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The thing about General Brendol Hux Jr is… he’s not really a junior. He’s actually BH-0014, a clone of the original Brendol Hux, who he calls his father. As Hux grew up he was conditioned by his father to be the best. The smartest, the brightest of anyone. He was top in his class in everything he did. He loved for nothing and only wished to make his father proud of him.
Unknown to him his father wished to be the ruler of the galaxy, but knowing he was to old to start that quest as well as too sick, he had clones of himself produced, in the hopes that his name would forever be held in high regard. In hopes that some day he would be Emperor!
BH-0014 never knew the truth as he grew up. He honestly thought he was the son of his father in every way possible. That his mother simply died when he was born. That his father had never lied to him about his existence.
That is until horrific failure at Starkiller Base.
Retrieving a wounded Kylo Ren from the exploding planetary weapon had been easy enough. Getting him medical care had happened just fine. It was when the two of them had to meet with Snoke that things got a bit twisted. He was sure they were about to die, or at least he was. Between the two of them he was the one that was the most expendable.
As the two of them walked down the great hall towards the Supreme Leader's audience hall they walked shoulder to shoulder, heads held high. Ren in his new mask, Hux with his hat and long coat on over his uniform. As proper and as cleaned up as either of the two could be.
It wasn’t the first time they had come down this hall before. They had been, together and separate, met with the man here a few times. Generally they met him through holo projection, but that wouldn’t do. This was punishment.
About half way through the walkway lay a body. First Order uniform grays, lying slumped on the floor. He could see a hand held near the man’s neck, like he had been choked. Hux kept the fear away just fine. It wasn’t the first time he had seen it. It wouldn’t be the last when you work with Force Users. The thing that startled him, as they came closer, was the red hair. The pale face, the freckles. His eyes went wide as he stared at his own face, perhaps a bit younger by a few years, but still, it was his face. He moved as if to go and see, to check it out, but someone grabbed his wrist.
“Don’t.” Kylo’s dark toned voice filtered through his new helmet. Hux paused at the pull, glancing back to him with startled blue eyes. “Ignore it.” Kylo said again, letting go of the man’s wrist.
Hux, looking startled now, drew back into formation beside Kylo and, glancing back at the body as they past, had a shiver run through his spine. Perhaps some Sith mind trick. That wasn’t his body. That wasn’t him. Snoke, being mad with him, is trying to get to him.
As they walked further, more bodies were spotted, off to the side, slumped down a wall, some bleeding, others shot. Hux’s chest tightened as they walked, trying not to let it get to him. And illusion. That had to be it.
When they met with Snoke the two young men stood before the supreme leader as presentable as possible. Everything the tall man said to them they both assumed they would hear. Disappointment. Failure. Disgrace. Kylo, praised for his job of killing his father. For coming one step closer to completing his training. Hux, belittled for the loss of the base.
“Before you go…” Snoke said, waving a hand to the side of his chair, a button depressed without his touch. “General Hux, could you please come out.”
Hux looked unsure of what the man meant. With a half glance to Kylo he saw the man shake his head so very subtly.
From a door to the side of the chamber stepped another man. red hair, blue eyes, freckles on pale skin, perfect posture, perfectly pressed uniform and not a hair out of place. He stepped out, hands behind his back and looked to Snoke with that smug prideful look that Hux tended to wear himself. Everything about the man was Hux, actually. “Sir.” He said, clipped and strong.
General Hux, standing next to Kylo was visibly startled, eyes wide, looking from the figure of him and to Hux, unsure about what was going on. “Sir?” He had said at the exact same time as the other him, only his tone was not clipped or sure, but questioning. What the hell was going on here.
“Kill him.” Snoke said, though to who it was not clear.
Both Hux’s looked to each other, brows raised and staring, as if they had just seen each other for the first time, which was true. Neither knew of other Hux clones. Neither knew there were more. They thought they were individual.
“One of you is a failure. One of you is inexperienced. Prove to me which of you really wants to live to serve me again some day.”
Both Hux’s stood there staring at each other for the longest moment, but Hux, beside Ren felt something pulling at his hand. An invisible grip around his wrist, pulling his hand back to the blaster at his back, under his coat.
