[Cycle 150] “I despise everything that you are.” Ren told Hux, after the later had tried to play nice for a change, and commented favorably on his skills during a meeting with high-ranked officers. If scorn before had been met with hatred, praises from Hux seemed to make Ren absolutely furious. Hux closed his eyes just after the other left the meeting room. He had no desire to see the end of this cycle.
*
[Cycle 402] “Hate me later” Hux murmured, before kissing Kylo Ren a day after meeting him. Surprisingly, Ren kissed back. Unsurprisingly, Ren was still the one to kill him.
*
[The past] They walked for a while, side by side in the field near uncle Luke’s house. Hux explained to him that they were here because at this precise point in time Kylo – Ben – had been here. There weren’t two versions of him running around: it was like going back to an earlier body. “Like soul travelling. Uncle Luke told me about it.” “Yes. Well – no. I guess it’s close enough for your little jedi mind.” Ben took the insult without a comment or even a frown. He knew he –his later self- hated Hux, but here he couldn’t bring himself to even be annoyed. He did not even know why he had hated Hux so much. An objection still came to mind: “But you weren’t there.” Hux stopped walking. Ben thought him very, very small. “No, I wasn’t.” And that’s all Hux said on the matter.
*
[Cycle 374] “I loved you so badly. I would have died a hundred times to earn your approval.” He told Snoke one cycle, too angry to make any sort of sense, to hide the feelings of betrayal he held in his chest since he had first been disregarded. The hologram smiled, and Hux saw nothing but lies. “What are you saying, General?” “If I have to die, then I will bring you down with me.” The last thing he heard was Snoke’s laughter and its echoes, a familiar lullaby that he swore to silence forever.
*
[Cycle 624] This time he was Ben Solo’s shadow. He wondered if he was missing, systems away, from the safety of his bed, or if another Brendol Hux was sleeping quietly there, dreaming of being an emperor. One was not supposed to travel through another’s memories. He was young again. Hiding in a field of grass and flowers and fresh earth, waiting. He was very good at waiting. He heard the engines of three speeders, and then saw in the distance the inexplicable crash, a ball of orange fire among the green and grey. A fixed point in time. He thought it beautiful. The terrified howl of a boy definitely was not.
* [The Past] “Welcome home Ben. And who’s that behind you?” Ben had given a set of his own clothes to Hux, and borrowed a jacket from a neighbour so uncle Luke wouldn’t get too suspicious. Hux looked kind of ridiculous and human and fragile, and Ben couldn’t help but think he needed protection. They had played all day in the fields, forgetting for a time that they were monsters disguised as children. Ben realized he already considered Kylo Ren like a boogeyman, something from his nightmares rather than his memories. “He’s just Brendol. I found him.” Luke laughed and ruffled his hair like he always did when Ben had gotten into trouble, or has he used to call it, “adventures”. Ben – Kylo – had nearly forgotten the sound of it, the genuine happiness radiating from the old man. He ached. “Well, Just Brendol, why don’t you stay for dinner? It’s nearly ready. If your parents have agreed, of course.” Ben turned towards Hux. He hoped the other understood his silent plea to stay, but Hux was not looking at him, a polite smile on his face. “Don’t worry mister Skywalker. My parents said I had all the time in the world.”
* [Cycle 514] The thing is, Brendol Hux’s childhood had been happy. It was useless to start a cycle so early. There was nothing that he was willing to change that he had not changed already. His parents, peers, and servants could not possibly be more efficient or loving than what he had shaped them into. The ceiling of his room was decorated with every planet the Empire had ever civilized. Colonized. Tiny points in the fabric of time and space painted here to demonstrate the glorious history of an age Brendol had never lived but knew by heart. Their soothing fluorescence helped him sleep. Systems all working together. Structure. Peace.
“Order always requires some sacrifice,” his father had told him one day, after taking care of a nearby village which was blocking the construction of the future First Order academy. “It’s like cleaning a room. You can’t keep all the trash inside.”
Hux stared at the ceiling. “Brendol Hux,” he said aloud, “You are one sick man.”
