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1.
Gon acted like it was the most natural thing in the world.
That’s the thought Killua can’t get out of his head. That’s what’s kept him awake to half-past two in their cramped Padokea hotel room, doing his best to avoid rousing Gon from sleep. If he needs to, he supposes he can explain the situation away as the pain of his injuries keeping him up, but then again, that might actually make things worse. Because undoubtedly, Gon would make a fuss. He’d ask if Killua needed more painkillers, and even if he said no, he’d fetch Killua a glass of water and a cool cloth for his forehead, and he’d stay with Killua until he finally fell asleep, murmuring gentle reassurances and stroking his hair.
And that’s what finally does it, that image of tender affection is what finally catches Killua unawares enough for him to forget to hold in his tears for only a moment, and the next thing he knows, he’s crying in earnest.
Killua slaps a firm hand over his mouth in an effort to silence his sobs. He can’t wake Gon. He can’t have Gon start soothing and comforting him. Because that might really be the last straw. That might be the moment Killua loses it for good. The point of no return.
Gon had acted like it was the most natural thing in the world.
The thought comes to Killua again, even clearer and starker now against the backdrop of muddled hysteria, and he chokes back a sob. Gon acted like infiltrating the Zoldyck manor, where no one has ever trespassed and survived it, was simply the most logical course of events.
Except no, not exactly. That isn’t Gon. He didn’t act like he’d given the matter careful, considered thought, weighing the pros and cons of leaving Killua to his family’s torture before deciding to rescue him. No, he acted like it was the only choice he had. Like facing down the single most dangerous family in the world, untrained and inexperienced in combat, armed with nothing but a fishing rod and that bullheaded devotion, was his only possible option. Like the thought of leaving Killua to his punishment (at least partly deserved, if Killua’s being honest), never even occurred to him.
Killua can hear just how he’d say it, too. “Of course I came for you, Killua,” he’d say, and in Killua’s mind, there’s just enough incredulity to make him cry harder. “Of course I came for you. You’re my friend. I wasn’t going to let them take you from me. I wasn’t going to let them hurt you.”
Because that’s what it means to be Gon’s friend, Killua’s realized. It means unwavering, stalwart protection. It means, if Canary’s story is true, that Gon let himself be beaten to the ground over and over, only to rise unceasingly from the dirt, every time with Killua’s name on his bloodied lips. It means there was no sacrifice too great—not even his own life—to see Killua again.
Killua can’t recall a single instance of that; he can’t recall a single time anyone stuck their neck out for him. Any time someone withstood a single blow to spare Killua one, let alone dozens. Let alone anyone allowing themselves to be beaten to the very edge of consciousness.
At least, not until Gon. Not until he’d laid eyes on Gon’s swollen, bloodied face in the butler’s quarters, and watched him break into a grin so wide he reopened one of the splits in his lip as he rushed to Killua‘s side. If that wasn’t Gon in a single image—smiling like a fool at the sight of Killua, not a single thought spared to the thick streak of blood starting to trail down his chin.
If that entire idiotic rescue wasn’t Gon in a single gesture—reckless, courageous, single-minded to the point of sheer insanity, and, as always, the one and only exception to Killua’s every rule.
2.
For a long time, Killua was certain there wasn’t anything left in the world for him to fear.
He’d come to this conclusion around age nine. Having suffered what he had, having endured so much violence and brutality that he didn’t have a single memory not clouded by the hazy, hot remembrance of pain, there just wasn’t anything to fear anymore. Pain and anguish. Anguish and pain. That was simply living, suffering so constant that Killua had long since given up on even imagining relief. And in the face of that, what was there to be afraid of? What pain was there that he hadn't suffered? After all these years, there just wasn’t any untouched part of him left to hurt.
Until Gon.
When Gon had said it today—”I’m allowed to die, but you aren’t”—Killua had known true terror like he hadn’t for years. The mere thought of harm coming to Gon ignited in Killua a fear so deep and primal it defied description. Language crumbled in the face of it, until all Killua could think was an endless litany of “No, no, no, not you, I refuse, no, you can’t,” the words a staccato beat keeping time with his frantically pounding heart.
Even now, in the shower of their Yorknew hotel room, the idea of losing Gon, seeing him felled and falling, landing with a sickening thud on the cold floor, overwhelms Killua with such terror that hot, stinging tears gather in his eyes.
Killua wipes roughly at his eyes to try to stem the flow of tears. It’s been ages since he’s cried at all, and longer still since he’s cried from fear. Years, at the very least. At first, he learned to suppress his tears to avoid provoking more anger, and after that, there just wasn’t anymore fear to move him to tears at all. All that was left was a deep, empty chasm in his chest where the fear used to sit.
