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It's 5:45am and the city is quiet. It’s not silent, exactly: there’s still the rumble of distant morning deliveries, the growl and huff of unsettled pets, the clip and snap of heels wobbling under the feet of tired party goers getting home. But it’s a mere whisper in comparison to its day time roar, the streets’ way of sighing in their sleep before waking to meet the breaking day.
It’s cold, too, and Gon’s breath huffs in white gasps of mist as he runs down the pavement three blocks from his apartment. The sky is grey and bright, and condensation clings like frost to the lamp posts. He keeps running. He’s quicker than most, and he eats up the concrete in long, loping strides, relishing the stretch of his muscles as he does so. Empty cars line the curb beside him, and to his right lie rows of variously unkept front lawns, some strewn with trash, others rubble, some neatly groomed or haphazardly coaxed to some semblance of greenery. The houses are quiet and closed, curtains drawn, and his shadow flickers past the reflection of their windows for only a moment before thumping past.
His breathing is barely irregular, heaved in and out of his broad chest in quick, deep gasps. His cheeks are flushed but he’s not yet worked up a sweat and he’s only halfway through his morning run when a black unmarked van screeches to a halt on the road ahead of him. Gon frowns, stopping on the balls of his feet, catching his breath and getting ready to turn as the van doors open and a man built like a shed clambers out, grinning. He’s scarred and tattooed and Gon hates to judge on appearances because it's stupid but the van is something of a dead giveaway. He turns to run and finds another, smaller, person directly behind him and has no idea how the hell he didn’t notice them before. They’re five foot something and they’ve got long black greasy hair and a scarf hiding the lower part of their face. Gon backs up, raising his hands in surrender and stepping to the side. "Sorry, didn’t see you there."
In the corner of his eye he can see the big man walking towards him. He’s got a submachine gun fitted with a silencer in his right hand, now, and is holding it casually, raised, and pointed in Gon’s general direction. There’s a slick snick and Gon turns to see that the smaller one has a machete drawn and angled it towards his stomach. He’s becoming painfully aware that he’s wearing little more than a cotton vest and shorts and that that’s very much Not Helpful as far as bullets and blades are concerned. He goes for a smile. "Can I help you with something?" As he speaks he slips his hand into his pocket, unlocking his phone.
The smaller one gives an exaggerated sigh loud enough to make it past the muffle of his scarf. The big one’s footsteps are soft and steady and getting closer. Gon moves, ducking and grabbing for the small one’s arm and spinning, meaning to disarm him. But he’s faster than he’d hoped and he lets go of the knife immediately. It drops to the pavement with a clatter at about the same time he sinks another with vicious force into the muscle just beneath Gon’s shoulder blade, kicking his ankle hard and knocking him to the ground when he’s unsteady with a firm shove. Gon lands on his wounded shoulder and grits his teeth to strangle the sound that tries to escape him, vision blurring with tears. But through his pain and his surprise the sound of the big man releasing the safety on his gun rings sharply through the morning quiet.
The small one places a heeled boot on Gon’s throat before glancing at the other. Gon goes to grab his leg and finds,suddenly, the cold kiss of the gun’s barrel pushing hard at his jaw. He tilts his head back and grits his teeth and becomes very very still. "We’re not supposed to break him yet." The small one’s voice is soft and rough and bored. He does not react to the gun barrel by his toes.
"You stabbed him." The big one responds. His voice is low and rumbling, curled by what might be a southern accent of some sort. Gon lies on the pavement and runs through his options.
"He tried to disarm me." The small one replies, calmly. Gon can see his discarded machete from the corner of his eyes. His fingers twitch, but he doesn’t move.
"I don’t have to kill him." The big man moves the gun, dragging it down Gon’s chest and hips, it’s bizarrely intimate and he can feel the weight of the barrel pulling at his clothes. It scratches his bare thighs before resting on his right kneecap. Gon remains still and hates it.
"He can’t do this from intensive care." Gon fervently agrees, and he’d say so if his windpipe wasn’t being crushed, slowly. He starts to move his hand, just a little, towards his pocket to access his phone. The boot on his throat presses down hard and Gon would catch his breath if he could but he can’t and instead he gurgles, fingers twitching, as tears spring to his eyes. And that’s it. He takes a gamble, rolling, and the gun goes off and his ears are ringing but it didn't hit him and he manages to knock the smaller one down, gasping, before the butt of the other’s gun comes slamming down hard on the back of his head and he passes out.
"Would you like some water?" The words filter through to Gon’s waking mind at about the same time that a headache stabbing through his left temple becomes apparent. He grits his teeth and tries not to wince as he opens his eyes to see a man with dark blonde hair with a fashion sense borrowed from a 90's catalogue waving a water bottle under his nose.
