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Draped languidly across the living room couch, with one leg hanging off to the side and the other raised to prop up his laptop, Kylo Ren – with his wild hair uncombed and flecks of paint still staining the tips of his fingernails – was the picture of immeasurable boredom. Drumming his long fingers across the keyboard, he hummed tunelessly to himself and tapped his foot impatiently on the parquet floor.
It was probably well past midnight now, and Hux was late. Which was odd and somewhat disappointing, because Hux was never late.
He raised his head to squint through the darkness at the analogue clock for the tenth time that hour before remembering, also for the tenth time, that its batteries were in desperate need of changing (Kylo could never remember if it was half an hour fast or half an hour slow). And without Hux around to nag at him, he simply hadn’t gotten round to doing it yet. He mentally berated himself and started to reach for his phone before realising that that wouldn’t do him any good either – the damn thing had died about ten minutes ago, and instead of plugging it into the charger, Kylo had instead chosen to dump it on the coffee table next to him and continue playing Spider Solitaire on his laptop.
He gave a loud groan and stretched his arms. He supposed he should get up and revive his phone, if only to check whether Hux had left him any messages. But just as he got ready to finally roll off the couch, he caught sight of a distinctive little notification popping up in the corner of his laptop screen.
BHux is Online.
All thoughts of charging his phone vanished from his mind as he sat bolt upright and stared at the screen with wide expectant eyes. Seconds later, the familiar (if slightly pixelated) face of his lover peered sleepily back at him, and Kylo simply could not suppress the sappy grin that was now spreading slowly across his face.
“Hello, gingerbread.”
Hux’s normally neat red hair was a dishevelled mess atop his head, and his clothes were lined all over with creases. When he opened his mouth to speak, all that came out was a tired yawn.
“Hey Kylo,” he eventually managed to say, his voice sounding small and tinny over the laptop speakers. “Sorry I’m late, I fell asleep and forget to set – wait, hold on.”
He inched his face closer to the webcam and scrunched his eyes. Kylo noticed faint dark circles underneath them.
“Why is the house so dark? Don’t tell me there was another power outage.”
“There wasn’t. I’m just, uh, saving electricity.” It was now Kylo’s turn to lean closer. “Are you getting enough sleep over there in Japan?”
Hux’s mouth twitched briefly into a slight frown, but it was gone in an instant.
“I’m just a little worn out, that’s all,” he said dismissively. “I only wish my father hadn’t called me all the way over here on such short notice.” He huffed out an irritated sigh – it was a sound Kylo was used to hearing, given how often Hux complained about his father – before fixing Kylo with a stern look. “But you needn’t worry about me. Worry about yourself first. You know you’ll strain your eyes if you keep using your laptop in the dark like this.”
Kylo’s pout was visible even in the appallingly low light, and rather than answer Hux properly, he decided to change the subject instead.
“Well, if it makes you feel any better, I finally finished sorting through all of my stuff like you asked me to before you left. I’m thinking of selling most of it off, like all the old shirts and souvenirs, and I also threw out all those empty paint cans you were grumbling about.”
“And what about the –”
“The Mothman plush is staying, Hux, I’ve told you, he’s a collector’s item.”
Hux scoffed and rolled his eyes, but there was a wry smile playing across his lips, and he seemed much more awake now, much more like his usual snarky self.
“I can feel him staring at me in my sleep and it’s unnerving. And frankly,” he continued, before Kylo had the chance to jump in and defend the plush’s innocence. “I don’t see why you feel the need to hoard all of these odds and ends like some sort of overenthusiastic dragon. It’s only been a year since you moved in and the house is already overflowing with all sorts of junk.”
“They aren’t ‘junk’, Hux. And I ‘hoard’ them because I like them. Simple as that.” Kylo leant back and folded his arms, giving Hux a pointed look. “Surely even you must have some things you’re sentimental about and want to keep.”
“Nonsense. I don’t have anything of the sort.”
They regarded each other in silence for the next few seconds, before Kylo eventually spoke up again.
“You know what I think?”
“What?”
“I think you’re just bitter about that one time you fell face first into Millie’s food bowl after tripping over one of my novelty paintbrushes.”
“I’m not bitter about that, Kylo,” said Hux, bitterly. “And anyway, that thing looked ridiculous. Who even buys a paintbrush shaped like a flaming sword?”
“I do, obviously.”
“Well then, you are an equally ridiculous man.”
Kylo pulled a face at him.
“But you love me for it,” he shot back confidently. Then, with slightly less confidence than before, “Don’t you?”
Hux sighed and shook his head, as if to say “Whatever am I going to do with you?”, but not once did that smile of his leave his face, and as he settled himself more comfortably in his cushioned chair, he raised his eyes to meet Kylo’s concerned gaze.