But the chasm is filled now, filled to bursting, with a a desperate, frantic mass of terror. The terror that Gon’s noble, valliant, wholly idiotic self-sacrifice will be his downfall. That one of these days, he’ll find himself in a bind so tight even he won’t be able to wriggle his way out of it. And Killua will be left with nothing. With a world without Gon.
The thought makes Killua’s knees buckle, so that he only catches himself on the shower wall in time, knocking a half-full shampoo bottle to the floor with a clatter.
“Killua?” Gon calls from the hotel room, rapping lightly on the bathroom door. “You okay in there?”
Killua takes a bracing breath.
“I’m fine,” he replies, and he’s surprised by the steadiness of his own voice. “I’ll be out in a moment.”
Killua wipes roughly at his eyes, attempting to regain control. For now, Gon is on the other side of that door, warm and vibrant and alive. Killua hasn’t lost him yet.
Not yet.
He’s still here.
Not yet.
It’ll have to be enough. After all, Killua lasted the first dozen years of his life on far less than that.
3.
Dying isn’t at all like Killua thought it would be.
Whenever he’d imagined it, and he’d imagined it plenty, it had always been rather peaceful. Like falling asleep, only with slightly more speed and far more finality. He figured he’d just fade off into oblivion without much fuss or fanfare.
In reality, dying feels wretched. Killua is weak and hot and shaky as the sticky pool of blood beneath his prone body grows and grows. His heartbeat is little more than a weak stutter, as useless and frantic as the flapping wings of a caged bird. He’d be sick if he had the strength left to gag, but he doesn’t, so the stomach acid merely creeps a searing line up his esophagus.
And perhaps worst of all, he’s dying alone, and after a game of darts, of all things. And it’ll likely be days, maybe a week or more, before Gon knows he’s gone.
There’s that old riddle about a tree falling in a forest, so Killua finds himself wondering that if he’s dead, but no one knows it, is he, in a way, still alive? Or if no one knows he’s gone, is he somehow even more dead? Not forgotten, exactly, but not remembered, because no one knows that they’re supposed to be remembering him. For those days before Gon knows he’s gone, will he be something deeper than dead? Something emptier and colder and infinitely more lonely?
Killua’s hardly making sense anymore, even to himself, but he supposes losing this much blood will do that to a person.
If Killua were to choose how to die (if someone like him were even given a say in the matter, instead of simply meeting whatever bloody, violent end he’d earned) he’d like to do it in Gon’s arms. That’s his only request. It can be painful—it should be painful, really. That’s only fair, given all the people who died a painful death at Killua’s hand. But provided Gon were there, his palm cool against Killua’s hot, clammy skin, his voice tender and soothing, Killua would want for nothing.
Killua can conjure it in his mind—he has just enough strength left for that. He can feel Gon’s calloused, steady hand brushing his sweat-damp hair back from his forehead. He can hear, in the perfect reproduction of Gon’s voice, a few gentle reassurances.
“It’s alright, Killua,” Gon says. “I’m here. You aren’t alone. It’s over now—no more pain, no more fear. Your last moments will be spent with someone who loves you. I love you, Killua. Even after you’re gone, I’ll keep loving you.”
And this way, Killua can imagine the hot, thick tears pooling on his face are Gon’s, not his. He can pretend he’s not so cowardly as to cry, alone, over his own death, comforted by nothing more than an imagined fantasy.
4.
“Stay alive,” Killua hisses, low as a curse and solemn as a prayer. “You’d better stay alive, Gon, or I swear to God, I’ll find you in the afterlife and I’ll knock your fucking teeth in.”
The body on Killua’s back—part Gon, and part not, because Gon is vitality made flesh, so this limp, lifeless thing can’t be him, not completely—doesn’t respond. His hair merely drags along the ground behind them, no doubt tangling with the twigs and leaves littering the ground, and his weight merely rests heavy and oddly cold against Killua’s skin.
“Stay alive. Stay the fuck alive. Don’t you dare die on me, or I’ll use every horrible trick I know to make sure you regret it.”
That’s all Killua has—empty threats and endless pleas that burn his throat like vomit—so he hardly even pauses to draw breath, as if Gon’s heartbeat wont stop provided Killua’s prayers don't either.
But the world doesn’t really work like that. No, that sort of thinking is the foolish wishfulness of children, because somewhere along the trail—it could be miles or a mere few inches later, Killua can’t judge with his head swimming the way it is—the weak, shallow rattle of Gon’s breath hitches and stutters and stumbles, and finally stops.
“Gon?” Killua shouts, panicked even to his own ears. He does his best to shake the body from where it rests on his back. “Gon! Wake up!”
