. Makes his way across the bridge to join Kylo at the door. They step out into the hall together. Kylo makes no secret of watching Hux as they walk towards the main conference room they always use for contacting Snoke when they are on board the Finalizer. A dedicated antechamber for communication with Snoke is being built on Starkiller Base. Kylo thinks it is better to show respect to Snoke’s power. Hux thinks it’s a waste of resources and space.
Hux’s contempt of Snoke is palpable. A year ago, Kylo had thought this was why Snoke had not begun to train Hux. It had made sense: utilise an ambitious and powerful man until he outlived his use. Kylo had considered that perhaps Snoke intended Kylo to kill Hux once Starkiller was completed. Now, Kylo is not sure. Not that Snoke wouldn’t hesitate to do away with Hux if he wanted to. Snoke would.
Kylo, however, is weak. He is nowhere near completing his training, nowhere near to being ready to start. Snoke reminds him of this constantly. And Hux, untrained and unwilling, is incredibly, immeasurably strong.
Snoke’s familiar, terrifying figure flickers on. The transmission signal is distorted by a massive storm raging down on Starkiller Base, and Snoke’s head winks in and out throughout the debriefing of Kylo’s map search and the delay the storm has caused on construction of Starkiller. It is a greatly unpleasant conversation. Both Kylo and Hux are reporting types of failure. Kylo’s stomach rolls every time Snoke’s head winks back into view. Next to him, Hux is no help whatsoever. He is thinking about the game he’d been playing. Thinking about numbers, settlements, and wool.
It makes Kylo think of Chewbacca. Kylo used to hold onto him when the sky rumbled and the Force screamed.
“I expect better news in the future,” Snoke says before the hologram blinks off.
The lights in the conference room come back on. Kylo swallows once. Twice. His heart hammers in his chest. Throat. Ears.
A pace and a half to his left, Hux breathes out.
“Lord Ren,” he says.
Because Kylo is weak, he reacts. Looks over. Hux stands at attention. Unusually, however, their eyes meet. It doesn’t help Kylo’s heart rate. Hux’s pupils are so tiny they’re almost imperceptible.
He’s high, Kylo realises.
“That was unpleasant,” Hux says, and there is nothing unusual about him at all; the only emotion that Kylo can find is a dull sort of resignation. “It would be prudent that we not produce such a combination of failure in the future.”
“No,” Kylo says, and it is stilted, an awful, blunt, terrified noise behind his mask. “We should not.”
Hux nods. He lets his arms drop from the small of his back to swing around to cross of his breast. He drums his fingers on his elbows much as he did on the command console. Nails against uniform fabric and flesh. Kylo watches him unabashedly. It is rare that Hux allows himself physical tells. Kylo is too unmoored to feel safe attempting to glean Hux’s thoughts. Hux looks at the far wall. Rarely blinks. Thinking. He is dangerous when he thinks. He must be incredibly high.
They stand together like this for a long time.
“I must return to the bridge for beta shift,” Hux says finally, shifting his arms back to his sides and turning to Kylo; he stands in a charade of parade rest. “Excuse me.”
He turns. About face. Hux’s entire body moves in reflection of a lifetime spent in the First Order. Kylo, who was once someone else from a world with none of the same rigidity of form, is suddenly aware that he is slouching. He doesn’t straighten. Hux does not look back.
They are, Kylo thinks as Hux steps around him and out of the conference room, two ships passing in the night.
Hux is laughing.
He, Captain Phasma, and several other officers on the alpha and beta crews are eating their dinner in the officer mess. Kylo is not there. He watches them through the security system that he’s routed to his personal datapad.
Hux has had to put down his spoon to cover his mouth with his hand. Next to him, Phasma is clearly laughing as well, although she laughs with her mouth wide and uncovered. The other officers are clearly surprised. A little uncomfortable, too, considering Phasma had been recounting a fairly violent conflict. Something to do with a malfunctioning AT-AT and squashing a member of the Resistance.
“By accident,” Phasma had stressed, which had set Hux and her off into hysterics.
