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The majority of their relationship could be described as a slow burn; Hux seeing it as a gentle progression, like the gradual smoking of an incense, while Ben often compared it to lighting a drum of gasoline on fire, waiting for the plastic to melt and give way before turning to a mass of flame.
They had met each other in a middle to upper class boarding school, set deep in the countryside surrounded by rock gardens and cleared fields, a young boy's paradise. However being of different grades and social statuses, a young Ben Organa-Solo and Brendol Hux II did not often cross paths. At the age of twelve, when most of the day was spent learning the sciences of the world around him and the mathematics that allowed towers to be built, Hux had noticed the timid seven year old that would turn into the tumultuous Ben Organa-Solo he so loved that stands today.
Of course, at that time, affections were farthest from his mind. While all the other boys ran about in the grass, free from the shadows that clung to the sides of the brick-faced school in the heat of the morning sun, kicking soccer balls as they pleased and chasing one another in games of high-stakes tag, little Ben sat in the shadows, watching with rapt attention. Hux had noticed the boy, wrapped head to toe in black garments, complete with a black shawl hastily thrown on and knotted to cover the boy's neck and hair, planted beneath a faded rainbow umbrella, darkening the little patch of shadows even further.
Ben spent his outdoors in the dark and stone, playing on the hard surface of the pathway lining the building, digging through the piles of gravel nearby to construct small stone dolmans, and playing a game of how many rocks he could stack till they tumbled over, all under the supervision of an aid who, while sweet, did nothing to engage the young boy.
Hux had never spoke to the little raincloud of a boy, but as he walked the perimeter of the building, nearing the back, a pack of younger boys raced past him, dragging another helpless victim; merely all in a day's work, and nothing for Hux to concern himself with. Except this time, their victim came wrapped in a swath of black fabric kicking his feet and trying to wrench his arms from the other boys' grasp, only succeeding in being dragged to the dirt with his face shoved into the ground. Others began to crowd around, all eager to pull at the folds of cloth while the younger boy continued to struggle.
Hux stood still for all of a moment before finally setting into motion, running over to the gaggle of boys eagerly trying to tear at the little boy like a pack of hyenas, for a reason unclear to himself – though looking back now, Hux can make a guess as to why he acted as he did. With a shout of, “Hey!” the boys all snapped out of their frenzy, looking wide-eyed – some in shock, some in fear – at the presence of Brendol Hux, both their senior and the boy whose father visited on weekends to sit in on the board meetings he was a member of. In the middle of the parted boys sat Ben, who had picked himself up and was now holding himself up on his elbows, facial expression matching those around him.
Hux looked at the boy before him, covered in dirt, his clothing looking more like the color of the many stones he used to pass the time, with a nose just this side of too big for his face, and everything above his eyebrows and below his chin hidden by the wraps of black. Perhaps most shocking for Hux, aside from the dark eyes staring up at him that would not cry, were the selective pieces of pale skin showing that had turned an angry red, and all across the bridge of his nose and the tops of his cheeks stood freckles that, against the burnt skin, looked more like ink splatters than a dusting of cinnamon, as they should.
As always too late, teachers rushed out into the yard, shooing the other boys from the area, before two carefully picked up Ben from the ground, bending over to coo at his face that only now began to warp under the pressure of tears. While they usher Ben inside – an ever-growing distant stream of ow, owwie, and momma signaling his departure – the remaining teachers smile at Hux telling him how nice he was and how brave it was to stand up to the other boys, but Hux just looks at the door where Ben has disappeared. From that day on, Ben now had a playmate outside. One who would keep him company – even if neither of them talked –, who kept the other boys who liked to kick the rocks he found out from beneath his hands, and who would go to the edges of the gravel, where the sunlight stood as an impassible shield, and pick the smooth round stones that would be the base of Ben's dolmans.
By the time Ben turned thirteen, Hux was only three months from graduating, leaving to study photography at a campus two hours away. But despite that, Hux was still Ben's friend, and over the years he could safely say that the younger – though certainly no longer smaller, since Ben had come back from the summer with one and a half inches on Hux and dark as night hair just barely brushing his broad, although the rest of him still being thin as a rail, shoulders – had wormed his way into Hux's heart and, if the way Ben sat curled up in a bean bag in the corner of Hux's room was any indication, had no plans on moving from this place.
