[ it’s a staggering defeat - as much of a blow to the ego as a dent in their numbers, and they slouch homeward, he goes to collect the fallen apprentice (blood on the snow, black clad limbs spread across the forest floor - his hair congealed in the dark liquid, clumped and matted) as he is told to.
(He had recoiled, when he had first seen the other man - something about the quiver in the other’s hands, shoulders - it had been an instinctual reaction; witnessing something so unbridled; broken but livid - the anger was a heat haze, just short of visible).
Defeats for the First order are rarer than sunshine on Arkanis.
He retrieves Ren himself, hoists him onto the floor of the shuttle’s docking bay, his own uniform soaked with the dark blood that has pooled beneath the man’s body.
What a defeat indeed.
But this is a single battle in a season of wars, and it may sting now, but the First Order is as resilient as a parasite, and they will lick their wounds. ]
You are a damned fool.
[ He grits it out at the force-user, panting into the simulated air of the hanger, a strand of Ren’s hair caught in the cufflink of his greatcoat.
The man’s face is a wreck, streaming from a long cut that will inevitably scar. He imagines that Ren will like that - a proper mark to wear, the first component of a new mask. Who knows though, he’s as unbalanced as that lightsaber he carries (it sparks with glitches, he remembers, buzzing as if touched by water). ]
Can I get some assistance, or are you all going to stand around and look useless?
[ Hux barks his orders at the troopers. Some things do not change. Defeat or not. He looks down at Ren, taps him on the uninjured cheek. ]
Stay awake, you idiot, Snoke will have my head if I turn up with a corpse.
[ he untangles the strands of black hair from his cuff, but finds that they are wound tight. ]
( It's possible that the wounds might not have bled so much had he not curled his hands into fists and beat them gaping and angry. Even through blurring levels of consciousness, sweat and melting snow running into his eyes, Kylo can feel the blaring anger and rage fed and fanned by the twisting vines of pain, dulling now to a low simmer that leaves him with little more than the echoing reminder of his failure and what will come about as a result of it. Not to mention the pain itself. His face is on fire.
He becomes keenly aware of Hux's voice dragging him through gallons of water and into acute consciousness. Kylo surfaces viciously from the hazy in-between that left him prone on the forest floor before Hux plucked him from sliding into the fissure in the earth, gritting his teeth and baring them, against the pain in his flank, bisecting his face, against overall frustration of having Hux hovering above him, against that loss. )
For once in your life, shut up.
( The sharp sound of his voice isn't a surprise, the scrape of rock against rock as he throws off the first stormtrooper with an outward pulse from the five-point star of his palm. It's a violent shove, and it sends the solider into the wall with enough force to crack open his helmet on the bulkhead. Kylo's shoulders surge with the effort of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. His vision slants under the strain of digging deep to find the necessary power to leave the trooper prone on the ground. )
Snoke is sure to be pleased with your latest endeavor.
( He means the Starkiller base, the entire weapon project itself. It brings a sense of satisfaction that dislodges some of the other rocks that make up the weight of his chest, never mind the punishment he knows waits for him at the hands of the Supreme Leader. )
Hux disentangles himself from the fallen apprentice, mouth pulling into a sneer of its own accord; leave it to Ren to be mouthy, even in a condition as poor as this one. And then, one of his troopers is being thrown back, and the noise of it rings through the hanger - collateral damage for carrying a wounded force-user on board (untrue; said force-user seems to attract collateral damage regardless of his state - this whole endeavor of the past few months seems to have been nothing but collateral damage). The rest of the stormtroopers linger between following orders and their natural fear of Ren - Hux does not flinch.
He stands, stiffly - just an inch off from his usual well-put-together self (slightly bloodied, slightly disheveled), and looks down at the wreckage of Kylo Ren. ] We will return to base, and report to Snoke as soon as you're capable of something other than bleeding on myself and the floor of my ship.
[ He begins to order the stormtroopers forward once again (and there is a good four second pause before they follow his instructions, causing the general to cast them a swift glare). ] We will both face disciplinary action, and we will both deserve it.