“Yes, Kylo. Of course I do.”
They had the next hour all to themselves, and they made the most of it, starting off, as they always did during these nightly calls, by talking about Hux’s work, and about the exhibition his father had called him to help out with for the past few days. But it didn’t take long for that topic to grow stale and dry, and they soon shifted the conversation to other matters – to all the eateries and scenic locations Hux had visited, and which he promised to bring Kylo to one day (“For our honeymoon,” Kylo added, and Hux pretended not to hear him); to Millie, who had recently started a new game of hiding deep inside closets and cupboards where Kylo couldn’t find her; and finally, to the little calendar Kylo had placed on the corner of his worktable, marked all over in red ink as he counted down the days until Hux returned. And once they grew tired of all that as well, they took to light-hearted teasing and swapped off-kilter jokes, and if Hux didn’t have to leave for a dinner appointment with some of Hux Sr.’s associates, they would have gladly gone on for at least another hour, maybe even two.
“One last thing, Kylo,” said Hux, reaching for his comb and gel and reluctantly starting to get ready. “Is there anything you want me to bring back for you as a souvenir?”
Kylo wasted no time in answering.
“Can you get me another plush? I don’t want the Mothman one to get lonely when I’m not around.”
“You – what?” Hux stared at Kylo incredulously. “You are a grown man, Kylo. And didn’t we just go over this? Honestly, you and your tendency to amass all this –”
“How about you bring me back a kiss instead then?”
Hux stopped short, caught off-guard and unsure how to go on, but a light flush started to spread from his cheeks to his neck to the tips of his ears. Half his hair was now neatly gelled down, while the other half still resembled an untidy bird’s nest. Kylo thought he looked adorable like that, but he wisely kept that sentiment to himself. Instead, he simply offered Hux a serene, innocent smile and said nothing.
“That is an incredibly tacky request,” Hux eventually replied, once he had recovered, but as he reached over to end the call, Kylo heard him reluctantly mumble out his answer to him.
“But fine, okay, I’ll do it.”
Then the screen went blank again, and BHux disappeared back offline. Kylo continued to lie there for a little while longer, still grinning happily and letting the distant sounds of traffic and drunken laughter drift up and wash over him, before closing his laptop and hoisting himself up from the couch. He had no idea what time it was, only that it was probably very late, and that he felt suddenly very sleepy. And anyway, Millie, curled up somewhere in the bedroom, was probably wondering where he was.
Millie was not, in fact, overly concerned about where Kylo was. He had left the nightlight on for her, which she thought was very considerate of him, and as such, she had spent the past few hours moseying about the large bedroom, sniffing curiously at the various piles of oddments and knick-knacks scattered throughout. Gaudy T-shirts, all various shades of red and black and sporting tacky designs, littered the floor; propped against a cushion resembling a giant salmon was an oddly-shaped clock, which looked as if it had just been pulled right out of a Dali painting; the rest of the space was filled with towering stacks of cheap, empty sketchbooks, several smaller stacks of half-finished colouring books, and three or four piles of Post-It notes shaped like slices of cheese and toast.
Initially, Millie had found all of this extremely fascinating – back when it was just her and Hux living alone in the house, the place had been, in Kylo’s own words, “far too minimalist” – but, true to her nature as a cat, she soon grew bored of it all and wandered elsewhere in search of other distractions. When Kylo eventually returned to the room, he found her hiding inside the closet (again, for the third time that day), sitting comfortably amongst the towels and chewing on something small and pink.
“Hey cat,” he said, coming over to squat next to her. “What’ve you got there?”
She ignored him, choosing instead to continue gnawing and biting the little thing with utmost determination. It was honestly rather cute, and Kylo smiled down at her indulgently for a few moments before remembering that she had once choked on one of Hux’s lens caps, and in an instant, his smile was replaced by a look of pure horror.
“Oh shit, Millie, what’ve you got there?”
It wasn’t easy extracting the small object from her mouth. She yowled in protest and tried to kick Kylo’s hands away with her feet several times, but he persisted and ultimately managed to yank the thing away from her.
“It’s for your own good,” he called after her, as she hissed at him and walked away sulkily. He watched her jump onto his side of the bed and curl up on his pillow just to spite him, before turning his attention back to the object that Millie had been reluctant to relinquish. And once he saw what it was, he gaped at it in confusion.
He was holding a pink flower.
To be more precise, he was holding a flimsy papier-mâché flower, worn and faded, with a long frayed cord attached to it that led deeper into the closet. Curiosity got the better of him, and he followed the cord to find an old, square scrapbook, half-buried under a small mountain of socks. It had a lime-green dustjacket, covered from top to bottom with an obscene amount of heart-shaped stickers, and its flower and cord had once served as a sort of bookmark.
