The fourth time he startles awake at nothing, Hux gives up on the idea of sleep entirely. He lays back in the dark, breathing deeply through his nose, and tries not to feel like he is drowning in the ocean of stars hanging over his head.
Hux knew academically that space was immense. Knew it the same obvious way he knew that water was wet, fire was hot, and that Kylo Ren was created by a vengeful power solely to test his self-control. He had just never felt that vastness so acutely before.
It was too big, too much, stretching out over his head like that. In comparison, he is a small, fragile thing, surrounded by nothing but howling emptiness. How does this tiny little nothing planet manage to expand until it feels like it takes up the whole of the universe? He doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t really want to understand it; simply wants to make it stop.
An inner voice that sounds suspiciously like his father reminds him that it isn’t going to stop until he gets back to the ship, and nothing he does will change that, so he may as well stop complaining about it. It makes him feel like he is six years old again and crying about a scraped knee.
Does being upset about it achieve anything? No.
Stop whining about it and fix the problem.
Hux turns over on his side so he doesn’t have to look at the sky anymore, rearranging the coat serving as his pillow so that the buttons are no longer digging into his neck. The growth on his cheek scratches against the fabric.
It is dark, but not dark enough that he cannot see. The stars, he realizes belatedly. He is seeing by starlight. Hux files that new information away for later. It was never this dark on Starkiller. The base had always been swarming with construction, with activity.
To his right, Ren is sound asleep- or whatever it is he does in place of sleep; meditating, communing-with-his-ancestors, who knows- statue-still, with his hands folded neatly over his stomach. Hux wonders if he uses the Force to make himself comfortable. He can’t imagine how anyone can sleep so calmly in this emptiness. Behind him, TR-4022 shifts around on the sand, making little whuffling noises in his sleep.
He adds ‘walls’, ‘doors’, and ‘privacy’ to the list he is forming of things he never fully appreciated about the Finalizer. Hot water and regular meals are at the top of the list. Laundry and climate control are somewhere below.
Hux spends the rest of the night refining and organizing the list, so as not to have to think about either the empty desert around him or his earlier exchange with Ren, and listening to the endless, hollow sounds of the wind blowing across the sand.
~
They make good time the next day; up and moving as soon as the sun touches the horizon. They stop well before the hottest part of the afternoon- Hux is a firm believer in learning quickly from his own mistakes- at the edge of a massive rocky outcropping that rises up jaggedly from the desert sand. It’s ugly and brown, but at least it’s a break from the endless red-gold sand.
He finds a corner of shade in the shadow of large rock and sits, bracing his back against the stone.
“I’m going to have a look around, sir,” TR-4022 says. “To see if there’s anything to eat.”
“Fine,” Hux calls back. Out of sight of the others, he lets his head drop forward, pressing his fingertips against his forehead. The headache that’s been threatening him half the morning has finally mounted its attack. This one has nothing to do with dehydration. He’s starving. In the most irritatingly literal sense of the word.
He has delayed addressing the problem of food, simply because where there should be a plan- an range of options- something- there is instead only a blank space in his mind punctuated with a question mark. They haven’t seen another living thing since they crashed. Not a plant, not an insect. Fact: There was nothing to eat.
The officer’s mess had served eggs the morning he’d left the Finalizer, he remembers, suddenly. Real ones, not the rubbery muck the food synthesizers passed out to the bulk of the crew. With fried bread and real butter. Fresh milkberries from Coruscant, the kind that were tart on the outside and then sugar-sweet when they burst in your mouth. The memory makes his mouth water traitorously.
Hux had skipped breakfast that morning to put a dent in the claims reports he had to file regarding the loss of Starkiller Base, thinking that he would order lunch later. He seethes hatred at himself from the future.
With his head in his hands, it takes Hux a few seconds to realize that something is blocking out the light directly in front of him.
“He’s not going to find anything,” Ren says.
“I know,” Hux replies, not looking up.
“Then you know we won’t make it much farther without food.”
“I know,” Hux says again, an edge of warning creeping into his tone.
There is a pause, and a sound like someone forcing air out through their nose. The shape looming over him crouches.
“Your head again?” Ren asks, not-quite gently.
