Archive of Our Own

“Mmf.”

“Hm?”

“I think,” Gon manages, downing a mouthful of pecan waffles with frightful speed. “I think I just found the place!”

Killua looks up from his coffee – there’s just one cup, their third refill, pushed between their elbows for them to share, next to his phone with his sister on speaker; he takes the newspaper Gon pushes too-enthusiastically into his face. “Whales?” he reads a moment later, squinting.

Gon’s face pops up around the paper, right next to the headline. His eyes are bright and there’s something startling about them, the way they stand out oddly like some sort of primary color, the way browns aren’t supposed to do. Killua reasons it’s the caffeine. “Not just any whales – they glow, like, in the dark!” he says, and Alluka oohs excitedly. “There’s gonna be a festival for the migration, and we can watch from the boats and, and, just, glow-in-the-dark whales, guys, just think about it—”

“Okay, first of all, I think the proper, most appropriate term—” and here Gon snickers, “would be bioluminescent,” Killua looks at him reproachfully, then sinks back into his booth and sets the newspaper down between them. “Second, just in case you haven’t noticed but uh, we’re kind of broke. Do you even know how much a plane ticket to Subik Island costs?”

“We won’t have to take a plane. We’ll get there the old-fashioned way,” he grins, and it slides across his mouth easily. Already Killua knows he’s fighting a losing game. “Besides,” Gon continues, and the shape of it turns teasing, “whose fault would that be anyway, hm, Killua? You know, that we’ve been splitting breakfast between us for the past week?”

Killua flushes deeply. “Those were premium chocolates, Gon, one of a kind. Ugh, someone like you wouldn’t understand. They were worth every single jenny—”

“They’re not real food, Killua! You always eat more than what you say you will and it’s unhealthy and, and, you’ll die from a stroke!”

“Pfft, Gon, please. If I were to die soon – which I won’t – a stupid stroke should be the least of our worries.”                   

Alluka’s laugh rustles from between them, sharp and startling. “You should listen to him, nii-chan.”

Indignantly, Killua slams a palm down the table. The coffee sloshes precariously against the cup’s brim. “Don’t side with him Alluka!”

“See?” Gon crosses his arms, triumphant. “You should listen to me, Killua.”

“Oh, fuck you.”

“But it is bad for you!”

“Mm,” Alluka agrees. “Really unhealthy.”

“Okay, fine, whatever! Can we move on, please?” Killua sighs, pulling at his bangs. “Says here the festival’s in fifteen days. How the hell are we gonna get there in two weeks without a plane?”

“Then we’ll just have to get there before then,” Gon says resolutely. “It’s just, I want us to take Alluka-chan somewhere nice this summer. I thought it’d be cool for her to see the ocean you know? Since—“ he pauses, lets the silence silt itself up with words they don’t need. “Besides, this way we can make up for last summer.”

Killua can feel the smile prickling behind his cheek. “It was pretty bad, wasn’t it.”

“Awful. Terrible. Alluka-chan got lost in a sewer for a week, we missed our plane and by the time we arrived the river dried up so we had to wait at the mountain for twelve days—“

“Thirteen,” Killua corrects.

“—where some old kook stole our wallets—and our shoes, for some reason—and, and, what else? Oh, right, we ate leftover gunk for days—“

“Eughhokay, we get it Gon—“

“Sorry,” Gon sticks out his tongue. “Look, all I’m saying is that this time, this time's our second chance! So what do you think Alluka-chan?”

There’s a short pause before her voice crackles from the speakerphone, “I think,” she says, breathless, “I’d like that very much."

Gon turns to him.

“Well,” he purses his lips, lays out their options and pits them against each other. He sighs through his nose. He never really planned on winning in the first place. “Guess I owe home a visit anyway.”

Gon nearly knocks the coffee out of its cup as he pumps his fist in victory. “It’s gonna be an adventure,” he promises, lifting the phone to his mouth, but he’s looking right at Killua.

Gon hasn’t really met Killua’s family – not the Zoldycks, no, but his family – but the stories Killua tells him have been enough to sustain him for the past few months. He feels a strange fondness for them now whenever Killua brings them up with a weathered kind of melancholy, like talking about a book he’d read every night as a child; Gon feels like he’s known them for years.

He knows Li like he knows the lines on his own hands: twenty-something, perpetual bedhead, moony eyes behind outlandish frames he'd picked up from the bus where his customer had forgotten them. Also happens to be the very same tour guide who snatched Alluka’s life from the hands of irretrievable death when their bus plunged down a ravine - long story, Killua would always say, hands idly ghosting over the new pallid stripe across his left shoulder – Gon had stared as if staring long enough could make the wound materialize on his skin, the ghost of its shape so he could staunch the blood as it came, and did it hurt? Killua never would say.

And there’s Nana, Li’s cousin, the widowed nen-exorcist retired from practice who took to taking in orphans and lost, wounded tourists in her longhouse by the fringes of the forest. How she’d fed them, clothed them, taught Alluka to read and then write and then later play the kagul and Alluka loved her, they both did, but it was Alluka who wanted to stay. Gon can picture her in his head the way Killua paints it with his voice and seven years worth of memory: her clamorous, theatric hands, the smoke that clung to her hair, the black between her teeth and beads, beads, everywhere, wreathed around her neck, hanging from her ears, like rain, like,

Home, Killua doesn’t say, but he doesn’t have to. Gon understands enough.

