Chapter Text
Ben meets him in a cantina on the out-of-the-way planet of Boran.
He's twenty-one and too old for a schoolboy crush, but his years of sequestration with Luke have set Ben back socially. If Luke had his way, Ben would still be with him, the faithful padawan learning and teaching the next group of younglings in the ways of the Force, but Ben can't do it. He needs freedom. “Just for a while,” he tells Luke, as he packs his bag. “I'll come back soon.”
“Your emotions are still unstable,” Luke warns. “You lack moderation. You're impulsive.” Ben knows this refrain. According to Luke, to Ben's parents, to pretty much everyone Ben's ever met, this instability is particularly dangerous, because apparently Ben is susceptible to the Dark Side. He's never seen evidence of it for himself.
“Right.” Ben forces a smile. Well, he thinks, I'd love to sit around discussing my faults with you yet again, but... “I'll see you later.”
As soon as the shuttle takes off, Ben grabs a knife and slices off the braid that marks him as a Jedi.
I'm not ashamed of it, Ben thinks. I just don't want everyone I meet asking me to Force-float them a drink.
The cantina is rough, but not as rough as some he used to visit with his father. That's part of the reason Ben was sent away to Luke. He knows that now, although at the time, it was all a confusing, upsetting mess. His parents were fighting all the time, in harsh whispers Ben could still hear clearly. Han was sliding back into his old ways, drinking and gambling and taking risks, and he was bringing Ben along with him.
“Do you want him to end up like you?” Ben remembers his mother snapping, loudly because he was meant to be asleep. Instead, Ben was sitting at the top of the stairs, clutching his favourite toy ship, the one that looked a bit like the Falcon, and listening. “A pathetic two-bit con?”
“Better than a smug, self-righteous do-gooder like your side of the family. Oh, but I forgot, your dad wasn't exactly like that, was he?”
“Ben is in danger of falling to the Dark Side. Luke told us that.” Ben didn't understand what that meant, yet, but his mother had said it before. It made Ben worry there might be something frightening inside him, hidden like a monster and poised to jump out at any moment.
“Luke tells us a lot of things,” Han said, and stormed out. Ben's mother started to cry. Ben wanted to go down and comfort her, but he was supposed to be in bed, so that's where he went. Three days later, Ben was on his way to train with Uncle Luke.
The last time Ben was in a cantina like this, he sat on the bar, drinking blue milk through a straw while the bartenders fussed over him and his father disappeared into a back room to do who knew what. This time, Ben strides through the door full of confidence, only to stop dead. It's packed. A band is playing in the corner, but Ben can barely see them through the heaving mass of patrons. Every table is occupied, and at the bar, creatures stand three deep as the single, harried-looking Twi'lek bartender tries to keep up.
Ben hesitates, but this, he reminds himself, is exactly what he left Luke to find. Adventure, excitement. A taste of adulthood that doesn't involve staring at a single twig for hours on end, or using mind powers to lift scuttled ships out of swamps. Luke is particularly keen on that exercise, for some reason. By the time he was fifteen, Ben had salvaged enough fake wrecks to have his own fleet.
Squaring his shoulders, Ben marches into the cantina and stands at the edge of the crowd. Slowly, through a sort of osmosis, he's pushed further and further forward, until, finally, he is wedged up against the bar. “Excuse me,” he says, as the bartender passes by. She ignores him. On her next pass, he tries again, louder. “Excuse me.” She looks through him, as if he's invisible. Ben frowns.
“You'll never get a drink that way.” A human beside him says. It takes Ben a moment to understand the man is addressing him. When he realizes, Ben looks over. The man is young, around his age, and handsome, with remarkable red hair and long eyelashes. It's easy to notice such details, as the crowd is pressing the two of them together so intimately that their position would be illegal on some of the more conservative planets. The stranger smells like liquor, although to be fair, the smell could be coming from any of the dozens of beings in Ben's immediate vicinity.
“What should I do?” Ben asks.
The man's eyes flick over, meeting Ben's. He's more slightly built than Ben, who could probably pick him up with one arm. Ben pictures it, suddenly, his arm around this handsome man's waist, and he looks away, hoping his blush isn't obvious in the dim light. Pathetic, Ben scolds himself. What are you, fifteen?
“This.” The man slams a handful of credits down on the bar and says, loudly, “Gamorrean rye. Neat.” His voice, tinged by an accent, cuts through the din. As if by magic, the bartender places a glass a quarter-full of amber liquid on the bar and scoops up the credits. Ben's impressed. The feeling turns to surprise when the man presses the glass into Ben's hand. “Enjoy. But don't drink too fast, you don't seem like you're used to it.”