Hux had noticed Ben as he changed over the years, starting from a mouse of a child to the, although still growing, mature individual he had become. The past years of their friendship had shown Ben excelling past the kids in his own grade, taking classes either one or two grades higher than his actual age would dictate, and on the promising path to a career in architecture like he dreamed of, while pointing to pictures of skyscrapers, colonial mansions and works of modern art, lying on their backs, crammed in the shallowness of Hux's bed as Ben described each with embers of wonderment swirling in his dark eyes.
It wasn't until one of these nights, where Ben held the architectural magazine that his dad had given him over the weekend over both of their heads, his arms stretching out farther than Hux's could, fingers tracing reverently over the sketch of Frank Lloyd Wright's 'Falling Water', Ben's favorite and coincidentally Hux's as well, that Hux realized the feelings of what he thought were nothing more than friendship and general affection were oh so much more.
In an ideal world, a quick world, an easy world, Hux would breathe out those three words to Ben, the ambient light of the lamp beside him washing his face in golden light, a stark contrast to the rich dark night just outside the window, interrupted only by the determined twinkling of far off cosmos. But of course things couldn't be that easy.
Hux graduated, walking across the green lawn of the boarding school for the last time as the name Brendol Hux II was called, shaking hands with the dean and taking his diploma from the secretary before moving to sit in the front row by himself, as his father sat behind the dean along with the other board members. He didn't feel lonely though, for two dark eyes watched him diligently from the shadows. And, with the knowledge that everything was fine where it was without muddying the waters with unrequited love and awkwardness, Hux pushed those feelings down till they sat buried deep within his ribs, pushing up against his heart with every intake of breath.
And of course, in an ideal world, a quick world, an easy world, Hux would know that the dark-eyed boy who always lingered in the shadows would give his life to stand beside Hux in the sun.
And that was the way everything worked for the next seven years, with minimal to moderate contact between the two, and the underlying thrum of affection that seemed to work itself into everything the two did. Hux went to college, graduating with a major in photography and a minor in French, a language he had fallen in love with by listening to Ben speak it in clipped words and short sentences after spending a summer in Brittany with his grandmother, which found him working around France the year Ben began his own schooling. The two managed to pick up a mutual friend, which in itself was not too difficult seeing as Ben went on to study at Hux's own college, and the fact that their mutual friend was Ben's own cousin Rey.
She shared all the stories of each other they couldn’t bring themselves to tell. How Ben seemed to be working through the list of boys on – and off – campus, though never going past a second date, if they even made it to that; his reputation growing so fast people that people honestly began to wonder if he was secretly stealing people's identities. And how Hux also couldn't seem to hold on to a stable relationship either. Well, except for that petite thing that lasted almost a full nine months before they had stormed out of the apartment, overnight bag of personals in hand, saying that Hux never seemed interested in them seriously.
And what a funny thing that was.
Or, perhaps even more funny, was how with each tale of how Ben was seen sharing a table with lacrosse team member #5 at that cute little cafe – that didn't you take Ben to when you came home for Christmas? –, Hux's throat seemed to run dry, like back when he was a kid and chased all the others around in a game of soccer. Or how when Ben heard that Hux had settled down and was sharing a small one-bedroom apartment in that neighborhood – near the river, across from the park you two always used to play in when we were kids – and decided to down half a bottle of that burgundy he had gotten three nights ago, before tossing the rest into the sink along with the blueprints for the small storefront in the historical district he no longer liked and throwing a match on top.
The stories left Hux with the feeling of sand coating his lungs, all the while that petite thing tried desperately to coax air from them; and Ben with a sink full of ashes and a slightly less full bottle of ibuprofen on his nightstand. But sitting across from each other on a late Saturday morning in a recluse corner, Ben wrapped once more head to toe in the black cloths he had since childhood, of another cute cafe – this one in the southern end of the historical district instead of the north-eastern, their drink menu wasn't as good as the other, but the chocolate chip macadamia nut scones they served more than made up for the average coffee –, a stranger would never know of the tension hovering under the surface of the two men, one a crackling fire and the other a towering cloud of soot.
