“This is your doing! He’s obsessed with you! He’s determined to ‘finish what you started’, whatever the hell that means!”
“What would you have me do?” he asked, looking up at her from where he sat in her quarters, his body semi-opaque and glowing a soft blue, “My abilities to control the force around living beings are practically non-existent and to appear to another force user you must be called from the void.”
“I know what they called you. Anakin Skywalker, the Chosen One.” she snapped at him, stopping in front of him, “If you can’t protect your own grandson then what is the point of you?”
“I’ve tried.” he admitted, his eyes softening as he took in the desperation on her face, “Leia, I’ve tried to reach out to him. Believe me, I have. There’s nothing I want more than to stop him going down this path, but it’s a choice that only he can make. If he chooses to wield the Dark Side, then only he can be the one to turn away from it.”
“You failed us and now you’re failing him.”
“I know. I will continue to try, but perhaps only Luke may be able to get through to him now.”
“Luke is gone.”
“He may have shut himself off from the force, but he will help you if you were to ask him.”
“He blames himself for Ben, he’s not the man he was.”
“Then perhaps he needs someone to remind him?”
“You?”
He laughed and shook his head, “The girl, Rey, send her to find him. Her endless optimism may even wear him down.”
physically ill bc vader’s single goal for ten years was to find obi wan and make him suffer. but when he does, he finds a man just as broken as him. vader is physically damaged, but extremely powerful. obi wan is physically fine, but extremely weak. they have both been suffering for a decade. and instead of making obi wan suffer more, he sets him free—you did not kill anakin skywalker.
As soon as he and his father were aboard the ship, Armitage Hux was left to his own devices in the hold. The freighter was small, clearly not designed for transporting passengers, and the only place for the boy to sit was amongst the cargo as the adults sat upfront in the cockpit. He’d not wanted to leave his home on Arkanis and having his father as a travelling partner did nothing to soothe his anxiety - his father’s presence never meant anything good for the young Hux.
“Food.” Brendol Hux announced himself with a bark sometime later, dropping a ration bar on the floor beside his only son, “What’s wrong with you, boy?”
“I’m c-c-cold, Sir.” the child shivered, leaning forward to collect the only food he knew he’d get for hours.
“Ungrateful wretch.” the Imperial Academy Commandant sneered, placing his boot over the bar and crushing it to crumbs with his weight, “You’re a weakling and I should have left you to die in the Rebellion’s attack. Being cold is a luxury compared to the hell you could have been trapped in.”
“I-I-I’ll do better, Sir.”
“I doubt that. You’ll try, but you’ll never amount to anything, Armitage.”
-
“Your skin is like ice.” Kylo removed his ungloved hand from the other man’s slim arm with a shiver, looking over his lover with concern, “Hux?”
“Hmm?” the General murmured in response, blinking himself out of his thoughts and glancing over his shoulder at the force user, “We’re in space, Ren, the cold is to be expected.”
The pale ginger had been stood at the viewport in his regulation undershirt and trousers for some time, clearly still struggling with the loss of his career defining weapon - Starkiller Base. Since the planet had exploded and the co-commanders had barely escaped with their lives, Hux had swayed between bouts of anger and distracted inaction.
Very slight Obi-Wan Kenobi finale canon divergence.
Those two just won’t get out of my head :’(
-
“Anakin’s gone. I am what remains.”
The vocoder crackled, Anakin’s voice intermingling with Vader’s booming, monotone.
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Anakin... for all of it.”
The anger drained away from the scarred face encased in the remnants of the mask, leaving only an expression of pain and sadness.
“I’m not your failure, Obi-Wan.”
The harsh, rasping breath was all that filled the silence between them as the suit’s respirator malfunctioned and Vader struggled to draw breath.
“You didn’t kill Anakin Skywalker. I did.”
“Then my friend is truly dead.”
It was hopeless, there was only darkness left-
“Go.” the wheezing voice of the Sith Lord ordered, “If we meet again, I will destroy you.”
The burning scarlet blade powered down as Vader struggled to remain standing, his eyes fixed on his former Master.
“Don’t flatter yourself, Darth. We both know that I’ll always win.”
“You...will...try.”
Was that an attempt at... humour? There was no hate in Vader’s tone now, only resignation. He could only manage a grimace of acknowledgement at the wording, his lips unable to pull up into a smile with such despair in the force around them.