“Oh,” Ben says, blinking. “I...” But the man is gone, before Ben can even say thank you.
He takes the glass and tries to find somewhere to sit. Every chair is occupied, as are many surfaces that weren't designed for that purpose. The crowd is like a living entity, expanding to fit any available space. When the band takes a break, the hoard surges onto the stage, covering it as well. Ben begins to feel short of breath. He looks for the thin sliver of daylight that indicates the door and swims toward it, clutching his untouched drink. He's nearly there when a voice says, “Please, could you help me?”
Ben looks down. It's a woman, waif-like, with long fair hair. She's pretty enough, although it's the sad look in her big brown eyes that makes Ben stop. “What's the matter?”
“My brother.” She sobs into the sleeve of her tattered green dress.
Amazingly, there's a free chair at her table. Ben sits down. “Can I help?”
“Maybe.” The woman puts a hand on his arm. Her fingernails are dirty. “He's been missing for more than a week. I had a message telling me to meet him here today, but he didn't show up. I'm worried he's in trouble.”
“What sort of trouble?” Ben takes his first sip from the glass. It burns all the way down his throat and makes him cough. He clears his throat suavely to cover it up.
“I'm worried he owes money to the wrong people. Daveen was always bad about gambling.”
“I know what that's like,” Ben says. “My father was a gambler. Still is, for all I know.”
“That's terrible.” The woman's eyes light up with sympathy. “I'm Shastya.”
“Ben.”
She shakes her head. “We never knew our parents. It was always just Daveen and I. But now he's gone, and if I can't figure out some way to pay his debts, I'll be all alone, forever. I don't want to be alone, Ben.” Her hand tightens on his arm. “I hate to ask this, I know we're strangers, but I would be so, so grateful if you could help, even just a little. So very grateful.” She gives him a strange look. Ben feels something on his leg. Worried about vermin, he scoots his chair back and looks down to see Shastya's bare foot, the toenails painted red, rubbing against his calf.
“There you are!” There's a voice behind him. Ben turns to see the man who gave him the rye. He claps Ben on the shoulder and says, “I've been looking everywhere for you. Come on.” He urges Ben to stand. Well, Ben thinks, he did buy me a drink.
Ben casts an apologetic look at Shastya and follows the man. As they step away from the table, the man says, “She's a con artist.”
“What?” Surely that can't be true. Ben didn't get any feeling of deception from her. Ben looks back, but Shastya is already gone, her table occupied by two hulking Besalisks.
“Let me guess,” the man says. Again, they're crushed together by the crowd, his mouth close to Ben's ear. “She's got a sick grandmother or a dying sister or a brother who's been kidnapped by the mob, and you're her only hope.”
“I...”
“She would have robbed you blind.” The man shifts backward a little, far enough for Ben to see his smirk. “Where are you from?”
“Coruscant.” Originally, anyway.
“Really?”
“I've...been living in the country for a while.”
“You should go home before you get yourself killed.” The man turns, as if to walk away. Ben watches as, almost of its own accord, his hand goes out and grabs the man's arm. The man stops.
“What...” Ben tries to think of a reasonable question. He doesn't want the man to leave, but he doesn't know what to say to make him stay. “What's your name?” He tries, then cringes inwardly at the sheer banality of it.
But the man replies. “Hux. Lieutenant.” He pronounces it “leftenant”. Ben has never heard anything sexier. You can't fall for the first guy you meet, he warns himself. That's the kind of juvenile shit Luke is expecting from you. “Do you need my serial number?” Hux asks, as a shabby Wookie pushes past him, pressing him even closer to Ben. Ben can feel the warmth of Hux's body through his plain, long-sleeved white shirt, which doesn't look like a uniform.
“Which army are you with?” Ben asks, grasping at conversational straws.
“The First Order.” Ben hasn't heard of them. “We're up and coming,” Hux says, as if he can read Ben's thoughts. “The next big thing.”
“Sure.” He nods, hoping that doesn't sound sarcastic. He swallows, his throat suddenly dry. “I'm Ben,” he says.
Hux looks at him for a moment, then bites his lip. Ben's stomach flips, and he prays he's not going to get hard. Hux would definitely feel it. “What do you do, Ben?” Hux asks. “For work, I mean.”
He can't tell the truth. He doesn't want to, anyway. “I'm a student.” It's not a total lie.
“Of...”
Ben swallows. “Philosophy.”
“Ah. That explains it, then.” Hux says this quietly, as if he's talking to himself. The crowd ebbs around them. “Do you want to go chat outside?”