It was enough to get him moving. Kylo, helping him get a move. Startled still, both Hux’s didn’t move for the longest time, but the help from Kylo set the General real into motion. The small back up blaster pulled free he took two steps forward, pointing it at what looked like himself. In a blink, the trigger was pulled, once, twice, three times, hitting the redhead duplicate with pinpoint accuracy in the chest, at the heart.
The clone fell to the ground, a smoking crater in his chest, bleeding out on the floor. Snoke… chuckling, as if he found great delight in the death of the man.
“Good. Very good. Experience wins over your failure.” The great man said in a booming voice.
Hux felt sick, staring at his own body on the floor, killed by his own hand. His blaster still leveled, as if ready to shoot again however. Again, he felt a force pushing his hand down, which he followed once again, lowering the weapon. He looked up to Snoke, confused.
“I… don’t understand, my lord.” He said with little thought, knowing he shouldn’t bring it up, but he couldn’t help himself.
“Clones, Hux. Clones. In case you fail me, I can’t lose my investment in you.”
“You… have clones of me?” Hux said, sounding startled even as he tried to hide the confusion in his voice.
“Hardly, dear boy. Cloning from a clone is impossible.” Snoke sounded amused, pleased even.
The statement took no time to sink in, like someone poured a bucket of ice water over his head suddenly. A clone of a clone? If it were possible, his face paled more than it already was. He stepped back into line with Kylo, eyes wide, stunned. “My father?”
“Your self.” Snoke corrected, chuckling as if this were as entertaining as watching the other Hux die. “You are BH-0014, the most mentally advanced clone of the lot. The one Brendol chose to raise himself. The clone you just murdered mercilessly was HB-0037. There are more. Back ups for when you inevitably fail me again.”
The large man snapped a finger and waved his hand to the side. A door on the far side of the room opened and a young boy came rushing out, head bowed. A stock of shocking red hair, pale skin and freckles. No older than twelve. The child Hux came up to the large man in his large chair and stood obediently beside him.
“Dispose of this, trash.” Snoke told the child, reaching out to stroke a twisted hand over the boy's soft red hair.
It took everything Hux had in him not to sneer at the thought of his hair being stroked by the Supreme Leader’s hand like that. He watched as the boy silently moved to the dead body, his back scarred with lash marks, some old, some clearly new. Hux had to look away, back to the Supreme Leader, so not to see.
The young boy grabbed the dead Hux by the wrists and started to drag the body away, through the door that the man had come through, disposing of it however one might dispose of a clone.
General Hux felt ice floating in his belly from all of this.
“That is all. Failure will not be tolerated again, General. You can be… replaced, so easily. Don’t disappointment me further.” He waved his hand to dismiss the two.
It took a small invisible nudge from Kylo, at his back, to get him to move again. The both bowed, turned and started out of the chamber room and back into the long hall.
The entire time they walked to leave, Hux’s eyes were wide in shock, stepping past bodies that weren’t illusions at all. They were his clones. Clones of him. No… of his father. He was Brendol Hux, the 14th one. How many were there. How many had been killed because of him? He had just killed one himself, thoughtlessly. And the small version of himself, used as a whipping boy. Disposing of the body with no thought to it.
As they got outside of the hall and back to the shuttle Hux realized he had no idea how he made it here. One moment they were in the hall, the next the ramp was closing behind him. The thud of the doors closing was enough to let himself go. His body suddenly giving in to the shock, tipping to lean into the cargo bay wall, eyes wide. His body twisted from leaning on his shoulder to leaning on his back and he slid down the wall, sitting on the floor and staring at nothing.
Kylo Ren moved before him, coming to stand so he was toe to toe with the other, lowering himself down in a crouch. “You need to pull yourself together.”
“You knew?” Hux said now, hearing the others voice hard and cold through the mask’s filter. He doesn’t like this new mask. It was too clean. Too foreign to him. It wasn’t the same Kylo he knew. “You knew about this the whole time?” His voice sounded just as shocked as he felt.