She’s the first thing that looms into view when they finally, finally, come into the clearing, the ash from her pipe curling up into the trees like a smoke signal, her voice big and booming: “You’re here!” and out come thick arms crushing them both against her chest. Gon laughs, feels the necklace pressing almost painfully against his cheek and the way Killua clenches up and melts right beside him all in a matter of seconds, closing his eyes to the smell of burnt leaves and damp forest soil.

“Can’t breathe, dying,” Killua chokes out from beneath Nana’s chin seconds later, and out from the front door behind her comes Alluka, emerging with an elated cry, her hair looped in a dome high above her head. Li trails out after her, hair in a disastrously permanent windswept state, just like Killua had said. He catches Gon’s eye and winks right as they both proceed to drape themselves over the mass of bodies.

“Dying,” Killua reminds them, somewhere beneath the pile.

“Welcome home!” Alluka says.

Gon feels like he’s just witnessed a miracle.

It’s barely thirty minutes into the first reunion Killua has ever willingly participated in, and he’s already not-very-subtly trying not to escape.

See, the thing about having the people you love congregated in one table is that the default topic of conversation typically falls on their connection and/or relevance to the mutual party. Which Killua is sure usually entails the very many soul-crushingly disastrous stories they’ve managed to dig up from history – and there are many – in efforts to ruin his life.

“Hey, did I ever mention that one time in the hot springs—“ and Killua valiantly tries to tune Li out, aggressively passing Alluka a bowl. Minutes later Gon says something that has the whole table roaring, Nana’s eyes flying wide open and Li’s face purpling like bruised fruit. In the middle of spittle flying and food spattering on fronts, a small part of Killua that isn’t vaguely considering homicide thinks: this is actually kind of nice. It had never really crossed his mind to be worried about Gon meeting them, but now that they’re here, together, it’s admittedly – not quite a bad sight.

Some things never change: Killua has doted on Alluka when he was ten and he will continue to dote on her when he’s twenty-three, quizzing her on her health and plethora of sleeping habits, and does Nanika still like to do that thing when she gets mad, you know, that thing?

“Relax, kid,” Nana says, ladling soup into their bowls. Beside them Gon and Li are lost in conversation. “She can take care of herself. I’ll have you know she’s been a real help here. A real natural with kids, you know. All the orphans adore her.”

Killua tries not to make a face.

“Oh, they’re not that bad, nii-chan,” Alluka assures him. “They’re good kids!”

“Yeah, same kids who threw my stuff down a fucking waterfall.”

“They just needed love and attention,” Alluka says.

“Alluka, they set a booby trap inside my bath, remember that? I couldn’t walk straight for days—”

“They’re kids,” Alluka says sheepishly.

“You know what, just let me take this load off your backs. It’ll be quick. They won’t feel a thing—”

“Nii-chan!”

“Joking, of course,” Killua laughs weakly.

“Careful,” Nana says. “Someday Alluka might want some kids of her own too, you know.”

Killua chokes loudly on his soup. Gon and Li pause mid-conversation to look at him in concern.

Red creeps up Alluka’s cheeks. “Well,” she says, fiddles with her napkin, and says nothing.

Li rubs consoling circles in his Killua’s back as he downs a glass of water. “Don’t just say stuff like that, god,” Killua groans, snatching the last piece of bread.

“Actually, I think that’s a wonderful idea,” Gon says as an afterthought, and Killua’s face goes all weird around his bread. “Hey, Killua, what if we get kids of our own too!”

Mid-swallow, Killua mistakes his first bite for air and inhales it right into his throat. The table watches in respectful silence as it witnesses him wheeze the color out from his face.

Nana clucks emphatically.

“You okay there, man?” Li says eventually, when the color doesn't return, synchronizing with Gon as he pats the poor boy comfortingly on the back, but the query is lost in the clamor.

“No?” Gon frowns, scratches the side of his head. After a moment of non-silent contemplation and Killua sputtering strangled noises in the background, he nods, says, “Mm yeah, me neither.”

“You look happy,” Gon remarks two nights later, after they wave their goodbyes and squeeze a week’s worth of Alluka’s stuff in two separate duffel bags. The way back out is a befuddling maze of forest root and mushroom trails cut beneath the dawn sun. It’s a group consensus that Alluka takes the lead.

Killua looks thoughtful. There’s a map in his hands, worn but trustworthy. A gift from Li. His hands stop their restless turning, and he says, carefully, “Well, I am.”

Gon smiles at that. “You know, I’m still surprised you let Alluka stay here with them.”

Killua shrugs. “It was never my choice to make,” he says, and there’s a small smile there, hidden in the corner of his mouth, and it tugs at Gon’s own too. “The old lady—she, uh, she knocked some sense in to me. They’re good people. I... trust them.”

“I’m glad,” Gon says. After a while, he snickers. “You never told me you had a thing with Li.”

Killua blanches. “That’s because we didn’t,” he says, sighing. “He’s a bastard who thinks it’s funny going around telling people he got with me when nothing happened.” Killua’s mouth twists in the memory of it. “There was a date, or two, I don’t really remember. It was dumb. I ended up punching him once. We both knew it never would’ve worked out.” He pauses, resurfacing from his momentary imaginings to shoot Gon a reassuring look. “That was it though. Really.”

