. Walk of Shame .
People can do the most amazing things.
(Kisses)
[Hux]
Locating him was an easy work – landing the small fighter he had flight in the nearest available clearing was even easier.
Hux felt a shameless sense of satisfaction as his boots landed in the crunching fresh snow and the cold gusts invested him – his First Order military coat was partly failing to do its job.
The snow had stopped falling, but the wind moved the branches covering the sky, letting the hanging snowflakes drop on his red hair as he walked on.
When he reached the deep crack that had opened into the ground, he took a quick glance in its depths – he could see nothing but pitch darkness. His footprints followed the ravine for a few metres before he saw clearly the pink-violet bloodstains melting into the blueish night lit snow – his bloodstains.
There was an area where the stains were more intense, irregular, crushed into the snow – and then there was a light trail disappearing among the trees.
Oh – so he can move, still.
Hux followed the trail with quick paces – the blood drips were surprisingly fresh, gliding into the moonlight like dew.
Where the hell does he think he's going, anyway?
But then a smirk tugged at the corner of his lips – of course, he knew.
Away from me.
[Kylo Ren]
I failed.
As he was lying motionlessly in the snow, his own blood the only warm thing on his body, Kylo Ren was not that excited to hear a First Order fighter ship's engine rumbling towards the forest.
Things became even worse when he sensed who was flying the damn fighter to come to his rescue.
Hell no.
A strange primordial panic clenched his stomach – he was bleeding, he had lost, he had currently no idea where his lightsaber laid. Wherever it was, anyway, he highly doubted he was still capable to get up and go retrieve it.
That was a pretty pathetic spectacle of himself he was about to give - and he was going to witness it all.
Damn it.
He pointlessly punched the snow greeting his teeth, with the only result to arouse a sharp pain in his spine that almost immobilized him.
Kylo Ren knew this – the red head just about to show up was beyond any doubt the person he least wanted to be rescued by. Even bleeding to death in the snow suddenly seemed a better option.
I have to go away.
It was childish. It was irrational – but he was not going to wait for Hux to come just like that. He couldn't.
Fighting against the pain to stand up, Kylo Ren managed to drag himself for a few paces before falling on the ground again.
Damn it.
[Hux]
Not very surprisingly, he didn't have to walk long to find him.
The Master of the Knights of Ren, the enforcer of the Starkiller base, Snoke's best and beloved apprentice was there, still trying to drag himself into the snow.
And that's supposed to be the elite of the First Order - great.
Hux shook his head and slowed down his pace. The bloodstains in the trail he was leaving were getting bigger.
Kylo Ren must have sensed him, because he suddenly stopped trying to get away – he rolled on its side and punched the snow, cussing incomprehensible words instead.
Snoke's pupil is not happy to see me.
His freak out went on until Hux actually reached him, towering on his crouched figure.
For a brief instant, even the General's lips tensed while scanning all the damages he had suffered.
"Impressive," he commented in a sarcastic voice, his eyebrow raised, while rolling Ren on his back with an unceremonious kick, pulling an angry and aching lament from his lips. "Who did this? The girl? The ex-stormtrooper?"
His deep black eyes were staring at him in pure hatred, peering out his messy dark hair plastered to his death pale face with blood and snow. There was a deep cut running through his features – a cut that reminded him the crack in the ground.
That's definitely going to scar.
"Why don't you just choke on your irony, Hux-" Kylo Ren's voice was a suffocated groan. "No one asked you to come. I can take care of myself."
"I see."
This drew an exhausted chuckle from Kylo Ren. There was something almost heart breaking in the way he tried to stand up again after shooing Hux's boot away from his side – in the way he started punching the snow again after failing to do so. So heart breaking that Hux felt compelled to look away, suppressing a grimace of compassion.
That was when he saw the familiar metallic object left over near a pile of snow.
[Kylo Ren]
Every kind of feeling was overwhelming him right in that moment, while the deep pain and all the blood he'd lost left him in a disconcerting state of numbness – shame, anger, disbelief, delusion.
I have failed.
He could grit his teeth and kick the air and punch the snow and cuss as much as he liked – the result didn't change.
It hurt like hell. He was a loser. Hux was seeing it all.
