Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Everything belongs to whoever owns them, my wishful thinking aside.
Authors Note #1: Set post SW: TFA and at the 'end' of the road in terms of the plot of the new movies, my take on how everything goes down with Snoke at the end. Also a super convenient excuse to write some force!sensitive Hux which only just occurred to be would be super spiffy to try.
Warnings: force!sensitive Hux, canon appropriate violence, injury, drama.
Light (Dark)
Electricity ripped through him. Infusing his core - his very being - with a painful flare of enduring light. Distantly, he could appreciate the irony. But mostly he just screamed. Back arcing, lightsaber crackling tremors through his dominant hand as Snoke lifted him high in the air. On display for everyone to see. The folly of the student who thought he could best his master.
He could feel the agonizing power of it being passed between them as Snoke roared inside the privacy of his mind. Laughing high and cruel at his pathetic attempt to stop all this. Too little. Too late. Too weak. Pandering to the part of him he thought he'd murdered long ago. The one who whimpered for a slain father. The who dreamt every night of a vast ocean trying to swallow him. The one that still remembered what it meant to be called Ben.
Ben Solo.
He understood now. Everything was clear. Stripped. And harsh in its unforgiving truths. His grandfather had been right just as much as he'd been wrong. And just like his ancestor, he'd been mistaken - falsely led. He'd allowed himself to turn to the darkness. To false prophets and sinister teachers and now everyone - all of them - were going to pay for it.
His uncle and Chewie were sprawled in a steaming tangle below him. Broken, wounded and unmoving as the stench of scorched flesh offended his senses on a level that rankled him despite the pain. Their chests were moving shallowly, just enough to show they were still breathing. A fragile in and out that made him taste bile. But without much hope of survival unless they received medical attention, and quickly.
The scavenger - Rey - remained pinned. Crushed and powerless against the opposing wall. Held fast by Snoke's mastery over the force. A strength far greater than even he'd known as the traitor - the one they called Finn - and the Resistance pilot tried desperately too free her. Tugging at the invisible bonds like a couple of rodents attempting to topple a lofty foundation. Moving along the outskirts of the vast chamber freely, but only because they were too lowly for his master to notice.
They were not a threat.
Not to someone like Snoke.
But worse - far worse - was the weight of his mother's eyes as she struggled and screamed against the very same bonds. Captive just as they all were. Pleading. Calling for him. For his father. For Luke. Unable to hold her gaze even now. Knowing he wasn't worthy of her tears. Her misplaced grief.
Her son had died a long time ago.
He was just an echo.
Slow to fade.
Too stubborn to completely diminish.
"Yes...yes- look how lowly you've become," Snoke hissed, gnarled hands tightening around his throat. Crushing his windpipe as an almost continuous blue-white charge bled from the gritted line of his teeth. "I offered you the chance to truly know yourself- to know your power, your potential- and what did you do? You squandered it! Just like your entire foolish line! You're nothing more than another failure. Another waste. But not for long. The Skywalker line ends here. Forever. And you, Kylo Ren, will be the cause of its destruction!"
He was small.
A frightened child left to fend for itself in the dark.
He was nothing when set beside such immense power.
Why had he done it?
Why had he struck out knowing it was hopeless?
'You know why,' a virulent voice hissed in the back of his mind. Fueled by self-loathing and the death throes of a predator caught in a lesser creature's trap. 'Because you were wrong. Because this is all your fault. Because you were too selfish to let them die hating you.'
He'd been screaming his entire life, rocking naked in the dark.
And now he just ached for it to be over.
For it to be done.
For-
The world exploded.
He was standing beside a medical bed, trying so very hard to be brave. Chin trembling as the woman - mother - smiled tiredly up at him. The hollows of her eyes colored with dark circles as she extended her hand - cold, so very cold - for him to take in his own. Her wasted flesh still managed to dwarf his smallness in a way that made him want to burrow deep. Seeking comfort when he knew she had little too spare.