Gon ignores it for a moment, trying to think through the pain in his head and, now, making itself known in his shoulder, too. He tries to move his right arm and is stopped almost immediately by rope wound tightly around his chest. Experimentally he tries to move his feet instead, but they’re cuffed together and he can’t do much. He takes a moment to be grateful that he isn’t gagged and warily takes in his surroundings.
And then he’s confused.
Because this is his bedroom.
He must’ve given something away because the blonde puts down the water bottle and fishes in his pocket for a set of keys. They’re not his. "Ah, hope you don't mind, we let ourselves in. I thought you might be more comfortable here." He gestures. "I like what you’ve done with the place. Very...rustic." Gon’s room and flat is crammed with wooden furniture and patchwork upholstery. Pebbles and shells and potted plants clutter the surfaces in jars and bowls, in some cases hanging from the ceiling on fishing lines, and his walls are painted pastel green. It reminds him of home, with Mito, and he hasn’t had a guest in years because it’s his place, to be safe and quiet and himself. And now there’s someone in it and they’re not supposed to be there.
He clears his throat, wrinkling his nose a little at the dusty taste of his dry mouth, and looks around. Big and Little from before are standing in the doorway, the blonde is on his bed, and a girl with pink hair is at his bedroom window, looking out over the street and into the park. Their van is parked outside and Gon doubts that it’s unguarded. That makes at least four. He sits back, careful not to lean on his wounded shoulder.
"Do you go to this much effort for all your victims, or just the really special ones?" He waits and watches for a reaction, but Big, Small and Pink do nothing. The blonde in front of him laughs, softly.
"Oh, you’re not our victim, Gon."
"If you were you’d be dead." Interjects Small from his bedroom door.
Gon raises an eyebrow. "So this is a warm welcome? Does that make you a lot of friends? I’m curious." Pink snorts at the window, but the blonde one just sighs, leaning back a little on his bed. He’s strong by the look of him ,but Gon thinks he could beat him in a fair fight. He strains against the ropes holding him, but all he gets is new pain aching from his shoulder and nausea rolling in his gut.
"Sarcasm doesn't suit you, Gon. Is this how you treat all your guests? Mito would be so disappointed." Gon makes a conscious effort not to react. Instead he raises an eyebrow.
"Who?"
The blonde gives him the kind of smile you might give a child you caught stealing candy. He leans across the bed , his bed, to pick up a picture frame from Gon’s bedside table, and points to a much younger Mito, Gon in her arms and Abe beside her. "Her, right? Your aunt and adoptive mother." He drops the frame, fishing a tablet from the inside pocket of his jacket and tapping at it for a moment whilst Gon watches. He’s sitting on a chair beside his wardrobe, and he’s trying to figure out whether his phone is still in his pocket.
"37 years old? That’s pretty young! Cute, too." The blonde smiles, glancing up at Gon for a moment. "Do you think she’d like me?" Gon swallows the swear word he wants to spit and waits. The Blonde keeps tapping. "Lives outside Seattle. Income of $40,000 a year. Oh, that’s not very much, is it?" Gon takes long, deep breaths and pretends that he isn't terrified or furious because neither is going to help him now. The blonde looks up at him, and he isn’t smiling. "She leaves the house at 4:00am, Monday through to Saturday every week, and walks to the pier. She gets home between 7 and 9pm each day. She doesn't drive. If it’s too dark or cold she’ll catch a bus, but usually she just walks. She lives with Abe, your grandmother. Her house has minimal security: she doesn’t have a burglar alarm. She keeps a rifle in the garage but she doesn’t actually know how to use it. As things go, she’s defenceless."
"Is that a threat?" Gon’s voice is quiet and cold and he can feel the ropes giving way little by little and his hands are clenched tightly enough to have his palms bleeding. He refrains from asking who the fuck this man is and how the hell he knows these things. He doesn't feel like giving him the satisfaction.
The blonde smiles again. "Oh no." The smile falls. "But let's not play dumb, ok, Officer?"
Gon grits his teeth and keeps pulling at the the ropes because there is nothing else he can do and that’s not good enough. He briefly considers charging with the chair to which he’s tied, notices that Big and Small are both armed, and gives up on the idea, reluctantly. "What do you want?"
"How much would you like for the murder of Killua Zoldyck?"
Gon frowns, going still. "What?"
"Your partner." The blonde pulls up a picture of Killua looking tired in a diner, pencil in hand, filling out puzzles in a newspaper. Next to him is a stack of half eaten pancakes. "Second Detective Killua Zoldyck? Recently transferred from narcotics?"
