Chapter Text
"[...] for dust you are and to dust you will return."
— Genesis 3:19
Nar Shaddaa was the planetary embodiment of Han Solo, so it was little surprise Kylo hated it. Chaos wrapped up in a city that spanned the entirety of the Smuggler’s Moon, it reeked of desperation and despair, yet managed to possess a strange sort of charm that kept dragging people back. Or, Kylo thought with a grimace, perhaps it was the fact that literally nothing was illegal that kept Nar Shaddaa’s traffic steady, no matter how many centuries passed by. Crime paid, he knew, and that’s what brought him back time and time again to this planet-like moon with its strange, teeming echo and its surface packed with so many criminals and low-lives it wasn’t even worth trying to find anyone in particular. That, too, was part of the draw. The Smuggler’s Moon was where people went to disappear, and they often had little trouble accomplishing that.
It was unfortunate, then, that disappearing wasn’t what Kylo was here to do, even if he looked it, currently holed up in the corner of some generic club in Nar Shaddaa’s Entertainment Promenade as he was, nursing a glass of Corellian whiskey as his second celebrated their recent success by mingling with the crowd, his pink skin and pale blue hair blending in with the lights flickering in the ceiling.
Kylo pursed his lips unseen. Zeltrons. He hoped Madana enjoyed the downtime. They’d be leaving soon—Kylo never could stand to be on Nar Shaddaa for longer than he had to. The place screamed of a million chaotic lives, a too-strong echo in the Force that sometimes caught Kylo off-guard, but Solo’s footprint shone brightest amongst them, even when Kylo tried to ignore it. It seemed that, even decades later, Solo’s face was famous enough that concealing his own while planetside was a top priority. He ignored the little voice in his head that said, as it always did, that he was running, but running was better than staying. Running was what he did well and, he thought bitterly, and it was something of a family talent, so it was appropriate that he’d be fleeing the Smuggler’s Moon as soon as his crew had had their fill now that their next shipment of cargo had been loaded. He comforted himself with that thought as he watched the twi’lek dancers swivel their hips to the pulsing music, ignoring the weighty stare of the third member of his three-man crew.
“You can’t drink that with your mask on, boss,” Bia said with an amused smile, and Kylo’s eyes narrowed over the patterned mask that hid everything from his nose down before he pushed the drink towards her, concealing a small sigh as she immediately reached for it, nails clinking noisily against the glass.
“You could have just asked for it,” he said lowly. She shrugged, peering at him with large yellow eyes, and he pretended not to see the concern that always shone there. The youngest of their crew, Bia was oddly protective of them all, but Kylo supposed that made sense, and he appreciated her in moments like this, when he could feel her reaching out to him clumsily through the Force, the little nudge and a hushed whisper that asked youokay accompanied, as always, by a stuttering wave of curiosity.
Kylo turned his hand over on the table, palm up, and uncurled his fingers in answer. Leavingsoon, he sent back, watching as her face lit up in glee when she received the message. She’d come a long way despite not being overly strong in the Force, Kylo thought, even with a continuing disappointment for her teacher.
“You’re being paranoid,” she said out loud, flipping one tattooed orange lekku over her shoulder. “You could at least remove the cowl. Honestly, you look more suspicious with it than without, and no one’s going to report you based on your hair. If we’re leaving soon, you should relax.”
“No,” Kylo said bluntly, and Bia pursed her lips, blinking imploringly at him, but she didn’t pursue the matter, instead deeming the drink she’d swiped more worth her time, though he wasn’t blind to the way she eyed him over the glass.
He knew she was right. Clubs were places where skin was revealed, not hidden, and he cursed himself for allowing Madana to choose this place instead of a cantina, where the lights wouldn’t have been as bright and the patrons less invasive, but he also knew that, on a planet of killers and criminals and victims, one masked, hulking figure was unlikely to draw attention to themselves even in a club environment, not when there was so much else going on as the strong exploited the weak. On a planet like Nar Shaddaa, the only thing that stood out painfully was kindness, and it was for that reason that Nar Shaddaa, hated though it was, was one of the planets Kylo allowed himself even a modicum of downtime on, because kindness on a planet like Nar Shaddaa usually only meant one of three things: danger, naivety, or Jedi, and with Skywalker’s first pupils rapidly approaching ages where he could unleash them on the galaxy, well. Well. Kylo counted on the grimy, suspicious nature of Nar Shaddaa’s population to point them out fast, not that he expected any were to be found out here, searching for a lost son.
They’d probably rejoiced when he left.
Kylo grimaced, reaching out to swipe his drink back from Bia’s hands, but she was quick, holding it out of his reach with a smirk as she raised one artificially painted eyebrow. “No,” she said, parroting his earlier answer before her eyes slid pointedly to the bar. He frowned at her for a few moments before sighing and slipping away, gliding through the crowds until he reached the bar, stretching out with the Force to whisper a suggestion into the easily susceptible mind of the bartender as he claimed one of the seats for himself.
He didn’t like being here. He felt too exposed, too open, but then again, the only place he didn’t feel exposed was on his ship. Off the Myrmidon, the mask and cowl served a functional purpose, keeping people from seeing his face and the eagle-eyed from making the connection between him and his famous parents (Solo had too many debts in this teeming underground world, too many enemies who had nothing better to do than hold grudges and stew), but more than anything it made him feel safe, in control, so he kept it on and watched as people made up something undoubtedly more terrifying than himself to go underneath it.
The bartender set his drink down with a bland smile that didn’t reach his glazed eyes, and Kylo slid a credit chip wordlessly across the counter before he grabbed it and stood, only for the drink to be unceremoniously spilled all down his front as something hit him full-force, almost knocking him back into the barstool.
The rage curled in his chest, a slithering monster whose toothed snarl made Kylo’s fingers tingle, but before he could open his mouth and snap at the offender he felt hands grab at his arms as the stranger steadied himself, giving Kylo an uninterrupted view of slicked-back hair that shone almost purple in the pulsing lights of the club and a shock of colourless fabric that seemed to be doing its best to swallow its owner up completely.
“Move,” Kylo hissed, reaching up to push the man away and remove himself from the situation, but before he could a pair of Weequay blocked his exit, one of them hissing something low and insulting as they pointed at the man who was now clutching Kylo’s clothed biceps as though his life depended on it, and listening to the Weequay’s threats, Kylo figured it did. Something soft within him stirred, told him to help, to diffuse the situation, but he smothered it when the feeling took on a familiar voice, high and feminine and achingly familiar in its youth, accompanied by the image of Skywalker looking at him with disappointment, but he pushed it away with a snarl—Skywalker had always been disappointed in him, and somehow being the recipient of that stare had been so much worse than Han Solo refusing to look at him at all. This wasn’t his issue, and this man wasn’t his problem.
