San Junipero Gingerpilot AU
Hux opens his eyes and takes in the fluorescent lights, the heat of the summer road and Belinda Carlisle crooning from a car radio into the temperate night air. It’s perfect, or as perfect as anything he could recall. And then everything goes to hell when he sees him, striding across the street wearing too-tight jeans into Tucker’s, trailed by an overeager fit blond. The music is almost too loud to hear him when he snugs into the spacious booth and leans in “just go along with whatever I say…” Hux looks at the disappointed blond with his most sincere yes-I’m-terminally-ill eyes as he lets the lie slip off his tongue “Five actually.” Five months to spend with his oldest best friend that he’s really only just met and even if it was true he can already tell it wouldn’t be enough.
Hux can barely hear him when he holds out his hand later, sitting at the bar over too much rum in too little coke “I’m Poe.” Hux shakes his hand a little surprised and replies, Poe smiles “Armitage. That’s not a name you hear every day…” Hux likes the way he says it, he likes the way he says everything and he needs to find a way out.
Sneaking off the dance floor hadn’t been his plan and he’s surprised to see Poe approaching him through the rain. “So you’re a tourist?” and Hux isn’t sure what he is. They don’t have much time and he knows he can’t take Poe’s offer but he feels the heat in his hand and everything is falling into place and about to change and– 11:59.
Hux opens his eyes and shoves a tape in the old Sanyo boombox and looks at himself in the mirror and runs his long fingers through his copper hair. One week later and he’s ready– but he wasn’t prepared to get dressed up and stroll into Tucker’s only to find Poe with someone else. Another fit blond. He can’t help himself and chases after him, staring Poe dead in the eyes in the empty men’s room “Can’t you just… make this easier for me.” Hux takes his hand this time, gets in his car and they drive…
Hux wakes up and realizes he dozed off and there’s Poe, sprawled out next to him and just as naked, “You’ve really never done this before?” and Hux can’t lie so Poe answers for him, “Not anyone? No one, nowhere. Wow. Not even with your fiancée…” Hux looks away because “It’s complicated,” and can barely listen about the husband Poe used to have who couldn’t stick around and understands what heartbreak sounds like. Hux can’t take the talking anymore so Poe does as he’s asked and shuts them up with a kiss that proves every one is just as good as the first.
“This,” Poe gestures around them at the flickering men’s room lights,“means fun and this” he gestures sharply between them, “is not fun.” Hux had looked so hard for Poe for three weeks. He takes it like a punch to the gut and feels like an idiot. He should’ve seen this coming. Everything here was always too good to be true. Guys that look like Poe, that are fun like Poe, don’t just fall for guys like him.
Poe looks into the shattered mirror and sees the fragmented reflection of the swinging door and knows he feels something. Kylie Minogue’s voice fades in and out, mocking him. Yes he knows he can’t get Hux out of his head thank you very much, he didn’t need a reminder. Poe looks back up from his unscathed hand to the mended mirror. Nothing ever sticks around and this is just another cruel reminder of what he’s lost, what he shouldn’t want. To hell with it all.
Hux looks at the night sky instead, hoping Poe will miss the damp edges of his eyes as he takes a seat on the chilly concrete building ledge. Their thighs almost touch. “I’m sorry. I made a promise to myself that I wouldn’t… do feelings here. So you’ve just been totally fucking inconvenient. I just… don’t know how long I’ve got and…I can’t. I wasn’t prepared for you. For wanting something so… “ and Hux takes the leap this time and kisses him and it’s just as electric as before.
”When I’m done, I’m done…” Poe lets the smoke carry his words off into the wind letting the crash of the ocean fill the silence, like that’s an explanation at all. Hux hates the finality of it. They’re running out of time and it’s for good. Final. Done. Forever. That’s what this is then, just a little fun before lights out. But he looks at Poe and he can’t even be properly angry. All his words come out sounding sad and bitter instead. “Try me,” Poe reels him back in and Hux takes the bait, “You really wouldn’t like me if we met in person…so don’t–” So Poe opens his eyes and stubbornly makes his way to the coast and proves him wrong this time.
Poe doesn’t like the way the afternoon sun can never quite warm up a hospital, no matter how many windows make up the walls. He stares at the fiance and he is a good guy, like so many other good guys with good intentions. But it’s all so wrong the way he explains why it’s complicated. Clinical. “He’s crossing over into the cloud, uploaded, just like a program,” he says, like it doesn’t actually mean something. Like it’s not an end to something important. “And you’re getting married to make sure he can live on in San Junipero.” Poe watches him nod and wonders if it could even be considered living. Poe knows what death means and he’s going to get his five minutes.
“You know now, I was being generous when I said five months.” Hux squints into the sunshine. It’s all so new, all of this feels so new in the daylight and Poe touches his calf kneeling in the sand at his feet now and Hux knows his answer already but lets Poe ramble on because he still likes the sound of his voice, “I don’t care. Marry me instead. Marry someone you already have a bond with?” It only makes sense. They’re married the next morning.
Hux dies on schedule. It’s painless and uneventful and he’s not a tourist anymore. He opens his eyes and it’s afternoon again. The sand between his toes and the sun on his skin finally makes sense. Hux doesn’t understand why anyone would turn this down. Poe had said it’s not really living at all if you think about it, but it all feels real enough to him. And this is his forever but–
Poe is still just passing through. “I can’t stay… that was never the deal, this marriage was just so you could stay here. It’s just business between us…” and they both know it’s a pathetic lie. It still hurts. “It feels real enough,” and he doesn’t mean the wind or the sudden chill in the air this time and he feels small standing in front of Poe now. Hearing about the 49 years thrown away because his husband’s ethics clashed with eternity, and for what– it is selfish. No matter what. He would never–
The slap feels real enough, deafening even after his cheek doesn’t sting anymore, and maybe Poe is right. Maybe Hux doesn’t know what real love is, but he would like to find out. He knows what he wants and it was always Poe. He wants the good and the bad, the heartbreak, the commitment and even the boredom of their forever after, really wants eternity with– and he has no right to ask– and he can’t say it and–
Hux reaches out and he can feel the heat off Poe just like the first time and– 11:59. Time’s up. Only this time Hux stays. Alone. Holding his hand out to empty space.
Poe opens his eyes, groggy from the weekly cloud transfer and tired of dying. His short time in San Junipero is never enough now and his lungs ache. Damn cigarettes. The sun rises over the Nevada trees like it does and will continue on well after he’s long gone and Poe lets the wind and sun sting his eyes as he says goodbye to it all and chooses to change his mind.
One week later Hux stops his convertible at the edge of the beach house where they fell in love and lets the heat of the afternoon sun hit him as he shuts his eyes. And he feels it. This really is heaven. He grins as Poe climbs into the passengers seat and they drive…
