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After a great deal of observation, done both over the day and night cycles, in public and in private, Ren has come to the conclusion that Hux has almost every trait required in order to be a success in everything he attempts. He is, as absolutely everyone in the known universe is aware, utterly ruthless, the kind of man who sees insubordination as a capital offense, who, it is whispered, has had inferiors demoted or maybe even killed for failing to address him properly. ("Armitage" belongs to Ren alone, since Hux's father died, and even Ren is more likely to call him 'General'.) He is painfully intelligent, both academically and intuitively. He has a brilliant head for numbers and for words. He is stoic, hard to crack. He is an effortlessly capable leader. He gives amazing head.
But he lacks one thing that Ren has always thought of as crucial in getting ahead of the pack. Hux is an absolutely awful liar.
It is, Ren suspected, a side effect of how thoroughly Hux believes in himself. This isn't a cute, self-confident, I-can-do-it! kind of a belief but more like the fervent iron will of a cult inductee. Hux worships at the shrine of himself, because he has provided for himself beyond what any god or spirit has been able to offer. To say something he doesn't really believe is a task that Hux finds difficult, and for someone who can sense intent the way Ren can, it's pretty damn obvious. You don't even need the Force to spot one of Hux's lies, you need only to look at the way his eyes dart and his mouth trembles and twitches, like his lips are dying to say the truth. His body is a traitor to his mind, loyal only to his heart.
Plus, he just thinks of the stupidest excuses. It'd be hilarious if it weren't infuriating.
It's not something he feels the need to do often, probably because he's aware of how badly he sucks at it. The first time he did it, Ren didn't even notice because he had just lost a bet hard enough to splatter the bedside table. He'd told Hux that handjobs were for amateurs and teenagers and were never really that good, and Hux had countered with that sort of snarl-purr are-you-sure? that he just excelled at. There was nothing false about Hux's confidence, nothing.
It wasn't until Ren had finished that Hux had needed to lie.
"You next?" Ren had panted.
"That won't be necessary," Hux had replied. "Watching you writhe as you prove me right is its own reward. Don't let it be said that I'm a selfish man."
A lie, repeated frequently. Hux trying to act like he was so good at undoing Ren that it was satisfying enough on its own. A bad bluff by someone holding his cards too close, not letting anyone else see. His nostrils flared to a comic degree. The other lies were even worse. Hux feigning sudden exhaustion when Ren's hands went for his belt. Hux claiming his muscles were sore. Hux trying to climb away and finish up work that suddenly needed, urgently, to be done.
"You really need to ensure the intel officers have turned in their mission reports now?" Ren had asked, swiping to try and yank at Hux's sleeve as he pulled away, nimble as a cat.
Hux's jaw spasmed as he tried to set it. "You could stand to show a little bit of gratitude, you know."
"I'm not ungrateful, you idiot, I'm just trying to repay the favor." Ren sat up, his cock still damp from Hux's mouth, and already Hux was nearly out the door. There was a faint but persistent sensation of shame in the air, and Hux seemed ready to bolt, so Ren took a stab at reassurance, something he had far less practice with than actually stabbing people. "I've seen you through your underwear, you know. It's not like you're small or anything."
"I know that," Hux said, brushing invisible lint off the front of his uniform. "I know I'm not."
"So why don't you--?"
"I'm a busy man and I know how I want to enjoy my very limited free time, Ren," Hux snapped. Then, just a tiny bit more softly, he added-- "It does make me happy to please you that way, you know. I mean that."
That, at least, was the truth.
That was why the other lies were so confusing.
He tried to bully Hux into telling him the reason, which had only led to fighting, which led to name calling, frigid, liar, brute, brat, which had only made Ren miserable. For two days they were just barely cordial to one another, then Ren showed up at Hux's quarters, not really apologizing in words but tucking his tail between his legs just enough for them to move past it, and Hux had missed him too, actually, really badly, and as though drawn together like magnets, Hux was on his knees in front of Ren apologizing in his own way, Ren greedily yanking on glorious handfuls of red hair, and then still wouldn't allow himself to be touched, still, even after that whole episode.
