1.

There are two philosophies in the Galaxy. Two philosophies that are made to guide every sentient being throughout the course of their existence, two philosophies, neither light nor dark, governing the universe finitely. Finn has, over the course of the war, come to know both philosophies with an intimacy he'd never desired- he left the Order because he wanted to escape, not because he had any longing to become another side's pawn. A soldier in another army, upholding ideals of the Resistance's supposed "good nature" that were intrinsically all too familiar.

The First Order. The Resistance. Of course, each had different principles, each was divided based on their method of warfare, the promotion of order versus peace… but it hadn't changed that the Resistance was an army too. Sure, they were an army with ethics, less bound by a script of rules and regulations- that didn't change the fact they were at war. The knowledge that they were soldiers in war, on a battlefield, upholding the goals of their own High Command.

Perhaps, Finn considers, that is the reason why he's never felt truly at home, even here on D'Qar.

Perhaps this… dim, grey paradigm is why, even when the war is long over, the conflict coming to an end, he can hardly stand the hours in the barracks at night, listening to his friends drink and laugh and reminisce. And it isn't that Finn doesn't want to join in, that he isn't one for post-war merriment- it's simply that he can't reminisce the way Poe can, or Jess, or Snap.

So he finds himself withdrawing, holding in his emotional whims, the memories he so desperately wants to express yet is unable to- he tries to smile more, makes comments in jest, attempts to cover up the hole shorn through his chest, the missing part of his being that he could never recapture. It's always there- nameless, orphaned, trained for one purpose- a weight on his chest that wakes Finn at night, gasping for breath and straining against a presence he can't see.

The irony is that it's only when Rey comes back, late that year, a lightsaber clipped to her belt and dragging two shackled figures behind her, that Finn realizes how out of place he's been through these months- how, regardless of what the pilots, the footsoldiers, any of the Resistance forces go through, they will never understand what it is like to be alone, to be owned, lacking autonomy, degraded to nothing more than a mound of flesh in a metal uniform-!

When Rey returns, and Finn grips her about the waist, hugs her close to him and tells her how relieved he is that she's safe, how much he's missed her, he wonders if the void will close, if he'll be capable of finding himself, whoever Finn is supposed to be, separate from FN-2187.

And yet it is only when his gaze-dark, filled with spirit and yet utterly lost, hopeful, though hopelessly yearning- meets the cool, overcast green of the captured General Hux's eyes that Finn feels any relief.

Finn does not want anything to do with General Hux.

He supposes it shouldn't be any surprise. Leia is very accommodating to keep him from even setting foot in the same room as the man, and Poe is always there to sling an arm about Finn' shoulders, pat him on the back with a reminder of "hey, it'll be okay, buddy." They tell him that Hux (it's Hux now, not 'General') is facing execution; that execution is a sure fate, with all the strife he'd caused. Starkiller was only the beginning.

It's all well and good; Finn should feel reassured, should feel at ease, that he's not being asked to confront the sole remnant of the Order he's come to loathe more than almost anything.

He doesn't.

He finds himself, on more than one occasion, sitting on the other side of a dimmed-glass screen, watching the former General toss and turn in his bed, his hair messy and fragile, pale arms gripping the sheets tight enough to rip them. Hux is smaller without his uniform, and far less intimidating when his skinny, translucent legs are on display and his face is lined by short stubble from a lack of shaving.

Were the officers allowed to shave? Stormtroopers were injected to prevent the growth of excess hair; it came along with their vaccinations, everything clean and sterile and lifeless. Like they hadn't wanted any of them to have personality, so they'd taken away their definitive traits just as they took away their names.

Finn's nails dig deep into his own palm.

He wants to talk to Hux. He wants to scream at him, grasp him by the shoulders and throttle him and ask him, why, why did you do this to us, why do you treat everything like it's disposable, why are you acting like this is a game, why are you able to sleep at night, I hate you, I hate-!

Hux moves.

He's sitting up now, in his bed, and his eyes are so dull, bloodshot and leveled by the black-purple circles underneath them, a testament to how little he'd been able to sleep. Good, Finn wants to say, good, because he doesn't deserve it, he's a murderer, a psychopath. But then, he stops; mid-thought, Finn's eyes wander, trail along Hux's protruding ribs, how sickly he looks now. Tall, yes, but not imposing—more a sycophant than a psychopath.

He thinks to leave; tells himself he should, because he shouldn't be here in the first place, late at night, watching his enemy's chest heave as he pulls the thin blanket further around his waifish form, lip curling in a deep-set sneer. Finn steps back, his boot scuffing against the floor, his eyes wide, as though waking from a trance, wondering why he'd come here in the first place. Hux looks exactly the same, when he sneers like that, a look of contempt and utter revulsion that makes Finn's skin prick from terror.

And then he smiles.

It's an unpleasant smile, more devious and wicked than anything, as though Hux was in the midst of plotting Finn's demise without even seeing him. The ex-Stormtrooper lets out his breath, a labored sigh in the taciturn room, and averts his gaze.

"Hello," Hux begins, "FN-2187."

Hux doesn't talk to anyone.

The interrogators, the negotiators, the General- no, he remains painfully silent, always with that odious scowl plastered onto his pasty features, his glum, dead eyes glinting as though he knows something nobody else does.

