[A/N: Dearest nonny, what a lovely prompt! It put me in mind of a letter I once saw in a self-help column, so I sure hope you like Hux having a lot of sexual hang-ups. I hope you enjoy!]

Palette

In hindsight, it was foolish of Hux to think he could hide it from Ren indefinitely. No matter how touch-starved and inexperienced he suspected Ren of being when they began this stupid, dangerous affair, eventually Ren is going to notice that Hux never lets him reciprocate. It doesn't matter how many times Hux goes down on him and claimed to have come just from that.

(That's not technically, a lie. Hux does get off on orally pleasuring someone, especially if he’s masturbating furiously at the same time.)

He just didn't think Ren would notice tonight. But it's his fault for letting Ren into his actual bed, although they've been trysting in his quarters like rational people at his insistence. He hadn't been planning on going there this evening, but it's very difficult to resist Ren, especially when he's already sprawled naked in Hux's sheets.

So Hux didn't.

The heavy petting is going well, very well, up until Ren's hand slides from Hux's hip to his cock.

Hux writhes awkwardly on his side, trying to discreetly dislodge Ren's questing hand without alerting Ren to his true intention. He manages it by grabbing Ren's hand and encouraging him to palm his ass instead. "Touch me," he groans into Ren's mouth, to cover his tracks, and again, when Ren gropes the flesh in his hand and digs his fingertips into Hux's skin.

Ren is stupidly fond of what little passes for his ass, so it works—but only for a moment. Ren is a man of rare focus when he wants to be, and he cannot be easily dissuaded from what he's set his mind to doing. When he actually grabs at Hux's entire kit, Hux shies away instinctively from the assault on his genitals and bats Ren's hand away.

Ren rears his head back, chin jutting into his neck. His hand hangs in the air uselessly, before falling to pet awkwardly at his own chest. A scowl twists his asymmetrical face. "I want to touch you," he says.

On anyone else, such a statement would probably sound seductive, but out of Ren's mouth, it's rough and petulant. Hux's eyelid flickers as he suppresses the urge to roll his eyes at Ren. Instead, he settles for fixing Ren with an unimpressed look.

Ren relaxes his neck and chews on his lower lip for a moment. "I want to make you come," he amends. His dark eyes search Hux's face, and Hux feels himself start to flush with embarrassment. Oh, stars, this is exactly why he didn't want to bring this up now. Or, ideally, ever.

But the moment has come, despite his best efforts, and Hux has not gotten where he is by running away from moments such as these. "Well, you can't," he says, with an air of finality, and rolls over, turning his back on Ren. His weight sinks into the divot of the mattress where he usually sleeps, and he wishes it would swallow him up.

He tenses when he feels Ren's hand press against his shoulder blade. "What?"

Hux stares a grim hole into the door of his refresher. There's no good way to explain this to someone, but he does have a prepared statement. Fat lot of good it's ever done him. "For a variety of reasons that I don't want to get into," Hux says, carefully, "I have developed a very limited sexual palette."

"Limited to what?" Ren's breath is warm on the back of Hux's neck. Hux resists the urge to glance down and see if the flush on his face has made its way to his chest.

"My hand," Hux says, defeated.

Hux fully expects Ren to get up and walk out, despite his compromised state. It happened the first time, and he's taken measures ever since to make sure it doesn't happen again—focusing maniacally on his rare partners, making sure he touches himself before they can get at him, and, once, out of sheer desperation, faking coming in his pants.

But Ren doesn't. Instead, he hooks his chin over Hux's shoulder, rubbing his hand along Hux's side. Hux's skin flushes at the contact. "Okay," Ren murmurs into his ear. "Okay. What can I do?"

The question takes Hux completely by surprise. "I suppose you could watch, but—"

His answer goes unfinished as Ren wraps his arms around him and rolls them onto his back. Ren shuffles backwards on the mattress until he's sitting up, Hux awkwardly coiled in his lap.

"What are you doing?" Hux demands.

Ren rubs a hand over Hux's stomach, making Hux's eyelids flutter. "You said I could watch," Ren repeats, in a tone that implies Hux is a little slow on the uptake. Hux rolls his eyes. "Show me how you do it."

Hux's eyebrows knit in confusion. Why does Ren want to watch him masturbate? He must be more inexperienced than Hux initially suspected, if he's that curious. But Hux feels himself flush again, with a sensation entirely disparate from embarrassment. "Alright," he agrees, softly, and then, louder, "Spread your legs, then. I need to sit."

Ren parts his powerful thighs, and Hux slides down to sit on the mattress. Ren draws up his knees, bracketing Hux's bent legs, and hugs Hux closer to him. Hux can feel Ren's half-hard cock press against his ass. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, letting himself relax against Ren's broad chest. As Ren continues to trace light, erratic patterns over his stomach, he takes himself in hand.

He's soft, embarrassment having driven all desire from him, but his cock slowly swells under the familiar attentions of his hand. Ren is warm, almost hot, at his back and at his front, where his arms are still wrapped around his chest. Ren presses their heads together, and Hux catches Ren's strange, scorched scent. It sends a faint wave of arousal through him.

When Ren kisses the side of his face awkwardly, wetly, Hux groans, feeling himself stiffen to full attention.

"You like this," Ren says, tone questioning. He nuzzles at Hux, and another soft wave of pleasure washes over him.

"Yes," Hux admits. He does like it. He loves it—Ren's hands on his skin, the lushness of Ren's mouth, the rare opportunity to feel outsized so spectacularly. Ren would never have made it to his bed if he didn't. "But it doesn't get me off."

