Chapter Text
News travels. It always does. First, the event happens, and people witness. Then knowledge that it happened spreads by word of mouth, witnesses telling friends, and friends telling other friends. A person mentions it to their waitress, and another has a conversation with their cashier. A teacher presents it to his class of twenty students. Then it spreads further, as people with cell phones begin texting relatives, and people with computers make a post on their blogs and start a topic in a chat forum. It spreads, and it spreads, and it spreads.
But that’s only when it’s a topic that affects a great many. A school shooting, a fight in a mall, and an animal someone witnessed being abused can have a large impact on a grand scale. But people who don’t even exist can’t make headlines. People who are never seen don’t find themselves in the news. Hunters are only noted for great accomplishments or great failures.
So how then does one hear news of a Hunter that is not yet known for either?
Killua fiddles with the phone in his hand, something he does a lot lately. In the past two years it’s become a near permanent fixture in his palm, fingers brushing over buttons he can’t bring himself to press. Sometimes he’ll get a text, and his heart leaps stupidly, cruelly, because he knows he isn’t going to look at it. If he reads the messages flooding his inbox, his resolve will crumble, and he’ll go back, despite the risk and despite the hurt. He should honestly just throw the phone away, as it does him no good to hold and stare at without using any of its functions, but he can’t. It’s foolish and masochistic of him, he knows, but the tightening of his chest every time his phone rings is a feeling he can’t give up, because when it rings, it tells him that he isn’t forgotten. That he’s still thinking about him, and thinking often.
“Still not answering?” a soft voice says from the doorway.
Looking up so sharply that his neck burns, Killua meets his sister’s gaze. She’s grown in the time they’ve been away from Zoldyck manor. She’s taller now, her hair several inches longer, and she’s wearing a new blouse and a soft, dark green skirt of her own choosing, because she’s outgrown her old clothes.
“’S just some wrong number,” he lies, hitting the ignore button and watching the screen go dark again. “Not a big deal.”
She doesn’t believe him.
“You should at least answer Gon’s calls,” she says, brow furrowing. “If you’re gonna keep being stubborn and not go find him, you have to talk to him.”
Killua sighs and slips the phone back into his pocket, throwing his feet over the side of his bed and standing up.
“He’s just gonna talk about a bunch of stupid stuff his dad said on this day, or what him and Ging did on that day,” Killua says airily, but he feels a pang in his chest at the thought.
Gon’s probably traveling all over with his dad. Ging had always been the most important person to Gon, his one unwavering goal, and he has it now. Really, Killua has no place in Gon’s life now, not now that he’s achieved his ambition and not only met his father but gotten the chance to go on a bunch of stupid, probably deadly adventures. Adventures like the ones they used to have, what felt like centuries ago.
Alluka sighs and crosses the room, and Killua opens his arms to her. Her arms wrap around his waist, and he folds himself around her, holding her close and burying his hands in her thick mahogany hair, comforting himself in her warmth. She leans her cheek against his chest and hugs him tighter.
“Brother,” she says quietly. “I know you wanna keep me safe…And I know you’re still upset with Gon…but is this really the way to deal with any of that?”
He stiffens slightly, feeling a knot tie itself in his throat.
“You’re just hurting yourself more by trying to keep him away,” she says. “I got my time with you to myself, and I’m happy with that, but I don’t want to be your excuse for avoiding him anymore.”
“Alluka!” Killua exclaims, startled. He tries to pull back to look her in the eye, but she holds him firmly where he is. “You’re not—you’re not an excuse!”
“I am,” she responds. “If you didn’t have me to take care of, you would have stayed with Gon. You would have made a much bigger effort to make him understand whatever it was he did, made him apologize, and then you would be with him now. I figured that, after we spent some more time together, you’d be okay to go back, but you keep making up reasons not to.”
“I’m not making up reasons,” Killua protests. “You’re my little sister! I have to keep you safe. Illumi’s after y—”
“Bisky is stronger than you, Brother,” Alluka says wryly. “And she’s working really hard to train me. If you were just worried about keeping me safe, Bisky can definitely do that. But as long as you say that you’re the only one that can do it, then you have a reason not to leave me with her.”
