Title: The Darkest Hour of Night
Author: Aggy
Rating: R
Disclaimer: I don't own Star Wars. Wish I did. I'd have air conditioning if I did. I'm not making money from this so don't sue me.
Summary: During the darkest hours of the night is when the most terrible things can happen.
Warnings: Implied Slash and character death.
Archive: Of course
Praise: Need it, want it, can barely live without it
The Darkest Hour of Night
Aggy
The call came in the darkest hours of the night. The time when the shadows reigned and morning seemed an eternity away. The unrelenting, throbbing wail of his comm unit dragged him from uneasy dreams into an apprehensive reality. As he reached for the device, ice coalesced in his gut. A call so late at night could only mean one thing: tragedy.
"Antilles, here." His voice was harsh with dread, rough from the nightmares that had plagued him. A feeling of dread had been lingering around the squadron. A dark, malignant cloud that had been clinging to his pilots for weeks like the molds that grew on the lowest levels of Coruscant. Intangible but still perceived if a being allowed himself to be receptive. Luke would have called it a disturbance in the Force or a premonition of evil. In the light of day, Wedge would have laughed off the Jedi's warnings. Tonight, those warnings didn't seem so outrageous.
"It's Cracken, Wedge. I need you here right away."
It took a moment to register the General's words, but they still were incomprehensible. "Where is here?"
"There's no time to explain. I have two security officers on their way to escort you."
Security officers? Escort? "Am I under arrest, General?" the pilot asked slowly.
"No." Cracken's voice sounded curiously weary. Which escalated Antilles' sense of foreboding. He had never heard Airen Cracken sound so tired. Not even during the nerve-racking moments during the Rebellion and the subsequent conquest of Coruscant. The General was always cool, controlled. Exhaustion was a weakness for lesser men. "No, you're not under arrest. I need you here as soon as possible."
"I could take an aircab if you gave me the address. . ."
"The security officers will be at your apartment shortly."
The comm went dead, killing all hope that the night would end in anything but disaster.
The security officers were ominously quiet when they came for Wedge. He asked them what was going on, but each request for information was met with unyielding silence. They traveled in an unmarked aircar with transparasteel panels so dark that he could see nothing of his surroundings except for the frustratingly small rectangle of windscreen that showed nothing more than the usual Coruscant traffic patterns. Antilles tried to find some landmark to orientate himself, but the night was too dark, the lights of speeding vehicles too bright, leaving him virtually blind, lost on a planet that he had lived on for almost a decade.
When the vehicle finally stopped on the rooftop landing platform of a familiar apartment complex, Wedge felt the cold lump in his stomach lunge toward his heart. /Gods, no. . ./
He leapt from the 'car, barely waiting for the machine to hover to a stop before hitting the pavement. "General!" one of the officers called, reaching for Wedge's sleeve but catching nothing but oxygen and nitrogen molecules.
Antilles ran for the apartment entrance, ignoring the 'lift in favor of the stairs, hopelessly hoping that he could chase away his fears if he ran hard enough. Had the dark cloud that was lingering over the squadron somehow brought horror to one of his pilots? He was used to worrying about his pilots when they were in vacuum. He had always thought that they were safe on the ground.
Instinctively, he knew that tonight he would be proven wrong.
The group of beings lingering in the stairwell and hallway told him that he was on the correct level. The murmuring of the crowd told him nothing of what was going on. He pushed his way through, using his rank when necessary until he spotted a familiar shock of bright red hair. Wedge made one final push through the crowd, almost snarling at the people that were keeping him from his goal.
"General," he shouted, trying to pitch his voice above the din.
The Intel officer turned, his expression slipping from exhaustion to reserved indifference when he saw Antilles. "Out of the way!" Cracken barked, sending a small squadron of beings in coveralls scurrying away. "I wish I was seeing you under better circumstances,"
"I wish I knew what was going on," Antilles countered.
Cracken sighed, suddenly looking ancient beneath the harsh light that flooded the corridor. "I thought it would be better to tell you in person. One of your pilots has been injured."
Wedge's eyes drifted to the apartment door. His voice felt frozen in his throat, but he somehow managed to speak. "Who is it?"
"Major Janson," Cracken answered quietly.
That malignant cold that had crept around his heart gave a vicious squeeze, sending sharp pain lancing through his chest. "Is he going to be all right?"
Distantly, Wedge felt a hand settle on his shoulder. It took a moment to realize that the hand belonged to Airen. The gesture seemed so foreign, as foreign as the surreal moment in an overcrowded hallway. "Wedge. . .Wes Janson is dead."
Suddenly, Wedge found himself braced against the corridor wall, staring glassily at the apartment door. His knees buckled, causing him to slide to the floor. It couldn't be. . .Gods how could this be? Wes. . .Gone. . .Dead. . .No more Kettch. . .No more jokes. . .No more Wes. . .Dead.