“I don’t understand you, you disgusting creature,” the man was saying after the Weequay repeated his threats for the third time, and while the man may not have understood his companions, it was clear they understood Basic all too well by the way their voices got louder and their expressions angrier, eyes flashing dangerously from their sunken sockets. Kylo grimaced, the mask hiding the expression, and he felt his fingers twitch for the weapons concealed at his side before he forced his body to remain still while the man turned quickly and drew himself to a not-unimpressive height, his back now to Kylo, who remained caught between the stranger and the bar, anger simmering under his skin. Still, he didn’t use the opportunity to slip away, to move. It was something he’d chastise himself for later, he was sure. Stay out of trouble, keep low, and if you must make a scene, ensure it is traceable only to an alias instead of a face. For the moment he merely flicked his eyes back to the bartender, the urge to whisper another soundless suggestion strong, before his attention was caught once again by crisp, defined syllables—an accent, old and familiar in cadence, that didn’t belong in a place like this. His breath caught, and he didn’t understand why he suddenly felt compelled to remain.
“Speak Basic,” the man snapped as one of the two Weequay repeated themselves in a series of angry, guttural noises. “I don’t understand your barbaric tongue.”
“They want their credits,” Kylo translated lowly, surprising himself, something old and beyond boredom prompting him to speak, watching as the Weequays glanced between himself and the stranger. When the man didn’t respond, Kylo continued, “You didn’t pay them what they were owed.”
The man finally looked back at him, and Kylo was treated to an eyeful of defined cheekbones, an impressive sneer, and eyes whose colour was impossible to discern in the multi-coloured lighting. “I paid them the amount we agreed on. It isn’t my fault if—“ he cut himself off, as if realising he was speaking to a stranger when Kylo’s eyes raked over his body, catching on the way the stranger’s gloved hands were curled into fists at his side, body practically vibrating with energy. Still, to the man’s credit, his speech didn’t falter as he turned back to the Weequay men and said, in a steely tone, “You got your money. Perhaps next time it would do you good to check what kind of currency you’re to receive before agreeing to a contract.”
Kylo snorted, turning his face to the side as the man’s shoulders stiffened and the Weequay erupted in a series of threatening snarls and promises to paint their hull with the man’s blood, using the opportunity to survey the man further.
The club lights made it hard to tell, but Kylo tilted his head carefully to the side as he observed the man’s cheeks flush hotly, anger emanating from him in waves, but beneath the anger Kylo could sense anxiety, and he raked his eyes over the man’s body once more before smothering a low sigh of frustration as he registered what was very clearly a uniform of some kind, personally tailored, and very out of place. It was probably smart looking once, but the heat of the club had creased the fabric, something the man seemed to realise as he grimaced and tried to straighten it out while his companions scowled bloody murder. His hair, too, was styled to order, slicked back with only a few strands escaping in the heat of the club. That wasn’t what caught Kylo’s attention, though. Rather, it was the stripes on the man’s sleeve denoting rank in the old Imperial system, and Kylo sucked in a breath as his eyes snapped back to the stranger’s face, revisiting a previous train of thought and added members of an outdated Imperial military outfit to his list of things that stood out on the Smuggler’s Moon. You don’t belong here, he whispered mentally, though without the Force to guide the thought into the man’s mind. Get out get out get out.
Instead of voicing this, however, Kylo merely said, “He says the money you paid them with is useless. As useless as Republic credits.”
“I see,” the man replied, mercurial eyes sweeping with ill-contained disdain over the two, and before the man could say something else to make the situation Kylo cut in, his hand twitching, putting the weight of the Force behind his words as he said, as persuasively as possible, “You have been paid. You made a mistake. Learn from it and leave us be.”
There was a moment where Kylo wasn’t sure it had worked, but then the two men straightened and walked away with a few choice words. Kylo breathed out, eyes flickering to the man, whose mouth had opened in what was no doubt something cutting, but before he could say whatever it was Kylo reached out, curling his fingers over the Imperial stripes on the man’s arm and hauling him away, uncaring of the way the man squawked and demanded to be released immediately.
“Look,” Kylo said as he shoved the redhead into the little booth he and Bia had been sharing, uncaring of the way she watched them with an almost childlike curiosity and moved to accommodate their new guest, “you’re not from around here, I get it, but those two men were moments from cracking your skull over the barstool. It would have killed the mood. My friend would’ve been upset.” He didn’t know whether that was true. Madana, wherever he was, hated abundant negativity, as most members of his species did, but he also enjoyed watching fools die as much as the next person, so perhaps he would have preferred it if Kylo had left the stranger there to face a likely death. It didn’t matter now.
The man looked at him with narrowed eyes, his fingers jerking on the tabletop, and Kylo didn’t miss the way his lip curled when he noticed Bia sitting there, lekku twitching with amused interest at their new table guest.
Kylo curled his own fingers inward, thinking of how they’d been wrapped around that telltale stripe earlier, and wasn’t fate funny, making him run into a member of some Imperial remnant out here where even the Empire hadn’t managed to fully exert its will. It seemed legacy was never something fully outrun.
The man’s face was still pinched unattractively, and Kylo didn’t even bother voicing the snide you’re welcome that was poised on the tip of his tongue. If what the man had said was true, and the men he’d contracted had merely failed to check and see what currency they’d be paid in, Kylo had little sympathy for them. It was a rookie mistake, one he would’ve made himself had he not had Madana to help guide him once control of the Myrmidon had fallen to him, but he didn’t voice that to the stranger. Doubtless he was aware.
The silence grew pervasive, and after a few moments Bia rolled her eyes and rose to her feet, crossing her arms pointedly before she shimmied out of the booth.
“I’ll go find Madana, boss,” she said, and before Kylo could formulate a response she was gone, lost to the gyrating bodies and psychedelic club lights.
“Hux,” the man said abruptly, and Kylo jerked slightly in surprise, raising an eyebrow as he turned his attention back to the man, whose expression was now creased with an odd sort of determination. He didn’t even pretend to ask what Hux meant when it was obviously the man’s name. Whether it was his first, his last, or his only name didn’t matter, and so Kylo didn’t ask as Hux extended his hand, instead taking a few moments to stare at it before he realised, somewhat belatedly, that he was supposed to shake it, which he did with a too-tight grip and carefully controlled movements. “That woman called you her boss,” Hux said as he did so, voice stiff. “Might I ask who you are?”