Gon waves it off. “I believe you,” he says. “But you really should tell me more sometime.”

Tell me everything, Gon wants to say. All of it. Who were you when we became strangers?

Killua folds the map neatly into his pocket and grins, all teeth and light.

“Better remind me then.”

Shopping, of course, is first on the itinerary.

Alluka bumbles excitedly along the bustling throng of tent merchants with Killua fast on her tracks, trying not to lose her. She’s trying on a new bracelet to add to the pile on her wrist. The lock on it is a wretched, tiny thing of gold loops and tinier hooks, and the bracelet keeps sliding off before she can fasten the clasp with one hand. With an easy grace Killua steps in, takes it from her hands, and loops it around her wrist in one fluid motion.

“Thanks,” she says, giggling softly, clinking the newest addition to her hoard. “Had a lot of practice putting on jewelry, huh, nii-chan.”

“Ha ha,” he says, narrowing his eyes good-naturedly at her until Gon comes draping himself across his back. “Hey, where the hell have you—”

“Hold still,” Gon says, and Killua feels the breath rustle along the hairs on his nape. Arms descend above him and he feels a something cold settle against his collarbone – Killua’s eyes drop to the pale opal the shape of a teardrop, and he blinks, startled. It's small, the size of an unripe cherry on a silver chain, the color of a luminous dawn. It gleams against his skin.

“Oh,” Killua says quietly, unbidden. Alluka croons, peering up at it as Gon works silently on the lock around his neck. Killua holds the pendant between his thumb and forefinger in awe.

“You like it?” Gon sounds relieved. Killua can feel his smile against his hair. “You kept looking at it earlier and. It kinda reminded me of you. Is that weird?”

“No,” Killua says, and turns to face him. “Thank you.”

“Oh dear,” the merchant who sold them Alluka’s bracelet speaks up, craning her head beyond the space of her counter. There’s a hazy, sort of wild look to her as her eyes flick back and forth between the pendant and the passers-by who come by her kiosk by chance. “That’s—that’s an omen of bad luck. Very bad. Very bad, and very unwise.”

Killua catches the way Gon’s face shifts. “It’s a good thing I don’t believe in luck then,” he says dismissively, and grabs both Gon and Alluka’s hands and tugs them away.

“Killua—”

“C’mon,” he says. “Let’s get you some new clothes. Blue isn’t really your color.”

It’s a lie, of course. Every color is Gon’s color. Still, Killua thinks, there’s no reason why they can’t be sentimental every now and then.

He’s waiting by the changing rooms while Alluka rummages through the shelves of multi-patterned parkas behind him when Gon emerges from behind the curtains. He scratches behind his ear and stands awkwardly before them, waiting for approval.

“Turn,” Killua orders.

“This is, um.” Gon’s face looks pained but he obeys anyway, snatching wary glances at his shorts. "A little tight."

“Nice,” Alluka offers.

“Hm.” Killua taps his chin. “Maybe a size smaller. Hey, do you have this in a darker shade? This green is kind of hurting my eyes.”

Gon groans, but goes as the merchant brings the requested material. With a flap of the curtain, he disappears.

Arms full of duck-patterned cloth, Alluka turns to Killua and gives him a knowing stare.

“What?” Killua says, trying to look innocent and failing fast. Alluka rolls her eyes, amused.

“A size smaller, huh,” she grins lecherously at him, and makes a completely obscene gesture of cupping an invisible ass in the air as she turns, laughing at his outraged sputtering.

The last bus to the inner city is a near-empty space of shadow and traveler's musk. They take the seat at the very back and fall asleep as the sun goes down, Alluka falling asleep on Gon, and Gon, on him. The necklace feels cool and whole against his chest, catching the day’s last light. Killua leans his cheek against the window and watches the forest whittle away into brown, smooth and bare beneath a stretch of granite sky.

And thing is, the space between Gon’s hand and his feels just a little bit volatile, just like their reunion - where they were strange and shy and didn’t know how to fill the small silences, weeks of fleeting looks and coughed out words and tiptoeing around the unsaid. Gon’s back barely a foot away from his and how it felt like the oceans that once separated them. For a moment he wants to tell Gon everything, jolt the chin resting on his shoulder and say, hey did you know I used to hallucinate about you while I was awake, when I left did you know how much I wanted to go back, back to you and play pretend again, did you know how little I cared—

He’d tell him, of course. There are no room for secrets between them now, not anymore. That was what the last three years were for, learning to rebuild, and they’re building still. He’d tell him, when Gon wakes, tomorrow, maybe. He'll tell him. He’d promised after all.

Gon’s cheek feels warm and right against him and he thinks: this - this is what I want.

There should be songs written about hotel toilets.

After two-day travels on foot and thirty-seven hour drives in smelly tourist buses, they’re unarguably the best things life has to offer. It’s all just nice, air-conditioned space, perfumed napkins and cushioned toilet seats. Sometimes gold-plated, if you’re lucky enough. Best part is the fact that it’s free. It’s the one fundamental weakness hotels have yet to rid themselves of, Killua finds; they’re practically inviting any criminal in the vicinity within their premises with their complete inability to refuse anyone their courtesy.