Finn isn't sure whether it's horrifying or alleviating, to realize that the only words Hux has uttered since being captured are Hello, FN-2187. He isn't sure if it's wrong, that he's been suddenly entranced, affixed with a need to hear Hux speak, a need to have his own thoughts affirmed, his innermost fears, emotions and desires acknowledged by the only other person on this base who is capable of understanding.

Finn doesn't want to negotiate with Hux, but he wants to speak with him, and it's a dreadful contention, this indecision.

He attempts to settle his own mind, speeding like the Falcon through hyperspace, over lunch with Rey, sitting knee-to-knee across from her, listening to the story of how she caught the last remnants of Order command, how Kylo Ren killed Snoke with the help of Luke Skywalker, only to be grievously wounded. She tells him she can't forgive him, what he did to her- "having someone so deep in your mind like that, Finn… it's a violation I can't even describe."- even if Leia still wants to, clinging to the feeble remains of her son, just like her husband.

Finn understands. He doesn't think he could forgive them, either- could never forgive the people who brainwashed him, who tortured him, who made him stand idly by as his friends died without being allowed a single thought of his own unless he wanted to be reconditioned.

He visits Hux's cell again, anyway.

It's eerie, the isolation ward late at night, hardly a soul awake to pass through the halls, not that there was a need to in the first place. The guard is half-asleep at his monitor, but he knows Finn, and he nods to him, mumbles something about can't wait until we execute that Order scum as Finn takes a seat by the plexiglass shield once more.

Hux is lying on his side, but his eyes are wide open, and he's staring straight at Finn.

Hello, FN-2187, he mouths, and Finn is gripped by the urge to retreat, get away before Hux turns on him further, walks to the edge of the transparisteel barrier and breaks through it and kills him, all the while spitting, traitortraitortraitor.

But he can't move; he sits there, and he leans forward, and he watches as Hux resettles himself, the edge of a bony hipbone peeking from under the line of his sheet, his undershirt worn and riddled through with holes. Finn adjusts the lightweight jacket across his shoulders in a moment of self-consciousness.

"Can you hear me?" he questions.

Hux doesn't answer. Not for a good few minutes, until Finn is nearly ready to give up altogether, his aimless wandering as fruitless as ever.

"Sometimes I wonder," Hux begins, and Finn jolts. "How you did it, FN-2187. How you went against the orders that had been… programmed into you from birth. Why was it so easy for you to turn? Misplaced judgment? Empathy? I remember the Captain telling me you were… predisposed to compassion."

Hux is facing away from him now, his usually neat ginger locks matted with grime and grease. "I wonder why I didn't turn out like you. You see, I was also indicted young… five years old, to be exact. My father didn't even think I had the capability to serve, but I've proved him wrong. The fool's dead, anyway, and incapable of defending himself. He made me sick, Eight-Seven- the same way I must make you sick, vile as I am. How amusing."

Finn stands, and his hands ball tighter and tighter, blood dripping from his palms. Quit talking- quit talking, I don't want to hear your voice, I can't listen-

"I don't think anyone else could understand us," Hux murmurs. "The way we understand each other."

"I want to talk to him," Finn tells Leia that morning, when he finds her in her office once again, ending a rather lengthy, windswept conversation with Luke. Her face betrays no formal surprise at the request, but her eyes are watchful, searching, as if questioning his true motive—the very action makes Finn stiffen, his back arched and rigid in a facsimile military stance.

"Who?" Leia asks, then, her lips pursed and her face a mask of elegance as she stands, a commanding presence if there ever was one.

"Hux."

He doesn't need to say another word, for the single syllable of Hux's name carries a tone to it, bearing desperation and exhaustion and vitreous vitriol. Leia pauses a moment, then nods, a quick motion of her chin as she stands and waves Finn toward the door.

She doesn't ask why he wants to talk to someone with a hand in ruining his life, nor does she attempt to question him or undermine his motives aloud, and for that, Finn is grateful. What Leia does, with a thin, tight-lipped smile and wizened eyes, is grip his hand tight in her own and nod.

Before he can walk through the door, she whispers, shrewdly, "Take care of yourself. May the Force be with you."

The metal door slides open, vacant and beckoning. Hux sits on his bed, still as ever, a man made from glass but held together like stone; he turns his head, and Finn refuses to shy away under the derision, the loathing in that gaze. He steadies himself, visage neutral and uncaring, as though he is at all capable of hiding his hatred for the man before him. Hux smiles, again; soft, but not genuine, chapped lips parted to speak.

"FN-2187. What a lovely surprise."

For the first time since Hux's capture, since Finn's defection, the once clear-cut borders of Resistance and Order are unclear.

"Please. Take a seat, won't you?"

"On your bed?" Finn asks, disbelieving.

"Excuse me for not thinking to have a chair. Your Resistance friends tend to prefer bringing their own." Hux flexes his wrists, exposing the mottled scars lining his pale skin- recent, apparently, and poorly healed. Finn denies that the sight has an effect.

"So even isolation can't make you nice, can it?" Finn snaps back. "I don't know why I expected otherwise. Is this just some sort of power play, Hux? Is that what this is?"

"Shouldn't you tell me, soldier? I didn't make you come here. I didn't force you to talk to me. Petty accusations. Not sure what I expected from a Resistance brat."