It’s the first time Kylo has seen Hux laugh. It’s the same, apparently, for the other officers, too. It strips him of the age he carries himself with. Changes him into someone younger than all of the other occupants of the table. Someone uncomfortably close to Kylo’s own age. Not that anyone would know it. Except, of course, for Hux himself, if he’s cared to look.
Kylo had no idea what Hux actually cares about until just now. He’d thought it was Starkiller. He thought it was power and dominance and a delusional sense of grandeur. Looking at Hux, wiping his mouth and eyes on a napkin as Phasma hits him several times on the back, which makes him lurch into the table, the truth is suddenly very clear.
Hux cares about Phasma. He cares, painfully obviously, as he begins to help Phasma tell the story to the officers, about his crew, too.
It’s incredibly obvious now that Kylo knows to look. Hux and Phasma have a history together and a type of trust that comes with knowing each other’s backs physically, mentally, and emotionally. He lives sometimes entire days inside of Phasma’s head. Kylo suspects that Hux doesn’t mean to, and he knows there are times when Hux doesn’t realise he’s doing it. The thread of a Force bond, the sort that close friends and relatives have, is solid between them, so much so that, if Kylo hadn’t known Phasma was as Force-sensitive as a doorstop, he might have mistaken it for intentional.
There’s much thinner but nevertheless present bonds between Hux and the majority of Finalizer and Starkiller Base’s crew. It is all, Kylo concludes eventually, completely unintentional. Hux himself doesn’t seem to be aware of what he’s done. He thinks that his acute awareness of his crew and troopers is simply an extension of what he mentally terms his lunacy. It was Hux’s word for the Force that Kylo originally ignored, but, as time goes on, he can’t discount it anymore.
For the longer that Hux is in command of his ship and his great weapon, the deeper Hux imbeds his Force presence in the people there with him. The Finalizer and Starkiller Base orbit around him, affected by his thoughts and emotions as one. Hux has no awareness of this, a polar opposite of his utter and complete understanding of how to use his Force abilities to read people’s minds and manipulate their actions. Hux, simply due to his will and his proximity, has tied the occupants of his ship and his weapon to himself. To his will.
Kylo is not immune to this.
After all, Kylo is weak. He has none of the natural talent with the Force that Hux, untrained and unwilling to be guided by Snoke or otherwise, demonstrates. This is undoubtedly another test by Snoke. To see how long it takes for Kylo to bring Hux to him. To test how long until Kylo cracks under Hux’s influence. Kylo suspects he has already failed. For Hux, by virtue of his ambition to rule through the total destructive power of Starkiller and his absolute certainty in what he calls his lunacy, has done what Kylo cannot.
There is no quivering Light in Hux. There is no evidence that the Light ever touched him. He is the very essence of the void that he perceives the Force to be, and he feeds off of that essence with a vigour that Kylo cannot hope to match. He doesn’t need anger or strong emotion to access his understanding of the Force. Instead, he’s turned himself into a conduit for the Force, untethered and in essence boundless.
“Again,” Hux says after Phasma throws him across the mat in the gym; Kylo has been watching them over the security feed for over an hour.
“Right,” Phasma says, arms up as Hux rolls himself back to his feet.
It’s a sight. Watching the two of them train has become Kylo’s favourite part of his spying on the Finalizer and Starkiller Base. Phasma is the epitome of the First Order stormtrooper training, an embodiment of discipline and physical prowess Kylo doubts could be achieved anywhere else in the galaxy. Hux has no hope of ever surpassing her by pure physical might, but he is a dangerous opponent in his own right, the latent physical manifestation of his Force-sensitivity allowing him to match her on his good days.
If only he would allow himself to be trained, Kylo thinks as anger and envy course through his blood.
If only he had a choice in master, Kylo thinks before terror drives the realisation from his mind.