It looked like it was made by a very enthusiastic seven year old, and he flipped it open eagerly. He was dismayed, however, to find that the pages were mostly blank and yellowed with age, save for a few blurry Polaroids with indecipherable captions scribbled in pink crayon.
Kylo couldn’t recall ever having seen the thing before, even though he knew it must have been him who bought it, since there was no way it could’ve been Hux. He squinted at it in the dim light of the bedroom, willing himself to remember just where it had come from, before finally closing it back and giving up. After all, it wasn’t the strangest thing he had uncovered while clearing out his stuff – that honour belonged to the vintage Darth Vader-themed pinup calendar he’d found wedged under his worktable – and he figured that he’d most likely gotten it from some thrift store a long time ago and then promptly forgot about it.
He nodded to himself, satisfied that he’d managed to piece together the scrapbook’s origins, before getting up and dumping it straight into the ‘Sell’ pile at the foot of the bed. Then, without a second thought, he flopped onto Hux’s side of the bed, startling Millie, and pulled the covers up to his chin.
He’d get around to selling off his things in the morning. For now, though, all he wanted to do was sleep.
Millie was the first to greet Hux when he returned home from Japan three days later. She was at his feet the instant he pushed open the door, meowing noisily and rubbing her round fluffy cheeks all over the hem of his previously-spotless pants. He immediately put down his bags and knelt to scratch her behind the ears.
“Hello Millie.” He was panting a little from having rushed all the way home, but Millie didn’t seem to notice that. She was just happy to have him back, and continued nuzzling his legs. “Where’s Kylo?”
It had been somewhat of a disappointment not to find Kylo’s distinct, looming figure amongst the crowds at LAX. Hux had been apprehensive at first – going overseas for work was nothing new to him, but it was the very first time he had done so since he’d started his relationship with Kylo, and he had no idea how the other man would choose to welcome him back. He had been half-expecting Kylo to pop out from behind some pillar and catch him in a surprise kiss, in full view of everyone around them. Or, worse still, to find his full name (including the embarrassing middle name he took great pains to hide) spelt out in giant rose petals all across the airport floor. It was just the sort of ludicrous thing his lover might try to pull, given how needlessly dramatic Hux knew him to be.
And so Hux had folded his arms and stood by his luggage, scanning the crowd and bracing himself for whatever was to come, and after fifteen dreary minutes of waiting, he had shot Kylo a text. Then another fifteen minutes passed, and he shot him three more. And when Kylo – where the hell was he? – replied to none of them – why the fuck wasn’t he replying? – Hux had panicked, immediately assumed the worst, and cut in front of four or five angry people in the taxi queue in his haste to get home.
“Where’s Kylo?” He asked again, in a slightly more urgent tone, and this time Millie stopped what she was doing, trotted over to the couch, and plopped herself on top of one of the armrests. Hux followed her over and, upon catching sight of the familiar gangly figure before him, sank to the floor in relief.
Kylo, as it turned out, was sprawled like a shaggy-haired octopus across the couch, half-dressed, with one leg resting on the coffee table and his head nestled in the crook of his arm. His eyes were closed, and he was snoring like a foghorn. In an instant, Hux felt the heavy clump of worry in his chest melt away, and he breathed out a deep, grateful sigh.
“You’re going to hurt your neck sleeping in this position,” he said, matter-of-factly, placing his face right next to Kylo’s ear. Kylo twitched in his sleep and made a sound that was a cross between a snort and a snuffle, but did not otherwise wake up. So Hux tried again, reaching over to gently shake him.
This time, Kylo slowly blinked open his eyes. But upon seeing Hux, he immediately squeezed them shut again and rolled over to face the back of the couch. Hux heard a long, low groan, followed by an equally distressed moan, and finally a string of angry expletives, culminating in one loud, emphatic “Fuck.”
“What’s wrong?” Hux asked, growing suddenly worried again.
“Was supposed to pick you up from the airport and surprise you,” Kylo mumbled sullenly. “Got tired from cleaning. Overslept.”
And there was such a pathetic quality to his voice, in the way he curled miserably in on himself like the world’s largest kicked puppy, that Hux wanted nothing more than to just kiss the poor man senseless. It was, after all, the only way he knew to convey the million sentimental thoughts currently running through his head, thoughts he knew he would be far too embarrassed to ever speak out loud. There now, it’s alright. I’m here now – both of us are. And we’re safe and we’re home and that’s what’s most important.
Kylo’s mouth was too far out of reach, so Hux settled for leaning over and pressing a kiss to the other man’s cheek instead. Kylo didn’t react at first, but when Hux eventually pulled away he peeked back over his shoulder.
