it’s been many, many years since i’ve draw as much as i have since finding you all. it’s been a few weeks now, and i am really starting to feel like my old self again. i hope i can keep this feeling forever, but even if i can’t, please know that i made this piece with all of you in mind. you guys were the light in my very dark artistic head space. a special thank you to @jeusus , @no-hux-given , and @space-emos , for filling my dash every day with the kind of work that makes me want to be better in all the ways that matter. *real tears*
A very dramatic scene from his gorgeous fanficiton Loyalty. Hux is shot, Ren protects him. Go read it. I had really fun working on this. Thank you for commissioning me. ♥
Though Hux gets Ben into bed easily, he struggles to get him out of it the next morning.
“But why?” Ben whines.
“Because,” Hux says, because that’s reason enough. Or it should be reason enough. But Ben is willful. Willful and too big to push out of the bed, though Hux tried earlier while Ben laughed. Willful and too big and warm, draped over Hux, kissing the bruises he left behind last night. So Hux tilts his head to give him more room and decides to suffer his presence a little longer.
“Just so you know,” he says, shivering under the light touch of his lips, “for future reference, it’s considered polite to disappear into the night after this kind of thing. Rather than linger past breakfast.”
Ben is silent for a moment, completing his lazy kissing tour of Hux’s neck, before he says, hopefully, “Breakfast?”
“No.”
Ben hums, undaunted. His breath is hot against Hux’s hair, his long fingers closing over his hipbone, “Again?”
Again. This time Hux isn’t drunk, and Ben’s not a virgin. Hux doesn’t call him names–or at least, not as many–and Ben lasts and lasts.
And lasts. Until–Hux thinks, hazily, this can’t be right–but the light from outside seems to fade from blue to orange, then black. He watches the moons rise upside down, in a kind of trance, head hanging off the side of the bed, blood pulsing in his temples. He’s soaked with sweat. The sheets cling to his back. Ben clings to his front, fucking him so, so slow.
Whatever this is it’s Ben’s fault, but he’s not immune either: his chest a map of long, red scratches, fat bottom lip split, eyes like the eyes of some village healer high on dried bantha dung, at once rolled back and half-lidded, eyelashes fluttering. It should be frightening. Hux isn’t scared.
He should be thirsty, hungry, exhausted. He’s not. He will be later. He’ll sleep the whole trip back to the Outer Rim, on his stomach, ass too tender for sitting, blue with bruises, moaning for Ben in his dreams.
But here and now he moans for Ben and Ben answers. They speak in low whispers, foreheads pressed together, saying things Hux won’t remember later, though he’ll try.
Later, someone knocks at Hux’s door, worried. Ben pulls his fingers from Hux’s mouth to let him answer. Hux says go away.
It’s a shock. He’d forgotten there was anyone else–anyone else at all–anyone else in the universe. Ben draws him back in with rough kisses, a hypnotizing tongue, and he soon forgets all over again.
At sunrise, Ben licks come and tears from Hux’s cheeks, kneeling between his legs on the floor. Hux has hiccups, has discovered that Ben can read his mind, has lost track of how many times he came, wonders if he’ll ever be able to again.
You have to go, he thinks, once he can think again, if you don’t– But he’s not brave enough to finish the thought.
Ben says, “Okay,” and gets dressed. Easy as that. If Hux were himself, he’d say he could have used that kind of attitude a day earlier, but he’s not himself. Not anymore. And the memories of who exactly he is are returning in a trickle, not the flood he would expect.
Ben looks younger with clothes on, the hood of his robe hiding his long, tangled hair. Hux shows him out, trying not to limp, passing Phasma and the other officers, who are eating breakfast. Their conversation dies, utensils forgotten halfway to mouths. It’s the longest walk of Hux’s life, and at the end Ben turns to look him over–just a drowsy, possessive look, nothing more, nothing less–before he steps outside.
Hux stands there stunned until Phasma says, “Did you fuck a Jedi?“
But when he opens his mouth to answer, he finds he’s lost his voice.
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.
dispatches from the dumpster 