“I was certain you hated me. I still don’t know why you don’t. I’ve never given you a good reason to like me.” And it wasn’t like he had tried all that hard to be likable either. Quite the opposite. He’d done everything in his power to keep himself from becoming attached to anyone. Feelings were a distraction from his true path to ultimate power. Unless it was anger which Snoke was all too eager to use against him. It had been so easy to blind him. Snoke had been doing it for years before he joined the First Order. It was a miracle that Ben had been able to break free at all. Sometimes he still had nightmares that those claws had returned, pulling him back into the shadows.
“You and I?” That stupid heart of his fluttered. He chuckled. “You still would have wanted to join me? If we could go back and it was you and me?” They could have been elite. “Do you think that’s why Snoke pitted us against each other so much?” Snoke had been constantly weaving in and out of his mind, peering where he wanted and poking his sore spots like they were inconveniences that needed to be torn out and not issues to be resolved and healed. He’d seen the little spark, that flame that ignited whenever he was in the other man’s presence. Just another distraction. Ben should have been far more suspicious when Snoke had been so eager for him to try and turn Rey. He’d dangled her in front of him, teasing him again with that hope of being wanted. Of being loved.
A huge fallen tree lay in their path, the trunk as high as his head. Ben jumped and pulled himself up, then turned and held out his hand to help pull Hux up. “We could still be a team, if you wanted.” Once they were both on top of the fallen tree, Ben sat for a minute to look around. He might have needed a minute to collect his thoughts on how he felt about his father and his uncle showing up too. He snorted and gave a very Solo-shrug. “They’re from a different time so it’s .... for lack of a better word, different. I spoke with Han recently. I didn’t kill him so that’s a start. There might have been a hug.” He did a quick sweep of the area. In the distance, south of them, he could see another handful of tall bug-looking things. If they were quiet, they could pass by unnoticed. “I haven’t talked to my uncle yet which is fine. I wouldn’t even know what to say to him. Probably something inappropriate like asking him if he enjoyed sticking his tongue down my dad’s throat.” This time, he laughed. “But that’s not nearly as surprising as everything else.”
Pushing him down the other side of the tree, he landed back on the ground with a soft thud. His feet were looking too dirty and gross. Sexy. He turned and waited for Hux to join him. “Is that you became a spy for the resistance? Because of what I said to Rey?”