"Y-You're here. General Hux -" Dameron was the first to speak, his voice felt hoarse and dry in his throat. His words slurred. He closed his eyes tightly, trying to focus. "Why? What - what is this place?"
He imagined that he had long been left screaming, yet no further vision could Poe's mind provision for what had been laid between his freedom and his captivity. The man searched the defensive gaze of the other, induced by his desire to believe that Hux knew and remembered what he himself could not; that by threat, bargain, begging or coaxing he would be compelled to give answer. Such was his maddening desperation.
Only a slight quivering of the lip and brow gave sign that he was heard, while General Hux sought to gather his disordered thoughts, drawing them back from the realm of emotion to that of familiar reason, however faulty – comfortable and comforting in its familiarity, like a military drill. The rhythm of precise teachings, the stern training which he had given and received, loathed and admired like a mantra forever chanted in uncertain times. Poe could not wait, for before him was a feeble embodiment of the evil that had befallen him, that had seeped him in convulsive thoughts, while at the same time leaving him with an acute awareness of his own derangement, mounting and taking new forms.
Dameron pounced upon him, pinning his arms to the ground as though the general had had him at gunpoint, yet were it so, he could have done no more in provoking the unbearable agitation that was overcoming the courageous nonchalant nature, once recognizably Poe's.
Hux gasped, his breath leaving him as the other's weight was forcibly cast upon him. He grit his teeth, feeling a power grasp on his wrists, painfully restraining him from a purpose that was brought into his mind by the act itself. If it had not been his intention to rid himself of his cellmate, the vision of a blade flashed before him then. Yet it mingle itself with uncomfortable doubts, such as were his soothing thoughts when he had first beheld the pilot's familiar face, leaving the general thus ill-resolved to do the other more harm than was the due quid pro quo. Instead, he would wait and watch, having taking such an approach before with other rash and fiery temperaments, rather than to confront them directly before the variables aligned sufficiently in his own favor.
The man's proximity, his warm breath and the abandonment of human civilities helped to draw him out of the dreamlike state that had left him weak and unable to rise; as though to awaken and confront a bitter reality had been more than he could bear – a petulant unwilling child, shunning what should be and must be. It was like cold water upon his skin, to be forced to fight for his survival before considering so much as the weight of his desire for it. Armitage smiled contemptuously, knowing that whether he would or would not, his indecision allowed him to leave the next moments to the fate allotted to one who chooses resignation, the heaving form of Dameron in part losing its ferocity for him.
Sensing no struggle or resistance from the other, Poe Dameron slightly relaxed his grip upon him, suddenly feeling guilty to have acted like a wretched being, more feral than human, for whom the chain between instinct and action is like a bolt of lightning. Yet even his instinct was not there for him to act as guide; once he had subdued such a one as was Hux to him, he knew not how to proceed, for although he was closer to foe than friend, in the circumstances of their shared desperation he felt that he would not be the first to draw blood without just cause. Poe's meager knowledge of Hux's past, as much as his own, had already grown distant and obscure, remaining mainly in the form of general precepts. He resolved to further force the other's history from his memory – releasing the general from the atonements that he rightly owed.
Hux would be to him a stranger, if ever he did know him. His slate would be wiped clean.
Having arrived at the resolution, he felt a greater bout of peace. But why did Hux smile? A horrid smile it was, having no mirth in it. It incensed him to think that the trapped fox should leer. He longed to slap him across the face, to spit upon it and at the same time knew that each of these deeds would be to his own mortification and shame. Instead, before he would allow himself time to consider, he acted on their inverse, which was to repay the defensive facade of the other with a strange charity. Poe's hand's moved from the other's wrists to his hand, slowly, gently interlacing his rough fingers with those of General Hux. They appeared to him slender and almost womanly, the general's thin body tense and his gaze more fearful than it had been at the violence which seemed to have approached him, only to be transmuted into something foreign and intangible, something that he could not ignore. Dameron felt that the other had understood.
In that sudden moment, their disordered thoughts connected like wires, an emotional electricity passing between them. Before he could reason, General pushed Poe off with all of the force that he could muster. When again he stood, it was he who gazed down upon Dameron, who lay confused like one temporarily blinded and stunned. Seeing Armitage's expression of disbelief and mediated malice roused him to alertness as he too proceeded to recover himself.
General Hux took several paces back, yet did not allow his gaze to falter from the man who so vexed him. Only then did he realize that his dagger was never with him, and how foolish it was to have imagined that their distant masters would have allowed him to keep it while in the confides of his cell, lest the two opposing forces should do overmuch damage to one another and impair the fine work for which they had become the chosen materials.
Yet while their minds had connected in that transitory moment, Dameron learned enough to know that Hux knew little more than what he knew himself of the circumstances of their confinement. Nor was there any plan or hope within him of rescue. Apart from such commonplace thoughts, what he learned of the general himself he could barely begin to dissect – reserving it for a time when he was at peace to dwell slowly and carefully on matters beyond the practical.
It pleased him to have seen and been seen through the mind's eye, although Poe could not measure how much he had given of himself to he who was cast in the role of a stranger – all the while he believed that had it not been for his uncharacteristic act of anger, he may have missed such a chance. Nevertheless, little reason had he to desire such knowing, for it had no wise use other than to be given assurance of the other's humanity – knowledge which had, on a subconscious level, only been denied to him with his own consent.