"Bury it, Armitage," she whispered, voice so thready and thin that he had to duck close just to hear. "Promise me. Promise me you'll bury it, for me. That you'll forget what you are so the world will give you the chance to grow. To be yourself. To be strong. You can't let them find out- not even your father. He won't understand. They'll use you- use you up. You'll be a tool to other people's ends. Not the designer. Not the architect. You need to be smart now, little one. But do you- you do understand, don't you? Please- will you-"
His voice was shaking, childish and high as he mirrored her freckles and pale skin.
Her blue eyes.
Her red-hair.
Her-
"I don't know how," he murmured. Burying his face into the thin therma-blanket draped around her. Angry at her, at himself, at his father, at the doctors and the entire world as her eyes drifted closed. Gaining strength. Losing strength. Tired. The doctors said it wouldn't be long now. And father- father wasn't here. Work was always the priority. Always- "Please don't go...please. Stay-"
Her smile was strained.
Sad.
"I will show you," she hummed, pressing her fingers to his temples as she imparted the last gift she could. A mother's love. Shielding him from notice from both the dark and the light so that the child could grow into a man and chose for himself where he would make his stand.
"Be brave, be my brave, smart, strong little boy," she rasped, the world flat-lining around him as her hands slipped from his face to pool weakly in her lap. "Can you do that? Even when it's hard. Even when you think you can't. Armitage...will you?"
He was catapulted from the memory the same moment the rest of them were.
Including Snoke.
And Snoke actually staggered.
"Put. Him. Down," Hux gritted, advancing down the narrow walk-way towards the high inner sanctum as Snoke's grip on the others wavered. Loosening enough that his mother and Rey dropped to the ground in a sudden heap as the Dark Lord turned his attention to the new challenger.
He was untrained.
Raw.
Elemental.
But gaining power like Snoke's aura was a sieve bleeding it.
All he could see was the reflection in Snoke's wide, blood-shot eyes as Hux approached. Red hair wild with the building electric charge he was now somehow deflecting with open palms. Fingers spread wide as the energy collected in the balls of his hands. Looking as shocked as they were. Flayed open - but determined. Never once taking his eyes off Snoke despite the way he could feel- feel how Hux was reaching for him. Every inch of him curdling and stretching. Revealing it true self and its true intentions at long last as the tendrils of the General's mind wrapped protectively around his own. Shielding him from Snoke's onslaught as the pain suddenly muffled itself and his master's presence was ripped from his mind completely.
Hux.
Oh, force.
Hux.
He reached for the strength of their combined power greedily. Treating it as a momentary safe haven as Hux cradled his mind. Infusing him with something he hadn't dared to have in a very long time. Hope.
"Be brave, Armitage...use your power wisely. Remember that you don't need it. Not until you know the reason why you must. Not until there is no other choice. I know none of that makes sense now, darling. But I promise- I promise someday it will."
The double vision was intimate.
Too intimate.
Threatening to drown him in a melding pot of the past and present.
But once again Hux was there.
Irritated this time.
Prodding and insistent until-
The moment Snoke's grip on him faltered, his lightsaber leaped into life. Slicing down in a glowing red arc as he used his downward momentum to cleave through the Dark Lord's shoulder. Moving down, down, down, down until his saber was burning through the metal decking and he was leaking salt and red and Hux was behind him. Crowding. Angry. Protective. Before a far more forgiving darkness than he deserved bade him to rest.
Hux was still there when he woke up. Sitting next to him in a rickety chair beside his bacta-bed in some far-flung rebel stronghold. Expression host to wounded red-scabbed lines and tired, dark-punched bruises that glowed brightly under the hollows of his eyes. Sleeping soundly with one hand resting less than a hair's breath from his own.
And perhaps out of everything, that was the most surprising part.
A/N: Thank you for reading, please let me know what you think. – This story is now complete.