Kylo’s mouth twitched, hidden by the mask and, unable to resist, he replied, “The man who pays her wages.”
He laughed—a short, harsh sound—when Hux’s brow drew together in irritation before he leaned across the table, his hand still gripping Hux’s and pressing it down.
“You’re new here,” Kylo said, voice gravelly, “so I’ll give you some advice.” Then he sat back, cocking his head to the side absently as Hux flexed his wrist with narrowed eyes. “Never go anywhere alone, and if you do, hide your disdain better. In places like this, you’ll be dead and rotting before anyone knows to miss you otherwise, regardless of who you work for.” His eyes swept Hux’s uniformed body pointedly, and when Hux’s lips drew into a sneer and he began to speak, a sharp do you think I enjoy coming to cesspools like this, Kylo overrode him by saying simply, bluntly, “I’m Kylo.”
A delicate flush coloured Hux’s high cheekbones, likely borne of frustration, and Kylo watched, unabashed, as it spread. “Kylo. Never heard of you.”
Kylo shrugged. “I’ve never heard of you either, Hux.” The emphasis was deliberate, as was the lowering of his voice and the way he bit down on that last consonant, letting it slip between his teeth in a hiss, and he watched as Hux’s face twitched minutely, the red flush still there, amusement slowly replacing the anger that had been festering since Hux has spilt his newly-acquired drink all over him. He’d have to change clothes once he got back to the Myrmidon, but he filed that thought away for later.
“You’re not going to ask why those men were accosting me?” Hux asked idly, but something in the sharpness of his gaze told Kylo it wasn’t a simple question. He felt his own brow crease in confusion.
“I don’t care,” he answered, and it was true. Those who tried to know everyone else’s business on Nar Shaddaa either found themselves really rich or really dead in short order, and Kylo knew better than most that sometimes knowing was far worse than being kept in the dark. If people thought you knew something important, it was always a race to see who could get to you first: the people who wanted to profit off your knowledge, or those who wanted to ensure that knowledge never got out. Kylo, privy to many secrets, knew that all too well, and so he kept his mouth shut and held onto the information until such a time where it became vital. He wasn’t Han Solo, notorious for being able to charm and bluff and placate his way out of any situation, and he didn’t want to be. He’d had enough of smiling and lying and concealing in his first two decades of life, and he wasn’t about to mess up his operation and put Madana and Bia in danger only two years into their joint ventures. He may pilot the ship and act as the unofficial leader of the group, but he left diplomacy to them, where it was best handled.
Hux was looking at him, his mouth set thoughtfully in a way that made his sharp face appear softer, eyes glimmering briefly as one of the club’s lights travelled over their little booth, lighting them up. Kylo blinked and leaned forward without thinking. He wondered, abruptly, what colour Hux’s eyes were.
“Hm,” Hux said. “Kylo, was it?” Kylo inclined his head, suddenly very conscious of the way Hux’s eyes roamed his covered face, his body, drawing him in and mapping everything he could see, as if searching for something. Kylo’s eyes lowered. There was nothing to map, not with his entire person swathed in plated, irregular leathers and dark fabric that concealed the weapons at his hip. When he’d started out, he’d still had his robes, but, well. He’d gotten rid of those years ago, when he’d put Ben Organa-Solo away where he could never disappoint anyone ever again.
“Kylo,” Madana had said when he’d first heard the name spoken in a stammering, defensive tone. Madana had sensed the lie instantly, Kylo knew that now, able to read Kylo’s messy emotions with an ease that would later embarrass him, but at the time Madana had merely smiled instead of calling it out. “Nice to meet you. I’m Madana.”
Hux didn’t say his name like Madana had. He said it slowly, and Kylo wasn’t sure he liked how it rolled off Hux’s tongue, but it was achingly familiar. If Hux’s voice was softer, higher, more feminine, it would’ve been all too easy to imagine someone else sitting across from him. He clenched his teeth.
No.
“What currency did you pay them in?” Kylo said suddenly, eager to redirect his thoughts. Hux raised an eyebrow. “The Weequay.”
“Ah.” There was a pause as Hux seemed to think his answer through. Then he leaned against the back of the booth with an unconcerned expression. “Something that wasn’t satisfactory, evidently enough. I shall rectify that mistake the next time I’m in the area and notify my superior officers. Don’t look so surprised,” he said when Kylo gave a small start, “I saw you looking at my uniform.”
“You could have played it off,” Kylo said. Hux smiled, and Kylo was inexplicably reminded of a karkarodon.
“Perhaps I’m planning to kill you later.”
The idea of this out-of-place officer trying to kill him, when better men had tried and failed, was enough to startle another bark of laughter from Kylo. He didn’t answer beyond that, however, and when he saw Hux’s eyes flicker to his mask he shifted his weight, oddly conscious of it all of a sudden. Hux didn’t ask, however, despite the curiosity Kylo could glean from his surface thoughts, and Kylo wondered how long this newfound game of question avoidance would last before it grew too awkward and Hux took his leave and reported back to whatever one of the various Imperial remnant groups he so clearly belonged to.
For lack of anything better to say, Kylo voiced that very question.
“Just how many groups do you think there are?” Hux asked. Kylo shrugged, fingers curling and uncurling from his palm.
“There are a lot of Imperial remnants,” he said bluntly. “From what I know, there used to be even more, but the New Republic did its best to root them out. It’d be foolish to think them all gone. I can list three off the top of my head.”
Hux’s eyes narrowed. “Name them,” he said, his voice suddenly heated. Kylo paused, weighing the pros and cons of complying, and then wondered why in the hell he cared if Hux knew or not. The New Republic had long gone soft on their hunt for old Imperial cells, if the news he heard from the Core Worlds was to be believed. In years past, it had been the source of one of Leia Organa’s greatest frustrations, and sometimes Kylo wondered why she’d been surprised. The old political system had been her life, more than he had ever been, but he’d often wondered why she’d seemed to blind to its faults, and he wondered why she hadn’t been able to prevent the New Republic from returning so swiftly to the corrupted, complacent days before the Empire, if she insisted on dedicating so much of her life to something so clearly broken.
“There’s a cell hiding on Dxun,” Kylo told him.
“The moon of Onderon? In the Inner Rim? And the New Republic does nothing about it?”