Suddenly a metallic object hit him on the shoulder, to then fall pathetically into the snow – he turned to look at it.
His lightsaber.
"I thought you might want to use it – you know, for scenical purposes," Hux subtle voice was padded by the snow. "Too bad there are no screens or other furniture around to break."
Kylo Ren clenched his fingers around the hilt – he consider to actually wield the sword against Hux, but desisted soon after. Even a minimum usage of the Force would probably knock himself down. He just put it back in its place with a defeated grimace.
"Go to the hell Hux. Just screw you." Once again, he tried to stand up. He had fallen back a few times already now, and he was in search of a possible position that wouldn't hurt him as much as the previous ones. "Fuck you. Fuck. Fuck..!"
Everything was wrong – yet what was hitting him the most right in that moment, was thinking at the eventual satisfied smirk on Hux lips in the moment he'd report the whole dynamic to Snoke.
The moment after he felt his knees go weak again, along with a pang coming from the bleeding wound on his side. He was ready to face the fall in the snow again – just, he realized in horror that was not going to happen.
Hux was holding him this time, preventing him from collapsing on the ground.
He reacted immediately, drawing his hands violently to the General's throat.
"What do you think you're doing?" he hissed, "Just get your hands off me. I said I can walk."
All that his menace could arouse in the other man was an exhausted impatient laugh – the same one parents usually reserve to their children once they've run out of patience.
"Now listen carefully, Ren." The General whispered back, his clear eyes the same colour of the frozen snowflakes falling down the trees, while one of his hands moved from behind his arm to his chin, as if to get attention. "I came here to fetch you because I know how much Snoke values you. But I do not – and I do not intend to waste my entire day after your self-absorbed outbursts either. So you have two options: you let me carry you to the fighter, or you walk yourself to it – in an acceptable speed."
"You're not in the position to tell me what my options are – I don't take orders from you. So just drop it. Now." He retorted.
"And I don't take orders from you." Was Hux's simple reply.
Kylo Ren finally managed to push him away – and before losing his balance again he heard his cold laugh.
It was a walk of shame, that one.
The pain, the blood, the cold, the eyes of the General bruising on his nape, all the images of what had happened to him that day attacking him back in a sort of day nightmare.
It was a walk of shame, but he could do it. He could get on his feet again, dust himself off, and get better.
He was not going to surrender.
He didn't know how much it would take to walk to Hux's fighter. The General was a bossy dense pain in the ass, but something he had to give him: the list of possible cutting sarcastic remarks he could have said to him was endless – while he was following him a few paces behind he just shut up instead.
[Hux]
If five minutes ago he'd have to bet on it, he would have said that Ren was never going to make it to the fighter.
He would have lost.
Sure, the speed was not that acceptable, honestly – but the constant struggle that every single pace, every single time he had to get back on his feet seemed to require was impressive. Yet he was doing it.
Sometimes, when he fell back in the snow, he burst out in his usual childish imprecations – but he was not going to intervene again. He was going to follow him, and stay silent – just for this time.
He has had a difficult day after all, I guess.
Kylo Ren was no Darth Vader, no matter how desperately he could try to be. He was far from being a perfect glacial ruthless evil lord, but something he had to give him: he was strong in his stubbornness – he would not surrender.
The snowflakes were melting in his red hair, and the cold was starting to penetrate him deeply. But Kylo Ren was soaking wet in both blood and snow, and he was still walking, someway, somehow.
Hux looked up, at the lights of the exploding and burning Starkiller Base in the sky, among the snowy treetops.
Kylo Ren was no Darth Vader – but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing.
AN: Okay so - in a period of total Reylo trash I'm in, I thought - well, you know what, I'm getting bored already, let's do something different. And this is the result. I know I'm a bad person. I promise I'll get back to my Kylo/Rey fic very soon. I don't see so many Hux fics out there and I wonder why. But I did like Hux - and the hatred sparks between them, both trying to shine the most with Snoke, Hux suffering Kylo Ren's hot tempers with scorn. Who likes Hux? Hope you liked this, even if I guess everyone's too busy reading Reylo XD let me know! And happy new year everyone ;) S.