[ Turning to Ren, Hux bends down, meeting the other man's eyes (that cut does give him a certain viciousness now, but what a memory; defeated and wounded by the girl - pitiful). ] And you will stop attacking my troopers.
[ They have brought a stretcher. Hux's eyes flick from it, to Ren - one eyebrow arched in warning.
(He does not pity the other man, but something, he can tell, is off. He's uncertain of what precisely happened back on Starkiller base, and doubts that he will ever hear the truth (from Ren at least). It founds its mark, though, whatever it was). ]
Where's the helmet? [ Hux's voice is pitched low, it's almost said as a conciliation for the briskness of earlier - a neutral offering. ]
( Kylo smiles, all teeth, a wolfish, ragged grin that doesn't touch his eyes. Hux should recognize the challenge in it. He doesn't smile often but when he does it's either a cause for serious, alarming concern or a justified warning for everyone within a fifteen foot radius to back up out of range of his grip if they value their windpipe. Lacking the energy to so much as swat at the general like an errant fly, Kylo resorts to pinning the other man in place with a sneer alone. It doesn't matter to Kylo whether or not Hux perceives him as a threat: they both know the only thing keeping Kylo from snapping his neck on a bad day is the Supreme Leader's insistence that he leave Hux alone and let the general do his job.
He turns his head to spit on the metal grating, surprised when it doesn't color pink with blood. It seems like that's all he can taste. )
Getting your hands a little dirty suits your complexion, General.
( As Hux orders them forward, Kylo refuses the troopers' assistance once again, though less violently this time. He won't be hauled up to sitting by a bunch of marvelously unpredictable - FN2187, he thinks, quite suddenly, unconscious in the snow - meatheads with blasters tethered to their belts like degenerates. Considering that makes him pause to consider his saber, and one look down at it once he's got his back up against the wall, long legs angled out in front of him with a curled fist pressed to the bowcaster burn in his side, tells him all he needs to know about the damage that's been done to it. )
Get off.
( The troopers back off, the stretcher bobbing nervously between the two that carry it. It takes serious effort, but he manages to pull the long lines and blunt edges of his body into a crouch, then a lean, until finally he's standing, knowing that the pain and discomfort he feels now will be nothing compared to what Snoke levels at him later. Hux will suffer, more than he has before probably, but his punishment will be a walk in a field of daisies compared to what the Supreme Leader will put Kylo through for losing the girl, the map, the last known link to Skywalker. Not to mention his defeat in general. His broken saber. Bile builds in the back of his throat, and he spits again. )
I removed it. Back at Starkiller. ( Which is about as forthcoming as he wants to be about that whole incident. Kylo turns his attention to the remaining troopers and lone medical officer dispatched to tend to a prone-to-tantrums Knight of Ren. He doesn't have to use the Force to get them to leave, but he does anyway, dropping his voice to an octave that doesn't run the high side of pain he's still feeling, saying, Leave. Now. Maybe it's just to prove to himself that he can still do it. He turns to Hux again once they've been left alone. ) Any word from our illustrious Leader?
[ Have a sneer to go with that comment, although it does lack something of its usual brand of scorn. It is difficult to take the knight altogether too seriously in his current state, intimidating though he might be. But, he does not like that smile - there's a venemous quality to is and he wants to recoil, as if by some prehistoric impulse that warns him of danger. Technically, Ren is a predator; he is quite capable of snapping any one of their necks, even in his current condition. But, the impulse passes as quickly as it became present, and he watches the other man spit, half-expecting it to be bloodied.
What a thing it is, to watch Kylo Ren attempt to pull himself together.
The man is comprised of such a sheer force of will that Hux finds that the room crackles with it. Naturally, the stubborn creature does not accept the offer of the stretcher, he ought to have guessed that any attempts at assistance would be shaken off with the arrogance of a sulky teenager. Hux's mouth draws into a thin line; there will, he thinks, come a day in the future where he will spend the entirety of it not exasperated at Kylo Ren. That day, however, seems to grow more and more distant. All he needs now, is for the idiot to do something irreparable to himself, to bleed out in his priggishness, his reluctance to user a stretcher after being shot six ways to Sunday. The floor of the hanger is a mess of blood. Half of it is on Hux himself already, so he grimly steps forward to clamp a hand around Ren's upper arm when he rights himself (if listing dangerously to the left counts as such), supporting a small amount of the other's weight.