Kylo shrugged. “The New Republic isn’t known for acting, only for closing their eyes. Dxun is littered with old ruins and hidden tombs.” He pretended not to notice the way Hux’s face abruptly became more interested. When Hux asked him to go on, his voice softer this time, Kylo blinked, but continued: “There were some holdouts in the Arkanis sector as well, but nothing ever came of it. Many people thought there might be remnants on Geonosis because of its history, but it was too close to—“ too close to Skywalker. Kylo swallowed, remembering the blistering heat of Tatooine and a partially rebuilt homestead in the middle of a great desert. “There used to be an old Imperial training academy on Arkanis itself. It’s long gone, though. The New Republic ensured that.” He breathed out, watching as Hux’s face abruptly shuttered, and for the first time wondered how old Hux was. He was guessing around his age, surely not out of his twenties, but. Well. Appearances could be deceiving. Skywalker had taken them to Arkanis once, when Kylo was old enough to be trusted watching some of the other older students. It had been one of the few times they’d been allowed to leave Tatooine, he recalled now.
Skywalker hadn’t liked letting him out of his sight for too long, after the incident.
He rattled off the next two locations with a curt tone before hunching into his seat. After a moment he heard Hux shift.
“You don’t like the New Republic.”
“I don’t like many governments,” Kylo said stiffly, discomfort making the hair on the back of his neck prickle. “Issues with authority. I hear it runs in the family. I break the law as often as I can. Are we really discussing politics in a crummy club on Nar Shaddaa?”
He heard rather than saw Hux’s smile. “I suppose we are. You’re a smuggler.” It wasn’t a question.
“Bravo. Did the Smuggler’s Moon give it away? You had a one and three chance of guessing that.”
“This moon is a cesspit, you know.” Hux sounded disgusted as it said it, but there was something else, something that made Kylo look up at him from under his cowl, because there, buried deep in Hux’s voice was anger, deep-seeded and dark, and Kylo wondered just where that stemmed from. “It’s chaotic. There’s no authority.”
“There are the Hutts. This is Hutt Space, Hux.”
“The Hutts are content with seeding chaos and disorder wherever they go,” Hux said, the corners of his mouth lifting in a barely-there snarl. “They are no more fit to rule than the Republic. It’s a wonder they have clung to power this long, happy as they are to let things run their course, killing each other for power and gain. They’re a bunch of crime lords. There’s no order. There’s no logic. No true authority.”
Kylo laughed, but it was devoid of amusement. “There is,” he said, angling his head subtly towards where a pair of non-human were listening in, “and you’ll find it if you don’t keep your voice down.”
Hux’s mouth snapped shut, and this time the flush on his face was definitely anger, but there was a passionate spark in his eyes and Kylo was seized with the sudden urge to reach out and touch, to see if Hux’s skin would be hot under his fingertips, burning with vitriol for a cause Kylo did not yet know. He realised, somewhat belatedly, that Hux had a nice face. He supposed someone at this table ought to, now that Madana and Bia were mingling with the crowd. Stars knew he wouldn’t be winning any contests with his own, looking as it did.
“Well,” Hux said curtly, standing, “I should leave. My pilot will be expecting me to have secured the payment and have returned. My delay won’t be appreciated.”
Kylo was about to open his mouth and say something, perhaps to tell Hux to not get shot on the docks or, more inanely, to stay, but he swallowed the words when a prickle of abruptly unease seized him, head snapping up as he watched several armed men begin to push their way through the club, and before he could stop himself he’d seized Hux’s wrists and forced him to sit back down, silencing him with a hiss when Hux began to protest.
“Your friends are back, and they brought backup,” Kylo said, watching as the colour in Hux’s cheeks drained as he caught sight of them. “You’re popular tonight, Hux.”
“I need to get to my ship,” Hux said, and Kylo snorted.
“By all means, just walk out there. Are you even armed?”
“Yes,” Hux said, but when he refused to elaborate Kylo just snarled, especially when one of the two Weequay men from earlier caught sight of them and pointed angrily. People in the club were starting to shift worriedly, the spell of the mediocre pulsing music broken as it became clear the crew of Weequay were armed, but it wasn’t until one of the men fired a premature shot at them that people began to scream and push towards one of the exits, Kylo swearing lowly when the Weequay hissed at them and began moving their way, his blood boiling once he realised that he’d been incorrectly identified as working with Hux.
“Get out,” he snapped, but Hux was already moving, his face a mask of concentration as he dodged a shot and slipped into the crowd. Somewhere he could sense Bia’s pressing worry and Madana’s anxiety, and he had just enough time to send Bia an impression of the Myrmidon and orders for her and Madana to retreat there before another shot shattered one of the glowing advertisement screens that had been situated by the booth. People were scrambling openly now, but it was a testament to the lawlessness of this place that the noise level was down. Nar Shaddaa wasn’t Coruscant—people knew when to get the hell out, and get the hell out fast.
His hand found Hux’s wrist after a few moments of scrambling, the stink of Nar Shaddaa hitting him as they exited the club, but his intentions of hauling Hux bodily into some alleyway or another were disrupted when Hux gave his wrist an abrupt tug, pulling Kylo, who was unprepared, in his direction. Kylo barely had time to register that Hux’s hair was a brilliant, shining red before they were running.
“I need to get to my ship,” Hux repeated, and Kylo hissed. He should have left Hux to get his skull cracked in, he shouldn’t have intervened, but he had and for some reason he found his feet obeying Hux’s command as they scrambled through the dirty platforms that made up part of the Entertainment Promenade, moving as quickly as they could towards the docks, where the Myrmidon and, apparently, Hux’s ship were sitting.
“How wonderfully charismatic you are, Hux. What were you in a past life, a stormtrooper?” Kylo snarked, abruptly grateful that he and Hux seemed to be of a similar height, allowing them to match strides.
“In my father’s wildest dreams,” Hux replied, but Kylo didn’t have time to ponder the harshness of the words, for another shot rang out behind them, and when he reached the turnoff to where the Myrmidon was docked he swore when he saw a bunch of armed mercs running towards them, blaster rifles firing wildly. Hux reacted quickly, pulling Kylo along with him, leaving Kylo to wonder when their positions had switched as he registered Hux’s hands wrapped around his wrist, but he didn’t ponder that too long, not when the urge to call on the Force was suddenly so strong, too strong, telling him to lash out, that he could crush these men with ease. The urge was harder to ignore the more they ran, guiding him forward, the surrounding him and almost begging to be indulged. He could kill everyone here. He could call upon the hated gift that was his birthright and he could crush them, could revel in the way they screamed as he pushed them over the side of the dock into the nothingness of Nar Shaddaa’s shadowy ground level, but he couldn’t, not really, because there were too many witnesses and he couldn’t hope to get rid of them all and a Jedi on Nar Shaddaa would be something too big to ignore. So he grimaced and followed Hux, knowing Madana and Bia were more than capable of taking care of themselves.