He powered his own saber down, leaving them in gloomy darkness as Vader swayed and fell to his knees, his metal hand clawing at the rough ground as he hunched over and struggled to draw breath. The respirator was whirring to a halt and without it the Sith Lord wouldn’t survive long.
“I won’t leave you to die, not this time.”
The decision was made and thus began the long slog of dragging a barely conscious Vader back to the shuttle he’d arrived in. The oxygen mask didn’t fit around the melted black plastic but he forced it to seal against skin and armour alike, allowing enough pressure for air to begin filtering through.
“Goodbye Darth.”
He stepped back when there was nothing left for him to do. Vader wouldn’t suffocate and he’d positioned him at the console, allowing him the chance to communicate with the star destroyer waiting in the planet’s orbit above.
As he left the shuttle and walked across the rocky ground to his own ship, there was a flicker of life in the long dormant bond between himself and his beloved padawan.
A goodbye perhaps?
Or a promise of a rematch far into the future?
Either way, the Jedi ignored the feeling and tightly secured his mental shields.
Anakin Skywalker was dead and it was time for Obi-Wan Kenobi to live.
Omega!Hux and alpha!Kylo Ren forced(?) breeding fic no one asked for LOLOL (this one isn’t explicit and it’s more of them negotiating such a thing at all. we’ll be back on the kink-fest explicit fun later :D)
Also on my ao3 here :) My masterlist archive of bullshit i write can be found linked at the top of the blog or here.
–
“In light of recent events, I have a proposal to make to you.”
Kylo looked at him suspiciously from where he sat. This private meeting with the omega general was already unexpected, but nothing could have prepared him for what Hux actually had to say.
“The Supreme Leader has demanded I… would further serve our purposes by adding to the ranks.” The last part he said through clenched jaw, facial muscles twitching in microaggression. “It was made very clear to me that should I not immediately act, then action would be taken upon me.”
Kylo frowned. Snoke had made no such knowledge aware to him. Stranger still that Hux decided to share his orders with the alpha.
Hux cleared his throat, trying to keep tone plain and even. “I require an alpha of station and loyalty to the Order to… to…”
Kylo wakes up wounded, disoriented, and alone after the battle of Exegol. Grieving the loss of everything he ever held close and mourning the death of Armitage Hux, he wanders the galaxy aimlessly until one day he suddenly feels a strange pull in the Force directing him to the dismal, backwater planet Arkanis. The Force moves in strange ways around Arkanis though, and combined with a strangely unique population and an inquisitive little fox that won't stop following him, Kylo is about to learn that there's more the Arkanis than meets the eye and that the road to reconciliation is a long one, but a path worth walking.
“This is a bloody awful attempt at a kidnapping.” Hux stated with barely concealed amusement, watching the Resistance pilot attempt to gain control of the escape pod he’d forced them both into, “Couldn’t you have chosen a pod that wasn’t undergoing maintenance? Or is this another element of your simply incredible plan?”
“Shut up, Hux.” Poe muttered, fiddling with the wires he’d managed to free from beneath the control dashboard and attempting to repair the navigation of the pod. Taking Hux had been a spur of the moment decision after he’d stolen the data he was looking for from the First Order ship and already he regretted dragging the ginger along, “The circuit board is missing completely, I can’t even tell how much power this thing has left.”
“Move aside.” The General took hold of his shoulder and forcibly moved him to get closer to the electronics, examining what they were left with, “We need to use as little power as possible, I doubt there’s enough to get us to the nearest planet with life support intact.”
“Wait, you were cuffed...” Poe realised, glancing back at the seat where Hux had been sitting but the cuffs were now resting instead.
“I was taught to escape cuffs at the age of five.” the ginger scoffed, slipping off his coat and taking the time to carefully fold it before he pushed his sleeves up and got to work on the wiring.
“Five? Isn’t that a little young to start teaching someone about escaping cuffs?”
“It’s a necessary skill in war.”
“So all you’ve ever known is war?”
“Isn’t that the same for you?” Hux glanced back at him, “A war does not only have one side. Surely you were also raised to fight?”
“Actually no.” Poe admitted, “My parents were against me joining the Resistance. They wanted me to be away from any fighting.”
The ginger said nothing in response, merely considering the other’s words as he got back to work on the task at hand.
