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They continued to sleep in the same bed. Kylo, once planted, wouldn’t move and after a week of trying Hux gave up and moved back to the bed from the couch with the excuse that it’s his room after all. After the first night of his erstwhile cuddling Kylo remained on his own side of the bed. For the most part. Sometimes in his sleep he’d turn and fling and arm out, catching Hux at waist or hip. It was awkward to go back to sleep after the sudden weight roused him.
Routine set in faster than Hux would have guessed. He’d get up for work Monday through Friday leaving Kylo’s long limbs sprawled over the edge of the bed. He never woke up during Hux’s morning rituals. Not even when he dropped a mug and swore loudly as it shattered. He soon learned that he didn’t need to tiptoe for Kylo’s sake.
For his part Kylo was a pretty good cook and had started making dinner most nights. Every day some of the silence fell away and soon Hux could get more than a single word from him. It turned out that he was surrendered not by family (unclear details here) but by a mentor of sorts.
“I was too ‘out of control.’ Too ‘unwilling.’” Hux wondered what it was he refused to do but never pried.
In return he told Kylo about growing up motherless with an abusive asshole of a father. “It’s a wonder I wasn’t surrendered. I guess he liked having someone to abuse more than he would have liked being alone.” They talked more and more, sometimes with a bottle of wine after Hux got off of work, sometimes on Saturday or Sunday evenings.
After a while Kylo started disappearing on weekend days. The first time it happened Hux wondered whether he was coming back, what had happened. He’d gone to bed alone for the first time in weeks, unable to get dark hair, warm brown eyes, and long legs out of his head. When he woke he had that familiar arm draped around him, a hand pressed to his belly, and a leg inserted between his. Hux laid there, a faint smile ghosting his face, until he had to get up.
He never pried but he wondered. It took two months before Kylo volunteered the information – by which it meant that Hux noticed the large motorcycle in his guest parking space.
“It’s mine. From before. I went and picked up a few things after training.” He said it like Hux knew what he was talking about.
All he could do was make a non-committal, “Mmm.” That was the end of that for the time.
Hux went to the his – their – bedroom and changed into pajama pants and a tank top. Barefoot he entered the kitchen and pulled a bottle out of the rack. Ignoring Kylo’s gaze from the other side of the kitchen Hux took down two glasses, filled both and immediately drained one. He filled it again and took it and the bottle to the couch where he sat with his legs tucked under him. Within moments Kylo joined him, close enough to touch. Hux drained the next glass as fast as the first.
“Better hurry up if you want to keep up.” He grinned at the strange look on Kylo’s face. Hux turned from him and began flipping channels until he found a movie – Maximum Overdrive. He knew it was a stupid movie but he loved to run an internal commentary. This time he ran it out loud. He became more and more animated and relaxed from the too much wine he was drinking. Soon he had Kylo laughing – a deep, beautiful sound that Hux thought would rank up there with Millicent’s purr on the happy factor scale.
They sat together laughing and pointing out ridiculousness like Stephen King’s atrocious accent and the ice cream machine playing “King of the Road.” By the time it was over the bottle was gone and Hux was feeling loose limbed and talkative.
“So, Kylo, where do you go on weekends?” Hux couldn’t stop himself, wine-drunk and curious.
“I go back to training. The gym, the meditation. Just because my mentor is gone doesn’t mean I can let myself go soft.”
Hux poked at his bicep. “Nothing soft here.” He wanted to touch Kylo, to feel the rest of those muscles. But the look of confusion and something he couldn’t name on Kylo’s face told him do not poke the bear. Hux curled around himself and sighed.
“How do you afford it? You don’t have a job.” Hux didn’t mean it to come out like that but his mind was fuzzy and his fingers twitched in the urge to touch.
“I have money, Hux.” It was a flat statement.
“Oh. Um. From where?”
“My parents.” His voice was emotionless enough that Hux paused, trying to save his buzz and their night.
“Another movie?” Kylo nodded assent and hux resumed flipping channels.
“Oh, go back.” Hux jumped but obeyed.
“Back. Back. Back. Here. This one.”
“The Princess Bride?” Hux’s eyebrows rose. “You like this movie.”
“I love this movie.” Now his voice dared a derisive response.
Quietly Hux replied, “Me too.”
Hux didn’t notice that Kylo hadn’t had more wine. He didn’t notice when he fell asleep. He didn’t notice when he teetered over and wound up with his head on Kylo’s shoulder. He didn’t notice when Kylo wrapped an arm around him.
In the morning Hux awoke on the couch, his neck stiff, eyes gritty, mouth fuzzy. It took him a while to register that he had a pillow and blanket. A while longer before he spotted the sleeping shape on the floor next to the couch, curled up in another blanket, head on his arm. With a huge stretch Hux flexed down to his toes. He sat up, glad it was Sunday.
The floor bundle stirred and Kylo’s sleepy face blinked up at him. He mumbled, “What time is it?”
Hux fumbled a moment before groaning. “Six am.”
“Ugg.” Kylo thrust himself up from the floor. “I’m going back to bed.” Hux got up to follow, stopping by the bathroom to brush the taste of being not-so-sober from his mouth. Then he crawled into bed and fell asleep listening to Kylo’s even breathing.
Over the next few days Hux noticed some changes. Little things. His phone on the charger already when he left the shower. Laundry put away. Foods he liked in rotation. It make him smile inwardly, his affection growing for the human great dane he had nominally adopted.
He didn’t notice the looks from beside him. The way Kylo’s face softened when Hux spoke about something he was interested in. The small, hastily aborted motions towards him. They way Kylo’s arm was around him more and more often at night.
Hux doesn’t dream. If you asked him he’d say he hadn’t dreamt since he was a little boy being yelled at by his father for waking him with a bad dream. “At seven you should be able to school your thoughts enough that even in sleep you have control. No fear, no pain. If you must sleep then sleep and don’t waste the time in dreaming.”
Tonight he dreamed. It was vague but looming. Black and infinite. A calling void that tugged at his every atom, telling him to let go, to fall, to surrender and disappear. His control slipped little by little and a small sound escaped from his throat as he faced the unknown that had no purpose, no sense, no light. “No,” he thought. “No.” What would his father think if he knew? Knew how weak Hux was, even after years of training. His body vibrated with the weight of the beckoning emptiness. Vibrated and shook, his name sounding suddenly sounding out of nowhere and panicking him. “The void calls.” Another small sound slipped from his lips.
“Hux… Hux… Armitage…” The shaking intensified and he thought he was going to break and fall and it’s so close, so terrible, awesomely close.
He awakes with a gasp and a shudder.
Kylo’s hand jerked from his shoulder as he lurched away from Hux’s panting form. Hux looked, bewildered, around the room. His breath slowed and clarity came to his eyes.
“You were dreaming. You were afraid.” Kylo’s deep voice came soothingly from beside him.
“I don’t dream.”
Suddenly Kylo’s lips are pressed to his in a gentle kiss and Hux forgets what he was going to say.
Kylo shrugs as he sinks back into his side of the bed. “Whatever you say.”
Hux stares at him, an outline in a mostly darkened room. Confused but pleased he lays down with a sigh, pulling the sheet over his shoulders as he turns to his side. A moment later an arm wraps around him. Not tight but protective.
“I don’t suppose you’ll let me go any time soon?”
In the darkness he hears a muttered, “No.”
“We’re gonna have to talk about this in the morning, you know.”
Kylo’s chest pressed against Hux’s back, arm tightening.