“Yes.” Ben has never wanted anything more. He stays close to Hux as Hux unceremoniously pushes his way toward the door.
There's a park a short distance from the cantina. It's not exactly picturesque. Trash—food wrappers, paper cups, disposable cutlery—litters the ground. Yellow and blue birds, surprisingly attractive, peck at crumbs. The bench where Hux sits is missing two slats from the back and is liberally decorated with graffiti in many languages, but Ben sits beside him, his heart hammering.
“What brings you to Boran?” Hux asks, conversationally.
Ben shrugs. It was the closest planet that was far enough away from Luke. “Just a vacation.”
“On your own?”
Ben tells the truth. “I don't really have that many friends.” Or any, in fact. The younglings, including sweet little Rey, adore him, but the two other padawans have always been standoffish. Not unpleasant, exactly, or rude, but they have always kept to themselves outside of training hours, sitting together at meals and placing their mats at the other end of the sleeping hall from Ben's. Ben has thought, of late, that the two of them might be secret lovers, but he can't see how they could possibly manage it. More likely they just prefer one another's company to Ben's.
“Ah. Well, I can certainly sympathize there. As you can see.” Hux gestures. A few metres away, a Draethos dry heaves over a waiting sanitation pod. “I am also travelling alone.”
“They let you leave your unit by yourself?” Ben has no idea if this is unusual or not. It sounds odd.
“I haven't joined it yet. This is my last hurrah. My father's idea,” Hux adds, and the emphasis on the word father leaves no doubt as to how he feels about the man. “I'm meant to be sowing my wild oats.”
“My uncle didn't want me to come,” Ben says. “He's my J...my philosophy professor.”
“Something else we have in common, then. My father runs the First Order academy.” Hux's eyes go to the glass still in Ben's hands. “How do you like the rye?”
“It's great. Thanks.” Ben takes another sip, as small as physically possible. It still burns his throat and brings tears to his eyes. He blinks rapidly, hoping Hux hasn't noticed.
“It's bootleg shit,” Hux says, dismissively. He holds out his hand. Ben passes over the glass. He expects Hux to pour it out, but instead he drinks it, knocking it all back in one shot. His eyes grow brighter, and Ben knows that, while his speech is clear and his hands are steady, Hux is drunk. He saw the same brightness in Han's eyes, sometimes, when he would come home late and swing Ben wildly through the air “like the Falcon”, while Ben shrieked with glee and Leia looked on with a frown. “I can get you something better at my hotel. If you want.”
Luke's training program included the basics of sexual education, mostly as a list of feelings Ben and the others should watch for and avoid. Imagination and instinct have helped him to fill in the gaps. Hux is very inspirational, Ben finds, when it comes both to imagination and instinct, but still, Ben hesitates. “I'm not...” Ben doesn't know what he wants to say. This is why he's here. He wants adventures, adult experiences, fun and excitement. A one night stand with a handsome soldier would fulfill all those wishes. Hux isn't exactly sober, but does that matter? They're both adults.
“You're very naive,” Hux says, and even in his clipped accent, it sounds like a compliment. “But even you must know you're very handsome.”
“What?” Ben's not. He has huge ears and a strange nose and he's marred with black spots he will never lose, even as the other padawans outgrow the era of acne.
“Come on.” Hux sets the glass down on the bench.
“Should we take that back to the cantina?” It's not the stupidest thing Ben could have said, but it is very close. He scowls at himself, but Hux laughs.
“Let's go,” he says, and, again, Ben follows him.
It's a fifteen minute walk to Hux's hotel. Halfway there, as they go through a pedestrian underpass, Hux lunges, pushing Ben against one filthy, cracked stone wall. It happens so fast, Ben doesn't have time to anticipate it. Hux presses his mouth to Ben's. Immediately, Ben begins to worry. Is his mouth too wet? Does his tongue remind Hux of a rathtar? What, exactly, is he supposed to do with his hands? Hux just kisses, his eyes closed and an occasional pleasant murmur coming from his throat. Slowly, Ben relaxes. He lets his hands go where they want, which is to Hux's shoulders, and then to Hux's backside. Hux seems to like that. He leans in. Emboldened, Ben lets his tongue tentatively leave his own mouth, carefully touching Hux's lips, and then Hux's tongue.
“Woo!” A stranger's voice yells, embarrassingly close. Another laughs. Ben tries to pull away, but Hux keeps him in place. Without looking at the strangers, without even opening his eyes, Hux makes a rude gesture in their direction. They laugh more loudly and move on. A long moment later, Hux steps back. His eyes shine even more brightly, and his mouth is wet. There's a bulge in the front of his trousers, which makes Ben slightly less self-conscious about his own state of arousal.