"Petty!" Finn scoffs. "Have you listened to yourself, Hux? Throwing around insults like they're some sort of defense against interrogation? You're here. You were captured. So I'm not sure why you seem to think you have the right to insult me when I don't even have to kriffing talk to you." The ex-trooper halts mid-sentence, adjusting his stance, fidgeting somewhat awkwardly in the now tense silence beside his former superior—commander, even.

"You're right," Finn says then, continuing, and Hux's eyes shoot up, laced with an amalgamation of mirth and scorn. "You're right, Hux, I don't have to be here. I wasn't forced to talk to you—I came here of my own accord. And it's obvious now that… that coming here wasn't even worth it to begin with."

As Finn turns his back to the irate red-haired man, still slumped half on his side in the hard, metal bed, disheveled, sweaty and clearly frustrated by the scenario at large, he does not expect to hear a laugh.

Hux is haughty, and his short bark of laughter is the sort to prick at Finn's ears, draw him back to a defensive manner, unnerved and uncertain. "I hadn't thought you had it in you—to lash out like that. I… I can see why Phasma always said you were different. She spoke quite highly of you, for a time."

"Did she?" Finn questioned, thoroughly confused, training his eyes on the older officer, waiting for him to continue.

"Oh, yes. Highest marks during simulations and training… devout willingness and a desire to succeed." Hux pauses, draws his tongue over his lips. "I was top of my class as well, you know, going through the Academy. It was a different kind of rigor, I suppose—as you can see now, I've always been… somewhat ill-favored, physically."

"And did they recondition you as well, if you stepped out of line?" Finn quests, finding it impossible to quell the sudden hostility within him. "Did they mock you for treating your fellows with sympathy, did they rip away all sense of your humanity, your independence? Hm, Hux?"

"No."

For a moment, Finn considers that those words might be it, that Hux will clam up once more, draw his pale pink lips tight together and refuse to speak.

But he continues. "My father implemented the Stormtrooper program, you realize? It was—inherited, I suppose, once I was old enough to continue with my career. But it was not built on independence, FN-2187, as you of all people should know. To think the officer's regimen was any different, in that regard, is laughable. They enjoyed goading us into inflicting violence for the sake of pride; my skill was primarily academic, and therefore, I was often confronted and beat. I daresay the experience is incomparable to yours, but you should realize that even the Order's current methods could have been much worse."

Finn can't find himself able to muster a response; his feet step backwards, edging toward the door until his shoulder bumps the transparisteel again, startling.

"At least… at least you had an identity."

It is a full month before Finn sees Hux again.

The aftermath of the Order's systematic destruction and the Republic's inevitable dismissal of the Resistance once more has left him tense, from high up in his shoulders to the deeply-sore soles of his feet, always aching. Finn wishes for nothing more than a day of solitude, a few moments to lock himself away in his rooms and not emerge until after the negotiating has finished. He hasn't had any desire to deal with Hux's ineloquent sarcasm or the egotism he brims with.

But Hux is a dead man walking, and Finn seems to be just as painfully aware of it as the General is himself. The speeches, the interrogations, the mindless drivel… "none of it matters," Hux tells him one day, confidently, as he picks at one of his chipped nails, a fixed expression of loathing smeared over his face, only adding to the expression of perpetual disgust usually displayed. "The Resistance is a leechpit, the Order monotonous… but both are dead now, FN-2187. Surely even you're aware of it."

To say he was aware is an understatement; Finn has never felt more on edge, more uneasy than he does in the midst of conferences, at General Organa's side or sitting with Poe, listening to how freely he discusses the atrocities they're still in the midst of.

"It's war," someone tells him, and Finn wants to remark, the war's over, the fighting's done. It's the diplomacy that is making everything fall apart, don't you understand?

"- we need to enclose upon the Order's territory-"

"- Starkiller should be executed; it's not as if he deserves any better. He's a kriffing murderer, billions of people-"

"- the Republic wishes to reintegrate the galaxy. Sympathizers will be banished in the Outer Rim, under strict watch- propaganda halted, they can't-"

"The Empire needs children," Hux says, a soft mutter through the air surrounding them. Finn's eyes snap up to his face, even, pallid features so still it's as if he's wearing a mask. The silence of the room they've been keeping warm has left little space for anything but thought; internal musing and mental cries of irrationality. Hux had been despondent that day, hardly speaking a word as he lay there on his side, fidgeting with his hair, clothing and the metal bar of his cot.

"What?" Finn stammers, finally, astonished.

"The Empire needs children," Hux swallowed. "That's what she said. And my father agreed. It's the reason the Order began, all of it- the Stormtrooper program, why I wasn't cast aside for being a weak-willed bastard. They said it would be better to… to mould them, as they grew up, and shape them into something better, something pliant and useful. I thought it would work. I never imagined- the programming, the training, the relocation… it was all so precise."

Finn snaps to alertness; his eyes feel strained, bloodshot and rubbed dry from lack of sleep that Hux appears all too well-acquainted with. He pulls in on himself, glances to the door.

"Why are you telling me this?" He begins. "And- and why now? Why do you act like… like you have some sort of remorse about what happened? Is that what this is, remorse? Or- or is it all an act? The Order is- they steal us from our families, they brainwash us, they-"

Finn can't tell when he begins to cry; the tears sting like venom as they trail over his cheeks, and his dark eyelashes flutter, grip on his chair so tight it could nearly rend the metal apart with a bit more pressing. He gasps, once, allows his eyes to fall shut, until the only thing he can see is the pitch across the inside of his lids, shuttered tight to block out the world.