Not that he’s complaining. In fact, he makes full use of their well-intentioned yet duly paid-for courtesy and takes this time to refresh himself while Gon and Alluka ask for directions to their next stop.

He emerges back into society a few minutes later, gleaming and smelling faintly of fresh bamboo and white tea. As he comes out into the marbled floor of the lobby he spots Alluka and Gon sitting by the bar twirling twin iced teas. There’s a woman, too, beside him, he notices as he nears. Gon’s eyes are crinkling as he laughs, titling his chin towards her in invitation. A friend.

“Uh,” he begins awkwardly, drawing their stares. “Hi—“

“Killua!” Gon says, slides off his seat, and kisses him full on the lips. Killua jerks back, eyes widening. “Guess who I ran into? This is Yna, I met her at the island, remember? Yna, this is my best friend, Killua!”

The heat that comes rushing up his cheeks is almost painful. To be completely honest he really doesn't remember, but Yna is startlingly beautiful, clad in a dress that whispers past her knees, all pearls and dark eyes. “So this is the best friend,” she looks amused as she says this, turning to shake his hand. “I’m glad you’ve reunited.”

Gon laughs sheepishly. Killua stares.

“Well, it’s nice to finally meet you, Killua. I’m glad to have met your sister, too.” Alluka waves at her from behind Gon, looking perpetually amused.

“Yna was just giving us directions.” Gon waves a table napkin at him with an elegant scrawl across it that Killua recognizes must be hers.

“I’d lend you one of the golf carts we keep here, but sadly it really isn’t cut out for the terrain you guys are going to pass through,” she explains. “If you leave now, you can reach the next town in six hours.”

“Aren’t the night roads around here kinda sketchy though?” Killua says, recovering from the blood rushing in his ears.

Yna nods at him. “Which is why I suggest you spend the night here. Why don’t you rest first? It'll be safer tomorrow. When you reach town, just follow the map I gave you, and you’ll be at the festival before you even realize it.”

“Thanks, Yna!” Gon says. At the same time his stomach protests loudly enough that even the barista turns and snickers.

“Unfortunately, I can’t join you for dinner.” Yna smiles gently. It’s a pretty smile, Killua notes. “I have a meeting to attend. But the hotel resto is open all day, so please, enjoy and make yourselves at home, alright?”

“Aww,” Alluka says, but goes to hug her goodbye anyway. Gon has to reach up to wrap his arms around her and promise they’ll visit again. Killua nods at her, smiling faintly. He watches her heels clink against the floor as she leaves and rounds the counter.

When she’s finally out of sight, Killua whirls to face Gon. “What the heck was that?” he demands.

Gon turns to him, puzzled. Alluka goes back to her seat to filter out the last of her iced tea, and very possibly to dodge the oncoming storm. “Huh?”

“That.” He makes vague, wild gestures at his lips.

Gon’s face brightens with understanding. “Your face was weird, so I—”

“My face was weird?”

“Yeah, so I—“

"So you kiss people when they look weird—”

"Of course not, you know what I—”

“I wasn’t jealous.”

Gon smiles expectantly. “I know,” he says, something annoyingly sagely in his smile. “I just wanted to remind you. You know. Just in case.”

After a few seconds of grasping reality, Killua groans. “Oh my fucking god,” he says, and reaches for Gon's hand.

"Get a room," Alluka calls playfully.

“Actually," Gon pulls out a keycard. "I did.”

The buffet breakfast at the lobby is free of charge, listed under Yna’s name, as yesterday’s dinner and their VIP suite had been. Killua had deduced she must have been an employee of high position at the hotel for her to be giving away such lavish gifts, a general manager of some sort, but the owner? That he failed to consider. Absently, he wonders how many more friends Gon has made in high places. Maybe he could borrow them a helicopter. Better yet, a jet. Anything to shorten the distance they’d be treading once again like slaves in exile.

He’s coming back to their table with a full plate (mostly dessert) when he hears the crash, and something acrid like regret jumps into his mouth. There’s a man on the ground next to their upturned table, their dishes clattering noisily down one side, their pitcher of orange juice glugging to pool on the carpet. He sees Alluka nearly tripping as she backpedals behind a chair, hands flying to her mouth as the fallen stranger moans and Gon – Gon is standing over him.

Killua doesn’t even register the sound of his own plate sliding cleanly off his fingers as he trudges towards them. His gaze flickers from Alluka to the body to Gon’s looming back. He feels his heart throbbing cold in his throat, pulsing wildly on his tongue. By the time he reaches Alluka there are security personnel rushing towards them, hovering over the man on the floor, scraping off the early mess.

“I’m okay,” Alluka whispers, her lips a thin trembling line as Killua checks for injuries. Her gaze drops to Gon and flicks back to Killua. “Nii-chan, it wasn’t—”

Wordlessly, he lifts her arm, thumbs at a graze below her elbow. It’s startlingly red against the color of her skin. Alluka shakes her head. “It’s nothing, the glass it—nii-chan, it’s not—"

“First aid?” A medic steps in, zeroes in on the wound and then immediately begins to disinfect it.

“Wait—“

Killua steps away.

“Gon,” he hears himself say; it comes out odd and strangled. His own head feels hazy and distant, a hollowed out thing, like he’s looking through his own eyes, watching someone else move in his place. Slowly, Gon turns to face him. He has a split lip, a purpling just on the corner of his mouth.