"Does it have to?" Ren asks. One arm curls away from Hux's chest, leaving him feeling a little cold. Hux opens his eyes. His gaze flickers from where his hand is occupied to where Ren's hand comes to rest, fingertips tracing circles on his thigh. Ren's hand feels pleasingly heavy on his flesh, and he watches, stroking himself, as Ren's fingers traverse his skin, tracing lines against his inner thighs, ruffling the hair on his legs. He shudders, cock pulsing hotly in his hand.

"Ah. I thought that was rather the point of the entire exercise, Ren," Hux says.

Ren hums neutrally. "Have you tried doing it differently?"

Hux's hand loosens on his cock as he rolls his eyes elaborately. "Oh, thank you, Ren!" He mocks. "It's simply somehow never occurred to me to alter my technique, I'll get right on that immediately." His erection wilts slightly in his hand as he feels suddenly, overwhelmingly, self-conscious. Hux presses his lips together and glares at it.

"I didn't mean…" Ren murmurs into his ear, breath hot on Hux's skin. He swallows. "I mean, do you do anything else? When you make yourself come?"

"Well, I—" Hux's free hand flies to his chest automatically, barely brushing his soft nipple. Ren covers Hux's left hand with his own, leaning down to kiss his neck. Hux groans. The sound feels like it's coming from deeper and deeper within his body.

Ren pinches, presses, and kneads at his nipple with his calloused fingertips. Hux's hand on his cock stutters as it throbs. His breathing comes faster and faster. His face is flushed so crimson his scalp is tingling. Ren groans. The sound vibrates through Hux, imposing on his heartbeat.

The hand on Hux's thigh tucks into the crease of his leg. Ren presses their legs together as he rubs his thick cock against Hux's ass. His thick, hard cock.

"You're getting off on this," Hux says, half-accusatory, half-surprised.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Ren says, in the same tone. Ren grunts and tries to press closer to Hux, squeezing him, but they're practically sharing skin at this point. Hux bites back a moan as his cock leaks. "Fuck, Hux," Ren gasps into his ear, and begins to lick and mouth at Hux's neck.

They move in silence for a moment, Hux's hand twisting around his cock, Ren rutting against him, until Ren lifts his mouth from Hux's neck to moan, "We'll do other things."

The statement implies intimacy. It implies progression. It shocks Hux into sarcasm. "Oh, we're a we now, are we?"

Ren ignores him. His breath is coming out in short gasps now, and Hux shudders as he feels precome smear at the base of his spine. Ren presses his head tightly against Hux's, his gasping breath loud and lurid in his ear. "You could—you could jerk off on my face."

An image immediately pops into Hux’s head, of Ren kneeling at his feet, nuzzling and mouthing hungrily at the slim meat of his inner thigh, Hux coming onto his face with a choked groan. Hux hisses, grimacing, a wave of pleasure crashing through him.

The image spools on without him, and he recognizes Ren’s mental handiwork. “Get out of my head,” Hux orders softly, even as the image of Ren licking his obscene, plush lips clean of Hux’s come makes him shudder, ache, and leak. Oh, he's close, and sooner than he anticipated.

"You could—"

"Ren, this will go a lot faster if you would just shut up," Hux hisses, and hisses again when he feels precome drip onto his knuckles.

"Doesn't have to be fast," Ren sighs into his ear, but he does falls silent.

Hux's balls draw up tight as he approaches his peak. He feels more in his body than he usually does at this point, anchored by Ren's wet mouth on his neck, Ren's hands on his body, Ren's cock thick and hot at his back.

"Oh, fuck!" he hisses helplessly, as he starts to come. He gasps when Ren grabs his hair to tilt his head, smashing their lips together. Hux pumps furiously into his hand, come drooling down his fingers in thick, white spurts, groaning into Ren's hot mouth. Normally, when he comes, it just feels like he's plateauing, but this is different. This is intense. "Shit!" he hisses, as his hips stutter to a halt.

He squeezes himself longer than he needs to, out of habit, and then sags against Ren. Ren holds him for a minute, nuzzling at him, before rolling them both onto their sides. Hux feels so boneless that he nearly just rolls over onto his front, but Ren palms his upturned hip to keep him up—and to press his wet cock against the slight curve of Hux's ass.

Ren gasps and ruts furiously against him, like an animal. He comes with a long, low, guttural moan, spilling all over Hux's lower back. He takes a whining breath, and then topples sideways against Hux. He rolls Hux nearly face-down on the mattress with his weight, sprawling on top of him, his own face pressed between Hux's shoulder blades.

Distantly, Hux is disgusted at the fact that Ren's come is now smeared between them, but, in the moment, he's much more interested in how good Ren's weight feels pressing on him.

This is the closest he's ever come to being fucked, Hux thinks, and, for the first time in his life, he finds himself intrigued by the idea.

Perhaps his sexual palette is capable of expanding after all.

After a few minutes, Ren's weight crosses the line from pleasurable to oppressive. "Get off," Hux mutters. Ren groans in protest, but obeys, sliding off Hux with a slick, squelching noise to lay next to him. When Hux feels able, he rolls onto his side.

"Next time," Ren murmurs, tucking his dark head against Hux's chest, "Next time, maybe I could put my hand on yours."

Hux traces the side of Ren's face with his fingers, watching, fascinated, as Ren closes his eyes and leans into his touch. Ren must have been a virgin, Hux concludes, before they met. He has to have been, to be so patient for so little.

Unless, of course, Ren actually likes him, and that idea is so patently absurd that Hux laughs into Ren's sweaty hair.