"I don't know." Hux confesses, somewhere in the distance, floating about in the oblivion. "You were an anomaly, a testament to… to the wrongness of it. A flaw in the system, glitch in the machine. I didn't- I didn't think it was possible, you understand? I never thought… all my life,I listened to what my superiors told me, I took control over others and did what they told me so my father would leave me alone. They told me they'd keep him away from me… they wouldn't let him beat me or humiliate me or-or use me anymore, as long as I did what theyasked and helped them instead. They used that tactic for years,until I was thirteen, until I'd… become this. And the Stormtroopers- you were the same. You carried out tasks to avoid pain, didn't you? Didn't you?"

There's something cold locked around his wrist now, a chill along his skin, the pressure of giving flesh beside him. Finn opens his eyes, stares to find Hux's hand on his forearm. Abruptly, he feels a longing, deep within his chest, stirring and flaring to life once more. The desire to be understood, for someone to recognize his pain, his loss, his melancholy. But it wasn't supposed to be Hux- it was never supposed to be Hux!

The sentence slips out before Finn can stop it.

"It's… irrational." His tongue is tied in knots, stomach doing flips beneath his skin; he feels sick, on the verge of lurching forward and retching with each passing second. "It is. That I- that I left. I just… somehow I felt it, y'know? That what the Order was doing- what I was going to do- was wrong. And I thought it would change, once I was gone. I thought that I'd have a chance… a chance not to be scared anymore, not to hate myself.

"I thought you were a monster, I thought you made me a monster, but it's all the same! It never ends, not even here- there's always another line, another rank, higher and higher up, each trying to program the next generation of people, trying to fit them into some niche so they comply and they obey. They hand down orders, over and over again, until they've shaped their children into whatever they want, and then the children command, and do the same, take others and twist them and bend them to the will of the hierarchy because- because that's just what happens!"

The dam bursts and Finn reaches for Hux, seizes the man about the waist and presses his face against his stomach. "Why is it like this? I don't understand- why are you like this?" His fist lands against a bony ribcage, once, then again, across Hux's gut, pounding futily against that icy flesh, watching the throng of purple-black wounds mottle the surface as Hux bites his lip until it bleeds, grips Finn's shoulder and pushes him away.

He doesn't speak, not for a long moment. When he finally does, he's pulling Finn closer, burying the younger's face in his skinny chest as Finn clutches to him with bruised knuckles and twitching fingers, suddenly wanting Hux closer, his cold skin and messy hair and callous eyes, all of it. And it's for reasons unknown, something he can't even fathom, why is Hux here, why does General Starkiller understand, why is he suddenly making so much more sense than anyone ever has?

Hux runs his fingers along the back of Finn's head, along the shell of his ear until the ex-Stormtrooper tilts his face up, bores into him with all the sorrow and hatred and desperation of a man as damned as he is himself.

"I speak to you…" Hux sighs. "I speak with you because I know. You're different, FN-2187. Hollow and bitter and agonized, struggling with your own mentality. I feel it too- the blistering pain of memory. But I chose my path… and you chose yours, FN-2187."

"Finn," Finn states, bluntly, pulling away, gathering himself once again as he attempts to reseal the cracks in his exterior, patch them up before he leaves once more. "It's Finn."

"Finn." Hux's lip curls in acknowledgement. "I'm Armitage."

2.

Finn's body has been tense longer than he's used to; a leg drags against the floor, buzzing with static and the loss of proper feeling no matter how he attempts to position himself. His teeth have been locked in a game of rhythmic clenching and unclenching, some half-hearted means of growing stiff with stress and attempting to release it from his body. His head is thrumming with the whir of a monitor behind him, unnerved by the loud cries of outrage and the clamoring for statement.

Finn never speaks, here; these meetings are for members of the Resistance, of course, and though he may be considered a rebel himself, he has no desire to be swept up in political discourse. In fact, it is because of moments like these that Finn prefers silence, solitude and a place of his own free of distraction.

"The question, General," the Admiral pipes up from across the table, his voice blustering and loud, purging all desire to voice opposition from Finn's mind. "Is not whether or not we should execute Armitage Hux, but why have we hesitated?"

As if on cue, Leia stands, her voice a beacon of reason through the errant shuffling and frustrated murmurs of their comrades, her hands braced on the table before her as she leans in, firm, rational as ever.

"Although we all have reason to despise the First Order, General Hux is young. From my perspective, it would, perhaps, be worse for him to rot away in a cell, long past the extent of his youth, without possibility of release. Do you think it is just for the Resistance to execute prisoners of war? If we stoop to the level of public execution, we are no different than the Order- well known and well loathed, might I remind you, for their willingness to do just that."

Finn can feel his muscles lock into place, one after the other, haunted by the truth behind Leia's words; nonetheless, the greatest anger is for the Resistance's ignorance. They think they know what it's like, to be raised and bred and called a Stormtrooper, to be thrown into the fray of battle without a chance to protest, to watch other beings, sentients without name or identity die alongside them, to return to silence, without even an echo of distress over the blood spilt.

