“They took of holo of me,” he says, punctuating the silence with a drag on his cigarette. “A gaudy thing, made me pose and everything. Not my idea of course.”
He hears Ren’s sharp intake of breath, loud in the darkness. Hux remembers the holo exactly. The bright red brand of the cigarette the only light, the Senator’s blood still warm on his shirt–searing his skin. He’d known even then it would mean a promotion. General Hux.
He wasn’t sure why he’d let them take the holo. Or perhaps he simply hadn’t yet admitted it to himself. That awful truth that people were easiest to manipulate when they were all just the slightest bit in love with you. He stroked his fingers through Ren’s hair, contemplative in the silence.
Ren fidgets in the bed beside him. “Show me,” he pleads.
“I didn’t keep it,” he replies, furrowing his brow in annoyance.
“No,” says Ren, pressing a palm against either side of Hux’s face, grip hot, the weight of his body stifling. Familiar, always too familiar. Taking liberties. He presses his forehead against Hux’s, breath mingling. “Show me. Hux. Please.”
“Ren.” He shouldn’t, he knows. Shouldn’t give the Knight this piece of him, this private glimpse into his mind. To give Ren an inch is to give him a mile. But he does, anyway, despite himself–relaxes into Ren’s touch and opens his mind. And its easy, so easy to let him in.
He needs to keep his distance.
Ren’s breath hitches subtly in his throat and Hux knows he can see it, but all Hux can see is Ren. Ren, above him, illuminated and darkened in the shifting light of his cigarette. Shadows bloom, catching in the hollow of his throat, threading into his dark hair as he closes his eyes. The movement of chest and shoulders and neck as he breathes.
Yes, thinks Hux, he needs to keep his distance.
dispatches from the dumpster 