Killua swallows thickly, still carding his fingers through her thick waves of hair. He knows she’s right. Bisky can still beat the hell out of him seven ways to Sunday without breaking a sweat, even without reverting to her other form. She still probably isn’t strong enough to beat Illumi in a fight, but if a fight is what it comes to, neither can Killua.
“Alluka, I can’t leave you,” he says quietly. “I left you in that room for years, all alone. I can’t make up for that, really, but I am not going to leave you alone anymore.”
“Brother, I’ve seen more in the past two years than I have in the rest of my life,” Alluka says. “And even when I was in that room, it wasn’t so bad. I never felt alone. I always have Nanika. I always have you.”
There seems to be a hand squeezing his heart, but it isn’t painful exactly, even though his eyes are pricking with tears. His little sister is entirely too mature for her age. His little sister has entirely too much faith in him, even though he’s done little to deserve it until he got her out of that stupid damn jail cell of a room.
“It’s almost time for your training,” he says gruffly, pulling back and hoping she doesn’t see the moisture in his eyes. “You don’t want to be late. Bisky would have your head.”
“Bisky’s nice,” Alluka disagrees, shaking her head.
A tick starts beneath Killua’s left eye.
“Okay, I’ll rephrase,” he says. “She’ll have my head if you’re late.”
Alluka laughs and bounds out of the room again, leaving Killua standing quite alone, staring at the empty doorway and trying to ignore the ache in his chest. It’s a familiar ache, one he felt when he went home after the first Hunter Exam, and when Gon made a contract with On, and at the NGL when Gon was so lost that not even Killua could reach him. It’s an ache that hasn’t left him since he left Gon at the base of the World Tree.
He looks down at his pocket, half hoping for and half dreading the next time it will go off.
News travels. Through hospitals and therapists and friends and loved ones and even strange, awkward acquaintances, it travels. It even travels to members of the mafia—or rather, a single member with a connection to aforementioned hospitals. It travels across oceans to small islands, and through technology into games that aren’t really games at all. It passes from one person to the next, each hoping that the other might know something they don’t, that the other might be able to do something they can’t, that the other might have something to say that they haven’t yet considered.
And sometimes, the most important person only hears by sheer, unfortunate accident, for the universe often has a cruel sense of irony.
When Killua arrives at Bisky’s home to pick up Alluka from training, days after their conversation in his room that had amounted to nothing, he lets himself in like he always does. They’re in the backyard, and he could just go around, but it’s easier and more direct to go straight through the ridiculous house to the back door, so that’s what he does, just like every other day.
However, unlike every other day, when he slips onto the back porch, Alluka is sitting on a chair while Bisky talks on the phone. Killua frowns, and is about to demand to know why Alluka’s training is being interrupted by a phone call when his sister catches his eye, and her face drains of color. He comes to a standstill just outside the door, gaze fixed on Alluka’s horrified expression.
“—he done now?” Bisky demands furiously. “I swear I’ll kill him myself if…No, you’re probably right…I don’t know what you think I’ll be able to do. He barely listens to me on a perfect day. Something like this…No, I haven’t heard anything from him, but that shouldn’t be surprising, if what you’re saying is true.”
Killua’s mouth is dry, and his gaze flickers to Bisky, who hasn’t noticed him yet. That’s what truly scares him; for Bisky not to notice his arrival, when he isn’t even using Zetsu, means that whoever she’s talking to, and whatever the conversation is about, is causing her a massive amount of distress.
“You know how he gets,” Bisky sighs. “He probably just had a bad streak in Heavens Arena or something. He tends to pout…He what?!”
Killua flinches, and there’s a nasty obstruction in his throat.
“How…how bad? …Are they…And you’re just now telling me about this?! …No, I probably couldn’t have come, but still…No, no excuses, you should have told me.”
