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Exsanguination is a relatively swift affair. A humanoid will bleed out from a vital artery in less than a minute; or so they say. Kylo wouldn't know. His lightsaber cauterizes wounds on contact.
When the First Order falls, its star general and the master of the Knights of Ren find themselves stranded on a little nothing dustball, barely large enough to be classified but with enough hostility for a planet twice it's size. It isn't allied with the New Republic and won't extradite.
The low cell is hewn out of the sandstone, the thin windows barred with sturdy sticks and the edges sanded raw from stinging wind. It had been calmer today, though – almost pleasantly so, if not for the heat. The faint evening light casts patterns on the dirt floor, black and muted orange.
Kylo's not afraid to die. At least, he doesn't think so. He possesses the instinct for self preservation, as all creatures do, but perhaps not so strongly as his counterpart, who had served up a cunningly crafted defensive at the brief sham of what passed for a trial on this world. It had fallen on deaf ears, however – the convincing words might have swayed a proper Republic court but either the persuasiveness of his argument had been lost due to the cultural barrier, or the First Order's crimes were too great. Perhaps both.
General Hux sits on the cot with his back against the wall, one knee bent to his chest and his forearm resting on it. The slender hand isn't as pale as it once had been, the first and second knuckles scraped raw and the skin pink from sun exposure. His cheeks are equally wind-whipped, his normally shining copper hair a matte russet, thick with sand.
In the past week the general had proven himself made of hardier stuff than Kylo would have guessed. He'd been inexperienced in the ways of desert survival, but had never once complained about the conditions and had more than once clearly restrained the urge to snap at the frightened officers who made up the rest of their ragged band. It had been obvious how deeply it pained Hux to flee the destroyed and failing Finalizer as the Resistance moved in, but there was nothing to be done and the instinct for survival had won out, as it had with Kylo and whoever else managed to get to the escape shuttles in time.
Snoke had forsaken them, in the end. Kylo doesn't feel quite the level of confusion and anger he would've expected to – he doesn't really feel anything about it. Resigned, maybe. This in and of itself is a relief.
They'd trekked through the desert for a day and holed up in the caves two more before they'd been hunted down by the planet's inhabitants. Their blood lust had been high, the other officers killed outright in the scuffle, and the trial quick and informal. Owing to their traditions, executions took place precisely at dawn. Or their equivalent of it. Here the sun never truly set, dipping only just below the horizon at night. The sky would remain a subdued indigo until that big burnished disc rose fully above the far-off cliffs. Dawn represents a new day, a new opportunity – this time, not for them.
“Are you afraid to die, Ren?” Perhaps Kylo should be startled that the general had echoed his ponderings so clearly and yet, only hours before their execution, it was hardly an unexpected train of thought.
“No.” Kylo lets it hang. Relents. “I don't think so.” Pauses. “Are you?”
“I'm not sure.” Hux says it plainly. Honest. “I don't fear the pain. But I'm not ready to leave just yet. There was so much more...” He trails off. Kylo doesn't need him to finish. He understands.
For a very long time, Kylo assumed he'd die in a fierce blaze of glory. Screaming, cutting down his enemies in wide swathes, saber brilliant and fearsome and swinging until the last. His weapon had been taken from him, of course, and with it the vision of fighting until the final breath.
How unexpected, that it's the general – his opposite in many ways, with whom he'd so often clashed, civil at the best of times and figuratively tearing each other's throats out at worst – he'd spend his last living hours with. That they would go down together.
He wonders morbidly who will be the first to die.
Hux's clear eyes are darker than normal in this dim cell. They'd been provided no lighting, not even the simplest candle. A brazier had glowed in the broad circular courtyard but it had died down, this settlement's peoples retired for the night. An exciting morning awaits them – it's not every day they'll have the chance to witness a double execution of this magnitude.
“I'm glad they won't be able to broadcast it.” Hux's voice is stern, a sort of last, smug gratification. “A place like this won't have the means. I'd rather not have my bleeding body on display to the entire galaxy.”
Kylo huffs out an almost-laugh at that. Hux seems surprised and intrigued by the noise. He seems to turn it over, like it's a tangible thing to be examined. “Did you want your mother to be here?” he continues after a while.