The body doesn’t move, so Killua eases it to the ground. Gon’s lips are blue and his skin is white as bone. He isn’t breathing, and when Killua presses shaking fingers to his throat, he discovers his heart isn’t beating, either.
“Gon, wake up!” Killua shouts again, voice a sharp, shattered thing. “Wake up! WAKE UP!”
Killua brings his fists down onto Gon’s chest with a soft thump and an anguished cry, and the moment he does, the thought comes to him. He’s seen this sort of thing on TV before, and he certainly has the ability to pull it off, although not the expertise. But it’s his last best shot at keeping Gon alive, and he refuses to contemplate the alternative.
With shaking hands, Killua conjures crackling bolts of electricity in his palms. On TV, they always shout “Clear!” but Killua merely whispers, “I’m sorry.”
And then, before he can think better of it, he slams his charged hands down onto Gon’s chest, one above Gon’s heart and the other below, sending the bolt down from the top and back up again. After spending so many years doing nothing but learning how to take lives, Killua’s done his research on how to try to save them. And it works—Gon jerks violently, but, after just a moment, sucks in a desperate, albeit shallow, breath.
“Oh thank God,” Killua whispers, pulling Gon’s body into an embrace.
Normally he’d be humiliated to be crying into Gon’s shoulder like this, getting snot and tears all over his shirt, but now, Killua would give anything to have Gon awake to tease him for it, kind and good-natured beneath it all. He’d give anything to have Gon’s steady, calloused hands wiping away his tears, doing his best to coax Killua’s face into a smile.
Killua loses count of how many times he has to stop to shock Gon’s heart back into beating on the trip to the hospital, but it’s well over two dozen. And by the time Killua races into the emergency department, vision so blurred from tears he almost misses the sign, the electricity has left Gon’s entire body burned and blistered past all recognition.
5.
It’s for the best.
Killua keeps repeating it over and over again like a mantra.
It’s for the best.
It’s for the best.
Never mind that Killua feels like he’s been cleaved in two, split right down the middle into perfectly symmetrical halves. Never mind that as he and Gon turn away from each other, going in separate directions for the very first time in their lives, Killua’s knees nearly give way beneath him. Never mind that Killua swears Gon is taking one of those halves with him off towards the World Tree, leaving Killua merely a fraction of his former self. It’s for the best.
And even if it’s not, Killua has to pretend it is until Gon’s out of earshot and he can weep undisturbed.
“Big Brother?”
Killua nearly jumps, breaking from his reverie, and turns to Alluka.
“You’re holding onto my hand a little too tight,” she says, in that sweet, gentle way of hers, without the slightest hint of accusation in her tone.
Nevertheless, Killua tears his hand away as if he’d been burned, and watches with horror as the blanched impressions of his fingers on Alluka’s hand stay icy white for several long seconds before finally beginning to fill with color again.
And that image is all it takes before the nausea churning at Killua’s insides reaches a crescendo and he stumbles to the nearest trash can and vomits and vomits until there’s nothing but bile.
“Big Brother?” Alluka asks softly, a small, warm hand coming to rest on his back. “Are you okay?”
Killua stays bent over the trash can, gripping it so hard he worries it may crack, for just a moment longer in a vain effort to catch his breath before pushing himself upright again and wiping at his mouth.
“Mm.”
It sounds too much like a groan, so he tries again.
“Yeah. I’m fine. Sorry.”
Alluka regards him with narrowed, careful eyes.
“You don’t seem fine. Should I go get Gon?”
“NO!”
Alluka flinches at Killua’s abrupt shout, and the flash-bang of fear in her eyes, an expression Killua knows far too well, is what finally pushes him past his tenuously held limit, and he pulls Alluka to his chest with a sob.
“I’m sorry,” Killua soothes, but it’s distorted by his tears. “I didn’t mean to shout at you. Alluka, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry. You don’t have to forgive me, but I just—“
“Big Brother.”
Alluka’s voice is gentle but firm.
“It’s fine,” she continues, and Killua’s grateful that she doesn’t release the embrace just yet. “I’m not angry or upset. I’m just confused and want to understand what’s going on.”
For a moment, the question overwhelms Killua so powerfully that he worries he’ll be sick again, but then, after a slow, albeit trembling breath and a harsh command to himself not to vomit, the answer comes to Killua with startling clarity.
“I love him.”
Despite the tears still streaming down his face, Killua’s voice is steady. He pulls back from Alluka’s hold, and when he does, her eyes are soft and understanding.
“I love him.”
This is the truth—the deepest truth Killua knows—and somehow, saying it is calming. However painful, however heartbreaking, it’s true.
I love him.
It’s true.