Killua wants to say something. He wants to do something. Take the phone? Ask who it is?
“I never would have expected…” Bisky says, her voice constricted. “To—to himself? You’re sure that’s what…How awful…”
His fingers are trembling, and his palms feel clammy. What’s going on? Who’s on the phone, and how are they distracting Bisky so completely that he might be able to actually sneak a hit on her at the moment? And why, why is Alluka looking at him, completely distraught?
“You know I can’t do anything,” Bisky says weakly. “You knew that when you called me.”
Killua’s knees are threatening to give out underneath him from the tension, and his mind is still screaming WHO, even though deep down, it already knows. There’s only one person that could make Alluka look like that, only one person who can cause Bisky so much stress from a simple phone call. There’s only one person that can shake him to his foundation even now, even though he’s nowhere nearby. And it isn’t Illumi.
“You know there’s only one person,” Bisky sighs. “He’s the only one that even stands a chance, and still it might not be a very good one. But he’s MIA, now, isn’t he?”
Bisky’s shoulders slump wearily, then stiffen in the next instant. Killua freezes, eyes locked on her slim figure as it turns slowly around. Her large, deceptively childlike eyes lock on him, and just like his sister’s, her face drains of what little color is still there.
“I—I have to go,” she says to the phone. “I’ll call back soon. Try to keep him safe.”
Her hand falls away from her ear, phone still clutched tightly in it. She makes no move to approach Killua.
“Who was that?” he asks.
She hesitates, glancing over at Alluka. He takes a step forward, and her attention snaps back to him at once.
“Who. Was. That?” he says, biting out each word precisely.
“It was Leorio,” she says calmly.
“Why did he call you?”
Bisky’s eyes narrow, and Killua knows that she recognizes the multitude of things he means in that one question. Why did Leorio call her? Why didn’t he call Killua? What’s happening that nobody feels like letting him in on?
“It’s nothing to concern yourself with,” she says, a mask of composure sliding over her face. “Just a patient he’s had recently that—”
“Liar,” Killua accuses, taking another step forward.
Bisky’s eyes flash dangerously, and she tosses her phone aside.
“Watch your tongue, brat,” she says quietly. “You should respect your elders.”
“I’ll respect people who don’t lie to my face,” he retorts. “What did Leorio tell you?”
“I don’t have to tell you about my private conversations,” she says coolly. “What my acquaintances and I talk about has nothing to do with you.”
“Then why did you look like I was bringing the Phantom Troupe in tow when you saw me?” Killua demands. “If it has nothing to do with me, why is my sister white as a sheet? Who are you to decide if it has to do with me?”
Bisky’s face hardens, and Killua’s eyes are sharp enough to see her movements, but out of Godspeed his body isn’t quick enough to react to them. One moment she’s standing several yards away, and the next, she’s planting her fist so deeply into his gut it’s a wonder she doesn’t punch a hole straight through him. As it is, she sends him flying backwards through the air until his back slams against a wall, knocking the wind out of his lungs and causing his head to crack back against the brick. The bitter tang of iron fills his mouth. And she’s standing right in front of him, that deadly look still lingering on her face.
“You decided that, not me,” she says darkly. “And I hate you every day because of it, but I’ve respected your poor choices all the same. Don’t make me the bad guy, brat.”
Killua clicks his teeth and spits a mouthful of blood out onto the patio, drawing the back of his hand across his mouth.
“You kinda seem like the bad guy right now,” he says.
“Not from my perspective,” she replies coldly.
“Enlighten me, then,” he suggests. “Whatever decision I made to land me half-buried in your wall must really piss you off, huh?”
“Brother…” Alluka says hesitantly.
“No, Alluka,” Bisky barks, holding up a hand. “Your brother has only ever learned his lessons the hard way. This time will be no different.”
Killua bristles, and lunges at the small, blonde woman, claws out and reaching for those stupid pigtails but closing only on air. A sharp blow to the back of his neck slams him face-first into concrete, and had he not been shielding himself in aura, it would have knocked him out cold. As it is, it sends pain shooting through his body like arcs of electricity.