Hux watches him cautiously, a beat passing before he speaks. ] No word, not yet.
[ Hux chooses to avoid replying to the comment about the helmet. Whatever happened on Starkiller base will, undoubtedly, remain exclusive to Kylo. He does not doubt that the man will deliver some garbled account when he is forced to make his report, but he is aware that it will be a far step from the truth.
The troops leave, and there is a twitch of irritation in the general's jaw, but he remains silent.
Then, clearing his throat, still keeping a hold of the apprentice's arm in order to ensure that the man does not topple over onto the floor (which, he thinks, is a distinct possibility right now). Hux attempts to sound unphased, as well as commanding: ] Seeing as you've dismissed the medics, I'll be escorting you to the medbay myself.
( A muscle works in Kylo's jaw, tendons scraping over teeth as he grinds his molars together. Whether against the pain or Hux's hesitation before answering Kylo's question is a mystery and likely a combination of the two. Like an injured animal, he would rather retreat privately to lick his wounds and resurface again with new anger bubbling up in him like boiling water, but for the time being it seems more prudent to save his energy and strength. It's unlikely the Supreme Leader will let him heal completely or even remain under the attention of the medical droids and officers very long before calling to him for a debriefing on the situation. If he hasn't sensed it already, he'll know then that the girl and the map are gone, that the Resistance has disappeared, and that he and Hux are failures.
He starts at Hux's tight grip on his arm, correcting his posture though he sags into the injury on his flank. Six feet and three inches is a huge height to be when your skin pulling taut from standing up straight opens a half-cauterized bowcaster hole in your side, and rather than tear the injury further, Kylo forces himself to allow it some breathing room. His skin is going to be black and blue around the injury, like some perverse imitation of a flower blooming across his abdomen, and the bones in his hand are sore where he pounded his ribs with enough strength to keep the anger and pain and hatred flowing strong, but none of it stings as sharply as needing Hux to guide him like an invalid from the hangar to medbay. )
How generous of you to take the time. I'll assume your retreat is running according to schedule.
( His tone is dry and flat, and he reaches a palm out to securely anchor himself to the wall. Every step is not agony - he's certainly felt a worse kind of pain in the past - but his feet feel sluggish, as if he's dragging them through thick, congealed mud. He pushes through it, and leads Hux rather than letting Hux lead him, pushing forward with greater speed than a medical officer might advise, although many of them have stopped advising him of anything on the rare occasion they have cause to. Kylo, for his part, takes care of most of his minor injuries himself, in one way or another.
It's a long time before he says anything else)
I assume Snoke must have sent you to retrieve me. Have you plotted a course yet?
( He must have barked some destination, given Hux's confidence in their disciplinary action. )
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omg first I feel so privledged / sorry this is so long oh god
(He had recoiled, when he had first seen the other man - something about the quiver in the other’s hands, shoulders - it had been an instinctual reaction; witnessing something so unbridled; broken but livid - the anger was a heat haze, just short of visible).
Defeats for the First order are rarer than sunshine on Arkanis.
He retrieves Ren himself, hoists him onto the floor of the shuttle’s docking bay, his own uniform soaked with the dark blood that has pooled beneath the man’s body.
What a defeat indeed.
But this is a single battle in a season of wars, and it may sting now, but the First Order is as resilient as a parasite, and they will lick their wounds. ]
You are a damned fool.
[ He grits it out at the force-user, panting into the simulated air of the hanger, a strand of Ren’s hair caught in the cufflink of his greatcoat.
The man’s face is a wreck, streaming from a long cut that will inevitably scar. He imagines that Ren will like that - a proper mark to wear, the first component of a new mask. Who knows though, he’s as unbalanced as that lightsaber he carries (it sparks with glitches, he remembers, buzzing as if touched by water). ]
Can I get some assistance, or are you all going to stand around and look useless?