"I know." Gon frowns, shaking his head. "I mean, I know he is. But I only met him three days ago." He narrows his eyes. "Why the hell do you want me to kill him?"
The blonde offers him an embarrassed smile, as if he’s committed some sort of faux pas. "You’re not really in a position to question our motives, Gon." Gon swallows several choice swear words and starts pulling at his restraints again. The blonde sighs: it’s a soft, affected sound and Gon clenches his teeth hard enough to hurt. "Please stop trying to break the ropes. You’re not going to and it's embarrassing for all of us." Big chuckles. Gon keeps pulling. The blonde sighs. "Well, I heard you were stubborn. What was it Dr Paladiknight said? Street fighting tree hugger?"
Gon resists the temptation to ask how he knew that. He doubts that it would help. In the corner of his eye, Pink and Small look bored.
"We just want to know how much you want. It doesn't have to be murder, exactly, though I know you like to do things the old fashioned way." The blonde smiles. "You could use your father’s gun!" He draws it from his inside pocket and Gon holds his breath. "It’s a very beautiful weapon." He drags his manicured fingernails down the wooden handle and Gon wants to break them and he can’t so he sits and watches and gets angrier. As if it’s funny, the blonde raises the weapon, and Gon finds himself looking down the barrel and he can’t breathe. "Or you could make it indirect." He waves the gun easily whilst he talks and the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. "Poison his coffee. Push him into oncoming traffic, off a tall building..."
"Stab him in the back." Pink chips in. Her voice is rough, smoking probably, and she sounds angry. The blonde laughs.
"Both figuratively and literally, if you like. You’ll have plenty of opportunities. We just want to know how much we’d need to pay you for it."
"And if I don't want to?" Gon asks. The room stinks of cigarettes and cologne and, he thinks, blood, though it might be his. It’ll cling for days at least and every breath sticks to the back of his throat.
"Well, Mito and Abe would be easy. We’d send you pieces of them so you'd know what happened, though I expect we’d just dump the rest into the ocean. It’s very convenient." Gon wants to be sick. "Then there’s Leorio, he’s a friend, right? That’d be easy, too. He volunteers with a few homeless charities. Wouldn't be hard to plant someone in the crowd. Oh ," the blonde raises a finger, as if he’s just remembered something , and smiles. "Obviously we wouldn't tell you what we know about Ging." Gon becomes absolutely still. The blonde’s smile widens like a cat’s. "That’s how you pronounce it, right? Your father’s name?"
For a moment all four of them are quiet. Outside, more cars are beginning to travel down the road, they putter and rumble past and in turn wake the neighbourhood dogs, which begin to bark and growl. Downstairs, Gon can hear his neighbours moving around their flats. Above him, the radio comes on as one of their morning alarms goes off.
He raises his chin and meets the blonde in the eye and stops struggling, straightening his spine. "You just want him dead?"
The blonde beams.
Killua’s been at work since 4:30am. He’s on his third cup of piss masquerading as coffee and he knows he’s a mess but he doesn't care. Some part of him thinks vaguely that in an hour’s time he’ll head to his diner for the sake of old habits and the pancakes he’s daydreaming about already. Most of him is focused on his screen. The rest is getting steadily more irritated about the way Captain Krueger keeps walking past his desk. He has a suspicion that she’s keeping an eye on him and frankly it’s hypocritical because seriously, does she ever leave?
Mostly, he’s concerned with the task at hand. He’s got two reports from a hospital down town concerning the men he saw Illumi kill. Both were shot in the head, though they sustained severe injuries before their eventual deaths. Killua scrolls down the reports on his screen, scanning them wearily: broken bones, lacerations, dislocated joints, dismembered appendages. He’s read it all before and he’s seen it in action and he’s not surprised. What’s confusing him is the why. He can’t imagine anyone with a grudge against these two would have the money to employ his brother: they worked on the docks, had little or no family to speak of and few enemies. They weren't involved with the city’s underbelly as far as he can tell. So either they were much bigger deals than they seemed to be, and excellent at hiding it, which would make them a substantial enough threat for his brother to deal with, or they were just a pair of unlucky innocents in the wrong place at the wrong time. Possibly they saw something and needed silencing. The third had yet to be checked in anywhere and he’d be the key if the latter was the case.