“Yes.” An irrational little part of him wants to tell Ren to stand up again- him blocking out the light had been helping.
“Here,” Ren says, and there is the awareness of a hand hovering beside his head. “Let me-“
“What are you- ow!” Hux yelps, eyes shooting open, when there is a painful tug at something inside his mind, like someone had grabbed ahold of his headache and yanked on it.
“Don’t fight me. You’re going to make it worse.”
“You’re making it worse, Ren. Get out,” He grits out. His vision is blurring around the edges.
“Relax, General,” Something unseen strokes down the center of his back and Hux’s body relaxes, going slack like a string had been cut. He lets out an undignified little groan of pleasure. There is a sudden pressure at the base of his spine and between his ears, and the headache clears, dissipating like a drop of blood in water.
He looks up at Kylo Ren, abruptly aware of how close they are. That, in itself, was nothing new. Ren used his size like a schoolyard bully. He was forever looming over Hux’s shoulder or leaning into his face with they disagreed, resorting to base physical intimidation to get his way.
Without the barrier of the mask, and with his hair hanging in lank, frizzy tendrils around his face, it has rather lost some of its effect. The skin on the bridge of Ren’s nose is starting to peel. He has freckles.
Hux has noticed his own multiplying like some exotic plague down his arms the longer he spends out in this kriffing sun. His face is probably just as bad.
“…thank you,” he says slowly, warily, still half-waiting for the ambush. He rolls his neck a little, testing the new-found relief. Whatever Ren had done, it felt amazing.
Ren cants his head just a bit in acknowledgement and stands, suddenly very busy with brushing the sand off of his pants. “That leaves us even.”
“What?”
He seems exasperated- or perhaps it’s embarrassed- at having to explain himself. “Your… assistance yesterday. I know I didn’t thank you.”
“You usually don’t.”
Ren’s lips are a tight line. “Consider this my thanks, then. Try not to have another outburst. It was embarrassing for someone of your rank.”
“My apologies. In the future, I will leave any and all gratuitous emotional outbursts to you, Lord Ren.”
Those lips twitch in something that could almost, technically be considered a smile. In the same sense that the inbred dianoga in the level six trash compactor could almost, technically be considered a member of his crew. That is- only by the broadest definition of the term, and you weren’t going to see it winning any commendations for its performance, at that.
When TR-4022 returns, Hux is reclining in the shade of an overhanging rock, trying to snatch a few minutes of sleep with the hood of the cape up over his face. Ren is sitting cross-legged by his feet, piecing together the parts of the lightsaber spread out in front of him.
“Did you find anything?” he asks eventually, not looking up.
“No, sir,” TR-4022 answers nervously. “This rock turns into what looks like a ridge just up ahead. It’s going to be tough to get over. But I didn’t see any native life, sir. I’m starting to wonder if we’re the only living things out here.”
That’s how Ren knew, Hux thinks, the thought satisfying some minor sticking point that had been hovering at the back of his mind. He was so certain TR-4022 wouldn’t find anything because he can sense that there’s nothing else alive out here. Wonderful.
Hux sits up, reluctantly, rolling his shoulders. “Thank you, TR-4022,” he says. “Sit for a while. Rest if you want, I’ll wake you before we leave.”
“Thank you, sir.” The Stormtrooper sits a respectful distance away, settling back against a rock and pulling off his helmet.
“He’s right, isn’t he?” Hux asks Ren quietly. “We’re the only things alive in this desert.”
Ren pauses to adjust a circuit on his lightsaber before popping the last panel back into place. “For at least five-hundred kilometers,” he says. “Maybe more.”
Hux leans back until his head hits the rock with a solid smack. He does it again for good measure -smack- as if that’ll make an answer to their problem fall out. “Well, I’m welcome to suggestions, if you have any."
The only thought that surfaces is this: they weren’t going to make it back to the ship. They were going to die on this hateful little rock and he didn’t even have breakfast before he left.
Kylo Ren is looking at TR-4022 thoughtfully.
“It occurs to me, General,” he says mildly. “That we have food.”
Hux looks at Ren. Follows his gaze to TR-4022.
“Ah.”
Hux considers, but only briefly. He wasn’t one of the youngest Generals in the First Order because he was unable or unwilling to make sacrifices.