In retrospect, their eventual romance wasn't really a “romance” so much as Ben managing to, in a personal best for drunkenness, weave himself from his own apartment – a relatively small loft in that industrial style that seemed to worm its way into every concept structure he drew as the recently-graduated architect he was – through the bars and small food markets, and into the artsy neighborhood that Hux lived; knocking on his door and proceeding to word vomit, and literally vomit, the last eight years of pining onto Hux's hardwood floors. Ben woke up once again with a slightly less full bottle of ibuprofen on the nightstand, but this time there were no ashes in his sink – mainly because it was half a mile away, but whatever – and Hux's legs tangled in between his own.
And from that day onward they never looked back. Well, there may have been some re-thinking when Ben insisted that, no, he would not be moving into Hux's apartment, and, of course, no, Hux was not moving into Ben's apartment, leaving the two to have numerous arguments over apartment shopping and the list of requirements that only seemed to grow under Ben's hand. Hux supposed he should not complain as much since, honestly, we're talking about Ben Solo, architect and man-child, and, despite all difficulties, had lived in their current apartment for the last two and a half years. Plus, it was where he was currently sitting, on their couch in the two-bedroom, yet again, industrial style apartment, with a perfect view of the park they used to play in as kids on the weekend. Though this one not near the river.
Hux flipped through one of the photography books he had gotten in the mail today as result of a sort art trade with another pair of local artists, exchanging his own books for theirs. To the right of him he heard a chirp, looking down the short hallway to see the short, creamy white coat of Palpatine walking with a swish in his tail at the realization of Hux's attention. Turning back to his book, Hux absentmindedly pats his knee and, with another trill, Palpatine hopped onto the couch, settling himself for a nap, half on the couch, half on Hux's thigh, with the little black dots of his toes sticking out from beneath his chin where they're pulled up as a makeshift pillow against the hard lines of Hux's leg.
Muted footsteps sound from the hall and Ben's deep voice interrupts the, aside from the occasional page turn and Palpatine's purring, silent room, “I don't think they're fond of each other.” Hux turns to look at Ben, who's using two hands to hold up the large mass of black and charcoal fur that is his cat-child Vader onto his hip.
Hux always preferred Palpatine – don't tell Ben that – and it was always a question as to whether or not it was the fact that he was over three feet long from nose to tail – a size which could easily knock down a three year old they had learned – that his eyes seemed to be set in a permanent scowl, made even more prominent when he chose to lurk around the bookshelves and counters like a gargoyle, or the fact that one evening – Hux and Ben's two-year anniversary, but again, whatever –, after lifting his head from where it was buried in Ben's neck, Hux made eye contact with the Hell beast where it sat in it's cat loaf pose atop their dresser, glaring; thus killing any sense of romance or safety in Hux's system.
Despite the cat's foreboding appearance, large quantity of fur, and Rey's insistence that Vader had attempted to kill her the one and only time she volunteered to pet sit, Hux had been unable to find it in his heart to deny Ben, who sat one evening on the couch, laptop balanced on his legs, stretched out to sit on the coffee table, with the local Craigslist pet page pulled up and eagerly pointed to the, at the time, soot-colored pom-pom that would become known as Vader. By that time they already had Palpatine, previously misgendered and named Petunia, who was rescued from the local shelter on one of their Adopt-a-thon days, surprisingly, by Hux, who walked by the building twice a day on his way to the subway station. Hux had more or less acted on impulse and didn't think anything of the young cat in the cardboard carrier until he had actual pushed into the apartment and stood across from Ben who was washing up the few dishes of the day in the moonlight, a necessity seeing as how the kitchen was, by far, the brightest room in the apartment, leaving Hux with most of the cooking and subsequently Ben with most of the cleaning when nighttime finally came around. But shockingly, or maybe not so shockingly when comparing the personalities of both cats and Ben, he didn't mind the new addition at all, instead grabbing his wallet from the dish in the entryway to go buy the necessary supplies for the puzz beast with a light smile and an ominous shout from halfway out the door of, “I get to pick the next one!”