Kylo doesn’t fool himself. He suspects that both Phasma, by pure human instinct, and Hux know how closely he watches them. Phasma thinks that Kylo watches them so closely because of Snoke. It is not untrue; this is, after all, a test. She doesn’t trust him for it because she somehow knows of what Hux is, although Kylo doubts that Hux would have ever explained it to her. How it came to be does not matter. The bond between Captain and General is solid, and Kylo cannot hope to break it to bring Hux to Snoke.
For Kylo is weak. Hux is that constant confirmation of the Light that clings to Kylo like a disease. Of all the failures that are Kylo’s and Kylo’s alone. He has failed for three years to find a map to a man he once could have found from any point in the universe. He has failed to show Snoke that he is ready to finish his training. And he has, most glaringly, failed to trump a single Force-sensitive’s will.
For Hux is strong. Despite and because of his misunderstanding of the Force, he cannot fail. He cannot fall. There is no standard that he can be held to. He cannot be controlled. Snoke, Kylo, the entire galaxy: it is all superficial noise.
Hux, in his command over the Finalizer and Starkiller Base, is master of the Dark.
“Lord Ren.”
Kylo stops. Turns.
“General.”
It is deep delta shift. Hux stands in the doorway to his private quarters. The lights are dimmed behind him. There’s the slight ghost of a frown on his lips.
“What are you doing here?”
It is not a strange question. Kylo is not surprised that Hux is unable to glean Kylo’s reasoning from his thoughts. This is because Kylo has no reasoning. He was walking. Lost in thought. As the head of the Knights of Ren, all of the Finalizer and Starkiller Base is at his disposal. He hadn’t realized where his wandering had taken him.
Hux’s eyebrows crease briefly before evening out. He steps out of his quarters, sock-covered feet making faint scuffing noises on the metal. He’s wearing the dull greys and blacks of regulation sleeping clothes. His hair drips. Still wet from the shower.
“You’re wasting water,” Kylo points out.
Hux cocks his head. He shifts his weight slightly, balancing himself on the balls of his feet. He doesn’t feel like he’s looking to fight right now, but Kylo cannot hear his thoughts at all. In recent months, as Starkiller inches closer to completion, Hux has been closing himself around Kylo more and more. Kylo has been trying to do the same, although it’s really only staving off the inevitable. Hux is stronger. He will bind Kylo, just as he has unconsciously done with everyone else. It’s just a matter of time.
“You are unsettled,” Hux says.
It’s in the slow, heavy way he uses when he’s dangerously close to acknowledging his awareness of the Force. It’s something that Hux, on principle, does everything in his power to avoid doing. A lifetime of misunderstanding and hiding. Of knowing how very much he doesn’t belong. Kylo recognises this. It’s why he discovered Snoke. Why, up until recently, he thought Snoke had saved him.
Hux grew up in the First Order. In full view of Snoke. Untrained. Unguided. Left alone to develop his own strategies and tactics. Kylo can feel the way Hux’s mind circles around the impression of lunacy. Water down a storm drain.
“Why?”
There’s a brush. Hux’s presence against Kylo’s brain. It feels like the back of fingernails. Firm but not unpleasant. Kylo resists the urge to shiver. He pushes back. It’s like trying to shove a granite wall. It makes Hux blink. His eyes are clear, although it makes it obvious how tired he is. Kylo selfishly prefers this. It’s an increasingly rare occasion when Hux is not high.
“Why?” Hux asks again.
Kylo grits his teeth. If he does not answer, Hux will reach out again, and he will not be so easy to turn away. He doesn’t feel like fighting with Hux right now. It would be unsatisfying. They are both tired. It hurts them both a lot more when Hux is sober and Kylo doesn’t start off angry.
“I was simply passing by.”
Again the brush. Hux frowns slightly again as he feels Kylo force himself to not push back. Kylo grits his teeth, his skin crawling as Hux’s touch against his mind shifts. It’s not like Snoke’s heady engulfing. Nor is it like the faraway, half-forgotten reminder of Skywalker’s tentativeness or his mother’s faint, wavering caress. Hux is all fingers, the impression of calluses and carefully manicured nails brushing dust away. Hux blinks again. His stance relaxes.