“You chose not to get involved,” Bisky says, and he receives a vicious blow to his side that lands him on the grass in her yard.
He coughs up more blood, spitting it onto the ground and forcing himself to his feet before Bisky can get in another cheap shot like that.
“Involved in what?!” Killua demands. He doesn’t have the energy or the will for Godspeed right now, a very detrimental circumstance against Bisky.
“Anything!” she answers, and she’s coming at him again.
He raises his arms in front of him in time to block her next punch, but it still knocks him back several yards and leaves his forearms throbbing.
“When did I do that?!”
“You’ve been doing that for years, you stupid little brat!”
Killua blinks, and his arms fall slightly in his surprise. His heart stutters.
“What?”
If he’s expecting Bisky to cut him slack because he’s confused, he’s sorely mistaken. A kick straight to his solar plexus has him reeling backwards again.
“You left,” she growls, advancing on him. “You decided to remove yourself.”
He flinches, and takes a step back automatically.
“You make that decision again every time you ignore a call. Every time you ignore a text.”
Killua’s stumbling backwards, away from Bisky now, but his feet aren’t quite cooperating, and he’s tripping clumsily the way he never does.
“Every time you bring your little sister over here and every time you take her away again.”
Another blow, this time to his back, now sends him back into the center of the yard, where he gets a mouthful of dirt and grass.
“You chose to leave him,” Bisky says bluntly. “You left him alone, and you refused to get involved from that point on.”
Killua doesn’t move from his sprawl on the ground, too busy trying to remember how to breathe through the pain. Not the pain in his back, or his nose—which is definitely broken—or his stomach. No, he can’t recall how to breathe past that agonizing ache in his heart, sharpened in this instance to a horrible, stabbing pain that he can’t remember having felt in a long time.
Don’t tell me that, he wants to yell at her. Don’t remind me.
“Don’t tell me I’m deciding these things for you,” Bisky says, and Killua knows she’s kneeling at his side, but he doesn’t look around, and he doesn’t bother trying to lash out at her or block her next attack.
A hand touches his shoulder, but it’s…gentle. Another hand slides under him, pressing against his chest and guiding him up. He follows, confused, and looks around at Bisky to realize with a start that there are tears in her eyes. Then she’s crushing him to her in an embrace that’s far too strong for her appearance, and her hand slides over his hair.
“Killua,” she says quietly. “You know why I can’t tell you what I spoke with Leorio about, don’t you?”
Killua swallows convulsively.
“I—I—” he tries to speak, but the words get lost before they reach his lips.
“You chose your sister, Killua. That’s okay. But you also chose to abandon Gon for her. I don’t have any idea why you did that, and neither does anybody else, but it was your choice, and we’ve respected it this far, and unless you make another choice, we will continue to do that. But you have no right to accuse us of keeping things from you when they’re things you’ve actively removed yourself from. Things you would have been the first to know otherwise.”
Killua trembles.
“I…I can’t…” he chokes. “I can’t leave Alluka alone.”
“She’s never alone, Killua,” Bisky sighs. “She has Nanika physically no matter where she is. She has me. And she’ll always have you. Putting an ocean between the two of you wouldn’t change that, not any more than putting a world between you and Gon can separate the two of you.”
“I left, Bisky,” he says desperately. “I chose to leave him. I can’t—I can’t go back after that. I can’t look him in the eyes knowing that I left him. Besides, he’s—I’m sure he’s better off with his dad, anyway.”
“He isn’t with Ging, you fool,” Bisky sighs. Killua blinks. “Did you really think he would ever take that idiotic man over you?”
“But…he wanted to travel the world with his dad…”
“He never said anything of the sort,” Bisky snorts. “He wanted to find his father, of course. He would have traveled the world looking for the man, but travel the world with him? There was only ever one person he thought about doing that with, and let me tell you, it was not Ging Freecs.”
