Bad Jedi

nightsofllyn:

When Ben bursts onto the balcony the two officers jump apart as if they weren’t kissing a moment before. The big one goes skulking back toward the party without looking back, but his mind is a string of curses and frustrated plans for the slender redhead he’s leaving behind. Hux. Ben fishes the name out of a nasty fantasy as the man passes by, bumping Ben’s shoulder.

“What are you smiling at?” Hux asks, once they’re alone. His accent–unexpected–makes Ben shy, and he stands momentarily frozen under Hux’s cold gaze. Hux takes a sip from his tumbler before asking his next question into the awkward silence, taking in Ben’s shaggy hair, his long robes, “Are you a Jedi?”

“A padawan,” Ben says, feeling braver now, brave enough to walk to the marble rail and rest his elbows beside him.

Hux considers him, eyes narrowed, licking the taste of the other man from his lips along with the whiskey as he looks, “So,” he says, “since you can’t get off yourself you get off cockblocking others.”

“I can still get off,” Ben says, bristling.

“That’s not what I’ve heard about your kind,” Hux teases. This was important in the other man’s fantasy–Hux’s sharp edges and cruel tongue. Ben finds he likes them, too.

“Not me,” he says, “I break the rules,” then leans closer still to slip the glass from Hux’s hand and drain it. He’s proud of himself for not choking, proud of himself for the way Hux purses his lips in disapproval but doesn’t move away.

“A bad Jedi,” Hux says, accepting back his empty glass, and, though he’s voicing Ben’s greatest fear–what keeps him up at night, distracts him during the day–it doesn’t sound so terrible coming from his lips.

“A good Jedi,” Ben says, “I saved you from that man’s attention.”

“I was enjoying that man’s attention,” Hux says, wry. His shoulder is brushing Ben’s, their faces turned toward each other.

“Not like you’re enjoying mine,” Ben says. It’s strange. He’d only wanted to spook a couple of First Order goons, escape the horrible political mixer for a moment. He doesn’t understand how Hux has drawn him in so quickly, his senses consumed by the golden shine of the Coruscant lights in his eyes. The way his thoughts–so steeped in practiced cynicism–have tipped toward amused interest with Ben at his side.

The truth is that, though Ben may lie, cheat, and steal, he’s never defied the code of celibacy. Yet, as he watches Hux’s pale lashes fall closed in the moment before their first kiss, Ben finds that this rule, too, breaks easily.