"I think," a Senator pipes up; vaguely, Finn places her as a representative of Yavin. "That we need to keep in mind the severity of Starkiller's crimes. Can he really be allowed to continue living with the extent of his destruction? He didn't just hurt the Republic, he decimated it- Hosnia Prime is gone, General. Forgive me if I'm out of place, but I feel that deserves more than a mere life sentence."

Finn's throat itches, burning with a foreign sensation of need; while he feels it necessary he speak up, the threat of punishment always lingers. He thinks of backhanded slaps and spiteful words, thinks of berating and dismissal for his failures and his flaws, the obsequious longing within him that tells him to turn his head, look down, keep yourself in place, don't speak up FN-2187, don't speak.

It would, perhaps, be different were their discussion not about Hux. And granted, Finn has more of a reason to hate Hux than even most of these people, even after the nights spent inside Hux's cell, the acknowledgement of the once-General's faults and evils and actions, the sickness that still lingered inside Finn when they spoke, the rage that would possibly never leave.

But Finn thinks of Armitage, and he holds his breath.

He thinks of Armitage, a child, one who was so loathed by his father that he would've done anything to escape his wrath. Armitage, who talks about being scared when the Empire fell, scared when his father so much as looked at him, terrified when he was shoved onboard a ship for the first time and terrified still at the thought of death.

Finn's scared, too. Death, the unnerving thing it is, seems to be everywhere at once; he's seen enough of it for a lifetime, now, seen troopers and fighter pilots and officers alike fall to lightsabers, blasters and vibroknives. He remembers, once more, what Hux said when they spoke, only a few days before, how he called Finn a pacifist and how Finn himself had retorted, it's called having empathy, feeling sick that you have to kill somebody else, being angry that you have to hurt them. It's not pacifism, it's having a heart, Armitage!

"There's no place for a heart in war," Hux told him, and Finn shook his head, folded his arms over his chest as he laid back in the chair, his eyes following the lines of the wall down from the ceiling, tracing them into his own memory. He knew every inch of that room, every flaw hammered into those metal walls, every bland, monotonous thought it could inspire.

"Maybe I'm not meant for war, then."

Those walls were nearly a duplicate of the ones in the interrogation rooms, back on the Finalizer, the stiff, unyielding spaces where troopers and officers alike were sent to be reconditioned. He'd said as much to Hux, and the red-haired man sighed, folded in on himself and turned his head away from Finn, claiming exhaustion.

"- will be made to vote on Hux's execution." Leia is saying, and Finn's blood runs cold.

"You can't execute him," Finn says. It rolls off the tongue, free, before he can even consider reigning himself in; his heart is speeding within his chest, a rough thudthud thudthudthud thudthud with each passing second; blood courses through his veins, rushes into his head and Finn grits his teeth, pulls back.

"And why," the Corellian representative asks, "is that?"

"Because he's a person! Did you consider that he might have had motives, that he was- was following orders? That's what we do, we follow orders, all of us- even the officers, they aren't supposed to have their own thoughts, aren't supposed to work outside of the line of command. It's…" Finn swallows. "Listen, I don't care for the guy any more than you do- but he shouldn't be executed. Prison? Yeah, he should go to prison. But you can't just play into the Order's games-"

"Although there is a question as to Hux's motive, it's hardly enough to excuse the extremity of his crimes. And that aside- why should we listen to an informant? A stormtrooper is hardly the most reliable source of reasoning-"

The rest of the sentence was lost with the cacophonous thrum of his eardrums, the pounding of the blood flooding his head, every inch of Finn's mind lost to a penumbra of oblivion as he stood, slowly, from his chair. The turn away from the table was automatic, his limbs responsive in the way a droid's might be, coarse and clunky, dragging over the floor.

A door opened before him and Finn didn't bother to look back.

"They don't understand you," Hux tells him as Finn strains against the wall, his hands up against either side of his skull, tugging the coarse, short hair between his fingers. White hot pain lances up his spine, and everything around him seems unclear, distorted by the effect of his own inner agony, his desire for both self-flagellation and a projection of his anger.

"I can't-" Finn gasps, and Hux is shaking his head at him, reaching out to steady him and Finn wants to snap, thinks that if he even had half a brain left he'd be lashing out, the situation is just so unbelievable. The Order ruined him, trained him to kill or be killed, conditioned him by force to feel apathetic and devoid and- and Hux is with him, he's always running to Hux now, always seeing the fucking General in everything around him-!

Finn's breath stills and he's choking, gasping for air and pulling desperately on Hux's thin hospital gown, waiting for him to respond as he tries not to suffocate, and it's too soon, I don't want to, I can't, I'm not gonna, not yet, why, why don't they trust me, why don't they underst-

"Breathe," Hux tells him and there's a steady hand anchoring Finn to reality, firm on his back and rubbing circles into his knotted flesh. Hux pulls away from him then, sinking back onto the cot, his own body deprived of strength as he wavers. "That's right, Finn. Just breathe."

His Imperial dialect manages to ring pleasantly through Finn's head. He watches those slim hands- the hands of an aristocrat, not a warrior- squeeze tight against the mattress, sink in until there's a soft whoosh of air out of the cushion. Finn wants to laugh but he can't; he's stuck, sitting there, rocking himself until he's back in that state of tranquility, yielding to calmness and stability.