Stop it. Don’t say anymore. I can’t. I’m not strong enough. If you keep talking like that, I’ll leave my little sister behind again.
“Why do you think you can only have one person to love, Killua?” she says softly. He stiffens. “Why are you making yourself choose between the two people that mean more to you than anything else in the world? You don’t have to do that, so why?”
Why?
“I…” he says hoarsely. “I can’t…I don’t…I can’t have both of them…I don’t deserve that.”
“You stupid boy, I don’t know why I put up with you,” Bisky says, the affection in her tone belying her words. “You deserve to be happy. I think you deserve it the most, after everything you’ve been through. I promise they’d be more than willing to share you between the two of them.”
With those words, it’s like a dam built up inside of Killua bursts, and suddenly he’s lashed his arms around Bisky and his face is buried in her neck as tears push themselves, hot and wet, from his eyes and down his cheeks. Bisky makes a small noise of surprise, and tightens her hold on him, gloved fingers sliding through his dirty hair comfortingly.
“Those two love you so much, Killua,” she says quietly. “It’s not fair to either of them, or to yourself, to choose one over the other.”
Killua can’t say anything, can’t do anything but cry, and part of him, a small part that somehow remains somewhat sentient, is embarrassed by this ridiculous display. By the fact that being told he deserves to be happy brings him to tears. But he can’t bring himself to care, he can’t make himself stem the tears or choke back his sobs any longer. He’s been doing it for months, for Alluka’s sake.
“You should be living for yourself, Killua, not for someone else,” Bisky says firmly. “Alluka is your little sister, and you feel you have to take care of her. But you don’t have to give up every part of yourself to do that. Gon is your precious friend, someone you love very dearly, and you feel like you have to prove it by giving him everything, but you don’t. You’ll never be happy if you always try to give everything you are to others.”
He’s been trying to be the strong big brother he’s supposed to be, trying to take care of Alluka no matter the cost to himself. He’s been giving her everything he has to give because he loves her, and he wants and needs to care for her. He’s been honest with her about that, and he knows she’s not always happy that he takes so much onto himself, but he hasn’t seen another way to love her.
Before that, he gave everything he had to Gon. Everything he possibly could give, he gave without a second thought, because he was trying to be the best friend he could be to the person that was his everything. He gave Gon all he had because loved his friend, and he loves him still. But he never even told Gon, and he never asked for anything in return. Gon never knew the sacrifices he made for his sake, and he had been okay with that. He still sort of is.
Killua chokes on another sob.
“Give some of yourself to both of them, share all of yourself with them, but don’t give up everything you are. That way, you can love them both without it destroying you.”
Killua doesn’t know how long they kneel there, arms around each other while he cries brokenly into her shoulder like a child. All he knows is that the hand carding through his hair and the warmth wrapped around him feels achingly familiar, but at the same time, not. It’s a vague shadow of someone else, someone he once thought he could never see again, and all he wants in this instant is for that shadow to be real, for the arms around him and the hands touching him to belong to the person he’s gone too long without.
Eventually, the tears run dry, and he hastily pushes away from Bisky, rubbing his hand over his eyes quickly. She lets him go easily, hands falling away.
“Well?” she prompts when he finishes trying to piece his dignity back together.
“Mm?”
“What will you do now?”
Killua swallows thickly, and looks over at his sister. His heart stutters painfully, but it’s a good hurt, because she’s beaming at him in a way she hasn’t for a while now. Her eyes are glowing, the dimples in her cheeks prominent on either side of her wide smile, and when he catches her gaze, she nods her head vigorously.
He looks back at Bisky, and his momentary excitement subsides as he recalls what led to this situation in the first place. His chest tightens again, and from the look on Bisky’s face, he figures she knows that he’s preparing himself for the answer to his next question. She is entirely too sympathetic, and to be honest it looks incredibly out of place on her face. She’s never been the compassionate type towards Killua, and he knows that whatever he’s about to hear, he isn’t going to like.
“Where is he?” Killua asks. “Tell me what Leorio told you.”