“What was that?” He asked, sounding a little less deflated than before.
“Your souvenir.”
Kylo blinked once, twice, as if he was only just processing what was going on. Then he turned himself around, cupped Hux’s chin in his too-large hands, and pulled him back into a second kiss, a proper one this time, passionate and eager.
“And what is this now?” Hux asked, unwilling to break away as Kylo tugged at his hair and nipped at him playfully.
“An apology,” Kylo murmured back. “For not showing up.”
He slowly worked his way to Hux’s jawline, his kisses feather-light but fervent, and once he was certain he had covered every inch of it, he moved down to his neck, to his collarbone. And when he got to Hux’s shoulder, he paused for the briefest of seconds before burrowing his nose into the collar of his coat and breathing deeply.
“I’m sorry,” he repeated, voice muffled by the fabric. “You were worried, weren’t you?”
Hux stiffened imperceptibly. He looked down at the messy head of dark hair beneath him, buried within his coat, and wondered, not for the first time, whether his lover was secretly a mind-reader. Kylo now had his hands curled tightly around Hux’s sides, as if he was afraid that the other man might disappear at any moment if he let go.
“Yeah,” answered Hux, reaching forward to return the gesture. “Yeah, I was.”
Kylo’s response was to try – and fail – to shrug away Hux’s coat from his shoulders using only his head, still kissing him as he went along, and his clumsy, sleepy enthusiasm caused Hux to let out an affectionate burst of laughter.
“Come on, Kylo,” he said, still giggling a little as Kylo refused to give up. “We’re not doing this here, not in front of Millie. The bedroom’s not that far away.”
“But I want to, though,” Kylo whined, rolling off the couch and pulling Hux along with him to the floor. “Please?”
“Absolutely not,” said Hux, smiling up at him.
And though Kylo was, quite possibly, the most stubborn young man in all of LA, things were always different when it came to Hux – there was nothing he could ever truly deny him.
“As you wish, then.”
Hours later, when Kylo woke up again for the second time that evening, he found himself back on the bed, his feet tangled in the fluffy confines of his blanket. Hux was breathing evenly next to him, nestled comfortably against his torso, while on the bedside table, leaning against Kylo’s prized Mothman plush, was his other promised souvenir. It was small and purple and fuzzy, and when Kylo reached over to take it, he saw that there was also a tiny card attached to a bow tied around one of its ears. He waited for his eyes to adjust to the darkness of the bedroom before opening it curiously.
It contained nothing more than a short, simple message, written in Hux’s unmistakeable script:
“It looks a little like you.”
Whenever Hux’s work pushed him back into the spotlight, both critics and connoisseurs alike always had a lot to say about him. Mostly, he tended to receive compliments or grudging words of praise, along with a scathing review or three, but the one thing that his contemporaries could all agree on was just how unbelievably demanding and hard to please he was. If you were to conduct a survey among those (un)lucky enough to have gotten the chance to collaborate with him, he would be described as, in descending order of politeness, “a perfectionist relentlessly dedicated to achieving his vision”, “a bit of a challenge to work with”, and “an arrogant fuck who not only has a giant stick shoved up his ass, but probably his entire tripod as well.” And if you were to relay all this information to Hux himself, he would simply nod and agree, because he knew it all to be true. He was after all, without a shadow of a doubt, one of the most finicky men in the industry, second only to his father.
However, even Hux had no choice but to admit that Kylo had done an impressive job of tidying up the house. The bathroom was no longer covered from floor to ceiling (Kylo was very tall) with unwashed art tools and dried up paint stains, the number of novelty cushions and plush toys in the bedroom had dramatically decreased, and the living room was newly cleaned and mercifully free of any errant paintbrushes rolling around. The whole place seemed brighter now, and airier, and Millie relished all the extra space she now had to run around in whenever she played catch with her owners. And so for the first couple of days or so following Hux’s return, everything appeared to be well and good.
Until it all went to shit a week later.
It happened on a Thursday, which was and always had been Kylo’s least favourite day of the week. Upon waking up – at noon, as usual – the first thing he saw was Hux sitting on the floor in front of the closet, surrounded by several neatly folded piles of clothes. He was staring at them perplexedly, as if they had all suddenly developed telepathy and were now cruelly roasting him and his lack of a sense of style. Or at least, that was how Kylo saw it. He never could see things very clearly, those first few minutes after waking up.
“Good morning,” he croaked out, hoarsely, even though he was well aware that it was neither morning nor a good day.
“Hey,” Hux replied. He didn’t look up, and Kylo felt a twinge of disappointment. Those clothes must have some very compelling arguments, supplied his sleep-addled brain, while another, slightly more sensible part of him told him that Hux was, in all likelihood, probably just very busy reorganising his things. As such, Kylo decided to leave him alone for a bit, and wandered off to the bathroom to brush his teeth and freshen up.