[ Hux barks his orders at the troopers. Some things do not change. Defeat or not. He looks down at Ren, taps him on the uninjured cheek. ]
Stay awake, you idiot, Snoke will have my head if I turn up with a corpse.
[ he untangles the strands of black hair from his cuff, but finds that they are wound tight. ]
sorry i am so slow
He becomes keenly aware of Hux's voice dragging him through gallons of water and into acute consciousness. Kylo surfaces viciously from the hazy in-between that left him prone on the forest floor before Hux plucked him from sliding into the fissure in the earth, gritting his teeth and baring them, against the pain in his flank, bisecting his face, against overall frustration of having Hux hovering above him, against that loss. )
For once in your life, shut up.
( The sharp sound of his voice isn't a surprise, the scrape of rock against rock as he throws off the first stormtrooper with an outward pulse from the five-point star of his palm. It's a violent shove, and it sends the solider into the wall with enough force to crack open his helmet on the bulkhead. Kylo's shoulders surge with the effort of converting oxygen into carbon dioxide. His vision slants under the strain of digging deep to find the necessary power to leave the trooper prone on the ground. )
Snoke is sure to be pleased with your latest endeavor.
( He means the Starkiller base, the entire weapon project itself. It brings a sense of satisfaction that dislodges some of the other rocks that make up the weight of his chest, never mind the punishment he knows waits for him at the hands of the Supreme Leader. )
♥︎♥︎♥︎
Hux disentangles himself from the fallen apprentice, mouth pulling into a sneer of its own accord; leave it to Ren to be mouthy, even in a condition as poor as this one. And then, one of his troopers is being thrown back, and the noise of it rings through the hanger - collateral damage for carrying a wounded force-user on board (untrue; said force-user seems to attract collateral damage regardless of his state - this whole endeavor of the past few months seems to have been nothing but collateral damage). The rest of the stormtroopers linger between following orders and their natural fear of Ren - Hux does not flinch.
He stands, stiffly - just an inch off from his usual well-put-together self (slightly bloodied, slightly disheveled), and looks down at the wreckage of Kylo Ren. ] We will return to base, and report to Snoke as soon as you're capable of something other than bleeding on myself and the floor of my ship.
[ He begins to order the stormtroopers forward once again (and there is a good four second pause before they follow his instructions, causing the general to cast them a swift glare). ] We will both face disciplinary action, and we will both deserve it.
[ Turning to Ren, Hux bends down, meeting the other man's eyes (that cut does give him a certain viciousness now, but what a memory; defeated and wounded by the girl - pitiful). ] And you will stop attacking my troopers.
[ They have brought a stretcher. Hux's eyes flick from it, to Ren - one eyebrow arched in warning.
(He does not pity the other man, but something, he can tell, is off. He's uncertain of what precisely happened back on Starkiller base, and doubts that he will ever hear the truth (from Ren at least). It founds its mark, though, whatever it was). ]
Where's the helmet? [ Hux's voice is pitched low, it's almost said as a conciliation for the briskness of earlier - a neutral offering. ]
no subject
He turns his head to spit on the metal grating, surprised when it doesn't color pink with blood. It seems like that's all he can taste. )
Getting your hands a little dirty suits your complexion, General.
( As Hux orders them forward, Kylo refuses the troopers' assistance once again, though less violently this time. He won't be hauled up to sitting by a bunch of marvelously unpredictable - FN2187, he thinks, quite suddenly, unconscious in the snow - meatheads with blasters tethered to their belts like degenerates. Considering that makes him pause to consider his saber, and one look down at it once he's got his back up against the wall, long legs angled out in front of him with a curled fist pressed to the bowcaster burn in his side, tells him all he needs to know about the damage that's been done to it. )
Get off.