Ren flopped backward onto the bed, frustrated in a way he could not quite articulate.
"I will pay you a hundred credits to get you off," Ren offered.
Hux snorted.
"You really don't know how prostitution works, do you?"
"Two hundred."
The smirk faded from Hux's face, and he looked as cross as ever. "Why are you so insistent, Ren? Really, why?"
"Three hundred?"
"Ren!"
"I want to make you happy for once, Armitage."
From anyone else, the name would sting, would dig splintery and infected under Hux's skin. From Ren, the name pries off the shield a little. Hux's eyelid twitched, just a bit, like he was using every ounce of willpower to not react.
"Haven't I told you that you do?"
"I feel like I'm using you," Ren admitted.
There was a long pause, Ren lying back on the bed, still, filthy, sated but unsatisfied. Hux leaning his head against his knee, disheveled and quiet. There was something soft and intimate about their discomfort, their frustration. Ren shifted so he could nudge Hux's shoulder with his foot.
"I don't like the idea that you feel like you have to do everything for me. Is--is it a control thing? You don't want to--?"
Hux sighed.
"You really haven't broken in to find out for yourself?"
As though his mind is a temple, a stronghold, an archive, a bank.
"I told you I wouldn't," Ren answered.
It was the right answer.
Hux rose, climbed onto the bed next to Ren, who was wearing only his undershirt, a thin ratty old one that was once white but had now faded to a sort of soiled translucent grey, his nipples visible underneath. Hux, on the other hand, was fully dressed, thick black uniform hiding everything, could have just stepped off the bridge if it weren't for the droplet of come on his collar that had already gone dry.
"You really do give a fuck," Hux said, just a simple statement, not quite in wonder but in relief, leaning in to kiss him. "You really do."
"Armitage. I do. I always have."
Something strange passed over Hux's face, like a little dam within him had begun to buckle and leak. Ren pressed his advantage, kissed him harder, his hand hot on Hux's cheek, waiting.
"Maybe it will be different this time," Hux whispered.
"Maybe what will be different?"
"I--ah!" There was no denying how turned on Hux was now, now that he was scooted up as close as he could get, pressing his trapped erection against Ren's bare leg, something that was somehow even more arousing than actually getting blown by him. "I--I've had--fuck--!"
Ren couldn't wait anymore to spring Hux free. He tore at Hux's trousers, and then the dam burst the moment his fingertips brushed the gingery dusting of hair leading down from his belly button, and Hux let out a moan that could be heard on Arkanis.
Words were coming out of Ren, not in any complete sentence structure but at least in an order that could be parsed, which was a start.
"Yes? Can--will you--? Yes?"
Yes, yes. Hux was nodding, yes, yes.
Not surprisingly, Hux didn't last very long. Ren had suspected this would be a brief encounter--how long since he'd been touched by any hand besides his own? Hell, how long since he had even touched himself? That aura of embarrassment had to have been from something. Who knew what kind of fucked-up upbringing Hux had had when he was coming into the age of, to put it delicately, self-discovery? Maybe in the Arkanis Academy, masturbation was worth a crack across the ass with a cane or something. It was an idea Ren had toyed with a time or two, but, as promised, he had never checked in Hux's mind to confirm.
Short but sweet, sure. Some of Ren's suspicions were confirmed when Hux came hard, hard, sure, the actors in porn holos said things like that and troopers would brag that way about their encounters, he came hard, she came hard, but this was hard like Hux was being electrocuted, every single muscle rigid as he just kept coming, into Ren's fist, up Ren's arms, this was a full-body event, this was like a possession, like some kind of ghost had climbed into or out of Hux and had transformed him into a creature of lust--
And then Ren met Hux's eyes just the moment before they rolled right up into his head and he went limp and white as a slice of bread.
The first thing Ren thought was that Hux was going to fucking hate being the first general of the First Order to get handjobbed to death.
The second thing he thought was, no wonder Hux was so opposed to the idea of handjobs being for amateurs and teenagers.