When he returned a little while later, Hux was still there, but he was no longer sitting amongst the clothes – now, he was crawling around the bottom of the closet, rummaging desperately and swearing profusely under his breath. Kylo rarely ever saw him looking so flustered and undignified – their very first meeting was, of course, one notable instance, but other than that, Hux appeared to be always cool and collected, constantly one step ahead of everyone else and quite happy to be there, thank you very much.
“You need any help?” Kylo asked, settling down behind him awkwardly.
Upon hearing his voice, Hux gave a startled squawk and bumped his head on a wooden box filled to the brim with identical black ties. There was an audible groan, and then Hux was shuffling back out of the closet, looking embarrassed.
“Sorry,” he said, massaging his temple. “I didn’t realise you were there.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it.” Kylo shrugged and scuffed his feet before gesturing at the open closet. “Are you looking for something? I can help you out.”
At that, Hux’s face seemed to grow even redder than before, and he suddenly became immensely interested in observing the parquet floor and counting every single fine line on it.
“It’s, um, it’s nothing really,” he muttered, sounding absolutely unconvincing.
“Come on Hux, it can’t possibly be ‘nothing’. You’ve practically emptied out the whole closet here.”
Hux pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. Then, after letting out a deep frustrated sigh, he spoke up again.
“Just – promise you won’t laugh.”
Kylo took one look at his face and said, “I promise.”
Slowly, Hux raised his head and tried to look Kylo in the eyes, but he couldn’t manage to do it and so settled for somewhere along his nose instead.
“I am…looking for a scrapbook,” he pronounced, as gravely as he might have said, “I killed a man and hid his body inside the underwear drawer.”
Kylo froze, but Hux didn’t appear to notice and carried on with his description.
“It’s bright green in colour, and it’s got – and now you really must not laugh – it’s got a pink paper flower attached to it.” His words were clipped and forced, as if every single one of them was a struggle to say. “Inside it are some of the first few photos I ever took, and also there’s a bunch of heart-shaped stickers on the front. Oh, do wipe that horrified look off your face, Kylo. Elementary school art projects aren’t supposed to be aesthetically pleasing.”
Hux didn’t think it was physically possible for Kylo to look even more horrified than before, but somehow the other man always managed to surprise him.
“Does it, by any chance,” Kylo began tentatively. “Look like a seven year old made it?”
Hux blinked at him. “Well, yes, you would be right. I was seven when I – wait just a second.”
Realisation dawned bleakly upon them both. And as Kylo mentally prepared himself for the worst (breakup? eviction? flat out murder?), he thought miserably to himself, just as he did every other week, I fucking hate Thursdays.
“Kylo, did you –” Hux gaped at him in disbelief. “Could you actually have –”
“Hux, I can explain,” Kylo countered instinctively, before he knew what he was doing. Hux raised an eyebrow and folded his arms across his chest.
“Well, go on then. Explain.”
Kylo swallowed nervously, regretting everything he had ever done in his entire life, from the moment he was born to the minute he had pried that damn paper flower out of Millie’s mouth.
“The thing is, Hux, the design of the book was very, um…” He floundered, searching for a neutral term. “Very different from your usual taste. I thought it couldn’t possibly be yours and so I, uh, sold it away.”
Hux made an exasperated noise and slumped against the door of the closet.
“That’s a terrible explanation.”
“I know. I’m sorry.”
He hung his head in shame and waited for the inevitable reprimand that he was sure he would receive, but it never came. Instead, Hux simply sighed again before crawling over to the piles of clothes and starting to put them neatly back into the closet.
“Oh well,” he said, more to himself than to Kylo. “I guess there’s nothing to be done about it then.”
Kylo’s head shot back up immediately.
“That’s not true! I sold it off online so I can still contact the buyer, offer them a refund or something and then –”
Hux held up a hand to stop him.
“It’s fine, Kylo, you don’t need to do that.” He threw him a wan smile. “I told you before, didn’t I? I don’t get sentimental about things.”
“But –”
“Nope.” The last of the clothes was now back inside the closet, and Hux stood up to brush the lint from his pants. “That book is mostly empty anyway, so there isn’t much point in trying to get it back. After all, I never did get round to filling it up.”
There was an unmistakeable melancholic tone in his voice, but before Kylo could protest a second time, Hux was out the door, mumbling something about needing to prepare lunch. Kylo watched him go, feeling absolutely wretched, and then he too got up and plodded silently down to the kitchen.