* [The Past] Uncle Luke had announced at dinner that his father was coming back tomorrow to visit. Ben remembered he had been so excited upon learning the news that he hadn’t slept at all, too busy stargazing to see if he could spot the Millenium Falcon approaching. Now he also remembered the day after that, and wished the suns would never rise. Hux was there in the dark with him, holding a delicate TIE-fighter replica he had found on the shelf. Ben watched him turn the toy in his hands. Abruptly, Hux snapped its right wing. “Hux, what-“ “You know what happens tomorrow.” Ben, who had started a move to wrench the toy from Hux’s further tortures, stepped back with a frown. “This was a gift, you know. And anything could happen tomorrow.” Hux shook his head, a grin too sharp and bitter for such a young face. He moved closer. “Will you ever stop running from this? Tomorrow-“ “Hux.” “Tomorrow is the worst day of your life-“ Hux said cruelly, moving closer still. “Shut up.” “Because you will kill three men by pushing over their speeders. Three men who told you they could sell Prince Organa Solo at a good price beyond the Outer Rims, and who knew you were too weak to fight back. Chasing you in the fields you loved so much-” “SHUT UP!” “And tomorrow is the night where you bury their bodies and pretend it never happened, that no one tried to steal you away, that no one died because of you-“ “Please-” Ben is not above begging, not for this. “-please stop talking. Brendol-” Hux grasped Ben’s wrists to prevent him from striking – himself or Hux, he didn’t know. Ben freezed, and then stared at Hux with a terrified, hopeful look in his eyes. “You. You can fix this! We don’t have to go out tomorrow. I can tell uncle Luke I’m sick. I-“ “You’re thinking like a child.” And then more gently “Don’t you think I would have told you that if we could? These men will die.” Ben’s face was now a mess of tears and barely concealed hatred. This was so familiar to Hux it was nearly comforting - but there were also small, shaking hands clinging to him, and he found he couldn’t quite breathe. “Then why are we here?” whispered Ben, his voice raw with pain. “Why are we here if you can’t fix anything?” “We are here,” Hux replied, and now they were clinging to each other, “to change the consequences.” *
[Cycle 98] Finn and Hux, after yet another ridiculous chain of events, had found themselves stuck in an elevator on the Starkiller base. Finn’s blaster was pointed at him, and they were both shaking from the cold. The red emergency lights were too bright for one’s comfort – Hux would have to fix that, the next time around. “General Organa told me a story, you know. About the Hosnian system.” Hux did not care enough to answer. “She said that when you killed trillions of lives she could only hear a little girl’s voice. She was skilled with the Force and sent a message, apparently. Not that I get how it works.” That makes two of us, thought Hux bitterly. “She said the girl only thought of one thing. That she wondered why the sky was so red so suddenly. That she prayed for the stars to come back.” His voice was trembling. Hux remained silent. He wondered how a man raised to obey and kill could have failed his training so badly, could look at him with such a mix of disgust and pity, could feel so much when he himself felt so little. Finn said: “Do you even understand what you did?”
*
[The past] “Ben! You’re safe. It’s ok.” His father was saying, hugging him tight. Brendol saw that they were both crying, father and son grieving an innocence lost too soon, both afraid of the future ahead of them. Skywalker, on the other hand, was focused on the corpses of the three kidnappers, seemingly lost in thought, and then looked up to meet Hux’s eyes, Hux, who had alerted him of the incident as soon as he had seen the crash. The boy – the general – looked away. He did not know if Skywalker, somehow, could sense something was missing, that something had changed for the better. A part of him hoped he did. What was the point of doing all this, if no one knew he had done it? He suddenly heard Ben’s cries: “I didn’t mean to” and “I’m sorry” and most importantly perhaps “I was scared”, and got his answer.
*
[Cycle 623] He had decided to spend this cycle much like the first one. He enjoyed every meal, every sleep, every petty fights with Ren. He praised Phasma for her leadership, commended Mitaka on his professionalism. He breathed the cold, metallic air of the Finalizer, admired the architecture of the ship not for its efficacy but for its beauty, for the lives it held within its perfect symmetries, its walls of titanium and durasteel. He saw planets from the bridge that he never had considered before, stars that had never shined to him. Mentally he drew patterns between them, hexagons upon hexagons united under one force. It felt like death. As they readied themselves to destroy the Hosnian system and the Republic he considered the lives he held in the palm of his hand. He blinked, and they were dead. He blinked again, and they were alive.