“Yes.” Ren’s voice said, cold and hard. It took a moment, but the man’s hands reached up, undoing the mask and sitting it aside on the ground beside them. “I’ve known for a while now.” His voice was softer now, dark eyes watching Hux with some form of rare concern.
“And you never…”
“It wasn’t my place to tell you.” Kylo said sternly before the other could finish what he was going to say. “There was no reason for you to know.”
“No reason to know?!” Hux said suddenly loud. “What? That my existence is a lie!? That I’m a damned clone of the man I thought of as my father?! That’s what I’m going to end up being, isn’t it? An abusive asshole with a mind only for making everyone’s lives around him as miserable as possible. That’s it, isn’t it?”
Frowning at the General, Kylo reached both black gloved hands out and put them on either side of the man’s face, forcing him to stop and just look at him for a moment.
“You are not your father.” Ren started to say.
“I have no father.” Hux interrupted, glaring now. “I am the man I grew to hate.”
“You are not that man. His experiences made him someone else. Yours have made you the better person. You are strong, he is weak. You are brilliant, he is wishful. You command the First Order and have thousands that are loyal to you.”
“Brainwashed. Conditioned. They aren’t really loyal.” Hux protested.
Kylo put pressure on the man’s head, not painfully, but shook him a little, to make him focus on him again. “Trained, yes, but not all of them are blindly loyal. The men on your bridge trust you. Phasma respects you. I…” He paused, frowning at the other now.
Hux frowned at him for the last cut off statement, he shook his head between the two hands, reaching up to push Kylo away from his face. “You… pushed me to take the shot.”
“You needed to make the first move.” The knight said with ease, resting his arms on his bent knees, keeping balanced there before the other. “If you didn’t move, the other would have. If neither of you moved, Snoke would have.”
He frowned more now, staring at the other. “That wasn’t you. That boy isn’t you either. You’re your own person. Built, maybe, but you grew into your own. Everything you have done has made you who you are. There is no one else who could replace you, so don’t let them. Strike first and continue to be the strongest. Prove him wrong. You’re not just another clone. You, unlike them, survived much and grew to your own greatness. Don’t let him make a fool of you.”
Moving to stand after that, Kylo reached down with both hands, taking hold of the thin general by the upper arms and hauling him up to stand once again. Bringing him more to level with himself, yet keeping him pressed against the wall. “None of them are the man I admire. If you keep this shocked pity party going however, I might see if I can take up his offer of a personal Hux of my own.”
That started the General, eyes going wide a moment before glaring at the man. “He offered you one of my clones?” The tone of his voice was absolutely astounded.
“Several times.”
“Have you ever…”
“No.” Kylo said swiftly, firmly. Then softer, still holding the other man up to the interior of the shuttle with both hands. “I had no interest in what was offered. Besides, I was working on acquiring a Hux of my own.”
“One of your own, huh?” Hux said, dubiously. It’s not like the two of them haven’t fallen into some form of sexually charged state before. The first time had been by accident. An argument and a slightly intoxicated Hux. The second time had been on Ren’s return to the Finalizer, in an emotional state that Hux didn’t understand, returning from a meeting with Snoke. Had Hux known at the time it was the moment Kylo had learned he was a Clone, he might have understood the emotion the other pushed into the forceful and tough night of sex. He might have allowed him to stay the rest of the night, had he known.
None of it had meant much to Hux. Or so he said. It was all just a desire. A need for release. Just because it had been with Kylo meant nothing to him. Or... so he told himself.
“One of my own, yes.” Kylo said, leaning in, eye to eye with the other, his nose just barely brushes Hux’s. “The others aren’t you, Hux. I’ll keep telling you that, if I have to.”
“Have you… had to kill any of them? Of me?” Hux asked, blue eyes staring back to the other. He wanted to push him away, but he wanted the feel of someone close as well. A feeling he wasn’t at all used to having for himself. Or allowed for himself.
Kylo’s eyes darkened at that question, looking away from the others eyes, for just a moment. His grip on the man’s arms tightened. A clear yes, in his actions. “I’ve never killed you.” He started, looking back to the others eyes. “I killed your father, several times.”