Gon’s mouth parts, but before he can even make a sound Killua grabs his wrist and pulls him along, swallows the tightness and keeps it taut in his stomach until they reach the restroom. The door falls shut behind them with a deceitfully quiet hush.

"Killua," Gon says. Almost pleading, a touch of fear.

Killua doesn’t speak. He walks to the sink and rests his fingers on the cold marble.

"Killua, please, look at me."

"There's blood on your shirt."

"This—it's nothing, really."

"Nothing?" It feels like free-falling. Killua whirls around and his hands are shaking, shaking. "You promised me, Gon! You know you're still useless in a fight. We said we'd leave the fighting to me, you know this! You swore—“

“I know—“

“You're supposed to fall back or, or, call me, no matter what happens!"

"I know, Killua, I know that, but—he was drunk, the guy wanted to take our table when Alluka was there and he wouldn’t leave, okay, he threw the first punch—you don’t even know the whole story so if you’d just listen—"

"No!” Killua roars, and the sound thunders around the walls. He jabs a finger accusingly at Gon’s direction. “You’re not supposed to fight back! That's my job."

"You’re not the only one who’s allowed to protect Alluka!"

"Yeah, and put her in harm's way, wow, Gon, how admirable!"

"I couldn’t just stand there!"

"See! There it is!" Killua taunts, drives his gaze right into Gon’s eyes to see the flashing anger there, the hurt, but he’s too high on his rage, too blind. "You and your fucking hero complex! You couldn’t resist, could you? Just sweep in when things go wrong, then leave it to me to pick up the pieces—you don’t really care! You just jump in whenever you want, for the thrill of it. Oh, but I gotta hand it to you there, nice work, you definitely saved the day!“

"Please don’t joke about that," Gon says, and the anger suddenly leaves his eyes like a flash fire gasping on its last breath, leaves its command of the room and sweeps away every trembling, living thing until there is only silence and the cold gaping space between them. Gon's gaze falls to his feet as Killua's eyes lift hollowly to find his. "I didn’t—that's not true I—I wouldn't, I wouldn’t do that to you again. I promised—"

Killua can feel himself returning, piece by piece, back to his body and shaky fingers as they slowly learn to regain feeling. He tries to breathe but there’s a vice pressing around his chest, sharp and unyielding, and he: he really doesn’t want to see this.

“Gon,” he tries, regretfully. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"You know I’m not—I’m better now, Killua, we're better than that, and I wouldn’t—it's not gonna happen again, I promised, I—"

"I know, I'm sorry, it was a bad joke," he says in a spilling rush, pulling angrily at his hair, and Killua - knows. They’re different people now.

"I wouldn't let Alluka—I was going to call you but it just, it just happened. I pushed him and—"

"I know, Gon, fuck, I. I believe you.” Killua draws closer, treads the gap between them, closes it. Carefully, he reaches for the edge of Gon’s shirt, moving to his wrists, tries to help him uncurl from himself. "Alright? I believe you. I'm sorry. Fuck."

"I'm sorry for scaring you,” Gon says, finally. His eyes lift to the pendant around Killua’s neck and a little life returns to his eyes. "Bad luck. She said it'd bring bad luck, didn’t she."

Killua scoffs. He swallows, throat thick, curls a hand gently against the side of Gon’s neck. "I don't believe in luck."

"Ow," Gon slaps at his thigh, barely glancing at the offending insect death on his hand before taking off ahead of Alluka. "Look, Killua! Doesn’t this weird tree look exactly like the one we saw a while ago?"

"Because it is," Killua deadpans, and stops walking. The sheer amount of slime they’ve just trudged through is miraculous. "Aaaargh! We’re just going around in circles! Again!"

"It's the same?" Gon says, peering up at its branches. He sniffs the bark.

Killua groans.

"We should probably take a left turn this time," Alluka offers. "I should probably lead the way."

"Please," Killua groans, as Gon whines, “This doesn’t make any sense,” and does the honor of tugging the map from his hands.

They find the path, finally, an hour into their excursion. The marsh is an endless death trap, the salt thick in the air, and water keeps sloshing into Gon’s boots, staining his knees. Killua offers to carry Alluka but she graciously refuses and plods on ahead. The journey goes on in blissful peace dispersed by the sound of hands swatting exposed patches of skin in attempts to rid themselves of the mosquitoes buzzing around their necks.

“My nose feels stuffy,” Gon says. “Gah!” he cries, when Killua lands a particularly hard slap against his bottom.

“Got it.” Killua proudly shows him the bloodied thing.

“Uh, thanks.” Gon rubs his ass. “Why do they only get me?”

“Must have bad taste.”

“I think it’s because we’re wearing long sleeves, Gon-nii-chan.”

“There’s a body,” Killua says, stopping on his tracks.

Gon scrunches his nose. “What.”

“There’s a body.” Killua repeats, points at a figure lying half-submerged in marsh-water, arms hung in a painful angle over a root jutting out of the sludge. When they reach him the eyes are swiveling frantically in it’s sockets and its, well, it’s notably unsettling, but not unlike anything they’ve seen before.

“Oh no,” Alluka says, hands moving to her mouth.

“Is he dead?” Killua asks, and Gon swats him reproachfully.