“You're good,” Hux determines. Ben feels himself flush with pleasure. “I didn't expect that.” Neither did Ben. “Let's see what else you're good at.” It sounds like a challenge. Ben is always up for a challenge.
Ben expects the hotel to be shabby like the cantina, but instead it's discreetly upmarket, all sleek lines and sterile Durasteel. The lobby is lit with a soothing blue light, and a droid stands behind the registration desk. Despite the high-class look of the place, Ben sees a screen displaying rates by the week, night and hour as he and Hux wait for the lift.
The room is small, but just as clean as downstairs. The smell of flowery cleaning products lingers in the air. The bed is large, with black sheets made of some shiny material that shimmers in the soft glow of two bedside lamps.
Ben's nerves come flooding back, and he stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. Does Hux expect him to strip off immediately? Will they have a drink first? Does Hux want Ben to take the lead, or does he want to do that himself?
Hux shuts the door behind him and immediately takes off his shoes. Ben takes that as a cue. He does the same, removing his shoes and socks with hands that are suddenly sweaty. He stops, frozen in place, when Hux pulls off his shirt.
He is gorgeous. His frame is light, his ribs showing clearly enough that Ben could count them, but that's obviously not a sign of malnutrition or illness. Hux's skin is very pale, as pale as Ben has ever seen on a human, and dusted with dozens of tiny freckles. Unlike the marks on Ben's own face and body, these little dots are alluring, enticing. Ben wants to trace them with his fingers and then with his tongue.
“I paid extra for real water in the 'fresher,” Hux says. “So I'm not letting it go to waste.”
“Okay,” Ben says. Hux continues to undress. He unfastens his pants and, without any hint of embarrassment, drops them and his briefs to the ground.
Ben has seen cocks before. Excessive modesty is not encouraged by the Jedi. But this is the first time Ben has really been able to look, and he finds he can't look enough. He's bereft when Hux wanders away into the refresher. He takes off his own clothes, listening as Hux turns on the shower. Is he supposed to go in there? Wait out here? This is all so foreign. Ben feels as if he's been dropped into an alien culture. He desperately wants to do the right thing, but what is that?
“Ben!” Hux calls, a hint of irritation to his voice. Ben sighs with relief and goes into the 'fresher.
Hux is fiddling with the shower, trying to make the temperature right. He glances over his shoulder, then does a double-take so obvious it would be funny, if Ben were relaxed enough to laugh about anything. Abandoning the shower, Hux turns around and takes in Ben from head to toe and back again, staring shamelessly. Ben's heart lifts. He knows he's in good shape. The Jedi lifestyle is one of physical exercise and good diet, and he's not blind. He sees his muscular chest, his washboard stomach, his powerful arms every day, but he's never been grateful for them the way he is now.
“You're...wow.” Hux doesn't seem like the sort of man who says, “wow” a lot.
“So are you,” Ben says, quickly. “Wow.” He means it.
“I can't wait to suck your cock.”
Ben's cock can't wait, either. It jumps to immediate attention. Hux slides back the transparisteel doors, and Ben steps into the shower.
It's been a long time since Ben felt real, warm water on his skin. He'd forgotten the indulgent pleasure of it, the way it immediately heats him to the core. He stands beneath the shower stream, pushing back his hair as it falls into his eyes. Hux wasn't kidding. As soon as the doors shut behind him, he's on his knees, his hands sliding up Ben's thighs.
“Hux, you don't have to...” Ben was expecting to spend some time kissing first, making out beneath the shower spray. Hux doesn't seem to want that. He looks up at Ben and all of a sudden, Ben doesn't want it, either. Hux licks his lips and Ben backs up to lean against the warm tiles, afraid that he might collapse at an inopportune moment if he doesn't have some sort of support.
Hux starts slowly, cradling Ben's balls in one hand while he plants little kisses up the length of his cock. That's all it takes. Ben is rock hard at once, leaking already. It's embarrassing. Hux licks him, and Ben's on the verge of coming. “Hux, wait...” He says, but Hux just grins up at him.
“I don't care if it's quick. I think you'll recover fast.” That's true. Ben's mind is already racing ahead, imagining what comes next. Sucking Hux, jerking him off, maybe even fucking him in that bed with the black sheets. Hux closes his mouth over the head of Ben's cock, enveloping him in a wet warmth so exquisite, Ben feels like his chest is going to burst. Sensation races up his body like a current, filling his brain with the sound of fizzling electricity and shattering transparisteel as he crests the hill and comes in Hux's mouth. It's so amazing that it takes Ben a moment to realize the sounds weren't only in his mind.