"How?" he rasped, the words scraping against his vocal cords.
Cracken knelt down beside the General, studying the Corillian carefully. Shock was keeping the pain at bay, but Airen knew that soon Wedge would be feeling the full force of his grief. He had to act quickly before Antilles let that grief guide his actions. "He was stabbed multiple times. A neighbor called the paramedics, but he was dead when they arrived."
"Who was it? Was someone trying to rob him?"
Airen shook his head. "No. I wish it was that simple." Wedge was still functioning, but Cracken wasn't sure how long he could depend on Antilles keeping a level head. Especially when he told him the rest of the story. "General Antilles, did you know that Major Janson and Major Klivian were involved in a relationship?"
Wedge shook his head, "I knew they lived together but I never thought that they were. . ." /Never thought they were or never wanted to consider it/ a nasty voice inside his head asked.
"Did you notice anything unusual in their. . .friendship. . .lately?"
"No. They seemed normal. Maybe Wes was a little more quiet than usual, but nothing that I thought was out of the ordinary." /Wes quiet? That soars beyond unusual into improbability/ that persistent voice argued.
"It seems that there relationship was not a quiet one. According to their neighbors, they argued often. And sometimes they heard. . ." Cracken's voice trailed off as he searched for words that would not bring Antilles more pain. Airen Cracken might not always have Rogue Squadron's best interests in his sights, but that didn't mean he didn't respect the unit's leader or wish to bring that man any more misery.
"Heard what?" Wedge asked sharply.
"Sounds of fighting. Things breaking. Screams. Something heavy hitting the floor or walls."
"You mean someone, not something," Antilles said harshly. His eyes were wild with disbelief. "You mean Wes was. . ."
"We don't know what it means," Cracken interrupted hastily.
The quickness of the Intel agent's stilled Wedge's next question. Airen wouldn't have called him to the scene of a friend's death unless he was needed. Cracken might be a cold, calculating son of a bitch, but he wasn't a sadistic monster. "What do you need me here for?"
"I need you here to talk to Klivian before he gets legal council. We need to know what happened before the media finds out." Cracken sighed, suddenly looking incredibly old. "I don't want the sludge rakers to know more than us. I want this to be kept as quiet as possible."
Wedge stared at the apartment door, wondering morbidly what awaited him inside. "That's going to be damn well impossible." He still couldn't wrap his mind around the implications of Cracken's earlier words. Wes dead was difficult enough to comprehend, but the implication that Hobbie. . .HOBBIE!. . .was somehow responsible for his death? The thought was impossible, even for someone who lived with the impossible every day.
He pushed those thought away, ignoring the burning tears that were scalding his eyes. "When do you want me to do it?"
"As soon as you're ready."
"Sithspawn, I'm never going to be ready for this!"
"I know you can do it, Wedge. I wouldn't ask you if I didn't believe that."
"You're an evil bastard, you know that, Cracken?"
The General offered Wedge his hand. "You're not the first being to call me that, and you won't be the last."
"I doubt that anyone else meant it as much as I do."
Cracken acknowledged his word with a tired nod. "The sooner we get this over with, the better."
/Easy for you to say/ Wedge thought bitterly, reassessing his previous opinion of the man. Cracken was a sadistic monster. Wedge ached to tell the man to go to the deepest, darkest pits of hell, but he knew that he couldn't refuse the General's request. He would always wonder why this awful night had happened. And this would be his only chance to find out the truth.
Antilles pushed himself away from the wall and swayed minutely before finding his balance. "Let's get this over with before I change my mind."
Cracken, thank the Force, remained silent as he led Antilles into the apartment.
Wedge Antilles was no stranger to bloodshed. He had been in enough battles on the ground to not be shocked by the sight of blood. At least he had THOUGHT he could not be shocked.
But when the drying brown speckles and rivulets were the blood of one of his oldest friends, it was all he could do not to run for the nearest 'fresher and throw up. The smell coated his nose, slid nauseatingly down his throat until it tasted like he was breathing copper instead of oxygen.
He forced his eyes away from the appalling pattern on the wall, driving his gaze away . . .To see what was left of Wes Janson.
His face was untouched except by a few wayward splotches of red that stood out against his pale skin like freckles. His eyes were closed, thank the Force; his hair sticky with dried blood. Wedge couldn't help looking. He couldn't STOP looking. He couldn't force himself to look away from the ruined chest. To stop staring at the horrible gashes and punctures that had ended Wes' life.
Dead. . . The word echoed through Wedge's brain, threatening to overwhelm thought and emotion. To drown his resolve and send him screaming away from the atrocity that had destroyed his friend.
A voice finally stilled his circling thoughts. "Wedge? Gods, I'm glad you're here. You've got to help me!"