“His, his eyes are moving,” Alluka says.

“I guess not then.”

Gon waves a hand over his eyes. "Hi there," he says; the man's gaze whirls aimlessly for a while and never quite falls on anything.

Killua bends down into the sludge. “Nearly, but not quite dead then.”

Alluka shoots them both a glare that makes them instantly go quiet. Killua swallows another sarcastic remark. “We need to find the town quickly," she says.

She looks at them sternly, determined.

“Well,” Killua begins, hauling the person’s arm over one shoulder. “You heard her.”

They follow the man’s footsteps in the muck back into town where it's hidden in the trees, tucked in a dreadful, unsettling quiet. Thankfully, the first person they meet just happens to be the very one they need. The woman rushes up to Alluka and leads them to the town's makeshift clinic, a large storage room with rows and rows of beds and blinding white sheets.

“They’re all paralyzed,” she says, hurriedly. “It’s from the bite. The insects outside the town are nen-users.”

Killua blinks. “You mean this guy?” He lifts his hand.

Her eyes widen when she sees the blot; she grabs Killua’s hand, and he feels her nen trickle slowly into his palm. The spot of dried blood reacts, a greenish color swirling into the air. “The bite affects the senses first. Then it paralyzes its victim and makes it a host where she can lay her eggs. We don’t know how to reverse it yet." The woman looks helpless, turning her head to glimpse the still man they brought at the other end of the room, covered in a sheet fresh of linen. "It's like he’s in a coma, but we think he can still hear us. We don't know what to do. Half the townspeople are perishing.”

Killua and Gon share a look. Alluka bites her lip.

“Well,” she starts, fiddling with her dress. “Nana taught me some tricks, but I haven't really mastered any of them. I'm actually still beginning to— oh, I'm going to help!” she shakes her head resolutely, and hurries to the man's bedside.

Killua grins proudly.

“Uhh, Alluka,” Gon calls feebly. Killua turns just in time to see him topple to his feet.

He’s sitting on the chair by Gon’s bed when Gon finally decides to start talking again.

“I can’t feel my legs,” he says. “Weird.”

“You know, if we’d followed the map, like we should’ve in the beginning, we’d be in Subik by now,” Killua says.

Gon wrinkles his mouth. “I needed to trust my nose.”

“Yeah, you and you’re wacked up nose. Look where that got us,” he says. “It’ll be fine once Alluka fixes you but for now, let’s stick to Yna's map, alright?”

“Sorry,” Gon says, sheepishly.

Killua waves it off. “Eh, whatever.”

“Not just that,” Gon says, hands twisting idly on his lap.

“Mm?”

Gon looks at him, and the grin is gone. “I know you don’t like hospitals.”

“This isn’t a hospital though?” Killua says.

“I know, but—”

“Gon.

“You really don’t have to—“

“Gon,” Killua says, smirking gently, and stands up to curl up next to him. The bed dips with his weight and Gon turns to look at him, finally. Killua's toes scrape against Gon’s ankles as he slips happily beneath the covers, eyes falling closed. “Please shut up.”

“Killua...”

“Shhh. Sleep now.”

“Let me just say that I can’t feel my crotch anymore,” he whispers. But the smile inches back onto his lips, worn but there, small and grateful.

Killua stares at said crotch, and reaches down, clucking. “Too bad,” he says, and tears his hand away when Gon squawks. He settles his palm on Gon’s chest instead.

“This sucks,” Gon sighs, a little later. He's giving the opal wary glances again. “What if that crazy merchant was right all along? Killua, what if I doomed us all?”

Killua reaches up, pinches Gon’s nose playfully. “Fuck that. Luck is for scared losers,” he says. And then, quietly into his neck. “We make our own endings.”

And then, not-so-later:

Gon snickers. “You’re such a romantic, Killua.” He's relishing in the new-found feeling of returned control over his extremities and other bodily functions, skipping and back-flipping and running backwards a little ahead of Killua, keeping up with a quick jog, his heels singing.

“Shut up,” Killua groans, but his ears are laughably bright. “I can’t believe Alluka made me give away all my chocolate. ‘They’re my patients, and this is just procedure, nii-chan,’” he mimics, a grotesque imitation that makes Alluka stop and glare mid-conversation with the nurse behind them. “Argh, Gon, why’d you tell her?”

“I’ll make it up to you,” Gon promises, stopping to walk beside him like a normal person. “Anything you want!”

“Anything?” Killua’s eyes glaze over. Grinning slyly, he leans into Gon, a lot further into his space than necessary, ghosting fingers along the shell of his ear. “I want....”

Gon swallows thickly. Behind them, Alluka follows and looks terribly, terribly amused.

“...the La Madeline au Truffe, from Knipschildt, the Springween Edition, okay, not the—”

Gon shoves him off, leaves him squawking on the ground.

They arrive, finally, faithfully, by two in the morning, two days before the festival. Gon grins at him, as if to say, told you so, and Killua relents, returns his smile in the dark. True enough, there still aren’t any available reservations, just as there weren’t any the day they found out about it at the diner, but Gon’s irrefutable charm gets them at least an old wooden shack where they keep the surfboards in, so, there’s that.

It also happens to be the same shack where the old lifeguard died. Gon tells them not to dwell on it too much.

“Well,” Alluka says, clapping her hands. “We made it!”

