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“Where are we going?” Kylo asked.
Hux gripped Kylo’s hand tight as he led him through the woods. “Be patient.”
Swatting at bugs with his free hand, Kylo continued to whine. “Huuux, there are too many buuugs! And it’s humid, my hair’s gonna get frizzy.”
Hux tramped on and ignored Kylo’s protests. He was taking him somewhere special, somewhere they could be truly alone. They had been dating for a little over a year, but Kylo always took the lead and always led them to sloppy makeout sessions which, though enjoyable, never went anywhere. Kylo clearly wanted to go further, but Hux just didn’t have an interest in sex the way many others did. He could enjoy it, but seldom felt compelled to seek it out.
Today he felt compelled. Not compelled to have sex, but compelled to experience a physical intimacy that he and Kylo had yet to share.
Guilt ate at him. Shouts of tease, tease, selfish, depriving, heartless, inhuman echoed constantly in his head, making each step he took feel like trudging through mud. You’re leading him on, making him think that you want more just to disappoint him later.
The handful of times Hux had had sex were not emotionally charged. He could recognize that his body responded pleasurably, but that pleasure never quite made it to his heart and mind. The only times the arousal felt genuine was when he could prod and probe and imagine that it wasn’t sex, that it was running his fingers along an intestine or gently holding a heart as it beat steadily in his hand. Sick, pervert! Why can’t you just be attracted to your boyfriend like a normal person? Why can’t you want him like a normal person? Do you even want him at all?
Of course he wanted him, of course he did. That was exactly why he needed to do this. He needed to show Kylo an intimacy unattached to sexual attraction or paraphilia. An intimacy that could convey the depth of his admiration - not love, not yet, too soon - without the give and take of sexual gratification. It won’t work. He wants you too much, he’ll still be disappointed. You’re lucky he even wants to be with you. Lucky he puts up with your wishy-washy bullshit. Stupid stupid stupidstupidstupid STUPID!
Hux stopped in his tracks so suddenly that Kylo knocked into him.
Sweaty, shaky hands. Ragged breath. A face contorting. Ugly. Ugly and worthless and undesirable. Turn around and go back home. Just give up. End it.
“Hux?” Kylo looked at him warily and squeezed his hand a little tighter. A gnat flew past and Kylo didn’t even flinch, his attention directed solely at his trembling wreck of a boyfriend.
Taking a deep breath, Hux answered, “I’m fine. I’m sorry.” He gave Kylo a smile - small and tense, but a smile all the same. “We’re almost there.”
Kylo nodded, wide eyes still betraying his concern.
“May I see your bandana?” Hux asked, tugging lightly at the fabric tied around Kylo’s wrist.
“Huh? Yeah, I guess.”
Hux untied the bandana and unfolded it only to fold it back into a long rectangle, then stepped behind Kylo.
“Hux, what’re you -?”
Kylo’s vision went dark, the bandana had become a blindfold.
“Trust me, Kylo. Please.” Hux took his hand again and carefully guided him through a large thicket and along a mossy path. “We’re very close now.” Kylo was uncharacteristically quiet, but Hux was unsure as to the reason. Kylo’s silence made the weight of this excursion so much heavier.
They stopped walking once they neared an expanse of large rocks, sturdy and settled among the smooth stones of a brook. The brook filtered into a series of pristine natural pools which descended with the landscape and glittered in the light that managed to peek through the trees above.
Still blindfolded, Kylo could only hear the gentle babble of water over stone and leaves shivering in the cool breeze that provided a respite from the humidity of early summer. He jolted when Hux released his hand, the loss more jarring because of his lack of vision.
“I’m still here. Just be patient a little longer.”
A new set of sounds joined the soft melody of the woods, but they did nothing to put Kylo at ease. They were quiet sounds, barely noticeable. They could have been mistaken for rustling in the grass. All too soon did the rustling stop, replaced by the dull plunk of something dipping into the water. Kylo’s pulse raced, scared and excited.