“Bloody aliens,” Hux snarled as they moved. Kylo considered tripping him and leaving him to his fate, but something stayed his hand. Instead, he glanced behind them, and when Hux wasn’t looking he reached out with the Force and watched with satisfaction as a stack of plasteel cylinders and crates mysteriously toppled from the wall they’d been set against, the enraged shrieks of their pursuers filling him with glee and adrenaline. A few more metres had them rounding a corner, and perhaps, were this any other time, Kylo would have taken a moment to appreciate the surprisingly sleek design of the ship that lay waiting on the landing pad, obviously an upgraded version of an old Imperial shuttle—something that once would’ve caught more attention on Nar Shaddaa had the market not been saturated with them after the fall of the Empire. They were rarer now, of course, but the initial flood of them on the black market had ensured few people blinked at seeing them in the fringes of space now.
“Are you just going to stare, or are you going to do something?” Hux snapped before he called out to someone, hurrying up the lowered gangplank.
“Hux, wait—“ Kylo started, voice muffled by the mask, picking up his pace when he felt that prickle of wrongness again, and he reached Hux just in time to yank him back as a shot fired from inside the shuttle, crashing to the ground with a pained grunt as something hot struck his shoulder. He pushed Hux away from him when a shadowy figure emerged from within the bowels of the ship, dragging something behind them. Distantly, he registered that his cowl had fallen back.
“Your pilot didn’t want to negotiate,” the figure said in Basic, punctuating their statement by kicking a lifeless body down the gangplank and emerging fully, revealing another Weequay. “Such a shame. But I’m bored with this chase. The money you paid my crew with is useless. I’m here to collect what we’re due, one way or another.”
“I paid you. There’s nothing else to give,” Hux said through gritted teeth, something awful and dark in his eyes as he looked up through his newly loosened red hair at the body of the pilot laying limply on the dock.
Young, Kylo thought, his own eyes flicking from the body to Hux, tuning out the demands of the Weequay captain and breathing in, out, anything to steady his racing heart and keep the dark whispers at bay. His hands twitched again, aching for the weapons he kept hidden, the ones he had been trained to use ever since he was old enough for his parents to fear him, but he let his hand slip to his blaster instead. Stupid, he thought, this entire situation is stupid, but that was life on Nar Shaddaa, wasn’t it? Absurd situations. Illogical situations. It was why he couldn’t do anything but laugh wetly when a blaster sounded and the Weequay captain toppled over mid-demand, the darkness curling in his chest shrieking with irritation that it hadn’t been he who pulled the trigger.
His life was a terrible holodrama. This was something that wouldn’t have been out of place in the life of Han Solo, and with that thought came more anger and the sudden need to flee because he’d sworn it wouldn’t be like this, he’d sworn he’d keep out of drama, and then Hux had showed up and now he was—
Hux’s face was a terrible mask of cold anger, the hand holding a precision pistol still outstretched from where he lay next to Kylo on the ground, and Kylo wondered if Hux had considered this possibility at all when he’d flounced in from his no-doubt fancy mothership and picked a random club on Nar Shaddaa to do business in; if he’d thought, even for a second, that he and his pilot wouldn’t make it out alive.
He closed his eyes, reaching out with the Force, and when he met a firm wall of grief in Hux’s mind Kylo knew he hadn’t. He wondered if the pilot had meant anything to Hux or if he was just shocked that his plan had gone to ruin, but there was nothing for it now. He could push into Hux’s mind and extract what he wanted, he knew. It would be easy, and Hux wouldn’t have been able to stop him, but it didn’t matter, so all Kylo did was laugh lowly and push himself up from the ground, avoiding the pilot’s body. He’d seen worse, done worse—his career may have been as a smuggler but there was no shortage of violence in the galaxy. He’d killed his first man only two weeks into his original flight on the Myrmidon, and his hands hovered over his hips before he looked down at Hux, who was now staring at the body of the fallen Weequay as though he were scum beneath his once-polished boot.
“Your first?” Kylo said, nudging the body with his foot. He didn’t offer to help Hux up, and Hux didn’t answer his question. Instead, Hux merely shifted his eyes between the two bodies, and it wasn’t until they heard a series of raised voice that he pushed himself slowly to his feet, striding past Kylo and up the gangplank.
“Can you fly?” he asked lowly. Kylo’s eyes flickered down the dock, where a group of Weequay, having freed themselves from Kylo’s earlier entrapment, were running towards them.
“Yes,” he said, and was up the gangplank and into the ship before Hux could say anything, retrieving his comm and barking a series of instructions to Madana and Bia as Hux led him to the cockpit.
“Not worried about trusting a stranger with your ship?” Kylo murmured as he sat down, priming the engines and hurriedly activating the ship’s shields as the first blaster shots began to reach them.
“More worried about trusting my skull to a bunch of men whose captain I just killed,” Hux said. Kylo grunted and did him the favour of not commenting on the toneless quality Hux’s voice had taken on, making the sharp consonants seem dead and lifeless. Whether the pilot meant shit wasn’t his business, and though he could feel some stirring of pity (weak, the part of his mind that was still that frightened fifteen-year-old hissed) he didn’t let it affect his flying as he lifted Hux’s ship off the landing platform and into the busy skies of Nar Shaddaa, heading for the moon’s atmosphere and the stars beyond.
“Where are we going?” Kylo asked. “Hux!” he snapped when Hux didn’t respond, but then Hux turned his head to him and Kylo sucked in a breath, suddenly unable to get enough air through the mask. In the light of the cockpit Hux’s eyes were a deep, otherworldly green, but he turned to the console and pursed his lips, brow creasing in thought before he stood and leaned over Kylo’s shoulder, punching in a coordinate Kylo didn’t recognise. Kylo exhaled, but he turned his attention back to the transparisteel and all that lay beyond it, and within moments they were making the jump to hyperspace, the glittering stars giving way to a seemingly never-ending tunnel of blue.
“Fuck,” Kylo muttered after a few moments, his mind finally coming down off the high of adrenaline as he stared straight ahead. He was surprised when Hux laughed roughly beside him, and it was enough to make Kylo’s shoulders relax. Hux’s face, when he turned to look at him, was still pinched, but it was beginning to lose that terrible coldness.