( The troopers back off, the stretcher bobbing nervously between the two that carry it. It takes serious effort, but he manages to pull the long lines and blunt edges of his body into a crouch, then a lean, until finally he's standing, knowing that the pain and discomfort he feels now will be nothing compared to what Snoke levels at him later. Hux will suffer, more than he has before probably, but his punishment will be a walk in a field of daisies compared to what the Supreme Leader will put Kylo through for losing the girl, the map, the last known link to Skywalker. Not to mention his defeat in general. His broken saber. Bile builds in the back of his throat, and he spits again. )
I removed it. Back at Starkiller. ( Which is about as forthcoming as he wants to be about that whole incident. Kylo turns his attention to the remaining troopers and lone medical officer dispatched to tend to a prone-to-tantrums Knight of Ren. He doesn't have to use the Force to get them to leave, but he does anyway, dropping his voice to an octave that doesn't run the high side of pain he's still feeling, saying, Leave. Now. Maybe it's just to prove to himself that he can still do it. He turns to Hux again once they've been left alone. ) Any word from our illustrious Leader?
so slow over here, sorry!
[ Have a sneer to go with that comment, although it does lack something of its usual brand of scorn. It is difficult to take the knight altogether too seriously in his current state, intimidating though he might be. But, he does not like that smile - there's a venemous quality to is and he wants to recoil, as if by some prehistoric impulse that warns him of danger. Technically, Ren is a predator; he is quite capable of snapping any one of their necks, even in his current condition. But, the impulse passes as quickly as it became present, and he watches the other man spit, half-expecting it to be bloodied.
What a thing it is, to watch Kylo Ren attempt to pull himself together.
The man is comprised of such a sheer force of will that Hux finds that the room crackles with it. Naturally, the stubborn creature does not accept the offer of the stretcher, he ought to have guessed that any attempts at assistance would be shaken off with the arrogance of a sulky teenager. Hux's mouth draws into a thin line; there will, he thinks, come a day in the future where he will spend the entirety of it not exasperated at Kylo Ren. That day, however, seems to grow more and more distant. All he needs now, is for the idiot to do something irreparable to himself, to bleed out in his priggishness, his reluctance to user a stretcher after being shot six ways to Sunday. The floor of the hanger is a mess of blood. Half of it is on Hux himself already, so he grimly steps forward to clamp a hand around Ren's upper arm when he rights himself (if listing dangerously to the left counts as such), supporting a small amount of the other's weight.
Hux watches him cautiously, a beat passing before he speaks. ] No word, not yet.
[ Hux chooses to avoid replying to the comment about the helmet. Whatever happened on Starkiller base will, undoubtedly, remain exclusive to Kylo. He does not doubt that the man will deliver some garbled account when he is forced to make his report, but he is aware that it will be a far step from the truth.
The troops leave, and there is a twitch of irritation in the general's jaw, but he remains silent.
Then, clearing his throat, still keeping a hold of the apprentice's arm in order to ensure that the man does not topple over onto the floor (which, he thinks, is a distinct possibility right now). Hux attempts to sound unphased, as well as commanding: ] Seeing as you've dismissed the medics, I'll be escorting you to the medbay myself.
also forever and always taking forever and always
He starts at Hux's tight grip on his arm, correcting his posture though he sags into the injury on his flank. Six feet and three inches is a huge height to be when your skin pulling taut from standing up straight opens a half-cauterized bowcaster hole in your side, and rather than tear the injury further, Kylo forces himself to allow it some breathing room. His skin is going to be black and blue around the injury, like some perverse imitation of a flower blooming across his abdomen, and the bones in his hand are sore where he pounded his ribs with enough strength to keep the anger and pain and hatred flowing strong, but none of it stings as sharply as needing Hux to guide him like an invalid from the hangar to medbay. )
How generous of you to take the time. I'll assume your retreat is running according to schedule.
( His tone is dry and flat, and he reaches a palm out to securely anchor himself to the wall. Every step is not agony - he's certainly felt a worse kind of pain in the past - but his feet feel sluggish, as if he's dragging them through thick, congealed mud. He pushes through it, and leads Hux rather than letting Hux lead him, pushing forward with greater speed than a medical officer might advise, although many of them have stopped advising him of anything on the rare occasion they have cause to. Kylo, for his part, takes care of most of his minor injuries himself, in one way or another.
It's a long time before he says anything else)
I assume Snoke must have sent you to retrieve me. Have you plotted a course yet?
( He must have barked some destination, given Hux's confidence in their disciplinary action. )