“You can take off the blindfold now…”
Standing knee-deep in one of the pools was Hux, poised despite the tremors that rattled through his naked limbs. His eyes flitted between the ground and Kylo, but he did not cover himself. He was afraid of scaring Kylo or being rejected, not ashamed. The voices screamed at him from the tops of their lungs, a cacophony of fool, whore, mistake! Hux let them scream and reached out, shyly beckoning Kylo to join him in the pool.
Kylo stood near the grassy edge of the pool, mouth agape and trying to form words that got stuck in his throat. Hux pulled his hand back. You weren’t ashamed, but you should be. Did you really think he would understand?
“Hux, why are you…?” Kylo left the question unfinished, still trying to process the sight before him. In the dappled sunlight Hux glowed, not unlike the captivating woodland spirits found in fairytales who tempted visitors deeper into the forest.
There was an innocence to Hux as he backed further into the clear water, his once outstretched hand now held tightly to his chest. Stupid, stupid child! You’ve ruined everything.
“I - I - I’m s-sorry, Kylo… I’m sorry.” Hux squeezed his eyes tight, unable to continue looking at Kylo, at anything. “I’ve frightened you a-again. I always end up frightening you… Or perhaps you’re disgusted with me. I don’t… I don’t know how to express this to you, but clearly I’ve made a mistake. I don’t know how to do any of this right. I don’t - I can’t - I’m sorry. I’m sorry for being this way -”
The water sloshed around violently as Kylo dropped into the pool, pulling Hux to his chest.
“I wanted to show you… I - I thought that we could - could - could -” Hux blubbered. “It’s all wrong.”
“I’m not scared of you, Hux! I don’t… I don’t understand what you’re trying to tell me or show me, but I’m not afraid.” Kylo rested his cheek on the top of Hux’s head, whose ginger hair was warmed by the sun.
Hux wrapped his arms around Kylo and fisted his hands into Kylo’s shirt. “I wanted you to - to see me… and touch me. I wanted to do the same to you, but I don’t know how.”
Kylo tensed and reddened at the suggestion. “Haven’t you, uh, done it a few times before? I thought -”
“No, no! That’s not - that’s not what I meant!”
Hux was often puzzling, but this was a whole new level of puzzling. Kylo leaned back a bit so he could look at Hux, who still clung to his shirt with his eyes shut. “If that’s not what you meant, then why are, uh… why did you take off your clothes? Not that I mind! Because, you know… I don’t mind. At all, actually…” Kylo trailed off, getting flustered at his own acknowledgement that yes, his gorgeous boyfriend was naked and pressed up against him.
The tiniest grimace pulled at Hux’s lips. “I know you don’t mind, that’s part of the problem,” he grumbled.
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? Am I not allowed to think you look good? Because, spoiler alert, you do. I’ve been telling you that before we even started dating and you choose now to tell me not to? You could have at least done it while in your pajamas or something, not when you look so fucking magical -”
“Shut up, shut up, SHUT UP!” Hux growled into Kylo’s chest and squeezed him like he was trying to pop his eyes out of their sockets. The voices had stopped; self-loathing morphed into pure frustration at not being able to articulate. “Just… stop talking and let me figure this out.”
They stood there in silence for a few awkward minutes, the discomfort of Kylo’s wet clothes making itself more prominent the more time went by. He was about to start complaining until Hux finally spoke.
“I want to be intimate with you. I want to e-explore you in the most genuine way I can. It’s not… it’s not a sexual thing… or one of my experiments. It’s not about getting or giving anything. I just want to exist with you for a while. I hope that - I hope that makes sense.” Hux chewed at his lower lip, trying to stop it from quivering. In a rush Hux added, “And I want to kiss you. Properly.”
“Haven’t we been kissing properly since, like, last October?”
Hux slid one hand to the back of Kylo’s neck, the other to his shoulder. “Not like this,” Hux whispered against his lips, slowly pressing them together in a delicate, chaste kiss.
Kylo’s eyes fluttered closed, the warmth in his cheeks spreading like a wildfire through the rest of his body - a wildfire that burned brightest not in his groin, but in his heart. When they parted, Kylo let out a shuddering breath that he didn’t realize he had been holding. “H-holy shit…”
“Do you understand, now? What I want to experience with you?” Hux asked, timid yet hopeful.