Fill pt. 6 - Kylo/Hux - Roughing it. Hux is Not Amused
Hux knew academically that space was immense. Knew it the same obvious way he knew that water was wet, fire was hot, and that Kylo Ren was created by a vengeful power solely to test his self-control. He had just never felt that vastness so acutely before.
It was too big, too much, stretching out over his head like that. In comparison, he is a small, fragile thing, surrounded by nothing but howling emptiness. How does this tiny little nothing planet manage to expand until it feels like it takes up the whole of the universe? He doesn’t understand it. Doesn’t really want to understand it; simply wants to make it stop.
An inner voice that sounds suspiciously like his father reminds him that it isn’t going to stop until he gets back to the ship, and nothing he does will change that, so he may as well stop complaining about it. It makes him feel like he is six years old again and crying about a scraped knee.
Does being upset about it achieve anything? No.
Stop whining about it and fix the problem.
Hux turns over on his side so he doesn’t have to look at the sky anymore, rearranging the coat serving as his pillow so that the buttons are no longer digging into his neck. The growth on his cheek scratches against the fabric.
It is dark, but not dark enough that he cannot see. The stars, he realizes belatedly. He is seeing by starlight. Hux files that new information away for later. It was never this dark on Starkiller. The base had always been swarming with construction, with activity.
To his right, Ren is sound asleep- or whatever it is he does in place of sleep; meditating, communing-with-his-ancestors, who knows- statue-still, with his hands folded neatly over his stomach. Hux wonders if he uses the Force to make himself comfortable. He can’t imagine how anyone can sleep so calmly in this emptiness. Behind him, TR-4022 shifts around on the sand, making little whuffling noises in his sleep.
He adds ‘walls’, ‘doors’, and ‘privacy’ to the list he is forming of things he never fully appreciated about the Finalizer. Hot water and regular meals are at the top of the list. Laundry and climate control are somewhere below.
Hux spends the rest of the night refining and organizing the list, so as not to have to think about either the empty desert around him or his earlier exchange with Ren, and listening to the endless, hollow sounds of the wind blowing across the sand.
~
They make good time the next day; up and moving as soon as the sun touches the horizon. They stop well before the hottest part of the afternoon- Hux is a firm believer in learning quickly from his own mistakes- at the edge of a massive rocky outcropping that rises up jaggedly from the desert sand. It’s ugly and brown, but at least it’s a break from the endless red-gold sand.
He finds a corner of shade in the shadow of large rock and sits, bracing his back against the stone.
“I’m going to have a look around, sir,” TR-4022 says. “To see if there’s anything to eat.”
“Fine,” Hux calls back. Out of sight of the others, he lets his head drop forward, pressing his fingertips against his forehead. The headache that’s been threatening him half the morning has finally mounted its attack. This one has nothing to do with dehydration. He’s starving. In the most irritatingly literal sense of the word.
He has delayed addressing the problem of food, simply because where there should be a plan- an range of options- something- there is instead only a blank space in his mind punctuated with a question mark. They haven’t seen another living thing since they crashed. Not a plant, not an insect. Fact: There was nothing to eat.
The officer’s mess had served eggs the morning he’d left the Finalizer, he remembers, suddenly. Real ones, not the rubbery muck the food synthesizers passed out to the bulk of the crew. With fried bread and real butter. Fresh milkberries from Coruscant, the kind that were tart on the outside and then sugar-sweet when they burst in your mouth. The memory makes his mouth water traitorously.
Hux had skipped breakfast that morning to put a dent in the claims reports he had to file regarding the loss of Starkiller Base, thinking that he would order lunch later. He seethes hatred at himself from the future.
With his head in his hands, it takes Hux a few seconds to realize that something is blocking out the light directly in front of him.
“He’s not going to find anything,” Ren says.
“I know,” Hux replies, not looking up.
“Then you know we won’t make it much farther without food.”
“I know,” Hux says again, an edge of warning creeping into his tone.
There is a pause, and a sound like someone forcing air out through their nose. The shape looming over him crouches.
“Your head again?” Ren asks, not-quite gently.
“Yes.” An irrational little part of him wants to tell Ren to stand up again- him blocking out the light had been helping.
