Kylo knew he wasn't a conventional person. There's darkness in each and every person. Kylo chose to embrace his darkness instead of burying it beneath layers of fake laughter and obsolete opinions. He didn't have many friends because of this and yeah ok, that didn't feel too great. But that didn't make Kylo any more keen to pull up a happy facade for his last year of high school. Then, Kylo met Hux.
At first, the new student seemed just like everybody else. He laughed at the required jokes and made friends easily. But Kylo quickly learned that Hux didn't give a shit about what people thought about him. He would stab people in the back and act like nothing had happened. Hux was a fiery person, like his hair. Kylo realized that Hux wasn't a very conventional person either.
They met one day when Kylo was sitting on the front steps of school, smoking a cigarette to calm his nerves. Hux came through the schools front doors looking a little worse for wear and approached Kylo. "Hey," he had said, "Know anywhere I can jump off a bridge around this dump you call a town?" Kylo smirked and shot back, "Sure, I've been waiting for somebody that has the balls to jump off it with me." That's how it all started. Two sentences and they were hooked. Finally, a person to rival the others curiosity.
It was a bad idea from the start. They challenged each other. Made sure to hit the quota of death defying activities each week. It was a match made in Hell. They understood. Kylo needed a person to explore death with. Somebody who wouldn't be afraid. Who'd test the limits of living and life itself. Hux, the same. It was a running joke between them.
"Hey Hux, I want to die."
"I feel the same Ren. I feel the same."
They talked about death. What it was like. How it would feel. How they would do it. Why they would do it. For Kylo it was his family. They tried to mold him into somebody he wasn't. Wanted him to cut his hair and dress nicer and study more. For Hux, it was his lack thereof. Hux's mother had died when he was born and his father would drink until he could blame the alcohol for the bruises that appeared on Hux's pale skin.
It was always just a game to them. Life was just a game. Kylo created a death playlist and both of them would add songs to it. Hux would suggest new ways to die, aided with additional facts about exactly how it would kill them. "A gun would be the ideal option." Hux would go on, "It would be relatively simple and quick. Although it would be very messy and loud. There's also the problem of actually acquiring a gun and one of us would be dead before the other. Death would be painless and take a maximum of precisely 0.54 seconds."
On weekends, the absence of school brought boredom and Kylo and Hux couldn't take it. They would go everywhere. Do everything as long as it had a risk. They listened to the creak of old boards as Kylo stepped through the second floor doorway of an old abandoned castle, Hux close behind. The castle had a caved in roof and had been standing for at least a century. When they returned a week later, the entire structure had collapsed. Kylo watched the light reflect off of Hux's fiery hair, the dawn light illuminated his pale skin. The sky shone in hues of navy and purple and burnt orange as they walked across the overpass of a busy highway in a not-so-good part of town. The news covered a story only days later about 2 people dead in a shooting on that same bridge.
They had unprotected sex in unsavory places. Kylo would push Hux against a dirty wall in a dangerous alley or maybe Hux would command Kylo to get on his knees in a field littered with old cigarette butts and empty beer cans. It was a beautifully undynamic duo. They would smoke cigarettes in the school bathroom and sneak alcohol into the movie theater. Hux would set fire to things in an old graffitied parking lot while Kylo tried to stomp on them without getting too horribly burned. It was a cycle of carefully controlled chaos.
It was a wonder nobody noticed. Dozens of hours were spent out and away from everything. Walls were spray painted in shades of blood red and navy blue. There were times whenever Hux would just sit and stare at the stars with Kylo and think about everything and nothing all at once. And there were times when Kylo would just stare at the wall while Hux did homework and just kept Kylo company.
As time went on, the little things didn't seem like enough anymore. Instead of bad streets and old castles, they would climb to the top of skyscrapers and dangle their legs over the edge. Looking down at the ground so far below gave a new perspective. Kylo snuck out his parents car and they would joyride at midnight across town, streets blurring together and lights leaving behind streaks they were going so fast. And still it escalated. The first time Hux brought hydrocodone, Kylo was wary. But the high was one of a kind. That's all they were doing. Chasing the high. Chasing the dragon. The adrenaline rush and the sensation of risk and fear prickling across skin. That's all it was. That's all anything was. It was all chasing. Chasing a love. Chasing dreams. Chasing the high. And Hux realized this as Kylo finished climbing down from the construction crane they'd been at the top of minutes beforehand. Of course, this all was pushed to the back of his mind as sirens started up in the distance. The cops didn't take too kindly to kids doing dangerous things.
But it came back later. It always came back. This time, it was as Kylo shoved Hux back against an old crumbling brick wall, sharp pieces jabbing into his back. Kylo leaned in and Hux felt their body heats merge and he realized that this is what it was all about. There was no life ahead of them. This was not living. It was a way of life. They were chasing the moon. Chasing the stars. They would never catch up, because they had no life ahead of them. Something would eventually bring them down whether it be a building or a bullet. This was adventure. This was chaos and self destruction. This was it. So Hux pulled Kylo closer and kissed him harder. Hux had every intention of making the most of all the time they had left, even if there wasn't all that much.