Hux turned back to the book in his lap smiling faintly and saying, if not a little wearily, “They get along fine.”
Ben huffed, dropping himself on the sofa beside Hux, the necessary foot of space between them, known as the feline demilitarized zone, there to prevent any fights between the two cats. “You see you say that,” he started, shifting Vader from his hip to his lap where the cat proceeded to stretch out to his impressive length, almost reaching Ben's feet that once again rested on the coffee table, “but one of these days you're going to come home from work and Vader will have killed Palpatine.”
Ben was in his cat-mom mode and, despite this being a pressing concern to him, Hux couldn't find it in himself to take him seriously, quietly chuckling to himself, “Vader's not going to kill Palpatine.”
Looking up Hux met Ben's eyes, opened wide in worry for his two fur-babies, their dark centers standing out against his nearly white porcelain skin as Ben's voice cracked momentarily to grumble, “You're not taking this seriously.”
Hux smiled, moving his hand to brush the few strands of hair that had fallen out of the elastic holding back the rest of his hair, “They'll be fine. By the way, did you call your mother? She was looking for you.”
Ben huffed once more, turning his torso to give Hux access to the ponytail pulled up in the back of his head, “I swear I'm going to start leaving post-it notes for every piece of relevant information around the apartment.” Hux pulled the elastic free, snapping it on the back of Ben's neck in retaliation. He glared over his shoulder at the smirking ginger, before turning back to look at the lump of fur, purring much in the same way a car with a bad muffler does, “Yes I called her. Geez.” More hand movements, “You were in the room when I was talking to her. She wants us to visit in the spring, so make sure you keep a week in May clear.”
Hux grunted, Ben taking that for an agreement, as he raked his fingers through Ben's hair. Pulling the strands, that had grown noticeably longer without their usual trim, now pushing two inches past Ben's shoulders, into a high-ish ponytail, Hux paused seeing lighter strands filter through the top layers of black hair. Hux picked the lighter pieces out from the rest of Ben's hair, wondering if it was just a trick of the light. But no, in his hand was a section of hair much lighter than Ben's own, almost sandy in color. With a furrowed brow Hux looked to man beside him, currently occupying himself by flicking through the various TV channels and twirling his fingers through Vader's coat, “Ben.”
A distracted “hmm” was tossed out, as the TV picture halted on a home improvement show for a minute longer than the rest before settling on some food program.
Growing more confused as the minutes passed, each revealing more ashen blonde pieces in the bottom layers of Ben's hair, “Did you do something different to your hair?”
Rolling his head back further into Hux's hands, chasing the feeling of Hux playing with his hair, the nearly impeccably trimmed nails occasionally scratching against his scalp, almost purring like the cat in his lap, “No. You never comment on my hair. Are you trying to be cute or are you having a stroke?”
Unresponsive to Ben's lighthearted teasing, Hux continued his search, “Why the hell are you blonde? Did you bleach it?”
In a quick movement, Ben righted himself, spooking Vader off his lap and grabbing onto the offending blonde strands. Seeing the almost handful of blonde strands Ben groaned, “I thought I missed some pieces, but I didn't think I missed this many.” Sinking into the couch cushions, he continued groaning, throwing an arm melodramatically over his eyes, “I've been walking around all week like this. My co-workers had to have noticed.” Yanking his arm off his face, the beginnings of anger starting to build up behind his eyes, “I bet that skank Trisha noticed and didn't tell me on purpose.”
Hux continued to sit, still lost in the current situation, muttering in confusion, “What?”
Ben stopped his tiny sentient tantrum to look up a Hux with a look crossed between his own confusion and judgment, “I dye my hair. I've been dying my hair.” When another moment passed in silence, the two males continuing to stare at the other in disbelief, Ben's face contorted into furrowed brows and a scowl – not the most flattering expression –, “We share a bed. How could you not know I dye my hair?”
