Chapter Text
At first, Armitage Hux thought he had actually done it: he had helped bring that fool of a “Supreme Leader” down. He had played them all.
He was so pleased with himself, so focused on congratulating himself for his cleverness, he didn’t even notice Pryde’s shot.
The pain didn’t last long, thankfully, and then he was gone.
Like the fool his father always thought him to be.
(He really was one, wasn’t he?)
***
In the darkness, there was no light, no tunnel, nothing - nothing but pain. It was everywhere - centered in his chest, but spreading to the furthest parts of his body. He never really bothered to think about what happens after one’s death (though he had hoped his father had met with something rather nasty in the end), but he certainly hadn’t expected pain-laced darkness.
Or the irritating voice that just couldn’t let him relax into nothingness.
“General, we’re so close, you can’t give up now… Stay with me! Armitage!"
More discomfort and fleeting anger - who dared to use his first name?!
“Oh, for kriff’s sake, don’t you dare die on me now!"
He thought he was already dead. But the effort of trying to puzzle out what was happening became even harder, thoughts slipping away from his mind only partially formed.
"General Hux! There is still so much to be done! ...have a duty…"
Ah, yes. Duties. He always had so many of them. He couldn’t even remember a life that wasn’t centered around his responsibilities. There was so much to be done - someone to be killed, a galaxy to bring to order… or was it to chaos? Did he want to conquer it? Free it? He couldn’t really remember.
And then the pain stopped, again. He was too weak to even hope it would be for good.
***
When he resurfaced again, Armitage was suddenly fully awake - and full of pain. The abrupt end of his dreamless sleep caused him to jolt upward, until his body protested very, very emphatically. He fell back down on the pillows, and closed his eyes for a moment, waiting for the dizziness to subside. As soon as he could see straight, his eyes started assessing the room around him.
"Ah, General," a monotonous voice said, "please try not to move too violently. Your injuries are stable, but any disruptive actions could further damage them, which would mean complications and reparative surgeries in the future that are completely unnecessary."
His eyes jumped instantly to the voice’s source - a grey-faced alien with big, fish-like eyes, whose small head was on a disquietingly long neck.
"On Kamino?" he asked surprised, his voice hoarse.
The being blinked twice, seemingly without hurry or in thought, reminding Hux why exactly he preferred to deal with humans.
Or, at least, the ones who didn’t wear masks.
"No, unfortunately. As you know, all the facilities were almost completely raided, robbed, and destroyed by the Empire many years ago. I’m one of the few that were fortunate not to be there and subsequently avoided capture by… your people."
Something in the voice of the Kaminoan changed, the emotion almost readable even in the monotony of their voice.
"You are on one of the ships of the Allied Fleets that has been temporarily converted to a hospital ship. Now that you are awake and stable, I am going to leave to my other patients. Please try not to disturb your wounds, my attention is needed elsewhere."
With that, the unnamed Kaminoan left the room.
***
Next few days were spent in an infuriating peaceful routine: he woke up, ate the food brought by droids, his condition checked by med droids, then food again, then more droids. With nothing to do in between, Hux was considering actually opening his wounds again, just to do something .
He resisted the temptation each time it arose - he wasn’t that stupid.
Or maybe he was, considering how he got there.
Because he might have not been cuffed to the bed, there may be no visible guards, but he definitely was not a free man. But had he ever been?
***
Finally, relief came.
After a final examination from the med droids, he was given a change of clothes (not his old uniform, but not a prison jumpsuit, either) then led by a quiet, serious-looking woman to a transport, then down to some kind of a forest-hidden base.
So this is where the Resistance had been hiding for the last few months.
Not that the “Supreme Leader” really cared. He cared only about his magic tricks.
Again - no cuffs, no weapons, no show of strength - but he didn’t want to test the illusion, to see what really lay underneath this odd facade. Not for the first time he missed his monomolecular blade that had become part of himself, hidden under the sleeve of his uniform. He would never have thought he could feel so… naked with his clothes on.
From the hangar, he was led to an… office, not interrogation room. He tried not to scoff - he has seen enough to surmise there had been some kind of victory - and with Ren involved it probably meant the fall of the whole Order, or even both of them, because why not, he never did anything with moderation. Hux didn’t want to care, but he couldn’t help it, not when he had spent his entire life building the organization up and rising through its ranks. It stung to know Ren destroyed yet another part of his life.
The office was already occupied by someone - a handsome man in his late thirties, with sharp eyes and a roguish smirk always playing somewhere on his lips.
Poe Dameron.
"Welcome, General," he said in a voice betraying little emotion. "Please, sit down."
Hux complied with this request, his skin itching, his body waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"I have to tell you, General Hux, that this is not how I expected for us to meet… again. Honestly, I didn’t expect us to meet for the first time, either. But here we are." He stopped, a little baffled by Hux’s silence.
Good.
"I honestly thought you wouldn’t make it - you should have left with us when you helped us escape. My personnel told me if it weren’t for the blasterproof vest you were wearing, you’d be a goner. And even with it, you barely made it."
Hux couldn’t stop himself.
"I didn’t expect to be shot from ten paces," he blurted.
The bastard sitting opposite him actually smirked.
"I guessed as much. So, here’s the situation." Ah, there it was. "The Resistance, with the help of a few friends, calling themselves the Allied Fleets, defeated the First Order - and its successor, too. You are the highest surviving officer of both these organizations. Or rather, you were, before you were forcibly demoted by a blaster shot."
Hux ground his teeth but didn’t respond.
"On the other hand, you provided us with very valuable information, not to mention saving the lives of multiple Resistance members, mine included. It might have been for the wrong reasons, but nevertheless, you provided valuable help."
He paused, undoubtedly for effect. "So, here is my problem, General. If the Allied Fleets learn about your presence among us, they will demand you stand trial and be sentenced to death for what the First Order did to the Republic and the galaxy as a whole. And let’s be honest, even if the judge was the most impartial being in existence, you would be sentenced, and the punishment chosen would be the harshest that we know, without becoming barbaric, of course."
He looked Hux in the eye as if expecting a retort, but Hux just pursed his lips, not gracing this assessment with an actual reply.
"They don’t know about you, yet. And our agent, and his handler, are trying to convince us that you are more valuable alive, and that you might cooperate with us."
Hux frowned.
"Your… agent?" he asked cautiously.
"Yes, the one who saved your life and then brought you to us. Dopheld Mitaka." Dameron said with feigned ease.
Hux looked down at his hands, trying to process this.
Of course Mitaka would betray the First Order for the Resistance. He was always too soft for the military. But he was just too efficient as an aide for Hux to just throw him away. He supposed he would have to thank him now, for saving his life.
With a sigh, Hux relaxed in the chair for the first time - the masks were gone, it was time for negotiations
"Alright, what are your conditions?"
Dameron leaned back on his chair with a predatory smile.
"I want it all. I want to wipe the galaxy of all the First Order and remnants of the Empire once and for all. I won’t make the same mistake the Rebel Alliance and Republic did. I will not have this same fight in twenty, thirty, forty years, or ever. I want it all gone."
Dameron never was good at maintaining a poker face, but he seemed to mask his real emotions with all that roguish charm and humour. But now he let that slip, showing Hux the beast that lay beneath. The bloodlust. Hunger. This was something Hux knew how to deal with.
"Then you came to the right person," he said with a calculating smile.