[Closed]

[prophesiedone]

Who: Anakin & Hux
What: Anakin gets his own ghostly visitors.
Where: Their house.
When: Right now.
Warnings: Some gore and lots of sad.

How could he forget the broken, bloody form of his mother? Shmi Skywalker had been barely clinging to life when he had found her. She hadn't really been able to open her eyes because they were so encrusted with blood, but she had known he had come to save her. She had died knowing he had come to save her. When she appeared at the foot of his bed, Anakin thought he was having one of his now common-place nightmares. While he didn't dream of her every night, he did see her often enough that, at first, that made sense.

"Mother..." he raised his left hand, fingers trembling, yet instead of receiving some sort of warm reception, Shmi, instead, gazed at him in horror.

"Ani what have you done?" her voice was weak, but he could hear nothing but it.

"What do you mean? I tried to save you! I know I failed..." he fell silent when she shook her head.

"What you did afterwards wasn't right. What you are doing now isn't right! The Jedi are good and you have turned your back on them?"

Anakin Skywalker had never truly argued with his mother. It was one of his cardinal rules. Yet he opened his mouth to do so now before promptly shutting it. His body was shaking and he felt nauseous hearing her say those words of condemnation.

"He's doing it for me. Or that's what he tells himself."

The new voice made it worse and he let out a cry of despair, tumbling out of bed when Padmé appeared.

She was just as ghostly as Shmi.

Anakin took one look, jumped to his feet and ran. In his blind panic, he didn't care where he ended up, but somehow he found himself at the door to Hux and Ben's room. With no regard to the fact that he was shirtless and looking more crazed than ever, he knocked on the barrier, gritting his teeth so hard his head ached.

Comments

[therewillbeorder]

Hux was instantly awake when he heard pounding on the door. He had trained himself to wake instantly, it was necessary when he was always on call as a commanding officer. He glanced over at Kylo who was still fast asleep and carefully pulled away, taking care not to disturb either him or the cats.

There was only one person who would be banging on their door at night and he yawned as he pulled on his robe and opened the door to peer at Anakin. As he woke up more, he remembered about the ghosts others- and himself and Kylo- had been seeing and he wondered if Anakin was now seeing the same thing. He pulled the door closed behind them so they could talk without waking Kylo up.

"So who is it that you see?" he asked as he looked at Anakin, deciding to get right to the point.

[prophesiedone]

Somewhere between Hux waking up and getting to the door, Anakin was beginning to realize how he must look. But it was too late. The General was soon standing beside him, witnessing his break-down.

And his shirtless - and armless - appearance.

Running his only - and shaking - hand through his hair, he motioned away from the door, doing his best not to add to the bad situation by throwing up too. But it was a close call and that was why he didn't answer immediately.

"My mother...and...Padmé." his throat clenched and he fought for breath while the world heaved under his feet, "They both...were so angry at me."

[therewillbeorder]

"We should go downstairs, I don't want to wake Kylo up." And he needed coffee. As much as he had trained himself to wake up on a moment's notice, here he had gotten used to being able to sleep for longer periods of time and now he was starting to feel groggy.

He knew he wasn't going to be able to haul Anakin up if he fell or catch him, he reached out to put his hand on Anakin's arm as he helped him downstairs. "You are the only one who has seen ghosts, it seems to be happening around the city."

Once they were downstairs, he let go of Anakin's arm as he moved towards the kitchen to start the coffee.

[prophesiedone]

"Yeah." Anakin felt bad for potentially disturbing his grandson. His grown grandson. Right. It wasn't like he might disturb a baby. Oddly, despite knowing that, he still felt guilty at the thought of spooking Ben.

Hux, on the other hand, was a whole different story. Yet he was grateful for the General and he felt like they were building a friendship. Whatever that meant. He should probably feel bad for Hux too.

The hand on his arm made him jump, but he settled quickly, blinking:

"Have you seen any?"

Anakin took a seat at the kitchen table, shaking as he did all in his power to not look towards his bedroom.

[therewillbeorder]

"Yes."

Hux saw no point in lying at the moment, especially now that Anakin had seen ghosts of his own. He finished making the coffee, setting a mug in front of Anakin before sitting down at the table with him.

"Just one and only for a moment," he explained after a long pause. He hadn't seen Brendol since he had shot his father's ghost which he was grateful for. Seeing his father even for a moment had shaken him more than he cared to admit. He had made sure to make the coffee strong, he had a feeling they both needed it. "We're not the only one who have seen ghosts, it seems to be happening to others in the cave."

[prophesiedone]

"They're toying with us." again. He gritted his teeth and barely refrained from slamming his hand against the table. The noise could wake up Ben and potentially break his only hand. He needed to be at the top of his game; he needed to be in control.

"Somehow that's not comforting." and yet it was. Shmi and Padmé hadn't traveled to speak to him of their own will. They might even be controlled! But in his heart he knew they were not.

They were speaking their minds as they always had in life.

"I should be happy to see them. I can't stand how they looked at me!" he forced himself to pause and drink some of the coffee, "Like I was... A monster."

[therewillbeorder]

"Of course. The ghosts evoke a strong emotion for many so it's easy for them to feed off of this energy." Hux didn't hide his displeasure, it was why he and Maketh were working on trying to stop the gods. He didn't like being fed off of, it was like having an emotional parasite.

"There is a way to get rid of them but I understand it's difficult," he said slowly after a moment. "It's not real, I doubt it's really them who have been brought here."