"They think I'm like you," Finn chokes out, garbled, and it comes out a laugh. And for a second he's terrified, certain Hux will be offended, will say something about his unintentional audacity that Finn hadn't even meant to project…

A high-pitched cackle of laughter, mean-spirited in its entirety, fills the room, and Hux tosses his head back with the amusement of it, tumbling back onto his bed with his chest rising and falling. "Oh, Finn. You're nothing like me- I'd be truly worried if you were. Do you know how much effort I put forward to get to this position?"

"I-in a prison cell?" Finn questions, and tears prick at his eyes; this is utterly foolish, beyond insane. Hux knows it too, the way he's watching Finn, prying eyes following his every movement even as he turns his head.

It shouldn't be funny- the entire situation… it's nothing to laugh about, yet here they are, their bodies swollen with it as it continues to bubble forth without aim or reason.

The silence takes hold again before long, when their minds clear and Finn shakes himself out, easing the stiff joints and bruised bones.

"They don't understand," he confesses. "They think- they think they know what the Order's like, how we fight, how we react, who we answer to. They don't know us, our feelings. We have… we have feelings, Hux. The Stormtroopers, they- they're all people, they have friends and they make jokes and small talk like everyone else. Slip, Nines, Zeros; they had feelings. I- I have feelings." Finn quivers, his throat parched with the strain of thinking aloud. His eyes flit up, skim over the General's slight form once more. "You have feelings. I know you do, now. Beyond evilness, I mean."

"'Evil' is a projection of the mind," Hux riddles. Finn considers that the reply is purely given to annoy him.

"I shouldn't keep coming here," Finn admits, averting his eyes, body drooping with his countenance.

"It's your choice," the dismissive reply is frustrating. Finn furrows his brow, tries to struggle back to his feet; Hux sighs. "Listen, Finn. You know we aren't friends; we're on opposite sides of this war. I'm going to die here. You've known that since we first spoke, since you stood on the other side of that wall and watched me- you can't change this. I made my choice, and- and by the pfaasking Order, you did too. We're enemies, now; that's just how it is."

"But why?" Finn exclaims, jolting upward. "Why does it have to be like this? Why- what does that even mean, opposite sides? Who makes those rules, those boundaries? People do, Armitage. It's values, and- ideology. Prejudice, unjustified hatred for whatever we're taught is different. You know that, I know you do-!"

"Of course I know!" Hux's voice raises, and he's spitting, his face suddenly close to Finn's, watching him intimately, personally. "Of course I do, FN-2187, but I can't change anything, can I? My father taught me cruelty, and Grand Admiral Sloane taught me how to make deals and my birth taught me how to obey, but I'm the one who followed through, I built that pfaasking weapon and now I'm taking responsibility for it!"

He's panting, red-faced and breathless. Crystalline drops find their way to the corners of bright, glass-green irises and it only takes a moment of looking at Hux before Finn realizes he's crying too, cheeks soaked with rivulets of anger, pain and heartache.

"That's what you do in the real world, Finn, you take responsibility for your actions. I wanted to build that weapon, thought it was my chance to make something of myself. You're still a child if you think that I-"

"I'm not, Hux!" He screams. "I'm not a child, Hux, I knowhow to take responsibility for my actions! And I should hate you, I should- I do, I hate you so fucking much, but you're just another pawn, just like me! So stop it- just stop talking to me if all you're capable of is calling me foolish and ignorant. I know what it means to be brutalized, more than you, and I'm not brainwashed enough to just brush it off."

He's stiff, posturing, trying to put on a brave face the way he's so used to at this point, attempting to avoid the real matter at hand, the profound repugnance he feels. And he's ready to pull away- ready to run, or worse, throw a punch, anything to stop the words and the thoughts and the pain...

"I can't change this," Hux says, voice dropping an octave. "I'm a sycophant. You said it yourself, Finn. And you know what? I'm alright with that. But you're just… you're a bleeding heart, and you feel so much and sometimes I hate that about you. I hate seeing you, I hate knowing- knowing that you managed to become your own person and I'm here, rotting away."

"Armitage- Hux, please." Finn grasps for one of those bony wrists, only for a hand to shove rough against his chest, urging him backward. "You know what? I didn't ask to feel something. I didn't ask to be… different from everyone else, that's just how I was. I didn't want to watch my friends die because of my own inability to do anything about… about this. About the hierarchy and the chain of power. I didn't want to hurt anyone, not like this. Fuck, it's so different from the simulations! I-I shot people, Hux, I killed them because I thought it was the right thing to do, but I don't know what the right thing even is! I'm done! I'm… just done…"

Finn, just as always, exits the room with a heavy heart and a muddled mind; this time, he doesn't know whether he'll return.

"I'm sorry," Rey whispered, her hand on Finn's back, a warm, comforting presence amidst the scorching slew of emotions, the anger and turmoil that surrounds them. Finn feels, not for the first time, horribly lost- as though some necessary part of him is missing, his head, his chest, his shoulders all heavy from lasting inhibition. Even the serene coolness of his best friend-now, possibly his only real friend- cannot suppress his own unfortunate anguish.

His fingers flex, the dark skin surrounding his knuckles scraped and battered; his chest is stiff, pain spreading through his skin with each pulse of his heart. He's lost weight, in the past few months after the war. Stress, Leia told him. It's taking a toll on all of us.