“You don’t have to keep fighting, you could always walk away.”
“We haven’t even been in here an hour yet, Dameron, let a little more time pass before you try and recruit me.”
-
“What’s the verdict?” Poe asked, looking up as the lights went out and Hux moved to sit down next to him, “Bad news, right?”
“Three hours of air, if we’re lucky.” the General sighed, “I’ve turned all the propulsion systems off, leaving only basic life support. An emergency message is being broadcast on a loop on Resistance wavelengths.”
“Why not Order frequencies? Surely they’re closer?”
“They will shoot us down, as is protocol. The Order doesn’t rescue kidnapped Generals, they presume desertion and eliminate the traitor.”
“That seems... harsh.”
“It’s necessary. Anyway, don’t the Resistance travel in packs? Where’s your back-up?”
“This isn’t an official mission. They told me not to do it, I went ahead anyway and now we’re here.”
“Your incompetence knows no bounds.” the ginger murmured, but his tone was teasing, “If you were under my command, I’d have sent you to reconditioning long ago.”
“Since you’re a traitor in the Order’s eyes, it won’t matter if you tell me what reconditioning actually is, right? Finn’s mentioned it, but you’ve probably got more understanding of how it works.”
“It’s a form of coercion designed to prevent thoughts of freedom and rebellion. Subjects are... challenged... with stimuli and encouraged to take a different line of thought.”
“Who designed it?”
“My father.”
“So you’ve-?”
“Yes, I was his test subject for a time. Before it became apparant that the process can be damaging if used repeatedly over a small amount of time.”
“If it was used repeatedly on you, does that mean...?”
“He needed to repeat the process to confirm his results, but yes, there was a point where my thoughts were not particularly positive towards the Order. After his treatment...” he looked down at his hands, “It hardly matters, Dameron. I’m not a victim or someone who can be saved.”
“Everyone can be saved. You may not be able to change your actions or fix the past, but you don’t have to be the same person in the future.”
-
“You seem more okay with this than I would have expected. Being labelled as a traitor and facing certain death, I mean.”
“If we keep talking we’ll use up the air far quicker.”
“I’m not sitting in silence, Hux.”
“While the traitor tag is admittedly somewhat offensive, perhaps my disappearance will give my officers something to consider about their own service to Supreme Leader Ren. Many are loyal to me, losing me may cause them to question the Order which will only help to destabalise Ren’s already shambolic rule.”
“So, in theory, if we were to survive this and you joined the Resistance as a prominent Order defector, would there be a revolt of some kind?”
“Ren’s powers are feared, that would keep many from trying to walk away, but I’d hope that there would be some who would if that were the situation.”
A beep startled them slightly and Poe moved to check the barely functioning radar, “That’s one of ours!” he said with relief, turning to face the ginger, “It looks like we may get to try out that theory afterall!”
“I don’t have to wear the same clothing, do I? I’m far too pale for neutrals.” Hux sighed, getting to his feet and unrolling his sleeves. He carefully pulled on his gaberwool coat and tidied his appearance by touch alone, “And I’d like to keep my coat, even if the General stripes will need to be removed.”
“You want to keep your coat?”
“Only Generals and above are allowed to wear a coat like this, it took a lot of hard work to earn it. I am... was... the youngest General in either the Empire or the Order. It may just be a coat-”
“But it means something to you. I get it. You can keep the coat and we’ll see about the stripes, we could do with an experienced military man.”
“Isn’t General Organa the one to decide on the fate of prisoners?”
“Yeah, but I can speak to her on your behalf.”
“And what’s in it for you?”
The pod shook slightly as it was brought aboard a small Resistance cruiser.
“Maybe I’d like to see you make something of yourself instead of destroying more planets.” Poe replied, looking him over, “And maybe I’d like to get to know the man beneath the cold exterior.”
100+ works later, that's a wrap on the first-ever Kylux Ficlet Fest!
Thank you all SO MUCH for your support and participation! Whether you posted your work with the hashtag or liked something you read this week, the whole fandom had a hand in making this such a successful event. I hope you all had as much fun as I did.
Some quick housekeeping notes:
The AO3 collection and social media accounts will remain open and active for late submissions.
Don’t forget to support all our fantastic writers and artists and check out their work!
Come back soon… maybe we’ll do another #kyluxficletfest next year!
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