Lunch was tasteless and quiet, missing their usual joking banter. Millie coiled herself around Hux’s feet, sensing that something was wrong, but even she did not succeed in cheering her owner up. After meowing at him plaintively throughout the entire meal, she finally followed him up the stairs and back into his studio. Kylo, on the other hand, remained downstairs, and soon enough he heard the door close with a soft click.
After that, he wasted no time at all in doing the washing up, and when he was done he rushed to grab his bag and keys from his workroom. Then he was out of the house, heading straight for the stationery shop located just down the road.
There could be no doubt about the fact that Kylo was, despite appearances, incredibly skilled. He worked fast, producing a shiny new piece every month or so, and following the success of ‘The Artist at Work’, every gallery and exhibition around would be quick to snap them up. And of course he was passionate too, pouring all his soul into his craft and harnessing every drop of joy and anger and sorrow to bring forth massive superweapons and delicate figures from metal and ink and wood.
But if there was one skill that Kylo absolutely lacked, it was the ability to keep a secret.
The man seemed almost physically incapable of subtlety, and broadcasted his intentions plainly for all to see, whether he intended to or not. As such, it didn’t take Hux very long to realise that, for some reason or another, his lover was avoiding him.
Kylo had tried to be discreet about it at first, claiming that he had an important deadline to keep to and barricading himself inside his workroom in order to ‘concentrate’. Hux was not, under any circumstances, allowed to come in, although Millie was still free to weave in and out via the newly-installed cat flap. He felt a little jealous of her, and at times he wanted to stick his head in through the small door just to see what Kylo was hiding from him. But of course he had plenty of self-control not to actually do that.
When the ‘deadline’ came and went and Kylo had nothing to show for it, Hux cornered him in the kitchen and demanded to know what was going on. Kylo made a valiant effort to keep up the pretence, hemming and hawing and mumbling a series of increasingly incomprehensible excuses, but once it was clear that Hux wasn’t buying it, he cited an imaginary stomachache, ran to the bathroom, and hid in there for the rest of the afternoon.
After that, in one last, obvious bid to avoid any and all further attempts at conversation, Kylo resorted to digging out his old ‘self-portrait’ helmet and wearing it stubbornly around the house. Hux chose to simply roll his eyes in exasperation whenever he saw him (“You still keep that thing around?” to which Kylo had responded with an unintelligible crackling noise), but for Millie it was an entirely different matter. She wasn’t at all used to the gleaming, faceless mask he wore; the mere sight of the tall imposing stranger sitting in Kylo’s usual spot was enough to send her skittering back out of the workroom in alarm. Initially, Hux had assumed that she would eventually get used it, just as she got used to all of Kylo’s little quirks. But for some reason, she didn’t, and when he witnessed this same sad scenario play out far too many times over the course of the next week, he figured that it was finally time to put an end to it all.
He started to keep close watch on the workroom door, waiting, with ever-growing impatience, for the right chance to confront the other man. And on a warm Sunday evening, just after dinnertime, he found himself the perfect opportunity.
For one thing, Millie was inside the workroom – or at least, Hux assumed she was. After all, there wasn’t anywhere else she could be, given that he’d already checked all of her usual haunts and thoroughly inspected every single open cupboard in the house only to find no trace of her. If she was with Kylo, that could only mean that for the first time in a long while, he didn’t have his helmet on.
Furthermore, the room was also thankfully, blessedly, quiet. Hux pressed himself against the door, listening intently for the telltale sounds of drilling or chiselling or hammering that he had grown accustomed to over the past year, yet there was nothing to be heard but the soft, tinny strains of old-school rock music playing from the slightly-busted speakers of Kylo’s phone. That was good – Hux liked it when things were quiet.
He took a breath, stepped back, and was just about to knock on the wooden door when it suddenly swung wide open and Kylo – maskless, breathless, and excited – practically crashed right into him. He swore and immediately stumbled backwards, eyes widening in surprise. Hux did the same as well – while he had wanted to meet Kylo face to face, he’d never expected it to happen quite so soon, and without encountering any form of resistance on Kylo’s part. Perhaps he had simply gotten lucky.
Recovering quickly and remembering the point of his visit, Hux cleared his throat and said, “I have something to ask you” at the exact same time that Kylo said, “I have something to show you.” Then they both fell silent and regarded each other with a sort of mutual awkwardness until eventually Kylo spoke up again.
“So…who talks first? I talk first? You talk first?”
“I’ll talk first,” Hux replied instantly. He pushed past Kylo and moved to lean against the doorframe, tilting his chin up at him.
“Over the past few weeks,” he began coolly. “You have been avoiding me as if I were the damn plague.” He punctuated this sentiment with a particularly withering look. “So if you don’t mind, I’d very much like to know why.”
Kylo flushed and nervously ran his hand through his already-messy hair. But instead of looking guilty or ashamed, like Hux expected him to be, Kylo simply seemed…self-conscious?