Killua takes a sip of his cold, watery coffee and grimaces. He knew this shouldn't be his priority. On the other side of his screen are the details of Pakunoda’s suicide or murder, and he should be reading it, but they were stalling until tonight and Gon’s lead at the jazz club, anyway. And then there were her hands. He couldn't help wondering whether his brother’s reappearance, for the good of the family, was connected somehow. Gingerly he touched his head, now bruised darkly where Illumi had hit him. It wasn't the worst he’d done.
Next to his chair are two suits, slung over the empty seat left beside him for when Gon turned up at a more reasonable hour. Across his desk are notes and papers, haphazardly organised into loose piles. One has a post it reading, "Nature of Death?", another, "Scene of Crime(s)?", "Identity?" And, lastly, "I".
Killua sits back in his chair and winces a little, stretching, with his arms above his head. The bullring is almost silent. He’s missing something obvious here. He minimises Illumi’s victims, for now, scrolling back through what they’ve learnt about Pakunoda so far.
Single transgender woman, living alone in upstate New York. Successful freelance trader. Few close friends, but a list of happy customers they’d be visiting later. Supporter of the local cat shelter. They’d yet to find any precise details of her income, even her bank account, but judging by her apartment she’d been well off.
It was neatly arranged and clean when they got there. Too clean, forensics couldn’t even find Pakunoda’s own fingerprints inside and it was only the building’s security footage and a statement from her doorman that attested to her living there at all. She’d had a small library of books, and a clear interest in neuroscience and psychoanalysis. Her computer hard drive had been wiped clean. They’d found a glock for which she was licensed in her bedside drawer. And, next to her phone, a doodle on a post-it note of a spider.
On the night she died, her doorman hadn’t seen her leave, and CCTV footage corroborated it. Pakunoda had to have left the building in order to have turned up at their crime scene, but if she had she hadn’t crossed the lobby , used the elevator, or walked down the hall outside of her front door. She lived on the tenth floor. It was not necessarily impossible to get out without being seen but it would be difficult. It’d require effort. Possibly, even, premeditation.
She had no family to speak of, and no mental health problems they knew of, either. She’d been living in New York for 12 years. She was a quiet, successful, intelligent woman. And Killua had no idea why she was dead.
It was tempting to connect her to the Ryodan. The spider was something of a giveaway, considering the care whoever had cleaned her apartment gave to wiping it clear. It could have been some sort of message. But one absent minded ballpoint doodle wasn’t exactly probable cause. And the Bai Long had not been allied with the Ryodan the last time he checked. They weren’t in conflict, exactly, but there’d been a wary rivalry between them since Killua...It was unlikely the Bai Long and Ryodan had worked together on Pakunoda’s murder, or that they would have needed to. Which suggested a lot of things, but most probable among them: a third party interested in implicating both; something special about Pakunoda herself - special enough to draw the particular attention of two powerful gangs; or both parties being involved, somehow, for different reasons. Possibly only one had actually wanted her dead. Yet he’d found nothing to connect her to either of them.
And then there was the nature of her wounds: neither the suicide, the bizarrely gentle stabbings nor the carvings on her palms matched either gang’s MO. The Zoldycks would've been more efficient and more cruel. The Ryodan would not have left a body to find, certainly not one that was identifiable. This made no sense for either.
Swearing softly under his breath, Killua sat back up, opening his browser. Pakunoda had been a beautiful, brilliant woman. She must’ve left a mark somewhere.
"Do you think he’ll do it?"
Shalnark hums, sitting back and the box he’s taken in the centre of the warehouse floor. "I’m not sure." Feitan raises an eyebrow.
"Since when?"
Shalnark shrugs, smiling a little. "He’s difficult to read." Franklin rumbles in agreement. Feitan doesn't look surprised.
"Do you think he could?" Phinks is leaning against one of the bare concrete walls with his hands folded behind his head.
Feitan, Franklin and Machi reply, easily. "No."
Phinks looks surprised, but Shalnark frowns. "His scores for physical fitness at the precinct are consistently higher than Killua’s."
"But Killua wasn't trying to stand out, right?" Shizuku asks, crossing her legs. She’s sitting in the corner of the room on an old desk chair which creaks when she moves.
Franklin nods. "If anything he was aiming not to."
Shalnark sighs. "Obviously. But no one else employed at the NYPD comes close to either of them."
"I don't see why we need them." All six members of the Ryodan present turn to Machi, standing by the window beside Nobunaga.
"She’s right." He adds, leaning back, one leg crossed under the other on the chest on which he’s sitting beneath the window. "We don't need any help." Feitan and Franklin look from them to Shalnark. His expression doesn't give much away.