“Here,” Ren says, and there is the awareness of a hand hovering beside his head. “Let me-“
“What are you- ow!” Hux yelps, eyes shooting open, when there is a painful tug at something inside his mind, like someone had grabbed ahold of his headache and yanked on it.
“Don’t fight me. You’re going to make it worse.”
“You’re making it worse, Ren. Get out,” He grits out. His vision is blurring around the edges.
“Relax, General,” Something unseen strokes down the center of his back and Hux’s body relaxes, going slack like a string had been cut. He lets out an undignified little groan of pleasure. There is a sudden pressure at the base of his spine and between his ears, and the headache clears, dissipating like a drop of blood in water.
He looks up at Kylo Ren, abruptly aware of how close they are. That, in itself, was nothing new. Ren used his size like a schoolyard bully. He was forever looming over Hux’s shoulder or leaning into his face with they disagreed, resorting to base physical intimidation to get his way.
Without the barrier of the mask, and with his hair hanging in lank, frizzy tendrils around his face, it has rather lost some of its effect. The skin on the bridge of Ren’s nose is starting to peel. He has freckles.
Hux has noticed his own multiplying like some exotic plague down his arms the longer he spends out in this kriffing sun. His face is probably just as bad.
“…thank you,” he says slowly, warily, still half-waiting for the ambush. He rolls his neck a little, testing the new-found relief. Whatever Ren had done, it felt amazing.
Ren cants his head just a bit in acknowledgement and stands, suddenly very busy with brushing the sand off of his pants. “That leaves us even.”
“What?”
He seems exasperated- or perhaps it’s embarrassed- at having to explain himself. “Your… assistance yesterday. I know I didn’t thank you.”
“You usually don’t.”
Ren’s lips are a tight line. “Consider this my thanks, then. Try not to have another outburst. It was embarrassing for someone of your rank.”
“My apologies. In the future, I will leave any and all gratuitous emotional outbursts to you, Lord Ren.”
Those lips twitch in something that could almost, technically be considered a smile. In the same sense that the inbred dianoga in the level six trash compactor could almost, technically be considered a member of his crew. That is- only by the broadest definition of the term, and you weren’t going to see it winning any commendations for its performance, at that.
When TR-4022 returns, Hux is reclining in the shade of an overhanging rock, trying to snatch a few minutes of sleep with the hood of the cape up over his face. Ren is sitting cross-legged by his feet, piecing together the parts of the lightsaber spread out in front of him.
“Did you find anything?” he asks eventually, not looking up.
“No, sir,” TR-4022 answers nervously. “This rock turns into what looks like a ridge just up ahead. It’s going to be tough to get over. But I didn’t see any native life, sir. I’m starting to wonder if we’re the only living things out here.”
That’s how Ren knew, Hux thinks, the thought satisfying some minor sticking point that had been hovering at the back of his mind. He was so certain TR-4022 wouldn’t find anything because he can sense that there’s nothing else alive out here. Wonderful.
Hux sits up, reluctantly, rolling his shoulders. “Thank you, TR-4022,” he says. “Sit for a while. Rest if you want, I’ll wake you before we leave.”
“Thank you, sir.” The Stormtrooper sits a respectful distance away, settling back against a rock and pulling off his helmet.
“He’s right, isn’t he?” Hux asks Ren quietly. “We’re the only things alive in this desert.”
Ren pauses to adjust a circuit on his lightsaber before popping the last panel back into place. “For at least five-hundred kilometers,” he says. “Maybe more.”
Hux leans back until his head hits the rock with a solid smack. He does it again for good measure -smack- as if that’ll make an answer to their problem fall out. “Well, I’m welcome to suggestions, if you have any."
The only thought that surfaces is this: they weren’t going to make it back to the ship. They were going to die on this hateful little rock and he didn’t even have breakfast before he left.
Kylo Ren is looking at TR-4022 thoughtfully.
“It occurs to me, General,” he says mildly. “That we have food.”
Hux looks at Ren. Follows his gaze to TR-4022.
“Ah.”
Hux considers, but only briefly. He wasn’t one of the youngest Generals in the First Order because he was unable or unwilling to make sacrifices.
He nods once.
There’s a low hum of Ren’s lightsaber igniting.