Mention had been made during their hasty trial about Leia Organa's efforts to be present. If the planet refused to hand them over, the Republic wished to at least send a witness. Kylo's aware it was most likely a veiled rescue attempt. This ulterior motive had been correctly ascertained, and the Republic's request was rejected and the execution expedited.
“No,” Kylo says eventually. He wants no one weeping for him, no pitying onlookers. If he cannot die in battle it should at least be quick. Clean.
Hux nods, just an inclination of his head, as if he approves. Kylo has always privately, and rather resentfully, found him somewhat handsome – the stillness in his features only enhances them, he concludes now. His jaw is shadowed with auburn stubble. It ages him, in an elegant sort of way.
Kylo would've expected Hux to be more fearful. He regrets that judgment now and allows himself to be filled with a grudging, unspoken admiration for the general. He wouldn't have cared for the close quarters before, but doesn't mind now. The high stakes that had always roused them to lash out at each other were gone. Irrelevant. No more stress, the urgency and gravity of of their duty vanished. There was only the waiting.
On his own ragged cot, Kylo folds his legs up under him and rests a hand on each knee. His pants are smudged with dust, his thin under-tunic even more so – his heavy robes had been long abandoned, unbearable in this baking hot climate. No wonder the population spent the bulk of the day in the network of caves and tunnels beneath the flat-topped cliffs. Hux's uniform jacket had torn in the shuttle crash and he wears only his flared trousers and gray standard issue undershirt, suspenders hanging down around his waist now as he reclines, gazing pensively at the hard packed floor. He looks softer, more human in such a state of undress; Kylo can only assume he does, too.
Kylo meditates. A breath in, through to his core, then out; controlled but loose, in and then released again. He reaches out with the Force – he senses the easy slumber of the jailers, feels the heat of dwindling hearths and the soft grunts of the cattle in the pens out past the courtyard.
Instead of lingering here in this backwater he delves deep for the memories of gleaming stars and victories long past. He won't go too far back, not to the life of the one called Ben; yet he realizes, in the years between then and now, he can find few significant moments of joy to reminisce over. That has not been the purpose of his existence.
He settles on the recollection of building his saber. Not his first ever wielded but the first fashioned with his own hands. That had been an accomplishment, hadn't it – the raw power barely contained in the weighty hilt, the vibration as it ignited to life. That had been in a place far away, in both distance and time, in a cave much like those on this planet. He'd taken his new weapon out onto the flat, immense plain and practiced all night, testing its balance and stability, illuminated only by the flaming blade and witnessed by countless glittering stars.
After a moment's hesitation he presses, subtle and just at the surface, into the general's mind.
He's thinking of stars, too. Both Starkiller Base, long gone, and those scattered white pinpricks seen from the great viewports of the Finalizer, that vast dagger of a ship now reduced to so much rubble floating silently through space until junkers come along to pick up the scrap. Hux feels its loss – the loss of all of it – an empty hand, a fist closing in on ephemeral nothing. He's more satisfied with the life he'd been allotted and his achievements in that time than Kylo is for himself, yet it only highlights how far he's fallen. There's a cold, resentful disbelief, a gaping chasm left by something wrongfully taken from him. Still, the knowledge of his own unwavering efforts gives him some small measure of serenity.
“You do know I can feel that, Ren.” Hux's fair brow raises pointedly, but his words hold no real anger.
Kylo spontaneously sends him an image. He'd never done this with Hux before – never had much of anything to do with him except the bare minimum, at least not until the past few months, which had them working more closely than ever before as the tide turned in the Resistance's favor. In that time he'd come to admit, rather reluctantly, that the general did indeed have valuable skills, abilities which turned out to complement his own rather conveniently on more than one occasion.
The image is nothing special. Just a memory; their first meeting. Hux standing with his back to him, at parade rest in front of those big windows on the Finalizer's observation deck. Kylo can't recall now what he'd thought then at the sight of that straight back and the shining boots, the slim figure silhouetted against the spangled black of space. But it comes to him unexpectedly now, feeling so quintessentially Hux, and he reveals it to him gently, so as not to pain his mind.