The plea in his voice gave Antilles a small spark of hope. Maybe, just maybe, Hobbie was innocent. Maybe his earlier comment about a robbery had been correct. Maybe Hobbie had been wrongly accused.
That hope died when he saw Klivian's blood drenched face.
Blood coated the pilot's cheeks, a gruesome pattern of splatters that looked more like a mask than a human face. There was even a swipe across his forehead as if Hobbie had scrubbed a hand across his brow.
Wedge could have explained away blood-stained hands, telling himself that Klivian had been trying to save Wes' life and ended up covered in the other pilot's blood. But the blood spray painting Hobbie's face was impossible to deny.
"What happened, Hobbie?" Wedge managed to ask despite the thick lump that was trapped in his throat.
Klivian's gaze wandered from the crime scene technicians to General Cracken, then back to Antilles. "They think I murdered Wes."
He said the words as if the mere thought was incomprehensible. Antilles wished he could believe that this terrible night had not happened, but no amount of wishing would bring life back to Wes.
Antilles felt raw, his throat aching with each attempt at speech. "Did you do it, Hobbie?"
"No, of course not." Klivian shook his head. Wedge felt a tiny sliver of hope imbed itself in his heart, only to have it wrenched free. "It's impossible to murder someone who wants to die."
"Janson wanted to die?" Cracken asked softly. Hobbie scowled at the Intel agent, annoyed by the interruption, then turned to Wedge. "He had had a death wish, Wedge. There's no other explanation. Why else would he make me do this?"
Make Hobbie do this. . .Gods, what could Wes be doing to Hobbie to force him to do something so terrible. Only one solution could make its way through his pain-wracked brain. He hated the thought, but he had to speak it. "Hobbie, was Wes threatening you?"
Klivian stared at his commanding officer with bright, pale eyes. Madness glowed in their depths, causing a chill to slide down Wedge's spine. "Wes hurt me?" Hobbie gaped. "He'd never hurt me." The words seemed so commonplace, the sort of phrase any lover would use when talking about his partner, until the pilot spoke again, his voice a slithering whisper that would haunt Antilles' dreams for years to come. "Wes knew better. He knew what would happen to him if he fought back."
The Galaxy seemed to still as those words worked their way through Wedge's mind. ". . .If he fought back. . ." That could only mean one thing. It wasn't Wes that had instigated this appalling tragedy, it had been Hobbie.
The thought slid around his mind, trying to find purchase, but it refused to stay put. There was no possible way that Hobbie . . . quiet, companionable Hobbie . . . Could do this!
A shocking clarity ripped through Wedge's mind. In that crystalline moment, all the little signs reformed into truth. All those times that Wes had come to meetings with a blackened eye or a split lip. He'd always laugh and say that he had to quit brawling. Everyone accepted his excuses never seeing past the simple words.
But now, Wedge knew the truth. There had been no brawls, no rowdy nights in rough nightclubs. It had been Hobbie.
That horror sent wave upon wave of guilt crashing upon him. Why hadn't he seen through the excuses? Because he had blinded himself to Wes and Hobbie's relationship? Or because he couldn't imagine Wes letting someone hit him without hitting back? Or was it the simple fact that he could barely comprehend that someone so restrained could be so vicious?
When Hobbie looked up at Antilles, his eyes were pleading. "You have to understand, Wedge. You have to understand. He provoked me. It was HIS fault. He kept making me mad. He knew that if he made me mad, I would have to punish him." Klivian cast a forlorn look toward the body of his lover. "He must have liked it," he sighed. "Why else would he keep provoking me?"
The sadness in his eyes was replaced by a hardness that rivaled the most viscous glare of Ysanne Isard. "Everything was fine until he started talking to that fucking Jedi." The words exploded out of the pilot in a brutal wave. "Corran should have kept his nose out of things. Fucking CorSec agents don't know when to mind their own business. He gave Wes ideas, Wedge. Ideas. . ." Hobbie shook his head, chuckling softly. The sound set Antilles' teeth on edge. "He said he was going to leave me. That what I was doing was wrong. That I was ABUSING him."
The look of disdain on Klivian's face set bile crawling up Wedge's throat. "He asked for it Wedge. It couldn't be abuse. He was asking for it every time he looked at a woman or stayed out late. He KNEW that would anger me but he still wouldn't change. It wasn't ABUSE, I was trying to teach him how to be a better person."
The anger and venom left the pilot suddenly, leaving him limp and tired. "He was going to leave me," Hobbie pleaded. "I couldn't let that happen. I couldn't let him go. He was mine. I couldn't let him leave."
Then the words that Wedge had heard in dozens of holo casts echoed through his ears. "I couldn't let him go," Hobbie said softly, smiling faintly as he stared down at his blood clotted hands. "So I decided, if I couldn't have him, then no one could."