“Oh,” Hux said as Kylo turned to meet his gaze, and for a moment Kylo was seized with panic, his hand fluttering up to check to see that his mask was there and sighing in shaky relief when he found it was. His cowl, however, had fallen back, and he vaguely remembered noticing that whilst sprawled on the dirty panelling of the landing strip. Nervously, almost self-consciously, he ran a hand through the dark strands of his hair, and it was then the pain in his shoulder decided to make itself known again. He winced, the motion mostly hidden by the mask, but the way Hux’s eyes snapped sharply to the injury let Kylo know it hadn’t gone unnoticed.
“Up,” Hux commanded, and Kylo rose without thinking before he scowled.
“It’s fine.”
“It’s not. You’re piloting my ship sight unseen. Let me do this for you.” Hux’s tone brokered no argument, and Kylo’s eyes narrowed in response. He stood, drawing himself to his full height and using every physical advantage he had, from his broader shoulders to the scant few inches he had over Hux, but despite his best attempts at projecting leave it, the determined look on Hux’s face remained, unyielding. It was a nice face, Kylo realised, faltering slightly, and Hux’s mouth twitched as he recognised victory in the way Kylo suddenly turned his head away.
“You look ridiculous, you know,” Hux said as he led Kylo to one of the benches in a small room. In some models Kylo knew there would have been a medidroid of some kind, but they hadn’t that luxury.
“Do I?”
“With the mask. Without your hood.”
Kylo hummed. “I’d look more ridiculous if I didn't wear the mask,” he said, voice matter-of-fact, and Hux shot him a sharp, considering look as he pulled a medpac from a tiny compartment in the wall.
“Sit,” he said, and Kylo did so wordlessly, suddenly at a loss for what to do and feeling awkward in this confined space. The urge to run struck him, but there was nowhere he could go. He’d committed, and in his haste, in his desire to get away and in the chaos that he had allowed himself to succumb to, he hadn’t paused to think about what he’d committed to. For the first time in years he felt sheer panic grip his chest. He didn’t know where he was going, he didn’t know how he was going to get back, and the part of him that had once answered to Ben woke again and started screaming in his head, lost and alone with nowhere to go and nothing to hold onto but anger and bitterness and empty resolution.
Stop, he told himself when he realised Hux was watching him.
“Kylo isn’t your real name. You’re running,” Hux said then. Kylo tensed instinctively.
“Give me the medpac,” he said. If Hux heard the dark threat in his voice, he didn’t react, but why would he? Hux didn’t know, despite his words. He didn’t know. He had no reason to know. He couldn’t know. If he did, Kylo could reach out and destroy Hux’s mind from the inside-out and the other man would be absolutely powerless to stop him, or he could use the Force to constrict Hux’s throat, watching in satisfaction as Hux clawed at the invisible grip, or—
Weak, a familiar voice hissed again, dark and ominous and so much larger than Ben Organa-Solo had been. He’d been lost to that voice once, back when it had promised him everything he could have dreamed of if he could just shed that last bit of weakness, if he would just surrender to it, to him, and with the remembrance came another surge of anger and the ugly, black feeling of hopelessness, of not being in control, of not being strong enough.
This was why his parents had sent him away. Because he was weak. He’d been too weak to hold their love and attention, and when he’d cried and clung to his father’s legs his parents had sensed that weakness and left him on Tatooine. He’d been Skywalker’s problem after that, and Skywalker had tried, his large brown eyes filled with compassion and pity, things that had gradually turned to fear when he sensed the darkness within Ben, too.
In many ways, Kylo thought he hated Skywalker more than his parents for what he’d done, taking away the hissing voice that had been Ben's only friend, his only source of understanding, but that was a different life, when Ben Organa-Solo had been the most promising of Skywalker’s pupils, his command of the Force unrivalled. Now he was Kylo, just Kylo, and he clung to that and let it draw him back into the present, jerking when he realised Hux had cut away part of his attire, peeling away the smouldering cloth and leather without him realising.
“Oh, good,” Hux said as he slowly pulled his own glove off with his teeth. “You’re back.” Then Kylo felt the cold, gelatinous sensation of bacta on his skin as Hux continued his work, his touch oddly soothing, making Kylo’s skin tingle where he made contact. Hux’s hands were delicate, Kylo thought, and unable to wrap fully around Kylo’s wrists, Hux’s own wrists so small that Kylo thought it surprising they hadn’t broken under his rough handling. He could see a faint ring of bruises around the thin skin, but Hux applied the bacta with a precision that spoke of experience and despite himself, Kylo felt his body relaxing at the familiar sensation of having his wounds treated, lulled into a strange sense of complacency. He felt the urge to turn his head, to explore with his tongue and teeth whether Hux’s skin was as thin and delicate as it looked, but he let those thoughts drift away as if on a current, focusing instead on the steady movement of Hux’s hands as he spread the bacta over the blaster wound and wiped up the blood.
Hux breathed out from between slightly pursed lips, and the sudden cold against his arm made Kylo look down and blink with surprise, unconcerned with the way his still-gloved hand had migrated to grip Hux’s hip.
“You cut it,” he said. Hux’s eyes seemed glued to his now-exposed arm. In his eyes was a touch of heat that made Kylo’s lungs seize momentarily.
“I did,” came the reply. “Kylo, it was fused to your skin.” A pause. “But then again, you don’t seem surprised. Did you even feel it when I peeled it away?”
Kylo shrugged with one shoulder, never taking his eyes off the other man. “I’ve been around. Lots of running. You didn’t need to cut the whole sleeve off.” If he’d hoped the words would make Hux feel guilty about the sleeve or his earlier comment, he was doomed to disappointment, for Hux’s eyes merely flicked up to his face in ill-contained irritation before they refocused on his wounds. After a few moments Kylo asked, lowly, “who are you, and where are we going?”
“The Unknown Regions, as the Republic calls it,” Hux said, and that toneless note was back in his voice. He avoided the first question, but he started when Kylo reached out, seizing one bacta-covered hand with his own gloved one. He didn’t miss how his hand dwarfed Hux’s, and it made something hot flare in his gut. Hux was small.
“Who are you?” Kylo asked, eyes intent. Hux wavered.
“Take off the mask,” Hux said finally, firmly, “and I will tell you. A fair trade.”
It was Kylo’s turn to hesitate, and the part of him that had been concealing himself for so long railed against the request, but after a few moments he closed his eyes and reached up, removing the shaped leather from his face, meeting Hux’s gaze dead-on when he pulled it away entirely.