“Well, you see,” he said, speaking to Hux’s feet. “That’s actually because I was doing…a thing.”
That earned him a scoff from Hux.
“Really? A ‘thing’? I’m sure you can be much more specific than that.”
“It was a very important thing,” Kylo continued earnestly, but Hux only rolled his eyes, looking entirely unimpressed.
“Listen, Kylo. If, for whatever reason, you really cannot tell me, then there’s honestly no need for me to stay here any longer and force you to –”
“No no no, wait, Hux, hold on, don’t go yet!” Kylo’s words tumbled clumsily out of his mouth as he instinctively reached out to grab Hux by the elbow and prevent him from leaving. “It’s not that I can’t tell you, per se, it’s – well, it’s better if I just show it to you instead.”
Hux gave Kylo’s grip on his arm a dubious glance – his hand was trembling ever so slightly – but he made no move to resist or break free as Kylo led him deeper inside the workroom, to the heavy brown worktable that sat proudly in the middle of everything else like some low-budget, sawdust-covered throne.
It was a familiar sight to him – over the past year, Hux had visited it often, spending many long evenings sitting there with Kylo and leaning comfortably against him as he leafed through a book. It was always nice, of course, for the two of them to spend time together, but what Hux also enjoyed in equal measure was watching Kylo work. With his long hair swept up into a messy bun and viscous splotches of paint lending some much-needed colour to his dark attire, Kylo appeared every bit like a stereotypical artist. But what set him miles apart from all the others Hux had collaborated with before was that look in his eyes, that sharp gaze that seemed at once both confident and vulnerable, that strove to rise above the need for validation while simultaneously hungering desperately for it. It was something Hux had never seen before (except, perhaps, in himself), and he found it oddly fascinating.
A loud meow brought him back to reality, and he turned to see Millie lounging happily on the table. Her tail swished back and forth like a fluffy orange pendulum, and she appeared to have conquered Kylo’s latest project by stretching herself all the way across it. Hux couldn’t quite make out what it was, but it looked flat and square and vaguely green. Kylo sighed, let go of his arm, and started to gently nudge the cat away from it. She whined at him petulantly but hopped off the table anyway, moving to a corner of the room and starting to lick herself clean.
“Sorry about that,” mumbled Kylo. He picked up the green square and inspected it carefully, brushing away the few strands of cat hair that had gotten stuck to the front, before holding it out to Hux with both hands in a manner that was almost reverent.
“Well?” He asked, gazing at him anxiously. “What do you think?”
Hux accepted the piece cautiously, unsure what to expect, but then he took his first proper look at it and let out a soft gasp.
It was his old scrapbook.
Or, more precisely, it was his old scrapbook remade and reimagined by Kylo.
Instead of its original garish lime-green hue, the cover was now a more subdued shade of emerald, and made of felt. However, the copious amount of hearts on it still remained, embroidered in a shaky chain-stitch and linked to one another with loops and whorls of gold thread. Peeking shyly out of the top of the book was a papier-mâché flower, pale pink and slightly squashed after having been sat on by the cat.
Hux felt a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth, and it only grew wider when he opened the book and found a fair amount of it already filled in.
The pages inside were all light blue in colour, and each and every one of them had a unique band of intricately-patterned designer paper running from the top edge all the way to the bottom. In place of actual photographs, Kylo had sketched and painted numerous watercolours throughout the book, after which he had used a black Sharpie to draw a Polaroid frame around every single one. The pictures were largely of the two of them, starting from the moment they had first met all the way until the present day – on the very first page was an illustration of Hux taking a shot of Kylo by the roadside (Kylo had tastefully left out the angry punch that had followed soon after), and along with this were images of the pair of them sharing pasta, the birth of ‘The Starkiller’, their first kiss in that very workroom, and a particularly artistic rendition of the mixed media collaboration that had brought them together in the first place. The rest of the pictures included, among other things, Millie, the house, and the new purple plush that Hux had recently brought back.
Kylo had decorated the remaining empty spaces in the book with little doodles of cats, paw prints, cameras and paintbrushes. On a page somewhere in the middle of the book, which had a ‘Polaroid’ of Hux baking a Christmas cake the previous year, was a small crayon drawing of a frowny-faced gingerbread man, under which Kylo had scribbled a title: ‘Portrait of the Artist’s Lover’. Hux snorted at the picture and flipped to the next page, but he was disappointed when he found it to be sadly empty.
“Where’s the rest of it?”
“I left it for you to fill in, since it’s meant to be yours after all,” responded Kylo, peering over his shoulder. “I managed to contact the buyer and they said they’re cool with mailing back your old scrapbook, so it should arrive within the next couple of weeks. You can put those ancient Polaroids of yours right here.” He reached over to tap lightly on the blank page.