"Hux. Hux! Armitage, fuck!" There was no overstating how soft and boneless Hux was in this moment, how dramatically different his body was from thirty seconds ago. Ren was leaving filthy sheeny handprints on Hux's rumpled uniform shoulder, there was so much come everywhere, holy shit, but hey could deal with that when Hux came to--
"Armitage! Hey, hey, come on, hey--" He was actually a little bit scared now. He hadn't meant to hurt him, of course this would happen the first time Hux trusted him enough to let him this close.
Hux groaned, his translucent eyelashes stirring. With his hand palm-up on his forehead, he looked strangely like a character in a romance holo. It would look almost fake, posed, if it weren't something that Hux would absolutely have avoided doing if he could help it.
"Armitage?"
"Fucking hell," Hux rasped, and that was how Ren knew he was all right. He managed to pry his eyes open, gnawed on his lip at the sight of Ren looking concerned in anyone's direction, let alone his.
"I. Well. I have never had that reaction to giving a handjob before," Ren said.
Hux wanted to roll over, maybe out of physical discomfort and certainly out of emotional discomfort--he could hide his face in his pillow--but was still a little woozy, and couldn't quite build up enough momentum, so he simply rocked and made himself even dizzier. "Don't flatter yourself," he growled, running a hand through his hair.
"Why not? I could have killed you, stars, Hux."
"It had nothing to do with you." He realized what he'd said, and for perhaps the first time ever, considered whether or not he might have hurt someone. Backtracked. "I mean. The fainting...had nothing to do with you. The orgasm, yes." Hux had no issue saying 'orgasm' but nearly whispered the word 'fainting', like it was too naughty to be said in decent company. Ren frowned.
"You really did faint?"
Hux went scarlet.
"Yes. I really did faint." His jaw was locked, hard, as he waited for the mockery to begin, made another half-hearted attempt to roll over. Instead, Ren leaned in to scrape the dried come stain off Hux's collar with his nail, kissed Hux wet and hungry as he did it.
"You knew you were going to."
"That's rather obvious."
"You could have told me."
"And what in the galaxy would I have said, I'd like to know? 'Sorry, I don't want you to fuck me because I'll swoon'? You'd have laughed in my face."
Ren examined the collar, was satisfied with his work. Came close enough to kiss Hux again but didn't, instead said, so low and deep that Hux sighed to hear it despite himself-- "You seem much angrier about it than I am." He snorted. "Which is not something I get a lot of opportunity to say."
Hux turned his face away, but it only made it easier for Ren to kiss his neck, making him huff and puff like a shitty old junk ship trying to take off, but then whine in a particularly pleasing way. "I'd have laughed in my face."
"Maybe. How often has this happened to you?"
"Always. As long as I can remember. It doesn't usually last very long, but I--I always lose consciousness, for at least a few minutes." Hux let out a bitter laugh. "I tried in the showers once, as a cadet, thinking, this time will be different. I was eighteen. I woke up with water up my nose and a bump on my forehead that didn't go away for two weeks. Could have fucking drowned."
Ren said nothing, just kept kissing his neck, moving down lower, sucking a cloud red-purple-blue into his shoulder, waiting.
"I always think, maybe it'll be different this time. And it never is."
"Does it hurt you?"
"Not unless I'm splayed on the shower floor, no."
"Would you let me do it again, now that I know?"
Hux drew his hand through Ren's hair, fingers hooked like a comb, until he could pull Ren's head back enough to look him in the eye. A droplet of saliva shimmered on Ren's lip. "Would you want to?" Hux asked.
"I could pretend I'm just that good at wrecking you, you know. You seemed to enjoy that notion."
"You didn't pass out."
"Try harder next time, then."
"Fuck you, Ren." There was a glint in Hux's eyes that let Ren know he was on exactly the right track, though, something more confident, mischievous, and so he continued.
"If you think fainting from a handjob is something, wait until I blow you and you wake up in the next century. They'll have to cryogenically freeze you to wait for you to rejoin reality."
"You talk like you're any good at all," Hux said, but there was a twitch in his mouth trying to pull his lips into a smile.
"No offense, General," Ren replied, touching the hickey to see if Hux would wince. "But you're a really, really bad liar."