Some times after, when Snoke had given his order, he asked Ren to show him Ben Solo. “I want a confession. You can show me the past, and I will take it with me. You will purge yourself of his memories and doubts.” Ren did not understand. “Did the Supreme Leader ask this of you? Is this part of my training?” Hux smiled. “Oh Ren. It’s nothing but the last wish of a dying man.” After they had bonded and the pain had receded enough from Hux’s mind, Kylo Ren thanked him. His eyes were cold. Hux was really tired of getting strangled.
*
[Cycle 624] Hux saw himself flicker, disappear and reappear like a malfunctioning light, like a system that here still existed but would shatter soon enough under the weight of the First Order. He knew he could not go on much longer, living in a boy’s memories to catch a dying light. He understood suddenly that he could not do it alone, that for Ben Solo to live, Kylo Ren had to die. He closed his eyes for the last time.
*
[The Past] He had shut himself in Ben’s room. He could feel himself disappear again – he did not even know if he existed at all now, except as a ghost. He heard a knock on the door. “Hux? Are you there?” Silence. “Ah. Not for long, I’m afraid.” More desperate knockings came, the sound of a button being pressed repeatedly in a desperate attempt to override the commands. But Hux had made sure the door would stay shut long enough. “What do you mean? You idiot, what did you do?” “I have to go now.” There was a weight on his chest. “Hux! Stay. You can stay with me. I don’t hate you anymore. I don’t want you to go.” Ben pleaded from the other side. Hux looked at his hands, and saw the plush, red carpet through them. It almost looked like- “Hux! Let me in!” He blinked back tears. His heart burnt with guilt and shame and envy, with the desire to open the door one last time and see – hope, perhaps, or simply Ben’s face. Some sort of redemption. He thought of Finn’s story. He said: “I can’t.” When Ben finally managed to open the door, he found the room empty.
Re: GEN or Hux/Kylo, Hux can travel back in time [3/3]
“I despise everything that you are.” Ren told Hux, after the later had tried to play nice for a change, and commented favorably on his skills during a meeting with high-ranked officers. If scorn before had been met with hatred, praises from Hux seemed to make Ren absolutely furious. Hux closed his eyes just after the other left the meeting room. He had no desire to see the end of this cycle.
*
[Cycle 402]
“Hate me later” Hux murmured, before kissing Kylo Ren a day after meeting him.
Surprisingly, Ren kissed back.
Unsurprisingly, Ren was still the one to kill him.
*
[The past]
They walked for a while, side by side in the field near uncle Luke’s house. Hux explained to him that they were here because at this precise point in time Kylo – Ben – had been here. There weren’t two versions of him running around: it was like going back to an earlier body.
“Like soul travelling. Uncle Luke told me about it.”
“Yes. Well – no. I guess it’s close enough for your little jedi mind.”
Ben took the insult without a comment or even a frown. He knew he –his later self- hated Hux, but here he couldn’t bring himself to even be annoyed. He did not even know why he had hated Hux so much.
An objection still came to mind:
“But you weren’t there.”
Hux stopped walking. Ben thought him very, very small.
“No, I wasn’t.” And that’s all Hux said on the matter.
*
[Cycle 374]
“I loved you so badly. I would have died a hundred times to earn your approval.” He told Snoke one cycle, too angry to make any sort of sense, to hide the feelings of betrayal he held in his chest since he had first been disregarded.
The hologram smiled, and Hux saw nothing but lies.
“What are you saying, General?”
“If I have to die, then I will bring you down with me.”
The last thing he heard was Snoke’s laughter and its echoes, a familiar lullaby that he swore to silence forever.
*
[Cycle 624]
This time he was Ben Solo’s shadow. He wondered if he was missing, systems away, from the safety of his bed, or if another Brendol Hux was sleeping quietly there, dreaming of being an emperor.
One was not supposed to travel through another’s memories.
He was young again. Hiding in a field of grass and flowers and fresh earth, waiting.
He was very good at waiting.
He heard the engines of three speeders, and then saw in the distance the inexplicable crash, a ball of orange fire among the green and grey. A fixed point in time. He thought it beautiful.