Far truer than, “It’s for the best.” And that’s something, at least. I love him. That’s true. And for now, it’s Killua’s only port in the storm.
1.
Against the inky blue evening sky, Killua glows brighter than the moon.
In the two years that Gon and Killua have been apart, Gon’s eyes have grown accustomed to the dark. In the beginning, it hadn’t been easy. Stumbling blind, Gon had tripped and fallen until his hands and knees were scraped raw, dirt ground into his torn skin. But he’d learned to make do in the dark, until he’d, in his more self deceiving moments, half-convinced himself that he really could learn to live without Killua’s light.
Until he and Killua found themselves sitting on that same cliff on Whale Island where they’d had their campfire all those years back, and Gon can’t fathom how he’d survived so many moonless nights.
“You’re staring,” Killua murmurs, ducking his head and brushing his hair back like he always does when he feels self conscious.
“I can’t help it. You’re beautiful.”
Killua starts, as if Gon had reached out and slapped him, and stares at Gon with bewilderment.
Gon shrugs.
“It’s the truth. I forgot how beautiful you are, even with the pictures you sent.”
This time, Killua scrambles backwards on the ground, putting several feet between himself and Gon.
“Sorry, should I stop saying all this? I’m not meaning to upset you. I just…”
“You just what?”
Gon swallows against the tense, cold feeling churning in his stomach.
“I mean, I almost died. I lost everything I’d worked for my whole life. I fulfilled my dream of meeting my dad, and he ended up being nothing but a colossal disappointment. I guess having all that happen so close together makes a person start to think about things differently. You start asking yourself what you really have left to lose.”
In Gon’s mind, he stands up, walks to the edge of the cliff, and leaps down into the dark, choppy waters, paying no mind to the harsh cold of the sea or the crowding of rocks near the shore.
In actuality, he says, “I love you, Killua. I just figured you should know.”
Gon had prepared himself for a variety of different reactions. He’d prepared himself for Killua to grimace and tell Gon, in no uncertain terms, that he doesn’t feel the same. H’d prepared himself for Killua to smile, all politeness, no pleasure, and let Gon down easily. Hell, a small part of him even prepared for the possibility of Killua throwing a punch.
What he hadn’t expected, however, was for Killua’s wide blue eyes to fill with tears.
“Killua?” Gon begins. He reaches a hand out to place on Killua’s shoulder, but stops himself halfway. “Are you alright?”
Killua wipes roughly at his eyes with balled fists, hands clenched so tight his knuckles have gone white.
“Sorry,” he mumbles. “Sorry. This is ridiculous. I’m such a crybaby.”
Gon shakes his head.
“It’s alright,” he says, proud of how steady his voice sounds. “You don’t have to feel the same. I just thought it was about time to tell you, that’s all.”
That was clearly the wrong thing to say, because Killua only cries harder, sobs shaking his small frame.
“I’m sorry,” Gon says hastily. “I take it all back. I wasn’t trying to upset you. Just forget I said anything, okay?”
But those words don’t do any good either, because Killua just keeps sobbing, arms wrapping around his body and fingers digging into his flesh.
“Killua, I’m sorry,” Gon says, paying no mind to the hot, sick feeling churning around his insides. Killua’s feelings are much more important than Gon’s broken heart. “It’s okay that you don’t feel the same. I mean it. It’s—”
But Gon doesn’t get to finish apologizing, because in an instant, Killua has grabbed the collar of Gon’s shirt tight in his fists and yanked him into a kiss.
Killua’s lips are sticky and salty with tears, and more of them drip steadily onto Gon’s nose and cheeks, but he couldn’t bring himself to care even if he tried, because Killua kisses Gon like he’s suffocating, and Gon’s the one source of air he’s got left. He kisses Gon with a desperation that borders on hysteria. And, more than anything, he kisses Gon like he’s been thinking about doing it for years.
Killua pulls back at last, panting hard, but Gon doesn’t let him move away fully. He cradles Killua’s face in his hands, thumbs coming up to brush away the still flowing tears.
“Why are you crying, Killua?”
A strange expression comes over Killua, like his face isn’t sure whether to smile or sob.
“I–I don’t know,” he manages, between rapid, hitching breaths. “I just… it’s a lot. I don’t know. It’s a lot at once.”
“Okay,” Gon soothes. “It’s alright. You can go ahead and cry. I’ll just wait until you’re done.”
Killua nods stiffly, and Gon leans forward to kiss the next tear from Killua’s cheek. And the next. And the next.
“You go ahead,” Gon repeats. “Cry for as long as you need. I’ll be here.”
Killua nods, offering Gon a watery smile, and the next tear Gon kisses from his cheek is soda pop sweet.