"I can't do it anymore," Finn whispers, the soft, shallow intake of breath fading into the mist of the planet's atmosphere. "It's… so painful, Rey. That they would question my allegiance after everything I've tried to do for them. I-I didn't want the Resistance, y'know? I just. I wanted to run, to get away from the Order. I watched my friends die, all the people I grew up with. But the Republic doesn't understand, because Stormtroopers aren't people to them-we're just flesh-in-armor. Born and raised to die."

"Finn," Rey's pulling him closer, his head knocking against one of her tiny shoulders as her arms sling around his back, the touch a comfort Finn is only now realizing he missed. "They don't know what you're going through- nobody here does, not unless they've experienced it firsthand. But it's because… because of the Order, because you're different that they don't trust you. The Republic doesn't like things they can't understand, can't… label. It's just how things are."

Finn's head shakes, once, eyelashes fluttering as lids fall over brown-shaded orbs. "I wanted it to be different here. But every side is the same, underneath their ideals and methods. They just want to win, they want to have control and to impress their views."

"I know." Rey's hand stills on the back of his neck, leaning forward until their foreheads are pressed together. "But we'll get through this, Finn. We've gotten through everything else."

Finn goes to see Hux one more time before the month is up.

The General he knew is gone, now, erased entirely from existence; the Hux in the cell can't be reconciled with anything, not the Order, not strength, not brutality or homicide. Here, he's not the genocidal maniac the Republic has made him out to be; he's hardly even a human, brittle limbs and bruised ankles, drawn in on himself like a man resigned to a lifeless existence.

"Hello, FN-2187," Hux begins, and Finn hardly opens his mouth to correct him before Hux's lips are twitching and he's biting down on the lower one, the pink flesh chapped and bloody. "No- Finn."

"Hi, Armitage." Finn responds, breathless.

Hux turns from where he's sitting atop a now well-worn mattress, clutching at the prisoner's uniform he'd been given, grey pants and a grey shirt, flimsy and useless. He smirks, so different from his usual scowl, brushing hair out of his eyes as he watches Finn's still form, in the doorway, overcast by the glare of fluorescent lights in the corridor.

"Won't you come sit with me, Finn? We still have so much to talk about... and such little time to fit it all in."

"I'll sit," Finn answers. "But you have to promise not to die on me yet."

Hux's chuckle is dry, brittle as the rest of him now appears; he moves over, stretches out languidly on his side. Finn doesn't even wait for the man to beckon him as he crosses the floor, sliding onto the too-small cot beside Hux, their eyes evenly matched, his legs sliding against Hux's own until they're tangled together, melded in a way Finn has yet to be with anyone else.

A hand caresses his face, weak, and Finn can hardly believe that this being, this… prisoner was General Hux, before. But then, there are the hints of a wild, raving psychosis in his eyes, and he's so stiff, still straight-backed the way he was on the bridge.

"Do you sleep like that?" Finn blurts out, idly. "I mean. Stiff, and rigid. Like a soldier."

"Do you sleep like a soldier?" Hux asks. Finn doesn't know.

He doesn't remember who initiated the kiss, but Hux's mouth is on his, their lips sealed, and there are ragged nails tearing into his back, Hux's thigh slinging about his waist, one ankle hooking over his back as he drags Finn closer, closer, as if he could absorb him, crush their bodies so close they got stuck together. Finn's tongue is sliding along Hux's lip, and the other man opens his mouth, wider, scraggly nails finally settling in Finn's hair, fingers tugging, an expression of anhedonia fixed on his face.

"Perhaps this is better than talking," Hux tells him. "I had no idea you were so brazen, Finn."

"Maybe I just thought you needed it," Finn replies. "Maybe I wanted to help you."

"You're too good for them," Hux murmurs. "For any of them. A bloody saint, really." Slim digits trace along Finn's forehead, down past his eye. "I suppose that's the difference between us, though. I was abused, you were abused. It's ironic, isn't it? That I became an abuser and you became an avenger. A… patron of goodness, for all intents and purposes." He rolls his eyes as a point of contention, the gesture both dismissive and annoyed at once.

"That's not true," Finn tries to protest, without understanding why he does so.

"Oh, but it is," Hux smirks. "Don't pity me, Finn. Phasma trained you better than that." Finn's face falters as Hux tucks his head into his broader chest, breath hot and heavy on his bare skin. "Don't pity me. Kiss me."

Nimble hands work his jacket from his shoulders; Finn's body feels like lead, all confused angles and unfortunate curves, and he's pulling at Hux's paper-thin prison garb, allowing the General to maneuver him onto his back, watching as he sits astride his hips and leans over him, every inch of their bodies touching, separated only by a measly layer of clothing. Finn's hands are on Hux's back, gripping in a phantasmagoric uncertainty as the ex-General bucks his hips and grinds his backside against the forming bulge in Finn's trousers.

Neither of them bother to strip further, rutting against each other with a dispassionate fervor until a white-hot cusp seems to build between them and Finn's vision blurs, goes wild with a mix of static and spots before his eyes.

Hux slides off of him, onto his side, watching Finn without touching him, as though anticipating his voice. Finn hardly knows what to say; he never imagined he'd end up here, in this position, lain beside his enemy with his own release staining the inside of his undergarments. Something about it causes him to feel guilty because this- sex and kissing and all of it- is something you're supposed to do with a lover, not your enemy.

"Hux," he tries. "How do you do it? Accept who you are, what you've done, without question? I've tried to understand and- I don't get it."