Kylo had never been much to look at before. Whatever combination of traits that'd given Organa her elegant grace and Solo his roguish charm had clearly clashed and waged an all-out war in their son. As a child his face had been rounder, like his mother’s, his eyes the same colour brown, but as he’d aged the shape became more reminiscent of Solo. The curl of his dark hair, too, was his father’s, though the colour was darker than either of his parents possessed, and the texture of his skin was different as well. Perhaps more people would have recognised him for who he had once been were it not for the three jagged scars that stretched diagonally across his face from his left cheekbone to the curve of his jaw, splitting his top and bottom lip. He’d made sure the mask hid it when he constructed it out of stiff black leather, adding intricate purple mesh patterns in the cracks that would allow him to breathe through it.
Hux’s breath caught, and Kylo watched as his paper-thin lids lowered, one bacta-covered hand lifting to tilt Kylo’s chin up, studying him with the careful consideration one might give a jumpy animal. Kylo could feel Hux’s hands vibrate where they touched, and he sucked in a breath, leaning forward unconsciously. Lookatmedon’tlookatme, his mind screamed at Hux, this stranger who was staring at him with ill-contained fascination. He closed his eyes with a small grimace and felt Hux’s other hand skim over the scars. Kylo allowed him his curiosity, feeling lost when he heard the faint whispers of Hux’s mind—strangealluringwhydoyouhide. He didn’t know what to do with those thoughts, so he lowered his head, his face reddening, feeling Hux’s knuckles graze his forehead.
“Major Armitage Hux,” Hux whispered then. “We’re going to a planet called Lehon, beyond wild space. ETA seven hours.”
“In the Unknown Regions,” Kylo murmured, eyes opening slowly, the bacta on Hux’s one hand beginning to soak into the skin of his jaw. Hux’s hands were warm. He liked them there, even if part of him wanted to jerk back, to spurn this touch.
“Unknown Regions,” Hux said lowly. There was a sneer in his voice, faint, and the hand at Kylo’s jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. “They’re only called that because the Republic, in its arrogance, believed nothing of important to exist out there, and so it remains uncharted to them even now. The Empire knew better. There is far more out there than the Republic could ever hope; resources that the Republic cannot command. That’s why the Hand is there. That’s why, when Organa and her insipid Rebellion defeated the Emperor, some of the remnants fled where they knew they would not be pursued. The wise among them recognised that the New Republic would become too complacent to mount a competent response.”
“Should you be telling me this?” Kylo asked, leaning forward, and Hux laughed quietly.
“Probably not.” His hand fell away from Kylo’s face, and Kylo felt strangely bereft. “But you’re a smuggler. Everyone knows they lie.”
Kylo’s mouth twitched. He wasn’t stupid enough to think Hux missed it.
“I pictured the return trip differently,” Hux admitted then. “I failed to account for currency changes. My superiors won’t be happy when I return without the tibanna gas, but perhaps…” he trailed off, and Kylo didn’t prompt him. His mind was whispering again, pieces of information he’d gleaned from some of his more reclusive contacts. They’re moving out there, he remembered hearing his mother say on some hologram he’d watched, legs curled against his chest as he, Skywalker, and Skywalker’s other students rode out one of the many sandstorms on Tatooine. They’re moving out there, and they’re dangerous. They call themselves the First Order, and they’re different than the rest.
“The First Order,” Kylo breathed, and he watched in vague satisfaction as Hux’s head snapped up, something cruel glittering in his eyes before he snuffed it out. “That’s who you are. Major Armitage Hux of the First Order.” Hux’s eyes were appraising, and something like pride unfurled in his mind as Kylo spoke those last two words aloud. Kylo was old enough to recognise the gleam of fanaticism.
“The New Republic is weak and complacent. You see it as I have,” he said, voice almost reverently soft. He pushed a hand through his red hair, long since fallen out of the slicked style he’d had it in at the club, and the action left wet streaks of bacta behind, darkening his red hair in places. “They will realise, in time, that they were foolish to let their guard down so early.”
“The galaxy does not need another war,” Kylo said.
“Then perhaps they should open their eyes.”
Kylo was silent for a few moments, simply taking the time to breathe. Fanatic, his mind whispered. He’s dangerous. A terrible part of him, the part that had been struck by the green of Hux’s eyes and the passion of his earlier convictions(he’s not wrong, you know the New Republic is weak), told him it didn’t matter, so he met Hux’s eyes calmly and said, “You are not worried I’ll tell the galaxy of your existence. You’re not worried that I’ll report your location to the New Republic.” It wasn’t a question, not when Hux’s smug surety was so clear to him, even without the use of the Force.
“Organa has already tried, and all it got her was ridicule. The Republic kissed the ground she walked on when she handed the reigns back to them, and now that she is not telling them what they want to hear they have branded her a warmonger. I hear she left the Senate. How soon they forget. I have been taught the failings of the Republic all my life. It’s time the New Republic learned them, too.” Hux’s eyes looked momentarily far away, but when they snapped back to Kylo’s face they were hard, assured, and Kylo could feel the conviction behind Hux’s every word as he said, his hand slipping to the wound on the back of Kylo’s shoulder, “we will not make the same mistakes twice. You’re a smuggler, Kylo,” he repeated. “You could try to tell them, but who would believe you?”
My mother, Kylo’s thoughts hissed. My father. And they would rally the galaxy.
Something uneasy churned in Kylo’s gut, and for a moment he wondered if Hux knew, if he saw Leia Organa in Kylo’s face. Would Hux laugh, Kylo wondered, if he knew he was talking to Leia Organa’s son? Would he be touching Kylo’s skin with such absent reverence if he knew what Kylo was? When he was born, the galaxy had hailed Ben Organa-Solo as a symbol of peace. He’d been the poster child for a new future, the son of the galaxy’s most celebrated war heroes, born just nine months after the Battle of Yavin, and to many, he’d symbolised a new age; a generation born never knowing the Empire.
He thought then of the secret his mother had hidden from him and his mouth quirked into a bitter smile. The galaxy would have sung a different tune if they’d known from the moment of his birth just how deep the Empire’s legacy was entrenched in their heroes and the bright new future their son was supposed to have represented.
“The pilot,” Kylo said suddenly. Hux’s nails, curling into the bacta on Kylo’s shoulder, stopped. Kylo leaned into the touch, breathing out. “Were you two friends?”
