Okay, so, I sat on this one for a while, mostly because I am literally blushing as I post it. It’s just…. I saw this pair of heels, and all I knew in that moment was that I wanted to see Hux in it. And while waffling on whether or not I should draw it, I came across this (very nsfw) gifset, and, well, I mean… I’m only human.
Okay. I’m out to go hide in my dumpster of shame now.
Bonus: Here’s what happened when Kylo finally got home.
Even through the ever-present helmet, Hux can feel Ren’s eyes on him. It’s like a physical pressure on his back, between his shoulder blades. He’s never been sure if it’s some side effect of the Force, but he suspects. Ren wields it the same way he does his saber, which is to say, with maximum brutality. But Hux doesn’t allow himself to notice it properly until they’re out of orbit and he reaches up to flick the autopilot on.
“What is it?” He snaps, looking over his shoulder. The pressure lifts from his shoulders as Ren suddenly straightens up in the jumpseat.
“You-” Ren starts, voice thick through the vocoder, but he stops to pull his mask off, revealing a sleepy face and mussed hair. He rubs his eyes with his gloved fingers, and Hux mildly hopes there’s something filthy enough on them to give him an eye infection.
“You fell asleep,” Hux says, pointing out the obvious. Which means Ren must have been thinking about him in his sleep, which is something Hux doesn’t want to think about too closely. “Do you always dream so loudly?”
“You have no melody.”
It has been years since one of Ren’s mystical non sequiturs has actually distracted him; Hux has learned it’s usually best to not get involved, when it comes to the Force. Ren lifts one of his hands to his temple, knitting his brows. “You—you’re quiet.”
“That’s the best time I’ve ever been accused of being quiet,” Hux says. The autopilot beeps gently in the background. All is well, it says. All is safe.
“In the Force,” Ren says.
Hux turns in his seat. Despite himself, his curiosity is piqued. “Am I not supposed to be?”
Ren exhales, face settling into an unsettlingly serene expression. It’s an expression he often wears when speaking of the Force. “Most sentients in the galaxy have a Force signature. Like a call sign. I hear them. Constantly.”
“These Force signatures… they sound like songs?”
Ren shakes his head minutely. “Not all of them. Supreme Leader sounds like a single, clear note. But most.”
“Then the Finalizer must be a cacophony for you.”
“Not when I’m with you,” Ren says, and glances away to stare out at the expanse of stars ahead of them.
Despite Ren’s shifting gaze, Hux still feels overly seen. “Because I don’t have a Force signature?”
Ren almost nods, but reconsiders, biting on his full lower lip. Hux glances away to the command console—paying attention to Ren’s mouth always makes him feel a little unseemly. All is well, it indicates. All is safe.
“I think your Force signature is silence. It’s… comforting. I sometimes seek it out.” Ren glances back at him, and Hux feels scalded by his dark eyes. He had no idea Ren thought of him as anything other a cocommander at best and an obstacle at worst. The idea that Ren finds any measure of comfort from his presence makes his face feel hot.
He’s staring.
Hux turns back to the console. “Well, if it helps you sleep,” he says, business-like and a little too loudly. He busies himself rechecking coordinates he’d already double-checked before they left and sending another reminder to the pilot meeting them at the rendezvous point.
He doesn’t dare turn around. At least, not until he feels the weight of Ren’s unconscious attention at his back again. He looks back to find Ren, asleep, mouth open and looking, for once, at peace.
Ben did the charming
while Hux did the thieving. As much as Hux would have liked to laugh
at the thought that Ben Solo could ever charm anyone, Ben’s father
had trained him in con artistry, and he could be convincingly human
and even likable when he wanted something. This was part of the
reason Hux was slipping a package of hot dog buns under the hem of
his baggy sweatshirt in a convenience store off of Interstate 15,
just outside of Vegas: Ben had wanted something, Hux had opened his
legs, and now here they were. Partners in petty crime.
“I couldn’t find
lube,” Hux confessed while they walked together back to their camp
in the desert, Ben having successfully kept the old man at the
counter occupied with his sob story about needing to use the land
line to call his mom. The suggestion that Ben would ever speak to his
mother again was the height of irony, but Hux didn’t mention this
when Ben chose that as a cover.
“You could have at
least grabbed some lotion,” Ben said. His gaze was on the horizon,
and every now and again he checked back over his shoulder.
“We have lotion,”
Hux said.
“Yeah, a kind that
sucks. You’re the one who’s chafing.”
“I’m not
chafing!” He was, though. Hux knew he should stop letting Ben fuck
him, but at night, under the stars, there was nothing else to do. And
it felt good, chafing or not. “I got Vaseline,” Hux muttered.
“And band-aids, for your feet.”
“What I need is
new socks.”
“Well, they didn’t
have socks! Maybe we should move camp.”
“Yeah.”
They were tired
after the long walk, Hux sweating like mad even as the temperature
dropped, the sun sinking. Instead of moving camp, Hux tugged the
sweatshirt off, spread the loot out on top of it and sat bare-chested
on the ground, watching Ben make a fire and cook the hot dogs on a
stick.
Hux was so sick of
hot dogs. But at least they had buns tonight. He ate three and then
felt sick, crawled into the tent to moan and shiver in his underwear
as night came on and the coyotes started up in the distance. Ben
howled back at them like an idiot.
“Stop doing that,”
Hux said when Ben came into the tent to drape all over him, smelling
like hot dogs and smoke from the fire he just doused.
“Doing what?”
Ben licked Hux’s neck. They were both filthy, but both appreciated
the stale taste of each other’s dried sweat. There wasn’t much
flavor in their current lifestyle otherwise.
“Howling,” Hux
said. “I won’t help you when they show up and attack. It’s what
you deserve.”
“They won’t
attack me, they’re my friends.”
“You’re so– ah, wait.”
Hux rolled onto his
back and looked up at Ben, not sure what he was asking Ben to wait
for or what either of them were ever waiting for or even doing
anymore. He only knew that he couldn’t face Brendol yet or maybe ever again, and that he never saw
Ben’s eyes like this at home: alive, unafraid, dangerous with
overspilling, unrestrained joy.
“Tomorrow we
should hitch back toward the strip,” Ben said. “I have an idea
about that girl with the monkey.”
“You’re going to
rob the pathetic monkey girl?”
“She’s not so
pathetic. She’s got a monkey, doesn’t she? I’m only going to
steal her tips. Not the monkey.”
“Then what?”
“Then we shower in
a motel and start working on bigger marks.”
Hux moaned at the
thought of showering and let Ben lick and nip at his throat again.
All of this was folly but it was an adventure, maybe the only real
one Hux would ever have. Eventually he would return home and join the
Air Force to get away from Brendol. That was the real plan, which he
didn’t tell Ben, because he knew Ben had no similar escape route.
Because he didn’t want one.
Ben wouldn’t go
home. He’d run off with the coyotes. Hux would see him someday,
maybe, from across a casino floor, but Ben wouldn’t recognize him.
He’d have gone feral by then, without Hux to hold him at least
adjacent to civil society by way of his body. Meanwhile, Hux opened
his legs again, still planning to keep Ben squeezed between them for
as long as he could.
dispatches from the dumpster 