"You learn to follow orders," Hux says. "You learn it so well that it becomes ingrained in you, that you don't bother trying to question any of it, you just go through the motions and accept what they tell you as fact. Because you can't change it, and eventually you don't even want to- it's exhilarating when they finally put you in control, when they give you power to decide things, to give your own orders. You begin to think that it's the right thing to do because it's what your father did, what your mentor did, what your allies do. So you never question it. You just…"

"Give up," Finn finished. "You're giving up, Hux, by the why, because that's what they told you to do? Or because that's what you want?"

"Finn, I had my chance," Hux repeats, and he shifts his head, his face tucked against Finn's chest, an arm thrown over his waist. "I had my chance, and now what? I'm dying. I'm weak, foolish and selfish. You're the one with a chance, now. You decide what you're fighting for. Just make sure you don't fuck it up, because I assure you… you won't get a second chance."

"You can't kill him," Finn says to Leia, his hand on the General's arm after the final post-war conference. Leia doesn't betray any surprise, nor any emotion when Finn makes the remark, only bothering to tilt her chin up and watch him, waiting with a strong poker face and a poised posture.

"I thought," Leia starts, "at the beginning, that you would be the one calling for Hux to die."

Finn's own face appears anxious, run down and haggard, more than anyone his age should be; his arm is shaking, a tremble pushing out through his fingers as he removes his grip, wraps arms around himself with indecision.

"It's strange how things change, isn't it?" Leia echoes his own mounting neurosis. "Sometimes even we can't anticipate how we're going to react; the human mind is such a fickle thing. But I think it says a lot about you- that you can forgive a man like Hux after everything he's done."

Finn can taste blood in his mouth; his tongue stings with the pierce of teeth, and he adjusts his shoulders, bows his head slightly.

"He's... not so different than I am. Just more conditioned, more ingrained. It might be different if he wasn't born into the Empire- if none of them were. The choice isn't given to us, ma'am. We're conditioned to accept what the higher ups do without question, always have been. They don't all- most people don't do what I did. They don't run. Most of them end up like Hux, because they think it's what they're supposed to do. That it's what's right."

His head lifts, the glint of the galaxy reflecting through his soulful eyes, cries and insults and echoes of discrimination racing through his head. Finn looks at Leia, looks at himself, his wizened, aged reflection in the glass beside them, and he finishes:

"Even now, I don't know what I'm supposed to be doing- I'm torn between thinking I'm doing the right thing and questioning what the right thing is. But I think Hux deserves to live. In a prison cell, yes, but… he doesn't deserve to die. Stormtroopers don't deserve to die, officers don't, soldiers don't. They fight because they're raised in a culture that supports war. Hux didn't have a choice. I barely have a choice, but I also had the guts to question the system. My friends, the other troopers, they didn't bother. I've seen too much death because of the Order; don't let the Resistance keep raising the body count."

Hux is being loaded into the back of a prisoner transport vehicle when Finn arrives. His shoulders are taut, arms unnaturally angled as silver magcuffs dig into the skin of his wrists. Finn remembers those cuffs, before, seeing them outfitted on an older trooper's wrists as she was dragged off toward the interrogation chambers. The sight of them makes his stomach churn, queasy; Finn plasters on a brave face, a fake smile when his eyes flash to the General, then back to Hux.

First Order or not, Hux is as 'business' as ever when his chin tilts up and he angles himself so he's nearly looking down his nose at Finn. But Finn isn't scared, not anymore; Hux looks frail, now, weak like he's been mistakenly cobbled together from flesh and bone. His eyes are bloodshot to the very roots- the feeling is understandable. Finn hasn't slept well either, waking at night breathless from a mess of a dream, the sight of corpse-hands, those curling fingers and scraggled-nails dragging him down, down and down further and further pitch black darkness-

Finn glances to Rey for reassurance; she reaches out, watching them both, before her hand presses against her chest, just over her heart. Somehow, Finn knows the gesture was meant to be a secret- between the two of them, a display of solidarity and affection he's never found elsewhere.

He looks up.

"You're going to live."

"Yes, I know." Hux acknowledges, droll and devoid of emotion. His head dips a single time, knuckles cracking as he flexes his hands within the tight grip of steel. "I suppose you want me to thank you."

"I didn't do it for me," Finn answers, certain as ever. "I did it for them. Everyone else. The troopers and… and those of us missing our families. Those of us who don't know who we are… or never got a say."

Hux raises an eyebrow, turns his head. Finn knows better than to be put off by it.

He thought Hux a monster, when they first spoke. Some sort of harbinger for death and despair, left on the Resistance's doorstep for the sake of causing him pain.

But things have changed; Hux is no larger-than-life monster, an unstoppable, murderous deity. He's a man, just like Finn.

"I hope you're in there for a long time." Finn says. "I'm telling you as your enemy. You deserve it, you know."

Hux cringes, then straightens his back; shuffles closer, peers down at Finn.

"Well, then, traitor. I hope there's a great deal of pain in your future- bleeding heart, and all." He nearly- possibly- forms a smile. "But then, why should I care? I'll be rotting in a cell."

For once, there's not a trace of malice within the tight-laced Armitage Hux's voice.

Finn turns to Rey again.

She's smiling.

A/N: fic cross-posted on Ao3; finally putting it up on here as well... i think this pair has a very interesting dynamic. if you've gotten this far, thanks for reading. :)