The front door of the shack has SUBKI painted on it in peeling yellow paint, and it makes Killua’s mouth twitch. Inside is even drearier: there's all but one ratty-looking bed pushed to one side, sand bursting from between the floorboards. Snorkeling gear is pushed into the shelves that line the walls, and one lone lamp flickers above their heads, light-ominous darkness-light-ominous darkness-more feeble flickering into shades in between.

“We’re here!” Gon chirps, despite this, as if he needed to remind them.

“Yaaay,” Killua says, unenthused.

“At least it isn’t waterlogged,” Alluka says.

As if hearing this, the sky outside, the sick fuck, gives a loud pregnant grumble, and the soft hiss of rain begins whistling through the chinks in the ceiling.

“Really,” Killua says, glaring down at his pendant. “Okay, fine, okay.”

“It’ll be better in the morning,” Gon assures them, trying to salvage the mood. He takes their bags and piles them by the foot of their bed. “The ocean always looks amazing over a sunrise, Alluka.”

“I can smell the ocean now, it’s so close,” she says, excitedly. Gon catches it, and he smiles with her, ruffling her hair.

“Tomorrow,” Killua decides, sighing, dragging a hand over his face to wipe the day-old fatigue from his eyes. Their shadows flicker across the walls as the lamplight sputters out for another episode of tar-black darkness, then regaining the fight. “Sleep first.”

They have a round of rock-paper-scissors because all of them refuse to take to bed. This time it's Killua who wins, and he collapses into it quite gratefully; the sheets smell of fish and something unsettling, and Killua stops the thought before it has a chance to form, as Gon and Alluka stretch a rattier blanket out on the floor and choose to rest their heads on their bags.

“What the hell,” Killua says, only moments later. There’s water dripping into his cheek from the roof, big, fat, cold drops, as the rain patters incessantly outside.

Gon giggles.

“It’s drier down here, nii-chan,” Alluka calls.

“C’mere, babe,” Gon says, scooting over, taps the space between Alluka and him. Killua glares at him stubbornly, before launching himself into the floor in a fit of laughter, shaking the water from his hair like some dog. He bites back another scathing, sarcastic remark about their less than desirable predicament, as Alluka lays her head on his shoulder and Gon slings one leg over his. He slides an arm under both their heads, sure that his fingers will fall asleep in the morning, and it’s okay, he thinks, even if the floor's hard and sharp against his bones and the risk of his balls freezing and falling off overnight is nigh, thinks, well, this is kind of maybe worth it, in a maybe strangely twisted but completely sappy kind of way.

“Good night, Killua," Gon tells him, laced with a kind of tenderness as if Killua had just voiced this out loud.

Alluka kisses his cheek. “Good night!”

“Night,” he whispers, smiling, smiling.

He’s dreaming about chocolate fountains when Gon wakes him. “Killua,” Gon’s saying, his breath tickling his brow. “Killua, wake up!”

“Nn.”

“Nii-chan, nii-chan!” A warm body collides sharply against his chest. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

His eyes snap open when the ability to expand his lungs is forcibly taken from him. Blinking blearily, he palms his crotch (still there) and drags a hand through his mane. "What," he croaks, and finds two faces smiling blindingly at him, smelling faintly of,

"Sunscreen!" Gon chucks the bottle at him. It falls at his lap, Mr. Koko Nut, and Killua scrunches his nose. Idly, he registers the morning light slanting through the gaps in the walls. "Ready to get wet?"

He'd tell Gon never to say something like that out loud again next time, but he's still floating in and out of consciousness. He yawns, blinks at them through the haze of sleep.

Gon blares right through it: "Come on and get dressed, Killua! You've got to see this sunrise!"

"Yeah, yeah—"

"Nii-chan, get up!"

"Okay, jeez, alright!" He's peeling off his clothes now, shrugging on his swim trunks, Alluka and Gon running out the shack in their excitement. He slathers on a handful of cool sunscreen and steps out;

The world looks different in daylight.

He breathes in a lungful of it. There's a lot of sand, a lot of palm trees, a lot of pink, pink sun. The ocean swells right before him, a stretch of glassy blue, endless and still.

Gon's waiting for him, his chest freckled and bare, toes digging into gray sand. "Took you long enough," he says, as Killua bumps him playfully on the arm. "You nearly missed it."

"The sun's still up, dummy," he says, squinting for his sister, and then he realizes. He swallows, lets his cheek fall into Gon's sticky shoulder.

Up ahead Alluka has her feet on the shore, silent and still as the surf brushes her ankles.

"She's been there for a long time," Gon says.

"It's probably a lot to take in. She's never really, you know," he replies, lamely. He lets his hand brush against Gon's, slots their fingers together one by one. "Thank you. For, y'know, convincing me this was a good idea and all. It was a good idea. So. Thanks."

Gon shrugs playfully, squeezes his hand. "Buy me an ice-hard popsicle and I'll call it even."

"Please don't ever use hard to describe a popsicle ever again," he says, blanching, but buys him the thing anyway.

"Where's Alluka?" Killua says, frantic, sitting up from beneath the shade of their chosen tree. "Gon."

Gon shrugs at him, the bow of his mouth stained cherry-red from the cold treat. "Maybe she went to get her bag?"