Just now seeming to grasp the situation, Hux reached out brushing his fingers over the lighter, no; Ben's natural hair, “ So you're a blonde?”
Settling back into the couch in a manner clearly more comfortable, and returning his gaze once more to the television, “It's more of an ashy color really,” and, glaring much in the same way as Vader, “Don't go thinking I'm a Barbie doll.”
Hux continued to twirl the lighter hair around his finger, “Of course not.” Another wave of silence passed between the two, this one more comfortable, more familiar than the last. “How did I not know you dyed your hair?” Hux muttered, more to himself than anything else.
Ben snorted, though his gaze didn't waver from the chef on air making a modern rendition of beef bourguignon, “I wore a shawl over my hair all the time, and when you did finally get to see my hair I had already begun dying it.
Still staring at the lighter strands, that now could clearly be seen in the slightly organized mess of Ben's ponytail, Hux spoke with more insistence than last time, “You should grow it out.”
Finally breaking Ben's concentration with the TV, he looked up at Hux, “Really?” Turning back to his show with the ghost of a smile on his face, slyly humming, “I suppose so.”
The next few months nearly killed Hux, who had now began to anticipate the progress of Ben's hair, becoming more eager as the blonde eventually grew to take over the added black. This was of course a win for Ben who, as anyone with hair or a scalp could agree, looked forward to the feeling of Hux's fingers curling into the growing strands. It had become a sort of ritual for the pair to sit on the couch in the living room, well Hux sat while Ben stretched out much like his cat, placing his head in Hux's lap, and have Hux play with Ben's hair in the early twilight hours.
By February, Ben's blonde hair now was the same length as the black, brushing the tops of his ears, and leaving him with the appearance of a crude dip-dye, the likes of which Ben seemed to groan endlessly about until Hux proved to him once more how he loved his hair just the way it was.
By March, the blonde had begun to outweigh the black, though Ben still managed to complain bitterly over the, according to Ben at least, passive-aggressive comments made by Trisha at work. Hux managed once more to remedy Ben's sour mood, stating how this “Trisha” must be over-compensating for her own life – or lack thereof – and offering to show grossly excessive displays of affection in front of her the next time all three of them happened to be in the same room.
By the end of April, the blonde had managed to overtake all but an inch and a half of the black which was hastily chopped off in a spontaneous declaration of victory, even though it left Ben with slightly shorter hair, leaving a gap at the back of his neck.
Now that Ben's hair had grown out completely, Hux couldn't seem to make himself stop staring whenever his boyfriend was in the room. Contrary to what he had first thought in the beginning, the ashy color happened to suit Ben perfectly. The ashy blonde strands stood out strongly against the paleness of Ben's skin, while still being dull enough not to make him look like the Barbie doll he complained bitterly of, but warm enough to pull out the few freckles of cinnamon that brushed along the tops of his cheeks and nose. Where with the black hair he had grown used to, Ben held an edge of formality and, admittedly, a heavy dose of that undercover assassin feeling, the blonde brought back the Ben he had sat next to and built dolmans with in the shadows of their former boarding school, and Hux found himself caught up once again in the force of Ben Organa-Solo that had captivated him from the beginning.
With May came the highly-anticipated, or at the very least highly-planned, trip to visit Ben's parents. Hux was set with the task of loading their bags, as the morning sun shone brightly and Ben was attempting to avoid all hints of sunlight until he absolutely had to. Ben stood inside the doorway of their apartment attempting to explain the various intricacies of Vader and Palpatine to the cat sitter, who they had forgotten till now, having to rely on one of their neighbors: the two men who owned the corgi on the second floor.
Hux waited patiently in the car, knowing that if he rushed Ben he would have to listen to him worry for the next two hours on whether or not he forgot to mention something about the cats before insisting they turn around, as if cell phones weren't readily available. In his own time, Ben finally left the apartment building, bouncing down the stairs with the trail ends of his black wraps brushing the ground and black umbrella resting over his shoulder. Settling in behind the totally-not-illegal tinted windows and tucking away the umbrella to drop into the foot well where it would inevitably get lost under the seat as a result of incessant leg shuffling, Ben smiled, looking much like the cat that ate the canary, chirping out, “We can go now.”
