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Killua is not afraid.
Killua is not afraid because fear is not allowed. Because fear is hesitation, and hesitation is weakness, and weakness gets you killed. Because “two for flinching” is the closest thing to scripture he’s ever known.
And Killua is not afraid because he isn’t in the cold, stone-walled rooms of the Zoldyck estate. Because since he left for the Hunter Exam all those weeks ago, he hasn’t known the harsh, brittle strike of brutality even once. Because, for the first time he can remember, he’s nearly gotten the taste of blood out of his mouth.
And more than anything else, Killua is not afraid because he’s here with Gon. Because Gon, armed with nothing but a fishing rod and determination, somehow makes Killua feel safer than he ever had locked away behind guard dogs and private security and sixteen ton walls. Because when he’d told Gon about the nature of his family’s business, certain to spare him none of the harsh reality, Gon hadn’t pulled away. No, he’d leaned in closer, eyes warm and unclouded by disgust, as if there was more to Killua than what he’d done. More to him than the blood that seemed permanently crusted beneath his fingernails.
But even though he isn’t afraid — he’s certain of that much — Killua is trembling. His breath is coming in short, staccato pants, and his eyes are shut tight, and he can hear his heartbeat stumble over itself in his ears.
Gon’s hand is on Killua. Only his fingertips, really, trailing up and down Killua’s shoulder blade, with the promise that it would lull him to sleep. And it’s ridiculous, the whole thing. Killua can remember the times a sharpened blade was dragged up and down that very same spot, with all the careful intention of Gon’s touch, but none of the kindness. And Killua hadn’t so much as blinked then, not even when the blood found its way into the rivulet of his spine and dripped down a vertebra at a time.
And yet, despite the unceasing violence he’s survived, Gon’s soft touch is going to be his undoing. For all the reasons the torture hadn’t been.
Killua’s all but numb to cruelty by now. There’s hardly a place to hurt him, inside or out, that isn’t dulled with scar tissue, hardly able to feel. There’s no pain anyone could inflict that Killua doesn’t already know intimately.
But Gon’s gentle, attentive touch (intended to put Killua to sleep, for God’s sake, as if a hand reached out to him could ever provoke any feeling but terror) is uncharted water, and Killua’s half-drowned in it already.
And maybe that wouldn’t be such a bad way to die, affection filling his lungs rather than air, no sense of which way is up, surrendering to wave after wave of warm contentment. Or perhaps, perhaps, Killua will simply sleep. Gon had promised, after all, and Killua can already tell that Gon is the type to keep his promises.