"No, I just came from the shack," he reasons. "There's 5 more minutes left before her sunscreen dries out, she needs to—Gon," Killua pauses, narrowing his eyes at him. "Why are you lying?"

Caught, Gon laughs feebly, as the popsicle bleeds into his fist, trails down the inside of his wrist. "Um."

"Gon! Where did she—"

"Uhhh," Gon says nervously, following Killua's gaze as it floats over his shoulder and finally finds its target. "Well, technically, I wasn't lying, ha ha—”

“Nanika!” Killua shouts, kicking out sand as he trudges down the beach, waving angrily at the figure nearly breaching the edge of the cliff, jutting out into the sea. “Get. Down. From there.”

Unperturbed, Nanika waves at him excitedly, her yellow swimsuit bright in the distance.

“Okay, okay, she's coming down,” Killua says, awash with relief as Nanika slowly backs away from the 50 feet dive into a watery grave. He cups his hands around his mouth, "Now, careful, al—"

And Nanika rushes forward, arms swinging behind her. And then she leaps.

Airborne.

Her laugh seems to suspend in time like the silent scream caught in Killua's throat, one long, terrible, blood-curdling note.

“Looks fun,” Gon says, coming up behind him, as a loud splash erupts from the sea. Nanika comes up bobbing into the froth, her hair swept to one side. "Ha ha, see, Killua, she's a natural!"

Killua nearly drowns him.

Their guide herds them into a small canoe together with the other boats, far enough into the ocean that Gon can fit Subik between his thumb and forefinger. "Blow out your lamps," she instructs them, staring intently into the depths. "You won't need them anymore."

All around them lights sputter out one by one. Complete and utter darkness. The tide sloshes relentlessly like a whisper against their boats.

"So..." Killua begins, but their guide shushes him. He makes faces at her. Unfortunately Gon doesn't see the fun he's having, his eyes shut in impenetrable concentration. Alluka's eyes are wide, luminescent in the dark.

And then, after an aching silence: "They're here."

Killua squints into the deep, but Gon's eyes catch it first: "Killua, look," Gon whispers in awe, pointing at the murky glowing shapes a few feet from their canoe, rising higher and faster just below the surface. He hears his own breath hitch; a swarm of jellyfish, pulsing a shimmering blue as it blooms like an ocean flower before them, casting patches of light along Gon's cheek, Alluka's bright bright eyes. He latches onto the boat's edge as it lurches dangerously to one side, Alluka sliding to fall forward on his lap with a startled oof. Another jolt, like a huge wave rolling right underneath their boat, splashing glowing water into their feet, and Killua sees the suspicious flicker of a dark, wide fin slice through the tide. Gon holds them both steady by the arms with a breathlessly wide grin, and says, Look,

and,

“Oh,” Alluka breathes. Over the edge, the shadow turns, emerges slowly into the moonlight like a big underwater neon sign, bigger than a bus, just like the newspaper said, Killua distantly recalls, turns until its one luminous eye blinks curiously at them, so bright and enchantingly blue, the whole world alight and brimming before them, hovering like a stasis, and suddenly everything, everything up to this moment—is worth it. Killua wants to brand it into memory, so he can see it when he closes his eyes, in the darkness, in the solace of sleep.

"Glow-in-the-dark whales," Killua echoes, stupidly.

"Bioluminescent," Gon corrects, and reaches for him in the dark.

They leave at dawn, bellies swollen from too much of the (admittedly) delicious muck Nana made that she called breakfast. They hug her goodbye, and then Li, and then Nanika, and then Alluka, eyes turning back to blue as she stumbles sleepily to kiss them both on the cheek at the door, squeezing their hands, with the promise of another summer adventure when they return next year glowing in domes of her cheeks. They hitch a ride at the back of the next pick up truck that comes rumbling by, and the bundle of bamboo Killua calls home recedes slowly, eventually, from view, disappearing in forest leaves, dusty mountain trails, until Killua stops looking back, stops watching, lays on his back next to Gon and turns his wistful eyes to the sky.

"You know what we should do next?" Gon says, turning to him. The ride is smooth, the road void of any moving thing, and the day is long and hot and Killua decides it's a good one to spend tracing shapes in the clouds.

"Mm?"

Gon flashes his teeth. "The ruins sound really good this time of the year."

Killua hums approvingly.

"Also! I always wanted to visit Leorio again. We owe him one anyway."

He traces the old man's face in the sky, flicks his nose. "Mm. Yeah."

"Or, or! What about the Baths?"

"Mm. Why not?"

"Ah, but the ruins sound reaaally good though."

Killua's finger stills, arms settling to the ground, brushing Gon's hand. "Know what else sounds good?"

"What?"

Killua turns to him, fox-grin slanting his mouth. "Kissing."

Gon blinks. "Oh," he says.

Killua's turning on his side now, angling his head towards Gon, humming as his hand trails up his shoulder. "Yeah. How's that sound?"

"Pretty good," Gon admits dazedly, his eyes already fluttering shut.

Their lips meet in a sweet weave of motion, foreheads bumping softly. They smile into each other's mouths.

"Killua?" Gon says, in between breaths.

He's far too busy pinning him down beneath him, but he spares him a glance. "Yeah?"

"I don't believe in luck either."

Killua kisses him with the kind of enthusiasm that has Gon's toes curling infinitely inside his boots.