Hux startles at the intrusion, then tilts his head, considering what Kylo has offered him. His eyes narrow in concentration. Kylo is aware of his careful focus, still unsure about the workings of the Force after all these years. Kylo's gentle again as he draws out the mental image Hux has isolated and chosen to show him.
It's himself. The first time Hux saw him unmasked. His hair was slightly shorter than it is now, his eyes disturbingly intense, his face warring between disgust and a kind of panicky but fiery frustration. He'd flown into a rage over... something or other. Hux's expression had betrayed nothing at the time but now Kylo sees how caught off guard he'd been by his youth, by the all-too-human timbre of his natural voice. The wildness of his hair.
“You thought you could take on the world, then,” Hux observes darkly. Wistfully.
“As did you.”
Hux concedes. “As did I.”
Hux had never hidden the extent of his ambition. His desires had been grand, his ideas to reshape and revitalize the weakened galaxy even more so. Kylo had been prone to centering his attention mainly within his own sphere; he believed in the Order, but never spent much time contemplating the overarching fate of the galaxy. Yet now he regrets not only that he'll never witness the Order's goals come to fruition, but that for him, this fate will remain unknown – his consciousness snuffed out before he can see it. But isn't that the problem with death, regardless of when it comes? Being unable to experience the universe progress?
“It would've been grand,” Kylo says quietly.
Hux lifts his head. His eyes glow suddenly in a way that's achingly familiar. “It would've been perfect.”
Kylo rubs the welt at the back of his neck. A Force-suppressing dart is not something he would've expected a place like this to have. The drug's probably expired; his power feels sluggish under his skin, hindering him enough to prevent him from snapping everyone's necks and making his escape, but it isn't so potent as to sever his abilities completely as it was originally created to do.
“Does it hurt?” Hux watches his motions.
“No more than an insect bite.”
“I don't mean the dart. I mean... being cut off from the Force.”
Kylo wouldn't have expected such an astute question. Strange, to imagine the things he doesn't know about the general, that he might have learned had they more time. Or more inclination, in the time they'd been given.
“No. Well, it might,” he amends. “If it were permanent. It feels... a little stiff. As if a limb isn't working quite correctly.”
“What must that be like,” Hux muses idly. “To manipulate people and surroundings at will?” There's no envy in his tone, just a thoughtful interest.
“Let me show you.”
Hux weighs it, considering, before rising and crossing the small space in one stride and sinking onto the edge of Kylo's cot.
Kylo takes Hux's elbows – has he ever touched his bare skin before? – and runs his palms along the outsides of his forearms. Hux doesn't balk at the contact, merely waits in hesitant anticipation. This would be difficult even without the drug in his veins, and now it takes all Kylo has to send the Force into him. Hux inhales sharply as the energy infuses his muscles and tendons, coursing down like the faintest electricity into his fingertips.
“And this is only a fraction,” he murmurs.
Kylo sets his sights on the tin cup on the rickety stool. Through Hux he lifts it – not even a foot in the air, he hates how suppressed he is – but the sensation seems to please Hux, whose lips twitch in a fascinated smile as he rotates one hand experimentally, fingers fanning as the cup spins smoothly in midair.
“Not bad,” he says, setting the cup back in place with a subtle downward motion of his hand. Kylo withdraws his energy but his hands still linger, just under Hux's wrists. The bones are almost delicate, belying the strength Kylo knows he's capable of. His chest brushes that slight, straight back.
Hux casts a glance over his shoulder. His mouth is only a breath away.
“I don't think either of us got to know each other very well, Kylo Ren.” His voice is distant. His eyes lock onto Kylo's for a moment before drifting down.
Kylo's drained from even that minor demonstration, but he closes his eyes to draw out his final reserves of energy for one last glimpse into the general's mind.
What he sees is the same picture he'd sent him, Hux standing before the viewports – yet altered. Kylo is with him now. Before them swirl nebulae and vibrant clouds of color, sparkling with constellations and systems beyond imagination. In the fantasy Hux surveys it with something that feels like peaceful pride. It's mine, all mine. They're standing very close. The backs of their gloved hands touch.
