He ignites the lightsaber and the next thing he feels is Hux’s fingers cramping on his hips before they’re going slack. Before he is going slack.
The last breath leaves Hux’s body in a tired little sigh. It brushes Kylo’s skin like a warm caress.
His voice is shaking, his vision a blur. He’s not crying, but it’s a close thing. The tears he refuses to let fall are burning his eyes.
He deactivates the saber and Hux slumps forward, his body a dead weight in Kylo’s arms. But he refuses to let him fall. Refuses to let go of him.
His mind is a fuzzy, chaotic mess and he can feel a flurry of panic tugging at his concious. Cold is spreading throughout his body, his rapidly pouding heart pumping ice water through his veins.
The hilt of the lightsaber slips from his numb fingers, hitting the floor with a clang.
This was a mistake. A terrible, dreadful mistake.
Slowly, he kneels, still holding Hux in a tight embrace. His body has yet to start cooling. It’s a beacon of warmth and Kylo clings to it. Carefully, he settles Hux’s head above his heart, strokes his hair. Gently. Tenderly.
The tears are falling now. Kylo throws his head back and howls like a wounded animal, clutching at Hux. He had known it would hurt. He just hadn’t expected how much.
Snoke had told him it was necessary. Had said he needed to rid himself of this sentiment, to shake off this weakness.
He’s never felt weaker than this very moment.
Snoke was wrong. And Kylo needs to fix this or die trying.
His fingers search for the cauterized wound on Hux’s chest and he rests his palm on top of it. Then he closes his eyes and lets his mind expand, searching for the tiniest flicker of Hux.
At first he fears that he’s too late. Kylo has never done this before. He has no idea what he’s even doing, just that he has to, he has to!
When he sense it, it’s like the flutter of a butterfly’s wings, soft and barely there. Carefully, he wraps his mind around it, coaxes it, lead is back where it belongs.
Hux awakes with a gasp, the wound closed, only a star-shaped scar remaining. His eyes are so very green. So open. So trusting. So different for him than for anyone else. “Ren?”
“Shhhh …” Kylo smiles through his tears and cups Hux’s face. “You’re going to be alright. Everything is going to be alright.”
It’s the truth. Kylo will make it so.
Snoke was wrong to call Hux his weakness. And if he was wrong once, he can be wrong again. Quite possibly was wrong before. And Kylo doesn’t need a master who will steer him wrong.
He picks Hux up from the floor and carries him over to the bed where he places him of the soft mattress. They will have a lot of talking to do come morning. But for now he will hold Hux in his arms while plotting how to get rid of Snoke.
Because his former master was right in one thing, and only one: Kylo will have to shake off his weakness.
But that weakness is not Hux.
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