There was a pause. “No,” Hux said brusquely. He withdrew his hand again, fingers slipping briefly down Kylo’s bared arm before Hux wiped them on the leather plates of Kylo’s pants, but Kylo kept his gaze heavy and insistent, knowing the lie and choosing to call it out, silently. “There are no friends in the First Order, Kylo. That’s the rule.”
It was another lie. Ben Organa-Solo had been strangely attuned to the minds of others as a young Padawan, a trait that had earned him the wariness of his father and his teacher, and Kylo had retained that trait, honing it over the years even before departing Skywalker’s academy until he could glean surface thoughts without having to press into another’s mind. It was all too easy to read Hux’s surface thoughts now, a litany of stupidmistake and shouldhavemadehimstay and sorryKarlsosorry. Kylo exhaled, slithering in as far as he dared and whispering into the current, trying to soothe away the guilt as unobtrusively as possible as Hux had done while treating his shoulder. His eyes were half-lidded as he watched Hux’s shoulders lose some of their tension, glimpsing, for a half-second, the soul of a lonely boy, and then a lonely man, a loneliness that Kylo, once Ben, had known intimately throughout his life, and an achingly familiar litany of weakboyweakweakweak.
“I’ll have to replace this,” Kylo murmured, curling his exposed arm inward, still riding the current of Hux’s thoughts. He caught the way Hux’s eyes flared with that same earlier heat when the movement made the muscles in his upper arm flex, but Hux only hummed, eyes lingering for a few moments before he stood, a faint dusting of red to his cheeks.
“I need to make my report,” he said, and before Kylo could say anything else he was gone. Kylo himself lingered for a few more moments, his mind sluggish, as if drugged, but with a low laugh he at last stood, making his way to the cockpit, replacing his mask and cowl as he did so and ignoring the draft of artificial air that blew on the exposed skin of his arm and shoulder. Hux hadn’t needed to cut the whole thing off, they both knew it, but there was no point in commenting on the action. Soon, he would be dropping Hux off on some hitherto previously-unknown-to-Kylo planet, and then he would leave quickly and return to Nar Shaddaa and his crew, hopefully before Hux or his officers could think to stop him.
It was a functional plan, Kylo thought as he slipped back into the cockpit alone, watching the blue of their hyperspace route as they soared through space. In his line of work, functional would have to do.
---
Lehon was a planet that must have been beautiful in its wild state. It still was beautiful, Kylo thought as he watched Hux stride down the gangplank to meet the contingent of men and women who had assembled as soon as Hux radioed them in. Lush and green, it was a far cry from Tatooine, with a sleek facility built into the cliffs and the ever-present sound of the sea as it lapped at the nearby beach, but there was something about it that whispered of secrets, of things long gone, and Kylo wondered, given the opportunity to explore, what he’d find buried under the planet’s seemingly peaceful exterior. He could feel the pull of the dark side, thick and seemingly out of place, and it made him wary.
Mask and cowl in place, one sleeve of his clothing still cut away, he watched as Hux greeted the uniformed humanoids stiffly, but he also saw the way the face of their leader, an ageing man with grey-streaked red hair flanked by a woman with azure skin and blazing red eyes, became abruptly considering when Hux said something that was too low for Kylo to hear, and he could feel the trickle of bitter pride that slithered from Hux’s mind. Caught up as Hux was, as the others were, and having not seen him, it was easier than he’d thought it would be obscure his presence from them as he slipped back into the bowls of the shuttle and into the pilot’s chair in the cockpit. For a moment he just sat there, hands at the controls, breath catching in his chest as he replayed Hux’s last words to him in his head, spoken before the gangplank had lowered in an oddly hesitant and hopeful tone, eyes green like the sea that had waited beyond the ship.
“The First Order is always interested in acquiring men of your… unique skills. Something to keep in mind.”
Kylo entertained it for a moment. It was everything his mother would have hated, and in the eyes of his father and Skywalker it would have justified every paranoid thought they’d ever had about him, and for that reason alone it was tempting, but then he thought of the Myrmidon, of Madana and Bia and the life he had been building for himself independent of legacy despite his father’s once-profession, and he exhaled. No. His family was too wrapped up in war—whatever was undoubtedly brewing in the galaxy, Kylo knew he wanted no part of it.
Moments later the engine was powering up and he was taking off, doing his best to ignore the flare of hurt that had alighted in Hux’s mind as he dodged fire from the autoturrets below. He was a thief, Kylo told himself. A smuggler. This was what he did, and he couldn’t take the chance that Hux’s fellow officers would recognise and detain him where Hux had failed to do so. Even Hux wouldn’t stop them from locking him up if they realised who he was, what he could do, and he wasn’t daft enough to think Hux would choose him, a smuggler he had met less than twenty-hour hours ago, over the organisation he’d devoted his life to.
He told himself that for the next seven hours as he sat numbly in the cockpit, the coordinates set to return him to Nar Shaddaa, though after a moment he retrieved his datapad from where it was tucked into one of the satchels at his side, exhaling as it jostled the weapons clipped to his belt. He retrieved the coordinates of Lehon from the ship’s navicomputer and slipped the datapad, somewhat hesitantly, back into his pack. Just in case, his mind whispered. It sounded suspiciously like his mother. It never hurts to keep these things handy.
He tried to ignore the part of him that hoped, for whatever reason, that he’d see Hux again, and his hand strayed to his shoulder before he could stop himself, skimming over where Hux’s fingers had touched his skin. In another world, perhaps he would have indulged those lazy thoughts of pressing his lips to the inside of Hux’s wrist. Were Hux not a who he was, what he was, perhaps Kylo might have even extended an invitation to him to see the Myrmidon, swiftly becoming Kylo’s pride and joy, and they could have had more time, but the Force wasn’t kind to him. All it did was take, chipping away at every chance Kylo had at happiness, more of a curse than the blessing Skywalker had always thought it to be.
No, Kylo thought, there was never to have been anything between him and Hux. He would put this behind him and he would move on, he would move forward, and when he returned to Nar Shaddaa he would rejoin Madana and Bia on the Myrmidon and leave them to chart their course to Corellia while he crashed in the room he’d claimed for himself. But maybe, maybe, he’d bring the Myrmidon out here again. After all, Hux had said there were resources. Surely there’d be work for a smuggler willing to chart new hyperspace routes.
With that thought in mind he sighed, feeling exhaustion creep up on him. It was easy enough to set an alarm on his datapad and settle in the cramped pilot’s chair, letting his eyes slide shut without hesitation.
His last thoughts before sleep claimed him were of Hux’s green eyes, the eyes he’d never see again, glinting hot and heavy under the ship’s lights, and a longing for a future that never could be.