Kylo can feel himself slipping from the general's mind now and he clings to this one last image before his powers fail him. His eyes fly open. Back to reality, to this crude cell and the grit under his nails and the hot, dry air. The last light of sunset has all but faded now.
As Hux shifts away his gaze is wary. A little curious; unsure. “Did you see that, Ren?”
Kylo swallows. His lack of response is answer enough and Hux sighs, shrugging gracefully. “A pretty enough picture to take to the grave.” His tone is cool and flippant.
“It is,” Kylo replies roughly.
“Then keep it.”
Something sad and foreign twists inside Kylo as Hux rises and returns to his cot.
“Are you going to sleep, Hux?”
Hux settles back in the same position against the wall. “I don't think I could.”
“Then I won't either.”
Kylo hadn't realized he'd drifted off until he jerks awake to the sound of keys in the door. A pang of guilt for his betrayal; Hux hasn't moved at all. His eyes are a bit glassy from lack of sleep but still as keen as ever. Softer than usual, actually, as they rest on Kylo.
The jailers are unnecessarily aggressive, their hands meaty and calloused as they shove the pair into the spacious courtyard. It's packed to the gills with life forms of all shapes and stripes, except for a wide radius around two tall poles erected in the middle. They jeer and jostle, barely making a path for the prisoners to be pushed through. More than one person spits. Many of the languages are unclear, but the intent is not.
Kylo is bizarrely, blindly overwhelmed with relief that he isn't alone.
Once in the center of the dusty circle Kylo tries to shake free, determined to walk of his own accord, but he's denied even that and is pushed to his knees before one of the stakes. A sandaled foot planted against his sternum thrusts him back against the pole as someone else restrains his arms.
Kylo watches them do the same to Hux, his collarbones thrown into stark relief against his shirt as his hands are tied behind the stake. Here they are to await the dawn, like a sacrifice.
The crowd is restless, fired up. Insults are hurled. He tunes them out; each heartbeat sounds louder than the last in his ears. That tranquility he accesses with the Force is unreachable to him now.
The sun is painfully close to visible, streaking the sky yellow above the distant cliffs. The tension in the audience rises a notch, then a hush falls over them as the lumbering executioner approaches. His knife gleams long and deadly, his beady eyes fixed on Kylo.
So it's to be him first. That's alright. A swift end to the waiting.
He draws closer. Then his eyes slide past and he passes Kylo.
Oh. To the general, then.
Hux's chest stutters almost imperceptibly, but he doesn't blink. His chin is up, his expression not defiant or cold, just steady; his eyes are a little larger than normal but nobody else would notice the difference. Even with his mussed hair and unkempt clothes he somehow looks more beautiful than any other time Kylo could recall. As the executioner crouches behind him he flinches, just slightly – and slowly, as if he'd been fighting it, his eyes flick to Kylo.
As the sun peeks over the tops of the cliffs it illuminates Hux in a pale, golden wash. He sets his jaw and stares up at the light and for a brief moment, his hair looks as bright as ever. A sort of blaze of glory. No, Kylo amends; now he is the most beautiful.
The executioner's blade flashes at that pale throat. Hux's lips compress. A roar ripples through the mob; he doesn't make a sound.
Kylo is no stranger to blood but has it always been so shockingly crimson? So stark in color? It's almost black as it slicks the general's shirt, pooling on the hard ground. His proud head is bowing ever so slowly, hair falling over his forehead. His eyes are closing now. Kylo is suddenly oddly frantic to recall their exact shade of green.
As his hair is yanked back his gaze is torn away – instinctively he resists, but for only a moment – and he's forced instead to look up to the periwinkle sky. A handful of only the brightest stars are still visible, soon to be outshone by the newly risen sun. The crowd's roaring never breaks. He takes the deepest breath he can.
The knife is so sharp it barely hurts. As the blood spills hot and thick down his body and the muscles in his neck begin to falter he shuts his eyes, to keep the stars with him as long as possible.
He recalls that fleeting vision of Hux's, the pair of them standing together before the vast and eternal galaxy.
Jade. Green like jade.