The drive was a pleasant drive, albeit a long one. Breaking off of the freeway after five hours Ben pulled out his phone to call his mother, looking to alert the Organa-Solo household of their due presence, exchanging a few words and chuckles as the car curved alongside the twisting wooded roads of the town Ben still managed to remain fiercely loyal to after all these years.
The childhood home of Ben stood at the end of a long curved driveway, buried back from the road beneath the shade of numerous oak, maple and pine trees, casting nearly the entire yard in the shadow of the sprawling branches. As the car shifted into park, the front door opened, Leia stepping out onto the small stone doorstep to welcome her son home after not seeing him for nearly six months, though they kept in touch on almost a tri-weekly occurance by phone and, occasionally, Skype when Han wasn't using it to talk to one of his old job buddies Chewie in Thailand.
Ben unfolded himself from the front seat, forsaking the umbrella, but still wrapped completely in cloth, striding over to his mother and bending to wrap his arms around her. Hux looked over at them, Ben bending his knees to avoid having to almost fold himself in half to be on his mother's level, moving to pull the two duffles out of the back seat before following after.
By the time Hux made it to the front door Ben had already moved inside, eager to get indoors, probably looking to greet his father; even though he would be fine in the heavily shaded yard, Ben still held a resistance to being outdoors for extended periods of time. He paused looking down at Leia who stood with a challenging expression on her face, lips pulling into a smile, “Mum.”
Her face evened out into a loving smile, holding up her arms and barking out, “Come here Brendol.”
Hux obeyed, awkwardly hugging Leia with the luggage still in his hands while she squeezed him in the embrace he had come to associate with home and love after his own parents had been less than receptive of his and Ben’s relationship.
Shuffling into the home, bags draped around his shoulders, the sounds of a foreign conversation could be heard from the living room. Leia sighed heavily, pointing to the floor, stating, “Just drop them there,” before hollering into the living room, “Han, say goodbye to Chewie! Your only child's here!”
She gave Hux a withering look, walking off to the kitchen and leaving Hux to venture into the living room where, naturally, Han sat in his computer chair talking to his old business partner Chewie. Ben leaned one arm against the chair and, after Hux heard a string of foreign characters directed at him, called out a cheerful, “Sawasdee krab!”
With a few more sentences of Thai being shared between the, now, three, the connection was closed and Han stood, aiming to move into the kitchen after his wife, nodding at Hux with a clipped, “Brendol,” before leaving the room. Not to say Hux and Han's relationship was strained or anything, but the older man always managed to regard his son as someone to be protected, an act most likely held over from Ben's childhood.
Ben followed shortly after his father with Hux in tow. Leia commanded the entire kitchen as if it were here fortress, directing Han to get drinks for the pair and elbowing him in the sternum to speak more than one-word sentences to Hux. The four stood around the granite island, catching up on the recent news, with Hux being invited to participate in an exhibition at one of the galleries near their apartment, and Ben once again looking to his mother for consolation that, no, Vader was not going to kill Palpatine. Once stories began to replay, Leia took the opportunity to interupt Han's telling of something regarding Chewie to say “Ben, take off your wraps already.”
Following his mother's direction, he pulled the cloths wrapped around him, half-folding, half-balling them up into a pile as Han went back to his story, albeit now with a bit more bitterness at being interrupted. With the final scarf being removed from around his head, Ben looked up to the wide eyes of his mother and father, a confused, “What?” falling from his lips.
Leia moved around the island to stand in front of Ben, pulling him down to her level to run her hands through his hair, the fluttering of emotions clogging her throat, “Look at your hair.”
Leaning against the counter on his forearms, Han scoffed, “I was beginning to think the black was your natural hair color.”
Ben smiled almost shyly, his mother's fingers weaving through his hair, reminding him how much he missed this simple act. And Hux stood beside him; smile on his face, completely in love with his little sunshine.