Relax time
It was Ren who introduced him to baths with real water in them.
His earliest memories were of the wastelands of exile, eking out an existence in the Imperial ash he was expected to rise from. Then came the Academy, bits and pieces of bygone grandeur held together with rust and dogma. He was a Major, 24 years old when he realised that something as precious as water could be used for bathing. At the time it struck him as an appalling waste, but that was ten years ago.
He has since learned the value of indulgence.
Ren was the first, seducing him with his eyes and lips and awkward, wary infatuation. After that it was a matter of time before other New Republic
decadences wormed their way under his defenses.
The bath was in Ren’s quarters. The Knight’s return from his scouting mission was three days overdue, not that Hux was counting. He told himself the hot soak would help with the tension in his shoulders (the tightness in his chest, he refused to acknowledge).
He hadn’t been sleeping, couldn’t recall when last he’d had more than a few stolen moments in a chair in his study.
He startled awake, the water cool and sloshing.
“Shh. It’s me,” breathed against his ear. The distinctly Ren smell of blood and ash and battle enveloped him, more comforting than any bathing ritual could be.
There was a hand on his chest, edging lower, glove and all.
Hux relaxed with a shudder and breathed him in.
dispatches from the dumpster 