“Yeah, I think so.” Kylo stepped out of Hux’s embrace to hold him at arm’s length. “I can’t guarantee that I won’t, like, get a boner though.” He looked away, embarrassed, and mumbled, “Sorry…”
“Don’t apologize. I don’t mean to bar you from feelings that come naturally to you. I just want this to be -”
“About the feelings that come naturally to both of us,” Kylo finished with a smile. “Right?”
He understands. He understands you. You didn’t ruin anything, he understands.
Hux smiled back. “Right.”
After removing his soggy clothes and setting them on a particularly sunny rock to dry, Kylo helped Hux out of the pool and laid him gently on the grass.
Amongst the gold and white of dandelions and daisies, they took turns mapping out the the hills and valleys of one another. Hux rested his head on Kylo’s taut abdomen, listening to the sounds his organs made. “You sound so beautiful. A masterpiece of organic technology.” He reverently traced the outlines of Kylo’s muscles and bones, stopping to nuzzle against each joint and tickling Kylo with his eyelashes.
New freckles appeared across Hux’s nose and cheeks from being out in the sun, and Kylo kissed every one of them. He trailed his hands across Hux’s soft jaw and even softer stomach, finding that it felt even more charming than it looked. Hux rolled onto his side to face Kylo, allowing him to seek out the knobs of his spine.
“They don’t stick out very much,” Kylo noted.
“What don’t?”
“Your bones. You’re really soft… and squishy, even though you’re so thin,” Kylo punctuated by poking Hux’s belly. “It’s nice.”
Hux glanced away bashfully. “Why?”
“Hmmm,” Kylo pondered for a moment. “I guess because it reminds me of how you’re just a great big romantic softie on the inside.”
Hux huffed, offended. “That’s not true…”
“You took me to a secret spot in the woods so that we could have our first ‘proper’ kiss and do… this,” Kylo gestured wildly as if that would fill in the rest.
“Well it wasn’t all my idea. I had to do a fair amount of research to come up with this… It doesn’t - it doesn’t come naturally to me.”
Kylo’s face lit up with laughter. “Oh my god, did you, like, google ‘romantic date ideas?’ Ohhh my god, that’s so fucking cute!” Hux buried his flushed face against Kylo’s chest and Kylo wrapped his arms around him. “I’m glad you did it, you know. I didn’t think I would get to have this. With you or anyone, really… Thank you.”
They didn’t speak for a while after that, basking in each other’s presence until their breaths became synchronized. Hux gently nudged one of Kylo’s arms away then pulled it towards one of his own, aligning their wrists so that their pulses beat against one another. “I can feel your heartbeat, Kylo. It’s wonderful. Such a strong heart.”
“It beats for you,” Kylo said, deadly serious.
“No it doesn’t. It’s beats to pump oxygen-rich blood through the rest of the body, which in turn helps you to perform necessary bodily functions. It has nothing to do with me.”
“Wow, you weren’t kidding when you said this stuff doesn’t come naturally to you,” Kylo chided.
“You don’t have to resort to scientific inaccuracy to be romantic.”
Kylo snorted, not unkindly. “Okay professor, give me an example of something both romantic and scientifically proven to be true.”
“I love you,” Hux blurted out immediately.
Hux stared unblinkingly into Kylo’s progressively widening eyes, possibly more shocked than the latter at his admission. He didn’t mean to say it. Wasn’t it too soon? Too much to claim for a boy who needed an encyclopedic tome of romantic advice just to be intimate with his boyfriend?
“Is - is that something that c-can be tested with the scientific method?” Kylo asked in nearly a whisper.
“I believe there is… enough evidence to substantiate my claim… Since you’re a leading scientist in the field, would I be correct to assume that you have performed your own tests?”
Kylo gulped. His mouth felt dry as he answered, “Y-yes.”
“And m-might I inquire as to your - your findings?”
“All results pointed to one definitive conclusion. I love you too.”
He loves you, too.