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Ben stared blindly at the holoscreen. Dead. Around him Ben was vaguely aware of the stunned silence beginning to give way to hushed chatter, but Ben was still frozen. General Hux, dead. After a long process, convicted of high treason and publicly executed. A grainy clip of the event played on repeat. Ben felt sick. Armitage Hux, who hated his first name, but would tolerate the teasing ‘Armie’ from him. His vibrant, brilliant Hux was gone, and reaching out the force suddenly felt empty.
Ben remembered when he'd first come to the resistance base. It had seemed so quiet without the loud, steady, perfectly organized mind like white noise in the background. Mind like a durasteel trap. Ben had never been able to toy with the man without him noticing. He'd never had much patience for his ‘silly force mysticism’. He thought of the rare mornings he would wake before Hux. He remembered holding that slender body that Hux had detested close, his lover soft and sleep warm. He thought about the way the dimmed ship lights of their room reflected on the beautiful red of his hair while it was free of gel and splayed across his pillow. He thought of the last night when he had sent Hux off to sleep with a gentle kiss that he had hoped to convey everything they never said.
Ben loved him. He'd never said it. Now, Hux could never hear it. Ben clutched at his gut. It felt like he was being torn in two. The world seemed to dim around him; it was just the holoscreen and himself. It continued on about the implications of Hux's death, but Ben wasn’t paying attention anymore. He should have begged Hux to come with him. He should have taken him by force. Stubborn bantha shit that he was Hux wouldn't have left, wouldn't have let Ben leave. Ben could have prevented this. He could have protected him. The resistance wouldn’t have harmed him, Ben would have made sure of that. Now it was too late. Everything was too late, and Ben wanted to scream, to release it all into the force, to shatter every bit of glass and crush every ounce of durasteel near him. He wanted… Ben wanted to be angry. He should be, so why did he feel so numb?
This was all his fault. His stupid selfish fault. He had known he had to leave. The call of the light had only gotten stronger, and it hurt so excruciatingly badly, but he hadn't thought of Hux. Sure, he'd thought about how he would miss him, and he'd considered inviting him, but he had known Hux would refuse. Ben had never thought there would be consequences for Hux. Snoke had gone after him, blamed him. The image of Hux walking onto the stage, towards his own execution, leaning heavily on the cane at his side with his head held high replayed in Ben’s mind. So proud, so very stubborn. He must have been so scared.
Hux was dead, and Ben was never going to get to see him duck his head as he smiled sweetly, or the way his face would flush pink to his ears with anger, or the way he chewed the side of his lip hunched over his desk working on a particularly hard equation.
The other people in the room were smiling now. Over his death, over the news. His head spun as he distantly looked out over the sea of rejoicing faces. They didn't know him. They didn't know the Hux that had a sweet tooth, and would eagerly look forward to the treats Ben would bring him from foreign planets. The first time he had done it the shocked look on Hux's face from the taste had sent Ben into a laughing fit. He'd spent his whole life on nothing but military rations, something Ben had found appalling. These people didn't know Hux's sense of dedication to his officers. He knew all their names, and the ones who had made it into his inner circle were as close to friends as could exist in the cutthroat world of the First Order. They didn't know that the first time they had sex that ventured out of the realm of rough and hateful Hux had cried silently. Ben had held him close, and they clung to each other. That had been the first time Ben had stayed through the night. These people didn't know that Hux would treat his wounds personally, taking care to clean up all the evidence of Snoke’s intensive training. These people didn't know the man who was insecure about his body, whose biggest fear was failure, who was desperate to escape the shadow of his father. They knew General Hux, Starkiller. Now, both of those men were dead.
Ben couldn't mourn, he realized with a heavy aching in his chest. Not openly. The resistance was already dubious in their trust of him. Mourning the death of the very face of the First Order could mean his own ruin. He could practically hear Hux clicking his tongue and scolding him for feeling before thinking. He could just see the amused smile, the crinkle around his eyes and the twitch of his lips. Ben pushed himself up from his seat and left. People were consumed in their own conversations and wouldn't notice. Ben needed to get out though before he lost control, before numb helplessness became rage.
He left without a word his eyes fixed on his feet making his way back to his room. That was it. Hux was gone, dead. Ben had selfishly saved himself, and thrown Hux to the wolves while doing so. The pinched look on Hux’s face when the troopers had forced him to his knees came to mind. Ben betrayed Hux, left behind everything they had worked towards, and then left Hux to die.
The door to his quarters opened and slid shut after him. Pressure welled up in his chest. He felt like he was going to burst. His throat was tight, and Ben thought he might be sick. With a scream he released the pressure through the force shattering glass and sending things flying against the walls. Ben sunk to the floor with a sob his mind feeling for the place in the force where Hux should be, like tonguing at the bloody place where a tooth should be and reopening the wound. Hux was gone. He was really gone.