“What...” Hux says, then stops. Ben opens his eyes. The 'fresher has been plunged into darkness. No. He swallows. No, that didn't happen. Please. Please, that didn't happen.
Hux reaches past Ben and switches off the water. An emergency lighting system flickers on, a line of small lights at floor level that bathe the room in a dim red glow. The transparisteel shower doors have disintegrated, leaving only the Durasteel frame and a mountain of shards on the floor. It's joined there by the transparisteel from the broken light and the broken mirror, both of which have shattered into thousands of pieces.
“What...” Hux tries again, sounding dazed. “Is it an earthquake? We need to get downstairs.” He tosses a towel over the shards, creating a path to the door. Ben trails after him, his vision blurry and his fists clenched so tightly, his nails bite into his palms. He is not going to cry and make this even worse than it already is.
“It wasn't an earthquake,” Ben says, as Hux perfunctorily dries himself on another towel and throws on his shirt. The window in the bedroom is still intact, thankfully, as are the lamps and the holoprojector. “It was me.”
Hux stops. “You?”
Ben nods and wipes his eyes with one hand, clearing his vision. “I'm sorry.”
“You mean...” Hux's expression changes slowly. Ben can see realization dawning and, when Hux frowns, Ben knows he's figured it out. “You're a philosophy student, you said? So, exactly what kind of philosophy is it that you study?”
There's no point in lying now, not when his own body has betrayed him so spectacularly. Goosebumps rise on his rapidly cooling arms, legs, and body, and Ben confesses, “Jedi.”
Hux's eyes slide shut for a moment. He breathes in deeply. “I'm s—” Ben begins, wanting to apologize again.
Hux shakes his head. “Don't. You're a Jedi. Fine. That's fine.” He pulls on his pants and fastens them, then takes a bag from the bottom of the wardrobe. “It makes perfect sense, actually.” Ben watches helplessly as Hux ties the bag shut and throws it over his shoulder. “The room's paid until tomorrow morning, so feel free to stay if you want.” He shoves his sockless feet into his shoes.
“Hux, wait.”
“No.” Hux meets his eyes. They are so cold, it sends a shiver up Ben. For a moment, Hux seems about to say more, but he doesn't. He repeats, “No,” and leaves, slamming the door behind him.
Ben wants to follow, but what would he say? There's no denying it. Once again, the Force—something Ben never asked for and doesn't want—has ruined his life. Now that he's alone, Ben lets the tears flow, but he's not sad. He's angry. He feels furious at the world, at his mother who should have known better than to have a child, at his uncle who's done nothing but assume Ben's a Jedi, without ever asking how Ben feels about it.
Ben lashes out, sweeping a lamp from one of the bedside tables. It hits the carpet but doesn't break, so he picks it up, snapping the deceptively flimsy base with his hands. It's comforting, to a point, so he does it with the other lamp as well, breaking it in half and tossing the pieces to the ground. The bed is next. Ben wishes he had his light saber, so he could wreak real havoc, but he does as much as he can without it. He tears all the sheets from the bed. He uses the broken lamp pieces like knives, digging into soft belly of the mattress and exposing its foam innards. He does the same with the faux-leather headboard, carving it up, taking all of his frustration and unhappiness out on helpless objects. The holoprojector is carefully attached to the wall, but Ben is strong enough to rip it out, leaving jagged wounds in the wall itself. He throws it across the room, where it smashes with a sound so satisfying, it snaps Ben out of his mania.
He breathes deeply and dresses, a wave of calm descending over him as he does up his buttons, pulls up his briefs, fastens his shoes. He leaves the hotel without looking back and heads directly to the shuttle port.
When he arrives at his mother's apartment, it's early morning. Leia isn't in bed, of course, but sitting at her kitchen table in her bathrobe, drinking caf and looking over documents. She looks up when Ben lets himself in and says, “Good morning,” calmly, as if she was expecting him.
“I'm not going back to Luke,” Ben announces. He braces himself for a fight, physically squaring his shoulders and clenching his jaw in defiance.
“All right,” Leia says. Ben blinks, and she continues, “I would never force you to take that path, Ben. I'm hardly in a position to do that. But you can't do nothing. If you want to stay here, you need a purpose.”
Ben looks at the assortment of maps and holograms and datapads spread across the table. “I'll work with you,” he says.
Leia raises an eyebrow. “If that interests you.” She's not altogether in favour of the idea. Ben can sense trepidation on her part, but she says, “Welcome aboard,” and gets up to give him a hug.