The terrified howl of a boy definitely was not.
*
[The Past]
“Welcome home Ben. And who’s that behind you?”
Ben had given a set of his own clothes to Hux, and borrowed a jacket from a neighbour so uncle Luke wouldn’t get too suspicious. Hux looked kind of ridiculous and human and fragile, and Ben couldn’t help but think he needed protection. They had played all day in the fields, forgetting for a time that they were monsters disguised as children. Ben realized he already considered Kylo Ren like a boogeyman, something from his nightmares rather than his memories.
“He’s just Brendol. I found him.”
Luke laughed and ruffled his hair like he always did when Ben had gotten into trouble, or has he used to call it, “adventures”. Ben – Kylo – had nearly forgotten the sound of it, the genuine happiness radiating from the old man. He ached.
“Well, Just Brendol, why don’t you stay for dinner? It’s nearly ready. If your parents have agreed, of course.”
Ben turned towards Hux. He hoped the other understood his silent plea to stay, but Hux was not looking at him, a polite smile on his face.
“Don’t worry mister Skywalker. My parents said I had all the time in the world.”
*
[Cycle 514]
The thing is, Brendol Hux’s childhood had been happy. It was useless to start a cycle so early. There was nothing that he was willing to change that he had not changed already. His parents, peers, and servants could not possibly be more efficient or loving than what he had shaped them into.
The ceiling of his room was decorated with every planet the Empire had ever civilized. Colonized. Tiny points in the fabric of time and space painted here to demonstrate the glorious history of an age Brendol had never lived but knew by heart. Their soothing fluorescence helped him sleep. Systems all working together. Structure. Peace.
“Order always requires some sacrifice,” his father had told him one day, after taking care of a nearby village which was blocking the construction of the future First Order academy. “It’s like cleaning a room. You can’t keep all the trash inside.”
Hux stared at the ceiling.
“Brendol Hux,” he said aloud, “You are one sick man.”
*
[The Past]
Uncle Luke had announced at dinner that his father was coming back tomorrow to visit. Ben remembered he had been so excited upon learning the news that he hadn’t slept at all, too busy stargazing to see if he could spot the Millenium Falcon approaching. Now he also remembered the day after that, and wished the suns would never rise.
Hux was there in the dark with him, holding a delicate TIE-fighter replica he had found on the shelf. Ben watched him turn the toy in his hands. Abruptly, Hux snapped its right wing.
“Hux, what-“
“You know what happens tomorrow.”
Ben, who had started a move to wrench the toy from Hux’s further tortures, stepped back with a frown.
“This was a gift, you know. And anything could happen tomorrow.”
Hux shook his head, a grin too sharp and bitter for such a young face. He moved closer.
“Will you ever stop running from this? Tomorrow-“
“Hux.”
“Tomorrow is the worst day of your life-“ Hux said cruelly, moving closer still.
“Shut up.”
“Because you will kill three men by pushing over their speeders. Three men who told you they could sell Prince Organa Solo at a good price beyond the Outer Rims, and who knew you were too weak to fight back. Chasing you in the fields you loved so much-”
“SHUT UP!”
“And tomorrow is the night where you bury their bodies and pretend it never happened, that no one tried to steal you away, that no one died because of you-“
“Please-” Ben is not above begging, not for this. “-please stop talking. Brendol-”
Hux grasped Ben’s wrists to prevent him from striking – himself or Hux, he didn’t know. Ben freezed, and then stared at Hux with a terrified, hopeful look in his eyes.
“You. You can fix this! We don’t have to go out tomorrow. I can tell uncle Luke I’m sick. I-“
“You’re thinking like a child.” And then more gently “Don’t you think I would have told you that if we could? These men will die.”
Ben’s face was now a mess of tears and barely concealed hatred. This was so familiar to Hux it was nearly comforting - but there were also small, shaking hands clinging to him, and he found he couldn’t quite breathe.
“Then why are we here?” whispered Ben, his voice raw with pain. “Why are we here if you can’t fix anything?”
“We are here,” Hux replied, and now they were clinging to each other, “to change the consequences.”