The warehouse they’re in is brightly lit by the morning light filtering through its big, filthy windows. The rest of the Ryodan are out. In the corner, a pile of candles sits stuck to the bare stone beside wilting flowers and a picture of Pakunoda. Near it is Uvo’s coat, folded neatly. The ceiling is high and spider webs hang down from its steel bars. When Shalnark doesn't reply, Machi continues.
"We should be doing this ourselves. Pakunoda would never have let it stand. Neither would Uvo. So why aren't we at Kukuroo towers raising hell already?"
Nobunaga grunts. The rest turn to Shalnark, who pinches the bridge of his nose and shuts his eyes.
"No one is letting anything stand. But it’s not enough to just kill them. We want them to suffer, right? To pay for what they’ve done?" He glances at them, and they nod. "Alright. So we start with Killua. Runaway and family darling. Killing him is the quickest way to piss them off, and that’ll make them careless, and then we raise hell."
Machi crosses her arms. "I get why Killua. I don't get why we’re hiring Officer Dumb but Cute."
"It would be more fun to do it ourselves." Phinks adds, and Feitan nods.
"We could torture him a little. Send videos."
"If you want to piss them off then that could work." Shizuku muses. Shalnark shakes his head.
"They’ve already tortured him more than we could. Certainly more than we could quickly." He pauses. "Even Feitan. It’s the Zoldyck way. We’d get nowhere fast with physical pain."
"Boring." Feitan mutters. But he slumps back against the wall.
"That still doesn't explain why we can't kill him ourselves." Nobunaga points out, hand resting lightly on the hilt of the sword at his side.
Shalnark beams. "Well, we’d get nowhere fast with physical pain, it’s true. But Zoldyck and Officer Freecss have been getting along pretty well, considering they’re recent partners." He finds a series of pictures on his phone of Gon and Killua on the streets, laughing. Then he looks at the rest. Phinks smirks, Franklin smiles. Feitan raises an eyebrow. Machi is still scowling. "They say he’s never had a friend before."
Gon gets to the precinct on time with two coffees in his left hand. Killua takes one as if he’s a dying man and resists the urge to kiss him whilst Gon’s attention is drawn by the suits on the desk beside him.
"Is one of those for me?"
Killua is having a moment with his coffee remembering that life is not, in fact, an endless procession of things designed to piss him off. Gon smiles and Killua privately adds the expression to his Life is Actually Sort of Good, list.
"Looks like you needed that." He notices the array of half empty cups placed precariously amidst Killua’s sudden mountain of paperwork and raises an eyebrow. "How long have you been here, exactly?"
Killua shrugs, refusing to put down his coffee. "A while."
Gon raises both eyebrows, and Killua can almost see the smirk curling at the corners of his mouth. He narrows his eyes. "Why don’t you go try on your suit?"
The bullring is coloured, now, by the murmurs of their colleagues getting in for the morning. Gon glances at them, pulling a face when he turns back to Killua. "Now? Really?"
Killua restrains a satisfied grin, barely. "If we have to change it I’d rather know now than mess around later and make us late."
Gon huffs, leaning forwards and grabbing the suit on top, wrapped neatly in a plastic bag from the dry cleaners. His hips come about level with Killua’s nose and he sort of has to stop breathing because Gon smells good and he thinks he caught a glimpse of tanned skin between the buttons of his shirt and shit. Killua is so very gay. He raises his coffee cup as if it’ll hide his blush and pretends not to notice the quirk in Gon’s smile when he notices his expression. He is a very serious second detective, not a love struck teenager. He attempts to rearrange his features into some semblance of normality and mutters. "Don’t take forever. We have work to do."
"Aye aye, sir." Gon snaps a mock salute, grinning, and Killua rolls his eyes. He waits until he’s some feet away from his desk before calling out.
"Come back out when you're done. Just so I can see how it fits."
That catches more than a few curious glances from their co-workers, and one drunk called in for antisocial behaviour. Gon flushes a deep cherry red and Killua beams at him and he’s pretty sure he’d have stuck his tongue out if they hadn’t been at work. Instead he turns on his heel and marches away.
Killua cracks his knuckles, turning back to his computer. On it he’s pulled up an article whose headline reads: Internationally acclaimed musician Melody Senritsu to play at Sonata. The sub heading continues. Flautist and composer Senritsu will be making a special appearance at the prestigious jazz club’s Phantom Ball for one night only. The ball is the annual highlight of the society calendar, and will be featuring a number of special guests. Her performance will be streamed live by Meteor TV. He scans the rest with mild interest before switching back to a bright yellow website advertising the cat shelter Pakunoda had supported. He writes down their phone number and address, starting to smile. Maybe he could find Alluka a pet whilst he was at it.
Maybe everything wasn’t so bad, after all.