Hux said nothing, choosing instead to flip back a page and trace his finger over the drawing of the gingerbread man. Kylo watched him restlessly, fretting and fidgeting, until he could bear it no longer and blurted out the question that had been on his mind since the very beginning.
“Do – do you like it?”
At this, Hux finally turned around to look Kylo in the eyes.
“It’s…” Lovely. Exquisite. Beautiful. “It looks like a seven year old made it.”
Immediately, Kylo huffed out a laugh and visibly relaxed, because despite the apparent harshness of Hux’s remark, his tone had been nothing but playful, affectionate, loving.
“Thanks,” Kylo quipped back drily. “I was striving for realism.”
Hux smirked back at him, glad to return to their usual banter, but when he next spoke up it was with utmost sincerity.
“Thank you, Kylo. I mean it. And you know, it isn’t solely my book – you should add to it too.”
Kylo instantly launched into a barrage of protests, arguing that it was a gift to Hux as well as an apology, and that he had no right to continue adding on to it any more than he already had, but before he could go any further, Hux held up a hand to stop him.
“Kylo, you made this book. It’s just as much yours as it is mine. And anyway…” Here he paused to flip back to the page with the watercolour of ‘The Artist at Work’. “Wouldn’t you agree that we work best together?”
And though Kylo wanted nothing more than to continue his line of argument instead of giving in so quickly and so easily, he found himself at a loss for words because he did, in fact, agree with Hux. They were a good team, the two of them, each man complementing, completing the other, forming an intrinsically unique whole that was solely their own. Hux had spoken the truth, and, well, Kylo realised that he wouldn’t want to have it any other way.
“Alright Hux, you win,” he said, holding up his hands in mock surrender. “I’ll do the rest of the book with you.”
“So you feel the same then? You think we make a good pair?”
“Of course we do. In work as well as in…other things.”
Then, as if to prove his point, he shot Hux a cheeky grin and leaned down to catch him in a chaste kiss. He had missed having this, having Hux, and it was a long, long time before he finally forced himself to break away. Hux was giving him a curious look – Kylo hesitated to use the word tender – his eyes crinkling at the corners in undisguised mirth.
“That was awfully cheesy of you to do.”
“But would you like me to do it again?”
Hux’s response was to close the book, place it carefully back on the worktable, and then run his hands through Kylo’s unruly mane of hair and pull him back down so that their lips could meet a second time.
Yes, he answered wordlessly. Yes I would.
Hux’s old scrapbook finally returned home some weeks later, wrapped securely in plain brown paper and looking more than a little worse for wear after having travelled back and forth across the country. Upon first seeing the battered little package, Hux had initially grown worried, wondering if it had been damaged somehow before arriving. But after signing for it anyway and taking it up to the bedroom to open, he was relieved to find that the scrapbook itself – 23 years old now and still going strong – was still perfectly fine and just as he remembered it.
There were the stickers he had begged his mother to buy for him from the local stationery shop, and the flower that he had spent countless afternoons trying to get right. He needn’t have put in so much effort for a simple school project, he knew that, but then again, Hux had always been a bit of an overachiever, even as a precocious young seven year old.
He flipped open the book and squinted at the blurry Polaroids contained within. It was no wonder that Kylo had thought nothing of them and sold the whole thing away, given how objectively bad they were. It had been Hux’s first time borrowing one of his father’s cheaper, more outdated cameras, and he had gone to the beach – his first and only trip there – to take shots of sand, a palm tree, a single starfish, sand, the remains of a ruined sandcastle, an unidentifiable couple that Hux could only assume were his parents, and even more sand. He grimaced at the photos and slowly shut the book. Then he shifted closer to the bedside table and picked up his other scrapbook, the new one, the one Kylo had made for him.
That had been the whole reason, after all, that Hux had kept his old book in the first place – to have a sort of reference point to compare himself to and see just how far he had come with his work. And looking at all the new candid shots (mostly of Kylo and Millie) he had recently added to the more aesthetically pleasing book, he had come very far indeed. Unlike the bland, boring photographs from before, these shots were bursting with colour, with energy, with joy and with life. And Hux found that he much preferred them this way, thank you very much.
With an air of finality, Hux wrapped the old book back up in the brown paper it had come in and returned it to its usual place, stuffed under a small pile of socks. Then he climbed downstairs and sat on the couch with Millie, waiting for Kylo to come home from his grocery run. Half an hour later, he heard the key turn in the lock.
“Welcome back, Kylo,” he said, getting up to help his lover with the bags. “Um, this may sound a little sudden, but how about the beach tomorrow? I’ll bring my camera.”
End.