“Ah,” he says, finding Kylo’s words to be the truth. “As you were.”
He starts to turn. Socks scuffing against the floor. The mental touch slides from Kylo’s mind. It leaves Kylo feeling alarmingly empty. The Light that clings to Kylo flickers. Attempting to spark in the Dark.
Kylo is weak.
“General.”
Hux stops. Looks back. He doesn’t turn completely, but he doesn’t need to. He blinks, loose bangs dripping into his eyes. Clear and blue. Dark pupils in the dim lighting.
you are so full of the Dark Side that it is blinding
“What?” Hux asks.
It should be annoyed, but Hux often seems to be unable to produce his own emotions. Kylo sucks in a long breath. He doesn’t want to fight. He doesn’t want to hurt Hux. They are both so tired. Hux for a thousand reasons Kylo both does and does not understand. Kylo because, as weak as he is, has just realised that he has failed.
A bond has grown without either of their consent.
“Nothing,” Kylo says, chokes, screams; the vocal scrambler disguises his voice but not his heart. “It is nothing.”
Hux stares at him for a long moment. He knows that Kylo is lying. It is a long time before his gaze slides away. Into the dimness. Into the Dark.
“Good night, Lord Ren.”
He steps inside of his quarters. The doors hiss shut behind him. Kylo is left standing in the hallway. As blank and naked as he came.
Kylo, from that night forward, begins to die.
He is dying when he chases down the last piece of Skywalker’s map.
He is dying when he puts his lightsaber through his father’s belly.
He is dying on Starkiller Base in the snow.
And finally it comes full circle as he is dying on the Finalizer on the way to Snoke.
Hux has swallowed three times the recommended amount of anxiety suppressant. He Force-tricked the doctor into giving them to him. Since then, he’s sat beside Ren. Unconsciously seeking comfort in a bond that he doesn’t realise exists. Even if Ren had the strength, he wouldn’t be able to push him away. There are thousands of suddenly empty bonds and open wounds between them. Ren, because even now the Light flickers within him, is weak to it all.
Phasma? Hux calls into the Force.
Kylo is not awake, but he is a Force-user. He hears Hux’s call, so loud that he doubts anyone with an ounce of Force-sensitivity in the galaxy could ignore it. There’s hurt in the call, a grief already beginning. It is a gaping maw of the Dark. The void. Hux has turned himself into a conduit for the Force. It flows through him. It eats him alive.
Where are you? Hux calls again, and he is scared and he is young, just as Kylo is down beneath all his bluster.
Kylo isn’t Phasma. He isn’t what Hux wants. But he is there, physically unconscious but mentally aware in the Force. In what Hux still, even after all that has happened, does not want to acknowledge. Or perhaps because of what has happened. Ren is weak. He cannot know.
General
Next to him, Hux starts. There’s a touch against Kylo’s mind. Callused fingertips. Catching on the edges of his thoughts.
Lord Ren? Hux asks.
Kylo is exhausted and in pain, but he reaches out. Follows the thread of the bond that’s formed without their consent. The Dark envelops them. From it’s heart, Hux stares back.
General is the only thought that Kylo can think, can form.
Ren
Hux is suddenly inside of his mind, an invasion that Hux usually, desperately avoids. Now, Kylo knows why.
Ren Ren Starkiller RIGGER failure gone Phasma is gone gone GONE gone we have failed Snoke says he will finish your training he will finish Ren REN DIE PLEASE DIE just let me die let us die Phasma please why
It is painful. Kylo can do nothing but listen. Exist. He is weak, and Hux is strong, so Hux must be the one to scream, to grieve, to rage into the Force, the Dark, the void. Kylo lies in medical upon Hux’s ship as they hurdle through space. Towards Snoke. Towards an end.
General
Hux’s mind wails. It is an infinite, powerful thing. A creature so full of the Dark Side there never was room for the Light. And Kylo –
Kylo is weak. A failure.
But they share a bond.
He reaches out to the void. To where the Dark snuffs out the Light.
Hux, Kylo says, I’m here