*
[Cycle 98]
Finn and Hux, after yet another ridiculous chain of events, had found themselves stuck in an elevator on the Starkiller base. Finn’s blaster was pointed at him, and they were both shaking from the cold. The red emergency lights were too bright for one’s comfort – Hux would have to fix that, the next time around.
“General Organa told me a story, you know. About the Hosnian system.”
Hux did not care enough to answer.
“She said that when you killed trillions of lives she could only hear a little girl’s voice. She was skilled with the Force and sent a message, apparently. Not that I get how it works.”
That makes two of us, thought Hux bitterly.
“She said the girl only thought of one thing. That she wondered why the sky was so red so suddenly. That she prayed for the stars to come back.” His voice was trembling.
Hux remained silent. He wondered how a man raised to obey and kill could have failed his training so badly, could look at him with such a mix of disgust and pity, could feel so much when he himself felt so little. Finn said:
“Do you even understand what you did?”
*
[The past]
“Ben! You’re safe. It’s ok.” His father was saying, hugging him tight. Brendol saw that they were both crying, father and son grieving an innocence lost too soon, both afraid of the future ahead of them. Skywalker, on the other hand, was focused on the corpses of the three kidnappers, seemingly lost in thought, and then looked up to meet Hux’s eyes, Hux, who had alerted him of the incident as soon as he had seen the crash. The boy – the general – looked away. He did not know if Skywalker, somehow, could sense something was missing, that something had changed for the better. A part of him hoped he did. What was the point of doing all this, if no one knew he had done it? He suddenly heard Ben’s cries: “I didn’t mean to” and “I’m sorry” and most importantly perhaps “I was scared”, and got his answer.
*
[Cycle 623]
He had decided to spend this cycle much like the first one. He enjoyed every meal, every sleep, every petty fights with Ren. He praised Phasma for her leadership, commended Mitaka on his professionalism. He breathed the cold, metallic air of the Finalizer, admired the architecture of the ship not for its efficacy but for its beauty, for the lives it held within its perfect symmetries, its walls of titanium and durasteel. He saw planets from the bridge that he never had considered before, stars that had never shined to him. Mentally he drew patterns between them, hexagons upon hexagons united under one force. It felt like death.
As they readied themselves to destroy the Hosnian system and the Republic he considered the lives he held in the palm of his hand. He blinked, and they were dead. He blinked again, and they were alive.
Some times after, when Snoke had given his order, he asked Ren to show him Ben Solo.
“I want a confession. You can show me the past, and I will take it with me. You will purge yourself of his memories and doubts.”
Ren did not understand.
“Did the Supreme Leader ask this of you? Is this part of my training?”
Hux smiled.
“Oh Ren. It’s nothing but the last wish of a dying man.”
After they had bonded and the pain had receded enough from Hux’s mind, Kylo Ren thanked him. His eyes were cold.
Hux was really tired of getting strangled.
*
[Cycle 624]
Hux saw himself flicker, disappear and reappear like a malfunctioning light, like a system that here still existed but would shatter soon enough under the weight of the First Order. He knew he could not go on much longer, living in a boy’s memories to catch a dying light. He understood suddenly that he could not do it alone, that for Ben Solo to live, Kylo Ren had to die.
He closed his eyes for the last time.
*
[The Past]
He had shut himself in Ben’s room. He could feel himself disappear again – he did not even know if he existed at all now, except as a ghost. He heard a knock on the door.
“Hux? Are you there?”
Silence.
“Ah. Not for long, I’m afraid.”
More desperate knockings came, the sound of a button being pressed repeatedly in a desperate attempt to override the commands. But Hux had made sure the door would stay shut long enough.
“What do you mean? You idiot, what did you do?”
“I have to go now.” There was a weight on his chest.
“Hux! Stay. You can stay with me. I don’t hate you anymore. I don’t want you to go.” Ben pleaded from the other side. Hux looked at his hands, and saw the plush, red carpet through them. It almost looked like-
“Hux! Let me in!”
He blinked back tears. His heart burnt with guilt and shame and envy, with the desire to open the door one last time and see – hope, perhaps, or simply Ben’s face. Some sort of redemption.
He thought of Finn’s story. He said:
“I can’t.”
When Ben finally managed to open the door, he found the room empty.