“It’s practically the same person.” Hux said with a disgusted glare.
“They’re nobody compared to you.” Kylo said, leaning in to press his forehead to the others, keeping Hux close and back to the wall. “How often am I going to have to say that before you get back to yourself. There is only one you, and you intend to rule the universe. Emperor Hux of the First Order and New Empire. The only Hux that matters. You father will be nothing but a footnote in the history of the the strongest the Order has to offer. No one will remember the Admiral as anything but a washed up old man who couldn’t make it as far as his son.”
“Except that in a sense, it’s still him. It’s still..”
Kylo cut him off again, a push of the man’s arms so his back and shoulders hit the wall once more. A jolting motion. “I’m not letting you go until you realize who you are.” His voice a bit of a growl.
The jolted motion made Hux growl back, his hands coming up to shove the man in his chest. “Stop it, Ren. Back the hell off.”
The smile on Kylo’s face started to spread a bit more, his hands still holding tightly to the man’s arms and uniform coat, holding him firmly to the wall. “I don’t take orders from the pathetic. Or did I walk away with a completely different, weak person? Do I need to take you back and demand for a new one? They’re all the same, you said. So does it matter which model I request?”
The anger across Hux’s face hit him fast, a much more natural look then the shocked one that seemed to stick with him after this entire ordeal. With a growl, Hux moved, shoving the force user backwards, reaching his arms around to twist the other man’s hold off his own, turning it around on the other and shoving him backwards. He knows if Kylo wanted to resist, he could have. Instead the other man allowed him to have the upper hand in annoyance, reversing the positions, backing Kylo up and shoving him into the other wall of the shuttle.
“I’m not pathetic. I’m not weak! I am exactly who I have always been!” He growled into the other, appearing taller than the taller man suddenly, that ‘General of the First Order intimidation’ starting to seep out once again. Kylo allowed himself to lean back into the wall, looking up to the other with an impressive smirk (one he had adopted from his father without even realizing it).
Hux, seeing the smirk looked startled at first, then glowered. “You’ve made your point.” He said with a slight sneer, fingers digging into the other man’s arms a moment before letting go, starting to back away. His hand reached up to straighten his uniform, looking annoyed and so very much like the General they all knew.
“There you are.” Kylo said, reaching out to the man to pull him back. Hux stiffened at the movement, stumbling forward a step and bracing himself, hands on either side of the man on the wall as Kylo pulled him closer again. “I thought we might have lost you back there.”
“Hardly.” Hux said on a breath, leaning in close to the other with a dark stare. “Shaken, perhaps but not lost.”
“Good.” Kylo said, pulling the man in closer to push a kiss to his lips. Not as harsh as normal, but not tender either. Firm, almost possessive, because he was very firm in the belief that this General was his. This Hux was the Hux he claimed. The fact that Hux leaned into it, in return was a good sign for him. Good enough, at least.
After a few moment, the two parted for a breath, and Kylo was pleased to feel the other stay where he was, forehead pressed to forehead. He had expected the man to back away again. Generally they didn’t do… tender moments. They didn’t do close.
Speaking softly, the dark knight whispered to the other. “He’ll ask you to do it again, you know. He saw how it rattled you.”
“I won't make that mistake again.” Hux said firmly, eyes closed and taking a moment just to breath the other man in.
“Do what I do.” Kylo Ren said, eyes open just enough to peek through dark lashes. “Pretend it’s your father. Maybe you’ll delight in pulling the trigger next time.”
Hux snorted at that, smiling a bit. “I think I can manage that.” With a sigh, he opened his eyes, looking to the other before him, and drew back a bit. Once again he tried to fix his uniform, looking as the impressive General he knows himself to be. “I think it’s time we leave. Back to the Finalizer.”
Letting go of the man, Kylo Ren smirked, moving once again to retrieve his helmet. “As you command, General.” and followed the other to the cockpit.
Hux had always hated clones. They had seemed impractical at the time. One flaw in the system and they were all flawed. He hated clones, but maybe Ren was right. Maybe he could rise above and be better then all of them.